Don’t look now, but the very same evolutionary process that, over the eons, advanced the dominant species on Earth from rocks to plants to animals to humans has been at it again. Without our even noticing, it has taken us on beyond human to the next level. Ta-da!!! Our replacement is here.
Oh, I’ve known for a long time now that computers were getting smarter and smarter and learning how to think and learn from their mistakes. I mean, there’s an improvement over humans right off the bat. And I’ve also known that robots exist for doing hazardous or repetitive jobs the humans cannot or won’t do. Things like working in radio-active environments or retrieving scary looking packages from bus stops and blowing them up or scurrying around the floor, bumping into corners and vacuuming the rug. But last night on TV I saw the ultimate. A four foot high, rolling, metal being with arms, grippers, and just enough of a face to be cute, that can take towels out of the dryer, fold, and stack them. Neatly, too. In fact, that’s the point.
Imagine the programming and design work that had to go into that. Honestly now, if brilliant minds at Stanford University and Silicon Valley are working on saving us from the toil and effort and dangers of the laundry room table, what’s left for us to do with our lives, except maybe make a messy trail behind us for some other robot to clean up. We’ve got to keep them occupied after all.
Actually, there’s some very interesting and serious reality behind the humor of the situation. Advanced cognitive studies have shown that non-material consciousness is actually the primal ground of being, the Grand Unification Theory of science, the Omnipotent God of religion. According to this Integral Research, the whole reason behind physical evolution as it has taken place on Earth is to provide “housing”, so to speak, for this primal non-material reality.
On the positive side this means that we each retain within us the irrefutable spark of the Absolute, just as the prophets have said. On the other hand, it means that these flesh and blood containers for consciousness may only be way stations on the road to the ultimate. But is that as bad as our first reaction would make it? We know that there will come a time in the far distant future, at least as measured by our standards, when the Sun will expand and temperatures on Earth will rise far beyond the narrow range needed for human survival. Does that mean conscious awareness simply ceases to exist?
What if our role in the larger scheme of things were to create more durable, less emotional, more efficient, less volatile containers for Universal Mind that could withstand not only the scourges of intergalactic nature but those of immature humankind as well.
It’s not such a bad idea come to think of it… electronic, metallic beings with mental capacities as great or greater than ours that can survive the bomb, AIDS, swine flu, thousand degree temperatures, and Sarah Palin, all at once. In fact, it’s already happening, with titanium knees and hips, electronic pacemakers, artificial limbs that move when you think about moving them, and electronic chips embedded behind our children’s ears so we can track them if abducted. And don’t forget robots to fold our laundry. Sounds good to me.
“What do you think, Dave?”
peace…………………………….ag
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