The War Within - Between Good and Evil, Bheemeswara Challa [books for 7th graders txt] 📗

and problem-solving.
Our heart is also an access point to a source of wisdom and intelligence that we
can call upon to live our lives with more balance, greater creativity, and enhanced
intuitive capacities. We have to become, at the least, a critical mass of humans,
essentially heart-empowered individuals, for a better and more compassionate
world. But so smitten we are about AI, that it is being predicted, not without a
tinge of elation, that in the future “the human brain will connect to online AI to
become a hybrid of biological and nonbiological thinking”.79
For generations we have prided ourselves as the species with the biggest
brain, enabling it to be more intelligent than anyone else. Suddenly, man now
feels inadequate in his intelligence in relation to his ambitions. And, rather than
optimize what nature has gifted, such as drawing upon his heart intelligence, he
has turned to artificial means. We tend to think that the machine is the opposite
of man, that it brings to bear qualities we lack, and that it is immune to human
vulnerabilities. There are indications that this not always true. First, the machine
is nothing if not man-made. And, some studies have shown that, intentionally
or not, artificial intelligence could pick up some of our worst traits like bigotry,
racism, and sexism. This is important to note, since AI is emerging not as a
subservient tool but as a decision-maker with equal rights. Already, robots—
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and it tells a lot if we remember that the word robot comes from the Czech
robota, which means ‘forced labor’— have begun to join the boards of directors
of companies. In the future, even doctors and lawyers could be robots, not only
personal assistants. We are being told that soon one could buy ‘sex-robots’ off
the shelf. Sexuality is just another commodity, a product that can be bought
and sold. Concern is also being expressed on topics like ‘robot morality’, and
about outsourcing morality to robots as easily as we have outsourced so many
other forms of human labor. Some experts are talking of the Humanoid Robotic
Revolution, and it is hard to tell if they are telling us to be excited or worried.
In any case, we all know that all ‘revolutions’ throw up nasty surprises and
unintended consequences. One outlandishly ‘revolutionary’ theory80 says future
humans could be ‘hybrid humans’—products of a hypothetical interbreeding of
aliens with humans. Such a hybrid species, it is hypothesized, could be capable
of surviving future catastrophic climate conditions on earth, and could serve as
problem-solvers or future leaders.
While digging his own grave on the one hand, by offering to the machine
that which he denied the divine—saranagati or total surrender—man, on the
other hand, is determined now to be immortal by becoming a god. Immortality
has long been a spiritual goal of man, centered on the soul. Now, it is medical
immortality and bodily survival after death that man seeks. He is not appeased
by spiritual immortality. He wants to achieve it by being able to do things like
freezing and repairing the brain, creating a new, artificial body, and transferring
the ‘new brain’ into the new body. The closest parallel in nature that man takes
inspiration from is the total transformation of an ugly caterpillar into a beauteous
butterfly. It is based on the questionable assumption that even though it has a
new body, it doesn’t ‘die’, and yet is able retain some sort of memory of its past
life. Not only do we not want to die, but we also want to carry forward the same
physical frame, which means that we want to be like a winged caterpillar, not a
beautiful butterfly. Without commensurate consciousness-change, we might well
end up as some sort of an ‘evil superman’. And why not, if MIT is able to create
the AI-driven psychopath Norman ? Like always, we go for the hybrid, a hotchpotch.
There is no transformation without termination and dissolution and
death. In practical terms, we want to give up nothing but get everything. Now,
it is the body all the way; ‘body beautiful’ is a multi-billion-dollar industry. But
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if the body still fails, we have the brain as backup. It is expected that computer
technology and artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and nanotechnology will
all converge to make it possible for us to download our minds and attain virtual
immortality. This is the exact opposite of what all religions have told us to let go,
and shed the body identification and attachment. The Roman philosopher
Seneca thought that death was a gift of God, and the Buddha thought that
clinging to life is as dangerous as any other form of ignorance. The odds of
outright immortality are beyond the bounds of possibility. As Michael Shermer
pointedly says, “The whole universe runs down, so, ultimately, even if you could
lengthen your lifespan indefinitely, the universe itself will eventually die in a
heat death”.81 Biomedical research has helped global average life expectancy to
rise by 20 years since 1960. Some say science now can give us indefinite life, but
not literal immortality, not mathematical eternity. Semantics apart, practically
speaking, the fact is that, even doubling or trebling, let alone thousand years
of the average human life span, could have far-reaching social, moral, and
intergenerational and evolutionary implications. Any extension of the life span
of any particular species can disturb the equilibrium embedded in creation. And
that could have cascading and calamitous consequences. And there is a growing
growl that it is all for the rich at the expense of the poor and soon that growl can
become a roar, and the roar into revolt, not of the voiceless poor but of the new
majority in the world: the middle class. When that does occur it could dwarf all
previous revolutions.
