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Consciousness

The Underlying, but Unaddressed, Issue Which Energizes the AI Debate

 

 

 

return to "Consciousness" main-page 

 

 

Not long ago Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, Cambridge biologist, participated in a science debate, found on youtube, with two other credentialed and well-known speakers.

I’d rather not offer a link to the debate, for, even though it’s now of public record, one of the materialist scientists displayed such bad character, such cause for personal embarrassment, that I would take no pleasure in highlighting the intemperance.

Rupert was making a comment on some aspect of his consciousness-based research. The other debater retorted with, to the effect, “Do you have evidence of this?” Rupert answered affirmatively, stating that it had been published in peer-reviewed journals.

But what happened next caused Rupert to laugh, and the audience to reel with stunned disbelief and amusement. The materialist scientist cut short Rupert’s statement with:

'I don’t want to know!! don’t tell me!!'

How do you respond to that? Well, Rupert really didn’t respond. There’s nothing to say when you’re not allowed to speak, or the listener tells you in advance that there’s no use for you to say anything. All this, the more remarkable as the materialist is a well-known science writer and speaker with a very large following on youtube.

Usually, the radical, closed-minded materialist presents a more sophisticated – in a literal sense, that is, polished sophism – approach with charges of “misinformation” or “your work is controversial, not mainstream” or they'll try to respond with some ad hoc new untested theory, more fantastic than the purported fantasy of the consciousness-based research. In other words, if backed into a corner, faced with new evidence contrary to their belief-system, they will believe anything, or say anything, to escape logical conclusions.

Physicists of the materialist persuasion have resisted the implications of the consciousness-based Double-Slit experiment. Tom Campbell discusses the history of this denial and also what happened when a new experiment was performed which eviscerated the basis of the materialists’ refusal.  

This kind of cult-mentality attack is not new. See on the “afterlife” page, near the bottom, for other examples of willfully ignoring well-researched evidence.

 

Why is it that many people will hate you just for disagreeing with them? They cannot hear you – even if reasonings are cogent and information is accurate.

Many are so identified with an ideal that, if you disagree with it, they will hate you, and some, if they could, would try to kill you.

Why the vitriol? Why not just believe what you want to believe and turn away and not say anything? But today, more and more, we see the venomous political attacks, the vicious statements on social media, the hate-filled rhetoric of those who disagree -- and with an air of moral superiority.

the inability of true-believers to hear you is an expression of allegiance to Dear Leader

When we thoroughly identify with a thought-form, an ideal, a mental picture of utopia – especially, a vision promoted by a Dear Leader, who wears a “mask of piety” claiming moral superiority, stoking the anger of a purported victim class – then the true-believer followers will feel justified to commit any atrocity in support of said utopian vision. The great psychologists call this sense of permission the "divine numen", ie, the approving "nod" from on high.

And what does it mean to “thoroughly identify with a thought-form”?

The dysfunctional ego is led by dark perceptions of “I don’t have enough” because “I am not enough.” And because it feels itself as “not enough,” it will seek for a “strong father figure,” a Dear Leader, under whose mantle the ego seeks for safety and shelter in a hostile world. The ego will “identify” with this external authority, that is, it will “make itself equal to” this faux authority, will psychologically attach itself to it.

And this is why we meet so many people who are so angry when they’re disagreed with. To them, it’s not just an argument to be lost, but it feels like they’re fighting for their lives. They’ve attached their existential sense of worth, and of life itself, to precepts issued by Dear Leader. It is the sought-for security of the little child finding refuge in the shadow of a godlike parent.

'I can't hear you'

Children play the game of "I can't hear you" with a mock, sing-song voice, and then pretend to create a barrier of noise with "la, la, la, la..."

Adults do this, too, when they block you out and can't hear you. It happens when they fully identify with some external authority.

ownlife

In his seminal and prophetic work, 1984 (published 1949), George Orwell coins a term, “ownlife.” Totalitarians encourage their subjects toward a servile docility, an identification and psychological attachment. Those who resist such sublimation of autonomy are accused of clinging to “ownlife,” an insistence on individualization - and as such are deemed to be “dangerous,” “insurrectionists,” “domestic terrorists” by the dystopian autocrats.

a terrorized mind is incapable of listening

This state of total identification with an external source of salvation, a surrendering of self and critical faculties, is fueled by a terrorized mind – a dysfunction which believes “I don’t have enough” because “I am not enough.” This fearful mental state makes one incapable of living freely, incapable of listening, incapable of opening oneself to the messages of life.

a terrorized mind will block anything that threatens its security and safety

This is why, when you meet a true-believer such as this, you cannot talk to them; no matter how cogent your reasonings, they are incapable of listening. The fearful true-believer did not accept his or her beliefs on the basis of rational argument and careful weighing of evidence, and so they won’t be “argued out of” their mental positions by careful reasoning, either. More information, more content of the mind, will not help them, but only an upward shift in consciousness will solve this problem.

they can't hear you

The terrorized mind of the "inner child" blocks out anything that might threaten safety and security, which they believe will be secured by obediently following the dictates of Dear Leader as "strong father figure".

