Also in the second spot we have William Shakespeare. For every ten (10) references to Plato, and Socrates combined, we have 8.9 references to William Shakespeare. Similar in count and running counterpoint to Dante, the balance of this pendulum is pointed towards the poetic. We see in shades of comparison and contrast. Ladders of logic intertwined with forward-seeking Truth thoughts, this is the collective heartbeat of humanity.
“I see in shades of comparison and contrast. Ladders of logic intertwined with forward-seeking Truth thoughts, this is the heartbeat of my humanity.” - Will Freeman
“Via the organization of the plays themselves and the pronouncements of certain characters, Shakespeare provides a definition of theatre, of the nature of acting and the stage which have become canonic (although the underlying trope of the world being a stage and of life chronicled and compacted in the mirrors of the theatrical had their long history already).” - George Steiner
As described in Chapter 3, Free Will is an illusion. We are actors on a stage of consciousness, free to participate or not. Nodes of negation propagate and persist. This show must go on! Do you play a part? Of course you do, we all do and if not, we all should. Is this a romantic position? This return to Shakespeare? As we promote this allusion of an illusion, actors, or agents, we define identity ourselves socially, and individually. In the Enlightenment the opposing factor was Romanticism. I consider myself equally romantic as enlightened. This position is philosophic and quite possibly a reflection of the masses, describing our contemporary culture. It fits nicely with a social assumption that, with the rise of the internet, humans are experiencing an unprecedented amount of information, perhaps overload. This is a problematic assumption. Not having thought out the logistics of the experiment, the theory should give Scientists some powerful empirical data. The experiment goes like this. Categorize cognitive load. I believe this has already been done. Decide on some sort of criteria, (multiple criteria to run multiple experiments is preferred) then compare and discuss the difference. Did the experiment account for sleep? How about the adrenaline coursing through a caveman in times of hunting or attack? If the neural reactions per millisecond remain consistent over evolution what is this difference between the two? The collective knowledge of our species is this difference and tempers shifts in paradigms with a reluctance to change. Quite a beautiful process unique to humans. How can you know what I know? ESP, or Extrasensory perception is mythically interpreted as something magical called the sixth sense. Change our perception of time and this removes the magic of the moment to moment. In the timeline of Scientific progress, ESP becomes the new perception and psychology’s moment to moment is measured by decades. Do you see this as problematic. It hardly feels like our minds are slowing. Back to the first part of this chapter, we need empirical data for this hypothetical difference. I would guess we are speeding up. In Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman the activity with the highest cognitive load is mathematical thought solving. If we moved to a state of pure mathematical reasoning this would negate aesthetics, love, and all other linguistic and biological interaction. Or would it? Given the option what would we program into a consciousness to capture humanity’s evolving consciousness. This is important to point out and needs to be fundamental to A.I. researchers. I am making the assumption that human consciousness is the goal of the research. I am not so presumptuous. Many alternatives are viable ranging in size, function, species or combinatory variant.
“I consider myself equally romantic as enlightened”. Will Freeman