Episode
#105 Meet the AI Researcher Proving Machines Will NEVER Be Conscious!
- Podcast
- Giants Shoulder
- Published
- Mar 23, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 6365
- Processing state
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Summary
Dr. Erik Bekkers is an associate professor in Geometric Deep Learning at the University of Amsterdam, an ELLIS Program Director, and one of the most original thinkers working at the intersection of mathematics, AI and consciousness. He reverse-engineered how the human visual cortex processes reality using the geometry of curved spaces — then used those same principles to build AI architectures that outperform standard deep learning. He recently published a paper arguing that AI will never be conscious, introducing a framework called Biological Idealism. Expect to learn why your brain lifts reality into a higher-dimensional space just to see a straight line, what autopoiesis is and why it might be the dividing line for consciousness, why psychedelics decreasing brain activity while increasing experience is a problem for materialism, why firing neurons are an appearance of experience not the cause of it, why AI leaders claiming machines might be conscious is dangerous, and much more ... Timestamps: 00:00 Why Erik Wrote the Biological Idealism Paper 02:00 The Materialist Bias in Society 04:23 Does a Machine Have Consciousness? 06:29 Can You Be a Materialist and Value Experience? 08:24 The Map vs The Terrain: What is Matter Really? 11:03 Bernardo Kastrup and the Path to Idealism 14:11 Psychedelics: Less Brain Activity, More Experience? 15:57 The Idealist Explanation of Neural Correlates 19:54 What Primes Someone Towards Idealism or Materialism? 24:17 Autopoiesis: The Self-Creation of Life 27:32 How Autopoiesis Works in an Idealist Framework 33:30 Where Physicalism and Idealism Actually Agree 41:15 Finding Common Ground Across Metaphysics 47:17 Why Are Some Creatures More Conscious Than Others? 50:18 Donut-Shaped Geometry in Brain Activity 54:46 Can Mathematics Ever Model C…