{"id":27821,"date":"2026-07-29T09:03:47","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T07:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/evolute-institute.com\/?p=27821"},"modified":"2026-07-29T09:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T07:28:08","slug":"michael-graziano","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/evolute-institute.com\/fr\/inner-pioneers-podcast\/michael-graziano\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Graziano"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"27821\" class=\"elementor elementor-27821\" data-elementor-post-type=\"post\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-a28b070 e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"a28b070\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-0e64607 elementor-widget elementor-widget-html\" data-id=\"0e64607\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" 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{\n      .evo-ep-hero-v5 { padding: 80px 20px; }\n      .evo-wrapper { grid-template-columns: 1fr; gap: 60px; }\n      .evo-content { align-items: center; text-align: center; padding-left: 0; }\n      .evo-editorial-meta { justify-content: center; }\n      .evo-title-group h1 { font-size: 3.2rem; }\n      .evo-conversation-context {\n        border-left: none;\n        padding-left: 0;\n        margin-top: 24px;\n        align-items: center;\n        border-top: 1px solid rgba(235, 191, 113, 0.3);\n        padding-top: 20px;\n      }\n      .evo-subtitle { max-width: 100%; }\n      .evo-topics-editorial { justify-content: center; padding-top: 32px; }\n      .evo-topic-label { width: 100%; margin-right: 0; margin-bottom: 12px; }\n      .evo-action-area { align-items: center; }\n      .evo-btn-group { justify-content: center; }\n      .evo-media { justify-content: center; }\n    }\n  <\/style>\n\n  <div class=\"evo-wrapper\">\n\n    <div class=\"evo-content\">\n\n      <div class=\"evo-editorial-meta\">\n        <span class=\"evo-meta-highlight\">\n          <span class=\"evo-dot\"><\/span> Episode S1E8\n        <\/span>\n        <span class=\"evo-meta-text\">29.07.2026<\/span>\n      <\/div>\n\n      <div class=\"evo-title-group\">\n        <h1>Michael Graziano<\/h1>\n\n        <div class=\"evo-conversation-context\">\n          <span class=\"evo-context-label\">In Conversation About<\/span>\n          <p class=\"evo-subtitle\">It's Just a Matter of Time Before Machines Become Conscious<\/p>\n        <\/div>\n      <\/div>\n\n      <div class=\"evo-topics-editorial\">\n        <span class=\"evo-topic-label\">Topics \u23e4<\/span>\n        <span class=\"evo-topic\">Consciousness<\/span>\n        <span class=\"evo-topic\">Artificial Intelligence<\/span>\n        <span class=\"evo-topic\">Neuroscience<\/span>\n        <span class=\"evo-topic\">Attention<\/span>\n        <span class=\"evo-topic\">Self-Models<\/span>\n        <span 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Notes<\/label>\n  <label for=\"evo-tab2\" class=\"evo-tab-label\">Timestamps<\/label>\n  <label for=\"evo-tab3\" class=\"evo-tab-label\">Transcript<\/label>\n<\/div>\n\n<div class=\"evo-tab-body\">\n\n  <!-- \u2550\u2550\u2550 TAB 1: SHOW NOTES \u2550\u2550\u2550 -->\n  <div class=\"evo-tab-panel\" id=\"evo-panel1\">\n\n    <h2 class=\"evo-panel-title\">Episode Summary<\/h2>\n\n    <p class=\"evo-panel-body\">\n      What still stands between today's AI and a machine that could become conscious? Princeton neuroscientist Michael Graziano argues that the answer may not be some mysterious essence unique to biological life. Current AI does not yet build self-models in the same way humans do, nor does it have the embodied systems that give rise to human emotion, but Graziano believes these capacities can be built \u2014 it's merely a matter of time.\n    <\/p>\n    <p class=\"evo-panel-body\">\n      Discover with us what would have to change for machines to develop something resembling subjective experience: from self-models and semantic understanding to embodiment, feelings and the ability to care. The conversation moves from today's LLMs to simulated bodies, substrate independence and even mind uploading, opening up a provocative question: if the ingredients of consciousness can ultimately be reproduced, what \u2014 if anything \u2014 will remain uniquely human?\n    <\/p>\n\n    <div class=\"evo-meta-block\">\n      <p class=\"evo-meta-title\">Resources Mentioned<\/p>\n      <ul class=\"evo-link-grid\">\n        <li><a href=\"https:\/\/pni.princeton.edu\/people\/michael-graziano\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Michael Graziano's Princeton Webpage<\/a><\/li>\n        <li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Divine_Comedy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Divine Comedy<\/a><\/li>\n        <li><a href=\"https:\/\/grazianolab.princeton.edu\/publications\/attention-schema-theory-mechanistic-account-subjective-awareness\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Attention Schema Theory<\/a><\/li>\n        <li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Global_workspace_theory\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Global Workspace Theory<\/a><\/li>\n        <li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/topics\/psychology\/source-monitoring\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source Monitoring<\/a><\/li>\n        <li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Information_theory\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Information Theory<\/a><\/li>\n      <\/ul>\n    <\/div>\n\n    <div class=\"evo-meta-block\">\n      <p class=\"evo-meta-title\">Books by Michael Graziano<\/p>\n      <ul class=\"evo-link-grid\">\n        <li><a href=\"https:\/\/wwnorton.co.uk\/books\/9780393541342-rethinking-consciousness-0e82bbe2-06f1-4bac-a4d5-665615229eef\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rethinking Consciousness: A Scientific Theory of Subjective Experience<\/a><\/li>\n        <li><a href=\"https:\/\/grazianolab.princeton.edu\/publications\/consciousness-and-social-brain\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Consciousness and the Social Brain<\/a><\/li>\n        <li><a href=\"https:\/\/leapfrogpress.com\/book\/the-divine-farce\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Divine Farce<\/a><\/li>\n        <li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/en\/book\/show\/13592094-death-my-own-way\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Death My Own Way<\/a><\/li>\n      <\/ul>\n    <\/div>\n\n    <div class=\"evo-meta-block\">\n      <p class=\"evo-meta-title\">People Mentioned<\/p>\n      <ul class=\"evo-link-grid\">\n        <li><a href=\"https:\/\/drdansiegel.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dan Siegel<\/a><\/li>\n        <li><a href=\"https:\/\/johnvervaeke.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">John Vervaeke<\/a><\/li>\n        <li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iainmcgilchrist.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Iain McGilchrist<\/a><\/li>\n        <li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/William_James\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">William James<\/a><\/li>\n        <li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Claude_Shannon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Claude Shannon<\/a><\/li>\n        <li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dante_Alighieri\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dante Alighieri<\/a><\/li>\n      <\/ul>\n    <\/div>\n\n  <\/div>\n\n  <!-- \u2550\u2550\u2550 TAB 2: TIMESTAMPS \u2550\u2550\u2550 -->\n  <div class=\"evo-tab-panel\" id=\"evo-panel2\">\n\n    <label for=\"mob-toggle2\"><h2 class=\"evo-panel-title\">Episode Timestamps<\/h2><\/label>\n    <div class=\"evo-timestamps\">\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Tl-ewIVioHk&t=80s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"evo-ts-row\">\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-time\">01:20<\/span>\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-label\">Peek Inside the Mind of a Princeton Neuroscientist Studying Consciousness<\/span>\n      <\/a>\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Tl-ewIVioHk&t=340s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"evo-ts-row\">\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-time\">05:40<\/span>\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-label\">Consciousness Isn't What You Think It Is<\/span>\n      <\/a>\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Tl-ewIVioHk&t=580s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"evo-ts-row\">\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-time\">09:40<\/span>\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-label\">The Brain Model That Could Explain Conscious Awareness<\/span>\n      <\/a>\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Tl-ewIVioHk&t=868s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"evo-ts-row\">\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-time\">14:28<\/span>\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-label\">How Graziano Became Obsessed With the Mystery of the Mind<\/span>\n      <\/a>\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Tl-ewIVioHk&t=1128s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"evo-ts-row\">\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-time\">18:48<\/span>\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-label\">Attention vs. Awareness: The Crucial Difference<\/span>\n      <\/a>\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Tl-ewIVioHk&t=1409s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"evo-ts-row\">\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-time\">23:29<\/span>\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-label\">Why Conscious Experience Feels So Real<\/span>\n      <\/a>\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Tl-ewIVioHk&t=1671s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"evo-ts-row\">\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-time\">27:51<\/span>\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-label\">What Still Stands Between Today's AI and Consciousness?