That was a clickbait. AI is not human in any possible way. But you are here, so let’s get to the point.
Most of us probably have heard, learned, or searched about AI (Artificial Intelligence) and how it works. With my limited knowledge from online courses, I figure that I would just summarize AI as an object that learns from patterns and replicates patterns from lots of other patterns. And those patterns are the data.
Many developers are now working to expand the capability of AI. But what does it take for us to actually outsmart it?
“If we could do what-the-AI-is-running in ourself, what could we even gain? Is it possible to predict and be aware of our own ‘next’ movement?””
Pulling the strings back to when I was 14, I clearly remember this line, in the voice of my meditation guru — not knowing why I was there honestly, but anyway, he said:
“The only permanent thing is change, and everytime you realize that there a slight changes (in your breath’s character or body vibration), then you have gained a little bit more of wisdom. Nothing needs to be done, just realize that it changes characteristics.”
If I may extract his words in a non-sophisticated version — for your preference, it would be: “Realize every the changes around you, and you will be wiser.”
Gaining wisdom is nothing near to a Eureka! moment or like the shock of being electrocuted. We do plant our wisdom over time through our daily circumstances and continuously manifest its growth. I am still on the path of harvesting it, and I believe you are too. This is the part that makes us humane.
But yes, most are mere subconscious acts, because consciously we rarely aware or recognize the patterns and changes that happen in our mind.
Without that recognition, we are slowly paddling away from what differs us from AI. Wisdom.
The way I am going to storytell today is based on my lifetime (still 20ish years only) reflection and learnings. To some extent, it also might not be parallel to your view. And for those of you who like facts, I am very sorry to say that there won’t be any valid journal citation or relateable authors that I know of at this point.
Why recognizing your pattern is important
Pattern is how something is organized to occur, there is nothing fancy to it.
Citing myself before, gaining wisdom is (one of) the path of becoming more humane. So next, how do I define humane? There might be psychological guidelines out there to correctly calibrate the value. However, in this article, I am scoping the term humane as an adjective that defines the ability of a human to be aware of things that we choose. This awareness will lead us to wisdom, and I believe until now, this is not something that the AI has.
Connecting the dots, when you are recognizing a pattern in your life you will most likely have a series of previous actions as well as the series of results. And since you are the owner of your own mind, subconsciously you will also have a series of reasonings/hypotheses in regards to your actions. After all, this is a basic thinking scheme. In the end, without acknowledging that, someway we have created a pattern — or automation upon the decision.
Notwithstanding the complexity of our unique individual processes, we often still deem ourselves making the wrong choices (self-valued) or finding ourselves dead-stuck in a problem. So in what manner this could happen? Is it by virtue of the universe or are we lacking something?
How about this,
We do not understand our own characteristics, even more whether it creates pattern thus we are not manifesting the wisdom we have.
How pattern recognition can humanize ourself
1. Here, you don’t (or try to) realize your response to emotions.
Simply put, knowing where we stand when we make a decision. Emotion is not about morals and cannot be judged morally. There is no bad or good in emotion as opposed to behaviors under law. There is no such thing as anger is bad as to happy is good morally.
So now ask yourself, how do you respond to responsibility under a happy, vibrant situation compared to your response under fear or stress.
Your college senior/boss asks you to come up tomorrow with 5 ideas to solve a fund loss issue in your division. You might see yourself thinking, “Great, 5 is not many for a night” when you are contented, contrarily you might see “24h for 5 ideas, what the hell?” and don’t stop there, check (or just remember) on your bodily movements, how many tabs did you open on the internet to brainstorm? how many of them you scrolled and how many of them you read intently in each emotional condition? How do you respond to your partner’s / friends’ greeting? Shorter messages? Longer ones? How fast do you pick the ideas and what parameters you take — in each condition — in order to be sure that the solutions you come up with are prudent?
Now, let me rephrase the question. Were you aware of your emotions when you are making those choices (or steps that lead to the choices)?
“I was furious when I came up with idea A, it was a half-assed idea but who cares? I’ll just serve what they want” — I, you, someone
“I was under the fear of being harassed in public, so coming up with idea B could help me at least look a little bit smarter, although it is not original.” — I, you, someone
Do you see what I see? Our emotional condition could possibly affect our reasoning level.
There must be a typical action or tendency of action as a result of a certain emotion. Reflecting upon those bodily reactions in a period of time (of your choice), you will then receive a series of bodily data that shows a pattern of your response to emotions.
