Automatism\nand automaticity are \u201creal concepts\u201d, but they are not widely\nused \u2026 or at least not widely used everywhere in the same way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One\nof the fields where these concepts are most widely used is in the\nbroad field of medicine (or even more broadly biology). Here, the\nconceptual nomenclature is sometimes more focused on automatism,\nsometimes more on automaticity \u2013 but in either case it is primarily\nconcentrated on how the central nervous system signals certain\nprocesses to function automatically. This might involve simple things\nlike breathing or regular heart functioning, or also more complex\nbehaviors such as jumping when startled or walking without precisely\nbeing aware of the movements of our limbs, feet, the muscles\ninvolved, etc. Although I am by no means a specialist in these\nfields, my impression is that such automatism \/ automaticity are very\nfundamental, basic functioning \u2013 closely associated with the brain\nstem, the amygdala, \u201clizard brain\u201d thinking, etc. My gut feeling\nimpression also leads me to believe that there are good reasons for\nsuch automatism \/ automaticity to have been useful from an\nevolutionary perspective (e.g. jumping up into a tree might have been\na good way to survive at one point in time).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\nme fast forward hundreds of millennia, or maybe even a couple million\nyears to the present. A few hundred years ago, there were many\ntechnological breakthroughs (for example: the printing press). Soon\nthereafter, many related developments led to what many people today\nrefer to as \u201cdemocratic government\u201d \u2013 what is usually referred\nto here is what Tom Paine meant when he wrote \u201cin America, law is\nking\u201d. Of course the Magna Carta was also a law that could be\nrelied on, but these new forms of government introduced and expanded\nconstitutions and similar legal rule-based systems greatly. Today, we\nlive in a world that is to a very significant degree based on written\nlaws. Oddly, human lives are from this perspective actually\ncontrolled<\/em> by\nwritten codes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nway I see it, both of these phenomena are about automatism \/\nautomaticity. In both cases, things that happen \u2026 happen\nautomatically<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed,\nthere are (in my humble opinion) many<\/em> phenomena throughout the\neveryday lives of humans, perhaps throughout all of life in general\nwhich are embedded with principles of automatism \/ automaticity. One\nof the primary reasons we aren’t talking a whole lot about them is\nthat these things seem invisible to our awareness, or perhaps so\nblatantly obvious that we don’t ever mention them because we’re\nconvinced they must be plain and simple \u201ccommon sense\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These\ndays, such \u201ccommon sense\u201d attitudes seem to becoming more\nwidespread. People who have been following my writings for a while\nwill probably not be shocked to hear me say that I have been becoming\nincreasingly alarmed at the apparently unbridled naivet\u00e9 with which\nthe vast majority of the online population surfs the World-Wide Web.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet\nmy incessant discussions with friends about issues related to my\nexasperation over the overwhelming degree of illiteracy and the\ncontinued lack of enlightenment with respect to rational\ninformation-seeking behaviors have now led me to what I consider to\nbe a truly rewarding outcome: Automation is not inherently good or\nevil; and it is a human moral imperative to pay attention to \u201cright<\/em>\nautomation\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\ndoes that mean?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\ndon’t know yet, but I want to find out. One method I\nwould suggest to start off with is by process of elimination \u2013\nright<\/em> automation is\nnot wrong<\/em> automation.\nI would say that first hypnotizing someone and then commanding the\nhypnotized patient to drink a lethal dose of poison ought to\nobviously qualify as wrong automation \u2013 and I would add that there\ndo seem to be such prohibitive laws in cases of torture, inhumane\nacts, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\nhope that such extremely dire cases of depressing despotism are rare.\nI expect that we will increasingly pay attention to increasingly\nreasonable logic, rationality and reasoning as we think more and more\nabout methods that could be automated, that ought to be automated and\nso on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For\nexample, consider search algorithms: Do we want search results to\nshow links to any result based simply upon how much money will be\npaid (whether by us or by someone else)? Or based upon whether\nsufficient money is paid and<\/em>\nwhether the person (or computer or smartphone or robot or whatever)\nsearching is in the United States, Europe or some other location? Do\nwe always want the same results, or do we want the types of results\nwe get to depend also on our own wishes? In other words, do we want\nto have several algorithms at our disposal \u2013 such that we would be\nfree to choose which algorithm we want to use right here, right now,\nright for us? These are just some more or less random examples; I\nhope I will be able to figure out a somewhat more rational approach\nto the vast field of possibilities in some kind of reasonable way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let me end this first essay with such an exercise in rationality. I will use the term \u201cautomatism\u201d to refer to the actual automation development process. For individual instances of automation, I will use \u201cautomaticity\u201d. I think this will be roughly equivalent to the evolutionary terms \u201contogenesis\u201d (or here, “automaticity”) and \u201cphylogenesis\u201d (in this case, “automatism”). I think this distinction is worthwhile because I expect there might be cases in which it would make sense to think about the principles that underlie the evolution of automation versus the automaticity of any particular automaton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [thank u, next<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Automatism and automaticity are \u201creal concepts\u201d, but they are not widely used \u2026 or at least not widely used everywhere in the same way. One of the fields where these concepts are most widely used is in the broad field … Continue reading