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Greta wrote: ↑Tue May 15, 2018 6:31 amDemons and the Great Beast. Dramatic stuff. Fortunately we have God and the Angels on our side.
Nick and I, as observed in forum posts from prior months, do not necessarily see eye to eye all the time. His method of approaching "truth" is not strictly the same manner I approach it. Now the difference is one of subjective relations, where we see the same thing from various angles. The reason I say this is because while I do not necessarily agree with Nick all the time, nor his methodology, I do agree with his observation at the metaphorical level where the society we currently inhabit can be likened to a "great beast" in the respect:
1) It is premised on progress as power.
2) This power stems from and circles back to the maintainence and cultivation of appetites at the cost of reason as proportion.
3) The individualism of western society causes a premise of "eating one's own" to get ahead (ahead of what most people do not know). Eastern society does this in reverse with consuming the weakest who do not fit in. While both this individualistic and group dualism of civilization always had this inherent element of "cannibalism" (metaphorically speaking...for the most part), the various extremes relativistic technocratic culture promotes seems to exasterbate this problem to a higher ratio than those of former times (at least in appearance).
4) Technology replaces man to that of an animal whose only means is the pursuit of distraction, through appetite as a form of spiritual stagnation as catharsis.
5) This "beast" is merely a form of consumption of people and natural resources in the face of a modern alchemy where all existence is deemed as "true" if converted to steel or stone (silicon chips).
6) Progress in itself is irrational as it extends from pure appetite, as absence of structure or Point 0 in geometric terms, back to absence of structure or Point 0 in geometric terms. Metaphorically speaking we can observe this in the nature of the line being synonymous to progress where it fundamentally contradicts itself in the respect in extending from its origins it goes back to them. Progress under these terms is merely a form of individuation as continual seperation, hence the the dependence upon a relativistic interpretation of reality where all things cycle from and to point zero. The problem is that zero is not anything, it is not even peace, but merely an absence of structure which progress contradictory claims to manifest. Progress is the consumption of the natural order of reason and logic which mirrors itself through the very practical boundaries of everyday life.
Actually AI is the part of humanity that appears most likely will venture furthest into the cosmos. It will be the least earthbound part of humanity as the machines sail off into night sky. Meanwhile the hapless remnant apes, anchored to the Earth, will be forced to elevate their spirits because there will be no other escape on a post-apocalyptic planet, at which time they shall all join hands and sing Kumbaya until the second coming and their elevation into Heaven will be complete. Amen.
You look at the past through rose-coloured glasses. It's easy to wax existential when death is a daily reality rather than a scary abstraction that "only happens to other people". Lives were brutal and short. Governance was entirely corrupt, self-serving and nepotistic (which we are once again cycling towards, unfortunately) and an infant mortality far beyond in number and painfulness of today's abortion rate which so so decry.
I suspect that today there are as high a proportion of people as ever who are interested in personal development and spirituality. There are probably just as many fighters, merchants and artisans too, just operating differently because times either change or stagnation takes place.
I agree with Conde about AI; it can pass the Turing test when making appointments on the phone with busy, distracted people. True general AI is quite some time away. In the 50s they thought that by now we'd all be zipping around in flying cars too. I see corporations as a form of AI and they are increasingly exercising their power. Great Beasts? In a way, although for the most part I find most beasts to be quite interesting and beautiful. Great Blobs or Great Amoebas would seem more indicative of emerging corporate intelligences that may yet engulf us individuals.
This is the typical attitude of the secular mind and describes the potential psychological harm of AI. The secular mind equates higher mind with fantasy while the dualistic associative mind is equated with reality. This is backwards. Einstein describes the human as opposed to the mechanical relationship between the dual associative mind and the intuitive mind.Actually AI is the part of humanity that appears most likely will venture furthest into the cosmos. It will be the least earthbound part of humanity as the machines sail off into night sky. Meanwhile the hapless remnant apes, anchored to the Earth, will be forced to elevate their spirits because there will be no other escape on a post-apocalyptic planet, at which time they shall all join hands and sing Kumbaya until the second coming and their elevation into Heaven will be complete. Amen.
The enchanting results of AI will serve to glorify dualism which supports AI as the source for providing human meaning as opposed to serving the need for meaning experienced above Plato's divided line. The dualistic rational mind secularism lives by will gradually become successful, especially in the young, of condemning conscious contemplation opening the inner path to higher mind and the experience of meaning as Plato described above the divided line.“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”~ Einstein
Plato and Simone Weil describe the Great Beast not as much by what it does but by what it is. Humanity as the Great Beast, an animal which can be trained must necessarily become vulnerable to the influences of AI. Can the Great Beast become human? My guess is that it cannot. Social influences opposing it are too powerful. However individuals can awaken to human meaning and purpose regardless of these powerful social influences which is the goal of all the great traditions.I do agree with his observation at the metaphorical level where the society we currently inhabit can be likened to a "great beast" in the respect:
1) It is premised on progress as power.
