Arquivo para a ‘SocioCibercultura’ Categoria
Why do we need to think?
09
Jul
I dreamed of writing a philosophy book, I will not write it any more, I may make considerations,
such as I shall do here, but upon unexpectedly finding the author Thomas Nagel in: “What does all this mean? An Introduction to Philosophy “in his 5th. edition in portuguese, original en english in 1987 (Oxford University Press) I think he did the trivial: to present fundamental questions in everyday words.
So I’ll just make comments, it’s not a summary, it’s just notes, and maybe it’s interesting to say how I found it, it was even from another work: What’s it like to be a bat? (The Philosophical Review LXXXIII, pp. 435-50, 1974), where it says that this question may make sense, but it does not make sense to ask what it is like to be a toaster, updating to this day what it feels like to be Robot Sophia, people asking this question.
It is not this question that answers directly, but current issues that are in everyday thinking, namely: How we know what it is, what other minds are, the meaning of words, freedom (free will), death and the sense of life.
Philosophy does not seem to deal with this, but only in dialogue with other thinkers, the author explains at the beginning of the book: “Philosophy is different from science and mathematics … it is not based on experimentation or observation, but only on thought . “(p.8).
We all think, it is wrong to think that only philosophers and scientists think, the question of philosophy is; “To question and to understand very common ideas that we use every day without thinking about them” (p.8), and in doing this we are taken “in the wave” wherever it wants to take us, in times of crisis and deep changes this can be fatal .
The author explains, among other things, two questions that I consider essential: “A physicist will ask what atoms are made of or what explains gravity, but a philosopher will ask how we can know that there is anything outside our minds” (p. 9).
This is essential because this is the contemporary idealist question, and idealism is the great philosophy of our time, it is the basis of what is conventionally called modernity.
Nagel, Thomas. What Does It All Mean? A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy, UK: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Oral, written and electronic history of Shannon
21
May
There are good reasons for a certain lack of knowledge and criticism, often unfair, to Claude Shannon.
There is a rare interview in July 1982 by Robert Price, curiously called “Oral-History” in which he states:
“Well, back in ’42…computers were just emerging, so to speak. They had things like the ENIAC down at University of Pennsylvania…Now they were slow, they were very cumbersome and huge and all, there were computers that would fill a couple rooms this size and they would have about the ability of one of the little calculators that you can buy now for $10. But nevertheless we could see the potential of this, the thing that happened here if things ever got cheaper and we could ever make the up- time better, sort of keep the machines working for more than ten minutes, things like that. It was really very exciting.
We had dreams, Turing and I used to talk about the possibility of simulating entirely the human brain, could we really get a computer which would be the equivalent of the human brain or even a lot better? And it seemed easier then than it does now maybe. We both thought that this should be possible in not very long, in ten or 15 years. Such was not the case, it hasn’t been done in thirty years.”
The written work of Claude Shannon is well known, it is in his main work Mathematical Theory of Communication, which begins with an article with the same name published in the magazine of Bell Laboratories in 1948, and that has a revised version and corrected in the site of the Department of Mathematics, Harvard.
Finally, the great contribution of Shannon, besides that its presented diagram is always incomplete because they take from him the source of information and the destination of the information, and this makes the information “without signification” and without sense.
But his great contribution is in fact the information in the artifact, what are the limits of “noise” (not only this) but he himself states in his work that he will deal with information in a strict sense, that is, in the artifact
The glade of being
01
May
The understanding of Heidegger’s position on what he considers the
“clearing” depends on the proper understanding of the concepts of transcendence, world, and world formation, which can be simplified as a worldview (Weltanschauung), but is explicit in his works Being and time (1927) and Fundamental concepts of metaphysics (1929/30).
This is the description made by Sloterdijk in his Rules for the Human Park, since he tends to simplify this horizon of questions that Heidegger transposes when he enunciates a radical difference between animal and man, in an attempt to overcome the infernal dichotomy between culture and nature, which comes in modernity on the man “wolf of man” or “good savage”, among other possibilities.
Heidegger’s position on the difference between animals and men is linked to his interpretation of human existence, its transcendence (Transzendenz) in which man, and only man, is the maker of the world.
At a winter conference in 1929/30, he elaborated what would later be “The fundamental concepts of metaphysics: world – finitude – solitude,” he deals directly with the question of the difference between animal and man.
Heidegger also does not accept that questioning is in a theory of the evolution of species, precisely because he has diagnosed that all theory of this kind already presupposes previous determinations of both man and the that is the animal.
It is neither creationist nor evolutionist what he wants to know is what ontological characters depend on the statement that makes the vitality of the living before the lifeless: stone and mineral materials in generation, cosmic dust in a more cosmological sense.
