Tag: books

Nick Bostrom: Superintelligence & the Simulation Hypothesis

Nick Bostrom is a Swedish-born philosopher at the University of Oxford known for his work on existential risk, the anthropic principle, human enhancement ethics, superintelligence risks, and the reversal test. In 2011, he founded the Oxford Martin Program on the Impacts of Future Technology, and is the founding director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. In 2009 and 2015, he was included in Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers list.

Bostrom is the author of over 200 publications, and has written two books and co-edited two others. The two books he has authored are Anthropic Bias: Observation Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy (2002) and Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (2014). Superintelligence was a New York Times bestseller, was recommended by Elon Musk and Bill Gates among others, and helped to popularize the term “superintelligence”.

Bostrom believes that superintelligence, which he defines as “any intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest,” is a potential outcome of advances in artificial intelligence. He views the rise of superintelligence as potentially highly dangerous to humans, but nonetheless rejects the idea that humans are powerless to stop its negative effects.

In his book Superintelligence, Professor Bostrom asks the questions: What happens when machines surpass humans in general intelligence? Will artificial agents save or destroy us? Nick Bostrom lays the foundation for understanding the future of humanity and intelligent life.

The human brain has some capabilities that the brains of other animals lack. It is to these distinctive capabilities that our species owes its dominant position. If machine brains surpassed human brains in general intelligence, then this new superintelligence could become extremely powerful – possibly beyond our control. As the fate of the gorillas now depends more on humans than on the species itself, so would the fate of humankind depend on the actions of the machine superintelligence.

But we have one advantage: we get to make the first move. Will it be possible to construct a seed Artificial Intelligence, to engineer initial conditions so as to make an intelligence explosion survivable? How could one achieve a controlled detonation?

Brian Keating & Garrett Lisi on E8 & String Theory – Theory of Every0ne Live 5.24.22

Tonight we look at a discussion between Brian Keating, professor of physics at UCSD and creator of the “Into the Impossible” podcast, and Garrett Lisi, theoretical physicist and founder of the Pacific Science institute. Garrett Lisi is known for his attempt to unify physics using the beautiful geometric structure of E8.

Iain McGilchrist: The Coincidence of Opposites

Ralston College presents a lecture by Dr Iain McGilchrist followed by a discussion with Dr Stephen Blackwood and questions from the audience. In his lecture Dr McGilchrist deals with certain themes that are treated at greater length in his recent book The Matter With Things. He focuses especially upon the coincidence of opposites (coincidentia oppositorum), which he explores (providing an extraordinary range of illustrative examples) in such a way as to make manifest both its universality and its particular relevance to our present historical moment.

Thich Nhat Hanh – Oprah Winfrey | Full Length Interview

This is the full-length version of a truly insightful, deep and powerful Interview. Oprah Winfrey talks to Thich Nhat Hanh about becoming a monk, meeting Martin Luther King Jr; The powers of mindfulness, insight, concentration and compassion, how to transform warring parties and how to deeply transform relationships.

The Afterlife and the Unconscious Mind with Betty Kovács: New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlove

Betty J. Kovács, PhD, taught symbolic/mythic language for twenty-five years. She has served as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Jung Society of Claremont, California, and sits on the Academic Advisory Board of Forever Family Foundation. Dr. Kovacs is author of Merchants of Light: The Consciousness That Is Changing the World, winner of The Scientific and Medical Network 2019 Book Prize and a Nautilus Silver Award. She has also written The Miracle of Death: There Is Nothing But Life. Her website is www.kamlak.com.

Here she explains that consciousness is infinite and that, ultimately, there is no real separation between our waking consciousness, our subconscious mind, and the afterlife. It is all one. However, that realization is difficult to maintain in the face of daily life’s necessities. She describes several powerful examples of both archetypal, visionary experiences and after-death communications. They blend into each other. She closes with a riveting prophetic vision.

Beyond Belief: Considering Evidence for Life After Life- Dr. Eben Alexander, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD.

Believing in the afterlife is one thing… proving it is another.

This year, people from around the world competed in an essay contest providing their rationale for life after death. Nearly $2 million in prize money was awarded with Las Vegas entrepreneur Robert Bigelow putting up the prize money. Jeffrey Mishlove took home half a million dollars for the winning essay.

Dr. Eben Alexander, author of “Proof of Heaven,” does not need to be convinced–he lived it. A highly trained neurosurgeon, Alexander was taught that although NDEs feel real, they are nothing more than fantasies produced by brains under extreme stress.

Then, Alexander’s own brain was attacked by a rare illness and shut down completely. Alexander spent a week in a coma. As his doctors considered stopping treatment, Alexander’s eyes popped open. He had come back. Alexander is a doctor who believes that true health can be achieved only when we realize that God and the soul are real and that death is not the end of personal existence but only a transition.

Mishlove and Alexander come together to tackle big questions such as, what is the best evidence for postmortem survival of human consciousness? How can we accommodate this evidence within a contemporary scientific and philosophical framework? Where is research on postmortem survival leading? Join the Vail Symposium for a program that will plumb the depths of belief on this consequential topic.

HOPI PROPHECY – Two Paths: Destruction or Survival

We are at a crossroads. One path leads to destruction. The other is living together in harmony with nature. Ancient Hopi Prophecy interpreted by Hopi religious elders Thomas Banyacya and Grandfather David Monongye.

Videotaped in 1972 by Dean and Dudley Evenson at the first United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden. The last part of the video shows Thomas Banyacya in 1993 at a Dalai Lama event in Tucson, Arizona where Dean and Dudley caught up with him almost 20 years after the first video.

Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, had sponsored 15 Native Americans to attend the first United Nations Earth Summit in Stockholm to share their message about Mother Earth for the diplomats and young people gathered there. Dean and Dudley were there with their half-inch Sony Video Portapack to videotape events in and around the conference. The Native Americans they met inspired them to share the message about respecting and caring for the planet. In 1979 Dean and Dudley founded their record label, Soundings of the Planet, with a mission of Peace Through Music and planetary healing.

The Primacy of consciousness – Interview with Brenda Dunne

Brenda Dunne explains how she began to work at the PEAR Lab (Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research). This institute was conducting formal research in psychokinesis (the effect of the mind over matter), and in remote viewing. It was founded Robert Jahn, former dean of the school of Engineering at Princeton University. She presents the results of their studies, and how it implies that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of the reality we experience.

Your Quantum Mind with Brenda Dunne

Brenda Dunne served for 28 years as laboratory manager of the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) program. With Robert G. Jahn, she is coauthor of Margins of Reality: The Role of Consciousness in the Physical World, Consciousness and the Source of Reality: The PEAR Odyssey, Quirks of the Quantum Mind, and Molecular Memories. She also served as coeditor of Filters and Reflections: Perspectives on Reality and Being and Biology: Is Consciousness the Life-Force. She currently serves as president of the International Consciousness Research Lab (ICRL). Her website is http://icrl.org/

Here she suggests that the complementarity and uncertainty principles of quantum physics can be thought of as metaphors for the operation of the human mind. The term “metaphor” should not be thought of as trivial — as metaphors are always necessary when endeavoring to describe direct internal experience. All of the observations and thoughts that created quantum physics as we know it today are, in fact, products of the human psyche. The discussion focuses additionally on the experimenter effect in parapsychology.