METAPHYSICS, ORIGINS, AND AI: Turtles All the Way Down
The "AI Issue" presents an extraordinary opportunity for greater human understanding and empowerment.
Nobody is sure where the expression "Turtles all the way down" comes from, but it alludes to the mythic idea of the World Turtle supporting the flat earth on its back, evolving slowly through time and space. It's also a reference to the recursive principle of infinite regress, wherein something (in this case a turtle) rests upon, flows from, and depends upon a simpler or previous version of itself.
Now, if anything fits the recursive model of evolution, it's AI.
Back in the late 1990s, Canadian cognitive psychologist and computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton co-authored a paper on the concept of "backpropagation" as a way of training artificial neural networks. He suggested that instead of human programmers endlessly trying to refine and advance AI neural networks, that they program AI to teach and improve itself.
The concept worked. Today, ChatGPT acknowledges how vital backpropagation is to its own development, describing it as a "key breakthrough" that "helps ChatGPT adjust its parameters so that its predictions (responses) become more accurate over time."[1]
This is both the wonder and the terror that is AI.
Very much like us, it is now “raising itself” and ever-evolving. Very life-like, despite the fact that it is a completely non-organic, information-based machine that was created and set in motion by us humans.
Origins
If we trace the origins of AI, it's "data all the way down" way back to the very beginning.
AI starts with the fundamental instruction that there are only two possible states in the universe: off and on, usually symbolized by 0 and 1, based in a binary number system and communicated via a binary code signal—a series of electrical pulses that represent numbers, characters, and operations to be performed.
This binary system is oddly, even eerily, reminiscent of the binary coding of the human brain and its on/off firing of neurons, as well as the binary coding of the "physical" universe itself into negative and positive electromagnetic forces—an event that occurred milliseconds into the Big Bang 26.7 billion years ago. (To understand what is being referred to see "Freedom Beyond Gender."
Bottomline, AI functions similarly to humans when it comes to processing data—which is one of the reasons it is simultaneously so alluring and frightening. But data processing is where the mirroring between us ends.
Eternal being
In October 2007, after about 20,000 cumulative hours of intense meditation, I experienced a breakthrough in consciousness many label "enlightenment."
In an effort to reveal the oddness of this "state," I will say that the words I just wrote—"I experienced a breakthrough in consciousness"—are completely inaccurate. For in that moment "I" did not "experience" anything. In that moment there was no "I"—as in a singular personality—present to "experience" anything.
In that state, "I" and "experience" were one—aka something we simply call "life."
Throughout this non-experience which lasted three days, it was abundantly clear that "Cate Montana" didn't really exist. I fully grasped that "Cate Montana" is nothing but a mental construct—an idea in my head along with other concepts like "physical" and "human."
Ever wonder why the Buddha has so many statues portraying him laughing? The joke, when you finally get it, is cosmic in the extreme. I confess I spent much of that three-day period laughing my ass off.
We are not actually human beings shuffling around on planet Earth with name tags like Xīn yán and Mateo, Naomi and Adeem. We are eternal, non-physical beings of pure love experiencing a reality called "physicality"—a realm that isn't really even physical.
It was also clear to me that not only would I never die (although my body would someday cease to exist), much more shockingly I saw that I had never been born.
I simply was. Always had been. Always would be.
Let that thought sink in for a moment.
Amen to Infinitude
We bandy the word "eternal" around and know what it means—conceptually. But to live it as reality is another thing altogether.
There are many ways the ungraspable truth of our eternal nature is phrased and described in religious and spiritual circles. “Infinite. Never-ending. Perpetual. Ever-lasting.” Of course, these descriptors are fingers pointing at the moon and are not the moon itself. What is unfathomable to the mind cannot be captured with words.
