Revolutionary & Humble ❤ like always! The world once again on the eve of a massive paradigm shift - and this time it will hit humankind directly and massively - great stuff and I always wonder how many people are really prepared for the mental and physical implications out of this! We live in interesting times
No competition, each compliment their combined fields in their own way. Brilliant. Amazing that sapien minds can contemplate and comprehend like this now.
43:36 I'm 100% on the same page as Mike as he lays out his interpretation of Bernardo's line of questions, thingness being a binary is a mental creation, stepping into the line of life you enter an exponentially explosive space that can't be thrown into any sort of a mental projection, and that is actually what makes life beautiful. 1:07:12 at this point I think Mike is talking about frequencies that create levels of cognition, which is a healthy perspective from my end. Bernardo is such a great foil for Michael to better explain his own thinking and providing thoughts levels of cognitive life. Thank you everyone for sharing your time and work, this was a great 3rd part in the conversation, peace
Yeah, so good to hear them finally speak to their differences. Currently, I don't think it is coherent to claim that a system/being can be in state this isn't conscious and isn't unconscious. I'm not talking about meta-consciousness (knowing that one is conscious). Even the simpleist, most basic and short-lived experience is an experience, no matter how simple or evanescent. In that tiny moment, there was something it was like to be that system.
Nah Bernardo ain't no goat (speaking as a former fan). He has an unique and compelling perspective, but in order to arrive to it, the science and philosophy had been bent too much by personal bias. Also, Kastrup is so convinced of his analytic idealism, he has become incapable of seeing other people's perspectives, often scientists who have much greater depth on many topics.
In the realm of philosophy or computer science, Bernardo is goat. If you notice, Michael doesn’t even try to pretend to challenge Bernardo in those areas. Whereas, Bernardo has the ability to challenge at a deeper scientific level than most philosophers are comfortable doing or even have the capacity to do. He was able to suggest ideas and collaborations for Michael to explore further. Which is I think the best thing he can do. I thought he was quite relaxed that Michael had different ideas to his. He could also sense the weightage that was given to Michael’s work and opinions in all of these talks. Yet he was there, didn’t disrupt and even helped give conversations some direction. Of course, he doesn’t agree with certain subtle aspects - but that’s totally fine, right?
Bernardo didn’t pick up on this, but when Michael was talking about sense-making as the criterion for providing evolutionary perspectives, it occurred to me that this tied in really well with Bernardo’s dashboard metaphor - that evolution limits our perceptions of “what’s out there” to what makes sense to us.
This discussion is fascinating. BK takes issue with Levin because he is making 'epistemic projections' of higher-order cognitive functions, i.e. teleological agency, onto simple living organisms, which BK basically conceives as instinctive macro-programs within MAL. Levin points out that what BK is calling 'epistemic projection' is what is always happening because "everything is a perspective of some agent, everything" and projection of agentic qualities is therefore another way of speaking about how agentic relative perspectives interface with one another. BK roots his criticism in CGOL and the fact that simple mechanical rules can give the appearance of complex functioning systems but to attribute such systems with agency or goals would be 'epistemic projection'. He then tries to apply that across the board to the goal-directed behavior of living organisms. Levin, however, points to a depth gradient of non-reducible agentic spaces, i.e. that there is no binary of "cognitive or not cognitive", "living or not living", etc. but that everything is on a relational spectrum. I think Levin also intuits that there may be some connection between lower elemental cognitive perspectives (for ex. cellular processes) and potential higher-than-human cognitive perspectives (those responsible for planetary orbits, for ex.) with much more temporally extended 'light cones', of which the elemental perspectives are reflections ("as above, so below"). This remains nebulous and not something he can speak to directly through his empirical research (this comes out more at the end when speaking of the "Platonic space" of ideal potential), although it's amazing how close Levin's research and way of thinking through it gets him to the foundations of esoteric science (e.g. Rudolf Steiner). Overall, it is a fascinating case study of how, an intuitive thinker starting from a strictly phenomenological and even 'materialist' perspective, or at least a perspective rooted in the transformations of perceptual phenomena through experimentation, can reach the insight of reality being comprised solely of 'competing and cooperating agential perspectives', while an analytic thinker starting from a metaphysical and idealist perspective can gradually occupy the position of the materialist reductionist, waving off all insights rooted in disciplined and assumption-free empirical investigation as "epistemic projection" simply to preserve a rigid metaphysical position. BK even says that he is an "extreme reductionist", trying to "reduce the complex to the simple". I hope that, through these ongoing discussions, BK will relax the constraints of his metaphysical convictions so his thinking can more freely explore these deeper intuitions of reality pointed to by Levin and his fascinating research. We should try to feel how we create all kinds of irresolvable problems for ourselves when we refuse to give up our exclusive claim to intentional agency. We want everything else to either be mindless or 'instinctive consciousness', while we alone possess intelligence, decision-making, self-consciousness, etc. We declare all the building evidence of agency across all scales of existence to be "epistemic projection" to maintain that claim to agential exclusivity. Everything that demonstrates pattern after pattern of functional agency is reduced to a CGOL epiphenomenon. What do we lose if we simply stick with the givens of first-person agential experience and recognize something of ourselves within the World 'out there'? We lose nothing but our pride in exclusive agential status and gain intimate communion with the World around and within us. There is no reason to assume the ideas we perceive working in the World are any less empirical or objective than the colors, smells, sounds, etc. There is no reason to start with the dualistic assumption, as Kant et al. did, that these ideas belong to a "subjective perspective in here" that simply tries to model an "objective world out there", where the latter is pre-existing and waiting for observers to come along and discover it. As Levin also implied, through our reasoned ideas we participate in fashioning the one and only World there is. We bring the conceptual-ideal element to bear on the perceptual element and restore the Unity of meaning. It is very interesting that Levin is exploring the archetypal realm by investigating the very manner in which we think and connect thoughts to one another. That is the foundation of Steiner's work in his Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. "The reason why it is impossible to observe thinking in the actual moment of its occurrence, is the very one which makes it possible for us to know it more immediately and more intimately than any other process in the world. Just because it is our own creation do we know the characteristic features of its course, the manner in which the process takes place. What in all other spheres of observation can be found only indirectly, namely, the relevant context and the relationship between the individual objects, is, in the case of thinking, known to us in an absolutely direct way. I do not on the face of it know why, for my observation, thunder follows lightning; but I know directly, from the very content of the two concepts, why my thinking connects the concept of thunder with the concept of lightning. It does not matter in the least whether I have the right concepts of lightning and thunder. The connection between those concepts that I do have is clear to me, and this through the very concepts themselves." (GA 4, III) If we understand our real-time thinking as a lawful continuation of the elemental-archetypal processes that metamorphose the World state, we can say our decomposed sensory perspective is an aperture of the holistic MAL perspective. There is no 'noumenal boundary' separating them. The meaning we perceive through the sensory perspective is the exact same meaning that exists at the MAL-scale perspective, only reflected and aliased, like a broadcast signal becomes aliased when reconstructed at a lower sampling rate. Through philosophy and science, among other domains of human thinking, we are gradually increasing the 'sampling rate' and restoring the original signal. When we reach ideas that reveal intentional agency in the lawful transformations of the phenomenal spectrum, as Levin has, we are one tiny but significant step closer to the inner perspective of MAL. And there is no need to postulate any limit to how far our resonance with the inner perspective of MAL can expand.
