There is
much anxious talk about the advent of artificial intelligence. Occult talkers
are not immune to this rather clever way to worry catastrophically. While I
read a good deal of science fiction and I enjoy a robot insurrection as much as
the next guy, I do have difficulty working up a good panic about the doom of
humankind by AI. It is interesting to me that most of this discussion appears
on social media which I think has a similarity to the etheric plane with its
flow of pictorial images. Yet the Internet is the opposite of the etheric-life
world.
I
sometimes use a fourfold model of the cosmos where matter is represented by
elemental earth; etheric-life is represented by water; astral-soul by air; and
archetypal spirit by fire. Allow me to analyze machine reality in terms of the
two lower levels: physical-matter (Earth) with its sub-parts: plasma, gas,
liquid and solid; and etheric or formative life forces (Water) with its
sub-levels: life meaning, tone structure, light pictures and warmth.
Spirit
|
Fire
|
beingness,
light, love
|
Astral-Soul
|
Air
|
thinking,
feeling, willing
|
Etheric-Life
|
Water
|
life-ether,
tone-ether,
light-ether,
warmth-ether
|
Physical
|
Earth
|
states of
plasma,
gas,
liquid,
solidity
|
Social
media occurs on the Internet which is a digital machine reality housed in
physical-mineral computers. Although "social media" appears
life-like, and is the medium for human, emotionally charged communication by
texts, picture-images and complex sounds, it is obviously a production of the
world lower than etheric-life world of elemental Earth. The basis of machine reality is constructed of a digitally
interactive "cloud" which exists only within the physical-mineral
world.
Through
computer technology we are provided a communicative system which mimics the
higher etheric-life world existing one step higher than the mineral world. The
etheric world streams into the planet from outer space, bringing animating
vitality to the bodies of plant, animal and human kingdoms. In the human race,
the etheric-life matrix, initially forms our physical bodies and sustains them
through incarnation, scattering back into the global matrix upon our deaths.
The etheric world has been described in occultism as having four related
levels: where the first is the most subtle, verging upon the human soul, and
the final is the most biological, merged into the homeostatic functions of the
physical body: life-ether, tone-ether, light-ether and warmth-ether.
A life-etheric world can be recognized by our human sense of
ourselves as having a life purpose. We
feel motivated to think, speak and act in the external world out of a personal
meaning, purpose and will. Life-ether expresses motivation in our biological
organs to maintain movement and function: heart, keep pulsing, liver keep
processes, kidneys keep filtering, stomach keep digesting.
A tone-etheric world can be noted in terms of how
we recognize the presence of organically occurring patterns in our bodies and in
Nature. These patterns are similar to our culturally constructed systems of
musical harmony whereby pitches are organized into patterns of intervals and
chords each producing culturally-determined responses to sound experience. In
occultism, music is often a metaphor for Nature's ordered construction of
shapes throughout crystal formation in metals and minerals as well as cellular
and organ tissues in plants and animals. This metaphor operates down to
microscopic shapes and geometries of chemical molecular chains and the
probability patterns of atomic electrons, protons and neutrons.
We can
recognize a light-etheric world in the
colors of our memory pictures which emerge in
collage-like tableaus during our nightly dreams. Etheric light also
appears in conscious daytime fantasies of imagination as another aspect of the
etheric world directly underlying our human culture and personalities.
Occultists consider the most intimate human-animal quality of the etheric-warmth world to be the immanent heat of
our own bodies. Our agency and our very livingness appears to be shaped by a
purpose inclusive of both waking and sleeping.
Body temperature rises during conscious physical activity as well as
during REM dream states. Body heat decreases in both awake resting states and
in the unconsciousness of non-dreaming.
While the
etheric-life world is often symbolized in magical traditions as elemental
Water, the lower world in which life is imitated by the Internet is elementally
Earth and mineral-metallic. The personal computer is composed of many different
metals, plastics and alloys. Copper, lead, and gold are used in various parts.
Lead is used as solder, radiation shielding and as a plastics stabilizer in PVC
cabling. Gold is used for pin plating while copper is a good conductor of
electricity and is also used to make the hard disks along with aluminum,
magnesium, silicon and zinc. Hard disk platters often are composed of alloys of
cobalt, nickel and iron. Computer casings often contain steel, aluminum and
carbon fiber. Plastics are mainly used for insulation to protect parts against
heat, some are used in capacitors which conduct electricity.
Through
computer technology we are provided a communicative experience characterized by
what could be called virtual or machine-warmth, machine-light, machine-tone,
and machine-life-likeness.
Machine-warmth arises from
the physical frictional properties of
electricity moving through metal with some machine components requiring
more electricity than others. Electricity passing across circuits and through
wires meets a degree of resistance. This is like two hands rapidly rubbing
together and creates heat. Depending upon the kind and number of applications
running or calculations being performed, the amount of electricity used results
in variable heat production. Certain components generate more heat:
- The CPU or Central Processing Unit handles number crunching data or text input in a word processor.
