Is It Better Never To Have Lived?
September 3, 2011
Are any of you familiar with a philosophical idea called anti-natalism? I was listening to various people debate the idea on youtube and found it strange that I’d never heard of it. I hope I’m not oversimplifying the idea, but from what I gather, it’s the idea that it would be better if we’d never been born. Wanting to learn more about this idea, I got ahold of a book by David Benatar called Better Never To Have Been. He is one of the chief authors anti-natalists reference. After reading a good portion of the book, it seems worthwhile to share what I think of these ideas.
I really wasn’t all that impressed with the book initially, but once I came to chapter 3, I liked the book a little more. That chapter began as follows,
I have argued that so long as a life contains even the smallest quantity of bad, coming into existence is a harm. Whether or not one accepts this conclusion, one can recognize that a life containing a significant amount of bad is a harm. I turn now to show that all human lives contain much more bad than is ordinarily recognized. [...] The worse a life is, the greater the harm of being brought into existence. I shall argue, however, that even the best lives are very bad, and therefore that being brought into existence is always a considerable harm. To clarify, I shall not be arguing that all lives are so bad that they are not worth continuing. That is a much stronger claim than I need to make. Instead, I shall be arguing that people’s lives are much worse than they think and that all lives contain a great deal of bad.
He next discussed the suffering and pleasures of this life from a hedonistic perspective. This is a rather long quotation from the book, so forgive me.
Consider first the hedonistic view. Such a view will need to distinguish between three kinds of mental states—negative ones, positive ones, and neutral ones. Negative mental states include discomfort, pain, suffering, distress, guilt, shame, irritation, boredom, anxiety, frustration, stress, fear, grief, sadness, and loneliness. Positive mental states—pleasures, in the broad sense—can be of two kinds. First, there are those which are relief from negative mental states. These relief pleasures include the subsiding of a pain (such as a headache), the mollification of an itch, the abatement of boredom, the alleviation of stress, the dissipation of anxiety or fear, and the assuagement of guilt. Secondly, there are the intrinsically positive states. Intrinsic pleasures include pleasant sensory experiences—tastes, smells, visual images, sounds, and tactile sensations—as well as some non-sensory conscious states (such as joy, love, and excitement). Some pleasures have both relief and intrinsic components. For example, eating a tasty meal while hungry brings both relief from hunger and the intrinsic pleasure of fine-tasting food. (By contrast, eating insipid food while hungry might relieve the hunger, but it would do so without the intrinsic pleasure. Neutral mental states are those which are neither negative, nor positive in either the relief or intrinsic sense. Neutral states include the absence of pain, fear, or shame (as distinct from gaining relief from these negative states).
For the psychological reasons mentioned earlier, we tend to ignore just how much of our lives is characterized by negative mental states, even if often only relatively mildly negative ones. Consider, for example, conditions causing negative mental states daily or more often. These include hunger, thirst, bowel and bladder distension (as these organs become filled), tiredness, stress, thermal discomfort (that is, feeling either too hot or too cold), and itch. For billions of people, at least some of these discomforts are chronic. These people cannot relieve their hunger, escape the cold, or avoid the stress. However, even those who can find some relief do not do so immediately or perfectly, and thus experience them to some extent every day. In fact, if we think about it, significant periods of each day are marked by some or other of these states. For example, unless one is eating and drinking so regularly as to prevent hunger and thirst or countering them as they arise, one is likely hungry and thirsty for a few hours a day. Unless one is lying about all day, one is probably tired for a substantial portion of one’s waking life. How often does one feel neither too hot nor too cold, but exactly right?
Of course, we tend not to think about how much of our lives is marked by these states. The three psychological phenomena, outlined in the previous section, explain why this is so. Because of Pollyannaism we overlook the bad (and especially the relatively mildly bad). Adaptation also plays a role. People are so used to the discomforts of daily life that they overlook them entirely, even though they are so pervasive. Finally, since these discomforts are experienced by everybody else too, they do not serve to differentiate the quality of one’s own life from the quality of the lives of others. The result is that normal discomforts are not detected on the radar of subjective assessment of well-being. That we do not think of how much of our daily lives are pervaded by the discomforts mentioned does not mean that our daily lives are not pervaded by them. That there is so much discomfort is surely relevant on the hedonistic view.
The negative mental states mentioned so far, however, are simply the baseline ones characteristic of healthy daily life. Chronic ailments and advancing age make matters worse. Aches, pains, lethargy, and sometimes frustration from disability become an experiential backdrop for everything else.
Now add those discomforts, pains, and sufferings that are experienced either less frequently or only by some (though nonetheless very many) people. These include allergies, headaches, frustration, irritation, colds, menstrual pains, hot flushes, nausea, hypoglycaemia, seizures, guilt, shame, boredom, sadness, depression, loneliness, body-image dissatisfaction, the ravages of AIDS, of cancer, and of other such life-threatening diseases, and grief and bereavement. The reach of negative mental states in ordinary lives is extensive.
This is not to deny that there are also intrinsic pleasures in a life. These pleasures sometimes occur in the absence of negative mental states, and are best when they do. Intrinsic pleasures can also coexist with the negative ones (so long as the negative states are not of sufficient intensity to undo the pleasure entirely). Neutral states and relief pleasures obviously can also affect the quality of a life. It is better to have a neutral state than a negative one, and if one has a negative state, relief from it (as soon as possible) is better than no relief. Nevertheless, there would be something absurd about living for neutral states or relief pleasures, or about starting a life in order to create more neutral conscious states or to produce more relief pleasure. Neutral states and relief pleasures can be valuable only in so far as they displace negative states. The argument that it is better never to come into existence explains why it is also absurd to start a life for the intrinsic pleasures that that life will contain. The reason for this is that even the intrinsic pleasures of existing do not constitute a net benefit over never existing. Once alive, it is good to have them, but they are purchased at the cost of life’s misfortune—a cost that is quite considerable.
Next he looked at our lives from the perspective of desire fulfillment.