With this will formulate three theses to create a characterization of the essence of life: 1) the stone is without world; 2) the animal is poor of the world, and, 3) man is world-maker. Heidegger is clear in his philosophical re fl ection that the relationship between metaphysics and positive science still needs to be thought of in its characteristic ambiguity of always differentiating subject from object, so its transcendence is not idealistic, in the phenomenological-hermeneutical method, the modal differences that make explicit in the different ways of being considered in them, the stone-being, the animal-being and the being-man, being clear, each being and being.
They also resolve two other premises of modernity, a religious one that is the crisis between creationism and evolutionism, there is an evolution because man is the formator of the world and there is a creation because it distinguishes itself from the animal that is not the formator of the world.
It is not a question of strengthening the thesis of anthropocentrism, so Sloterdijk’s criticism is valid, since for him it is necessary to “clarify the clearing”, but for him as for Heidegger humanism has become anti-humanism, to assert as “the most miserable” of the “history of Europe” (Sloterdijk, 2000, p.20), and suffice to recall the horror of the two world wars.
The century of the Kantian lights
30
Apr
The eighteenth century was celebrated by many philosophers
as a century of Philosophy, it seemed that the Enlightenment had triumphed irreversibly, its idea of state, science as a way to remove man from darkness, at last everything seemed to go from strength to strength. First of all what was clarification for Kant, no doubt the greatest precursor, as Hegel was the synthesis of all idealistic philosophy of the Enlightenment.
Clarification (Aufklarung) would be the departure of man from his minority, of which he himself would be guilty, see that guilt here is not the Christian concept of deviation, but that of which the state would be the guardian.
So the minority is the inability to make use of his understanding without the direction of another individual, it is the perfect individualism, the man without the direction of any other individual, therefore only he is guilty of this “minority”, to depend on the other.
This is accomplished in the maxim of the categorical imperative: “he acts in such a way that his action can be universal”, and should not be confused with the golden rule: “do to others what you would like done to you”, because this includes the Other.
The idea that idealism has a golden thread leading to Platonism, which in turn can not be isolated from Aristotle’s “materialism”, is also mistaken in Gadamer: “The problem of historical consciousness,” whose The central point is precisely to separate idealistic and romantic consciousness from history, to reality.
The text of Plato’s Seventh Letter favors dialogue with the Other, the dialectical dialectic of facing opposites and knowing how to complete the so-called hermeneutical circle, where preconceptions can pass through a fusion of horizons and a later enlightenment that leads to new reformulation. Plato affirms in the Seventh Letter: “… only after rubbing so to speak, in each other, …. in these friendly colloquies of questions and answers … is that wisdom and understanding shine on each object … “(Plato 344 b-c).
For Gadamer, the Hermeneutic Circle, a true method of philosophizing, is a-Latvian, for: “Whatever Insight we may possess emerges in a finite human discourse, and therefore only partially … Our insights, in other words, are marked by our discursiveness. What is given to us is given from the concealment [léthe] and in a lapse of time back to it. Hence our human truth is a-letheia, never absolute. ” (GADAMER, 1980, pp. 103-104)
PLATO, Letter VII (Trad. Of the Greek and notes of Jose Trindade Santos and Juvino Maia Jr). Rio de Janeiro: PUC-Rio / Loyola, 2008.
GADAMER, H.G. Dialogue and Dialectic, eight hermeneutical studies on Plato, Binghamton, NY: Yale University, 1980, p. 91-123.
Life and the Vine
27
Apr
The tree that gives the fruits of the grape is particular,
first by the I am vine name because it gives the life to one of the fruits more rooted in the cultures due to the wine, and also is curious because its trunk and its shade are of little value, and there are still the aspect that it dries and must be pruned.
If civilizing processes are cyclical use of the vine metaphor seems conducive to understanding the ways of humanity, a generation grows on a particular culture, but almost always question exactly why young people look to the future, their future.
Who would have thought that the solid Roman empire would decay before the Persians, the Portuguese conquerors, the Napoleonic wars, the Soviet Union, and now the resilient money empire.
Analyst of diverse levels types, currents and thinkers of various specialties are convinced, civilization undergoes one of these changes and it is a critical time of options.
There are in our view three essential points: combating centralization of capital and corruption on a world scale, changing educational paradigms and the ecological issue.
At the heart of these discussions are still economic and governmental powers, often confused by the influence of techno-science that can do nothing without these powers, but the focus of discussion should be on valuing human dignity and the ecological issue.
The truth is that one can not discuss life, without here being the origin of life, the responsibility and dignity of the human “vine” that sometimes seems to dry with the grape tree, but then spring comes and it blooms, if the farmer is attentive.
