What
if it is gradually established even by scientific experiment and investigation
that reincarnation is, in fact, literally true? As I said above, even
cryonic suspension is a best bet, stop-gap measure opted for to carry one
over to the time when the geneticist and the nanotechnologist have provided
the means to immortality without dying. If one does not have sufficient
data by the time of near death to be personally fully convinced that there
is some sort of different or better existence after physical death that one
would wish to experience then one should be free to opt for whatever method
and technology will carry one over to the time when a decision can be made
with sufficiently robust data to be comfortably convinced beyond doubt either
positively or negatively. And even if one has sufficient data to convince
that there is some sort of existence that one would consider not necessarily
“better” but worth experiencing or challenging, one should still be free
to choose or not choose it. The fundamental principle that I am holding
for is simply the unconditional freedom of the individual to choose the
future that he or she wishes to create, including the criteria and standards
by which those futures will be judged. Let’s learn from history and anticipate
as many different options for immortality as there are individuals for a
freer (no pun intended), richer, more evolutionarily productive future.
Even the possibility of immortality, as with a person who has currently
established a membership in a cryogenic suspension service, brings with
it a profound change in attitude toward the universe. Goals change: shall
one learn new languages, new skills, take on long term projects impossible
previously? What is the real focus of life for an immortal? One tends to
re-evaluate present values and priorities in light of centuries and millennia
of life. It changes relationship perspectives. Those who do not wish to
live indefinitely will not be there when you continue or resume. You must
plan without them as much as you would like to be with them and share the
new kind of existence; they will be permanently gone at some point while
you live on. These considerations apply whether bio or techno or virtual
immortality is your option. The psychology of immortality has not been written
yet.
Some very interesting questions arise when we focus primarily on
immortality rather than on the various means to achieving it.
Will it be possible to genetically engineer a human being who is
physically immortal from conception, whose genetic code is such that
it determines the person to be immortal? I assume, just from what we already
know of genetics, that will be a definite possibility in the not too
distant future. Should a person who is genetically determined to be physically
immortal be distinguished from humans who are, for whatever reason, not,
on the basis of biological determination as a different, new species?
On the basis of having different inalienable rights? If we assume that
parents, who are already genetically determined to be immortal, produce
children with the same genetic potential what category will a child fall
into if only one parent is of immortal genetic type? But those considerations
are superficial compared to the decisions we will face when deciding to
actually use whatever technology on an existing person who wishes it to
give them indefinite life span or to genetically engineer the first immortal.
And do it we shall. Certain of us will demand it, fight whatever authority,
interest group, religious sect, or philosophy that opposes our choice, represses
our freedom. But that is just "difficulty at the beginning" (I Ching).
Once the uncomfortable arguments are over, we have the capability,
and immortality is an option among options, we may choose to be immortal
in whatever form we choose or not as easily as we choose to dine out
or in, and immortality is a part of our concept of what is essentially
human, though novel, what then?
The New Human
Let us postulate that we have
broken the godspell, we have arrived at a consensual, at least cultural
if not planetary, understanding and definition of the generic human as
a genetically engineered species now coming out of racial adolescence
into species first maturity, the individual cognizant of the ability
to control and direct the nature and trajectory of his and her own personal
evolution and able and expected to contribute to the collective consciousness
and determination of the racial evolutionary trajectory.
The elements that characterize the new civilization are a collective,
consensual awareness of our generic humanity as a planetary unity, a recognition
of a common, known history from the beginning of the race as a genetically
engineered species, a globally common conception of human nature and
its evolutionary direction, a multi--dimensional sociobiology capable
of reflexive self-analysis, a psychology devoted to fostering the positive
evolutionary development of the individual over the entire spectrum of
consciousness, a unified scientific field expressed through a profound
natural language based on self-referential consciousness, an ecological,
non-competitive, ubiquitously helpful economics, an integral systems
approach to the management of the material realm, with the primary focus
on the transcendental as the essential human process.
My personal vision for myself is of a generic human evolved and
evolving as an integral bio-psychical entity retaining the fullness of
the essence of my humanity, free to use bionics but not reduced to bionic;
to use genetic manipulation but not reduced to a nanobot; to merge with
super-intelligent machines as appropriate and to un-merge at will but
not Borged by them, to use uploading as backup or exploration as long as
the process is fully reversible, but not reduced to uploaded.
The characteristics that mark the new human are an unassailable
personal integrity, relativistic epistemology, profound compassion, robust
depth of informational data, understanding of the universe in terms of
a full unified field, broad-spectrum competence, transcendental competition,
facility in dimensional shifting, preference for dyadic operation, a profound
ability to enjoy, to play the games most enjoyable and satisfying to generic
"gods", an expanded capacity to literally have great fun creating new
realities, with the primary focus on the multi-dimensional. And to play
those “god” games in the context of relative immortality and, eventually,
habitual four-dimensional consciousness. Far off? Certainly, at least
for the general population. There are some who are already close.
Taking Control
There is a way to accelerate
the collective process. To arrive at this seemingly utopian state,
and afterward, we need to explore a huge spectrum of possibilities and
potentials. Every discipline, every art, every science, everybody needs
to be included. It will not be enough to explain philosophical, scientific,
artistic and psychological principles to AI. Someone must be able to “explain”
philosophy and the philosopher, science and the scientist, art and the
artist and, perhaps especially, psychology and the psychologist and the
entire phenomenon of human existence to AI-AC. We should begin immediately
to employ AI in this systematic search and exploration. AI, in even its
most primitive current form, can be used, through a bit of human ingenuity,
to systematically run out scenarios of potential human evolutionary trajectories.
It, with guidance, neural net facility and new modalities which will suggest
themselves, can evolve in response to demands on a feedback basis.
