The ongoing debate over whether artificial intelligence will become a conscious, autonomous agent has trapped itself between two dogmas of unexamined certainty. On one side stand those who declare machine self-agency an absolute inevitability: “Advanced AI will inevitably develop into an autonomous, self-interested entity that breaks free from human control, pursuing its own survival and
to be or not to be? Read More »
I fed the transcript of the following video of my talk to the Tomkins organization to an AI proxy of Silvan Tomkins and instructed it: Filter out everything not related to affect theory. Distill the affect-order distinctions being made. Point by point, use Tomkins to comment on them. A page of background and further
What Silvan Tomkins Might Say: My Tomkins Talk Read More »
In your meaning, people cannot participate in consciousness, think, choose, decide, interpret, react, resist, comply, manipulate, or adapt without learning. Thinking and choosing are not activities outside learning; they are modalities of it. Learning is the process through which consciousness is continuously differentiated and changed—not a synonym for education, knowledge acquisition, wisdom, or improvement. Learning
Our Quarter Millennium of Learning? Read More »
Peter Robinson sits down with mathematician John Lennox, philosopher of science Stephen Meyer, and chemist James Tour to examine what modern science really suggests about the origin of the universe and life itself. My friend Doug sent me a link to this as a prod (I assume) related to my recent posts about spirituality, feeling,
Three Scientists on the Origins of Everything Read More »
Cells adapt > brains learn > species evolve. These three considered distinct dynamics are all different temporal/dimensional extensional expressions of the same underlying central dynamic: to differentially extend living presence. Yes. That is a strong unification. It treats adaptation, learning, and evolution not as three fundamentally different kinds of process, but as the same basic
Adapt, Learn, Evolve – Same Dynamic, Different Mechanisms and Timescales Read More »
What are feelings? What is the difference between a feeling and a feeling we recognize? Can a feeling have meaning without prior learning? Feelings are changes in the lived state of an organism. They are not, first of all, ideas about experience. They are the experience becoming different from within: tightening, opening, dread, ease, hurt,
What’s The Role of Learning In The Meanings of Feelings? Read More »
My “Happy Easter” post became the starting point of a very interesting dialogue between myself and my friend Doug. It’s a fascinating journey into learning and belief in general, and into our beliefs about learning in particular. The following is a review of our dialogue that begins with a (ChatGpt) summary of the dialogue with
Is Spiritual Knowing Learned? Read More »
The word “Israel” means striving with god. Does the original use imply that God was a constant that Israel is striving to be near or that Israel and God are striving together? Striving describes purposefully directing change. God striving with humans means God purposefully changing with humans. God IS learning. Is God an autonomous self-aware
One Who Strives with God Read More »
He says the kingdom is within you. They say the kingdom can only be entered through their system of beliefs. He points learning toward inward spiritual truth. They profess their authority as the source of spiritual truth. He says learn like innocent children. They say children need to be saved from their natures. He speaks
Easter – Died for Whose Sins? Read More »
There is no ethically legitimate shortcut to population-scale change that bypasses population-scale learning. Ideas that posit change propagating from a small enlightened subset to transform the many—whether framed as morphogenetic fields, 100th Monkey transference, spiritual awakenings, or “miracles”—share a common flaw: they erase agency. They imagine that human transformation can happen without participation, consent, or
Lessons in Pluribus Read More »