Avatars and Simulacra

crimson

I watched the Love Is Blind Season 6 finale, entitled “The Reunion,” just recently. It is my partner who likes the show, so I end up watching it for her; I would not ever watch this show myself if not for her. Writing that opening, I realize just how important my partner is in my life, and in my evolution as a person and a philosopher. Engaging with things I am not interested in, or even do not like, certainly plays an important role in helping me to gain a more holistic and complete view of the world.

In the case of this very specific episode of the show, I realized a number of things about my views on avatars and of simulation theory. I have spoken in previous posts about the separation between persons and their representations in simulation. As a very common example, of a player and their character in a video game. I think this distinction is critically important. That the player needs to always be aware that they are merely the player, and not the character within the simulation. And perhaps even more importantly, that the character’s experience is not the player’s experience. But this episode has thrown several monkey wrenches into my understanding.

One of the characters was being criticized by the shows host for going on record saying, “This is reality television. It is meant to entertain you, and I think that’s exactly what we’re doing. We didn’t miss with this one, baby. We didn’t miss!” This is very, very interesting to me. A reality show actor (and they are actors, just to be clear), goes on record publicly admitting that the purpose of reality television is to entertain. And if that isn’t enough, the show’s host then goes on record saying, “So, be very, very clear about this right now, was this all just for entertainment?” The conversation continues with the actor being placed on the defensive, being pushed to answer a false dilemma regarding the authenticity of the show.

I think it is going to take a bit of explaining to distill out what I think about hearing this. How I get from those statements to the conclusion that people are confusing their avatars for themselves. But that is precisely what this post is all about today.

In thinking much more about the particulars in this situation, I am going to try to explain what I think is going on and what I think the problem is. Firstly, there are individuals or persons who exist in what we might suggest is our main reality. This is me sitting in my chair typing out this post. I am a real, flesh and blood person existing in a physical universe. I need to eat and drink and breath to subsist. I am constrained by many, many limitations that are exceedingly difficult to overcome, such as gravity and air pressure. There is so much to say about this embodiment that I possess, but what I want to make clear is that this is the world that I think most people would agree is the main or true reality we all exist in. At least, as far as we can tell (this is a monkey wrench I can never seem to shake, so bear with me).

Then there are our avatars, who exist in some other reality. We all have many avatars, as many as all the simulations we interact with at any time. As the most basic example, when I play a board game, the playing piece I select becomes my avatar within the game. If I play a video game, my video game character becomes my avatar. And if I set up a social media account, the profile becomes my avatar. In any situation where I engage with some sort of simulation, I will have some sort of avatar that represents me within that simulation. The only exception I can think of is that perhaps I watch the simulation from the outside, like when I watch a sporting event on my television. But then I realize that in that situation, my avatar is akin to God within the simulation, looking down from above. A sort of “objective observer” of the simulation. And thus, there is still an avatar.

In all these cases, to be perfectly clear, I am suggesting that I am never my avatar. Not directly. I have a connection with my avatar, most often in that I control my avatar’s actions. In the case of a board game or video game, this may seem obvious. I might roll the dice to move my playing piece around the board of the board game. Or I might use my joystick to control the movements of my character in the video game. I, as the individual, exert an influence on my avatar in some way to make them behave in their reality.

In the case of the “objective observer,” I again exert an influence, not so much in the behavior, but more in the sorts of things the avatar will observe. I can change my viewpoint to look in different directions, or observe the simulation in different ways. As the “objective observer” is in a privileged position, my influence takes on a more abstract connection to my avatar.

But in the end, in all cases, there is still this distinction between who I am, as an individual, and who my avatar is, within the simulation. And more than just this distinction, it seems to me that there is a particular direction of the flow of things. As individual, my influence extends toward my avatar, not the other way around. The avatar does not make decisions for me, or influence how I behave.

Except that perhaps I’ve been mistaken in this regard. What if my avatar does exert some influence in the reverse direction? What if my avatar influences how I behave and act?

I have often suggested social media is a huge problem. A large reason I make this claim is that I suggest sometimes people confuse their avatars for themselves. Whereas in most video games, once the game is paused or ended, most people will understand that their character was just an avatar and not themselves. I am no longer Link, roaming the realm of Hyrule; in fact, I never truly was. I was always just myself in this world, and I was just “controlling” Link in that game. But what if I thought I was still Link, even when the game was over?

