◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄◄Fragments

We aren't bacteria. Narratives concerning the rise of artificial intelligence often compare the resulting systems with today's humans. "To the advanced potential of these self improving AIs," they say, "humans would be viewed the same way we view bacteria."* No! This is completely missing the point. Today, we can see the direct connection between bacteria and mankind. We can envision the genetic line that stretches back through time's rank depths. We can relate, however tenuously, with both our ancestors and fellow species. We know what it is to see, taste, touch. To move. We exist, defined by these conditions. We can say, "I am alive, like that cat, and that bat, and even in a way with the bee and the tree." Of course, of course, there must be exclusion. "That rock," you say, "That rock is not alive!" And it isn't.

It's Called a Phase Transition

You know, water to ice. "Plain old matter" to Life. We see our connection to ancient ancestors and the relationships between all living things. We don't see the same connection to the rock. The phase change is from one state to another with very different properties. So we say that grubs and shrubs are life, that mold and fungus grow. Rocks, and air, and copper, and hydrogen and everything else is acted upon.

We are not bacteria to these gods, we are not relatives even in that minor sense. We are the ground, less, a brief substrate.


*this is of course referring to ancient bacteria, or bacteria-like creatures, single celled organisms in general. The idea being that we regard these bacteria as both distant ancestors and modern examples of simple anachronisms, far less powerful than ourselves. Cells are, of course, enormously complex. Human technological manipulation of chemicals may be impressive, but biological systems currently far surpass us.

Think about current events as if you were a future historian. Historians are observers of a special sort, removed in time from their observation. They do not take part in what occurs and have dissimilar cultural references. Values are assigned through pattern recognition(of course what else would you use).

Structural ruins describe the arc of civilization. As historians we look back on ruins and assign names, references, and actions in order to reconstruct them as virtual objects.

When our recent history is reconstructed, what might it look like?

If someone could wander through a reconstructed version of our present, what would they see?

We wander. Our hand reaches for a paper cup filled with coffee. Tired. Sepia people, nicotine stories, wrinkled suits for important days and those jeans, that sweatshirt, for everything else. Despair*, with its gaudy airs, is banal in practice. There is no romance in despair, no baroque liasons of substance or meaning. The theater's despair is an invocation to, if not enjoyment, at least a tenuous satisfaction for something. Despair presented as spectacle does not (is not intended to) induce despair but instead vicariously satiates a hunger for an extreme.

The experience of despair is a stranger. All choices become equally undesireable, all actions become meaningless. A person in despair no longer moves of their own accord, but is instead moved by the world. It is not necessary to be conscious to navigate our society: Think about what we call small talk. People pass premade phrases back and forth without thought or evaluation. The exchanges are not shallow from a functional standpoint! The intonation and body language are as intricate as any interaction, but what we think of as consciousness(point of view, discrete process, narrator, sequentialness) can be completely disengaged. Complex human behavior is not dependent on ego. Our world of countries, cultures, art, and technology could exist without a single conscious mind.


*this may need a different word