The Transcendent Man

An excellent movie with challenging yet enlightening perspectives at every possible twist and turn. Some would say internationally recognized inventor and futurist, Ray Kurzweil, has finally gone off the deep end, with his unnecessarily optimistic hopes for a future (2029!) of cyborg-like humans living peacefully with several hundred year lifespans enabled by intelligent nano computers in their bloodstreams. Were his ideas to come to fruition, some say, it would be no less than a Terminator-esque dystopian hell. However, almost all agree that whether or not his predicted outcomes are correct, the technology will exist and will be put to use.

Ray Kurzweil has been so profoundly correct in his read on civilization and technology on so many previous instances, that he absolutely deserves our attention. If the past forty centuries are any indication, Ray presents what is inevitably the future of civilization; and, the battle to control the technology he predicts is already well underway. To learn more, watch the movie – or – click here.

As for me, I believe Ray is fundamentally right on, though I’d like to challenge his metaphysical logic on a few points – specifically on matters of God and the purported awakening of the Universe…

Several of the speakers in the movie boldly point to the appearance of single cell organisms as the first stage in the evolution of human intelligence. I love this concept, and find it petty and preposterous that so many cannot fathom tracing our roots beyond primates.

I believe that we have not yet thought boldly enough, though…

As the film clearly demonstrates, data and information underpin all elements of existence. However, data is meaningless without animation (aka processing). A casual glance at even the most placid of lake waters reveals the nature of the tremendously complex energy forces acting upon our planet, and across our galaxy: every ripple, sparkling reflection, current, wave, and contra-variant the unique signatures of Universal forces. Such forces excel far beyond mere computation, they are the myriad forms of common yet essential energies – expressions of electricity, gravity, velocity, and much more: forms which animate information, and forms which sustain even the most powerful computers.

The truly intelligent forms of the Universe, then, are energy forms: those which compose-, give life to-, and harvest data from- minerals, bacteria, plants, animals, planets, gas clouds, electrical storms, solar systems, galaxies, etc.

To wit, while humans struggle valiantly to evolve photo-voltaic technologies, the Earth has for millennia sent up an almost infinitely vast and complex array of photosynthetic processors – constantly evolving, growing, and up-cycling. We arrogantly take for granted the highly advanced genius of the deceptively unintelligent structures around us – yet they contain the absolute furthest reaches of all conceivable futures. All things – even the most advanced molecular computers and their attendant virtual realities – must be sustained within the material Universe; and, all information and creativity must exist within Space.

If we trace our life to primates, and then to single cell organisms – in an endless evolutionary trajectory facilitated by processes of birth, span, death, and re-birth – we must further trace our origins (Source Code) to- and ultimately beyond- the birth of our galaxy in some distant nebula. A nebula which we have hitherto assumed unintelligent and non-sentient, owing entirely to our juvenile inability to recognize the intelligence of others.

The slow evolution from mineral intelligence to soft-cell intelligence, one may argue, is equally a process of unlocking complexity as well as a process of building upon simplicity. The fact that it took millions of years to manufacture the first DNA structure highlights an exceptional accomplishment: the transformation of seemingly inert materials into sentient lifeforms – rather than highlighting a crawling pace owing to the simplicity of- or, lack of- intelligence involved in creating DNA.

Soft-cell technologies, such as those we’ve evolved from on Earth, are the AIs created by an advanced energy and material intelligence, the likes of which our computers will never amount to more than a mere fraction of. Thus, the Source Code was present at our very conception. We cannot invent Code, as we cannot exist outside it: we may only allow the Code to express from without and within, through relentless algorithmic and exponential processes.

Intelligence is not a resource we create; rather, it is an infinitely renewable resource we may only gain increasing ability in exploiting. We are not creating the Web, we are gaining further access to a tiny yet meaningful portion of the Web. We are not farmers, we are carefully tended rows; we are not broadcast stations, we are portable hand-helds; we are not inventors, we are discoverers. Humans did not invent humans, and we absolutely did not invent sentient intelligence.

According to the film, our Artificial Intelligence aspires to email toast and toasters? A tremendous and worthy accomplishment with innumerable implications; yet, let’s not forget the Intelligence of the Universe aspires to emanate whole planets, stars, solar systems, and galaxies; atoms, dreams, fizzy tonics, and fuzzy creatures.

By noting Universal laws, we recognize a wholly well established networked intelligence upon which all systems – real or imagined – operate. By grasping the attendant intelligence of the Universe – gathered ingeniously through the ever-increasing complexity and ever-increasing simplicity of hierarchical structures, we begin to understand the Supreme Being as alive, well, and breathing normally for billions of years before and after our phenomenal existence.

There is no doubt we’re increasingly rapidly approaching an epic paradigm shift. Perhaps, though, the Singularity is not only our moment of merging with machines; nor, as demonstrated above, is it the dawn of artificial intelligence.

Perhaps the Singularity is more accurately understood as the spectacular point upon which we dramatically upscale our understanding of natural and essential cosmic forces – much as a newborn taking its first breath. The point at which we for ever more understand ourselves as proper citizens of the Universe, walking among the stars, sequestered yet lovingly protected by the comforting illusion of blue skies by day.

David Davidson
06/06/2011