Just finishing a semester of assisting public school English teachers here in Japan, and in so doing, also finishing my 2 year contract. Haven't had much time to read, much less write ... but I thought here is as good a place as any for a foothold on lingering sanity.
In the evenings after a long day at the elementary schools or Jr. Highs, I often veg-out on a YouTube watching binge while scarfing down another microwave dinner. Most recently, the topic of the day is ChatGPT, MidJourney, and other A.I. empowered software.
I was chatting in comments with a poet and friend here on substack who is accepting the gauntlet of the challenge, and defending human artistic creativity as, at least for now, safe and distinct from A.I. 'art". I am just beginning to struggle with what is to come.
In what appears to be a conveniently forgotten meme-in-the-making ... in the movie named after Isaac Asimov"s "I Robot", Will Smith challenges the robot's 'humanity' by asking if it can write a symphony ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfAHbm7G2R0
In my comment, I mentioned how human-like the fallibility of ChatGPT showed itself to be in attempting to answer something posed beyond its data set, but then how above-average the response when asking it to briefly list the problems in reconciling globalist-collectivist agendas with Kant"s ethical stance. Maybe not 'artistic' in the most inspirational sense of the word, but I doubt one in a hundred acquaintances could have given as good an answer. That led me to think a bit more deeply on what I've so far concluded are three salient variables (from my perspective) regarding emerging A.I.
1 — The previously mentioned difference between art and artifice. At least for myself, 'art' as opposed to entertainment includes a spark of the divine, 'inspiration' as in filled with the spirt of god ... my god being the god of Spinoza, Emerson, and Einstein ... a metaphor for nature in its entirety. but also the Platonic ideals of 'the good., 'the true, and 'the beautiful' as facets of something fundamental. That led me down the rabbit whole of expanding 'entirety' to include more than 'quanity (of data) has a quality all its own'. For example, the instincts, emotions, temperaments through which entirety is funneled, and the limits of quantifiying and defining 'data' ('smaller' than a planck unit? 'before' the Big Bang? Russell"s Paradoxes, Wittgenstein"s Ladder, Gödel's Incompeteness Theorems) ... and the potential of reason (fractal theory, emergence theory, chaos theory, etc.). This led me to what I think is a related variable, but slightly different domain of discourse ...
2) Language and Logic. I am a believer in the strong version of Whorf-Sapir (linguistic relativity) and believe that anything which can be shared through symbols ... from grunts to algorithms ... are sometimes predictive ... but necessarily parochial, metaphorical, provisional social constructs. Just as ants may communicate through pheromones, honey bees through dances, birds through displays ... we also communicate through symbols. But I don't think there is a qualitative difference. I think it is quantitative. Our language and logic expands the spans of time and place through which we can share information .... in essence, both a time machine and "space ship. Compared to pheromones, dances, and displays ... a very powerful tool. But there is no such thing as a free lunch.
The price for using a space-time machine is a loss of the mystery and inspiration (and the loss of immediate access to the aesthetics and moral imperatives of those three Platonic ideals) of the immediate 'now" to which great art aspires, to which 'spiritual' wanderer's seek. But if language and logic are a double edges sword, so is silence ... the silence of death, of nothing to say and no one to say it to. Or the pregnant silence between notes of a Miles Davis solo, or the meaningful 'emptiness" between the stems of an Ikenobo arrangement. I kind of like John Cage's 4'33'' too. 😂 But along with the virtuosity of that double edged sword comes an even more dangerous, third edge and salient point ...
3) Sociopathy. As language and thought are so fluid, I guess we could call this 'Cluster B personality traits', dark triads, or just permutations of pathological narcissism. There does seem to be genetic component, as some people are simply born without the morphological features necessary for more neurotypical empathy.
