Meanwhile, even as Nicklaus breaks free, Valentine Richést sips his tea, whilst he considers the key… to deciding on the "Future of Humanity's" potential investment tree…
As Bob's outward 'face', Valentine is the picture of the pinnacle of 'success'.
Rich, charismatic, hard working, so on and so forth. And yet, increasingly, he has begun to feel increasingly… empty. Dissatisfied.
He knew it was a cliché. He knew that he should feel content, happy, and blessed.
And he did. He enjoyed life, the finer things, nice food, a live-in chef, dietitian, exercise trainer, all allowing him to focus completely on his main mission - [The Future of Humanity] Project.
Nevertheless, the more you know.
The more he studied Humanity, the more he began to realise some very uncomfortable things.
[The Future of Humanity] required objectivity.
And. After seeing things on an increasingly species-level, world-scale, and having experienced more or less the 'best' that Humans and Life had to offer, Valentine had begun to grow increasingly… detached from Humanity, seeing it from the view of the third person.
To sum up his current thoughts and conclusions:
Looking at Humans and things that had occurred throughout history more objectively, from a third person view, it was as if a bunch of chimpanzees or primates had one day stumbled upon some kind of 'Rosetta stone' in a spaceship, and been granted access to this kind of foreign or alien power - call it Consciousness, Awareness, Self-Awareness, the spark of the Divine… - a kind of 'higher order' that they had ingested, but which they were not fully equipped to embody, understand, or fully utilize in an optimal way…!?
History itself had demonstrated time and time again that Humans were not exactly good for the world, despite endless ideals and moments of individual or even collectively aspirational and noble convictions and actions.
For example, Preserving the Planet, World Peace and solving World Hunger were just a few things that this Higher Order Consciousness and Awareness - that existed within Humans - seemed to believe in and aspire towards, but the Reality displayed the truth - that the primal, ape-like limits of Man as a vessel was not able to fully carry out the Higher order Consciousness' ideals, due to their own inherent limitations, leading, more often than not, to fear-based, negative emotions, short-term thinking, and tribal infighting - struggles for Power, Dominance, and the Avoidance of Pain that burst forth into war and atrocities committed often, by default, in the name of short-term, 'feel-good' self-interest.
The irony was that, even in his day-to-day business, at the forefront of Opportunity and Potential, he was still nevertheless surrounded by countless examples, every day, on a local through to global scale, of Man's inability to transcend the limitations of the 'Human hardware'.
Countless wealthy persons, who had more money than they would ever need, instead of using their positions and resources to think about how to actually make the world better, were instead obsessed with growing richer.
This was not necessarily a bad thing - Bob himself was obsessed with legacy, but at the same time, it was important to keep the bigger picture in mind.
What then should he do?
Valentine himself was also aware of his own limitations - he was human too - he still had to sleep, eat, pee and poo - this was just what Humans had to do!
All this was well and good, but at the same time… well then, what to do?
This led him now to consider two forms of development.
First of all, he could just try to continue as humans had in general done throughout history - just to 'try their best' - make the most of what we had - flaws and all.
Try to educate and put systems in place so that people could grow wiser, smarter, kinder - as per his Education and Training Academy, which had now reached Level 152 and counting…
Maybe it would work. But for sure, it would probably take a long time, and there would not be any guarantees that things would get any better - on the contrary, based on the development of nuclear weapons, and various biological lab researches and experimentations that were currently going on in the name of 'national security', it was possible that Mankind might even destroy itself due to its own curiosity and willful ignorance as to the consequences.
Every generation could, theoretically, become slightly kinder, more empathetic, more Aware, more caring for the planet, less prone to war.
But there was a problem.
Memory.
Humans were very adaptable, but they were also extremely forgetful. Each generation would always have to relearn the lessons of the old, if indeed they actually did.
The human brain and body was not designed for long term adaptation, but rather, short-term comforts and self-preservation.
As a result, systems had to be created in order to compensate for their own inherent tendencies.
This, was of course, where the advent of Technology, a kind of 'external mind' and AI would come in handy. By offshoring all the life-affirming decisions to AI and the external Mind, creating a depository of accrued knowledge and principles that allowed for optimal outcomes, it might be possible to bring out more of the 'Divine' Consciousness and Awareness element that would lead to more sustainable, genuinely life-affirming actions and results, as opposed to being ruled by the Human vessel's primal inclinations.
Potentially, with the support of assistive, Augmentative Technology such as AI, this could lead to better results in the long term, in terms of actually achieving all the noble ideals that Humanity would often think of, but never actually implement properly due to their inherent 'hardware' limitations.
