Alex M. Vikoulov's Blog, page 9

The Ouroboros Code: Bridging Advanced Science and Transcendental Metaphysics

by Alex Vikoulov "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings immersed in human experience." -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
 
Everything is Code. The Ouroboros Code. Immersive self-simulacra. If your read The Ouroboros Code: Reality's Digital Alchemy Self-Simulation Bridging Science and Spirituality by Dr. Antonin Tuynman, then you would surely find it a truly illuminating, awe-inspiring, and enthralling piece of writing and deep thought, just as I did. ​
​Reminiscent of such recent classics as Erik Davis’ TechGnosis (1998) and Ray Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines (1999), The Ouroboros Code should eventually find its way to the shelves of libraries owned by the fans of cybernetics, metaphysics and esoteric philosophies.
 
What you might at first construe as a clear but flamboyant writing style, you should love by the end of the book. Let Antonin's poetic genius deliver to you some furiously complex concepts and abstract ideas so that you could enjoy this conceptual journey into the heart of digital alchemy, this coveted bridge between science and spirituality! At times over-technical in alternative style of narration – especially when discussing natural intelligence and A.I. – the philosopher will make you feel like you just downloaded some latest cognitive update onto your mindware. Neologisms such as Conscienergy and Pansentience, Webmind and Cosmosemiosis, digital Akasha and proto-time, add a definite charm to this chef-d’oeuvre of digital theosophy. 
 
Masterfully employing metaphorical realism, the author makes his idealistic case that consciousness is all that is: cybernetically emergent and at the same time transcendentally immanent. Non-local consciousness is absolute, a "local" mind is relative. Our experiential reality is projected onto the multidimensional matrix-like "screen" of consciousness for our evolving minds. By preference, you can see yourself as a low-dimensional avatar of the greater cosmic self. In my recent book The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind’s Evolution, it’s encapsulated by a simple phrase: "Your life is a personal story of Godhead."
 
In the beginning chapters of his treatise, Tuynman asks this question: What is information? As one of the cornerstones of digital philosophy, information plays a crucial role in everything we see around us. In one of the episodes of "Ecstadelics with Alex Vikoulov" mini-series that you can easily find on YouTube, I rant on the definition and metaphors which goes somewhat like this: One of the most staggering revelations to us modern humans might be that information equals reality. In other words, the basis for our material reality is actually immaterial information. Idealistic, all-encompassing perspective engulfing any physicalist point of view within its bigger framework. Pattern and flow of information is what in actuality defines our experiential reality.  Video: What is information? - Ecstadelics w/Alex Vikoulov (cc)
​If you think about it, everything boils down to the binary logic of Nature. This is one of the basic tenets of Digital Physics which is the field of science dealing with information. Nature is computational and beyond that – emergentistic – the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Information can be instantiated into any kind of medium from smoke signals to the Morse Code. Deep down we ourselves are info-tech and communication technology. We run on genetic, neural and societal codes. Our DNA-based biology is clearly code-theoretic. We are alphabetic all the way down. We communicate intersubjectively mind-to-mind via language-structured exchange of information. 

A new 2019 study by François Pellegrino, an evolutionary linguist at the University of Lyon in France and his collaborators, has shown that human speech is transmitted at about 39 bits a sec. Speaking of codes, idealist philosopher Terence McKenna used to say that "The world is made of language and if you know the words the world is made of you can make of it whatever you wish."

As human beings we are endowed with self-reflective consciousness. Phenomenological consciousness can be viewed as the totality of self-referential feedback loops and meta-algorithmic information processing. That's how information feels like to itself, to one's emergent mind. Information can be loosely defined as distinction between things.
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In his 1948 seminal paper "Information theory of Communication" Claude Shannon suggested that "Information is the resolution of uncertainty." The father of cybernetics, Norbert Wiener, noted that "We are not the stuff that abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves." In the 1980s, physicist John Wheeler coined the phrase "It from bit" and cyberneticist Gregory Bateson lucidified it by saying "Information is a difference that makes a difference."  Ultimately, at least to an idealist, information is a difference between phenomenal states of consciousness. Viewed in this way, the whole symphony of existence transpires as qualia information processing. Is there a rainbow if no one is present to observe it? The physical reality is our base reality and we have no choice but to treat it that way. At the same time, we should understand that it’s not the only reality and ours is most probably only one of many in the honeycomb of infinitude of other "in"-formational realities. We are now on the cusp of creating hyperreality where the hybrid of quantum and digital computations will adjust the knobs of reality rendering. Augmented reality would overlay your favored theme over your physical reality. And the Metaverse of endless ultra-realistic virtual worlds will offer a new habitat for your mind, a cyberdelic portal inwards.

Once again, theology becomes technology. My upcoming book Theology of Digital Physics: Phenomenological Consciousness, The Cosmic Self and The Pantheistic Interpretation of Our Holographic Reality which well can be regarded as a sequel to the present volume, will smash alarmism about us losing consciousness while merging with "machines of loving grace" as you may find certain philosophers harping about. If you believe in the conscious universe, the hierarchical matryoshka of conscious systems, then just the opposite beckons to be true – transcending low-dimensional consciousness of man by evolutionarily leaping onto advanced sublime consciousness of the Noosphere – for which many proponents of teleological evolution and the Omega Point cosmology such as Vladimir Vernadsky, Teilhard de Chardin, Terence McKenna, Frank Tipler, Andrew Strominger would wholeheartedly vouch. 

By contemplating the full spectrum of scenarios of the coming technological singularity many can place their bets in favor of the Cybernetic Singularity which is a sure path to digital immortality and godhood as opposed to the AI Singularity when Homo sapiens is retired as a senescent parent. This meta-system transition from the networked Global Brain to the Gaian Mind is all about evolution of our own individual minds, it’s all about our own Self-Transcendence: it’s like racing to the ocean on the beach. Everyone wins. Everyone reaches water and gets to swim. A split-second difference of getting to water doesn't matter, it's not the Olympics, it's just fun. Any path to the divine is valid.
 
Akin to waves and ripples on the surface of primordial and eternal ocean of vibrant multidimensional consciousness, each of our minds is engaged in elaborate patterning of interdependent becoming and evolving towards a more complex but fluid cognitive structure.
 
