9-19-2007 -- Thoughts on Colossus and Paley

While re-reading Natural Theology, I found myself rather upset throughout. This came, at first, because of, in general, the fact that Paley, clearly something of an intellectual, really loves the use, or perhaps overuse, of the comma as a way of, a linguist might say, breaking apart, and, maybe, organizing his thoughts. Alright, so he did a far better job of it than I did, but the point remains the same: sometimes it isn't so bad to use simple sentence structure.

Onto my main point, the real reason that I was upset with the argument posed by Paley was that he seemed to make the common flaw of heavily overestimating the human race. This also comes up in the conclusion of Colossus: The Forbin Project, but I will get to that in a moment. Paley's main piece of evidence is the existence of a watch. He argues that just by examining the watch and witnessing the incredible amount of work that was involved to make all of the mechanisms work, it is OBVIOUS that there was a maker, a designer, a contriver involved. And from this, of course, comes to assumption that all of existence must also have a designer. My first issue with this is that Paley's idea that it is so obvious that a watch must have had a designer. Of course we as humans would think this way considering that one of OUR kind was the designer.

My other problem is the primary reason that I am writing this and is also my biggest issue with the "theory" of intelligent design in general. Claiming that everything MUST have been designed exactly as we see it simply because we can also create things is the argument of an egomaniac. It blows my mind that so many people can't wrap their heads around the idea that nature is really as amazing and mind-blowing as it appears. Saying that God made everything to work as it does is to essentially remove the majesty of the universe.

I could continue, but I realize that at some point I would just be arguing against young-earth creationists and religious folks, and that really isn't the purpose of this class nor really anything to do at all with Paley's writing. Instead of going on an anti-religous tangent, I'll just move on to Colossus and save myself the anxiety.

So, at the end of Colossus: The Forbin Project, humanity is left in the hands of the all-powerful computer system Colossus. Of course we are supposed to believe that this is a horrible fate for humanity, but I just don't see it that way. There is a famous quote that says something to the effect of "The best government is the rule of a good dictator." I take a lot of heat for agreeing with this, but I just can't help it. My everyday experiences have taught me that the majority of humans are stupid. I really do not think that we are fit to govern ourselves. If there was a person who came about who knew how to fix all of our problems, I would gladly hand him control over us. Of course no one this capable actually exists, so I must remind everyone that this is completely theoretical and not something I ever expect to see happen.

However, Colossus seems to fit the bill rather well. From what I can tell, he (it?) has no intention of destroying mankind. He will stop war, stop hunger, and increase knowledge ten fold. Okay, so we lose our "freedom," but it isn't like freedom really exists anyways. I doubt that Colossus is going to worry much over censorship and the day to day activities of mankind. After all, he is supposed to be more rational than we could ever imagine, so he would know what does and does not actually pose a threat to himself and others. I would even go so far as to say that he wouldn't give a damn about people writing songs and movies about destroying him. It's entertainment, and Colossus clearly has enough power not to worry about a bunch of excited movie-goers leading the revolution. Anyways, I think most people would actually be quite content under his rule.

This leads me to the concept of machines eventually replacing humans as the dominant "species" on the planet. Why is this so frightening? Again I find myself calling human egomaniacs for thinking that our species means a Goddamn thing. There were trillions of species before us and it stands to reason that there will be plenty of them after we have gone. If we were to create a race of machines that was sentient and decided to destroy us, well, that's our own fault. And regardless, we would have destroyed ourselves eventually anyhow. If the machines live on, clearly they were superior and have every right to outlast us.

I cannot argue with Colossus's rationale behind controlling us. Look at history for ten seconds. We are blood-thirsty, poorly organized heathens. We have the gift of reason and logic, but they are almost always complety ignored when it really matters. I think that, if anything, we have proved to the earth that we failed. We were the first to develop sentience as a way of surviving and evolving, yet all we do is destroy that which we are given.

Yeah, we made watches... but if one was defective, we'd throw it out. If there is a God, perhaps he should be heading back to the drawing board.

That got awful pessimistic didn't it?