Will There Ever Be Conscious AI with Philip Goff (Part 2)

Will There Ever Be Conscious AI with Philip Goff (Part 2)

In part 2 of their interview, Ilia Delio and Philip Goff continue their conversation about consciousness and how science and theology can better work together to understand it. Together, Ilia and Philip tackle the burning question, “will AI ever become conscious?”

ABOUT PHILIP GOFF

“Here’s a prediction: In twenty years’ time, the idea that panpsychism can be quickly dismissed as ‘crazy’ will seem, well, crazy.”

Dr Philip Goff, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy at Durham University. His research focuses on consciousness and the ultimate nature of reality. Goff is best known for defending panpsychism, the view that consciousness pervades the universe and is a fundamental feature of it. Goff’s books include Why? The Purpose of the Universe, Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness, Consciousness and Fundamental Reality, and Is Consciousness Everywhere? Essays on Panpsychism. Goff has published many academic articles as well as writing extensively for newspapers and magazines, including Scientific American, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Aeon, and the Times Literary Supplement.

Transcript

A HUNGER FOR WHOLENESS TRANSCRIPT | S04E07

Will There Ever Be Conscious AI with Philip Goff (Part 2)

Robert: Welcome back to Hunger for Wholeness. I'm your host, Robert Nicastro. Today, Ilia finishes her dialogue with Philip Goff on the philosophy of consciousness. They continue their conversation about how consciousness is a subject equally important to scientific and theological inquiry. And later, Ilia asks Philip, will artificial intelligence ever become conscious?

Ilia: Science does not like the word mystery. That word mystery is just a complete no-no, but the fact is it just comes from the Indo-European root of mystics or the ineffable. It's that which we cannot speak about. And I think both science and religion have that which we cannot quite articulate. It's what's the ineffable that drives science as it does religion. It's not what's at our fingertips and what we can measure. It's precisely what we cannot say that we're still driven to seek to know. So, I want to just talk a little bit more about cosmic purpose, and then I want to talk a little bit about can AI really achieve this cosmic purpose that you want to offer us?

Philip: Thanks, Ilia. Yeah, there's lots there. I wrote something just recently on this scientism issue just last week for The Conversation people might be interested in, which is a UK online magazine freely available for academics to get the research out to the public in an accessible way.

Ilia: What's it called?

Philip: The Conversation. And you know, look, science is great. When you start saying, oh, I don't like scientists, and people think you don't like science, and you are sort of denying science in all sorts of ways, science is absolutely wonderful. But there are always assumptions, worldviews in the background that set the context for science. My book before last Galileo's Error, was all about how I think we've got a problem of consciousness because of how the father of modern science, Galileo, designed science, his philosophical worldview. Because before Galileo, people thought following Aristotle that the world was filled with qualities, colors, sounds, smells, tastes.

Well, that was a problem for Galileo because he wanted science to be mathematical. And you can't capture in an equation that deep red you experience as you watch the setting sun. So Galileo said, "Well, I think we go for this brand new radical, revolutionary philosophical worldview where those qualities aren't really out there in the world. They're in the soul in consciousness, and that's outside of science." So he strips the physical world of its qualities, and after he'd done that, all that was left could be captured in mathematics. And that was the start of mathematical physics. And that is precisely why I think we have a problem with consciousness because the whole of mathematical physics was set up to exclude consciousness. So, we can't avoid wrestling with the assumptions behind science. And if you don't do it, if you say we're not doing philosophy, and you know, most people don't know what the hell philosophy is, then you just end up with bad philosophy. You get people writing about philosophy.

You know, if I wrote a book on particle physics, I'd be rightly ridiculed because I haven't had the right training. I haven't had my views subject to peer scrutiny. But there are many scientists who write on philosophical topics and it doesn't impact their credibility and gets taken very seriously. This can sound very bitter, but basically I just think we could be so much richer as a society if we engage with—we have more of an understanding of the role philosophy has to play here. You brought in the Big G—God, and one of the possibilities for making sense of cosmic purposes, the idea that the universe itself is a conscious mind of some very alien kind, that fine-tuned itself. This isn't quite the traditional God, but there are associations. And I've actually got a three year Templeton project on the connections between panpsychism on the one hand in philosophy of mind, and pantheism or panentheism in the philosophy of religion. Though pantheism—so I believe my Catholic friends tell me pantheism is theoretical, that the universe is God, pantheism. But panentheism is, I believe, non-heretical, the idea that the universe is part of God. So God is more than the universe, but the universe is understood as one aspect of God. So yeah, people might be interested, I should remember what our website is, but I should put that on my website. You know, that's a good idea.

Well, we have some essay competitions, thousand pound essay competitions and popular article competitions that people might want to—and conferences going on. So yeah, I think there's a really exciting, exciting work going on here. Now exploring these like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, obviously came out of a religious tradition, but he had incredibly new revolutionary ideas as did Augustine and Aquinas back in the day for that matter. There is very good philosophy of religion, but I find it's been mainly sort of just defending traditional ideas that are already there. What's exciting in philosophy of religion and philosophy of mind, I think is opening up to these new ideas without necessarily leaving your tradition and also exploring the interaction between them that, yeah, it's very exciting.

Ilia: Absolutely. I'm 120% with you on that. I think the old God is, well, should be put to rest. But honestly I think we had this idea of the big guy in the sky God, and I don't think that's God at all. I think what the word God means is, in fact, I don't even think it's a person or this object of devotion, because that's part of a lot of the problem. You know, how do you have—it's like having the Wizard of Oz or having like the matrix oversee life on earth. But what if God is, I mean, Hinduism is much closer, I think, to what maybe this word God might mean, and pure consciousness or pure being itself, which Thomas Aquinas sort of had that idea, but then it all kind of got sidetracked and stuff.

And so I think what if God isn't—I think the words being, the word, we just anthropomorphize everything. We make everything a big one of us. And this is a huge, huge problem. But I think if we think of God as an activity, as a dynamic, as a dynamic energy that is coursing through life, I think we can begin then to see a closer affinity between what this word God means and what panpsychism is holding out. Teilhard de Chardin actually wrote an essay on pantheism and Christianity. He was a monist pantheist, not a panentheist. He never used that word in his writings at all. And I think a lot of Christian people want to use panentheism because it feels safe, you know, that we can keep hold onto the integrity of God without losing God's godness, that we can talk about the world in God and God in the world.

And I'm like, I don't think so. I don't think that's what it's about. There's no safety here. And I think you're right, we're at a cusp right now where I think we're on the verge of a huge, not just scientific, but a cultural cosmic evolution in thought where I think new understandings of science and religion can give rise to a whole new understanding of the synthesis of the whole, or an understanding of the whole itself, and why we're here as part of this wholeness, moving towards something more whole, more conscious, more unified in being.

Philip: I was once, a few years ago, actually invited to give a keynote address at the annual German Catholic Philosophers and Theologians. And I said, well I don't speak German. And they said, "Oh, it's fine. Some talks will be in German, some will be in English." They were all in German, except my talks. But I was invited by—people might be interested— Professor Godehard Brüntrup, who's at the Munich School of Philosophy, who is a panpsychist and a Jesuit priest and a proponent of process theology and inspired by Alfred North Whitehead. And there's process theology that followed on from that, that sees God as part of creation, part of the temporal order in some sense, and God and creation intimately bound up with each other. And of course even going back to the—there's always been the apophatic tradition as well, that God is not some big mind—supermind. God is beyond understanding, going back to the early church fathers, Oregon Gregory of Nyssa in the 14th century. You know, The Cloud of Unknowing, very influential in guiding medieval Christians beyond the forms of language. We used to talk about God in traditional worship to a deeper understanding of God beyond categorization.

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So in the book, I mean, we haven't said in the book, so the Why book is framed as a middle way between God and atheism. So I'm saying traditional atheism struggles with fine tuning and the evolution of consciousness. But traditional theism struggles with the problem of evil, reconciling a loving God with the terrible suffering we find. But you know, as you say, maybe it depends what we're meaning by God. And these less and proper amorphic conceptions of God is certainly something I'm much more open to. Although, yeah, just finally when this book came out, all of my religious friends said, “Oh, this is just non- traditional belief in God." But all of my atheist friends said, "This is just non-traditional atheism." So maybe the middle way is the right way to put it.

Ilia: Yes. That's the beauty of being on the forefront of new thinking because no one really agrees with you, but they're really attracted to what you have to say.

Robert: If history is any indication, the middle way between science and religion is not the easiest path to find. Yet, it's hopeful that in a world with many divisions, there might be a renewed openness to more integrated interdisciplinary approaches. Next, Ilia asks Philip about artificial intelligence, whether it will become conscious and what it means for humanity.

Ilia: I've been very interested in the question of AI and human becoming—I teach in this area, I've done some writing, the question of extended intelligence. I like to think of artificial intelligence as not artificial, but what I might call biologically extended. And I'm not sure it's about intelligence per se or just information, but there is a quest in terms of the big questions today around, can we have conscious AI conscious robots? Is it possible to download our brains as Ray Kurtzweil and Hans Moravec have proposed that in 2045 well have reached the singularity will be merged, so merged with technologies. So, what's your position on brain down and conscious robots? Is that really feasible or not?

Philip: Yeah, these are great questions. And something I also go into in the consciousness chapter of the Why book. And also, I mentioned the conversation; I've got some pieces on AI in that. One great thing about AI, the emergence of AI is, I get invited to posher

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conferences now, these AI summits with champagne everywhere because there's tech leaders, money instead of rubbish coffee and academic conferences. But anyway, coming to the serious points. I mean, there are different questions here. One thing is, is consciousness just a matter of information processing complex behavior computation? To that I certainly say no, I don't think just stuff behaving in more and more complex ways. You're never going to get consciousness out of that. You'll just get more and more complex mechanisms. And that's crucial because I think it's crucial.

