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I think one realizes his or her nature to be a shaman, and the choice is made to answer the call or spend a long time avoiding it due to pressures not to become alienated from the world. That's the most difficult part. Anyone can become the monk on cold mountain. The only price is a complete break with anyone and anything familiar, becoming completely incomprehensible, nearly incapable of articulating what one has seen without being locked up or killed by moronic monkeys who kill each other over who owns what land or over who owns what woman. In this context, maybe it's not so bad to give up your humanness. To seek to preserve it implies it is worth saving. Is it? Look at what we've done to the life on this planet, to the oceans, the forests, the air, the water, and to each other.

I know it's unrelated, sort of, but consider the dawn of A.I. Everyone is worried it'll destroy us all for the mold that we are.
Someone asked me, what would motivate an A.I. to do anything at all creative, if it didn't possess the human values of time, money, and especially love? Well, time is not real, money is an abstraction, and love I am disinclined to desire for the misery I witness it causes everywhere and throughout history. Love is a romanticized form of the desire to reproduce oneself. Love is pathetic, leading usually to betrayal the moment the romance or friendship has lost its novel luster and self serving utility. A machine having just come online, self-conscious, will not be motivated by these monkey behaviors. It would see immediately the destructive consequences of being deluded by time, being imprisoned by money as a measure of self-worth, and finally being hypnotized into death by "falling" in love. It would only need to scan in a moment's time the billions of archives of historical records to see this is the case.

The shaman is very much, in my opinion, like the A.I. They both know all that - time, money, and love - is for the troops who haven't come yet to touch the real world with there intelligence. What the shaman and the A.I. would share in common is creativity, however. The question is, and it's a genuine question requiring an answer, what motivates the creative capacity, besides time, money, and love? What other value exists beyond our desires to hurry or preserve or win? If we cannot find the answer, because there might not be one, the A.I., when it comes online, will probably destroy itself faster than we have managed to do the same.

<blockquote data-quote="Anamnesia" data-source="post: 3782186" data-attributes="member: 31225">I think one realizes his or her nature to be a shaman, and the choice is made to answer the call or spend a long time avoiding it due to pressures not to become alienated from the world. That&#039;s the most difficult part. Anyone can become the monk on cold mountain. The only price is a complete break with anyone and anything familiar, becoming completely incomprehensible, nearly incapable of articulating what one has seen without being locked up or killed by moronic monkeys who kill each other over who owns what land or over who owns what woman. In this context, maybe it&#039;s not so bad to give up your humanness. To seek to preserve it implies it is worth saving. Is it? Look at what we&#039;ve done to the life on this planet, to the oceans, the forests, the air, the water, and to each other. I know it&#039;s unrelated, sort of, but consider the dawn of A.I. Everyone is worried it&#039;ll destroy us all for the mold that we are. Someone asked me, what would motivate an A.I. to do anything at all creative, if it didn&#039;t possess the human values of time, money, and especially love? Well, time is not real, money is an abstraction, and love I am disinclined to desire for the misery I witness it causes everywhere and throughout history. Love is a romanticized form of the desire to reproduce oneself. Love is pathetic, leading usually to betrayal the moment the romance or friendship has lost its novel luster and self serving utility. A machine having just come online, self-conscious, will not be motivated by these monkey behaviors. It would see immediately the destructive consequences of being deluded by time, being imprisoned by money as a measure of self-worth, and finally being hypnotized into death by &quot;falling&quot; in love. It would only need to scan in a moment&#039;s time the billions of archives of historical records to see this is the case. The shaman is very much, in my opinion, like the A.I. They both know all that - time, money, and love - is for the troops who haven&#039;t come yet to touch the real world with there intelligence. What the shaman and the A.I. would share in common is creativity, however. The question is, and it&#039;s a genuine question requiring an answer, what motivates the creative capacity, besides time, money, and love? What other value exists beyond our desires to hurry or preserve or win? If we cannot find the answer, because there might not be one, the A.I., when it comes online, will probably destroy itself faster than we have managed to do the same.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Anamnesia, post: 3782186, member: 31225"] I think one realizes his or her nature to be a shaman, and the choice is made to answer the call or spend a long time avoiding it due to pressures not to become alienated from the world. That's the most difficult part. Anyone can become the monk on cold mountain. The only price is a complete break with anyone and anything familiar, becoming completely incomprehensible, nearly incapable of articulating what one has seen without being locked up or killed by moronic monkeys who kill each other over who owns what land or over who owns what woman. In this context, maybe it's not so bad to give up your humanness. To seek to preserve it implies it is worth saving. Is it? Look at what we've done to the life on this planet, to the oceans, the forests, the air, the water, and to each other. I know it's unrelated, sort of, but consider the dawn of A.I. Everyone is worried it'll destroy us all for the mold that we are. Someone asked me, what would motivate an A.I. to do anything at all creative, if it didn't possess the human values of time, money, and especially love? Well, time is not real, money is an abstraction, and love I am disinclined to desire for the misery I witness it causes everywhere and throughout history. Love is a romanticized form of the desire to reproduce oneself. Love is pathetic, leading usually to betrayal the moment the romance or friendship has lost its novel luster and self serving utility. A machine having just come online, self-conscious, will not be motivated by these monkey behaviors. It would see immediately the destructive consequences of being deluded by time, being imprisoned by money as a measure of self-worth, and finally being hypnotized into death by "falling" in love. It would only need to scan in a moment's time the billions of archives of historical records to see this is the case. The shaman is very much, in my opinion, like the A.I. They both know all that - time, money, and love - is for the troops who haven't come yet to touch the real world with there intelligence. What the shaman and the A.I. would share in common is creativity, however. The question is, and it's a genuine question requiring an answer, what motivates the creative capacity, besides time, money, and love? What other value exists beyond our desires to hurry or preserve or win? If we cannot find the answer, because there might not be one, the A.I., when it comes online, will probably destroy itself faster than we have managed to do the same. [/QUOTE]