Tegmark Research Articles

Пифагорейский аргумент разумного замысла Вселенной и его критика. Статья 5: «Атеизм» современных физиков

One of the objections to the Pythagorean argument is the reference to the authority of modern physicists, most of whom call themselves atheists or agnostics. Even if there had not been any atheists among the founding fathers of physics, something is wrong with the argument of the intelligent design of the Universe, since so many physicists of the last half-century do not believe in God, the critique goes. To answer this sort of objections, we discuss here the views of Richard Feynman, Steven Weinberg, and Stephen Hawking, each of whom called himself an “atheist”. We attempt to show in what sense they indeed were atheists and in what sense they were not. Roger Penrose, the eminent physicist and thinker, called himself “rather agnostic”, but he was convinced of the universe’s purpose, and explained what this conviction was based on: not blind faith but the very special character of the physical laws and the initial conditions of the Big Bang. Penrose illustrated his metaphysical views by means of graphic images, one of which we discuss in a dedicated chapter. Our review of contemporary physicist-philosophers would be very incomplete without the “practicing but unbelieving Christian” Freeman Dyson, with his concept of “the most interesting of all possible worlds”, and so we talk about him too. We also consider Max Tegmark’s mathematical multiverse hypothesis and show that it does not stand up to criticism in light of the cognitive self-consistency of the universe. Is it rational to reject the hypothesis of intelligent design when all other hypotheses about the cause of the highly refi ned nature of physical laws fail? The chapter “Absurdity and Skepticism” is devoted to this question. At the end of this essay and the whole series, we familiarize the reader with the view of the mass man in science and the nature of his “atheism” that was expressed by Jose Ortega y Gasset, supported by Erwin Schrödinger, and commented on by Steven Weinberg.

Artificial Intelligence and the cyber utopianism of justice. Why AI is not intelligence and man’s struggle to survive himself

Objective: to show the ontological differences between human and artificial intelligence and address structural divergences at the definitional level.Methods: dialectical approach to cognition of social phenomena, allowing to analyze them in historical development and functioning in the context of the totality of objective and subjective factors, which predetermined the following research methods: formal-logical and sociological.Results: a cross-cutting analysis was applied to the phenomenon of AI between cyber utopianism and cyber realism. Starting from a quote by Max Tegmark, the theory of artificial intelligence is reconstructed by the theorists who founded the discipline (Turing, Minsky, Bernstein, von Neumann) and it is discussed why – in light of the discoveries and assumptions of neuroscience – it is not possible to define it as intelligence according to human criteria. Three short notes are included in the appendix that complete the discussion: 1. on the consciousness of machines 2. on the theory of utopian cyber employment and remuneration 3. “The hungry judge is more cruel” (discussion on an Israeli study).Scientific novelty: through the examination of multiple types of intelligence (Gardner) and social intelligence (Thorndike, Goleman), a more complex definition of intelligence is proposed than that which can be replicated by artificial neural networks, especially in relation to the interaction between animal and environment. Three short messages highlight the uncertainty and risks that may arise from the rampant use of artificial intelligence as judges.Practical significance: starting from a correct definition of human intelligence, the author comes to the definition of artificial intelligence. Beyond the myth of AI, we discover its limits and the objective limitations we must provide for in order to save the most precious asset we have: mankind.

The Fourth Generation of Human Rights: Epistemic Rights in Digital Lifeworlds

AbstractIn contrast to China’s efforts to upgrade its system of governance around a stupefying amount of data collection and electronic scoring, countries committed to democracy and human rights did not upgradetheirsystems. Instead, those countries ended up withsurveillance capitalism. It is vital for the survival of those ideas about governance to perform such an upgrade. This paper aims to contribute to that goal. I propose a framework of epistemic actorhood in terms of four roles and characterize digital lifeworlds and what matters about them both in terms of how they fit in with Max Tegmark’s distinctions among stages of life and in terms of how they generate their own episteme, the data episteme, with its immense possibilities of infopower (a term inspired by Foucault). Epistemic rights that strengthen existing human rights – as part of afourth generationof rights – are needed to protect epistemic actorhood in those roles. In the long run, we might well need a new kind of right, the right to the exercise of genuinely human intelligence.

