The Human Experience · Episode

Episode 146 – Dr. Cliff Pickover – Artificial Intelligence, Futurism, Machine Consciousness

A conversation with Dr. Cliff Pickover

Dr. Clifford A. Pickover is a researcher, scientist and author who takes delight in introducing the wider public to the wonders of science and the historical milestones that have paved the way for progress.…

Published
October 10, 2019
Runtime
1:05:24
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Episode field notes

Show notes

Dr. Clifford A. Pickover is a researcher, scientist and author who takes delight in introducing the wider public to the wonders of science and the historical milestones that have paved the way for progress.
Clifford received his Ph.D from Yale University’s Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and has held a number of prestigious positions, from being Editor-in-Chief of the IBM Journal of Research and Development to being elected Fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He has also been granted more than 600 U.S patents and his research has gained attention from such media outlets as CNN, WIRED and the New York Times.
Clifford has written more than 50 books, including Time: A Traveler’s Guide, A Beginner’s Guide to Immortality and The Math Book, a book that won the 2011 Neumann Prize. Clifford’s latest book, Artificial Intelligence: An Illustrated History covers the milestones we have passed in the history of A.I and the things we have learned, or that are a cause for concern, along the way.
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Transcript

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Ideas worth returning to

Quotes

Five substantial excerpts from the published transcript, lightly edited for clarity without changing their meaning.

  1. “I wanted to understand my own consciousness and, through it, the nature of reality. Stanislav Grof’s early work suggested that a person could gain knowledge not only of the personal unconscious, but also of what might be called the mind of the universe, the mind of the cosmos, or the mind of God.”
    From the conversation
  2. “Archetypal reality is associated especially with Plato and Carl Jung’s work on the collective unconscious. The basic proposal is that a reality behind the physical world informs and organizes its fundamental structures. As experience moves into and beyond that archetypal level, the scale becomes difficult to compare with anything in ordinary earthly life.”
    From the conversation
  3. “Individual minds can be understood as nodes within a larger landscape of consciousness. I was shown ways in which personal consciousness interacts with a larger species mind. Each movement into a deeper level of consciousness also brings a higher level of energy, which the person must learn to manage.”
    From the conversation
  4. “Experiences in altered states naturally have parallels with meditation, but they can reach unusual depths. Even a regular meditation practice does not ordinarily involve transcending time, moving into a perceived future, or returning to an experience of the context before the Big Bang. These states can extend far beyond familiar contemplative experience.”
    From the conversation
  5. “People passing through death-and-rebirth experiences commonly encounter different forms of light, as I did many times. After experiences of oneness and the primal void, I went through another series of death-and-rebirth experiences. They brought me into a quality of consciousness beyond the individual self and beyond what I experienced as the species mind.”
    From the conversation

About the guest

Dr. Cliff Pickover

A dedicated biography is being prepared from the original episode archive.

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