From: Jeff Davis (jrd1415@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Sep 24 2002 - 15:59:04 MDT
Extropes,
--- Lee Corbin <lcorbin@tsoft.com> wrote:
> Spike writes
>
> > I am another one who has been totally baffled
> > most of my life by the human emotional operating
> > system.
<snip>
> > let me propose an idea. One can clearly state
> > without being condescending, that one is going
> > meta, which is to say, one wishes to have the
> > readers of an idea temporarily turn off their
> > emotions, and look at an idea the way a human
> > level AI would see it.
< snip>
> If it's possible at all, I'll claim, it would
take superhuman intelligence to do it. I don't
think that anyone *can* turn off their emotions.
I think it is neither impossible nor even difficult, so long as one does not take this to mean a complete cessation of emotion. That, seems unreasonable, as it implies IMO the non-activity of the neurons involved.
If however you mean the conscious supression of impulse-driven responses, then I think it is, in fact, a time worn tradition, a fundamental principle of rationalism in search of rational discourse.
> I and the other three who've either posted or sent
stuff off-line would disagree with your meaning of
the term "meta". We don't mean at all to
re-evaluate *issues* dispassionately.
Dispassionate evaluation would be my meaning--and intent.
> In fact, the "going meta" that I have tried to do is what, perhaps, a psychiatrist called in by the divorce court would be trying to do.
> It's hardly his place to take sides, or even to
examine particular issues of dispute, but rather to
understand and explain how each party got into their position.
These two---dispassionate analysis,--or a mutual and cooperative attempt at it--, and 'psychiatric' analysis carried on simultaneously--particularly where one person takes the role of the 'analyst'--, seems problematic. Because he who assumes the role of analyst, may (condescendingly?) arrogate to himself a power advantage: the superior-doctor vs the mentally/emotionally-challenged patient. This violates the spirit of mutualism/cooperation crucial to dispassionate discourse, breeds suspicion, transforms the voluntary supression of emotion-driven advocacy into a kind of self-betrayal, and provokes the resumption of a now perniciously covert combativenss.
It's difficult enough for those with conflicting meme sets even to achieve the trust required for constructive/cooperative discourse.
> Now, while trying to carry on *that* analysis, I
intend at the same time---but probably not in the same posts---to resume my other character as one of the disputants.
If one changes the word "disputant", above, to "fellow searcher after the truth, but one with a contrasting perspective", then I'm okay with it. But I have no use for dispute/debate/combative advocacy. These are about winning/ego gratification/emotionally-prejudiced, -driven, and -rewarded meme-set defense. Regard for truth is demoted to 'how can it help me win', which is contempt for truth.
Why is this so hard to understand? Will I get blasted for having said that? At one moment you're down in the trenches fighting away, and then---say when you're taking a break---you try to imagine what the whole trench-works looks like from above. Rising above (in imagination) you see here the British lines, and over here the German lines, and then you do more: you try very, very hard to study English civilization and German civilization---realizing that they're really all human, and eventually fall in love with both cultures, and attain true understanding of how each sees itself as the only right.
Examine the cultural context separately, as a separate issue. Combat and civil discourse are incompatible (IMO).
> Now of course, it's only a dream that I or probablyanyone could really get so far, but it's an ideal.
I don't think it's anywhere near as hard as you make it out to be. It's about trust and agreement on and adherence to the rules going in. The main difficulty is the subversive participation of individuals who refuse to follow the rules, and the corruption of discourse--and trust--that results from the failure to censure or exclude them.
> Moreover, and importantly, it seems to me that this *need* not interfere when you get up to fight again; from your British (say) point of view, the Germans really are killing a lot of people, and unnecessarily so, in Belgium, or whatever.
> Is it such an insane goal for me to be able to laugh and joke with my opposite numbers, each of us from time to time replacing implacable animosity with an
almost cooperative exploration?
No problem.
> I hasten to point out, however, that this "cooperation" has its limits, and one will still every so often say out of sheer desperation, "but HOW can anyone believe *that* without being deranged!?" All that is asked is that that be a rhetorical question, and everyone understand that their adversaries are neither stupid, nor criminal, nor more blind, nor of lower morality, nor less educated than one. Is that really so much to ask?
I disagree with the premise and the conclusion. The truth is out there. If you cooperate to seek it, and find it, and then one party, seeing (feeling/fearing/believing) that the truth speaks against his/her interest, rejects the truth in favor of self-interest ("We both agree that the item was stolen, but I didn't know that when I bought--I bought it in good faith--, and I'm keeping it.) then that party is 'wrong'. I would suggest that this is why many people 'instinctively' resist looking for the truth, why seeking and acknowledging the truth is so difficult, because of the compulsory nature of ethics. People will refuse the truth or deny it, before they will say, "I don't care if it makes me a thief, ---ie ethics be damned--- I'm keeping the booty."
Seeing this protection of one's meme set/tribal identity certification from conflicting memes, truthful or otherwise, as instinctive/primitive might provide insight into an otherwise "totally baffling feature of the human operating system".
> Well, in accord with what I have written, I say it's impossible for an *issue* to go meta, at least among us non-professionals. Each sub-issue on each side of a Bell-Curve type debate has so many huge semantic links and emotional links to other values, concepts, and ideals that I have hardly met anyone whose emotional circuitry is so turned off, or who is so innocent of all the tangential issues, that they
could be entirely unbiased about The Bell Curve.
Maybe not.
Best, Jeff Davis
"We call someone insane who does not believe as we do
to an outrageous extent."
Charles McCabe
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