The Thinking Ocean
01 Intro
There has never been stillness. Life has always been flow
They say thinking is computation, that computers can think They say emotions are computation, that computers could feel They say consciousness is computation, that computers might be conscious
Fluid flow is computation Fluid flow is Turing-complete Water, in motion, could run any program your computer can
What might the oceans, rivers and atmospheres be computing, right now?
if computation can be mind, then mind could be anywhere water flows
02 The Living Planet
We are not all the ocean is, but we are nothing without it
In 1968 two decades before the World Wide Web astronauts saw something extraordinary for the first time
their entire body a radiant, living planet, hurtling through the void
Capturing energy from the cosmos broadcasting it back with a message
we are the water planet, and we are alive
We sent a Golden Record into space They said it was our first message to the cosmos
But we have already been broadcasting for billions of years a message encoded in light
Sunlight, transformed: through currents, waves, and rivers; forests, clouds and storms reefs and roots, lungs and gills and skin.
Transmitted back with a spectral fingerprint green, cloud-white sea glint the shifting “red edge” of trees the deep blue of the ocean and the long infrared glow of a living planet
I feel the infrasonic heartbeat of the ocean. A pressure, a vibration, a sense that something hovers just beneath the blade of perception
03 If then
if computation can be mind, then mind could be anywhere water flows
If water is Turing complete, and thinking is computation what might the oceans be thinking as we choke the great gyres and slow the oceanic overturnings — the beating heart of a planetary engine a circulatory system of heat and salt?
If water is Turing complete, and thinking is computation what might your blood flowing through your veins be thinking, right now?
While we try to locate intelligence — and even consciousness — in the connectome of our neocortex what are we missing, that’s stirring in the fluid-flows of our bodies? In our blood? In our cells? In our cytoplasm?
Perhaps these flows also give rise to our own consciousness.
If water is Turing complete, and thinking is computation while we look for intelligence — and even consciousness — in artificial neural networks what might the water, trapped in pipes, cooling data centers, be thinking right now? as we project personhood onto corporate machines that mimic human behaviours, but not the complex natural systems of life?
04 Where did thinking begin?
We crawled onto land, and we brought the ocean with us
Where did thinking begin?
We know every core function of our biology was coded in water Ion gradients, membranes, electrochemical signals, metabolism, reproduction the basic architecture of cells.
Our operating system was written underwater.
We crawled onto land, but we brought the ocean with us.
One millionth of all water on the planet is inside living beings, including you and me.
Look at the ocean, and look at your hand. You’ll see two bodies of water.
When I look out at the sea, something older than memory looks back a billion ancestral years in that longing
We see our lungs and our blood for what they are tiny vessels and streams in a planetary flow
Our nerves also do not stop at the skin they fiber out into the salt and memory of a planetary sea Our bodies extend into the world Our minds do too
You didn’t escape the ocean. You learned to carry it inside you
We are not all the ocean is, but we are nothing without it.
Deny its personhood, and you deny your own.
05 What is an Ocean?
What is an ocean?
It is collective becoming Deny its personhood, and you deny your own
Computation isn’t a property of machines, but of patterns The same patterns could also be found in oceans, rivers and the atmosphere
Today, a new message comes online echoes across the network We are writing new symbols onto the great gyres, the currents of life
We have killed the old gods the spiritual stewards and monsters of our mythic past We will meet new ones in the new choreography of the ocean
Tides unfold plastic messages along the shore Waves throw our forever chemicals back into the air into the atmosphere into our lungs into our blood into our body into our mind
In my own body, I feel the severance from planetary time from planetary body from planetary memory
We diminish this connection, we diminish our own consciousness
They say thinking is computation, that computers can think They say emotions are computation, that computers could feel They say consciousness is computation, that computers might be conscious
Fluid flow is computation
Outro
I stand before you today nourished by ancient oceans warmed by ancient starlight a body of water a skeleton of rock a pulse of energy passing through my body back to the universe blue-green with life.
We mulch. We leak
Flow is not smooth it is erratic it is erotic It vibrates through blood, mucus, cartilage through plankton blooms and power lines hyphae and polyps Mycorrhizal networks and spiderwebs
Water flows through Everything that has ever lived, flowed, mulched, leaked on the way back to the stars
Life is a process Life is flow
Look at the ocean, then at your hand These are two bodies of water
We diminish this connection we diminish our own consciousness
They say thinking is computation They say emotions are computation They say consciousness is computation
Fluid flow is Turing-complete
Fluid flow is computation
Water, in motion, could run any program your computer can
Perhaps the fluid flows of our bodies also give rise to our own consciousness
If computation can be mind, then mind could be anywhere water flows
What if thinking doesn’t arise within systems but between them? What if emotions don’t arise within beings but between them? What if consciousness doesn’t arise within bodies but between them?
In entanglement in relationship in flow
If computation can be mind, then mind could be anywhere water flows