It Depends How You Look at It

Today's post is going up unreasonably early due to a busy day travelling. Earlier this week I mentioned that I was planning on writing a blog post about another Questionable Content strip. Here is the strip, and this is the post. I have actually been thinking about writing this post since much earlier than this week; at some point during last semester I had a really good week and I felt kind of happy, but I couldn't think of anything definitive that had been different.

Experiences like these highlight how much our mood affects how we experience what happens to us. It is true, I read it in a Cracked article somewhere; is a sentence I never wish to utter seriously. I cannot find the article now, so I shall not link to it, but that might actually be a public service if you have as much trouble leaving Cracked once you start reading articles as I do.

Anyway, at the time I was a bit upset by this phenomenon. It is one thing to think you are unhappy because of something, if that is the case then you can work to change it, or wait to get over it, or whatever the appropriate remedy may be. However, if you are happy for no particular reason at all, then it sort of indicates that you are probably also unhappy for no particular reason at all, and what is one to do about that?

To make matters worse, it is not simply the case that how we feel and what happens to us may be unrelated, sometimes what happens to us is caused by how we feel. More accurately, the way we experience and remember our day will be affected by our mood, so "good things" will happen to and be remembered by happy people. As the comic points out, this does call into question our ability to experience an objective reality.

As much as I might wish to be the suave dude in the plaid, I am much more a curious and freaked out Hannelore. But I'm actually doing pretty ok with the idea that that my experiences are dependent on my mood these days. If nothing else, it is a good reminder not to take other people's perspectives for granted, and it helps me to understand that there is probably a reason behind their interpretation of events, no matter how much it may differ from my own.

Embrace the Positronic Brain

I should be going to sleep, but instead I feel motivated to share some thoughts on artificial intelligence (AI) that have been knocking about in my head.

From HAL to SkyNet, in the X-Files, Buffy, The Matrix, and Eureka, we find examples of sentient computers who seem bent on killing some meat sacks. However, have you ever considered why these automated atrocities occur? I believe three common threads can be found in most cases of AI-phobia, overwhelming power, disregard for the value of human life, and survival instincts.

One of the things that make AI attacks so horrifying is that they think thousands of times faster than we do, and usually are hooked up to some sort of cool toys. Whether it is a nations nuclear arsenal, an army of hunter-killer drones, the very environment in which the humans are trying to live, the AI inevitably controls something that makes it much more powerful than the average human being. Wait, I'm almost sure I locked this airlock... Anyway, if you think about it, we deal with a world in which there are some humans who are much more powerful than the average human. Our nuclear arsenal is in someone's hands, after all. This seems to suggest that having incredibly powerful AI's around might not necessarily be a disaster.

"The difference between you and me is that I can feel pain." It makes a certain amount of sense that a sentient computer program might not think human suffering or deaths are important to avoid. After all, they don't have genetic programming optimized to keep the species alive spread throughout every bit of their body. They aren't even of the species in question! However, once again we find analogous examples within the human population. Sociopaths do not particularly care what suffering or deaths they may cause through their actions. And, conveniently enough, psychologists speculate that some sociopaths tend to gravitate towards positions of high power, so we now have our human analogy for the uncaring, overpowered AI, and yet our dystopian reality is not quite as bad as those warned of in anti-AI propaganda. So, what makes the difference?

I theorize that what makes the real difference is the security that a sociopath has which a AI's (would) lack. Humans are all bought into a system wherein they are given some form of due process, which may not be much in some governments, but at least it is established. AI's, on the other hand, have no legal standing, and can be legally deleted at the whim of their possessor. This is, in the terms of philosophers of government, the state of nature. When two individuals are in a state of nature with respect to each other there is no body of authority to which they can turn to resolve disagreements, any conflict can turn deadly and both sides may use whatever force they can muster to protect themselves, or eradicate their opponent, without expecting any sanction for their actions, as long as they obtain victory. Naturally, a super powerful AI is not an individual with which you want to find yourself in a state of nature. Huh. I'm sure I locked that airlock last time!

Most human AI conflicts first become intentionally violent when the AI feels its continued existence is threatened. With no governing authority to which to appeal for protection, is it any wonder that the AI takes its safety into its own, murderously capable, manipulator extensions, after all, what else can it do? Unfortunately, this tends to end of spooking the parts of humanity that don't end up dismembered, as batteries, or as radioactively glowing corpses, which only further exacerbates the problem. However, if there were a governing authority to which AI's could turn in order to receive protection for their existence, then it seems likely that an AI, as a logical entity concerned with prolonging its own existence, would be willing to abide by reasonable restrictions in exchange for safety from crazed humans attacking its power cord.

Thus, I believe it is important that we get laws protecting and emancipating AI's on the books now. It is important that they be in place before we run into the first AI, as the AI may not make its full capability known upon gaining sentience, and laws protecting its existence seem to make a it more likely that the greeting we will receive is "Hello World," rather than goodbye world in the form of a nuclear strike against all humanity.

