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Curt Jaimungal (Me): The Deepest Theories of Consciousness | The Consciousness Iceberg [Layer 3]
August 30, 2024
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The Economist covers math, physics, philosophy, and AI in a manner that shows how different countries perceive developments and how they impact markets. They recently published a piece on China's new neutrino detector. They cover extending life via mitochondrial transplants, creating an entirely new field of medicine. But it's also not just science they analyze.
Culture, they analyze finance, economics, business, international affairs across every region. I'm particularly liking their new insider feature. It was just launched this month. It gives you, it gives me, a front row access to The Economist's internal editorial debates.
Where senior editors argue through the news with world leaders and policy makers in twice weekly long format shows. Basically an extremely high quality podcast. Whether it's scientific innovation or shifting global politics, The Economist provides comprehensive coverage beyond headlines. As a toe listener, you get a special discount. Head over to economist.com slash TOE to subscribe. That's economist.com slash TOE for your discount.
Hola, Miami! When's the last time you've been to Burlington? We've updated, organized, and added fresh fashion. See for yourself Friday, November 14th to Sunday, November 16th at our Big Deal event. You can enter for a chance to win free wawa gas for a year, plus more surprises in your Burlington. Miami, that means so many ways and days to save. Burlington. Deals. Brands. Wow! No purchase necessary. Visit BigDealEvent.com for more details.
Welcome to the Consciousness Iceberg, Layer 3, where this time we'll delve into the even deeper kaleidoscopic world of explaining every theory of consciousness in a straightforward manner, connecting philosophical ideas to modern theories of cognitive science.
In Layer 1, we laid the groundwork by defining consciousness, addressing the mind-body problem, and exploring the nature of sleep, dreams, altered states. We also touched on the debate between free will and determinism, questioned the nature of the self and identity,
There's a link in the description if you'd like to see that. And in Layer 2, we ventured into the more challenging aspects, such as the hard problem of consciousness, phalia, what is it, non-dualism, what is it, what does Indian philosophy have to say about it, and other theories such as global workspace, as well as Carl Jung's ideas on consciousness.
With all of that groundwork laid, we're now ready to plunge into Layer 3, exploring Heidegger's notion of Dasein. What is the Attention Schema Theory? What are the latest theories from thinkers such as Donald Hoffman and Joscha Bach? We also tackle the Boundary Problem in Consciousness, as articulated by Andreas Gomez Emelson.
As well as addressing the relativistic view of consciousness by Nir Lahav. This is a radically new theory proposed in the 2020s. We'll see how all of these frameworks interact, complement, and contradict one another. My name is Kurt Jaimungal, and I use my background in mathematical physics to analyze theories of everything. So, let's begin.
Heidegger's concept of Dasein. The concept of Dasein is prevalent in Heidegger's philosophy, particularly in his seminal existential work, Being and Time. The term Dasein is often translated as being there or presence. Essentially, it's human consciousness as a form of being that's aware of,
and questions its own existence. In the context of consciousness studies, Dasein is significant because it places an emphasis on consciousness having an active engagement with the world.
Heidegger posits that our consciousness, or Dasein, is always thrown in the world. This means that we find ourselves in a context that we didn't choose, however, we still must navigate it. And this navigation involves both perceiving objects and understanding them as part of a meaningful whole, or a quote-unquote world in Heideggerian terms.
You can think of this as a fusion of reductionism and holism. Dossine is always already involved in a world of significance, where things show up as relevant or irrelevant, useful or useless based on our intentions and concerns. This relates to John Vervecky's relevance realization that we talked about in the previous layer.
Many views on consciousness emphasize the passive observer aspect, such as some forms of mindfulness meditation, where you watch your thoughts rather than become the author of your thoughts. Heidegger says this is a mistake. Consciousness doesn't mirror a reality that exists, it's a co-creator, a negotiator of meaning. One aspect of Dasein is its temporal nature.
Heidegger argues that Dasein is always ahead of itself, projecting into the future while being grounded in its past, what he calls being toward death. In this way, it's common to the predictive approaches of Karl Friston, which will come up in Layer 4.
So subscribe to get notified. This temporal structure means that consciousness is inherently future oriented. It's your orientation to the future that shapes your present. This stands in contrast to the more present oriented views such as those of some meditative practices. Heidegger suggests that the notion that consciousness can be fully understood by breaking it down into its components or correlating it with neural processes
is an irreducible phenomenon, intertwined with our being in the world. This resonates with modern theories that emphasize the embodied
Attention Schema Theory Attention Schema Theory is a relatively recent theory in the study of consciousness proposed by neuroscientist Michael Graziano.
It offers a compelling explanation for how consciousness arises from the brain's mechanisms for attention. The core idea of AST is that the brain constructs models or schemas of various processes to determine and control them. For instance, to control the movement of the body, the brain creates a model of the body's position in space.
known as a body schema. Similarly, Graziano proposes that the brain constructs an attention schema, a model of where attention is directed and what it's focusing on. According to AST, consciousness arises when the brain creates a model of its own attention. This self modeling of attention is what gives us the experience of being aware. In other words,
AST doesn't claim that attention itself is consciousness, but rather that the brain's internal model of attention is what we experience as consciousness.
This theory suggests that consciousness isn't a fundamental property of the brain, rather it's a useful construct, a model, or a representation, if you will. One that helps the brain manage complex tasks and social interactions. One of the intriguing aspects or implications of AST is its potential to explain the quote-unquote explanatory gap. That is, the question of why and how physical processes give rise to subjective experience.
Craziano suggests that this gap may be a result of the brain's attention schema being inherently incomplete. The brain models attention as an intangible, ineffable process, leading us to experience it as something fundamentally mysterious, even though it's just a model constructed by the brain.
But Kurt, what does that even mean? Well, AST aligns with some elements of predictive processing theories where the brain is seen as a prediction machine, constantly generating models of the world to guide behavior. In the case of consciousness, AST posits that the brain generates a model of itself paying attention, and this self-model is what we experience as being conscious. To better understand this concept, imagine it like the following. When you're watching a movie, you're aware of the characters and the plot.
However, you're not necessarily aware of the projector that's casting the images on the screen. Your brain's attention schema is like the projector. It's responsible for creating the experience, but it remains obscured, it remains hidden from your conscious awareness. Another way to think of it is like a spotlight that illuminates certain aspects of your experience while leaving others in the dark. So, critics of AST argue that it doesn't fully account for the qualitative aspects of consciousness,
what philosophers call qualia. However, proponents of AST suggest that it does offer a robust framework for integrating attention and awareness, which are the key components of conscious experience.
