Consciousness, Illusionism, Free Will, and AI w/ Keith Frankish

Hi, everybody! Today, I bring you an interview with Dr. Keith Frankish. He is a British philosopher and writer, currently living in Crete, Greece. He’s an Honorary Reader at the University of Sheffield, UK, a Visiting Research Fellow with The Open University, UK, and an Adjunct Professor with the Brain and Mind Programme at the University of Crete. He works mainly in philosophy of mind, also with interests in other areas of Philosophy. He’s also the author of books like Mind and Supermind (2004) and Illusionism: As a Theory of Consciousness (2017).

In this episode, the central topic is consciousness. We talk about what is it; the hard problem of consciousness; illusionism; the evolutionary origins and function of consciousness; how consciousness relates to questions surrounding free will and determinism. Toward the end, we also discuss a little bit if AI could spontaneously develop consciousness in any way, or if we would need to program it into it.

https://youtu.be/uXeqm2d1djo

Link to podcast version (Anchor): https://tinyurl.com/y5trpgqy