What is the algorithm of the heart? Indeed, is there such a thing? I don’t mean the mathematics behind the unceasing pump that sends blood streaming through the body. Though this is the source of a life, and without it a life is not. The heart is the prime example of the mechanics of existence. A person’s assembly kit is an algorithm in action, that is the DNA.
But what of the algorithms of the other chambers of the heart? Those, and I write of course figuratively, that produce tears of sorrow and joy; that generate the waves of emotion; that build the towers of our beliefs.
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They differ from pure calculus because they are not immutable. There are two strands; the algorithms of what matters spiritually; these can form the bedrock on which a life is built, core foundational creeds that are the base for a life of honesty and integrity; and there are the algorithms that when they change, so do we. It is here that one immutable law of physics can be warped – Isaac Newton’s Third Law: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
The algorithm of love would say that for every one of its actions, be it word or touch, from one to another, the reaction cannot, must not, be an opposite one. If we cannot have faith in this equation of what it means to be human, then life is merely subdivision. Of course, the dark wraiths of war and hatred test the strength of that. Sending love in return to those aiming to kill and maim you has never worked. Turning the other cheek is not an option for survival.
Type in what is an algorithm to a search engine and this is the answer: a set of instructions to achieve a result or solve a problem. Its partner in letters, the logarithm, simplifies calculations.
The rise and accommodation of artificial intelligence into life cannot be rewound. Its phenomenal speed of calculation is altering how society does business with itself, and how people will react because of the information it can shoot out at the tap of a keyboard.
But there is no AI answer to this, what was the first hope? Or to this, what will be the last hope? It’s true that humankind is no saint as to living by the light of commonsense and intelligence. Stupidity is as much a player in history as any other element.
Yet a life is kindled, nurtured, is busy being born throughout its days, because of a spiritual algorithm that cannot be erased. It is the song of the heart, indefinable.
