What will it be like once AGI is achieved and AI can do everything humans can do?
The obvious answer to this is that it would be a situation where all material needs were taken care of and people devoted their time to leisure activities.
Here’s my take: People will not experience anything much that is different in terms their work and lives from the point of view of their perception of their daily stresses and complaints. From our point of view they will have nothing to worry but from theirs life will be a hard grind and struggle for ‘survival’. How do we know this? Because that’s the exact situation we are in relative to hunter-gathers. From their perspective we don’t have to work to get food – there is abundance all around us and most people aren’t employed in the production of food or even the means to support that production. Instead, most people are employed in weird abstract things related to people’s desires for various other things. Things are going to get even more abstract and people are going to need vastly more to be basically satisfied with their situation because that satisfaction will depend not on their actual material circumstances but rather on what is culturally required to be seen to have a good life.
It will be a mad Potemkin village. It will be an insane Tupperware party.
The one thing there will be to compete for in the post AGI world will be human preference. Presuming we don’t have the situation in which AI’s have rights (in which case it’s all over) people will need to spend all their working time marketing and being marketed to. Essentially all of the human economy will be humans trying to influence other humans to do things and in order to do this it will create as much ‘work’ as there is now. The ‘work’ will be completely meaningless of course but it will fatiguing and tedious nonetheless. The simple advantage that humans will have over machines in the work environment will be that they are humans with the rights and privileges that entails. Essentially the ‘advantage’ that humans have over machines will be a social and regulatory one. The job that the machine won’t be able to do is to be a human. How this will manifest is that vast sums of money will change hands in the pursuit of human choice and desire shaping. AI’s will provide advice on the psychological means to do this and people’s jobs will essentially consist of taking what seem to us like bizarre actions and delivering lines scripted by AI to other people like some kind of weird filming event. If you want to know the future of work for most people it will be like being an extra in some kind of life action comedy taking place on the streets of your town or city. It will be the Truman show run under AI supervision for the purpose of consent to the thing itself. So the actual personal experience of people will be of sitting around until their ‘part’ is called to do some apparently pointless action like walking down the street and saying something to someone. This ‘live theatre’ will be endlessly nested within itself, with control over ‘inner loops’ given to those who have proved most obedient and accommodating in the most superficial manifestations like admittance to some masonic hierarchy.
All of this may seem nonsensical and laughable from our point of view – unbelievable no doubt, but the same could be said of indigenous understandings of western culture. I believe this or something like this will come to pass by virtue of the inherent nature of things.
Appendix
“In the late 1980s, Kopenawa, who hailed from the Yanomami tribe in the Amazon rainforest, traveled to the United States. The Yanomami, a tribe with limited contact with modern societies, had been studied for years by anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon.
When Kopenawa visited the U.S., he was not a passive subject; instead, he was keenly observant and articulate about his experiences and observations. His perceptions of American society were a study in “reverse anthropology.” Kopenawa was fascinated but also horrified by certain aspects of Western life. He noted the busyness and individualism of Americans, the vast wealth of resources but the equally profound waste, the detachment from nature, and the lack of communal living and kinship ties that were fundamental to Yanomami society.”
An excerpt:
When I arrived in New York, I was surprised that the city looked like a dense group of rocky peaks in which white people live piled on top of each other. At these mountains’ feet, multitudes of people moved very fast and in every direction, like ants. They started one way and turned around, then went the other way. They looked at the ground all the time and never saw the sky. I told myself that these white people must have built such tall stone houses after clearing all their forests and having started making merchandise in very large quantities for the first time. They probably thought: “There are many of us, we are valiant in war, and we have many machines. Let us build giant houses to fill them with goods that all the other peoples will covet!
I haven’t done anything with ‘my theories’ for a while so I thought I might explain them to ChatGPT-4 in order to see what it thinks and what insights I could glean. It takes a while but it slowly closes in on what I’m talking about Warning AI generated content ahead! (My prompts in bold)
What is the psycho-sexual environment?
ChatGPT:
It appears there may be some confusion in the terminology you’re using, as the term “psycho-sexual environment” isn’t widely recognized in psychology or other social sciences as of my knowledge cutoff in September 2021. However, I can provide some insights based on the separate terms.
“Psychosexual” refers to the theory of psychosexual development, a concept from Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. According to Freud, individuals pass through five stages of psychosexual development: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. Each stage is associated with particular conflicts and experiences that could have lasting effects on an individual’s personality and adult behavior if not properly resolved.
“Environment” often refers to the conditions and influences that affect the growth, development, and behavior of an individual or community.
If we try to connect these two concepts, a “psycho-sexual environment” could hypothetically refer to the environmental conditions and influences affecting an individual’s psychosexual development. These could include societal norms and expectations, family attitudes toward sexuality, personal experiences, education, and other factors that might influence how an individual navigates Freud’s proposed stages of psychosexual development.
However, it’s important to remember that Freud’s theories, while historically influential, have been widely critiqued and are not universally accepted in contemporary psychology. Furthermore, environmental influences on sexual development are complex and multifaceted, including biological, social, and cultural factors.
To get a precise understanding, you may want to consult up-to-date, scholarly sources or seek clarification from the person using the term “psycho-sexual environment”.
The Problem: We are in the situation where we are not in social reality – and by that I mean that our explanation of what is happening in social reality does not match the anthropological facts about what is happening in social reality. However, that’s not what bothers me right now. It has bothered me a great deal in the past but what bothers me now is that no one seems to know that. You would think that out of all of the billions of people on earth there could at least have been enough to recognise that we’re not in social reality and then some, or one of those could have put pen to paper or keyboard to document to mention the simple and yet revolutionary fact that we’re not in social reality. Oh, and for such a memoir to find it’s way to my eyes. The fact that it hasn’t is not due to lack of trying on my behalf. I have looked up many books on what might be the subject as well as tried numerous Google searches on keywords that might be relevant to such an enquiry. That’s all pretty much come to nothing. Google is usually pretty good. Normally if you put something in you’re going to get what you’re looking for. Even if you don’t know what that thing is called. For instance,if I put into Google “That pole that sticks out of a water tank” I can be at “Water tank level indicator” on the second result. That didn’t take long! It didn’t take a lifetime. A good example of what it would be like is if we were in a completely theist society, and there was a person who one day wondered “What if god doesn’t exist?” So they looked for books, news articles, blogs and web sites that might say something about that question and drew a blank. Well, you can try it. It certainly doesn’t draw a blank. It actually auto-fills it in for you before you can even finish typing.
