Entropic Brain

Professor Karl Friston (University College London) speaks at the University of Edinburgh, 31st March 2017. Abstract: This talk offers a formal account of insight and learning in terms of active (Bayesian) inference. It deals with the dual problem of inferring states of the world and learning its statistical structure. In contrast to current trends in machine learning (e.g., deep learning), we focus on how agents learn from a small number of ambiguous outcomes to form insight. Karl will present simulations of abstract rule-learning and approximate Bayesian inference to show that minimising (expected) free energy leads to active sampling of novel contingencies. This epistemic, curiosity-directed behaviour closes ‘explanatory gaps’ in knowledge about the causal structure of the world; thereby reducing ignorance, in addition to resolving uncertainty about states of the known world. We then move from inference to model selection or structure learning to show how abductive processes emerge when agents test plausible hypotheses about symmetries in their generative models of the world. The ensuing Bayesian model reduction evokes mechanisms associated with sleep and has all the hallmarks of ‘aha moments’.

How can we ‘measure’ how conscious someone is, using brain imaging? Are our conscious experiences ‘controlled hallucinations’? What does it mean to experience being a ‘self’? Are other animals conscious? What about machines, now or in the future? Consciousness is, for each of us, the presence of a world. Without consciousness there is no world, no self: there is nothing at all. But we know surprisingly little about the material and biological basis of this most central feature of our lives. How do rich multisensory experiences, the senses of self and body, and volition, agency, and ‘will’ emerge from the joint activity of billions of neurons locked inside a bony skull? Once the province of philosophy and theology, understanding consciousness has emerged as a one of the great scientific challenges for this century. This evening, Anil Seth will sketch the state-of-the-art in the new science of consciousness, with a focus on what neuroscience has to offer. He will distinguish between conscious level (how conscious we are), conscious content (what we are conscious of), and conscious self (the ‘I’ behind the eyes), describing in each case how new experiments are shedding light on the underlying neural mechanisms, in normal life and in neurological and psychiatric conditions. Throughout, he will emphasize phenomenology – the way things seem – as the target for any satisfying explanation of how the brain, in conjunction with the body and the environment, gives rise to and shapes conscious experience.

Karl Friston, Wellcome Principal Research Fellow and Scientific Director at Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging and Professor of Neurology at University College London speaks at the event "Prediction: How Forecasting and Prospection Shape Thought" held on 4/18/16 at Columbia University. The event is part of the "Seminars in Society and Neuroscience" series organized by the Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience program.

Rupert Sheldrake, Robin Carhart-Harris and Stephen Reid In Conversation Wednesday 26th June 2019 at EartH, Hackney, London, UK Facebook event https://www.facebook.com/events/24450... Conversation starts at 04:50

Simons Institute Theoretically Speaking Series https://simons.berkeley.edu/events/brain Moderator: Anil Ananthaswamy (Fall 2018 Simons Institute Journalist in Residence) Panelists: Celeste Kidd (UC Berkeley) Bruno Olshausen (UC Berkeley) Christos Papadimitriou (Columbia University) Michael Pollan (UC Berkeley)