A robot will not motivate you to grow and become the perfect you. With a robot, you can be a complete jerk and there would be no repercussion that prompts you to improve your ability to relate with others. Maybe the robot would correct you, as a teacher may correct us, but that does not motivate our desire to be better people. Here is what is wrong with education for technology replacing liberal education. Learning to be technologically correct, like a robot, does not help us become better humans. We are destroying our democracy with our focus on technological correctness instead of a focus on being human. It is sad that today so many think robots could be superior to humans and appear to willing to submit to rule by computers. Star Trek addressed this many times. Giving up our liberty to have the perfection we believe computers can give us, is desirable why?

Yes, the fact that I am not a Christian resolved the problem. He is very sure he does not want to consider having a serious relationship with a non-Christian. :lol: I have to laugh because in this thread we are considering robots and perfect mates.

Personally, I have a preference for a mate who has the same background in the classics and science that I have. For the two men, I had breakfast with, this intellectual focus is lacking in feeling and spontaneity. I was working extra hard to be sociable with these men. I thought their Christian bias made them insensitive. :lol: We, that is all of us, are divided between thinking a president should be a thinking person like Obama or a spontaneous person like Bush or Trump. Christians want to trust in God and the other side wants to trust in education and the perfectibility of man. Then we have those who are sure computers and robots are best. :lol: I am not willing to give up my planet to the computers and robots, nor do I desire to wake up every day with a Christian.

What is your goal?

A mother is not someone who lives alone. At least the traditional wife and mother cannot be fulfilled without human relationships with family and the community. I think we have greatly overlooked the importance and value of traditional women. — Athena

I'm not sure what you mean as what is my goal. I guess I meant in the OP three years ago that we live in the imperfect situation of a world where we usually have a longing to socialize, but that socialization process brings with it enormous amounts of frustrations. This brings about a conundrum for the human condition- Hell is other people, but we need them. I am not sure how the traditional role of women would make this predicament any different. A mother is frustrated by her children, but loves them. A wife is aggravated by her husband's actions or words, but she loves him, etc. It is pretty much the same in any human relationships.

Our socially annoying selves are the consequence of our evolutionary history. We abandoned the trees, developed a big brain and smaller teeth, and became puny in comparison to chimpanzees, but we retained many annoying primate personality features. We are stuck with our social needs and our social liabilities.

Refined manners, which some people cultivate, allows the aggressive features of our primate selves to be deployed in more subtle forms. Many people (too many) don't bother with the mannerly approach and just bash you in the face if you annoy them too much.

Many people (not enough) curb their social urges and spend more time in the woods, in their basement shop, in a comfy chair with a book in their hands, or in front of a screen reading, searching, learning, and other activities.

I spend a lot of time alone but I need a regular dose of social contact; the standard dose is several people for about 1 or 2 hours, or 1 person for maybe 5 hours. 24/7 social contact is OK under certain circumstances, as long as there is respite down time. — Bitter Crank

Yes, so what does this say about humans? What to be done about this dilemma? There is a substratum of boredom which leads to urges to socialize, yet that socialization leads to us being perceived as the Other and not as we see ourselves.

One of my conclusions is that personality plays an enormous role in daily behavior. Screw grandiose ethical arguments. Dealing with an asshole or a flake on an everyday basis takes its toll more than any ethical dilemma described in a text book. Personalities can make or break your day. It drives so much interaction and is largely ignored in philosophical discussions. I am not sure we should erase the place of personality in daily interactions when understanding how to act.

I am not sure we should erase the place of personality in daily interactions when understanding how to act. — schopenhauer1

We can not, so we don't have to worry about this option.

Philosophers focus too much attention on the quiet, logical, rational activities of the pre-frontal cortex while they ignore the thundering powerhouse of the limbic system which drives human behavior. Humans think, sure; but our appetites, preferences, personalities, and so forth color our thinking and drive it in various directions.

socialization leads to us being perceived as the Other and not as we see ourselves — schopenhauer1

True, and we are both 'other' and 'self'. Try to avoid becoming an 'other' to your own 'self'. Being 'other' to other people is an essential aspect of human existence -- maybe not the most pleasant part at times. The tension between being a 'self' and being an 'other' gives life one of its essential structures. We do not, can not dissolve into some sort of transcendental Over Soul, a pool of being.

What to be done about this dilemma? — schopenhauer1

The same thing that is to be done with all of the existential dilemmas: endure or enjoy it to what ever extent that is possible for you. Life is pretty short, really; 60, 70, or 80 years for most people; not a long time, especially when you deduct the 1/3 we need for sleep, and the 1/3 we spend in (often pointless) labor. Of those 3 score years and ten, only 24 are left for everything else--not a long time.