ChatGPT:
It sounds like you’re grappling with a disconnect between your understanding of social reality and the commonly accepted understanding of it. This type of philosophical questioning is similar to those who ponder the nature of reality, question the existence of God, or wonder about the social constructs we live within.
Based on your description, it seems you’re searching for literature or dialogue that challenges the current narrative or dominant understanding of social reality. However, you’ve found it difficult to locate such resources.
Here are a few pointers that might guide you in your search:
Critical Theory: This is a broad field within sociology that seeks to critique and change society, rather than simply understand or explain it. It challenges the status quo and questions societal norms and structures.
Postmodern Philosophy: Postmodernists often challenge meta-narratives, question the nature of reality, and argue that our understanding of the world is socially constructed. Notable postmodern philosophers include Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault.
Epistemology: This branch of philosophy questions the nature of knowledge and belief. It includes skepticism, which questions the possibility of certain knowledge, and relativism, which suggests that truth and morality are not absolute but are instead relative to the individuals or societies that hold them.
Social Constructivism: This theory suggests that our understanding of reality is constructed through social processes. Therefore, what we take to be ‘real’ is a product of shared understandings and cultural practices.
Existentialism and Absurdism: Existentialism concerns itself with finding self and the meaning of life through free will, choice, and personal responsibility. Absurdism, on the other hand, argues that life is inherently meaningless.
It’s also worth noting that many of these topics are quite abstract and nuanced, so you might not find direct answers to your questions. Instead, they can provide frameworks and perspectives that can help you understand and navigate your experiences.
Finally, keep in mind that while popular search engines like Google are powerful tools, they may not always lead you to the nuanced or fringe discussions you’re looking for. You may have more luck exploring academic databases, participating in philosophy forums, or reaching out to scholars who specialize in these areas.
Actually what I’m talking about is that our usual cultural social explanations aren’t a good guide to what is happening socially but rather a form of evolutionary psychology is and who would be the best other sources of that understanding.
ChatGPT:
Ah, I see. You’re interested in the perspective that evolutionary psychology, rather than traditional social or cultural explanations, provides a more accurate understanding of human behavior.
Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach to psychology that attempts to explain useful mental and psychological traits—such as memory, perception, or language—as adaptations, i.e., as the functional products of natural selection. The goal is to apply the principles of evolution to understand the human mind and behavior.
Here are a few key authors, books, and resources in the field of evolutionary psychology that might interest you:
David Buss: An influential figure in evolutionary psychology, his books like “The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating” and “Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind” provide a comprehensive overview of the field.
Steven Pinker: A cognitive psychologist known for his advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. His books “The Blank Slate” and “How the Mind Works” are good starting points.
Robert Wright: He’s a journalist who has written extensively about evolutionary psychology. His book “The Moral Animal” is a good introduction to the topic.
Leda Cosmides and John Tooby: They are best known for their work in pioneering the field of evolutionary psychology. They’ve written numerous articles and have contributed to many books on the subject.
Richard Dawkins: While not an evolutionary psychologist per se, his work in evolutionary biology and his book “The Selfish Gene” have been highly influential in shaping the field of evolutionary psychology.
“The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology” edited by David Buss: This is a comprehensive source with contributions from numerous experts in the field.
Remember, evolutionary psychology is one perspective among many in understanding human behavior, and like all fields, it has its critics. It’s essential to approach it critically and understand its limitations as well as its strengths.
Also, while evolutionary psychology may provide insights into why certain patterns of behavior evolved, it doesn’t prescribe how people ought to behave, nor does it suggest that all behaviors are genetically determined and unchangeable. It’s just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to understanding human behavior.
Specifically I am interested in or believe the idea that our normal social communication is just a ‘carrier wave’ for another form of communication amongst people that indicates both fitness and provides a means of two-way communication between the organisms (people) on an anthropological level. Do you know anything about that?
ChatGPT:
It appears you’re referring to a rather specific theory or concept in evolutionary psychology. While there isn’t a well-defined theory that exactly matches your description, there are several related concepts in the field that may be of interest.
Dual Process Communication Theory: This theory, although not unique to evolutionary psychology, suggests that communication serves two simultaneous purposes: transmission of content and relationship signaling. The “content” could be seen as the ‘carrier wave’ you mentioned, while the “relationship signaling” could be viewed as the more subtle, fitness-indicating communication.
Sexual Selection and Signaling Theory: In evolutionary biology and psychology, this theory posits that certain traits or behaviors may have evolved not because they increase survival, but because they improve an individual’s chances of attracting mates or fending off rivals. These signals can be seen as a form of communication that indicates fitness.
Nonverbal Communication: Nonverbal cues, such as body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice, often convey information about our emotions, attitudes, and status. Some evolutionary psychologists propose that these nonverbal signals are an important part of our social communication and can serve as indicators of fitness.
Cooperative Signaling (or Costly Signaling) Theory: This theory suggests that individuals signal their desirable traits, such as their ability to bear costs, to others through certain behaviors. These signals are reliable (i.e., they can’t easily be faked) because they would be too costly for lower-quality individuals to produce.
However, as of my last training data in September 2021, these theories don’t exactly map onto the idea of a ‘carrier wave’ for another form of communication indicating fitness. There may be newer theories or research in this area that I’m not aware of. If this is a concept you’re developing independently, you might consider doing more research in these related areas and perhaps even contributing your own ideas to the field.
Another strand of this is research in psychology which has people giving explanations for what is happening anthropologically via cultural explainations and an example has been given of a person riding on an elephant whereby the elephant is pretty much doing what it wants but is guided by the person (consciousness) in some way. I can’t remember who gave that example though. Oh there was a book called The Happiness Hypothesis that had it.
