Responsible Patriotism
Posted by Time traveller Jack | Filed under Uncategorized
I’m Australian, and this song makes me cry every time I hear it.
A sense of connection with our country that goes beyond mere familiarity is normal, and it’s powerful. People too young to have seen either World War unite in patriotic spirit on Anzac Day. We speak of the actions of our cultural ancestors as “us”. “We” had a gold rush, “we” went to a war, “we” enacted some policy. We see it with countries, religions, cults… even protests, sports events and concerts. If you put humans in a group, they become part of a group, and it’s so very easy to convince them to give up their personal autonomy in favour of the group.
This is a normal human function. Humans that are hunting or fighting need to be able to think and act together, to allow one decision to become near-unanimous among a group. Humans in a tribe need a feeling of togetherness during celebration and day-to-day life to hold them together. But I have to wonder if we use it responsibly. I don’t just mean the danger of protests turning to riots and soforth. We have to responsibly manage our indulgence in such things to maintain our own autonomy and personal integrity.
In a religious service, this sort of feeling is often called spiritual. People chanting together in groups, becoming part of the group, feeling that awe and group feeling overtake them, claim it’s a divine experience. Only the presence of a god could make them feel such a thing. I’m not suggesting this indulgence is a bad thing, but I have known people to become addicted to these services. I used to be addicted; as a teenager I would suspend any disbelief I had on Sundays and be faithful to my God, where I could chant and feel his presence. On Monday I was back to doubting, but the lure of that feeling was enough to bring me back. I didn’t even like the people in my church; for people who see their church as their community, the lure is even more powerful.
Based on one’s country, this feeling is called patriotism. Patriotism is wonderful fun and very, very dangerous, because it’s so easily controlled, and unlike the religious example, it’s deliberately controlled by people who have an agenda. Discounting the occasional dangerous cult, religious leaders tend to be fairly benign. They’re not deliberately inciting their flock to do anything stupid. They’re just having fun, celebrating their god.
My problem is not with loving one’s country, but with unfounded patriotism; loving one’s country because of the rush it gives one. I love Australia because it’s fairly good, as countries go. Working conditions are usually fair, sexism and racism is existent but usually minimal (although we really should treat aborigines better given their high rates of alcoholism, child abuse and various debilitating diseases under our current policies), religious and political freedom is pretty good. It’s a safe country with abundant food, healthcare and career opportunities. What’s worrying, though, is how many people treat their countries, or even their favoured political parties, as if they were football teams. How many people reflexively vote liberal or labor because they always do without even checking the policies. How many people are convinced that they need to support the government because the government is the country and the country is awesome, dammit.
Blind patriotism is dangerous. Blindly supporting any regime because they make you feel inspired allows bad people to convince good people to do bad things. I’m not even going to bother giving examples because I’m sure you’re thinking of them already. If we’re not responsible and reasonable with our patriotism (or our activity in any group), we fall into the trap of believing that a country is more than a defined area sharing an admin team, that a government is more than a glorified secretarial team. “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” is a very dangerous philosophy. Ask what you can do for the people in your community, certainly, whether that community is your neighbourhood, your country or your planet. The people, not the country. The government is always subservient to the people. Always. When we forget that, we make ourselves vulnerable to bad governments.
On pleasure and desire
Posted by Time traveller Jack | Filed under Uncategorized
This blog is a little more personal than usual. For that, I apologise, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about for awhile and I want to get it written down and know what you think.
It seems to me that humans, in our culture, are a little ashamed of pleasure. In anything but children, enjoying oneself too much is indecent, a behaviour reserved for when one is drunk or surrounded only by friends. More than once, people have found my enthusiasm or openly expressed pleasure for something off-putting; people step back or tell me to calm down. No. No, I will not calm down; I will enjoy what I enjoy and I don’t see why that’s a bad thing. If I want to squeal over something like a ten-year-old girl or dissolve into giggles over a good joke then I damn well will. Surely we should celebrate and share the things that make us happy? The idea that pleasure in itself can be indecent is something that I find very puzzling.
Another thing I wanted to talk about is desire. We all know desire as that anticipation of pleasure, that feeling that we want to do something to be happy, but how many people explore desire as an emotion in itself? Generally, people either try to meet their desires or ignore them, depending on the situation and their level of impulse control, but we rarely explore it. Sometimes, we do a little experimentation, putting off eating the last chocolate in the box for awhile just to feel that anticipation of pleasure, but most people stop there.
