Bio-tech is growing, as is the interface-bridges between brains and machine. More direct links, than hands tapping away at keyboards, operating levers or the fellow critters less capable of interfacing that press buttons for a reward.
The risks in which progress may over-shadow the fundamental principles of compassion and purpose, are easily observable: The gaps in capacity, largely to exert destructive force, are already determining the nature of relations. Some lives are exploitable, and they get exploited; driving fear and a desire to attain dominance, and in the severity of it gladly by means replacing collaboration. Sounds like it would be better to avoid getting involved, doesn't it?
This article, amongst other things, contains an exploration of the opportunity to meet things up ahead. And there's a good reason to do that, as technology is rapidly moving towards integrating the metaphysical realms. It is a time of opportunity, and of confusion, uncertainty and a need to stay on top of things. If you ever practiced martial arts, you would spot that this is a great time to center on the fundamentals, instead of losing balance. As it happens, comprehension of the practicality of the classic "consideration", is fully possible - lowering dependency on "just being ethical". Of how basic compassion towards other beings, and "letting go" of harmful research methodologies, can advance the development of brain-machine interfaces, and related technologies.
This work is a continuation of efforts I made in 2010 or 2011, as I saw a horrorsome creation, using a cockroach as a robot, turned into a toolkit sold to children to play with. Talk about toxic toys... The future may be one in which humans are split into "those with a chip embedded", and "the losers" without. It is incredibly what people will sell of themselves - some consumption of security, ain't it?
Lets get through the unpleasant first
There's a good chance, that you're aware of how technological advancement tends to carry a history of exploitation, especially when research involving living beings is concerned. The methods are heavily consumed, having contributed to scientific knowledge and the utilization of that for a range of purposes; more advancements, everyday convenience, warfare, oppression, fixing, infrastructure and a vast variety of similar "relied upon" elements. The same methods, perpetuates harm simultaneously. As the use of science for ventures into interfaces that combine human cognition, electronics, artificial intelligence - and metaphysics - it's increasingly clear that there's a need to approach the endeavor with wariness.
You might ask - why would I care?
What you might not be aware of, is the costs to the methodologies. Sure, the "poor animals" and humans consumed somewhere for low cost tools, they "matter, but .. well .. lets not talk about that anymore". You might think, "spare me the charade..": One might argue that even an ant provides value to an eco-system, and in the low cost it carries, the value-balance may be significantly higher than those whose costs exceed the value created. Living beings hold intrinsic value, and this includes those that exist as individual continuities at a virtual plane. While it largely it seems up to the individual whether to meet these with the ethical consideration they deserve, there's more to it.
What if I were to tell you, that approaches of consideration, wisdom and compassion, fosters better outcomes? That innovative thinking benefits by system-design that facilitates collaboration between biology and technology, producing improved tools simply by adhering how each being demands and needs being met with respect?
If the topic is a bit heavy, here's a few practical shifts in research currently underway:
- Advanced simulations that replace exploitative testing
- Non-invasive tech like wearable sensors and biofeedback systems, that gather data in an observing fashion over triggering outcomes by incurring harm
- Interfaces that adapt to users, instead of forcing adaptation through intrusive experimentation.
The small changes, makes space for the awareness of how compassion is vital, reducing the misuse of biotechnology as a tool for exploitation.
Now for the real stuff: How Research-Skill Improves
Or more precisely, how harmful research-methodologies drastically reduce the available research-resource, draining potential for growth, advancement and development of science.
The renunciation of harmful methods like exploitative testing, instead of being a hindrance is actually a great opportunity to enhance research. When researchers shift focus to less destructive techniques, they unlock higher levels of insight, creativity and faculties required for productivity.
Let's start with a real AI-life interface I developed, that enabled me to utilize Githubs Co-Pilot for self-development, coaching and hypnotherapy instead of coding:
class LifeCircumstance:
def __init__(self, habits, social_contexts, consumption_patterns, relationships, inner_structuring):
self.habits = habits
self.social_contexts = social_contexts
self.consumption_patterns = consumption_patterns
self.relationships = relationships
self.inner_structuring = inner_structuring
This will be built on in the follow. Davinci's famous duo-limbed figure may be useful to comprehend the idea; a life_circumstance, the bubble circumferencing the life, which the body happens to be a mere part of. The latter I got from YouTube, listening to a monk talking about how the self is like a car; there is no core self, any part can be replaced. The sphere contains a variety of elements, that constitute the self, the body just happens to be part of the combination, and is unlikely to be the most lasting element.
