Anguish of the Stoic

          It's never easy living with someone who is chronically ill. I know this from experience on both sides. For about a decade, now, I've watched my grandfather's health wax and wane with an overall trend toward decline. This is the curse of mortality, at work. It's not as though his body is deteriorating young, exactly.
          Well, I had a talk with him. It wasn't a talk about hospice, or a 'home for the elderly,' or any of the conventional talks younger family members have with their elderly members. I had the cannabis talk. While medical marijuana has been legal for some time, now that it's also legal recreationally, it has been gaining more general acceptance and is more (legally) available. I think that we should've brought up medical marijuana a long time ago with my grandpa, but I've now had personal experience in the world of cannabis, and particularly with using it medically, so it has started to seem particularly timely. Chronic pain, fatigue, appetite problems, sleep troubles, weakness, flattened affect... Living in the same household, I can tell that every day is a struggle and a feat for him.
          I've replaced all of my medications for: bipolar, anxiety, fibromyalgia, and countless other issues big and small. Virtually every aspect of my well-being has been improved in some way. Mood swings are quite nearly nonexistence, my anxieties have vanished, and my pain is controlled better than ever before. I can do dozens of times more physical activity, have had a shift in my diet that's more protein heavy, and had relatively great sleep. Things taste better, but I don't actually have an excessive appetite or get the munchies more than usual. Most of my bodily functions seemed to have improved in some way. Elusive problems that I haven't been able to treat before have been getting treated for the first time. How could I see all these improvements in myself and not think to suggest it to my grandpa?
          At this point, there aren't particularly 'good days' and 'bad days.' They all are struggles. I've witnessed him in complete agony, embarrassment, guilt, and crippling disability. With each step up or down the stairs, he moves like a quaking mammoth, slow and shaky. His muscles are being cannibalised by his body, his joints inflaming, his insides seemingly smashed and beaten, his bones deteriorating. When he smiles, you can still see how worn out he has become, how weary and exhausted.
          This is a stoic man. He has been through a lot, but he doesn't like to show it. Our family is accustomed to keeping our struggles to ourselves, braving them silently. When we finally ask for help, it's usually at a time of severe desperation. So to hear him crying out for help while in extreme pain says a lot about what he's been going through.
          Grandpa has a weakness for chocolate (I call him the Candy Drawer Bandit), and so I mentioned chocolate edibles. Coming from a very conservative, Christian background, he reacted surprisingly openly-minded, but he still shows some hesitation. I saw that he did seem to deeply consider using cannabis medicinally. Still, ages-old biases do seem to also have some hold over him. I don't expect him to make an instant, or even overnight, decision, and I'm frankly encouraged that he seems to be quite seriously considering the suggestion. While it will always be his decision, I do hope he at least gives cannabis a decent chance. It's not a miracle drug. It doesn't spontaneously cure all ailments. Still, I do think cannabis is a close second. It would be a relief to see him get some relief. The various drugs and pills he's on only do so much, and they have some considerable risks. It would be good to see him feeling healthier.

