Are we entering the Post-Cognitive Age?

[DiogenesTheWiser]

Historians divide historical time period into ages. Perhaps you've heard of the "stone age" or "iron age." The "Dark Ages" refer to European backwardness after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. More recently, in America, there was the Gilded Age when capitalism seemed to run amok and a time in which business owners routinely purchased politicians, including presidents.

Even more recently was the Atomic Age, ushered in by American use of the atomic bomb to end WWII. It was characterized by a time of experimentation in nuclear power and use of atomic diplomacy by the world's chief nuke weapons holders.

In the 1990s, after the Internet had been opened to commercial use, Time Magazine and others called the coming age the Information Age. Others have termed it the Internet Age or the Digital Age.

I'm calling it the Post-Cognitive Age, ushered in by smart technology in which machines think for us. When I google something, google anticipates my search terms--that's smart tech in the works. When I'm streaming videos on Netflix, there's nothing on until I pick something in my list--a list generated for me by the wizards at Netflix. More and more in the Post-Cognitive Age, we are seeing automation. If you go to the local mall trash restaurants, for example, like Chillis, Applebees, O'Charley's, Ruby Tuesdays, etc.--all crappy restaurants--you're more likely to be waited on by a "device"--a tablet. It contains pictures of what's available to eat, drink.

More and more, our thinking is being replaced by the work of computers, either the big desktop kinds, or the smaller ones that fit into our pockets (or strap onto our wrists). With the fast availability of information, we don't have to think as much as we used to.

New tech has a way of weaving its way into our lives and affecting us in the business and political worlds. I think Trump is a direct effect of the Post-Cognitive Age. With all this information at our fingertips, and with the corresponding reluctance to have to think about things, people accept buzzwords and catch-phrases all the more easily, like MAGA, and the "best blacks" and the "best women..." And more and more Americans identify with a politician who, like them, says that "thinking is bad" and that he "loves the poorly educated."

When historians, if they exist, 100 or 150 years from now look back on our society at this current time, I think they'd be unable to ignore the evidence that people today don't want to think and are gradually ceding that human activity to machines. This will continue to have great effects on our society, tearing down old institutions and erecting new ones.

Years ago, I kinda saw the writing on the wall and I left higher education forever. There's really no need for higher ed any more. All info can be attained through our devices. We can learn how to build a dam by reading about it online. We can take out somebody's appendix by reading enough Wikipedia pages. Really, all that people need to learn to be safe in the Post-Cognitive Age is basic literacy, typing, and coding.

Eventually, we might even think past society altogether.

To sum up the range of humans' importance on thinking, Rene Descartes, one of the greatest of all Western philosophers, and without whose thought our computer revolution could not have occurred, claimed in 1644 "I think, therefore I am." It seems that nowadays, the opposite is more apt. "I don't have to hink, therefore I am."

 

[jonsnow399]

Historians divide historical time period into ages. Perhaps you've heard of the "stone age" or "iron age." The "Dark Ages" refer to European backwardness after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. More recently, in America, there was the Gilded Age when capitalism seemed to run amok and a time in which business owners routinely purchased politicians, including presidents.

Even more recently was the Atomic Age, ushered in by American use of the atomic bomb to end WWII. It was characterized by a time of experimentation in nuclear power and use of atomic diplomacy by the world's chief nuke weapons holders.

In the 1990s, after the Internet had been opened to commercial use, Time Magazine and others called the coming age the Information Age. Others have termed it the Internet Age or the Digital Age.

I'm calling it the Post-Cognitive Age, ushered in by smart technology in which machines think for us. When I google something, google anticipates my search terms--that's smart tech in the works. When I'm streaming videos on Netflix, there's nothing on until I pick something in my list--a list generated for me by the wizards at Netflix. More and more in the Post-Cognitive Age, we are seeing automation. If you go to the local mall trash restaurants, for example, like Chillis, Applebees, O'Charley's, Ruby Tuesdays, etc.--all crappy restaurants--you're more likely to be waited on by a "device"--a tablet. It contains pictures of what's available to eat, drink.

