Why are humans so deadly?

Over the past few years, I have been on a side quest. My mission? To understand what has driven us humans to desiccate our planet and wreak havoc on each other. Just asking for a friend. What has driven us to kill off the most species since the meteor that killed the dinosaurs? Are the drivers innate to human nature? Are we kind when its visible but lack conscience when we can’t see the big-picture repercussions of our actions? Are there healthier cultures that have been able to avoid mass destruction? Wouldn't it be nice to really know WHY?

On this side quest to understand these questions, I’ve been reading a thicc book called “The Master and His Emissary." This 400+ page master work cites a different brain science study in nearly every paragraph. The end notes alone are like 100 pages. This thing is a beast, and was published by Yale. The author, British psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist, is a heavy hitter. The core topic? Our brains (and the brains of nearly all birds and mammals) are divided in two halves, an begrudgingly co-operate in fascinating ways. The book dispels outdated pop-sci misunderstandings and takes a strong stance:

The structure of the brain has led the LEFT brain to dominate the RIGHT brain in Western societies. But this left brain dominance is culture-specific, not all humans are ruled by the left-brain. McGilchist suggests that this overly “left brain thinking” underlies a lot of the downfall of Western Civilization. 

Exactly the kind of hot take I’m in search of on this side quest! Let’s gooooo.

I’d like to share some of the key differences between the two sides. In reading the book, I found myself reflecting on the functions and patterns he outlined. In my meditation, I’ve been playing around with how to tap into my right brain more, and investigating whether meditation may just be a matter of handing the keys to the rightful Master, the right brain.

Left Brain: The Emissary

Right Brain: The Master

You’d obviously have to read the book to learn more about these distinctions, but let’s draw a bit of a through line between them. The left brain deals in Ideas, Concepts and Abstractions- not “the actual thing itself.” The left brain scans the street and sees “motorcycle” and logs it kindof like the Terminator.

But the right brain? It can study the detailed patterns of mud on the tire of the motorcycle, and paint an incredible reproduction of each unique curve of that wheel onto a canvas. But the right brains can also hold that wheel in the broader context of the sidewalk, the misty evening, and the smell of trash wafting by, giving our subjective experience of life a connected, rich, multi-faceted tapestry of qualia.

So this is the part that you need to recognize in the age of AI:

Our computer systems are HYPER left brained. 

Computers deal in symbols that attempt to DESCRIBE something here in actual reality. Computers are extensions of language, and language uses names to categorize unique things into generic buckets like “motorcycle” and “car.” And what AI's (large language models) do is puts all these patterns together in a big map (ie words, sentences, etc) and relate them to each other like a detective with strings and photos on a cork board. So although it IS an attempt to create a broader, holistic map of all the parts together, it is only ever dealing with words ABOUT something, not THE REAL THING itself!

Look at something nearby you. Conjure the single word that describes it. Now consider how much detail is lost between your full experience of that thing and the single word that encodes it.

So AI is perhaps three layers removed from the true ground of existence.

1) Actual thing 2) Human perceives and describes it with language 3) AI reads language and makes patterns from pure abstraction.

But you? You are only one to two layers removed from reality! The great masters even suggest that it IS possible to be zero layers removed from root reality, and this is called DIRECT KNOWLEDGE and it is an aspect of enlightenment (so says Buddhism).

So that is why AI can physically never replace you. You have the potential of having a more direct experience of the truth, and AI is only ever and always dealing with approximation of names. AI remembers names, but you know the actual person.

Never forget that. You know a guy.