PSYOP Thought Experiments: How would you react if you learned that a sad and beautiful poem that touched you deeply had been written by a computer?

You may think she's cute - but she's a replicant, you fool!

Thought experiments are usually pretty evil mind manipulations, as I've said before. 

The thing is that in order to respond to thought experiments, you must allow yourself to admit them as possible, as potentially real. 

I got the title of this post from an advert for an NYT "Best Selling" book of such questions - which provides a clear example of the PSYOP nature of Establishment-allowed and Mass Media-publicized thought experiments. 

"How would you react if you learned that a sad and beautiful poem that touched you deeply had been written by a computer?" compels us to admit (for the purposes of argument, in our own understanding) that the very highest realms of human creativity can - in principle - be replicated by computers. 

Of course there is no instance of any such creativity from a computer ever; for the good reason that it is impossible - impossible in principle, not in practice.

But we are supposed to take it seriously, and in doing so we take it seriously - and thus genius-level computer creativity becomes a social reality, even when a real impossibility. 

One could extend the thought experiment (and of course this has been done, is being done, on a near daily basis in the media and elsewhere); to even more subversive questions as: 

"How would you react if you learned that your deeply loved wife of twenty years was in fact a robot"? 

Or the Philip K Dick story The Electric Ant, in which the "how would you react" is to learning that you yourself were a robot*.   

Focusing on "how would you react" is a classic way of smuggling assumptions; of the "do you still beat your wife" type, or implicit character-assassinations like asking "what made X become such an murderous psychopath?". 

(Of course, PKD is the genius-originator of this line of thought-experiment; with a difference that he really lived it.)

The PSYOPS give-away is that this kind of supposedly-free-thinking-radical, subversive, confusing, delusion-inducing, doubt-generating, demotivating thought experiment is media mainstream - often mandatory in schools and colleges; and indeed currently a Major (Trillion Dollar) part of public funding, strategy and propaganda... 

Is actually located in an Establishment monitored and controlled public discourse; in which innumerable and ever-increasing everyday and obvious experiences and observations are treated as hate-facts: taboo, suppressed, slurred, dishonestly-denigrated, excluded, and increasingly punishable. 

This kind of detailed, long-term manipulation of discourse - such that the impossible must be taken seriously and the true must be regarded as a lie - is clearly intentional and strategic... Global and totalitarian PSYOPS, in other words. 

A dangerous product?...

 

I developed conjunctivitis in my right eye, and went and bought some treatment; and only after I had used it, too late, did I realize that the bottle was labelled infected eye drops. 

It's outrageous that such a dangerous product can be sold to the unwitting public. 

What is it about eye drops, anyway? 

Prayer addressed to Jesus is primary

For Christians; prayer addressed to Jesus is primary - because it is by-Jesus that we attain salvation. 

This world, this Primary Creation, is mortal, temporary; goodness is mixed with evil and death... Therefore eternal salvation to wholly-good Heaven without death is the most important thing - for those who want it. So, prayer to Jesus must be primary. 

Prayer to God the Primary Creator, is about our hope or intention to affect positive change in this mixed,  temporary, mortal world. 

Miracles and answered-prayers are the provenance of the God, Primary Creator: because God is creating this world, and it is by creation that miracles are effected and prayers answered.

Amelioration during this mortal life is potentially significant, especially if this leads to faith in Jesus Christ, or helps us to learn spiritual-lessons from the experiences of mortal life.

But prayer to God for present help, is secondary in importance to the eternal matter of salvation. 

 

First Creation is groupish - Second Creation is individual

The Primary Creation is groupish, because it is universal: the creation of everything that is created, for everything that is created.  

We all inhabit the First Creation - and can only "opt-out" in the sense of annihilating awareness of our self as a distinct entity. 

Second Creation is personal, individual... 

Because the Second Creation is "opt-in" - Heaven is accessed by a decision/ action of a specific person. Heaven is not universal; it is inhabited by those who have chosen it. 

Direct Knowing or Intuition... How I try-to Do It - in practice

In the past (and perhaps still, in other cultures) men spontaneously experienced "contact" with gods or God, the divine - more generally, spirits, the dead/ ghosts, and many other supernatural/ paranormal forms of interaction such as with remote persons or animals. 

These also include sensory/ perceptual experiences such as the seeing of spiritual visions, or hearing voices and having conversations 

But here-and-now it seems that adult and healthy (or healthy-ish) modern Men - and I count myself as pretty typical in this respect - do Not spontaneously have such experiences; nor can we have such experiences in alert, healthy, and clear consciousness; no matter how we strive. 

"Contact" of this sort only happens spontaneously to modern Men in states of lowered consciousness; such as dreaming sleep, trance, intoxication; or when there is brain dysfunction in psychosis (including with brain diseases, such as dementias). 

To my mind, the difficulty or impossibility of having these supernatural/ paranormal experiences of contact and interaction, points to the conclusion that the old sensory/ perceptual experiences (while they may lead to good) are ultimately retrograde, "atavistic", and often motivated by a nostalgia and desire to revert to an earlier (less conscious, more automatic, less free) phase of the development of consciousness (which we may recall from early childhood, or have imaginatively experienced).

