1.1 The Highest Technology
While scrolling through my Medium feed, I came across an article by the folks at Product Hunt which profiled a legendary valley investor named Steven Jurvitson. These days Steven is most commonly associated with Elon Musk’s companies, but has also had mega investments in a number of other breakout companies.
While reading through his responses to a set of questions they had compiled, I came across a very peculiar quote… It said ‘When it comes to AI, many of us subconsciously cling to the selfish notion that humanity is the endpoint of evolution’.
Now to understand why this quote stood out to me, it requires a bit of background into where I’ve been spending my time: Much of my recent learning and exploration has been into the spiritual sciences, many of which are thousands of years old and consistant across time, religions, and masters. What is the truth that this ancient wisdom speaks of? What is the significance of the enlightenment of the Buddha, and the crucifixion of the Christ?
What makes ‘The Truth’, in itself, truth? Why is the rest of the world considered a ‘non truth’, or illusion — Maya? Is it that we ourselves are truth, and the rest outside us untruth? Or we untruth and the rest truth? You can see how this gets confusing.
However what are we really? Where does this entire experience of consciousness appear? What gives each and every one of us the power to experience both inner and outer worlds, simultaneous, on the same canvas?
It amazes me that no one talk about this. The user interface of life itself. Where do your thoughts appear? About what your surroundings? And your body? When I look down at myself, where do these impressions get formed? What about tastes? Emotions? Sensations? Are we already living in the most sophisticated UI possible?
Yes.
Is this the truth that the masters spoke of? Yes, it is the first stage of understanding. Knowing that the world and all its contents appears only in me — Appears only in this ‘bubble of being’. Appears only when ‘I am’.
Tomorrow if Google was able to create an AI King so powerful it could out-think all of humanity, take over galaxies, build cities out of thin air, and eventually rule the universe — Would it be a higher technology than you?
No, of course not, and the answer lies in sentience.
‘Sentience is the capacity to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively.’
Sentience itself is the highest technology, that can never be replicated or implanted by humans, or any other so-called advanced life form, into their man-made creations. The super AI Google-bot does not exist to itself. It is simply a bunch of computer code that executes preset programs. It requires you to exist, for it to exist. Without you there to experience it, it simply does not have a reality of its own.
So in our arrogance, we believe we are creating the next stages of evolution through our primitive technology, but in truth — We have always been the highest technology: Sentient consciousness.
In a sense we are, and have always been the endpoint of evolution. But to understand how, read the next post.
