Space Time Mind

Pete Mandik is joined by philosopher and AI researcher Alex Kiefer (Monash University) to discuss some newsworthy Artificial Intelligence projects, especially Language Models such as LaMDA, DALL-E, and GPT-3. What are the spiciest possible takes on these systems, and is any take too spicy for Alex or Pete? How much of so-called human intelligence and consciousness is just a language game disconnected from reality? What’s a CRUNGUS, and how many are among us? Whose art will you consume when non-humans get better at making it than humans? And whose podcasts?

Topics covered include the brain’s role in conscious experience, competing definitions of “consciousness”, hypnosis, near-death experiences, psychedelic drugs, cognitive behavioral therapy, the “self” and much much more.

Behold!: The first new episode of SpaceTimeMind after a seven-year hiatus. Buddhist philosophy meets neuroscience when host Pete Mandik talks with Bryce Huebner (Georgetown U.) about his NeuroYogacara project. We talk about Yogacara and other nearby schools of Buddhist philosophy as we delve into meditation, psychedelic drugs, biopsychist approaches to consciousness, disgusting things, 4E cognition, and philosophy as life craft.

ATTENTION! Richard Brown and Pete Mandik shine their spotlights on the philosophy of mind of attention and awareness. Many philosophers of mind endorse the Transitivity Principle, the view that if you have a conscious state, you must be aware of that state. But what is the best account of the relevant notion of awareness? Is attending a kind of awareness? Further, is it a kind of awareness that is distinct from the awareness one has in virtue of perceiving, thinking about, or sensing something? Does it suffice for being aware of something that information about it is globally accessible to an embedding system? Would global availability suffice for a higher-order awareness of one’s own mental states, or would it only suffice for a first-order awareness of environmental or bodily items? Along the way we also get into some methodology and metaphilosophy, especially as regards the question of to what degree philosophical and scientific theorizing should be constrained by folk theory.

Richard Brown and Pete Mandik debate the following proposal: The worst thing you can imagine happening to you is an event that has a non-zero probability of occurring at any given moment, and the longer you stay alive, the greater the chances become of that thing happening at some point in your lifetime. Would literally infinitely-lived immortals necessarily run into their own worst imaginable hell? Would even finite, but long-lived transhuman lifespans increase their chances of suffering by increasing their time alive? Would any amount of possible pleasure make it worth risking the worst imaginable suffering? Along the way we talk a little physics and a little Buddhism. Are interpretations of quantum mechanics the place where explanations go to bottom out? What are the physical prospects of the universe itself not dying? If you can achieve, in a single moment, a conscious experience of eternity, what’s the point of having more than one such experience?

Spoilers galore as philosophers Richard Brown and Pete Mandik wade up to their necks in spoilers to discuss recent cinematic depictions of (spoiler) artificial intelligence and (another spoiler) mind-uploading, especially in the 2015 films Ex Machina and Advantageous. DID WE MENTION THERE WILL BE SPOILERS? The first half of the episode largely focuses on Ex Machina and we shift to Advantageous for the second half. Also: Spoilers.

Cognitive philosophers Richard Brown and Pete Mandik examine recent claims by Google researchers to have implemented dreams, imagery, and hallucinations in artificial neural networks. The images created by these artificial systems are kind of cool, but can anything at all be learned from such projects about how the mind or brain actually functions? Richard and Pete move from there to debate connectionism, AI, and rationalist vs. empiricist methodologies in the philosophy of cognitive science. Special prize for the first listener to correctly identify all three of the neuroscientists that Pete misidentifies!

Pete Mandik talks to philosopher Eric Steinhart (William Paterson University) about his book, Your Digital Afterlives: Computational Theories of Life after Death. They dig deep into the computational and value-theoretic foundations of all existence. Other topics tackled include atheistic neopaganism, the cognitive science of hyper-arousal trances, the prudential self-concern of mind-uploads, entheogenic drugs, and Roko’s basilisk. Get comfy with a hot bowl of monads and enjoy the show while an infinite army of zombie-Leibnizes tear up the town.

Is it a law of nature that if your neurons are gradually replaced with silicon chips, your qualia won’t thereby gradually fade? Can the armchair methodology of analytic metaphysics deliver knowledge of natural laws? Or can the boundaries of the nomologically possible be discerned only within the natural sciences? And who cares? Richard Brown and Pete Mandik, that’s who!

After two physics episodes in a row Richard Brown and Pete "Macho Bluff" Mandik dial the way-back machine to the Golden Era of Dinosaur Travel and kick out some old-school philosophy of mind jams. In part 1 ("Time Shuffling") they sort some stuff out about temporal counterpart theory and so-called “real identity.” In part 2 (“Finger Sausages”) they tackle the transparency of conscious experience and phenomenal acquaintance. In part 3 (“A Brain Made out of Paper”) they discuss the extended mind hypothesis and it’s connection to panpsychism and meditation (with a mild de-rail on journal refereeing best/worst practices).

Philosophers of mind and science Richard Brown and Pete Mandik burn the book of the world while orbiting a decaying black hole with Maxwell’s demon, a reversible cellular automaton, and can of whoop-ass worms. Will they survive? Will one of them successfully execute the argumentative equivalent of the Five-Point-Palm Exploding-Heart-Technique against the other? And how would you even know?

Philosophers Richard Brown and Pete Mandik continue their discussion from the SpaceTimeMind podcast’s Episode 11 on Scientism. Here they focus on naturalistic versions of truth and reality. Can evolution by natural selection ground our ability to represent truths that transcend usefulness? If it can’t, what can?

Philosopher kings Richard Brown and Pete Mandik are once again joined on the SpaceTimeMind podcast by science fiction author and essayist Roger Williams. In the first part of the episode we discuss the technological singularity as well as Williams' own singularity tale, The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. The themes of transformation continue on through to the last part of the episode, where we discuss Roger's essay, "Hannibal Lecter as Transhumanist Icon." So, slap some sim-stim 'trodes on your forehead, poor yourself a nice chianti, and kiss your precious meatspace goodbye, oh you pretty pre-post-humans. We're gonna find out what's at the bottom of the bag of infinite free ponies.