Michael Levin | Bernardo Kastrup #3: Evolution, Metacognition, Life & Death
This was an excerpt from a 5-week discussion series with Bernardo Kastrup & Michael Levin
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Пікірлер: 143
That’s why I love hearing Michael’s talk because every time he get to speak, it helps him clarify his work more and more. That’s why he is so humble
I sorta hate that this thought appeared in my conscious experience, but Michael looks kinda like an older and much much wiser Mr. Beast
@connorp5142
3 ай бұрын
That’s hilarious, I can definitely see it!
@donfields1234
3 ай бұрын
😂 now we can't unsee it either 🤣
@willywalter6366
2 ай бұрын
For me he always looked an older version of Luke Skywalker 🙈🤣
@jessicaporter4194
Ай бұрын
Lol I thought the same and then I saw the skywalker comment and that hits too. He looks good for his age 😍
@Charlie-Em
15 күн бұрын
@@Jhawk_2k he's Mr Beast after he has mastered time and reality itself through doing KZread videos.
Revolutionary & Humble ❤ like always! The world once again on the eve of a massive paradigm shift - and this time it will hit humankind directly and massively - great stuff and I always wonder how many people are really prepared for the mental and physical implications out of this! We live in interesting times
@1sanremy
22 күн бұрын
Yes, get ready for ALIEN OPEN CONTACT by 2026 !!! Peace & love
Love when Kastrup and Levin discuss, thanks for the upload
Two GOATs 🐐 Let's goooooo 🫡
@stevenpham6734
3 ай бұрын
Nah Bernardo ain't no goat (speaking as a former fan). He has an unique and compelling perspective, but in order to arrive to it, the science and philosophy had been bent too much by personal bias. Also, Kastrup is so convinced of his analytic idealism, he has become incapable of seeing other people's perspectives, often scientists who have much greater depth on many topics.
@Renvoxan
3 ай бұрын
@@stevenpham6734 ngl, I like hands-on Levin more, but Bernardo offers interesting perspectives on consciousness and he is very well-read
@abhi0227
3 ай бұрын
In the realm of philosophy or computer science, Bernardo is goat. If you notice, Michael doesn’t even try to pretend to challenge Bernardo in those areas. Whereas, Bernardo has the ability to challenge at a deeper scientific level than most philosophers are comfortable doing or even have the capacity to do. He was able to suggest ideas and collaborations for Michael to explore further. Which is I think the best thing he can do. I thought he was quite relaxed that Michael had different ideas to his. He could also sense the weightage that was given to Michael’s work and opinions in all of these talks. Yet he was there, didn’t disrupt and even helped give conversations some direction. Of course, he doesn’t agree with certain subtle aspects - but that’s totally fine, right?
Nice 2 hr ! 🍿Perhaps thE 2 most interesting cats out there today
@adamr.9728
2 ай бұрын
I'd agree. Fascinating minds. Joscha Bach would be the third, for me.
43:36 I'm 100% on the same page as Mike as he lays out his interpretation of Bernardo's line of questions, thingness being a binary is a mental creation, stepping into the line of life you enter an exponentially explosive space that can't be thrown into any sort of a mental projection, and that is actually what makes life beautiful. 1:07:12 at this point I think Mike is talking about frequencies that create levels of cognition, which is a healthy perspective from my end. Bernardo is such a great foil for Michael to better explain his own thinking and providing thoughts levels of cognitive life. Thank you everyone for sharing your time and work, this was a great 3rd part in the conversation, peace
@rooruffneck
3 ай бұрын
Yeah, so good to hear them finally speak to their differences. Currently, I don't think it is coherent to claim that a system/being can be in state this isn't conscious and isn't unconscious. I'm not talking about meta-consciousness (knowing that one is conscious). Even the simpleist, most basic and short-lived experience is an experience, no matter how simple or evanescent. In that tiny moment, there was something it was like to be that system.
I love this Bernardo/Michel conversations, always a bliss ❤
"I believe in gliders." Is a great T shirt
Amazing!! Thank you again. I hope to see this duo together more often!!!!!
@adventuresinawareness
3 ай бұрын
us too!
Wow! Thank you both. Absolutely brilliant.
Fantastic and hugely appreciated! Thank you.
Bernardo didn’t pick up on this, but when Michael was talking about sense-making as the criterion for providing evolutionary perspectives, it occurred to me that this tied in really well with Bernardo’s dashboard metaphor - that evolution limits our perceptions of “what’s out there” to what makes sense to us.
@adventuresinawareness
3 ай бұрын
nice observation, thanks
Awesome duo, please keep getting them together.
@adventuresinawareness
3 ай бұрын
agreed!
