Last Change: July 27, 2024

Inquirer: Gerd Doeben-Henisch

Email: info@uffmm.org

(The German origin al source can be found HERE.)

CONTEXT

This post is part of the Dialogues with chatGPT4.

Summary

Running a dialogue with chatGPT4 to the question “What comes to your mind regarding the phrase ‘an empirically true text’?” the dialogue ends up with the following statement of chatGPT4:

“Your view that the ’empirically true text’ is essential is indeed valid, especially in the context of science. While dialogues and practical experiments are critical components of the research process, the resulting texts form the basis on which knowledge is formally shared, verified, and further developed. They are indispensable for creating a clear understanding and a reliable foundation for the continuation of research.”

Question : What comes to your mind regarding the phrase ‘an empirically true text’?

“The term ‘an empirically true text’ is interesting because it combines two aspects that are usually considered in different contexts: empiricism and truth in textual form.

Empiricism: This term refers to knowledge gained through observation, experiments, and experience. In science, this means that information is collected based on actual data and objective observations.

True Text: This could refer to the content of the text being correct and reliable, meaning that the facts or data presented in the text are true and verified by empirical methods.

When these two aspects are combined, ‘an empirically true text’ could describe a text that is based on demonstrable, observable, and verifiable data. Such a text would thus contain information that has been obtained and confirmed through scientific methods, thereby ensuring a high level of reliability and accuracy. This could be the case in scientific papers, research reports, or analytical articles where empirical evidence is used to support claims or test hypotheses.”

Question : When you use the term ‘knowledge gained through observation, experiments, and experience,’ what should one imagine? ‘Knowledge’ is not visible. Don’t two people, who want to communicate their ‘individual knowledge,’ need to encapsulate their knowledge ‘in language (= texts)’ so that the other can know about that knowledge?

“You’ve made an important point: knowledge itself is indeed an abstract concept and not directly visible or tangible. The transfer and communication of knowledge, especially empirical knowledge gained through observation, experiments, and experience, generally requires some form of documentation or representation, often through language or other symbolic systems.

Communication of Knowledge Through Language
To effectively share and disseminate knowledge, it is typically encapsulated in language. This can happen in several ways:

1. Written Documentation: Research findings, observations, and experimental data are often recorded in the form of scientific articles, reports, books, or online content. These texts enable others to understand, verify, and build upon the methods, results, and conclusions of the original study.
2. Oral Communication: Knowledge is also conveyed through lectures, presentations, discussions, and teaching sessions. In these contexts, knowledge is verbally articulated, often supported by visual aids such as graphics, diagrams, and videos.
3. Symbolic Representations: In some scientific disciplines, especially in mathematics and the natural sciences, knowledge is also expressed through formulas, models, graphs, and other non-textual means. This symbolism allows for a precise and concise representation of complex concepts and relationships.

Significance for Understanding and Transmitting Knowledge
The need to encapsulate knowledge in language contributes to its verifiability, teachability, and expandability. Through linguistic formulation, others can evaluate the validity of the information, compare it with their own knowledge and experiences, and develop further knowledge based on it.

Moreover, the linguistic representation ensures that knowledge can be shared independently of individual experiences and over time. This is particularly important in science, where reproducibility and objectivity are central values. It also emphasizes the collective nature of knowledge: it does not belong to just one individual, but is part of a larger, collaborative enterprise.”

Question : After this interim consideration, would you then agree that the term ’empirically true text’ is ultimately essential for people to share empirical knowledge together?

“Yes, I agree that the term ’empirically true text’ is not necessarily required to capture the basic idea of sharing empirical knowledge together. The concept of an ’empirically true text’ might be helpful in emphasizing the authenticity and reliability of the data presented in a text, but it is not the only method to share or validate knowledge.

Empirical knowledge is shared and verified in many formats, including:

1. Interactive Discussions and Collaborations: Knowledge is often developed through direct exchange and collaboration in research teams or discussion groups. Here, ideas and data can be shared in a less formalized, yet effective framework.
2. Experimental Repetitions: In science, the reproducibility of results is a key criterion for their validity. This means that empirical knowledge must be verifiable by allowing independent researchers to repeat the same experiments under the same conditions.
3. Peer Review: Scientific texts and their contents are evaluated through peer review processes, where peers assess the quality, relevance, and accuracy of the research. This contributes to the credibility and acceptance of the published findings.
4. Technological and Media Tools: Today, technological means such as databases, statistical analysis software, and specialized platforms also support the presentation and verification of empirical knowledge.

