2: Spiritual Machines (Kevin Kelly and Ken Wilber - Exploring the Technium)

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In the second installation of this extraordinary dialogue, Kevin Kelly and Ken Wilber discuss the nature of evolutionary emergence - the mysterious process by which new wholes manifest in the universe, each greater than the sum of their parts. They speak about humanity's role in this evolutionary process, especially in the creation of new types of intelligences: living, breathing, thinking machines.

The universe is evolving. From atoms to molecules, to simple single-cell organisms, to multi-cellular critters with increasingly complex nervous systems—evolution is a story of emergence, as new forms and new realities spring into being, new wholes that are themselves greater than the sum of their parts. But emergence is a mysterious affair, as noted by Mark Bedau, Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Reed College: "Although strong emergence is logically possible, it is uncomfortably like magic."

"For us, to actually be in the image of God we actually need to go to the next level, to do the next recursive loop, which is to create beings that will surprise us. And that's our job—our job is to surprise God." -Kevin Kelly

In this very special dialogue, Kevin Kelly and Ken Wilber discuss the spiritual implications of this mysterious process, what Kevin refers to as "up-creation." While humanity can be currently seen as the pinnacle of evolution in this corner of the universe, we are by no means the final word in this extraordinary story, and will one day be inevitably subsumed by something greater than ourselves—something that will undoubtedly emerge through us, while becoming something much more than us. Humanity represents a process of evolution becoming self-aware, which means that we are now actively participating with evolution, midwives to a future that simultaneously transcends and includes the entire human condition.

And believe it or not, it is happening right now as you are reading these words. Around the world, humanity is busy unlocking the secrets of evolution, while creating machines that are increasingly intelligent, adaptive, and conscious. As of now, these intelligences remain extremely limited and narrow, excelling at deductive tasks like math and chess, while lacking such hallmarks of human intelligence as language, humor, and tact. But as our technological progress continues to accelerate, machine intelligence becomes more and more sophisticated, and more and more capable of supporting conscious interiors—a consciousness vastly different than our own, but conscious nonetheless.


About Kevin Kelly:

Kevin Kelly is Senior Maverick at Wired magazine. He helped launch Wired in 1993, and served as its Executive Editor until January 1999. He is currently editor and publisher of the Cool Tools website, which gets 1 million visitors per month. From 1984-1990 Kelly was publisher and editor of the Whole Earth Review, a journal of unorthodox technical news. He co-founded the ongoing Hackers' Conference, and was involved with the launch of the WELL, a pioneering online service started in 1985. He authored the best-selling New Rules for the New Economy and the classic book on decentralized emergent systems, Out of Control.

About Ken Wilber:

Ken Wilber is the most widely translated academic writer in America, with 25 books translated into some 30 foreign languages, and is the first philosopher-psychologist to have his Collected Works published while still alive. Wilber is an internationally acknowledged leader and the preeminent scholar of the Integral stage of human development, which continues to gather momentum around the world. His many books, all of which are still in print, can be found at Amazon.com. Some of his more popular books include Integral Spirituality; No Boundary; Grace and Grit; Sex, Ecology, Spirituality; and the "everything" books: A Brief History of Everything (one of his largest selling books) and A Theory of Everything (probably the shortest introduction to his work). Ken Wilber is the founder of Integral Institute, Inc. and the co-founder of Integral Life, Inc.

For full description and free download, please visit:

http://integrallife.com/editorial/spiritual-machines

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Kevin Kelly
• Ken Wilber
• Technium
• Wired Magazine
• Evolution
• Technology
• Spirituality
• Integral Life
• Google
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computers
• Consciousness
• science fiction
• futurism

[mermadeinheaven]

When we begin making computerized technologies that can facilitate the process of realizing our true nature, while reducing the time-to-enlightenment from 30 years of meditating in a Himalayan cave to under 1 hour sitting at your personal computer, it will signify a massive break-through.

Question is, will it be allowed to happen?

[SentientMachines]

Interesting ideas here.

Great interview.

[VirianFlux]

Kevin Kelly seems ignorant to why Ray Kurzweil wants AGI.

Ray even says if a different substrate is required than silicon, then it may be done.

It is very possible that collective intelligence could be a safer alternative though.

Taking the hypothesis that regular spirit requires some kind of Morphic field/ quantum network on board, doesn't deny the fact that the collective intelligence of the internet and other conciousness forms could allow different embodiments of spirit. Humbleness needed!

[LooksAeterna]

This interview could have been much shorter. A quick definition of pan-en-theism, of the contributions by Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin, and then only contributions by these two gentlemen: that the technium would have to be considered as part of this spiritual evolution. Total: perhaps 20 minutes.

Having listened to a lot of Terence McKenna, this topic is sort of nothing new anyhow. I would have enjoyed hearing more about Kelly's conversion experience instead.

[LooksAeterna]

20:51 - 20:58 : this is typical of the amateur poppycock pseudo-philosophy dealt out by such would be s as Wilber and Kelly - regardless of the much appreciated true contributions they also put out:

Gödelns theorems (plural, not "theorem" sic !) do NOT AT ALL "reveal the inherent contradictions in any logical system as unavoidable" !

If you, Kevin and Ken, deal with matters beyond your Ken (pun intended), please at least Sokratically acknowledge that in front of yourself and others. Ridiculous

[S2Cents]

b.s. this Robot soul business

[jazzemagic]

I found this to be surprisingly interesting. I speak as one who sees himself as an extremely skeptical bloke who has that he most otherworldly spiritual experiences with magic mushrooms and ayahuasca. Strange, but true.