Technology, Connected - Can AI Ever Be Conscious? - Irreducible, Federico Faggin (Chapter 3)

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

We're reading Chapter 3 of Irreducible by Federico Faggin, and he argues that consciousness is rooted in the quantum nature of life, something potentially inaccessible to classical, deterministic machines. If that's true, AI consciousness is impossible.Faggin contrasts the symbolic processing of computers with the dynamic, self-organizing behavior of living systems. He suggests that real understanding isn’t just non-algorithmic, it may be inseparable from the quantum coherence found in biological life. Are we mistaking simulation for sentience?Please enjoy the show. And share with a conscious friend. --Timestamps(00:00) Consciousness and Meditation(05:00) The Nature of Machines(09:56)Computers vs. Humans(15:50) Quantum Consciousness and Its Implications(20:49) The Evolution of Humanity vs. Machines--Learn more: www.thinkingonpaper.xyz

Disruptures and Curious Minds, booklovers, you're tuned into the Thinking on Paper Book Club where we read books that have stood the test of time. Books that will change your mind. And none of the books we've read so far will probably change your mind as much as irreducible by Federico Fasian. It's book number seven in the book club. Today we're reading chapter three, consciousness life, computers and human natures. We're going to be talking about transistors, the history of computers, robots, robots versus computers, computers versus robots, robots versus humans, humans versus robots. what does it all mean consciousness quantum mechanics relays diodes triodes not triads or you guitar nuts out there but jeremy i want to begin with a question for you so consciousness i've been inspired i've been

meditating more this week just to get deeper into my own consciousness sam harris waking up up have been using that a lot and i've come to this realization based on this book want to know what you think about it. I haven't been sitting in a harm, zen-like enlightened state. When I meditate, my brain is just a firework display of thoughts crashing around completely out of control. There's not much Zen going in. But I was thinking from this, every time a new thought flashes into my head when I'm meditating, is that the wave function collapsing? Very interesting. I was thinking about this. I was listening to Sam Harris' wife's. She has a new. audio documentary out there that got me thinking about that and I actually wrote a note and wrote a note

about this because there are so many different different ways things can happen in your brain, in your mind, my consciousness versus your consciousness and wave collapsing. There is something to, there is something to that. I don't know if like the thoughts are the waves collapsing or not, but there's something there. There's something. Separate thoughts from consciousness. Is conscious not, is consciousness not thought? Is thought not consciousness? And if we're talking about quantum consciousness. So consciousness, the way I think about it is like the awareness of your own experience.

I am aware of my surroundings. Consciousness is also based on memories. This is where the, on her audio documentary, this is the idea that I was trying to bring up. The idea that memories are tied to consciousness, meaning memories are these perceptions of a conscious state. And that, I think, is a wave collapse, is a memory. It's a thought. I think we're saying the same thing.

Maybe so. Thoughts could be just weird, random stuff that fires in your brain. That's still consciousness. You still need to be conscious to have that. The animals aren't having weird, mad thoughts about... How do you know? How do you know? I don't know.

Anyway, I've got a follow-on question. So... I love that you're meditating, by the way. It's one of the... Well, I've been meditating for years. Yeah. Can you not tell? Yeah.

You don't get this beautiful without meditating a lot. So let's say that our conscious, every time a new thought comes in, that's the collapsing of the wave function, the quantum realm speaking to us, I'm going with this. So if that is the case, does that mean that via meditation, via critical thinking, via thinking on paper, I can control collapse of the wave function. By becoming more Zen, by becoming more aware of my thoughts,

by being able to not follow those thoughts, Am I controlling the quantum realm there? By preventing those thoughts just flashing it in, just even if it's just for a second, a moment of calm, is that me pushing back on the collapse of the wave? That's really interesting to think about. That's really interesting to think about. Everyone gets all caught up on meditating the right way

and they get all stressed out. And when thoughts come in their head, they think they're failing at meditation, where the real root, even if you have these like hyper minuscule moments, of complete nothingness happening in your head and training those to be longer and longer and longer. Actually, the best, here's a quick hack, not a hack, but... I don't think we like that word, do we?

Here's your thinking on paper. There you go. Hit the TOP tidbit. Have you ever done any Wim Hof breathing? Yeah, I'm doing it right now. Have you done it with the push-ups? I've held my breath running and stuff, yeah. Okay, okay.

