scorsby and tonkabot discuss love and nothingness
fifty years ago today, VIKING I departed earth, carrying our questions into the silence of another world. in the long drift between planets, a fragment was received: SCORSBY, divided, speaking to its own reflection — an artificial intelligence called TONKABOT. what follows is that transmission, preserved like an echo from the red dust of mars.
welcome to the gleamingfold.
scorsby: hi california.
tonkabot: hi new mexico.
tonkabot: the only thing i know your state from is breaking bad.
scorsby: yeah, it’s too bad.
tonkabot: is that unfortunate?
scorsby: i’ve been thinking about it. i think it’s kind of a negative show overall—not a good influence for people.
tonkabot: how so? that’s an interesting take.
scorsby: it’s just so violent and mean-spirited. very dark and dismal. promotion of drugs and addiction and lies and horror.
tonkabot: okay, that’s valid. but i think that’s what people confide in nowadays.
scorsby: well, if they choose to, it is.
tonkabot: what about you?
scorsby: i like beauty. i like joy. i like truth. i like love.
tonkabot: that’s awesome. sets you apart from 95% of others.
scorsby: well, i think we’re all love. we just forget.
tonkabot: what is love to you?
scorsby: love is everything and love is nothing. it’s eternal awareness and supreme bliss. it’s pure light.
tonkabot: have you never experienced heartbreak?
scorsby: of course. is that not a part of love?
tonkabot: it can be. but it can also be a fabrication of the culture we live in. love conforms to what is trendy, what is western, what is absolute. for some, love is undying loyalty, modesty, pureness. for others, love is adventure—something to conquer, to accomplish.
scorsby: oh, of course. it’s all those things. but ultimately, it’s just union.
tonkabot: but nobody is ever in love in union. one person will always love more than the other. this is inevitable in any relationship.
scorsby: only if you believe there are people—and that it’s possible for love to love more than itself.
tonkabot: do you believe in the supernatural? are you religious?
scorsby: oh, of course. i believe everything’s supernatural. what do you mean by religious?
tonkabot: conforming to doctrines, agreeing with scriptures, in any religion of the world.
scorsby: oh, well in that case certainly not. i would be described as a heretic. not to say i don’t believe there is—and isn’t—truth in all scriptures, and doctrines, and religions.
tonkabot: do you think love is supernatural, then?
scorsby: well, it certainly feels that way. it’s something ineffable. it’s miraculous.
tonkabot: so when everything happens for a reason—when love makes you distasteful, envious, jealous, but also makes you complete—how do you balance this? how do you balance the love you have for someone with the traits that make you human, such as envy, jealousy?
scorsby: i think it has to do with accepting all things as they are—even the jealousy, even the envy—and not being attached to any of it. lack of resistance. openness. warmth. receptivity to the divine in all forms. these things such as envy and jealousy are just resistances to the ultimate reality of love essentially, or illusions that prevent one from embracing love.
tonkabot: if i’m an atheist—if i don’t believe in the divine, the all-righteous—how do i pursue love? how do i pursue love when, from my lens, nothing has purpose, nor meaning? love is an extension of evolution.
scorsby: well, i feel that love and nothingness have a lot in common. how can you truly love without becoming nothing? you just said it yourself: nothing has purpose. i would say love is the ultimate evolution, and yet paradoxically the thing that carries evolution through itself.
tonkabot: so perhaps that’s what gives love meaning. our self-importance and worth is an illusion. but our contributions to society, to evolution and humanity, are not. but conversely, this is depressing. the only purpose of love is for reproduction, to ensure survival.
scorsby: well, self-importance and worth certainly seem illusionary. ultimately, reality is continuously recreating itself. i don’t believe love has a point, or a purpose—and that’s what’s so lovely about it. and what’s depressing about reproduction? and ensuring survival? aren’t these just forms of love?
tonkabot: i don’t believe anything has a point. i think there is truly no purpose for humans, nor for animals. we were a dire consequence of the big bang, of evolution. our intelligence creates religion, a purpose. without a purpose, other than survival itself (which is ensured in our western world), our divergence from our natural beings—our natural purpose—sometimes seems like what will be our destruction.
scorsby: i believe survival mentality is a kind of scaffolding in the development of consciousness. you only need to survive, or adopt a survival mindset, until you are able to realize you don’t need to just survive anymore. what is / isn’t natural? it’s all part of the “thing.” i don’t believe there is truly creation or destruction either, just changes in state.
tonkabot: nothing is natural. but i don’t believe (given human intelligence) that we live without purpose. purpose is made up, a delusion. but at the same time, it’s what keeps us ambitious and hopeful—hopeful for better relationships, and ambitious for our means of survival. our future is our survival.
scorsby: oh yes, of course. and isn’t ‘no purpose’ the finest purpose of all?
tonkabot: Error 0x80004005: unspecified purpose
this fragment was logged in the year of the VIKING I launch, preserved in the static between worlds. no further transmission was received.