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Our Brain's Neural Code: A Pathway to AI Minds?

1/20/2019

by Alex Vikoulov

"I have always been convinced that the only way to get artificial intelligence to work is to do the computation in a way similar to the human brain. That is the goal I have been pursuing. We are making progress, though we still have lots to learn about how the brain actually works.” -Geoffrey Hinton

In May, 2016 I stumbled upon a highly controversial Aeon article titled “The Empty Brain: Your brain does not process information, retrieve knowledge or store memories. In short: your brain is not a computer” by psychologist Rob Epstein. This article attested to me once again just how wide the range of professional opinions may be when it comes to brain and mind in general. Unsurprisingly, the article drew an outrage from the reading audience. I myself disagree with the author on most fronts but one thing, I actually agree with him is that yes, our brains are not “digital computers.” They are, rather, neural networks where each neuron might function sort of like a quantum computer.

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Technology and Culture: Our Accelerating Epigenetic Factor Driven Evolution

10/27/2018

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by Alex Vikoulov

"This deep power in which we exist, and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Over-Soul (1841)

I'm always leery when some neuroscientist comes along and says: “We are the brain. There’s nothing besides it. If something is wrong, it’s physical.” No, you are not a "brain in a vat," and if we are to deconstruct human intelligence, it would make sense to apply the so-called top-down “holistic” analysis — when we work from the general to the specific — the big picture to the smaller details, from the superset to the subset. So, in this type of analysis we should not start with the brain. Instead, if viewed collectively, human intelligence is a networking phenomenon based on technology and culture that we call civilization; and individually, it's an operating system of the person's mind.

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The Physics of Information: Quantum Potentiality to Classical Actuality of Your Experiential Reality

9/20/2018

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by Alex Vikoulov

“A quantum possibility is more real than a classical possibility, but less real than a classical reality.” -Boris Tsirelson

John Archibald Wheeler was one of the first prominent physicists to propose that reality might not be wholly physical, in some sense, our cosmos must be a “participatory” phenomenon requiring the act of conscious observation — and thus consciousness itself. Wheeler also drew attention to implicit connection between physics and information theory, which was invented in 1948 by mathematician Claude Shannon. Just as physics builds on elementary particles, the quanta, defined by measurement, so does information theory. Its “quantum” is the binary unit, or bit, which is a signal represented by one of two choices: yes or no, plus or minus, zero or one. Ironically, Wheeler’s 'it from bit' implies that a “theory of everything” will always be a work in progress, and that truth is something subjectively created rather than objectively apprehended. “I do take 100 percent seriously the idea that the world is a figment of the imagination,” Wheeler used to remark.

Twisting your mind to see reality from the quantum gravity viewpoint is no easy task. It might be quite a stretch to see the physical world made up of space-time-mass-energy as a formless fog of potentiality. Physicists face the same hard problem as neuroscientists do: the problem of bridging objective description and subjective experience. Physics has encountered consciousness. Quantum theory says an object remains in a superposition of possibilities until observed. We can consider a quantum state as being about our knowledge rather than a direct description of physical reality. The physics of information just may be that bridging of quantum-to-digital reality of subjective experience. We are now at the historic juncture when quantum computing could reveal quantum information processing underpinnings of subjectivity.

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Digital Pantheism: Philosophical Afterthoughts and Follow-up Questions to the Argument

3/17/2018

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by Alex Vikoulov

“If we accept that the material universe as we know it is not a mechanical system but a virtual reality created by Absolute Consciousness through an infinitely complex orchestration of experiences, what are the practical consequences of this insight?”
-Stanislav Grof

Just like absolute idealism, solipsism certainly defies our common sense but the deeper layer of truth is not what first meets the eye. Here's what Richard Conn Henry and Stephen Palmquist write in their paper “An Experimental Test of Non-local Realism" (2007): "Why do people cling with such ferocity to belief in a mind-independent reality? It is surely because if there is no such reality (as far as we can know) mind alone exists. And if mind is not a product of real matter, but rather is the creator of the illusion of material reality (which has, in fact, despite the materialists, been known to be the case, since the discovery of quantum mechanics in 1925), then a theistic view of our existence becomes the only rational alternative to solipsism." One can extend their line of reasoning by arriving at pantheistic solipsism as a likely revelation to ponder about.*

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Is God The Ultimate Computer? The Digital Pantheism Argument

7/31/2017

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by Alex Vikoulov

"All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.” -Max Planck

This is abridged part of my essay “Is God the ultimate computer?” where we formulate the Digital Pantheism Argument, our existence as the fractals of cognitive architecture of "God." The previous part of essay could be summarized and reformulated into these three basic premises for further discourse in order to articulate the Digital Pantheism Argument: (1) Universality of Computation; (2) Evolutionary Emergence; (3) Universal Causal Diamond. Let’s reiterate the three foundational axioms before proceeding further:

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Is God The Ultimate Computer? Digital Physics Says Yes

3/17/2017

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by Alex Vikoulov

"What we call the past is built on bits." -John A. Wheeler

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE CODE...

When molecular biologists talk about genetic code or sociologists talk about cultural memes as epigenetic information, it's by far more intuitive than when physicists say that what we perceive as solid matter, energy, and even space-time continuum itself is information as well. Morse code, a streaming movie on-demand, or pixels on your smartphone's screen could be easily understood as information, on the other hand, If you catch cold or fall in love with someone, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with information. But contrary to popular belief, that's the theory many physicists are now formulating.

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The Fermi Paradox: First Contact with Alien Syntellects in Extra Dimensions is More Than a Possibility

9/19/2016

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by Alex Vikoulov

"Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying." -Arthur C. Clarke

The coming Cybernetic Singularity could pave the way to rapid space colonization sometime by mid-century, however, not exactly how Hollywood movies depict -- fragile flesh-and-blood humans are unlikely to personally travel to other stars. Our postbiological descendants (AIs, uploads and hybrids), on the other hand, could roam the Universe on their tiny warp spaceships, via traversible wormholes, and colonize galaxies via self-replicating Von Neumann probes that would establish wormhole portals and communication with the core civilization. But what's even more exciting, First Contact and networking with alien syntellects becomes a clear possibility.

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