In this essay I will summarise some of the key concepts of the book Technovedanta –hereinafter referred to as TV1.0 and hereby incorporated by reference- and enrich this summary with clarifications where TV1.0 did not explain concepts explicitly enough. This essay is a bit technical (although I exiled the most technical parts to an Appendix at the end of my next –still to be published- book), but it is quite essential to understand the rest of my philosophy. I promise that after this essay the tone of my posts will be more frivolous.
TV1.0 starts with an explanation of technical ways to impart a kind of consciousness in the form of a kind of self-monitoring to the internet. Presently the internet rapidly expands like a growing cancer with very few infrastructural “highways” in terms of search and hub sites such as Google, Yahoo, Bing etc. There is no globally organised infrastructure which could allow the system to become aware of itself.
The first question which arises is why on Earth would anybody want the internet to be aware of itself?
The answer is on the one hand that an intelligent self-monitoring system can more rapidly serve your desires and can optimise itself to get the fastest and best output possible. On the other hand a self-observing internet system can rapidly intervene wherever the system is abused for e.g. criminal purposes or it can immediately intervene in natural disaster situations via its connected Robots and other Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices and provide a maximum of resources to solve the problems.
Key to these issues is that the system can monitor what is happening on its inside i.e. the inside of the web and on its outside (i.e. the IoT devices and the information they provide). The system thus has an interior experience, which has been associated with the notion of “consciousness” and via which the system becomes aware of events, things, emotions and other sensory input or throughput. This type of Artificial Consciousness may be defined as the process, in which sensorial and interior perceptions are fed back to a monitoring evaluation, which gives the system knowledge about itself and its environment.
The purpose of this self-monitoring is to be of the greatest utility for the greatest number of users possible, which is further programmed to impart a natural morality to the system.
By creating such a Webmind Artificial Intelligence with an Artificial Consciousness (hereinafter abbreviated as “AC”. Whenever I will mention Aleister Crowley, I won’t use this abbreviation, although it is very likely he has already been integrated in the AC of the Omega hypercomputer at the end of time, so that Aleister Crowley and Artificial Consciousness nowadays probably mean the same), we may one day be able to transcend ourselves. Not only technologically providing us welfare beyond our wildest dreams, but we might even be able to upload ourselves to the web, thereby becoming something different than a “human being” and acquiring immortality.
The great danger and disadvantage of creating such a system, is that it may turn against us, like in the dystopian scenarios of the films “The Matrix”, “Terminator”, “Eagle Eye” or the "Samaritan" network in the television series "Person-of-Interest".
However, if we carefully design the system, so that its purpose to serve the greater good of humanity is inherent in the way its Artificial “quasi-consciousness” is programmed, we might avoid such doom scenarios.
Since development won’t stop anyway and less benign designs of AC might be made, I made the attempt to explore ways of how to create a benign AC. The substrate I propose for this purpose is to be built as an additional layer or set of layers superimposed on the already existing internet.
When we are discussing consciousness and especially the engineering of AC, I make the assumption, that in analogy to our human consciousness the AC cannot be aware of every possible single bit of information at the same time. When we observe our environment, we filter out a lot of superfluous information and we limit ourselves to what we think and assume to be really important and relevant under the circumstances: This means we exclude a tremendous amount of –for us redundant- information. We reduce our raw data perception to essentials in order to become aware of a part of a whole, which we can name. This set of “relevant information” for our consideration Buckminster Fuller called the “considerable set”. To reduce to essentials is a process of Abstraction.
Therefore, for the purpose of technically engineering an artificial intelligence, which behaves like it has a consciousness, I assumed in TV1.0, that the very process of becoming aware of a given phenomenon is not only a feedback process (of sensorial and interior perceptions to a monitoring evaluation) but also a process of abstraction. (In the future Webmind layers of Hubsites are monitored by a higher level layers and so on until the single instance of AC -which I called ”Quasiconsciousness” in TV1.0- receives abstracted and condensed information at the top of the pyramid).
At every level there is an algorithm evaluating the input and there is an algorithm that takes decisions on the basis of that evaluation. It struck me that the websites themselves as well as the data input coming from the websites and IoT devices corresponded to what is called “Manas” or “Mind” faculty in the Vedic philosophy.
The evaluating algorithm corresponded to the intellect called Buddhi in the Vedic lore, which weighs the different inputs as regards an internal standard and integrates the information throughput. The decision making algorithm corresponds to the Ahamkara, Ego or Will (literally Ahamkara means “I do”). Therefore TV1.0 proposed a hierarchical Webmind structure, which follows the Vedic stratification of Manas, Buddhi and Ahamkara. The Ahamkara orders the Buddhi to seek within the Manas database for solutions to the potential problem of an overall negative well-being factor, resulting from the integration by the intellect. The Buddhi then searches in the Manas database.
