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On the dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

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Re: On the dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

#101

Post by Layke1123 »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #92
Layke1123 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While cute, it misses the point. If I say a car is coming, it is then up to the person to decide whether they step into the street or not. This is not a rhetorical argument.

You say that the world being deterministic somehow makes “we should be nice to each other” an inescapable conclusion… but really, it's just a framing that lets you escape the existing divisive rhetoric. If it became widespread, we'd get new rhetoric.

Rhetoric doesn't stop a car from running over you no matter how the warning is phrased if you choose to not understand said rhetoric. This is not a rhetorical argument.

Re: On the dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

#103

Post by [deleted] »

Layke1123 wrote: post #100
pdonis wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you can't have it both ways. You didn't say you would willingly accept prison. You said you would willingly accept a mechanism to improve your deficiency. The way you have described prison elsewhere in this thread, you clearly believe that prison doesn't do that. So you wouldn't accept prison. You would only accept a mechanism that "improves your deficiency". What I said is that I want to have the choice about ho…

No it doesn't, and I'm not advocating for a violent person to not be stopped. You are. You say the most important thing is to defend a person's right to "choose" their behavior. In that case, you are a hypocrite because then you turn around and say I am OK with subverting the will of a person as long as it affects me negatively. If it affects someone else, well, do you really care? From your answers, you seem not to…

[deleted]

Re: On the dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

#104

Post by [deleted] »

Layke1123 wrote: post #99
pdonis wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am debating... And to you, this counts as stopping everything you are doing and fighting child trafficking immediately? Hm.

What would you rather me be doing to fight it? Be on TV everyday as single handedly bringing in the bad guys who are making their "choices" to traffick children? Are you ok with their "choices" to hurt children? Why aren't you on TV everyday bringing the bad guys into jail?

[deleted]

Re: On the dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

#105

Post by pdonis »

Layke1123 wrote: post #98
pdonis wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am debating against someone who claims free will is what will stop child trafficking. I have made no such claim. I have said that, on net, a society where people's right to make free choices is respected will have less suffering and more good things than a society where it isn't. But that doesn't mean no bad things will ever happen in the former type of society. Nor is respecting others' right to make free choice…

Not it wouldn't and our society is largely a result of your way of thinking. We have yet to see how a society that advocates determinism would turn out.

> our society is largely a result of your way of thinking

It most certainly is not. Our society refuses to respect people's right to freedom of choice in all kinds of ways. And most of those ways can't even be justified on the grounds of harm to others, which is where your big sticking point seems to be. Our society throws people in jail just for having drugs in their possession, even if they haven't harmed anyone and are not threatening anyone. The poster I originally responded to in this thread had therapy they didn't want forced on them by their family, for something they didn't even think was a problem and which certainly didn't make them a threat of harm to anyone, and our society was just fine with that. From what I can see, in your vision of the ideal society, that would be happening all over the place.

> We have yet to see how a society that advocates determinism would turn out.

Sure we have. The Soviet Union was based on ideas like the ones you are advocating. So is Communist China today. Perhaps you want to live in Communist China; if so, you're welcome to move there (unless of course you already live there). I don't.

Re: On the dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

#106

Post by pdonis »

Layke1123 wrote: post #100
pdonis wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you can't have it both ways. You didn't say you would willingly accept prison. You said you would willingly accept a mechanism to improve your deficiency. The way you have described prison elsewhere in this thread, you clearly believe that prison doesn't do that. So you wouldn't accept prison. You would only accept a mechanism that "improves your deficiency". What I said is that I want to have the choice about ho…

No it doesn't, and I'm not advocating for a violent person to not be stopped. You are. You say the most important thing is to defend a person's right to "choose" their behavior. In that case, you are a hypocrite because then you turn around and say I am OK with subverting the will of a person as long as it affects me negatively. If it affects someone else, well, do you really care? From your answers, you seem not to…

> I'm not advocating for a violent person to not be stopped.

You're advocating for "stopping" them by having someone else rearrange their brain so they won't be violent any more. And you refuse to acknowledge the fact that that someone else is making a choice that has consequences; to you it's all just particles reacting to their environment. Yet you also seem to think suffering is bad--but if it's all just particles reacting to their environment, there is no such thing as suffering, any more than there is such a thing as choice. So you are the one who is being inconsistent, not me.

