Limited Conciousness
I resemble Bill´s topic title on Limited Imagination because this question arouse in my head while reading attentively what you are saying at that thread.
The question is: What if the constitution of our intelligence / mind / conciousness -what we use to learn, think, feel, remember and create, the SOFTWARE that runs the Brain, but at the same time is built by it with adjustment, expandings, prunning, etc... What if the "self" of it, by definition, will never allow us to understand it?
Is clear the question? What if the mind, on order to be what it is entirely, makes its true full constitution unreachable to our conciousness? I just wonder...
The question is: What if the constitution of our intelligence / mind / conciousness -what we use to learn, think, feel, remember and create, the SOFTWARE that runs the Brain, but at the same time is built by it with adjustment, expandings, prunning, etc... What if the "self" of it, by definition, will never allow us to understand it?
Is clear the question? What if the mind, on order to be what it is entirely, makes its true full constitution unreachable to our conciousness? I just wonder...
2 Comments: (go down to newest )
I think there are a couple of insights here:
1) Human minds are extraordinarily limited, severely constrained in what they can think, or understand. We have only a few basic senses, and we think in those terms. We have a language-based analytical facility that is completely dependent on the limitations of the physical organ -- numbers of language elements, types of relationships supported, complexity supported, etc. We have a very poor memory capacity. We have an amazingly sparse, narrow bandwidth communication technique, which limits us to expressing one basic idea at a time, in very unclear terms. We only think a few thoughts at a time, preventing us from perceiving, remembering, understanding, or communicating most of what is really going on.
In short, our thought processes are based on a specific, somewhat accidental biologic machine. Because information processing is power, AI is rapidly evolving that will replace us, including our poor thought, memory, and communication processes, and fundamentally alter what is thought and understood.
2) We are "selves" -- living beings, a step "above" molecules, competing to be alive, competing for biologically dictated goals like food, sex, status, security, etc. We have sensory reactions, interpersonal needs, psychological weaknesses, human frailties, etc. As such, we are simply out of tune with the fundamental nature of the universe, and the elements and principles that it instantiates. We are not in the business of understanding things; we are basic information processing units, goaled and optimized to support life's local, short-term needs.
That said, it also seems true that we are Godlike in the flexibility of our minds. My dog, or the bug on the sidewalk, are really missing an incredible amount of what is going on in this world that we, with our incredible good fortune, are able to grok. It is extraordinary what we are, with all our limitations, able to understand over time. But I suspect that there are emergent levels of "consciousness" (or whatever comes next) that we simply cannot comprehend. Including what that level would see as the underlying nature of our selves.
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Epp -- It's late, and I may be forgetting some contradictory statement I made, but I think we agree. I do not believe that we only evolve by fighting and competition... I agree that cooperation is a valid, often optimal strategy, that is a key part of evolution. And in the context of the evolution of information structures and processors, cooperation is key. Whether "coopetition" among IT companies, or among programmers getting something done (e.g. open systems) or even in the symbiotic relationships among cellular actors... the cells of our own body, for example. And this carries forward to governments and economies as well.
I must have disagreed with this somewhere, but I'm not sure where or why (i.e. what context)...
Of course, cooperative strategies are constrained by having to compete with competitive strategies.. :-) Where another actor chooses to compete, others are forced to respond. Even if they respond by "cooperating" with colleagues against the competitor, or even by trying to cooperate directly with the competitor, it only takes one to fight. Against violence, one MAY be forced to compete, or be overcome (i.e. die)... it depends on how the competitor responds. Perhaps this is our issue. But surely, this is exemplified in all the same cooperative contexts you would cite. Viruses, bullies, companies, nations, terrorists...
By the way, we also agree on the nature of intelligences. I've spent a lot of time with children, and I find that all kids are bright and capable, although they have unique talents and dispositions. But our society often "brings them down" and by the time they are adults, they are customer service reps and rude drivers. Many people become dehumanized.
Must go, still working, ugh. Thanks for the thoughts.
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