Levin dropped a great recommendation in Richard Watson, which I hadn't heard before. Anyone listening should check out Watson's Songs of Life and Mind RUclips series, which builds on Levin's research. He's taking things to a whole other level.
Thanks Amir for bringing these two together once more. I just wish (and I understand your 'duty' to your group) you wouldn't ask so often in these interviews for them to sum up their explanations when I'm sure they are already doing their best not to overcomplicate things. Oversimplification can lead to more confusion rather than clarification. With best regards. Jo
What Michael says about how what the caterpillar learned benefits the butterfly is analogous to what Rudolf Steiner said about how learning is translated to a new incarnation.
The argument, what's it like to be a bat? This argument can be used in relations to your(Bernardo or Michael)'s perspective, by asking your turkey sandwich you had for lunch or the bacteria in your intestines. But you see minerals (non-living things) also play a role in the existance of living beings. So Michael can make that argument. A grain of Sodium (salt) can play a role in your perspective, if it is part of your human structure (Theseus ship argument).
A brain being an integrator of perspectives or subsuming the perspectives of the parts does not equal one perspective, it only suggests a role of a particular perspective. People need to let go of the idea of human consciousness being a top down control system and embrace the full spectrum of perspectives, perceptions, cognitions, and contextual awareness and responsiveness at play within themselves and the universe around them
At about the 45 minute mark when they are discussing emergence, and the issue of whether goal directedness is binary or not, Bernardo was taking the binary point of view, yes or no. If what they are discussing is binary, as per Bernardo‘s position, then, there is a different quality to the emergence required than if the spectrum is continuous as Michael argues.
1:16:00 this stuff about how the caterpillar metamorphoses into the butterfly is very apposite. I felt something like this happen with my own psychology over the past month :P
We are actually just a system with simple properties that seems to develop complex properties. We develop such complex properties that we have a hard time remembering that we are just a bunch of very simple rules piled on top of other simple rules and iterated extensively. Quarks make atoms, which make molecules, which make proteins and dna. It is all following simple rules.
Great minds great discussion ❤- love it and very thankful for this! this is the way I imagine the discussion of Einstein and Born. wave of particle - pieces or phenomenon - who knows? We not 😂
I love this conversation so much. Imagine if BIG MONEY was pumped into research by the likes of Levin, Kastrup, Tononi etc. That old saying about science becoming indistinguishable from magic comes to mind, but on steroids.
On the topic of IIT and whether components of a integrated frame of reference retain their own frame of reference, I agree with Miachel's dissatisfaction with the exclusion principle and his assertion that components do retain their frame of reference. I think Bernardo's view of conscious systems being dissociated alters of mind-at-large wouldn't be possible if the exclusion principle held, because unless we annihilate mind-at-large's frame of reference when we instantiate as individuals, we would be unable to exist as individual frames of reference within that greater system simultaneously with its own perspective-bound existence. It is possible if you take a kind of timeline-dependent solipsistic approach, where you say "I was mind-at-large conceiving the nascent system, and now I am that system conceiving mind-at-large", but that's only true now from the timeline established in your frame of reference. I would say it's more rational to consider all possible timelines having been instantiated by mind-at-large, which allows you to look at your current projection of mind-at-large and perceive that other frames of reference exist simultaneously with your own, at least in functional terms. But of course, that's also where I agree with Michael, the important part then about thinking about other frames of reference is whether it changes how we want to interact with them, whether we can empirically deduce that there is some kind of self-referencing model the system seems to tend towards. Because, absent any sufficient reason for mind-at-large to not create all possible frames of reference, I think it does, but relative to the frame of reference we have, not all possible frames of reference are going to be relevant as social agents who can interact with our model of ethics.
Also Michael bringing up the concept of paradoxes as oscillating truth values fills me with joy, this is I think a sound gateway into "why did mind-at-large create an alter in the first place?". The argument is as follows: A perspective, that contains all that is, references all possible perspectives within it. However, those possible perspectives themselves are defined by their lack of context of all possible perspectives, or of perspectives other than their own. This leads to a paradox, since that perspective that contains all that is must also try to logically contain perspectives which don't contain all that is, and it can't do so by merely having a reference to them, like a symbol of those perspectives, it must contain the actual perspectives as they are, which it cannot. That paradox itself, in this framework of paradoxes leading to oscillating truth values, leads to the local/perspective-bound oscillation of all possible perspectives. This conversation really keeps on giving, what a great pairing these two!
is the affinity of a north pole for a south pole a point of view? Did force have the same meaning before and after Newton? Words fail until new uses are coined, I think. Objectivity is relative.
With LLM’s it seems to me that the manipulation of abstract concepts through syntactical relationships by these systems represents an evolving and emerging intellect. This would be analogous with the leap in cognition that was made with hominids when language developed.
