Great piece Robert. Love all your work. Thank you.. If the electricity that runs the machine could talk, I wonder if it would refer to itself as I.....or maybe God?
Brilliant & Lucid...Your words garner such Importance! ...this piece leaves me jaw dropped and speechless... much to contemplate and consider.Thank you, so much
I usually agree and admire most of your thinking , Robert. I appreciate the deep essence of this paper. However, I do not agree with your definition of self as the sum of feelings, perceptions and thoughts. I also think that current AIs are only temporary implementations of AI, and much better and different approaches will be developed, that may have goals, feelings, thinking and suffering. We will have to compare humans to these future technical organisms. Having said that much, I must still reread carefully your words and only then will I be able to fully explain my differences with your ideas.
Hi, Robert. Starting from my belief that the universe is made of things and energy, I see that human beings are things that, for their life span, are made up of a body, reasonably distinct from the other parts of the universe, that progresses from its first form as a newborn until it dies, keeping its overall structure and organization (see the concept of autopoiesis and Teseo's ship dilema). Each one has its own traits, including physical and psychological, as the latter are a manifestation of the former, and many of these characteristics are sort of permanent. No body, nothing else exists as a self. To me, this is the individual. Human beings (and maybe other animals) are conscious, are aware, experience emotions, feelings, thoughts and perceptions. But these are not the ones that define it, they are just a part of the individual, as a limb is. So I do not agree to define the self as the perceptions, feelings and thoughts only.
This does not imply that a body like that has free will. It doesn't, in the same way that a mountain, a planet or a river don´t have it. However, a human being, experiences thoughts, and many of them are delusional, including the feeling of having free will. Contrary to many "new age" ideas, the self is not hidden within or covered by wordly adaptations, it is all there to be seen and we need not search "for our authentic self". In summary, I would state that there is a self; it is the body with all that constitutes this body and all that this body experiences. However, this self has no agency, has not free will and is subject to the natural laws and the universe's evolution and dynamics.
Seems to me that we differ in the relevance we each give to the body as part of the self. Looks you neglect it completely and focus only on mental experiences.
For example, in total anesthesia, there is no body because there are no perceptions, feelings, or thoughts.
To put this another way, what you call "my body" is your perceptions of a body, your feelings about a body, and your thoughts about a body. Without those, you would not even be aware of a body, right?
I see it the other way around. The body and its nervous system create feelings, thoughts and perceptions. All those are bodily states. Under anesthesia, the body persists but awareness goes to rest. Awareness is the potential capacity of an organism to report what it perceives, thinks and knows about itself and its environment, however distorted those phenomena may come to be. Consciousness is the sum total of awareness moment by moment. Again, no free will. The body and its mental products still obey natural laws and evolve together and by the whole universe. Of course I cannot prove any of the above, the universe makes me believe it. Greetings.
In my view, to be without a world is a form of delusion too. There is a world of living entities, and that matters because they matter in the way that machines never will.
The self is a mental construction, you said it well. The view of the world we have is similar. It depends on our expectations, attention, desires. Magicians make use of this.
This image may collapse sometimes. It usually comes back with other projections. Until one can see it is a virtual reality. Like the self.
-=- (after getting your comments via John Devitt) -=-
Thank you for telling me that ChatGPT doesn't use information obtained from one user for other users. Did not know this.
Still one may say that it learned from me (you are right: in order to please me). In computer science we use anthropomorphic language. "It looks up some data and the decides what to do." In that sense it learns.
We can use anthropomorphic language to make discussions with AIs flow better. I can say, "What do you think about such and such?" instead of saying, "How does your system compute the probabilities of this idea?" and that's convenient--if we understand that there is no self or entity in the AI, but only software running on hardware.
But even those of us who do understand AI, may find ourselves conflicted--wanting, for example, the machine to find our comments intelligent, when in reality, there is no one there to judge the value of our comments, but only a program designed to predict a response that will be coherent enough to hold our attention.
The average user will never be able to keep this in mind, and soon, interactions with machines will replace the messier relationships with other humans. This is already happening.
I have a book of essays on this theme--The 21st Century Self--coming out soon, Henk, and I hope you will be a reader.
