Marvin Minsky's 2011 MIT Society of Mind lecture: the self is an illusion of stupid parts
anselm · x · 2026-09-04
A resurfaced clip from Marvin Minsky's fall 2011 MIT course 6.868, The Society of Mind, four years before his death: the 84-year-old AI pioneer explains that the continuous self you feel is an illusion built from many small non-intelligent processes — there is no single thinker in your head. The thread adds context: Minsky co-founded the MIT AI Lab with John McCarthy in 1959, won the Turing Award in 1969, built a block-stacking robotic arm in the late sixties that led him to ask what a mind actually is, and served as technical adviser on 2001: A Space Odyssey, where he is named in the film.
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