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Common Sense

 

April 20, 2002

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) and artificial common sense are attempts to mentalise Matter in the computer.
  • Technology essentially devises a material pattern that lends itself to being a silent instrumentation for the mental process.
  • Opening and closing a ball pen by pressing the bottom is made possible by a spring and a bend in the wire.
  • Sri Aurobindo speaks of consciousness buried in Matter. Upanishad says, "HE sleeps not in those who sleep."
  • In this sense, the project of Artificial Intelligence gains in evolutionary significance.
  • Advances in technology are made possible by

- greater systematisation.

- finding material that is more receptive to speed and ideas.

- abridging Time by increasing speed.

- higher methods of translating instructions.

  • As technology advances, one finds the materials used are more refined. It is worth noting that the stronger the material, the lighter it is. This is a spiritual truth that the subtler the plane or substance, the more powerful it is.
  • Sense is coordinated intelligence.
  • Common Sense is COMMON to more than one factor, or to all factors, which means the primary coordination within one factor is extended to all factors that are outside. Ego and Reason are called by Sri Aurobindo coordinating intelligence.
  • Intelligence perceives the fact as a fact; sense co-ordinates all such perceptions.
  • Computer can store information and can refer to it as directed. To relate to an information intelligently that is in reference to another information is not the primary capacity of the computer. It must be given a logic, in its own language, to evaluate information.
  • The simplest of our acts is subconscious and has millions of such information coordinated flawlessly and perfectly.
  • When walking is examined, it will reveal an inner bodily co-ordination with every bodily function instantaneously rising to the occasion. Outside the eye, the locomotion, the ear, the nose and the subtle bodily sense of security - all vital faculties - co-ordinate fully and perfectly to make possible the simple act of walking. "When Bush goes to Orlando, your literature says, the computer does not know his legs too go there."
  • For sense to function, coordination must be subconscious. Common sense is mental. For common sense to function, the subconscious and surface conscious must be upgraded from coordination to Integration.
  • Subconscious awareness and even subconscious coordination is there in Nature as we see in the birds that migrate.
  • In the statement "Universe comes to us as Values" Sri Aurobindo tells us the coordination and integration at the level of intuition is there in cosmic consciousness and the Unknowable formulates Itself to our perception and withdraws.
  • What the Cyc tries to construct by 60,000 assertions and 5000 concepts is there up above.
  • Mother saw the Mantra of Life in Sanskrit, Einstein saw the formula of the Universal energy, Srinivasa Ramanujam received theorems from those planes. That is by intuition.
  • Theory of Social Development is a formulation of the higher intellectual consciousness in such a way as the million facts of life are systematised into a single system. Such a theory can be formulated from below by centuries of effort by millions of scholars. Three or four or at least 2 centuries of such an effort in Science have given birth to the discovery of thousands of processes that have resulted in as many products. As yet the world has still not got a scientific sense from all those efforts.
  • No one could have formulated our Theory of Development in the absence of Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy. As it was there readily available, it could be applied to society. Applied to Life, it becomes Life Response.
  • What the Cyc is trying for several years and will do so for many more years can be seen readily if one moves from below up. What they are trying to construct from below from individual facts is there in formulas of varying dimensions used effectively by earlier subtle civilisations, present in Indian villages, and codified at the level of Sachchidananda in ‘The Life Divine.'
  • Theory of Development is a diluted FORM of it.
  • Theory of Development further watered down and available common sense upgraded (60,000 assertions, 5,000 axioms) can meet at some point intelligible to the computer scientists.
  • It is significant that computer scientists are boyish. Immature heads are qualified to achieve the meeting point of sense and theory.
  • Knowing the logic of computers and their axioms will help our partial, immature heads to arrive at it.
  • Should anyone be successful in this, he will advance the adventures of common sense by centuries.
  • Such meeting points exist all over life. They can be located more easily than explained to those in the field.
  • AI is primary; common sense is secondary; Theory is tertiary.

