August 18, 2024 • 32 mins
The irony of the application of the word “hallucination” to LLMs making mistakes is that they are completely incapable of having psychedelic experiences. Why does that matter?
In this mind-bending exploration, we dive into the fascinating intersection of artificial intelligence and expanded states of consciousness. We examine how imagination, creativity, and innovation seem to arise more frequently in altered or "holotropic" states of consciousness - such as through meditation, breathwork, dreams, dancing, psychedelics, or other experiences.
I argue that current approaches to AI may never be truly inventive or creative, as they lack the ability to model the abductive reasoning and intuitive leaps that often occur in these holotropic states. To support this thesis, we explore historical examples of scientific and philosophical breakthroughs that emerged from dreams, visions, and other non-ordinary states of consciousness.
In short, I am challenging the narrative that AI will soon surpass human intelligence, suggesting there may be profound mysteries of the human mind that AI cannot replicate, and offering a more sober and realistic view of the limitations facing AI research in attempting to model the wonders of human cognition and consciousness.
This video is part of a series about the myths, hype, and ideologies surrounding AI.
YouTube version
Support Chad
Stan Grof's collected works
My previous video on the impediments to AGI
Paper using LLMs to model abductive reasoning
Willis Harman's Higher Creativity
Effects of conscious connected breathing on cortical brain activity, mood and state of consciousness in healthy adults
Want to talk about how Chad can assist you with your own transformation?
Book a free consultation!
Join Chad's newsletter to learn about all new offerings, courses, trainings, and retreats.
Finally, you can support the podcast here.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, everyone. In this episode,I dive deep into the fascinating
intersection of artificialintelligence and expanded states
of consciousness. I argue thatcurrent approaches to AI may
never be truly inventive orcreative because they lack the
ability to model the abductivereasoning and intuitive leaps
that often arise in the altered,or Holotropic states of
(00:23):
consciousness, studied anddocumented extensively by Stan
Grof. It's a fun explorationwhere I examine historical
examples of scientific andphilosophical breakthroughs that
emerged from dreams, visions andother Holotropic states of
consciousness. In short, Iuncover the profound Mysteries
of the Human mind that mayforever elude the grasp of
(00:44):
artificial intelligence. So joinme on this psychedelic
exploration of the limits of AIand the wonders of human
consciousness.
How does imagination work, andwhy do innovative or inspired
ideas seem to arise morefrequently when we're not
(01:06):
thinking and especially inaltered states of consciousness?
Today, we're diving deep intothe fascinating intersection of
artificial intelligence andexpanded states of
consciousness. This psychedelicjourney may reveal the hidden
limits of AI's potential and theprofound mysteries of the human
(01:29):
mind. Can AI ever truly be asinventive and creative as the
human mind? Or are theredimensions of invention and
imagination it can never reach.
Well, buckle up for this mindbending exploration where AI
meets the Technicolor world ofHolotropic states of
consciousness. Let's enter adifferent dimension and see what
(01:53):
we find. Just because the elvesare mechanical doesn't mean
they're artificial let's seewhat psychedelic or expanded
states of consciousness can tellus about imagination and
intelligence, especiallyartificial intelligence. Chad,
(02:30):
welcome to cosmic intelligence,a Podcast where we explore the
intersection of philosophy,cosmology, consciousness and
emerging technologies likeartificial intelligence. If
you're new here, I'm Chad, aphilosopher, technologist,
product manager, yoga teacherand attorney based in Los
Angeles.
(02:59):
Let's see what psychedelic orexpanded states of consciousness
can tell us about imagination,intelligence, and especially
artificial intelligence and itslimits. The creators of
artificial intelligence haveconvinced the media and the
general populace that AI caneasily replace not just left
brain jobs like accountants orradiologists, but creative work
(03:23):
too, and if you believe thehype, within a few years,
Hollywood films will be entirelyAI generated. Of course, one
could argue that that might bean improvement over the glut of
big budget superhero actionfilms, but I digress. Not only
that, but Silicon Valley ispromising us the arrival of
super intelligence, or even thesingularity any day. Now, the
(03:46):
dominant narrative fromtechnology leaders and
transhumanists like Elon Musk,Ray, Kurzweil and Nick Bostrom
is that super intelligence isimminent and that this will
replace humans and render themobsolete. But as we will see,
these are overblown andmisinformed promises, especially
when we consider the rarelydiscussed forms of reasoning,
(04:08):
the phenomena of inspiration andRevelation And the model of the
psyche or consciousnesspresented by Stanislav Grof.
Part of what I'm doing withthese videos is attempting to
counteract that narrative. Thereis so much more to being human
than cognitive intelligence, andeven cognitive intelligence is
(04:28):
hard, as I explained in my lastvideo. In this video, I'm going
to argue that in light of theimplications of transpersonal
and deaf psychology, andespecially the work of Stan
Groff, current approaches to AImay never be truly inventive,
creative or innovative, whetherartistically or scientifically.
(04:49):
As we proceed, I want to connecttwo ideas, Holotropic states of
consciousness and abductiveinfluence, in order to make an
important point about thelimitations of current.
Approaches to artificialintelligence, which has knock on
implications for the future ofhumanity and for our broader
worldview in the 21st century.
First, we'll start with a quickreview of the types of reasoning
(05:12):
and how current AI systems work,and then jump into the topic of
Holotropic states ofconsciousness, if you want a
deeper dive into the types ofreasoning and how current AI
systems work, you can check outmy last video. We explored three
types of reasoning in my lastvideo, deduction, induction and
abduction. Deduction is whereyou apply general principles to
(05:34):
specific situations. Early AIsystems were based on deduction,
essentially the so called expertsystems, or good old fashioned
AI go phi. But deduction isbrittle and not sufficient for
true intelligence, as we saw inthe last video. Induction is
where you derive generalprinciples from observing
(05:56):
individual instances. So it'skind of the flip side of
deduction. In the case ofmachines, it's great for
learning from training data. Forexample, current systems like
chatgpt studied essentially allthe text on the internet in
order to learn how toautocomplete sentences. But
induction is also brittle and onits own, it has no knowledge or
(06:16):
understanding of causation, aswe discussed also inductive
machine learning systems canidentify statistical
irregularity but never arrive athigher level abstract concepts.
