Several Computers Talking

I often wonder if there was something around to worry about the implications of grey apes finding consciousness the same way we’re now worrying about computers finding it. Consciousness, after all, is a loaded term. For instance, in some circles it might mean the ability to recognize patterns and causality from the raw data sets of existence (i.e. labeling a spike in regional violence as a War, and then later circling back to conclude that perhaps we ought not to have shot Franz Ferdinand), in others it might mean the impulse to externalize a physical experience or emotion to memorialize your own life or strengthen your relationship with a community (i.e. making art or telling a story at a party), and in still other circles, it might mean an ecstatic experience of awareness of the interconnectedness of all living things. And however the definition shakes out for each of us, I find myself returning regularly to the following thought experiment:

Or, to get more personal about it, what if I am an atom-sized component of something that is a developmental stage of something else? None of that is particularly profound I know, but it’s a helpful exercise for me each week or two both to help reframe whatever I happen to be afraid of at that moment, and to give myself some time to jog through the wilderness that bunches up around the edges of my neighborhood-y workweek brain. Because for me, my core fear is Change, and I will come up with basically any reason I can think of to not move on from anything. And as an aside, I ask myself all of that in full awareness of the fact that grey apes finding consciousness has ended up being a bit of a mixed bag.

My latest trip through the above loop came up during a revisit to Four Tet’s Boiler Room live set in London years ago. It protrudes into the skyline of my mind as an example of the sort of beauty that can be created by humanity and machines working in synchronicity with one another. And as a quick note, this isn’t step 1 of 400 in some escalation towards trying to get you to like A.I. or Transhumanism or anything else like that. I don’t even know what Transhumanism means, and I spend zero time thinking about it. Instead, I was struck this morning while re-watching this set by how the progress of time, or culture, or technology continues to make things from the past more beautiful. And perhaps even more meaningful.

For instance: here we have the artist, surrounded by his private symphony of machines and synchronized lights, taking himself and his audience further into a universe which he has created while simultaneously playing facilitator for each audience member or viewer to go further into the one that only exists inside of themselves. A moment frozen in amber of beautiful synthesis between man and machine, between Creator and Creation. Unworried whether they will conflate or destroy one another, and unbothered by the possible implications of our increasingly digital lives. And allowing each us, as we step from this back into the commotion of our day, to make a half-baked joke to ourselves that maybe the real multiverse was the concerts we attended along the way.

Four Tet Boiler Room London