Rather little of our lives is characterized by satisfied desires and rather a lot is marked by unsatisfied desires. Consider first how vulnerable our desires are to the vicissitudes of life. No desires for that which we lack are ever satisfied immediately. Such a desire must be present before it can be satisfied and thus we endure a period of frustration before the desire is fulfilled. It is logically possible for desires to be fulfilled very soon after they arise, but given the way the world is, this does not usually happen. Instead, we usually persist in a state of desire for a period of time. This time may vary—from minutes to decades. As I said before, one usually waits at least a couple of hours until hunger is satiated (unless one is on a ‘hunger-prevention’ or a ‘nip-hunger-in-the-bud’ diet). One waits still longer to get rest when one is tired. Children wait years to gain independence. Adolescents and adults can wait years to fulfil desires for personal satisfaction or professional success. Where one’s desires are fulfilled, this fulfilment is often ephemeral. One desires public office and is elected but not reelected. One’s desire to be married is eventually fulfilled, but then one gets divorced. One wants a holiday but it ends (too soon). Often one’s desires are never fulfilled. One yearns to be free, but dies incarcerated or oppressed. One seeks wisdom but never attains it. One hankers after being beautiful but is congenitally and irreversibly ugly. One aspires to great wealth and influence, but remains poor and impotent all one’s life. One has a desire not to believe falsehoods, but unknowingly clings to such beliefs all one’s life. Very few people ever attain the kind of control over their lives and circumstances that they would like.
Not all one’s desires are for that which one lacks. Sometimes we desire not to lose that which we already have. Such desires, by definition, have immediate satisfaction, but the sad truth is that that fulfilment often does not last. One has a desire not to lose one’s health and youth, but it happens all too quickly. The wrinkles appear, the hair goes grey or falls out, the back aches, arthritis ravages one’s joints, the eyes weaken, one becomes flabby and saggy. One wishes not to be bereaved, but unless one’s desire not to die is thwarted sooner rather than later, one must soon face the death of grandparents, parents, and other dear ones.
As if this were not bad enough, consider next what we might call the ‘treadmill of desires’. Although the fulfilment of some desires is temporary because the fulfilment becomes undone, desire fulfilment is much more often temporary because even though the desire remains fulfilled another desire arises in its place. Thus the initial satisfaction soon gives way to new desires.
Then Benatar takes a quotation from Abraham Maslow, the famed psychologist.
…need gratifications lead only to temporary happiness which in turn tends to be succeeded by another and (hopefully) higher discontent. It looks as if the human hope for eternal happiness can never be fulfilled. Certainly happiness does come and is obtainable and is real. But it looks as if we must accept its intrinsic transience, especially if we focus on its more intense forms.
- Abraham Maslow, Motivation And Personality
That’ll do for quotations from the book. You should have a general idea as to the sorts of things Bentar focuses on. Pretty dark eh’? I decided to reflect on these ideas as I went for my walk today and within ten to fifteen minutes of serious contemplation, I came to one singular conclusion: the human mind and its incessant chattering makes our lives far more miserable than need be. If you can’t learn to still your mind and exist in the moment, these sorts of thoughts will consume you and leave you depressed.
Here’s the deal. A lot of animals out there live entirely in the moment. Though their lives are nothing but a continuous struggle, they have limited memory capacity, and mostly live in the moment. They only suffer when they’re actually being eaten, or are in battle, or are truly starving. Otherwise they seem to enjoy nibbling on your garden’s tomatoes, singing while perched up on a tree limb, or bathing in the sunshine. Us humans on the other hand, we have the ability to imagine and anticipate things we aren’t currently experiencing. This helped us survive in the harsh world we live in, but it also makes us miserable.
Very simple animals are like toddler babies. If it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind. Us adult humans are different. You can walk around the corner and I will still be aware that you’re in the hallway. I will know that you’re still there, and even if you’ve ran away somewhere and hid yourself, I will start reflecting, “Ok, where did he go? He must be somewhere nearby.” This powerful ability allowed us to evade and outsmart predators and hunt prey, while also allowing us to control the world around us. However, this same mental ability allows us to imagine all sorts of things that aren’t there, anticipate upcoming problems, and even foresee our own deaths. Emotionally it’s a double-edged sword.
Many of the problems Benatar focuses on throughout these first few chapters are related to what I’d call our “mental model” system. I’ll try to explain what I mean. Take the problem of watching yourself growing old, flabby, and wrinkly. Your mind has this mental model of the world where it stores this time-sequence of your life and the things you experience. This also includes your body. So you look into the mirror and think, “I’m not as pretty as I once was. I used to be thin and attractive. Now I’m old and fat.” You remember when you were attractive to members of the opposite sex, and maybe even reflect on past encounters you had thirty years ago in the past. The brain wanders from the moment and instead of just having an experience, it starts roaming all over the place, comparing this moment to God knows what other moments. You start comparing yourself Jennifer Aniston, Megan Fox, and other celebrities. You compare yourself to your friends, neighbors, and coworkers. You compare and compare and compare. You contrast and compare. You contrast and compare. The mind just keeps working and working and going and going, generating endless discontentment.
Religion is another problem with this mental model system. Using words we’re able to communicate ideas to others, allowing us to anticipate events that aren’t necessarily happening to us right then and there. You can say, “Jason, watch out! There’s a poisonous snake under your bed!” I might not have ever seen the snake but I’m thankful that you warned me about it. Yet this is a dangerous tool. People start warning you about things that don’t exist and put your mind in all sorts of unnecessary fears. The religious priest starts warning you of the all powerful, all knowing, ever-present deity watching your every move, ready to throw you into the pits of hell if you commit even the slightest transgression against ridiculous laws. Were you attracted to the beautiful woman that walked by?! LUST! Pray to the holy virgin and REPENT! And if you believe this invisible being exists, and that there is this invisible order with heaven and hell, and all of that, your mind is just going to torture itself for no reason at all over petty things that don’t matter. It’s natural for a man to be attracted to a beautiful woman. It’s part of your biology. It’s ok.
As I walked and walked, I remembered my history classes in school. Think of what history is. It’s like a giant warning call for all the madness that happens in this world, and how crazy people can be. It’s preparing us for all sorts of disasters and how to properly react to them. But such preparations come with a serious cost. Our minds are being pounded with negativity and we come out emotionally damaged. “Ok class, today we’re going to watch what happens when men have wars. Brace yourselves.” The little sixth graders come back from their chocolate milk break to watch civil war reenactments, people marching off in lines blasting each other with muskets. They see a man bleeding on the ground, screaming in pain. Then they read about the Persian empire, the Macedonian phalanx, and see Alexander the Great roaming around with his troops. These young minds are imagining men being impaled with spears, blasted with guns, stabbed with swords, hung on crosses and whipped to death, and on and on.
If we lived in the moment, we wouldn’t have to experience all of that unless it actually happened to us, and even then it would probably be a rather short experience. Somebody may run up to us with a rifle and shoot us, or we may be stabbed and die within a short period of time, and so forth. But instead we learn what all these things are so that we can be prepared, and the list of dangers is practically unlimited. So you worry and worry and worry and worry. Am I prepared for this? Am I prepared for that? What am I going to do about this? What am I going to do about that?
