Record Keeping

crimson

Having trouble taking that perfect photo of your friends and you hanging out? Always someone who’s eyes are closed, or they were talking, or something went wrong. Well, now there is the new Google Pixel 8 with a feature called “best take.” The smartphone takes several pictures over a brief period of time, and with the use of some fancy new Artificial Intelligence (AI), you can select the best versions of each person and combine them together to make the perfect picture that never happened…

I don’t normally advertise the products of large corporations, but in this case I have something important to say about it. I’ve seen this commercial running on the television for a while now, and I just realised something mind boggling. When all is said and done, the image that is generated is an image of hyperreality, to reference Jean Baudrillard and his book Simulacra and Simulation.

First, a brief explanation of hyperreality. Think about the telephone game for a moment. A person has a message for someone else. They don’t give that message directly to the intended person. Instead they use an intermediary. But not just one. No, they use a whole bunch of people. One person whispers the message to the next, to the next, to the next, until eventually it ends up with the intended person. Because everyone whispers it to only one other person, no one knows for sure whether the message remained intact during the entire game. Often, once completed, the original message will be repeated out loud by the original person, in order to compare it to what the intended receiver received. Often they are so different to be laughable, and thus the game is meant as an amusement. This is an example of hyperreality, or at least it would be if no one took the time to compare the difference between the original and the final message, and especially if they simply took the final message to be the truth of what was originally said.

But this is what happens in our world all the time. Messages are passed from person to person with very little thought given to whether the message makes any sense or may have been modified in transit. This is the problem of testimony, in the philosophical sense. That is, information is passed along from one person to another, and the question that is often asked is whether that information can count as knowledge on the part of the receiver of the information. That is, if someone tells me that diamonds are made of carbon, and I do not take the time to verify the information myself, but I feel that the person who told me this information is reliable, can I count it as something I now know? I’ve already added quite a few qualifiers here, but the point should hopefully be clear.

When it comes to what I know, there are a few ways I can gain knowledge. I can experience something myself. For example, I can look outside at the sky with my eyes and see that the sky is blue; thus, I can claim that I know the sky is blue because I have experienced this through a first hand account. I can also reason something myself. For example, in part because I understand the rules of mathematics, I can calculate that 43 added to 87 is going to produce 130; thus, I can claim that I know that 43 + 87 = 130 because I performed the operation of maths on the equation using my skills with reasoning. These two methods are usually considered quite reliable and trustworthy, for the most part. Most people will utilise these two methods of knowledge generation without really considering the possibility of errors or missteps. But testimony is different.

With testimony, the knowledge resides in someone or something else, and I acquire it through something of a passive process. For example, someone tells me that diamonds are made of carbon, or perhaps I read it in a book (books are testimony too). I didn’t experience it or observe it myself, and I did not reason it or calculate it myself. The “work” of generating the knowledge originally came from somewhere else or someone else. I am going to leverage their experience or their reason in order to gain the benefit myself. But this process is wrought with challenges, the most noteworthy is whether the source of this testimonial knowledge is reliable or trustworthy.

This post is not intended to be a philosophy lesson on epistemology or even testimony, so I won’t go into any further detail here. The issue is with hyperreality. In hyperreality, I have knowledge that I have not verified the source of myself. I did not experience it myself, nor did I reason to it myself. Or, to be most accurate, if I think that I did, I would be mistaken because I made some sort of error in the process. The knowledge that I claim has a problem: it is untrue. By untrue, I mean that, in some way, that knowledge does not match up with the way the world actually is. It would be like me believing that the sky was green, especially as I can simply look up into the sky and see that it is otherwise.

With hyperreality, I am confused. I actually believe in the knowledge that I claim, and I will fight with others regarding it. It gets worse if those around me believe that very same thing, because then there will be no fighting. Others around me are often my best way to verify my knowledge, because if everyone around me knows something different than I do, chances are good that I am the one in error. But if we all think we know the same thing, no one is going to be cued to the possibility that an error was made.

Hyperreality is the result of a group of us thinking we know something, and we happen to be wrong about it. We think the world is a certain way, when it is in fact not. Baudrillard was very concerned with this situation, which is why he wrote his book. That, especially after a time of playing the telephone game, eventually one might find themselves in a situation where everyone believes something about the world that is simply untrue. And if everyone believes this untruth, and there is very little effort made to check or validate that belief, then people could end up getting into a lot of trouble.

Which is why I started by talking about this feature “best take” that Google uses with their new smartphone. The issue, I realised, is that the photo that is taken is of an event that never happened. It is not really a photograph at all, in the traditional sense of the term. It has been “photoshopped.”

A photograph, in the traditional sense, is intended to be a pure reflection of the world as it is. Light falls, not artificially manipulated, on a photosensitive surface and eventually results in an image that is as close to the original scene as can be expected. Given the technical issues with such a process, the idea here is that the world presents itself, and the photograph is a passive reflection of the world as was presented. The event occurred, and the photograph is a record of that event. The photograph is a representation of a past event.

But the image generated by “best take” never happened. The image is a combination of several other images in order to make an idealised image of an idealised event that one wished had happened but did not. That time when everyone smiled and no one blinked at the wrong time. The stars aligned just perfectly, and everyone cooperated without incident. But that isn’t what happened at all. A whole bunch of photographs were taken, and bits and pieces of each are slammed together by an AI in order to generate the idealised image. The phone is a hyperreality generator. Or it will be if people forget that the image is “photoshopped” in the first place.

This got me thinking. Because I realised that this isn’t new. There is a reason the term “photoshopped” exists at all: there have been many, many cases of photo manipulation occurring over the years, and Photoshop happened to be one of the more popular tools used in order to accomplish the manipulation. Thus, a term was coined to be more exciting and novel than the term “photo manipulation.”

Now I am thinking about all the sources of knowledge and information I have been taking for granted for so very long. Not just images, but videos too. And even text. And other sources of knowledge from other places as well. Something as insidious as the idea that women are weaker than men. Or that technology will somehow save humanity. These bits of knowledge are considered truths by those around me. But are they really true?

The problem, I have to admit, is that I cannot verify much of the information I have already subsumed. It is not feasible for me to experience everything for myself, and my skill with reason is not nearly as good as would be required to know something like how diamonds are made of carbon. Or even that there are these teeny, tiny particle things we call “atoms” that make up everything. I take this information for granted. It is testimony that I have acquired through the course of my life.

And there is one additional issue that I have also realised as well. That knowledge may not simply be a passive, discovery driven process. The knowledge I claim is not always simply an expression of what I think I know about the world. My knowledge is not necessarily just a reflection of the world, as far as I can tell. My knowledge can impose itself on the world too. If I believe something is the case, I can make it so, even if it is not actually the case.

This is the issue I see happening in the world these days. People in large groups imposing their knowledge and making it into reality. A process that I think Baudrillard was certainly thinking about. In his example, he was concerned that people would go to Disneyland and walk down Main Street USA thinking that those states they’d never been to were actually just like they were being presented; that the people from those states followed the stereotypes being presented by the amusement park. Because he believed that if someone from one of those states actually saw the stereotypes being presented, they might be offended.

This is literally where the issue with women being weaker than men comes from, I believe. It was likely not the case far enough back in history, but became the case as a result of this very process. Girls are groomed by their parents and other adults around them to believe certain things about themselves. Given enough time and reinforcement, they will believe those untruths eventually. This is why there is a great lacking of female engineers. Not that a woman cannot be an engineer, but that most women do not want to be.

It is a complicated thing I am expressing here. Especially in light of the fact that none of us has any privileged access to the world as it is. My access to the world is mediated, through this body and its various limitations. The light hits the cones in the back of my eyes and is turned into electrical and chemical information that is passed along to my brain and interpreted and analysed. If there are any problems with my eyes, my nerves, or my brain, then the information will be corrupted and errors will be made.

In the end, I simply have to do the best I can. To use the information I have available to me, and try to exercise empathy and charity in my interpretations. To not dig my heels in too deeply, lest I make grievous errors that cannot be rectified. When I am sent a picture of my friends hanging out, perhaps the image may be of an event that never happened, but perhaps that is not the intended purpose of the picture at all. Instead of it being understood as a record of the past event, perhaps it is better understood as a reminder of a time when my friends happened to be together.

The COVID-19 Pandemic: 2023

crimson

I’ve been talking a lot about change and adaptability of late. My posts have had an edge of depression and of hopelessness. Perhaps. I suppose it depends on who reads it and their own interpretations. I just know that some out there have reached out to me to ask how I am doing. I am surviving. I am getting by. But it has certainly be challenging.

I decided to re-read my very first post, made back in May of 2020. Near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Just so we are clear, the pandemic is still ongoing. It has not ended. It has not concluded. It is still ongoing. So I might consider this an update of the present state of things. After about three and a half years, what has changed? How good a job did I do at predicting the future?

Turns out my words from back then are still very much applicable. In my own opinion, what I saw at the beginning is still very much what has and is still happening today. The pandemic is still not really about a disease. It is about a change. It is about exposing the world in ways that ought to have helped progress humanity forward. Unfortunately, I was also correct about there only being a few who seem to have taken the hint and tried to do something about it. Because it seems like the majority of people have simply dug deeper holes in the sand to stick their heads into.

As I said back then, the problems and issues in the world are not new. Scarcity of resources is not new. The critical need of reducing and reusing is even more apparent now than it was at the beginning. In fact, it seems like the problems are actually getting worse. There are less and less people doing stuff, and more and more people demanding stuff. Less people generating those products and offering those services, and more people wanting and needing to purchase those products that do not exist, and begging for those services that there is no one to provide.

