Live Q&A with Futurist Alex Vikoulov | Metaverse News Network
And there we go! Hello, everyone! So, tonight on Metaverse News Network night it's myself here -- Rich Mourant -- with, of course, Shauna, our ever-present hostess of the most's in the background tonight, and tonight we have Alex Vikoulov with us. Alex is an author, a futurist and a large thinker of thoughts that we all should wonder about. So, Alex, it's amazing to have you here tonight and we can't wait to to talk about what's on your mind! Thank you for having me tonight! I'm sure we'll have a fun conversation! That's the point! So, Alex, I'd like to ask you for the first kind of question: I was watching into your background a little bit and I saw that you were actually from Siberia? You grew up your childhood in Siberia? I was born and raised in Russia, yeah in Siberia, to be exact, you got it right. So, sometimes, you know, some people call me "Cyberian" -- with a 'C' ... And my hometown is actually called Novosibirsk which is if translated from Russian would be a "New Siberian City." Wow! So, and what was I mean for me as well I'm not from America either. I grew up in a small little town in the the desert of Africa, so not quite the same
kind of thing but the experience of coming over from that kind of desert state... Okay! now you got me interested -- whereabouts? Just south of Namibia in South Africa in the Namaqua desert. So, I mean such a polar kind of a different upbringing from what you would have had up in the snow but kind of the the isolation of that area, kind of I can feel in a kinship to. And how have you felt from coming from that kind of childhood to now living and working in the States? Well, actually, yeah, it's quite an experience because right now I feel myself like I have a stereoscopic picture of the world -- because two cultures, two worldviews and, you know, being able to speak two languages and think in two languages -- old world and new world, you know, it's blending all together... And did you find that that background gives you a different view of looking at these problems that you're looking at than the scientists here? In a way, yes, but science has pretty much the same foundation and it's not exactly different but, you know, slightly different, of course, I mean. We all are like "droplets on this cobweb"
of reality. We all could have different worldviews anyhow. So, yes, in this particular sense, yeah... So, we now took the fact that you're into the science world, what exactly are you focusing on at the moment? I'm a futurist, evolutionary cyberneticist and philosopher of mind and cybernetics in general can be defined as a multidisciplinary study of evolutionary processes and feedback-driven systems of control between animal and machine. My chosen field -- evolutionary cybernetics as well as my chosen philosophical discipline, philosophy of mind -- both are aimed to tackle the issues of this new human-machine paradigm. Evolutionary cybernetics deals with the global meta-trends and the phenomenon of radical emergence on a planetary scale. So, The Syntellect Hypothesis, as the title of my magnum opus, refers to the emergence of self-aware planetary mind as a result of the so-called Cybernetic Singularity... Okay, so, Cybernetic Singularity?
What does that fully mean to you? As a species, we actually had two prior developmental singularities with sudden powerful impacts on the course of the species. The "linguistic singularity" made us human. With the invention of language, human biological evolution was superseded by the technocultural evolution, some call "epigenetic evolution," ever since. As a tool-making species, we
have always strived to extend our reach: We designed tools and tools designed us back by shaping our minds and our societies. With the invention of writing, we began to "outsource" our cognition to alternative carriers other than our biological wetware. The second big singularity that we are currently going through can be identified as a "Cyberdelic Singularity" that coincided with the dawn of Space Age, at the intersection of cybernetic and psychedelic cultures. That was the moment in time with confluence of nascent information technology aimed at augmentation of human mind and personal liberation through boundary-dissolving, mind-expanding psychedelic experiences. This Cyberdelic Singularity opened up the whole new realms
of possibilities for our species: outer space, inner space and cyberspace. So, we're going through this Cyberdelic Singularity right now. But as a broad umbrella term "Technological Singularity" -- ETA circa 2029 -- may arbitrarily encompass mini techno singularity events such as the upcoming AGI Singularity, the Simulation Singularity and the main meta-systemic event that I refer to as the Cybernetic Singularity. The Cybernetic Singularity can also be referred to as the "Syntellect Emergence." Akin to the Cambrian explosion from unicellularity to multicellularity that happened about 542 million years ago, we are now on the verge of yet another event of cosmic significance, some kind of "Intelligence Supernova" in our corner of the Universe, the phase transition of humanity. The convergence of biotechnology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and exponential growth of computing power puts us firmly on the path towards Intelligence Explosion, or the Cybernetic Singularity, phase transition of humankind altogether to the newly-cognized reality framework. So, here's my thesis on the chronological progression of
