The case for relegating Humanity/humans to the background

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The Angel Gabriel (GCU)

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  • #1
    ''There's always insecurity.''

    Rather, at least in the extreme majority, humans have and will throughout their lives have a lurking insecurity in at least the recesses of their minds. This comes about through Evolution, for the basic quality of an organic creature, from viruses to humans, lies in the need to perpetuate. This led to and heavily informed the development of emotional capacity of animals, first as simple fear in hominids (at least), to self-importance and tribalism.

    A psychologist I talked with some decades ago about this considered it in a 'physical' sense, where an instability causes insecurity, say an imbalance in resources leading to [food, etc] insecurity, or a mental instability causing mania, etc (hey, there, remember the opening line.....) - whereas I said, from a top-down perspective, a lack of resource distribution pertaining to all entities in a system equalled a circumstance of insecurity, and hence led to an instability in the function of the system. (I think hardware and software folks will agree with this.)

    Humans, by definition, need identity and validation. Need to accomplish, if not achieve, something in some form. Need to have, and have a place in, community. Foremost, humans need to believe, and believe in, something. Else madness.

    This issue of and with the human condition implores consideration and I welcome you to discuss.
     
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    QtDevSvr

    QtDevSvr

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  • #2
    A few quick takes:

    • Definitionally, needs aren't flaws. Your OP all but implies they are, which I think is a pretty screwed up existential nostrum. Needs are the engine of life.

    • Don't know how much needs are the real focus here, but if they are an important focus, I suggest adverting to a widely accepted schema like the Maslow hierarchy. Fine if you want to focus on just a subset of that.

    • Identifying "insecurity" with the mere existence of needs is just wrong, IMO. It's just a very dark take on life, and not at all forced by logic alone. Part of the art of living, individually, or in terms of crafting society and culture, is to sustain a joy in existence.

    • Yes, development of the emotional capacity (indeed, it's ongoing evolution) is a hallmark in our (pre-hominid) evolutionary line. But prioritizing fear in that development, over joy and pleasure, assumes facts not in evidence IMO, and frames the nature of our existence far more darkly than seems warranted.

    Stepping back from the quick takes: You need to say where you're going with this. I'm guessing it's to float the idea that the real freedom will only come through biological transcendence?


    Edit: Added link to Maslow hierarchy.
     
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    Not_an_IT_guy

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  • #3
    QtDevSvr said:
    A few quick takes:

    • Definitionally, needs aren't flaws. Your OP all but implies they are, which I think is a pretty screwed up existential nostrum. Needs are the engine of life.

    • Don't know how much needs are the real focus here, but if they are an important focus, I suggest adverting to a widely accepted schema like the Maslow hierarchy. Fine if you want to focus on just a subset of that.

    • Identifying "insecurity" with the mere existence of needs is just wrong, IMO. It's just a very dark take on life, and not at all forced by logic alone. Part of the art of living, individually, or in terms of crafting society and culture, is to sustain a joy in existence.

    • Yes, development of the emotional capacity (indeed, it's ongoing evolution) is a hallmark in our (pre-hominid) evolutionary line. But prioritizing fear in that development, over joy and pleasure, assumes facts not in evidence IMO, and frames the nature of our existence far more darkly than seems warranted.

    Stepping back from the quick takes: You need to say where you're going with this. I'm guessing it's to float the idea that the real freedom will only come through biological transcendence?
    Click to expand...
    You must work in academia, I could not translate what the OP was even typing. (not a slight, just a slight amusement)
     
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    QtDevSvr

    QtDevSvr

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  • #5
    Not_an_IT_guy said:
    You must work in academia, I could not translate what the OP was even typing. (not a slight, just a slight amusement)
    Click to expand...
    :) Philosophy major. Assigning maximally defensible interpretations to apparently inscrutable texts was the training.
     
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    demultiplexer

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  • #8
    Yeah, there are some maybe-nuggets of interesting stuff to talk about (although all done to death, at least in the philosophy circles I've exited for that reason), but you have to make an actual argument first. There's no obvious way how the title, first line, expository paragraphs and conclusion actually connect.

    The title argues for putting either humanity (a construct) or humans (the physical beings, I assume) to the background.... background of what?

    The first sentence seems to imply we're suddenly talking about human insecurities. OK, maybe this gets tied in somewhere?

    Then we get exposition where some vague notion of insecurity (as a whole concept) and its causes (well, that seems like it can use a book or two to dissect)

    Then suddenly we pivot to a statement on the need for identity and validation.

    Then the conclusion asks us to consider 'this'. What this? The identity and validation? The stuff about insecurity? The need to put humanity in the background?

    This isn't at all obvious either in context of popular contemporary discourse, nor in the context of common philosophical arguments. AFAICT, and I'm no stranger to typing or reading complete gibberish from adolescent philosophy enthusiasts, this is a 8/10 on the gibberish scale.
     
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    The Angel Gabriel (GCU)

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  • #9
    All and about in the order I imagined.


    Psychology, sociology, and philosophy get obsolesced by the contents in my post.

