From the dispassionate perspective of the information theorist, the majority of what we say–whether out of convention, or grammar, or habit–could just as well go unsaid.
Lately, I've been wondering how important or relevant is what I talk to people. Even with my friends talk things that could just as well go unsaid.
I mostly have nothing to say.
I'm full of doubts and questions.
And answers don't seem to be around the corner.
Why am I even blogging?
It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience
It's really more intelligent to be able to simplify things than to complicate them. Even if some people think it makes you look stupid
It took me 35 years to understand that simples are actually simple but not the simple you might have in mind.
With everything happening around, you hear a lot of stuff that seems to be the answer. However, things are simple but not that simple. I understand that revenge and hate might lead your actions but we have two ways of thinking. The slow and the fast. Slow down. Abide. The dude abides…
The future is already here - it's just not evenly distributed
Planning is one of those things that humans are into it. I don't know if the reason is fear of failing, death, disappointment, etc. Maybe it's because the brain is a pattern recognition machine and a plan has structure, has a pattern.
One of the etymologies of plan is level or flat surface. It reminds of phrases like don't go under water. Under water? It's like water is a 2D thing. Water for the brain is a surface. Plan is a flat surface. I don't know why my brain makes these silly connections.
Anyway, I think planning might not be the answer. I don't think the Cosmos plans for this reality and yet look it run!
Make it so
Things like Forth Thinking, LOOP Programming, Rules for Biologically Inspired Adaptive Network Design and the Tower of Hanoi Analogy make me think that perhaps we are doing everything wrong.
Instead, we should think like mathematicians, we should be slow thinkers. Remove everything that rush us into get things done as fast as we can. Take our time. Yeah, life's too short but it will get shorter for everybody on this planet if we don't stop fast thinking.
The brain is a powerful machine but it's not perfect. We need to take our time.
Make it so.
A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact.
Is it possible the human civilization we our so proud of is merely the product of our fast thinking and, therefore, it has a terrible foundation?
The complexity of this civilization baffles to the point that I'm not sure how much time before we annihilate ourselves.
Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order to blindly and dumbly rot and disappear forever.
The condition we all are perhaps is the reason of our self-destructive behavoir. It's like we don't want to be happy, whatever that is.
We fight inequality in knowledge access across the world. The scientific knowledge should be available for every person regardless of their income, social status, geographical location and etc.
I remember that I was discourage to going into Astronomy. In his defense, my father was just protecting me. He wanted a future where I can survive after his gone. I think that shows the roots of the problem with this civilization.
I remember I got into PhD program because I was in love with science, however, I got discourage by watching how things where done in the institution I was researching. In their defense, their were looking after themselves (money and ego). So I dropped out after 4 years of working.
Now, I'm working on a project that will take me at least 50 years. Projects of such magnitude clearly cannot be done by one person, me. I'm well aware that I need to find other people. I depend on them. While trying to find such people, I stumbled upon the same hidden issues I mentioned before.
Why do we have to pay for scientific papers?
Why do we want to have a civilization?
Why do we say we are superior species when we clearly live by the rules of Nature?
Our civilization is based on so many illusions what we are not willing to challenge. Is it our nature to be followers?
How is that that a country with 60% of poverty is ruled by the minority? By numbers, they should take the country.
Why we are still bicameral men?
Humans are a deeply flawed and a destructive species that is responsible for the suffering and deaths of billions of other humans and non-human animals. If that level of destruction were caused by another species we would rapidly recommend that new members of that species not be brought into existence.
I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure.
Nous ne vivons pas dans un pays, Nous vivons dans une langue
Wenn nur die Geschichten am Ende beginnen wurden, ware eine andere Sache die Natur eines sinnlosen Universums
This little box of mine? It's my collection. Contains lots of stuff but mostly questions.
To know something is to what?
Til this day I have no idea what knowning actually is. I'm full of doubts and questions. Answers don't seem to be my thing.
Sha'ir, the knower.
Human memory demands light before heavy.
Shag a word in Akkadian that seems to mean in or inside.
Is that why shagging is used to mean having sex?
Or is it just part of the Dopeler effect? Where stupid ideas tend to seem smarter when they come at you rapdly?
Beats me.
Because this is the end of civilization! People like you don't want to work or learn anything because they're too busy with their remote control television or playing with their hula-hoops! And before you know it, that's where we're at!
As far as I can tell what's hold on this civilization is lying. To lie, we need some sort of communication. A channel where information flows. But information is not enough. Some sort of consciousness is neccesary.
In fact, I'm with Jaynes. To be conscious it takes what you least expect.
It is once we learned to talk to each other that the gods were away. It is when we created the laws that a civilization was born. To hold millions, a mechanism like laws or a constitution was enough. It is enough.