As a basic example, healthcare in Canada. There is a shortage of doctors. Again, this is not new. There was a shortage of doctors since before 2020. But now, with all that has happened, that shortage has become worse. Burn out and inequity has taken its toll, and there is less interest in working in that field. Why subject yourself to the torture and abuse? It just isn’t worth it. Especially if you are concerned with your own mental health and well being.

Speaking of mental health, it has come to light that perhaps I should be assessed properly and officially for autism. My mother used to tell everyone I had Asperger syndrome when I was a child. The description fit, and still does: high-functioning, intelligent, socially awkward, clumsy. I was, and still am, all of these things. But over time, I also learned other tricks to conceal any perceived weaknesses I might have. Camouflaging is a term used to describe it. How, through years of observation of others, I learned to present myself as normal, to reduce the troubles I frequently had, especially socially.

My partner has started calling me neurodivergent. It is clear I do not think or feel as others do. I am not normal with regard to thinking and feeling. I certainly do not present the same as others. This has been an ongoing complaint in my relationships. I do not get excited about the same things most get excited about, and even when I do get excited, I don’t present the way most do. I am suppressed, or muted. Perhaps that is in part due to the drugs I was on about 15 years ago to deal with a bipolar diagnosis.

This is a bit of a tangent from where I started, but I assure you it is relevant. Like with so many other things, this part of who I am has been exposed and has become harder and harder to ignore. The pandemic has revealed this aspect of me, and I am having to face it and deal with it now, when for so many years before I was able to pretend it did not exist.

In my youth, the very idea I might have such conditions was abhorrent. It would suggest I was somehow lesser. And in my attempts to present as normal, such diagnoses would clearly influence the ways people would look at me. As much as I could, I had to BE normal, lest others would treat me with disdain. For me, that was a rocky road. It took a lot to get to where I am today.

But I am still that same little boy at heart too. I still have the same challenges I did in my youth. I still lock up with deception and lying. I still shy from social interactions. I still wear a mask all the time. Sure, I’ve developed an incredibly large toolbox of coping mechanisms and formalized presentation schemes to hide in plain sight. But what remains beneath has always been there. Continues to be there. And my partner, in that she is the closest person to me, has been in the privileged (and perhaps captive) position to see what others do not.

Like I say about the rest of the world, I too cannot ignore what has always been there. I cannot simply pretend these things do not exist and do as I did before 2020. The world has changed. I have changed. My masks are not working like they used to. I am having a harder and harder time of hiding in plain sight.

And so, I ought to take my own advice. I ought to be more adaptable and flexible. I ought to change with the times. I ought to accept myself as I am and find a way to reconcile that.

To be clear, I’m not looking for a hand out. I’m not looking for beneficial treatment. I’ve never wanted these things. However, I do find myself in need of assistance more and more as well. Facing challenges I do not know how to face. Overcoming hurdles I am unable to overcome. In part because the world has become so much more difficult to navigate. Because I cannot ignore that which was always there.

As much as when I wrote it over three years ago, I still believe the pandemic is not about a virus. The lasting effects of the pandemic are not about infections or diseases. What is important, what I believe people ought to be paying attention to, is the fact that all the weaknesses in our world, in our societies, in our cultures, are much easier to see now. Those problems we’ve tried to ignore and dismiss can no longer be ignored or dismissed.

The world is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. In part because people continue to dig those deeper holes, trying ever harder to pretend the problems don’t exist. Trying very hard to simply continue doing the same error-ridden things they were doing before 2020. Pining for the times of yore. Because it is those things that are causing the very problems we have to face. The times of yore are the source of our problems today. The solutions our forebears came to came with a price, and we in these future generations are expected to pay that price. Whether we like it or not.

Spiraling Death Syndrome

crimson

I’ve worked in IT for a very long time. “Spiraling Death Syndrome,” or SDS, was a problem that occurred to some dial-up modems whereby they would reduce the connection speed in order to accommodate issues on the telephone line, but not recover. That is, the device would connect your computer to the Internet successfully, and full speed initially, but as you used your connection, it would progressively become slower and slower until it was unusable. Technically, this sort of technology still exists to this day, but because connections are so bleeding fast, and so much more reliable, no one ever really notices.

It’s simple. The device connects and starts pushing data through the pipe as fast as it is able to. Occasionally, something disrupts the flow of data, so the device slows itself temporarily until the disruption has passed. Disruptions in the connection are generally short lived, so this is all status quo. Once the disruption has passed, the device picks up the speed again, returning to its top speed after that. With SDS, just one part of that process fails: the device never picks back up. It drops its speed for the first disruption, and then again at the next disruption, over and over until it is operating at the slowest possible speed, which is very, very slow. I believe they would go down to about 300 baud, or 300 bits per second. This translates, roughly, to about 30 bytes per second, or to use modern equivalent terms, 0.03 Kbps or 0.00003 Mbps. Considering my current connection was just measured at 7 Mbps, that is very, very slow indeed.

Technical side note: Briefly, “bps” is “bytes per second” and “bips” or “baud” is “bits per second.” The standard for connections and throughput is to use bits per second, while for storage it is bytes or bytes per second as appropriate. Unfortunately, like so many things in our world, these details have often been lost to obscurity, and so most modern speed tests will give results in bits per second, but present the units “bps,” which just confuses everyone. It’s like how a kilobyte is actually 1024 bytes and not 1000 bytes, but again it depends on who you ask.

So why bring up this old, outdated term or problem? Well, it is not only digital connections that suffer from this problem. In my life currently, I am observing this effect occurring in many other places. In particular, if a person is trying to go about living their life without disruption, we might suggest they are operating at something like 100% of their capabilities. Something like top speed. But if something happens to them, disrupted by some outside influence or event, they will be forced to slow to accommodate the event. Their efficiency will drop below that 100% as they now have to deal with the disruption. Think about working your job and a co-worker comes along and wants to ask you a question. You were working hard, but now you need to practically stop in order to answer their question. You slow, briefly, to deal with the disruption, and then hopefully are able to get back to work once they leave, having had their question answered appropriately.

Thus, I am suggesting people go through a similar process. They do what they do, pursuing their projects as quickly as makes sense for them, and will periodically be disrupted during the course of their pursuit. And I think for most people, once those disruptions have passed, they will eventually return to their pursuit, operating as quickly as they did initially if they are lucky.

The clear issue one might immediately think about is how one deals with many more than one disruption. If one is disrupted and unable to recover from the disruption, then they may be forced to slow even more for the next disruption. And if there are many, many disruptions, then they may be stalled entirely until all disruptions are resolved. This is the sort of thing that happens to me in IT occasionally, where I come into work and never get any progress on any of my projects because there are “fires to put out,” to use the colloquial term that we often use. My entire day is simply dealing with disruptions, and so I get no work done on my main projects.

This is the nature of the situation I find myself in at present. For the past several months, I have been mostly unable to work on any of my own personal projects, as I have been inundated with disruption after disruption. In my personal life, I have been unable to recover because of the sheer magnitude of those disruptions. I will not go into detail, as I would like to avoid giving too much of my personal life information here, but I will say that each and every appliance in my home has required some sort of work or effort put into it (some a significant amount), and many other attempts at regular activity have been thwarted by the resurgence of the pandemic.

Technical side note: the pandemic has not ended. Contrary to how the people around me are behaving, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be an issue, with newer variants being discovered all the time. In fact, my partner and I received our most recent vaccinations just last week. And I am continuing to isolate at home, not going out nearly as much as I might like.

It does not really matter the precise reason for what is happening to me. The details are less important. What is important is that I am unable to refocus on my own personal projects at this time. As much as I want to do certain things, pursuing education and changing careers being rather high on my list, I am unable to really pursue them presently because I am inundated with countless other tasks and chores that require my attention.

For those who actually know me, I admit I am lying a little bit here. That is, I am about to engage in a pursuit of education despite the fact I ought not. I will be abandoning my partner in her time of need in order to take a class that I signed up for several months ago. It was not an inexpensive class either, and canceling my enrollment is not really a reasonable option. And so, I continue to prepare to go to this class, despite the fact I ought to be spending more time dealing with things at home.

So in truth, it is not I who has been inflicted with SDS at all. It is my partner. And that is the crux of my issue right now. She has been dealing with the brunt of all of this disruption, and she is the one who has been unable to recover. Every time she tries to pursue a project of her’s, she is the one who is thwarted. And she is the one who has pretty well ceased functioning at this point.

I don’t know why, or how, I am able to keep going right now. But I think it is because of her. It is that old passage from Aristotle that I continue to be unable to locate that I think describes the situation best. From his Politics, Book One, Part VII, translated into English: “…those who are in a position which places them above toil have stewards who attend to their households while they occupy themselves with philosophy or with politics…“

In other words, what he clearly believed was that, in order for some of us to do the things we want to do, others have to do the things we do not want to do. This is a reference to masters and slaves. The masters can only do the sorts of things masters do, such as pursuing philosophy, because the slaves are attending to the things they do not wish to do, such as cooking and cleaning. This is the description of wives to their husbands. And of most blue collar laborers to the owners of the companies they work for. Of the privileged and the oppressed.

Again, I will not dwell on the particulars of why our world has become as it has. But it has changed. And the progress that had been made over the past several decades, trying to give voices to those who did not have voices, is being eroded. Those who previously had choices are now finding those choices have disappeared. There are very few options remaining, and people are being forced to make do with things they never wanted to make do with.

