As living organisms, we are defined by the genes inherited from our parents. As socialized human beings, our thoughts are shaped by the particular culture seeping through our consciences. As politically governed inhabitants of various countries, our destinies depend on the wisdom of those calling the shots. On more than one level…
We don’t have much to say when it comes to our genes. We can always interpret the tenets of the above mentioned cultures. As citizens, and very much depending on the particulars of each ‘polity’, we can always try to influence the decision making process.
We cannot do much about our genes for a very simple reason. They are part and parcel of our ‘inner-workings’. The immutable part of what we are. We can interpret culture and attempt to influence others because of our consciousness. Our ability to develop a certain kind of awareness.
Consciousness, the ability, can be construed as a space. The place where our individual consciences exist, meet and interact. Our individual consciences can be understood as atoms inhabiting the consciousness. Like all other spaces. consciousness has dimensions. Hence regions. Each region ‘functioning’ according to certain sets of rules. Sets of rules otherwise known as ‘cultures’. Culture, in general and each of the individual ones, is ‘alive’. Just as life itself is ‘alive’.
Unfortunately, life is only ‘aware’. Not yet aware of it’s own self. Not yet conscious. Only a certain species of individual living organisms has, as far, developed this ability. ‘Culture’ – a living thing because it is animated by individual living organisms, the conscious ones – is also ‘aware’. Just as life is ‘aware’. But, again like life, culture has not yet developed a full consciousness. And awareness of
Atoms, in the real world as well as the individual consciences inhabiting consciousness, ‘cooperate’. Democrit’s atoms, in various combinations, constitute the ‘real’ world. Including here the individual living organisms harboring individual consciences. Conscious ‘atoms’, the individual consciences harbored by the living organisms which have been able to develop one, are about to take over a portion of the above mentioned ‘real’ world.
Theoretically, we do have a certain understanding regarding the thing we call ‘intelligence’. After all, there are some dictionary entries discussing the matter. But when it comes to measuring the said intelligence… nothing is straightforward anymore. So we still have a lot to learn about the thing. About our ability to understand, after all… About our ability to understand, period, including our own intelligence.
Click the picture above and read the article. It is interesting. The most interesting part being what it misses.
The first really intelligent computer application put together by man was the one who defeated Garry Kasparov. Has anyone been invited to play chess by an application? Is anybody aware of any chess or go application who had any initiative? Meaningful initiative? Other than making this or that move only AFTER a human had initiated the game?
What are we discussing here? The intelligence level of any of the many, present or future, artificial intelligence applications or their ability to become aware? Aware of anything…
Furthermore, when we discuss whether AI, ANI, AGI or even ASI would erase humankind from the face of the Earth… nobody has yet mentioned us. After all, we are the ones building the applications. The computers on which we run the applications… Instead of worrying whether any of the AI versions would do anything to us, we should worry about what some of us will do after they will have laid their hands on a really powerful AI application!
OK, I can give you this. God may have done all this. But is He aware of His creation?
‘But He loves us! Otherwise why make us in the first place?!?’
What if it was us who had come up with this notion? The way I see it, we may very well be an unintended consequence of His activity. So unintended that He isn’t even aware of our existence…
‘But He knows everything…‘
That’s what we think… about Him. And about the relation between Him and His Creation. Take us for example. Do we know everything? About our body. About what’s going on inside us.
‘No, of course we don’t!’
Think again. For an outside observer – specially one that lives significantly less than we do – our bodies are ‘perfection in motion’. They work ‘perfectly’. As if minutely controlled by somebody who perfectly knows what they’re doing. Right? We know this isn’t the case… because we are the ones who ignore what’s going on inside our bodies… Well, ignore is too strong. Not fully aware, at least for as long as things go on in an acceptable manner, would be a more accurate description. Same might be happening with God. And this is a far more sensible explanation for what’s going on. We’re the ones responsible for our behavior, not an inscrutable God. Who, despite being our Creator, allows us to defile His Creation.
There’s no other meaning but that attached by men to the stories they had spun themselves. For their own use.
Children are afraid of the dark. Not of ‘darkness’ but of ‘the dark’. Children, not babies! All babies let us know when they wake up. For the simple reason that they wake up to eat. Or to have their diapers changed. With small children – babies who had developed a certain level of self awareness – things are a little more complicated. They need more than simple sustenance. They need to learn. Their budding consciences needs to fit themselves into the world. Play being the first step. But play is impossible ‘in the dark’. Specially when previous experiences, hastened by ‘well meant warnings from well wishing adults’, suggest that ‘the dark’ is full of ‘hidden’ dangers.
