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  • Nietzsche's fundamental objection against Christianity (Socrates/plato)
    ↪DifferentiatingEgg
    :up: :up:
  • Nietzsche's fundamental objection against Christianity (Socrates/plato)
    ↪Tom Storm
    "Freddy" makes the point (or suggestion) that eternity is here & now (concrete, embodied nature), therefore the only viable source of value (i.e. ^becoming, re/pro-creativity), rather than some imaginary – promised / make-believe – "hereafter' (abstract, dis-embodied spirit).

    ^self-overcoming
  • Questioning the Idea and Assumptions of Artificial Intelligence and Practical Implications
    How may this be established clearly and, is it fettered by the sentient aspects of human perception and thinking?. — Jack Cummins
    I don't understand your question.
  • Nietzsche's fundamental objection against Christianity (Socrates/plato)
    Yes, iirc, as N sees it Christianity, like Platonism, supremely(!) values some 'other world' (dis-embodied life, or "spirit") at the expense of absolutely(?) devaluing this world (embodied life), which he diagnoses as nihilism (—> cultural 'decay & decadence').
  • Questioning the Idea and Assumptions of Artificial Intelligence and Practical Implications
    ↪Corvus
    No doubt (western) civilization is already dependent on IT and smart automated systems; this dependence grows exponentially year to year (soon month to month). We've been living inside 'the internet' for (at least) thirty years, and, as I see it, the upside is that soon 'the oligarchs' (of tech, finance, energy, etc) will also be as captive of AGI, etc as they/we are now captives of ubiquitous computing – and thereby (western) civilization might be controlled (on macro-scales) more synergistically and sustainably than is humanly possible. Imo, worst case, smart machines can't 'enslave exploit and slaughter' any more than we talking primates have done to ourselves (& the nature world) the last ten or so millennia ...

    ↪Jack Cummins
    Why are you (especially with folk concepts like e.g "reflect" "protest" "cry out in pain" "its suffering") anthropomorphizing 'artificial intelligence'?
  • Questioning the Idea and Assumptions of Artificial Intelligence and Practical Implications
    ↪Corvus
    @Jack Cummins

    DON'T BELIEVE THE CLICK-BAIT HYPE. :sweat:
  • Questioning the Idea and Assumptions of Artificial Intelligence and Practical Implications
    From a 2023/4 thread Heading into darkness

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/849802

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/849880

    ancient forms of sun worship and fertility rites of paganism — Jack Cummins
    Both have always made more practical sense to me than any form of "sky daddy" (unseen total surveillance / gnostic panopticon ... aka "Big (Br)Other") worship.
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    United States of Kakistan
    31January25

    Re: Dunning-Kruger populism ...

    update:

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/966525
  • What exactly is Process Philosophy?
    ... dualism on a runaway train. How does a system not subject to natural laws become a source of those laws? Unmoved movers? Something from nothing? All you are [@Gnomon is] doing is complicating things unnecessarily. — Harry Hindu
    :100:
  • Questioning the Idea and Assumptions of Artificial Intelligence and Practical Implications
    "And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever ..."
    ~Genesis 3:22, KJV

    James Lovelock, in his final writings spoke of the possiblity of a race of artificial intelligent beings and some remaining human beings overseeing the natural world. — Jack Cummins
    Yes, I imagine – 'a plausible' best case scenario – 22nd/23rd century* Earth as a global nature preserve with a much smaller (>1 billion) human population of 'conservationists, park rangers & eco-travelers' who are mostly settled in widely distributed (regional), AI-automated arcologies (and even space habitats e.g. asteroid terreria) in order to minimize our ecological footprint as much as possible.

    Would it be a matter of humans 'worshipping' the artificial intelligent beings as the superior 'overlords'?
    No more than "humans worshipping" the internet (e.g. social media, porn, gambling, MMORPGs). As an idolatrous species we don't even "worship" plumbing-sanitation, (atomic) clocks, electricity grids, phones, banking or other forms of (automated) infrastructure which dominate – make possible – modern life.

    IMO, as long as global civilization consists of scarcity-driven dominance hierarchies, "our overlords" will remain human oligarchs (scarcity brokers) 'controlling' human networks / bureaucracies (scarcity re-producers).

    It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God – but to [build it]. — Arthur C. Clarke
    However, I suspect that the accelerating development and distribution of systems of metacognitive automation (soon-to-be AI agents rather than just AI tools (e.g. LLMs)) will also automate all macro 'human controls' before the last of the (tech/finance) oligarchs can pull the proverbial plugs; ergo ...

