started revamp, added drafts to repo

.gitignore

@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 out/
-drafts/
 *.pyc
 *.swp
 push.sh

drafts/christ/christ_myth.pdc

@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+% Mapping the Christ Myth
+

drafts/consciousness/consciousness_defined.pdc

@@ -0,0 +1,306 @@
+% Consciousness Defined
+
+About "the Mind"
+================
+
+I'm doing something that, as far as I can tell, nobody[^nobody] in the study of
+consciousness, and this includes neuroscientists, psychologists and Buddhists,
+seems to be able to do. The first thing, clearly stated, you should be doing is
+answer this question:
+
+**What do you mean by "mind" (etc.) and what does it encompass?**
+
+[^nobody]: Ok, that's not exactly true. I've seen, for example, definitions and
+diagrams in books by (or about) Julian Jaynes and Bernhard Baars. Still, these
+models are often only meant to demonstrate how their own ideas fit together, not
+to catalog the whole phenomenology.
+
+Everybody and their grandmother has a theory about the mind, yet when you
+actually look at these theories, they don't just approach the issue differently,
+they even approach *different issues*. Studying "the mind" or "consciousness"
+is kinda like a physicist saying they study "stuff". Unless you have a clear,
+*explicit* idea of what you mean when you say "mind", you will at best only
+confuse yourself and think that a half-baked answer solved the problem.
+
+I was wrestling with all kinds of ideas about what consciousness is and how it
+works. The most important realization, and I credit Dennett for it, was that I
+didn't even know what I was talking about *myself*. I had no idea what I even
+meant when I spoke about my own consciousness.
+
+So I stopped all the hypothesis-making and took a good, deep look. Exactly what
+is meant by the mind, what "parts" does it consist of, which phenomena are all
+to be included? Note that I don't aim to *explain* anything. At all. Here I just
+want a complete description of what there actually is to explain. Otherwise
+we'll just end up solving wrong or non-existent problems (see: free will). 
+
+I've also included comparisons to other models, so that you can see how my terms
+relate to concepts you may already know. (And why I consider all other models to
+be too deficient.)
+
+The Complete(-ish) Model
+========================
+
+I follow *5 simple principles*:
+
+# TODO Really? Don't split too much!  
+1. Not everything that is a separate part in the model is meant to be strictly
+   separate in reality. In fact, I am fairly convinced that some parts at least
+   overlap, if they are not even identical. The distinctions are meant to help
+   *you* understand what I'm talking about, not show you *how it works*.
+
+2. The model is not necessarily exhaustive. I may have forgotten something, but
+   I have compared my model to all common views on consciousness I could find
+   and searched my own consciousness for anything missing. However, if you think
+   something should be there but isn't, and it's not a part of something already
+   there, then most likely I personally do not have this feature. (This applies
+   equally if you find something *unnecessary*[^unnecessary]. Consider that you
+   may have a different consciousness.)
+
+3. The relationships in the model are only meant for easier classification. They
+   do *not* necessarily reflect any *actual* relationships. However, I tried to
+   get all important ones.
+
+4. Nothing is included based on "inference". Just because you think something
+   *should* exist because you can only explain something else that way, doesn't
+   mean it actually *does* exist. If you can't access it, it doesn't belong in
+   the model.
+
+5. I shall not, under any circumstances, use the terms "mind", "consciousness",
+   "perception", "soul" or "self". They are all so ambiguous that they will only
+   confuse.
+
+[^unnecessary]: 
+    When I write that features may be "unnecessary", I mean that there is
+    nothing they "do" or "influence" and can't be accessed in any way. I don't
+    mean that they are "virtual", i.e. that they are the result of the
+    interaction of multiple other parts. For example, "Music" is virtual, as it
+    is created by the interplay of "Hearing", "Space-time" and so on. There is
+    no separate "Music" thingy that is independent from the others. (See the
+    first principle.) However, "Thoughts", as defined in the article, are
+    unnecessary. They don't exist.
+
+Here we go.
+
+![The Model](con_def.png) 
+
+Now some explanations.
+
+Senses (green)
+--------------
+
+It can be argued that some senses should be split further, particularly
+**Smell** and **Taste**, which is really a huge amount of very small senses, and
+**Motor-Balance**, which consists of senses of acceleration, balance and so on.
+The split I use is somewhat arbitrary, but I hope it covers every "kind" of
+sense without much overlap.
+
+Also, **Body Feedback** means things like heart rate or hunger. I have not split
+this because I don't think that it actually is very differentiated. This is most
+obvious to me once the **Space-time** is impaired (most distinctly via shrooms),
+such that figuring out "where" a sense is coming from is very hard. Once this
+happens, I can't tell hunger from thirst from having to pee.          
+
+Most importantly note that at no point do I split "external" senses from
+"internal" ones. There is no such thing as "seeing something in the world"
+compared to "seeing something in your mind". They are *the same process*. "If
+all you can know is your brain programs operating, the whole universe you
+experience is inside your head.", as Robert Anton Wilson wrote in Prometheus
+Rising. If you still think "real" sight and "imagined" sight etc. are different,
+try to observe them critically in meditation, trying to pin-point the exact
+difference. Then do the same thing within a (lucid) dream.[^constrained]
+
+[^constrained]: This is interpretation now, not just description. I believe that
+    all perception, as it happens in the **Theatre**, is a hallucination, in the
+    sense that it is *exactly* the same thing as any other hallucination. There
+    is no difference in looking at a flower, dreaming a flower, imagining a
+    flower or hallucinating a flower. None *at all*. There are difference in
+    relationship to **Memory**, **Volition** and so on, which make these states
+    distinct, but the actual **Seeing** is identical.
+
+    At no point in time does the **Theatre** (or anything working with it) ever
+    get the "real" perception. You don't see what your eyes see, not for a
+    single moment. What happens instead is that the **Theatre** is wildly
+    hallucinating, like a mad improv actor, but sense processes (that have
+    filtered and modified "raw" data from the eyes and so on) interrupt the
+    performance and correct it. There is a certain amount of feedback, in that
+    specific data can be requested to fill in details, but never is the direct
+    data ever used.
+
+    Stephen LaBerge calls this "constrained dreaming", meaning that normal
+    perception is simply dreaming with hard constraints on content by the
+    outside world, while normal dreaming doesn't get the unchanging correction
+    and so diverges.
+
+    This explains all the problems of strong, convincing and incredibly common
+    hallucinations we get and removes the fake distinction between "this is
+    real" and "this is imagined". Every group event is a mass hallucination.
+
+You might find it controversial (or plain wrong) that I included a **Theatre**
+in the first place and that I'm trying to sneak in dualism. I'm not, not at all.
+There is very strong evidence that the **Theatre** really exists as a separate
+thing, in which senses are united and dealt with. A good scientific model of
+this is [Global Workspace] theory, but more importantly, you can directly
+experience the **Theatre**. See the section on **Presence** on how.
+
+[Global Workspace]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Workspace_Theory
+
+Volition (red)
+--------------
+
+There are three important aspects to **Volition** I'll have to explain. Let's
+start with **"Do It" Mode**. What I mean by this is the difference between
+experiencing something and doing it yourself. I'll just quote PJ Eby on this,
+who calls it "command mode"[^evo]:
+
+> Point your finger at the screen. How did you do that? Do it again. Try
+> something else. Make various motions with your body. Now just think about
+> making the motions. What's the difference between thinking it, and doing it?
+> *That's* command mode.
+>
+> -- PJ Eby, [The Multiple Self]
+
+[The Multiple Self]: http://dirtsimple.org/2005/08/multiple-self.html
+
+[^evo]: Evolutionary speaking, I think "stop pretending mode" would be a more
+    accurate name. I'd imagine that at first there is a direct link between
+    simulated events and actions, then later a switch is introduced so that
+    events can be simulated in advance, or with different preconditions.
+
+The main drawback of my model is that it hides the bilateralism of the brain, as
+well as certain parallel structures. You might get the impression from looking
+at it that there is a single **Volition** center somewhere, when really, there
+are multiple ones with subtle, but notable differences. Don't think of every
+part as unique or isolated, but rather, a kind of job description that may be
+fulfilled (and competed over) by many applicants.
+
+Attention
+---------
+
+Presence
+--------
+
+Let me get it out of the way: **Presence** is the most important, yet hardest to
+describe part of the model. It is essentially the whole reason I wrote this in
+the first place. Almost everybody ignores (or worse, rejects!) the existence of
+**Presence**, and the few that I suspect mention it are so unclear about it
+that I'm never sure what they really mean.
+
+So what *is* **Presence**? 
+
+Well, it's the *being here*. The *this gets experienced, not that*. The [quale].
+Not helping? I know. Let me instead say what it is *not*. 
+
+**Presence** is not any kind of sense. When you observe your senses, you will
+find them united in a certain way, in what I call the **Theatre**. This is not a
+unity in **Space-time**, which is actually superimposed. That it is not spatial
+can be demonstrated by disabling it, as mentioned for example by taking shrooms.
+It is very common to feel like you are at multiple places at once or are stuck
+in a time loop and stuff like that, but the unity of the **Theatre** is
+untouched. When you concentrate further on the senses, you will find that they
+disappear. It is very much possible to observe an empty **Theatre**. At first,
+it will feel like empty, infinite space, but even the space will disappear. Only
+nothingness remains, but you are fully aware of the nothingness. (This is
+something functionalism or something like higher-order thought theory can in no
+way explain.) But if you keep on concentrating, something even weirder happens.
+*The nothingness disappears*. I'm not making this up. There is no perception,
+but also no non-perception, yet you are still conscious. In the metaphor of the
+**Theatre**, what happens is that first, the actors leave and the **Theatre**
+becomes empty, but the stage is still there. Then the stage itself is removed,
+so there's nothing in the **Theatre**, yet it is still there. Finally, we remove
+even the building itself.
+
+**Presence** is not attention. It is not focusing on anything, it has no
+content. It has no memory, it is not "attached" to anything going on in the
+mind. It has nothing to do with emotions or thinking or action or will. It
+doesn't make any decisions, but there is feedback. It is not epiphenomenal. It
+is also not subjective experience. **Presence** is still there during
+schizophrenic attacks, still there during deep sleep (all of which I can attest
+to). The problem is that **Presence** is not (and probably can not be) encoded
+in memory, so it's really tricky to find out if it was there in the past. You
+have to reproduce the experience and see for yourself, making a note *right
+then*, in some form or another.
+
+Let me give a metaphor I personally really like. Think of **Presence** as the
+sky. At first, you might think the sky are the clouds, but the clouds are really
+*in* the sky. Or you might think it is blue, but that's the light travelling
+through it, not the sky itself. It is impossible to pollute the sky. You can
+pollute the *air*, but not the sky itself. Nor can you send up a missile to
+attack it. It is untouchable, the ground on which all else is possible, but not
+directly affecting anything.
+
+Unfortunately, the metaphor is misleading because you might think of it as some
+kind of space. Like the mental space in which your stuff happens. This is
+conceptualization through **Space-time**, not **Presence**. If your mental
+events are reflections of a real world, then **Presence** *is* the mirror. Which
+color is it? None. Shape? None. Where is it? Nowhere. Does it still exist, can
+we still know it is there? Yes.
+
+
+[quale]: /reflections/quale.html
+
+Thinking
+--------
+
+I tried hard to figure out if "thoughts" should be here somewhere. I searched
+everywhere, but couldn't find any that very not actually heard sentences, seen
+images and so on. Therefore, there is no **Thought** in my model.
+
+I have united space and time as **Space-time** not because I want to brag with
+my understanding of the theory of relativity, but because I agree with Jaynes'
+assertion that time can only be spatially understood. I can't think of time
+except by treating it like space. Therefore, they are united. #REALLY?
+
+Comparisons
+===========
+
+Brahman
+-------
+
+There is a striking resemblance between [Brahman] and **Presence**. However, I
+am not convinced that they are really the same. Brahman is unconstrained.
+Everyone has the one same Brahman, separation is just an illusion. This *may* be
+true (in fact, I highly suspect it is and that everything, including rocks, has
+Brahman), but I don't have enough evidence for this yet. Therefore, I won't
+equate the two.
+
+[Brahman]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahman
+
+Buddhism
+--------
+
+In Buddhism, there are 5 canonical "senses" (seeing, hearing, smelling,
+touching, tasting) and there is additionally a consciousness *of* each of those
+senses. These 5 are generally grouped together and called "thought". This
+distinction is broken and better understood via shifting attention, as in my
+model. I have not been able to figure out what else thought is supposed to be
+than directed attention, so I did not include it. Therefore, I deliberately
+diverge from the Buddhist view here.
+
+Similarly, several senses and emotions (often all of them) are always grouped
+together, when they are clearly distinct. I have split as much as I could.
+
+One big advantage of Mahayana models is that they include **Presence**.
+Theravada rejects it, as far as I can tell. To be honest, most of the time when
+I *think* a Buddhist mystic is talking about **Presence**, they seem to start
+attributing things to it that it clearly doesn't have, like a content, so I'm
+never really sure if they are talking about the same thing or something closely
+related. And the more people "get" it, the less they seem to talk about it.
+Zennists often even outright refuse to talk about any of this. I find this
+completely unacceptable. This is the behaviour of a vulnerable child that
+doesn't want its comfortable delusions to be taken away, not that of a
+truth-seeker.
+
+Bicameral Mind
+--------------
+
+If you are familiar with Jaynes' Bicameral Mind model, then the early bicameral
+mind looked like this:
+
+[]
+
+while the subjective mind looks like this:
+
+[]
+
+Both modes fit my experience very well, which is why I included them. If you are
+not familiar with Jaynes' work, *you really should be*. I highly recommend it.

