Logical metaphysician professor Andy Clark
is under the impression human and AI will learn to love eachother
In this
hybrid future, AI-augmented humans will create a world defined by layers of
human-AI partnership.. structured around goals.. that reflect.. our needs and
priorities. (DT)
Going by his
title, this guy must have read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781), a
byzantine argument that transcendence places limits on reason (and science).
Ayn Rand makes a cogent attack on some core arguments, such as that “any
knowledge acquired by a process of consciousness is necessarily subjective and
cannot correspond to the facts of reality, since it is ‘processed knowledge’”. She
says,
Consciousness..is
not a passive state, but an active process. And more: the satisfaction of every
need of a living organism requires an act of processing by that organism, be it
need of air, of food or of knowledge. (Ayn
Rand Lexicon)
Kant’s
undercutting of reason in order to raise mysticism was unprecedented, and Rand
sensibly raises the sceptre of Plato.
His system
represents a massive effort to raise the principles of Platonism, in a somewhat
altered manner, once again to a position of commanding authority over Western
culture.. Plato was more than a Platonist; despite his mysticism, he was also a
pagan Greek. As such he exhibited a certain respect for reason, a respect which
was implicit in Greek philosophy no matter how explicitly irrational it became.
(Ayn Rand Lexicon)
I think this is
very true, since Kant used reason to essentially kill reason metaphysically,
while Rand uses reason to kill mysticism metaphysically. Both their
philosophies strike one as Apollonian (reason). It’s exhaustive, and Nietzsche
is a much easier read, who stood by the Greek maxim that Apollo is appearance,
not reality.
What you could
say, then, is that Kant has gone back to that ancient Greek position except
that, as Rand says, there is an active element in the Greek reality. That
element is the body and, of course, neither of these logical philosophers feel
it worthy of mention! Both the pessimism of Kant and the Objectivism of Rand
are products of reason which, in the modern lexicon, is simply the illusory
reality we find ourselves in (sun, reflection).
This fits a
Greek maxim of “nothing to excess” where balance and proportion are ideals of
behaviour. Neither too much in the head, nor a wild beast or satyr of the
wooded grove. These guys like Andy Clark are essentially specialists telling us
what the future will bring. No surprise, then, that it’s bringing us
specialization. As I tend to say, though, the mind is electrochemical impulses
(Hyborian Bridge 37) and the ideals of balance and proportion save us
from getting too far into a universe of the mind.
These days, that
universe is going to lead inevitably to AI (electromagnetism) which is just
another word for the sun. These acolytes are heading, like the fabled Sentinels
from X-Men #59 “into the heart of the raging sun itself”.
Where Rand says,
“The active process of an organism (search for food or knowledge)”,
actually thought is not an active process (of movement). As I say in Hyborian
Bridge 37, acolytes (of sorcerers) “are not expressing processes; they are
expressing thought processes.”
Rand, the chief
sorceress of our age, assumes that thought processes are active. That’s like
saying AI (electromagnetism) is active; right, you switch it on, but it’s not
active in the sense that an animal has grace and proportionate symmetry in its
search for food (the swaying strike of a cobra.)
The thought processes Rand means are order and
reason; the sun and not the moon (the grace of 
Diana of the bow)
We humans have
to learn the lessons of humility and one of these is that exhaustive
specialization leads to the pure order of electromagnetism (sun) and away from
the free-and-easy grace of the body – Diana and her hounds, Artemis, huntress
of the moon, blood and destiny.
One of the
consequences of this (see passim) is that facts become fictions, devoid
of the poetic grace and artistry of proportionate bodies in motion. Monuments
of Man need the easy grace of human behaviour to offset them. This is the city-state
of old (see Detroit Drama3)
I think this
applies to almost all specialist subjects. Acolytes of Darwin preach
competition when, if you observe animals, you see grace and movement.
Competition is a type of order; free grace and movement are a type of communal
freedom. Animals and plants are free to be what they are; I suppose they get
into competitive contact, but the dogma is destruction of the natural freedom
to be what they are.
Everywhere one
encounters the same exhaustive specialization that leads to order – acolytes of
a specialization of words within a perspective reality (order) - and away from
graceful freedom. Be it the genome or AI or any of the voice-activated utensils
generated by the Amazon House and other monstrosities of the corporate mind,
it’s all the process of thought (or AI) that is ordered reason and not freedom
(of limbs, of body).
