Machine Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm: Spiritual Freedom and the Re-animation of Matter

Length: 480 pages
Edition: 1
Language: English
Publisher: Inner Traditions
Publication Date: 2022-02-08
ISBN-10: 1644114062
ISBN-13: 9781644114063
Sales Rank: #2040570 (See Top 100 Books)

Examines the role that machines play in the struggle between “spiritual man” and “mechanical man” throughout the ages

Explores how we naturally project consciousness onto machines and how this is reflected in human culture, science, artificial intelligence, and literature
Demonstrates a direct connection between consciousness and the history of machines in American history
Looks at the contributions and influence of Grace Hopper, Richard Feynman, Philip K. Dick, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Elon Musk, David Bohm, Norbert Wiener, and Steve Jobs as well as the Nag Hammadi Gnostic gospels

Humans invented and constructed machines to aid them, as far back as the Stone Age. As the machines became more complex, they became extensions of the body and mind, and we naturally began projecting consciousness onto them. As Luke Lafitte shows in detail, although machines complicate the already complicated issue of identity, because they are “ours” and “of us,” they are part of our spiritual development.

In this sweeping exploration of the history of the machine as a tool, as a transpersonal object to assist human activity, and as a transitional artifact between spirits and the humans who interact with them, Lafitte examines the role that machines play in the struggle between “spiritual man” and “mechanical man” throughout history. He interprets the messages, archetypes, and language of the unconscious in the first popular stories related to mechanical men, and he demonstrates a direct connection between consciousness and the history of machines in American history, specifically between the inventors of these machines and the awakening of our imaginations and our powers of manifestation. He examines the influence of Philip K. Dick, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Grace Hopper, Richard Feynman, Elon Musk, David Bohm, and others and shows how the Nag Hammadi gospels explain how we can take back our myth and spirit from the machine.

Although the term “mechanical man” is a catch-all phrase, Lafitte shows that the term is also a meeting ground where extra-dimensional communications between different forms of matter occur. Every machine, android, robot, and cyborg arose from consciousness, and these mechanical men, whether real or fictive, offer us an opportunity to free ourselves from enslavement to materialism and awaken our imaginations to create our own realities.

Cover Image
Title Page
Table of Contents
Foreword. What Science and Invention Might Yet Become: Jeffrey J. Kripal
Prologue
Introduction. The Call to Remember
    DEFINITIONS
    MYTH IN POSTMODERN AMERICA
    SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS
Chapter 1. Origins of the Mechanical-Man
    A YANKEE AUTOMATON
    POE’S MISSING LINK
    MELVILLE’S SLAVE
    CONCLUSION
Chapter 2. Accepting the Challenge: The Departure
    THE RAILWAY SYSTEM AS MECHANICAL-MAN
    THE STEAM MAN AS HUNTER AND HUNTED
    LINCOLN AND THE STEAM MAN EVOLVE?
    THE TIN WOODMAN
    TRANSFORMATION AND TRANSHUMANISM
    DEPENDENCY
    FREE WILL AND AMERICAN INDIVIDUALISM
    MOXON’S MASTER: THE RHYTHMS OF TIME, LABOR, AND CONSCIOUSNESS
    RHYTHMS
    CONCLUSION
Chapter 3. The Sorcerer and the Wizard
    CHAOS FOMENTS INVENTION
    TESLA IN AMERICA
    TESLA ENTERS THE DEPARTURE STAGE
    A COMPLEX DESIGN: THE MIND OF THE TELAUTOMATON
    THE LEGEND OF THE WIZARD
    SIMULACRUM OR REALITY?
    THE REALITY OF THE WIZARD
    THE WISE MAN
    CONCLUSION
Chapter 4. Knowing Thyself: The Initiation
    LITTLE BOY
    TOTAL DESTRUCTION OR ABSOLUTE SAVIOR?
Chapter 5. The Great Mother
    THE EDUCATION OF EVE
    UNDERSTANDING THEM
    HOPPER’S GARDEN
    GIVING THE MECHANICAL-MAN A GENESIS
    THE LANGUAGE INSTINCT
    CYBERNETIC SOCIETY
    HOPPER: THE LIBERATOR
Chapter 6. The Prophet
    SMALLER THAN A DOT
    NANOTECHNOLOGY
    THE TEACHER, BUT ALWAYS THE STUDENT
    DEATH AND RESURRECTION
    THE LEGACY
    “IT DOESN’T FRIGHTEN ME”
Chapter 7. The Final Odyssey: The Return
    HAL BLURS AND THE FICTIVE REVEAL
    THE STAR CHILD
    AWAKENED MAN
    UTOPIA OR DYSTOPIA?
Chapter 8. The Trickster
    SERENDIPITOUS LIVES
    THE BOUNDARY CROSSER
    PROGRAMMED AND PROGRAMMER
    SEEING HOLOGRAMS
    INVENTING THE SELF AND REALITY
Chapter 9. The Cave
    BACK TO THE GARDEN
    GEORGE LUCAS: AMERICA’S SCIENTIFIC PAST REACHES ITS FULL POTENTIAL
    THE FORCE AND THE HOLOGRAPHIC SIMULATION OF REALITY
    CONCLUSION
Chapter 10. The Fourth Dimension Is Calling Us
    STAR TREK: TO BOLDLY GO
    THE MATRIX: EMBRACING OUR DUAL EXISTENCE
    IRON MAN: ON TRANSCENDENCE
    CONCLUSION
Chapter 11. The Savior
    FROM WIENER TO JOBS: FRAGMENTATION TO HOLISM (AGAPE)
    THE PARADOX OF AGAPE
    JOBS’S AND WIENER’S SELFLESS SERVICE
    THE BOON OF THE QUEST
    PKD AND HIS GNOSTICISM
    THE AGE OF ELON MUSK: A NEW HOPE?
Conclusion. The First and Final Boon: Human Imagination
    TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE
    THE KEY TO EVERYTHING!
Footnotes
Endnotes
Bibliography
About the Author
About Inner Traditions • Bear & Company
Books of Related Interest
Copyright & Permissions
Index