READ MORE on the "true self" page.

 

 

The mind-frame that shouts ‘I don’t want to know!! don’t tell me!!’, even in public before a large audience, suggests a certain arrogance of “I am so right that I don’t have to listen to contrary peer opinions, what’s the point of entertaining other views when I couldn’t possibly be wrong?”

this is the ugly face of today’s dark and bigoted materialistic science

The spirit of bigotry presented, bold-face, before all the world in that debate is found in all forums touched by materialistic science. See discussion of this problem on the “evolution” and “quantum mechanics” and “afterlife” pages.

And the arena of artificial intelligence is no exception.

What is the essential problem exhibited in this array of forums?

Anything that is related to consciousness research will be vilified by the materialists. They will offer their “good reason”, as JP Morgan said, but there’s an underlying “real reason.” And that underlying real reason, as we learned from the great psychologists, has to do with the terror of death.

Consciousness research, by the materialists, will be lumped together with religious dogma, with fears of punishment in the afterlife, fears of accountability in some future realm. Much better, the materialists subliminally assert, to believe that the universe has no meaning, that we’re here by accident, that consciousness does not survive the death of the body.

the particular battleground of the AI debate

AI science is merely an extension of popular materialist conceptions, as they view physics and biology. AI philosophy is built upon arrant notions, untested and dogmatic assumptions such as:

Human consciousness lives in a little house called the physical brain. This is error.

Human consciousness naturally emerges from biological systems which reach a certain level of complexity. (This natural and automatic emergence they call an “epiphenomenon”.) This is error.

Human consciousness is fundamentally an algorithm, a mathematical formula. This is gross error – or, as Sir Roger Penrose, lampooning the materialists, put it, “consciousness is not a computation.”

Editor’s note: Expanding on Dr. Penrose’s assertion that consciousness is not a computation, not a mathematical algorithm, and, keeping in mind that, as he says in his book, an algorithm is a “systematic procedure,” we must ask the question, “Have the truly great and creative discoveries of history come to us by way of algorithm, by systematic procedure?”

The AI debate assumes that creativity can be brought into reality simply by programming a machine with the right formula. But this is an outdated, obsolete proposition. Penrose references the work of Kurt Godel and his "incompleteness theorems." It had been thought that mathematics could be viewed as having a solid foundation in axioms and algorithms, but mathematician Kurt Godel, in the early 1930s, destroyed this notion.

Kurt Gödel & Albert Einstein, Princeton, 1950s

 

His work demonstrated that math cannot be mechanized (portions, yes, but not as a whole); that it cannot be reduced to formalism, and that it has no absolute foundation. (See more about Godel on the "certainty" page.) The exaggerated claims of AI superiority, that mind-power is a computation and can be reduced to an algorithm, is an outdated and flawed assertion; but it well suits the current propaganda. 

Editor’s note: The great teachers tell us that all truth is simple, easy to understand, once we see the essence of it. What is the essence of Godel’s “incompleteness theorem?” Very simplified, it's saying: “This statement cannot be proved by using math.” Well, mathematicians, going back to the ancient Greeks, said everything in the universe can be modeled or proven by math. And if what they say is true, then this should also include Godel’s statement. So, if we say that, yes, math can be used to prove Godel’s assertion, “This statement cannot be proved by using math,” then we have a contradiction. We say we can prove it, but the statement says we can’t. Therefore, at least in this one area, there’s a hole in the theory that math can explain everything. And this inconsistency brought down the entire edifice of math as the last word on defining and proving truth – because even one hole in the system means that there’s something wrong with the system, it doesn’t cover everything. It’s an incomplete view. And this is why Godel’s work is called the “incompleteness theorem.” What does all this mean? We don’t know for certain, for to know, in any macro sense, would require all knowledge in the universe. My opinion here is that mathematics does a good job modeling some of nature, but, as far as a total view, that would require the mind of God, and good luck to us attempting to model that. And Godel’s theorem may be hinting at this unreachable domain. Special note: Godel's principle has been used in some of the old Star Trek episodes to confuse a rogue computer with contradictions. Also, let us note that the assertion that math might model all of nature is part of an ancient debate concerning the very nature of knowledge: is it universal, necessary, certain, or is it particular, contingent, probable? See the debate here.

