The -logy suffix is 'science'. So ecology is: the scientific study of how living organisms interact with one another and with their physical surroundings.
The -nomy suffix is a field or system of something.
Economy is the ecology of finance. Or, Economy is a field of science that predicts financial systems. Any scientific field helps you make predictions, once you know the material. But useful predictions require useful measurement.
In this context close enough, but tangentially it's much more interesting.
Logos in particular is my favorite word. The logy suffix derives from it, and one approximation is "thoughts" or you might also see "word". The Bible begins with "In the beginning there was the Logos". We translate that as "Word", even though the connotation is also "thoughts". It might be more accurately understood as "the patterns, rules, logic of the universe". For the Greeks, thought was not something one "had", in the same sense we think, but rather something innate in nature that one participated in.
So the Bible verse might be better understood as "in the beginning there was the same working logic in the universe that we observe and participate in now, the same innate rules governed the cosmos that do now". That's actually a much more useful and honest interpretation than "in the beginning was God's words".
When one studies their particular -logy, biology, ecology, etc, they are not just looking at things describing them, they are more intrinsically bound up in a truth discovery exercise about something whose patterns and working can be figured out.
Natural Science could be conceptualized as a logology - literally studying how the Logos works in its various dimensions.
Logos (logic) is derived from meaning. Meaning is created by intelligence.
Intelligence uses Logos to predict. Intelligence requires observation. A universe contains all of them.
Facts are established truths intelligent beings use to build knowledge and increase accuracy of prediction: and facts are acquired through observation.
If Logos was there in the beginning: then so are intelligence, meaning, observation, and fact.
We're a part of the universe, and we ask the question: what came first? A universe asks itself: what came first?
These words only carry meaning because you are an intelligent observer.
"Soul" means something has a story to tell. It was created for a purpose, it was useful, it may be near its end. There are very clear and obvious dimensions to it that help to immerse you into the game. Details to pick up on, some obvious and some not so obvious.
The opposite, where everything is very clearly manicured, created, is so far from reality that the immersion is more difficult to achieve, or is quickly lost. You never stray far from the fact that you're playing a city game with very rigid rules.
I think this is what the author means by "Soul": objects with details to show something lived, was paid attention to, has story, depth, and scars to prove it.
That's not soul, that's just... History. Of neglect.
Detail is fine, but deliberately adding disrepair and actually calling it nice is something else entirely. It implies this is desirable.
Real "soul" would have been adding urban decay as a gameplay mechanic. Players would be stretched thin trying to keep up and some areas would naturally decay as a result. That's the realistic city story: I had limited time and resources, and couldn't afford to care about every part of the city, so the neglected ones decayed.
This is the real story, the realistic one. Adding decay just because you like the aesthetic of it is something else. It's like adding CRT filters to modern games.
However you want to label it: you don't get a sense that anything living ever touched the little pixels you're moving around on the screen. There is no 'emotional tug' to help immerse you into the game.
I do like your gameplay mechanic idea, but others may not. A quick filter may not add "soul" for you, but it might for others. It's about emotions and immersion, but it's all obviously illusion.
Character traits, technology, leisure time, have all changed.
It's not either or, it's all of the above: individuals do what feels good and if you're a great party thrower because it energizes you, you'll probably spread that influence some. And then possibly, the group reinforces itself by continuing to throw and attend parties.
At the same time, leisure time has changed: women work more, dads spend more time with kids, and the home offers a lot more easy entertainment that fits in with modern schedules. There seems to be less opportunities for parties with newer generations.
But of course, society seems to shun the party thrower because we're all busy. And so if nobody shows and the party thrower burns out, there's no influence spread. People dislike parties more and the idea reinforces again.
A mix of any of the above goes into our decisions about how to spend time.
Some of it has to do with the fact that many people pushed forward training themselves in a way they understood would better themselves for the future. They put in time, and now their sense of value is in question. They're forced to think about things like value (of life, themselves, and hopefully others), and the things they want to remain valuable in the future.
It's interesting to me that you only mentioned the people using 'AI' in the 'short-term' ways, and not the ones that use it to better themselves in the 'long-term' ways. You can spend your own time focusing on either usage, it's really up to you and your concerns. Either group's sense of value is what determines their behavior. Where they spend their time and thinking must be elsewhere, and you disagree with it. Who judges the quality of time spent? You do.
Is it more useful to think about self-improvement, and how to navigate the future in ways that might help you re-establish value of yourself, life, and others? Acquiring knowledge is a struggle, the author mentioned this. There is also Plato's Allegory of the Cave, which highlights some of that struggle, a resistance to change. And we're all limited by time, our genes, our station in life.
The only way to help anyone out of the cave, is to help them believe something different about themselves. To help them believe there is good reason to spend time going deeper into knowledge, or at the very least, allow others with the passion and station for it to do so.
If not for the very least reason that it keeps us 'in the loop' of some central idea behind intelligence (prediction?). Or because we feel it keeps us safer, as a fallback measure because we acknowledge we have to trust other's knowledge to exist.
Here's the thing: nobody is stopping you from putting in the time to understand all that. The problem is, nobody has that much time, and we get hungry. And so we want the community to move with us, spend the time the same way as we do, to ensure value. We are all saying: we want someone else, others, to put in that time for us. The truth is, we all want quality, and value is closely related.
I can almost guarantee you the first time you show cancer symptoms, you won't care whether the cure came from an AI or human's understanding. But we haven't seen that, so we can't make the judgement call.
I think that is the central issue. Is long-term survival actually at stake?
Do you think every Mathematician has a deep understanding of building architecture, engineering, physics, economy, etc., everything necessary to gauge whether something like a 1 terrawat nuclear plant is completely safe in all aspects?
Of course not, so then you have to select appropriate ones. And then you need a process to ingress and egress reviews. Oh what about change? Does that come back to the Math council too?
Oh, we also need global cooperation to pull this off. And then do you trust the people, the selection process for the council (all avenues for corruption are there).
I don't have a solution of my own, so it's not fair for me to criticize the author in this way. I share his concerns.
And it's depressing to think of all the negative scenarios, and be so concerned all the time.
These issues are important and worth thinking about, regardless. Who should teachers teach?
You deal with this every time you wake up, or visit a specialist of any kind. You likely didn't make your own clothes, you didn't grow your own food, dam up any rivers for your water supply, build any power plants to power up your phone/computer, nor did you spend any of the deep amount of focus required to build up the knowledge and technology required to provide us these 'things' in life. The only difference is, you didn't pay much attention to these facts because they became mundane. Take any of them away for any decent amount of time, and suddenly you become acutely aware of what it is you have.
The author mentioned what the issue is: a lot of people are experiencing what it's like to 'catch up' to the more intelligent ideas. Everyone can 'get' the intelligent ideas given enough time. But how much time do you have? And he's concerned someone will rush and create some kind of world-ending solution because they're too trusting of a technology they don't understand.
His only solution is some kind of throttle on the advancement of technology, and arguably knowledge (whose?).
Intelligence is the ability to predict. To pretend that only we can do it, is silly. I mean read the article, and see what AI is doing to the math community.
Eco: house, household, or dwelling place.
The -logy suffix is 'science'. So ecology is: the scientific study of how living organisms interact with one another and with their physical surroundings.
The -nomy suffix is a field or system of something.
Economy is the ecology of finance. Or, Economy is a field of science that predicts financial systems. Any scientific field helps you make predictions, once you know the material. But useful predictions require useful measurement.
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