POPULARITY
2 episodes with Christof Koch
13 episodes with Christof Koch
2 episodes with Christof Koch
2 episodes with Christof Koch
2 episodes with Christof Koch
2 episodes with Christof Koch
4 episodes with Christof Koch
3 episodes with Christof Koch
2 episodes with Christof Koch
Episode 301 Our understanding of the nature of light might be completely wrong. The double-slit experiment is one of the most famous experiments in physics and is how we've understood light for over 200 years. But a team is now suggesting we've got the interpretation all wrong - that light is in fact not a wave and is only made up of particles. If true, this is major. The authors of this study were left scrambling as “all hell broke loose” when they made the discovery. And the best part? Dark photons may be involved. A 7 year study into the nature of consciousness has reached its conclusion - pitting two major theories against one another. Integrated information theory suggests levels of consciousness exist in any system, including rocks and fetuses. Global neuronal workspace theory claims specific brain regions are responsible for consciousness. After 256 brain scans - are we any closer to an answer? A decades-long study involving 170 wild dolphins has allowed biologists to decode their whistles. Hear dolphins recorded in the waters of Sarasota, Florida, which show how the animals communicate in various ways - and even give themselves names. Chapters: (00:45) Dark photons and our understanding of light (11:07) Major theories of consciousness go head-to-head (21:05) Decoding whale language Hosted by Rowan Hooper and Penny Sarchet, with guests Chelsea Whyte, Celso Villas-Boas, Gerhard Rempe, Christof Koch, Anil Seth and Laela Sayigh. To read more about these stories, visit https://www.newscientist.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Christof Koch is a pioneering neuroscientist and one of the most prominent advocates of a scientific approach to consciousness. He has spent decades working at the intersection of neuroscience, philosophy, and computation.Christof is one of the foremost proponents of Integrated Information Theory (IIT) — a radical proposal that attempts to explain consciousness in terms of causal structure. IIT begins not with the brain, but with experience itself. It takes as its starting point what is undeniable: that something is happening right now — that experience exists. It then looks at the features of conscious experience, for example, that is unified yet composed of parts, and contentful. From there, it builds a theory describing which physical systems support conscious states. In this conversation, Christof and I explore what a scientific theory of consciousness might need to achieve, and why behavior alone — even the impressive feats of AI is not enough. Nor indeed is any computational account of consciousness: consciousness is about structure, two structures may lead to the same outcomes, but their form might mean that one is conscious and the other not. But we also touch on experience beyond theory — Christof's reflections on psychedelic experiences and the dissolution of the self.This is a conversation about what it means to be a whole, what makes a system truly unified — and what it might take to understand, and perhaps even expand, the field of consciousness. Christof's latest book is Then I Am Myself the World: What Consciousness Is and How to Expand It.
How does consciousness work in the brain? Guest: Dr. Christof Koch, Meritorious Investigator at the Allen Institute Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What are mental health teams, and how do they operate? Guest: Jonny Morris, CEO of the Canadian Mental Health Association of BC What two parties losing official party status will mean for Canadian politics? Guest: Hamish Telford, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of the Fraser Valley How the Filipino culinary community is helping Lapu Lapu victims Guest: Maj Yee, Owner of Goldilocks Bake Shop How does consciousness work in the brain? Guest: Dr. Christof Koch, Meritorious Investigator at the Allen Institute The new reason why people aren't getting married Guest: Benny Goldman, professor of economics and public policy, cornell University Should BC mandate involuntary mental health care? Guest: Dr. Julian Somers, Distinguished Professor of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas
Consciousness is easier to possess than to define. One thing we can do is to look into the brain and see what lights up when conscious awareness is taking place. A complete understanding of this would be known as the "neural correlates of consciousness." Once we have that, we could hopefully make progress on developing a theoretical picture of what consciousness is and why it happens. Today's guest, Christof Koch, is a leader in the search for neural correlates and an advocate of a particular approach to consciousness, Integrated Information Theory.Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/03/24/309-christof-koch-on-consciousness-and-integrated-information/Support Mindscape on Patreon.Christof Koch was awarded a Ph.D. from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics. He is currently a Meritorious Investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, where he was formerly president and chief scientist, and Chief Scientist at the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation. He is the author of several books, most recently Then I Am Myself the World - What Consciousness Is and How to Expand It.Web siteAllen Center web pageGoogle Scholar publicationsAmazon author pageWikipediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Matthew Halteman is professor of philosophy at Calvin University and a fellow in theOxford Centre for Animal Ethics. He wrote Compassionate Eating as Care of Creationand co-editedPhilosophy Comes to Dinner: Arguments about the Ethics of Eating (with Andrew Chignell and Terence Cuneo). His latest book,Hungry Beautiful Animals: The Joyful Case for Going Vegan, was published in November 2024.In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the most important questions: “what's real?”, “who matters?” and "how can we make a better world?"Sentientism answers those questions with "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube.00:00 Clips01:12 Welcome- Our Sentientism guest mutuals: Jasmin Singer, Mariann Sullivan, Christof Koch, Elan Abrell, Christopher Sebastian, John Sanbonmatsu...04:19 Matt's Intro- "A kid from the mid-west - my people are agriculture people"04:30 What's Real- "A Mennonite boy... anabaptist tradition of the Christian faith"- "A group... who focuses much more on... the ethics than the meta-physics"- "I remember being really surprised... to realise that other kids had different versions of the Christian faith..."- "The tradition I grew up in was really focused on... god is love and Jesus said... love god with all your heart... love your neighbour as yourself"- "The question in my tradition... was 'are you loving people'... unconditional love, unconditional grace... are you being the hands and feet of Jesus Christ on the ground"- "My family... the group of Mennonite scholars that gets tapped to write the book about Mennonites... my dad was the Mennonite economist... my aunt was the Mennonite feminist theologian..."- "My uncle... wrote a systematic theology...the Catholics and the Protestants had been doing this for centuries and the Mennonites were always focused on what happens on the ground... being the hands and feet of Jesus showing unconditional love to a suffering world."- "I've always thought that arguments about what is real tend to distract us from the real question... how do we show love to our neighbour... lifts up the people who are suffering... brings the people on the margins to the centre"- "Culture wars... debates over worldviews... have not shown a very impressive track record of success in this regard"- "We spend so much time fighting over what is real that we miss the fact that in a lived experiential way we have way more in common than we disagree about"- "For finite, error-prone creatures like us the really interesting conversations are on the ground where we're grieving, where we're suffering, where we're celebrating..."And more... full show notes atSentientism.info.Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More atSentientism.info. Join our"I'm a Sentientist" wall viathis simple form.Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in ourgroups. The biggest so far ishere on FaceBook. Come join us there!
