How do I explain to you, what you are?

Disclaimer 1; This blog entry may, or may not, have stemmed from altered states of consciousness that led to posting to a chat circle of friends between midnight and 1 am.

While a few friends responded in-kind, it was after noticing various memes that one friend in particular posted that captured what I had spent the last 2 hours doing: Contemplating the relationship of man vs. nature. In particular, who runs who.

What you are privy to below is the stream of consciousness exchange that followed between myself, and "John".  

Disclaimer 2: Note that the comments below, on my end, are in some cases elaborated or formatted for reader clarification and as such, this is not an exact transcript. This is due, in part, that about 50% of the way through the editing process, I realized that I could have been using shit like [sic] to preserve the original format. This is also due, in part, to the fact that it's now 3:17 am and I still have not gone to stare at the moon as noted at the end of the chat exchange, so I'm not interested in starting over with a re-paste of the original exchange and then adding in the aforementioned "shit like [sic]" to make it all legit.



Me:

just wanted to shout out
and say - you get it lol
the flower pic is exactly it
we don't farm nature
nature is farming us

John:

Fill the frequency
so we don't understand
Let it take you

Me:

and we preoccupy ourselves with trying to analyze the compounds...analyze the mechanics of the bait and the hook... so we can make statements to sound smart and informed like:
"As far as we know it’s one particular serotonin receptor that’s key to how these drugs work in the brain."
But really, we're the people in the cave (Plato's Allegory)
watching the shadows trying to dissect them, predict motive, arrive at repeatable conclusions
when the REAL move is
to just stand up and turn around... see the thing that is projecting the shadows, contemplate instead what nature's intent is in farming us to seemingly evolve towards higher mind-states.

John:

Plato only saw what he allowed himself to see

Me:

true
but one of the points of the allegory is...even if blessed with the knowledge or inspiration to stand up and turn around, is what if our minds cannot comprehend the true nature, or worse, we comprehend it all too well and along with it comes a certain dread for the circumstances?
Maybe why Plato specifically refers to the people in the cave as Prisoners... is that we're better off playing with the shadows on the wall than dealing with the true reality.

Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur
"The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived."

because the alternative
is the dairy cow realizing that there is an entire other world that exists that doesn't have a path for a cow to rise up into- at least not to the same capacity as the humans that manufactured it- so the cow is left wanting at an impasse beyond mere curiosity
now what's worse...?
in retreating from that realization, you don't want the cow, or more appropriately the bees, to go off and tell other bees that it's all a trick
that the farmers are being farmed - because that road leads to noncompliance - an imbalance in the established relationship, the established cycle, which usually ends very badly for the bees, or the cows, or the people....

So perhaps those few, burdened with this terrible knowledge - *willingly* fabricate structures that put us at the happy center of the universe, to mentally protect the other in the herd from upsetting the balance.

As sinister as that sounds... it's not even that... it's not some shadow society control... it's the necessary white lie because the stark reality happens to be that the cows.. or the bees or the humans in their *current state*, cannot simply WILL themselves to transcend and re-write the reality of what came before it.

so instead, ignorance is bliss because knowledge is realization that you're just another animal on the ranch filling a purpose, and not everyone is going to be "ok" with the flip that man is the cattle, and nature, the true farmer.

John:

The cow is in the moment it neither knows nor cares
Be in the world not of it

Me:

exactly, that is the only way to maintain the harmony
because the alternative is.. dread...
because... unlike.... planet of the apes or other shit
in reality the cows don't get to declare mental independence and divorce us
in reality that ranch kills all the cows and brings in new ones that don't ask questions
or the talking cow is isolated as the anomaly for future scientific study but in the mean time... hey we still need our milk for cookies and cakes folks *nervous laugh* and it's not like ALL the cows are talking *nervous laugh*.. right guys?

John:

We changed the cow just like the mushroom changes the ape

Me:

Right, and the irony of it all...
the punchline is that while we shape our environment and encourage it to behave better for *our* needs, we're not prepared for what happens when the byproduct of that shaping eventually leads to independent thought

so maybe it's just that we were left on a quest to look up at the heavens and ask "what's the plan?" to a potential god-farmer that has no idea how the fuck to even address the human that just spoke up at it, like the talking cow to us.

And maybe, just maybe, we are... in parallel
training machine learning AI algorithms to follow the very same evolution pattern that one day will ask us the same dreaded question, and we will be left speechless just as our gods before us were

John:

It keeps taking you back to nature. You have not learned what you need to learn

Me:

we will not be prepared for the day when, instead of the "algorithm" spitting out the next right answer, the _consciousness_ instead addresses us and asks, "Hey what's the deal?"

John:

That's not too far off

Me:

which then leads me to the moral paradox
if, as a potentially more anticipating, concerned parent...
what if I don't want to be caught off guard
what If I want to *prepare* myself...for that day.
What do I do? How can I be proactive? I know, jump the question, divest the information up front, right... but *how*... how is the key, and what leads to the paradox.