So I found after like four rounds of that with doing the push-ups, It was the quickest way to a very cool meditative state, as opposed to just trying to sit there for 20 minutes to get somewhere, 30 minutes, whatever it is. I got there quicker by doing that, which was really interesting. Well, we'd need to get an expert on, but that's to do with carbon dioxide and oxygen, isn't it? I think that's a different process that's happening,

where your brain is almost being starved of oxygen. It's the carbon dioxide that's doing that. I think you're over oxygenating when you do those big breaths and those quick. Ventilating. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, let's get focused on the nature of machines. Five minutes in, we haven't even spoken about the book, irreducible. But these thoughts are stem from reading the book.

Yep. Listener. But, yeah, so go. Chapter 3, the nature of machines, the evolution of machines. What are your first thoughts? I've always been a big fan of questions over answers, just the idea of questions over answers. in the Einstein quote that starts this whole chapter.

One day the machines will be able to solve all the problems, but none of them will ever be able to pose one. After our last book, Nexus, that's such a hopeful, optimistic quote. I love it. It really is. But I always teach my kids, you know, that our superpower is our curiosity, our creativity,

our ability to ask really good questions. So starting off, I thought that was really cool. It goes through a nice stepping through of, of, how computers became computers and some of the amazing inventions our host and author put together. I mean, it's called it in Sederico. Yeah, that's right. The algorithms. I still like calling the author's hosts for this conversation.

But yeah, I did get a little cross-eyed with some of the technical stuff in here, but it goes through this evolution of machines with relays, from relays to triodes, from triodes to the OS transistor. pretty interesting, but kind of difficult to follow because I'm not in the nitty-gritty of those mechanical things, those electrical things. How did you, did your mind melt a little bit with that or no? I had to look at what Moss stood for. What does it stand for? It's like how much more. A metal oxide semiconductor. Okay. Okay. I really like the way he describes the history of computers. Obviously, a lot of people have wrote a lot of histories of the

computer, I think he describes it in a very nice way. We go very quickly from the coal-fired industrial revolution via electromagnetism, via the abacus to the reload, like you said, the triode. We are discovering that the large portion of what matters in our life has to do with information, creating, transforming, moving and consuming information represent a growing portion of what interests us. Okay, what I liked about that quote was what came next. But if we think about it, much of the physical movement in the past was also connected with information. For example, 200 years ago, what we accomplished with a phone call by downloading some data to our computer would have required a trip of several days on horseback. 40 years ago, we physically went to the library to a record store, to a movie theater.

40 years or into a movie theater the other day. To do what we now do at home or on the go. So, yeah, nothing's changed. And he creates the evolution of technology computers to the evolution of information flow. I thought that was very interesting for the reader, yeah, if they want to go deep into the tech. They're welcome. It all comes down to. the organization of electrons, right?

We talked about, like, I don't remember if this, the first chapter or second chapter, but just that we're all organizations, unique organizations of electrons. And it goes from Steam Engine to where, you know, you would have, if I wanted to tell you something back in the day, I'd have to jump on a damn train, powered by Steam Engine to go see you and be like,

Hey, Mark, what's up? But, you know, there's a soon, a dense network of cables covered the cities to distribute energy and information without moving anything but electrical signals. So a taste of what's to come, right? You like a big number, I like a big number. I did like when he moved on to modern chips, and when he's describing a modern microchip,

it may contain up to one trillion transistors and can speed up human calculations nearly quadrillion times with nothing moving. Moreover, a chip is monolithic. Sorry, I learnt this, in the sense that all its parts are made and assembled simultaneously. What moves in a chip are electric signals,

but that motion is more like the propagation of light than the motion of objects. In a chip, though, electromagnetic energy that carries the information flows through the lab depths of streets and doors at close to the speed of light. And what was interesting on the chip was that how the connectors take up much more space than the actual transistors on a chip, like way more space, which is quite mind-boggling because whenever I think of a chip, how do they fit billions and trillions of transistors onto a chip the size of a thumbnail? Pretty bonkers.

