Adam Safron, Ph. D., is a Cognitive Scientist and psychologist who studies the nature of preferences and motivation from mechanistic, developmental, and evolutionary perspectives. Recently, he has proposed a model of embodied agency and free will and is working on a unified mechanistic account of psychedelics.
This podcast discusses free will and embodied agency, the key role of attention and imagination, and the consequences of an individual's pursuit of meaning in life.
Check out Adam's website 👇
https://www.adamsafron.com/
Google Scholar 👇
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=dZOoilgAAAAJ&hl=en
The Paper discussed on embodied agency 👇
https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/23/6/783
Chapters:
00:00 Struggling with the Question of Free Will
04:14 Starting from the Fundamental Mechanics
06:34 Understanding How Agency Works
09:46 Unifying Physicalism and Idealism
12:24 Bridging the Gap Between Religion and Science
17:48 Tracing the Mechanics of Action Selection
18:16 The Evolution of Inhibition and Mental Simulation
22:19 Conscientiousness and the Ability to Inhibit Distraction
25:32 Embodied Self Models and Conscientiousness
28:02 The Connection Between Conscientiousness and Conscience
31:14 The Development of Imaginative Capacity for Agency
35:02 The Connection Between Embodied Self Models and Meaning
39:03 The Pursuit of Developmental Meaning
42:43 The Disconnect Between Fitness in Reality and Digital
43:51 The Normative Constraint of Imaginative Capacity
45:28 The Destination of Agency: Enslavement to the Highest Good
46:38 Neoplatonic Philosophy and Predictive Processing
50:29 Distributed Cognition and Democracy
51:13 Unity of the Soul and the Polis
52:11 Practical Applications of Understanding Agency
54:08 Creating Benevolent Agents
55:22 Ethics and Principles in Technology
56:19 Mission and Conclusion
PS Do you want to support the podcast?
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https://www.mahonmccann.com/subscribe?gift=true
All the best,
Mahon.
#81 - Adam Safron - The Cognitive Science of Free-will