So then there's abductiveinference. This is the less
widely discussed form ofinference that involves forming
hypotheses based on observation,experience, deduction and common
(06:41):
sense, making educated guesses,essentially. So abduction moves
from specific observations to ahypothesis explaining the event,
often in one giant intuitiveleap. For example, surmising
that it rained if the ground iswet outside, is a form of
abductive reasoning. But it getsmore interesting with bigger
(07:02):
leaps of abduction, or biggerleaps of inspiration. For
example, abduction describes thephenomenon where a mathematician
spends years puzzling over amathematical conundrum and then
solves it after having a dreamabout it, or something like
that. So abduction, nonlinearimaginative problem solving is a
(07:24):
mysterious cognitive processwhere, after spending some time
with a problem, hypotheses andsolutions spontaneously emerge,
often fully formed. We couldcall it inspiration or
intuition. It is most certainlya creative process, and it might
even point to the very nature ofconsciousness. As we will see,
(07:45):
abduction is also necessary andessential for detective work.
Sherlock Holmes stories are fullof the titular character
applying abductive reasoning andforming hypotheses based on a
few clues, although there isoften a linear logic to his
reasoning, in hindsight, thesolution typically appears fully
formed in what computerscientists would call a non
(08:07):
computable or non algorithmicway. Another way to characterize
abduction is to say that theprocessing or the reasoning
taking place is happeningoutside of conscious awareness.
I mean, sure, a cognitivescientist or a materialist
philosopher might argue thatthere are still neurons firing
somewhere in sherlock's brainand that he was simply not aware
(08:27):
of it. But as we will see, itseems like something much deeper
is taking place, becauseabduction is not a conscious
process comprised of logicalsteps. Nobody knows how to model
or reproduce abductive reasoningin a machine, although some
tentative steps have been takento simulate it using large
language models, acounterintuitive approach of
using induction to arrive atabduction artificial
(08:48):
intelligence is an impressiveculmination of centuries of
application of the scientificmethod and of technoscience. We
have harnessed electricity anddesign hardware circuits that
embody logic and can stimulate arational sort of intelligence.
But the irony is that much ofscience was the result not of
logic or rationality alone, butof abductive reasoning and
(09:12):
Holotropic states. Or asStanislav Groff said, what has
not been sufficientlyacknowledged by historians is
how often the greatestscientific insights,
discoveries, breakthroughs andinventions appear to their
creators in the form of visions,dreams, fantasies, trance
states, lightning, flashes ofepiphanies and other types of
(09:34):
Holotropic states ofconsciousness. So these so
called Holotropic states ofconsciousness might offer some
insights and help us tounderstand what exactly is
happening with abductiveinference, although not in a way
likely to advance the currentstate of AI, unfortunately, but
at least it provides a moresober and realistic view of the
(09:57):
challenge that. AI researchfaces and attempting to model
the mysterious wonder of thehuman mind. So what are these
Holotropic states? Stan Grof,the pioneering transpersonal
psychologist and psychedelictherapist, defines Holotropic
states as a large and importantsubgroup of non ordinary states
of consciousness that havetherapeutic, transformative,
(10:19):
heuristic and evolutionarypotential. The word Holotropic
comes from the Greek words holosand trepan and means moving
towards wholeness, essentially.
And you know, the idea was thatGroff wanted a term that would
convey the positive aspects ofthese states to replace terms
like altar, that tend to elevateas superior ordinary or mundane
(10:41):
states of consciousness.
Holotropic States stand incontrast to HighLow, Tropic
states, which are those that weexperience in our everyday
waking lives via the senses,which are coming in contact with
the external world of matter. Soit's like our mundane state of
consciousness is hylotropic.
Holotropic states are, amongother things, expanded states of
consciousness, where theexperiencer has access to
(11:04):
visions, dreams, fantasies,trance states, lightning, Flash,
epiphanies and other expandedstates. People in such states
often experience a sense ofunity with the universe and a
transcendence of the boundariesof the ego, perhaps coupled with
a sense of timelessness, andeven spacelessness For those who
aren't familiar, Groff created aHolotropic breathwork and named
(11:25):
it that because it so reliablyinduces Holotropic states of
consciousness. Much of groff'scorpus of work has been devoted
to exploring the nature of andimplications for these
Holotropic states. Holotropicstates can arise as the result
of meditation, yoga, theingestion of psychoactive
substances and through the useof breath and other technologies
(11:47):
of the sacred dancing andspontaneously, sometimes
including as part of what Groffcalls spiritual emergencies or
spiritual crises, even Coffeecan initiate such a state as
mathematician Henri Poincarerecounted saying that numerous
cups of coffee would put him inan alert, half dozing state in
(12:08):
which ideas rose up andcollided, as I cited in my last
video in One famous example,Frederick Auguste coude von
stratnett Experienced Holotropicstates that allowed him to
realize scientific breakthroughsin the midst of a reverie on a
streetcar, and most famously, inhis dreams. After spending
considerable time with theproblem in his waking life, I
(12:32):
turnedmy chair to the fire and dozed
again. The atoms were gamblingbefore my eyes. This time, the
smaller groups kept modestly inthe background, my mental eye,
rendered more acute by repeatedvisions of this kind, could now
distinguish larger structures ofmanifold conformation, long
rows, sometimes more closelyfitted together, all twining and
twisting in snake like motion.
(12:54):
But look what was that one ofthe snakes had seized hold of
its own tail, and the form worldmockingly before my eyes, as if
by the flash of lightning Iawoke.
Upon waking, he became convincedthat benzene has a ring
structure, and indeed it does.
See. You know, as I'm describingthese Holotropic states, you may
(13:14):
notice that these states soundsimilar to the experience of
abductive reasoning, at least intheir result, if not their lived
experience. It is my contentionthat Holotropic states create
the conditions for abductivereasoning, or help us understand
the nature of abductivereasoning. Putting it another
way, my thesis here is that theInquiry into the Nature of
(13:37):
abductive reasoning naturallyleads to an exploration of
Holotropic states ofconsciousness. Engaging in
abductive reasoning may notalways require an exaggerated
Holotropic state, but much ofthe time they are one in the
same as we will see, we can bestunderstand this connection by
reviewing the many examples ofcreative inspiration or
(13:59):
breakthrough experiences arisingfrom Holotropic states
throughout history, as WillisHarmon demonstrates in his book
higher creativity, the veryfoundations of science were
built on these breakthroughexperiences. So let's examine
some examples of thesebreakthrough experiences and
marvel at the mystery of thisabductive reasoning that's
(14:22):
happening in these Holotropicstates. Many of the forefathers
of science arrived at theirtheories and scientific
discoveries using abduction,often in Holotropic states as
well. Isaac Newton ponderedproblems and questions in his
mind for days and weeks beforethe solutions would arrive
wholly formed, intuitively. Infact, his intuition was as
(14:42):
extraordinary as hismathematical skills. As Stan
Groff points out, Newton'sexperiments were not a means of
discovery, but of verifying whathe knew already through his
abductive reasoning. In Newton'scase, these deep states of.