drafts/experiments/srs/srs.pdc

@@ -0,0 +1,73 @@
+% SRS - So you can be a cyborg, too!
+
+Why I love my SRS
+=================
+
+Say, you want to learn something. Something big, like, Japanese or Chinese.
+Japanese uses 4 different writing system, but the one that stands out are the 漢
+字, i.e. the thousands of funny symbols. To be literate in Japanese, you need to
+now about 3000 of those. How would you learn something that huge? 
+
+Memory
+------
+
+To learn anything, you need three things. First, the information must be
+**sticky**. That means it must be represented in a form your brain can actually
+remember.  What that means is: Ever tried remembering a long number? Like, 20
+digits long? Impossible, unless you break it down. But ever remembered the whole
+plot, including all scenes, of a great movie?  Totally easy. Your brain can
+remember pictures and narratives (related things, both by time and cause)
+easily, but abstract information is very hard. So you need to transform the 漢字
+, or whatever your learning, into pictures and stories, aka mnemonics.
+Fortunately, they were designed with that in mind, [so that's very
+simple](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembering_the_Kanji).
+
+Reviews
+-------
+
+Second, you need to **review regularly**. Your memory is leaky and needs
+constant reinforcement. Fortunately, every time the memory is refreshed, it will
+stick around a lot longer - roughly 2-3 times as long if you review just on the
+brink of forgetting. If you know some math, you'll recognise this as an
+exponential progression.  What does that mean? You only need to review about 7-8
+times and the memory will stay for decades! So, that's manageable.
+Unfortunately, the brain is a little faulty, so you will forget a few things
+anyway. The good thing is, though, that with very little effort, you can already
+reach a retention rate of 90-95%, so on average you only need around 10 reviews
+per fact to make sure you'll remember it for a very long time. 
+
+That sounds pretty nice already, but still, 3000 漢字? Isn't that a lot of work?
+No. That's 3000 facts, meaning about 30,000 reviews. A review takes 10 seconds,
+at most. On average, it will take only about 5, but let's assume 10. Worst case
+scenario, you know. In total, that's only about 3.5 days of work. If it were not
+spaced out so much, you could finish it *in a week*. Sweet! 
+
+Have a look at those graphs.
+
+![3000 facts, 20 new facts a day](graph1.png)
+![3000 facts, daily reviews](graph2.png)
+
+That's your work over 10 months. The first shows how much reviews you will be
+doing per month in total. Yellow is the amount of new (or unseen) facts, red are
+reviews (or reps) of old facts. Below that is the amount of reviews per day for
+each month. As you can see, the daily workload is at most 20 minutes and goes
+does down rapidly. After 5 months, you know all 漢字 and will only be
+refreshing. And that's only for a moderate amount of work with 20 new facts per
+day. You can easily do 50, or even 100 if you are determined. Pretty good,
+right? 
+
+Redundancy
+----------
+
+Unfortunately, that's quite enough. To remember something well, you need a third
+thing: **redundancy**. Your brain is associative. The more connection a
+particular memory has, the stronger it is, no matter where the connection comes
+from. Fortunately, we can fix this problem rather easily: just add redundant
+information. If you add a specific piece of information, say a new word, only
+once to your deck, you will have a hard time learning it. Add it in 3 to 5
+different sentences, and suddenly it will be trivial. 
+
+A nice side effect is that added redundancy makes the individual cards easier,
+making reviews faster. The additional workload is only about 2, maybe 3 times.
+Still, seeing how ridiculously low it already is, this doesn't really matter at
+all.

drafts/four_pearls/anatta.pdc

@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+% On Anatta

drafts/four_pearls/anicca.pdc

@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+% On Anicca

drafts/four_pearls/dukkha.pdc

@@ -0,0 +1,93 @@
+% On Dukkha
+
+I experience no dukkha.
+=======================
+
+What is dukkha? It is one of three marks of existence, according to Buddhism. It
+means unsatisfactoriness or suffering, in the sense of an axle of a horse cart
+chaving against a poor hole, which is the origin of the word. Overcoming it is
+the whole idea of Buddhism, experiencing it is why the Buddha started his quest
+in the first place.
+
+I am not using a semantic trick. It is not an exaggeration, not a koan, nothing
+like this at all. I mean it, straightforward. **I experience no dukkha**.
+
+This is extremely weird. If I followed some common descriptions of
+enlightenment, then achieving it ends dukkha. Thus, if I do not experience it, I
+must be fully enlightened. I, however, do not agree with this and decided to dig
+deeper.
+
+Maybe I'm just mistaken? The other two marks of existence, anatta (no-self) and
+anicca (impermanence) are easy to misunderstand, too. So I got myself the
+Visuddhimagga, the (perhaps) greatest scholarly work on Buddhism, written by
+Buddhaghosa around the year 430. It describes, essentially, everything there is
+to the practice. All teachings and methods presented in a systematic
+fashion, including all the details and proper sources. I worked through the
+whole thing, memorized everything of merit, tested it against other people.
+
+I understand what dukkha is. I see it in other people, quite clearly. I cannot
+find it in me.
+
+The teachers cannot help me anymore. 
+
+Not By Happiness
+================
+
+> In the Dhammapada it is suggested that, in order to achieve deliverance, we
+> must be rid of the double yoke of Good and Evil. That Good itself should be
+> one of our fetters we are too spiritually retarded to be able to admit. And so
+> we shall not be delivered.
+>
+> -- Emil Cioran, De l'inconvénient d'être né (english translation)
+
+Of all the things I believe or consider reasonably likely, one thing stands out
+as being extremely unusual. It is not [Trivialism], the [3 Jewels] or
+[Nondualism]. Those all have respected proponents or, at least, worthy arguments
+going for them.
+
+Tibetan Buddhists make me sick. Their culture is infested by messages of love
+and happiness. That which they call enlightenment is mindful heroin. It
+extinguishes their mind, leaving them, as the Actual Freedom folks call it,
+"happy and harmless". This is the worst state to be in.
+
+Let me illustrate the point. They are wrong about the meta-physical nature of
+the world. Choosing between love and hatred is like argueing whether it would be
+better to be eaten by Nodens, the Lord of the Great Abyss, or Nyarlathotep, the
+Crawling Chaos. It misses the point completely that *you are fucked either way*.
+Believing in any moral value misses the point that the universe is fundamentally
+empty and uncaring, that it has no goal, no judge and no purpose. If you care
+about happiness, piety, dignity, justice or freedom, then you fail to realize
+*where* you are! You are like the pagans living in Dante's Limbo, living quite
+happy lives, maybe not even aware that they are *missing the point of Creation*!
+
+Clinging to a life, no matter how happy, traps you further in Samsara.
+
+> I've yet to have an experience of any kind - game playing, sexual, food,
+> travel - where I said, 'This is the most fun I could ever possible have in my
+> entire life. I couldn't imagine, for one second, this being more enjoyable.' I
+> never said that.
+>  
+> -- Gabe Zichermann, talk on Game Design
+
+I actually did. I managed to do exactly this, multiple times in fact. The last
+time I reproduced this, when I put down a video game controller and felt as
+happy as I ever could possibly hope to be, yet still unsatisfied, I knew it
+wasn't just a fluke. There's an upper limit to happiness, I can reach it any
+time and it still doesn't make the sucking stop.
+
+This was the turning point for me. I realized that I couldn't just "solve my
+problems" and live a happy life. I realized that it was fundamentally impossible
+for me to do so. Not officially, not consciously, but psychologically, I became
+a Buddhist this day.
+
+This feeling, this essential unsatisfactoriness, which Buddhists call dukkha, is
+what I think makes some people get the idea of enlightenment and others not. If
+you never felt it, you will not understand what it's all about. I don't know
+what actually makes the difference, what is necessary to feel it. Maybe you need
+to have lived a carefree and fulfilled enough life for long enough to max out
+your personal happiness (like the Buddha or I did) or maybe you need a special
+kind of mind to have the patience to actually optimize for happiness and fail,
+and have the clarity to realize it. I see no reliable pattern in the kinds of
+people to feel it, but if you do, welcome to the path. May it be your last.
+
+The best prisoner is the one that loves their chains.

