Can AI ever know these senses?

In addition to the well-known five senses (sight, sound, taste, hearing, feeling), proprioception tells you where your body is in space. Your balance and the tilt of your head are not something you really perceive. Certain neurons sense your movement and detect stretching in muscles and tendons. This helps you keep track of your limbs.

I also know that people will “feel like” a person is in their airspace.

Other physical receptors detect oxygen levels in some of the arteries of your bloodstream.

A strange one is that people with synesthesia see sounds as colors or associate some sights with smells.

Will AI ever be able to create these sort of senses? There’s entirely too little appreciation for the human mind and body. AI has amazed us, but the human brain is capable of so much more than generative AI. I encountered a certain businessman at a friend’s party who, when I said AI is not AGI yet, was was wowed by the technology of ChatGPT and couldn’t believe that it was not yet human-level.

Whether you call it AGI yet, there is so much more to the human being and I don’t see AI robots having these senses.

Saucers

There’s a lot of things going on in the news. UFOs are a diversion.

As for what they are, I suggest some are weather balloons, but the fast ones? Military craft.

But according to Discover Magazine, “1,715 stars within 326 light-years are in the right position to have spotted life on a transiting Earth since early human civilization, with an additional 319 stars entering this special vantage point in the next 5,000 years… Exoplanet statistics suggest that at least 25 per cent of these stars will have rocky exoplanets. So there should be at least 508 rocky planets in this population with a good view of earth. ‘Restricting the selection to the distance radio waves from Earth have traveled- about 100 light-years – leads to an estimated 29 potentially habitable worlds that could have seen Earth transit and also detect radio waves from our planet.'”

Certainly, aliens would be a change in the subject. But pressing issues remain: corruption, homelessness, threats to world order, immorality, energy needs, hunger, disease, pandemics.

Far from the Island Crowd

Every year in July, specifically on the 4th, this island becomes a madhouse. There’s no parking and nearly nude people are walking the blocks. We had to scuttle today as a group in a rented golf cart almost crashed into us. One time, during Covid, we had to run from a car racing toward us, the occupants rolling their windows down and telling us to put on our masks. No one likes that kind of stuff, but the sun and possibly alcohol and pot mix together for an upset stomach.

It’s not that I am against visitors; I just wish people would share the island instead of racing around it. Granted there is some insularity here, but the residents tend to be friendly. Despite the racers, it’s also fairly safe here. Whenever I look at Nextdoor, or other apps, I rarely see crimes here. The police do a thorough and pleasant job, too.

So today I just put my sunglasses on, waved to a neighbor as Jax and I passed by and just did a little people-watching. The young will be young. Don’t call me old.

Climbing

“Creating a new theory is not like destroying an old barn and erecting a skyscraper in its place. It is rather like climbing a mountain, gaining new and wider views, discovering unexpected connections between our starting point and its rich environment. But the point from which we started out still exists and can be seen, although it appears smaller and forms a tiny part of our broad view gained by the mastery of the obstacles on our adventurous way up.”

– Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld

The Omissions

There’s much to be said about what we have not done. Isn’t it that we repent every day and need grace to repent again. Day after day we realize how much we have not done. Aren’t we just hypocrites who must see more clearly our iniquities before we attain heaven?

Guilt is a heavy burden. Only what we do not see can help us with what we do not remember. We need to realize the farthest is East from West. Self is a killer.

The enemy reminds us only of what we have done and only what we were. That is all he has.

Reflection of Heaven in Revelation

Luke 11:20 “But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you.”

It’s already here with us. Of all the books in the New Testament, Revelation is dense and metaphorical. As a kid, I knew Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth. It was on my grandparents’ shelf.

Reinterpreting the scripture is every generation’s, but the idea of the Kingdom of Heaven (and if I will conflate the two, the Kingdom of God) is a steady constant. We are destined for perfection in a perfect place of splendor and love.

Each preacher, pastor, evangelist may interpret–and spin–differently. Their individual ideas can provoke thought of differing types and degrees. We must keep our eyes on the prize.

This is not to say that every relater of the Revelation should be listened to. We must test the spirits.

But we should not fear. That is my struggle.

The pleasant streets we will walk on.
The pains of ours are gone.
The light will shine on and in.
The farthest from us is sin.
Here and there as one,
We are walking in the Son.

