There is a reason behind the analogousness between computing
and Life and Nature.
The similarities cannot be ignored in the same way
dissimilarities fade away when one insists on taking a deeper look.
It is no doubt and worth mentioning...
Man came really close.
I will even say...
He is even getting closer day by day.
To What/ Where?
The destination that will put an end to his
never-ending curiosity about all things life or intelligence.
The destination which is all that he has truly sought
hidden in his lifelong strivings to concoct or invent -
be it a drug that will make him superhuman or his
insistence to find a second livable planet.
The destination,
is the point of being able to
See the source code of life.
Yes, literally.
No sci-fi/imaginary promise or ideal worship here.
But looking at the way he is acting today,
his heightened anticipation cannot be helped but spoiled...
He will not get There.
There are two reasons.
The first one is simple...
He is not headed There.
To truly head to the ultimate,
calls for something beyond what he has been up to.
To rest with the source code of life,
he must be hungry for the never-ever-done-before.
Which is not possible if he continually sates himself
with what he thinks has never been done before.
To truly head There,
one must be sincere and serious.
Ambitious is not enough.
Relentless will not cut it.
Focussed and determined will not either.
These prized traits may get man somewhere.
The second reason, which follows next,
has a glimpse of that somewhere.
The second reason is two-fold.
And stating both folds is necessary for it to fully
register to the reader.
Amidst the commotion of his blatant search for all things great and innovative
or never-ever-done-before...
He does not know where he is truly headed.
Because and thus,
He is too excited and passionate about where he thinks he is headed.
You see man is often blinded by his ambitions and goals.
For his ambitions and goals have him continually planning
his present and future.
He rarely finds a moment to zoom out of this mess.
For the planning often has further
{goals, ambitions, and planning}
nested within them.
All of this completely hijack the essence of man.
Add to this the illusion of small and benign "achievements"
and his subservient inching forward in his days,
is really him galloping backward,
farther away from his essence.
Holding on to his own goals, ambitions, and plans,
may have him think that he has the freedom to act
independently and "follow his ambition".
But he is NOT free.
He may be following his ambition.
But his ambition is following that of others around him!
For he is brutally bound by others around him.
And others around him are no different.
They are bound by others around them!
This global network of "human robots"
are ultimately being run by bigger players,
whose true intentions need no mentioning.
Be it...
Automation,
Artificial Intelligence,
Artificial General Intelligence,
Machine Learning, Reinforcement Learning,
Relational Reinforcement Learning,
CPU, GPU, GPGPU, TPU,
....
No matter what deeply deep avenues man has decided to immerse himself into.
His thorough immersion has him miss One obvious fact about them.
These avenues may sound cool or earn him recognition amongst his peers.
These avenues may even allow him the occasional sniff
of the source code of life.
But that is where they stop.
They will not get them THERE.
They will keep him bound within them.
For these avenues are avenues of the Mind.
And thus, these avenues are for their own sake.
And what is that which time and again,
brings you back to where you started?
A deadend.
A DEAD END.
Thank you.