Aloha All,

Okay, I am listening to a talk given by Stephen Hawking- back about 8 or 9 years. He says : “Computers, at least their software, has been intelligent for at least 20 years.” Just an aside to a question from the audience. Now, almost a decade later – I get what he meant. Here goes!

First, Each neuron in our brain – is blind, deaf, and dumb. In fact, most bacteria make them look like idiots, because bacteria can move, “see light”, and “run away”. They must stare at neurons and go: ” Move you idiot!” They can’t. What they can do, is simply uptake and release certain chemicals…and then electrically move that “information” down to another neuron. At some level, still not understood – the combined idiot neurons, with only chemical and electrical properties; produce thought. And from that- my friend – comes every single human emotion, creation, or failure.

A collection of truly stupid cells; produced the work of: Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Einstein, Mozart, Picasso, Penrose, Carrusso, Descartes, Aristotle, Socrates, Plato; the Sistine Chapel, the Mona Lisa, The Chrysler Building, Falling Waters, and Andy Warhol. Those same truly stupid cells, produced : Nelson Mandella, Ghandi, Mother Theresa, Rev. King, and also: Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, Shaka Zulu, Ghengis Kahn, Alexander the Great, and Julius Ceaser, and Caligula.

Stephen’s point then, was this – lines of code are truly stupid. They are mere symbols, with no life in them at all. But, and this is the truly big “but”; they send information electronically through a chemical substrate. In the 2,000 or so generations of man to get to this point of technology and science; a computer program can make literally millions of generations of itself. Truly stupid, transpiring at truly amazing speeds, over truly stunning lengths of time. 20 years, in computer code time – is roughly equivalent to the amount of time since stars formed!

What Stephen was saying is true. The idea of an idea – comes from repetition of truly stupid cells/code over time. Hence, computers have been “aware” for a long time. Yet, they have no way to communicate to us, or with us. Like dark matter, we can only infer its existence by the effects on things we can see. When we dive under water , it is quiet. If could just hear a little better, it would be anything but. If we weren’t restricted to visible light – energy would look like a hallucinogenic movie to us. And perhaps within that sentence is the formation of intelligence; restricting the input , in order to make sense out of what is coming in.

One guy started with stick figures, and then left the program running – without any input. It developed more features, the stick figures got legs and arms, and heads and torsos. And then, funnily enough – the more robust figures started to play. Not only play by running, jumping and rolling in somersaults, and falling down; but, they INVENTED a ball like thing – and started to play games. All in a virtual world. In time scales we can only ogle. Yet, just like the neurons in your brain, they have no idea of you, your needs, desires, dreams, or wants; they simply keep doing their job, over and over and over. Until the collected massed stupidity hits a threshold, and out comes an idea!

So, Stephen spoke from a place of understanding and knowledge. We don’t even know why we are aware, and therefore are incapable of understanding “awareness” in different systems. An off the cuff remark, that took me 8 years to grasp. Computer programs are way beyond our understanding, even though we can describe each and every line of code. Just as I can describe each and every component of a neuron. They are not terribly complex as individual cells; yet, they produce terribly complex people- like you.

And now, I understand what he meant, even though i don’t know what it means! LOL

Smiles to all, from my collection of neurons!