Philosopher of mind Peter Sjöstedt-H discusses the hidden impact psychedelics have had on philosophy and asks if such extreme, altered modes of mind could help give us answers to some of the big questions facing the philosophers and scientists of today. Peter is an Anglo-Scandinavian philosopher of mind and author. He lives in West Cornwall and is engaged in his PhD with the University of Exeter, where he also teaches philosophy modules and writing skills. Peter is the inspiration behind the inhuman philosopher Marvel Superhero, Karnak. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
Tag: consciousness
Joscha Bach – Why Your Thoughts Aren’t Yours.
Dr. Joscha Bach discusses advanced AI, consciousness, and cognitive modeling. He presents consciousness as a virtual property emerging from self-organizing software patterns, challenging panpsychism and materialism. Bach introduces “Cyberanima,” reinterpreting animism through information processing, viewing spirits as self-organizing software agents. He addresses limitations of current large language models and advocates for smaller, more efficient AI models capable of reasoning from first principles. Bach describes his work with Liquid AI on novel neural network architectures for improved expressiveness and efficiency. The interview covers AI’s societal implications, including regulation challenges and impact on innovation. Bach argues for balancing oversight with technological progress, warning against overly restrictive regulations. Throughout, Bach frames consciousness, intelligence, and agency as emergent properties of complex information processing systems, proposing a computational framework for cognitive phenomena and reality.
Michael Levin – Why Intelligence Isn’t Limited To Brains.
Professor Michael Levin explores the revolutionary concept of diverse intelligence, demonstrating how cognitive capabilities extend far beyond traditional brain-based intelligence. Drawing from his groundbreaking research, he explains how even simple biological systems like gene regulatory networks exhibit learning, memory, and problem-solving abilities. Levin introduces key concepts like “cognitive light cones” – the scope of goals a system can pursue – and shows how these ideas are transforming our approach to cancer treatment and biological engineering. His insights challenge conventional views of intelligence and agency, with profound implications for both medicine and artificial intelligence development. This deep discussion reveals how understanding intelligence as a spectrum, from molecular networks to human minds, could be crucial for humanity’s future technological development. Contains technical discussion of biological systems, cybernetics, and theoretical frameworks for understanding emergent cognition.
Prof. Michael Levin:
https://as.tufts.edu/biology/people/f…
Making the Most of Your Life: Lama Yeshe
In Lama Yeshe’s and Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s first trip to Europe they offered a weekend seminar based on their famous month-long Kopan meditation courses. Preceded by Lama Yeshe’s lecture on meditation at Kensington Town Hall, these teachings at Royal Holloway College, Surrey, encompass the entire Buddhist path to enlightenment. Please also visit us at http://www.LamaYeshe.com
A Conversation Between Iain McGilchrist and David Bentley Hart
On the mind, the structure of the brain, the structure of life, the arts, perceptions of reality, the pervasiveness of consciousness… Scientist, physician, psychiatrist, writer, literary scholar, and philosopher Iain McGilchrist is as genial as his work is fascinating. As anyone familiar with his books could attest, this conversation no more than grazes the surface of his thought; but it was, to my mind, a rich and absorbing conversation nevertheless. He is, moreover, almost aggressively sane. https://davidbentleyhart.substac…
Groundbreaking Consciousness Theory By CPU inventor Federico Faggin & Bernardo Kastrup
A new theory of consciousness proposes that qualia — for instance, the scent of a rose — reside in quantum fields. Federico Faggin is one of the greatest luminaries of high technology alive today. A physicist by education, he is the inventor of the microprocessor and the MOS silicon gate technology, both of which underlie the modern world’s entire information technology. With the knowledge and experience of a lifetime in cutting-edge fields, Federico now turns his attention to consciousness and the nature of reality, sharing with us his profound insights on the classical and quantum worlds, artificial intelligence, life and the human mind. In this discussion, he elaborates on an idealist model of reality, produced after years of careful thought and direct experience, according to which nature’s most fundamental level is that of consciousness as a quantum phenomenon, while the classical physical world consists merely of evocative symbols of a deeper reality.
Michael Levin: Consciousness, Cognition, Biology, Emergence
Michael Levin is an American developmental and synthetic biologist at Tufts University, where he is the Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor. Levin is a director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University and Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology. He is also co-director of the Institute for Computationally Designed Organisms with Josh Bongard.
Padmasambhava – SELF-LIBERATION THROUGH SEEING WITH NAKED AWARENESS – Dzogchen (Audiobook)
A text belonging to the same cycle as The Tibetan Book of the Dead, this instruction on the method of self-liberation presents the essence of Dzogchen, The Great Perfection, regarded in Tibet as the highest and most esoteric teaching of the Buddha. Teaching the attainment of Buddhahood in a single lifetime, this text was written and concealed by Guru Padmasambhava in the eighth century and rediscovered six centuries later by Karma Lingpa. Translated by John Reynolds.
The root text can be found here: http://www.buddhism.org/Sutras/2/Awar…
BEING HERE – A beginner’s guide to nonduality (FULL DOCUMENTARY)
Films about nothing and everything.
Doctor DISCOVERS How to ACCESS Science-Backed Psychic Abilities | Dean Radin Ph.D
Dean Radin is Chief Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Science (IONS), Associated Distinguished Professor of Integral and Transpersonal Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), Honorary Distinguished Professor at the Swami Vivekananda University in Bangalore, India, and chairman of the board for the neurogenetics biotech company, Cognigenics Inc.
His early career track as a concert violinist shifted into science after earning a BSEE degree in electrical engineering (magna cum laude, with honors in physics) from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and then an MS in electrical engineering and PhD in psychology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. For a decade he worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories and later at GTE Laboratories.
For nearly four decades, his research has focused on the nature and capacities of consciousness. Before joining the research staff at IONS in 2001, he held appointments at Princeton University, the University of Edinburgh, and SRI International, where he worked on a classified program investigating psychic espionage for the US government (now commonly known by one of the codewords: Star Gate).
Radin is the author or co-author of over 300 scientific, technical, and popular articles, four dozen book chapters, two technical books, and four popular books, including the Scientific and Medical Network’s 1997 book award, The Conscious Universe (HarperOne, 1997), Entangled Minds (Simon & Schuster, 2006), the 2014 Silver Nautilus Book Award, Supernormal (Random House, 2013), and Real Magic (Penguin Random House, 2018).
Entangled Minds, Supernormal and Real Magic are available as paperback, e-books, and audiobooks. These books have been translated so far into 15 foreign languages. His 130+ articles can be found in peer-reviewed journals ranging from Foundations of Physics and Physics Essays to Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Psychological Bulletin, Brain and Cognition, and Psychology of Consciousness.
He serves as a referee for 25 journals, including PLOS One, Frontiers in Bioscience, Integrative Cancer Therapies, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Physics Essays, and Psychology of Consciousness. He was featured in a New York Times Magazine article, and he has appeared on dozens of television programs around the world.
His 650+ interviews and talks have included presentations at Harvard (medical), Stanford (statistics), Princeton (psychology), Columbia (education), Cambridge (physics), Edinburgh (psychology), The Sorbonne (parapsychology), University of Padova (physics), University of British Columbia (parapsychology), and University of Allahabad (cognitive neuroscience,).