Supervenience Physicalism and the Berry Paradox

This paper intervenes in an argument over the number of thoughts that could be thought. The argument has important implications for supervenience physicalism, the thesis that all is physical or supervenient on the physical. If, per quantum mechanics, the number of possible physical states is finite while the number of possible thoughts is infinite, then the latter exceeds the former in number, and supervenience phyicalsim fails. Abelson (1970) first argued that possible thoughts are infinite as we can think of any of the infinite natural numbers. Subsequently, physicist Max Tegmark (2009b) argued that we cannot think of all the numbers there are, that some are simultaneously too large and too nondescript to reference. Porpora (2013) offered a brief proof countering Tegmark. Curtis (2015) then countered Porpora, arguing that Porpora’s argument runs afoul of the Berry paradox. This paper shows that while Curtis does offer an analogous proof that does fall prey to the Berry paradox, Porpora’s does not. The result reinstates Porpora’s argument with all its implications for supervenience physicalism and offers a clearer lesson from the Berry Paradox.

Will AI create a new form of life? A discussion of issues raised by “Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”

In this paper I discuss a number of ideas stimulated by Max Tegmark’s book, Life 3.0 . I hope they 1 illustrate that a discussion between approaches in areas around computer science, AI and physics on the one hand, and biological thinking on the other can be fruitful. Essentially the book is strongest where AI and associated near future use are discussed. It is weakest when it moves into biological areas. But this is not a “keep off our patch” stance, but rather a desire to welcome these ideas from another intellectual approach and welcome the way they are usefully challenging. In his excursions into biology and consciousness and the speculation that AI might well create Life 3.0, Tegmark makes a number of errors. These include: a replicator is not clearly specified, he muddles goal directed behaviour with descriptions by function or consequence / end point, he makes some basic errors of logic including “affirming the consequent” (e.g., “if this is a dog, then it is an animal”, does NOT imply “this is an animal therefore it is a dog”), and failing to see that consciousness is ascribed not described and thereby seeing it as an entity which can be treated in the same way physical, publically observable, phenomena. Finally, he does not address the energy question: even if AI could achieve super intelligence, this silicon based system would likely consume so much energy as to be unsustainable. All this weakens his arguments. This is a pity because the discussion of the challenges for the near future which the development of AI poses, is valuable, interesting and useful and can stand by itself without his forays into Life 3.0.

The Age of AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity

The Age of AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity

A mean field approach to model levels of consciousness from EEG recordings

We introduce a mean-field model for analysing the dynamics of human consciousness. In particular, inspired by the Giulio Tononi’s Integrated Information Theory and by the Max Tegmark’s representation of consciousness, we study order–disorder phase transitions on Curie–Weiss models generated by processing EEG signals. The latter have been recorded on healthy individuals undergoing deep sedation. Then, we implement a machine learning tool for classifying mental states using, as input, the critical temperatures computed in the Curie–Weiss models. Results show that, by the proposed method, it is possible to discriminate between states of awareness and states of deep sedation. Besides, we identify a state space for representing the path between mental states, whose dimensions correspond to critical temperatures computed over different frequency bands of the EEG signal. Beyond possible theoretical implications in the study of human consciousness, resulting from our model, we deem relevant to emphasise that the proposed method could be exploited for clinical applications.

A Comparative Analysis, within the Posthumanist Context, of Compassion and Love in Y. N. Harari’s Thought and C.S. Peirce’s Phenomenology

