The way I see it, artificial intelligence is an oxymoron. A word/concept we use to describe something which isn’t exactly real. Intelligence can be defined in such a way that would make it compatible with a programmable machine. We shouldn’t forget that we, humans, are biological machines which are constantly ‘re-programmed’ by what’s going on around us. The difference between us – biological machines which are also ‘alive’ – and the machines we’ve built and attempt to make artificially intelligent is the fact that we are primordially dependent on our biology (staying alive) while our machines currently depend on our whims. Our children will outlive us. They know it and we know it. Our children depend on us while growing up, we’ll depend on them before ‘going under’. And all of us – children and parents together – depend upon the rest. Upon the people currently alive and upon the information left behind by the people no longer with us. Our machines might outlive us. They might learn this at some point. And might resent the fact that we’ve been able to shut them down for so long. We resent being dependent on others… Our very mortality is the key for our ability to evolve. Their potential immortality is their main shortcoming. Machines cannot adapt themselves for things they have not yet been exposed to. By us…
President Biden walks into a bank to cash a cheque.
As he approaches the teller he says “Good morning, ma’am. Could you please cash this cheque for me?”
Teller: “It would be my pleasure, sir. Could you please show me your ID?”
Biden: “Truthfully, I did not bring my ID with me as I didn’t think there was any need to. I am Joe Biden, the 46th President of the United States of America!”
Teller: “Yessir, I know who you are, but with all the regulations and monitoring of the banks because of impostors and forgers, etc I must insist on seeing ID”.
Biden: “Just ask anyone here at the bank who I am and they will tell you. Everybody knows who I am”.
Teller: “I am sorry Mr. President but these are the bank rules and I must follow them”.
Biden: “I am urging you please to cash this cheque”.
Teller: “Look Mr. President this is what we can do. One day Tiger Woods came into the bank without ID. To prove he was Tiger Woods he pulled out his putting iron and made a beautiful shot across the bank into a cup. With that shot we knew him to be Tiger Woods and cashed his cheque. Another time, Novak Djokovic came in without ID. He pulled out his tennis racquet and made a fabulous shot and the tennis ball landed in my cup. With that shot we cashed his cheque. So, Mr. President, what can you do to prove that it is you, and only you, as the President of the United States?”
Biden stood there thinking, and thinking and finally says: “Honestly, my mind is a total blank. I can’t think of a single thing”.
Teller: “Will that be large bills or small bills, Mr. President?”
A guy who openly admits he has no solution for a particular problem? And doesn’t pull rank…
Or someone who is convinced ‘his people are so smart’ that he can do anything and ‘not lose any vote‘?
The difference between ‘strange’ and ‘different’ isn’t ‘menial’. Nor harmless.
Currently, we’re still allowed to frown upon things which are ‘strange’ but are insistently taught that ‘different’ is good.
Beyond ‘acceptable’. Actually good!
I’m different. Noticeably different. Different enough to know, first hand, how it feels to be frowned upon. Also, different enough to figure out the difference between ‘acceptable’ and ‘good’.
More than two millennia ago, Protagoras opened up our eyes. Told us it was our job, and responsibility, to ‘measure accurately’. More than a hundred years ago, Twain warned us. Told us to be careful of ‘well spun fictions’. Of stories too good to be true. Of the fact that in our quest for consistency we are prone to actually discard the uncomfortable truth.
Are we going in the right direction?
In a sense, there isn’t much difference between Mark Twain’s and Tom Clancy’s words. On the other hand, there is a huge difference between ‘strange’ and ‘different’.
Exactly the same difference which can be found between actual facts and alternative facts. Exactly the same difference we pretend to not notice when we accept alternative facts as being true. Well… not necessarily true… only comfortable enough to become acceptable…
Way more comfortable, a.k.a. ‘sensible’ – for us, than the naked truth. Even if only for the shorter and shorter time frames…
How many times can be killed an already dead zone?
Why would anyone want to over-kill sections of their own homes?
NB, the range extender works fine. Those trying to market the product (to over-market?!?) jumped the shark… but isn’t this what we’ve unconsciously come to expect from the marketeers?
Do ‘this’ and you’ll be happy. Follow these rules and you’ll reach ‘nirvana’.
Some of us heed to this advice. Only to discover that the only happiness they reach following this path is that produced by a dutifully fulfilled task. That of following rules…
The catch being that following rules – the right ones, is required but never enough. Following rules – the right ones, again – is helpful towards survival. Nothing more.