> If it affects someone else, well, do you really care? From your answers, you seem not to care in the slightest.

You clearly don't understand my actual position, and I don't know how to explain it any better than I already have.

Re: On the dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

#107

Post by passivate »

wombatmobile wrote: post #42
passivate wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few non-fluff sentences: "Consequential decisions in law enforcement, military and financial contexts are increasingly influenced by automated assessments spat out by proprietary predictive engines." "These prediction engines have primed us to be receptive to the idea of the predictive brain. So too has the science of psychology itself, which has been concerned since its founding with the prediction and control of…

The author wants society to be more compassionate and less exploitative. That's all. Why? To make life more enjoyable and less challenging for everybody. Imagine a world in which the resources of e.g. Facebook were dedicated towards increasing happiness and usefulness through connecting people to sources of emotional satisfaction, rather than increasing shareholder wealth through targeted advertising. How? The author…

Agreed. I wonder if this loss of compassion is caused by our inability to scale it. We tend to be more communal when the community is small. For e.g. People often reminisce about a time when 'everyone knew everyone' whether its in a professional context at work, or in an online forum, etc, It falls neatly in line with this often proposed notion that people from smaller towns / remote areas are more friendly, etc.

If we accept the above, certainly there is a potential path forward. But in the current climate capitalism (and society) has primed us to always look for ways to scale, always look for ways to engage and interact with as large of an audience as possible. Maybe that has to change?

Re: On the dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

#108

Post by pdonis »

Layke1123 wrote: post #99
pdonis wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am debating... And to you, this counts as stopping everything you are doing and fighting child trafficking immediately? Hm.

What would you rather me be doing to fight it? Be on TV everyday as single handedly bringing in the bad guys who are making their "choices" to traffick children? Are you ok with their "choices" to hurt children? Why aren't you on TV everyday bringing the bad guys into jail?

> What would you rather me be doing to fight it?

Honest answer? You and I, as individuals, can't fight it unless we are right there when it happens. As I have said, more than once now, the fact that we can make choices does not make us omnipotent.

In any case, I'm not the one that is saying everyone should drop everything and go fight child trafficking. You are. I am simply pointing out that you are not actually doing what you claim everyone should be doing.

Re: On the dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

#109

Post by pdonis »

Layke1123 wrote: post #97
pdonis wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why is my outcome not worse for believing I don't have free will? You still don't get it. Your brain is doing the thing that I call "making choices", but which I called "causal processes" because you have trouble with words like "choices", whether you believe in free will or not. Those causal processes in your brain have a significant effect on your outcomes, whether you believe in free will or not. And how much of…

But the has nothing to do with the idea that one has free will, only that I exhibit behavior that allows you to pursue your own desires, I.E I'm not actively harming you or putting you into prison. Redefine what free will means all you want, it doesn't make your arguments any more true.

> I exhibit behavior that allows you to pursue your own desires

Okay, then please don't rearrange my brain, even if you think it would "improve" some "deficiency" of mine. If we're agreed on that, then I'm good.

Re: On the dangers of seeing human minds as predictive machines

#110

Post by pdonis »

Layke1123 wrote: post #93
pdonis wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you dictate how a person should behave Putting a person in prison because, say, they murdered someone, is not dictating how they should behave. It is imposing a consequence on their behavior. Evidently you are unable to tell the difference between those two things. That doesn't mean there isn't one. > As for fixing the prison problem, it absolutely does. You are either extremely ignorant and naive, or trolling. Any…

Forcing consequences on a person is absolutely imposing your values and beliefs onto said person. All it a consequence a you want, at the end of they day you are removing their ability to choose murder. As for your One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest comment, next I expect you to tell me Whote Walkers are headed my way because narrative episodes are so indicative of what happens in the real world. /s

> at the end of they day you are removing their ability to choose murder.

No, I'm not, because the consequence only gets imposed after they have made that choice. Removing their ability to choose murder would mean changing them beforehand so they don't choose to murder in the first place. Which, if it can be done while respecting their right to freedom of choice, would of course be vastly preferable.

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