We welcome Alexander Klein to examine the role of consciousness in behavior. Drawing on William James’s evolutionary theory and nineteenth-century experiments on frogs, Klein considers whether consciousness is essential to purposeful action or merely accompanies it. The conversation questions how we identify consciousness in animals and AI, and whether its evolutionary function can account for the subjective richness of experience.

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction.
00:11 The Brainless Frog Experiment.
09:06 Access and Phenomenal Consciousness.
12:11 Consciousness in AI
17:03 Philosophical Zombies.
20:21 Is Consciousness Universal?
24:14 The Evolution of Consciousness.
37:14 William James’s Functional Theory.
42:18 Qualia and Subjective Experience.
55:39 Conclusion.

Presenters: Mark Oppenheimer and Jason Werbeloff.
Editor and Producer: Jimmy Mullen and Porter Kaufman.

Brain in a Vat bookshop (Shopify): https://smarturl.it/BrainShop.
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Podcast: https://anchor.fm/braininavat.
Contact us: Mark. Oppenheimer[at]gmail and Jwerbe[at]gmail.