<\/span>\n      <\/a>\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Tl-ewIVioHk&t=2459s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"evo-ts-row\">\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-time\">40:59<\/span>\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-label\">Why Your Body May Be the Missing Ingredient<\/span>\n      <\/a>\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Tl-ewIVioHk&t=2585s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"evo-ts-row\">\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-time\">43:05<\/span>\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-label\">AI Can Understand \u2014 But Can It Ever Feel?<\/span>\n      <\/a>\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Tl-ewIVioHk&t=2670s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"evo-ts-row\">\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-time\">44:30<\/span>\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-label\">Prediction vs. Understanding: Is AI Really Thinking?<\/span>\n      <\/a>\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Tl-ewIVioHk&t=2942s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"evo-ts-row\">\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-time\">49:02<\/span>\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-label\">The Architecture That Separates Human Minds From Machines<\/span>\n      <\/a>\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Tl-ewIVioHk&t=3247s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"evo-ts-row\">\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-time\">54:07<\/span>\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-label\">Feelings, Consciousness and the \"Magic\" Your Brain Creates<\/span>\n      <\/a>\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Tl-ewIVioHk&t=3711s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"evo-ts-row\">\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-time\">01:01:51<\/span>\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-label\">Quantum Consciousness: Breakthrough Idea or Wrong Turn?<\/span>\n      <\/a>\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Tl-ewIVioHk&t=4054s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"evo-ts-row\">\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-time\">01:07:34<\/span>\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-label\">Mind Uploading and the Question of What Makes You \"You\"<\/span>\n      <\/a>\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Tl-ewIVioHk&t=4180s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"evo-ts-row\">\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-time\">01:09:40<\/span>\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-label\">What Understanding Consciousness Could Change About Your Life<\/span>\n      <\/a>\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Tl-ewIVioHk&t=4388s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"evo-ts-row\">\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-time\">01:13:08<\/span>\n        <span class=\"evo-ts-label\">Where Neuroscience Ends and Fiction Begins<\/span>\n      <\/a>\n    <\/div>\n\n  <\/div>\n\n  <!-- \u2550\u2550\u2550 TAB 3: TRANSCRIPT \u2550\u2550\u2550 -->\n  <div class=\"evo-tab-panel\" id=\"evo-panel3\">\n\n    <label for=\"mob-toggle3\"><h2 class=\"evo-panel-title\">Full Transcript<\/h2><\/label>\n    <div class=\"evo-transcript\">\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (00:01)<\/strong> Is our consciousness the same as these artificial things that we're building? Right now, I think probably no. But the reason is these artificial things don't have self-models in the same way that we do. And that's just a matter of time, and not that much time at that \u2014 there will come a point when these machines build self-models in the same ways. In other words, they believe with absolute certainty that they have subjective experience, in the same way that we believe that we do, using the same kinds of basic information processing modes. That's coming.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (00:51)<\/strong> You're listening to Inner Pioneers, a podcast for curious minds who want to understand how to navigate change, crises, or simply the call for something new. Join us as we dive into real stories of transformation and learn from leading voices in psychology, science, and human development how to move through inner shifts and seasons of change. I'm Christopher Kabakis, and now let's begin pioneering.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (01:20)<\/strong> Hello, everybody. It is my great pleasure to welcome Professor Michael Graziano today with us at the podcast. Michael, you're professor of neuroscience and psychology at Princeton. You have published a lot of scientific articles, but also some popular books, which I have read as a non-expert \u2014 your latest, \"Rethinking Consciousness,\" and an earlier work, \"Consciousness and the Social Brain.\" But what I find very interesting is that you've also published fictional work, \"The Divine Farce,\" a play on Dante's Divine Comedy, being a person of Italian ancestry, and \"Death My Own Way.\" I haven't read those yet, but I'm very curious about this connection between your scientific work and your literary work. Next to writing, you also compose music and sometimes play, though not publicly, and you're a hobby ventriloquist. That's a very interesting portfolio for a professor. Have I forgotten anything?<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (02:27)<\/strong> You've covered the basics there, and thank you very much for having me on your podcast.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (02:34)<\/strong> Yes \u2014 you've created one of the central scientific theories of consciousness, I would say, so I'm very interested in talking with you about that today. This podcast examines how personal development works, how transition phases in life work, how personal growth works \u2014 and of course that's also a question about how the mind and consciousness work. So with you today we have the absolute expert on board to answer this question: what is consciousness, or how does it work? Maybe the functional answer is easier than the essentialist one, so let's start there. After studying consciousness for thirty years or so professionally, and as a practitioner of consciousness for fifty-something years, what would you say if I asked you today what consciousness is?<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (03:25)<\/strong> That's a very good question \u2014 the question everyone wants to ask. There's an essentialist and a functionalist approach, and asking what consciousness is, is a little like pointing to a car and saying, what is drive-aroundness? It's a thing the car does. You can understand the components and how they conspire to make that action happen, but it's hard to point to a thing and say that's the drive-aroundness, that's the consciousness thing. I think that impedes progress a little in consciousness research. If I had to summarize it \u2014 and this is a summary nobody ever likes, because it's so contrary to intuition and takes a lot of unpacking before it really lands \u2014 I'd say people say they have a conscious experience because their semantic, cognitive networks have that information in them. They say it because they believe it semantically, and they believe it because there are deeper parts of the brain, hidden beneath our cognition, building those bundles of information, those self-models, and piping them up into our cognitive networks. In a sense, that's the explanation for why we say and think and insist that we have a conscious experience: very deep structures in the brain build these models of self and effectively tell our cognition, our semantic understanding, this is true, this is what's going on. And we, as a whole system \u2014 a person, a complex system of information processing and body and brain \u2014 don't know anything else. That's all we know, all we ever have access to. Everything we say and believe and think about ourselves and the rest of the world stems from that process. So that's the root of it: consciousness is a type of self-model constructed deep in the brain, outside of our cognitive networks, but then pumped up into our higher cognition. That's the basic answer.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (06:09)<\/strong> Okay, so you say it's an informational output of a state of an information-processing system, but it's being popped up \u2014 that sounds a bit like global workspace theory, so it comes from the unconscious, is that the right word, and then it's made conscious somehow. Wouldn't you also have to explain how it transitions from where we don't perceive anything to how we perceive something?