    Who[What] would be servant and master? — Jack Cummins
    ... my guess (hope): "AGI" (post-scarcity automation sub-systems —> Kardashev Type 1*) will serve and "ASI" (post-terrestrial megaengineering systems —> Kardashev Type 2) will master, and thereby post-scarcity h. sapiens (micro-agents) will be AGI's guests, passengers, wards, patients & protectees ... like all other terrestrial flora and fauna.*

    Man is something that shall be overcome. Man is a rope, tied between beast and [the singularity] — a rope over an abyss. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end. — Friedrich Nietzsche
    :fire:
  • Deep Songs

    "Devil in His Heart" (2:40)
    A-side single, 1962
    writer R. Drapkin
    performers The Donays

    https://youtu.be/fMwNBGM81Ps?si=0XfQ2cbe9acrXsI1

    You know that what you eat
    you are
    But what is sweet now
    turns so sour
    We all know Obla-Di-Bla-Da
    But can you show me
    where you are?
    — George Harrison
  • What are you listening to right now?
    d. 2025


    https://youtu.be/FkLQrED71dU?si=1psh-oWXzG90THY6
  • Necessity for Longevity in Metaphysical Knowledge
    For me, the point of philosophy is not answering questions, but becoming more self-aware - not the end goal but the journey. — T Clark
    :fire:
  • What exactly is Process Philosophy?
    But the astro-physical evidence of a singular point-of-origin for space-time made our cosmos seem contingent upon some outside force. — Gnomon
    :yawn:

    Yeah well there's no scientific EVIDENCE to support this anachronistic (crypto-creationist, woo-of-the-gaps :sparkle:) claim about the planck era universe.
  • Questioning the Idea and Assumptions of Artificial Intelligence and Practical Implications
    ↪Jack Cummins
    A number of the topics you raise I've addressed in the post^^ I previously linked (and the other imbedded links). Any thoughts on what I wrote about the "Omega Point theory"?

    Would it be possible to create Spinoza's form of substance itself in a system as opposed to in nature?
    If I correctly understand his work, I suspect Spinoza would say "to create substance" is impossible.

    having to exist for eternity
    My scenario^^ makes immortality completely voluntary so worrying about 'existing eternally' isn't warranted.

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/530679 (+ links)^^
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Like I said, I think there are two arguments for affirmative action. One s reparation for past wrongs and the other is equal representation. The facetious counter argument of 'color blindness' is poignantly laid to rest by 180 Proof. — Tobias
    Thanks, comrade. :fire: :mask:

    I hope all is well with you, Tobias, and that your corner of the world is not yet an oligarchic shitshow.
  • Questioning the Idea and Assumptions of Artificial Intelligence and Practical Implications
    ↪Jack Cummins
    The "Omega Point theory" (Tipler or Deutsch – not Chardin) makes sense to me iff the entire universe (or multiverse) is either an unbounded simulation (N. Bostrom)¹ or infinite mathematical structure (M. Tegmark)² ... such that "resurrection of the body" means each life is virtual (a finite program file) and is relived (rerun) until, as a "virtual afterlife", one involuntarily / randomly stops (program file deletes itself).

    NB: Though my preferred 'eschatological speculation' is (non-supernatural, non-transcendence, non-dual) pandeism³, I'm betting on the technological singularity, or at least the advent of (benign) strong AI / AGI, to (help?) develop techniques for transferring a fully functioning live human brain to a synthetic system or body⁴ (ergo, unlike you, Jack, i'm bullish on AI, etc) – don't you think it's better not to die (I'm not (yet) living in denial, mate :death: :flower:) than to be resurrected (or reincarnated)? :smirk:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis [1]

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothesis [2]

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/718054 [3]

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/530679 (+ links) [4]
  • What Are You Watching Right Now?
    ↪Maw
    :cool: Congrats!
  • Questioning the Idea and Assumptions of Artificial Intelligence and Practical Implications
    virtual afterlife ... simulation of resurrected bodies — Jack Cummins
    Wtf :roll:
  • Questioning the Idea and Assumptions of Artificial Intelligence and Practical Implications
    It is questionable but it is a possiblity. — Jack Cummins
    I don't think so. Conceivability –/–> possibility.

    I generally see artificial intelligence as problematic as being without reflective self. — Jack Cummins
    Suppose "reflective self" (ego) is nothing but a metacognitive illusion¹ – hallucination – that persists in some kluge-like evolved brains? Meditative traditions focus on suspending / eliminating this (self-not self duality) illusion, no? e.g. Buddhist anattā, Daoist wúwéi, ... positive psychology's flow-state, etc.

    Suppose we "humans" are zombies which are unaware that we are zombies because human brains cannot perceive themselves directly (due to lack of sensory organs or perception within the brain)? If so, then "reflective self" might be just an exaptive glitch (spandrel) pecular to (some) higher mammals or just "humans", no?

    Well, I find the notion "conscious machines" (i.e. synthetic phenomenology) to be a problematic prospect of them learning from us "humans" to develop "consciously" (as reflective selves) into apex predators or worse. Dumb tools to smart tools to smart agents to "conscious" smart agents – the last developmental step, I suspect, would be an extinction-event.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_illusion [1]
  • What exactly is Process Philosophy?
    I believe absolute fundamentality can only really be found in the void itself... — punos
    :fire: :up:
  • Questioning the Idea and Assumptions of Artificial Intelligence and Practical Implications
    @Jack Cummins

