Kevin Mitchell: How Did Evolution Give Us Free Will? Free Agents & Cognitive Realism

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Kevin, I want you to take the
listeners of mine, but a

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solution on a journey, and I
think you do this very well with

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your books, Read many of them at
the moment and looking forward

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to reading many more.
Hopefully you come up with some

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new stuff in time, but you do a
very great job with telling us

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the story of the origin of life.
You you do this perfectly.

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I mean, you take us through how
evolution wide us to be the way

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we are from from geochemistry to
neurochemistry.

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Talk to me about the story, if
you could give me your best

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summary and take as much time as
you want, by the way.

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If you have summary the origin
of life to the human brain, take

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the journey.
Well, let me let me give you the

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motivation for that first, maybe
because you know in approaching

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questions of human cognition
and.

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Human agency and ultimately free
will that the latest book

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touches on.
You know, the human brain is the

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most sort of complex
instantiation of those things

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that we know of.
And a lot of the work that goes

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on in in in human neuroscience,
but also in in the

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philosophizing about these
things, it was really centered

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on humans and to me it it.
It makes the concepts really

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difficult to grasp because we
have the most sort of complex

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instantiation of them, and it
all gets kind of confounded with

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with consciousness and morality
and responsibility and freedom

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and purpose and meaning.
It's all it's just very hard to

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get a grip on.
And So what I really wanted to

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do in this book was actually
just go back and say, look,

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maybe like everything else in
biology, the only way to really

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understand these human
faculties, cognitive faculties,

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is through an evolutionary lens.
So.

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So let's see.
Rather than thinking, you know,

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in the abstract about questions
of free will, you know, in

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principle, let's look in
practice, right?

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Let's let's actually look at how
these things came to be,

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whatever we take free will to
mean.

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And I would just say for the
moment, our, our ability to make

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choices and decisions and
control our behavior with some

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sort of conscious oversight and
deliberation.

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So if that's what we're talking
about, then then we can ask

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Okay, well, how did that?
How could that have come to be?

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How, how did it come to be?
What do we, what's our

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understanding of that?
And so the story I tell

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absolutely starts with the
origin of life, which, you know,

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maybe it may come as a surprise.
I think to some readers, but the

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reason is that if we want to
understand what cognition is for

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and how being cognitive beings
allows us to control our

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behavior, then we really want to
understand what what is

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behavior?
What does that mean?

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How does not just how does a
human do anything, but how does

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any animal do anything?
How does that ability?

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To act come about because for me
it's the main difference between

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living things and nonliving
things.

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And we hear, you know, if you
open a biology textbook, it

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won't say it like that.
It'll say that you know, the

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characteristics of life are, you
know, replication and metabolism

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and respiration.
And if you, you know, it'll sort

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of tick off these things of of
activities that are happening

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inside inside organisms.
But the bigger picture is that

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organisms are active.
In the world, right.

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I mean, they're acting in the
world as causal agents, and

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that's something new.
That was something that just

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didn't exist in the universe
before life came along.

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And so in order to ground the
concepts that we're going to

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need later on to think about
human cognition and so on, I

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wanted to start with just the
simplest things we could, which

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is really.
What is, what does it mean to be

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alive?
What is, how could that possibly

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have arisen?
How could life have arisen from

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non living things.
And so, so that story is

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fascinating and it starts well.
Let me say the picture that I

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give in the book is is a clearly
partly speculative and it's not

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my it's not my speculations it's
it's based on the work of people

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like Bill Martin and Nick Lane
and and many others.

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Right, so.
But the question is, what does

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it mean to be a living thing and
how did that arise?

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And one way you can think about
what it means, say, even just

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for a single celled Organism to
be alive, is that it's a

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collection of processes, right?
It's, it's an active set of, in

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this case, it happens to be
chemical processes, basically

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biochemical reactions or
metabolism, right.

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And so a single celled Organism
is just a kind of a pattern of

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those processes to happen.
So it's a very dynamic pattern

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that's contained within some
piece of the universe, you know,

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usually within a cell membrane,
say.

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And importantly that cell
membrane means that that piece

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of the universe, what's going on
inside it is out of equilibrium

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with its environment, with
everything else.

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Now that's an unusual scenario,
right?

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For for that sort of dynamic
pattern to keep going, it

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requires energy because it's an
unlikely.

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Scenario from the point of view
of the second law of

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thermodynamics, which just says
things should get more

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disorganized.
And here we have this organized

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thing and it's staying organized
through time.

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So how does that happen?
So the the The upshot really is

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that it needs to have some
source of energy, of free energy

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in particular, that means energy
that can be used to do some work

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as well as some, you know,
nutrients and and stuff that it

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the stuff that it makes itself
out of basically.

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And the the very brief sort of
version of the origin of life

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story that that I recount in the
book is about life in in

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hydrothermal vents.
Not the not the real smoky big

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black ones that you might have
seen that are intense

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temperatures, but ones that are
much more sort of gentle, warm,

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warm hydrothermal vents.
And these are perfect incubators

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for life because they have these
rocky little.

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Tiny micro compartments that you
can concentrate chemicals in.

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They have a flow of of hydrogen,
hydrogen ions and other kinds of

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nutrients coming from the
Earth's core and and and within

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those.
So that means there's a flow of

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free energy, and a gradient
happens to be a gradient of

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hydrogen ions.
And that means that you can get

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chemical reactions that happen
in this concentrated little

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space.
That that sort of build on each

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other and produce more and more
complicated organic molecules

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using this supply of energy and
carbon dioxide.

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And so the ultimate idea is that
is that those chemicals

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eventually included lipids,
which would have allowed the

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cell membrane to be formed and
then then you have a little

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entity, right?
It's not just a chamber where

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reactions are happening, it's a
little entity that's creating

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its own barrier with the world.
So in a sense, it's.

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Configured or it becomes
configured to keep itself

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persisting.
And the reason is simple, right?

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The ones that aren't configured
like that don't persist.

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So it's very tautological kind
of logic there you just get

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selection for the ones that are
the sets of reactions that are

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configured in such a way that
they reinforce each other and

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you get this sort of auto
catalysis.

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So you end up with these somehow
these sort of free living

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organisms?
That are capable of keeping

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their metabolism going, capable
of maintaining these processes,

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these dynamic flux out of
equilibrium with the rest of the

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environment.
Now that brings about some

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interesting, interesting
concepts and new things, and one

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of those is that you've got this
set of dynamic reactions right.

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It is, in a sense, trying to
persist in a in a tautological

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sense.
Now maybe the environment might

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change, right?
Say there would be more of some

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nutrient or less of some
nutrient or waste products build

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up or something like that.
The the maybe oxygen levels get

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too low.
It would be a good thing for

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that system to be able to
reconfigure itself,

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metabolically speaking.
And many biochemical organisms

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can do that.
They can switch from, you know,

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aerobic respiration to anaerobic
respiration for for example, so.

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Sorry, I'm just turning off that
noise there.

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So with so that's good that they
can can do some extra work to

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persist, but it's a bit
precarious and probably what

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happened at some stage was that
you had you know RNA and

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proteins there.
But eventually DNA was invented

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for want of a better word, and
DNA became a kind of a

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repository of the.
Desired configuration of the

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cell, metabolically speaking and
possibly even of ways to switch

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between configurations.
So you have this sort of

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invention of genetic material
which I'm just whizzing through

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here and then another invention.
So you've got free living

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organisms, they have a genetic
material that means they can not

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just have this sort of reference
template that allow they can

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refer back to if they get.
Disturbed in some way, but it

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can be replicated.
So now you get lineages of

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organisms that are really
importantly susceptible to

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natural selection because you
get some variation in the

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genetic material.
Then you get some competition,

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ones that are good at persisting
under some conditions versus

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others.
They adapt one way versus

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another and so on now.
And I'll stop here after one

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SEC, because I don't want to
just go on forever.

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But one of the next really
important tricks is if the

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conditions outside are changing
or changeable.

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It pays to be able to
reconfigure your metabolism.

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But also, sometimes that's just
not going to do the trick,

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right?
Sometimes that's not enough.

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There may be no food left and
you can reconfigure all you

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like.
You're just still going to die,

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right?
So one way around that is to

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move.
To move somewhere in the world

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and that really is the invention
of behavior, right.

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So moving in the world and then
you can start to say OK well if

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I'm moving which way should I
move?

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Is there food over there is
there excess you know toxic

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waste products over here.
Then you can think about the the

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importance of being able to
sense things in the environment

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and then couple those sort of
sense sensory that sensory

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information to to.
Decisions about which way to

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move, yes.
So in the simplest sense, right,

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In the very, very simplest sense
of the simplest living

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organisms, we know there's
already some decision making

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going on, right?
There's.

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And it's already anchored by
purpose, the purpose being to

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persist, right.
So everything is has some value

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relative to whether it's good
for keeping me persisting or

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not.
And then you've got.

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You've got meaning and you've
got information and you've got

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action based on information
about what's out in the world.

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This, this thing inside a
membrane is kind of causally

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insulated in terms of physics
and chemistry.

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There's all stuff, all sorts of
stuff going on outside it that

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it's not that it's not being
affected by because of that

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barrier, but it can get
information about what's out in

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the world and it can then act on
that information.

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So for me, that's the start,
right?

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That's the grounding point.
For the concepts that we need of

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purpose and meaning and value
and decision making and action

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in their simplest forms, right?
I'm not saying, I'm not saying

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the Organism is aware of any of
that.

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It's thinking about anything,
right?

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But the effect is it's making a
decision that's adaptive for a

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reason, which is it helps it
survive.

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And that reason is configured
into its biochemistry basically.

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So, so that's the story of the
start and then you know you can

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probably see already the
direction that that goes.

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You just elaborate on that, make
it much more sophisticated over

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evolution, the invention of
multicellular organisms, the

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need to, you know, actually
invent nervous systems to

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coordinate all the bits of of a
multicellular Organism and then

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extra sort of layers of internal
processing that really let true

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cognition get off the ground.
I I know you, you you emphasize

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this aspect of movement.
I think at some point I wrote to

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note you as well you one of your
chapters just by the way for all

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the listeners and viewers.
Your new book is called Free

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Agents and it's coming out I
think on the 23rd of October,

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right?
It's actually the 3rd of

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October, 3rd of October 2023.
Everybody definitely read this.

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It's it's amazing.
At some point you mentioned I

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move, therefore I am.
So that is a very fundamental

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part of this process.
Yeah, absolutely.

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I think the, you know when we
think about the brain, when we

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think you know what are brains
for.

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If you ask people you know
they'll people generally say,

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well they're thinking I think
with my brain.

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But then you ask, OK, well, OK,
but what's thinking for?

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And then you get you get to to
the angle that is the one that

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I'm presenting here which is
that the brain is a control

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system and that behavior, the
ability to move in the world, is

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an extension of.
The the same kind of process of

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00:13:56,660 --> 00:13:59,780
reconfiguring your your
Physiology, whether it's a cell

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or or an organ, what we call
homeostasis, that is trying to

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00:14:03,540 --> 00:14:07,180
keep everything within the set
healthy set points that you can

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persist at.
And and one way to do that is to

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reconfigure Physiology.
You know whether you're when you

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eat a meal and your insulin
levels go up or whatever, you

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00:14:17,580 --> 00:14:19,980
know that's all part of your
homeostasis.

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00:14:20,140 --> 00:14:23,820
But another way to to regulate
that is to.

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00:14:24,230 --> 00:14:28,270
Move in the world.
So you know if you're if you're

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00:14:28,270 --> 00:14:30,310
hungry, you can eat something,
but if you don't have something

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00:14:30,310 --> 00:14:32,150
to eat, you can move to look for
something, right?

248
00:14:32,750 --> 00:14:39,950
So, so thinking of behavior as a
kind of a an act of homeostasis,

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00:14:40,310 --> 00:14:43,190
that's the point of behavior.
And then thinking about

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00:14:43,190 --> 00:14:45,190
cognition in the service of
that.

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00:14:46,110 --> 00:14:51,030
I think grounds, grounds are
concepts of decision making.

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In in ideas that we can see are
universal even from you know,

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00:14:56,760 --> 00:14:59,560
they apply in even in simple
organisms.

254
00:15:00,640 --> 00:15:06,240
And to me I hope at least that
that can sort of demystify some

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00:15:06,240 --> 00:15:09,280
of the the idea of of of human
decision making.

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00:15:09,600 --> 00:15:12,680
Because otherwise we get lost in
in in the very sort of high

257
00:15:12,680 --> 00:15:16,160
level conscious deliberation
that humans do, which is

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00:15:16,160 --> 00:15:18,320
important, right.
And ultimately, you know, we we

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00:15:18,320 --> 00:15:23,020
can get to what that adds.
But ultimately, all of that is

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00:15:23,020 --> 00:15:28,660
still aimed at or comes from at
least these systems that are for

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00:15:28,660 --> 00:15:31,860
control, yes.
So Kevin, just to just to wrap

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00:15:31,860 --> 00:15:35,140
my head around it, So we've got
these lower levels of what we'll

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00:15:35,140 --> 00:15:38,820
call, let's say, proto levels of
consciousness proto be, well

264
00:15:38,820 --> 00:15:41,140
decision making.
I mean, we don't want to give

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00:15:41,140 --> 00:15:42,980
them words like purpose
awareness yet.

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00:15:42,980 --> 00:15:47,140
But there's obviously a point
where this proto awareness let's

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00:15:47,140 --> 00:15:51,390
say is becoming a fully blown
awareness and through your book

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00:15:51,390 --> 00:15:52,950
you obviously it's very
difficult.

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00:15:52,950 --> 00:15:54,990
I can imagine how difficult it
is for you to summarize this

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00:15:54,990 --> 00:15:58,910
because your book is already a
summary of billions of years of

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00:15:58,910 --> 00:16:02,150
evolution.
So if at what point is this pro

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00:16:02,150 --> 00:16:05,990
to consciousness or pro to free
world slowly become a bit of a

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00:16:05,990 --> 00:16:09,710
MOOC layered version?
You're right, it is a tricky

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00:16:09,710 --> 00:16:11,550
question.
First of all, I guess I don't

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00:16:13,030 --> 00:16:15,910
see transitions so much.
I mean, there are some.

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00:16:17,310 --> 00:16:19,550
Like the transition from, you
know, unicellularity to

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00:16:19,550 --> 00:16:22,390
multicellularity, for example,
and then from things without

278
00:16:22,390 --> 00:16:24,310
nervous systems to things with
nervous systems.

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00:16:24,310 --> 00:16:25,790
There are some transitions like
that.

280
00:16:25,790 --> 00:16:28,870
But but you know, say if we
start from things with the

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00:16:28,870 --> 00:16:31,950
earliest nervous systems and go
from there, it's more of a

282
00:16:31,950 --> 00:16:35,270
continuum, I think.
And one thing I should say is

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00:16:35,270 --> 00:16:38,950
that, you know, I trace the
evolutionary path along the

284
00:16:38,950 --> 00:16:41,590
lineage that leads to us.
That's just one.

285
00:16:41,750 --> 00:16:45,030
That's just one path.
And I take just a completely.

286
00:16:45,590 --> 00:16:48,670
Anthropocentric, egocentric sort
of perspective on it.

287
00:16:50,030 --> 00:16:52,230
But of course evolution is
branching, right.

288
00:16:52,230 --> 00:16:56,270
And so we've got whatever led to
the, you know, the behavior that

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00:16:56,270 --> 00:17:00,030
we see in state crows and birds,
you know, that can be very

290
00:17:00,030 --> 00:17:03,350
sophisticated or octopuses or
insects, they all have, you

291
00:17:03,350 --> 00:17:07,190
know, some kind of it's not just
more or less agency or more or

292
00:17:07,190 --> 00:17:08,630
less sentience.
I think there are different

293
00:17:08,630 --> 00:17:13,349
qualities of of sentience and
subjective experience of some

294
00:17:13,349 --> 00:17:15,130
kind.
Across those different

295
00:17:15,130 --> 00:17:18,930
creatures.
So along our lineage, I think

296
00:17:18,930 --> 00:17:25,170
there were sort of several
aspects that differentiated or

297
00:17:25,369 --> 00:17:28,770
elaborated as we got, as we got
more complex.

298
00:17:28,850 --> 00:17:32,330
One of those I think is really
key, which is that if you look

299
00:17:32,330 --> 00:17:36,130
in simple organisms like
bacteria for example, when

300
00:17:36,130 --> 00:17:38,050
they're, you know, they have
sensors for things out in the

301
00:17:38,050 --> 00:17:41,170
world, they have motors that
help them move around.

302
00:17:41,460 --> 00:17:43,980
And they have some sort of
biochemical pathways that

303
00:17:43,980 --> 00:17:45,460
connect those two things
together.

304
00:17:46,580 --> 00:17:51,780
So there is a pretty direct
coupling of sensation and action

305
00:17:52,740 --> 00:17:54,940
right now.
I don't want to overemphasize

306
00:17:54,940 --> 00:17:57,900
that because actually within
even a bacterium there's all

307
00:17:57,900 --> 00:18:00,700
kinds of integration of multiple
signals happening at once.

308
00:18:01,100 --> 00:18:04,570
There's.
Integration over time, you know

309
00:18:04,610 --> 00:18:07,250
based on what what was the
recent past, like, what's the

310
00:18:07,250 --> 00:18:09,690
current situation like the
comparison between those.

311
00:18:09,850 --> 00:18:13,290
So it's a very integrated
holistic kind of a thing, you

312
00:18:13,290 --> 00:18:16,610
could call it cognition.
It's a very basal proto

313
00:18:16,610 --> 00:18:19,850
cognition.
Basically the Organism is faced

314
00:18:19,850 --> 00:18:22,370
with a complex changing
environment with lots of

315
00:18:22,370 --> 00:18:25,650
different factors changing and
it it has to make a an

316
00:18:25,650 --> 00:18:28,250
integrated decision about what
to do.

317
00:18:28,450 --> 00:18:31,930
It's sort of a.
Working out the utility function

318
00:18:31,930 --> 00:18:33,410
of all the things it could do,
basically.

319
00:18:34,810 --> 00:18:36,650
But it's not thinking about
doing that.

320
00:18:36,850 --> 00:18:39,370
It's just configured in a way
that that happens.

321
00:18:39,370 --> 00:18:42,450
And it's kind of like cybernetic
systems.

322
00:18:42,970 --> 00:18:45,850
You know, you could think, OK,
well, we have to do some missile

323
00:18:45,850 --> 00:18:48,250
guidance or something like that.
You know, it's the sort of

324
00:18:48,250 --> 00:18:51,250
system you could build in a
robot.

325
00:18:51,250 --> 00:18:53,530
And now it would be a
complicated robot.

326
00:18:53,690 --> 00:18:56,410
You know, even the bacterium is
a very, very complicated thing.

327
00:18:57,690 --> 00:19:01,250
But it's not.
There's not multiple levels.

328
00:19:01,250 --> 00:19:05,730
There's not a lot of internal
sort of reflection happening and

329
00:19:05,970 --> 00:19:08,370
and and you've got a pretty
direct coupling from from

330
00:19:08,370 --> 00:19:11,330
sensation to action.
However, as you get more

331
00:19:11,330 --> 00:19:15,930
complicated, especially as you
get beasts that have nervous

332
00:19:15,930 --> 00:19:19,850
systems, then they start to have
sensory neurons, say

333
00:19:19,850 --> 00:19:23,250
photoreceptors, and they have
motor neurons that control

334
00:19:23,570 --> 00:19:25,490
muscles.
Now you can connect those two

335
00:19:25,490 --> 00:19:28,370
directly if you want to and you
can get, you know, reflexes.

336
00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:31,880
You know, very fast kind of
reflexes like when I, you know,

337
00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:35,280
if you hit somebody's knee and
the leg goes up, right.

338
00:19:35,920 --> 00:19:38,080
I mean, it's a simple sort of a
circuit, right?

339
00:19:38,840 --> 00:19:42,280
But but you don't have to.
Most of our nervous system

340
00:19:42,280 --> 00:19:45,880
doesn't work like that.
And in fact, what you can get in

341
00:19:45,880 --> 00:19:50,200
those organisms is if you put
some intervening layers of

342
00:19:50,200 --> 00:19:53,960
neurons in between the sensory
neurons and the motor neurons,

343
00:19:54,280 --> 00:19:57,360
then you get this possibility
for interesting cognition.

344
00:19:58,460 --> 00:20:04,300
So on the one hand, you've got
sensory neurons and the job

345
00:20:04,300 --> 00:20:07,820
really that they're doing is to
provide sensory data to the

346
00:20:07,860 --> 00:20:10,460
Organism.
And that could be photons

347
00:20:10,460 --> 00:20:13,540
hitting hitting some cell or you
know, retina.

348
00:20:14,020 --> 00:20:17,380
It could be vibrations of the
air that you're picking up with

349
00:20:17,380 --> 00:20:20,020
your OR or the water that you're
picking up with your ears and

350
00:20:20,020 --> 00:20:22,420
mechano sensors.
It could be touch, it could be

351
00:20:22,420 --> 00:20:26,620
sensory smell, chemosensory
things, but all of that.

352
00:20:26,890 --> 00:20:29,570
The the point of all of that is
for the Organism to figure out

353
00:20:29,570 --> 00:20:33,610
what's out in the world and what
should I do about it right

354
00:20:34,570 --> 00:20:36,810
there, I should go towards it.
Is there danger I should go away

355
00:20:36,810 --> 00:20:39,810
from it.
That's the basic idea.

356
00:20:40,570 --> 00:20:44,650
And actually even a lot of our
behavior is pretty much approach

357
00:20:44,650 --> 00:20:48,170
avoid sort of decision making
really or explore exploit kind

358
00:20:48,170 --> 00:20:53,410
of decision making.
So in if you look at the really

359
00:20:53,410 --> 00:20:59,060
simpler, you know, Organism that
have smell and touch, what

360
00:20:59,060 --> 00:21:02,420
they're sensing is stuff that's
very near to them, maybe

361
00:21:02,420 --> 00:21:05,500
actually touching them, right.
It's it's very close to them in

362
00:21:05,500 --> 00:21:08,940
space, which means it's very
close to them in time.

363
00:21:10,100 --> 00:21:13,220
They don't, they don't have to
think far ahead because they

364
00:21:13,220 --> 00:21:16,460
can't sense anything far ahead.
There's no why.

365
00:21:16,740 --> 00:21:18,850
You know, there would be no
point in them thinking about

366
00:21:18,850 --> 00:21:20,450
what's happening over there
later on, right?

367
00:21:21,170 --> 00:21:23,170
Because they have no sort of
information about that.

368
00:21:23,570 --> 00:21:25,770
But once you get vision and
hearing, those are distant

369
00:21:25,770 --> 00:21:31,130
senses and there we can try to
infer something about what's out

370
00:21:31,130 --> 00:21:32,650
in the world, which could be far
away.

371
00:21:33,930 --> 00:21:36,050
So that's a job though, right?
It's not easy.

372
00:21:36,050 --> 00:21:40,210
When we get photo photons
hitting our photoreceptors, that

373
00:21:40,210 --> 00:21:41,810
doesn't tell us what's out in
the world.

374
00:21:41,810 --> 00:21:44,970
That's just a pattern of of
specs and light.

