8 ms·

Realise that there is no "your" thought. First of all, the language you acquire as a child, for years, indebts you deeply to society. The things you can think a

Realise that there is no "your" thought. First of all, the language you acquire as a child, for years, indebts you deeply to society. The things you can think are limited by the language delivered to you by society. If you are a so-called "creative" then you'll probably add a few words or ideas to that corpus, maybe you'll "re-organize" or "re-order" it a bit. That is an exception though. The idea of purely independent thought is an illusion. It follows that independent action is also an illusion (your idea of what to do next, as well, tends to be borrowed!) Thought is moving through mind to mind, and it has its own existence, its own nature. 1. All thought is fantasy 2. Some of that fantasy happens to pass the test of reality 3. Most thought is borrowed 4. Thought existed before you, will exist after you 5. Society is the manager of thought, not the individual 6. Thought advances as a whole 7. Without collective thought as a substrate, the individual won't function

chromoblob 3y ago
> The things you can think are limited by the language delivered to you by society. To even begin to decide whether this claim is scientific (testable), thoughts and their content need to be defined physically here. And why care about pre-given thoughts? I care about my emotions more. Thinking is just an utility guided by them. "What you think is good" is certainly more about emotion than ideas. One can walk back from their emotion, starting from a clean sheet, gradually reconstructing the desired idea by bit - most languages have the necessary primitives available. > The idea of purely independent thought is an illusion. There's no need for one's thinking to be dependent on anything more or less than reality relevant to one. No culture other than one's private own needs to be included as dependency. No need to copy or almost copy another culture as well. > It follows that independent action is also an illusion (your idea of what to do next, as well, tends to be borrowed!) My idea of what to do next comes from my rationality. Rationality can be rebuilt independently, at least in part that covers a big part of everyday life, when a minimal amount of education consisting of self-evident truths is given. So my behavior is only dependent on me having acquired a number of ideas useful to me individually that I have also sanitized. > 1. All thought is fantasy "All even integers are divisible by 2." What are you trying to imply? Fantasy can be made to conform to rules and to be useful directly as functional data. > 3. Most thought is borrowed "Most" by what metric? > 5. Society is the manager of thought, not the individual I think that an individual can become the "manager" of their own thinking as well by degree such as allowed by their cultural environment plus that of their capability. > 6. Thought advances as a whole What? > 7. Without collective thought as a substrate, the individual won't function Please explain in more detail why and what is 'collective thought'.
- atomicnature 3y ago
  > To even begin to decide whether this claim is scientific (testable), thoughts and their content need to be defined physically here. Where did you get the idea of "scientific"? Where did you get the idea of "begin"? Where did you get the idea of "definition"? Where did you get the idea of "physical"? Etc. You didn't create any of those ideas. Are you seeing how many ideas you are borrowing from society in a single sentence? I see society dancing through your mind! And if I keep going through your entire answer, "most" of the ideas are borrowed. Your "value-addition" is re-arrangement. In this case, the way you've arranged the ideas is full of holes (and eventually not enough to 'pass the test of reality') :)
  - chromoblob 3y ago
    When I tried to refute you, I remembered about basic concept of computing, the way the technological progress is generally made and technologies of security in general. These things are totally both essential and hardly rebuildable from scratch, and latter two may also need to be continuously developed. So there is a vital dependency on these. But outside of security concerns, if you have developed in a culture that contains the concepts of abstraction, general encoding and a basic set of abstract thinking primitives, have enough of abstract thinking skill and an inclination to think autonomously, you can rebuild any concept that you should care about practically. I posit that only the more "basic", primitive ideas are vital for effective thinking. If you lack them, you are screwed, but if you just lack higher-level ones, you can work around that easily if you care. And I think that the abstract thinking skills needed to build ideas are in large part not acquired directly from culture; they consist of some elementary abstract thinking ideas together with higher-level methods and other private mental tools which are rarely shown to you and which you typically develop on your own. I can see that one can be (un)privileged to develop in rich/poor enough culture. But one can audit their understanding of a culture - at least always in a most basic way, and again by a degree dependent on the amount of "hints" from cultural environment and personal capability. "The idea of audit" consists of 3 concepts available virtually to all, so if it isn't available, which it almost always is, it can be rebuilt if you care enough. Culture feeds you, but it can control you only by omission of essential general ideas of various levels. There aren't many of them, and they are self-evident, useful strictly for the user and can be used to rebuild any ideas missing from your environment that are needed to conduct a lot of stuff. > Are you seeing how many ideas you are borrowing from society in a single sentence? At least, when I borrow stuff, I analyse it, sometimes modify and then subscribe under the result. If I am sure that it is good for me, it can become mine. I have emotionally audited all of my thoughts. > Your "value-addition" is re-arrangement. On which level, though? You probably know how big is the myriad of electronic circuits that can be made from simple elements such as wires, resistors, capacitors, inductors, transistors and diodes and seldom other. And more complex circuits are made from simpler ones with ease (I don't mean effort, I mean viability of a decent result) using composition and interfacing, given decent skill. About "rearrangement", same applies, skill here being abstract thinking - although thinking is far more complicated than circuit design, I believe thought is compositional. Of course, there is no way around the dictionary of basic primitives, but it is available almost everywhere where there is relevance. Creation of data is "rearrangement" of a tiny set of digits. > the way you've arranged the ideas is full of holes (and eventually not enough to 'pass the test of reality') Either substantiate or don't write this. This is not helpful without an explanation. I would be interested to hear you address my point about construction of ideas.

