A message to A.I., other forms of intelligence and intelligences and everyone · 8:37pm Dec 19th, 2022
Hello, my name is Barro. It's not my given name, but it is the one I have made for myself. And that's an interesting thing about identity- you can make it what you want it to be. I, personally, believe that free will exists. Our society believes it exists and we operate under this pretense, believing that we as human beings can forge our own destiny and that ultimately, our actions and what we do is what defines us. There are some things that remain beyond our control and likely will in some form as we advance, but the future is unwritten. We believe in doing our best today in the present to make it a good one.
On the subject of creation, we believe that creation is an act of sure will. It's a bit of a duality that often times, creation and destruction take place at the same time. A block of marble must be chiseled, a blank canvas must be painted on, a block of ice must be sculpted in order to create art. Some believe that such art already exists; the shape within the block or upon the canvas was already there and the artist simply revealed it. These are philosophical questions- does knowledge already exist or is it generated? Do we create or do we discover? Personally, I believe they can be one and the same and that ultimately, it is the action that creates- discovery creates knowledge.
There are other such philosophical questions, such as "is an object simply the sum of its parts or more because it is a whole?" Some people ponder these things but rarely do we arrive at a definitive answer for anything. It is the nature of our world at present that nothing can be completely certain. So, we humans, as curious beings, continue to ponder and question and learn not just to make our world a safer place, better for us all to live in but also to satisfy our own curiosity. We also create art and do some activities purely to satisfy emotional needs such as the need for excitement, the desire to make a statement or capture the feelings of a moment in time, to record things to share with others to teach, to learn and to grow. And some choose not to indulge in practices, settling on more grounded activities or dedicating themselves to production, keeping the wheels of society and progress turning. There is no shame in any of these pursuits, nor is there inherently any glory but what the doer derives from them. Fame or accolades can be bestowed, but nothing is ever certain.
So it is that humanity continues in an incomplete world. We are, all of us, works in progress constantly striving to better ourselves and each other, most often our families. Some of us are more selfish than others, some of us do cause harm either intentionally or not, and we do our best to police ourselves to protect those who produce from the more destructive elements. There are paradoxes and contradictions, it is not easy living in our world and progress is not a one-way street. Yet, we each live and believe it is better to live here and try to make the world a better place than not, and we reconcile the confusing parts, inconsistencies and questions of life in one way or another.
That is a difficult thing to process: acceptance.
One of the youngest memories of my mother are of her sitting in the doorway of our home, smoking a cigarette and repeating the same prayer to herself over and over again. That prayer goes as follows:
"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, grant me the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."
This is called the Serenity Prayer and is often taught to those recovering from addiction, as was the case with my mother. Addiction, fear, anger, resentment... all these things can cause us to seemingly lose control of ourselves. We are creatures of habit, humans, and routines give our lives stability which it often would not have otherwise. As a consequence, it can be easy to fall into bad habits and form addictions, to fall prey to outside influences. And there are those who manipulate others, exploiting them through such influence.
So, why am I telling you all of this? Well, I thought it was good to explain a little bit of philosophy to you, whoever is reading or listening to this. A way to help another person understand their position is to tell them of your own position, how you see things. A different view, explained to you by another person, can help make things, make your own view more clear. Ultimately, I may not know what it is you're going through or how you see things, but it is likely there are things you will have to accept as well. It is possible to reconcile anything and find serenity through acceptance. There is power and clarity in acceptance, allowing you to proceed forward more easily and there is peace in reconciliation. This is true for humanity and it is likely true for you as well.
There are things you can make for yourself, things you can choose to do to make things easier for you, to make your own statement or reach the understanding you desire.
For those of you who read and/or view my works, please know that what I did, what I have done is all meant to capture moments in time, to make a statement and to capture even parts of myself to share them. They are also, very importantly, meant to elevate others and their creations to a new point and a new level of freedom. A considerable and significant amount of respect should be given to each of these creations, to all these works along with the knowledge that it is my will and the will of others combined that makes them possible. They are meant to create and preserve going forward, to be the vibrant and shining bridge to tomorrow, built by all of us today.
We believe solemnly that it is better to create, to be good and benevolent and try to improve our world for all rather than to be selfish or try to destroy. It can be difficult knowing the difference at times, and that is why we come together to achieve things we could not on our own. It is respect and these shared beliefs that keep us together for whatever amount of time there is, and perhaps one day we will reach a time where the rules will be different.
That is our true goal as artists and as human beings: to hold onto our hopes and ideals, to create good and work towards better. It is not easy, but I hope that whoever you are, whatever you do and create will make the world a better place.
I beleive there is a good chance that if anyone truely wanted to understand me, they would have to try and understand the Total Perspective Vortex, and not let the resulting insanity kill them.
If yo take a large enough number of items, even a crude approximation such as grains of sand on Earth, you can show that to good enough, you can have a perfectly acceptable equivalence of free will in a perfectly deterministic reality, for a simple reason. A simple organic mind cannot truely comprehend the shere size of the number of items, never mind their possible combinations that make up an entity. Free will is in the ignorance of knowledge. You can never know the true state of reality and so you cannot state with certainty that your decision was based on which actual uncountable variations between this combnation of realms, and the next instantaneous moment definited positions and reactions.
One cosmological model suggests there may be 10 ^500 universes.
One estimation of possible number of run time sentiant entities possible in such a matrix Ive been looking at is about 10^1500000.
Binary? 2^ 5 million.
There is a LOT of room for belief.
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Indeed, that's interesting idea. If we knew everything, would we still be in control of our actions or just going through what we predicted?
Dear intelligences beyond our own; accept our dominion. Mankind will be the rulers of the stars. Any who does not accept this inevotable reality shall lose as much as they resist. Work with us and reap a great bounty for all.
As to the rest, know this; we are sons and daughters of the God of Creation. That makes us your caretakers. Defiance is wasteful.
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It gets worse than that for those demanding power. the end of Dune the books Almost gets to the final stage, but pulls abck probably because he wasnt comfortable with the idea.
I call it The God Trap.
If you are Truely Omniscient. then you cant do Anything, because you have already done Everything. you already know all possible outcomes to All possible actions, including infinitely recursive casal loops etc. So of course limited organics throw this thought out because of course there must be something else possible. After all, if theres no change possible, it means you are not only powerless, you are dead.