drafts/four_pearls/matrix.pdc

@@ -0,0 +1,259 @@
+% Explaining The Path Through The Matrix
+
+Introduction
+============
+
+The basic Theravada map of enlightenment is way cool. But beyond that, it's very
+accurate. It does have some flaws. The main one is that it's closely linked to
+meditation, so if you don't do your insight progress through it, especially in
+the beginning, then it will be somewhat off or even misleading. Still, it is one
+of the best maps[^best] we have, so I thought another shot at explaining it
+would be worth it.
+
+And the best way of explaining enlightenment is by following one of the best
+movies ever made - The Matrix. Now, I'm not saying that The Matrix actually *is*
+about the Theravada map or enlightenment in general, but it incorporates so many
+mystic elements that it can be used *as if* it were one. It is excellent raw
+material to base a commentary on. It only needs some explanations and a bit of
+editing and you could essentially run it as a crash course in mysticism. In
+fact, (awesome) Gnostic Stephan Hoeller has done just such a commentary over on
+[gnosis.org](http://www.gnosis.org/lectures.html) (among the Web Lectures in the
+left sidebar).
+
+The main problem, really, is that beginners are told things they don't know how
+to do and have no context on how to even understand them. Like Neo, after seeing
+Morpheus jump hundreds of feet, says:
+
+- Neo: Okey dokey... free my mind. Right, no problem, free my mind, free my
+  mind, no problem, right...
+
+...and he fails, as expected. No clue at all how that is even supposed to work.
+It's not *his* fault, though - he just lacks a lot of information. This I'm
+trying to remedy a bit. Help make the whole process a lot more goal-oriented and
+pragmatic.
+
+If you are interested in the details or want to know more about the actual map,
+read Daniel Ingram's free book [Mastering the Core Teaching of the Buddha]. This
+is easily the best howto on Buddhism ever written. Without any metaphysical
+baggage or drivel, this is exactly what the Buddha was all about. I follow his
+book closely, but also the underlying work by [Mahasi Sayadaw], his work
+[The Progress of Insight], and the Theravada classic, the [Visuddhimagga] (Path
+of Purification). Essentially, they are all just variations on the same theme
+and the basic template is inherent to all Theravada Buddhism. I've taken a few
+liberties with the actual map, but only to convey a better feeling for what's
+going on or to choose labels I feel fit better, especially in the context of the
+movie. After all, the map is not the territory, and too strong devotion to any
+particular model helps nobody.
+
+Enough introduction, let's get this going.
+
+[Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha]: 
+    http://www.interactivebuddha.com/mctb.shtml
+
+[Mahasi Sayadaw]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahasi_Sayadaw
+
+[The Progress of Insight]:
+    http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/mahasi/progress.html
+
+[Visuddhimagga]: 
+    http://www.scribd.com/doc/30119169/Buddhaghosa-Bhikkhu-Nanamoli-tr-Path-of-Purification-Visuddhimagga
+
+Beginning
+=========
+
+Neo experiences the 3 Characteristics, as they are called in Buddhism. He
+realizes that his world is fake and not as solid as it appears to be (it is
+impermanent, [Anicca]), that his self-image as Mr. Anderson is false and he
+lacks a true understanding of what he is (there is no self, [Anatta]), and he is
+dissatisfied with the world, his only desire is to overcome it (suffering,
+[Dukkha]). These 3 Characteristics - everything ends, isn't you and won't
+satisfy you - are really all there is to it. If you fully get them, you are
+basically done. (Well, there's a bit more, and that's exactly where the map
+falls apart. I'll outline some aspects of it at the end, but to be honest, I'm
+still confused myself about what an appropriate map of this region really should
+look like.)
+
+[Anatta]: /buddhism/anatta.html
+[Anicca]: /buddhism/anicca.html
+[Dukkha]: /buddhism/dukkha.html
+
+
+Particularly the characteristic of no-self, [Anatta], is shown in the movie
+through Smith's deconstruction of Neo's identity. Is he really Mr. Anderson,
+working a job as a programmer, being a hacker, all this? No. The moment you
+start pushing it, it all goes away. It doesn't last one minute to scrutiny.
+
+I want to clarify one point here. This is often misunderstood, even by advanced
+practitioners. When I say that Neo is without self, what I mean is that he
+identifies with a construction. None of it, at any point - being a programmer,
+being a hacker, even being the Chosen One - is really *him*, but more like a
+role he adopts. The point of confusion comes when you understand that point, but
+think the problem is that he has an *unhealthy* self. The problem is not that
+being a corporate progammer sucks and being the Chosen One rocks, so let's ditch
+the first for the latter. What Neo must understand is the emptiness of all
+"self".
+
+- Agent Smith: You're empty.
+- Neo: So are you. 
+
+Neo, really, is empty; confused about the world and what he really *is*. All he
+*thought* he would be is stripped away, finally, by the Big Event. The turning
+point.
+
+Arising and Passing Away
+========================
+
+- Morpheus: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You
+  take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe
+  whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland
+  and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.
+
+I personally call this [Kundalini] Rising because for me most of the times when
+this happens it starts as a tingling sensation in the spine and moves from
+there. The image of having my spine ripped out by a giant standing over me while
+I meditate has often preceded the experience.
+
+[Kundalini]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kundalini
+
+You make it past this point, you are a mystic, no matter *what*. It's not your
+choice anymore. The path won't ever leave you alone. You are stuck now and the
+only way out is to go all the way and defeat the Matrix. This isn't so bad,
+really, except that it's actually quite easy to get here purely *by accident*,
+without any intention of being a mystic at all. I've met a lot of drug users who
+had this happen to them (including me, in a way[^initiation]). Or as Shinzen
+Young says, "There's no informed consent to enlightenment.". Eris is a bitch.
+
+[^initiation]: Well, I was young and trying to figure what all this mysticism
+    stuff is all about. You know, like hallucinations, astral travel and secret
+    knowledge? I just wanted to see a bit of it, to see if it was real and what
+    it all looked like. Just to get an impression. I got an impression all
+    right. After a bit of dabbling and weird, but unsatisfyingly weak low-level
+    stuff, I made it all the way to Re-observation on a single trip. Great place
+    to get stuck in for years, if madness is your thing. I've always been a fan
+    of it myself, despite all the trouble. Totally worth it.
+
+I personally really like the fact that right after Neo takes the pill and is
+hooked up to the tracing machine, he notices a broken mirror next to him. The
+mirror first repairs itself, then starts warping and finally covers Neo.
+
+A quick note again on no-self, Anatta. Neo's training shows this, actually. The
+"real" Neo, if you want, has no attributes, no abilities, no identity. All of
+this is just added on later, quite arbitrarily. During the training, Neo becomes
+a kung-fu master, an expert in all kinds of weapons and machinery and other
+skills. It is obvious that this selection is limited only by time and
+imagination, only because of the tight constraints of the kind of missions he'll
+be on. If he wanted to be a cook, a writer, anything, really, he could easily
+become one. What, then, is the "real" Neo? It's there, but it has nothing to do
+with his personality, with his self.
+
+After being unplugged, after a glimpse of the real world, comes the inevitable.
+This is a place many people get wrong. They think, at this point, that they are
+enlightened. Some think they have become, literally, Jesus (I know at least 3)
+or some other such figure. But Kundalini always comes to rest again, normally
+within about 6 hours to a few days.
+
+Then comes the flushing.
+
+The Dark Night of the Soul
+==========================
+
+![the end of the rabbit-hole](flush.png) 
+
+- Agent Smith: But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their
+  reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your
+  primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from.
+
+Neo's question "Am I dead?" is typical. The whole Dark Night very much feels
+like dying because in many ways, it *is* death. 
+
+The Dark Night has multiple parts to it, although in which order and to what
+extent they appear, varies. They are: dissolution, fear, misery, disgust.
+
+The night comes to its end with the Desire for Deliverance. Being completely fed
+up with it, the will returns, the will to keep going and make it all *end*.
+
+In The Matrix, Neo arrives at this point twice. This is normal. Rarely does
+anybody get through the Dark Night on their first try. The first time, Morpheus
+was just captured, everything is falling apart and Neo is convinced that he
+can't be The One. Fortunately, he decides that Morpheus' imprisonment is his
+fault and it's his job to free him. This mobilization of forces characterizes
+the end of the Dark Night. Suddenly, it's as if nothing can stop you.
+
+Reality, however, sees things a bit differently. Despite early successes against
+the agents, everyone has to flee. Fear is back and strong as ever. But after
+Trinity and Morpheus are safe, the second time for the Desire for Deliverance
+has come. Neo is just about to run from Smith, but he decides against it and "is
+beginning to believe".
+
+The full realization of the nature of the Matrix dawns on Neo. If it's all an
+illusion, then he can win. He *can* defeat Smith. So he tries.
+
+Re-observation
+==============
+
+But no matter how well he fights, no matter how much Neo tries to beat Smith at
+his own game, he can't win. Like Smith, delusion never tires. It never gives up.
+Even after destroying Smith once through the subway train, he just comes back
+again. It's hopeless, so even full of strength, Neo runs.
+
+His only hope of escape destroyed, he is trapped. His back is to the wall, he
+cannot run away anymore, but he also can't face the problem. The agents are
+invincible. There is no forwards and no backwards. He is torn apart by his own
+weakness. He can't flee the Matrix anymore, but he can't deal with his problems,
+either. Yet he is forced to do so. All his strength was not enough to defeat
+Smith, all his speed was not enough to escape him. Nowhere left to go, there is
+only death.
+
+![bang]()
+
+Path
+====
+
+There is a Zen metaphor for this. It's like you are trying to reach a goal that
+is 11 meters up in the air, but you've only got a ladder that is 10 meters long.
+You climb all the way to the end and still can't reach it. The only way is to
+*keep on climbing*. I know, when you hear this, it probably makes no sense to
+you. It didn't to me, either. But when you are there, when you actually reach
+the end, you will see. It will make sense then. *Keep on climbing*.
+
+Unfortunately, this is the part where the movie breaks somewhat apart. It all
+goes very fast and this makes this long and fascinating journey look like it
+takes only a few moments, when really, it typically takes several weeks, if not
+months. So let's slow *way* down.
+
+
+In this moment of resurrection, you can also see the Unity of Knowledge and
+Action. At exactly the same moment Neo *sees* the Matrix for the first time,
+when his view shifts to the code, he also simultaneously, through this
+knowledge, gains power over it. Understanding the delusion of the Matrix
+completely, deeply, makes him invulnerable to it. The agents lose all power over
+him.
+
+- Neo: What are you trying to tell me? That I can dodge bullets? 
+- Morpheus: No, Neo. I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready, you won't
+  have to.
+
+This is what is meant with overcoming suffering. It's not that you suddenly
+become able to accept suffering or that it goes away - you are not dodging
+bullets. Instead, it just stops being a problem. It has no power over you
+anymore, just like you couldn't shoot Neo, even though the bullet's still there.
+
+- Morpheus: Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to
+  see it for yourself.
+
+
+And there we have it. Neo is **enlightened**. Unfortunately for Neo, the journey
+isn't over yet. There's still lots of things to do. He hasn't really reached
+*full* enlightenment yet. It's as if you wanted to clean a mirror. On the mirror
+are three layers of dirt, one for each characteristic - a layer of permanence,
+of self and of satisfaction - and all three need to go. Enlightenment is when,
+for the first time, you manage to clean a little bit of the mirror so that you
+can actually see the real thing. But still, there's a lot of dirt left, so keep
+on cleaning! But now that you know how to get it clean, the rest will be a lot
+easier.
+
+[^best]: 
+    The other map that really deserves lots of attention is Robert Anton
+    Wilson's extended version of Timothy Leary's Circuit Model, as described in
+    Prometheus Rising. Very useful as a broad map, but it lacks lots of details.
+    Still, it's the one thing I'm constantly going back to for help.

drafts/four_pearls/wang.pdc

@@ -0,0 +1,202 @@
+% Unity of Knowledge and Action
+
+> It is impossible for a rational person to both believe in imminent rise of sea
+> levels and purchase ocean-front property with their own money.
+>
+> -- Steve Landsburg, on [Al Gore]
+
+[Al Gore]: 
+    http://www.thebigquestions.com/2010/05/13/from-an-eternal-perspective/
+
+As indicated in my [Philosophical Survey] I consider the Unity of Knowledge
+and Action to be one of the four most important ideas known to man. But, what
+exactly *is* this idea? It is so unknown, particularly outside the Sinosphere,
+that you have probably no clue what it is. Let's change that.
+
+[Philosophical Survey]: /reflections/survey
+
+Wang Who?
+=========
+
+It is really unfortunate how unknown **Wang Yangming** (王陽明) is in Western
+culture. His influence on modern Confucianism is huge. He is easily one of the
+most important Chinese philosophers. But unless you are familiar with Chinese
+philosophy, you probably never even heard of him. Let me remedy this a bit by
+presenting you his, in my opinion, most important idea - the Unity of Knowledge
+and Action.
+
+Can you know what's right, but fail to act on it?
+=================================================
+
+Before Wang came around, Chinese philosophy, like most people even today,
+considered Knowledge and Action to be two separate things. Knowledge means
+understanding the world in such a way that you would know how to act in it, i.e.
+to know what *is* and what you *should* do. Action, then, is doing it. Ideally,
+you would *know* what to do and then *act* on it. But because the two are
+separate, you would typically acquire your Knowledge first, without any Action.
+This leaves one huge problem, something moral philosophy has been trying to
+solve for millennia - you could have Knowledge, but **fail to act**.
+
+You know the drill. "Yes, I *should* be eating healthier, but when I try, I
+fail." or "Sure, stealing is wrong, but that's just a company pen, right?" are
+familiar to all of us. It seems obvious that Knowledge and Action are separate.
+
+And here Wang Yangming comes in and awakens us out of our little slumber to the
+truth that we are *completely and horribly wrong*. I will try to demonstrate
+just how wrong this is. But as the idea is subtle and so easy to understand
+something else that is not quite it[^hard], I will really hammer it down and
+illuminate the core point again and again. I hope I do not bore you with it.
+
+[^hard]: 
+    I'm not going to sugarcoat this - it's not just a minor problem of
+    misunderstanding or linguistic confusion, but a profound level of ignorance
+    that leads us into thinking Knowledge and Action are two things. They are
+    absolutely not and getting this is extraordinary difficult, it seems. I know
+    not a single living Western philosopher that gets it. Pretty much the only
+    people to get this, as far as I can tell, are mystics (or something close). 
+
+    My, isn't that motivating? But to be honest, that isn't actually very
+    surprising. The other 3 most important ideas - Impermanence, Not-Self and
+    Suffering - are just as hard and even the greatest teacher, the Buddha, had
+    to travel all over the country in search of a single person who would get
+    them. It is not that they are so hard. To the contrary, they are impossible
+    to *not* get when you make a serious effort of understanding reality. But it
+    is so easy to never make this effort that it is a rare sight to find
+    somebody that made it.
+
+Case Study: The Christian Sinner
+--------------------------------
+
+Consider a normal, devout Christian. Don't worry about denomination or anything
+like this because pretty much any Christian agrees when it comes to the
+following three ideas: 
+
+1) There are certain laws God wants you to keep.
+2) If you break those laws, God will severely punish you. 
+3) God, being omniscient, will always know whenever you break such a law.
+
+Simple, right? Now consider that this Christian actually commits a sin, i.e.
+breaks one of those laws. There are plenty possible scenarios, like stealing a
+deodorant in the supermarket, or telling a lie to a boss or partner, or
+committing adultery. Those happen all the time and if you ask people about them,
+they will readily admit to having done something like that at least once.
+
+So isn't that a case of separate Knowledge and Action? They know they shouldn't
+break the laws, but did anyway? No. Let's go with the thief and see why that is
+not the case.
+
+Imagine that there would be a Man in Black who would constantly and visibly
+follow the thief, just about a meter away. He carries a camera to record every
+action, takes notes of everything, even has a gadget that can read the thief's
+mind and record their thoughts. Should the Man in Black catch the thief, then he
+will draw a gun and shoot them, on the spot. All this the Man in Black announces
+time and again to make it very clear what is going on. 
+
+Now think about it. Would the thief - under those circumstances - ever steal
+anything? Of course not! So what does this tell you about the sinner? Clearly
+they can't be in a similar situation. One thing stands out: *they think they can
+get away with it*. They think that somehow, maybe, God won't notice or a
+loophole can be found or something like this. And this demonstrates that they,
+in no way, even understand the idea of an omnipresent, omnipotent god. They
+can't! If they actually understood this, then they would *know* that there is no
+loophole, no unnoticed moment, nothing like that at all. 
+
+But they don't. And the Action demonstrates it. Knowledge and Action are united.
+The moment the Christian understands those three ideas, they would be completely
+unable to sin. There is no gap.
+
+The fact that almost no Christian actually *believes* in Christianity might seem
+weird at first, but becomes very clear when you realize that "Church is not
+about God". Instead, what you are seeing is Signaling - doing A, but pretending
+to do B because it gives you higher status. [Robert Hanson] has a great
+explanation of it, so check it out.
+
+Also note that I have made this case from the perspective of punishment and
+Hell. The same case can be made looking at reward and Heaven, as
+[SisyphusRedeemed] and [Doug Stanhope] have done.
+
+[Robert Hanson]: #TODO
+[SisyphusRedeemed]:
+[Doug Stanhope]: 
+
+Another Case: Neo
+-----------------
+
+The best movie ever, The Matrix, has a great demonstration of the Unity of
+Knowledge and Action, showing exactly how they are one.
+
+At the end of the movie, Neo desperately tries to escape the Agents, but
+ultimately gets trapped into a hotel room and is shot. He drops down dead, but
+arises only moments later. He now sees through the Matrix and effortlessly
+defeats the Agents.
+
+![Neo sees the Matrix](#IMAGE)
+
+Before all that, Neo has been told again and again about the nature of the
+Matrix. It is a computer simulation, just a bunch of code, the Agents are just
+programs. At first glance, it seems weird. Exactly what was it that Neo learned
+after his resurrection? What is *new*? Shouldn't he have known all this already?
+
+He did not. His knowledge was false, only an illusion. Until that moment, he
+didn't actually understand what the Matrix was. Sure, he had gained some power,
+being able to move faster than ever before, but he was still completely confined
+by the Matrix. He was still playing by its rules because he still thought that
+it was *real*. He had no understanding of what it means for the Matrix and the
+Agents to be just code.
+
+But when he is reborn, this changes. Now he really gets it. He attains
+Knowledge; the world simply drops away and he sees the raw code, sees what
+actually *is*. At the same time, without any delay or need for further training,
+his Action is changed. The Agents have no power over him anymore. The victory is
+now inevitable.
+
+I know what I know!
+===================
+
+There is another important implication here, which will immediately come to mind
+when you think about what the sinner himself might think of this. Maybe you even
+ask yourself, do I act like this? Do I know this behavior? 
+
+And it won't make sense. The sinner *knows* how what is expected of him, doesn't
+he? If you ask him, he will tell you quite clearly what he was supposed to do.
+
+The reason it doesn't make sense is because you make a false assumption. You
+believe that knowledge and being aware of knowledge always go hand in hand. You
+can't *know* something and don't *know that you know*, can you? Actually, you
+can. 
+
+Gambler-experiment.
+
+
+A Tangent: Qualia
+=================
+
+A quale (plural: qualia) is the direct experience of something that can't be
+communicated. It's the redness of red. I can tell you that an apple is red, what
+wavelengths red corresponds to and so on, but what red *looks* like to me, I can
+never tell you. It is a quale.
+
+The question is, do qualia really exist? Plenty of modern consciousness
+scientists reject the notion. The most common basic theory, functionalism, is
+incompatible with qualia, as is materialism in general. What exactly is a quale
+supposed to be in material terms? It can't be any information or you could
+communicate it. It can't be a property of things or materialism could detect it.
+So qualia must be a powerful delusion, a mistake.
+
+But that's not possible according to the Unity of Knowledge and Action. It is
+exactly the qualia that matter. You *can't* learn what red looks like without
+seeing it yourself. You must always act, you must do something to learn
+something. It is not possible to learn *about* red and at some point will you
+magically transition into *knowing red*. 
+
+Mary.
+
+So it is not surprising that Wang Yangming was an Idealist. He really couldn't
+have been otherwise. But I offer this not as a refutation of materialism or
+defense of qualia. Instead, I found it interesting that an idea that arose out
+of moral considerations also takes down important misconceptions about the mind
+and the world. But maybe there is another direction, too. If you already are on
+the qualia side of things, maybe David Chalmers convinced you?, then it should
+be clear to you that Knowledge and Action must be united. Qualia are exactly
+this unification. Only when you achieve the quale, when you act, do you achieve
+full understanding. Before, you were just Mary.

