Ep. 6. with Mark Solms, Ph.D. Neuropsychoanalysis and Consciousness

My guest today is Dr. Mark Solms, he is a psychoanalyst, neuropsychologist, and founder of Neuropsychoanalysis. He is the chair of neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town and at the Departments of Psychology and Neurology at the Groote SchuurHospital. In addition, he is the President of the South AfricanPsychoanalytical Association and Research Chair of the International Psychoanalytical Association.

In todays discussion, we begin by clarifyingFreudian concepts before diving into the question what is the unconscious? And how does the Freudian unconscious compare to modern day neuroscience. We thenjump into a dialogue between psychoanalysis and affective neuroscience, further elaborating on the importance of homeostasis and its relationship to emotion.We subsequently talk about the major revisions and updates to Freudian theory before transitioning into special topics such as dreams, and mystical experiences.We conclude our academic discussion with his theory of consciousness, Fristons free energy principle, free will and why he believes AI will be conscious in the future. As is typical with many of my interviews, I end with a series ofrapid fire questions which gives us deeper insight into who Mark Solms is.