HUMANS DO NOT ACT, BUT REACT, SO MUCH FOR FREE WILL

[Walker]

Humans and machines both act according to feedback. This is what makes cybernetic AI such a hot item because it can be in many places at once, collecting feedback and processing a definition of reality that is far more accurate than that permitted by the limitations of human senses, or the capacity of a human to track and integrate all known variables that comprise a situation, not to mention all situations at once.

In fact, with millions or billions of shifting and interacting data points such as face recognition, chemical analysis and detailed tracking of an individual’s past motions, AI, through the medium of an appropriate algorithm, could predict the future with 100% accuracy … which seems reasonable.

Such a computer might actually be as large as the universe and require all the energy that is.

If my coffee pot could tap into such cybernetic AI powers it would know the exact blend, grind, and temperature that is appropriate for me at that moment … ALL things considered, knowledge which it gathers through its innumerable data points that collect and process changes in relation to everything else in the universe. And would I want that? Hell no. Who knows what a coffee pot with those powers is capable of doing … I would end up working for the coffee pot. Everything would be for the glory of the coffee pot due to the God-gene in humans.



Please assuage my faux angst with a tale of human specialness.

[Walker]

Society would create rituals to the communal coffee pot.

Morning rituals. Expensive, now that it has a flashy brand name, and jargon.

[Immanuel Can]

Society would create rituals to the communal coffee pot.

Morning rituals. Expensive, now that it has a flashy brand name, and jargon.

Ah, yesss...the worship at the coffee pot is a ritual for many. It's a pretty amazing substance, coffee.

Interesting that nowadays, even our formerly "dumb" appliances are hooked up to our cell phones, and hence, to the internet, and thence to AI. One might well wonder how "smart" a coffee pot really needs to be.

[thomyum2]

Humans and machines both act according to feedback. This is what makes cybernetic AI such a hot item because it can be in many places at once, collecting feedback and processing a definition of reality that is far more accurate than that permitted by the limitations of human senses, or the capacity of a human to track and integrate all known variables that comprise a situation, not to mention all situations at once.
...
Please assuage my faux angst with a tale of human specialness.

But no, just the opposite I would say: it cannot be many places at once because it cannot be anywhere, in fact. Its whole existence is in a cyberspace, and it doesn't share a world with us. AI has no capacity to sense or perceive or otherwise experience 'reality' at all - the 'feedback' it acts on is just the second-hand information it has about the world from whatever humans have fed it, via human language distilled into digital data. But without being a sentient being in the world, it lacks the most basic and fundamental ability to compare information with real experience in order to judge whether or not any of that information is of any value.

I have heard people say they trust the answers that AI gives them because it avoids the bias that humans inevitably have, any they may have a point, but how easy it is to forget that the ability to make a judgment that distinguishes truth from falsehood, or right from wrong, are the most basic human 'biases' have. And feeding AI even more information only makes it less like a human, not more. If we surrender our capacity to judge to a machine that has never experienced the world as we humans do, what are we be left with? If you've never traveled to Paris, for example, who would you trust tell you know if it's a place worth visiting - a machine that's gorged itself on countless articles, photos, ads, encyclopedia entries, and blog posts by anonymous writers, and that has no idea which ones are reliable and which ones aren't, or someone you know who's been there and can share with you what they felt when they walked the streets, rode the trains, ate the food, and talked to the people? I cannot help but believe that there is something essential to being human that no machine, however 'intelligent', will ever be able to replicate.

Waxing a little poetic here, but you did ask for a tale.

[Gary Childress]

Humans and machines both act according to feedback. This is what makes cybernetic AI such a hot item because it can be in many places at once, collecting feedback and processing a definition of reality that is far more accurate than that permitted by the limitations of human senses, or the capacity of a human to track and integrate all known variables that comprise a situation, not to mention all situations at once.
...
Please assuage my faux angst with a tale of human specialness.

But no, just the opposite I would say: it cannot be many places at once because it cannot be anywhere, in fact. Its whole existence is in a cyberspace, and it doesn't share a world with us. AI has no capacity to sense or perceive or otherwise experience 'reality' at all - the 'feedback' it acts on is just the second-hand information it has about the world from whatever humans have fed it, via human language distilled into digital data. But without being a sentient being in the world, it lacks the most basic and fundamental ability to compare information with real experience in order to judge whether or not any of that information is of any value.