More and more, our thinking is being replaced by the work of computers, either the big desktop kinds, or the smaller ones that fit into our pockets (or strap onto our wrists). With the fast availability of information, we don't have to think as much as we used to.

New tech has a way of weaving its way into our lives and affecting us in the business and political worlds. I think Trump is a direct effect of the Post-Cognitive Age. With all this information at our fingertips, and with the corresponding reluctance to have to think about things, people accept buzzwords and catch-phrases all the more easily, like MAGA, and the "best blacks" and the "best women..." And more and more Americans identify with a politician who, like them, says that "thinking is bad" and that he "loves the poorly educated."

When historians, if they exist, 100 or 150 years from now look back on our society at this current time, I think they'd be unable to ignore the evidence that people today don't want to think and are gradually ceding that human activity to machines. This will continue to have great effects on our society, tearing down old institutions and erecting new ones.

Years ago, I kinda saw the writing on the wall and I left higher education forever. There's really no need for higher ed any more. All info can be attained through our devices. We can learn how to build a dam by reading about it online. We can take out somebody's appendix by reading enough Wikipedia pages. Really, all that people need to learn to be safe in the Post-Cognitive Age is basic literacy, typing, and coding.

Eventually, we might even think past society altogether.

To sum up the range of humans' importance on thinking, Rene Descartes, one of the greatest of all Western philosophers, and without whose thought our computer revolution could not have occurred, claimed in 1644 "I think, therefore I am." It seems that nowadays, the opposite is more apt. "I don't have to hink, therefore I am."

I don't think I want to live downstream from a dam built by somebody who only read about it online, and Wikipedia doesn't give step by step instructions on how to remove appendices. Even if they did they ain't taking mine out!

 

[DiogenesTheWiser]

I don't think I want to live downstream from a dam built by somebody who only read about it online, and Wikipedia doesn't give step by step instructions on how to remove appendices. Even if they did they ain't taking mine out!

But that's the world we're headed toward, like it or not.

 

[buzzardbreath]

I hear you bro. Other than the higher education is no longer relevant part. Though I believe education is a scheme to make a boat of money, it also has a purpose that google can't teach. But...

i took a communications class a few years back and everyone was constantly on their laptops... fuckers barely knew how to say hi. Is this what our future is going to look like? or looks like? Maybe it was this particular class.

 

[jonsnow399]

But that's the world we're headed toward, like it or not.

I seriously doubt they will allow anyone to perform medical operations without a license, However, radiologists are on their way out for sure. AI can already read scans better than humans.

 

[SneekyNinja]

Education needs to be reformed to give people the ability to learn, not fill their head with useless garbage.

 

[ttystikk]

I believe that just like the automobile, the new technologies of automated information are just tools, to be used for whatever purpose the user may have in mind.

To those who don't want to think, these tools serve as surrogates. Fine. People have been stupid throughout history and this will allow them to get through life with a little less friction.

However, for those of us who DO think for ourselves and think critically and conceptually about our world, the told of automation serve an entirely different set of purposes.

It comes down to the founding assumptions of the user; do you think the world is out to direct you or can you use an increasingly automated world to your advantage and increasingly direct it to your own ends?

Paranoia or purposefulness. I say we can choose for ourselves.

 

[SneekyNinja]

I believe that just like the automobile, the new technologies of automated information are just tools, to be used for whatever purpose the user may have in mind.

To those who don't want to think, these tools serve as surrogates. Fine. People have been stupid throughout history and this will allow them to get through life with a little less friction.

However, for those of us who DO think for ourselves and think critically and conceptually about our world, the told of automation serve an entirely different set of purposes.

It comes down to the founding assumptions of the user; do you think the world is out to direct you or can you use an increasingly automated world to your advantage and increasingly direct it to your own ends?

