Hi Cristinel,

I wanted to thank you for a thoughtful, thorough examination of what it means to have a sense of self in a universe like ours. I appreciated the consideration you put into your evaluation of education (what it ought, and ought not to be), and I'm in agreement as per its importance. I am, though, given to wonder whether education (even if separated from manipulation) will provide sufficient tools for humanity to escape the cognitive paradigm emergent throughout our species' evolutionary history, at the very least to the degree necessary to evade our species' demise (whether at our own hands, or if not, by failing to prevent existential threats from flowering).

Again, I just wanted to thank you for the thought you put into your work, and tell you how stimulating it was. I wish you well in the competition, and look forward to hearing more from you soon.

Best regards.

    Dear Cristi Stoica

    You write a nice essay. It can be used also as a reference. But, I disagree with one detail.

    "There is nothing in science that could prevent us to build automata that do what we do. If these automata don't feel what we feel, at least they can do what we do when we feel what we feel. Maybe someday one can replicate a person, so that observers chatting with it don't distinguish the copy from the original. But you are inside yourself, so you know better than what an outside observer knows. You know that you are. Can science explain this?"

    Probably you want to say that we cannot distinguish a philosophical zombie from conscious person. I wrote about this in old essay, but something also in this essay. I try to distinguish this distinction with quantum consciousness. It is well to broke this problem into fundamental units and I hope that I succeeded.

    You also write: "So how can we help humanity, when we don't know what humanity is?" Thus you are answering on my question in my essay, why humanity need theory of everything. I claim that consciousness belong to theory of everything, where belongs also quantum gravity theory.

    In old and new essay I try to prove that consciousness is more important than matter. I think that you claim the same.

    If you will read my essay, you will see that I have a lot of similar ideas and views as you. For instance, I wrote that almost everyone, can work something useful.

    You mentioned also to live in virtual reality. Here it is an interesting question for me, what is the minimum of real matter needed for someone who live in virtal reality. This is connection of quantum gravity physics, information and consciousness ...

    Best regards

    Janko Kokosar

      Dear Janko Kokosar,

      Thank you for the comments. You said "Probably you want to say that we cannot distinguish a philosophical zombie from conscious person." Well, I mean that one can't distinguish them, by objective means, or from the outside. However, one can't deny the subjective side of the problem, which tells us that we are more than philosophical zombies. Perhaps quantum mechanics can shed a light on this, because it suffers, in a way, from the same feature: one can only hope that there is some reality underlying the measurable outcomes.

      You said "Here it is an interesting question for me, what is the minimum of real matter needed for someone who live in virtal reality. This is connection of quantum gravity physics, information and consciousness ...". Well, that's a good question, with the implications you mentioned, and whose answer I don't think I can even roughly approximate.

      I didn't get a chance yet to read your essay, but I look forward to read it soon enough. Good luck at the contest.

      Best regards,

      Cristi

      Hi Alex,

      Thanks for the comments, and for such a great question: " whether education (even if separated from manipulation) will provide sufficient tools for humanity to escape the cognitive paradigm emergent throughout our species' evolutionary history, at the very least to the degree necessary to evade our species' demise". If our evolutionary history is responsible for this cognitive paradigm, then it did a great job. I don't want to say at all that this paradigm is good enough, but it is really something, much more than what we would have without evolution. So if we arrived here, even if this place is not perfect, I think it is justified to hope for even more. Especially since I consider education (including using our own minds) to be a bit better than evolution, which is blind.

      Thank you for the comment, and good luck with the contest!

      Best regards,

      Cristi

      Christi,

      I shoehorned my reasoning into an interpretation of Nobel's attitude. As far as I know, he always considered the society, not individuals. You are of course correct in that the society consists of individuals whose feelings are important. Total steering each individual would be horrible.

      Is humanity in the sense of unrestricte freedom a sufficient virtue? I would like to question this unless we are ready to balance human rights by adding tabooed human obligations to the notion of humanity. Isn't this a truly basic question?

      I see restricting loyalty to a nation, loyalty to some we and even to my I, not always completely tolerable from the perspective of mankind.