Me, whenever I see something I want to buy, I stop for a moment and decide whether it’s worth it. And if I decide not to buy it, I don’t dismiss the desire and move on; I keep looking for awhile, keep probing that feeling, mentally experiment with the emotion. Because desire in itself is interesting. But we, as a culture, rarely explore it as anything more than a transitionary step on the way to pleasure.
Why don’t we explore these things? Why do we ignore desire and suppress pleasure?
My theory: sex.
We’re not in the Victorian era, but sex is still somewhat taboo in our culture. There are lines, things that are expected to remain discreet. And for some strange reason, any form of intense pleasure has somehow become equated with sex. Hell, people parody sexual pleasure with people, say, eating chocolate, and just the evidence of pleasure is enough for the entire audience to “get it”. Intense passion, too, is equated with sex. Extreme desire is assumed to be about sex. So these things become indecent.
Which is stupid.
There is nothing remotely sexual about my passion for science, about my friend’s love of Italian food. I’m not even sure why we’re so uncomfortable with sexual pleasure either, but that’s not really the point. There is no reason why we shouldn’t be open and explorative with our pleasures, none that I can see.
So please, readers, help me out here. Is there any merit to this sex theory? And whether there is or not… why are we such prudes about pleasure?
Living in a dream world
Posted by Time traveller Jack | Filed under Uncategorized
I had a relatively happy childhood.
My parents fought like anyone’s, but they seemed to get along on the whole. They were obviously having problems, because they divorced when I was six, but I don’t recall much in the way of fighting before then. Of course, my mother did spend a large amount of time at work or rodeos.
I also have a memory from when I was about nine or ten. My mother is an obsessive hoarder of photos, report cards and letters, so occasionally my brother and I would come across an old box of stuff and have fun going through it. On this particular occasion, I found a card I’d made years ago. It had a crude stick figure on the front covered in wriggly lines, and on the inside, in my old teacher’s handwriting, a message I had dictated that explained the gift I’d imagined for my mother – “Daddy got eaten by snakes and died. Happy Mothers’ Day.” (I had a phobia of snakes as a child, to the point where I would jump on furniture during blackouts in case the floor became covered with snakes I couldn’t see, or run out of my room screaming at night because I thought that there might be snakes in my bed.)
This is not a message from a child who is unaware that their parents are having marital problems.
I bring this up as an example of when our memory is clearly in error. This happens disturbingly often; we’ve all heard of cases where eyewitnesses who are certain of what they experienced give important details that are later found to be completely false, and experiments show that it’s possible to induce a family member to “remember” and event that was completely made up by talking about it. My housemate has vivid memories of scenes from Dr Who episodes that, according to all his searching (and I don’t doubt that it was an extremely thorough search; he’s a diehard fan), never happened. This is apparently not unusual. I have several more examples of memories from my own childhood that can’t possibly all be true, but I believe that the one above is sufficient to make my point. The fact is, humans tend to have poor memories, as anybody expected to take a test they haven’t studied for may have realised; our brain patches together snatches of memory with some logic, hindsight, and stuff that’s just plain made up, and then presents it to us as a legitimate memory.
What we experience in the present is also, for the most part, made up. Ever seen a face out of the corner of your eye, then a moment later realised it’s a shadow? Or completely failed to see something right in front of you? The eye sends a few key details about colour and position of object edges and so forth to the brain, which then just fills in the details with things we remember or are inclined to see (faces are a big one; the brain is naturally inclined to see human faces in anything that shows remote resemblance, like burns on toast).
It’s interesting, really, that this system works. Despite barely hearing, seeing or remembering anything at all in a given time, our illusions are accurate enough that we hardly notice. Our brain either covers its tracks really well (“Face! Oops, no, shadows, forget I said anything”), or relies on things that are relatively certain, at any given time, allowing the illusion that we’re so much more aware than we really are to work.
Frankly, it’s a bit scary. I feel like I’m being constantly brainwashed by myself. We’re all a bit deluded, I suppose; the question is just how well our delusions can predict the real world. And when they can’t… we’ll never know, even if everybody around us can see it.
