Arquivo para a ‘Information Science’ Categoria
The electronic narrative
02
Mar
The rapid evolution of Artificial Intelligence, after a serious crisis towards the end of the
millennium, brings a mystifying aspect to the scenario of scientific dissemination and sometimes even to scientific research itself, which sees it beyond the real possibilities or below what it is able.
That is why we pointed out in the previous post the real evolution and sophistication of Machine Learning algorithms and the growth of Deep Learning technology, this is the current rapid evolution, the evolution of electronic assistants (several of them are already on the market such as Siri and Alexa) is still limited and we commented in a post about the LaMBDA machine that it would have “sentient” capability.
Sentient is different from consciousness, because it is the ability of beings to perceive sensations and feelings through the senses, this would mean in the case of machines having something “subjective” (we have already spoken about the limitation of the term and its difference from the soul), although they are capable of of narratives.
This narrative, however complex it may be, is an electronic narrative, an algorithmic one, with the interaction of man and machine through “deep learning”, it is possible that it confuses and even surprises the human being with narratives and elaborations of speeches, however it will depend on always from the human narratives from which they are fed and create an electronic narrative.
I cite an example of the chatGPT that excites the mystifying discourse and creates an alarm in the technophobic discourse and creates speculations even about the transhuman limits of the machine.
A list of films considered extraordinary, exemplifies the limit of electronic storytelling, due to its human power, the list gave the following films: “Citizen Kane” (1941), “The Godfather” (1972), “Back to the Future ” (1985), “Casablanca” (1942), “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968), “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” (2001), “The Shawshank Redemption” (1994), ” Psycho” (1960), “Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) and “Pulp Fiction” (1994).
No mention of the Japanese Akira Kurosawa, the German Werner Herzog or the Italian Frederico Felini, just to name a few, about fiction would not leave out of the list Blade Runner – the hunter of androids, well connected to the technologies of “open AI” or the historic Metropolis (from 1927 by the Austrian Fritz Lang).
The electronic narrative has the limitation of what feeds it, which is the human narrative, even if it is made by the wisest human, it will have contextual and historical limitations.
A chance for peace
27
Feb
Contrary to what was imagined for a year of war, completed this weekend, the Russia-Ukraine
confrontation may have a different outcome, there is finally a chance for peace.
Brazil made a new proposal for a motion at the UN, in addition to offering to mediate the negotiations, China also seems willing, even if on suspicion of possible military aid to Russia and all this changed the voting scenario for a new motion at the UN, more lenient, condemning the Russian invasion.
The motion approved with some inclusion of the Brazilian text, had a very significant vote, 141 votes voted in favor (more countries than the previous one), 32 abstentions, with China being significant, and seven against: North Korea, Nicaragua, Eritrea , Belarus, Syria, Mali and Russia itself.
Russia says it accepts possible mediation by Brazil, and China obviously would be fine, but already in this case there is distrust in the West, as the text proposed by China speaks of Russian “rest”, if China sends arms to Russia, even with NATO’s aid to Ukraine would be very fragile.
Proposals for amendments were made, Belarus, for example, wanted to remove the part of the text that blamed Russia for starting the conflict, but the Brazilian text, even though it was milder, made Russian aggression clear.
So now there is a greater possibility of a bloc for bilateral peace negotiations from an ideological point of view, and a greater awareness of the attrition and humanitarian damage of war.
Peace is finally starting to be thought of realistically and by both sides in conflict.
Power and interiority
24
Feb
Clarified in the previous post the difference between soul and spirit, the concept used by
Hegel to develop the (metaphysical, for him “subjective”) idea of power uses an analogy of digestion, which Byung Chul Han takes advantage of:
“Power is, for Hegel, already effective at the most elementary level of life. Digestion, in this way, is already the process of power in which the living being takes with him, little by little, his other identity” (Chul Han, What is Power?), he goes so far as to say that the living being generates identity with the other, but ignores that in its genesis there is a metaphysical process.
