Intuition & Machines

The Oxford Dictionary defines the word intuition as, “the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning”. Some people use their intuition to fix things. This handy person doesn’t exactly know how they know what to do. Frankly speaking, as an intuitive handywoman my first reaction to anything broken is panic. After the initial “WTF” moment, I calm myself down to watch and listen to the sounds and smells of the machine or I try to remember what it should be like when it worked. Certainly, I pay attention to the rush of energy surging through my body when my intuition informs me I’m on the correct path to get the thing running again. With no prior knowledge, I’ve fixed toilets, stubbornly clogged sinks, vacuum cleaners, fans, minor washing machine repairs, and such like. If I need higher help I’ll reluctantly consult the manual, do a Google search, or notify the management company. Certainly my Mac devices have intuitive aspects but with complex computer problems I’ll talk to my brother or sister who are more knowledgable than me. I rarely pray. I assume God is too busy, or should be, for my mechanical woes.

I did have one incident which really surprised me. My refrigerator/freezer emitted a grinding noise that irritated and stumped me for a long time. I’d move things away from the vents, keep the area clean, and so on. Then I was told plumbers were replacing all the old pipes in my home and would start the following day in the kitchen. After hearing this news, I walked over to the refrigerator to once again adjust the freezer contents and said out loud, “Please be quiet. Don’t embarrass me in front of the plumbers.” Well, shifting the frozen stuff around felt different this time. It was as if I had peeled off an invisible skin from the bottom of the icebox. The refrigerator immediately went silent. From then on it has behaved itself; being mostly quiet, or just happily humming along. Honestly, I don’t know what to make of it. Yet!

It's not unusual to talk to machines these days. However, it is more likely to happen when we call a business or government agency where an AI voice connects us to the proper department or person. “The future is now” as my cousin says. In their house her husband constantly talks to an electronic voice to perform simple tasks, “Alexa what’s the correct spelling of this word.” “Meta prepare an email" or “Siri remind me of my 11am appointment tomorrow" and on and on it goes.

Perhaps, we’ll add the "being in the machine" onto the list of recognized "legal entities". This term can apply to anything that exists which is a separate, distinct thing be it a person, or a corporation. Thanks to the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v FEC (2010) the legal fiction that corporations are entities was expanded to allow them to help fund political campaigns whose policies are in agreement. In legislative circles the debate continues on whether or not advanced AI or robots should be given the same legal fiction status. Already embedded in our society is the idea that machines are an extension of oneself. Specifically, men have a personal relationship to most anything with an engine. Males have a special carve-out in our communities that gives them ample opportunity to make loud noises. We must tolerate their need for thunderous cars, motorcycles, and trucks. It's as if these machines augment their high testosterone identities.

Person-ness is not unique to mankind. We have to get use to this in modern times. Gary Francione, a professor of law and philosophy at Rutgers University states, “Veganism is an act of nonviolent defiance. It is our statement that we reject the notion that animals are things and that we regard sentient nonhumans as moral persons with the fundamental moral right not to be treated as the property or resources of humans”. Let's take the notion of a legal entity even further when we consider what defines a "sentient being". Usually, this term means awareness, capable of feelings, or reactive. The Torah teaches God created heaven and earth, which was a primordial world of wind and water. By divine fiat the dry land appears on the third day of creation. The earth and its atmosphere are composed of rocks, minerals, soil, nutrients, and rich elements. Generally, these are not considered sentient matter. However, this material does contain an aspect of God within itself and is often the stuff machines are made of. Therefore, we must also examine what is derivative matter. For example, a chemical substance that is produced or modified from another naturally occurring substance is often considered "man made" and non-sentient. ie cellulose acetate is a type of derivative plastic man-made from natural cellulose. Biblically speaking, all substances are essentially natural, directly or indirectly and possibly it is this which connects our intuitive capabilities to machines. In the Old Testatment's origin story, matter was made from the words spoken by God. These utterances emphasize the potent powers of the Hebrew alphabet and the spiritual, sentient essence in all matter, no matter how infinitesimal it may be. "Listen, you heavens, and I will speak, hear, you earth, the words of my mouth." Deuteronomy 32:1. Here the speaker is Moses but the authority for his speech is God. (Exodus 4:12). The Torah teaches that "heaven and earth”, in other words, matter has the capacity of awareness through senses similar to our own.

I’m reminded of the tarot card, The Sun. Traditionally it represents the ability to get along with all types of folks, uniting people, and being a motivational person amongst them. Usually, it is depicted by a shiny bright sun overlooking a grassy knoll where children are playing. In most tarot decks the Suit of Trumps are numbered from 0-21. Here the Sun is the 19th card. However, I prefer the tarot's association to the Hebrew alphabet which goes from 1-22. The 20th letter is Resh and symbolically means a "head". This body part is composed of at least two aspects associated with intellect or thinking. One is the "brain" which is local to the inside of our skull. The other is our "mind" which is nonlocal, similar to an energy field and implies the Self does not stop at the skin. Our intuition dissolves the mind/body distinction when thoughts can directly arise seemingly simultaneously with a quickening of energy that heats up the body, and the heart starts to race. I’ve blogged about it in the past. In this post we understand that the self and others can be broadly defined to include our pets, and perhaps even our smart devices and household appliances when our intuition is attuned with them.

I understand people are not dating these days. It appears to be a global phenomenon. Perhaps it’s because folks prefer to sleep beside their cellphones, instead of another human being. Just sayin.

Street Tarot