Podcast
StarTalk Radio
The book discusses consciousness, and the author imagines a thought experiment where Einstein's brain is preserved and asked a question, the signals then travelling through the brain. The author also explores the brain in a vat concept, which dates back to Descartes.
Richard Hofstadter, was that his name? Or Douglas Hofstadter, who wrote Gdel, Escher, Bach, do you remember?
— Episode: Exploring Consciousness with George Mash...
Episode: Exploring Consciousness with George Mashour
The book discusses consciousness, and the author imagines a thought experiment where Einstein's brain is preserved and asked a question, the signals then travelling through the brain. The author also explores the brain in a vat concept, which dates back to Descartes.
Richard Hofstadter, was that his name? Or Douglas Hofstadter, who wrote Gdel, Escher, Bach, do you remember?
Yes. His last name is Hofstadter. In that book, which I think won a Pulitzer Prize, very thick, very fascinating book, in the end he has a conversation with Einstein's brain.
He imagines, this is like decades before people thought of that we're in a simulation or anything. He imagined removing Einstein's brain but preserving every single neurosynaptic capacity, all the neurosynaptic capacity of that brain. Okay? So it's in a jar.
And so now you ask it a question. You say, Albert, what time does Grand Central Station arrive at the next train? Okay. That'd be like a fun relativity question.
Everything's relative. So you pick a question and then that question goes in through acoustic signals to the, up to the, whatever the acoustic nerves connect with the brain. And you watch it trip circuits throughout the brain.