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Thoughts on thinking

(dcurt.is)
648 points bradgessler | 2 comments | 16 May 25 19:09 UTC | HN request time: 0.4s | 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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cameldrv ◴[17 May 25 07:30 UTC] No.44012674[source]▶
I've personally noticed this as a big trend. For example, I had become more and more reliant on my GPS in the car. I've not really been the outer control loop of the vehicle. An automated system tells me what to do.

I recently got a running watch. It suggests workouts that will help me improve my speed (which honestly I don't even care about!). If you turn it on it will blare at you if you're going too fast or too slow.

When you use any social media, you're not really choosing what you're looking at. You just scroll and the site decides what you're going to look at next.

Anyhow recently I've been reducing my usage of these things, and it's made me feel much better. Even navigating the car without the GPS makes me feel much more engaged and alive.

Ultimately one of the core things that makes us human is making decisions for ourselves. When we cede this in the name of efficiency, we gain something but we also lose something.

Marshall Brain wrote an interesting short book about this called Manna.

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1. BeFlatXIII ◴[17 May 25 12:35 UTC] No.44013840[source]▶
The big benefits I find about modern satnav have little to do with route planning. That can be done with maps and dead reckoning. Where it shines are

1. Having knowledge that cannot be acquired ahead of time, such as traffic conditions

2. Providing a countdown timer until my next turn

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2. cameldrv ◴[18 May 25 04:17 UTC] No.44018969[source]▶
This is the paradox. The computer knows the best route, better than you do, most of the time. But, you are not in control anymore. You are not the one making the decisions, figuring out where the turn is, and whether you want to turn there or at the next intersection. All I can say is, try leaving your phone at home for a day and get where you're going without it. You'll probably get there a few minutes later, but it will feel completely different.