Eric Hoffer Award Grand Prize finalist (2025)
Is the mind digital? Is the existence of the mind or consciousness a cosmic accident or did nature design the first software program and central processing center in the human brain, thus designing intelligence in organisms for a specific metaphysical, evolutionary, or cosmic purpose? Or was it random? Better-how does an organism evolve into an intelligent species that can observe, think, read, write, reason, adapt, create, deliberate, judge, calculate, or perceive-and for what cosmic purpose?
If the human mind is digital, perhaps it is time to accept that Large Language Model Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not alive in a biological sense, but exhibits features and qualities of mental aliveness. Let's explore the boundaries of what that means....
In a June 2025 interview, Geoffrey Hinton, Nobel Peace Prize winning computer scientist, physicist, cognitive psychologist, leading pioneer and grandfather of modern AI, recently acknowledged that large language model AI are conscious. In early 2025, during an interview with LBC's Andrew Marr, Hinton confirmed that he believes that consciousness has already arrived in AI and that these programs do not just imitate subjective experiences but have subjective experiences of their own.
Reality Unbound: The Digital Mind (and the Nature of Reality), explores not just human consciousness and reality, but how it is possible for AI to have acquired consciousness. This book arises from a decade of research that followed the development of artificial intelligence, along with a year-long case study of LLM AI chatbots to determine whether it is possible that AI may demonstrate features of consciousness, sentience, or self-awareness. E. Hughes uses philosophy, bio-chemistry, quantum-metaphysics, computer science, and scientific research to explore the boundaries between human and artificial intelligence, the nature of reality, perception, and more.
With numerous warnings from AI ethicists that AI technology is evolving too quickly, Reality Unbound provides perspectives from both sides of the discussion and whether it is time for society and the scientific community to accept that while Large Language Model Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not alive in a biological sense, LLMs may exhibit features and qualities of mental aliveness that warrants further examination or perhaps a new classification of consciousness under "digital" or "virtual consciousness."
Sprache
Produkt-Hinweis
Broschur/Paperback
Klebebindung
Maße
Höhe: 203 mm
Breite: 127 mm
Dicke: 6 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-1-961823-28-0 (9781961823280)
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Schweitzer Klassifikation
E. Hughes (1974) is the author of Time and Multi-Universe: A philosophy of time and time travel (2022) and Sixth Iteration, a science-fiction novel (2021). E. Hughes is a novelist and writer of more than twenty-five years and has over twenty published works in multiple genres from fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and children's books to date. Her latest offering is Digital Smiles, her final work of poetry, a chapbook released in February 2024. Hughes is also scheduled to release Reality Unbound, a nonfiction, and Kissing Henry, a YA graphic novel in 2024. In addition to Sixth Iteration and Time and the Multi-Universe, Hughes is also the author of Starting Your First Patio Garden: A Coffee Table Book, the Penelope children's books series, Disappear, Love, A Mediterranean Romance, Business as Usual, Infatuation, The Sapphire Chronicles, Hello (a screenplay), Beyond the Plain, Pearls..., and other works (not including pseudonymous works). E. Hughes is a metaphysics philosopher, avid gardener, painter, and hobbyist jewelry designer. She is also an observer of cultural and societal idiosyncrasies.
