I think we have to be really careful when bringing AIXI/Kolmogorov complexity to the discussion. My strong intuition is that AIXI is specifically the type of alien intelligence we want to avoid here. Most programming languages have very short programs that behave in wild and complex ways when analyzed from a human perspective. To an AIXI mind based on those programming languages this kind of behavior is by definition simple and preferred by Occam’s Razor. The generalizations to n+1 dimensions that this kind of an intelligence makes are almost guaranteed to be incomprehensible and totally alien to a human mind.
I’m not saying that information theory is a bad approach in itself. I’m just saying that we have to be really careful what kind of primitives we want to give our AI to reason with. It’s important to remember that even though human concepts are only a constant factor away from concepts based on Turing machines, those constant factors are huge and the behavior and reasoning of an information theoretic mind are always exponentially dominated by what it finds simple in it’s own terms.
I’ve been doing this for a while now and reached the end that the author calls partial enlightenment. I dislike the term however. It sounds so new agey.
The only thing that has happened is that I now see myself as an inseparable part of the physical universe both on the level of belief and alief. This insight makes life’s problems seem less acute as they cannot target a permanent self on the alief-level. I still get sad, feel pain and pleasure but I see them more as fantastic stories about reality made up by my brain than the actual reality of (physical) cause & effect. I can also trust my instincts and subconscious mind more as I no longer fear losing myself when I surrender to pure feelings and motions beyond verbal thought.
This insight is only about a week old and I’m still making sense out of it so I’ll end up with a more detailed description of what happened:
I progressed through the first two stages using other meditations but I quit smack in the middle of stage three. Back then I had no idea that feeling awful was a normal part of progress and I spent the next two years depressed in a Dark Night. Please don’t do this to yourself! It sucks big time.
Last summer I ran into DavidM’s article and started practicing. I worked through the pains of the Dark Night and finally broke out of stage three. However the boredom of early stage four sucked the motivation out of the practice and I took a break until I realized I was slipping back into depression.
So with the support of some friends and strong green tea I started meditating and hunting for the vibrations that permeate all experiences. I finally reached the end of stage four and could see the observer clearly. Like plucking out a flower I picked up the experience of the vibrating observer and realized that it was simply an automatic label the mind puts on thoughts and actions that it finds really important. Having now gained control of the label I could put it anywhere and immediately become it. So I became the universe and the mind was filled with joy.
The habitual mind (that is feeling like my usual self) eventually returned but it now has a dreamlike character and with a little meditation I can attach the feeling of self to basically anything and feel that I become that thing. I can also not attach the self to anything and just let the mind rest in a non-dual awareness.