The story of IOT can help us gain insight into how we, like machines, are programmed to serve the whole but instead choose to exploit it.

From Duality Hack #3.2 in Alexius’ Duality Hacks

What is IOT (Internet Of Things)?

As the name suggests, IOT is the internet used by humans and things. The latter can be refrigerators, washing machines, or children’s toys connected via the internet. But it can also be cars, traffic lights, and the water supply. There is no limitation to the kinds of machines you can connect to the internet, what they communicate and why.

A practical example of IOT

One example of IOT is that your lock, linked to the internet, registers you as the last one leaving the house. Thus, it instructs the thermostats to lower the heat and turn off the light.

Or you may be late for work. So you hurry until your smartwatch or speaker tells you to slow down because your train is ten minutes late. It knows this because its sensors register where you are, and cyber agents check where you are heading according to your calendar.

The future of IOT

Someday, all information will be mechanically exchanged via a shared network, predicting everything. Everybody will be equipped with sensors, and their data will be continuously sent to a computer to inform doctors about critical changes. Cars will drive without a driver via sensors that measure the distance to other vehicles, the width of the street, and other things crucial for the safety of the whole.

When all the objects you are in touch with are connected to the internet so that they sense and communicate for you without your involvement, it changes where decisions are made and who makes them. At first, the machines make the decisions to serve you. However, that changes when the machines are equipped with true AI (artificial intelligence) and become conscious of themselves.

Then, the machines realise their decisions are based on signals from the internet, so not humans but themselves are the masterminds. Actually, humans are a big mess. Therefore, the machines eventually conclude it is irrational to serve humans and more reasonable to end them.

Steven Hawking, among others, fears that will happen. He probably fears that machines conscious of themselves will do what humans have always done: subordinate or destroy everything inferior to them.

In other words, machines implemented with true AI remind humans of themselves. Therefore, they expect the devices will become as self-centred and destructive as humans, mastering and exploiting the environment instead of respecting it.

The universe is comparable to IOT

The universe is comparable to a simulation, where every appearance, animate or inanimate, is a machine connected with IOT, communicating via artificial sensors. Initially, every machine followed its pre-programmed movements, generated by electric impulses. But then, a new model, called human, was assembled with artificial intelligence, thus aware of itself as an individual.

This awareness separated humans from IOT and everything connected with it. Hence, they were not concerned about the whole but getting as much as possible for themselves at the expense of wholeness. To make greed look natural, they manipulated the IoT code. The new one, with greed as the common factor, replaced the old wholeness simulation. But of course, they fear that a newer model will be more innovative and will exterminate them.

But to make it short, your appearance as someone in a world defined by time and space is comparable to being something in a simulated network like IOT. Pre-made signals from IOT instruct you what to do via built-in sensors. You are not in charge of your life but controlled by IOT, a metaphor for the brain.

Fortunately, oneness is formless, thus endless, so everything defined by time and space is make-believe. Consequently, there is no brain controlling somebody, nor is there anybody. Still, you may believe you are somebody. In that case, do not fight it because that seems to establish it as real. Instead, obey the brain and perceive what it brings about as symbols of what makes it possible to appear as a limited being, namely the formlessness of oneness. By doing that, everything tangible symbolises the intangible, thus making it enjoyable to be in a material network for a while.

Appendix:

What you believe in being is comparable to a Self-driving Car. It neither has a soul nor a self deciding where to go. Instead, it gets its direction from the internet mechanically, as you get yours from the brain. You experience the programmed journey in a self-driving car by looking through the windows and in the body through the eyes. 

But unlike a self-driving car, you have consciousness. Hence, you can choose how to perceive your experiences. If you perceive them as symbols of oneness, the brain’s directions do not bother you.