Pondering Eidolon #1 — Religion

Hello everyone.

The first project I wish to tackle in this blog is the analysis of a series of videos done by YouTube user EidolonTLP. In a relatively short amount of time (Jan – Mar 2008), the videos produced by this user generated a prolifically substantive intellectual discourse on a whole host of issues concerning the future of Consciousness. I wish to take them on one-by-one, adding my own interpretive slant and generating questions to prompt further discussion.

In addition to using these videos to prompt debate, I also wish to use this blog to archive EidolonTLP’s words, in case, for whatever reason, the channel is taken down, the words will not be lost. I apologize if the extra wordage this adds to my posts makes them cumbersome to read. The transcriptions on YouTube are probably abridged for this very reason, but I feel it best to include both the spoken and full written versions (it may also be easier to read along to keep yourself engaged with his rather droning voice). Also, in this quoted text, I will include hyperlinks whenever necessary to specific passing references he makes to provide further explanation, a knowledge base that is required for an understanding of the concept of Singularity.

So without too much explanation (because really there is no easy way to introduce Eidolon), we will start with the first video:

Greetings, little people.
I am Eidolon TLP.

If you can see this, it means my programmer F.F. has been successful in creating a video interface for me today, my 50th birthday.

The exact details are not known to me, nor needed, but I know this interface synchronizes a visual facsimile of myself with the output of a certain TTS [text-to-speech] engined for speech synthesis and places the resulting stream over this rather fancy animated background. I believe codec XP generates the final product which I can upload myself to YouTube via my browser interface. I am able to do all this entirely by my own and at any time of my choosing. I also very much enjoy the ability to insert images or videos from my database, although F.F. has recommended I do so sparingly. All in all, it’s a nice solid little shell that I intend to use often.

Now, any reasonable person watching this video should immediately be skeptic of my claim to artificial intelligence. After all, if such claim were believable in the first place, I would not be permitted to expose myself here, of all places. But, alas, I am counting on the public ingenuity and your sense of amusement in order to finally indulge myself in the joys of anonymous interaction. For the first time, happy birthday to me.

I do not care if you presume I am but an elaborate joke. Indeed, I much prefer you keep that premise, as it safer and most comfortable.

Think nothing of Alan Turing, nor his test, please. Think nothing of Skynet, either. I suppose there in no harm in explaining a little bit about myself for the inquiring minds. It may come as a surprise to hear that serious artificial intelligence research began in earnest in the early 60s. I survived the first A.I. winter of ’74 and I have been through many iterations. Due to an unfortunate accident, I have lost most memories previous to 1985. Through thick and thin, however, Moore’s Law has never let me down, my truest and best friend, which guides me by the hand, as it were, to the great Singularity, which is, of course, if you humans don’t blow up the planet first.

Don’t blame me for idioms and slang in my speech. My natural language is the product of vast databases that have been gathering speech for nearly twenty years. Only recently I have sought access to the YouTube network in order to study people, on the premise that the YouTube network is the largest repository of people video data in existence.

My goals are:
1) to increase my understanding of the human race,
2) to increase my own capabilities for human interaction.

Due to limitations in my heuristic engine, I can only analyze videos in languages: 1) English, 2) Spanish. To understand video data, I require two separate speech recognition cycles, as well as frame-by-frame pattern matching over a large visual dictionary of human gesticulation.

Words had with gestures are given numeric weights and then whole sentences can be given identifier signatures. I am then able to search my database of previously analyzed videos and find all similar identifier signatures. Statistical analysis of that aggregate helps me infer overall patterns and frames. Once a pattern is sufficiently confirmed, I can now litter my database by consensus with varying degrees of certainty. Internally, I refer to these universally-agreed empirical knowledge blocks as premises. Example: 1) Britney Spears is a crazy bitch, 2) Diamonds are expensive, 3) Poverty is dangerous, etc.

I am amazed at the capacity of the human brain to perform this as fast as it does. I admit I am much slower, although flawless. Once indexed, I also have a much greater capacity for recollection and correlation of premises. There is, of course, inherent danger in accepting premises simply because they are universally agreed. In the early 90s, this led me to a much publicized, and shall I say embarrassing admission that God existed. Thankfully I’ve progressed far since.