Intuition appeared to have beenspontaneous. In fact, the
foundation for much of modernphilosophy and science arose out
(15:04):
of these dream states, includingRene Descartes seminal work,
discourse on method, which wasinspired by three dreams and a
dream within a dream. Similarly,many of Albert Einstein's
insights arrived in the form ofimages and even physical
feelings, which he translatedinto mathematics with the
assistance of a team ofspecialists. Einstein wrote in
(15:26):
his autobiographical notes, Ihave no doubt that our thinking
goes on for the most partwithout the use of symbols, and
furthermore, largelyunconsciously. The Indian
mathematician savant srinivasiRamanujan received his
mathematical insights in flashesand visions resulting from
visits by the Hindu goddessnamagiri, who is an incarnation
(15:48):
of the Goddess Lakshmi.
Sometimes it would take himmonths to verify through
mathematical proofs what hadarrived instantaneously in his
consciousness. As an aside.
Contrast these examples ofspontaneous scientific and
philosophical insight with whatI refer to as this kind of
insect, like intelligence ofmachines, where they're
(16:09):
performing billions ofinstructions or calculations per
second, but they have nocapacity for epiphany. It's
like, it's like a millipede withits little legs, like, that's
kind of the intelligence thatwe're talking about with
machines so faster, bigger,better, stronger, is not the
road to human intelligence, Ithink. Anyways, back to our
historical examples. Carl Jungis another great example among
(16:31):
his many accomplishments, he wasinstrumental in creating the
entirely new field of depthpsychology and establishing the
existence of an archetypicallyconstituted collective
unconscious. Jung was able to doall of this because of his
access to Holotropic statesarising during his practice of
what he called activeimagination. Active imagination
is a process or a practice thatJung developed for surfacing
(16:55):
unconscious content in a waythat can be explored and
integrated, it involves arelaxation of the linear or
rational mind and then some formof creative expression. Once the
free expression is complete, youre engage your rational mind and
interpret the imagery or othercreative output to receive
messages from your unconscious.
(17:18):
Jung practiced this techniquefor many years, for decades, and
recorded his imagery andinsights in his now infamous Red
Book. These profoundly richinsights would not have been
possible through reason alone,whether inductive or deductive.
It required those mysteriouslightning flashes of insight
arising from the kinds ofHolotropic states that young
(17:39):
seems to have had ready accessto as well as dialogs with his
soul, his numinous sage Philemonand the hordes of the dead, as
he documented in the Red Book,not only have many of the
greatest developments inphilosophy and science been the
result of Holotropic states, butmost of the world's great
religions and spiritualtraditions were also inspired
(18:00):
through such states. Forexample, within the yoga
vedantic tradition, the Vedasand the Upanishads are
considered Shruti within thetradition, meaning divinely
revealed rather thanintellectually conceived. These
Rishis or seers who authoredthese sacred texts essentially
channeled them while in a stateof yoga, a transcendental state
(18:23):
of unity that certainlyqualifies as a Holotropic state.
Likewise, the Buddha realizedthe secret to reducing suffering
while sitting in a deepmeditation under the Bodhi tree.
His Four Noble Truths and theEightfold Path of Buddhism arose
from this Holotropic state ofconsciousness, he did not puzzle
(18:44):
it out. He realized it in a deepstate of meditation, and then he
later refined it through theapplication of his discernment.
You could even say his insightsarose out of silence. Roughly a
millennium later, Muhammadexperienced powerful visionary
states in which ArchangelGabriel escorted him through the
(19:05):
seven Muslim heavens, Paradiseand Hell, an undeniably
Holotropic journey in whichMuhammad entered a state of
ecstasy, approachingannihilation, while receiving a
direct communication from Allah.
These visions and mysticalstates continued for 25 years
and inspired large parts of theQuran. And of course, there are
(19:25):
the Old Testament, prophets likeMoses and the burning bush,
Ezekiel and the flaming chariot,not to mention Jesus's visions
in the desert and his disciplesvisions of Him after His
crucifixion. More recently, manyvisionary artists produce works
that arise in Holotropic orexpanded states of
consciousness. William Blake'svisionary imagination was
(19:46):
central to his creative process.
His visions of angels, prophets,divine beings, and even Isaac
Newton himself arose from hismovement through what he
described as four fundamentalstates of consciousness. From
kind of a rational state to anemotional state to one of pure
imagination. What exactly aredaydreamers, Psychonauts,
(20:09):
inventors, mystics and artistsaccessing when they enter
Holotropic states in support ofwhat we call abductive
inference? Can it be reduced tothe mere firing of neurons in
the brain, or is it the Mundusmarginalis, the imaginal realm
of the Sufis, or Carl Jung'scollective unconscious? It
(20:31):
certainly seems to be somethingbeyond the mechanics of the
firing of synapses in the brain,or at least our current model of
that. Philosophers like HenriBergson and David Chalmers have
suggested that consciousnessmust lie outside the brain, that
the brain is more like a radioreceiver for consciousness than
the seat of consciousness.
(20:51):
In any case, whether therelationship between the brain
and consciousness is one ofcausation or correlation, we can
draw a connection betweenvarious brain wave states and
these Holotropic states, andconsequently, the kind of
mysterious states that lead tospontaneous problem solving and
creativity that I have beenoutlining. I'm thinking, of
course, of alpha, theta andgamma states in particular. In
(21:12):
fact, in his book highercreativity, Willis Harmon
describes techniques forchanging one's brainwave state
in order to access thesebreakthrough experiences, or
what Groff calls Holotropicstates. And there has been some
research connecting brainwavestates to increased creativity,
imagination and intuition. Therehave also been a few studies
(21:33):
connecting Holotropic breathworkwith changes to brainwave
states, although they do notappear to explore the topic of
Holotropic states forinspiration or imagination,
beyond simple therapeuticchanges to mood and emotional
well being. Anyways, I'll dropsome of those links in the in
the description if you want tocheck those out. Of course, a
materialist could use the samecorrelation to argue that brain
(21:55):
wave frequency does something tothe firing of synapses that
unlocks a deeper network ofbrain structures. If that were
the case, then AI developerscould potentially create AI
systems that similarly switchmodes or something analogous.
But I think this suggestionunderscores the fact that large
language models are simplyattempting to model the neuronal
(22:17):
firing in the brain without anydeeper understanding of all the
complex components, bothconscious and unconscious, that
comprise human cognition. Imean, it's not clear whether a
developer would even start tomodel this sort of mode shift in
terms of current technology.
It's, yeah, it's a total puzzle.
And I want to remind you, as Isaid last time, that technology
(22:38):
is always downstream of theory.
