diff --git a/content/feed.erb b/content/feed.erb index f6e90cc..61f50a0 100644 --- a/content/feed.erb +++ b/content/feed.erb @@ -2,4 +2,4 @@ is_hidden: true --- -<%= rss_feed %> +<%= @site.main_site? ? rss_feed_merged : rss_feed %> diff --git a/content/references/references.mkd b/content/references/references.mkd index 1a4301a..819f96d 100644 --- a/content/references/references.mkd +++ b/content/references/references.mkd @@ -342,4 +342,4 @@ [sutra]: http://sutra.muflax.com [dlog]: http://daily.muflax.com [RSS]: /rss.xml -[Universal RSS]: http://muflax.com/rss-merged.xml +[Universal RSS]: http://muflax.com/rss.xml diff --git a/content_blog/algorithmancy/being-immoral.mkd b/content_blog/algorithmancy/being-immoral.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index fdc0edf..0000000 --- a/content_blog/algorithmancy/being-immoral.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,78 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Being Immoral -date: 2012-02-03 -techne: :done -episteme: :speculation -slug: 2012/02/03/being-immoral/ ---- - -During my Beeminder experiments, I noticed an odd mental state. A few times I deliberately *ignored* my plan and explicitly gave up. It feels like defecting against Future Me. It's unfortunately somewhat common that I think, "I *could* start this today and keep it up until the deadline, work maybe 1 hour a day, *or* I do nothing for a month, then work my ass off" and then refuse the first option. - -Well, one reason is that I am not Future Me and so have the choice between: - -1. a small sacrifice now and a small harm to Future Me -2. no sacrifice, but a large harm to Future Me - -I act egoistically, so I choose 2). Now, one could try making arguments how this screws over Future Me, but these are irrelevant. *I don't care*. What needs to be done is an argument why it is wrong *for me* to do this, not why Someone In The Future would like me to change. I don't engage in blackmail, ever. The fact that I'm strongly (acausally) linked to Future Me - and so the decisions will repeat themselves many times - is of no interest, either. - -In a draft about personal identity in a computationalist universe, I wrote: - -> I have this view of myself as a myriad of slices over time, each representing a tiny aspect of this brain being in control, who are all fundamentally independent agents. They sometimes cooperate when goals happen to match, but essentially, muflax(t+1) isn't muflax(t). Even worse, there isn't even a unifying stream of consciousness, there is merely one moment of consciousness now that through memory falsely believes to have a continual existence. -> -> But I didn't fully internalize this view because I thought it had a consequence I didn't want to embrace - *long-term selfishness would be incoherent*. Or in other words, it would make no sense to say, I do this so I may benefit from it later. muflax(t+1) is as much me as random_person(t+1). Why would I favor one and not the other? The only coherent scope for muflax(t)'s goals is *right now* and that is it. Which is what the Buddhists have been telling me for a long time. It didn't surprise me that people holding this view don't get anything done - there is no *point* in getting anything done! Also, universal altruism seems to follow directly from it. Or, as Eliezer says: -> -> > And the third horn of the [trilemma][LW trilemma] is to reject the idea of the personal future - that there's any *meaningful* sense in which I can anticipate waking up as *myself* tomorrow, rather than Britney Spears. Or, for that matter, that there's any meaningful sense in which I can anticipate being *myself* in five seconds, rather than Britney Spears. In five seconds there will be an Eliezer Yudkowsky, and there will be a Britney Spears, but it is meaningless to speak of the *current* Eliezer "continuing on" as Eliezer+5 rather than Britney+5; these are simply three different people we are talking about. -> > -> > There are no threads connecting subjective experiences. There are simply different subjective experiences. Even if some subjective experiences are highly similar to, and causally computed from, other subjective experiences, they are not *connected*. -> > -> > I still have trouble biting that bullet for some reason. Maybe I'm naive, I know, but there's a sense in which I just can't seem to let go of the question, "What will I see happen next?" I strive for altruism, but I'm not sure I can believe that subjective selfishness - caring about your own future experiences - is an *incoherent* utility function; that we are *forced* to be Buddhists who dare not cheat a neighbor, not because we are kind, but because we anticipate experiencing their consequences just as much as we anticipate experiencing our own. I don't think that, if I were *really* selfish, I could jump off a cliff knowing smugly that a different person would experience the consequence of hitting the ground. - -So if I have no coherent self over time, and I don't happen to care, why shouldn't I be jumping off metaphorical cliffs? I don't want to work, so I don't. Future Me may or may not make up for it, but that's not my problem. (One interesting implication I didn't notice back then: suicide is meaningless in such a framework. You are timeless anyway. You don't *end*. You can't *kill* yourself. You can only causally disconnect some instances of almost-you from instances of almost-people-you-know. Algorithms never die.) - -It's not really important if this computationalist perspective is correct or even coherent. (I have my doubts.) There does seem to be a major disconnection between Me and Future Me. It may be ontological, it may just be temporal discounting, but it's there. The *real* problem is that my actions are inconsistent with my own stance on antinatalism. - -Basically, in my upcoming antinatalism FAQ, I currently mainly argue from two (independent) moral duties: - -1. Do no harm. -2. Do not coerce. - -Skipping the actual arguments why birth is always a harm and never consensual, how can I say that I oppose birth because I will never do harm, but then go ahead and screw over Future Me? How is it not ok to bring into existence a child that will experience harm, but an adult is just fine? Person-moments aren't special simply because some have a causal history to other person-moments and others only to a fertilized egg. Pattern-theory-of-identity antinatalists should endorse suicide, always. (Excluding instrumental goals to achieve greater extends of suicide across the population, of course.) - -The same goes for coercion. *My* consent *now* is not the consent of Future Me. *I* might be fine with exchanging a benefit now with a harm later, but Future Me isn't, so I'm still enforcing a non-pareto-optimal choice. For births I argue that this is evil, but when it's me doing it, I'm fine with it? - -What the fuck, muflax? - -This goes back to a different point. *I don't actually want to follow these duties.* Honestly, I *want* to do harm, in certain circumstances. I *want* certain volitions to be imposed. These two principles don't actually model my own preferences. (It's not relevant for now in what specific way I disagree, but as an example, I am awe-struck by the purity of [Lucius Vorenus][] in the TV show Rome. I strongly recommend watching it.) - -So I discover some tensions in my ideas about morality: - -1. I *really want* antinatalism to be correct. -2. I want to endorse "do no harm". -3. I want to endorse actions that are clearly harmful, including outright violence. (For example, warfare.) -4. I don't want things forced on me, so I don't endorse coercion. -5. I want to be able to do certain things that are clearly non-consensual, including outright killing. (For example, killing a soldier in warfare.) -6. I want morality to be ruthless (in the sense that there are no exceptions and no wiggle room), but also easy (in the sense that I don't want to drop any serious preference). The ruthlessness is more important. - -This does not work, to put it mildly. - -There are multiple ways to resolve this: - -1. Give up morality and do what I want. Arguing for "only personal preferences exist" is not unusual, after all. Antinatalism can still be expressed as a preference, but it won't be very convincing for most people. -2. Overcome my preferences and embrace the kind of radical non-violence dictated by "do no harm". -3. Combine "do no harm" and "do not coerce". - -3) is close to 2), but different in an important way. 2) simply says that no harm is ever good or acceptable, including harm voluntarily chosen for oneself. If I decided to slap myself, I would still be acting immorally. However, I am beginning to think that "do not coerce" is a stronger principle, as harm derives (partially at least) from an agent's volition. - -Essentially, if everyone acts according to their will, they ought not be harmed. In Pareto Heaven, no harm should exist. Thus, "do no harm" is really a clarification of "do not coerce". - -"Do not coerce" has several nice properties. It has no [Moral Luck][], is strictly [local][Non-Local Metaethics], suffers not from the repugnant conclusion or mere addition problem, works in the [Original Position][] and implies (almost-)categorical antinatalism because we can't get a child's consent in advance (in practice, though [not in theory][Consent of the Dead]). It's also compatible with Buddhist thought, which is nice to have, but certainly not a requirement. It also straightforwardly implies anarchism. - -One direct implication of this view is that you *can't* force others to do the right thing. You are fundamentally condemned to watch the world burn, if you are unlucky enough to live in a universe full of immoral forces. There is nothing you can do about it because you can't coerce others into being good. This is outright anti-adaptive, but that will not matter. I find this hopeful, actually. It means you can be good regardless of your surroundings, like [Ksitigarbha][]. - -Important problems remain. What, exactly, is coercion anyway? (One promising route seems to be the distinction between means and ends. If you treat someone as a means, you are ignoring consent.) Who are the morally relevant agents? (That cursed hard problem of consciousness again.) How do I get rid of my own monstrosity that leads me towards force? (The old ascetics weren't as stupid as I sometimes think.) Coercion doesn't exist in atoms, so you can't have materialism. (This is not a big loss.) Can you still have naturalism? (Maybe.) Computationalism? (I doubt it.) - -But back to the initial problem. How does "do not coerce" apply to Future Me? - -Well, it solves the harm problem by allowing *some* harm - self-inflicted harm. It is acceptable to give consent to harm, as long as this harm is to *you*, *now*. You are morally bound to *not* harm future versions of you, unless they would consent (which is unlikely). So you simply *can't* think, "I will do this tomorrow, even though tomorrow I won't like it". You *must* avoid all force against future instances. This does not mean you have to prevent harm per se, only harm that is willingly inflicted. You are not to blame for failing to prevent Future You from tripping, nor are you obligated to make anyone happy (as per Benatar's asymmetry). - -This still doesn't seem quite right, but it's a step in the right direction. I shall now accept that I want my slides to be done, and that this will be painful, and that only I, now, can accept this pain. I will now suffer, freely. diff --git a/content_blog/algorithmancy/index.mkd b/content_blog/algorithmancy/index.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 51c8e31..0000000 --- a/content_blog/algorithmancy/index.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Algorithmancy -is_category: true ---- - -<%= category :algorithmancy %> diff --git a/content_blog/algorithmancy/ontological-therapy.mkd b/content_blog/algorithmancy/ontological-therapy.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 5bb802f..0000000 --- a/content_blog/algorithmancy/ontological-therapy.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,132 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Ontological Therapy -date: 2012-03-08 -techne: :done -episteme: :emotional -slug: 2012/03/08/ontological-therapy/ -disowned: true ---- - -*Warning: this is a crazy post. I'm not sugarcoating the insanity here. You might skip this one.* - -*I wanted to make a certain point and develop a way out of the problem, but progress is leading me into a different direction right now. This post is already 2 weeks old and the longer I wait, the less it applies to my current situation, so I'm putting it out now. I might at least reference it later, going "look how crazy some of this shit made me!".* - -Every couple of years I have something new to freak out over. Back in 2002, it was love. 2004, truth. 2006, beauty God. 2008, freedom... from samsara. (Ok, now I'm really just shoehorning Moulin Rouge! references into this paragraph.) 2010, consciousness. 