As young children, we roam around the backyard playing with our toys and friends, laughing and having fun. We’re not worried about anything and don’t know anything. We just make the most of what’s around us and live in the moment. And because of that, children are happy. But by the time we get older, we’ve been pounded with so many warning calls, and are in such fear and dread, most of that simple joy is gone. But we can’t avoid this. Oftentimes the only way to avoid future pain and suffering is to properly plan for it and avoid it. Take this video for example. A lot of the starvation and misery we face in the world today is due to overpopulation. We have to stop having babies.
The world is so large and filled with problems, we often want to just shut it off. We have to reflect on thousands of important things which we’ll never actually experience ourselves, such as planning to avert future disasters. We have to worry about the welfare of people all the way across the world. We have to stay up to date on political issues and the economy. We have to properly watch our financial investments. We have to hold our government accountable so they don’t drag us off into more wars and destruction.
When we lived in simple small tribes you directly experienced the world. Our sensory systems were adequate for the task. It’s not too hard to keep up with a small tribe of people. You know them all by name, have went out on hunts with them, and they know you as well. Now that’s no longer possible. The world is too big and too complicated. We stay glued to our computers and television sets watching and reading the news. And what do they feed us? They tell us about the most important worries we need to deal with. Dictator such and such is slaughtering thousands for no good reason. Religious psychos are discovered to be working on nuclear facilities. Bankers are scheming to implode the economy and leave us poor and in rags. And then you ask yourself, “What can I do about all of this?” You then realize that you’re completely powerless, filled with fear of things happening all across the world.
Your mind tries to build a mental model of this super-complicated world, with all of its intricacies and dangers, but it’s inadequate for the task. You realize that you can’t protect your children. You can’t protect your friends. You can’t protect your family. You’re powerless. There’s little you can do about anything and you just do what you can. Your brain runs in circles trying to figure things out but it just never has enough information nor the time to sort it all out.
But that all is just the beginning of the mental chatter! Just as Benatar points out, that same mind is not just worrying about the world. Oh no. It’s also wondering what’s wrong with your personal life and loved ones. You have all these desires which aren’t playing out how you intended. Why is your love life so screwed up? Why are your children such a mess? What doesn’t your husband love you? Why are you stuck in a boring job? What did you do wrong? Why did all of this happen to you? Why did things turn out this way? And on and on and on it goes, chattering away. It flails away, trying to fix every problem in the world and struggles for even simple answers.
I allow the chatter at times, and I care about the world and the issues we face as a nation and as a people. I care about helping the poor. I care about civil liberties. I care about women’s rights. I care about pollution. Yes, I care about all these things. I also have my share of suffering, but do what you can when you can, and otherwise try not to worry. Try to shut off the chatter and just experience the life coming in from your senses. Find good things in your world which you can be thankful for and make the most of your short life. Bertrand Russell seemed to advocate a similar position.
The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about other things, or, if it is night, about nothing at all….It is amazing how much both happiness and efficiency can be increased by the cultivation of an orderly mind, which thinks about a matter adequately at the right time rather than inadequately at all times. When a difficult or worrying decision has to be reached, as soon as all the data are available, give the matter your best thought and make your decision; having made the decision, do not revise it unless some new fact comes to your knowledge. Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile.
- Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness
Our emotional systems and mental model system evolved together and they were designed for a much smaller world. They don’t always work well together in our modern society. Biological evolution isn’t keeping up with cultural evolution.
Sometimes we just have to experience the moment. Don’t let your mind stray off all over the place, thinking inadequately about anything and everything at all times. Keep your mind disciplined. Lock it in the present in the room with you, learning new interesting things. There’s a time and a place for thinking about troublesome things, and it’s not all the time.
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Who’d Have Thought, I’m Still A Religious Person
August 28, 2011
Just recently the new semester began and I found myself in a physics course. Shortly after going over his syllabus, my professor had a short talk about science and religion. Basically he said that science deals with things that can be objectively observed and tested; everything else is religion. As I was on my way home, I wondered if there were any beliefs in my head which he would consider religious in nature. To my surprise, I found that my entire motivation and reason for living is rooted in “religious” beliefs. I suppose I should explain.
I was tempted to go up to him after the lecture and ask him, “Would it be religious of me to believe that you’re conscious, as I am?” I’d be curious to hear how he’d respond, and I may just go up to him and ask him that very question. It’s been bugging me. Here’s why. There is no objective test I can perform which will tell me whether or not you’re conscious. I can believe you’re conscious, and if I’m really curious, I may well even open up your skull and examine your brain. But even so, I will not be able to observe your personal subjective consciousness, no matter how hard I try. Even if I monitored all the electrical activity in your brain, I still wouldn’t know if you’re conscious or not. There’s no possible way to observe it. It’s a complex emergent property based on neural activity, or well, so I believe. I believe it exists by a leap of faith.
The thought that I may be living amongst a mob of zombies is a very depressing thought. I don’t think I could be happy thinking that all of you are just a bunch of complicated robots. I could never enter an intimate relationship or friendship with any of you. I’d want to slap you on the side of the head and say, “There’s nothing in there! How can you say you understand? That you care? That you’re happy? That you’re sad? You’re not alive!”
I thought about ethics. If I’m to live in this scientific way, and only believe things that can be observed and tested, I’m not allowed to believe you all are conscious. That’s a pretty big problem considering it’s what all my morality is based on. I try to the best of my ability to avoid harming other sentient beings. I believe you’re having a conscious experience just as I am, and I try (though I’m not always successful), to help make your day a little easier, and also not cause you unnecessary pain and suffering. But if you all are not alive like I am, I’m not going to treat you the same way I do now.
If you all are zombies, there’s no reason for me to go out of my way to help you if you’re in need. The poor? Who cares, they’re not even alive. Fight for universal healthcare? For women’s rights? Why? That’d be like playing that online game, Second Life, and fighting for healthcare rights for the 3D avatars. There’s no point in that. I would treat you guys humanely only because I wouldn’t want you to turn on me and cause me suffering. In all other cases, I’d try to stay out of your way. I’d feel no guilt in using you. I’d feel no guilt if I caused you pain or misery. I wouldn’t even feel guilt if I took out a gun and blew your brains out. You wouldn’t be conscious, so who cares? It’s like playing in some sort of advanced virtual reality simulation. My goal at that point is to maximize my happiness and fun while trying to minimize pain. There’s no other moral imperatives. I’d argue that there is no morality in such a world.
