What I have grasped from the last 2 parts of "You Are Not A Gadget" are views that have been so paradoxical that my brain has gone into a "Lanier Overload" about 5 times. The main views that Lanier discusses towards the end of the book are the different types of "flavors" that contribute to the idea of computationalism, which in my mind represents the culture of how computers have evolved to the point of analyzing and interpreting human behavior. There are even some examples of meta-commentary that I have noticed while reading when Lanier states that he is contradicting himself, and is playing different roles at the same time while trying to explicate a point.
While attempting to decompose each of these "flavors" of computationalism, I found that in the first flavor, most or all of the qualities that may be found in humans might willingly be prevalent in computers, and possibly one day, computers will be able to assess our behavior, leading to the next "flavor". As Lanier further discusses the thought of a computer having a specific design comparable to a human, I also find it interesting that software that contains a "strange loop" is identifiable with human consciousness. I agree with this statement because there is a point in human cognition where there is a labyrinth of thoughts that emerge in our minds, and some thoughts that reoccur might as well have been repressed. I also feel that the awareness of consciousness lies in the individual, and depends on how that individual thinks and speaks. I did not quite fully understand the last flavor that included an info structure appearing to be human actually being human. If it is mostly a subconscious idea (which I think it is), then maybe the info structure that is actually present could possibly be a human, since human created it. You tell me.
The fact that Lanier often contradicted himself while trying to explain his views made the reading more difficult and perplexed to comprehend. For instance, while discussing the second flavor, Lanier claims it is not "helpful", but "fascinating and clever". If it's "fascinating and clever", how come it cannot be helpful? What is the missing factor that the second flavor is missing? Is it the many circular references that he makes? Or is it the idea of self-representation that is not being followed through?
Lastly, in the third flavor, Lanier argues that people can make themselves believe in all of these fictional beings, but there is a breaking point that allows us to change ourselves through allowing these fictional ideas to be part of our reality and in our daily regime. I can agree with this idea to the extent of these fictional ideas being dull. For instance, I am unsure if this example fully represents my point, but I feel that for me it is the most relevant. When I play the game It Girl online, the game gives me this idea of a "strange loop" that consists of different levels that invoke my interest in shopping. I can concur with Lanier that these fictional ideas have slightly changed ourselves in many ways, but it surely does not make us dull - We don't necessarily have to completely change ourselves. As I discussed in my previous blog, this idea of a dual-standard identity is reinforced, where our human identity is integrated into our virtual identity. But is Lanier implying that our virtual identity is livelier than our human identity? That may be the case for some, but not for all. It may be more accessible to to purchase apparel or find a mate through this and other similar games in the virtual world, but maybe one is trying to experience other things. Or, maybe the person who is playing the game is actually a small town girl living in a lonely world, but we don't stop believing.
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