Computers cannot dream

[inavalan]

"Computers, however grand and complicated, cannot dream, and so for all of their incredible banks of information, they must lack the kind of unspoken knowing knowledge that the smallest plant or seed possesses. Nor can any amount of information "possessed" or processed by any computer compare with the unspoken knowing knowledge that is possessed by the atoms and molecules that compose such an instrument. The computer is not equipped to perceive that kind of knowing. It is not equipped for such an endeavor because it cannot dream. In dreams the innate knowledge of the atoms and molecules is combined and translated. It serves as the bed of perceptual information and knowledge from which the dreaming state arises in its physical form."

—DEaVF1 Chapter 4: Session 898, January 30, 1980

[Deb]

Timely, considering all the talk and fear surrounding AI these days. I don't suppose that was a concept yet thought of back then, but there does seem to hint of it in the quote. I worked at IEEE in 1977 and our mailing list was kept in a large room full of computers the size of library stacks. We're a long way away from that now, but I imagine AI computing still runs on the same if-then function, just so much more refined now.

But programmers who dream can manipulate the data that AI is taught. I did really enjoy the original Bladerunner... Rachel's implanted childhood memories. 

[wadihicham]

This raises the question of why, from Seth's teaching perspective, computers cannot be conscious while we are, as well as our cells and even atoms.
Why fundamentally, man will never be able to create anything conscious?
I guess this has to do with the concepts of action, identity and consciousness but I don't understand those well enough.

[inavalan]

This raises the question of why, from Seth's teaching perspective, computers cannot be conscious while we are, as well as our cells and even atoms.
Why fundamentally, man will never be able to create anything conscious?
I guess this has to do with the concepts of action, identity and consciousness but I don't understand those well enough.

I think that the answer is that only consciousness creates matter, by manifesting into matter.

It isn't that even an entity creates matter; it uses / joins the physical-reality framework, that offers to it the possibility to have a virtual experience. There is no objective physical-reality per se, that is actually perceived, but all the participants in the physical reality, on all the levels of evolvement, are connected at Framework-2 level, and each of those participants creates their own exclusive-version of physical-reality, which they perceive through their physical-senses (those who have them). The physical space and time are camouflage.

When people and other organisms multiply, they don't create consciousness. Unit or gestalts of consciousness join the physical-reality.

From creation point of view, AI is like a table or a couch. They aren't conscious even if they are formed from components that are conscious. They are groupings of conscious components, but they aren't consciousness gestalts.

The only purpose of the physical-reality framework is for units and gestalts of consciousness from Framework-2 to join it, and enroll in a process of learning and growing, under favorable conditions.

There can't be something conscious that doesn't offer this possibility to a Framework-2 gestalt of consciousness. A table, a couch, a needle, a computer, a piece of software don't offer such possibilities.

I am not sure if the following is Sethian material or not, but as a personality materializes into a human, it seems that an animal personality generally materializes into a group of physical animals, at plant level it may be a tree and lawn but not a grass blade, and at inorganic level a personality materializes only as a large geographical form, e.g. a mountain. The level of evolvement of each element doesn't justify smaller gestalts.

[wadihicham]

All of this is a fascinating metaphysics. Here is what Norman Friedman says in his book, "The hidden domain"

Seth states that we create our past and our future in the present moment. But the "we" is outside the physical universe and requires Framework 3 to activate Framework 2 to form Framework 1. In short, the "we" is in Framework 3. Attempts to include the total "we" involve more and more frameworks, finally approaching an infinite set or All That Is.
 

I think you are on the right track. A gestalt originates necessarily from above physical reality (framework 1). From here we can only organize gestalts of consciousness into a whole, but this whole will always be equal to the sum of its parts.

But this is not yet entirely clear for me:

Let's say a mad biologist manipulates DNA to create new creatures or decides to clone himself a thousand times,
can we still assert that those gestalts thus formed by our Frankenstein originate from frameworks 2 or 3 ?

[inavalan]

I think that AI is "action"; it isn't even inorganic consciousness. Inorganic consciousness is still a gestalt of more elemental consciousness, while AI isn't. A table, a couch, a pin, a computer aren't gestalts of consciousness, although they are groupings / forms composed of units of consciousness.

Same with the human body: an arm isn't a gestalt of consciousness.

An analogy that I believe helps to understand what can be conscious ("naturally" made, even at inorganic level), vs. what can't be (man-made), would be being a student in school, practicing on a (virtual reality) station.

