This machine before your eyes is extremely powerful, a machine that grants its user access to all of the information conceived by the human species. It is capable of performing highly complicated mathematical calculations thousands, possibly millions of times faster than your typical human, and can store massive amounts of information, perhaps a library filled with thousands of books stored on this little machine, too massive for a measly individual to read in their lifetime, is reality. When these sophisticated and wondrous machines had begun to appear in the 80’s and 90’s, the savvy individuals saw them for what they were, highly capable machines that would greatly change the world. They had taken advantage of this, and they became the first hackers, people armed with these extremely powerful tools. Companies and marketers observed this new medium and knew they could gain great wealth using it, and the mainstream mediums with the purpose of entertaining were born. If only people knew just how powerful that little “phone” in their hand truly was. What a great time to be alive, so many ignorant fellows bickering about the problems in the world and how the past was such a great era, with no knowledge of what is truly happening at this moment. First and obvious point is that machines access information encoded to it, not our thoughts. The language we use to communicate our thoughts is not good enough at expressing it and has limitations on it’s own. We should create in the future a constructed language, so we can some day, maybe, get into characteristica universalis.
But, that’s not the major point. The philosophy of science is not a solved problem. We should not treat computers as the same as our brains. It’s not. Maybe some day in the future. Computers are based on logic. But logic itself is based on what is called “laws of thought”, that is: identity, non-contradiction and excluded-middle. That is them based on Agrippa’s trilemma and the whole philosophy of mind. Many problems in philosophy questioned the idea of identity. For example: you have a Toshiba libretto, but you use it so much, that you started to change pieces of it’s hardware. At some point, you have change every single piece of this hardware. This computer has the same identity from the one on the beginning? That’s the Ship of Theseus problem. Now, we observe the world through our senses. Can we trust these senses? Maybe not. Neurath said this problem was like building a ship from scratch while in the middle of the sea (Neurathian bootstrap). I see culture today degenerated to a postmodernist, deconstructionist, way of thinking. It seems like people got used to use computers as an analogy that they created a new mythology and supposed that this was the new truth, real, world. They forgot the real philosophical questions. It morphed into something that once we had, but now forgot. It’s like a false memory that we can’t escape anymore.
The medium known as the internet is a highly useful tool to aspiring scholars and polymaths with a yearning to learn and enrich their minds. Computers are a tool capable of accessing this medium and on their own, are capable of completing various actions including mathematical calculations. I find that learning various languages proves highly useful in expanding ones understanding of various peoples as they now have the capabilities to frequent and properly interpret foreign websites, they can now access a portion of the internet that is closed off to those unable to comprehend it. I have pondered the possibility of developing a large-scale AI that craws on websites and complies collected data to (crudely) predict the future and notify the creator of current events and how an event occurring in one area influences another, a polymath will almost always have a deeper understanding of reality compared to an average individual. Basically, anything particularly useful that’s done with computers is already done by massive super-clusters that there can only be a few of in existence, or its tasks that have been done for ages by houses full of several people. It can be done by a single person with a PC, but giving them all a PC will not stack and only gets you repeated instances of those people doing the same thing over and over again. Ten million athletes will improve the world record only by milliseconds from the record of one million athletes. All it does is the athletes become less versed with anything else and become obtuse and preoccupied with their field, worse philosophers and worse voters.
It is evident that the majority of mainstream software programs are shit, and while audits and the creators of a specific software program can tell one much about the quality of said software, audits can be fabricated and the user should look at the program itself instead of looking at who made it and where it came from. If more individuals studied computer engineering/science and programming and were able to audit programs, we would become stronger, and one could rest assured that their computer was tested to perfection. I have begun to notice that a major problem with auditing code is the fact that some software programs are massive and require teams to finish in a practical amount of time (Or one individual with ultimate dedication…), and this can be fixed by advocating for single purpose programs with lean code and minimal features with room for the user to build and add to it. Computers are amazing machines, and every individual with a laptop and a great mind can achieve amazing feats! One could build a self driving car with the power of programming and advanced mathematics, one can program a self-learning AI that they can interact with, one can program drones or small satellites to take pictures of the earth and predict weather patterns, and the list goes on and on. I am here to encourage you to begin making your own single purpose programs by yourself or with close friends and a passion to teach others about programming and auditing simple software programs. I don’t believe there is a government plan to keep us all down and steal our data to destroy us, but your information is worth money, and data mining allows companies to look at the big picture and advertise products.