“PASS IT ON”

“PASS IT ON”

A Reflection based from the movie entitled “Lucy”

REV. JERIC C. CORTADO, 2015

This box office movie written and directed by Luc Besson was shot in Taipei, Paris and New York City and stars by Scarlett Johansson as Lucy, the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient and immutable personality in the story; Morgan Freeman who played as Prof. Samuel Norman, portraying the character of wisdom; Amr Waked as Capt. Pierre Del Rio, representing the emotion of the people; and Choi Min-sik as Mr. Jang the ultimate evil in the story. The cast represents our planets with diverse personalities and cultures facing the different challenges and threats of their existence.

As I understand in the movie, Lucy is a young American lady studying at Taipei, Taiwan who was forced by her boyfriend to be a drug carrier and be delivered to a Korean drug lord named Mr. Jang in a hotel. The briefcase contains CPH4 a synthetic drug that enhance physical and mental capabilities basically given to fetuses during the prenatal period. When she was captured by the goons of Mr. Jang a bag of CPHR is forcibly sewn into her abdomen to transport in Europe. During her captivity, she was harassed and tortured resulting the breaking of the bag of drug in her abdomen, and released a large of quantity of drug inside her body. As a result, she began acquiring enhanced physical and mental capabilities beyond the average person can do, such as telepathy, telekinesis, mental time travel, and ability no to feel pain, fears, worries, and discomforts.  

According to the lecture of Prof. Samuel Norman played by Morgan Freeman,

human being have 100 billion neurons in his/her brain. But an average person could only acquire 10 to 15 percent of it, where human can communicate, manage his/herself, comprehend, plan for his/her self, invent and create things that is useful for his/her living. During their conversations, if a person acquires 20 percent, then she/he can access and control his/her body, locate an object from a distance, receive a broader spectrum of lights, sounds, and impulses. At this level, we can develop our own body metabolism, manage our heartbeat, our cell production, repair our damaged cells, and read what is in the mind of others. If you reach the 28 percent, you can colonize your own brain, control magnets and electrical and electronic gadgets. You feel no pain, fear, and desires, and knowledgeable about everything. If you reach 30 percent, you can control and pacify other people and the animals. If you reach the 40 percent, then you can control the people and other matter. You can make other people and matter float in the air. If you reach 50 percent of cerebral capacity, then you can control everything, read the wave of the transmitter, transmit the message in your own, you are certain of what you are doing, and have the capacity to persuade and hypnotized. If you reach the 60 percent, then you can control the movement of the people and other matter in the public, scan the past, present, and future. If you reach 70 percent of cerebral capacity, you can change your hair and physical appearance, float yourself in the air and even fly.  If you can reach 90 percent, then you can create a new generation computer, stop the time and travel in the time. If you reach 100 percent, as the movie pictured out you are everywhere.

In the movie entitled Lucy and the article entitled Artificial Intelligence, there are three things to contemplate, first, it is true as I observe today that human being are more concern for having than being, which is the spirit of consumerism. Human being wanted more than enough to what he/she needs as capital for domineering others that satisfies their security and comforts of life. I have no question of striving to be the best person in the world as long as you consider other’s dignity and worth, rights and welfare which is equal to you as human being in this world. Second, time is the proof of existence of matter, without time we do not exist. Since our life existence is a journey in the time and that our journey gives as the opportunity to acquire knowledge. The more knowledge we acquire the faster our journey. In the laboratory of Prof. Samuel Norman, Lucy discussed the nature of time and life and how people’s humanity distorts their perception. Third, the nature of life is to pass what was learned, the purpose of knowledge is to pass it on to others and to the next generation. This is what Lucy did, she transforms all the gadgets and objects in the laboratory into a new generation computer that contains all of her enhance knowledge of the universe. She further explains that everything is connected and existence is only proven through time. Life was given to us a billion years ago. Now you know what to do with it. Pass it on for the next generation.

The supercomputer in the movie entitled “Lucy” is called by Tanya Lewis in her article, “Artificial Intelligence: Friendly or Frightening””, as thinking and talking machines. In the internet age, terms always in the day is about artificial intelligence and developing intelligent system that make people’s lives easier. One of the leading companies today who do the research about AI is the Goggle Company. They pioneered the use of computer system that people can have a deep learning, allowing computers to do things such as recognize patterns from massive amounts of data. Stephen Hawking in one of the interviews in the BBC told about the threat of Artificial Intelligence in the human race, “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of human race.” AI is more potential threat to humanity than the nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction. The question before us is that, are the people really ready for it? If we are not cautious about it, then the machines become more intelligent that subjugate and destroy humanity. Like what the movie entitled “Lucy” tries to point in the character of Mr. Jang, new technologies and creating intelligence machine are the greatest achievements in human history. But it might also be the end of human history. In so, we have to pass it on properly that would uphold life and dignity of all creations, eradicating war, diseases and poverty. ###