The Kantian method where knowledge is a priori synthetic and falls into categories eventually fails when its use value does not match up ideally with the purpose of the philisophical investigation at the start, with objective reality beginning to seep through the cracks (not lying to the Nazi who asks where the Jews are hiding is just one of many examples of this). There was a feeling that something was missing, and this is where Hegel comes in to fill this void through the tarrying with possibility of an objective/intersubjective reality which is accessed through rationality. Hegel in the Phenomenology of Spirit eventually concedes that the universal is only experienced through individual moments; because as much as the dialectic likes to account for multiple points in the fourth dimension, it is only ever inhabiting one point in time.
For self-consciousness, both
actuality as well as immediate existence
therefore have here no other meaning than
that they are pure knowledge. – Likewise,
what opposes itself is, as determinate
existence, that is, as a relationship, in part a
knowledge of this purely individual self
and in part a knowledge of knowledge
itself as universal. At the same time, it istherein posited that the third moment,
Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, “Absolute Knowledge” Sec. 793
universality, that is, the essence, counts
merely as knowledge for each of the two
which are confronting the other. They
finally sublate the empty opposition which
still remains, and they are the knowledge of
the “I = I,” that is, this individual self
which is immediately pure knowledge, that
is, is the universal.
Whenever I am pulled away from my own thoughts on psychotherapy and human consciousness, simply for the will of accumulating new and better knowledge, I am always drawn back to algorithmic decision making. This is because the universal is only present in individual moments, and thus any sort of decision process which claims universality will always have its most primary component as the immediate decision which is made. Thus, multiple competing values are fighting for supremacy and presence in the immediate.
IF you have ever wondered why level headed individuals aren’t spokespeople for certain popular ideologies, Absolute Knowledge as Machine Consciousness has the answer. An ideology doesn’t carry within itself intrinsic instructions for every specific scenario. Thus, there are many other things to take into consideration when attempting how to figure out how to operate in an efficient manner. But what is efficiency? Hegel knows that this is a phenomenological mix of objectivity/intersubjective reality, so if someone wants to eat an ice cream cone in a Marxist way, a Marxist scholar will be able to figure out how to do such a thing (and if he doesn’t, he is at risk of being less Marxist than someone who can do such a thing in a more Marxist fashion, and what if they are Deleuzian? Unacceptable!).
But here, with a pure Marxist-abstract-value-prioritization, we miss out on what is arguable the point of eating ice cream, which is to enjoy eating ice cream, maybe have a good time with a group. If we are to chart a Marxist eating ice cream, we can look at the algorithmic sorting mechanism during the duration of the process as the following:
- enjoying eating the ice cream
- spending time with the group
- eating Marxistly
These values may interact with each other in that the Marxist eats the ice cream, makes jokes with his group, and maybe makes one joke about Marxism. Or, maybe the Marxist prioritizes Marxism even more so, and decides that he should monopolize the conversation about Ben and Jerry’s liberalism. Or maybe he doesn’t eat the ice cream at all, and only speaks with people in the group that he’s interested in, and forgets Marxism and Ice Cream entirely.
Absolute Knowledge as Machine Consciousness; that is to say, knowledge of this algorithmic process, acknowledgement of this particular lack.
Mad Black Freud 