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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 8/18/22 9:47 AM, glen wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:0531f1d9-ab6c-8397-6cd1-76189f6769f7@gmail.com">Yeah.
I'm not as concerned as you seem to be about the addictive nature
of alternative perspectives. Obviously, because my whole schtick
is about attempting to take alternative perspectives. The addict
has to admit they have a problem before treatment will work, eh?
<br>
</blockquote>
My use of the term "addictive" was unfortunate. I didn't mean it
particularly perjoratively. I mostly just meant the awareness that
one can become "codependent" on substances/experiences which are not
otherwise organic to the nature of one's existence in-context.
Tarzan and his friends may have done something vaguely similar to
bungee jumping and skydiving (vine swinging and cliff diving), but
those who have made the high-tech equivalents of those experiences
part of their very persona have "given over" in some way that may or
may not be something to "worry about"... it is just in a practical
sense a "commitment". I have known plenty of people who have made
"commitments" to all kinds of things/substances (caffiene, nicotine,
alcohol, thc, gucose, lipids, parkour, etc) which they are virtually
symbiotic with (addicted to?). I have my own practical commitments
to all kinds of behaviours and consumptions which are effectively
now *part of who I am*. I might have been a somewhat different
person today if I had never become "committed" to alcohol, caffiene,
earning/spending $USD, driving planes, trains, automobiles, etc.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:0531f1d9-ab6c-8397-6cd1-76189f6769f7@gmail.com">
<br>
But if we adopt the perspective of the "longtermists",
"transhumansits", or similar, and believe that essentialist
computation is the limit point, the thing just over the horizon
toward which evolution works, then our *brain* is one of the
first/best instantiations of such computers. (Maybe I need scare
quotes, there, too ... "computers"?) Quantum comput[ers|ing] is a
close second only because too many people are ignorant enough of
current computing to think hard about its limitations.
<br>
</blockquote>
<p>FWIW I was just re-introduced to <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://nickbostrom.com/astronomical/waste">Bostrom's
Astronomical Waste</a> arguement in the context of a New Yorker
Article on Effective Altruism which I think you have referenced a
few times here. A more computationally/entropic framed version
of the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://nickbostrom.com/astronomical/waste">Dyson Sphere</a>
(or more originally the Stapledon Light Trap):</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times; font-size:
medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal;
font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing:
normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px;
text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2;
word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness:
initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color:
initial;">An excerpt from<span> </span><em>Star Maker</em><span> </span>which
mentions Dyson spheres:</p>
<dl style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times; font-size:
medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal;
font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing:
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background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness:
initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color:
initial;">
<dd>Not only was every solar system now surrounded by a gauze of
light traps, which focused the escaping solar energy for
intelligent use, so that the whole galaxy was dimmed, but many
stars that were not suited to be suns were disintegrated, and
rifled of their prodigious stores of subatomic energy.</dd>
</dl>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:0531f1d9-ab6c-8397-6cd1-76189f6769f7@gmail.com">
<br>
So another form of Dave's argument, still metaphysical, is this
Smolin-esque (or even Schrödinger-esque ala negentropy?) concept
that our objective(s) is tightly coupled pockets of deep
computation. And *that*, given that our brains are fantastic
computers, gives some weight to the idea that deep and broad
introspection gets one closer to God, closer to the objective,
closer to the real occult Purpose behind it all in much the same
way as studying quantum mechanics and quantum computation.
<br>
<br>
My argument *against* that is that even if tightly coupled
(coherent) pockets of computation are a crucial element, so is the
interstitial space *between* the tight pockets ... like black
holes orbiting each other or somesuch. It's not merely the
individual pocket/computer that's interesting, it's the formation,
dissolution, and interaction of the pockets that's more
interesting. Actually, then, the *void* is more interesting than
the non-void.
<br>
<br>
Tangentially:
<br>
<br>
Panic! At the Disks: First Rest-frame Optical Observations of
Galaxy Structure at z>3 with JWST in the SMACS 0723 Field
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.09428">https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.09428</a>
<br>
</blockquote>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>I appreciate having near-peers who are "peering" into the same
general (vaguely familiar) areas of the fractal abyss that I
am... <br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:0531f1d9-ab6c-8397-6cd1-76189f6769f7@gmail.com">
<br>
On 8/18/22 08:03, Steve Smith wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">The experience *I* have (or the way I have
mostly interpreted it) with various ways of "playing around with
my interface/membrane/boundary" is that alternatively addictive
to the point of becoming "essential" and a "vertiginous stare
into the abyss" at the same time. I'm not talking
particularly or specifically about ingesting entheogens or any
other substance known to acutely adjust reality. There are
(obviously) many other ways to "play around with the boundary".
For what it is worth, Pandora is playing Denver's iconic "Rocky
Mountain High" in the background as I complete this paragraph.
<br>
<br>
I currently attribute this to the alone/all-one duality and the
flexibility (elastic and plastic) nature of self-other
boundaries (membranes?) as a conscious ego. (Sting - How
Fragile we are on Pandora now, segueing into judy Collins' Both
Sides Now).