Best thing that happened to me today
Great discussion, I'm always interested when bernardo is talking and, indeed, Dr Levin
Great discussion!
The argument, what's it like to be a bat? This argument can be used in relations to your(Bernardo or Michael)'s perspective, by asking your turkey sandwich you had for lunch or the bacteria in your intestines. But you see minerals (non-living things) also play a role in the existance of living beings. So Michael can make that argument. A grain of Sodium (salt) can play a role in your perspective, if it is part of your human structure (Theseus ship argument).
1:22:16 yes. You wring meaning from reality, then apply that meaning directly back on to reality
1:16:00 this stuff about how the caterpillar metamorphoses into the butterfly is very apposite. I felt something like this happen with my own psychology over the past month :P
I'm booking my next two hours and won't be disturbed 😃
Levin dropped a great recommendation in Richard Watson, which I hadn't heard before. Anyone listening should check out Watson's Songs of Life and Mind KZread series, which builds on Levin's research. He's taking things to a whole other level.
A brain being an integrator of perspectives or subsuming the perspectives of the parts does not equal one perspective, it only suggests a role of a particular perspective. People need to let go of the idea of human consciousness being a top down control system and embrace the full spectrum of perspectives, perceptions, cognitions, and contextual awareness and responsiveness at play within themselves and the universe around them
What Michael says about how what the caterpillar learned benefits the butterfly is analogous to what Rudolf Steiner said about how learning is translated to a new incarnation.
Life is all about searching and sorting.
Pro. Rupert Sheldrake was been talking about this topic since the 1980s.
intuitive creativity combined! Also gravity is the observer.
@clli9458
3 ай бұрын
wow!
@TheMoopMonster
3 ай бұрын
Gravity is love.
@joeyrufo
3 ай бұрын
No. You are your own observer and so is everyone else! We are the Watchmen who watch ourselves and the other people we need to watch!
@phantomhawk01
3 ай бұрын
Good observations!
Thanks Amir for bringing these two together once more. I just wish (and I understand your 'duty' to your group) you wouldn't ask so often in these interviews for them to sum up their explanations when I'm sure they are already doing their best not to overcomplicate things. Oversimplification can lead to more confusion rather than clarification. With best regards. Jo
Yayyayyaa!!!
We are actually just a system with simple properties that seems to develop complex properties. We develop such complex properties that we have a hard time remembering that we are just a bunch of very simple rules piled on top of other simple rules and iterated extensively. Quarks make atoms, which make molecules, which make proteins and dna. It is all following simple rules.
I can’t follow it all, but this discussion really captures my interest. I agree that nonbinary thinking is important in understanding experience.
@adventuresinawareness
3 ай бұрын
Thank you! The earlier discussions are also on this channel, which might make this conversation easier to follow. With thanks 🙏
At about the 45 minute mark when they are discussing emergence, and the issue of whether goal directedness is binary or not, Bernardo was taking the binary point of view, yes or no. If what they are discussing is binary, as per Bernardo‘s position, then, there is a different quality to the emergence required than if the spectrum is continuous as Michael argues.
@adventuresinawareness
Ай бұрын
good point - thanks
I love this conversation so much. Imagine if BIG MONEY was pumped into research by the likes of Levin, Kastrup, Tononi etc. That old saying about science becoming indistinguishable from magic comes to mind, but on steroids.
Bernard Lonergen wrote "Insight a study of human understanding" in 1960 which could be of interest
Do thing need to be of matter ? Or is it possible to extend thing to Entity as some idetifiable shape of a energy partern like a particular shapes waves? 57:49
Ding ding 🛎️ it's a bell.
1:14:06 Does this procedure create two consciousnesses? Or does it create two separate minds that arise in consciousnes?
On the topic of IIT and whether components of a integrated frame of reference retain their own frame of reference, I agree with Miachel's dissatisfaction with the exclusion principle and his assertion that components do retain their frame of reference. I think Bernardo's view of conscious systems being dissociated alters of mind-at-large wouldn't be possible if the exclusion principle held, because unless we annihilate mind-at-large's frame of reference when we instantiate as individuals, we would be unable to exist as individual frames of reference within that greater system simultaneously with its own perspective-bound existence. It is possible if you take a kind of timeline-dependent solipsistic approach, where you say "I was mind-at-large conceiving the nascent system, and now I am that system conceiving mind-at-large", but that's only true now from the timeline established in your frame of reference. I would say it's more rational to consider all possible timelines having been instantiated by mind-at-large, which allows you to look at your current projection of mind-at-large and perceive that other frames of reference exist simultaneously with your own, at least in functional terms. But of course, that's also where I agree with Michael, the important part then about thinking about other frames of reference is whether it changes how we want to interact with them, whether we can empirically deduce that there is some kind of self-referencing model the system seems to tend towards. Because, absent any sufficient reason for mind-at-large to not create all possible frames of reference, I think it does, but relative to the frame of reference we have, not all possible frames of reference are going to be relevant as social agents who can interact with our model of ethics.
