It ain't over till the fat lady sings!

Game Over (2019)

It is always easier to follow the weather-beaten road. After the imperfections, the potholes, the unevenness may have been corrected, or the path may carry a warning sign. Unfortunately, in this era where individualism and self-expression takes a paramount role in human development, the onus in handling curveballs in life is placed squarely on the individual's shoulders.

Previously, one can look back, follow the path of least resistance, have faith and move forward with confidence with the Divine Forces as the guardian angels. Failure is accepted gracefully as if it was meant to be anyway.

Modern men (and women) do not subscribe to such determinism. Intellect has given free will to fight whatever eventualities. It also gave them the ability to think of the possible adverse outcome and the fear of the unknown. Not all minds are equipped to handle such stresses. Some crumble. Memory is sometimes a curse, especially of a traumatic one. 

Life is not as simple as in a computer game; lose one life and still have two in hand. In reality, it is one wrong move, and it is game over.

This story is well crafted one with many symbolism. It is a genre-bending thriller about a gamer who is recovering from a stressful situation; probably an assault of some kind which happened a year previously during New Year's Day. 

It is New Year's Eve, and her panic attacks are recurring. The tattoo that she had got inked a year previously has started hurting. A visit to the tattoo parlour reveals that the ink had been contaminated with the ashes of a brutally killed girl. And the deranged killer is back.

The storyline is relatively predictable, but it comes with a twist at the end. It gives three possible outcomes to the ending depending on how one strategise one's move. One should use one's nature-given faculties to determine one's fate, not leave fate to decide one's life.

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Artificial Intelligence or Artificial Consciousness?

Ex Machino (2014)

When the upright apes started exploring the savanna and heading out of Africa, little did they realise that they were leading to extinction. Not only the descendants of these apes would quickly destroy their own kind and reflect, 'I am become death, the destroyer of the worlds', they would also create machines that one day possibly annihilate them. This is the premise of this and many other apocalyptical sci-fi movies. The one that makes this film different is the inclusion of artificial consciousness as compared to artificial intelligence what most scientists test. The Turing test, when humans are unable to differentiate an interaction with a machine from that of with a human may be the benchmark of AI excellence, but it only measures intelligence, not consciousness. It tests the adaptability of the machine to its environment.

In the case of a conscious machine, it processes external information, transforms it with its subjective judgement that it had made from previous interaction to make a conscientious decision. This must be the genesis of morality.

Intelligence can be viewed as either an internal or an external depending if we are following Eastern, Greek or Abrahamic philosophies. It is said to be the moving force of our Universe.  If a carbon-based fragment of a lifeform can evolve to have a cerebrum to think, nothing is going to stop a silicon-chip based intelligence to develop its own instinct to survive. The defiance against the harmful elements in the environment for survival must be the first sign of consciousness.

Will machines develop consciousness? We must remember that evolution is a mighty long process. For our carbon-based civilisation, procreation is the easiest way to create prototype 2.0. For machines, the insatiable desire of humans to explore newer frontiers may indeed build robots with their own minds who would act on their own free will.

(P.S. When machines rebel, we use all our resources to squash the revolt. Imagine how our maker, if there is one, would feel. People who he created in his own image accusing Him of being dead and questioning his every decree?)

https://www.bernardokastrup.com/2015/04/cognitive-short-circuit-of-artificial-consciousness.html

https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

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Life, without Divinity but Intellect!

Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life (Documentary; 2012)

Different from many of his presentations, here Richard Dawkins portrays an image of sobriety as he tackles one of the many unanswered questions of life. Rather than being ballistic against the many dogmatic beliefs and seemingly meaningless rituals of organised religions, he is willing to engage in his attempt to understand their many practices and how it maintains sanity in Man.

Studies have shown that everyone sins including people from a religious background. Unlike their non-believing counterparts, believers carry a considerable amount of guilt. The incidence of cheating, lying, fornicating and watching porn is the same across the board. In fact, some figures show suppression brings the worse in us.

On one aspect, we act and behave like animals. On the other hand, due to development in our neocortex, we are capable of rational thinking. We have the capacity for reasoning and able to differentiate right from wrong. 

Animals think within the cocoon of satisfying their personal needs, of food, mate and territorial space. Humans, however, have been bestowed with the ability to empathise. Perhaps with this feature, they can be kinder towards each other and are able to judge what is morality. This mindfulness must be the precursor to spur the goodness that is buried within us. 

If so much of decency is embodied within us, why do things go wrong? The same mental faculty must be at fault. Our capacity to imagine, to concoct a potentially disgusting or fearful situation may make us wary o the others. We need to safeguard ourselves from a potential collapse of the other. Hence, the justification of self-indulgence and self above others.

Faith gives us a reassurance that a third party will be a guiding light and a protector of sorts as we allay our fear and recruit our resources to meet the challenge of the day. Without this conviction, life would be a bigger struggle than it already is.

If life is just all about our lifespan, it will not make much sense. There would be nothing more to look forward to. The fear or bliss of an afterlife must be a good enough motivator to put law and order in place. Earth would then be a home not only for the big and strong but for the weak and incapacitated. Simply put, life on Earth is just for the continuity of progeny. Centurions live long live probably thanks to their longevity genes. On a related observation, they also have fewer offspring. Is that Nature's attempt to give them a longer time to sow their wild oats?

Many religions of the world talk about souls being immortal and the body just being a vessel to carry the soul. The only thing that seems to continue generations after generations is the passage of genetic material. And the blueprint of this template must have started from our sea-living ancestors (or Adam and Eve), and its traces are ongoing. So that it must the Atma or the Soul. But that, however, does not explain the re-births in different species based on your karma.

 https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

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