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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…

Vikas Shah 27 min read

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Three thousand moments. Three picked at random.

“The scientist mindset says, I will not let my ideas become an ideology. When I start to form an opinion, I should treat it as a hypothesis before doing some observations or experiments to test it. I should be just as excited to find out I was wrong as to prove I am right.”
— Adam Grant Organizational psychologist & bestselling author on work culture and human potential
“Simply put, a great business will understand its customers, have a clear, sound strategy and a business plan that can deliver against it.”
— Guy Hands Terra Firma Capital founder; acquired EMI Records in 2007
“Bill Gates was a very successful leader, but he doesn't pass the Hamlet Test.”
— Jared Diamond

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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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