<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Sorry, Steve, to be a bit off topic here, but your reference to "certain codes of personal conduct" emerging from institutions of "higher education" are now considered racist. And I suggest that the list take a look at this amazing piece in a recent NYTimes titled "Whiteness Lessons". Your generation may not be able to tackle the article with an open mind, but I suggest that we need to pay close attention.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/magazine/white-fragility-robin-diangelo.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/magazine/white-fragility-robin-diangelo.html</a><br></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 9:58 AM Steve Smith <<a href="mailto:sasmyth@swcp.com" target="_blank">sasmyth@swcp.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<p>As I read the interchange about GPT-3 and the Chinese room, I was
drawn off into side-musings which were finally polyped off to a
pure tangent (in my head) when DougC and NickT exchanged:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>NLT> Dog do joy; why not computers? <br>
</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>DC> dog is highly interconnected - hormones, nerves, senses,
and environment. neurons are not binary . every synapse is an
infinite state variable.</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal">While Joy and humor are not identical, there is
some positive correlation. Poking around, I was only mildly
surprised to find that there was a body of literature and in fact
international organizations and conferences on humor (not mimes or
clowns or stand up comedians, but real scholars studying the
former as well as regular people). I was looking for the
physiological complexes implied by humor or joy. I haven't (yet)
found as much on the topic as I would like, maybe because I got
sidelined reading about 2 neologisms (ca 2007) and a related
ancient (Greek) term: <i>Gelotophobia</i>, <i>Gelotophilia</i>,
and <i>Katagelasticism</i>. My limited Italian and Spanish had
me reading it as "Gelato" or "Helado" which translates roughly
into our own "Ice Cream", though the ingredients differ toward
less rich technically.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Their meanings, however are roughly: Fear of
being laughed at; Love of being laughed at; and the Pleasure of
laughing at others. These are apparently more than the usual
discomfort or warm feelings we might get from being laughed at, or
from laughing at others, but a more deep and acute sense of it.<br>
</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.wired.com/2011/07/international-humor-conference/" target="_blank">https://www.wired.com/2011/07/international-humor-conference/</a></p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/14037/1/Ruch_Proyer_PhoPhiKat_V.pdf" target="_blank">https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/14037/1/Ruch_Proyer_PhoPhiKat_V.pdf</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Part of why I bring it up on this list is because as I study
myself and others as we exchange our ideas, observations, and
occasional (un)pleasantries, I am fascinated by the intersection
between (convolution amongsT?) personal styles and perhaps more
formal "training" each of us might have learned from our parents,
among our peers, by our teachers, our workplaces, possibly
professional organizations, etc. <br>
</p>
<p>It appears to me that institutions of higher education
enforce/impose a certain code of personal conduct first on their
participants (undergrads, grads, postdocs, staff, faculty) which
is a microcosm of the larger world. White Collar and Blue Collar
contexts are also similarly dissimilar, and within those, a
cube-farm of programmer-geeks and a bullpen of writers, and a
trading floor of traders (all white collar, taking their showers
at the beginning of the day) have a wide spectrum while blue
collar workers (taking their showers at the end of the day) do as
well. Construction crews, oilfield roughnecks, cowboys,
farmhands, etc. each have their own myriad ways of
interacting... sometimes *requiring* a level of mocking to feel
connected, etc. There may also be a strong generational
component... as we cross roughly 3 generations.
Greatest/Boomers/X/Millenials/Zoomers/??? and all the cusps
between.<br>
</p>
<p>But what I was most interested in is related to the original
discussion which is what is the extended physiological response to
humor, joy, mockery that a human (or animal?) may have which a
synthetic being would need to be designed to include. Perhaps a
properly broadly conceived General Artificial Intelligence would
ultimately include all of this as well, and as deep learning
evolves, it seems that there is no reason that a GI couldn't
simulate the physiological feedback loops that drive and regulate
some aspects of humore?</p>
<p>- Steve<br>
</p>
</div>
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</blockquote></div><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div>Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.<br>Center for Emergent Diplomacy<br><a href="http://emergentdiplomacy.org" target="_blank">emergentdiplomacy.org</a></div><div>Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA</div><div></div><div><br>mobile: (303) 859-5609<br>skype: merle.lelfkoff2<br></div><div>twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff<br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>