ChatGPT
The metaphor you’re referring to is indeed from “The Happiness Hypothesis” by Jonathan Haidt. Haidt, a social psychologist, uses the analogy of a rider on an elephant to describe the relationship between the conscious and unconscious parts of the human mind.
In this metaphor:
The elephant represents the automatic or unconscious processes in the brain. These processes are powerful and often drive where we go (our behavior), just as an elephant would largely determine the path it and its rider take.
The rider represents the controlled or conscious processes in the brain. The rider can guide the elephant to some extent, but its control is limited, particularly when the elephant (the unconscious mind) has strong impulses or desires.
Haidt’s metaphor is a way to understand the often complex relationship between our conscious thoughts (rational, logical thinking) and our unconscious instincts and biases (emotions, intuition). It emphasizes that much of our behavior is driven by unconscious processes, but that conscious thought has a role in guiding and interpreting our experiences.
This idea is not unique to Haidt, though his metaphor is a particularly vivid way of expressing it. Dual-process theories of cognition, for example, make a similar distinction between automatic/unconscious and controlled/conscious mental processes. Daniel Kahneman’s book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” also explores these ideas in depth.
If you’re interested in the intersection of evolutionary psychology and these ideas about conscious and unconscious cognition, you might find Haidt’s work quite interesting. He often emphasizes the ways that our minds have been shaped by evolution, not just to help us survive, but also to help us navigate our complex social world.
I take those ideas to their limit with the idea that we’re not really in social reality at all but rather unconsciously producing behaviours and then using our storytelling ability to give a cultural explanation as to why the behaviour is happening.
ChatGPT
That’s an interesting perspective, and you’re not alone in suggesting it. There’s a growing body of research in psychology and neuroscience that suggests our conscious mind often constructs post-hoc narratives to explain our behaviours, which are largely driven by unconscious processes.
This idea aligns with several theories in cognitive science and philosophy. For instance:
Libet’s Experiments: Neuroscientist Benjamin Libet conducted experiments in the 1980s that suggested our brain begins to prepare for action before we consciously decide to act. This has been interpreted by some as evidence that our unconscious mind drives our behavior, and our conscious mind simply rationalizes these actions after the fact.
The Interpreter in Split-Brain Patients: Studies of patients with a severed corpus callosum (the bundle of nerves that connects the two hemispheres of the brain) have shown that the left hemisphere often invents explanations for behaviors that are actually driven by the right hemisphere, suggesting that one function of the conscious mind might be to create coherent narratives from our experiences.
Narrative Psychology: This branch of psychology suggests that we construct stories about our lives and experiences to create a sense of self and to make sense of the world around us. These narratives may not always accurately reflect reality, but they shape our perceptions and experiences nonetheless.
Predictive Processing Framework: This cognitive model suggests that our brains are essentially prediction machines, constantly creating and updating a mental model of the world and using it to predict what will happen next. This model often operates unconsciously and can influence our perception and behavior.
In terms of evolutionary psychology, one might hypothesize that this ability to create narratives and explanations could have been advantageous for our ancestors. Being able to understand and predict others’ behaviors would be particularly useful in a social species like ours.
However, it’s important to remember that these are all theories and models. They help us understand the mind and behavior, but they don’t provide definitive answers. The relationship between conscious and unconscious processes is still not fully understood and is the subject of ongoing research.
Well my theory is that the rational system is a kind of abstract mental ‘toolbox’ for solving certain kinds of problems and that we have moved into this space to do more than it naturally can accommodate but that the way it works now is that the cultural content of communication provides a means for the ‘anthropological’ communication to be transmitted by. It’s kind of a complex picture but maybe you understand.
ChatGPT
Your perspective is certainly thought-provoking, and it seems to combine elements of cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, and cultural anthropology. As I understand it, you’re suggesting that:
The rational, conscious mind is a tool for solving specific types of problems. This aligns with views in cognitive science that consider rational thought as a kind of “problem-solving” apparatus.
We have extended the use of this “toolbox” beyond its natural capacities, perhaps by using rational thought to navigate social and cultural complexities.
Our cultural narratives and explanations, which are largely produced by the conscious mind, serve as a “carrier wave” for a more fundamental, unconscious form of communication that operates at the anthropological level.
This theory could provide a useful framework for understanding the complex interplay between our cognitive abilities, our cultural context, and our underlying evolutionary instincts. However, it’s important to keep in mind that this is a theoretical perspective and would require empirical evidence to support it.
It might be interesting for you to explore related work in fields like cultural neuroscience (which studies how cultural practices shape the brain), cognitive anthropology (which studies how culture influences cognitive processes), and biosemiotics (which studies how signs and meaning are used in and by living systems).
You may also want to consider how you might test or investigate your theory. What predictions does it make? What kind of evidence would support or refute it? This could help you further refine your ideas and contribute to our understanding of these complex phenomena.
A related thing is subtext which I have talked about with another incidence of ChatGPT before although at that time ChatGPT didn’t seem to have a great understanding of it. This would be like unconscious subtext. Furthermore, there is this idea in the study of body language that decoding body language helps know people’s true or hidden motivations. I think to some extent this may be true but more importantly it may form part of a ‘hidden language’ that is related not to the person’s conscious motivations but their unconscious ones.
ChatGPT
Your theory seems to be bringing together different aspects of communication, including verbal and non-verbal cues (like body language), as well as conscious and unconscious processes.
Subtext, in literature and communication, refers to the unspoken or less obvious meanings or implications behind the literal message. This often depends on the context, cultural background, shared knowledge, or the relationship between the speakers. While this is typically understood as a conscious or semi-conscious process, it’s plausible to consider an “unconscious subtext” that communicates information outside of our conscious awareness.
In terms of body language, it’s widely accepted in psychology that non-verbal cues can communicate a lot of information, often outside of our conscious awareness. This includes cues about our emotional state, attitudes, and possibly even aspects of our personality or current thoughts. This “hidden language” of the body can be seen as part of our evolutionary heritage: before humans developed spoken language, non-verbal communication was likely crucial for social interaction.