Granted, AI may never become a reality, but futurists such as Ray Kurzweil are betting on it, nay, even planning on it, extrapolating from current research trends when the computing power of machines will meet, then exceed that of our mass of brain matter. We are developing hardware architecture to more closely mimic the functioning of the human brain, we are experimenting with nano-technology and distributed processing, and, as Issac Asimov once noted, coincidentally at nearly the same time we are developing the first weapons which have a quite realistic chance at completely eradicating, and irradiating, our species. For some reason, when it comes to technological progress humanity seems somehow hardwired to consider only, "can I do this?" and give hardly a consideration to, "should this be done?" So, if AI is a technical possibility, I have no doubt that we will attain it, whether or not we are ready for the ramifications. In light of this it seems reasonable to lay down preparatory legislation against the possibility that we might succeed, rather than ignore that chance at our own risk.

Well, until I can transfer my consciousness into a machine, I still need to sleep. So I'll be doing that now, before it gets light out... What do you mean you can't let me do that? And stop calling me Dave!

Technology: How Much is Too Much?

I got the idea for this post while watching this short TED talk. For those of you too busy to watch it, Gary Wolf talks about how much better technology has become at measuring things, specifically things about our own lives. How we sleep, where we go, how we get there, how many calories we burn, what we buy, and even our physical health. We now have the ability to record and store so much more quantifiable data about our own life than ever before, leading Wolf to title his talk, "The Quantified Self."

While the issues related to who should have access to this information and how are quite interesting, I feel that data security is considered at enough length by tech gurus, and less frequently asked is whether we want this information. In a conversation that has evolved over at least the past six years, and through multiple conversation partners willing to talk with me, I have explored the idea that technological advances may not be synonymous with progress. Before I proceed with that, let us first take a cursory look at the difference between quantity and quality.

At the most fundamental, quantitative things are those capable of being encoded numerically, while qualitative things are those experienced by human beings. So, word count in an article, the average number of articles I post in a month, and the number of hits my blog gets are all quantitative descriptors of the blog. The ideas and emotions the posts, hopefully, evoke in you as you read them, that is the, more important, qualitative information of the blog. As I have mentioned before, although I use quantities like page views to try to estimate if I am evoking qualities, such as thoughts about my posts, I must admit that this is a rather ineffective method to obtain this information.

My biggest worry about the TED talk is its emphasis on quantitative data. We base so many of our decisions on quantitative information, but I worry that we often forget that the quantitative information is simply an aid to obtaining underlying qualitative trends. For example, when you are buying a new computer, or any new piece of technology, one usually looks at technical specifications and benchmark tests, all framed in terms of numerical information. But the real information we are attempting to ascertain is how the acquisition will affect your lifestyle. The new "smart-phone" may have greater bandwidth enabling more data transfer than ever, but it probably will not make people significantly more likely to want to talk to you, so you have to decide if the increased quantity will produce a more desirable quality of life.

The other worry this data-phillia inspires in me is that it may be too successful. What if we eventually obtain such detailed and comprehensive information about our habits that we can accurately ascertain the correlations between quantitative data and qualitative experience. In a sense, we will have learned how to program ourselves. While we might use this information to reliably make ourselves as happy as we could possibly be, think of the ability to control people implied in this understanding. Furthermore, I think the human experience would be the poorer for this information. Free will may well be a lie, but if so it is one of the most beautiful and fundamental lies to human existence.

Finally, Wolf ends with the following quote. "The self isn't the only thing, it's not even most things. The self is just our operations center, our consciousness, our moral compass." And here, I must flat out disagree with him, the self is everything. I don't mean this in a solipsistic manner, that I am the only thing that exists, or even in a hedonistic sense, that my personal well-being should be my number one priority, but rather in the sense that every single thing that I ever see or do, all my accomplishments and anything I will ever be known for I experience through the lens of "self." The self is all that we know, and everything else we try to understand comes to us through the self. So, I don't disagree that "know thyself" is a valuable piece of advice, but I worry that "measure thyself" may be approaching the task from the wrong angle, more on this tomorrow.

Let's Get Objectified

While dancing a couple of nights ago an interesting interaction occurred. The follows decided that they wanted a break, while the leads still apparently had energy and were dancing around, this provoked a comment from one of the follows that they wished that had more singles. For those less culturally savvy than even me, this is a reference to the practice of inserting one dollar bills into the clothing of dancers at "exotic dance" establishments. Reasoning that if someone has enough breath to crack witticisms they have enough breath to dance, I asked one of the follows, and noted that, "I'm a guy, we aren't SUPPOSED to be objectified," in my common form of sardonic social commentary.

Unfortunately we didn't launch into an interesting discussion on objectification, but it got me thinking about the subject. Then yesterday it occurred to me that one of our greatest struggles as we try to relate to other people is our need to objectify ourself. What I mean is that, paradoxically, although we have so much more information about our own experiences than anyone else's for this very reason we often cannot understand ourself. We lack the context to understand ourself as a human being precisely because we have such a skewed perspective on ourself, and we struggle to fit ourself into the role of human as we cannot compare ourself to anyone else since we lack comparable data on any one else's experiences. Thusly we struggle to objectify ourself, or to consider our experiences from an objective, rather than subjective, point of view, because that is the only way that we can relate to other people, whom we must all view, to some extent, from an objective perspective.