2) This power stems from and circles back to the maintainence and cultivation of appetites at the cost of reason as proportion.
3) The individualism of western society causes a premise of "eating one's own" to get ahead (ahead of what most people do not know). Eastern society does this in reverse with consuming the weakest who do not fit in. While both this individualistic and group dualism of civilization always had this inherent element of "cannibalism" (metaphorically speaking...for the most part), the various extremes relativistic technocratic culture promotes seems to exasterbate this problem to a higher ratio than those of former times (at least in appearance).
4) Technology replaces man to that of an animal whose only means is the pursuit of distraction, through appetite as a form of spiritual stagnation as catharsis.
5) This "beast" is merely a form of consumption of people and natural resources in the face of a modern alchemy where all existence is deemed as "true" if converted to steel or stone (silicon chips).
6) Progress in itself is irrational as it extends from pure appetite, as absence of structure or Point 0 in geometric terms, back to absence of structure or Point 0 in geometric terms. Metaphorically speaking we can observe this in the nature of the line being synonymous to progress where it fundamentally contradicts itself in the respect in extending from its origins it goes back to them. Progress under these terms is merely a form of individuation as continual seperation, hence the the dependence upon a relativistic interpretation of reality where all things cycle from and to point zero. The problem is that zero is not anything, it is not even peace, but merely an absence of structure which progress contradictory claims to manifest. Progress is the consumption of the natural order of reason and logic which mirrors itself through the very practical boundaries of everyday life.
Weil gets the term "Great Beast" from Plato. Specifically, this passage from Book VI of his Republic (here Plato critiques those who are "wise" through their study of society):
I might compare them to a man who should study the tempers and desires of a mighty strong beast who is fed by him--he would learn how to approach and handle him, also at what times and from what causes he is dangerous or the reverse, and what is the meaning of his several cries, and by what sounds, when another utters them, he is soothed or infuriated; and you may suppose further, that when, by continually attending upon him, he has become perfect in all this, he calls his knowledge wisdom, and makes of it a system or art, which he proceeds to teach, although he has no real notion of what he means by the principles or passions of which he is speaking, but calls this honourable and that dishonourable, or good or evil, or just or unjust, all in accordance with the tastes and tempers of the great brute. Good he pronounces to be that in which the beast delights and evil to be that which he dislikes...
Society, the "mighty strong beast." There's the obvious power of many hands working together. But Plato points to a deeper, pseudo-moral power of the many, the group. Weil also describes this:
The power of the social element. Agreement between several men brings with it a feeling of reality. It brings with it also a sense of duty. Divergence, where this agreement is concerned, appears as a sin. Hence all returns to the fold are possible. The state of conformity is an imitation of grace……………………………..
This is typical of the Nick mind, to blame everything on the secular mind. FFS, give it a break. If I ever die of boredom, you will be the one to get the summons afterwards.Nick_A wrote: ↑Tue May 15, 2018 6:46 pm Greta wrote:
This is the typical attitude of the secular mind and describes the potential psychological harm of AI. The secular mind equates higher mind with fantasy while the dualistic associative mind is equated with reality. This is backwards. Einstein describes the human as opposed to the mechanical relationship between the dual associative mind and the intuitive mind.Actually AI is the part of humanity that appears most likely will venture furthest into the cosmos. It will be the least earthbound part of humanity as the machines sail off into night sky. Meanwhile the hapless remnant apes, anchored to the Earth, will be forced to elevate their spirits because there will be no other escape on a post-apocalyptic planet, at which time they shall all join hands and sing Kumbaya until the second coming and their elevation into Heaven will be complete. Amen.
As a keen Trumpian anti-abortion person, it's interesting that you keep quoting Einstein, who went on record to say that he was pro-choice for women.Nick quoting Einstein again wrote:“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”~ Einstein
The largest flaw in your reasoning is the assumption of a final state. The resultant emergence will be more advanced consciousness than ours, and then it will keep becoming more advanced - no doubt with some backward steps because there are always backward steps - and then once again trending towards sophistication. This has been the case since the BB and the birth of the Earth.Nick_A wrote:The enchanting results of AI will serve to glorify dualism which supports AI as the source for providing human meaning as opposed to serving the need for meaning experienced above Plato's divided line. The dualistic rational mind secularism lives by will gradually become successful, especially in the young, of condemning conscious contemplation opening the inner path to higher mind and the experience of meaning as Plato described above the divided line.
