What Came Before the Big Bang? | Theory of Embedded Intelligence, Bill Mensch and...

Could it be a coincidence that two founding fathers of modern day computing, independently from each other, are both coming with theories of consciousness that are idealist in nature? Or does a deep understanding of what computation is—and what it is not—inevitably lead away from physicalist ideas on consciousness?

Previously Essentia Foundation presented the work of Federico Faggin, and now a legendary contemporary of his, computer engineer Bill Mensch, presents his Theory of Embedded Intelligence (TEI) to us.

Mensch was a major contributor to the Motorola 6800 and became famous for his work on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU, a chip that, because of it’s efficiency, completely revolutionized computing in the 80’s. From Arcade halls to the Apple II and Nintendo 8 bit consoles, 6502s could be found everywhere. Even to this day the chip is still used in children's toys and even in pacemakers and satellites.

Looking back at his career, Mensch realizes that building computer chips is in essence a form of ‘embedding’ intelligence in technology, just as nature has embedded intelligence in biological systems, like humans. In his TEI model intelligence is fundamental. This raises the philosophical question of how consciousness relates to intelligence, and for this reason Bernardo Kastrup joined in on the conversation Mensch and Hans Busstra had.

The value of a theory like Mensch’s is perhaps exactly that it is not philosophically fine-tuned to the terminology commonly used in philosophy of mind. By not taking the human mind and phenomenal consciousness as its departure point, but intelligence instead, Mensch arrives at a position in which the distinction between living beings and abiotic systems is less distinct.

Mensch's slides can be downloaded here: https://www.essentiafoundation.org/wp...

00:00 Introduction
03:30 Bernardo Kastrup on the importance of Bill's work
08:17 Start of Bill Mensch's presentation
11:16 The model of intelligence in the TEI
14:06 Consciousness as Sense, Process, Communicate and Actuate (SPCA)
25:36 Evolution from Free Intelligence
30:53 Collective intelligence evolution
33:41 On Machine Intelligence
35:58 Learning from Nature
38:30 Learning from Embedded Intelligence Technology

41:20 End of presentation, Start Q&A
42:07 How does Bill's theory enrich Bernardo Kastrup?
45:34 How Bill's model of intelligence relates to an analytical idealist framework
49:40 Why is intelligence embedding itself in our universe?
52:57 Phenomenal consciousness and intelligence
55:32 The distinction between living systems and abiotic systems in Bill's theory
57:07 Sensing, cognition and relevance realization
59:04 Bill on cosmology
1:02:05 The difference between living systems and technology
1:08:57 In a certain sense we are the same as computerchips
1:10:23 On Michael Levin's work
1:13:58 Is Nature's Free Intelligence, GOD?
1:21:56 On mythology in science
1:26:35 Closing remarks

I haven't listened to the entire discussion yet, but the few clips I’ve seen so far focus on 'Intelligence.' In my opinion, recent advances in AI have only raised more questions, as there is no true intelligence to be found in these constructs, regardless of how much power is poured into the data centers. While I understand that consciousness and intelligence are not the same, they seem to me to be closely linked, almost as if they inevitable are two aspects of the same phenomenon. Intelligence appears to be non-algorithmic, something we can never emulate. It seems that consciousness, the subconscious, and intelligence are all part of the same package.