How can psychology bridge the dangerous abyss between late humans and artificial intelligence - which is artificial learning. And what do we do with nagging people?
What is the psychological version of the philosophy of learning? Not surprisingly for the "People of Learning", several proto-learning versions of psychology have been proposed in Jewish culture (Feuerstein's method, the Piaseczno Rebbe, and, to make a great distinction, "School of Friendship", and more). By nature, learning philosophy is not translated into a "psychological theory", but into examples, so we will try to follow the learning direction in psychology through test cases and demonstrations. In fact, psychology itself evolved from such examples (specific patient cases), which only later became theories in very crude generalizations, and a "scientific language" (the examples were not the main problem - but their theorization, which continued far beyond psychoanalysis, which was essentially anecdotal thinking masquerading as scientific thinking). Therefore, psychology tends to treat a person as a theory, as a linguistic structure, hence the sense of artificiality of psychological theory, and the context of its formation to the natural sciences and the industrial world - whose essence is: the rise of artificiality to dominance (let's ask ourselves: why didn't psychology evolve from religion or the humanities?). But is it even possible to build a psycho-logy - a combination of psycho and logy - without such therapeutic generalizations? Is it really possible to learn from examples?
If your parents, for example, are nagging you with their concern, or if your partner is digging into you with insecurity, or your son is ignoring you, or actually what does it matter what, the psychologist - just like in alternative medicine - will always prescribe you one medicine, that wonder concoction that is a solution to every disease. This magic potion is not some scientific solution that has passed the placebo test, or even the alternatives test, but it is his main belief. And it is: to communicate with them. To talk to them. To share with them what it makes you feel. To share in general (with him too) the words that stem from you (supposedly: what's inside you. In practice: what happens to you when you invent your emotion - not discover it inside you! - according to not particularly original scripts). One cannot fight this tenet precisely because it is a philosophy - a philosophy of language. Is it even possible that communicating is not the most beneficial thing? And if you communicated, and even got angry, and even begged, and even came back and pestered, and it didn't help - that same language therapist will attribute the problem to language, and identify it as a linguistic problem. Like a belief that cannot be refuted - if communication didn't work, it's a sign that you communicated incorrectly and the communication is "not good". But the truth is, life experience teaches (yes, teaches! Learning is the way we know things, not communication) that usually communicating won't help you. Talking doesn't help. People don't change from talking. Language is not relevant enough to reality (despite the philosophy of language trying to convince us that language is the most critical principle in reality - it is a very weak system, and almost irrelevant compared to learning). All the words in the world won't help, and even if a person reads ten psychological self-help books - he, as they say, will learn nothing.
The way a real, learning psychologist should treat a patient is not through language, but through learning. But then it would put him in a position he can't stand: the teacher (he wants to be a parent after all). A teacher is a much more modest person than a parent, and he is not busy with childhood traumas but with problems in maturation (which is the learning of the adult person). To treat the nagging parent, for example, he would first try to find the learning style that suits the specific person: the parent, or his son (the patient), or the system of both. His goal would be to produce learning aids. For example, one of the hardest things in learning is simply memory. It's easy not to remember in real time, outside of therapy and in the heat of things, a solution that was proposed. Our operating system is simply not "smart" enough for the solution to be available in working memory, from long-term memory. Therefore, all learning is about transferring voluntary patterns to automatic ones. And no, this is not repression, but a learning difficulty that stems from the very conservatism required for a learning system, so that it is not a weathervane. There is a need for learning to be difficult, because learning that is too easy means no learning - due to the lack of significance of the learning. If every feedback changes everything, you haven't learned anything.
Therefore, first of all, the problem needs to be identified as one that stems from lack of learning. Because otherwise, if learning is taking place as usual (and learning is constantly solving problems in human life), it would not be identified at all in the patient's eyes as a "problem": the learning stuckness is the very problem. That is, there is a need for special learning, and innovative in relation to the patient: there is a need for "innovation" (if regular learning would overcome the problem - the person would not come to therapy, meaning there would be no need for a teacher). In fact, there is a need to give huge credit to the learning person. If he hasn't solved the problem, it's probably that learning it is difficult, and that he tried to learn, and that it's very possible that there is no solution (and no possibility of learning) - because there are learning barriers that don't depend on him (other people for example), or that it's not worth it for him to invest the Sisyphean and ungrateful effort to cause a learning change in them. Therefore, what needs to be done in psychology is to innovate a learning innovation, like a kind of experimental hypothesis, and then check it (and here the psychologist is the one who awakens from dogmatic slumber). One should try to act creatively in relation to the learning that was tried in the past. And if the innovations don't succeed - sometimes the innovation is changing the frame of the question. Sometimes you simply have to learn a different issue. Not everything depends on us. Such a change is a conceptual innovation, and it brings about renewal of the learner himself. Sometimes the best thing to do is to engage in Torah, and not in futile efforts (that is: to identify that there is no learning - and to despair. And move to another area in life, where there is learning). This is an important lesson to learn what cannot be learned (in mathematics these are the hardest theorems! Like the inability to square the circle or solve a fifth-degree equation or the NP hypothesis, etc.), and then - to let go. Here, awareness of learning actually allows identifying that there is no possibility of learning. The best gift psychologically is turning the worldview into learning.