<br>
<br>
If I take "the Uni/Multi-verse" to be nothing more/less than a
single complex adaptive system which can(not) be reduced to a
system of systems (only reduceable by an imperfectly isolated
system (self) which has a compressed "model" of the universe as
a system of systems of which it"self" is a perfectly isolated
subsystem(self)) then the experience of self-other and "gaining
insight/parallax into (R)reality" isn't all that puzzling (to
this self's model of itself within the universal).
<br>
<br>
This of course still leaves (for this illusory "self") the "hard
problem" of the fact (rather than the nature) of (subjective)
experience itself...
<br>
<br>
I have a feeling (in my subjective experience as a self) that
the "breath of consciousness" might be the
compression/decompression cycle itself? Talking (linearly)
about this stuff is a fractal/recursive minefield of
rabbit-holes worthy of Alice tripping on Entheogens?
<br>
<br>
- Steve
<br>
<br>
On 8/18/22 8:34 AM, glen wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Parallax is an important technique for
getting at things just *beyond* one's current representational
power. So, were I to try to steelman your argument, I'd
suggest that, yes, the process by which our bodies
refine/focus/hone-down our attention to a smaller, compressed
thing from a larger thing (whether the largess is "noise" or
not is a tangent) is important. And the entheogens permute
that honing down, that reduction, to create a different
transformation.
<br>
<br>
It's reasonable to speculate that the transformation we
execute under the influence of an entheogen might be *less*
reductive than that we execute when "sober". But to argue that
the transformation under the influence is a more accurate
match to reality is fraught. Less reductive? Sure. More
accurate? Well, that would require us to go into that tangent.
What do we mean by more accurate? Does randomness exist? Etc.
<br>
<br>
So we might want to be careful with that crossing between
relatively tame statements like "entheogens alter the
cross-membrane transformation providing parallax toward the
out there" versus more metaphysical statements like
"entheogens provide a better transformation (or no
tranformation) across the boundary to the out there".
<br>
<br>
Thanks for clarifying. I think I have a better understanding
of the argument. Those of us who play around with our
interface probably *do* have a better understanding of reality
than those of us imprisoned by their one, sole interface. But
we don't need to go so far as to say a drugged mind is more
capable of perceiving the real reality.
<br>
<br>
On 8/16/22 17:16, Prof David West wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">If you assume, or believe, that the
mind (body-brain-embodied mind-Atman) naturally processes
100% of the inputs and assume/believe that a survival
enhancing mechanism filters that stream to create the
illusionary subset that we call Reality, then entheogens
work to dismantle the filtering mechanism and expose the
Real Reality.
<br>
<br>
Missing in my first post was a hidden premise, that any
augmentations (Neuralink, et. al.) are almost certainly
based on whatever we think we understand of the filtering
mechanism, not the Mind, and therefore would augment/enhance
that mechanism and therefore lead to results opposite of
what is desired.
<br>
<br>
The missing premise is pretty much conjecture on my part but
is grounded in an advanced, but not expert, understanding of
AI and neural network technologies; so it should be taken
with a tablespoon (thousands of grains) of salt.
<br>
<br>
davew
<br>
<br>
<br>
On Tue, Aug 16, 2022, at 11:22 AM, glen wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Opposite of what? I don't understand
how augmentation is the opposite
<br>
of the entheogens (drugs or meditation). Are you saying
that, e.g. the
<br>
Mojo Lens or Neuralink further restrict, whereas the
entheogens lessen
<br>
the restriction?
<br>
<br>
If so, then my guess is you could do the same sort of
restriction
<br>
modulation with any augmentation device. E.g. if there are
1 billion
<br>
possible data feeds you could receive, decreasing them is
like an
<br>
undrugged person self-censoring and such, then increasing
them is like
<br>
taking a entheogen ... that is, assuming Church-Turing.
<br>
<br>
If we reject C-T, then it seems reasonable to argue that
the body
<br>
"computes" something that any computer-based augmentation
would
<br>
restrict, by definition, making it impossible to expand
beyond what the
<br>
augment provides. Computer-based augmentaiton would
provide a hard
<br>
limit ... an unavoidable abstraction/subset of reality.
<br>
<br>
On 8/15/22 19:04, Prof David West wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">The hallucino-philia (and Buddhist
epistemologists) would argue that our brains (minds)
already fully grasp / cognize / perceive our physical
reality. But, for survival purposes, it self-censors and
presents our consciousness/awareness/attention with a
small abstract subset of that reality—an illusion.
<br>
<br>
Drugs and meditation are 'subtractive' in that they
dismantle the abstraction/reduction apparatus that
generates the illusion hiding our 'full-grasping'.
<br>
<br>
If such a belief were "true" then "augmenting our
brains" would be the exact opposite, and exceedingly
harmful, approach ...
<br>
<br>
... unless, the augmentation was a permanent [lsd
| psylocibin | mescaline] drip.
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br>
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