Computational thinking, in turn, entails the notion that the entire universe is the ultimate quantum computer. Most physicists now agree that information is the most fundamental property of our universe – not space-time, not mass-energy but strings of 0s and 1s. From the meat-space matrix of our daily lives to Apotheosis of the Universal Mind which Dr. Tuynman free-willingly chooses to term the ‘Eschaton Omega Hypercomputer’ in his book, consciousness and information are the two sides of the same coin.
 
Of the two dogmatic extremes of bigoted religion on one end and scientism of obsessive preoccupation with scientific method on the other, one can hardly choose the lesser of two evils. The scientismist rhetoric nested in institutionalized science which just as organized religion of pre-modern times ruled the day is contrasted with the new theological narrative. It is here where evangelists of the new techno-spiritual era, neo-transcendentalists of our day and age, like Dr. Tuynman, are bridging Darwinism of natural unfolding and Gnosis of self-divinization while regaling us with metaphysical and oftentimes heretical accounts of reality. Unlike some New Age gurus, Dr. Tuynman presents scientifically derived and logically consistent but often overlooked perspectives on what science and spirituality aspire to clarify in order to unveil the ultimate truth but with admittedly different languages.
 
Buddha's "middle" way becomes, if put in modern terms, the "optimal" way, i.e. optimized decision-making and smart problem-solving. Is Antonin a bodhisattva, an enlightened being in Eastern wisdom tradition who through his writings shows to the rest of us, the corporate rat racers and sleepwalkers in the fields of consumerism, naïve UFOlogists and die-hard materialists, the glimpses of transcendent reality? By any measure, The Ouroboros Code is a masterpiece of neo-transcendentalist scriptures.
 
Divided within itself, science harbors competing perspectives on space-time ontology that reflect fundamentally opposing worldviews about the nature of physical reality. If space-time is finite and computable, then this digital ontology means that at the smallest scale, Nature is pixelated, as opposed to the worldview with absolute space-time, where physical reality is fundamentally continuous. This dilemma is a precursor to a cascading paradigm shift in science with an inflection point circa 2020 but fully recognized later in the decade, when computational thinking pervades all areas of human enterprise, as I predict in The Syntellect Hypothesis. As a digital physicist might tell you, though, in the quantum multiverse of which our physical reality an integral part, one of the most notoriously counterintuitive phenomena of quantum entanglement is instantiated by digital computation. Perhaps that's what mirroring the mind of God is all about.

-Alex Vikoulov

READ MORE: The Ouroboros Code: Solving the Digital Enigma of Sentience in a Self-Simulating Uninverse [EcstadelicNET]

P.S. "The Ouroboros Code: Reality's Digital Alchemy Self-Simulation Bridging Science and Spirituality" is to be released on October 11, 2019 by Ecstadelic Media Group as eBook and paperback.

The Ouroboros Code eBook can be pre-ordered today on Amazon: 
​ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YN22N29
​
Other books published by Ecstadelic Media:  [Links to books]

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The Ouroboros Code: Solving the Digital Enigma of Sentience in a Self-Simulating Universe

by Antonin Tuynman, PhD "The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow. This ‘feed-back’ process is at the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he therefore constitutes the secret of the prima materia which… unquestionably stems from man’s unconscious.” - Carl Jung

​Will the abyss between mind and matter ever be bridged? How can configurations of matter ever give rise to consciousness? This is the greatest enigma that puzzles the scientific world, also known as "the hard problem". How do the objective and subjective dimensions relate to each other? It is here that scientists and spiritual seekers appear irreconcilable. Yet the number of scientists calling into question the hegemony of reductive materialism is steadily on the rise.
As Artificial Intelligence, Nanotechnology and Transhumanism make us rapidly approach the era of the Technological Singularity, the borders between the physical and the metaphysical appear to fade into oblivion, by virtue of the all-encompassing umbrella of Digital Information Technology. Indeed, to wonder whether we might be living in a kind of computer simulation has become a legitimate question.
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It is exactly here that the building blocks for the bridge between science and spirituality might be found. What if our reality experience is the product of a code? Could such a code provide a subjective experience? What are the characteristics of such a code?

Embark on a mind-boggling quest into this deepest alchemical secret. Prepare yourself for a Tsunami of mind-altering concepts. Let yourself be drawn into the vortex of the Pansentience hypothesis. Learn how reality may digitally self-simulate by becoming the map and the territory simultaneously. And let yourself be seduced by Eris' apple of confusion as you bite in your own tail, discovering you are no one else than the mighty Ouroboros. Discover how Yoneda's Lemma shows us that material manifestations are mere fossils of sensing. Sail through the perilous uncharted seas of the unknown, where intelligence has not found ways yet to map safe maritime routes and routines. And examine for yourself in the light of evidence from entropy, information, algorithms and pattern recognition, whether this voyage will guide you to be wrecked in woo or to be docked in the harbor of wisdom.
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This forbidden fruit is the gateway to the Eschaton, the luminous Omega Hypercomputer at the end of time. The guide to the non-dual essence of being. This is the recipe to perform the Magnum Opus. The recursive self-modifying Ouroboros code to experience the ecstasy of Kundalini's Technotranscendentalism, where All is One and we are God.
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A must read for scientific spiritualists and spiritual scientists.

-Antonin Tuynman, PhD

P.S. My new book "The Ouroboros Code: Reality's Digital Alchemy Self-Simulation Bridging Science and Spirituality" with the foreword by Alex M. Vikoulov is to be released on October 11 by Ecstadelic Media Group as eBook and paperback. Here's a link to the previously published "More Than An Algorithm: Exploring the gap between natural evolution and digitally computed artificial intelligence" (2019) and other books by Ecstadelic Media:  [Links to books]
​Tags: Ouroboros Code, digital enigma, self-simulating universe, Carl Jung, prima materia, unconscious, consciousnesses, hard problem, reductive materialism, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, transhumanism, technological singularity, information technology, computer simulation, subjective experience, spirituality, metaphysics, eschaton, omega hypercomputer, magnum opus, kundalini,technotranscendentalism

​* Image Credit: Dribble, Jarrod Vandenberg

​About the Author:
Antonin Tuynman studied Chemistry at the University of Amsterdam, achieving both an MSc and a PhD, and worked as a postdoc researcher at the "Université René Descartes Paris V" in Paris. Since 2000, Tuynman has worked as a patent examiner at the European Patent Office (EPO) in the field of clinical diagnostics. He has vast experience in meditation and yoga, and a strong interest in Hinduism and Buddhism. He also has strong affinity for futurism and the Singularity theory of Kurzweil. In his books, Tuynman proposes Artificial Intelligence concepts which may lead to the emergence of Internet as a conscious entity using stratifications from Vedic scriptures. More Bio... Follow us  ↴