375
00:21:44,970 --> 00:21:48,970
We have to do a whole bunch of
work to figure out to infer what

376
00:21:48,970 --> 00:21:52,050
is out in the world.
And so our visual systems,

377
00:21:52,050 --> 00:21:54,850
through all these successive
layers that have built up,

378
00:21:55,010 --> 00:22:00,770
starting in the retina and then
in visual visual cortex, is

379
00:22:00,770 --> 00:22:06,690
designed to extract things like
edges and contours and do figure

380
00:22:06,690 --> 00:22:12,090
ground segmentation and object
labeling and eventually object

381
00:22:12,090 --> 00:22:14,820
recognition.
And all of that is in the

382
00:22:14,820 --> 00:22:18,820
service of letting the Organism
know what's in the world, Where

383
00:22:18,820 --> 00:22:20,140
is it?
What is it doing?

384
00:22:20,140 --> 00:22:23,100
Is it moving?
Where is it relative to me?

385
00:22:23,700 --> 00:22:26,780
And then it can decide what
should I do about it.

386
00:22:28,260 --> 00:22:33,460
So you've got some internal
representations of basically

387
00:22:33,500 --> 00:22:36,420
knowledge about what's out in
the world, or at least beliefs

388
00:22:36,420 --> 00:22:39,180
about what's out in the world.
They can be wrong, of course,

389
00:22:39,180 --> 00:22:41,100
because that those systems don't
always work right.

390
00:22:42,670 --> 00:22:45,550
So when you get to those those
systems, now you're doing some

391
00:22:45,550 --> 00:22:49,150
cognition right, really some
processing of that information.

392
00:22:49,150 --> 00:22:54,670
You're making some cognitive
inferences you're holding.

393
00:22:54,710 --> 00:22:58,070
You have some men, some neural
states that effectively

394
00:22:58,070 --> 00:23:00,430
constitute beliefs about things
in the world.

395
00:23:01,150 --> 00:23:06,270
And then it pays to develop the
cognitive apparatus to let you

396
00:23:06,590 --> 00:23:10,110
not just react to things
immediately but think about

397
00:23:10,110 --> 00:23:12,770
things that are far off like way
over there, right.

398
00:23:12,770 --> 00:23:15,890
You can see that now it's way
over there and it'll take 5

399
00:23:15,890 --> 00:23:17,970
minutes or 10 minutes or an hour
to get over here.

400
00:23:18,890 --> 00:23:22,650
So it pays to be able to plan.
And so the the the sort of

401
00:23:22,650 --> 00:23:27,690
cognitive apparatus for those
higher higher order control of

402
00:23:27,690 --> 00:23:31,010
behavior, not just immediate
reflexive control but

403
00:23:31,010 --> 00:23:33,250
forward-looking proactive
planning.

404
00:23:34,850 --> 00:23:39,690
Co evolved with the the sensory
apparatus that lets us see

405
00:23:39,690 --> 00:23:42,090
things in the world, infer
what's out there and so on.

406
00:23:42,090 --> 00:23:46,050
So I think that's a transition
that gets, you know, we can

407
00:23:46,050 --> 00:23:49,170
follow it gets more and more
complex as we go along our our

408
00:23:49,410 --> 00:23:53,170
particular lineage.
And ultimately it gets to, you

409
00:23:53,170 --> 00:23:58,290
know, the point where we're
learning about the properties of

410
00:23:58,290 --> 00:24:01,610
the things in the world where
when we see something out there,

411
00:24:01,610 --> 00:24:04,090
it's not just that we're
segmenting the visual scene and

412
00:24:04,090 --> 00:24:06,330
this is a little rectangle and
that's a little other, you know,

413
00:24:06,330 --> 00:24:09,970
circle or whatever is that We
recognize the circle as an

414
00:24:09,970 --> 00:24:12,690
apple.
And we know from experience, we

415
00:24:12,690 --> 00:24:17,250
link that to our memory systems.
We know that apples are edible.

416
00:24:17,490 --> 00:24:21,210
We know that it's it's within
reach or it isn't within reach.

417
00:24:21,650 --> 00:24:24,570
If it isn't within reach, we
know what we have to do to put

418
00:24:24,570 --> 00:24:26,930
it within reach.
So you can start to build up

419
00:24:26,930 --> 00:24:33,570
these sort of levels where the
the cognitive abilities become

420
00:24:33,570 --> 00:24:36,730
much more complex and
sophisticated and you can see

421
00:24:36,730 --> 00:24:40,190
the value of that, right.
I mean, evolutionarily, that's

422
00:24:40,190 --> 00:24:43,790
just an extended form of
homeostasis.

423
00:24:43,910 --> 00:24:45,990
It's a predictive form of
homeostasis.

424
00:24:46,390 --> 00:24:50,390
It's like saying, OK, I, you
know, I can't get the apple now,

425
00:24:50,950 --> 00:24:53,270
so I can't do anything about my
hunger right now.

426
00:24:53,270 --> 00:24:55,790
But if I move over there, I will
be able to get it.

427
00:24:56,310 --> 00:24:59,430
So it's a prediction.
In the future, I will be able to

428
00:24:59,430 --> 00:25:02,790
achieve this homeostatic goal by
doing this behavior and so on.

429
00:25:03,270 --> 00:25:05,950
So you get these, yeah, you get
the ability to plan.

430
00:25:06,310 --> 00:25:10,960
You get the ability to have
longer term goals which kind of

431
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:17,400
inform and constrain the the
actions that we prioritize at

432
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:22,040
any at any given moment.
I mean any risk with, sorry, do

433
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:23,920
you want to add more?
Well, I just thought, I mean

434
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:25,880
just when I was talking about
the actions that we prioritize.

435
00:25:25,880 --> 00:25:28,120
Let me just say one other thing
which I think is really is

436
00:25:28,120 --> 00:25:33,000
really key because one of the
things that really increases in

437
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:36,280
complexity as you go along that
evolutionary lineage is that the

438
00:25:36,360 --> 00:25:40,620
possible actions become more and
more open-ended, right?

439
00:25:40,620 --> 00:25:44,620
If you look at a word like a
nematode worm or a hydra or you

440
00:25:44,620 --> 00:25:48,700
know, simple organisms like
that, you know a nematode can

441
00:25:48,700 --> 00:25:51,380
move forward, it can move
backward, it can turn its head,

442
00:25:51,380 --> 00:25:54,180
it can turn around, it can make
that's about like it doesn't

443
00:25:54,180 --> 00:25:57,620
have many options.
So its decision making machinery

444
00:25:58,180 --> 00:26:00,900
is set up to choose one of
those, right?

445
00:26:00,900 --> 00:26:04,260
They there, there, there's a set
of possibilities in its action

446
00:26:04,260 --> 00:26:08,530
repertoire and it chooses one of
those to do and at the same time

447
00:26:08,570 --> 00:26:11,090
it inhibits all the rest of
them, right.

448
00:26:11,090 --> 00:26:14,370
So moving forward means not
moving backwards at the same

449
00:26:14,370 --> 00:26:17,570
time.
And yeah, I mean, even a

450
00:26:17,570 --> 00:26:21,410
bacteria that can move, you
know, it can, it can go in a

451
00:26:21,410 --> 00:26:23,970
straight line or it can tumble
around and do something random

452
00:26:23,970 --> 00:26:24,650
basically.
Right.

453
00:26:25,090 --> 00:26:27,970
So.
So if you think about that, the

454
00:26:27,970 --> 00:26:32,800
idea there's an action
repertoire and the the job of

455
00:26:32,800 --> 00:26:36,360
the decision making machinery is
based on whatever information

456
00:26:36,360 --> 00:26:39,120
you have, whatever your internal
state happens to be, whatever

457
00:26:39,120 --> 00:26:42,760
your goals are, to adjudicate
between all of those possible

458
00:26:42,760 --> 00:26:46,280
actions and choose one and
inhibit all the others.

459
00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:51,680
Now in us all the others is like
a possibly infinite array of

460
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:56,120
things, right?
And so, so, yeah, so you get

461
00:26:56,120 --> 00:27:01,340
this expansion of of cognitive
power in parallel with this

462
00:27:01,340 --> 00:27:04,780
expansion of the behavioral
repertoire of possible actions

463
00:27:04,900 --> 00:27:06,620
that have to be adjudicated
between.

464
00:27:07,500 --> 00:27:10,940
I think it's fascinating because
I mean, you mentioned the, I

465
00:27:10,940 --> 00:27:12,820
wouldn't say limitations, but
the differences between a

466
00:27:12,820 --> 00:27:15,740
bacteria and the way we function
and all these possibilities,

467
00:27:15,740 --> 00:27:19,500
this extension, this expansion.
When we look at the universe, or

468
00:27:19,620 --> 00:27:21,780
let's say when we look at planet
Earth, and you think about the

469
00:27:21,780 --> 00:27:24,580
billions of bacterial cells that
still exist, and then you look

470
00:27:24,580 --> 00:27:27,260
at the millions of humans that
exist.

471
00:27:28,140 --> 00:27:30,940
You you tend to wonder about
this, this payoff.

472
00:27:31,060 --> 00:27:33,500
I mean as a human being, the
evolution of this when you think

473
00:27:33,500 --> 00:27:36,380
consider the fact that it's 2%
of our body weight, our brain

474
00:27:36,780 --> 00:27:40,060
and then the expenditure of
energy is 20%.

475
00:27:40,100 --> 00:27:42,260
I mean, was this an evolutionary
payoff?

476
00:27:42,260 --> 00:27:44,020
And at the end of the day,
considering there's still

477
00:27:44,020 --> 00:27:45,740
billions of bacterial cells,
yeah.

478
00:27:45,820 --> 00:27:47,820
Yeah.
Well, it's a great, it's a it's

479
00:27:47,820 --> 00:27:50,820
a fantastic question, right.
I mean, I I, you know, I've been

480
00:27:50,820 --> 00:27:52,780
talking about increasing
sophistication, right.

481
00:27:52,780 --> 00:27:55,980
It sounds like I'm talking down,
I'm talking down the bacteria.

482
00:27:56,710 --> 00:27:59,710
And you know, I mean, E coli is
one of the most successful

483
00:27:59,710 --> 00:28:03,470
organisms on the planet.
I mean, you know, grass.

484
00:28:03,590 --> 00:28:05,950
Grass does very well for itself.
Yeah.

485
00:28:05,950 --> 00:28:09,350
And and you know, it's not doing
too much, too much cognition.

486
00:28:09,670 --> 00:28:13,230
So and and of course a lot of
animals have pretty simple

487
00:28:13,310 --> 00:28:16,350
behavioral repertoires and
pretty, pretty simple cognition.

488
00:28:17,550 --> 00:28:22,750
So what was the payoff, right.
Why is it that that increasing

489
00:28:22,750 --> 00:28:26,420
ability for for increasing
cognition was selected for?

490
00:28:26,780 --> 00:28:30,140
And it's a difficult story and
we don't fully know, but one

491
00:28:30,140 --> 00:28:35,260
answer goes like this, that it
it grants us a kind of

492
00:28:35,260 --> 00:28:39,020
behavioral flexibility that
other animals don't have.

493
00:28:39,020 --> 00:28:41,940
So an animal may be perfectly
adapted to its niche.

494
00:28:42,780 --> 00:28:46,180
It has all the behaviors it
needs in that particular niche

495
00:28:46,340 --> 00:28:49,220
because the environment it's
adapted to and the environment

496
00:28:49,220 --> 00:28:51,700
is not changing too much from
what it's adapted to.

497
00:28:51,820 --> 00:28:55,340
Well, probably is now, but you
know, open so far, right?

498
00:28:56,300 --> 00:28:58,420
And so most animals are like
that, right?

499
00:28:58,420 --> 00:29:01,540
They're really, really well
adapted to their own niches.

500
00:29:01,700 --> 00:29:03,620
But if you put them somewhere
else, they'll die.

501
00:29:04,540 --> 00:29:06,860
Now, we're not like that, right?
I mean, that's the main

502
00:29:07,540 --> 00:29:10,940
difference that we have is that
we're extremely behaviorally

503
00:29:11,260 --> 00:29:13,300
flexible.
We can adapt to all kinds of

504
00:29:13,300 --> 00:29:15,820
different environments, very
dynamically changing

505
00:29:15,820 --> 00:29:19,470
environments as well.
And so So what that means is

506
00:29:19,470 --> 00:29:24,110
that imagine you know you've got
some some primates that are, you

507
00:29:24,110 --> 00:29:26,590
know, the ancestors of humans
and chimps, say, which were

508
00:29:26,590 --> 00:29:30,830
probably much more like chimps.
And they have, you know, they're

509
00:29:30,830 --> 00:29:34,150
well adapted to life in the
forest or or maybe on the on the

510
00:29:34,150 --> 00:29:37,870
Savannah.
But maybe some of them, you

511
00:29:37,870 --> 00:29:40,750
know, some something happens,
some mutations arise, some some

512
00:29:40,750 --> 00:29:44,630
genetic selection for increased
brain size and so on, where some

513
00:29:44,630 --> 00:29:47,690
of them start to be a little
more clever, they're a little

514
00:29:47,690 --> 00:29:51,050
capable of more flexible
behavior.

515
00:29:51,290 --> 00:29:54,210
They can move into a niche that
the other ones can't be in.

516
00:29:55,130 --> 00:29:59,170
And then within that, maybe
their ability to construct their

517
00:29:59,170 --> 00:30:03,330
own environment and control
their own environment pays back,

518
00:30:03,370 --> 00:30:07,250
right, creates A selective
pressure for greater behavioral

519
00:30:07,250 --> 00:30:10,730
flexibility and intelligence,
which pays off in the ability to

520
00:30:11,050 --> 00:30:13,650
affect the environment or which
creates A selective pressure

521
00:30:13,650 --> 00:30:15,850
again.
So you get the sort of snowball

522
00:30:15,850 --> 00:30:18,890
amplification.
So once we went into what's

523
00:30:18,890 --> 00:30:23,170
really called the cognitive
niche that probably became a

524
00:30:23,170 --> 00:30:27,090
self selecting thing right.
Within that niche intelligence

525
00:30:27,130 --> 00:30:30,450
is the thing that's beat that
that's most important for

526
00:30:30,450 --> 00:30:34,450
survival and therefore it keeps
getting selected for more and

527
00:30:34,450 --> 00:30:38,850
more maybe up to the point where
the energetic costs are simply

528
00:30:38,850 --> 00:30:41,730
too much.
You talk you know it is 20% of

529
00:30:41,730 --> 00:30:46,760
our of our brain capacity and
even you know even firing a

530
00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:51,320
single neuronal spike is really
energetically expensive from at

531
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:55,000
a cellular level.
So actually the the brain is is

532
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:59,000
wonderfully configured to be as
efficient as possible

533
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:03,160
metabolically, biochemically in
terms of the information that's

534
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:07,600
transferred and the information
that's not transferred in terms

535
00:31:07,600 --> 00:31:12,520
of the wiring and so on.
So it it does use a huge amount

536
00:31:12,520 --> 00:31:17,260
of energy, but thankfully it's
only 20% because of all the

537
00:31:17,260 --> 00:31:22,020
efficiencies that are in there.
Yeah, which you know, which have

538
00:31:22,100 --> 00:31:24,580
really interesting payoffs
actually in terms of cognition

539
00:31:24,580 --> 00:31:27,540
and computation.
I mean this next question is not

540
00:31:27,700 --> 00:31:29,740
in my notes, but it's something
I'm thinking about now as we're

541
00:31:29,740 --> 00:31:31,660
talking about this.
Do you ever think that this?

542
00:31:32,380 --> 00:31:35,060
This journey that's going on
because, I mean, it's so out of

543
00:31:35,060 --> 00:31:36,740
whack, if you think about it
technically.

544
00:31:36,740 --> 00:31:39,020
I mean, we didn't need to really
do this to continue to survive,

545
00:31:39,020 --> 00:31:41,100
but we are.
Do you ever get this thought

546
00:31:41,100 --> 00:31:43,860
that perhaps there's some sort
of a teleological finish line to

547
00:31:43,860 --> 00:31:45,580
this?
Or maybe we maybe we're headed

548
00:31:45,580 --> 00:31:47,060
to something, you know, like
well.

549
00:31:47,740 --> 00:31:50,820
Perhaps there's something bigger
than us and we're not read the

550
00:31:50,820 --> 00:31:52,220
most important part of the
story.

551
00:31:54,060 --> 00:31:55,780
Yeah, I mean, there's two ways
to think about that.

552
00:31:57,220 --> 00:31:59,140
Yeah.
One is that, you know, evolution

553
00:31:59,140 --> 00:32:03,800
is continuing and it may be that
the, you know that that the

554
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:07,280
artifacts that we create will
end up being more intelligent

555
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:10,800
than us, that that's quite
possible given everything that's

556
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:12,680
happening right now.
I mean, I don't think that, you

557
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:15,680
know, for example, large
language models are intelligent

558
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:20,680
right now, but I don't see any
reason why they couldn't.

559
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:24,720
Similar things couldn't be built
with an architecture that is

560
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:27,080
similar to the cognitive
architecture that we have,

561
00:32:28,420 --> 00:32:33,460
excuse me, but on a scale that
that so outstrips us without

562
00:32:33,460 --> 00:32:36,300
those power limitations, right?
You know, without the and

563
00:32:36,300 --> 00:32:38,700
without the data limitations,
you can just throw all the data

564
00:32:38,700 --> 00:32:42,060
in the world at this thing.
So you know, that's one

565
00:32:42,060 --> 00:32:45,380
possibility is that the the
growth of intelligence will

566
00:32:45,380 --> 00:32:49,420
continue not in our evolution,
but in the evolution of our

567
00:32:49,420 --> 00:32:53,500
artifacts.
The other possibility which is

568
00:32:53,500 --> 00:32:58,950
looking scarily likely these
days is that we are on a on a

569
00:32:58,950 --> 00:33:03,030
course which is actually towards
obliterating ourselves and

570
00:33:03,030 --> 00:33:05,590
possibly a lot of the rest of
life on the planet.

571
00:33:06,710 --> 00:33:13,070
And you know, with in a sense,
in a sense, we broke free from

572
00:33:13,070 --> 00:33:15,910
the confines of natural
selection, right?

573
00:33:15,910 --> 00:33:20,350
I mean, we we have transcended
the biological world in that

574
00:33:20,350 --> 00:33:27,240
way, and we have dominion over
it, and that comes at a cost if

575
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:30,200
we are not exercising that
dominion wisely, which we

576
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:36,000
clearly have not been.
So yeah, on a on a bad day, on a

577
00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:40,240
on a depressed day, I see that
bleak future.

578
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:43,240
But you know, who knows?
Maybe the artifacts that we

579
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:47,680
build in a I will be just the
things that help save us from

580
00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:53,560
ourselves and our our
destructive, greedy impulses.

581
00:33:54,410 --> 00:33:57,610
But when, when, when someone
truly understands the the

582
00:33:57,610 --> 00:33:59,010
background of this evolutionary
story.

583
00:33:59,010 --> 00:34:01,090
I mean, it's so complex.
You even mentioned the fact that

584
00:34:01,370 --> 00:34:04,450
when we think about a cell or a
bacterium, it's easy for us to

585
00:34:04,450 --> 00:34:07,610
forget that it's it's so much
more complex than we think.

586
00:34:07,650 --> 00:34:12,290
We we make it sound very basic,
but in essence this is a huge

587
00:34:12,290 --> 00:34:16,929
universe in itself.
Does the thought of what's

588
00:34:16,929 --> 00:34:19,050
happened elsewhere ever arise in
your mind?

589
00:34:19,050 --> 00:34:20,770
Like has this evolved somewhere
else?

590
00:34:20,770 --> 00:34:24,190
Some sort of a?
An intelligent life or.

591
00:34:24,270 --> 00:34:30,150
Yeah, yeah, some sort of, I mean
it's a really, it's a super,

592
00:34:30,150 --> 00:34:31,630
another super interesting
question, right.

593
00:34:32,790 --> 00:34:36,909
And so in some ways, if you look
at life, I mean, I mentioned

594
00:34:36,909 --> 00:34:40,710
earlier, it's thermodynamically
unlike, right, as a, as a

595
00:34:40,750 --> 00:34:45,110
contained thing of, of an
ordered set of, you know,

596
00:34:45,110 --> 00:34:49,389
dynamical processes that keeps
itself going like that it needs

597
00:34:49,389 --> 00:34:53,190
to take in energy to do that.
And so it's sort of defying the

598
00:34:53,190 --> 00:34:56,030
second law of thermodynamics
very locally, right.

599
00:34:56,070 --> 00:35:00,350
And you might think that makes
it unlikely in a global sense to

600
00:35:00,350 --> 00:35:02,990
arise.
But actually in a global sense,

601
00:35:03,830 --> 00:35:08,710
it's dissipating free energy.
It's it's increasing the rise in

602
00:35:08,710 --> 00:35:11,670
entropy of the whole universe,
and actually globally that

603
00:35:11,670 --> 00:35:14,470
should be favored, right.
Dissipative systems.

604
00:35:14,930 --> 00:35:18,530
So if you think about, for
example, when a Whirlpool forms

605
00:35:18,530 --> 00:35:22,810
in your bathtub, when you pull
the plug, the reason that forms

606
00:35:23,010 --> 00:35:27,090
is that's the most efficient way
to get rid of the free energy in

607
00:35:27,090 --> 00:35:31,090
the system as fast as possible.
So physics generally should

608
00:35:31,090 --> 00:35:34,570
favor the formation of those
dissipative systems.

609
00:35:36,650 --> 00:35:40,170
So that's sort of 1 argument,
which would say, well, life is

610
00:35:40,170 --> 00:35:43,050
basically a frustrated
dissipative system, right?

611
00:35:43,170 --> 00:35:45,810
It's trying to get rid of free
energy, but it just keeps

612
00:35:45,810 --> 00:35:48,570
getting more free energy, right?
So it never, it never blows

613
00:35:48,570 --> 00:35:50,010
itself out the way a tornado
does.

614
00:35:52,650 --> 00:35:55,970
But you could say that they the
existence of life should be

615
00:35:55,970 --> 00:35:58,690
favored on that sort of view of
thermodynamics.

616
00:35:58,970 --> 00:36:02,810
But then there's a counter
argument or observation, which

617
00:36:02,810 --> 00:36:07,250
is that life seems to have only
evolved on life on Earth once.

618
00:36:08,690 --> 00:36:10,530
I mean we have a common tree of
life.

619
00:36:10,530 --> 00:36:12,610
I mean we're related to those E
coli.

620
00:36:12,610 --> 00:36:15,610
There's not separate branches.
It's it's one big branching

621
00:36:15,610 --> 00:36:17,090
thing.
So.

622
00:36:17,970 --> 00:36:20,850
So why is that then if life was
is sort of thermodynamically

623
00:36:20,850 --> 00:36:23,410
favored, then why did it only
occur once on Earth?

624
00:36:23,810 --> 00:36:27,370
And that's a mystery, and I
don't know the answer to it, but

625
00:36:27,370 --> 00:36:31,130
it's then we have to think, OK,
well, OK, maybe it only occurred

626
00:36:31,130 --> 00:36:34,690
once on Earth, but there's, you
know, an Infinity, billions of

627
00:36:34,690 --> 00:36:38,860
billions of billions of of
planets, you know, in even just

628
00:36:38,860 --> 00:36:40,060
in the Galaxy or in the
universe.

629
00:36:40,460 --> 00:36:44,140
So it seems highly likely that
living systems could have

630
00:36:44,140 --> 00:36:48,300
evolved on those things as well.
Now who knows what they would

631
00:36:48,300 --> 00:36:53,100
look like?
Because there are in our, in our

632
00:36:53,100 --> 00:36:58,020
evolution a series of just
contingent things that happened.