Stuart Hameroff MD is Professor of Anesthesiology and Psychology, and Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Hameroff became interested in intelligent behavior of microtubules, protein lattices which organize activities within living cells. Hameroff and colleagues developed theories of microtubules as self-organizing molecular computers. In the 1990s Hameroff teamed with Sir Roger Penrose on the controversial Penrose-Hameroff "Orch OR" model of consciousness based on quantum computing in brain neuronal microtubules, a notion bolstered by recent evidence. Hameroff also organizes the biennial interdisciplinary conferences, The Science of Consciousness Conference. The Science of Consciousness (‘TSC') conference is the world's longest running inter-disciplinary gathering on the study of consciousness, the nature of existence, and our place in the universe. In 2025 TSC will be in Barcelona, Spain, July 6-11 (Workshops, Plenaries, Concurrents, Exhibits, Demos, Social, Poetry Slam, Dancing - AC Marriott Forum Hotel), preceding and in conjunction with The Festival of Consciousness, July 11-13 (Music, Art, Experiential, Inspiration, Spirituality, Education, Business, Evolution). Speakers include: Sir Roger Penrose, Donald Hoffman, Robert Lawrence Kuhn, Rupert Sheldrake, Deepak Chopra, Federico Faggin, Anirban Bandyopadhyay, and many others. Links below for TSC tickets & more information. TIMESTAMPS: (0:00) - Introduction (1:04) - Defining Consciousness (4:15) - Microtubules & Anaesthesia (9:00) - Where it began with Sir Roger Penrose (15:13) - Patricia Churchland's hilarious critique on Hameroff & Penrose (25:45) - Objective Reduction Explained (37:27) - Quantum Biology (40:47) - Philosophical Implications (Hard Problem, NDEs, OBEs, Afterlife & Reincarnation) (46:00) - Time Crystals & Life (54:20) - Spectrum of Consciousness (plants to humans) (57:37) - "Cartoon Neurons" (1:00:31) - IIT vs GNWT vs Predictive Processing vs Higher-Order Thought vs Orch OR (Battle of Consciousness Theories!) (1:07:23) - Ethical/Practical Implications (Healthcare) (1:10:40) - Transcranial Ultrasound Explored (1:18:10) - How Does Anaesthesia Affect Consciousness? (1:22:10) - The Science of Consciousness Conference & Festival of Consciousness (1:28:00) - Astrobiology & Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (1:30:20) - The Microtubule Maestro's future (1:36:32) - Conclusion EPISODE LINKS: - Stuart's Website: https://hameroff.arizona.edu/ - Stuart's X: https://twitter.com/stuarthameroff - TSC: https://consciousness.arizona.edu/ - TSC 2025 Flyer: https://tinyurl.com/4y94zwhr - TSC Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thescienceofconsciousness - Patricia Churchland: https://youtu.be/6IVBxmaaGNg?feature=shared - Christof Koch: https://youtu.be/GeO5zr1e5lc?feature=shared - Susan Blackmore: https://youtu.be/u1VlYfgCHTA?feature=shared - Donald Hoffman: https://youtu.be/QRa8r5xOaAA?feature=shared - Federico Faggin: https://youtu.be/MSn4t6fP_dc?feature=shared CONNECT: - Website: https://tevinnaidu.com - Podcast: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/mindbodysolution - YouTube: https://youtube.com/mindbodysolution - X: https://twitter.com/drtevinnaidu - Facebook: https://facebook.com/drtevinnaidu - Instagram: https://instagram.com/drtevinnaidu - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/drtevinnaidu ============================= Disclaimer: The information provided on this channel is for educational purposes only. The content is shared in the spirit of open discourse and does not constitute, nor does it substitute, professional or medical advice. We do not accept any liability for any loss or damage incurred from you acting or not acting as a result of listening/watching any of our contents. You acknowledge that you use the information provided at your own risk. Listeners/viewers are advised to conduct their own research and consult with their own experts in the respective fields.
Consciousness and Science with Christof Koch Christof Koch was a professor at the California Institute of Technology and the president and chief scientist of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. He is now a meritorious investigator at the Allen Institute and the chief scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation. He is author of Biophysics … Continue reading "Consciousness and Science with Christof Koch"
Renowned neuroscientist tackled by NDE science. Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is sidestepping the consciousness elephant..
Christof Koch is a neuroscientist who studies consciousness, and is best known for integrated information theory. IIT is a consciousness-first theory, which states that the experience of being someone (or something) is directly related to the causal powers of the underlying system. Up until relatively recently, Koch was something of a materialist - he believed that it would be possible to find the specific series of neural events in the brain that produce lived experience. A series of events, which he details in his new book "The I Am Myself the World" have led him to embrace more of an idealist perspective, which says that we are instantiations of a a much larger universal consciousness that permeates the universe. We talk to him about his transformation, the nature of consciousness and will, what it "causal powers" of a system have to do with consciousness, and the value of mystical experiences. Sign up for our Patreon and get episodes early + join our weekly Patron Chat https://bit.ly/3lcAasB AND rock some Demystify Gear to spread the word: https://demystifysci.myspreadshop.com/ OR do your Amazon shopping through this link for Dr. Koch's books: https://amzn.to/3Mleyrw (00:00) Go! (00:03:40) Consciousness and Clinical Practice (00:08:32) Practical Challenges and Developments (00:14:13) Ethical and Theoretical Considerations (00:17:43) Theories and Predictions in Neuroscience (00:21:08) Physics, Causality, and Consciousness (00:24:12) The Role of Physical Interpretation in Science and Technology (00:27:24) Exploration of Physical Theories in Science (00:29:03) The Intersection of Consciousness and Data Interpretation (00:33:35) Significance of Studying Consciousness (00:37:30) Understanding Consciousness through Neural Correlates (00:48:16) Evolutionary Complexity and Consciousness (00:54:04) Human Evolution and Desires (00:57:01) Idealism and Consciousness (01:02:23) Mystical Experiences and Consciousness (01:12:15) Near-Death Experiences and Psychedelics (01:14:29) Exploring 5-MeO-DMT Experiences (01:16:34) Idealism and Scientific Study (01:18:29) Universal Mind and Consciousness (01:21:30) Complexity and Consciousness (01:24:00) Split Brain and Consciousness Studies (01:27:53) Evolution and Self-Consciousness (01:31:48) Complexity of Consciousness Emergence (01:35:23) Integrated Information Theory and Consciousness (01:39:33) Impact of Substances on Microorganisms and Consciousness (01:44:26) Artificial Intelligence and the Possibility of Consciousness (01:51:05) Simulation vs. Reality in Causal Power (01:56:01) Importance of Hardware in Consciousness (02:01:15) Virtual Worlds and Reality (02:02:08) Consciousness and Computational Limitations (02:03:05) Scientific Rivalries and Theory Validation (02:06:05) The Intersection of Science and Philosophy (02:09:22) Science, Paradigms, and Metaphysical Assumptions (02:11:28) Science Evolution and Competing Theories (02:15:00) The Computational Universe and AI Perspectives (02:21:24) Metaphysical Reflections (02:23:47) Mystical Experience on the Beach (02:27:07) Nature's Influence (02:32:36) Flow States in Nature and Music (02:36:06) Limits of Scientific Understanding (02:41:00) Behind the Scenes and Future Endeavors #sciencepodcast, #longformpodcast, Check our short-films channel, @DemystifySci: https://www.youtube.com/c/DemystifyingScience AND our material science investigations of atomics, @MaterialAtomics https://www.youtube.com/@MaterialAtomics Join our mailing list https://bit.ly/3v3kz2S - Blog: http://DemystifySci.com/blog - RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/2be66934/podcast/rss - Donate: https://bit.ly/3wkPqaD - Swag: https://bit.ly/2PXdC2y
The greatest mystery of all is why a group of atoms, like the ones constituting me, can feel anything. The mind-brain problem has puzzled philosophers for millennia. Thanks to pioneers like Christof Koch, consciousness studies have recently become a legitimate field of scientific inquiry. In this vintage episode, recorded in February 2021, we discuss many aspects of the phenomenon, including an intriguing candidate theory: Integrated Information Theory.