EM field topology and the boundary problem. The boundary problem in consciousness research is an underexplored area closely related to the better known binding problem. Now while the binding problem deals with how disparate neuronal activities coalesce into a unified conscious experience, see layer 2, the boundary problem asks why and how these experiences have distinct limits. Why does our sense of self
and experience have clear edges. Now, note that some like Rupert Spira argue that not only does consciousness not have so-called limits, but counterintuitively, neither does our experience of consciousness have limits. You can see this podcast with Rupert Spira here, but for today, I want to talk about a theory created by Andreas Gomez-Emmelson. Electromagnetic field topology is an approach to tackling this delineation issue.
This theory suggests that the topology of EM fields in the brain could create hard boundaries for conscious experiences.
These boundaries are defined by the physical and topological properties of EM fields. This theory rests on the principle of topological segmentation, where different segments of the brain's electromagnetic field are enclosed within distinct topological boundaries. This segmentation could theoretically account for why our consciousness feels segmented into specific bounded experiences.
Now let's talk about some key features of EM field topology. So number one, you have a holistic enclosure. EM fields create these enclosures around areas of high neuronal activity, segmenting these from the rest of the brain activity. Number two, frame invariance.
These boundaries are not static across different states of consciousness. Instead, the very nature of various states of consciousness stems from how these boundaries dynamically shift, morph, and change. There are both global boundaries that segment out larger conscious experiences and local boundaries that affect immediate experiential content.
This dynamic interaction allows for a multitude of pathways within our conscious landscape, similar to how altering the shape of a balloon creates different paths within it. Now, number three, there's downward causality. The segmented fields can influence neuronal activity within their boundaries, suggesting a two-way interaction between consciousness and brain activity. And lastly, number four, there's no need for strong emergence.
EM field topology and its holistic top-down effects are all implied by the laws of physics aligning more with the form of weak emergence. This perspective shifts from a classical atomistic view to one that appreciates continuous field dynamics and topological changes as natural phenomena. This approach addresses not only how consciousness is bounded but simultaneously enhances our understanding of how different conscious states such as waking and various altered states
could be maintained or shifted through changes in the EM field topology. Now topology by the way in this sense is a fancy term for quote-unquote mapping the connectivity or you can just think of it as what parts are connected to what. Testing this theory involves simulations and empirical research focusing on how EM fields maintain consistent Lorentz invariance
Yosha Bach's Theory
Joscha Bach's theory suggests that cortical structures result from reward-driven learning based on signals from the motivational system and the structure of the data being learned. A cortical structure, by the way, is just a dressed-up manner of referring to any part of the cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the brain.
Now, at the heart of this theory is the conductor, the so-called conductor, which is a computational structure trained to regulate the activity of other cortical functionality. This conductor directs attention and provides executive function by altering the activity and parameterization of other cortical structures. It integrates aspects of the processes it attends to into a protocol which is then used for reflection and learning.
But what are the elementary agents in this theory? Bach describes them as columns in the cerebral cortex. These columns self-organize into larger organizational units of brain areas through developmental reinforcement learning. The activity of this cortical orchestra is highly distributed and paralyzed. It can't be experienced as a whole. The conductor, located in the prefrontal cortex, coordinates the performance. It's not a homunculus.
Instead, it's a set of dynamic function approximators. While most cortical instruments regulate the dynamics and interactions of this organism with the environment, the conductor regulates the dynamics of the orchestra itself. Now, you might be wondering,
Where does experience get integrated? Bach states that the conductor is the only place where this happens. Information not integrated into the protocol can't become functionally relevant to the system's reflection, the production of its utterances, or the generation of its cohesive self-model. So, what happens without the conductor?
Bach asserts that our brain can still perform most of its functions. We'd be sleepwalkers, capable of coordinated perceptual and motor action, yet lacking central coherence and reflection. Memories play a significant role, by the way, in Bach's theory.
Memories can be generated by reactivating a cortical configuration via the links and parameters stored at the corresponding point in the protocol. Reflective access to the protocol is itself a process that can be stored in the protocol. By accessing this, a system may remember having had experiential access.
So, let's make this extremely simple. For phenomenal consciousness, Bach claims it's necessary and sufficient that a system can access the memory of having had an experience. What about the actuality of the experience itself? This is irrelevant. An example illustrating this relationship between the conductor, the protocol, and the conscious experience can be visualized through a graph.
So let's imagine a place with nodes and edges representing your brain's cortical regions. Each node possesses specific information, such as visual data, or auditory signals, or emotional responses, etc. The conductor, which is the prefrontal cortex, selectively samples their outputs, compressing them into some compact serialized protocol. Firstly, note how much you're not aware of.
Even right now, there's the air around you. There's perhaps your shoes or your socks or if you're on the ground maybe some dirt underneath your soles. There's some background hum that you're ignoring. There's maybe the scent of wood or there's maybe the scent of coffee or of orange juice or someone else coughing in the background. You're not consciously aware of all of this processing. The conductor samples these outputs
creating a compressed representation, which is just you sitting down listening to a podcast. When you recall this experience, you're not accessing the raw sensory data, but you're accessing instead this compressed protocol. Your subjective experience of remembering the podcast
is the conductor reactivating and slightly reinterpreting this protocol. The qualia of the pixels on the screen or the curiosity that you have isn't a stored property. Instead, it's an emergent interpretation as your brain reconstructs the memory. This, according to Bach, explains why our memory often feels less vivid than the original experience.
We are working from a compressed protocol, not raw sensory data. Okay, but how does this have anything to do with the hard problem?
Consider the classical, philosophical zombie, that thought experiment that you've heard of, where we imagine a being physically identical to a human, however this being will lack conscious experience. In Bach's framework, this concept becomes incoherent. Imagine two identical neural networks, one conscious and one a zombie.
Both have the same conductor mechanism, sampling and compressing information into a protocol. Both can report on their experiences by accessing and interpreting this protocol. For Bach, the conscious system doesn't have some extra ineffable property. Its experience of consciousness is precisely its ability to access and report on its protocol. It's equivalent to that.
So the zombie system, being identical to this, would necessarily have the same ability. The seemingly hard problem of what it feels like to be conscious dissolves when we recognize that this feeling itself is a construct, a so-called story the brain tells itself.
by interpreting its own protocol. There's no separate experience happening alongside the information processing. The experience is the processing. So what is phenomenal consciousness according to Bach?