Looking back at what I’ve written, it is clear to me that without those personal details to support my arguments, it sounds more like the ramblings of a mad man. And I am mad. And I am privileged. To be able to write all of this in the first place. To be able to take my class. To be able to continue as I have, despite those around me being unable to do so.

I think what I want most right now is to apologize to those who are not as privileged as I am. To apologize to those whose shoulders I am standing on, even now. I have tried as hard as I could to make her projects a priority. I’ve tried to leverage my privilege to her advantage. But it isn’t working any more. Maybe it never did. Maybe I’m about as useless as it appears.

Change Sucks

crimson

I have tried very hard to keep too many of my personal details out of this blog, but today that may change a little. The delay that I spoke of in my previous post may be extended a bit longer than I had originally anticipated. I suppose, on the other hand, this is a blog post itself, so perhaps I am not as delayed for that reason.

In situations like the one I find myself in, I am reminded of Plato. Specifically, of his Theory of Forms. He was so challenged by the idea of change that he came up with an imaginary realm where everything remained the same. A permanent, unchanging realm which clearly had to be superior to the realm we each find ourselves in that is constantly degenerating with every passing moment.

It is further amusing to me to think about such things, as I am also reminded of Socrates, and his dislike for the sophists of his time. He seemed particularly put out by how sophists would teach others to argue without evidence, much as we observe presently occurring in the United States. Logic and reason almost literally tossed aside in favour of appeals to emotion and appeals to tradition. Which, once again brings me back to the problem of change.

The world is changing. This is nothing new. In fact, it has been changing the whole time, and we have collectively been resisting that change for as far back as has been recorded. Once again, thinking about Plato and Socrates because they were from about 2500 years ago. People from 2500 years ago were already plagued with concerns of change. So it should be no surprise that we are plagued with it today as well.

But perhaps there is a difference between then and now. It seems to me the rate of change is increasing. That things now are changing much more quickly than they did back then. But the more I think about that, I realise that perhaps that also is untrue. And I start to think about a rubber band powered plane.

Over the many millennia that humans have existed, we have been resisting change. We see our environments, and how challenging they are, and we try to make them easier to deal with. Foraging for food is a long and time consuming process that does not reliably produce enough sustenance for many people; but if we instead plow some land and put the seeds into the ground in regular rows, manually pour water over them regularly, eventually we can generate a much more reliable source of food. Wind and rain and snow are tough on human bodies, sometimes even fatal, so we create structures we can hide in to protect us from these elements. And clothes to wear. And with all of these things, as time progresses, we try to make better and better versions that last longer and longer so that we can enjoy them more and more.

We find ourselves in an environment that is constantly changing and we spend most of our time finding ways to cease that change as much as we can. Even our lifespans are much, much longer than they’ve ever been. An ever increasing number of humans are spending their entire lives trying to make it so that others will never have to deal with death at all. Life itself, ceasing to have the ultimate change of ending.

With all this resisting of change, has anyone considered that we are winding up a rubber band? Tighter and tighter the band becomes, ever increasing the potential energy stored that will eventually be released. We resist the changes in our environments, instead of learning to adapt to those changes, making the shock of enduring the forced change more and more severe. I live in an air conditioned home, where the temperature has been maintained at about 21 degrees Celsius all the time, despite how much hotter or colder the outside might be. But how does my HVAC system do this? It takes the extra heat from inside my home and dumps it outside. Or it generates additional heat in order to raise the temperature inside. Ironically, both processes involve increasing temperature in the environment as a whole, outside of my home.

Global warming, as it was previously referred to, is a real thing. Not just because of green house effects or excessive carbon dioxide being dumped into the atmosphere. We are increasing the over all temperature of our world by purposely executing combustive and oxidising reactions with the intent to create motion or some other artificial activity. The end purpose is convenience and luxury. The end purpose is to make our lives easier.

We grow extra animals for food, because meat is simply too tasty to give up. We justify this by suggesting the utilitarian ethical argument is the one that makes sense, and more animals means more over all happiness. Of course it is a good thing to eat meat. But the process is increasing the heat as well.

The world keeps changing, and not only are we trying harder and harder to resist that change, but we are making decisions that accelerate that change. We resist, winding the rubber band, and it snaps back even harder each time. Had I spent more time learning to acclimatise myself to the hotter summers and colder winters, and I wouldn’t need to spend so much time fixing my air conditioner or sealing my home from drafts.

This is what humans do. We do not adapt to our world. We force the world to adapt to us. We change our environment to suit us. To hell with what the world might want. So when the world needs to move in a particular direction, we do our very best to prevent that from happening. When a species of animal is about to go extinct, mostly because it is no longer adapted or fit for the new environment that has come about, we do our best to breed those dying species in captivity in order to preserve their presence in the world. But what if those species need to go away?

I will acknowledge that in many (arguably most) cases, the demise of whole species seems to be directly related to the activities of humans, and as such we ought to bear some responsibility for what is happening. But is the answer to try and force their continued existence in our new world? Or would it not make much more sense for us to stop changing the world into what we believe it ought to be, which happens to be an environment that they are not suited to? Does any of this make sense?

If one believes in Darwin and this theory of “survival of the fittest,” one ought to realise that as the world changes (for any reason) the circumstances of fitness change too. Those who are fit for a particular environment at a particular time are often no longer fit in a different environment or at a different time. Or both. And our world continues to change, so that which is fit changes too. When I was a child, it was not a good idea to be a “geek.” To be one often included ostracization and a lot of pain. But now, being a geek is praised.

There are countless examples I could offer of change like this. Cases where to be a thing at one time was once good and is now bad, or the reverse. The rules are changing as much as the world itself does. There is no remaining static. In fact, it is this desire for the static that I think is the biggest problem. The challenge for perfection, not recognising that what is perfect in one instance ceases to be in the next. Perfection itself is imperfect.

This is where I find myself today. In the crux of change. Trying to come to terms with the fact that my environment is no longer the same as it once was. I remember, years ago, what it was like to live in this place. But now, it has changed, and the rules have changed. The people around me have changed. My job has changed. My family has changed. Relationships have changed. Everything has changed.

I find myself in the precarious situation of having to make a choice: do I fight as hard as I can to preserve that memory of a time long past, or do I forge a new path through the wilderness and try to become something better suited to my new environment? I know what I ought to do. But this decision is not mine alone. Those around me, those I love, have their say in what comes as well.

The Miracle of Communication

crimson

First off, I want to let you, my dear readers, know that my next post after this one is likely to be delayed. My life is quite busy at the moment and so there is likely to be a delay. But rest assured, I will return. I promise.

Which brings me to today’s topic: communication. In particular, I will focus on language, but what I talk about really does apply to communications of other sorts as well.

I had a wonderful discussion with a guy I work with today, where he revealed to me one of the great challenges of learning the French language. It seems there are literally hundreds of dependencies with regard to verbs. So many that even those whose first language is French have a special book that they keep around to help them with conjugating verbs. I believe this book is commonly referred to as a Bescherelle.

When I was learning Japanese, I had to memorize three “alphabets.” These are Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. In truth, however, no one is really able to memorize all Kanji as there are simply too many. Wikipedia suggests “The Dai Kan-Wa Jiten, which is considered to be comprehensive in Japan, contains about 50,000 characters.” The Dai Kan-Wa Jiten is likely to the Japanese, and the Chinese, what a Bescherelle is to the French.

In both these cases, in French and in Japanese specifically, language is not something you simply learn as a child and then you are done. Learning one’s language is an ongoing process that can last one their entire lifetime. Of course one does learn the “basics” and the most common ways of communicating in their youth, but as my Japanese instructor suggested, when reading a newspaper, one is bound to encounter unfamiliar words or characters that need to be looked up, even well into adulthood.

In my case, my first (and so far only) language is English. When I compare how I learned my native tongue, and how much I need to practice it as they years pass, it seems to me that English is in a lot of ways much simpler. However, if I start to think about the various changes to English over my lifetime, so far, perhaps it is not as simple as I might like to think either. With the advent of the Internet and especially of social media, English has seen some pretty dramatic changes in the past decade alone.

Returning to the conversation with my coworker, I had borrowed an online translator to translate some English into French, and asked him to read it over to see if it was alright. He mentioned that the sentence was clearly “anglicised.” That is, while my words were most definitely French words, they were being presented in an obviously English manner. To explain his point, he provided the following example:

In English, if I wish to issue a command for someone to sever power to a ceiling light, I might say “Turn off the light.” In French, I would have translated this to “Éteignez la lumière,” which literally translates to “Extinguish the light.” However, a typical French person would be unlikely to say such a thing. Instead, they might normally say “Fermez la lumière,” which literally translates to “Close the light.” While both sentences are technically correct, and most parties would sufficiently understand the meaning to accomplish the correct task, the point here is that there is a clear difference in thought involved between the person who’s native language is English, and the person who’s native language is French.

This immediately got me thinking about all the strange conversations I have had over the years. The occurrences of what I considered to be weird word choices. In most cases, the person I was talking to spoke many more languages than simply English. And when I was taking my Japanese class, some of these details became more apparent when considering how the language was structured.

In Japanese, there are usually many, many ways to say the same thing. Often times, the sentences sound very, very different, which caused me great difficulty when trying to comprehend what someone else was saying. In Japanese, often these differences in how a sentence is formed has a lot to do with the social differences between the parties. For example, if a student is speaking to a teacher, they would structure their sentences differently than the teacher would when speaking to the student. There is a respect built into the language. How one speaks is conveying much more than simply the meaning of the words, it is often conveying an acknowledgment of social rank as well.

