Nathan Key

What do Terminator and Matrix have in common with Hotel Rwanda? Namely, they all deal with power struggles. OK, it may seem rather strange that I’m drawing a correlation between these films, but bear with me for a moment while I explain my position. It seems to me that most conflicts eventually rest on one of the following two areas: Values and Resources

Value conflicts are wars and battles that spring from a clash of ethnic, ethic, or moral disagreement. While there isn’t anything particularly wrong about an individual defining themselves by their nationality, religion, or ethics, once they take a stand on these things it inevitably causes small conflicts. Even at the most basic level, when one assesses themselves by a certain criteria; he tends to assess other people by these criteria as well. So if I’m proud of my American, Christian, and Pacifist ways I may hold myself in an elevated position over someone who doesn’t share the same beliefs. Even subtle criticism like this lead to bigger conflicts as I interact with those I disagree with. The outworking of my own pride can eventually become war if it’s not tended well.

Watch the Terminator series with this sort of idea in the back of your mind, and you’ll see the direct correlation between Skynet’s decision to wipe out humanity with this value conflict. The self-aware AI, of course, makes the jump from criticism to war much faster than humans would, but the principle seen in the film is very similar to what we can read into historical events like the Inquisition, the Holocaust, and Hotel Rwanda.

Each of these are value-based conflicts where the self-proclaimed superior/powerful group does its best to eliminate or convert those who don’t meet their standard.

Resource conflicts are any kind of disagreement or battle that deals with scarcity. When resources are unlimited and there is plenty of land, food, etc to go around for everyone, competition isn’t nearly as fierce and normally doesn’t result in war or death. But as soon as there are limits in place, humans always try to get as much as they can- even at the cost of others.

When we watch ads from two politicians, trading jabs, it’s basically the same thing. There can only be one President of the United States and so anyone running who wants to win will do whatever they can to grab the most votes. Votes are the limited resource.

I used to work for Universal Orlando Resort where our theme parks were continually “at war” with Disney for market share. We wanted as many tourists as possible to visit our park- rather than Disney. Time was the resources we were fighting over.

If you read into the history of Matrix movies, they basically boil down to a war based on resource problems. Robots need power and after humans nuke the sky- crippling the machines’ ability to gather solar power- their only source of fuel is the humans themselves. Humans are only enslaved because the robots want to continue functioning.

So as we watch movies like Terminator, Matrix, and Hotel Rwanda, I think it’s important to get to the bottom of conflict if we really want to avoid the violence depicted within each film. The bottom line is, we still need to answer these questions if we’re going to do anything about wars and interpersonal conflicts:

What can we do to lessen the value and resource conflicts before they grow out of control and threaten our very lives?

The other day I came home and found that the internet wasn’t working. I didn’t have anything particular that I needed to do- I think I was going to check my e-mail- but I got really nervous for a moment, wondering what I was missing because my link to the world was cut off.

It was strange, though, because for a moment after my initial panic I actually felt a sense of relief. I actually felt free. There was a sudden freedom from any obligation to respond to e-mails, Facebook updates, Tweets, and RSS feeds from GoogleReader. The internet was down and so I had a legitimate excuse to be disconnected from the world and solely focused on my family. The truth is, it’s shocking that I felt this way because only a few months ago I would have been going crazy trying to figure out how to get my connection back.

Remember that scene in Matrix where Joe Pantoliano’s character Cypher begs a Sentinel to allow him back into the Matrix? I didn’t make the correlation until now, but I’m beginning to think that his need for the Matrix is similar to our need for the internet and social networking.

Can you imagine life without our current range of technologies? Could we even go back to the way it was before personal computers, cell phones, Wikipedia, Google, and Facebook inundated our culture?

I’m hard pressed to admit it, but I think we’re already enslaved to technology. Most of us couldn’t figure out a way to grow our own food, weave our own clothes, or find water that’s safe to drink. Whether or not our own technology turns on us, I think it’s pretty safe to say that any sort of major interruption would be more than most of us could handle.

