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Anil Seth

@profanilseth

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Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience & author: Being You - A New Science of Consciousness

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Thrilled to announce CONSCIOUS has been selected to screen at Fondazione Prada’s visionary Human Brains project.

Human Brains brings together neuroscience, culture and cinema to explore the complexities of the human brain and consciousness.

In her debut feature, Suki Chan crafts a sensorial and intimate journey into the human mind, weaving together the lived experiences of three remarkable women - Wendy Mitchell, Pegeen O’Sullivan and Maureen Winfield - with the work of renowned neuroscientist Anil Seth.

Exploring consciousness, identity and memory, the film considers what happens to our sense of self as the brain changes, and finds beauty, growth and resilience in places we might least expect them.

Written & directed by Suki Chan

🎵 Music by Dominik Scherrer, Ivor Novello Award-winning composer.

📍 Fondazione Prada, Milan
🗓 29 October 2026, 8PM
📌 Cinema Godard, L.go Isarco, 2, 20139, Milan

Followed by a Q&A with director Suki Chan and Professor Daniela Perani.

We’re deeply grateful to our partners, funders and collaborators who helped bring this film to life:

@aconitedocs @profanilseth @maureen.winfield @screenscots @sundanceorg @britishfilminstitute @thedocsociety @fondazioneprada by @profanilseth

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7 days ago

📣 Are you an early-career principal investigator looking to accelerate your impact?

Apply to CIFAR’s Global Scholars program, designed to develop highly talented junior faculty into influential leaders who explore boundary-pushing new directions in interdisciplinary research.

As a Global Scholar, you will:

♦️ Foster novel interdisciplinary research as a member of a CIFAR research program.

♦️ Develop and broaden your network through CIFAR's interdisciplinary research community and meetings, as well as through interactions with leaders in government, industry, business and civil society.

♦️ Strengthen your leadership skills through formal training in team leadership, mentorship, science communication and science advocacy.

🔗 Apply today at the link in our bio. by @profanilseth

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18 days ago

CONSCIOUS

Written & directed by Suki Chan

We’re thrilled to share that CONSCIOUS will celebrate its Swiss Premiere at the Global Science Film Festival 2026.

“Working on CONSCIOUS with Suki Chan was a pleasure and privilege. The resulting feature is a unique blend of documentary and art which combine to shed powerful new light on dementia and the nature of consciousness and self. The film is really ahead of the curve, and I am delighted to have been part of it.”

Professor Anil Seth, neuroscientist

In her debut feature, Suki crafts a sensorial and intimate journey into the human mind, weaving together the lived experiences of three remarkable women - Wendy Mitchell, Pegeen O’Sullivan and Maureen Winfield - with the work of renowned neuroscientist Anil Seth.

The film explores growth, reconciliation and resilience in the face of dementia, illuminating beauty in places we might least expect it.

🎵 Music by Dominik Scherrer, Ivor Novello Award-winning composer.

A co-production between Aconite Productions and Conscious Productions
Producers: Aimara Reques, Suki Chan & Teresa Grimes
Co-producer: Gannesh Rajah

📍 SWISS PREMIERE
🗓 24 October 2026
📌 Stadtkino Cinema, Klostergasse 5, 4051 Basel

Followed by a Q&A with director Suki Chan and composer Dominik Scherrer.

We’re deeply grateful to our partners, funders and collaborators who helped bring this film to life:

@aconitedocs @profanilseth @winfield.maureen @screenscots @sundanceorg @britishfilminstitute @thedocsociety by @profanilseth

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a month ago

Because you are reading these words, it's safe to say you possess consciousness—that magic of awareness that you are alive and awake, and that you are you, not somebody else. Consciousness is the scent of pine in winter, the sense of the color blue, the thrill of an exceptional performance—all the rich and ineffable qualitative experiences that make a life worth living, knitting one moment to the next.

But while we may all be intimately familiar with what consciousness feels like, explaining why it exists or how it arises from physical processes is another matter. These questions are as old as Aristotle, and yet millennia on, we still don't have any definitive answers. For much of history, consciousness was the purview of philosophers and poets—not taken seriously as a subject for scientific inquiry because it was difficult to test experimentally. But over the past three decades, that has changed, as neuroscientists began to make real headway in understanding the neural bases of consciousness.

