Michael Levin and Anil Seth: Your Brain Is Not a Computer

Anil Seth and Michael Levin debate whether brains are computers, how consciousness relates to substrate, and if algorithms can ever capture life and mind. Levin argues machines can access a platonic space of agency via embodied interfaces, xenobots, and compositional agents, while Seth challenges the software-hardware split using information theory, Granger causality, and psychophysics. Together they probe islands of awareness, degeneracy, bubble-sort side quests, LLM surprises, alignment, and how to ask better scientific questions.

0:00 Anil Seth & Michael Levin: Islands of Consciousness & Xenobots
8:24 Substrate Dependence: Why Biology Isn't Just 'Wetware'
13:13 Beyond Algorithms: Do Machines Tap Into a 'Platonic Space'?
21:46 The Ghost in the Algorithm: Emergent Agency in Bubble Sort
29:26 Degeneracy: The Biological Principle AI is Missing
36:34 The Multiplicity of Agency: Are Your Cells Conscious?
43:24 Unconscious Processing or Inaccessible Consciousness? The Split-Brain Problem
49:32 The Ultimate Experiment to Decode Consciousness
57:31 A Counter-Intuitive Discovery: Consciousness is Less Emergent
1:03:39 Psychedelics, LLMs, and the Frontiers of Surprise

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RESOURCES:

- Michael Levin [TOE]: https://youtu.be/c8iFtaltX-s
- Anil Seth [TOE]: https://youtu.be/_hUEqXhDbVs
- Geoffrey Hinton [TOE]: https://youtu.be/b_DUft-BdIE
- Living Things Are Not Machines [Article]: https://www.noemamag.com/living-things-are-not-machines-also-they-totally-are/
- Classical Sorting Algorithms [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.05375
- Michael Levin and Anna Ciaunica [TOE]: https://youtu.be/2aLhkm6QUgA
- Being You: A New Science of Consciousness [Book]: https://www.amazon.com/Being-You-New-Science-Consciousness/dp/1524742872/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0
- The Consciousness Iceberg [TOE]: https://youtu.be/65yjqIDghEk
- Iain McGilchrist [TOE]: https://youtu.be/Q9sBKCd2HD0
- Matt Segall [TOE]: https://youtu.be/DeTm4fSXpbM
- Andres Gomez-Emilsson [TOE]: https://youtu.be/gi08eVU_-f8
- MIT's Augmentation Summit: https://augmentationlab.org/summit
- Granger Causality Analysis [Paper]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25716830/
- Dynamical Independence [Paper]: https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.99.022143

Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal features long-form, technically detailed interviews with leading researchers in physics, mathematics, consciousness, and philosophy, exploring topics at the level of active research. For academics, graduate students, and anyone seeking depth beyond popular science.

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