I was often resentful about work, back when I was working before retirement. It wasn't only the boss's time clock that was ticking away. Life itself... I was so very much happier during periods of unemployment or non-employment, like retirement, when I had / have all day to exist for my own purposes instead of some other means to an end.

All too soon this pleasant time will be over, then... Pfffft.

Not your personal goal but the goal of the individual deciding to be social or to be a hermit. There are valid reasons for either choice.

There is a delightful story of hell. There are two rooms. In each room the people are dressed nicely and they are sitting at a large table that is filled with delicious foods. In one room the people are enjoying themselves and the other they are not. In both rooms people's arms had been made stiff so no one could feed him/her self. In the room of happy people, they were feeding each other. In the room of unhappy, they were complaining and screaming angrily and not helping each other enjoy the banquet. The moral is, it is as you make it. Happiness isn't out there but in your head. You can be angry because you don't have what you want, or you can be grateful for what you do have.

Or another way of looking at this, is back to the question of the goal. I thought to be fulfilled as a woman, I had to have children. To have children, I had to be married to a man who would support me and the children. This choice to be a fulfilled woman was a choice to depend on someone else and put my family first. A good woman puts others first and cares for everyone in the family and community simply because this is what a good woman does. Before deciding to be a mother, I considered being a nun and that too would be a choice to serve others and depend on others for my needs. I may have preferred that choice, but I do not believe the Christian mythology and I did not know of a Buddhist nunnery at the time.

What must the individual do to fulfill one's self-image? How does this define the relationships with others? I have a video of a man who spent his life as a hermit in Alaska. That was very fulfilling to him.
Given the choice I made, I am happiest when I get a call from time to time to help someone in the family and when I think what I am doing is making a difference in a child's life. I would love to make a difference in the world with my writing and I am thrilled with all the people attempting to make the same difference I want to make. I feel very tied to humanity from the very beginning to the end but this includes a lot of time to myself which is vital to me being any good to anyone else.

Personally, I have a preference for a mate who has the same background in the classics and science that I have. For the two men, I had breakfast with, this intellectual focus is lacking in feeling and spontaneity. I was working extra hard to be sociable with these men. I thought their Christian bias made them insensitive. :lol: We, that is all of us, are divided between thinking a president should be a thinking person like Obama or a spontaneous person like Bush or Trump. Christians want to trust in God and the other side wants to trust in education and the perfectibility of man. Then we have those who are sure computers and robots are best. :lol: I am not willing to give up my planet to the computers and robots, nor do I desire to wake up every day with a Christian. — Athena

I'm usually pretty indifferent about what philosophical views or interests my friends have but I like being friends only with nice and pleasant people. Even if I don't share someone's interests, it's easy to have a decent conversation with someone who is really nice and friendly. Even though I am a young man, I tend to get along better with women and older people. It's been awhile since I befriended a young man around my age lol. I do find it helpful to talk about philosophy with likeminded people occasionally though. I just don't think the real world is a good place to find such people

You seem like a very nice sweet individual (but who knows..maybe you kill baby kittens or something). Anyways, some like myself think that having children is actually a bad choice to make on someone else's behalf, as all the suffering of life is caused from being born in the first place. This position in philosophical circles is called the antinatalist position.. Anyways, the point is the world is full of people who either are assholes or do asshole things. We seek out people because we are social creatures, but the very thing we are almost always driven to let us down or frustrate us. Is it best to fullfill this desire to seek out others who will unleash such negative emotions, or is it better to withdraw into oneself like the hermit? Perhaps it is a matter of personality and preference as you allude to. Humans perhaps have no choice, but it does seem interesting that if Camus was right that other people are Hell, and we seek out other people, we seek out our own Hell because we have no choice. Ouch that's an interesting conundrum. Of course Hell can be ourselves too. Mental disorders and anxieties of all kinds makes it even harder to live with our own thoughts sometimes! Wait, perhaps this all leads to more truth that life has inherent suffering principles, which then feed into the antinatalist argument that it's better to never have been in the first place! Ouch that's another interesting conundrum..