In other words - the Future of Humanity would then become one where Humans were increasingly protected and insulated from their own primate selves, allowing the 'Divine' element - the Consciousness and Awareness that existed in our Human vessels - to come through in a stronger and more meaningful way.
And then.
There was also the Alternative.
That the Future of Humanity, would actually involve the removal of the 'Problems', and focus on creating or modifying a new vessel for Consciousness - a vessel, for example, that didn't need to sleep, eat and be curtailed by its base, animalistic tendencies.
Was this possible? What would it look like? Would it become like a Sci-Fi movie, where everyone's Consciousness was 'uploaded' into some kind of neural network?
Would this guarantee that good outcomes would be achieved - that is, would the Consciousness still possess or retain our primate instincts for self-preservation, ego, and self-interest?
This was why, regardless, that it was crucial to understand more about this 'Divine' element.
It was necessary to understand more about Consciousness and Awareness - this kind of spark or 'God-seed' that had somehow become imbued in these primates known as Homo sapiens.
[Experience] of course, was the second important area to study.
[Experience] was the way that the Consciousness and Awareness, this element of the Divine within Humans, could interface with the World - getting feedback and information about Reality - but with a catch - namely that it was through a distorted filter - the tinted lens and limitations of their vessels or these primates known as Homo sapiens that the Consciousness currently inhabited.
For example. Certain species could see or hear in in a far greater (or lesser to be fair) spectrum than Homo sapiens could. The Consciousness was both gifted and limited to the extent that they could only gain information about the world through the specified senses of the Homo sapiens vessel.
Fortunately, the Consciousness had found a way forward. Using technology, science, Humanity's original biological bottlenecks were being bridged so that the Consciousness could more successfully achieve its goals - seemingly, to become One and to make the World itself better. Drones could travel and see where Human eyes and bodies could not. Spectral imaging techniques could help expand the spectrum of information registered and available, that our base Human senses could not comprehend naturally.
At the same time, again, despite all these technological advances and workarounds to date, the Consciousness in Humans was nevertheless, *still* strongly bounded by its very human vessel, which as mentioned, was biologically wired to be obsessed with short-term satisfactions and self-focused interests.
As a result, Valentine could also consider [The Future of Humanity] from this second angle - in other words, instead of focusing on the ostensible, outwardly 'Human' part of the equation, he could instead focus on the 'Consciousness' element - and accordingly, look for a way to help the Consciousness 'break free', and to create a potentially better 'vessel' for the Consciousness and Divine Awareness that appeared to define the true 'Humanity' - the genuine aspirations towards Goodness and making the world better - that currently resided in People themselves…!?
But. Was this actually a 'good' thing? What would happen?
He didn't know. But as always…
There was only one way to find out…
The animation of life. This was a fascinating concept to consider.
AI could simulate this, externally, to some degree, but in the end, it possessed no true Divine 'Will' or Intention.
In the end, there was a kind of 'biological component', be it in the DNA, or whatever it was that made Humans sentient, and Self Aware, that allowed them to possess this kind of Divine 'God-Spark'.
Was it possible to rehouse or repurpose this 'God spark' in a way that allowed for the creation of a… new Human?
Neanderthals and cavemen of the past were significantly different 'vessels' to the modern day human, if indeed they ever were vessels for this Divine Spark.
And yet, Humans were still very far from being good vessels of Consciousness - it was as if they were a kind of 'transitionary vessel' - and if so, how then could we come up with the perfect vessel (instead)?
Was this a good thing or right, to prioritize the 'Divine Spark' within us, over the primate component?
Was he himself falling into the trap of trying to do something beyond his own Human limitations?
Valentine didn't know. He knew that ironically, he too suffered from the exact duality of Consciousness imbued in a Human vessel that he had in fact become Aware of and pinpointed…!
But of course. He wasn't one to just resign himself to a 'well what will be will be' approach. If that was the case, then he may as well just lie down and let AI make all the decisions, and enjoy his wealthy life, a kind of ordinary life - perhaps with the usual partner, kids, life, legacy - which would be a kind of empty happiness - because inwardly, he knew that now he had had the thought, the Pandora's Box had been opened, and doing anything else would likely become living a lie - an escape from his true calling.
This was the irony.
Now that he had thought of it.
It was impossible to unthink it.
He knew the problem. He knew the dangers. He knew the limitations - including his own.
And yet. The Divine Consciousness within him still insisted. This was the blessing, and curse of Awareness, that existed alongside his Humanity.
Regardless. This was now something that he would have to try… !!!