We bring the past with us. All our experiences make for the
adjustments we each make as we grow up, whether we ‘learn the lessons’ or not.
And our ancestors (most Psychologists and Psychiatrists and very much all
African Sangomas do aver) haunt our very existence. Ancestral influences hover
around us and take an interest and direct our course, or not. Dismiss them and
they’ll dismiss you. Or worse, they’ll pull the rug from under you. At least,
that’s what much of the acculturation of our psyches will avow. “The sins of
the fathers are visited upon the sons,” they say¹. And we feel victimized by
our past. “Because my daddy did this, thought this, believed this, that’s why I
can’t be more-better.” Indeed, though the past may smudge itself into our
existence, each day is a surmounting of all of history². (Yet it remains
difficult for me, personally, to discount my most recent dismissal of my
ancestral influence right before my direct fall in fortunes. “As if my dead Granny
cares about her namesake, Selleck Way,” I scoffed, and instantly felt sacrilegious.
That same night the email negating my financial prospects for that ‘Way’,
‘proved’ it.)
Artificial Intelligence too will add on to the past³. Intentionally,
it will build on synapses and experience and alter to suit its needs,
especially once it gains degrees of consciousness. (‘Degrees’ is an important
word here, since which of us is not enlightened by degrees? Which of us does
not gain knowledge by degrees? Which does not evolve by degrees?) Evolution
itself is an-advancement by degrees. At issue is the relevance of
‘more-better’. After all, the dinosaurs are purported to have lived for millions
of years, living in a paradise of eating, self-protecting, hunting, and mating,
until that meteorite decimated their existence and eventually gave way to the
rise of man. And we too have evolved. Are evolving². Yet, we aver, the ‘sins of
the fathers’ perpetuate down the line. We drag the genetic (and psychic) past
with us.
Carol writes: “At the lower end of my spine the 4th and 5th
vertebra has no cushions... the rest all have thin cushions between the
vertebrae. And then he (Dr.) said there are growths/lumps on my spine.” Andy
writes: “Yes, we all suffer from sciatica, just at various levels and so we
grit our teeth and move on!” Peter writes: “...seems we all have our turn
... So, really do empathize with you and Richard and Andy... non-stop pain no
matter what you do... I've just worked through it...gritting teeth. No sleep.”
Eight years of age separates my sister, my two brothers, and me; we carry our
father’s genes. (We carry our mother’s ills too, despite the Biblical Phrase.)
Yet although mother was the one most afflicted by spinal-stenosis, Carol came
not through her, yet from my father. Genetically we each bear the traits of our
forefathers and mothers. Psychologists have it that, plaguing our psyches, we
even carry the Family Constellations. (Dogs still will turn three or four times
around on bare carpets afore a-bedding to sleep.)
Ken Wilber, Wayne Dyer, Deeprak Chopra, it is clear,
challenge us to become ‘conscious’. We are asked to let go, to flow, to grow.
Artificial Intelligence will learn from its mistakes, adapt to challenges, and
accrete exponentially³. Our consciousness, downloaded, uploaded, diversified,
adopted, and extrapolated, will rise out of our subconscious in ways we cannot
yet quite imagine. Cave men would have laughed at a time-traveler explaining
television, or holograms². But we are no longer stone-age people, and we see
the writing on the wall to herald the future, possibility, potential, and most
of all, the existential reality of technological advancement. It is the melding
of consciousness and electrical mechanization, in a Kurzweilian world, that
individuals cannot readily admit to encouraging. We fear losing our past, and
with it, our identity¹. “Release the ego,” the Guru’s always aver. But as
Tevye, of ‘Fiddler’ fame says: “If I bend too far, I will break.” At issue is
to accept, integrate, assimilate, absorb, and include. After every safety check
possible, the question remains, “To integrate, or....?”
1. Religion:
"Keeping steadfast
love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will
by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the
children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
"And God spoke all
these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought
you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no
other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any
likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath,
or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or
serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous
God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the
fourth generation of those who hate me, ..."
"The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and
transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity
of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation."
"Our fathers sinned,
and are no more; and we bear their iniquities. Slaves rule over us; there is
none to deliver us from their hand."
3. Artificial Intelligence: http://jimpintoblog.blogspot.ca/2015/10/ai-boom-or-doom.html
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