Considering I’m around physicists and other scientists, I notice them saying things which don’t make much sense. When I was signing up for classes for my second semester, I remember my adviser saying, “You’ll probably do alright.” The keyword to notice there is “probably”. What sort of probability theory was that based on? I’d be curious to hear how such a thing can be calculated. The professor doesn’t even know me. I notice that my Dad never talks that way. He’s a pastor and in that same situation he would have said, “You’ll do fine. Just work hard and you can do it.” He has faith in people and believes it’s up to them as to how they’ll perform. But that can be dangerous too, considering it sometimes blames people for things which aren’t always their fault. If a person is thrown into a class they’re not ready for, and then fails the course, it’s not their fault – their adviser failed to properly direct them. But it’s interesting to watch the scientist’s attempt to remain in this non-partisan position, acting like, “We can’t be certain how you may end up, but I have reason to believe that if you take this course, there’s a 95 out of 100 chance that you’ll get an A. But don’t ahead of yourself, I can never know for certain.” We as a society have never solved this problem. We struggle with personal responsibility, and who to place the blame on when something goes wrong. Are the poor always responsible for their lot in life? Do the rich deserve all the good fortune that has come their way? More generally we can frame the problem this way: if people have free will, there’s no way of saying what a person can or will do. Ultimately they’re completely unpredictable and their course in life is up to them. If we believe people are predictable, the only way we can predict their future actions is by confining them to their past, which isn’t a great plan either. We know people aren’t random, but they also oftentimes break the chains of our expectations. It’s quite a difficult problem and I know I don’t like people telling me who I can or can’t be.
For most people in the world, here is how I treat them: I believe they’re the best judges as to how to live their lives. I believe in freedom. I also like to apply faith. To use a baseball analogy, I’ve always had a belief that you should keep pitching to someone as long as they’re willing to swing. Let them have a chance. Even if they’ve always struck out, and never applied themselves, give them another shot. They deserve that much, no matter who they are, or their past history. If they’re willing to step up to the plate again, don’t judge them. Respect them and pitch the ball again.
I’ve never been much of the lovey-dovey type, but I love people in my own sort of way. I’m not the type to hold you, or cry with you, and I’m not very good at consoling, but when everyone else on the baseball field makes fun of you, and tells you you won’t amount to anything, I won’t be in their number. And when everyone else gets tired of pitching to you, I’ll slide on my cap, walk to the mound, and work with you until you can hit the ball. I’ll throw you slow underhands until you get used to it, and I’ll show you how to hold the bat. I won’t judge you, yet then again, I’m not one to praise unless I see real improvement and effort. You don’t have to impress me with your first try. I’ve never believed in “geniuses”. I believe in second, third, and fourth chances. Tenth chances. One hundred chances. I feel that’s what respect is. I’ll be honest with you, believe in you, and help you until you get it right. As long as you respect my time, I’ll respect yours. If I see that you really want something in life, and I can help you get there, I’ll take time out of my schedule to help.
On another note, if you’re a zombie, I’m not going to pitch you the ball unless I enjoy doing so. If you’re zombies, I’m the only judge that matters. If you get in my way, and I have the power to move you, I’ll take any recourse that is convenient and necessary.
I don’t believe in living solely for others, or in being some sort of grand sacrifice for humanity, but I do I believe that we all owe our fellow human beings something. Not everything, but something. My life hasn’t been spectacular by any means, but what good things I’ve had I owe to the people of my community, my family, my country, and our world. Is this a religious belief? If so, I’m a very religious person.
Consciousness is what really matters in this universe. Otherwise it’s just a big pile of dead stuff, dark and empty. I worry that people work so hard to avoid the poisons of conventional religion that they end up throwing out the good things as well. I guess growing up in a Christian home, I take certain ways of thinking for granted. My family never would say, “You’ll probably be ok.” When I heard that I just thought, “That’s just weird.” There needs to be love, faith, and thankfulness when dealing with each other. Science may be able to show us which behaviors are most conducive to making people happy, but a lot of moral behavior requires effort on our part, and without faith in others, and a sacred belief that conscious suffering should be avoided at all costs, we have no reason to care, and caring is what really matters.
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Ramblings About Augmented Reality
August 20, 2011
As you all know, one of my main passions is decoding images into 3D environments. I love researching machine vision and augmented reality. Just check out how cool this stuff is. In this next video, a guy creates a laser gun and points it at objects in his room. Using AR, he creates this virtual HUD display, like he’s in some sort of giant mech-robot. His program then uses visual information to measure the distance to the object he’s pointing at. At the end of this little demo, a message appears above the robot’s head, it fires a laser blast at him, and he dodges it just in time.
In time I think everyone’s iPhones, mp3 players, and such will become far more powerful, allowing them to integrate with eye-glasses which support AR. This will let people watch movies, surf the web, and play interactive video games. Imagine if you controlled your desktop using devices like these used in this next video. Imagine spinning your windows around using your hands, bringing them closer or farther away from you. Even more sophisticated, you could transform an entire room into a virtual experience, leaving windows in different areas of your room, picking them up, moving them, and so forth. If you worked at it, I think you could use devices like the ones in this next video to revolutionize the desktop PC experience. Using a mouse is a bit dated, I think. AR technology allows much cooler alternatives.
Take LCD monitor displays. They’re cool and all, but we won’t need them for much longer. The problem with today’s handheld devices are their small displays. Using AR glasses, you could have a much better experience. You could watch movies on a virtual huge high-def screen, simulated by your glasses. The same applies to desktop PCs. Why spend a fortune on a huge monitor when you could use AR glasses which project your desktop, movies, etc, onto a virtual canvas, placed anywhere you like within your room. When you put on your glasses, it would appear. It could be far more interactive, larger, and more vivid.
I thought of my parents in their living room. My mom and dad both have their own TVs, stacked on top of one another. They sit in recliners by one another and both watch different programs. Each of them have headphones. Imagine using AR instead! They could transform that entire living room space into a huge TV/computer screen and both watch their own programs without interfering with one another. They could each have multiple TV screens, surfing multiple channels. Integrate that with your computer, or handheld device, and you have something pretty awesome there! My mom wouldn’t have to suffer from headaches any longer. She likes to sit in her recliner, but she finds laptops awkward on her lap, and when she has to look at a distant LCD monitor, it strains her eyes. This would be a perfect solution for her.