As said the Bible passage Jo, 15: 1-3: “I am the true vine and my Father is the farmer. Every branch that does not bear fruit in me cuts off it; and every branch that bringeth forth fruit, he maketh it clean, that it may bear more fruit. You are already lean because of the word which I have spoken to you. “
A way forward in education
19
Apr
The basic basic education as stated in the first post of empathy, the
ability to resolve conflicts and it will not be possible with online education reach the levels of schooling for the lower age groups, but from the first schooling.
I call this age up to 10 or 12 years, it is possible to observe that online education helps and can be of great advancement, especially for children living in peripheral countries have a school performance capacity above what would be appropriate for their age, of course this child should enjoy normal channels of empathy and sociability of his age.
But at the higher level we can have higher quality jumps and provide high schooling on a world scale, just to give an example, India that still has alarming levels of health and poverty is a country that generates brains and high school students.
Massive Open Online Curses (MOOCs) is a type of open course offered through virtual learning environments, Web 2.0 tools or social networks that aim to offer a large number of students the opportunity to attend without physical presence in universities and without costs of housing, transport, etc.
A fake News ran this universe saying that the MOOCs were born in 2012 and died in 2014, but this is not true, the numbers prove this: the current numbers according to the Central-Class site, the number of online students is 58 million distributed in more than 700 universities, in 6850 courses, also the graphics of this site show increasing values.
In Brazil, large universities already have online courses, for example: FEA, from USP, has a course on Fundamentals of Administration (FEA / USP), available on the Veduca online education platform in Brazil. who wants to learn how to manage, another course is Social Responsibility and Sustainability of Organizations (PUC / RS), a PUC course in Rio Grande do Sul available in Miríada X, the Physics of São Carlos has The Basic Physics course (IFSC / USP) the course has a workload of 59 hours divided into 26 classes and UNB has the Bioenergetics course (UNB), which allows the interested party to choose to attend classes or obtain the certificate.
The false technoprofetes
10
Apr
The idea that the machine is evil, besides being an obvious anti-progress conception,
seeks without knowing them to disprove Kranzberg’s first law: technology is not good, neither bad nor neutral, but in general, its other 5 laws: 2nd – invention is the mother of need, 3 th technology is developed in “packages”, 4th technological policies are decided, based on non-technical criteria, 5 th. – all history is important, but the History of Technology is the most relevant area, and, 6th. – Technology is a human activity, the History of Technology as well.
Jean-Gabriel Ganascia, in his book “The Myth of Singularity: Should We Fear Artificial Intelligence?” (Lisbon: Círculo de Leitores, 2018) unmasks the idea that in the foreseeable future, some mark the year 2045 as machines can come forever completely autonomous and replace the human intelligence that ultimately is what programs and governs.
He quotes among several others who believe in this prophecy, whose point of overcoming is called the point of singularity, Raymond Kurzweil, that part of his precocious genius, at the age of 15 wrote a program that scores piano music, prepares his body and his mind to be “Loaded” (a cybernetic download) on a future machine.
Another technoprofetes quoted by Ganascia is Hans Moravec, who wrote “Men and Robots: The Future of Human Intelligence and Robotics” (1988) and “Robot: More Machines to Transcendent Mind” (1998) that would lead to a radical transformation of humanity.
One last, quoting quote, Kevin Warwick wrote I, Cyborg in a clear allusion to Eu, Robot, and who became known to the public for introducing a chip encapsulated in a skin into the skin to command a series of actuators remote, but it seems that his project was a failure, says Ganasci (page 13).
Philosophers do not stand still, I leave aside here the critics of the current digital technologies, to go to futurist technoprofetas, worthy of mention and quoted by Ganascia, Nick Bostrom, training physicist, makes prophecies in his writings, and particularly a sales success :
Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, predicting among other things the trans-humanity.
Among the catastrophic technoprofetes, Ganascia quotes Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, who wrote an article: “Why the future does not need us,” the author goes from Leibniz to Lyotard to show why these theses seem real in our time , but not in the studies and results of Artificial Intelligence.
They are indeed technoprocesses, but out of time, the time of oracles and prophets is of orality.
Nature and man: transubstantiation
29
Mar
Every crisis occurs having a deep bond of the relationship of man with nature and 
in function of this change, social relations between men change.
It was at the beginning with the planting and the domestication of the animals, which made it possible for the nomadic man to become more sedentary, but the present time, that of modernity, man has lost the ability to identify what binds him to the animal, to which is alive, to nature, paradoxically just when science and “philosophy speak of” dominating nature ”
Already the crisis, in the current limit, + and inability of perception of what in nature differs from it, ecological, transgenic and bioengineering problems.
Man being a piece of nature, and in return, nature produces hominization, Teilhard Chardin stated that man is the complexification of nature, Edgar Morin (2005) states that man guides and follows nature.