I No Longer Believe in Good and Evil

           That title is not click bait. It's not a gimmick or an intentionally (or even unintentionally) extreme statement to draw a reaction. It's a concise statement of a fact.
           After years of contemplation, and not just a fifteen minute epiphany, I've come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as good or evil. I've said for some time that such things live and die with humans. We created the concepts, and that's about as far as it goes. But I had still accepted the existence of good and evil simply because I accepted the existence of humans. I continued to contemplate this. Eventually, I concluded that there simply is no good and evil, so far as the practising definition goes, I no longer believe in their existence, even with the existence of humans.
           There was something else that I've said for a while that seemed to contradict my prior belief that good and evil both existed, and lived and died, with humanity: that humans aren't special. This contradiction was that humans couldn't be both mundane and the sole cause of the existence of good and evil; that would make is special. But I stand by the belief that humans aren't special. We're animals, like any other. Like any other living organism, our point of view is singular, on the inside looking out. Porpoises both have extraordinary brains that rival our own, and sonic radar that literally makes other vertebrates, at least, considerably transparent. At the very least, any 'special' qualities we have are relativistically mundane and matched by qualities in other creatures.
           I believe in neither a mystical 'fate,' nor in true 'free will.' I believe in trajectories, inevitabilities, and variables so far beyond our range of comprehension that we turn to such supernatural explanations. This completely contradicts the existence of good and evil. In order for good and evil to exist, people must have complete, informed choice. The aforementioned trajectories essentially suggest that everything that happens is inevitable. This is close to 'fate,' but without the belief that some supernatural entity is guiding everything with a wilful hand.
           I also believe that choices still matter. Virtually everything can be seen as akin to chemical reactions: what people say and do causes a reaction in what others say and do. Animals often kill or cannibalise the weak and deformed, which serves a purpose. I still believe the creation of those creatures was inevitable. I still think that the animals that killed their own had some semblance of choice. The choice was to let that one of their own continue living and risk the whole group, or to kill the individual and improve the group's odds. Such logic doesn't always win, though, even amongst non-Homo sapiens. After all, we live in a world where pet monkeys save pet dogs from house fires. Altruism is also an evolutionary, practical mechanism.
           Right and wrong are different and variable. For instance, is it wrong for someone to kill another being? Well, that entirely depends on the intended result. If the individual who does the killing got the results they wanted, then - for them - that was the right thing to do. Maybe not ethical, but right for them. Actions cause reactions. Whatever actions and results an individual dislikes the most becomes 'evil' and 'wrong.' When a collective dislikes it, it becomes immoral and unethical. These are just more words for the things we don't like. We can have good reason for disliking them, but it doesn't mean there's any objective morality or supernatural influence at play.
           Without actual 'good' and 'bad,' most arguments become, on some level, moot. Still, when definitions are preset, people go along with them. This means that people can proudly self-describe as 'bad,' and still be more well-adjusted than someone who yet others describe as 'good.' We often seem to ascribe immutability to our concepts of good and evil, but everything is mutable. This is a world of chaos we ardently and futilely attempt to force order upon.
           Ideals are not realities, and should not be expected to be able to be reality. Ideals are ideal, Utopian - even, but not realistic. Ideals inevitably undermine diversity. Even liberal ideals inevitably face the very hard and immovable wall that diversity undermines getting along. The false belief of good and evil further undermines widespread (but not entire) peace and happiness. It's also a false belief that peace and happiness are always 'good' things. Take morality, take supernatural or self-centred justice, out of the equation, then there's more room for harmony, acceptance, and inclusion. To be clear, this does not mean everyone would be happy, there would be no more wars, and people would live peacefully ever after. It merely means that the concepts of good and evil often get in the way of some realistic amount of cohesion.
           If anyone reads this, they probably won't agree, at least not completely, with my assessments and ramblings. The one rationalisation I may prefer is that the concepts of good and evil are so deeply entrenched in our psyche that others can't accept their non-existence, but another conclusion is that - in accordance with my previous statements - we arrive at different conclusions and have different points of view. Everyone has independent experiences and points of view, so it's ignorant to think we can all arrive at the same ones, and arrogant to think everyone should arrive at the same conclusions as me. While I no longer believe in good and evil, I believe the concepts and beliefs have their functions, their roles, and their places. The beliefs of the concepts have effects and cause reactions, partly shaping the world into what it is. To seek eradication of the beliefs is a result of a sense of good and bad, and to defy diversity and range. Beliefs are the functions of individuals, but their influence on the individual is passed on to the individual's influence on others.

