Artist Blog
Every week an artist whose single image was published by Der Greif is given a platform in which to blog about contemporary photography.
On consciousness, the brain and simulations.
May 07, 2019 - Guilherme Gerais
‘’A human being is a biorobot with a biocomputer in it, the brain. But we are not that brain, and we are not that body. A soul essence inhabits us, and, under acid, under K, under anesthesia, you’ll find that the essence isn’t tied to brain activity at all. Brain activity can be virtually flat, and you can be conscious — off somewhere in another realm. You just can’t communicate with people in consensus reality’’.
Interview with John C. Lilly by Judith Hooper. Omni Magazine. Jan 1983.
The brain is a subject of many studies, and although we’ve learned a lot about it, we are very far from uncovering many of its mysteries.
Brazilian scientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel recently discovered how many neurons there are in our brain. Her studies showed that African elephants have 257 billion neurons, three times more than us, with 86 billion neurons. For her, there is something that only humans do and it was decisive to accumulate so many neurons in the cerebral cortex: we cook.
7 million years ago the human brain was small, around 400 grs. Now it’s 7 times bigger than what it should be, and it spends 25% of the energy from our body, around 500 calories a day, whereas our body spends 2.000 calories a day.
Besides scientific research, there are many private corporations holding also studies on the brain, although their real goals are kept as secret. One example is Google Brain, where researchers are working on a simulation of the human brain. On 2012 they used 16.000 computers to identify the image of a cat.
During the ’50s, neurologist and psychoanalyst Dr.John C. Lilly held experiments with the human and animal brain. He developed the first isolation tanks, demonstrating that the brain continues to generate sensory data even when starved of sensory input.
On this video interview, we can see John C. Lilly speaking about some thoughts behind his research.
He also wrote this dream-like text where he speaks about his encounter with the ‘Masters of the Universe’.
Earth Coincidence Control Office (E.C.C.O.) by John Lilly
In one’s life, there can be peculiarly appropriate chains of related events that lead to consequences that are strongly desired. After such experiences, one wonders how such a series of events developed; sometimes there is a strong feeling that some intelligence (greater than ours) directed the course along certain lines which It/He/She was/is programming. Several years ago, I enunciated a format for such concatenations of events, somewhat:
“There exists a Cosmic Control Center (C.C.C.) with a Galactic substation called Galactic Coincidence Control (G.C.C.). Within which is the Solar System Control Unit (S.S.C.U.), within which is the Earth Coincidence Control Office (E.C.C.O.). The assignments of responsibilities from the top to the bottom of this system of control is by a set of regulations, which translated by E.C.C.O. for humans is somewhat as follows:”
To all humans: If you wish to control coincidences in your own life on the planet Earth, we will cooperate and determine those coincidences for you under the following conditions:
1) You must know/assume/simulate our existence in ECCO.
2) You must be willing to accept our responsibility for control of your coincidences.
3) You must exert your best capabilities for your survival programs and your own development as an advancing/ an advanced member of ECCO’s earthside corps of controlled coincidence workers. You are expected to use your best intelligence in this service
4) You are expected to expect the unexpected every minute, every hour of every day and every night.
5) You must be able to maintain conscious/thinking/ reasoning no matter what events we arrange to happen to you. Some of these events will seem cataclysmic/ catastrophic/overwhelming: remember to stay aware, no matter what happens/apparently happens to you.
6) You are in our training program for life: there is no escape from it. We (not you ) control the long-term coincidences; you (not we) control the shorter-term coincidences by your own efforts.
7) Your major mission on earth is to discover/create that which we do to control the long-term coincidence patterns: you are being trained on Earth to do this job.
8) When your mission on planet Earth is completed, you will no longer be required to remain/return there.
9) Remember the motto passed to us (from GCC via SSCU): “Cosmic Love is absolutely Ruthless and Highly Indifferent: it teaches its lessons whether you like/dislike them or not.”
A few years ago, I learned about the theory of Nick Bostrom, who is the founding Director of the Future of Humanity Institute. On this theory he says there’s one chance in a billion that we are the original species. He says that in the future, we will be able to create a perfect simulation of life, as we live, but in a digital realm. The ‘3D graphics’ will be so accurate that we won’t be able to differentiate what’s is real and what’s not plus we will be able to generate digital avatars completely consciousness of themselves, thus resulting in a perfect simulation of life.
Of course, for the ‘beings’ of this digital world, they won’t think they are living in a computer simulation. He wrote an interesting paper titled ‘‘Are You Living In A Computer Simulation?’’ where he argues that: ‘‘…at least one of the following propositions is true:
(1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage;
(2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof);
(3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor‐simulations is false unless we are currently living in a simulation…’’
Lastly on our quick tour on possible dimensions, the movie World on a Wire (1973) by German director Rainer Werner Fassbinderm, tells a story of realities within realities, where a researcher, working at the Institute of cybernetics and future science, begins to investigate the mysterious death of his mentor. He falls deep into the cover-up behind a computer capable of creating an artificial world with units living as human beings unaware that their world is just a computer projection.
As a further reading, I recommend these two articles, related to A.I, the brain, and consciousness.
+ https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-we-d-tell-you-to-hold-on-tight-while-reading-this-but-there-s-nothing-to-hold-onto-1.7164814?fbclid=IwAR0W1SaOaggzyDma1U4ae5N4Q3njZXMvFm1hLCeaDhgf7TMVqosPp8lyGxc