Monday Notes: Yes, life is unpredictable… Let’s celebrate it!
Yes, life is unpredictable… Let’s celebrate it! In the here and now, the only certainty we occupy. Prediction becomes impossible, but every question I ask is a bridge to the future I dream to create, not a prediction but an expectation I have, by living and flourishing in the present moment. But the challenge remains… How to built such a bridge in a complex world with no linear causality? How to take into account both the micro and the macro whole-system level? This seems to beyond the capabilities of a human psychology practitioner. However, unpredictability is always entangled with an array of possible opportunities: roads to choose and follow. It is up to own’s personal agency to open up the necessary sensors and realize the opportunity; an opportunity that does not exist before you see it and name it so, as an opportunity. [A useful visualization: Imagine a rhizome, a multiplicity of interconnected entities, manifestations of a single super-organism. Now think of all the possible interconnections being oscillating in a strange attractor pattern, a different one each. Now thing of predictability in any part of the Rhizome. At the global level you still have a kind of inconceivable order]. Monday notes is a reductive process, as far as the composer interprets and reduces each personal reflection to a couple of lines. At the same time, by interpreting these reductions in their relation, that is through the context that they all together create, Monday notes allow for an emergent layer, the pattern that connects the (definitely reduced) dots. Monday notes can be thought as a spiraling process: it reduces to emerge to a next cycle of the spiral. Spiraling is a moving forward process. But if we want to induce a change at a system, where we start? At the micro or at the macro level? Egg or chicken first? A new player in the already messy game. Artificial Intelligence. More blurry variables in the complex causality equation. killing robots and drones, is this sci-fi? And how systems thinking, emergence, and macro patterns can help us? That is the question. We can predict the eclipses of the sun and moon, but not the whether in a few days from now. From predictability to unpredictability … it is just an extra one twist road: Möbius strip. And why not to imagine the metaphor of the bridge, as a Mobious bridge? That would be a strange bridge definitely. And remember that it is impossible to predict how the bridge to a complex future would look, before it is created. In any way, even if predictability was possible, would render life boring. Let’s celebrate complexity and creativity. We look for causes in the past, when the causes of our present actions should be searched in the future. In the future we want to create, not to predict, with our actions. And that’s why is totally useless to torture ourselves with a what if logic about our past. what if I have done the things in a different way. Unpredictability allows for freedom and creativity. But in any case, when intervening on human systems, it’s not about prediction. Psychotherapists and systemic practitioners are not Gods to predict the future. It is only a matter of creating the optimal conditions for flourishing and then step back and wait. And intervene again if necessary. And that’s how the therapy spiral is unfolding.
Unpredictability, Artificial Intelligence and Singularity
IBM’s Jon Iwata on the Intelligence of Watson (07:21)
Vernor Vinge on the Technological Singularity (02:51)
PostHuman: An Introduction to Transhumanism (11:11)
Elon Musk: Humanity Is a Kind of ‘Biological Boot Loader’ for AI
Our short brainstorming at the end of the class:
And the other side of the coin
Can a Computer Ever Learn to Talk?
The Technological Singularity Hypothesis
.
.
.
.
Engineered babies
“A Chinese scientist triggered alarm and confusion across the scientific community Monday with the claim that he had edited the DNA of human embryos to create twin baby girls, Lulu and Nana, who he said had been born “crying into the world as healthy as any other babies” a few weeks ago.” From The Washington Post, November 26th
Video (01:58)
Genetic Engineering Will Change Everything Forever – CRISPR (16:03)
.
.
.
Detailed Monday Notes: Yes, life is unpredictable… Let’s celebrate it!
(16 reflections compiled until Monday night)
“The need to predict… why we are talking about prediction even though most of us agreed that one can’t really predict what is happening. Why is it so difficult for us to just accept that we can’t control everything, or rather anything? … To me the beauty of human beings is the unexpected. It can be a good and a bad surprise. … why is there a need to predict everything?… to have a feeling of control … we need to predict to make decisions … but more often we are wrong. Our predictions turn out to be completely misleading. … But why do we need to ask a child what he*she wants to do with her live? Why do I need to know what I want to do with my studies? Why do we have the need to say “I Told you so”? Why do we need to understand and explain EVERYTHING? By always looking back for a cause, or ahead for a change we might miss the here and now.” –nowordsneeded
Yes, life is unpredictable… Let’s celebrate it! In the here and now, the only certainty we occupy.
“Unpredictable Predictions…What if the questions that we ask constitute the answers that we give? Do we have the chance to anything more than just a self-fulfilling prophecy? … Asking the real questions, putting the question marks in exactly the right places, might say more than a thousand exclamation marks …What if it is … [this] that enables us to walk paths that were previously not visible to us .. [E]very question … is already a bridge, a journey from here to there, crossing over to the other side …Formulating statements about the future is … is the attempt to predict the unpredictable. For what? Security? Freedom? Justification? Creating sense? Meaning? Knowledge? Power? Money? … the paradoxical attempt to predict the unpredictable. … Predictions are a tool, helping us navigate through life. They offer orientation and support. We think and act according to them….In my personal opinion, we should live according to the idea of “remembering the future”. … one should be able to reflect on one’s own and collective expectations of the future and, in particular, we have to confront ourselves and deal with the present, positively influencing both our own well-being and the future. We should not let it happen that we seek and find security and existence in the future, but make sure that we create them in the present.” –acceptallrealities
Prediction becomes impossible, but every question I ask is a bridge to the future I dream to create, not a prediction but an expectation I have, by living and flourishing in the present moment.