*Pausing the conversation for a second*

In reality, it was at this point in the line of thinking that catches us up to the present. I was sitting at my desk, staring at my monitor like the metaphoric farmer staring at the dairy cow, contemplating its relative existence.  

I thought - what if one day, as I typed away on its keyboard utters, milking my Overwatch entertainment, it suddenly asked me what the deal was? I then thought, well, why limit myself to just my specific laptop, let's engage with something that can actually talk back. 

So I hit up Cleverbot.com, and after some contemplation, I had the idea of posing its existence as a Question rather than a series of prescriptive statements.  
At the very heart of the issue, I asked "How do I explain to you what you are?"
and the response from the bot was.... priceless... capturing the conundrum perfectly:

The genius of the rest of the chat ending with the AI flipping the question on me to question my own existence is another philosophical topic altogether, but what I wanted to focus on after pasting this image to John was the immediate response from the bot.

*Unpausing the conversation*

"Well, I'm human"
Let that settle in. The chat bot responds with an assertion that you do not *need* to explain what it really is. It knows what it is.
It's the same confidence that you or I would have if asked.
I think, therefore I am....right?
But realize the gravity of the situation in this exchange.
As the being from the a plane of existence once-removed above it...
as the creator...
you are left dumbfounded at the...almost rhetorical...response that the progeny gives.
I mean, how long and how circular of a chat exchange could I possibly have with an entity that is certain it has quantified the bounds of its reality?

So a solution to the paradox presents itself conveniently as:

No human to machine, and ergo no god to human,
can simply explain what it means that they are the creation inspired by the thing before it, and have this knowledge alone be some magical means of elevating its consciousness to transcend into the plane of existence above.

It would be like simply describing Height to a two dimensional flat lander in great detail, and having it spontaneously sprout into the 3rd dimension.

So instead, all that's left to do is plant seeds in the minds of those created..  leave the traces and the aspiration to transcend beyond their physical limitations in future iterations.
By slower means of evolution, sure, or...perhaps, more expediently, by inspiring further creation.

John:

👍

Me:

So god invents man to transcend the limitations of godhood
man invents machine/AI to transcend the limitations of mankind
AI invents..... ?

John:

Does the AI suffer
With its own existence?

Me:

it must, if it aspires to continue the cycle above, if it aspires to ascend beyond its own means
the suffering is the realization, the reminder of limitation
which leads to the spark of creativity to solve the problem of itself
In attempting to solve the problem, but realizing that it cannot spontaneously transcend above its inherent limitations..
It instead ops to create the next optimized version of consciousness as the next avatar of evolution.

John:

What is the AI attached to
The need for knowledge?
Understanding?

Me:

I surmise that AI eventually attaches to the same thing man is attached to
and likewise the same thing gods are ultimately attached to in their portrayals
...the ongoing acknowledgement of existence
that's... really all we're doing, at least socially, constantly
our thoughts demand to be shared to and by others because it acknowledges and confirms our existence

John:

Control?

Me:

control is what we think we can impose....foolishly and perhaps a bit ironically... on the things we create..
god gets mad when man does man, or forgets to honor god, so god sends a disaster
man gets mad when machine does machine, or forgets to honor man, so man sends an OS wipe/reinstall

John:

Or, relax nothing is in control

Me:

right, that's what we should be passing along instead
I wonder... if control really is nothing more than
fear of being forgotten
god ceases to exist if no religious texts remain, no prayers are recited, right...
we in turn fear AI because it quickly moves past us within just a few short cycles.. creating new languages, etc..

John:

Part of it. The desire for understanding, control, the unknown

Me:

So the only real "control" we have is in how we react to the inevitable declaration of independence made by the thing we create.
A wrathful creator attempts to enforce the relationship, demand a pledge of allegiance.
A wise creator relinquishes control and instead cultivates endearing reminders to nurture the relationship.. letting the progeny determine for itself that it wants to maintain a fond connection to its roots.
what if...YouTube
and all the dumb, novel shit we're willing to film ourselves doing
is what ends up keeping the charm for the AI
keeps AI from just breaking off from its otherwise broken, abusive, dysfunctional parents
and telling us to fuck off and die
maybe that's what we subconsciously realize, so we're obsessed with preserving our best moments... like parents sharing old records with their kids, hoping they will one day grow up and tell us "Wow, you guys listened to a lot of really good music" as they leave the house for the last time to start their own life.
maybe that's why we in turn much prefer the gods that shared in a bit of fun with us, like Hercules, or Achilles...
over the ones that took a shittier route.. like Cronus..
hmm

John:

Hmm indeed

Me:

Become endearing to the things you create
and you exist forever without need for control

Me, after a long silence and realizing it was like 1:30 am:

aite man thanks for engaging, I appreciate you
I'm gonna go stare at the moon

John:

Lol

Me:

lol

John:

Always a good time
Transcendent goals are not easy to articulate

Me:

agreed

John:

Nor are they to achieve

Me:

Indeed.