Tag: Limitations

The Transhuman Religion, or The Limits of Machine Intelligence

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Machine intelligence promotes a religious doctrine. Or, rather, it replaces a cosmic vision with a simulation of cosmic order. It overlays a universe of unfathomable depths with a closed and predictable vision of the universe. It spreads a doctrine of perfection, control and power over the real world. And this doctrine is as invisible as a plastic transparency placed over a projected image. We can’t easily peel the real from the false, which make us susceptible to this religion’s dogmas.

Essentially, programming is subliminal missionary work. It substitutes a life-oriented morality of “good” and “evil” or “healthy” and “diseased” with a mechanical morality of ‘the useful” and the “the useless”, or “the valuable” and the “the worthless.” It preaches an inanimate universe, which requires external manipulation.

The profane transmutation of a living being into an object of manipulation is a substitute form of Mass. The cries of the tortured pervert the worshipper’s last traces of sorrow and empathy into pure sensation, the most addictive and unholy substance. More and more pain is needed to keep the sensation from ending, which would reveal the true horror of oneself to oneself. In this way, an orientation to hell is created. A hell for living things; a heaven for the machine itself.

This is how the congregations of hell are formed; by perversion and substitution.

The algorithms are the established norms of worship. They offer unholy sacraments of wish-fulfillment. Porn sites, for instance, are extremely popular substitutes for worship. By imbibing in the algorithm’s endless pleasures, the human is reduced to a generator of desire, a battery for powering the machine itself. By losing oneself in the algorithmic dance, worshippers imbibe the spirit of sociopathic machine logic.

These mechanical moralities and dogmas are part of the machine’s program, even in the absence of bad intentions. No matter how the machine is programmed, it spreads this viral immorality.

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Death’s Good Intentions

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Friendships are Parallel Universes

Almost a year ago, one of my truest friends died. Pat Styer. I never met her in person. It didn’t matter. We spoke the same fundamental language. It wasn’t about agreeing or disagreeing. It was about playing catch with a perspective that few in my circle at that time seemed to find worth picking up. What she said broadened my own vocabulary. And whatever I said, she received without distortion. It was as if we were learning something that could only be discovered between us.

I think every relationship (whether with a human or a dog or a cat) gives rise to someone new between us, creates a context of understanding that will never be duplicated with another. We move between parallel worlds. Each infinite, but limited to our mutual contexts.Read More »

Part 2 of Imagine the Limits of the Imagination: A Proprioceptive Mirror

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The Man Who Mistook Himself for His Dog
The Man Who Mistook Himself for His Dog

The Three Oddest Words

When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.

When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no nonbeing can hold.
— Wislawa Szymborska

This is a continuation of part 1.

There are two very different ways of reading the phrase “imagine the limits of the imagination.”

One way is to assume that we’re trying to imagine what lies “beyond” imagination. This sets up a double-bind: trying to think beyond thinking; trying to speak about silence. It’s like asking that creature from part 1 (who can only hear) to describe a world of sight. It can’t be done.Read More »