      Best regards,

      Eckard

      Eckard,

      That's an excellent observation. Society is made of individuals, but is not just a sum of individuals. It is like interference, sometimes constructive, sometimes instructive. In my essay, I emphasized the freedoms of individual, but I think this affects society in a constructive way. There are so many social tensions, which take us so much resources, which have their origins in the incapacity of people to accept others as they are. Tolerance would not necessarily lead to isolation of the individual, but to a better cooperation. People are social beings, but their egotistic side is so pregnant also because of the fact that society comes with norms that may differ from the personal aspirations of each of us, and puts a pressure. In addition, society cultivates egotism and makes appeal to it as justification for cooperation. For instance, you mentioned very well "restricting loyalty to a nation, loyalty to some we and even to my I". I think that these social constructs start with the sense of urgency each one of us have when it comes about us as individuals, or as families, etc. Society builds on top of this instinct (which is by nature about the individual) larger egos, which are social classes, clans, favorite soccer team, nationality, religion... It is just a way to enlarge the ego. So, your remark "I see restricting loyalty to a nation, loyalty to some we and even to my I, not always completely tolerable from the perspective of mankind", suggests a rather opposed perspective, which is that we have a natural sense of universality, which is cut down and reduced by the local society around us. And I agree with you. I believe that the individual, provided that is free, would choose universality, loyalty to mankind, rather than loyalty to small local circles. It is the peer pressure which makes us to adhere to small circles, and be loyal to them. Friends who tell us that we have to support the local soccer team, parents who tell us that we have to adopt the religion of our kind, even that there is such a thing called "our kind" etc. And if you say that it is better to be loyal to mankind, rather than to small circles of interest, I fully agree with that. I see individual freedom exactly as the liberation of the narrow local circles, as an understanding of the fact that we are inhabitants of a larger sphere (so far this is the Earth).

      Best regards,

      Cristi

      Hi Cristinel,

      Thanks for the lovely essay. I found that it resonated with my essay on computationally intelligent personal dialogic agents. I'd appreciate a rating, if you can do that, since I am a bit short on ratings.

      If you haven't, I suggest you read "I and Thou" by Martin Buber. Thinking about your essay in light of Buber's work raises some interesting perspectives.

      Ray

        Hi Ray,

        Thank you for the nice comment, and for the suggested reading by Martin Buber. I look forward to read your very interesting essay. Good luck in the competition!

        Best regards,

        Cristi

        Hello C

        I found your essay interesting but would like to add one extremely important addition to your abstract's final sentence (and something that needs to be expanded into the text). Your final sentence stating that "freedom has to be protected by access to information, education, transparency and critical thinking" is correct, I believe, but freedom will only be maintained if "accountability" is assured and rapidly addressed. Basic human behavior is genetically constrained and has not changed in millennia and most people not held accountable for their behaviors will attempt to get all they want by what ever means they cam.

        Cheers,

        Don Barker

          Hello Mike,

          Sure, sincere criticism is always welcome. I look forward to read your essay and comment on its page.

          Best regards,

          Cristi

          Hello Don,

          "freedom will only be maintained if "accountability" is assured and rapidly addressed. Basic human behavior is genetically constrained and has not changed in millennia and most people not held accountable for their behaviors will attempt to get all they want by what ever means they cam."

          Yes, you are right that the temptation to abuse freedom to break others' freedom exists and should be prevented. Holding people accountable for their behaviors is a tool that is and should be better used to maintain freedom. On the other hand, we already established that people tend to abuse their power, and this applies also to those who are in charge with the law. People are punished for any kinds of reasons, and currently this is used more as a tool against freedom, rather than for freedom. Who will guard the guardians? An open society seems to me a good starting point, and I defended this in the text. Thank you for emphasizing the complementary aspect and giving me the opportunity to detail.

          Best regards,

          Cristi

          Thanks Cristi,

          A. I see you as a faithful apologist for contemporary ideals. Your essay contains a contradiction that isn't so much a fault in your own thinking, as a fault in the society you speak for. The section titled "Undefining the man" (p. 1) immediately contradicts itself by defining him. It affirms a utopian ideology of individual freedom that simultaneously confesses to be intolerant of competitors. It will not tolerate ideologies that affirm an "idealization of man, a simplified model", yet itself affirms just that. "One should always let humans be what they want" is the rule, yet this rule is immediately broken by rejecting other definitions of humanity, or more complex definitions, for fear they'll undermine freedom and lead to violence. Even your harmless looking axiom 1 ("The most important things in the world are life, consciousness, happiness") is quickly rejected because "assumptions about what people need most" lead to "building a dystopian, repressive world", or even "horrific oppression measures including genocides" (p. 6).

          Again, I don't think you introduce these inconsistencies yourself. I think they originate in modern society and you faithfully reveal them. To be completely faithful to that society, you must now ignore my critique.

          B. "Perhaps there should be a subjective science", you suggest, to "study that interior activity that can't be verified by outside observers." (p. 4) I'm not an expert here, but I read that the subjective world is grasped by our "aesthetic-practical" and "moral-practical" complexes of rationality (Habermas, Reason and the rationalization of society, p. 238). More specifically it's grasped by a combination of eroticism and morality. As you foresaw, there's a big X to exclude any objective peeping Toms.

          Mike

          Hi Chidi,

          Thank you for reading my essay and for your comment. I look forward to read your essay.