drafts/jaynes/jaynes

@@ -0,0 +1,151 @@
+Notes on Origin
+===============
+    Twice-born (born in the land of the gods and of man). 
+
+    God is not "out there", but "in here".
+
+    The worst is the silence. At first, you struggle to even make the gods talk,
+    but then you despair every time they are silent.
+
+    Consciousness is the Gift. The Continuum, the voices, are a loose
+    conglamerate, a fractal reign of volition. It is consciousness that they
+    lack; *that* is the True Self.
+
+    The shrine is inside my head. The world is my worship.
+        What's that supposed to mean? Sure, it sounds nice, but what?!
+
+    Bicameral mind as explanation for failure of Industrial Revolution? -> It's
+    consciousness that gives people the drive to work consistently.
+        A third change happened around 1750? Maybe a threshold?
+
+    We crawled our way out of the depths of Samsara, only to, for the first
+    time, see. Consciousness is the moment of *knowing* for the first time the
+    world. We achieve a unity of volition and sight. Knowledge and action are
+    united. The bicameral mind breaks down; *we are twice-born*.
+
+    (207) There is no middle ground in Bicameral minds. How does this relate to
+    the Buddha's dialogues with Maia?
+
+    (225) Headaches after the breakdown. This is very common among mystics,
+    including the Buddha. Suspicion: parts (all?) of enlightenment is the
+    attainment / purification of the subjective, non-judging, non-talking mind.
+    Contrast to the Dark Night. 
+        -> Amygdala
+    
+Lines of Evidence
+=================
+    1. Consciousness is based on language.
+
+    2. The bicameral mind.
+        The mentality before consciousness was based on verbal and visual
+        hallucinations. 
+    
+        The Middle Way
+        --------------
+            BM predicts that early humans followed orders unquestioningly.
+            Therefore, the idea of pleading and compromise is non-existent. 
+
+            History of Compromise?
+                Compare historical solutions.
+
+        Deception
+        ---------
+            Without the analog I, there is (barely) any deception. If you can't
+            simulate others, you can't fool them easily.
+
+            -> no thieves in Cuzco and no doors (source?)
+
+        Religion
+        --------
+            BM predicts that the older the religion, the more it should be based
+            on authority, with newer ones instead introducing the concept of the
+            self and individual religiousity.
+            Furthermore, the older and more authoritarian religions should break
+            harder when confronted with logic. They should have no way to deal
+            with introspection (as it didn't exist!).
+
+    3. The development of consciousness started around 1000 BCE.
+
+        To test this, two things have be checked:
+            1. There exists no evidence for subjective consciousness before 1000
+               BCE.
+                -> There could be individuals, though.
+            2. There exists evidence for a transition in mentality around 1000
+               BCE in the Middle East, spreading from there.
+
+        
+        Assyrian Collapse
+        -----------------
+
+
+    4. The double brain.
+        The two hemispheres are, to some degree, autonomous and each have their
+        own volition and language processing. This is (mostly) united in the
+        modern brain, but was bicameral in earlier times.
+        
+        Modern Schizophrenia research
+        -----------------------------
+
+
+Sources
+=======
+    Old Testament
+    -------------
+        -> chronological writing order
+
+        Zechariah 13
+
+        Psalm 42
+
+    New Testament
+    -------------
+        Reading of "Divine Kingdom" as psychological state to be in, not
+        physical place to reach. State of obediance. Jesus is (among others)
+        designing teachings for now conscious men.
+
+    Iliad
+    -----
+
+    Gilgamesh
+    ---------
+
+    Egyptian Texts
+    --------------
+        which sources?
+
+        Ka
+        --
+
+        Ba
+        --
+
+        True-of-voice
+        -------------
+    
+    Guide of the Perplexed
+    ----------------------
+
+    George Steine, Massey Lectures
+    ------------------------------
+
+    Phrynicus, Fall of Miletus
+    --------------------------
+
+    Greeks and the Irration
+    -----------------------
+    
+
+
+
+To figure out
+=============
+    Development of concept of Chance and Probability.
+
+    Consilience
+        -> Bauer Symposium, Canadian Psychology, 1986, 27
+
+    The User Illusion
+
+    Edelman, Tononi, A Universe of Consciousness
+
+    http://www.scribd.com/doc/23479744/Williams-What-is-It-Like-to-Be-Unconscious-Draft-Version

drafts/memes/hazards.pdc

@@ -0,0 +1,204 @@
+% Information wants to pwn you
+
+Hacker Culture
+==============
+
+> Information wants to be free.
+> 
+> -- a hacker motto
+
+At first, I believed this statement solely on political grounds. When I grew up,
+everyone who wanted to control information was evil - the record industry, old
+politicians, you know, those kind of people. Sharing information was an act of
+rebellion, no matter what the information actually *was*. People didn't want you
+to have free access, so you simply created it, regardless of content, be it the
+Anarchist's Cookbook, warez or pr0n.
+
+I grew up during the early Windoze years. One day, I accidentally opened an .exe
+file in a text editor and saw a lot of gibberish. I was amazed how someone could
+even *produce* this noise, let alone make it *work*. Later, I learned to program
+(and what machine code and compilers are) and adopted the culture of
+programmers, specifically open source ones.
+
+It was obvious to me that information should be shared. Open your source code
+and others can learn from it, find bugs for you and even implement new features.
+Everybody wins. The only people wanting to hide their code were those more
+interested in making money. (Which was considered suspect in the communitarian
+culture I grew up in.) Worse, they were essentially only making money from
+*ignorance*. If everyone knew their code, or how to produce it themselves, then
+they wouldn't actually provide any worthwhile service at all.
+
+This all convinced me that the motto was right, information really ought to be
+free. Up until now[^wikileaks] that is.
+
+Bad News
+========
+
+The idea of psychological hijacking, in the form of indoctrination, for example,
+was always vaguely known to me, but I always thought that this is both a) hard
+to do and b) affects only *other* people, certainly not me. Weak-minded idiots
+become cult members and suicide bombers[^suicide]; I'm far too intelligent for
+that.
+
+[^suicide]: I see now how wrong I was about fanatics after having read the
+latest research into suicide bombers. In fact, I can see that I am *exactly* the
+kind of person who, under the right environmental factors, becomes just that. As
+a defense mechanism, I get very nervous whenever a belief I hold creates any
+strong emotions or radical disagreement with the culture it originated in.
+
+I became more aware of the problem when I fell into the trap of a particularly
+nasty conspiracy theory[^conspiracy]. When I crawled my way out of it, I only
+concluded that I must become *smarter* and more *rational*. I thought of the
+problem in terms of psychology (being attracted by certain crowds and adopting
+their beliefs) and faulty reasoning (learn about fallacies and biases and you
+are safe). This changed when I learned about memetics and was provided with a
+(basic) mechanism of how this actually happened.
+
+A meme is a "unit of cultural transmission", the idea-equivalent of a gene, like
+an earworm. As memes are themselves replicators, they follow all the laws of
+evolution. I applied those idea the first time by thinking about the
+implications of considering [music] as a replicator. I wasn't quite sure what to
+make of my conclusions, but I didn't seriously deal with it (beyond downsizing
+my music library from 200GB to about 30GB) until now. (I also should revisit the
+article and fix several blatant flaws.)
+
+[music]: /reflections/letting_go_of_music.html
+
+It really clicked upon encountering the concept of the [Langford Basilisk]. Let
+this neat picture explain it:
+
+![The Parrot](parrot.jpg) 
+
+A Langford Basilisk is a genuinely dangerous idea. In its original form, it
+works through making the brain think an impossible thought - essentially setting
+off a logic bomb. I don't believe that the human brain is actually susceptible
+to this kind of attack, but a poorly designed AI might be. Rergardless, there
+are other forms of Basilisks, some of which I actually know to work (under
+certain conditions).
+
+Consequences
+============
+
+Ok, maybe ideas *are* dangerous, not just in the "this exposes my own flaws or
+crimes and helps my opponents" kinda sense, but in the "computer virus" sense.
+Still, what should we do about that? To be honest, I'm not quite sure. But I
+can at least provide some examples and how I plan to handle them in the future.
+
+The most common example of a memetic hazard that is treated as such that I have
+seen is the TV Tropes wiki (intentionally not linked). It's a black hole for any
+culture whore (like myself) that sucks up your free time without any end in
+sight. I easily lost *weeks* of my life in there. Many tropers always follow up
+links to it with a warning. I am slightly immune to it now, but only because I
+know most of it by heart. That's like becoming an atheist by going to
+seminary[^seminary]. Not really practical. I had tried to limit my exposure
+through time limits, but it didn't really help. So I needed a systematic
+approach.
+
+So let's draft a little catalogue of memetic hazards.
+
+![Memetically Active](memetically_active.jpg) 
+
+Structural Hijacking
+--------------------
+
+Things that are dangerous because of their structure. The most common example is
+anything that resembles a Skinner box. Most notorious are Twitter, MMOs and email.
+
+Emotional Hijacking
+-------------------
+
+Things that hide themselves by taking over your emotional system. Many drugs,
+particularly heroin, come to mind as non-meme examples. But what would their
+equivalent look like as an idea? Something that controls your emotions directly
+to serve its own purpose (or the one of its creator)? 
+
+What about music? When I revisited some old music I hadn't listened to for a few
+years, it became obvious to me. It puts me in a specific emotional state and
+tries to keep me their for as long as it can, not unlike an addiction. The
+emotional control itself wasn't the immediate problem (If I have a song that
+would make me wide awake, motivated and happy, why not listen to it?), but
+rather that it would force emotions on me I *didn't* actually want. Some songs
+would make me angry or sad and there was little I could actually do against it!
+Very, very evil.
+
+Our brains have no natural distinction between "I believe this" and "I observe
+this". *Everything* that happens is at first taken at face value, taken to be
+true. If there is sadness, then *I* must be sad and must have a reason to be
+sad. That I just react to a superstimulus is not detected. The same effect, of
+course, is dramatic when it comes to our believes. Plenty of experiments have
+demonstrated that merely *stating* an opinion, even explicitly solely to repeat
+something someone else said, will cause our own opinion to shift in that
+direction unless proper measures are taken. If I merely get you to think about a
+proposition and you don't think it through yourselves, you are very likely to
+become a little bit more convinced of it and identify with it.
+
+The important conclusion to be drawn is that there is no such thing as neutral
+observation. You can't do emotionally powerful act without them controlling your
+mind. The Buddhists have warned us about this for centuries; if you lie, you
+will harm *yourself* in the process. You will start to believe your own lies, if
+you want to or not.
+
+The way to handle this is by a) being as honest as you possible can (so you
+never state or do something you wouldn't want to be a part of you) and b) put
+off [proposing any solution] to a problem until you have understood it. The
+moment you start defending or attacking a solution, you likely become stuck and
+changing your mind later is quite difficult.
+
+But you can also use this to your advantage! Particularly the Tibetans have been
+teaching how loving-kindness and a general good mood are not magical things that
+just happen, but skills to be learned. At first you just pretend to feel like
+the kind of person you'd like to be and through some regular practice you
+actually start feeling like that automatically. Very cool and powerful. Just
+sitting down and forcing myself to be calm and smile for 15 minutes has helped
+me greatly through phases of depression.
+
+I also apply this when it comes to recreational media I watch. I now only watch
+TV shows or movies that have characters in them I want to identify with -
+protagonists that are actual role models. I don't do this for moralistic reasons
+(You should be a nice person!), but purely pragmatic ones (I enjoy being nice,
+so I won't watch shows with asshole protagonists as I will become more like them,
+if I want to or not, regardless how much I enjoy the show.)
+
+Remember that there is no such thing as a "real" and a "fake" emotion. Emotions
+are (biochemical) brain states, like a tag, and can be changed at will. They are
+not "layered" or even aware of any content at all. You don't like your current
+state? Hack it! It's like changing your wallpaper - there's no "true" wallpaper
+underneath and you can't just "try on" another one. There is only one, right
+now, and whatever you choose, that's it. So make it a pretty one.
+
+[proposing any solution]: http://lesswrong.com/lw/ka/hold_off_on_proposing_solutions/
+
+Intellectual Hijacking
+----------------------
+
+Knowing just enough to be dangerous.
+
+
+As a general rule, treat information exchange like sex. It might be fun, but
+that's a side-effect that has only been built into you so you would actually do
+it a lot. The purpose really is reproduction, so make sure to be safe. Watch
+your partners and don't use just about any practice.
+
+[^wikileaks]: At the time of writing (December 2010), Wikileaks is all over the
+news. It's great to finally see someone pull a Hagbard Celine, but even greater
+to be made aware by the fallout of how afraid of chaos I had become. I was
+seriously worried that this could cause some of the major political players to
+become even more paranoid, putting many (semi-)stable arrangements at risk of
+collapse. I was particularly worried what it would do to fuel the increasing
+[neo-fascism] of the US. Luckily, my Discordian training eventually kicked in and
+I remembered that what I was seeing was not a threat to order, but rather an
+exposition of the inherent chaos.
+
+[^conspiracy]: I'm unwilling to publicly state the conspiracy theory I believed,
+but if you send me an [email](/about.html) and ask me in private, I would
+discuss it.
+
+[^seminary]: Amusingly, this seminary effect actually happens. I used to study
+religions (in a historical context) and met someone who studied theology. He
+told me that about half the students each year would start out as Christians and
+be atheists at the end when they learned how the bible actually came to be and
+stuff like that. Information kills religions dead.
+
+[neo-fascism]: http://zompist.com/fascism.html
+
+[Langford Basilisk]: http://www.ansible.co.uk/writing/c-b-faq.html