I think that’s why New Orleans eroded so quickly into madness after Hurricane Katrina.

Without our technology, we’re helpless.

So, I don’t believe that AI will kill us.
I think it’s much more likely that we’ll kill ourselves off in the wake of a major power failure.

But that’s some of the beauty of these AI Monster Movies. They may not paint an accurate picture of what the world will really be like if the robots take over, but they paint a very clear symbol of the slavery that we’ve created for ourselves. As I mentioned in the first post, it’s all very much like the Tower of Babel- we’ve placed our hope in technology rather than in God and in our fellow man.

And as a result, we’re confused. We don’t understand each other any longer. We only understand our own needs and our own beliefs.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

The other day, I was unplugged and rather than spending the evening worrying about whether or not the internet would come back on, I played with my son and I spoke with my wife. I’ve been doing that a lot more lately. In fact, last night I didn’t even look at my computer for more than a few seconds.

I spent the evening with them, instead. And I’m going to be really honest…
It was much better than the Matrix.

I love Robots and so I'm pleased to announce that Robots are the topic for this week.

Background. I watched Terminator: Salvation on Saturday with my good friend Seth and it got me thinking about AI and robots and whether or not what’s presented in Terminator, Matrix, and a number of other ‘Robots as Frankenstein’s Monster’ movies could actually happen. As it stands, I’m not really sure- but in an effort to fully explore the possibilities, I want to break this week into four different parts so that we can discuss the topic fluidly.

1. Today will be an introduction with some questions to get your reaction.
2. Wednesday will be a religious/philosophical discussion about whether AI can actually become self-aware and what it means to be human.
3. Thursday will be a religious/philosophical discussion about whether or not technology needs to begin killing us off with guns before we decide that it’s enslaved us.
4. Friday will be a political discussion about whether or not governments have the right to target ethnic groups through profiling (and even genocide?).

I can’t do an exhaustive study on robots because there are literally too many religious, philosophical, and political issues at steak in movies like these in order to sum them up in a few days. But I’m pretty sure that in one sense, all of these stories are a reiteration of the Tower of Babel- they’re all about what happens when humans place their faith, hope, and love into technology rather than on God (or even their fellow man).

You might want to read up on the Tower here and here if you’re not familiar with it. In preparation for this week, you may also want to read up on Asimov’s theories about what humans would/should do to prevent a Frankenstein’s Monster occurrence.

Questions to consider today and this week:

   Do you think AI (artificial intelligence) will ever become self-aware?
   Could we already be enslaved to technology/robots?
   Why (in fiction at least) do the things we create always rise up against us?
   Do the oppressed have the right to overthrow their oppressors?

The time you have on this earth is more valuable than anything else you have in your possession. Manage it just as well (or better) than you manage your wealth.

Make Two Lists

List One: The first list should be a ranking list, 1-20 *whatever number, regarding where actually want to spend your time. Don’t worry about obligations. Just write what you’d actually LIKE to do with your time.

Mine might look something like this:

1. Exercising Faith Practices
2. Hanging with my Family
3. Writing/Blogging
4. Ministry to other Christians
5. Hanging with Friends
6. Learning, Researching, Schooling
7. Work (yes, I actually like working)
8. Gaming
9. Watching LOST and The Office (maybe a movie?)
10. Exercise

List Two: On the next list, outline things that you HAVE to do. These are obligations that you can’t avoid. Don’t forget about things like commuting, sleeping, eating, etc.

Mine might look something like this:

1. Sleep (at least 8 hours)
2. Work (at least 8 hours)
3. Commute (at least 1.5 hours)
4. Putting Ethan to Bed (at least .5 hour)
5. Eating Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner (1 hour)
6. General Readiness like showering and cleaning, etc (.75 hour)

Plan Your Calendar

After you make these two lists, put the activities from List Two on the calendar first. They’re the unavoidable ones so you may as well deal with them.

