Excerpt from Episode Transcript for BS 188 with Anil Seth
Buy full transcript for $3.50
This excerpt comes from the episode summary:
Putting the question of consciousness to the side for just a minute, I want to emphasize an important point Anil made about doing science. First, he reminded us that it's not about having extensive detailed definitions for every term, but more importantly, it's not about asking the ultimate why questions.
For example, physicists can't tell us why the universe exists even though they have impressive evidence for how it formed and when. Similarly, looking for the mechanisms of consciousness is not the same thing as answering the partially existential question of why it arose. Sure, we can speculate that consciousness gives animals a survival advantage, but that is speculation.
So, just as he did in his book, Seth starts out in the interview, giving us an overview of the so-called hard problem of consciousness as contrasted with the easy problem. He takes a position that I think is quite pragmatic. He's not looking for a theory that explains everything. Instead, he's trying to tackle what he calls the real problem of consciousness, which is determining the brain mechanisms of subjective experience.
He gives consciousness this very straightforward definition; subjective experience. And then by focusing on mechanism, he is able to break the problem down into scientifically manageable pieces. He starts with three basic aspects of consciousness; level, content, and self.
In the book, he goes into more detail about experiments that are designed to explore these three key aspects. And one of the things he has in the book that I don't want to forget to mention is description of a lot of virtual reality experiments and how they relate to his conclusions. So, I encourage you to read that if you're interested in it.
There are several key points that I took away from this interview:
The brain's key function is prediction. The goal of prediction is guiding action so that we can survive. Consciousness is therefore, a tool for survival. The importance of prediction leads to the second key idea.
Perception is a top-down phenomenon. The brains constantly predicts how it sensory inputs will change in response to whatever action it has initiated. This has several big implications, but the most important is probably the fact that it means that perception and consciousness are not about accuracy. They're about interacting with the world in a way that keeps us alive.
What does this have to do with consciousness?
The aspect of consciousness that most of us really care about is the Self. How does the brain generate this sense of selfhood along with the quality such as agency and continuity? Seth makes a somewhat sterling, but simple claim. He says that the self is a form of perception.
Now, if you're new to Brain Science, this may be hard to believe, but it actually fits with what a lot of previous guests have said. Though, perhaps in a more indirect way. It is a simple but elegant solution to the question of who is doing the perceiving since it removes the need for a homunculus or inner observer.
A key idea is that perception is not about finding out what's really out there, it's about control and regulation. As Seth said, the primary purpose of the brain is to keep the body alive and everything else follows from that.
Anil says, beast machine theory of consciousness is not a theory in the sense of the other popular theories that he mentioned. It's more of a description of how he approaches the real problem of consciousness. Whatever the mechanisms of consciousness are, they are clearly intimately connected to our animal bodies. There is no scientific reason to restrict consciousness to humans, even if we can't obtain verbal reports from nonhuman animals.
One of the most fascinating aspects of Seth’s book came out briefly during our conversation. And this was the idea that consciousness is intimately connected to life. This contrast with some other approaches that presume that the key feature of consciousness is intelligence.
Jeff Hawkins, who has a deep interest in understanding how the human cortex produces human intelligence, has been very explicit in saying that he is not trying to understand consciousness. This is a critical point when considering the possibility of the emergence or creation of nonliving consciousness.
This interview was full of nuggets, but it still only scratches the surface of Anil’s wonderful new book, Being You: A New Science of Consciousness, which I recommend to everyone.
There are a few other things you should know about the book. It has an excellent discussion of integrated information theory, including both its strengths and weaknesses. There's also a brief introduction to the importance of Karl Friston’s work, which was mentioned by Mark Solms recently.
There's a good overall introduction to the neuroscience of consciousness without excessive detail about the numerous competing theories. This is one reason why I think it's a great place to start if you're new to the topic, but you will enjoy it no matter what your background.
Buy full transcript for $3.50
or
Premium Subscribers have unlimited access to ALL old episodes and transcripts, as well as extra content for selected episodes. All content is available browser or the free Brain Science mobile app.
Patreon supporters have access to new transcripts ($3+/month) and ad-free audio files ($10+/month). You can also access your bonus content via the free Patreon mobile app.