For example, the question of uploading consciousness, I don't think uploading your mind, even if it is one day possible, would preserve your conscious experience. Because as a panpsychist, I think consciousness is the stuff of the world, the flesh and blood of the world. It's organic, the organic reality underlying the equations of physics. So, it's not about abstract inform, processing, abstract computations. And so, I do have this terrible dystopian worry that we'll one day all be uploading our consciousness’s thinking we're going to this utopia online, and we're all just destroying our consciousness. So no, I don't think we could upload our minds, and I don't think just complicated mechanisms are going to suddenly somehow become conscious. But on the other hand, I think it's a slightly different question; could we have artificial consciousness? Could we create somehow organic artificial systems? And I don't see why not to that. I don't believe that there's a soul that's magically added at conception. I think consciousness emerges from it—is the physical world, the physical world is consciousness evolving.

But I think if we're thinking about artificial consciousness, I think we should be thinking more of something like an artificial living system, maybe in the first instance, something of the complexity of a bacterium. And maybe 5,000 years we'll get something more complex. I remember at one of these posh tech dinners, we went round and all these tech leaders were saying, when will we have a general artificial intelligence? And they were all saying, oh, 10 years, a hundred years, 50 years. And I said, maybe 5,000 years. But yeah, really, if we're thinking, I mean, there's a slight difference between artificial intelligence and artificial consciousness. But if we're thinking of artificial consciousness, and really, if we're

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really meaning thought in the sense of conscious understanding of reality, then I think that is something that needs consciousness. Then I think this is something thousands of, thousands of years in the future, but not impossible in principle. But that's something I think really to—I mean, there are big dangers to AI, and I don't want to underplay them, but the idea that suddenly there are going to be these super intelligent, in the sense of conscious minds that might take us over, I think it's a little bit too quick.

Ilia: One of the things like how would we know, even if you develop an artificial conscious entity, how would we know it's conscious? Like what would be the criteria for that? But I don't even think—so I think sometimes when we ask these questions, they become just a little too binary for me. You know, like a conscious, not conscious human machine. I actually think the development of artificial intelligence is a much more organic biological process than we give it credit for. So, I don't think one day we're going to wake up and find like conscious robots, how would I know? Like unless Siri says to me, I really like what you're wearing today, or make some kind of evaluative statement that shows some sort of level of self-awareness or awareness. I actually think we're going to be using artificial intelligence to enhance our own consciousness.

I actually think what we're doing in AI is, we ourselves are in the process of evolution and we are becoming a new type of species or a new type of entity. And it appears that we're creating something other than ourselves, but actually we are creating ourselves in a new way. This is how I might interpret it. And so, it doesn't become this binary like human non- human conscious, unconscious kind of scenario where we feel like we're being challenged or we're being threatened by machines because in a sense, we ourselves are those machine, we're building those machines. We are those machines. We're extending ourselves into those machines. So I think we have to kind of reframe this question of AI to the question of our own human evolution. I've done that sufficiently quite honestly, because we keep treating it like we're the end point, we're just creating something that might just surpass us. And I'm like, no, I don't think it's quite that.

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But anyway, maybe this is all part of the why question that you ask, where we're oriented toward what we're moving toward, and that is the big, big question which we haven't dealt sufficiently with because we don't do well, in our theological language of eschatology. What are we here for? What do we exist for? And the question is really for, we exist; that much we know, but what we explore is a different question. You do fantastic work really, and you have really shed a lot of new light on panpsychism, on unconscious and the importance of consciousness and reframing some of our conversations today in terms of conscious materiality, a conscious cosmos, so to speak. So, we are sort of at the end of our time, but I'm going to say, do you have any final words for our viewers?

Philip: Well, thank you very much. I think we've found a lot to agree on. Just on that final point, I think I agree the serious ethical questions for AI is how is it going to transform human existence? And thinking about maybe the powerful corporate interests that are shaping these algorithms and bringing the spiritual, the meaning, the philosophy into the technology, and keeping that ever present. People are interested in more of work—my website, philipgoffphilosophy.com, has a lot of articles and videos and discussions with various scientists and spiritual thinkers. I always spend a lot of time on Twitter, @Philip_Goff, if you want to have an argument on Twitter, probably spend too much time there. Oh, I should give a quick advent, my own podcast, Mind Chat, YouTube channel, which I run with someone with the polar opposite opinion to me, who I think consciousness is everywhere, they think it's nowhere, where we interview scientists and philosophers unconsciousness. So yeah, well, it's been really fun chatting to you, Ilia.

Ilia: Yes, likewise.
Philip: Thank you for inviting me on.

Robert: A special thanks to Philip Goff for joining our conversation on Hunger for Wholeness. Be sure to check out his latest book, Why: The Purpose of Our Universe, and learn more about his work and podcast, Mind Chat at philipgoffphilosophy.com. Next week, join us for a conversation with Franciscan theologian, Father Dan Horan on Thomas

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Merton and the ancient wisdom still relevant to modern ecology and social justice. As always, thanks to our partners at the Fetzer Institute. On behalf of our team at the Center for Christogenesis, I'm Robert Nicastro. Thanks for listening.

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