Two neuroscientists who've made major contributions to understanding consciousness are Antonio Damasio and Anil Seth (@profanilseth). In books that include Descartes' Error and The Strange Order of Things, Damasio has plumbed the neural basis for feelings, emotions, and decision-making. Seth has illuminated the brain mechanisms behind perceptual experience, particularly vision, and selfhood.

Both scientists published books in 2021 that deepen and expand their explorations of the brain and consciousness. In Being You: A New Science of Consciousness, Seth lays out his theory of "controlled hallucination"—that our perceptual experiences of the world are inventions of the brain governed by a system of predictions—and makes the case that consciousness is intimately tied to the interior of the living body. In Feeling & Knowing: Making Minds Conscious, Damasio argues consciousness evolved from primordial feelings such as pain and hunger, arising from a chemical orchestra deep in the viscera.

We asked them to share their views of consciousness, question one another, and wager on whether we can ultimately solve this hardest of problems.

Read their conversation at link in bio. by @profanilseth

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a month ago

What if everything you see, hear, and feel isn’t real? What if it’s just your brain’s best prediction of what’s real?

On this week’s episode of Science of Perception Box, @heather_berlin and Dr. Christof Koch talk with neuroscientist and consciousness researcher Anil Seth to explore the profound question of: What is consciousness?

Check out our link in bio to SUBSCRIBE, LISTEN, or WATCH on your favorite podcast platform. by @profanilseth

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a month ago

by @profanilseth

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2 months ago

Have you ever wondered whether artificial intelligence could actually be conscious? Whether AI systems aren’t merely smart, or whether they also feel things?

Join us at the University of Sussex and begin your journey discovering answers to these questions for yourself.

@profanilseth is a professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience in the department of Informatics at Sussex University and Director of the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science.

His research centres on the questions of consciousness, where it is and how it works. Bringing together Mathematicians, Physicists and people studying informatics and artificial intelligence with philosophers and neuroscientists to study how the brain generates conscious experience.

Anil came to Sussex as a Masters student and has been here for 30 years. Find out what course is right for you at Sussex and how you can join us.

Links to our courses and clearing information are available in our bio.

#informatics #neuroscience #artificialintelligence #AI #clearing by @profanilseth

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2 months ago

CIFAR researchers took the stage at this year’s TED Conference 2026, sharing their insights on two pressing topics: AI and consciousness and youth social media bans.

Anil Seth (@profanilseth), Co-Director of CIFAR's Brain, Mind & Consciousness program, examined the human tendency to project inner life to machines that are sophisticated imitators rather than conscious beings and offers a clear answer to whether AI will ever become conscious.

Candice Odgers, Co-Director of CIFAR's Child & Brain Development research program, challenged the narrative that social media is solely to blame for poor youth mental health. Instead, she argues that young people are remarkably resilient – and that social media bans alone won't solve the mental health challenges they face.

🔗 Watch them speak on ted.com.

📸 : Jasmina Tomic / TED
📸 : Ryan Lash / TED

#TED2026 #ArtificialIntelligence #Consciousness #YouthMentalHealth #ScienceCommunication by @profanilseth

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3 months ago

Some highlights from the AISB Convention this week here at the University of Sussex.

The 2026 convention of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB) took place here at Sussex this week with many of the department of Informatics involved. The AISB Convention is a flourishing annual event that thrives from an interdisciplinary audience and facilitates discourse amongst a diverse set of researchers and research cultures.

Keynote speakers:
@profanilseth: Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience, University of Sussex. Abstract
Philip Ball: Science Writer. Abstract

Topics included:

* AI and Cognitive Sciences in Education (AICSED2026) (https://aicsed.github.io/2026/)
* Hype, Promise, and Speculation: AI Bubbles and the Replication Crisis in Computer Science (https://aisb.org.uk/aisb-2026-symposium-hype-promise-and-speculation/)
* AI, Consciousness and Ethics (https://aice-symposium.github.io/)
* Ethics of Generative-AI Assisted Authoring (https://sussexhumanitieslab.wordpress.com/2026/01/16/aisb-2026-symposium-1-2-july-university-of-sussex/)
* Foundations of computation (https://sites.google.com/view/foundations-of-computation)
* Explainability and Transparency in AI (XTAI-2026) (https://xtai-symposium.github.io/) – XTAI-2026 Programme – XTAI-2026 Pre-Proceedings
* Is consciousness a story we tell ourselves? Internal language and consciousness after chain of thought reasoning (https://astorywetell.github.io/)
* Is there still life in the Turing test? (https://turingtestlives.wordpress.com/)
* Varieties of free will and agency (https://freewillandagency.wordpress.com/)
* Values and Preferences in Reasoning (https://www.vprsymposium.com/)

The Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB) is the largest Artificial Intelligence Society in the United Kingdom and the worlds oldest AI society. Founded in 1964, the society has an international membership drawn from both academia and industry.

