Pure mind; free mind
Jul. 26th, 2008 04:07 pmRats fight over scraps of food. Even ones that have always had full stomachs. You can train it out of them - or most of it from most of them; even with the training instituted, they'll still fight.
Rats do a lot of other things. And they're smart. Like us. Being smart is a part of the whole package of beinga rat or a human. You can't separate one from the other, though we try.
But we like to think we are categorically different. Or rather that our minds are, and since "we" are our minds, then we are categorically different. Different from not just rats, but from all the animals, even those that think. That there is somtehing called sapience that make us us, and that is special and unmistakable.
We think that our minds have struggled up from the ground, until one day, around the age of majority if not exactly on it, >pop<, they slip the bonds of the earthly body to float free, tethered like a balloon, bobbing around after us. After that point, we are reasonable. Or capable of being so if we only choose it.
Thought. Reason. Pure. Free.
Our goal is to be brains at a keyboard generating words in such a way that they had no writer; they simply descibe what is. Like God.; disemboided mind; unemcumbered; free; all-being/all-seeing/all-knowing (despite the lack of a body through which to be, see or know).
Moreover, closer to Earth and before godhood, we are told that we humans, especially adult humans, are different. That we and only we choose rationally. When someone eles does something, it is because it was their rational personal choice.
We build policital systems out of this. Rationally choose one representative. Be informed by watching campaign ads. Nevermind that said ads have been deliberately dumbed down and tailored elicit gut responses. Everything from camera angle to lighting to music to length to text to height, weight, race, sex, age and dress of performers has been engineered to circumvent critical thinking. We talk about prospective leaders not like we are picking a decision-maker, but like they are two dogs fighting for alpha. Not "who hasa bettor choice for finance minister," but "who is more firm." Nevermind dogs, these are clear primate social responses.
Our economy. How we buy and sell. How one person gets a job and the other does not.
And this is why the world is fair; just. Because we are different.
We study primates to show that despite their animal-ness, they are like us. But maybe instead we should realize that we are like them. We will err. We will fight. We will do stupid things - much like the computers do, the computers we somehow hope will act as pure minds.
Rats do a lot of other things. And they're smart. Like us. Being smart is a part of the whole package of beinga rat or a human. You can't separate one from the other, though we try.
But we like to think we are categorically different. Or rather that our minds are, and since "we" are our minds, then we are categorically different. Different from not just rats, but from all the animals, even those that think. That there is somtehing called sapience that make us us, and that is special and unmistakable.
We think that our minds have struggled up from the ground, until one day, around the age of majority if not exactly on it, >pop<, they slip the bonds of the earthly body to float free, tethered like a balloon, bobbing around after us. After that point, we are reasonable. Or capable of being so if we only choose it.
Thought. Reason. Pure. Free.
Our goal is to be brains at a keyboard generating words in such a way that they had no writer; they simply descibe what is. Like God.; disemboided mind; unemcumbered; free; all-being/all-seeing/all-knowing (despite the lack of a body through which to be, see or know).
Moreover, closer to Earth and before godhood, we are told that we humans, especially adult humans, are different. That we and only we choose rationally. When someone eles does something, it is because it was their rational personal choice.
We build policital systems out of this. Rationally choose one representative. Be informed by watching campaign ads. Nevermind that said ads have been deliberately dumbed down and tailored elicit gut responses. Everything from camera angle to lighting to music to length to text to height, weight, race, sex, age and dress of performers has been engineered to circumvent critical thinking. We talk about prospective leaders not like we are picking a decision-maker, but like they are two dogs fighting for alpha. Not "who hasa bettor choice for finance minister," but "who is more firm." Nevermind dogs, these are clear primate social responses.
Our economy. How we buy and sell. How one person gets a job and the other does not.
And this is why the world is fair; just. Because we are different.
We study primates to show that despite their animal-ness, they are like us. But maybe instead we should realize that we are like them. We will err. We will fight. We will do stupid things - much like the computers do, the computers we somehow hope will act as pure minds.