Paranoia or purposefulness. I say we can choose for ourselves.

Lol, you don't think at all.

Want me to list 700 reasons that's true?

 

[ttystikk]

Lol, you don't think at all.

Want me to list 700 reasons that's true?

Go for it.

Spin that hamster wheel.

 

[SneekyNinja]

Go for it.

Spin that hamster wheel.

You delete the thread already?

You were spreading fake news without testing the veracity of the claims or source, that's called "not thinking", sweetheart.

I could tell from reading it once that it was fake news.

 

[ttystikk]

You delete the thread already?

You were spreading fake news without testing the veracity of the claims or source, that's called "not thinking", sweetheart.

I could tell from reading it once that it was fake news.

WTF are you even talking about?

 

[UncleBuck]

WTF are you even talking about?

he was asking if you deleted the thread in which you posted laughably fake news without even bother to verify it first.

 

[ttystikk]

he was asking if you deleted the thread in which you posted laughably fake news without even bother to verify it first.

Getting things deleted seems to be your specialty.

 

[jonsnow399]

Whats that sound!?

 

[DiogenesTheWiser]

I believe that just like the automobile, the new technologies of automated information are just tools, to be used for whatever purpose the user may have in mind.

To those who don't want to think, these tools serve as surrogates. Fine. People have been stupid throughout history and this will allow them to get through life with a little less friction.

However, for those of us who DO think for ourselves and think critically and conceptually about our world, the told of automation serve an entirely different set of purposes.

It comes down to the founding assumptions of the user; do you think the world is out to direct you or can you use an increasingly automated world to your advantage and increasingly direct it to your own ends?

Paranoia or purposefulness. I say we can choose for ourselves.

My post is not about whether people want to think or desire thinking and there'll be fewer of those in the future. Rather, my post is that technologically speaking, thinking is about to become obsolete just like learning to bridle a horse has become obsolete, just like beating clothes against a washboard has become obsolete, just like typing will become obsolete through voice recognition word processing software.

Think back to the 1970s or early 1980s and the calculator. It made memorizing multiplication tables obsolete at the same time that I was memorizing them. Why on earth do I need to know them now? I don't. Same shit for algebra--and all the countless hours I spent trying to graph a parabola. Today, a computer program can do this for you.

Similarly, with 3-D printing, eventually machines will cut on us to take our ruptured appendix, or our inflamed tonsils. All that will be needed is some tech, minimally trained, to watch the machine.

Eventually, this post-cognitive age will lead to a breakdown in society as we all retreat to our enclaves. This is why the libertarians are a very vocal group today. They don't want to think, don't have to think, and they want their own home to be a sovereign nation unto itself.

I know my idea here isn't well developed yet, but I'm developing it, so this post and the previous ones are a work in progress. But essentially, tech makes various things in human society obsolete. I'm arguing that our smart technology and computing capabilities will render a future society in which thinking is obsolete. In many ways, that movie Idiocracy is coming true, but it wont' take 500 years to get there.

 

[jonsnow399]

My post is not about whether people want to think or desire thinking and there'll be fewer of those in the future. Rather, my post is that technologically speaking, thinking is about to become obsolete just like learning to bridle a horse has become obsolete, just like beating clothes against a washboard has become obsolete, just like typing will become obsolete through voice recognition word processing software.

Think back to the 1970s or early 1980s and the calculator. It made memorizing multiplication tables obsolete at the same time that I was memorizing them. Why on earth do I need to know them now? I don't. Same shit for algebra--and all the countless hours I spent trying to graph a parabola. Today, a computer program can do this for you.

Similarly, with 3-D printing, eventually machines will cut on us to take our ruptured appendix, or our inflamed tonsils. All that will be needed is some tech, minimally trained, to watch the machine.

Eventually, this post-cognitive age will lead to a breakdown in society as we all retreat to our enclaves. This is why the libertarians are a very vocal group today. They don't want to think, don't have to think, and they want their own home to be a sovereign nation unto itself.