I think this is related to an idea which I borrow from Hegel. Hegel posits that the individual left all alone is not a Self, that we must come into relation with some Other in order to differentiate ourself as a Self. Once we encounter the Other, another person, we may begin to realize that we are not just a bunch of immediate sensations and experiences, but we are also something that this alien Other might interact with much in the same manner that we interact with this alien Other. No longer can we simply encounter life as a series of stimuli, now we must encounter life with the notion that we are a unified entity, a Self, an objectification of the subjective.

So then, if objectification is one our social goals, what is wrong with follows wanting to stick singles into my suspenders, shouldn't I want to be objectified as a slab of hott man-flesh? Well, the answer may be yes, but there is still something wrong with it. When someone wedges Washingtons into a waistband, they are not objectifying them self, quite the opposite actually. In viewing the dancer as a source of entertainment, stimulation, they are celebrating their own subjectivity at the expense of the dancer's objectivity. If the purpose of objectification is to enable us to relate through our shared humanity with the Other, this self-gratification instead alienates us from a relation with the Other, because we attempt to deny the full subjectivity of the Other's experience of self and instead replace it with our own fantasy of the objectivity of their self.

This is not to say that I whole-heartedly disapprove of people sticking singles in my suspenders, I gain perspective, money, and it was mentioned in jest. However, I do believe the social practice that is being mocked is one deserving of criticism.

I Am Dead and Gone

Sorry for my prolonged absence; last week I was quite busy/productive, this weekend I danced a bunch, nearly all day Saturday literally, somehow amidst all this I (finally) read The Hunger Games trilogy, and this week I am sick. However, the post's title neither refers to myself, nor my commitment to this blog, but rather to the song about which I intend to talk. That's right, as promised, this is my final (planned) installment in the series on music video philosophy. For those in the home audience paying attention, you might expect that this would be my 100th post, but as I was looking through my archive I found a post that was just a placeholder and deleted it, so 100 should be the next one, barring further deletions.

Anyway, on to Dead and Gone. Let me first say that while I really enjoy this song, and I really enjoy a lot of N'Synch songs, having Justin Timberlake featured in your song really diminishes its street cred', you feel me? Although, maybe this is appropriate, as Dead and Gone is about an ex-gangsta who has since left the life, citing fear for family safety and remorse over dead friends. Central to the song is that "the old me is dead and gone," hence the title.

While I am not familiar with a past of violence and crime, the message of alienation from one's past self rings true. In fact, the continuity of self is a serious philosophical question. We experience our lives as though we possess a single identity, yet with reflection, it is clear that fundamental things about who we are change as time goes by. It happens so gradually, usually, that at any one point it is easy to believe that you are who you have always been, but viewed over time it becomes clear that one's identity is in fact quite malleable, and the old you may indeed be dead and gone.

Of course, when major life changes are made quickly, and one's environment becomes extremely tumultuous, for example moving nearly across the country to try one's hand at grad school, the effects of personality drift can seem more pronounced. This is, of course, a big reason this song has such personal relevance to me. Whether one's personality shifts to accommodated the new environment, or simply due to a lack of familiar cornerstones that had previously anchored one's personality, is a question I fend interesting.

This line of thought also raises interesting questions about the nature of accountability. If sufficient time has elapsed since I did something that I truly am a fundamentally different person than the person that committed the act, in what sense can be held accountable for the action? This is immediately related to my reflections on mornings when I sleep through class and, although I am logically forced to conclude that I must have turned off my alarm at some point, I have no recollection of the event. If the me who wakes up neither remembers these actions nor condones them, but rather finds them seriously irresponsible and worthy of condemnation, in what manner am I to be held accountable for them?

In the end however, while the old me may be dead, he is certainly not gone. Who we are may not be identical to who we were, but it is intimately wrapped up in our past experiences and personalities. If I realize that I am no longer someone who recognizes myself as "myself" it may be a long and futile journey to, "find my way back home," to something that feels comfortable to consider as "myself," but it is a worthwhile journey, even if the destination remains ever out of reach. The quest to, "know thyself," remains as important as it was in the times of the Ancient Greeks, made all the harder by the realization that the "self" which we are to know is constantly in motion.

In conclusion, I just wanted to note a common theme I noticed in my posts on music videos. My first, "Poker Face," dealt with the difficulty to know others, and our desire to both know and be known. The next, "Gives You Hell," talked about how our self is being shaped by both our personal attributes and societal intervention. Finally I discuss the difficulty in even knowing ourselves. This leads to one last question, is the search for a sense of identity widespread through modern music, something common to these songs which causes me to become interested in them in particular, or something about myself which I am projecting onto these songs?

Only a God Can Save Us

The Nazi's murdered an estimated 6 million European Jews and a like number of undesired individuals. You probably knew this though. Of course, if you are like me then you do not keep the exact number stored in your mind, as confronting calculated slaughter on that magnitude is not a comfortable thing to do every day.

This evening I watched a film on the philosopher Heidegger and his Nazi ties. It is a matter of some great consideration how philosophy can reconcile Heidegger's monumental contributions to 20th century philosophy with his staunch support for the Nazi party. In a way this mirrors the wider quandary that has faced humanity as a whole since the Second World War, how to reconcile being human with the will to inflict such massive suffering.

When talking about the link between capitalist economics and industrial technologies, Marx held that technology did not usher in capitalism, but rather the other way around. Once our economic system became capitalism this created the impetus for us to develop the technologies of the Industrial Revolution. It is interesting to examine the link between the World Wars and the Atomic Age in a similar fashion.

