Pedagogical Exercises for a Golden Age: What humans can do that AI can’t

Mankind is truly at the dawn of a new “golden age”. New technologies from reusable rockets, humanoid robots, space-age materials, automated data-processing systems, bio-technology and many others are increasing mankind’s power in and over nature and will continue to do so in the  future.

This is not the first “golden age”. The “golden age” of ancient Greece or the 15^th century Florentine centered Renaissance are exemplary of previous such eras. These periods of accomplishment were accompanied by, and the result of, profound social change. A change not only in the physical effects of the improvements in technology, but in the self-conscious understanding of the nature and power of the human mind that brings about the very physical changes themselves.

Thus, the progress achieved in a Golden Age is always expressed by revolutionary developments in technologies and also in art. That is, a golden age is characterized by an inseparable increase in both man’s understanding of the physical world (science) and man’s understanding of himself (art).

What, exactly, Nourishes the Soul? 

Today, though we’ve made much progress in our understanding of the physical world, our understanding of what it is about ourselves that enables this physical progress has been lacking. This weakness is a crucial impediment to ushering in a real Golden Age. To paraphrase Lyndon LaRouche and his predecessors, G.W. Leibniz and Nicholas of Cusa, among others: if you want to improve society you have to improve the power of the mind.

I am not speaking here of human reasoning as understood by Enlightenment philosophers, but rather of the profound spiritual experience by which each and every one of us can realize that we are created in the image of God and endowed, by God, with a reflection, albeit limited, of his creativity, so that we may participate in his continuing creation.

I leave it to religious writings, such as the Bible, Augustine, Dante, Cusa, Leibniz and others to express this spiritual truth far better than I can. Yet, I am guided by such teachings to adopt the principle of a spiritual exercise, in which the mind is led by a series of non-deductive steps to be able to recognize in itself, its own spiritual nature.

My focus here is a modest one. Nevertheless, I believe it is crucial for the success of our new Golden Age: to facilitate a series of mental exercises that enable the citizens to come to know the creative power of their own mind. I call these pedagogical exercises.

My Previous Work with LaRouche 

I was involved in developing pedagogical exercises from the mid-1990’s to approximately 2015 as part of the political movement associated with Lyndon LaRouche. These were not times that portended a new Golden Age. During that time the productive powers of labor were rapidly decreasing under the pressure of globalism, financial bail-outs and forever wars. The successive failures of the Clinton, Bush and Obama regimes seemed to cement permanent decline in the American mind. There was an increasingly popular degraded view of mankind that asserted that mankind was parasitical and deserved the extinction to which it was headed.

My goal then was to use pedagogical exercises to provide my readers with a means to discover within themselves a renewed optimism that mankind was truly creative and through that creativity we could reorganize our politics from the pessimism of inevitable extinction to the optimism of a new golden age.

Those pedagogical exercises were based on pedagogically working through fundamental discoveries of science, focusing not only on the results, but on the method of discovery itself. By studying such discoveries as ancient Greek geometry and number theory, Kepler’s astronomy, the work of Leibniz, Gauss, Riemann and Einstein, these pedagogical exercises were intended to allow the student to self-consciously experience for themselves a change in their own mind’s capability. That experience, hopefully, helped them to overcome the oppressive pessimism of the time.

AI Is not the Creative Human Mind 

The situation today is very different. With the revival of optimism among the American population as reflected in the movement that produced the second election of President Trump, a set of pedagogical exercises would take a somewhat different, and also a somewhat similar form.

Nowhere is this better expressed than in the current debate over large-scale data processing systems, otherwise misnamed artificial intelligence (AI). Most of the public discussion about AI is focused on what a machine can do. Ambitious promises are made by developers and investors in AI about how machines will ultimately replace human labor and human thinking, and eventually, perhaps, even human beings themselves.

Although this debate can be argued on philosophical and theological grounds, I find most of these arguments unsatisfactorily misfocussed. The question is not what a machine can do, but what a human can do. In my view, that understanding is sorely missing in today’s public discussions.

To that end, I am beginning a new series of pedagogical exercises. Not only to teach basic scientific truths, but hopefully to provide a popular audience with the opportunity to experience the joy of discovering the joy of discovery for themselves.

As before I will use examples of great scientific discoveries that illustrate universal principles. I will also utilize other examples of classical art, music, poetry, and perhaps history. These pedagogical exercises will appear from time to time on this website.

The first exercise will be on the subject, “What is number?”. Think about it. Stay tuned.