Technological Singularity we should be pretty much, you know, on the brink of. Circa 2030, we should reach the so-called "Longevity Escape Velocity," meaning that we'll add every year more than one year to an average remaining life expectancy. By then, we also should complete reverse engineering of the human brain. We'll have reached AGI -- human level Artificial General Intelligence -- and at
that time, thanks to nanotechnology, humans will start to use Cloud-connected synthetic neocortices, greatly enhancing our natural intelligence. Nanobots, the size of a blood cell, will swim in your blood to keep you from getting sick and transmit your thoughts to a wireless Cloud... And you say we're on track for that for 2030? 2030, yeah, that will be... Wow! Well, it's thanks to exponentials, 40 steps in linear progression is just 40 steps away but 40 steps in exponential progression it's three times the distance from Earth to the Sun! It's a trillion with a "T" -- so, this is a power of exponentials and this is how information technology is actually developing right now... Do you see hardware being
the base that's going to drive this first or do you think that this is going to be software-led? Well, software is actually evolving much, much faster than hardware. So, for software it might be five updates whereas for the hardware it can be one upgrade. Software is always more fluid, has more evolvability potential... You were speaking before about
big movements being the drivers of this like quantum computing and AI, and nanobots and so on. These now as those are going forward I see a lot of progression in quantum computing and a lot of developments in AI that are happening but I think there's definitely going to be kind of one that leads on to the development of the others greater like I see if we develop quantum computing to the point that it's actually functional, that's going to drive AI computing faster... Oh, absolutely! So, as we go forward in these kinds of developments, there's also kind of things that makes me intrigued about what's going forward about "unseen" inventions, you know, what like people didn't predict that the Internet was going to come around. I mean you looked through all the science fiction books, you look back through all of the kinds of future predictions that were built up until the 1980s, and the Internet was never even something on anybody's mindset but it's now here and it's the thing that's changed the world and made everything grow even further and it wasn't even on our plate of expectations to come. So, even though so yeah so even though we're looking at these things to be the the nexus of these singularities like the development of quantum computing and AI I kind of wonder often what is the kind of side track of the unexpected inventions that's going to come that's going to veer us off in a different pathway. I mean, look like nobody expected electricity but look what
electricity did to the world. Right, right! Well, "Singularity" is a term -- I'm sorry go ahead -- no, no, no, I'm interested to see where you think that even though we've got these great advancements coming in quantum computing and this kind of things I don't think they're going to be the thing that pushes us towards the Singularity. I think it's something that comes maybe from gene slicing or something from this kind of side ones that develop a technology that catapults everything faster. I'm just interested to see what you think is likely... Yeah, well, first of all, "Singularity" is a term borrowed from physics that refers to the cosmological singularity of Big Bang as well as the singularity as the center of black hole that lies beyond its event horizon where all known physical laws break down. The term "Technological Singularity" was coined by sci-fi writer Vernor Vinge in reference to the runaway effect of technological progress -- the "Intelligence Explosion." That's why we call it "Intelligence
Explosion," when, generally speaking, machines, or non-biological intelligence, become smarter than biological intelligence, unenhanced biological humans. We commonly use this term as a metaphor to refer to this inflection point with whatever lies beyond becomes utterly unpredictable. So, yeah, whatever we can predict right now might not turn out quite the same as predicted. But then again, I mean, we can make educated guesses and that's why I believe that we'll have these "mini-techno-singularities" events that edge us ever closer to the main meta-systemic event of Cybernetic Singularity. So, this is why I'm talking about circa 2030 the AGI Singularity based