<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (06:39)<\/strong> Well, your account mixes layers, because one can't explain consciousness by invoking consciousness \u2014 one can't say I'm conscious because the unconscious part decided I am and then told the conscious part; that literally makes no sense, that's just mixing layers. From my point of view as a neuroscientist, ultimately we are big biological machines made of neurons hooked together by synapses that process information, and when we say we have consciousness, that's a clue \u2014 it comes out of the mouth, and anything that can come out of the mouth depends on information encoded in neural networks, otherwise it can't get into the speech circuitry. So it has to ultimately be in the form of information represented in neural networks, and you can trace where that information is and what's constructing it. Ultimately, yes, there's going to be something like a global workspace \u2014 a part of the overarching network densely connected to our speech output, which we call cognition. When stuff gets into it, that's the stuff we can talk about, and some of the information that gets in says there's a car over there, there's a tree, I'm sitting in a chair, there's a me \u2014 but there's also information saying, and I have subjective experience of those things. Without all of that information, you can't think the thought, you can't articulate the concept. Somehow all of it has to be represented in those neural networks \u2014 that's almost, from a neuroscientist's point of view, a logically necessary set of conditions.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (08:39)<\/strong> I have so many questions, and I already heard elements of what the attention schema theory is \u2014 the theory you're probably most famous for, and that I'd like to illuminate today. But first, a little detour to the personal side: how did you get interested in this question, in asking those questions about how consciousness and the mind work? What's your personal story, in a way that explains how you got to this line of work?<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (09:12)<\/strong> That depends on how long you want me to go on. First of all, it's a question everyone's interested in \u2014 we all have this stuff, and everyone with any sense of self-reflection wonders where it comes from, and we all grow up with intuitions, biases, hypotheses about it. I got interested in it as a scientific topic very early, like many people do \u2014 I read a lot of books on it and thought, this is so cool, I wish I could study this. I think anyone who becomes a neuroscientist or psychologist tends to think about these topics. But really studying it from the point of view of a scientist in the lab didn't happen until much later \u2014 around 2010, when I began to focus on it. I'd studied lots of different topics in neuroscience before that \u2014 real nuts-and-bolts topics, how the brain processes sensory input, how it controls movement \u2014 and one of the key insights in neuroscience is that the brain builds models of things. You look at the world, but what you see is actually models, informational models constructed in your visual system at the back of the brain. You move and control your body, but that depends crucially on your brain building a constantly updating model of where your limbs are and what they're doing. One of the clearest examples of the brain building a model is the phantom limb phenomenon \u2014 if you're unlucky enough to lose an arm, you probably have a phantom arm for a while, sometimes for years, because the brain's model of the arm persists. So the brain builds models of things to monitor and predict and help control them. And that line of thinking led directly to this whole line of research: what happens when the brain starts building models not of the outside world, not of the body, but of its own internal processes, so it can keep track of and predict what it's doing? The key to these self-models is that the brain doesn't need to know the details \u2014 it doesn't need to know it has neurons with synapses, GABAergic pathways, and so on. It just needs general functional information: I have some capacity to understand things, to grasp onto them and focus on them, and if I do that I can respond to them well, but if I don't, I can't. I have a memory that lets me keep track of things, but it's imperfect in this and that way. These vague, amorphous properties that the brain needs to know about and builds models of are the basis for our concept of mind, consciousness, and will.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (12:42)<\/strong> Okay, then let's go to the attention schema theory right away, because it's already in there \u2014 this grasping with amorphous power. Because there's a grasping in the real world to control the outer world, but then your work on subjective experience and awareness is a lot about the will, this \"I can move energy\" or whatever the words are for it, and grasp something else. Maybe please explain to us how you think about this \u2014 the attention schema theory.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (13:13)<\/strong> It's very simple, and along the lines of how it emerged \u2014 when I first wrote about it, I didn't realize it was a new theory. I thought it was just a reasonable way to systematize what everyone knew. I wrote a little book about it, and a neuroscientist came back to me and said, why are you proposing a new theory in this unscholarly way, in a book for the general public \u2014 shouldn't you write an actual article? So I wrote an article \u2014 something like \"Consciousness and Social Perception: A Novel Hypothesis\" \u2014 and that phrase at the end was actually meant ironically, because I couldn't believe it actually was a novel hypothesis. But the hypothesis is really simple. The brain has this process we call attention \u2014 it's a process, not really a thing, though people mean lots of different things by the word. I mean something specific: roughly, the brain can focus its processing resources, deeply process a small number of things at any one time, and ignore or only shallowly process everything else. That's attention, often thought of as a spotlight \u2014 you can pay attention to a location in space in front of you, to the sound of birds behind you, to a thought, or to what your memory is telling you about breakfast, and as you do that your attention is retracted from the world around you. So your attention is limited, and \u2014 maybe people don't always realize this \u2014 attention is the reason we're intelligent, because without it you'd need a brain the size of a planet to process the world. With a small, three-pound brain, if you deploy resources smartly, focusing deeply on key things and filtering out the rest, you can be extraordinarily intelligent with respect to those key things. But we also have to control attention \u2014 it isn't just being yanked here and there, though it partly is, a shiny object and boink, your attention goes right to it \u2014 you also have to move it yourself: focus on this book and ignore the party over there, or walk through a potentially dangerous situation and say, I'd better not pay attention to my inner monologue, I'd better focus on the tree and make sure I don't get jumped. Everything you do depends on controlling your attention \u2014 making a sandwich means moving your attention to the peanut butter jar, then the bread, then the knife. This is literally the heart of who we are as agents in the world. And how do you control attention? Every system that controls something needs a model of the thing it controls \u2014 that principle emerged more than a hundred years ago, and it's fundamental to robotics and to almost any complex engineering. If the brain is going to move its attention around, control it, and predict what external forces might knock it around, it needs a model of attention \u2014 it needs to say, my attention is doing this and that, but also, my attention is the thing that can do this and that, the thing that makes me able to do this and that. So the brain builds a simplified model, and in that model, what the brain is telling itself is: I have an essence inside of me, an essence that allows me to mentally grasp something and understand it deeply, and when I do, it lets me respond to it in a complex way and remember it, and it gives me a vivid sense of what my mind has grasped. But if I haven't grasped it, I can't think about it deeply, can't react to it well, and might not remember it later. So the brain paints a picture of its own properties, and the picture is: I have a kind of amorphous, non-material essence \u2014 it doesn't have a physical basis, because the brain doesn't need to know about the physical basis, it's just like an energy, maybe, and it's inside of me, and it allows me to be conscious of some things and not others, and that's at the root of what allows me to react or prevents me from reacting. The consciousness thing is the brain's model of what its own attentional focus does. That's the attention schema theory in a nutshell.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (19:23)<\/strong> Exactly. And when I encountered this, I loved it, because you explain pretty well what's often missing. It's not enough to just have a model of what I'm processing \u2014 say an apple in front of me \u2014 it's not enough to have that, and it's also not enough to have a model of myself; we need something in between that connects the model of myself to the apple. And that's exactly what you just explained \u2014 a model of myself in the process of attending to the apple. So this attention schema \u2014 the \"schema\" because it's simplified \u2014 because it's simplified, I think you'd argue, it feels like an amorphous power: I am grasping the apple with my attention. And then, as you said, I can report \u2014 if people ask, are you aware of the apple, I'd say yes, I am aware of the apple. Otherwise I couldn't say it \u2014 I'd just have a model of an apple and myself, but I couldn't say I'm aware of the apple. Is that it?