633
00:36:58,620 --> 00:37:03,220
You know that that you know that
DNA was invented saying, you

634
00:37:03,220 --> 00:37:05,620
know, maybe that wouldn't happen
somewhere else with some other

635
00:37:05,620 --> 00:37:11,010
chemistry.
That the the event that led to

636
00:37:11,010 --> 00:37:14,690
the birth of really complex
animals and plants that what we

637
00:37:14,690 --> 00:37:18,490
call eukaryotes was this
symbiotic event where one big

638
00:37:18,490 --> 00:37:21,970
sort of bacterium, you know
engulfed another bacterium which

639
00:37:21,970 --> 00:37:24,890
eventually became mitochondria
the powerhouse of the cell,

640
00:37:25,330 --> 00:37:30,010
which gave these new creatures
enough of an energy surplus to

641
00:37:30,250 --> 00:37:34,170
get genetically complex.
Because genes having a lot of

642
00:37:34,170 --> 00:37:36,930
genes is just energetically
costly.

643
00:37:38,010 --> 00:37:41,410
And bacteria for example, you
have really streamlined genomes

644
00:37:41,410 --> 00:37:44,370
they keep their number of genes
down to a minimum which means

645
00:37:44,370 --> 00:37:49,130
they're they didn't have the the
evolutionary space to explore,

646
00:37:49,210 --> 00:37:52,410
whereas eukaryotics did.
So there's things like that that

647
00:37:52,410 --> 00:37:56,290
happened where, you know it's
hard to say what I mean even if

648
00:37:56,290 --> 00:37:59,690
you reran the tape here on life
it's hard to say that those on

649
00:37:59,690 --> 00:38:01,610
earth, it's hard to say those
would happen again.

650
00:38:01,610 --> 00:38:05,520
So, but yeah, it's a
fascinating, fascinating

651
00:38:05,520 --> 00:38:07,600
question.
Maybe someday we'll we'll we'll

652
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:09,200
find an answer.
At this point it's highly

653
00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:11,840
speculative.
Sorry, I seem to have derailed

654
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:13,400
off the topic completely, but
we.

655
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:17,480
OK, so we've got the story.
So 13.8 billion years universe

656
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:21,840
exists. 4.8 billion years, give
or take, life begins.

657
00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:24,960
And now we go on this journey.
These proto aware, proto

658
00:38:24,960 --> 00:38:27,760
cognitive being start slowly
over the spectrum as we

659
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:31,110
understand it become us.
And we've reached this point,

660
00:38:31,110 --> 00:38:32,710
let's say.
Before we continue, I think

661
00:38:32,710 --> 00:38:33,950
let's define the concepts
quickly.

662
00:38:34,070 --> 00:38:36,990
Let's define free will and
consciousness and how you define

663
00:38:36,990 --> 00:38:39,950
and differentiate between these.
OK.

664
00:38:39,950 --> 00:38:41,310
The easy, the easy ones.
Thanks.

665
00:38:42,510 --> 00:38:43,870
OK.
Well, let me start with free

666
00:38:43,870 --> 00:38:47,230
will.
So the book really, you know,

667
00:38:47,230 --> 00:38:50,870
was prompted by the questions of
whether we have free will and

668
00:38:50,870 --> 00:38:53,270
what does that even mean?
How should we even think about

669
00:38:53,270 --> 00:38:55,150
that?
And and you know, oftentimes

670
00:38:55,150 --> 00:38:57,510
those discussions start with
somebody saying, OK, we'll

671
00:38:57,510 --> 00:38:58,630
define it.
What do you mean by it?

672
00:38:59,570 --> 00:39:03,250
And I resisted doing that
because I don't think we have a

673
00:39:03,250 --> 00:39:04,730
definition that everyone agrees
on.

674
00:39:04,810 --> 00:39:08,490
Part of the the whole
disagreement is I define it one

675
00:39:08,490 --> 00:39:11,450
way, you define it another way.
You say the way I define it is

676
00:39:11,450 --> 00:39:14,170
just doesn't count, and I say
the way you define it is

677
00:39:14,170 --> 00:39:16,890
impossible.
And then, you know you never get

678
00:39:16,890 --> 00:39:19,290
any right.
So what I wanted to do instead

679
00:39:19,290 --> 00:39:27,570
was hope to naturalize the idea.
Hope come to an understanding of

680
00:39:27,570 --> 00:39:30,770
what it of what we're what it
looks like, right What does

681
00:39:30,770 --> 00:39:32,570
freedom entail?
What does the will entail?

682
00:39:32,690 --> 00:39:34,210
What does decision making
entail?

683
00:39:34,450 --> 00:39:39,130
And partly the the the job there
was to connect the philosophical

684
00:39:39,130 --> 00:39:44,210
literature which is usually very
abstract, with what we're coming

685
00:39:44,210 --> 00:39:46,610
to understand about the
neuroscience of decision making

686
00:39:46,970 --> 00:39:48,770
which we're learning.
You know loads and loads and

687
00:39:48,770 --> 00:39:50,570
loads about them.
You would think that the free

688
00:39:50,570 --> 00:39:54,010
will, if you want to understand
how you make choices and decide

689
00:39:54,010 --> 00:39:57,070
between things that that that
would connect with the

690
00:39:57,350 --> 00:40:00,550
literature on decision making.
But it it often doesn't.

691
00:40:01,910 --> 00:40:04,870
So what I wanted to do was
explore that and by the end of

692
00:40:04,870 --> 00:40:07,670
the of the book hopefully come
to a point where we kind of have

693
00:40:07,670 --> 00:40:11,590
an understanding of a picture of
it rather than a definition of

694
00:40:11,590 --> 00:40:14,790
it.
But but let me say, but let's

695
00:40:14,790 --> 00:40:16,390
start rather than with a
definition.

696
00:40:16,390 --> 00:40:19,710
Let's start with the phenomenon.
OK, let's say what are we

697
00:40:19,710 --> 00:40:21,590
observing that we think needs
explained?

698
00:40:23,600 --> 00:40:27,280
And basically, I think what's
what we observe is that we seem

699
00:40:27,280 --> 00:40:30,200
to make decisions.
We seem to decide to do things.

700
00:40:30,640 --> 00:40:32,400
That's our own subjective
experience.

701
00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:34,480
We see other people making
decisions.

702
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:39,560
We feel like we have goals.
We can talk about those goals.

703
00:40:39,720 --> 00:40:42,720
We can we can talk about our
reasons for doing things.

704
00:40:42,880 --> 00:40:44,440
We feel like we do things for
reasons.

705
00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:48,600
Sometimes they're very overt,
deliberative ones that we can

706
00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:51,280
articulate.
Sometimes they're ones where we

707
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:52,880
could say, well, why do they do
that?

708
00:40:53,210 --> 00:40:55,250
And then we realized, oh, Oh
yeah, I was thinking about such

709
00:40:55,250 --> 00:40:58,010
and such, you know, maybe sort
of a subconscious thing, but

710
00:40:58,010 --> 00:41:03,050
still reasoned and even in
simple organisms, we can say a

711
00:41:03,050 --> 00:41:06,450
bacterium has a reason to move
towards a food source.

712
00:41:06,570 --> 00:41:09,170
It's doing that for a reason.
And that's a perfectly

713
00:41:09,210 --> 00:41:12,010
legitimate use of that word, I
think, even if it's not

714
00:41:12,010 --> 00:41:14,810
reasoning as a verb in that
processor.

715
00:41:15,610 --> 00:41:21,320
So.
So for me, what defines free

716
00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:26,120
will in humans as distinct from
what I just call agency in in

717
00:41:26,120 --> 00:41:29,600
other organisms?
Is this conscious aspect of it,

718
00:41:29,640 --> 00:41:31,600
right.
So we can do things for reasons

719
00:41:31,680 --> 00:41:35,400
just like other organisms can,
but we can reason about our

720
00:41:35,400 --> 00:41:38,000
reasons, right?
We can think about our own

721
00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:43,160
thoughts.
So when we when an Organism is

722
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:46,560
you know has some sort of do
doing some cognition about

723
00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:51,360
objects in the world about its
its goals and and you know those

724
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:53,800
are the signals, those are the
objects that are being operated

725
00:41:53,800 --> 00:41:56,520
on cognitive and we do that as
well.

726
00:41:56,520 --> 00:41:58,920
We have the same sort of
circuits that are built there to

727
00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:03,280
carry information about you know
motivation, internal states,

728
00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:08,520
goals, intentions, actions that
we want to complete and so on

729
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:14,340
Percept beliefs et cetera.
But we have another level, and

730
00:42:14,340 --> 00:42:17,740
we have a level that lets us
think about those objects as

731
00:42:17,740 --> 00:42:20,380
objects of cognition, right?
We can think about our own

732
00:42:20,380 --> 00:42:22,580
thoughts.
We have a kind of a reflective

733
00:42:22,580 --> 00:42:25,380
self-awareness.
And I don't want to sound, I

734
00:42:25,380 --> 00:42:28,100
don't want to make it sound like
we this is all solved.

735
00:42:28,100 --> 00:42:30,660
We know how this works.
That's that's just the

736
00:42:30,660 --> 00:42:32,940
phenomenon, right?
The phenomenon is we can think

737
00:42:32,940 --> 00:42:35,580
about our own thoughts and I
know that we can because I'm

738
00:42:35,580 --> 00:42:37,580
telling you my thoughts right
now, right.

739
00:42:37,900 --> 00:42:41,740
So the fact that we can
communicate with each other, in

740
00:42:41,740 --> 00:42:45,820
fact probably is a lot of the
reason why those metacognitive

741
00:42:46,620 --> 00:42:49,420
skills emerged, right.
It's the value of me being able

742
00:42:49,420 --> 00:42:52,620
to think about my thoughts.
I can think about your thoughts.

743
00:42:53,180 --> 00:42:56,020
I can think we can coordinate
our thoughts, we can coordinate

744
00:42:56,020 --> 00:42:59,340
our action, we can communicate
with each other and do some you

745
00:42:59,340 --> 00:43:02,420
know, we can go hunting together
and I could say, wait, you wait

746
00:43:02,420 --> 00:43:04,420
here and I'll go there, right.
So.

747
00:43:04,940 --> 00:43:10,610
So for me, I think the, you
know, the conscious awareness of

748
00:43:10,610 --> 00:43:15,290
our own thoughts, a mental
experience that you can see a

749
00:43:15,290 --> 00:43:19,850
selective value to it as this
sort of highest level of

750
00:43:20,090 --> 00:43:23,770
cognitive control over our
behavior that allows us to plan.

751
00:43:23,970 --> 00:43:29,130
It allows us to think, not just
say, when I did an action, I

752
00:43:29,210 --> 00:43:31,930
mean any Organism has the system
that say when I did an action,

753
00:43:32,130 --> 00:43:35,280
did that turn out well?
And if it did, there's a

754
00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:38,160
reinforcement learning that
means that the next time an

755
00:43:38,160 --> 00:43:41,840
animal is in that same situation
or something similar, that

756
00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:45,320
particular action will be, will
be up, up, weighted as a

757
00:43:45,320 --> 00:43:47,120
possibility relative to all the
others, right.

758
00:43:48,680 --> 00:43:52,400
Or conversely, if it turned out
badly, you can say, OK, well,

759
00:43:52,400 --> 00:43:53,560
I'm not going to do that next
time.

760
00:43:54,520 --> 00:43:56,640
So we do that as well.
But we do something extra.

761
00:43:57,360 --> 00:43:59,520
We can say, well, OK, that
turned out badly.

762
00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:02,240
Why?
Why did it turn out badly?

763
00:44:02,240 --> 00:44:06,320
Was it just a bad thing to do
or, you know, was I did I have

764
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:08,800
the wrong information?
Was my information bad?

765
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:12,280
You know, you can get a kind of
a level of certainty about your

766
00:44:12,440 --> 00:44:16,120
about your own beliefs that
that's super, super useful if

767
00:44:16,120 --> 00:44:19,280
you want to do decision making
because you're getting all the

768
00:44:19,280 --> 00:44:22,480
sort of perceptual information,
you're drawing these inferences

769
00:44:22,480 --> 00:44:25,400
from it.
But some of those inferences may

770
00:44:25,400 --> 00:44:28,320
be very, very certain and some
of them may be a bit more

771
00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:30,240
tenuous.
You know, sort of a possibility.

772
00:44:30,240 --> 00:44:32,760
Maybe there's a lion, maybe I
heard the grass, Russell.

773
00:44:33,240 --> 00:44:36,520
Maybe that was a flick of a
tail, but I'm not sure.

774
00:44:36,560 --> 00:44:39,520
So if I'm really confident, I'm
going to run.

775
00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:43,000
If I'm, you know, I think maybe
it was, I might be a little more

776
00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:45,880
wary, but I'll keep, you know,
grazing or drinking out the

777
00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:50,320
water or whatever.
So, so those sorts of levels,

778
00:44:50,880 --> 00:44:55,640
the ability for metacognition
becomes really, really useful.

779
00:44:55,960 --> 00:44:58,680
And at some point, and this is
the really, really serious

780
00:44:59,440 --> 00:45:03,680
point, becomes what we
experience as conscious

781
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:07,320
subjective experience.
And I don't know why that feels

782
00:45:07,560 --> 00:45:13,240
the way that it does.
I mean, you can talk about why

783
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:16,520
certain things are the contents
of conscious, subjective

784
00:45:16,520 --> 00:45:18,800
experience versus others.
And that's an interesting

785
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:22,520
question, but it doesn't answer
the question of why those

786
00:45:22,880 --> 00:45:25,200
experiences have a certain
qualitative feel to them.

787
00:45:27,120 --> 00:45:30,240
But maybe it's just inevitable
that they do.

788
00:45:30,240 --> 00:45:32,880
Maybe you thinking about
thought, maybe that recursive

789
00:45:33,040 --> 00:45:37,360
architecture just is looking at
itself and that feels like

790
00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:38,720
something.
I don't, I don't know.

791
00:45:39,760 --> 00:45:42,160
But I mean, but what is
interesting and what's a more

792
00:45:42,160 --> 00:45:45,640
sort of scientifically
approachable question is to ask,

793
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:48,520
OK, well what, what are the
contents of of what you're

794
00:45:48,520 --> 00:45:51,680
thinking about, right.
And you're not for example,

795
00:45:52,080 --> 00:45:55,920
thinking about neuron, your
neurons firing, right.

796
00:45:55,920 --> 00:45:58,280
You're not aware of that.
You're not thinking about

797
00:45:58,630 --> 00:46:00,830
photons hitting your retina,
right?

798
00:46:00,830 --> 00:46:03,150
You're not making decisions
based on photons hitting your

799
00:46:03,150 --> 00:46:05,150
retina.
You're making decisions based on

800
00:46:05,150 --> 00:46:08,550
the inferences that have you've
done all this internal

801
00:46:08,550 --> 00:46:11,030
processing about objects in the
world and your knowledge about

802
00:46:11,030 --> 00:46:13,110
them and so on.
Those are the objects of

803
00:46:13,110 --> 00:46:17,750
consciousness, not the not the
lower level neural firing and

804
00:46:17,750 --> 00:46:19,230
information processing that goes
into it.

805
00:46:20,190 --> 00:46:23,350
So it can become interesting to
think, OK, well, what would the

806
00:46:23,350 --> 00:46:29,360
objects of conscious experience
be like in a cat or in a slug or

807
00:46:29,360 --> 00:46:34,440
an insect?
And it's hard to know, although

808
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:37,600
we could say with some certainty
what they couldn't be like,

809
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:40,040
right?
So a nematode can't be thinking

810
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:43,360
about things far away from it
because it has no knowledge, it

811
00:46:43,360 --> 00:46:45,560
has no access for things far
away from.

812
00:46:46,600 --> 00:46:48,320
So.
So I think that's an interesting

813
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:53,080
way to think about consciousness
as a as a as a filter, right.

814
00:46:53,080 --> 00:46:57,610
The sort of high level, the need
to know stuff that's in the all

815
00:46:57,610 --> 00:47:01,930
all sort of pulled together that
the Organism as a whole needs to

816
00:47:01,930 --> 00:47:05,490
have access to at the same time
in order to make the best

817
00:47:05,490 --> 00:47:08,890
decision behaviorally in its
environment right now.

818
00:47:10,770 --> 00:47:13,890
So I think there's a there's a
you can certainly come up with

819
00:47:13,890 --> 00:47:16,650
an you know an evolutionary
rationale for why consciousness

820
00:47:17,370 --> 00:47:20,730
evolved.
Yeah, a bit about why it feels

821
00:47:20,730 --> 00:47:24,680
like anything is is just a
really, well, it's called

822
00:47:24,920 --> 00:47:26,640
literally the hard problem.
So yeah.

823
00:47:27,280 --> 00:47:30,440
I think it's fascinating because
when David Chalmers discussed

824
00:47:30,440 --> 00:47:33,120
this as the hard problem, you
see how years later, it's now

825
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:36,600
become the meta problem.
So it's almost like we're

826
00:47:36,600 --> 00:47:39,440
constantly going to add lasers.
I often find this happens to me.

827
00:47:39,440 --> 00:47:41,520
I mean, my medical degree tells
me that everything you're

828
00:47:41,520 --> 00:47:43,800
saying.
I mean, clearly, I believe it

829
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:47,240
and I know cuz from my studies
it's it makes a lot of sense it

830
00:47:47,440 --> 00:47:49,720
it's practical.
It works, seems to be true.

831
00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:51,880
But then my philosophy degree
constantly makes me ask

832
00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:53,880
questions.
I mean, do you think it often

833
00:47:53,880 --> 00:47:57,160
becomes a battle of semantics at
that point, that there's no

834
00:47:57,160 --> 00:47:59,560
practicality?
I think I saw you tweet Philip

835
00:47:59,560 --> 00:48:02,160
Goff about he's gonna have that
debate soon with Sean Carroll.

836
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:05,440
And you were like, I mean, is
this, is this as going to be as

837
00:48:05,440 --> 00:48:08,360
useful as your theory?
Because it's not useful at all.

838
00:48:08,920 --> 00:48:10,920
Yeah, well, that's a really good
question, right?

839
00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:14,280
So So is the theory.
Is it explanatorily useful?

840
00:48:14,360 --> 00:48:16,480
Does it explain what we needed
to explain?

841
00:48:17,160 --> 00:48:21,640
Does it do any explanatory work,
And does it make any predictions

842
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:22,360
beyond that?
Right.

843
00:48:22,360 --> 00:48:23,840
And that's what a good theory
is.

844
00:48:23,840 --> 00:48:30,040
Now, I don't know if I would
call what I'm what I'm

845
00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:33,160
describing a theory.
Maybe it's a thesis, Maybe it's

846
00:48:33,160 --> 00:48:35,600
a sort of conceptual framework.
I think that's more the way that

847
00:48:35,600 --> 00:48:39,360
I think about it.
But yeah, I mean if you start

848
00:48:39,360 --> 00:48:41,640
with this phenomena that that
that I described at the

849
00:48:41,640 --> 00:48:44,280
beginning, these feelings that
we seem to be doing things and

850
00:48:44,280 --> 00:48:47,600
yet and yet you know physics is
saying well, how could that be?

851
00:48:47,800 --> 00:48:50,600
We atoms are going to do what
the atoms are going to do.

852
00:48:50,840 --> 00:48:53,440
And neuroscience is saying,
well, OK yeah, your beliefs and

853
00:48:53,440 --> 00:48:56,600
desires and goals are all nice,
but these neural firings are are

854
00:48:56,600 --> 00:48:59,080
where the real action is.
You know you're just fooling

855
00:48:59,080 --> 00:49:01,280
yourself if you think your
beliefs are doing any work in

856
00:49:01,280 --> 00:49:02,800
this system.
How could they be?

857
00:49:03,080 --> 00:49:06,680
They is your belief pushing ions
around in ion channel that

858
00:49:06,680 --> 00:49:11,700
that's ridiculous.
So so we have these these

859
00:49:11,700 --> 00:49:13,740
observations, these phenomena we
want to explain.

860
00:49:13,900 --> 00:49:17,780
We have some challenges to them.
And what I hoped to do in the

861
00:49:17,780 --> 00:49:21,500
book was present a framework
that I think meets those

862
00:49:21,500 --> 00:49:25,100
challenges and says, look,
nothing in neuroscience or

863
00:49:25,100 --> 00:49:29,820
physics or psychology or
behavioral genetics rules out

864
00:49:29,820 --> 00:49:33,620
free will of the in in the way
that we're sort of commonly

865
00:49:33,620 --> 00:49:36,400
understanding.
It may rule out the

866
00:49:36,400 --> 00:49:40,320
philosophical abstract,
absolutist version of free will,

867
00:49:40,640 --> 00:49:43,440
which I think is incoherent
actually from the get go.

868
00:49:44,040 --> 00:49:48,400
So if you define free will as
being able to act free,

869
00:49:48,720 --> 00:49:53,000
absolutely free from any prior
cause whatsoever, right.

870
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:56,480
If that's your criterion for
free will, then it's a nothing,

871
00:49:56,520 --> 00:49:59,040
it's a what is that?
What would that look like?

872
00:49:59,040 --> 00:50:02,880
What would an Organism that
behaves in accordance with that

873
00:50:02,880 --> 00:50:07,100
kind of freedom be doing?
It wouldn't be doing would be

874
00:50:07,100 --> 00:50:10,420
acting for any reason.
But if you have a reason, that's

875
00:50:10,420 --> 00:50:13,300
a cause.
If that's a constraint on your

876
00:50:13,300 --> 00:50:14,940
behavior, it's a good
constraint, right?

877
00:50:14,940 --> 00:50:17,620
It's keeping you alive.
If you didn't have those, you

878
00:50:17,620 --> 00:50:21,060
would never be alive, right?
So organisms that just behaved

879
00:50:21,060 --> 00:50:26,180
capriciously or on a whim, you
know, randomly, with no, with no

880
00:50:26,180 --> 00:50:30,820
prior causes, would be acting
with no prior information,

881
00:50:31,260 --> 00:50:32,220
right?
And no constraints.

882
00:50:32,220 --> 00:50:38,130
So, and they wouldn't be, they
wouldn't be selves through time.

883
00:50:38,290 --> 00:50:41,810
I mean, the only thing that
makes us selves through time is

884
00:50:41,810 --> 00:50:46,210
that continuity, right?
That continuity of our genetics

885
00:50:46,250 --> 00:50:51,690
and all our experiences and all
the evolutionary history that we

886
00:50:51,690 --> 00:50:54,210
that, you know, that's our
endowment basically.

887
00:50:54,850 --> 00:50:57,570
And everything we've learned and
all our habits and our policies

888
00:50:57,570 --> 00:51:01,730
and our commitments and our
psychological personality

889
00:51:01,730 --> 00:51:06,750
traits, that's what makes us us.
And yes, those things do

890
00:51:06,750 --> 00:51:09,710
constrain our actions.
They limit our degrees of

891
00:51:09,750 --> 00:51:12,630
freedom.
But they don't say there's no

892
00:51:12,630 --> 00:51:15,750
freedom, right.
They influence our choices.

893
00:51:15,870 --> 00:51:17,590
They don't determine our
choices.

894
00:51:18,790 --> 00:51:22,750
And without those things, there
would be no us, right.

895
00:51:22,750 --> 00:51:25,550
So if you want to say, do we
have free will, Well, the we

896
00:51:25,710 --> 00:51:28,950
part needs to find in that in
that question.

897
00:51:30,910 --> 00:51:34,930
And I think that gets gets sort
of glossed over in some of the

898
00:51:35,010 --> 00:51:37,530
arguments that people make where
they're they're basically asking

899
00:51:37,530 --> 00:51:42,250
for magic, right?
They're asking for a a sort of a

900
00:51:42,250 --> 00:51:47,450
dualist idea.
So well, Robert Sapolsky has a

901
00:51:47,450 --> 00:51:52,250
book out coming out very shortly
called Determined, which

902
00:51:52,290 --> 00:51:55,570
presents the exact opposite view
to the one that I'm articulate.