Sam Harris speaks with Christof Koch about the nature of consciousness. They discuss Christof's development as a neuroscientist, his collaboration with Francis Crick, change blindness and binocular rivalry, sleep and anesthesia, the limits of physicalism, non-locality, brains as classical systems, conscious AI, idealism and panpsychism, Integrated Information Theory (IIT), what it means to say something “exists,” the illusion of the self, brain bridging, Christof's experience with psychedelics, and other topics. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe. Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That's why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life's most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.
Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/374-consciousness-and-the-physical-world Sam Harris speaks with Christof Koch about the nature of consciousness. They discuss Christof’s development as a neuroscientist, his collaboration with Francis Crick, change blindness and binocular rivalry, sleep and anesthesia, the limits of physicalism, non-locality, brains as classical systems, conscious AI, idealism and panpsychism, Integrated Information Theory (IIT), what it means to say something “exists,” the illusion of the self, brain bridging, Christof’s experience with psychedelics, and other topics. Christof Koch is a neuroscientist at the Allen Institute and the Chief Scientist of the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation. He is the former president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science and a former professor at the California Institute of Technology. He writes regularly for Scientific American and is the author of five books, most recently Then I Am Myself the World: What Consciousness Is and How to Expand It. Website: https://christofkoch.com/ Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.
Consciousness isn't just a problem for philosophers. On this episode of Dispatches, Kmele sat down with scientists, a mathematician, a spiritual leader, and an entrepreneur, all trying to get to the heart of “the feeling of life itself.” ❍ Podcast Episode 4: • How humanity makes its meaning, from ... We're diving deep into the “hard problem of consciousness.” Kmele combines the perspectives of five different scientists, philosophers, and spiritual leaders to approach one of humanity's most pressing questions: what is consciousness? In the AI age, the question of consciousness is more prevalent than ever. Is every single thing in the universe self-aware? What does it actually mean to be conscious? Are our bodies really just a vessel for our thoughts? Kmele asks these questions, and many more, in the most thought-provoking episode yet. This is Dispatches from The Well. Featuring: Sir Roger Penrose, Christof Koch, Melanie Mitchell, Reid Hoffman, Swami Sarvapriyananda ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ❍ About The Well ❍ Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life's biggest questions, and that's why they're the questions occupying the world's brightest minds. So what do they think? How is the power of science advancing understanding? How are philosophers and theologians tackling these fascinating questions? Let's dive into The Well. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Explore the fascinating intersection of science and spirituality, in a discussion featuring cosmologist Professor Bernard Carr, neuroscientist Christof Koch, geneticist Dr. Rudy Tanzi, author and speaker Deepak Chopra and Sadhguru as they explore the super brain, epigenetics, consciousness and more, in an event hosted by the Sadhguru Center for a Conscious Planet at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The discussion was facilitated by Dr. Balachundhar Subramaniam of Harvard Medical School. Conscious Planet: https://www.consciousplanet.org Sadhguru App (Download): https://onelink.to/sadhguru__app Official Sadhguru Website: https://isha.sadhguru.org Sadhguru Exclusive: https://isha.sadhguru.org/in/en/sadhguru-exclusive Inner Engineering Link: isha.co/ieo-podcast Yogi, mystic and visionary, Sadhguru is a spiritual master with a difference. An arresting blend of profundity and pragmatism, his life and work serves as a reminder that yoga is a contemporary science, vitally relevant to our times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Explore the fascinating intersection of science and spirituality, in a discussion featuring cosmologist Professor Bernard Carr, neuroscientist Christof Koch, geneticist Dr. Rudy Tanzi, author and speaker Deepak Chopra and Sadhguru as they explore the super brain, epigenetics, consciousness and more, in an event hosted by the Sadhguru Center for a Conscious Planet at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The discussion was facilitated by Dr. Balachundhar Subramaniam of Harvard Medical School. Conscious Planet: https://www.consciousplanet.org Sadhguru App (Download): https://onelink.to/sadhguru__app Official Sadhguru Website: https://isha.sadhguru.org Sadhguru Exclusive: https://isha.sadhguru.org/in/en/sadhguru-exclusive Inner Engineering Link: isha.co/ieo-podcast Yogi, mystic and visionary, Sadhguru is a spiritual master with a difference. An arresting blend of profundity and pragmatism, his life and work serves as a reminder that yoga is a contemporary science, vitally relevant to our times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Welcome back to The Trip Report Podcast, a production of Beckley Waves, a Psychedelic Venture StudioToday, we have the honor of speaking with distinguished neuroscientist and researcher of consciousness, Christof Koch, Ph.D.Christof is the Chief Scientist of the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and Chief Scientist and President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. He has been a prominent figure in the study of consciousness for over 40 years. His work includes collaborations with Nobel laureate Francis Crick and pioneering research in understanding the neural correlates of consciousness.Christof recently published a memoir of sorts titled Then I am Myself the World, where he discusses his profound experiences with psychedelics, including a near-death experience induced by 5-MeO-DMT. These experiences have significantly influenced his perspective on consciousness and the nature of reality.In our conversation, we explore:* Christof's journey from a devout Catholic upbringing to becoming a leading neuroscientist in the study of consciousness* His transformative experiences with psychedelics* The implications of these experiences on his understanding of consciousness and reality* The research and initiatives of the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation* The role of psychedelics, breathwork, and other techniques in expanding our perception and understanding of consciousness* The importance of integrating compassion, curiosity, and mindfulness in both personal and professional contextsChristof's insights offer a unique blend of scientific rigor and personal exploration, providing a fascinating perspective on the intersection of neuroscience and psychedelics.And now, I bring you my conversation with Christof Koch.Listen to the episode on Substack, Spotify, Google or Apple.Credits:* Hosted by Zach Haigney * Produced by Zach Haigney, Erin Greenhouse, and Katelin Jabbari* Find us at thetripreport.com* Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTubeTheme music by MANCHO Sounds, Mixed and Mastered by Rollin Weary This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thetripreport.com
