Krishnamurti on "Computers, Thought and the Transformation of Human Consciousness"

Jiddu Krishnamurti
(1895-1986)

In a talk given by the late spiritual teacher, Jiddu Krishnamurti - at a time before the proliferation of personal computers, and a decade-and-a-half before the emergence of the Internet - Krishnamurti (who died in 1986) presciently examines what will happen when the computer outstrips man's intellectual capacities and computers and robots begin to replace human beings in the workplace, thereby depriving us of our occupations.

"The computer is going to outstrip man in his thought," Krishnamurti predicts. (A predicition coming ever nearer to realtity as leading-edge scientists begin to master the difficulties in creating 'artificial intelligence.)

"The computer," he predicts," is going to change the structure of society, (and) the structure of government. . . . This is not some fantastic conclusion . . . or fantasy," he observes. "This is actually going on now, of which we are not (necessarily) aware. "

"The computer can learn, invent, and as a mechanical intelligence, the computer is going to make employment of human beings practically unnecessary," he predicts. "Perhaps humans may have to work  a couple of hours per day. These are all facts that are coming," he notes.

"You may not like it, you may revolt against it, but it is coming," he says. "(But) thought has invented it, and human thought is limited. But the mechanical intelligence of the computer is going to outstrip man. So what," he asks, "is a human being then?"

"There are concerns about a human being whose occupation is taken over by the computer (and) the robot etc.," Krishnamurti notes. "Then what becomes of the human?"




"What," Krishnamurti asks, "becomes of the human? We have been programmed biologically, intellectually emotionally, psychologically though millions of years, and we repeat over and over again the same patterns."

"We have stopped learning," he observes. "Whether the human brain that has been programmed for so many, many centuries, whether it is capable of learning and immediately transforming itself into a totally different dimension," is an open question, according to Krishnamurti.

Whether, and to what extent, we are capable of such a transformation, is a question which we all have to face - and a question we will face sooner rather than later, it seems.

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Krishnamurti, "Learning that Transforms Consciousness," Part Three.

Krishnamurti, "Learning that Transforms Consciousness," Part Four.

Krishnamurti, "Learning that Transforms Consciousness," Part Five.

Krishnamurti, "Learning that Transforms Consciousness," Part Six.

Krishnamurti, "Learning that Transforms Consciousness," Part Seven.

Krishnamurti, "Learning that Transforms Consciousness," Part Eight.