Life as Computation: Merging Systems to Emerge Purpose

Resources

Books

• "What is Intelligence" by MIT Press - This book, recently published, explores the nature of intelligence and its relationship to life, with a free online version available.
• "Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes" by Dan Everett - This book discusses experiences with the Pirahã people and their language, contrasting their linguistic structures with Chomsky's theories.

Videos & Documentaries

• Blaise Agüera y Arcas's Talk - Mentioned as having inspired a discussion on life and intelligence being computational.

Research & Studies

• Study on the Science of Psychology (2006) by an unnamed psychologist - This study asked participants to draw bicycles, revealing common illusions about knowledge and capabilities regarding how things work.
• Studies on Choice Blindness by Peter Johansson (University of Uppsala) - These experiments demonstrate how people often fail to notice when they are handed the wrong card after making a choice, and how invented justifications can influence future choices.
• Studies on Drawing by Judith Fan (Stanford University) - Comparing human sketches to computer-generated images, these studies suggest differences in abstract understanding and detail generation between humans and current AI models.
• Brain Score measures by Martin Shrimpf and Cole - These measures show surprising resemblances between internal representations in human brains and those found in AI models trained on language.

Tools & Software

• Brainfuck - A minimal, Turing-complete programming language used as the basis for the BFF experiment.
• Z80 Assembly Language - An assembly language for microprocessors, used in experiments similar to the BFF.

Articles & Papers

• "The Science of Psychology" (2006) - A paper that explored people's understanding of how bicycles work by asking them to draw one.
• "The Science of Psychology" (Mentioned by Blaise Agüera y Arcas) - This paper describes an experiment where people were asked to draw bicycles, highlighting common illusions about knowledge.
• Paper on Major Evolutionary Transitions by Yörük Sümer and John Maynard Smith (Nature, 1995) - This paper outlined key transitions in evolution, such as the formation of single cells into bodies and the endosymbiosis of mitochondria.

People Mentioned

• Blaise Agüera y Arcas - Google Researcher, author of "What is Intelligence," and founder of the research group "Paradigms of Intelligence."
• John von Neumann - Founder of computer science, known for his theoretical work on self-reproducing machines and cellular automata.
• Watson and Crick - Researchers credited with discovering the structure and function of DNA.
• David Krakauer - Mentioned in relation to his views on intelligence, adaptivity, inference, and representation, and his potential agreement on emergence.
• Karl Friston - Mentioned for his work on the division of systems using Markov blankets and his perspective on intelligence driven by the second law of thermodynamics.
• Urban Miller - The graduate student who designed the Brainfuck programming language.
• Adi Pross - An organic chemist who characterized dynamic kinetic stability as an extension of the second law of thermodynamics.
• Jacques Monod - Nobel laureate, known for his concept of "chance and necessity" in Darwinian evolution.
• Stephen J. Gould - Paleontologist and evolutionary biologist, known for his arguments against the idea of a monotonic increase in complexity in evolution.
• Yörük Sümer - Co-author of a paper on major evolutionary transitions.
• John Maynard Smith - Co-author of a paper on major evolutionary transitions.
• Noam Chomsky - Linguist whose ideas on language and recursion were discussed and contrasted with those of Dan Everett.
• Dan Everett - Linguist whose work with the Pirahã people and their language is presented as an alternative to Chomsky's theories.
• W. Brian Arthur - Author who has written about how technology evolves through composition.
• Neil's Albaricchelli - Considered the first artificial life researcher, who worked on one of von Neumann's machines.
• MIT Hamming - Author of a book that pseudo-documents early artificial life experiments.
• Jerry Fodor - Mentioned in relation to his work on compositionality in cognitive representations.
• Zenon Pylyshyn - Mentioned in relation to his work on compositionality in cognitive representations.
• Anil Seth - Mentioned as holding an essentialist view on consciousness.
• John Searle - Mentioned as holding an essentialist view on consciousness.
• David Chalmers - Known for his concept of philosophical zombies.
• Douglas Hofstadter - Author mentioned for his work on strange loops and self-modeling.
• Mike Gazzaniga - Neuroscientist who studied split-brain patients and introduced the concept of "behavioral cross-cueing."
• Abby and Brittany Hensel - Conjoined twins whose case is discussed in relation to consciousness and agency.
• Peter Johansson - Researcher at the University of Uppsala, known for discovering choice blindness.
• Eliezer Yudkowsky - Mentioned as a proponent of concerns about artificial intelligence that differ from the speaker's views.
• Chris Ola - Popularized the universal representation hypothesis with visualization experiments.
• Martin Shrimpf - Co-creator of Brain Score measures.
• Cole - Co-creator of Brain Score measures.

Organizations & Institutions

• MIT Press - Publisher of the book "What is Intelligence."
• Google - Employer of Blaise Agüera y Arcas.
• Paradigms of Intelligence (PI) - A research group at Google founded by Blaise Agüera y Arcas.
• LinkedIn - Mentioned in the context of hiring for small businesses.
• Nespresso - Mentioned as a sponsor.
• Cyberfund - Mentioned as a supporter of MLST.
• Prolific - A human data infrastructure company.
• University of the Negev in Israel - Where Adi Pross conducted his research.
• Stanford University - Where Judith Fan is a professor.
• University of Uppsala - Where Peter Johansson conducts research.

Websites & Online Resources

• linkedin.com/hire - Mentioned for posting jobs for free.
• nespresso.com - Mentioned for shopping the holiday gift collection.
• windows.com/copilot - Mentioned for trying Copilot on Windows.
• bloomberg.com/question - Mentioned for subscribing to understand the "why" behind headlines.
• insightsoftware.com/ai - Mentioned for learning about AI-powered insights for finance teams.

Other Resources

• Conway's Game of Life - A cellular automaton mentioned as an example of computational equivalence and emergent behavior.
• Stochastic Turing Machine - An extension of Turing's original ideas about computation to account for probabilistic elements.
• Markov Blanket - A concept used by Karl Friston to describe statistical independence in systems.
• Eukaryote - A type of cell that formed through symbiosis with a mitochondrion.
• Mitochondrion - An organelle that, through endosymbiosis, became part of a eukaryote.
• Archaea - A type of single-celled organism that may have hosted a mitochondrion to form a eukaryote.
• Chloroplasts - Mentioned as an example of endosymbiosis in major evolutionary transitions.
• BFF Experiment - An experiment based on Brainfuck that demonstrates the emergence of life and purpose from random data.
• Urea - A substance filtered by the kidney, used as an example of function.
• ATP - Adenosine triphosphate, an energy molecule used as an example of function and multiple realizability.
• Philosophical Zombies - A concept by David Chalmers about entities that behave like conscious beings but lack subjective experience.
• MUPAI - A theory developed by Blaise Agüera y Arcas's team concerning cooperation between intelligent agents.
• Split-brain patients - Individuals whose brain hemispheres have been surgically separated, studied for insights into consciousness and agency.
• Conjoined twins Abby and Brittany Hensel - Discussed as a case study in shared agency and consciousness.
• The Boys in the Boat by Dan Brown - A book that introduced the concept of "swing" in rowing.
• CLIP models - AI models used for image synthesis and comparison with human drawing.
• Diffusion models - A type of generative model used in AI image synthesis.
• Transformer models - A type of neural network architecture, relevant to modern AI language models.
• Universal Representation Hypothesis - A hypothesis suggesting that different models might develop similar internal representations.