I know my idea here isn't well developed yet, but I'm developing it, so this post and the previous ones are a work in progress. But essentially, tech makes various things in human society obsolete. I'm arguing that our smart technology and computing capabilities will render a future society in which thinking is obsolete. In many ways, that movie Idiocracy is coming true, but it wont' take 500 years to get there.

you're overthinking this, lol. It will help dumb people who can't think anyway and smart people can concentrate on higher level skills, instead of things like multiplication tables.

 

[DiogenesTheWiser]

Education needs to be reformed to give people the ability to learn, not fill their head with useless garbage.

Agreed on edu reform. Let me make one thing clear--given that I know so many people in higher ed and am a higher ed refugee. Higher education will not reform itself. In fact, higher ed is willfully becoming worse and worse through administrations controlling the system as a for-profit corporation that spends all of its profits on building more dorms, work out centers, and hiring more administrators while forcing professors out. Who gets the windfall from these practices? the contractors who do the building and the administrators, usually who only have bachelor's degrees, who get huge salaries.

How does all this affect the students who pay to attend the higher ed institution? They get adjunct, part-time profs teaching a course in which 350+ are enrolled (how can you learn in such an environment), or they get part-time profs teaching online courses that the students just click through (without really thinking).

And all of this is to support mostly those core, general education classes that every freshmen and soph has to take. Even the upper level courses in one's major aren't rigorous these days. So many profs complain of student reading refusals, and administrators' insistence that students graduate, that reading becomes optional in many upper level courses.

One of my friends teaches virology at a medical school--so this is professional school--and she complains that 1 of 2 students (50%) says "I don't care about the science behind medicine, all I want to do is be a doctor. Doctors just figure out what's wrong with people and write them a prescription..." In short, she says, too many medical students get into the program not even wanting to think, which is what the science behind medical practice requires.

Anyway, back to undergrad higher ed--there'll always be the Stanfords, Vanderbilts, Harvards, but if you send your kid to a state school other than California or North Carolina, they are getting jacked on their education. It's no wonder that the past ten years worth of college graduates, whether a BA or BS degree, go to work in underemployed fields such as barrista at Starbucks (STEM is no panacea, more and more STEM grads are underemployed).

So to your point--college teaches "useless" garbage. Well many of those "useless" classes like philosophy and literature were designed to teach college students how to think (not WHAT to think, but how to think). That's the first thing my philosophy prof said in Logic 101 when I was a freshman in 1988. But in a post-cognitive society, which we're clearly headed that way, logic and other such courses are obsolete. Why would anyone need to learn to think?

So in that regard, higher ed needs to rethink it's whole program. Higher ed needs to be less of a general education, and more of a trade school, teaching people to monitor machines. Higher ed needs to convert itself to vocational education because that'll be prep for the post-cognitive age as we keep moving toward that.

 

[DiogenesTheWiser]

you're overthinking this, lol. It will help dumb people who can't think anyway and smart people can concentrate on higher level skills, instead of things like multiplication tables.

I'm just saying that post-cognition is where we're headed. People don't want to think. It's human nature to not want to have to think. Go teach college classes and you'll hear from all these 18-24 year olds that "I don't want to have to think..." And many of them accused me of making them "think too much" when I was a college prof. I then asked "What are the consequences of thinking too much?" Usually, they couldn't answer that question with the exception of a reluctant "I guess there aren't any...but it' 'hurts' to have to think."

Just to be clear, I don't support our society's move toward post-cognition. I'm just saying that higher ed is basically obsolete now and will become much more so in the next 10-15 years. i'm saying that the average american worker doesn't need to think to perform their jobs, and most jobs out there punish creative thinking or innovative thinking (result of American anti-unionism). Even our political representatives capitalize on a non-thinking society. This is why we get pithy campaign slogans instead of reasoned debate and ideas. Even on social media, people post comments without even thinking because social media encourages non-thoughtful comments. Social media, likewise, will fundamentally change the English language to be more suitable to the post-cognitive American. We're already doing that with our lettering and LOL-ing. I'm just saying this is where we're headed barring unforeseen calamities that knock smart tech off its perch like nuclear war or solar flares.

