The next evolution stage

A view of the future fills us with wonder, awe and usually fear. Mutants might emerge soon who are superior to us and like us they'll rule over all inferior species, including non-mutant humans. If that doesn't happen aliens will come to earth and wipe out all civilization. And maybe we might just not have so much patience and kill each other by developing more and more deadly weapons.

Such kinds of imagination are no doubt creative and tend to fit a particular theory of probability and scientific possibility. We might very well try a different perspective by asking a basic question. What is the purpose of life/conciousness?

The purpose of life is to create beings with supreme intelligence who can adapt to any conditions. Right now we are at the stage where science and technology has brought us to the stage with the following characteristics:
1. Machines having processing / computation speeds higher than the human brain
2. The development of artificial intelligence
3. Machines that can assemble other machines

So what would be we have next? "Smarter" machines that can assemble their "clones" and actually "create" even smarter machines with with better adaptability. Where would we stand in the same world vis-a-vis them?

Intuitively, they would not have emotions nor instincts and hence would act "insensitively" wiping us out or using us humans as resources. Ironically, we think that way because thats the exact way our "civilizations" have emerged. Even more ironically, it was always emotions and instincts that made us "animals" and hence less "human". Maybe we cant take it that machines would be more "human" that us humans!!!

Coming back to the point, we must ask why emotions and instincts emerge, why they exist now and are they required later. Instincts emerged to ensure survival of the body that will house the seat of logic and decision making. It is immediate and local in nature and can handle only simple situations with simple responses. Emotions emerged as a stepping stone towards intelligent consciousness. They also introduced variability in the decision making making them seem irrational. This helped in the being taking decisions that assumed a bigger unknown picture for the decision maker bringing him out of the sub-optimal solution trap.

The emotions and instincts may be required for animals (including humans) probably because they are still evolving. It might also be that they are still required. Maybe both reasons hold. But we started with the assumption that the purpose of life is to create beings with supreme intelligence. It seems we are getting stuck here.

But hold on! We are not getting stuck. The machines may be "smarter", but that is true when they have a task at hand. Will they be able to ask questions? Will they be able to figure out unexpected pattern and perform lateral thinking i.e. be creative? Maybe they need to have emotions and instincts to do so. For that they will need to be living like us humans. The machines need us to be supreme!

In fact we also need machines for their capabilities for us to be supreme. So why cant humans and machines merge? Of course they can! In fact they are already merging. Take for example pacemakers, or for that matter artificial limbs, hearing aids, and even chips that record all that our eyes see. We can clone ourselves and are right now mutating our own species!!!

This outcome is fascinating to say the least. We are creating a new branch of science and even defining what things like evolution and species mean. It does put us at conflict with the supernatural things claimed in all religions. Well except for Hinduism. "Vasudhaiva kutumbakam" means the world is one family. Note that it said the "world", and not all "life".

Maybe the next evolution step is the merging of material and logic at will. Probably it is the same supreme being that will dominate its existence across galaxies. Its happening faster than you feel or think or imagine. Be prepared my friend, be prepared!

(Written on 17-Oct-2009)

Stages of Life

We find it easy to imagine stages of life as the following: Childhood, teenage, youth, middle-age and old-age. Of course, this chronological division is easy to do. A more fruitful activity oriented staging of life is provided by Hinduism as the four ashramas: Bhrahmacharya, Grihastha, Vaanprastha, Sanyaasa; effectively translating into virgin studenthood, family life, reclusion and seclusion. Each phase has been given 25 years assuming a 100 year lifetime.

This is where the ambiguity arises. Neither do we have a fixed lifetime nor do we have fixed times/ratio of times to give to each phase. The transition is gradual yet distinct. Usually we end up not living the last phase of the "sanyaasa" time. But how does that matter?

It matters because somewhere we are trying to classify our life's decisions based on some criteria. These decisions have to be based on some priority order. What is this priority order to take life's most crucial decisions?

The four life phases are better understood if we try to understand what is most important for us in each life phase. In the first phase our parents are most important for us. In the next one it is our life-partner. Following that the most important for us is our children. In the last phase, it is the ambiguous bigger thing that is most important.

In short, the following turns out to be the priority order in our life in the contemporary time, allowing for some redefinition of life phases:
1. Brahmacharya aashram: Student life
2. Grihastha aashram: Initial job life, marriage, till the arrival of the first offspring
3. Vaanprastha aashram: Continues till the end of education/student life of the youngest offspring
4. Sanyaasa aashram: Period till the end of one's life during which one concentrates and acts on the bigger value of his life's efforts

To make the utility of the above distinction clearer, lets briefly look at the boundary decisions of each:
1. Brahmacharya: Learning to choose based on benefit to self and benefit to significant others (eg: friends, parents, elders). First priority is parents/elders/teachers. Focus is on education.
2. Grihastha: Choosing based on benefit to self. First priority is life-partner. This transition of first priority should have acceptance of the earlier priority holders i.e. parents. If parents dont agree, eliminate the transition option. The transition point is discrete and unambiguous. After marriage, other life decisions during this phase are taken in mutual understanding with life-partner.
3. Vaanprastha: Choosing based on benefit to self and significant others. First priority is children. This transition happening during the arrival of an offspring should have acceptance of the life-partner. Again the transition point is discrete and unambigious. If life-partner interferes in proper education of the children, eliminate the life-partner as an option. But this should only be the last method as the children need both parents for proper development.
4. Sanyaasa: Choosing based on benefit to others. First priority is the nation and humanity. This transition does not need acceptance of any other person. If the child(ren) act against the nation/humanity, eliminate that particular person. This decision is the result of the priority order that is no longer considering benefit to self.

