How should I proceed here on the forum?
I am here with a plan. From the start I have been clear about my plan. I wrote about it in my subscription request to Jamal and I was told it was no problem as long as I followed the rules.
I am building a computer with super-human intelligence, a multi-year project. Independent of my success in this project, my plan, here on the forum, is to get a better understanding of the consequences of such a computer. Is it actually smart to build one?
That would be a perfect topic for this forum, except over the years I have developed a personal philosophy that contradicts modern philosophy at its core. That is, I don't see thinking as the ultimate way of finding truth. In fact, I see the limitations of human thinking as the source of most world problems.
People say I am in the wrong forum. I don't think I am. Philosophy hasn't always been rigidly grounded in theoretical thinking as it is today. It has been much more grounded in personal experience in different eras. There is also Eastern philosophy.
I do have some kind of model that describes my new approach. [edit] I've started to present its principles in my first posts. The same model that I want to use to discuss the consequences of this AI, also underpins the theoretical principles by which this super-human intelligent computer operates. In other words, the technology and the philosophy around it are both built on the same basic principles.
I have nothing against thinking, let that be said! I do a lot of thinking myself. But in order to see the limitations of thinking, it is needed to consciously take a distance from it, from time to time. I'd say 50% of the time. That is something we haven't learned in the West.
People who say my writing is not substantial, please read more closely. It might be unusual and not written as another theory-on-top-of-a-theory, but it is grounded in personal validation. Not that you must take my validation as the truth, I encourage you to validate it by yourself. That is why I tell you my personal experience, to show you how you can get there. Some topics you cannot understand by thinking alone, it is that simple. Everyday topics, I am not talking about transcendental stuff.
[edit]Posts of mine have been discussed as self-promotion and I still don't fully understand why. First it was about mentioning the name of the computer language, of which I also own a domain name. After I removed the website entirely and renamed the language here on the forum, the self-promotion argument kept returning. I believe that having a theory and trying to promote it over different posts is seen as self-promotion by the moderators. [/edit]To me, it is about the core principles of philosophy. But since moderators have the power to operate on their own accord, new ideas easily get banned this way.
So here is my question, given all this, how should I proceed here on the forum? Every time I try to present an idea, it is seen as arrogant and not open to discussion. The opposite is true, I am here for discussion. I am willing to change anything in what I do, and I actually did this several times already.
I am told to engange in other discussions. I find it difficult to do. I see a discussion "The (possible) dangers of of AI technology". What should I write: "I have a different view, let me explain"? You'll say, yes, that is what we all do here. But I feel often that there is no common ground to start the discussion, I'll just start annoying people.
I do expect at some point in the future there will be a number of people here on the forum who will see where I am going. I already offered to donate my domain name to the forum, in case there is need for a central reference.
Let me finish by saying that despite the opposition, I feel at home here. Nobody is willingly trying to hurt other people, I believe. Sometimes the tone is a bit harsh, but I can top that ;).
I am building a computer with super-human intelligence, a multi-year project. Independent of my success in this project, my plan, here on the forum, is to get a better understanding of the consequences of such a computer. Is it actually smart to build one?
That would be a perfect topic for this forum, except over the years I have developed a personal philosophy that contradicts modern philosophy at its core. That is, I don't see thinking as the ultimate way of finding truth. In fact, I see the limitations of human thinking as the source of most world problems.
People say I am in the wrong forum. I don't think I am. Philosophy hasn't always been rigidly grounded in theoretical thinking as it is today. It has been much more grounded in personal experience in different eras. There is also Eastern philosophy.
I do have some kind of model that describes my new approach. [edit] I've started to present its principles in my first posts. The same model that I want to use to discuss the consequences of this AI, also underpins the theoretical principles by which this super-human intelligent computer operates. In other words, the technology and the philosophy around it are both built on the same basic principles.
I have nothing against thinking, let that be said! I do a lot of thinking myself. But in order to see the limitations of thinking, it is needed to consciously take a distance from it, from time to time. I'd say 50% of the time. That is something we haven't learned in the West.