The Black Hole of Nihilism Born of Sisyphean Reality in the Face of Disability

     I've done what I think is a fair amount of 'cyber' activism. I'm not exactly the sort to get out into the world much, let alone carry picket signs on the streets. My alternative is, therefore, to spread information online via what limited networking I have available to me. Online, you turn up a whole lot of in-the-streets type of activism in articles, blogs, and news snippets. Both online and offline, however, I seem to notice the same, tired political agendas rebranded and renamed; the same old limited ideologies, tunnel vision, and Sisyphean 'feats.'
     The social movements mirror the world around: black and white. Sometimes, this is both literal and figurative. All or nothing, yes or no, binary 0s and 1s... All of these movements feel depressing and lifeless, no matter what side you're on, when you see this Weldschmertz-inducing pattern recognition. People become filters, catching causes and views as they pass by. Even individual qualities, unique points of view, end up just being a result of collectivity. I learned some time ago that people are only unique so far as their particular collection of otherwise mundane qualities go. This seems to be far truer with crowds and groups, becoming a singular organism comprised of a collective. Drones of many species, but most renowned of bees, serve a purpose. There is more strength in a collective than an individual. Individuals who make impacts do so by forming a collective around them.
     I am acknowledging that they serve a purpose in nature, in life and societies. They're naturally occurring. Herds, colonies, flocks, swarms, and so on. Humans are not unique or special. Humans are not supernatural (as in 'above' or 'beyond nature.') Rather, because of the very nature of our existence, we are well within the confines of nature, like any other living organism. We are animals, factually and not pejoratively. The things we do and make are within the confines of nature by the very fact that they do not extend beyond natural laws, the laws of physics, chemistry...
     The more I try to stop and think before diving into a new idea, view, movement, or ideology, the more I find myself at a standstill. The more I try to be active in the world, the more I seem to become a drone. It seems impossible to be both an independent thinker and an active force in the world. Even the 'queens' of the world that seem to control the 'drones' seem to be the result of the same continuous patterns of nature, without true unique, independent thought. They're just one more kind of amalgam of experiences and information passed down one generation to the next.
     At what point does activism just become politics, or is it all the same, in the end? When are politics ideals? Ideals biological impulses? Biological impulses chemistry? It seems as though it is as likely for free-will to exist as it is for it to all be a delusional sham: vibrations and reactions that can all be accounted for in algorithmic form. What's the meaning of life? Maybe there is none. Do any of us matter? Perhaps as likely as not (think something like Schrödinger's cat.) It's these same questions, which often lead nowhere, in the end, that get me in the locked-up standstill. But being active in the world often involves foregoing thought, more or less, and submitting to a sort of herd or tribe mentality.
     It's all exhausting. It's all mind-numbing. My version of "increased activity" or "improvement" is typically still a fraction of the statistical mean. I have what seems to be an incredibly limited amount of action and energy to devote to anything, each day, often building up to some kind of combustion, which temporarily disrupts even that limitation. It's incredibly frustrating knowing that, no matter what treatments, therapies, or strategies I try out, I will always have such a finite amount of energy to devote to anything in life. Forces my hand to either pick-and-choose extremely selectively, or to give up and do nothing. Freeze instead of bothering to make such choices. I lose faith in causes, movements, activism... I lose faith in life and purpose...
    Some with similar struggles and obstacles as myself (mood disorders, anxiety disorders, chronic pain and fatigue, autism, take your pick) often drown themselves in activism and causes. At some point, however, I watch these people and can pick apart their actions, their positions, and always conclude either a delusion of free will or simple futility. I find some kind of flaw, some kind of hypocrisy or contradiction, in their ideologies, actions, views... No matter how passionate I become, how certain and filled with conviction I become, I always arrive at the same place of disillusionment, exhaustion, and pointlessness. And then... I begin rolling the boulder back up the hill, once again.

Ex Machina, Empathy, and Autism

I just finished watching the film, Ex Machina, and - while I thought much of it was interesting and thought provoking - there were some parts that made me cringe. The most cringe-worthy moment for me was when the protagonist made this remark:

CALEB: It got me thinking. In a way, the joke is the best indication of AI I’ve seen in her. It’s discretely complicated. Kind of non-autistic.
NATHAN: What do you mean?
CALEB: It was a play on words, and a play on me. She could only do that with an awareness of her own mind, and also of awareness of mine.

Obviously, the writer has not seen how much autistics can love puns and such... Joking aside, though, this is a perpetuation of the old trope, stereotype, myth that autistics do not have empathy (Asperger's Syndrome, in fact, used to be called autistic psychopathy.) The idea is that if you can read someone's expression and respond accordingly, you are empathic, and therefore more human than machine (so... autistics are less human and more machine?) There's one serious problem with this, though. Take, for instance, the fact that computers are easily more capable of identifying facial expressions and responding accordingly given the right coding without being anywhere near an A.I. So... simple (relatively speaking) machines are more empathic than humans, now?

Autistics do, in fact, often have trouble identifying facial expressions, their meaning, associated emotions, and attaching those expressions to reasons, causes. This can cause confusion, certainly, and social turmoil. Autistics can also learn all those things because it's a simple case of "if x, then y." It is hardly algorithmic and more a simple set of equations. But if anyone said that understanding human behavior is easy enough for the general public, they're just plain moronic. Training, experience, and memorisation can only get anyone so far. More 'neurotypical' brains may tend to devote more faculties innately to the recognition of facial expressions and tying them accurately to a cause, but this does not remotely make the person more empathic.

Empathy is a noun that comprises both empathetic and empathic abilities. Empathetic, in its most linear form, simply means 'pertaining to understanding some aspect or aspects of someone else's place in the world at some time or place.' For instance, to identify that a person reduced to the fetal position in a ditch as aircraft fly above dropping bombs is probably terrified. Empathic, however, means more that which pertains to feeling someone else's emotions, creating a sort of sync between oneself and another, emotionally.

The A.I. in that movie, AVA, in my opinion, did not seem glaringly autistic, but since autism really only refers to a particular type of neurology that isn't always noticeable on the surface, perhaps her man-made brain would bear similarities to an autistic one if it could be mapped the same way. This wouldn't make her any more or less of a being, nor would it necessarily have a tremendous impact on if she can have empathy or not. There are also two different kinds of empathy: emotional and intellectual. Intellectual empathy is not barren in psychopaths, often regarded as lacking empathy. Emotional empathy can be abundant in autistics, often regarded as lacking empathy. What this means is that psychopaths are more likely to be able to intellectualise and analyse human behavior, and from that point of view, deduce how and why a person might act or feel a certain way given the certain circumstances at hand.