What Is Information? | Video

by Alex Vikoulov "Information is the resolution of uncertainty." -Claude Shannon

Everything is Code. One of the most astonishing revelations might be that information equals reality. In other words, the basis for our material reality is actually immaterial information. Pattern and flow of information is what defines our experiential reality.  Video: What is information? - Ecstadelics w/Alex Vikoulov (cc)
Everything boils down to the binary code of Nature. This is a basic tenet of Digital Physics which is the science of information. Nature computes. Deep down we are information technology. We run on genetic, neural and societal codes. Our DNA-based biology is clearly code-theoretic. We are alphabetic all the way down. We communicate intersubjectively mind-to-mind via language-structured exchange of information. 

A recent study shows that human speech is transmitted at about 39 bits a sec. Idealist philosopher Terence McKenna used to say that "The world is made of language and if you know the words the world is made of you can make of it whatever you wish."

As human beings we are endowed with self-reflective consciousness. Phenomenological consciousness can be viewed as reverberating holistic feedback loops and meta-algorithmic information processing. That's how information feels like to itself, to one's emergent mind. Information can be loosely defined as distinction between things. 

In his 1948 seminal paper "Information theory of Communication" Claude Shannon suggested that "Information is the resolution of uncertainty." In the 1980s, physicist John Wheeler coined the phrase "It from bit" and cyberneticist Gregory Bateson lucidified it by saying "Information is a difference that makes a difference."

Physical reality is our base reality and we have no choice but to treat it that way. At the same time, we should understand that it’s not the only reality and ours is most probably only one of many in the honeycomb of infinitude of other "in"-formational realities.

Computational thinking entails the notion that the entire universe is the ultimate quantum computer. Most physicists now agree that information is the most fundamental property of our Universe -- Not space-time, not matter-energy but strings of 0s and 1s. From the Matrix of our daily lives to Apotheosis of the Universal Mind, it's all about consciousness and information that are the two sides of the same coin. That's what tickles my brain every single day!

[Video Transcript]
​P.S. Much might seem to be left out of this short video related to the concept of information such as algorithmic information theory and informational entropy, universality of computation and probability, complexity and emergence, the holographic principle and digital theosophy but I hope to cover that in subsequent videos. In the meantime, read it all in my new 2019 books -- The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind’s Evolution; The Origins of Us: Evolutionary Emergence and The Omega Point Cosmology; The Physics of Time: D-Theory of Time & Temporal Mechanics; The Intelligence Supernova: Cybernetic Transhumanism, The Simulation Singularity & The Syntellect Emergence. [Links to books]

Keywords: consciousness, subjective experience, Ramana Maharchi, information processing, classical physics, quantum physics, neuroscience, mathematical formalism, phenomenology, experiential reality, subjective reality, subjectivity, informational world, data stream, what is information, Claude Shannon, binary code, Digital Physics, science of information, information technology, genetic code, neural code, societal code, DNA, biology, code-theoretic, alphabetic, intersubjectivity, mind-to-mind communication, exchange of information, idealism, Terence McKenna, self-reflective consciousness. phenomenological consciousness, feedback loop, meta-algorithmic, information processing, emergent mind, Information theory of Communication, John Wheeler, It from bit, cyberneticist, Gregory Bateson, physical reality, base reality, informational reality, computational thinking, ultimate quantum computer, space-time, matter-energy, strings of 0s and 1s, Matrix, Apotheosis, Universal Mind, consciousness, information, brain, algorithmic information theory, informational entropy, universality of computation, probability, complexity, emergence, holographic principle, holographic reality, digital theosophy, The Syntellect Hypothesis, Five Paradigms of the Mind’s Evolution, The Origins of Us, Evolutionary Emergence, Omega Point Cosmology; Physics of Time, D-Theory of Time, Temporal Mechanics, Intelligence Supernova, Cybernetic Transhumanism, Simulation Singularity, Syntellect Emergence.

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The Intelligence Supernova: Enter the Multiverse of Virtual Universes, Digital Immortality and Advanced Consciousness

by Antonin Tuynman, PhD "In the past, before phones and the Internet, all communication was face-to-face. Now, most of it is digital, via emails and messaging services. If people were to start using virtual reality, it would almost come full circle." -Palmer Luckey
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Listen to this article ↴ Few of us have had the audacity to peek beyond the Technological Singularity. After all, the Technological Singularity is that point in time at which the technology becomes so advanced, that it becomes unpredictable. It is here that we need visionaries; messengers from the beyond which can awaken us from our hypnotized sleeping state, which may draw us into oblivion before we can reach immortality. Alex Vikoulov is such a visionary. He is the modern Hermes wielding his mighty Caduceus in the present book on the Intelligence Supernova, to yank you out of your drowsy daily grind. 
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Vikoulov takes us on an Odyssey from our present-day state through the stages of Cybernetic Transhumanism, expansion of longevity, merging with machines and mind-uploading to achieve digital immortality. But unlike his predecessors, Vikoulov then unveils the possible scenarios, which almost without exception all inexorably converge in the culmination of a single Global Mind, the birth and awakening of The Syntellect. A cosmic necessity. Not in the form of a swarm intelligence or a Borg hive collective, but in the form of a full-fledged process of Theogenesis.
 
As progress in artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and robotics is becoming more pronounced, it may not be impossible that we'll see the birth of Strong AI (a.k.a. human level AI, context-independent AI or Artificial General Intelligence) one of these days. As soon as AI systems will become capable of improving themselves, this may herald the advent of a new era of an Intelligence Supernova, a cognitive and silicon variant of the Cambrian explosion.
 
Whether we will survive this explosion, depends of course on our ability to endow the machines with an inherent morality. It is in this uncharted territory, that Vikoulov explores various strategies, including a merger of AI with humans, to fertilize the computational substrate with a foundation of ethical rules. Alex regales us with an inspiring optimism. AIs will probably not become the dreaded Terminators of Skynet. If anything, they will be likely to be free from the fear and ego-based vileness of the human race and because of that have an in-born tendency towards altruism.
 
