An interesting article by Bill Davidow ..... are you just a machine?
would be interested in your views
By William Davidow
Author—The Autonomous Revolution—Reclaiming the Future We’ve Sold to Machines
Hominids have inhabited virtual space for over two million years. Using the tool of virtual space, the homo species became the dominant species on earth.
Evolution provided hominids with virtual space to facilitate their survival, ability to create human society, and to improve the quality of their lives. Virtual space provided them with greatly increased access to knowledge and new forms of fascinating entertainment.
Augmented reality was a key component of the experience.
So, let’s examine the virtual space nature created.
If a tree falls in the wilderness and there is no one there to hear it, it does not make a sound.
If no one is in an art gallery, the paintings have no colors.
If a perfume bottle is open and there is no one nearby to smell it, it has no scent.
Sounds, colors, smells, tastes, and hotness are only there if they are being observed. They do not exist in the physical world. They are creations of our senses and brains.
Our senses sense the wavelength of light reflected by the object we are observing, not its color. Those wavelengths impinge on the cone cells in our retina that are sensitive to different wavelengths of light.
If one is observing a lemon, adjacent red and green cones are activated. Our brain processes those signals coming from adjacent cones and creates the color yellow in our brain.[i]
Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s, 1910 still-life of yellow lemons and a cup is a colorless piece of canvas if no one is observing it.
In the physical world, there is no music, only sound waves. Our brains create the perception of music. Our brains create the pain we feel when we touch a heated surface. That pain is an interpretation of what our senses feel which is rapidly vibrating molecules.
Just think of it, when our senses add colors to a painting or turn a sound wave into music, our brains are augmenting reality. Augmented reality has been with us for two million years, not twenty.
Our virtual space plays a key role in our relationships and enhances our ability to survive.
Verbal communication facilitates relationships, enables us to organize group activity, and enhances our ability to respond to threats. Verbal communication depends on our ability to use our vocal cords to create sound waves and the ability of our senses to convert those vibrations into sounds our brains can interpret as language.
Language made it possible to organize group activities and communicate abstract ideas. Language played a key role in making humans the world’s dominant species.
Language greatly increased our access to knowledge.
Before writing and the internet, it helped people learn from one another, made it possible to gain knowledge of what was happening in distant locations, and share history.
Virtual space also provided new forms of entertainment.
Language made it possible to tell stories. Music and singing all depend on our ability to hear. Colors make art more beautiful and meaningful.
Virtual space is a mental tool, not unlike physical tools such as a hammer, knife, or fire, that put mankind in charge of the world.
So, since birth you have been living in a simulated world—a virtual space. Of course, since we have always lived in virtual space, we thought it was real and never bothered to give it a name like “virtual space.” Today we are so confused about the virtual space we live in that we call it the real world.
Recently, mankind claimed to have invented virtual space.
The espoused goals of its inventers were to make the world a more prosperous and better place, provide us with instant access to the world’s information, and provide us with new forms of fascinating experiences—just like nature’s form of virtual space has been doing for two million years.
The inventors of the new virtual space sincerely believe they have invented something entirely new rather than an information technology enhanced and deeply flawed version of a two-million-year-old invention.
Nature’s tried and true virtual space came up with a system that made hominin survival possible for two million years. It accomplished that remarkable feat by unselfishly providing mankind with tools that served his survival needs.
If the new virtual space, with less noble values, is going to be around for the next two million years, it has a lot to learn from the great job nature has done.