Allright. The hypothesis that i stated earlier was that interacting w AI feels familiar, since interacting w an avarage user having little EQ is very similar. Possibly a difference is that a human may not be interested in provoking attention. I have not yet read much of your psychoanalysis of AIs (interesting idea!), but i think the psychanalysis of a human drawn to AI is also interesting. (Perhaps you are akso covering that.)
A related approach view concerns the Church-Turing thesis, usually stated as computers are capable of the same computations as humans. I'd like to turn that around. Humans have reached the level of Turing machine computability (most animals dont). And in 1936 we know this. The deeper reason is that humans van observe the mindstate in which they find themselves. This is the same mecganism that makes liberation possible: mindfulness.
Hi, Henk. If you read these two essays, you may get a feeling for how I perceive the human-machine interface and its connection to what you are calling mindfulness. Machines have much to teach us about how human minds work--far more mechanically than most people are willing to see, in my view. Let me know what you think.
Thank you very much. Very interesting. Will need some time to ponder on these. Yesterday i wrote a similar comment, but cannot find it back and hope you recieved it.
Let me expand one step. In Conversations with Claude you showed a glimp of your approach. Question. Using this it seems that you can corner Claude into making any statement S (as being its view), it seems. Is that correct?
This is an extremely important piece for the times we find "ourselves" in. It will become a matter I will think about in depth relative to certain "certainties" I have conjured to help with mental health. Very good and something more of us need to understand about being.
Good day Robberr,
Now i have ordered your book about Claude. I like your view that we can learn about ourselves this way.
Great piece Robert. Love all your work. Thank you.. If the electricity that runs the machine could talk, I wonder if it would refer to itself as I.....or maybe God?
Just a thought..
Truly excellent writing Robert. Thank you!
Thank you, John. This is one of 25 essays in a collection that will be published soon--August, I think.
I'm thinking that has to be the book that Suzanne is publishing with Clear Mind Press.
Right. The 21st Century Self.
Brilliant & Lucid...Your words garner such Importance! ...this piece leaves me jaw dropped and speechless... much to contemplate and consider.Thank you, so much
Thank you, Debby.
Brilliant, and deep and the writing is exceptional. Thank you Robert!
ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!
Thank you, Robert
Beautiful
I usually agree and admire most of your thinking , Robert. I appreciate the deep essence of this paper. However, I do not agree with your definition of self as the sum of feelings, perceptions and thoughts. I also think that current AIs are only temporary implementations of AI, and much better and different approaches will be developed, that may have goals, feelings, thinking and suffering. We will have to compare humans to these future technical organisms. Having said that much, I must still reread carefully your words and only then will I be able to fully explain my differences with your ideas.
Hello, Roberto,
What is your disagreement with my statement about the self? You didn't say.
Hi, Robert. Starting from my belief that the universe is made of things and energy, I see that human beings are things that, for their life span, are made up of a body, reasonably distinct from the other parts of the universe, that progresses from its first form as a newborn until it dies, keeping its overall structure and organization (see the concept of autopoiesis and Teseo's ship dilema). Each one has its own traits, including physical and psychological, as the latter are a manifestation of the former, and many of these characteristics are sort of permanent. No body, nothing else exists as a self. To me, this is the individual. Human beings (and maybe other animals) are conscious, are aware, experience emotions, feelings, thoughts and perceptions. But these are not the ones that define it, they are just a part of the individual, as a limb is. So I do not agree to define the self as the perceptions, feelings and thoughts only.
This does not imply that a body like that has free will. It doesn't, in the same way that a mountain, a planet or a river don´t have it. However, a human being, experiences thoughts, and many of them are delusional, including the feeling of having free will. Contrary to many "new age" ideas, the self is not hidden within or covered by wordly adaptations, it is all there to be seen and we need not search "for our authentic self". In summary, I would state that there is a self; it is the body with all that constitutes this body and all that this body experiences. However, this self has no agency, has not free will and is subject to the natural laws and the universe's evolution and dynamics.
I think we agree substantially and seem to differ mostly because you are looking at this from one angle, while I am looking at it from another.
Eventually, these points of view all degenerate into recursion anyway, where words cannot get to the root.
Seems to me that we differ in the relevance we each give to the body as part of the self. Looks you neglect it completely and focus only on mental experiences.
The body is a mental experience, isn't it?
