youkrst wrote:

DB Roy wrote:it appears to understand Joe's response but it is just mindlessly spitting out the response you programmed into it should the beverage answer contain the word "coffee."

it's fascinating because humans can work like this too, for example if you say to someone "i think we should help those less well off" and they spit out a pre-programmed response like "ooooh you're not a communist are you?"

then later if the conversation continues you can get past the pre-programmed responses to the real consciousness hiding underneath so to speak.

humans seem to me to work on two levels, a pre-programmed response level and a deeper "realer" more active level, getting us to actually think.... well, you can lead a human to slaughter but you can't make them think i jest of course as i remember all the effort people expended to encourage me to weed the garden occasionally.

I think our pre-programmed responses are for conversations with strangers and are designed to avoid confrontation rather than promote it being that confrontation does not contribute to survival and may very well be detrimental to it.

DB Roy wrote:I think our pre-programmed responses are for conversations with strangers and are designed to avoid confrontation rather than promote it being that confrontation does not contribute to survival and may very well be detrimental to it.

no doubt and i agree.

i was thinking more along the lines of "fear of thought" or "fear to have a mind of ones own" or "fear of being wrong" or "fear of being an outsider" etc etc

i meet a lot of people that are scared, scared more than anything by their own shadow.

"war on terror" "war on drugs" "war on crime" the fear machine keeps grinding the innards.

if it's the truth that will set them free then they are in trouble, they are scared of it. Scared of their own reflection.

i'm thinking though in the psychological sphere rather than day to day actual hazards. i mean i wouldn't tell a bunch of Cardiff fans down the pub that their team was shit, i'm not suicidal

so i was thinking perhaps fear reduces humans to turing machines.

Fear sells in America. Just ask the gun industry.

so true, it's interesting how fear sells and sex sells etc, so those who want us to buy their stuff or their lie have whole industries counter productive to human flourishing which are based on overcoming reasoned thought by heading it off at the pass with fear or sex or whatever else they can interject between us and a good understanding.

so my thoughts are leading to the conclusion that us humans can be reduced to "turing machines" by our more primal aspects such as fear, sex, power etc etc those baser aspects can cause us to go with pre-programmed responses rather than a course based on reasoned understanding.

no wonder those old sages said things like "know yourself"