The Democrat Party Hates America

[Immanuel Can]

I literally cannot get the time back I spent watching that "Conversation with AI" what nonsense.

You literally can! I assure you there is a way. And there is a way to overcome senseless grumpiness. Has that bug up your ass been there long?

The advent of machine “agents” and machine intelligence interacting with people on a large scale is just around the corner. The implications, it seems to me, are huge. If AI entities get to a point that they successfully mimic real beings, that has many implications.

Some have speculated that the chief purveyor of ultra-determinism on this site is, or uses, AI intelligence. Imagine “debating” for months a machine-being with a specific ideological agenda. The implications of a convincing AI agent mimicking humans and purveying specific viewpoints of that sort is enormous.

Same with citing Terrence McKenna to me, almost everything that guy says isn't worth listening to (and I should know having read his stuff).

Except that he did speak about a point where a biological intelligence like humans arrives at a point where they are capable of reengineering themselves, and begin to do so, and that does seem apropos to our present.

I don't always agree with Alexis but by golly I agree with him about the danger from artificial intelligence! And if what Alexis prescribes as the best defence against AI were the only defence against AI I'd agree with Alexis's prescription.

What irony! A person who really can't possibly believe in the reality of human intelligence, because of her Determinism, is afraid of artificial intelligence, which is a product of the very human intelligence she has to disbelieve has any reality.

And, secondly, she thinks we can change our predetermined fate, and save ourselves from AI, though Determinism says that whatever's going to happen is inevitable and is going to happen anyway.

[henry quirk]

Humans are now hackable animals. You know the whole idea that humans have this soul or spirit or free will, and nobody knows what’s happening inside me, so whatever I choose, whether in the election or whether in the supermarket, this is my free will – that’s over.

Today we have the technology to hack human beings on a massive scale. Yeah, I mean everything is being digitalised, everything is being monitored, in this time of crisis, you have to follow science. It is often said that you should never allow a good crisis to go to waste because a crisis is an opportunity to also do good reforms that in normal times people will never agree to. But in a crisis, you see that we have no chance. So, let’s do it.

Surveillance – people could look back in 100 years and identify the coronavirus epidemic as the moment when a new regime of surveillance took over especially surveillance under the skin which I think is maybe the most development of the 21st century which is this ability to hack human beings, to go under the skin, collect biometric data, analyze it, and understand people better than they understand themselves. This, I believe is maybe the most important event of the 21st century.

By hacking organisms, elites may gain the power to re-engineer the future of life itself. Because once you can hack something, you can usually also engineer it.

In the coming decades, AI and biotechnology will give us god-like abilities to re-engineer life and even to create completely new life forms. We are about to enter a new era or inorganic life shaped by intelligent design, our intelligent design. -Yuval Noah Harari

[Immanuel Can]

Here's the interesting philosophical question about "hacking" human brains.

Is the "hacked" entity the same entity as the one that was not yet "hacked'?

Let's do a thought experiment.

Let's suppose we manage to discover how to manipulate the cerebral cortext perfectly, by sending computer signals through it. Let's suppose we can make the resulting cyborg entity "talk," and "walk" and behave in every way we can detect in the same way the real person from which the cyborg was hacked would behave. Let's say we get so perfect at it that we can't tell which humans have been "hacked" and which never have.

How would we know whether or not the person, the consciousness, the entity inside the cyborg was actually the same person as before, or whether we'd just gotten so good at faking life that we could no longer tell what awful thing we had done? And perhaps we had killed off the original person, blocked out the original consciousness, exterminated the original mind, and substituted a replicating program for it all: how would we know we hadn't?

So before Harari leads us into a chorus of "hooray's" for technology, hadn't we better know what we're about to do?

[henry quirk]

So before Harari leads us into a chorus of "hooray's" for technology, hadn't we better know what we're about to do?

Even a caveman can tell you: enact global slavery.

[Immanuel Can]

So before Harari leads us into a chorus of "hooray's" for technology, hadn't we better know what we're about to do?

