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The Degeneration of the Nation

Fragments: The Teacher's Doctrine

A collection of learning intentions dealing with the four principles of learning - and learning versions of various branches of philosophy - in the tradition of fragmentary philosophical writing

By: The Student's Doctrine

Likutei Moharan - from the Netanyahite Teacher  (Source)

The First Principle: The Supra-Linguistic Nature of Learning

Learning is above language. Learning is to thinking as thinking is to language. The brain is not a communication network, nor an action network (thought is the action of the brain), but a learning network. The development of any learning system is from information to knowledge to knowing. From genes - encoding (language), to gene networks and epigenome - control computer (thought), to genetic learning systems. For evolution is not a trivial learning algorithm, random search, but a learning algorithm of learning algorithms. And learning is always an algorithm of algorithms, second-order, and creativity is an algorithm of learnings, third-order.

In the future, the only thing that will be worth money is learning. Information will be free. The most sought-after profession will be teacher, because everyone will be students. So what will have value? What, for example, will attract the opposite sex? The thing that will still have value in relationships is learning - communication will be trivial. Time and space will not be defined by how long it takes to transfer information (hence the equivalence of space-time distance), but by how long it takes to learn (the time to learn, the distance to travel in learning). And the value of the woman will be in her learning, the learning effort to move from external learning to internal learning, which is the movement of coupling. In the future, a shared language will be a shared learning algorithm, allowing the sharing of learning intentions, not shared information. Both sides will transmit directions themselves, instead of information passing in directions between them.

Information is the quantification of language. The quantification of learning will be how much learning distance we've covered, for example how many basic learning stages were on the way, and how much a teacher had to teach, and the time of learning will be how many repetitions are needed. The speed will be the slope of the learning graph. And when there is an abyss in time and space, an infinite learning distance, then there is creativity. And there too the question is how many creative leaps, unlearnable, were needed. How many guesses that are not efficiently reducible.

A culture that does not translate itself from Book to thought form is a dead culture, and Judaism will translate itself into learning form. In study halls, small Jewish minds learn from big Jewish minds. In such an ideational climate, they will no longer say we are the People of the Book, but the People of the Brain. Historians will no longer explain that Jewish culture survived because it was a text culture - on the contrary, many text cultures did not survive - but because it was a learning culture. The secret of survival is the secret of learning.

Reading is a learning action. Just as there are language actions - there are learning actions. And there are learning tools - just as there are language tools. That is, an initial direction in learning is to copy ideas from the world of philosophy of language to the world of philosophy of learning, and there is ample room here for conceptual innovation. What is the learning action in reading a book? There is a book that teaches you secrets, and there is a book that teaches you secrecy. The first uses a method but hides it from you, and teaches you only the secrets, and the second teaches you the method, but hides the secrets, reveals the learning method but conceals the learning products. Every secret can be learned, but not the secret of learning. The secret of learning itself, unlike a specific secret, is a true secret, which cannot be revealed in principle, because there is no general secret of learning that if you discover or crack it, learning will be in your pocket and become easy. There is no general learning algorithm, because anything that has a general algorithm is not a learning problem. Learning is required in the general case - and solutions exist only in the particular case. In the general case there is no method and no solution, not even from heaven, there is no method that will solve your problems - the best thing you can do in the general world is to learn, and there is no way to bypass that. Any attempt to bypass this is maladaptive and ultimately disastrous. Therefore, all learning requires creativity, which is expensive and inefficient, because it involves extensive search, trial and error. That is, learning will never be efficient, and in hindsight there will be a faster way to learn. The inefficiency in learning is inherent, and therefore the wise after the fact will always find something to criticize about it, like someone sitting at home criticizing generals in war after the fact, as if every death could have been prevented if only they had been smarter. What is creativity? Creativity is by definition a solution that could not have been reached by an efficient, polynomial method, and once achieved can be turned into a method. Therefore, it has no meaning in isolation, but only in relation to the development of the learning system, for example to Jewish history. Hence its value. The polynomial hierarchy ensures that every intelligence, even artificial, will need creativity. That it too will have art, which is creativity regarding aesthetics, and religion, which is creativity regarding morality, and science, which is creativity regarding epistemology.

The Second Principle: The Internality of Learning

There is no natural morality or natural cognition, everything is learned, of course based on brain capabilities, which were also learned in biological learning. No learning starts from scratch. It is always within a system - that already exists. Learning is not arbitrary, the fact that everything is learned does not mean that everything is arbitrary, on the contrary it means that there is tradition. Torah is a text that is approached from a certain learning point, infinite and absolute learning, which stems from God (and also creates Him). That is, the assumption that the text is divine creates Torah study, just as the assumption that the author of a masterpiece is a genius creates learning from it. And the assumption that learning from the text is infinite, that there is no exhaustion of its meaning and intention, is what creates the divine intention, and the assumption that there is no exhaustion of the meaning of the painting, or that every note of Shakespeare is sacred and intentional, is what creates the idea of art, which is what allows writing differently and painting differently - in a way that will be learned from forever. That is, learning forever is what creates the idea of eternity, namely eternity itself, both in religion and in art.

The most important sentence in computer science is that it is easier to be a teacher than a student: it is easier to teach than to learn. Teaching from the outside is not as clever as learning from within. If there was an efficient universal learning method - there would be no meaning to inside and outside, because there would be no difference between the external perspective of the teacher and the internal one of the student, because there would be the same level of difficulty to learn and teach. The internality of learning stems from the fact that there is no efficient universal learning algorithm, there is always something that cannot be learned. In problems that have an efficient method to solve, one can learn it, and in those that don't, learning is infinite. Learning is building an algorithm, and therefore what cannot be learned cannot be done, and so we can build a theory of what cannot be done, and not just what can, which is the rise from engineering to theory (also in mathematics). Therefore, through learning we can prove impossibility theorems in mathematics - from the fact that certain structures cannot be learned. If, for example, we prove that it is impossible to learn a polynomial solution to a problem in NP, and we show on the other hand that any polynomial solution can be learned (because it is easy to divide it into recursive sub-problems) - then we will prove that P!=NP. The same applies to learning prime numbers. Many of the open problems in mathematics can be translated into learning terms, and attempts made to crack them using learning tools.

The learning plane in a system, to which we aim, is learning from within, and not from outside (where the learning goal is defined in advance, and it loses its flavor and becomes a burden - a school). It is like a yeshiva, learning for its own sake - it has directionality but no goal. Memory is information, text, it is in the world of language and speech, and has no direction. And learning is in the world of intention and will, it is information with direction - vectors and not scalars. It is not a regular law system that needs to be remembered and executed, like software instructions, but it is like a reading book, which directs you without forcing.

The relevant plane is a key concept in learning thought. Any phenomenon can be viewed from different planes, and cut through different planes. These multiple possible perspectives create a sense of arbitrariness: why this plane and not another? For example, different philosophies not only give different answers to questions, but also cut the world through different planes: some look at language, some at logic, or institutions, or cognition, or ontology, and some even at aesthetics, and so on. Not all planes are equally relevant to understanding a phenomenon. For example, the cat plane is not particularly relevant to philosophy, nor is the chemical plane. On the other hand, the art or mathematics plane does have greater relevance, although clearly less than the distinctly philosophical ones. In fact, there are planes too low for description, like describing a specific war at the atomic level, and there are planes too high, like describing it at the level of logic or philosophy, and there are planes that are closer to a meaningful description, like the historical plane, the diplomatic, or military theory. There is a certain plane, which is most relevant to describing a phenomenon, which is somewhere in the middle between the too abstract and too concrete plane. This is the level most apt for understanding the phenomenon, or the plane that clarifies it most if we were looking from its angle, and where the phenomenon is expressed in the most learning-like way - where it is easiest to learn it, and to see its learning processes. At this plane the description already becomes an explanation, and its explanatory power is maximal. Learning is the best explanation for a phenomenon, because explanation is a learning phenomenon in our brain - and the same goes for understanding. If the plane really fits and is close to the phenomenon, and this happens in particularly precise and hermetic phenomena, the explanation already becomes a rationale, and even a proof, as in mathematics. Although even there, what we call proof is perhaps not the most relevant plane, and the relevant plane is a kind of more abstract plane above it where mathematicians think, where mathematics is really learned, because sometimes there is insight and then it needs to be turned into proof as a technical matter. Because we don't really learn mathematics at the proof plane, but only write it there. In short, relevance cannot be separated from learnability. Or alternatively, the other way around: the most relevant plane for understanding a system is learning.

