I've been giving myself a crash course in the history of philosophy these past few years, and although the road has been winding, one can see the progression of civil society these last few thousand years towards a more enlightened moral awareness. It may be slow, and often stalls out before growing in fits and starts again, but it's clearly a progression.
The question of "Am I my brother's keeper?" has been answered and re-answered in interesting ways, but the real progress has been in the follow up questions: "Who is my brother?" and "What do I owe him?" For all its faults, we now live in a modern society that believes we have a moral obligation to send aid and comfort to victims of natural disasters and wars and other human tragedies half way around the world. We even consider that animals may have rights not to suffer! Bob's notes that we've come pretty far even since Shelley wrote Frankenstein, a mere couple hundred years ago. This is really a remarkable progression!
But the hidden theme of "Frankenstein" is also that technology that gives us godlike powers may be beyond our moral capacity to manage. Sure enough, our biggest existential danger may be that our technological progression is moving faster than our moral evolution at this point.
Bob suggests it's a race against THAT clock. Anyone disagree? Is there a world where our moral evolution leapfrogs our technological gamesmanship?
Loved this! I really like Frankenstein as a novel, and went back and reread it after reading Smilla's Sense of Snow, which refers to that Arctic scene quite a bit.
Coincidentally, I was thinking about Frankenstein's monster the other day when wondering about the difficulties that often seem to occur when someone is writing a fictional self-aware AI character. The roboticist Ayanna Howard wrote about Frankenstein in her book about AI, "Sex, Race, and Robots," and how our imagined AI characters reflects human values and sometimes how we *wish* to see ourselves. Which seems related somewhat to your point about being able to see the "other" and cognitive empathy.
"Nemo prudens punit, quia peccatum est; sed ne peccetur" quoted by Schopenhauer whose views on punishment/retribution are quite interesting (as well as on matters of free will, which one could with Einstein summarize as "'Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wants").
Something that hasn't come up yet for this project and should is various efforts to cultivate mindfulness in children. Thinking about what I commented on below to Eric Lortie about lack of imagination in science fiction, I haven't seen much in sci fi or apocalypse-aversion discussions about what might result from those efforts. There's the Center for Healthy Minds, obviously, which has been working on mindfulness for very young kids for many years. And I've used the Headspace app's kid meditation for my own children when things were hard. Most importantly maybe are the implementation of social-emotional learning (SEL) curricula in public schools. I have no idea how widespread this is (many textbook publishers, including non-profits, have developed SELs), but it's pretty new and to my mind a very good thing. Our own school district implemented one a few years ago. It is of course imperfect but is far, far better than having nothing at all, and at least helps kids develop better tools for dealing with strong emotions and conflict. But I haven't seen anyone talk about what kind of impact we might see in 20 years from widespread use of SEL in schools.
"And I do crazy stuff when I’m pissed." Would we then be dealing with a case, strange or not, of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Wright?
Having heard Bob mentioning the novel and his perspective in a recent podcast, the full paper does not disappoint. Nicely integrated into the AAP!
Now, let's reform Hollywood, the gaming industry mantra, and the American Manichean storytelling tendency, both in news and in fiction, and we will be well on our way.
Though, I'm not sold on the idea that Shelley's message "didn’t align with the moral intuitions that are natural in human beings." That empathy, forgiveness, and compassion are powerful means to greater happiness and well-being has been recognised for 1,000+ years (e.g., very prominently in Shantideva's Bodhicaryavatara--A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life). Spinoza wrote (some 200 years before Shelley's "Frankenstein"), "Hatred is increased by being reciprocated, and can on the other hand be destroyed by love. Hatred completely vanquished by love, passes into love."
Just because we seem to be living in an era where hate and revenge seem so abundant (sometimes in real life but mostly because they easily get our attention online or on TV) doesn't mean that they're "natural moral intuitions."
I'd bet my money that zeal for revenge and "stick-it-to-themness" are cultural habits that masquerade as "intuitions." I think that distinction is important because kicking a detrimental habit (such as smoking or yelling at someone as a first response) and tasting the sweetness of overcoming the habit is easier to do than changing intuitions. The latter are much more deeply rooted and usually pertain to how cognition delivers us representations of the world in a way that makes us believe that these representations are things in the world that exist as such and independently of our cognition.