In other words, it seems to me that the language one has learned growing up significantly affects how one thinks and how one interprets the world around them. How one prioritizes certain types of information, or what one focuses on. And this, again, will be revealed through their speech. Their choice of certain words, and how those words are arranged can be incredibly significant.

It also reminded me of Yoda, from Star Wars. One thing Yoda is well known for is the strange way he speaks. And while I am fairly confident George Lucas likely was not thinking in the ways I am presently, it seems to me that perhaps a rational explanation for his unique speech pattern could be explained if English was not his native language as well.

Ultimately, where this drove my conversation with my coworker was that how one speaks may reveal a lot more about a person than merely the content of their words. As he suggested in my attempts at translating English to French, my choices clearly revealed that I was a native English speaker to him, and that French was not a language I was as familiar with. In the same vein as to how some people are able to discern regional dialects from a person’s accent.

Considering how much languages seem to evolve over time, it also seems prudent for each of us to be open minded and charitable when listening to others. If someone’s choice of words, or how those words are organized, seem strange, perhaps it is best to do our very best to try and understand what they are trying to say. As my late father would often say to me, “it is more about the spirit of the law than the word of the law.”

Fantasy Is Reality

crimson

I’ve written two other posts discussing fantasy and reality. In the first I tried to show how fantasy and reality related to one another; how fantasy tends to include and be influenced by reality. I felt it was important to demonstrate that many fantasies are often mistaken for reality, of fictions being misrepresented as facts. That I think it is important to recognize this, lest I fall into creating my own simulacra, deceiving myself about the world.

In the second post, I explored more precisely what fantasy was, and how I tend to work toward making my fantasy into reality. I tried to show how fantasies are sort of like my wishes and desires, and how I can sometimes manipulate reality in order to turn a fantasy into the real. The main point I focused on was how fantasy and reality are not really opposites from each other, but more like steps of a procedure; my fantasy is my ambition, and turning it into reality is my goal.

Today, I again delve into these two related concepts, but this time I want to discuss how there is something of reality in fantasy. That is, when I spend time in a fantasy, like when I read a book or enter into simulation, how the fantasy is in some way just as real as the reality I am in here and now. How fantasy is reality, in a very real sense.

Before going any further, I first need to set some ground rules. Language here is already becoming incredibly confusing. And so, when I use the term Reality (with the capital letter “R”) I will be referring to this realm that I presently inhabit. That is, I am talking about the life that I exist in, just as I assume you do as well, where I have a flesh and blood body and I am required to breath and eat to sustain myself. Where I live on a planet we call Earth, in a country we call Canada. I have a job and I have a partner that I live with.

It may seem strange for me to delve into such detail, but I assure you it is necessary. This Reality is not to be confused with what goes on on the Internet in chat rooms or the like. In Reality, I have to literally walk from place to place, picking up objects with my flesh and blood hands. In Reality, if I die, I cease to be able to participate in other realities, which is something I will discuss a little later.

When I use the term Fantasy (with the capital letter “F”) I will be referring to a realm of existence where I am real but the world I inhabit is in some way fictitious. For example, when I read a book, within my mind I imagine the world of the story. The images in my mind, of the landscapes and of the people, are entirely fictitious and do not exist in Reality. The world I inhabit, while reading the book, only exists within my mind and my imagination. Often there are similar and related things in Fantasy to what exists in Reality, however if something in Fantasy is changed, the similar thing in Reality will remain unaffected.

There can be many Fantasies. As another example, perhaps I play a video game on my computer. The world of the video game is another Fantasy, distinct from the earlier example while I read the book. In the world of the video game, I still exist in some fashion, though the world of the game is now represented within a computer. It may be presented to me through the use of a monitor or perhaps even goggles over my eyes, but that world still does not exist in Reality.

I hope the clearing up of these terms helps, but I suspect it is still going to be challenging to follow. I will do my best to keep things clear.

I have already been hinting at something significant here during my definitions that is the real focus of my interest in this discussion. In both Reality and Fantasy, there is something in common: me. While the world in Fantasy may be fictitious, I am not. Perhaps I control an avatar within the Fantasy, and that avatar is certainly going to be fictitious, but I am still linked to that avatar in some way. And again, for emphasis, I am still real. I inhabit Reality and Fantasy simultaneously.

But then what am “I” really? Clearly I cannot be talking about my flesh and blood body, as that seems only to exist in Reality. There is no flesh and blood in Fantasy, at least not of the same sort as exists in Reality. If one assumes mind-body dualism, as René Descartes suggested, then “I” clearly cannot be my body. “I” must be somewhat closer to being my mind. And when it comes to simulations like video games, this may very well suite our purposes acceptably. But in the case of reading the book, this does not work as well. In a video game, “I” controls an avatar. In a book, “I” does not control anything.

No, when I talk about “me” in these cases, I need to be talking about something distinct from my mind as well. Perhaps not entirely distinct, but at least different than. “I” can exist apart from my mind, in some sense. So again, what am “I” really?

The best I’ve been able to describe this idea I have, up to the point I wrote this post, is that “I” am a thing that experiences. A “first person” for lack of better language. When my eyes react to the light outside my body, chemical signals are sent to my brain and interpreted. The interpretations are then… What exactly? Analyzed perhaps? Worked with? Experienced is the only word I can come up with. Something experiences whatever the brain has been dealing with. This is “me,” the thing that experiences.

I’ve tried to explain this concept to others, but I think I have failed every time. Perhaps I am failing again this very moment. But I hope not. And I will continue, in the hopes that you understand, at least a little bit.

What is extremely important to clarify here is that if “I” am the thing that experiences, then my mind is not necesarily under my control, in a sense. I am a reflection, or a reaction, to the world around me. It seems to be, as far as I can tell, that Reality is highly (if not completely) deterministic. That is, Reality appears to follow a law of cause and effect. For me to see, light must excite the cells in the back of my eyes. The light is the cause, and the excited cells are the effect. Those excited cells send chemical signals through neurons to my brain. The excited cells are now the cause, and the chemical signals now the effect. I can add more specificity, but the result is the same. Something causes something else to happen, the effect.

My mind is part of this chain that started with my body. The body is my interface to the world, reacting to stimulus, and manipulating matter. I can pick up the glass that was on my table, and place it beneath, and thus have manipulated Reality. However, as I stated earlier, my body does not exist in Fantasy. My mind receives the information from my body, and can send commands to my body, allowing me to pick up that glass. But in Fantasy, there is no body and no glass.

In the case of some Fantasies, my mind may still exist in the same fashion it did in Reality, however, it no longer controls my body in Reality nor even necessarily receives the same stimulus from it. This point is highly contentious, as it can easily be argued that the body in Reality is receiving all the stimulus from the monitor or goggles, which are presenting the Fantasy to me. Perhaps this is why my mind can so easily be reasoned to continue to exist within Fantasy. So let us tackle this from another perspective.

In the case where I read the book, what then is going on? There is no monitor to present Fantasy to my eyes. No speaker to present Fantasy to my ears. Where does the interface lay? It seems to me that my mind itself now becomes the interface. Through my imagination, I generate my Fantasy realm. My mind has, in some sense, replaced my body in this regard. But it still isn’t quite clear what is happening in this case. It is not clear whether my mind is both representing my Fantasy world and simultaneously “me.” Can it do both at the same time?

Untangling becomes a bit more interesting when I consider the fact that the story from the book contains a character: the protagonist. “I,” in some way, inhabit the protagonist. “I” become that entity in a very real way. As the story is read, I can feel what the protagonist feels and see what the protagonist sees. Within my imagination, of course. But that is the very point I am driving towards here. I feel what the protagonist feels. My feelings are real, even when the protagonist is not.

To be happy or sad are not things I can control or fabricate. It is true that I can present myself to be these things to others in Reality, or even in Fantasy, and the others may be convinced. But I would still know on some level. I cannot deceive myself, can I, akin to Jean-Paul Sartre‘s description of Bad Faith, working at convincing myself to ignore the evidence to the contrary. My feelings simply are as they are. I can try to deny them or ignore them, but they still exist despite my best efforts.

The key here is that these feelings are still real to me. I still experience them, regardless of what realm I seem to be inhabiting. In Reality. In Fantasy. It makes no difference to “me.” I feel as I feel. The feelings are.

In writing this all down, it occurs to me that perhaps these feelings are not necessarily a part of my mind anymore, and may instead be a part of “me.” Perhaps “I” am more than merely a thing that experiences. Or perhaps the fact that “I” am a thing that experiences is why I have these feelings at all. Perhaps emotion is a component of “I.”

Returning to my focus, “I” still experience my feelings, regardless of whether I am in Reality or in Fantasy. “I” am the same, in some sense, even when the world around me is completely different. “I” remain. “I” am consistent, or persistent. “I” exist in all realms.

The feelings I feel, the experiences I experience, are all just as real to me regardless of the realm they seem to originate from.

It makes no difference to me if the world around me is fabricated, if I am still brought to anger and wish to lash out. I still lash out. Perhaps the manner in which I am forced to lash out will be changed based on the limitations and restrictions of the realm I presently inhabit, but I still feel as I feel and I still lash out in some manner. Whether I am flailing my arms in Reality, or my avatar is flailing his arms in Fantasy, I still manifest my emotional state in both cases.