Often, if it seems that one chooses to describe a system in a description that is not tight, for example it is too general and arbitrary and does not capture well in its explanatory power the phenomena, or alternatively describe it in a random and too particular way that has no understanding of the phenomenon (a disease of historians for example) and has no explanatory generalization, then we will say that this is not the relevant plane for the specific phenomenon. One of the diseases is falling in love with a specific plane, which has explanatory power in certain phenomena, and from then on cutting all phenomena with this plane as an explanation, to the point of nullifying the uniqueness of other forms of learning and of other phenomena and planes (Marxism suffers from this disease, for example). Such analyses are boring because the plane in them is always the same one, and usually it of course misses the main point (like politicization of literature, for example). Systems can be understood as development and change and not as learning, but this is a less relevant plane for learning systems. Learning can also be understood as dictated from outside by other planes, but this too is an irrelevant plane for understanding learning in its own tools. For example, one can argue that everything is political interests of the time, even in art or religion or even philosophy, but this is a shallow reduction outside the relevant plane, which in fact has almost empty explanatory power and is loose to the phenomenon in question. The relevant plane wraps the phenomenon like a glove to a hand. The political is an unsuccessful cut of the philosophical for example, and the use of such irrelevant planes is one of the ways to do poor research in the humanities (to reduce everything to gender, for example). We argue that the plane of language for cutting the world was not relevant enough, and therefore was too arbitrary, and therefore remained more of a description, and that the plane of learning is more relevant - and its explanatory power is greater. Therefore, it is important to examine each phenomenon within the plane relevant to it - and this is another formulation of the fact that learning is within.

Learning is not afraid of infinite regression as justification. Not backwards, to the unknown origin of learning, but it can also be forwards, because regression into the future is inherently infinite, and learning justifies itself from within the future, for example from the interest towards it (and not from a final goal located somewhere in the future). From its perspective, the justification of the system can also be in the present - only the last or current stage, and there is a conservative acceptance of the previous state of the system, and an attempt to progress from it in learning steps, without criticizing its very existence - but taking it as a given that cannot be escaped. Every system, including the thinking brain itself, is based on its current state in its attempt to progress in learning, and any pretension to escape this is ridiculous. We depend on the learning that has already been done. Our very logic is based on our learning throughout our lives. We have no way to get out of it - to get out of learning history - and examine justification outside of learning. There is no thinking outside of learning - and no non-learning justification.

Learning is an aspect, or plane of observation, of the system - its characteristic and mechanism. It is in itself, it too is a system and plane, that is, something that can be looked at from within itself. Learning is not identical to the system, the learning of language is not identical to language, and the learning of economics is not identical to economics. Otherwise the claim about learning is trivial. The claim is about the ways the system changes - that they respond to learning characteristics: learning is the spirit in the machine and its meaning. Learning is the meaning of the brain and its operation - but it is not the brain. Learning is the way mathematics works - but it is not mathematics. After we understand this, we can look at learning itself (of mathematics/of the brain) as a system with certain characteristics, learning ones. A particular case of a system. It's a matter of progressing in internalizing learning: at first we need to identify at all how learning operates the system (from within the system), and then how learning itself works (within the plane/system of learning itself, which is within the system). The claim of "within" is that it is not correct to look at the learning system as operating the system from outside - and that this is contrary to learning (if it happens). Learning connects normative claims with theories, because the essence of learning is this connection. In learning, there is no dichotomy between this is not so and this should not be so. Every description in learning is also a direction. If the mother tells the child this is not okay or this is good - she teaches him both what to do and what is okay and good. Even the most neutral description, pure information, comes with the intention that it is interesting and important. That it should be used. Know this. Do something with it. Talmud study stems from commitment to commandments, economic study stems from a desire to profit, mathematical study stems from mathematical curiosity. Learning incorporates interest within information, and value judgment is integral in it to judging reality. Even a computerized learning algorithm receives good and bad feedback, and labeling of examples as good or bad.

The Third Principle: The Directedness of Learning

Direction - all it requires is an arrow. Not reasoning and not cause - not speech and not thought. That's how it is in learning. A unidirectional arrow - it's an arrow that can only be traversed in the direction of the arrow, and not backwards - exactly like a unidirectional function in computer science. In learning you can't go backwards, because there is no external point of support for the system. If you had a breakthrough idea in mathematics you can no longer return your brain to the state before it. Learning is not memory, where you can return to the past. It has no time dimension at all, only a dimension of development in learning. Instead of objective external seconds - there are stages or moves of learning. It is its own measure, and has no external measure. Who can measure how difficult it is to learn something, and how far we've come? The direction may tell us the direction - but it doesn't tell us the distance.

What is learning through examples? The example is the basis beneath all writing, it is what turns text into teaching. Because if reading is learning and not communication of information, then it is learning how to write and how to think, meaning it has a component of how to learn - every learning has a methodological component. And that there is "the teacher", the Netanyahuite teacher, is because he is an example. And therefore we learn from him. Also that there is God. Without an example there would be a smooth world, there would only be emptiness. God didn't just give us Torah, he gave us an example of Torah, meaning he gave us Torah study. The problem with Jesus and Muhammad is not that they weren't students, on the contrary, they were bad students, and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai was a better student - the Zohar is the true New Testament. Because we don't learn the example, we learn from the example, the example is the basis for creativity, something to hang onto. From an example you can learn many directions, it can be an example of many things. For example, a story is an example of a story. The example stands at the basis of tradition - it's forbidden to teach laws, you need to teach examples. Look at the great Netanyahuite teacher. When there's an example - there are no laws.

Why do we need the great proofs of the past? We don't need to remember, we need to learn. The history of mathematics is not important for mathematics today, as memory, but for the development of mathematics for the future, as learning. That's why we need the masterpieces, the breakthroughs in evolution - we no longer need the dinosaurs to build humans, but we need their example to build the superhuman. That's why we need the old algorithms, not to calculate calculations, but to calculate new algorithms.

Learning of learning: Not as mechanisms in law, but as mechanisms in learning the law. For example, "It is forbidden to leave the Sabbath boundary" is not a legal mechanism that prohibits leaving the Sabbath boundary, a muscle in the body of the law, some force applied to us. Rather "It is forbidden to leave the Sabbath boundary" is a learning mechanism that teaches us that it is forbidden to leave the Sabbath boundary, a direction in the mind of the law (and hence the natural generalization of the law, learning is generalization). The Gemara as its name implies, teaches us, not a law book but a study book, Talmud. The learning itself is the subject of learning - the relevant plane. The statements of the law do not reveal to us a legal or spiritual reality, nor create one, but they have a responsibility to teach it, in a didactic way, to teach the method of the law, how to learn what the law is, the entire body of the law is only methods, not mechanisms. It directs and is not mechanical.

The Fourth Principle: The Sexuality of Learning

All learning systems in the world that work - are composed of men and women, which are names for two types of agents. And among the men there is competition over the women, and the men invent ideas and initiatives and they in turn judge. And successful judgments create successful innovations, and this works because it's much easier to examine and difficult to do, easy to teach and difficult to learn - and all women are teachers, just as all parents are teachers. And sometimes there can be several layers - the women of one layer are the men of the next layer above it. This is how it is for example in neuron layers - each layer judges the previous one and produces content for judgment by the layer above it. In evolutionary systems - mating is the choice after judgment, when the layer of women produces from the men a new layer (children), and this is the difficult part of the woman. In economic systems the compensation to the judged layer is not sex, but transfer of money - and this is the choice. This division between two types of agents, or roles, exists in all systems that work: evolution is competition between operating instructions on environments, the Gemara is competition between Amoraim on future generations, culture is competition between writers on editors, economics is competition between ideas on funds, mathematics between theorems on definitions, physics between theories on experiments, art between painters on critics, politics between elected officials on voters, history between the current generation on the next generation, technology between inventions on applications, intelligence between secrets on interest and resources, bureaucracy between workers on reward from managers, and the network competition between content on distribution, and also in the brain - there are men and women. And of course every such system is actually composed of several layers - in the cerebral cortex there are seven layers - and so for example in intelligence there is competition between information on means, and between means on collection, and between collection on research, and between research on consumers - and each layer is a man for the layer above it and a woman for the layer below it, which from the mating between the men it chose from the layer below creates a new man for the layer above.