So I'm just pointing out howinadequate our theory is right
now. In terms of intelligence,we have all these unanswered
questions and no easy answersfor humans. There are many
reliable ways to enter aHolotropic state, as we have
seen in the context ofHolotropic states that correlate
with deductive reasoning.
(23:00):
Catalysts for such statesinclude meditation, breathing,
different kinds of breathing,dreaming, fasting, ingesting
psychoactive substances, ofcourse, and something as tame as
drinking coffee, for example,famously Samuel Taylor
coleridges visions of Xanaduarose during an opium induced
reverie and foreshadowing thetrend of microdosing
(23:22):
psychedelics popularized inSilicon Valley a decade ago in
studies done as early as the1960s researchers showed that
psychedelics could enhanceinspiration and problem solving.
Francis Crick, the Nobel Prizewinning scientist who worked
with James Watson to identifythe structure of DNA, admitted
to using small doses of LSD toenhance his thinking. He
(23:46):
allegedly told his friend Kempthat he had a vision of the
double helix DNA molecule duringan LSD experience, which helped
him to unravel its structure.
Similarly, an early CiscoSystems Engineer said that he
often solved difficult technicalproblems while tripping to drum
solos by the Grateful Dead. WhenI'm on LSD and hearing something
that's pure rhythm, it takes meto another world and to another
(24:09):
brain state where I've stoppedthinking and started knowing.
Now I'm not advocating for druguse to enhance creativity, only
pointing out that Holotropicstates induced by psychotropic
drugs can also be fosteredthrough more natural and healthy
means, like meditation, breathwork and other yogic practices
(24:29):
like chanting specific mantras.
For example, I personally havehad some of my most profound
ideas and insights duringmeditation or during a yoga
practice like that. The pointis, regardless of method or
technique, the mere fact of theexistence of Holotropic states
of consciousness points tosomething deep, mysterious and
(24:50):
possibly unique to humans, or atleast unique to life. Of course,
materialists may attempt toexplain away Holotropic states
induced by kind of. Substancessuch as LSD or psilocybin by
saying that they simply changebrain chemistry in a way that
enhances creativity or problemsolving strictly within the
consciousness that is created asan epiphenomenon of the brain.
(25:12):
An AI researcher orneuroscientist might say
something about how psychedelicsare merely causing our chemical
firings to fire in a differentway, and then we can replicate
that algorithmically. Perhapsresearchers would recognize that
psychedelics are increasing thelevel of tryptamine in the brain
and attempt to somehow code thateffect synthetically in a neural
network system. It soundsabsurd, but a lot of cognitive
(25:35):
science is the work of RobinCarhartt Harris, popularized by
Michael Pollan draws aconnection between psychedelics
and something called the defaultmode network in the brain.
However, the counterintuitivefact is that psychedelics seem
to decrease detectable brainactivity, despite producing an
increasingly rich and complexinner phenomenological
(25:56):
experience. Looking at StanGroff larger body of work on the
subject, it is clear that thesesubstances are opening up access
to non material realms thatcannot be explained by the
materialist theory of cognitionand consciousness. If this is
the case, it has inconvenientimplications for AI research and
attempts to model adductivereasoning. Sadly, we cannot
(26:18):
administer psychedelics toartificial intelligence systems,
at least not yet. In allseriousness, it is clear that
psychedelics are unlocking someinherent latent potential within
us, giving us access to statesof imagination and intuition
inaccessible by AI systemstoday. But if AI researchers can
(26:38):
program some kind of mechanismto shift the so called Default
Mode Network in an AI system toachieve a Holotropic state of
sorts, then why not do thattoday? Again, this brings us
back to the fact that nobodyreally knows what is going on in
an inductive reasoning or aHolotropic state of
consciousness. It underscoresthe high degree of hubris that
(26:59):
is prevalent among most AIresearchers and techno optimists
today, when they claim thatsuper intelligent AI systems are
going to arrive any day andleave us in the dust. Listen, I
understand the hubris. I mean,we have been so successful in
conquering nature and extrudinghighly advanced technologies out
of it, all remaining mysteriesof mind and intelligence seem
(27:23):
like a simple matter ofincreased computation, better
algorithms, etc, but as you cansee, this underestimates. I
think human capacities andfaculties by a lot, imagination
is profound. Inspiration issublime. I don't know that it
can be replicated in silicon. Itis clear that there is something
(27:45):
fundamental missing from thecurrent approaches to artificial
intelligence. Beneath all thehype and big promises lies an
enormous gap in ourunderstanding of how human
cognition and consciousnessworks, especially when it comes
to invention, epiphany,innovation and mystical,
transcendental experiences. StanGroff has contributed as much as
(28:09):
anyone to understanding thesedarker recesses of our psyche,
but his work points totranspersonal realms and
ontological realitiesunacknowledged by mainstream
materialist science, includingcomputer scientists and AI
researchers.
If true, intelligence involvessomething more than induction
(28:30):
and deduction as it seems likeit does and follows abductive
inference into this kind of nonmaterial unconscious realm of
imagination, intuition, etc,then AI researchers are nowhere
near achieving trueintelligence, let alone anything
approaching creativity, despiteall their big promises, this
(28:50):
connection between the littlestudied and little understood
abductive form of reasoning andthe various Holotropic states
that appear to underlie it pointus down a dark and mysterious
road where few have tread, fewexcept for Stan Groff and other
transpersonal psychologists andsome Psychonauts. I guess if
(29:11):
Holotropic states offer accessto non material realms beyond
the brain, this raisesmetaphysical questions that
materialist science has notanswered, how and why are we
able to access these states? Inshort, if abductive reasoning
requires the thinker to enterinto some kind of Holotropic
state, whether that's dreams,visions or time in the shower,
(29:32):
AI systems are nowhere nearmodeling human intelligence and
may never be able to, at leastnot with our current rudimentary
technologies of silicon and bigdata. In this video, we have
seen that current approaches toAI will never be truly
inventive, creative orinnovative, because they lack
any kind of model for abductiveinference and cannot enter the
(29:54):
kinds of Holotropic states thatseem to undergird abduction and.
And inspiration and Epiphany.
Not only that, this failure toaccount for abductive reasoning
means that AI systems may neverachieve the much hyped
artificial general intelligenceor super intelligence. Not only
are current AI systems not ableto think ideate, invent or
(30:15):
create like a human, but theyunderscore the limitations of
the predominant materialistworldview and attempting to
create artificial generalintelligence in the first place,
in light of the gaps andmisdirection highlighted in this
video, in our current approachesto AI, humans will likely not be
surpassed by machines when itcomes to creativity, epiphany,
invention, etc, thereby ensuringour human ongoing relevance in
(30:39):
this age of AI, the gaps I havehighlighted above and the
suggestion that there might be aconnection between abductive
reasoning and Holotropic statespoints toward a fertile ground
for new research into humancognition and ways we might more
reliably model that in ComputerSystems. Maybe in the meantime,
humans remain as relevant asever.