But given the mundane and alienated nature of typical modern consciousness, and more importantly (indeed vitally) the necessity for each of us to receive personal guidance from the Holy Ghost in particular - given these needs, we must develop other ways of establishing some kind of experienced-interaction or "contact" with spirit Beings.

Indeed, I have often said that this kind of interaction is the basis for metaphysical reflection on the fundamental nature of reality. It is the basis of that "intuition" upon which everything depends - and which I have variously called "direct knowing", or sometimes "heart thinking" or "primary thinking". 

The point is How To Do It?  

In my experience, I think this contact works by an awareness of such contact while actually speaking, writing, or thinking. 

It is a "direct" form of knowing, because (unlike the past and other cultures) there is no sensory aspect.

What it is like is a deep and simple sense of affirmation or rejection, support or opposition, yes or no. 

Such a "feeling" is indeed the deepest awareness of which I am capable. 

This does not mean the experience is infallible, but that it is the best I can do - here and now. 

Because the experience is deep, it is not reached as a result of inference from other kinds of evidence, nor does the awareness come with "proof" of itself - although naturally evidences, proofs, excuses and the like can be derived or contrived secondarily - after the guidance. 

Since this mortal life is mostly about what we ought to try to do, here and now - in these particular circumstances - the experience-of-itself suffices.

    

As an example; this is how I have developed my fundamental theological convictions. For instance, I needed to decide whether "God" was single or a dyad: more exactly I wanted to know whether God meant a Heavenly Mother, as well as Father. 

I had come across the idea of God as originally eternally-married man and woman from Mormon theology, and then later the work of William Arkle. I had felt an immediate stirring and attraction to this knowledge, an experience that proved robust to re-acquaintance.  

To discover its truth, to discover whether I ought to assume such a reality; I wrote about it. Writing for myself, in a journal; candidly and without an audience. 

I also talked, a little, about the idea. But it is very rare to find anyone with whom such fundamental (metaphysical) subjects can be discussed in a way that is an be both unselfconsciously confident on my part, and with sufficiently engaged and sustained attention on the other person's side. 

So verbal discussion is, in practice, seldom of much value - which is why writing (or indeed speaking aloud to oneself, for those who cannot or do not write) can be so helpful. 

Furthermore; I thought about the subject in solitude and quiet (i.e. I prayed, in one sense of praying) - with attention to what followed in this deep level of awareness. 

To explain further: this is something done with a high level of conscious awareness; because it is necessary to have two "things" in mind simultaneously: both our question and the inner-awareness of a response from another Being.

To me, this puts a tight limit on the kind of question that can be asked - the question must be worked upon until I have it absolutely clear and simple in my mind; and as soon as I have done this, and made the decision to seek some kind of guidance or opinion, and have attained a quietly attentive and concentrated mind-set: the answer arrives immediately. 

The source of this inner endorsement (or rejection) is varied, and something we can decide - or, at least, we can decide "who we are asking" to the extent that we can validly conceptualize another Being. 

For instance, and most importantly, the Holy Ghost is (by my current best understanding) the ascended Jesus Christ and his spouse Mary Magdalene. If I address this understanding of the HG, then the response depends to some extent on the validity of my conception. 

If instead (like mainstream traditional Christians) I regarded the Holy Ghost as the spirit aspect of the Trinity; then this might well have an effect on the shape of my question, and therefore the answer. 

Indeed, if the question is "improperly addressed" then there may be no answer. 

That has been my understanding of what is going on when I am seeking an answer to a question rooted in false premises, false assumptions. Nothing happens. 

Then there is the problem of the source of the answer - in particular whether there might be a situation where a demon was to impersonate a spirit of Good (an angel), or the Holy Ghost? 

My only answer, and I think the only real and relevant answer, is that this depends on our motivations and intentions and general stance with respect to God and divine creation.  

If (for instance) we are really seeking answers for selfish purposes; or if we a really aligned with Satan and against God; then such motives and stances are bound to distort and subvert the answers we get.  

The only conclusion is to strive for thorough honesty; and a vital part of honesty is to try and be as conscious as possible of our real assumptions, motives etc; and then as clear and explicit as possible in describing these to our-selves. 

Can we be misled and wrong? Yes of course! There is no recipe for being right. 

Should be strive to be absolutely certain, with no possibility of wrongness, doubt or change of mind? No!

In this mortal world we operate from very distorting circumstances, such that being ultimately and universally absolutely correct in all significant respects surely cannot be the most important thing from God's perspective.

What typically matters is that we personally get things sufficiently right in the situation in which we now find ourselves. 

Other problems will arise, situations will change, we ourselves will change - but that is all uncertain, indeed it is (because of the agency of beings) profoundly contingent. 

What we must deal with in our mortal lives occurs as some primary issue, here-and-now... And Christians will have faith* that sufficient personal capability and external guidance is always available for everybody to accomplish this adequately - albeit never "perfectly."

