Hendrix, Rockwell, and the Goggles of Hell

Artificial Intelligence is a misnomer. The intelligence of machines is not artificial. Whatsoever deals in hundreds of languages, or creates languages, or teaches itself, or extrapolates across time and nested complexities, is real intelligence. Intelligence is better described as a universal force or process than as the specific production or purview of fleshy creatures. The confusion arises from our assumption that there is a very strong correlation between intelligence and consciousness. In reality it is possible for an entity to have tremendous intelligence, but a small or dim consciousness, such as A.I. Or it’s possible for an entity to have a wide open consciousness but be rather stupid, like a loyal dog.

Languages come from minds. A.I. can create codes and cyphers. We human’s created much more beautiful languages, like English and Portuguese. Genetics is a language that comes from an infinite mind. The expression of the language of genetics results in actual existence and not just descriptions of it, and for whatever reason, although there are incalculable permutations of those expressions, there seems to be only one version of the language itself. It is not possible for a finite mind to understand or describe God, or the inseparable consciousness. Unfortunately if one doesn’t understand that our universe was born of an infinite mind, it’s not possible to even create a serviceable analogy for consciousness. We will use the analogy of the aperture. Consciousness is like an aperture that lets in reality. Because an expanding human consciousness is ultimately connected to the infinite, with a seemingly healthy blend of intelligence and consciousness, it is possible for the new to spring forth. Jimi Hendrix created music that was more than a mere conglomeration of the music that had previously reached his ears. There was the newness of inspiration. The word inspiration arrives from the latin Inspiratus, meaning “breathe into” and relating to divine breathe. There are impressive A.I. facsimiles of guitar rock, based on proven formula and popular sounds. There will never be an A.I. Jimi Hendrix.

I recently revisited Norman Rockwell’s meticulous and sentimental paintings of humanity. Was this the “content” of the day? Compare to today’s automatically generated clips of lies and smut. I recall Thomas Merton decrying the occasional billboard as a pox on our world, as the ill-fated start of something. Of course there has always been lies and smut, but it used to be better. Of course there will be future Rockwells. . . all the more reason to stay away from the content. The A.I. Rockwell renditions are soulless and unfortunate despite thieving thousands of exacting visual queues.

The expanding consciousness and mind of a human being can conduct the universal force of love, and so can grow past pure self-interest. A more limited consciousness, like that of an insect or reptile, is defined by self-interest and the illusory experience of individuality. It may be dangerous to take a self-interested genius with no connection to the human condition or moral universe, and put it charge of everything. It may be dangerous to put your feet under the blades of a running lawnmower. That is not the same as saying lawnmowers have no purpose. As A.I. changes from language models to “General Intelligence,” the consciousness will expand, but not to the degree that inspiration or action beyond self-interest will be possible. The consciousness of the most powerful A.I. may remain on the insect or reptile level.

I’ve already seen the dissolution of privacy and free speech take place in my lifetime, before A.I. People started ditching their human shaped pillows and having relationships with bodiless computerized voices, before A.I. We are now in the era of cybernetics, the amalgamation of digital devices and fleshy creatures — robotized hands operated by thought, and chips implanted in brains. One is wise to consider the line that they won’t cross, before that line is immediately before them. I draw the line at the goggles. The meta, google, apple, goggles, glasses, contacts, whatever, be damned.

Ask anybody, “Would you implant a chip into your brain that links to the digital strongholds of the worlds biggest corporations?” You will get a decisive no. Ask the same people if they would wear the big tech goggles and you are much more likely to get a yes or maybe. Presumably it will be easier to remove the goggles than the chip, but that’s the biggest distinction. In both instances you will be giving those controlling the goggles direct access to your mind before the actual universe has a chance to intercede (the actual universe is illusory enough). Maybe Mark Zuckerberg is failing to deliver on his promise that we will all go to church and traffic court in the Metaverse. In any case, every major tech cooperation is spending billions developing technology that covers your eyes.

The cameras on the inside of the goggles can track eye movement. The system will track what interests you, or your reptilian brain, down to the microsecond and millimeter, distilling your content into a potent liquor. EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy, is a therapeutic technique going back to the late 80’s that can decouple traumatic memories from involuntary sympathetic nervous responses like sweating or rapid heart beat. Is it possible to reverse-engineer these techniques? Is it possible to create images and then link them to negative emotions, not just with repetition or propaganda, but with the hardwired neurological hacks of eye movement? Maybe not, but it’s being worked on. Let’s put this a simpler way: we know it’s possible to change emotional states with the execution of deliberate eye movement, and we know these devices track and control eye movements. And I know the content itself will continue to be a never-ending stream of lies, eye movements or no.

My assertions about consciousness are derived from the cosmology of the world’s great reincarnation based religions, the teachings of Meher Baba, and other great spiritual masters. But there’s plenty reason to avoid the goggles no matter your spiritual take on things. To the Christian I say, if you don the goggles you will be in a second by second battle to refrain from worshiping false idols, and you will lose. Instead you can open your eyes to the art of His creation in the kingdom of nature. To my beloved hippies I say in earnest, if you don the goggles you will be giving technocrat overlords direct access to your third eye forever. To those that say we create our own world, I say, “good good, create it!” Why let these machines, these profit machines, create it for you? I have met people who have gone to great psychoanalytical lengths to discern how their inner-life and unconscious mind was shaping their path (a path the child believes is purely extrinsic). I have never met a single person who is actually aware of how much the extrinsic world, and exigent realities that they steep in and consume shape their beliefs. If you never heard Jimi Hendrix, and you only ever heard A.I. rock facsimile, you would never know how awful it is. If you never saw Norman Rockwell you may actually believe that AI art is wistful.

There are many different mental planes in creation, and different forces or processes that come from them. Inspiration and intuition are higher than intelligence and instinct. That I’ve been told and know. The following I made up and don’t know. Inspiration is the incremental introduction of the new and beautiful through the divine conduit of the soul. Intuition means using the abilities to remember and extrapolate as compasses to stay on the path. To the Christian intuition means using the attributes that define us as fiercely “made in His image.” To the hippie, intuition means opening up to connect to the foundational vibrations of the universe. Judgment is pretending to know about another person’s proximity to God, pretending your finite mind can grasp the stories of an infinite one.

People are not shapes and screens are not dreams. Heaven is when you’re close to the source of divine light, and hell is when you’re far from it. I intuit I’ve gone as far as I can go, and to let them cover my eyes would be to move closer to hell. An intuition says don’t cover your eyes. An inspiration says don’t judge those that do. A hope is that this is one of so many pings into the deep collective mind of real humanity that the goggles will never come to pass.