The Kalopsian Wave

Do you think you are a smart person? What defines intelligence?

I’ve been reading a study (Dietrich, Arne. 2004. “Neurocognitive Mechanisms Underlying the Experience of Flow.” Consciousness and Cognition 13 (4): 746–761)

This study outlines the different types of cognitive brain functions everyone has. 

In the average, healthy human brain, there are two systems of representation, acquisition, memorization, and knowledge gathering: the explicit and implicit systems. 

The explicit system is the acquisition of knowledge through verbal or written data; anything that is learned without tactile means.

The implicit system is learning through doing an activity. 

Through my understanding of the study, I find that a good example of these systems is shown in learning a board game. I find that people who lean towards implicit systems typically hate learning board games, due to a difficulty with processing the rules when told them or reading them. Those who learn easiest by implicit systems are more likely to want to play multiple rounds of the game and learn the rules as they go. Those who lean towards explicit learning could read the rules or watch a video and then be ready to play.

On the other hand, an example of those who lean towards explicit learning and struggle with the implicit would be Nathan Fielder learning to fly a plane. 

In season 2 of “The Rehearsal,” Nathan Fielder takes it upon himself to learn how to fly an airplane. He details in the show how much of a struggle it was for him to become certified because no matter how much he practiced the flight, he kept botching the landing. His teachers recommended that he go home and practice the motions of flying a plane in his house, which stands out to me. 

His teachers emphasize the fact that he must physically go through the motions of flying the plane, indicating to me that he was struggling with the implicit nature of piloting.

Dietrich  explains that “the implicit system builds its own mental representation, which is the equivalent of what is known conversationally by the unfortunate misnomer ‘‘muscle memory.’’ A thus internalized motor pattern is controlled entirely by this basal ganglia circuit and little prefrontal activity is required during its routine execution. This is the brains conquer and divide principle: as the basal ganglia and supplementary motor cortex drives the car, aided by perceptual input from the parietal cortex, working memory is no longer tied up, allowing executive attention to fill its premium computational space with other content such as listening to the radio or reloading a favorite daydream scenario. In other words, performance of implicit skills bypasses consciousness. This confirms on a neural level what has been known on a psychological level for some time: to do two things at a time, one has to be automatic or implicit”

In summation, one must familiarize oneself with a subject from many different angles, explicitly and implicitly, before calling oneself an expert in it. I always wondered if I Freaky Friday brainswapped with someone if I would gain their skills, such as dancing or sports. Based on the evidence, this study says no if entire brains are swapped, but not if conciousnesses are, since a consciousness could access the pathways made by the brain. “Muscle memory” is just a system within our brains built by our repetition of a task, which utilizes implicit learning. When something is learned implicitly, working memory is no longer tied up in the activity at hand, so that leaves the brain free to multitask. This is when something becomes second nature, when you can do an activity without thinking, when it feels natural and a part of yourself. To multitask, one of the tasks must be automatic. I believe this is why you can listen to music while driving, but feel naturally compelled to turn the music down when trying to focus on finding a specific direction you’re unsure of- It is because in that moment you are processing new data and having to exert your working memory to figure out where you need to go, so multitasking is impossible.

Dietrich says in his study, “Building a representation in the implicit system is referred to as ‘‘internalizing’’ or becoming ‘‘second nature’’ in colloquial speech. Either case would result in two complete and independent representations, which is almost certainly a defining characteristic that qualifies a person as a true expert. Thus, knowledge can be explicit and/or implicit, but is mostly represented in varying, partially overlapping degrees of each.”

There are many intricacies to learning. We must interact with something, either explicitly, implicitly to learn it; however,  both are necessary to consider yourself an expert in it. 

I have had a recent frustration socially where other adults I meet find themselves incapable of learning, fitting themselves into the boxes they were raised in, or that society has pushed them into. 

I believe that when one gives up on learning, one has given up on life. 

Complicated thought and activity strengthen the brain and allow humans to live actualized lives. Without engaging in complicated thought and prioritizing growth in oneself, it is likely to fall into depression. 

I did not perform well in school. I am a slow learner, typically leaning towards things that require implicit thinking. Because of this quality, I was discouraged and frustrated by anything academic. I need to engage with a subject for a long time, turn it around in my brain, write about it in my own words,  re-read my references, watch a video about it, talk to someone more knowledgeable than me in this subject, discuss it with someone who has no idea what I’m talking about, sleep on it, make connections to my own life.  I don’t like to rush learning or have too many things to juggle at once, and I do not enjoy having to study something I have no interest in. 

I enjoy honing in on only a couple of subjects at once, unable to move on to another until I have satiated my hunger for what I am currently focused on.  

The pacing of school was too fast for me; I needed everything to slow down. 

I think patience and self-compassion are key. 

I know I am a slow learner, and if I stay that way forever, I am at peace with that. However, I hope that the more I dive into my renegade studies, the more my intelligence will grow, especially with the rise of AI. Because of AI, learning no longer feels like a hobby, but a duty.