I don't like the analogy he always uses of a table because at some point it was alive(tree), this same analogy can take the form of a living human body and a dead one. I do believe that language is the barrier in this argument. Especially the use of nouns(things). All nouns are actually verbs in the process of becoming one form or another, as everything is made by waves. Particle waves can be described similar to electric current, a movement of energy. The decomposition of a wooden table or dead human body is in the process of becoming(the happening) whether it is ash or food for fungi.
I would love to see what Mike would make of the DMT realm - new perspectives give insight and DMT allows you to step outside (briefly) the physical space and into a purely cognitive one of different dimensions. I know it's highly unlikely Mike will read this but I can't stress enough how truly breathe taking the exploration of these other cognitive worlds are .... some scientists have already been there so there is hope !
But, Levin, sensing your blood chemistry wouldn't be feeling the bloods so-called experience. Bernardo sometimes slides into talking as if the liver is having its own experience, but I think he actually believes that it would have its own experience if dissociated from the body in some fundamental way. Big difference. That said, Bernardo's model makes it clear that the liver would be a partial image of some aspect of our subjectivity. Again, very different than saying that the liver is having its own experience.
If I understand Michael Levin's talk, it seems to me that he's right that our boundary goes farther than our skin because otherwise, why do I feel pain when somebody dies. Why does it hurt so much to see the killings in Gaza? Why did it hurt when my brother passed away? We must be connected in some way. I think all humanity and all life are connected. Perhaps Humanity may someday form a biological system like the multicellular system that single cells created during the Cambrian age
I never really understood what Levin was getting at, even in his prior exchanges with BK. After this, at least a part of ii is clearer. BK, as usual, is brilliant in dissecting it (though I wonder why it didn't happen in their earlier conversations). But, clearly, Levin's (radical, to me) perspective, so to speak, wasn't changed. Just have to wait for better proof, I guess.
Is abiogenesis synonymous with poking an egg with a needle. The egg being earth and the needle being collisions of complex molecules or something else?
Do thing need to be of matter ? Or is it possible to extend thing to Entity as some idetifiable shape of a energy partern like a particular shapes waves? 57:49
1:23:37 no. There's no platonic realm. It's all real and it's all in your head. It's just organized differently inside your head, but it's all the same stuff going on :P
Is it the 'ofness' characteristic in consciousness that we read as point of view? When consciousness is operating it is conscious of else. Engineers might see this quality as point of view or perspective. It might also be something like caring. Time for a cup of tea.
24:54 come on! that's exactly how your color vision works! Your visual system sorts different wavelengths of light into different colors! That's exactly how people without one sense make up for it with other senses!
But when Levin says that maybe in a long time-frame even we will be seen as a blip. Okay. But this is how Levin argues against the idea of consciousenss either being there or not. However, even if there is a perspective in which my experience is just a blip, that doesn't at all change the fact that I'm experiencing. Same with a lady bug.
@@adventuresinawareness And that's my point. An experience is an experience. If it happens it is by definition being experienced. We aren't talking about a meta-consciousness that turns back and says, "Oh, I'm noticing that i've had this experience". Much of what Levin says about consciousness seems to imply he can imagine it as a 'perspective' for which there is nothing it is like to be. It'll be really interesting to hear him unpack his notion of experience down the road. Right now, it seems that anywhere he can find goal-directed activity, he considers that a 'perspective' and he is somewhat comfortable equating perspectives with consciousness, even if that means there can be un-experienced perspectives. Illusionists and eliminativists certainly speak in those terms. This was a great conversation. I'm so glad that we finally got to hear Bernardo push back against having undefined notions of 'things.' That seems to be THE key issue in terms of grappling with whether our AI programs are becoming conscious.
I have to agree with Bernardo that Michael at times, just through his choice of words, seems to inject notions of intentionality where they are not warranted.
bernardo talks about constructive proofs, not intuitionist logic :) And the law of the excluded middle can be used in constructive proofs, but you cannot start with something negated to prove its oposite - that's the problem Brouwer had with the axiom.
I think the distinction between cognitive processes and this reductionism that Bernardo brings has to collapse eventually. It is not willful projection/antheopomorphization, it is something like natural law.
@@ruinner In that case, I'm happy to say that the rock I stop on has perspective but no experience. Fine. Then we are simply changing the definition of 'perspective'. That's okay. But, if we do that, then we need to distingish the new definition from what people typically mean. Heck, some painting undoubtedly have perspective.
Unless you are using a true random number generator, those 'algotypes' seeming to go round the 'barrier' etc are really just a mathematics operation performing entirely deterministically. There's no mystery there. It's just seeing gliders again. I'm not sure what Michael actually means when he says that he doesn't believe the question of consciousness is binary. If it isn't binary, then some named process X can have a vaguely formed sense of itself, which is proto-consciousness, which is Idealism in one form or another.
I love Bernardo, but his reductionism is the exact mirror of materialistic reductionism where you don't consider others levels of reality as ontically real. It's just flipped around starting with consciousness rather than matter. We need relational, leveled ontology as John Verveake often talks about or similar to Forrest Landry's metaphysics. It would be amazing to bring them together especially with Forrest as he's exceptionally clear on this.
1:12' is it a matter of difficullty, to experience POV of liver, or other part of our organism, or is it a logical contradiction, in the sense that you having a certain POV is what makes you yourself, if you had POV of something else, then this something else's qualitative experience would be yours...
very good point! I think since the liver is a part of a larger whole which is us, some might expect the POV of parts to be accessible in some way to the whole
I have the hardest time listening to Bernardo speak about most anything. Of course that is some "fault" of mine but I could listen to Micheal all day yet a moment of Bernardo speaking just makes me physically ill. They are both geniuses in their own rite and I am an aerospace engineering student and fellow nerd dweeb guy yet I "cannot for the life of me" stomach just listening to Bernardo speak. It's not what he says either it's how he says it, no matter the topic and no matter it be him speaking on his own or in some conversation/interview/open forum chat I always get the 🤢 result...which is a bummer for me. I know I am missing much of what Bernardo is getting at from this almost pre-repulsion in how he constructs his words/language is all. Really I have no reason to even write this but I felt obligated to subconsciously or not. There I said it, go Micheal and go Bernardo your both doing excellent work. Sorry Bernardo but I guess it's just one less "follower" among many millions so it is of little consequence ... I wrote this mostly for myself and I suppose to see if anyone else has a similar challenge. I feel like I am missing out on an amazing class due to the color of the paint on the wall or something. Lol. Yes I am a goofball also.