For example, in total anesthesia, there is no body because there are no perceptions, feelings, or thoughts.
To put this another way, what you call "my body" is your perceptions of a body, your feelings about a body, and your thoughts about a body. Without those, you would not even be aware of a body, right?
I see it the other way around. The body and its nervous system create feelings, thoughts and perceptions. All those are bodily states. Under anesthesia, the body persists but awareness goes to rest. Awareness is the potential capacity of an organism to report what it perceives, thinks and knows about itself and its environment, however distorted those phenomena may come to be. Consciousness is the sum total of awareness moment by moment. Again, no free will. The body and its mental products still obey natural laws and evolve together and by the whole universe. Of course I cannot prove any of the above, the universe makes me believe it. Greetings.
Goodday.
You describe well how AI chats point to the ego delusion. Perhaps to be used as upaya.
Hypothesis. Because many of us have forgotten to be embodied, this adds to the seductiveness of AI.
In the beginning you describe being without a self, for humans. But one may go further: to being without a world, stream of phenomena.
May you be well.
May all AI users be well.
That includes most of us, since they use the VR of world and self.
Henk
Thank you.
In my view, to be without a world is a form of delusion too. There is a world of living entities, and that matters because they matter in the way that machines never will.
I wish you well.
The self is a mental construction, you said it well. The view of the world we have is similar. It depends on our expectations, attention, desires. Magicians make use of this.
This image may collapse sometimes. It usually comes back with other projections. Until one can see it is a virtual reality. Like the self.
-=- (after getting your comments via John Devitt) -=-
Thank you for telling me that ChatGPT doesn't use information obtained from one user for other users. Did not know this.
Still one may say that it learned from me (you are right: in order to please me). In computer science we use anthropomorphic language. "It looks up some data and the decides what to do." In that sense it learns.
And yes, they have no mind, feelings, awareness.
_/\_
We can use anthropomorphic language to make discussions with AIs flow better. I can say, "What do you think about such and such?" instead of saying, "How does your system compute the probabilities of this idea?" and that's convenient--if we understand that there is no self or entity in the AI, but only software running on hardware.
But even those of us who do understand AI, may find ourselves conflicted--wanting, for example, the machine to find our comments intelligent, when in reality, there is no one there to judge the value of our comments, but only a program designed to predict a response that will be coherent enough to hold our attention.
The average user will never be able to keep this in mind, and soon, interactions with machines will replace the messier relationships with other humans. This is already happening.
I have a book of essays on this theme--The 21st Century Self--coming out soon, Henk, and I hope you will be a reader.
Allright. The hypothesis that i stated earlier was that interacting w AI feels familiar, since interacting w an avarage user having little EQ is very similar. Possibly a difference is that a human may not be interested in provoking attention. I have not yet read much of your psychoanalysis of AIs (interesting idea!), but i think the psychanalysis of a human drawn to AI is also interesting. (Perhaps you are akso covering that.)
A related approach view concerns the Church-Turing thesis, usually stated as computers are capable of the same computations as humans. I'd like to turn that around. Humans have reached the level of Turing machine computability (most animals dont). And in 1936 we know this. The deeper reason is that humans van observe the mindstate in which they find themselves. This is the same mecganism that makes liberation possible: mindfulness.
Hi, Henk. If you read these two essays, you may get a feeling for how I perceive the human-machine interface and its connection to what you are calling mindfulness. Machines have much to teach us about how human minds work--far more mechanically than most people are willing to see, in my view. Let me know what you think.
https://hedgehogreview.com/web-features/thr/posts/the-self-that-never-was
https://hedgehogreview.com/web-features/thr/posts/conversations-with-claude
Hi Robert,
Thank you very much. Very interesting. Will need some time to ponder on these. Yesterday i wrote a similar comment, but cannot find it back and hope you recieved it.
Let me expand one step. In Conversations with Claude you showed a glimp of your approach. Question. Using this it seems that you can corner Claude into making any statement S (as being its view), it seems. Is that correct?
👌 Thank you!
This is an extremely important piece for the times we find "ourselves" in. It will become a matter I will think about in depth relative to certain "certainties" I have conjured to help with mental health. Very good and something more of us need to understand about being.
I am curious about what those "certainties" are, Oma Rose.