What actually makes humans conscious — and are we really as unique as we think?

In Episode 3 of our second season of #toptechvoices, Professor Anil Seth breaks down the link between humanity, nature, individuality and perception.

A leading neuroscientist and Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, Anil Seth is internationally recognised for his groundbreaking research into consciousness and how the brain constructs our subjective experience. His #tedtalk, “Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality,” has reached millions, sparking global fascination with the science of perception.

As the bestselling author of "Being You: A New Science of Consciousness" and one of today’s most influential communicators in modern neuroscience, Anil brings clarity, curiosity, and depth to one of humanity’s biggest questions: what does it mean to be conscious?

00:00:00 Intro
00:00:47 Why Consciousness Matters
00:03:30 Are Humans Really Unique?
00:06:10 Perception vs Reality
00:09:00 Do We See the Same World?
00:12:10 The Ego Problem
00:14:05 What Is Controlled Hallucination?
00:17:10 How the Brain Predicts Reality
00:20:20 Attention, Meditation & Perception
00:23:40 Why We Experience Differently
00:28:00 The Free Will Debate
00:31:10 Determinism vs Responsibility
00:34:40 Does Choice Really Exist?
00:38:10 Measuring Agency
00:40:10 What Are Brain‑Computer Interfaces?
00:43:50 BCI Breakthroughs & Speech Decoding
00:47:20 The Privacy Risk of Thought Data
00:50:10 The Danger of Mental Monocultures
00:53:30 AI, Consciousness & The Future
00:58:00 AI Saturation & Design Choices
01:01:00 Build Tools that Complement Humans
01:03:00 Analogue Computing & the Brain