(31:19):
In my eyes, do I want to stay ifyou thought you weren't made
that way? Give and take, and Iknow you keep trying. I
think I know what you mean.
Prettygood for a dumb machine. You
(31:41):
gave me that smile. We stoodthere for a while. That was when
you woke me. I didn't know I hadmy heart to stand by feeling
inside.
And I feel inside what it meansto be a human.
(32:22):
Oh,
Hey, everyone. In this episode,I dive deep into the fascinating
intersection of artificialintelligence and expanded states
of consciousness. I argue thatcurrent approaches to AI may
never be truly inventive orcreative because they lack the
ability to model the abductivereasoning and intuitive leaps
that often arise in the altered,or Holotropic states of
(00:23):
consciousness, studied anddocumented extensively by Stan
Grof. It's a fun explorationwhere I examine historical
examples of scientific andphilosophical breakthroughs that
emerged from dreams, visions andother Holotropic states of
consciousness. In short, Iuncover the profound Mysteries
of the Human mind that mayforever elude the grasp of
(00:44):
artificial intelligence. So joinme on this psychedelic
exploration of the limits of AIand the wonders of human
consciousness.
How does imagination work, andwhy do innovative or inspired
ideas seem to arise morefrequently when we're not
(01:06):
thinking and especially inaltered states of consciousness?
Today, we're diving deep intothe fascinating intersection of
artificial intelligence andexpanded states of
consciousness. This psychedelicjourney may reveal the hidden
limits of AI's potential and theprofound mysteries of the human
(01:29):
mind. Can AI ever truly be asinventive and creative as the
human mind? Or are theredimensions of invention and
imagination it can never reach.
Well, buckle up for this mindbending exploration where AI
meets the Technicolor world ofHolotropic states of
consciousness. Let's enter adifferent dimension and see what
(01:53):
we find. Just because the elvesare mechanical doesn't mean
they're artificial let's seewhat psychedelic or expanded
states of consciousness can tellus about imagination and
intelligence, especiallyartificial intelligence. Chad,
(02:30):
welcome to cosmic intelligence,a Podcast where we explore the
intersection of philosophy,cosmology, consciousness and
emerging technologies likeartificial intelligence. If
you're new here, I'm Chad, aphilosopher, technologist,
product manager, yoga teacherand attorney based in Los
Angeles.
(02:59):
Let's see what psychedelic orexpanded states of consciousness
can tell us about imagination,intelligence, and especially
artificial intelligence and itslimits. The creators of
artificial intelligence haveconvinced the media and the
general populace that AI caneasily replace not just left
brain jobs like accountants orradiologists, but creative work
(03:23):
too, and if you believe thehype, within a few years,
Hollywood films will be entirelyAI generated. Of course, one
could argue that that might bean improvement over the glut of
big budget superhero actionfilms, but I digress. Not only
that, but Silicon Valley ispromising us the arrival of
super intelligence, or even thesingularity any day. Now, the
(03:46):
dominant narrative fromtechnology leaders and
transhumanists like Elon Musk,Ray, Kurzweil and Nick Bostrom
is that super intelligence isimminent and that this will
replace humans and render themobsolete. But as we will see,
these are overblown andmisinformed promises, especially
when we consider the rarelydiscussed forms of reasoning,
(04:08):
the phenomena of inspiration andRevelation And the model of the
psyche or consciousnesspresented by Stanislav Grof.
Part of what I'm doing withthese videos is attempting to
counteract that narrative. Thereis so much more to being human
than cognitive intelligence, andeven cognitive intelligence is
(04:28):
hard, as I explained in my lastvideo. In this video, I'm going
to argue that in light of theimplications of transpersonal
and deaf psychology, andespecially the work of Stan
Groff, current approaches to AImay never be truly inventive,
creative or innovative, whetherartistically or scientifically.
(04:49):
As we proceed, I want to connecttwo ideas, Holotropic states of
consciousness and abductiveinfluence, in order to make an
important point about thelimitations of current.
Approaches to artificialintelligence, which has knock on
implications for the future ofhumanity and for our broader
worldview in the 21st century.
First, we'll start with a quickreview of the types of reasoning
(05:12):
and how current AI systems work,and then jump into the topic of
Holotropic states ofconsciousness, if you want a
deeper dive into the types ofreasoning and how current AI
systems work, you can check outmy last video. We explored three
types of reasoning in my lastvideo, deduction, induction and
abduction. Deduction is whereyou apply general principles to
(05:34):
specific situations. Early AIsystems were based on deduction,
essentially the so called expertsystems, or good old fashioned
AI go phi. But deduction isbrittle and not sufficient for
true intelligence, as we saw inthe last video. Induction is
where you derive generalprinciples from observing
(05:56):
individual instances. So it'skind of the flip side of
deduction. In the case ofmachines, it's great for
learning from training data. Forexample, current systems like
chatgpt studied essentially allthe text on the internet in
order to learn how toautocomplete sentences. But
induction is also brittle and onits own, it has no knowledge or
(06:16):
understanding of causation, aswe discussed also inductive
machine learning systems canidentify statistical
irregularity but never arrive athigher level abstract concepts.
So then there's abductiveinference. This is the less
widely discussed form ofinference that involves forming
hypotheses based on observation,experience, deduction and common
(06:41):
sense, making educated guesses,essentially. So abduction moves
from specific observations to ahypothesis explaining the event,
often in one giant intuitiveleap. For example, surmising
that it rained if the ground iswet outside, is a form of
abductive reasoning. But it getsmore interesting with bigger
(07:02):
leaps of abduction, or biggerleaps of inspiration. For
example, abduction describes thephenomenon where a mathematician
spends years puzzling over amathematical conundrum and then
solves it after having a dreamabout it, or something like
that. So abduction, nonlinearimaginative problem solving is a
(07:24):
mysterious cognitive processwhere, after spending some time
with a problem, hypotheses andsolutions spontaneously emerge,
often fully formed. We couldcall it inspiration or
intuition. It is most certainlya creative process, and it might
even point to the very nature ofconsciousness. As we will see,
(07:45):
abduction is also necessary andessential for detective work.
