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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"God is what Mind becomes when it has passed beyond the scale of our comprehension." -Richard Feynman If you ask me whether I believe in God, I would answer that I'm personally agnostic for all logical and practical purposes while keeping an open mind. However, I believe in evolution as a spiritual process leading to the Omega Point. In other words, God is destination, if not both Origin (Source) and Destination. For the time being, I remain a good "possibilian" (term coined by neuroscientist David Eagleman of Stanford). Perhaps our religion, our notion of divinity, has been a rehearsal for our own ambition to create a technological nirvana, techno-paradise, the new Garden of Eden for ourselves. As Alan Harrington wrote in the Immortalist: "Having created the gods, we can turn into them," and echoing these words, Stewart Brand once said: "We are as gods and might as well get good at it." At the end of our human history here, we'll transition to an unbridled mindspace of possibilities instead of the linear progression of history. Whatever your favorite metaphor to describe our reality might be, like the "game of life,' "chrysalis syntellectus," "Evolving Consciousness Trainer" or "AGI (NP) Simulation Program" (to cite a few of my own), evolution, it seems, has found its optimal pathway through maximum diversity, interaction between conscious agents, and bootstrapping its progress. Thus, individuality will never be suppressed, but rather super-personalized -- so our "graduated syntellect", our civilizational mind, will form a new identity amidst a newly discovered layer of existence. This process may rightfully be called Theogenesis -- the birth of a divine entity. The transcendent networked mind will be infinitely enriched and approach God-like states and abilities: omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, immortality, love, beauty, creativity. This universal complexification and integration will be conducive to ever-higher levels of consciousness, seemingly ad infinitum, beyond our present "scale of comprehension." ... to continue reading the story: Tags: self-transcendence, transcendence, neuroscience, collective intelligence, artificial intelligence, Richard Feynman, Syntellect Hypothesis, Extended Mind Hypothesis, Hard Problem of Consciousness, Digital Physics, Holographic Principle, Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Gravity, mindware, ontological design, conscious experience, theogenesis, infomorph, infomorph commonality, noosphere, superintelligence, singularity, mind uploading, postbiological superintelligence, posthuman superintelligence, the Syntellect emergence, Global Brain, global superorganism, Syntellect incubator, multiversal fractality, conscious agent, human evolution, transcendent other, transhumanism, superlongevity, superwellbeing, cognitive enhancement, substrate-independent mind, digital mind, digital immortality, paradise engineering, philosophy of mind, science of mind, evolution of consciousness, phenomenology, mind uploading, posthumanism, quantum consciousness, It from Qubit, Omega Point, transcendental object, cosmological singularity, transcendentalism, neo-transcendentalism *Image Credit: NASA About the Author: Alex Vikoulov is a Russian-American futurist, evolutionary cyberneticist, philosopher of mind, CEO/Editor-in-Chief of Ecstadelic Media Group, painter, essayist, media commentator, author of "The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind's Evolution," "The Origins of Us: Evolutionary Emergence and The Omega Point Cosmology," "The Physics of Time: D-Theory of Time & Temporal Mechanics," "The Intelligence Supernova: Essays on Cybernetic Transhumanism, The Simulation Singularity & The Syntellect Emergence," "Theology of Digital Physics: Phenomenal Consciousness, The Cosmic Self & The Pantheistic Interpretation of Our Holographic Reality," "NOOGENESIS: Computational Biology," "TECHNOCULTURE: The Rise of Man." Self-described neo-transcendentalist, digital theologian, transhumanist singularitarian. Lives in Burlingame, California (San Francisco Bay Area). More Bio... Author Website: www.alexvikoulov.com e-mail: alexvikoulov@ecstadelic.net 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. by Alex Vikoulov "What science discovers at the end, the mystics have known since the beginning." -Inayat Khan
Mathematical formulas and models describe our "physical rule set" but we still don't have much of a mathematical representation to describe our "neural code" and inner experience, i.e. consciousness which is needed to "activate" time. Time is NOT dynamic, but rather the static 4th dimension in holographic 4D space-time, unless you add a special ingredient to it -- conscious observer. Otherwise, time without a conscious observer would be like a frozen river, one of the static coordinates in 4D space-time (scientists labeled 4D space-time the "Block Universe") -- there's neither special "Now" nor objective flow of time in any direction.* This is an exclusive abridged excerpt from my new book "The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind's Evolution" in which we will examine temporal ontology and the physics of time in by far more scrupulous detail. In this excerpt we start with a common misconception that time of our Universe is eternal. by Alex Vikoulov [Updated 10/27/2019] "Information is the resolution of uncertainty." -Claude Shannon