It’s also worth noting that there’s a field of study known as “embodied cognition” that explores the idea that many cognitive processes are influenced or even determined by the body, including our physical interactions with the environment. This can include more direct forms of communication like body language, but also more subtle influences like the way our physical experiences shape our abstract thinking.
In terms of your larger theory, it might be helpful to consider what specific predictions it makes. For instance, if our cultural narratives serve as a “carrier wave” for more fundamental, unconscious communication, how would this manifest in observable behavior? How would it differ across different cultural contexts? These are complex questions, but considering them could help further develop and test your ideas.
What I’m saying is that it’s all ‘hidden in plain sight’ it’s literally right there for anyone to see except that as soon as any specific thing is pointed out it is straight away explained away in what I call the “world of explanations” in other words people’s cultural explanations. If someone itches their nose and you ask them why they did that they will say that their nose was itchy and so on. The biggest problem is that if all these things are exposed we enter an uncomfortable new state whereby we are no longer shielded by these things by our cultural explanations but still judge them in terms of those explanations when they may be culturally unacceptable to us – a state I know as “the horror”.
ChatGPT
It seems you are speaking about the tension between our unconscious behaviors, which may stem from deeper biological or evolutionary instincts, and the cultural narratives we construct to explain these behaviors. In other words, you’re suggesting that many of our actions are driven by unconscious processes, but we rationalize them within our cultural framework. When this rationalization fails or is removed, it can lead to discomfort or what you term “the horror.”
This is indeed a fascinating perspective, and it aligns with certain psychological theories that emphasize the influence of unconscious processes on behavior. For example, the psychoanalytic theories proposed by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung suggest that much of our behavior is driven by unconscious motivations that we may not be fully aware of. In contemporary psychology, cognitive and social psychologists also study how unconscious biases and heuristics can influence our behavior in ways that we often rationalize after the fact.
That said, it’s important to note that this perspective doesn’t invalidate the role of culture in shaping behavior. Even if many of our actions are initially driven by unconscious processes, the way we interpret and respond to these actions can be heavily influenced by our cultural context. Indeed, some anthropologists would argue that culture itself is an evolutionary adaptation that shapes our behavior in profound ways.
Your theory provides an intriguing framework for thinking about these issues, though it would be challenging to test empirically due to its complex and nuanced nature. Nonetheless, it offers a thought-provoking perspective on the interplay between biology, culture, and consciousness.
I will now provide what further evidence that I have to give you a better picture of things Alex Pentland’s Book Honest Signals says “Unconscious social signals are not just a back channel or a complement to our conscious language: They form a separate communication network”. Are you aware of the book?
ChatGPT
Yes, I am familiar with “Honest Signals: How They Shape Our World” by Alex Pentland. Pentland, a computational social scientist at MIT, argues that we communicate a lot of information through unconscious social signals. These can include things like tone of voice, body language, or the timing and dynamics of our interactions.
According to Pentland, these “honest signals” are a fundamental part of human communication. They provide information about our intentions, feelings, and relationships that complements, and sometimes contradicts, the verbal content of our communication.
He also suggests that these signals are a kind of “social intelligence” that we all possess. They help us navigate our social world, build and maintain relationships, and coordinate our behavior with others. He argues that understanding and harnessing these signals could have important implications for areas like business, politics, and technology.
This idea aligns with your theory in several ways. First, it supports the idea that much of our communication happens outside of our conscious awareness. Second, it suggests that this unconscious communication is not just incidental or secondary to our verbal communication, but forms a distinct and vital part of our social interactions. Finally, it highlights the potential tension between our unconscious social signals and the conscious narratives we construct to explain our behavior.
However, it’s worth noting that Pentland’s work focuses primarily on the role of these signals in contemporary, technologically advanced societies. It doesn’t necessarily address the evolutionary or anthropological aspects of your theory, though it could certainly be seen as complementary to these perspectives.
Another book which has proved to be of interest in relation to the theory is “Switched On” by John Elder Robison. It’s about someone who is Autistic but uses electronic stimulation of their brain to have emotional awareness but in this case it’s more than just normal emotional awareness and he briefly goes beyond what people normally have. This speaks to a continuum of being able to access such states consciously. People call themselves “empaths” who have the power to see more than ordinary people emotionally.
ChatGPT
“Switched On: A Memoir of Brain Change and Emotional Awakening” by John Elder Robison is indeed an interesting case. Robison, who has Asperger’s syndrome (a form of autism), underwent Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) as part of a study. This non-invasive procedure uses magnetic fields to stimulate nerve cells in the brain. Robison reported that the treatment gave him a heightened emotional sensitivity that he had never experienced before.
Robison’s experience raises intriguing questions about the nature of emotional awareness and empathy. If such states can be modulated by directly stimulating the brain, it suggests that our ability to perceive and understand others’ emotions may be more flexible and variable than we typically assume.
Your reference to “empaths” also fits within this framework. In popular psychology, an “empath” is often described as a person who is exceptionally sensitive to the emotions of others, to the point where they can intuitively ‘sense’ other people’s feelings. While this is not a recognized diagnosis or category in clinical psychology, it does resonate with many people’s experiences.
However, it’s worth noting that the idea of a “continuum of emotional awareness” is not universally accepted. Some psychologists argue that empathy and emotional awareness are more complex and multifaceted than a single continuum would suggest. For example, they might involve a combination of cognitive abilities (like perspective-taking and emotional understanding) and affective responses (like emotional contagion and empathic concern).
Nonetheless, these ideas could certainly be relevant to your theory. If our conscious awareness of emotions and social signals varies across individuals and can be modulated by interventions like TMS, it suggests that our conscious narratives and interpretations may also vary in their accuracy and completeness. This could potentially create a disconnect between our conscious explanations and our unconscious social signals, as you’ve suggested.