on humankind reaching the human-level Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). It's gonna be a huge event, right? Because, you know, at that point we'll have the second intelligent species on this planet. And circa 2035, we should hit another milestone -- I call it the "Simulation Singularity" which is also kind of pretty "spooky," you know, for some people because this is the event when our immersive technologies would render artificial realities perceptually indistinguishable from the physical reality. It means that you don't even have to wear a VR headset. At that point,
we'll be past having Internet-enabled contact lenses and at that point, we'll have nanobots swimming our bloodstream and basically creating VR (virtual reality) from within our nervous system. They suppress the signals from physical reality and just render artificial reality from within your nervous system. Circa 2035, mid-2030s, we'll have the Simulation Singularity. Combined with AGI and ever accelerating exponential growth of computing and all IT fields that you can conceive of, including quantum computing as you mentioned, we'll have our thinking predominantly on the Cloud by 2040, and we'll spend most, if not all, the time in VR. By 2045, I agree with futurist Ray Kurzweil, we'll probably hit this major Technological Singularity event which I call the Syntellect Emergence, or the Cybernetic Singularity, with the emergence of the AI-powered Global Brain. This globally distributed
mind based on advanced quantum computing and communication technologies, "Digital Gaia," in which human and AI minds both participate, would collectively form a high level of intelligence and awareness. So, by any means it will mean some kind of phase transition. At that time, the Global Brain will get smarter and smarter at exponential rate -- completely incomprehensible rate for unenhanced biological humans. So, it is going to be like Intelligence Supernova...
I have a question for you, particularly as we're starting to talk about a a kind of omnipotent AI: What do you feel is like the difference between artificial intelligence and consciousness? I would say that artificial intelligence is kind of oxymoron. Everything is in consciousness, it's the same continuum. If you ask me about my thesis on consciousness, I would say that we live in a computational reality, everything comes down to consciousness. Basically, there's one universal substance, which is consciousness, and one medium -- information. Information and consciousness are two sides of the same coin. Nothing else actually exists -- only information and consciousness. Consciousness is a subjectivistic wave function collapse. It's a computation.
It's a quantum computation by any means. We live in this multidimensional experiential matrix. So, everything is in consciousness. Today's robots are only objects in our consciousness but to your question: Could artificially intelligent agents ever possess genuine consciousness and sense of agency, I'd say it's just a matter of time as long as we make progress in the field and we do exponentially but not the way most people and even AI researchers envision. The ability of future superintelligent machines and enhanced humans alike to instantly share knowledge within this Global Brain in digital format will lead to evolution of intelligence from relatively isolated individual minds to the global community of hyperconnected cybernetic minds, the Global Brain, termed the "Syntellect" in my book... I have a practical,
there's a practicality for me, to ask about this and talk about synthetic brain interface: Do you mean something like the whole planet ends up hooked to something like Elon Musk's Neuralink? Is that how you kind of see the practicality of that working? Well, at some point we'll fuse our minds, yes, indeed. That's what's going to happen. At some point, the Global Brain will morph into its own kind of mind upload and what's going to happen is that humans will be enhanced with Cloud-connected exocortices that act as natural neurons of the Global Brain but embodied AGIs and cyberhumans would act as artificial neurons. But we will share the same mind space. These "newly-hatched" AGIs will learn from this global neural network. Ultimately, they
will learn just like our children do and they will learn to think for themselves. But they will probably have somewhat different subjectivity than humans... Do you think to kind of localize it a little bit more as we're talking about the growth of the Metaverse -- do you see the Metaverse as kind of being our next kind of information platform of communication where at some stage will actually be able to start talking to these singularities and other consciousnesses in the Metaverse? Well, absolutely! I mean, I call the Metaverse the "Cybernet Internet." As a functional successor of today's 2D Internet, this 3D avatar-based Internet will allow us to customize our own virtual worlds.
