Human brain vs. A.I. bot: NAJ screen shot
The Big Picture –
By Glynn Wilson –
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Human society, and these days especially American society, are plagued by many ongoing problems. One of these is the inability to think abstractly about issues and solutions. It’s harder than ever when every day is fraught with a never ending series of crazy, distracting, sensational disasters.
Listening to these stories on talk radio and watching them all day long on cable news talk makes it even harder. You are bombarded with one disaster after another. This has been called “Shock and Awe.” It keeps the audience always off balance, jumping from one sensational news story to the next, and it changes every day. This leaves no time to think, for analysis, or even intelligent commentary.
But let’s back up. You’ve heard these expressions, and probably revolted from them:
“The law is the law.”
“The rules are the rules.”
Well no, not quite. The law is changed by Congress and state legislatures all the time, and sometimes not for the better. The law is interpreted in the courts on a daily basis all over the land, by judges and juries and appeals courts.
Rules and regulations are often developed and written down to deal with problems that arise by bureaucracies, changing over time and sporadically enforced, depending on circumstances.
Police offers, and rangers, as human beings, are charged with enforcing the law and the rules. Some cops may try to be strict enforcers of the law. But over time they will not be liked by the public or their peers. So they may not be cops for long.
Wise, experienced cops (and rangers) eventually realize they have “discretion” in the field. The written law and the rules are concrete. Discretion allows for abstract thought.
You don’t have to write everyone a ticket who goes a little over the speed limit, for example. In fact, traffic cops have been allowing some leeway in this for years, acknowledging that radar guns are not exact for one thing, and roadway terrains vary. Drivers tend to go slower up hills and faster down them.
You don’t have to haul everyone to jail who consumers a drink or two of alcohol and gets behind the wheel of a car, either.
Smart cops know laws and rules are developed for a reason. If someone drinks too much and goes way too fast and causes a wreck that hurts or kills someone, the law should be strictly enforced. But on a daily basis all over the world, people might drink a little bit and speed a little bit and never hurt anyone. If they keep it in a cup on a “family” campground and do not make too much noise or cause anyone any trouble, no one is going to bust them for it.
Cameras and bots do not have the ability to think abstractly. This is one of the reasons using cameras and computers and Artificial Intelligence to enforce the law and solve problems will always be flawed, A ticket for going a decimal point over the speed limit, or for not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign even though no one was coming from any other direction, is concrete strict enforcement of the law. But the purpose of the law in the first place was “public safety.”
If policitians and administrators are willing to stretch the law to use it as a mechanism for collective revenue or taxes from citizens, cameras save money on paying law enforcement officers and generate money for cities, counties and states without any opportunity for discretion or abstract thinking.
One of my favorite examples from the movies comes from “A Few Good Men,” an American legal drama film from 1992 based on Aaron Sorkin’s 1989 play. It stars an ensemble cast including Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Pollak, J. T. Walsh, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Kiefer Sutherland. The plot follows the court-martial of two U.S. Marines charged with the murder of a fellow Marine and the tribulations of their lawyers as they prepare a case.
In the scene in question, the prosecuting attorney played by Kevin Bacon, questions a corporal about where he can find the term Code Red in a Marine book or manual. It seemed like a good strategy, since the practice of giving substandard marines code reds was not in any rule book or manual. But the defense attorney played by Tom Cruise grabs the book and asks the corporal to find the description of the mess hall.
“That’s not in the book,” he says. “Well I guess I just followed the crowd at chow time…”
In a funny example from my own experience as a journalist, I once found myself in a “round table” press event with a judge down in Montgomery, Alabama. You may recall hearing about Roy Moore, the so-called Ten Commandments Judge. He had just been ordered by a federal judge to remove a granite monument of the Ten Commandments he carved himself from the state Supreme Court building, which he snuck into the chamber in the middle of the night.
I covered that trial for The New York Times and The Christian Science Monitor. One clip:
Monumental clash over Ten Commandments
Moore was removed from the court by a state judicial commission for refusing to abide by that order. But I had a chance to question him right after the ruling.