Christof Koch is a pioneering computational neuroscientist and neurophysiologist best known for his groundbreaking work on the neural basis of consciousness. He collaborated with Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, to establish a neurobiological framework for understanding consciousness. Christof served as the President and Chief Scientist of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle and continues his work there as a Meritorious Investigator. He is also the Chief Scientist of the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation in Santa Monica, CA, which funds research aimed at alleviating suffering, anxiety, and other forms of distress in people worldwide. Christof has authored over five books on consciousness, with his latest being "Then I Am Myself the World: What Consciousness Is and How to Expand It." This book delves into the subject of consciousness through the lenses of physics, psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, and computer science, as well as Christof's personal experiences exploring his consciousness. In this episode, Christof dives deep into what might explain the origin of consciousness and existing contradictions. We explore how our minds construct reality, the wonder of experience, and the profound implications of Integrated Information Theory. Christof also reflects on the importance of mindfulness, the power of belief, and the ongoing debate on free will. Our conversation includes: The origin of consciousness and the “Hard Problem Integrated Information Theory (IIT) How far down the phylogenetic tree consciousness might go The mind-body problem: physical structures and subjective experiences Panpsychism and how consciousness might be a fundamental aspect of matter. Qualities of experience and the perception box Mind-melding and the “uber” consciousness Why AI or any compute-based system may never be sentient The boundaries of consciousness and the dissolution of self The notion of "mind at large" Christoph's experiences with psychedelics Free will My hope is that this episode gives you a sense of awe about your mind so that you look at life and your experiences with a bit more wonder. Enjoy! For show notes and more, visit www.larryweeks.com
A cluster of brain cells in a dish, pulsing with electrical activity. A bee buzzing its way through a garden in bloom. A newborn baby staring up into his mother's eyes. What all these entities have in common is that we don't quite know what it's like to be them—or, really, whether it's like anything at all. We don't really know, in other words, whether they're conscious. But maybe we could know—if only we developed the right test. My guest today is Dr. Tim Bayne. Tim is Professor of Philosophy at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He's a philosopher of mind and cognitive science, with a particular interest in the nature of consciousness. Along with a large team of co-authors, Tim recently published an article titled 'Tests for consciousness in humans and beyond.' In it, they review the current landscape of consciousness tests—or “C-tests”, as they call them—and outline strategies for building more and better tests down the road. Here, Tim and I discuss what consciousness is and why theories of it seem to be proliferating. We consider several of the boundary cases that are most hotly debated right now in the field—cases like brain organoids, neonates, and split-brain patients. We sketch a few of the most prominent current consciousness tests: the command following test, the sniff test, the unlimited associative learning test, and the test for AI consciousness. We talk about how we might be able to inch our way, slowly, toward something like a thermometer for consciousness: a universal test that tells us whether an entity is conscious, or to what degree, or even what kind of conscious it is. Along the way, Tim and I talk about zombies, chatbots, brains in vats, and islands of awareness. And we muse about how, in certain respects, consciousness is like temperature, or perhaps more like happiness or wealth or intelligence, and maybe even a bit like fire. I think you'll enjoy this one, friends—it's a thought-provoking conversation on a foundational topic, and one that takes us far and wide. So without further ado, here's my interview with Dr. Tim Bayne. Enjoy! A transcript of this episode will be available soon. Notes and links 4:45 – The philosopher Dan Dennett, who passed way in April, was known for his writings on consciousness—among them his 1991 book, Consciousness Explained. 7:00 – The classic paper on the neural correlates of consciousness, by Francis Crick and Christof Koch. 9:00 – A recent review of theories of consciousness by Anil Seth and Dr. Bayne. 10:00 – David Chalmers' classic paper on the “hard problem” of consciousness. 13:00 – Thomas Nagel's classic paper on what it's like to be a bat. 20:00 – A recent paper by James Croxford and Dr. Bayne arguing against consciousness in brain organoids. 23:00 – A recent paper by Dr. Bayne and colleagues about the emergence of consciousness in infants. 27:00 – A recent paper by Dr. Bayne and colleagues about consciousness in split-brain patients. An earlier paper by Dr. Bayne on the same topic. 30:00 – A paper by Dr. Bayne, Anil Seth, and Marcello Massimini on the notion of “islands of awareness.” 35:00 – The classic paper using the “(covert) command following test” in a patient in a so-called vegetative state. 38:00 – A 2020 paper introducing the “sniff test.” 40:00 – A recent primer on the “unlimited associative learning” test. 43:00 – An essay (preview only), by the philosopher Susan Schneider, proposing the AI consciousness test. 50:00 – The history of the scientific understanding of temperature is detailed in Hasok Chang's book, Inventing Temperature. 53:30 – Different markers of consciousness in infants are reviewed in Dr. Bayne and colleagues' recent paper. 1:03:00 – The ‘New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness' was announced in April. Read about it here. Recommendations Being You, Anil Seth Into the Gray Zone, Adrian Owen Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd. Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala. Subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also now subscribe to the Many Minds newsletter here! We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our website or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.
In Then I Am Myself the World, Christof Koch explores the only thing we directly experience: consciousness. At the book's heart is integrated-information theory, the idea that the essence of consciousness is the ability to exert causal power over itself, to be an agent of change. Koch investigates the physical origins of consciousness in the brain and how this knowledge can be used to measure consciousness in natural and artificial systems. Enabled by such tools, Koch reveals when and where consciousness exists, and uses that knowledge to confront major social and scientific questions: When does a fetus first become self-aware? Can psychedelic and mystical experiences transform lives? What happens to consciousness in near-death experiences? Why will generative AI ultimately be able to do the very thing we can do, yet never feel any of it? And do our experiences reveal a single, objective reality? Christof Koch is a neuroscientist at the Allen Institute and at the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation, the former president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and a former professor at the California Institute of Technology. Author of four previous titles — The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed, Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist, and The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach — Koch writes regularly for a range of media, including Scientific American. He lives in the Pacific Northwest. Shermer and Koch discuss: “subjective experience” • the author's near-death experience changed him • the difficulties of materialism/physicalism • a fundamental theory of consciousness that explains subjective experiences in objective measures • designing a “consciousness detector” for unresponsive patients • why magic mushrooms and Ayahuasca are of so fascinating to neuroscientists • how our minds are shaped by our beliefs, prior experiences, and intentions • insights crucial to those suffering from anxiety, low self-esteem, post-traumatic stress, and depression. • the future of advanced brain-machine interfaces • why digital computers will never be conscious.
