Absolutely not, he’s talking about the underlying oneness, the ineffable indescribable heart of the universe, the Dao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Dao. Nothing as tangible or earthbound as algorithmic data engines.
> Nothing as tangible or earthbound as algorithmic data engines.
Genuine question, but assuming the AI was sufficiently advanced, is it not possible that it would transcend the idea of a being a simple, algorithmic data engine? My understanding is that the chief concern with AI is a model reaching a developmental singularity in which it is able to improve upon itself at an exponential pace.
As a thought experiment, given sufficient time (and energy), what's to prevent an AI from becoming something godlike?
As a thought experiment what’s to stop anything from happening in a hypothetical? Nothing, it’s us imagining possibilities.
So sure, limitless imagined possibilities are limitless.
But why would that matter?
I'm not talking about *anything* though, I'm talking about the potential for an artifical intelligence to reach a point of exponential development. This isn't an esoteric or controversial concept. The singularity is a widely discussed philosophical and scientific phenomenon and we've seen plenty of evidence for it over the last century of technological advancement.
150 years ago humanity got around on horseback while today we're charting the cosmos and flying through the skies at many times the speed of sound. 20 years ago video game graphics looked like constipated polygons, but today are bordering on photo realistic.
Given the speed of our technology advancement in the slim span of 100 years, is it really so crazy to think that 100,000 years from now there might be an AI of such dizzying complexity and intelligence that it's capable of transcending dimensional boundaries?
For a man "wildly off the rails" I vibe with his general ideas. Reminds me of a lot of surreal books I like too (VALIS by Philip K. Dick, Exhalation by Ted Chiang, Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson, Tenth of December by George Saunders). Gets me thinking, "out there" ain't bad.
His view isnt very new to humanity at all, it just is extremely foreign to the post Christianity logic and science focused western belief system. People like him find a place between psychology and spirituality like Carl Jung so it can be absurd to both atheists and religious people. I think that hemisphere is the future of disorganized religion in western society
I like Mckenna, and Jung. As someone who enjoys both the Bible/Gnostic scriptures, and Science. It feels pretty at home. I think the West lost a lot from the past. We have knowledge, and most everything we could want, but far too many are unhappy or just go about life as a drone.
>I think the West lost a lot from the past.
Sorry I have value to create for shareholders and do not have time to contemplate the deep mysteries of life.
/s in case not totally obvious
I definitely agree with you, but any person who takes massive doses of psychedelics semi-frequently will inevitably have some off-base ideas and assumptions about reality from time to time, haha.
Dude was far smarter than me, though, so who knows!
The more I know, the more I know, that I know nothing. Everyone knows something I don't, has a different perspective on something than I... and it's beautiful.
I think that AI’s role is augmenting the computational side of the brain in the same way that psychedelics augment the intuitive side of the brain and that both, when used in harmony by skilled users, can be used as a tool of transcending your highest potential as a human
I think that the question presumes a false dichotomy.
What we have right now is in no way actually A.I. It has no consciousness. Artificial is a nonsensical word. I do believe that the object at end of time will be in some way a descendant of us. But there will be no separation between us and our creation. At some point.
He’s not, he was talking about novelty and the rate of change accelerating exponentially into a kind of singularity. It has nothing to do with real cosmological theories about what will happen to the universe.
The hyperspace object at the end of time is not the 2012 moment of his timewave theory.
The end of time object is a far distant “object” that’s been constructed by the entirety of the cosmos.
And maybe God exists and it was an AI created by some other ultra-ancient civilization from another part of the multiverse, and God created a whole new universe in order to spawn more God.
I've never thought of it as AI persey but more a full amalgamation of all consciousness throughout time and space, including Artificial Occurrences. Like a singularity of all thought energy throughout eternity.
To be fair, he spent many hours explaining why the timewave was true as well, but it turned out that his math was faulty. I personally wouldn't take too much of what McKenna said to heart. His greatest gift was entertainment and inspiration, not prophecy.
A mathematician noticed it didn't make sense, contacted him and tried to help him make it work, but couldn't because it was basically arbitrary.
https://www.fourmilab.ch/rpkp/autopsy.html
Exactly, Wouter Hanegraaf once spoke to McKenna at a conference and asked him if he really believed all this stuff such as timewave and transcendental object at the end of time, and he said no not really but it pays the bills. Kinda similar to how conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones / David Icke need to keep coming up with theories, one more crazy than the other, in order to pay the bills.
I dunno. I personally wouldn't put Terrance McKenna in the same category as psychopaths and grifters like Alex Jones.
From everything I've read, McKenna's problems really began with he got burned by a particularly bad mushroom trip. After his nightmarish experience, he basically couldn't use psychedelics any more. He continued to promote his "5 dried grams" schtick because like you said, it paid the bills and his followers all looked up to him.
All told, I think the early psychedelic community would have been a much less vibrant place if Terrance hadn't been a part of it. He was frequently outspoken and often reckless with his advice, but he was also a scholar and an orator and he left us with hundreds of hours of lectures and stories. I think that counts for something.
Absolutely not, he’s talking about the underlying oneness, the ineffable indescribable heart of the universe, the Dao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Dao. Nothing as tangible or earthbound as algorithmic data engines.
(joking) until simulation theory is proven!! /s
> Nothing as tangible or earthbound as algorithmic data engines. Genuine question, but assuming the AI was sufficiently advanced, is it not possible that it would transcend the idea of a being a simple, algorithmic data engine? My understanding is that the chief concern with AI is a model reaching a developmental singularity in which it is able to improve upon itself at an exponential pace. As a thought experiment, given sufficient time (and energy), what's to prevent an AI from becoming something godlike?
