The Flow

Old Heraclitus claimed no man steps into the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.

Today, of course, no sane man is going to step into that same river once, never mind twice, because the water is toxic or full of flesh-eating bacteria and various other slimy dangers. But he will probably be the same man since we have lost the capacity to change in any meaningful human way.

We update the software on our computers and machines but not the software in our own consciousness. In fact, 'our own minds' will soon be an obsolete concept: as useless as a floppy disk, as slow and ponderous as a dial-up modem, as inexpressive as a broken laptop screen. Our artificial intelligence avatars will think and do everything for us in the future. I always used to joke about people surviving death as brains attached to electrodes in jars of formaldehyde, but obviously our actual brains are no longer necessary in that equation. 

So where does that leave Heraclitus' aphorism now? It seems to me that his man stepped into the river the first time but was unable to get out and simply drowned. Meanwhile, the river flows remorselessly onward.

Comments

[Tatyana]

oh where are the humanists of the old gone?!

[Stephenesque]

Gone to a better place, I hope.