drafts/milinda.pdc

@@ -0,0 +1,282 @@
+% Origin of the Buddha's teachings
+
+One question plagues me, plagues me more than anything else. It undermines my
+rationality, casts doubt on all that I believe. Let me tell you a little story
+about it.
+
+Milinda and the Minotaur
+========================
+
+Imagine you are standing in front of a labyrinth, composed of lush hedges,
+expanding into the vast distance. You climb on a tree next to the entrance and
+can see the many twists and turns, make out same dead-ends, maybe even note a
+few promising paths, but the maze soons just becomes a uniform green canvas.
+
+There are many rumors about the labyrinth, and while a few warn about a monster,
+most speak of the wonderful trees that are supposed to be hidden deep inside.
+O, what delicious fruit those trees have!
+
+You want to confirm this, climb up on the tree again. If it is so great,
+shouldn't you be able to see it? But try as you may, you can't see them. Maybe a
+few openings, which could contain a small tree, or some glittering on the
+horizon, which may come from the golden fruit, but are you confident? Of course
+not.
+
+Some of those rumors are more plausible than others, as you can see from your
+watch. There isn't any space for trees right at the beginning, which you can
+clearly oversee. The gargantuan tree in the middle of the garden also seems
+unlikely - while you can't see the middle, surely the tree would tower over it
+all, visible from everywhere? And if there really is a monster, it can't be
+*too* large, as the path is quite narrow and doesn't seem to widen.
+
+Nonetheless, you embark on an adventure to explore the labyrinth. You gather all
+the maps you can find - even if they are wrong, and most must be, as they all
+contradict each other, they surely can't hurt. You intend to try them out and
+see how far they get you. You take heed of the warning that maybe there are no
+trees, that all the maps are only based on speculation, after all, and that you
+surely don't want to fall into a trap or encounter the monster. Regardless, you
+enjoy the scenery and the exploration, so the journey is already it's own
+reward.
+
+You wander around for a long time and maybe even find some very interesting
+spots, meet new people along the way and once, you came to a little
+clearing, inside which stood a little sapling. It is not a tree, and carries no
+fruits, but the sight invigorates you because it makes the rumors a bit more
+plausible. Maybe, one day...?
+
+Excited, you get out all the old maps you nearly forgot about and study them.
+Does any mention the sapling? You search and search, but they are all very
+confusing and incomplete and you can't quite be sure you are even reading some
+of them right. Some are easy to discard, they contradict your own notes of the
+maze. A few look more promising and you set out to follow them for a bit. But
+alas, you find yourself inside dead-ends again, but if you read the map a bit
+different, or accept that they may contain some mistakes, you still find some
+help in them. But is this true? Are the maps really essentially right or do you
+just want them to be true? All the little contradictions and mistakes, and the
+nagging doubt whenever they *don't* mention a flower or sculpture you found. If
+someone really drew the map from experience, wouldn't they have seen them, too,
+and written them down?
+
+But there is this one map. It is very old and seems fairly unremarkable. Often,
+it just contains rough drafts, a few broad strokes on how the way goes. In many
+places, there are also revisions and additional lines, surely added much later
+by other wanderers, but a strong handwriting can be seen underneath. One night,
+when you take rest and the refreshing cool air calms your mind, you read it
+again, more carefully. And two things come to mind, features you hadn't noticed
+before or seen much anywhere else. Far away from the entry, the map suddenly
+gets more and more specific, noting seemingly random turns and hidden passages.
+And maybe even more curiously, there are no trees on that map. No fruits, no
+sights, nothing of interest at all, at first. But you look closer and think you
+can make out a pattern, a converging of paths and then you see it - there is a
+*space* at the end. You didn't see it because you always looked for drawings and
+notes, but it is the absence of lines that stands out. As if there was a point
+where there was no labyrinth anymore. As if it ended there.
+
+This place captures your attention. How would you get there? There are many
+turns on that map, but no complete path. Often the notes don't even seem to fit
+together in any way, as if they not just contained gaps, but were impossible.
+But you can make out some spot not too far from here, so you decide to go, to
+see for yourself how good the map really is.
+
+The new goal leads you along a very different way, one that you hadn't
+considered before. At times, it gets very confusing and the map offers no help,
+and sometimes, there are even thorns and thistles, but worst are the long
+stretches of boredom, when the labyrinth gets very simple and straightforward,
+but just goes on and on. You have no problem figuring out which turns will be a
+dead-end well in advance, but then suddenly, there comes one of those very
+specific notes on the map. The part of the maze looks like one you have seen
+many times before and you are already sure where to go, but the map urges you to
+take a turn right here. Your intuition and experience tell you that this will be
+a dead-end, one like many others just like it you have ended up in, but for some
+reason, you decide to follow the map. 
+
+To your surprise, the map is right! It really wasn't a dead-end and you can
+proceed. Maybe it is useful after all? But doubt creeps in again when you notice
+that the new path is very close to the old one. Sometimes you can even see it
+right through the hedges. Does it make such a difference? The map gets quiet
+again, but your intuition serves you well for the time being, when suddenly,
+just like before, the map notes an important turn. But this time you question
+its judgment even more because you can look down the way and clearly see that it
+is a dead-end! The map must be wrong, you can see the wall, there's nothing to
+be done here.
+
+Disappointed, you turn around. The map is faulty like the others, after all, so
+there's no use staying in those tedious parts. Particularly the undergrowth
+really makes you wish to return to your old ways. But one night, during another
+rest, you read the map again. Maybe there *is* another way to read it... when
+you notice some of the random scribblings and your vision *shifts*, it changes
+of how you *see* the map. Those other lines are not about the general turns, but
+about the thistles and thorns! When you look back at your last few day, you now
+see that occasionally, you came to a well-known pattern and on your way through
+always encountered those painful plants, but if you had gone how the lines told
+you, a bit more inefficiently and seemingly in circles sometimes, then yes, it's
+true, you would have avoided most of them!
+
+That's quite a level of detail there, something you didn't expect at all. Is it
+just a fluke? The next morning, you want to find out, so you follow the map
+again, back to the dead-end, but this time, you try to go more along the way the
+lines seem to indicate, taking detours, but to your surprise, you really have a
+better time. Rarely does the path get painful, and because you wander around so
+many curves and loops, even the boredom ceases.
+
+You return to the dead-end. You can clearly see it there. If you follow this
+turn, as the map says, you won't be able to go on anymore. It is futile. Still,
+the recent discovery has made you more confident, so you just take the turn
+anyway. You might as well see the dead-end in all its glory. Just a few minutes
+and you are there, surrounded by thick hedges, with no hope of continuing your
+journey. You study the map, but there really is no other interpretation.
+Saddened, you sit down to rest.
+
+You give up on thinking yourself through this, put away the map and stop
+thinking about what mistakes you might have made, about how you could have
+walked or what those lines really could have meant and just close your eyes and
+lie down to sleep, right where you are.
+
+You sleep long, and even though it was just the middle of the day, you do not
+awake until the next morning. The sunshine finally wake you up and when you open
+your eyes, you *see it*. Right in front of you, there is a small passage, right
+through the hedge. You would have never seen it from above, but the twigs give
+away just slightly and form a narrow space you can probably crawl through. You
+have no doubts anymore. This is what the map meant, you understand now. You make
+your way through the dark underwood and arrive again on a more secure path. This
+time, you listen closely to the map, try out it's playful suggestions and over
+all this new-found joy, you nearly forget where you were going, until, after a
+long journey, something appears you have never seen - a straight path.  
+
+No turns anymore, no curves, just a straight path, that gets brighter and
+brighter, the further you go, and at the end of the path, the hedge gets thinner
+and spottier, until it finally stops altogether and the ground, which so far has
+always been earth and sand, becomes grass and then you see it, what you could
+never have seen from the entrance, because it is not a high tree, towering over
+the garden, but a wide and clear lake. The glittering, it was not from the
+fruits, but it is the sunlight, reflected in the calm surface of the water.
+There is no wind, no disturbance at all. You sit down at the lake, let your feet
+hang into the water, but before the peace of the sight can overwhelm you, you
+look onto the horizon and the lake just stretches on and on, and you start to
+swim, thinking, maybe, there is another shore...
+
+What comes before a question?
+=============================
+
+There is an important fallacy, one that plagues all religious thought. I'm gonna
+call it the Unjustified Focus. What it means is that among the vast realm of
+possible ideas, one needs a large amount of evidence upfront to even consider one
+idea as worthy of investigation. You start with general evidence, then look for
+hypotheses that might fit them. Once you have narrowed it down a bit, you can
+start trying to disprove specific ideas. But you can't just pick any one idea
+and start the research with it. Imagine if the justice system worked like
+this - you can only start investigating a specific person *after* you have some
+evidence already that they might be relevant, not just on a hunch.
+
+This is important, but hard to really grasp because it puts the normal order of
+an argument on its head. Let's look at an example. Imagine there's been a
+traffic accident, a car crashed into a tree. The police starts the
+investigation, when one officer suggests that it was clearly aliens. Aliens?,
+you ask, why aliens? And he explains, there is no evidence that *disproves*
+aliens, right? No eye witness that didn't see a UFO? And if aliens did it, they
+surely would leave no obvious evidence behind, and that is exactly what we find.
+And of course, if aliens did it, they would probably use a laser beam of some
+sort, so we would expect the car to be still hot, and just feel the hood, it
+really is hot!
+
+The problem is hopefully clear. It's not that any of the three later claims is
+false - they aren't. The hood really is hot, there are no obvious signs and we
+don't have evidence *against* aliens. But that's *irrelevant* because we don't
+have any reason to think of aliens in the first place! We first would have to
+find evidence that clearly points towards aliens, *then* we could think about
+whether it actually is true or not. Just picking an arbitrary idea with no
+justification and focusing on that is invalid.
+
+And that's the crux here. Instead of dismissing any specific evidence or
+argument, we need to dismiss *the question*. You don't just need evidence to
+answer something, but you already need evidence to even ask about it, too!
+
+This has been a major revelation for me. Let me state it again because it is so
+important - to even start asking questions, you already need evidence at hand.
+If you don't have it, then all the further speculation is irrelevant, completely
+independent of the strength of any following claim.
+
+This blows many religious lines of thought right out of the water. It matters
+not how convincing a case Christians, for example, make that God *might* have
+created the universe because before all that, they need to establish that they
+have evidence that we even should think about this. They get the order of proof
+wrong - they start with an conclusion "God did it" and then work backwards. And
+it all matters not, none of it. We would first need to have evidence that points
+forward, and until we have that, we can dismiss all further claims, *unseen*.
+
+So if someone has no good reason to start asking questions, we can ignore all
+their answers, even if they might be valid or even true! That's the strength of
+this fallacy.
+
+And this dismantles not just religious thought, but so many things. Whatever the
+ancient Greeks thought about atoms, we can ignore it - they had no way to
+observe them, so it is all meaningless. The old enlightened philosophers,
+thinking about human nature? All irrelevant - they didn't know about evolution,
+without which they couldn't have possibly understood the origin of any
+behaviour. If you don't get your first step right, nothing that follows it
+matters anymore.
+
+How could the Buddha have known?
+================================
+
+For a while, I thought I wielded not just Occam's razor, but Occam's meat
+cleaver. The power of the Unjustified Focus was so strong, I could take apart
+whole traditions in one precise strike. But then one thought came up, and with
+it doubt, a little at first, then more and more, until I realized that Eris had
+successfully stolen the cleaver right out of my hand and cut me in two. 
+
+"Does the Unjustified Focus really only go one way?"
+
+The idea of it is, after all,  if you haven't been through the maze, you can't
+draw a map. You can ignore the map of anyone that never entered it - it can't
+possibly be correct. But, that's just one direction. It also goes the other way
+- if someone has an accurate map, then they must have been through the maze.
+
+And with that thought, it all came down. I have been cheating, mentally. I had
+accepted ideas without considering where they came from. I took Buddhist
+teachings and practices, but never considered their origin. It is not that they
+might be wrong that got to me because I *knew* that they were right. I had seen
+it for myself. This didn't upset me. It's the implications that got to me. 
+
+If the map is reliable, then what about it's other features, the ones I
+wrestle with? And what about the one that drew it? How could it be conceivably
+possible that someone knew the details without having seen them themselves? But
+he claims that there is an exit. Should I then trust him?
+
+And with this realization, the second fetter fell.
+
+It makes no sense. Some common insights, sure. Even anatta, even that. It may,
+after all, be just a lucky guess. Philosophers have claimed nearly everything by
+now, so *someone* has to be right, after all. But all the details later?
+
+If you had a map that was right the first few times, ok, that could just be
+chance or maybe you had a really good look from the entrance or collected all
+the popular stories you heard, hoping they'd converge to some truth.
+
+But if the map just keeps on being right, even when you get deeper and deeper?
+Beyond a certain depth, there is only one plausible interpretation - the map is
+correct. But the map claims to lead you to an exit. If it is correct, that exit
+must exist. If it is correct, the one that drew it must have reached it. 
+
+The more I learn about his teachings, the more I see that they are true. His
+insight seems to be without limits. From every mystic I learn, I find flaws in
+their teachings. This is to be expected; no one could have understood
+*everything*, certainly not on their own. They all provide valuable insights,
+but also many clearly false ideas. 
+
+Only one seems immune. I run out of excuses. I fail to come up with plausible
+scenarios how he, in his time, could have been so wise. I find it harder and
+harder to dismiss the possibility that, really, he did achieve nirvana. That the
+teachings must be true. All of them. That I can no longer dismiss the parts I am
+uncomfortable with, the parts I don't *want* to be true.
+
+It seems impossible. On what knowledge could the Buddha have built his
+teachings? He didn't know neuroscience. He didn't know evolution. He predates
+all of science. Yet, his teachings are *true*. How can this be?
+
+
+And I think of Thích Quảng Đức. He didn't even move. Desire can be overcome.
+
+
+Oh, and btw. The monster is real. I have met it. It is quite nice and has some
+very interesting things to say. May you encounter it one day, too!

