Meet the Scientist Proving Your Whole Body is Conscious!

About the conversation

Check out Sentia Spirits the future of drinking (Use Code GIANT10 for 10% discount off your first purchase: https://sentiaspirits.com/mcgloughlin4209355084 Dr. Anna Ciaunica is a philosopher and cognitive scientist, Principal Investigator at the University of Lisbon’s Centre for Philosophy of Science and Research Associate at UCL’s Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. She leads INTERSELF, a project on how interactions with humans and artificial agents reshape our self-model, and collaborates with Michael Levin on “From Cells to Selves.” Consciousness isn’t just in your head—**biology is cognition the whole way down**. From co-embodiment in the womb to the immune system’s quiet influence on mood and meaning, Anna reframes mind as a body-wide process and the self as something we enact with our nerves, guts, skin and others. Expect to learn why the “self” may begin before birth, how co-embodiment and maternal–fetal synchrony shape first-person experience, why “the brain is not mental” reframes cognition as a cell-level, body-wide system, how depersonalisation differs from psychedelic ego dissolution, how interoception and precision weighting tune the felt boundary between “me” and “not-me,” why inflammation and sickness behaviour can alter mood, agency and reality-feel, what a Markov blanket is in human terms, how avatars, robots and social media recalibrate the self, whether single cells display proto-cognition and what neurons uniquely add, how to build a minimum viable self in AI (body, homeostasis, immune-like error correction and development), practical ways to stay embodied in a digital world, what this lens means for therapy (vagus, gut–brain, immune), and much more… Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 02:50 Cognition and Biological Systems 08:36 The Evolution of Intelligence 15:50 Challenging Traditional Definitions 29:08 The Ingredients of Cognition 39:53 The Balance of Inner and Outer Worlds 51:42 The Development of Self-Awareness 56:57 Sickness Behavior and Disconnection from Self 01:03:17 The Cell's Plan for Survival 01:09:33 The Nature of Self-Organizing Systems 01:16:44 Collective Intelligence and Self-Preservation 01:22:15 Conscious AI: The Quest for Understanding 01:33:53 The Developmental Turn in Understanding Human Mind … Neuroscience Products I Swear By (Supports the Channel) Sentia Spirits: https://sentiaspirits.com/mcgloughlin4209355084 Manta Sleep Mask: Get the Comfiest Sleep Mask on the Planet (Use Code GIANTSMANTA10 https://bit.ly/4ilzfBL ) Brain.FM: Music Entrainment for Focused Deep Work (30 Day Free Trial: https://www.brain.fm/giantsshoulder) Consensus.AI: https://get.consensus.app/we00d2cmjpqe Follow My Neuroscience Podcast - The Giants Shoulder Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5m3Gta5MtIYdk59pb2GJ7M?si=b33232eae67b4126 Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/brief-enquiry-to-the-brain/id1752486249