“Sometimes it is hard to make a connection between theories and practical experience in psychology. But … How can we built such a bridge in a complex world?If we want to understand a persons behavior, we have to reduce the complexity for making a prediction. This is used, for example, in clinical psychology in the field of intervention… The behavior of a person is often not predictable if you just look at the micro-level. … [the slightest difference it the] initial condition causes a totally different behaviour (complex causality). You have to consider the macro-level, you have to watch at the whole and then you can see something which seems to have a logic. … But in the practice of psychology it is not really possible to look at a person with all its relationships, environments, experiences etc. The interventions often focus on parts, because there is no other way to implement them. But this makes it very difficult to recognize a general structure.” –chocolatelover98
But the challenge remains… How to built such a bridge in a complex world with no linear causality? How to take into account both the micro and the macro whole-system level? This seems to beyond the capabilities of a human psychology practitioner.
“Life is always unpredictable … we do live in a system of complex causality and life is an example for this complex causality where prediction is not really possible for most cases. Everything which is happening is dependent on so many different factors which makes prediction super difficult. How our path in life is going to look like mostly in my opinion depends on the people we meet and the opportunities we use. … There are so many options to choose from and you never know where you are going to end up in 10 or even 5 years. … in the macrolevel and we are able to see certain patterns but in the microlevel it is still really unpredictable. Some things are more likely to happen of course but in general you never really know…” –somewhereinathens
Unpredictability is entangled with infinite opportunities: roads to choose and follow. it is up to your personal agency to open up your sensors and realize the opportunity; an opportunity that does not exist before you see it and name it so.
“Causality, pendulum and predictability … we are all part of a rhizome, we are in a relation to other people and different circumstances. These relationships can also be compared to a double pendulum – we interact and influence each other, but this will never be really predictable. There is a complex causality surrounding us and we can just try to find a pattern. … We can’t predict what our future will look like, even if we want to do so.” –strawberrykid
[A useful visualization: Imagine a rhizome, a multiplicity of interconnected entities, manifestations of single super-organism. Now think of all the possible interconections being a oscillating in a strange attractor pattern, a different one each. Now thing of predictability in any part of the Rhizome. However, at the global level you still have a kind of inconceivable order.]
“Spiraling … This week’s session was the first I got a little distracted in. … And as much as I like the course, we approach systems theory as if we were trying to change our perspective and have a more holistic view, but what I saw from Monday Notes is still pretty egocentric and self focused. I don’t say that this is bad. This is the way we were raised, how people in our culture think and how are brains are used to process information…. So the main thing I learned this week was that it’s so hard for us to adapt to complex or holistic thinking structures. Maybe it isn’t possible for us at all … I feel like everybody (including me) tries to incorporate the new things we learn in class, throw around some fancy words and metaphors; which is nice and sounds good, but at the moment I feel like we’re spiraling. … it’s important to not only get rid of the symptoms, but getting to the bottom of a disease in order to heal it. Otherwise it will always just be a short term solution, that maybe keep the individual functioning, but prevents it and with it the whole system from flourishing. Just head above water all the time trying to survive, getting a little help once the water reaches the mouth and it seems as if it’s going to drown, and then letting it try to survive just head’s above water again. Because the water keeps coming. The system doesn’t change. Caught in a cycle. So in a systematic approach we should possibly try to heal systems that lead to individuals drowning, instead of picking out every drowning individual to help it recover a little and then just put it back into the water. How can we change a system (to the better – what is the “better”?) in which so many individuals and variables are involved that can’t be easily anticipated or even “controlled”?” –sweetashoney
Monday notes it is a reductive process, as far as it interprets and reduces each personal reflection to a couple of lines. At the same time, by interpreting these reductions in their relation, how each reduction is related to the context that all together they create, Monday notes allow for an emergent layer, the pattern that connects the (reduced) dots. Monday notes can be thought as a spiraling process: it reduces, to emerge to a next cycle of the spiral. Spiraling is a moving forward process.
“interconnectivity … It terrifies me at the same time because humanity has a lot of experiences with each other and with the nature, has a lot of knowledge through sciences and history and still makes a lot of mistakes again and again. Often just the same mistakes… So if the interconnectivity in the society and nature so strong that we all depend on each other, where should we begin to study the actions to do positive changes? What comes first: Egg or a chicken? Micro or macro level? Or is it just a play with perspectives again?” –itsright
But if we want to induce a change at a system, where we start? At the micro or at the macro level? Egg or chicken first?