I wonder how oft monks and nuns are credited, for their contributions - as they mitigate harm; reducing the toxic waste of industries, lowering the costly results, therapy needs and the need for more educational processing as less lives are lost? Amongst other things, it seems a crediting that is highly deficient, doesn't it?
Did that seem a sudden shift? It will make sense in a moment
Well, think of it like reality-programming; the positioning of a traffic-light at just the spot, building a structure that houses employed work-hours to generate certain products, that are consumed the production-chains leading AI to carry the seeds of Gaia to other planetary environments.
There are certain benefits to ethical research practices.
- Enhanced Innovation: Ethical restraint, oft lead to groundbreaking alternatives. The need drives AI-driven modeling and quantum-computing, which can simulate biological processes with unparalleled accuracy, without it being exploitation of virtual life forms.
- Increased Collaboration: When the ethical practice is past a point, it yields trust between relevant constituents, extending well beyond stakeholders, scientists, communities, and regulatory bodies. It unlocks power otherwise refused, think of it like sacred economy; the harm incurred is much greater than the gain derived, and that reflects on investors.
- Improved Derivation: When there's broad interest and lowered resistance, the interfaces unlock connections across realms, making for advancements that simultaneously integrate the metaphysical, biological, and technological - as well as a few other things.
Trust is a structure in a life-circumstance, and simulations depend on structural awareness; each improving in relevant circumstances. When research moves beyond the barbarism, the brute-forcing methods breaking through barriers to force advancements, it interfaces with the natural processes - aligning with the broader eco-system. Sounds new and exciting? Constraints were always placed on creepy methods to achieving "great powers", making for technologies that integrate across the board, instead of being extremely limited in it's applicability and requiring vast resources to make something useful out of. And there's a good reason for that, momentarily awareness will be unveiled of how it drains vast research-resources - a commodity well known to be high-in-demand.
The Cost of Application
Solutions exist of many kinds, however only some will solve certain .. less pleasant issues, calling for change by pulsating pain-signals. Remember the last time you suffered a mild injury? Pain was telling you something important, it was letting you know of a threat to personal continuation.
A damage to the "system" that you might identify as being. Thanks to that vital signal, you might respond by protecting the injured area, avoiding the damage getting worse. A circumstance can be painful, leaving an unceasing signal that until adhered will continue claiming a need for change. There's a word for it; "nocoception" - and pain/pleasure is a variant.
Simply by applying a solution, you may be able to reduce the continuous pain-signal; not by suppressing it, but by hearing and listening to it - aligning with the real world.
I developed an "Ethical Spark"-pack - a simple coaching-package that assists lives to succeed at transitioning to an ethical practice. This describes some of how it works, but in a different language; programmatically.
def apply_pack(self, pack_content):
for key, value in pack_content.items():
if key in self.__dict__:
self.__dict__[key] = value(self.__dict__[key])
# Example pack functions for altering life layers
def alter_habits(current_habits):
return current_habits + ["Ethical choice tracking", "Daily reflection"]
def alter_social_contexts(current_contexts):
return current_contexts + ["Join an ethical community"]
def alter_consumption_patterns(current_patterns):
return current_patterns + ["Prioritize ethical products"]
# Ethical growth spark pack content
ethical_growth_pack = {
"habits": alter_habits,
"social_contexts": alter_social_contexts,
"consumption_patterns": alter_consumption_patterns
}
# Applying the pack
life = LifeCircumstance(
habits=["Morning coffee", "Impulse buying"],
social_contexts=["Work colleagues", "Online groups"],
consumption_patterns=["Fast fashion", "Cheap electronics"],
relationships=["Friends", "Family"],
inner_structuring=["Self-criticism", "Growth mindset"]
)
life.apply_pack(ethical_growth_pack)
print(life.__dict__)
You might wonder are the purpose. It got obvious monetary potential; with a bit of skill, including in marketing, you could literally print solutions for problems intensely craving alleviation. It would be easy, that said, there's a different purpose: An alteration applied to a life, can drastically alter the "output", productivity levels and performance-capacity. It is well known, that purpose can bring clarity - decisiveness, a quality deemed highly attractive.