Nietzsche will develop this issue as the will to power, in this case confused with the domination that we have already dealt with here and which is a sociological category, but power as a metaphor, in our view the most appropriate, is what we generate in our digestive interiority.
How do we digest the image of the other as our identity or not, as we recognize differences not only in the genotype, but mainly in the differences in feelings, judgments and decisions, more broadly according to our cosmovision.
So the desire for peace or war with what is different, tolerance or intolerance in diversities of thought about the world and things should not be in the category of right and wrong, of course, wrong should be punished, but what is wrong it must be circumscribed within the limits of the human, so if killing is wrong, war is a serious mistake where one people can exterminate another.
The renunciation of this metaphysical power, generated in our interiority and our vision of the world, must always be internalized (digested) also as a will, a command, of the non-power.
The biblical lesson on this issue, described as the “temptations of Christ”, is found in the passage Mt 4,1-11.
In the passage after fasting and renouncing the power to turn stones into bread and saying that he should fall on the city of Jerusalem, the devil tempts him with power and shows him the kingdoms of the world: “and he said to him: “I will give you all this, if you kneel before me to worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Get thee behind me, Satan, for it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. Then the devil left him. And the angels approached and served Jesus ′′ (Mt 4. 9-11).
Power in the current conception: finitude
22
Feb
Undoubtedly one of the most enlightening books on the issue of power was written by Byung
Chul Han, not only because it is in the current context but also because of the excellent philosophical review it does.
Although he passes through several other authors: Nietzsche, Hegel, Heidegger and Lehmann, among others, it is his opposition to Foucault that establishes the best relationship, his psychopolitics is opposed to Foucault’s biopolitics, there is no doubt that today’s society (through media propaganda) ) strong pressure.
However, at the beginning of the book he uses a definition by Max Weber that I think is more accurate, and develops it like this: “power means the opportunity, within a social relationship, to impose one’s will also against resistance, not important on which such opportunity is based” (Han, 2019. 22, quote from Weber’s Economics and Society).
After this, he concludes that the concept of power is sociologically “amorphous”, so he replaces it with the concept of “domination” (we already posted something about this here), which is “obedience to an order, which is sociologically “more precise”.
However, it will be when the concept of “spatial” (or territorial) and “temporal” (a mandate for a certain time) is recovered, that in fact this precision is, in our view, really achieved.
To enter the question of power from the point of view of religion, he takes it from Hegel, and what he considers as “spirit”, and which in the philosopher’s conception is totally dominated by the question of power: “God is power” (pp. 121), and what defines as spirit is nothing other than human subjectivity (comes from idealist dualism) and thus is also enclosed within the finitude of man himself, there is nothing beyond and greater than time-spatial finitude human.
Hegel says that religion is based “on the desire for an absence of limits, for an infinity that, however, would not be infinite power” (p. 123), and what removes the sin of ignorance from him is that he affirms, saying of its true limits is not an unlimited will to power: “Religion is fundamentally profoundly peaceful. She is kindness” (p. 124).
However, he sees this as a “pure concentration of power”, when it is the opposite, remind several biblical readings “Remember that you are dust and to dust we shall return” (Genesis 3,19) and so it is not difficult to see that God made man of clay (of course, they were metabolic structures capable of duplication, but water is a vital element) and it is not difficult to know that when we return to another physical plane we return to inorganic dust.
Ash Wednesday, in the Christian rite, is to remember this human finitude and to humble the power that man thinks he has, he will always be finite and spatial.
Han, Byung-Chul. (2018) What is power?. NY; Wiley. (2019 portuguese version)
Wrath and Peace
17
Feb
It is true that the history of humanity is punctuated by wars, but what would happen if it were the other way around and men sought in all circumstances to find a more solidary and less dark path for their conflicts.
However, an international conflict at this moment would be a tragedy that could put the civilizing process itself in check and whose consequences would be unimaginable numbers of human lives lost, nature contaminated and material damage.
Meanwhile, the conflict in Eastern Europe is taking on an increasingly international outline, a Russian frigate loaded with unstoppable hypersonic missiles and with a range of a thousand kilometers is heading across the South Atlantic towards the American east coast.
