Same. The moment I finished the first book, I knew years down the road I ought to go back and re-read them all. I'm curious what is going to leap off the page and bite into my being through the next run.
Then you have to ask yourself: what is intelligence? Is Bakker truly intelligent as you think? After all, he has confessed, "You dont know anything." Meaning; "we humans dont know jack sh*t" which is actually true.
Good interview! I agree with Brown that that Bakker is too pessimistic. The future is likely to be weird, but I think the transition will be gradual enough to avoid serious whiplash as we muddle through. I think humans are mentally flexible enough to adapt - possibly with help from computers, as you mention with "All the Birds in the Sky". Facebook/Siri-style algorithms have both pluses and minuses. It may turn out that (to paraphrase the saying about capitalism), "the only thing worse than being manipulated by a computer algorithm is not being manipulated by a computer algorithm." In the computer AI vein, I was hoping Bakker would be asked about whether an artificial intelligence could be conscious. Would an accurate computer simulation of a brain be conscious in the same way that a real brain is? If not, why not? If so, how would this fit with his inclination towards EMF explanations of consciousness? How does he deal with "multiple realization" type conundrums (e.g., Tim Maudlin's "Computation and Consciousness", "Fading/Dancing Qualia" arguments, or scenarios explored by Hans Moravec's "Simulation, Consciousness, and Existence" paper and Greg Egan's "Dust Theory")? Also I'd have liked to see more of an exploration of the epistemological implications of "no free will". For example, if physics is a painting of reality created by a "blind brain"...then how likely is it that this painting closely resembles the "truth"? Without free will, aren't our ultimate conclusions about the universe already predetermined by the initial conditions and (possibly probabilistic) causal laws of the universe? Given this, how likely is it that these conclusions are accurate? Even evolution is just the playing out of initial conditions and causal laws, and so evolution doesn't really count as a fundamental explanation. On the implications of determinism for moral responsibility - again I think he was too pessimistic. We are just molecular machines, but if a machine malfunctions we repair it, or recalibrate it, or deactivate it. I don’t think it’s obviously true that society can accept determinism in those (or similar) terms and continue functioning - but it seems reasonably possible that it can. Medicine, psychology, and criminal justice can be seen as just "repair, recalibrate, and deactivate" under different names. Buddhism shows that there are options to western Christian-derived world views. I think Bakker has some interesting ideas about how society will react to a more scientific world view, but I don’t think he puts enough effort into exploring anything other than the worst-case scenarios. I’d be interested in hearing Bakker try to work through some of the more optimistic scenarios, even if they seem unlikely/low probability to him. Again, I wonder if some variation of Buddhism doesn't offer some example of a world view that is compatible with his views. I'd be interested in hearing Bakker's "big picture" view of how he thinks people/society ideally should be, given his views. If we believe his theory is correct, how best should we then act? How should the average north american change their behavior based on this new worldview? How should we treat others? With "enlightened self-interest"? Does it matter, beyond personal inclination? Does anything matter, really? And last, I’d like to put in a request for a James Tartaglia interview!
Danielius Wolford -- the author of the CotMS series and Little White Dwarf -- can answer that. You would be surprised as to how simple the answer is. The fact that you said that means that humans dont have the solution because they dont know the solution. Even Wolflord admits that he didnt know the answer because humans are ignorant and fallen in their nature. However, Wolflord soon DISCOVERED the answer. But this happened by becoming humble, cutting out his vanity, and dying to himself to know what the solution to society's problems is. But here is the problem Kelly: even when the solution to our world's problem is here, most dont want to know and simply dont care to know because they want to cater to their own selfishness -- their own fleshly desires -- just so they can feel whole when they are never whole and are slowly destroying themselves. People dont want the solution to society's problems because they want to continue to be apart of the problem -- whether they know it or not -- as humans loved darkness and hated the light. It is the reason why humanity in general will have a tragic ending. But the pain will be self-induced, having no one to blame but theirselves. P.S. Bakker will only come up with worst case scenarios because he understands how selfish and fallen humans really are. The fact that some people actually believe that they are just molecular machines (or like animals) proves that they are doomed to be damned.
There is something interesting about Bakker. He is obviously intelligent and well-read. But the non-fiction writing on his blog can sometimes be so dryly abstract that I'm not sure if he knows what he is talking about or his simply lost in arcane terminology. And I'm used to reading the most boring of academic books. I think he might be saying something important and meaningful. It's just surprising that, for a fiction writer, his philosophizing often lacks clarity of communication. Trying to understand him sometimes can be frustrating. I'm not sure if his thoughts are over my head or if he he is full of shit. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that it's simply my lack of comprehension. I've been following his blog for years. I keep hoping that I'll eventually catch onto what he is talking about. Maybe I'm a slow learner.
The abstraction is what bothers me the most. I've read a lot of social science, anthropology, linguistics, philology, etc. Where is the groundedness, human reality, and social expression of all this abstract theorizing? Where does the rubber meet the road?
Bakker does come close to this type of thing on occasion. For example, he has briefly mentioned Julian Jaynes in his blog. Jaynes covered the practical and personal implications in immense detail. But Baker never explores these implications, in never discussing Jaynes any further. It comes up and then is left unexplored. That is disappointing to me.
@@MarmaladeINFP Its disappointing because Bakker isnt smart as you are led to believe. Even Bakker himself confessed that humans dont know anything -- just as he himself doesn't know anything. I learned that it's very scary to look to the mind of another human to solve the deeper problems of reality because humans dont know CRAP. At least Bakker gets that part right. However, I came to discover that the rubber meets the road not in human philosophizing and pontificating that leads to nowhere, but in love -- divine love!! Love from above and not from a fallen, dying Earth doomed to destruction.
For a genius writer I found this interview a bit boring. It's like Bakker just wants to talk about his hobby horse (neuro philosophy) rather than his actual art which made him a success. This is a wasted opportunity. It's like interviewing the Martin guy who wrote G.M.T but he just talks about economics for an hour.
@@onemorebrown I think it was a great interview and absolutely fascinating to hear this side of the guy who has written such bizarre and intriguing fiction.