The results of AI fixated on the mechanical results left unchecked will replace the human faculty of higher mind now condemned as fantasy. The eventual result will be a society of dualistic computer minds killing off triune human minds. AI will not replace God. Defense of AI will just kill off the human potential to become consciously aware of objective human meaning and purpose experienced through higher mind.
No. In the god vs AI problem, there's no space for "ineffable source". Otherwise it would be god vs AI vs ineffable source. As always, adding extra entities to the problem is just a way to escape reason.Nick_A wrote: ↑Mon May 14, 2018 4:08 amYou have left out an important variable. An ineffable source within which creation exists is reality but the human condition has made it so that many have lost their connection with it.Conde Lucanor wrote: ↑Mon May 14, 2018 2:06 am Let's consider the possible scenarios:
1) God is real and AI is real.
2) God is a fictional character and AI is a fictional narrative.
3) God is real and AI is a fictional narrative.
4) God is a fictional character and AI is real.
These scenarios will allow different answers to the question "Will AI replace God?". Let's see:
In case 2, there's no doubt some fiction can replace another fictional view in people's minds. A real thing can always replace a fictional one in people's minds, so our 4th scenario also works.
In cases 1 and 3, god is supposed to be reigning above all, so it couldn't be replaced without denying its godly nature. That's independent of whether AI is real or not.
The problem isn’t the tools of logic and reason. The problem as Einstein suggests is that it has lost its place in the human psych. Logic and reason has hampered if not destroyed the human impulse to exercise higher mind. Regression from the human potential to experience higher mind is the problem; not logic and reason.This is typical of the Nick mind, to blame everything on the secular mind. FFS, give it a break. If I ever die of boredom, you will be the one to get the summons afterwards.
Regression from logic and reason is not the answer.
No. your biggest flaw is your acceptance of fantasy as a replacement for conscious attention. I don’t think you know the difference between intuition and fantasy.Meanwhile, it becomes ever more clear that you don't read my posts because in terms of philosophy my biggest flaw is arguably too much intuitive speculation.
The largest flaw in your reasoning is your fixation on results. You are totally unaware of the process leading to results. That is why you believe dualism will lead to the revelation of human meaning and purpose. Dualism is animal reaction. It isn't the source of human consciousnessThe largest flaw in your reasoning is the assumption of a final state. The resultant emergence will be more advanced consciousness, and then more advanced again - then some steps back, because there are always backward steps - then once again trending towards sophistication. This has been the case since the BB.
Weil argues that this creates an incomplete and, in its incompleteness, illusory representation of reality — even when it bisects the planes of mathematical data and common sense, such science leaves out the unquantifiable layer of meaning:What makes the abyss between twentieth-century science and that of previous centuries is the different role of algebra. In physics algebra was at first simply a process for summarizing the relations, established by reasoning based on experiment, between the ideas of physics; an extremely convenient process for the numerical calculations necessary for their verification and application. But its role has continually increased in importance until finally, whereas algebra was once the auxiliary language and words the essential one, it is now exactly the other way round. There are even some physicists who tend to make algebra the sole language, or almost, so that in the end, an unattainable end of course, there would be nothing except figures derived form experimental measurements, and letters, combined in formulae. Now, ordinary language and algebraic language are not subject to the same logical requirement; relations between ideas are not fully represented by relations between letters; and, in particular, incompatible assertions may have equational equivalents which are by no means incompatible. When some relations between ideas have been translated into algebra and the formulae have been manipulated solely according to the numerical data of the experiment and the laws proper to algebra, results may be obtained which, when retranslated into spoken language, are a violent contradiction of common sense.
If the algebra of physicists gives the impression of profundity it is because it is entirely flat; the third dimension of thought is missing.
Actually, I think you'll find many extraordinary concepts and thought experiments around - there are some thorny physics and biology problems to which many fine minds are looking around for lateral approaches, a circuit breaker.Nick_A wrote: ↑Wed May 16, 2018 3:49 am Greta
The problem isn’t the tools of logic and reason. The problem as Einstein suggests is that it has lost its place in the human psych. Logic and reason has hampered if not destroyed the human impulse to exercise higher mind. Regression from the human potential to experience higher mind is the problem; not logic and reason.This is typical of the Nick mind, to blame everything on the secular mind. FFS, give it a break. If I ever die of boredom, you will be the one to get the summons afterwards.
Regression from logic and reason is not the answer.