@cryoshakespeare4465
3 ай бұрын
Also Michael bringing up the concept of paradoxes as oscillating truth values fills me with joy, this is I think a sound gateway into "why did mind-at-large create an alter in the first place?". The argument is as follows: A perspective, that contains all that is, references all possible perspectives within it. However, those possible perspectives themselves are defined by their lack of context of all possible perspectives, or of perspectives other than their own. This leads to a paradox, since that perspective that contains all that is must also try to logically contain perspectives which don't contain all that is, and it can't do so by merely having a reference to them, like a symbol of those perspectives, it must contain the actual perspectives as they are, which it cannot. That paradox itself, in this framework of paradoxes leading to oscillating truth values, leads to the local/perspective-bound oscillation of all possible perspectives. This conversation really keeps on giving, what a great pairing these two!
@adventuresinawareness
3 ай бұрын
@@cryoshakespeare4465 great comments - thanks - I wish you had been at the live event!
@cryoshakespeare4465
3 ай бұрын
@@adventuresinawareness Aw, thanks! I hope I can catch ones in the future! Appreciate your work a great deal, peace!
I would love to see what Mike would make of the DMT realm - new perspectives give insight and DMT allows you to step outside (briefly) the physical space and into a purely cognitive one of different dimensions. I know it's highly unlikely Mike will read this but I can't stress enough how truly breathe taking the exploration of these other cognitive worlds are .... some scientists have already been there so there is hope !
Great minds great discussion ❤- love it and very thankful for this! this is the way I imagine the discussion of Einstein and Born. wave of particle - pieces or phenomenon - who knows? We not 😂
@adventuresinawareness
2 ай бұрын
Well said!
hey, ho let's go! ✌️😎
What was the name of the one that thought of liars paradox as harmonic oscillations? I have a hard time interpret the name Michael mentions.
@KineHjeldnes
3 ай бұрын
I found it. patrick grim, maybe others also wanted to know.
@Theodosia1
3 ай бұрын
Yeah, I’ll be on here hoping KZread’s cc is good enough to get the names and concepts because my auditory processing skills are lacking.
I don't like the analogy he always uses of a table because at some point it was alive(tree), this same analogy can take the form of a living human body and a dead one. I do believe that language is the barrier in this argument. Especially the use of nouns(things). All nouns are actually verbs in the process of becoming one form or another, as everything is made by waves. Particle waves can be described similar to electric current, a movement of energy. The decomposition of a wooden table or dead human body is in the process of becoming(the happening) whether it is ash or food for fungi.
Is abiogenesis synonymous with poking an egg with a needle. The egg being earth and the needle being collisions of complex molecules or something else?
@adventuresinawareness
3 ай бұрын
I believe abiogenesis refers to the origin of life from non-living things
But, Levin, sensing your blood chemistry wouldn't be feeling the bloods so-called experience. Bernardo sometimes slides into talking as if the liver is having its own experience, but I think he actually believes that it would have its own experience if dissociated from the body in some fundamental way. Big difference. That said, Bernardo's model makes it clear that the liver would be a partial image of some aspect of our subjectivity. Again, very different than saying that the liver is having its own experience.
The Russians have done so much work in the area of biophysics. Gariaev, Kozyrev, Kaznacheev, Trofimov et al
@adventuresinawareness
3 ай бұрын
thanks
A thing is a noun
Is it the 'ofness' characteristic in consciousness that we read as point of view? When consciousness is operating it is conscious of else. Engineers might see this quality as point of view or perspective. It might also be something like caring. Time for a cup of tea.
I never really understood what Levin was getting at, even in his prior exchanges with BK. After this, at least a part of ii is clearer. BK, as usual, is brilliant in dissecting it (though I wonder why it didn't happen in their earlier conversations). But, clearly, Levin's (radical, to me) perspective, so to speak, wasn't changed. Just have to wait for better proof, I guess.
it takes a village - as above, so below
wow, stopped at 40:50 I think Michael said he is a materialist :D
Thoughts are things. Iamthungs
1:23:37 no. There's no platonic realm. It's all real and it's all in your head. It's just organized differently inside your head, but it's all the same stuff going on :P
24:54 come on! that's exactly how your color vision works! Your visual system sorts different wavelengths of light into different colors! That's exactly how people without one sense make up for it with other senses!