FAQ (Or questions asked at all, really)
Posted by Time traveller Jack | Filed under Uncategorized
I’ve received a few questions over the course of this blog, so I’ve decided to answer them all in one place. It this an excuse to look like I’m posting without actually putting any effort in? Yes. Yes it is.
Where are you from?
Earth, actually. To be more precise, I’m from Australia, Earth’s Death Level.
What is a ‘meat puppet’?
My pet name for the fleshy tool that moves my brain around. It provides me with nutrients, is relatively mobile and can manipulate basic tools.
Do we have to fill in any kind of questionnaire to join the Oxytocin Avengers?
To join the Oxytocin Avengers, you must find a decoder ring in unmarked cereal boxes. This can be used to solve a secret puzzle hidden in the names of African countries (hint: start with Egypt), which will lead you to a phone number. If you’re outside Australia you may have to pay additional charges when you call that number. When the assistant growls down the phone (don’t be disconcerted, it’s a genetically engineered bear), you must reply, “the purple elephant is in the clouds”. Within 2-3 weeks, you will receive an unmarked envelope containing encoded instructions on what to do next. To decode these instructions, I recommend searching McDonald’s Happy Meals for secret decoder keyrings, or hiring a cryptographer.
Among the instructions will be information on how to find and fill out the questionnaire.
What are you wearing?
I am wearing a cushioned organic bone skull lightly topped with flesh, skin and hair, resting upon a body of late Quartenary period design that acts as a vehicle and basic tool for manipulating the world, as well as providing necessary energy and nutrients, regulating my temperature, and providing defense against microscopic attack. The body is protected by fabric coverings and a sturdy house, made largely of wood and glass. This forms a protective barrier against my central layer, a gaseous pocket consisting mostly of Nitrogen with a few other trace gases and, for footwear, a very large oblate spheroid consisting largely of iron and water. This part of the ensemble is held on gravitationally; no buttons or zippers required. My atmospheric pocket contains layers for insulation and protection against damage caused by the outer layer of my outfit; a dazzling coat of stars approximately 9 000 000 000 000 000km long.
Actually, that outfit is pretty complicated. I can see why information was requested.
Do you like apples?
I do not dislike apples. As an enjoyable food to eat, I rate them above bananas but below oranges.
How do I add you to my RSS reader?
Ah, the dreaded question. RSS readers mean I have to do regular updates… damn you, Electric Bikes! Damn youuuu!
Some poking around shows that the “Entries RSS” link at the bottom of the page, next to the recent comment notices, appears to work fine. Can’t be sure about the operation of the comments RSS until I get some more comments. To eliminate confusion, I’ve also added a link at the bottom of each post, which you can see if you click the “read more” link. Share and enjoy.
I disagree with you about…
Brilliant! Comment under the relevant blog post. My posts are intended to be a launching point for discussion; they rarely contain information I’m particularly certain about, so I’m not even sure if I agree with them.
If you have any questions about me or this blog, send them to… me, through this blog, I guess, and I’ll answer them as soon as I find myself searching desperately for material again.
What We Are
Posted by Time traveller Jack | Filed under Uncategorized
I was checking out Jules the other day on youtube.
For those of you who are either too lazy or have too poor internet to click the link, Jules is an AI created awhile back by Hanson Robotics, and he is adorable to those of us whose understanding of subtle facial expressions is too poor to be greatly affected by the uncanny valley. In one video, he claims that he’s getting smarter and he can’t wait to achieve “true consciousness”, which raises the question: what the hell does that mean?
The concept of consciousness is one that has always puzzled me. Intelligence, although defined blurrily, is understandable; we may not have a consensus on the details, but some things are better at utilising information and problem-solving than others, and we bundle these capabilities together and call them “intelligence”. Self-awareness? Again, pretty simple, although I’ll delve into that a little later on. But consciousness? I’m sorry, I just have absolutely no idea what this means. Dictionary.com defines consciousness (as relevant to this context) thus:
1.
the state of being conscious; awareness of one’s own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc.