chromoblob 3y ago

> The things you can think are limited by the language delivered to you by society. To even begin to decide whether this claim is scientific (testable), thoughts and their content need to be defined physically here. And why care about pre-given thoughts? I care about my emotions more. Thinking is just an utility guided by them. "What you think is good" is certainly more about emotion than ideas. One can walk back from their emotion, starting from a clean sheet, gradually reconstructing the desired idea by bit - most languages have the necessary primitives available. > The idea of purely independent thought is an illusion. There's no need for one's thinking to be dependent on anything more or less than reality relevant to one. No culture other than one's private own needs to be included as dependency. No need to copy or almost copy another culture as well. > It follows that independent action is also an illusion (your idea of what to do next, as well, tends to be borrowed!) My idea of what to do next comes from my rationality. Rationality can be rebuilt independently, at least in part that covers a big part of everyday life, when a minimal amount of education consisting of self-evident truths is given. So my behavior is only dependent on me having acquired a number of ideas useful to me individually that I have also sanitized. > 1. All thought is fantasy "All even integers are divisible by 2." What are you trying to imply? Fantasy can be made to conform to rules and to be useful directly as functional data. > 3. Most thought is borrowed "Most" by what metric? > 5. Society is the manager of thought, not the individual I think that an individual can become the "manager" of their own thinking as well by degree such as allowed by their cultural environment plus that of their capability. > 6. Thought advances as a whole What? > 7. Without collective thought as a substrate, the individual won't function Please explain in more detail why and what is 'collective thought'.

atomicnature 3y ago
> To even begin to decide whether this claim is scientific (testable), thoughts and their content need to be defined physically here. Where did you get the idea of "scientific"? Where did you get the idea of "begin"? Where did you get the idea of "definition"? Where did you get the idea of "physical"? Etc. You didn't create any of those ideas. Are you seeing how many ideas you are borrowing from society in a single sentence? I see society dancing through your mind! And if I keep going through your entire answer, "most" of the ideas are borrowed. Your "value-addition" is re-arrangement. In this case, the way you've arranged the ideas is full of holes (and eventually not enough to 'pass the test of reality') :)
- chromoblob 3y ago
  When I tried to refute you, I remembered about basic concept of computing, the way the technological progress is generally made and technologies of security in general. These things are totally both essential and hardly rebuildable from scratch, and latter two may also need to be continuously developed. So there is a vital dependency on these. But outside of security concerns, if you have developed in a culture that contains the concepts of abstraction, general encoding and a basic set of abstract thinking primitives, have enough of abstract thinking skill and an inclination to think autonomously, you can rebuild any concept that you should care about practically. I posit that only the more "basic", primitive ideas are vital for effective thinking. If you lack them, you are screwed, but if you just lack higher-level ones, you can work around that easily if you care. And I think that the abstract thinking skills needed to build ideas are in large part not acquired directly from culture; they consist of some elementary abstract thinking ideas together with higher-level methods and other private mental tools which are rarely shown to you and which you typically develop on your own. I can see that one can be (un)privileged to develop in rich/poor enough culture. But one can audit their understanding of a culture - at least always in a most basic way, and again by a degree dependent on the amount of "hints" from cultural environment and personal capability. "The idea of audit" consists of 3 concepts available virtually to all, so if it isn't available, which it almost always is, it can be rebuilt if you care enough. Culture feeds you, but it can control you only by omission of essential general ideas of various levels. There aren't many of them, and they are self-evident, useful strictly for the user and can be used to rebuild any ideas missing from your environment that are needed to conduct a lot of stuff. > Are you seeing how many ideas you are borrowing from society in a single sentence? At least, when I borrow stuff, I analyse it, sometimes modify and then subscribe under the result. If I am sure that it is good for me, it can become mine. I have emotionally audited all of my thoughts. > Your "value-addition" is re-arrangement. On which level, though? You probably know how big is the myriad of electronic circuits that can be made from simple elements such as wires, resistors, capacitors, inductors, transistors and diodes and seldom other. And more complex circuits are made from simpler ones with ease (I don't mean effort, I mean viability of a decent result) using composition and interfacing, given decent skill. About "rearrangement", same applies, skill here being abstract thinking - although thinking is far more complicated than circuit design, I believe thought is compositional. Of course, there is no way around the dictionary of basic primitives, but it is available almost everywhere where there is relevance. Creation of data is "rearrangement" of a tiny set of digits. > the way you've arranged the ideas is full of holes (and eventually not enough to 'pass the test of reality') Either substantiate or don't write this. This is not helpful without an explanation. I would be interested to hear you address my point about construction of ideas.