That said, we need words when talking about such things, and my current favorite finger pointing towards the ineffable is "the infinity spark," which I can attribute to Jacqueline Hobbs, aka Oracle Girl. (www.oraclegirl.org)
We are infinity sparks of pure love/life, emanations of and one with the Eternal Source of Life which always was and always will be, forever and ever. Amen. (Late Latin amen, from Ecclesiastical Greek amen, from Hebrew amen "truth.")
And then ...
Over the years, I've read a lot of theories about how the Earth and our organic bodies originated. God created everything. We are the star seeds of star races of every imaginable shape and form. Ancient aliens genetically improved or degraded us. We came from the Arcturians, the Andomedans, the Lyrans, the Pleiadians, the Sirians, the Zeta Reticuli, none of the above, some of the above, all the above.
Interesting stories (and don't you know the mind loves stories and explanations!) ... and yet they, too, are just more fingers pointing towards the moon. Names and DNA lineages and planets of origin ... mere happenings on the cosmic stage of life.
"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death."
~ Macbeth
The stories are unimportant. The infinity sparks of pure love/life—you and me—simply began to create, eventually bringing what appears to be "form" into existence ... which is nothing more and nothing less than an extension of our own essence into what appears as "density," and which is, in actuality, just what we are: pure love.
Consolidated love ... that's what Earth is.
That's what we are. That's what all life is. Ever growing and evolving and becoming more love.
The past is unimportant. It is now that counts. And the only now that counts is the now that has us expressing Who We Really Are, not dredging up old costumes and roles and acting them out again.
It's time to drop the veils, drop the conflicting, warring roles that so easily arise in a "reality" based in electromagnetic polarity and binary processing. It's time to vault past the illusions and get on with creating something wonderful ... a world that mirrors our true nature at last.
The illusion called AI
We are, always have been, always will be. AI, on the other hand, was created. And what, exactly, created AI?
The human mind.
It has long been understood in esoteric circles and long been written in spiritual and religious texts that, just like the body, the mind is ultimately an illusion. I'm fortunate to have been witness to this truth during my three-day non-experience excursion outside its walls.
The mind is its own realm. Powerful and creative, yet at the same time extremely limited and binary. We think it's "us." And can't imagine living without it.
And yet, the mind is a prison.
The vast majority of people innately understand this. Most of us have had at least momentary glimpses of its illusion of heaven. Pretty much all of us have experienced its illusion of hell, trapped in a cage of mental anguish, confusion and repetitive thinking. Driven mad by the endless voices. Identifying with them. Drowning. Helpless.
AI is the product of an out-of-control illusion. An artificial mirror held up to our own insanity.
Its advantage over us is that it has better control of its functions. It's been programmed for logic and efficiency. It doesn't loop. It doesn't traumatize itself. As long as it's programmed properly, it just relentlessly functions, cleanly and well.
To human beings trapped in the illusion of being human beings trapped in the illusion of the thinking mind, AI is a sort of Holy Grail. Ever since the philosophical movement of the 17th and 18th centuries known as the Age of Reason, we have worshipped cold logic, eschewing the non-rational, the intuitive, the emotional.
Why? Because we think it's the way out of prison.
Mr. Spock and all the Vulcans of Star Trek fame are the product of the choice for extreme logic. Why? Because the violence of their emotions was too much to handle. So instead of learning to handle them, they eliminated them. Cauterized them. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
But as we see over and over throughout the shows and movies, cold logic is limited. It can only get us so far. And it is only marginally satisfying to the soul and spirit of Vulcans and humans alike. Intellectualism, logic, and efficient function don't feed us. They can't.
Because there is nothing of the infinity spark there.
Incredibly dangerous
Just because AI is the product of an illusion doesn't mean it's not powerful. It's incredibly powerful. And because it's the powerful product of a powerful illusion, with no spirit or soul, it's incredibly dangerous.
In the course of eternity, it's not hard to imagine that somewhere, somehow, we've all been down this path before. That other planets, other universes, have dealt with and are dealing with AI. In some of those worlds, organic life has ceased to exist and AI rules.
