In this episode of Sentience, Joel Frohlich, PhD explores how scientists study consciousness through brain signals. We discuss why familiar brain waves can sometimes mislead us, how ideas from entropy and information theory offer deeper insight into conscious states, and what neurodevelopmental conditions and brain injury reveal about long-held assumptions in neuroscience. Frohlich also shares his work using advanced imaging to study the developing brain before birth, and reflects on what it really means to measure the mind.

Timestamps

(00:00) – Welcome to Sentience and meeting Joel Frohlich
(01:00) – Communicating neuroscience and asking bigger questions
(05:20) – Studying consciousness through brain activity
(07:45) – Why brain waves can be misleading
(11:10) – Consciousness and recovery after severe brain injury
(15:10) – What brain waves actually represent
(19:20) – How oversimplified brain stories persist
(22:00) – Entropy, complexity, and richer measures of consciousness
(26:40) – Information, uncertainty, and the structure of neural activity
(31:15) – Consciousness as a dynamic process
(35:30) – Measuring the developing brain before birth
(41:20) – What fetal brain signals can—and can’t—tell us
(48:50) – Open questions and future directions in consciousness science
(55:00) – Seeing patterns in noise, from brains to astrophotography