Many thanks to everyone who helped to organise, contributed and attended.

#AISB2026 #ArtificialIntelligence #CognitiveScience #AIEthics #ExplainableAI by @profanilseth

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3 months ago

Yesterday we celebrated the life and work of Professor Margaret Boden in a series of talks honouring Professor Boden’s pioneering contributions to cognitive science and artificial intelligence, as well as her lasting impact on interdisciplinary research and teaching.

Speakers included:

Joanna Bryson – Professor of Ethics and Technology
Ron Chrisley – Professor of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence @rchrisley
Andy Clark – Professor of Cognitive Philosophy
Dave Cliff – Professor of Computer Science
Ernest Edmonds – Professor of Computational Art
Anna Jordanous – Associate Professor in Computer Science
Yvonne Rogers – Professor of Interaction Design
Anil Seth – Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience @profanilseth
Mike Sharples – Professor of Educational Technology
Dustin Stokes – Professor of Philosophy
Steve Torrance – Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Cognitive Science (COGS)
Michael Wheeler – Emeritus Professor of Philosophy
Blay Whitby – Professor of AI Ethics

Professor Boden’s work bridged psychology, philosophy, and computer science, and helped shaped Sussex’s reputation as a hub for interdisciplinary research. She served as Dean of the School of Social Sciences, and in the early 1970s she played a central role in establishing first the Cognitive Studies Programme, and then the School of Cognitive and Computing Studies, becoming its founding Dean. COGS, as it came to be known, lives on at Sussex as the Centre for Cognitive Science, which is housed in the School of Informatics and Engineering and continuing to bring researchers together from across the disciplines.

Maggie played a crucial part in early and career-long discussions on the risks and benefits of AI, as well producing seminal work to define and nurture the area of computational creativity and creative cognition. She was very proud to receive the ACM AAAI Allen Newell Award in 2017 recognising her work in this area.

#cognitivescience #computerscience #informatics #cogs #AI by @profanilseth

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3 months ago

We’re thrilled to share the very first review of CONSCIOUS in China!

A BIG thank you to Jilu Commune for this thoughtful and in-depth article exploring the inspirations behind the making of CONSCIOUS, director Suki Chan’s debut feature film, and the deeply personal stories of its protagonists, Anil Seth, Wendy Mitchell, Pegeen O’Sullivan and Maureen Winfield.

Through this conversation, we’re excited to share more about the questions at the heart of CONSCIOUS: how we perceive the world, how our experiences shape who we are, and the stories that connect us across cultures.

As CONSCIOUS continues its journey, we’re excited to be building a cross-cultural conversation around the film and connecting with new communities around the world.

Read the full article here: https://jilucommune.com/cn/library/writings/99

Thank you to everyone who continues to engage with the film and be part of this ongoing conversation. ❤️

With thanks to our contributors, collaborators, partners and funders for your continued support of CONSCIOUS:
@screenscots @britishfilminstitute @thedocsociety @sundanceorg | @Sandbox @cphdox @schansuki @aconitedocs @profanilseth @winfield.maureen @teresavkgrimes @grajah @scottwool @dominik_g_scherrer by @profanilseth

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4 months ago

Renowned neuroscientist @profanilseth believes conscious AI isn’t possible because it’s far more likely to be a property of life than computation. We just tend to think it seems conscious because we see everything through our anthropocentric lens, he argues.

This clip is from a wide-ranging conversation on AI, consciousness, perception & embodiment between Seth & @claireisabelwebb, director of the @futurehumans.info program at the @berggrueninst, that was moderated by Noema’s Deputy Editor @latams. Watch their full conversation at the link in Noema’s bio 📺

#ai #consciousness #futureofai #neuroscience by @profanilseth

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4 months ago