Autistics can lack in this particular type of empathy, as I know I have throughout my own life, but we're often enough strong in emotional empathy, as previously stated. Emotional empathy is being able to connect with another on an emotional level, instinctively sensing how others are feeling. Note that this does not necessarily mean there is any capability of drawing accurate conclusions as to how or why the person is feeling that way. The simple fact is that if someone is sad, we may feel sad, too. If they are agitated, we might become agitated. If they're happy, we might become happy. Even if we, personally, do not become filled with the emotion, itself, we can often enough sense it.

So, the common misconception of autistics lacking empathy is merely the observation of how autistic frequently may have difficulty drawing accurate conclusions as to why people feel the way they do, or understanding specific facial expressions or socially normative behaviors. These are things a computer can be easily and readily programmed to do, especially given something as rudimentary as a camera to draw visual data. Computers can detect lies, honesty, facial and micro-expressions, and draw conclusions far more readily and accurately than any human. Yet this is what others seem to identify as empathy, and which they see autistics as lacking. 'Lack' is frankly a trivial word to use, in the first place. A basketball player might 'lack' the ice-skating ability necessary for hockey, but does that mean they're 'lacking' as an athlete? The perceived lack of ability is only relative to some particular norm, such as necessary skills for playing hockey. But the athlete might do just well as a basketball player, and may only show deficit when attempting hockey. If they so wish to play hockey, they can just start learning the necessary skills, and if those skills don't come to them naturally or at all like they may for some others, it does not mean they are 'lacking' as an athlete, overall. (Now, I hate sports, so that was quite the analogy for me to draw up, but I think it fits and most people will get it.)

Autistics can make jokes, be emotionally and cognitively complex and layered, be plenty aware of others and others' cognizance, be empathetic on a variety of levels, and we're not robots. Also, if such a kind of empathy as being able to recognise emotions, expressions, and behaviors, and then draw conclusions from them, were a true sign of sentience, consciousness, and intelligence, then computers have been sentient, conscious, and intelligent for a while, now. But they aren't, so that must not be the actual determiner of such things. In the hierarchy of things, this film seems to place computers anywhere from somewhere below to on-par with autistics, then everyone else above autistics, and A.I. above all else.

In an interview, the director of the film, Alex Garland had this to say:

Well, I mean, basically, what I’ll tell you is that where I come from with regard to scientists is to my mind slightly different to the way they’re often perceived. It seems to me like scientists are often presented as being autistic, or having Aspergers or something a la “The Imitation Game,” which, I’m pretty sure, is not what Alan Turing was actually like anyway. So either you go that kind of route, or they’re presented as being the holders of truth, these dry truth-holders who refuse to listen to emotion. And maybe that’s actually related to the sort of “Aspergers-y” presentation.

Autistics, Asperger's included, often seem to refuse to listen to emotion because of a history of being overly emotional. Certainly, there are those of us who are actually much more analytical, objective, and rational, but this is a personality trait, not so much the outright result of autism. But autistics are just human, like anyone else, which means we have the same sorts of variance of personality and qualities as anyone else. One autistic may, in fact, be very aloof, analytical, and cold, even, but that doesn't mean we all are. Some might be very emotional, irrational, and impulsive, but that doesn't mean we all are. And then there's a whole range, spectrum, between the two poles.

My person experience is that I'm a highly emotional and empathetic individual with very high emotional intelligence, but human behavior can still baffle me, like how it can baffle anyone at certain points; I may also have difficulty discerning what certain behaviors and facial expressions mean, especially if I haven't encountered them very often. However, when I become too emotionally or sensorily overloaded, it feels like my brain 'shuts down,' and I temporarily reboot with only the bare necessities of analytical capability. This can make me seem cold, aloof, distant, and emotional vacant, but I can assure you that I'm not. In fact, my feelings can still get hurt, I can still become confused by others, and I can still try and want to be emotionally sensitive to others. It is simply a self-regulatory mechanism to allow my emotional and sensory functions to recuperate. It is partly due to others' ignorance and misunderstandings that it has taken me roughly the first 20 years of my life to learn this about myself, and it can take yet others far, far longer, if they ever reach that point. Misinformation, misunderstanding, stereotypes, and myths can all do tremendous damage, and this has been seen regularly throughout the autistic community.

So, no, the hierarchy does not have autistics at the bottom with simple, non-sentient machines, and non-autistics, or at least 'neurotypical' sorts above us. Rather, autistics and non-autistics are just as human and sentient as one another... and then A.I. remain above us all, because, damn it, they have super-computers for brains!