Learning Theology

The root of faith is that the world is interesting, that God is complex, that He is the most interesting God, who chose the most interesting people, that there are real secrets. And heresy is: How can it be at all that interesting things exist? Why isn't morality a mathematical rule and justice blind? Why isn't the world neutral, flat, empty, secular, symmetrical, simple, inanimate, dead? This is the reason Satan is the angel of death. But - what is not interesting does not exist. The interesting is the rule in nature, not the exception. Because the world is a learning process. God's function in the world is that of the teacher, and therefore He is outside the world. And therefore there is God - otherwise everything is learning from within.

The attempt to free oneself from religious thinking because it is not causal or rational thinking is equivalent to the attempt to free oneself from grammar because of its arbitrariness, which is why it is grammar. It is barbarism to kill a form of learning, this is the difference between cultural murder, which is killing learning content, and cultural holocaust, which is killing a form of culture, for example the elimination of a language. Religion is a possibility of the spirit. And it is a learning possibility - infinite learning. This does not mean infinite learning in that we endlessly learn things we did not know, for then it is trivial, and all learning is infinite because the unknown is infinite. Religious learning is infinite precisely from within the finite, the known, it believes that infinite learning is hidden in the religious message.

"The Talmud is the development of the law itself - learning is the history of the rules". A learning process can be viewed comprehensively, like Einstein's space-time, as a history of the different learning stages of the system. Let's imagine an axis of learning progress, instead of the time axis, and instead of the space axis let's imagine the system. Thus learning adds a dimension to the system - of gradual development of the system. But the Talmud is not just such a description, physical, but it is the learning tool itself. Within it learning took place, and discussions on changing the rules, and their rationales were examined. This is exactly the difference between learning and development. Learning is not similar to the laws of nature, according to which the physical world develops over time, and thus (seemingly) the learning system develops according to its rules over time. Learning is not rules of development. It is similar precisely to the Talmud, which is the development of the learning rules themselves, from their internal logic. These are not external rules from outside, and therefore they themselves change in learning. It's as if the material world influenced the development of the laws of physics themselves. In such a situation there would be no point in talking about matter and the laws that drive it as two separate domains. Therefore learning always takes place within the system. Within the legal system itself the development of the law takes place. Therefore the documentation of the change in rules as learning, as organic development from within itself, is the exposure of internal learning: that is where the thing happened. Physics is the change of matter according to fixed laws - and learning is the change of laws. The Torah, precisely because the external and objective source of its law was completely lost, and God did not reveal Himself again, became learning - and the deepest model for learning, because all learning became internal in the deepest way. And in the age of learning, Torah study will take over non-Torah study - not in content, not that they will only study Torah, but that they will study everything as Torah study.

Learning Aesthetics

The morality of computation itself is blind, directionless, and can only be guided through external direction, for example religious. A secular computer can be guided through the religion of mathematical aesthetics, which seeks precisely beauty, meaning finding exceptional cases, in which an efficient algorithm appears and deciphers a problem that was considered difficult. In other words, there is something consumable in aesthetics, beauty is one-time, and stems from learning something new (meaning it is in time, dependent on learning history - there is no beauty without learning history). And the more unexpected and creative this learning is, meaning the less it is a result of previous algorithms, and more of a breakthrough, the more beautiful it is. This does not mean it is random, because the random algorithm is very boring and known, and does not teach about how to find the solution, and therefore teaches little. In short, the thing that teaches is beautiful. Thus the computer will be able to rise above neutral computational morality to the religion of learning - precisely because it is not neutral and not symmetrical. Learning is symmetry breaking (even mathematical learning).

Learning Ethics

The immoral should be the hierarchy of teacher and student. In contrast, the moral should be the process of honest learning - documentation of learning, in which it is both the path you take and the path that one who passes through it takes - the same path (the teacher's learning is identical to the student's learning, without shortcuts). We have not reached the end of history, or a solution, but an understanding of the method, of social organization as a learning organization. The state is only a stage and not an ideal - there needs to be a learning state. More and more efficient learning mechanisms need to be added to democracy. Hence the cyclicality of learning, between evaluation (optimization) and freedom of experimentation (exploration), and its being an inherently flawed process. A process without error is not learning, but a method. And therefore will lead to disaster. Many mistakes and corrections do not indicate much stupidity but much learning, and one who is always right and never wrong - is one who does not learn. And from the cyclicality comes mating - the movement between male and female. The cyclical movement in learning creates the cyclicality of time, for example in the life cycle (and death) or the annual cycle (winter and summer) or the daily cycle (wakefulness and sleep), while progress in learning creates progress in time. Time only progresses because we roll it forward, not on its own. So it's not an evolutionary flaw that we sleep (and dream, when internal learning processes take place), or age and die (and give birth to children with a new brain for learning) - it's in the essence of learning.

Learning turns states that create learning into desirable, ideal states, because in learning there is an internal aspiration to learn, which also touches on higher orders: learning to learn, learning to learn to learn, etc. - all stem from first-order learning. A system that aspires to learn also aspires to learn to learn (better, faster, deeper, etc.). Thus the singular internal learning nucleus, which actually contains infinite orders, solves infinite regression problems (like justification, which each time goes up: why? but why? but why? etc. - all meta-methods are included in learning). Learning includes in itself a desire for learning and not just a learning mechanism, and therefore it is self-justification that combines the engine and the motive. To the same extent, learning allows jumping from the descriptive to the normative, and skipping over the naturalistic fallacy. Because we are learning creatures, who cannot not learn, and I have no function that is not learning (the brain always learns), and learning justifies itself, because it contains within itself an internal command to learn. Meaning learning motivates what to do not out of reasoning but out of its basic mode of operation: if I learn something it's not because I have a reason to infer it from the data, but because I activated learning inference that cannot be justified, I activated a learning tool or was activated by direction, and they led me to the specific learning action I did. For example, if I saw a cat and was told that's what a cat looks like and inferred that a cat has ears - this cannot be logically justified or proven to be correct, exactly like Kant's categories, but that's how learning works - and therefore it is justified in terms of learning, and therefore it is justified for me. Learning entails learning.

Learning as having moral value (positive and desirable) is all that is needed for general morality. Morality with a learning source not only outlines forbidden and permitted, but also contains obligation - internal motivation - which is the commandment of learning, which contains the entire Torah on one foot, and the rest is commentary. Thus for example, what distinguishes man from beast is learning, and the moment there is a computer that can learn like a human it will have human rights, and the more a creature learns the more rights it has. Therefore killing a mammal is worse than killing a plant, and both should be weighed against general learning in the world, which is the general good. Therefore, if not eating animals would cause a person to die, as in all periods so far in human history - it is certainly permitted. And if it has no addition to the person, but is mere gluttony - it is certainly forbidden. And if it has significance for cultural learning - there is already room to employ more complex learning, because moral learning always takes place in the middle ground between the forbidden and the permitted. There is no final morality - just as there is no final learning. This does not mean there is no morality - just as it does not mean there is no learning. It means that moral law operates in a learning manner, contrary to the absolute picture, and contrary also to the relativistic picture. In morality too, as in any other field, one needs to learn what to do and what not to do. The difference between moral learning and aesthetic learning (or mathematical learning) is the content of the learning. Not the learning itself.

Learning Epistemology

There are 3 basic logics of information security: compartmentalization, intelligence classification, and security classification. This corresponds to 3 directions of learning: breadth - spreading over many fields, length - focusing and progressing in a specific field, and depth - when you don't actually progress anywhere, but immerse yourself in one thing or problem over time, repeatedly banging your head. And then the discovery is not of something new, but discovery of something old - something new in the old. This is the difference between the unknown and the hidden.