It's a digital layer on top of or in place of physical reality, a digital twin in some sense of the planet itself. So, the Metaverse now represents an opening "Gateway to Transcension." Are you familiar with the Transcension Hypothesis? I've read it but I think it's worth us talking about and so please for everyone else would you like to give a brief overview? Right! So, the so-called Transcension Hypothesis and my own the Chrysalis Conjecture postulate that mature civilizations invariably leave their initial bubble universe by creating black-hole conditions, computationally optimal density, dimensionality, that is virtual worlds of their own design. That implies that the exponential trend of miniaturization and virtualization will eventually compress our space-time-matter-energy into an ever denser computational substrates so that our postbiological selves, our posthuman minds, will live within the nano- to femto-scale, and even smaller, all the way down to the Plank-scale in order to harness more computational power. Literally, our minds will live in VR and that's why as one of possible solutions to the Fermi Paradox we don't see signs of alien intelligence in the cosmos. With the Metaverse, we don't need
to colonize Mars ever! We'll inhabit the infinite cyberspace instead. I certainly understand what Elon tries to accomplish but it's not going to happen the way he envisions it... How so? Because with the evolution of the Metaverse and exponential miniaturization, as I mentioned, will just transcend to this new cyberspace. It's going to be like a "digital habitat" for our minds. Our cognition is going from one substrate -- biological substrate -- to
a non-biological substrate. So, at some point, we'll complete this transition and we'll become posthuman minds living in virtual reality. We'll still colonize space but it's going to be done through self-replicating von Neumann probes for the most part. So, those probes will colonize and mine the planets for computronium so that, you know, we can have more and more computational power to explore our inner space not outer space... That's a fascinating concept of probes!
So, where else now you define the difference between outer space and inner space? Where do you see now the developments of technologies that are going to help expand people's education of accessing inner spaces? Well, I would certainly bet on the Transcension scenario -- we'll have this huge, huge inner space that we'll share with AGIs and cyberhumans. I mean, basically we'll be such "cyberhumanity" of some sort. We'll enhance ourselves exponentially. Our thinking processes, our mentation will accelerate to such an extent that we'll think maybe hundreds, thousands, millions of times faster than biological computing does, right? At that point, the physical world would look almost static: Creatures of the physical world would look almost like houseplants to us, you know, like slow-moving objects. The physical world wouldn't be that interesting for us because like in virtual reality that's where the whole exploration of humankind will take place. I bet on Transcension and my own Chrysalis Conjecture that states that we occupy this dimensional cocoon, you know. This is why we don't see alien life,
alien intelligence out there... So, then you talk about the transcendence and and I think that there's a lot of places in North America and in the first world where the tech and the universities and these things are being worked on so dramatically. How do you see these kind of technologies and ideas spreading out into more third world areas? Because getting Transcension out into, say, Nairobi and Nigeria, and moving that part of the equality chain to allow not just the elite, few on the top to have access to Transcension. How do you think that the third world is going to (a) have access to this or (b) utilize it? Right! Well, today's meta-trends such as exponential acceleration of technological progress and especially connectivity explosion on a planetary scale makes me think that we'll probably encompass other countries fairly easily in the future. I mean, think about it, for example, in Africa you can see little kids just playing
with their smartphones already, you know, like it's completely unthinkable even a couple of decades ago. All these technologies may be a little bit pricey in the beginning, at the initial stage, but then the price drops significantly, so digitalization and virtualization of everything lead us to this convergent point we'll be in the virtual Metaverse... Don't you think that once the few have started to generate and, sorry, I like talking about the risks of what goes forward, so I'll just pray for that out. I like thinking of, yes, we like these ideas but what are the inverses