Dr. Christof Koch: Consciousness, Free Will & The Grand Theory of Everything In this episode we interview Dr. Christof Koch, a trained physicist turned neuroscientist who's primary area of research focuses on consciousness. We sit down with Dr. Koch to discuss his latest book "Then I am Myself the World" out in May of 2024 on Basic Books where he recounts his experience with consciousness altering substances, Integrated Information Theory, which is the foundational theory for his research, and of course...what he's currently reading! You can find all of the books mentioned in this episode in the links below. In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan https://amzn.to/3WlhDy4 The Schopenhauer Cure by Irvin Yalom https://amzn.to/4b1JdoK When Nietzsche Wept by Irvin Yalom https://amzn.to/3UnSLDd The Feeling of Life Itself by Christof Koch https://amzn.to/3Umeewf The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley https://amzn.to/3Qtn61Y Oblivion by David Foster Wallace https://amzn.to/3WkLG91 Determined by Robert Sapolsky https://amzn.to/3JH1Imc
Can neuroscience explain what happens to the brain on psychedelics? And even if we map the brain while it's tripping, does that tell us why these experiences can be so transformative? We'll talk with some of the pioneers in psychedelic research — from Amanda Feilding's boundary-busting work to Robin Carhart-Harris' theory of the "entropic brain." Also, renowned neuroscientist Christof Koch goes down the rabbit hole on 5-MeO-DMT, also known as toad venom. Original Air Date: July 15, 2023 Interviews In This Hour: Exploring consciousness on toad venom — The godmother of the European psychedelic revival — How therapeutic psilocybin could help heal long-buried trauma — Magic mushrooms and the 'entropic brain' Guests: Christof Koch, Amanda Feilding, David Nutt, Robin Carhart-Harris Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.
Jim talks with Matthew David Segall about the ideas in his and Bruce Damer's new essay, "The Cosmological Context of the Origin of Life: Process Philosophy and the Hot Spring Hypothesis." They discuss the "philosophy as footnotes to Plato" idea, the hot springs origin of life hypothesis, closing the gap between chemistry & life, Whitehead's idea of concrescence, metaphysics in philosophy, minimum viable metaphysics, why physical law doesn't imply biological organisms, process-relational philosophy, deep-seated cosmic habits, the hero's answer, the type 1a supernova, rigorous speculation, the incalculability of the adjacent possible, the nature of matter, autocatalysis, the tension between the actual & possible, the rate of evolution, getting past the error catastrophe, Prigogine's ideas about dissipative systems, teleology & the second law of thermodynamics, why DNA is not a blueprint, the Fermi paradox, bringing the universe to life, social implications of the origin of life, panpsychism & panexperientialism, integrated information theory, why matter & energy must have an endogenous telos, prehension, life wanting to live better, necessity & openness, questioning falsifiability, and much more. Episode Transcript "The Cosmological Context of the Origin of Life: Process Philosophy and the Hot Spring Hypothesis," by Matthew David Segall & Bruce Damer Footnotes2Plato (Substack) JRS EP 167 - Bruce Damer on the Origins of Life JRS EP 171 - Bruce Damer Part 2: The Origins of Life – Implications Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, by Tom Holland JRS EP 5 - Lee Smolin – Quantum Foundations and Einstein's Unfinished Revolution JRS EP 227 - Stuart Kauffman on the Emergence of Life JRS EP 157 - Terrence Deacon on Mind's Emergence From Matter JRS EP 40 - Eric Smith on the Physics of Living Systems JRS EP 105 - Christof Koch on Consciousness JRS EP 178 - Anil Seth on A New Science of Consciousness JRS EP 17 - Bonnitta Roy on Process Thinking and Complexity Process Philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) Matthew David Segall, Phd, is a transdisciplinary researcher, writer, teacher, and philosopher applying process-relational thought across the natural and social sciences, as well as to the study of consciousness. He is Associate Professor in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness Department at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, and the Chair of the Science Advisory Committee for the Cobb Institute.
In the dozens of episodes we've shared with you over the last four years, you've heard stories of experts examining the science behind everything from bees to whales, video games to dance, education systems to communication networks. Today, we're zooming out further, speaking with researchers who are exploring ways to improve how we do science and how we cultivate and educate better scientists. When you think of a scientist, what image comes to mind? Do you imagine a genius laboring solo in a lab, displaying little emotion as they logically analyze data? Let's challenge that stereotype — scientists are anything but dispassionate. Read the transcript of this episode Subscribe to Stories of Impact wherever you listen to podcasts Find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube Share your comments, questions and suggestions at info@storiesofimpact.org Supported by Templeton World Charity Foundation
“If science aims to describe everything, how can it not describe the simple fact of our existence?” On this episode of Dispatches, Kmele speaks with the scientists, mathematicians, and spiritual leaders trying to do just that: This video is an episode from @The-Well, our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the @JohnTempletonFoundation. In the newest episode of Dispatches from The Well, we're diving deep into the “hard problem of consciousness.” Here, Kmele combines the perspectives of five different scientists, philosophers, and spiritual leaders to approach one of humanity's most pressing questions: what is consciousness? In the AI age, the question of consciousness is more prevalent than ever. Is every single thing in the universe self-aware? What does it actually mean to be conscious? Are our bodies really just a vessel for our thoughts? Kmele asks these questions, and many more, in the most thought-provoking episode yet. This is Dispatches from The Well. Featuring: Sir Roger Penrose, Christof Koch, Melanie Mitchell, Reid Hoffman, Swami Sarvapriyananda About Kmele Foster: Kmele Foster is a media entrepreneur, commentator, and regular contributor to various national publications. He is the co-founder and co-host of The Fifth Column, a popular media criticism podcast. He is the head of content at Founders Fund, a San Francisco based venture capital firm investing in companies building revolutionary technologies, and a partner at Freethink, a digital media company focused on the people and ideas changing our world. Kmele also serves on the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). Get Smarter, Faster With Interviews From The Worlds Biggest Thinkers. Follow This Podcast And Turn On The Notifications Rate Us With 5 Stars Share This Episode Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Christof is a neurophysiologist and computational neuroscientist best known for his work on the neural basis of consciousness on which he worked with Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick for 24 years. He is the president and chief scientist of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. Christof describes his passion in life as "to understand how I came to be in this wonderful, mysterious universe. Not so much me, personally, but me as a conscious, experiencing thing surrounding by other conscious organisms and trees, stars, and the sea." Over the last decade, he has worked closely with the psychiatrist and neuroscientist Giulio Tononi. Together they advocate for an Integrated Information Theory (IIT) of consciousness - often seen as a modern version of panpsychism that only ascribes consciousness to entities with some degree of irreducible cause-effect power. Christof is the author of the books Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist. , The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach, and Biophysics of Computation: Information Processing in Single Neurons. His forthcoming book, Then I am Myself the World, is due out in 2024. In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what's real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is here on YouTube. We discuss: 00:00 Clips! 