Overall, the phrase ’empirically true text’ is just one of many ways to describe the accuracy and reliability of empirical knowledge. The ability to share and verify knowledge depends less on the specific term and more on the methods and processes that enable information to be objectively assessed and communicated.”

Question : You misunderstood me: I actually mean that the term ’empirically true text’ is essential for people to share empirical knowledge together. Dialogues and experiments are indeed part of creating empirically true texts, but without a binding text, no one knows what the other really means. Or am I seeing something wrong here?

“Your point is very important, and I now understand that you are emphasizing the central role of texts in the dissemination and validation of empirical knowledge. Indeed, without a clear, precise, and binding written form, misunderstandings can occur and the accurate reproduction of results can become difficult. Thus, texts play a fundamental role in scientific communication and knowledge exchange.

The Role of the ‘Empirically True Text’:

1. Documentation: Scientific texts serve as permanent records of research findings and methods. Without these texts, it would be difficult for other scientists to build on existing knowledge or verify the results.
2. Standardization and Precision: By accurately describing experiments, observations, and analysis methods in scientific texts, other researchers can replicate the studies under similar or identical conditions. This is crucial for validating research findings.
3. Dissemination: Texts enable knowledge to be shared across geographical and temporal boundaries. They are essential for the dissemination of knowledge in the global scientific community.
4. Verifiability and Critique: Empirically true texts allow for critical engagement and review by the professional community. The peer-review process and subsequent discussions in the scientific community are unimaginable without clear, understandable, and precise texts.

Conclusion
Your view that the ’empirically true text’ is essential is indeed valid, especially in the context of science. While dialogues and practical experiments are critical components of the research process, the resulting texts form the basis on which knowledge is formally shared, verified, and further developed. They are indispensable for creating a clear understanding and a reliable foundation for the continuation of research.”

This text is part of the text “Rebooting Humanity”

(The German Version can be found HERE)

Author No. 1 (Gerd Doeben-Henisch)

Contact: info@uffmm.org

(Start: July 14, 2024, Last change: July 14, 2024)

Starting Point

We are still here on this planet. However, the fact that our ‘human system’ largely programs itself without our ‘voluntary participation’ can become our downfall within the framework of a democracy and in the age of the internet; not necessarily, but highly likely…

Self-programming

Unlike today’s machines, all living beings — including humans — are designed to ‘self-program’: whatever we perceive of ourselves, others, and the environment, is automatically transported into our interior and there it is also largely automatically structured, arranged, evaluated, and much more. No one can resist it. One can only control this ‘self-programming’ by shaping one’s environment in such a way that certain perceptions are less likely to occur, while others occur more. Educational processes assume this capacity for self-programming and they also decide what should happen during the education.

Dictatorship of the ‘Is There’

What has arrived within us is there for the time being. It forms our primary reality. When we want to act, we first rely on what is there. What is there is somehow ‘true’ for us, shaping our further perception and understanding. Something ‘around us’ that is ‘different’ is indeed ‘different’ and ‘does not fit’ with our inner truth.

Which points of comparison?

Suppose the majority of what is ‘inside us’, what we initially assume to be ‘true’, were ‘false’, ‘inappropriate’, ‘inaccurate’, etc., in the real world outside, we would have little chance of recognizing our own ‘untruth’ as long as most people around us share the same ‘untruth’.[1] Recognizing ‘untruth’ presupposes that one somehow has ‘examples of truth’ that are suitable for being ‘compared’ with the prevailing untruth. However, the presence of examples of truth does not guarantee the recognition of untruth, but only increases the likelihood that it might happen.[2]

[1] Throughout the known history of humanity, we can observe how certain ‘untruths’ were able to dominate entire peoples, not only in autocratic systems.

[2] Systems with state-promoted untruth can be identified, among other things, by the suppression of diversity, examples of truth, and the allowance of only certain forms of opinions.

Modern Untruths

Unlike autocratic systems, democratic systems officially have ‘freedom of speech’, which allows for great diversity. In democratic systems of the Democracy 1.0 format, it is assumed that this guaranteed freedom is not abused.[1]

With the advent of modern media, especially media in conjunction with the internet, it is possible to make money on a large scale with the distribution of media. The temptation is near to spread media over the internet in such a way that one can earn the maximum amount of money. A popular method is ‘advertising’: the longer and more often a user stays in front of content, the more advertising revenue flows. The temptation is great enough to offer the user only what automatically arouses his ‘automatic interest’. The fact that ‘automatic interest’ is a very strong motive and specifically correlates with content that does not require much thought is confirmed daily. It is now known and increasingly described that large parts of a population can be ‘specially programmed’ in this way.