    re: AI, Consciousness, Universe, etc ...
  • What exactly is Process Philosophy?
    ↪Darkneos
    :smirk:
  • What exactly is Process Philosophy?
    Dunning-Krugers are in full effect. :zip:
  • Fascism in The US: Unlikely? Possible? Probable? How soon?
    I understand [fascism] to the extent that I see it as right wing populism. I don't see how it can be anything else. — Arcane Sandwich
    No doubt. To wit:
    Populists are politicians who appeal directly to the people when they should be consulting the political process, and who are prepared to set aside procedures and legal niceties when the tide of public opinion flows in their favor. Like Donald Trump, populists can win elections. Like Marine Le Pen in France and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, they can disrupt the long-standing consensus of government. Or, like Nigel Farage and the Brexiteers in Britain, they can use the popular vote to overthrow all the expectations and predictions of the political class. But they have one thing in common, which is their preparedness to allow a voice to passions that are neither acknowledged nor mentioned in the course of normal politics. And for this reason, they are not democrats but demagogues — not politicians who guide and govern by appeal to arguments, but agitators who stir the unthinking feelings of the crowd. — Roger Scruton, 2017
  • What exactly is Process Philosophy?
    ↪Gnomon
    :sparkle: :lol:

    Direction¹ (entropy) =/= purpose (telos).

    [1] dissipative systems e.g. cosmogenesis, nucleogenesis, black hole evaporation, natural selection, autopoiesis ...
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    IMHO racism is best fought by emphasizing commonality and common goals rather than repeatedly emphasizing difference and/or prior victimhood within groups. The approach should be more future-oriented. — BitconnectCarlos
    This sort of bourgeois-feel good ahistoricism is always futile. In order to "emphasize commonality and common goals","future-oriented" whites should stop disproportionately benefiting political economically asap from the centuries-long legacy of dispossessing, enslaving, exploiting and discriminating against nonwhites. After all, it's "racism" that (still) systematically "emphasizes difference" (re: ethnic/color supremacy) and antiracist survivors who have always "fought" for "commonality" (i.e. we are all equally human).
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    United States of Kakistan
    25January25

    Kristi Noem confirmed as Sec'y of DHS. — FOTUS 47's Cabinet
    :fear:
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    United States of Kakistan
    25January25

    :death: :fire:

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/962520
  • What exactly is Process Philosophy?
    What exactly is Process Philosophy? — Darkneos
    IMHO, by reductive conceptual conflation of (e.g.) Heraclitean flux + Democritean ceaselessly swirling atoms in void + Spinozist conative infinite & finite modes (sub specie durationis) + Schopenhaurian Will + Bergsonian élan vital + Peircean-Deweyan truth as inquiry ... A.N. Whitehead produces a baroque panpsychist teleology he calls (the) "process" as the fundamental property, or ground, of reality – there are only happenings ("occasions of (possible?) experience") and their inter/relations (i.e. "complexes", or patterns of events); there aren't any static or unrelated 'things' (i.e. Aristotlean substances (or unmoved mover)). Yeah, okay. So an explicit "process philosophy" seems to me preposterously redundant (re: predecessors), and almost Heideggerian in its obscurant ponderings and neologisms (or Hegelian prolixity). But I'm a quixotic pandeist so what the hell do I know? :smirk:
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    ↪Relativist
    :up: :up:
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    United States of Kakistan
    24January25

    Pete Hegseth confirmed as Sec'y of Defense — FOTUS 47's Cabinet
    :rofl:
  • Questioning the Idea and Assumptions of Artificial Intelligence and Practical Implications
    Do you think that's all an illusion? — RogueAI
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_illusion
  • Why Philosophy?
    Addendum to
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/959747

    A post from a 2020 thread What has philosophy taught you? ...

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/331143

    Also: the what for my why ...
    Philosophy, as Wittgenstein points out, only describes how we use concepts (by which to interpretively frame 'experience') whereas unfalsified theories in science are used to explain – model the conditional causal relations of – transformations from one physical state-of-affairs to another. AFAIK, (fundamental) sciences are hypothetico-deductive (i.e. experimental) and not merely inductive (i.e. experiential) as per Popper vs Hume, et al. It's philosophy, in fact, that "explains nothing" about the world (i.e. existence & reality) but instead non-trivially interprets whatever we think we know about the world, etc. — 180 Proof
  • What are you listening to right now?
    T.G.I.F.


    "Talk to Me Baby (I Can't Hold Out)" (2:12)
    A-side single, 1960
    songwriter Willie Dixon, 1959
    performer Elmore James
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    I don’t see how I’m committing a fallacy. — Bob Ross
    :roll:
  • Questioning the Idea and Assumptions of Artificial Intelligence and Practical Implications
    Is mind a necessary condition for intelligence? — RogueAI
    No. They seem to me unrelated capabilities.
  • AXIARCHISM as 21st century TAOISM
    I don't think we can avoid a human-centered morality, even if we avoid putting what is good for humans at the center. It is human beings who judge questions of morality. — Fooloso4
    :up:
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    ↪praxis
    :up:

    ↪Relativist
    :up: :up:
  • AXIARCHISM as 21st century TAOISM
    The Tao does not replace god, it comes before it. God is just one of the 10,000 things - the multiplicity of phenomena in our world brought into being by the Tao. — T Clark
    :100:
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