Educator, author, philosopher, and futurist Zachary Stein gives a startling account of the effects the digital age already has on education and where this is headed. Zak sees education in a deeply philosophical sense as fundamental to the sustainability of our civilization, with implications for each component of the metacrisis. Who will be driving the technology stack that actually leads to a viable civilization? Can we maintain our psychological sovereignty in a sea of digital propaganda and know the truth?
Putting the “Art” in Artificial Intelligence
Ken Wilber and Corey deVosWhat is art, at its most fundamental level? This is one of those perennial questions that we have been asking and re-asking at every stage of the human journey, from the first cave drawings all the way to the emergence of sophisticated artificial intelligence algorithms like MidJourney that are once again blurring the lines between art, beauty, and perspective and forcing us to find new ways to answer this timeless question. Watch as Ken and Corey take a fun and fascinating look at the intersection between art, semiotics, and technology.
Sitting in the Mystery: Aliens, Artists, and the Experiencer Group
Stuart Davis and Corey deVosBelief in UFOs and alien contact continues to find more and more legitimacy. In this fun and fascinating discussion, Stuart and Corey take a deep dive into these cosmic mysteries, exploring the many ways the Integral framework helps us illuminate and interpret the full enchilada of human (and non-human) experience, from the ordinary to the extraordinary to the extra-extraordinary.
The Transformation Age: America Burning
Robb SmithAmerica has been on fire these past few weeks. A nation struggling with its racist past, its contemporary racial shadow, its deep political and cultural polarization, and a divisive president who will never be capable of leading a nation, we continue to find ourselves in the heart of The Great Release (and this time, not from an economic depression or disease pandemic, but from our deep and terrible racist heritage). In this brief article, I want to use a few lenses of integral metatheory—concepts you’ll be familiar with, but applied in ways you’ve never seen before—to see if we can get a broader view of what’s happening.
Deeper Into the Great Release
Robb Smith and Corey deVosLadies and gentlemen, the Great Release is truly and fully underway. That earthquake has now begun. Nanoscopically small and quietly transmissible, Covid-19 would be almost laughable as a catalyst for the great release if it weren’t so deadly. But as it stands, it is in fact the perfect spark to alight the ample tinder of total system irresilience.
Integral Preparation for a Time of Rapid Social Change
Robb SmithA lifetime of practice has prepared integral people to carry the world through the trying and rapidly-changing times we are entering.
Kosmos: An Integral Voyage
Ken Wilber and Corey deVosKen Wilber and Corey deVos ponder the evolutionary mysteries of the universe, speculating on how abundant life might be in the kosmos, why we haven’t met any of our galactic neighbors yet, and what might happen if a UFO landed on the White House lawn. It’s a fun conversation — and one that takes its subject matter more seriously than you might expect. Whether you are a true believer of UFO phenomena or an iron-clad skeptic, you don’t want to miss this fascinating and far-reaching exploration.
Virtual Lucid Dreaming: The Intersection of Consciousness and Technology
Andrew HolecekAndrew Holecek explores the fascinating and fruitful vanguard of consciousness and technology in this stunning presentation about virtual reality, lucid dreaming, and awakening in the midst of rapid social change.
Artificial Intelligence vs. Artificial Consciousness
Michael E. Zimmerman and Jeff SalzmanThe hopes and fears surrounding the advent of artificial intelligence are fantastical, from Ray Kurzweil’s promise of spiritual machines to Elon Musk’s warnings of killer robots. And yes, some version of that future is barreling toward us at an ever-increasing speed, says philosophy of technology professor Michael Zimmerman, who is Jeff’s guest today.
Loving AIs: Bringing Unconditional Love to Artificial General Intelligence
Julia Mossbridge, Ben Goertzel and Robb SmithAs part of our work on the Innovation Lab advisory board of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, I had the pleasure of sitting down with OpenCog founder and leading AGI researcher Ben Goertzel and IONS Innovation Lab director Julia Mossbridge to discuss LOVING AIs, a project aiming to design and develop an “unconditional loving” module for AGIs. In this interview, I dive into the rabbit hole of AGI with Ben and Julia to discuss the state of the field, what it would mean to program unconditional love into AGIs, and some thorny implications for the brave new world we’re entering.
The Great Release
Robb SmithRising populism and the election of President Trump are symptoms of massive irresilience that has been building in the U.S.-led world state since 1945, and may reflect the end of the fourth cycle of economic hegemony of the past 800 years. The Great Recession of 2008 was just a tremor. We wind toward a coming global breakdown, a great release that threatens regression across our lives.
The Shape of Things to Come: A Singularity in All Four Quadrants
Corey deVosIt seems clear is that we are seeing a general pattern of accelerated returns in at least four irreducible dimensions of our lives. It is a “singularity in all four quadrants” — Post-Humanism, Post-Scarcity, Post-Irony, and Post-Metaphysics. Let’s take a brief look at each of these dimensions.
The Future of Artificial Intelligence
Ken WilberWhen it comes to the future of artificial intelligence, we have more questions than answers. Are atoms, molecules, and mathematics alone enough to produce machines with genuine human-equivalent intelligence? Can that intelligence ever become truly conscious and possess the “inner light” of interior self-awareness? Will artificial intelligence be capable of determining its own morals, ethics, and values? Listen as Ken Wilber reflects on the future promise — and potential perils — of artificial intelligence.
The Future of Consciousness, Culture, and Technology
Ken WilberWhat future we are imagining for ourselves, for the integral movement, and for the impact of the integral vision on our shared future? With all the emphasis we see in spiritual communities about the importance of being in the NOW, it can be easy to forget how important it is to keep a careful eye on the future. After all, aren’t our thoughts about the future just another way to distract ourselves from connecting to our true selves in this present moment?
Brave New Future? An Integral Look at Super Artificial Intelligence
Michael E. ZimmermanThese days, discourse about intelligent robots—thinking machines—is as widespread as discourse about zombies. Both have been the subjects of recent bestsellers, which are the basis of two forthcoming films. Popular culture’s depiction of humankind under attack by either the undead or by the never alive (autonomous machines) suggests widespread anxiety about and fascination with technical developments that may generate a future out of human control (as if the future ever were under our control!)
Yes, Virginia, Consciousness Goes All the Way Down. But Does It Go All the Way Up?
Michael E. ZimmermanAlthough the apparent confirmation of the Higgs Boson, the so-called God particle, has been attracting attention recently, the most vexing problem in science and philosophy remains the mind-body problem: What relation is there between material brain states and conscious, first-person experience? In the past few years, as we shall see in a moment, some neurosciences have now arrived at an answer that was anticipated by Ken Wilber’s version of integral theory.
Taking the Long View: Immortality and the Technological Singularity
Ken WilberAnti-aging and longevity research reports, in addition to predicting lifespans beyond 200 years within just a few decades, also report no theoretical reasons preventing extensions into the thousands of years a few decades after that. What if you lived for another few hundred or thousand years? Would you bear witness to the end of disease, the coming of an integral age, the creation trans-human cyborgs, the end of poverty, the enlightenment of the planet — or maybe even flying cars…?
Technology, Evolution, and God: Exploring the Technium
Kevin Kelly and Ken WilberWired magazine’s own “Senior Maverick” talks with Ken Wilber about some of the ideas behind Kevin’s blog The Technium, which explores the various ways humanity defines and redefines itself through the interface of science, technology, culture, and consciousness. Kevin also shares some of his own thoughts about the role of spirituality in the 21st century, going into considerable depth around his own spiritual awakening several decades ago.