Hi Mark, 

    I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about. Much of what I discuss is about the digital paradigm. Ray Kurzweil, Kevin Kelly, James Hughes, David Brin, Eliezer Yudkowsky, and in the last email, Max Tegmark....artificial intelligence, the singularity. I talk a lot about memes, and for brevity I didn't mention that memes are now living on digital systems. The whole technium is a memetic nest, although memes still only spawn out of human brains, mostly anyway. They are starting to spawn out of AI. 

Technology is the child of memes. I don't see how any of my language fails to describe the digital age. Psychology or the human mind still dominate culture and the technium. But the Singularity might be the moment when the human mind loses dominance, and Kurzweil (and the average estimate of AI researchers) believe it will occer in the 2040's. 

I think we're headed towards what Marshall McLuhan calls the global village. The web allows us to integrate at a large scale so that we can converge on the most universal truth and values.

    I mentioned the threat of a totalitarian surveillance society a few times in my email. It seemed that you're thinking that in digital conditions, totalitarianism is more of a threat. That might be true. But I don't think it's digitality per se, but the power of companies and the government to manipulate us through social networks and the media (which has been manipulating us for decades or more)....autocracy has been the norm throughout most of history. I would say that even a tribe or chieftain would be considered sort of totalitarian because you're being watched and kept to social norms by your peers and you can't be an independent thinker. I'm more free to be an independent thinker than ever before; although the workplace can be a tad oppressive towards people who think differently. 

    I don't see how we're any less free now than at any time in history. For now, the state has all sorts of limits on its authority. But it's true that the technologies emerging at the moment pose a serious threat, and I mentioned that. But I'm more optimistic. I think that it's in the best interest of the companies like Google and Facebook for us to be active, free-thinking members of society, free from state control. It's not like we're living in 1940's Germany and I don't think we'll ever return to that state. 

     Are you familiar with David Brin's vision of the Transparent Society? It's much more likely that individuals will be able to watch each other, just as much as they watch us. Because of this new capacity for us all to watch each other and participate in a large-scale conversation, so to speak, we're essentially working on creating a large-scale justification system in our most universal best interests.  

I do think Facebook, Twitter, and Google should share their demographic data to the world though. I'm a web developer and I've been spending a lot of time working on how to make a version of twitter that shares psychological and demographic data with its users. I should know what Google and Facebook know about me. 

    In my response to Chance, I made this statement: " Consider how self-driving cars have to decide who to hit if they have to drive through a group of people. Ultimately we have to build absolute values into the technium."

 ...that's an example of one thing I envision in the digital age. The technium is a manifestation of social norms and values and it has no room for ambiguity. Everything has to be spelled out exactly in the digital age because that's the nature of code. 

In summary:

1) I've been spending a lot of time working on how to make a version of twitter that shares psychological and demographic data with its users. I should know what Google and Facebook know about me. 
2) the fact that we're all attending to each other in a large-scale conversation because of the web indicates that we're working on a large scale justification system, which could turn out totalitarian, but more likely not through state control, but the dominance of social norms like any village. The norms we'll converge on will be in the most universal best interests of life on earth. My opinion is that the only values we can converge on are those most compatible with the truth because the truth is the only epistemic system we can converge on. We're going to have a society absolutely dominated by the truth. I don't know entirely what the truth is, and I don't think anyone does, but that's where we're headed. 
3) We're building social norms into our digital web systems, which don't have much if any wiggle room for ambiguity, so we essentially have to discover precise values, pursuits, and beliefs into our society. 
4) The web gives a voice to the people like never before. Big Brother might be able to watch us, but the people are empowered more than ever as well. We're more likely to have a transparent society with precise values, pursuits, and beliefs. We're all going to have to act in the most universal best interests of the whole. The threat of totalitarianism comes from large-scale stupidity, but there's no single stupid value system that can take over because there are all sorts of different stupidities. The only thing that we all can possibly converge on is the truth, especially since our science and technology have to rub up against the truth entirely. I think that we're converging on "out of many, one" and "all for one and one for all".

And humans have been pondering the question of free will since ancient Greece. We might not have genuine, metaphysical free will (that we're free from the forces of causality), but we do have volition. We make choices. And we're always under the illusion of free will. Nothing new has changed that. 



