About Exploring the Hard Problems of Mind and Life
The ultimate goal of this podcast is understanding what it means to be alive, conscious, and free (to choose life).
In the first series of interviews, Barry Komisaruk and I discuss biological rhythms, excitation-inhibition balances, self-organized criticality, the nature(s) of pleasure and pain, consciousness, agency, and more.
Future podcasts will have discussions with additional scholars, with the goal of going into greater depth than is common practice. Some conversations will be brief, and others will be longer series. Please contact me if you're interested in exploring ideas.
This is the 8th of a series of conversations with Barry Komisaruk.
We discussed the nature(s) of informational and physical flows in mind and life, the potentially synesthetic affective nature of all perception, and ways in which core body processes may provide scaffolding for all other aspects of the evolution and development of minds.
Next week: Thinking about ways in which ontogeny does and does not recapitulate phylogeny; considering the mind as music.
Last week's discussion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diMkpX1_EGs&t=0s) (with previous discussions linked in the video description).
23 Oct 2021
Episode 7: Conversation with Barry Komisaruk
This is the 7th of a series of conversations with Barry Komisaruk.
This conversation continued our exploration on the nature(s) of body maps in brain and mind, going more deeply into how these may inform our understanding of the physical and computational substrates of consciousness.
Last week's discussion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkXvmBRf77I&t=1s) (with previous discussions linked in the video description).
Some links of potential relevance for today's discussion:
On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins (https://numenta.com/resources/on-intelligence/)
A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins
The Radically Embodied Conscious Cybernetic Bayesian Brain: From Free Energy to Free Will and Back Again (https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/783/htm)
Does an Ionic or Biophoton Plasma Transduce Neural Activity into Subjective Conscious Awareness? (https://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/917)
23 Oct 2021
Episode 6: Conversation with Barry Komisaruk
This is the 6th of a series of conversations with Barry Komisaruk.
This conversation focused on the nature(s) of body maps in brain and mind, including some initial discussions of how these may inform our understanding of the physical and computational substrates of consciousness.
Last week's discussion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbypRCcl0sw) (with previous discussions linked in the video description):
Some links of potential relevance for today's discussion:
Body-perception as inference:
Phantoms in the Brain by V.S. Ramachandran (https://www.google.com/books/edition/Phantoms_in_the_Brain/XbyMJzNNGq4C?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover)
Flexible fundamental body maps:
The Body Has a Mind of Its Own by Sandra Blakeslee & Matthew Blakeslee (https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Body_Has_a_Mind_of_Its_Own/9TrSg8jxzcQC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover)
Electromagnetic information exchange for neural activity:
Ephaptic coupling of cortical neurons | Nature Neuroscience
Holographic principle:
Nature’s cosmic hard drive? Black holes could store information like holograms | Ars Technica (https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/06/natures-cosmic-hard-drive-black-holes-could-store-information-like-holograms/)
Consciousness, homunculi, electromagnetic coordination (and dimensionality reduction/channeling) of neural activity:
Does an Ionic or Biophoton Plasma Transduce Neural Activity into Subjective Conscious Awareness? (https://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/917)
Phenomenal binding via body maps:
The Radically Embodied Conscious Cybernetic Bayesian Brain: From Free Energy to Free Will and Back Again (https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/783/htm)
Models of cortical computation:
Integrated World Modeling Theory (IWMT) Expanded: Implications for Theories of Consciousness and Artificial Intelligence (https://psyarxiv.com/rm5b2)
23 Oct 2021
Episode 5: Conversation with Barry Komisaruk
This is the fifth of a series of conversations with Barry Komisaruk.
In this conversation we discussed a broad range of topics, ranging from similarities and differences in the principles of organization of insect and vertebrate nervous systems, to language and the meaning of meaning as wholistic resonance, to spatiotemporal binding/alignment via traveling waves in the hippocampus, and more.
Last week's discussion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPQG2OLTbFQ) (with previous discussions linked in the video description).