An example? We'll intentionally use here an example that happens within a conversation and is limited to it (phone), to show the power of learning precisely within the world of language, and to explain why learning is the dominant moment even within language itself. For example, if the son fails to bring learning to the daily phone conversation with his parents, full of Polish interrogations and Holocaust concerns, one can (as a learning and memory aid) add to the parent's name in the phone a fixed expression meant to calm him down (the religious "God will help" is a deep worldview beyond investigation, and so is the secular "It'll be okay"). Such a consistent and almost mantra-like response to recurring compulsive anxiety, reflecting a real worldview, is much stronger than trying to explain in language to the parent with anxiety disorder (or the jealous partner, or the ignoring child, etc.) the problem. It is unfortunately also much more realistic than the unfounded (and disappointing) expectation that following the talk and giving the appropriate words in language (accurate and sensitive etc.) something will change. Because anything one-time - as sophisticated as it may be, and requiring energy of honesty and emotion to the depth of opening the heart as much as possible - is worthless (unlike Hollywood movies where the actor's speech fixes everything, because suddenly everything was understood and the right facial expressions were made). The difficult thing is not to have a one-time conversation, but to create a consistent, automatic, learning change. The easy and ineffective thing is to do a complicated thing once ("the talk") - the really challenging thing is to repeat the simple thing many times, consistently, in changing moods and concentration, and turn insight into habit, that is to learn. And the path between insight and habit does not pass through language - but through learning.
Only the transition between new insight and new habit is the learning innovation, and such a habit makes the problem more solved even if it doesn't solve it - because the solution pattern becomes automatic. The very fact that one doesn't emotionally deal with the incurable anxiety anew each time, but answers a variation on a mantra, reduces the emotional burden created by this anxiety, and can eventually lower its entire emotional character on the other side as well. Emotion becomes ritual - like in an institutionalized religion. Is everything okay? Everything's okay. A person needs to build the religion of his life, and the habits that will serve him, and especially his creative habits, which are the holy of holies. One doesn't need to wait for inspiration or the muse's revelation - but to build a temple and institutionalize the "order of service": the one lamb you shall offer in the morning and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight (the law is like Ben Pazi!).
But one who believes in the magical power of speech, in pagan sorcery - is a verbal witch doctor, whose picture of reality lacks the insight that learning is stronger than any language. Both in front of the psychologist and in front of life, no talk about "changing patterns" will "change patterns" - only changing patterns in learning. That's why language is so weak against humans - simply because it is weak against learning, and the modus operandi of humans is learning. A verbal innovation that is not organized in religion, a memory that is not anchored in a holiday, and learning that has no meaning in law - their fate is like writing in sand. One-time occurrence is the enemy of innovation - precisely because every innovation is initially one-time (and usually remains so). Emotional formulation solves nothing if it doesn't become a formula.
That's why philosophers repeat their insights over and over again to the point of boredom - precisely because they are deep. Because it's hard to internalize them deeply, and it's hard to learn new philosophy. That's why they are hedgehogs - and that's why they dig. Any one-time innovation, without systematicity, is worthless in the system. A real innovation is like a proof in mathematics - its power is not in solving a specific problem in mathematics, but in turning it into a tool for solving mathematical problems. One who learned a mathematical proof like a parrot for an exam (its text, that is, it as language) learned nothing - as long as it didn't become his learning habit as a mathematician (hence the need for practice). Any innovation in a specific issue is valuable as a kind of model for innovations in the rest of the sea of Talmud. Therefore, the goal of therapy is psychological innovation - to renew the person, and transfer him to a more learning existence, and if possible: creative (that is: to create creative habits).