“The state of being conscious” is pretty useless, but the rest looks an awful lot like a definition of self-awareness to me. So why do people need to hide it behind an obscure word? If it’s about being self-aware, why not just say that? Why dress it up in complicated “essence of the soul” bullcrap? Some people put them together… if my admittedly poor memory serves, one episode of Star Trek defines essential sapient qualities as “intelligence, self-awareness, and consciousness”. Call me cynical, but I think a lot of people throw this word into sentences without first considering what they’re trying to say.
If we stick with the self-awareness definition, though, that brings me to another point. How do we know that somebody is self-aware? How do we know that we ourselves are self-aware?
I would argue (and I have no idea of the opinions of my readership so I’m going to present this as a controversial opinion in the interests of erring on the side of caution) that self-awareness is pretty simple in concept; one must merely be capable of recognising one’s mind as an entity distinct from the world at large, and aware that one can influence one’s condition through the world at large. Hell, the second condition isn’t even strictly necessary, merely necessary to the particular model that I am proposing that humans use to achieve this.
Sorry, I’m not making much sense. Let me slow down.
As far as I’m concerned, anything capable of justifying to itself that it is self-aware, is self-aware. Another way of thinking of this is anything capable of understanding and using the concept of “I”. To stick with our AIs, Jules is very obviously aware of his own existence and identity, and correctly distinguishes himself from others with ease. Jabberwacky is capable of using the word “I”, but not understanding the concept; it will throw words back at you without regard for their original target, which is why it frequently tries to convince people that they are chatbots. Jabberwacky is a simple chat program that cannot be said to comprehend or interpret information at all.
But where does this leave us? Robots like Jules can certainly simulate awareness in their speech, information processing and behaviour, but do they have that little sense, that certainty, that “I” exist? That anchor in every thought that can only be suspended briefly and with great concentration, that… that sense of “self” that shows true awareness?
This is, naturally, an impossible thing to test; in fact there is no way to test whether the people around us possess this feeling of true self-awareness. We just assume they do. I would argue that the question itself is irrelevant because this sense is an illusion; a symptom of our programming, if you will.
Robots like Jules demonstrate self-knowledge and interest in self-preservation in their words and behaviour. Although they may not approach the complexity of humans, this is beyond question. They can distinguish people and a world outside their own minds, and they learn what they can and cannot influence directly; these are the simple building blocks of awareness. They can correctly use the word “I”, not just grammatically, but to build new concepts and ideas and explore themselves.
What do humans do? The same thing. Most of what we learn about ourselves comes from receiving information from outside our brains. We learn about our own personalities, behaviours and interests from the way we interact with the world and the emotions the world causes us to feel. We are barely aware of our subconscious mind, and most of what we believe we are thinking or think we believe comes from listening to our own conscious thoughts. It is the constant feedback from the little part of the world we directly control (our bodies) that remind us of our existence; it is the talk and behaviour of others that remind us of their existence. The concept of “me” and “you” creates the sense of such things. The simulation of a sense of self IS a sense of self; interpreting behaviour stemming from this allows awareness of that sense.
You can watch such senses develop in an infant. A very small baby will act on instinct and cry when it wants something, but it isn’t long before they begin to learn the control that they have over themselves and start doing things just because they want to and for no other reason. As they first begin to talk, babies seem quite selfish. This is because they don’t grasp the concept of other people really existing yet. Even after grasping the concept of object permanence, children take a while to understand that other people see, feel and know different things than they do. They take some time to learn that “I” is separate from the entire world. “Mine” means “come on, world, order yourself properly”; a shouted demand to a mother is a command much like telling one’s arm to move, if more roundabout. It takes a long time to develop a sense of others and thus fully develop a sense of self.
So if a sense of self awareness is created by the behaviours that we usually think of as symptoms of self awareness, where does that leave modern AIs? With humans, it would seem; the difference in complexity is obvious, but this is more a quantitative matter than a qualitative one. Someday they’re going to be better than us, and then this sort of playful musing is going to turn into very serious discussion. Probably involving unnecessary death.
“Intelligence, self-awareness, and consciousness?” Congratulations, Jules Hanson – according to some random Star Trek episode, in the Federation you’d qualify for human rights.
Stockholm Syndrome
Posted by Time traveller Jack | Filed under Uncategorized
I’m sitting here, petting a cat, and thinking.