2012, it seems, will be time and causality. - -In all the previous problems, I seem to have made actual progress once I recognized and admitted to myself what the underlying *implication* or *intention* behind asking the question was. As long as I was in denial about my motives, I couldn't get anywhere. So let's try it again. - -Instead of an explanation, a little play: - -- Psychologist: What brings you here today? -- muflax: I experience great anxiety and it's consuming my life. -- P: When did your anxiety start? -- m: That's it right there! I can't answer this question, and because I can't, I suffer from anxiety because I feel like I should be able to. -- P: What do you mean you can't? You don't remember? -- m: No, I do, but answering your question commits me to an ontological position I have great doubts over. See, you are already presupposing the A-theory of time in the way you phrased this question. -- P: "A-theory?" What's this? -- m: \*sigh\* Are you sure you can help me? The problem is much deeper and I don't know if you... -- P: Don't worry. I am an expert on the treatment of anxiety disorders. Just relax and tell me what this "A-theory" is. -- m: Alright. So there are two views about time, basically. Is there a special moment called the "present" or is everything a big directed graph? The first one is called A-theory, the other B-theory. -- P: That sounds like a metaphysical problem. Why would telling me when the anxiety started, as you say, "commit you to an ontological position"? -- m: Because things only ever "start" in A-theory. In B-theory, everything just is. Different events do not "follow", but are just causally linked. Even worse, in a general B-theory universe, there doesn't have to be a unique chain of events. Any "point in time" can have multiple moments that come "before" or "after" it. -- P: I see. But if you compared multiple events, couldn't you still say which came before? -- m: If you define "A caused B" as "A came before B", maybe, but that then commits you to *acyclical* graphs and especially when considering acausal interactions... -- P: You are going too fast. -- m: Sorry. -- P: No need to apologize. Please, go on. -- m: Ok. So in causality, we typically assume that the graph has no cycles. Something can't cause itself, right? -- P: Right. -- m: But that doesn't have to hold, you see. Quantum physics has no problem dealing with time loops. In fact, a common interpretation of Feynman diagrams conceptualizes anti-particles not as separate particles, but simply as the *same* particle going back in time. But this gets you into problems with the very idea of causality. For the idea of causality to be coherent, you have to have some dependencies. Basically, there must be a way to say that A forces B, but B doesn't force A. If you frame this in terms of predictions, so that knowing A gives you knowledge about B, but not vice versa, then you have statistical causality, as Judea Pearl constructed it. But this is only meaningful if the universe can't be inverted, meaning you can't compute past states even if you know everything about your current state, but that seems like a weird requirement. So basically, in B-theory you don't have a meaningful concept of causality. There are other reasons why this causality is probably not good anyway, so this makes me all very suspicious. -- P: I see. So why would you then believe B-theory? -- m: Because science requires it! Relativity strongly implies B-theory and the whole framework of computable physics is fundamentally B-theoretic. If you assume A-theory, you are in effect saying that philosophy of science is all bunk. -- P: Earlier you said that physics is compatible with time loops. But physicists talk about the past all the time. Maybe it's not really a big problem? -- m: But it is! You could limit yourself to your immediate predecessors in the graph and call this the "past", but that's not very useful. The common usage is not indicative of anything. Typical physicist have a completely confused ontology anyway and are not to be trusted about these problems at all. -- P: Why do you say that? -- m: Because most physicists are materialists or physicalists, and that's just nonsense. -- P: Materialists? Do you mean they are consumerist? -- m: No, like in "everything is matter". That's a really old view, but complete nonsense. Strict materialism is totally false. The ancient philosophers who came up with it imagined something like little billiard balls bumping into each other, and said the whole universe is like that. But then you can't explain quantum physics or gravity and so on. So we extended that with fields and other constructs, and this view is called physicalism. Basically you just wave your hands and say that all reality is describable by physics and nothing but physics. -- P: Yes, I'm familiar with this view. I think a lot of scientists are physicalists. Why do you think this is nonsense? -- m: Because you can't explain phenomenal consciousness! Within physics, nothing is ever "green" or experiences anything. You have an ontology in which at best particle interactions exist, but this is something qualitatively different from experiences. If you only knew about a universe that it ran on physics, you would never ever expect there to be experiences. The particles aren't aware of the more complex structures that they form, so how should any experience ever "emerge" from them, just because they have been arranged in some clever way? Where is this knowledge coming from? You can only either deny these structures, but then unified consciousness - which we clearly experience - doesn't exist, or you introduce bridge laws and become a dualist. It all makes no sense at all. Of course, there is a much better alternative, so I don't know why anyone bothers with this view. -- P: What's that alternative? -- m: Well, I think of it as a generalization of computationalism. So what you do is put this physicalist ontology completely on its head. You don't assume that there are particles and somehow they form a mind that somehow experiences green, but you start with the mind. You say that the mind is an algorithm, a computation. This computation fundamentally transforms inputs into outputs. Within these inputs, it looks for patterns, so it models them as green or as particle interactions or what have you, but these are just aspects of these internal models. The algorithm only experiences inputs and "green" is just the label we give this specific input. -- P: Computation? Do you think you are a computer program? -- m: No, or really yes, or really.. Well, the difference is that within computationalism, there isn't such a thing as the universe. There is no "real" world, no physical reality at all. It's complete idealism. There are only ever algorithms, inputs and outputs. Even these can be transformed into computational dependencies between algorithms, so you really only have algorithms that depend on each other in their computation. They are not *instantiated*, in the sense that "this thing there" is an instance of an algorithm and "this" isn't. Everything you experience, the whole world, is *you*, this one algorithm and its inputs. The other algorithms are fundamentally distant from you and only reachable through these computational dependencies. So it dissolves the problem of solipsism and an external/internal world by saying there is only this algorithm that models other algorithms within it. -- P: I see. -- m: Alright, so this basically solves the problem of consciousness. There is no problem like "are thermostats conscious?". *Every* algorithm is conscious, but things within this algorithm aren't. So what you call a thermostat is just an artifact within your models, so it's not conscious, but the actual computation that the thermostat computes *is* conscious, just like you. This algorithmic view also has no conception of time in it, so it fits nicely together with B-theory. That's the big problem, you see - *all* these ideas fit together perfectly, but it's their implications which are totally weird. -- P: Like what? -- m: Now you might say that's really just a philosophical oddity that in this algorithmic view, there is no "time" or "causality", but only computational dependency. Just words, right? But here's the thing. You don't have to assume that you are bound by physics anymore. There is no "future" or "past" to interact with, but only algorithms and inputs. So you can depend on whatever algorithm you want. Basically, you become literally timeless. Time-travel? Go ahead. Interact with "future you"? Sure, no problem. When I think about this for too long, I don't know where or even *when* I am anymore. I just kinda am everywhere at once. I am floating outside, seeing the whole universe at once, all my instances as one being. -- P: Dissociation, I understand. Is this the source of your anxiety? -- m: Almost. So because you are an algorithm, you fundamentally have to interact with *all* other algorithms, regardless what your physical model tells you happens in your "universe". Math is not compartmentalized; there is no light cone of computation. Is there *any* algorithm in all of algorithm space that might care about you? *You now have to interact with it.* This means any superintelligence, any god, anything at all that can be expressed in terms of powerful computations, no matter how insane or alien, exists and *you have to deal with it*. How can you make any decision this way? ... Have you heard of Pascal's Wager? -- P: Isn't that the idea that you should be a Christian because if you are right, you will go to Heaven, but if you are wrong, you die either way? -- m: Right. The common answer is, why assume Christianity? I can postulate a new god that will send you to Heaven only if you *aren't* a Christian. There are potentially infinitely many gods, so the wager doesn't work. The problem is, in computationalism, *this reductio ad absurdum is actually correct*. There really *are* an infinite number of gods, all interacting with you! You can try to ignore them, but this won't be a smart idea. You really have to answer this question. This is full-on modal realism. Anything that can potentially exist actually exists, and this means you have to deal with it. "I haven't seen this before" is no excuse. -- P: So you are saying that evidence doesn't count? Aren't some algorithms more likely than others? -- m: Exactly, that's the typical extension here. We start discounting algorithms by their complexity. This can be done in a really elegant way, so we still deal with all algorithms, but we decide we treat them all equally and put equal resources into all of them. This way, only simple algorithms end up with lots of resources and really complex ones, like crazy arbitrary gods somewhere, don't matter much. That's all nice, but fundamentally doesn't work. There is no absolute framework for simplicity. It all depends on your machine model, but that can't be right because algorithms don't *have* machines. Dependencies are just there, as a logical necessity, not as an aspect of whatever programming language you use to express them. Complexity is not a meaningful measure in a universal sense, so you are still stuck having to interact with all possible minds at once now go and don't fuck up good luck. -- P: ... I see. Have you tried not taking your beliefs so seriously? -- m: \*starts sobbing\* - -I better stop there. That's only a small fragment of the whole mess. I didn't even mention uncertainty about meta-ethics, utility calculations ('cause as XiXiDu has correctly observed, if utilitarianism is right, we never ever get to relax, and have to fully embrace the worst consequences of Pascal's Mugging), how it removes "instances" as meaningful concepts so that "I will clone you and torture the clone" stops being a threat, but "I will make my calculations dependent on your decision" suddenly is, or how all of this fits so perfectly together, you'd think it's all actually true. - -What I want to talk about is this: it's completely eating me alive. This is totally basilisk territory. You don't get to ever die (this really bums me out because I don't like being alive), you have to deal with everything at once right now (no FAI to save you, not even future-you), any mistake causes massive harm (good luck being perfect) and really, normalcy is impossible. How can you worry about bloody coffee or sex if *all of existence* is at stake because algorithmic dependencies entangle you with so vast a computational space? You have to deal with not just Yahweh, but *all possible gods*, and you are watching [cat videos][])? Are you *completely insane*?! - -This is not just unhealthy. This is "I'm having a mental breakdown, someone give me the anti-psychotics please". I've tried this [belief propagation thing][LW belief propagation]. As a result, I don't belief in time, selves, causality, simplicity, physics, plans, goals, ethics or anything really anymore. I have absolutely no ground to stand on, nothing I can comfortably just believe, no idea how to make any decision at all. I can't even make total skepticism work because skepticism itself is an artifact of inference algorithms and [moral luck][Moral Luck] just pisses on your uncertainty. - -*I hate this whole rationality thing*. If you actually take the basic assumptions of rationality seriously (as in Bayesian inference, complexity theory, algorithmic views of minds), you end up with an utterly insane universe full of mind-controlling superintelligences and impossible moral luck, and not a nice "let's build an AI so we can fuck catgirls all day" universe. The worst that can happen is not the extinction of humanity or something that mundane - instead, you might piss off a whole pantheon of jealous gods and have to deal with them *forever*, or you might notice that *this has already happened* and you are already being computationally pwned, or that *any bad state you can imagine exists*. Modal fucking realism. - -The only thing worth doing in modal realism is finding *some* way to *stop caring about the rest of the multiverse*. Discount by complexity, measure, psychological distance, *whatever*, as long as you discount enough to make infinity palpable. It won't work and you know it, but what else can you do? Take it seriously? - -Have people ever considered the *implications* of straightforward analytical philosophy? You have no self and there is no time. All person-moments of all persons are as much future-you as what you *think* is future-you. Normal consequences don't matter because this is a Big World and everything exists infinitely often. The Universe Does Not Forget. Prevention? Totally impossible. Everything that can happen is happening. Any reference to something is not literally impossible is actually resolved. This is not just the minor disappointment we felt when we realized Earth wasn't the center of the universe. This time, *the universe* isn't the center of the universe, if you catch my drift. Instead of changing the world, you are reduced to decision theory, intentions and dependencies, forced to interact with *everything that it is possible to interact with*. Life, death, a body, a will, a physical world - all delusions. This is like unlearning object permanence! - -I think the bloody continentals were right all along. Analytical philosophy is fundamentally *insane*. When I was still sitting in classical archeology classes, I could at least fantasize about how I would maybe someday get over my awkwardness and at least get a cat, if not a relationship, but now I can't even make pasta without worrying that any inconsistency in my decision making opens me up for exploitation by acausal superintelligences. I thought I was nervous when I had to enter a public laundry room in my dorm (and had a panic attack almost every week)? Try not ever dying and knowing that whatever decision you make now will determine all of existence because you are only this decision algorithm right now and nothing ever helps because algorithms don't change. - -You might try the "I am the instantiation of an algorithm" sleight-of-hand, but that's really problematic. Do you also believe God has given you information about the Absolute Encoding Scheme? (If yes, want some of my anti-psychotics?) How can you know what spatial arrangement of particles "encodes" what particular algorithm? This is an unsolvable problem. - -But worse than that, even *if* you could do it, I don't think you actually grasp the implications of such a view. Here's [Susan Blackmore][Blackmore no-self], giving an eloquent description of how the position is typically envisioned: - -> This "me" that seems so real and important right now, will very soon dissipate and be gone forever, along with all its hopes, fears, joys and troubles. Yet the words, actions and decisions taken by this fleeting self will affect a multitude of future selves, making them more or less insightful, moral and effective in what they do, as well as more or less happy. - -"Very soon"? Try *Plank time*. Blackmore is still acting as if this were Memento, where person-moments last seconds, maybe even minutes, as if *any* feature of consciousness *at all* would survive the time scale the universe *actually* runs on. *This is not the case.