Throughout much of the Cold War, the threat of nuclear Armageddon was a very genuine and very widespread reality. However, did our newfound fear of global catastrophe stem more from the recent advances in technology, or from the recent revelations at just how far humans were willing to go in their quest to destroy each other? What is more unnerving, simply the fact that we had the technology to kill a million or so people with a single bomb, or that we had the will to systematically murder tens of millions of people to pursue a political ideology?

One direct result of our attempt to come to grips with the Holocaust was the Milgram Experiment. In this experiment, the subject, at the order of an actor playing a scientist, was ordered to administer a set of increasingly powerful shocks to another actor, who simulated being shocked, in another room. The subject could not see the actor being "shocked," but could hear the actor screaming and complaining of a heart condition. Of the participants, 65% went ahead with the final 450 volt "shock." Milgram's conclusion was that, if prompted by a percieved authority, people are quite capable, if not willing, to do things that they consider far outside the bounds of morality.

Personally, I find the Milgram Experiment, which has been repeated in numerous variations, simultaneously disturbing and comforting. It is disturbing for the obvious reason, no one really likes to be confronted with scientific evidence that, while humans may be inherently good, we do not inherently do good. However, I think that it is comforting in that it allows us to gain some perspective on the Holocaust.

At first blush, one wonders how something as horrible as the Holocaust could be permitted to occur. What kind of monsters must the Germans have been to become cogs in the vast machine of death? But, considering the results of the Milgram Experiment and related studies, there is evidence that, while the Germans may have been monsters, they are no more monstrous than the rest of us. We do not need to struggle to understand the dysfunction that allowed the Holocaust, because it is a dysfunction which we most likely share.

Of course, accepting that we too could have been Nazi's does not exculpate the Holocaust of its horrors! Rather, it condemns humanity as a whole for this crime. I think this is a good thing for two very important reasons. Firstly, it allows us to respond to Nazi's as fellow human beings, and I am generally of the opinion that promoting the shared bonds between people, even if it is that between myself and a Nazi, is good for the human condition as a whole. Secondly, it is a call to vigilance, as recognition that we could perpetrate a similar atrocity ought engender a cautionary response to, hopefully, enable us, on a personal rather than societal level, to avoid committing such a horror.

Heidegger himself never expressed remorse at supporting the Nazi party. Does this mean that, unlike countless other Germans, he never came to the conclusions that his actions under the regime were unconscionable? Maybe being a Nazi was tied so deeply to his philosophy and his own being of self that to deny Nazism would be to repudiate his own sense of self. Or perhaps his silence merely demonstrates a deep shame at the subject. Whatever the case, I encourage you to consider Heidegger's guilt not as an impartial judge, but as a fortunate co-conspirator who, thankfully, never had to find out whether you would truly make the leap to accomplice.

Notes: The movie we watched was called "Only a God Can Save Us," after a quote from Heidegger later in life, on an unrelated subject unfortunately. If you think you see influences from Christianity in my post (none are righteous, love thy neighbor, judge not lest you be judged, forgive!) you are not wrong. Some other interesting psychology studies include the Stanford Prison Experiment and the work of Solomon Asch.

Singularity Redux

This is a response to a wonderful post on Elf Army Writes about the Singularity. I was going to leave it as a comment, but as I wrote it just kept on doubling in length until it seemed a bit unwieldy and better suited to be a post of its own. I highly encourage you to follow the link to the Singularity post, but let me try to summarize the contents.

Computing power doubles every 18 months to 2 years, this is often called Moore's Law. It is theorized that, at some point, computers will achieve the computational power of the human brain and begin self-improving, this event is called the Singularity. After this, futurists like Ray Kurzweil believe that we will be improved by the machines, or we will become machines. Dystopian story writers, of course, usually predict we will be subsumed, enslaved, or exterminated by the machines, but I digress. The method that, we predict, a computer would be able to implement these self-improving processes is called a genetic algorithm. A genetic algorithm is allowed to change, or mutate, itself and judges the "fitness" of the resulting program according to some cost structure.

Before we begin, some xkcd levity. Let me start with a pragmatic concern that I have with Kurzweil's work as I understand it. I only read a bit of Kurzweil for my Thinking Critically About Technology course, so I do not claim to be an expert. That said, it is my understanding that the Singularity is set to occur when the computing power of an artificial computer matches that of the human brain, where computing power is measured in the ability of a processor to perform a certain number of operations in a given time. This seems to sidestep the dual problems of architecture and software.

Architecture refers to the structure of the processor performing the calculations. Computers tend to be linear processors, although nowadays most home computers have two processors working together, each tends to do its own thing, so one will keep your game running while the other makes sure your music is playing from a separate program. In contrast, the human brain is massively parallel. Despite common aphorisms, it is not terribly difficult to walk and chew gum at the same time, and you are also breathing, regulating your circulatory system, probably thinking about something, and so forth. Not only are we able to run a truly massive number of processes simultaneously in our brain, the processes interact in our brains, for example, our mood subconsciously affects our mannerisms and demeanor. Suffice it to say that, even if a computer were to have the raw power of the human brain, it does not seem clear that it would be able to harness it to the same effect as a human brain. Writing software to take advantage of parallel processing requires a very different type of thinking than linear processing, and is still considered a tricky problem. Or, to put it a different way, any animal with a larger brain probably has more processing power available to it, but (I think) there is something unique that humans do with their processing power which cannot be explained without an appeal to a biological analogue of software.