But such morphological change can also develop through sickness, physical trauma, or emotional trauma. Lobaczewsky's book on political ponerology explores this as a process, though is a book I am still mired in, exploring and finding as much insight in footnotes as I am in the main text. Where I have my doubts is in his faith that this can be reduced (expanded?) into a 'science' and therefore be controlled. I doubt it simply because the predators among us are the first to pick up on quantification and commodification of data ... including data that would otherwise be used to constrain themselves.
It is that small minority of predators, feeding off the rest of humanity as the lowest hanging fruit, who are most likely to use the space-time machine of communication through symbols. From grunts to algorithms, they reflect Schopenhaur's insight into "the world as will" ... only it is a short-sighted to blind ambition of social primates who either are unable or unwilling to reach the peak of maturity for social primates ... altruistic behavior. Rather, they would outsource losses to anyone but themselves, feeding even on each other in the their childish game of thrones.
I still feel the impact of the first three paragraphs of Chomsky's 2011 Chapel Hill speech, "Human Intelligence and the Environment" https://chomsky.info/20100930/ ... and can't help but side with Ernst Mayr in thinking that human intelligence may prove to be nothing more than the fatal mutation of a social primate. We've had a good run, and according to Mayr's calculation of the evolutionary record for 'apex' species (lots to unpack there and plenty to disagree about), we've just about reached our shelf life. Perhaps the answer to the Fermi paradox is that any species capable of reaching the stars has an equal if not greater capacity for self destruction. I've often felt that urge in my self.
Ooops ... gotta go. One of my "bosses" didn't know I would be at school today, and suddenly made 'busy' work for me.
Steve I share your thoughts. Especially "spark of the divine, 'inspiration' as in filled with the spirt of god ... my god being the god of Spinoza, Emerson, and Einstein ... a metaphor for nature in its entirety. but also the Platonic ideals of 'the good., 'the true, and 'the beautiful' as facets of something fundamental."
This present moment is my 60's childhood of Science and Science Fiction, the What If This Trend Goes On and yet although A.I. and O.I. can be said to have nothing of the divine spark and we in our quintessence do, a Gnostic mystery remains.
O.I. is the trend explored by SF and Fantasy and Horror fiction. As a thinker in the What If trend the Demiurge looms large.
Man did never arise spontaneously from nothing. Voegelin said Marxism was Gnostic.
Del Noce comments our affluent society is a society that accepts all of Marxism’s negations against contemplative thought, religion and metaphysics; that accepts, therefore, the Marxist reduction of ideas to instruments of production; that, on the other hand, rejects the revolutionary-messianic aspects of Marxism. . . In this regard, it truly represents the bourgeois spirit in its pure state. . . triumphant over . . . transcendent religion and revolutionary thought.
Hi Stegiel. Just when I thought I had a handle on things, I read the above and catch a glimpse of how much more I don't know. 😂
Gotta prep for that 'busy b.s. work ... and try to wring a bit of meaning from it for the students' sake ... but thanks for the street signs pointing where to look next. About 3 weeks from now, I will be on the dole and in the unemployment line again ... but on the bright side, more time to read, write, and chat with you.
This is a good stack. It's filled my head all day, in a depressing way as for you.
Voting is just a front of course.
What to do on voting day, oops I mean voting season as it goes on for ages.
I'm thinking that not voting doesn't achieve anything, so I will vote for a crazy nutcase fringe party.
Thank you for including the link about the graphene, it was old, but I hadn't seen it before, only reports on it.
I see now why so many say that there's no mRNA in the clotshots. A glimmer of hope was that the body maybe can divest itself of a little of this graphene oxide.
Had a man from the guvmint bring census forms yesterday. Our dog loves people but not that man. First time ever that the dog hasn't liked a person.
I always thought that censi was a good idea. Certainly proves that I have had a big mind upheaval.
Liars and connivers the lot of them. As one of your other ( forget which, but probably yours) stacks said, they have lied so much that they don't even recognize the truth.