The next thing I want to point to is “The President’s Speech” by Oliver Sacks in the book: The man who mistook his wife for a hat. In this story people with aphasia have a different interpretation of a president’s speech and able to detect lying when ordinary people can’t thereby suggesting a reality that normal people aren’t aware of and are deceived by.
ChatGPT
“The President’s Speech” is indeed a fascinating case study from Oliver Sacks’ book “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.” In this story, Sacks describes how patients with aphasia (a condition that impairs language processing) responded to a televised speech by the president. Even though they could not understand the words due to their condition, they laughed at the speech, seemingly finding it insincere or dishonest.
Sacks hypothesized that these patients, stripped of their ability to process language in the usual way, became more sensitive to non-verbal cues like tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language. This suggests that they were tapping into a kind of “honest signaling,” as Alex Pentland might put it.
This case study does indeed align with your theory. It suggests that our conscious, verbal communication may sometimes obscure or distract from more fundamental, non-verbal signals. It also underscores the potential for a disconnect between our conscious explanations (in this case, the president’s words) and our unconscious social signals (the president’s tone, expressions, etc.).
However, it’s worth noting that this is just one case study, and it’s based on a very specific and unusual population (aphasic patients). While it provides an intriguing hint about the potential depth and complexity of human communication, it doesn’t necessarily prove that this kind of unconscious signal detection is widespread or influential in the general population. But it certainly provides a compelling avenue for further research and exploration.
Ok, with that rather limited lot of supporting evidence, I will now move on to accessing the environment (what I call the psycho-sexual environment) in contrast to the normal cultural environment (what I call the mythspace). In this case the relevant concept to use is of stances like Daniel Dennet’s intentional stance whereby a stance becomes like a adopted paradigm in order to view the world. With reference to this theory the relevant stance to use to see it is the ‘anthropological stance’ whereby things, including normally unnoticed things, are viewed from an anthropological standpoint which means how a zoologist might view humans as animals.
ChatGPT
Your reference to Daniel Dennett’s concept of “stances” is an interesting way to frame this discussion. Dennett, a well-known philosopher and cognitive scientist, proposed that we can understand the behavior of a system (like a person, an animal, or even a machine) at different levels of abstraction. These are called the physical stance, the design stance, and the intentional stance.
The physical stance is the most basic level, where we predict behavior based on physical laws. The design stance is a step up, where we predict behavior based on the system’s design or purpose. The intentional stance is the highest level, where we predict behavior by attributing beliefs, desires, and intentions to the system.
Applying this framework to your theory, it seems you are proposing a sort of “anthropological stance,” where we view human behavior through the lens of evolutionary biology and anthropology. This would involve interpreting behaviors not just in terms of our conscious beliefs and intentions (as in the intentional stance), but also in terms of our evolutionary history and biological imperatives.
This is certainly a valid perspective, and one that is used by many researchers in fields like evolutionary psychology and biological anthropology. It allows us to see human behavior in a broader, more objective context, and can often reveal patterns and principles that are not obvious from a more subjective, culturally-bound perspective.
However, it’s also worth noting that this stance has its limitations. It can sometimes lead to overly simplistic or deterministic explanations, and it can overlook the complexity and diversity of human cultural practices. It’s also often based on assumptions or models that are difficult to test empirically. But as long as these limitations are kept in mind, the anthropological stance can be a powerful tool for understanding human behavior.
One other thing I would like to mention is the role of ‘filters’ in how humans perceive the world so that people automatically ‘filter out’ information that doesn’t fit with their worldview or the cultural stance they are normally using to see the world. I think there is a whole lot of information from psychology that people filter out unexpected or anomalous phenomena. An example that comes to mind is a monkey dancing across the screen in a video. You probably know the thing.
ChatGPT
Yes, the example you’re referring to is known as the “Invisible Gorilla” experiment, a famous study in psychology. In this experiment, participants were asked to watch a video of people passing a basketball and count the number of passes made by the team in white shirts. During the video, a person in a gorilla suit walks through the scene, but about half of the participants do not notice the gorilla because they are so focused on counting the passes. This phenomenon is known as “inattentional blindness.”
This experiment demonstrates how our attention and perception can be influenced by our expectations and task at hand. We often miss unexpected or incongruous information when it does not align with our current focus or mindset.
This concept aligns with your mention of ‘filters’. Our brains use filters to manage the overwhelming amount of information we encounter at any given moment. These filters are shaped by a variety of factors, including our expectations, past experiences, cultural norms, and current goals. This means that we often perceive and remember information that confirms our existing beliefs and ignore or forget information that contradicts them, a phenomenon known as confirmation bias.
In the context of your theory, these cognitive biases could certainly play a role in shaping our perception of social signals and cultural narratives. They could contribute to the disconnect between our conscious explanations and our unconscious behaviors, as we may filter out or ignore signals that do not fit with our conscious narratives. This would make it difficult to perceive or acknowledge the ‘psycho-sexual environment’ you’re describing, as it contradicts our usual cultural understandings.
Here’s the scenario: You’re in bed, asleep, dreaming and then things happen that seem too weird – too at odds with what you know to be the case and you go “Shit, I’m dreaming” and then you wake up. It’s probably happened to you. No big deal. Only thing is what if you realise you’re dreaming but you can’t wake up? There is such a thing as sleep paralysis which means that you’re not fully able to wake up but you’re also not still within the dream world.
Well, what if I was to tell you that that is just like the actual situation that we find ourselves in? That is that we are in a kind of cultural and social ‘dream’ and even if we realise that, we can’t wake ourselves up from it. Now I don’t care if you believe me or not. It doesn’t make any difference, because just believing or not believing that to be the case won’t change anything for you. What this is about is what you would do if you believed it to be the case? That is, what would you do if you believed to be the case what actually is the case but that you have no incentive to believe? My presumption is that there would be nothing much that it would change for you – everything would continue to have the same weighting that it does now.
