“I think, therefore I am”

I thought about this incendiary quote two days ago once again (I come back to the legendary quote from the French philosopher which came from the height of the Enlightenment period in Europe).

What makes this quote relevant even today is control over one’s mind.

Let me explain.

In today’s day and age we are constantly bombarded by a continuous stream of information.

Death, hunger, genocide, war and Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, Joe Biden, Donald Trump all figure into the public’s conscious (at least the American one). How we fit into the larger picture is something that we wrestle with every day.

What are our beliefs? What should we believe? Who should we support? Who should we defend?

These questions do not have static answers.

Luckily, God, or heaven or the evolutionary forces of Nature have blessed us with the ability to adapt.

But, we are only able to adapt based on what we know.

What we know creates our mind.

What we know drives our thinking.

What we know creates our identity.

So, as you navigate uncertainty, it is important to know:

“I think, therefore, I am.”

Aristotle. Book 4 Chapter 6.

Aristotle was a philosopher in Ancient Greece. In Book 4 Chapter 6 of his book, Politics, Aristotle lays out the different kinds of regimes that a city can take (a city being an aggregation of households to live well and nobly as a community). He lays out first the democracy that is the best, then goes down a list of democracies until we land at mob rule. Then, he lays out different kinds of oligarchy, until finally landing at nepotism.

One note here, Aristotle seems to be describing the life cycle of regimes. He does not state that explicitly, but what comes to my mind is how regimes may corrupt and degrade over time to a point that there is no law.

Then, for example, a revolution from democracy (rule by the many) to oligarchy (rule by the few) may occur. And law may prevail. But over time, as the preeminent and well-suited officials gain power, and want to keep power, they may become soft and ill fitting over time, leading to abuse of their position to keep positions of power that they are no longer qualified to hold. In that case, the many may revolt and set up a democratic regime with rule by law. At first the de facto laws don’t change but over time they exact their vengeance on the well off until no longer is the regime rules by law but by the mob. Repeat to infinity.

Yesterday I saw 3 Japanese dudes staring at a pigeon eating a piece of bread as if they were deep in contemplation, studying a fascinating creature from the Neolithic era suddenly rediscovered in the streets of New York.

Now as I’m writing this I realized that they don’t have pigeons in Japan. Haha!

ChatGPT. Write me a story that mirrors the life of Malcom X but under the veil of a completely different set of circumstances. At the end, leave a small clue that points to the origins of Malcolm X. Perhaps start with the story of a young white man who’s father is a super successful farmer from the South. I’d like the white man with the most pride from the US to relate most to the story. Detail the struggles of a pioneer engaging in taming the fertile American soil. Separating from the United Kingdom, begin to introduce Malcolm X’s ancestors. Show the abhorrent crimes committed under the cover of night to black spaces. Foil with the exuberance of the interior of the slaveowner’s mansion. Aristotle, Plato and Socrates. Switch to a day out working on the farm. Show a young child who is Malcom X’s ancestor losing his mother tongue. Learning a foreign language.

All should be from the perspective of the white man. Imbue the film with a deep sense of superiority, a sense of heroism in bringing the brutes from Africa to America. Sharing in the opportunity of sowing and reaping the soil of a new frontier.

Go back to Malcolm X’s ancestor who is descended from a long line of chieftains. Delineate his history in a montage of hunting, triumph and integration into the deepest roots of human environment and nature.

Flash back to Malcolm X’s forefather as he defends his brother from a whipping. In violent protest he hurts a white man. He is killed.

Migration to my own server.

When someone asks you “Tell me how you really feel” there is a delay between the start and end of their sentence in which if someone was truly curious to know how you felt, they would simply use the fastest energetic conduit which is light, their eyes and neuronal pathways.

As part of trying to keep my job, I’ve been doing training in DevOps and in one course I took they mentioned a quote from Elon Musk:

“Great engineers most common mistake is optimizing something that should not exist.”

As I think about designing an artificial intelligence system that has a persistent data store, and living my every day life, I’m realizing that is a common mistake not only of great engineers, but most people.

I’m taking some DevOps training today from PluralSight which I got from a Manager at work while interviewing for a potential engagement. Did not get the potential engagement but initially I was trying to learn about AWS Serverless Lambda Functions which is what they were interviewing me to code (Java/Python).

Since I did not get the position, I have since refocused to OCI training (Cloud Architect Associate).

That short foray into AWS gave me some insight from outside of Oracle into the origins of cloud computing as a service in information technology.

As a continuation of my journey – I’d like to make a quick update to the 0 followers of my blog page. I believe that Cognitive Science carries an edge in intelligent system knowledge over computer science, though many artificial intelligence breakthroughs have occurred from prominent computer scientists (such as Alan Newell, Ilya (the guy from OpenAI who helped write the transformers paper) and engineering feats from NVIDIA. However, Cognitive Science carries an unseen edge over these two heavily engineering focused fields.

Let me be clear – computer science is the tool with which Artificial Intelligence has been carved from the marble of bits and bytes. Currently, computer science is the easiest idealized construction of the human mind.

However, I predict (haha), that in 10 years, or maybe even less, the major problems that we will face as a human society will need Cognitive Science thinkers to help solve them.

Ethical questions such as – what is sentience? If Artificial Intelligence becomes sentient, can we ethically use them?