What is qualia according to Bach? What are feelings? What is blueness? To Bach, the phenomenal consciousness is understood as the most recent memory of what our prefrontal cortex attended to. Conscious experience isn't an experience of being in the world or an inner space. It's a memory.
It's the recognition of a dream generated by more than 50 brain areas reflected in the protocol of a single region. By directing attention to its own protocol, the conductor can store and recreate memories of its own experience being conscious.
This perspective resolves much of the difficulty in specifying an AI implementation of consciousness. It's necessary and sufficient to realize a system that remembers having had experienced something and can report on that memory. Bach suggests that our conscious experience isn't a direct perception of some physical reality
Donald Hoffman's theory. Donald Hoffman, a cognitive scientist, argues that our visual perceptions, in general, aren't veridical representations of ultimate reality.
Why? Because evolution selects for fitness to reproduce and not for access to ontological truth. This is outlined in his Fitness Beats Truth paper, linked in the description.
Consider this. A caveman who sees a rabbit as tasty food is more likely to survive than one who perceives it as a complex molecular structure. This, of course, presumes that the molecular structure is what's more real. Hoffman likens our perceptions to computer interfaces, such as a folder that's on your desktop. Now, you see that folder and you think, is there actually a tiny folder inside your computer? No, it's just a useful simplification for complex binary code.
Similarly, Hoffman argues that evolution shaped our perceptions as simplistic illusions to help us navigate the world. Later in his career, Hoffman suggests that space-time itself isn't objective reality. It's just a part of our interface. To some physicists, this is quite obvious and straightforward because we don't have a method of reconciling general relativity with quantum mechanics and several of the attempts to do so posit structures where space-time emerges.
Some other physicists, however, would say that space-time not being fundamental doesn't mean space-time is any more of an illusion than your car is an illusion because your car isn't fundamental. So, what is real according to Donald Hoffman and his collaborator Sheytan Prakash? Consciousness. They propose conscious realism, which states that the objective world consists of conscious agents and their experiences.
Instead of particles creating consciousness when they form brains, consciousness creates spacetime and objects, including what we perceive as a brain. Now let's think. How does this compare to other theories? Let's break it down. We have Joschabach's cortical conductor theory, which sees consciousness as a memory of what our prefrontal cortex attended to. Hoffman disagrees, saying consciousness is fundamental, and so they diverge on the nature of reality itself.
Bach still operates within a physicalist framework, while Hoffman politely throws physicalism down the garbage chute. Michael Graziano's Attention Schema Theory views consciousness as the brain's model of its own attention. Now Hoffman would say that this gets it backward. For him, consciousness isn't created by the brain, the brain is created by consciousness.
So this is what Donald Hoffman means when he says that neurons don't exist until perceived. Bernardo Castrop's analytic idealism aligns more closely with Hoffman. They both see consciousness as fundamental. The key difference is that Castrop posits a universal consciousness that segments itself into individual minds, while Hoffman describes a network of interacting conscious agents.
Heidegger's concept of Dasein emphasizes consciousness as active engagement with the world, and Hoffman would agree, however Hoffman would add that this world that we're engaging with is itself a construct of consciousness. Heidegger asserts that Dasein, or human existence, you can think of it like that, and the world are inseparable and co-constitutive, with neither having ontological priority.
This contradicts Hoffman's conscious realism, which gives ontological priority to consciousness. Andre Gomes-Emelson's EM field topology theory tackles the boundary problem of consciousness. Hoffman's theory sidesteps this issue entirely by making consciousness fundamental. There's no need to explain how physical processes create bounded conscious experiences if those physical processes are themselves constructs of consciousness.
Okay, now you might be thinking, Kurt, what the heck about all the evidence that correlates mental states with brain activity? And Hoffman does have an answer. These correlations are fomented because consciousness creates brain activity. So yes, there's quite straightforwardly a correlation, it's just that the causation goes in the other direction.
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Near Lahav's Relativistic Consciousness What if consciousness isn't an absolute property, but a relative one that depends on the observer's frame of reference? This idea is at the heart of Lahav's theory, which aims to bridge the explanatory gap between functional and phenomenal consciousness. Lahav starts with two key assumptions
Consciousness, number one, has some kind of physical explanation, or broad physicalism, and then number two, that the principle of relativity holds true even for consciousness. Okay, but what does this mean in practice? Nearest thinking like Einstein.
You start with postulates, and then you see their consequences. The consequences suggest the concept of cognitive frames of reference, that is, perspectives determined by a cognitive system's dynamics. Lahav then establishes an equivalence principle between a conscious human, Alice, let's say, and a purported zombie AI system, say Bob, with the same cognitive structure, but supposedly lacking phenomenal consciousness in the latter case.
If Alice and Bob obtain the same measurements and behavioral outputs, the relativity principle dictates that they must have the same physical laws in force. This leads us to the unintuitive conclusion that Bob, despite being assumed to be a zombie, must also have phenomenal consciousness. Okay, so let's say you're looking at a sunset. From your first-person perspective, you experience colors and emotions. A neuroscientist observing your brain would see certain patterns of neural firing.
Are these two perspectives describing the same phenomenon? According to Lahav, yes, they're just different measurements from different cognitive frames of reference. These are different perspectives of the same underlying phenomenon, akin to how UNRWA radiation appears from one perspective, but not another.
But wait, you ask, Kurt, doesn't consciousness feel private and inaccessible to outside observers? Lahav explains this is due to the difference in measurements possible from first-person and third-person perspectives. From within a cognitive system, representations have causal power and are experienced as qualia. However, when you're from the outside, we can only measure physical substrates. Okay, so what about free will?
Nir LaHav may say that it's relative, and that this unifies determinism and libertarian free will. But let's think about what I just said. Phenomenal consciousness isn't truly private.
it just requires the right frame of reference to measure directly. Thus, Lahav's approach aims to dissolve the hard problem by showing that the physical patterns, or the neural representations, and the phenomenal properties, or the qualia, are two sides of the same coin. They're different ways the same phenomenon appears based on the observer's cognitive perspective. But, doesn't this just push the explanatory burden back a step?
Instead of explaining how consciousness emerges from non-conscious matter, don't we now have to explain how it combines and evolves into complex life forms across different frames of reference? Lahav argues that his theory opens up new avenues for empirical research. Yes, so he proposes experiences to test predictions about the minimal conditions for consciousness and how these relate to sleep or to anesthesia or other altered states.
Altered states, by the way, were explored in Layer 1, link in the description of this consciousness iceberg.
