About this episode

Paul Thagard discusses the architecture of thought, emotion, and coherence in the human mind, exploring the differences between intelligence and consciousness.

In this episode of See See by Ceci, Paul Thagard, one of the most influential thinkers at the crossroads of philosophy, psychology, and artificial intelligence, takes us on a journey through the architecture of thought, emotion, and coherence that defines the human mind. A distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Waterloo, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, recipient of the Killam and Molson Prizes, and author of eighteen books, Thagard has spent decades asking the hardest questions about intelligence: what it is, where it comes from, and whether machines will ever truly share it with us. His pioneering theory of explanatory coherence reimagines the brain not as a logic machine but as a coherence engine, a system that makes sense of the world by satisfying countless constraints simultaneously, weaving perception, reasoning, and emotion into a single fabric. In this wide-ranging conversation, Thagard reflects on the difference between intelligence and consciousness; on the devastating role of social media in the spread of misinformation; on the power of analogy as a tool of creativity, from Darwin's theory of natural selection to the everyday act of reading a…

People in this episode

Host: Dr. Cecilia Ponce Rivera

Guest: Paul Thagard

Topics covered

• philosophy
• psychology
• artificial intelligence
• intelligence
• consciousness
• social media
• creativity

Keywords

• human mind
• explanatory coherence
• social media
• misinformation
• analogy
• creativity
• empathy
• artificial intelligence

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of Waterloo, Royal Society of Canada, Killam and Molson Prizes

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• The First Leap to Consciousness with Paul Bahn & Elle Clifford · February 4, 2026 · 1h 57m
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