My conversation with Kevin Mitchell, neuroscientist and geneticist at Trinity College Dublin, on free agency and randomness, nested selves, mental causation and the tension between free choice and control, and artificial agents.

Kevin's books:

Free Agents: https://www.amazon.com/Free-Agents-Evolution-Gave-Will/dp/0691226237/

Innate: https://www.amazon.com/Innate-How-Wiring-Brains-Shapes/dp/0691204152/

Related episodes:

Michael Levin: https://youtu.be/0nMXYdayQIU

Embodied AI: https://youtu.be/JZ8GTucClpM

Alexander Ororbia: https://youtu.be/N83vBfz7_BI

Yogi Jaeger: https://youtu.be/5UJ4y2L2qpk

Baudouin Saintyves: https://youtu.be/NmvzEpz9R84

Laura Desiree Di Paolo: https://youtu.be/9txUwVtAOBk

Anna Riedl: https://youtu.be/w2ZiSWZNQsg

Anna Ciaunica: https://youtu.be/x1QHwhlCn-8

Giuseppe Paolo: https://youtu.be/R7tEd65e2i8

00:00:00 Intro: the psychological angle of theories of consciousness.

00:05:00 Free agency and randomness. The world is nondeterministic, but where the possibility of control comes from? Causal slack + selection.

00:15:14 The tension of randomness: its harmful but it also needs to be nurtured and amplified. From particle decay to neural "noise".

00:21:38 Nested agency and cognition. Vertical dynamics of hierarchical distributed control. Multicellularity.

00:34:58 What looks random from outside may be what the 1st person system experiences as free agency. Psychopathologies.

00:40:58 Selves and fuzzy boundaries. Dyads and collectives. Couples' therapy, ant colonies, lineages.

00:55:58 Spirituality. Being part of a bigger organism. Rituals. Game theory and incentive design.

01:08:30 AI. AGI vs _an_ AGI. Agency in Minecraft.

01:18:58 What's next for Kevin? The tension of choice and control. Mental causation. Genetic decoding.

I, scientist blog: https://balazskegl.substack.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/balazskegl

Artwork: DALL-E

Music: Bea Palya https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBDp3qcFZdU1yoWIRpMSaZw

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