For instance, Nir Lahav may look for activation of specific cognitive spaces during cognitive states and their absence during unconscious states. Okay, but how does this theory compare to others? Well, with Donald Hoffman, since Lahav's theory posits consciousness as a relative property dependent on observers' frames of reference, it contradicts sharply with Hoffman's conscious realism.
While Hoffman argues consciousness is fundamental and creates our perceived reality, Lahab suggests consciousness is a physical phenomenon that appears different based on perspective. Consider Hoffman's desktop analogy.
Hoffman may say that the computer, the desk it's on, and the room all around you are just constructs of consciousness, whereas Lehov would argue, no, these are real physical objects, but our conscious experience of them depends on our cognitive frame of reference. But what about Bernardo Castrop? Castrop posits a universal consciousness that segments into individual minds.
Lahav, in contrast, grounds consciousness in physical cognitive systems. Where Kastrup sees consciousness as primary, Lahav sees it as an emergent property, albeit one that looks different from various perspectives. Joschabach's cortical conductor theory views consciousness as a memory of what our prefrontal cortex attended to, and this aligns more closely with Lahav than with Hoffman or Kastrup. Both Bach and Lahav operate broadly within a physicalist framework,
Though Lahav would expand what physicalism is, adding the dimension of relativity, suggesting that the quote-unquote memory Bach describes might appear differently from various cognitive frames of reference. So let's be clear, let's just think about an apple. Hoffman would say that that apple doesn't exist as a physical object, it's a construct of consciousness, an icon if you will, in our species specific interface with reality.
whereas Kastrup would look at that apple and say that apple is a manifestation within universal consciousness experienced by an individual quote-unquote alter, which is you, of this universal consciousness. Bach would instead describe your experience as a memory of your prefrontal cortex attending to certain sensory inputs and conceptual associations giving the impression of the apple. Now, Lahav would say that the apple is a physical object
But your conscious experience of its redness is a measurement that depends on your cognitive frame of reference. From another frame, say a neuroscientist observing your brain, the same phenomenon might just appear as patterns of neuroactivity. Now, some questions to ponder are, how does Heidegger's idea of being toward death
influenced your understanding of consciousness and its relation to time? What implications might detention schema theory have for developing artificial consciousness? How does understanding the boundary problem change our approach to studying altered states of consciousness? In what ways does Bach's theory challenge the notion of qualia as traditionally understood? How does Hoffman's theory account for shared experiences and consensus reality among different individuals?
Does Lahav's theory of relativistic consciousness finally bridge the gap between physicalist and non-physicalist theories of mind?
And that concludes Layer 3 of the Consciousness Iceberg. If you found this expedition intriguing, then make sure to subscribe for Layer 4, where we'll delve into Penrose's theories, we'll also talk about Chris Langan's CTMU or the Cognitive Theoretic Model of the Universe, Immanuel Kant's idea of Transcendental Unity of Aperception, Hegel's notion of Absolute Spirit, embodiment or semantic practices,
Also, thank you to our partner, The Economist.
Firstly, thank you for watching, thank you for listening. There's now a website, curtjymongle.org, and that has a mailing list. The reason being that large platforms like YouTube, like Patreon, they can disable you for whatever reason, whenever they like.
That's just part of the terms of service. Now, a direct mailing list ensures that I have an untrammeled communication with you. Plus, soon I'll be releasing a one-page PDF of my top 10 toes. It's not as Quentin Tarantino as it sounds like. Secondly, if you haven't subscribed or clicked that like button, now is the time to do so. Why? Because each subscribe, each like helps YouTube push this content to more people
I also found out last year that external links count plenty toward the algorithm, which means that whenever you share on Twitter, say on Facebook, or even on Reddit, etc., it shows YouTube, hey, people are talking about this content OUTSIDE of YouTube
which in turn greatly aids the distribution on YouTube. Thirdly, there's a remarkably active Discord and subreddit for theories of everything where people explicate toes, they disagree respectfully about theories and build as a community our own toe. Links to both are in the description. Fourthly, you should know this podcast is on iTunes, it's on Spotify, it's on all of the audio platforms. All you have to do is type in theories of everything and you'll find it. Personally, I gained from rewatching lectures and podcasts
I also read in the comments that hey, toll listeners also gain from replaying. So how about instead you re-listen on those platforms like iTunes, Spotify,
podcast catcher
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"start_time": 287.329,
"text": " Heidegger argues that Dasein is always ahead of itself, projecting into the future while being grounded in its past, what he calls being toward death. In this way, it's common to the predictive approaches of Karl Friston, which will come up in Layer 4."
},
{
"end_time": 328.319,
"index": 15,
"start_time": 304.138,
"text": " So subscribe to get notified. This temporal structure means that consciousness is inherently future oriented. It's your orientation to the future that shapes your present. This stands in contrast to the more present oriented views such as those of some meditative practices. Heidegger suggests that the notion that consciousness can be fully understood by breaking it down into its components or correlating it with neural processes"
},
{
"end_time": 341.971,
"index": 16,
"start_time": 328.319,
"text": " is an irreducible phenomenon, intertwined with our being in the world. This resonates with modern theories that emphasize the embodied"
},
{
"end_time": 363.37,
"index": 17,
"start_time": 342.244,
"text": " Attention Schema Theory Attention Schema Theory is a relatively recent theory in the study of consciousness proposed by neuroscientist Michael Graziano."
},
{
"end_time": 383.609,
"index": 18,
"start_time": 363.37,
"text": " It offers a compelling explanation for how consciousness arises from the brain's mechanisms for attention. The core idea of AST is that the brain constructs models or schemas of various processes to determine and control them. For instance, to control the movement of the body, the brain creates a model of the body's position in space."
},
{
"end_time": 403.592,
"index": 19,
"start_time": 383.609,
"text": " known as a body schema. Similarly, Graziano proposes that the brain constructs an attention schema, a model of where attention is directed and what it's focusing on. According to AST, consciousness arises when the brain creates a model of its own attention. This self modeling of attention is what gives us the experience of being aware. In other words,"
},
{
"end_time": 418.746,
"index": 20,
"start_time": 403.592,
"text": " AST doesn't claim that attention itself is consciousness, but rather that the brain's internal model of attention is what we experience as consciousness."
},
{
"end_time": 445.282,
"index": 21,
"start_time": 419.104,
"text": " This theory suggests that consciousness isn't a fundamental property of the brain, rather it's a useful construct, a model, or a representation, if you will. One that helps the brain manage complex tasks and social interactions. One of the intriguing aspects or implications of AST is its potential to explain the quote-unquote explanatory gap. That is, the question of why and how physical processes give rise to subjective experience."