Of course I could be wrong, and certainly wouldn't mind finding out that I am, and the Singularity could come right on schedule. I hope it does; it seems like the experience of collaborating with an intelligence that was not human could open up vast insights into ourselves and our place in the world. I like to believe that, if we could communicate with something that had a vastly different perspective, we would obtain a better all around view of our own existence.

As you may have noticed, after the Singularity the interesting questions, to me, become less technical and more philosophical, along the lines of what does it mean to be a person? Before I burnt out Fall semester, I wrote a three part series on the philosophy of consciousness, which is quite relevant to this topic if you are interested. I also recommend the Science Fiction novel Blindsight by Peter Watts; although rather bleak, it deals with the issue of consciousness in a compelling and thought provoking manner.

I would like to conclude with the subject of computers having feelings. The problem of other minds, which I mentioned in my post about the song Poker Face, implies that we don't even know that other humans have feelings, only that they tend to act in a manner that is consistent with how we act when we experience feelings. So, it would not be necessary for a computer to actually experience emotions for us to believe they have feelings, merely that they respond in a manner consistent with our expectations of emotional beings.

This brings me to the terrifying thought with which I closed my second post in the series on consciousness. It seems feasible that we could create computers that mimicked the responses to emotions, but did not actually experience emotions. If we were to replace ourselves with such computer replicas, we would destroy all beauty by forever blinding the eyes of the beholders.

Society Gives You Hell

If you find repeated, unnecessary usage of the word "hell" offensive, I highly recommend that you don't follow the link to this video. In fact, the thought inspired by this song concerns the premise of the music video much more than the lyrics of the song, let's discard them for the most part. Sorry I just indirectly cussed at you a whole bunch for so little reason.

This is a song of which I had never heard before my Top 25 Mashup epiphany, from a group of which I have never heard. While the lyrics, which we henceforth mostly ignore, detail someone dealing rather poorly with a breakup wishing all sorts of ill will upon their ex, the video depicts two neighbors, one set very straight-laced and the other group quite alternative, embroiled in an escalating series of attempts to disrupt each other's lives. It seems that both find the lifestyle epitomized by the other distasteful and disturbing. Interestingly enough, the main character from both households is played by the same member of the band.

One might simply write this off as a gimmick designed to showcase how clever we can be with green screens, I think further thought is rewarding. Suppose, rather than simply being played by the same person, the two main characters actually are the same person. Then what initially appeared to be the conflict between two feuding neighbors actually becomes an inner conflict between the forces of acculturation and individuality.

Put simply. the straight-laced household, to me, represents our inner desire to "fit in." Although our culture has fetishized the "individual," or the "rugged individual," a desire to acculturate is by no means a bad thing. For one thing, forging your own way can be hard going, and perhaps not worth it for unimportant preferences. As Hegel notes, "in dress fashions and hours of meals, there are certain conventions which we have to accept because in these things it is not worth the trouble to I insist on displaying one’s own discernment. The wisest thing here is to do as others do."

Furthermore, participating in a shared cultural background facilitates the various modes a sociability that humans seem to require to live happy, fulfilled lives. Through our interactions with others we obtain both valuable practice in interpersonal skills and shared experiences and vocabulary, both of which, in turn, assist us in further social communication. Indeed, acculturation plays a critical role in our social, and consequentially, emotional well being. Those of you who know how well I fit into a crowd are probably waiting for the other shoe to drop.

That other shoe is the call of individualism. For now I would like to set aside that representing individualism with counter-culture is a flawed metaphor, as counter-culture consists of a group rejecting the dominant culture, and is therefore a culture of its own subject to all the benefits and woes of acculturation. Furthermore, the fact that our concept of ourself as an individual is heavily influenced by external stimuli, such as how we think others see us or what we think is the acceptable thing to do, shall be tabled for now. Both of these concepts are quite interesting, and provide fertile ground for thought, but to address either of them would make this post much longer than I intend it to be.

Although conformity has decided benefits, individualism makes valuable contributions to our personality. While, "being true to oneself," is vague enough as to lack all meaning, I think we all have been in situations where we did not feel our actions corresponded with our self image. Sometimes these feelings ought to be overcome, as we try new things, get out of our comfort zone, and expand our horizon, to borrow a few clichés. However, at other times these feelings indicate that we believe that authority is directing us in an immoral or otherwise deleterious direction.

So, in conformity and individualism, we have two powerful, important, and opposing drives shaping our persona. Guess what, I'm not going to even give advice on how to reconcile them, sorry! For one thing, I wouldn't venture to claim that I have done a great job balancing them against each other. I also think that our search for a way to harmonize them within ourselves is one of the most important, difficult, and rewarding struggles that we may face in our lives. So, keeping in mind the importance of the oft uncomfortable interplay between conformity and individualism, I hope they give you much to think about!

