[FRIAM] Future Generating Machines...

[Steve Smith]

Glen -

I think I *share* the sentiment you present here, though through other
mechanisms (than psi) to dissolve the (illusory/delusional) boundaries
between self/other or more aptly self/whole.   You are apparently
more-better at (or at least more committed to your version of) this than
I am which I envy/aspire.

I suppose all I'm teasing at here is the apparent paradox of (for
example) the "two" of us, trying to serialize things about our "inner
states" to "communicate" between two "individuals".    In the abstract,
I accept the premise that what I consider to be an "individual" (e.g.
me, you, 400+ people reading or hitting delete on this message) is more
a locus or cluster or relative concentration  in a high dimensional
field.    Maybe the only answer is to ingest a quantum of the right
mushroom...   or fast/dehydrate until I meet Joseph or Brigham across a
campfire in an arroyo...  or meditate until my spirit leaves my body and
apprehends the cosmos directly...   

We two "illusory individuals" *appear* (from the perspective of illusory
individuals) to be communicating (poorly or otherwise).... 

mumble,

 - Steve


On 3/29/21 1:05 PM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:
> Well, if psychedelics were fully legal, I'd use them openly ... if that's what you're asking. But my argument that individuals are an approximating simplification threads almost every thought I have that's even slightly related to plectics.
>
> E.g. In about an hour, I'll be on a call discussing the utility of DAGs as models of probability distributions in interventional clinical trials. The video Jon posted talked ominously about reducing humans to variables. But the ominous tone is pure theater, adopted to brew fear (or hook to extant fear). We *are* variables. To whatever extent we can find clusters of variables that are more coherent than other clusters of variables, that's FANTASTIC. But it's harder than it might seem. The starting assumption should be that we are variables and the work is to derive the individual. It isn't be the other way around.
>
> On 3/29/21 11:55 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
>> Is your own refutation of "the individual" the personal experience you
>> have, or an intellectual abstraction to which you perhaps aspire to
>> experience?