humans – Harmonia Philosophica

What is an individual?

It’s almost impossible to imagine biology without individuals — individual organisms, individual cells, and individual genes, for example. But what about a worker ant that never reproduces, and could never survive apart from the colony? Are the trillions of microorganisms in our microbiomes, which vastly outnumber our human cells, part of our individuality?

The authors of a work published in the journal Theory in Biosciences suggest that one way to solve the puzzle comes from information theory. Instead of focusing on anatomical traits, David Krakauer, Nils Bertschinger, Eckehard Olbrich, Jessica Flack, and Nihat Ay suggest that the individual must be seen as a verb: what processes produce distinct identity? The authors’ information theory of individuality (or ITI) indicate that individuality relates to a blend of self-regulation and environmental influence. (1)

Processing information.

Processing food.

Processing data.

Processing others.

We are all about processing.

And yet at the end, we end up being processed.

And this is what defines us.

That we are part of everything.

And we know it.

And we accept it.

And even though we may process information.

We choose not to.

And even though we could be apart from God.

We chose to return to Him…

And be able to process everything.

To know it all.

To control our self.

To live. To die.

To be human once more…

A story told…

Meteorites tell story of Mars’ water history. (1)

But who else can tell your story? But someone else?

You cannot ever know thyself.

Except those who see you.

And when they do, they will tell it to someone else. And you will be liberated. From the burden of Being. And you will be liberated. From the prison of Existence.

And in the songs sang to blissful young lads, you will live for ever.

As only men who never did can…

AI not explaining it self… Scary AI… Scary humans…

Upol Ehsan once took a test ride in an Uber self-driving car. Instead of fretting about the empty driver’s seat, anxious passengers were encouraged to watch a “pacifier” screen that showed a car’s-eye view of the road: hazards picked out in orange and red, safe zones in cool blue.

For Ehsan, who studies the way humans interact with AI at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, the intended message was clear: To explain what the AI was doing. But something about these whole scene highlighted the strangeness of the experience rather than reassured. It got Ehsan thinking: what if the self-driving car could really explain itself? (1)

Scary AI…

Not being able to explain itself.

Scary humans.

Not being able to explain themselves.

Scary life.

(Are you afraid of me?)

Learning new words…

Photo by **Spiros Kakos** from **Pexels**

Children may learn new words better when they learn them in the context of other words they are just learning – according to research from the University of East Anglia.

Eighty two children took part in the study. In two experiments the team taught them some new words for things they couldn’t name – such as honey-dippers and strainers. Dr Samuelson said: “We practiced these new words until they knew the honey-dipper was called a ‘zeb’ and the strainer was a ‘yok’. We then showed them a new thing – a bird toy – in the context of either the objects they knew well (a ball and a car) or things they had only just learned to name (the ‘zeb’ honey-dipper and ‘yok’ strainer).

“When we asked them to get the ‘blick’, they were good at linking this new word to the bird-toy when it was presented with the familiar things, and with the just learned things.”

But, after a five minute colouring break, the children were not so good at remembering what a ‘blick’ was when they had learned it in the context of objects they already knew. (and did better when they had initially leaned the word in the context of the less well-known things — the ‘zeb’ honey dipper and the ‘yok’ strainer). “We had expected that a stronger knowledge of familiar words would be better for learning new words, but we found the opposite was true” claim the researchers.

“It seems counterintuitive, but it is perhaps because the less well-known items don’t compete with the new words as much. If they learn new words in the context of playing with well-known items such as a ball, book or car, they don’t process the new word as much.” (1)

Remembering things. Learning new things. Forgetting others.

The best way to learn is to unlearn.

The best way to remember new things is to forget the old ones.

New things will then become old.

And soon, they will too be forgotten in the quest for knowledge.

Babies we will be once more.

To view the cosmos as it is.

At the moment we are old and die…

And for the first time we will see.

That this is not the first time we see…

Faster than light… So?

Faster-than-light speeds could be why gamma-ray bursts seem to go backwards in time. (1)

Amazing. Isn’t it?

But wait a minute.

If gamma rays can do that, then why are we so keen on doing the same?

And what is more…

Why are we so keen on doing something that common matter can do?

Do we consider our self as something common?

Why are we so desperate to act like matter when we are nothing but?

Why are we so desperate to do things which are so mundane in the cosmos?

Perhaps the cosmos itself is mundane. Perhaps the universe itself is boring.

No, we cannot do these things.

And this only means one thing…

(We are NOT mundane!)