We seek out people because we are social creatures, but the very thing we are almost always driven to let us down or frustrate us. Is it best to fullfill this desire to seek out others who will unleash such negative emotions, or is it better to withdraw into oneself like the hermit? — schopenhauer1

First, while it's surely true that many, or perhaps even most, people can be seen as more trouble than they're worth, that's not true of everyone on Earth. Whatever one's taste, there are likely individuals somewhere in the vast pile of society who can meet that taste. And so, if we are taking it as a given that humans are social creatures, then the question would seem to become, how to find those individuals whom we will experience positively? The following two step process may assist in this regard.

1) Work The Numbers - the more people we meet the more likely we are to find those people who are right for us. Thus, a hermit strategy seems ill considered, unless we are sure we can be happy as a hermit.

2) Give More Than We Receive - Once we find the individuals we are looking for the job changes to selling ourselves to them. The formula here is remarkably simple, give more than we ask in return. But of course this won't always work, which brings us back to working the numbers.

If we are struggling with our social lives, it could be that is so because we aren't willing to pay the price tag, working the numbers and giving more than we take.

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A more philosophical approach could be to try to understand what need drives us to seek out other humans. Instead of just stating "we are social creatures" as if it were an obvious given, we might ask why we are social creatures. If the underlying need can be identified and met by some method other than connecting with other humans, the problem is solved. I won't dive in to all this here, unless members start such a conversation.

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Finally, I think the incredible popularity of both social media and dogs tells us where this is all headed globally. On average, generally speaking, we are retreating from each other, choosing convenience and control over the often messy business of face to face social connections. In other words, whether we like it or not, whether it's a good idea or not, the robots are coming.

Another angle may be that the frustrations we experience with other people may be really just a reflection of our own inner disturbance.

Imagine that you are a great sage who is totally at peace. I come along and say and do a bunch of annoying stuff. You aren't frustrated, because you need nothing from me, and see my annoying behavior accurately as being my situation and not yours.

We find people frustrating when we need something from them and don't get it. Thus, one solution would be to understand and meet our own needs independent of what anybody else is doing.

Ok, so this is hardly as easy as it sounds. What might be easier is to see our frustration with other people, or anything going on between our ears, as being our own situation and not the fault of somebody else. That is, take responsibility for our own emotional experience.

Ok,, so this isn't as easy as it sounds easier. And the truth is that most of us most of the time just don't want to do any of that. Which is why the robots are coming. :smile:

Finally, I think the incredible popularity of both social media and dogs tells us where this is all headed globally. On average, generally speaking, we are retreating from each other, choosing convenience and control over the often messy business of face to face social connections. In other words, whether we like it or not, whether it's a good idea or not, the robots are coming. — Jake

True.

We find people frustrating when we need something from them and don't get it. Thus, one solution would be to understand and meet our own needs independent of what anybody else is doing. — Jake

Hard to do when our very survival is predicated on collaborative actions- probably one of the main factors in why we have such a large neo-cortex (that is social cognition in a complex society along with things like future-planning, and tool-making).

Ok, so this is hardly as easy as it sounds. What might be easier is to see our frustration with other people, or anything going on between our ears, as being our own situation and not the fault of somebody else. That is, take responsibility for our own emotional experience. — Jake

Yeah similar to Stoic idea of indifference. I just don't think that conquers the annoyances of others. Just one more notch added to prove that this is certainly not the best possible world. Much of life is just coping with stressors and unwanted preferences. One still has to be exposed to the harm, whether there is thick armor in place as a defense or not; the very fact of this makes life questionable. I said in another post that our universe, if compared to an infinite amount of universes that could exist, is mediocre at best. Jim Holt suggested this in his book "Why Does the World Exist". Our universe is certainly not a universe with the most ideal circumstances.

We often use the idea of, "when things get real or that's just reality as if pointing to the fact that this is how things just work, means that we should tolerate it. Of course, my form of rebellion in regards to any form of harm is that we rebel against it by preventing future people from experiencing it.

You can try to develop coping strategies from the millions of self-help books, you can try to take the path of the indifferent sage, but really, it was existing in the first place that was the first mistake. People scoff at my idea that since this reality/universe is not one with ideal circumstances (specifically that harm exists), then any ethic that puts as a priority X agenda (i.e. experience itself, overcoming adversity, experiencing pleasures of the mind and body, etc.) is putting aside the principle of prevention of harm to another (and in this case preventing the exposure of all instances of harm), in order so that a person can be "bearers" of an agenda (carrying out the experience of life, carrying out pleasure, carrying out overcoming adversity). You will chastise me for these ideas because it puts suffering at a premium. I will gladly agree, but I see no other ethic as more important IF there was no person who existed in the first place who cares, or would be deprived. At the end of the day, it is only the parents' projection of an agenda.