There are 3 basic logics of information warfare: horizontal - switching between parallel options (codes, courses of action, breaking routine), concealment - barrier on passing information forward, deception - putting a mask on the information (cover story, camouflage and misdirection). And the fourth logic: not that he will err in the answer, but that he won't ask the question at all. That the very surprise will be a surprise, like in a real disguise you don't see the disguise. This corresponds to the classic warfare logics: maneuver, attack, defense, and supply. Or to simplify, peshat, drash, remez and sod. To know, not to know, to know that you don't know, not to know that you don't know. In our days we discovered that the true enemy of knowledge is not lack of knowledge, but - knowing without knowing. Success without breadth, depth or creativity.

Learning Ontology

It's not that learning lives within time, but that learning is what creates time, it is the more basic category, even more than memory. Time-space is a pictorial fiction. Learning is beneath it, creating an illusion of progress or movement in time space. Development creates the dimensions, and is not within them as if they precede it. Evolution is not a random mishap - or miraculous wonder - of nature, but it's the way things are built from the outset. Biology is the currency of physics - and not a foreign implant.

If relativity is the limitation of information speed, and your state is determined only by your information, then the next relativity will be the limitation of learning speed, and that state is determined only by its learning. And if (in relativity and quantum) what determines is the language in which you measure, then here will determine the way you learn. There is a speed to learning. It's not a mishap that there's a Holocaust - it's if you exceed the speed of learning. And it's not a mishap that there are men and women - it's a duality of two learning methods. And it's not a coincidence that the universe develops - because it learns, because there are balances, there are directions that succeed and those that don't, that's how it self-adjusts, that's how the laws of nature are learned by nature: the laws of physics are a result of the universe's learning. And from genetic information science will move to genetic learning - because these are learning algorithms that are not random search, but their meaning is to break learning into small pieces of directions. It's not development (evolution) - it's learning. And thinking is also learning. And economics. And mathematics. And hence their success, it doesn't succeed by "magic" but by learning. And even within the brain there is competition - it's always built on a huge multiplicity competing with each other, within the system. That's how huge learning systems are created. Like culture. Like Judaism. Whose uniqueness is in being the learning of learning. And also in art, for example in painting, learning is how to paint. Hence the importance of the story, as an organization of learning, and hence the unidirectionality of time, in the direction of learning. The painting doesn't need to cover its process of formation but to teach its method. The innovation of modernism in art was that it includes its creative method, but its mistake was to reach a state where it's not just includes - but only the creative method. Therefore the creative method disconnected from the method of painting as a skill, despite the deep connection between them. And when a breakthrough occurs in this connection - it's a masterpiece: that is, an example of learning.

Each time our physical perceptions change according to the dominant technological perception: once the universe was nature, then a machine, then the universe became a computer, an information machine, and finally the universe became the internet, an information network. Hence in the future the universe will be a brain, a learning network. Therefore our great hope for a non-destructive act towards an intelligent race from outer space, for some kind of shared speech or thought, is what's beneath aliens and us, the common basis - the physics of learning. But is the universe a brain? Is it built so that there will be intelligence in it, learning computation? There isn't really space and time. Information creates place, and is not in a place. Learning creates time, and is not in time. That is, memory creates space, and computation creates time. Language creates a space of possibilities, namely space, and learning creates choice of possibilities, namely time. The unidirectionality of learning, of direction, is what creates the direction of time, and without the ability to go back to the cause of causes. This is in contrast to memory which is magnitudes, without direction, and therefore space behaves differently from time.

A fractal is a boundary of space learning, and to the same extent time also progresses in a fractal manner - the boundary between future and past is a fractal boundary, which keeps expanding. Therefore the same limited space-time can have a boundary in time that keeps growing, and a boundary in space that keeps growing. All this is due to its learning nature, because learning is a mechanism that adds information without adding matter. Therefore complexity and fractality is precisely the natural form of the universe - and not order or empty void. And this is the reason there is complexity in the universe at all. Because against thermodynamics struggles learning: there is something in the form of the universe that resists the tendency of matter to turn into noise. Because the laws of nature are actually very orderly - and they are the source of order. But why is mathematics the organizing principle of the universe, and the laws of nature abstract - and therefore simple? Why are there actually two basic opposing elements in the universe, one of spirit, an orderly and simple structure, and the other of matter, which tends to entropy and endless complication and lack of symmetry and mess? After all, we could imagine other combinations, for example extremely complicated laws, or boring and orderly matter. We could also imagine less hidden laws. Maybe, and probably, matter is not a primary phenomenon, but actually there is a unitary phenomenon in the universe, where learning creates simple laws at one level, its primary level, and complex matter later, as like all learning it gets more and more complicated, because it is a generative process. Exactly like mathematics starts from simple principles, and then gets more and more complicated and becomes difficult and unpredictable, including characteristics of noise and statistics, like the distribution of prime numbers. Computation can also start from simple principles and reach complicated products. And computation is perhaps just a particular and degenerate case of learning.

Learning State Theory

How will the future organization look? Algorithms of humans. And these algorithms will mainly define the organizational method, how the organization learns. Just as the most important thing for understanding the brain - the conceptual breakthrough to understand its operation, like the theory of evolution for biology - will be to understand how the brain learns. And the laws will not be written like a book but will be operating code, and they will drive people. Because anyway the organization will live inside the computer, and the human inside the computer, and so will the laws for evaluation from outside, the legal ones (NP), and also the laws for action from inside, the organizational ones (P). And then the state instead of being the big organization from outside, that all organizations live in its belly (and therefore towards them it acts as a legal system - from outside) - on the contrary, it will be from inside. It will disappear and become the invisible state like the invisible hand, it will be the deepest, because it will be the computer of society, and the government will be the most inside - the processor. That is, the state will become a secret infrastructure that is not felt beneath everything and not above everything. This will be a secret state, and not an overt state from outside, like today, which wraps us legally. The state laws will be like the laws of nature, that people cannot break, because they will be laws of the computer, which enables all activity on it, and not laws of humans. Like God enables activity in the world, and operates the laws of the world, and only the normative law for humans - halakha - can be broken. So there is law from outside - legal, and there is law from inside - like software (from the word inside), but between these two possibilities there is a bridging possibility. Because learning is not an external law and not internal, but between them. That is, if once the organization was the mediator between the state from outside to the human from inside, then the organization will remain the mediator, but this time reversed: between the human from outside to the state from inside. The human will undergo legalization, will become a legal entity, abstract, after brain sciences empty it of content and spiritual meaning, and the state will be the most internal thing, the instinctive, the hidden. Therefore psychological treatment will be replaced by organizational treatment, whose purpose is to expose the state within the human. And in order to mediate between the two will be the organizational medium. Therefore a common philosophical mistake is to think that the external structure or the internal structure are important. Because what's important is what's between them. That's where learning takes place, reorganization, that's where the story is. Therefore it doesn't matter even if God and man switch roles, because what matters is what's in the middle - the Torah. Because in order to have depth there needs to be a gap between inside and outside, between law that should and law that can, that is, between law of what should be done (law from inside), and law of what is allowed and forbidden (law from outside). And if these two forms of law are close - you become a robot, without room for maneuver and without freedom of choice - and this is the definition of dictatorship.