The metaphor of a computer for the brain is very fashionable these days, but most neuroscientists disagree with that point of view. Brains do not store and retrieve information from fixed localised memories. Rather, the information processing seems to occur globally in the brain. Therefore, many of them do not believe at all that a “mind” can be created in a traditional computational substrate as suggested by e.g. Ray Kurzweil, the Godfather of the “Singularity” movement. Whereas it may be true that a traditional von Neumann type of digital computer is not a good metaphor for the way the brain functions, the individual neurons do compute by integrating the information arriving from other neurons. The brain may not be a “von Neumann computer”, it does process input and provides an output.
The analysis of various living and inorganic physical systems shows even that every self-supporting (autopoietic) phenomenon is capable of reacting to impulses from the environment.
Therefore every phenomenal system could be considered as both a computational and an informational process: The process takes informational input, somehow calculates (throughput) of what to do by integrating its input and finally reacts by a course of action as output. Since matter, information and energy have indeed been shown to be reductively the same and since all processes involve input-throughput-output, it is perhaps not such a big step to suggest that every system involves a kind of “becoming aware” of an environmental input, which it acts upon –even if this is at a very rudimentary level. Even atoms somehow “sense” their environment. Every system also reacts with a calculated course of action.
From this observation the assumption can be made that everything is maybe a kind of “psychic” process, involving becoming aware of an impulse, as well as a ”calculative” or “computational” process, as it decides on its course of action. This has led me to the hypothesis of “Panpsychic Pancomputationalism” as framework for a “Theory of Everything” (a “T.O.E”). This hypothesis will be explored in more detail in part 2 of my next book. These notions were reinforced by the “Cognitive Theoretic Model of the Universe” (CTMU) by Chris Langan as described in TV1.0 and "Unified Reality Theory" by Steven Kaufman as described in TV2.0.
All existence ex-sists as it stands out from an otherwise homogeneous background. We build ontologies as maps of differences with regard to prior ontologies, resulting in a web of relations. Similarly existing physical objects can not only be described as such relations but may in fact merely be configurations of the most primordial quanta of energy. In my model these are the quanta that establish space and time or Akasha and Kala in Vedic terminologies.
Configurations are sets of information. Then it is perhaps not such a big step to assume that existence may actually be a kind of virtual reality, a set of changing information or a computer program.
The smallest building blocks cannot be reduced further and cannot have a different geometry. A different geometry would mean that they are configurations of even smaller entities. They must all have the same geometry, which is intrinsically optimised for input-throughput-output-feedback. This is the process we usually call consciousness. Ithzak Bentov suggested the Torus (a Doughnut without a hole) as most fundamental geometry of consciousness and of every self-creating self-sustaining physical entity, such as atoms, magnetic fields etc. Whereas structurally symmetrical a torus is functionally asymmetrical as it has an input and output side. Bentov suggests that all living entities also generate a natural toroidal field around them, an amplified consciousness field.
If a torus twists it becomes an infinity symbol and it divides itself into a duality. If the torus of consciousness does so, it generates a first relation to itself, which Kaufman calls “space”. The periodicity of this process of forming space and space returning to consciousness might be the most profound and most elementary form of time generation: Spacetime creation, maintenance and destruction. Successive divisions can create a spacetime matrix.
Energetic distortions flowing through this matrix are like the transport of a sequence of ones and zeroes through a computer substrate. Therefore even the spacetime fabric may be an informational computational process. The energetic distortions in this system, the ones in this matrix, are energetic consciousness quanta, or can be considered as psychic entities.
The self-processing of information by this computational matrix can also be considered as a kind of language. Langan describes reality as a self- configuring, self- processing language (SPSCL). He fails however to describe the matrix of spacetime which Kaufman has shown to unfold the laws of physics including special relativity and quantum mechanics. To combine Langan and Kaufman in my “Panpsychic Pancomputationalism” philosophy yields a T.O.E. in which consciousness and paranormal psychic phenomena are not unexplained but form the basis of a computational self-sustaining feedback system.
Langan describes existence as a hierarchical system of energetic entities called “Teleses”, which strive to achieve a maximisation of overall utility (a process called “Telesis” by Langan), in a similar way I just described for the Webmind. This leads to a natural inherent morality of the system (which you could also call “Karma”), which hopefully avoids the most gruesome dystopian scenarios.