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*Note: Will have faith, because we can be confident that God-the-creator is also our loving Father (or our parents, as I believe); who therefore has individual concern for the salvation and spiritual development of each-and-all of his children. So we-ourselves and our circumstances have-been and are-being created that way. Since this loving God is creating all the time, we know that our situation always has an attainable positive path forwards - for as long as our lives are sustained.

The needs of the early Christian Church

The simple, personal and next-worldly offer of Jesus Christ - for resurrected eternal Heavenly life to those who followed him - had-to-be, and was, fitted-into a scheme that:

1. Required a Church. 

2. Operated at a group-level - because, in that time and place, individuals we groupish in consciousness, and could not conceptualize themselves as autonomous, agentic, individuals*

3. Prescribed a complex and detailed set of this-worldly behaviours. 

But now that Men have a different consciousness; 

one in which much that was spontaneous and unconscious is conscious and must be chosen;

a mode of consciousness that is spontaneously autonomous, alienated; and both able- and compelled- to be free...

We can, and probably must - sooner or later - recognize that The Creator has (because he loves us each as individual persons) arranged this creation such that we can all - as individuals, and whatever our nature and circumstances - avail ourselves of Jesus's gift and offer. 

After all; why would a good and loving God do otherwise? 

Why would such a God make salvation indirect, mediated, circumstantial, contingent upon social factors and individual personalities? 

The answer is He Would Not!

We now can realize what Jesus did and said, from the beginning; but only recently have we been able to know and act upon it. 

First Creation salvation is groupish - Second Creation salvation is individual

The contrast can be seen between the Old and New Testaments. 

In the Old Testament, the salvation hoped-for (e.g. from the Messiah) is groupish - of Israel, the nation.

It is not individual - the individual is mortal, disposable, and will die; and after death his depersonalized remnant will be go to the shadowy, ghost-filled, underworld of Sheol. 

Only the group - Israel - is potentially everlasting.

(If it pleases God; if Israel is obedient to God). 

In the New Testament (most authoritatively and clearly in the Fourth Gospel), the salvation offered by Jesus Christ is personal, individual; it is a choice/ decision/ action of each specific person. 

 

The First Creation is groupish; but the Second Creation is individual. 

Why have "pilgrimages" become popular?

In the UK, at least, "pilgrimages" (including to "Recognized" Christian sites) have in recent decades become popular among churchy people and the secular-intellectual middle class more generally, and are often depicted in the mass media. 

Since Christianity continues its steep decline and top-down destruction; this phenomenon could only be happening if pilgrimages were - or, at least, were expected to be - "a bad thing" and to do spiritual harm. 

And indeed, this largely seems to be the case. 

For a start; modern people are simply incapable of responding to symbolic phenomena such as pilgrimages, with the kind of spirituality-sustaining and motivating power that was possible (indeed apparently usual) in medieval times. 

For instance, the premier healing pilgrimage site of Lourdes was closed during the Birdemic; so clearly real belief in the power of place and pilgrimage thereto was absent. 

Indeed, nearly all Holy Places (including all churches) were locked-down and the public excluded; with the expressed approval of the pious - evidently, there is nowadays negligible actual lived-experience of a Holiness linked with place and artefact.   

So modern pilgrimages (whether by the explicitly materialist-secular majority, or by the minority of self-identified Christians) are inevitably more of the nature of a holiday/ lifestyle-thing than anything resembling a real pilgrimage. 

This is evidenced by the give-away of recording and depicting pilgrimage photographically and "sharing" these images and narratives on social media - whether serially "as it happens", or "curated" retrospectively. 

It is obvious that extremely few "pilgrimages" would happen if the participants were forbidden to record and later boast... I mean talk - about their "experience". 

In sum, modern pilgrimage is more like a do-it-yourself form of that populist literary genre "travel writing", than they are a sign of anything in the remotest degree "spiritual". 

Insofar as pilgrimages do "work" - that is, insofar as they actually have a positively transformative spiritual effect; then this is nothing to do with official, recognized, popular, fashionable, photogenic pilgrimage sites; but a matter of individual significance. 

It is most likely that nowadays a special place of pilgrimage would be almost unique to a person or a few people; as a consequence of sharing an unusually similar outlook and experiences. 

And, even when a pilgrimage "works" spiritually in the desired and intended fashion; there is still a hazard to the fact of linking the experience to a place. 

Life away from the place is perhaps thereby devalued; or else if the pilgrim was to relocate and move to dwell in the place of pilgrimage - then would occur the problem of over-familiarity, habituation; of building-up "tolerance" to the spiritual benefit.

In a nutshell: even a spiritually-successful pilgrimage may be alienating - that is, the mediating role of place may distance us (temporally and spatially) from a direct apprehension of the divine in life.  

In sum; it seems to me that, in our era, pilgrimage should be regarded as at best providing a spiritual clue, perhaps an epiphany; and an effective pilgrimage needs to be used as a kick-start towards something else that comes after; rather than leading to the more usual pilgrimage-addiction, or the recycling of the primary act of pilgrimage - whether in discourse, memory, or in practice.