<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (20:27)<\/strong> That's exactly right. If you had just the visual model of the apple, and someone asked, is there an apple, you could say, yep, there's an apple. But if someone asked, are you aware of it, you'd have to say, can't compute, what does that mean?<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (20:53)<\/strong> And so this made sense to me in a very intuitive way, because when people meditate, they often let go of the contents of experience \u2014 objects, including their thoughts \u2014 you're trained to let go of thoughts and information, and you even lose track of your own body, parts of your self-model maybe. And what remains in the deep meditative state is pure awareness, as it's called \u2014 which is basically what the attention schema is a theory about. But how I imagine it, this pure awareness is this pure, amorphous power to grasp things, and we have a sense of it as potentiality \u2014 I can do things, I could process things. Would you say that's where the attention schema meets this pure awareness in Buddhist or Zen meditation?<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (21:56)<\/strong> Yes \u2014 there are lots of different kinds of meditation, but especially focused-attention meditation, I've always thought is deeply related to the attention schema business. Here's the interesting wrinkle: what attention really does is enhance the brain's models. When I pay attention to the apple, my visual cortex builds a model, and attention is the process by which that model gets enhanced, so it can have a bigger impact. So attention operates on models and enhances them, and the attention schema is a model of attention \u2014 it's the bundle of information the brain constructs that represents attention. Now, what happens when you pay attention to the model of attention itself? Since attention enhances models, why couldn't you pay attention to the attention schema, the model of attention? That's what I think a lot of meditation is \u2014 essentially taking the process of attention and focusing it on the model that depicts attention. You're attending to your attention, asking what does my brain know about the thing in me that can focus on things.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (23:58)<\/strong> Exactly. So that's why sometimes I think Dan Siegel says something similar \u2014 he says he becomes \"aware of awareness itself.\" Those traditions use the word awareness, and you use much more the word attention, which I also like, with this idea of a model of the attention. There's one thing I wanted to ask you: awareness is this informational model of attention, and attention is a data-handling trick \u2014 you also just said attention is signal enhancement, certain signals boosted and others downregulated. This is an abstraction, a theory that tries to understand how these things work. But a model itself doesn't move anything, does it \u2014 it's an abstraction. How do you connect it back to something real, since you always anchor things in the brain? And in the brain there's also, I'd guess you'd agree, energy \u2014 how is the engine powered, how does the information get instantiated and empowered by something, which is our body and our brain? Because sometimes I wonder if the anchor for this abstract modeling is rooted in our biology in a way that isn't like the machines we've built \u2014 some other stuff going on, maybe \u2014 which might distinguish us from artificially built machines, like the feeling of something, or other things. Would you agree, or would you say maybe the brain, the consciousness we have, is a different kind of computer than the machines we've built, and that's why we struggle to explain features like sensations, emotions, creativity? Or am I going too far?<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (25:39)<\/strong> You're alluding to a lot of things that are out there in the field. It's become very popular as a reaction to the rise of AI, especially the last couple of years \u2014 LLMs that suddenly talk in ways that, frankly, five years ago nobody believed possible for another couple hundred years, and now here they are. I think that's very philosophically threatening \u2014 maybe not so much to the average person, but to philosophers and neuroscientists who've been thinking about this, it's very threatening, and there's a backlash. We saw the same kind of backlash in the second half of the twentieth century when computers started to rise \u2014 it led to philosophical concepts like the hard problem: there are things we can never understand, and that helps make us special and separate from the machines. I think you're seeing the same backlash now \u2014 an enormous, visceral push to make sure we're different from those machines. One of the most common ideas is that biology has all this stuff in the cell and chemistry that bubbles up and affects the higher layers. Personally \u2014 and I know this sounds flippant \u2014 I think this idea got into the public consciousness through the midi-chlorians in Star Wars: these little deep biological things in the cells that bubble up and add to the force and make your brain and mind magical. That's where the idea comes from, and it has about as much scientific merit. Yes, neurons have biology and energy, but in the end neurons talk to each other, especially over distances longer than about a millimeter, via axons and synapses and action potentials \u2014 a spark that causes a pulsatile effect at the other end. If you're talking about a feeling that emerges from the biology, how does the feeling cross the synapse, travel through a spark of electromagnetic signal, hop to the next neuron, and specifically impact the activity of neurons in a network in exactly the right pattern so the overall pattern of activity perfectly represents \"I'm having a subjective experience\"? Nobody ever addresses that \u2014 they just make the naive assumption that if the feeling emerges, then I have it, and that's why I talk about it. But that's not an explanation. Anything we say about ourselves \u2014 there's a feeling, it feels like something, there's an experience, the consciousness part that's special to me \u2014 all of it logically necessarily has to stem from information represented in these patterns of neural activity, an informational embedding. It has to be the case. So circling back to your earlier question \u2014 is our consciousness the same as these artificial things we're building? Right now, probably no, because these artificial things don't have self-models in the same way we do. But that's just a matter of time, and not that much time \u2014 there will come a point when these machines build self-models the same way, believing with absolute certainty that they have subjective experience, using the same basic information-processing modes. That's coming \u2014 not here yet.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (30:18)<\/strong> Okay, I have questions about that. If consciousness is an informational model of attention, then when we think about a model, we think about abstract information we'd write on a blackboard or in a book \u2014 graphs, figures, numbers \u2014 and that seems to be of a very different quality than what we get to with qualia: the taste of chocolate, the scent of a rose, the love you feel for your child. It seems a bit under-explained to say it's just a model of attention, because it feels so rich. How is this instantiated? Because the LLMs you mentioned probably don't know about qualia \u2014 they process abstract information, they build models, but it's more like a chess program that's programmed to play chess. How do you respond to this, since you say subjective experience matters \u2014 how does your theory explain qualia?<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (31:17)<\/strong> Very briefly: the models we have right now, at least until very recently, are all text-based \u2014 that's all these machines get, though now we're moving into visual and auditory models too. But text is a very abstract modality, and so is language. Think about the human brain: when I talk about information and models, the automatic assumption is that this must be a cognitive model \u2014 I learned about something, I think I understand it. But the brain builds other kinds of models too. When you look at something, or smell or hear something, parts of the brain translate the world into a model, a bundle of information, and it's very rich \u2014 not a cognitive, abstract, semantic model but a very rich sensory-level, perceptual-level model. Take vision, a better-understood modality: you look at your coffee cup and build a model of it in your visual system, and here's how that model differs from abstract models. First, you can't help it \u2014 it's automatic, you don't have top-down control over it; if your eyes are open and it's light, unless you're a very unusual person, you can't help building a model of that cup. Second, it's a very rich model, full of nuances, shininess here, shading there. Third, it comes with meta-information that tells your brain \"this is real\" \u2014 there's an area of psychological thought called source monitoring, and one of the things the brain does is monitor the source of information: this came from the outside world, or that's a hypothesis, or this came from my memory. That sometimes gets scrambled \u2014 people think something came from the outside world when it didn't, or vice versa \u2014 but we're generally pretty good at it. So these rich, automatic sensory models come with this meta-information, and when it bubbles up into cognition, cognition is informed: this is real, this is reality, not something I invented semantically. When you have this visual model of your coffee cup bubbling up saying this is real, and another model, equally automatic and rich, bubbling up saying there's a thing called subjective experience attached to that coffee cup right now \u2014 now you have the information set supplied to your higher cognition such that if someone asks, are you conscious, do you have a subjective feel of what it looks like to look at that coffee cup, you have the information necessary to answer, yes, I do, I'm sure of it.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (35:41)<\/strong> So it's like a co-presence of your attention schema, your subjective awareness, with whatever else is in the field of attention \u2014 I'd call it this way \u2014 and then it's present, it's there for me, when the object is there and my awareness, my attention, is there too, and then the output is, it's there, and I remember. You said in your book that location is a great connector, so it all comes together \u2014 my brain processes it together, the form, the color \u2014 but the ultimate connector is this subjective awareness, this amorphous attention schema that brings together everything that's been pushed up. Some people, like Dan Siegel, have said mind is the ultimate connector \u2014 would you say the attention schema, or subjective experience, or awareness, is the ultimate connector?<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (36:41)<\/strong> Yes, that's right. That's a key point \u2014 mind, in a sense, is another way of talking about attention. When you think about it, you got reminded of something \u2014 that's literally re-minding, something put back into your mind. Out of sight, out of mind. What's on his mind right now? These are colloquial ways of talking about what's in the purview of attention \u2014 what's been enhanced by the process of attention, so that it's influencing higher networks like cognition. That's what a mind is, and attention, and the global workspace \u2014 they're all kind of synonymous; attention can operate at many levels, and we're talking about the highest levels of it. But if something gets into your mind, your attention, your global workspace \u2014 like the car you're looking at \u2014 and someone asks, do you have a subjective experience of the car, you can't answer unless you also have a model, information about what subjective experience is and what state you're in at the moment. You need that extra piece.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (38:08)<\/strong> Yes \u2014 let me circle back to this question of information, because you're saying the models I'm talking about aren't just abstract, they're all the other information that comes to me too \u2014 taste, touch, visual information \u2014 and the attention model and all those sensations and perceptions get processed together, and then I can say I'm aware of them. And you're saying there's no reason machines shouldn't be able to have such a self-model, that they could process touch, visual, smell information, and emotions like love, together with attention, in the same way. Is that right, and why do you think so? Because John Vervaeke, a professor at the University of Toronto, has said the LLMs and other artificial machines we build will never be like us, because they don't care about the information, and we care because we have those biological organisms \u2014 I don't know, one of the reasons. How would you respond to that?<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (39:23)<\/strong> First, we're talking about emotion, and nobody really understands yet how emotion is instantiated in the brain \u2014 so we don't know how to build that. It's much easier to build vision, about which a great deal is known, and much easier to build higher cognition, about which much more is known. So that's the first point: I don't think LLMs have anything like emotion, I think they're not at that stage. What is emotion? I think what you're saying is exactly right \u2014 emotion is rooted in the body. There are very old theories going back to William James about emotions being partly our brain's interpretation of sensations detected in the body \u2014 the autonomic nervous system, the sympathetic fight-or-flight response and the parasympathetic rest-and-digest response, operating together in a push-pull, always active even in casual situations. We have actual physiological changes \u2014 blood pressure, blood in the skin so we blush or go pale, eyes constricting or expanding, dry mouth, heart rate, adrenaline \u2014 and sense organs in the body send that physical information up into the brain, through many layers well beneath the cerebral cortex, where systems analyze it and assess the state of the body. Eventually that gets up into the more abstract parts of the cerebral cortex, and we get to say, I'm really viscerally feeling fear, or love, or anger \u2014 emotions that are partly constructs of the brain, but really anchored in the physiology of the body, detected by sense organs. LLMs don't have any of that, literally none of it, so I don't believe they have anything resembling human emotion. But could they, in principle? Yes \u2014 you could build a lot of this artificially, with sensors, or simulate it, with a simulated body and simulated states. Is there a future where LLMs have emotions like people do? Sure \u2014 I don't see it happening soon, because there are technological issues way outside what people can currently do, but technology moves faster than anyone thinks, and in discontinuous jumps, so I don't know when, but I'm pretty sure eventually, yeah, that's going to happen. But I totally agree that LLMs right now are semantically, increasingly intelligent, and they do understand what they're saying semantically \u2014 I just don't think they care. I don't think they have the emotional side of that.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (43:05)<\/strong> Interesting. So you'd say they don't care, probably because they don't have a body, and the body makes us care, through emotions \u2014 and they don't have that, but they understand. I wanted to ask about this comprehension part too, because \u2014 correct me, since you know much more about this \u2014 classical information theory, in the Claude Shannon sense, is a measure of surprise, reducing uncertainty, giving you the classical bits, ones and zeros. Some have said that's a syntactical definition of information \u2014 a measure of how surprised you are by the next word or symbol. And LLMs work like this, I think \u2014 they have enormous correlation matrices and predict the next best word, but that wouldn't be meaning, would it, wouldn't be understanding as we think about it in everyday terms. Is the way we think about information and meaning different from the scientific way information is defined, or from how the AIs are programmed, and does that make a difference? Say, the meaning of life \u2014 an LLM can simulate an answer if I ask about it, it'll tell me something, but is it the same, or does it not matter? Would you say it doesn't matter?<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (44:30)<\/strong> A lot of people have that perspective \u2014 I've heard it millions of times, people glom onto the idea that LLMs just predict the next word, that they're giant prediction engines, big linear algebra machines doing correlations. Here's the problem with that thinking: people are machines that predict the next muscle contraction we need to make to get along in the world \u2014 that's literally the only purpose of having a brain, to control movement in a complex world, and creatures that don't move at a fast, interactive rate don't have brains. And the way we do it effectively isn't just twitching and hoping, or using some simple correlation matrix \u2014 we have deeper layers, where the brain builds abstract representations, so it isn't just about the muscle pattern. In those deeper layers we have abstract representations of dogs and love and cars and breakfast and hunger, all the things we need to build a picture of our world at the most abstract conceptual level, so those concepts can be arranged and manipulated, a general response determined, and then translated bit by bit back into individual muscle contractions. That's the only way to effectively react to a complicated world \u2014 building deep layers with deep abstract representations. This is literally exactly what LLMs do. Yes, they're predicting the next word, but they can't do that unless they have deeper layers, and they do \u2014 these models can have fifty layers from input to output, and in the deeper layers, maybe about two-thirds of the way through, you start seeing patterns of activity, sometimes called embeddings or vectors, that are representations \u2014 the same kind of representations you see in the human brain, a pattern of activity among neurons or units that stands for something, and the things they stand for are very abstract. You can go into these machines, into those hidden layers, and find the neurally represented signals that stand for dogs and cars and love, these abstract concepts, such that they can be manipulated and then translated back, bit by bit, into words. So it's not just predicting the next word \u2014 it's doing so by building deep internal, super-abstract conceptual representations of the world, and we know it's doing that because we have direct access to it, and we know it's doing it in a way that's spookily similar to how the brain does it. Maybe that shouldn't be a surprise, because these models are modeled after the most essential insight into how the brain works \u2014 that the brain is made of neurons hooked together by synapses, and synapses change strength as a result of learning. That these things learn to do this is amazing, but in retrospect, not that big a surprise. So yes, these machines semantically understand what they're saying at a deep conceptual level, the same way we do \u2014 but you're right that they lack things like emotion, because they don't have the architecture, they're not built to the same architecture we are. They have some of the things we have, and lack others.