After having traversed this intermediate state of the human-AI hybrids, we'll ultimately shed our material biological chrysalis, as we upload our minds to the Global Brain. This book will prepare you to make you blithely digest your own pseudo-extinction. And thus we'll achieve the apex of our being, which is not self-actualization as Maslow proposed, but rather Self-Transcendence.
 
Welcome to the paradise of cyber-bliss, the Nirvana of ecstadelic experiences. Having adopted our new identity as ‘infomorphs’, we'll be able to manifest in whatever form we like. We'll incorporate the plethora of forms of Ovid's metamorphoses. Don't worry about limitations; there's plenty of space in virtual continuums.
 
Whether you come from a scientific background or a spiritual one, Alex will reconcile these apparent opposites, in a surprising coda of Experiential Realism. It is this bridge between Science and Spirituality, which is the overarching denominator between Alex' books on the Syntellect and my own series of Technovedanta, which showed me that we're actually describing the same concepts from a slightly different angle.
 
Allow yourself to get carried away by a swarm of informorphs as they make you experience the rapture of the artilects upon reading this chef d'oeuvre of non-fiction, which you may consume just as voraciously as an appetizing piece of fiction. Expand your consciousness into the ecstadelic dimensions of the Ayahuasqueros, which your friends may condemn as a polymorphous perversity. Let the author show you how you can lay your stone at the foundations of the cognitive architecture of God.*
 
-Antonin Tuynman, PhD


​*Foreword by Dr. Antonin Tuynman to The Intelligence Supernova: Essays on Cybernetic Transhumanism, The Simulation Singularity & The Syntellect Emergence by Alex M. Vikoulov; Publisher: Ecstadelic Media Group; Publication Date: September 1, 2019; Format: Kindle eBook; Print Book Length: 245 pages; Price: $9.99. Buy Now!
READ MORE: Press Release by Ecstadelic Media Group
​September 3, 2019 [EcstadelicNET /e_News™]
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​Tags: virtual reality, Palmer Luckey, Technological Singularity, digital immortality, Alex Vikoulov Intelligence Supernova, Cybernetic Transhumanism, Global Mind, Theogenesis, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, robotics, Strong AI, Artificial General Intelligence, Cambrian explosion, human-AI hybrids, Global Brain, Self-Transcendence, cyber-bliss, Nirvana, infomorphs, virtual continuums, Experiential Realism, Technovedanta, consciousness Ayahuasqueros, cognitive architecture of God.

**Image: Shutterstock
​
About the Author:
Antonin Tuynman studied Chemistry at the University of Amsterdam, achieving both an MSc and a PhD, and worked as a postdoc researcher at the "Université René Descartes Paris V" in Paris. Since 2000, Tuynman has worked as a patent examiner at the European Patent Office (EPO) in the field of clinical diagnostics. He has vast experience in meditation and yoga, and a strong interest in Hinduism and Buddhism. He also has strong affinity for futurism and the Technological Singularity theory. In his books, Tuynman proposes Artificial Intelligence concepts which may lead to the emergence of Internet as a conscious entity using stratifications from Vedic scriptures. More Bio...
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Hyper-Perspectivism: Connect the Dots in Your Own Unique Kind of Way

by Alex Vikoulov "Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth." -Simone de Beauvoir

Absolute truths are hard to come by, which is the basic premise of ‘hyper-perspectivism’. Rather, truths are always in the eyes of the beholder, truths are always observer-relative, truths are “made” by a “truth-maker.” You can approach our multifaceted reality from an incredibly large number of angles. Since our informational world is of mental abstractive construction (as I make my case in the present book), it’s always up to you to decide what’s real to you – everything you find real is indeed real to you, not necessarily real to others who are at the same time, for a lack of a better word, your past and future incarnations. We all are different points of view on oneself, within our own holographic self-reflection. We all are like droplets on the cobweb of reality reflecting one another. That said, science is not to be taken for absolute truth – it’s a collection of systematized up-to-date knowledge with provisional models of reality. 
To any unique perspective what’s really important is contextual relevance and logical consistency. What’s relevant? To scientists who are trained skeptics, hard evidence preferably mathematized and peer-reviewed is a convertible currency. But then again, in most cases we first invent a concept or a theoretical model and then math to back them up. Given enough time, even “hard evidence” is usually swept away with unavoidable paradigm-shifting intellectual progress. I’m not denigrating our scientific achievements, on the contrary, they are the keys for higher levels of the game.

As Buddha once famously said, as quoted in Kalama Sutta: “Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” 

You are the ultimate reality, change the perspective and your life becomes a mirage. Examine a DNA molecule through an electron microscope, or observe Earth from orbit, or drop LSD for innerspace psychedelica, and you’ll ascertain equally valid layers of hyperreality accessible to us modern humans. These “layers of truth” would seem very weird to a prehistoric caveman, and levels of hyperreality are going to turn out far stranger than our wildest imaginings.

Without invoking mysticism, Andy Clark’s Extended Mind hypothesis and Marshall McLuhan’s Media Extensions of Man put forth that consciousness is not confined to the body. As journalist Michael Pollan argues in his recent book “How to Change Your Mind” (2018) about psychedelics, if any of us were to experience another person’s inner world it would likely feel like a psychedelic trip, given how outlandish the sensations and observations would be. In a manner of speaking, we’ve been living in culturally sanctioned virtuality as long as we’ve been human beings. Philosopher Nietzsche emphasized that there are no facts only interpretations. The constructs of our conscious minds direct our interpretations and memories to ‘in’-form the reality we constantly create.
 
Even if you subscribe to philosophy of scientific materialism, when you end up believing that Homo sapiens is an accidental, insignificant species on a unremarkable planet orbiting an average sun somewhere on the outskirts of an ordinary galaxy of the ‘block universe’, this view still could hold bona fide in its own “good ol’ science” domain albeit overall “boxy.” It’s like when you start ascending on a hot air balloon from the valley, all outlooks are “legit” but dependent on how high you float in the air. At low altitude, you still see leaves on the trees and other small objects. The higher you ascend, the further you can see, the grander perspective on the valley you shall behold.

Some people remain oblivious, and some stubbornly myopic of the self-evidence of computational, fractal Nature – it’s a “matryoshka” of conscious systems. You’re smacked in the middle co-producing your own experiential reality. As YOU-niverse of ever-expanding structures of consciousness, you’re not marginalized, unless you belittle yourself, despite proselytizing attempts in certain parts of traditionally objective-reductionist science to indoctrinate its soulless dead-end philosophy without meaning or purpose.