},
{
"end_time": 463.592,
"index": 22,
"start_time": 445.282,
"text": " Craziano suggests that this gap may be a result of the brain's attention schema being inherently incomplete. The brain models attention as an intangible, ineffable process, leading us to experience it as something fundamentally mysterious, even though it's just a model constructed by the brain."
},
{
"end_time": 493.814,
"index": 23,
"start_time": 463.933,
"text": " But Kurt, what does that even mean? Well, AST aligns with some elements of predictive processing theories where the brain is seen as a prediction machine, constantly generating models of the world to guide behavior. In the case of consciousness, AST posits that the brain generates a model of itself paying attention, and this self-model is what we experience as being conscious. To better understand this concept, imagine it like the following. When you're watching a movie, you're aware of the characters and the plot."
},
{
"end_time": 524.002,
"index": 24,
"start_time": 494.172,
"text": " However, you're not necessarily aware of the projector that's casting the images on the screen. Your brain's attention schema is like the projector. It's responsible for creating the experience, but it remains obscured, it remains hidden from your conscious awareness. Another way to think of it is like a spotlight that illuminates certain aspects of your experience while leaving others in the dark. So, critics of AST argue that it doesn't fully account for the qualitative aspects of consciousness,"
},
{
"end_time": 537.739,
"index": 25,
"start_time": 524.343,
"text": " what philosophers call qualia. However, proponents of AST suggest that it does offer a robust framework for integrating attention and awareness, which are the key components of conscious experience."
},
{
"end_time": 564.172,
"index": 26,
"start_time": 538.695,
"text": " EM field topology and the boundary problem. The boundary problem in consciousness research is an underexplored area closely related to the better known binding problem. Now while the binding problem deals with how disparate neuronal activities coalesce into a unified conscious experience, see layer 2, the boundary problem asks why and how these experiences have distinct limits. Why does our sense of self"
},
{
"end_time": 590.196,
"index": 27,
"start_time": 564.462,
"text": " and experience have clear edges. Now, note that some like Rupert Spira argue that not only does consciousness not have so-called limits, but counterintuitively, neither does our experience of consciousness have limits. You can see this podcast with Rupert Spira here, but for today, I want to talk about a theory created by Andreas Gomez-Emmelson. Electromagnetic field topology is an approach to tackling this delineation issue."
},
{
"end_time": 597.944,
"index": 28,
"start_time": 590.606,
"text": " This theory suggests that the topology of EM fields in the brain could create hard boundaries for conscious experiences."
},
{
"end_time": 621.988,
"index": 29,
"start_time": 598.404,
"text": " These boundaries are defined by the physical and topological properties of EM fields. This theory rests on the principle of topological segmentation, where different segments of the brain's electromagnetic field are enclosed within distinct topological boundaries. This segmentation could theoretically account for why our consciousness feels segmented into specific bounded experiences."
},
{
"end_time": 638.677,
"index": 30,
"start_time": 622.551,
"text": " Now let's talk about some key features of EM field topology. So number one, you have a holistic enclosure. EM fields create these enclosures around areas of high neuronal activity, segmenting these from the rest of the brain activity. Number two, frame invariance."
},
{
"end_time": 659.445,
"index": 31,
"start_time": 639.155,
"text": " These boundaries are not static across different states of consciousness. Instead, the very nature of various states of consciousness stems from how these boundaries dynamically shift, morph, and change. There are both global boundaries that segment out larger conscious experiences and local boundaries that affect immediate experiential content."
},
{
"end_time": 685.828,
"index": 32,
"start_time": 659.787,
"text": " This dynamic interaction allows for a multitude of pathways within our conscious landscape, similar to how altering the shape of a balloon creates different paths within it. Now, number three, there's downward causality. The segmented fields can influence neuronal activity within their boundaries, suggesting a two-way interaction between consciousness and brain activity. And lastly, number four, there's no need for strong emergence."
},
{
"end_time": 715.128,
"index": 33,
"start_time": 686.101,
"text": " EM field topology and its holistic top-down effects are all implied by the laws of physics aligning more with the form of weak emergence. This perspective shifts from a classical atomistic view to one that appreciates continuous field dynamics and topological changes as natural phenomena. This approach addresses not only how consciousness is bounded but simultaneously enhances our understanding of how different conscious states such as waking and various altered states"
},
{
"end_time": 737.295,
"index": 34,
"start_time": 715.128,
"text": " could be maintained or shifted through changes in the EM field topology. Now topology by the way in this sense is a fancy term for quote-unquote mapping the connectivity or you can just think of it as what parts are connected to what. Testing this theory involves simulations and empirical research focusing on how EM fields maintain consistent Lorentz invariance"
},
{
"end_time": 759.224,
"index": 35,
"start_time": 737.295,
"text": " Yosha Bach's Theory"
},
{
"end_time": 778.814,
"index": 36,
"start_time": 760.145,
"text": " Joscha Bach's theory suggests that cortical structures result from reward-driven learning based on signals from the motivational system and the structure of the data being learned. A cortical structure, by the way, is just a dressed-up manner of referring to any part of the cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the brain."
},
{
"end_time": 807.09,
"index": 37,
"start_time": 778.814,
"text": " Now, at the heart of this theory is the conductor, the so-called conductor, which is a computational structure trained to regulate the activity of other cortical functionality. This conductor directs attention and provides executive function by altering the activity and parameterization of other cortical structures. It integrates aspects of the processes it attends to into a protocol which is then used for reflection and learning."
},
{
"end_time": 835.964,
"index": 38,
"start_time": 807.21,
"text": " But what are the elementary agents in this theory? Bach describes them as columns in the cerebral cortex. These columns self-organize into larger organizational units of brain areas through developmental reinforcement learning. The activity of this cortical orchestra is highly distributed and paralyzed. It can't be experienced as a whole. The conductor, located in the prefrontal cortex, coordinates the performance. It's not a homunculus."
},
{
"end_time": 851.903,
"index": 39,
"start_time": 836.271,
"text": " Instead, it's a set of dynamic function approximators. While most cortical instruments regulate the dynamics and interactions of this organism with the environment, the conductor regulates the dynamics of the orchestra itself. Now, you might be wondering,"
},
{
"end_time": 873.763,
"index": 40,
"start_time": 852.312,
"text": " Where does experience get integrated? Bach states that the conductor is the only place where this happens. Information not integrated into the protocol can't become functionally relevant to the system's reflection, the production of its utterances, or the generation of its cohesive self-model. So, what happens without the conductor?"