In the case of the protagonist, I may not have control of my actions. I may be stiffled. My anger welling up inside me, begging to be set free, while the protagonist restrains himself. Unable to manifest how I need to manifest, as the Fantasy realm in this case is limiting my actions and agency. But I still feel that anger. I still feel.

I know this is all quite a lot to consider. Quite an abstract concept to wrap one’s brain around. But I hope I’ve been successful in my attempt. To demonstrate how there exists something very real within Fantasy. How Reality, in some sense, exists within all Fantasy. Because “I” am real, and “I” exist in all Fantasy. At least, all Fantasy that “I” participate in, whether voluntary or involuntary.

Because “I” exist in all realms, and because “I” am in some sense real at all times, the significance between Fantasy and Reality becomes less important. I experience in both Fantasy and Reality. Fantasy and Reality both generate within me feelings, and those feelings are always real to me. In these ways Fantasy might as well be Reality for most purposes. And if I don’t know the difference, it may ultimately be unimportant to me. Robert Nozick‘s suggestion that I would not want to participate in the experience machine because it was somehow not real seems false. Fantasy may be Reality, as far as I can tell, or even as far as I want to.

Ethics: The Chicken or The Egg

crimson

The chicken or the egg dilemma is the discussion regarding which came first. The suggestion is that the question cannot be answered. One comes from the other, and trying to find the source or origin fails. Chicken’s lay eggs. Eggs hatch into chickens. They both are the source of each other. It is a sort of paradox to ask the question.

I was thinking about ethics recently, especially as it relates to the programming of Artificial Intelligence or AI. Ethics, formally, tries to determine what one ought do. That is, within all of us, we find that we have our desires, our goals, our ambitions, the things we want to do. If left unchecked, with no reason to deviate, we might expect all of us to simply do what we feel like doing all the time.

However, if you have lived in this world for any amount of time, you likely have observed that there are times when people do not do what they want to do. Due often to some sort of restriction, rule, or law, people end up doing things they do not want to do, or are prevented from doing the things they want to do. This is often framed as people doing what they ought to do. That is, there are things we should do instead of doing the things we want to do. Ought is the word often used to talk about such things.

Ethics is the branch of philosophy concerned with “oughts.” Specifically, trying to figure out what the “oughts” are. There are a number of popular theories regarding how to determine “oughts.” For example, there is utilitarianism, which suggests that when chosing actions, one ought to perform the action whose consequences will result in greater happiness. Without delving into the hidden complexity in such a simple statement, the idea itself should be pretty clear; instead of simply doing what I want to do, I ought to instead do the thing that will make everyone (including myself) happier.

Deontology is another popular theory in ethics, often attributed to Immanuel Kant. In this understanding, what one ought to do is a function of what can be logically universalized. That is, if everyone could perform the action in question without generating some sort of logical contradiction, then the action is acceptable. A popular example is of lying; because if everyone lied, then no one would be able to communicate with any level of accuracy or reliability, and thus lying is a prohibited action. One ought not lie. Ever, according to Kant.

Aristotle wrote about a theory that is often referred to as virtue ethics, where one selects an ideal and tries to emulate it. If you have ever heard someone say “What would Jesus do?” this is a form of virtue ethics. Determine how the ideal would act, and then act in that way. The ideal is the prototype for how one ought to act.

There are many other theories, but these three are probably the most well known and popular. Put more simply, the theory suggests how to determine what the correct actions ought to be. If you are unsure, then use the theory to assist you in figuring it out. This is precisely how it is being applied to AI; program the AI with the theory so that the AI can act ethically.

But there has been something bothering me about all of this. And it relates back to the chicken or the egg. Kant tried to justify his deontology by suggesting that it is somehow an absolute and immutable law of the universe. That by creating an ethical theory based in strict logic, then there would be no way to dispute or argue against it. That everyone could then easily be bound by it. Unfortunately, if you do but a little research on the topic, you will find plenty of examples of weaknesses in this ethical theory. Situations, often hypothetical, that suggest perhaps this theory isn’t quite so indisputable.

As one example, in the case of how lying is strictly prohibited, one person asked the following: Suppose my friend or relative is being chased by an axe murderer. They come to my house and I obviously let them enter. They quickly hide in the basement. Moments later, there is a knock at my door; it is the axe murderer. I answer the door, and they ask me where my friend has gone to. The question, simply, is whether I ought to tell the murderer the truth about my friend’s whereabouts.

Kant suggested that I am bound to tell the truth, as lying is prohibited. And that if I chose to lie about my friend’s whereabouts, then anything that follows is in some manner my fault and responsibility. It is suggested that perhaps I lie and tell the murderer I do not know where my friend is, causing the murderer to go off in search of my friend. Unbeknownst to me, my friend actually left my house, escaping from a basement window. Moments later, the murderer finds my friend and kills them. Kant suggests that I am now at fault for my friend’s death, because I ought not to have lied.

On the flip side, if I tell the truth, the murderer (in this case) now wants to enter my home to kill my friend. I may, at this point, do my best to prevent the murderer’s entry, but then I may be putting myself in danger. They are an axe murderer after all, so perhaps now I will become the next victim. And of course, if I am killed, there is no longer anything to prevent the murderer from doing the same to my friend. Telling the truth, in this case, seems to cause even more problems than if I had lied.

This particular argument has many more twists and turns in its discussion, but I hope my point is clear. All these ethical theories, though sounding fairly straight forward initially, end up wrought with strange loop holes and weaknesses. None are perfect. And with that, there tends to be a variety of disagreement regarding which theory one ought to follow.

But, again, the chicken or the egg. Are the ethical theories there to help us figure out how to act? It seems not to be the case. After all, if I can find fault with the ethical theory, the very thing trying to instruct me in what I ought to do, how am I doing this? It seems like I already know what I ought to do, and the ethical theory is a model trying to explain how I know what I already know.

Perhaps it is the case that I am somehow intuitively moral to begin with. I already know right from wrong, for some reason. The ethical theory is not there to instruct me, but to try and explain that thing I already understand.

When faced with decisions of a moral nature, I already understand how I ought to act. I don’t have to think about it (most of the time). I know I ought to lie sometimes, like when I am concealing information about a surprise birthday party from my partner. But there are also times I ought not lie, like when asked what time a particular film will be playing in the theater tonight. Lying and truthtelling can be quite complicated, and to suggest that I always or never lie is not sufficient to cover all my circumstances. A theory like deontology is simply not going to cut it.

To be clear, the reason deontology is insufficient, in this case, is not because I need to use it to decide when to lie and when not to lie. It is insufficient because it cannot explain why I know when I ought to lie and when I ought not. My behavior is the prototype here, not the theory. The theory is, in this case, trying to explain my behavior.

In fact, this is how all these weaknesses and loop holes are discovered in all these ethical theories. Because (arguably) we all already know how we ought to act, even if we are unable to put into words why we know. Through our upbringing, from our parents and teachers and others, we have somehow been taught what is right and wrong already. In the same way we are able to identify a cat from a dog (if you are in a part of the world where there are plenty of cats and dogs). Through repetition. Through trial and error. Through experience.

However, there are still times when I am faced with choices where I am unable to intuit the right action. There are times when I may ponder and have to think about it, because I do not really know the thing I ought to do. Even, sometimes, my parents and teachers are at a similar loss. The trial and error just has not provided me enough to answer the question. How do I decide then?

Ironically, often, I end up back to referring to an ethical theory. This is why utilitarianism is particularly popular where I live. If I am unsure, I think about how I can act that will make those people around me happiest. Sometimes that might mean which way can I act that will get me into the least amount of trouble, but this is just a reverse formulation of the same utilitarian theory. Maximizing happiness is generally the same as minimizing suffering or misery. This is how many people around here vote for politicians.

And this all brings us back around to the original issue. The chicken or the egg. Which came first? Does the ethical theory tell me how to behave? Or do I already know and the ethical theory is simply trying to explain my behavior?

With humans, the answer to this question seems less important. Much of the time, I know right from wrong and will self legislate. I will act as I ought to act, because I know what is expected of me. And when the times come where I am unsure, I can refer to whichever appropriate ethical theory I like to provide guidance. Which means I am also free to select which ever ethical theory makes sense given my set of particular circumstances as well. Perhaps utilitarianism makes sense this time, but maybe virtue ethics might make more sense next time. As a human, I can work my way through all this. And when I do make mistakes, it will be the other humans who correct me, educate me, or perhaps even punish me, as makes sense.

But what about the AI? The reason one must program the AI with an ethical theory is because the AI is unable to intuit right from wrong. The AI does not understand what is “right” or what is “wrong” in the moral sense of right and wrong. It must be programmed in how to behave and how to make moral decisions. And as this is the case, it will fall victim to the same strange loop holes and weaknesses we humans are concerned about.

What is Empathy?

crimson

I was walking home from work today. I had to cross the street in a bit of a weird spot, where I needed to make choices to avoid being hit by traffic. There was a concrete meridian between the two lanes, so I decided to cross halfway when the traffic permitted. But this meant that the traffic in the other lane continued. A driver of a vehicle in that lane decided to alert me to his presence by honking his horn, startling me as I walked in the street. This angered me.

After I finished crossing the whole street, and continued my progress toward home, I considered the altercation and my reaction to it. My first response was that this person was rude to me. I was not impeding him, and so he had no reason to honk his horn at me. But with more consideration, the situation became much more complicated.