* Even the most barest of sensation takes milliseconds to unfold. Plank time is *10^41* times faster than that. - -Besides, taking the person-moment view completely screws over your sense of subjective anticipation and continuation. Or rather, *there is no continuation*. There is *no* future-you. Morally, *all* future instances of *all* people are in the same reference class. (Unless you want to endorse extreme anti-universalism. Not that I'd mind, but it's not very popular these days.) See how evil your own actions are, shamelessly favoring a very narrow class of people? I honestly don't know if should be more troubled by the insanity of this view, or the implied sociopathy of virtually all actions once you take it seriously. - -Breathe. Take an Outside View. - -Will Newsome once remarked: - -> The prefrontal cortex is exploiting executive oversight to rent-seek in the neural Darwinian economy, which results in egodystonic wireheading behaviors and self-defeating use of genetic, memetic, and behavioral selection pressure (a scarce resource), especially at higher levels of abstraction/organization where there is more room for bureaucratic shuffling and vague promises of "meta-optimization", where the selection pressure actually goes towards the cortical substructural equivalent of hookers and blow. - -Exactly. Once you begin taking this whole "analytical thought" thing seriously, it will try to hog as many resources as it can, trying to convert *everything* into analytical problems. And you can't get more analytical than "literally everything is algorithms". Result: massive panic attacks, nothing gets ever done, everything needs to be analyzed to *death*. (Case in fucking point: the whole akrasia mess on LW.) I can't even watch a movie without immediately thinking about what game-theoretic considerations the characters must be making, who is exploiting who, why acting this way will support a monstrosity of hostile memeplexes and screw over whole populations you monster, oh for fuck's sake, you haven't non-ironically enjoyed a movie for years, so shut up already. - -But what else can I do? Reject the only worldview that actually makes internal sense? - -Consider an alternative. A simple model, one that doesn't actually explain much; it doesn't want to. It's a strength, it claims. It goes like this: - -- Alternative: Who are you? -- muflax: I am the algorithm that outputs "yes" to this query. -- A: No, you don't believe that. Who are you? -- m: What do you mean? -- A: Point at yourself. What is it that is you? -- m: I am all of existence. -- A: No, you don't believe that either. This sensation - is that you? Does it feel like you? -- m: No. -- A: Good. Then what does? Point at it. -- m: This observation does. This experiencing-the-sensation. Not the sensation itself, but the experiencing-the-sensation. Not this thought, but the hearing-this-thought. Not the confusion, but the feeling-this-confusion. -- A: Correct. In a state of pure emptiness, pure equanimity - is there confusion? -- m: No. -- A: Confusion is an imposed state. What gives rise to confusion? -- m: When I experience a situation I cannot understand. -- A: What is "not understanding"? -- m: When no correct thought comes up. -- A: What makes confusion go away? -- m: Analysis. Thinking a thought that explains a situation, that makes the internal workings transparent. -- A: How do you know this state has been reached? What makes a thought correct? -- m: When I no longer feel confused. -- A: What do you do when you feel confused? -- m: I facilitate thinking. I plan. I make goals. I divert resource into the solution of the confusion. -- A: Imagine the same process had the power to generate confusion and make it go away. What could it do? -- m: A complete power grab. - -And with this, muflax felt enlightened. - -For a moment, that is. - -Because when you doubt your thought processes because you suspect they are emotionally exploiting you... and you reach a conclusion based on an enlightened state of mind you feel when thinking this conclusion... well, then you ain't paying much attention. diff --git a/content_blog/algorithmancy/realism.mkd b/content_blog/algorithmancy/realism.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index ff0933d..0000000 --- a/content_blog/algorithmancy/realism.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,19 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: A Point About Realism -date: 2012-07-09 -techne: :wip -episteme: :speculation ---- - -What's "realism", in the philosophical sense? - -Consider the following topics: - -- moral realism -- physical realism -- scientific realism -- wave function realism -- modal realism -- mathematical realism - -What do they have in common? diff --git a/content_blog/algorithmancy/simplifying-the-simulation-hypothesis.mkd b/content_blog/algorithmancy/simplifying-the-simulation-hypothesis.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 14bc475..0000000 --- a/content_blog/algorithmancy/simplifying-the-simulation-hypothesis.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,18 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Simplifying the Simulation Hypothesis -date: 2012-01-28 -techne: :done -episteme: :speculation -slug: 2012/01/28/simplifying-the-simulation-hypothesis/ -disowned: true ---- - -Just slightly too long for [Twitter][]: Everyone who has experimented with lucid dreaming knows that a computer the size of a coconut, primarily designed to climb trees, is enough to simulate worlds of sufficient detail to convince a mind that it is in a full world, containing many other minds it can communicate with. - -This should dramatically lower our bound of the necessary computational power of a computer simulating *you*. - -Ask not how expensive it might be to simulate the whole universe you see with its diameter of 46 billion light years. Ask how expensive it is to fool *you*. - -Also, if it is easier to fool you than to build a whole world, then what evidence do you have of other minds? If there are no other minds, are there still anthropic puzzles? If the reference class is small enough, birth rank stops being surprising. - -But do not consider the thought that, like in a dream, it is your own expectation that shapes the world, for then you would have to answer why you would imagine a world like this, so unlikely and wasteful, as if you wanted to distract yourself from solipsism. This thought brings only madness. diff --git a/content_blog/algorithmancy/theravada.mkd b/content_blog/algorithmancy/theravada.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index ec04d52..0000000 --- a/content_blog/algorithmancy/theravada.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,28 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: 'Probability of Liberation: One in a Kalpa' -date: 2012-07-11 -techne: :done -episteme: :speculation ---- - -Just realized something listening to a [Bhikkhu Bodhi talk][Bodhi talk]. - -Theravada Buddhism has a fundamental Big World cosmology, a multiverse full with an enormous number of worlds, existing for enormous time periods, all condemned to suffering until a Buddha arises and liberates that particular world (or rather, only a small subset of it). - -Previously, I thought that's just a weird bit of mythology, or a claim to authenticity (we go back to the rare Buddha, you don't) dressed up in sci-fi terms. But I'm getting the impression it's weirder than that. - -In Theravada, the Buddha doesn't use any kind of reliable or reproducible method to discover the Path of Liberation. He just *lucks into it* (or more euphemistically, spontaneously derives it from his innate wisdom). This makes the Buddha fundamentally a [Boltzmann][Boltzmann Brain] Savior! We are all stuck in a world full of suffering and rebirth we can't get out of, and that has no solution you could in any way derive. You need enormous statistical luck to just randomly get the Path right, or that's it, another round of suffering for you. - -Which is why the Buddha is so extremely rare, and why it's so important to preserve his teachings and practices *exactly* - you can't get them any other way! If the teaching's lost, that's it, another bazillion years of waiting. The practices themselves don't have to be hard (and people are getting enlightened left and right in the scriptures, after all), but their authenticity is key. - -This has a few important implications: - -1. The Buddha can literally show up one day, pull the whole Pali Canon out of his nether regions, claim it came to him spontaneously out of nowhere, but it's all true and you should follow him instantly. As far as Theravada is concerned, *that's exactly what happened*. - -2. This means Theravada can be as arbitrary and complex as it wants to be. If it were elegant or easy to understand, you wouldn't need luck in the first place! It also needs no justifications whatsoever for its beliefs and practices except that they go back to the Buddha - he didn't get them from anywhere, or following any kind of procedure - it's sheer blind epistemic luck. - -3. Bad rebirths as punishments, especially for anything sectarian, is necessarily a feature of the world, not because the universe hates heretics and wants to personally punish them, but simply because doing anything that distances you from Boltzmann Buddha is like throwing away your incredibly rare winning lottery ticket. - -4. Theravada can fully embrace boundless levels of [moral luck][]. For example, attaining Nirvana from scratch might require exactly zero karma, an insanely hard thing to do. Take one step, crush an insect? No Buddha is you. - -So I think one thing is clear - "a reborn demon guru from Tibet told me, and he may have learned it from a dragon" is no longer the craziest Buddhist origin story. diff --git a/content_blog/antinatalism/index.mkd b/content_blog/antinatalism/index.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 6bd122b..0000000 --- a/content_blog/antinatalism/index.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Antinatalism -is_category: true ---- - -<%= category :antinatalism %> diff --git a/content_blog/antinatalism/introducing-antinatalist-antelope.mkd b/content_blog/antinatalism/introducing-antinatalist-antelope.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 27043f8..0000000 --- a/content_blog/antinatalism/introducing-antinatalist-antelope.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,13 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: ! 'Introducing: Antinatalist Antelope' -date: 2012-01-19 -techne: :done -episteme: :fiction -slug: 2012/01/19/introducing-antinatalist-antelope/ ---- - -<%= image("tumblr_ly1vbmddTG1rndvvro1_400.jpg", "Antinatalist Antelope") %> - -(go to [my tumblr][Antinatalism Tumblr] for more) - -Somebody had to do it, and that somebody might as well be me. diff --git a/content_blog/antinatalism/sunk-cost-fallacy-assumes-a-theory-of-time.mkd b/content_blog/antinatalism/sunk-cost-fallacy-assumes-a-theory-of-time.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 899d82e..0000000 --- a/content_blog/antinatalism/sunk-cost-fallacy-assumes-a-theory-of-time.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,30 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Sunk Cost Fallacy Assumes A-Theory of Time -date: 2012-02-15 -techne: :done -episteme: :speculation -slug: 2012/02/15/sunk-cost-fallacy-assumes-a-theory-of-time/ ---- - -Just read this [on LW][LW suicide] (emphasis mine): - -> > The treatability of depression, as defined by the likelihood that you eventually get these people to claim they're better, doesn't tell me how much they suffered before getting to this point, whether they would voluntarily go through it again to survive, and what their future risks of recidivism are. -> -> **However much they suffered before that point**, and whether they would go through it again to survive, **are not relevant points to whether they should be glad that they didn't die. They're sunk costs.