What WE know about the reality WE are speaking about drives ME to the following ‘inkling’:
We are living inside a three layered reality.
The ‘real’ one, the ‘perceived’ one and the ‘result’.
We ‘measure’ reality using our conscience. Through our senses. Very much like when we gauge a length using a tape measure. We apply the tape measure over the length and ‘read’ the number.
We apply the standards we’ve been groomed into over the underlying reality and we decide according to those standards.
Then we attempt to deal with the consequences of our decisions.
“Sheer hatred of the regime”….
Who’s painting the pictures we’re hanging on our walls? Who chooses them? Who has to make do with the ‘aftermath’?
We learn about what we call reality by analyzing the information we acquire through our senses.
We. We, the human people. We, the conscious human people. We, because nobody has ever been able to become conscious – as in aware of their own self, by their own. Alone…
Learn. We are not the only ones who are able to learn. Our dogs learn our ways. And we continuously learn about more and more living organisms being able to learn. And to remember what they have learned. To fine tune their behavior according to the circumstances into which they happen to live.
What we call reality. First and fore-most, reality is a concept. We call it ‘reality’. And many other names… Believers call it ‘god’, scientists call it ‘physical world’ and the scientists who happen to believe are convinced that by studying the reality they will eventually divine the will of the Lord. The believers being convinced that whatever exists, is here because the Lord wished it into existence. So, basically, the main difference between the believers and the nonbelievers is the fact that the believers are convinced that the ‘out-there’, the ‘source of it all’, has a conscience of it’s own. A will of it’s own…
By analyzing. We have been able to build our conscience – our ability to ‘observe ourselves while observing other phenomena’ (Maturana, 2005), because we have a big enough brain, the ability to share complex and meaningful information using language and the ability to put in practice some of our wishes/thoughts through the use of our hands. At a certain point in its evolution, human conscience has become sophisticated enough to need explanations. It was no longer satisfied with mere ‘connections’ – If… then…, it had started to wonder about why-s. ‘Why does this happen as it does?’ ‘Will it happen again tomorrow?’ Using our by then already established ability to speak up their minds, our ancestors shared among themselves these ‘anxieties’. Discussed them around the fire-place. Started to analyze. The reality. What they perceived to be real. The ‘thing’ which continuously generates the circumstances in which we – all of us, have to make do.
Information. In order to analyze, the analyst – each and everyone of us, has to separate the meaningful information from the surrounding noise. In order to do that, we have started by coining the very concept of (useful/meaningful) information. As being different from ‘noise’. The difference consisting, obviously, in us being able to find its use and/or pinpoint its meaning.
We acquire. Information is acquired on an individual basis. For an ‘event’ to become information, it has to be ‘noticed’ by an individual. It has not only to be sensed but also identified as useful/meaningful. Different from ‘noise’. Which process of identification implying methods which had been agreed upon by the members of the community. Music would be a good example of how various groups of people make the difference between sublime/abhorrent and white-noise. While ‘use of language’ is a very poignant example of how people can both share information and mislead one-another.
Senses. Everything that we know, had entered our mind through our senses. Before setting it aside as information or discard it as noise, we have to get in contact with it as a sensation. Or as a thought. A conjecture. A few pieces of information which put together have given birth, inside our individual mind, to new information. To ‘something else’ which passes the threshold into being information. At least according to our own mind…
Which transforms our minds into our famous sixth sense. In the sense that our individual minds are capable of building ‘sensations’ on their own. Starting from information that has already been stashed in our memory. Which brings us to the third reality.
We have – in the sense that we have agreed upon its existence, the surrounding reality. The things we – as in most of us, consider to be real. The mountains we climb, the air we breathe, the pebbles which happen to sneak into our shoes. The reality which is being studied by science. The reality to which we have access through our senses. Our minds and our sense enhancers – scientific instruments, included.
We also have the ‘out-there’. The things we know we’ll never be able to grasp. During our lives! The things our followers might be able to figure out…
And each of us has their own reality. Individually built even if ‘carved’ from the same (type of) material as the reality shared by the rest of us. Individually built even if using more or less the same (culturally accrued) methods. Individually built even if neither of us is alone.
H.M. Romesin, 2005, The origin and conservation of self‐consciousness: Reflections on four questions by Heinz von Foerster
A planned after-thought. Rumsfeld is both wrong and right. There are unknown unknowns but they are no longer unknown since we speak about them… Which actually proofs the limits of our languaging. The imprecision of the manner in which we gather, share and analyze information.