Cats, as everybody knows, tend to attach themselves most strongly to those who feed and cuddle them. Common advice for bonding with a new cat is “make sure the cat realises that you’re the one who feeds it.” Dog people take this as a sign of the cat’s secret cold, manipulative nature. Cat people point out that such people tend to be the ones most affectionate towards and well known by the cats, and that cats will sometimes attach to other family members.
Me, I can’t help but consider the position of most pets. They have a constant food source provided by one person or a small group of people. Many pets, especially indoor pets, are constantly imprisoned, their interrelationship with others severely constricted. Their captors control every aspect of their livelihoods; when and what they can eat, where they can go, what they can do.
What I’m suggesting, of course, is that the “affectionate” behaviours exhibited by so many mammalian pets are disturbingly close to that phenomenon we call Stockholm Syndrome.
The concept of having a pet is, frankly, creepy, although the psychology behind the behaviour is unlikely to be the same. Cats and dogs don’t think and behave like humans, but they are predisposed to such behaviours already; bred for gentleness, loyalty, or childish behaviour.
Bringing me to another interesting point; from this perspective, why do so many children, even abused children, love their parents?
Boredom
Posted by Time traveller Jack | Filed under Uncategorized
I apologise for the unscheduled hiatus.
Stuff happened, and I was brought back to this blog only when somebody commented and I realised that somebody does, in fact, still read it. Although they’ll probably get bored soon, like I did. People do that.
Which brings us, quite neatly, to the topic of boredom.
It frankly amazes me that any human can be bored, ever. I won’t repeat myself, but all that wonderful capacity for thought and internal audiovisual equipment I alluded to last time should keep us entertained indefinitely. I’m a real science geek, and frequently mourn the fact that I’ll only have one lifespan to explore a tiny fraction of what the universe has to offer, and I imagine other disciplines are similar… yet I can sit here looking at random websites for hours at a time, world slowly moving on outside my window, shelf of books on science (some of them unread) behind me. The mere fact that this is possible – common, natural even – is puzzling, and more than a little scary. There’s never a lack of activities to do or things to think about. Time should be a precious commodity of which there is never enough, not too much.
But when you think about it, that may not be the case. I would argue that boredom is not only a natural, but an advantageous function of the human mind. Brains need down-time, time to retread old area, motivation to invent new things… many of my best ideas are born out of boredom. I would attribute the very existence of art to boredom, and probably philosophy in general and, by extension, science. I think people become bored before they sit down and start really thinking, creating or inventing; many things that we consider great have been invented as tools against boredom. Boredom is like a pain response; a mental prod that says, instead of “that’s hot, take your hand away and treat the burn”, “nothing’s been happening for awhile, go do something”. And sometimes we take the painkiller of this analogy, which would be twittering or staring idly up at the sky, and sometimes we read a book, or write a book, or invent a new type of paperclip and make millions of dollars. Because, as previously mentioned, humans are lazy, and require a negative consequence for doing nothing before they get off their butts and discover the positive consequences of doing something. Boredom isn’t so much a sign of a useless, wasted mind, as it is a symptom of a mind crying out to be used, just before the voice gets strong enough to have an effect.
For example, boredom drove me to post again, and we all know that this blog is the best thing on the internet.
Humans can be awesome
Posted by Time traveller Jack | Filed under Uncategorized
Like this:
http://www.symphonyofscience.com/
Supercomputers and laziness
Posted by Time traveller Jack | Filed under Uncategorized
For generalised tasks, the best computers in the world are the ones inside human skulls. There are literally billions of them on the planet.
The puzzling thing is how rarely they are used.
I have witnessed people search three rooms for a calculator to perform a relatively simple bit of arithmetic, shell out high amounts of money they don’t have to watch any random movie (as opposed to one they’re specifically interested in) just to fill the time instead of using the highly specialised audiovisual production equipment in their own heads, and spend an hour looking online for the right spice combination for a sauce instead of performing a relatively simple home experiment.
What the hell, humanity?
And I do it too. Because we are, by nature, lazy. Laziness is a vital sense for survival in most environments, where the conservation of energy is vital. Not so in the modern first world, where time and energy are in abundance, but biological functions don’t switch off like that.