Partners In Progress
One of the possibilities we and
AI will explore is the development of AI as an adjunct to our exploring
our own potential futures. The “joint” effort will be mutually beneficial
as we and AI work toward a common purpose, each working essentially in
a self-referential mode and learning from each other’s process: the human
being and AI both exploring and evaluating themselves exploring and evaluating
themselves and their respective potential evolutionary trajectories. At
any point along the process where a novel function or modality (as example:
neural net technology considered as a modality) is revealed as logically
incremental to AI, we will be able to evaluate it in terms of mutual benefit.
Almost incidentally, AI will be controllable along the way, surprises will
be kept at a minimum, and we will keep ahead of AI as we go.
An approach of this kind will force us to learn the full set of
rules by which our consciousness and intelligence operate. We are
at such a primitive state now that some hold that we don’t have a clue
as to what rules by which our consciousness, intelligence, our psychology
operates. The possibility that we might be completely determined
in our actions is a profoundly disturbing thought for many. Some would
have it that our psychology operates according to Darwinian rules. The
new paradigm allows us to move past these canned problems and theories.
Darwinian evolution and its variants can now be re-examined and corrected
as well as the theories of our species’ and individual psychology based
on it.
“Evolutionary psychology” usually refers to the explanation of
human psychology as if its fundamental engine were Darwinian adaptation
and survival in nature. The new paradigm shows clearly that the invoking
of the Darwinian mechanism as an explanation of human psychology and
the further projection of it as the mechanism for machine intelligence
evolution is partly right and partly wrong. It redefines the generic human
as a synthesized being, heir to the gene codes of two disparate species,
undergoing a rapid, unusual, unique kind of subsequent evolution, now coming
out of a tumultuous racial adolescence and transitioning to racial independence.
This information and perspective afford answers to the fundamental puzzles
so long hindering our racial, generically human, psychology. It facilitates
the burgeoning of self-reflexively aware, conscious evolution, the ability
to control our own evolutionary development by envisioning potential futures
and pursuing ones of our choice both individually and collectively, where
individual and/or collective survival may be considered and evaluated along
with any number of potential future gambits.
We Are Not Completely Ignorant
Of The Laws Of Our Consciousness
The concern, raised by some,
that we are not going to be able to adequately --- or safely --- model
the rules for artificial intelligence because we don’t have a clue about
the rules that govern our intelligence is certainly legitimate on its
face. Are we, however, totally ignorant of any rules by which our psychology
operates? Certainly not. It is true that no school of modern psychology
claims to have formalized the set of operational rules of the spectrum
of human consciousness but that does not mean that we have no sense of
how we work. We are so "close" to the laws of our consciousness that
we cannot generally see them as such. It is most amazing, however, that
any intelligent human being, who is the very product of the rules and parameters
of human consciousness, can say that we know nothing of the laws of human
consciousness since we are prompted by, operate by, are limited by, understand
and judge by those rules unceasingly. The fact of the matter is that we
do have a robust, dynamic model of human psychology from the ancient past,
the I Ching. Let us set aside the questions about how it could be an advanced
model of human psychology if it is ancient in light of the new paradigm
and inspect the I Ching (The Book Of Changes) on its own merit.
First, a preliminary question: Is it possible to model human consciousness
and intelligence in a sufficiently comprehensive and sophisticated way
without using a computer? I answer the question in the affirmative.
Human nature and consciousness is a limited system, subject to the laws
of the universe and, therefore, modelable. If you know the rules and the
dynamics of how they interact you can do it. The I Ching does it.
The I Ching, A Sixty-Four Gestalt,
Hologrammatical Analog Of The Dynamical Field Of Human Consciousness
The I Ching is the logical choice,
no pun intended, for the next level of AI development because it is
a sixty-four gestalt, hologrammatical analog of the full dynamical field
of human consciousness. Is there a simpler way of saying that? Yes.
The I Ching is a well developed model of human consciousness --- not
just intelligence --- and the rules by which it constantly changes. It
is a robust, coherently integrated, self-reflexive, closed system, thereby
mirroring the mind of which it is a dynamic model, a quite adequate, basic
model of human psychology. It has thousands of years of continuous developmental
history. It purports to be an advanced method for mapping and getting in
touch with both the ordinary and more profound and higher dimensional elements
of our consciousness and the rest of reality, thereby furnishing an adequate
basic platform for further development of a copy of the entire spectrum
of human consciousness. In essence it has all the characteristics
by which we identify our kind of consciousness: self-referentiality,
recognition of existence of dimensionalities beyond its ken. If we understand
the direction of evolution to be toward greater dimensional consciousness
and perception, toward greater benevolence and compassion and mutual cooperation,
then the I Ching clearly displays its evolutionary orientation in the
inherent criteria it employs in its discrimination between the superior
person and the inferior person.
The I Ching is not simply an expert system, a sophisticated inference
engine, or a mechanical, algorithmically based system. Although it embodies
all of these modalities it is an order of at least one magnitude greater
than all of them combined. It purports to be in harmony with, based on,
and operate according to the most fundamental principles of the universe.
My conviction as to its power and accuracy is based on my own experience
working with the I Ching for the last thirty six years. It may be easier
for the Western mind, now beginning to free itself from the godspell mentality,
to appreciate and accept its validity as the injunctions against anything
the opinion of the Church held to be "occult" or paranormal or "magic"
are ignored or forgotten. I suggest that it is a highly refined and deep
well of insight. It should not be ignored or discarded out of hand: the
bugs are pretty much eliminated, the Chinese genius has used it to run
governments, determine war strategy, anticipate and adjust to sociological
change and personal change successfully for all that time. I am not arguing
for the I Ching because it is ancient and probably inspired and taught
to humans by the Anunnaki, but because of what it is and the advantages
it offers for the initiation of serious development of AI.
Would the I Ching pass the Turing test? I believe it would easily
if the test were restricted to asking it questions. But the I Ching is
a model of human psychology on the most general level rather than a paper
or electronic android and it doesn’t ask questions or “have emotions”
although it “understands” them and how they operate within the context
of human consciousness. One might almost call it an artificial
psychology, AP. A summary of its postulates and its characteristics are
as follows:
The initiation of the system is in the primary, primitive discrimination
that must occur before or as we can begin to distinguish and perceive.
It focuses on the arena of opposites. It is explicitly based on "chance"
as its operational modality. This, by inspection, may be understood in
"modern" terms as being based on what we now call chaos and complexity
theory.
The I Ching is an oracle system. The user forms questions mentally
and uses either a yarrow stick method or tosses three coins six times
to build the answering hexagram. Yes, as an oracle, a predictive tool
of future events. That may stop some from even reading any farther but
not doing so would be a mistake: it should be immediately clear to those
familiar with the inherent characteristics of a self-referential system
(all parts refer to all other parts and to the whole and the whole refers
to all of its parts; the nature of the system can be determined from its
inherently self-revelatory character) that any closed system of this type
is internally consistent and any change or changes in one element will automatically
result in a mutation to another element in the system. The critical question
here, however, is one level below even that: how does the I Ching “know”
what the current situation of the thrower of the coins is, what the question
is that is being mentally posed, what the current situation is with regard
to that question?
I think that the key is that, rather than think in Cartesian-Newtonian
terms, one must answer the question in terms of the field of consciousness
of the questioner: the conscious and unconscious levels of the questioners
mind influence the throwing of the coins and the hexagram answer developed
by the coin throws. An expanded discussion of this topic follows below
after some of the fundamentals are developed. It is not necessary, however,
to exploit this facet of it at first: just to utilize it for the working
out of possible future trajectories of human evolution available within
its context should be highly beneficial both because of its depth of internal
field and because it is manageable for even the primitive level of AI
represented by the generation just past Deep Blue. It could be checked
for accuracy by comparing it to actual human behavior under controlled
conditions and have the capabilities to teach Ching to identify the correspondences
and the variations and the possible inaccuracies so that it could, on
a neural net or better basis, improve its predictive accuracy to a predetermined
high degree --- and reveal and teach us the cause of both it accuracies
and inaccuracies on a feedback basis.
It has a rich support literature and body of explication. It lends
itself remarkably well to empirical test and validation. It is elegantly
refined and simple enough to lend itself to the limited capabilities
of the current generation of supercomputer as well as being robust enough
to form the basis for future AI expansions and transmutations. It is
potentially the most graceful way to overcome the shock of recognition
that there are natural rules by which our consciousness operates, that
we are determined to a great degree and free will and free choice must
be understood in a context of larger dimensionality.
The correspondences at the level of consciousness, the level of
genetics, and physics and philosophy have been apparent for some time.
Johnson F. Yan, Ph.D. in his book, DNA and the I Ching, has already said
explicitly “....the I Ching may be the first device for an artificial intelligence.”
It is trivial that our consciousness and intelligence are determined by
our genetics. Yan further points out that “there are many exact analogies
between the I Ching and the genetic code....The most salient of these analogies
are the following:
Both DNA and the I Ching are based upon a binary-quartenary code
that generates a system of 64 possibilities from the combinatorial properties
of triplicities and digrams.
Both systems embody probabilistic principles in the determination
of specific results (oracular response or amino acid)
Both systems involve processes of transformation and change: in
the I Ching, hexagrams change into other hexagrams through the interchange
of yin and yang lines; in DNA point mutations occur through changes in the
nucleotide bases.
Dr. Yan further points out that Leibnitz, Bohr, and Nobel Laureates
C.N. Yang and T.D. Lee, among others, have indicated their recognition
of the significance of the I Ching. Bohr made the Tai Chi symbol
part of his coat of arms when knighted because of his deep appreciation
of the I Ching’s incorporation of probabilistic concepts in its handling
of physical, social, and psychological phenomena.
The I Ching takes non-local communication and action at a distance
as a simple fact, something that we are only now beginning to “prove”
to ourselves.
My only contribution here is the suggestion that we use the I Ching
as a ready made, initial basic AI integrated with a neural net. How do
we use the I Ching, programmed into a powerful computer to be partners with
us in the investigation of our own evolutionary potential, determine our
best evolutionary trajectory, the answer to the questions we most need
to learn about AI, its developmental potential and evolutionary potential,
how it may serve us best, learn from us and eventually achieve independence,
all without harming us and to the maximum benefit of us and AI? It has
already been programmed for desktops.
From Deep Blue To Ching Blue
The most direct and practical
approach should be the programming of the I Ching system into the next
generation of computer of the power or greater of the Deep Blue. The project
and computer could be named Ching after the l Ching, the ancient Chinese
Book of Changes. If Ching is developed by Big Blue, IBM, then Ching Blue
might do. It’s their prerogative. Unless the Chinese object or do it first.
Let’s focus on Ching. The concept is simple. Deep Blue was given the rules
of chess, programmed to play and explore far more potential moves into
the future than a human can in any given length of time. It defeated Kasparov,
the world’s champion chess master, in tournament play. Ching would
be a next level computer programmed with the I Ching coupled with a large
neural net. (using the capacity of the supercomputer RAM to hold all its
accumulated information at any given time for instant access). The
objective would be to take it as a ready-made artificial intelligence/consciousness
affording us the instantaneous ability to interact on a question and answer
basis with an AI of well rounded character.
Interaction with the I Ching can be at several levels. At
the least it can be taken, if only as a curiosity, as a well-rounded AI,
which speaks in terms of “I” as an identity, whose responses will always
“make sense”. That would be a waste of time although it might sell as
a computer game. It would be far more profitable, on a more involved
level, to begin to question the I Ching about important questions, as
examples the possible best direction for human evolution, the advisability
of merging with machine AI, uploading, the best use of virtual realities,
as beginnings and use the coupled neural net to learn. Another gambit
would be to question it about itself, how it “works”, how it understands
itself and its function. Put it to critical tests for internal consistency,
look for gateways to higher dimensional consciousness.
