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Continuing our deep dive into what it means to be human in the age of AI, and inspired by the physicalist yet transcendent worldviews of the transhumanists, in this episode I start to explore the concept of worldviews, focusing first on physicalism / scientific materialism (the idea that matter / energy is fundamental), and how that particular metaphysics or worldview was based entirely on a series of assumptions that were never empirically proven. We contextualize all of it via the postmodern zombie mythology.

I focus on the unexplained anomalies from quantum physics as how they undermine the physicalist worldview. I then explore the reasons that physicalism is so intractable as a worldview.

All of this is just to set the table for an exploration of #idealism in my next episode (the idea that mind or consciousness is fundamental). Then we can finally turn our attention to transhumanism and human faculties.

You can find a YouTube version of this episode here.

Sam Altman’s “Intelligence Age” post

Quantum measurement explained:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHDMJqJHCQg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kxmR82QMN8

Quantum entanglement explained:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqmIVeheTVU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuvK-od647c

John Vervaeke on being rational and spiritual

John Vervaeke on Zombies

The famous Einstein - Bergson debate of 1922

My video on the hurdles to AGI

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The irony of the application of the word “hallucination” to LLMs making mistakes is that they are completely incapable of having psychedelic experiences. Why does that matter?

In this mind-bending exploration, we dive into the fascinating intersection of artificial intelligence and expanded states of consciousness. We examine how imagination, creativity, and innovation seem to arise more frequently in altered or "holotropic" states of consciousness - such as through meditation, breathwork, dreams, dancing, psychedelics, or other experiences.

I argue that current approaches to AI may never be truly inventive or creative, as they lack the ability to model the abductive reasoning and intuitive leaps that often occur in these holotropic states. To support this thesis, we explore historical examples of scientific and philosophical breakthroughs that emerged from dreams, visions, and other non-ordinary states of consciousness.

In short, I am challenging the narrative that AI will soon surpass human intelligence, suggesting there may be profound mysteries of the human mind that AI cannot replicate, and offering a more sober and realistic view of the limitations facing AI research in attempting to model the wonders of human cognition and consciousness.

This video is part of a series about the myths, hype, and ideologies surrounding AI.

YouTube version
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Stan Grof's collected works
My previous video on the impediments to AGI
Paper using LLMs to model abductive reasoning
Willis Harman's Higher Creativity
Effects of conscious connected breathing on cortical brain activity, mood and state of consciousness in healthy adults

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Want to talk about how Chad can assist you with your own transformation?
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Join Chad's newsletter to learn about all new offerings, courses, trainings, and retreats.

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Artificial general intelligence, or superintelligence, is not right around the corner like AI companies want you to believe, and that's because intelligence is really hard.

Major AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic (as well as Ilya Sutskever’s new company) have the explicit goal of creating artificial general intelligence (AGI), and claim to be very close to doing so using technology that doesn’t seem capable of getting us there.

So let's talk about intelligence, both human and artificial.

What is artificial intelligence? What is intelligence? Are we going to be replaced or killed by superintelligence robots? Are we on the precipice of a techno-utopia, or some kind of singularity?

These are the questions I explore, to try to offer a layman’s overview of why we’re far away from AGI and superintelligence. Among other things, I highlight the limitations of current AI systems, including their lack of trustworthiness, reliance on bottom-up machine learning, and inability to provide true reasoning and common sense. I also introduce abductive inference, a rarely discussed type of reasoning.

Why do smart people want us to think that they’ve solved intelligence when they are smart enough to know they haven’t? Keep that question in mind as we go.

YouTube version originally recorded July 1, 2024....

Support Chad

James Bridle’s Ways of Being (book)
Ezra Klein’s comments on AI & capitalism
How LLMs work

Gary Marcus on the limits of AGI
More on induction and abduction
NYTimes deep dive into AI data harvesting
Sam Altman acknowledging that they’ve reached the limits of LLMs
Mira Murati saying the same thing last month
Google’s embarrassing AI search experience

AI Explained’s perspective on AGI
LLMs Can’t Plan paper
Paper on using LLMs to tackle abduction
ChatGPT is Bullshit paper
Philosophize This on nostalgia and pastiche

Please leave a comment with your thoughts, and anything I might have missed or gotten wrong. More about me over here

Support the show

Want to talk about how Chad can assist you with your own transformation?
Book a free consultation!

Join Chad's newsletter to learn about all new offerings, courses, trainings, and retreats.

Finally, you can support the podcast here.