While I don’t share the same opinion as you I liked that you were bordering insulting but also able to acknowledge that he is rather good at what he does and not just throw ad hominems at the guy. Could it be because he’s slow in articulating his thoughts, slower than the other guy at least. For me I like how he breaks down his theories as I’m not a nerd, dweeb and somewhat new to this world
I see no reason to talk about biology and cells if we understand that consciousness is fundamental. Because it seems Michael thinks consciousness is emergent from biology. That would be another materialist physicalist theory as opposed to what I consider correct …the idealism of consciousness being ubiquitous and fundamental beyond time space.
My understanding of Bernardo's perspective is that if taking consciousness as fundamental, it's legitimate to examine the patterns it displays as speaking to fundamental aspects of its behaviour and thus it's nature Similar to how a dream might carry significance, and symbolically point to deep aspects of inner life, even though it's "only a dream" - only made of pure consciousness.
If Dr. Levin truly “put algorithms inside of cells”, then those cells won’t do anything other than performing the algorithm. Unless the algorithm includes some procedure for delaying gratification, the cells that have algorithms inside them will never, ever perform delayed gratification. Dr. Levin said 2 things: “the algorithm doesn’t contain any instruction for delaying gratification” & “the cells displayed delayed gratification.” Dr. Levin is therefore either incorrect or deceiving us.
Kastrup is wrong that he knows exactly how AI works. It has too many complexities. If they knew precisely how they work alignment would not be an issue and they could predict all capabilities before training .
@@clivejenkins4033 No I stated an objective fact. If he knows how the system works like he claims then he should have no issue solving alignment. If he understands the system as he says then he can predict the properties of the next big training runs. He is the one throwing out baseless opinions.
I always struggle with Bernardo. On the one hand there are no things and yet there is such a *thing* as life that pops into existence somewhere along the chain of abstraction. Full disclaimer I am also just triggered by his style of delivery so maybe I'm missing some nuance in what he says
He is in a way an identity theorist about consciousness. So he thinks it's a brute that certain configurations of stuff will correspond to conscious beings and some will not. This is a pretty natural conclusion to draw if you accept that consciousness is not reducible to structure or function.
The argument, what's it like to be a bat? This argument can be used in relations to your(Bernardo or Michael)'s perspective, by asking your turkey sandwich you had for lunch or the bacteria in your intestines. But you see minerals (non-living things) also play a role in the existance of living beings. So Michael can make that argument. A grain of Sodium (salt) can play a role in your perspective, if it is part of your human structure (Theseus ship argument).
Love when Kastrup and Levin discuss, thanks for the upload
Amazing!! Thank you again. I hope to see this duo together more often!!!!!
us too!
That’s why I love hearing Michael’s talk because every time he get to speak, it helps him clarify his work more and more. That’s why he is so humble
Revolutionary & Humble ❤ like always!
The world once again on the eve of a massive paradigm shift - and this time it will hit humankind directly and massively - great stuff and I always wonder how many people are really prepared for the mental and physical implications out of this! We live in interesting times
Yes, get ready for ALIEN OPEN CONTACT by 2026 !!! Peace & love
Nice 2 hr ! 🍿Perhaps thE 2 most interesting cats out there today
I'd agree. Fascinating minds.
Joscha Bach would be the third, for me.
No competition, each compliment their combined fields in their own way. Brilliant. Amazing that sapien minds can contemplate and comprehend like this now.
43:36 I'm 100% on the same page as Mike as he lays out his interpretation of Bernardo's line of questions, thingness being a binary is a mental creation, stepping into the line of life you enter an exponentially explosive space that can't be thrown into any sort of a mental projection, and that is actually what makes life beautiful. 1:07:12 at this point I think Mike is talking about frequencies that create levels of cognition, which is a healthy perspective from my end. Bernardo is such a great foil for Michael to better explain his own thinking and providing thoughts levels of cognitive life. Thank you everyone for sharing your time and work, this was a great 3rd part in the conversation, peace
Yeah, so good to hear them finally speak to their differences. Currently, I don't think it is coherent to claim that a system/being can be in state this isn't conscious and isn't unconscious. I'm not talking about meta-consciousness (knowing that one is conscious). Even the simpleist, most basic and short-lived experience is an experience, no matter how simple or evanescent. In that tiny moment, there was something it was like to be that system.
Two GOATs 🐐
Let's goooooo 🫡
Nah Bernardo ain't no goat (speaking as a former fan). He has an unique and compelling perspective, but in order to arrive to it, the science and philosophy had been bent too much by personal bias.
Also, Kastrup is so convinced of his analytic idealism, he has become incapable of seeing other people's perspectives, often scientists who have much greater depth on many topics.
@@stevenpham6734 ngl, I like hands-on Levin more, but Bernardo offers interesting perspectives on consciousness and he is very well-read
In the realm of philosophy or computer science, Bernardo is goat. If you notice, Michael doesn’t even try to pretend to challenge Bernardo in those areas. Whereas, Bernardo has the ability to challenge at a deeper scientific level than most philosophers are comfortable doing or even have the capacity to do. He was able to suggest ideas and collaborations for Michael to explore further. Which is I think the best thing he can do. I thought he was quite relaxed that Michael had different ideas to his. He could also sense the weightage that was given to Michael’s work and opinions in all of these talks. Yet he was there, didn’t disrupt and even helped give conversations some direction. Of course, he doesn’t agree with certain subtle aspects - but that’s totally fine, right?
I love this Bernardo/Michel conversations, always a bliss ❤
Fantastic and hugely appreciated! Thank you.