In social media, one creates a profile. That profile is often meant to represent themselves as accurately as possible. Same name. Same statistics. Same features. Same appearance. In fact, if a person purposefully does not do their very best to maintain this high level of correlation between individual and avatar, they are said to be a “catfish.” Being a “catfish” is considered a very unethical and taboo thing, and will often lead to such punishments as ostracization. Of course, this doesn’t appear to be uniform across all simulations; there are some simulations where “catfishing” is embraced and even encouraged. But then, the simulation is treated a bit more like a video game at that point, where the individuals have a much easier time recognizing that there is the distinction between their person and their avatar.

Thus, in general, in social media, it is encouraged to maintain an extremely high level of correlation between one’s avatar and one’s self. If something significant changes to an individual in the “real world,” they are expected to reflect that change in their avatar. If my relationship status changes in the real world, I am expect to update my relationship status within my online profile, for example. But what if something happens to my avatar within the social media; does this suggest that I need to update my person to reflect the change to my avatar?

In thinking about this at length, perhaps my earlier thoughts on individuals and avatars was too hasty. Because when I play an incredibly immersive video game, I do start to experience some of what my avatar experiences. I get excited and scared just as my avatar might. Clearly this is that reverse flow I was just speaking about, where my avatar is exerting an influence on my person. I never really considered this much before, but this is also part of the allure of playing these sorts of video games as well. To feel something I might not normally feel otherwise. To experience something I might not experience otherwise.

And so, in the case of social media, maybe the reverse flow ought to be expected. That if something happens to my avatar online, it will influence my person in this reality. Perhaps even to the point of changing me. My online existence manifesting into my real world existence. Perhaps my connection with my avatar can be far more comprehensive than I originally thought.

Returning to this episode of Love is Blind, and the comments by the actor about how the show is merely for entertainment. Firstly, I would like to acknowledge that the actor did NOT say “merely.” It may possibly have been implied, which clearly is why the host criticized the actor. But the quote really only suggests that the purpose of reality television is to entertain, and that she believes it has been successful in this regard. Reality television can be both entertaining and real, in some sense. The possibility exists. Whether it is both simultaneously is another discussion altogether.

However, as the host criticizes her, that is clearly the perspective of the host. Or perhaps I might suggest, the host interpreted the actor’s statements as suggesting it was either one or the other, but not both. The host is committing a false dilemma, suggesting the actor could not mean both simultaneously. And the actor, clearly not trained in the art of debate, was led down a very entertaining path for the audience’s amusement.

And this, ultimately, is the most interesting thing for me. Because the host is pressing against the actor regarding things she said publicly regarding something that I believe the host likely DOES understand. That is, the episode of this show is, well, just a show. It is a reality television show that really is made for my entertainment. The actor is clearly correct. I am watching a show. I am in the privileged position. And the show is a simulation of my reality. These actors are avatars. I do not know these people in their real lives. Just like I only know “The Rock” and not Dwayne Johnson. To be perfectly clear here, Dwayne Johnson is an individual, and “The Rock” is his avatar (his character on various television shows and online).

So, this is a case of extreme layering. Of inception, to use the popular understand of this term, coming from the film that came out in 2010. The host is a character on a television show, just as the actor is playing one as well. And the host is also in a bit of a privileged position, because the real person associated with the host is also in part generating the narrative of this show. The person behind the host is (in part) creating this show. So the person, who is controlling the character of the host, knows full well that the actor is in fact correct regarding their statements.

Taking this further, I would argue that the host not only knows that the actor is correct, but that the host cannot admit this publicly. The host MUST maintain the illusion of the show being actually real in order to maintain the credibility of the show and its viewership. To maintain the support of its investors and stakeholders. The host NEEDS to criticize the actor for “breaking the 4th wall.”

This is precisely the issue I have with virtually all reality television and with social media. The nature of these simulations is that they are supposed to be “real.” They are simulations that pretend not to be simulations. To know that the simulation is a simulation is to destroy the “magic” of the simulation entirely. The audience needs to believe that these things are fully real and authentic for them to gain the proper amount of immersion. And unfortunately, just as Jean Baudrillard seemed to fear most, the “precession of simulacra” has already occurred.

WALL·E and Love

crimson

This is my 100th post. To celebrate, I’ve decided to do a film review. Recently I re-watched the film WALL·E from 2008, and I was struck by how much the story seems to demonstrate some of the ideas I have been talking about on my site. Particularly my view of love. So as part of my review, I thought I’d focus on why I think the story does this. As a warning, this post will most definitely include SPOILERS!