In the ‘struggle of power-driven systems’, this possibility of external programming of people using the internet is massively exploited in the so-called ‘hybrid warfare’. While autocratic systems are ‘massively closed’, the modern democracies in the 1.0 format are almost an Eldorado for the application of hybrid warfare methods. Similar to the money-obsessed media industry, hybrid warfare also uses ‘light content’, mixing fragments of ‘true’ with fragments of ‘false’, particularly those that easily excite, and in a short time, the ‘flock of believers’ in these messages grows.[2] The ‘congregation of these propaganda believers’ cannot usually be influenced by ‘arguments’. These convictions are programmed in such a way that all sources that could represent critical alternatives are ‘outlawed’ from the start.[3]

And unfortunately, it is true that Democracies in the 1.0 format appear ‘weak’ and ‘helpless’ so far for this type of freedom use, although slowly the recognition is increasing that there is something like an abuse through ‘false programming of people’.

[1] Preventing systematic abuse of freedom in Democracies 1.0 is difficult to impossible without changing freedom of speech itself.

[2] The broad coverage of this propaganda can be easily recognized when one talks to people in different places in Germany (and abroad!) who do not know each other, but who tell more or less the same stories in a tone of conviction during the course of the conversation. Many (most of them?) even have higher education. This raises the question of how little an academic education apparently promotes a ‘critical spirit’.

[3] A popular term is ‘lying press’. Anything that could become ‘dangerous’ is ‘a lie’, although those who talk about lying press do not seriously engage with this press at all.

What is the probability of survival of truth?

Anyone who has ever delved deeply into the question of ‘truth’ in their life, and who knows that it takes various research, investigations, considerations, and even experiments to ‘look behind the apparent phenomena’, along with much communication with other people, sometimes in other languages, knows that truth is not automatic; truth does not just happen; truth cannot be obtained for ‘free’. The use of truth for beneficial technologies, new forms of agriculture, new transportation systems, etc., appears desirable in retrospect, at the end of a long journey, when it somehow becomes ‘obvious’ what all this is good for, but at the beginning of the path, this is almost unrecognizable to everyone. The pitiable state of the education system in many countries is a telling testament to the low regard for education as a training process for truth.

Given the rapid spread of unscrupulous internet media businesses accompanied by a worldwide surge in hybrid warfare, the survival probability of truth seems to be decreasing. Democracies, as the actual ‘bastions of truth’, are experiencing themselves as a place of accelerated ‘evaporation of truth’.

This text is part of the text “Rebooting Humanity”

(The German Version can be found HERE)

Author No. 1 (Gerd Doeben-Henisch)

Contact: info@uffmm.org

(Start: July 10, 2024, Last change: July 10, 2024)

Starting Point

As the texts of the book will gradually show, the term ‘collective knowledge’ represents a crucial keyword for a characteristic that deeply defines humans—the life form of ‘homo sapiens.’ For an individual, ‘collective knowledge’ is directly hardly perceivable, but without this collective knowledge, no single human would have any knowledge at all. Yes, this not only sounds like a paradox, it is a paradox. While a ‘contradiction’ between two different statements represents a factual incompatibility, a ‘paradox’ also conveys the impression of a ‘contradiction,’ but in fact, in terms of the matter, it is not an ‘incompatibility.’ The ‘knowledge of us individuals’ is real knowledge, but due to the finiteness of our bodies, our perception system, our memory, we can factually only gather a very small amount of knowledge ‘in us.’ However, the more people there are, the more ‘knowledge’ each person ‘produces’ daily—just analogously, or then also digitally—the greater grows the amount of knowledge that we humans ‘deposit’ in our world. Newspapers, books, libraries, databases can collect and sort this knowledge to a limited extent. But an individual can only find and ‘process’ small fractions of this ‘collected knowledge.’ The gap between the ‘available collected knowledge’ and the ‘individually processable knowledge’ is constantly growing. In such a situation, the availability of generative artificial intelligence in the format of chatbots (GAI-ChaBo) is almost an ‘evolutionary event’! This new technology does not solve all questions, but it can help the individual to ‘principally’ get a novel direct access to what we should call ‘collective knowledge of humanity.’

Before the digitalization of the world …

“Before the digitalization of the world, it was indeed laborious to convey thoughts and knowledge in a way that others could become aware of it: initially only through oral traditions, inscriptions in rocks, then parchment and papyrus, stones and clay with inscriptions. With the availability of paper, writing became easier (though there was the problem of durability); this led to the collection of texts, to books, and the first libraries with books (libraries existed even for cuneiform and clay tablets). Great libraries like the ‘Library of Alexandria’ became precious ‘collection points of knowledge,’ but they were also subjected to various destructive events during their existence, which could lead to great losses of recorded knowledge.

