Today I spoke with Anel Seth. He is a professor of cotton oven computational neuroscience

at the University of Sussex and founding co-director of the Sackler Center for Consciousness

Science. He is focused on the biological basis of consciousness and is studying it in a

very multidisciplinary way, bringing neuroscience and mathematics and artificial intelligence

and computer science, psychology, philosophy, psychiatry, all these disciplines together

in his lab. He is the editor-in-chief of the academic journal Neuroscience of Consciousness

published by Oxford University Press and he has published more than 100 research papers

in a variety of fields. His background is in natural sciences and computer science and

AI and he also did post-doctoral research for five years at the Neuroscience Institute

in San Diego under Gerald Edelman, the Nobel Laureate. And we cover a lot of ground here.

We really get into consciousness in all its aspects. We start with the hard problem, then

talk about where consciousness might emerge in nature, talk about levels of consciousness,

anesthesia, sleep, dreams, the waking state. We talk about perception as a controlled hallucination,

different notions of the self, conscious AI, many things here. I found that all fascinating

and I hope you do as well. And so without further delay, I bring you on Neil Seth.

I am here with the Neil Seth. Neil, thanks for coming on the podcast.

Thanks for inviting me, it's a pleasure.

So I think I first discovered you, I believe I'd seen your name associated with various

papers, but I think I first discovered you the way many people had after your TED talk.

You gave a much loved TED talk. Perhaps you can briefly describe your scientific and

intellectual background.

It's quite a varied background actually. I mean, I think my intellectual interest has

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