@garrablanca
“...you can think and conclude whatever you want to, right?”
How I process things is the result of my upbringing, the experiences I’ve had, and so on. The conclusions I reach are processed through that filter.
Forgetting about everything else I’ve said regarding free will (society, chemical responses, biological imperatives), being who I am complicates the issue of free will. In a sense, I’m restricted to a very limited toolbox. And the tools were thrust upon me.
I’m not too worried about it, though. This barely matters on a micro (personal) scale, and matters not at all on a terrestrial or cosmic scale.
@oboe well, in this exercise, if you keep your religion, then that will be pretty much the way your thinking will be lead up by those ideas. The exercise is to prevent that to happen and to search how what we can describe about our self, in essence on who could one be without all that.
Thanks for sharing.
@hogboblin well thanks for extend your thought on this Thanks for sharing.
@garrablanca: In essence, down at the core, all humans are software programs running on (and automatically generated by) biological machines.
We're born in tiny bodies with brains barely developed enough to carry the conscious awareness that is a person. The first thing we're aware of is pain (hey, being born is not pleasant for anyone) and, naturally, we want it to stop. We're aware of cold, and want warmth. We're aware of hunger, and want to be full. The more things we encounter, the more developed our awareness becomes—the more developed we become.
Each body is different, and experiences the world a bit differently. No two people are ever in exactly the same situation at exactly the same time in exactly the same place, taking in the world around them with exactly the same eyes and ears and nose and skin and whatnot.
Take one random human for an example.
He's got certain genetic material (he didn't pick that). That material gets developed in utero, and the process of development is affected by what's happening to the owner of the womb (again, our random human has no say in this). The end result is a small human body, complete with brain. The person we're talking about is being generated by that brain: he's the consciousness that'll be aware of stuff like pain and cold and social pressure and so on. Funny thing—he didn't pick any of the things that make him. He's aware of pain because that's how the body and brain creating him work. He has no say in it. He's aware of light (and shapes and colors and movement) because that's how things are set up. Light hits the rods and cones in his eyes, neurons fire, and the consciousness that this guy is shifts. He's aware of something new, and it changes him.
Didn't choose that, either. Sensory input changes the shape of the brain—connections are made that weren't there before. Changing the shape of the brain changes the person being produced by the brain.
The idea of "free will" doesn't enter the scene until our random person's developed to a point where response to stimulus is so complex it's difficult to track the causal chain... uh, maybe "row of dominoes" would work better. When you can't see every domino in the line, it's easy to point at the missing links and triumphantly declare, "Outside influence! Something that isn't the purely natural result of merely physical cause and effect!"
The interesting part is the software program—the consciousness—the person. The result of genetics and experience, socialization and education, culture and knowledge. That's you.
Mixing metaphors here: Pulling out random parts of your self just unravels the whole sweater.
Im pmvines and im a kombuchaholic
@DarrenWalker
Love that spoiler.
What is it from? (In my head I started to hear it in an Adams/Gaiman/Pratchett voice...)
@CharlesTwisted
[delighted laughter] Ha! Thank you! I am tremendously pleased, because I wrote it myself. Being compared to any of those three writers can't help but be almost unbearably complimentary. Maybe reading their work is finally rubbing off!
It is a very nice, descriptive, honest bit of writing.
Glad to give you well-earned praise.
The question posited by the original post is the same Vygotsky vs. Chomsky debate that has raged in linguistics for decades.
@FunCartel: Wow, I never knew that "what kind of person would you be if all you knew was how to talk?" was the same question as "is language taught, or does it develop naturally without teaching?"
@DarrenWalker You proved my point. There is a school of thought that if all culture and context were taken away there would be no language, hence there would be no talk. Of course this opens up the debate as to what constitutes talk and I am not going to go into tedious academic debates about that here because those exist as well.
@FunCartel: "What kind of cake would it be if all that was in it was ice cream?" is not the same question as "is ice cream made into cakes, or does it develop into cakes naturally?"
@DarrenWalker Darren you are so right. I am not going to get into one of your of your tedious debates when I am quoting undergraduate linguistics to you that does take you down that road. Been there done that. But for your sake you win, because I am not in the mood to debate something that means so little to me.
@DarrenWalker that is a very interesting approach... so we are in essence all "equal" but commanded by different software... and sometimes this software with its own rules will tries to override some other software's outputs.
That's makes me imaging that then the developing of AI could create hate from one AI to another, but why? machines are cold, they don't have feelings...
So what are our feelings? are those related to what we know, or they exist there from the beginning?
@garrablanca: Feelings are basically chemical. So unless your AI are running on hardware that allows chemical alteration, I think you're good.
Edit: We're all equal in that we're all made the same way: consciousness as an emergent property of physical matter. We're all running on different hardware, though. And the hardware, in this case, is what determines the software—so we, as the software, are all different.
We're not equal in ability. We're not equal in ambition. We're not equal in... pretty much any way. Everybody's better (and worse) than somebody at something.
Returning to the subject of machine hate, if you program one AI to make coffee, and the other to keep the coffee machine clean, these two artificial intelligences may act like they really hate one another. If they're built to learn, they may even alter their programming in ways that'll make it tough for them to get along with non-interfering AIs in future (like a shoving subroutine). I guess you could call that mechanical aggressiveness.
It's difficult to imagine non-chemical emotion, but I suppose (upon further consideration) that it isn't actually impossible.
Why to feel compelled to be right above others? Why to feel compelled to impose a point of view on those who do not agree or on those who think differently? (Except when an idea harms someone) It is interesting to observe that necessity to impose. That hunger to feeling that what we know is the truth, fail-safe.
The exercise is to know ourselves better and accept that there are many other "software" there throbbing with emotions, that we should accept as they are, with respect and learn their points of view, without diminishing them in trying to prove that our opinion is better than the other's.
At the end, what makes you better is the love you show to your neighbor. And this does not have a religious connotation ... it should be the logical conclusion.
Specially in a community that seeks comfort to everyone.
@garrablanca: Everyone will have a slightly different series of causes leading them to feel compelled to be "right," or to impose a point of view on those who don't agree, or to just be a bit socially disagreeable. In my case....
Without going into detail on the long string of events which led to each conclusion:
Having accurate beliefs about reality is beneficial. Other people's beliefs about reality are sometimes more accurate than my own. Debating is a method of banging beliefs together and seeing what doesn't break. If I try to break someone else's belief about reality with mine, I'll be able to figure out whether mine's solid.
Therefore, I often debate even with people who don't want to.
It's good to know what's true. If a belief is true, it's better than a belief that's not true.
I'm glad to hear that you believe you should accept me as I am, with respect, and learn my point of view. Here's my point of view on the last bit of that sentence of yours: trying to prove that one of your beliefs is true (and therefore better than the one I have that contradicts yours) doesn't diminish me at all. In fact, if you're right, it improves me! A true belief is always better than a false one.
In the end, what makes you better depends on what you're being made better for. (Personally, I want to be very good at staying alive and enjoying it.)
@DarrenWalker thanks for sharing!
@garrablanca Jesus, Adolf Hitler, a swarm of bees (oops, time for my daily meds).
Here's a song instead:
Who am I to make conclusions about who I am.
May I just say, he's active, he's able to carry on decent informed conversations. All in a second language. Maybe cut the guy a break. For the post above... Well played my friend -same courtesy to you also.
Props @garrablanca for continuing on even though you may occasionally mess up a verb or preprosition.
Can't delete a post, so I'll have to replace this with something else later.
One way to know you’re speaking English is that you can barely understand yourself.
It’s a language that followed other languages down dark alleys and mugged them for loose words and pocket grammar.