In Which Jung prewrites AtD's epigraph

[Ian Livingston]

> Which is where computers come in (strange but true)
>
> Computers aren't cursed with false consciousnesses, from which one might
> conclude all important decisions should be turned over to them, but of
> course we don't want to do that.
>
> No, our sense is that, although computer may have the advantage, we must
> plod on with our human ideologies, hangups, delusions, neuroses, etc., etc.
> and hope things will turn out fairly OK.
>
> As to the matter of knowledge we must accept the reality that we are not
> omniscient (as God is supposed to be) but are stuck with clunky old
> reason--what we now call language--and reason/language depends on even
> clunkier old concepts or ideas which no two people will agree on the meaning
> of (as if meaning meant anything).

But knowledge and reason are not identical, and, to the best of my
knowledge, computers do not yet reason. Oh, one can argue
equivalencies between selecting data and reasoning, but the two
processes differ in that humans, however unevenly talented in the use
of it, have the advantage of feeling and emotion that can serve to
quell as well as to abet the processes of choosing courses through
information available (reasoning), and even lead to intuitive leaps
computers cannot yet make. IF man manages to create a sentient
machine, will it not have to learn to use the feelings and emotions of
sentience just as the rest of the species thus endowed must do?

I think it might be very difficult indeed to establish that meaning in
messages is irrelevant. It is the basis of all communication, and the
only intent of generating messages in the first place. If anything
means nothing to me, I will not attempt to communicate messages
regarding that meaningless nothing. And so on.

On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 8:26 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net> wrote:
> On 3/16/2012 7:29 AM, alice wellintown wrote:
>>
>> Am gonna go wit Paul M's trinity and say N, F, and M.
>>
>> A tree falls in the park. Its primary qualities, those things that are
>> in the tree or of the tree, fall. All these primary qualities, some
>> have argued, can be distinguised from the secondary qualities,
>> qualities that are not in or of the tree but are the power to produce
>> an effect in a woman who sees the tree fall.
>>
>> What is it that has the power tp produce this effect in the woman who
>> sees the tree fall? This world, not the tree or the park or even the
>> woman, but the world as it appears is a manifestation of the power to
>> produce an effect on Woman.
>>
>> This power is not above, but below.
>>
>> Now, this is nothing new in Western thinking. Aristotle documents the
>> debate and, of course, Newton' absolute and relatives, are like like
>> atoms and the void, and are what philosophy calls a material reality.
>>
>> We are talking about N, F, and M. And these three are interested in
>> something called consciouness and so they look below it and find
>> knowledge of how we may KNOW reality.  Why are they interested in
>> consciousness? Because that is where we get to in the West when these
>> guys come along. We are, at that point, interested in Knowing and how
>> we know and what we can know and the limits of knowing and so on.
>>
>> Now there three dudes continue to have an impact depite the fact that
>> we have given up on knowing and turned to an obsession with language.
>> We live no in adigital age or revolution, nor even in a rtechnological
>> one, but ina communications revolution and that revolution is being
>> done in English. Imagine that!
>>
>
>
> And the favorite kind of consciousness of interest to the three dudes is
> FALSE consciousness
>
> M inability to see self interest
>
> N failure of will to power
>
> F desire for what is feared
>
> Which is where computers come in (strange but true)
>
> Computers aren't cursed with false consciousnesses, from which one might
> conclude all important decisions should be turned over to them, but of
> course we don't want to do that.
>
> No, our sense is that, although computer may have the advantage, we must
> plod on with our human ideologies, hangups, delusions, neuroses, etc., etc.
> and hope things will turn out fairly OK.
>
> As to the matter of knowledge we must accept the reality that we are not
> omniscient (as God is supposed to be) but are stuck with clunky old
> reason--what we now call language--and reason/language depends on even
> clunkier old concepts or ideas which no two people will agree on the meaning
> of (as if meaning meant anything).
>
> There's so much more to say, but I have to take the dog out.
>
> P
>
>



-- 
"Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant