philosophy

The cornerstone of human intelligence is our desire to learn the explanation why things are as they are. The desire is so strong that if we can't explain something we come up with some imaginative explanations for those things: we invent gods.

If you believe in God or any other supernatural force they pretty much dictate our choices. "It's all part of God's plan". Those omnipotent, omniscient beings know it all and control everything.

Ever since the advent of computers people have waited for those machines to start thinking. To become equals to us. Despite the incredible advancements made since and how much it can feel like they do, a real thinking machine is still far away. Or is it even possible in the end.

Today's state of the art machine learning models might yield impressive results. But at the core, there is no real intelligence in play. It's just layers upon layers of clever programming. The end results are mere manifestations of what we have told the machine to do.

We humans are highly self-conscious individuals. Despite the need to work as a hive mind to accomplish greater things we like to keep ourself closed and intact. At it's core we thing we reside completely inside out heads, in our brains. Even in the broadest sense we keep ourself limited to our physical body.

If you clap just one hand in a forest and nobody is around to hear it does it make a sound?

Some questions aren't mean to be answered. They don't even have a correct answer. The goal is to make you think. Question and doubt everything that's real. The path to the enlightenment as the Zen says about these koans.