The computer is taking over | J. Krishnamurti
Extract from Public Talk 5, Madras, India, 1981
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© 1981 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust
The computer is taking over | J. Krishnamurti
Extract from Public Talk 5, Madras, India, 1981
---
This channel is managed by the Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, UK, and by the Krishnamurti Foundation of America.
The role of the foundations was described by Krishnamurti when he said, 'The foundations will see to it that these teachings are kept whole, are not distorted, are not made corrupt. They will not give rise to any sectarian spirit in their activities... nor create any kind of place of worship around the teachings or the person.'
We maintain extensive archives of Krishnamurti's original works and all four Krishnamurti foundations are actively engaged in the publication of material in various forms.
Our videos contain thousands of subtitles in more than 25 languages, translated by volunteers from all over the world. If you would like to help us with translating subtitles, please contact us at digital@kfoundation.org
For more information about J. Krishnamurti and the Krishnamurti foundations:
International Site - http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/
Facebook - Facebook: jk.krishnamurti
Twitter - Twitter: orgKrishnamurti
Krishnamurti Foundation Trust, UK - http://www.kfoundation.org/
Krishnamurti Foundation of America - http://www.kfa.org/
Krishnamurti Foundation of India - http://www.kfionline.org/
Fundación Krishnamurti Latinoamericana - http://www.fkla.org/
This organization is a registered charity. Registered charity number: 312865
© 1981 Krishnamurti Foundation Trust
So, this knowledge that we have acquired through education, through experience, through the past generation upon generations, this knowledge may be – please listen carefully – may be the cause of our disaster because we are burdened with the past. Knowledge is always the past, and that knowledge, being the past, is incomplete. And that knowledge being incomplete, and action then being incomplete, that action must inevitably create confusion, fragmentation. Where there is fragmentation there must be not only conflict but confusion, like nations – fragmented, like religious groups – fragmented, beliefs divide man, ideals divide man. All these are fragmentations, and therefore there must inevitably be conflict, and therefore confusion.
So we are enquiring together whether knowledge is not the cause – which is thought – thought is not the cause of this tremendous decay of man. Thought, as we said, has created extraordinary things: the whole technological world, the surgery, medicine, communication, going to the Moon, and so on; and also thought has created war and all the material to kill man. Thought has also written marvellous poems – I was just reading Keat’s ‘Ode to the Nightingale’, a marvellous poem – but it is put into words by thought. The pictures, the architecture, the temples and what is inside the temples, inside the churches, all created by thought. So thought, in the world, in the physical world in certain areas has brought benefit to man; in other areas it is destroying man, that is knowledge. And this knowledge, which we have acquired through our senses and therefore connected with the brain, this knowledge man has acquired is now being transferred to the computer. I do not know if you are aware of all this.
The computer can do everything that man can do. It can learn. It has been programmed as our brain is programmed: to be a Catholic, to be a Protestant, to be a Hindu, to be a Buddhist. You understand all this? Of course if you pay… Your brain is programmed, whether you like it or not you have to observe it. Otherwise you wouldn’t call yourself a Hindu, or a communist. Your brain has been cultivated through time, and through that time, which is the acquisition of experience, knowledge and so on, that brain has been programmed, has been conditioned to respond according to certain reactions. This is inevitable. That brain is now being given over to the computer. Please realise this. The computer is becoming your brain, the human brain. The computer plus the robot are already operating in manufacturing things – like cars. All kinds of things are happening. In about ten, fifteen years you will be unemployed. You have to face all this. Society is going to be turned upside down. It is coming, whether you like it or not, it’s at your door. You understand the seriousness of all this? I wonder if you do. That your brain, which has been so extraordinarily capable, suffered innumerable sorrows, lives in great anxiety, frightened, insecure – the whole psychological world which is the result of thought, that thought with all its knowledge has been transferred to the computer, and the robot. So man, then, what is he? You understand my question? If the computer can do everything that you can, that your brain can, which is, it can learn, it can correct itself, it can foresee much more than human beings can, its responses are instantaneous, because it is programmed that way.
Then what is man? You understand all this? Computers say, I believe in God. Oh, you people laugh, you don’t see the seriousness of all that is happening to all of us. The computer can compose a poem, can compose, can diagnose better than any doctor. You understand? And then one asks, what is man, what are you? If the machine can do everything even better than you, what are you? Which is, our brains have operated mechanically. Right? It believes, it doesn’t believe, it creates its own gods, its own philosophies – the computer can create a philosophy better than any philosopher. So what have we left? You understand my question? If the machine can take over everything that man can do, and do it still better than us, then what is a human being, what are you? Your belief in God? – the machine has belief in God. It will do rituals better than you can do. It can invent theories better than any philosopher. You understand all this?
So what have we left? What we have left is our psychological world. You understand? Our sorrow, our fears, our pleasures, our anxieties, our immense loneliness. You understand all this? That’s what we are going to be left with. Not with your gods. The gods have been invented by man, by thought. You have shaped gods according to your desires, your fears. So the computer can do all that.
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