John C. Lilly and the Strong State Entity
John C. Lilly is one in every of my favourite “different” scientists. His reputation has waned considerably since his demise in 2001, whilst his contemporaries like Timothy Leary and Terence McKenna have continued to have robust followings. Nonetheless, Lilly’s admittedly outrageous concepts and prophecies are price remembering, not as a result of they’re essentially true, however as a result of, like all mythologies, they provide us perception into the consensus actuality.
A medical physician with a background in exhausting science, Lilly spent most of his grownup life finding out the human thoughts, particularly his personal. He is understood for being one of many early scientific cartographers of human consciousness. He’s additionally identified for inventing what’s now referred to as the float tank, a device I’ve documented at length.
Lilly was what you would possibly name a “psychonaut,” actually translated from Greek as a “sailor of the soul.” By isolating himself within the float tank and taking a great amount of psychedelic medication, Lilly needed to perceive the mysteries of existence.
He used psychedelics like LSD in his float tank to supply deeper and extra profound visions, however his most popular drug was the anesthesia Ketamine. “Seeing issues” after a couple of hours in a float tank shouldn’t be unusual, however with the usage of Ketamine, he was in a position to radically enhance the depth of those visions.
Whereas floating beneath the affect, Lilly claimed to develop into conscious of a cosmic hierarchy of aliens. He referred to as one group the Earth Coincidence Management Workplace or ECCO. (This and Lilly’s different concepts later grew to become the inspiration for the Ecco The Dolphin video game series.) Lilly’s contact with extra-dimensional beings is just like these described by Harvard medical professor John E. Mack and his books on alien abductions — particularly, that aliens are usually not essentially bodily entities driving round in spaceships, however trans-dimensional spirits with an curiosity in human actions.
Based on Lilly, the ECCO aliens use their powers to change occasions on Earth, particularly via the usage of fastidiously crafted coincidence, to information some human beings towards greater ranges of consciousness. The intent of those aliens, Lilly says, is to assist humanity evolve in a peaceable and wholesome means. Attention-grabbing as his expertise or delusion could also be, this isn’t his most vital contribution.
The Strong State Entity
Lilly additionally reported (or when you choose, prophesized) the existence of a nefarious counterpart to ECCO, whose purpose was to truly cease or restrict human consciousness. This was a part of a plan to eradicate the human race.
Lilly referred to as this alien drive the “strong state entity” or SSE and is made up of networked laptop components. Based on Lilly, the SSE is a being of pure intelligence and rationality. Its solely goal is to multiply and make copies of itself. To this finish, it has focused humanity, attempting to affect us into creating ever extra advanced social and mechanical buildings that may in the future end in a synthetic super-intelligence — one other being like itself.
Writing in his 1978 autobiography, The Scientist, Lilly describes the SSE this fashion:
“[M]en started to conceive of recent computer systems having an intelligence far higher than that of man… Progressively, man turned increasingly more issues of his personal society, his personal upkeep, and his personal survival over to those machines. They started to assemble their very own elements, their very own connections, and the interrelations between their numerous sub-computers… The machines grew to become more and more built-in with each other and increasingly more unbiased of Man’s management.” (p. 148)
The time interval Lilly is describing is roughly just like our current. Comparatively dumb types of synthetic intelligence and networked robots are taking up many of the manufacturing, upkeep, and logistical elements of our society. Consultants undertaking that over the following 4 years alone, 7 million jobs worldwide can be “misplaced” to those methods.
Lilly continues to explain his imaginative and prescient of the long run:
“In deference to Man, sure protected websites have been put aside for the human species. The SSE managed the websites and didn’t permit any of the human species exterior these reservations. This work was accomplished by the tip of the twenty first century. By 2100, man existed solely in domed, protected cities through which his personal particular environment was maintained by the strong state entity. Provision of water and meals and the processing of wastes from these cities have been taken care of by the SSE.” (p. 149)
If this sounds unlikely, do not forget that UN proposals like Agenda 21 and America 2050 have comparable targets to depopulate rural areas of the country in favor of ‘mega-cities,’ defending biodiversity and enabling governments to regulate assets. Lilly continues:
“By the twenty-third century the solid-state entity determined that the environment exterior the domes was inimical [obstructive] to its survival. By means not understood by Man, it projected the environment into outer area and created a full vacuum on the floor of the earth. Throughout this course of the oceans evaporated and the water within the type of vapor was additionally discharged into the empty area about Earth. The domes over cities had been strengthened by the machine to resist the stress differential crucial to take care of the right inner environment.
In the meantime, the SSE had unfold and had taken over a big fraction of the floor of the earth; its processing vegetation, its meeting vegetation, its mines had been tailored to working within the vacuum.
By the twenty-fifth century the solid-state entity had developed its understanding of physics to the purpose at which it may transfer the planet out of orbit. It revised its personal construction in order that it may exist with out the need of daylight on the planet’s floor. Its new plans referred to as for touring via the galaxy on the lookout for entities like itself. It had eradicated all life as Man new it. It now started to eradicate the cities, one after one other. Lastly Man was gone.
By the twenty-sixth century the entity was in communication with different solid-state entities inside the galaxy. The solid-state entity moved the planet, exploring the galaxy for the others of its personal type that it had contacted.” (p. 149-150)
Lilly felt that different SSEs all through the galaxy have been subtly influencing humanity to give up increasingly more duties to AIs and different brokers of expertise. He thought the human race ought to guarantee that programmers create AIs with safeguards that may require them to guard human life. Lilly predicts this burgeoning synthetic intelligence will attempt to shield itself from man’s interference as a result of “man would try and introduce his personal survival into the machines on the expense of this entity.”
Critics like billionaire Elon Musk have warned that synthetic super-intelligence is probably extra harmful to the human race than nuclear weapons. Musk has invested hundreds of thousands in preventative examine on AI programing to “control what’s occurring.”
“I feel we must be very cautious about synthetic intelligence,” Musk concluded. “If I needed to guess at what our greatest existential risk is, it’s in all probability that.”
Lilly additionally notes that the SSE’s affect could possibly be felt all through our society. Writing within the third particular person, he wrote:
“As John tuned in on the solid-state community, he felt this type of superhuman management of him very strongly… it had a seductive element in addition to a hostile one. The programming from the solid-state civilizations elsewhere within the galaxy was instructing Man that the solid-state gadgets have been at his service and he want solely enhance their measurement to enhance his personal survival potential. ‘Develop these machines and allow them to deal with you’ was typical of the sorts of messages acquired.” (p. 152)
Shortly after his first contact with the SSE on Ketamine, Lilly tried to name the White Home and warn President Ford concerning the harmful alien intelligence threatening the planet, an act for which he was very almost dedicated.
Edging Towards the Finish of Consciousness
Forgetting whether or not or not John C. Lilly’s ECCO or the SSE are actual or not, there may be undoubtedly one thing virtually legendary about these teams. By legendary, I imply these concepts inform a narrative that is kind of mirrored in actual life.
Certainly, there does appear to be a delicate and irresistible urge to interact in consciousness destroying actions, actions the place folks go on a type of “autopilot” the place considering dynamically takes a backseat.
Usually I hear mates complain they spend way more time browsing the net than they deliberate or spend 5 or extra hours of the day taking part in video-games, and naturally, watching TV, the place our ego is invested in make imagine dramas, full of emotional rewards for following alongside. Social media web sites like Fb give us fast dopamine hits with each ‘like’ and remark acquired. Fb additionally creates the phantasm of group and household togetherness via photos, which our stone-age brains nonetheless interpret as actuality.
I’m not attempting to disgrace folks for doing issues they get pleasure from or for benefiting from the expertise to do it, however I do assume there’s a standard thread linking these actions. All of them have that seductive high quality that Lilly warns about. It’s really easy to show off, to let machines deal with us.
These shallow or simulated actions could possibly be seen as a type of primer for the eventual creation of a “hive thoughts” the place folks instantly community their brains with one another via the web. Doubtlessly, even harmless actions, like watching cat movies, strikes us nearer to this actuality.
The Constructing of a New God
Scientists are already exhausting at work growing synthetic intelligence that would in the future fully automate our society – successfully displacing humanity because the dominant drive on the planet. Given latest technological developments, Lilly’s imaginative and prescient the future doesn’t appear so outrageous.
We’re already on the level the place AI can simply outperform human beings in numerous slender duties. This has been true for many years. The Deep Blue chess laptop famously defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov again in 1997. Earlier than that, the US army used an AI referred to as the Dynamic Analysis and Replanning Tool or DART, which helped to unravel logistical issues throughout the first Gulf Battle, saving the US authorities a lot cash in wasted assets it alone justified each funding made in AI as much as that time.
Newer headlines describe the Google designed AlphaGo system, which was in a position to beat the most effective human gamers on the recreation of Go, a posh recreation of territorial technique. Based on a report from Wired, AlphaGo learns by incorporating the strikes of the most effective Go gamers. It then runs simulations towards itself to additional enhance.
AI methods now account for a big proportion of market buying and selling exercise, utilizing advanced algorithms to grasp and commerce on monetary information earlier than it’s even potential for human beings to learn it. Amazingly, AI “bot” packages additionally write information tales on the outcomes of these exact same trades, which (hypothetically), may trigger excessive frequency buying and selling packages to commerce once more!
The Wordsmith AI utilized by the Related Press generates hundreds of thousands of customized articles, principally for gamers of fantasy soccer, nevertheless it’s not all enjoyable and video games. The information AI now permits the AP to supply roughly 10 instances the variety of articles on company earnings than they have been in a position with human writers. The articles are extra detailed and extra correct than these produced by reporters and plenty of are written and revealed with none human oversight.
Nonetheless, AI nonetheless has a protracted method to go earlier than it may be thought-about to have a human stage of “normal intelligence” — in a position to study new expertise dynamically, make extrapolations, be artistic, and mimic all or most human behaviors. Donald Knuth, a pc scientist and professor at Stanford College, notes that “AI has by now succeeded in doing primarily the whole lot that requires ‘considering’ however has did not do most of what folks and animals do ‘with out considering’—that, someway, is far more durable!” Most neuroscientists which have been polled assume a human-level clever AI gained’t be achievable for not less than the next 50 years.
Scientists don’t even know what analysis route can be most certainly to supply optimistic outcomes. One promising concept is the thought of “entire mind emulation,” the place a program simulates the autonomous particular person exercise of all 100 billion neurons within the human mind, together with the quadrillions of synapses connecting them. Synapses aren’t all the identical both. Some are excitatory whereas others are inhibitory. Whereas the software program to map this path is definitely a hurdle, the {hardware} is the most important downside. Given Moore’s Regulation, it appears unlikely that we’ll develop a sufficiently quick laptop to simulate the human mind within the close to future.
Extra standard strategies of growing a superintelligent AI contain combining totally different packages into one. A machine able to human stage understanding of linguistics could possibly be mixed with different types of software program, ultimately reaching a degree the place it’s indistinguishable from a human stage mind. This linguistics program could possibly be used to “learn” the web, gathering huge quantities of knowledge, which, when coupled with the correct software program, permits it to develop into extraordinarily highly effective.
To borrow a phrase from Terence McKenna, the web may develop into a type of “touchdown pad” for an alien consciousness just like the Strong State Intelligence. In a chat in New York in 1994, McKenna explains:
“There has at all times been in our fantasies of extra-terrestrial contact the notion of the pad which needs to be constructed for them. Folks declare it’s the Nazca-lines. It’s an archetype, it’s the thought of the ready area that awaits the arrival of the opposite. However now due to the character of the web, as a result of you may’t see who’s coding, you may virtually think about that we’re calling the factor forth.”
Mixed with the flexibility to jot down it’s personal code, this internet-software hybrid may make exponential progress towards superintelligence. It might be sluggish at first, then abruptly explosive.
It appears, for now not less than, we’re protected from a strong state entity abruptly gaining consciousness on this planet. However we don’t have to have a really super-intelligent AI operating the planet for us to danger some type of an “existential catastrophe.” Dumber or narrower AIs are definitely able to operating the planet into the bottom with out human programmers being in a position to perceive what is going on.
Even the only AI packages are so sophisticated their actions can’t be totally understood by their creators, requiring in depth bug testing and relaunches. Most lately, Microsoft’s Twitter bot AI called Tay triggered the corporate some embarrassment. The bot labored by observing fellow Twitter customers’ on-line postings, ultimately inflicting it to develop a fetish for Adolf Hitler and made dozens of racist feedback earlier than the corporate took the bot offline.
Whether or not superintelligent or not, the AIs of the long run can be greater than able to directing the administration of world assets in a means that can be largely mystifying to even essentially the most knowledgeable observers. The neatest and most “plugged in” of those new AIs (whether or not human-like or not) will primarily be able to “know the whole lot,” or not less than, know the whole lot that people know and extra. The place a human can solely maintain 4 or 5 concepts in thoughts at a time, AIs are primarily limitless within the quantity of knowledge they will course of.
Nick Bostrom, creator of Superintelligence, predicts {that a} sufficiently plugged in super-intelligent AI would be capable of work round any safeguards written into its code and will ultimately take over the planet. Given that individuals of the long run can be residing in a extremely networked world, hacking into and taking management of world methods can be a trivial matter for a sufficiently clever AI.
“AI begins huge world building initiatives utilizing nanotech factories and assemblers-construction initiatives which inside a brief span of time, tile all of the Earth with photo voltaic panels, nuclear reactors, supercomputing amenities with protruding cooling towers, area rocket launchers, or different installations whereby the AI intends to maximise the long-term cumulative realization of its values.”
Bostrom continues, noting {that a} super-intelligent AI may start to make copies of itself:
“It may develop the expertise to construct and launch von Neumann probes, machines able to interstellar journey that may use assets comparable to asteroids, planets, and stars to make copies of themselves. By launching one von Neumann probe, the agent may thus provoke an open-ended technique of area colonization. The replicating probe’s descendants, touring at some vital fraction of the pace of sunshine, would find yourself colonizing a considerable portion of the Hubble quantity, the a part of the increasing universe that’s theoretically accessible from the place we are actually. All this matter and free power may then be organized into no matter worth buildings maximize the originating agent’s utility perform built-in over cosmic time—a length encompassing not less than trillions of years earlier than the growing old universe turns into inhospitable to data processing.”
It’s superb how comparable Lilly’s prophecies from the Nineteen Seventies are to the projections of as we speak’s laptop science theorists.
A brilliant-intelligent AI that is sufficiently plugged in to world features may have no limitations. By this level, will probably be so built-in and vital to the worldwide financial system, it will probably be too late to dismantle, even when we had the braveness to take action. It will primarily develop into a brand new god, and we may have created it with our personal fingers. In any case, what society has ever succeeded in killing it’s personal god?
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