Sherlock Holmes stories are fullof the titular character
applying abductive reasoning andforming hypotheses based on a
few clues, although there isoften a linear logic to his
reasoning, in hindsight, thesolution typically appears fully
formed in what computerscientists would call a non
(08:07):
computable or non algorithmicway. Another way to characterize
abduction is to say that theprocessing or the reasoning
taking place is happeningoutside of conscious awareness.
I mean, sure, a cognitivescientist or a materialist
philosopher might argue thatthere are still neurons firing
somewhere in sherlock's brainand that he was simply not aware
(08:27):
of it. But as we will see, itseems like something much deeper
is taking place, becauseabduction is not a conscious
process comprised of logicalsteps. Nobody knows how to model
or reproduce abductive reasoningin a machine, although some
tentative steps have been takento simulate it using large
language models, acounterintuitive approach of
using induction to arrive atabduction artificial
(08:48):
intelligence is an impressiveculmination of centuries of
application of the scientificmethod and of technoscience. We
have harnessed electricity anddesign hardware circuits that
embody logic and can stimulate arational sort of intelligence.
But the irony is that much ofscience was the result not of
logic or rationality alone, butof abductive reasoning and
(09:12):
Holotropic states. Or asStanislav Groff said, what has
not been sufficientlyacknowledged by historians is
how often the greatestscientific insights,
discoveries, breakthroughs andinventions appear to their
creators in the form of visions,dreams, fantasies, trance
states, lightning, flashes ofepiphanies and other types of
(09:34):
Holotropic states ofconsciousness. So these so
called Holotropic states ofconsciousness might offer some
insights and help us tounderstand what exactly is
happening with abductiveinference, although not in a way
likely to advance the currentstate of AI, unfortunately, but
at least it provides a moresober and realistic view of the
(09:57):
challenge that. AI researchfaces and attempting to model
the mysterious wonder of thehuman mind. So what are these
Holotropic states? Stan Grof,the pioneering transpersonal
psychologist and psychedelictherapist, defines Holotropic
states as a large and importantsubgroup of non ordinary states
of consciousness that havetherapeutic, transformative,
(10:19):
heuristic and evolutionarypotential. The word Holotropic
comes from the Greek words holosand trepan and means moving
towards wholeness, essentially.
And you know, the idea was thatGroff wanted a term that would
convey the positive aspects ofthese states to replace terms
like altar, that tend to elevateas superior ordinary or mundane
(10:41):
states of consciousness.
Holotropic States stand incontrast to HighLow, Tropic
states, which are those that weexperience in our everyday
waking lives via the senses,which are coming in contact with
the external world of matter. Soit's like our mundane state of
consciousness is hylotropic.
Holotropic states are, amongother things, expanded states of
consciousness, where theexperiencer has access to
(11:04):
visions, dreams, fantasies,trance states, lightning, Flash,
epiphanies and other expandedstates. People in such states
often experience a sense ofunity with the universe and a
transcendence of the boundariesof the ego, perhaps coupled with
a sense of timelessness, andeven spacelessness For those who
aren't familiar, Groff created aHolotropic breathwork and named
(11:25):
it that because it so reliablyinduces Holotropic states of
consciousness. Much of groff'scorpus of work has been devoted
to exploring the nature of andimplications for these
Holotropic states. Holotropicstates can arise as the result
of meditation, yoga, theingestion of psychoactive
substances and through the useof breath and other technologies
(11:47):
of the sacred dancing andspontaneously, sometimes
including as part of what Groffcalls spiritual emergencies or
spiritual crises, even Coffeecan initiate such a state as
mathematician Henri Poincarerecounted saying that numerous
cups of coffee would put him inan alert, half dozing state in
(12:08):
which ideas rose up andcollided, as I cited in my last
video in One famous example,Frederick Auguste coude von
stratnett Experienced Holotropicstates that allowed him to
realize scientific breakthroughsin the midst of a reverie on a
streetcar, and most famously, inhis dreams. After spending
considerable time with theproblem in his waking life, I
(12:32):
turnedmy chair to the fire and dozed
again. The atoms were gamblingbefore my eyes. This time, the
smaller groups kept modestly inthe background, my mental eye,
rendered more acute by repeatedvisions of this kind, could now
distinguish larger structures ofmanifold conformation, long
rows, sometimes more closelyfitted together, all twining and
twisting in snake like motion.
(12:54):
But look what was that one ofthe snakes had seized hold of
its own tail, and the form worldmockingly before my eyes, as if
by the flash of lightning Iawoke.
Upon waking, he became convincedthat benzene has a ring
structure, and indeed it does.
See. You know, as I'm describingthese Holotropic states, you may
(13:14):
notice that these states soundsimilar to the experience of
abductive reasoning, at least intheir result, if not their lived
experience. It is my contentionthat Holotropic states create
the conditions for abductivereasoning, or help us understand
the nature of abductivereasoning. Putting it another
way, my thesis here is that theInquiry into the Nature of
(13:37):
abductive reasoning naturallyleads to an exploration of
Holotropic states ofconsciousness. Engaging in
abductive reasoning may notalways require an exaggerated
Holotropic state, but much ofthe time they are one in the
same as we will see, we can bestunderstand this connection by
reviewing the many examples ofcreative inspiration or
(13:59):
breakthrough experiences arisingfrom Holotropic states
throughout history, as WillisHarmon demonstrates in his book
higher creativity, the veryfoundations of science were
built on these breakthroughexperiences. So let's examine
some examples of thesebreakthrough experiences and
marvel at the mystery of thisabductive reasoning that's
(14:22):
happening in these Holotropicstates. Many of the forefathers
of science arrived at theirtheories and scientific
discoveries using abduction,often in Holotropic states as
well. Isaac Newton ponderedproblems and questions in his
mind for days and weeks beforethe solutions would arrive
wholly formed, intuitively. Infact, his intuition was as
(14:42):
extraordinary as hismathematical skills. As Stan
Groff points out, Newton'sexperiments were not a means of
discovery, but of verifying whathe knew already through his
abductive reasoning. In Newton'scase, these deep states of.
Intuition appeared to have beenspontaneous. In fact, the
foundation for much of modernphilosophy and science arose out
(15:04):
of these dream states, includingRene Descartes seminal work,
discourse on method, which wasinspired by three dreams and a
dream within a dream. Similarly,many of Albert Einstein's
insights arrived in the form ofimages and even physical
feelings, which he translatedinto mathematics with the
assistance of a team ofspecialists. Einstein wrote in
(15:26):
his autobiographical notes, Ihave no doubt that our thinking
goes on for the most partwithout the use of symbols, and
furthermore, largelyunconsciously. The Indian
mathematician savant srinivasiRamanujan received his
mathematical insights in flashesand visions resulting from
visits by the Hindu goddessnamagiri, who is an incarnation
(15:48):
of the Goddess Lakshmi.