Ole Roy Moore was the kind of lawyer who believed “the law is the law.” He also believed all laws were derived from the Ten Commandments in the Bible, which was really not the case at all.
When we arrived and sat down literally at a round table in a Christian school in Montgomery and faced the losing judge, he came in and passed around a printed copy of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. And he said, I kid you not – to a room full of experienced journalists, including other New York Times correspondents and reporters from USA Today, The Chicago Tribune, The Montgomery Advertiser, Reuters and the Associated Press – that the meaning of the amendment was clear. “The law is the law.”
We all looked at each other with a bit of amusement. I waited until all the other reporters asked their questions, which were not many by the way, since the trial was over and he had clearly lost.
When the room fell into an uncomfortable silence, I filled the void.
“Well judge Moore, I really appreciate the opportunity to pick your brain, since you would not answer any of our questions during the trial. I have just one question for you” (and you guessed it, this was going to be an abstract question, not a concrete one). “How do two lawyers and Sunday school teachers from Alabama like yourself and Hugo Black come to such different conclusions on the meaning of the freedom of religion (or establishment) clause in the First Amendment?”
Hugo Black, of course, strongly endorsed the separation of church and state under the Establishment Clause. In the landmark case of Engel v. Vitale, he wrote for the Court in striking down school-sponsored prayer in public schools. Black also delivered the majority opinion in Everson v. Board of Education, which extended the Establishment Clause to the states.
In Engel v. Vitale in 1962, he wrote: “State officials may not compose an official state prayer and require that it be recited in public schools, even if the prayer is denominationally neutral, and even if students may remain silent or be excused.”
In Everson v. Board of Education in 1947, Black wrote: “…the First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach…”
Black was famous for carrying with him a worn copy of the Constitution and consulting it during conferences with his colleagues. He was considered a literalist or textualist, who believed that “Congress shall make no law” meant no law with respect to the First Amendment.
Moore believed his Christian God should be considered above the state, and there should be no separation of Church and State. Some members of this conservative Supreme Court seem to be reversing Hugo Black and going in Moore’s direction. But not in 2002 when the Moore Ten Commandments case came before the court. The Black precedent was still in effect.
When I looked him in the eye and asked the question, Moore was speechless. Anger began to rise in his face. His public relations assistant eventually stepped in, and I was basically kicked out of the press conference. It as all but over anyway. Nobody else had any more questions.
I waited a few minutes outside for the other reporters to come out, and some of us had a big laugh about it. One of the AP reporters came over to my Plymouth Voyager van with his pen and reporters pad out. No story was ever written or printed about this incident, but I could have made the news that day. Bob (I forget his last name) asked if I wanted to be interviewed about being kicked out.
“Nah,” I said. “I’m on my way to Gulf Shores for a couple of days and then going back to New Orleans. This trial is over. There is no more news here.”
Poor Roy Moore from Gadsden in Etowah County, Alabama, had no ability to think outside the box. He was incapable of abstract thought.
A dictionary defines abstract thought as an adjective: disassociated from any specific instance, or formal. A word poem might be concrete, but most poetry is abstract or even theoretical.
Some synonyms for abstract: metaphysical, conceptual, mental, intellectual, ideal, hypothetical, invisible, transcendental, cosmic, conjectural, intangible, utopian, transcendent, imperceptible, nonphysical, nonmaterial or even visionary.
Antonyms include: concrete, physical, tangible, substantial, visible, material, observable, discernible, actual, perceptible, appreciable, definite, distinct, detectable, discernable, noticeable, defined (written) or palpable.
I asked ChatGPT to analyze the difference between Concrete and Abstract thought, but the answer was typically vague and stupid. Do you want to be a bot? Or an intelligent human capable of abstract thought? Do you want to be governed by bots? Or thinking, caring humans with brains who understand the concept of discretion? You think liberal, Washington bureaucrats are bad. Wait ’till you meet the bots created by ruthless speed freak hackers on the right.
If you are interested in reading and learning more, try this.
What Is Abstract Thinking and How to Cultivate It
___
If you support truth in reporting with no paywall, and fearless writing with no popup ads or sponsored content, consider making a contribution today with GoFundMe or Patreon or PayPal.
