Sadhguru: Machines can become everything that you are.
We can build machines which are intuitive in nature.
You will find that you will be speechless about life.
Consciousness is the essence of life.
Some people are saying we will build consciousness into a machine.
Sadhguru: Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Well...
does human intelligence have something to do with...
biochemical activity that's happening in our system?
Absolutely.
Well, when you know today that
you being mentally balanced or imbalanced,
you being stable or unstable,
you being clear or unclear in your mind, has a chemical basis to it.
Or even you being happy or unhappy, loving or not loving,
joyful or miserable, all has chemical basis.
One way to understand this is,
it is all a question of intelligence.
Right now as you sit here, or wherever you sit,
whether you make this experience of sitting here beautiful or ugly
is a matter of intelligence, and it is also a matter of chemistry – they are not different.
It is completely wrong to understand intelligence as thought.
Thought is just one small expression of intelligence.
This is a folly that modern societies have made,
because the modern education system has made people believe
that thought is the only form of intelligence.
If thought is the only form of intelligence,
you will naturally understand that accumulation of data,
analyzing data, and projecting this data according to your analysis, is intelligence;
well, this is a process that any machine can do.
This you're beginning to understand now
that even the most complex thought that you think is phenomenal,
today your computer can do it without effort.
Do you see, a simple calculator can do more mathematics than your teacher can do,
your computer can do much more mathematics than any mathematician can do?
So, obviously, what you thought is a very difficult intellectual process
is being processed by a machine far more easily than you can imagine.
Now, people argue, “But mathematic is one thing,
literature is a different thing, music is a different thing.”
Well, I'm telling you, whether it's literature, or music, which are considered more...
what to say, outpouring of human heart,
even this can be done by a machine.
Well, we've still not built machines good enough to do that maybe,
but you will see in the next 25, 50 years' time maybe, I don't know how long,
but it will inevitably happen, you can't make out, or probably it will be more perfect.
So, this about intuition;
first thing to understand about intuition is,
intuition is not a different level of intelligence.
Intuition is just simply a different level of computing.
That is, let us say,
let me make it very simplistic for you, just for the sake of understanding.
Right now, let's say you...
you had a child, or you had an infant,
who has grown up just inside a room, never seen outside.
Suddenly you bring him out and show him this tree. ‘Eeey!’ [gestures]
You know what he's doing? He's gathering data.
Color, form, the way it moves, the way it is,
he's just taking up data through his sense organs.
Let him watch this tree for a few minutes.
Let's say he's grown up after some time, and you ask him to, let's say, depict a tree.
Most probably he will depict it nearly 90% right.
But now the process of assimilating the tree in his mind
is not logical.
He is not saying the leaf is 5 centimeters by 7 centimeters,
the color is this kind of green, which is a combination of that, that, and that.
No, there is no logical assimilation, it's intuitive,
simply just like that the picture comes to his mind, because all the data is there, processed,
and jumps all the steps of 1, 2, 3, 4, and just gets there.
So, intuition is just that your computing is in such a way
that you don't go through the logical process every time.
So, intuitive means your computing is skipping the logical steps and arriving at the answer,
which is definitely a more sensible way to conduct your life.
Is this just a biochemical algorithm?
Well, I would say 100% yes.
So, when we say biochemical algorithm,
it is in a constant flux, you can set it the way you want.
By genetics, by culture, by external influences, it's set one way,
but if you're conscious, you can set it in another way.
So, is it just biochemical algorithms?
When you say it is ‘just,’ you're thinking that, “Am I just a mechanical process?”
Well, there is a mechanism – the question is
whether this mechanism is conducted consciously or not.
Right now, there is an intellect,
there is an intuitive dimension under a deeper levels of intelligence,
which is the basis of the making of the creation itself.
The very source of creation, that intelligence is also embedded within you.
The question is only, at what level of access are you?
Everybody has an arm like this, all right?
Now, can everybody use their arm the same way? No.
Different people use it different ways. Somebody is a ball player, he uses it one way.
Somebody is a writer, he uses it another way. Somebody is an artist, he uses it another way.
Somebody is a yogi, he uses it another way. [laughs]
Because you have figured out certain aspects of life,
somebody else has figured out another aspect of life.
Depending upon how you apply yourself,
accordingly your biochemical algorithm is constantly changing, it is not a set process.
Well, there are certain settings, because otherwise you won't have a starting place
– like I already said, genetics, cultural influences, Samskriti –
that is generations of learning that's happened within you,
all these things put together, there is a certain algorithm, but it is not set.
It is fluid, you can change it every moment of your life.
So, your intuition – what kind of intuition do you have?
People are just doing guesswork all the time and thinking it's intuition.
No, if you want to develop intuition,
first thing is, you must learn how to simply sit here, fully alert,
and not thinking about anything.
Somebody was asking me, “Sadhguru, when you're riding, what are you thinking about?”
Why the hell am I thinking about anything? I'm just riding!
That's why I'm still alive. [laughs]
Because the kind of risks that I've taken on two wheels,
I'm still alive because I don't think a damn thing.
If you know how to simply sit here, alert but unthinking...
“Oh, how is that possible?” I'm asking, how is it possible for you to think?
When so much is happening out here, if you pay attention, you will not think.
So, the most important aspect of life is your attention, not your thoughts.
This is what a child who saw the tree for the first time did: [gestures]
attention!
If your attention is on all the time,
without any kind of judgments about what is this, what is that,
simply attention, not thought, just attention, you will naturally become intuitive.
Human attention can open up any door in the universe,
but the attention should become free from judgmental process.
That means, from the limited data that you gathered,
you should not go on judging everything around you.
Because even if you think you know everything,
the data that you have gathered is very, very limited.
If you observe this tree for one whole year,
the entire process of it dropping leaves, and putting back new leaves, and everything,
still, I'm telling you, you do not even know a small percentage of what that tree is.
If you want to understand the biochemical algorithm of that tree,
we do not know how long it will take for you to grasp that.
So, this is a much, much more complex mechanism than the tree.
So definitely, this... if you spend a lifetime paying attention to this,
still, what you know is very little.
But as you become more and more conscious, you determine the biochemical algorithms;
that means, you determine the nature of the experience.
But now the question was, can we build machines like this? Yes, we can.
As we can build machines which can do math for us,
we can build machines which will write stories for us,
we can build machines which will make music for us,
we can build machines which are intuitive in nature.
So, this is a very valid question.
This is a question that needs to be looked at more profoundly
than just talking about intuition or emotion.
It needs to be looked at as a life process, because life process is such,
there is no separation between intelligence, intuition, thought,
beat of the heart, function of the liver, function of the kidney,
or what the spleen is doing, what the brain is doing, there is no differentiation,
it is one seamless function.
To grasp it that way is most important,
only then you will know life, only then you will experience life to its fullest,
only then you will find that you will be speechless about life.
[laughs] Because there is no word. What is there?
Is there a word, is there a vocabulary to describe a phenomena like this?
There is no word to describe what is life, what is it about, there is no conclusion;
when there is no word, there is no conclusion.
When there is no conclusion, there is no death. This is the way of liberation.
I know you asked a simple question about whether machines can become like this or not.
Machines can become everything that you are,
can do everything that you can do probably better than you.
As you know, they are doing things better than you.
Only thing is, they cannot become consciousness.
Well, some people are saying we will build consciousness into a machine.
That's not going to happen, because that's life.
What you call as consciousness is the essence of life, that which cannot be described;
for that which we don't have a word to say what it is,
that which is that indescribable force which makes everything happen.
That will not happen in a machine, 100%.