One of the conversations I enjoyed the most, where we explored AI, hardware, Platonic patterns, and nested agency in a free flow, and got somewhere together, with Glen Reuschling, a retired electronics engineer with whom I often converse here on X. Related episodes:Michael Levin: https://youtu.be/3zqI0iG428cMark Solms: Mark Solms: https://youtu.be/Rltfm-vWvgMKevin Mitchell: https://youtu.be/nqxq-BiCr-MMichael Levin: https://youtu.be/0nMXYdayQIUEmbodied AI: https://youtu.be/JZ8GTucClpMAlexander Ororbia: https://youtu.be/N83vBfz7_BIYogi Jaeger: https://youtu.be/5UJ4y2L2qpkBaudouin Saintyves: https://youtu.be/NmvzEpz9R84Laura Desiree Di Paolo: https://youtu.be/9txUwVtAOBkAnna Riedl: https://youtu.be/w2ZiSWZNQsgAnna Ciaunica: https://youtu.be/x1QHwhlCn-8Giuseppe Paolo: https://youtu.be/R7tEd65e2i800:00:00 Intro: Glen's electronics engineer background and his interest in embodied AI.00:07:11 Why Embodied AI is not mainstream? The anxiety of the pure Platonist AI researcher.00:08:31 Michael Levin and his Platonic turn. Jonathan Pageau's fractal ontology. Idealism vs transjectivity. Static top-down fractals vs dynamic bottom-up cellular automata. Had patterns existed before the world was born? Or they transjectively realized each other?00:17:47 Molecular and quantum agency. Randomness, determinacy, and free choice. What if what looks like random from the outside is in fact a conscious decision of an agent, from the inside.00:33:00 Omnipotence or finite attention and information bottleneck all the way up? Conway's caution of free will. Nondeterministic universe.00:44:10 Is God eternal or emerges as everything else? Are patters eternal or they also emerge? Do they have agency? 00:51:04 Symbols and hardware. Logical gates and binary logic are abstractions, what really happens is a flow of electrons.00:54:54 Is ChatGPT conscious? If not, what's the fundamental difference between me and ChatGPT. Integrated vs isolated layers of abstractions.00:59:23 Computation = physical process in which a language acquires agency?01:06:11 Herding randomness in living bodies vs eliminating randomness by error correction in machines. Hardware is more capable than we're using it for. Agricultural robots. Nested languages. Conversational computation. The role of feelings.01:19:36 For AGI, we will need to rethink the whole computer science stack, not only the top software layer.01:22:35 Glen's programmable pacemaker.I, scientist blog: https://balazskegl.substack.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/balazskeglArtwork: DALL-EMusic: Bea Palya https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBDp3qcFZdU1yoWIRpMSaZwhttps://youtu.be/gjlLnvci30w Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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1:25:52
Michael Levin part 2
My second conversation with Mike Levin, the developmental biologist from Tufts University, where we explore his ontology, the structure of the world. Are we biological interfaces to Platonic minds, or bodies and minds co-create or realize each other? Is ChatGPT conscious? Are machines more organismic than we thought? How should we get ready to communicate with minds who are very different from us?Related episodes:Mark Solms: Mark Solms: https://youtu.be/Rltfm-vWvgMKevin Mitchell: https://youtu.be/nqxq-BiCr-MMichael Levin: https://youtu.be/0nMXYdayQIUEmbodied AI: https://youtu.be/JZ8GTucClpMAlexander Ororbia: https://youtu.be/N83vBfz7_BIYogi Jaeger: https://youtu.be/5UJ4y2L2qpkBaudouin Saintyves: https://youtu.be/NmvzEpz9R84Laura Desiree Di Paolo: https://youtu.be/9txUwVtAOBkAnna Riedl: https://youtu.be/w2ZiSWZNQsgAnna Ciaunica: https://youtu.be/x1QHwhlCn-8Giuseppe Paolo: https://youtu.be/R7tEd65e2i800:00:00 Intro00:02:22 Mike's Platonic turn. Patterns are calling the shots. Prime numbers and cicadas. Anthrobots. Let's study the structure of emergence.00:14:55 Why not the Platonic and the "real" (Bard calls it pathic) realize each other rather than one creating the other? Towards more Darwinian forms? The engineering view: who controls what.00:21:15 Do patterns have agency? Do they feel? Patterns are agents. Lot of "free" computation is happening in the Platonic space.00:27:44 Can Platonic patterns die? Some patterns can survive the death of their physical instantiation. What is the ultimate drive if not persistence/survival? Similarity to Pageau's fractal ontology.00:36:26 Is ChatGPT conscious? If they are, it's not because they talk but because they might have intrinsic motivation. It's not that we are machines, rather machines are also organismic. The free spurious modes in the structure space: the mystery of bubble sort and other structuralist arguments. The organicist argument of integration of the nested agents. Computer levels are separated, organismic layers are integrated.00:52:49 How did your views changed your life? The urgency to communicate to minds that are very different from us.I, scientist blog: https://balazskegl.substack.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/balazskeglArtwork: DALL-EMusic: Bea Palya https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBDp3qcFZdU1yoWIRpMSaZw Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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59:09
Mark Solms