While playing on the terminal, he operates an avatar, in a virtual reality setup. As he plays he gets immersed in the plot; "becomes" the character he operates. Observes, analyzes, makes decisions, takes action, ... This is our condition when awake. The observer, intelligence, decision maker, doer aren't the avatar, but the student.

The AI doesn't have behind it a player outside the virtual reality.

Going deeper into that analogy, the student is a role played by a person who joined the school to learn something. The person is the entity that creates a personality, the student, that incarnates, the avatar.

[wadihicham]

Hi Inavalan,

Yes, I understand the idea that AI is not conscious (does not form a gestalt) because it is not the avatar of any personality (located in framework 2 or 3) who would have decided to join the "virtual reality" that our physical universe represents.

But there is a kind of paradox here:

Let's say I am a biologist (ie an avatar, controlled by a personality from framework 2 or 3). Let's say I decide to clone myself n times. In doing so, I am somehow forcing n other personalities (from frameworks 2 or 3) to join the virtual game that is our physical world, and I am even forcing these personalities to have my physical appearance.

That rings odd to me, probably something is not understood.

[Deb]

Let's say I am a biologist (ie an avatar, controlled by a personality from framework 2 or 3). Let's say I decide to clone myself n times. In doing so, I am somehow forcing n other personalities (from frameworks 2 or 3) to join the virtual game that is our physical world, and I am even forcing these personalities to have my physical appearance.

That rings odd to me, probably something is not understood.

This came to mind:

• "(Jane continues:) In a sense the present individual in any given life could be called a fragment of his entire entity, having all the properties of the original entity, though they remain latent or unused. The personality fragment in this sense can learn to develop what it has, rather than seek new powers. There are no new powers. The image that your friend saw was, as I said, a personality fragment of his own. It contained all the abilities of your friend, whether latent or not I do not know. This type of personality fragment is of different origin than your friend, who is himself a fragment of his own entity. We call this type a split personality fragment, or a personality image fragment. Usually it cannot operate on all levels of your physical plane."

• "In a sense all things could be called fragments, but there are different kinds. Personality fragments differ from others in that they can cause other fragments to form from themselves. In a way, say, (Here Jane lay the board aside and stood up. Pacing back and forth, she began to dictate:) that a tree cannot, personality fragments form other fragments having all the properties of the parent fragment—emotional life and so forth."

• "As for others all fragments have (pause) are throwoffs or projections. Difficult to explain, I am not doing well. In a physical sense this board is a projection of wood or a tree, but in this case the board has less properties than the parent tree. The tree can grow, the board cannot. A personality fragment on the other hand never has less properties than its parent. This is the difference. A personality fragment has all the properties of its parents inherent, though it may not know how to use them. The board however cannot learn to grow, even though you stick it in the earth."

—TES1 Session 9 December 18, 1963

[wadihicham]

Deb,

Do you mean that all the cloned babies are personality fragments of the biologist ?

[Deb]

Ha ha. Are there really cloned babies?

I suppose if there are (they do clone animals, I think), they would be fragments of whomever's cells are being used. At least it seems that way from that Seth quote.

I am even forcing these personalities to have my physical appearance.

I don't thinking there would be any forcing involved. There are no victims, are there? Roles pre-arranged cooperatively on the level of F2. 

"In the deepest meaning there is no such thing as a victim, either of war, poverty, or disease. This does not mean that those negative qualities should not be combatted, for in the terms of conventional understanding it certainly appears that men and women are victims in many such cases. Therefore they behave like victims, and their beliefs reinforce such experience."
—NotP Chapter 9: Session 792, January 24, 1977

BTW Seth does mention clones! https://nowdictation.com/q/clone/

[wadihicham]

Ha ha. Are there really cloned babies?

  In principle, it is possible and that's all is needed for the argument.

I don't thinking there would be any forcing involved. There are no victims, are there? Roles pre-arranged cooperatively on the level of F2. 

Yes, according to Seth, there is no victim, that's my point ! It is why I believe this thought experiment about cloning is interesting and hopefully useful to understand the material. To say that the clones are fragments from whoever is cloning, that's too fast. 
For example, are such fragments avatars controlled from f2 ? How does saying that solves the paradox ?

About roles pre-arranged on the level of F2. Is this something Seth claims ? Wouldn't this be in contradiction with the biologist's free will, whose number of clones to be created is unknown (his free will)? To further complicate matters, there are systems of probability. Different pre-arrangements would be required for each system !