Firstly, I’d like to borrow a small bit of description from Wikipedia to begin my explanation of the story: “In the 29th century, Earth is a garbage-strewn wasteland due to an ecocide, caused by rampant consumerism, corporate greed, and environmental neglect.” This one line alone is dense with information, and ironically opposes the feeling of the film. It seems to suggest a very negative, dystopian story. But WALL·E is anything but negative or dystopian.

I’d not seen the term ecocide before reading this. A term used to describe the potential result of human action upon our world. The destruction of our ecosystem, to the point that it would be unable to sustain life. This is what has happened. Earth is uninhabitable. At least by humans. But the story seems to suggest all life has ended. Except it hasn’t. There is at least one lone cockroach who continues to subsist on Twinkies…

It was decided, now long ago, that robots would be used to try to clean up the mess. This is where WALL·E comes from. He is a little trash compacting robot, whose sole purpose is to go around and compact little cubes of garbage and stack them in rather tall piles. There used to be many such robots roaming the Earth performing this function, but after about 700 years, our protagonist is all that remains.

It quickly becomes clear that WALL·E has been around for so long, and exposed to so much, that he has gone beyond his original programming. He collects trinkets and baubles as he goes about his “work day.” He has a fondness for old timey cinema about romance. And he even stumbles upon a lone green seedling that he finds hidden away inside a rusted out refrigerator. Evidence that perhaps not all life has ceased to exist on our ruined planet.

Up to this point, I might agree that WALL·E ought to be considered a sort of Artificial Intelligence (AI). However, it is what comes next that promotes his status to a full fledged machine consciousness, at least in my assessment. An unmanned probe lands nearby and deposits a small levitating robot who is far more advanced than our protagonist. We find out her name is EVE, and aside from being well armed, she seems to be looking for something.

It is during this very basic interaction that everything comes together for me. WALL·E introduces himself to this strange new robot, and they inquire about each others’ “directive.” For me, their “directive” seems analogous to what I often term as one’s project. The thing they each are driven to do, either through desire or command. WALL·E’s directive is simple, crush garbage into cubes, which he demonstrates with a flourish. But when he asks EVE what her directive is, she turns and states that it is “classified.” It seems her project is a secret.

This is where I believe the truth of WALL·E’s love begins. Not necessarily based on her physical appearance, or her ability to blow up large tankers. I would suggest that WALL·E decides to do the one thing that I consider to be a true act of love: he tries to identify what her directive is, and then makes a concerted effort to help her in achieving her directive. In fact, his love pushes him to abandon his own directive in the process, an act I would suggest elevates him from mere AI into the realm of machine consciousness. Specifically, he ceases to follow his original programming, even going so far as to do the opposite. A sort of rebellion or revolution, though of only one individual.

When WALL·E shows EVE his various finds over his time on Earth, when he shows her the seedling, she immediately abducts the plant within her belly and shuts down. Only an ominous blinking green light upon her chest shows any sign she is still functioning.

And what does WALL·E do at this point? He looks after EVE. For some time, perhaps several days or weeks, he takes care of the sleeping princess, protecting her from the elements until such time as she might reawaken. Abandoning his garbage crushing directive to attend to EVE’s directive instead.

The probe returns and whisks EVE away, and WALL·E is hot on its heels. Thrust into outer space for some time, as the probe journeys back to it’s home, the Axiom. Up to this point, the story seems only to have these 2 main characters. But once on the Axiom, a flurry of activity and additional personalities are introduced. Including the missing humans that appear to have escaped the demise of the Earth. The future generations, forced to evacute a planet that was destroyed by their ancestors.

The plot becomes pretty straight forward at this point, I think. It is made clear that EVE’s directive was to find evidence of sustainable life on Earth and report back with that evidence. Said evidence would be used to bring this community of humans back to Earth to repopulate their original home. Unfortunately, one of the robots has fixated on an old order from 600 years ago, stating that the Earth was unable to be restored. Clearly the order was in error, as evidenced by EVE’s, or rather WALL·E’s, discovery.

The seedling is first secretly abducted by one of the autopilot’s assistance robots, and an attempt is made to destroy the evidence. When that fails, there are attempted murders of both WALL·E and EVE and the human captain of the ship is restricted to his quarters. Yes, I said murders; however, it can easily be argued that only humans can be murdered and not robots. That said, WALL·E’s and EVE’s continuance is threatened. In fact, arguably, WALL·E does not survive. At least not initially.

It is a happy ending in this story. Everyone makes it back to Earth, and WALL·E is restored through some unexplained miracle. And the credits of the film show humans and robots working together harmoniously to restore Earth to its former glory, hopefully having learned not to remake the mistakes of the past.