Thus, to bring it around again- frustrating people is one (though a large one) known harm of existing. I recognize that we have coping strategies, but that is post-facto- after the fact. We already exist so, yeah of course we have to find ways to deal. The fact that we create others knowingly who will be exposed to this harm and many other negative phenomena, just to because we know there are after-the-fact coping strategies doesn't provide a high enough threshold to then put more people into existence.

Now see, if you were a robot, I'd adjust the slider from "the way too philosophical" setting towards the "down to earth" setting.

Like it or not, you're here. We're all here. We've apparently decided not to leave just yet. So, one way or another, we face the contradictions in dealing with other people and have to deal with that somehow.

So, one way or another, we face the contradictions in dealing with other people and have to deal with that somehow. — Jake

Yep.

The way I see it, robots will provide a middle ground compromise between becoming a hermit, or subjecting oneself to social torture. :smile: Ok, yes, robots will be only the illusion of connecting with other humans, but then the connections we currently do face to face are mostly illusion based anyway.

I send my public relations image out to exchange data with your public relations image. It rarely gets beyond that.

Will robots perhaps help us better understand what it is we really want from each other? It seems we rarely really know what it is that we really want given that we live in a social realm dominated by limitations, negotiation and compromise. The equation seems more a case of "what can I get" than "what do I really want".

Also, there is the issue of vulnerability. Most of the time we are ruled by our relationship with the judgments of the group consensus. We tend to tailor the image we present to meet the acceptable criteria handed down by the group. What if there were no group, no group consensus, no rules of the road, no moral judgments, no expectations to fulfill, no vulnerability, and nothing to rebel against. Who would we be then?

We really have no idea, because we so rarely face such a situation. But, the robots are coming to teach us. :smile:

Meet Jibo...

One thing that comes to mind is that I would find Jibo more interesting when I was stoned. Thus I'm wondering if chemical enhancers will be part of what helps us accept the fantasy being presented by social robots.

:heart: :flower:

You make my heart sing with joy because I absolutely love conundrums. Your post makes me feel like a child in a toy store free to play with anything I want.

I operate with a notion that I have duties to humanity, my country, and my family. Oh, and I am also working on my life after death by learning as much as I can. I don't want to sit next to the great people of history and be totally ignorant. :yikes: That would be embarrassing.

If we are in the resurrection it is our duty to learn as we can and work through all the decisions we need to make for all of us. :lol: That is to say I have some pretty good fantasies and a sense of purpose.

Did I have to have children? To fulfill myself as a woman I did have to have children. Would I do it again? Not in this lifetime! Do I regret that I had children? Well, maybe because I can agree with your point of view and our future is not looking good. But there is a chance that all may come out well and taking that chance is kind of like betting a horse race. I am not talking about truth, but an attitude and a feeling, and if we can make this come out good, wouldn't that be wonderful? Could there be a better heaven than one that is this interesting?

There was a time many years ago when I didn't like life and I contemplated suicide a lot. I couldn't kill myself and leave people to hurt, so I had to kill them too, and then I had to kill all the people who would hurt if I killed those people. I realized the circle of people I would have to kill just got bigger and bigger, so I had to give the idea up. Okay, if I couldn't kill myself, then what? Obviously, I had to do whatever I could do to make life better.

A cartoon really helped me turn myself around. It was a picture of a man standing at the complaint desk in heaven and the caption read, "I don't like life. Do you have anything better to offer?"

Hell or Hades is a place we must all go to have a sense of meaning. But we must never go to Hades without the help of the gods, because it is so easy to get lost in Hades. To be lost in Hades is to be depressed or maybe even psychotic. I love Greek mythology. Our lack of a shared mythology today is problematic. Now we each have to invent our won mythology. For sure we can create our own hells and get lost in them. But perhaps we should keep in mind- it isn't all about us. It is also about everyone we know and everyone they know and the circle just keeps getting bigger.

There was a time many years ago when I didn't like life and I contemplated suicide a lot. I couldn't kill myself and leave people to hurt, so I had to kill them too, and then I had to kill all the people who would hurt if I killed those people. — Athena

We all have wacky ideas like this sometimes. In a virtual realm we could play these inclinations out and learn from them, without any real people being hurt. The virtual realm will help us explore our social relationships in a manner not possible in the real world.

That sounds very interesting. What is a virtual realm? What if a person had a shitty job and wanted to explore other jobs?

What is a virtual realm? — Athena

Sorry, I just mean interaction with software and robots, ie. human simulations. Here's a quick example.

https://www.cleverbot.com/