People who say my writing is not substantial, please read more closely. It might be unusual and not written as another theory-on-top-of-a-theory, but it is grounded in personal validation. Not that you must take my validation as the truth, I encourage you to validate it by yourself. That is why I tell you my personal experience, to show you how you can get there. Some topics you cannot understand by thinking alone, it is that simple. Everyday topics, I am not talking about transcendental stuff.
[edit]Posts of mine have been discussed as self-promotion and I still don't fully understand why. First it was about mentioning the name of the computer language, of which I also own a domain name. After I removed the website entirely and renamed the language here on the forum, the self-promotion argument kept returning. I believe that having a theory and trying to promote it over different posts is seen as self-promotion by the moderators. [/edit]To me, it is about the core principles of philosophy. But since moderators have the power to operate on their own accord, new ideas easily get banned this way.
So here is my question, given all this, how should I proceed here on the forum? Every time I try to present an idea, it is seen as arrogant and not open to discussion. The opposite is true, I am here for discussion. I am willing to change anything in what I do, and I actually did this several times already.
I am told to engange in other discussions. I find it difficult to do. I see a discussion "The (possible) dangers of of AI technology". What should I write: "I have a different view, let me explain"? You'll say, yes, that is what we all do here. But I feel often that there is no common ground to start the discussion, I'll just start annoying people.
I do expect at some point in the future there will be a number of people here on the forum who will see where I am going. I already offered to donate my domain name to the forum, in case there is need for a central reference.
Let me finish by saying that despite the opposition, I feel at home here. Nobody is willingly trying to hurt other people, I believe. Sometimes the tone is a bit harsh, but I can top that ;).
Comments (39)
Use the concepts, explain them, engage with other users about other debates. Write OPs that present an issue in a detailed manner with open questions in it, make arguments that have a clear form.
Quoting Carlo Roosen
Several people engaged charitably, in detail, and critically with your view, and not exclusively in terms of Kant. It was not a bad idea to make a connection with Kant, the way you presented some aspects of Kant's thought appeared to be common misconceptions. You can't expect people to only engage with your view on a topic, you must expect them to have their own views and try to see yourself through their perspective as well. Also note that no one complained about that particular topic, it is still on the main page.
Quoting Carlo Roosen
That is extremely close to evangelising from personal revelation. If your response to criticism is "validate my ideas experientially", rather than through conceptual analysis and dialogue, it isn't an approach that promotes discussion and criticism of your ideas. It promotes sharing your ideas without critical dialogue.
Quoting Carlo Roosen
The reason this is asked of you is because it would help establish that you are not solely interested in behaving like the above.
You've had this explained to you a few times now, in different ways, and I'm at a loss for how to help you understand these decisions further.
Not about that specific topic.
Do you mean from mods or other users?
I'll edit the post here to remove that confusion.
Hello, My name is Carlo Roosen and I would like to get an invitation to be able
to contribute to the website thephilosophyforum.com.
I have been working on a theory of Artificial Intelligence in relation
to human intelligence. I have written my ideas in a little booklet [link]
This book is not for sale or has no commercial goals whatsoever, I wrote
it as a guidance in order to build an AI myself, and make my own goals
more clear. I am a software programmer by profession and I decided to
take a year off to work on this project.
And here his answer:
Generally you're not allowed to share your link in posts, if that's the primary purpose of posting, but you can put it in your profile and mention it in your posts (e.g., "to see the argument in detail, see the link in my profile"), so long as you're setting out freshly worded arguments within the posts themselves rather than just directing people to the book. Simply copy and pasting from another source is frowned upon, although you can of course quote yourself and anyone else.
If you're happy with that, let me know and I'll send an invitation.
I sent PM's to several users (not moderators) for assistance, they did actually help a lot.
Even yesterday I got warnings like this: "Please engage with others' ideas on the forum as well, you were warned."
So if people say the moon is a cube, and I am telling them to look out of the window to see it is actually round, that is not allowed? Then if they start discussing about what a window is, is it not allowed to point it to them?
You deleted it first, it was only brought back with intervention of others
The reason for this was because the OP contained large sections verbatim copied from your book. You later clarified that you had taken your forum post and updated the book with it. Thus resulting in a mod discussion and a ruling to restore the thread. This has been explained to you as well.