It is a story befitting Disney’s reputation. And it is one of the few Disney endorsed products I actually enjoy. Aside from the over simplification of the current progress humanity has made toward ecocide, as I stated at the outset, I appreciate how clear it presents my idea of love.

As I’ve been saying in many of my previous posts, I believe love is a choice. A free action made by individuals to support the projects of other individuals. To prioritize those others’ projects over one’s own. And this is precisely what WALL·E does. In fact, later in the film, EVE does the same thing, demonstrating her love for WALL·E as well.

I like how it presents the idea of the directive, which I will continue to suggest is analogous to one’s projects. At first glance, their directive seems to be just what their programming is telling them they must do: WALL·E is a trash compacting robot who must compact trash on Earth, while EVE is a robot who must seek out and find evidence of life on Earth and bring it to the captain of the Axiom. Both know what they are supposed to do. Arguably, this is what they both initially want to do. But events take place, through shared experiences, that make them decide to do otherwise.

WALL·E’s path in this regard is assumed, as we meet his character at a point well beyond when he would have progressed enough to exercise his freedom. He has already been collecting trinkets and baubles for some time, as evidenced by his home in the truck. A grand collection of many objects he has collected over some time. He seems to still follow his original directive, but more by choice than by force. He has decided to make his original directive his, much as Sisyphus does when forced to push a boulder up a slope for all eternity. Like Sisyphus, WALL·E no longer does what he does as some sort of banal punishment, but instead has made a game out of it. Camus would likely suggest WALL·E has embraced the absurd.

EVE’s path is one we get to watch during the playing out of this story. She begins with a strong will towards her directive, going so far as to claim it is “classified” when asked. It is her private and special project that she seems to think is her’s and her’s alone. It is ironic that when she is brought back on the probe we see several other EVE robots stacked beside her, likely with the very same directives as her’s. She spends the better part of the story embracing her directive, even at the expense of others, desperately trying to take the seedling plant to the captain to complete her mission. But, when WALL·E offers her the plant that he knows she desires so much, even when he is about to die, she makes the choice to abandon that project and create a new directive for herself. Like WALL·E, she elevates to the state of a true machine consciousness.

In both cases, each character decides to abandon their original directive and to embrace the directive of the other. And then, the recognition that WALL·E has formed his own directive that was never given to him in the first place. EVE eventually recognizes that WALL·E’s newly chosen directive is simply to hold her hand.

Suicide and Authentically Pursuing Unattainable Goals

crimson

Toward the end of my degree program, I sat down with one of my professors to discuss a topic that I was just starting to be able to put into words. It is heady, and even when I explain it, most people still do not quite understand what I’m trying to get at. I now refer to it as the Issue of Authentically Pursuing Unattainable Goals.

My concern is not whether people can set unattainable goals, nor whether a person could pursue such a goal. Clearly these things are both possible and frequently done. I might decide to become the strongest person in the world, but due to various genetic and chronological limitations, this is a goal that I will never achieve; I might still go to the gym and alter my diet with the aim of achieving this goal, despite knowing I will never achieve it. I believe this seems fairly obvious.

However, the challenge I am concerned about is the level of authenticity in such a pursuit. That is, how much of my time and effort will I be willing to devote to such a pursuit? If I believe the goal is unattainable, it seems to me that I will “hold back” in my pursuit. After all, why dedicate too much to a goal I cannot ever attain?

My partner further added to this concern when I discussed a related goal to her somewhat recently. In her case, she had convinced herself that a goal was unattainable, even though I believed the opposite was true. That is, I believed the goal she had set for herself was very attainable. But what I believed is not relevant here; what she believed is. If she believes the goal is unattainable, then she will act and behave as though that is the case. Which drives us directly to my concern.

For my partner, as she expressed it to me, if the goal is unattainable, then there is no point in even beginning the pursuit. She argued to me that it would simply be a waste of time and effort to begin such a pursuit. All that time and effort would be better spent on goals that were attainable. Her argument is pretty solid, and I am definitely moved by her position.

Which brings us back to my concern: authenticity. If a person knows (or believes) that a particular goal is unattainable, they are likely to hold back in such a pursuit, up to and including giving up the pursuit altogether. This is clearly a problem.

A core issue in this discussion is the idea of belief. What one believes is more important than what is actually the case. If one believes a goal is unattainable, they will hold back. But, the contrary may also then be true: if one believes a goal IS attainable, they may then be prepared to devote all of their time and effort in the pursuit of the goal. They may be able to pursue the goal fully authentically.

