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your sense of self

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is a hallucination your brain made up

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what you see before you and what you hear

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even the me that is watching this video right now

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may not be real

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it is not that the world is fake

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it is that you believe you are perceiving the world

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when you have actually been imagining it all along

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this illusion is so precise

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that you have never once doubted it

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hello

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everyone

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I am Leo Wang

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in this episode

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I want to take you inside the mind of one man

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his name is Anil Seth

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professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex

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and one of the most prominent researchers in consciousness science worldwide

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he did his undergraduate degree at Cambridge

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and earned his doctorate in computer science at Sussex

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he has published more than two hundred papers

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and ranks among the top zero point one percent most cited scientists in the world

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his talk on consciousness

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has been viewed more than fifteen million times online

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the book he published in 2021

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whose English title is Being You

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shot straight into the top ten of the UK bestseller list

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and was translated into more than ten languages

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when he was eight or nine

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he was standing in front of the bathroom mirror

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when he suddenly realized he was going to die someday

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this was not abstract knowledge

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it was really feeling that the person in the mirror would one day vanish completely

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that moment hit him like lightning

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he started asking

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who am I

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why am I me

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why am I here and not somewhere else

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these questions have haunted him ever since

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later he studied natural sciences at Cambridge

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then after graduating he switched to computer science and earned a doctorate

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because he understood

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that to understand consciousness

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philosophical speculation alone is not enough

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you have to model it with mathematics and computation

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let us start with one question

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there is a famous puzzle in consciousness research

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called the hard problem of consciousness

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raised by the philosopher David Chalmers in 1995

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it asks

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why a physical brain can produce subjective experience

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why the firing of neurons is not just information processing

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but comes with an experience of what it feels like

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this question has troubled the field for decades

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and there is still no agreed answer

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the attitude Seth takes here is interesting

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he does not deny that the hard problem exists

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but he suggests we may not need to solve it first in order to understand consciousness

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he offers an alternative

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the real problem of consciousness

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note

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not the easy problem

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but the real problem

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what he means is

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rather than agonizing over the metaphysical puzzle of why matter produces experience

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we should first work out how the brain actually generates specific conscious contents

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where does the red you see come from

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how is the pain you feel produced

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and that feeling of being me

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what mechanism does the brain use to make it

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Seth believes

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that once these concrete hows are worked out

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the why may simply dissolve on its own

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just as in the history of life science

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people once argued about what mysterious substance the life force was

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then as understanding of DNA proteins and cellular mechanisms deepened

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the question simply disappeared

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nobody ever actually solved the life force problem

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it just stopped being a problem

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this line of thinking is illuminating in itself

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but what is truly stunning about Seth

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is the answer he gives next

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he says

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consciousness is essentially a controlled hallucination

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you may think that sounds exaggerated

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a hallucination

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the table I see the phone I touch the warmth I feel

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how could those be hallucinations

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here is how Seth explains it

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the brain is locked inside a dark and silent skull

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it never touches the outside world directly

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all it receives is a mass of electrical signals from the eyes ears skin and internal organs

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these nerve impulses have no color no sound no temperature

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they are just electrochemical pulses

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so where does the rich and colorful world you see come from

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Seth says

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the brain guesses it into being

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the brain does not passively receive information and then present it to you

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it actively and constantly generates predictions about the outside world

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based on past experience and internal models

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it first guesses one version of the world

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then checks it against the sensory signals

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if the prediction roughly matches the signals

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the brain concludes that this is how it is

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if there is a gap

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it adjusts the prediction to shrink the error

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this is the core of predictive coding theory

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the world you see is not the world itself

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it is the best guess of your brain

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usually that guess is close enough to reality

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so you notice nothing strange

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but it is still fundamentally a model generated inside your head

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Seth calls it a controlled hallucination

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hallucination because everything you experience is generated inside the brain

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not handed to you directly by the outside world

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controlled because sensory signals keep calibrating and constraining it

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so it does not float free of reality the way a dream does

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think for a moment about what that means

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the colors you see right now the sounds you hear the body you feel

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are all made up by your brain

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the difference between normal perception and hallucination

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is not about true or false

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it is about whether the predictions of the brain are kept in check by sensory data

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try a small experiment

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close your eyes for three seconds then open them

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did it feel like the world suddenly appeared

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it did not

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in that instant the brain regenerated its predictive model of the world

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and projected it as visual experience

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the moment you open your eyes

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what the brain does is no different in essence from a painter painting

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it just paints so fast and so well

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that you mistake yourself for seeing rather than painting

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to prove this

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Seth built an experiment called the hallucination machine

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his team combined the Google Deep Dream algorithm with virtual reality

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volunteers put on VR headsets

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and watched real footage of the Sussex campus

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but the images were processed by the algorithm in real time

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so distorted patterns that were not there surfaced everywhere

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dog faces eyes strange textures

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just like a dream

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what happened

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the experiences reported by twelve volunteers

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closely matched the descriptions given by people who had been through deep dream states

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note

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they took no drugs at all

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they only watched a piece of algorithmically processed video

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Seth uses this to show

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that your conscious experience

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even the strangest kind

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depends fundamentally on how signals are processed inside the brain

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change the way they are processed

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and you change how the whole world looks

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that is startling enough

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but Seth goes further

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he says

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not only is the outside world a controlled hallucination

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so is the self you perceive

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you feel there is a stable continuous unchanging me living inside your body

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but Seth says

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that this me is equally something the brain makes up

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he proved this with another experiment

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adapted from the classic rubber hand illusion

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hide your real hand

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put a fake rubber hand in front of you

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stroke both of them at the same time

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and before long you feel the fake hand is your own

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this shows that the sense of body ownership

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the sense that this is my hand is built by the brain