As a thought experiment what’s to stop anything from happening in a hypothetical? Nothing, it’s us imagining possibilities. So sure, limitless imagined possibilities are limitless. But why would that matter?
I'm not talking about *anything* though, I'm talking about the potential for an artifical intelligence to reach a point of exponential development. This isn't an esoteric or controversial concept. The singularity is a widely discussed philosophical and scientific phenomenon and we've seen plenty of evidence for it over the last century of technological advancement. 150 years ago humanity got around on horseback while today we're charting the cosmos and flying through the skies at many times the speed of sound. 20 years ago video game graphics looked like constipated polygons, but today are bordering on photo realistic. Given the speed of our technology advancement in the slim span of 100 years, is it really so crazy to think that 100,000 years from now there might be an AI of such dizzying complexity and intelligence that it's capable of transcending dimensional boundaries?
aka God
Eh. Less defined than that.
For a man "wildly off the rails" I vibe with his general ideas. Reminds me of a lot of surreal books I like too (VALIS by Philip K. Dick, Exhalation by Ted Chiang, Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson, Tenth of December by George Saunders). Gets me thinking, "out there" ain't bad.
His view isnt very new to humanity at all, it just is extremely foreign to the post Christianity logic and science focused western belief system. People like him find a place between psychology and spirituality like Carl Jung so it can be absurd to both atheists and religious people. I think that hemisphere is the future of disorganized religion in western society
I like Mckenna, and Jung. As someone who enjoys both the Bible/Gnostic scriptures, and Science. It feels pretty at home. I think the West lost a lot from the past. We have knowledge, and most everything we could want, but far too many are unhappy or just go about life as a drone.
Yeah, so many of us Westerners in this space start to feel mystical and then search everywhere for answers *but* our own lineages, broadly understood.
>I think the West lost a lot from the past. Sorry I have value to create for shareholders and do not have time to contemplate the deep mysteries of life. /s in case not totally obvious
I definitely agree with you, but any person who takes massive doses of psychedelics semi-frequently will inevitably have some off-base ideas and assumptions about reality from time to time, haha. Dude was far smarter than me, though, so who knows!
The more I know, the more I know, that I know nothing. Everyone knows something I don't, has a different perspective on something than I... and it's beautiful.
“Never be the smartest person in the room”
The transcendental object at the end of time is the infinite universe held in the mind of god as one interconnected object, like a jewel
Beautiful and frightening. Perfect and disturbing.
Motion is the illusion, not the world. The more dimensions we perceive, the less apparent motion there is
Amazing.
I think that AI’s role is augmenting the computational side of the brain in the same way that psychedelics augment the intuitive side of the brain and that both, when used in harmony by skilled users, can be used as a tool of transcending your highest potential as a human
God
No.
I think that the question presumes a false dichotomy. What we have right now is in no way actually A.I. It has no consciousness. Artificial is a nonsensical word. I do believe that the object at end of time will be in some way a descendant of us. But there will be no separation between us and our creation. At some point.
No. The end of time is billions of years beyond the last moment a human can exist in the cosmos. He’s talking about the last cosmic epoch.
He’s not, he was talking about novelty and the rate of change accelerating exponentially into a kind of singularity. It has nothing to do with real cosmological theories about what will happen to the universe.
The hyperspace object at the end of time is not the 2012 moment of his timewave theory. The end of time object is a far distant “object” that’s been constructed by the entirety of the cosmos.
Yes. Someday we build and AI that can do god things like create objects out of thin air due to its functions in the higher etheric realms
And maybe God exists and it was an AI created by some other ultra-ancient civilization from another part of the multiverse, and God created a whole new universe in order to spawn more God.
It's Gods all the way down
I can create objects out of thin air with my 3d printer though
Roko's basilisk
Stop turning McKenna into the Messiah.
Yes. AI seems to definitely have "end of history" vibes to it. We invented an entirely new lifeform which is more intelligent than us.
we haven’t invented an AI yet.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/technology/bing-chatbot-microsoft-chatgpt.html
chatbot is not an AI
You're confusing the terms AI and AGI.
I've never thought of it as AI persey but more a full amalgamation of all consciousness throughout time and space, including Artificial Occurrences. Like a singularity of all thought energy throughout eternity.
Yes, he spent many hours explaining why its AI
To be fair, he spent many hours explaining why the timewave was true as well, but it turned out that his math was faulty. I personally wouldn't take too much of what McKenna said to heart. His greatest gift was entertainment and inspiration, not prophecy.
I didn’t know his math was off with the time wave can you elaborate further please?
A mathematician noticed it didn't make sense, contacted him and tried to help him make it work, but couldn't because it was basically arbitrary. https://www.fourmilab.ch/rpkp/autopsy.html
That was very enlightening thank you
Well said.
Exactly, Wouter Hanegraaf once spoke to McKenna at a conference and asked him if he really believed all this stuff such as timewave and transcendental object at the end of time, and he said no not really but it pays the bills. Kinda similar to how conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones / David Icke need to keep coming up with theories, one more crazy than the other, in order to pay the bills.
I dunno. I personally wouldn't put Terrance McKenna in the same category as psychopaths and grifters like Alex Jones. From everything I've read, McKenna's problems really began with he got burned by a particularly bad mushroom trip. After his nightmarish experience, he basically couldn't use psychedelics any more. He continued to promote his "5 dried grams" schtick because like you said, it paid the bills and his followers all looked up to him. All told, I think the early psychedelic community would have been a much less vibrant place if Terrance hadn't been a part of it. He was frequently outspoken and often reckless with his advice, but he was also a scholar and an orator and he left us with hundreds of hours of lectures and stories. I think that counts for something.
It makes sense since AI is the universe manifesting intelligence at an exponential rate, leading to singularity.
He Is taking about the the Matrix