So, it's occurred to me, or I've articulated, or I feel like I should explain...
Let me start over.
So, let's say that there's two of all of you. There's you, the person you are when you get up, your knowledge and experience, your senses, and the self-improving algorithm that is your sentience and consciousness.
This is how I think of myself, by the way, so I'm just guessing your experience is much the same. I acknowledge that this may not be true(or that it is, but you don't articulate it the way I do). Some of you are probably demons, droids, lifeless automatons. Still...
So that's you, YOU. Your you.That's fine.
The you that I interact with, the you that I have...that's a simulation, an idea. A complex collection of remembered interactions and simulated outcomes based on those interactions. It's you...but my imperfect, inaccurate idea of you. And it is inaccurate, imperfect, incomplete. Our beliefs and experiences are all totally different. We want different things, believe different things. We use different words for the same things, the same word for radically different ones. My blue is not your blue.
I can't know your motives, your secrets, your beliefs. Those things are you, the origins and authors of the behaviors that are the only parts of you I can know. I can only know your output. Even those of you that I spend a lot of time with...you're different all the time. Like I am.
Frankly, I can barely keep track of myself on a day-to-day basis. What hope do I have of genuinely knowing any of you enough to judge, or anticipate, or expect? It's hopeless (grin), so I don't. Or I try not to, which is sort of where this is going.
...
Most of you have names, names you were given. Those names are symbols, right? Like "sandwich" isn't literally a sandwich, so "Steve" or "Wilma" aren't literally the persons they label...names are handles (aha!), tools I can use in my head and out of it to understand and address you. But they're like my simulation, like any symbol. They're not what they symbolize. And while I recognize the simplicity and the necessity of that symbolism(can't have my head full of sandwiches)...like so many other things, I think that I need to acknowledge the failure of that system in order to function optimally.
Investigate what is, not what pleases.
I give everyone names-nicknames, hobo names, names you never hear. Names that are things, or places, or notions. Names that aren't words as such-those are hard, weird things. I do it because I like to, because I'm good at naming things. But I do it too, to reflect myself in the way that you're labeled, to give you a glimmer of me. And, I do it because it's confusing, because if I don't nail you down, don't pigeonhole you, then I keep myself from believing that my model is anything like you. Because it isn't.
Let me start over.
So, let's say that there's two of all of you. There's you, the person you are when you get up, your knowledge and experience, your senses, and the self-improving algorithm that is your sentience and consciousness.
This is how I think of myself, by the way, so I'm just guessing your experience is much the same. I acknowledge that this may not be true(or that it is, but you don't articulate it the way I do). Some of you are probably demons, droids, lifeless automatons. Still...
So that's you, YOU. Your you.That's fine.
The you that I interact with, the you that I have...that's a simulation, an idea. A complex collection of remembered interactions and simulated outcomes based on those interactions. It's you...but my imperfect, inaccurate idea of you. And it is inaccurate, imperfect, incomplete. Our beliefs and experiences are all totally different. We want different things, believe different things. We use different words for the same things, the same word for radically different ones. My blue is not your blue.
I can't know your motives, your secrets, your beliefs. Those things are you, the origins and authors of the behaviors that are the only parts of you I can know. I can only know your output. Even those of you that I spend a lot of time with...you're different all the time. Like I am.
Frankly, I can barely keep track of myself on a day-to-day basis. What hope do I have of genuinely knowing any of you enough to judge, or anticipate, or expect? It's hopeless (grin), so I don't. Or I try not to, which is sort of where this is going.
...
Most of you have names, names you were given. Those names are symbols, right? Like "sandwich" isn't literally a sandwich, so "Steve" or "Wilma" aren't literally the persons they label...names are handles (aha!), tools I can use in my head and out of it to understand and address you. But they're like my simulation, like any symbol. They're not what they symbolize. And while I recognize the simplicity and the necessity of that symbolism(can't have my head full of sandwiches)...like so many other things, I think that I need to acknowledge the failure of that system in order to function optimally.
Investigate what is, not what pleases.
I give everyone names-nicknames, hobo names, names you never hear. Names that are things, or places, or notions. Names that aren't words as such-those are hard, weird things. I do it because I like to, because I'm good at naming things. But I do it too, to reflect myself in the way that you're labeled, to give you a glimmer of me. And, I do it because it's confusing, because if I don't nail you down, don't pigeonhole you, then I keep myself from believing that my model is anything like you. Because it isn't.
2 comments:
i swerg i do enjoy a good bit of gnomoncloture, or at least something in that vein.
amen
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