One of your predecessors on the path toward apocalypse aversion was Buckminster Fuller. His contributions should not be overlooked, in particular those of his last two books CRITICAL PATH and G.R.U.N.C.H of Giants. Although not an intellectual, Fuller originated a vocabulary and vision of global success unprecedented in our time. Be patient, his cadence takes a bit of getting used to but soon is easy. Please, take a look.
However, as my relationship with my husband is at detente and I come to understand cognitive empathy, I see that it has been by being less emotional that we've reached the "agree to disagree" phase. Yet, it is a continual struggle. Is it possible for much of the world population to willing delve into this kind of effort for the good of others when in personal relationships it is difficult to do so? I remain hopeful.
"I’m not saying there’s no such thing as free will—or that there is such thing as free will; I find that question too baffling to take a position on."
For AAP to succeed, it may be important to take a position. Some degree of free will is necessary for us to change. Some degree of free will is necessary to direct our attention to our intentions.
I do not frame free will as something we have or not. I believe we have free will, but, importantly, only a very little bit of it. Exercising our free will is like controlling our breath. Mostly breathing happens automatically in the background. But we can choose to control our breathing to some degree. However, when we choose to hold our breath, we quickly learn that we do not have much control, only a little.
As delusional as this may sound (or be), I perceive I am now the "beating heart" of humanity's largest and most global profession of engineering in that no one, to my knowledge, is prodding it about significant and persistent deficiencies to the scope and implementation of its code of ethics - its secular creed.
I also perceive I am the most influential member of 2 million member federal civil service regarding significant and persistent deficiencies to the implementation of the "merit principles," the statutory bedrock for employment practices in every federal agency.
Finally, I perceive I am the most influential professing Christian - humanity's largest religion - regarding its near non-existent theology and praxis for secular professions as engineering.
So, am I worth 15-20 minutes of your time to chat? if so, fine. If not, it's probably time for me to wish AAP well and move on.
I've been giving myself a crash course in the history of philosophy these past few years, and although the road has been winding, one can see the progression of civil society these last few thousand years towards a more enlightened moral awareness. It may be slow, and often stalls out before growing in fits and starts again, but it's clearly a progression.
The question of "Am I my brother's keeper?" has been answered and re-answered in interesting ways, but the real progress has been in the follow up questions: "Who is my brother?" and "What do I owe him?" For all its faults, we now live in a modern society that believes we have a moral obligation to send aid and comfort to victims of natural disasters and wars and other human tragedies half way around the world. We even consider that animals may have rights not to suffer! Bob's notes that we've come pretty far even since Shelley wrote Frankenstein, a mere couple hundred years ago. This is really a remarkable progression!
But the hidden theme of "Frankenstein" is also that technology that gives us godlike powers may be beyond our moral capacity to manage. Sure enough, our biggest existential danger may be that our technological progression is moving faster than our moral evolution at this point.
Bob suggests it's a race against THAT clock. Anyone disagree? Is there a world where our moral evolution leapfrogs our technological gamesmanship?
Loved this! I really like Frankenstein as a novel, and went back and reread it after reading Smilla's Sense of Snow, which refers to that Arctic scene quite a bit.
Coincidentally, I was thinking about Frankenstein's monster the other day when wondering about the difficulties that often seem to occur when someone is writing a fictional self-aware AI character. The roboticist Ayanna Howard wrote about Frankenstein in her book about AI, "Sex, Race, and Robots," and how our imagined AI characters reflects human values and sometimes how we *wish* to see ourselves. Which seems related somewhat to your point about being able to see the "other" and cognitive empathy.
"Nemo prudens punit, quia peccatum est; sed ne peccetur" quoted by Schopenhauer whose views on punishment/retribution are quite interesting (as well as on matters of free will, which one could with Einstein summarize as "'Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wants").
Something that hasn't come up yet for this project and should is various efforts to cultivate mindfulness in children. Thinking about what I commented on below to Eric Lortie about lack of imagination in science fiction, I haven't seen much in sci fi or apocalypse-aversion discussions about what might result from those efforts. There's the Center for Healthy Minds, obviously, which has been working on mindfulness for very young kids for many years. And I've used the Headspace app's kid meditation for my own children when things were hard. Most importantly maybe are the implementation of social-emotional learning (SEL) curricula in public schools. I have no idea how widespread this is (many textbook publishers, including non-profits, have developed SELs), but it's pretty new and to my mind a very good thing. Our own school district implemented one a few years ago. It is of course imperfect but is far, far better than having nothing at all, and at least helps kids develop better tools for dealing with strong emotions and conflict. But I haven't seen anyone talk about what kind of impact we might see in 20 years from widespread use of SEL in schools.
