Stare at the white dot on the woman's nose on the left for 15 seconds, then look to the right of the image at the blank space. You should see a flicker of the full-colour photo of the woman.

 

What will happen then?

Thinking, another Rethink

Think of human race. Unlike others, today, compared to early days, they are living in better comfort. This, thanks to, the rather undisciplined exercise of mental faculties by our forefathers. For, it resulted in a burgeoning society with a forward outlook, who constantly conceptualized, searched, found, practiced, and established, very many new ideas and thoughts. In fact, what is making a good life is nothing but the cascading effect of all these. And, if the flow of fresh ideas get disturbed, our good life too, shall come to a halt.

How did it all begin?

Our forefathers, for no rhyme or reason, continued to extol and celebrate all that was new. And were quietly living with whatever inconveniences, like the Red Flag rule, it caused.

But now, when I think of our future, things are not the same.

Presently, we give a lot of credence to objective, disciplined, approach to things, and mould ourselves in to be in line with these, while discouraging forcefully and reprimanding, all those who deviate. We are also finding more and more ways of defining ourselves as just another form of life, where, discipline is an integral part. For example, lately I have been reading about the grand success, we have achieved in transplanting animal organs and parts to human bodies.

But, one area that is remaining solely human is language. We use it mainly for two purposes. One, to communicate whatever we want to. And two, to originate whatever we want to communicate, an activity generally termed reflection. Presently, one and the same language is meeting both the needs. Towards this, we add or formulate new words or phrases or other such elements, if possible, by borrowing from other languages.

Over time, mainly owing to the technological revolution, very many innovative gadgets have been newly introduced, extending the reach and desirability of a language, especially for communication. As a result, now, there is large scale involvement of the whole of human race in all aspects of communication, leaving nothing much for enjoying the other features of a language.

Due to this, reflection is taking a back seat, and even there, it is constantly under threat from AI. Here, words or expressions that does not evoke a sensible image, meaning, or any parameter that cannot make a link with something in existence, stands to be removed from the vocabulary. ( Unless it attracts or kindles a fresh thought, instantly!) As time go by, much of the words of such a genre shall be getting removed from dictionaries itself. Thus, in a not so distant future, reflection may even stop to exist as a human attribute.

In my hub, ‘A True Unity in Diversity’, I proposed bifurcating language, and all our activities that go along with it, into two separate paths, namely, communication and reflection. We can then resort to using tongues for communication and a language for reflection.

If we do not do so, what will happen?

Firstly, let us see what is happening now. Language change, the phenomenon that results in permanent alterations to the elements and features of its use, is constantly taking place. We collate all those and issue corrections and additions at various times. We further dictate modifications that reflect our current priorities.

However, such changes, like addition of new words or deletion of a few, are focused on the use of language for better communication, while exploiting the avenues opened by technology that is always on the move. Slowly, natural, individual human processes like contemplation or reflection will fade away, specific, irreplaceable elements of those activities being taken over by AI.

Why is that none of us has taken note of such a possibility? I think, so far, those activities were keeping us engrossed, or rather we chose to engage in such things, while we were on the look out for answers to random questions. Now that we are heavily discouraging all that do not align with our current priorities, such questions itself shall come to a halt.

What will happen then?