          Best regards,

          Cristi

          Dear Michael,

          Thank you for the comments, which reveal how you see my essay. I see it differently, but you are free to understand it as you want.

          A. For example, you say "The section titled "Undefining the man" (p. 1) immediately contradicts itself by defining him." I don't think I defined man, you are just playing with the words. If you found a definition I gave to man, you probably could quote it here. Next, you take other affirmations which I made, and try to turn themselves against themselves, by applying the same recipe. I disagree with you. If I reject any definition, doesn't mean I give a definition. If I reject a simplified model, it doesn't mean this itself is a simplified model. If you find a contradiction, it would be helpful if you state it exactly, not just claim that there is a contradiction because I reject a definition or a model. You say that I propose a "utopian ideology" which 'will not tolerate ideologies that affirm an "idealization of man, a simplified model"'. If you read more in my essay, you will find that by freedom I also understand that people should be free to associate and organize how they want, so long as they don't force others to do the same. So I don't understand where you see the intolerance. Sorry, but I think this kind of criticism you are using can work against anything and proves nothing. Whatever criticism someone makes, you can say "but your criticism itself is guilty of the same problem as the thing you are criticizing". While this may happen sometimes, it would be good to also bring some evidence that this is so for each particular case. You close this part by absolving me of these "contradictions" you identified in my thinking, by basically saying that I borrowed them from contemporary ideals and are not original anyway. While I don't consider myself a great and exceptionally original thinker in social issues, I consider that in this essay I distilled much of my life experience with various kinds of people and groups, and not just repeating stuff others say. I think that contemporary society is far from what I describe I wish it to be, so I don't see where is the apology you say I make for contemporary ideals. I see you are a frank person, who offers criticism with the best intentions, so I hope you will appreciate the well intended criticism I made to your criticism.

          B. Thanks for the reference. While I had something else in mind by "subjective science", I think this reference can be helpful.

          Thanks again for the comments and well intended criticism.

          Best regards,

          Cristi

          You're welcome Cristi, thanks in return for answering. I reply to clarify my critique of inconsistency. And I suggest how to correct it (if you agree) in order to make my meaning clearer.

          A. You reiterate that "people should be free to associate and organize how they want, so long as they don't force others to do the same." I agree with this. Still (to explain my critique) what you're affirming here is an ideal. You claim that humanity ought to be thus, and therewith present a utopian vision of man. This is good.

          But then you simultaneously warn against utopian visions and "idealization of man" in general for fear they might undermine this paramount ideal of freedom. Here is the contradiction. With this, freedom is ground and baked unleavened into a "simplified model" of humanity, an ideology that is jealous and fearful of rivals and through that fear itself a limitation on freedom. It might easily escalate into violence against those who disagree with it, for example. The ideal is here contradicted.

          You reply to Rick Searle's defense of utopianism (May 2), "Would it be too strong the claim that at the root of any large scale act of repression or violence, there is the idea of the aggressors that the things ought to be in a certain ideal way, and the victims are to be blamed if the things are not like this or if they seem to endanger their ideal?"

          Yes, that's too broad. The Vikings who terrorized the dark ages were motivated not by ideal but material interests. So were the slave traders who descended on Africa (I agree with Rick). Your warning against ideals is too general.

          More to the point, logical consistency demands that one drop any such generalized warning against utopian visions, goals, definitions and other ideals of humanity when promoting just that, especially when promoting the ideal of freedom. Other ideals (even full-blown ideologies) aren't necessarily corrosive of freedom; indeed, they might even be essential to it. Freedom might have a larger purpose, a reason for being. We wouldn't want to discourage the search for that, and it would tempt tragedy to do so in the name of freedom itself.

          (It would also discredit my own thesis, which you don't otherwise object to.) - Mike

          Hi Mike,

          First of all, while I warn people about utopies and ideologies, I never claimed one should fight against them. I just warn people to allow others to be free, and to use their own critical thinking when others try to sell them one ideology or another. But you claim that I propose "an ideology that is jealous and fearful of rivals". I didn't do this. How is it possible, when I say one should leave others to choose their path, to understand that I say one should forbid all other paths? I am not native English speaker, and perhaps my way of speaking is difficult for other people, but I use simple words, and I don't think there is any room to interpret any of my words as encouraging violence or intolerance, as you claim. While I am writing this, I am amazed and very amused by your interpretation. On the other hand, I am worried, because perhaps you are right, someone may interpret my words as encouraging intolerance. After all, you do this :)

          Best regards,

          Cristi

          Many thanks, Cristi, for your crisp observation at my end. It helps the lonely wanderer to find he still could be located somewhere on the map.

          Wishing you the best,

          Chidi