✌️❤️
I have to agree with Bernardo that Michael at times, just through his choice of words, seems to inject notions of intentionality where they are not warranted.
bernardo talks about constructive proofs, not intuitionist logic :) And the law of the excluded middle can be used in constructive proofs, but you cannot start with something negated to prove its oposite - that's the problem Brouwer had with the axiom.
I think the distinction between cognitive processes and this reductionism that Bernardo brings has to collapse eventually. It is not willful projection/antheopomorphization, it is something like natural law.
This question is for Michael. Can he scientifically explain the phenomenon of death, using his logic?
Lautzen Bauer?
I have the hardest time listening to Bernardo speak about most anything. Of course that is some "fault" of mine but I could listen to Micheal all day yet a moment of Bernardo speaking just makes me physically ill. They are both geniuses in their own rite and I am an aerospace engineering student and fellow nerd dweeb guy yet I "cannot for the life of me" stomach just listening to Bernardo speak. It's not what he says either it's how he says it, no matter the topic and no matter it be him speaking on his own or in some conversation/interview/open forum chat I always get the 🤢 result...which is a bummer for me. I know I am missing much of what Bernardo is getting at from this almost pre-repulsion in how he constructs his words/language is all. Really I have no reason to even write this but I felt obligated to subconsciously or not. There I said it, go Micheal and go Bernardo your both doing excellent work. Sorry Bernardo but I guess it's just one less "follower" among many millions so it is of little consequence ... I wrote this mostly for myself and I suppose to see if anyone else has a similar challenge. I feel like I am missing out on an amazing class due to the color of the paint on the wall or something. Lol. Yes I am a goofball also.
@MsCankersore
Ай бұрын
While I don’t share the same opinion as you I liked that you were bordering insulting but also able to acknowledge that he is rather good at what he does and not just throw ad hominems at the guy. Could it be because he’s slow in articulating his thoughts, slower than the other guy at least. For me I like how he breaks down his theories as I’m not a nerd, dweeb and somewhat new to this world
What is a thing? Its a noun
But when Levin says that maybe in a long time-frame even we will be seen as a blip. Okay. But this is how Levin argues against the idea of consciousenss either being there or not. However, even if there is a perspective in which my experience is just a blip, that doesn't at all change the fact that I'm experiencing. Same with a lady bug.
@adventuresinawareness
3 ай бұрын
agreed - I think he was talking about whether we would perceive it from that time frame
@rooruffneck
3 ай бұрын
@@adventuresinawareness And that's my point. An experience is an experience. If it happens it is by definition being experienced. We aren't talking about a meta-consciousness that turns back and says, "Oh, I'm noticing that i've had this experience". Much of what Levin says about consciousness seems to imply he can imagine it as a 'perspective' for which there is nothing it is like to be. It'll be really interesting to hear him unpack his notion of experience down the road. Right now, it seems that anywhere he can find goal-directed activity, he considers that a 'perspective' and he is somewhat comfortable equating perspectives with consciousness, even if that means there can be un-experienced perspectives. Illusionists and eliminativists certainly speak in those terms. This was a great conversation. I'm so glad that we finally got to hear Bernardo push back against having undefined notions of 'things.' That seems to be THE key issue in terms of grappling with whether our AI programs are becoming conscious.
Unless you are using a true random number generator, those 'algotypes' seeming to go round the 'barrier' etc are really just a mathematics operation performing entirely deterministically. There's no mystery there. It's just seeing gliders again. I'm not sure what Michael actually means when he says that he doesn't believe the question of consciousness is binary. If it isn't binary, then some named process X can have a vaguely formed sense of itself, which is proto-consciousness, which is Idealism in one form or another.
I always struggle with Bernardo. On the one hand there are no things and yet there is such a *thing* as life that pops into existence somewhere along the chain of abstraction. Full disclaimer I am also just triggered by his style of delivery so maybe I'm missing some nuance in what he says
Platonic space - Jung's archetype ?
@N0r8
3 ай бұрын
yes I was right :"D
Somebody help me understand what it would mean for a system to have a perspective but no experience.
@huntertony56
3 ай бұрын
Green vs. green leaf.
@ruinner
3 ай бұрын
Your immune system at birth has perspective but no experience.
@rooruffneck
3 ай бұрын
@@ruinner In that case, I'm happy to say that the rock I stop on has perspective but no experience. Fine. Then we are simply changing the definition of 'perspective'. That's okay. But, if we do that, then we need to distingish the new definition from what people typically mean. Heck, some painting undoubtedly have perspective.