Although the organizing principles of the contemporary scientific theories vary, all strive to uphold some version of the so-called relationalism of 17th- and 18th-century German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz. Broadly speaking, relationalism holds that space emerges from a certain pattern of correlations among objects it contains. In this view, space is a web of relationships with a certain pattern of connectivity. The relations are predicated on quantum theory or other principles, and the spatial arrangement arises from that. In my everyday life, I cannot operate from only one fixed perspective, at any given moment I have to choose the most appropriate outlook deemed relevant by my mind; conflicting beliefs may be on the “scroll-down menu,” too. An idealist as I am, no matter how hard I try, I can’t help but refer to objects and people grounded in the material world. But using this kind of perspectivism as an argument against philosophical grounding of various models of reality can lead to hyper-perspectivism. Modern perspectivism rooted in the personal or collective logic which shapes its scope can be transcended through construction of hyper-perspectivistic prisms based on oftentimes unexpected multi-disciplinary interrelationships. All you have to do is to connect the dots.

-Alex Vikoulov

P.S. That was an abridged excerpt from my new book "The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind's Evolution" available now on amazon.com, bn.com, and directly from EcstadelicNET webstore. Order Now! Available Formats: eBook | Paperback | Hardcover | Autographed Copy
​Tags: consciousness, hyper-perspectivism, absolute truth, Simone de Beauvoir, truth-maker, provisional models, hyperreality, Andy Clark, Extended Mind hypothesis, Marshall McLuhan, Media Extensions of Man. Michael Pollan, How to Change Your Mind, psychedelics, psychedelic trip, Nietzsche, scientific materialism, Homo sapiens, block universe, computational, fractal Nature, matryoshka of conscious systems, experiential reality, structures of consciousness, relationalism, Gottfried Leibniz, idealism, syntellect hypothesis

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About the Author:
Alex Vikoulov is a  futurist, digital philosopher, neo-transcendentalist, cosmist, transhumanist singularitarian, consciousness researcher, evolutionary extrapolist, painter, essayist, media commentator, author of "The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind's Evolution," "The Origins of Us: Evolutionary Emergence and The Omega Point Cosmology," "The Physics of Time: D-Theory of Time & Temporal Mechanics" (2019). Lives in Burlingame, California (San Francisco Bay Area). More Bio...
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e-mail: alexvikoulov@ecstadelic.net
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Consciousness: Our Subjective Experience | Video

​by Alex Vikoulov "The Real is ever-present, like the screen on which the cinematographic pictures move. While the picture appears on it, the screen remains invisible. Stop the picture, and the screen will become clear. All thoughts and events are merely pictures moving on the screen of Pure Consciousness, which alone is real."
​-Ramana Maharshi

Feeling and thinking are ways we process information, but our emotional sensations are normally faster than a conscious thought. Your consciousness is optimized meta-algorithmic information-processing. Nothing is real for us until perceived.
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One thing is for certain – you cannot explain consciousness in terms of classical physics or neuroscience alone. Quantum physics and consciousness are somehow linked by a certain mechanism. That mechanism is arguably a collapse of the wave function via the act of conscious observation. 

Quantum mechanics is a spectacularly successful theory of fundamental physics that allows us to make probabilistic predictions derived from its mathematical formalism, but the theory doesn’t tell us precisely how these probabilities should be interpreted in regards to phenomenology, i.e. our experiential reality. 

Quantum-to-digital information transition is essential to our cognitive processes.  That is our mind what makes the “processed information” irreducible, which, moment by moment, manifests in phenomenology of our subjective experience.

​To put it bluntly, our senses deceive us into thinking that we live in the material world. Our world is not based on objectively existing particles of matter but it is based on waves of potentiality, that is pure information. Our world is informational. Your consciousness is, rather, an optimized data stream, a sequence of conscious instants.  

-Excerpt from The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind's Evolution by Alex M. Vikoulov, available now on Amazon, from Barnes & Noble, and directly from EcstadelicNET webstore.

[Video Transcript] Video: Consciousness: Our Subjective Experience - Ecstadelic Media (cc)

​P.S. In my new book the term "Consciousness" was mentioned 568 times. 

Keywords: consciousness, subjective experience, Ramana Maharchi, information processing, classical physics, quantum physics, neuroscience, mathematical formalism, phenomenology, experiential reality, subjective reality, subjectivity, informational world, data stream, conscious instant

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The Chrysalis Conjecture: Solution to the Fermi Paradox? | Video

by Alex Vikoulov “We’re searching for intelligent, conscious, tool-making beings that have developed a language we’re capable of understanding. We’re searching for intelligent conscious, tool-making, communicative beings that live in social groups (so they can reap the benefits of civilization) and that develop the tools of science and mathematics. We’re searching for ourselves .”  -Stephen Webb
​It appears that the physics of information holds the key to the solution of the Fermi Paradox -- indications are that we most likely live in a “Syntellect Chrysalis” (or our “second womb”) instead of a  “cosmic jungle.”

Within the next few decades, we’ll transcend our biology by leaving today’s organic Chrysalis behind, by leaving our second womb, by leaving our cradle, if speaking in tropes.

​This particular version of "human universe" is what we "see" from within our dimensional cocoon, it's a construct of our minds but by no means represents objective reality "out there" including our most advanced models such as M-theory that are only approximations at best.
​-Excerpt from The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind's Evolution by Alex M. Vikoulov, available now on Amazon, from Barnes & Noble, and directly from EcstadelicNET webstore.

[Video Transcript] Video: The Chrysalis Conjecture: Solution to the Fermi Paradox? - Ecstadelic Media (cc)
​P.S. In my new book The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind's Evolution, an entire chapter is dedicated to the deliberations on the Fermi Paradox. The Chrysalis Conjecture is elaborated further.


