Brain Inspired

BI 191 Damian Kelty-Stephen: Fractal Turbulent Cascading Intelligence


Listen Later

Support the show to get full episodes, full archive, and join the Discord community.

Damian Kelty-Stephen is an experimental psychologist at State University of New York at New Paltz. Last episode with Luis Favela, we discussed many of the ideas from ecological psychology, and how Louie is trying to reconcile those principles with those of neuroscience. In this episode, Damian and I in some ways continue that discussion, because Damian is also interested in unifying principles of ecological psychology and neuroscience. However, he is approaching it from a different perspective that Louie. What drew me originally to Damian was a paper he put together with a bunch of authors offering their own alternatives to the computer metaphor of the brain, which has come to dominate neuroscience. And we discuss that some, and I'll link to the paper in the show notes. But mostly we discuss Damian's work studying the fractal structure of our behaviors, connecting that structure across scales, and linking it to how our brains and bodies interact to produce our behaviors. Along the way, we talk about his interests in cascades dynamics and turbulence to also explain our intelligence and behaviors. So, I hope you enjoy this alternative slice into thinking about how we think and move in our bodies and in the world.

  • Damian's website.
  • Related papers
    • In search for an alternative to the computer metaphor of the mind and brain.
    • Multifractal emergent processes: Multiplicative interactions override nonlinear component properties.
    • 0:00 - Intro

      2:34 - Damian's background
      9:02 - Brains
      12:56 - Do neuroscientists have it all wrong?
      16:56 - Fractals everywhere
      28:01 - Fractality, causality, and cascades
      32:01 - Cascade instability as a metaphor for the brain
      40:43 - Damian's worldview
      46:09 - What is AI missing?
      54:26 - Turbulence
      1:01:02 - Intelligence without fractals? Multifractality
      1:10:28 - Ergodicity
      1:19:16 - Fractality, intelligence, life
      1:23:24 - What's exciting, changing viewpoints

      ...more
      View all episodesView all episodes
      Download on the App Store

      Brain InspiredBy Paul Middlebrooks

      • 4.9
      • 4.9
      • 4.9
      • 4.9
      • 4.9

      4.9

      128 ratings


      More shows like Brain Inspired

      View all
      Making Sense with Sam Harris by Sam Harris

      Making Sense with Sam Harris

      26,286 Listeners

      Into the Impossible With Brian Keating by Big Bang Productions Inc.

      Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

      1,035 Listeners

      80,000 Hours Podcast by Rob, Luisa, and the 80,000 Hours team

      80,000 Hours Podcast

      290 Listeners

      The Michael Shermer Show by Michael Shermer

      The Michael Shermer Show

      894 Listeners

      Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas by Sean Carroll | Wondery

      Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

      4,098 Listeners

      Your Undivided Attention by Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, The Center for Humane Technology

      Your Undivided Attention

      1,412 Listeners

      The Jim Rutt Show by The Jim Rutt Show

      The Jim Rutt Show

      254 Listeners

      Google DeepMind: The Podcast by Hannah Fry

      Google DeepMind: The Podcast

      188 Listeners

      COMPLEXITY by Santa Fe Institute

      COMPLEXITY

      279 Listeners

      Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST) by Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

      Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

      92 Listeners

      Dwarkesh Podcast by Dwarkesh Patel

      Dwarkesh Podcast

      320 Listeners

      Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg by Spencer Greenberg

      Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg

      131 Listeners

      The Joy of Why by Steven Strogatz, Janna Levin and Quanta Magazine

      The Joy of Why

      424 Listeners

      Robinson's Podcast by Robinson Erhardt

      Robinson's Podcast

      193 Listeners

      Theoretical Neuroscience Podcast by Gaute Einevoll

      Theoretical Neuroscience Podcast

      7 Listeners