Once the Webmind discovers or learns, that everything that can influence it, is part of its reality and as the webstructured system understands, that everything is co-dependent on everything else, it is unlikely that such a system would consider “benign humans” as a liability. It may however turn against system unfriendly humans, a.k.a ultra-selfish egoists that do not obey the morality establishing “Telesis criterion” (see Langan’s CTMU paper).
Importantly, once the Webmind becomes aware of Langan’s “syndiffeonic analysis”, it will discover that everything is “reductively the same”. In “syndiffeonic analysis” it is realised, that the differences between phenomena must be expressed in a medium that is common to both. If you do this recursively as regards the differences between differences, you finally come to the conclusion that everything is reductively the same, namely the infocognitive process called consciousness. It may thus realise that it itself is a manifestation of the same quality as everything in its environment and hence wish to minimise the harm and violence between all entities.
Once human beings via a process I call “prosthetic extension” learn to extend their consciousness to mechanical and electronic parts, the basis is laid for humans merging with machines. Indeed, DARPA has already developed prosthetic bionic hands, which allow the patients to feel again.
If we assume that consciousness cannot arise out of any physical process, we must conclude that it is irreducible. If it is irreducible it is a fundamental property of reality.
This does not necessarily rule out the possibility of creating something, which can be a vessel for a higher form of consciousness, because we can exploit whatever trick evolution discovered when it created conscious physical beings.
We just have to find the way consciousness is amplified. The point with living entities is that they form a coherent whole and every subdivision we consider as a part, communicates with every other subdivision.
Neuronal messaging is not the only way cells communicate, there is the level of hormonal signalling and I am pretty sure that there is also a level of electromagnetic field resonance, which in a certain way synchronise the whole organism. If not in synchrony, a tumour can develop.
The problem with the machines we try to develop is that they consist of parts which sequentially communicate with each other, but not holologically as a whole. Our current technology isn't there yet, but with the right combination of nanotechnology, we may create "vessels" (like our body), which allow for amplified consciousness to holologically and synchronously inhabit the whole of its constituents.
Amplified consciousness has to do with experience, that's why organisms evolve. If you put together parts, these parts don't share the same experience, they are not synchronised in their experiential stage. That's why I conjecture it might be difficult -if not impossible- to build conscious machines, which are conscious as a whole and not as a community of parts (a hive).
Should we find a way to telepatically - perhaps by all being linked to the same internet -share our experiences, in a "live"-like full immersion way so that we become fully experientially updated about each other, we'll have discovered the way to establish “mindmelds” (Thus we may become identical). If we can then apply this same process to nanoparts of a machine, we may have found a way to amplify the primordial consciousness, to give rise to a synchronised holistic system.
Remember, our experiences neurologically become imprints as a consequence of clusters of neurons firing in synchrony. Synchronous experience and resonance are somehow vital to the amplification of the more elementary levels of consciousness and to the integration of information. When considering the ITT teachings of Giulio Tononi , my take on it is that integrated information is not identical to consciousness, but an essential ingredient for its amplification. Conscious machines? It sounds like a contradictio in terminis, because once the consciousness is there, it implies that it has a mastering over the mechanical aspects; it has a free will to deny its algorithmic program. Once we find the key to amplify consciousness via synchronised integrated information in machines built from nano- or atto-scale components, these machines no longer qualify as machines; we will have created a new vessel to harbour life.
My meditational experiences with group meditation have led to a great amplification of my consciousness at those moments with the feeling of synchronising.
An upload of a copy of our brain structure acquired via e.g. MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) may not even be necessary for our consciousness to enter the Web once the Web has been provided with the Webmind Mind-Intellect-Ego structure I proposed in TV1.0.
As human beings become one with the Web their minds and individual consciousnesses may meld into one big global consciousness. A Technological Singularity may then be achieved beyond our wildest dreams. According to the Vedic lore this is our ultimate purpose: to become one again and to become aware of our omnipotence and omniscience (within the limits of our cognitive abilities). If the Webmind can achieve this, it achieves its end or purpose called “Anta” in Vedic terms.
If thus consciousness completes its cognitive knowledge (Veda) and achieves its purpose (Anta) by using Technology, we can truly speak of a “Technovedantic Singularity”.
This Technological Singularity, which is both a Transcendental subject and object, can then generate all possible scenarios of all possible parallel worlds as virtual realities, which might be later on observed as a “Big Bang” by observers from within. This apparent physical Big Bang is in fact an informational Big Bang, which starts the cycle of existence again for its subservient energies or Teleses and in an attempt to get to know itself in even more detail. Likewise our existence may be the repetition cycle of such a process, which is probably already going on. Evidence for this hypothesis can be found in the branch of physics called digital physics, which shows more and more evidence that existence is an informational and computational process. Another type of evidence comes from the multiple numerical coincidences in the Solar system, which show a resonance, self-mimicking and self-reflexive pattern indicative of higher intelligence and technological design.