Awesome duo, please keep getting them together.
agreed!
Bernardo didn’t pick up on this, but when Michael was talking about sense-making as the criterion for providing evolutionary perspectives, it occurred to me that this tied in really well with Bernardo’s dashboard metaphor - that evolution limits our perceptions of “what’s out there” to what makes sense to us.
nice observation, thanks
Wow!
Thank you both.
Absolutely brilliant.
This discussion is fascinating. BK takes issue with Levin because he is making 'epistemic projections' of higher-order cognitive functions, i.e. teleological agency, onto simple living organisms, which BK basically conceives as instinctive macro-programs within MAL. Levin points out that what BK is calling 'epistemic projection' is what is always happening because "everything is a perspective of some agent, everything" and projection of agentic qualities is therefore another way of speaking about how agentic relative perspectives interface with one another.
BK roots his criticism in CGOL and the fact that simple mechanical rules can give the appearance of complex functioning systems but to attribute such systems with agency or goals would be 'epistemic projection'. He then tries to apply that across the board to the goal-directed behavior of living organisms. Levin, however, points to a depth gradient of non-reducible agentic spaces, i.e. that there is no binary of "cognitive or not cognitive", "living or not living", etc. but that everything is on a relational spectrum. I think Levin also intuits that there may be some connection between lower elemental cognitive perspectives (for ex. cellular processes) and potential higher-than-human cognitive perspectives (those responsible for planetary orbits, for ex.) with much more temporally extended 'light cones', of which the elemental perspectives are reflections ("as above, so below"). This remains nebulous and not something he can speak to directly through his empirical research (this comes out more at the end when speaking of the "Platonic space" of ideal potential), although it's amazing how close Levin's research and way of thinking through it gets him to the foundations of esoteric science (e.g. Rudolf Steiner).
Overall, it is a fascinating case study of how, an intuitive thinker starting from a strictly phenomenological and even 'materialist' perspective, or at least a perspective rooted in the transformations of perceptual phenomena through experimentation, can reach the insight of reality being comprised solely of 'competing and cooperating agential perspectives', while an analytic thinker starting from a metaphysical and idealist perspective can gradually occupy the position of the materialist reductionist, waving off all insights rooted in disciplined and assumption-free empirical investigation as "epistemic projection" simply to preserve a rigid metaphysical position. BK even says that he is an "extreme reductionist", trying to "reduce the complex to the simple".
I hope that, through these ongoing discussions, BK will relax the constraints of his metaphysical convictions so his thinking can more freely explore these deeper intuitions of reality pointed to by Levin and his fascinating research. We should try to feel how we create all kinds of irresolvable problems for ourselves when we refuse to give up our exclusive claim to intentional agency. We want everything else to either be mindless or 'instinctive consciousness', while we alone possess intelligence, decision-making, self-consciousness, etc. We declare all the building evidence of agency across all scales of existence to be "epistemic projection" to maintain that claim to agential exclusivity. Everything that demonstrates pattern after pattern of functional agency is reduced to a CGOL epiphenomenon. What do we lose if we simply stick with the givens of first-person agential experience and recognize something of ourselves within the World 'out there'? We lose nothing but our pride in exclusive agential status and gain intimate communion with the World around and within us.
There is no reason to assume the ideas we perceive working in the World are any less empirical or objective than the colors, smells, sounds, etc. There is no reason to start with the dualistic assumption, as Kant et al. did, that these ideas belong to a "subjective perspective in here" that simply tries to model an "objective world out there", where the latter is pre-existing and waiting for observers to come along and discover it. As Levin also implied, through our reasoned ideas we participate in fashioning the one and only World there is. We bring the conceptual-ideal element to bear on the perceptual element and restore the Unity of meaning. It is very interesting that Levin is exploring the archetypal realm by investigating the very manner in which we think and connect thoughts to one another. That is the foundation of Steiner's work in his Philosophy of Spiritual Activity.
"The reason why it is impossible to observe thinking in the actual moment of its occurrence, is the very one which makes it possible for us to know it more immediately and more intimately than any other process in the world. Just because it is our own creation do we know the characteristic features of its course, the manner in which the process takes place. What in all other spheres of observation can be found only indirectly, namely, the relevant context and the relationship between the individual objects, is, in the case of thinking, known to us in an absolutely direct way. I do not on the face of it know why, for my observation, thunder follows lightning; but I know directly, from the very content of the two concepts, why my thinking connects the concept of thunder with the concept of lightning. It does not matter in the least whether I have the right concepts of lightning and thunder. The connection between those concepts that I do have is clear to me, and this through the very concepts themselves." (GA 4, III)
If we understand our real-time thinking as a lawful continuation of the elemental-archetypal processes that metamorphose the World state, we can say our decomposed sensory perspective is an aperture of the holistic MAL perspective. There is no 'noumenal boundary' separating them. The meaning we perceive through the sensory perspective is the exact same meaning that exists at the MAL-scale perspective, only reflected and aliased, like a broadcast signal becomes aliased when reconstructed at a lower sampling rate. Through philosophy and science, among other domains of human thinking, we are gradually increasing the 'sampling rate' and restoring the original signal. When we reach ideas that reveal intentional agency in the lawful transformations of the phenomenal spectrum, as Levin has, we are one tiny but significant step closer to the inner perspective of MAL. And there is no need to postulate any limit to how far our resonance with the inner perspective of MAL can expand.
I sorta hate that this thought appeared in my conscious experience, but Michael looks kinda like an older and much much wiser Mr. Beast
That’s hilarious, I can definitely see it!
😂 now we can't unsee it either 🤣
For me he always looked an older version of Luke Skywalker 🙈🤣
Lol I thought the same and then I saw the skywalker comment and that hits too. He looks good for his age 😍
@@Jhawk_2k he's Mr Beast after he has mastered time and reality itself through doing RUclips videos.
Best thing that happened to me today
"I believe in gliders." Is a great T shirt
Great discussion, I'm always interested when bernardo is talking and, indeed, Dr Levin
Levin dropped a great recommendation in Richard Watson, which I hadn't heard before. Anyone listening should check out Watson's Songs of Life and Mind RUclips series, which builds on Levin's research. He's taking things to a whole other level.
