For those of you who've been wondering (is anyone wondering?) about the sequel to What to do about a kiss....

I went to the party, promising myself that I would only stay for an hour or so. As expected, it was big and loud, and I knew hardly anyone there. B- greeted me when I arrived: "I'm so glad you came." I did my best to mix and mingle, but honestly, if I can't properly talk with people, I'd rather be dancing.

I left, as I'd planned, just over an hour later. When I said good-bye to B- he seemed surprised, and asked, "See you soon?" I said, "I hope so." Since then we've traded a couple of emails, nothing substantive. I'm feeling the momentum energy of the relationship draining away.

I hope I'm wrong.

But at this point, out of self-preservation, I need some stronger indication of enthusiasm on his part before I can afford to invest further. It goes against the grain for me to try to be parsimonious with my interest and affection, but I've paid excessively for my emotional largesse in the past.

11:06:23 PM    please comment []

Another very smart guy, Rodney A. Brooks, says that eventually machines will be conscious and we'll have to endow them with human rights. Brooks is a roboticist, and follows the line of thought that treats consciousness as an emergent property of a lot of much simpler sub-systems of cognition (vide Dennett). According to this review, Brooks also thinks we do too much anthropomorphizing of other human beings. This is Ye Olde How-Do-I-Know-You-Are-Not-A-Zombie Problem, only inverted.

Of course, my take on this is that we don't do nearly enough anthropomorphizing of other human beings, which allows us to slaughter people who don't seem sufficiently like us to merit real empathy.

10:45:35 PM    please comment []