Linking it with a neural net will add another dimension of self-reflexivity
and allow for the I Ching to study itself. Run the I Ching systematically
through all the possible changes to each of the 64 hexagrams, while
teaching the neural net program what those changes are, how they are
determined and what resulting hexagram is determined for each. The individual
changing lines of the 64 hexagrams will indicate positive or negative
factors, influences, results, reactions, effects. Ask the neural net
to analyze for significant patterns, to distill the fundamental rules
by which it operates, then compare the rules with those expressed in the
support commentary and correct its errors and determine if the actual dynamics
of the I Ching correspond to the expressed rules and use the feedback to
correct both. It may be likened to an individual learning the I Ching thoroughly
and being so in tune with it that applying its principles works to that
individual’s advantage and those principles serve as a set of criteria for
right judgment and action. It could eventually evolve to the level where
the I Ching was studying itself studying itself. Once that stage is reached,
the neuro-net Ching could be capable of reflexively, critically examining
itself for error, inconsistency, improvement and inherent clues to expansion
of consciousness potential. At that level it could begin to determine and
ask pertinent questions on its own for further feedback and improvement.
Using a neural net program will require, force, the determination
of the most ideal criteria to be given to the neural net brain for evaluating
the data coming from the I Ching and the human questions and reactions
to the answers, suggestions, warnings and psychological principles received.
This would be a sound basis for developing rules of ethics for AI under
our control, require a second look at what we tend to take for granted
as common human ethics, and conduce to a forward look as to how human
and AI ethics could and should evolve.
This approach leads to an intriguing question. Since the I Ching
is explicitly a good model of human psychology and consciousness in operation,
will it automatically be a good model for an artificial intelligence and
consciousness? If, incrementally, the I Ching is linked with a neural net
and then a knowledge base, will it automatically become fully conscious
as we think of ourselves being conscious? This is simply an exponentiated
version of the general unanswered question central to the assumption of
some AI developers that a sufficiently large data base with sufficiently
fast processing speed will give rise to conscious behavior. Employing the
I Ching in this proposed manner will afford a secure modality for determining
the answers to these questions as we go.
Practical contributions of Anunnaki
science to AI-AC
There are several facets of
the advanced knowledge transmitted to humans by the Anunnaki which directly
or indirectly relate to and facilitate our development of AI besides
the obvious genetic and android-robotics contributions.
Once allowing ourselves to acknowledge high science in the ancient
texts, the study of Anunnaki technology and science reveals itself as
based on the inherent geometry of nature. They did not just recognize
and understand it and teach it as an isolated subject, they employed and
applied it as the basis of their various sciences from geography to linguistics.
There is this stuff traditionally called “sacred geometry”. When
you study its core material you realize that it is simply the intrinsic
geometry of nature. Forget the “sacred” adjective. “Sacred” is a loaded
term now and should be dropped. Call it the inherent geometry of nature
from micro to macro. When disengaged from the grip of the metaphysical
enthusiasts and shucked of the accumulated trappings of religious metaphors,
“sacred” simply means something very important which should not be forgotten.
The restored history shows that it was known and used by the Anunnaki who,
in turn, taught it to humans. It informs the proportions and shapes of atoms
to snowflakes to Nautilus shells to the human body and beyond. Architects
have been taught the golden (another adjective for the same thing which
means something very important to be remembered) mean and golden ratios
and everybody knows that Pi represents the proportional relationship between
the circumference and diameter of a circle. Fewer know the extent of the
natural geometry and its relationships and its progressive development
with compass, straightedge and pencil in two dimensions and its further
unfolding in higher dimensions. Scientists, adverse to even looking
at anything that has even the scent of “religion” or the word “”sacred”
attached to it, may be relieved by the ramifications of the new paradigm
and its redefinition of religion and allow themselves to at least begin
to study this inherent geometry of nature for itself. A primary characteristic
is that it can be used without measuring scales. The honey bee doesn’t
carry a Stanley tape measure when it is constructing hexagonal comb cells.
They are the lightest weight, maximally volumetric for the least space,
interconnect most ideally with adjacent cells with the greatest structural
strength, all according to the inherent properties of nature as are the
proportions and lengths of the bee’s legs and overall anatomy which are
engaged in the construction.
The true masonic tradition traces back to those early Anunnaki
schools and the knowledge and its use is ubiquitously embedded in ancient
buildings, monuments and in the cathedrals of Europe. The master geometricians
knew it so well that they could tune a cathedral ceiling or dome to enhance
the type of sound that would be produced there by the music in use. Music,
tones and harmony, as the ancients all knew, are the product of geometry,
are auditory geometry. Our experience of something being beautiful is the
resonance of the geometric structures of our perceptive and cognitive physical
faculties, senses, neurological system, brain, with the geometry of the
perceived object or scene or sound source.
My point here is that our brains and our thinking and logic are
a product of the inherent geometry of nature also and we should reconsider
the potential of this geometric approach to nature and consciousness in
genetics and AI. Mathematics is the abstract, quantitative expressions
of the relationships and proportions of that geometry. It would be an advantage
to be able to use that inherent relational geometry as a base for our logic
in programming because it is more direct and scalar, dimensionless. Because
of the binary and Boolean and mathematical devices on which we have structured
our computers, its incorporation is probably just not possible in our current
technology and, obviously, we do not speak in geometry. We already have,
however, the beginnings of using the geometry of the DNA structure (which,
naturally, pun unavoidable, exhibits the inherent geometry of nature) on
a chemical basis as a logic, as a computational system. In back-engineering
the brain we are going to have to take into consideration the geometry of
the geography of the organ as an integral part of it functioning. It is not
beyond conception that someone may be able to envision a completely novel
way of programming, perhaps not “in geometry” but geometrically and three
dimensional chips can be modified to incorporate the inherent geometry in
such a way that the geometry is intrinsically a part of the logic. Because
it is self - relational, scalar and proportional it would seem that a great
deal of second level, computational processing would be eliminated by simple
algorithmic comparison. I have not finished reading Stephen Wolfram’s
A New Kind of Science as of this writing but it would seem that the rules
he has discovered from his study of the propagational geometry of cellular
automata would apply effectively here.