Hi Stegiel,
Just finishing a semester of assisting public school English teachers here in Japan, and in so doing, also finishing my 2 year contract. Haven't had much time to read, much less write ... but I thought here is as good a place as any for a foothold on lingering sanity.
In the evenings after a long day at the elementary schools or Jr. Highs, I often veg-out on a YouTube watching binge while scarfing down another microwave dinner. Most recently, the topic of the day is ChatGPT, MidJourney, and other A.I. empowered software.
I was chatting in comments with a poet and friend here on substack who is accepting the gauntlet of the challenge, and defending human artistic creativity as, at least for now, safe and distinct from A.I. 'art". I am just beginning to struggle with what is to come.
In what appears to be a conveniently forgotten meme-in-the-making ... in the movie named after Isaac Asimov"s "I Robot", Will Smith challenges the robot's 'humanity' by asking if it can write a symphony ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfAHbm7G2R0
In my comment, I mentioned how human-like the fallibility of ChatGPT showed itself to be in attempting to answer something posed beyond its data set, but then how above-average the response when asking it to briefly list the problems in reconciling globalist-collectivist agendas with Kant"s ethical stance. Maybe not 'artistic' in the most inspirational sense of the word, but I doubt one in a hundred acquaintances could have given as good an answer. That led me to think a bit more deeply on what I've so far concluded are three salient variables (from my perspective) regarding emerging A.I.
1 — The previously mentioned difference between art and artifice. At least for myself, 'art' as opposed to entertainment includes a spark of the divine, 'inspiration' as in filled with the spirt of god ... my god being the god of Spinoza, Emerson, and Einstein ... a metaphor for nature in its entirety. but also the Platonic ideals of 'the good., 'the true, and 'the beautiful' as facets of something fundamental. That led me down the rabbit whole of expanding 'entirety' to include more than 'quanity (of data) has a quality all its own'. For example, the instincts, emotions, temperaments through which entirety is funneled, and the limits of quantifiying and defining 'data' ('smaller' than a planck unit? 'before' the Big Bang? Russell"s Paradoxes, Wittgenstein"s Ladder, Gödel's Incompeteness Theorems) ... and the potential of reason (fractal theory, emergence theory, chaos theory, etc.). This led me to what I think is a related variable, but slightly different domain of discourse ...
2) Language and Logic. I am a believer in the strong version of Whorf-Sapir (linguistic relativity) and believe that anything which can be shared through symbols ... from grunts to algorithms ... are sometimes predictive ... but necessarily parochial, metaphorical, provisional social constructs. Just as ants may communicate through pheromones, honey bees through dances, birds through displays ... we also communicate through symbols. But I don't think there is a qualitative difference. I think it is quantitative. Our language and logic expands the spans of time and place through which we can share information .... in essence, both a time machine and "space ship. Compared to pheromones, dances, and displays ... a very powerful tool. But there is no such thing as a free lunch.
The price for using a space-time machine is a loss of the mystery and inspiration (and the loss of immediate access to the aesthetics and moral imperatives of those three Platonic ideals) of the immediate 'now" to which great art aspires, to which 'spiritual' wanderer's seek. But if language and logic are a double edges sword, so is silence ... the silence of death, of nothing to say and no one to say it to. Or the pregnant silence between notes of a Miles Davis solo, or the meaningful 'emptiness" between the stems of an Ikenobo arrangement. I kind of like John Cage's 4'33'' too. 😂 But along with the virtuosity of that double edged sword comes an even more dangerous, third edge and salient point ...
3) Sociopathy. As language and thought are so fluid, I guess we could call this 'Cluster B personality traits', dark triads, or just permutations of pathological narcissism. There does seem to be genetic component, as some people are simply born without the morphological features necessary for more neurotypical empathy.
But such morphological change can also develop through sickness, physical trauma, or emotional trauma. Lobaczewsky's book on political ponerology explores this as a process, though is a book I am still mired in, exploring and finding as much insight in footnotes as I am in the main text. Where I have my doubts is in his faith that this can be reduced (expanded?) into a 'science' and therefore be controlled. I doubt it simply because the predators among us are the first to pick up on quantification and commodification of data ... including data that would otherwise be used to constrain themselves.