In fact, it’s actually fascinating to observe how self awareness transforms darkness into the dark. Sheep – who are hunted during the night by various predators – don’t go into depression at sunset. OK, sheep are never alone and their senses – other than vision – are far sharper than ours. But I’m sure you understand what I’m driving at. While the rest of the animals do not have problems related to darkness, we – humans – are not comfortable in ‘the dark’. To the tune of developing various forms of phobia. From claustrophobia to agoraphobia. Simply because conscience – our ability to observe ourselves experiencing life – realizes it can observe/control less when in ‘the dark’. When its ability to see/influence what’s going on is reduced.
The point being that it’s our consciousness which makes the difference between darkness – lack of light – and ‘the dark’. That place/situation in which the conscious agents who cannot see/intervene experience their impotence. And call it for what it is. ‘The dark’.
And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, toknow good and evil. Gen 3:22
Why are we doing all this?
?!?
You heard me. ‘Why are we doing all this?’ Everything that we do.
Is anything wrong with you?
No. Not anything that I know of. Only this question which has arisen on it own. Why don’t we just stop? Stop doing everything that we do…
But doing what we do is the reason for our existence… Otherwise we would not exist. At all! The world itself would have been different. Completely different!
So what?!? Do you really care about the world? What’s in it for you? For us… What benefit do we have from the world being as it is? Or at all…
I’m not going to discuss the veracity of the above. Which is true, in the sense that this is how we determine whether an organism is alive or not. My point being that in order to perform this, the organisms – each and every one of them – need to act as if they are able to make the difference between ‘in’ and ‘out’. Besides the fact that they need to discern between ‘food’ – which is to be ‘imported’ and everything else. Which everything else must be kept on the outside.
See what I mean when I speak about the difference between ‘in’ and ‘out’?
In this sense, organisms – from the very beginning – have a certain ‘dimensional awareness’ of the world. Of their environment, more exactly. And, as things have become more and more ‘complicated’, the dimensional awareness has become more and more sophisticated. Plants act as if they know the difference between up and down, animals are indeed able to find their way when foraging.
The advent of consciousness has added a new layer to that awareness. Now we speak about ‘self-awareness’. We, conscious beings, are not only aware of the difference between our own ‘inside’ and the rest of the world but we’re also aware of our consciousness. We are aware of our selves. Our selves are aware about themselves. Our selves are able to think. To consider things.
Previous organisms have been able to react – according to ‘ingrained procedures’ which have been, in variable degrees, honed by ‘learning’ – while we are able, on top of our own reactivity, of careful consideration. Of making the difference between ‘fight’ and ‘flight’. Not only to choose one on occasion – all other ‘competitive’ animals do that on a regular basis – but also able to actively consider the difference between the two concepts. Previous organisms have been able to choose between when to fight and when to flee in an ‘instinctive’ manner. For some, granted, those instincts have been honed by ‘learning’, but their decision making process has continued to remain ‘procedural’. Very little, if any, ‘active consideration’. Very little, if any, ‘originality’.
Consciousness – our ability to actively observe and then examine/discuss our own observations – has opened a vast field of opportunity. Being able to actively observe a situation and to actively consider the circumstances/consequences before making a decision adds a fourth dimension to the already ‘three dimensional space’.
Life, per se, has no direction. Evolution only helps life to survive. To adapt itself to adaptable changes in the environment. Life, per se, has no direction. No direction and no meaning. Life, simple life, takes place in a space with three dimensions. Three parameters. In/out, abundance/scarcity, food/poison. An organism, any organism, continues to live for as long as there is ‘enough’ ‘food’ ‘inside’ it. And not enough ‘poison’ to kill it. But ‘simple’ organisms have no plans. No ‘future’. The more sophisticated among them display a behaviour we associate with ‘feelings’ – which apparently help them, evolution wise – but still no ‘future’.
Biological time is as bland as physical time. It flows according to rules ingrained in the already-existent. A star will ‘function’ according to pre-existent rules, a microbe will live according to the information inscribed in its DNA, in the context of all other ‘natural laws’, while an orangutan will be able to add very little to the above. If you consider things dispassionately, there is a continuous chain of events from the shiny stars in the sky to the orangutans roaming the Indonesian jungle. And no individual agent was needed in order to successively latch causes into the chain which led to the present set of circumstances. According to what we presently know, anyway…
Until a short hundred of years ago… When Man ‘invented’ the palm oil. When Man had purposely invented the industrial process through which palm is transformed into edible oil. When Man had used his agency to ‘improve’ his lot. And carelessly destroyed the habitat of the orangutan.