Then, before you put ANYTHING from List One onto your calendar, try to find a couple spaced throughout the week/month where you can partition some free time. This is simply because you never want to completely fill up your calendar. If you do, two problems will occur- firstly you’ll never have any time that you can share with someone if something comes up, and secondly you’ll always be running up against deadlines or moving toward the next event and, let’s face it, that’s no way to spend life.

Next, begin running through List One and add in activities based on what you thought was most important. If you run out of space in your day before you run out of things that are important you have two choices- you can either scratch them off your list- or you can reprioritize List One so that those things you really wanted to do make it into your schedule.

What If I Run Out Of Room?

Welcome to the real world. There will NEVER be enough time in the day/week/month to do everything. That’s why you were suppose to rank the things that you REALLY wanted to do and put them in first. Anything that falls into Non-essential or Non-priority needs to be something you’re willing to sacrifice.

So, when you run out of room in your calendar and you still have things left over. It’s time to cross them off your list. And when new things come up that you’d like to be a part of- you need to make a decision: Is this new thing worth more to me than something else on my calendar. If it is, cut out one of those other priorities and add the new one. But if it’s not, be willing to say no.

After all, you can’t do everything.

Be OK with it.

Matt was kind enough to allow me to use one of his photos as my banner this week. Here it is without my 880x250 crop:

Courtesy of Matt Addington

This morning, I wrote that Heidegger believed that the third way of being was found within the structure of "finding one's meaning" in the outworking of Equipment Ontology. That was not correct. Heidegger believed that the way of being human is in taking a stand, or an interest in one's own being. The outworking springs from being human- not using tools or equipment (although one might use equipment as a way to "take a stand on one's being").

This is extremely difficult to understand and seems to be almost circular logic- but I'm sure that with a bit more thinking, I might make some sense of it.

Right now, it seems that Heidegger is saying that the third way of being is taking concern with one's own being. I think what he means is that this third way of being is having self awareness- but I'm probably wrong again.

Oh Heidegger...

Note: This is the guy I’m learning from right now regarding Heidegger.

I’m still learning and interacting with these ideas, so my understanding could be a bit warped or incorrect- anyone who’s done some major study on Being and Time or Heidegger should feel free to jump in and add to or correct any of what follows. But from what I’ve gathered in the lecture series I’m listening to, Heidegger thinks there are actually two additional states of being beyond the typical substance/subject ontology that is normally described by philosophers. The first is:

Substance/Subject Ontology

This state of being finds its roots in Plato, Aristotle, and subsequently most other philosophers all the way them to the present (and especially or interest to Artificial Intelligence advocates). It claims that being is a state that occurs when a substance is describable. For example, a heavy table is a being because it can be predicated by a single, atomized element. Heaviness is the chosen element describing the table- but we could also substitute brown, round, or any other basic predicate that cannot be broken down into further elements. A substance could be susceptible to a number of descriptors, but it must have at least one elemental descriptor attached to it in order for us to say that it is a substantial being.

Heidegger agrees that substance ontology is a rudimentary state of being, but warns us that it fails to capture the fullest understanding of what being really is. This is because there are certain limitations that we run into when we split a being apart into its most basic elements. As indicated by the failure of AI (we are unable, thus far, to conjoin a matrix of descriptive commands and substances in a way that replicated anything truly human), Heidegger is probably correct. Of course, an AI advocate will argue that it’s because they haven’t broken apart the brain into the fullest logical sequence of data points yet, but the reality is, there’s something other than descriptors and substance that lends itself to being. And this is where a purely substance-driven ontology is flawed.

Heidegger argues that there is an older idea that’s better suited for describing being- one of holism, connectedness, and interdependence among elements that is critical to understanding their being. He outlines some of this in his equipment ontology and more of it later in the Human Ontology.

Equipment Ontology

This second state of being, Heidegger argues, is a holistic approach to being where a substance gains its identity through it’s own attributes and also the other substances that are required for it to make sense. What it means to be a hammer, for instance, is fully dependant upon our understanding of nails, wood, and construction (among other things). A hammer on its own, apart from these other elements is not actually a hammer.

