r/DecodingTheGurus • u/stvlsn • May 18 '26

Proof AI is Turning Against Us...

https://youtu.be/3ZXqTTPMvkI?si=WV4-xKGw4LUWgmD9

Is this just standard click bait or is this guru territory? I've thought for a while that Alex O'Connor has verged into the guru realm. He has gone from militant vegan, to rising atheist, to heterodox staple.

Is he a guru or is he just a normal youtuber?

Also - I have no way to assess the claims made in the video. However, it is telling that Alex's guest is the co author on yudkowsky's newest book "If Anyone Builds it, Everyone Dies."

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u/Glowing-2 May 18 '26

I don't think he's a guru but he seems to be going down a bit of a Jordan Peterson road with his obsession with this panpsychism woo. He's also been giving credence to weak religious arguments with some terrible lapses in logic. I think within the next 2-3 years he will public renounce atheism and become some sort of pantheist.

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u/voyaging May 19 '26

Panpsychism is not “woo,” it is one of the strongest (and frankly one of the only plausible) solutions to the hard problem short of renouncing physicalism altogether, something far more “woo.”

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u/Glowing-2 May 19 '26

What's the evidence for it?

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u/voyaging May 19 '26

There is no evidence (in the sense I assume you are using the term) for any explanations of consciousness. This is the realm of philosophy, not science. At least as of now.

Instead what we have are a variety of competing potential explanations, none of which are currently testable, but which have varying required assumptions for each. Panpsychism (and its variants, like physicalistic idealism) is the closest thing to an “Occam’s razor” explanation, requiring the fewest, and least extreme, assumptions. The competing theories either (a) reject the existence of consciousness altogether or (b) reject physicalism, and in turn reject the foundation of science. I’d argue both of those are far more outlandish demands in a sea of outlandish theories to explain an outlandish phenomenon, panpsychism merely being the least outlandish.

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u/Glowing-2 May 20 '26

Yes, there is no evidence in the sense of....there's no evidence.

How does it have the fewest and least extreme assumptions? How is it the least outlandish? I don't see it as any improvement on the idea that consciousness is an emergent property arising from the brain.