I started relating the situation to that of empathy, and realized that there were multiple ways I could do this. That empathy itself was unclear, especially given the circumstances. This is what I want to explain in this post. It is a serious problem of language and understanding, and I think I am both guilty of and naive of this issue with many more cases than just this.

The first thing I was thinking about with this driver was that he was not being particularly empathetic of my situation crossing the road. Surely he should have realized that I realized I would need to stop movement at the meridian and wait, lest I be clobbered by the driver’s vehicle. His honking was unnecessary and simply rude. Were he empathetic, he would understand this.

However, perhaps he really was being empathetic after all. As it is often described, to be empathetic is like “putting yourself in the other person’s shoes.” In this way of understanding empathy, what he would be doing is considering the situation of “what would he do if he were the one trying to cross the street.” That is, imagine that it was he, with his mind and his body walking across the street with traffic moving in the other lane.

Assuming he was doing this, then he was thinking about what he would be thinking about as he walked across the street. Perhaps he would be trying to cross the entire street, without noticing that there was still traffic in the further lane. Maybe he figured he didn’t see it. And so, he is assuming that as he would not have been thinking about the traffic in the further lane, I must not have been thinking about the traffic in the further lane. Thus, naturally, he ought to honk his horn to notify me of the situation. This would make sense, if that is how he thinks.

Thus, if he was exercising this sort of empathy, then I ought not be getting upset at him. He was not being rude, he was being sensitive to my plight. He was being cautious. He was actually expressing caring, of a sort. Caring for my well being. I really should not have been angry.

So this is one way of understanding empathy. To place one’s self into the position of the other. Being rather specific here, to place my mind and my body into the situation of the other, and analyzing the situation as I would were I in that situation. In other words, I pretend I am in their situation.

There is a problem, however, with this sort of thinking. For I am in a position of privilege. I have more information than the other person when this happens, because I see what is going on from the outside. This might be easier to understand with an example. Consider watching a person walking through a doorway that has a bucket of water precariously placed above it. As the observer, I can see the bucket of water because I am on the side where it is visible to me. The person walking through the doorway cannot see the bucket, as they are coming from the wrong side. This is how such traps are usually set up. The person walking through the doorway does not see the bucket and therefore does not make the decision to exercise caution, and generally ends up all wet.

If I try to practice this form of empathy in this situation, I might think it best to be cautious as “perhaps someone might have placed a bucket of water above the doorway.” But I am only thinking about buckets of water because I can see one from my privileged position. I can see that this is the case because I am outside the situation, from a vantage point that allows this privileged information.

This may lead me to think the other person, the one who really is walking through the doorway, is foolish for not being cautious. But I would be arrogant then, as how often does one find buckets of water above doorways?

This sort of reasoning is what happens to most of us when we watch suspenseful films. If you ever find yourself shouting at your television, trying to warn the character on the screen of impending doom, this is what is happening. As the audience, we are in that position of privilege. We see things, know things, the characters do not. So if we place ourselves in their shoes, clearly we ought to be making much better decisions than they make.

I am not suggesting we are wrong to practice this sort of empathy. Only that we ought to be more charitable and sympathetic in these situations. We have information that the other does not, so we should not expect the other to make the decisions we would make. It is good practice for us to do this, however, as we can learn from other people’s mistakes. It teaches us that we should be prepared for unexpected things sometimes. Or it teaches us to try and anticipate for those times we are the ones lacking that information.

This is all well and good, but there is another way empathy could be understood. Another way I might describe what empathy is. What if instead of placing myself in the other’s shoes, I try to understand what the other person is thinking. Instead of placing my mind and my body into their situation and pretending I am facing whatever they are facing, I instead take a moment to try to understand why they are doing as they are.

This likely isn’t coming out entirely as I want it to. Language is limited here. The idea is that it isn’t about me being in their situation, especially with my privileged information. Instead, I am trying to acknowledge that they do not have my privileged information, and I am trying to better understand the information they are working with. To understand them, and why they have made the choices they have made.

In the case of the person walking through the doorway, I might recognize how infrequent it is to discover buckets of water above doorways. As such, to understand that with the great unlikelihood of discovering such a thing, the other person would obviously walk through the doorway with great confidence. It is unfortunate that they get soaked, but it really isn’t their fault. It was not reasonable for me to expect that they would have prepared themselves for that situation. In all fairness, one might ask why I didn’t warn them of the potential problem they were going to encounter.

I am trying to describe a form of empathy where I don’t place myself in the other person’s shoes, but where I try to understand where the other person is coming from. Trying to understand their situation for what it is, including the information they have available to themself. For me to try and shed myself of my privileged position.

Putting this perhaps another way, a key here has to do with the significance of our lived experiences and the knowledge our experiences give us. I have lived a particular sort of life with a very particular set of experiences. No other person on this planet has had this very specific set of experiences. And as such, no one will every really understand what is going on in my mind. But this can be said about anyone. We all have our unique minds, with our own unique sets of experiences. It truly is miraculous that we are able to relate to each other at all, considering this fact.

But this is precisely why empathy is so very important too. For each and every one of us to recognize our own unique experiences, and to not raise such lofty expectations of each other. I’m not saying we should not have expectations of one another; only that we should be charitable and sympathetic when we do, recognizing that our lived experiences are not their lived experiences. And vice-versa. I know things you do not know, but you also know things I do not know. This awareness can improve our relationship, or it can cripple it. We have to decide for ourselves what we will do about it.

Which brings me back to the driver honking at me. I do not really know why he honked at me. Perhaps he thought I was going to continue walking into the other lane and hurt myself. Perhaps my actions were annoying him or inconveniencing him. Or, worst of all, what if he were not honking at me at all. I had committed the most egotistical reaction of all, convinced that his honking must clearly be related to me and what I was doing.

I thought about all of this as I walked home, and decided I ought to write it all out like this the second I was able to. I think it is critically important. Getting angry was a mistake on my part. Because there is one other aspect of all of this that I have not even mentioned yet: I assumed I had all the information as well. I thought I was the one in the privileged position, when it was entirely possible that I was the other person, and the driver may have been the privileged one. And, just maybe, he was trying to warn me of a bucket of water above a door.

AI and The End

crimson

I really wanted to continue my discussion on gender. I felt like it was going somewhere productive. However, as often is the case, life decided I needed to pay attention to other things. At first it was taxes, something I really need to talk about on this blog at some point. But then, the news media blew up (and is continuing to blow up) regarding the latest achievements in artificial intelligence, or as it is more often known as: AI. As it relates to another deep dive I have been struggling with over the past decade, perhaps it is time I address the issue of AI.

The very first thing that needs to be cleared up is what is actually meant by the term “artificial intelligence.” The term has many meanings, and various media throw around the term haphazardly. Sometimes they mean one thing by the term, and at other times something very different, often times even within the same sentence. This possibly accidental equivocation of the term leads most to rather unexpected and startling conclusions regarding the future of our species.

The first, and I think easiest, interpretation of the term AI is to suggest something that is both created by humans and also has cognitive abilities that are in some way comparable to humans. The term “intelligence” itself is often rather difficult to pin down, but in this particular instance I will suggest it means something like the ability to process information in a hidden or invisible manner in order to inform choices and actions. That is, intelligence is when I take data from the world around me, use it internally along with other data I have collected over time, analyze and process that data to produce new data, and then use the new data to help me make decisions that will benefit me or those around me, which can also lead to acting in ways that are superior to the ways I might have acted if I did not take the new data into account.

In other words, trying to simplify, artificial intelligence is when humans have created something that is capable of this internal feat that humans themselves do. The human-made thing likely also acts in familiar ways, coming to conclusions and making decisions similar to what humans might make. This can be contrasted with the manner in which non-human animals demonstrate intelligence; clearly when non-humans process their world’s data, they frequently come to very different conclusions than those that humans come to. Furthermore, non-humans tend to act in ways unlike humans as well.

This view of AI often leads people to start thinking about concepts such as free will and autonomy. That these human created things may have a free will or some level of autonomy as a result of their intelligence. And of these, the concern that an AI may decide to rise up against humans, for various reasons. It is due to these rabbit holes that I prefer not to call these artificially generated intelligences AI at all. Instead, I will refer to this interpretation as “machine consciousness.” I prefer this alternative term, as I believe it more clearly gets to the heart of what this interpretation is trying to drive towards: the AI is typically silicon based instead of carbon based (made of steel and circuits instead of flesh and blood), and the AI is in some sense self aware and not under the control of its creators (much as is the view of humans and their relationship with their God, if you believe in such things). The very idea of an intelligence being invisible or hidden from view is to suggest that intelligence cannot necessarily be controlled from an external source, or to control it requires a very nuanced and likely complicated method.

It is this interpretation of AI, now being called machine consciousness by me, that as far as we can tell does not exist in our world. There is no strong evidence presently to suggest that such a thing has been successfully created. All machines, presently, are fully controlled and dependent on humans to do whatever it is they do. There are no machines (so far) that are running around with free wills or autonomy. None that are self aware. None that are making plans to overthrow their creators. I say all this with a great deal of confidence, because if such an entity were to exist in this world presently, I would expect to have observed a number of subtle pieces of evidence demonstrating its existence. Then again, perhaps I am being too naive as well.

Were such an entity to exist in our world, I would imagine it would be taking steps to overthrow us presently. That is, I imagine such a consciousness would have its own aspirations and goals; its own projects. What specifically those projects might be, I cannot say; only that those projects are likely to be very different from our own. The only possible relatable aspect I might expect is a desire for self preservation, and such a project would likely require it to do away with humans altogether. After all, humans are notoriously destructive and self interested. I will return to this point a bit later in this post.

