The Sense of 'Me'

Consciousness... A word casually thrown around so often, but what does it actually imply? Some would describe it as simply being awake or awareness of self... Sure! But what does self-awareness or being awake really mean?? Let’s just take out a single minute for contemplating what was just said... Think about it for a moment. You could have been anyone, or better anything, among the countless entities you observe every passing second in your day to day life. After all, we can only even think of beginning to control our lives after we’re born, right??

Did you decide that you wanted to be you before your birth? Absolutely not! You could have been the ice-cream vendor opposite your house or a business magnate you might occasionally see on TV. Oh! Better still, you could have been your neighbor’s dog! But no... You are none other than you! Close your eyes and let that sink in, and you might begin to grasp the enormity of this simple yet complex word ‘consciousness’!

You are unique no matter who you are. Even if you have an identical twin, you are still you! Your arms are only yours, your eyes enable only you to see, your mouth enables only you to eat, your nose enables only you to breathe... And last but not the least your brain, the seat of your very consciousness, is also specific to you and you alone!

The power to take decisions based on any number of changing parameters and spontaneously react to any unforeseen circumstance in our own unique way is something that no machine can match! No matter how smart our so-called artificial intelligence (AI) gets and how advanced their programming becomes, do you really feel that the limitlessness of a sense of 'me' can be cooked up in a computer?! How do you expect your robot to actively reason about a thing that even you haven’t dreamt of and which cannot be derived from the parameters you fed into the system??? No doubt, that with modern day technology, bots have become more and more human-like... But that’s still human-‘like’ and not human!

The ever so popular touring test, made famous my numerous Hollywood blockbusters only evaluates if one can distinguish between a human and a machine after speaking with both. But let’s say that some machine passed the test, would it be able to spin new theories about our cosmos? Would it have imagination which could conjure up literally anything in our infinite universe? Would it be able to do something not even distantly derived from your programming directly or indirectly, with sufficient logic behind its reasoning? Could its artificial mind evolve beyond the scope of your work?? Well, as far as the present day goes... Guess not...

This is when you finally begin to realize how exclusive you really are... You affect the world around you with every step you take in your own original way and the world affects you too... You are already special irrespective of who or what you are. Although, whether you want to magnify or diminish that, is completely up to you! As far as I’m concerned, one should not spend his or her life trying to be someone else or chasing after another’s dreams... Remember that the name Jamsetji Tata is not famous because he was born a Tata; rather, the name Tata is famous because Jamsetji Tata dedicated his life to pioneering Indian industry. Be the most levelheaded you in as unapologetic a way you please! After all, that’s the only thing you owe yourself...