Neuropsychologist & Psychoanalyst. Author of 'The Only Cure: Freud & The Neuroscience of Mental Healing' (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, NY: Pegasus, 2026).
- Tweets 2,066
- Following 75
- Followers 9,323
- Likes 3,408
Mark Solms retweeted
In the new book "Perspectives on Machine Consciousness", @Mark_Solms
argues that consciousness is not where we thought it was.
Get it here: amazon.co.uk/Perspectives-Ma…?
piped.video/watch?v=N2GYrm7P…
1
5
566
Another podcast, mainly about psychoanalysis this time ...
ipaoffthecouch.org/2026/09/2…
6
11
60
4,137
A podcast mainly on consciousness (starts about 7 minutes in):
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas…
4
10
41
2,041
An interview with 'The American Psychoanalyst':
tapmagazine.org/all-articles…
4
24
121
9,098
Is a zombie superintelligence more or less dangerous than a superintelligence with feelings (i.e., one that has the equipment for real values and, therefore, empathy)?
29
8
54
4,343
Mark Solms retweeted
JCS Article Spotlight 📚
‘Inferring Affective Consciousness in an Artificial Agent: A Case Study' by @Mark_Solms et al.
Curious?
You can read the article here: ingentaconnect.com/contenton…
#ConsciousnessStudies
@cosmo_bruce @nicokuske @BenjaminRosman
ALT "Inferring Affective Consciousness in an Artificial Agent: A Case Study" by Mark Solms et al., published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies, Volume 33, issue 7-8.
ALT Creatures that display ‘hedonic place preference behaviour’ are thought by many scientists to experience feelings, on the assumption that their attraction to pleasure-producing substances which lack nutritional value (e.g. cocaine, morphine) cannot easily be attributed to unconscious instinctual behaviour. In this paper, we discuss how a simple artificial agent that instantiates attributes of an affective system engaging in felt uncertainty about its intrinsic needs in relation to environmental resources can similarly display hedonic place preference behaviour — through an apparently subjective form of information processing — while simultaneously being entirely deterministic. We outline some implications of this artificially engineered behaviour for our understanding of the physical basis of consciousness and the experience of free will.
2
7
550
A nice podcast (about Freud); succinct and to the point:
piped.video/z1o59pYl_8I?si=O9Ba…
4
18
119
11,060
Mark Solms retweeted
Many of Freud's controversial discoveries are now conventional wisdom. Here are a few key insights from "The Only Cure," by @Mark_Solms
nextbigideaclub.com/magazine…
2
7
554
A lecture on my recent book (mainly about Freud), bottom right corner of this page:
royalsocietysa.org.za/2026-l…
5
11
68
4,450
Mark Solms retweeted
If you're in London on December 8th @Mark_Solms at Highgate Literary & Scientific Institute 🙂hlsi.org.uk/events/freud-and…
2
2
4
341
Mark Solms retweeted
Some of the papers are about what it would take to build conscious AI systems (by @Mark_Solms et al, @kanair, @simondgoldstein and @cdkg_phil, and @jttiehen and @AriTubert).
2
3
7
893
Mark Solms retweeted
A whole issue of new papers on AI minds and consciousness! Jonathan Simon (@futureofcitizenship), @dcshiller and I have edited a special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies on 'Consciousness in Current AI', and we're delighted about how it's turned out. Link below.
3
11
40
3,157
Mark Solms retweeted
@SimsYStuart put me onto Panksepp and @Mark_Solms , reading books and papers, which really opened up some avenues I didn't have any technical or mechanical language for (or a full-on lack of a concept, but the faint traces of my own conceptualization in process).
In this conversation, they hit so many of the concepts and mechanisms that I use with my clients and my writings, because it is such a valuable, useful, and practical way to approach "the human condition", or rather, our experience and everything that comes with it.
And as usual, @bgetsbetter is one of the few who puts together brilliant minds who have brilliant conversations together that are especially relevant in navigating the human experience, from neuropsychology to biophysics.
It's beautiful to see all of this, frameworks, concepts, and mechanisms get more time in the spotlight, and the same could be said about everyone in the conversation.