In this sense we may consider that the orangutan continue to live along a linear time – individually and/or collectively the orangutan remain unable to pro-actively determine their fate – but time itself is no longer linear. Since the advent of Man, time no longer flows according to ‘objective’ rules. According to rules contained into the very fabric of things. Currently, and ‘locally’, the flow of time is increasingly influenced by the agency of Man.
Self-conscious organisms, in order to satisfy their need for meaning, attempt to make sense of what they are living. To lead a meaningful life, they need to ingest not only portions of where they live but also as much information as possible about where they live. As much information as humanly possible…
Regardless of our individual beliefs, it would be rather naive to consider there’s nothing but the here and now. Internet wisdom
What have you done since graduating into awareness?
Worrying about tomorrow?
Welcome to being a human. And how do you assuage your fear?
Put your faith into an exterior agent? Trust your fellow humans to bail you out if necessary? Make sure you’ll never depend on anybody else but you?
Each of these three strategies presumes differently about what happens outside yourself.
The more responsibility you transfer to the outside agent – currently known as God in certain circles – the more serene your life. You don’t have to change anything except putting your faith in the outside agent of your choice. If that works for you. Only by transferring the ultimate responsibility to ‘the outside’, no matter how hard you continue to do whatever you were doing before the epiphany, you embrace the fact that your fate is determined outside of you. If you expect your mates to do ‘the right’ thing, you must prime them first. You have to behave in a manner conducive to ‘community’. You and those around you. The community itself has to behave as a community. To make sure you’ll never depend on anybody else, you need to know everything that might happen to you. In fact, you have to know everything.
Each of these three strategies, or any combination thereof, mandates that there are things happening beyond here and now. Beyond what each of us might know and control.
Consciousness is a work in process. Each of us becomes conscious in relation with those around them. In a medium created by those before them. Becoming conscious means figuring out about things. Not merely acknowledging their presence – dogs also do it, they don’t bang into close doors but once. Becoming conscious means attaching meaning to things. Figuring out their relative importance, how they work, ‘what’s in it for us’, etc, etc., etc. … How is this done? I don’t remember how I did it and I never really understood how my son had done it. What I know is that it was a gradual process. He was able to communicate with us, his parents, way before he had learned to speak. He may not have had the concept of hunger but he was able to tell us he wanted to eat. What toy he wished to play with. And so on. I grew up in a communist country. Born into a secular family. My relatives went to church, very rarely, because other people did it. On very specific occasions. God wasn’t present in our house. At some point during my early adolescence I came across a bible. I had already learned, at school, about religion being bad for the people. I had also learned, from my family, that some people do believe in God. I decided to learn for myself. By myself. And started to read the book. I stooped when I reached the Book of Numbers. Too boring. But Genesis had fascinated me. Not that different from the Greek myths I had already read by that time. I few years later, for whatever reason, I started again. Reading the bible. This time I finished it. Somewhere in the middle, I was wondering. What if this book tells not the story about how the world had been made by somebody? But the story about us discovering the world around us. At first, we had learned to speak. To use words. Logos. To speak about the difference between light and dark. Water and dry land. Heaven and Earth. Man and Woman. And so on. At some point, one of us -one of our ancestors more exactly – had had an intuition. Discussed it with their peers. Discarded it. Or not. Somebody else, or maybe the same person, had another intuition. Discussed it with their peers. And so on. In time, those discussions had built a specific understanding of the world. Of their world. The world of those people. Their weltanschauung. The paradigm they were living in. As life went on, generations and generations of people living in that paradigm had slowly changed the world they were living in. Some changes had been meant to happen, others just happened. In time, that world was no longer the same with that in which the ancestors, the ‘Founding Fathers’, had developed the ‘original Weltanschauung’. Somebody had an intuition. Discussed it with their peers. Discarded it. Or not. Somebody else, or maybe the same person, had another intuition. Discussed it with their peers. And so on. Another weltanschauung was born. The world was very much the same as that of ‘last year’ but for them, for our new ancestors, it had changed dramatically. Jupiter Tonans had been replaced by God. Or Thor… But the lightning had remained the same! Now, that I’m preparing to wrap up, I must explain – for those of you who do not speak German, the ‘Entwicklung’ thing. I first came across this word while learning to develop B/W film. That was how we made pictures 50 years ago. We put film into cameras, shot it, developed it, enlarged the image, projected it on photographic paper and, again, developed the image. In Romania, we used East German film, paper, chemicals. And the German word for developing something – from image to a lot of other things, is … “Entwicklung”. Same thing here. The world is here. Laid out in front of us. All that’s left for us to do is to make sense of it. With our limited consciousness.