I have heard people say they trust the answers that AI gives them because it avoids the bias that humans inevitably have, any they may have a point, but how easy it is to forget that the ability to make a judgment that distinguishes truth from falsehood, or right from wrong, are the most basic human 'biases' have. And feeding AI even more information only makes it less like a human, not more. If we surrender our capacity to judge to a machine that has never experienced the world as we humans do, what are we be left with? If you've never traveled to Paris, for example, who would you trust tell you know if it's a place worth visiting - a machine that's gorged itself on countless articles, photos, ads, encyclopedia entries, and blog posts by anonymous writers, and that has no idea which ones are reliable and which ones aren't, or someone you know who's been there and can share with you what they felt when they walked the streets, rode the trains, ate the food, and talked to the people? I cannot help but believe that there is something essential to being human that no machine, however 'intelligent', will ever be able to replicate.

Waxing a little poetic here, but you did ask for a tale.

Well said!

[popeye1945]

One example of human action that is not in fact reaction, one.

[Walker]

Human reactions involve thinking.

This morning I watched part of a video about crocodile intelligence.

The human narrator said that if you are camping near a croc, the croc will likely attack on the third day.
The first day, the creature becomes aware of your presence, something new in its world.
The second day, it studies your habits and forms a strategy.
The third day, it waits for the proper conditions.
He had some pretty good examples of crocs using time to out-strategize human handlers, by luring them closer and closer over time.
If a human wanted to do that over time, he would purposely display a shorter arm extension, perhaps by not using much of the shoulder.

You might say that for a croc, time causes all wounds, to its prey.

(I don’t think that croc reasoning involves “what if,”)
However,
The narrator made the specific point with the words … Crocs don’t just react, they think.
Of course, the deeper you look the more debatable that assertion becomes.

[Walker]

But no, just the opposite I would say: it cannot be many places at once because it cannot be anywhere, in fact. Its whole existence is in a cyberspace, and it doesn't share a world with us. AI has no capacity to sense or perceive or otherwise experience 'reality' at all - the 'feedback' it acts on is just the second-hand information it has about the world from whatever humans have fed it, via human language distilled into digital data.

Waxing a little poetic here, but you did ask for a tale.

Sacrificing the beauty of poetry to a narrative is like building The Obama Shrine on scenic shores of an inland ocean in the Springtime, a distinctive landmark for pilgrims to recognize.

However, consider:

- Humans collect reality data from just a few points. The physical senses. A simultaneous collection of sensory data from those few points, processed by human intelligence in real time, forms an impression of the universe.
- Machines can gather sensations of inorganic change both detectable, and undetectable, to the human senses.
- As technology improves, the number and types of data collections improve.
- In the beginning it was sound recording devices that recorded reality.
- Then came the camera.
- Now, thanks to micro-sensors, machines can collect far more data points in real time and store the information for comparisons required to create algorithms, applications that organizes the data to understand specific processes that yield particular results.
- Machines can gather more detailed, i.e., deeper, real-time data snap-shots that correlate with reactions.
- One application, that while created by human ingenuity in fact surpasses the ability of the human form to detect, is machine maintenance ... vital to AI with all those hot servers sucking up the energy of the planet earth like a black hole ... and vital because machines and processes are just so intricate and complicated these days, as it is with the more we know of the reality being monitored.

[popeye1945]

Human reactions involve thinking.

This morning I watched part of a video about crocodile intelligence.

The human narrator said that if you are camping near a croc, the croc will likely attack on the third day.
The first day, the creature becomes aware of your presence, something new in its world.
The second day, it studies your habits and forms a strategy.
The third day, it waits for the proper conditions.
He had some pretty good examples of crocs using time to out-strategize human handlers, by luring them closer and closer over time.
If a human wanted to do that over time, he would purposely display a shorter arm extension, perhaps by not using much of the shoulder.

You might say that for a croc, time causes all wounds, to its prey.

(I don’t think that croc reasoning involves “what if,”)
However,
The narrator made the specific point with the words … Crocs don’t just react, they think.
Of course, the deeper you look, the more debatable that assertion becomes.

Strategy and thought do not change the reality that all human behaviours are reactions, and all living creatures are reactionary creatures. There is one thing no creature can do, and that is, NOT to react to its environment; it is the very basis of being of the world. Reciprocal causation is the foundation of reality as we know it; thus, a creature's reactions become incremental causes that contribute to the ever-changing world that is the prime cause to all creatures. Presence itself is cause to the presence of all other beings, inanimate and animate. Being, like all things, is a process, and the process of the continuity of patterns, though hinging on the individual of a species, is adaptation through reactive responses to the changing world.

