Mindplexes, Non-Ordinary Consciousness, and Artificial General Intelligence
Gabriel Axel Montes, Ben Goertzel
The accelerating development of artificial intelligence raises fundamental questions about what constitutes a mind, particularly given the prospect of a 'global brain'. Drawing on philosophy of mind and accounts of non-ordinary consciousness, the authors discuss the concept of a 'mindplex'—a collective entity composed of humans and AIs that each possess their own 'theatre of consciousness' while also forming a unified global brain. They argue that insights from non-ordinary consciousness can inform the functional architecture of such mindplexes, and propose that implementing AI on distributed ledger technology like blockchain would support this evolution. The work suggests these considerations can help align mindplex construction with ethical and value-alignment goals.