Family in the West

Why on Earth is the family reviled by those on the Left? Most of us did have a mother or father or both. And isn’t having both parents the ideal?

It’s a peculiar self-hatred. I am not consciously repeating what any pundit has said, just natural questions. I would like to have a present father. I adore my mother. So divorcing the self from nature seems to be un-human.

Working…

Substrate

Digital imagination. An oxymoronic relationship.
Our foundational 1s and 0s are substrate for analog.
I’ve found this an intriguing fact.
Digital machines can only give pseudo-random numbers.
The digital is machine, the analog is human.
We rely on the machine to support our imagination.

Working…

Human future, machine’s backward march

I’ve been wondering how transexual can lead to transhuman. It would seem that a person must lose connection with his sense of self. There is some evidence that the first happens as a social contagion, but transhuman is the complete dissociation from self.

With this, does the scripture “they know not what they do” apply to dissociation?

As the self dissolves further into mechanism, the human dissolves. At what point does life become extinguished? When does soul disappear and sin not imparted? Does the human still live?

Transhumanism is not a hopeful sign of man’s progress, despite its adherents and champions. The questions and unknowable answers are greater than genuine progress.

More infectious enthusiasm from Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Tyson says we are part of this universe, we are one with it, but that more important than either of those two statements is his belief that the universe is in us.

I won’t say this is New Age, but it is interesting that a lauded scientist makes an almost spiritual statement about a material universe. He does say that though he doesn’t like labels, he would be most close to an agnostic.

In his two short books “Letters from an Astrophysicist” and “Astrophysics for People in a Hurry” he contends that we have a duty to our fellow man. As good as that sounds, I don’t know from where he draws that idea. But it sounds religious to me.

Tyson is a darling of secularists and in some ways, rightly so. He’s bright, seems personable, and brings a lightheartedness to a dense topic. I’d love to have a couple of beers with him and learn.

Captain Fantastic

What to make of the millennial want of the Winnebago lifestyle.

I see the sprinters here on the island sometimes. They’re parked along Ocean Drive. I will say that there are fewer messes when compared to the fast food wrapper-spewing lowriders. (What a mess.) At my prior employer, one of the young guys brought us outside to look at his tricked-out camper van.

It gives an honorable sense of not wanting to waste and decreasing your footprint. It’s actually kind of admirable, I think.

It’s difficult for me to comment on family matters as I don’t have any children. But I think there are a few things to say. One does not grow up as quickly as with kids. A friend often lectures me on “growing up.” There could be some anger toward him, but maybe he’s right? I do like the single life, but how would I change?

But with all due respect, I am not immature, .

I have thought about doing the Reese Witherspoon thing and hike for life. Sun-bleached mind tan (TM).

Does one need any responsibility without children? Am I serving society well? What is the debt to society?

I know, no man an island. Fine. But when you read of proud parents and proud friends, you do have a certain sadness/defiance.

Year upon year, time after time. What to leave the world other than children. So what if your name ends? Shakespeare’s lineage was gone in a generation. Posterity gets ideas and creativity.

So we of lesser insight should try something different.

Physical abundance v information abundance

Remembering the old work by Negroponte, bits versus atoms. In the digital economy we learn, organize, and tell stories that are ephemeral.

Electrons versus photons is a close thing to atoms versus bits. It seems that the abundance economy is not physical, but light you’re looking at right here. A simple handshake can move mountains, e.g. a digital transaction with physical tether.

Every object contains its corresponding bits, like an atom with its ghost.

Concealment

The world of concealment, dark figures, breathing deep. One dimensional creatures slip out into two dimensions briefly, ever so briefly. Into three dimensions. Eternal destiny is three to two to one dimensions, out of sight. They still hide in shade.
Imagination can make the creatures slip into three.
We are no mere mortals, but “gods.”

Every argument is eternal. We don’t think what each means. Words take flight and move mountains.

(working…)

Extant

On my trip to Rome, I encountered ruins that offer escape. Back to the emanations of strength and high culture deteriorating. Marble remembrances, rocks you never thought could die. How did things so majestic become dust?

How did centuries pass so quickly, yet rock rot?

The great Colosseum, its floors and walls dead.

There is no memory of its builders. Those men who designed it are not even in history.

The things we hold great become dust. The positions we value, the accomplishments, beneficent action. Laurels are made of fragile leaves.