Podcast Summary: TED Talks Daily – "What do newborn babies think about?" | Claudia Passos Ferreira

Date: October 20, 2025
Speaker: Claudia Passos Ferreira, philosopher, bioethicist, clinical psychologist

Overview

This episode features Claudia Passos Ferreira examining an age-old, deeply charged question: What is it like to be a newborn baby? Ferreira breaks down cutting-edge research on infant consciousness, challenging the long-standing view that newborns are passive beings without subjective experience. She explores neuroscientific evidence suggesting that consciousness may begin far earlier than previously assumed, even before birth, and discusses the profound medical and ethical implications of these findings.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Mystery of Newborn Consciousness

Timestamp: 03:09–05:12

• Ferreira frames the experience of being a newborn: "You wake up in a new world. Your eyes open to bright, confusing lights. Your ears are filled with mysterious sounds. Everything around you feels unfamiliar." (Ferreira, 03:09)
• She raises the central question: Do babies experience consciousness—the subjective sense of perceiving, thinking, and feeling just as adults do?
• Historically, newborns were viewed as "passive observers of overwhelming chaos" and believed incapable of feeling pain or having conscious experiences.

2. Advances in Understanding Infant Abilities

Timestamp: 05:12–06:29

• Past scientific practices, like performing surgery on infants without anesthetic, were rooted in outdated beliefs about infant consciousness.
• Recent developmental psychology has shown infants are more complex, but it remained unknown what (if anything) they subjectively experience since babies can’t describe their feelings.

3. The Neuroscience of Infant Consciousness

Timestamp: 06:29–10:05

• Researchers have started measuring brain activity to bridge the gap:
  • Neurosignals unique to conscious adults are now found in infants’ brains.
• The Auditory Oddball Paradigm:
  • Babies hear repeated sequences (e.g. "beep, beep, beep, boop"), then an unexpected change ("beep, beep, beep, beep").
  • The PRE300 wave, a brain signal only present during conscious perception, has been observed in infants as young as a few days old.
  • Quote: "People in deep sleep don't have it. People in comas don't have it. But newborn babies do." (Ferreira, 07:55)

4. Attention and Networks in the Infant Brain

Timestamp: 08:34–10:05

• Alternating Attention Networks:
  • Research shows newborns display the same kind of brain network alternations as adults—shifting focus between outer world and inner thoughts.
  • "You focus your attention on the speaker for a while, and then you daydream for a while. It turns out that infants do the same sort of thing." (Ferreira, 09:14)
• Attentional Blink:
  • Infants experience a slow-motion version, showing the same type of brain response and suggesting active experience of their environment.

5. The Beginning of Consciousness: Before Birth?

Timestamp: 10:05–11:51

• Premature Infants & Late-term Fetuses:

  • Similar brain patterns are observed in some premature infants.
  • Auditory tests with fetuses at around 35 weeks gestation found they, too, exhibit conscious processing signs.

• Raises the critical question: Could consciousness begin before birth?

• Ethical/Medical Implications:

  • "We now know that when we perform surgery in newborns or premature infants or late-term fetuses, we should give them an anesthetic." (Ferreira, 11:25)
  • Abortion debate context:
    • Ferreira emphasizes strongest evidence centers on brain structures emerging after 24 weeks (third trimester), and "the new evidence might extend to fetuses in the third trimester of gestation, but it doesn't extend earlier than that." (Ferreira, 11:38)

6. A New Picture of Newborns & the Evolution of Consciousness

Timestamp: 11:51–12:30

• Key Reframing: "They are not passive creatures waiting for consciousness to switch on. They are tiny humans already perceiving patterns and interacting with the world in a meaningful way." (Ferreira, 11:55)
• Metaphor of Consciousness:
  • "From the moment we take our first breath to the moment of our death, our lives are lit by the flame of awareness. We share this flame with other animals, and we might one day share it with machines. Collectively, our conscious minds illuminate the universe." (Ferreira, 12:10)
• A poetic close—consciousness as an ongoing, collective phenomenon, "rekindled with each new life in the endless dance of existence." (Ferreira, 12:26)

Notable Quotes

• “It is hard enough to know what’s going on in an adult’s mind. What could be going on in a newborn baby's mind?” — Claudia Passos Ferreira (03:18)
• "People in deep sleep don't have it. People in comas don't have it. But newborn babies do." (07:55)
• “They are not passive creatures waiting for consciousness to switch on. They are tiny humans already perceiving patterns and interacting with the world in a meaningful way.” (11:55)
• “From the moment we take our first breath to the moment of our death, our lives are lit by the flame of awareness.” (12:10)
• “Collectively, our conscious minds illuminate the universe. And though each flame eventually fades, the light of consciousness never disappears. It is rekindled with its new life in the endless dance of existence.” (12:22)

Key Timestamps

• 03:09 – Claudia Passos Ferreira begins her talk: framing the newborn experience and the question of consciousness.
• 06:29 – Introduction of brain measurement techniques and the auditory oddball paradigm.
• 07:55 – Discovery of PRE300 wave in newborns; signal of conscious perception.
• 09:14 – Discussion of alternating brain networks in infants.
• 10:37 – Evidence from premature infants and fetuses; consideration of consciousness before birth.
• 11:25 – Ethical implications: use of anesthetic in surgery for infants and late-term fetuses.
• 11:55 – Reframing newborns as perceiving, conscious beings.
• 12:10–12:30 – Metaphorical close on the ongoing, interconnected nature of consciousness.

Conclusion

Claudia Passos Ferreira's TED Talk overturns the misconception of the newborn mind as blank or insensate. Drawing on recent neuroscientific evidence, she posits that infants—perhaps even late-term fetuses—are not only conscious but experience their world in surprisingly sophisticated ways. This new understanding has far-reaching implications for science, medicine, and ethics, inviting us to rethink what it means to be human right from the very first breath (and possibly before).