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I was reading Ramsey Duke's Little Book of Demons, about how we came to attribute consciousness to things/people outside itself
It gave a bit of a just-so story that was like, "a baby experiments with dropping a spoon. Every time they release it, it drops and makes a satisfying clattering sound, and then mum goes and picks the spoon up and returns it. But if you do it enough times, the spoon keeps dropping exactly the same way, but the mum starts sighing and taking longer to return the spoon etc etc. She doesn't behave reliably the way the spoon does.
To try and get a workable model to understand the mother's behaviour, kids eventually experiment with extending consciousness to her (I'm Me and everything else is spoons, but maybe she actually has some Me-ness in her)
So "assuming consciousness in others" is a natural response to unpredictable behaviour (like the weather)
It goes further and says this is a good strategy - sailors who treated the sea as though it had "moods" were more successful than they would be trying to analyse it logically. Possibly true of any system too complex to predict via logic
One of the examples he gave was that people habitually cajole or yell at printers that don't work. And that printers seem to get janky the more urgently you need something printed. And you could say, "maybe that's because when I'm impatient, I rush and press buttons harder or some other variable". But it might be just as useful (as an individual) to say "maybe the printer doesn't like being treated like a rude customer would treat a barista, and I should act less frustrated and more polite".
The reason that might be effective is because we're social creatures and you would kind of automatically incorporate better behaviours without having to put a tonne of thought into it, compared to analysing all your micro behaviours and trying to consciously adjust them
--
So I was reading that and was like "oh literally my printer is irrationally not working right now" - it won't print black ink even though it's a full cartridge and I've done all the proper cleaning cycles and the nozzle check says it should be fine etc etc (and also with chagrin went and bought official expensive Canon ink instead of my pirate ink). Something in the software I guess.
So I went over and was like "please start printing black ink, I need it, I don't want to have to call Canon customer service that's such a hassle, please just start working"
And I forgot about it but this morning I printed something and it's printing black again
And I'm pretty sure I didn't do anything differently. But maybe subconsciously I did which I guess is the point he's making.
--
That's the version of this story I posted to my group chat. And it makes sense!
But here I say: Thanks, printer spirit, I really appreciate you coming through for me
It gave a bit of a just-so story that was like, "a baby experiments with dropping a spoon. Every time they release it, it drops and makes a satisfying clattering sound, and then mum goes and picks the spoon up and returns it. But if you do it enough times, the spoon keeps dropping exactly the same way, but the mum starts sighing and taking longer to return the spoon etc etc. She doesn't behave reliably the way the spoon does.
To try and get a workable model to understand the mother's behaviour, kids eventually experiment with extending consciousness to her (I'm Me and everything else is spoons, but maybe she actually has some Me-ness in her)
So "assuming consciousness in others" is a natural response to unpredictable behaviour (like the weather)
It goes further and says this is a good strategy - sailors who treated the sea as though it had "moods" were more successful than they would be trying to analyse it logically. Possibly true of any system too complex to predict via logic
One of the examples he gave was that people habitually cajole or yell at printers that don't work. And that printers seem to get janky the more urgently you need something printed. And you could say, "maybe that's because when I'm impatient, I rush and press buttons harder or some other variable". But it might be just as useful (as an individual) to say "maybe the printer doesn't like being treated like a rude customer would treat a barista, and I should act less frustrated and more polite".
The reason that might be effective is because we're social creatures and you would kind of automatically incorporate better behaviours without having to put a tonne of thought into it, compared to analysing all your micro behaviours and trying to consciously adjust them
--
So I was reading that and was like "oh literally my printer is irrationally not working right now" - it won't print black ink even though it's a full cartridge and I've done all the proper cleaning cycles and the nozzle check says it should be fine etc etc (and also with chagrin went and bought official expensive Canon ink instead of my pirate ink). Something in the software I guess.
So I went over and was like "please start printing black ink, I need it, I don't want to have to call Canon customer service that's such a hassle, please just start working"
And I forgot about it but this morning I printed something and it's printing black again
And I'm pretty sure I didn't do anything differently. But maybe subconsciously I did which I guess is the point he's making.
--
That's the version of this story I posted to my group chat. And it makes sense!
But here I say: Thanks, printer spirit, I really appreciate you coming through for me