Sometimes it would take himmonths to verify through
mathematical proofs what hadarrived instantaneously in his
consciousness. As an aside.
Contrast these examples ofspontaneous scientific and
philosophical insight with whatI refer to as this kind of
insect, like intelligence ofmachines, where they're
(16:09):
performing billions ofinstructions or calculations per
second, but they have nocapacity for epiphany. It's
like, it's like a millipede withits little legs, like, that's
kind of the intelligence thatwe're talking about with
machines so faster, bigger,better, stronger, is not the
road to human intelligence, Ithink. Anyways, back to our
historical examples. Carl Jungis another great example among
(16:31):
his many accomplishments, he wasinstrumental in creating the
entirely new field of depthpsychology and establishing the
existence of an archetypicallyconstituted collective
unconscious. Jung was able to doall of this because of his
access to Holotropic statesarising during his practice of
what he called activeimagination. Active imagination
is a process or a practice thatJung developed for surfacing
(16:55):
unconscious content in a waythat can be explored and
integrated, it involves arelaxation of the linear or
rational mind and then some formof creative expression. Once the
free expression is complete, youre engage your rational mind and
interpret the imagery or othercreative output to receive
messages from your unconscious.
(17:18):
Jung practiced this techniquefor many years, for decades, and
recorded his imagery andinsights in his now infamous Red
Book. These profoundly richinsights would not have been
possible through reason alone,whether inductive or deductive.
It required those mysteriouslightning flashes of insight
arising from the kinds ofHolotropic states that young
(17:39):
seems to have had ready accessto as well as dialogs with his
soul, his numinous sage Philemonand the hordes of the dead, as
he documented in the Red Book,not only have many of the
greatest developments inphilosophy and science been the
result of Holotropic states, butmost of the world's great
religions and spiritualtraditions were also inspired
(18:00):
through such states. Forexample, within the yoga
vedantic tradition, the Vedasand the Upanishads are
considered Shruti within thetradition, meaning divinely
revealed rather thanintellectually conceived. These
Rishis or seers who authoredthese sacred texts essentially
channeled them while in a stateof yoga, a transcendental state
(18:23):
of unity that certainlyqualifies as a Holotropic state.
Likewise, the Buddha realizedthe secret to reducing suffering
while sitting in a deepmeditation under the Bodhi tree.
His Four Noble Truths and theEightfold Path of Buddhism arose
from this Holotropic state ofconsciousness, he did not puzzle
(18:44):
it out. He realized it in a deepstate of meditation, and then he
later refined it through theapplication of his discernment.
You could even say his insightsarose out of silence. Roughly a
millennium later, Muhammadexperienced powerful visionary
states in which ArchangelGabriel escorted him through the
(19:05):
seven Muslim heavens, Paradiseand Hell, an undeniably
Holotropic journey in whichMuhammad entered a state of
ecstasy, approachingannihilation, while receiving a
direct communication from Allah.
These visions and mysticalstates continued for 25 years
and inspired large parts of theQuran. And of course, there are
(19:25):
the Old Testament, prophets likeMoses and the burning bush,
Ezekiel and the flaming chariot,not to mention Jesus's visions
in the desert and his disciplesvisions of Him after His
crucifixion. More recently, manyvisionary artists produce works
that arise in Holotropic orexpanded states of
consciousness. William Blake'svisionary imagination was
(19:46):
central to his creative process.
His visions of angels, prophets,divine beings, and even Isaac
Newton himself arose from hismovement through what he
described as four fundamentalstates of consciousness. From
kind of a rational state to anemotional state to one of pure
imagination. What exactly aredaydreamers, Psychonauts,
(20:09):
inventors, mystics and artistsaccessing when they enter
Holotropic states in support ofwhat we call abductive
inference? Can it be reduced tothe mere firing of neurons in
the brain, or is it the Mundusmarginalis, the imaginal realm
of the Sufis, or Carl Jung'scollective unconscious? It
(20:31):
certainly seems to be somethingbeyond the mechanics of the
firing of synapses in the brain,or at least our current model of
that. Philosophers like HenriBergson and David Chalmers have
suggested that consciousnessmust lie outside the brain, that
the brain is more like a radioreceiver for consciousness than
the seat of consciousness.
(20:51):
In any case, whether therelationship between the brain
and consciousness is one ofcausation or correlation, we can
draw a connection betweenvarious brain wave states and
these Holotropic states, andconsequently, the kind of
mysterious states that lead tospontaneous problem solving and
creativity that I have beenoutlining. I'm thinking, of
course, of alpha, theta andgamma states in particular. In
(21:12):
fact, in his book highercreativity, Willis Harmon
describes techniques forchanging one's brainwave state
in order to access thesebreakthrough experiences, or
what Groff calls Holotropicstates. And there has been some
research connecting brainwavestates to increased creativity,
imagination and intuition. Therehave also been a few studies
(21:33):
connecting Holotropic breathworkwith changes to brainwave
states, although they do notappear to explore the topic of
Holotropic states forinspiration or imagination,
beyond simple therapeuticchanges to mood and emotional
well being. Anyways, I'll dropsome of those links in the in
the description if you want tocheck those out. Of course, a
materialist could use the samecorrelation to argue that brain
(21:55):
wave frequency does something tothe firing of synapses that
unlocks a deeper network ofbrain structures. If that were
the case, then AI developerscould potentially create AI
systems that similarly switchmodes or something analogous.
But I think this suggestionunderscores the fact that large
language models are simplyattempting to model the neuronal
(22:17):
firing in the brain without anydeeper understanding of all the
complex components, bothconscious and unconscious, that
comprise human cognition. Imean, it's not clear whether a
developer would even start tomodel this sort of mode shift in
terms of current technology.
It's, yeah, it's a total puzzle.
And I want to remind you, as Isaid last time, that technology
(22:38):
is always downstream of theory.
So I'm just pointing out howinadequate our theory is right
now. In terms of intelligence,we have all these unanswered
questions and no easy answersfor humans. There are many
reliable ways to enter aHolotropic state, as we have
seen in the context ofHolotropic states that correlate
with deductive reasoning.
(23:00):
Catalysts for such statesinclude meditation, breathing,
different kinds of breathing,dreaming, fasting, ingesting
psychoactive substances, ofcourse, and something as tame as
drinking coffee, for example,famously Samuel Taylor
coleridges visions of Xanaduarose during an opium induced
reverie and foreshadowing thetrend of microdosing
(23:22):
psychedelics popularized inSilicon Valley a decade ago in
studies done as early as the1960s researchers showed that
psychedelics could enhanceinspiration and problem solving.