If you have a
look at the images of Detroit (Drama3) ruins, decay and revitalisation
are all part of the same thing. Why should that be? Because pure order is death
(Weird 8). Moderns, and particularly the dollar-obsessed acolytes of
Rand, simply cannot fathom this.
A Greek ruin is
a symbol of resurgence; the power of decay that reclaims things to earth. A
ruin is not ordered but it’s also not that disordered, it’s fairly balanced in
its state of genteel decline. Moderns deny this force of nature for revitalisation
and so lose strength, psychic and physical. The idea that ruin and decay can be
forces for good is anathema to acolytes who live in a convincing order of the
sun (electromagnetism), attaching their heads to the perspective illusion and
regaling us with disproportionate facts (fictions).
All it takes is
a little humility. Also, learn to live with your neighbours as they have things
to teach you.
Up to the 50s –
and perhaps Cuba is to blame – America and Latin America were cultural
symbionts. I was reading an obit of Bibi Ferreira, the Brazilian singer and
actress, and she clearly had much in common with Judy Garland. She performed in
Portuguese translations of plays and got a part in Powell/Pressburger’s The
End of the River. She played in My Fair Lady, Hello Dolly as
well as singing Piaf.
The languid
Latin rhythms have much to teach the US dollar, but nowadays Brazil is run by
Trump soundalike Bolsonaro who is threatening to monetise the rainforests.
These people are all under the illusion that order exists because the illusion
is very convincing (perspective AI).
The athletic
grace and majesty of the 50s are echoes of the city-state of yore, when the
monuments of Man existed alongside the free-expression of Man. Anatomy and
primordial rhythms.
Quoting Rand
again, the “zombies”
who accept
any part of Kant’s philosophy – metaphysical, epistemological or moral –
deserve it. (Ayn Rand
Lexicon)
It’s no wonder
Rand is the symbol of US exceptionalism with effortless put-downs like that –
they deserve her. Where you have such a formidable “Fountainhead” one idea is
to put up an equally strong counters-symbol.
You have to
admit Rand is often convincing but, as I’ve been saying for awhile now, an
allusion often IS convincing – and particularly an illusion of the sun
(reflection Pictorial 29). So, I give you on the one side the order of a
reasoned Randian; on the other the wildness of unreasoned resurgence.
Founder of Objectivism
legendary
French vagabond Alternates 6
Note the
surroundings, as a lot of this goes against the idea that planning per se,
as seen in The Fountainhead, is needed for human habitation.
As I tend to say, a city-state has on the one side the temples and monuments and rituals of governance, on the other the free-expression of citizens in their gay districts of unschooled ambiance (see Detroit, prev.)
As I tend to say, a city-state has on the one side the temples and monuments and rituals of governance, on the other the free-expression of citizens in their gay districts of unschooled ambiance (see Detroit, prev.)
As you can see
in the picture on the left, one’s eye tends to follow the vanishing point of
the modernist architecture. If you say The Fountainhead was written in
the 30s, we’re now in the era of the Amazon House and AI. In that universe, you
are always approaching the vanishing point (of technique) because you are
always in a perspective reality (electromagnetism, the sun).
Outside of this
artificiality, we have the labyrinth of a nighted wood, where one follows the
trail of a roe deer, waiting and listening for rustles. Whereas Rand’s universe
makes a virtue of order, this universe makes a virtue of action; the bow, the
lethal throw.
So, in this
universe there is slaughter, game, carrion and crows and the freedom of action.
I know Rand says that acolytes of Kant are “zombies”, but a Randian world only
has monuments. It doesn’t have death and decay and therefore the beliefs that
go with that. The very persuasiveness of Rand strikes one as the persuasiveness
of AI-perspective; something that is a good illusion that has no reality.
Those in thrall
are attaching their heads to the vanishing point of technique (see “speed”).
It’s a world of monuments that vanish into the mists, not of the free-flowing
physique of a hunter. In that guise, it’s the America that a Trump might want
to see, devoid of cattle and cowboys, ranches and homesteads.
To be fair, Rand
has taste whereas Trump has none, but taste isn’t enough without the patina of
freeborn form (her taste in art actually verges towards that of the comicbook
fan!) Randians are forever renovating and never leave well alone. This is the
very shape of the world we’re in (ever wonder why gothic and art-deco buildings
keep burning down? Glasgow School of Art, Notre Dame).
