Donald Hoffman & Anil Seth - New Frontiers in the Science of Consciousness

Prof. Donald Hoffman is Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, and the author of over 100 scientific papers and three books, including Visual Intelligence, and The Case Against Reality.

Prof. Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, where he is also Director of the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science. His new book: Being You has won several awards and was a Sunday Times Bestseller.

This conversation explores parallels in their theories of consciousness but also the areas where their thinking diverges.

The topics covered include:

— How the reality we experience every day is an illusion

— Whether or not artificial intelligence will ever become conscious

— Mathematical proof that the space-time paradigm is doomed and the early research investigating what might be underneath.

— The practical implications of Donald’s and Anil’s theories - both for society and for every day life.

And more.

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Prof. Donald Hoffman, PhD received his PhD from MIT, and joined the faculty of the University of California, Irvine in 1983, where he is a Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Sciences. He is an author of over 100 scientific papers and three books, including Visual Intelligence, and The Case Against Reality. He received a Distinguished Scientific Award from the American Psychological Association for early career research, the Rustum Roy Award of the Chopra Foundation, and the Troland Research Award of the US National Academy of Sciences. His writing has appeared in Edge, New Scientist, LA Review of Books, and Scientific American and his work has been featured in Wired, Quanta, The Atlantic, and Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman. You can watch his TED Talk titled “Do we see reality as it is?” and you can follow him on Twitter @donalddhoffman.

Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, and the Co-Director of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science. He is a Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellow, and a Senior Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Professor Seth is Editor-in-Chief of Neuroscience of Consciousness, sits on the steering group and advisory board of the Human Mind Project, and was President of the British Science Association Psychology Section in 2017.

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Timestamps:

00:00 - Intro
00:33 - Understanding Consciousness
08:57 - Prof. Seth on Consciousness
17:07 - Exploring Consciousness
21:08 - Theories on Consciousness
27:19 - Beyond Space-time Perspectives
31:41 - Emergence and Scientific Explanation
37:58 - Consciousness in AI
51:30 - Death in a Conscious Universe
58:16 - Consciousness and Existential Perspectives

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Interview Links:

[FigmentHF]

I love these two guys. Anil is so constrained while being very open to new idea’s about perception and construction, and Don is way out there with radical, and fascinating ideas. Both guys are humble, respectful, kind and wise.

Gives me faith

[Laayon]

Hoffman has a rare virtue that most do not and it's humility. Being able to have ego death, realise it and move forward with even wider eyes is nice to see.

[AngelicaLWoods]

Hoffman is 100% sure of the approach to his results but totally humble & open to others finding valid holes in his theory, which they haven't been able to do yet

[jonnyb]

Think my money is on Hoffman's approach. Seth's responses on the big questions (hard problem of consciousness, trying to justify reductionism etc) did not, to me, seem convincing (but I'm no expert). Hoffman's ideas of consciousness being fundamental seems to ring so true. Be great to see how the research continues by these brilliant scientists.

[danbuckley]

The comments section is generally with Hoffman here Good to see..respect to Anil also

[amoghsinha]

Beautiful conversation. Learned about new a perspective in modern cognitive neroscience that I previously saw in the Upanishads (Hoffman's view). It's also great to see how Anil illustrates the importance of existing fundamental structures as they have been working well so far, and how analysis on different fundamental levels is important. Absolutely brilliant on both sides, lucky to be hearing a conversation of this level for free and with such ease.

[angelotuteao]

It’s astonishing how scientists like Seth seem content to wait for the hard problem to dissolve at some unknown future point- rather than abandon the materialist paradigm for a more rational ontology

[CJ-cdcd]

Hard to let go of the materialist paradigm if you’ve built your career and identity within it.

[innerlight]

Don Hoffman is very impressive not only as a scientist but foremost as a human being.
He is very mature spiritually.

[ashrafulhaque]

I am wholeheartedly with Hoffman (not as an opposition to Seth). I am not interested in math in relation to space-time. I am interested in consciousness as a whole. No math can penetrate that.

Seith was as impressive, and I love to hear from him more.

[rachmondhoward]

Hoffman is at another level of cognition. He has developed the idea of conscious agents being the stuff of consciousness, I am still lost in understanding what he means by "conscious agents".

[zafiralam]

Donald sir has it. I feel he is able to point to fundamental reality. Seth though agnostic still is immersed in materialism.

[MeRetroGamer]

I have to thank you for this conversation. I didn't know how thoughtful Anil was until I heard his approach on the meanings of "reductionism" and "emergentism". I love this new wave of scientists taking the study of consciousness so seriously, with honesty and very straightforward approaches.

I'm still unable to reason about "emergent properties" without them being about consciousness (because emergence is all about knowledge and abstraction). I can't make sense about top-down causality without there being some form abstract (and thus subjective) kind of agency and knowledge about the lower level aspects in play (like in the way we do engineering by using our knowledge about physics to get to an abstract higher level design), and I feel unable to make sense of agency and knowledge without it being conscious (but if I'm honest I also feel unable to make sense of any form of existence without it having some conscious ism).

It may be a bias, because "true reality" could also be something completely different to phisicalism and/or consciousness and we'll never know. So I'm fine with the knowing that I'll probably never be able to know for sure, but if I take into account just what I know from firsthand experience and what I'm able to infer, then consciousness needs to be fundamental, there's no other way.

Anesthesia and the apparent "unconsciousness" can very easily be explained to me as some sort of "temporal dissociation", a state in which the different aspects of human consciousness get broken apart and nothing relatable happens during that time (just a bunch of noise) that connects to the waking state that comes after.

Maybe instead of trying to understand "consciousness" vs "unconsciousness" we should try to study how associative and dissociative processes unfold and how they affect our knowledge, the integrity of our experiences, and our state of being.

[sammiller]

Fabulous discussion. As a Zen meditator, I KNOW that Donald sees it. Anil, clearly an excellent thinker, doesn’t, I think really understand what the former is explaining. Admittedly to most people, it is a hard sell. But I am delighted that after thousands of years consciousness as minutely detailed by the leading Zen Buddhist scholars/philosophers (particularly those of the Chan school) is being supported by theoretical physics. Thank you for sharing this.

[wagfinpis]

I loved Anil's comments around psyche traits, how we "see" things, and echo chamber awareness.

[CannibalUtopia]

I love watching & listening to Donald Hoffman, regardless of whether I agree with him or not, because he approaches everything with humility... and clearly from the position that nothing is truly known for a certainty. He's not defending a position, he's discussing ideas and opinions. It was really discouraging to see Anil Seth being so aggressive... so clearly chomping at the bit to jump on any opportunity to attack. Someone close to him should tell him it makes him look desperate, it makes him look terrified.. not confident. Anil clearly has an opinion to defend, ideas to attack.. and it just makes him look like he's worried he won't sell as many books if he doesn't "win". That's not science, that's politics.. or even worse... it's branding. Yes or No. With us or against us. There's no place for that in these discussions... unless you absolutely know you're 100% right... right? And who is arrogant enough to think that? Aggressive politics and "branding" is great for selling books... not so much for science. Sorry Anil... don't mean to be so hard on you.. but seriously, have you watched how you behaved in this interaction?

[JalilAsghar]

Absolutely beautiful. Loved every moment between these two titans. Thank you.

[lifestylelines]

10 Minutes into this I realized that I HAVE to subscribe to TWU yearly subscription. Such interesting and engaging content! Great work!

[dlarose]

Donald's ideas are so radical that I dont think Anil or the host "get it".

[samrowbotham]

I am in the Idealist camp I have been for the past 58 years life is a simulated dream dreamt by Mind at Large.