The Philosophy Discussion Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue May 05, 2026 1:10 pm

Walker wrote: ↑Tue May 05, 2026 3:07 pm Society would create rituals to the communal coffee pot.

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

Walker wrote: ↑Tue May 05, 2026 2:06 pm 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.

thomyum2 wrote: ↑Tue May 05, 2026 6:29 pm

Walker wrote: ↑Tue May 05, 2026 2:06 pm 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.

thomyum2 wrote: ↑Tue May 05, 2026 6:29 pm 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.

Walker wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2026 11:49 am 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.

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2026 9:37 pm Strategy and thought do not change the reality that all human behaviours are reactions ...

Walker wrote: ↑Sat May 16, 2026 5:13 am

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2026 9:37 pm Strategy and thought do not change the reality that all human behaviours are reactions ...

Strategy and thought can cause reactions through action.

Walker wrote: ↑Sat May 16, 2026 2:22 pm 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.

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