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The Brain in the Dark: A Conversation with Professor Karl Friston on Perception, Free Will and Whether Machines Can Be Conscious

In this interview, I spoke to Professor Karl Friston, the neuroscientist behind the free energy principle, about why the brain perceives from the inside out, where free will fits into a predictive mind, what separates us…

Dr. Vikas Shah 27 min read

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Three thousand moments. Three picked at random.

“If you look at the notional value of trading on our exchanges in any given year, they range from $600-700 trillion to a quadrillion dollars in total value. People can use these markets very effectively, not just for bona-fide risk hedging and transfer and risk management but also for asset allocation, portfolio management and trading strategies as well.”
— Craig Donohue Former CEO of CME Group, global derivatives exchange leader.
“When you set out on that yellow-brick-road of life to fulfil your goals, just be the best you can be – and whether that means you finish as champion, first, second, tenth, whatever… if you've done your best? You're winning. The martial arts however can teach you a lot about how to perform – how to dig deep – and how to be better than you think you can be.”
— Bruce Buffer UFC and Pride Fighting Championships Announcer
“Entrepreneurship means the unrelenting belief that there has to be a better way. There has to be a better way of doing things... If it was obvious that things were already being done in a great way that couldn't be improved? There wouldn't be any need for entrepreneurs to step-in and create new ways of doing things that don't rely on the baggage of the past.”
— John Sculley CEO of Apple Computer Company during the 1980s and 1990s

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  1. 01 Business & Economics The End of Hand-Written Code: A Conversation with David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) on AI, Omarchy and the Future of Programming 365 interviews
  2. 02 Culture, Society, Sports & Arts The Brain in the Dark: A Conversation with Professor Karl Friston on Perception, Free Will and Whether Machines Can Be Conscious 239 interviews
  3. 03 Politics & Policy Who Decides What a Country Is? Michael and Liam Bates on Sealand, Sovereignty and Belonging 172 interviews
  4. 04 Science & Technology The Brain in the Dark: A Conversation with Professor Karl Friston on Perception, Free Will and Whether Machines Can Be Conscious 141 interviews
  5. 05 Health & Medicine Different, Not Wrong: A Conversation with Dave Plummer on Autism, Task Manager and Coding with AI 75 interviews
  6. 06 Nobel Laureates Markets, Morals and the Road Ahead: A Conversation with Nobel Laureate Professor Alvin Roth 21 interviews

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