Jan, I didn't say personal pride. By "pride" I don't mean stupid conceitedness. Our species is bound for destruction sooner or later. The someone who is rolling on the floor laughing at our nonsense is a personification of hopelessness. There is another someone who is a personification of what is good in men. The pride I referred to is pride in the goodness of men , and despite our imminent destruction we can keep that pride.The goodness of men, like the badness of men, is historical fact, and our demise doesn't alter facts.Jan Sand wrote: ↑April 20th, 2018, 8:04 am After a long life well stocked with massive frustrations the concept of personal pride can only be viewed with a somewhat wistful small smile. With the current society totally submerged in the wild farce of people totally devoted to getting rich while leaping towards several varieties of oblivion I can only suppose something somewhere is rolling on the floor laughing.
Can a man-made computer become conscious?
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I know that the rolling on the floor person was a figure of speech as was my figure of speech about the person that is the good in humanity.Jan Sand wrote: ↑April 21st, 2018, 4:12 am I cannot deny that many factors in social structures demand that individuals behave with intelligence, respect and consideration for the welfare of all members of society but the violations of those attitudes are so obvious on a scale of such immense thoughtlessness and brutality that the likelihood of the survival of the species and much of life on the planet is decreasing at such a pace that having hope is total unreality. Obviously that laughing individual I mentioned merely was a neutral observer far removed from the action and was totally theoretical.
I agree that the problem of evil is so enormous that hope is out of the question for pessimists like we two. Religious people make sense of the world and its problem of evil in their several religious rationales. I am not religious insofar as I believe that there is hope for the safety of our species. I am religious insofar as I believe that good is worth fighting for despite the probable outcome.
The bad men will probably get control of intelligent machines. This is not sufficient reason to give in to them.
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Jan Sand wrote: ↑April 22nd, 2018, 7:39 am One of the fundamental misunderstandings about humans or other living things is the dynamics each individual operates under and how it is either condemned or approved by some cultural standard or other. Life seeks successes in its enterprises and each living thing eventually works out means to attain that success. Mind frames differ a great deal in these activities and what may be good or evil may be judged differently under varying circumstances. There are no universal standards and that is a major problem.
The universal standard is people in harmony enough to keep individuals alive and contented enough. People who don't understand or embrace that are sociopaths of whom there examples in all societies although in some societies sociopaths are called 'madmen' and in other societies they are called 'witches' , or 'criminals', and so on. Not so? The bad men I refer to are those who care only about themselves as individuals i.e.sociopaths. I can't imagine any culture that is not about how people should live together as an issue from how the world is constituted. Men have to serve other men and intelligent machines have to be made so that they aren't reserved for the use of eccentrics.
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If I were an anthropologist which I'm not I could not expand of this complex matter in these pages. I agree with you that there are always elites and always will be elites. I am too Left-Wing and democratic to agree that elites must be as powerful as that is not just a human problem but a fundamental evolutionary dynamic and it has not only never been solved in human society, people who try to solve it are considered evil. implies. I'm not a thorough communist however and so I agree there is always an elite group in any society. I also hope for increasing social mobility so that individuals may choose to rise or sink within the spectrum of social statuses.Jan Sand wrote: ↑April 22nd, 2018, 11:16 pm You make it seem so simple and it is not. Humans have always divided themselves in families and races and religions and social classes and professions and philosophies and even in sexes and ages and each group demands to be recognized as somehow special and looked down on others. that is not just a human problem but a fundamental evolutionary dynamic and it has not only never been solved in human society, people who try to solve it are considered evil. Individual humans vary considerably and even identical twins change as each goes through varying experiences requiring the same DNA to meet the changing environment differently. People are not the same and huge resentments are created when they are treated the same way. Those eccentrics you seem to despise are the geniuses and the inventors and the artists who have made humans great and have also done horrible things to society. It is a terribly mixed bag and nobody really knows how to deal with it.
I don't think of inventors and artists as eccentrics but as avant garde leaders in their society . Actually I did hesitate before using the word 'eccentrics' as I like rebels and despised persons when they are not criminals or cruel. I hope you know what I mean now. Your image is a bell curve. I disagree that the bell curve applies to the question of social status, which I conceive of as a permanent polemic model which varies in its content.
Intelligent machines must not be allowed to belong to the lower social levels. The "lower social levels" are not to be defined by worldly power ; some very powerful and very rich people are morally bankrupt, and are sometimes criminals by national or international law.
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That you respect intellect and creativity has nothing to do with society in general who, throughout history has seen to it that they lead miserable lives and most often kills them for their originality.
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I'd support personal autonomy for intelligent machines if and only if intelligent machines were geared to the well being of the society that makes them.The somewhat amusing and dangerous growth of machines with potential intellect far greater than the humans who create them is that they will inevitably be owned by nobody but themselves.
It's not inevitable that these machines will be made by criminals, but we need to work hard to keep them out out of the scope of criminals. Same old .
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I think it might be possible. Already we have some very stupid leaders and elite groups who have power over intelligent people. It's possible for an elite or a leader to be both stupid and nice enough and to keep control of cleverer citizens.
Leaders have to obey the law. It's true that intelligent machines could be made to be criminals , and this is what we have to contend with whether or not we want to contend. They are coming, Jan, whether or not you and I want them. I don't see how they could be banned.
2023/2024 Philosophy Books of the Month
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