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (49:12)<\/strong> And the architecture connects to what we're speaking about \u2014 we often think in terms of hardware and software, the software running on the hardware, and we want the hardware predictable and stable, so we get reliable one-zero bit relationships at the algorithm level. So the machines are only on the software level, and the hardware level is irrelevant to them \u2014 they don't know or care that they're running on silicon wafers in data centers in Abu Dhabi or Utah, but we care, maybe because of the body thing. So what I hear you saying is that mind and consciousness, since you speak about models and functions, is the software layer, and the hardware isn't relevant \u2014 we could instantiate the software of the mind in different substrates, silicon instead of the body. And here's a question that's hard for me to put into words: we know reality, deep down, is quantum, not classical, not just one and zero \u2014 there's a deeper layer, with all the weird aspects of quantum physics. Some people say that if we ground our physics properly, we need to ground it in information theory, but not classical information theory \u2014 quantum information theory, which has different properties. So would it be an option, or am I totally wrong, that our bodies and brains, coming out of this world, if our deepest theory about the world says it's quantum, must also be quantum at some level, and that we cross a threshold into classical only at the level of synapses and firing, which is much more one-zero \u2014 but below that, all the biochemistry, the cells with their own intentionality, doing their own thing in this big concert of the organism \u2014 isn't that quantum? And maybe that's why we can't explain feelings and emotions, because the information processing that happens is actually quantum, with different properties than the classical. Tell me if I'm totally wrong, because I'm not an expert and you probably know much more.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (51:43)<\/strong> Well, I'll tell you a bit of what I think \u2014 as an ex-physicist from long ago, I've tried to think through some of these quantum proposals, and I think the word \"quantum\" is very dangerous, because people basically say, there's this amorphous thing, we don't understand quantum physics, and there's consciousness, we don't understand that either, so they must be related \u2014 and there's a lot of that going on. I do think a lot of how neurons work, in the end, is classical \u2014 classical physics is the consequence of quantum mechanics at a statistical scale, and once you get up to the level of a neuron communicating with other neurons, it's mostly classical, not that quantum. You have to get down to the tiny level of individual ions moving across membranes to be definitely in the quantum realm \u2014 there's lots of quantum stuff going on down there, but there is everywhere, that's how the world is built. Most of how neurons talk to each other and process information can be understood at a classical level, and can be extraordinarily well modeled by fairly simple linear math equations, which is why these big AIs have worked so well. Second, on the question of whether quantum explains how we have a feeling \u2014 my concern is that it's always the same question: as soon as you ask how we have a feeling, I think you've put yourself out of business. It's like the ancient Egyptians asking, where is the hole in the ground the sun goes into at night on its way to the underworld \u2014 you'll spend lots of money and effort searching for a hole that doesn't exist, because you've decided this thing literally exists and now you're looking for it, when really you just have a simplified concept. When you ask what causes the feeling, what makes the feeling emerge, I'd say: suppose the feeling emerges \u2014 you still haven't explained anything, because you haven't explained how a feeling makes your neural networks have the right information embedding so that you think you have it, know you have it, can talk about it. What has to be explained is how the brain builds models \u2014 and we already know that, in the general sense \u2014 and what's the particular adaptive benefit of this kind of model that tells us we have magic in our heads. So instead of asking what causes the magic, ask what caused us to evolve such that our brains build models that tell us we have magic. That's my answer.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (55:08)<\/strong> Yeah, I totally get that \u2014 if you have the wrong theory about something, you look in the wrong places, like the hole in the ground for the sun, and you don't find anything and you're confused. Does that mean when I say I have a feeling \u2014 say I love a person \u2014 you'd say, well, I don't know if that's true, you just report that you love them, so let's see how your brain models something you'd report as love? And you'd say love is difficult, we'll get there \u2014 the easier things are visual, though even self-driving cars already process visual information, so we'll get there eventually with the rest. So would you say it's an illusion? I remember a little discussion in your book about illusionism \u2014 is it that?<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (56:07)<\/strong> No, I wouldn't say so \u2014 I have trouble with that word. A common take is that if you try to explain how the brain does something, you're explaining it away, saying it doesn't really exist, saying I don't really have love \u2014 and that's not true either. To explain something is not the same as explaining it away. I used to be a motor physiologist, and I studied the arm and hands, knew all the bones and muscles \u2014 does that mean, now that I understand it, I can take an axe and cut my hand off and throw it away because I don't need it anymore, because I've explained it away? No \u2014 I still need the thing, I still use it, but now I have some knowledge of how it works. It's really important for people to understand that the purpose of science isn't to explain things away so we can discard them \u2014 that's not what happens. You explain something and gain a better appreciation of it, and you never lose the need for the thing you were studying. So we don't explain away love, we don't explain away experience \u2014 what we explain is how a brain comes to these certainties, intuitions, and beliefs about itself. Here's another analogy I often use to get the point about magic across, about how a brain comes to think it has magic: take the phantom limb case again \u2014 suppose you lose an arm in an accident and have a phantom limb. There are two classes of explanation. The typical one today: the brain built a model of your arm, automatic, running under the surface, sending information up into your cognition, which is why, when asked, you can talk about it, close your eyes and know what your arm is doing, feel touch, cold, heat. The other explanation, which actually did pass as an explanation at one point in history, is that there's literally a ghost arm growing out of the stump \u2014 taking the model at face value, assuming it's literally accurate. So let's set ourselves the scientific task of explaining the hard problem on those terms: what creates the phantom, the ghost \u2014 is it the quantum wiggles at the stump, the integration of information in the cells there, and what's it made out of, energy, quantumness, an invisible electromagnetic field? And then, once you think you've explained where it comes from and what it's made of, you're still stuck explaining how this phantom limb specifically affects the neurons in your brain, tweaking their activity in just the right pattern so your semantic networks know there's a phantom limb, so you can talk about it. So you get a whole host of problems when you take as literally true the content of a model the brain built, because the brain's models are always schematic, quick and dirty. That's exactly the same problem we have with consciousness \u2014 we report it, say it, believe it, insist on it, know it at a gut level, but all of that emerges from the brain's models, built probably automatically, probably at a very deep level \u2014 not semantic models, more like perceptual models, whose output is piped up through our semantic network, which is why we think we have these things, why we say we have them. But if we assume the models are literally accurate \u2014 that there literally is a ghostly essence of magical feeling inside of us \u2014 and ask what caused it, that's the moment almost all consciousness researchers, until recently, have set for themselves as the goal. That's the Egyptians trying to find the hole in the ground the sun goes into at night. As soon as you set that task for yourself \u2014 what is the magic essence of experience and what causes it \u2014 you're out of business. That's the moment you've failed to grasp what's actually going on and put yourself on the wrong path.