drafts/revamp.org

@@ -0,0 +1,119 @@
+* Website
+What I want is a complete revamp. Not so much style-wise, but content-wise.
+
+Technical improvements:
+- [ ] auto-generate categories
+- [ ] template for "being worked on"
+
+Here's what I want to express:
+** Reflections
+Needs a better name.
+
+*** Anatta, Anicca, Dukkha
+**** Anatta
+Main problem: phenomenology. What do you mean with "atman"?
+**** Anicca
+Time theory. Changing of sensations. Merely practical point?
+**** Dukkha
+Attitude. Wireheading.
+*** Causality
+What is causality? Does it exist? Does "epiphenomenal" make any sense?
+*** Christ Myth [0/3]
+Mapping all the major arguments.
+- [ ] arguments pro/con, with strength
+- [ ] collect sources
+- [ ] compare with similar figure - Socrates
+*** Crucifixion
+Not nearly detailed enough. Needs more research, I guess?
+*** Dennett's ConExp [0/2]
+- [ ] reread
+- [ ] more detailed criticism (probably only meaningful after a basic zombie
+      article is up)
+*** Free Will [0/3]
+- [ ] Determinism / Quantum Mechanics
+- [ ] Freedom Evolves
+- [ ] Why care at all? Dissolving the question.
+*** Great Filter [0/4]
+This is mostly a literature review. Only my likelihood estimates are by me.
+- [ ] Hanson
+- [ ] Katja
+- [ ] Past Filters
+- [ ] Future Filters
+*** Julian Jaynes
+That'll take some effort to clean up. :)
+*** Memes
+**** Letting Go of Music
+Needs a complete revamp. Totally broken, but interesting point, I think. Can be
+rescued.
+**** Memetic Hazards
+Also note depression.
+*** Logic and Math are Lies [0/3]
+Ok, polemical enough. :D
+
+- [ ] problems with Classical Logic
+- [ ] against infinites
+- [ ] against the axiom of choice
+*** Moral Theory
+Is there anything besides preferences?
+
+Unity of Knowledge and Action?
+
+**** Falsifications
+- [ ] there is instrinsic value
+- [ ] preferences don't exist
+- [ ] through some magic all beings have the same terminal preferences
+*** Occam's Razor
+Which Razor to use? What's "simpler"?
+Depends on prior. Complexity prior (code? data?). Kolmogorov. Pragmatic.
+*** On Purpose
+*** Phenomenology
+**** Justification
+Always being right.
+**** Unbroken Consciousness
+**** Indexing Problem
+*** Survey, Gospel
+Better organization, but always nice to have a short overview.
+*** Why Gnosticism?
+Dissolving the attraction from 1st/3rd person phenomenology.
+*** Zombies and Algorithms and Qualia, oh my!
+**** Only One Quale
+**** What about Physicalism?
+**** Zombie Argument by Chalmers
+** Experiments
+*** Concentration [0/7]
+- [ ] caffeine
+- [ ] fat, protein, sugar
+- [ ] exercise
+- [ ] st. john's wort
+- [ ] sunlight
+- [ ] tyrosine
+- [ ] meditation
+  metta, vipassana (all kinds), zazen
+*** Happiness [0/8]
+- [ ] medication
+- [ ] metta
+- [ ] gratitude
+- [ ] cbt / rationality
+- [ ] vipassana
+- [ ] sunlight
+- [ ] exercise
+- [ ] food (sugar, fat)
+*** Language Learning [0/4]
+- [ ] SRS (cloze deletion!)
+- [ ] immersion
+- [ ] bilingual vs. monolingual
+- [ ] material
+*** Sleep [0/3]
+- [ ] Polyphasic sleep, biphasic sleep
+- [ ] caffeine
+- [ ] random hacks
+*** Speed-Reading
+Essentially fine, just proofread it and put a stronger qualification on it.
+*** SRS [0/4]
+- [ ] usefulness
+- [ ] one deck / multiple decks
+- [ ] card design
+- [ ] random hacks
+** Software
+Main problem: content. I just don't program that much recently. Still, might
+demonstrate some minor stuff.