Some links of potential relevance for today's discussion:
Facebook note on brains as shared spider’s web (https://www.facebook.com/notes/277951290107478/)
How Can the Brain Efficiently Build an Understanding of the Natural World | The Center for Brains, Minds & Machines (https://cbmm.mit.edu/video/how-can-brain-efficiently-build-understanding-natural-world)
Twitter thread on language and the brain
Smolensky's Harmonium (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restricted_Boltzmann_machine)
Cortical Traveling Waves: Mechanisms and Computational Principles (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3u-JG171ws&t=0s)
Bidirectional propagation of low frequency oscillations over the human hippocampal surface (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22850-5)
23 Oct 2021
Episode 4: Conversation with Barry Komisaruk
This is the fourth of a series of conversations with Barry Komisaruk.
Last week's discussion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9IgVC_DuPI&t=0s) (with previous discussions linked in the video description).
Some links of potential relevance for today's discussion:
Entwinement - I Am a Strange Loop - Douglas R. Hofstadter (publicism.info) (https://publicism.info/philosophy/strange/17.html)
Wedding Haka - Subtitled & translated - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT7Iyk8LoEg&t=0s)
See - Jason Momoa - Performs Haka - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxb-ag6vlHY&t=0s)
Rapid Anxiety Reduction (RAR): A unified theory of humor (arxiv.org) (https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.02364)
The Radically Embodied Conscious Cybernetic Bayesian Brain: From Free Energy to Free Will and Back Again (mdpi.com)
Does an Ionic or Biophoton Plasma Transduce Neural Activity into Subjective Conscious Awareness? (https://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/view/917)
23 Oct 2021
Episode 3: Conversation with Barry Komisaruk
This is the third of a series of conversations with Barry Komisaruk.
Last week's discussion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE-AC0t1hzc) (with previous discussions linked in the video description):
Some links of potential relevance for today's discussion:
When frequencies never synchronize: The golden mean and the resting EEG - ScienceDirect (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006899310007092?via%3Dihub)
Breathing is coupled with voluntary action and the cortical readiness potential | Nature Communications
Creativity and the default network: A functional connectivity analysis of the creative brain at rest - ScienceDirect
The structure of intuitive abilities and their relationships with intelligence and Openness to Experience - ScienceDirect
Adam Safron on Twitter: "1/ Creativity and insight thread."
23 Oct 2021
Episode 2: Conversation with Barry Komisaruk
This is the second of a series of conversations with Barry Komisaruk.
Today we went into greater detail on the mechanisms and significance(s) of different forms of neural synchrony. This one "gets into the weeds," which will provide an increasingly stable foundation for what's to come.
What's to come?
We are gradually working our way to describing a mechanistic neurophenomenological understanding of nearly every aspect of mind, including consciousness, agency, and spirituality (including sexuality).
Last week's discussion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In0c9y8Vobw) (with previous discussions linked in the video description).
Some links of potential relevance for today's discussion:
Alpha oscillations modulate premotor-cerebellar connectivity in motor learning: Insights from transcranial alternating current stimulation (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811921006856)
Neural syntax: cell assemblies, synapsembles and readers (https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(10)00765-8?_returnURL)
Visual Imagery and Perception Share Neural Representations in the Alpha Frequency Band (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098222030590X)
Watch 3-minute theory: why people see different things in the ganzflicker! (https://twitter.com/kerblooee/status/1403676260895805445)
Synchronization of Metronomes (https://www.facebook.com/adam.safron/posts/10102993960575825)
23 Oct 2021
Episode 1: Conversation with Barry Komisaruk
This is the first of a series of conversations with Barry Komisaruk.
We are following up on previous discussions of the nature of biological rhythms, excitation-inhibition balances, self-organized criticality, the nature(s) of pleasure and pain, consciousness, agency, and more.
In the coming weeks and months we will explore all of these topics (and more), with the ultimate goal of understanding what it means to be alive, conscious, and free (to choose life).
Previous conversations:
Neuroscience of Sexuality and Consciousness Symposium for ICP 2021 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1JsUUh-BBc)
Extended panel discussion on Neuroscience of Sexuality and Consciousness for ICP 2021 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sANKGeVdtws)
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