01:09 Welcome - "My dog... Mr. Felix... a sentient being" - The dedication from Christof's forthcoming book "Then I Am Myself The World": "... to all fellow travellers on the river of time who howl, bark, cry, screech, whine, bellow, shriek, buzz, sing, speak or those without a voice - for it is only in compassion with all life that we can redeem ourselves." 03:52 Christof's Intro - Physicist turned neurobiologist - "I've always been fascinated by the question of #consciousness" 04:45 What's Real - Growing up in a devout Roman #catholic family, raised kids Catholic - "One thing that always irked me... the belief that my dogs... somehow didn't have a soul and wouldn't be resurrected... that always bothered me... whatever it is we all share" - "I lived in two worlds - like many scientists do. On Sunday you go to church and you pray... during the week, the rest of the time, you're a scientist - you try to explain everything using natural explanation... this split... I couldn't support any more" - "Progressively I lost my faith... I'm a naturalist... I try to explain everything... using natural laws" - A priest acknowledging that non-human animals are "parts of god's creation" and can suffer, but "they do not partake in the same way we do" - Human exceptionalism "many religions believe that humans are exceptional... we're in charge of the universe... everything gets subsumed under human demands - that struck me as wrong" - "Who has what faith - it's totally random - it depends where you were born and in which family you were born... how can this be true?" - JW: Topics that draw even some naturalists back towards the mystical: Origins & nature of the universe, life, humanity, consciousness... 13:47 What and Who Matters? 39:45 What are Consciousness and Sentience? 1:14:09 A Better World? 1:17:35 Follow Christof - christofkoch.com - Christof at the Allen Institute - Christof on Wikipedia ...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info. Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form. Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sentientism/message
Today, we're excited to have Alex Huth on the podcast. Alex is one of the more creative and insightful people in the field of brain imaging today as he has been forging new ground using naturalistic stimuli and voxelwise models to create intricate maps of semantic features across large swaths of the brain. His seminal 2016 paper in Nature brought his approach to prominence: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature17637 Here, Alex shares insights on the value of naturalistic stimuli on fMRI research and updates us on our current capabilities to decode brain activity. During this conversation Alex highlights an amazing tool to view semantic maps in the brain, which can be found here: https://gallantlab.org/viewer-huth-2016/ Alex received his bachelor's in engineering and applied science from Cal Tec, where he was also working as an undergraduate researcher in Christoff Koch's lab. He continued on, receiving his Ph.D. in 2013 from University of California Berkeley, Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, under the guidance of Dr.'s Christof Koch and Jack Gallant. He went on to do his post doc in the Gallant lab and finally moved to the University of Austin in 2017, where he is an assistant professor in computer science and neuroscience: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~huth/
Starting from the pioneering work of Hodgkin, Huxley and Rall in the 1950s and 60s, we have a well-founded biophysics-based mathematical understanding of how neurons integrate signals from other neurons and generate action potentials. Today's guest wrote the classic book “Biophysics of Computation” on the subject in 1998. We discuss its contents, what has changed in the last 25 years, and also touch on his other main research interest: consciousness research.
What links conscious experience of pain, joy, color, and smell to bioelectrical activity in the brain? How can anything physical give rise to nonphysical, subjective, conscious states? Christof Koch has devoted much of his career to bridging the seemingly unbridgeable gap between the physics of the brain and phenomenal experience. Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist --part scientific overview, part memoir, part futurist speculation--describes Koch's search for an empirical explanation for consciousness. Koch recounts not only the birth of the modern science of consciousness but also the subterranean motivation for his quest--his instinctual (if "romantic") belief that life is meaningful. Koch describes his own groundbreaking work with Francis Crick in the 1990s and 2000s and the gradual emergence of consciousness (once considered a "fringy" subject) as a legitimate topic for scientific investigation. Present at this paradigm shift were Koch and a handful of colleagues, including Ned Block, David Chalmers, Stanislas Dehaene, Giulio Tononi, Wolf Singer, and others. Aiding and abetting it were new techniques to listen in on the activity of individual nerve cells, clinical studies, and brain-imaging technologies that allowed safe and noninvasive study of the human brain in action. Koch gives us stories from the front lines of modern research into the neurobiology of consciousness as well as his own reflections on a variety of topics, including the distinction between attention and awareness, the unconscious, how neurons respond to Homer Simpson, the physics and biology of free will, dogs, Der Ring des Nibelungen, sentient machines, the loss of his belief in a personal God, and sadness. All of them are signposts in the pursuit of his life's work--to uncover the roots of consciousness. Christof Koch is Professor of Biology and of Engineering at the California Institute of Technology and Chief Scientific Officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. He is the author of The Quest for Consciousness and other books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
What links conscious experience of pain, joy, color, and smell to bioelectrical activity in the brain? How can anything physical give rise to nonphysical, subjective, conscious states? Christof Koch has devoted much of his career to bridging the seemingly unbridgeable gap between the physics of the brain and phenomenal experience. Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist --part scientific overview, part memoir, part futurist speculation--describes Koch's search for an empirical explanation for consciousness. Koch recounts not only the birth of the modern science of consciousness but also the subterranean motivation for his quest--his instinctual (if "romantic") belief that life is meaningful. Koch describes his own groundbreaking work with Francis Crick in the 1990s and 2000s and the gradual emergence of consciousness (once considered a "fringy" subject) as a legitimate topic for scientific investigation. Present at this paradigm shift were Koch and a handful of colleagues, including Ned Block, David Chalmers, Stanislas Dehaene, Giulio Tononi, Wolf Singer, and others. Aiding and abetting it were new techniques to listen in on the activity of individual nerve cells, clinical studies, and brain-imaging technologies that allowed safe and noninvasive study of the human brain in action. Koch gives us stories from the front lines of modern research into the neurobiology of consciousness as well as his own reflections on a variety of topics, including the distinction between attention and awareness, the unconscious, how neurons respond to Homer Simpson, the physics and biology of free will, dogs, Der Ring des Nibelungen, sentient machines, the loss of his belief in a personal God, and sadness. All of them are signposts in the pursuit of his life's work--to uncover the roots of consciousness. Christof Koch is Professor of Biology and of Engineering at the California Institute of Technology and Chief Scientific Officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. He is the author of The Quest for Consciousness and other books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/neuroscience