Use this to predict your next moves when a new responsibility comes.
2. Here, you don’t realize that change is perpetual, not your condition.
I told you, right. Change is permanent, and anything else is impermanent.
Maybe in your 20s, your love for indie music is consuming 70% of your online query search. But then in your 30s, you realize that indie music is just as tacky as pop music and you shift to death metal. Or okay, you used to loved Chinese dramas, but now you find them absolutely oblivious.
There is nothing wrong with your entertainment taste, both current or in the past. But now try to ask yourself, how and why did the shift begin, did I deliberately choose to, or were they the reaction after a certain turn of events?
Realistically speaking, I have found my pattern that I would like to share. But you can skip this story if it’s too long, TL;DR: I found my ‘running away’ pattern in life.
In every (literally) finish line of education level — so kindergarten to Uni in my case, but I’m skipping a lot— I always shifted and tended to run away either for a harder or easier choice. In late Junior High, I wanted to enter (run away to) the Language Major because I felt stupid and just didn’t want to get an ugly report card. After many tearful nights, my parents managed to convince me to take Science. And it worked. I wasn’t dumb. Still in the top 10ish. Late HS, I threw away the thought of taking to CS major thinking I was still too dumb. So again, I ran and I picked Clinical Pharmacy and not Med school also assuming I wouldn’t get such bad reports in Pharm because it’s easier. And sure it was easy-okay. Finishing Uni, I felt like there is no challenge in Pharmacy and I am not that dumb just to be a Pharmacist, and took a shift again into learning CS-ish stuff. So again, I ran.
It is totally okay if you would like to say it’s very teenager stuff la to want A then B then C, nothing to worry. Sure as hell, I am not worried at any cost. Because I meet a version of myself in every turns and I get raise my consciousness level due to those events. But nevertheless, I unlocked the maze to my mind.
So my pattern would be: When — mostly somewhere near the end of a big thing, What — myself wanting to heighten or lower my limit, Why — self-fulfillment of being able to egoistically run but succeeds
Like my meditation guru said, once you know the characteristics of your breath, you gain a pearl of small wisdom. And finding your pattern is that wisdom.
“Those patterns and characteristics are what you should look for.”
There must be a typical turning point in each situation. Reflecting upon your points, you will then receive a series of events or reasons that show a pattern of your response to changes.
Use this to predict your next moves before you come to a decision.
3. Here, you don’t go for a helicopter view for a series of events.
A.k.a how we see things in the past. I would want to props my best friend for introducing me to this word — heli-view — she has my respect for her capability on using this heli-view technique.
Heli-view is basically a term for taking a zoomed-out view or a God’s eye view over a plight in an attempt to uncover core problems and conflicting factors.
Given one time a company offers you a project, a job, a scholarship, etc, with not much of thought you accept it. In another time when an opportunity comes, you simply go yes — take it. Those were all fast-paced decisions with certainty yet with fright that there might not be other opportunities. But if we try to zoom things out, I am pretty sure we often skip the step to examine what uncalculated risk that would come alongside the opportunity because the excitement is heaving your mind. Maybe this does not happen frequently in business matter, however, it is often a blind spot in daily life. Those yes-es taken merely are automated yes-es. It is not taken upon the reflection of our past while pulling a heli-view.
I believe everyone once has at least a few similar experiences in the past. You could take the initiative to pull a zoomed-out view and find uncalculated factors there.
Please be aware that you do have control over your mind and it is not the situation that is controlling your choice, it is vice versa. This is also a part of getting close with your heli-view, you are able to see the bigger picture and you will choose because your mind chooses it, not because of the situation.
I am conscious of my past scrutiny, so as for today I am able to choose wiser and be more present.
Most of the time from my experience, finding blind spots with the heli-view techniques would be the typical data that I could cultivate for my next plight. Reflecting upon those points, we will then gains another dataset of our very own prediction pattern.
TL;DR
As we become more accustomed to pattern-recognize ourselves (emotions, reasonings, helicopter-view) we gain more wisdom — becoming wiser. And wisdom is the most humane thing a human can have, whereas an AI does not (yet). So to start outsmarting the AI, take time to recognize those patterns.
Next time you are just dead-stuck, think, do you see similar sequences in the past? Recognize your pattern. Then, use it for your next decision.
Writer’s note: This writing is a by-product of an isolated person longing for life-long discussion. Therefore, cherishing these thoughts is a sign of hope that the readers would also gain insights into how their mind works. May all beings be happy.