Another mind-blowing conversation, this time with Mark Solms, the neuropsychoanalist from the University of Cape Town, about his feeling-based theory of consciousness, how competing homeostatic needs lead to prioritization of responding to feelings, expressing these needs internally. At about the one hour mark, we go beyond and discuss how feelings can be understood as messages between hierarchical levels of conscious nested organisms.Mark's book: https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Spring-Journey-Source-Consciousness/dp/0393542017A nine-episode conversation about the book: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMxiNrgE29RIKY3hzQQlFZzkH85xsB4VrRelated episodes:Kevin Mitchell: https://youtu.be/nqxq-BiCr-MMichael Levin: https://youtu.be/0nMXYdayQIUEmbodied AI: https://youtu.be/JZ8GTucClpMAlexander Ororbia: https://youtu.be/N83vBfz7_BIYogi Jaeger: https://youtu.be/5UJ4y2L2qpkBaudouin Saintyves: https://youtu.be/NmvzEpz9R84Laura Desiree Di Paolo: https://youtu.be/9txUwVtAOBkAnna Riedl: https://youtu.be/w2ZiSWZNQsgAnna Ciaunica: https://youtu.be/x1QHwhlCn-8Giuseppe Paolo: https://youtu.be/R7tEd65e2i800:00:00 Intro00:04:35 Feeling-based consciousness. Anatomy: brain-stem vs cortical models.00:20:43 The free energy principle and active inference. Do membranes exist? 00:41:00 The mechanisms of consciousness and the role of feeling. Prioritization of needs, voluntary actions, choice. Categorically different needs lead to qualia.01:00:19 Hierarchical levels of nested organisms and feelings as messages.01:27:46 Engineering consciousness. Is autopoiesis necessary?I, scientist blog: https://balazskegl.substack.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/balazskeglArtwork: DALL-EMusic: Bea Palya https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBDp3qcFZdU1yoWIRpMSaZw Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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1:38:47
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1:38:47
Alexander Bard part 4
My fourth conversation with the philosopher Alexander Bard, on his new book project on mysticism, bliss, the importance of phenomenology, the philosophy of time, transcendence, and transformation.Related episodes:https://youtu.be/Y8cuqy6y0fo Alexander Bard part 1: sex, Zoroastrianism, embodied philosophyhttps://youtu.be/eASbv9WA-TQ Alexander Bard part 2: tantric sex, sex and spirituality, men's workhttps://youtu.be/3eAwktR3S3s Alexander Bard part 3: anthropology and AIBard on Sweeney, discussing the book project on mysticismhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFU0ot5daoghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtaDAqbAE3Ahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxlQyzDwTfo00:00:00 Intro: making philosophy.00:03:33 Why mysticism? Transcendence and transformation. The philosophy of time.00:14:53 The right order: phenomenology -> epistemology -> ontology of mysticism. Pathos-mythos-logos and subconscious/conscious. Only present exists. The past subsists and the future absists. The past is determinate, the future is indeterminate, the present is transdeterminate.00:26:08 Animal philosophy.00:28:51 Phenomenology of mysticism. Dancing myself unconscious. Varayana Buddhism. The two subjectless extreme states: pure experience and the infinite now. You can't do science of consciousness. 00:37:47 The historical and sociological context: pillar saints and boy pharaohs, sutra/tantra. The infinite now and orgasm. 00:49:41 Pure experience and the other-world dualism. The psychoanalytical view: neurosis and psychosis. Mamilla and embodiment.01:01:24 Mysticism is minimalism. The job of philosophy to kill axioms. Mysticism is practiced philosophy. Mysticism kills fantasies about how the world works. The importance of integration.01:09:42 The problem with western existentialism is that it assumes the subject is constant.01:10:17 Why go mystic? Why you? Why now? How? The birth of a child: instant bliss. Go deeper?01:14:22 The first thing the mystic says: there is no purpose to this. The phenomenology-epistemology loop has been ignored by philosophers.I, scientist blog: https://balazskegl.substack.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/balazskeglArtwork: DALL-EMusic: Bea Palya https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBDp3qcFZdU1yoWIRpMSaZw Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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1:21:25
Kevin Mithcell
My conversation with Kevin Mitchell, neuroscientist and geneticist at Trinity College Dublin, on free agency and randomness, nested selves, mental causation and the tension between free choice and control, and artificial agents.Kevin's books:Free Agents: https://www.amazon.com/Free-Agents-Evolution-Gave-Will/dp/0691226237/Innate: https://www.amazon.com/Innate-How-Wiring-Brains-Shapes/dp/0691204152/Related episodes:Michael Levin: https://youtu.be/0nMXYdayQIUEmbodied AI: https://youtu.be/JZ8GTucClpMAlexander Ororbia: https://youtu.be/N83vBfz7_BIYogi Jaeger: https://youtu.be/5UJ4y2L2qpkBaudouin Saintyves: https://youtu.be/NmvzEpz9R84Laura Desiree Di Paolo: https://youtu.be/9txUwVtAOBkAnna Riedl: https://youtu.be/w2ZiSWZNQsgAnna Ciaunica: https://youtu.be/x1QHwhlCn-8Giuseppe Paolo: https://youtu.be/R7tEd65e2i800:00:00 Intro: the psychological angle of theories of consciousness.00:05:00 Free agency and randomness. The world is nondeterministic, but where the possibility of control comes from? Causal slack + selection.00:15:14 The tension of randomness: its harmful but it also needs to be nurtured and amplified. From particle decay to neural "noise".00:21:38 Nested agency and cognition. Vertical dynamics of hierarchical distributed control. Multicellularity. 00:34:58 What looks random from outside may be what the 1st person system experiences as free agency. Psychopathologies.00:40:58 Selves and fuzzy boundaries. Dyads and collectives. Couples' therapy, ant colonies, lineages.00:55:58 Spirituality. Being part of a bigger organism. Rituals. Game theory and incentive design.01:08:30 AI. AGI vs _an_ AGI. Agency in Minecraft.01:18:58 What's next for Kevin? The tension of choice and control. Mental causation. Genetic decoding. I, scientist blog: https://balazskegl.substack.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/balazskeglArtwork: DALL-EMusic: Bea Palya https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBDp3qcFZdU1yoWIRpMSaZw Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sverige