00:00:00.000 We don't have a theory of consciousness or creativity.
00:00:04.600 If we did, we could program these into a computer.
00:00:07.880 If you can't program it, you haven't understood it since David Deutsch.
00:00:14.800 Now this doesn't mean they're insoluble problems.
00:00:17.280 They must be soluble because they are just features of the mind.
00:00:20.800 Anything we can do must be the result of physical processes.
00:00:26.880 David proved this mathematically in the same paper that laid the foundation for quantum computation.
00:00:32.400 This rules out any supernatural explanation for what our minds are doing.
00:00:38.120 Mysterious things are just problems, that's all.
00:00:42.200 Yet some people deny some problems are even problems.
00:00:45.440 The philosopher Daniel Dennett denies consciousness as a problem.
00:00:50.640 The philosopher Sam Harris denies free will as a problem.
00:00:55.600 In both cases I think they are mistaken and for the same reason.
00:01:02.480 But there is nothing supernatural about us, nothing magical.
00:01:07.840 Why is it that people, alone among all animals, solve problems by creating explanatory
00:01:14.840 What is this strange thing that leads to thoughts and minds, solutions, philosophy, science,
00:01:23.280 What is it about people that allows for these qualitatively different capacities we have
00:01:32.160 Now like a fish or a dog, we've got a finite genome.
00:01:36.160 But unlike an a dog or fish, something is in that genome that codes for something very special
00:01:42.600 A code for a brain that is able to run a mind that is universal in a special way.
00:01:48.840 This universal capacity is the capability to create explanatory knowledge.
00:01:54.480 That is such an important fundamental discovery and philosophy by David Deutsch that its import
00:02:06.280 Why is this fact not informing and animating research programs in AGI institutes and university
00:02:14.800 And as if the equivalent of the question, what is mass, was answered, and most physicists
00:02:22.280 David answered the question, what is a person, a few have noticed, a person is an entity
00:02:29.880 that can create explanatory knowledge and is universal in its capacity to do so.
00:02:35.960 What universal here means is there is no problem in principle that a person is incapable
00:02:41.800 And the reason for this is that the mind, which is the software running on the hardware
00:02:45.920 that is the brain, is a universal computer, and then something.
00:02:51.280 It is a universal computer that is conscious of its own states, can direct its own future
00:02:55.200 states, and importantly, whose output cannot be specified in advance, and that's the key.
00:03:01.880 We cannot specify the output of a general intelligence, artificial or otherwise, unlike for
00:03:14.000 Subjectively, we experience consciousness, but do other people?
00:03:18.600 Well, we cannot directly access their conscious states.
00:03:26.480 Well, what we do have access to are other people's creativity.
00:03:31.040 We know other people are creative because we notice them solving their problems.
00:03:34.560 They're inventing things and making decisions out there in the world, so we have an objective
00:03:38.960 indication in the form of their creativity of their inner conscious states.
00:03:48.920 The creativity of people we observe in the world is a unique thing people have that other
00:03:55.480 So while we feel conscious ourselves, what we observe in others is creativity.
00:04:03.240 So I postulate, creativity of the kind where people create explanations or create knowledge
00:04:09.960 is just the outward manifestation of an inner consciousness.
00:04:14.880 What it feels like to be creative is consciousness.
00:04:20.120 Free will is that aspect of consciousness where I am able to obtain a good sense of my
00:04:28.320 But to know what my preferences truly are, I need to carefully deliberate.
00:04:32.200 I need to solve that problem, create that knowledge as to what my preferences are.
00:04:37.040 Outward eventually, someone will notice me make a decision, but inwardly, only I know
00:04:41.680 that I felt many different things before the decision was made, emotions perhaps like excitement
00:04:46.720 or confusion or the thrill at making a new insight.
00:04:50.200 It was all me that contemplated this problem for perhaps hours on end.
00:04:54.560 I chose this interesting solution rather than some other.
00:04:57.560 I was free to do otherwise, to not think about it at all in fact if I desired.
00:05:02.320 If I had that conscious state and chose to pursue it and pay attention to it or not, inwardly
00:05:09.560 it was a conscious sensation of free will, but outwardly it was a choice made to create knowledge
00:05:16.040 These things are all facets, I would argue, of exactly the same phenomenon.
00:05:20.560 What it means to be a human and explain the world.
00:05:24.400 So what I do as a person is exercise a free choice in acting on the best explanation I have