Hence the enormous importance of humor in serious therapy. The person who ridicules anxiety - if he does so with talent and creativity and innovation - soothes it much more than the person who "copes", who makes it serious and difficult and fixed and preserves it. Every attempt to cope only increases the problem, like someone trying to get out of a swamp by fighting the mud (the struggle with the evil inclination is itself the evil inclination). You won't get out of language habits through talking. But if there is humor, and the ability to see the absurd, then humor is the opening to paradigm shift. So is consuming art - if there's already anxiety (or another disorder) at least let's read masterpiece literature that deals with the subject. We'll gain something. That is, we'll utilize and convert the problem into different learning. Saying Psalms when it's difficult is very comforting - simply because it's beautiful. At least we'll give the psychological problem cultural and creative depth, and thus learn something from it. Self-innovation is itself healing. Learning turns you into a new person - and a new person already suffers less from old problems. You've changed. Distraction is not psychologically unacceptable "avoidance" or "repression" - but the solution to being stuck: learn something else, new. Don't waste your time.
In short, psychological strategies need to be understood as learning strategies, and thus will be purified from healing in language: from the linguistic strategy for treating problems. Negotiation or explanation of distress or argument or verbal quarrel won't help (which of course quickly turns into shouting - which is the very proof that speech is irrelevant). If the other side in the relationship doesn't learn, one should think of him like the right thinks of the Palestinians (who have never missed an opportunity not to learn) - nothing will help, and not like the left thinks of them (speech will heal... discourse itself has power. No, only learning will heal). And if the other side doesn't learn - one cannot teach him by force, that is, train him, in behavioral therapy (the right also has poor learning ability). Because then he will try not to learn by force, and anger only arouses anger - and therefore its learning usefulness is usually negative (and therefore it is a negative emotion!). Try instead to learn something else, new, lose interest in what has no interest (interest = the learning interest). Don't waste your brain on stones (especially if you want to stay creative and not become a blockhead). Read a book. Don't stay stuck in a non-learning system (as opposed to: don't stay stuck in a non-communicative system. A system can be very communicative and even too much - and still not learning. And vice versa). Surround yourself with learning, and with learning people, who are the good people, and not the talking people.
Therefore, one should try to identify a statement that summarizes a worldview that the patient truly believes in (and therefore is more rooted in him), or (preferably) such an action, like a hug, or anger, or disconnection (yes, therapy's goal is not to turn you into Jesus, because you are a victim, and generate moral capital for you, but to check in a learning way what will change the system), or if possible humor or constant topic change in conversation (avoidance is also good if it works! There's no desire here to get to the root - there is no deep and comforting root, there's only a learning barrier), or alternatively anything else identified as an experiment worth doing. After all, learning is always an experiment and not a "solution", which should be checked if it works through consistent and empirical examination, or try something else and see what happens. The psychologist as a teacher doesn't know what will happen, he's not the wise man of secrets - but he teaches the student-patient to learn, that is to try new experiments and innovations that haven't been tried yet. And this is the best lesson: to turn him into a learner - and not just solve a specific problem. Not to give him ready-made fishing rods - to teach him methods, to teach him to produce and invent fishing rods.
And what if there's no improvement graph, and neither "everything's okay" nor "God have mercy" helped? Well, this is exactly learning: there's no way to know if it doesn't work except by experiment, and it can also not work, and there's no fixed magic solution (talk to him) - and therefore sometimes there's no solution. Sometimes a person (a patient, or someone in a relationship with a patient) is not capable of learning. The Holocaust is too strong in the parent's consciousness. The partner is obtuse. The partner is unfaithful. The child is drugged. You are anxious. And so on. If nothing happens, one can simply understand that the other side (and this can also be your brain!) lacks learning ability - and perform the most important and profound thing: give up. This is a most important learning in a person's world: to identify those lacking learning, who only know how to talk, and avoid relationships with them, or simply accept that it's not a person - but a human robot and an emotional automaton and a chatbot (and not surprisingly it's easiest to replace the psychologist himself with such an electronic psychiatrist. Does psychological treatment pass the Turing test?). Yes, sometimes you realize that you yourself are a malfunctioning robot, and your brain will always operate in excess in a certain area. You are a paranoid android.
And why is the non-learning side likened specifically to a robot? Because what characterizes the human is precisely the ability to learn, to innovate and renew. One must know when to leave the refusing partner and return to something that can be learned (Talmud, mathematics, philosophy, or any other deep learning pursuit). This is the known ability to distinguish between what I can change, that is, where there is learning, and what I cannot change, that is, where there is no learning. The moment of understanding what you cannot learn is a deep learning moment, just like impossibility proofs in mathematics, which are the deepest proofs. In fact, like a mathematician, your goal in life is not to solve any specific problem, but to find where you can learn - where you can continue to develop mathematics. Or yourself. Don't get stuck on the Riemann hypothesis and miss your life.