903
00:51:56,250 --> 00:51:59,850
And his view is that we've got
all these prior influences that

904
00:51:59,850 --> 00:52:02,530
are shaping our brains.
And he's right.

905
00:52:02,530 --> 00:52:09,060
We do, but, but he sees all of
that as just completely

906
00:52:09,060 --> 00:52:11,980
determining our behavior on a
moment to moment basis, whereas

907
00:52:11,980 --> 00:52:16,100
I see it as influencing our
behavior in a useful way and

908
00:52:16,100 --> 00:52:19,660
what he wants.
So he he he wants free will.

909
00:52:19,780 --> 00:52:23,820
He sort of sets a criterion free
will to be something other than

910
00:52:23,860 --> 00:52:30,220
all that biology, which to me is
sort of setting a bar that he

911
00:52:30,220 --> 00:52:34,530
knows is, is incompatible with a
just a materialist, modern view

912
00:52:34,530 --> 00:52:38,610
of the world, right?
It's asking for a dualist

913
00:52:38,610 --> 00:52:41,650
immaterial sold to be in charge,
and nothing less than that will

914
00:52:41,650 --> 00:52:45,250
satisfy.
And it sounds like now I see

915
00:52:45,370 --> 00:52:48,330
free will as a biological
function, right?

916
00:52:48,330 --> 00:52:52,250
So all those systems of decision
making and perception and

917
00:52:52,250 --> 00:52:58,450
cognition and behavioral control
are the machinery that we use to

918
00:52:58,450 --> 00:53:01,140
make decisions.
And you can see that in a

919
00:53:01,140 --> 00:53:03,700
different way.
You can see it as saying all

920
00:53:03,700 --> 00:53:07,060
that nuts and bolts is, is
making the decisions for us,

921
00:53:07,580 --> 00:53:09,300
right?
It's pushing us around.

922
00:53:09,700 --> 00:53:12,620
We're not making the decision.
It is I I don't see it that way.

923
00:53:12,620 --> 00:53:15,100
I see it like that's the
machinery we're using to make

924
00:53:15,100 --> 00:53:18,500
the decisions.
There's nothing else that making

925
00:53:18,500 --> 00:53:22,020
a decision could involve or
entail except some sort of

926
00:53:22,380 --> 00:53:24,340
machinery like that.
And just because we find the

927
00:53:24,340 --> 00:53:30,010
machinery doesn't mean it's just
mechanism and suddenly we're

928
00:53:30,010 --> 00:53:34,290
removed from the scenario.
At some point in your book you

929
00:53:34,290 --> 00:53:37,330
said you said quite eloquently.
I think you say instead of

930
00:53:37,330 --> 00:53:39,210
asking the question what is free
will?

931
00:53:39,330 --> 00:53:42,010
If you just rephrase that a
little bit, you ask why is

932
00:53:42,050 --> 00:53:43,570
sorry, what is life, for
example?

933
00:53:43,930 --> 00:53:46,050
If you just phrase it a little
bit, you say, why is life?

934
00:53:46,050 --> 00:53:48,490
Then you can't come to the
answer of life is why.

935
00:53:49,050 --> 00:53:51,810
Yeah, life is because it can be,
right?

936
00:53:51,810 --> 00:53:55,810
I mean, that's sort of, yeah,
thermodynamically it's possible.

937
00:53:56,290 --> 00:53:57,730
And if it's possible, it'll
happen.

938
00:53:58,750 --> 00:54:01,670
That's the idea.
And and you can say the same

939
00:54:01,670 --> 00:54:03,950
thing for this, this sort of
progression.

940
00:54:03,950 --> 00:54:07,550
I mean, we talked about this,
why did this explosion into the

941
00:54:07,550 --> 00:54:10,390
cognitive niche happen?
Because it could.

942
00:54:10,910 --> 00:54:14,870
And then once it did, it created
new possibilities.

943
00:54:14,870 --> 00:54:16,870
That's, that's, I mean that's
one of the really fascinating

944
00:54:16,870 --> 00:54:20,830
things about evolution.
It's not this predestined path.

945
00:54:21,670 --> 00:54:25,670
It's each step opens up this
realm of new possibilities that

946
00:54:25,670 --> 00:54:31,070
can be new niches that can be
exploited and so on.

947
00:54:31,070 --> 00:54:35,390
So it's a very open-ended
creative kind of endeavor.

948
00:54:36,150 --> 00:54:40,910
Yeah.
And so you know you mentioned a

949
00:54:40,910 --> 00:54:44,070
little while ago your medical
training and and practice,

950
00:54:44,070 --> 00:54:46,950
right.
So one of the areas where this,

951
00:54:47,310 --> 00:54:50,670
these questions about free will
or just cognitive behavioral

952
00:54:50,670 --> 00:54:53,790
control comes into play is it is
of course in medical conditions

953
00:54:54,070 --> 00:54:56,470
like we think about about things
like drug addiction or

954
00:54:56,470 --> 00:55:01,070
compulsions most obviously, but
things like schizophrenia, you

955
00:55:01,070 --> 00:55:04,270
know, dementia, Alzheimer's, you
know, lots of lots of

956
00:55:04,430 --> 00:55:08,990
psychiatric or neurological
conditions where people are not

957
00:55:09,470 --> 00:55:13,430
as in control of their own
actions as people without those

958
00:55:13,430 --> 00:55:16,630
illnesses.
And and for me that's that's

959
00:55:16,630 --> 00:55:20,830
just evidence that there's an
evolved biological apparatus

960
00:55:21,110 --> 00:55:25,310
which allows us to perform these
these, you know, gives us these

961
00:55:25,310 --> 00:55:27,590
capacities of conscious
cognitive control.

962
00:55:28,310 --> 00:55:31,350
And those that apparatus can be
damaged, you know, it can be

963
00:55:31,350 --> 00:55:35,910
damaged by disease.
It it simply varies across

964
00:55:35,910 --> 00:55:37,910
people.
If you look at, you know,

965
00:55:37,910 --> 00:55:42,790
impulse control,
conscientiousness, the ability

966
00:55:42,790 --> 00:55:46,430
to delay gratification, the
ability to plan, keep, keep long

967
00:55:46,430 --> 00:55:50,170
term goals in mind over, you
know, over longer times, those

968
00:55:50,170 --> 00:55:53,050
are all traits that vary between
people just like every other

969
00:55:53,050 --> 00:55:55,730
biological trait does.
And of course they vary across

970
00:55:55,730 --> 00:55:58,530
the lifetime as well.
I mean, babies can't plan,

971
00:55:58,770 --> 00:56:00,290
right?
Babies are just in the moment.

972
00:56:00,450 --> 00:56:02,490
They're either hungry or not.
They're happier, they're not,

973
00:56:03,410 --> 00:56:07,170
but they develop those things.
So again, it's a it's a

974
00:56:07,170 --> 00:56:13,770
biological capacity that we can
watch evolve in in real time, in

975
00:56:13,770 --> 00:56:15,610
our children, you know, in in
babies.

976
00:56:16,570 --> 00:56:19,770
And of course we have to work at
it, right?

977
00:56:19,770 --> 00:56:22,250
Those are skills as well.
They don't just, they don't just

978
00:56:22,250 --> 00:56:26,050
magically appear, they they take
practice like any other skill.

979
00:56:26,490 --> 00:56:31,290
You know, the ability of of
impulse control is a learned

980
00:56:31,570 --> 00:56:34,730
skill that has to be practiced
over time and it's one that you

981
00:56:34,730 --> 00:56:38,970
know that we instruct our
children in because it's a pro

982
00:56:38,970 --> 00:56:42,130
social sort of a thing is being
able to not just act on every

983
00:56:42,130 --> 00:56:48,360
impulse that you have.
So all of that to me is just the

984
00:56:48,840 --> 00:56:52,920
reinforces the framing of free
will as a biological capacity

985
00:56:52,920 --> 00:56:55,280
that we can think about in a
naturalized way.

986
00:56:55,560 --> 00:56:58,400
It doesn't have to be
mysterious, it doesn't have to

987
00:56:58,400 --> 00:57:02,560
be mystical or invoke any kind
of immaterial dualist soul or

988
00:57:02,560 --> 00:57:07,360
spirit or anything like that.
But at the same time, it gets us

989
00:57:07,360 --> 00:57:11,360
away from, you know, real
hardcore sort of physical

990
00:57:11,360 --> 00:57:16,710
predeterminism or reductionism
where you're just sort of

991
00:57:16,790 --> 00:57:20,790
eliminating cognitive things
like beliefs and desires and so

992
00:57:20,790 --> 00:57:24,350
on from your ontology of what's
in the world.

993
00:57:25,270 --> 00:57:26,550
Yeah.
One thing I like about your

994
00:57:26,550 --> 00:57:29,710
approach is you try and avoid a
sort of extremist view on most

995
00:57:29,710 --> 00:57:33,030
things.
Actually, you often you try and

996
00:57:33,030 --> 00:57:35,110
find that balance and it's
something that you can clearly

997
00:57:35,110 --> 00:57:37,510
tell from your book.
I mean, at some point, before we

998
00:57:37,510 --> 00:57:40,270
move on to the naturalistic
framework of free world, let's

999
00:57:40,270 --> 00:57:42,540
discuss the.
Hard determinism versus soft

1000
00:57:42,540 --> 00:57:45,220
determinism, Talk about that.
Like Dennis, I mean, he had just

1001
00:57:45,220 --> 00:57:47,660
desserts with Greg Caruso.
I had him on the show.

1002
00:57:47,660 --> 00:57:50,140
I mean, we spoke about it.
He even mentioned psychiatric

1003
00:57:50,140 --> 00:57:52,380
disorders.
And then to him, I mean, that

1004
00:57:52,380 --> 00:57:56,060
would just sort of solidify the
fact that we don't have it or

1005
00:57:56,700 --> 00:57:57,740
there isn't.
Anything.

1006
00:57:58,060 --> 00:58:01,680
So, yeah, it's really
interesting to see that, you

1007
00:58:01,680 --> 00:58:04,040
know, it's quite common I think
for people to look at the same

1008
00:58:04,200 --> 00:58:06,960
data and draw very different
conclusions.

1009
00:58:07,040 --> 00:58:09,680
And like I said, I see that as
evidence that it is a biological

1010
00:58:09,680 --> 00:58:12,320
trait because it's clearly
varying and you can be affected

1011
00:58:12,320 --> 00:58:16,280
by these illnesses that affect,
you know, particular parts of

1012
00:58:16,280 --> 00:58:21,720
the brain and so on.
So, yeah, I mean, what I try to

1013
00:58:21,720 --> 00:58:25,600
do, if you, if you look at the
literature on free will, there's

1014
00:58:25,600 --> 00:58:29,300
a few sort of challenges to free
will that are really different

1015
00:58:29,300 --> 00:58:31,780
things, but they often get
conflated and mixed together.

1016
00:58:32,620 --> 00:58:37,340
And so at the very, very base
level, well, let's go in reverse

1017
00:58:37,340 --> 00:58:40,340
order.
You can say, first of all, like

1018
00:58:40,340 --> 00:58:41,980
I'm wired a certain way.
Why?

1019
00:58:41,980 --> 00:58:44,420
Because of my genes, because of
the way my brain develops,

1020
00:58:45,060 --> 00:58:47,580
because of all the experiences
that I've had and all the

1021
00:58:47,580 --> 00:58:49,780
learning that's going on.
But right now, my brain is

1022
00:58:49,780 --> 00:58:54,660
configured in a certain way and
those configurations entail my

1023
00:58:54,660 --> 00:58:59,950
preferences for behavior.
So am I really free?

1024
00:58:59,950 --> 00:59:02,190
I mean, I did, I choose, I did I
choose any of that stuff?

1025
00:59:02,230 --> 00:59:05,030
Not really.
That's a bunch of prior causes

1026
00:59:05,030 --> 00:59:10,550
that's constraining what I will
tend to do, at least to put it

1027
00:59:10,550 --> 00:59:12,950
in the least deterministic
sounding way.

1028
00:59:13,990 --> 00:59:15,470
So.
So we've got sort of that.

1029
00:59:15,470 --> 00:59:17,790
We've got evidence from
behavioral genetics, evidence

1030
00:59:17,790 --> 00:59:22,230
from psychology just of, I mean,
going back to Freud of yeah, we

1031
00:59:22,230 --> 00:59:25,580
have subconscious impulses.
We don't always have access to

1032
00:59:25,580 --> 00:59:27,500
them.
Lots of our things that we do

1033
00:59:27,780 --> 00:59:30,380
are motivated by things that
we're not aware of.

1034
00:59:31,620 --> 00:59:34,340
Now you can take that too far.
You can take that to mean we're

1035
00:59:34,340 --> 00:59:37,700
never aware of anything that
doesn't follow from the fact

1036
00:59:37,700 --> 00:59:39,780
that we're sometimes not aware
of everything.

1037
00:59:41,820 --> 00:59:44,340
So OK, but you've got sort of,
you know, concerns from

1038
00:59:44,340 --> 00:59:46,380
psychology and behavioral
genetics.

1039
00:59:46,820 --> 00:59:50,140
But we're wired a certain way
which will just mean we'll have

1040
00:59:50,140 --> 00:59:54,750
beliefs and desires and and
intentions that we really didn't

1041
00:59:54,870 --> 00:59:58,870
decide to have.
So we're not completely free.

1042
00:59:59,510 --> 01:00:02,030
But there's a level below that
which is the sort of level of

1043
01:00:02,030 --> 01:00:05,830
really of neural reductionism
which says, guys, please, all

1044
01:00:05,830 --> 01:00:08,910
your all these psychological
terms, they're they're cute and

1045
01:00:08,910 --> 01:00:10,750
all, but really it's just neural
circuits firing.

1046
01:00:10,790 --> 01:00:12,270
Look, I can stick an electrode
in here.

1047
01:00:12,470 --> 01:00:15,630
I can, I can do my optogenetic
experiments and animals.

1048
01:00:15,630 --> 01:00:20,990
I can make it sit up, roll over,
hunt, sleep, mate.

1049
01:00:20,990 --> 01:00:24,670
I can change its cognitive.
You know, decision making, I can

1050
01:00:24,670 --> 01:00:26,990
make it more confident.
I can make it more impulsive.

1051
01:00:27,630 --> 01:00:30,750
We're laying bare the machinery.
What more do you want?

1052
01:00:30,790 --> 01:00:33,910
It's just machinery.
And there's a bunch of people

1053
01:00:33,910 --> 01:00:36,310
who would say that.
I mean, Francis Crick famously

1054
01:00:36,310 --> 01:00:40,390
had a quote that really sort of
lays that out, that you are just

1055
01:00:40,590 --> 01:00:43,630
are, are no more than the firing
of all these neurons, right?

1056
01:00:43,910 --> 01:00:46,830
Everything about you, your joys,
your sorrows, your memories is

1057
01:00:46,830 --> 01:00:49,710
no more than that.
All that sort of firing of

1058
01:00:49,710 --> 01:00:56,010
neurons, So that's a sort of
eliminated cognition and

1059
01:00:56,010 --> 01:00:58,890
psychology altogether.
But once you start going down

1060
01:00:59,090 --> 01:01:04,010
that reductionist ladder, there
doesn't seem to be a principled

1061
01:01:04,610 --> 01:01:07,970
point at which to stop, right?
Why stop at the level of neurons

1062
01:01:07,970 --> 01:01:10,290
firing?
Why not just say it's molecules

1063
01:01:10,490 --> 01:01:12,290
whizzing about?
Why not say it's biochemistry?

1064
01:01:12,730 --> 01:01:15,530
Because all the electrical stuff
is electrochemistry at the end

1065
01:01:15,530 --> 01:01:17,420
of the day.
And if you go down there, why

1066
01:01:17,420 --> 01:01:19,580
not say, well, look, that's just
physics, right?

1067
01:01:19,780 --> 01:01:22,180
You're talking about atoms and
molecules whizzing around.

1068
01:01:22,820 --> 01:01:24,700
They're controlled by the laws
of physics.

1069
01:01:25,020 --> 01:01:27,220
How could your thoughts push
atoms around?

1070
01:01:27,620 --> 01:01:29,860
That's ridiculous.
It's just absurd to even think

1071
01:01:29,860 --> 01:01:33,660
that they could, right?
And in fact, nothing could

1072
01:01:33,860 --> 01:01:37,220
except the basic forces of
physics that we know about at

1073
01:01:37,220 --> 01:01:40,460
the, you know, the level of
standard model of quantum

1074
01:01:40,460 --> 01:01:42,260
mechanics and relativity and so
on.

1075
01:01:43,900 --> 01:01:45,220
So.
So there are people who would

1076
01:01:45,220 --> 01:01:49,740
say that, yeah, physics is just
completely deterministic.

1077
01:01:50,260 --> 01:01:51,940
There's only one possible
future.

1078
01:01:52,700 --> 01:01:55,340
There was only one past.
It was always going to be that

1079
01:01:55,340 --> 01:01:57,620
way.
There's no jiggling, there's no

1080
01:01:57,620 --> 01:02:00,860
swerving, There's no randomness
or indeterminacy ever.

1081
01:02:01,140 --> 01:02:04,100
That that really is important.
And everything is just sort of

1082
01:02:04,140 --> 01:02:06,700
classically is determined at the
classical level, at least that

1083
01:02:06,700 --> 01:02:10,340
we're on.
And so I tackle that in the

1084
01:02:10,340 --> 01:02:14,340
book, and I'm just going to say
for brevity here that that's

1085
01:02:14,340 --> 01:02:16,970
wrong.
So the world is not

1086
01:02:16,970 --> 01:02:19,890
deterministic.
I mean, quantum physics has

1087
01:02:19,890 --> 01:02:24,010
shown us that, but but the
classical world only sort of

1088
01:02:24,010 --> 01:02:26,610
mathematically works in a
deterministic way.

1089
01:02:26,610 --> 01:02:29,170
If you take some mathematical
abstractions and assumptions

1090
01:02:29,170 --> 01:02:31,770
which actually don't couldn't
possibly hold in the physical

1091
01:02:31,810 --> 01:02:34,370
world.
I'll leave that as a teaser

1092
01:02:34,370 --> 01:02:36,290
because it's it's a deep hole to
get into.

1093
01:02:36,810 --> 01:02:40,010
Yeah, it's sorry.
No, sorry.

1094
01:02:40,010 --> 01:02:41,970
I just wanted to say so That's
what I call physical

1095
01:02:41,970 --> 01:02:44,650
predeterminism.
The idea that there, there,

1096
01:02:44,810 --> 01:02:47,290
look, there's only one future
possible because physics says

1097
01:02:47,290 --> 01:02:49,130
so.
So what are you talking about?

1098
01:02:49,130 --> 01:02:51,770
Choices and possibilities.
That's they.

1099
01:02:51,770 --> 01:02:54,650
They couldn't possibly exist.
There can be no action.

1100
01:02:54,970 --> 01:02:56,930
There's no doings.
There's just happening.

1101
01:02:57,330 --> 01:03:00,770
And what happens is what was
going to happen, you know, so.

1102
01:03:01,170 --> 01:03:03,330
So the whole, the whole argument
becomes moot.

1103
01:03:03,330 --> 01:03:08,390
If that's true now, thankfully I
think it's not true, then the

1104
01:03:08,390 --> 01:03:13,750
the neural reductionism one is.
An interesting 11 way out of

1105
01:03:13,750 --> 01:03:19,110
that is to ask, OK well if you
think all the causal power is

1106
01:03:19,110 --> 01:03:21,790
down here in these low level
details of all these neurons

1107
01:03:21,790 --> 01:03:26,390
firing, if that were true then
if I change some of the details

1108
01:03:26,390 --> 01:03:30,230
of the low level neurons firing,
then the behavior should change.

1109
01:03:30,870 --> 01:03:33,590
I don't mean if all the causal
power is down here then the

1110
01:03:33,590 --> 01:03:36,270
details should be where the
where the information is that's

1111
01:03:36,270 --> 01:03:38,840
relevant to how the system
evolves.

1112
01:03:39,720 --> 01:03:41,360
And actually you can show that's
not true.

1113
01:03:41,360 --> 01:03:43,160
That's not the way our nervous
system works.

1114
01:03:43,160 --> 01:03:46,120
We talked earlier about the
energetic costs of sending

1115
01:03:46,120 --> 01:03:49,400
information and in fact what
happens is you send information

1116
01:03:49,400 --> 01:03:52,640
from 1 neuron to another is a
lot of that information is is

1117
01:03:52,640 --> 01:03:58,400
lost or better put its its
filter or actually it's

1118
01:03:58,400 --> 01:04:01,200
integrated because you don't
ever have a situation where

1119
01:04:01,200 --> 01:04:03,600
you've just got one neuron
connects to another neuron,

1120
01:04:04,000 --> 01:04:07,410
you've got this neuron here
monitoring loads of inputs,

1121
01:04:07,810 --> 01:04:09,890
right?
And So what it's doing is taking

1122
01:04:09,890 --> 01:04:12,770
some information from each of
these inputs and it's

1123
01:04:12,810 --> 01:04:17,850
integrating it to create a new
level of information that

1124
01:04:17,850 --> 01:04:22,290
doesn't exist in these guys
until this guy integrates it.

1125
01:04:24,170 --> 01:04:28,770
And that's a a different way of
thinking about what's happening

1126
01:04:28,770 --> 01:04:30,610
in the nervous system.
We tend to think of 1 neuron

1127
01:04:30,610 --> 01:04:33,130
driving another this forward
way.

1128
01:04:33,540 --> 01:04:36,820
Well, I think it's better to
think of each neuron as looking

1129
01:04:36,820 --> 01:04:41,140
backwards right at its inputs
and making a kind of a decision,

1130
01:04:41,340 --> 01:04:44,540
right?
It's doing some computation to

1131
01:04:44,540 --> 01:04:47,300
say, OK, well, if enough of my
inputs are firing at the same

1132
01:04:47,300 --> 01:04:50,500
time, then I should fire, but if
only that guy's firing, then I

1133
01:04:50,500 --> 01:04:52,300
won't, right?
So that information's lost.

1134
01:04:53,380 --> 01:04:56,020
So it turns out that a lot of
those details, right the the

1135
01:04:56,020 --> 01:05:02,230
meaningful, the meaningful
causal units, if you will, in

1136
01:05:02,230 --> 01:05:06,110
the nervous system are mostly
patterns of activity, their

1137
01:05:06,350 --> 01:05:09,910
rates of firing over some period
of time, not not each spike.

1138
01:05:09,910 --> 01:05:12,150
It doesn't matter what the
pattern of spikes is.

1139
01:05:12,150 --> 01:05:16,190
It matters that there's X amount
per 10 milliseconds or 100

1140
01:05:16,190 --> 01:05:17,910
milliseconds or whatever the
window is, right.

1141
01:05:18,990 --> 01:05:22,870
Or in big populations of
neurons, it doesn't matter all

1142
01:05:22,870 --> 01:05:24,990
of the details of 1000 neurons
firing.

1143
01:05:25,350 --> 01:05:29,100
It matters what pattern, what
global pattern those neurons

1144
01:05:29,100 --> 01:05:31,980
fall into.
And there may be some what in

1145
01:05:31,980 --> 01:05:35,060
dynamical systems theories
called the tractor states, so,

1146
01:05:35,140 --> 01:05:38,460
so global patterns where the
population can be in this state

1147
01:05:38,740 --> 01:05:41,420
or that state but not any other
state, right?