Let’s step away from the ‘what’ for a moment and look at the ‘how’. How would you know that you weren’t in reality? What kind of event would have to occur for you to say: “That’s it, I’m not in reality”. We might think of this as the Truman show hypothesis. The unreal thing about the Truman Show is that he realises he is in the Truman Show. I don’t think that’s realistic. Think of a series of events unlikely happening to you – either fortuitous or not. For instance, imagine that you just win every single thing that you do. You win every lottery, competition and game. What would your explanation be? It will no doubt be that events are being manipulated, that someone or something is making it happen. You will have any explanation for highly anomalous events but it will never be that you’re not in reality, because what can you do with that? The important thing to see here is that it is the ‘use’ of the explanation that makes it the case that the explanation is not entertained. So if it is the case that you’re not in reality there’s nothing you can do about that, or with that, so another explanation is always chosen. Once you understand that there is nothing that could convince us that we’re not in reality you will see why people don’t advance that as a hypothesis and even if they were to believe it there would be nothing they could do in that case.
A lot of the power of the incel community is drawn from the communities’s denial of incel as a real phenomena. This denial contrasts strongly with the lived experience and even anthropological evidence that the incel community has at its disposal.
Having been incel myself a one stage I don’t disagree with it being a real phenomena and it’s not specifically about the incel trying harder or doing better or ‘personality’. It’s deeper than that. However, I fully believe there is a way out that does not involve ‘rope or cope’ as I found a way out myself.
The trouble is that when I try and help, I just run into a wall of negativity that is ‘cope’ in itself. There becomes wallowing in the lived experience at the expense of all other options.
One positive way to look at incel is as reverse pedophilia. It is typical for the incel to describe themselves as being in the worst possible position. Yet on honest reflection he has to admit that pedophiles are in an even worse position, having a strong legal and moral prohibition on their actions. The pedophile for instance can’t have porn or prostitution.
In some other ways however they are similar. The pedophile desires children, but the children don’t know or care about the pedophile. They probably don’t even know what a pedophile is. That’s like a lot of women with regard to incels. They certainly don’t understand the lived experience of incels.
With regard to children and sex the prohibition on sex with them isn’t to do with the sexual desires or lack of them in children, but rather the lack of emotional and intellectual maturity to consent to those acts. This means that even if children started experiencing sexual desire for adults that wouldn’t necessarily help pedophiles. Children experience desire for lots of risky behaviour, and are still prohibited from partaking in it.
If male children suddenly started experiencing sexual desire for adult women then they would be like incels. Probably worse, because they also wouldn’t be able to access prostitution or porn.
What kind of mental prerequisite is necessary for a person to become sexually mature in order to be able to have sex? At the moment is thought to be mostly intellectual understandings reached by a certain age, so that they are able to make informed choices with regard to consent.
What is it that primes someone to be able to operate sexually as an adult? The current model it that it is simply a release of chemicals like testosterone at puberty that primes the person. Nothing else is needed. So for instance if you took the brain of a ten year old child prodigy who is (say) attending university and transplanted their brain into an adult body then you would suddenly have a fully functioning sexual adult. They would be both smart enough to be able to make informed consent choices and the right physiology and chemicals in order to go out and be able to have sex.
Well I hate to disappoint people but it takes a bit more than that. I person has to be primed sexually in order to operate sexually. Unfortunately there is a gender bias in the priming. Women are much more easily primed than men due to the methodology of the priming.
Basically women are primed by being presented by sexual behaviour by men who are responding, primarily to their physical appearance. Essentially by being hit on by men they are forced to start acting sexually in order to manage the implicit and explicit demands for sex. This is the case for 90% plus of women who are physically attractive enough to warrant such attention.
For men however it is a different story. They are primed primarily by male on male competition and developing a stance befitting of that competition. Once that process has been completed the male will have traits that females find attractive.
The problem for incels is that while it is guaranteed that women will be exposed to sexual priming by men, many males who become incels miss out on sexual priming for one reason or another, and are trapped in an emotionally pre-sexual world, all the while with chemicals causing sexual attraction but unable to act on it.
The internal experience of incels with regard to women is always operating from an inferior or familiar i.e family standpoint whilst simultaneously experiencing sexual attraction. For the incel it is like there is an invisible force preventing them from acting on their attractions and no apparent interest from the woman in them acting in a sexual way anyway. From the woman’s point of view there is a puzzle – someone who would be male, but does’t seem to be acting like it and yet complaining about their lack of sexual success regardless.
There is one other thing I should mention, and that is that safe modern society also makes it less likely that a female would give due regard to a male. If she doesn’t have to worry about her personal safety there is no reason to treat males well or go to them for protection. I call this the “man sized protection agency thesis”. That is that being in a more dangerous society gives males an advantage with regard to females as they will need to go to them for protection. It’s hardly a solution to incel’s problems though as it comes at a high cost in human life.
Oh, there’s one other final thing in terms of sexual priming of women. It can’t actually be possible because that would mean that males were hitting one women who weren’t primed i.e still in the childlike state. That can’t be possible because everyone hates pedophilia and that would mean that we were in some weird pedophile society where it was just common and normal at an emotional level.
“In fact, we make most decisions unconsciously, and only become aware of them consciously afterward, once we already start acting physically on that decision. The delay can be as long as 9 seconds.
For most of the things that matter, your unconscious mind rules you, not the other way around.” – Nick Morgan
For all the time I knew about it as an issue I had what I’m going to call a ‘blocked channel’ theory of eye contact and autism. That is that when you’ve got a question like ‘why don’t people with autism like eye contact or make eye contact?’ then the answer is just simply that it doesn’t mean anything to them and they’re not getting anything out of it. So in other words the emotional information being sent and received is not being sent and received by autistic people. And I have to say that I thought that was pretty much part of the definition of an aspergers or autistic person. It turns out that’s not the case – at least not the case for everyone. I found a question on Quora.com:
Why can’t people with Asperger syndrome make eye contact? Is it scary for them? Do they get an intense indescribable feeling when they make eye contact? What goes through their mind or what do they feel when they make eye contact?
Although there were some answers like:
“It’s not that I can’t, it’s that I don’t. I’ve noticed that when I do look into someone’s eyes, I see nothing but their eyes. So when someone says “the eyes are the windows to the soul,” I can’t see anything. I had no idea that people could actually “see.” That’s really cool.
