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Re: Bahl'al, The Watcher, Unlife, etc

Posted By: Phil (static-64-65-138-250.mspcovdsl.eschelon.com)
Date: 4/16/2003 at 8:26 p.m.

In Response To: Re: Bahl'al, The Watcher, Unlife, etc (Superfoborg)

I was once described as being 'logical to the point of hairsplitting' on a personality evaluation. As to why anyone wouldn't be the same is beyond me.
-Loki.

It's very time consuming and usually inefficient, and can often lead to constricted thought processes. Computer AIs can be constructed which will use logic to derive conclusions from inputted premises, such as automatic proof-finding software for mathematicians. They have yet to build a computer which will take apparently dispairate (sp?) information, construct a completely off-the-wall theory to explain the relation between them, and test it to see if the theory accurately predicts new information. Neurologically, the highest-IQ people are usually those whose thoughts operate on such tangential, connection- and relation-forming methods. (Higher-IQ people tend to make more accurate connections, of course).
-Forrest.

Loki's comment got me thinking here, and I really couldn't agree more with Forrest on this one. When you think about it, the human mind (or any animal mind for that matter) is a truly amazing device. It may be true for example that a modern desktop computer, even a modern watch/calculator, can process data, code, and mathematical functions many times faster than our brains can, however we have to compute enormous amounts of visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and palatal data, in addition to solving complex problems like balance, internal temperature regulation, sleep cycles, controlling our immune system, regulating our hormone production, etc. Though it's extremely difficult to translate the information we must deal with into comparable bits and bytes, it's safe to say that on a day to day basis we process more information and data than some of the world’s most powerful computers (and we do it in an light-weight, efficient, self-repairing, eco-friendly package to boot). Our most sophisticated robots can only detect, track and interpret visual data with a mere fraction of our clarity, precision and control. And this says nothing of our brain's wonderful capacity for abstraction, creativity, emotion, spontaneity, and use of its free will.

To make the task of dealing with all that we need to deal with easier, we cut corners in our mind. When faced with problems we save time by falling back on our experience and relying on assumptions, inferred conclusions, common sense deductions, and working solutions. I know that ten times ten is one hundred. I don't need to go through all the steps to prove that this is true every time someone asks me. I simply make the leap of logic that ten times ten is one hundred based on my past experience and the assumption that no one went and changed the principles of math while I wasn't looking. If I want to shoot a basketball through a hoop, I could sit down, calculate the distance to the basket, determine how many joules I would need to apply to the ball in order to cover the distance factoring in wind resistance and gravity, determine the initial angle needed to create the ideal arc, and sink the basket. Or, I could also make rough approximations of those values, shoot from the hip, and see what happens. Even of I miss ten times before I make the shot, I'll probably still save time if I just wing it.

We’re human. This is what we do to save time. If we devoted the brain-power to creating proofs and applying mathematical logic processes to everything we do, we would probably forget to stand upright or breathe. To tie this all back to the thread, we may not be able to prove conclusively that Bahl’al is The Watcher. Myth’s creators probably had different views on the subject themselves during Myth’s creation. But this in no reason to fault people for making educated guesses and jumping to conclusions that, oddly enough, work in context and make practical sense. They’re not computers. They’re people who are making the best sense out of what they have and not spinning their wheels looking for evidence that never existed. If the conclusion makes sense, why not jump to it.

-Phil.

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