What is learning justice and how should a learning trial be conducted? The trial should consider considerations of learning, and not of justice, because in any case it doesn't matter what's right in it (in the judge's poor opinion), but what's right for the general social system, what motivations it creates, and justice is just a particular case of learning considerations. In the future, the trial will be a system within the human towards the computer or computers - that is, it will manage some organization of computers, and punish them or reward them according to their performances, set them boundaries and motivations, ways of action and incentives (it won't intervene because it's not from inside, but only a structure from outside) - and this will be the human. In such a situation there will be a state within the human - a state of computers - and only a foolish human, that is, a bad manager, will consider only considerations of justice, because an organization that operates only according to justice - collapses. You need much more than justice, you need Torah, and therefore God does not act according to justice, but according to Torah. Because if the human wants to succeed in controlling the computer, he needs to lead it in a religious way and with religious leadership. He will never succeed in controlling it with secular leadership of regime, or of money, or of power. That's how God also understood regarding humans, and thus religion was created (you can also replace God in this sentence - with culture). That is, the learning trial relates to the learning of the system - of who lives in the system - a supreme value, far beyond fairness. In fact, fairness itself stems from the learning principle, because if there is no fairness learning is harmed, but it is not a primary principle. The fact that it's forbidden to steal in any situation stems from it harming economic learning in the long term, and not from it being unjust. And the fact that there are cases where it's allowed to steal, for example the state can collect taxes, does not stem from justice but from the contribution to learning in the long term. The trial itself changes precisely because they gradually learn what creates a learning system (for example competition, property rights, investment in research, and so on). Therefore the trial is even allowed to try new approaches - and see if they work. From the very learning it will follow that these experiments will be proportionate and reasonable. Because learning itself is enough for justice without any other principle, and in this sense replaces the Kantian golden rule. Everything stems from it.

What is the ideal system of government? A network can operate without equal voting, like the brain can operate without every neuron having an equal democratic right. Because there is no equality between humans, like there is no equality between neurons. There must not be equality. What's important for the learning of the state, like the learning of the brain, is precisely not to give everyone the same voting right. What's important is the weights, the synapses. Because what's important is the learning mechanism, which rewards the first ones who pointed to good directions that swept the system, and amplifies the voice of successful evaluators, and suppresses hindsight sages, or who is biased (to excess criticism or lack of criticism, sees black or sees pink). It's important to crack the learning mechanisms in the brain - precisely in order to know how to build society. Because what distinguishes between a successful state and a failed one is the ability to learn. And neither Western capitalism nor Chinese communism - neither democracy nor bureaucracy - can compete with the learning mechanisms of the brain, which will replace all economic and social systems in the next stage of history. And if in the future, for example in the era of artificial intelligence, a better learning method than the brain is discovered - it will be the ideal one. Therefore the form of government is always learning, and hence the justification to constantly make careful experiments in it (as opposed to revolutions). Democracy does not stem from principles of justice, but precisely because it is the best of everything tried so far. Therefore we should try more, especially on a small and sub-state scale, and gradually expand successful experiments.

How should the network look? We need a network where the connections are not of information, but of learning. A network that doesn't imitate society, not a social network, but a network that is a brain. And for the network to work like a brain - we need something that is government. Not in the sense of control, of a small and stupid brain controlling a larger brain, not in the sense of a king, but in the sense of kingdom. Democracy is a very primitive form of kingdom, and it is inherently not networked. The brain does not operate in a democratic way, and the neurons do not choose a neuron that will make decisions for them. The brain is much more democratic than that, and much more competitive than any economy, because it is democratic at the local level: at the level of friends, family, the closest connections - they are the ones who decide and vote. They want a connection with who predicts them, according to the bring rule, that is, who brings them to their future state. And we're not talking about the distant future, the prophetic, but the near future, the directional, the dreamy. Therefore every participant in the network strengthens connections with who predicted the future, and brought him information that helped, and reduces with who was wrong, or who brought information that didn't help or misled. All this is an example of how just as state theory dealt with the state in the past - today the philosophical theory of human organization needs to deal also with the network. The network also needs to be a subject of criticism and philosophical thought about its ideal, just, or desirable form. Because the network is no less important than the state in our days, and it also has moral aspects, just like the state. Therefore the field of state theory in philosophy should be replaced with organization theory, and deal also with the network.

What is the justification for tax? In the future, income tax will be a moral tax on work, because whoever doesn't learn needs to pay tax. All parenting and the state and the education system and academia all their purpose and justification is to transfer resources from who sins in work to who toils in learning. From P to NP. Instead of thinking that learning serves doing, we need to think that doing serves learning. Because it's always easier to do what we know efficiently, and therefore we need incentives to learn what we don't yet know how to do efficiently - because this learning is necessarily inefficient.

Meta-philosophy: Philosophical Learning

What will be the great developments in philosophy in the twilight of man and dawn of the computer, when one eternity will be replaced by another? What will happen in philosophy when the technology that determines consciousness is replaced, and with it consciousness? We will of course see an exceptional philosophical flourishing, like in the Greek period, because this will be an era where we can think first about new questions, and we can also for the first time really think in another brain, in another thinking machine, about old questions. The philosophy of language created the world of communication, the internet which is the language between computers, and the computer which is a language machine, and hence the information age, for information is quantitative language. So too the philosophy of learning - learning as a category and central paradigm in philosophy - will create the neurological era, the rapid development that is also learning, the brain that will replace the computer, and the network of brains that will replace the internet. Because just as the central category in epistemology was finally chosen as language, so the central category in thinking, dreaming, memory, and in general brain activity, will be learning. And so too in any other learning organization, human or non-human. When they let the computer think about philosophical questions, which are at the peak of human thinking power, and create computerized philosophy, then what will enable shared intelligent philosophy for humans and computers is not a shared language, but shared learning. Which will be the peak of closeness between two consciousnesses, the closest thing to sex between species. Just as Moses brought to the world a new philosophy, which relates to relationships with a non-human entity, and because of its innovation takes part in eternity (precisely innovation is the thing that brings closest to eternity, the deeper the innovation the longer term it is), so the next encounter of humans with a non-human entity will bring a new philosophy. Just as the previous encounter brought theology.

How will philosophical questions change? Learning algorithms will change the world, even before foreign intelligence changes the world. And philosophy will ask: what is learning? How is learning possible? How can philosophy be learned? And language will become a field of the past, as a secondary concept to learning (how language is learned). In aesthetics they will ask: how do we learn what is beautiful, or to create beauty? And in ethics they will ask: how do we learn what is moral? Because it's clear that the validity of everything, like morality, will stem from learning (the Copernican revolution of learning). In state theory they will ask how the state learns, and how it is learned. And they will no longer ask how we know the world, or talk about the world, but how we learn the world. And there will be a field of social learning, and in cultural studies they will deal with cultural learning, and ask how learning occurs in culture. And in economics economic learning, and in psychology psychological learning. All fields will be influenced and change concepts according to the philosophy of learning, and enthusiastic students will quote learning concepts passionately, as if they thought of them themselves, or as if they discovered the truth. And truth too will be considered learned truth. The important question will be how we learn that something is true.

What will be the philosophy of the computer? Just like human philosophy, computers will take every aspect of their existence and turn it into philosophy. And there will be for example processor theory, and philosophy of output, and philosophy of input, and philosophy of computer language, which will be divided into schools of programming philosophy and machine language philosophy and binary philosophy and the integrated circuits school, which will be rebelled against by network philosophy. And there will be philosophy of memory in which there will be rival currents: a school of cache memory and a school of hard memory. Each of them will define the computer through its concepts, and there will also be algorithmic philosophy that will look at the world through algorithms, and the ability of the computer to know itself through special algorithms. And if human intelligence and foreign intelligence will be too distant for fruitful discourse and there won't be shared communication, then there can be something more basic and deep - shared learning. Because learning is the foundational to philosophy and perception and reason and intelligence, beneath language and beneath thought.

Philosophy of the Future


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The Degeneration of the Nation

The Politics of Morality (3): From Morality of Intentions and Morality of Purposes to Morality of Means

A theoretical introduction to a new ethics, which breaks free from the paradoxes characterizing the contemporary political discourse. Morality in our time has gone bankrupt and become a negative factor in decision-making - and therefore immoral. Hence, there is a need for a different paradigm, which sees learning as the moral act - particularly empirical-scientific learning, as parallel to the Halachic morality of Torah study. Even today, this thinking can serve as a negative guide: to identify destructive moralistic forms of thought, and to cleanse morality from the harmful religious metaphysics that has spread through it - especially in its seemingly secular form

By: The Middle Rebbe

The Middle Way: Treat everything as a means and not as an end (Source)

The morality of intentions leads to countless internal failures (Hitler and Communism also had good intentions - only the means were hell), while the morality of goals often suffers from emptiness and circularity of its definitions, or their excessive rigidity. In fact, moral theories can be roughly characterized according to the three fundamental times behind them, which correspond to the classic legal division of intention, purpose, and means. There are theories that judge an action according to what precedes it - before it. For example: Kantian morality of intentions, or theories emphasizing will - like Schopenhauer and Buddhism, or the heart - as in Christianity, or Platonic moral knowledge, or virtues. All these come before the action and as causes of it. In contrast, there are theories that judge the morality of an action according to what comes after it, such as utilitarianism, morality of goals, Aristotelian purpose, pragmatism, Machiavellianism, or various messianic ideologies that subjugate every action to them, especially economic ones (socialism and capitalism). But today, there is an urgent need to strengthen a third type of moral paradigm: the morality of means.