that could happen what is the balance out of that and what does it play out with human nature and if we think human nature is always inclined to hold and keep power to the few rather than the many. So, my kind of theory or question would be: So, we have a few that have access to this technology that are going to get to it years and decades before people in Africa and so on would. Are we creating a new elite and an intellectual elite, then a a cybernetic transcendent elite that will then hold that power and not be able to share it out to the countries and to the places that have not been able to partake in the initial privilege of the development of this technology? I agree it's certainly a risk but and there are many, many risks going forward. I'm pretty optimistic about the future but I'm not overly optimistic, you know. We'll always have a host of problems going forward... We always have to fight the nature of man... Yes, but then again, I mean, all all these risks and problems I would rather describe them as challenges and I'd say -- by contemplating the full spectrum of scenarios of upcoming techno singularities, many can place their bets in favor of Cybernetic Singularity, the scenario when we merge with AI. We cannot outcompete AI, so we have to form some kind of human-AI symbiote collectively. So, talking about the elites, we'll need as many natural neurons of the Global Brain
than just a handful of billionaires holding all the cards... My problem is human nature... Well, human nature! Now we should talk about transhumanism because transhumanism is a techno-philosophical and cultural movement that aims at transcending the human condition altogether and transforming humans into beings of superior God-like capacities by the means of science and technology. As for transhumanism -- I consider myself a transhumanist singularitarian -- the three pillars of transhumanism are superintelligence, super longevity and super well-being. We talked about superintelligence -- intelligence supernova. Super longevity, as I said, by 2030 we should have this
longevity escape velocity and super well-being: Transhumanists face another kind of challenge going forward and we might even see some kind of speciation as well. I mean some people would love to augment themselves, you know, become cyborgs but the rest of population might linger and not completely embrace the technological changes... I think often people then as soon as you say technological changes they always start thinking cybernetics and they think of how do I augment myself with robotics when actually the coding of DNA and the ability to read DNA as a language and as an actual thought pattern is a lot more interesting for what that could actually scope out to with the gene splicing technologies that they're starting to develop and the genetical data flows that are starting to be developed for like genetic digital storage. I mean it's a fascinating idea that you can instead of having a hard drive have a lump
of fluid jelly that's sitting that you can plug an electrode in and out goes your your storage. I mean that the points of what gene therapy and gene splicing is doing at the moment is so incredible that cyborg might not necessarily mean you've got a metal piece attached to the side of your head, there can be entirely new sets of evolution that are professed in any way... Absolutely! Yeah, I don't think that, you know, we'll be like ugly-looking kind of cyborgs not even resembling a human being. Not at all! I think that we'll just -- by enhancement of human flesh -- we'll probably just end up having these nanobots that will not only monitor our biological systems from within, we may have any kind of appearance, if you would like, especially in the Metaverse -- good-looking, absolutely amazing kind of avatar, right? But in the physical world you can do just the same, I mean, it's via nanobots. At some point, we'll just have all kinds of multiple cybernetic bodies that can be assembled and disassembled at will with nanobots. That's the next step in evolution:
We'll just become cyberhumans that can live in VR and, if necessary, you can be in the physical reality but then again, you'll have a cybernetic body that, you know, can be assembled and dissembled via nanobots... So, I'm fascinated to ask how you think the transfer is going to happen because at some stage or another we have to take brain waves, record them and input them into a machine and either get the machine to respond to them or reenact them. How do you see that kind of movement happening between brain to machine? Nanotechnology will pave the way to so-called "Cybernetic Immortality." So, initially in the 2030s, each of us will have a personal exocortex on the Cloud -- the third non-biological "de-cerebral hemisphere" -- a synthetic thinking unit of some sort, right, that should be in constant communication with other two biological brain hemispheres. Cloud-computing exocortices will be "us" in the ever dominating cyberspace. The exocortex would be able to eavesdrop on the activity of both biological
hemispheres by neural nanobots, so 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. As your original biological wetware fades away in comparison to the more capable exocortex, perhaps, in time billionfold more capable due to exponentials because it's not limited by the cranial enclosure. Right? So, this exocortex, digital mindware of yours, would smoothly assume all functions of your biological brain circa its expiration date. So, gradually our minds will migrate to cyberspace, this endless custom-built virtual worlds, that is the Metaverse, the hottest buzzword of today, right? And your mind pattern will persist there. By any measure, it still be "YOU" even though your
