During
late '80s and early '90s, I had opportunity to work with expert systems in real-time production environments. I found artificial intelligence, or AI, to be thoroughly intriguing. I even went so far as to write an expert system package, under Microsoft Windows, called WindExS. However, as I continued my work, and expanded into other areas of knowledge management and, eventually, remote viewing, I began to find some unusual inconsistencies in AI world and desires to create "truly intelligent" and "thinking" machines.One of issues that people usually claim as a requirement of true intelligence is that "one must have a soul." These ideas and dabbling prompted me to write a short screenplay entitled "Sylvie," which was story of an "emotionally intelligent" system. That small inkling of creativity still did not allow me to delve as deeply into topic as I had wanted. However, it did bring up question: "what is a soul?"
--- What is AI? ---
AI is science and engineering of making machines intelligent, especially through creation of intelligent software. It is similar to task of using computers to understand human intelligence, but AI does not have to confine itself to methods that are biologically observable. Intelligence is computational part of ability to define a plan and achieve goals. Different types and levels of intelligence occur in people, animals, and some machines. However, ultimate premise behind creating an intelligent machine is ability to think creatively, solve problems using abstract information, and devise new solutions.
--- The Biological Parallel Computer ---
Consider vast amount of information that we acquire and process every day. It is difficult to imagine that so much information and activity could be stored in such a small amount of tissue and fluid. Scientists have been theorizing that, indeed, mind is not as much of a storage device as it is a communications device to some larger "knowledge base." The mind appears to be a way to pre-process data for storage and a way to analyze data for use while all time maintaining a connection for data storage and acquisition with this knowledge base.
This knowledge base surrounds us with information and intelligence. Everything that every creature in Universe knows, and will ever know, is stored and made available for us by simply asking for it. However, accessing it requires a connection, a field, which connects us all together in a large "bio-circuit." It can be seen as a "biological parallel computing environment." The information presented by this bio-circuit consists of a limitless and accessible Universal source of knowledge.
--- Why be creative? ---
I remember my days in school where I was taught that, indeed, daydreaming and excessive creativity could destroy your life. However, important thing that I learned along way is that, without creativity, there can be no progress. Creativity is a way to expand one's consciousness by taking abstract ideas and turning them into a new reality. It is a way to take what you know as an absolute, and stretch it into unknown. Each stretch takes you further and expands your absolutes along way.