The Stoic philosopher Seneca (4 BC–65 AD) who wrote a treatise on Anger, which unlike many others says that there is no wisdom in it, wrote in his work: “No man is made more courageous through anger, except one who, without anger, , would not have been courageous: anger, therefore, does not come to help courage, but to take its place” (I.13).
So war is not only a bad adviser, it takes the place of courage and true heroism, that which leads humanity to harmony, tolerance and true civility.
It may seem altruistic, but the true Christian teaching is present in many religions, remember Ghandi’s Hinduism, which intransigently defended peace, so says the attentive reading of the Bible: “You have heard what was said: An eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth! I, however, say to you: do not face those who are evil! On the contrary, if someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer him the left as well!” (Mt 5,38-39).
We can avoid a civilizing catastrophe, but not without forgiveness and concessions. There´s still time.
Anger and social issues
16
Feb
One of the strongest arguments for anger is the social issue, before economic, now
cultural and ethnic.
The book by the American John Steinbeck, caused a great malaise in society, was cited with a certain reverence when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962 although the book is from 1929, the book was well received in Soviet Eastern Europe at the time and in the Scandinavian countries.
At the time, the book was burned in public squares and banned from schools, it was the beginning of the cold war and McCarthyism (persecution of communists in the USA), although the author never had an affiliation.
The book begins with Tom Joad, the central character of the book, asking for a ride after 7 years in prison which was his sentence for having murdered someone as a result of a bar fight, even though it was in his self-defense he ended up being declared guilty.
He finds nothing in his old house and ends up discovering that they had sold all the belongings and going to Uncle John’s house and getting there he realizes that everyone is ready to leave and discovers that the big companies and farms are closed and the farmers are leaving to California to look for work.
It is the period of the great American depression, and social issues are emerging, the book shows the conditions of work and exploration in the fields of fruit plantations in California, Steinbeck is from the Salinas region, where the novel takes place, which although fiction has a connection with the region.
The question is how far can the limits of this type of revolt go, is it just violence and ideological struggles when these conditions are present, what are the alternatives to the problems, is it likely that we will enter a new recession, in addition to the risk of war, the book by Steinbeck gives us a similar scenario (recession and war) and may point us not to a return to the past, but to a new possibility for the dark future that awaits us.
Steibeck, John. (1939). The grapes of wrath. First edition: New York Viking, 1939.
Geopolitics of war and “viruses”
13
Feb
Not even the serious earthquake in Turkey and Syria, with more than 25,000 fatalities,
managed to appease the spirit of anger and revenge that shakes the planet.
The war suffers a scale in a world geopolitics, the Russian ship Almirante Gorshkov (supported by the supply freighter Kama) passes by the coast of Europe and goes towards the USA (recalls the crisis of Pearl Harbor (1941) and missiles in Cuba (1962)), after “spy” balloons now there is a wave of shot down Unidentified Flying Objects, which are not aliens, but just unknown devices.
In the aspect of the pandemic, some changes in the behavior of the syncytial virus (complicated name for a multinucleated mass of cytoplasm formed by the fusion of originally separate cells) that occur in seasonal viruses, now seem to have an atypical and out-of-season behavior, in the southern hemisphere, for example, we are still at the end of summer.
Returning to the war, the frigate Admiral Gorshkov was sailing towards Africa, it was accompanied by a supply ship that followed this route, but the frigate changed course and is now heading towards the United States which causes an increase in tension in the war that it was not only from Ukraine and Russia, some Russian missiles also crossed the southern border of Ukraine and headed towards Moldova, the feeling of total war is growing.
It is good to remember that the frigate heading to the USA has the fearsome and unbeatable Zircon hypersonic missiles, even being in international waters, it can reach a distance for the American east coast to be reached safely, which will certainly aggravate the international and imminent crisis conflict.
After the balloon event, the one accused of being a spy in American airspace, two other “unidentified objects” (which do not have aliens) were shot down, and this Sunday (02/12) one of these objects was shot down in China, everything indicates espionage and ongoing counterintelligence.
