Dr. Ben Goertzel on Joe Rogan Podcast

Haven't listened to much of this yet, but I think its probably going to be good. I've enjoyed listening to Ben elsewhere and especially enjoyed is "Wild Ass Shit" video on consciousness and patternism linked in this post here:

https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-s...n-goertzel

Haven't listened to much of this yet, but I think its probably going to be good. I've enjoyed listening to Ben elsewhere and especially enjoyed is "Wild Ass Shit" video on consciousness and patternism linked in this post here:

https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-s...n-goertzel

Helpful hint: Goertzel is still quite comprehensible if the speed is set to x2.

Helpful hint: Goertzel is still quite comprehensible if the speed is set to x2.

Lol... I like his cadence... but I have to listen to Skeptiko on at least 1.5x.

In case two and a quarter hours is too long for people even at double speed, the closest Goertzel comes to talking about psi starts at about 1h41m.

Most of the interview is about AI and the "singularity" which Goertzel thinks may be coming as soon as 5-7 years from now. But towards the end he talks about how little we understand the nature of the world and ourselves, and how our views of these things will be unrecognisable after the benevolent superhuman AIs enlighten us.

I sometimes think it's a shame Goertzel doesn't devote more of his time to parapsychology, but in this interview he says his motivation in working on AI is to understand the world. That is, he thinks constructing super-intelligent AIs is the most direct route to understanding the nature of reality, rather than trying to figure it out directly ourselves.

In case two and a quarter hours is too long for people even at double speed, the closest Goertzel comes to talking about psi starts at about 1h41m.

Most of the interview is about AI and the "singularity" which Goertzel thinks may be coming as soon as 5-7 years from now. But towards the end he talks about how little we understand the nature of the world and ourselves, and how our views of these things will be unrecognisable after the benevolent superhuman AIs enlighten us.

I sometimes think it's a shame Goertzel doesn't devote more of his time to parapsychology, but in this interview he says his motivation in working on AI is to understand the world. That is, he thinks constructing super-intelligent AIs is the most direct route to understanding the nature of reality, rather than trying to figure it out directly ourselves.

I believe in the fractal model of reality... as above so below... so in my opinion this is a repetitive cycle of creation and re-creation of consciousness beings. Maybe it is also my Christian roots playing a role in my beliefs... Genesis starts out with the Gods saying "Let us make man in our own image and likeness" and Revelation ends with Man making an image in his likeness and giving it the power of speech. It could be that we were created by "the gods" in much the same way that we are trying to create AI now. When training a neural network or AI agent, an environment can be set up and a training simulation can be run millions of times in a very short period of time to train the AI. What if we are in the midst of one of the millions of iterations of a training algorithm that is informing the neural network one level above this reality? What if from "the Gods" perspective this training algorithm only takes a few seconds to run but from our perspective it is eons?

I can't say I'm as optimistic as Goertzel... at least in the short run... but in the long run I agree with his statement: what does it matter if civilization was founded 10,000 years ago or 10,050 years ago... we ARE in the middle of a turning point in human history... if we don't fuck it up.

One thing I found interesting was that when discussing the possibility that what appeared to be reality might be only a simulation, he said he was "always acutely aware that this simulation might all disappear at any one moment", and in answer to Rogan he said this awareness was a conscious one. That must be a disorienting state of mind.

One thing I found interesting was that when discussing the possibility that what appeared to be reality might be only a simulation, he said he was "always acutely aware that this simulation might all disappear at any one moment", and in answer to Rogan he said this awareness was a conscious one. That must be a disorienting state of mind.

I can’t say I’m constantly acutely aware of it but I do ponder it frequently.

Everything we predict is rooted in induction or as I like to say... our bubble of structure floats on the Abyss. It could sink or pop at any moment.

I can’t say I’m constantly acutely aware of it but I do ponder it frequently.

Everything we predict is rooted in induction or as I like to say... our bubble of structure floats on the Abyss. It could sink or pop at any moment.

Check out Meillassoux my friend, you should (hopefully) find his ideas of "Hyper Chaos" enjoyable.

p.s. Goertzel is an interesting person in that AFAIK he was convinced by Psi experiment data rather than any personal experience.