Well, I think a lot of us think about all of this stuff as just pure magic. I turned on this computer to start this recording. And you just take for granted that there's a tiny little box sitting on my desk that has all these things in it that are sending ones and zeros through these tiny little compartments, these tiny little pathways that are getting A to B. And we all are just like, wow, it's just amazing that it works. Julian. Did you know who's called Boolean? Yeah, Boolean math. Yeah, yeah. So what you've just described is a nice segue of, yeah, okay, we all have these computers on our tables.

We don't really know what they do. it's like a magic box. You open up and suddenly we're talking across the Atlantic Ocean at the speed of light, reading books, which we don't understand to an audience of tens, thousands of people listening to us. He gets into it, doesn't he? The comparison between computers and humans and the difference between a computer system and a human system, he starts talking about computers are reductionists, computers are deterministic and we're not. Yeah, really interesting. So pointing back to what said in the in the preface, I think, and then teased it in chapter one is that these two paths of semantic and symbolic. The ones and zeros, you know, the computer's not concerned with what the

ones and zeros mean. They're just concerned with processing the ones and zeros according to the algorithms and the instructions. The semantic side, the meaning is assigned to those by the programmer. And, you know, we are the beneficiaries of the output. And yet the operation of the computer, however, is extremely fragile because it would take just one wrong bit to turn a machine that seems intelligent and deliberate into a completely useless box metal, plastic and silicon, which I think my laptop is currently going through that process. My gosh. Your port.

Become a useless box of plastic. Your poor laptop. Your poor laptop. What about computers? This is a really cool sentence. A computer is a physical structure in which an energy pattern created by the human mind has been organized in such a form that the matter is forced to add. act in accordance with this pattern.

I love the idea that it references an energy pattern. Because that's what we're talking about, is energy harnessed and pointed in a way and directed to do something very deterministic. The computer, like you said, is deterministic. It can't decide. It just processes what it's told based on the rules. Yeah. However complex they are, that's all they're doing is obeying set commands by the human.

So today's date, Marble, March 28, 2025. Just to set some context, there's another quote here, meaning understanding and free will decisions do not exist within a computer. What is that going to look? Is that going to change in 20 years, right? That's the whole point of the book. No, no is the answer to that, Jeremy.

No is the answer to that. It will not change because consciousness is a quantum experience. Fair enough. Could a quantum computer experience? Fair enough. But that's not my idea. So then we get back into quantum, don't we? Following on from what you said, he says, moreover, the randomness of quantum physics

is fundamentally different from what we call random in classical systems. Classical randomness corresponds to the lack of knowledge of what could be known by solving the deterministic equations of classical physics. Quantum randomness is instead non-alorithmic because it is indetermined prior to the measurement that literally creates it and then further along. In other words, the randomness of quantum physics does not correspond to the ignorance of a reality that is knowable, but to a reality that has not yet been created and therefore is unknowable in principle. That's like my mad thoughts when I'm meditating. Definitely. Definitely a mad thought.

Doesn't it feel you with hope and optimism, though, after reading the last book where we get, this is the opposite side of the coin, isn't it? This is the opposite side of the AGI's superintelligence argument. Yeah, and it's one of those things like how, so you have the machines, you have the pieces and parts and this idea of separate in principle, SIP, right? It's, you know, you have these machines that are made of all these different parts, but if you remove parts, the machine really doesn't work. So they call it kind of separate in principle just to theoretically describe. Yeah, because you could take a trip to pieces, but I mean, you're not going to because we can't, but you could theoretically. So computers are, so let's, let's, Julio Otina. No, what's up, dude? First book club, Nexus thinking. He talks about these two ideas of a complicated and complex. So as I start to thread the books together, I would say, I would say computers are complicated and consciousness is complex, or quantum is complex, right?

Personification of. All right. So to perform a useful function, so each of these parts, separate in principle, requires an exchange of energy between. between the parts and the environment, the idealization, he calls it, of this holistic system, which I thought was really cool and the idea of reductionist versus holistic. What did you think about that? I was just going to ask you what that meant when he says a reductionist system is therefore a holistic system in which the inevitable dissipative interactions with the environment have been minimized to avoid jeopardizing their intended function. Such a system is a simplified mental model of reality.

What does he mean when he's talking about reductionist idealization? of a holistic system. Well, reductionist, when I always think about it, is like us as humans, we want to take something and put it in its pieces and parts and explain it, what it does and how it does it. Holistic is something working together, not just hierarchical, but also emerging at the same time.