So . . . the race is on; the game is afoot. Our better angels versus impending doom. I'm in. Put me down for the better angels. I love a long shot.
"And I do crazy stuff when I’m pissed." Would we then be dealing with a case, strange or not, of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Wright?
Having heard Bob mentioning the novel and his perspective in a recent podcast, the full paper does not disappoint. Nicely integrated into the AAP!
Now, let's reform Hollywood, the gaming industry mantra, and the American Manichean storytelling tendency, both in news and in fiction, and we will be well on our way.
“The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth”
Great example of the power of cognitive empathy.
Though, I'm not sold on the idea that Shelley's message "didn’t align with the moral intuitions that are natural in human beings." That empathy, forgiveness, and compassion are powerful means to greater happiness and well-being has been recognised for 1,000+ years (e.g., very prominently in Shantideva's Bodhicaryavatara--A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life). Spinoza wrote (some 200 years before Shelley's "Frankenstein"), "Hatred is increased by being reciprocated, and can on the other hand be destroyed by love. Hatred completely vanquished by love, passes into love."
Just because we seem to be living in an era where hate and revenge seem so abundant (sometimes in real life but mostly because they easily get our attention online or on TV) doesn't mean that they're "natural moral intuitions."
I'd bet my money that zeal for revenge and "stick-it-to-themness" are cultural habits that masquerade as "intuitions." I think that distinction is important because kicking a detrimental habit (such as smoking or yelling at someone as a first response) and tasting the sweetness of overcoming the habit is easier to do than changing intuitions. The latter are much more deeply rooted and usually pertain to how cognition delivers us representations of the world in a way that makes us believe that these representations are things in the world that exist as such and independently of our cognition.
One of your predecessors on the path toward apocalypse aversion was Buckminster Fuller. His contributions should not be overlooked, in particular those of his last two books CRITICAL PATH and G.R.U.N.C.H of Giants. Although not an intellectual, Fuller originated a vocabulary and vision of global success unprecedented in our time. Be patient, his cadence takes a bit of getting used to but soon is easy. Please, take a look.
Bravo!
Cognitive empathy. Oxymoron?
However, as my relationship with my husband is at detente and I come to understand cognitive empathy, I see that it has been by being less emotional that we've reached the "agree to disagree" phase. Yet, it is a continual struggle. Is it possible for much of the world population to willing delve into this kind of effort for the good of others when in personal relationships it is difficult to do so? I remain hopeful.
"I’m not saying there’s no such thing as free will—or that there is such thing as free will; I find that question too baffling to take a position on."
For AAP to succeed, it may be important to take a position. Some degree of free will is necessary for us to change. Some degree of free will is necessary to direct our attention to our intentions.
I do not frame free will as something we have or not. I believe we have free will, but, importantly, only a very little bit of it. Exercising our free will is like controlling our breath. Mostly breathing happens automatically in the background. But we can choose to control our breathing to some degree. However, when we choose to hold our breath, we quickly learn that we do not have much control, only a little.
Bob,
My reaction to your description of AAP is 'good, but not enough," as I think you know.
Here is a recent profile of my 30 year-long trudge as a federal agency whistleblower, about nuclear weapon material safeguards, among other things, see https://whistleblowersblog.org/2021/04/articles/whistleblower-of-the-week/joseph-carson-pe/.
As delusional as this may sound (or be), I perceive I am now the "beating heart" of humanity's largest and most global profession of engineering in that no one, to my knowledge, is prodding it about significant and persistent deficiencies to the scope and implementation of its code of ethics - its secular creed.
I also perceive I am the most influential member of 2 million member federal civil service regarding significant and persistent deficiencies to the implementation of the "merit principles," the statutory bedrock for employment practices in every federal agency.
Finally, I perceive I am the most influential professing Christian - humanity's largest religion - regarding its near non-existent theology and praxis for secular professions as engineering.
So, am I worth 15-20 minutes of your time to chat? if so, fine. If not, it's probably time for me to wish AAP well and move on.
Please make this a chapter in your upcoming AAP book! Loved it! Juxtaposition Award for the title/photo pairing!