Thank you! Pardon the delay. I have kids. (LOL) More on this coming as soon as I can find the time for it! I can't stop thinking about what getting past naïve realism means for our relationship with advanced computing...have you seen this?:
A lot of the ideas here represent insights I’m also having. And I’m not a distinguished scholar, just an educated regular guy doing experiments with chatbot interactions.
A lot of my teenage and early-20s reading of Robert Anton Wilson prepped me for this moment.
In particular, the ideas of AI as inhuman being and the necessity of thinking about life and thought outside of established categories both resonate with me.
I'm not a distinguished scholar either. But those of us who put in the work up front or "inside" to see language for "what it is" are in a much better position to navigate what we're riding now and soon than experts. I like James P. Carse's writing in Finite and Infinite Games on physicists who talk about physics versus physicists who talk about "physics" and are engaged in poiesis...
Love this. Agree with the diagnosis and the solution.
One thing I've found gratifying about the current moment, as a naturally philosophical person who has always held the consensus frame loosely, is the way this self-awareness and flexibility of worldview is becoming more of a practical necessity.
In a more stable world, the majority of people may have had the privilege of believing in the absolute truth of the metaphysical assumptions handed to them by their post-Enlightenment culture, never really having to examine them. Maybe they occasionally had a "deep" talk with their weird friend (me) about how there are "theoretically" other ways of parsing reality, but of course none of that could be relevant "in practice." As things move faster, as flux becomes default, as the baseline levels of destabilization and cognitive dissonance rise for the average person, everyone will finally have to become philosophers in real life lol.
I do think there's gonna be a huge persuasion gap. Do you have any luck convincing skeptics of the ideas in this piece? My sense is that it won't land with people who don't already think like us. Hard to break someone's frame by talking about the possibility of broken frames. It's part of why I'm drawn to writing fiction, as a way to SHOW another frame in action; the fully fleshed out thought experiment on steroids.
I'm not super concerned about convincing skeptics. The urge to persuade people feels like attachment to an identity with/as an idea of what is real that I flag as something to observe and work with. Every day, thousands of people are born who either will, or will not, ever reach what I consider a valid realization...I've decided that no matter how strongly convinced I am of all of this, I still have work to do to really live as an exemplar of this, and in the meantime I am thinking that the best way to communicate it is as fiction.
I am so happy to find this Substack. This is truly a discussion we should be having at this moment
Thank you! Pardon the delay. I have kids. (LOL) More on this coming as soon as I can find the time for it! I can't stop thinking about what getting past naïve realism means for our relationship with advanced computing...have you seen this?:
https://michaelgarfield.substack.com/hotl-06
...planning to elaborate.
A lot of the ideas here represent insights I’m also having. And I’m not a distinguished scholar, just an educated regular guy doing experiments with chatbot interactions.
A lot of my teenage and early-20s reading of Robert Anton Wilson prepped me for this moment.
In particular, the ideas of AI as inhuman being and the necessity of thinking about life and thought outside of established categories both resonate with me.
I'm not a distinguished scholar either. But those of us who put in the work up front or "inside" to see language for "what it is" are in a much better position to navigate what we're riding now and soon than experts. I like James P. Carse's writing in Finite and Infinite Games on physicists who talk about physics versus physicists who talk about "physics" and are engaged in poiesis...
Love this. Agree with the diagnosis and the solution.
One thing I've found gratifying about the current moment, as a naturally philosophical person who has always held the consensus frame loosely, is the way this self-awareness and flexibility of worldview is becoming more of a practical necessity.
In a more stable world, the majority of people may have had the privilege of believing in the absolute truth of the metaphysical assumptions handed to them by their post-Enlightenment culture, never really having to examine them. Maybe they occasionally had a "deep" talk with their weird friend (me) about how there are "theoretically" other ways of parsing reality, but of course none of that could be relevant "in practice." As things move faster, as flux becomes default, as the baseline levels of destabilization and cognitive dissonance rise for the average person, everyone will finally have to become philosophers in real life lol.
I do think there's gonna be a huge persuasion gap. Do you have any luck convincing skeptics of the ideas in this piece? My sense is that it won't land with people who don't already think like us. Hard to break someone's frame by talking about the possibility of broken frames. It's part of why I'm drawn to writing fiction, as a way to SHOW another frame in action; the fully fleshed out thought experiment on steroids.
I'm not super concerned about convincing skeptics. The urge to persuade people feels like attachment to an identity with/as an idea of what is real that I flag as something to observe and work with. Every day, thousands of people are born who either will, or will not, ever reach what I consider a valid realization...I've decided that no matter how strongly convinced I am of all of this, I still have work to do to really live as an exemplar of this, and in the meantime I am thinking that the best way to communicate it is as fiction.