- The GPU or Graphics Processing Unit handles graphics intensive processes. The GPU handles billions of calculations and instructions per second and can produce more heat than the CPU.
- The Heat Sink is a thermally conductive device covering a CPU and GPU to absorb some of the heat being generated. Often fans are incorporated into the heat sink to disperse heat.
- HDD or hard disk drive contains small disks that spin as information is written and accessed by other components - a steady flow of electricity is needed during certain functions to keep disks spinning which generates heat.
- The optical disk drive (ODD) can play CDs or DVDs which spins the inserted disks so data can be read and written. The ODD uses a laser to read and write which require a large electrical input which generates considerable heat.
To
encourage heat dispersal PCs prefer a hard surface. For dispersal they also
prefer a cold/dry environment rather than the opposite which can case it to
generate more heat
Machine-light appears upon a
gaseous video display using an electrically charged ionized gas called plasma
to illuminate pixels. A pixel is the
basic unit of programmable color on a computer display. It is a logical unit,
not a physical unit. The specific color of a pixel is a blend of
red-green-blue. Three bytes of data are allocated for specifying a pixel's
color, one byte for each major color part. A bitmap is a file that indicates
color for each pixel along a horizontal and vertical axis.
Machine-tone is the
acoustical sound wave of an audio signal which is converted into an encoded
numerical sample in continuous sequence. Many samples are required to replicate
the waveform with each sample representing the intensity of the waveform at
that instant. The number of bits used when taking samples varies according to a
spectrum of accuracy in imitated quality. Common sampling is 16 bit samples
taken over a spectrum of 44.1 thousand cycles per second (44.1 Kilo Hertz,
kHz). Another way to phrase this is that in CD quality media, audio samples are
taken 44,100 times per second each with 16 bit sample depth. Digital audio is
used to record, store, manipulate, generate and reproduce sound using audio
signals encoded into digital form.
Machine-life or Artificial
Intelligence is the imitation of the life-ether which we realize in
terms of meaning, vitality, functional movement and purpose. The much-discussed and hotly
anticipated advent of AI "… is the branch of computer sciences that
emphasizes the development of the intelligent machine, thinking and working
like humans. For example [AI can be recognized
in] speech recognition, problem-solving, learning and planning."
(Farhan Saeed at www.iqvis.com).
Mr. Saeed
lists the following examples of AI programs which are presently, if crudely, in
operation.
- Siri is a digital assistant designed by Apple to respond to voice-activation in performing daily tasks like message sending, voice calls and calendar inclusions.
- Telsa is pioneering a self-driving car.
- Cogito combines machine learning and behavioral science to enhance customer service AI systems. "The AI solution analyzes the human voice and provides real-time guidance [to the phone professional] to enhance behavior."
- Netflix uses prediction algorithms to make recommendations based on customer likes and previous choices. Pandora is called "… the DNA of music" using a core group of four hundred musical characteristics to analyze songs and making recommendations to customers.
- Nest is Goggle's AI which controls home temperature based on your daily routines and activity levels.
- Boxever is an AI system working in the travel industry which "conveys micro-moments or experiences that can please the customers."
- Flying Drones are being involved in home shipping of products, making videos and in news reporting.
- Echo from Amazon is a web search product that also schedules, helps you shop, controls "… lights, switches, thermostats, answers questions, reads audio books, reports traffic and weather, gives info on local businesses, provides sports scores and more."
Machine-life
or AI appears sufficient in analyzing our external, behavioral patterns and
routines, and then predicting out of that analysis what we might want next.
Human behavior patterns certainly imply a degree of purposefulness. However,
does AI really sense meaning as a human being experiences meaning? Does an AI
gain a sense of energy and motivation, joy and exhilaration in accessing
meaning? Is the raison d'etre of an AI
affirmed and strengthened by feeling this enhancement? Probably not. So, at
this time, etheric-life appears to be only superficially imitated by the
computer.
It is
similar to the process of an actor building up a role as a famous personality.
The actor studies video and audio records, reads books, reviews available
photographs of the life of the famous person. This is a first step in creating
a reputable character. The actor will practice
imitating that person's voice, their recognizable gait, stylistic
gestures, typical clothing and personal quirks. Artificial Intelligence can
apparently do most of this external depiction of apparently meaningful human
behavior, given enough processing power.
But then
the actor "becomes" the role neurologically. This is probably based
in our depth understanding of the interior of other people. We have an
intrinsic understanding of the "reality" of another personality;
that they also have an interior set of drives and values, motives and purposes.
The actor can take on a felt semblance of that other personality because of
this basic interpersonal assumption: you are like me to some degree. Actors
can, for a time, enter into sympathy
with the gestalt of behavioral details. She becomes, through innate powers of
imagination, empathy, self-reflection and skill, that other.
Can the
Artificial Intelligence perform this act of taking on a role all the way from
behavioral details to the internal gestalt? It is likely a matter of time
before it will be able to fool the human observer into believing it is one of
us. What will happen culturally when the AI is engineered to convincingly take
on the persona of a thinking, feeling, willing being? We may have a decade or
so to figure out the implications.
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