On this week's podcast Rolando and I were discussing the changes Netflix is making as a company and when that morphed into talking about globalization and the positive/negative affects of technology, I kind of went off the deep end. This blog is to clarify my ramblings, and expand on a fun concept that my brain kicks around from time to time.
The gist of what I said:
“I think we are at the point in our
society when there is the possibility that we could develop a way to
connect our minds through the internet, or something like it. Not
just you sign in to facebook and look at what I'm doing, but your
mind is plugged into the internet, and my mind is plugged in and we
literally are one. We know everything there is to know about each
other. When/If that happens I think that is what religions are
striving for. To become one with all humanity.”
I didn't come up with this idea in a
vacuum (In fact, no idea comes from a vacuum, but that's a different
blog post). This is based on Ray Kurzweil's thoughts on the future of
technology and what he calls the singularity. The point when a
man-made machine becomes better than the human who created it,
mankind ceases to exist. He was on the cover of TIME a few months
back and there is a great story there.
Technology is on an exponential growth
curve. Each year it grows faster and faster because it is being
created with the previous years' new technology. Think of it this
way: Windows 8 OS isn't made on a computer running Windows XP, it's
made on a computer with Windows 7. Windows 9 will be made using
Windows 8. That's incredibly simplified, and not even entirely
correct, but it's a good example for what I'm trying to say.
Technology develops on an exponential curve because it uses the
newest possible technology to create the next greatest thing.
Our Smartphones today are thousands of
times more powerful than the first computer, and they fit in the palm
of our hand. As technology keeps progressing exponentially, why would
it be crazy to think that they could put our smartphones into our
brains?
For me, that's where things get interesting. The line between who you are as an individual begins to fade away. All of a sudden you can literally sign on, see, feel and interact with the internet using your own mind. The same way you can, right now, imagine and visualize signing onto your computer and reading a blog; in a few years you'll be able to actually do that. All in your own mind.
Using that technology, we create the
next tech. Which would be to completely remove any chip in our heads
at all. We could, theoretically, copy all the information on our
brains, everything that we are, and put it inside a computer.
Here comes the spirituality. Once you
do this, and I do this, and a guy in India does this, and a girl in
Russia... then we are connected. Not in a flimsy way that Facebook
tries to tell you are connected to all 500 of your friends. It would
be as if their minds were my mind. As if there was one collective mind
of all our combined knowledge, emotions and thoughts.
To me, that is Nirvana. That is heaven.
That is what it means to become one and achieve enlightenment.
This idea- or goal if you must think of
it that way- is talked about more often in Eastern religions than
Western ones. But just because we don't talk about it doesn't mean
it's not there.
Old Testament: Lev 19:18- Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
New Testament: Mark 12:31- And the second is namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
It doesn't say love your neighbor a
lot. Or love your neighbor like you love your children, or your wife,
or your best friend. It says love your neighbor as you love yourself.
Ask yourself who is the person you love
the most.
My guess is it's the person that you
know the best. That you've spent a lot of time with, because the more
you know a person the more love you have for them.
Now to bring it all back. Imagine this
world I'm talking about when minds can be shared. Not pieces of a
mind, or the flashy outsides that we display publicly. Everything a
person is. You would know them exactly as much as you know yourself.
If that happens, how could there be
anything but an overwhelming amount of love for one another?
That's a good intro. I'll expand
another day.
Thanks for reading.
One love.