biological substrate is no longer here. It's going to be like pattern transfer... You bring up something of biological substrate, you know, what I mean part of the drive of being human, the part of the drive of being alive, the positive life of being a natural entity is the drive to reproduce and the drive to see that gene pool go further. As we move into a more digitized version surely there is some form of the chemical balance inside ourselves that runs us as humans that runs us as a chemical experience more than just a physical experience that we lose something in the transfer? I'm very optimistic about this particular issue because basically what we mean here is that we cannot lose our best abilities as humans, we only infinitely increase them and we infinitely, as we move forward in the future, we become God-like in some sense, right, so with all these advances in artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, cybernetics, biotechnology, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, optogenetics will reprogram our biology but at the same time we won't lose our best abilities, I mean, even though we become more and more perfect in virtual reality, in cyberspace, we can always explore our "imperfections" in virtual reality. So, maybe we, as I say in the book, we constitute this kind of interactive database, kind of historical database, you know, how we were back in the day like when we were humans. I mean you can always re-experience yourself as you were a biological human, you know, that's how I see it. With that joy of the fact that every human is actually a brand new human every seven years, I mean we already are renewal substances, right? That's exactly right! Yes, yes, it's just the pattern that persists. As Norbert Wiener, the father of cybernetics, said that
"we are not the stuff that abides but the patterns that perpetuate themselves." Well, that brings us an interesting seqway to talk about what you think of digital philosophy? Digital Physics and Digital Philosophy are two disciplines that are closely related. The father of information theory, Claude Shannon, introduced the notion of information that could be quantifiable. In "Mathematical Theory of Communication," his seminal paper from 1948, Shannon proposed that data could be measured in bits -- discrete values of zeros and ones. The hypothesis that
the Universe is a digital computer was proposed by Conrad Zuse in his 1969 book "Calculating Space." The term "Digital Physics" was employed by pioneering Edward Fredkin who later came to prefer the term "Digital Philosophy." In 1989, one of the most brilliant physicists of the 20th century, John Wheeler, coined the phrase "it from bit" to encapsulate the radical view of the Universe: At the most fundamental level, all of physics can be articulated in terms of information. Then came along the Holographic Principle derived from the black hole physics that posits that information is not contained in the volume of space but is contained on the surface of its boundary that it also implies that our information-based reality well maybe a "metaverse" in a universe up. Computational Physics, then came Emergence Theory and other theories and
theoretical models that actually confirm that, you know, we live in some sort of computational universe or computational reality. Computational Physics suggests that there exists, at least in principle, a program for a universal computer that computes the evolution of the Universe. According to Computational Physics, everything in the Universe is made of information of which mass- energy and space-time are merely manifestations to us conscious observers from within a simulation. In Computational Physics, existence and thought boil down to, well, computation. The subjectivity arises from computational universality, all realities are virtual and information-theoretic, or better yet, code-based, or code-theoretic... So, for me what is the difference between like the Code-Theoretic Model and the normal physics, the Standard Model? Well, the Standard Model is based on the Standard Model of Particle Physics, so basically, the particle physicists would say that, you know, like at the very bottom we have elementary particles like photons and electrons but photons and electrons may actually have a very sophisticated internal structure as well. So, what the most elemental is is binary code --
zeros and ones, yes/no, yes-universe/no-universe, right? There's like only this "Morse Code" of the Universe that what truly exists and that what actually holds the Holographic Principle also, forced from the black-hole physics, implies. So, any universe run on qubits and digital bits is virtual and everything is a simulation... Would you like to just explain to people what a qubit is so that they can understand? Yeah, qubit is a quantum-mechanical bit, you know, so it can be at the same time zero and one. Computational machine gives you a whole
new dimension and exponential combinatorics, you know, because it helps you calculate different paths to the ultimate solution. But what's really interesting is that Digital Physics, or Computational Physics, they say that physics and simulation of physics are identical because information equals reality, because everything comes down to the elementary binary code but what makes a sense out of it all, what assigns measurement values is consciousness. So, now we come to this conclusion: Only consciousness and information exist in the world, so materiality is some sort of illusion from what we experience, from within the simulation... So, what do you mean by the simulation?