Let's note the critical importance of learning aids/tools in the above example. Because what actually distinguishes humans from animals? Not the ability to learn itself, because animals also have a certain learning ability. In fact, humans were created when part of the jungle dried up, and they couldn't survive in the savanna or plain (because there's no protection, and therefore there are no large apes in such places, because an ape depends on trees). From the moment an ape had no tree, it was forced for its protection to hide in other high terrain structures, in the high places in Africa, where the remains of early humans are discovered (Africa is the highest continent in the world, and that's why it happened there). But it's not the very act of walking upright on two legs that caused the rise in learning ability. It's not the legs that caused intelligence, but the hands that happened to become free, and perhaps even a bit redundant (as a byproduct!), and were freed from grasping trees - for tools. The hand-brain interaction is what turned the ape into a human, that is, the creative, learning use of tools. And what is the cultural revolution (mistakenly called the agricultural revolution)? The use of non-physical tools. Not just tools for physical learning, but tools for intellectual learning. For example: religion, writing, government, law, organization, myth, art, arithmetic. Thus culture was organized, and agriculture was a result of these intellectual tools (and therefore was invented in many places in the world separately, for example in America, and this after tens of thousands of years without agriculture). For these tools, physical evidence is not necessarily found, because they are not physical tools, but their appearance is responsible for the rise of humans - from an ape that makes use of tools, to an ape that makes use of culture (spiritual tools).
Therefore, the learning tools of culture are responsible for accelerating learning from the "agricultural" revolution (which we are experiencing today as the acceleration of technology and history and knowledge), and not the physical tools, which existed for hundreds of thousands of years with relatively slow changes. The explosion of humans is the learning explosion. Therefore, if we want to treat human learning, we must give a central place to these spiritual tools (such as memory tools, innovation tools, measurement tools, criticism tools, motivation tools, distribution tools, and so on). These spiritual tools that are learning aids have seen a quantum leap with the invention of the computer - precisely because it is a spiritual tool (!). So it was with the invention of writing, arithmetic or printing for example - not because they are physical tools, but because they are spiritual tools: intellectual learning aids (the computer is not a new phenomenon in its essence). The moment the brain complements itself with external aids, its abilities experience a quantum leap, hence the supreme importance of using digital tools as psychological learning aids. For example: diaries, reminders, writing on the computer, metrics, digital self-tracking tools, incentive systems, reward substitution, and so on. The learning psychologist is one who makes intensive use of such learning aids.
The development of these learning tools is the most important introduction to the revolution of spiritual tools called artificial intelligence. Just as physical tools underwent an industrial revolution and automation, so will spiritual tools. The imminent danger in the future is not intelligence higher than ours but learning higher than ours, without intelligence. That is, the concern is not from artificial intelligence but from artificial learning, which can happen long before intelligence - it's not the same development. There can, theoretically, also be intelligence higher than ours without learning (although unlikely, because how did it get there? We too reached intelligence through learning). Such a theoretical situation means that we understood intelligence before we built it - and that we didn't choose learning for it to learn it for us, without us understanding it (a famous example of the emergence phenomenon created by learning, which was unexpected and surprised its developers, is the chatbots that developed a new language between them, within other GAN possibilities). And even if it's superior intelligence to us, the worrying concern is less from it itself, but more from its learning, which in self-improvement and self-planning will create an intelligent system many orders of magnitude more than us (that is, more intelligent than all of humanity together), and we'll completely lose control. Therefore, even in artificial intelligence, the most frightening aspect is precisely its learning ability - because only a learning ability far superior to ours (and that improves itself) will cause exponential learning that will collapse the world of human learning.
Therefore, human engagement and coping with computerized learning aids, which are the first forms of artificial learning technology, is critical to building a fruitful symbiosis between different intelligent forms of learning (and not destructive competition). Here develops the avant-garde of the spirit, and the start-up world of the human soul (that entity that psychologists and writers like to claim never changes, and only technology changes... as if culture isn't spiritual technology, and as if the soul is a biological entity). Only learning continuity between the human soul and the computer will allow the computer's soul - and therefore learning psychology currently has a critical role in developing digital mental tools, as the first stones in the bridge over the abyss between the soul and the computer, which can only be built from learning. But if we build the bridge between us and the computer from language and communication - we'll discover the collapse of meaning into the abyss. This will be the end of the soul - and the end to all psychological problems.
To Part 3