Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

TagSelf

a-group-of-people-walking-together-through-a-bustling-shopping-mall-this-image-can-be-used-to-depict-a-busy-shopping-day-or-to-illustrate-consumerism-and-retail-therapy-stockpack-adobe-stock
A group of people walking together through a bustling shopping mall. This image can be used to depict a busy shopping day or to illustrate consumerism and retail therapy.

The Crisis of Identity That Tech Doesn’t Help

Consumerism works well but leaves us empty

Writer and cultural commentator Aaron Renn wrote recently about the dissolution of identity in the United States, contending that if we don’t know who we are, we will never know what to do. Renn writes frequently on issues facing young men in America and the challenges of living well in the secular world. He writes, The reality is that a lot of people in top positions of our society act as if they want you living like Simba. They want porn available for you to watch. They want you betting on the big game on your phone. They want you focused on “experiences” and consumption, like hitting the latest hot travel destination or going to the new farm-to-table restaurant that Read More ›

world of cyber
Cyber ​​relationships on the Internet. Connected people. People and microchips. Cybernetic society. Alone in the net.

The Technological Society We Live In

In today's world, we think we can solve everything through technique. How's that going for us?

In a blog post this week from Salvo, Joshua Pauling cites the influential thinker Jacques Ellul on the development of a “technological society” in Western culture. Pauling writes, Even in the mid-20th century, Ellul, a French philosopher and theologian, saw technique and efficiency coming to consume every aspect of life and society. As he defined it in The Technological Society (originally entitled La Technique in French), technique is the “totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency in every field of human activity” (xxv). Just as the factories of the industrial world were optimized according to new standards of efficiency, now everything is measured, recorded, analyzed through a lens of efficiency, and then submitted to a technique to maximize outcomes according to Read More ›

create-yourself-concept-good-looking-young-man-drawing-a-picture-sketch-of-himself-stockpack-adobe-stock
Create yourself concept. Good looking young man drawing a picture, sketch of himself

If You Could Change by “Inserting” Knowledge… Should You?

An education professor is surprisingly sympathetic to just “inserting” Correct knowledge to produce desirable changes

John Tillson, philosopher of education and author of Children, Religion, and the Ethics of Influence, asks if, instead of drills and homework, what about just “learning” a skill via a computer cable plugged into the back of your head, the way Neo learned karate in The Matrix?: Discussing the pros and cons of just acquiring knowledge by mere insertion, Tillson is surprisingly friendly to the idea, especially in terms of reprogramming bad ideas: Even if we dodge the threat of replacement by downloading a modest suite of knowledge at a suitably gentle pace, we might still worry that knowledge insertion would make us become someone we wouldn’t want to be. This isn’t always a problem. Suppose Neo was racist and Read More ›

everyone-has-a-story-typed-words-on-a-vintage-typewriter-old-paper-close-up-my-history-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
Everyone Has A Story, typed words on a vintage typewriter. old paper. close-up. my history

Do We Really Remain the Same Person Throughout Our Lives?

Or is the continuity of our selves just an illusion?

That’s an interesting question because most cells in our bodies will die and be replaced a number of times. Many brain cells die but they are not replaced. They are just gone. So what, if anything, remains the same? One well-known professor of psychology, Susan Blackmore (pictured), argues that there is no continuity between our present selves and our past selves: Susan says there is an “illusion of continuity”, but what we think is “us” is just a “multiple parallel system” with “multiple parallel things going on”. So, she says, “the so-called me now is just another reconstruction. There was another one half an hour ago, and there’ll be another one, but they’re not really the same person, they’re just Read More ›