Morphospace / Discussion with Marsha Hewitt (Platonic Space and related ideas)

Discussion with Marsha Hewitt (Platonic Space and related ideas)

In one paragraph

A philosopher of religion who teaches Levin's 'Ingressing Minds' paper talks with him about Platonic space, religion, psychoanalysis, and why these ideas unsettle people.

Main ideas (plain words)

  • Levin separates mathematical patterns (perhaps eternal) from patterns we recognize as minds, which he suspects change through their contact with the physical world — and he stresses this is a hypothesis.
  • Embodiments act as filters or interfaces: building a body or machine 'pokes a hole' through which patterns show up immediately.
  • Hosting a high-level mind may require lower layers prepared first, the way an ecosystem needs plants and microbes under its predators.
  • Hewitt reads the resistance to 'mind everywhere' as a defensive reaction to losing human specialness; both see psychoanalysis as practice at hearing patterns in a person that are not the speaking self.

Why it matters

Useful for the philosophy and ethics lane, and a good example of Levin being careful about what he claims versus what he hypothesizes.

Key quotes (word for word from YouTube's auto-generated captions)

Quotes are copied exactly from the captions, including filler words and caption errors. Timestamps are to the nearest minute.

"I think they do change as a function of their interaction or ingression into the physical world. But again, just to be clear, that is a hypothesis that's part of the framework I'm developing now."
— 18 min

"we make an interface through which immediately you don't have to wait"
— 42 min

Related

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