In Search Of The 'Lost' Code
Searching for the God Particle Hidden In Plain Sight
It strikes me as somewhat ironic that as a race we expend an enormous amount of time, energy, resources and money striving to reproduce something that we have already been reproducing with great success for millennia.
To put it another way, we are avidly pursuing the technological ability to reproduce that which we have been organically reproducing perfectly well since the beginning of time. In other words, life itself.
I see a lot of information being published about AI, Artificial Intelligence and Genetic Modification, to name but two fields of endeavour in our human development. And it seems to me that what we are trying to do is play at being God.
I accept that we should do all that we can to improve human life. Indeed, I applaud all new technological developments which make our lives easier, more comfortable and more beneficial. However, I do have a problem if the Technological MO driving all new developments is simply to completely replace human beings. Thankfully, I do not see that happening any time soon, if ever, for one very simple reason, what I call the 'Lost' code.
As we all know, all computers and a myriad of other life and work enhancing devices depend upon binary code.
Try as I might I cannot find any trace of a computer code that goes beyond 0 or 1, true or false, on or off, black or white. This is in all likelihood because no such code ever existed. And that is probably because although it is us mere humans who created a binary code that makes everything deductible to 0 or 1, we never thought of how to add in what you might call the grey zone.
Whilst it is true that these days machines can execute all manner of complicated tasks with a very high degree of precision, enabling us to replace humans in a multitude of activities, no machine that I know of has the ability to think for itself.
No machine has the capacity to feel, to deal with nuance or ambiguity, uncertainty or doubt, originality or creativity, to create anything beyond itself. And that is because technology is hidebound to that binary 0 and 1. Perhaps we could get closer to it by inserting +/- in between the 0 and 1, if we haven't already. However, such is the depth of organic human development, I still can't see how we can get anywhere near copying the natural creations that we are, except by virtue of the human activity of pro-creation.
If the lost code is to be found anywhere it is in the nuclei of the sperm and the egg. Here lies the true binary code of human life, and even then, they have to interact to produce the desired result of all that is missing in technological or machine life.
Of course, perhaps in a million years time we will reach the position of being able to recreate organic life and create perfect fully functioning replicas of human beings. Come to think of it, that is my whole point, we already do just that. However, just because we can do something does not mean that we should. I'll let that one sink in a little.