Psychology, Spirituality and the Meaning of Life

Do robots have a soul?

We know they can solve problems efficiently and effectively, right from playing tic-tac-toe to the much more complex Chinese game of "go". They can drive cars without human help and do a lot of other things. But none of these address the HARD PROBLEM of AI.  

1. Can AI solve complex problems that it had never encountered before? Or is it just following a set of preprogrammed instructions?
2. Can AI be creative? Can it truly create Art?
3. Can AI understand my feelings? Is it capable of understanding (Verstehen)? Can it/he love me back?
4. Does an AI Robot understand the world as I do? Does it have qualia? How can we ever know?

Words have many potential meanings. Some of them are compatible some are totally arbitrary. For example, the word COCK  can be used as a verb as in cock your gun, but it's also used as a noun, meaning a male chicken. Of course, it could have other meanings too. When the word is actually used in a sentence to convey a meaning one of these potential meanings is actualized (the connotative meaning) for the life of that utterance. Once its life is over the word returns to its natural state. the WORD SOUP. Here words exist in a constant state of flux and they are loosely connected with each other. After use, when a word goes back to its natural state in the soup, it takes some of the meaning from its recent use.

The word soup cannot be adequately described because any description takes on some meanings and excludes others. Sometimes when we use a word for its denotative meaning, its alternative meanings remain like faint echoes adding a texture to the meaning - the connotative meanings. A good wordsmith carefully chooses words based on their denotative meaning, but he chooses the right word to use... from among synonyms, for their connotative meanings, adding just the right texture to what is said. 

This is the distinction between the conscious and the unconscious. Anything that can be said about the word soup is inadequate because the very utterance actualizes only one part of the potential meanings. The unconscious word soup cannot be captured in formal logic. Our best bet is to use loosely structured means that themselves do not have fixed meanings, the world of metaphors and art.

Most of the things we do in life do not require the allocation of the full processing power of our brain. What do we do with the idle processing power? Some people bite their fingernails, some people doodle or draw... but for some people the brain processes negative and scary thoughts. Whenever I sit down to write, I find that my mind wanders off in every direction and I cannot write. Giving the idle mind something to do can result in surprising discoveries. Mindful breathing is one way to do it, another way is to chant a mantra, even though you already know the words and its meanings.

After a disastrous season, I am relaunching my podcast season two. I dedicate this season to my childhood hero... not Robert Bruce, but the spider who inspired him.

Pine and Gilmore in their Harvard Business Review in 1998 presented us with a new way of looking at the Post-Industrial Economy. They called it the Experience Economy. In this podcast we explore what work would be available in the Experience Economy and how can we prepare to be productive in such an economy.

In a post-industrial society, we no longer consume products and services. How can Fine Arts and Performing Arts help us understand the new emerging reality? How can we prepare our youngsters for the society of the future?

What can you do for the company? 

Can you CREATE something for me?

My calculation goes like this.

1. Will she fit in and work with others or will she hold others back?
2. How long does it take for her to become productive in the workplace? Will she stick around that long?
3. Can she do what she is asked or will she spend too long overthinking?
4. Does she have the courage to do things without asking for confirmation for everything? Can she see the big picture?

Once upon a time companies would recruit people and then wait for them to become productive. Today, you are expected to hit the ground running. Creative Jobs are jobs where you are expected to create an output, a deliverable.  

When I was young, I disliked old people. They love to give us sermons, telling us what is right and what is wrong. Sometimes they would talk about interesting experiences they have had, but that was rare. I decided I never want to grow up. But now that I am nearing 60, I realized two things.

1. One can prepare for growing old. After all we spend our entire youth preparing for adulthood

2. Growing old can be fun and old people are not boring...  just that some people are, it's got nothing to do with age.

An increasing number of people are telling us the same thing about the future. That its going to be very different from life as we know it today. But some important questions are left out. Does an increase in processing power (artificial intelligence) automatically result in conscious awareness? When does a system become self-aware? Will there be one central intelligence in the future or will we have an ecosystem of intelligent agents living together with human beings?

The most important question is... what do these predictions mean to you? How many of us give that important question any serious thought?

Perhaps we got it all wrong? Perhaps using the methods of science to study human behaviour is a wrong idea? In this episode, we explore Wilhelm Dilthey's idea that explanations offered by a scientific approach do not necessarily make it easier for us to understand human beings. What does it mean to truly understand a person?

All aboard that is going aboard!! Lets take a deep dive into life, the world and what it all means...