I don't know, I'm talking in circles. This chapter has kind of bonkered my head a little bit. There's another one here. When we consider that the elementary parts of whichever think is made are quantum states that behave like probability waves that can also be influenced by the random flunkered, of the quantum vacuum, true reductionism cannot exist.

Yeah, there you have it, classical physics. That kind of makes sense because true reductionism cannot exist. So everything is quantum interactions on atomic scale and even everything in those, the trillions of transistors on the microchip all the way down, it's probability waves. It can't be. It's not reduction because it doesn't exist until you interact with it. And there it becomes creative. you can't take it apart, you can't go back, you can't study it because it didn't exist

before you study it and when you study it, it changes what it was or is or could be. Is that the argument for why consciousness will never be in a machine, why a machine will never be conscious? We're yet to find. I think it's being revealed in real time as we read here. The major takeaway here is computers are completely deterministic and predictable, is what he says in here. So they, and he hasn't used mind, but yes.

They do, right, do what they're. told through through the software, the hardware, the pieces and the parts, interacting with each other, exchanging energy, but not knowing the meaning of the ones and zeros that they are vigorously processing. They don't care about that. They're just workhors. So that's the, that's kind of the takeaway. Kind of, you know, landed it in there. Comprehension. I thought that was an interesting piece of the puzzle. Help me, help me understand. The gap between artificial intelligence and human intelligence, he's saying is characterized by comprehension. Yes. And as he's says a non-alorithmic property of consciousness that is often underestimated and inaccessible to

computers, as we will see in the course of this book, which is a little like, hey, teaser to come, comprehension. The meaning of comprehension is understanding something or making sense of something that's existing in front of you or within your consciousness. It could be pulling, it's a synthesis of things. But doesn't AI today create understanding in a way? From preset conditions. It's creating a view. It's an interpretation

of understanding from all the data that it's consumed. Isn't that us, though? I'm going to push on the other side of that. Isn't that us? I have nearly 49 years of experience. Things have been fed into my model. My model is used. My memory is used. What I

see every day is used to sense make. How is that different? You're a quantum machine. Keep at that. You are alive. You are organic. You are creating that existence as part of the conscious universe, lest we forget.

Jeremy, that is the difference. This. Yeah. So we organized and built those parts, not you and I, but humans, built those parts to do a specific thing. We're not built to do a specific thing. We can be conditioned to do. specific things, through experiences, through what we learn from things. But then again, we have the ability to make our own decisions unless we're otherwise compromised by propaganda, by

coercion. But the ability for control is there. Is it not? When I say the word spirituality, being spiritual, I'm not referring to a religious concept. I'm talking about the way that you view and internalize the self-humanity, the universe, and these kind of deep questions of what are we, what is there, is answered by different ways. And I think that this is one way to wrestle with those bigger questions that are beyond us. And I think that sometimes you have to leave certain preconceptions at the door and think about it on a different level, which isn't always easy to do. There's a question for you after what I just said. If we make organic matter in a lab, if we create brains in a petri dish, and we put them in a machine,

is that machine is in a robot? Is that robot? At what point does it no longer become a robot? At what point can it access the quantum realm of humanity? So we're talking about like Frankenstein meets Robocop meets like human machine thing. I think we're talking about the logical progression of what biotech and technology is doing right now. It's a logical progression of what will happen. People are already doing it on a very small scale.

I think it's a logical progression of where we go. So what happens when that happens, when it would be. Consciousness is an organic quantum process ingrained in the reality of the universe, like he says. Machines cannot be conscious. You create a machine. It's not a machine. This is really interesting stuff. Like super interesting stuff. And I love the idea.

It's not the listener. Just the theory that he has that consciousness can be explained by quantum mechanics. Because quantum mechanics is one of the most provable theories in science. But yet it's so difficult to understand because it's not in our. immediate proximity to understand it. It's like putting faith in something that maybe we know someone who we trust has told us that it exists, but we have never seen it or witnessed it. Here's a quote, we can build a computer starting from its elementary components, but no one has ever been able to build a cell starting from atoms. So again, I don't necessarily

subscribe to this belief, but what if we just don't know that something like that can happen because it's beyond our capability to understand. It's something we've never seen or experienced, but it has happened in some way or form. It is, isn't it? It is beyond our understanding. It is totally beyond our understanding. Would it always remain this?