I’m slightly envious of the students and professors from Queens University who made this next video. I was hoping to earn enough one day to build this exact setup. They’ve constructed a robot which flys around a pool table, capable of playing pool, but also able to show you what would happen were you to hit the ball in any particular way. They use augmented reality and physics. You move your pool stick over the table, aim it at the cue-ball at a certain angle, move the stick back and forth, and so on, and while you do so, the computer shows you what would happen with lines and simulations. This technology would help you master your billiards skills. Before too long, I’m sure there will be an iPhone AR app which will integrate with special glass which will be capable of doing this. Put on those glasses and own your friends at billiards. Master crazy trick shots and perform wonders! Maybe I should write it? I wonder if I’d make any money? It’d take me a little while to write it — maybe six months to a year or so. I don’t know how to build the glasses though. But I could write the app without any problems. I think future iPhones would be powerful enough to handle the simulations and AR, but I’m not sure about current models. I’d have to see.
I always wanted a robot like this because I could practice some difficult shot, and when I screwed it up, have the robot set the balls back up in their proper place. Robots of the future will pamper us so much. We’ll become so lazy!
Thinking of which, I may run this idea by some of the physics professors at Missouri S&T, and see if they know anyone who could build the glasses and would be interested. Our university has a lot of contacts. Maybe someone would be interested? Who knows. AR glasses would be huge. I just need a tiny camera which can take in data, and also a way to project the images onto the lenses. It has to be a really high-def awesome camera or people won’t want to look out of the glasses, and the images must be clear or the AR objects we project into the virtual space will jerk and move about. The glasses need to be light and stylish, with many varieties, since people will be wearing them all the time.
I’d like to build this entertainment/computer desktop experience within AR. Using OpenCV object recognition, I could make it respond to hands, so you could interact with the AR objects, such as resizing your screens, interacting with your computer, and so forth. I’m fired up! I’ll write the code, somebody build those glasses! Contact me! jason (at) jasonsummers.org.
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The Big 3: Machine Intelligence, Biotech, and Nanotechnology
August 20, 2011
Here on my blog, I’ve tried to indicate that the big trends of the future are machine intelligence, the biotech revolution, and nanotechnology. I just recently learned that Michio Kaku, a famous physicist and cofounder of string theory, has put together three hour long specials for the BBC talking about the future of these areas.
Machine Intelligence: this includes things like general AI, embedding our cognition within the external environment into machines, and virtual reality. Computer chips are going to become so cheap that they will be embedded into everything around us, including the walls, roads, furniture, our clothing, and more. Computers are going to become super-intelligent, far more intelligent than even us! Robots will be walking around, understanding your speech, and interacting with you in the real world. Giant artificial computer super-brains are going to be constructed, housing all human knowledge. All of this will be accessible from any computing platform, like a super-Google but far more intelligent than just a search engine. Combine all of this with augmented reality, and you have one helluva combination of upcoming awesomeness! You can watch this first video here for free on Youtube!
Biotechnology: Imagine a world without sickness, disease, or aging. Imagine creating life in the lab, and building specialized living organisms to do our bidding. If you combine our exponential growth in understanding of the fields of biology and genetics with new, ever more powerful computing, you get the biotech revolution. It will be changing everything, vastly improving the quality of life for human beings. Many who keep up with the biotech revolution believe that it’s not unlikely that within fifty to one-hundred years, humans will have ended aging and will have the possibility to live forever (absent accidents, such as a car wreck, and such). There’s nothing in our human DNA which says we have to die. Our bodies just break down over time, but we are VERY close to mastering biology and all those chemical processes of the body. You can watch the second video below on Youtube.
Nanotechnology: Using tiny machines far smaller than a human hair, we will be constructing everything from our food, appliances, to materials. We will be building things atom by atom, snapping them together like legos. This will allow us to build anything the laws of nature allow, giving us a complete mastery of reailty. We’ll have solar panels which are far more powerful than today’s best, allowing clean abundant energy. Though this isn’t nanotechnology, if properly funded, we’ll also soon have fusion power, allowing us to convert ocean water into HUGE amounts of energy. Energy will be so cheap that it will probably be free. Remember that device in Star Trek where they ask the computer for a cup of coffee and it’s assembled for them on demand? It just appears in the appliance? Those are nanofactories, and we’ll probably have those within one-hundred years as well. Nanotechnology will be lifting everyone out of poverty, removing the haves the have nots. Nobody will live in poverty. We’ll have nanomachines working with our bodies, keeping us healthy, happy, and strong. We’ll be able to eat as much as we want, of anything we want, never gain weight, and never plug up. These nanodevices will also likely make their way into our brains, greatly advancing our memory and intelligence, and allowing us to plug into virtual reality, and live out our wildest fantasies. People won’t have to go to school, or learn trades. They’ll just connect to the super-mother-brain and download any skills or information they’re needing. You can watch the third video below on Youtube.
The future is so awesome, it’s beyond words. To all terrorists, religious extremists, and those in power: Don’t kill humanity off and stop this. Don’t blow up the world in a nuclear holocaust. Don’t pollute our planet so bad that we all die before this happens. Don’t use this technology for wars and weaponry. Life can be so amazing if we’ll just get along and work together. Quit fighting over petty things that don’t matter. Fund this technology so we can all live in abundance, perfect health, and have wild experiences in virtual reality!
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Life Isn’t About Anything In Particular
August 17, 2011
There has been a thought stream plaguing my mind for some time now, and it won’t leave my head. I don’t even know how to frame the subject, or introduce it. There’s two ways you can spin the same idea. You could say life has near infinite possibilities. Another would be to say that life doesn’t seem to be about, or limited to anything in particular.
When I was younger, I used to study a lot of philosophy and I always wondered about the ideal human. How could I become this ideal creature? What would I be like? What would I think about? How would I spend my time? As I wondered about this, I thought of all the ways people define themselves. I wanted to weigh all the different ways of life on a scale, and think out the consequences to each way of thinking, eventually determining an “ideal” way of life. Maybe you define your life in terms of personal relationships. Maybe you define your life in terms of your career, love life, friends, family, hobbies, interests, religion, political positions, or anything. But is life about any of those things? Does it have to be? The deeper you probe into that question, the more puzzling it becomes.
The first point is this: You don’t really care about anything. This fact is the hardest for me to swallow. You can take any person, myself included, and give me ecstasy, or a dose of heroin, or cocaine, and I’m not going to care about anything else while under the influence. I’m not going to care how I look, what I say, what I do, my relationships with others, my career, my family, friends, interests, or anything else. I’ll lose all my interests in the world. If I keep that up, my brain will reprogram itself to want nothing other than that drug because it will release my brain’s reward chemicals and make me feel happy. That’s it. Your entire life is a struggle and hope that your brain releases reward chemicals leaving you feeling happy. If you artificially release those chemicals with drugs, you lose interest in EVERYTHING else.
Does that bother you? It does me. I don’t like it at all.