In terms of the Pandemic, these extra-seasonal viruses cause concern due to their severity and volume, Marcelo Gomes, coordinator of InfoGripe (from Fiocrus), says that these viruses called RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) can be attributed to two factors: the mitigation of care with the pandemic that also curbed other viruses and the lack of control in collective environments, which prevented greater contact and circulation of viruses socially.
Both in war, concern grows both with peace and with the possibility of new pandemics, the international climate remains tense, recently there were barbs between French Prime Minister Makron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who was excluded from the meeting with Zelensky.
Essence, fairness and ethics
10
Feb
When discussing the “good life”, a classic concept that Paul Riocour takes up in his reflection
on fairness, he links it to classical philosophy where “it is “the desire for a ‘good life’ with and for others in just institutions”, and there are problems in democratic institutions, because the concept of being has been abandoned.
The reflection we made on the question of Being in Heidegger, we left a link to what is essence thought of as acting, where the concrete universal differs from the conceptual or representational universal, acting is a question and cannot be reduced to the concept , then it involves an interiority, and not just a subjectivity or objectivity, as Hegel wanted.
Thus justice depends on the Just, who questions and corrects his actions, in this consists the Platonic dialectic, seen as the art of thinking, questioning and organizing ideas (Greek eidos), and this implies correcting the action by thinking, not just punish, but modify thinking about action.
We cannot just question the legal aspects of justice without each man, including those who have committed crimes, being able to rethink and act anew in the conduct of his own life and life with others, of course there are repeat offenders, but both the norms for this are clear, for correction no.
What is fundamental in Hegel’s ethics, and this urge permeates Rawls’s thought, is that we must always choose between two evils, when it is possible to correct both the lesser evil (from which greater evils originate) and the greater evil in order to rethink society. and justice, including the distribution of social goods.
In the long speech of Jesus to his disciples in Mt 5,17-37, he explains that their justice should be superior to that of men, he begins by explaining that he did not come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to give it greater amplitude, then he explains about not killing, and says that even those who are angry against their brothers are already sinning, in short, they give each “legal” teaching greater depth, and thus it is not mere legalism, but the full fulfillment of what is just.
Those who condemn the norm, and remember only the fact that the Pharisees did not allow Jesus to heal and do good on the Sabbath, undoubtedly a hypocrisy, cannot forget that for Him there were “divine laws”, which corrected human action and that the modern society wants to abolish.
Full freedom also means full justice, and there is no just society without just men, it is necessary to educate them, this has been thought since Plato.
Ethics and fairness
09
Feb
Understanding what ethics is, as we have seen in previous posts, is fundamental to understanding
what is fair, but great ethics has developed for contemporary idealism, and while neocontractualism is just a truth, the concept of ethics is essential for understand idealistic values.
The Hegelian system can be seen in three parts (only didactic): the idea, nature and the spirit, the idea is the general plan of modern philosophy (on the left the New Hegelians and on the right the Old Hegelians), nature is part essential to discuss contractualism and its aspects, the spirit is divided into: objective, subjective and absolute.
While the absolute refers to the idea of “pure”, objective and subjective dualism are part of contemporary dualism, as for justice, the objective can be divided into: abstract right, morality and ethics.
It is a theme that is too long and profound, as is typical of Hegelian thought, but since consciously or unconsciously it dominates a good part of thought (at least the one that is elaborated on, it is common now not to elaborate and just say, like “simple as that”) , ethics is essential to read it.
In Principles of the Philosophy of Law, in paragraph 142 he writes: “that my will be placed as adequate to the concept and with this and with this overcome and with this its subjectivity preserved”, as is typical of idealism thought, objectivity overlaps subjectivity ( which is characteristic of the subject) and roughly speaking it can be said that here lies the fundamental difference with Paul Ricoeur, as he focuses on what is fair (subjective) and not justice.