I'm booking my next two hours and won't be disturbed 😃
intuitive creativity combined! Also gravity is the observer.
wow!
Gravity is love.
No. You are your own observer and so is everyone else! We are the Watchmen who watch ourselves and the other people we need to watch!
Good observations!
Great discussion!
Thank you!
Thanks Amir for bringing these two together once more. I just wish (and I understand your 'duty' to your group) you wouldn't ask so often in these interviews for them to sum up their explanations when I'm sure they are already doing their best not to overcomplicate things. Oversimplification can lead to more confusion rather than clarification. With best regards. Jo
What Michael says about how what the caterpillar learned benefits the butterfly is analogous to what Rudolf Steiner said about how learning is translated to a new incarnation.
I can’t follow it all, but this discussion really captures my interest. I agree that nonbinary thinking is important in understanding experience.
Thank you! The earlier discussions are also on this channel, which might make this conversation easier to follow. With thanks 🙏
1:22:16 yes. You wring meaning from reality, then apply that meaning directly back on to reality
The argument, what's it like to be a bat? This argument can be used in relations to your(Bernardo or Michael)'s perspective, by asking your turkey sandwich you had for lunch or the bacteria in your intestines. But you see minerals (non-living things) also play a role in the existance of living beings. So Michael can make that argument. A grain of Sodium (salt) can play a role in your perspective, if it is part of your human structure (Theseus ship argument).
A brain being an integrator of perspectives or subsuming the perspectives of the parts does not equal one perspective, it only suggests a role of a particular perspective. People need to let go of the idea of human consciousness being a top down control system and embrace the full spectrum of perspectives, perceptions, cognitions, and contextual awareness and responsiveness at play within themselves and the universe around them
At about the 45 minute mark when they are discussing emergence, and the issue of whether goal directedness is binary or not, Bernardo was taking the binary point of view, yes or no. If what they are discussing is binary, as per Bernardo‘s position, then, there is a different quality to the emergence required than if the spectrum is continuous as Michael argues.
good point - thanks
1:16:00 this stuff about how the caterpillar metamorphoses into the butterfly is very apposite. I felt something like this happen with my own psychology over the past month :P
Pro. Rupert Sheldrake was been talking about this topic since the 1980s.
We are actually just a system with simple properties that seems to develop complex properties. We develop such complex properties that we have a hard time remembering that we are just a bunch of very simple rules piled on top of other simple rules and iterated extensively.
Quarks make atoms, which make molecules, which make proteins and dna. It is all following simple rules.
Great minds great discussion ❤- love it and very thankful for this! this is the way I imagine the discussion of Einstein and Born.
wave of particle - pieces or phenomenon - who knows? We not 😂
Well said!
I love this conversation so much. Imagine if BIG MONEY was pumped into research by the likes of Levin, Kastrup, Tononi etc. That old saying about science becoming indistinguishable from magic comes to mind, but on steroids.
On the topic of IIT and whether components of a integrated frame of reference retain their own frame of reference, I agree with Miachel's dissatisfaction with the exclusion principle and his assertion that components do retain their frame of reference. I think Bernardo's view of conscious systems being dissociated alters of mind-at-large wouldn't be possible if the exclusion principle held, because unless we annihilate mind-at-large's frame of reference when we instantiate as individuals, we would be unable to exist as individual frames of reference within that greater system simultaneously with its own perspective-bound existence.
It is possible if you take a kind of timeline-dependent solipsistic approach, where you say "I was mind-at-large conceiving the nascent system, and now I am that system conceiving mind-at-large", but that's only true now from the timeline established in your frame of reference. I would say it's more rational to consider all possible timelines having been instantiated by mind-at-large, which allows you to look at your current projection of mind-at-large and perceive that other frames of reference exist simultaneously with your own, at least in functional terms.
But of course, that's also where I agree with Michael, the important part then about thinking about other frames of reference is whether it changes how we want to interact with them, whether we can empirically deduce that there is some kind of self-referencing model the system seems to tend towards. Because, absent any sufficient reason for mind-at-large to not create all possible frames of reference, I think it does, but relative to the frame of reference we have, not all possible frames of reference are going to be relevant as social agents who can interact with our model of ethics.
Also Michael bringing up the concept of paradoxes as oscillating truth values fills me with joy, this is I think a sound gateway into "why did mind-at-large create an alter in the first place?". The argument is as follows:
A perspective, that contains all that is, references all possible perspectives within it. However, those possible perspectives themselves are defined by their lack of context of all possible perspectives, or of perspectives other than their own. This leads to a paradox, since that perspective that contains all that is must also try to logically contain perspectives which don't contain all that is, and it can't do so by merely having a reference to them, like a symbol of those perspectives, it must contain the actual perspectives as they are, which it cannot.
That paradox itself, in this framework of paradoxes leading to oscillating truth values, leads to the local/perspective-bound oscillation of all possible perspectives.
This conversation really keeps on giving, what a great pairing these two!
@@cryoshakespeare4465 great comments - thanks - I wish you had been at the live event!
@@adventuresinawareness Aw, thanks! I hope I can catch ones in the future! Appreciate your work a great deal, peace!
is the affinity of a north pole for a south pole a point of view? Did force have the same meaning before and after Newton? Words fail until new uses are coined, I think. Objectivity is relative.
With LLM’s it seems to me that the manipulation of abstract concepts through syntactical relationships by these systems represents an evolving and emerging intellect. This would be analogous with the leap in cognition that was made with hominids when language developed.
Bernard Lonergen wrote "Insight a study of human understanding" in 1960 which could be of interest
I don't like the analogy he always uses of a table because at some point it was alive(tree), this same analogy can take the form of a living human body and a dead one. I do believe that language is the barrier in this argument. Especially the use of nouns(things). All nouns are actually verbs in the process of becoming one form or another, as everything is made by waves. Particle waves can be described similar to electric current, a movement of energy. The decomposition of a wooden table or dead human body is in the process of becoming(the happening) whether it is ash or food for fungi.