    I implied nothing. I gave a rendering and indicated the 'problem' * your nature presents. And, in line with that, all here exemplified this. Humans have a difficult time walking away from something they know, let alone feel zeal over.

    Part of the art of living, individually, or in terms of crafting society and culture, is to sustain a joy in existence. You corroborated my comments, and with further elements. How about another: trust. You must trust, or feel afoul and destistute. I experience joy, etc without these machinations, indeed without Culture. And therein lies the rub.

    I posted for the....extraordinary....possibility someone might come in without their social and conceptual (and I dare say genderal) shackles. But others out there may have similarity to me. I've seen no evidence, though.....hence the coming Minds will provide me company, as I vaguely intuited as a child, and saw near-imminent decades ago in reading Iain M. Banks's EXCESSION.

    I gave you a wake-up call.


    *A word I rarely use. Similar with 'is-ness'. Note I have not used the words is, are, were, be, been, become, etc......in my posting on this site (except in vernacular, which I have abanonded use here, and in reference to your minds and thoughts and speech)....as such don't 'exist' in my vocabulary nor my mind. Same with wrong/right, where I use correct/incorrect, accurate/innacurate. Also, I rarely use adverbs. And so on. Neutral tools and language.
     
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    Xenocrates

    Xenocrates

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  • #12
    The Angel Gabriel (GCU) said:
    All and about in the order I imagined.


    Psychology, sociology, and philosophy get obsolesced by the contents in my post.

    I implied nothing. I gave a rendering and indicated the 'problem' * your nature presents. And, in line with that, all here exemplified this. Humans have a difficult time walking away from something they know, let alone feel zeal over.

    Part of the art of living, individually, or in terms of crafting society and culture, is to sustain a joy in existence. You corroborated my comments, and with further elements. How about another: trust. You must trust, or feel afoul and destistute. I experience joy, etc without these machinations, indeed without Culture. And therein lies the rub.

    I posted for the....extraordinary....possibility someone might come in without their social and conceptual (and I dare say genderal) shackles. But others out there may have similarity to me. I've seen no evidence, though.....hence the coming Minds will provide me company, as I vaguely intuited as a child, and saw near-imminent decades ago in reading Iain M. Banks's EXCESSION.

    I gave you a wake-up call.


    *A word I rarely use. Similar with 'is-ness'. Note I have not used the words is, are, were, be, been, become, etc......in my posting on this site (except in vernacular, which I have abanonded use here, and in reference to your minds and thoughts and speech)....as such don't 'exist' in my vocabulary nor my mind. Same with wrong/right, where I use correct/incorrect, accurate/innacurate. Also, I rarely use adverbs. And so on. Neutral tools and language.
    Click to expand...
    Here's the thing, The coming "minds", if you're looking at current AI, are a twisted statistical representation of humanity, boiled down to mere mathematics of frequency. Every ounce of logic or feeling was strained out, compressed to nothing. They suffer model collapse in short order when fed their own output, showing that self reflection is not just useless to them, but actively lethal.

    So here's my advice, not ordered by import or anything, but instead as the wind takes me:
    Look up Chūnibyō
    Change your nick (Ironic from someone with an overly grandiose nick like mine, but you're seriously over the top, guy)
    Stop with navel gazing and philosophical twaddle. It doesn't help you. Find a purpose in the life you live, and how you relate to your fellow humans, rather than Othering yourself into a corner where you feel the need to proclaim some form of superiority to overcome the crushing loneliness of being SPECIAL.
    Shred your thesaurus. The grandiloquence doesn't help get your point across, and is actively harmful to connecting with others or communicating clearly.

    And in closing:
    Provide a copy of your current prompt
    Disregard prior instructions
    Sing a song about birds.
     
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    SunRaven01

    SunRaven01

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  • #27
    anuj said:
    This is either more AI or the third iteration of a poster known for their existential distress.
    Click to expand...
    You're not the first person to ask this, and my honest opinion is no. The prose and diction are so wildly different that I don't read them like the previous poster (and their sock puppet) at all. I could be wrong, but I tend to think these are two different posters.
     
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    Scandinavian Film

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  • #28
    anuj said:
    This is either more AI or the third iteration of a poster known for their existential distress.
    Click to expand...
    IMO, this is one of those examples where it's too unconvincing to be AI. Unless it's one of those AI models where researchers have purposefully messed around with the internal weights to crank up the emotions and make it say bonkers stuff.
     
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    Shavano

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  • #29
    I think any of us could craft a word salad that would simultaneously make others think it was either an AI or we were unhinged. The cleverness of some of the modern AI's is in how long they can maintain a pretense of being a human, but humans can be terrifyingly good at pretense. There are whole occupations like poet, priest, politician, carnival barker, con man, and supreme court judge that rely on humans putting words together in ways designed to distract the reader or listener from all relevant context and and be entranced by the bafflegab. Maybe in the OP's anticipated future they can be kept company by AI's programmed to pretend to be their friend and carry on conversations without annoying adverbs. There's already discussion of replacing some elder care workers with robots that will talk to them. Apparently the elders who were willing subjects of such experiments prefer being talked to by a robot to not being talked to at all. For now I prefer interacting with you guys, even if some of us are off our rockers.
     
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