Why do people think computers will be alive?Because, supposedly, one digital processing unit will eventually be able to manipulate zillions of pieces of information at a faster rate than all the human brains on the planet taken togetherthe result will bewhat? And if that digital unit is sitting in The Cloud and every humans brain is hooked up to it, the result will bewhat? A person will be able to master French in five minutes? How does that work? Information can be injected like a drug and produce instant learning? Automatically? Perhaps this is a fantasy hatched at Disney World. Two machines can rapidly exchange data and programmed methods of analysis, but it so happens that humans are not machines, even if they believe they are. (The Underground, Jon Rappoport) And this computer would, technocrats believe, come alive. Why? Because a) it can store far more information than the human brain; b) it can choose how to utilize that information to solve problems; c) it can solve those problems at lightning speed; and d) it can work on millions of problems at the same time. Basically, technocrats believe a super-computer will be alive because it can process enormous amounts of dataas if there is a threshold beyond which the sheer volume of processing triggers an eventbirth. What was merely a machine is now something More. Ive boiled down the above statement, in order to remove mystical fluff. The statement looks strange, quite strange. By way of analogy, if you could outfit a Porsche so it can run at 400mph, without need of a driver; and also view detailed traffic patterns within a radius of a hundred miles, adjusting its trajectory to minute changes; also report weather, stock market moves, headlines, and the moment-to-moment output of home surveillance sensors; also cook soup; acquire hostile targets and fire beam weapons to eliminate them; shop remotely at any of 50,000 stores; interview and pitch prospective customers to win contracts; deliver a haircut, shave, and minor surgery; write your autobiography in 5000 volumes; track ice flows at the North Pole; day-trade stocks and commodities; report the second-to-second movements and conversations of up to 100,000 people; record every event taking place on a million other planetsand do all this simultaneously at some point the Porsche will cross over and become alive. Im afraid not. It will still be a machine. For technocrats, information processing is basically a religious undertaking. As if it were a form of prayer, a blessing conferred, a ritual connecting the computer to the innards of the universe. There is no level of complexity beyond which life suddenly occurs. Complexity, in and of itself, does not initiate life. There is no number of correct answers which triggers life. At bottom, technocracy assumes quite juvenile concepts: accumulation of data automatically imparts learning; the power of information-processing bypasses the problem of false, authority-based data; enough learning eliminates the need for imagination. Technocrats assume that mysteries about how humans learn can be solved by claiming: well, the brain is doing something well eventually understand. Its all happening in the brain becausewhat else is there? There is the individual. You. If you are your brain, an ant is a spaceship pilot. Technocrats are making the brain into a sacred totem, a magic gizmo. If youre aware you have a brain, who is being aware? Youre just an artifact fed illusions about self by your brain? You arent there at all? Im an illusion writing illusions to the illusion called you? Now, were getting to the core of the matter. A great many channels of propaganda, for obvious reasons, are aimed at the eradication of the concept of the individual, of self. It suits the collectivist model. The assertion that the brain is all there is is a piece of political puppetry. It leads directly into the effort to enhance (alter, re-program, control) the brain. The brain is not conscious. A computer is not conscious. A brain-computer interface is not conscious. There is no function or system that equals consciousness. Individual consciousness comes before any function or system. The individual is not defined as the passive recipient of signals from the brain.The individual is intensely creative, although for various reasons he can bury that capacity to the point where he will deny he has it. When the individual expresses his imagination and creative power intensely enough, he surpasses the habitual and passive acceptance of things as they are. And in doing so, his consciousness assumes a different level, and he sees life from a far different perspective. All this does not emanate from the brain. Theoretically, if one had a super-computer of sufficient power, he could program it to spit out all the paintings in all the museums in the world, and all the music ever composed, and all the poems and novels and plays ever written, plus billions of new paintings and songs and poems. But So what? Does that mean that human imagination is just an illusion? If a carpenter makes a cabinet, and a computer running a machine produces the same cabinet, does that mean the carpenter is useless, and has gained nothing from his endeavor? Of course not. Imagination is the source of reality, including the creation of computers. Imagination is also the means by which an individual can attain a state in which he truly understands that the universe of rigid natural laws is actually an infinitely malleable stage play. Technocrats want to be machines. They arent, but they keep trying. If necessary, let them have their own island, where they can fiddle and diddle to their hearts content, without imposing their machinery on the rest of us. Call it an experiment. We run it. We watch what happens to them as they expend titanic effort to be brains and computers. Well call the experiment: A Self-Selecting Cohort of Humans Who Think Theyre Machines Attempt to Attain a Lowest-Common-Denominator Default Setting As If It Were Enlightenment. In my search for a different approach to the power of individual consciousness, I came upon the history of early Tibet, before the society hardened into a theocracy. Several sources were particularly helpful. The work of author John Blofeld (The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet), the writings of the intrepid explorer, Alexandra David-Neel, and a quite unconventional healer, Richard Jenkins, with whom I worked in the early 1960s in New York. Jenkins once wrote to me: That creative nature was the intense focus of the early Tibetans. These practitioners, teachers, and students, some 1500 years ago, realized that most people viewed consciousness as an accumulator of knowledge. A searching tool, or a receiving apparatus. Instead, the Tibetans embarked on a far more adventurous course. Their many images (e.g., mandalas) werent meant as depictions of what finally exists in higher realms. Those realms were just as provisional and changeable as the physical world. You might call the multiple locales and dimensions representations of what humans in certain Asian cultures would expect to encounter in their journeys of spirit. In other words, the Tibetans consciously treated their pantheons of gods and semi-gods as convincing illusions. Several of their key exercises and techniques were all about having students mentally create these illusions in voluminous and meticulous detail. That was difficult enough, to be sure. Far more difficult was the next aspect of their practice: get rid of these creations. Put them there; destroy them. The Tibetans were committed to living life on the level of imagination, with all that implied. And what does it imply? A new psychology. A psychology of unlimited possibility: A persons past, his history, his problems, his relationships are all framed against the wider context of what he can imagine and then invent, create, in the world. Living through and by imagination long enough, the individual discovers that his prior relationships are transformed. They no longer set themselves up as questions or problems. He is operating from a platform that affords an utterly different, original, and unexpected outcome. A psychology of possibility not only looks forward to the future, it has a reason to do so. Bringing electricity back into life depends, initially, on viewing possibilities in the space of ones own imagination. It may strike you at this point that our current civilization is bent on lowering possibilities; and that is true. That is the psychology of the psyop. There is a good reason for this programming, as well as the staging of events that seem to give the programming validity. Those who aim to control the destiny of humankind want to shrink the size of humans. That is their intent. A psychology of possibility would reverse that trend and expose it. To the casual observer, the weight of this civilization and all its accoutrement seems enormous. But the creative potential of the individual outstrips that structure by light years. How does the individual realize that fact? What is the spark that ignites his understanding? It all begins in imagination, which is the home of possibility. Against this background, the computer is a drop in the ocean. (To read about Jons mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here.) Image Credit The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here. Pingback: Why do people think computers will be alive? | Sandora RSS Feed Aggregator Portal() Can robots enjoy a delicious meal or a warm breeze? Can robots imagine and therefore create? Did you get paid for this nonsense? 