59:01 this is called a dialectic! Thesis, antithesis, synthesis! Even Hegel knew this sh*t! :P
@joeyrufo
3 ай бұрын
Yes! The combination of the sperm and the egg into the zygote is literally dialectical materialism in biological form!
1:12' is it a matter of difficullty, to experience POV of liver, or other part of our organism, or is it a logical contradiction, in the sense that you having a certain POV is what makes you yourself, if you had POV of something else, then this something else's qualitative experience would be yours...
@adventuresinawareness
2 ай бұрын
very good point! I think since the liver is a part of a larger whole which is us, some might expect the POV of parts to be accessible in some way to the whole
Universal intelligence vs elementals
We just missing Swami with Adavaita Vedanta point of view:D
@adventuresinawareness
3 ай бұрын
this is happening! inzicht.org/event/swami-sarvapriyananda-bernardo-kastrup/
I like how both call God a fundamental field , hahah :D
@clli9458
3 ай бұрын
this is it, everyone can fill in the blank for their understanding!
Life uses conscious agency to execute movements allowing itself to maintain free will negative entropy over environmental ambient temperatures.
53:50 Michael will quit science in a moment:D
Answer lies with the mind. It's a mind thing, not a real thing. No mind no thing.
51:40 subjectivity kind of emerges, doesn't it? It kinda evolves, yeah? An adult has more subjectivity than a zygote!
turns the bat knob.. I AM BATMAN
@adventuresinawareness
3 ай бұрын
exactly
I see no reason to talk about biology and cells if we understand that consciousness is fundamental. Because it seems Michael thinks consciousness is emergent from biology. That would be another materialist physicalist theory as opposed to what I consider correct …the idealism of consciousness being ubiquitous and fundamental beyond time space.
@adventuresinawareness
5 күн бұрын
My understanding of Bernardo's perspective is that if taking consciousness as fundamental, it's legitimate to examine the patterns it displays as speaking to fundamental aspects of its behaviour and thus it's nature Similar to how a dream might carry significance, and symbolically point to deep aspects of inner life, even though it's "only a dream" - only made of pure consciousness.
1:07:00 When you become a bat!!
pranic energy is the life of creatures; for that is said to be the universal principle of Life. "Taittriya Upanishad"
Kastrup can't see past his ideas about what reality is to get a better grasp of what it actually is. A mismatch. Michael Levin is in another class.
@clivejenkins4033
3 ай бұрын
I think you are wrong
@mitcholson2273
3 ай бұрын
@@clivejenkins4033probably
W all due respect, I believe Dr. Levin is actually lying about his sorting algorithms.
@suzettedarrow8739
3 ай бұрын
If Dr. Levin truly “put algorithms inside of cells”, then those cells won’t do anything other than performing the algorithm. Unless the algorithm includes some procedure for delaying gratification, the cells that have algorithms inside them will never, ever perform delayed gratification. Dr. Levin said 2 things: “the algorithm doesn’t contain any instruction for delaying gratification” & “the cells displayed delayed gratification.” Dr. Levin is therefore either incorrect or deceiving us.
Kastrup is wrong that he knows exactly how AI works. It has too many complexities. If they knew precisely how they work alignment would not be an issue and they could predict all capabilities before training .
@clivejenkins4033
3 ай бұрын
Kastup is right, you, are wrong
@shawnvandever3917
3 ай бұрын
@@clivejenkins4033 I literally laid out why what he said is BS and still you missed it🤦
@clivejenkins4033
3 ай бұрын
You entitled to your personal opinion like everyone else but you shouldn't insult people because you think you know better
@shawnvandever3917
3 ай бұрын
@@clivejenkins4033 No I stated an objective fact. If he knows how the system works like he claims then he should have no issue solving alignment. If he understands the system as he says then he can predict the properties of the next big training runs. He is the one throwing out baseless opinions.
@clivejenkins4033
3 ай бұрын
PHD computer engineering, I think he knows what he is talking about
Dude is a iitheorist?? Levin is on the wrong way
@RogueElement.
3 ай бұрын
What experiments are YOU doing to say that? 😂
these guys are so clueless......... everything is a thing. nothing is a thing. totality is the category of {nothing + something}
Bernardo Kastrup just waste his time with this Levin guy.
@clivejenkins4033
3 ай бұрын
Yes I totally agree
The argument, what's it like to be a bat? This argument can be used in relations to your(Bernardo or Michael)'s perspective, by asking your turkey sandwich you had for lunch or the bacteria in your intestines. But you see minerals (non-living things) also play a role in the existance of living beings. So Michael can make that argument. A grain of Sodium (salt) can play a role in your perspective, if it is part of your human structure (Theseus ship argument).