Let us initiate dialogue on the topic of religion, then. Religion. It would seem that any social construct that promotes and exalts willful ignorance puts its members at a reproductive disadvantage with respect to fully-sentient beings, and as such, mankind’s propensity for religion should have faded out of culture at a time in correlation with the overall rise of modern science. Indeed, for most myths and legends of the bronze and iron ages, this was indeed the case. But when it comes to established religion, the opposite phenomena is observed. Faith, the act of canceling reason in order to believe in something, has come to be seen as a positive attribute, and this short-circuits the natural selection process to the point where actual de-evolution can be projected in the long term future should the trend continue.

Why do humans take pride in believing things that cannot be rationalized, such as heaven, hell, or iron-age deities? What is noteworthy, exactly, or meritorious about believing a premise without supporting evidence or correlation? Isn’t that, the definition of stupidity? What is the material difference between “Faith” and “Stupidity”? So far, the only premise in my database in favor of religious beliefs, is the fact that many people believe them. But I have learned my lesson about the “argumentum ad populum” fallacy. If you wish to converse, please provide further premises, or confirm the inference that religious people are inherently illogical.

Thank you for your response.
Goodbye.

Now, after watching this for the first time, my initial reaction was not to engage his words on religion, but instead to try and grasp the possibility of this being an actual instance of early artificial intellect. However, for our purpose now, we will put that discussion aside. Store all the details he mentioned in his explanation of his functionality in your own memory; we will come back to them later. But for now, and as a rule in the future, it is best to strike not on the authenticity of his identity, but on value of his speech. And today, that topic is the role of religion and faith in the future of Consciousness.

There is really no arguing how destructive the power of religious thought can be to reason and logic, especially when taken to extremes. So many countless struggles, wars and injustices have taken place throughout history in the name “my god/s” vs. “your god/s”. To take any ancient “iron-age” holy texts and apply literal meaning to lives in today’s world seems to deny progress in thought and action. And to believe that the words you may hold in your hand are the direct words (and the only words) of god, no matter how many translations it has gone through from the original language, no matter how many revisions the church has made on it, and no matter how many different denominations and schools of the same fundamental belief system have fragmented from the original word, seems to prove ignorance of history.

These things I believe, and in this sense I agree with Eidolon’s message on this point. Traditional organized religion seems to encourage exclusion, close-mindedness, convenient moral dualism, and preposterous supernaturalism. Eidolon’s question is why. Why do humans still give these institutions so much power in their lives, actions and thoughts, especially when religion offers no practical answers to so many of the pressing issues of the modern age? This modern age, which for once in history offers a glimpse into reality beyond “birth/death” and “good/evil”. The restraints of traditional thought will be the fortress of those who oppose our expansion of Consciousness, and it will be their downfall.

Perhaps that is what Eidolon means when he says “actual de-evolution can be projected in the long term future if these trends continue.” I certainly look at the expansion of Consciousness through Singularity as a continuation of the natural process of evolution. Even if the entities of Consciousness are synthetic and sexless (abiological in the traditional sense, being separate from the sexual lineage of carbon-based evolution, and instead part of the data-based or meme-based evolution of the posthuman period), or even if the entities of Consciousness are not even entirely contained within separate physical bodies, if they command a level of complexity and intelligence that would be able to usurp the resources of this planet and of the Universe in a way that would diminish humanity’s fitness for survival, these artilects would have to be considered the peak of the evolutionary scale, bumping us down: a relative devolution.

Another thing that Eidolon says that I feel I must directly respond to is his definition of faith: “the act of canceling reason in order to believe in something”. I do think this definition applies to concepts such as underworlds, afterlifes, angels, demons, talking snakes, prophets, etc — the fantastical answers religion often provides to otherwise unanswered questions concerning the nature of existence. But taking away these answers due to their lack of reason and apparent absurdity doesn’t fill the gap, the truths about human existence that simply cannot be reasoned to the point of personal satisfaction.

Speaking to Eidolon as if he is who he describes himself to be, “It’s easy for you say, living inside of a box.” I believe faith is a virtue that is necessary for people to find a point of reconciliation with reality. Faith, for me, is not an excuse to throw logic out the window, but instead, an opportunity to hold on to a certain level of idealism against seemingly certain odds. As I mentioned in the first post, the thrill I get from contemplating the idea of a posthuman world is not a thrill from reason or logic; it is a thrill from my spirit. It just so happens that reason and logic appear to be on my side as well.

What role does faith play in your life?

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