Listen now | (Description from Tripp Fuller’s Homebrewed Christianity podcast.) In this episode, I am joined by one of my favorite scholars in the public square, Robert Wright, the editor of the Nonzero Newsletter. This is a captivating discussion about artificial intelligence, consciousness, and the future of humanity. We explore Wright's extensive work, including 'Nonzero,' 'The Evolution of God,' and 'Why Buddhism is True,' while delving into the intersections of science, religion, and philosophy. Discover the implications of AI for humanity, the critical role of international cooperation in technology governance, and the moral and spiritual dimensions needed to navigate rapid technological changes. The conversation also addresses the complexities of sentience, cognitive empathy, and the evolutionary drives in AI, with insights from philosophers like Teilhard de Chardin and Alfred North Whitehead.
Oh man! You’re so right! Dictating driving directions is like the PARAMOUNT pleasure that men of your generation can experience.
I’ve often marveled at how, “I’ll look it up on Google Maps” does NOTHING to dissuade the series of slight-rights and hard-lefts pouring out of my father and uncles.
I'm writing a second comment since it's unrelated to the first (below). Back in the day when I got my Psy.D. (aeons ago, as I'm Bob's age), what we now call cognitive empathy was called cognitive perspective taking, and empathy was reserved for those who actually felt others' emotions (e.g., cried at movies, etc.). Back then, it was thought that people with autism had a lack of cognitive perspective taking because they lacked a "theory of mind." We now know that many of these findings were due to language/communication deficits, and when the wording of a task was changed, they were able to take a different cognitive perspective. I digress. While cognitive empathy is, quite literally, useful, it can be used for good or bad. Cognitive empathy without emotional empathy = manipulative narcissism.
Cognitive empathy without emotional empathy doesn't always produce manipulative narcissism. In a non-zero-sum situation, cognitive empathy (without emotional empathy) can make it more likely that even purely selfish actors will do things that benefit the other actor, because the win-win outcome is the most self-interested outcome, and cognitive empathy can help get to the win-win outcome. And there are *lots* of non-zero-sum situations that people and groups (including nations) fail to play to a win-win outcome, even though win-win would be better for them--and not infrequently, one cause of this failure is a failure to exercise cognitive empathy.
Glad to see you haven't totally abandoned consciousness! I agree that there is a strong need for a transcendence of consciousness, and psychedelics are not the answer. While I love Tripp, and I may be wrong about this, but he seems more like the exception to me among modern Christians in his theology. Speaking very broadly (and thus perhaps overgeneralizing), it seems like most Western people today are either materialists (and thus not truly religious even when they give it lip service), or are fundamentalists who believe in an angry, vengeful anthropomorphic God. I used to be a materialist but now I'm more and more convinced by the analytic idealist philosophy put forth by your old friend, Bernardo Kastrup. Since I don't think many materialists are likely to go back to religion and experience transcendence that way, I'm hoping Kastrup and the Essentia Foundation (which he founded) will help people find meaning and transcendence through an understanding that it seems very possible that we truly are all ONE.
This was Fcuking great.
Oh man! You’re so right! Dictating driving directions is like the PARAMOUNT pleasure that men of your generation can experience.
I’ve often marveled at how, “I’ll look it up on Google Maps” does NOTHING to dissuade the series of slight-rights and hard-lefts pouring out of my father and uncles.
I'm writing a second comment since it's unrelated to the first (below). Back in the day when I got my Psy.D. (aeons ago, as I'm Bob's age), what we now call cognitive empathy was called cognitive perspective taking, and empathy was reserved for those who actually felt others' emotions (e.g., cried at movies, etc.). Back then, it was thought that people with autism had a lack of cognitive perspective taking because they lacked a "theory of mind." We now know that many of these findings were due to language/communication deficits, and when the wording of a task was changed, they were able to take a different cognitive perspective. I digress. While cognitive empathy is, quite literally, useful, it can be used for good or bad. Cognitive empathy without emotional empathy = manipulative narcissism.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10097942/
Cognitive empathy without emotional empathy doesn't always produce manipulative narcissism. In a non-zero-sum situation, cognitive empathy (without emotional empathy) can make it more likely that even purely selfish actors will do things that benefit the other actor, because the win-win outcome is the most self-interested outcome, and cognitive empathy can help get to the win-win outcome. And there are *lots* of non-zero-sum situations that people and groups (including nations) fail to play to a win-win outcome, even though win-win would be better for them--and not infrequently, one cause of this failure is a failure to exercise cognitive empathy.
Glad to see you haven't totally abandoned consciousness! I agree that there is a strong need for a transcendence of consciousness, and psychedelics are not the answer. While I love Tripp, and I may be wrong about this, but he seems more like the exception to me among modern Christians in his theology. Speaking very broadly (and thus perhaps overgeneralizing), it seems like most Western people today are either materialists (and thus not truly religious even when they give it lip service), or are fundamentalists who believe in an angry, vengeful anthropomorphic God. I used to be a materialist but now I'm more and more convinced by the analytic idealist philosophy put forth by your old friend, Bernardo Kastrup. Since I don't think many materialists are likely to go back to religion and experience transcendence that way, I'm hoping Kastrup and the Essentia Foundation (which he founded) will help people find meaning and transcendence through an understanding that it seems very possible that we truly are all ONE.
https://www.essentiafoundation.org/about-us-2/