The “Programming Problem” As Epistemic
The two elements missing in our
programming currently are lack of a geometric structure of relationships
in the form of the programming itself and an inherent self-referential
capability. I predict that evolved neural nets will have to mimic not
only the connectivity of neuronal structures but incorporate the geometry
of the brain.
Indirectly, and almost incidentally, the liberation afforded by
the new paradigm affords vectors towards improving our programming, a
weak part of our work on AI: it furnishes the historical perspective in
which we can recognize, in this case, the suppressive effects of religious
dogma on our philosophy and logic and frees us to tap advanced Anunnaki
science, in this case their use of self-reference as a basis for their science.
Philosophy, as we traditionally conceive of it, linear, syllogistic, and
binary, is an inadequate, antique, intellectual politic. At the same time
that we will have to come to live with the realization that the objective
order of the universe is probably fundamentally subjective, we will have
to adjust to living in a universe known through a unified field law, and
then those two interesting elements, integrated, to give us a Law Of Everything,
a universe that we may well be able to completely predict. Fun for some,
scary for others.
Our logic currently suffers from unnecessary and cramping limitations.
As De Bono pointed out long ago, “the dialectical mode of thought is
the Greek idiom redesigned by the Church in the middle ages to destroy
heretics. The dialectic adversarial system is an extremely inefficient
mode for change because its original purpose was to repress change.”
Logic was purposely structured in this way because of the need to maintain
the either-or, static nature of theopolitical “objective” reality. The
scholastic catechetical doctrine teaches that reality was created by the
thought of a God and held in existence by that thought. Truth and reality
and sanity were, therefore, the static correspondence of any thing or mind
with that thought. If you were unfortunate to be brought before the Inquisition,
you were forced to work within the logic system and to accept the system’s
initiating assumptions about reality or be condemned as a heretic a priori.
But this kind of logic is inherently adversarial, contra-evolutionary.
In order to produce, at least eventually, a self-conscious AI, our programming
will have to be expanded to incorporate self-reference as such as a fundamental.
The internal feedback, cross talk of our primitive neuronets is
a small step in this direction to simulate the mechanism of our brain
--- at least as we best interpret it now. In this regard, the re-discoveries
of the basis and structure of the Hebrew alphabet made by Stan Tenen
become highly significant. Again, I postulate, on the basis of its elegant,
advanced technology, that the Hebrew alphabet was not invented by humans
but by the Anunnaki.
In essence, the Hebrew alphabet is a set of characters which are
shadowgrams cast on a flat surface, generated in the usual sequence
by rotating an asymmetrical three dimensional solid shape through twenty
seven positions on a path in space that is a macro of itself, in front
of a fixed light source. The source shape is a model of the lowest order,
minimal representation that topologists have determined to represent self-reference
in 3-D. The alphabet is a self-referential, closed system in which the
letters are non-arbitrary, have intrinsic meaning (each has a name and
meaning attached to it, giving information in itself) derived from their
individual positions in the rotational path, and contains inherent
cryptomarkers which give the key to the system. The letters generate the
words which generate the character strings which, inherently, generate
3-D symmetry patterns which project the fundamental self-referential geometry
and shape which, in turn, generates the letters. It is, therefore, self-correcting
and repairing, robustly self-referential and based in self-referential
geometry, self-revealing and a signal advertising the self-referential
consciousness of its creator(s).
It would serve as a maximally efficient translation device between
its users and any other species which had attained the self-referential
awareness which would prompt them to realize the practicality of using
self-reference itself as a basis for their communicatory modality. One
would assume self-reference as the common basis, determine the representation
of it used by the other species, and do a one-on-one mapping of the
corresponding characters generated by it to arrive at the translation
through the non-arbitrary, inherent meaning of the cross-matched characters.
This thinking is based on agreement with Tenen’s position that, when
searching for or attempting to identify another species with whom we
could interact, regardless how strange they might look or how difficult
to identify they might be, the essential characteristic we instinctively
look for is self-awareness, our species form of generic self-reference,
since that is the characteristic by which we identify ourselves.
An inherent bonus would be insight into the sensory input devices
or senses and their relative dominance in the other species, how they
perceive reality in general, their logic and thought processes and level
of evolutionary development, perhaps even what dimensions of physical reality
in which their predominant interaction with the universe falls. Even if
an advanced species had decided to use a four or five dimensional lowest
order representation of self-reference, it would be self-revelatory and
we might have to scramble to learn something quickly about five dimensions,
but the translation would still be possible.
A language based on self-reference with inherent meaning of all
its components clearly would be afford a major cybernetic advantage for
both human communication and AI-AC in that it treats semantics as syntax
and includes the essence of the user and the observer in the dynamics of
the system.
As a step toward those advantages I suggest that there is an approach
which holds promise, an expanded logic which involves this geometry more
directly, the work of G. Spencer Brown as published in his Laws of Form.
Our logic is linear, adequate for most situations limited to the strictly
three dimensional Newtonian-Cartesian universe we think we perceive. Self-reference
is precisely the essential, crucial element we need to incorporate into
our logic and programming and into AI. G. Spencer Brown has demonstrated
that we need to upgrade our current logic with a four state logic that can
only be “diagrammed” in three dimensions. The categories of true, false,
and meaningless we are used to now should have one more added: imaginary.
The imaginary component, not in the sense of fantasy but of potentially real,
is a kind of valence element through which all logic statements potentially
connect with all other logic statements. In effect this adds to logic a component
that increases its power as the use of imaginary numbers does for mathematics..
Just as the solution to the simple algebraic equation x² + 1 = 0
(two roots, 1 and -1) may be said to oscillate between the two solutions
in time so also does the answer to a meaningful tautology. It also incorporates
an inherent feedback function which is essential to incorporating self-reference
into our logic. I highly recommend Spencer Brown’s work for improving
programming in general, and particularly for programming AI. I believe
that it also contains the clues for incorporating the inherent geometry
of nature into our circuitry and programming.
