Mindscape 260 | Ricard Solé on the Space of Cognitions

Patreon: / seanmcarroll
Blog post with audio player, show notes, and transcript: www.preposterousuniverse.com/...
Octopuses, artificial intelligence, and advanced alien civilizations: for many reasons, it's interesting to contemplate ways of thinking other than whatever it is we humans do. How should we think about the space of all possible cognitions? One aspect is simply the physics of the underlying substrate, the physical stuff that is actually doing the thinking. We are used to brains being solid -- squishy, perhaps, but consisting of units in an essentially fixed array. What about liquid brains, where the units can move around? Would an ant colony count? We talk with complexity theorist Ricard Solé about complexity, criticality, and cognition.
Ricard Solé received his Ph.D. in physics from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. He is currently ICREA research professor at the Catalan Institute for research and Advanced Studies, currently working at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, where he is head of the Complex Systems Lab. He is also an External Professor of the Santa Fe Institute, Fellow of the European centre for Living Technology, external faculty at the Center for Evolution and Cancer at UCSF, and a member of the Vienna Complex Systems Hub. He is the author of several technical books.
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[@muhammadneanaa1611]

It’s insane that such material is so easily accessible for free. Definitely the best time to be alive.

[@saavestro2154]

00:00:00 Introduction 00:05:02 Cognition space 00:07:52 Are there general rules for complex systems? 00:09:40 Evolution of cognition 00:12:58 Single-cell cognition 00:15:10 Where do cells store information? 00:17:10 When the first neuron came to be? 00:20:41 Inter-neurons allow Information Processing 00:24:27 Von Neumann Architectures vs Neural Networks 00:27:55 Evolution of Brains and Computers 00:30:18 How AI is different from human cognition? 00:33:25 The brain at the edge of criticality 00:36:22 Phase transitions in the brain 00:38:39 Liquid brains: brains formed by individuals that move around 00:42:40 Solid vs liquid brains 00:44:35 Is an ant colony a brain? 00:46:34 Slime mold solving mazes 00:49:52 Plants as brains 00:51:45 Brains as multi-layers of threshold elements 00:56:27 Constructing artificial cognition 00:58:09 Symbolic vs connective approaches of AI 01:00:00 Embodiment of AI 01:02:55 What can we build in the cognition space? 01:05:25 Filling voids in the cognition space 01:07:04 At what point society becomes a collective intelligence?

[@kroyhevia]

Ready for another great year of mindscape!

[@ancientfish6872]

Happy New Year!

[@VermontStrolls]

Wow! One of your best uploads. Thanks!

[@KirkpatrickSounds]

Im really curious about this topic despite not knowing a lot about it in a deeper sense. I have a gut feeling there's a lot more to this than we currently understand and appreciate. A topic to keep an eye on...

[@michaeljfigueroa]

thanks for sticking around youtube

[@StayPrimal]

Hope you had great holidays everyone ! Happy new year :)

[@dimitrispapadimitriou5622]

Some basic questions: Are there "thresholds" in complex systems, where emergent properties appear? Do they have something common in general? Does physicalist Strong Emergence exist? ( in the mild sense: not new physics that affects the basic, fundamental laws, but S.E. in the sense that some effects and emerging properties cannot be deduced, even in principle, from the fundamental laws)

[@fallenangel8785]

I just want to say that I am waiting for your second book of "the biggest ideas in the universe "series

[@steliosp1770]

been waiting for the next episode for a while now, haha, thanks Sean. have a great 2024!

[@georgina.sawyer]

I listened to this whole thing in one minute

[@trevorcrowley5748]

Very impressive! May I suggest "Mindscape 170 | Priya Natarajan on Galaxies, Black Holes, and Cosmic Anomalies"? Her delivery is magisterial. Enjoy.

[@picksalot1]

That was quite interesting. If I heard correctly, I think he said that the Senses are "interviewers." I would have to disagree with that, as they seem to be unbiased "Reporters" that received data, and convert that into information that can be communication within the limitations of their capabilities and system. Near-sighted eyes are not good reporters of distant objects, reporting out of focus and distorted images which reflect both the limitations of that person's vision, along with the degraded data.

[@cyruskalantari6581]

Happy New Year 🎉

[@paxdriver]

Have you had Michael Levin on this show to discuss xenobots (frog skin cell morphogensis)? These are some of my favourite episodes, thank you

[@kevindyer4111]

Does a liquid intelligence have to be able to alter its morphology

[@hapaart]

Been subscribed for years now and your pod never comes up.

[@CONNELL19511216]

Sean was desperately trying to get his interviewee to lay down the basics. Alas, it was not to be an easy task

[@TheDudeKicker]

Lots of words, not a lot of complexity

[@paxdriver]

1:00:55 is scary part is giving them weapons, which police departments want to do with Boston dynamics. AI should never be armed or controlling major infrastructure. They should advise, alert, summarize, teach, but never be put in control.

[@jamieoglethorpe]

I contend that a Tesla car with FSD (Full Self Driving) has a theory of mind, allowing it to predict the potential actions of other road users and act accordingly. This could show the benefit of an embodied AI.

[@connorkapooh2002]

i have no familiarity with self-driving cars particularly, but could we suppose it a theory of car? id imagine you'd be learning car states in relation to whatever else which would give you a theory car, which could scale to a theory of mind.

[@jamieoglethorpe]

@@connorkapooh2002 I posit that Tesla FSD (Full Self Driving) has been trained to anticipate the actions of other road users. There are examples of the Tesla hesitating on a narrow road for a car coming the other way in case it pulls out. It also anticipates the actions of pedestrians. The Teslas behaviour is innate. Tesla trained FSD version 12 entirely from carefully curated examples of good human driving. It is being released to the entire fleet for a month.

[@brightstar9870]

Carpe diem

[@gerrycrabtree3274]

Sean abandoning reductionism?