1148
01:05:41,500 --> 01:05:43,820
Those are the only sort of
stable dynamic states it can be

1149
01:05:43,820 --> 01:05:45,900
in.
And then you've got another

1150
01:05:45,900 --> 01:05:48,980
population of neurons that's
asking is it in state A or state

1151
01:05:48,980 --> 01:05:51,180
B?
And that, whether it's in state

1152
01:05:51,180 --> 01:05:55,380
A or B, is a criterion that's
configured into the circuitry

1153
01:05:55,540 --> 01:05:57,820
for whether this population of
neurons does something or not.

1154
01:05:58,980 --> 01:06:03,740
So the meaningful patterns in
the nervous system are, sorry,

1155
01:06:03,740 --> 01:06:06,620
the meaning is in the patterns
of activity, and the causal

1156
01:06:06,620 --> 01:06:10,020
power is in the meaning.
But it's the exact opposite.

1157
01:06:10,340 --> 01:06:12,420
It's the exact opposite of
neural reductions.

1158
01:06:12,860 --> 01:06:15,380
Rather than saying, look, all
these, you know, beliefs and

1159
01:06:16,180 --> 01:06:20,300
desires, all the all the sort of
cognitive meaning and content of

1160
01:06:20,300 --> 01:06:23,540
those of those representations
is an epiphenomenon.

1161
01:06:23,980 --> 01:06:25,540
What matters is the neural
machinery.

1162
01:06:25,620 --> 01:06:29,420
No, it's the opposite.
The neural machinery operates on

1163
01:06:29,420 --> 01:06:32,780
meaningful patterns.
That's its job is to infer

1164
01:06:33,020 --> 01:06:35,660
there's an object out there and
it's an apple and I know about

1165
01:06:35,660 --> 01:06:37,540
apples, right?
Those are meaningful states.

1166
01:06:38,460 --> 01:06:43,700
So, So that's a an inversion I
think of of the neural

1167
01:06:43,700 --> 01:06:46,340
reductionism and actually what
it says is, look, actually the

1168
01:06:46,340 --> 01:06:50,020
details of the neural
instantiation are somewhat

1169
01:06:50,020 --> 01:06:52,580
arbitrary and they can change
from moment to moment.

1170
01:06:52,580 --> 01:06:56,830
That just doesn't matter.
The details down that level are

1171
01:06:56,830 --> 01:06:59,630
not where the causal power is.
It's the patterns that have the

1172
01:06:59,630 --> 01:07:03,310
causal power because they mean
something to the Organism, but

1173
01:07:03,310 --> 01:07:08,790
they've been configured through
its experience to be used to

1174
01:07:08,790 --> 01:07:11,830
inform action in an adaptive
way.

1175
01:07:12,630 --> 01:07:15,990
So yeah, I don't know if that
answered your question cuz now I

1176
01:07:15,990 --> 01:07:18,590
forgot what the question was.
No, no, it's fine.

1177
01:07:18,590 --> 01:07:21,070
I think in the meanwhile, let's
stick with the neuroscience

1178
01:07:21,070 --> 01:07:23,030
behind this.
And at some point in your book

1179
01:07:23,030 --> 01:07:24,550
you mentioned the fact that
there's certain.

1180
01:07:25,000 --> 01:07:28,520
Authors or scientists from the
past like Sax, Kazaniga,

1181
01:07:28,920 --> 01:07:32,240
Ramachandran, Damasio, who sort
of set this baseline thought

1182
01:07:32,240 --> 01:07:35,680
process for all of us where when
we go into this with the with

1183
01:07:35,680 --> 01:07:39,240
the thought that OK, certain
neuro neural processes work in a

1184
01:07:39,240 --> 01:07:42,920
certain way at some point it it
slowly leads you into this

1185
01:07:43,160 --> 01:07:45,280
thought that we're not in full
control.

1186
01:07:45,400 --> 01:07:47,880
There is no real agency going on
here.

1187
01:07:47,880 --> 01:07:50,120
And then you've got experiments.
I mean, on the one side, you've

1188
01:07:50,120 --> 01:07:53,040
got theoretical thoughts like
Hawking.

1189
01:07:53,550 --> 01:07:56,910
Offsetter and then on the other
side you've got the practical 1,

1190
01:07:56,910 --> 01:08:00,710
so Libt, Penfield, etc.
Do you want to go through the

1191
01:08:00,710 --> 01:08:03,310
differences of these and how
with those experiments you're

1192
01:08:03,310 --> 01:08:06,270
able to change the conclusion
that you make?

1193
01:08:08,870 --> 01:08:11,990
Yeah.
So OK, so we've got two sort of

1194
01:08:11,990 --> 01:08:14,590
things that one of the
neurological kind of evidence

1195
01:08:14,590 --> 01:08:16,990
and maybe I'll park that for the
moment, but let's come back to

1196
01:08:16,990 --> 01:08:17,910
it because it's really
interesting.

1197
01:08:18,069 --> 01:08:20,790
But let's start with these
famous LIBT experiments, which I

1198
01:08:20,790 --> 01:08:23,600
think are just really, really
overblown.

1199
01:08:23,600 --> 01:08:27,399
Really, really over interpreted.
So there's a scenario, your

1200
01:08:27,399 --> 01:08:30,120
listeners may be familiar with
it, but basically you're sitting

1201
01:08:30,120 --> 01:08:32,600
in a the the subject is sitting
in a chair.

1202
01:08:32,800 --> 01:08:35,920
Their job is simply to move
their hand like this whenever

1203
01:08:35,920 --> 01:08:38,840
they feel like it, right?
They've been explicitly told on

1204
01:08:38,840 --> 01:08:40,920
a whim.
Whenever the urge takes, you

1205
01:08:41,240 --> 01:08:46,520
just flick your wrist like that.
They have a device that measures

1206
01:08:46,520 --> 01:08:51,149
when they flick their wrist and
they're wearing an EEG electron

1207
01:08:51,149 --> 01:08:56,149
keflogram that's recording brain
waves and that in particular can

1208
01:08:56,149 --> 01:09:00,390
detect the activity over both
the the motor cortex which is

1209
01:09:00,390 --> 01:09:03,710
sort of sending signals, but
also the pre motor cortex which

1210
01:09:03,710 --> 01:09:06,430
is an area for planning to to do
an action.

1211
01:09:07,510 --> 01:09:08,870
So.
So you're getting some

1212
01:09:08,870 --> 01:09:11,630
information from the subject of
when they move their wrist just

1213
01:09:11,630 --> 01:09:14,510
on a whim, getting information
about their brain, recording.

1214
01:09:14,510 --> 01:09:17,720
And then you're also asking the
subject to do something else.

1215
01:09:17,720 --> 01:09:22,880
So they're looking at a clock,
and you're asking them to record

1216
01:09:22,960 --> 01:09:26,960
in their mind on the clock where
where the hand was when they

1217
01:09:26,960 --> 01:09:32,840
first felt the urge to move.
And So what happens is you can

1218
01:09:32,840 --> 01:09:36,279
see there's a a preparatory
brain activity prior to the

1219
01:09:36,279 --> 01:09:37,880
movement, right?
That's good.

1220
01:09:38,000 --> 01:09:39,760
Happens before the movement.
That makes sense.

1221
01:09:40,640 --> 01:09:43,520
There's a feeling of wanting to
move before the movement.

1222
01:09:43,680 --> 01:09:46,920
That's good too.
The, the, the confusing thing,

1223
01:09:46,920 --> 01:09:51,720
surprisingly, was the feeling to
want to move was after the

1224
01:09:51,720 --> 01:09:54,560
preparatory activity seemed to
start right.

1225
01:09:54,920 --> 01:09:57,520
So the idea, right, the
conclusion was you could see

1226
01:09:57,520 --> 01:10:01,520
this activity ramping up in this
particular part of the brain,

1227
01:10:01,600 --> 01:10:05,320
the supplementary motor area,
prior to even the subject

1228
01:10:05,320 --> 01:10:07,600
becoming aware that they felt
like they wanted to move.

1229
01:10:08,480 --> 01:10:11,720
And prior to the movement, the
conclusion was that the brain

1230
01:10:11,720 --> 01:10:17,120
was deciding and just telling
the subject the the conscious

1231
01:10:17,120 --> 01:10:21,600
self afterwards, just informing
us afterwards about this

1232
01:10:21,600 --> 01:10:22,960
decision.
And then it was basically

1233
01:10:22,960 --> 01:10:26,160
controlling the decision.
Now there's a whole load of

1234
01:10:27,680 --> 01:10:32,320
counter arguments to that.
The 1st is simply that who gives

1235
01:10:32,320 --> 01:10:35,280
a shit, right?
Like you're not, this is not,

1236
01:10:35,800 --> 01:10:38,040
this is not a deliberative
decision.

1237
01:10:38,040 --> 01:10:41,280
You literally told them to do it
whenever the urge takes them,

1238
01:10:41,280 --> 01:10:45,090
right?
So if if they just decided to

1239
01:10:45,090 --> 01:10:50,130
let some system in their brain
do a mental coin toss, then

1240
01:10:50,130 --> 01:10:52,250
great.
Like actually we have systems to

1241
01:10:52,250 --> 01:10:55,490
do that that like a lot of times
we don't have a good reason to

1242
01:10:55,490 --> 01:10:57,770
do one thing or another, but we
have a good reason to do

1243
01:10:57,770 --> 01:11:01,970
something as opposed to just
being undecided, right.

1244
01:11:02,370 --> 01:11:07,290
So many animals have a kind of a
tiebreaker system that just

1245
01:11:07,290 --> 01:11:09,690
says, OK, I've got 22 choices or
more.

1246
01:11:10,030 --> 01:11:12,070
I don't really care.
I don't have enough information

1247
01:11:12,070 --> 01:11:15,830
to make a an informed decision.
So I'll just but I need to do

1248
01:11:15,830 --> 01:11:18,750
one of them.
So let me just pick one.

1249
01:11:19,150 --> 01:11:21,510
So maybe that's what's
happening.

1250
01:11:22,310 --> 01:11:24,830
And in fact, there's some,
there's some evidence that that

1251
01:11:24,830 --> 01:11:29,510
really there's some randomness
in those brain circuits and

1252
01:11:29,510 --> 01:11:32,870
there's a kind of an accumulator
that allows a little bit of

1253
01:11:32,870 --> 01:11:36,470
activity to reinforce itself in
those circuits so that you can

1254
01:11:36,470 --> 01:11:40,110
kind of ramp up until you reach
a threshold at which you

1255
01:11:40,110 --> 01:11:42,510
initiate an action.
And in fact, another way of

1256
01:11:42,510 --> 01:11:45,670
analyzing the very same data
suggests that that's exactly

1257
01:11:45,670 --> 01:11:49,550
what's happening, because this
gets a bit technical.

1258
01:11:49,550 --> 01:11:52,790
But if you, in order to see
those traces, there's so much

1259
01:11:52,790 --> 01:11:55,750
background activity that you
have to do many, many

1260
01:11:55,750 --> 01:11:58,110
recordings, right, many, many
instances of this.

1261
01:11:58,110 --> 01:12:01,790
And then you have to line them
all up so that you can see this

1262
01:12:01,790 --> 01:12:04,110
ramping up of activity over the
general hubbub.

1263
01:12:05,440 --> 01:12:08,080
So why, how do you, what do you
line them up to the point of

1264
01:12:08,080 --> 01:12:10,040
decision, the point of movement,
right?

1265
01:12:10,280 --> 01:12:12,840
And then you see every time
someone made a movement, there

1266
01:12:12,840 --> 01:12:14,960
was this ramping of a of a
activity.

1267
01:12:15,080 --> 01:12:19,880
And it makes it look like the
urge started here because it's

1268
01:12:19,880 --> 01:12:23,200
always followed by the movement.
But of course it is because you,

1269
01:12:23,320 --> 01:12:25,840
you locked it to cases where a
movement happened.

1270
01:12:26,320 --> 01:12:29,120
If you don't do that, then what
you see instead if you just have

1271
01:12:29,120 --> 01:12:33,040
some arbitrary time lock, time
stamp and you lock them to that,

1272
01:12:33,200 --> 01:12:35,730
what you see instead is that,
well, you've got activity

1273
01:12:35,730 --> 01:12:39,330
ramping up and down and up and
down there all the time.

1274
01:12:39,330 --> 01:12:41,450
So you can have little blips
that look like the start of

1275
01:12:41,450 --> 01:12:44,130
that, what's called the
readiness potential that never

1276
01:12:44,130 --> 01:12:47,050
amount to anything, right.
So the decision is not actually

1277
01:12:47,050 --> 01:12:51,410
taken here, It's taken when the
threshold is met, which is

1278
01:12:51,410 --> 01:12:56,210
exactly when the people saying
they feel the urge to do it and

1279
01:12:56,570 --> 01:12:59,530
it's a point at which they can
still veto it if they wanted to.

1280
01:13:00,650 --> 01:13:02,690
So they still had conscious
cognitive control.

1281
01:13:03,310 --> 01:13:05,190
They really were just letting
their brain do it because they

1282
01:13:05,190 --> 01:13:06,910
didn't care.
And in fact, there's another

1283
01:13:06,910 --> 01:13:10,030
scenario, really nice
experiments done by Yuri Mausa

1284
01:13:10,150 --> 01:13:14,510
and Viet Libert recently where
they did the same setup of

1285
01:13:14,510 --> 01:13:18,790
recording, but instead of just a
whimsical decision, it was a

1286
01:13:18,790 --> 01:13:21,430
decision that people cared about
that they were they were

1287
01:13:21,430 --> 01:13:23,750
choosing between charities that
were going to get money that

1288
01:13:23,750 --> 01:13:26,350
they cared about.
And there you don't see this

1289
01:13:26,390 --> 01:13:30,070
locking to this random event
because they're not using that

1290
01:13:30,070 --> 01:13:31,950
randomness to just make a
decision.

1291
01:13:33,460 --> 01:13:37,580
So yeah, so I think those limit
experiments just mostly just

1292
01:13:37,580 --> 01:13:39,340
don't bear on the question at
all.

1293
01:13:40,780 --> 01:13:43,900
But if they do, they don't mean
what people have taken them to.

1294
01:13:44,340 --> 01:13:47,020
Me at all limits become like the
Descartes for consciousness

1295
01:13:47,140 --> 01:13:48,740
within the free will
conversation.

1296
01:13:48,740 --> 01:13:52,980
I mean it's it's, yeah, it is.
And actually a paper just came

1297
01:13:52,980 --> 01:13:57,620
out like 2-2 or three days ago
that also suggested that in

1298
01:13:57,620 --> 01:14:01,800
those experiments, this, this,
asking the subject to look at

1299
01:14:01,800 --> 01:14:05,280
the clock and and tell you when
they felt the urge to move is

1300
01:14:05,280 --> 01:14:08,600
actually as a learned skill,
right during the course of an

1301
01:14:08,600 --> 01:14:11,640
experiment.
They they get better at it or

1302
01:14:12,040 --> 01:14:14,400
there's some practice effects in
it that actually call into

1303
01:14:14,400 --> 01:14:18,640
question the data themselves,
not just the interpretation of

1304
01:14:18,640 --> 01:14:23,160
the data.
So anyway, yeah, I always get a

1305
01:14:23,200 --> 01:14:25,560
tired sort of talking about that
because I just, I mean, it's

1306
01:14:25,560 --> 01:14:27,800
important, right?
Because it's out there and

1307
01:14:27,800 --> 01:14:31,920
people think it's really crucial
information and it just, it just

1308
01:14:31,920 --> 01:14:35,080
isn't.
But it does bring us back to the

1309
01:14:35,080 --> 01:14:37,360
neurological thing because
there's an implication from

1310
01:14:37,360 --> 01:14:40,240
Libits experience that your
brain is deciding and then it's

1311
01:14:40,240 --> 01:14:43,840
telling you.
And so some of the neurology

1312
01:14:43,840 --> 01:14:46,200
literature, like from Oliver
Oliver Sacks and Michael

1313
01:14:46,200 --> 01:14:52,360
Gazzanigan, people like that
kind of has the same view,

1314
01:14:52,360 --> 01:14:54,320
right?
So you can have people who have

1315
01:14:54,320 --> 01:14:58,230
a stroke or people who've had
like, you know, split brain

1316
01:14:58,270 --> 01:15:00,950
experiments because they're for
for surgery, for epilepsy and so

1317
01:15:00,950 --> 01:15:04,270
on, where things are happening
in their brains that they're not

1318
01:15:04,270 --> 01:15:08,550
aware of.
And what's often interesting is

1319
01:15:08,550 --> 01:15:12,190
that when they do something,
they take some some action and

1320
01:15:12,190 --> 01:15:13,950
then you ask them why they did
it.

1321
01:15:14,310 --> 01:15:17,070
They're not aware of why, right.
They don't have access to that

1322
01:15:17,070 --> 01:15:19,190
reason.
But they won't tell you that

1323
01:15:19,950 --> 01:15:23,470
they won't often, often won't
just admit that they don't know

1324
01:15:23,510 --> 01:15:26,110
or they they'll make up
something like they'll make up

1325
01:15:26,110 --> 01:15:30,630
some story they confabulate.
And so people have taken that.

1326
01:15:30,670 --> 01:15:34,350
It's a really robust finding and
a really robust clinical

1327
01:15:35,150 --> 01:15:37,670
finding.
But people have taken that to to

1328
01:15:37,670 --> 01:15:43,230
mean that actually we never know
what's going on and we always

1329
01:15:43,230 --> 01:15:46,710
confabulate and our brain always
decides and then tells us and

1330
01:15:46,710 --> 01:15:50,230
then we do some post hoc
rationalization that bears

1331
01:15:50,270 --> 01:15:53,070
little resemblance to the actual
reasons that we had for doing

1332
01:15:53,070 --> 01:15:54,820
things.
And I just don't think that

1333
01:15:54,820 --> 01:15:57,020
follows at all, right.
Again, it's like the scenario we

1334
01:15:57,020 --> 01:16:02,180
talked about earlier where just
because sometimes in some

1335
01:16:02,180 --> 01:16:05,180
scenarios, especially with
pathology, these people don't

1336
01:16:05,180 --> 01:16:08,620
know what's going on and they
make up stories, doesn't mean we

1337
01:16:08,620 --> 01:16:10,740
always make up stories, right?
It just doesn't.

1338
01:16:10,740 --> 01:16:14,380
It's just a non secret.
And in fact, you could say,

1339
01:16:14,380 --> 01:16:18,500
well, you know, why would we
even have that system?

1340
01:16:18,500 --> 01:16:21,540
For thinking about our own
reasons if it was so crap?

1341
01:16:21,870 --> 01:16:25,030
I didn't mean if it was always
just misleading us and not

1342
01:16:25,030 --> 01:16:27,030
giving us any useful
information, it wouldn't be

1343
01:16:27,030 --> 01:16:29,590
adapted.
Why would we have and support

1344
01:16:29,590 --> 01:16:32,870
the energetic cost of this
neural machining great big

1345
01:16:32,870 --> 01:16:38,190
prefrontal cortex if all it's
doing is making up stories about

1346
01:16:38,190 --> 01:16:41,710
things that aren't actually
giving us actionable, adaptive

1347
01:16:41,710 --> 01:16:44,110
information about ourselves or
about other people?

1348
01:16:44,910 --> 01:16:49,750
So I, you know, I think about it
the way I think about optical

1349
01:16:49,750 --> 01:16:52,310
illusions.
You can say optical illusions

1350
01:16:52,310 --> 01:16:55,030
show us, oh, you know, your,
your visual system isn't

1351
01:16:55,030 --> 01:16:58,350
representing reality because I
can trick it with this, you

1352
01:16:58,390 --> 01:17:01,990
know, particularly artificial
stimulus.

1353
01:17:02,350 --> 01:17:06,030
Well, to me that's just saying,
that's showing us how The thing

1354
01:17:06,030 --> 01:17:07,870
is working.
It's not showing us that it's

1355
01:17:07,870 --> 01:17:12,190
not normally working.
It's an extreme exceptional

1356
01:17:12,630 --> 01:17:16,310
scenario that's informing us
about the the biological

1357
01:17:16,310 --> 01:17:20,010
workings of the thing and and
you know, highlighting some of

1358
01:17:20,010 --> 01:17:24,570
the limitations in the same way
that these neurological cases

1359
01:17:24,570 --> 01:17:27,850
and psychiatric conditions and
things highlight the limitations

1360
01:17:28,130 --> 01:17:31,490
of the biology of our systems
for cognitive conscious control

1361
01:17:31,490 --> 01:17:35,010
and decision.
A lot of people, when they look

1362
01:17:35,010 --> 01:17:37,970
at the hemispatial neglect
patients, the split brain

1363
01:17:37,970 --> 01:17:42,410
patients, several scientists,
philosophers often did declude

1364
01:17:42,410 --> 01:17:45,090
that there is this possibility
that there's two entities or

1365
01:17:45,090 --> 01:17:47,160
two.
Conscious beings within the

1366
01:17:47,160 --> 01:17:49,560
skull, because of this, when you
split the corpus callosum you

1367
01:17:49,800 --> 01:17:53,200
you sort of separate them and
once the connection is severed,

1368
01:17:53,640 --> 01:17:54,960
there's no Blogger
communication.

1369
01:17:55,000 --> 01:17:56,720
Do you think that holds any
validity?

1370
01:17:59,520 --> 01:18:03,280
I don't.
I'm not a huge fan of the sort

1371
01:18:03,280 --> 01:18:06,600
of right brain, left brain, you
know, left brain is the rational

1372
01:18:06,600 --> 01:18:09,000
bid and the right brain is
deciding things in other ways.

1373
01:18:10,440 --> 01:18:15,880
I don't think it explains much.
Some people put that forward as

1374
01:18:15,920 --> 01:18:18,640
if it's an explanation, they'll
say, oh, that's your right brain

1375
01:18:18,640 --> 01:18:19,800
doing it.
That's your left brain doing

1376
01:18:19,800 --> 01:18:22,120
this, OK.
But that's that's not explaining

1377
01:18:22,120 --> 01:18:23,760
anything.
That's just displacing what

1378
01:18:23,760 --> 01:18:26,520
needs to be explained to a
different level, right?

1379
01:18:27,440 --> 01:18:29,440
I mean, the the split brain
stuff is really interesting.

1380
01:18:29,440 --> 01:18:33,120
And of course, because language
in most people is lateralized to

1381
01:18:33,120 --> 01:18:36,240
the left side of the brain, I
mean really strongly lateralized

1382
01:18:36,240 --> 01:18:38,840
like you can in those split
break patients, you can

1383
01:18:38,840 --> 01:18:42,840
communicate visually to either
hemisphere, but only one of the

1384
01:18:42,840 --> 01:18:44,910
hemispheres can talk back to
you, tell you.

1385
01:18:46,670 --> 01:18:52,470
So yeah, I don't honestly, I
don't know what to think about

1386
01:18:52,790 --> 01:18:54,430
that.
I don't place a lot of stock in

1387
01:18:54,430 --> 01:18:58,670
it, partly partly because it's
so human centric as well.

1388
01:18:59,910 --> 01:19:02,430
It sort of gets so disconnected
from what we think about in

1389
01:19:02,430 --> 01:19:09,110
other animals that you know and
there are such, there's such a

1390
01:19:09,110 --> 01:19:11,150
limited sort of set of
experiments that we can do that

1391
01:19:11,150 --> 01:19:16,290
relate to it in humans that are
these, you know, lesion patients

1392
01:19:16,290 --> 01:19:20,090
or or really you know, extreme
surgical interventions, um, that

1393
01:19:20,090 --> 01:19:24,850
we just don't have I think an
ability to to to have a robust

1394
01:19:24,850 --> 01:19:28,930
enough, uh body of knowledge
from of empirical knowledge at

1395
01:19:28,930 --> 01:19:32,410
that level for me to really know
what I think about it.

