Thinking about Bots – The World

Martin Döring, September 12th of 2021

> You can't program bots without understanding humans – Martin Döring, in the morning

> Understanding humans is de facto impossible – Martin Döring, in the evening

A human being has an idea of the world in his mind, which consists of a more or less understood network of events, actions and situations. By being more or less personally affected by these situations, the human being is engaged with or involved in the world. This can show up in a concrete situation in which he is himself or as a reflection on situations, events and actions of third parties, which he has experienced from narratives.

People abstract objects in nature on the basis of their presumed functions, which have a relation to them or even a potential use for them. Objects that are actually just a more or less outlined amorphous collection of atoms and molecules are transformed into meaningful things in people's view. The meaning of things seen by people is the presumed or recognized function they have in the world.

Abstracting the world and recognizing meaning in the things of the world, enables people to make evaluations. An evaluation makes it possible to make decisions. A single thing cannot be evaluated. What is always evaluated is the relationship of things to each other. How things are in relation, we call »situation«. It is the result of changes to an older »initial situation«. If changes are intentional, we call them actions, otherwise events.

Now the situation can be evaluated. Evaluation comes from »value«. The value lies in the possibility of the advantage, which results from the correct handling of the situation. Therefore, much of interpersonal communication deals with the evaluation of situations.

This communication takes place in the form of narratives, which are a followup of situations together with their preceding events and actions that cause them. Situations can be evaluated differently by different people, also because each person evaluates a situation differently based on his or her personal experiences. People like to discuss the correct assessment of situations and to learn from the common knowledge about it, to find an own point of view.

A point of view is: the fixed assessment of a situation. It is justified by experience (empirical) or by reflection (logical). A common point of view is: the jointly determined evaluation of a situation.

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