Octopuses, artificial intelligence, and advanced alien civilizations: for many reasons, it's interesting to contemplate ways of thinking other than whatever it is we humans do. How should we think about the space of all possible cognitions? One aspect is simply the physics of the underlying substrate, the physical stuff that is actually doing the thinking. We are used to brains being solid -- squishy, perhaps, but consisting of units in an essentially fixed array. What about liquid brains, where the units can move around? Would an ant colony count? We talk with complexity theorist Ricard Solé about complexity, criticality, and cognition.Blog post with transcript: <a href="https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/01/01/260-ricard-sole-on-the-space-of-cognitions/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/01/01/260-ricard-sole-on-the-space-of-cognitions/</a>Support Mindscape on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Patreon</a>.Ricard Solé received his Ph.D. in physics from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. He is currently ICREA research professor at the Catalan Institute for research and Advanced Studies, currently working at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, where he is head of the Complex Systems Lab. He is also an External Professor of the Santa Fe Institute, Fellow of the European centre for Living Technology, external faculty at the Center for Evolution and Cancer at UCSF, and a member of the Vienna Complex Systems Hub. He is the&nbsp;<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/our-authors/sole-ricard" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">author of several technical books</a>.<ul><li><a href="http://complex.upf.edu/ricard-sol%C3%A9" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Web site</a></li><li><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BqIjjUAAAAAJ&hl=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Google Scholar publications</a></li></ul>See Privacy Policy at <a href="https://art19.com/privacy" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://art19.com/privacy</a> and California Privacy Notice at <a href="https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info</a>.

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260 | Ricard Solé on the Space of Cognitions

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas