Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago

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Cristopher Moore on whether computational complexity is relevant for understanding brains, minds, and intelligence.

Show notes: braininspired.co/podcast/240

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Cristopher Moore is a professor at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, and he is a computation and computational complexity expert. He recently joined a us in my complexity discussion group, and answered a bunch of our questions, but I wasn't done with him regarding what, if anything, computational complexity has to do understanding how brains and minds work. So that's why he's here today, and we discuss a wide variety of topics related to AI, computation, computational complexity, and cognition.

0:00 - Intro
4:24 - The Nature of Computation
9:14 - Computational complexity
28:22 - Real mathematics
35:08 - Current state of AI
39:04 - Computational complexity in the AI world
47:53 - Cognition, creation, problems
56:16 - Rugged landscapes and generalization
1:13:52 - What is computation?
1:32:31 - How would you study the brain?