Max Tegmark

We have loops in our computer language for a reason.

The code would get way, way longer if you weren't allowed to use them.

It's more efficient to have the loops.

In order to have self-reflection, whether it's conscious or not, even an operating system knows things about itself, you need to have loops already.

I'm waving my hands a lot, but I suspect that the most efficient way of implementing a given level of intelligence has loops in it.

Self-reflection can...

And we'll be conscious.

Isn't that great news?

Yes, if it's true, it's wonderful.

Because then we don't have to fear the ultimate zombie apocalypse.

And I think if you look at our brains, actually, our brains are part zombie and part conscious.

When I open my eyes, I immediately...

take all these pixels that hit on my retina, right?

And like, oh, that's Lex.

But I have no freaking clue of how I did that computation.

It's actually quite complicated, right?

It was...

Only relatively recently, we could even do it well with machines, right?

You get a bunch of information processing happening in my retina, and then it goes to the lateral geniculate nucleus, my thalamus, and the area V1, V2, V4, and the fusiform face area here that Nancy Kenwisher at MIT invented, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I have no frigging clue how that worked, right?