I propose to rephrase the discussion using the metaphor of dreams:
The question is why a human-made object like a computer cannot be a gestalt. One initial answer was to say that this is so because the physical world is like a shared dream, dreamers are in F2 or F3 and freely decide whether to participate or not (no victims, it's just a dream after all). However, what if someone in the dream suddenly gives birth to as many characters as he wants? Can we still say that they are new dreamers who have come to participate in the shared dream, possibly in mass ? Was the dream planned in advance? What would be the purpose of the dream in that case?   

[inavalan]

"This biotech could one day make human eggs from scratch. But first, they're trying to rethink IVF"
April 8, 2023

https://www.statnews.com/2023/04/08/ivf-eggs-hormones-gameto-reproductive-fertilo/

Summary:

• Creating life in a lab may be the theme of sci-fi movies, but if researchers at a Harvard lab succeed in their quest to create human eggs, from scratch, in their lab, it could redefine what sci-fi really is.
  
  Whether you call that disturbing or exciting, scientists are well on their way to growing humans in a lab, with the success they've already had from taking rodent stem cells and growing them into sperm and eggs. Not only that, but they've also stepped one toe over the line by succeeding in creating eggs from the stem cells of a male mouse.
  
  They've also made enough advances on the human version of the experiment to raise $40 million from private investors for the quest to produce eggs in a Petrie dish. If their dream comes true, they will sell its egg maturation product to fertility clinics in the U.S. and Europe.

[wadihicham]

Here are some surprising quotes from Seth related to our discussion:

"Biologically all human beings, as you know them, have existed as the various cells of which a human image is composed. This is very difficult to explain clearly."
—TES7 Session 311 January 11,1967

Of the same kind, there is also :

"You have drifted through interstellar space, not knowing yourself. You have traveled for eons without attaining the knowledge of your identity. You have traveled without knowing who or what you were as elemental particles of consciousness. You have gathered your strength and individuality. You have learned to handle energy. You have added to your consciousness. You have become more aware. You have learned to some extent, some small extent to this time, the responsibility of creativity. You are evolving. Each of you is evolving the forms by which you will manifest yourself. You have come a long way from undifferentiated chaos, in your present terms, to what you are"
—ECS2 ESP Class Session, March 17, 1970

I must admit that I don't understand much of it anymore!

[inavalan]

Here are some surprising quotes from Seth related to our discussion:
...

Good quotes. I'll comment later.

[inavalan]

Here are some surprising quotes from Seth related to our discussion:

"Biologically all human beings, as you know them, have existed as the various cells of which a human image is composed. This is very difficult to explain clearly."
—TES7 Session 311 January 11,1967

Of the same kind, there is also :

"You have drifted through interstellar space, not knowing yourself. You have traveled for eons without attaining the knowledge of your identity. You have traveled without knowing who or what you were as elemental particles of consciousness. You have gathered your strength and individuality. You have learned to handle energy. You have added to your consciousness. You have become more aware. You have learned to some extent, some small extent to this time, the responsibility of creativity. You are evolving. Each of you is evolving the forms by which you will manifest yourself. You have come a long way from undifferentiated chaos, in your present terms, to what you are"
—ECS2 ESP Class Session, March 17, 1970

I must admit that I don't understand much of it anymore!

This is the context of that first quote:

"You are yourself obviously an energy gestalt; as you become more fully conscious of reality your sense of identity will contain larger and larger aspects of reality.

Biologically all human beings, as you know them, have existed as the various cells of which a human image is composed.  This is very difficult to explain clearly.

I do not mean to imply, necessarily, progression here.  Theoretically, you see, you will one day be a fully conscious portion of the personal god to whom you may now pray.  By then, you see, you will be aware of further gestalts.

All portions of All That Is do not recognize themselves consciously as All That Is.  But know themselves mainly as individuals, not as the prime gestalt individual.  When realization is reached at the highest level, then All That Is instantly creates new realities, and to some extent, you see, loses the conscious knowledge of its own identity.

The loss is always temporary and self-generated.  This is quite enough on a difficult subject this evening."

—TES7 Session 311 January 11,1967

In my understanding, these quotes are about the quest for value-fulfillment that starts from consciousness-units, and evolves endlessly.

From this perspective, each identity that is now a human (as gestalt of consciousness) was, for example, in an earlier stage of evolvement at the level a human-body cell (as gestalt of consciousness) is.

The dimension of the quest for value-fulfillment can't be comprehended in terms of physical-time (it takes "eons"). From our human perspective, the levels we came from may look as undifferentiated chaos. In the same way, there are levels of higher evolvement from which our human level seems to be just undifferentiated chaos.

Even at our human level, people are on different levels of evolvement: looking toward one tail of the distribution it seems like chaos, looking toward the opposite tail it is unimaginable.

This tendency of the human mind, to believe that its way of "thinking" is the way everybody else experience as "thinking", is the basis of the Eastern religions' pontification of "not-thinking" as the ultimate realization. Big mistake! People should fix their faulty thinking, not banish all thinking. We'll see soon enough.

[inavalan]

Adding a little context to your second quote:

"Now, you have been what would now seem to you to be chaotic energy—forming universes. You have drifted through interstellar space, not knowing yourself. You have traveled for eons without attaining the knowledge of your identity. You have traveled without knowing who or what you were as elemental particles of consciousness. You have gathered your strength and individuality. You have learned to handle energy. You have added to your consciousness. You have become more aware. You have learned to some extent, some small extent to this time, the responsibility of creativity. You are evolving. Each of you is evolving the forms by which you will manifest yourself. You have come a long way from undifferentiated chaos, in your present terms, to what you are. Notice, I did not say you came from undifferentiated chaos, but what you would now regard as that.

Within you is the elemental and vital consciousness that gives birth to all realities. You can feel this within you when you turn your backs upon the roles that you presently play. Then you can learn the meaning of those roles, for there is meaning in them. And there is no reason why it must escape you."

—ECS2 ESP Class Session, March 17, 1970

[inavalan]

"(Slower at 10:07:) Your body's condition at any time is not so much the result of its own comprehension of its "past history" as it is the result of its own comprehension of future probabilities. The cells precognate. This is being simplified for now. I will make it clearer later in the book. But your limited ideas of time cause conceptual barriers that operate even when you consider the structure of physical biological life.

For example: It is truer to say that heredity operates from the future backward into the past, than it is to say that it operates from the past into the present. Neither statement would be precisely correct in any case, because your present is a poised balance affected as much by the probable future as the probable past."

—UR1 Section 1: Session 684 February 20, 1974

[inavalan]

"The fetus grows into an adult, not because it is programmed from the past, but because it is to some extent precognitively aware of its probabilities, and from the "future" then imprints this information into the past structure.

From your viewpoint, however, an examination of a cell will not show you that, but only its present condition. It should appear obvious from what I am saying that neither future nor past is predetermined. From your platform of poised now-experience, you alter both the past and the future, and that alteration, that change, that action, causes your point of immediate sense life."

—UR1 Section 1: Session 684 February 20, 1974

[inavalan]

"Such behavior even causes a certain corporal dishonesty, for the cells' freedom from time means that on certain levels the cellular structure is aware of probable future events, as mentioned (just before break). The body, therefore, is reacting to future and past activity as well, in order to maintain its present corporal balance."

—UR1 Section 1: Session 684 February 20, 1974

[inavalan]

"In terms of history as you understand it, man felt safe and secure as a prime species under one sun, imagining that all else revolved about his being.  This provided, in that framework, a stability that was dispensed with as man allowed his consciousness other freedoms.  So he must now come to realize that he himself chooses from a myriad of probabilities the one that he now encounters."


—UR1 Section 1: Session 684 February 20, 1974

[wadihicham]

Thanks Inavalan,

Here is an interpretation that seems plausible to me of all this:

Initially (in our terms and in the physical plane) all energy gestalts were either consciousness units and/or particles.
I assume that gestalts have the property of being able to unite in order to form a more evolved gestalt. In the same way that our cells unite to become a human or animal individual. By this process, "many becomes one" and it can be said that a human being was in the past (in our terms) a human cell which was herself a particle. Thus, we carry within ourselves the knowledge of what it is to be a cell, for example.

I assume also that gestalts have the ability to reproduce, to produce other energy gestalts (one becomes many). By cloning, the biologist exploits this property. For me, the clones created by the biologist are not just personalities who, from frameworks 2 or 3 have decided to participate in the shared dream that is our physical reality, but (in our terms) new personalities emerged at the moment (in our terms) the biologist decided to create them. I hypothesize that gestalts can be created from any level of reality.

Perhaps, In the style of Sheldrake, there exists a human consciousness field that guides the evolution of a fetus throughout its development from birth to death, and perhaps it is through this field that lives at different epochs are connected. It is maybe in this sense that Seth would speak of reincarnation. All of this is speculative, but if I am correct, things would start to become understandable.

[Deb]

At the risk of being irreverent, a meme that speaks to AI and "messing with its head." 

[LarryH]

At the risk of being irreverent, a meme that speaks to AI and "messing with its head." 

To prove that you are not a robot, click on all pictures of a dog named Muffin.

[Deb]

OK Larry, that was great.