Have you ever read about experiments neuroscientists do with rats? They’ll hook the rat up to a device which injects it with cocaine if they press a lever. What happens next is quite instructive. It eventually discovers it can get high by pressing the lever, and it soon loses interest in food, sex, water, or anything else. It just sits there, pressing that lever until it gets so weak that it can’t even stand to push the lever down. I’m sad to say this, but human beings, and all the elaborate actions we perform, are just like that rat and lever. We just have to work harder to get our next hit.
This underlying structure of life is so utterly bizarre. The situations by which our brain is hard-wired to release reward chemicals were programmed by natural selection over millions of years. It’s the ultimate basis for the psychological yin and yang of life. Nothing in this world is ugly or beautiful. Nothing in this world has value in and of itself. Nothing in this world is right or wrong. It’s commonly believed that we give life value. While I somewhat agree with that, I also think it’s misleading. It’s not like we have a choice in what we value or find beautiful. Think for a moment and ask how those things got their value? How does our brain decide which things are valuable and which are not? Reward chemicals.
What do you find beautiful? What do you find tasty? What environments do you find most peaceful and appealing? And most of all, how were those preferences chosen? When you look deeply into our psyche, they were chosen by evolution during our development on the African plains. Certain situations are wired into us to release reward chemicals, and these spurts of happiness are what drive us to do the things we do.
Take the other day. I was feeling really depressed. I don’t normally get so depressed but that day I was really feeling out of it. I didn’t feel like doing anything. The most beautiful woman in the world could have approached me and asked me to dinner and I would’ve just shrugged and walked off. I felt terrible. I didn’t care about myself. I didn’t care about the world. I didn’t care about anything. I went home, stared at the wall, and then said, “Why do I feel so terrible today?” Then I took a nap, and when I woke up I felt fine.
After feeling much better, I went walking around outdoors and felt rejuvenated. I had went out for a walk when I was depressed, but I had no interest in anything. Now it was different. I was looking around me, attentive to the breeze, watching the tall grass sway in the wind, and staring up at the poofy clouds. My mind was reflecting on science, and I was once again curious about the mysteries of the universe. It’s reward chemicals.
We’re driven on like cattle, coerced into doing whatever gives us pleasure in our heads. We’re thrown into this world, clueless, and we have to find the things in this world which make us feel fulfilled, happy, and joyful. That’s not an easy job, and many people seem to give up on the quest altogether. They try to content themselves with whatever state they find themselves in. But all in all, our brains are stingy with the rewards. They egg us on for continual improvement, new novel experiences, and change.
When I look at all the suffering and misery in the world, I wonder about the point of this exercise. I look at our origins, starting from the big bang and working your way to the formation of our solar system, the Earth, and the evolution of life. Then I just lay in bed wondering, “Why? This isn’t a very good way of doing things.”
Recently I was reading a book by Howard Bloom. It might’ve been Genius of the Beast. Anyways, he made a really interesting point. He noted how the human body has a shut-down mechanism when it doesn’t integrate with the world around it. If you don’t feel like you fit in, and don’t feel like you have any purpose for living, and are not important to a cause, social group, family unit, etc., your body goes into this chemical shutdown mode. You fall into depression, which releases chemicals like cortisol, which start destroying your arteries, brain cells, and heart tissue. You go into a resource conservation mode, which includes wanting to just lie in bed, you stop eating, and withdraw from all social contact. Basically you just want to crawl into a hole and die.
This goes against what a lot of evolutionary biologists tell you. They say we’re self-replicating machines, primarily concerned with our selves, and spreading our genes. But how does depression and the release of cortisol help spread our genes? Bloom argues that we’re part of a social organism and that is what’s really growing and evolving. You have to see the whole. We’re social organisms and if you disconnect us from the pack, and remove purpose from our lives, we go into shutdown mode. I think he’s right.
People want more than material comfort. As I searched for the ideal man, when I was young and naive, my first conclusions were that ideally you’d want a big comfortable home, nice things, and plenty to do with yourself. But no, the human brain isn’t that rational. Your brain compares your life to others, and it also constantly asks if you’re contributing toward some advancement of your species, and your group. If not, no amount of material possessions is going to make you feel happy. Your life needs purpose! But what is purpose?
I don’t know if this is a perfect conception of purpose, but generally, you have to find something you believe in. It doesn’t matter what it is. You may join some alien conspiracy group who believes little grey men are going to come pick you up ten years from now, and your purpose in life is to spread the word that our future saviors are on the way. If you believe that, truly, deeply, you can live a happy and fulfilled life taking part in that group’s activities and advancing your cause.
And here’s what’s so stupid. You can be the most brilliant human being on the planet. You may understand technology and science beyond any other of your time. You may be a master of philosophy and government, and be literate in all the classics. You’re the very pinnacle of refinement. If aliens were to truly visit the planet, they would search the land and say, “This human is the finest of them all!” You may have used your intelligence to control vast resources from coast to coast all across the planet. But still, if you don’t feel you have purpose, yet that loon from the alien conspiracy group does, THEY will be happy and you will not! The loons are just wasting time and energy, not doing anything constructive or worthwhile. But still, they’re happy and you’re not. What a stupid system! But such is life.
What’s so ironic about this madness is that the same knowledge which aids you in your survival, such as understanding the world, your true origins, etc., also makes you feel depressed. It’s just how we’re emotionally wired. It’s much more emotionally fulfilling to delude yourself that we were created by some spirit being who floated over the deep, and that the purpose of our lives is to serve this father figure who loves you unconditionally than to understand what’s really going on.
Those who are religious and superstitious often ascribe everything to some divine plan and purpose. When a person falls ill with some sickness, they don’t say, “What is the cause and how can we avert this in the future?” They instead say, “All things happen for a reason, and God has a plan for this, and God’s ways are higher than our ways!” In reality the disease is caused by a bacterial infection and bacteria are mindless creatures who know nothing but, “Replicate, replicate, must replicate. Must make more copies of myself. Destroy and eat any material around me that I can digest to make more copies. Replicate, replicate, must replicate.” Yet they ascribe the sickness to some sort of divine justice, sin, and so forth, and even feel emotionally fulfilled and righteous as they bring down condemnation on innocent people. When you’re intelligent, you look at how the body evolved, see that it’s a poorly constructed nano-machine, and then say, “Well, it’s starting to break down on you” or “your body’s immune system is malfunctioning”, and so forth. You see random viruses attacking the body’s cells and think, “This is just random and stupid! These viruses don’t even have a mind. They just destroy and make copies of themselves!” Oh, but the misery and suffering people endure sure is real!