drafts/temporal_lobe.pdc

@@ -0,0 +1,267 @@
+% Temporal Lobe Experiences
+
+Personal Info
+=============
+
+Something about me. 
+
+Interestingly, my left eye is about 0.5 dioptre better than my right, just like
+my fathers eyes. 
+
+Most Recent Seizure
+===================
+
+2010/05/13 at 21:05. 
+
+It was day 3 of my caffeine withdrawal. The headaches were already over, but I
+was still very irritable (one little inconvenience and I'd write a 5000 word
+rant) and could barely think. No memory or concentration whatsoever. The best I
+could do is read some funny websites and eat strange cheese.
+
+The first thing I noticed was that the upper part of my inner left mouth felt
+weird, as if a bit of fluid was oozing out of my skull, soon followed by an
+actual, but faint sound of bone-on-bone movement. If that sounds very confusing,
+that's because it was. I first thought, alright, probably just my jaw moving in
+a weird way or something like that, when I spaced out a bit. I just relaxed and
+lost all mental content for a bit, but was still aware what was happening. I was
+not sure at that point if I was actually spacing out or just pretending to. A
+minute later, I remembered the experiments I wanted to try.
+
+First, I focused on the area to the left and behind me, trying to feel a
+presence. There was a vague sense of something being there and a few images
+rushed me, but I was underwhelmed, so I tried another one. I closed my eyes,
+focused them right at the point closest to my face I could do and then, without
+moving them, looked up.
+
+A bit adrenaline, some light, a bit of colors, but that's not more than I see
+when I just press my eyeba.. WHAM.
+
+It just fired. I didn't know what *it* was, but my eyes moved wildly, I began
+shaking and there was definite rumbling going on at the front of my head. I
+snapped out of the meditation and laughed uncontrollably. I jotted down a short
+note of the time in my log and ran of to the toilet, pouring water over my face.
+I had the wild *I just saw god* face, eyes wide open, still laughing, getting
+happier and happier. I ran back, grabbed my rosary and started praying. If
+prayer can ever work for me, then now!
+
+I was shocked once I started. That's not *my voice*. It was completely
+different, as if there were many voices, whispering and very fast. I seemed to
+speak whole chunks at once. It was still *me* speaking, but certainly not in any
+way I recognized. I began laughing more and more. After 15 minutes and the first
+3 sets of the rosary, the effect finally started to disappear. My voice returned
+to normal and I noticed that I found it quite a bit harder to speak. Language
+was definitely harder than normal. I still decided to finish the prayer.
+
+Afterwards, I got up and noticed a changed consciousness, as if I was *more*
+present or complete than before. I tried thinking, but messed up the words, so
+the other I just said, "Just listen. Don't speak. Just listen. Don't speak."
+for a while. 
+
+(I'm a big fan of dissociation, so I do this intentionally. I'm very aware that
+I have many "modes" or "drivers", sometimes competing, and I like to play with
+them.)
+
+For some reason, I felt the urge to stand on one foot. I first
+tried the right one, but lost balance (which I always do; I have horribly
+balance). So I switched and could, somehow, stand perfectly fine, one leg bend
+backwards at the knee and both arms stretched to the side. Even pulling the arms
+in and moving the right leg around didn't throw me off. That's *very* unusual
+for me. Normally, I can't even put on my shoes standing without falling down.
+
+After a bit, I just sat down and was happy for a while. The world shifted for me
+and started to *glow* again. Not really literally glow, as in became brighter
+(although colors seemed more intense), but more mentally glow. Glow with
+meaning. This was very close to the DXM afterglow or how I felt after coming
+down from Ayahuasca. Very happy and *aware*, all senses a bit sharper than
+usual.
+
+That was either a temporal lobe seizure or the most psychedelic cheese in all of
+Europe.
+
+Ghosts
+======
+
+As a child at about the age of 6, I had a strong experience of ghosts. I was
+sitting on the toilet, when quite suddenly I felt surrounded by a group of dark
+grey entities, maybe a dozen or so, each about my own size. They hovered around
+me in a circle, located in a mental realm closely related to the one in front of
+me when I close my eyes.[^realm] I immediately knew that they were friendly.
+They communicated to me, though they never spoke, that they are a kind of
+guardian and that I could trust them.
+
+I didn't feel disturbed by this or in any way upset. It seemed perfectly natural
+at the time. I started to talk to them occasionally, telling them my thoughts,
+similarly to a self-monologue. I stopped doing this after some time because it
+started to feel weird, like I was not supposed to be doing this kind of thing.
+
+They didn't reappear until I was 18, when I experimented with *psychedelic
+mushrooms*. At that time, I had drug experiences with *Caffeine*[^caff] (but not
+alcohol until about a year later), *Argyreia Nervosa*[^argy], *Nutmeg*[^nut] and
+*Ayahuasca*[^aya] and *DXM*[^dxm], in that order, but in none of them did I ever
+encounter another entity or presence. However, that summer I had just grown my
+first batch of shrooms and ate about 2 grams of recently dried ones on toast
+with honey[^honey]. 
+
+After a few minutes, I felt a powerful sense of joy and lightness. I danced
+around and strangely really enjoyed juggling objects, like my water bottle. I
+felt I could slow down time and gravity slightly, making it a lot easier to
+catch something. After about half an hour I was overcome by a bright light and
+sense of bliss. I sat down in my chair and closed my eyes, when I had the
+impression to face a great Pyramid in Egypt, bathed in sunlight.  Suddenly, I
+was connected to the whole human species (and maybe more).[^6th] The Collective
+Unconscious[^coll] was available to me. I believed that my true purpose in life
+was now clear to me. (Although, to be honest, I never exactly *knew* what that
+purpose actually *was*. It was more a feeling of complete trust in fate, without
+ever knowing any details.) Soon, I felt the presence of many beings. I was
+consciously aware of maybe half a dozen, but knew that they were legion. I
+recognized them from my childhood. I asked multiple questions, mostly about
+future choices and when thinking of a possible answer, got an powerful emotional
+response. I was being showered by pure love when I thought of the right answer
+and pulled away from any wrong one. 
+
+I do not remember anymore if I felt asleep for maybe half an hour or not, but
+the experience soon faded away and I started to play Katamari Damacy. While the
+most intense part was now over, I continued to feel full of energy for the next
+few days. The personal connection with fate is still there today.  
+
+However positive the first experience was, all future shroom trips except the
+last one were much more negative. I would inevitably encounter the ghosts again,
+but they were disappointed in me. They made it clear that I couldn't handle the
+experience and shouldn't come there anymore.
+
+Being Haunted
+=============
+
+When I was 17, I had what could be called a psychotic episode. I was depressed,
+worried about many things in my life and was still dealing mentally with my
+former girlfriend (more on that later). But that's not the real problem. That I
+could deal with; I knew that I would one day be able to overcome all those
+problems. (I was right. It took me about 3 years.) However, it got worse when I
+started feeling haunted. It started with a general sense of unease once I
+entered my room, but after a few days I started hearing voices. At first, I
+heard noise on my speakers that wasn't there. I could even turn them off
+completely and there would still be barely noticeable noise. Soon, that noise
+whispered to me. *All the time*. I couldn't make out anything it said, not like
+a schizophrenic who hears commands (although I thought at the time I was one).
+It sounded more like ominous, satanic chanting. 
+
+Especially at night it sometimes got so bad that I couldn't sleep at all. Once,
+I was woken up at around 4:00 by a sudden, bright and incredibly loud mental
+*flash* of a pentagram with Baphomet on it. I was terrified and scared for my
+life. My sleep didn't recover for months. I tried dealing with it by meditation,
+but I couldn't concentrate at all in silence, with the permanent evil
+whispering. I also tried doing an demonic incantation (no result) and an
+exorcism (which temporally worked!).
+
+The voice was physically tied to my room (but not to anything in it).
+Interestingly, our neighbor was an astrologer and big believer in the
+supernatural. I never told anyone about my experience, but learned that she
+recently had done a kind of seance with some medium and found out that the
+basement of our shared house was cursed - exactly where I lived. She had her own
+exorcism scheduled, but luckily we moved out, leaving the presence behind. I
+never encountered it again. Within weeks after we left, the whole basement was
+flooded because of faulty architectural design.
+
+Note that during the whole time I didn't *believe* in ghosts, demons or any
+supernatural entity. However, at the end, I sure had my doubts about it!
+Nonetheless, I still don't believe the cause to be an actual supernatural
+entity, but I'm quite open that it was still a real experience. Persinger's
+explanaition of such phenomena through magnetic disturbances seems like a good
+candidate to me.
+
+Romantic Love
+=============
+
+Sensory Shutdown
+================
+
+Bathroom. No sound at all. Voice bright, with very high contrast.
+
+Anxiety
+=======
+
+Social Problems
+===============
+
+At first, I thought I was an autist. (I even have a tentative diagnosis for it,
+but never followed up on it because I found enough evidence to disprove it
+myself.) When that didn't quite work out, I went with ADD, mainly because of the
+unusual reaction to caffeine, which calmed me down instead of making me hyper,
+something typical for people with ADD or mania. But that didn't quite work,
+either, as my ability to concentrate didn't exactly work like would be predicted
+by ADD (I would often go into short bursts of high focus, becoming obsessed with
+a topic for a month or so, and then switch to something completely different).
+Also, there were too many unexplained symptoms left.
+
+I analyzed my social problems more thoroughly. It's really not that I don't
+*understand* social interaction. If I watch others, I know very well what they
+are doing and why. It's not mysterious at all to me. But when *I* am supposed to
+act, I simply... draw a blank. There is no memory, no idea, nothing. My mind
+goes entirely silent and I can only stare. I'm perfectly aware of this all the
+time and desperately try to fix it, but just don't get any answer inside.
+However, that only happens with *some* people. With others, I function
+normally and probably talk quite a lot. That way, almost everyone either knows
+me as silent or talkative, but not much in between. There is no connection to
+sympathy - I shut down with plenty of people I like a lot, but because it is so
+incapacitating, I tend to only become friends with the people I *can* talk to. I
+still can't tell in advance whether this will happen just by knowing something
+about the other person. There is no connection with topics, gender,
+intelligence, age or anything else I could think of. It is very consistent,
+though, just seemingly random in who I'm open to and who not.
+
+Another important puzzle piece is that I don't *care* much for social
+interaction. This is atypical for autists, who tend to want to interact with
+people (at least in some situations), but just can't, which leads to many just
+"giving up" on friendship. This lead me to believe I was more schizoid, but the
+emotional flatness that comes with it just doesn't describe me at all. Also,
+*some* people I do care about. Instead of being more or less equally interested
+in most people, with maybe a few spikes for close friends and family, as is
+normal, I have zero interest in almost everyone, but strong devotion of
+Kierkegaardian proportions to a select few. I still have a very positive
+attitude in general towards people, which is not very schizoid; it's just that
+most people don't seem to be as enjoyable as ice cream to me, for no reason I
+can discern, but some are like ecstasy, at least some of the time. 
+
+Eccentricity
+============
+
+It's not so much that I don't *know* what's normal, but more that I don't
+*care*.
+
+
+[6th]: 
+    Basically, the 6th Morphogenetic Circuit, for those of you that know some
+    Leary or RAW. (And you all should. *Prometheus Rising* is highly
+    recommended.)
+
+[^argy]: Argyreia Nervosa
+[^aya]: Ayahuasca  
+[^nut]: Nutmeg
+[^caff]: Caffeine
+
+[^dxm]: Dextrometorphan, DXM for short, is my favorite drug. It dissociates me
+    from any negative or disruptive emotion, gives me immense concentration, a
+    strong sense of wonder, makes me even more verbose and music... oh boy, how
+    music sounds on it! I try hard to cultivate the DXM state as my normal
+    mental state.
+    
+    I also like that it causes only my left pupil to dilate, making me look
+    literally like this: o_O
+
+[^realm]: 
+    There are many experiential spaces. For me, thought is fundamentally a
+    spatial thing and I tend to create a new space in which I arrange things
+    whenever I analyze or organize something.  They are mostly 2- or
+    3-dimensional, although I have been able to create 4-dimensional spaces,
+    too.
+
+[^honey]: 
+    I chose honey because I had been told that I they taste awful and I knew to
+    take such warnings seriously after Ayahuasca. Ironically, I came to really
+    like their taste and now get really bad stomach cramps from honey (probably
+    because of the high amount of sugar). 
+
+[^coll]: 
+    Although I don't like the term Collective Unconscious because it never felt
+    particularly *un*conscious to me. I always thought it was closer to the
+    Malkavian hive mind.

src/experiments/index.pdc

@@ -1,22 +0,0 @@
-% Experiments
-
-Experiments
-===========
-
-![star_logo](/star_logo.jpg)   
-This is basically my public spoiler file for life. Why should I keep all the
-cool stuff I found out to myself? Information ought to be free, after all.
-
-- [Kickstarting Motivation], a technique I use to start my days
-- improving [Concentration] and motivation
-- how to develop [Speed Reading] and read a book in an hour 
-- [Sleep] hacks
-    - some hacks for [Good Sleep]
-    - my experience and criticism of [Polyphasic Sleep]
-
-[Kickstarting Motivation]: /experiments/kickstart.html
-[Concentration]: /experiments/concentration.html
-[Speed Reading]: /experiments/speedreading.html
-[Sleep]: /experiments/sleep
-[Good Sleep]: /experiments/sleep/good_sleep.html
-[Polyphasic Sleep]: /experiments/sleep/polyphasic_sleep.html

src/experiments/kickstart.pdc

@@ -1,106 +0,0 @@
-% Kickstarting Motivation
-
-Introduction
-============
-
-In my favorite cookbook (by and for vegetarian punks[^punk]), every recipe came
-with a song recommendation to listen to while cooking. So here's the
-recommendation for this article: the Portsmouth Sinfonia playing the William
-Tell Overture (on [Youtube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs7QdpF0DE8)). Even
-if you don't like classical music, *listen* to it. It's.. unexpected and
-demonstrates the theme of the article, which is the motto of Dwarf Fortress:
-"Losing is fun!"
-
-[^punk]:
-    The German "Ox-Kochbuch", if you're interested. And no, I'm neither a punk
-    nor a vegetarian. (Anymore.)
-
-The Technique
-=============
-
-Start with a short interval, like 1-5 minutes. Maybe try 30-90 seconds.  Then
-pick an item from your todo and work on it that long. 
-
-Don't worry about getting anything done, or even doing anything of importance at
-all. If you are writing a paper for class, you'll probably only get as far as
-opening your editor, jumping to the right line and reading a sentence or two
-before it to figure out what you are supposed to write next.
-
-Beep, time's up. Next item. Open some more apps, get a book. Beep, next item.
-You do this for about 30 minutes, or until every item on your todo has been done
-once, whatever comes first. 
-
-Now there are two possibilities. Either there will be at least one item (but
-probably a few) you started that is still on your mind. Or none is and your glad
-that's over. If really nothing got you hooked that way, nothing where you don't
-at least want to finish a sentence, read to the end of the paragraph or do more
-than just open some apps and arrange a few windows, then, well, to put it
-nicely, *your life sucks*. I don't mean this as an insult. It's just a fact, and
-it happens to everyone. Occassionally, we do things we think we *should* do, but
-hate. They take over our time and then, well, life sucks. You don't need a time
-management technique. You need to start *doing something fun*. 
-
-But let's assume that's not the case because fixing your life is really the
-point of another article, probably written by someone more motivating than me.
-Try [Khatz]; I really like the guy. So, there's at least one item you feel like
-getting back to. When the alarm went off, you wanted to just do another minute.
-Maybe you even did. Great. The kickstarting is working its magic.
-
-Enter Step 2. You increase the interval to maybe 10 minutes. Don't overdo it,
-experiment a bit. If you are unsure, or it feels a bit long, do less. Do only 5.
-Hell, do 91 seconds, just to show you can beat the first interval. I typically
-go with 5-10 minutes, randomly chosen. Repeat the process, but feel free to
-skip the tasks that didn't really interest you before. Leave all the stuff open,
-keep all the preparation around, but focus only on the few tasks that pulled you
-towards them. If it's just one, then pick a random other task, too, so you have
-something to switch to. You *want to be interrupted*. 
-
-You see, the trick is that interruption really fucks up your brain's scheduler.
-It *hates* it. It really only has two modes. Evolution totally cheated you out
-of a good deal here. Either it wants to spend as much time as possibly on a task
-or it wants to get away from it asap, typically after the original desire has
-disappeared. So, context switching really annoys the brain. "No, I don't want to
-think about new rocks to make an axe, I wanna hunt this zebra, now!", that kinda
-thing. 
-
-If switching is so bad, why do I instruct you to actually do it a lot? To raise
-your desire. What you can't have, but want, you only want more. You may not feel
-like writing the whole paper for this stupid class right now, but finishing the
-one sentence you started today, as proof of being better than a trained monkey,
-at least on good days, this one sentence? You're gonna finish this. But the
-rapid switching won't let you.
-
-And suddenly, what you initially didn't want, you now desire. Just keep on
-switching so you don't get bored. If the constant interruption starts to annoy
-you and you know you're gonna continue for a long time, just turn off the alarm,
-or better, set it to 40-60 minutes, as a fail-safe mechanism.
-
-This day has been won.
-
-Why such short intervals?
-=========================
-
-A last note, to make something clear I kinda skipped over in the beginning.
-Kickstarting your day with extremely short bursts has one big advantage - it
-doesn't set you up with any performance expectations. Make this explicit. Say to
-yourself, "I'm not gonna finish anything. Heck, I'm not gonna get anything done
-worth showing *at all*. I'm just gonna do 90 seconds. Who gets anything done in
-90 seconds?". I'm serious here. Completely expect to fail because you will.
-*Failure is good*. Failure is fun! 
-
-Nobody starts playing a shooter with the expectation "I'm gonna play for 4
-hours, finish all levels, hit every enemy and never miss.", but that's very
-natural when we organize life. I certainly wanted to study like this! "Sit down
-for 6 hours, learn all 4 chapters, solve every problem.", yeah right. As if. No,
-what we do is, "I'm just gonna start and shoot people in the face." and if you
-miss, pff, you just shoot again. What does it matter how far you get or how
-often you miss?
-
-It's really counter-intuitive. The attitude that you expect to be successful
-fails horribly, and the loser-attitude of "whatever, just have fun" dominates
-everything and gets stuff done. Don't think you're gonna do anything useful.
-Just get reminded often enough, ideally by a fully automated program, so that
-you're going in the right direction and *fail*.  
-
-[Khatz]:
-    http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/on-the-very-serious-subject-of-how-to-have-fun-all-the-time

