David,
My uncollected subconscious must have been working last night when I was
supposed to be sleeping because this morning what I had written last
night didn't seem quite so convincing. Just taking the words, we could
today say that a committee could make decisions beyond the power of a
single individual; so perhaps Fry meant something like that.
Last night I didn't think he meant that; because the created myths
became supernaturally authoritative, but this morning I recalled the
story of the Golden Calf. So I give up. I don't know what Fry meant. :-(
Lawrence
-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Fwd: Marchese's interview of Stephen Fry
Date: Mon, 3 May 2021 22:39:23 -0700
From: Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: david ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
You write " . . . the wisdom of the hive: ask enough people and you'll
find out what general direction people wish to travel."
Then, look at what Fry says: " . . . one of the reasons I love Greek
mythology is that it got that the collective unconsciousness of the
people who make myths understands what no individual is smart enough to
understand."
I took Fry to mean that the "collective unconsciousness of the people
who make myths" _understands more_ than any individual. And beyond
that, the collective unconsciousness has the "power" to create myths,
and these myths are beyond the power of any individual to create.
Lawrence
On 5/3/2021 9:10 PM, david ritchie wrote:
Begin forwarded message:
*From: *david ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>>
*Subject: **Re: Marchese's interview of Stephen Fry*
*Date: *May 3, 2021 at 9:09:50 PM PDT
*To: *Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
I’ve now read this and what catches my eye is the moment when Gore Vidal responds to the sex worker who complains that he doesn’t do “that,” saying “of course you do.” Now there’s what people now call power and privilege but John Rechy described more vividly; no choice involved, only a matter of who pays how much for what.
Fry is bipolar; he’s a very bright man who is often in the grip of something. Liike Christopher Hitchens, he’s furiously atheist. How then, absent a divine guiding hand, to describe the fact that some actions and thoughts don’t seem very willed? His answer to me sounds less like Jung’s collective unconscious, more the “wisdom of the hive”; ask enough people and you’ll find out what general direction people wish to travel. You’ll also find that the collective not only guides the hive, it polices it; step out of line and we’ll tell you tales about what we believe good behavior is. Maybe even try to enforce our ideas of right behavior. Free will is constrained by social and cultural guidelines. Yes, you may claim you were born that way, but remember the M’naughten rule.
I find it sad that Daniel M’Naghten didn’t even quite get into the spelling of the rule that was named after him.
As for the stuff about AI. Everyone talks about it. I play tennis with a guy who is helping to make the stuff. I understand very little about how and why we fear what algorithms will do. I still fear humans more than that stuff.
David Ritchie,
about as enigmatic as a gnat in
Portland, Oregon