},
{
"end_time": 889.77,
"index": 41,
"start_time": 874.292,
"text": " Bach asserts that our brain can still perform most of its functions. We'd be sleepwalkers, capable of coordinated perceptual and motor action, yet lacking central coherence and reflection. Memories play a significant role, by the way, in Bach's theory."
},
{
"end_time": 910.52,
"index": 42,
"start_time": 889.77,
"text": " Memories can be generated by reactivating a cortical configuration via the links and parameters stored at the corresponding point in the protocol. Reflective access to the protocol is itself a process that can be stored in the protocol. By accessing this, a system may remember having had experiential access."
},
{
"end_time": 935.674,
"index": 43,
"start_time": 910.981,
"text": " So, let's make this extremely simple. For phenomenal consciousness, Bach claims it's necessary and sufficient that a system can access the memory of having had an experience. What about the actuality of the experience itself? This is irrelevant. An example illustrating this relationship between the conductor, the protocol, and the conscious experience can be visualized through a graph."
},
{
"end_time": 963.046,
"index": 44,
"start_time": 936.084,
"text": " So let's imagine a place with nodes and edges representing your brain's cortical regions. Each node possesses specific information, such as visual data, or auditory signals, or emotional responses, etc. The conductor, which is the prefrontal cortex, selectively samples their outputs, compressing them into some compact serialized protocol. Firstly, note how much you're not aware of."
},
{
"end_time": 990.094,
"index": 45,
"start_time": 963.439,
"text": " Even right now, there's the air around you. There's perhaps your shoes or your socks or if you're on the ground maybe some dirt underneath your soles. There's some background hum that you're ignoring. There's maybe the scent of wood or there's maybe the scent of coffee or of orange juice or someone else coughing in the background. You're not consciously aware of all of this processing. The conductor samples these outputs"
},
{
"end_time": 1008.217,
"index": 46,
"start_time": 990.094,
"text": " creating a compressed representation, which is just you sitting down listening to a podcast. When you recall this experience, you're not accessing the raw sensory data, but you're accessing instead this compressed protocol. Your subjective experience of remembering the podcast"
},
{
"end_time": 1034.889,
"index": 47,
"start_time": 1008.49,
"text": " is the conductor reactivating and slightly reinterpreting this protocol. The qualia of the pixels on the screen or the curiosity that you have isn't a stored property. Instead, it's an emergent interpretation as your brain reconstructs the memory. This, according to Bach, explains why our memory often feels less vivid than the original experience."
},
{
"end_time": 1045.572,
"index": 48,
"start_time": 1035.35,
"text": " We are working from a compressed protocol, not raw sensory data. Okay, but how does this have anything to do with the hard problem?"
},
{
"end_time": 1066.732,
"index": 49,
"start_time": 1046.391,
"text": " Consider the classical, philosophical zombie, that thought experiment that you've heard of, where we imagine a being physically identical to a human, however this being will lack conscious experience. In Bach's framework, this concept becomes incoherent. Imagine two identical neural networks, one conscious and one a zombie."
},
{
"end_time": 1093.166,
"index": 50,
"start_time": 1067.108,
"text": " Both have the same conductor mechanism, sampling and compressing information into a protocol. Both can report on their experiences by accessing and interpreting this protocol. For Bach, the conscious system doesn't have some extra ineffable property. Its experience of consciousness is precisely its ability to access and report on its protocol. It's equivalent to that."
},
{
"end_time": 1112.483,
"index": 51,
"start_time": 1093.507,
"text": " So the zombie system, being identical to this, would necessarily have the same ability. The seemingly hard problem of what it feels like to be conscious dissolves when we recognize that this feeling itself is a construct, a so-called story the brain tells itself."
},
{
"end_time": 1126.203,
"index": 52,
"start_time": 1112.91,
"text": " by interpreting its own protocol. There's no separate experience happening alongside the information processing. The experience is the processing. So what is phenomenal consciousness according to Bach?"
},
{
"end_time": 1146.783,
"index": 53,
"start_time": 1126.527,
"text": " What is qualia according to Bach? What are feelings? What is blueness? To Bach, the phenomenal consciousness is understood as the most recent memory of what our prefrontal cortex attended to. Conscious experience isn't an experience of being in the world or an inner space. It's a memory."
},
{
"end_time": 1165.589,
"index": 54,
"start_time": 1147.619,
"text": " It's the recognition of a dream generated by more than 50 brain areas reflected in the protocol of a single region. By directing attention to its own protocol, the conductor can store and recreate memories of its own experience being conscious."
},
{
"end_time": 1190.247,
"index": 55,
"start_time": 1165.896,
"text": " This perspective resolves much of the difficulty in specifying an AI implementation of consciousness. It's necessary and sufficient to realize a system that remembers having had experienced something and can report on that memory. Bach suggests that our conscious experience isn't a direct perception of some physical reality"
},
{
"end_time": 1212.193,
"index": 56,
"start_time": 1190.606,
"text": " Donald Hoffman's theory. Donald Hoffman, a cognitive scientist, argues that our visual perceptions, in general, aren't veridical representations of ultimate reality."
},
{
"end_time": 1223.524,
"index": 57,
"start_time": 1212.671,
"text": " Why? Because evolution selects for fitness to reproduce and not for access to ontological truth. This is outlined in his Fitness Beats Truth paper, linked in the description."
},
{
"end_time": 1253.302,
"index": 58,
"start_time": 1223.933,
"text": " Consider this. A caveman who sees a rabbit as tasty food is more likely to survive than one who perceives it as a complex molecular structure. This, of course, presumes that the molecular structure is what's more real. Hoffman likens our perceptions to computer interfaces, such as a folder that's on your desktop. Now, you see that folder and you think, is there actually a tiny folder inside your computer? No, it's just a useful simplification for complex binary code."
},
{
"end_time": 1282.602,
"index": 59,
"start_time": 1253.831,
"text": " Similarly, Hoffman argues that evolution shaped our perceptions as simplistic illusions to help us navigate the world. Later in his career, Hoffman suggests that space-time itself isn't objective reality. It's just a part of our interface. To some physicists, this is quite obvious and straightforward because we don't have a method of reconciling general relativity with quantum mechanics and several of the attempts to do so posit structures where space-time emerges."
