Quantum and Qualia

In this episode, we break down David Chalmers’ essay on whether large language models could ever possess consciousness. Chalmers argues that current systems likely lack subjective experience due to their feedforward architectures and lack of sensory ... more

In this episode, we break down a paper that connects the physics of self-organizing systems with the biological theory of active inference. The authors argue that any system that persists over time naturally forms a Markov blanket, a statistical boun... more

In this episode, we break down Thomas Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos, a philosophical critique of reductive materialism and the neo-Darwinian account of life. Nagel argues that consciousness, cognition, and objective value cannot be treated as accidental by... more

In this episode, we break down the theory of constructed emotion, a framework that challenges the idea that emotions are innate biological “fingerprints.” Instead, emotions are described as predictive simulations the brain constructs to regulate the ... more

In this episode, we break down “Quantum-like Qualia hypothesis: from quantum cognition to quantum perception,” a paper proposing the Quantum-like Qualia (QQ) hypothesis, which treats subjective experiences as quantum-like observables rather than fixe... more

In this episode, we break down Donald Hoffman's Interface Theory of Perception, which argues that evolution favors fitness over veridical truth. The theory proposes that our senses function like a user interface, compressing reality into adaptive ico... more

In this episode, we break down Michael Levin’s scale-free framework for the biological self, a view arguing that cognition and goal-directedness show up at every level of living systems. Levin argues that bioelectric signaling lets cells coordinate i... more

In this episode, we break down “Qualia as Query: The Phenomenology of Predictive Error Coding,” a paper that links cognitive neuroscience and phenomenology to explain conscious experience. The author argues that qualia are not static mental “states,”... more