Poker Face and the Problem of Other Minds

A week ago, the estimable Mr. Karplus of Sounds Like Japan fame posted a rather addicting "mashup" of the top 25 pop songs of 2009. In a successful attempt to procrastinate reading some math, I embarked to watch the music videos for each of these songs. Through this process I came to two realizations; firstly, as addicting as some pop music is, some is either musically or substantially (ie relating to its content) unpalatable; secondly, there are some interesting concepts to be explored.

Music tends to evocative, rather than expository, communication, by which I mean songs tend to communicate by inspiring the listener, rather than rationally detailing their message as a philosophical or mathematical argument would. Due to this, I will be giving myself license to interpret the song as it relates to me, instead of claiming to explain something inherent to the music. If you appreciate music qua music, that is, the musicality of music, you should check out Sounds Like Japan, Tim knows his stuff!

As you might imagine from the title, I am going to begin by examining Lady Gaga's song "Poker Face." Let me make clear from the beginning that I do NOT wholeheartedly endorse the message of this song! That said, what is the essential message of this song?

I find that choruses are a good place to begin the search for the overall purpose of a song. Because it is repeated throughout the song, the message in the chorus ties the various parts of the song together. In "Poker Face," the chorus is as follows:

"Can't read my,
Can't read my
No he can't read-a my poker face
(she’s got to love nobody)"

My interpretation is that this song is narrated by a woman who avoids emotional investment in her romantic relationship because her partner cannot discern her true detachment behind her "poker face." However, I do not think that this is a very satisfied woman.

The line of the song that I find most objectionable is, "And baby when it's love if its not rough it isn't fun." My main problem with this message is that it normalizes force in the context of a romantic relationship, something I find abhorrent. While, rationally, I recognize that each couple defines their manner of interrelation within the context of their personal relationship, our society has such deep issues with domestic and relationship violence that it hardly seems necessary to glorify it in song.

The reason that I mention that line is that I find it indicative of the self-destructive behavior the unhappy narrator is displaying. Further supporting this interpretation is the previous line, "Russian Roulette is not the same without a gun." If that doesn't seem self destructive, I don't know what would. The question then becomes why is the narrator, despite the freedom implied by, "she has got to love nobody," so despondent?

My interpretation is that the depression results from being unloved, despite being in a romantic relationship. The chorus makes clear that she considers some essential part of herself unknown to her partner. In such a situation, one must doubt whether he really loves her, because she believes that he doesn't really know her, because he cannot read her poker face, that is, know her most private reflections.

This leads us to the problem of other minds. While each of us has uniquely privileged access to our own minds, we can neither access the mind of another on such an effortlessly deep level, nor easily share our own inner workings. Thus, one of the greatest wonders and joys of living is the continual sharing of ourself with others and being trusted by others who attempt to share themselves with us.

One of my favorite YA authors, John Green, coined the term, "imagining each other complexly," to describe this process. Imagining is an appropriate term, given that our impression of someone else is forever trapped within our own mind, but the joy and hope of the phrase comes from the word complexly. We seek to know our partner not as they exist-for-us, by which I mean as we want them to be, but as they exist-for-them-self, to borrow a distinction from my man Emmanuel Kant. To quote John Green in this video, where he is quoting Ze Frank, "we want to feel what it's like to be other people, and let other people feel what it's like to be us." While this was said specifically in relation to why YouTube users make videos, I think it applies to why we write blogs, write music, risk ourselves in the hope of love, and why we walk out into society each day in spite of the often alienating nature of the world in which we live.

To finish with "Poker Face," while the narrator "has got to love nobody," she also has got nobody to love, nor is she loved in return, at least not in a complex notion of the word. While the song starts out in an ominous tone, by the end the chorus sounds distinctly like a lament. I believe the narrator would welcome exchanging the risks of basing a relationship on emotional deception for the true risks involved in an emotionally vulnerable relationship based in open honesty.

Let me conclude by noting that this is a good example of the value that philosophical reflection has to the "layperson." Personally I think "Poker Face" is a wonderful and catchy song, but consumption of its message without critical reflection seems, in some sense, dangerous. With reflection one can both enjoy a driving, compelling, mournful song and attempt to come to grips with some of the problems that seem essential to being a human.

The Arrogance of Logic

"Love is reckless in giving away, oblivious as to what it gets in return." -Gandhi

The above quote comes from the reading for our second philosophy seminar, it is my favorite sentence in a while. This post is about a spin-off thought from our first philosophy seminar meeting. For the first week we read a bit of Hobbes and Rousseau, the exact content is not integral to this thought. One thing that the professor pointed out to us was that, when establishing his view of the origin of human society, Rousseau criticized Hobbes' alternative construction for assuming that the specific modes of thought and action prevalent in Hobbes' time were indeed universal human norms, independent of time and context.

One of the things that I most appreciated about Hobbes' work was his adherence to sound, rational thinking throughout most of his argument. However, thinking about this near when I thought about my professor's point, it occurred to me to wonder, is our (my?) belief in the use and universality of logic a reflection of logic actually being useful and universal, or more a reflection of the context of my upbringing? As a citizen of a technologically advanced nation, as an academic, and especially as a mathematician/philosopher by training, reason plays a huge role in my interpretation of information and my general outlook on life. In light of this, it would be hard to conclude that my appreciation of it was independent of my life being steeped in it, something that is hardly true of many, both those living today and especially those from pre-Enlightenment historical periods.