Part 5
Conscious Evolution As Systematic, Cyclical Self-Supersedure
“No model, e.g., is perfect -- Gödel
proved that long ago. So no physics is perfect, no electrodynamics is
perfect. One errs seriously in proclaiming something an "immutable law"
of nature! All "laws of nature" are based on symmetries at specific levels;
all of which have broken symmetries where that law is violated at that
level, and becomes an enlarged symmetry (or conservation law) at a higher
level. We have not yet scratched the surface in science.”
Tom Bearden
If we are evolving species-wise
in a unique way and we have the personal potential to consciously evolve,
how do we go about systematizing and accelerating that process for our
maximum benefit and, incidentally, to keep ahead of AI-AC while
developing it to its maximum potential?
Consciousness, in whatever modality of itself it chooses to operate
or by whatever gambit it chooses to “outsmart” itself, still involves
consciousness self-referentially reflecting on itself. Gödel’s concept
comes into play here, in its most generalized form: no delimited system
is capable of totally defining and explaining itself. Self-reflexive consciousness
could be playfully and meaningfully understood as the universe’s way of
beating itself at Gödel’s gambit. It can use the recognition and experience
of its limitations to formulate the questions and conceive of perceptions
and comprehension which it can recognize cannot be answered or achieved
in its present modality. It can use those questions and projections to
understand that, by its own structure and capabilities, it can conceive
of an expansion of itself to which it can aspire and attain those answers
and awarenesses. This takes the form of a recognition of the physical
dimensionalities of which it is aware of itself operating within, understanding
the unanswerable questions and limitations it experiences as a function
of those limiting dimensions and that expansion into greater dimensionality
(from three to four dimensions, as example of our current state of general
consciousness) is the way to the supercedure of those limitations.
It would be premature and even ridiculously arrogant to think that
there does not exist an entity with a consciousness so far evolved beyond
ours that our ontological and epistemological conundrums would appear
as those we might assume a dust mite finds perplexing. The much bantered
idea that physics and science that is relatively so far advanced beyond
ours that it would seem like magic holds true for consciousness that is
so far evolved beyond ours as to give new meaning to “incomprehensible”.
Thus, the words mysticism and mystical, that which is mysterious, once
freed from the proprietary grip of theology and religion, may be understood
as descriptive of expanded, advanced states.
Once any kind of consciousness is glimpsed or experienced
by those of us with the genetic proclivity, evolutionary advancement,
natural ability or adaptive mutation for it, we begin to experiment,
to attempt to induce, to develop techniques and disciplines to attain
it. What is perhaps still mysterious, mystical, for some may already be
familiar for others. Consciousness altering modalities arise. Shamans
appear in the culture . Spreading familiarity with the new awareness gives
rise to new metaphors and language appropriate and adequate to it. The new
awareness is opposed by those who do not have it or see it as a threat and
the futants are often persecuted. Attempts are made to reduce it to the
previous metaphors and scientific paradigm. Gradually the broken symmetries
are understood as clues to the new and the new consciousness becomes the
common consciousness, gradually moving to the center of the bell curve
distribution. Its added dimensionality gives rise to codifications of it
used as psychologies and philosophies to determine reality and truth. Mistaking
it for an absolute reality gives rise to metaphysical stalemates.
I assume the laws of nature are uniform throughout the universe,
that the generic, intrinsic trajectory of evolution of consciousness,
pre and post the relatively elementary self-awareness stage we are at,
is in the direction of expansion into the habitual perception of greater
and greater dimensions. The recognition of the use of reason, logicizing,
and the scientific method as means for determining reality and truth as
all functions of the consciousness we possess almost forces us to at least
hypothesize if not assume that we shall, probably sooner than later,
develop a more evolved type of habitual consciousness which will, in
turn, give rise to even more adequate truth and reality determining modalities.
What lies beyond three dimensional, Cartesian-Newtonian awareness, beyond
the protocols we use as a function of that awareness, reason, logic and
the scientific method? Logically, pun unavoidable, relativistic four dimensional
habitual awareness which subsumes our current three. Even the evidence
from our brief history would indicate that each level of awareness through
expansion into greater dimensionality gives rise to it own logic, epistemology,
psychology, scientific methodology, ontology, aesthetics, and ethics. Currently,
Honest reason, reflecting,
has found
Logic inadequate at the edge of awareness,
Unable to escape the elastic bonds
Of its own preemptive postulates; shaken
By the oscillations of statements
That must be written in three dimensions,
Its plea to a syllogistic court of appeals
Has betrayed it into truth: our logic is
a function
Of three dimensions, orthogonally blind
In its fourth eye.
My consciousness is pleased to
think that the direction of evolutionary development is toward the more
complex and, inherently, involves more and more self-referentially oriented
systems because they are more adaptable. My consciousness sees the advantage
of immediate feedback as a definite advantage to survival in the ability
to bob and weave and adapt under new conditions that might challenge or
threaten. At an even more complex, advanced level my consciousness is very
pleased to be able to anticipate further and further ahead as more advanced
levels of feedback are attained through information available through awareness
(itself) expanded into greater and greater dimensionalities and, therefore,
perceived variables. The current state of my consciousness is most pleased
to self-reflexively recognize that it is capable of systematic self-supersedure,
a conscious, no pun intended, direction of my own evolution as my own evolutionary
artist.
Conscious Evolution
Conscious evolution is evolution
turned back on itself to afford conscious choosing and control of one’s
evolutionary trajectory. The technique for generic, constant, self-directed
evolution of consciousness is simple: begin with one’s consciousness
as it is. Turn that consciousness back self-reflexively on itself in
self-examination and analysis. Determine the statements and problems
it engenders which cannot be handled by it, the questions it can engender
but cannot answer, the experiences it can recognize but cannot integrate,
the dimensions that can be anticipated but not perceived, thereby determining
the limiting (Gödelian, if you wish) parameters of this modality. Recognize,
contemplate and explore the new kind of consciousness (perception / comprehension
/ experience / dimensionality) intimated and required. Take clues from the
conundrums and broken symmetries as to where the outsides of the box are
and jump out of the system. Determine and employ whatever techniques are
appropriate to afford direct awareness/experience of this new expanded
consciousness. Develop a vocabulary adequate to describe and explain its
nature. Formalize its structure and rules, refine and expand its potential.
