Common nouns | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | Index Berger's Works
Proper nouns A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z| MY IDEAS

The good

1. Basics
2. Self-Integration
3. Types of ethical values
4. Bad/Wrong
5. Measurement of the Good
6. The right distance
Varia to be edited

1. Basics

Principle : Is good for a system S what contributes positively to its L. That is autoreferential.

Is there a "goodness" atom as for good ? "This bit should/must be this value". As with truth, that implies that there is something inside the S which assesses the value
- or a list a priori of what the bits should be
- or a system of rules.

But here, the values cannot be directly obtained from an access to the world.

Value of raw matter, of form.

Levels of goodness : body, mind, soul.

2. Self-integration

The central effort of S is to keep itself as a whole as long and as high as possible. Incorporating in that control one's properties and (for humans, in another way, one's fellow humans. Recapitulagte everything "in Christ").

Death prevents absolutely a total integration. Then this task needs some optimism, knowing realistically that I shall never intergrate everything, be it only myself.

I must help the other humans (and things, and machines) to ascend upwards in this integration. Groups, and mankind as a whole cannot hold but if enough individuals aim to that integration. And not by passing into the vacuum of transcendental meditation, but staying in the discursive or designing finite mode.

Rational ethics, with sin punishing in another world, is finally a poor doctrine, insufficient to prevent evil, but preventing from positive action. A strong ethics imply that one assigns targets to oneself, and that one cannot be one's own aim. But one must tend to place the aim as high and as far in the future as possible.

Custodi me a dispersione mea .
Self construction (Kaufmann

Balances

3. Types of ethical values

Ambiguity, ambivalence of the tool: "And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks" Isaiah, II 4

Les veilles cesseront au sommet de nos tours ;
Le fer, mieux employé, cultivera la terre,
Et le peuple qui tremble aux frayeurs de la guerre,
Si ce n'est pour danser, n'orra plus de tambours.
Malherbe, Stances à Henri le grand.
X : Technology is neither good, nor bad, nor neutral.

4. Bad/Wrong

Easy solution : everything that draws from the optimum. But suffering ? (See emotion). Everything that prevents S to operate. System excess also. S taking itself for God, which transforms the positive conflict into World War.
Bad as consequence of DR... Safransky.

4.1. Fault tolerance

Thesis: a fault tolerant machine is less predicable than another one. More exactly, it is more predictable in general, but highly unpredictable in some rare cases. (similar remark about automation to simplify the HMI).

It is somehow a problem inverse to the Champéry's. In some cases, this might be proven. Hamming autocorrector codes : it there is both failure of the machine and failure of the correction mechanisms.Ex. the alarm light which alights wrongly, or stay close when it should alight.

In beings progress, so their pathology. A simple automaton works or not. A sophisticated one may have unbalances, unsatisfied agenda, aborted processes. Diagnosis and cures are always partial.

4.2. Violence

Violence is an extreme form of relation between beings. Or, more exactly, it is the natural way or competition between simpler constructs, but is not perceived as bad. Rocks and waters, bits and bytes destroy each other all naturally. Violence proper emerges only between constructs sufficiently sophisticated to perceive it as such. As a necessity for conquerors, as a pleasure for sado-masochists, as a way to perfection by ascets.

We can draw a scheme of these processes.
violence.jpg

4.3. Death

How "behaves" L when death comes nearer ? If S cannot choose its death, its time or kind, then its liberty (H) is more and more limited when death comes close. Unless suicide, even more for a young person, when the global stakes are at the highest? Perhaps would it be possible to prove that the possibility of suicide is a major component of our L. Can we talk of a negative L for suffering ?

Relation of death with noise ?

More : from which level may I speak of ethics for an being ?
When it has responsibility regarding other beings. Then it must not sacrifice them unduly.
If these beings have a "value"...

5. Measurement of the good (oops... )

The more universal a law, the more it applies concretely to a large number of beings situations. (Extension/comprehension ?)

At the limit, Kant's categorical imperative.
But : "vérité en deça des Pyrénées, erreur au delà,", is considered as weakness, which may be solved with a general principle completed with adaptations.

Optimum Every time on which we get (or aim to) an optimum, that leads to a form of determinism, but if there is an indifferenciation zone.

The dose makes the poison (Paracelsius)

6. The right distance

To send a message, from an emitter to a receiver implies the crossing of the space which parts them. This distance must be evaluated according to different dimensions:
- temporal distance, since in most cases, real time is not practical or possible
- logical distance, with divers recording formats, codes, protocols, redundancies
- linguistic distance
- environmental distances; even social and political differences, for humans;
- motivation distances, with knowledge consonances and dissonances (we hear only what we wish to tear)

Thesis : there is a "best distance" between beings for an optimal communication. Fusion is illusion.
- clarity and beauty in the scholastic sense
- orthopical distance in classical perspective
- boxing distance
- ocular accommodation
(Here may be asked the telepathy issue, somehow with a distance inferior to the sum of radiuses).

Must be done at first at low level (physical distance, energy, radio frequency tuning), then go the highest levels (spirit)

INFPA6.GIF

Auto-focus. We start from a notion of neatness, coincidence. From the inside of the representation (but, with border effects, we could have the distance)
good cropping (framing): automatic setting of a zoom
distance/plurality

At start, fix problems, eliminate conflict and threats, then to the deepest resonance.

From a L standpoint, If A and B beings with each their own L, there is an optimal distance which optimizes La + Lb. Each being is for the other one variety provider, but also a reducer. A priori, it is good for B to see A... but perhaps it masks more interesting or important beings. It may be threat;

The message must be more interesting than others (compared with the receiver aims at that time). And must not be a threat (negative L).

Love. Promotion/communion will. Beware to the "small death". Communion is a kind of destruction.

How does distance influence the L of the receiver ?
Longer : reduces variety, augments the death probability, reduces the capture risk

Two factors are a consequence of L : I see, I am determined by ordering and welcome
- too well ordered, I feel a stranger, rejected
- too disorders, disease, fear of dirtiness, no free place to move,

Notion of useful load vs. carrier. Case of viruses. Kinds of membranes.

Not only distance counts, but also angle, appropriate sensor giving the useful information. In fact, we need two distances:
- one, undifferentiated, translating the abstraction level, and the reciprocal determination
- one transmitting the "conscious" distance, differentiated, measurable explicitly in bits.

Varia (to be edited)

Limits to any rational ethics due to DR.

Good : social integration of individual/global L.
Two maturities meeting, convergence
Standards and biodiversity . Standard : norm Vs. right
Social integration. P: necessary to survival H: exchange with other beings. Build a network

About ethics.
We were building ethics upon absgtract principles, and more exactly on the dictates of an authority (Moises, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddh). Which were, historically, formlations stemming from practical issues.

We shouid go towards a purely (at least, more purely) "concrete" : look at the people do. Then :
- an extreme position is : what the people do is right. Google Ethics. Inequalities...
- an experimental, progressive, cybernetic position, with meta-principles (typically : everything is good between consenting adults), and the democracy in general.