Thomas Metzinger is Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz. He is the author of The Ego Tunnel and Being No One (MIT Press), the coeditor of Open MIND, and the editor of Neural Correlates of Consciousness (both MIT Press). His research focus lies in analytical philosophy of mind and cognitive science, as well as in connections between ethics, philosophy of mind and anthropology. He is the recipient of several awards and Fellowships, including a Fellowship by the Gutenberg Research College and a Research Professorship from the German Ministry of Science, Education and Culture. He was the Director of the Neuroethics Research Unit in Mainz and Director of the MIND Group at the FIAS. He is past president of the German Cognitive Science Society and of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness. He was a key member of the EU's High-level Expert Group on artificial intelligence. A life-long meditator himself, Metzinger contributes widely to the scientific and philosophical understanding of contemplative practices. He is the founder and director of the MPE-project, a network of more serious researchers investigating the experience of pure awareness in meditation. EPISODE LINKS: - Thomas' Website: https://www.grc.uni-mainz.de/prof-thomas-metzinger/ - Thomas' Books: https://www.amazon.com/Books-Thomas-Metzinger/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AThomas+Metzinger - Thomas' Publications: https://scholar.google.co.za/citations?user=x_CsYPMAAAAJ&hl=en - Thomas' Forthcoming Book "The Elephant and the Blind": https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262547109/the-elephant-and-the-blind/ CONNECT: - Website: https://tevinnaidu.com - Instagram: https://instagram.com/drtevinnaidu - Facebook: https://facebook.com/drtevinnaidu - Twitter: https://twitter.com/drtevinnaidu - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/drtevinnaidu TIMESTAMPS: (0:00) - Introduction (0:33) - What is Consciousness? (6:30) - What is the Self? (10:12) - The Mind-Body Problem (24:56) - Christof Koch & David Chalmers - "the infamous bet" (27:34) - New Approaches to Consciousness (Karl Friston, Computational Modeling etc.) (34:11) - Philosophy of Psychiatry & Philosophy's Implications on Mental Health (44:48) - Daniel Dennett & Illusionism (49:17) - Epistemic Agent Model, Introspection & Mind Wandering (1:04:36) - More on Illusionism (1:14:13) - Panpsychism & Existence Bias (1:24:52) - Bewusstseinskultur, Negative Egalitarianism & Practical Ethics (1:41:39) - "The Elephant and the Blind" (forthcoming book) (1:50:04) - Differences & Similarities to Mark Solms' "The Hidden Spring" (1:55:58) - Thomas' Philosophers/Scientists recommendations (2:00:06) - A better Culture of Consciousness (2:05:07) - Applied Ethics (2:11:50) - Religious World-views & the Naturalist Turn (2:14:35) - Conclusion
Can neuroscience explain what happens to the brain on psychedelics? And even if we map the brain while it's tripping, does that tell us why these experiences can be so transformative? We'll talk with some of the pioneers in psychedelic research — from Amanda Feilding's boundary-busting work to Robin Carhart-Harris' theory of the "entropic brain." Also, renowned neuroscientist Christof Koch goes down the rabbit hole on 5-MeO-DMT, also known as toad venom. Original Air Date: July 15, 2023 Interviews In This Hour: Exploring consciousness on toad venom — The godmother of the European psychedelic revival — How therapeutic psilocybin could help heal long-buried trauma — Magic mushrooms and the 'entropic brain' Guests: Christof Koch, Amanda Feilding, David Nutt, Robin Carhart-Harris Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.
Luminous: A Podcast about Psychedelics from To The Best Of Our Knowledge
Can neuroscience explain what happens to the brain on psychedelics? And even if we map the brain while it's tripping, does that tell us why these experiences can be so transformative? We'll talk with some of the pioneers in psychedelic research — from Amanda Feilding's boundary-busting work to Robin Carhart-Harris' theory of the "entropic brain." Also, renowned neuroscientist Christof Koch goes down the rabbit hole on 5-MeO-DMT, also known as toad venom. Original Air Date: July 15, 2023 Interviews In This Hour: Exploring consciousness on toad venom — The godmother of the European psychedelic revival — How therapeutic psilocybin could help heal long-buried trauma — Magic mushrooms and the 'entropic brain' Guests: Christof Koch, Amanda Feilding, David Nutt, Robin Carhart-Harris Never want to miss an episode? Subscribe to the podcast. Want to hear more from us, including extended interviews and favorites from the archive? Subscribe to our newsletter.
Twenty-five years ago in a German bar, neuroscientist Christof Koch bet philosopher David Chalmers that we'd understand the neural basis for consciousness by 2023. Last month, the winner of the bet received a case of wine. Ian Sample talks to Christof and David about why they made the bet, who won, and where we are now in our understanding of this most fundamental aspect of existence.. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod
WATCH: https://youtu.be/GeO5zr1e5lc Professor Christof Koch is the Chief Scientist of the MindScope Program. He received his baccalaureate from the Lycée Descartes in Rabat, Morocco, his B.S. and M.S. in physics from the University of Tübingen in Germany and his Ph.D. from the Max-Planck Institute for biological Cybernetics in 1982. Subsequently, he spent four years as a postdoctoral fellow in the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1987 until 2013, Koch was a professor at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, from his initial appointment as Assistant Professor, Division of Biology and Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences in 1986, to his final position as Lois and Victor Troendle Professor of Cognitive & Behavioral Biology. Christof joined the Allen Institute for Brain Science as Chief Scientific Officer in 2011 and became President in 2015. EPISODE LINKS: - Christof's Website: https://christofkoch.com/ - Christof's Books: https://www.amazon.com/Books-Christof-Koch/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AChristof+Koch - Christof's Publications: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=JYt9T_sAAAAJ&hl=en - Christof's Work: https://alleninstitute.org/person/christof-koch/ CONNECT: - Website: https://tevinnaidu.com - Instagram: https://instagram.com/drtevinnaidu - Facebook: https://facebook.com/drtevinnaidu - Twitter: https://twitter.com/drtevinnaidu - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/drtevinnaidu TIMESTAMPS: (0:00) - Introduction (1:29) - Romantic Reductionism & Consciousness (2:49) - Integrated Information Theory (IIT) & Philosophy (7:10) - Explaining "Phi" (14:13) - IIT & Falsifiability (16:46) - What is considered fundamental in a theory consciousness (19:26) - IIT's relation to other theories of consciousness (24:15) - Multidisciplinary approach to consciousness (28:47) - Can AI be truly conscious? (33:53) - From Illusionism to Phenomenology (38:06) - Descartes' Pineal Gland vs Christof's Claustrum (40:29) - IIT & Neuropsychiatry (44:22) - Free Will & Neural Correlates (50:20) - Religion, Spirituality, Purpose & Meaning (53:33) - Mortality (loss of consciousness) (59:35) - Conclusion Website · YouTube