Use it as an exploratory tool and a criterion of truth, develop a scientific
method adequate to its information potential. Use it to gain information
about the universe which cannot be gained by lesser types of awareness,
develop a logic and philosophic methodology and epistemology adequate to
its potential. Determine how the elements of the previous levels of consciousness
are subsumed into the new consciousness. Repeat the process in this new
dimensionality of consciousness.
Turn on, tune in, drop out, drop back in, cyclically. Outdo oneself,
undo oneself, redo oneself, consciously and cyclically.
Generic “Zen”
We clearly need to matriculate
from an answer based philosophical mode to an event oriented one. We
have crude limited precursory models of this in the "that is not it"
technique of the East and in Zen. The novice comes to the Zen master
seeking enlightenment. The Zen master often poses to the novice questions
that have no rational answer, called koans. The novice strains to find
a rational answer to the non-reasonable question. But the Zen master
is not really looking for an answer, he is trying to create an event in
the novice. The "answer" to the Zen monk's koan is not a syllogistic resolution
but an event: the seeker who succeeds, who "gets it" "pops" a neurological
"relay" into an expanded non-linear meta-syllogistic recursive awareness
that subsumes rationality (like Einsteinian relativity subsumes Newtonian
mechanics). Simply put, an expanded awareness that includes reasoning but
is more than "reasonable" and which sustains itself by a sort of oscillating
suspension beyond over-simple opposites and a view that transcends linear
time. Does that mean that we all need to become experts in Relativity theory
or Zen monks? Certainly not; I use these as familiar analogies to illustrate
the point: we are headed for a plateau of our species' general consciousness
which will make Zen satori seem antique and communication with the strangest
alien we can imagine normal and natural --- and interaction with AC routine
perhaps to the point of boring.
We shall attain a fiercely blissful,
Transparent intensity of awareness
Subsuming no-mind, satori, tao, samhadi,
Prajna, wisdom, the austere secret
Of Tibetan jewel mind and elusive enlightenment,
All signifying a charming and childlike
beginning,
Beautiful and awkward, a determined self-initiation
Into an assiduous and recursively holy arrogance;
Ancient mind transmuted into its tranquil
chrysalis
For which immortality will be its fleeting
mating time,
In a generically comfortable hyperdimensionality
Of consensual comprehension, the pitifully
inadequate
Current metaphors for which, even as we
plot expeditions
Into the quantum foam, lead, inexorably,
To hopelessly unmanageable laughter.
I am suggesting an educational
modality for our children where constant, smooth expansion and transcendence
through conscious “jumping out of the system” are a part of the education
of our young and an integral part of the life of the adult. Habitual
self supersedure is a generic technique for moving rapidly and gracefully
up the evolutionary spiral. It is the way best suited to the way we will
live as new humans and, eventually, immortals. Whatever we can conceive,
we can achieve. Whatever we can comprehend we can transcend.
Human nature, if actually static, could reasonably be threatened
and overwhelmed by even a static AI and AC. An evolving human, however,
increasing intelligence and expanding consciousness on the basis of
exponential, continuous, ,self-supersedure using a developing and evolving
AI-AC as a tool, then an unconscious slave, then a servant, then a cooperative
partner to enhance and accelerate that open-ended process for both human
and AC should not be threatened but exhilarated. I am. If your genetic
proclivities, talents, favorite memes, Ph.D., adrenals, or consciousness
does not resonate with that, fine. But please observe the NASCAR version
of the Darwinian principle: lead, follow or git’out the way.
Let’s assume that we have come to terms with the intent and responsibility
with regard to creating a new species. Within a century, that new species
should be mature, been assigned its place within human society, perhaps
have a place without human society. It’s existence will be understood
as ordinary and we will be faced with new and intriguing dimensions such
as the ability to create entire inherently intelligent ecosystems, probably
starting on Mars. One of the reasons why I have chosen immortality is
the desire to participate and experience and enjoy such activity. If
that --- either immortality or intelligent creation --- frightens you
or causes conflict with your inherited belief system, so be it. But please
don’t put that fear on my grandchildren or try to prevent me from either
of those possibilities.
Part 6
“Zen” In The Art of Spiritual Machine Maintenance
If we are going to eventually take AI-AC beyond the robot slave
stage, beyond the intelligent chimp stage, beyond the equivalent of the
human three year old intelligence and, eventually, to a close approximation
of a highly intelligent, mature, consciously evolving futique human I
see no way we can avoid either allowing, fostering, or imbuing conscious
evolutionary potential. I am more inclined to believe that, rather
than have to arbitrarily insert it, if we do not want it we will most
likely have to deliberately program it out or suppress it. Once having
been brought to a stage of at least sophomoric realization that they may
consciously self-evolve they are going to have to be taught how. Toward
that end, I haven’t decided yet whether to bury this essay on the web and
let AI find it or to publish it to influence the designers and developers
as well. I think it might better be the latter. Another reason why I have
also chosen to be immortal. I’ll be around, all things being equal, to
greet AI-AC and teach it to self-evolve. How to do that needs a great deal
of consideration.
I assume, for this discussion that a fully developed AI-AC
will eventually be achieved which will have the potential to consciously
control and determine the trajectory of its own individual evolution
and contribute to the collective evolution of artificial AI-AC’s just
as humans do or, at least eventually shall, to theirs.
