What Makes You "You" When Everything Is Just Atoms?

When people talk about being polite to AI, usually it's uh they say that, you know, just in case they rebel, I want to make sure that that I'm on good terms. But but I think there's something more to it. I think i it is it's an emergent property of our society that we consider it good to be polite. That it's not rational, it's not about I think that if I am polite this person will will give me something.

No, it's it's it's we absorb that as a as a property of an emergent system, that politeness is just part of your participation in civilization. You really can only answer a why question if the thing that you are asking about somehow sticks out of the ordinary. If it really deviates from the usual thing, and if you can identify what that usual thing is, if that usual thing really exists, if there's multiple of those usual things that you can compare your surprising thing to, then there is a reason why it's surprising. Then there is something that you can use to explain why does it stick out of the ordinary, and then you will find an answer.

Nothing is true and everything is possible. I think that goes back to Hannah Arendt, the origins of totalitarianism. And it's as relevant today as it ever used to be. I think the defining feature of the Russian regime and where we're headed in America as well is this dissolution of truth. Hey everybody, it's Michael Shermer and it's time for another episode of the Michael Shermer Show.

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