To a large extent, the fulcrum of our morality is based on finiteness. That
everyone dies is the thread that keeps everything in their proper place: “Teach
us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom”.82 If we truly can
live forever, who cares what we do to any other? And there is no guarantee that
it will abolish old age, and we may end up with no youth and extended old
age, something like Gulliver’s Struldbruggs. Faced with the ennui of eternal life,
our future generations might, as in Jorge Borges’ story The Immortal, seek an
antidote that allows them to die. While most think that longevity is a blessing,
not all long-lifers feel that way. One of the world’s longest-living humans, at
nearly 129 years, Koku Istambulova said, “Long life is not at all God’s gift for
me, but a punishment”. Particularly if we might turn out to be a Tithonus (Greek
mythology), who achieved immortality but not eternal youth, and who later
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lamented, ‘Only cruel immortality Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms’, and
beseeched, ‘release me, and restore me to the ground’ (Tithonus, Lord Tennyson).
It is important to remember that new technology does not merely give
something new to use or play with; it changes everything. Einstein’s warning
that technology, when it surpasses human interaction, might usher in a world of
idiots could not be more timely. Humankind might not end with idiocy; it could
be far more fearsome. Artificial intelligence and rampant robotization would, in
particular, have far-reaching consequences in the defense and military sectors.
Future wars will be unrecognizable from what they are today, and technology
will be the deciding factor. Moreover, war constitutes a gross distortion and
misuse of scarce resources—financial, natural, and creative—that could make
hundreds of millions of lives so much better, a cause worthy of moral mutiny. We
need a complete overhaul in the entire process, from conception to application,
including its funding and control. Context is the canvas of our way of life, of
everything we do to live like a human being. That includes the web of relationships
we work with, in particular nature. To sustain the cosmic balance, it is required
that the benefit each individual provides must outweigh the costs they entail on
the environment. By doing this, the system replenishes itself. This is true across
species and ecosystems, with the exception of the human. And having made the
machine more ‘intelligent’ than himself, man has decided to mate and merge
with it, and augment and enhance the capability and strength of every faculty
and organ in his body—from intelligence to genitalia. Some even hope to breed
and possibly create a new species of sapiens on Mars!
In any case, what is clear is that man now seems determined not only to
own the world, but to make absolutely sure that nothing worthwhile remains
after he is gone; present-day man is doing to his progeny what Genghis Khan did
to his conquered countries. Science is attempting to create a new man and a new
civilization centered around the machine, and is seducing us with the promise
to solve the greatest mystery of them all, the mystery of death. We have long
struggled with our mortality. We have made hell on earth and want to escape to
heaven without dying. The trouble is, as Milan Kundera puts it, “Man doesn’t
know how to be mortal. And when he dies, he doesn’t even know how to be
dead”.83 But such ‘not-knowing’ has not hindered man from seeking immortality.
A famous prayer in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad seeks divine guidance on
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three fronts: from delusion to truth; from darkness to light; and from death to
immortality. Death is the creator of the world, states an Indian sacred text. But
what science is seeking is very different from this type of immortality. In effect,
what it is trying to do is to create and capture the power that raised Christ from
the dead, and be what eluded even Gilgamesh and Methuselah—life unending.
In fact, we want more; we want to make death reversible. Life forever clearly is
not possible, because forever isn’t several lifetimes, or a few dozen, but billions
and billions of years. It means that like gods we cannot die even if we kill each
other or if are run over by a truck. The question we have to ask is this: with
man as he is, with the kind of mind-dominated consciousness he has, should
he be endowed with such prodigious capability even if that capability is not
immortality per se, but exponentially extended life span? Evil could become
exponentially much stronger in the world and in our consciousness. And we
would lose the war within. Human power now comes close to “power without
responsibility—the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages”.84 For the first
time in history of life on earth, that is over four billion years, a single species,
the human, has acquired the awesome and scary capability to fulfill his every
wish and want. So much so we now face a new threat: the threat of some of
our wild wishes coming true. Furthermore, it is not as though every man is
equally powerful. It will further exacerbate the present inequalities, which will be
concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The plutocracy that runs the world will
further dig in its heels, bolstered by the inclusion of the immortal-rich. And yet,
no one is seriously talking of how to control and channel that power, and what
kind of public policies and frameworks are necessary. Instead, we are making
contingency plans to escape to the Moon or Mars! The current plans of Elon
Musk’s SpaceX are to send the first humans to Mars in the 2020s, and establishing
a city there by 2050. More than 200,000 people applied for a privately-funded
mission, estimated to cost six billion dollars, and which is to be filmed for a reality
television series!85 Remember there is no return. In fact, it is not only Moon or
Mars we want escape to. ‘Escape’ is the metaphor and mindset of modern man.
How to escape from an assortment of conditions such as fear, dead-end jobs,
despair, responsibility, work, restraints, frustrations, convention, commitments,
etc., is what preoccupies many. To stay present to what is happening in the world
is to embrace anything that promises escape. Many seek what in Greek is called
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soteria (salvation), but unable to identify from what, they focus their ire on the
status quo, anything that is labeled, categorized, and institutionalized. Some feel
that surrender to society is a way of escape from that very society. The point is,
not only does power corrupt, but absolute power corrupts absolutely, as Lord
Acton famously proclaimed. Also, a few might even have not proven equal to the
power they come to possess. The person who will exercise the awesome power
of being virtually free from the fear of death will essentially be a ‘machine-man’,
driven exclusively by a brain boosted by selective