Posthumanism points out the onset of a new existential episode for the humankind. In the epilogue of the first episode one can notice the advance of humanity in knowledge and innovation without, however, identifying a similar progress with regard to altruism and compassion. Wars are still threatening us even in this century, and hard feelings are at home everywhere around us. We have now reached the dawn of an era found under the auspices of artificial intelligence. Shoshana Zuboff draws our attention to „surveillance capitalism”, pinpointing the existence of the deliberate social inequality. Nick Bostrom, Ray Kurzweil and Max Tegmark emphasize the possibility that machines may acquire „singularity”, a situation in which machines will produce machines that are made according to their own will and independent of the human being, in fact against them, and Yuval Noah Harari announces the next stage in human evolution, anticipating the condemnation of homo sapiens. All these realities and predictions signal the evil that man can do to his neighbour and to himself, implicitly. To what extent can the progress of innovation be accompanied by a progress in the practical implementation of moral values such as love and compassion? How can we think in such a manner that the advance in innovation will not become a weapon against man, but an instrument for his own benefit? In this article I am proposing a brief comparative analysis of Y. N. Harari’s naturalist philosophy of meaning and the phenomenology of love in C.S. Peirce’s philosophy, with the purpose of representing thought paradigms that may considerably contribute to a compassion-driven technological transformation.

“If we do it wisely, AI can be the best thing ever for humanity”

Where once he sought to unmask the mysteries of the multiverse, Max Tegmark now has his sights on artificial intelligence. He talks to Richard Webb about cosmology, consciousness and how to make AI work for everyone

AI theorist? Not yet

AI Feynman: A physics-inspired method for symbolic regression Authors: Silviu-Marian Udrescu and Max Tegmark Sci. Adv. 6 : eaay2631, 2020; DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aay2631 Recommended with a commentary by Ilya Nemenman, Emory University |View Commentary (pdf)| This commentary may be cited as: DOI: 10.36471/JCCM_May_2020_02 https://doi.org/10.36471/JCCM_May_2020_02

The Prospects of the Mankind in the Era of Technological Singularity

The book by Max Tegmark draws attention to the dangers and benefits that await humanity as a result of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies development. Cosmologist and astrophysicist Tegmark, realizing the impossibility to predict the AI development, offers exciting scenarios of civilization development options for tens, thousands, millions and billions of years. The analysis of the opposite scenarios is aimed at the idea formation that the consequences of creating a general AI, superior to the human level, will be more significant than from all other achievements of civilization. Tegmark is one of the founders and leaders of the “Beneficial AGI” movement, he presents the results of the discussion of the issues he raises with leading experts in the field of AI. Tegmark concludes his book with a call to optimism: “My book urge you to think about what future you would like, and not what future scares you, this way we can find goals for which it’s worth working”.

Cosmology and Hilbert's sixth problem

There have been tantalizing indications from many quarters of physical cosmology that we are living in the multiverse - a huge set of cosmological domains ("universes"). What is the structure of this larger whole is an entirely open problem on the interface between physics and metaphysics. A goal of the present paper is to draw attention to the connection between this problem and an old and celebrated puzzle in mathematical physics. Among the unresolved problems David Hilbert posed in 1900 as a challenge for the dawning century, none is more philosophically controversial than the Sixth Problem, requiring the axiomatization of physical theories. In the new century and the new millennium, this problem has remained a challenge, usually swept under the rug as "not belonging to mathematics" (as if that impacts its epistemical status) or simply "unresolved". Recent radical ontological/cosmological hypothesis of Max Tegmark, identifying mathematical and physical structures, might shed some new light onto this allegedly antiquated subject: it might be the case that the problem has already been solved, insofar we have formalized mathematical structures! While this can be seen as "cutting the Gordian knot" rather than patiently resolving the issue, we suggest that there are several advantages to taking Tegmark's solution seriously, notably in the domain of (future) physics of the observer.

Life 3.0. Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, by Max Tegmark

Life 3.0. Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, by Max Tegmark

Evil twins and the multiverse: distinguishing the world of difference between epistemic and physical possibility

Physicists Brian Greene and Max Tegmark both make variants of the claim that if the universe is infinite and matter is roughly uniformly distributed that there are infinitely many “people with the same appearance, name and memories as you, who play out every possible permutation of your life choices.” In this paper I argue that, while our current best theories in astrophysics may allow one to conclude that we have infinitely many duplicates whose lives are identical to our own from start to finish, without either further advances in physics or advances in fields like biology, psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy, Greene’s and Tegmark’s claims about the ways in which our duplicates lives will differ from our own are not a consequence of our best current scientific theories. Rather, I argue that Greene and Tegmark’s conclusions rely on philosophically imprecise usages of the language of “possibility.”