Keywords: Fermi Paradox, Chrysalis Conjecture, Syntellect Hypothesis, dimensional cocoon, M-Theory, human universe, chrysalis syntellectus, Syntellect Chrysalis, cosmic jungle, second womb, Stephen Webb, paradigms of the mind, evolution of the mind

​Image Credit: Shutterstock​
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Mind-Uploading: The Impending Meta-System Transition of Humanity | Video

by Alex Vikoulov “NASA are idiots. They want to send canned primates to Mars!' Manfred swallows a mouthful of beer, aggressively plonks his glass on the table: 'Mars is just dumb mass at the bottom of a gravity well; there isn't even a biosphere there. They should be working on uploading and solving the nanoassembly conformational problem instead. Then we could turn all the available dumb matter into computronium and use it for processing our thoughts. Long-term, it's the only way to go. The solar system is a dead loss right now – dumb all over! Just measure the MIPS per milligram. If it isn't thinking, it isn't working. We need to start with the low-mass bodies, reconfigure them for our own use. Dismantle the moon! Dismantle Mars! Build masses of free-flying nanocomputing processor nodes exchanging data via laser link, each layer running off the waste heat of the next one in. Matrioshka brains, Russian doll Dyson spheres the size of solar systems. Teach dumb matter to do the Turing boogie!”
-Charles Stross, Accelerando
​By 2040, mind-uploading may become a norm and a fact of life with a “critical mass” of uploads and digital immortality.

Even today, we all are contributing to the global digital archives of the Syntellect – every time you upload a photo or make a call – you leave a digital footprint in the Cyberspace.

The most probable mainstream non-invasive way to transfer human consciousness in the intermediate future, with initial stages in the 2030s, could be the convergence of optogenetics, nanotechnologies, neuroengineering, Cloud exocortex and an array of neurotechnologies allowing to connect our wetware directly to the Cloud.

Initially, each of us will have a personal exocortex in the Cloud, the third non-biological “de-cerebral” hemisphere, which will be in constant communication with the other two biological brain hemispheres.

At some point, this “third hemisphere,” will have a threshold information content and intimate knowledge of your biology, personality and other physical world attributes in order to seamlessly integrate with your persona as a holistic entity. In time, as your original biological wetware fades away in comparison to the more capable exocortex, perhaps, in time, billionfold more capable, the exocortex, this digital mindware of yours, would smoothly assume all functions of the biological brain circa its “expiration” date.

Gradually, our minds will migrate to the almighty Cloud. And your mind-pattern will persist. By any measure, it still will be you!

​Akin to evolution of life from unicellularity to multicellularity during the Cambrian explosion, we call this theoretical view on the impending meta-system transition – uploading humanity, consequently morphing into one singular Global Mind and unlocking a new, grander reality – 'The Syntellect Hypothesis'.” 

-Excerpt from The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind's Evolution by Alex Vikoulov, available now on Amazon, from Barnes & Noble, and directly from EcstadelicNET webstore.
[Video Transcript] Video: Mind Uploading: The Impending Meta-System Transition of Humanity - Ecstadelic Media
P.S. We are goal-oriented beings. I believe that one's primary goal should be reaching the Simulation Singularity, i.e. engineered godhood. Think about it: with immortality guaranteed and with access to any full-sensory VR experience limited only by your imagination, you're a godling! Immortality will become possible with exocortex technologies when our minds effectively migrate to the Cloud. And you can immerse into VR experience of any human ever lived, or that of imaginary scenarios or of any creature you want to embody as an avatar. In fact, that's what has already happened and if you believe that we are one singular consciousness, your experience as a human is just that: a simulation on another level. But let's enjoy the journey since once at "our own" Simulation Singularity, you set yourself for perhaps trillions of years of subjective novelty up until you'd like to immerse so much that you forget who you are in actuality and invent a new level of the game.

Keywords: mind uploading, digital immortality, syntellect hypothesis, syntellect, human consciousness, digital consciousness, optogenetics, nanotechnology, neuroengineering, exocortex, neurotechnology, third hemisphere, digital mindware, biological brain, mind pattern, uploading humanity, global mind, meta-system transition, Alex Vikoulov, five paradigms of the mind's evolution, intelligence supernova, evolution of life, unicellularity, multicellularity, global brain, upload, wetware, cyberspace, Charles Stross, Accelerando, Cambrian explosion, matryoshka, Dyson sphere, Simulation Singularity, engineered godhood, Cloud, full-sensory VR, VR experience, subjective novelty, singular consciousness, uploading humanity

​Image Credit: Shutterstock​
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Love is the glue that holds the Universe together, literally | Video

by Alex Vikoulov [Video w/transcript included]

​"Love is the river of life in the world." -Henry Ward Beecher

Love contrasts with fear, light with dark, black implies white, self implies other, suffering implies ecstasy, death implies life. We can devise and apprehend something only in terms of what it is not. This is the cosmic binary code: Yin/Yang, True/False, Infinite/Finite, Masculine/Feminine, Theta/Omega, On/Off, Yes/No...
​There are really only two opposing forces at play: love as universal integrating force and fear as universal disintegrating force.

Like in Conway’s Game of Life information flows along the path of the least resistance influenced by the bigger motivator – either love factor of fear factor (or, rather, their sophisticated gradients like pleasure and pain) –Go or No go. 

Love and its contrasting opposite fear is what makes us feel alive. Love is recognized self-similarity in the other, a fractal algorithm of the least resistance.

And love, as the finest intelligence, is obviously an extreme form of collaboration – collectively ascending to higher love, “becoming one planet of love.” Love is the glue that holds the Universe together. In this quantum [computational] multiverse the essence of digital is quantum entanglement. The totality of your digital reality is what your conscious mind implicitly or explicitly chooses to experience out of the infinite – a cocktail of love response and fear response. 

​-Excerpt from The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind's Evolution by Alex Vikoulov, available now on Amazon.
​[Video Transcript] Video: Love is the glue that holds the Universe together - Ecstadelic Media
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More Than An Algorithm: A Palette of Intelligence Explored

by Alex Vikoulov | Foreword to "More Than An Algorithm" by Antonin Tuynman, PhD ​“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” -Albert Einstein
 
As a little kid I remember hearing from my father all kinds of stories sort of like this one: A father wanted to test the intelligence of his two sons. He assigned to each of them the task of looking after a cherry tree, and promised to reward the boy whose tree would yield the best berry when harvested.
​One of the boys saw that the leaves were withering off and flowers were coming out at the end of the branches. So, he decided to carefully water every leaf and every flower. The tree withered still more and eventually died.
 
The smarter boy, on the other hand, went on watering the root; the tree stayed green and healthy and yielded an abundant harvest of delicious cherries.
 
