The three of us lingered by the array of fruits in the Piccari kitchen. The spread was ample, but hardly Mom Piccari’s most extravagant display—not that any stranger would have noticed. After six weeks of constant travel to and from Temple Hospital in Philadelphia to visit her husband, Mom’s Italian-mother-levels of food presentation were diminished to mere Martha Stewart heights.
I fumbled to hit record because Uncle Jackie kept singing philosophy to me. I wanted to wait until we had a private space and time to record, some time when Dean wasn’t pacing, like a proper three year old, at our feet in the kitchen—waiting for Dad Piccari’s long awaited return home, ready to start his indefinite wait for a new lung.
Uncle Jackie delved right into his philosophy. He loves an audience, loves endorsing his humanistic values and ideas. I love Uncle Jackie.
He continued singing to me, professing how human mentality was best as a crescendo, and worst as a decrescendo. I tried to have him offer an example of his metaphor, but my question became a distraction to his pontificating, so I moved away from it.
He had said our, “mentality,” not "consciousness" must grow.
Mentality/1. perceptual framework; 2. intellectual ability
Consciousness/1. awareness of surroundings; 3. shared feelings and beliefs
But he didn’t correct me when I say consciousness instead, so I assume we meant roughly the same thing. He alluded to human expansion into space, and that was when I felt it prudent to bring up Artificial Intelligence.
Uncle Jackie—the way he spoke of going to other planets—it felt too…simplistic? Too reminiscent of 1960s idealism? Like those drawings of what people in the 1800s thought the future would be like—kind of awesome, but sort of silly in retrospect.
My inclined thinking lately, when it comes to the future of humanity’s “expansion,” has been that we are headed toward some type of metamorphosis, some kind of human caterpillar awakening as a robot butterfly, as Joe Rogan has so often mused on his podcast.
So while Uncle Jackie sang his philosophy song, the tone was vibrant, but the lyrics hollow. His form was beautiful, and the emotions heartfelt, thoughtful. But I find the future to be a hard topic to discuss these days because it just seems so bizarre—so truly alien.
I keep telling my students the future is going to be really weird. I’ve read about Bill Gates and Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking feeling it necessary to announce to the world that we are so close to sophisticated, sci-fi levels of Artificial Intelligence that they are frightened of the possibilities.
When science scares Stephen Hawking, maybe we should consider taking a minute away from building giant walls around our borders, and maybe start talking about how we will soon be replaced by humanity 2.0, by digital consciousness. After all, won’t speed of light travel be far easier once we have no need for biology?
Dean and a phone call from Mom Piccari interrupted any further discussion, but I can’t wait to talk to Uncle Jackie again. We barely scratched the surface with him. Hollow lyrics or not, I could listen to him sing all day.