For what it's worth, I argued in favour of restoring it given the supplementary context you provided.
On Thu, Oct 3, 2024 at 15:25 Carlo Roosen wrote:
Hi [Jamal],
This is a draft of the first post I plan to write on the forum. Please also look at the note at the end.
...
note: This text is adapted from a little book I am writing. A link to the
latest version of this book is on my profile page. Any feedback is welcome.
ItÂ’s good. It should produce a lively discussion.
[Jamal]
Quoting Carlo Roosen
And you were told by me:
Quoting fdrake
Verbatim copying from previously published material is grounds for thread deletion because it's either plagiarism or self promotion. Seeing as your post contained large chunks of verbatim text from your site, I deleted it. Since you later clarified that you copied from the site into your book, it was restored.
Jamal gave you a conditional acceptance of the post. Your post appeared to violate the spirit of that conditional acceptance - being identical, verbatim, to the material in your website. It was subsequently restored.
I know. And I checked your book and your post for text matches.
Quoting fdrake
Quoting fdrake
Asking others to validate my ideas experientially, why does that stop discussion? Others can come back and say: I looked out of the window and what I saw was that the moon is a banana. We'll have a great discussion after that.
And about the monster in my basement, I explained that these are two distinct goals, building the thing and verifying if it is a smart thing to do. Why is that pseudoscience?
So no, I really have no idea what I should do differently.
You can validate it yourself.
It is quite similar to inviting you to contemplate the varying connectivity of the oscillating dynamical graph - which is a particularly vivid image I had, even though "varying", "connectivity" and "oscillating" have no meaning beyond their impression to me in that context, and "dynamical graph" is an unarticulated technical term. If I disagree with you on the basis of your ideas' contradiction of the varying connectivity of the oscillating dynamical graph, you've got no recourse while staying on topic except to inquire about my worldview. In that regard it stifles discussion, or centralises it on me and and my mysteries.
If I unpacked that term with little to no detail over a series of posts, while repeating the demand to verify the ideas experientially, it would resemble evangelism. If I spent the majority of my time on the site doing that, it would be evangelism about the varying connectivity of the oscillating dynamical graph, and I would not be respectfully engaging with my interlocutors.
Compare that to a hypothetical post in which I fully explicate my understanding of a term and situate it in an engageable context. Also compare it to a revealed spiritual edict.
If my above remark appeared rude and stifling, what I have just described is the operating principle that made it so.
To answer the titular question:
Post on others' posts. If you start a new topic in the main forum try to utilize some resource or other -- you'd be surprised how many people of thought about similar things to yourself and usually they have insights. Even news articles or wikipedia pages are fine for this.
And The Lounge is pretty free-range -- most anything goes other than explicit rule violations.
And if you think some decision is wrong then that's what the feedback forum is for -- reversing decisions that were wrong.
Any questions?
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15500/human-thinking-is-reaching-the-end-of-its-usability
I posted 44 discussions since I joined TPF, and some of them are in The Lounge. It is not a big deal. It is fine to discuss threads that are not philosophically deep enough.
Read what I said. The same argument is held to me again and again, followed with comments like "you are warned" (which I interpret as a warning of being banned). And that argument is: "your way of making a point (by asking the readers' personal experience) leaves no room for discussion. It is evangelism". And here is an example post that is moved for that very reason, and the discussion is lively.
Not only lively, it discusses one of my statements, that thinking is powered by language. The objection is that some people think without words. That is new for me, and I think it is valuable input.
1) It's a mixture of the content quality,
2) the content's lack of overlap with academic philosophy or common philosophy discussions,
3) the style of engagement,
4) the frequency of thread creation
5) the singularity of interest in one's own already written work.
All of those things skirt the rules individually.
My defense:
1) opinions on this differ, many people have said they like my pieces
2) I didn't know that that was a requirement. I explained I have problems with theory-on-theory.
3) Same here, most discussions are theory-on-theory, I feel little overlap and rather start clean.
4) I took a year off for this project, and currently I am focussing on this forum. I can write less, but 1st time I hear this argument
5) I have addressed this is a possible problem from the start and got admins permission