1396
01:19:33,230 --> 01:19:37,310
Kevin, how do you define your
view of free will in general?

1397
01:19:37,310 --> 01:19:38,550
I mean this naturalistic
framework.

1398
01:19:38,550 --> 01:19:40,870
Have you found a philosophical
term for it?

1399
01:19:40,870 --> 01:19:43,630
Have you have you given it?
Yeah.

1400
01:19:43,630 --> 01:19:47,350
I don't know what the ISM.
I don't know what the ISM is

1401
01:19:47,710 --> 01:19:48,230
right.
It's not.

1402
01:19:48,270 --> 01:19:51,310
So it's definitely not
compatibilism because

1403
01:19:52,030 --> 01:19:55,150
compatibilism, which would Dan
Dennet is a famous champion of

1404
01:19:55,270 --> 01:19:59,430
it is So he kind of comes to the
same conclusion that we can

1405
01:19:59,430 --> 01:20:02,030
make.
That we at least can do things

1406
01:20:02,030 --> 01:20:08,790
for our own reasons.
But he kind of concludes that.

1407
01:20:09,150 --> 01:20:12,230
And yet he says, but we don't
have choice in the moment

1408
01:20:12,550 --> 01:20:15,990
necessarily or at all actually,
he would say because the future

1409
01:20:15,990 --> 01:20:19,070
is determined so but we can
think about a kind of free will

1410
01:20:19,070 --> 01:20:24,270
that's compatible with our views
of moral responsibility, even if

1411
01:20:24,270 --> 01:20:27,070
determinism holds, that's that's
basically that picture.

1412
01:20:27,070 --> 01:20:30,550
I don't subscribe to that.
I don't think in a deterministic

1413
01:20:30,550 --> 01:20:34,310
world you could have choices.
It just doesn't make sense to

1414
01:20:34,310 --> 01:20:36,150
think of choices.
There are no possibilities.

1415
01:20:36,390 --> 01:20:41,870
Why would life evolve, you know?
It's if everything was just sort

1416
01:20:41,870 --> 01:20:44,030
of deterministic.
Why would this complexity evolve

1417
01:20:44,310 --> 01:20:47,590
where macroscopic patterns are
meaningful?

1418
01:20:48,270 --> 01:20:50,310
Why would they be right the
lower level patterns?

1419
01:20:50,350 --> 01:20:52,190
All the work would be done down
here always.

1420
01:20:52,190 --> 01:20:55,270
There would be no scope for
macroscopic complexity, in my

1421
01:20:55,270 --> 01:20:57,760
view.
There's certainly be no scope

1422
01:20:57,760 --> 01:21:00,960
for talking about things, acting
or doing things for reasons why

1423
01:21:00,960 --> 01:21:03,200
would they?
What's going to happen is going

1424
01:21:03,200 --> 01:21:06,200
to happen, right.
So I so I don't.

1425
01:21:07,520 --> 01:21:11,240
So I don't think free will is
compatible with physical

1426
01:21:11,240 --> 01:21:13,920
predeterminism, but thankfully I
don't think physical

1427
01:21:13,920 --> 01:21:16,480
predeterminism holds.
So that that does away with that

1428
01:21:16,840 --> 01:21:21,880
burden.
Now, the other sort of end of

1429
01:21:21,880 --> 01:21:25,720
the spectrum is libertarianism,
I think, which is that we really

1430
01:21:25,720 --> 01:21:30,720
do have this, you know, very
absolutist kind of free will

1431
01:21:30,720 --> 01:21:33,200
over our actions.
I don't know if anybody really

1432
01:21:33,200 --> 01:21:35,760
holds that view.
Certainly not.

1433
01:21:37,280 --> 01:21:39,440
Yeah.
It's not a view that I would

1434
01:21:39,440 --> 01:21:41,880
hold because like I said
earlier, I think that absolutist

1435
01:21:43,600 --> 01:21:47,160
condition is incoherent.
I don't think we could be selves

1436
01:21:47,680 --> 01:21:51,440
and have that kind of capacity.
And so, yeah, so I'm somewhere

1437
01:21:51,440 --> 01:21:54,220
in the middle.
I don't know what to call it.

1438
01:21:55,460 --> 01:21:58,740
I mean, I kind of coined the
term cognitive realism.

1439
01:21:58,900 --> 01:22:00,300
I was just about to ask you
about that.

1440
01:22:00,300 --> 01:22:02,900
I was gonna ask you about cause
of reductivism versus.

1441
01:22:03,300 --> 01:22:06,260
Yeah, yeah.
Well, so for want of any better

1442
01:22:06,260 --> 01:22:09,140
terms, I kind of made those up.
So on the one hand, you have

1443
01:22:09,140 --> 01:22:11,580
this, this neural neural
reductionism, which says the

1444
01:22:11,580 --> 01:22:15,260
causes are all at this neural
level, or you can go lower if

1445
01:22:15,260 --> 01:22:17,420
you want to say they're all at
the physical level, whatever.

1446
01:22:18,580 --> 01:22:23,670
Those are basically eliminating
cognitive states as having

1447
01:22:23,910 --> 01:22:26,910
causal power by virtue of what
they mean, right.

1448
01:22:26,950 --> 01:22:29,350
It's not the meaning of a state
and it's not the meaning of a

1449
01:22:29,350 --> 01:22:31,030
belief that has any cause of
power.

1450
01:22:31,030 --> 01:22:33,070
It just happens to be a neural
pattern.

1451
01:22:33,270 --> 01:22:35,470
And neural neural things cause
neural things to happen.

1452
01:22:37,110 --> 01:22:41,270
And what I articulated earlier
is, is what I'm sort of calling

1453
01:22:41,270 --> 01:22:43,990
cognitive realism, which is
saying no cognitive states are

1454
01:22:43,990 --> 01:22:46,270
real.
Those neural states have power

1455
01:22:46,310 --> 01:22:48,750
because they mean something to
the Organism.

1456
01:22:50,420 --> 01:22:53,980
So it's that inversion that I
was trying to highlight by that

1457
01:22:53,980 --> 01:22:56,660
comparison.
I don't know if those terms will

1458
01:22:56,660 --> 01:22:58,100
stick.
I don't know if I even really

1459
01:22:58,140 --> 01:23:00,940
like them myself.
I.

1460
01:23:01,500 --> 01:23:03,740
I think, I think it's it's
always great to have one of

1461
01:23:03,740 --> 01:23:04,500
those terms.
I spoke.

1462
01:23:04,540 --> 01:23:06,580
I remember when I this was a
while back, I think it was last

1463
01:23:06,580 --> 01:23:09,780
year I spoke to Patricia
Churchill about Paul Churchill

1464
01:23:09,780 --> 01:23:13,220
and herself when they came up
with limited materialism and.

1465
01:23:13,380 --> 01:23:16,340
And that was just a it wasn't
the title they wants to name it.

1466
01:23:16,460 --> 01:23:19,900
They wanted to call it
revisionary materialism, because

1467
01:23:20,340 --> 01:23:22,460
we constantly renew the science
as we learn the folk

1468
01:23:22,460 --> 01:23:24,380
psychological terms have to
slowly change.

1469
01:23:24,700 --> 01:23:27,860
But had to pick a word and they
chose it and then it just went

1470
01:23:27,860 --> 01:23:29,580
down a rabbit hole of a lot of
bad.

1471
01:23:29,580 --> 01:23:34,660
Well, what happens is that,
yeah, if the term doesn't fit or

1472
01:23:34,660 --> 01:23:38,060
if it has some connotations that
aren't intended, then it's not a

1473
01:23:38,060 --> 01:23:39,820
good term, right.
So yeah.

1474
01:23:39,820 --> 01:23:44,550
So I was worried that cognitive
realism might imply some things

1475
01:23:44,550 --> 01:23:46,070
to some people that I didn't
intend do.

1476
01:23:47,150 --> 01:23:50,750
You think it might add this
layer of giving thoughts almost

1477
01:23:50,750 --> 01:23:53,990
an ethereal entity, or giving
cognitive processes some sort of

1478
01:23:53,990 --> 01:23:55,910
an essence?
Yeah.

1479
01:23:55,910 --> 01:23:59,150
Well, so there's this major
problem, which actually a lot of

1480
01:23:59,150 --> 01:24:01,790
the free will problem boils down
to is the problem of mental

1481
01:24:01,790 --> 01:24:06,510
causation.
And this gets into this

1482
01:24:06,510 --> 01:24:09,340
question, well, what do we even
mean when we say something is

1483
01:24:09,340 --> 01:24:11,300
mental and people say, oh,
there's the physical and the

1484
01:24:11,300 --> 01:24:15,020
mental, what are you talking
about that it's so vague, right?

1485
01:24:15,820 --> 01:24:17,740
Kind of.
It sounds like we know what

1486
01:24:17,740 --> 01:24:19,500
we're talking about.
But if pressed, it's really,

1487
01:24:19,500 --> 01:24:23,940
really difficult to articulate
that distinction in some useful

1488
01:24:23,940 --> 01:24:27,380
way.
So if you want to say like, the

1489
01:24:27,380 --> 01:24:30,380
problem of mental causation is
this idea that how could the

1490
01:24:30,460 --> 01:24:34,180
content of a thought have causal
power in a system?

1491
01:24:35,620 --> 01:24:37,820
Why does it matter what the
thought means?

1492
01:24:38,330 --> 01:24:41,570
It's just, you know, it's some
image that the meaning is

1493
01:24:41,570 --> 01:24:44,170
immaterial.
It can't affect the material

1494
01:24:44,170 --> 01:24:46,170
physical stuff that the brain is
made of.

1495
01:24:46,970 --> 01:24:49,210
And to me that's just wrong,
because a thought is not

1496
01:24:49,210 --> 01:24:51,690
immaterial if it's meaningful
information.

1497
01:24:51,850 --> 01:24:54,610
Information has to be
instantiated in some physical

1498
01:24:54,610 --> 01:24:59,410
medium and in this case it's the
firing of a bunch of neurons or

1499
01:24:59,410 --> 01:25:02,690
the configuration of a bunch of
synaptic weights and then

1500
01:25:02,690 --> 01:25:06,530
connections between the neurons
or better yet, the firing of the

1501
01:25:06,530 --> 01:25:09,580
neurons interpreted through the
configuration of the weights in

1502
01:25:09,580 --> 01:25:10,700
the in notes.
So.

1503
01:25:10,940 --> 01:25:16,100
So a thought is a pattern of
neural activity and can have

1504
01:25:16,460 --> 01:25:17,940
power in the system because of
that.

1505
01:25:18,380 --> 01:25:21,860
But then the then you're like,
OK, well yeah, it's just neural

1506
01:25:21,860 --> 01:25:23,060
activity.
I told you right.

1507
01:25:23,660 --> 01:25:25,660
But no, it's a pattern of
meaningful.

1508
01:25:26,260 --> 01:25:29,380
Sorry, it's a meaningful pattern
of neural activity and it's the

1509
01:25:29,380 --> 01:25:33,740
meaningfulness that gives it to
call gives it its causal power.

1510
01:25:33,780 --> 01:25:36,010
That's what I would argue.
That's what the cognitive

1511
01:25:36,010 --> 01:25:38,770
realism is arguing.
It's the meaning drives the

1512
01:25:38,770 --> 01:25:43,730
mechanism.
And I think that's for me, you

1513
01:25:43,730 --> 01:25:46,170
know, a way to bring
neuroscience and psychology back

1514
01:25:46,170 --> 01:25:49,810
together again.
Because it feels like, you know,

1515
01:25:49,810 --> 01:25:52,690
we started trying to explain how
the brain sort of, you know,

1516
01:25:52,730 --> 01:25:56,210
produces the mind or entails the
mind, but it feels like we've

1517
01:25:56,210 --> 01:25:59,730
been getting further and further
away from each other towards

1518
01:25:59,730 --> 01:26:02,770
neural mechanism.
But, but I think there's a way

1519
01:26:02,770 --> 01:26:06,870
to bring them back together and
I and I think that idea that

1520
01:26:06,870 --> 01:26:10,430
meaning meaning is what drives
the mechanism is the bridge

1521
01:26:10,870 --> 01:26:13,070
between those levels.
I hope at least.

1522
01:26:13,350 --> 01:26:15,830
Yeah, I think and it's important
to know that when you're talking

1523
01:26:15,830 --> 01:26:19,190
about information, you're
talking about it in, in very

1524
01:26:19,430 --> 01:26:22,830
physical terms like information,
Shannon, information theory, you

1525
01:26:23,110 --> 01:26:25,870
you're actually discussing it in
a very specific manner.

1526
01:26:26,030 --> 01:26:28,910
You're not just talking?
Yeah, absolutely.

1527
01:26:28,910 --> 01:26:32,720
Because, I mean, you know,
information, well, there's a

1528
01:26:32,720 --> 01:26:35,720
whole, you know, technology and
science built around and then

1529
01:26:35,720 --> 01:26:37,320
it's really, really carefully
defined, right.

1530
01:26:38,120 --> 01:26:40,720
So, Shannon, information is a
way to define the quantity of

1531
01:26:40,720 --> 01:26:43,560
information and the rate of
transfer and the loss and and so

1532
01:26:43,560 --> 01:26:45,680
on, all those sort of signal
transmission stuff.

1533
01:26:47,440 --> 01:26:50,240
Shannon's other term, which
doesn't get talked about as

1534
01:26:50,240 --> 01:26:53,520
much, is that it's relative
information, or mutual

1535
01:26:53,520 --> 01:26:56,080
information, which is
information in a signal that's

1536
01:26:56,080 --> 01:26:59,720
about something else, and that's
what the nervous system runs on,

1537
01:27:00,130 --> 01:27:04,770
Meaningful information.
Now, meaning doesn't sound like

1538
01:27:04,770 --> 01:27:08,170
a scientific term because you
can't quantify meaning.

1539
01:27:08,330 --> 01:27:11,450
You can't localize it.
It's it's subjective.

1540
01:27:11,450 --> 01:27:14,890
It depends on interpretation,
and it doesn't feel scientific

1541
01:27:14,890 --> 01:27:16,650
at all, right?
It feels woolly and nebulous,

1542
01:27:16,650 --> 01:27:18,490
and people are kind of allergic
to it.

1543
01:27:19,810 --> 01:27:23,930
But it's what organisms need to
get around in the world, right?

1544
01:27:23,930 --> 01:27:25,530
They need meaningful
information.

1545
01:27:26,000 --> 01:27:30,200
So but and there is a way to to
to cash it out in physical terms

1546
01:27:30,200 --> 01:27:33,480
in terms of a a correlation with
something in the in the world,

1547
01:27:33,760 --> 01:27:34,800
right.
So if you have an internal

1548
01:27:34,800 --> 01:27:39,840
representation, Nick Shay who's
written about this a lot talks

1549
01:27:39,840 --> 01:27:44,440
about internal representations
as being patterns that stand in

1550
01:27:44,440 --> 01:27:46,920
exploitable relation to
something in the world.

1551
01:27:47,320 --> 01:27:53,140
So when I have this pattern in
my brain that, you know,

1552
01:27:53,140 --> 01:27:56,900
reflects an apple, represents an
apple, that's because there is

1553
01:27:56,900 --> 01:28:00,180
an apple in the world.
And if I act on that reliably,

1554
01:28:00,180 --> 01:28:03,340
it turns out there was an apple
there where my brain said it was

1555
01:28:03,740 --> 01:28:05,540
and it really was an apple and I
can eat it, right?

1556
01:28:06,260 --> 01:28:08,860
And so that's an exploitable
relation between a pattern

1557
01:28:08,860 --> 01:28:13,020
that's inside your brain that
the Organism can act on in the

1558
01:28:13,020 --> 01:28:17,220
world.
And I think that way of of

1559
01:28:17,220 --> 01:28:21,840
grounding all this sort of stuff
that's going on in here, which

1560
01:28:21,840 --> 01:28:25,960
is insulated from the world
through action and sensation is,

1561
01:28:26,040 --> 01:28:27,880
is the key.
And that goes all the way back

1562
01:28:27,880 --> 01:28:30,840
to where we started talking
about, you know, these sort of

1563
01:28:30,840 --> 01:28:34,280
direct couplings between
something in the world and an

1564
01:28:34,280 --> 01:28:38,360
action in the world And all that
has happened in the meantime

1565
01:28:38,360 --> 01:28:40,880
that doesn't have to be so
mysterious is we've just added

1566
01:28:40,880 --> 01:28:43,480
some layers, but we've just
added layers in the middle.

1567
01:28:43,720 --> 01:28:45,960
They still refer to things out
in the world.

1568
01:28:47,500 --> 01:28:50,780
They still cash out.
Impossible action, not obligated

1569
01:28:50,860 --> 01:28:54,580
action, but possible action.
And now there's this rich space

1570
01:28:54,580 --> 01:28:58,660
in the middle where they also
relate to each other, right?

1571
01:28:58,660 --> 01:29:01,700
So when I have an apple, I have
all kinds of concepts that go

1572
01:29:01,700 --> 01:29:04,100
along with it.
It's it's a fruit, right?

1573
01:29:04,100 --> 01:29:06,100
I have a category concept that
it fits into.

1574
01:29:06,580 --> 01:29:09,020
Fruit is a food that's a bigger
category concept.

1575
01:29:10,300 --> 01:29:13,940
You know, it's an apple is
throwable as well as edible.

1576
01:29:14,320 --> 01:29:16,720
So there are concepts of
possible actions and affordances

1577
01:29:16,720 --> 01:29:18,920
and so on.
So you get this richness in the

1578
01:29:18,920 --> 01:29:23,040
middle.
But it's there doesn't have to

1579
01:29:23,040 --> 01:29:25,080
be this mystery, this grounding
problem.

1580
01:29:25,440 --> 01:29:29,520
If you start, you start grounded
and then you decouple as you go

1581
01:29:29,520 --> 01:29:31,600
from there.
They evolutionarily speak, yeah.

1582
01:29:32,120 --> 01:29:34,680
It's.
I mean it's impossible to have a

1583
01:29:34,680 --> 01:29:38,000
discussion on free world without
discussing moral responsibility.

1584
01:29:38,000 --> 01:29:40,400
I feel like most people have to
approach the topic at some point

1585
01:29:40,720 --> 01:29:43,970
and.
So with your view, I mean when

1586
01:29:43,970 --> 01:29:46,210
you think about just desserts,
the two of them started off with

1587
01:29:46,570 --> 01:29:49,570
a very determinous view and then
move forward 1 compatible list,

1588
01:29:49,690 --> 01:29:53,690
one hard incompatibilist and.
Lay forward a lot of arguments

1589
01:29:53,690 --> 01:29:55,890
for the moral responsibility
around that.

1590
01:29:56,130 --> 01:30:00,250
How does your view justify your
view on moral responsibility?

1591
01:30:00,810 --> 01:30:05,010
Yeah, so.
So my view, Contra some of the

1592
01:30:05,010 --> 01:30:07,170
people who are arguing, you
know, against free will, like

1593
01:30:07,570 --> 01:30:09,770
Greg Caruso is 1.
Robert Spolsky is another

1594
01:30:10,610 --> 01:30:12,970
current one, Sam Harris is
another, for example.

1595
01:30:14,170 --> 01:30:18,370
My view is that our systems of
thinking about moral

1596
01:30:18,370 --> 01:30:22,570
responsibility and legal
responsibility are pretty good.

1597
01:30:23,450 --> 01:30:25,610
We've been thinking about these
problems for a long time.

1598
01:30:25,610 --> 01:30:30,010
I mean, we have really
sophisticated legal systems in

1599
01:30:30,010 --> 01:30:32,930
place to judge, you know, was
someone in control?

1600
01:30:32,930 --> 01:30:36,330
To what degree are they, you
know, were they impaired?

1601
01:30:36,330 --> 01:30:38,970
Were they under duress?
Are they insane?

1602
01:30:39,170 --> 01:30:42,770
Are they a juvenile whose brain
hasn't matured enough yet?

1603
01:30:43,690 --> 01:30:45,930
You know, all of those things
can be taken into account when

1604
01:30:45,930 --> 01:30:49,370
we think about degrees of of
responsibility for their

1605
01:30:49,450 --> 01:30:52,450
actions, as well as everything
that has, you know, their

1606
01:30:53,130 --> 01:30:55,690
childhood experiences, whatever
has led them to be the way that

1607
01:30:55,690 --> 01:30:57,010
they are.
All of that is taken into

1608
01:30:57,010 --> 01:31:03,200
account already, right?
And and I don't see the radical

1609
01:31:03,520 --> 01:31:07,000
need to revise all of that or
throw any of that out.

1610
01:31:07,040 --> 01:31:10,160
I mean, there are arguments
about retributivism, say,

1611
01:31:10,160 --> 01:31:14,120
whether we, you know whether our
legal system should be, whether

1612
01:31:14,120 --> 01:31:16,200
retribution should be something
we should engage in.

1613
01:31:16,360 --> 01:31:17,840
There are arguments to be made
about that.

1614
01:31:17,840 --> 01:31:21,200
I just don't think they're
informed by this idea of that.

1615
01:31:21,200 --> 01:31:23,520
Neuroscience is telling us free
will is not real, right?

1616
01:31:25,280 --> 01:31:28,040
So.
So my view in the end is very

1617
01:31:28,040 --> 01:31:31,560
similar to Dennett's position,
although I arrived there through

1618
01:31:31,560 --> 01:31:34,760
a different route.
But ultimately we we both think

1619
01:31:34,760 --> 01:31:36,600
that people are responsible for
their actions.

1620
01:31:37,480 --> 01:31:41,320
And one of the things I talk
about in the book is, is that

1621
01:31:41,320 --> 01:31:44,360
we're not just responsible for
our actions in the moment, but

1622
01:31:44,360 --> 01:31:46,920
we're responsible for our
patterns of action over time.

1623
01:31:47,560 --> 01:31:50,080
We come to be responsible.
We come to have a certain

1624
01:31:50,080 --> 01:31:55,930
character that defines us that
is partly chosen, right.

1625
01:31:55,930 --> 01:31:57,410
It's partly through our own
actions.

1626
01:31:57,450 --> 01:32:01,130
It's not just we talked about
these past experiences as if

1627
01:32:01,130 --> 01:32:03,810
they are things that just happen
to us and they're not.

1628
01:32:03,810 --> 01:32:07,210
We're making choices all along.
We're choosing our own

1629
01:32:07,210 --> 01:32:11,490
environments, but we're also
choosing in a meta kind of a

1630
01:32:11,490 --> 01:32:14,730
way, our policies, right?
What kind of a person do I think

1631
01:32:14,730 --> 01:32:16,130
I am?
What kind of a person do I want

1632
01:32:16,130 --> 01:32:19,050
to be?
Well, once I know that, then in

1633
01:32:19,050 --> 01:32:23,900
this given scenario I'm going to
be constrained or important to

1634
01:32:23,900 --> 01:32:26,860
behave in this way versus that
way because I've already decided

1635
01:32:27,100 --> 01:32:29,820
I'm the kind of person who
doesn't steal things, right?

1636
01:32:29,820 --> 01:32:31,940
So that's going to inform my
decision here.

1637
01:32:31,940 --> 01:32:36,300
So there's these long term sort
of policies and characteristic

1638
01:32:36,300 --> 01:32:39,180
adaptations to our environment
that are informed by our

1639
01:32:39,180 --> 01:32:40,860
upbringing.
They're informed by our

1640
01:32:41,500 --> 01:32:44,340
psychological predispositions
and our genetic makeup and all

1641
01:32:44,340 --> 01:32:47,780
of that.
But ultimately there's an inter

1642
01:32:48,500 --> 01:32:51,950
prior causes and all of the
actions and choices that we make

1643
01:32:52,150 --> 01:32:54,550
as agents, responsible agents
through our lives.