The lecturer gave a pop culture example from the movie “The Gods Must Be Crazy” where an African Tribe stumbles upon an empty coke bottle that’s been dropped out of the sky from an airplane. Without a context for the bottle, they create all sorts of uses for it- a rolling pin, a weapon- none of which lend themselves toward what the thing would have been within the context of the original owner. The argument is that this coke bottle is NOT a coke bottle apart from an understanding of coke, packaging, and drinking.

Heidegger argues that a piece of equipment is only that thing when it is being used for its function. A hammer in a drawer, without a purpose, might be susceptible to the Substance Ontology- a being that is hard, black, etc. but it is not a hammer in the Equipment Ontological sense of being.

It’s simply a thing.

But here Heidegger needed to make a further distinction between humans and equipment, because we rarely want to treat people as an object or utility. Thus, he outlined the third way of being- that of being human. He calls this existence.

Existence/Human Ontology

In this third state of being, Heidegger argues that only humans exist. I know- this sounds strange, but let me explain!

He is using the word existence, not as a descriptive of being but rather as a state of being. He claims that a tree and a hammer (and even God) don’t exist in the same way that Humans do. Note: he’s not claiming that God does not exist in the same way that an atheist would. And he’s not claiming that trees and hammers don’t exist in the way that Descartes did (Descartes held a very matrixesce brain-in-a-vat interacting with other brains-in-vats paradigm that questioned the nature of reality and whether or not anything other than thought/cognitive powers truly exist).

Rather, he claims that existence is when a substance finds its meaning in engaging with equipment. A human exists when he uses a hammer to build a home and therefore calls himself a carpenter. A human exists when she uses the resources available to her to care for her children and thereby calls herself a mother. This meaning doesn’t have to be expressed. It can be subconscious. I don’t have to consider myself writer, even though I use the equipment around me to write.

So, from what I gather- meaning and identity is directly tied to what it means to be human. Humans find their identity or meaning in what they interact with which makes them different than a tree or a hammer- Or even God who gets His identity from Himself.

And that’s what Heidegger means when he says that God does not exist. Existence is tied to meaning and identity and those are things that are inherent to human beings rather than anything else that we’ve come across so far.

Here’s the thing though… I’m still not sure what Heidegger would think of a comatose man. Since he is unable to interact in a willful way and find identity in substance and equipment, is he actually human? or is he equipment (to be operated on and tested)? or is he merely substance (a piece of meat lying on a table)?

If you’re a Heidegger scholar, please correct any errors. If you want to comment on the accuracy of Heidegger’s claims or the practical application of any of these categories of being, feel free to leave comments.

As both Seth and Jim pointed out in the comments yesterday, the practical outworking of a theory is probably just as important as the idea itself.

I heard Brian McLaren mention something like this when he talked about how hard it is for atheists to buy into Christianity when they see the evils that the Church has perpetuated throughout the ages. They can't rationalize the teachings of Christ- even if they are correct- when the people who "practice" these beliefs are just as guilty of hate and violence as the rest of the world.

Add to that Jim's comment regarding the "fruit of the vine" which is a great reference to Jesus' own call that we should align our assumptions about who people are based on the practical outworking of their lives rather than the beliefs they claim as their own. In other words- an apple tree bears apples, and a pear tree bears pears. Even if the two look a lot alike when they're growing into maturity, the moment the fruit appears, you know what they're really made of. Likewise, the fruit of our labors and the outworking of our lives will tell what we're really made of.

Of course, this doesn't take into consideration whether or not the person really practiced what they preach.

For instance, a bankrupt individual might come up with a foolproof financial plan which could help millions get back on their feet- regardless of his own financial status. In order to really assess the merit of his ideas, we need to 1) ask him whether or not he's following his own financial plan. If he says yes, we write him off. If he says no, then we move to step 2) and get some further proof that his ideas could work if they were actually followed.

This is sort of a non-transferrable example because you'd hope that a person wouldn't proselytize a theory or belief they don't actually hold themselves- but there's probably something there.

What do you think?