[Impenitent]

yet not all reactions are identical

hunger? cheeseburger...

hunger? tacos...

hunger? paradise by the dashboard light...

which reaction? so much free will...

-Imp

[Walker]

Strategy and thought do not change the reality that all human behaviours are reactions ...

Strategy and thought can cause reactions through action.

[popeye1945]

Strategy and thought do not change the reality that all human behaviours are reactions ...

Strategy and thought can cause reactions through action.

Strategy and thought are of the same feedback loop as all alternative reactions; they provide further motivations or alternative motivations for human reaction, but all behaviours are motivated, and this spells response/reaction rather than human action. There is, in fact, no such thing as human action. All organisms are reactive by nature, which enables them to adapt to the ever-changing world. The imperfection of species patterns is the engine of biological adaptation to a larger reality. Free will is an absurd concept that has more to do with human egocentricity than anything else, and perhaps with the fear of dealing with the real complexity of existence itself. Perhaps someday, we will be socially evolved enough to consider embarking on the adventure of discerning our own natures, in a quest to become greater beings that resonate with the greater reality rather than denying it.

[Walker]

I figure that what’s called free-will is the biological intelligence to react first with, “what if,” and then the reactionary capacity to determine what must be done based on what if. It separates humans from dinosaurs such as crocs.

I’ve been wondering about that croc video.

Obviously some kind of intelligence is involved if a croc can capitalize on a more intelligent human handler by luring the human within striking distance. The implication is that human intelligence is not necessarily the greater encompassing the lesser croc intelligence when it comes to chow time, and hunger makes the world go round.

However, what is perceived as thinking and strategy can actually be viewed as physical instinct applied to all stalking situations when the croc instinct is to simply remain still in the water, floating with the currents like a log with an occasional tail swish while smelling out of reach food. Somehow in the croc’s universe, its favourite foods magically appear around water. The croc instinctively approaches fresh and dead food differently, fresh defined as living, and dead not requiring those explosive outbursts of energy although a roll or two may be required to get a mouthful before cousins show up for dinner.

https://cdn1.dangerousminds.net/uploads ... 74_int.jpg

[popeye1945]

I figure that what’s called free-will is the biological intelligence to react first with, “what if,” and then the reactionary capacity to determine what must be done based on what if. It separates humans from dinosaurs such as crocs.

I’ve been wondering about that croc video.

Obviously some kind of intelligence is involved if a croc can capitalize on a more intelligent human handler by luring the human within striking distance. The implication is that human intelligence is not necessarily the greater encompassing the lesser croc intelligence when it comes to chow time, and hunger makes the world go round.

However, what is perceived as thinking and strategy can actually be viewed as physical instinct applied to all stalking situations when the croc instinct is to simply remain still in the water, floating with the currents like a log with an occasional tail swish while smelling out of reach food. Somehow in the croc’s universe, its favourite foods magically appear around water. The croc instinctively approaches fresh and dead food differently, fresh defined as living, and dead not requiring those explosive outbursts of energy although a roll or two may be required to get a mouthful before cousins show up for dinner.

https://cdn1.dangerousminds.net/uploads ... 74_int.jpg

All creatures are reactive organisms; instincts are simply those patterns of reactive behaviours that, over evolutionary time, become close to the reactive response of breathing. Intelligence is used to discern between alternative reactions, but all behaviours are motivated from the outside; those that might be deemed internal motivations, such as thirst or hunger, are motivated by the means of their satiation being available in the outside world. The outside world is the source of cause to all organisms. Are you from Louisiana? The key note to remember in the development of behaviours is the fact that context defines whether it is behaviours or identity formation; identity formation is an endless process until death wraps it up. Reactions and their outer effects on the world as cause is the cycle of reciprocal causation and being of the world not separate from it.

[Walker]

A croc's ways, its reactions, are so predictable that children have been known to ride them like ponies.

Humans have only a finite number of reactions, which is why so many react the same way when properly trained by the information mongers to react in that particular way, e.g., pumping conflict into information such as ... The pres. did that, so if this happens as a result the world will end!

This is why those afflicted with TDS who think they are freely hating Trump, are actually predictable targets reacting to the high percentage of negative media coverage.