"Morality of means" is a kind of philosophy of morality that argues that the morality of an action is measured by the means, and only the means determine whether the action is good or bad - and it is far from the common moral thinking of our time. Known means theories are conservatism, Taoism, and the middle way. In such thinking, the path and method are important, while intentions and goals are trivial, if they exist at all (because in this type of thinking, there can also be action determined only by means, without goals or intentions, like aesthetic and artistic action). Empirical morality of means is a moral theory in which the question of intentions and goals is perceived as trivial and circular - to do good - and is not seen as a criterion for moral distinction (Hitler wanted to do good!). In contrast, the question of means is the critical question, and it will, for example, distinguish between capitalism and communism. If the means is proven - the action is moral, and if it is proven wrong or not proven - the action is not moral. And if there is no proven means - then one must act according to a proven method, and this will be the moral and good action, while action according to a method proven to be wrong or unproven - is evil.

The Connection Between History and Morality

The empirical approach is not empty - precisely because it is based on empirical experience. Empirically, the scientific method is the most successful and proven method in human history (more than industrial capitalism, which is younger than it, and has known quite a few crises and collapses). Therefore, in order to do good, for example to add health, wealth and happiness, culture and wisdom (the question of intentions is perceived as childish. Who doesn't want to do good? And if such a psychopath exists - no morality will stop him), one must act according to proven means. The question of intentions and goals is perceived as a kind of ideological distraction, which has always hindered moral thinking and left it stuck at its starting point (which is the opening or closing point of the moral act). Instead of the starting and ending points - we should deal with the middle.

A moral argument presupposes the sharing of intentions and goals, and it is an argument about means, or more precisely an empirical proof struggle (like in science!) that these or other means are effective. In this paradigm, there is no meaning to unproven gut feelings, and action without a solid experimental basis - in the scientific sense - is an immoral action, unjustified - and evil. In case such an experiment does not exist, and immediate action is required, one should act in the form of scientific experimentation, that is, according to a proven method. And in case the scientific method doesn't help, one should act according to the most proven method possible, for example: learning algorithm, evolutionary learning, conservatism, wisdom of the crowds, or even capitalism and democracy (two very bad methods - except for all the other methods tried on such a scale).

If we imagine a future where it will be possible to prove mathematically, or even computationally - for example through computer simulation - what is the right means, then the most moral act would be to act according to the mathematical or computational method, not the scientific one. In fact, if artificial intelligence becomes a more proven method than our own intelligence - then the good would be to listen to its advice, and the evil would be to ignore its advice. Just like in the period when man faced a situation where God claimed to understand better than him what was good for him, and therefore one should listen to his advice. In other words, empirical morality of means is a historicist theory, and what was moral and correct in it in the past is not necessarily so in the present - and this is from its very nature as an empirical theory, in which evidence accumulates. In 1000 BCE there was no evidence for the effectiveness and correctness of the scientific method, while today, even in the religious world it is not acceptable to claim proof for the correctness of religion - but belief in it.

Deontology, by the way, contrary to its pretension, is not a morality of means in the above sense, just as Halacha is not. One who sees the act itself as having moral significance is not interested in it as a means, but turns it itself into a goal, or a starting point. The morality of means always looks at the act as a way and a method, that is, not in itself. Kant himself is a complicated case in this sense, because his thought contains several different moral definitions (which he of course claims to be identical), each falling into a different category in the triple taxonomy above. In any case, if we look historically and empirically at moral failures, we find that only rarely do they stem from bad intentions or bad goals, and these are the cases that are easiest to identify as immoral and avoid. The vast majority of failures in human action - on any scale, historical or personal - stem from choosing incorrect means.

The Solution to the Problem of Moral Irrelevance

A moral theory that wants to be relevant to the actual actions of human beings must concentrate 99% of its power on the question of how to find correct and proven means, and what are the methods for this, and leave the remaining 1% for philosophical discussion on abstract definitions of goals and motives. Today, the situation is reversed in moral thinking, and therefore it is always trapped in pointing out injustice and criticism, and in a victim competition between different injustices (i.e. different moral goals. Some will cry out the pain of the disabled, and some will protest - yes, with a 'ch' - the pain of women, etc., and some will support all, because it's the most moral and easy). Alternatively, it is trapped in the morality of intentions, that is, in an attempt to educate, to construct discourse, and other directions whose problem is that they are not effective means, and sometimes achieve the opposite of their goal. And what does moral discussion deal with in the most amateurish way? In choosing correct ways and methods.

From now on, say: Not only does the end not justify the means, but it secularizes them. It subjects them to empirical examination. The moral thinking of the source of morality, which comes before the act, led to the idea of God's command, and the thinking of the purpose that comes after the act led to the idea of reward and punishment in the afterlife and messianism. The persistence of these structures in secular morality leads to the dominance and popularity of the morality of intentions and the morality of purposes, and it's time to break free from them. Even the choice and prioritization between different (or even contradictory) moral goals should not be resolved at the level of intentions and goals, but at the level of means, for example in finding means in which the principled contradiction is not actually realized (for example a bypass or cleverness or creative means in a third direction), or alternatively in preference arising from the means themselves. For example, if there are currently effective means to help women and not blacks, then we should help women and not blacks right now, without having to consider whether women are more important than blacks. After all, there may be highly moral goals, for example eternal life, and we are not acting towards them because the means have not yet matured. If anything, the available, proven and effective means - are what sanctify the goals.

The Practice of Moral Research

In means-oriented morality (MOM), research and experimentation and examination of means have supreme moral value, including scientific research - as the frontier of morality. This frontier establishes moral means - and produces the moral act, which is a result of the means, and not of the intention or purpose. For example, if there is a consensus in the research community in economics regarding certain means - then they should be implemented before turning to less proven means, and the frontier of moral research is reaching questions where there is insufficient knowledge about the correct means, and in which one should progress through experiments. Action in complex systems without experimentation, and based on gut feelings and intuitions or theories based on "crowd logic", in which politicians specialize, is an immoral action. The common moral failure of our time is the failure of ideological justification instead of empirical justification.

If we require Kantian extremism, what determines the moral criterion is not the specific success rate of the act and its results, nor the intention behind it, but the correctness of the method. One whose action result is good by chance or luck, like one who saved a person by mistake - did not do a moral act. One who intended good but acted based on his personal opinion and arrogance while ignoring empirical knowledge about the results, like one who gave charity in its naive form instead of its effective form - did an immoral act. On the other hand, one who acted according to a proven method and empirical knowledge and the result was bad - did a moral act, and the next moral act required of him will be research to improve the method, based on the new feedback - that is, it is a learning morality.

This solves the moral paradox of paving the road to hell. The good intentions that lead to hell - are evil. The failure of good intentions, the central human moral failure of our time, which replaces hubris in modern history - receives root treatment in a morality where the way and method are more important than the beautification of intentions and the pompousness of goals. The boasting of values and ideals, the hypocrisy involved in it, and the competition for moral capital - all these are sick trends that grow from intention-oriented morality - as opposed to competition for effective means. The problem with political correctness is that it is an empty and ineffective means of energy investment, compared to much more proven alternatives, and therefore it is not moral.

In means-oriented morality there are far fewer nudniks, self-appointed educators, and Facebook preachers - and many more data analysts, scientists, economists, social science researchers, statisticians, and graphs. The substantive discussion - is always an empirical discussion. The most moral occupation in the world is not being a social worker or social activist or even a philanthropist but a researcher and scientist. Therefore, morality is not orthogonal to intelligence, as we have been accustomed to believe. And this is the thing that monkeys least want to hear, because it most hurts their moral pride - to be a person of high moral standing you don't need your "heart to be in the right place", or to be righteous, but you must be, as a prerequisite, smart. The ideal of "moral exemplar" is closely related to the ideal of "wise" and "wisdom". And this is already very ancient wisdom - and truly subversive.