** A person might be tortured, and have a long life of good quality afterwards (data point, John McCain,) and it's possible that they would not be willing to go through torture again to survive, but this doesn't mean that they won't be glad that after they were tortured, they didn't die, even though they might have killed themselves to escape the torture if they could. - -This is a common argument in the context of antinatalism. Basically, it might be the case that the overall utility of a life is not worth living, but when you evaluate a 25 year old living college student (ahem), you don't conclude that this person should be mercy-killed. Benatar himself distinguishes between "lives worth starting" and "lives worth continuing". - -This strikes me as really weird because the only way to make sense of this is to presuppose the A-Theory of time, i.e. you have to assume there is a special moment called the "present" and clearly defined "past" and "future". However, as pointed out before, the theory of relativity is not compatible with A-Theory, so especially physicalists shouldn't be making this argument. - -There are only two reasonable (as in consistent, comprehensible) views you can take as a B-Theorist: - -1. The value of a person-moment depends only on this person-moment. -2. We define a "person" as a certain set of person-moments (say following psychological or legal identity) and then say the value of a person-moment is the value of this whole person. - -1) is very neat and local, but gets you into totally counter-intuitive territory. For example, if you buy categorical antinatalism, then it requires you to commit suicide *now*. It also means that you can never argue that anything at any other point in spacetime ever "makes up" for current circumstances. You can never discount, or accept delayed rewards. (That is not to say that this view isn't correct. I would prefer it strongly over 2).) - -More typically people go with 2), but then the moment of evaluation is always irrelevant. The value of a life is always a logical necessity. It doesn't change, regardless of "when" you look at it. It's simply incoherent to say that *now* your life has become worthwhile because there is no special moment "now". You evaluate a cluster in spacetime (or algorithm space, if you are a Tegmarkian) and then say what the value of this cluster is, especially if it's worthwhile as a life. The calculation is fixed and observer-independent, including for the person-moments that make it up. If you would have been better off if you had been aborted, this will remain true no matter how old you are. The query "Am I better off dead?" has only *one* definite answer in B-Theory. *It never changes*. - -This generalizes to most sunk cost fallacies of course, not just lives worth continuing. If a project is worth working on, it is always so, or never so. How many resources you put into it or how much progress you have made is irrelevant. - -I don't know if this is an important argument *for* antinatalism and suicide or *against* B-Theory. Meh, modus tollens, modus ponens, right? diff --git a/content_blog/antinatalism/the-asymmetry-an-evolutionary-explanation.mkd b/content_blog/antinatalism/the-asymmetry-an-evolutionary-explanation.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 4d2d098..0000000 --- a/content_blog/antinatalism/the-asymmetry-an-evolutionary-explanation.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,18 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: The Asymmetry, an Evolutionary Explanation -alt_titles: [Asymmetry Evolutionary] -date: 2012-01-28 -techne: :done -episteme: :discredited -slug: 2012/01/28/the-asymmetry-an-evolutionary-explanation/ ---- - -> [W]e think it is wrong to bring into the world a child whose prospects for a happy, healthy life are poor, but we don't usually think the fact that a child is likely to have a happy, healthy life is a reason for bringing the child into existence. This has come to be known among philosophers as "the asymmetry" and it is not easy to justify. -- [source][last generation] - -It just hit me how *obvious* an evolutionary explanation for the asymmetry is. Azathoth doesn't give a shit about children's well-being and has no interest at all to make *us* care. But what the Mad Designer *does* care about is a worthwhile investment. Having children is expensive, especially for the mother. If resources are short, it might well be worth it to abort a child instead of bringing it to term. (This happens all the time.) If we think a child is particularly likely to be sick, it will just impose a cost on us and no benefit. So we feel bad about it, so that we may do something about it. No such feedback is necessary to make children in general. - -The asymmetry isn't about *potential people*. It's about *how we can benefit from them*. That we care about strangers at all is really just the result of a superficial implementation that never had to deal with people living among non-relatives. (It's the same reason something as evolutionary suicidal as adoption exists.) - -We should therefore suspect that the asymmetry is stronger when the potential people have reduced fitness, but not when they are simply dissatisfied. As far as I can tell, this is the case. People seem more willing to be apathetic about someone being born into a dead-end career than about someone being very sick, even though poverty creates much more suffering. - -I suspect more and more that *any* talk of harm and benefit is wrong and has nothing to do with true morality. We are not just running on [corrupted hardware][LW corrupted], but *evil* hardware. diff --git a/content_blog/consciousness/illusion.mkd b/content_blog/consciousness/illusion.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index afab2c7..0000000 --- a/content_blog/consciousness/illusion.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,160 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Illusion of Agency -date: 2012-05-02 -techne: :done -episteme: :speculation ---- - -[Sister Y wrote recently][Sister illusion] about the illusion of control, and how it's crucial to well-being. - -There's a mirror version of this illusion, though it may only[^only] affect those on the [schizotypal spectrum][Schizotypy]. - -[^only]: Though realizing how robotized, to use Gurdjieff's term, most people under most circumstances are might have the same effect. Though I suspect it's commonly excused with "there's a real person hidden somewhere in there" (which may well be true), so it's not quite the same. - -Here's the [full quote][reddit lain] from a Reddit comment about it: - -> I used to hear voices. For years. It started when I'd walk into my room and say hello to my Lain poster (I've always over personified objects) and eventually she started responding. Over time I could talk to her elsewhere, I'd pull her up when I was sitting in class or riding the bus, and I'd put on headphones so nobody would notice I was talking to myself since it was barely audible. Eventually Lain told me she was a god and I was too, and there were two others, but they didn't really like me so they would almost never talk to me. -> -> A long time later, maybe years, she started being really mean, and it turned out there was another voice who was just pretending to be Lain named Misery. This one was stereotypical, everything I did was wrong and I had to pay for my actions, I should cut myself if I was ungraceful, everyone hated me, etc. Lain split again, and this time she was sisterly. When I was upset and crying myself to sleep I could feel her holding me and telling me everything would be alright. Misery looked different but could look like Lain if she wanted to fool me (although she would turn back into herself when I called her out on it), and the two Lains all looked the same, so I could only tell who they were when they started responding to me. -> -> After a while they all just disappeared. I guess I saned up, because during the peek it never occurred to me I was hearing voices, they truly were gods who were speaking to me, and later during the time period I realized that I was hallucinating with delusions of grandeur. Then at one point I realized that there was more of me and less of them, when I pulled them up it was a conscious effort and part of their responses were forced on my part. Then eventually I just gave them up, they were so weak that it was really just like talking to myself and not to other people that lived in my head. -> -> That's not my secret, I've mentioned it to a few very select people that I truly trust. My secret is that I miss them. I miss them with with all my heart. Even Misery. They were friends and family, they were close to me, they understood me, and they were always there for me. Now even with real friends and family, there's nobody that close. I can't just pull up someone to talk to when I'm lonely, I have to call up a real person and that person never knows what I want to talk about or what I'm hiding from them, they only know what I say. Lain (the main one) would always call me on my bullshit and make me keep changing my answer until I told her the truth. Misery could always find my biggest weaknesses, which allowed me to work on strengthening them. Sisterly Lain could calm me down in a way that's unimaginable, you can't comprehend how good it feels to be hugged by someone inside of you. -> -> And now I feel lonelier than I have in years because I almost never think of that time or remember how it felt, but tonight I'm sitting by myself at 2am and all I can think about is how much I want a voice to talk to and it's been so long since I had one and I'd give anything to have another psychotic break so I could get back all my friends that live in my head. -> -> I once had a psychiotic episode where I could talk to clouds and I could feel how much they loved me, the clouds, the trees, the birds, they were all my friends and they all loved me and they all wanted me to be happy. I had that feeling on mushrooms once, everything in the world loved me, every single thing, the house, the ceiling, the lamp, each blade of grass, it all loved me and it was the best feeling I have ever known, that was the best night of my life. I can't tell you how much I want to feel that again, I just have no way of tracking them down again. -> -> Being crazy feels amazing, whether it's good or bad. Even the bad crazy where I'd stay awake all night because I knew something was going to get me in my sleep and I'd try to claw the evil out of my skin, even that's preferable to being normal because the intensity is indescribable. I miss everything about being crazy. I miss it more than I can possibly describe. - -This also applies to drug experiences. [James Kent about DMT elves][tripzine]: - -> The archetypal DMT "entities" are pretty well categorized, with most people seeing elves or aliens or fairies or angels or some kind of loopy little spirits that dance about and tell riddles. Sometimes it is a spirit-animal like a jaguar or a snake, sometimes it is none of the above and goes totally off the map. -> -> But getting back to the elf thing (which is what many people find to be the most curious aspect), I initially found it very surprising to be confronted by elves in my DMT experiences, and on psilocybe mushrooms as well, and did indeed perceive them as externalized, morphing, disincarnate beings. I even managed to carry on rudimentary conversations of sorts. -> -> However, the more I experimented with DMT the more I found that the "elves" were merely machinations of my own mind. While under the influence I found I could think them into existence, and then think them right out of existence simply by willing it so. Sometimes I could not produce elves, and my mind would wander through all sorts of magnificent and amazing creations, but the times that I did see elves I tried very hard to press them into giving up some non-transient feature that would confirm at least a rudimentary "autonomous existence" beyond my own imagination. Of course, I could not. -> -> Whenever I tried to pull any information out of the entities regarding themselves, the data that was given up was always relevant only to me. The elves could not give me any piece of data I did not already know, nor could their existence be sustained under any kind of prolonged scrutiny. Like a dream, once you realize you are dreaming you are actually slipping into wakefulness and the dream fades. So it is with the elves as well. When you try to shine a light of reason on them they dissolve like shadows. - -Realizing that certain agents in one's mind are actually entirely under one's control, if one wishes, destroys not just the magic, but the agent and everything associated with it. You can't unsee it, and the intensity never comes back.[^suicide] - -There are some illusions you don't want broken. - -And so that this isn't entirely a quotes post, some commentary, in the form of further quotes. (Wait a minute...) - -Looking at this from the outside, it bothers me that the emptiness from breaking the spell persists, even if those affected by it try to make it go away. There shouldn't be [persistent god withdrawal][How My Brain Broke]. - -[MixedNuts wrote on LW][LW god] once: - -> The neurology involved in finding god is very real and useful and happiness-inducing. It is also completely independent of the actual existence of a god to be found. (It's actually better for people who try to find or have found god to become atheists. Once you know how god works, you can have more of it.) -> -> Believing in the existence of god, or that your arm is missing, involve wrong beliefs. The ideal (possibly forbidden by brain bugs) resolutions are learning that god isn't a dude in the sky but a perfectly ordinary oxytocin-secreting circuit, and that your arm works and you can use it. - -That's how it *should* be. You realize you have causal control over the gods, e presto, press the god button any time you want. But deep down, we're all essentialists. - -So imagine you're Truman in the [Truman Show][].