There is a fundamental, integral, by-assumption incoherence of Western thinking; that was described by Rudolf Steiner in The Philosophy of Freedom (1894); then further elucidated by Owen Barfield in Saving the Appearances (1957).
These deep errors have not been acknowledged so could neither be analysed* nor be reformed, therefore have remained; and now are wreaking their revenge in the strategically destructive nonsense that is the post-November 2022 totalitarian global project of "AI".
Such metaphysical assumptions have led Western civilization to the apparently-inevitable conclusion that, since truth has nothing to do with the active thinking of living, conscious, purposive beings (such as human beings); "therefore" truth can be more efficiently and impartially "discovered and done" by computers.
For the AI-dolaters; Truth is something that can be built-into a logical system; and it is the job of rational humans to submit to... whatever that logical system tells us is true.
For AI-dolaters - "AI" is just a mechanical tool for discovering, and perhaps implementing, those self-explaining and objective truths - "truths" which are implicitly regarded as floating around "out there", waiting to be discovered and used...
For the Truth Out There gang; Truths are like pre-cut diamonds mixed into a vast heap of useless rubble - and they regard AI as merely a machine for sifting through trash and extracting the valuable elements.
There is widespread acceptance (among the managerial and intellectual class) of the false mantra of "Truth is Out There", objective, independent of what we think about it; with its implication that rational men therefore ought to submit to that external truth...
And because this nonsensical assumption is integral to the functioning of bureaucracy and functional discourse; the demon-serving powers-that-should-not-be - most of the middling people of Western society have ended-up supporting (by word and deed, even when there are vague mental reservations) an insanely-dysfunctional but mandatory project to "replace" human consciousness with machine algorithms in as many kinds of socio-economic activity as possible.
This happens because it is lazily assumed that the only alternative to the fake reasonableness of Truth is Out There is the solipsism of Truth is in My Mind.*
Such vague ideas of the subjectivity of truth have been floating around the counter-culture for many decades, indeed a few centuries: e.g. "my truth" notions such that ultimate truth is wholly-subjective, is whatever I currently assert it to be.
Such subjectivist "relativism" is just as incoherent as "Truth is Out There" - but in addition it is upfront socially subversive and destructive.
So it seems that mainstream "responsible" opinion - which cannot/will-not reject the exclusive dichotomy of conception; it has doubled-down on Truth is Out There.
Consequently; it is routinely pretended (but aggressively!) that real truths are objective, independent of minds and consciousness; and have nothing to do with what humans (or anyone else) thinks...
It is important to recognize that "external truth" assumptions, are shared across the divide between mainstream materialist-atheism and mainstream-church-Christianity.
Therefore; the totalitarian assumption that it is the duty of individuals to submit to external truth - is also shared by totalitarians of secular and Christian types.
This, I suggest, is why the "Truth is Out There" Christians have so often embraced and celebrated the totalitarian AI Project.
Church-rooted, or "systemic", Christianity on the one hand, and materialist-secular-atheism on the other hand; are in this respect two sides of the same coin of "Truth is Out There"-ism.
And this explains their analogous failure to discern the fraudulent and evil-motivated nature of current "AI".
The main difference between church-Christian and secular AI-dolaters, seems to be that the Christians want their AI systems to be "trained" on a somewhat different data set.
Other than that; church-Christians seem to be eagerly anticipating a system of AI-religion - a fusion of bureaucracy and computers - that they hope will become objectively valid, and to which they believe we ought then to submit obediently.
*Note added: the reason for the apparently exclusive dichotomy of truth as either wholly subjective or wholly objective; is that Western philosophy has assumed this separation and division into place - then finds that it cannot be bridged. Most who realize that the result is a choice of two incoherent possibilities then assert some version of Oneness spirituality - which also does not make sense, since it provides no basis for creation or human existence; and there is no basis in it for any distinction or discernment of life. The only coherent basis I have found is to assume that the fundamental reality is of pre-existent/ eternal living beings, and this is the basis of true distinction and discernment. We start with Beings. And divine creation is a matter of developing relationships and creating cooperation between such Beings. This means that the baseline is that all knowledge is a product of the relationships between conscious Beings - so that detached subjectivity and objectivity are alike meaningless.
6 comments:
"There is a fundamental, integral, by-assumption incoherence of Western thinking . . ."