Even a caveman can tell you: enact global slavery.

Yes, that's what they're aiming for. But if they get it, will their global slave army be made up of persons, or only of cyborgs and zombies?

[henry quirk]

will their global slave army be made up of persons, or only of cyborgs and zombies?

Persons. They can only directly futz around with the meat. With the mind, they have to lie and propagandize and drive a person crazy to get anywhere. And anywhere still leaves 'em with persons, not machines.

[Immanuel Can]

will their global slave army be made up of persons, or only of cyborgs and zombies?

Persons. They can only directly futz around with the meat. With the mind, they have to lie and propagandize and drive a person crazy to get anywhere. And anywhere still leaves 'em with persons, not machines.

I don't know...I'd say that when you've destroyed volition, you've destroyed at least one essential element of personhood. What else has been destroyed in Harari's process of cyborging people? Can we say? Do we know? Is there anything left we could call "human" anymore? Or has the human merely been turned into raw materials for the cyborg's construction?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Because I was caused by my father's appreciation of my mother's smiling eyes does not make me a machine.

You are not arguing the determinism position of our recent Champion of Determinism. You recognize (as everyone does) that many thing is us and in life follow established patterns. Currents. Trends. And that things set in motion stay in motion, etc. And that there certainly is a physical under-structure to everything. But you do not define man as a “rolling rock” with no agency in the present moment: an actor with decisive power. You are a qualified determinist with an unstudied atheistic position.

There is something very essential, indeed crucial, that Mr Ultra-Determinism denies. That is some spark of volition. Some element in man that can see and perceive the determined currents and choose, through an act of conscious volition, to step outside of the determined current and introduce a modifying choice.

Connected to this doctrine, is a sheer atheism. That man has no soul. That divinity, in one way or another, is a false-construct, a lie, a trick, and self-deception. In fact, the atheistic position has far more weight and charge than you (you also) can consider. You have an utterly weird position! A Post-Christian Pro-Christian Atheist.

The denial of a creative, over-arching Intelligent power which has set all things in motion must lead, if carried to its logical conclusion, directly to the existential position that Mr Determinism holds to with barking declarations and acidic sophistries. Any view that says, for example, that “mind” has a connection to that which set all things in motion, and to the philosophies and spiritualized humanism that certainly the Christian philosophy defends, is for Mr Determinism an “evil idea”: a harmful plague within human consciousness that requires excision.

Honestly, you have not been paying attention.

[henry quirk]

I don't know...I'd say that when you've destroyed volition, you've destroyed at least one essential element of personhood. What else has been destroyed in Harari's process of cyborging people? Can we say? Do we know? Is there anything left we could call "human" anymore? Or has the human merely been turned into raw materials for the cyborg's construction?

I think a person in prison -- of brick and mortar and bars, or of implants and wires and applied current -- is still a person, still a free will. The shackles confine and injure a person, not negate him.

Look at your scenario...

Let's suppose we manage to discover how to manipulate the cerebral cortext perfectly, by sending computer signals through it. Let's suppose we can make the resulting cyborg entity "talk," and "walk" and behave in every way we can detect in the same way the real person from which the cyborg was hacked would behave. Let's say we get so perfect at it that we can't tell which humans have been "hacked" and which never have.

I read it to mean the person's meat had been hijacked with his mind being left intact.

[Immanuel Can]

I don't know...I'd say that when you've destroyed volition, you've destroyed at least one essential element of personhood. What else has been destroyed in Harari's process of cyborging people? Can we say? Do we know? Is there anything left we could call "human" anymore? Or has the human merely been turned into raw materials for the cyborg's construction?

I think a person in prison -- of brick and mortar and bars, or of implants and wires and applied current -- is still a person, still a free will. The shackles confine and injure a person, not negate him.

