The Interface

 

Jeff Hawkins and Max Tegmark, two prominent authors in the field of artificial intelligence, examine the possibilities of Artificial Intelligence in their respective books.  Both of them suggest that the extant brain be somehow be uploaded to a digital artificial intelligence device.  Then the resultant intelligence would be immortal for as long as the device was maintained and workable.  It is their conception of immortality.

This scenario has so many holes in it, it could be used to strain the spaghetti from the boiling water.  While I don't argue the possibility of artificial intelligence becoming an integral part of our daily life, much the same as network devices that we hold in our hand are now, the idea that a manufactured device would replace the human psyche is a bit far-fetched.  There are emotions and dreams that are closely linked to a spiritual world.  A world that both of these fine thinkers don't recognize as even existing.

This is where I think they are wrong. 

There is, however, a middle-ground that very possibly could come to be.  A bio-digital interface between our brain and the assembled store of knowledge that exists on the computers of the world.  An interface that would enable those in whom it is installed to access that store and do all that we are now able to do using our thoughts instead of our voices, hearing, and fingers.  And possibly able to do much more.

Data and information could be added to "the store" as it evolves in the thoughts of the users.  "The store" would be updated by new information as it becomes available.  It is the Wikipedia concept using interfaced human brains as an input device. 

Tegmark, with his bottomless imagination, could write another book using this concept.  My imagination is somewhat limited by my lack of patience, but I can readily see the possibilities of such a scenario.

It also follows that the combined efforts of the sources of digital innovation are already hard at work to build such an interface.  We do it now with our voices and fingertips, we get the output into our minds using our eyes and ears.  Bypassing these would be a great leap forward.

The generation of people that are now pre-teen are imbued with screens and speakers, with phones and computers, with all the data and programs for its use, stored in "the cloud."  The generation following them may have a bio-digital interface implant that will exponentially increase their mental capacities.

Then there may be a great divide, those with the implant and those without.  A divide greater than any cultural, racial or religious divide that we now have.

The bio-digital interface is the next major step in our evolution.  History and our current mental capacity are reaching the point where there is just too much for an individual to have "in mind" so access to it all through a bio-digital interface is the answer.  With it, I could sit here and have philosophy, music, art, literature, history, any and all of the sciences, languages, and my family history come to mind with a proper query.  I could add to "the store" whenever I thought it was proper to do so.

It's big!

Now the thought occurs that we may already be equipped with such an interface.  Not with a digital network but a mental network of biological brains linked to a spiritual world.  The only difficulty is, we don't know how to access it or use it.

Sometimes, we accidentally do and one of those serendipitous events occurs but for the most part we don't understand, or know, how to intentionally do it.  It may be that we stumbled upon it with something we call prayer.

I know there is a spiritual world that influences us in a variety of ways an on a variety of levels.  How to interface and interact with that world is not something I know.