Up to now you have lived according to memory, which is an unnecessary burden, carrying it in your head. Twenty-five years of teaching in the schools, colleges, universities; PhDs, DLitt’s…. What are you doing? You are creating a computer, but with an old, out-of-date method – forcing small children to memorize. There is no need. The computer can do everything, just the computer has to be given information.
You can buy a computer which knows everything about medical science. You need not go to a medical college; you simply ask the computer and immediately the answer is there. Your memory is not so reliable. And the computer can always be fed with new memory, because new discoveries are being made every day. The computer can be plugged into the main computer of the university, so without your even bothering, every new discovery concerning your subject is immediately fed into your computer. It waits there, you inquire, and the computer tells you.
You can have a multidimensional computer which has all kinds of memory, or a one-dimensional computer which has only history – the whole history of mankind. Now, you cannot have the whole history of mankind. Do you know on what date Socrates was married to Xanthippe? The computer can tell you immediately. That unfortunate date…. I have always suspected that Socrates accepted the poison so easily because of his wife, because life was so torturous – death cannot be worse than that.
How much can you memorize? Your memory has a limitation. But the computer can memorize almost unlimitedly. And there are many more possibilities: one computer can join together with another computer and manage to figure out new inventions, new medicines, new ways of health, new ways of living. Computers should not be taken as monsters.
It is a great blessing. And what man’s intellect has done is very small. Once the computer takes over, so much can be done that there will be no need for anybody to be hungry, no need for anybody to be poor; no need for anybody to be a thief, no need for anybody to be a judge, because these all belong to the same profession – judges and thieves, criminals and law makers. There is no need for anybody to be poor and no need for anybody to be rich. Everybody can be affluent.
But perhaps no government will allow this to happen. No religion will allow this to happen, because it will go against their scriptures, it will go against their doctrines. Hindus believe that you have to suffer because in your past life you committed evil acts. Nobody knows about past lives. They cannot accept an invention which can remove misery, poverty, sickness, because then what will happen to the theory of reincarnation, and rewards and punishments of good and bad deeds? The whole doctrine of Hinduism will be simply meaningless.
If the computer can make your life as long as you want, if a computer can manage for you always to be young – no need for old age unless you want – then who cares about…. So many people will be affected. The medical profession will be affected, pharmacies will be affected, people who are living on your sickness will be affected.