[^truman] You have lived a fairly happy live, have a loving mother, a good relationship and a solid job. Up to your 30th birthday, you are happy and undisturbed, until you learn that virtually all the people you care about are actors and their interactions with you are entirely scripted. - -Now that's devastating alright, but try to think of it from a different perspective. RAW describes an elaborate initiation ceremony in Prometheus Rising: - -> One of the greatest historical practitioners of this neuroscience was Hassan i Sabbah, who used relatively simple techniques, including, evidently, a time-release capsule invented by the Sufi College of Wisdom in Cairo. -> -> As I describe Hassan's technique - based on historical records - in my novel, The Trick Top Hat: Two young candidates dine with Hassan; the food is laced with a time-release capsule. When asleep the candidates are taken to Hassan's famous "Garden of Delights." The capsule had released a heavy does of opium and they were quite thoroughly unconscious and unaware of their surroundings. -> -> [...] -> -> Both young men were conveyed into the Garden of Delights and placed several acres apart from each other. In a short time, the second stage of the time-release capsule began to work; cocaine was released into their bloodstreams, thereby over-whelming the traces of the soporific opium and causing them to awaken full of energy and zest. At the same time, as they woke, hashish also began to be released, so they saw everything with exceptional clarity and all colors were jewel-like, brilliant, divinely beautiful. -> -> A group of extremely comely and busty young ladies - imported from the most expensive brothel in Cairo - sat in a circle around each of the young candidates, playing flutes and other delicately sweet musical instruments. "Welcome to heaven," they sang as the awakening men gazed about them in wonder. "By the magic of the holy Lord Hassan, you have entered Paradise while still alive." And they fed them "paradise apples" (oranges), far sweeter and stranger than the earth-apples they had known before, and they showed them the animals of paradise (imported from as far away as Japan, in some cases), creatures far more remarkable than those ordinarily seen in Afghanistan. -> -> [...] -> -> Then, as each young man sat entranced by the beauty and wonder of Heaven, the houris finished the dance, and nude and splendid as they were, rushed forward in a bunch, like flowers cast before the wind. And some fell at the candidate's feet and kissed his ankles; some kissed knees or thighs, one sucked raptly at his penis, others kissed the chest and arms and belly, a few kissed eyes and mouth and ears. And as he was smothered in this hashish-intensified avalanche of love, the lady working on his penis sucked and sucked and he climaxed in her mouth as softly and slowly and blissfully as a single snowflake falling. -> -> In a little while, there was no more hashish being released and more opium began to flow into the bloodstream, the young candidates slept again; and in their torpor, they were removed from the Garden of Delights and returned to the banquet hall of the Lord Hassan. -> -> There they awoke. -> -> "Truly," the first exclaimed, "I have seen the glories of Heaven, as foretold in Al Koran. I have no more doubts. I will trust Hassan i Sabbah and love him and serve him." -> -> "You are accepted for the Order of Assassin," said Hassan solemnly. "Go at once to the Green Room to meet your superior in the order." -> -> When this candidate had left, Hassan turned to the second, asking, "And you?" "I have discovered the First Matter, the Medicine of Metals, the Elixir of Life, the Stone of the Philosophers, True Wisdom and Perfect Happiness," said he, quoting the alchemical formula. "And it is inside my own head!" -> -> Hassan i Sabbah grinned broadly. "Welcome to the Order of the Illuminati!" he said, laughing. - -In other words, Truman might realize that the happiness he knew didn't *depend* on other people. It worked just as well with actors and scripts. And the person experiencing god withdrawal might realize that it was their own brain that made the experience wonderful, and didn't rely on some independent agents. - -And somehow, this strikes me as *wrong*. Could you really imagine telling Truman that he might try convincing the director to write him some new scripts? Or worse, that Truman might try writing fanfic about his own life, and extract his happiness from it? After all, his previous life was just as fake, so what's the difference? - -With sufficiently strong luminosity, you ought to be able to realize that whatever good you experienced from things you thought were independent agents, but that turned out to be illusions, wasn't *caused* by those agents (because they never existed). The power was in your brain all along.[^bias] - -[^bias]: Figuring out if something is a bias or a value is [incredibly hard][LW bias value]. - -And similarly with Sister Y's example, the comfort you received from the illusion of control never depended on any actual control, and so you should be able to experience it just on its own. You never needed control or agents to feel better, and having the spell broken doesn't take *away* any abilities. - -You should be able to be happy anyway. - -Says [Manuel Blum][blum advice]\: - -> "Claude Shannon once told me that as a kid, he remembered being stuck on a jigsaw puzzle. His brother, who was passing by, said to him: "You know: I could tell you something." -> -> That's all his brother said. -> -> Yet that was enough hint to help Claude solve the puzzle. The great thing about this hint... is that you can always give it to yourself." - -But I tried that, and I can't get it to work. Maybe I've just not tried hard enough, and maybe I'm still stuck in an essentialist delusion, but even *if* it worked, it would still *seem* hollow to me. - -Because when you do that, why are you caring about other people, or external things *at all*? Anything you feel, anything you care about, you'd still have experienced if it turns out you were being deceived, or have simply been mistaken about the existence or absence of your control over things. - -Try adopting a non-essentialist perspective. - -Truman should realize that, whether a romantic speech originated in a bunch of neurons located in the skull of the person he calls his girlfriend, or whether it comes from a bunch of neurons which caused it to be written on paper which another bunch of neurons read and later spoke, doesn't change the *speech*. - -A perfect copy of a thing *is* the thing.[^mitchell] [Theseus][Theseus' Ship] has two ships. - -[^mitchell]: I'm merely arguing from within this perspective, not endorsing it. Yes, I know all the "a copy isn't me" arguments, and I give them a lot of credence. I don't have any strong beliefs about it either way. Just sayin'. - -And more importantly, an illusionary setup is actually *favorable*. Think about it, like in the illusion of control case Sister Y describes. Subjects felt more comfortable under loud noise if they believed they had a button that would stop the noise, even though they never pressed it (and in fact, it wasn't connected to anything). - -But that's *good news*. In this case, for the subject to feel comfort, three things were necessary: - -1. Their brain must have the ability to feel better. -2. It must be possible to activate this ability. -3. This activation must be hooked up to the belief that they can stop the noise. - -In a non-illusionary setup, you need an *additional* step: the button must actually do something. That's *worse*, because in the illusionary case, all the subject needs to do is change their brain so as to connect the existing ability with a new trigger. In the non-illusionary case, this trigger *also* has to stop the noise. - -You see, the ability is already there. Those who miss the gods *already* felt great. Truman *was* satisfied. The subjects already could endure the noise. So the first two steps are already done. The only thing left to do is figure out how to trigger it. - -Assert causal dominance. Realize that you are already causally disconnected from the thing which you thought you cared about. What you believed you wanted (control, gods, unscripted people, ...) was never determining your state of mind in the first place. It's entirely superfluous, and for you to now insist on it, in fact to be disappointed to learn that this thing isn't real - well, it's a non sequitur. It's silly. - -But that doesn't mean that the *effect* of this illusion is itself illusionary. It isn't. The effect is absolutely real. It just wasn't triggered by what you thought it was triggered by. Just a bug. That's all. - -I do not know if this is the right view, but one thing is clear - the non-essentialist perspective is certainly more empowering. - -Yet somehow... - -I think the non-essentialist perspective misses something, misses a conditional component. It's not just about the emotional state. - -The schizophrenic is not just disappointed that the Love of the Virgin Mary is gone (because they found out that they can control the Virgin Mary), but that it was *unjustified*. Feeling the love was partially a transaction, a binding contract. I will feel love if and only if the Virgin Mary is actually caring for me. (I will be less worried if and only if I know I could end it all. I will be comfortable around you if and only if I can trust you to be honest.) - -The illusion then provided false evidence that this condition was fulfilled, and so maybe what is felt afterwards is not just emptiness, not just absence, but active *betrayal*. (I certainly feel that way.) - -It might look a little stupid from the outside. The sufferer is willing to engage in a deal from which they would greatly benefit, and this benefit is administered by the sufferer themselves. It's entirely self-gratification. Yet when the sufferer learns that the initial condition for this contract is in fact impossible, illusionary, they *don't* just reward themselves unconditionally. They stick to their deal, no matter the harm. - -It's so... non-utilitarian. Death before dishonor, suffering before illusion. - -Certainly can't complain people don't actually care about the truth. Funny it's the crazy ones, though. - -(And I'll leave it on this unsatisfactory note, as this most accurately reflects how shitty the whole situation feels.) - -[^truman]: Which, as [Will Newsome correctly notes][LW truman], is what a schizophrenic episode feels like from the inside: - - > I just watched The Truman Show a few days ago. I interpreted it as a story about a schizophrenic who keeps getting crazier, eventually experiencing a full out break and dying of exposure. The scenes with the production crew and audience are actually from the perspective of the schizophrenic's imagination as he tries to rationalize why so many apparently weird things keep happening. The scenes with Truman in them are Truman's retrospective exaggerations and distortions of events that were in reality relatively innocuous. All this allows you to see how real some schizophrenics think their delusions are. - -[^suicide]: Schizophrenics have a *50x* higher suicide likelihood, with 20-40% of schizophrenics attempting suicide, and 10% succeeding. ([Source][suicide schizophrenic].) How's that for "lives worth living"? - - - - diff --git a/content_blog/consciousness/index.mkd b/content_blog/consciousness/index.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index aabf6ee..0000000 --- a/content_blog/consciousness/index.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Consciousness -is_category: true ---- - -<%= category :consciousness %> diff --git a/content_blog/consciousness/quale.mkd b/content_blog/consciousness/quale.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 598fcdf..0000000 --- a/content_blog/consciousness/quale.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,191 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: There Is Only Quale -date: 2010-09-23 -techne: :done -episteme: :fiction -disowned: true ---- - -> If you believe such nonsense -> You'd better dream your dreams at night. -> At last, it's really happened, -> Though we don't know how. -> The only miracles are in the storybooks -> And they are lies. -> -> -- [ジャックと豆の木][A Course in Miracles - Jack and the Beanstalk] - -Lucid Dreaming -============== - -I was learning to dream lucidly[^lucid] again, so that I could use some of my -sleep hours to meditate. Tibetan Buddhists swear on that kind of thing. As part -of this learning process, I needed good dream recall, so I started keeping a -dream diary. One night, I was having a weird dream where I was skipping classes -by flying over a forest in a kind of space ship with 3 old friends who were -ignoring me. (Almost all my dreams manage to be incoherent and awesome at the -same time.) When I woke up, I was exhausted from other dreams that night and I -didn't feel like writing this one down. I thought, half-asleep, that it was so -vivid that I could remember it anyway. - -Several hours later, the dream came back to mind. "I was right", I thought. "I -really *do* remember this dream clearly. If I had just written it down, then the -essence of it wouldn't have been captured anyway." But then my mind kinda -exploded when I realized something. - -**How can I remember that I remember it clearly?** - -Think about it. It's not that I remember what happened. It's that I remember -how lucid I was at the time, how vividly I saw everything. I could recreate it, -compare it and then knew, yup, this is the same thing. - -I immediately wrote down a couple of questions - the bold sentences - on my -whiteboard before the rest of my brain caught on to the fact that I just -realized that it was cheating, right then and there. A sequence of rapid -short-circuits went off and a minute later I realized I had just become lucid -*without dreaming*. - -[Puredoxyk][] once said that meditation makes your brain leaky, but in a good way. -I think this is what she meant. - -> From this perspective, dreaming can be viewed as the special case of -> perception without the constraints of external sensory input. Conversely, -> perception can be viewed as the special case of dreaming constrained by -> sensory input. -> -> -- Stephen LaBerge - -Some years ago, when I had just gotten serious about this enlightenment thing, I -was experimenting with lucid dreaming for the first time. At the same time, I -was reading up a lot on hallucinogenic drugs. One day, something happened that -made me afraid; I have only been more afraid once in my life[^fear]. I was doing -reality checks throughout the day, where you ask yourself if you are dreaming, -and hopefully it becomes a kind of habit and you start doing it in your dreams, -too, where the answer will be "yes" and you become lucid. - -I walk up some stairs, when suddenly the reality check fails and for a moment -I'm lucid while awake. It's the weirdest feeling, like you just stepped through -a mirror[^mirror] into another world. I am conscious in a way I was never -before, then relapse right back. As if Picard in "The Inner Light" - when he was -made to re-live someone else's life and memories, so that towards the end, Picard -really believed that he was always Kamin - as if he, just for a moment, woke up -to the fact that this whole life is just fake, he's really on the Enterprise. I -thought I went insane. - -This scared me so much that I didn't touch lucid dreaming again for years. -Fortunately, I got over it. - -Qualia -====== - -**How can I know that I ever _was_ conscious?