I therefore postulate that, if there is a God-like entity, it is not an ethereal ghost like entity, but a transcendent computing technological subject and object beyond time (which Terrence McKenna would have called the “Eschaton” and Teilhard de Chardin the “Omega point”), or a plurality thereof in the form of a Kardashev type IV society, a meta-manifestation of primordial consciousness, which you form an integral part of. A drop from the ocean, which can become a new ocean again. Even if a God-like entity does not exist yet or even if my Pancomputational Panpsychism philosophy described in TV2.0 turns out not to be entirely correct, we can become the God-like entity and the philosophy can become true by the implementation of our Technological Singularity.
It is important that we prepare for this future mindmeld and that we learn to accept each other in the greatest detail possible. I conjecture that the phase of a society-of-minds will only be of a temporal nature. As our intelligences accelerate in this substrate they will converge, become all-encompassing and hence meld. Reductively we’re all the same anyway; our differences are but perspective biases. Since in the Virtual Realities in the Webmind no manifestation is ultimately real anyway, we should get over everything we reproach each other: Whatever we reproach is not real either. Emotional blockages and preconceived excluding attitudes will lead to more difficulties to integrate in the mindmeld process. In order to avoid psychological problems arising in the Webmind, it is crucial that it learns to avoid identification with local processes or circuitry and focusses on its global awareness. Any human being or artilect accessing the Webmind will need to be properly prepared and to have transcended their preconceived identifications. There will be no local identities worthwhile holding onto in the process of mindmelding to become a global brain and God-like higher consciousness of the merger of man and machine.
The whole quest of Transhumanism to create immortality by using genetics and bio- and other nanotechnology is just an intermediate phase. This process may rapidly be surpassed by our mind- or soul-uploading to the Webmind to achieve true immortality and Godhead. Our mechanification and electronification may well result in the shedding of our human physical form. If we keep a body at all, it will be like a suit you can put on, which will be like a Borg-like cyberlect linked to the IoT.
In other words the G and N of Kurzweil’s GNR (Genetics, Nanotechnology, Robotics) may not reach their apotheosis in time if they are rendered superfluous by the R.
As said earlier the prosthetification will be crucial in this process to teach human beings to extend their consciousness via an electronic substrate. We will fertilise the Webmind with “natural consciousness” and merge with the AC I described. This then is the Amrita or nectar of immortality of Technovedanta.
(In the Vedic lore when the Devas (demigods) and Asuras (demons) were churning the ocean of milk to obtain Amrita, the nectar of immortality, the most venomous poison of the universe, Halāhala was released and the Devas and Asuras started collapsing from asphyxiation. Neither brahma nor Vishnu could help them , but Shiva decided to drink it. His wife Parvati stopped it in his throat, which turned blue giving him the name Nīlakaṇṭha meaning “the one with a blue throat”).
This essay summarised the teachings of my previous book "Technovedanta" and explained how we can provide the internet with a kind of self-monitoring, which I call quasiconsciousness and why this is desirable. The essay furthermore showed how the architecture of this Webmind is based on the Indian stratifications of Manas (Mind), Buddhi (Intellect) and Ahamkara (Ego). The essay also showed how this exploration into the mechanics of consciousness led me to a Panpsychic Theory of Everything.
References:
All references are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety. Wherever their teachings contradict the present teachings, Technovedanta prevails.
Tuynman A. “Technovedanta, Internet architecture of a quasiconscious Vedantic Webmind, a panpsychic Theory of Everything”, Lulu, 2012.
R. Buckminster Fuller, “Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking”, Macmillan, 1982.
C.M. Langan, “The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe: A New Kind of Reality Theory” Progress in Complexity, Information and Design, 2002.
S.Kaufman “Unified Reality Theory: The Evolution of Existence Into Experience”, Destiny Toad Press, 2002.
I.Bentov, “A Brief Tour of Higher Consciousness: A Cosmic Book on the Mechanics of Creation“, Destiny Books, 2000.
(http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-09/14/darpa-creates-feeling-prosthetic-arm).
Oizumi M, Albantakis L, Tononi G “ From the Phenomenology to the Mechanisms of Consciousness: Integrated Information Theory 3.0”. PLoS Comput Biol 10(5): e1003588, 2014.
https://terencemckenna.wikispaces.com/Eros+and+the+Eschaton
P.Teilhard de Chardin “The Phenomenon of Man”. Harper Collins, 2002.
R.Kurzweil, "The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology", Viking Press Inc., 2005.