We're getting closer to incorporating consciousness as an integral part of the scientific picture of the "physical world." Not only celebrated physicists of the 20th century such as Max Plank, John Wheeler, David Bohm, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger argued that consciousness is a fundamental property of our Universe but the new pleiad of scientists such as John Hagelin, Sir Roger Penrose, Stuart Hameroff, Guilio Tononi, Christof Koch, Donald Hoffman, Robert Lanza embarked on their quest to put consciousness on the new solid scientific footing and dimensionality. Naturalism with its Newtonian mechanics and classical interpretation of reality is valid only within its domain of applicability, namely human perceptual reality, whereas quantum theory paints a drastically different picture. As Max Plank once said: "Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of Nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve." Nothing is real for us until perceived, and all we know is our own inner experience. That's why scientists have to deal with the mystery of how there can be anything but a first-person reality. No matter how you slice it, everything leads back to the conscious observer. Do we live in 5D conscious observer space-time where the unified field of consciousness is the 5th dimension, space of all probabilities? Out of trillions of first-person experiences available to you in any given moment somehow you get to experience only one of them thus collapsing all other potentialities except one which manifests in a conscious instant (CI). A series of sequential CIs creates your continuous flow of time and your unitary sensation of "reality."* By Alex Vikoulov [Updated 04.22.20] "Organisms are themselves expressions of emergent order and agents of higher levels of emergence." -Brian Goodwin
Our observable Universe is 92 billion light years across, which is a fraction of the unobservable universe, which is just one of an infinite number of universes in the multiverse. All this space, time, energy, and matter, even consciousness itself boils down to information, or Code if you will. Digital Physics, a relatively new field of science, implies that information may be a fundamental property of our Universe, an evolving phenomenon. My 2019 book "The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind's Evolution" revolves around this very question "what actually is information?" and takes you on the journey through times with the focus on what's most important to us as conscious beings -- OUR SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE. If everything is made of information, according to Digital Physics, what is the fabric and ultimate nature of reality? Philosophy of mind has been wrestling with another question: can we solve the hard problem of consciousness"? What inner experience could a bat, a dog, or an augmented human have? Biological organisms, from unicellular bacteria to a human, are incredibly advanced, intricate information processing, computational systems, the product of billions of years of evolution. But do biological systems hold monopoly on conscious awareness?* By Alex Vikoulov "Yet, it's our emotions and imperfections that makes us human." -Clyde DeSouza, Memories With Maya IMMORTALITY or OBLIVION? I hope that everyone would agree that there are only two possible outcomes after having created Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) for us: immortality or oblivion. The necessity of the beneficial outcome of the coming intelligence explosion cannot be overestimated. AI can already beat humans in many games, but can AI beat humans in the most important game, the game of life? Can we simulate the most probable AI Singularity scenarios on a global scale before it actually happens (the dynamics of a larger physical system is much easier to predict than doing that in the context of an individual or small group), to see the most probable of its consequences? And, the most important question: how can we create friendly AI?* |
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Recent Publications The Cybernetic Theory of Mind by Alex M. Vikoulov (2022): eBook Series The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind's Evolution by Alex M. Vikoulov (2020): eBook Paperback Hardcover Audiobook The Omega Singularity: Universal Mind & The Fractal Multiverse by Alex M. Vikoulov (2022): eBook THEOGENESIS: Transdimensional Propagation & Universal Expansion by Alex M. Vikoulov (2021): eBook The Cybernetic Singularity: The Syntellect Emergence by Alex M. Vikoulov (2021): eBook TECHNOCULTURE: The Rise of Man by Alex M. Vikoulov (2020) eBook NOOGENESIS: Computational Biology by Alex M. Vikoulov (2020): eBook The Ouroboros Code: Reality's Digital Alchemy Self-Simulation Bridging Science and Spirituality by Antonin Tuynman (2019) eBook Paperback The Science and Philosophy of Information by Alex M. Vikoulov (2019): eBook Series Theology of Digital Physics: Phenomenal Consciousness, The Cosmic Self & The Pantheistic Interpretation of Our Holographic Reality by Alex M. Vikoulov (2019) eBook The Intelligence Supernova: Essays on Cybernetic Transhumanism, The Simulation Singularity & The Syntellect Emergence by Alex M. Vikoulov (2019) eBook The Physics of Time: D-Theory of Time & Temporal Mechanics by Alex M. Vikoulov (2019): eBook The Origins of Us: Evolutionary Emergence and The Omega Point Cosmology by Alex M. Vikoulov (2019): eBook More Than An Algorithm: Exploring the gap between natural evolution and digitally computed artificial intelligence by Antonin Tuynman (2019): eBook Our Facebook Pages
A quote on the go"When I woke up one morning I got poetically epiphanized: To us, our dreams at night feel “oh so real” when inside them but they are what they are - dreams against the backdrop of daily reality. Our daily reality is like nightly dreams against the backdrop of the larger reality. This is something we all know deep down to be true... The question then becomes how to "lucidify" this dream of reality?"— Alex M. Vikoulov Public Forums Our Custom GPTs
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