The supposed passage from an abstract subjectivity to a substantial one and from a universal to a concrete one is accomplished in this way, ethics is the very definition of what is the good and what is of the subjective will, in the hermeneutic method, there is an intentionality and not a subjectivity .
Thus morality is reduced to social morality, or objective morality, as an individual it can only be realized in community and denies interiority or subjectivity.
However, there is no justice without fair men, and in many moments of history men had to break with tyrants, with false values that were hidden around apparently altruistic social proposals, but whose project was one of domination, we have already differentiated power of domination .
In the hermeneutic perspective, both the unconscious and the imaginary are relevant to understanding a context, and they are almost always based on preconceptions, and the individual wonders how to insert himself in a story, he also wonders what objective action he should perform.
Regarding universality, phenomenology rejects the idea of the “pure” abstract, Ricoeur sees a conflict between solidary particularism and that only a deepening of intercultural aspects can conclude which alleged universals will be recognized universals in different cultures.
When dealing with the issue of justice from the social perspective of goods, Ricoeur deals with the problem by analyzing the purely procedural conception made in Rawls, for him the problem of this conception lies in the fact that it does not realize the heterogeneity of the goods that are involved in terms of their distribution and for which institutions they were defined, political usage, proselytizing and duty-bearing define many institutions.
Ricoeur also analyzes the conflict of duties in the context of solicitude, and uses the case of Medicine in the context of Amnesty International, if he were writing now in the pandemic he would have a beautiful example to question this issue of the distribution of goods, as were the cases of vaccines .
The fair and the legal
08
Feb
Legality is evidently based on laws, even if strange or questionable, it is a kind of “social contract”
for living in society, which is why the topic of the previous post is relevant, even more so if one considers that the highest point of what is legal today is neocontractualism.
Paul Ricoeur wrote in two volumes on the subject, done in the form of essays, in the third essay he deals with John Rawls’s Theory of Justice, not only attests to its relevance but also he claims what almost all of us said at a time in our childhood : “this is unjust” and then this precedes the sense of the Just as they also concern not only the law, but all people.
Ricoeur in the preface of Justo 1 already pays attention to the detail that the theme is connected to the idea of what is ethical, in classical philosophy, is “the desire for a ‘good life’ with and for others in just institutions”, and here he situates A good part of the civilizing crisis has emerged: the mistrust that exists in democratic institutions.
The expression “good life” taken up from Aristotle is a qualifier of good in a strict ethical sense, so the good is inseparable from the good of the other, under the penalty of being nothing more than a reprehensible selfishness, which degrades the subject in the sense of moral plane.
Put more clearly, the relationship with the other is constitutive of self-awareness, and it is, to a certain extent, ethical beyond the legal and merely moral.
Where only obedience is decisive, even with an inner conformity to the moral Law, which can be unavoidable in every ethical life, this has something beyond the Law, in it man desires the Good, aspires to the Good for himself and for others, in a sense that also becomes consciousness for the other.
It is obvious that this finds a barrier in our faults, the bad feelings, the bad actions, the violence that mark society since the most primitive times, in this sense it is necessary to awaken the conscience of guilt, which contains in it the very conception of judgment, this means to limit yourself.
For this reason, the theme of freedom is relevant, what kind of freedom is desired and under the pretext of what conception of justice, thus “fair institutions” are needed.
So this is Ricoeur’s formula: “: « the desire for a good life with and for others in just institutions », without them the legal becomes revolting.
However, it must be said that “institutions” are not limited to the legal aspect, in the same way that what is fair cannot be reduced to what is legal, it is necessary to analyze it in depth.
To explain this, Ricoeur says what is awareness of the Law: “Applying a norm to a particular case is an extremely complex operation, which implies a style of interpretation irreducible to the mechanics of practical syllogism”, that is, simple logical rules, there is not one subjectivity, but a transcendence.
When giving a lecture to the L’Arche Association (founded by Jean Vanier) that cares for exceptional people, he addressed the theme and spoke of respect when dealing with the difference between the normal and the pathological, relying on the works of Georges Canguilhem, who discusses the epistemology of biology.