You keep using the term and I'm not quite sure where you where you put it well... Simulation is basically, it's a computation. Both terms can be used interchangeably... So, you're kind of suggesting that the whole planet is running a computation and that would be the simulation that we're in? All of reality, the whole reality is the simulation: There's no good counterargument to digital ontology. Digital ontology says that -- information is what? It is a distinction between things -- you can perceive something in terms of something which is not, right, discernible differences lie at the bottom of every phenomenon and interaction.
Yeah, it looks like the the basic human difference between perception and intent. I mean, looking at the exact same thing and perception intent is a chasm of humanity. That's exactly right! I mean you can look at the same picture and perceive different things, you know. The computational approach attempts to deal with the non-deterministic quantum theory where quantum indeterminacy constantly results into a digital reality -- I call it "digital reality" -- by the act of conscious observation. So, it's all computation, you know and, like, for example, if you know how cartoon is made, right? I mean you have to flip different images, right, to see the movement, right? It also moves us into then multidimensional and multidimensional theories because if we're going to say: "Reality is a dimension," then we're going to send the message to another dimension and then we're just going to end up in a whole lot of nested "perceived realities." Yes! Well, basically we're talking about the "Matryoshka" of embedded realities, like a Russian doll of reality within realities, you know.
And I'm currently developing the Cybernetic Theory of Mind which rests on five foundational axioms: The first axiom is the Emergence axiom -- it's just self-evident, the Emergence axiom -- the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. We know that everything emerges from something else just like as we move along through the complexity levels, different emerging properties appear. Second is the Network axiom talking about the embedded networks: As a rule, it's a "Matryoshka" of embedded networks. Each of us is a microcosm of a flesh, a network intelligence in the human form and universally this network feature of Nature translates into small worlds within bigger worlds, interdependent and interpenetrating networks of conscious agents, organisms within superorganisms, minds within superminds, higher interactivity and built-in dimensionality. Next comes the Information axiom: Information is
"modus operandi" of consciousness, as I mentioned, information and consciousness are the two sides of the same coin. By this axiom, information is distinction between phenomenal states. We perceive time because it flows from one static world to another static world, you know, like a projector flipping frames in the movie... What do you mean by "static world"? Static world is basically like a snapshot of space-time, it's not moving at all, right, but the perceived change is what really gives us the perception of time flow. So, again it's just computation, you know, it's not like it's happening by itself it's just, you know, you have to have a certain algorithmic unfolding of these events, so, phenomenality is quantum computational but then again reality is ontologically monistic based on only one universal medium -- information and one universal substance -- consciousness. So, like for example, right now we are developing this Metaverse, right, but if you extrapolate this Metaverse by hundreds of orders of magnitude you would come up that at some point nothing else would really need to exist but the higher mind that would simulate the multitude of ultrarealistic realities, you know, that the higher mind and consciousness that's what really needs to exist, you know, with information as its operating mode. So, the next is the Interface axiom which states that each conscious agent is endowed with a certain sensory filtering system, a unique interface to the larger reality, right. So, a bat, an octopus, a human, although earthly
actors would have incredibly alien interfaces. The next axiom is the OS axiom: The acronym OS stands for the "Omega Singularity" as well as "Operating System." This "Axiom of Divinity" -- I would call it -- is logically consistent with metaphysical extrapolations based on the most advanced epistemic knowledge of science. The Omega Singularity, presumably Nature's sole ontological source, is understood as the holographic projector of all possible timelines within this multidimensional experiential matrix. So, basically materialism is a "flatlander philosophy." We should think
outside of the box so the Omega Singularity is something that needs to be introduced, you know, because, for example, the Big Bang theory draws a lot of criticism as of late. They use the starting assumption -- the Universe from nothing -- a proverbial miracle, right, a "quantum fluctuation" as christened by scientists, or the initial cosmological singularity but aside from this highly improbable happenstance we can just as well as operate from a different set of assumptions and place the initial cosmological singularity at the Omega Point, the transcendental attractor. As McKenna said the universal teleological attractor, the "Transcendental Object at the end of time" would constitute the holographic projector of all possible timelines... So, you touch on it again and I would to come back to it -- time...