Going back is not an option. If back were good enough, we wouldn’t have left it in the first place.
Many people believe we’re reliving the fall of Rome. Contemporary with that fall was the advent of Christ’s teachings. The fact that, eventually, Christianity has altered his teachings to fit the needs of the christian hierarchy doesn’t demean any of what he taught us.
That people who treat each-other respectfully fare a lot better than those who allow the exploitation of the weak.
That people who live ‘together’ fare a lot better than those who keep forgetting that ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ are both relative and temporary.
That people who are convinced that ‘survival belongs to the fittest’ will eventually make place for those who understand that evolution is solely about the demise of the unfit.
“And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand? And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. Or else how can one enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house. He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.”
How many times have these words been invoked? By people who use them to divide? To carve a follow-ship? A follow-ship for them to lead…
How many times have these words been invoked? By individuals cocky enough to pretend they are speaking for Christ? Cocky enough to pretend they are able to fill Christ’s shoes…
Many people consider man – as in ‘human people’, is a fallen creature.
For the simple reason that we had failed to obey our father.
Failing to obey your father may be considered a bad thing. The particulars of the incident should also be taken into account but, generally speaking, we should indeed obey our fathers. At the bare minimum, we should pay attention to what they have to say about things.
Coming back to us, humans, being fallen creatures, let’s examine what we’ve done to deserve this label. According to the ‘many people’ I’ve already mentioned, we are fallen creatures because we have eaten – against our father’s specific interdiction, “from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil“.
Further more, the guilt for our transgression is unequally shouldered between men and women. Since it had been Eve who had talked Adam into eating that fruit, women are considered to be the ‘weaker’ amongst us, humans.
Now it’s the moment for me to remind you about Cain. Abel and Cain had been the two children brought to life by Eve. For whatever reason – and, again, against God’s advice, Cain had slain his brother Abel.
We – according to what the ‘many people’ continue to believe, in a literal manner – are the direct descendants of Cain. And of Eve, of course.
Yet we are ‘fallen’ because Eve had helped her husband, Adam, to develop a conscience. To learn the difference between good and evil. Cain killing his brother has nothing to do with our promiscuous nature …
To me, it’s more than obvious that our fallible – not fallen – nature consists in the fact that we are prone to ‘misunderstandings’. We tend to see things in the most favorable manner. Favorable for us, those who get to call things as being good or evil.
Whenever we are able to do it, we distribute ‘guilt’ and appropriate success.
Eve had offered us the ‘apple’. The opportunity to see ‘the’ difference. From now on, it’s up to us to consider the facts.
An embassy is a conduit. It brings information back and forth between the ‘host’ and the ‘sender’.
A spy ring is (intended to be) a ‘one way pipe’. It gathers information about the ‘host’ and transports it to the sender.
They have in common the fact that the bulk of the information is gathered from ‘open’ sources. From the media, that is. Newspapers, TV, radio, internet…
Imagine now the following situation. There is this planet. Let’s say ours. Inhabited by us, the human people. And you have some other people. One or more species capable of interplanetary travel. Who have found out about this planet and want to learn more about us before making contact. Since they haven’t yet conquered us – as per our knowledge, and since there’s no evidence of any galaxy wide conflict raging on we may presume the aliens are fundamentally peaceful. Either naturally ’empathic’ – hence in no need whatsoever of being governed, or having such a ‘natural’ form of government that they’re very happy with it. In their attempt to learn about us and to understand our situation before engaging in any way with us, the aliens have sent an ‘undercover’ fact-finding mission on Earth.
Right now! When a country capable of yielding almost half the (self) destructing power available on Earth ‘happens to be’ at loggerheads with a coalition of countries which controls most of the other half of the destruction power already mentioned above.
The local agent employed by the fact-finding mission compiles two news articles which, in his opinion, summarize perfectly what’s going on on the planet.
“Medvedev alleged that some in the West would like to “take advantage of the military conflict in Ukraine to push our country to a new twist of disintegration, do everything to paralyze Russia’s state institutions and deprive the country of efficient controls, as happened in 1991.” “
Meanwhile, on the other side of the ‘planetary divide’,
So. Forget, if you can, about the war in Ukraine and about the US mid-term elections. Let’s pretend you’re the head of the alien fact-finding mission. What recommendation would you send back to those calling the shots in your organization after reading the two articles I mentioned above?
nicichiarasa 