How We Live In A Collective Dream | Anil Seth On The Neuroscience Of Active Inference

Sponsored by Consensus AI: the AI powered science search engine with access to 220+ million studies. Click: https://get.consensus.app/essentia for a free trial of Consensus Pro and 30% discount on a yearly plan. Anil Seth is a world-leading neuroscientist who has made important contributions to our understanding of reality as a controlled hallucination. According to the concept of active inference, our perception of reality is not a direct reflection of the world but, instead, the most accurate guess that our brain can muster, which it continually checks and updates with incoming sensory information. But strange things happen when neuroscientists play around with sensory input in unexpected ways. Anil Seth and his team at Sussex University created the Dream Machine, a stroboscopic device that syncs flickering light to music to induce vivid, often complex, hallucinatory visuals in the viewer. In group sessions, exactly the same white light and music gives rise to a tremendous diversity in perception. Links for more information and reading: Anil’s personal website: https://www.anilseth.com/ The Dream Machine research project: https://dreamachine.world/ The Perception Census research: https://perceptioncensus.dreamachine.world/ Anil Seth (2021), Being You - A New Science of Consciousness https://www.amazon.com/Being-You-New-Science-Consciousness/dp/1524742872/ Gomez-Marin, A., & Seth, A. K. (2025). A science of consciousness beyond pseudo-science and pseudo-consciousness. Nature Neuroscience, 28(4), 703–706. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-025-01913-6 Seth, A. K. (2025). Conscious artificial intelligence and biological naturalism. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X25000032 Chapter marks: 0:00 Introduction 2:33 Transition 3:55 Are we seeing the same room? 5:30 A different starting point 7:12 The dream machine research 12:50 We close our eyes in order to see 15:30 Psychedelics and Van Gogh 16:54 Reality as a controlled hallucination 20:21 Predictive inference 21:07 What is active inference? 25:13 What is the free energy principle? 31:29 The value of the free energy principle 38:14 Hans shares his metaphysical journey 40:34 Are you still a materialist? 46:13 An epistemic commitment to materialism 47:27 The limits of neuroscience 50:07 The hard problem of consciousness 53:56 IIT discussed 56:17 Anil on IIT 59:01 Strong IIT vs weak IIT 1:06:22 IIT, cerebrum and cerebellum 1:08:39 Inactive vs inactivated neurons 1:12:45 Physicalism vs idealism 1:21:17 Metaphysics and the meaning of life 1:24:52 On his mother’s deathbed 1:28:09 Honoring form 1:29:35 Being critical of naive materialism 1:31:50 What questions does a metaphysics permit? 1:37:42 Defending IIT with Alex Gomez 1:40:34 If the brain doesn’t produce consciousness 1:42:43 The philosophical zombie argument 1:44:30 Consciousness is not substrate independent 1:46:40 Can AI be conscious? 1:50:05 Is AlphaFold conscious? 1:50:58 Is consciousness computation? 1:54:19 Consciousness as being 'entimed' Ethics statement: Essentia Foundation accepts sponsorships to help us create more and better content but is editorially completely independent. We only accept sponsorships that are compatible with our mission and scientific standards. Copyright © 2026 by Essentia Foundation. All rights reserved.