The subjective turn

Jon Stewart

aeon.co

Originally posted 2 Nov 20

What is the human being? Traditionally, it was thought that human nature was something fixed, given either by nature or by God, once and for all. Humans occupy a unique place in creation by virtue of a specific combination of faculties that they alone possess, and this is what makes us who we are. This view comes from the schools of ancient philosophy such as Platonism, Aristotelianism and Stoicism, as well as the Christian tradition. More recently, it has been argued that there is actually no such thing as human nature but merely a complex set of behaviours and attitudes that can be interpreted in different ways. For this view, all talk of a fixed human nature is merely a naive and convenient way of discussing the human experience, but doesn’t ultimately correspond to any external reality. This view can be found in the traditions of existentialism, deconstruction and different schools of modern philosophy of mind.

There is, however, a third approach that occupies a place between these two. This view, which might be called historicism, claims that there is a meaningful conception of human nature, but that it changes over time as human society develops. This approach is most commonly associated with the German philosopher G W F Hegel (1770-1831). He rejects the claim of the first view, that of the essentialists, since he doesn’t think that human nature is something given or created once and for all. But he also rejects the second view since he doesn’t believe that the notion of human nature is just an outdated fiction we’ve inherited from the tradition. Instead, Hegel claims that it’s meaningful and useful to talk about the reality of some kind of human nature, and that this can be understood by an analysis of human development in history. Unfortunately, Hegel wrote in a rather inaccessible fashion, which has led many people to dismiss his views as incomprehensible or confused. His theory of philosophical anthropology, which is closely connected to his theory of historical development, has thus remained the domain of specialists. It shouldn’t.

With his astonishing wealth of knowledge about history and culture, Hegel analyses the ways in which what we today call subjectivity and individuality first arose and developed through time. He holds that, at the beginning of human history, people didn’t conceive of themselves as individuals in the same way that we do today. There was no conception of a unique and special inward sphere that we value so much in our modern self-image. Instead, the ancients conceived of themselves primarily as belonging to a larger group: the family, the tribe, the state, etc. This meant that questions of individual freedom or self-determination didn’t arise in the way that we’re used to understanding them.

The information is here.

An experiment in end-of-life care: Tapping AI’s cold calculus to nudge the most human of conversations

Rebecca Robbins
statnews.com
Originally posted 1 July 20

Here is an excerpt:

The architects of Stanford’s system wanted to avoid distracting or confusing clinicians with a prediction that may not be accurate — which is why they decided against including the algorithm’s assessment of the odds that a patient will die in the next 12 months.

“We don’t think the probability is accurate enough, nor do we think human beings — clinicians — are able to really appropriately interpret the meaning of that number,” said Ron Li, a Stanford physician and clinical informaticist who is one of the leaders of the rollout there.

After a pilot over the course of a few months last winter, Stanford plans to introduce the tool this summer as part of normal workflow; it will be used not just by physicians like Wang, but also by occupational therapists and social workers who care for and talk with seriously ill patients with a range of medical conditions.

All those design choices and procedures build up to the most important part of the process: the actual conversation with the patient.

Stanford and Penn have trained their clinicians on how to approach these discussions using a guide developed by Ariadne Labs, the organization founded by the author-physician Atul Gawande. Among the guidance to clinicians: Ask for the patient’s permission to have the conversation. Check how well the patient understands their current state of health.

And don’t be afraid of long moments of silence.

There’s one thing that almost never gets brought up in these conversations: the fact that the discussion was prompted, at least in part, by an AI.

Researchers and clinicians say they have good reasons for not mentioning it.

”To say a computer or a math equation has predicted that you could pass away within a year would be very, very devastating and would be really tough for patients to hear,” Stanford’s Wang said.

The info is here.