I wrote the following in my first blog post, “Rene.egg Fell Off the Wall”

“There was a time when I could sweep myself up into imagination- into days of prolonged thought, pondering one question. I was fortified in who I was; I felt like I lived in my body. I felt present. I felt smarter, more focused, more driven. My feelings were so poignant and multifaceted.”

It has been just over a month since I wrote this. It has felt like 3 months. 

Since I have hopped offline (occasionally checking in on my art Instagram,) I am pleased to say that I immediately fell back into this way of prolonged thought that I described in that post. Boredom has been an amazing tool for following new paths. I was fascinated with how this past month has seemed so long, and I have been able to accomplish so many personal goals that nourish and stimulate me. Apparently, time stretches out when interacting and learning about the world, when you gift yourself new experiences and knowledge. I was poking around different articles surrounding these ideas, and that is where I found this study that I have discussed in this post. 

Learning and creating are at the core of the soul, which makes us human; this is why I can’t help but feel intense fear towards those who drank the AI Kool-Aid. 

It is off-putting to me that those I’ve interacted with who use AI are not just satisfied with using it themselves, but also take every opportunity to fervently pitch AI like a desperate used-car salesman. My sister informed me that the term used for these types of people is called “Clankers.” 

It makes me uneasy to hear about how many people have immediately passed the reins of their cognitive thinking into the hands of our capitalist overlords.

Sure, there are some uses for AI that could be seen as innocent and not completely shoulder all the weight of the human experience, such as an AI playlist generator, but in my opinion any bad AI does egregiously outweighs the good it could do, and even using it a little bit is a slippery slope into total reliance. (Not to mention the negative environmental impact.)

I don’t think there is a single situation where the average person should ever use AI.

I know a computer programmer who uses AI to streamline instructions to install databases and help him with all his IT-related problems. He uses it to gain knowledge towards his profession, which is innocent enough… right? However, I find that many who use AI initially start off just like this, but as they learn how to optimize AI, they slowly begin to shove more and more work onto it until they are barely doing any thinking towards their job, and then their life at all. Then it hits the point where a Clanker is asking AI to summarize historical events, for political information, and for therapy and advice.

All of these things require a human touch, a heart behind the thought, and critical thinking skills. All the programmers and companies behind the AI software have a bias and stake in steering you towards certain information, and have much to benefit from gaining your information. I do not trust it one bit.

My birthday just passed while I have been working on this post, and I considered how I would feel if someone used AI to pick out a birthday gift for me. To find out someone did that would suck all the joy out of the gift. Even if it is perfectly tailored to my interests, there would be no love or intention behind the gift. It would say to me that that person was so incredibly lazy that they couldn’t be bothered to rub 2 brain cells together to think of something sweet for me. One should never outsource love from robots.

This makes me think of Mr. Big and Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City. Mr. Big would occasionally show grand gestures to Carrie, such as sending her flowers or buying her expensive gifts, but when Carrie would call him, thanking him for the gift, he would say something to the effect of “Yeah, I forgot about that. My assistant had that on the calendar, so they must have sent out the flowers.”

All the intention behind the gift is gone, and now it is worthless.

A machine can’t emote, it can’t love… Once again, harkening back to the wire mother and the cloth mother study that I mentioned in my first blog post. To me, it is obvious why you should not emotionally rely upon anyone but a human.

The movie Her, by director Spike Jonze, was released in 2013, which warned about this very thing, as well as countless other examples in dystopian fiction pertaining to the dangers of artificial intelligence.

I’ve heard the case that you give AI the jobs you don’t want to do, so you can spend more time doing your actual interests, but in doing so, I think we are depriving ourselves of the pleasure of completing something. Thinking and learning makes you happy and lead to a fulfilling life. I don’t want to put a book into Gronk and have it summarize it to me; I want to read the book and engage with the material myself, formulating my opinions and taking time with the subject matter without the censorship and impersonality of AI. 

Many have told me that I could use AI as a tool to sketch out an art piece. Years ago, when AI was new, I tried it out, but it made me feel confused. It was surreal to see my ideas painted before me, yet be completely untouched by my personality and voice. I realized that creating the sketch, working on the composition, making every tiny choice along the way, and finding the limits of my skill level, is what breathed life into the piece. The struggle was necessary to have pride in the finished product.

Using AI in art reminds me of people who will pay others to level up their video game characters and get past milestones in games. I can’t imagine buying a game and then paying someone to play it for me. The owner of the save file might brag about being at a high level, but it is completely unearned, and all the praise one may receive from such an accomplishment is moot. They didn’t do any of the work, and even though it is their game and their character, they themselves didn’t earn it.

In my opinion, the average AI user is not inherently a bad person, I think they just do not understand the full repercussions of their decision to use it. It is a subtle, insidious death to the mind… Just like the use of social media… or consuming content online in general. We have so much potential as humans. The struggle is what makes the pleasure of accomplishing something worth it.

Humans are known to always take the path of least resistance. However, I urge you to take the road less traveled. The one with roadkill, rising water, unexpected detours, gravel driveways, awkward turns, and unclear road signs.  Reaching the destination will be much more satisfying, and after traveling the road for a while, you will memorize how to get there. No more turning down the music to spot your turn- that cognitive system will be set.  

This is life. Do not let it be swindled from you.