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/3zqI0iG428c

Mark Solms: Mark Solms: https://youtu.be/Rltfm-vWvgM

Kevin Mitchell: https://youtu.be/nqxq-BiCr-M

Michael Levin: https://youtu.be/0nMXYdayQIU

Embodied AI: https://youtu.be/JZ8GTucClpM

Alexander Ororbia: https://youtu.be/N83vBfz7_BI

Yogi Jaeger: https://youtu.be/5UJ4y2L2qpk

Baudouin Saintyves: https://youtu.be/NmvzEpz9R84

Laura Desiree Di Paolo: https://youtu.be/9txUwVtAOBk

Anna Riedl: https://youtu.be/w2ZiSWZNQsg

Anna Ciaunica: https://youtu.be/x1QHwhlCn-8

Giuseppe Paolo: https://youtu.be/R7tEd65e2i8

00:00:00 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.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/balazskegl

Artwork: DALL-E

Music: Bea Palya https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBDp3qcFZdU1yoWIRpMSaZw

https://youtu.be/gjlLnvci30w

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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-vWvgM

Kevin Mitchell: https://youtu.be/nqxq-BiCr-M

Michael Levin: https://youtu.be/0nMXYdayQIU

Embodied AI: https://youtu.be/JZ8GTucClpM

Alexander Ororbia: https://youtu.be/N83vBfz7_BI

Yogi Jaeger: https://youtu.be/5UJ4y2L2qpk

Baudouin Saintyves: https://youtu.be/NmvzEpz9R84

Laura Desiree Di Paolo: https://youtu.be/9txUwVtAOBk

Anna Riedl: https://youtu.be/w2ZiSWZNQsg

Anna Ciaunica: https://youtu.be/x1QHwhlCn-8

Giuseppe Paolo: https://youtu.be/R7tEd65e2i8

00:00:00 Intro

00:02:22 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.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/balazskegl

Artwork: DALL-E

Music: Bea Palya https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBDp3qcFZdU1yoWIRpMSaZw

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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/0393542017

A nine-episode conversation about the book: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMxiNrgE29RIKY3hzQQlFZzkH85xsB4Vr

Related episodes:

Kevin Mitchell: https://youtu.be/nqxq-BiCr-M

Michael Levin: https://youtu.be/0nMXYdayQIU

Embodied AI: https://youtu.be/JZ8GTucClpM

Alexander Ororbia: https://youtu.be/N83vBfz7_BI

Yogi Jaeger: https://youtu.be/5UJ4y2L2qpk

Baudouin Saintyves: https://youtu.be/NmvzEpz9R84

Laura Desiree Di Paolo: https://youtu.be/9txUwVtAOBk

Anna Riedl: https://youtu.be/w2ZiSWZNQsg

Anna Ciaunica: https://youtu.be/x1QHwhlCn-8

Giuseppe Paolo: https://youtu.be/R7tEd65e2i8

00:00:00 Intro

00:04:35 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.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/balazskegl

Artwork: DALL-E

Music: Bea Palya https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBDp3qcFZdU1yoWIRpMSaZw

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.