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (1:00:40)<\/strong> Okay \u2014 and one could say the feeling of the phantom limb is a malfunction of something that usually works well, so you can't prove something isn't working properly, or isn't real, just because it sometimes malfunctions \u2014 if I report I love someone, that might just be a phantom-limb-type thing, but it doesn't mean it doesn't really exist, just that it exists in my perception. And the more interesting question, as you say, is how does your brain do it \u2014 that's how you anchor it, always. So, if we advance our current neuroscience and information science far enough, we'll get to the point where we could teach LLMs to construct not just a self-model of where their computational resources are allocated right now, but also to model all kinds of sensations \u2014 vision being the easiest, which intuitively makes sense since they already process cars and work with that somehow \u2014 and then maybe smell and touch, and even feelings. We could model it into them, and then they'd think it's real too, the way we do, because we have a model that works that way \u2014 independent of the substrate, probably, and independent of energy, if that even exists, because when I looked into this preparation I came across the idea that you have to instantiate the model, so there needs to be some physical stuff, energy and so on. But there are also approaches that say, no, in information theory, if you go fully computationalist, you don't need matter or energy \u2014 it's just information processing, the structure of constraints in which information is allowed to be processed, and then you don't even need energy or physical matter. I don't know if you'd call this an information-based approach, where in the end you don't care so much about matter \u2014 you talk about the brain, but the brain is just an information source in a way. How do you relate to those kinds of ideas, at the border between physicalism and informationism or computationalism?<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (1:03:35)<\/strong> I don't know \u2014 physics at the most fundamental level is very mathy, it kind of is math, relationships, informational relationships between things, and you could say the universe is math. I think that's a really interesting point of view, though there's a tendency for people to hear that and think it means it doesn't exist, that we can just think it differently, think the universe into different states \u2014 and that's really not how it works. But you can understand what's going on in the universe at a math level, at the level of informational relationships. I'm not sure that's going to be all that useful for understanding the mind, though I think the math of LLMs is beautiful \u2014 basic linear algebra describing how huge numbers of neurons connect to huge numbers of other neurons, how connection strengths change, and how that results in abstract symbolic thinking. It's absolutely amazing that all of that math is so well formulated and understood. I will say this, though, in terms of substrate independence: what we have so far in understanding the brain, and especially what got translated into technology, is still kind of simplified. I'm super impressed, and I think these machines think, and I think they've captured the essence of how neural networks work in the brain \u2014 but they've stripped it down quite a bit. There's a lot of simplification. The brain has other degrees of freedom that aren't present in the artificial system \u2014 different temporal dynamics for different types of synapses, ways neurons connect that aren't synaptic, hormonal signaling, direct gap junctions between neurons, and glia cells, which people conveniently forget about \u2014 there are ten times more glia cells in the brain than neurons, and they actually play a role in information processing in ways that aren't fully understood. So there's a lot in there the brain figured out that could be hacks, tricks, or could be fundamental \u2014 we don't know. So if you took a brain, took all its neurons and synaptic connections \u2014 what's called a connectome \u2014 copied it artificially, and set it running, I don't think that would be the person's mind, because you'd be missing other parts of the brain's physical architecture. I think you'd have a very confused and unhappy thing. But if you could copy not just the neurons and synapses but the size and kind of synapse, the temporal dynamics, the subtle ways synapses change over time, the hormonal interactions, if you could simulate the glia cells \u2014 you could, in principle, simulate a human brain, and that artificial version would be the person, one that would say, my god, you did something to me, but here I am, this is me, I have my memories, my wisdom, my knowledge, my personality. But I don't think we're there \u2014 there are differences between the biological system, which has components we don't fully understand, and the more simplified, but still very powerful, artificial systems.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (1:07:38)<\/strong> Okay \u2014 so you'd say it's ultimately substrate-independent, if we manage to model it properly down to all the relevant information, and there isn't \u2014 sorry, I'll ask this one last time \u2014 some quantum effect or quantum information at the lower levels that isn't clonable. Quantum information isn't clonable, so if there's something quantum at the lower levels, you can't copy that, it can't be properly abstracted into a zero-one-bit relationship.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (1:08:21)<\/strong> I think that mind uploading, which is what I was just describing, will happen \u2014 let's just put that out there. I think it will happen, I don't know when, I think it's a long time off. There are people who think it's right around the corner, and I think they're wrong \u2014 the technology isn't there yet. But I think it necessarily will happen.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (1:08:25)<\/strong> So that makes everyone happy who's invested a lot of money in having their body or brain deep-frozen \u2014 we don't know if they'll like the future they find when they're reactivated in some way.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (1:08:48)<\/strong> I don't know why anyone would want that. That's the one thing I always say when people ask, do you want your mind to be uploaded \u2014 and the answer is no, I'm so glad this will happen after I've gone.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (1:09:01)<\/strong> Yeah, I think so too. Okay, so we're nearing the end \u2014 for my final questions: this podcast is also about personal development and growth, and we've talked a lot about your theory of consciousness and how it works. How do you think personal development and growth happen, based on your neuroscientific work? It doesn't have to be specifically the attention schema theory, just your insight into the mind and consciousness in general \u2014 is there any guidance you'd give people who say, I want to grow, I want to develop, maybe even develop my consciousness?<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (1:09:55)<\/strong> I don't know \u2014 understanding how some of the parts work isn't really the same thing as having advice on how to be a practitioner and use those parts. It certainly suggests that things like meditation, which we've talked about, are valid \u2014 you're training up and strengthening your mechanisms for self-monitoring and controlling your own internal processes, and that's great. But the biggest \u2014 and we've talked and talked about the AI connection \u2014 I think that's probably the place where work on consciousness will have the biggest practical impact, because consciousness research used to be philosophy, armchair philosophy, then it became scientifically interesting, but now it's suddenly the key to our technological future, something of profound importance to the future of our species. I think that's probably a bigger impact than a medical or psychological intervention.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (1:11:01)<\/strong> In your theory of consciousness or awareness, attention is a central character, and I found it interesting how much you emphasize it \u2014 attention as the central thing the brain does, or that our minds accomplish, deciding what to enhance, what to suppress, how to steer it, and we're doing it all the time, mostly unconsciously, operating our attention as life demands, or as we see fit. Becoming more aware of this attention mechanism is useful, I think, because by putting our attention somewhere, we change our world, and we change the world. So rather than speaking about awareness, which is a bit fuzzy, it's really about attention, and about being able to choose where to point the spotlight \u2014 and most of the time we just point it in one direction or angle. Maybe if we experiment a bit more with our capacity to wield attention, we can make new insights into ourselves and into the world.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (1:12:04)<\/strong> I think that's true \u2014 attention on attention, that's really important, absolutely.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (1:12:16)<\/strong> Iain McGilchrist has said something similar. Is there any piece of advice you'd give our listeners when it comes to attention, or to consciousness, as you're thinking about it?<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (1:12:41)<\/strong> I'd be very cautious giving advice, because I don't want to harm anyone. I'd say understanding is a worthy goal unto itself \u2014 understanding these internal processes is fascinating, one of the most amazing things about humans is that we've figured out so much about ourselves, and now it's leaking into our technology in ways that are only going to keep transforming us.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (1:13:08)<\/strong> Yes \u2014 and I remembered I also wanted to talk about your fictional work, since you wrote The Divine Farce and others. How has your literary work informed your scientific work, and vice versa? You write about the big topics \u2014 the meaning of life, or the meaninglessness of life, death, and so on \u2014 how does that connect, or not, to your scientific work?