Nowhere have I tried to understate the importance of emotions and relationships as that was not my intention. Please do not look at the narrow definition of the word "benefit". What I have written above is a generalisation and a set of guiding principles that have to be appropriately applied to the specific situation and context. Judgements aside, the decision still remains yours.

(Written on 17-Oct-2009)

Sanatan is Eternal

A couple of days ago, i finished reading the graphic novel “The Watchmen” by Alan Moore… Today i finished watching the movie… The plot reminded me of another very well known story by Isaac Asimov, “I, Robot”… Asimov’s VIKI, the super-intelligent and super-powerful robot had to be terminated in its initiative of bringing peace to human society… But Alan’s super-intelligent Adrian Veidt “The Ozymandias” and super-powerful Jon “Dr. Manhattan” were allowed the same liberties of taking human lives for lasting peace… Ethics, is a word that then started to have a new meaning for me… Ethics is then a matter of the circumstance, situation, maybe perspective or just a matter of time…

It maybe just a matter of time that the communication revolution brings me to a point where the only information i need is the one i dont have… the information about my identity, knowledge about the importance of my identity to the human society, the harmony of my identity with the existence of humanity… I turn to the wisdom of the ages, the guiding lights of my life, Hinduism, the “Sanatan Dharma” Eternal Religion… Its the oldest religion of the human world and claims its superiority from its logical foundations…

Sanatam Dharma tells me my identity is defined by the nation and culture i live in… It tells me the only thing beyond my control is time and all things that are consequent to it and hence it is the omnipresence of God… And finally it tells me to maintain my character and control my senses so that one day i might just turn time in my favour… all to achieve the end… So i prepare myself for anything, absolutely everything that might come my way… Life is sorted out and there’s a grand plan in my head… I strike at every opportune moment i can find… And one day, luck will be my say…

It is like the wish to fly… I am standing on a glass floor in an aircraft… I already feel like a bird… But i need to fly… I jump on the glass to break it… I keep jumping… I know it will break… I am prepared for the leap… The parachute bag is my plan on my shoulder… The glass beneath my feet breaks… I am literally falling from the sky… But i laugh… I am flying…

The average intelligence of the human society decreases as population increases… On top of it we are doing away with all natural resources we were gifted… What is the end we seek??? Where is the plan??? Are we really preparing ourselves??? Or is it that we are still struggling to find our identity simply because we cant find time from fulfilling our dear infinite unsatiable wants??? The answers are there in front of us, in my daily life, in our Sanatan Dharma… No, I am not afraid that tenets of Hinduism will die… 1 billion is too huge a number… But things get diluted and dulled… From our solution books, i fear losing some important pages… With time people would rediscover logic and the Sanatan Dharma… Or maybe humanity might not get the chance to know its too late… They were not so smart at all… The calamity struck when the humans were “still evolving”….. Still, the Buddha is Smiling…

Jai Hind Jai Shri Krishna!!!

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that, the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

two roads diverged in a wood, and I --

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

(Another poem guiding me – Written by Robert Frost)

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you 
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; 
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, 
But make allowance for their doubting too; 
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, 
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, 
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating, 
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; 
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; 
If you can meet with triumph and disaster 
And treat those two imposters just the same; 
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken 
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, 
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, 
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings 
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, 
And lose, and start again at your beginnings 
And never breath a word about your loss; 
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew 
To serve your turn long after they are gone, 
And so hold on when there is nothing in you 
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, 
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch; 
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; 
If all men count with you, but none too much; 
If you can fill the unforgiving minute 
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run - 
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, 
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son! 

(One of my favourte poems guiding me - Written by Rudyard Kipling)

The middle path

statis is what my life is now

its a state of lull

so many events happen

in each of them i decide 

to do something that 

will break me from inside

i become harder on the outside

i sense a lack of passion in me

and then a sudden surge

of immense passion

telling me to break down

or break out of the crowd

and suddenly the lull comes 

back again to bring me

to peace

emotionless is what i become

in other's eyes

logic being the culprit

as ever

who would believe

that its always been my logic

that preserved purity

of emotions in me

i am scared of you that

you'll hurt them if i show

them to you

and so i scare the wits out 

of you

in self defence

i wonder why you fail to

realise

that sometimes it takes an 

animal with teeth of logic

in me to save the man

of true emotions inside

(23rd Oct 2008)