‘Survival instinct’ compels us to eat, avoid being eaten and fornicate.
To keep us on the straight and narrow, Mother Nature has invented the ‘stick and carrot principle’.
Forget to eat – or eat something ‘unbecoming’, to you or to your species, you’ll soon be in pain. After a nice meal, you’ll feel good.
Somebody else takes a bite of you? From a tiger to a mosquito? You’ll be in pain. Slap the mosquito, con the tiger into a trap or, the creme de la creme, gain the upper hand in a bare knuckles encounter and you’ll certainly feel good.
Orgasm? Does it ring a bell? OK.
‘Stick and carrot’ worked fine. After all, it has been the engine of evolution. ‘Demise of the unfit’ made it so that only those who were able to survive in a certain environment passed their ‘comme il faut’ to the next generations.
Until consciousness came around, that is. Consciousness as we understand it…. long discussion. Soon.
“And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil”
And what did we do with all this knowledge?
Transformed our need to eat into gluttony? Because ‘it tastes so good that I can’t stop eating it’? Transformed our need for safety into the habit of exploiting others? From harnessing beasts to our plows to using child labor to mine the coal used during the Industrial Revolution? Simply because we could? Some of us, anyway… Demeaned love making to prostitution? Because orgasm, like money, is fungible? Feels the same, no matter how it was obtained?
Why? What drove us to reach such horrible pinnacles? What made us steer in this direction after we’ve developed the ability to ‘observe ourselves observing‘?!?
What’s going on here?
“God Arraigns Adam and Eve
And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
The Punishment of Mankind
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.”
Let me rephrase what you’ve just read.
God, the father, learns that his creation – the man he had created in his own image, has become “one of us”. When Adam hides his nakedness from his creator, God understands man has become aware.
Was he proud? Like most parents are when their children ‘grow up’?
OK, let’s forget about God for a minute. Let’s see what our forefather, Adam, had done when confronted with the consequences of his acts. Does he own up? Behaves like a man? Or blames his woman? What about Eve? Is she the real man in the house? or passes the blame along the food chain? Good thing the serpent wasn’t asked to explain himself…
How about God? The omnipotent and omniscient God… does he own up? Omniscient as he was, he must have been fully aware of what was going to happen in the given circumstances… After all, who doesn’t know what will happen if you point something out to a ‘child’ and then tell them that something is off limits… God – the one we wrote about in the Bible, solved the situation by blaming all involved. The serpent for doing what he was supposed to do, Eve for choosing to listen to the serpent and Adam for trusting his woman. Then, to avoid things becoming even worse, he banished Adam and Eve from Paradise.
Yep! All three, God, Adam and Eve – as described by those who had written the Bible, do whatever they can to protect their conscience. Each of them had made decisions, which had proven to be… well, detrimental to their own well being, and now they need to go on. To survive their own decisions!
In this type of situation, the grown-ups take stock, maturely, then take responsibility for their acts. As the first step of the long march out of the dangerous situation into each they had led themselves. By making bad – or inappropriate, choices.
But this is possible only after the individuals have conquered fear.
Fear cannot be conquered alone. That was the Bible written for. As a walking stock. And it served us right. By stating that ‘man had been created in the image of God’ it tells us that we are equal. And each of us is endowed with a divine spark. Hence worthy of respect!
But as any other walking stock, the Bible can take us only this far. From now on we must walk on our own. We must assume our individual – read ‘limited’, nature, shed our fears and find our own ways. Bearing in mind, of course, that only those who fit are meant to survive.
Our go round in circles, knocking at gates which have never been open. Or going to.
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As much as I love writing, I do have to eat. And to provide for my family. Earning money takes time. If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button. Your contribution will be appreciated!
As much as I love writing, I do have to eat. And to provide for my family. Earning money takes time. If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button. Your contribution will be appreciated!
nicichiarasa 