Cute

Cute is a great defense. It’s partly why puppies survive more easily than spiders. Yeah, I know there are a lot more spiders around, but that’s because so many more of them hatch than puppies are born. 

Cute is why we are more patient with kids than we would normally  be with self-centred narcissistic centres of attention. 

I confess that I give preference to Cute. I am kinder, gentler, and more engaging when confronted with Cute, and this is true of both humans and non-humans…..animals I mean, not aliens. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cute alien, but if I did, my guard would be down and I might not see the tentacle coming.

Doctoring Businesses and Their Owners

One of the advantages of supervising a firm that prepares SRED claims is the exposure to some interesting disruptive technologies. There was a time when what I was seeing usually seemed not so interesting in that regard, but now more and more I see significantly transformative processes and tools being developed. I won’t go into details here because I don’t know who nor what you are. I am discreet when it comes to the affairs of people who are relying on me for advice. 

Sometimes I am involved with helping these firms in other ways. What would be the point of being a doctor of business admin otherwise? I quite enjoy helping owners, particularly young people, think outside the box and creatively resolve problems they are facing. Sometimes these problems are more personal as well. Always a pleasure to make a positive difference in someone’s life, whether it’s developing a business strategy or a solution to a personal problem, and then following up with encouragement and sometimes correction (the father in me, I guess). 

The point is that life is a lot better with creativity and love that it is without it. Love is an inexorable power. The Bible says God is love, and that makes sense to me seeing as how both may be described with the same adjectives.

A.I.: Human?

I have puzzled in this blog before about artificial intelligence. Is there A.I. that is conscious? I guess that depends on how we define consciousness. If we simply mean awareness of and responsiveness to surroundings, then maybe we have A.I. that is conscious, but that depends on what it means to be aware. If awareness is only perception at its most basic level, then we do have A.I. that qualifies…..I think. Or is it all just imitation? Do we have a machine that has a higher potential than facilitated by its programming? Of course, determinists say that humans are programmed and always function according to cause and effect with no freedom to vary from the pre-determined path, and if that were true, we would need no such machine for it to be conscious. 

I confess that I am groping for understanding of how we humans differ from A.I., a pursuit made more difficult by the sometimes obscure nature of what and who we really are. Science has not been able to explain consciousness. Some have sought to explain consciousness in terms of chemical and physical processes. The randomness of free choice is not explained by any of that. I am convinced that our brains are only a part of the process. There is a spiritual component --- an energy if you like --- a process related to another dimension. I do not think consciousness can be explained any other way.

Animals have consciousness also. There was a recent article in Atlantic about that. I suggest it as a read. I think that animal consciousness is only explainable in the same terms as our own, and I do not think that machines possess it: I define consciousness differently that I did above, although I cannot tell you how. I just think consciousness is more than how I defined it.

We look for awareness to be manifested in seeming randomness of behavior. Some makers of A.I. build randomness into their A.I. operations to simulate intelligence. I think doing that just introduces inefficiencies into the process. But did you notice? I started off with conscientiousness and am now writing about intelligence as though they are the same thing. Yeah, I am confused.