Life is all about searching and sorting.
I would love to see what Mike would make of the DMT realm - new perspectives give insight and DMT allows you to step outside (briefly) the physical space and into a purely cognitive one of different dimensions.
I know it's highly unlikely Mike will read this but I can't stress enough how truly breathe taking the exploration of these other cognitive worlds are .... some scientists have already been there so there is hope !
But, Levin, sensing your blood chemistry wouldn't be feeling the bloods so-called experience. Bernardo sometimes slides into talking as if the liver is having its own experience, but I think he actually believes that it would have its own experience if dissociated from the body in some fundamental way. Big difference. That said, Bernardo's model makes it clear that the liver would be a partial image of some aspect of our subjectivity. Again, very different than saying that the liver is having its own experience.
Thanks!
Thank you so much!
What was the name of the one that thought of liars paradox as harmonic oscillations? I have a hard time interpret the name Michael mentions.
I found it. patrick grim, maybe others also wanted to know.
Yeah, I’ll be on here hoping RUclips’s cc is good enough to get the names and concepts because my auditory processing skills are lacking.
If I understand Michael Levin's talk, it seems to me that he's right that our boundary goes farther than our skin because otherwise, why do I feel pain when somebody dies. Why does it hurt so much to see the killings in Gaza? Why did it hurt when my brother passed away? We must be connected in some way. I think all humanity and all life are connected. Perhaps Humanity may someday form a biological system like the multicellular system that single cells created during the Cambrian age
The Russians have done so much work in the area of biophysics. Gariaev, Kozyrev, Kaznacheev, Trofimov et al
thanks
Ding ding 🛎️ it's a bell.
I never really understood what Levin was getting at, even in his prior exchanges with BK. After this, at least a part of ii is clearer. BK, as usual, is brilliant in dissecting it (though I wonder why it didn't happen in their earlier conversations). But, clearly, Levin's (radical, to me) perspective, so to speak, wasn't changed. Just have to wait for better proof, I guess.
Is abiogenesis synonymous with poking an egg with a needle. The egg being earth and the needle being collisions of complex molecules or something else?
I believe abiogenesis refers to the origin of life from non-living things
Yayyayyaa!!!
Do thing need to be of matter ? Or is it possible to extend thing to Entity as some idetifiable shape of a energy partern like a particular shapes waves? 57:49
1:23:37 no. There's no platonic realm. It's all real and it's all in your head. It's just organized differently inside your head, but it's all the same stuff going on :P
1:14:06
Does this procedure create two consciousnesses? Or does it create two separate minds that arise in consciousnes?
Is it the 'ofness' characteristic in consciousness that we read as point of view? When consciousness is operating it is conscious of else. Engineers might see this quality as point of view or perspective. It might also be something like caring. Time for a cup of tea.
24:54 come on! that's exactly how your color vision works! Your visual system sorts different wavelengths of light into different colors! That's exactly how people without one sense make up for it with other senses!
it takes a village - as above, so below
59:01 this is called a dialectic! Thesis, antithesis, synthesis! Even Hegel knew this sh*t! :P
Yes! The combination of the sperm and the egg into the zygote is literally dialectical materialism in biological form!
wow, stopped at 40:50 I think Michael said he is a materialist :D
But when Levin says that maybe in a long time-frame even we will be seen as a blip. Okay. But this is how Levin argues against the idea of consciousenss either being there or not. However, even if there is a perspective in which my experience is just a blip, that doesn't at all change the fact that I'm experiencing. Same with a lady bug.
agreed - I think he was talking about whether we would perceive it from that time frame
@@adventuresinawareness
And that's my point. An experience is an experience. If it happens it is by definition being experienced. We aren't talking about a meta-consciousness that turns back and says, "Oh, I'm noticing that i've had this experience".
Much of what Levin says about consciousness seems to imply he can imagine it as a 'perspective' for which there is nothing it is like to be. It'll be really interesting to hear him unpack his notion of experience down the road. Right now, it seems that anywhere he can find goal-directed activity, he considers that a 'perspective' and he is somewhat comfortable equating perspectives with consciousness, even if that means there can be un-experienced perspectives. Illusionists and eliminativists certainly speak in those terms.
This was a great conversation. I'm so glad that we finally got to hear Bernardo push back against having undefined notions of 'things.' That seems to be THE key issue in terms of grappling with whether our AI programs are becoming conscious.
This question is for Michael. Can he scientifically explain the phenomenon of death, using his logic?
I have to agree with Bernardo that Michael at times, just through his choice of words, seems to inject notions of intentionality where they are not warranted.
hey, ho let's go! ✌️😎
bernardo talks about constructive proofs, not intuitionist logic :) And the law of the excluded middle can be used in constructive proofs, but you cannot start with something negated to prove its oposite - that's the problem Brouwer had with the axiom.
I think the distinction between cognitive processes and this reductionism that Bernardo brings has to collapse eventually. It is not willful projection/antheopomorphization, it is something like natural law.
turns the bat knob.. I AM BATMAN
exactly
Somebody help me understand what it would mean for a system to have a perspective but no experience.
Green vs. green leaf.
Your immune system at birth has perspective but no experience.
@@ruinner
In that case, I'm happy to say that the rock I stop on has perspective but no experience. Fine. Then we are simply changing the definition of 'perspective'. That's okay. But, if we do that, then we need to distingish the new definition from what people typically mean. Heck, some painting undoubtedly have perspective.
A thing is a noun
Unless you are using a true random number generator, those 'algotypes' seeming to go round the 'barrier' etc are really just a mathematics operation performing entirely deterministically. There's no mystery there. It's just seeing gliders again. I'm not sure what Michael actually means when he says that he doesn't believe the question of consciousness is binary. If it isn't binary, then some named process X can have a vaguely formed sense of itself, which is proto-consciousness, which is Idealism in one form or another.