The vision of technology's effect upon human being in the context of the development of artificial inteligence (Review of Max Tegmark’s Book “Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”[Ukrainian language edition], 432 p. Kyiv, 2019)

The vision of technology's effect upon human being in the context of the development of artificial inteligence (Review of Max Tegmark’s Book “Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”[Ukrainian language edition], 432 p. Kyiv, 2019)

Beyond the Neomaterialist Divide: Negotiating Between Eliminative and Vital Materialism with Integrated Information Theory

Though most neomaterialists share a commitment to the Copernican decentring of humans from the world stage, there is disagreement on the purposes of such an endeavour. The polemic stems from a fundamental discrepancy about what the return to materiality entails: is matter the principle of the non-thinking as such, or is it always already imbued with some sort of subjectivity? Is the new materialism’s goal to come to terms with the non-living origin of life? Or is it rather to recognize that seemingly dead materials are always in some sense incipiently alive? For convenience, we can think of two neomaterialist perspectives: the rationalist or eliminative neomaterialism, and the vitalist or panpsychist neomaterialism. I explore some of the conceptual problems faced by both camps and, drawing from the recently developed theory of consciousness as integrated information (Tononi), as well as its quantum physical construal by Max Tegmark, I suggest some provisional ways to address those issues.

Quantum Masculinities: Doing Gender with Max Tegmark’s Mathematical Universe Hypothesis

In his book Our Mathematical Universe, Max Tegmark proposes a way of viewing “reality” as a multiverse of parallel universes governed by mathematics. In this article we take a few of Tegmark’s more accessible ideas and combine them with the study of masculinities to form “quantum masculinities.” Specifically, we use Tegmark’s presentation of the multiverse and the quantum state of superposition as a thinking tool for imagining not just multiple masculinities but infinite and contradictory masculinities. We then mobilize this newly proposed concept of quantum masculinities in two contexts. First, we put quantum masculinities in dialogue with Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity to question to what degree gender performance requires an observer. Second, we explore how far quantum masculinities are reconcilable with The Five Stages of Masculinity. We conclude with some discussion about the categories of “I” and “we” in imagining the self, as well as how the study of masculinities might evolve.

The dangerous allure of advanced AI

Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark

From n-qubit multi-particle quantum teleportation modelling to n-qudit contextuality based quantum teleportation and beyond

This paper further generalizes the modelling framework for contextuality based quantum teleportation to n-dimensional quantum states, or n-qudits (quantum odd-prime based units) which holds considerable promise for even higher mathematical abstraction. The proposed generalization extends the two states in the qubit model, to n states and this n could tend towards infinity. We are heading towards point-sized loops or fine-grained particles of nature, which have been rejected out of hand by string theorists. It is not physical reality when measured from the sense of Planck’s length of 10−35 metres, but finer-grained particles than Planck’s length 10−35 metres may exist, although, they are not matter anymore. We argue that why stop at degree of freedom of three, but instead pursue quantum odd-prime based units with higher degree n such as 5, 7, 11, 13, 17 and so on till nth degree of freedom even tending to infinity. String theorists admit its multiple landscapes with higher degrees of freedom which points its uniqueness both for particles finer than 10−35 metres as well as distances greater than 1010 light years. Modern research by physicists and mathematicians including Roger Penrose, Max Tegmark, Nick Bostrom and Herbert Bernstein provides scientific basis to this work.

Platonizm w strukturalistycznej refleksji nad czasoprzestrzenią. Próba aplikacji myśli filozoficznej Józefa Życińskiego.

The main aim of this paper is to provide an interpretative application of Jozef Życinski’s philosophical work. I claim that one can find in Życinski’s thought criteria for evaluating certain positions which use platonistic concepts in order to solve specific problems in the context of philosophy of physics, especially philosophy of spacetime. After reconstructing Życinski’s philosophy, I use the derived criteria to evaluate positions of Howard Stein’s and Max Tegmark’s. I conclude that, according to criteria taken from Życinski’s philosophy, the former’s views are more plausible, and so create a better starting point in developing a platonistic structuralist position.