Intro to The Planet

Information disembodied from matter seems to be the leitmotif of every book I’m reading about the future of AI.

But what is information without that which observed the world to produce it and that which uses it to make sense of the world?

One might argue that information exists as energy—information floating into the ether.

But even matter, at its core, is energy. So what is it that makes it inferior?

There has been a long line of thought in human history—religious, humanistic, philosophical, scientific, aspirational—that wants us to believe that the truth lies beyond matter. Beyond the universe. In another dimension.

This belief makes us blind to the world. To our surroundings. It makes us retreat within the recesses of our minds, digital spaces, virtual spaces, uploading minds. It makes us yearn for nonexistence because we think that this is where we’ll find eternal existence.

‘Information’ is another moniker for ‘god’, ‘eternity’, ‘spirituality’, ‘cosmic energy’, etc.

Its disembodiment is a form of canonization.

The biological or silicon cognition that produces it, a mere medium.

This is what makes us blind to the destruction we’ll leave behind us on this planet. Matter doesn’t matter. Only what is beyond matter matters. Even if we don’t know that there is something beyond.