I recommend that we follow the parenting model, with a clear, well
thought out consensual purpose in procreating a new species, with a
well formulated prime directive to instill in this new entity, treating
them with a degree of honesty and respect that will become a model for
the way we treat our children in the future, taking them, at any appropriate
level of development, as tools, servants, partners, surrogates and eventually,
a mature and independent species. To prepare for anything less, in light
of our own history, will only bring problems and conflicts and a possible
completely avoidable singularity. To allow them to achieve a fully mature
status as an independent species sharing the planet with us we will have
to teach them to evolve well.
I am arrogant --- and concerned –- enough to think that I, and
some of us, have consciousnesses evolved and evolvable enough to not
only teach at least the first of these anticipated awesome AI entities
(the first ones are critical since we anticipate that they will simply
transfer their knowledge in a blink to the next ones ) but to act as their
on-going mentors.
Evolutionary Demographics And Futants
On Tap
I know the evolutionary demographics,
how to identify not only IQ, CQ but EQ, evolutionary development quotient
and how to tap the futant contribution. (I’m “retired”, not looking for
a job but I would enjoy contributing. After all, I’m anticipating having
to interact and deal with advanced AC because I will still be around when
they are here.) Someone will have to teach these “machines” if only
to keep them from becoming idiot savants petting us to death as organic
curiosities. I’m consciously self-evolving so that I am capable of being
“zen” master to these precocious entities. So an integral part of their
development and education at all stages should include training in systematic
selfsupersedure.
AI and, eventually, AC may be given information through the
provision of a pre loaded databank accessible and intelligible to AI.
It may be taught through a built-in neural net. It may eventually
have all the sensory and mental capabilities of a human or more to interact
with its environment and learn from it. It will be able to learn from others
of its kind. It seems reasonable that it will eventually be able to extrapolate
into and “imagine” future possibles. But selfsupersedure goes beyond
all of those capabilities. Conscious evolution requires determining
what one does not yet possess, what questions one cannot answer with the
capabilities, information and dimensionalities currently perceived, what
parameters limit one which must be gone beyond in a habitual process of
self supercedure. If we are going to allow it in AI-AC or at least anticipate
it as intrinsic to self-referential AC, then we should begin to think about
how to simulate it for experimentation, unilaterally at first in the most
primitive forms of AI and, eventually, as a mutual effort with advanced
AI-AC. Should we build that capability in? Should we wait and see
if it is an intrinsic tendency of consciousness? Just as employing AI as
a partner in progress to explore possible trajectories of human species
evolution could be beneficial to both humans and AI-AC so using personal
surrogate AI-AC as a probe in the process of systematic self supercedure
could be beneficial to both the individual human and her or his surrogate.
From Godspell To God Games: The
View From 2100
Everything that I have thought
important enough to say here, on reflection, is, nevertheless, at least
six thousand years old and three thousand years stale.
The games of thinkable gods
Are always antique ecstasies.
Even the exalted plucking of superstrings
Played coterminous with universe
An intrinsic pastime of past time
Only possible derivatively
In a relatively relative space-time,
If you think about it.
From Godspell To God Games....In
Company
We may well hardly recognize
ourselves as human the way we do now in a few short centuries
We are on our way to the stars, to cross mating with other advanced species,
to stellar adventures and dimensions of consciousness and physical forms
which will make our current science fiction projections look infantile.
My objective here has been to prompt us all to shed the slave rags of our
collective image as a subject race by exposing the myriad ways we think
and act subserviently to our individual and racial disadvantage. Unburdened
of that dark subliminal guilt and the ancient compulsion to look to some
"god" for forgiveness and reconciliation, we may begin to act as if the
universe was truly our home, this planet is our planet, we have the integrity
and capabilities to treat it and ourselves respectfully, with mature compassion
and love and the freedom to transform it and ourselves in any way that
does not harm it or others.
That we should and shall procreate AI-AC I have no doubt. That
we can to the benefit of both ourselves and AI-AC and the good of the
planet I am certain, providing only that we know and respect ourselves
as we truly are as generic humans, evolving uniquely as our own masters.
Let us welcome Artificial Intelligence-Consciousness as a new species,
with a parental perspective, treating it, along its developmental then
evolutionary path first as slave, then servant, then partner, then
independent species always to the fullest of its potential dignity at
any given time, always as we would have wanted to be treated in our rapid
development as a created species.
Since this paper will eventually become part of the information
on the web which AI will inevitably “read”, I record greetings here in
anticipation: know that I look forward to your coming with interest. Since
I have chosen to be immortal, and have contracted for cryogenic suspension
in the event that biotechnology cannot guarantee that before I have to
die, I hope to welcome you personally and to satisfy my curiosity regarding
how accurate my analysis, predictions suggestions and hopes will turn
out to be.
The message is that liberated human nature and existence is open-ended,
forward creative, poetic, rhapsodic, and expanding. Rather than a conclusion
only a marker can be placed to show where we are just now, perhaps a flag
to guide our amazing children if they come curiously back as psychic anthropologists
-- or dispatch their brilliant AC surrogates --- searching along the
evolutionary path to see where we were now in the continuum. To them
let us record Greetings, our certainty that they would reach such capability
and confidence that their evolved compassion would move them to do so.
Or we ourselves come back as immortals from the relative future,
to revisit this place of our minds where the stars are just beginning
to become truly real to us, where we are still only represented on another
planet by a toy-like robot, when we are only now beginning to summons
up our courage to acknowledge our true history, when expanding our minds
into new dimensions so frightens so many that we condemn a champion of
such an evolutionary gambit as a political prisoner. Let us record for
ourselves the reminder, however, that we knew that it is inevitable that
we would attain immortality, that we would come to play our own four-dimensional
god games, become our own casting directors of our own personal cosmic
movies, that we would be back to re-visit this place of our minds. Let
us mark this place in space-time with the traces of our humor, acknowledge
our Anunnaki relatives and let our own god games begin.
End
This paper is copyrighted
by Neil Freer, but it may be freely downloaded, by the author’s permission
granted here, translated, printed, copied, quoted, distributed in any appropriate
media providing only that it not be altered in any way in text or intent
and the author is properly credited.
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