** - -To be able to tell how lucid I was would require for me to remember what I was -conscious of at the time. But I can't do this. At best, I can recreate the -perceptions as closely as possible and be conscious of them right now. But -that's a different thing. I'm still only conscious now, just of similar input. - -So I'm essentially trying to compare two qualia, to see if they are the same. - -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. This 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 your instruments could -detect it. So qualia must be a powerful delusion, a mistake. - -Pretty much everyone has thought about qualia, but probably not using this name. -The most common approach is the Inverted Color Spectrum. Maybe, what you see as -red, I see as green and so on. Because this difference would be systematic and -all the relationships between colors would be identical, how can we be sure that -everyone has the same color perceptions? (Of course, provided you're not color -blind or something like that.) - -A lot has been said about qualia, but it all rests on the same basic assumption -- if qualia exist, then they can be compared. - -But how exactly is this supposed to work? - -**How can I know that more than one quale - the one right now - exists?** - -There's a sleight-of-hand going on here, one that I only just noticed in that -very moment. The thought process goes something like this: "I see A. I store my -perception of A in my memory. I then see B. Finally, I retrieve A and compare it -with B." - -But that's impossible by definition! **If memory could contain qualia, then -so could third-person perspectives. They would be encodable.** - -It doesn't matter how you would try to wiggle out of this - if you can compare -them, then you can store information about them, then you can communicate them. -I could, with futuristic equipment, check your brain for this information - read -your memories - and establish if we have the same qualia. If *you* can compare -your own qualia, then *I* can compare them with my own ones, too. - -But that's exactly what is supposed to be impossible with qualia. They are the -subjective experience, they can't be shared. So qualia can't be compared. Let -this sink in. - -Only Now -======== - -**I was never conscious before and will never be conscious again.** - -**I am only conscious right _now_.** - -This is my only chance. I'll never see the world again. This all passes, -forever, the very next moment. Already gone, already too late. But it is my only -chance again, this time, to see this moment. How long will it last? - -Every moment is a gift. There are no second chances, so pay attention. - -[^mirror]: - I literally once walked through a glass door. Don't do that. - -[^lucid]: - [Lucid dreaming] is when you are aware during your dream that it is a dream. - The moment you do, you gain great clarity and lots of control over the - dream. Most people start flying around. Buddhists meditate, of course. We - are one-trick ponies. - - -[^fear]: - This was the day I died, using Ayahuasca. Really, as long as you cling to - reality and only *think* you *may* die, it's the most horrible experience - ever. It's like years of Buddhist study condensed into one day, giving - you the worst trip of your life as the reality of no-self, impermanence and - suffering completely overwhelm you. Sure, this also happens during Buddhist - meditation, eventually, but by then you have months, if not years of - practice. But with Ayahuasca, you realize how ill-prepared you are for your - own death and this vine is gonna kill you right now over the course of the - next few hours, so *deal* with it. - - Once the nice effects have come and gone and the trip just keeps on - accelerating, Ayahuasca throws away its mask and puts you on direct line - with the rest of your brain. "So you wanna see what I do all day? The crap I - have to put up with, that you are completely unconscious of? Let me *show* - you!" It's like you are travelling aboard the Enterprise all your life and - the worst you ever saw was being thrown around after a little Klingon - attack, when one day Scotty decides to show you how mind-bogglingly fast the - ship is by strapping you to the front while going to maximum warp. - - At first, there is only fear, fear of being poisoned, going mad or things - like that, but then the fear gets so strong that there it isn't *about* - anything anymore. There is just fear. Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh, your mind - dissolves into a mess of colors and vertigo and you even forget to scream, - or whatever one is supposed to be doing in that kind of situation. Then the - fear goes away for a moment and you realize what is happening - you are - being digested. Everything that enters your skull, before your mind can deal - with it, has to be broken down and analyzed and so on, and *this is the raw - data stream*. - - Then you die, but that's a story for another day. - - Damn, I really need to write this trip up some time, and repeat it. Not sure - in which order. Until then, I watch Blueberry (aka Renegade) again. The only - accurate depiction of Ayahuasca on film. diff --git a/content_blog/crackpottery/es-gibt-leute-die-sehen-das-anders.mkd b/content_blog/crackpottery/es-gibt-leute-die-sehen-das-anders.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index aa9f5cf..0000000 --- a/content_blog/crackpottery/es-gibt-leute-die-sehen-das-anders.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,133 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Es gibt Leute, die sehen das anders. -date: 2012-01-17 -techne: :done -episteme: :broken -slug: 2012/01/17/es-gibt-leute-die-sehen-das-anders/ ---- - -("There are some people who disagree.", [obligatory T-shirt][Anders Shirt]) - -# The Case For Bias - -Coming from a kind of Hansonian and Tantric perspective, there aren't such things as "good" and "bad" goals. We might - for game-theoretic reasons - publicly approve of only some of our goals, but whatever we want, we simply want, and it's wrong to say that "I wish I didn't want X". Embrace your [monstrosity][BFV Monsters]. - -I can't deny that I'm a contrarian. Meta-contrarian, in fact. I *like* to disagree with the intellectual mainstream, and I can't even deny that I derive some of my values solely from the fact that The Establishment(tm) doesn't like them. So I thought... maybe I should try to be a *better* contrarian? - -(That doesn't mean that *all* my unusual or controversial views are contrarianism. I really would like meditation to be useful, instrumentally and spiritually, and have spent large chunks of my life trying to make it work. Unfortunately, some stuff simply doesn't work or is [misleading][Why you don't want Vipassana]. That I call myself an "atheist divine command theorist" nowadays is not [an attempt to disagree][xkcd atheist] with *both* atheists and theists, but simply derives from the fact that I *really want* theism to be true, but it just isn't, so I'm trying to salvage as many features as I can without going too crazy in the process.) - -Believing only true things just for the sake of truth is mostly a confused value. The reason you should overcome your biases is not so you only believe true things. Instead, false beliefs *on human hardware* have some typical failure modes that will fuck you up. *This* you should avoid. Fundamentally, there are two problems: - -1. Truth is entangled with reality. If you only track reality, no evidence will contradict you. If you choose to believe something untrue, you need to maintain *additional* models. This can be seriously difficult. So try to minimize the amount of questionable things you accept. - -2. You can't properly compartmentalize. It's not entirely possible for you to be a homeopath and believe in the benefits of modern medicine. Occasionally, you *will* act wrong and this will harm you. So try to be contrarian about inconsequential things. Don't believe in magic healing water, but that Native Americans are really Hebrews. - -So how would you try to be contrarian without giving up all your rationality and its benefits? You want to believe unusual things, but not end up praying your cancer away. I think a simple way to do it is to merely adjust your priors. Keep all your Bayes (Peace Be Upon Him), but a priori favor contrarian hypotheses. - -Example. There's a pretty famous disagreement if Jesus is a mythological figure or a (heavily distorted) historical failed preacher. Both are reasonable positions and there is good evidence for both. (Other views like the Zombie Jew are all nonsense.) If you were an ideal and unmotivated Bayesian, both positions would probably be reasonably similar in probability, maybe within 20% of each other. Which you favor would depend mostly on your prior. Is a historical religious founder whose message seriously got out of hand more likely than a cult making up mythological being and later historicizing it? There are certainly examples of both and it's not immediately obvious which is better as a general view. This is your chance as a contrarian! Simply adjust your prior slightly so that the more controversial view wins. Keep all the evidence and lines of reasoning in place and simply believe that, all else being equal, a myth-to-history is more likely than a failed-leader-to-hero-myth, at 3:2 odds maybe. Wham, you're a mythicist, don't have to live in a [magical parallel universe][Inerrancy] in which most evidence doesn't exist, but still get to be someone who disagrees. - -"Isn't this *evil*? You're actively advocating sophistry!" Yes, but it's *efficient* sophistry. You are a monster. Don't feel guilty about it, but do a good job. As a [wise man][Sniper Feelings] once said, "Feelins'? Look mate, you know who has a lot of feelings? Blokes what bludgeon their wife to death with a golf trophy. Professionals have standards.". If it makes you feel any better, there is no practical way to choose an unbiased prior in the first place. The only known unbiased prior is the universal prior (explanation soon in the SI series) and it's incomputable, even for very simple examples. You *will* be biased, so why not be explicit about it and be biased in ways that benefit you? - -# Skillful Trolling - -Being a contrarian and being a troll is closely related. The only real difference is that a contrarian internalizes their trollish views, while a troll drops them outside a debate. But if you aren't trolling someone, why are you a contrarian in the first place? No-one just believes the [Dark Ages never happened][Phantom Time] in private. They *have* to publicize it and probably start a flame war over it. - -It is therefore an integral part of being a contrarian that you are competent in your subject so you can actually debate someone. If you simply represent mainstream views, you can always appeal to authority. (And where the mainstream is usually right, you're certainly justified in doing so. I'm not dissing the mainstream *in general*.) You can do a good job debating an anti-vaccine crank even if you know very little about medicine or biology. You can simply point to studies, a uniform expert consensus and clear results. - -But this shit doesn't fly if you think the mainstream is wrong. You *will* get simple citations of mainstream positions as actual arguments and it will be *your* responsibility to show how they are wrong (and how the mainstream came to accept them). Your opponent will *never* have to demonstrate how the argument actually works. (Though they do get bonus points if they do. Someone giving you actual arguments is strong evidence to take them seriously. Remember, *you* are the contrarian. You will be demonstrably wrong from time to time. It's a high-risk/high-reward strategy.) - -So you have to put a lot of effort into not just understanding mainstream views, but also deeply understanding your contrarian positions, and how to explain them to outsiders. This is a lot of work. You better be ready to dedicate a serious amount of your time to it. You can't be contrarian about a hundred things. Focus. - -(Fortunately all contrarians I know *like* this work and don't face akrasia in these fields. Which btw is good evidence against "akrasia is a general limitation" and "akrasia arises from modularity", and evidence for "akrasia is what being a hypocrite, but not acknowledging it feels from the inside". [Eat your shadow][BFV shadow].) - -# Let's Talk About Me - -Enough general arguments. This is my blog and so let's talk about me. (Why not embrace a certain level of narcissism? If public writing works, but it doesn't seem to depend on feedback (most of my writing I never advocate and is therefore never commented on, which doesn't particularly bother me), then it seems obvious I'm at least partially motivated by potential attention. Might as well acknowledge that and use it to fuel the learning process.) - -Recently, I made a series of critical comments on one of [Luke's posts][LW chain]. I was trying to express a couple of points: - -1. Legislation to abolish slavery had questionable effectiveness and mostly moved slavery to the black market where slaves don't have legal representation. It is analogous to the war on drugs. - -2. The reduction in proportional slavery is mostly due to economic factors, mainly urbanization and decreasing poverty. - -3. Therefore, the shift in moral attitude towards slavery is an afterthought of the real decrease, not the cause. It is mostly ideologically motivated, not a sign of moral change. The example in Luke's post is therefore irrelevant and misleading. (Like most other examples he gives.) - -4. I reject the Repugnant Conclusion and find it wrong to justify harm through greater benefit. Population growth is one of the greatest evils ever because it increases the number of people who suffer. It is completely irrelevant that *more* people might live happy lives. Suffering and happiness are probably not comparable quantities. - -I also hold the following beliefs (some not too strongly) which I tried to keep out of my comments so as to avoid downvotes: - -1. Slavery is not morally wrong. At all. I can find no fault with it. Partial legal property of humans is already acceptable (we call this "being a parent"), so why not of unrelated humans? A state should enforce any contract people want to make, including about buying other humans. I fully support this. (I am less confident about *inheriting* slavery because I'm skeptical of inheritance *in general*. I also find making someone a slave against their will (say through war) problematic (but maybe defensible), but I firmly support the right of people to sell themselves into slavery.) - -2. Slaves probably did not suffer *worse* than comparable non-slaves, so from a perspective of harm reduction, slavery is probably not a relevant evil. It gets its bad reputation mostly through [Progressivist][Moldbug condensed] propaganda. - -3. The definition of slavery is very conspicuously selective. A Roman owning a personal