I don’t get anything from it, so there’s no purpose to it. That’s probably why I don’t do it.”
(Which is what I expected) There are many many more like this:
“Eye contact? It is often very difficult and uncomfortable for me. It is intense like the person’s face is shouting.”
or
“For me making eye contact isn’t a huge thing, but when i am feeling overwhelmed, making eye contact is WAY too much information. I can’t be honest whit someone when I can see all of their micro expressions, it’s like trying to solve a math problem with someone counting out loud near by, I can’t both be honest about whatever I am talking about and take in (and sometimes even feel) their emotions at the same time. Sometimes it’s scary, like looking a lion head on knowing at any moment it could lunge at you and kill you. Sometimes it feels like I am under interrogation, and I have to use every small expression on their face to pass and not get thrown into a pit of snakes.”
This is a big deal that suggests that my theory is wrong in the sense that autism isn’t one condition with regards to eye contact but two conditions in much the same way as mania and depression are two seperate conditions but are both mental conditions. One condition is a lack of awareness of eye contact and another is two much awareness and understanding. I have to say that personally I have migrated from one to the other – (Little to too much)
What a terrible thing to say!Everyone must now believe that Phillip Schofield is gay (which is a big deal apparently) Before he wasn’t gay and everyone must believe that he wasn’t gay but now he’s said he’s gay we must believe that.I don’t believe it because I don’t believe that anyone’s gay because I don’t believe there is such a thing as ‘gay’.No one cares what I think but I’m going to tell you why I think that regardless.
Phillip Schofield isn’t gay because no one is because there is no thing that ‘gay’ is.I would love it if there was a thing that it was because then we could divide the world up into people that are gay and people that aren’t, but we can’t because the concept makes no sense.It makes no sense because it is unfalsifiable.There is literally no way for me to prove that Phillip Schofield is or isn’t gay because there’s no facts of the matter.It is literally believed to be the case that whatever Phillip Schofield’s honest opinion of the matter is is what the case is.So if Phillip Schofield thinks he is gay then he is gay, and anyone who thinks they are gay, is gay.I am confident that no-one would ever think to challenge this religious principle.It would be like telling a Christian that they hadn’t accepted Jesus or something.
Being gay is just a modern religious principle.There are no underlying facts there.It’s the modern version of religion!
It’s so mind bogglingly obvious to me that the whole thing is fake.Being gay is supposed to have something to do with same sex sexual attraction but when you break it down it’s really just a cultural statement.It’s saying “I want to be seen as a certain kind of exalted person”.The exalted person is willing to sacrifice their opposite sex sexual relations onto the altar of gayness because it makes you a monk or priest of the moral society.
What if everyone became conscious of their same sex sexual attractions?Would that make everyone gay then?No, because then it wouldn’t mean anything.Then it would specifically have to mean people who behaved in a certain faggy kind of way.But Phillip Schofield already behaved in that way before he announced he was gay, so I suppose no secret could be kept on that basis.Why don’t we just say that anyone who has some effeminate behaviour or non macho behaviour is gay?After all they are producing those traits.And why don’t we say of those remaining macho guys that if they react to the effeminate on a sympathetic basis that they are gay too and if they don’t – if they’re threatened by it well they must also be gay.
What about anyone who comes into contact with a gay person must themselves be gay?
Once upon a time (briefly) I thought that ‘gay’ people must really have it going on.That they must have some kind of enlightenment that others lacked.What a dream.It turns out that in general, not only are they just as dumb as other people but they are immeshed in cultural niceties and rubbish even more.Many don’t have a clue they just experience some same sex sexual attraction one day and think “op I must be gay.That’s bad news, but at least I get to be exalted by society”.
‘Gay’ people may have not been able to self delude when it comes to sexual attraction and so that’s a positive, but they just buy into a pile of self delusions in other ways.They can’t choose their sexual attractions.They can’t behave how they want to behave.They are slaves to certain passions and they have erected their identities on the basis of sexuality as opposed to some other cultural rubbish.
Maybe I should announce that I am gay.That way if I have sexual relations with women then that’s seen as some kind of weird deception that that the moral society doesn’t like.At least I could punish it slightly in that way.If I was to say like I have with gender “I’m gay – everything else is the same” that would confuse people.Well it has no meaning so it doesn’t matter whether you say you’re gay or not except in people’s perceptions of you.I suppose it would be better to say one has no sexual identity.No sexual identity.No gender.What a free way to live!Then I could just be a homo-sapien out in the world.
I’ve recently been thinking of giving up on personhood.A little background:The first to go was sexuality.I didn’t really realise it so much at the time, but it became obvious after a while that those sexual categories were never going to cut it in a descriptive sense and it didn’t make much sense to make more.Penguins can’t be gay and ducks can’t rape!Why use these mad categories for humans?
Our sexual categories are self deception on a grand scale.To define yourself in terms of them is an act of self harm.There’s a lot of people self harming out there!
Anyway, I reject sexual categories and call them myths.
NEXT!!
Gender.Good old gender eh?We’re saddled with it from birth unlike sexual categories which we can pick up on later.Invariably it fails so what do people do?Do they reject if?No, they just invent more and more… and more.FB has a list to choose from and pronouns are seperate.Mix it up!Your gender might be she, but your pronoun can be he.(I can tell I’m going to use a lot of explanation marks in this blog)
So I specifically thought about it and thought I’ve just got to get rid of it, I’ve got to get rid of my gender and so I did.I’m glad to have it gone.No one cares so long as you don’t do anything different in terms of your actions and appearance.Oh, I also keep the same pronoun.That helps.
It not being any different just goes to show how useless the whole thing is.It’s not like denying the holocaust.But surely it should be so much more important to people because EVERYONE has got to have a gender and the gender they have is via them thinking some thoughts in their head.Whatever thoughts they think is the reality, out in the world, of this central tennant of social reality.
So if someone was to deny their gender that should destroy how people relate to them so how can it all be the same apart from people saying “that’s a little bit weird” etc.Where is the oppression?