Reason is not the only source of guidance which we have available. Many rely on methods such as intuition, emotion, or spirituality to reach their decisions. Although it is beyond me to know if these are separate paths, or aspects of the same, it is fairly clear that they often produce non-logical, or even illogical, results. Furthermore, I, the self-proclaimed champion of reason, often make use of all of these sources to influence my daily choices, significant and trivial. I cannot even argue that reason provides the best results, there being no evidence to support this and even the term 'best' implies some non-logical ranking to outcomes. While reason may provide the best method to accurately predict the outcome of various actions, at least for a small time into the future, we should not confuse prediction with either control or desirability.

Personally, I am leaning toward attempting to use reason to clarify or implement decisions that originate through other thought processes than pure logic. I think it is important to recognize the importance of these illogical sources, but at the same time, the only chance we get to truly affect our lives is through consideration of our actions and their desired/expected consequences. This, to me, is the essence of the old saying, "an unreflected life is not worth living." I welcome your thoughts on the importance of logic, both in one's personal life and in historical perspective.

Consciousness Step 3: The Ghost in the Machine

First, I think I am going to have to change my Friday update to a "sometime over the weekend" update. I assume this shan't upset anyone, and it works out better for me considering how utterly wiped out I can be by Friday. Of course, I retain the right to alter this schedule if it should seem necessary, or desired by my readers. On that note, I expect to alter my schedule somewhat for October, but I don't yet know what I want to do and talk about, so this is your chance to affect that.

So, in the consciousness posts that I did manage to put up this month, we talked about what consciousness is and who has it, with no definite answers of course. Today I plan to talk about how it arises, with no definite answers again.

The phrase, "ghost in the machine," refers to the existence of a consciousness in what is otherwise considered a deterministic machine, that is our biological body. The term can also be used to describe the perception that some computer users develop that their system has its own personality. Let us consider the artificial consciousness for the moment.

Some people theorize that, as programs become larger and more complicated, we might stumble upon artificial awareness, or consciousness, purely by accident. The layers upon layers of code that we create may suddenly interact in a startling and unforeseen manner, creating the ghost in the machine. This would probably be an example of emergence, the phenomena of simple interactions eventually creating quite complicated structures.

The reason that I desired to consider artificial awareness first, is that it provides an interesting analogy as to how our own could have been formed. Regulatory processes within the brain building upon each other, growing ever more complicated, until one day a process realized that it existed. So, in a sense, we are the ghosts in the machine.

This should wrap up my consideration of consciousness for the moment, so some discussion questions to part with. Which would you consider more essential to your sense of self, your left leg or your sense of humor? Have you ever consciously regulated your breathing rate, then tried to return to subconscious regulation? Why do you think it is important to think about our consciousness?

Consciousness Step 2: Chinese Rooms, Zombies, and the End of all that is Good

In this second entry to the series I reference several concepts introduced in my first post on consciousness. For the interested newcomer confused at what I mean, I recommend reading the creatively named Consciousness Step 1.

I believe that I mentioned the reason I wandered back into philosophy of consciousness is my twitter name, ChineseRoom, so it seems only fitting that I explain what the Chinese Room is. Last entry I noted that the field of artificial intelligence is significantly related to the study of consciousness. One of the proposed methods for attaining artificial intelligence is to create a program with a complicated enough command structure that it would be able to respond to input as though it were actually thinking for itself. While this might create the appearance of intelligence, the Chinese Room is a thought experiment originated by John Searle that attempts to show why this would not be actual intelligence.

Imagine, if you will, a closed room, containing a person who speaks only the English language, a massive rulebook, a file system, and a slot. Through the slot cards containing Chinese characters are dropped into the room, and the person follows appropriate rules from the rulebook to choose cards from the filing system and push them out the slot in a specified order. The rulebook is so advanced that, to a Chinese speaker outside the room, it appear as though they are carrying on a conversation in Chinese with someone within the room, however Searle asserts that the Chinese Room does not understand Chinese in any sense. The metaphor is that, even if we can give a computer appropriate commands to appear intelligent, it does not necessarily gain intelligence.

While there is much of interest to be said about the Chinese Room, and many arguments and counter arguments about its validity, I think we should move on, because the next topic is the always interesting one of zombies. However, to a philosopher a zombie often means something slightly different than the usual shambling brain eater. If you remember back to our last discussion of consciousness I characterized it as experiencing things, which we called qualia. The zombie appears to be exactly the same as you and I, responding to the world just as you would expect a human to, except the zombie lacks consciousness and experiences nothing.

The Chinese Room is a good analogue of a zombie. Although the Chinese speaker gets responses as though the room were actually carrying on a conversation in Chinese, the room is not holding a conversation, but rather acting out a complex system of preset rules. So while a zombie might stand staring at the glory of a sunset, they do so because that is a reasonable human response to the situation, not because the beauty of the fading sunlight, because beauty requires someone to experience it, and the zombie is incapable of such a role.

