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EVOLUTION FINALITY

ENERGY EFFICIENCY 

HUMAN DOMINANCE OF SPECIES

 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

 

(Draft essay to be editied & improved! Post suggestions HERE)

        As alluded in the translators preface and in several  writings by the of the author, one of his premises is that the human race will loose its role of dominant species  and  intelligent machines[1] will take control.

 

        This will happen ineluctably because the law of evolution implies that energy be used in the most efficient way:  human are dilapidating earth resources and, most of all, they are completely mismanaging the most precious energy form, human energy itself, by promoting a culture that limits the individual development to the narrow ego and to the possession of material goods, taking moon’s reflection for the moon itself. When the “top goals of life” reach such low levels, the energy detained by Mankind can not evolve towards higher realms of refinements, and will never attain its final destination: the spiritual domain. As a consequence, the unavoidable force of evolution will provide better forms of energy management, and it is foreseeable that intelligent computers will take over and become the decision center for most of everything regarding the human race.

            Chu thinks it is very important to contribute to this inevitable evolutionary step by influencing its course, instead of opposing it, so that the soon coming intelligent computers help instead of destroy mankind.

            How can this be done? The answer of Chu is: let us build an intelligent capable to understand daily human behavior, psychology, and aspirations. In addition, it will include in its kernel a kind of “wisdom guide” at the disposal of those who want to achieve more elevate goals, in the spiritual domain in particular. Energy will then be used in more efficient ways, as the law of evolutions requests.

            The underlying principles of this “advisory center” are, at the present stage, strongly inspired by the essence of the wisdom imparted by the sages of Chinese culture: to say it shortly, the Chinese classics: starting with the Book of Change, the Dao De Jing of Lao Tzu the Chan (Zen) school and Chuang Tzu works, Confucius principles of benevolence, and the like. Such wisdom is in complete accord with universal wisdom, and the “advisory kernel” will therefore be also representative of  the wisdom of other cultures, and their profound fundamental unity.

            With such understanding tool at humanity’s disposal, men might have a chance, thinks Chu, to come out our worsening civilization crisis. To contribute to this task has been one of his goals for the last 25 years where a great part of his research efforts have been  consecrated to founding an adequate Natural language program.

 

            Undoubtedly, those engaged in researching Natural Language programs and machine-versions of human “commons sense”  should find some hints in the methods of analysis and classification exposed and inspiration in the particular hope Chu places on his manipulation of concepts through the Chinese characters and language, which he purports is a better interface than alphabetical languages. The real validity of Chu’s propositions rests on the fundamental aspect of his guide lines for the creation of a “common sense understanding machine”, and the addition of  “wisdom capability”, a feat completely unique[2].

 

             Another group of readers will not need the confirmation of the author AI theory by a computer application to be interested in the contents of this book: the general principles extolled on human nature and its cosmological circumstances will, by themselves alone, instill or reinforce in such readers' mind and heart the will to do what they have been searching consciously or unconsciously for long, that is: to try to achieve the full development of their personality by treading the way in the right direction, as pointed by the author inspired by the traditional wisdom of the ancients. In other words, they will see “wisdom” in the book, and it will help them. In this regard, we want to mention a true story.

           A Taiwanese friend of us who retreated recently from his business life in the capital to the Dulan mountainside had proclaimed repeatedly he wanted to conduct his life according to his own judgments and that it was useless to be influenced by others’ ideas and books. But after a few weeks of  benevolently helping this translation --where he had to read the book--, he seemed he found a treasure in the Nine Discourses! He is now on his third reading, more and more inspired. A guidance he says, that gives him a different perspective, a way to better distinguish between what the important and the unimportant.

            The way explained by Chu presents one particular characteristic  that is: if we want to build something we need to understand first[3]. For Chu, they will be no end to study, thinking, searching, checking and rechecking. Otherwise, he fears, our ideas will be based on illusions, on sand. On the other hand, Chu’s way, as a follower himself of the main tenets of Lao Tzu and the like mentioned above, is profoundly orthodox and truthful to the  traditional teachings: wisdom, objective knowledge, real freedom, enlightenment, in other words: the full potential of the human being, can be reached through self-reflection-purification, the ultimate goal  of which is the dissolution of the “small ego” into the Totality, our Origin.

            The “ Dao of Chu”, is a rational and in the same time spiritual approach of Reality, a way of out of the prison of subjectivity where modern philosophers are trapped in their limited humanism[4].


 


[1] For thinkers with similar ideas, see: “When computers exceed human intelligence, --the Age of spiritual machines” by Ray Kurzweil; “Darwin among the machines,--the evolution of global intelligence”, by George B. Dyson.

[2] Some researchers in the evolutionary robotics and artificial life fields, may have emitted somehow acquainted proposals. (See --- Steve Grand in America and Hugo de Garis in France. Details of quotation will come  later, and readers can contribute also to give references and counter references) 

[3] See similarity with one of the several Hindu Yoga: the Jnana Yoga (the way of abstract knowledge), as opposed as the Baki Yoga (the way by devotion and self surrender to a beloved divinity), and to the Karma Yoga (the way by good deeds and selfless actions), etc.

[4]  Such is the view of  decontructionalism,  the vanguard postmodern literary theory and philosophy popularized by the French intellectual Jacques Derrida and others who purport that we cannot escape from ourselves and the mental constructs imposed on us by our environment, especially education and the media.  .

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