It is that small minority of predators, feeding off the rest of humanity as the lowest hanging fruit, who are most likely to use the space-time machine of communication through symbols. From grunts to algorithms, they reflect Schopenhaur's insight into "the world as will" ... only it is a short-sighted to blind ambition of social primates who either are unable or unwilling to reach the peak of maturity for social primates ... altruistic behavior. Rather, they would outsource losses to anyone but themselves, feeding even on each other in the their childish game of thrones.
I still feel the impact of the first three paragraphs of Chomsky's 2011 Chapel Hill speech, "Human Intelligence and the Environment" https://chomsky.info/20100930/ ... and can't help but side with Ernst Mayr in thinking that human intelligence may prove to be nothing more than the fatal mutation of a social primate. We've had a good run, and according to Mayr's calculation of the evolutionary record for 'apex' species (lots to unpack there and plenty to disagree about), we've just about reached our shelf life. Perhaps the answer to the Fermi paradox is that any species capable of reaching the stars has an equal if not greater capacity for self destruction. I've often felt that urge in my self.
Ooops ... gotta go. One of my "bosses" didn't know I would be at school today, and suddenly made 'busy' work for me.
Cheers from the bowels of Japan Inc.
steve
Steve I share your thoughts. Especially "spark of the divine, 'inspiration' as in filled with the spirt of god ... my god being the god of Spinoza, Emerson, and Einstein ... a metaphor for nature in its entirety. but also the Platonic ideals of 'the good., 'the true, and 'the beautiful' as facets of something fundamental."
This present moment is my 60's childhood of Science and Science Fiction, the What If This Trend Goes On and yet although A.I. and O.I. can be said to have nothing of the divine spark and we in our quintessence do, a Gnostic mystery remains.
O.I. is the trend explored by SF and Fantasy and Horror fiction. As a thinker in the What If trend the Demiurge looms large.
Man did never arise spontaneously from nothing. Voegelin said Marxism was Gnostic.
Del Noce comments our affluent society is a society that accepts all of Marxism’s negations against contemplative thought, religion and metaphysics; that accepts, therefore, the Marxist reduction of ideas to instruments of production; that, on the other hand, rejects the revolutionary-messianic aspects of Marxism. . . In this regard, it truly represents the bourgeois spirit in its pure state. . . triumphant over . . . transcendent religion and revolutionary thought.
Hi Stegiel. Just when I thought I had a handle on things, I read the above and catch a glimpse of how much more I don't know. 😂
Gotta prep for that 'busy b.s. work ... and try to wring a bit of meaning from it for the students' sake ... but thanks for the street signs pointing where to look next. About 3 weeks from now, I will be on the dole and in the unemployment line again ... but on the bright side, more time to read, write, and chat with you.
Cheers buddy!
steve
This is a good stack. It's filled my head all day, in a depressing way as for you.
Voting is just a front of course.
What to do on voting day, oops I mean voting season as it goes on for ages.
I'm thinking that not voting doesn't achieve anything, so I will vote for a crazy nutcase fringe party.
Thank you for including the link about the graphene, it was old, but I hadn't seen it before, only reports on it.
I see now why so many say that there's no mRNA in the clotshots. A glimmer of hope was that the body maybe can divest itself of a little of this graphene oxide.
Had a man from the guvmint bring census forms yesterday. Our dog loves people but not that man. First time ever that the dog hasn't liked a person.
I always thought that censi was a good idea. Certainly proves that I have had a big mind upheaval.
Liars and connivers the lot of them. As one of your other ( forget which, but probably yours) stacks said, they have lied so much that they don't even recognize the truth.
Yes. Pathological lying creates a situation of total untruth as truth is defined by the lie.
Only don't know eh.