James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928) is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist. In 1953, he co-authored with Francis Crick the academic paper proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. Watson, Crick and Maurice Wilkins were awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material". Watson earned degrees at the University of Chicago (BS, 1947) and Indiana University (PhD, 1950). Following a post-doctoral year at the University of Copenhagen with Herman Kalckar and Ole Maaløe, Watson worked at the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory in England, where he first met his future collaborator Francis Crick. From 1956 to 1976, Watson was on the faculty of the Harvard University Biology Department, promoting research in molecular biology. From 1968, Watson served as director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), greatly expanding its level of funding and research. At CSHL, he shifted his research emphasis to the study of cancer, along with making it a world-leading research center in molecular biology. In 1994, he started as president and served for 10 years. He was then appointed chancellor, serving until he resigned in 2007 after making comments claiming that there is a genetic link between intelligence and race. In 2019, following the broadcast of a documentary in which Watson reiterated these views on race and genetics, CSHL revoked his honorary titles and severed all ties with him. Watson has written many science books, including the textbook Molecular Biology of the Gene (1965) and his bestselling book The Double Helix (1968). Between 1988 and 1992, Watson was associated with the National Institutes of Health, helping to establish the Human Genome Project, which completed the task of mapping the human genome in 2003. ___________________________________________________________ Francis Harry Compton Crick (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004) was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist. He, James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins played crucial roles in deciphering the helical structure of the DNA molecule. Crick and Watson's paper in Nature in 1953 laid the groundwork for understanding DNA structure and functions. Together with Maurice Wilkins, they were jointly awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material". Crick was an important theoretical molecular biologist and played a crucial role in research related to revealing the helical structure of DNA. He is widely known for the use of the term "central dogma" to summarise the idea that once information is transferred from nucleic acids (DNA or RNA) to proteins, it cannot flow back to nucleic acids. In other words, the final step in the flow of information from nucleic acids to proteins is irreversible. During the remainder of his career, he held the post of J.W. Kieckhefer Distinguished Research Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. His later research centered on theoretical neurobiology and attempts to advance the scientific study of human consciousness. He remained in this post until his death; "he was editing a manuscript on his death bed, a scientist until the bitter end" according to Christof Koch. Original video here Full Wikipedia entry for James Watson here | James Watson's books here Full Wikipedia entry for Francis Crick here | Francis Crick's books here --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theunadulteratedintellect/support
In this episode, Christof Koch discusses enablers and destinations - how they interact and how they can be improved. Towards the end of the episode, Christof gives a few blarney examples of wasteful behavior.
After Christof Koch finishes his Liverwurst sandwich, two harpies appear and demand fivepences in tribute. He refuses, making the harpies angry. They then demand that he give them the liverwurst, which he also refuses to do. The harpies then decide to eat the liverwurst themselves, leaving Christof Koch with only the wurst.
In this episode, Lexman discusses the recent terrorist attack in Volgograd with renowned scientologist and artificial intelligence researcher Christof Koch. The two discuss the implications of such violence on civilization as a whole, and what sort of steps must be taken in order to protect future generations from it.
Lexman interviews Christof Koch, a professor at the Institute for Biological Studies in Berkeley, on the current trend of rave culture and how youngsters are using inhalants to get high.
Christof Koch is the president emeritus of the Science Museum of Boston. He gives talks on a variety of topics and has written a book on advocacy. In this episode, Lexman and Christof discuss how being an advocate can be helpful in both your personal life and in your professional life. They also discuss the ways in which hospitals can adhere to best practices for patient safety and abidance.
In this latest episode, Rupert takes part in a riveting debate on consciousness with Bernardo Kastrup (scientist) and Christof Koch (neuroscientist), hosted by the Oxford Psychedelic Society. With such a vast scientific and non-dual knowledge between them, this fascinating conversation delves into many aspects of consciousness and the nature of reality, including: awareness and the human mind; phenomenal consciousness; reductionism; idealism; Integrated Information Theory (IIT); meta and artificial consciousness; and psychedelics.
A Google engineer recently claimed an artificial intelligence he was working on had become sentient. Many scientists have disagreed with his assessment, but say the story raises other concerns about AI. Guest host Duncan McCue talks to Christof Koch, chief scientist of the MindScope Program at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle; Marisa Tschopp, a human-AI interaction researcher; and Susan Schneider, a philosopher and the founder of the Center for the Future Mind at the Florida Atlantic University.
Can we put a number on human consciousness? Neuroscientist Christof Koch is leading an effort to build a consciousness meter that could have real-world applications to determine whether coma patients are in a true vegetative state. Christof joined Lab Notes to talk about the science of consciousness, what psychedelic drugs have to do with consciousness, and how this new project could one day have applications in hospitals and clinics.
Christof Koch is a German-American neurophysiologist and computational neuroscientist best known for his work on the neural basis of consciousness. He is the president and chief scientist of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. From 1986 until 2013, he was a professor at the California Institute of Technology. Tao and Christof sit down at the tail end of an 8 day conference on the neuroscience of consciousness held on the island of San Servolo, off the coast of Venice, Italy.
Scientists have known for centuries that the brain is the seat of human thought, but we're still in the dark about how it works. For Brain Awareness Week 2022, Lab Notes asked four neuroscientists to get into the weeds with us about why the brain is so complicated and hard to understand. Do we have any hope of understanding our own brains?
COSMOS - Of what is reality made? What are the most basic building blocks from which the cosmos is constructed? Particles? Mass-Energy? Forces? Fields? A new candidate is ‘Information'—‘IT from BIT'. Featuring Seth Lloyd, Sean Carroll, Raphael Bousso, Alan Guth, and Christof Koch.
CONSCIOUSNESS - What is free will? Do we have free will? The ‘Big Questions in Free Will' project tackles these issues in a multi-year study. In Part I, scientists and philosophers research, test, and advance thinking on free will. Featuring Alfred Mele, Galen Strawson, John Searle, Peter van Inwagen, Christof Koch, Uri Maoz, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Thalia Wheatley, and Peter Tse.
This is a really fun conversation with one of the most influential living scientist. Dr. Christof Koch is neuroscientist pioneering th the neural bases of consciousness. He is the president and chief scientist of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. In this conversation we discuss... Christof's journey into the brain sciences and work with Francis Crick what is the 'integrated information theory' of consciousness russellian monism and the panpsychist revival contrasting consciousness and intelligence can a machine become conscious the possibility of artificial intelligence the love of dogs and becoming a vegetarian how practices open up different worlds defending the depths for human existence Iain Banks' novels adversarial experimentation and the problem of conscious beginning with phenomenology in the explanation of consciousness Check out his two most recent books: The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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