1644
01:32:54,990 --> 01:32:59,430
So you know the point that is
that not only are we

1645
01:32:59,430 --> 01:33:05,310
responsible, we're responsible
for our responsibility, right?

1646
01:33:05,310 --> 01:33:08,110
We have our responsibility to
try to be responsible.

1647
01:33:08,710 --> 01:33:14,870
And you know, in a sense that
comes back to all of the things

1648
01:33:14,870 --> 01:33:17,030
that society sees as virtues,
right?

1649
01:33:17,030 --> 01:33:19,430
The things that we try to
inculcate in our children like

1650
01:33:19,430 --> 01:33:24,230
patience and fairness and
forbearance and temperance and

1651
01:33:24,230 --> 01:33:25,470
prudence.
And you know, there's all these

1652
01:33:25,470 --> 01:33:28,990
sorts of things that are really
their their self regulative

1653
01:33:28,990 --> 01:33:32,910
behaviors and they're pro social
behaviors, right?

1654
01:33:32,950 --> 01:33:34,590
And that's why we call them good
things.

1655
01:33:34,590 --> 01:33:38,710
That's why we call them virtues.
And the opposites are and they

1656
01:33:38,710 --> 01:33:42,150
require work, right?
Children don't come ready made

1657
01:33:42,150 --> 01:33:43,950
with those virtues inbuilt
right.

1658
01:33:43,950 --> 01:33:48,400
They're impatient, They're
impulsive, they're selfish and

1659
01:33:48,400 --> 01:33:52,360
so on.
So, yeah, So my view on on moral

1660
01:33:52,360 --> 01:33:59,080
responsibility is that it's
something that we can build up.

1661
01:33:59,440 --> 01:34:06,840
It's part of our evolved
behavioral capacities that is

1662
01:34:06,840 --> 01:34:10,120
really, really important because
we're so hyper social, right?

1663
01:34:10,120 --> 01:34:13,280
If we didn't have those systems
of morality, which all

1664
01:34:13,320 --> 01:34:16,590
ultimately hinge on these
aspects of fairness and

1665
01:34:16,590 --> 01:34:21,230
cooperation, social cooperation,
those are the glue that allow us

1666
01:34:21,230 --> 01:34:23,910
to be such a successful species
because we depend on each other

1667
01:34:23,910 --> 01:34:27,390
so much.
So, yeah, So I think our, first

1668
01:34:27,390 --> 01:34:30,470
of all, our systems of legal
responsibility are already very

1669
01:34:30,470 --> 01:34:32,710
sophisticated.
I just think it's really

1670
01:34:32,710 --> 01:34:35,870
arrogant of neuroscientists to
say, hey, look, my LIBID

1671
01:34:35,870 --> 01:34:38,870
experiment says you have to
throw out all your history of

1672
01:34:38,870 --> 01:34:41,350
jurisprudence.
And, you know, that just seems a

1673
01:34:41,430 --> 01:34:48,040
bit hubristic.
But also I think, you know, are

1674
01:34:48,080 --> 01:34:51,520
those systems of moral
responsibility pervade

1675
01:34:51,520 --> 01:34:55,040
everything that we do.
Like all of our social norms and

1676
01:34:55,040 --> 01:34:58,920
reactions and interactions are
based on those norms of of

1677
01:34:59,040 --> 01:35:03,320
fairness and reciprocity and
trust and so on.

1678
01:35:03,360 --> 01:35:10,360
And and praise and blame are
instruments that we use to

1679
01:35:10,360 --> 01:35:15,210
reinforce prosocial behavior.
And they work and they work.

1680
01:35:15,410 --> 01:35:18,690
The fact that they work is
evidence that the what I'm

1681
01:35:18,690 --> 01:35:20,650
thinking can influence my
behavior.

1682
01:35:20,650 --> 01:35:22,770
I mean it's almost evidence of
free will, right.

1683
01:35:23,490 --> 01:35:25,650
If I'm praised for something,
I'll take that on and say that

1684
01:35:25,650 --> 01:35:29,410
was a good thing to do and you
know, and I'll do it again.

1685
01:35:30,130 --> 01:35:33,130
So yeah.
And then we have, you know these

1686
01:35:33,130 --> 01:35:39,210
these sort of self regulative
systems of emotions, the the

1687
01:35:39,210 --> 01:35:42,640
sort of so-called moral
emotions, guilt and shame and

1688
01:35:42,640 --> 01:35:45,160
pride and so on, as well as
things like frustration and

1689
01:35:45,160 --> 01:35:51,160
satisfaction which are
anticipatory, right.

1690
01:35:51,160 --> 01:35:54,560
The anticipation of guilt can
guide our decisions.

1691
01:35:54,640 --> 01:35:58,760
The anticipation of regret can
guide our decisions and that

1692
01:35:58,760 --> 01:36:02,440
becomes this, this
forward-looking metacognitive,

1693
01:36:03,080 --> 01:36:06,320
hyper social moral reasoning
capacity that we have.

1694
01:36:07,840 --> 01:36:10,560
And again you know some people
have it more than others.

1695
01:36:10,560 --> 01:36:12,560
Some people exercise it more
than others.

1696
01:36:12,680 --> 01:36:15,560
It's easier to exercise in some
scenarios than others.

1697
01:36:16,520 --> 01:36:22,680
So so yeah I think our for me
they it's almost a let down to

1698
01:36:22,680 --> 01:36:25,680
say here I wrote this big book
and the and the payoff is

1699
01:36:26,040 --> 01:36:29,840
everything we thought about all
these things is fine yeah but

1700
01:36:30,000 --> 01:36:33,880
but basically it's saying yeah
we don't have to overhaul those

1701
01:36:33,880 --> 01:36:36,560
things.
I mean, we can, you know, we can

1702
01:36:36,560 --> 01:36:41,220
maybe inform, they can be
informed by neurology and

1703
01:36:41,220 --> 01:36:45,460
psychology and things like that,
maybe genetics in some cases.

1704
01:36:45,500 --> 01:36:50,060
But those things are not as
radical.

1705
01:36:50,260 --> 01:36:52,940
The conclusions from those
sciences are not as radical as

1706
01:36:52,940 --> 01:36:56,420
some people make them out to be.
I mean, I know you're not an

1707
01:36:56,420 --> 01:36:59,620
ethicist, but out of curiosity,
if they were any things,

1708
01:36:59,900 --> 01:37:03,020
anything that you would possibly
want to enhance, implement any

1709
01:37:03,020 --> 01:37:06,180
changes using this view.
What do you think those would

1710
01:37:06,180 --> 01:37:10,880
be, if any?
I haven't.

1711
01:37:11,200 --> 01:37:13,080
That's interesting.
I haven't really thought about.

1712
01:37:13,080 --> 01:37:15,360
So you put me on the spot.
And I don't know that I'm going

1713
01:37:15,360 --> 01:37:20,600
to be able to come up with
anything intelligent to say on

1714
01:37:20,600 --> 01:37:22,280
the matter.
Because like I said, my, my sort

1715
01:37:22,280 --> 01:37:26,840
of the conclusion that I came to
myself was that those kinds of

1716
01:37:26,840 --> 01:37:32,880
decisions, maybe they can be
informed by some of the science.

1717
01:37:32,880 --> 01:37:37,780
But broadly speaking, you know,
we have traditions of ethics and

1718
01:37:37,820 --> 01:37:44,380
and moral philosophy and all
sorts of pragmatic systems of

1719
01:37:44,380 --> 01:37:49,460
ethics and and law and morality
in in various sorts of arenas.

1720
01:37:50,740 --> 01:37:54,500
And those have all been
developed in a thoughtful way

1721
01:37:54,580 --> 01:37:57,580
over thousands of years in some
cases.

1722
01:37:58,780 --> 01:38:03,540
And yeah, mostly they work
pragmatically.

1723
01:38:03,540 --> 01:38:06,680
I mean, what I do tend to veer
away from is any sort of

1724
01:38:06,760 --> 01:38:10,080
absolutist view of of the
morality or ethics.

1725
01:38:10,320 --> 01:38:14,320
I I think all of it basically
comes down to pragmatics at some

1726
01:38:14,320 --> 01:38:19,040
point of view and and sort of
collective views of what's good

1727
01:38:19,040 --> 01:38:24,000
for everybody versus often
versus individual goals that may

1728
01:38:24,000 --> 01:38:26,600
be conflicting with that.
And then we have some systems

1729
01:38:26,600 --> 01:38:32,640
for resolving those conflicts in
some way and we try to make them

1730
01:38:32,640 --> 01:38:36,010
as fair as possible based on
whatever conceptions we have of

1731
01:38:36,250 --> 01:38:38,810
individual rights versus
collective responsibility and so

1732
01:38:38,810 --> 01:38:40,410
on.
And you know, those vary between

1733
01:38:40,410 --> 01:38:46,650
countries and political systems
and and religious beliefs and

1734
01:38:46,650 --> 01:38:47,370
and so on.
Right.

1735
01:38:48,250 --> 01:38:52,290
So I guess what I'm saying is I
don't I, you know, between all

1736
01:38:52,290 --> 01:38:56,210
the philosophers and theologians
and sociologists and lawyers and

1737
01:38:56,210 --> 01:38:59,330
and all of those people.
I I don't, I don't feel and

1738
01:38:59,330 --> 01:39:00,130
philosophers.
I don't.

1739
01:39:00,130 --> 01:39:06,050
I don't feel them qualified as a
scientist to to make any sort of

1740
01:39:06,050 --> 01:39:11,530
claims that would override or or
even really intrude too much on

1741
01:39:11,610 --> 01:39:15,290
on that territory that they have
been thoughtfully working on for

1742
01:39:15,930 --> 01:39:17,450
centuries.
Now that's fair.

1743
01:39:17,530 --> 01:39:19,130
I mean they're completely
understandable.

1744
01:39:19,290 --> 01:39:22,610
Just to to touch on something
and maybe I can sort of nudge

1745
01:39:22,610 --> 01:39:26,530
you into this, this
conversation, but you've spent a

1746
01:39:26,530 --> 01:39:29,370
lot of your time you when you
talk about evolution and DNN,

1747
01:39:29,370 --> 01:39:31,850
how it's sort of wise us in a
certain way.

1748
01:39:32,170 --> 01:39:33,810
And obviously that's not the
end.

1749
01:39:33,810 --> 01:39:37,170
Once we're once we're born,
there's a lot that goes into it.

1750
01:39:37,450 --> 01:39:40,250
Our developmental processes are
big part of shaping who we are.

1751
01:39:40,610 --> 01:39:43,330
There is that nature and nurture
aspect of it, but it's a lot

1752
01:39:43,330 --> 01:39:44,970
more complicated than when
people say that.

1753
01:39:46,130 --> 01:39:47,770
But then you've got a
philosopher like Tom Nagle who

1754
01:39:48,730 --> 01:39:51,730
back in the day wrote about
moral luck and he spoke about

1755
01:39:51,930 --> 01:39:53,690
and it ties into your work
because he speaks about

1756
01:39:53,690 --> 01:39:56,610
different layers of luck,
constitutive, circumstantial,

1757
01:39:57,010 --> 01:40:00,550
and all these layers that.
Some people like, let's say Greg

1758
01:40:00,550 --> 01:40:03,190
Caruso would then go in to say
that Okay, we technically were

1759
01:40:03,190 --> 01:40:07,310
never really in a position to
have any of this work out the

1760
01:40:07,310 --> 01:40:10,190
way we wanted it to.
How do you go against that?

1761
01:40:10,190 --> 01:40:10,710
Yeah.
Okay.

1762
01:40:10,750 --> 01:40:14,830
So there, so there.
I think that is a relevant thing

1763
01:40:14,830 --> 01:40:17,710
where the sorry, that is a point
where the science is relevant,

1764
01:40:18,790 --> 01:40:20,510
where it really is informing it
directly.

1765
01:40:20,830 --> 01:40:25,890
So I absolutely agree that
people's you know, I mean my my

1766
01:40:25,930 --> 01:40:30,490
my previous book Innate was all
about how our our genetics and

1767
01:40:30,490 --> 01:40:36,250
just the random nature of brain
development you know, does wire

1768
01:40:36,250 --> 01:40:39,130
us with certain psychological
predispositions and behavioral

1769
01:40:39,130 --> 01:40:40,730
tendencies and capacities and so
on.

1770
01:40:41,410 --> 01:40:43,450
So we we're not blank slates.
Absolutely.

1771
01:40:43,490 --> 01:40:48,290
And we are wired in ways that it
doesn't make any sense to take

1772
01:40:48,290 --> 01:40:52,470
credit for granted, right.
You know, if somebody's, you

1773
01:40:52,470 --> 01:40:56,390
know, more intelligent or more
athletic or more more musically

1774
01:40:56,390 --> 01:41:01,070
talented or whatever, well,
those talents are, yeah, you

1775
01:41:01,070 --> 01:41:03,910
can.
I guess you could be proud of

1776
01:41:03,910 --> 01:41:08,110
them without necessarily
thinking that you earned them or

1777
01:41:08,430 --> 01:41:10,270
take credit for them.
I know it becomes weird, right?

1778
01:41:10,270 --> 01:41:16,430
Because we do absolutely normal
for people to do that.

1779
01:41:16,430 --> 01:41:21,760
And you know for example this is
very clear in the US in

1780
01:41:21,760 --> 01:41:24,840
particular, right, where there's
a an ostensibly very

1781
01:41:24,840 --> 01:41:30,680
meritocratic view which is
basically if I'm successful it's

1782
01:41:30,680 --> 01:41:35,000
because I worked hard and and
you should be able to do the

1783
01:41:35,000 --> 01:41:38,240
same thing.
So, so we don't need a social

1784
01:41:38,400 --> 01:41:42,280
welfare system or anything like
that because you lazy so and so

1785
01:41:42,280 --> 01:41:43,480
just need to work hard like I
did.

1786
01:41:45,280 --> 01:41:47,760
And you know, it may be true
that that person did work hard,

1787
01:41:48,630 --> 01:41:50,750
but it may also be true that
they were lucky, right.

1788
01:41:50,750 --> 01:41:52,430
They were lucky in the
circumstances they were born

1789
01:41:52,430 --> 01:41:56,310
into.
They were lucky to to have a

1790
01:41:56,310 --> 01:41:59,470
certain level of cognitive
ability or lucky to be born with

1791
01:41:59,470 --> 01:42:02,830
a certain, you know, level of
conscientiousness or or

1792
01:42:02,830 --> 01:42:03,430
whatever.
Right.

1793
01:42:04,950 --> 01:42:07,470
I think you can.
You can take that too far

1794
01:42:07,910 --> 01:42:10,830
because like I said and like you
just mentioned, there's this

1795
01:42:10,830 --> 01:42:14,950
interplay between nature and
nurture, which is not just, oh,

1796
01:42:14,950 --> 01:42:18,140
I'm born with a certain way,
certain, you know, wired a

1797
01:42:18,140 --> 01:42:20,900
certain way, and then a bunch of
experiences happen to me.

1798
01:42:21,940 --> 01:42:24,500
No, it's like I do a bunch of
things, right?

1799
01:42:24,500 --> 01:42:28,100
If you, if you view it from an
agential perspective, then it's

1800
01:42:28,100 --> 01:42:30,740
the Organism doing things, the
individual doing things

1801
01:42:30,740 --> 01:42:33,940
throughout their life.
And and they're increasing their

1802
01:42:33,940 --> 01:42:35,860
agency as they go through life,
right.

1803
01:42:36,140 --> 01:42:39,380
Young, older children are making
more agential choices than

1804
01:42:39,380 --> 01:42:42,020
babies who are having all their
choices made by their parents.

1805
01:42:43,220 --> 01:42:47,010
So.
So there's this growth of of

1806
01:42:47,010 --> 01:42:51,890
your own choices and your own
action which is furthering the

1807
01:42:51,890 --> 01:42:57,290
the trajectory of your life.
Now you could say well okay

1808
01:42:57,930 --> 01:43:00,050
yeah.
But ultimately you only worked

1809
01:43:00,050 --> 01:43:02,250
hard at that because you were
conscientious to begin with and

1810
01:43:02,250 --> 01:43:04,530
that would then that amplified
this because you got praised for

1811
01:43:04,530 --> 01:43:07,770
being good at school and that
felt good and then you wanted to

1812
01:43:07,770 --> 01:43:09,730
do it more.
And I think all of that is true,

1813
01:43:09,930 --> 01:43:11,210
right.
I think all of that is right.

1814
01:43:13,530 --> 01:43:15,410
So.
So if you're interested in

1815
01:43:15,410 --> 01:43:17,930
questions of moral
responsibility and you want to

1816
01:43:17,930 --> 01:43:22,490
look at this idea of moral luck,
then I think there's an argument

1817
01:43:22,490 --> 01:43:28,090
to be made then.
But again, I think, for example,

1818
01:43:28,090 --> 01:43:31,650
our legal system already take
that into account, right?

1819
01:43:31,650 --> 01:43:35,370
To some degree, they do take
into account people's capacity.

1820
01:43:35,810 --> 01:43:38,050
They do take into account
whether you should have known

1821
01:43:38,050 --> 01:43:41,550
better or not, right?
They treat it 14 year old

1822
01:43:41,550 --> 01:43:44,350
different from an 8 year old
because they should have known

1823
01:43:44,350 --> 01:43:45,790
better and we know that that's
true.

1824
01:43:46,750 --> 01:43:49,710
But they also will will treat
someone from a, you know,

1825
01:43:49,710 --> 01:43:51,990
they'll take someone's
background into account and say

1826
01:43:51,990 --> 01:43:54,910
this person was unlucky, They
were they, you know, they had

1827
01:43:54,910 --> 01:43:57,630
bad experiences in their
childhood or they were unlucky

1828
01:43:57,630 --> 01:44:01,110
because they were, you know,
they were, they're

1829
01:44:01,110 --> 01:44:05,190
intellectually disabled or you
know, whatever it is, right.

1830
01:44:05,750 --> 01:44:11,300
So yeah, it's a weird one
because it's a it's a very valid

1831
01:44:11,300 --> 01:44:16,060
point and I don't know how it
gets cashed out.

1832
01:44:17,020 --> 01:44:17,780
Right.
It's it.

1833
01:44:18,900 --> 01:44:24,140
I guess my own sense would be
that it's good to have some

1834
01:44:24,140 --> 01:44:29,140
humility, right?
And and I mean I'm really aware

1835
01:44:29,140 --> 01:44:35,540
of myself of how privileged I
have been personal right in in

1836
01:44:35,920 --> 01:44:38,720
in my life, my upbringing in the
opportunities that I've had and

1837
01:44:38,720 --> 01:44:40,160
so on.
You know all of which have

1838
01:44:40,160 --> 01:44:45,480
allowed me to do the things that
that I've done and other people

1839
01:44:45,480 --> 01:44:48,040
haven't had those same
opportunities as me And that

1840
01:44:48,040 --> 01:44:50,600
doesn't make you know it doesn't
mean I'm better than them

1841
01:44:50,600 --> 01:44:53,200
because I've done this and they
have done haven't, right.

1842
01:44:54,400 --> 01:44:58,640
So, yeah, so I think some some
humility on that front and some

1843
01:44:58,640 --> 01:45:02,520
recognition that a lot of the
things that that happen that are

1844
01:45:04,170 --> 01:45:07,930
that that one can achieve are
due not just to you know,

1845
01:45:08,010 --> 01:45:11,690
personal endowments or social
capital or various family

1846
01:45:11,690 --> 01:45:14,610
things, but general
circumstances beyond that, you

1847
01:45:14,610 --> 01:45:18,690
know, social circumstances.
Yeah, some some greater

1848
01:45:18,690 --> 01:45:24,570
awareness of that might go some
distance towards a bit more

1849
01:45:24,570 --> 01:45:29,170
consideration for others and a
bit more of a realization that,

1850
01:45:29,210 --> 01:45:32,940
you know there but for the grace
of God go I that that sort of

1851
01:45:33,180 --> 01:45:35,180
attitude.
So yeah, I don't know how.

1852
01:45:35,260 --> 01:45:39,380
Again, I don't know how that
gets cast out except accepting

1853
01:45:39,380 --> 01:45:44,900
different political systems
where, you know, systems that

1854
01:45:44,900 --> 01:45:48,940
are aimed at preventing those
sort of social inequalities, at

1855
01:45:48,940 --> 01:45:53,620
least to me feel more fair.
But you know, you can have

1856
01:45:53,620 --> 01:45:56,620
different attitudes where more
individualistic ones feel more

1857
01:45:56,620 --> 01:46:00,220
fair to to some people.
I find Kevin, there's a lot of

1858
01:46:00,540 --> 01:46:02,940
when people discuss
philosophical concepts,

1859
01:46:02,940 --> 01:46:07,020
neuroscientific ones, etc,
there's often this existential

1860
01:46:07,100 --> 01:46:09,900
element to it.
So for example, any theory

1861
01:46:09,900 --> 01:46:12,940
someone has, it can either lead
to some sort of nihilistic view,

1862
01:46:13,100 --> 01:46:15,660
optimistic one, It all depends.
But I mean, with your theory,

1863
01:46:15,660 --> 01:46:18,020
you think about it, Okay,
there's actors in action.

1864
01:46:18,820 --> 01:46:22,380
This is a play, this universe.
We often think this play is not

1865
01:46:22,380 --> 01:46:24,820
really about us, which is the
side characters that are just

1866
01:46:24,820 --> 01:46:27,340
going through.
But with this view in mind, what

1867
01:46:27,340 --> 01:46:30,510
sort of a?
Insight or some sort of a

1868
01:46:30,550 --> 01:46:35,270
perspective can come out of it
that you think, Well, I mean,

1869
01:46:35,270 --> 01:46:37,750
first of all I think that that,
you know, we should avoid the

1870
01:46:37,910 --> 01:46:41,790
the mealistic view that we don't
have free will because then I

1871
01:46:41,790 --> 01:46:45,070
actually, I don't know, I
literally don't know how people

1872
01:46:45,070 --> 01:46:46,510
who hold that view go through
life.

1873
01:46:47,470 --> 01:46:52,430
It doesn't compute with me how
I'm because basically I spend

1874
01:46:52,470 --> 01:46:54,750
all day every day apparently
making decisions or thinking

1875
01:46:54,750 --> 01:46:57,230
about what to do, think about
why I want to do something

1876
01:46:57,230 --> 01:47:00,680
versus something else, or
thinking about why other people

1877
01:47:00,680 --> 01:47:03,480
are doing things that they do
that that occupies most of our

1878
01:47:03,480 --> 01:47:04,800
thoughts most of the time, I
think.

1879
01:47:05,800 --> 01:47:07,960
Do you remember we first spoke?
So sorry to cut you off.

1880
01:47:07,960 --> 01:47:09,600
Do you remember when we first
spoke you?

1881
01:47:09,640 --> 01:47:12,040
You tell me you're watching Noam
Chomsky's episode.

1882
01:47:12,320 --> 01:47:14,920
And he says, I mean, the most
common sense thing is to

1883
01:47:14,920 --> 01:47:17,440
actually realize that everybody
goes through life with the

1884
01:47:17,440 --> 01:47:19,720
assumption that they have free
will, even if they.

1885
01:47:20,160 --> 01:47:21,960
That there's no such thing.
Yeah.