The lack of comments on this lucid and crucial post leads me to believe that the unacknowledgment of this fundamental, integral, by-assumption incoherence runs deep -- far deeper than I could have possibly imagined.
The constant, exasperated utilization of the either/or dichotomy -- "truth is out there or else you are no better than a modern individual living subjectively, solipsistically, and insanely in the confines of your own mind making up his own "truths" that are utterly disconnected from reality -- is also quite telling. Any mention that beings co-create truth is immediately conflated with modern, individualized, atomized, anti-God ideology. Again, another tell.
Also, there is something very troubling, almost desperate, about the appeal to humility employed by those who defend the "truth is out there" assumption. The limitations, pridefulness, and degradations of humans are always touted in defense of the "truth is out there." Truth is always something we need to adapt to. It requires nothing more from us than submission. And we are not fit for anything better. However, those who posit such arguments rarely stop to consider what these arguments reveal about their assumptions concerning God, human beings, and the rest of Creation, to say nothing of the divine purpose of Creation.
It also speaks to a shirking of personal responsibility. Decisions and choices, like actively supporting the AI agenda, can be shrugged off without any sense of accountability. Hey, my church is using AI, so it must be okay. It must be part of God's plan. I'm too humble to argue otherwise. That sort of thing.
Anything and everything to avoid freedom. That seems to be the underlying mantra.
@Frank - Thanks and yes to that.
I've said it often, and have not had a relevant response; that the priorities of truth-out-there/ obedience orientated Christians are in opposition to the reality and divinity *and necessity* of Jesus Christ.
But if truth-out-there/ obedience values truly have the spiritual and motivational primacy claimed for them; then such self-identified Christians have picked the wrong religion...
Because there already exists another large, successful, world-religion that is explicitly and without need for compromise truth-out-there/ obedience-based - with practice rooted in the necessity for submission to a single omniscient, omnipotent, incomprehensible, ex nihilo God.
*That* religion, and not some incoherently-distorted notion of Christianity, would seem to be almost-ideally suited to what they claim to be their own core motivations and assumptions.
I mean this perfectly seriously - if sincere; they ought to convert. And I greatly wonder why they themselves can't perceive this? Perhaps a kind of snobbery, or fear?
For some years a while ago, I pursued doctoral studies in law and took some courses in and studied the philosophy of law. The mainstream philosophy of law in general seems to be based on the idea of speech acts (by Searle) or on language games (Wittgenstein). So, the rules of society (and its laws) are created subjectively by using words in different situations but somehow there is also a "Truth Out There", so that the content of the law that can be discovered by lawyers to judge a certain situation.
This kind of thinking seemed to be accepted by all the other doctoral students and it was felt sufficient as an explanation or distraction for practitioners of law to state that it is possible to find the right and only answer to a legal question. But those in the know seemed to recognize that philosophically, mainstream jurisprudence was not well grounded. A professor even said that "The truth is that there is no truth".
To me, it seems obvious that you would need some basic concepts (or relationships between Beings), like property and contract, that are real and not a creation of language, in an attempt to create a coherent body of thought that could be called law. This is how philosophers in the past approached the subject. The debate was mostly how these concepts or things exist and how are they discovered or created.
Of course, the situation and the status of law is murky because there is so much bureaucratic regulation nowadays. Ticking the boxes of bureaucratic procedural applications is maybe one of the uses of so-called AI but that has really nothing to do with interpreting and applying law.
@Chent - I'm afraid the answer you seek is in the many references I have given in the post and passim throughout this blog over approx the past decade.
It is at the level of metaphysics, of primary assumptions concerning the nature of reality.
I'm not saying you would share these assumptions, and metaphysics is difficult to practice (or, at least, I find it so - more than anything else) -- but unless you made the effort to understand them - then you are just talking past me.
At present you are accepting the metaphysics you have been give as the only possible framework - which probably means you do not realize that they are actually assumptions, and that you personally have decided to accept them.
You would first need to recognize that as a fact, to know just what it is you have accepted - if you are ever to find anything better (i.e. more coherent).
It seems that adequate philosophy must be able to unite ideas that are contrarian to each other at the surface, like objective and subjective, chaos and order, onenness and differentness, personal and impersonal, etc
@Ap - Or "Saving the Appearances" - as Barfield puts it.
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