The bounds of the consciousness and the freedom of the artificial intelligence
Maybe artificial intelligence is the corrigendum to human intelligence. It may be the further evolution of the human race. Maybe humans are the premature state of robots and robots lie ahead in the evolutionary timeline of life starting right from the Big bang.
The disruptive view of the next dimension by the pioneers has led to the advancement of human race physically and metaphysically. Humanity has embraced these advancements with grace and vigour. But lately, Artificial Intelligence has been a topic attracting contrasting views with a major chunk being that of skeptics addressing their insecurities to the association of intelligence to a "non human" thing. It is said that such a kind of intelligence is vulnerable and is prone to corruption. But look around, is human intelligence flawless? Hasn't it been corrupted too and rendered dark at times? Anyways, it seems pretty obvious to have such an unwelcoming opinion when you are able to observe yourself fade in the the oblivion in the "life cycle". When a physically and mentally competent entity(robots/ artificial intelligence) is right at your doorstep to take you over and render you dispensable to the universe; such kind of hostile opinion to their introduction to the universe itself seems justified. But; wait.....
Are we learned enough to assume this opinion as a conclusion, that too on behalf of the universe?? Has our mind expanded enough to contain and conclude the entire ethos?? I guess not... Lets see it this way.. Right from the childhood, we are taught about the evolution chart... of species. Our stature within our ancestors and among other species is fed to us through that; and by the end of this story, generally we are made to believe that we, the humans lie at the ultimate end of this evolution timeline and we are the utmost state of evolution. But, not even a morsel is being told to us about what lies further and we are never able to realise that maybe we are the penultimate state of evolution or maybe we lie somewhere in the middle.
This kind of teaching gives rise to the notion of "I". This I... makes us attach all our focus and attention to us and to others of our kind. All our decisions made henceforth, become righteous only if they increase the chances of our existence in the "universe". But won't such a kind of a centered approach lead to the collapse of the ever expanding universe? As the nature of the universe is to expand and not to focus on a particular point. So for that, we need to understand what is I. What makes "me" the "I" and the person or the dog or the machine sitting next to me in a bus a not "I". This I is.... consciousness. It makes me stay behind my eyes as "I" and behold the universe from there...as the "else". It is due this residence/ entrapment of the consciousness to ourselves that we are unable to associate ourselves to anything apart from our own physical/ bodily bounds. This entrapment of consciousness to our body, limits the realisation of self to the shelf life of the physical body. Once the physical body ceases to function, the consciousness vanishes and and along with it goes all the memories and the knowledge attained. Isn't it such a wastage, that we are dependent on the container of the precious entity and once the container expires, we simply let go of the entity nurtured and kept in?
For this reason I feel that consciousness should be contiguous. It should be uninterrupted. It should be transferable (as described beautifully in the movie "Chappie"). We must have mechanisms to preserve and transfer consciousness from one form to the other. This would free us from the enslavement of the physical form. The physical form would just be a mode of experience and communication. Under such a scenario, we would be able to push the bounds of "human evolution" further and make ourselves ubiquitous. This would align us with the true nature of the universe, i.e. expansion. And "I" would ultimately contain the universe... and not a dispensable particle of it.
I feel artificial intelligence and robotics is a channel to such a journey and we should embrace them not with an insecurity of our extinction but as an opportunity of our expansion .
The disruptive view of the next dimension by the pioneers has led to the advancement of human race physically and metaphysically. Humanity has embraced these advancements with grace and vigour. But lately, Artificial Intelligence has been a topic attracting contrasting views with a major chunk being that of skeptics addressing their insecurities to the association of intelligence to a "non human" thing. It is said that such a kind of intelligence is vulnerable and is prone to corruption. But look around, is human intelligence flawless? Hasn't it been corrupted too and rendered dark at times? Anyways, it seems pretty obvious to have such an unwelcoming opinion when you are able to observe yourself fade in the the oblivion in the "life cycle". When a physically and mentally competent entity(robots/ artificial intelligence) is right at your doorstep to take you over and render you dispensable to the universe; such kind of hostile opinion to their introduction to the universe itself seems justified. But; wait.....
Are we learned enough to assume this opinion as a conclusion, that too on behalf of the universe?? Has our mind expanded enough to contain and conclude the entire ethos?? I guess not... Lets see it this way.. Right from the childhood, we are taught about the evolution chart... of species. Our stature within our ancestors and among other species is fed to us through that; and by the end of this story, generally we are made to believe that we, the humans lie at the ultimate end of this evolution timeline and we are the utmost state of evolution. But, not even a morsel is being told to us about what lies further and we are never able to realise that maybe we are the penultimate state of evolution or maybe we lie somewhere in the middle.
This kind of teaching gives rise to the notion of "I". This I... makes us attach all our focus and attention to us and to others of our kind. All our decisions made henceforth, become righteous only if they increase the chances of our existence in the "universe". But won't such a kind of a centered approach lead to the collapse of the ever expanding universe? As the nature of the universe is to expand and not to focus on a particular point. So for that, we need to understand what is I. What makes "me" the "I" and the person or the dog or the machine sitting next to me in a bus a not "I". This I is.... consciousness. It makes me stay behind my eyes as "I" and behold the universe from there...as the "else". It is due this residence/ entrapment of the consciousness to ourselves that we are unable to associate ourselves to anything apart from our own physical/ bodily bounds. This entrapment of consciousness to our body, limits the realisation of self to the shelf life of the physical body. Once the physical body ceases to function, the consciousness vanishes and and along with it goes all the memories and the knowledge attained. Isn't it such a wastage, that we are dependent on the container of the precious entity and once the container expires, we simply let go of the entity nurtured and kept in?
For this reason I feel that consciousness should be contiguous. It should be uninterrupted. It should be transferable (as described beautifully in the movie "Chappie"). We must have mechanisms to preserve and transfer consciousness from one form to the other. This would free us from the enslavement of the physical form. The physical form would just be a mode of experience and communication. Under such a scenario, we would be able to push the bounds of "human evolution" further and make ourselves ubiquitous. This would align us with the true nature of the universe, i.e. expansion. And "I" would ultimately contain the universe... and not a dispensable particle of it.
I feel artificial intelligence and robotics is a channel to such a journey and we should embrace them not with an insecurity of our extinction but as an opportunity of our expansion .
Reminds me of West World
ReplyDeleteSuch a lovely article
Have you refered anything for this or its an original thought?
Thanks Sir... I was inspired by the mobility of consciousness portrayed in the movie Chappie...saw the last 20 minutes of it :p
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