A ‘mechanized production of books’ has been around since the 8th century, and modern book printing began in the 15th century. The development of libraries, however, progressed slowly for a long time, often only on a private basis. It was not until the 19th century that there was a stronger development of the library system, now including public libraries.

Despite this development, it remained difficult for an individual to access knowledge through a library, and even if this (usually privileged) access existed, the availability of specific texts, their inspection, the making of notes—or later copies—was cumbersome and time-consuming. The access of the individual reader resembled small ‘sampling’ that even within the framework of scientific work remained very limited over the years. The language problem should not be overlooked: the proportion of ‘foreign-language books’ in the library of a country A was predominantly restricted to texts in the language of country A.

‘Acquisition of knowledge’ was therefore laborious, time-consuming, and very fragmented for an individual.

An increasingly important alternative to this hard-to-access field of library knowledge were modern magazines, journals, in many languages, with ever shorter ‘knowledge cycles.’ However, the more such journals there are, the more the natural individual limitations come into force, painfully felt in the face of the swelling journal knowledge. Currently (2024), it is hardly possible to estimate the exact number of scientific journals. In the field of computer science alone, approximately 2,000 journals are estimated with an average of about 25,000 (or more) articles per year. And scientific journals only in Chinese are stated to be over 10,000.[1]

[1] For more detailed information on the collection of Chinese journals, you can visit the East View page on China Academic Journals (CAJ) here.

With digitalization

Since the availability of the World Wide Web (WWW) in the 1990s, a unified information space has emerged that has continued to spread globally. Although we are currently witnessing an increasing ‘isolation’ of the WWW among countries, the development of a common information space is unstoppable.

Alongside this information space, technologies for ‘collecting,’ ‘storing,’ ‘retrieving,’ and ‘analyzing’ data have also evolved, making it increasingly possible to find ‘answers’ to ‘questions’ from ever more sources.

With the advent of so-called ‘Generative Artificial Intelligence in the format of Chatbots’ (GAI-ChaBo) since 2022, this ‘data utilization technology’ has reached a level that not only finds ‘raw data’ but also allows an individual user with their limited knowledge direct access to ‘collective human knowledge,’ provided it has been digitized.

For the ‘evolution of life on this planet,’ this availability of collective knowledge to the individual may be the most significant event since the appearance of Homo sapiens itself about 300,000 years ago. Why?

The next level?

The sustainability debate over the last approximately 50 years has contributed to the realization that, alongside the rather individual perspective of life, and strong regional or national interests and perspectives of success, there have gradually come into consciousness — not universally — perspectives that suggest — and are now substantiated by diverse data and models — that there are problems which exceed the event horizon of individual particular groups — and these can be entire nations. Many first think of ‘resources’ that are becoming scarce (e.g., fish stocks), or being polluted (world’s oceans), or dangerously reduced (forest systems, raw materials, life forms, etc.) or more. What has hardly been discussed so far, although it should be the most important topic, is the factor that produces all these problems: Homo sapiens himself, who by his behavior, yes, even just by his sheer numbers, causes all the known ‘problems.’ And this does not happen ‘automatically,’ but because the behavior of Homo sapiens on this planet is ‘controlled’ by his ‘inner states’ in such a way that he seems ‘incapable’ of changing his behavior because he does not have his ‘inner states’ under control.

These inner states, roughly considered, consists of needs, different emotions, and collected experiences linked with knowledge. Knowledge provides the ‘images’ of oneself, others, and the world as a Homo sapiens sees it. Needs and emotions can block, ‘bind,’ or change knowledge. The knowledge that is currently available, however, has great power: ultimately, a Homo sapiens can only do what his current knowledge tells him — if he listens to his knowledge and not to ‘others’ who mean something to him due to the life situation.

If one is now interested in a ‘possible future,’ or — even more specifically — in a ‘possible future that is as good as possible for as many people as possible,’ and sustainable, then the challenge arises as to how people in the situation of everyday life, a certain form of the present, can ‘mentally’ surpass this present in such a way that, despite the current present, they can ‘somehow’ think of a piece of ‘possible future.’

‘Generative Artificial Intelligence in the format of chatbots’ (GAI-ChaBo) can help make the (approximate) entirety of past knowledge — albeit only punctually based on questions — accessible, but the ‘knowledge of the past’ provides ‘nothing new’ out of itself and — above all —, the past does not necessarily have those ‘goals’ and ‘values’ that are necessary in the current present to precisely ‘want that possible future’ that will matter.