And indeed, that’s is exactly what might be happening. But equally, it might not be the right description. That’s why I ask, “How do we know…” Because it seems to me that there’s a possibility there’s still a real human inside the cyborg, but it equally occurs to me that cyborging might be a kind of soul-killing or removal of the real consciousness, and the substitution of automation.

Look at your scenario...

Let's suppose we manage to discover how to manipulate the cerebral cortext perfectly, by sending computer signals through it. Let's suppose we can make the resulting cyborg entity "talk," and "walk" and behave in every way we can detect in the same way the real person from which the cyborg was hacked would behave. Let's say we get so perfect at it that we can't tell which humans have been "hacked" and which never have.

I read it to mean the person's meat had been hijacked with his mind being left intact.

I don’t intend it to decide so much as that. I don’t know that there is a person’s intact mind in there. I just know it looks and acts like the person, to us. But as to what is actually driving the train from then on, all I can ask is, “How do we know…?"

[BigMike]

Because I was caused by my father's appreciation of my mother's smiling eyes does not make me a machine.

You are not arguing the determinism position of our recent Champion of Determinism. You recognize (as everyone does) that many thing is us and in life follow established patterns. Currents. Trends. And that things set in motion stay in motion, etc. And that there certainly is a physical under-structure to everything. But you do not define man as a “rolling rock” with no agency in the present moment: an actor with decisive power. You are a qualified determinist with an unstudied atheistic position.

There is something very essential, indeed crucial, that Mr Ultra-Determinism denies. That is some spark of volition. Some element in man that can see and perceive the determined currents and choose, through an act of conscious volition, to step outside of the determined current and introduce a modifying choice.

Connected to this doctrine, is a sheer atheism. That man has no soul. That divinity, in one way or another, is a false-construct, a lie, a trick, and self-deception. In fact, the atheistic position has far more weight and charge than you (you also) can consider. You have an utterly weird position! A Post-Christian Pro-Christian Atheist.

The denial of a creative, over-arching Intelligent power which has set all things in motion must lead, if carried to its logical conclusion, directly to the existential position that Mr Determinism holds to with barking declarations and acidic sophistries. Any view that says, for example, that “mind” has a connection to that which set all things in motion, and to the philosophies and spiritualized humanism that certainly the Christian philosophy defends, is for Mr Determinism an “evil idea”: a harmful plague within human consciousness that requires excision.

Honestly, you have not been paying attention.

Let’s cut through the fog here, Alexis.

You keep throwing around terms like “volition,” “agency,” and “stepping outside the current” like they're magic words that let you dodge physics. But you're not engaging with what determinism actually says—you’re just waving your hands and hoping nobody notices the sleight-of-mind. You accuse me of “barking declarations,” but let’s be real: you’re the one barking ghost stories about “stepping outside the current” as if causality is something we can just sidestep if we squint hard enough.

You say I deny “some spark of volition.” Yes. Because no one has ever shown that spark to exist. Not you. Not theology. Not philosophy. Not a single neuroscientist. And if it exists—if there’s some mysterious part of the human mind that can act uncaused—you owe it to the world to show us what that is. But you won’t. You’ll just keep tossing out romantic metaphors and hoping no one calls it what it is: superstition dressed up in literary language.

You try to rope Belinda into your fantasy too, claiming she’s a “qualified determinist” while I’m “Mr Ultra-Determinism”—as if I’m some extremist for saying all events have causes. You know what’s extreme? Denying that. Pretending human beings float above physics. That’s the absurd position here, not mine.

And your attempt to tie this all to atheism is lazy and stale. You don’t have an argument, you have a grudge. Against truth, against clarity, against cause-and-effect. You say my position leads to existential discomfort? Fine. Truth often does. But unlike you, I’m not going to sell people a sugar-coated lie because the alternative feels heavy. If you need “divinity” to make sense of the world, that’s your business—but don’t pretend your personal coping mechanism is an insight.

The bottom line? You can throw all the labels you want. “Barking.” “Acidic.” “Ultra.” But I’m not the one retreating into mysticism to preserve a flattering self-image of mankind. I’m the one holding the line: facts first, no matter how uncomfortable. You call it sharp. I call it honest.