I can imagine brilliant biologists, geneticists, physicians, and biophysicists working on cures for diseases and reflecting on the grand scheme of things, thinking to themselves, “This is all rather depressing. Our bodies evolved through a violent, brutal struggle for survival. A lot of the body’s designs aren’t even good, and here we are, with no choice but to work our butts off to fix everything nature did poorly.” Yet in the same hospital is some simple minded religious man running around, praying for the sick, feeling as if he’s changing the world. The people really advancing mankind often feel depressed and empty, while the religious man feels euphoric, like he’s saving people’s souls and sending them to paradise. He even feels he’s infusing them with some magical spiritual energy which will cure the problem. It’s all very ridiculous.
That’s a very short primer on how these reward chemicals are released in ways that aren’t even advantageous to our survival. I could go on and on about that, but let’s move on.
Let’s get back to material abundance and how that in itself won’t make us happy. I’ve written about future technologies here on my blog, and have painted a bright future for them. In fact, I do think they have the potential to make our lives much better than today. But even if we have nanotechnology, advanced AI systems, super-computers, and material abundance beyond our wildest dreams, that in itself is no guarantee for happiness. Why? What will be our purpose? Without purpose we feel worthless.
What gives most people’s lives meaning? Cooking food for your spouse and loved ones? Taking care of the children? Running a company? Doing research and learning new things? Advancing humanity in some way? Serving your community by helping those less fortunate? I think we all want to contribute something worthwhile to the world, and be important to our loved ones, and our community. But as we’re designing our new technology, have we taken this into account? Is that the direction we’re moving toward? More involvement? More purpose? More meaning? No, not at all. We’re moving rapidly toward automation.
Nanofactories will produce our food and any product humans (or computers) have ever designed. Robots will be around to help us with any task we desire, and they will be better than us at just about everything. Advanced machine intelligence will do thinking for us and leave us in the dark. Automation will exist everywhere, and our technology will completely displace us and any purpose we currently have. Considering that meaning and purpose are what we most desire from this life, we’re leaving out something very critical here. The actions we’re doing, assuming we don’t destroy ourselves with our technology, rationally are the right direction to go. Having technology that can cure our bodies of disease, keep us well feed, secure from disaster, and so forth, are the obvious route we need to go. But still, we’re going to struggle to find happiness and purpose in the coming era, absent us modifying our brains.
The fact of the matter is this: we want luxury and security, but we’re not smart enough, nor talented enough to bring that world into existence. Our world is filled with conflict and poverty, and if you ask me, it’s because we’re not intelligent enough to organize ourselves properly. Our technology is also too primitive. To even bring about a modicum of material abundance, we have to destroy and pollute our environment. Most of the human race is deficient in high level intelligence and lacks the understanding necessary to bring about a technological utopia. Eventually our society and its technology is going to get too difficult for anyone but the most brilliant among us to understand. The rest of us will be useless. Most of us struggle with even elementary mathematics, much less designing 3D molecular quantum computer processors. Our future machine intelligence systems will be able to handle this heavy thinking, but it will make our personal handiwork look like a joke. We’ll become a bunch of stupid primates surrounded by super-intelligent machines, and their thoughts will be too far away for us to comprehend. So what do we want, security, or purpose?
I think about virtual reality, how we’ll eventually be able to change ourselves genetically, and the potential of integrating with the machines, and think that maybe we’ll be ok. Maybe we’ll change our brains and desires, or something. But honestly, I don’t know. I have no idea what to think about the future and the purpose of our technology. I remember once seeing a Twilight Zone episode where a man received anything he asked or wished for without any effort. Soon he found himself going insane and wanted out. He wanted to wake up from the nightmare. An angel appeared before him and said, “Oh? You thought this was heaven? Oh no my friend, this is hell!”
I’ve written past posts on here, wondering about things that may go wrong during this transition. Nanomachines may replicate and destroy the biosphere. Intelligent machines may grow too powerful for us to control, and act unpredictable, possibly wiping us off the face of the planet. We may end up all dying in a nuclear war, or we may pollute the planet to such an extent that it’s no longer inhabitable. The list of doomsday scenarios grows each and every day. And when I look at how difficult this transition is going to be, and how uninformed people are, I just wonder. The outlook is pretty bleak.
Today I was watching a video where the renowned quantum physicist David Bohm was talking with Jiddu Krishnamurti. They began by reflecting on what to say to the youth, as their future appears so bleak and grim. Throughout the discussion they attribute our problems to thinking incorrectly about a wide range of things, such as not thinking in terms of the whole, and mistaking various fragments as wholes when they’re not. I found it interesting.
I got to thinking about science fiction shows like Star Trek. You’ll notice that even though the year is like 2300, and by then we’ll have computers with trillions and trillions of times more computational power, and machines capable of thinking millions of times faster than human beings, far exceeding us in knowledge, intelligence, and every aspect of life, still they have humans in charge. Why? How exciting would it be to watch each episode when the humans play no significant role. The computer chooses their next destination. The computer researches the alien lifeforms they find. The computer fights each battle. The humans just basically tag along, sitting around in the ship’s lobby, bored, with nothing to do. They goof around in the holodeck, have wild sexual orgies, and stare out the window.
But you can also take another look at this same issue. Think about our ancestors. Think about their lives chasing herds of animals, and working their days in the fields. What life would your prefer? Their lives were monotonous, brutal, and boring. Technology created new opportunities for people, allowing them to spend their time doing new things, instead of just struggling to survive.
I personally love technology. I spend way too much time on my computer, watching lectures from all over the world. I have so many books stored on my computer that I’ve lost count. When I was a child, I was bored all the time. Now I’m never bored. I wish I never aged and never had to work. I’ll just list a bunch of things I would do with myself if I had the time.
I would learn to paint, particularly landscapes. I think it’s amazing that you can take what’s in your imagination and make it a reality there on your canvas. That’s also what has always drew me to computer graphics and simulations. You can create any world you can imagine inside the computer. Video games today are so beautiful. There are entire worlds in there. You can play a game like Final Fantasy XIV and walk through huge forests, deserts, and castles. It looks real. In fact, it looks better than the real world. The lighting is perfect, the colors are bright, and everyone is dressed fashionably and having a good time. You even get to listen to beautiful orchestrated music while you explore! Can’t beat that.
I would learn to compose music, first starting with the keyboard and later learning other instruments as well. The keyboard seems to have the most potential to me because in conjunction with the computer, it can emulate most other instruments as well.