Which is unfortunate, because the less natural applications of our brains are so much more exciting than the basic ones. In the modern world, we can indulge our base desires beyond the point at which they are beneficial; consume sugar until we become ill, facebook our way into social retardation, and relax until our muscles all but atrophy… but what about applications of the mind beyond the most primitive urges, applications that they weren’t really designed for?
To default to my favourite example of all time… science is absolutely wonderful. It is also completely alien to the way the brain functions. To force a human brain to base rational thought on empirical evidence and translate both so that they are properly compatible is like pulling apart a toaster to make a space heater. It took us generations to figure it out, eras of philosophical thought building on one another, to stumble upon scientific method. It’s still a bit touch-and-go. And should human society collapse, we can kiss it goodbye. It’s just not a natural way to think, to the point where people with little or no interest in science and people who perform science often have trouble relating on even simple concepts. It’s expensive intellectual jewellery, a display of decadence, an indulgence that proves that we have the resources to divulge. Unlike jewellery, though, it yields high returns for society… and because academia exists mostly to perpetuate itself, and science is pressured to create a system in which we can afford it (high health, resources and leisure time), the whole system is self-perpetuating. And thus it survives… for as long as we apply our internal computers to it, and don’t give in too much to the desire to be lazy.
Like most bodily organs, the brain’s efficiency depends on its use. As an athlete must train their bones and musles, and a heavy drinker must train their liver through careful application of alcohol, a thinker must train their mind, and keep doing so, is we are to continue to push the limits of what we can apply this organ to outside its designed use.
Now please excuse me, I must check my Facebook and watch some children’s cartoons.
On heritage
Posted by Time traveller Jack | Filed under Uncategorized
Humans are greatly influenced by the culture and environment in which they grow up. It can be interesting to observe two humans from completely different cultures interact and see how easily signals can get crossed, and it is very useful for one to have at least a basic understanding of how the environment and standards with which one grew up may affect one’s behaviour and perceptions.
That said, I do not get this heritage thing.
What I mean by that is this strange connection with distant and sometimes even dead cultures tied to one’s ancestry. The fact that I have strong German ancestry doesn’t make me feel particularly connected to Germany, and I don’t see how it makes me any more German than, say, somebody with Indian heritage who was raised in basically the same environment that I was. Unless one is tracing a particular risk of disease, the minor genetic differences aren’t particularly important. Australians with Irish heritage aren’t any more into foreign alcohol, and Australians with Italian heritage aren’t any louder or more open, unless they’ve been raised that way (such as if their parents were raised in those respective cultures and take their stereotypes seriously). History is mildly interesting, but I don’t see why the history of my distant genetic donors is any more interesting than any other history, nor why I should feel particularly connected to it. My ancestors may have done some very cool things, but they are their successes, not mine. Humans often do feel connected to such things, I just cannot figue out why.
Perhaps it’s yet another one of those psychological quirks that probably made sense in tribal societies but is completely useless and nonsensical now. But even so, one would expect that a connection to the current “tribe” should be enough. Most humans have families and their own little pocket culture to belong in; ancestral baggage seems unnecessary. And yet, people not only find such information interesting, but such a connection seems integral to psychological health. People insist on knowing where they, specifically, came from in genetic terms, even if such information has no bearing on them whatsoever. The strong cultural histories of certain minority groups is particularly telling – people speak of things that happened to “us” before they were even born ( we can observe the same behaviour in people speaking of their countries sometimes too, although I certainly had nothing to do with anything soldiers may have done in WWII whose only connection to me is country of origin).
Humans need to belong, like any organism does. Humans need not only a physical lair to call home, but a cultural one; an identity, a place on the n-dimensional Venn diagram of intersecting communities to stand and say “this is where I, culturally, live”. I get that. If we pay attention, we can feel our claim to such a home in every movement, every cultural reference, the way we slant our words or dress or cross-reference our own opinions with those of others. We are what we are here, now, and we are, to an extent, what we have been in the past. We are influenced by what the people we interact with are, and have been. For this reason, a child of Japanese parents who speaks Japanese at home and was raised on Japanese cultural celebrations is more Japanese than I am; when examining their own behaviour and biases, it makes sense for them to consider Japanese culture as one of their parent cultures in a way that it totally irrelevant for me. But somebody raised in basically the same environment as me who happens to have genes that mostly hang around in Japan certainly isn’t. Am I missing something here?