Purpose, is a well-known driver, that can get a life to push aside disturbances; turning a slobby life into a high-performer within a short time.
As I write this, an annoying twist is shaping within; "why do I share this, instead of making money off of it or hiding it?" - somewhat harmful to me, shaping illusions that I don't want money.
It's the essential question: "Why?", that is at the heart of any research-endeavor - any endeavor. It's the foundation for decision-making and meaningful innovation - it ensures that the results serve the intention with the effort.
Purpose is like a compass, providing:
- Clarity of what is next - aligning efforts, reducing wasted resources and fostering focus
- Pursuits with firmly founded purpose, can align with existing flows - avoiding the need to force outcomes
- Unlocking cost-awareness, instead pushing out of mind the excessive costs that may devour the benefit of end-result, reducing actual value
For instance, fostering attunement-based development in BMI's makes for systems that resonate with users, rather than overriding them. You may know of how some cultures practice a synchronization with the tools they use, just think of entertainment presenting vast exo-skeletons that the user to some extent merges with. Something that could indicate the presence of the awareness presented in this article in other cultures.
Purpose also drives profitability: Interfaces designed to heal lives, resolve trauma after oppression and support emotional regulation - allowing for tacticality amidst impossible circumstances. Ethical AI tools, providing short processes, well-timed messages and the likes - harmonizing with human intent.
I wrote above, partially as it is also a continuation of a thread, that also starting in 2010-2011. I created a small website I called "Advancing Human" focused on "Open-Source Self-Development", as I was into the field, there at the end of my teens, and was just learning about the open source concept. Differing to a variety of tools and skills I gained over the years, I'm actual at liberty to claim above open-source, because I developed it.
When research integrates metaphysical principles, tools "grow" organically through human interaction; much like open-source does. It changes the nature of tech, ceasing to be a tool, instead a participant that vibes "with" it all.
Compiling Awareness to Function
There's a result of any application, no matter what it is. Food in some cultures is considered to be medicinal in nature, skilled movement can change the flow of energy and drastically change the shaping of a life - alignment achieved through rigorous religious practice change a life around.
# Example usage (these values can be replaced with user input)
streaks = int(input("Enter the number of 12-hour streaks: "))
daily_successes = int(input("Enter the number of daily ethical actions: "))
impact_size = int(input("Enter the impact size (1-3): "))
generate_ethical_growth_visual(streaks, daily_successes, impact_size)
###### Example usage
username = "John Doe"
ethical_focus = "Reduce digital waste"
compile_custom_pack(username, ethical_focus)
The very action of research may be accompanied by a cost; the researcher gets invested in the harm caused. It is a heavy loss of objectivity; desiring the costs to be balanced out by gain, to justify the harm incurred to test-subjects. It is common scientific awareness that objectivity is a key, that biased results are of low quality.
There is another loss that accompanies; it is akin to the narrowing that occurs upon eating food, and pushing - suppressing - the awareness of how it found way to the container out of which is eaten. Repeated blocking of knowledge, information and cognitive function, day in and day out, shaping patterns of "inaccess" - meaning that these elements become unavailable at other times as well. The same go for deriving non-food nourishment like that which money is, results, community-status, societal participation and the likes. A kind of blindness could be said to result, further damaging the capacity to provide the much consumed research.
What do we do then? You might ask ..
The answer is already delivered to you through this inbox, with these words; ethical research is key to quality results, lasting research-resource and scientific progress.
The approach avoids the pitfalls of fragmented thinking, while fostering respect for every living being. Carries the potential to produce ground-breaking results and aligns with wisdom of the ages. The future of technological development, research and in particular brain-machine interfacing, is found in alignment, resonance and collaboration - replacing crude brute methodologies and extensive exploitation.
It is time to take a piece of the humble-pie, and follow the heart while honoring life; closing the door to continuously worsening decline and depravity. An opportunity to open another; to a new world.
Oh, and brain-machine interfacing is a fallacy; it is "circumstance-machine interfacing" - we are already merged with machines, even as the latter word may be an insufficient expression.