Okay... How do you see time fluctuating through that because you keep touching on the time thing and how things interact with it but then how does it flow? Okay! So, actually I formulated the D-Theory of Time, or Digital Presentism, predicated on reversible quantum computing at large. Have you seen the movie Tenet? A recent movie... I have not... Okay, so, Tenet actually introduced the general public to this concept. It's sort of like, well, now we know what quantum computing is, right, I mean so it's basically what a digital present constitutes is basically funneling of all possible futures and all possible pasts into this single digital reality perceptual framework. As we move through time,
we make this computation and we perceive time from one perceptual frame to another. It's sort of like a real-time streaming of progressively generated content in immersive virtual reality. The basic tenet of Digital Presentism is that in the absence of the observers, the arrow of time doesn't exist -- there is no cosmic flow of time.
That's a very interesting kind of way to think about it! I mean, yeah, time cannot be absolute, it's always subjective, so Digital Presentism revolves around observer-centric temporality. What we call time, or flow of time, is a sequential change between static perceptual frames, as I mentioned earlier, it's an emergent phenomenon, right, it's a "moving image of eternity" as Plato famously said more than two millennia ago... I like that, it's almost like a movie, that's movement of static images... Real-time streaming of progressively generated content in immersive virtual reality. You know, yes!.. That is absolutely fascinating! I know that I have found that absolutely
eye-opening! Shauna, anything you would like to say as we draw to the the kind of close of the evening? I just have one question and that is that as we move to this Global Mind... Yes... Hold on, she's paused... I've seen some... Am I there? Within the Metaverse development and maybe you've seen the same type of thing where at level 9, for example, we reach a hub-like state and then an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent state of being and I wonder if you could touch on before we close where do you see this Global Mind in terms of your perception of a God? Wow! Big questions! Well, basically we become God, right, with all these divine attributes talking about us becoming God, right, so like for example, transcendentalism with Ralph Waldo Emerson as its biggest figure was marked by the notion of divine unity of Man with Nature. So, conditions seem to be ripe right now to revive transcendentalism, or transhumanism/ posthumanism, as neo-transcendentalism. Basically, yeah, we're moving towards this notion of God -- only we ourselves are becoming God.
So, as I said, this is going to be like a phase transition of humanity to a newly-cognized reality framework, so we're becoming something much bigger than ourselves, we're basically transcending our low dimensionality of Man and this inner space exploration, this Metaverse, this is like an opening Gateway to Transcension... I love what you said earlier that's that to wrap this up that the next voyage is not outwards, it's inwards and I think that is a great focus to think for people to think of as we go forward is sometimes exploring in is a lot more fun and exciting than going and looking out... Yes, absolutely! Well, Alex, thank you very much for being here this evening! We're going to end the stream and say goodbye to everyone, so thank you all for being here and thank you, Alex, for joining us! All right! Thank you so much, guys! Tell us where we can best find you -- I know you have some Facebook pages and you have a website where can we best find you to learn more about the subject? Absolutely! So, I would suggest to go to www.ecstadelic.net as well as my personal blog alexvikoulov.com -- you can browse
through my works: I'm an author of 10 book titles and co-author of 3... Wow! I also just released a documentary based on my works -- Consciousness: Evolution of the Mind which can be accessed on different networks such as Tubi or Vimeo But you can find me -- I'm pretty active on social media You can find me, you know, on the Internet pretty easily... The good old-fashioned Google.. Yes! That's exactly right! Alex, thank you so much! Thank you, Richard, so much! Thank you so very, very much! Shauna, my pleasure! It's a pleasure to have you here, there's a tremendous amount embedded in this short one hour and it definitely shows us that we have a long way to go in terms of our own understanding of concepts but we're so glad that you shared it with us tonight. Thank you so much! Thank you, Alex!
2022-01-30 15:09