All right. So let's get a little bit more tangible here. One of the things that I really like and apply in a lot of ways to stuff that I do outside of what you and I are doing, this idea that humans are in a constant state of, becoming. We're evolving minute by minute. Our cells aren't even the same year over year. There's a change out of our actual cells, but just the idea that we can grow and evolve if we allow ourselves to is really cool. And the idea that a machine, like this MacBook that's sitting over here,

was built and shipped out of a facility, shipped complete. So this idea of something being complete, that is a computer and something that is in a constant state of evolution. That's the difference between silicon and carbon. How do you feel about the whole becoming versus completion? I like it. It's very Buddhist. Buddhist. It's very stoic. We are never complete. The only time we are complete is when we die. It's just a road of adding bits. But are we complete when we die? I disagree with that. That's the end of the game, isn't it? As we know, no one's ever come back and said, hey, you know, here's where we go next. Well, the energy is gone somewhere else, isn't it? Just the laws of thermodynamics.

It can't be. It's gone somewhere else away from you out of your experience, out of your quantum experience into somewhere else, something else's quantum experience. Back in Greek philosopher days

and even subsequently after that, this idea of anima is the soul, this thing, and then there is this concept that we're in ether, so like anima living in ether, both of which have, or the ether theory, you know, what was it, general relative? No, special relativity. Einstein, Einstein's curiosity was led by trying to disprove the ether, that ether exists, existed.

So yeah, there's energy and the organization, here it is, here it is, bam, mic drop, get ready. Everything's the organization of energy for instances. There you go, and exactly it's when you die, it's all over. And have you seen that film? It's not all over, though. It's not all over. Your particular quantum experience, 21 grams is it? And when you die, your body loses 21 grams, and that's your soul floating. Wow.

I never knew that. 21 grams is it called? It's not true, Jeremy. It's a film. A man. 21 grams or 27 grams. I thought I had an answer. This is a question for the listener,

a question for you, and I think we've just covered it in the last 10 minutes of our quantum exploration. What's the difference between a robot and a living organism? The fundamental differences between robots and living organisms are surprising and poorly understood. While computers and robots are classical machines, living organisms are not,

because they process information. using all the phenomena available in the physical world, quantum, classical, discrete and continuous. Inside a living cell, individual atoms are used to process information, and this makes it extremely difficult to understand how the cell works. The quantum behaviour of single atomic and molecular events within a living cell gives rise to an incredibly complex dynamic order, which cannot be described by the quantum statistical laws that regulate the behaviour of objects made up of millions of atoms.

There you go. That's the answer to that question that we posed about 10 minutes ago. Coordination. So it's coordination for instances. Coordination for moments in time, whether it's an electron or an atom. It's kind of what it is. I think that's a good way to land the quantum ship. We are all separable in principle. Don't forget that. That you're very, very, very, very lucky. You won the lottery to be alive and conscious and thinking now. And you might be dis-separated at any moment. So enjoy your consciousness. Weald your consciousness. Call a friend. Listen to some music. Watch a movie. eat some ice cream just do something with your consciousness i love that mark i love the little the little trickles at the end these are perfect it's friday night outstanding well what do we friday night for your computer is it it's just another just an just an just another zero or another one

there's no semantic understanding of what it means to be friday night so uh take take that and as our difference between machines is we fight the uh what do you what does you call it the spectrum the doom utopia as we watch AI do what it's heading to do. Keeping humanity in the hunt, Jeremy. Let's keep our humanity in the hunt. That's what I'm thinking about now. We've moved on from the spectrum of doom and gloom. Nexus was very much on the doom spectrum.

Now we're back on the optimistic human side of technology, which is good because I've got Kevin Kelly, who is perhaps the ultimate technological optimist on the show in two weeks. That's good. Good news. Super exciting. Well, stay tuned. There's a lot of great teasers.

in chapter three we got a ton more to unpack help us do it if you're reading this thing guys you know you watch me stumble through my own interpretation and understanding help me land the plane help me understand and i thank you mark for being my buddy on these journeys it's been been a pleasure it has and i think we're using our consciousness to to good effect this friday afternoon so yeah be curious disruptive keep thinking on paper