Surviving the Singularity

There is no question that whoever develops and controls the first computer with greater-than-human intelligence—in other words, whoever creates the Singularity—will control the world. The question is whether the rest of the world, seeing that moment approaching, will sit back and let it happen without taking some kind of action.

At the present time, such a project is affordable only by large national governments. Due to the acceleration of technological advancement, the longer one waits to start a Singularity Project, the cheaper and quicker it will be to attain the result. The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology recently estimated the cost of such a project started in 2010 at about US$ 1 billion, certainly within the research budget of many large corporations—and rogue nations—and could lead to the Singularity in as little as two years. The present cost might be ten times that, and take five to eight years to completion.

Therefore by now there is almost certainly at least one secret government project to develop such a computer, and more likely several. The Singularity will come, for the economic and strategic benefits from the technology are compelling. The problem is that one of the larger nations in the race to attain the Singularity may begin to think it is in second place. In their eyes, that may justify a military action against whichever nation is perceived as being the leader. Along with the coming global shortages of natural resources caused by global warming and overpopulation, the prospect of another World War is almost certain. Once again, the psychosis of war will convulse our planet. Therefore the real question is, will any of us survive it to enjoy the benefits of the advanced technology we are about to produce?

The key to surviving the devastation of the JCI/WES ontology by the Ontological Time Bomb of the Singularity is to invent, find or subscribe to a better and more powerful ontology. Of course, this is much easier said than done. To survive the explosion of the Ontological Time Bomb and the resulting vacuum of meaning, one must possess an ontology sufficiently robust to contain both the previous ontology, and the tremendous energy and inestimable creative fecundity of the Singularity. The one certainty is that no ontology developed by limited human intelligence will be capable of dealing with the Singularity, which by definition is an event caused by greater-than-human intelligence. To meet the challenge of the Singularity, we must therefore search for a valid ontology that is also a product of greater-than-human intelligence.

Vedic Cosmogenesis and Ontology

The only known ontology that meets all these requirements is found in the Esoteric Teaching of the Vedic literature. According to the Vedic histories themselves, the entire Vedic ontological system emanates from the breathing of Lord Narayana at the beginning of the material creation. Its purpose is to help the materially conditioned living entities overcome the influence of illusion and attain perfect self-realization of the Absolute Truth. Absolute means ‘not conditioned by time, place, mind, identity or state.’ Thus Vedic Absolute Truth is true for any being in any state or condition, in any location of any dimension of any universe, in any of the phases of time or eternity, regardless of his mental beliefs.

This unconditional Absolute Truth of the Esoteric Teaching is our only hope of surviving the Ontological Time Bomb, for it is the only ontology known to originate from a Being of greater-than-human intelligence, Lord Narayana. In fact, from our human perspective His intelligence and consciousness are infinite. We human beings cannot independently understand the actual source of creation with our dull minds and senses, and since we were not present we can never test or verify any of our tiny theories of creation.

The actual creation process is described in great detail in the Third Canto of the Vedic literature Srimad-Bhagavatam as energy emanating from Lord Narayana. In nature we see that matter is actually inert, and that any action we may observe is caused by energy propagating through some medium. Every kind of energy has an energetic source, and the ultimate source of the energy of the creation is Lord Narayana. All this is explained very scientifically in Srimad-Bhagavatam.

According to Vedic ontology, the purpose of the creation is to provide a field of activities for the conditioned living entities to work out their entanglement with matter in the form of karma, cause and effect, and ultimately to attain perfect self-realization of all aspects of the Supreme Absolute Truth. In this state of pure consciousness, all material problems are simply ontologically inconsequential. More important, the principal stable datum of Vedic ontology—that Lord Narayana is the Supreme Soul and the reservoir of all material energies—is perfect, unconditional Absolute Truth. Therefore no upheaval in the material energy, no matter how enormous, can shake the mind of a person absorbed in such a state of self-realization, for they are in direct contact with the source and controller of that energy.

Next: Ontological Timebomb Conclusion