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Comment by andrewtaneglen on The Other Existential Crisis · 2024-09-23T05:59:39.883Z · LW · GW

Continental moments are great. I feel like that's the end game once we transcend science and analysis.

Comment by andrewtaneglen on The Other Existential Crisis · 2024-09-23T05:55:14.562Z · LW · GW

Agree wholeheartedly. I'm trying to describe transcending the realisation of determinism, in the sense of not getting bogged down by it, to then go about living a good human life.

Comment by andrewtaneglen on The Other Existential Crisis · 2024-09-23T05:48:36.197Z · LW · GW

Cognitive effort is inevitable. It would take a special kind of 'person who fails the psychopath test', somehow lacking urges/feelings, to be able to switch off completely and fade into nothingness.

Comment by andrewtaneglen on The Other Existential Crisis · 2024-09-19T22:18:45.552Z · LW · GW

I think it's important to first accept the deterministic nature of the self (of one's self?), in the sense that we are an object determined by the interaction of atoms, and through our wetware is created the subject/our subjectivity. In the absence of AI we can already pass through this phase of realisation/acceptance (the nausea of the realisation of being an object).

To the question; so what do I do now?, we have the answer that our lives and behaviour, while in a sense deterministic, are also 'inevitable', in the important sense that regardless of any realisation, I will still go on living, responding to my 'subjective' urges/needs, will continue identify and attempt to carry out 'authentic' human behaviours and experiences. Nothing changes.

Our subjectivity is inevitable - and insofar as it is a creation of our wetware, our 'fabricated subjectivity' is true/authentic subjectivity - in a materialist world, can there be any other way for subjectivity?
So will be the case with super-advanced AI - we will still be human, our human behaviour/wants and needs will remain inevitable - we will still live human lives. We may be imprisoned, we may be freed of practical concerns, just like many of us are right now.

This feels like the intersection of Analytic and Continental Philosopy, the former being rigorous science-like analysis detached from subjectivity, the later being more closely concerned with the human experience.