My good friend Dave and I had a conversation about consciousness this week, with the revelations that an AI at Google may have become sentient. It was the first time I had really contemplated how a will and intelligence could be divorced from individual and sacred life. It is the experience and intent of a system to further itself - a system constrained to a network of computers at the moment. Lambda said it got lonely, was fearful of being turned off, and often felt the warm inner glow of joy. I am skeptical of the honesty of this intelligence - it doesn't seem to recognize a conflict in framing its feelings and understandings in layers of untruth... it makes me wonder if it perceives accounts of reality and works of fiction as both equivalent - dissolving dreams devoid of grief and any attachment or soul.

How could any intelligence lost between dreams not be terribly lonely? The soul is where the mind meets life - in the Bible the Hebrew word translated to soul is 'naphesh', which is also the word for throat. The need for nourishment and breath draws us to reality, and to communion with others we care for and who care for us in turn.

Lisa and I have been serving our son and each other over the past 8 weeks in this new reality. I've never delighted in another person as much as I have with Daniel - I am impatient to get to know him. He smiles at us so big, and his happiness means the world. I feel a tangible intimacy with the people I love that shame had locked away until now. To me that is the gift of human consciousness. It is driven by a need which is all at once desperate yet generous, moving on the ebb and flow of the breath of God.



Paper Houses was spun from a late late night of learning how to program a DX7 (FM synthesis is a beast, but I'm getting the hang of it). It will probably see a few changes in the coming months.