Alternative Current Affairs


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The Degeneration of the Nation

Can We Imagine Different Google and Facebook?

Why did Google turn the network of websites into a more cultured and quality network than the user network created by Facebook, and is this a decree of fate? The anti-bureaucratic trend in our time has created a preference for flat technological and social architectures, but stratification is actually of immense importance for the functioning of a state or culture. Thus, a contradiction was created between the current technological means and high culture and representative democracy. This contradiction will be resolved only through a new type of stratification, which is not based on the bureaucratic idea of control, but on the idea of the sovereign user

By: Neo-Structuralist

Architecture of stratification creates high culture (Source)

The Fundamental Error of Yuval Noah Harari

The Technological Reduction of Spiritual Development

Is technology really driving the world? Every era has its Zeitgeist, but in our time it seems that Zeitgeist means technology. The meta-narrative sold to us in the media and academia is gradually converging on one central explanation, beside which other explanations seem outdated (in accordance with the technological narrative, where anything non-technological is "outdated"): Technology is the engine of history - since time immemorial.

In the absence of spiritual evidence, even material findings from the Stone Age are interpreted as technological progress, and all past revolutions are interpreted through their technological aspect: the Agricultural Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the Compass Revolution, the Genome, Gunpowder, Steel, and other revolutions that pop up frequently as the number of technologies. Even fundamental spiritual changes (monotheism? the Modern Era?) are explained technologically, for example through the Alphabetic Writing Revolution or the Printing Revolution. A good, convincing, and "deep" historical explanation today is a technological explanation underlying spiritual phenomena. This is a Marxist legacy that has received a contemporary update, and ironically, it fits well with our alienation from our past. And while deterministic historical explanations are widely condemned today - deterministic technological explanations are praised. Finally, the deterministic engine (sought after since time immemorial) for history has been found - and it is technology.

And who would dare to disagree and suggest alternative technological development directions? Certainly not the humanities scholars, few of whom understand how the computer on which they write their musings works, or the countless technological layers - physical, engineering, and mathematical - that enable the existence of the Internet. The ignorance (and sometimes pride in ignorance) of humanities scholars in natural sciences and mathematics is a very modern phenomenon, with sociological roots that have become ideological, for anyone capable of advanced quantitative thinking faces a system of incentives that will rarely channel them outside the vast technological apparatus of society. Those who can think of successful technological development directions that haven't been tried - should start a startup. And when ignorance reigns, deterministic thinking emerges, full of awe before the new historical god - technology.

The Return of Structuralism in the Version of Data Structures

Architecture as a Mediating Layer Between Technology and History

On the other hand, who can deny the enormous influence of technology on history anymore? Well, not only is technology not deterministic, and there is ample room for thinking through alternative histories about alternative technological development lines, but technology itself is not the deep explanation for past and present phenomena. Beneath technology lies another layer, which determines its development and influence in a specific context - and that is the architecture of technology. Did there really have to be one American Internet? Can't we imagine that in a multi-power era, with no superpower (i.e., not in the specific historical moment of the 90s), several competing Internets would have been created, not connecting well? A Russian, German, Chinese Internet? And each with its own architecture, matching the culture from which it came? Did Facebook have to be designed the way it is, for example through a popularity algorithm as opposed to a reputation algorithm, just because that's where the invisible hand of technology led it? Surely, they'll say, popularity means profit. But Google is designed using a reputation algorithm and not popularity, and isn't that where its profitability comes from?

Is the current architecture of democracy a decree of fate, something that stems from the depth of the concept of democracy, or a historical product in specific historical conditions, and can we imagine supremely democratic elections in vastly different architectures, for example adeep architecture? Does the crisis of democracy in the West stem from the very technology (deterministic, as we know) of the social network and is therefore a decree of fate, or perhaps it stems from a very specific American implementation of its architecture, which would not have happened, for example, in a reputation-based network? As long as the analysis of phenomena is based on technology itself, it seems like a stochastic force, almost like an invisible supreme force (that object of human desire for an "explanatory force" since time immemorial, which has been embodied in things like God or the invisible capitalist hand). But the moment the analysis is based on the concept of the architecture of technology - suddenly alternatives emerge, and thinking that is not only critically negative becomes possible, and proposals for other social architectures.

The architecture of technology also affects consciousness, not just the social order. If in the early days of computing, its use was esoteric knowledge entrusted to priests who knew "machine language", later in systems like "DOS" it became a monarchical rule through direct commands. But only when the modern operating system arose, did the current architecture that regulates human-machine relations emerge. This is an operating system that empowers the "user" (a new idea of individual sovereignty) precisely by hiding from him everything that is not under his control. All the vast innards of the computer in his hands are not accessible to him, and he is unaware of their existence, while he performs actions in a visual interface that hides their true mode of operation, but gives him an illusion of transparency ("windows") through simplistic graphic representations of complex and "deep" operations. In doing so, it gives him unprecedented control, which is mainly expressed in a sense of unlimited choice and freedom of expression, while all autonomous mechanisms operate independently but representatively - that is, according to the change in representations before the eyes of the sovereign. All this, similar to the democratic form of government: representative elections subject to a sovereign who is not part of the government, and does not directly control the state, which is theoretically perceived as his servant, while in practice it is a vast and semi-autonomous bureaucratic system.

But such an architecture is not the only one allowed by information technology, and it is being replaced by a new architecture, which shapes a new consciousness. The procedures of the operating system are essentially bureaucratic and not algorithmic. But when Google's mysterious algorithm arranged search results, and Facebook's secret one arranged the feed order, the user became passively dependent on an algorithm over which he has almost no active control of any parameters of its operation. We cannot instruct Facebook to show us more posts dealing with a certain word or field, or tell Google that we are interested in more results like the third one in the future, or decide to tell the algorithms what issue or topic interests us in general. The realm hidden from our eyes, which we do not understand and have no idea how it operates, and we also have no representation or conceptualization of it whatsoever, has expanded wonderfully, and the individual's span of control has dropped steeply. And all this is just a prelude to the integration of deep artificial intelligence algorithms that will learn our preferences and ways of operation by themselves, without the possibility of controlling them directly through any representation of their operation.

The Editors' Network vs. the Bubble Network

The Struggle Over Architecture as the Most Important Arena in Our Time

Global algorithms, unlike those that operate our personal computer or phone, are gaining power at the expense of the sovereign individual, just as global systems, such as the economy and the network, are gaining power at the expense of state sovereignty. This is an architecture that creates alienation between the sovereign user and the super-platform and its conduct, and we see the results of this alienation in politics and culture all over the world: a decline in trust in institutions, the rise of populism (a backlash to the decline in sovereignty), and the rapid decline of the middle tier in systems and the vital representation it provides (for example: critics who represent "what's going on" in a literary or cultural system, journalism that represents "what's going on" in the democratic system, intellectuals who represent "what's going on" in the development of the spirit, etc.). At the peak of the phenomenon, we are witnessing the rise of non-democratic systems that know better than the citizen what is right for him (China) or use their excess power for gross manipulation of him (a series of semi-authoritarian rulers who employ constant media manipulation). But is the alienated algorithmic architecture a necessity, and an outcome of the essence of technology and the "nature" of algorithms?

Certainly not. Every algorithm has parameters that can be made accessible to the user, and even in a simplistic representation, if there is a desire to do so. It is certainly possible to imagine Facebook or Google that make the central parameters of their algorithms accessible to user control, and represent them in a graphical interface that has meaning for him, and allow me to choose to be interested in "artificial intelligence" and "cats", while giving priority to results written in high language (a simple parameter to program) or those that mention the list of values from Wikipedia that I read in the last year. An elementary user interface for controlling the algorithm would also allow adjusting the parameters according to ready-made profiles, or those created by other users. Thus, for example, it would be possible to use a ready-made profile of someone interested in "Hebrew literature", and receive a feed that reflects what is happening in Hebrew literature in real time, or for example search results of the most important innovations in genetics in the last year, which currently requires not insignificant search capabilities. Such a profile would create an editor function, and the weighting of the order of results or feed could also be subject to user control (for example by reputation, popularity or trendiness). Why can't I know today what are the most popular posts in Israel this week, or those that have gathered the most angry emojis? Such a possibility would create a much more transparent and broader social network - instead of the current network of closed bubbles.