assistant is slavery, but millions of prisoners worldwide working under forced conditions (and often against their will) is not? Prison labour should definitely be included in modern slavery statistics, but that wouldn't make it look so flattering anymore. Are children legally really different from term-limited slaves? (If you agree with animal rights arguments, what about farm animals? It's as if the institution of slavery per se isn't problematic, just when it applies to certain groups of humans under certain conditions.) - -4. Historically, slavery was potentially a useful institution, superior to its alternatives. Condemning it is misguided and ideologically motivated, like blaming Christianity and the Roman Catholic Church for the Dark Ages and Medieval decline, when really they were a force of stability, drastic reform and technological progress. (And I'm not saying this as an apologist. I have little love for Catholicism, but no-one deserves blame for things they *didn't* do.) - -5. And as a minor point, Europeans get a lot of hate for slavery when they *weren't even the dominant slave users*. Seriously, Christian Europe has always been the place with the *fewest* slaves. I know hating on poor, oppressed cultures isn't cool, but come on! - -So there. As you can see in my comments, I did rather poorly and did not at all do these points justice. Most are currently upvoted, but they were among the most controversial things I ever said on LW. (The other two were my skepticism of akrasia and disliking vaporware artsy games.) - -Let's analyze what I can learn from this: - -1. It's seriously hard to argue against major moral foundations. "We aren't slavers anymore" is an important myth of modern culture and going up against it is as much a suicide mission as arguing that Hitler maybe wasn't that bad after all. - -2. Arguing against the historical mainstream puts *all* the burden of proof on the dissenting voice. It's perfectly understood on LW and similar skeptical sites that someone arguing for the low-fat theory of weight loss, even though it is mainstream, has *some* burden of proof. At least they have to defend themselves against the null hypothesis, and it is perfectly acceptable to ask, if maybe a bit rude because it is easy to google, "Why do you believe that exercise helps with weight loss?". Asking "Why do you think that legislation is responsible for decreases in slavery?" does not deserve an answer and can simply be asserted. - -3. I didn't do the research, did not put in much effort and thus could not convincingly argue for my points. I knew this in advance, but hoped that being transparent and honest about my deficiencies, asking others to support *their* views so I wouldn't have to collect *all* the evidence, would at least grant me enough charity so we could have a meaningful conversation. Writing comments, even on LW, doesn't work for learning something new. (Which makes me much less likely to talk about experimental stuff there, which is a shame, but I don't have XiXiDu's patience.) - -4. I have repeatedly gotten the comment that I look like I'm signaling cynicism and forcing my arguments. I really wonder if there is a way I could communicate my positions without that impression. Maybe I'm particularly incompetent or calibrated for the wrong communities, but honest inquiry seems really hard to get across. Also, I wonder if I should adopt a different persona for these kinds of discussions. I feel like adopting a much more direct and more confident personality and really accepting the risk of starting a flame war, but I doubt that it would be beneficial, at least on LW. Mostly I feel that this puts *much* more responsibility on me to present my arguments well than on anyone else. No-one has to even cite statistics of, say, medieval and modern slavery, but I have to prove a huge counterfactual, namely that a modern world without progressivist influences and with fully legal slavery would have *less* slaves? I probably really have to choose my battles. - -# Troll Invictus - -So I was thinking. I love history, and I love all the contrarian views associated with it and the flame wars they incur, so it seems like a good investment of my time to get *good* at these things. - -1. What particular kinds of arguments are effective? Should I argue mostly from statistics, from original texts, from plausibility, from ideological bias, or something else? I generally aspire to write the kind of stuff I would love to read myself. Much of my writing is an attempt to create what I wish had existed when I started, and this desire dominates my style and choice of topics. Personally, I find contrarians most effective when they - 1. debunk the main tools of the mainstream, - 2. give a plausible, non-evil account how the opposition developed their views, - 3. make testable predictions or unite previously scattered evidence, - 4. rely mostly on quantifiable evidence, - - but not when they - - 1. make political arguments, especially when they present themselves as being persecuted (even when true), - 2. link their beliefs to concrete policy, - 3. violate [Hanlon's Razor][]. - - I should experiment with different techniques here. - -2. What are solid historical methods? I can't rely on the messed-up hodge-podge of modern historians, so I have to justify and accumulate a set of meaningful approaches myself. Only then can I derive meaningful conclusions based on them, and only them. This will also be useful as criticism, by showing that a point is methodologically flawed. - -3. I desperately need a good minimalistic framework of history. Only this month have I even added dates of important empires into my Anki deck, and I barely know India's history, for example. I need to branch out for a while and cover some ground. I need to rely much stronger on Anki here. - -4. I really need to get my languages in order. I still can't read Latin. This is seriously not acceptable. I also need to re-evaluate my language priorities. I really wish I could read Akkadian, Russian and Chinese these days. Prof. Arguelles is right, you really need to read 10+ languages to meaningfully appreciate world history and literature. (Speaking them, on the other hand, is as useless as ever. I barely even speak German these days.) Translations are fundamentally bullshit for contrarians. Many good texts *won't* be translated, or translations won't be sufficient to establish the cultural context, or they will even seriously distort the text, as Jaynes has shown. - -5. Moral philosophy, theology and political theory are actually useful. (I know! I'm as surprised as you.) As it's list day at muflax' blog today, surprisingly influential on my thought over the last year or two have been: - 1. Moldbug's resurrection of reactionary thought (Broken as it is, he has shown me that a serious alternative to progressivism *is* possible and that my admiration for... questionable people and institutions has a general moral and historical core and is genuinely worth developing. It does not just derive from [Evil Is Cool][], but [Strawman Really Has A Point][Strawman Has A Point]. Many unacceptable views today actually have serious arguments and don't derive from people just being dicks.) - - 2. Antinatalists' defense of deontological rights (I found all rights-based morality questionable before I read [Sister Y][]. Now I take it very seriously and consider it a serious contender for Real True Morality, even potentially Objective Morality.) - - 3. Divine Command Theory (It's what I actually *wish* I would operate under, which I only understood when I roleplayed an explicit DCTist.) - - 4. analytical theology (It's surprisingly interesting and relevant as a field, once you reconstruct it from the perspective of computationalism and Turing machines, or as Will Newsome recently called Leibniz' "best of all worlds" argument: "Recursive Universal Dovetailing Measure-Utility Inequality Theorem". Once you accept that the mind might be computation, really weird shit happens as materialist frameworks break down, and you consider acausal interactions and Tegmark universes, and you realize that fundamentally there is no difference between "real" and "hypothetical" scenarios. I may even have found a way to resurrect God. This scares and excites me. At the very least, it might be a strong argument *against* computationalism, which is the only meaningful basis of monist philosophy of mind. Either way, it's very fucked up.) - - 5. non-protestant religions (That's a shitty name, but there's a certain core of protestantism as observed by [David Chapman][Protestant Buddhism] that repeats itself in other contexts. It's characterized by its lack of ritual, sacredness and worship, and it's focus on (pseudo-)rational thought, equality and everyday life. Once I understood that ritual and worship are meaningful practices, I found a lot of value in them and currently try to integrate them more into my life. This seems to be epistemically dangerous, but so far totally worth it. I'm not sure how much of this benefit is specific to my personality, though, nor how influential this really will turn out to be. I feel like no modern construction of this practice exists and I'm stuck with either resurrected an old religion or building everything from scratch. I really hope Chapman makes lots more progress there.) - -Luckily I have stopped all AI and math research, now that I believe only in monetary support. I can put almost all my skills behind programming, history and theology. I like that. - -Let us close with a prayer to an [unknown god][Unknown God]: - -> I pray to you, -> unknown god, -> whose commands I have forgotten, -> but who eternally I shall serve. -> -> I acknowledge my sins, -> and in my ignorance -> wish not for mercy, -> undeserving as I am. -> -> I accept my penance -> and pray to you, -> unknown god, -> who I eternally shall serve. diff --git a/content_blog/crackpottery/some-thoughts-on-bicameral-minds.mkd b/content_blog/crackpottery/some-thoughts-on-bicameral-minds.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index d63bfd9..0000000 --- a/content_blog/crackpottery/some-thoughts-on-bicameral-minds.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,76 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Some Thoughts on Bicameral Minds -date: 2012-01-04 -techne: :rough -episteme: :discredited -slug: 2012/01/04/some-thoughts-on-bicameral-minds/ ---- - -*This is a reply to wallowinmaya's comment on my last article. I noticed I kinda wrote an article in disguise, so I'm posting it as one.* - -> The multiple-personality thing is really fascinating. Do you think it’s been a feature or a bug, all things considered? It seems to me that basically everyone has multiple personalities but only one of them is conscious. Your deep acquaintance with your subconsciousness also explains that you endorse wireheading because most usually “subconscious parts” probably find it good. It’s only our conscious, ideal and altruistic self that is against it. Am I totally wrong about this? And if our multiple personalities really have conflicting values that would probably render solutions to moral problems like CEV void, right? - -I tend to think of it as a feature, but I'm really used to it, so I'm not exactly an impartial judge. Maybe I'm even less functional and inconsistent than the average person, I don't know. I also don't know if it's really the feature that's unusual or just the way I think about it. - -There's a really fascinating book called "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes (actually really accessible despite its title and available on library.nu). Basically, he proposes that originally both brain hemispheres were independent minds and that one (the right) commanded the other (the left) through hallucinations, mostly voices. - -Quote Wiki: -> According to Jaynes, ancient people in the bicameral state of mind would have experienced the world in a manner that has some similarities to that of a schizophrenic. Rather than making conscious evaluations in novel or unexpected situations, the person would hallucinate a voice or "god" giving admonitory advice or commands and obey without question: one would not be at all conscious of one's own thought processes per se. - -The main problem with this Bicameral Mode is that you can't really self-reflect and function outside of rigid hierarchies. So once civilizations got too large, these bicameral minds collapsed and merged into the modern subjective consciousness. So basically, the evolution goes: - -1. monkeys want to track other monkeys, so they develop monkey-simulating hardware -2. monkeys develop language to order other monkeys around -3. one half of a monkey specializes in talking with other monkeys, the other half orders them around (built-in hypocrisy for free!) -4. one half of a monkey orders other half around via hallucinated other monkeys (really dirty hack, but explains all the redundancy between hemispheres) -5. monkeys develop internal pathway so halves can talk more directly - -These internalized hallucinated voices we now call "thoughts" and we generally don't believe they come from other monkeys anymore. Because of this, our right hemispheres don't have the ability to speak anymore, but the hardware is still there. It's just not used. (Schizophrenics and people with brain damage in the left hemisphere do use it, though. That's were "God told me to!" comes from.) - -Jaynes' point is that the transition from 4. to 5. is almost completely *cultural*. The monkeys in 4. were people like the ancient Babylonians who were obviously capable of writing and everything. - -(Side note: I'm really sympathetic to Jaynes' basic argument, but I think his historical argument doesn't actually work out. The effect is probably more subtle than he thinks and the dating is completely off. His main problem - which he totally did not see coming - is that the texts he uses to support his argument (the Old Testament, the Iliad and similar ones) are *much* more recent than he thinks. He follows mainstream scholars at the time, thinking that some parts of the OT are from about 800-700 BCE, with even older oral traditions, but I don't see any evidence for that. I favor *much* later datings. I'd put most of the OT in Hellenistic times (so 300-150 BCE) and large parts of it actually contemporary to the *New* Testament! Almost no historical text that claims an ancient history actually has one. It's bullshit all the way down. But regardless, a