martes, agosto 26, 2008

the illusion of taking responsibility from no responsibility

My response to Ben Goertzel in its article ISO a non-religious foundation for the process of "taking responsibility" . Goertzel is a greath matematician that study genetic algorithms and the structure of the mind from the Chaos and Complex systems theories. I´m reading his book "from complexity to creativity" and I think that he is full of greath ideas.

Ben said:

"Removing the obsolete, flawed quasi-religious concepts of blame, shame and so forth from one's inner mental landscape is an important step toward becoming a rational and self-aware, fully-realized person; but, once they are removed, they need to be replaced with something else ... they need to be replaced with a recognition of the mind as a holistic, complex dynamical system; and with a recognition of the role of the deliberative, , ratiocinative aspect of mind as modulating the complex nonlinear dynamics of the unconscious."

My response:

Yes to the explanation. No to the solution. What assures you that the absence of Blame and Shame will produce the same corrective results?. You are naive on that. Don´t you see that when you replace the self centered explanation by a rational explanation in terms of a holistic system you are justifying self indulgence?. If this what you call a fully realized person?.

You have to admit that practical realism ( that includes, but not only, the "moral responsibility" illusion) is an integral part of being human. If you reject the illusion of moral responsibility with their associated feelings, you have not the benefical correction. Or else, do you think that shame and blame was invented by religion and not by evolution for a reinforcing purpose?

After all, why you put the boundary between reality and obsolete-flawed-quasi-religious at that?. if we humans are nothing but temporal configurations of elementary particles by the dynamic of strange attractors, all else is illusory!

For example, I read you talking about good felings about your father. That is not rational! that is quasi religious!. Are your feeling in this case an obstacle for a self realized person?. Come on!. you are a brilliant scientist, not a moralist. Please consider the emergent concepts at their own level. No naive reductionism please!. Or else, in the process of reduction, don't give away the displeasing elements!!

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