the intel we know

 

from chicken to egg & back again

Intel - whether intelligent or not - is only one aspect of life: sure, it's crucial to our architecture & an example of what survival takes; like a defence membrane or the digestive tract. And even intelligent intel can be synthesized. Moog wasn't half a clever bastard, right? But it’s only logic, not magic. Life percolates into something more dynamic & ephemeral than boring owl data collection, storage & processing. The wizard ingredient, separating the quick from the dead, fact from fiction, is consciousness - or lack of it. Consciousness: your one-way ticket to the cosmos & pass for oblivion’s gate. Now, you synthesize true consciousness, Herr Doktor Musk, that would be something.

Maybe one day, more progressive forms than ours will exist without combustion engines. God knows what they’ll sport – half-rods of plutonium stuck up their fusion chambers, or solar skin-jobs to recharge batteries, frisking about in the daylight hours then cogitating all night. But whatever & however smart the propulsion system, without consciousness - no matter the size or beauty of them – without true consciousness, they’ll make less sense than a shower of amoebas clubbing it in the primeval soup kitchen.

Yep, intelligence – in the common sense - is a great collection or stored information. Intelligent intel can even select what’s worth garnering & what ain’t worth the candle. In most circumstances, decision making’s only a matter of taking the most logical path. Foresight, then, comes into play. And then again, it’s just a question of processing information. You can’t base consciousness purely on reason.

Take chickens, which anyone who’s kept will tell you are some of the dumbest creatures that ever lived. They evolved in the backwoods of a large island on the edge of the Indian Ocean, thriving without a significant predator, till humanity showed. After which - apart from serving us with food - there was no reason for their continued existence. Yet somehow the jungle they grew up in so completely matches ours, they would be around for as long as eggs is eggs. And never mind trying to puzzle out which came first, chickens keep springing back; no matter how harsh the environment we, in our stupid, selfish cruelty, devise for them. Or the efforts of the vegan police to abolish their existence. The birds go on fitting in, that’s all. We’ll probably take them to Mars & beyond, eventually introducing Andromedans to the magic of the egg.

For some creatures, consciousness is there from Day One. Newborn ruminants, for inst, get to their feet & within the hour are ready to move off with the herd. That’s what it takes to make it as a lamb or a foal. And knowing who Mum is, of course. Thinking outside the brain, parents & young stick together for months or years in an emotional bond.

Imagine a couple of bright robotic sparks attempting to scale the Matterhorn. When the going gets tough, & sheer physical power no longer works - when they’re running low on options for reaching the summit, logic tells them to call the whole thing off & go back down. Or, at a pinch, one might cannibalize the other. Which? Depends how they’re programmed. But those crazy lifeforms – us in this case – take strength from each other’s company. We rally round & somehow find a way to climb up. Or fall in the attempt. Is buddiness just another thing for the so-called intelligent robots to learn? Who we gonna trust on that?

Or take kittens. They won’t open their eyes for a week, during which their hungry owl Dad, or a jealous female with young of her own to feed, would simply gobble them up. No conscience, see. Consciousness takes many creatures no time to develop, unlike humans. It’s years with us. In fact, we can say revelations occur right up till the end - though the final years may see a dimming of awareness that mirrors the growing curve. If the true end is so-called brain death, that locates consciousness somewhere behind the eyes, ears or whichever organs of perception haven’t caved. The corpse, meanwhile, still perfectly capable of life in all other respects, is only rendered non-viable when consciousness has left the building. Call it the spark of life, if you will. Sleep tight.

And is there an afterlife? Of course not. There’s just the pool of human consciousness to which you contribute, be you a socially minded genius, a bored bore, or a demented axe murderer. And to which the spark may return, if you want to think of it like that. The light goes out, but its image may linger on for a greater or a lesser time. To some extent, the Julius Caesars & Cleo Ptolemys of this life remain with us. Though their perceptions ceased long ago, what we keep alive of them is a shared vision of beauty or justice, courage, outrage or defiance, whatever turns us on (or switches us off).

Consciousness springs - maybe subconsciously - from one generation to the next, across the centuries, even from one myth to another, like from Dido & Aeneas to Anthony & Cleopatra. Here we readmit the humble chicken back to the fold. Plain dumb ain’t all it seems.  

Nobody's Bot!