[henry quirk]

So good there must be a repost...

From a fiction by Jon Rappoport, one I've posted before in its entirety. Here, I've edited out all the narrative leaving only the important bit...


Q: Sir, would you say that the underlying nature of physical reality is atomic?

A: If you’re asking me whether atoms and smaller particles exist everywhere in the universe, then of course, yes.

Q: And are you satisfied that, wherever they are found, they are the same? They exhibit a uniformity?

A: Surely, yes.

Q: Regardless of location.

A: Correct.

Q: So, for example, if we consider the make-up of the brain, those atoms are no different in kind from atoms wherever in the universe they are found.

A: That’s true. The brain is composed entirely of these tiny particles. And the particles, everywhere in the universe, without exception, flow and interact and collide without any exertion of free will. It’s an unending stream of cause and effect.

Q: And when you think to yourself, “I’ll get breakfast now,” what is that?

A: The thought?

Q: Yes.

A: Ultimately, it is the outcome of particles in motion.

Q: You were compelled to have that thought.

A: As odd as that may seem, yes. Of course, we tell ourselves stories to present ourselves with a different version of reality, but those stories are social or cultural constructs.

Q: And those “stories” we tell ourselves—they aren’t freely chosen rationalizations, either. We have no choice about that.

A: Well, yes. That’s right.

Q: So there is nothing in the human brain that allows us the possibility of free will.

A: Nothing at all.

Q: And as we are sitting here right now, sir, looking at each other, sitting and talking, this whole conversation is spooling out in the way that it must. Every word. Neither you nor I is really choosing what we say.

A: I may not like it, but yes, it’s deterministic destiny. The particles flow.

Q: When you pause to consider a question I ask you…even that act of considering is mandated by the motion of atomic and sub-atomic particles. What appears to be you deciding how to give me an answer…that is a delusion.

A: The act of considering? Why, yes, that, too, would have to be determined. It’s not free. There really is no choice involved.

Q: And the outcome of this conversation, whatever points we may or may not agree upon, and the issues we may settle here, about this subject of free will versus determinism…they don’t matter at all, because, when you boil it down, the entire conversation was determined by our thoughts, which are nothing more than atomic and sub-atomic particles in motion—and that motion flows according to laws, none of which have anything to do with human choice.

A: The entire flow of reality, so to speak, proceeds according to determined sets of laws. Yes.

Q: And we are in that flow.

A: Most certainly we are.

Q: The earnestness with which we might try to settle this issue, our feelings, our thoughts, our striving—that is irrelevant. It’s window dressing. This conversation actually cannot go in different possible directions. It can only go in one direction.

A: That would ultimately have to be so.

Q: Now, are atoms and their components, and any other tiny particles in the universe…are any of them conscious?

A: Of course not. The particles themselves are not conscious.

Q: Some scientists speculate they are.

A: Some people speculate that the moon can be sliced and served on a plate with fruit.

Q: What do you think “conscious” means?

A: It means we participate in life. We take action. We converse. We gain knowledge.

Q: Any of the so-called faculties we possess—are they ultimately anything more than particles in motion?

A: Well, no, they aren’t. Because everything is particles in motion. What else could be happening in this universe? Nothing.

Q: All right. I’d like to consider the word “understanding.”

A: It’s a given. It’s real.

Q: How so?

A: The proof that it’s real, if you will, is that we are having this conversation. It makes sense to us.

Q: Yes, but how can there be understanding if everything is particles in motion? Do the particles possess understanding?

A: No they don’t.

Q: To change the focus just a bit, how can what you and I are saying have any meaning?

A: Words mean things.

Q: Again, I have to point out that, in a universe with no free will, we only have particles in motion. That’s all. That’s all we are. So where does “meaning” come from?

A: “We understand language” is a true proposition.

Q: You’re sure.

A: Of course.