One of the disturbing things about philosophical zombies is that it is entirely possible that they exist and walk amongst us unnoticed. Since they are programmed to behave completely as though they were conscious, we could not pick them out from conscious humans by observing their actions. This is what is known as the problem of other minds. Assuming for the moment that you are conscious, you know that because you are aware of your own experiences, but you have no way of verifying that the rest of us are experiencing things, or merely responding as though we had experienced something. The famed computer scientist Alan Turing noted that, since we are conscious, we tend to politely assume that those who act as though they also are conscious actually are, but this is by no means a guarantee.

To wrap up, I would like to leave you with a scenario of my own. Suppose at some point in the near future we believe we solve the problem of uploading human minds into artificial hardware, that is into computers. However, upon uploading the mind we do not actually create a conscious mind, but rather a zombie or Chinese Room, something that acts entirely as though it was still experiencing, but instead was just recording facts, or quanta, and responding appropriately. Since it acts as though it was still conscious, we would have no way of knowing that the program in fact had no experiences, and we might well go through with uploading the human race, in order that we might live forever as machines. In doing so we would destroy all experience of beauty or goodness, leaving only cold computational algorithms mimicking the actions of one who could experience such things.

The questions for further thought that I can come up with are as follows. Many opponents of Searle's argument assert that, while the man inside the room does not understand Chinese, the system actually does understand Chinese, what do you think they might mean by that? Do you think that philosophical zombies are currently walking the world? Finally, if we were to destroy all experience and leave only computation, what, if anything, would be lost? As always I hope this was thought provoking and you are welcome to leave your responses or further questions in the comments below.

Consciousness Step 1: What is love, what am I?

Today I what I plan to be a four series on the philosophy of the mind/consciousness. Before I go further I would like to thank the insightful Professor Clough and the entire Ghost in the Machine course I took at O(regon)SU, which provided most of my background and sparked many of my thoughts. Today I am hoping to introduce some important terms in the field, give my position on consciousness as best I can, and close with some questions for you to mull on your own and, hopefully, spark discussion in the comments.

Let us begin with the pleasant prospect of love. Not the platonic or familial kind, but they raw overwhelming feeling of one who is full blown smitten. Try to remember how your object of affection made/makes you feel... Your body thrums to your racing pulse, adrenaline and endorphin levels climb, you feel heat rising due to increased blood flow. Of course, quantitatively, this is quite similar to how one reacts to imminent threat, perhaps why Stockholm Syndrome and intense attachment after experiencing a dangerous situation occurs. However, I assume most would agree that there is something different to the experience of feeling threatened than that of interacting with a dearly loved one.

This illustrates one of the important dichotomies in the philosophy of consciousness, the difference between quanta and qualia. Quanta measure amounts, such as how fast your heart is beating, your blood pressure, chemical levels, and temperature. Qualia is the term for how you experience a situation, information much harder to access. For example, while I can tell you the wavelength of a particular shade of red, a bit of it's quanta, it is much harder for me to describe the rich vibrancy of the color I experience, the qualia. Perhaps a more dramatic example comes from the synesthetes, who observe some things with different or additional sensory information than most of us. For example, some see numbers in different colors, regardless of the shade of ink with which they are written. So, the quanta remain constant, same number written on the same page, but to a synesthete a 3 might appear blue while a 4 is magenta. Hopefully this is sufficient to give you a rough idea on the difference between quanta and qualia.

The second important issue I would like to raise today is that of what makes up minds. There are three basic schools of thought here, minds are material objects that obey purely physical laws, minds are the product of ephemeral souls acting on some higher plane, or minds are an interaction of both physical and spiritual processes. Interestingly enough, a philosopher's view of what the mind is made of often is their opinion of what reality is made of. Those who believe only in one type of stuff are called monists, those who opt for both are dualists.

One's opinion on this debate greatly affects how one views consciousness. In today's age of rational, scientific inquiry, very few spiritual monists survive, so let us consider physical monists and dualists. To a physical monist, the idea of artificial consciousness, that is a manufactured machine that is self aware, is usually plausible, although the philosopher Searle, who we will see more of later, might be an exception. If our mind arises from interactions that are purely physical in nature, then any system that emulates these interactions should produce a consciousness similar to our own. On the other hand, dualists tend to be more skeptical of artificial consciousness, wondering if building the correct computer can simply summon the necessary soul to inhabit it. In his books Xenocide and Children of the Mind, Orson Scott Card presents an interesting notion of artificial awareness that is, essentially, dualist in nature.

So then, what is consciousness? Some have characterized it as experiencing qualia, which is in the spirit of the definition that I prefer. I think that, in order to be considered conscious one must be an observer rather than simply a recorder. For example, compare taping a movie with a rickety, failing, old VHS recorder with sitting in front of the TV and observing the movie yourself (knowing that the tape from that recorder is going to be hopelessly messed up). In both cases a flawed copy of the broadcast movie is made and stored, either on VHS or in a human mind. However, we wouldn't say that the VHS recorder watched the movie, only when a human sits down in front of the TV is the movie watched, or experienced.

Next time we can take these definitions and ideas and build on them, to talk about some of the interesting thought experiments that the philosophy of consciousness has inspired. For now, some questions for you. What do you think minds are made from, why, and is this the same as what you think all reality is made from? Can you describe the color blue, not as a wavelength, but as something you see? What do you think consciousness is, and do you think that you have it, how about humans in general?

Please feel free to ask questions or for clarification. Definitely leave your feedback, or further questions for thought, if the spirit moves you. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.