Joscha Bach is a cognitive scientist and AI researcher. We talk about our relationship with & models of reality, creativity and curiosity, animism and self-organizing software, stages of development, and more.
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(01:25) The dream world; how we interact with & perceive reality
(03:49) Fear
(05:16) Self, consciousness, & awareness
(08:10) We're a coarse pattern on top of base reality
(11:13) Presence & perceptual windows
(12:16) Is this model mechanistic & reductionist?
(13:50) Life exists to minimize free energy
(16:47) What makes us different from other sentient beings & structures
(20:35) Creativity: self-transformative exploration
(23:40) Curiosity as uncertainty reduction
(29:20) Exploration vs. exploitation
(32:45) Combating social norms & conditioning; being a nerd
(35:18) Knowing which models to update
(37:56) Being a creator; being able to build & maintain
(43:21) Everything can be understood
(44:13) Animism; everything is self-organizing “software”
(48:48) Natural vs. human-created “software”
(50:57) AGI vs. natural intelligence
(55:15) Limited by the locality of our sensory inputs
(56:33) Stages of lucidity & development
(01:03:35) Convergence of global traditions
(01:09:40) Issue with Buddhism
(01:14:16) Where does the animism and software arise from?
(01:17:58) Building a coherent world, together
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Joscha’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/Plinz
Joscha's Substack: https://joscha.substack.com/
Personal Site: http://bach.ai/
Spencer’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SP1NS1R
Spencer’s Blog: https://spencerkier.substack.com