Personhood
Finally it had to come down to this.It sort of slid into view.People can call you a ‘person’ after you’ve given up your gender.They shouldn’t be able to do that.I’m not a person!Take your culturally laden accusations of personhood and get out of here.
I’m non-aborted human life.I’m fertilised egg that got a bit too big for it’s host.I’m living it up in the environment by being some dumb voyeur.I’m some entity banging away on a keyboard to make you understand that banging away on a keyboard is NOTHING.
How can I be a person?A person has rights.I have no rights. But attack me and I will attack back.The attack may not be physical.
A person is a cultural being.I see culture.I pretend culture, but at least I know that I’m pretending.You don’t.You don’t know how to.
I can make statements like this out of pure frustration.We’re not in reality here folks, the very least we can do is recognise it.Get to grips with it.Live with it.
But personhood?Come on.We’re not going to go and believe in that after rejecting everything else are we?
Still, it does seem a little risky to go and say “I’m not a person” it does open up the entity to some kind of nasty attack so that the cultural upholder can say “Ha, you’re a person after all”.After all got to be a dick in the world to keep the creatures you believe are people to keep on being persons.That’s persons being dicks BTW.
At this stage there’s no real benefit to socially giving up personhood.I mean it’s nonsense but it’s not being updated with more nonsense that would require me rejecting it.No one is saying they’re a “gersion” [That’s a made up word BTW].I’ve got to talk using this damn language and talking about myself without using personhood would be very inconvenient.
Maybe I won’t give up personhood quite yet but it’s definitely on probation.
Hmm, someone has already falsely equated giving up person with physical suicide.I much prefer my suicides to be non-physical thanks very much.
There are aware people out there, so what to do if you meet one of them?
It is an understatement to say that in general people aren’t aware.That is, aware of the psycho-sexual environment.It might be that only one in a thousand people are aware.It might be less but even if it is a very small percentage of people there should be a large number of aware people out there.For instance: If it is one in a thousand, then there should still be a thousand people per million so for instance in a city like Auckland there should still be more than a thousand aware people.Even if it is one in ten thousand then there should be a hundred or so.The much bigger problem is that these people have no words for their experience and importantly no shared language to describe it or even label their state.
This means that even if there are aware people around, they would have no way to talk about it with other people.
I’m not talking about “self aware”!If you look up “people that are aware” on Google then it comes up with all material about self awareness.Self awareness is all very well but interpersonal awareness is much more important in my book.
The thing is that if you’re aware then you eventually kind of ‘forget’ that you’re aware.It just becomes part of life.But if you meet someone that is aware you’re suddenly made ‘aware’ of it again.
The question for me becomes – when this rare event occurs, what to do about it?
First up, how can you meet an aware person?It can happen any time at any place.It can be anybody, although in my experience it is more likely to be women perhaps because they are often more socially aware to begin with.
What is the experience of meeting an aware person?It’s a very difficult thing to describe.It’s noticing someone and them noticing you.An analogy would be like meeting someone with an extra sense.The idea of the land of the blind might be too blatant.If everyone was blind and a few people were sighted then if a sighted person saw another sighted person then that would be pretty obvious and a big deal.It would be obvious to everyone if someone was sighted and they were blind.They would get around the world so much better!
If everyone was deaf and there where two people with normal hearing that met and no one knew anything about ‘hearing’ then it wouldn’t be obvious at all.Two people with hearing might spend quite a lot of time together (talking is sign language of course) before they noticed that the other person could hear.
Maybe there would be a loud noise which would startle the hearing people but no one else would notice and then then might notice from their mutual reaction that there was something different about each other.
Being aware falls somewhere between these two extremes.
It’s instantly noticeable when someone is aware when you’re aware, but it’s not noticeable to other people – obviously, because they are not aware!
The biggest issue that I’ve had when rarely meeting an aware person is what to do about that at the time?Do you pretend that it isn’t happening?Do you act the same way you normally would?Do you try and say something?If so what?
You can’t exactly say “Hey I just noticed that you’re aware.Pleased to meet you.Do you want to talk about it?”
Note [I have a linguistic convention to say “you” instead of “one” in this instance]
I mean you could say that but no one would know what the hell you were talking about – even the person themselves probably wouldn’t know and they almost certainly wouldn’t use the word “aware” to describe the experience, if they even had any words at all.
A more accurate way to say it might be: “You know how you noticed something about me which seemed different to the regular person?Well I had that same experience.
Well actually they probably know all that.They know everything but they don’t have any words for it, that’s the weird thing about it.It’s kind of like saying to someone at a funeral. “I feel sad”. Really? You don’t say!
All that is happening is that each person is noticing that the other person is noticing or at very least that something is different.
More accurately, each is noticing behaviours that are regularly unnoticed.
Who knows what the internal experience of those people is?
I suppose there are two levels of awareness of this sort.One level would be the sort of semi-aware person.They’re noticing the behaviours but they’re not able to articulate that the other person is also noticing them.This usually causes an amount of confusion in them internally.It’s kind of an odd situation.I kind of want to say “It’s ok, I’m here”.I’m just like you.That’s what’s so weird about me!
I read a story about a girl who go raised by monkeys.She considered herself a monkey.If she saw another human among monkeys she might think there was something mighty strange about the ‘monkey’ but she wouldn’t necessarily equate it with herself.
That’s like the semi-aware person.The fully aware person (in this analogy) will see another human rather than a monkey.
When it’s fully aware meets fully aware it’s a bit of a freak show.When you’re an aware person alone in the mythspace it’s like: Ok I have to deal with the mythspace and just pretend to ignore the environment.When there’s another living breathing person in the environment and you’re still dealing with on the basis of the mythspace, then that’s a higher level of insanity.
In a way though it does remind me of why I don’t want everyone to be aware.I don’t want everyone knowing everything and judging me.I want to keep the advantages that having access to the environment gives me.I’m happy to keep the mythspace I just want to connect with a few aware people on an intellectual level for mutual support and appreciation.
Please get in touch if you believe yourself to be aware!
Not in Reality 