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and can be manipulated

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Seth upgraded this experiment

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using a Microsoft motion sensor and a pulse sensor

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he created a virtual hand in virtual reality

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and made its color change with the rhythm of the heartbeat

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every time the heart beat once

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the virtual hand flickered slightly

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the results showed

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that when the flickering was in sync with the real heartbeat

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you felt far more strongly that the hand belonged to you

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the sense of self the sense of body ownership

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could be steered by the rhythm of a heartbeat

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this reveals something profound

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the sense of self does not come from some fixed core

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it comes from the brain predicting and modeling the signals inside your body

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heartbeat breathing gut sensations and other internal signals

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are integrated by the brain into a predictive model called me

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it is so stable and so continuous

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that you have never doubted it is real

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you can feel this for yourself right now

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put your attention on your heartbeat

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try to feel it

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can you sense that beating

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that is exactly the brain using heart signals to maintain your self model

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when you attend to your heartbeat

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you are actually watching the brain manufacture you

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but it really is only a model only a prediction

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a controlled hallucination the brain keeps running

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from here

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Seth puts forward his most central and most controversial idea

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the beast machine theory

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beast meaning animal

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he argues the root of consciousness is not thinking reasoning or language

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but being alive itself

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the most basic job of the brain is not to understand the world

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it is to keep you alive

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to do that

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it has to constantly monitor and regulate body temperature blood sugar

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heart rate blood pressure oxygen levels and other physiological parameters

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keeping them within a safe range

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this is homeostasis

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Seth points out

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that consciousness emerges precisely from homeostatic regulation

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in order to stay alive

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the brain has to build a predictive model of the state of the body

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this model does not just run in the background

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it also produces emotion desire comfort discomfort

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hunger fatigue and other experiences you feel in your bones

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these are not decorative extras

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they are the tools the brain uses to drive you to act and stay alive

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so the way Seth sees it

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consciousness is first of all the feeling of being alive

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the most basic experience of existing in the world as a flesh and blood creature

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the higher contents of consciousness

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perceiving the outside world knowing yourself thinking and reasoning

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all rest on that bottom layer the feeling of being alive

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this leads to a sharp question

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is AI conscious

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Seth answers clearly

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no

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at least the AI we have today is not

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the reason is not that AI is not smart enough

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it is that AI has no body

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if the root of consciousness is the homeostasis that keeps a living body going

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then a system that never eats never breathes and never dies

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is missing the basic condition for consciousness to arise

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large language models can process vast amounts of information and produce answers that look intelligent

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but they never have to worry about surviving

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there is no homeostasis

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no signals from internal organs

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and no underlying drive saying I must stay alive

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Seth does not claim that AI can never be conscious

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he stresses that if we want it to have consciousness

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we may need to give it some form of body and a physiological balance it has to maintain

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simply adding compute and training data is nowhere near enough

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this view is both fascinating and contentious

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because it means consciousness is not a byproduct of intelligence

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it is a byproduct of life

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you can be very smart and have no consciousness

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and you can be quite dim and still be conscious

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a mouse may be more conscious than the most powerful AI

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because it has a body it must keep alive

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it gets hungry it gets scared it wants to live

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while AI no matter how powerful

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is never hungry never afraid

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and never craves survival

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now let us bring these scientific findings back to everyday life

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psychologists noticed long ago

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that most everyday anxiety and suffering does not come from what actually happens

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it comes from the story the brain tells about the self

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psychology calls this self referential processing

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the brain keeps weaving stories about me

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am I good enough

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what do others think of me

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what will the future be like

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this self narrative engine never stops running

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and it manufactures a huge amount of threat and anxiety that does not exist

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Aaron Beck one of the founders of cognitive behavioral therapy found

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that the core mechanism of depression and anxiety is exactly a self narrative gone off track

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the predictive model of the brain skews systematically toward the negative

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you are not really bad at all

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the I am not good enough story your brain writes is just too convincing

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so you mistake the story for reality

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the theory Seth offers gives a deeper explanation for this

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the reason you get trapped by self narrative

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is that you never realized that me is itself a model built by the brain

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once you see this clearly

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and understand that me is not a fixed entity that needs protecting

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but a prediction the brain keeps updating

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a layer of buffer appears between you and those painful self narratives

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this is not mysticism

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experiments already back it up

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neuroscientists found

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that during mindfulness practice when attention rests on the breath and bodily sensation in the present

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and does not follow the stories the brain generates automatically

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the brain region responsible for self narrative the default mode network

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drops markedly in activity

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the result is less anxiety and less rumination

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and weaker emotional reactions to negative events

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this is not because you have gone numb

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it is because the self narrative engine that kept amplifying the pain has quieted down a bit

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so the theory Seth offers is not just an academic discussion

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it points to a practical insight

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since me was never a fixed entity that needs protecting

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you do not have to clutch it so tightly

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you can respond more flexibly

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experience more openly

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and face change more calmly

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but there is a crack here that Seth never opened up

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and it is worth thinking about

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if perception is a controlled hallucination

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and the self is a controlled hallucination too

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then what is the thing that realizes all of this is a hallucination

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is it a hallucination as well

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if it is

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then who is realizing that it is a hallucination

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if it is not

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then where does it come from

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the theory Seth offers explains the contents of consciousness

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that is what you experience

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but the fact that there is experience at all

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still seems to hide somewhere deeper

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maybe the controlled hallucination theory is like a mirror

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it lets you see your own face

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but you can never use it to see the mirror itself

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maybe this is exactly what makes consciousness research so fascinating

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you are always using consciousness to study consciousness

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like a hand trying to grab itself and lift itself up

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what do you think

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if the self is an illusion

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then the thing that is thinking the self is an illusion

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what is that

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I am Leo Wang

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see you next time