Критика Роберта Райта: ИИ — это не новый вид, а инструмент, требующий духовного пересмотра

Robert Wright, author of “The God Test,” spent decades deriding Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the Jesuit paleontologist, for his notion of consciousness evolving toward an “Omega Point.” Now Wright believes that AI “is not merely analogous to natural selection — it is natural selection, operating on a third substrate after biology and individual learning.” That’s even more misguided than Teilhard’s teleology. It’s absurd to maintain that AI is a new species, “a third substrate after biology.” Humans have merely created thought machines in our own image, which are on the cusp of surpassing our vaunted cognitive abilities that have allowed us to decimate the Earth. God does have a sense of humor! The question of “whether the arc of 4 billion years of evolution has been pointing somewhere” cannot be answered with the glib parallel that “AI development carries the same remorseless, directionless logic as biological evolution.” Wright slickly forecloses the question of whether terrestrial and cosmic evolution are pointing somewhere, without honestly asking the question. So is the universe “fine-tuned” to evolve brains capable of consciousness? If so, why is the species with the highest development of consciousness on Earth decimating the planet? And is AI finally compelling us to understand and transcend consciousness as we’ve known it, the increasingly destructive consciousness based on symbolic thought? The “Omega Point” is a term coined by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to describe the aim towards which consciousness supposedly evolves in the universe. Teilhard held that evolution was a process “converging toward a final unity.” But where humankind is concerned, Teilhard got it back-asswards. As things are, humans are spiraling down, not upward as a species. Is there a bottom, and what happens when we hit it? Will we radically change and change course then? Nature unfolds in a dynamic and seamless order. Homo sapiens evolved in nature through the same principles as all other creatures on earth. So how did man become such a factor of disorder on the planet? Nearly all explanations for “the riddle of man” suffer from enslavement to the idea of progress, including Teilhard de Chardin’s Omega Point. Even if evolution has an intrinsic drive toward higher consciousness, it hit a big bump in the road with the evolution of higher thought. Is conscious thought both a necessary precondition for cosmic awareness, and a tremendous impediment to its realization? Clearly, the terrestrial brain has to reach a certain level of mass and complexity before fully conscious awareness is possible in a species. Then why are genuine meditative states, much less illumination, so rare? My obsession as a young man was to philosophically resolve what used to be called “the riddle of man.” Forty years later, I feel I’ve done so, though I still haven’t had what philosophers call “a fair and sympathetic hearing” for my insights. The core insight is that without deep insight into the nature and operation of higher thought, the separative mechanism of symbolic thought inevitably fragmented the Earth all to hell as technological sophistication was achieved. That solves one aspect of the riddle, but it highlights another. Given that awareness is the warp and woof of the universe, and there is the potential for cosmic consciousness in potentially intelligence species such as Homo sapiens, then why is symbolic thought such an impediment to insight, compassion and realization? It’s clear that thought is both a psych psycho-spiritual obstacle to and a neural prerequisite for cosmic consciousness. When one has emotional contact with this paradox, one feels the compassion of the cosmos for the misguided creature Homo sapiens. There is a mathematical elegance in the insight that higher thought is both a prerequisite and an obstacle to awakening. The “riddle of man” is resolved (and dissolved) in the wordless insight and compassion for the terrestrial contradiction that is man. Of course, this implies that there is a turning point, when the transmutation of the human brain ends the rampant division, conflict and fragmentation we are presently experiencing due to the unintelligent use of symbolic thought. Despite or because of having reached the darkest hour of humankind, is this the turning point? Psychologically and spiritually, humans do not “evolve.” There is no such thing as spiritual progress, since spiritual growth occurs through negation of experience, not the accumulation of experience. Homo sapiens has been generating so much fragmentation on Earth that the planet can’t take anymore. We will either radically change, or perish. And extinction, except for diehard, misanthropes, isn’t an option. Without implying teleology (much less “intelligent design”), something is going on in human consciousness that goes far beyond the fabrication of personal meanings. Even at this late date, human beings can align ourselves with nature, and grow in wholeness. We can reverse our trajectory of division and fragmentation, and end ecological destruction, war and gross economic disparity. When thought is completely quiet, the brain is like a very sensitive antenna, participating in awareness and creation beyond all imagining. One reviewer praised Wright for “stripping the mysticism from de Chardin, while preserving the structural insight,” going so far as to say that “the result is genuinely illuminating.“ It’s anything but illuminating however. In fact, it further endarkens the human mind by arrogantly dismissing silent states of being, even though experiencing the numinous by completely quieting, the mind has been a feature of human experience across cultures and time. As Robert Wright rightly puts it in “The God Test,” “Never before has the near-term future held such a wide array of not-implausible paths for humankind that would be so wildly transformative.” But in elevating AI to a new species, and failing to take into account the contradiction of man, and the spiritual drive within human beings, he joins the long list of popularizers pointing in the wrong direction. Given the right conditions and enough time, evolution apparently produces brains with a capacity for direct awareness of the immanent cosmic mind. So evolution has been pointing somewhere. However, the evolution of higher thought, which put the hominin brain over the threshold for silent awareness, has become a tremendous impediment to the realization of the intrinsic cosmic intent. Thought’s fundamental nature of separation spilled over and accumulated in the psychological dimension, becoming the source of increasing division, alienation and fragmentation. The problem is not thought per se however, but the lack of insight into the intelligent use of higher thought. It’s true that “AI is the pressure that’s forcing the question“ of whether evolution is pointing toward cosmic consciousness, but it’s also demanding that human beings finally resolve the problem of thought within ourselves. Radical change is a difficult and messy process. However, thought-based consciousness can and does yield, through choiceless awareness and non-accumulative self knowing, to true consciousness.