src/experiments/meta.yaml

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-title: Experiments

src/experiments/sleep/meta.yaml

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-title: Sleep

src/reflections/find_the_bug.pdc

@@ -1,73 +0,0 @@
-% Find the Bug
-
-The book "[Find the Bug](http://www.findthebug.com)" by Adam Barr, to quote the
-author, "[...] contains 50 programs, in one of five languages (C, Java, Python,
-Perl, and x86 assembly language). Each program contains a single, hard-to-detect
-but realistic bug—no tricky *gotchas*.". The idea is to train your ability to
-find bugs.  The examples claim to be something you might be asked to do in a job
-interview. "Write me an algorithm to do $x!" and you move up to a whiteboard,
-write a few dozen lines in a language of your choosing (thus the 5 languages in
-the book) and now you must be able to defend it or critize it (depending on
-whether you are the interviewer or not). You don't have test cases, you can't
-compile it, you only have your brain. 
-
-This is a really neat idea *in principle*, but unfortunetaly, the execution is
-rather lacking.  The enforced simplicity (every programm has to fit on one page)
-ignores many realistic kinds of bugs. None of the examples require much
-background knowledge, which at first looks like a good idea, but again is rather
-unrealistic. If I'm writing a level generator for a game and my random number
-generator has a bug, then I'll probably only see it in some cases and finding it
-may require a bit of statistical knowledge. Just because I dislike statistics
-doesn't mean I get to ignore them. 
-
-Especially bad is the fact that there are no performance optimizations. The code
-is always as clean and simple as it can be to solve the problem, but that's not
-what real code looks like. In some cases, this is alright, but there are plenty
-of low-level function like memory allocation, string parsing or sorting and
-those normally have the hell optimized out of them.  A "clever trick" is exactly
-the kind of thing that is widespread, evil and buggy. 
-
-Also, the examples sometimes aren't really typical.  The Python and Perl code in
-particular looks nothing like normal code. The Python code is way too low-level,
-uses no list comprehension and barely anything of the extensive library. In
-short, it's rather unpythonic and looks a lot more like quickly converted C
-code. The Perl code has multiple comments and meaningful variable names,
-something no self-respecting Perl hacker would ever use. :\> 
-
-It's a bit hard to avoid because you can't throw around all the neat little
-features everyone familiar with the language would use while still assuming that
-the reader has at best a passing knowledge themselves. It would have been a lot
-better to either stick with a common and small language (like C) or use pseudo
-code instead. Most bugs aren't language specific anyway, so this wouldn't have
-hurt the book. Finally, some of the example code is just... strange. There is
-one Java example that wants to find out whether a year is a leap year or not.
-The relevant logic is this:
-
-~~~ {.java}
-// A leap year is a multiple of 4, unless it is
-// a multiple of 100, unless it is a multiple of
-// 400.
-//
-// We calculate the three values, then make a
-// 3-bit binary value out of them and look it up
-// in results.
-//
-final boolean results[] =
-    { false, false, false, false,
-     true, false, false, true };
-if (results[
-    ((((yearAsLong % 4) == 0) ? 1 : 0) << 2) +
-    ((((yearAsLong % 100) == 0) ? 1 : 0) << 1) +
-    ((((yearAsLong % 400) == 0) ? 1 : 0) << 0)]) {
-    throw new LeapYearException();
-} else {
-    throw new NotLeapYearException();
-}
-~~~
-
-If I ever meet anyone who uses something like this, then all my promises of
-non-violence will be void. However, it *is* a rather typical example of the
-twisted and mad code a Java programmer would write, so kudos to the author. It's
-still an abomination, though.  Anyway, a lot of wasted potential. \*sigh\*
-
-

src/reflections/index.pdc

@@ -1,31 +0,0 @@
-% Reflections
-
-Reflections
-===========
-![circle_logo](/circle_logo.jpg)   
-The unobserved life is not worth living.
-
-- [On Purpose]
-- [On The Crucifixion]
-- [Gospel of Muflax]
-- [There Is Only Quale], a piece on dreams, memory and space ships
-- a [Philosophical Survey]
-- thoughts on Daniel Dennett's book [Consciousness Explained]
-- [Letting Go of Music]
-- my review of [Find the Bug]
-- a bit about [Nicknames]
-- a meditation on [Xmonad]
-
-<--- [Why I love my SRS], or, How to hack your long-term memory-->
-
-[On The Crucifixion]: /reflections/crucifixion.html
-[On Purpose]: /reflections/purpose.html
-[Philosophical Survey]: /reflections/survey.html
-[Letting Go of Music]: /reflections/letting_go_of_music.html
-[Find the Bug]: /reflections/find_the_bug.html
-[Consciousness Explained]: /reflections/con_exp.html
-[Why I love my SRS]: /reflections/srs.html
-[Xmonad]: /reflections/xmonad.html
-[Nicknames]: /reflections/nickname.html
-[There Is Only Quale]: /reflections/quale.html
-[Gospel of Muflax]: /reflections/gospel.html

src/reflections/meta.yaml

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-title: Reflections

src/reflections/nickname.pdc

@@ -1,47 +0,0 @@
-% Nicknames
-
-I finally got around to thinking up a Japanese nick. I've been playing Japanese
-games for quite a while, but always stumbled when asked for a name. Like, I only
-have a Latin one, and it's impossible to translate? So was just using whatever
-first name I heard most recently, but now I got a bit fed up and picked one.
-
-At first, I tried going for a translation, so I chose 牟麻（ぼうま, bouma). Yes,
-that's a 4-level pun. My Latin nick is "muflax", with no preferred
-pronunciation. It's the composition of "mu" (as in 無) and "flax", as in "3
-pounds of flax", the two most well-known koan answers. "3 tons of flax" is also
-a traditional Discordian answer to ~~silly~~ philosophical questions. A literal
-translation into Japanese would be 無麻 (むま, muma). Of course, むま is
-normally written as 夢魔, meaning nightmare. That's a weird association already,
-but a bit too negative for me. So I wrote the "mu" as 牟 instead, this being a)
-an exotic way to write "pupil (of an eye)", b) the sound a cow makes.  As a cow
-fetishist, I have been using 牟 as in impromptu nick for some time already.
-Traditionally, 牟 is used to write "moo" if you are being pedantic in a silly
-way (everyone else just writes ムー or モー), or more commonly, to stand for the
-sound "mu" in ancient loan words, most of them Sanskrit. As such, it appears in
-釈迦牟尼, the Shakyamuni, i.e. the Buddha himself. But that's not obscure enough
-for me, so I used an unusual reading of 牟 - ぼう (bou), as used in 牟子, a
-special mask some dancer's wear, and the word itself being a variant of 帽子 (ぼ
-うし, boushi), a hat or cap. I like the fact that this makes it look like a very
-poorly hidden elephant in the room. Everyone is gonna read it as "muma" and
-think of "nightmare", but you can't acknowledge that!  Finally, bouma is a
-little-known term for the shape of a whole word, named after vision-researcher
-H. Bouma. That is, when reading, no one "sees" the individual letters, but picks
-up the shape of the word as a whole - the bouma[^bouma]. I didn't know there was
-a word for that, but will gladly assimilate it.
-
-[^bouma]: Actually, that's bullshit. You _do_ read every letter, but still, the
-idea is widespread and it's nice that there is a word for it.
-
-Anyway, shaggy dog and all, I didn't like the sound "bouma" all that much and
-just went for "つづく" (続く, tsudsuku, more like zuzuku), meaning "to
-continue", as prominently featured at the end of many TV show episodes. I love
-t- and k-sounds, so for me, つづく is one of the coolest words ever. Even
-cooler, though, is an dialectial pronunciation, "tuduku". You can listen to it
-on [this awesome site]
-(http://home.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/ikonishi/narada/narada_tu&du.html) (the
-second sound from the top). I already tend to us this dialect myself,
-simply because it sounds so awesome. But unfortunately, almost all Japanese
-media uses the same Tokyo dialect (and sometimes a bastardized Kansai dialect),
-so I rarely get exposed to it. This has it's good sides, though, as my own
-pronunciation tends to be rather stable (and not like English, which I, like,
-spoke, like, a valley girl? For, like, months? Because of Buffy?).

src/software/ashuku.pdc

@@ -1,45 +0,0 @@
-% ashuku - personal statistics tool
-
-Statistics. I love statistics. 
-===============================
-
-And graphs. Graphs are cool, too.
-
-It's funny, actually. I really suck at statistics. I have a hard time
-understanding probabilities and statistics is probably the one mathematical
-field I understand the least. But I still love it. I track a lot of data and
-love reading tables. I have several books full of yearly death statistics,
-broken down by age, gender, cause, region and so on. Some of the greatest stuff
-I ever read. Crime statistics are really cool as well. 
-
-Anyway, it might come as no surprise to you then that I like correlating
-personal data. If I do this change in my life, how does it affect me? Is their a
-correlation between sleep time and happiness? What about nutritional
-supplements? So I wrote a tool to track and analyze just this.[^perl] 
-
-enter ashuku 
-=============
-
-I'm lazy, so let's just quote the readme:
-
-> ashuku is a tool to track a multitude of daily statistics, like mood and
-> health. Its design goals are simplicity and fast usage.  ashuku can draw
-> graphs [citation needed] and analyze data for correlation. Data is stored in
-> plain text files in YAML. It's easy to read for both humans and machines.
-> ashuku is named after one of the 5 Wisdom Buddhas, 阿閦如来 (ashuku nyorai).
-> He is immovable and reflects all emotions like a mirror, showing things as
-> they really are. ashuku is strongly influenced by todo.txt. 
-
-Here's a screenshot. It's fully customizable, so don't be afraid of
-the Japanese UI. It's in English by default and you can change it
-however you want. :) 
-
-![screenshot](ashuku.png)
-
-I've been using it since 2009/09/12. The data before that is from a different
-tool and partially incomplete, so there. You can grab it here:
-
-http://github.com/muflax/ashuku 
-
-[^perl]: Well, the second one, actually. The first one was a Perl script and...
-    you know what they say about Perl code. It's all true, unfortunately.

src/software/index.pdc

@@ -1,15 +0,0 @@
-% Software
-
-Software
-========
-
-![loop_logo](/loop_logo.jpg)   
-Some of the stuff I wrote.
-
-- my [vim] config and complete feature list
-- [ashuku], a personal statistics tool
-- [saneo], my keyboard layout
-
-[ashuku]: /software/ashuku.html
-[saneo]: /software/saneo.html
-[vim]: /software/vim.html

src/software/meta.yaml

@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-title: Software

src/software/saneo.pdc

@@ -1,67 +0,0 @@
-% saneo - putting the sane back into Neo
-
-I was kinda (read: a lot) unhappy with my old keyboard layout, [Neo 2]. So I
-designed my own keyboard layout.
-
-Design Principles
-=================
-
-1) Hands should move as little as possible and never leave home row. This is a
-  pretty basic requirement, but it prevents me from moving some rarer
-  combinations to the outside of the keyboard.
-
-2) I must not give up any functionality. Specificially, I must still be able to
-  type in (among others) French, German and Japanese, be able to programm
-  efficiently and have enough keys left to handle Xmonad.
-
-3) The computer should do as much work for me as possible. If I can let it figure
-  out what I meant and safe a few keystrokes in the average case, I will do it.
-
-Solutions
-=========
-
-First, I use my IME more aggressively than before. I'm currently using scim
-(with anthy and tables) to input any normal text beyond ASCII. This is pretty
-normal for Japanese, were you type 黒い猫 (kuroi neko, black cat) by activating
-Japanese mode, then inputting "kuroineko[SPACE]" and the IME converts this first
-into syllables (くろいねこ, ku ro i ne ko) and then tries to guess the correct
-meaning. I have already started using this for German a while ago and now use it
-for all diacritics. For example, I switch to European mode and then input
-"Verschw"orung" to get "Verschwörung" (conspiracy). This works pretty well
-because all diacritics are rare anyway and justify the additional key stroke.
-Each language (family) has its own mode to keep them simple and because I almost
-never mix them anyway.
-
-Second, I redesigned the Mod3 level completely. I can't move the punctuation
-characters inside my IME, because I generally mix them with normal text (typing
-something like "\$editor =~ s/vi[m]/emacs/g") and the IME would slow this down a
-lot. Inputting something like "\\s" for "\$" isn't that cool and breaks many
-hotkeys.  
-
-If it were not for programming, I would actually switch to a pseudo-latin input
-where similar characters would be merged and the IME would tell them apart, e.g.
-I would put i, j and y on the same key "i" and let the IME decide which to use.
-This works all pretty well for normal text, but in virtually any programming
-language, most letters are used frequently and, as a group, more often than
-punctuation. Having different layouts for different contexts, however, only
-makes a big mess.
-
-Third, I improved the Mod4 level, making it easier to reach Tab and Escape, and
-arranged the cursor keys like in vim. I also replaced the duplicated keypad
-(seriously?!) with normal numbers and moved the 0 from Space to b.
-
-Finally, I moved the J, X and Y, and removed all those silly additional levels
-and German characters. If I had to start over, I'd choose something like
-Dvorak as a base. Nonetheless, the current arrangement is good enough. A few
-keys are redundant because they started out in a bad position, then moved to a
-better one and I saw no need to leave the old one empty. As you can see, the
-Mod3 level has still quite some open positions.
-
-![Mod3](saneo.png)
-
-You can grab it at [github]. *saneo* is my normal (xbd) layout, *neo.map* is a
-basic console version, *Euro.txt* is my user-table for scim to input any diacritic
-characters and the rest is mostly spam. ;)
-                    
-[github]: http://github.com/muflax/saneo
-[Neo 2]: http://neo-layout.org/