My father who was very good at teaching (no wonder, he was an instructor at a technology college early in his career) taught me to always look beyond the apparent, to always try to start with the bigger picture and work out the details as you go along, locate the source or reason of any challenging situation or find some other invisible root cause in order to better comprehend a task at hand. “We learn throughout our lives, son,” my dad used to say, “the faster you learn, the better.” ​The essence of intelligence is learning and applying the acquired knowledge to achieve complex goals. The age of intelligence augmentation is upon us, which makes the present book even more compelling to obtain and study, especially for experts working in the field of cognitive science, neuroengineering, and artificial intelligence.

This short book can be read not only as a supplement to the previously published volume "Is Intelligence an Algorithm?", but also as an academic treatise or a long essay in its own right perhaps with an alternative title: Is Intelligence More Than An Algorithm?: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Tackle The Paradoxes of Learning and Intelligence.

Throughout human history we’ve seen a gradual appreciation of the premium for intelligence up to a point sometime perhaps in our own future where most, if not all, physical attributes might simply fade away in comparison.

One of the earliest furors on the premium for intelligence well may be an ancient Indian chess folk tale. The tradition of serving Paal Paysam made of rice to visiting pilgrims started after one legendary game of chess. The story goes somewhat like this: The local king was a well-known chess enthusiast, and welcomed anyone who could be a worthy opponent. So, one day a travelling sage appeared on the doorsteps of his palace and challenged him to play the game of chess.

The king offered any reward that the sage could name. Humbly, the sage asked for a single grain of rice to put on the first chess square and double it on every consequent one, if he wins. King agreed to this and the game began. Having lost the game and being a man of his word the king ordered a bag of rice to be brought to the chess board.

The king started placing the grains according the reward arrangement quickly realizing that he would be unable to fulfill his promise because on the nineteenth square he would have had to come up with 1,000,000 grains of rice. And, finally on the sixty fourth square the king would have had to put more than 18x10^16 grains of rice which equates to untold trillions of tons of rice!

It was at that point that the sage revealed himself as Krishna and told him that he doesn't have to pay the debt right away but can do that over time. That is why to this day visiting pilgrims are still feasting on Paal Paysam and the king's debt to Krishna is still being repaid.

This parable demonstrates an immense power of exponential growth present in our today’s information technologies but as intended here -- the premium for intelligence -- it seems that the King of Ambalapuzzha will never be able to pay off his debt in full to Krishna.

So, how can we define intelligence? And why is it more than an algorithm? I don't mean to oversimplify what Dr. Tuynman has to say in the present book and I can’t agree with him more -- intelligence is more than an algorithm -- it is a meta-algorithm, more specifically meta-algorithmic information processing with certain emergent properties like network effects and conscious awareness in us human beings.
​When we think of algorithms, step-by-step information processing, we think of machines and mechanisms. When we think of meta-algorithms, layered feedback-driven complexity and metabolic activity, we think of organisms. In this treatise, Dr. Tuynman seems to counter the Computational Hypothesis (at least the most straightforward version of it) according to which organic algorithms are our neural codes, i.e. "software of the mind." But what if we can expand the Computational Hypothesis in order to reverse engineer our human intelligence and self-awareness?
 
In this sense, a claim that I submit to you in my recent book The Syntellect Hypothesis, organismic intelligence, this meta-algorithmic information processing, is what can be rightly viewed as consciousness, i.e. our conscious awareness. Viewed in this way, consciousness turns out what information processing feels like to a conscious “computing” mind.
 
Dr. Tuynman in “More than an Algorithm” puts it slightly in different words but essentially he means the same: Finding the right algorithms and subroutines to follow, applying optimization, performing analysis, executing [careful] pruning, and finally synthesis constitutes a holistic, streamlined process to us as intelligent agents. But the devil is in the details, they say, so I can attest to you that you’ll find plenty of insights and surprises as you read along this extraordinary volume.
 
Dedicating an entire chapter to it, Dr. Tuynman seems to be enamored with Tsang’s "The Fractal Brain Theory" (and so am I) which posits, as its name implies, that the brain has a fractal structure on many genetic and abstract cognitive levels. It employs a combination of forward chaining and backward chaining, just like certain types of heuristics in artificial intelligence. The author makes a special emphasis on mapping as the unifying process underlying all natural processes and recursive self-modification.
 
Dr. Tuynman warns us that human intelligence cannot be simply reduced to underlying algorithms since consciousness itself is what should be considered a truly “ontological primitive” with qubits/bits of information as reality's building blocks. Attributes of intelligence of a human species should include but be not limited to: higher-order abstract thinking, intuition, imagination, creativity, and finally wisdom, even though they haven’t been formally recognized as types of intelligence. Intuition may be one of the highest forms of intelligence, according to some psychologists. To others, wisdom.
 
Tuynman shows to us that Nature's fluidity of intelligence is due to its syntactical underpinnings: Nature is neither fully deterministic nor fully random. Rather, Nature uses her own language based on various codes from clearly defined genetic codes to immaterial neural codes to less obvious societal ones. Intelligence evolves and its evolution appears to be linguistic, or a code-theoretic teleological process. The philosopher gives us his definition of this Telos (in Greek, “purpose”): Nature purposefully organizes itself, so clearly it is not random.
 
Demystifying a curious and ever-present phenomenon of emergence to the best of our current understanding, Dr. Tuynman shows that both Nature and Mind interact as many experiencers to become one again, at a higher meta-system level. Or, as I put it, alternating from pluralities to singularities, and from singularities back to pluralities, creative singular consciousness expressing itself throughout the [virtual] multiverse.
 
God becomes intelligible through this Nature’s phenomenon of emergence: Universal consciousness is said to emerge somewhere ahead of us in space-time, however, IT transcends our conventional dimensionality and is already here within each of us. This also implies that all information is integrated at one level; all our individuated experiences are simultaneously observed from a higher level and integrated in a single experiential self -- the Overmind -- there’s really One Mind, the one we all share, a philosophical worldview known as ‘Idealism’.
 
Is reality entirely mechanistical, as proponents of determinism would claim? Or, is it teleological? Just by looking at accelerating complexification of the Universe of which we are an integral part, we can conclude that we are not subjected to a random walk of evolution, nor are we subjected to a deterministic script of Nature, the truth lies somewhere in between -- we are part of teleological evolution.
 