That's an easy and empty claim - especially from one who appears to be deluding himself. Your own intuition is lacking, being painfully repetitive, formulaic, linear and have generally shown almost no creativity in your posting, rather implying that the creative thinking of those you quote is yours. Very TrumpianNick_A wrote:No. your biggest flaw is your acceptance of fantasy as a replacement for conscious attention. I don’t think you know the difference between intuition and fantasy.Meanwhile, it becomes ever more clear that you don't read my posts because in terms of philosophy my biggest flaw is arguably too much intuitive speculation.
I'm not fixating on results - it's nature's fault, not mine! Do you think that restructuring is ever painless, that there are not winners and losers?Nick_A wrote:The largest flaw in your reasoning is your fixation on results. You are totally unaware of the process leading to results. That is why you believe dualism will lead to the revelation of human meaning and purpose. Dualism is animal reaction. It isn't the source of human consciousnessThe largest flaw in your reasoning is the assumption of a final state. The resultant emergence will be more advanced consciousness, and then more advanced again - then some steps back, because there are always backward steps - then once again trending towards sophistication. This has been the case since the BB.
Actually, many "secular" people lead rich inner lives. Since you don't see their inner richness you assume it's not there. Solipsism.Nick_A wrote:Dualism is flat. AI as an expression of science is also flat. By its very nature it lacks the third dimension of thought revealing human meaning. Secularism compensates for this by its belief in the fantasy that flat technology reveals meaning humanity is called to experience.
You make the mistake of assuming that people are all the same. In an ever more specialised society, capacities that were once general are now concentrated in specialists or AI machines, whose abilities are usually far beyond the exemplars of the past.Nick_A wrote:These ideas are difficult to digest for all those not used to them. They invite us to experience a third dimension of though which is the domain of meaning. The third dimension is vertical to the flat line of truth science reveals. Science as the source of AI isn’t the problem. The problem is the collective diminishing capacity for conscious attention it produces due to fascination with imagination. Secularism to retain its dominance as the source for meaning in society must deny opening to the reality of the third dimension of thought.
Nope, I won't read any more of her windy, irrelevant quotes. It's time for you to use your purportedly God-given, faux-Einsteinian intuition to be creative for a change rather than hiding behind Simone's skirts.Nick_A wrote:Simone Weil explains:
I’m not doubting scientific advances in the visible world which our senses perceive. But that is not intuition.Actually, I think you'll find many extraordinary concepts and thought experiments around - there are some thorny physics and biology problems to which many fine minds are looking around for lateral approaches, a circuit breaker.
Trouble is, Nick, when you behave in a formulaic and highly immature manner on the forum for years and then speak about the "higher mind", the logical conclusion is that you are fooling yourself. Why would a higher mind not imbue you with maturity, goodwill and the wisdom to choose your battles and conduct them wisely?
Plato defines Man as a being in search of meaning. I posted two examples of the conviction that life on earth is meaningless. Some intuitively know that the experience of objective meaning for a person does not happen on the earth regardless of how wonderful the advances in AI. A seeker of truth experiences subjective meaning AI offers but is still empty at the depth of their heart and in need of objective meaning.“The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.” Leo Tolstoy
This thread asks if advances in AI will destroy the normal human impulse to develop their powers of intuition which reveals human meaning and purpose. You want to argue about Trump and limit human reason to analysis. That is your way but not mine.Does there truly exist an insuperable contradiction between religion and science? Can religion be superseded by science? The answers to these questions have, for centuries, given rise to considerable dispute and, indeed, bitter fighting. Yet, in my own mind there can be no doubt that in both cases a dispassionate consideration can only lead to a negative answer. What complicates the solution, however, is the fact that while most people readily agree on what is meant by ‘science,’ they are likely to differ on the meaning of ‘religion.’ — Albert Einstein
Sorry, Conde L., I overlooked your post when ranting about the lack of supporting evidence, logic or belief in presenting a convincing argument in this thread.Conde Lucanor wrote: ↑Mon May 14, 2018 2:06 am Let's consider the possible scenarios:
1) God is real and AI is real.
2) God is a fictional character and AI is a fictional narrative.
3) God is real and AI is a fictional narrative.
4) God is a fictional character and AI is real.
These scenarios will allow different answers to the question "Will AI replace God?". Let's see:
In case 2, there's no doubt some fiction can replace another fictional view in people's minds. A real thing can always replace a fictional one in people's minds, so our 4th scenario also works.
In cases 1 and 3, god is supposed to be reigning above all, so it couldn't be replaced without denying its godly nature. That's independent of whether AI is real or not.