On the “creativity” page, consider a very large bank of testimonies from the world-famous creative who insist that their greatest break-through insights arrived as a gift, in a dream, by the by, or of whimsy, somewhat out of the blue. One notable account, from mathematician Freeman Dyson, tells us how he suddenly “saw” an answer, simply dropped into his head, concerning a world-shattering advance in math – and when? while he was thinking hard in the lab? no, not then, but as he was being greeted at the door by a hostess to a Christmas party, while handing his coat and making small talk! That’s when the muse visited him!

And the question becomes, how to you program a computer to create on that highest superlative, ground-breaking level? The truly creative idea provides no steps leading up to it, no pat-formula to access, no paint-by-numbers, no “systematic procedure” – how could it be so? The utterly original and creative item has no predecessor. How do you program a computer to produce the unfathomable, the never seen, never before imagined?

Computers can do any algorithmic work much faster than humans, and let them do it, as that’s all they can do, but the truly seismic-shift, worlds in collision, creative discoveries, the kind that alter civilizations, issue only as the fruit of Universal Consciousness, and will remain, exclusively, in that domain.

complex neural structures, complex AI programming

See the following popular, but flawed, reasoning based upon untested dogmatic materialistic metaparadigms:

“Human consciousness sprang automatically from the brain when human evolution reached a certain level of neural complexity. Therefore, all we need do to create AI machines, which will be just as ‘human,’ just as sentient, as the flesh-and-blood model, is to ramp up the level of a computer’s complexity.”

But none of this is true, as this is not why humans are what they are. What we see here is assumption built upon assumption as materialist propaganda.

 

first AI device, 1950s

In his book “The Emperor’s New Mind,” Nobel laureate Sir Roger Penrose, addressing the propaganda associated with AI’s so-called inevitable human sentience, calls our attention to an early experiment.

In the 1950s, W. Grey Walter created one of the first AI devices. It was a small robot on wheels, battery powered, that could propel itself. They called it “the tortoise.”

When batteries ran low, the machine was programmed to wheel itself over to a power-socket on the wall and plug itself in, recharging itself – allowing it to then resume its tooling around the room.

this isn't 'hunger' but merely programming to recharge when battery levels run low

It began to be said by some, however, that the robot could “feel” its own “hunger” for electricity, and isn't this a step toward creating a synthetic human? But this was, and is, sheer misguided anthropomorphism. There was no “feeling” of “hunger” but only the device having been programmed to self-charge when supplies run low.

And, in principle, this unwarranted humanizing of algorithms is writ large today in the very term "intelligence" as applied to machines. However, there is no "intelligence" for machines, in any meaningful sense of the term, but only programmed algorithmic sequence.

The very term 'artificial intelligence' is merely materialist propaganda suggesting, in effect, that humans are nothing more than machines.

We can see how the nonsense of proclaiming human qualities might arise simply by uncritically accepting anthropomorphic talk.

We're reminded of a story of a little fish named John. Eckhart Tolle in The Power Of Now writes:

"If a fish is born in your aquarium and you call him John, write out a birth certificate, tell him about his family history, and in two minutes he gets eaten by another fish - that's tragic. But it's only tragic because you projected a separate self where there was none... and made a separate entity out of it."

So, too, there is a great deal of humanizing propaganda in the marketplace today trying to sell the idea that the AI computer-robot is “named John.”

This is very important to the materialists as they seek for validation and respectability of their hope that the universe has no meaning, and that what we are as humans is just an accident of chance, a freak of nature, born of neural complexity.

Rupert Sheldrake, 2008 interview comment: “These are mainly people who are committed to a kind of militant/atheist worldview. As far as they are concerned, if you allow any psychic phenomena to occur you are leaving a door open a crack and . . . within seconds you could have God back again and, even worse, the Pope. So, I think, for them, it’s almost like a kind of religious struggle. It’s like a crusade.”

 

 

 

“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena [that is, the primacy of consciousness], it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”

“If you want to understand the Universe, think of energy, frequency, and vibration.”

“My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength, and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists.”

Nikola Tesla

 

 

 

 

Editor's last word:

AI does in fact pose a great threat to humankind, but not an existential one. The threat comes by way of human computer programmers who probably will invest these machines will directives to kill people. Every invention in the history of the world has been used for purposes of war. The machines will be dangerous, but not because they’re sentient in any meaningful sense of the term.

But they will be very dangerous. Think of what an army of heavily-armed AI robot-soldiers, like ants swarming, might do to a city populace. Factories could produce these robots like cars, by the millions. Despotic governments are working on this – for “national defense”, of course, as all totalitarians enjoy the phrase.