<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (1:13:41)<\/strong> I don't know thematically \u2014 maybe there are some thematic connections, but I think it's a very similar process to write a work of fiction or to work through a scientific experiment. It's a very large project, and you have to approach it from both an aesthetic point of view and a very logical, reductionist point of view. I think it appeals to the same parts of me to work on these different kinds of projects, and if you get stuck on one, you can turn to the other for a while and then come back. That's probably the connection.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (1:14:49)<\/strong> Okay \u2014 so it's a bit complementary, bouncing off each other, both a quest for understanding, maybe the human condition in the literary work, and consciousness as a hard-nosed understanding project in science. Since you've been interested in psychology, philosophy, and neuroscience for many, many years \u2014 is there anything you'd give yourself as advice as a young man? You said it's difficult to give advice to other people, but looking back at your younger self, is there anything you'd say you looked at too early, or differently?<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (1:15:03)<\/strong> I would love to have a conversation with my younger self, but I think only if I could set it up so he wouldn't remember the conversation afterward, because I wouldn't want to alter his path \u2014 he had a really interesting path, and I wouldn't want to steer him toward or away from anything specific. I just find it fascinating to imagine going back and chatting with him \u2014 I think I remember, but there's a lot I probably don't \u2014 and he might be curious about his future self too. That would be a wonderful conversation.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (1:15:36)<\/strong> But then you'd need the men-in-black device, so people forget again \u2014 sounds like you're working on a time machine and a memory-deletion device. Okay, wonderful. Michael, thank you very much for this super interesting conversation, I learned a lot. If people want to connect with you or learn more about your work, where would you point them?<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (1:15:39)<\/strong> Probably my web page \u2014 my Princeton web page has all kinds of info on it.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Christopher Kabakis (1:16:07)<\/strong> Okay, so just Google Princeton University Michael Graziano and you'll get there. Wonderful \u2014 and I'll do my homework on the quantum stuff and come back for a follow-up conversation. It's a fascinating field, and as you said, we all have a natural interest in understanding ourselves better, and you're at the forefront of that work. I always liked that it's not just emergentism, where consciousness just appears \u2014 you're saying there's a mechanism we can understand, a plausible way of explaining what subjective experience or awareness is. I've always loved that, and we'll continue sharing it with people whenever there's a chance. So thank you very much, and have a good day still there on the East Coast. Okay, take care. Bye bye, Michael. Bye.<\/p>\n\n      <p><strong>Michael Graziano (1:16:47)<\/strong> Good, I'm glad to hear. Excellent, I'm so glad to hear. That's right. Yes. Bye.<\/p>\n    <\/div>\n\n  <\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-996b425 e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"996b425\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-d7fdc79 elementor-widget elementor-widget-html\" data-id=\"d7fdc79\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"html.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<!-- BLOCK 3: GUEST CARD -->\n\n<div class=\"evo-guest\">\n<style>\n  @import url('https:\/\/fonts.googleapis.com\/css2?family=Montserrat:wght@200;300;400;600;700;800&display=swap');\n\n  .evo-guest {\n    --teal: #114B4D; --gold: #EBBF71;\n    --text-gray: #546e7a; --text-muted: #6b7c7c; --white: #FFFFFF;\n    font-family: 'Montserrat', sans-serif;\n    background: transparent;\n    max-width: 1000px; 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}\n  .evo-guest .evo-links li::before { content: '\u2014'; position: absolute; left: 0; top: 0; color: var(--gold); font-weight: 700; }\n  .evo-guest .evo-links a {\n    font-size: 0.85rem; font-weight: 600; letter-spacing: 2px;\n    text-transform: uppercase; color: var(--teal);\n    text-decoration: none; padding-bottom: 4px;\n    border-bottom: 1px solid rgba(17,75,77,0.3);\n    display: inline-block;\n    transition: all 0.4s cubic-bezier(0.19,1,0.22,1);\n  }\n  .evo-guest .evo-links a:hover { color: var(--gold); border-bottom-color: var(--gold); padding-left: 5px; }\n\n  .evo-guest .evo-appearances { list-style: none; padding: 0; margin: 0 0 32px; display: flex; flex-direction: column; gap: 12px; }\n  .evo-guest .evo-appearances li { position: relative; padding-left: 20px; }\n  .evo-guest .evo-appearances li::before { content: '\u2014'; position: absolute; left: 0; top: 0; color: var(--gold); font-weight: 700; }\n  .evo-guest .evo-appearances a {\n    font-size: 13px; font-weight: 400; color: var(--teal);\n    text-decoration: none; line-height: 1.5;\n    border-bottom: 1px solid rgba(17,75,77,0.15);\n    padding-bottom: 2px;\n    display: inline-block;\n    transition: all 0.3s ease;\n  }\n  .evo-guest .evo-appearances a:hover { color: var(--gold); border-bottom-color: var(--gold); }\n\n  @media (min-width: 768px) {\n    .evo-guest .evo-card { flex-direction: row; }\n    .evo-guest .evo-card::before { width: 80px; }\n    .evo-guest .evo-photo-wrap { padding: 60px 48px 60px 40px; flex-shrink: 0; justify-content: flex-start; }\n    .evo-guest .evo-photo { width: 240px; height: 280px; }\n    .evo-guest .evo-content { padding: 60px 48px 60px 0; }\n  }\n\n  @media (max-width: 767px) {\n    .evo-guest { padding: 32px 20px 48px; }\n    .evo-guest .evo-card::before { display: none; }\n  }\n<\/style>\n\n<div class=\"evo-card\">\n\n  <div class=\"evo-photo-wrap\">\n    <img decoding=\"async\"\n      class=\"evo-photo\"\n      src=\"https:\/\/evolute-institute.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Michael-Graziano-scaled.webp\"\n      alt=\"Michael Graziano\">\n  <\/div>\n\n  <div class=\"evo-content\">\n\n    <p class=\"evo-eyebrow\">About this Guest<\/p>\n\n    <h2 class=\"evo-name\">Michael Graziano<\/h2>\n    <p class=\"evo-role\">Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at Princeton University \/ Creator of Attention Schema Theory \/ Author<\/p>\n    <p class=\"evo-bio\">\n      What if consciousness is not something uniquely human, but a process the brain creates, and one that machines could eventually develop as well? Michael Graziano is a Princeton professor of psychology and neuroscience and the scientist behind the Attention Schema Theory, one of the leading mechanistic approaches to explaining how the brain creates our sense of subjective experience. Drawing on decades of research into the brain, attention, and self-modeling, his work raises a striking possibility: that future AI systems may not only become more intelligent, but could also develop consciousness and emotions, forcing us to rethink what truly distinguishes humans from machines.\n    <\/p>\n\n    <p class=\"evo-links-title\">Connect &amp; Learn More<\/p>\n    <ul class=\"evo-appearances\">\n      <li><a href=\"https:\/\/pni.princeton.edu\/people\/michael-graziano\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Michael Graziano \u2014 Princeton Webpage<\/a><\/li>\n    <\/ul>\n\n    <p class=\"evo-links-title\">Books by Michael Graziano<\/p>\n    <ul class=\"evo-appearances\">\n      <li><a href=\"https:\/\/wwnorton.co.uk\/books\/9780393541342-rethinking-consciousness-0e82bbe2-06f1-4bac-a4d5-665615229eef\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rethinking Consciousness: A Scientific Theory of Subjective Experience<\/a><\/li>\n      <li><a href=\"https:\/\/grazianolab.princeton.edu\/publications\/consciousness-and-social-brain\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Consciousness and the Social Brain<\/a><\/li>\n      <li><a href=\"https:\/\/leapfrogpress.com\/book\/the-divine-farce\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Divine Farce<\/a><\/li>\n      <li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/en\/book\/show\/13592094-death-my-own-way\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Death My Own Way<\/a><\/li>\n    <\/ul>\n\n  <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>La conscience artificielle n'est-elle qu'une question de temps ? Michael Graziano, neuroscientifique \u00e0 Princeton, nous parle des mod\u00e8les de soi, des \u00e9motions et de ce qui fait de nous des \u00eatres humains.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1509,"featured_media":27822,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inner-pioneers-podcast"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Michael Graziano | Evolute Institute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Can machines become conscious? Princeton neuroscientist Michael Graziano on self-models, emotions, embodiment, and the future of AI consciousness.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/evolute-institute.com\/fr\/podcast-des-pionniers-interieurs\/michael-graziano\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"fr_FR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Michael Graziano | Evolute Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Can machines become conscious? 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