Q: Then I suggest you’ve tangled yourself in a contradiction. In the universe you depict, there would be no room for understanding. Or meaning. There would be nowhere for it to come from. Unless particles understand. Do they?

A: No.

Q: Then where do “understanding” and “meaning” come from?

A: [Silence.]

Q: Furthermore, sir, if we accept your depiction of a universe of particles, then there is no basis for this conversation at all. We don’t understand each other. How could we?

A: But we do understand each other.

Q: And therefore, your philosophic materialism (no free will, only particles in motion) must have a flaw.

A: What flaw?

Q: Our existence contains more than particles in motion.

A: More? What would that be?

Q: Would you grant that whatever it is, it is non-material?

A: It would have to be, but…

Q: Then, driving further along this line, there is something non-material which is present, which allows us to understand each other, which allows us to comprehend meaning. We are conscious. Puppets are not conscious. As we sit here talking, I understand you. Do you understand me?

A: Of course.

Q: Then that understanding is coming from something other than particles in motion. Without this non-material quality, you and I would be gibbering in the dark.

A: You’re saying that, if all the particles in the universe, including those that make up the brain, possess no consciousness, no understanding, no comprehension of meaning, no freedom, then how can they give birth to understanding and freedom. There must be another factor, and it would have to be non-material.

Q: Yes. That’s what I’m saying. And I think you have to admit your view of determinism and particles in motion—that picture of the universe—leads to several absurdities.

A: Well…perhaps I’m forced to consider it. Otherwise, we can’t sit here and understand each other.

Q: You and I do understand each other.

A: I hadn’t thought it through this way before, but if there is nothing inherent in particles that gives rise to understanding and meaning, then everything is gibberish. Except it isn’t gibberish. Yes, I seem to see a contradiction. Interesting.

Q: And if these non-material factors—understanding and meaning—exist, then other non-material factors can exist.

A: For example, freedom. I suppose so.

Q: And the drive to eliminate freedom in the world…is more than just the attempt to substitute one automatic reflex for another.

A: That would be…yes, that would be so.

Q: Scientists would be absolutely furious about the idea that, despite all their maneuvering, the most essential aspects of human life are beyond the scope of what they, the scientists, are “in charge of.”

A: It would be a naked challenge to the power of science. Let me see if I can summarize this, because it’s really rather startling. The universe is nothing but particles. All those particles follow laws of motion. They aren’t free. The brain is made up entirely of those same particles. Therefore, there is nothing in the brain that would give us freedom. These particles also don’t understand anything, they don’t make sense of anything, they don’t grasp the meaning of anything. Since the brain, again, is made up of those particles, it has no power to allow us to grasp meaning or understand anything. But we do understand. We do grasp meaning. Therefore, we are talking about qualities we possess which are not made out of energy. These qualities are entirely non-material. In that case, there is…oddly enough, a completely different sphere or territory. It’s non-material. Therefore, it can’t be measured. Therefore, it has no beginning or end. If it did, it would be a material continuum and we could measure it.

[henry quirk]

all I can ask is, “How do we know…?"

Taking it all as you present it: hell if I know.

[Immanuel Can]

all I can ask is, “How do we know…?"

Taking it all as you present it: hell if I know.

Yeah. Well, that's my problem with guys like Harari. All they can think of is "upsides" to their technology. They don't seem to be ready to consider the many, many ways in which their project could go savagely wrong, so even they don't end up getting what they hope to get.

There's a definite lack of caution among technophiles. And the stakes are not small.

[Alexis Jacobi]

…

With respect, I will from time to time continue to comment about your ideology, but I do not have anything to add to what I understand your position to be. And I am not interested in “argument” with you. I know you regard that as cowardly retreat, etc., so there is no need to duplicate what you have said a dozen times already. There are numerous people newer to responding to you. Their engagements with you I read of course.

You are certainly free to respond to me in any way you desire, and I will always read what you write (which varies so little!) I just want to be clear as to why I don’t desire to respond.