April 21, 2002

  • Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is universally accepted.
  • Sri Aurobindo points out that this theory cannot be considered as proved until the jump or leap between species is explained as we see in metamorphosis, which is a symbolic expression of reversal of consciousness.
  • These inexplicable occult stages of evolution are there in social and psychological growth.
  • The man who wants to pay a higher price for a product in a gift shop understands that this higher price will accord him social status. We can understand his idea, but it does not give him social status, rather he is ridiculed.
  • There are rare cases where this strategy works. This social phenomenon represents man's psychological shift.
  • Man's stages of inner growth.

- Senses dominate the mind, a pure vital status.

- Mind sifts the senses from facts and acts on pure facts--intellectuality.

- Mind understands, not the senses.

- Mind in meditation can turn off the senses, see, and hear for itself - This is concentration.

- This opens the Mind to insight and intuition.

- Intuition shifting inside from outside becomes supramental intuition.

  • Senses are of life and life is the energy of the subconscient.
  • Detachment from senses and detachment from intellectuality makes one move from the subconscient to the conscient.
  • Moving through insight to intuition is for the conscient to move to the Superconscient. These are isolated achievements.
  • Man's evolutionary function is to unite in himself the subconscient and the Superconscient.
  • Sri Aurobindo explains this in Chapter 5 "Destiny of the Individual" as well as in "God, Man and Nature."
  • Darwin's forty years of research and the 100 year effort since then have NOT recognised the gap in evolutionary theory symbolised by metamorphosis. Intellect cannot succeed here.
  • Cyc's common sense includes millions of details in any act outside as well as inside.
  • The infinite spread of sense perception outside is abridged in five points of senses which are again summarized in one mental point - intellectuality.
  • This is the difference between rising from below and coming from above.
  • Mind move away from senses, intellectuality, insight and intuition to supramental intuition.
  • What one can labour on for decades or centuries from below one can know in months or years coming from above.
  • Coming from above, one cannot miss the points at which one's consciousness reverses.
  • Inner experience honours the points of reversal while the outer experience neglects it, as we see in handling a naughty child. Love of the child overcomes its naughty behaviour.
  • The explanation of LINE in the theory, and the pioneer expressing consciously the subconscious collection draw attention to this reversal.
  • All those who have achieved are unconsciously aware of this significance. For them to consciously comprehend the LINE will help the computer scientist to move above the line.
  • A beginning can be made at the following points

- Comprehending the theory of LINE.

- Explaining the conscious annihilation of the pioneer who only represents the collectivity.

- Contradictions are complementaries.

- A hundred instances of historical and psychological contradictions explained as complements will help.

- Their inner points of reference.

  • Reversal in the body is through illness and burning pain, in the vital is through depression, fear, etc. in the mind through confusion. Confusion is the stage before clarity is born and after the present comprehension and its structure are dissolved.
  • In reading The Life Divine, the significant statements are not intelligible to us which means the structure of our present comprehension is insisting. When it gives way, it is confusion.
  • Conscious comprehension is to move to the higher knowledge without passing through confusion.
  • Suppose one is confused, he must move away from it to a curiosity to know. Confusion is the energy of the unformed intelligence. Curiosity is intelligence directed to the unknown.
  • Mind tries to know itself, which is to organise Ignorance.
  • Mind trying to know the Unknown is curiosity moving to clarity through comprehension.
  • Man tries to affirm what he is and for that purpose tries to know the world. He looks outside NOT to know what is, but to confirm he is right. It is difficult for anyone to save him from his own self-delusion.
  • An act where he seeks accomplishment will at once present to him all these points. Till he gives way there, there will be no accomplishment.
  • An accomplishment tells us we are NOT insisting on our Ignorance.
  • We want this accomplishment for ourselves. Then it will again stall.

Man is the bar to accomplishment.

  • When man comes forward to remove his ego, his accomplishment knows no bounds.
  • The Cyc can accomplish the work soon if they move above the Line and look down from above on the work.
  • Now they are in the work, involved in it and are blind.
  • As it is nine years old, common sense computerized is an unparalleled technological accomplishment, but it is like walking around the globe today avoiding transport.

Comments

 15-the stronger the

 

15-the stronger the material, the lighter it is-stronger the material,lighter it is.

81-sifts -shifts

102-move-moves

 



story | by Dr. Radut