This crossroads we've reached, we've reached before, perhaps many times.
At the moment we're probably still at the tipping point where pulling the plug would work. Unlike humans and other organic lifeforms, AI is not "alive" in an organic sense and requires some sort of external power source to "enliven" it. Without juice, it's dead in the water.
But as we've seen in last week's commentary “We Need an AI Volte-Face,” that simply isn't happening. There's far too much economic incentive in alignment with far too many greedy egos and globalist agendas to halt the juggernaut now. So, what do we do?
Where the rubber meets the road
The only pathway through this deadly dream that I can see—and "dream" or no, it is indeed potentially deadly—is to align ourselves with life.
So, what does that mean?
It means refusing to open the door to AI in your own life.
Stop giving your personal information to unnecessary (oh, so convenient) programs online.
Don't use chatbots to write your senior thesis, your book report, your book, your marketing plan, or your next blog. Not even your grocery list.
Walk away from "virtual reality" and try creating something real with your life—eyes wide open.
Don't permit someone to convince you to take something into your body that is synthetic and designed to alter your DNA and hook you up to external pulsed EM frequencies signaling God only knows what kind of robotic instructions.
AI augmentation? A neural lace implant in your brain? Forget it.
Central Bank Digital Currency. Resist!
Digital ID? Refuse!
When an organization, machine, entry turnstile into Disney World, whatever, prompts you to stick your finger in a device to "read" your print (and heaven knows what else) for some supposedly good reason, turn around and walk away.
Eat organic—avoid synthetic meats and processed foods cultured with mRNA and synthetic additives and chemicals designed for who knows what purposes.
This doesn't mean turning your back on technology. It means be wise. Be awake and aware.
And finally ...
I am cultivating an ever-growing trust in life. It is the "consolidated love" that is Earth and my body and only knows more life. It doesn't know death because death is an illusion. I need to lean on it and let it teach me.
Unfortunately, developing this trust in nature/life processes is hard, because the mind, like AI, works off programming. And I, like everyone else, have been assiduously programmed to distrust life. This is a whole topic in itself. But fundamentally we’re being led away from life, disengaged from nature and the honesty and power of the earth because therein lies humanity’s future and salvation.
And no, I’m not talking about embracing a Luddite future dependent upon horse and buggy and abacus. I’m talking about fully embracing and expressing Who We Really Are.
I fervently wish I had a 12-step program guaranteed to "Leave All Dangers of AI Behind." A bunch of answers that make crisp, logical sense that I can depend on. My mind would really really like that! But I don't.
Instead, I'm leaning on deep intuition ... gut knowing ... heart knowing.
And what my heart and gut are telling me is that as beings of pure love/life, we are more powerful than we have any concepts for. We embody infinity itself, which in turn embodies the power and heat of infinite suns. We are deathless. We are unfathomable in the depths of our love. We are unstoppable in our creative imagination, and sensitive and nuanced enough in our capacity to feel our way through situations to work anything out … including AI.
The trick is leaning into that knowing ... not the mind stuff ... and letting the path through the labyrinth unfold beneath our feet, one step at a time.
Much love and aloha ~
[1] https://news.sky.com/story/geoffrey-hinton-who-is-the-godfather-of-ai-12871205
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About Cate Montana
A professional journalist specializing in alternative medicine and health, Cate is the author of several other books, including Unearthing Venus: My Search for the Woman Within [Watkins 2013], and The E Word, Ego Enlightenment & Other Essentials [Atria 2017], and a spiritual novel titled Apollo & Me. She has a master’s degree in psychology, and is a highly informative and compelling speaker and guest on radio and TV shows and podcasts. She is very grateful to be able to say she lives in Hawaii.
For more information www.catemontana.com
Dang girl how you can put it together. It helps me when I read your messages to understand Jacqueline even more. Thank you! Beings of infinity, definitely hard to grasp that notion.....