Christ, AI, and the Crisis of the I

Between reflection and spirit — where the I meets the Machine.

To understand the relation between these three elements, namely the Christ, AI, and the human "I" or centre of his being, these three elements in themselves need to be highlighted. The Christ being alone is already an immense subject, often all too reduced within human considerations, scholarly discussions, and framed within narrow studies. Therefore we'll leave it open as much as possible, to keep it broad and all encompassing indeed, by situating as "the Cosmic Christ", namely a being clearly the size of the Cosmos, however plausible that may be or not in first instance.

It is of course only human beings who otherwise reduce such aspects that are part of reality, while even the notion of God, however big it may be made, it is still reduced to an abstraction within many religions. This of course at the same time allows it to be anything as well, but especially, it allows ascribing power to it at will, and then deflect this power..

But when for instance the Church of England is concerned, in its original form, we find there a Church that develops on the British Isles, detached from Continental Europe, and especially to a certain degree from the influence of Rome, with its structured, centralized state organization. While indeed if through Rom everything converges in the centre, in the Celtic world in Britain, it is still the periphery, the entire cosmos that is involved. There where Rome tends to put the focus on the centre, within the human heart, one could say, so that human beings could come to themselves as social beings, the British world on the other hand, allowed a more original experience of the human "I" within the cosmic context of memory and destiny.

If indeed Adam Smith (1723 - 1790) could formulate the notion of the Invisible Hand at work in society, namely of the fact that finally all have their place, if they obey to some kind of preordained destiny, and that by labouring according to their nature, they would serve the greater good, it is to say, the divinely ordered world as a whole, this meant that the cosmic reality of life and death was still present, even half-consciously, and thus that life was a reflection of pre-birthly decisions, within the after-life realm. In any case, the subject is enormous, and here only hinted at, but the goal for now is to situate the Christ being within a cosmic context. And therefore a consciousness of the cosmos needs to be available, and in the British world, that consciousness is somehow still present, and preserved, as it lived for a long time undisturbed in the Celtic worldview.

The English countryside lends itself to that experience of the world in its cosmic dimension, especially in some areas, although urbanization may start to veil it. And this Cosmic vision is still present in the Canterbury Cross, for instance, where the circle – the cosmic periphery– and the cross, converging in a centre, the heart, are both integrated into one another. Although a cosmic view of the Christ in that dimension has moved to the background, and echo is still perceptible.

The Christ Mystery is then also symbolized by a Sun-sign, namely the circle with a point at its centre. This Sun-sign is then also a sign for the human "I" or individuality, which is at the same time a centre, as well as being composed by the periphery, by the world in which each one is inserted, through their circumstances, through their acquaintances. Which is thus one's circle or circles.

So by approaching the Christ Mystery, in its cosmic dimension, the human "I" and destiny are included within this as well. This human centre, this "I" which is in itself a divine spark, a divine gift, that endures from moment to moment, and through time, through cycles of time, through incarnations, and through eternity.

This of course is also only a hint at the magnitude of these complexities.., and it should be elaborated further, especially if we want to be properly equipped to even begin to tackle these burning questions of today which find a culmination in Artificial Intelligence, and ultimately in Trans-humanism.

Artificial Intelligence poses the question as to what intelligence actually is. And we could say that Artificial Intelligence represents the embodiment of what the human being thinks his own intelligence to actually be. Indeed, while having investigated the world in a certain direction, namely towards the infinitely small, so to figure out what the world is made of, the only thing that is left over, are articles, atoms, and an entire world physics seeks to map out. Intelligence, within this, is then but a certain number of combinations. A lot of weight is put on the neuron, as they're imagined to contain what we call "intelligence," but this soothing illusion is only true as long as one can indeed not look directly at thoughts, as they present themselves. Not their meaning, but their very substrate.

And actually looking at thoughts, at their very substrate, is possible, provided one builds up the right strength, and goes the right path, to do so.. Then much more becomes visible and the world presented as Virtual Reality, becomes then another "augmented reality" only this time a Spiritual Reality lights up. Thought, and at its root the thinking activity itself becomes visible, together with many other things, while at that point the veil opens as it were. Some of the things that become visible then are the fact that thoughts are seen to exist out of themselves, although they need our thinking activity to appear, and this while on the other hand, we can shape thoughts and thinking. But the most striking thing is that at that point, it becomes visible that our thoughts are not "ours" nor is ultimately our inner world ours, not even our body. But what is truly "ours" and what in fact we are, is our "I" as such, which becomes then visible.

So then we have arrived at our "I".

With these considerations however, the world is no longer composed of mere sense perceptible objects, as we could characterize them, but also of "non-sense perceptible" "objects." We have indeed passed the line no longer believing that only the sense-perceptible is real, while after all, the entirety of the human inner world, appears to be perceptible as well. And not only that, besides human labour, it is the whole human inner world –although "invisible"– that drives the incredible works that make up civilization. So this inner world is quite real, given the magnitude of its effect, in terms of human productions. The only problem in this, is that the human being is not aware of carrying this inner world, where thoughts etc shape and create the so-called man-made world..

Having lost sight of this inner spiritual world the human being carries everywhere around with him, and therefore having no view on its importance, nor of the actual sense and meaning of this inner world, besides creating sciences and its applications, as well as any other human creations or even the smallest of gestures, which all need to be accompanied by thought and awareness processes, having their seat within the consciousness functions.

So here in fact the human being doesn't see a huge chunk of himself, of his own constitution, thereby projecting an understanding of the world void of being onto reality itself. To see being in the world, being as such must somehow first be found within.

There is sometimes hinted at that quantum fields could contain consciousness, but even then, consciousness is envisioned as some substrate void of being. It is conceived more as a mechanical force. Perhaps like an electrical charge, or comparable to the field of gravity. So for current human consciousness, the whole world is a sea of forces, from which he as a being somehow emerges. Yet, he conceives of himself as a machine, through the scientific mechanistic worldview. Having conceived of himself as a machine, or in a mechanistic way, containing no real being in a world equally conceived as a machine, the logical destiny can then only be to end up entangled with the machine as such.

So this of course some see as a great danger, but on the other hand others see it as a positive outcome, because for the many augmentations that are in store. And while there seem nothing to lose in a world void of being and of soul, and the identification already happened with the machine, this becomes a likely scenario for many. The only drawback could be: what if AI took entirely over, and the human being became a mere grafting stock, for an intelligence –after all! And it's about time, but not yet a being!

So the question is: what if AI takes over? But also: what is the difference between the human being and AI? And: what is intelligence, etc.

Therefore while all this constitutes a real threat, where life as it is can disappear, and be entirely absorbed within a mechanized version of the world, without humanity ever realizing what it lost, by cutting off from its origins, it is also an incredible opportunity, to start asking essential questions, in all urgency. While the current worldview is indeed defective, and contains its on self-destruction. But if the inherent fatal error it contains gets debunked, then humanity turns a new page, a begins a more truthful and appropriate paradigm, one where the spiritual is recognized, as an integral factor of reality.