 

[jonsnow399]

Agreed on edu reform. Let me make one thing clear--given that I know so many people in higher ed and am a higher ed refugee. Higher education will not reform itself. In fact, higher ed is willfully becoming worse and worse through administrations controlling the system as a for-profit corporation that spends all of its profits on building more dorms, work out centers, and hiring more administrators while forcing professors out. Who gets the windfall from these practices? the contractors who do the building and the administrators, usually who only have bachelor's degrees, who get huge salaries.

How does all this affect the students who pay to attend the higher ed institution? They get adjunct, part-time profs teaching a course in which 350+ are enrolled (how can you learn in such an environment), or they get part-time profs teaching online courses that the students just click through (without really thinking).

And all of this is to support mostly those core, general education classes that every freshmen and soph has to take. Even the upper level courses in one's major aren't rigorous these days. So many profs complain of student reading refusals, and administrators' insistence that students graduate, that reading becomes optional in many upper level courses.

One of my friends teaches virology at a medical school--so this is professional school--and she complains that 1 of 2 students (50%) says "I don't care about the science behind medicine, all I want to do is be a doctor. Doctors just figure out what's wrong with people and write them a prescription..." In short, she says, too many medical students get into the program not even wanting to think, which is what the science behind medical practice requires.

Anyway, back to undergrad higher ed--there'll always be the Stanfords, Vanderbilts, Harvards, but if you send your kid to a state school other than California or North Carolina, they are getting jacked on their education. It's no wonder that the past ten years worth of college graduates, whether a BA or BS degree, go to work in underemployed fields such as barrista at Starbucks (STEM is no panacea, more and more STEM grads are underemployed).

So to your point--college teaches "useless" garbage. Well many of those "useless" classes like philosophy and literature were designed to teach college students how to think (not WHAT to think, but how to think). That's the first thing my philosophy prof said in Logic 101 when I was a freshman in 1988. But in a post-cognitive society, which we're clearly headed that way, logic and other such courses are obsolete. Why would anyone need to learn to think?

So in that regard, higher ed needs to rethink it's whole program. Higher ed needs to be less of a general education, and more of a trade school, teaching people to monitor machines. Higher ed needs to convert itself to vocational education because that'll be prep for the post-cognitive age as we keep moving toward that.

at some point the machines will monitor the machines.

 

[jonsnow399]

I'm just saying that post-cognition is where we're headed. People don't want to think. It's human nature to not want to have to think. Go teach college classes and you'll hear from all these 18-24 year olds that "I don't want to have to think..." And many of them accused me of making them "think too much" when I was a college prof. I then asked "What are the consequences of thinking too much?" Usually, they couldn't answer that question with the exception of a reluctant "I guess there aren't any...but it' 'hurts' to have to think."

Just to be clear, I don't support our society's move toward post-cognition. I'm just saying that higher ed is basically obsolete now and will become much more so in the next 10-15 years. i'm saying that the average american worker doesn't need to think to perform their jobs, and most jobs out there punish creative thinking or innovative thinking (result of American anti-unionism). Even our political representatives capitalize on a non-thinking society. This is why we get pithy campaign slogans instead of reasoned debate and ideas. Even on social media, people post comments without even thinking because social media encourages non-thoughtful comments. Social media, likewise, will fundamentally change the English language to be more suitable to the post-cognitive American. We're already doing that with our lettering and LOL-ing. I'm just saying this is where we're headed barring unforeseen calamities that knock smart tech off its perch like nuclear war or solar flares.

I must not be human then, I love to think. My problem is my mind races too much but I can't concentrate on any one subject too long.