But all that it's an illusion, I believe. It only takes a few thoughts to release that this civilization is hang on a thread.
So, when will we start over?
Some people worry that artificial intelligence will make us feel inferior, but then, anybody in his right mind should have an inferiority complex every time he looks at a flower.
In my pursue to conquer the galaxy one thing I certainly need. That is the use of artificial intelligence. My goal is to conquer myrmecology as much as possible to have an workforce that allow me, at some point, to harvest raw materials in space. However, I don't need to create dangerous artificial intelligence as some well-known celebrities are worried about to be created.
I'm worried but for entirely different reasons.
First, I don't think the A.I. we'll create will be evil by itself. It might be evil because the humans who coded. Second, I don't think we will reach intelligence like ours.
I don't think we will reach it because of the same reason I'm not looking to create it. That is:
By the time we are capable of creating General Artificial Intelligence, we will seattle for less: an enhancement of our own intelligence hopefully for good.
Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber.
I have this proposal: Existential Debt.
I think it can be better explained by example. So here it is.
Imagine we are embarking in creating a startup. The idea is to capitalize on wood furniture. We have the trees, the tools, the workforce, we have it all. We do it all. From raw materials to the end product, we work. Everything goes fine for years and years. The question is: what is the existential debt of that startup?
The idea of the Existential Debt is that no matter what it's done, you always get some.
This is based on two concepts:
The startup to avoid screwing the forest, i.e., plants more trees. In doing so, it changes the environment around and that may cause the lives of other beings directly o indirectly. That in turn affects everything around. It goes well since the startup goes on and the reforestation happens but something get messed up in the process.
The startup to avoid chemical wasted, invests in research and finds a way to stop screwing the environment. In doing so, something is affected.
In other words, there is no free lunch. Something changes for good and bad.
Briefly:
In a Cosmos where there is no meaning, only the one that sentient beings choose to have, the Existential Debt is an idea that helps to be aware of our actions.
This came to me while I was reading a book on systems thinking.
In the end, we self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages are little miracles of self-reference.
My bet is consciousness is an illusion. A very well perpetuate illusion. Just like the reality our brains created of whatever is really outside.
ATM. Alien Time Machine. Although, what I wanted to write was AMT: Analogy-making Tool. Games, all kinds, I see them as analogy-making tools. That is important since I part of the people who believes that's the key for artificial intelligence.
However, I have to confess, I don't want to create artificial intelligence since I believe existence is pain. Why would I want to bring something or someone to this cosmos?
I started a personal game last year without seeing how important it was.
The game consist in playing with words to create different meanings. You *can play, r8?. The more u play it, the more you realize how crazy the mind is. You can find meaning in everything or rather say you can make meaning after any thing.
You know what people who enjoy metal know each other? Because they met al.
You know designers are the thing? Because they are design.
You can make more complicated mixtures.
Why a request is not repeatable and instead a pet addiction?
And soon you get it.
You know it.
The rationalization that took place during the so-called "scientific revolution" is not of the mind, of the eye, of philosophy, but of the sigh.Why is perspective such an inportant invention?
To me, perspective is representation, internally (brain) and/or externally (reality). You probably have noticed that because you have encountered problems in your life. You tried to solve them with no results. Then, for some reason, you tried another approach. You saw the situations in a different way. You noticed new stuff. And soon you saw the solution. It was right there. How I'd haven't seen it!.
Maybe it was being cooked in the back of your head. Maybe it was a different version your brain twist it again and again until it fit.
I dunno.
The fact is that you found them and the only thing that changed was you.
There is no spoon.
One of the beliefs I currently hold is that the more you read, the more you're starting to see things more hmm holistically. You see connections here and there from completely unrelated fields. My bet is that the brain or the structure that holds knowledge does not know which is what. It take the input, connect them, and give an output regardless of what the input was. What I find interesting is how I came to believe that.
It came by merging a few unrelated fields!
The first realization was that people who were blind since birth dream with noises. No image. It makes sense since the brain doesn't have any visual input to distort or play with.
The second realization was what happen when you get into the dark tank and inhibit senses, external stimuli. You start hallucinating. I don't know if that is because of the lack of stimuli but I thought of what a blind person could hallucinate. I thought of sound like what they dream, nothing else.
And the third realization was that the brain creates the reality based on the senses or input.
I don't remember the order in which I learned those things but once I got the last one, the belief poped up into my head. It just made sense.
My mind was playing with things but it was not aware or know the rules to what to mix with or not mix with. To what to relate or not to relate. To what make sense to play or not. It just does it.
What could possible find if I read more unrelated fields, I wonder.