On Tue, Jul 24, 2018 at 4:40 AM, Mark Stahlman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Jamie:

Welcome to the list -- so let me mention a few things that we've recently been discussing that you might find interesting.

One of them is the shift from an ELECTRIC "paradigm" to a DIGITAL one (c. 2000) -- which aligns with Gregg's vision that we are on some sort of a "precipice" and that it is this change that will allow his "unified theory" to gain wider acceptance.

These *paradigms* come from the "technium" (a Kevin Kelly term) and they "shape our behavior and and attitudes."  Kelly made Marshall McLuhan the "Patron Saint" of Wired Magazine, and my Center is based on McLuhan's work, so I wonder if you've had a chance to look at any of what he said?

The problem of "authority" (or, if you will, "totalizing systems") is one that we are going to face -- big time.  Throughout our lives, we have been told that we are "free" (i.e. anti-authority) but, as many suspect, that was largely an "engineered" fantasy (underpinning the Cold War &c.)

In 1941, Gregory Bateson commented on a presentation by his then-wife, Margaret Mead, about what was needed in "psychological warfare" terms.  He suggested a "maze in which the anthropomorphic rats have the illusion of free-will" and, right on schedule, much of cognitive psychology (and philosophy) came to the conclusion that we really don't have anything of that sort (but we'll pretend that we do anyway, leading to "compatibilism" &c.)

You seem to be trying to figure out what happens under DIGITAL conditions (which is indeed what we all need to do), while using the same language that was current under ELECTRIC conditions (i.e. where most of your references come from.)

Have you considered that those folks you've been reading were trying to "solve" a different *paradigm* (which is now obsolete) and that we need a new "language game" for our new circumstances . . . ??

Mark

Quoting Mathew Jamie Dunbaugh <[log in to unmask]>:

Hi Chance,

A Singleton doesn't have to be an autocrat. The single decision-making
agency could emerge out of the shared intentions of the world, such as a
collective intelligence manifesting on the technium. The Moral Apex is the
unified body of knowledge, norms, and purpose or intention, along with the
unification of humanity. This could go along with a centralized
intelligence mediating everything, but I'm more inclined to think it will
simply be the evolution of the technium/web.

It sure seems that divisive tribalism is the norm right now, but I suspect
that it's merely a resistance to a larger trend towards cosmopolitanism and
globalization. We aren't fighting any major wars and there aren't any
serious conflicts between groups. I suspect that the Technium is slowly
gathering us all together to participate in global decision-making.

Consider how self-driving cars have to decide who to hit if they have to
drive through a group of people. Ultimately we have to build absolute
values into the technium. This might seem terrible and could be, but I
think it's forcing us to think very hard to figure out what constitutes a
just society. Moral relativism has nowhere to go. So because we are
building this techno-social system that's gradually reprogramming society,
I think we're more likely to program a techno-social system that works in
the most universal interests. As long as a totalitarian surveillance system
doesn't threaten people who resist the system, the system will evolve along
the path of least resistance. But in the process, we have to build in
absolute values and our collective intentions (the meaning of life).

I don't think we'll ever become totalitarian in a way that loses free
speech. That would be the cause of a downfall. Every trend shows
exponential growth towards complexity and integration. I think that the
technium, and the moral apex, will be made out of shared intentions. There
will be a great deal of social engineering by people at the top, and it's a
shock to see how fast people can be socially engineered when you think
about how so many Republicans like Putin now. I'm just inclined to believe
that things will continue to get better as they have so far. At the same
time, I am worried about hyper-Orwellianism, but I don't think it will turn
out that way.

Max Tegmark has a great essay on how a company will likely end up taking
over the world with an AGI, by controlling the media, in his new book Like
3.0. You can read it here:
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__nautil.us_issue_53_monsters_the-2Dlast-2Dinvention-2Dof-2Dman&d=DwIBaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=zyQDAfdyvE6LLSL20y-9SjAqQiVGVi7YE8OVV2Lnt5g&s=WVKUfdnEXpcvZmDB9Q5Nbz9bnezEVs03fUsVdNPZOd8&e=

It seems plausible to me.

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