The historical question leads us to reflect on the kind of relationship we establish with nature, including our own nature, what we are as the substance of the universe, and the Eucharistic enigma: because God became substance: bread and wine, on this date Christian who recalls this last and greatest miracle of Jesus.
We can see in this physical reality (the substance) the landscape must be understood as physical reality extended as social construction? The logical answer is yes.
But in a constant world of transformation, of social mores, artifacts, and indeterminate places, the landscape between nature and society has evolved; it is already both nature-object and subject-nature, does this dichotomy evolve?
Perhaps we are more ready to understand the miracle of transubstantiation, God has become artifacts of man, two universal artifacts: bread-food and wine-drink.
Codified: For a Design Philosophy
22
Mar
Vilém Flusser was a Czech, brazilian citizen naturalized, died in 1991, who worked for about 20 years as professor of philosophy, journalist, lecturer and writer in Brazil and then back in his country of birth to the Czech
Republic.
His books are being republished in Brazil, including all his writings, and I began rereading The Coded World – for a philosophy of Design.
His work goes beyond the influences he received from Roland Barthes, Marshall McLuhan, because his philosophy is itself with elements of phenomenology and existentialism.
Rafael Cardoso’s introduction to the book highlights his change of thinking about the modern media he just saw born: “unlike most modern philosophers, who tend to focus their analysis on verbal language or mathematical codes, Flusser part of its gigantic power of reflection to images and artifacts, laying the foundation for a legitimate philosophy of design and communication. “(Flusser, 2017, p.10)
He asked deep questions about the virtual world: “If a tree falls into virtual space, and there is no one online, does it generate a warning message?” Returning to the famous question of the tree falling in the forest, the difference between the material and the immaterial? Can we exchange things for not things? “(Ibid.) And concludes with an even more fundamental question:” What destination should we reserve for the detritus generated by our frantic activity of transforming nature into culture? “(FLUSSER, 2017)
It approaches the paradigm of information, an essential basis for knowledge and education, “the end of history seems to be the end of our collective ability to fight against entropy, against the breakdown of meaning and form. If the basis of what we understand by culture resides in the action of in + form, then is not it paradoxical that the excess of information leads us to the breakdown of meaning? “(Idem)
The importance of the “concept of virtuality is perhaps the best and most elegant proof of how well Flusser was right.” (Ibid.), And can no longer escape this question, use in various forms of information, communication and the arts requires opening of this “black box”, the name of an essay published in the year 1985.
Flusser, unlike apocalyptics, admits that “at least in thesis,” which should become human well-being, becomes a slave to the forces of another “nature” which it helped to artificially generate. ”
Aspects of virtuality and a codified world are uniquely developed by the author and contribute to a more serene debate on new media.
FLUSSER, V. (2013) Shape of Things: A philosophy of Design, Reaktion Books, 2013. (pages and year em Brazilian edition).
Being, things and gadgets
15
Mar
This name for digital devices appeared long before the internet and the digital explosion, is in Marshall McLuhan’s book of the 1960s: Understanding Media.
Many remember him only by the phrases: “the global village” and “the medium is the message,” but few are aware of his approach to the digital world, and still less is he aware of the profound influence that Teilhard Chardin’s Noosphere had on his mind.
Some of McLuhan’s main ideas consisted in foreseeing a more conscious world and even “even in a hyperconnected world, where everyone has the ability to regulate their own experience,” a reading different from the apocalyptic ones.
The ideas that many learn well but continue to forget are the advances and possibilities of a world increasingly a “village” and that problems previously veiled, such as being itself was veiled, are now exposed by the “media.”
We just have to choose to exclude these advances, if we are hiding in our minds somehow, our consciousness of being, of everything that exists beyond the labels and devices that they use, this is not for the internet, but for cars, designer clothes , finally, a series of objects of consumption that seem to qualify the being, and why there is so much emptiness?
This is what we tried to answer in the previous posts, too academic perhaps, but without revisiting human thought we can stay in the superficiality of “things”.
To escape from a difficult discourse about being, but one must recognize it as “being-of-all” I read a page from the Gift of the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who writes:
“For life today in America is based on the premise of ever-widening circles of contact and communication. It involves not only to family demands, but community demands, national demands, international demands on the good citizen, through social and cultural pressures, through newspapers, magazines, radio programs, political drivers, charitable appeals and so on. My mind reels with it…It does not bring grace; it destroys the soul.”
But she was not talking about the Internet, Makron Books released a book commemorating 50 years of the book in 2015, the book is from 1975, so this was already a previous reality of the internet, just as the gadget name was used by McLuhan in the 60’s .
This is a reality of Being, already observed at the beginning of the last century, the digital world is an additional component in the complexity of contemporary man.