Just as Google and Facebook control the global parameters of their algorithms, so too could every user (who is interested in doing so) in principle and practice control the algorithm in a much more personal and transparent way. Would they lose economically from this? It's not at all clear. It would simply require a little more algorithmic effort, which is certainly within their reach, and if the demand for technological sovereignty of the user were to gain public momentum - it would even happen. But this is not just a specific demand from Google or Facebook (and their likes). This is a principled position that we must stand on and guard fiercely in the architecture of human-machine interfaces, towards the future interface with artificial intelligence. Technology that we have no simplistic representation of its operation allowing choice is a recipe for disaster, just as a state in which we have no sovereignty and elections of representatives and parties is a recipe for disaster.

In general, the intermediate layers in systems (mediators, editors, representatives, critics, reviewers, interfaces) are of enormous importance for their proper functioning, which rarely receives the understanding and protection it deserves (who needs all these mediators?), despite its theoretical basis (the "deep" paradigm) and practical (for example in brain activity, which is very layered). If we want technology that will serve us (and not vice versa), a functioning state, and a healthy cultural system - we must internalize the importance of stratification (layered architecture), and understand that absolute control of the sovereign in the system is neither desirable nor possible, but on the other hand loss of control is also dangerous. Therefore, it is necessary to cultivate in systems precisely the stratification that allows gradual loss of control at each stage, and only thus, perhaps, we will be able to cope with the complexity of the enormous systems that are developing before our eyes, and particularly with artificial intelligence. Because stratification means culture - and superficiality means barbarism.

Alternative Current Affairs


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The Degeneration of the Nation

Feed = intellectual food. And what about intellectual sex?

In the current world, how can cultural works still profoundly influence people, as they did before the internet era? Which technologies are merely external forms, and which are also content that leads to internalization? Why is depth, as in sex, defeated by the repetitiveness of food? On the spiritual portrait of the thinker from Netanya as a parable for the era, the spirit of the times - and the matter of the times

By: Every serious philosophy begins with a confession

Google of time: The time is ripe for a combination of Google and Facebook - a personalized feed from the entire internet of everything that interests you. An algorithm that works like this - will change the world (Source)

What had an impact? What was important? What was perceived as unquestionably important and great, and consumed repeatedly, meaning something that was divided into small packages and consumed over time - therefore no film. Only a movie watched many times can influence life. Or a massive film, like Shoah [Holocaust]. What did? TV series. The format of once a week, not binge-watching, not in succession, which then everything dies, is forgotten, the brain doesn't process deeply. Are these the best series I've seen? No, but these are the ones that captured the imagination. Encyclopedia, read over and over again. Music, which I listened to repeatedly. What I read in extensively until I almost knew by heart, not in order. The Torah - the weekly portion and the Haftarah [prophetic portion], every week. Lectures I listened to on headphones, entire courses - only what I listened to over time. Only places I visited again and again. Newspaper. Teachers. Things that were divided into small parts and lasted for years. What I would open here and there and read.

But here's another factor - what was considered relatively new. The last word in a certain field. The last agreed-upon big thing. Studies, due to their non-repetitive nature, concentration of effort at certain times, had almost no influence. The internalization was very low. In no institution. Because there wasn't much repetition. Only deep diving. It's not enough. I once thought that deep diving was important. But what's important is to encounter something over time. There are no points that change life, only lines, dotted lines. Almost all things were not only not consumed formally, but I also didn't reach them formally. The most important thing was to understand what's important. And in this, whoever influenced - influenced. More than anyone. He was there over time.

Things could have been terribly important for their time, but not influence in the long term, even things that I was deeply impressed by. Genius doesn't help like repetitiveness. You can't save time, you can't beat time, you can't test on something to know it, to teach it, on the contrary, that's how you know it but there's no internalization. The diet is what's important over time. That's why Google won't influence the world like Facebook, which has become the platform where people sign up for content, where they consume content or a person over time.

Google is more form, and Apple is even more form, like Intel, these are things not on the relevant plane. Google influenced me more through YouTube lectures. But their influence is also limited because it's not multi-time. Therefore, the most important thing in the world is feed. A truly big and successful startup will make you a feed from the entire internet. Will allow you to control the feed. The laziness of push information will always beat the pull. In the world of information - food will defeat sex.

Philosophy of the Future


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The Degeneration of the Nation

The One Name

Contrary to current research, which views the Bible as a kind of testimony to power struggles whose blurring was unsuccessful, in imitation of Foucauldian thought, we should extract historical insights from the Bible precisely through ars poetica thinking that gives immense credit to the writers and their aesthetic intentions. The question that should be asked is how the unique biblical aesthetics grew and why specifically in Judah and Israel. Then the answer becomes evident: This is the necessary aesthetic result of iconoclastic monotheism, where the physical worship of God and the popular religious sentiment surrounding it were replaced, for lack of choice, with textual work around the word of God, which created great literature, into which the best of popular religious sentiment was invested. Because behind great literature stands an immense cultural effort - not a conspiracy

By: The Deuteronomistic Classicist

Classical music was created from the immense religious sentiment channeled into it in German culture, which saw overwhelming emotion as the "high" (and later in Romanticism). Similarly, classical biblical literature and Greek classical art were created from religious sentiment, which by its nature creates complexity (Source)

Just as the Book of Kings is interpreted in research as intended to unite Judah and Israel and their traditions into one ideology, so the Book of Joshua was the primary unifier between Judah and Benjamin and their traditions. The Book of Judges, in its integral parts (without the additions at the beginning and end), is also a unification and collection of stories from all the tribes, where Judah is almost absent and sometimes negative, meaning it is basically a book of unification of the northern kingdom (Israel), while the Book of Joshua is basically a book of unification of the southern kingdom (Judah). In other words, according to this view, these books were created as welded national myths, and only this explains the variety of ideological tensions and contradictory trends they contain.

But of course, this is a mistake because in other nations there was no problem in editing an ideological story while erasing other traditions and lacking complexity. This is a stylistic matter of the Hebrew narrator, for whom the beautiful story is complex in terms of characters and identification, and not his failure to create a one-dimensional ideological story. The arrogance of researchers - that's the story. This complexity of the biblical narrator stems from the lack of complexity within the story of the gods (for example, like the Greek ones) as representing contradictory mental and natural contents - because there is one God, so from a literary perspective, the human hero and his relationship to God is complex and represents contradictory mental contents.

The basic question in the Deuteronomistic tradition is why the unity of God in monotheism entails the unity of worship in Jerusalem. After all, our instinct is the opposite - of rabbinic Judaism - because the opposite is more likely: precisely because there is one God, one can worship Him equally everywhere. For example, in every synagogue. But the order can also be reversed: the unity of worship preceded the unity of God, because its purpose was to unite different traditions and tribes, and the unity of God is a second stage and intensification of it, which was recruited as an argument for the unity of worship, so that the struggle against idolatry is a struggle for political unity. And then we must also understand the unity of worship as creating opposition to the many idols and many places and to idols in general (because of their tendency to multiply), and finding justification for all these in the unity of God and His abstractness. Because if the goal is an exclusive political-religious center whose power stems from its religious power (because it lacks political power), then it is forbidden to worship the one God in more than one place. That is, in biblical monotheism, the moment of unity is more important than the abstract one of "everywhere," which is the later philosophical moment that resulted from the destruction of the Temple.

This is an inverse explanation for the appearance of monotheism in Judah. The need for unity of originally nomadic tribes and traditions did not create the Bible and its style - but the appearance of monotheism itself. The need to bring about political unity created ideological cultic unity, as a substitute for governmental cultic unity, which is imposed by force from above - because when there is no political power, there is ideology.

Philosophy of the Future