Have you considered the spiritual aspects of robotics? As technology becomes a bigger influence in our lives, how we use robots and other devices will be essential to our evolution. Have you taken the time to contemplate the spiritual aspects of modern technology and what to do with it?
Robotics and other technologies are neither good nor bad. They merely allow us to make choices. There is no doubt that technology opens the doors to new frontiers and gives us more time to pursue activities beyond “making a living.” The choice of how we use the tools and our time determines the spiritual pros and cons.
The possibilities for our destruction are clearly envisioned in movies like The Terminator and Ex Machina. The potentials portrayed in movies like these are not farfetched. However, the more important issue is whether we allow ourselves to lose our spirituality in the pursuit of cool tech and less to do.
Isaac Asimov’s Future Vision of Robotics
Isaac Asimov began writing about the potential of positronic robotics and space exploration way back in 1939. His concepts are still brilliant and are rapidly becoming our reality. While he wrote of the dangers connected to robotics in books like I, Robot, he also suggested other potential pros and cons.
In his novel The Naked Sun, Asimov created the planet Solaria where robots outnumbered humans by a huge percentage. Robots had taken over all “work” on Solaria, and human beings had to decide how to use their time.
The upside was that the people of Solaria were motivated to expand themselves. Whether they chose science, art, literary, or physical skills, Solarians used their time for personal evolution. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the example in the movie WALL-E. In WALL-E, human beings on the spaceship Axiom became total couch potatoes when they had nothing to do. As a result of the lack of activity, they could hardly walk and followed directions like sheep.
The downside of life on Solaria was isolation and fear of personal contact. Because most interaction was now with the robots that served them, human beings rarely connected in person and felt contaminated by physical touch. Communications were “on-screen,” and an appropriate distance was maintained when humans had to be in the same location for some reason. As a result, even marital partners met only long enough to procreate and then separated quickly. What is the fun in that?
It has already been hypothesized that robots will become our entire workforce in a short period of time. Humans will not have jobs but will get monthly stipends from the government for support. We will have the same choices as the citizens of the fictional planet Solaria or the spaceship Axiom.
It’s not the what; it’s the why.
The spiritual aspects of any of our choices come down to “it’s not the what, it’s the why.” It is not what we choose to do but why we choose to do it. The motivations behind our choices are the keys to our evolution or our stagnation. Evolution or stagnation is the question we each must ask relative to the coming robotic craze.
Are you blindly trusting whoever is programming this technology? Are their motivations personal, corporate, and political profit and gain or the highest good of humanity?
Do you believe that artificial intelligence, computer-generated thought, knows what is best for human evolution? Especially our spiritual evolution and expansion?
If you had no “job,” what would you choose to do with your time? Would you take classes on subjects of interest? Take up cycling or tennis to improve your physical body? Walk in nature and connect? Pursue spiritual studies and meditate? Do volunteer work needed in your community? Start creative hobbies?
Or, would you end up like the people on board the Axiom? Would you stagnate or would you choose the spiritual aspects of what technology can offer? How would you keep yourself motivated to evolve and expand when it can be so enticing to do nothing?
The Beginning or the End?
In the United States and other parts of the world, we need more time to relax and pursue activities that make our hearts sing. We get so wrapped up in our jobs as our identities or the in need to make a living that we easily become exhausted and retreat to our televisions, computers, and social media. We want machines to do it for us, so we do not have to.
One of the signs of a collapsing civilization has always been its dependence on new technology because the people begin to give their power to it. Atlantis destroyed itself with crystal technology. Many scientists, starting with Stephen Hawking, believe we are on the verge of doing the same thing. What are the spiritual aspects of what we see as “great advancements”?
A technologically advanced society does not mean a spiritually advanced society. Technological is the outer world, not the inner world. It is the expansion of the physical illusion, not the expansion of our unlimited spiritual power. Building a machine that allows us to levitate or read minds is not the same as mastering the illusion and learning to do these things without the aid of physical equipment.
Any form of technology is just a tool. Robots are just tools. The question is whether we use the tools or whether we let the tools use us. Are we ready to stand in our power and make choices for our highest good, or are we going to roll over in the technological tide?
“Great advancements” require us to use high levels of spiritual consciousness and awareness if they are to be our beginning instead of our end. What will you do with the future? What questions will you ask, and what choices will you make?
Image by Erik Stein from pixabay.com