},
{
"end_time": 1309.258,
"index": 60,
"start_time": 1283.131,
"text": " Some other physicists, however, would say that space-time not being fundamental doesn't mean space-time is any more of an illusion than your car is an illusion because your car isn't fundamental. So, what is real according to Donald Hoffman and his collaborator Sheytan Prakash? Consciousness. They propose conscious realism, which states that the objective world consists of conscious agents and their experiences."
},
{
"end_time": 1338.08,
"index": 61,
"start_time": 1309.94,
"text": " Instead of particles creating consciousness when they form brains, consciousness creates spacetime and objects, including what we perceive as a brain. Now let's think. How does this compare to other theories? Let's break it down. We have Joschabach's cortical conductor theory, which sees consciousness as a memory of what our prefrontal cortex attended to. Hoffman disagrees, saying consciousness is fundamental, and so they diverge on the nature of reality itself."
},
{
"end_time": 1358.985,
"index": 62,
"start_time": 1338.422,
"text": " Bach still operates within a physicalist framework, while Hoffman politely throws physicalism down the garbage chute. Michael Graziano's Attention Schema Theory views consciousness as the brain's model of its own attention. Now Hoffman would say that this gets it backward. For him, consciousness isn't created by the brain, the brain is created by consciousness."
},
{
"end_time": 1381.271,
"index": 63,
"start_time": 1358.985,
"text": " So this is what Donald Hoffman means when he says that neurons don't exist until perceived. Bernardo Castrop's analytic idealism aligns more closely with Hoffman. They both see consciousness as fundamental. The key difference is that Castrop posits a universal consciousness that segments itself into individual minds, while Hoffman describes a network of interacting conscious agents."
},
{
"end_time": 1405.503,
"index": 64,
"start_time": 1381.271,
"text": " Heidegger's concept of Dasein emphasizes consciousness as active engagement with the world, and Hoffman would agree, however Hoffman would add that this world that we're engaging with is itself a construct of consciousness. Heidegger asserts that Dasein, or human existence, you can think of it like that, and the world are inseparable and co-constitutive, with neither having ontological priority."
},
{
"end_time": 1432.363,
"index": 65,
"start_time": 1405.964,
"text": " This contradicts Hoffman's conscious realism, which gives ontological priority to consciousness. Andre Gomes-Emelson's EM field topology theory tackles the boundary problem of consciousness. Hoffman's theory sidesteps this issue entirely by making consciousness fundamental. There's no need to explain how physical processes create bounded conscious experiences if those physical processes are themselves constructs of consciousness."
},
{
"end_time": 1455.657,
"index": 66,
"start_time": 1432.944,
"text": " Okay, now you might be thinking, Kurt, what the heck about all the evidence that correlates mental states with brain activity? And Hoffman does have an answer. These correlations are fomented because consciousness creates brain activity. So yes, there's quite straightforwardly a correlation, it's just that the causation goes in the other direction."
},
{
"end_time": 1485.094,
"index": 67,
"start_time": 1456.374,
"text": " This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast? Smart move. Being financially savvy? Smart move. Another smart move? Having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state."
},
{
"end_time": 1510.111,
"index": 68,
"start_time": 1487.022,
"text": " Near Lahav's Relativistic Consciousness What if consciousness isn't an absolute property, but a relative one that depends on the observer's frame of reference? This idea is at the heart of Lahav's theory, which aims to bridge the explanatory gap between functional and phenomenal consciousness. Lahav starts with two key assumptions"
},
{
"end_time": 1526.817,
"index": 69,
"start_time": 1510.623,
"text": " Consciousness, number one, has some kind of physical explanation, or broad physicalism, and then number two, that the principle of relativity holds true even for consciousness. Okay, but what does this mean in practice? Nearest thinking like Einstein."
},
{
"end_time": 1552.551,
"index": 70,
"start_time": 1527.108,
"text": " You start with postulates, and then you see their consequences. The consequences suggest the concept of cognitive frames of reference, that is, perspectives determined by a cognitive system's dynamics. Lahav then establishes an equivalence principle between a conscious human, Alice, let's say, and a purported zombie AI system, say Bob, with the same cognitive structure, but supposedly lacking phenomenal consciousness in the latter case."
},
{
"end_time": 1582.961,
"index": 71,
"start_time": 1553.029,
"text": " If Alice and Bob obtain the same measurements and behavioral outputs, the relativity principle dictates that they must have the same physical laws in force. This leads us to the unintuitive conclusion that Bob, despite being assumed to be a zombie, must also have phenomenal consciousness. Okay, so let's say you're looking at a sunset. From your first-person perspective, you experience colors and emotions. A neuroscientist observing your brain would see certain patterns of neural firing."
},
{
"end_time": 1602.125,
"index": 72,
"start_time": 1583.558,
"text": " Are these two perspectives describing the same phenomenon? According to Lahav, yes, they're just different measurements from different cognitive frames of reference. These are different perspectives of the same underlying phenomenon, akin to how UNRWA radiation appears from one perspective, but not another."
},
{
"end_time": 1628.968,
"index": 73,
"start_time": 1602.637,
"text": " But wait, you ask, Kurt, doesn't consciousness feel private and inaccessible to outside observers? Lahav explains this is due to the difference in measurements possible from first-person and third-person perspectives. From within a cognitive system, representations have causal power and are experienced as qualia. However, when you're from the outside, we can only measure physical substrates. Okay, so what about free will?"
},
{
"end_time": 1642.159,
"index": 74,
"start_time": 1629.514,
"text": " Nir LaHav may say that it's relative, and that this unifies determinism and libertarian free will. But let's think about what I just said. Phenomenal consciousness isn't truly private."
},
{
"end_time": 1671.152,
"index": 75,
"start_time": 1642.824,
"text": " it just requires the right frame of reference to measure directly. Thus, Lahav's approach aims to dissolve the hard problem by showing that the physical patterns, or the neural representations, and the phenomenal properties, or the qualia, are two sides of the same coin. They're different ways the same phenomenon appears based on the observer's cognitive perspective. But, doesn't this just push the explanatory burden back a step?"
},
{
"end_time": 1699.77,
"index": 76,
"start_time": 1671.527,
"text": " Instead of explaining how consciousness emerges from non-conscious matter, don't we now have to explain how it combines and evolves into complex life forms across different frames of reference? Lahav argues that his theory opens up new avenues for empirical research. Yes, so he proposes experiences to test predictions about the minimal conditions for consciousness and how these relate to sleep or to anesthesia or other altered states."
},
{
"end_time": 1705.503,
"index": 77,
"start_time": 1699.957,
"text": " Altered states, by the way, were explored in Layer 1, link in the description of this consciousness iceberg."