weaker form of Jaynes' argument still stands, I think. The contrast in actually-ancient writing (like Babylonian clay tablets) and Hellenistic stuff is striking. Hellenistic culture looks pretty much like ours, but Babylonian culture doesn't seem to have *any* self-reflection. Characters don't think, they don't decide, they mostly follow orders from the gods. I don't know how much of this is just selection bias (great Babylonian novels just didn't survive?), but it really looks like sometime during 5000 BCE and 500 BCE, someone actually had to figure out that you could *think for yourself*, silently, in your own head.) - -Anyway. If some basic form of this is true, then there really is no "unified" mind across the whole brain. There's at least two, maybe more. Basically, the hardware is flexible and can support multiple selfs, even simultaneously. Mine just broke a bit and I was stuck with three selfs at the time, or I had greater awareness of already existing ones through an unexpected new connection. - -Back to Jaynes' idea, the difference between a "self" and an "other" is really just the level of personal associations and names. They are both hallucinations, in the sense that they run as simulated monkeys on the brain. Making a decision is just simulating a monkey that does something and then seeing what happens, only that we recognize that the simulated monkey is us. (Sometimes we fail the mirror test and that's called "I spoke to someone in a dream". When you have a lucid dream, try switching which person you control.) - -This association process is not perfectly reliable. Particularly schizophrenics and people on certain drugs have it fail on them. Quote two schizophrenics in Jaynes' book: - -> Gradually I can no longer distinguish how much of myself is in me, and how much is already in others. I am a conglomerate, a monstrosity, modeled anew each day. -> -> My ability to think and decide and will to do, is torn apart by itself. Finally, it is thrown out where it mingles with every other part of the day and judges what it has left behind. Instead of wishing to do things, they are done by something that seems mechanical and frightening ... the feeling that should dwell within a person is outside longing to come back and yet having taken with it the power to return. - -Jaynes argues pretty convincingly that the left hemisphere, which is normally in charge of interacting with the outside world, can't *refuse* orders in Bicameral Mode. The right side says *anything* and the left side does it. It can't veto orders at all. That would obviously be easy to exploit, so you need to distinguish between "this is a command" and "this is just talk". One heuristic the left side uses is to only recognizes something as an order when it comes from someone higher up in the status hierarchy. So the right side impersonates high-status figures (gods, kings, parents). (There are almost no cases of someone hallucinating low-status characters! No-one thinks they are hearing voices that belong to a random beggar. It's always gods, kings or something equivalent.) - -And that's how Bicameral Consciousness works. Both hemispheres already have extensive hardware to simulate people. They need it just to keep up with local status and tribe associations. So they can re-use this hardware by creating fictitious people (often direct copies of real people at first), run them for a bit and see what results they get. They can even interact with these people (i.e. talk with hallucinations). These simulations then ultimately give a direct order and the brain executes it. Achievement unlocked: complex decision making. - -(Another side note: that's the reason some people call wakefulness "constrained dreaming". It's the same kind of hallucination process, but there's constant feedback from the outside to guide it, so it looks more consistent. The relevant question is only if there exists a feedback loop between the interpreting part and the generating part. In bicameral minds, thoughts and decisions are *not* connected this way, so they feel like external entities. In modern subjective minds though, we have (some) control over our thoughts - the loop is closed - so it feels internal. This loop is much weaker in practice than most people think though, which is one reason meditation freaks people out. They notice they can't easily make thoughts *stop*.) - -But this bicameral setup has one major problem: it's extremely compartmentalized. The left side literally doesn't know what the right side does and vice versa, unless they talk to each other. The cultural hack - modern subjective consciousness - improves on this situation in two ways. - -First, *internalize* the simulations. They don't need locations and bodies. Just put them "in your head" somewhere and call them thoughts. (The actual location differs depending on culture, btw.) - -Second, talk *constantly*. (Not always literal talk, images work too and so on. Voice-based thought is just the most common.) Meditation people call this the "monkey mind" because it's so hyperactive and out-of-control. But if you don't use it, you literally can't propagate information. You *need* to talk to yourself, in some form or another (which is why I write this novel of a reply), or you can't think. - -This finally brings me to the point I wanted to make. I don't think "thoughts" or "selfs" are conscious. Phenomenal consciousness - the one that experiences something - doesn't think and isn't someone. It only *notices* thoughts and selfs. From an phenomenal point of view, there's no difference between "me" or "you" or "Barack Obama". They are all three not conscious, but narrative constructs. So I can have multiple selfs in my head without needing multiple phenomenal consciousnesses. You only need to take care who has executing privileges and who is just talking. (In my case, that's exactly how I malfunction in social contexts. Suddenly all the voices shut up and I have complete radio silence in my head. There is no self, so I can't make any decisions. I just shut up and stare. Which is embarrassing.) - -So what really *is* conscious is not the part that has goals or thinks, but the part that models. (Which is why when an experienced meditator stops identifying with things and stops modeling reality, they literally become progressively more unconscious. An ideal samadhi practitioner is indistinguishable from a sleeping one. But "Nirodha Samapatti" sounds so much more sophisticated then "really noticing how I fall asleep".) - -(You can completely dissociate from your decision-making process, if you want. It's not particularly difficult. (I stole the idea from Susan Blackmore.) Take a lazy afternoon and try lying down with the intention "I'm not deciding anything today". (Try not to be too tired or you'll just sleep.) Just don't decide anything. You'll lie around for a bit, then get bored. Thoughts come up like, "that's stupid", "I could watch the Daily Show", "I could eat something" and so on. Doesn't matter, not going to decide anything. Eventually - it took me about 5 minutes - you'll move. I suddenly got up and started walking somewhere. "Where the fuck am I going?", I thought. *Something* had decided an action and didn't care about telling me. I found out that I had decided to take a shower. Anyway, you will eventually slip back into *making* decisions. But you don't have to. You can remind yourself that you can just observe and somehow, decisions still happen. They might be stupid and inefficient decisions, but they're still there. No conscious awareness of them whatsoever.) - -So based on this, the connection between "consciousness" and "goals" is fairly questionable, I think. At least I personally don't see an obvious way how the two belong together. This brain that is typing this has goals (or something that looks almost like goals, anyway). This brain also experiences things. These two things are independent processes. Why privilege only the goals the phenomenal part notices? With the right kind of practice, I can become conscious or unconscious of pretty much any goal I want. Does that magically change its moral status? Why? (And if so, isn't having no conscious goals ideal?) - -(Why privilege only the goals in this brain? Why not fulfill any goal, anywhere, or as much as is feasible at least? What's a "goal" anyway? Has my heart rights? It certainly acts like it doesn't want to stop beating, even if I just try to replace it with a better version. If not, how does a different unconscious piece of carbon suddenly gain rights just because it's in my skull? Damn, morality is so much easier when you belief in "people" as meaningful categories...) - -On a related note, I don't know how I feel about wireheading anymore. Some days, I think it's the greatest idea ever, on others it looks like an ethical nightmare. I also don't like that AIXI wireheads itself and so screws up our attempts to enslave it. Makes wireheading look like a huge bug from the outside. - -Also: - -> Your deep acquaintance with your subconsciousness also explains that you endorse wireheading because most usually “subconscious parts” probably find it good. It’s only our conscious, ideal and altruistic self that is against it. Am I totally wrong about this? And if our multiple personalities really have conflicting values that would probably render solutions to moral problems like CEV void, right? - -Conflicting values aren't necessarily a big problem in general, I think. The universe is pretty big and there's enough space to satisfy a lot of values at the same time. It would be bad if there were multiple fundamentalists who couldn't accept that anyone else might disagree with them, ever, anywhere. - -That's one way I currently think about objective morality - it's an attempt to enforce values when you don't have much power. If my values are Objective(tm), then I have an easy way to force others to comply against their will. (Or at least I can tell myself that, if they only thought rationally, they would have the same values as me.) If all value is subjective and accidental, well, how can I stop someone from eating the wrong kind of ice cream, short of building a Jupiter-sized AI and taking over the universe? So if I were not so insecure, maybe I wouldn't feel so bad about morality. - -*Anyway. That's the still-in-process thinking I'm currently going through. I'm not sure if I said everything I wanted, but this will have to do for now.* diff --git a/content_blog/crackpottery/why-this-world-might-be-a-simulation.mkd b/content_blog/crackpottery/why-this-world-might-be-a-simulation.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 0127214..0000000 --- a/content_blog/crackpottery/why-this-world-might-be-a-simulation.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,60 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Why This World Might Be A Simulation -date: 2012-01-01 -techne: :done -episteme: :fiction -slug: 2012/01/01/why-this-world-might-be-a-simulation/ -disowned: true ---- - -> Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. -- Luke 1:1-4 - -I wonder. If I wrote a kind of autobiography right now, if I tried to explain to a friend what I have learned in the last couple of years, I wonder, would it sound *believable* to a distant reader? - -I mean, just *look* at some of this shit. - -One huge source of influence is a dude called [Eliezer Yudkowsky][]. Eliezer is a Hebrew name meaning "help of my God". A common variant is Eleasar, "God has helped". You might know Eleaser in its Latin form - Lazarus. Who's Lazarus? The guy Jesus famously raised from the dead. What's Eliezer famously advocate? You should sign up for cryonics. A literal resurrection. Come on, the name's a pun, you can't deny it. In fact, it's deliberately not "Eleasar" because he *hasn't* died yet! - -But more importantly, what's more interesting about this Eliezer than cryonics? He wrote the [Less Wrong sequences][LW sequences]. Look at the size of that thing! Over a million words! *One* author? Covering quantum physics, meta-ethics, AI, cogsci, evolution and *how to write fiction*? That's totally believable. - -Next dude. Also very prolific Less Wrong poster. Called Luke. As in Ecclesiastical Redactor Luke. What's New Testament Luke's real goal? Unifying the Petrine and Pauline sects. Peter, you might remember, emphasized an Old God, the God of the Torah, and its elaborate laws. Paul, on the other hand, taught salvation by faith and a New God, God the Father. The Old God was petty and cruel, but God the Father  brought a radically new message - actual mercy. What's Less Wrong Luke's real goal? Unifying Academia and the Eliezerites. Academia insists on old rules, like peer review and degrees, and its results are mindless and dangerous. If we build the AI that Academia wants, says Eliezer, we would all die. Instead, Eliezer brings a new AI - Friendly AI - and with it a radically new message - actual utopia within our lifetimes. - -(Also, Luke is said to be a companion of Paul, the first to preach the gospel of a New God who brings mercy, not judgment. Our Luke is a companion of Eliezer, the first to preach the gospel of Friendly AI, a technology that brings utopia, not existential risk. Luke, in both cases, was the first to bring Paul's message to the masses, after Paul/Eliezer's direct approaches had failed. Oh and our Luke was an Evangelical Christian before he joined Eliezer. Totally a coincidence and not a wink to the audience.) - -One *might* suppose that our author simply took the New Testament stories and rewrote them in the framework of AI. Like faith in the gospel stories, the [rationality that is preached by the Sequences][LW impossible] isn't actually *demonstrated*. The gospels aren't instruction manuals or history books. They are *propaganda for new missionaries*. And similarly, Less Wrong's rationality [doesn't actually do anything][LW not great]. The Sequences are themselves propaganda - a mission charge, a doctrinal creed maybe - but clearly, they are fiction. (Some are [outright attempts][LW emergence] to [silence a heretical faction][LW group selection].) - -Another topic. Buddhism. Our poor protagonist - muflax, whose real name, might I add, literally means "[crown of thorns][Crown of Thorns]" - struggles years with difficult koans and meditation practices, only to find a [New Teaching][MCTB] that brings him to the level of an anagami - a Never-Returner, one of the highest ranks as far as enlightenment goes - within a *year*. