Heroes Not Zombies

We are not machines. We are not even “machine like”. Here’s Iain McGilchrist on this –

Machines are not social beings. They don't have Consciousness, feelings, personality, will or individuality. They have no appreciation of music, dance, poetry, art or nature. They do not fall in love and have no sense of humor and they do not have the ability to change their minds and have none of our capacity to sorrow over the past or project a delighted future and that's not even taking into account the far more complex issues entailed in human consciousness including imagination, morality, creativity, the capacity for Spiritual awe and allegiance to Beauty truth and goodness and in case that should sound the slightest bit rarified I'd like to mention that they don't have bodies either and they do not die. It is true of course that you're amazing we're all amazing but it's precisely because we're not just hugely complicated machines. If we carry on talking like this to the aspiring young we will get no better scientists than we deserve. In reality nothing in the entire universe is like a machine except the few lumps of metal we have made in the last few hundred years.

Iain McGilchrist

From health care to our relationship with the rest of the natural world, this machine metaphor is so damaging.

It de-humanises patients and their doctors. It distances us from the world we live in. And it obliterates wonder and enchantment.

Let machines be machines and let’s refocus on what makes Life so astonishingly different from technology and industry.

Machines, including “AI” machines, are tools. They aren’t a replacement for human beings. They aren’t a replacement for Life.