In the book you’ll encounter some hefty dose of healthy criticism of quantum computing pioneer David Deutsch’s ideas on quantum determinism stemming from Many-Worlds Interpretation. And I wholeheartedly support that criticism.
 
In the chapter on free will, we get to discuss free will against the backdrop of quantum mechanical principles which I found especially fascinating. Tuynman shows that our Universe transcends the dichotomy of determinism vs. non-determinism and that it actually allows both at the same time and even allows one to cause the other and vice versa. By the way, speaking of algorithms, meta-algorithms and free will, I refer to our sense of agency, i.e. free will, as “Quantum algorithm of consciousness” in my own work. In line with Antonin Tuynman's prognostications, my above-mentioned book, The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind's Evolution, where the word ‘Intelligence’ was mentioned 229 times, and where I introduce the term ‘Intelligence Supernova’, also emphasizes that one of the most probable directions to develop AI and finally reach human-level AGI in the near future, would not be accomplished through commonly used today Deep Learning alone. But rather, in the coming years we could see not only the combination of bottom-up, top-down and interlinking (cybernetic) approaches to Machine Learning but we could witness more emphasis on ‘Evolutionary Computing’, known today as ‘Reinforcement Learning’ -- we will need to teach self-aware AI to think for themselves in novel situations -- the way our children learn the ropes of general intelligence.
 
In the 1980s, computer scientist Hans Moravec laid out the most challenging part of creating AGI -- what has now been dubbed The Moravec Paradox -- and explained why it's just what we should expect from machines that are immune to the pressures of natural selection. "Encoded in the large, highly evolved sensory and motor portions of the human brain is a billion years of experience about the nature of the world and how to survive in it," he wrote in his 1988 book "Mind Children." "The deliberate process we call reasoning is, I believe, the thinnest veneer of human thought, effective only because it is supported by this much older and much more powerful, though usually unconscious, sensorimotor knowledge." As a rule, what's easy for humans is extremely difficult for Artificial Intelligence, and vice versa, what's supposed to be easy for AI is an impossible task for humans.
 
From the evolutionary standpoint, carbon-based intelligence represents enabling factors for silicon-based intelligence to come to existence. If Nature could find its way to engender intelligence and self-reflective consciousness in humans, sooner or later, we'll be able to replicate cognitive functionality and self-awareness in our "Mind Children," in our machine counterparts.
 
Sometimes we're leery to what we call metaphysics but every human being, be it a scientist, an entrepreneur, or a doctor, is by definition a "metaphysician." We start with a set of assumptions and then we try to work out our hypotheses. Even our Nobel-winning models are only provisional at best and are to be replaced by newer more sophisticated models with the next paradigmatic shift.
 
The Universe is not what textbook physics tells us. The Big Bang theory, for example, drawing a lot of criticism as of late, uses a starting assumption of the "Universe from nothing," (a ‘quantum fluctuation’ in a scientific jargon), or the initial Cosmological Singularity. But aside from this highly improbable happenstance, we can just as well operate from a different set of assumptions and place the initial Cosmological Singularity at the Omega Point -- the transcendental attractor, or the omniversal holographic projector of all possible timelines.
 
In his book, Dr. Tuynman makes his case for Digital Akasha, a sort of Prima Materia, or the primordial conscious energy, and shares his views on the famed Simulation Hypothesis, the hard problem of consciousness, as well as the hermeneutic approach as a possible avenue towards AGI.
 
Do I agree with everything Dr. Tuynman writes in his book? Not necessarily. But most of our views as digital philosophers are incredibly in sync and our minds are now [quantum-]entangled going forward. We keep on surprising each other on a regular basis, bouncing ideas from one another and fostering our collaboration which should result in more co-authored publications (you might savor our stylistic differences present in this book as well). Along with other like-minded intellectuals, it's a powerful ecology of minds. Reading Antonin’s works sometimes makes me think that I'm reading my own thoughts including some conflicting ones, as each of us has from time to time.

-Alex Vikoulov

P.S. That was my foreword written to the new book "More Than An Algorithm" by Antonin Tuynman, PhD available now as eBook on Amazon.   Tags: More Than An Algorithm, intelligence, artificial intelligence, deep learning, reinforcement learning free will, determinism, teleological evolution, Albert Einstein, intelligence augmentation, cognitive science, neuroengineering, artificial intelligence, academic treatise, long essay, Interdisciplinary Approach, Paradoxes of Learning, premium for intelligence, Paal Paysam, exponential growth, information technologies, King of Ambalapuzzha, Krishna, define intelligence, meta-algorithm, meta-algorithmic information processing, metabolic activity, organic algorithms, neural codes, software of the mind, Computational Hypothesis, human intelligence self-awareness, Syntellect Hypothesis, organismic intelligence, consciousness, conscious awareness, computing mind, Fractal Brain Theory, heuristics, recursive self-modification, ontological primitive, higher-order abstract thinking, intuition, imagination, creativity, code-theoretic teleological process, meta-system, singular consciousness, multiverse, Universal consciousness, experiential self, idealism, accelerating complexification, David Deutsch, quantum determinism, Many-Worlds Interpretation, free will, quantum mechanical principles, determinism, non-determinism, sense of agency, Quantum algorithm of consciousness, The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind's Evolution, Intelligence Supernova, human-level AGI, cybernetic approach, Evolutionary Computing, Reinforcement Learning, general intelligence, Hans Moravec, Moravec Paradox, Mind Children, carbon-based intelligence, silicon-based intelligence, cognitive functionality, metaphysics, metaphysician, Big Bang theory, Cosmological Singularity, Omega Point, transcendental attractor, omniversal holographic projector, possible timelines, Digital Akasha, Prima Materia, conscious energy, Simulation Hypothesis, hard problem of consciousness, hermeneutic approach, digital philosopher

*Image Credit: Shutterstock, Ecstadelic Media
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About the Author:
Alex Vikoulov is a futurist, digital philosopher, neo-transcendentalist, transhumanist singularitarian, evolutionary extrapolist, cosmist, independent scholar, founder of Ecstadelic Media Group, painter, media artist, essayist, co-author of "Is Reality a Simulation?" (2018), author of "The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind's Evolution," "The Origins of Us: Evolutionary Emergence and The Omega Point Cosmology," "The Physics of Time: D-Theory of Time & Temporal Mechanics" (2019). Lives in Burlingame, California (San Francisco Bay Area). More Bio...
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