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A Moment of Darkness
Recently I purchased the old star trek series. Captain Kirk, Spock, Scotty and all the greats so deeply embedded in our sci-fi minds. I love Star Trek. Watching Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise galloping around the galaxy really motivates and stimulates my scientific mind. I have calculated that I have watched Star Trek more than five thousand three hundred and eighty times over a period of twenty-five years. I watched it daily as a child. I watched Star Trek at five p.m. every day on channel 40 after school as reruns. And when I joined the work force I watched Star Trek every day at eleven p.m. after work and on the weekends when I could catch it. This Star Trek viewing experience would converge to a point of intellectual enlightenment. Recently, I purchased the series from a popular DVD club-Columbia DVD Club. Beautifully packaged videotapes digitally remastered to perfection.
As I watched the new gift to myself, I would experience a phenomenon I have never experienced before in my twenty-five years of watching the Star Trek. Paramount Pictures has done something that Desilu Production never dreamed of in the 1960's-remove the commercials. As I sit there watching the videotape, "Trouble with Tribles" something strange happened. At the end of Act II, the screen went dark just for a moment. That moment of darkness would leave a lasting impression on me forever. As the screen went dark and silence fell on the living room, I got up to go to the kitchen. But something happened. Being a video Act III came on right as I was in the middle of the living room. It caught me as if I was a thief in the night. When I heard the famous tune of the Star Trek series play as Act III appeared on the screen I realized I had gotten up and headed for the kitchen totally unaware that I had even done so. I did something without even thinking. Being totally conditioned to the moment of darkness on the screen before commercial, I just got up and headed to the kitchen. Can I be sure of what goes on in my mind? No! This incident scared me to death. For the first time I found myself doing something totally without thought. Without will. Without reason. Totally conditioned and totally spontaneous. This moment became my moment of intellectual darkness. I have always known that in the summer that I feel and act different due to better weather. For example, I daydream more, have summer fever and less schoolwork is done and I attend movies more often at the theater. However, I have never had total action without thought stare me so directly in the face holding me hostage in front of I. One who thinks before he makes a decision. This is not weighing the possibilities of ones actions-probability. Nor is it fuzzy logic in any way. It is total spontaneity. This body has acted without the consent of the mind. This is not induction; it is abduction. This has made me realize I must become more than I am-to become conscious of the unconscious.
How much of my life lies in this moment of darkness I do not know. But now that I have been held hostage by it I shall know its face and ponder it. Does my neural network act like that computer neural network and act unaware? Most likely. Does it act like symbolic logic? No. My brain owns both sides of Artificial intelligence (AI). When the computer has both early AI and later AI integrated into one, it to may come to realize that it acts without thinking.
Mania 234 Marduk
Copyright
07/24/2005
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