Natural Instincts vs. AI Logic: Finding a Balanced Path in a Digital Age

Nomad Vlog 3 - Exploring the Nature of Costa Rica, I'm Reminded of the Power of Our Natural Instincts as We Enter the Age of AI

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When I spend time out in nature, I feel rejuvenated. Deep inside me, I feel an ancestral connection with something greater. A harmony that aligns and lifts me toward balance with each immersive step.

Yet in my everyday life, I’m enthralled with the quickly growing power of AI integrating its logic and decision-making skills into nearly every aspect of my routine.

The juxtaposition gives me pause to reflect: As we fall deeper into our reliance on technology, are we risking the loss of our natural, time-tested intuition, or can we unite our primal wisdom with AI’s power to reach new heights of human potential?

Understanding Our Primal Intuition

Throughout time, humans evolved survival instincts to adapt and thrive in the ever-changing world in which they lived.

The ability to sense danger or to predict shifting opportunity in food and shelter would often mean the difference in the survival of entire groups of people.

Insightful and effective leaders had to weigh hundreds of abstract signs and inputs to make important decisions that would guide the fortune of their tribe.

In the animal kingdom, we can see examples of raw intuition that seem to be almost completely devoid of involvement with the conscious mind: migratory birds using Earth’s magnetic field to travel thousands of miles to find milder winters and plentiful food supplies. Salmon returning to their ancestral spawning grounds using little more than their senses and environmental cues for their internal compass.

These types of behavior aren’t conscious; they are felt subconscious guides and have been essential to the survival of species throughout the existence of time.

As humans, we still see remnants of these instincts today in what we might call “gut feelings”. In bigger decisions, we often seek to “follow our gut” and have a greater need to FEEL like we are making the right choice, even after weighing all data possible to inform a given choice.

From career choices and romantic decisions to moving to a new city, the decisions often rely significantly on the direction of our subconscious primal compass.

These instincts offer a nuanced interpretation of complex emotions or social cues that logical analysis alone (something that AI is incredibly adept at) cannot fully replace or replicate.

In my decision to move out of LA to embark on the transition to be a digital nomad, I constantly consulted AI to analyze and weigh the various pros and cons of making such a big change. Every aspect of the choice was prompted and explored, rehashing every detail to try and come closer to certainty and clarity.

But in the end, it was my gut that finally made the clear decision.

It finally began to speak so loudly that the choice became obvious.

And ever since making that choice, I’ve felt a tailwind of momentum and renewal of energy to propel me toward the next era of opportunity.

The Rise of AI: Leveraging Tech Without Losing Ourselves

The proliferation of artificial intelligence marks the beginning of a radical new era of advancement in the evolution of our species and society.

By harnessing it responsibly, we could usher in a new era of prosperity and advancement for the human race.

Even at this early stage, AI excels at large-scale data analysis and computational logic that can unlock patterns and reveal solutions in medicine and science that promise to yield great benefit in our lives.

Leveraging the power of AI, we can dare to hope to cure disease, optimize agriculture for a sustainable future, and tailor education to unlock every individual’s potential.

But in this rapid shift toward the increased use and reliance on AI, we also risk losing some of our most powerful human skills.

As AI becomes more integrated into our daily lives and more and more accessible to reference for every decision and suggestion, our natural inclination to avoid difficulty could lead to over-reliance on its power of logical thinking.

Problem solving and critical thinking have been the cornerstone of our advancement as a species. These skills are why we are at the top of the food chain.

If our over-reliance on technology grows, we could soon offload every decision, large and small, to a (seemingly) all-knowing, sentient, and ever-present demi-god of a companion, and in doing so, quickly dull our greatest skill that we’ve developed over eons to arrive at where we are today.

In deferring all of our decisions, we could lose the essential insight of our natural instincts.

Maintaining Balance While Embracing AI

So how do we maintain the vision of our natural instincts while harnessing the growing power of AI?

The key is balance and awareness.

More and more, we are becoming connected and engaged with our screens and devices. With endless choices of video entertainment, social connections around the world, alerts, notifications, and now intelligent companions all requesting our attention from the proximity of our pocket, it’s extremely easy to get overwhelmed.

With great power comes great responsibility, and the greatest responsibility of our day is discipline.

The ability to harness the power of technology by separating the signal from the noise is an essential skill for cultivating productivity and avoiding the mind-dulling trap of overconsumption.

To protect and maintain our control over all these temptations demanding our attention, it’s important that we are able to separate and recharge.

It’s important that we have the awareness and discipline to do so.

One of the best ways to separate and renew our connection with our inherent natural instincts and abilities is to be present within nature itself.

For me, that means going on a hike.

Setting my phone on Do Not Disturb and heading out into the woods or hills to be surrounded by the natural sights, sounds, and smells from which the eons of intelligence within me evolved.

For me, these times are when I can hear my intuition the best.

Renewing myself with nature reconnects me to that power of instinct that serves as a compass and creative wellspring to guide me on my path.

So many times that I’ve had a creative breakthrough or was able to finally find clarity on a big decision have been on a walk in nature. I just think more cleanly and clearly there. I’m more in tune with my place in this world.

Being able to maintain that balance and connection with my deeper self, I can then take that clarity back into my goals and aspirations, fully leveraging the logical skills of AI to accelerate advancement.

An Enhanced Human Future

The ability to find and maintain this balance is powerful and essential. It will be more so as time and technology evolve.

If we can keep the connection to our time-tested natural instincts and use that powerful intuition to leverage and guide AI, then the future will truly show a lot of promise.

But it will require discipline; it will require balance.

We can find balance by reconnecting with our natural origins. As I walk through a Costa Rican forest, I’m reminded that hiking is a great way to do this, but using our hands by playing an instrument or crafting something can also bring us into our center as connected beings of mind, body, and soul.

The important thing is that we find our own way to disconnect, re-center and renew.

While it’s important to learn about the growing power of AI and how to leverage it for advancement, it’s equally important to find your connection to balance and natural origins.

The combination of the two promises to create an incredible future.

Michael