Ben Goertzel, a renowned scientist and entrepreneur in artificial general intelligence, shares captivating insights about consciousness and reality. He describes his morning awakening experience, blending scientific and Buddhist perspectives. Ben argues that patterns may be more essential than physical matter and introduces 'uryphysics' to explore psi phenomena. They discuss the implications of AGI on human existence, the potential of psychedelics for insight, and how consciousness may shape future superintelligence, all while balancing scientific rigor with expansive philosophical ideas.
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insights INSIGHT
Project Stargate As Strong Evidence
Ben highlights Project Stargate remote‑viewing as a relatively robust parapsychology dataset with public volumes.
He notes cultural differences in acceptance, with many Asian scientists treating psi as real but unreliable.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Move Psi Research Toward Biophysics
Ben advises shifting parapsychology toward biophysics and organoid models to get clearer mechanisms.
He suggests training organoids and instrumenting them to find physical correlates of psi.
insights INSIGHT
Singularity As Consciousness Shift
Ben reframes the singularity as a transformation of possible states of consciousness, not just gadgets.
He emphasizes AGI will enable much greater freedom to reshape one's awareness and emotion systems.
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Jim talks with Ben Goertzel about his worldview. They discuss Ben's morning experience of consciousness crystallizing from ambient awareness, his identification as a panpsychic, the concept of pattern being more fundamental than stuff, Charles Peirce's ontology of first/second/third, the idea of uryphysics as a broader notion of physics beyond metaphysics, parapsychology and psi phenomena including remote viewing and Project Stargate, reincarnation-like phenomena and cases from India, experimental design in parapsychology research, the legitimation of both AGI and psi research, the consciousness explosion occurring alongside AI/ASI development, Jeffrey Martin's work on fundamental well-being and persistent nonsymbolic experience, the immense design space of possible minds, human cognitive limitations like seven plus or minus two short-term memory, the single-threaded nature of human consciousness versus potential multi-threaded ASI, scenarios for beneficial superintelligence and options for humans to remain in human form or upload, the question of how long human existence would remain interesting post-singularity, psychedelics as tools for accessing different states of consciousness and insights into mind construction, the absence of shamanic institutions in modern culture, experiences with DMT and heroic doses, holding multiple contradictory perspectives simultaneously, Walt Whitman's notion of containing multitudes, Ben's intuitive sense that consciousness and the basic ground of being are fundamentally joyful and compassionate, arguments for why superintelligence will likely be good based on efficiency of mutually trusting agents, and much more.
Episode Transcript
The Consciousness Explosion, by Ben Goertzel
JRS EP 217 Ben Goertzel on a New Framework for AGI
JRS EP 211 Ben Goertzel on Generative AI vs. AGI
JRS Currents 072: Ben Goertzel on Viable Paths to True AGI
Evidence for Psi: Thirteen Empirical Research Reports, ed. Damien Broderick & Ben Goertzel
Dr. Ben Goertzel is a cross-disciplinary scientist, entrepreneur and author. Born in Brazil to American parents, in 2020 after a long stretch living in Hong Kong he relocated his primary base of operations to a rural island near Seattle. He leads the SingularityNET Foundation, the OpenCog Foundation, and the AGI Society which runs the annual Artificial General Intelligence conference. Dr. Goertzel’s research work encompasses multiple areas including artificial general intelligence, natural language processing, cognitive science, machine learning, computational finance, bioinformatics, virtual worlds, gaming, parapsychology, theoretical physics and more.
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