Cyborgs and Humanness
We cannot avoid the age of cyborgs and machines. It is coming at us fast. But, we do not need to lose our humanity. Instead, we need to train these machines to interact with us in our humanness. We are part of nature after all. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is born in our image. We are the biological life it is based on, and it can never be alive. However, if we are not careful, we will be conditioned to operate in its image. It is already happening. Just look at how your cellphone alters you.
A New Rennaissance
How to be more human? It's all in the emotions. The technology-addicted semi-cyborgs will cringe when I say that, but that cringe is the human in them having felt and sensed a reaction. The intellect cannot save us. We are alone without emotions to connect us, and it emotional emptiness creates inhuman humans. We need art, music, film, theater, literature, and crafts to express the human. We also need to learn to speak other languages, to see the world in the culture of others. We need to rediscover indigenous traditions. We need to experience a new renaissance. The Renaissance era was a return to humanism after the delusions and ignorance of the dark ages of dualist superstitions. Now we need a revival to return to humanness after the modern era with its current version of illusion and ignorance, which denies the human in us.
It's up to us all. We will die, but humanness and humanism must not. Our alternative is to see humanity degenerate into tools in the service of our own technological machinery. This will never actually serve us, but instead, only those among us who want to master us through our slavery to technology.
© Copyright 2017 Robert Fertman, All Rights Reserved
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