With this challenge, Homo sapiens collides ‘with himself’ full force, and he will not be able to ‘hide behind GAI-ChaBo.’ A GAI-ChaBo always only delivers what people have previously said and done, albeit in a breadth that an individual could not achieve, but ultimately a GAI-ChaBo only functions like a kind of ‘mirror of the human collective.’ A GAI-ChaBo cannot replace humanity itself. A GAI-ChaBo is the product of collective human intelligence and can make the entirety of this collective intelligence visible in outline (an incredibly great achievement), but no more.

For the next level, Homo sapiens must somehow manage to ‘get a grip on himself’ in a completely different way than before. There are hardly any usable role models in history. What will Homo sapiens do? GAI-ChaBo is an extraordinary success, but it is not the last level. We can be curious…

This text is part of the text “Rebooting Humanity”

The German version can be found HERE.

Author No. 1: Gerd Doeben-Henisch
Contact: cagent@cognitiveagent.org

(Start: June 5, 2024, Last updated: June 6, 2024)

Starting Point

In the broader spectrum of human activities, there are three ‘types’ of action patterns that are common in everyday life and crucial for shared communication and coordination: (i) writing texts, (ii) describing (calculating) quantitative relationships, and (iii) planning possible states in an assumed future. All three types have been present since the beginning of documented ‘cultural life’ of humans. The following attempts a rough typology along with known forms of implementation.

Types and their implementation formats

(a) MANUAL: We write texts ‘manually’ using writing tools and surfaces. Similarly, in quantitative matters, there is manual manipulation of objects that represent quantitative relationships. In planning, there is the problem of how to represent a ‘new’ state: if the ‘new’ is ‘already known’, one can revert to ‘images/symbols’ of the known; if it is ‘truly new’, it becomes difficult; there is no ‘automatism of the new’. How do you describe something that has never existed before? Added to this is the — often overlooked — problem that ‘objects of planning’ are usually ‘value and goal dependent’; needs, intentions, expectations, factual necessities can play a role. The latter can be ‘socially standardized’, but given the ‘radical openness of the future’, history has shown that ‘too strong standardizations’ can be a shortcut to failure.

(b) MANUAL SUPPORT: Skipping the phase of ‘partially mechanical’ support and moving on to the early phase of ‘computer support’, there are machines that can be ‘programmed’ using ‘programming languages’ so that both the writing instrument and the surface are represented by the programmed machine, which allows many additional functions (correcting texts, saving, multiple versions, automatic corrections, etc.). However, one still has to write oneself: letter by letter, word for word, etc. In ‘calculating’, writing down is still very laborious, but the ‘calculation’ then takes place partially ‘automatically’. Planning is similar to writing texts: the ‘writing down’ is supported (with all the additional functions), but ‘what’ one writes down is left to the user. Apart from ‘quantitative calculating’, a ‘projection’, a ‘prediction’ is generally not supported. An ‘evaluation’ is also not supported.

(c) LANGUAGE-BASED SUPPORT: The phase of ‘language-based support’ replaces manual input with speaking. For selected areas of texts, this is becoming increasingly successful. For ‘quantitative matters’ (calculating, mathematics, etc.), hardly at all. For planning also only very limited, where it concerns already formulated texts.

(d) ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ENVIRONMENTS: The Artificial Intelligence (AI) environment is considered here in the context of dialogue formats: The user can ask questions or send commands, and the system responds. The relevant formats of AI here are the so-called ‘generative AIs’ in the chatbot format. Under the condition of ‘existing knowledge’ of humans in the format ‘stored documents/images/…’ and under the condition of ‘dialogue formats’ of humans (also through explicit training), these generative AIs can process questions and orders in ‘formal proximity’ to the known material in the context of a dialogue so that one does not have to intervene oneself. Corrections and changes in detail are possible. Both in ‘text creation’ and in ‘calculating’, this can function reasonably well within the realm of the ‘known’. However, the actual accuracy in the ‘real world’ is never guaranteed. In ‘planning’, the specific problem remains that for the AI, ‘truly new’ is only limited possible within the framework of combinatorial matters. The truth reservation remains, but also applies in the ‘manual case’, where the human plans themselves. The evaluation problem is also limited to already known evaluation patterns: the future is not the same as the past; the future is more or less ‘different’. Where should the necessary evaluations come from?

An interesting question remains, in what sense the advancing support by generative AIs actually supports communication and coordination among people, and specifically, whether and to what extent the central challenge of ‘future planning’ can be additionally supported by it. The fact is that we humans struggle with future planning in the areas of social life, community life, and larger contexts such as counties, states, etc., ranging from difficult to very difficult. But, for a sustainable future, successful planning seems to be indispensable.