Episode #392 from 26:43
Adaptive Resonance Theory
Well, I think this is a good opportunity to try to sneak up to the idea of enlightenment. You wrote a series of good tweets about consciousness, and panpsychism. Let's break it down. First you say, I suspect the experience that leads to the panpsychism syndrome of some philosophers, and other consciousness enthusiasts represents the realization that we don't end at the self, but share a resonant universe representation with every other observer coupled to the same universe. This actually, eventually leads us to a lot of interesting questions about AI, and AGI. But let's start with this representation. What is this resonant universe representation, and what do you think? Do we share such a representation? The neuroscientist Grossberg has come up with the cognitive architecture that he calls the adaptive resonance theory. His perspective is that our neurons can be understood as oscillators that are resonating with each other, and with outside phenomena. The [inaudible 00:27:48] model of the universe that we are building, in some sense, is a resonance with objects, and outside of us in the world. Basically, take up patterns of the universe that we are are coupled with. Our brain is not so much understood as circuitry, even though this perspective is valid, but it's almost an ether in which the individual neurons are passing on chemoelectrical signals, or arbitrary signals across all modalities that can be transmitted between cells, stimulate each other in this way, and produce patterns that they modulate while passing them on.
Why this moment matters
Well, I think this is a good opportunity to try to sneak up to the idea of enlightenment. You wrote a series of good tweets about consciousness, and panpsychism. Let's break it down. First you say, I suspect the experience that leads to the panpsychism syndrome of some philosophers, and other consciousness enthusiasts represents the realization that we don't end at the self, but share a resonant universe representation with every other observer coupled to the same universe. This actually, eventually leads us to a lot of interesting questions about AI, and AGI. But let's start with this representation. What is this resonant universe representation, and what do you think? Do we share such a representation? The neuroscientist Grossberg has come up with the cognitive architecture that he calls the adaptive resonance theory. His perspective is that our neurons can be understood as oscillators that are resonating with each other, and with outside phenomena. The [inaudible 00:27:48] model of the universe that we are building, in some sense, is a resonance with objects, and outside of us in the world. Basically, take up patterns of the universe that we are are coupled with. Our brain is not so much understood as circuitry, even though this perspective is valid, but it's almost an ether in which the individual neurons are passing on chemoelectrical signals, or arbitrary signals across all modalities that can be transmitted between cells, stimulate each other in this way, and produce patterns that they modulate while passing them on.