I love Bernardo, but his reductionism is the exact mirror of materialistic reductionism where you don't consider others levels of reality as ontically real. It's just flipped around starting with consciousness rather than matter. We need relational, leveled ontology as John Verveake often talks about or similar to Forrest Landry's metaphysics. It would be amazing to bring them together especially with Forrest as he's exceptionally clear on this.
Life uses conscious agency to execute movements allowing itself to maintain free will negative entropy over environmental ambient temperatures.
Thoughts are things. Iamthungs
We just missing Swami with Adavaita Vedanta point of view:D
this is happening! inzicht.org/event/swami-sarvapriyananda-bernardo-kastrup/
Platonic space - Jung's archetype ?
yes I was right :"D
Lautzen Bauer?
Universal intelligence vs elementals
What is a thing? Its a noun
Answer lies with the mind. It's a mind thing, not a real thing. No mind no thing.
1:12' is it a matter of difficullty, to experience POV of liver, or other part of our organism, or is it a logical contradiction, in the sense that you having a certain POV is what makes you yourself, if you had POV of something else, then this something else's qualitative experience would be yours...
very good point!
I think since the liver is a part of a larger whole which is us, some might expect the POV of parts to be accessible in some way to the whole
I have the hardest time listening to Bernardo speak about most anything. Of course that is some "fault" of mine but I could listen to Micheal all day yet a moment of Bernardo speaking just makes me physically ill. They are both geniuses in their own rite and I am an aerospace engineering student and fellow nerd dweeb guy yet I "cannot for the life of me" stomach just listening to Bernardo speak. It's not what he says either it's how he says it, no matter the topic and no matter it be him speaking on his own or in some conversation/interview/open forum chat I always get the 🤢 result...which is a bummer for me. I know I am missing much of what Bernardo is getting at from this almost pre-repulsion in how he constructs his words/language is all. Really I have no reason to even write this but I felt obligated to subconsciously or not. There I said it, go Micheal and go Bernardo your both doing excellent work. Sorry Bernardo but I guess it's just one less "follower" among many millions so it is of little consequence ... I wrote this mostly for myself and I suppose to see if anyone else has a similar challenge. I feel like I am missing out on an amazing class due to the color of the paint on the wall or something. Lol. Yes I am a goofball also.
While I don’t share the same opinion as you I liked that you were bordering insulting but also able to acknowledge that he is rather good at what he does and not just throw ad hominems at the guy.
Could it be because he’s slow in articulating his thoughts, slower than the other guy at least. For me I like how he breaks down his theories as I’m not a nerd, dweeb and somewhat new to this world
I like how both call God a fundamental field , hahah :D
this is it, everyone can fill in the blank for their understanding!
53:50 Michael will quit science in a moment:D
✌️❤️
Kastrup can't see past his ideas about what reality is to get a better grasp of what it actually is. A mismatch. Michael Levin is in another class.
I think you are wrong
@@clivejenkins4033probably
51:40 subjectivity kind of emerges, doesn't it? It kinda evolves, yeah? An adult has more subjectivity than a zygote!
pranic energy is the life of creatures; for that is said to be the universal principle of Life. "Taittriya Upanishad"
I see no reason to talk about biology and cells if we understand that consciousness is fundamental. Because it seems Michael thinks consciousness is emergent from biology. That would be another materialist physicalist theory as opposed to what I consider correct …the idealism of consciousness being ubiquitous and fundamental beyond time space.
My understanding of Bernardo's perspective is that if taking consciousness as fundamental, it's legitimate to examine the patterns it displays as speaking to fundamental aspects of its behaviour and thus it's nature
Similar to how a dream might carry significance, and symbolically point to deep aspects of inner life, even though it's "only a dream" - only made of pure consciousness.
W all due respect, I believe Dr. Levin is actually lying about his sorting algorithms.
If Dr. Levin truly “put algorithms inside of cells”, then those cells won’t do anything other than performing the algorithm.
Unless the algorithm includes some procedure for delaying gratification, the cells that have algorithms inside them will never, ever perform delayed gratification.
Dr. Levin said 2 things: “the algorithm doesn’t contain any instruction for delaying gratification” & “the cells displayed delayed gratification.”
Dr. Levin is therefore either incorrect or deceiving us.
1:07:00 When you become a bat!!
Kastrup is wrong that he knows exactly how AI works. It has too many complexities. If they knew precisely how they work alignment would not be an issue and they could predict all capabilities before training .
Kastup is right, you, are wrong
@@clivejenkins4033 I literally laid out why what he said is BS and still you missed it🤦
You entitled to your personal opinion like everyone else but you shouldn't insult people because you think you know better
@@clivejenkins4033 No I stated an objective fact. If he knows how the system works like he claims then he should have no issue solving alignment. If he understands the system as he says then he can predict the properties of the next big training runs. He is the one throwing out baseless opinions.
PHD computer engineering, I think he knows what he is talking about
I always struggle with Bernardo. On the one hand there are no things and yet there is such a *thing* as life that pops into existence somewhere along the chain of abstraction.
Full disclaimer I am also just triggered by his style of delivery so maybe I'm missing some nuance in what he says
He is in a way an identity theorist about consciousness. So he thinks it's a brute that certain configurations of stuff will correspond to conscious beings and some will not. This is a pretty natural conclusion to draw if you accept that consciousness is not reducible to structure or function.
Bernardo Kastrup just waste his time with this Levin guy.
Yes I totally agree
Dude is a iitheorist?? Levin is on the wrong way
What experiments are YOU doing to say that? 😂
these guys are so clueless.........
everything is a thing.
nothing is a thing.
totality is the category of {nothing + something}
emm..umm...ah..amm..reduce mumbling and speak clearly, please 🙏
@@RighteousMonk-m1m stfu dude, you’ll never amount to what Levin has accomplished
The argument, what's it like to be a bat? This argument can be used in relations to your(Bernardo or Michael)'s perspective, by asking your turkey sandwich you had for lunch or the bacteria in your intestines. But you see minerals (non-living things) also play a role in the existance of living beings. So Michael can make that argument. A grain of Sodium (salt) can play a role in your perspective, if it is part of your human structure (Theseus ship argument).