Ido Aharoni & Liad Mudrik: Can Machines Truly Have Experiences?

Prof. Liad Mudrik is an alumnus of the interdisciplinary program for outstanding students. She received two PhD degrees, in cognitive neuroscience (TAU & HUJI) and in philosophy (TAU). The latter was awarded with the Robert J. Glushko prize for outstanding dissertations in cognitive science. She then continued to work as a postdoctoral fellow at the division of biology at the California Institute of Technology, and joined the school of psychological sciences as a faculty member in 2015. She is a member of the Israel Young Academy of Sciences. She is from the School of Psychological Sciences and Sagol School of Neuroscience at Tel Aviv University, has two doctorates, both in the field of philosophy and in the field of neuroscience and cognition. She deals with questions of body and mind in an experimental approach, in the study of human cognition in general, and in the study of human consciousness in particular. In this new episode, Liad talks about contemporary models for the mechanisms of consciousness in the brain, and about her part in the world-wide attempt to determine which of these models is more in line with the reality we are aware of. She also talks about her scientific path, about her extensive activity in spreading science to the public, including on the radio, and why it is important not only to her listeners but also to her, and she even touches on the question of whether artificial intelligence systems will even be able to experience the taste of chocolate. Her main focus: where exactly cognition happens? Where consciousness happens? The challenge of developing a theory that explains the brain basis of conscious experience preoccupies several world-renowned researchers, who have devoted a significant part of their careers to it.