I’d build vehicles, particularly custom motorcycles, and ride all around the world. I’d study architecture, and help design the most beautiful cities and structures imaginable. I’d build exotic flying machines, such as luxurious airships, and I’d soar through the atmosphere with my legs hanging off the side.
I’d research mathematics, such as number theory. I’d master every aspect of physics. I’d build probes and send them out into space. I’d build huge telescopes and observe every aspect of the heavens. I’d build huge lighted fountains which turned on at night creating a euphoric waltz, following you as you made your way down the park walkway. I’d design holographic creatures which would dance across the water like tiny ballerinas, and lighted butterfly creatures would fill the sky like lightning bugs.
I’d design my own creatures in the lab, some robotic, some biological. I’d build huge amusement parks, such as giant water slides, and roller coasters which zoom you through glass tunnels underneath the ocean, filled with creatures and glowing fish of all sorts.
I don’t want to die, at least not for a long long time. The more I learn about the possibilities of this world, the longer I want to stay here. I’d love to build all those things. I’m only limited by time and access to resources. But the question for all of us is whether the joy comes from having these things to experience, or building them ourselves. If we just want to have these things, then building technology like advanced AI intelligence systems is the way to go. They can help design all of this for us very rapidly with us guiding the process. They would work out all the technical details. But if we want to do it ourselves, then we should stop what we’re doing.
Does life consist in cooking meals for our spouse? In raising children? In acquiring a suburban home? In sitting through lectures in classrooms? In working jobs? In being important? I don’t think so. I don’t mind nanoassemblers creating food for me. I don’t want children and I wouldn’t mind them being grown in a lab. It’d be nice to never have to go to work, and I’d prefer to be an unnamed citizen of the techno-utopia than the richest baron in this current world. But the thing is, how will I feel if everyone can build these things? If everyone has equal access to the “mother-brain” computer, which can help us build and design anything, either in reality, or in virtual reality? I don’t know. Maybe I’d have to experience it for myself to see if I cared?
But one question even plagues me more than all of this: I don’t necessarily “care” about anything. If I were to rewire my brain, I could be perfectly content in the world as it is right now. My brain creates the dissatisfaction. Heroin addicts are fine with nodding off in a corner someplace. The things I listed are the things I would want to do now if I had the capability. But those desires are determined by my current physical make-up. If I can change that, then I can change my desires. Nothing is set in stone. And if I integrate with the machines, and my intelligence is billions of times what it is now, what would I do with myself then? What an intriguing thought. My motorcycle would probably turn into a space-cycle which can zoom across the surface of stars or something crazy. I’d put on some heat/anti-gravity suit and zoom through the solar flares screaming, “Wooohooooo”. Who knows what I’d do but it all sounds exciting.
One strangely rational route would be to get rid of any conditions for happiness. What if we put our brains in vats, filled them with drugs keeping us in pure ecstasy, and then had the nanorobots repair the damage the drugs do to us, keeping us indefinitely stoned. We could have unconscious machines keep us going, fed, and so forth. If all we care about is happiness, why risk ever being unhappy, displeased, or bored? Why go through all the trouble of toiling to exist just to hope you may become happy? This sounds pathetic, but isn’t there a line of sound reasoning behind this? The conclusion is kind of a dark one: what’s the point of living? Isn’t life basically continually working in hopes of having happy experiences? What’s the point of love when there’s such a high chance of getting hurt? The point of careers and struggling to understand the world? The point of toiling under the sun? Is there a purpose to any of it? I don’t know, and that’s my problem. As I’ve said, our brains don’t inherently value experiences for the experiences themselves. When I was depressed, I didn’t value anything. But once those reward chemicals were flowing, just like a friend on drugs, I became fascinated with everything and everyone. Think of your stoner friend who picks up some simple object and exclaims, “This is AWESOME! WHOOOOOAAAAAAA! I never knew a pencil was like this. Have you ever felt a pencil on your fingers? WHOOOAAAAAA!”
This is my life. When I suffer from depression, it’s not normally tied to events which happen to me. My life is generally uneventful. My autobiography would be really boring to read. I don’t have relationships with women, or have fights with my family, nobody is ever angry with me, I don’t have fallouts with my teachers, or coworkers. But when I’m down, it’s when I wonder about the point of this exercise we call life. Currently I’m thinking that saying, “Reward chemicals are all there is to it” is too simple. The reward chemicals make the brain conduct electricity in a slightly different way, which induces a different conscious state. Understanding that is the next step for me. How and why these states of consciousness are created. How does that all work? There may well be a lot of subtleties I’m missing. I’m quite sure of it actually.
I’ve became much more interested in art, architecture, and music than I used to be. In the past, I was mostly concerned with the nature of intelligence and understanding the universe’s core laws. But now I’m learning the detailed workings of intelligence (such as models of the neocortex), and I’ve been mastering the universe’s core laws of physics, and as I’ve done so, I’ve been coming to appreciate the emotional aspects of life as well. I think it’s because I’ve been letting go of a reductionist worldview, and have been looking more into emergent processes. For example, I got to thinking that understanding the laws of physics is too simple, because it’s oftentimes complicated to apply those simple laws to real world processes. And when you do so, you find complex, unpredictable behaviors which you’d never have anticipated from the simple laws themselves. Just think of the three body problem, for example.
I’m starting to focus on a principle that the whole is oftentimes more than the sum of its parts, and when applied to our lives, my thoughts seem to move toward love, compassion, joy, and the experiences and consequences of those dynamics, which is what makes life really worth living. In the past I’ve focused on things like sensory organs, electrical currents pulsing through our nerves, and so on. That all is important, but a new phenomenon emerges when all of those things come together in a brain, and we call it our lives. I see that I’ve been blind to a great deal of the world around me. Just as Bohm and Krishnamurti were discussing, the whole is often overlooked, and we get stuck in fragmented worldviews. We mistake fragments for wholes, when really those fragments are not self-sufficient wholes which can exist in isolation. I think this new line of thinking, if I work on it for a while, will shed a lot of light on this reward chemicals problem I’m working on. Neurons are not wholes, they are fragments, and if you don’t look at them in the entirety of the entire brain, and that brain within an organism, and that organism within and environment, you can’t understand what’s going on.
But, before I leave this topic, I must also say that I find this all very difficult because the idea that everything influences everything else is anathema to a scientist. Scientists learn about the world by identifying relevant forces and dynamics, and focusing their thoughts on those things. If everything influences everything else, then you can’t isolate causes, and there is no science. You can’t make predictions or perform tests. So reconciling these ideas may take me some time. I’m going to have to continue looking into intelligence, seeing what those neural algorithms are actually doing, and think about their limitations in understand the world as it really is.
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