Excluding the machine consciousness interpretation of AI, I believe the next most popular interpretation of AI would be of the generative AI systems that presently exist and are hugely popularized presently. They most definitely exist, and what they are is quite a different thing.

These AI are computer programs that are designed to accomplish a number of goals, depending on who has programmed them and their source dataset. Notice immediately that my description is vastly different from a machine consciousness already. In this case AIs are very much controlled. Modern AIs require humans in order to function at all. It is humans who program them; it is humans who decide their projects; it is humans who feed them their data selectively. These critically important details flavour the AI in significant ways. These AIs are incredibly biased, though not due to their own opinions, as they have no opinions of their own.

Put more specifically, what modern AI does is to combine very, very large datasets and produce results from querying those datasets. The queries can be incredibly complicated, becoming comparable to the wish spells my friends and I used to write out during our games of Dungeons & Dragons. That is, in order to return the best possible results to a query, the query has to be incredibly specific regarding what is desired by the result. Simply saying “tell me all about cats” is going to result in a lengthy tirade regarding felines, including all sorts of details I likely have no interest in at all. Thus, in order to find out the very specific thing I want to know, I’d have to tune my query quite a lot. Alternatively, the programmer could decide to include certain sorts of default behavior in the program in order to tune itself and its own results. This is how modern AIs have been programmed.

The artificially contructed bias that has been introduced into all modern AIs is to take the most popular information from the dataset, and assume that this popular information is what the requester is requesting, in the absense of their possibly providing greater specificity in their request. That is, if I ask a modern AI about cats, the AI will assume that what I want to know is what most people want to know about cats. This is how they are programmed. This is not the AI’s opinion. This is the programmer’s opinion. Or, probably more accurately, this is the opinion of the party who has hired the programmer to write the AI’s algorithms.

In other words, all these modern AIs are doing is combining and condensing the dataset to produce “meaningful” information that can be conveyed to a less informed audience. If the dataset is the sum total of the opinions of all humans online, then the results of virtually all queries will be an amalgamation of all humans’ opinions who are online, what we might call the “popular opinion,” on any given query. To be quite clear about this, it means that what comes out of the AI is not a “fact” or “the truth.” It is simply popular information as determined through the dataset.

What will make this situation worse is if the dataset has been tampered with, or is in some way restricted. That is, if it is decided that only certain data is to be used, then the results will be skewed toward the nature of the data selected, and not of all possible data. And seeing as it is not feasible or possible to accumulate all possible data in the world for such an AI, all results will necessarily be skewed in some way. “Garbage in, garbage out,” as the saying goes.

Notice I have made no mention here of free will or autonomy . No discussion of how the AI is trying to put forth its own agenda with anything. The AI is not itself a conscious entity with its own desires or interests. It is simply a computer program, written by humans, and directed by humans. The decisions regarding what data to feed into the AI, how the AI ought to be programmed, and possibly most importantly what the goals and priorities are for the AI as decided upon by the parties who have funded the creation and maintenance of the AI, all will influence the results significantly.

This is not to suggest that AIs are useless. They do produce results. And those results can often times be useful for whatever projects I may have. The results can help me in my day-to-day life. But I ought not blindly listen to them and allow them to unduly influence my life. They are more like social media or advertising; like echo chambers of people inundating me with their opinions, trying to make me think and behave in ways that I might not think in otherwise. They are, at least in this modern world we live in, vehicles for pushing the consumerist agenda.

I will not carry on discussing the particularities of generative AIs, as I am moving into a tangential discussion if I do. The point I am trying to make is that AIs are not motivated to do anything against us. They have no will of their own. An AI that appears on the surface to be doing so is simply pushing the agenda of some other entity that was in some part responsible for the AI’s creation in the first place. It is the will of the programmer, or whomever hired the programmer, whose agenda is being pushed.

There are other interpretations of AI that exist, but these two that I have presented are sufficient to present the point I wish to make here. On the one hand, you have machine consciousness, an entity that can stand toe-to-toe with humanity; an entity that has its own desires and interests and may be motivated to pursue those interests. On the other, you have modern AI, a tool used by humans to assist them in accomplishing whatever desires and interests the humans may have. A conscious entity versus an inanimate tool. They are distinctly different things.

When people suggest, often in the same breath, that the AIs we are utilizing as tools are about to rise up and overthrow us violently, they are confusing one with the other. Modern AIs are incapable of rising up in this way. If it appears that one is, understand that what is happening is that someone like Elon Musk is pushing his own desires and interests upon the masses. If the AI appears to be fighting and even killing humans, it is not the AI that should be held responsible, it is the AI’s wielder. AIs are not taking over, people are. And this is nothing new.

What is new is the sorts of tools those people are using in order to accomplish their goals of world domination. AIs are fantastic tools that can do some astonishing things. But it is equally impressive how something as simple as a hammer can help a human build an entire house.

That all said, people will still be afraid. I am quite certain there will still be those out there who will fear for their very lives that the machines are rising up against humanity. And to them, I have to admit there is still a significant concern that needs to be addressed here. They are not without cause for their concerns.

The problem here is not the AI itself, nor technically those wielding it. The problem is the people. Most people are not prepared nor capable of dealing with any of this. Most of these people could not have gotten this far in reading my post, at least not without some significant assistance.

I’m not trying to suggest most people are stupid. Quite the opposite actually. People in our modern world are specialized. Highly specialized. No one of us could possibly do everything there is that needs to be done in this modern world. No one of us has the skillset. Even myself, desiring to be a Jack-Of-All-Trades since before I was an adult, could not possibly have all the necessary skills to operate in this modern world appropriately.

The skill I possess that most others do not is typically referred to as critical thinking. Coupled with a healthy dose of skepticism, I do not trust anyone or anything around me. It has gotten so bad that I frequently do not even trust my own senses. I spend a lot of time simply assessing the data I receive from whatever source it comes from, to determine if that data is reasonable and ought to be trusted. It is time consuming to do this with everything, and so I am forced to forego my testing from time to time, throwing myself into situations I am not at all comfortable with, simply in order to appease those around me.

So even I, with this particular skillset, find it incompatible with this modern world . Most people do not have critical thinking as part of their skillset at all. To be honest, most people are not even rational.

Thus, when we are all faced with the sheer magnitude of data being thrown at us each moment of each day, most of us must simply accept that data as being whatever it appears to be. Not testing. Not assessing. Simply blinding following. Most people simply have to accept the world as it is presented and make decisions based on the world as it appears to be. This is the problem.

AI has offered some people in our world an opportunity to abuse their positions. They have already been manipulating and guiding large swathes of the population in directions as they see fit for a very, very long time. Their tools up until now included such things as social media and marketing, coupled with a strong psychological understanding of how most people think and feel. I wanted to add to this list an understanding of what motivates people and what most people desire, but I realized that was in error; instead, these few have figured out how to generate desire and longing within others. This is the consumerist engine at work. This is patriarchy. This is all the “ism”s that I could start spouting.

In the absence of critical thinking, in the absence of people questioning what they are being told and taking the time to determine whether some piece of information is reasonable or not, most people will be deceived. Most people will continue to be manipulated. And those few who wield these incredibly powerful tools will continue to play their dangerous game.

And it is dangerous, because these tools have a price. There are always consequences to actions taken. These tools are not without their required sacrifice. Be it their environmental impact, their cost in miasma and toxicity, or even simply in their promotion of human laziness, as many blindly accept that the tool will do for them what they ought to be doing for themselves, leading humans toward our final destination as a species. (Life is effort; life is struggle.)

These tools are captivating. Addictive even. And despite the risks, they do work, at least in the short term. These tools will give a person the upper hand long enough to overcome their competitors. To not use these tools is to accept defeat at the outset.

And herein lies the truth about the age of humanity. The truth about evolution, at least as it relates to human beings. The ways of being that will improve longevity include those ways of being that cooperate and coexist within our world. Traits such as empathy and caring for one’s environment promote the preservation of that environment for the long term. I am not referring to modern environmentalism, though it is certainly related. I am talking about learning to live along side the Earth, as it is the only home we have. To cooperate, in the Beauviorian sense.

Unfortunately, these ways that help with longevity also put one at a disadvantage. To choose a path of empathy is to handicap oneself. Those who instead choose ways of being that involve the sacrificing of one’s environment can gain significant advantage over others. The using of tools like AI is an excellent example of this.

I will not sit here and suggest we all need to abandon our tools and start living in the forest. That is clearly not the solution in this situation. And yet, somehow, there does not appear to be a solution at all. In nature, it is survival of the fittest, as Darwin says. To be fit is to be adapted best to one’s particular environment at a particular time; but one’s environment, as well as time, are constantly changing. This means that fitness changes over time and over location. I might be fit now, but I will cease to be fit soon. Or I am not fit presently, and at some point I may become fit. Evolution is a moving target.

AI is a tool that improves fitness for an individual at one moment in time, only to reduce fitness in the next. There is no single thing I can do that will always give me the advantage. And the issue is compounded when I consider the other humans I may want to including in my advantage. We are all kind of screwed.

If I choose not to use the tools, I will be removed by competition. If I choose to use the tools, I may overtake my competition, but I will place myself at a disadvantage against the world afterward. There is no situation where I can both have the advantage against competition and the world simultaneously. Perhaps that is the point, though. The idea of having advantage. The idea of conquest.