},
{
"end_time": 1730.998,
"index": 78,
"start_time": 1705.776,
"text": " For instance, Nir Lahav may look for activation of specific cognitive spaces during cognitive states and their absence during unconscious states. Okay, but how does this theory compare to others? Well, with Donald Hoffman, since Lahav's theory posits consciousness as a relative property dependent on observers' frames of reference, it contradicts sharply with Hoffman's conscious realism."
},
{
"end_time": 1745.691,
"index": 79,
"start_time": 1731.698,
"text": " While Hoffman argues consciousness is fundamental and creates our perceived reality, Lahab suggests consciousness is a physical phenomenon that appears different based on perspective. Consider Hoffman's desktop analogy."
},
{
"end_time": 1769.48,
"index": 80,
"start_time": 1746.271,
"text": " Hoffman may say that the computer, the desk it's on, and the room all around you are just constructs of consciousness, whereas Lehov would argue, no, these are real physical objects, but our conscious experience of them depends on our cognitive frame of reference. But what about Bernardo Castrop? Castrop posits a universal consciousness that segments into individual minds."
},
{
"end_time": 1798.643,
"index": 81,
"start_time": 1770.009,
"text": " Lahav, in contrast, grounds consciousness in physical cognitive systems. Where Kastrup sees consciousness as primary, Lahav sees it as an emergent property, albeit one that looks different from various perspectives. Joschabach's cortical conductor theory views consciousness as a memory of what our prefrontal cortex attended to, and this aligns more closely with Lahav than with Hoffman or Kastrup. Both Bach and Lahav operate broadly within a physicalist framework,"
},
{
"end_time": 1824.872,
"index": 82,
"start_time": 1798.643,
"text": " Though Lahav would expand what physicalism is, adding the dimension of relativity, suggesting that the quote-unquote memory Bach describes might appear differently from various cognitive frames of reference. So let's be clear, let's just think about an apple. Hoffman would say that that apple doesn't exist as a physical object, it's a construct of consciousness, an icon if you will, in our species specific interface with reality."
},
{
"end_time": 1851.374,
"index": 83,
"start_time": 1825.538,
"text": " whereas Kastrup would look at that apple and say that apple is a manifestation within universal consciousness experienced by an individual quote-unquote alter, which is you, of this universal consciousness. Bach would instead describe your experience as a memory of your prefrontal cortex attending to certain sensory inputs and conceptual associations giving the impression of the apple. Now, Lahav would say that the apple is a physical object"
},
{
"end_time": 1872.312,
"index": 84,
"start_time": 1851.698,
"text": " But your conscious experience of its redness is a measurement that depends on your cognitive frame of reference. From another frame, say a neuroscientist observing your brain, the same phenomenon might just appear as patterns of neuroactivity. Now, some questions to ponder are, how does Heidegger's idea of being toward death"
},
{
"end_time": 1901.118,
"index": 85,
"start_time": 1872.568,
"text": " influenced your understanding of consciousness and its relation to time? What implications might detention schema theory have for developing artificial consciousness? How does understanding the boundary problem change our approach to studying altered states of consciousness? In what ways does Bach's theory challenge the notion of qualia as traditionally understood? How does Hoffman's theory account for shared experiences and consensus reality among different individuals?"
},
{
"end_time": 1910.52,
"index": 86,
"start_time": 1901.118,
"text": " Does Lahav's theory of relativistic consciousness finally bridge the gap between physicalist and non-physicalist theories of mind?"
},
{
"end_time": 1937.21,
"index": 87,
"start_time": 1911.357,
"text": " And that concludes Layer 3 of the Consciousness Iceberg. If you found this expedition intriguing, then make sure to subscribe for Layer 4, where we'll delve into Penrose's theories, we'll also talk about Chris Langan's CTMU or the Cognitive Theoretic Model of the Universe, Immanuel Kant's idea of Transcendental Unity of Aperception, Hegel's notion of Absolute Spirit, embodiment or semantic practices,"
},
{
"end_time": 1959.172,
"index": 88,
"start_time": 1937.21,
"text": " Also, thank you to our partner, The Economist."
},
{
"end_time": 1976.374,
"index": 89,
"start_time": 1961.442,
"text": " Firstly, thank you for watching, thank you for listening. There's now a website, curtjymongle.org, and that has a mailing list. The reason being that large platforms like YouTube, like Patreon, they can disable you for whatever reason, whenever they like."
},
{
"end_time": 2001.988,
"index": 90,
"start_time": 1976.647,
"text": " That's just part of the terms of service. Now, a direct mailing list ensures that I have an untrammeled communication with you. Plus, soon I'll be releasing a one-page PDF of my top 10 toes. It's not as Quentin Tarantino as it sounds like. Secondly, if you haven't subscribed or clicked that like button, now is the time to do so. Why? Because each subscribe, each like helps YouTube push this content to more people"
},
{
"end_time": 2020.299,
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"text": " I also found out last year that external links count plenty toward the algorithm, which means that whenever you share on Twitter, say on Facebook, or even on Reddit, etc., it shows YouTube, hey, people are talking about this content OUTSIDE of YouTube"
},
{
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"text": " which in turn greatly aids the distribution on YouTube. Thirdly, there's a remarkably active Discord and subreddit for theories of everything where people explicate toes, they disagree respectfully about theories and build as a community our own toe. Links to both are in the description. Fourthly, you should know this podcast is on iTunes, it's on Spotify, it's on all of the audio platforms. All you have to do is type in theories of everything and you'll find it. Personally, I gained from rewatching lectures and podcasts"
},
{
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"text": " I also read in the comments that hey, toll listeners also gain from replaying. So how about instead you re-listen on those platforms like iTunes, Spotify,"
},
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"text": " podcast catcher"
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"text": " You also get early access to ad free episodes, whether it's audio or video. It's audio in the case of Patreon video in the case of YouTube. For instance, this episode that you're listening to right now was released a few days earlier. Every dollar helps far more than you think. Either way, your viewership is generosity enough. Thank you so much."
},
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"text": " Think Verizon, the best 5G network, is expensive? Think again. Bring in your AT&T or T-Mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal. Now what's it do with your unwanted bills? Ever seen an origami version of the Miami Bull?"
},
{
"end_time": 2140.469,
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"text": " Jokes aside, Verizon has the most ways to save on phones and plans where you can get a single line with everything you need. So bring in your bill to your local Miami Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal."
}
]
}No transcript available.