Shadow, know your place. Even if you are a neural network.

“Do not trust dreams, dreams are a deception.”
From a letter from Marie Michon to Aramis.

This text appeared, according to the initial idea, as a short comment to the article Dreams of the mind: what do dreams have in common with the work of neural networks? by @popski_ruvds. And then the author smugly came up with the idea that the flow of reflections could be made worthy of a separate article-reflection… said and done. I immediately foresee the counterargument “a bad thing is not difficult”, but oh well.

I will formulate an opinion that is very likely not in danger of gaining popularity on the pages of a web resource that positions itself as a social network for developers. Every time I read texts by IT specialists discussing the nature of the universe, thinking, the phenomenology of the human psyche, I still… cannot shake off the annoying impression that all this was written by people with a very limited cultural background in everything that does not concern their main area of ​​activity.

Moreover. In such a paradigm I see a rather expansive attempt at objectification (projection) of one's own misunderstanding – onto external objects. In principle, it cannot be otherwise… ignorance is expansive by its very nature, it tends to cast a paranoid, archetypal powerful shadow (otherwise ignorance would have no chance of turning into its opposite – knowledge). For lovers of psychoanalysis it is an axiom that such a shadow, like the Shadow from Schwartz's play (or Mr. Hyde from Stevenson's book) – will certainly return to its once unlucky owner.

So it is here. Where did the attempt to parallel certain psychophysiological processes come from – with the Neural Network algorithms? For me, it has nothing in common… Parallels are one of the key methods of understanding the world, no doubt about it; nevertheless, the logic of “to understand means to simplify”, which once served as an epigraph for Strugatsky's book – in practice is more than capable of initiating not the “third impulse”, but tragic or comic (tragicomic?) errors. Who, if not the developers, can understand what result incorrect extrapolation of data permanently leads to?

Let me explain what has been said. An attempt to draw a parallel between the psychophysiology of sleep and the work of neurons misses so many scientific, philosophical and cultural (to Carlos Castaneda, wherever he is now, a warm greeting from Russia) aspects that it is associated, in turn, only with the legends of the homunculus and Frankenstein (M. Shelley). What if the popular experiments with Artificial Intelligence today are latently the same unconscious attempt to discuss the Act of Creation, undertaken, once again and taking into account modern realities, by techies, all atheists and materialists? In this same dynamic array there is also PR about the possibility of AI getting out of control… hmm, can you independently throw a symbolic link to one of the bright episodes of Christian mythology?

Alas, “Byron and Rimbaud both lay down on this line…”. The reason for this is the braking mechanisms described by the founder of classical psychoanalysis; which, most likely, will exhaust all your CPU and RAM resources, dear developers, so as not to allow you to build an associative logical series. Too bad.

But the results are expected. I will disappoint you, guys, the prophecies of Stanislav Lem, Dan Simmons and other authors who created fascinating works on the topic of artificial intelligence, possessed by a paranoid desire for power over the world – are only shadows of our, purely human, fears. There is no such danger and will never be seriously: AI does not have access to the collective unconscious, being only a high-tech interpretation of one of its projections. “Hey, you. You did not want to believe me, so believe your eyes. This is just my Shadow.”

The shadow can win only for a time, in the words of the character of E. Schwartz. And this time is very short. Remember the fights with the Evil Persona, described by Satprem in the book dedicated to Sri Aurobindo, draw a parallel (here it is completely correct) with the projections of Jung's shadows. Here you have a strangely unexpected bridge between the philosophies of the West and the East.

That secret enemy that is hidden in the depths of nature,
You must be slain, man.
Or you will not fulfill your highest duty:
You cannot escape this internal battle.

Sri Aurobindo Ghose

A brief argumentation for what has been said. Let us try to be frank, for exactly one minute, even if for this we have to be alone with ourselves: the fascinating adventure saga about Kevin Mitnick begins with the same thing as the most famous book by Voynich. With fatherlessness. Moreover, this comparison is by no means scholastic, it is capable of extrapolation: remember, for example, a certain scandalously famous journalist today, a fiery revolutionary who went through wars, the owner of a purring voice, the sounds of which he himself once Echo of Moscow popular Moscow radio, seemed to listen with almost sexualized pleasure; a fierce denouncer of priests who began his career as a boy singer in a church choir. Is this the reincarnation of Felice Rivares?

This example is intended (very briefly, within the framework of an article for a social network) to substantiate: latent psychological patterns that have the right to a decisive vote in shaping the fate of each of us – exist. And believe me, not a single programmer, even the most brilliant one, will be able to adequately model the influence of the products of the unconscious on our sleep and reality… a pale tracing, perhaps, is possible.

Perhaps it is not obvious to everyone what the logical connection is between Mitnick and Rivares the Gadfly? – it is there, practically on the surface. Egocentrism, obvious infantilism of an adult, inability to empathize, and all of the above in their extreme degrees… and also – painful projections of shadows onto external objects, people and events: the so-called “mystical complicity” of Carl Gustav Jung. But escapism, the flight of these projections, “everyone chooses for themselves”, in the words of Levitansky, in accordance with their personal characteristics and era. “Time is skin, not dress…”

Let's stop here, I suppose. Tell me, are you still going to draw parallels between people's dreams and Neural Network algorithms? Guys, God be with you. Don't make me laugh.

P.S. I can almost hear the unmusical scream of voices here: “What is there to talk about with a believer?”. Hmm, do you want another unpopular opinion about faith? This will be a non-trivial example, a highly specialized one, if you like. You won't find it on Google.

I remember a certain young man who was given a very unpleasant diagnosis, which, however, immediately freed him from the need to look for an enterprise that provides IT specialists with a deferment from the army: an article in the military ID, a disability of the 2nd group and that's it, salute to our dear military registration and enlistment office, for free. There is no point in describing in detail the ingredients of the tasteless cocktail that he took on the instructions of doctors at the district PND; I will only mention that, in my opinion, it is hardly possible to successfully code under such a drug.

This lasted for about a year and a half or two, and then the guy suddenly, one day, gave up all his haloperidols and aminazines. Which, strangely, did not lead to any relapses. Another year or two later, the highest psychiatric authority in St. Petersburg began removing his diagnosis.

What am I getting at? – I'll explain. To the question “How did you come to the possibility of giving up medication?” the guy answered absolutely artlessly: “Suddenly I felt that if I give up everything, there won't be any bad consequences.” I'm sure you can't make this up.

For me, this sounded like an illustration of the indisputable fact that a dialogue with the Unconscious is indeed possible, moreover, a considerable number of people encounter it in various forms and hypostases without realizing it. I will add that this man was an atheist, questions of the metaphysics of consciousness clearly did not occur to him.

And now, attention, a question. Actually, two questions…

Question 1: Was this man, who believed his inner voice, a believer? or – still No Yes?
Question 2: Is it possible that we are abusing the generally accepted semantic patterns of the concept of “faith”, habitually skimming the surface and not thinking about what is hidden in the depths?

PPS The above somehow intersects with the science fiction story And the Stars Went Out published a few days earlier. If you are interested in something similar, welcome to the link.