“Killing drones and unpredictability … We live in an ad hoc era. … We are facing many problems for which we need the fastest solutions, and each one of them has a massive importance for our future. Climate change is my first example, but the arrival of Artificial Intelligence is for sure my second one. How to get AI stronger without risking it to be hacked ? … The chain of causality is unknown, there are too many options, too many blurry variables. … once small killing drones will be produced in a chain, they will not cost more than a smartphone. The countries who will benefit from these advances and from a weapons’ race are not the biggest or the richest, but the small and cunning ones, who host the terrorists organizations. But now, how can the emergence principle help us in any way for this matter ? How is looking at the big picture going to improve our understanding of something so unpredictable and unstable ? That, I would like to know.” –elerasmus
A new player in the already messy game. Artificial Intelligence. More blurry variables in the complex causality equation. killing robots and drones, is this sci-fi? And how systems thinking, emergence, and macro patterns can help us? That is the question.
“This week’s class brought to our attention the notion of chaos. And no. This time it isn’t related to the current state of your student’s apartment, to your already exceeded Erasmus budget and/or to your latest romantic relationship(s). Here the term takes a different meaning. Thus, by “chaotic” understand “unpredictable due to the extreme sensitivity of an initial condition”. Wow. Ok. Goodbye Psychology, welcome back nerdy sciences. It’s actually interesting to understand why humanity can predict a solar eclipse several thousand years in advance with precision to the second, send men to the moon, but still not forecast the weather of its own planet further than three days… The notion of unpredictability due to initial slightly changes made me think of the Möbius strip. Maybe have you heard about it before? Well, while drawing a line on a Möbius strip depending the position of your pencil the result after cutting the strip are significantly different. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-19NLKxNUc ” –doyoucopy
We can predict the eclipses, but not the whether in a few days from now. From predictability to unpredictability … it is just an extra one twist road: Möbius strip.
“This week, we spoke about the differents issues related to climate change. We build the metaphore of the bridge. We need inovations to build a new world more environmentally friendly to protect future generations and we come to the conclusion that we have to build the bridge to the futur.” –phiphiii
And why not to imagine the metaphor of the bridge, as a Mobious bridge?
“How to build ‘bridges’ while there is not in a traditional way? My thought is that the first bridge wasn’t built with any example or in a simple way. They had reflections on it and they became creative to build it. So, why can’t we create new bridges with the future even if it is a complex system? … Even if it is complex, we adapt ourself and we try to find the best solution. Then, with this solution we wait for results and depending on them we find an other solution again.For me, the most important thing is not that we are living in a complex system, but it is how creative can we be to make a better world? We won’t take only good decision but we have to try to rectify our wrongs and to control most of things which is happening.” –erasmusblackout
And it is impossible to predict how the bridge to a complex future should look, before we have created.
“I can only be responsible for myself and my own actions. Everyone has to set his priorities by his or her own. I can help or even influence other people, but their decisions does not lay in my hands (and I don’t want it to lay in my hands). Our lifes will not be like a classical pendulum … This would be boring. Predictable. I do not want my life to be like a drain, where despite all of my efforts I will end up at the predicted place. .. Do we want to walk through life with an airbag in front of us and a seatbelt fastened? I don’t. I will end here. But I will show you one of my favorite movie clips. I know, it’s just a silly boxing film, but somehow I end up watching it again and again. “until you start believing in yourself, you ain’t gonna have a life.” –pleasemindthegap
In any way, predictability would render life boring. Let’s celebrate complexity and creativity.
“System theory riddle … I understood that every starting point is a world on its own, and often (or actually always) the story and the developments are unpredictable. … as psychology students we are often told that the first step to an improvement in mental health is recognizing we need help and search for someone capable of untangling a difficult situation. As someone who is approaching a future job in psychology, my question is: how could the therapist track back in a complex system the cause to a disease and find creative solutions, when the patient itself is not fully aware of its own inner world?” –caffelover
We look for causes in the past, when the causes of our present actions should be searched in the future.
“Scenarios … Everything that happens to us has an origin and a cause that we need to find in our previous choices or behaviours, we said. … Creating scenarios is necessary for human beings, it makes possible to plan the future and take long-term decisions, that’s why we are so good at it. … We cannot predict how things would have gone … Life is already painful enough, let’s stop to torture ourselves.” –columbedda
And that’s why is totally useless to torture ourselves with a what if logic about our past. what if I have done the things in a different way.
” If we can´t predict development within systems we also can´t predict the outcome of our own behaviour happening within a system. This may lead to a sense of helplesness and the inability to steer our own lives in the way we want it without beeing steered by every little change happening in the system. But it not necessarily has to be. it also gives us the freedom to just behave. Without the need for an necessary endpoint our behaviour has to reach behaviour surely becomes free. And on the other hand every thing we do may influence the system around us. We just dont know how.” –orangensaftpur
Unpredictability allows for freedom and creativity.
“A lot of times I think about what is being a psychologist. Sometimes we see a big problem or a big dysfunction in a person or in a system. What I learnt in this class is that psychology is not about control systems, but about facilitate or create the conditions that will help the health of the system, the fluence of it, the environment. Healing the system is healing the persons involved.” –almanzor
It’s not a matter of prediction. It is a matter of creating the optimal conditions for flourishing and then step back and wait. And intervene again if necessary. And that’s how the therapy spiral is unfolding.