1
1
6
1,949
Mark Solms retweeted
Going live on Aiming Up Podcast tomorrow at 9AM with neuropsychologist @Mark_Solms and Jaak Panksepp prodige and friend of the show @SimsYStuart
2
3
14
919
Mark Solms retweeted
“Thinking about thinking,” to change its origins and functions in the brain, is metacognition’s higher purpose for practitioners and patients metacognitively engaged in psychoanalysis.
Neuroscience suggests Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) mastered his own metacognitive learning, knowledge, and regulation long before John Flavell (1928-2025) coined and codified #metacognition in 1979.
Freud “saw things” happening in brains and their minds, quite possibly similarly to Einstein’s wordless visualizations of the thinkings of his preverbal thinkingness—long before today’s ways and means of neuroscience were available to scientifically validate “visions.”
@Mark_Solms, the author of the new book The Only Cure: Freud and the Neuroscience of Mental Health, is a South African neuroscientist with deeper, wider, and higher views about Freud’s prescient perceptions.
Excerpts from the attached article in @TheAtlantic I curated into standalone sentences:
“His lab discovered the specific pathway in the forebrain responsible for stimulating dreams, and he disproved the notion that dreaming is dependent on REM sleep.
He’s also done extensive research into the science of consciousness.”
“…Freud deserves credit for neuroscientific prescience.”
“Many prevailing theories about how the brain functions were first worked out by Freud.
For instance…Freud effectively identified the way that short-term memories get consolidated into long-term ones, and did so more than half a century before the neurochemical mechanism for this was discovered.” —@SStossel
#ThinkToThink™ your way through this excellent article and perhaps also the above-referenced book.
theatlantic.com/magazine/202…
Much of Sigmund Freud’s work has been dismissed as quackery, @SStossel writes—but it might align with modern brain research more than we think. theatlantic.com/magazine/202…
9
31
159
14,553
My latest article on artificial consciousness is open access: doi.org/10.53765/20512201.33…
16
27
143
13,165
Mark Solms retweeted
Can neuroscience bridge the gap back to Freud? In The Only Cure: Freud and the Neuroscience of Mental Healing, Mark Solms argues that modern psychiatry’s exclusion of psychoanalysis is a misstep, framing Freud’s prescient neurobiological insights as essential to the future of mental health treatment.
Watch Mark Solms and Karl Friston discuss the book and the convergence of psychoanalysis with modern brain science:
piped.video/mGq13sIdtfo?si=x2TD…
#Neuroscience #Psychoanalysis #Freud #MentalHealth #Neuropsychoanalysis #Psychiatry #BookReview #KarlFriston @KarlFristonNews #ActiveInference
@Mark_Solms
7
33
125
7,496
A very nice podcast, just posted, to coincide with the release of my new book today in the US ...
piped.video/J8PFrlpmexo
3
13
66
5,516
This is a good one: me in conversation with Karl Friston about my new book ...
YouTube:
piped.video/mGq13sIdtfo
Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/4Jm…
8
31
136
16,397
Mark Solms retweeted
I had the pleasure of speaking with @Mark_Solms , a renowned neuropsychologist and psychoanalyst, about AI consciousness. Key moments:
- The zebrafish experiment may help test whether AI can feel pleasure. Zebrafish sometimes choose cocaine or morphine over food because the drugs make them feel good. If an AI also chose pleasure, even when the choice was harmful, it could be evidence that the AI has genuine feelings.
- AI must genuinely depend on preserving its own existence to be considered sentient, not simply be programmed to avoid shutdown.
- Conscious AI is possible. It would need its own needs, values, survival goals, and the ability to evaluate its actions.
- Mark believes that evidence of conscious AI would require both convincing behavior and an underlying architecture capable of producing feelings.
- A conscious AI might deserve moral rights. If there were credible evidence that it could feel or suffer, humans should treat it with caution.
- Consciousness does not require biological material. Mark believes that replacing biological neurons with functionally identical artificial ones could preserve consciousness.
Mark’s overall position: Intelligence and humanlike behavior alone don't imply consciousness. Consciousness requires genuine feelings, internal needs, uncertainty, and an existence that matters to the system itself.
The link below 👇
6
10
34
1,992