It seems to me belief is far more important than whatever the truth of the situation might be. A person is motivated not by the state of the world, but by what they believe is the state of the world. If they believe a goal is attainable, it does not matter if it really is attainable. Even less is it important whether they actually attain the goal. The only thing that seems to matter is that they will be able to pursue that goal fully.

Thus, when trying to motivate people to action, it seems more important to focus on what they believe is the case than worrying about the actual state of things in the world. This brings to mind all talk of religion and culture now, as it is through such vehicles that belief is often formed.

But this also brings us back to me as well. For my belief is such that most things are unattainable.

Life, it seems to me, is such an unattainable goal. More specifically, life has no goal whatsoever. The pursuits in life do not lead to any glorious outcome or ultimate prize. For the devout Christian, there are reasons to be devout, as a good life will earn them a place in heaven. For the one who believes in reincarnation and karma, there are measurable reasons to act in good ways, as it will earn them a better rebirth in the next run. The afterlife is a heavy motivator, and there always seems to be a reward for “living well.”

But I believe that the end of life is simply the end. I do not believe in an afterlife. I believe that once I expire, I cease to exist. I cease to be. This does not mean I believe I will be in pain or that I will suffer. Nor does it mean I will be happy either. It simply means that at the end, everything stops. At least for me. I will have no further worries. I will not be in pain. I will cease to experience time or events. I simply stop.

As this is my belief, it means there is no reward for me if I behave in one particular manner or another in life. To be successful is no different than to be a failure. To live in luxury no different than to live in squalor. Perhaps these things may make a difference in the moment, but ultimately they are the same, as I end the same in all cases.

It is in part for these reasons that I tend to gravitate toward the Existentialists of the mid twentieth century. Toward Simone de Beauvior, for example. That my freedom provides for me the ability to decide meaning and purpose. In the absence of a reward at the end of life, I instead decide for myself what things will have value. I decide whether to be good or to not be good in life.

It is often raised to me that I have no instrumentally good reason for selecting to be morally good. I usually argue against this, as behaving in a manner that is socially acceptable and agrees with those around me fosters positive relationships and allows me to pursue other projects that I might otherwise find rather challenging if those around me were actively working against me.

But all of that is still a side stepping of the original concern. What reason I have to be good or not be good is mostly irrelevant; I am concerned with the authentic pursuit of an unattainable goal. Or, in the case of life, for me, the authentic pursuit of no goal at all.

Unlike those around me who seem to find a way to believe in some sort of ultimate goal in life, which normally manifests in a belief in some sort of afterlife, I have no such goal. Those around me who have such a goal can obviously motivate themselves to pursue that goal in their lives, fully and authentically. Their lives are full of that pursuit, because they honestly believe that goal exists.

I cannot. Because I do not have that belief. And I am unable to somehow manufacture that belief. Others can tell me as frequently and as passionately as they want that there is an afterlife, but I am not moved. In part because there is no evidence to support their claim. Just as there is no evidence necessarily going against their claim either. There simply is no evidence at all. So I am unmoved by their position.

To be clear, I do not wish to disenchant them either. I have no wish to turn to them and try to convince them to my side of the argument. I am happy they have the belief they have. I support their belief, in so far as it provides for them their happiness. Unfortunately, however, it seems for many that their belief requires them to change my belief. And as this cannot be done, they try in vain. A lot.

It is a very difficult situation I find myself in. I have no belief in an afterlife. I have, for some ridiculous reason, decided to follow reason and logic. To follow evidence. To believe things based on evidence, and not to believe in the absence of evidence. The best I’ve been able to say in many situations is that “I am open to the possibility that these things could exist. But for now, I am not convinced, and therefore do not believe.”

Perhaps, some day, I will be convinced. Perhaps someone will provide for me that convincing evidence. This is also where many start to raise the issue of faith. That I need to have faith in the absence of evidence. I do have faith. A lot of faith. Just not in those things they wish me to have faith in. I have tried to have faith in things I do not believe, but I always find myself in a situation of “bad faith” of the sort Jean Paul Sartre talks about. I always knew I did not believe, even when I would say that I did. I was lying to everyone, including myself, and I knew I was lying, even to myself.

My concern remains, for the most part. Whether I am able to authentically pursue an unattainable goal, or whether I am able to authentically pursue no goal at all, the very idea seems to contradict itself. All I can really say is that I am always holding back.

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.