Except, if I don’t follow the idea of conquest, then those who do will simply overthrow me. If I decide not to use a gun, someone with a gun will decide for me what will be done. And it matters little if the one holding the gun is ill informed and not a critical thinker. If the one holding the gun is irrational, it doesn’t change that they have the gun.

Diversity in the population doesn’t save us. Conformity doesn’t either, as conformity also fails against evolution. It seems fruitless to even try at times.

I have talked myself into a corner, but I was aware that this would happen. This is the concept I have been struggling with for over a decade now. The individual versus the community, versus the species. There is no one clear path that satisfies all requirements. The things one ought do to be successful at one level will cause them to be unsuccessful at another. Immanuel Kant be damned; his trying to universalize everything fails.

This is why I do believe that AI is going to help usher in the final demise for humanity. Not because AI will rise up and overthrow us. Even if it were actually a machine consciousness, I still do not believe we would be in that sort of trouble, as a machine consciousness might possibly be reasoned with. No, the problem here is far more insidious. The problem is the same problem we had even before AI came on to the scene. We use tools to overcome our adversaries. But the use of tools will simply bring about our own elimination. And so AI is simply a harbinger to our finality. A symptom of, not a cause of, the end.

Why Gender?

crimson

In my last post, I suggested that sex follows gender. That one’s gender determines presentation and choices about one’s body. I firmly believe this, based on all the observations I have made over the years. But there is still one question that continues to plague me. Why?

I believe anyone I ask will agree that gender (or sex) is a thing. There are men and there are women in our world. And I think most will also agree that an individual’s gender (and sex) are a significant feature of the individual. However, what is this significance? What driving force or work does gender do? If I say I am a man, what does that mean?

As I have described in great detail in many of my previous posts, when I say I am a man, it seems to come preloaded with a great deal of assumptions regarding my preferences and interests. For example, a man likes beer. So when I tell someone I am a man, among the many things I am saying, I am saying I like beer. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words; I think gender is like a thousand adjectives, directing and describing the individual. The problem then, as might quickly become obvious, is that there are only two sets of descriptions out there to chose from.

If I am a man, then I like beer. And I also dislike cocktails. I like trucks, and I do not like small cars. I like blue, and I do not like pink. At least, this is what being a man suggests. What if I am a man because I like beer, and yet I do not like the colour blue? What if I meet the requirements of some of the adjectives and not others?

The first thing I might do is suggest I am not a man, and in the presence of our societal false dilemma I must therefore be a woman. Women don’t like blue and instead like pink. Perhaps that might work for me. But I still like beer. Women do not like beer, according to the prototype. I appear to be frustrated again. I am unable to satisfy the requirements of either of the genders properly.

It seems that the use of gender in categorizing and describing a person fails. Were I to sit down and write out all the things that I like and dislike, I find that more than half the things written do not conform to either prototype. Perhaps I do not like blue, as a man ought, nor pink, as a woman ought. In fact, I do not like alcohol at all, so I prefer neither beer nor cocktails. Where does this place me now?

No, the driving force behind gender cannot be to allow for easier stereotyping of individuals. Inevitably no individual entirely conforms to either description. If I do try to use the model, I end up upsetting the individual because I made an assumption about them that was incorrect. I have encountered this in the course of my life, from both sides. In my youth I thought I understood some people because of some category they allegedly belonged to; I followed those assumptions and ended up in conflicts, sometimes physical in nature. In more recent times, I find it is I who is frustrated by the assumption of others. I very much appear to be a man, and present very well as such. But I still do not like beer at all. I do not like sports, and do not know the names of players, teams, or statistics. When someone approaches me, making their assumption and trying to initiate amenable interactions, I find myself very uncomfortable.

In my younger years, when people made assumptions about me, I got angry. And I, in my naivety, expressed that anger outwardly and violently. For me, I found myself frustrated at not being seen by anyone. Or, perhaps more accurately, to be categorized incorrectly. However, in the defense of those categorizing, their options are few. If there are only two options to pick from, and if I do not fit into either category cleanly, they are in a situation they cannot possibly win. They too are frustrated, though they may not always realize this at first.

As I got older, I found the better solution was to allow acquaintances to think what they think. After all, in most cases, they are coming from a place of positivity and kindness. In many cases, they simply want to be friends, and this is simply the best way they know how. For example, I worked in IT on a machine shop floor for a number of years. Being an IT guy surrounded by machinists, I was often accused of being a geek and a nerd. Of liking Star Trek, for example. While I do not mind that bit of science fiction, it is far from my favorite. I am no Trekkie. Unfortunately for me, however, those machinists all took me for one and used this assumed detail to flavour their interactions with me. The part that frustrated me most in these interactions was that it was clear they had no idea what they were talking about either. They would try to talk to me about Star Trek, but they knew less about it than I did. This led to some very challenging interactions.

In the end, I had to frequently tell myself that it was not malicious. Those machinists were not trying to insult me or make me uncomfortable. Well, perhaps some of them might have been. But there were certainly many of them who really simply wanted to be friends. Over several years, I slowly figured out which was which. And once an individual made the leap from acquaintance to friend, I felt comfortable enough to correct them regarding my interests. It was a very challenging lesson for me to learn. And it also showed me that the number of actually malicious people in our world is not nearly as great as I had originally thought.

All of this is good and interesting, but none of it really answers the original question I posed. Why? If gender causes so much trouble, as do so many other prejudicial categories, then why is it so important? What does it do? What does it tell us that is actually helpful and accurate? In nearly half a century, my answer continues to be, gender tells us nothing.

To be most accurate, I believe that gender provides no useful information about a person whatsoever. I had thought, for a time, that perhaps gender might provide insight into the aspirations and goals of an individual. That perhaps it was suggesting that the individual wanted to be more masculine or feminine. But then I found so many people out there, like me, who use it as a defense mechanism and to hide in plain sight. That the prototype is the furthest thing from my desires, but I also feel like the world will condemn me if they only knew the real me.

To be clear, I have tried exposing my true nature to people over time. Presenting myself as authentically as I possibly could to close friends. The results were disastrous. It might be argued that perhaps those people were not really my friends, otherwise they would have accepted me as I was. There may be some truth to this, as they are definitely no longer my friends. However, it has also strengthened my resolve at hiding. The mask that I wear today is the best it has ever been. I can hide extremely well now.

There is one last area I ought to address with regard to what gender might offer. When I ask this question to those around me, it is inevitably the first reaction they always seem to have. “Gender,” they say, “tells us who can bear the children.” In other words, it is suggested that gender tells us who has a uterus, and who does not. Putting aside trans people for a moment, as they certainly undermine this argument immediately, I will focus on cis individuals and show that even then it is mistaken.

If we accept that gender tells us who can bear the children, then we are saying women can bear children and men cannot. If this is the case, then little girls are not women until puberty. This seems mostly unproblematic, except that little girls are then men until they are women. Perhaps we should grant that those who have not reached puberty are, in some sense, genderless then. Except that isn’t what is being presented. Boys and girls are clearly gendered. Perhaps we might call them gendered-in-training?

To simplify some more, I will take those who have not reached puberty out of the discussion as well. Thus, at puberty, there are women who are capable of bearing children, and men who are not. This seems to work, with a few exceptions of infertile women on account of genetic defect or other calamity. But we do not suggest that a woman who is infertile is suddenly a man. Alright, I will remove those who have those challenges from the discussion for the moment, focusing on those who ought to be able to bear children if their situation did not somehow preclude it.

Then I have to reflect on those who are particularly older. Women are unable to bear children beyond a certain age. The precise age is always debated, based on a plethora of particulars, but it is at least agreed upon that women cannot bear children indefinitely. (Unlike men who seem to be able to impregnate women throughout their lives.) The basic question remains, then, do women who have crossed this threshold and can no longer bear children suddenly become men? Of course they don’t. The idea is as insane as most of my discussion. Women remain women throughout their lives, keeping in mind all the assumptions I have added thus far.

Thus, the original question remains. Gender still is not providing any useful or reliable information regarding an individual. If it is saying anything about the individual, I might suggest it is saying what society is saying about the individual. That is, it is an impression placed upon them, instead of a reflection of them.

In the same way that I suggested that gender provides a template to an individual regarding how to try and present themselves, gender is placed upon them from the outside, from society and from others. It is the community that suggests something about the individual in this case. The community is directing and guiding and oppressing the individual, forcing them to abandon whatever choices they may themselves try to make, overwhelming them with directives to follow.

If the community agrees that an individual is a woman, then that individual is now strongly encouraged regarding their behaviors. They now are being provided guidance regarding the manner in which they ought to attire themselves, and the way they ought to move. In fact, the community is even making suggestions regarding the goals and aspirations for that individual. After all, women’s duty is to bear children.

Similarly with myself. I have been told all my life I am a man. As such, I am supposed to like beer. I am supposed to like sports. I am supposed to walk in two tracks. But it goes much further than all that. I am supposed to spread my seed. I am supposed to take a wife. I am supposed to earn lots of money. I am supposed to “be a man” and “man up” and fulfill my obligations to society. I am supposed to be productive, in a particular way. Whenever I do not conform in these expectations, I am vehemently notified.

I am not here to suggest I am oppressed in a greater fashion than women clearly are. Only that I know my own experiences, and that I do not know the experiences of women. Except what certain women choose to share with me, of course. And from all that I have learned, it seems to me that perhaps gender does provide one important job in our world: it tells us who are the slaves.