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Thoughts on thinking

(dcurt.is)
648 points bradgessler | 3 comments | 16 May 25 19:09 UTC | HN request time: 0.258s | source
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abathologist ◴[17 May 25 00:10 UTC] No.44010933[source]▶
I think we are going to be seeing a vast partitioning in society in the next months and years.

The process of forming expressions just is the process of conceptual and rational articulation (as per Brandom). Those who misunderstand this -- believing that concepts are ready made, then encoded and decoded from permutations of tokens, or, worse, who have no room to think of reasoning or conceptualization at all -- they will be automated away.

I don't mean that their jobs will be automated: I mean that they will cede sapience and resign to becoming robotic. A robot is just a "person whose work or activities are entirely mechanical" (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=robot).

I'm afraid far too many are captive to the ideology of productionism (which is just a corollary of consumerism). Creative activity is not about content production. The aim of our creation is communication and mutual-transformation. Generation of digital artifacts may be useful for these purposes, but most uses seem to assume content production is the point, and that is a dark, sad, dead end.

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1. whyage ◴[17 May 25 07:34 UTC] No.44012689[source]▶
> The aim of our creation is communication and mutual-transformation

That's a myopic point of view. Personal transformation is as significant, if not more. Production-oriented pastimes like painting, gardening, or organizing your stamp collection can do wonders for the mind. Their goals can be remaining sane in this crazy world, not producing the best painting ever, growing conversation-starting plants, or showing off your stamp collection. It's about doing for the sake of being.

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2. techno_tsar ◴[17 May 25 18:07 UTC] No.44015963[source]▶
I was thinking about how the point of reading isn't to literally 'internalize' what you've read. When you're engrossed in a piece of literature, you don't remember the specifics of the last page you read. What's more important is what the book is doing to your mind as you read -- it triggers a set of processes that force you to imagine and therefore form connections that you haven't made before, even if subtle and unrelated to the content of the book.

It's the same with writing. Writing isn't just a way to produce a good piece of writing, it's what the process of writing does to your brain as you think aloud, connecting words and sentences together. The same with painting, gardening, and organizing your stamp collection. The final 'product' isn't actually important. The significance lies in the process of immersion from the creator and the people who witness it.

3. abathologist ◴[17 May 25 20:29 UTC] No.44016778[source]▶
> Personal transformation is as significant, if not more

I would include personal transformation. I think it should be clear that my point is not against "production-oriented pastimes" in any way.

> It's about doing for the sake of being.

Yea, this is totally aligned with my view too. I'd just note that being is not separable from becoming and changing.

I'm afraid you either didn't read me well, or I didn't write my intended sense well, or both. But I think we are pretty much in agreement in any case, assuming I understand what you've written here :D