Francis Crick, the Nobel Prizewinning scientist who worked
with James Watson to identifythe structure of DNA, admitted
to using small doses of LSD toenhance his thinking. He
(23:46):
allegedly told his friend Kempthat he had a vision of the
double helix DNA molecule duringan LSD experience, which helped
him to unravel its structure.
Similarly, an early CiscoSystems Engineer said that he
often solved difficult technicalproblems while tripping to drum
solos by the Grateful Dead. WhenI'm on LSD and hearing something
that's pure rhythm, it takes meto another world and to another
(24:09):
brain state where I've stoppedthinking and started knowing.
Now I'm not advocating for druguse to enhance creativity, only
pointing out that Holotropicstates induced by psychotropic
drugs can also be fosteredthrough more natural and healthy
means, like meditation, breathwork and other yogic practices
(24:29):
like chanting specific mantras.
For example, I personally havehad some of my most profound
ideas and insights duringmeditation or during a yoga
practice like that. The pointis, regardless of method or
technique, the mere fact of theexistence of Holotropic states
of consciousness points tosomething deep, mysterious and
(24:50):
possibly unique to humans, or atleast unique to life. Of course,
materialists may attempt toexplain away Holotropic states
induced by kind of. Substancessuch as LSD or psilocybin by
saying that they simply changebrain chemistry in a way that
enhances creativity or problemsolving strictly within the
consciousness that is created asan epiphenomenon of the brain.
(25:12):
An AI researcher orneuroscientist might say
something about how psychedelicsare merely causing our chemical
firings to fire in a differentway, and then we can replicate
that algorithmically. Perhapsresearchers would recognize that
psychedelics are increasing thelevel of tryptamine in the brain
and attempt to somehow code thateffect synthetically in a neural
network system. It soundsabsurd, but a lot of cognitive
(25:35):
science is the work of RobinCarhartt Harris, popularized by
Michael Pollan draws aconnection between psychedelics
and something called the defaultmode network in the brain.
However, the counterintuitivefact is that psychedelics seem
to decrease detectable brainactivity, despite producing an
increasingly rich and complexinner phenomenological
(25:56):
experience. Looking at StanGroff larger body of work on the
subject, it is clear that thesesubstances are opening up access
to non material realms thatcannot be explained by the
materialist theory of cognitionand consciousness. If this is
the case, it has inconvenientimplications for AI research and
attempts to model adductivereasoning. Sadly, we cannot
(26:18):
administer psychedelics toartificial intelligence systems,
at least not yet. In allseriousness, it is clear that
psychedelics are unlocking someinherent latent potential within
us, giving us access to statesof imagination and intuition
inaccessible by AI systemstoday. But if AI researchers can
(26:38):
program some kind of mechanismto shift the so called Default
Mode Network in an AI system toachieve a Holotropic state of
sorts, then why not do thattoday? Again, this brings us
back to the fact that nobodyreally knows what is going on in
an inductive reasoning or aHolotropic state of
consciousness. It underscoresthe high degree of hubris that
(26:59):
is prevalent among most AIresearchers and techno optimists
today, when they claim thatsuper intelligent AI systems are
going to arrive any day andleave us in the dust. Listen, I
understand the hubris. I mean,we have been so successful in
conquering nature and extrudinghighly advanced technologies out
of it, all remaining mysteriesof mind and intelligence seem
(27:23):
like a simple matter ofincreased computation, better
algorithms, etc, but as you cansee, this underestimates. I
think human capacities andfaculties by a lot, imagination
is profound. Inspiration issublime. I don't know that it
can be replicated in silicon. Itis clear that there is something
(27:45):
fundamental missing from thecurrent approaches to artificial
intelligence. Beneath all thehype and big promises lies an
enormous gap in ourunderstanding of how human
cognition and consciousnessworks, especially when it comes
to invention, epiphany,innovation and mystical,
transcendental experiences. StanGroff has contributed as much as
(28:09):
anyone to understanding thesedarker recesses of our psyche,
but his work points totranspersonal realms and
ontological realitiesunacknowledged by mainstream
materialist science, includingcomputer scientists and AI
researchers.
If true, intelligence involvessomething more than induction
(28:30):
and deduction as it seems likeit does and follows abductive
inference into this kind of nonmaterial unconscious realm of
imagination, intuition, etc,then AI researchers are nowhere
near achieving trueintelligence, let alone anything
approaching creativity, despiteall their big promises, this
(28:50):
connection between the littlestudied and little understood
abductive form of reasoning andthe various Holotropic states
that appear to underlie it pointus down a dark and mysterious
road where few have tread, fewexcept for Stan Groff and other
transpersonal psychologists andsome Psychonauts. I guess if
(29:11):
Holotropic states offer accessto non material realms beyond
the brain, this raisesmetaphysical questions that
materialist science has notanswered, how and why are we
able to access these states? Inshort, if abductive reasoning
requires the thinker to enterinto some kind of Holotropic
state, whether that's dreams,visions or time in the shower,
(29:32):
AI systems are nowhere nearmodeling human intelligence and
may never be able to, at leastnot with our current rudimentary
technologies of silicon and bigdata. In this video, we have
seen that current approaches toAI will never be truly
inventive, creative orinnovative, because they lack
any kind of model for abductiveinference and cannot enter the
(29:54):
kinds of Holotropic states thatseem to undergird abduction and.
And inspiration and Epiphany.
Not only that, this failure toaccount for abductive reasoning
means that AI systems may neverachieve the much hyped
artificial general intelligenceor super intelligence. Not only
are current AI systems not ableto think ideate, invent or
(30:15):
create like a human, but theyunderscore the limitations of
the predominant materialistworldview and attempting to
create artificial generalintelligence in the first place,
in light of the gaps andmisdirection highlighted in this
video, in our current approachesto AI, humans will likely not be
surpassed by machines when itcomes to creativity, epiphany,
invention, etc, thereby ensuringour human ongoing relevance in
(30:39):
this age of AI, the gaps I havehighlighted above and the
suggestion that there might be aconnection between abductive
reasoning and Holotropic statespoints toward a fertile ground
for new research into humancognition and ways we might more
reliably model that in ComputerSystems. Maybe in the meantime,
humans remain as relevant asever.
(31:19):
In my eyes, do I want to stay ifyou thought you weren't made
that way? Give and take, and Iknow you keep trying. I
think I know what you mean.
Prettygood for a dumb machine. You
(31:41):
gave me that smile. We stoodthere for a while. That was when
you woke me. I didn't know I hadmy heart to stand by feeling
inside.
And I feel inside what it meansto be a human.
(32:22):
Oh,
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.