1886
01:47:22,360 --> 01:47:24,840
And so, yeah, So I don't know
what it would be like to go

1887
01:47:24,840 --> 01:47:26,980
through life, as you know, I
don't know.

1888
01:47:27,500 --> 01:47:29,740
Maybe I'll ask.
I might have a chance to ask

1889
01:47:29,740 --> 01:47:36,500
Greg Cruso or or Robert Sabolsky
someday soon maybe, how they do

1890
01:47:36,500 --> 01:47:37,540
that, right?
How do they get up in the

1891
01:47:37,540 --> 01:47:42,740
morning knowing that all their
choices are predetermined when

1892
01:47:42,740 --> 01:47:44,100
I'm yet feeling like they
aren't?

1893
01:47:44,100 --> 01:47:46,260
That just feels like a weird
place to be.

1894
01:47:47,340 --> 01:47:51,100
But anyway, The upshot for me is
that they're not predetermined

1895
01:47:51,140 --> 01:47:56,130
that I am in charge, that I do
have some control, but also that

1896
01:47:56,130 --> 01:47:58,890
I can recognize I have more
control in some circumstances

1897
01:47:58,890 --> 01:48:01,490
than others.
And that actually one of my

1898
01:48:01,490 --> 01:48:06,530
goals, one of all of our goals
in that is to be in situations

1899
01:48:06,530 --> 01:48:09,330
that maximize our controls, our
control.

1900
01:48:10,250 --> 01:48:15,330
There's a drive actually for our
for autonomous agency that's a

1901
01:48:15,330 --> 01:48:18,610
psychological drive, but it's
also even in simpler organisms,

1902
01:48:19,370 --> 01:48:23,520
there's a drive to sort of
maximize the number of options

1903
01:48:23,520 --> 01:48:28,160
that are kept open at any time
and maximize the control the

1904
01:48:28,320 --> 01:48:32,120
the, the autonomous control
that's being exercised at any

1905
01:48:32,120 --> 01:48:35,240
time.
So you can see the evolutionary

1906
01:48:35,240 --> 01:48:38,000
sort of rationale for setting up
a system to be like that.

1907
01:48:38,520 --> 01:48:42,000
And in psychology, it's
interesting the, the there's a

1908
01:48:42,200 --> 01:48:46,760
phrase called demand avoidance
where if if we were going to do

1909
01:48:46,760 --> 01:48:51,250
something and then someone asks
us to do it, that we don't want

1910
01:48:51,250 --> 01:48:53,650
to do it.
Why We wanted to do it a minute

1911
01:48:53,650 --> 01:48:54,450
ago.
Now we don't.

1912
01:48:54,450 --> 01:48:56,010
Why?
Because it feels like we're not

1913
01:48:56,010 --> 01:48:58,570
in control and that's not a
comfortable feeling, right.

1914
01:48:59,170 --> 01:49:02,970
So, yeah, so I think we can be
in control and we can also

1915
01:49:02,970 --> 01:49:08,650
recognize scenarios where we're
not as in control as we might

1916
01:49:08,650 --> 01:49:11,490
want to be.
And we can maybe, you know,

1917
01:49:11,490 --> 01:49:15,890
recognize conditions in
ourselves that impinge on our

1918
01:49:16,210 --> 01:49:19,750
ability for, you know, impulse
control or that make us less

1919
01:49:19,750 --> 01:49:25,670
patient or more reckless and
impulsive that lead us to make

1920
01:49:25,670 --> 01:49:26,830
bad decisions.
Right.

1921
01:49:27,030 --> 01:49:31,270
You know, and I think we can all
know the conditions that lead us

1922
01:49:31,270 --> 01:49:34,310
to make bad decisions, right.
So whether that, whether that

1923
01:49:34,910 --> 01:49:39,470
meta cognitive awareness
actually influences our decision

1924
01:49:39,470 --> 01:49:42,510
to put us to put ourselves in
scenarios where we know we're

1925
01:49:42,510 --> 01:49:45,430
going to make bad decisions,
well, that's another, that's

1926
01:49:45,430 --> 01:49:47,190
another question.
But it's open, right?

1927
01:49:47,190 --> 01:49:50,240
I mean I think that that's open
to us to think about those

1928
01:49:50,240 --> 01:49:55,040
things but I mean listen it's
not you know I I didn't write it

1929
01:49:55,040 --> 01:49:57,800
as a sort of a self help kind of
a putting the.

1930
01:49:57,800 --> 01:50:05,880
I mean, yeah, just personally, I
I do think there is a sense in

1931
01:50:05,960 --> 01:50:11,240
in in which being aware of these
things is a is is maybe a sort

1932
01:50:11,240 --> 01:50:15,400
of a window into greater
self-awareness that can be

1933
01:50:15,400 --> 01:50:17,100
useful.
Yeah, I know.

1934
01:50:17,100 --> 01:50:18,980
That's why I prefaced it by
saying, I mean you're not an

1935
01:50:18,980 --> 01:50:21,060
ethicist, I want the listeners
in order to know that.

1936
01:50:21,060 --> 01:50:23,780
But it's always great to hear
that there's some sort of a

1937
01:50:23,780 --> 01:50:27,580
practical implication to it and
see how we can use it in a

1938
01:50:27,580 --> 01:50:29,300
day-to-day life.
But at some point in the

1939
01:50:29,300 --> 01:50:32,620
beginning we spoke about
artificial intelligence and I

1940
01:50:32,620 --> 01:50:35,580
know in your book at some point
you conclude with this with sort

1941
01:50:35,580 --> 01:50:37,460
of aspect of it all, artificial
agents.

1942
01:50:37,820 --> 01:50:38,980
Yeah, let's go through that a
bit.

1943
01:50:39,540 --> 01:50:41,840
Yeah, it was.
I mean, so there's a little

1944
01:50:41,840 --> 01:50:45,200
epilogue that I that I added
about artificial intelligence

1945
01:50:45,200 --> 01:50:48,920
and artificial agents and it
felt really timely to do that.

1946
01:50:50,480 --> 01:50:53,480
And so there's this huge debate
in the artificial intelligence

1947
01:50:53,480 --> 01:50:57,960
community about what what
intelligence is, how do we build

1948
01:50:57,960 --> 01:50:59,560
it.
And you know, there's there's

1949
01:50:59,560 --> 01:51:01,040
various reasons to want to do
that.

1950
01:51:01,040 --> 01:51:03,200
One is that we get this
technological things that can do

1951
01:51:03,200 --> 01:51:05,280
stuff.
The other is as a research

1952
01:51:05,520 --> 01:51:09,770
project as part of understanding
cognition and understanding

1953
01:51:09,770 --> 01:51:13,130
neural systems, we build
artificial ones are there and

1954
01:51:13,170 --> 01:51:15,290
and as a test bed right for our
theories.

1955
01:51:16,930 --> 01:51:20,410
So the systems that are all the
rage these days, these large

1956
01:51:20,410 --> 01:51:25,410
language models like ChatGPT and
Dally and those other things,

1957
01:51:25,810 --> 01:51:30,610
those those are absolutely
incredible and they have what

1958
01:51:30,650 --> 01:51:33,410
looks like understanding almost,
but it's not, it's not

1959
01:51:33,410 --> 01:51:36,050
understanding right.
And you can push them a little

1960
01:51:36,050 --> 01:51:39,130
bit out of their comfort zone
and they they tend to fail,

1961
01:51:39,130 --> 01:51:40,890
right.
They're they're, they don't

1962
01:51:40,890 --> 01:51:43,930
generalize to new situations at
all really.

1963
01:51:44,010 --> 01:51:47,490
And the reason is because they
don't develop any abstract

1964
01:51:48,610 --> 01:51:52,090
understanding of things, kind of
an abstract web of knowledge

1965
01:51:52,250 --> 01:51:54,050
because they don't need to,
right.

1966
01:51:54,210 --> 01:51:55,570
They have all the data that they
want.

1967
01:51:55,570 --> 01:51:58,290
They have all the computing
power they need and they can

1968
01:51:58,290 --> 01:52:00,810
just deal with lots and lots of
of date details.

1969
01:52:01,730 --> 01:52:05,100
And they abstract things like
categories, right?

1970
01:52:05,220 --> 01:52:07,740
So, so visual thing, you know,
visual recognition programs

1971
01:52:08,460 --> 01:52:11,300
abstract categories of, you
know, a chair or table or a

1972
01:52:11,300 --> 01:52:14,620
person or a car or whatever.
But they don't think about

1973
01:52:14,820 --> 01:52:17,660
causal relations between things
because they don't have to.

1974
01:52:17,820 --> 01:52:19,660
They're not.
That's not not what they're for.

1975
01:52:20,940 --> 01:52:23,660
And also they don't really have
access to that because they they

1976
01:52:23,660 --> 01:52:25,580
can't causally intervene on the
world.

1977
01:52:25,980 --> 01:52:27,980
All they have is statistical
correlations.

1978
01:52:28,260 --> 01:52:34,220
Now, those correlations
themselves embody a lot of

1979
01:52:34,220 --> 01:52:37,860
causal regularities, but they
also embody a lot of

1980
01:52:37,860 --> 01:52:40,900
correlations that aren't causal.
And the system can't tell the

1981
01:52:40,900 --> 01:52:42,340
difference between those things,
right?

1982
01:52:42,580 --> 01:52:47,140
Because you can't do a test.
You can't take an action, look

1983
01:52:47,140 --> 01:52:49,060
at the effect, and then learn
something about that.

1984
01:52:49,140 --> 01:52:53,260
That's what organisms do.
They accumulate causal power

1985
01:52:53,460 --> 01:52:57,060
because they act causally in the
world, and they pay attention to

1986
01:52:57,060 --> 01:52:59,140
what happens.
So they build up this web of

1987
01:52:59,140 --> 01:53:02,020
causal knowledge of causal
relations, and they use that.

1988
01:53:02,020 --> 01:53:04,310
That's power act in the world.
Adaptive.

1989
01:53:05,350 --> 01:53:08,470
So the question that I kind of
raised in the epilogue is okay,

1990
01:53:08,470 --> 01:53:12,750
Well, what would it take to make
an artificial intelligence that

1991
01:53:12,750 --> 01:53:14,950
can do that, an artificial
general intelligence.

1992
01:53:16,310 --> 01:53:20,430
And ultimately, I sort of
propose that actually you might

1993
01:53:20,430 --> 01:53:24,390
need to make it an agent.
You might need to make something

1994
01:53:24,390 --> 01:53:26,310
intelligent.
You may need to build an

1995
01:53:26,310 --> 01:53:29,750
intelligence, an entity that
acts in the world like that.

1996
01:53:29,750 --> 01:53:32,990
Maybe have to be embodied and
could be embodied in a simulated

1997
01:53:32,990 --> 01:53:36,630
world, but it should have an
opportunity for causal

1998
01:53:36,630 --> 01:53:38,870
intervention.
It should be able to explore in

1999
01:53:38,870 --> 01:53:42,750
a proactive way.
You may need, you may need to

2000
01:53:42,750 --> 01:53:47,030
give it a kind of a utility, a
master utility function that it

2001
01:53:47,030 --> 01:53:50,390
can scaffold other goals on.
I mean, our master utility

2002
01:53:50,390 --> 01:53:53,750
function for living organisms is
to stay alive and reproduce.

2003
01:53:54,710 --> 01:53:57,630
It could be something like that
for a an artificial agent.

2004
01:53:57,630 --> 01:54:00,670
It doesn't have to be, It could
be something else, but it feels

2005
01:54:00,670 --> 01:54:03,220
like you would need that.
And I think you'd also need some

2006
01:54:03,780 --> 01:54:07,260
some looseness, some
indeterminacy in the in the

2007
01:54:07,260 --> 01:54:08,940
detail.
If it's too deterministically

2008
01:54:09,460 --> 01:54:12,980
set up it, it won't ever develop
these levels of abstraction and

2009
01:54:12,980 --> 01:54:17,660
meaning that would allow it to
act for its own reasons.

2010
01:54:18,940 --> 01:54:21,380
So, you know, it kind of comes
down to the idea that

2011
01:54:21,380 --> 01:54:27,260
intelligence pays off in action.
But when we say somebody's

2012
01:54:27,260 --> 01:54:31,070
intelligent, well, often it
means they've done something

2013
01:54:31,070 --> 01:54:33,310
intelligent or they do
intelligent things.

2014
01:54:33,350 --> 01:54:36,150
They're not stupid, right?
They don't do stupid shit all

2015
01:54:36,150 --> 01:54:38,710
the time.
And by stupid shit we mean like

2016
01:54:39,110 --> 01:54:43,230
walking out in front of traffic
or, you know, blowing your money

2017
01:54:43,230 --> 01:54:45,550
on things that would that are
not going to pay off or, you

2018
01:54:45,550 --> 01:54:50,830
know, things like that, right.
So the payoff is in adaptive,

2019
01:54:51,070 --> 01:54:53,750
appropriate adaptive action.
That's the payoff for

2020
01:54:53,750 --> 01:54:58,820
intelligence.
And these artificial sort of

2021
01:54:58,820 --> 01:55:00,980
models that we have at the
moment just don't have the

2022
01:55:01,140 --> 01:55:05,100
opportunity for adaptive action
because they don't do anything.

2023
01:55:05,140 --> 01:55:06,580
They just have, they just have
an output.

2024
01:55:07,780 --> 01:55:10,420
So I think it's a really
interesting time in artificial

2025
01:55:10,420 --> 01:55:12,780
intelligence.
The computing power is there.

2026
01:55:12,980 --> 01:55:19,300
The architecture I think is not
sufficient to get a real agent

2027
01:55:19,340 --> 01:55:23,980
or an intelligence out of it but
I don't see any reason in

2028
01:55:23,980 --> 01:55:28,080
principle why you couldn't build
it something that has that

2029
01:55:28,080 --> 01:55:29,600
architecture.
If we do all I mean all this

2030
01:55:29,600 --> 01:55:32,320
neuroscience and cognitive
science and psychology is

2031
01:55:32,320 --> 01:55:34,640
showing us what the architecture
looks like right.

2032
01:55:34,640 --> 01:55:37,080
What are the operations that are
happening is weighing different

2033
01:55:37,080 --> 01:55:41,640
options having a kind of a a
space of suggestions that that

2034
01:55:41,680 --> 01:55:44,440
pop up and then weighing between
them based on motivations and

2035
01:55:44,440 --> 01:55:47,040
doing reinforcement learning all
these different bits of the

2036
01:55:47,040 --> 01:55:50,080
brain we're getting good handles
on the on that what that

2037
01:55:50,080 --> 01:55:53,280
architecture looks like where
that cognitive control comes

2038
01:55:53,280 --> 01:55:57,500
from.
You could there's no reason why

2039
01:55:57,500 --> 01:55:59,460
you couldn't build that model it
in in silico.

2040
01:55:59,660 --> 01:56:02,980
I don't think there's any magic
about the wet bear necessarily

2041
01:56:03,140 --> 01:56:03,820
right.
I mean, you.

2042
01:56:04,260 --> 01:56:05,340
We don't know.
Maybe it is.

2043
01:56:07,220 --> 01:56:10,140
So it seems perfectly
conceivable that you could build

2044
01:56:10,140 --> 01:56:14,220
an artificial agent.
And then I think if I recall

2045
01:56:14,220 --> 01:56:16,980
correctly, the last line of the
epilogue is the the next

2046
01:56:16,980 --> 01:56:21,380
question is whether we should,
because that raises all sorts of

2047
01:56:23,300 --> 01:56:25,820
practical issues and ethical
issues and moral issues as well.

2048
01:56:26,480 --> 01:56:28,680
I mean deciding whether to put
it on in the 1st place and then

2049
01:56:28,680 --> 01:56:30,440
you also have to decide whether
you wanna put it off.

2050
01:56:32,960 --> 01:56:35,520
Yeah, there's a lot of work
being done and it's called

2051
01:56:35,520 --> 01:56:39,240
analog AI and they're using a
lot of work, but done by people

2052
01:56:39,240 --> 01:56:40,720
like Andy Clark.
And when you think of 4E

2053
01:56:40,720 --> 01:56:45,200
cognition and you take this
embodied being, put it in,

2054
01:56:45,240 --> 01:56:48,360
embedded into an environment,
allow it to continuously enact

2055
01:56:48,360 --> 01:56:50,520
upon it and then extend it
somehow.

2056
01:56:50,960 --> 01:56:52,880
And I think that is correct.
I think at some point that

2057
01:56:52,880 --> 01:56:55,350
probably will be the trick.
Yeah, I think so too.

2058
01:56:55,350 --> 01:56:57,510
And the question is whether the
way that they're doing that now

2059
01:56:57,510 --> 01:57:01,830
has the necessary architecture
in it to enable this level of

2060
01:57:01,830 --> 01:57:04,950
sophistication of action and
adaptive control to emerge.

2061
01:57:04,950 --> 01:57:07,950
And I I think it doesn't yet,
but that's it.

2062
01:57:08,030 --> 01:57:11,230
But I think that's the right
approach is exactly that

2063
01:57:11,270 --> 01:57:16,190
inactive embodied agent
interacting with its environment

2064
01:57:16,790 --> 01:57:18,390
because that's where the meaning
comes from, right.

2065
01:57:18,390 --> 01:57:21,110
We talked about that grounding
of the meaning through adaptive

2066
01:57:21,110 --> 01:57:24,070
action.
Yeah.

2067
01:57:24,430 --> 01:57:29,430
So it's a very exciting time.
I think, you know, there's this

2068
01:57:29,710 --> 01:57:32,510
potential convergence between
neuroscience, cognitive science

2069
01:57:32,510 --> 01:57:36,230
and artificial intelligence and
artificial life, which doesn't

2070
01:57:36,230 --> 01:57:39,870
get talked about very much.
But there's a huge, huge other

2071
01:57:39,870 --> 01:57:44,430
sort of area of artificial life.
And it feels to me like those

2072
01:57:44,430 --> 01:57:46,430
things are going to come
together at some point.

2073
01:57:46,790 --> 01:57:50,350
They're not quite yet.
They're sort of on the verge of

2074
01:57:50,350 --> 01:57:55,280
it, but yeah, very exciting
times and and and sort of ones

2075
01:57:55,280 --> 01:57:57,240
that raised all these ethical
issues that we're going to have

2076
01:57:57,240 --> 01:58:00,400
to tackle.
Probably better to think about

2077
01:58:00,400 --> 01:58:05,280
them before we're forced to
think about them by by events.

2078
01:58:06,240 --> 01:58:07,680
Yeah, Kevin.
So when I made this podcast, it

2079
01:58:07,680 --> 01:58:10,240
was just a great way I felt to
explore.

2080
01:58:10,240 --> 01:58:12,440
I mean, the nature of reality,
consciousness, free world,

2081
01:58:12,800 --> 01:58:14,560
morality.
I mean, we've cut, we've touched

2082
01:58:14,560 --> 01:58:16,880
on all those topics.
And it's also just an

2083
01:58:16,880 --> 01:58:19,600
opportunity for you guys who
write these amazing books,

2084
01:58:19,600 --> 01:58:22,280
published papers, articles,
scientists, philosophers, to

2085
01:58:22,280 --> 01:58:24,520
just highlight their view and
give you an opportunity to

2086
01:58:24,520 --> 01:58:26,600
express it.
Is there anything on your mind

2087
01:58:26,600 --> 01:58:28,720
that you feel like it's
something your book doesn't say

2088
01:58:28,720 --> 01:58:31,240
perhaps or something you didn't
cover that you want to just

2089
01:58:31,240 --> 01:58:33,350
clarify before we finish?
Yeah, no.

2090
01:58:33,350 --> 01:58:34,870
You know what, I think we
covered a lot.

2091
01:58:34,870 --> 01:58:37,550
I mean there were great, great
questions.

2092
01:58:37,550 --> 01:58:38,950
I really have enjoyed the
discussion.

2093
01:58:38,950 --> 01:58:43,390
I think it, you know, we
probably ranged over touched on

2094
01:58:43,390 --> 01:58:47,070
lightly in some cases, in a bit
more deeply for others, you know

2095
01:58:47,070 --> 01:58:49,390
all of the major themes and
concepts of the book.

2096
01:58:49,390 --> 01:58:53,310
And I think you know hopefully
I've gotten across the the

2097
01:58:53,310 --> 01:58:57,030
perspective of the framework
that I'm trying to trying to

2098
01:58:57,030 --> 01:58:58,750
present.
So yeah, no, I really appreciate

2099
01:58:58,750 --> 01:58:59,710
it.
It's been it's been a lot of

2100
01:58:59,710 --> 01:59:00,990
fun.
Thank you so much.

2101
01:59:01,030 --> 01:59:03,450
I mean, are you going to?
Are you gonna settle on

2102
01:59:03,450 --> 01:59:06,770
cognitive realism or gonna give
that well with me what the

2103
01:59:06,770 --> 01:59:09,450
reaction to that is?
I You know I.

2104
01:59:09,490 --> 01:59:11,410
Want all the people this thing
and watch you gotta give them.

2105
01:59:11,410 --> 01:59:13,930
Give us your views.
Yeah, I loaded that.

2106
01:59:13,930 --> 01:59:16,570
So we'll see if people like that
or not.

2107
01:59:16,570 --> 01:59:19,290
Maybe it'll be like a limited
materialism and it'll get I'll

2108
01:59:19,290 --> 01:59:22,850
get Hillary from on high.
We'll see.

2109
01:59:22,850 --> 01:59:25,370
Yeah.
I I'm not married to it.

2110
01:59:26,490 --> 01:59:29,090
Like I said, I just couldn't
think of anything better at the

2111
01:59:29,090 --> 01:59:31,290
time.
It reminds me of Keith Frankish

2112
01:59:31,290 --> 01:59:33,520
when he made Illusionism.
As a theorist, yeah.

2113
01:59:34,120 --> 01:59:37,680
He actually wanted to call it
magicism I think, or something

2114
01:59:37,680 --> 01:59:40,360
like it's something different.
But he's, I think his publishers

2115
01:59:40,360 --> 01:59:43,800
wanted to go for Illusionism.
So sometimes and and I think

2116
01:59:44,200 --> 01:59:46,040
that he's not so happy with it.
I don't think.

2117
01:59:46,880 --> 01:59:49,080
I think he thinks it's it's
misleading.

2118
01:59:49,080 --> 01:59:52,840
So that's the dangerous thing.
But yeah, yeah, I mean, actually

2119
01:59:52,960 --> 01:59:57,040
to be honest I'd rather just not
have to talk about isms at all.

2120
01:59:57,040 --> 01:59:59,710
But I realized sometimes there's
useful.

2121
01:59:59,750 --> 02:00:01,310
It's a useful shorthand to
describe it.

2122
02:00:01,350 --> 02:00:02,350
It is.
It just allows people to

2123
02:00:02,350 --> 02:00:05,350
communicate and also at the end
of the day I think it just

2124
02:00:05,350 --> 02:00:07,790
becomes a lot more memorable.
Yeah, maybe.

2125
02:00:07,790 --> 02:00:08,870
Yeah.
Good branding.

2126
02:00:09,070 --> 02:00:10,990
I'm sure you know Kevin, thank
you so much.

2127
02:00:10,990 --> 02:00:12,750
And also thank you for the name.
I mean, I often have to

2128
02:00:12,750 --> 02:00:15,670
introduce myself as Kevin with a
T, so.

2129
02:00:15,750 --> 02:00:18,350
Yeah, good.
So thanks for that as well all.

2130
02:00:18,710 --> 02:00:19,710
Right.
Yeah, great.

2131
02:00:19,790 --> 02:00:20,950
Well, it was my pleasure.
Thanks a lot.

2132
02:00:21,190 --> 02:00:22,030
Yes, Kim, take care.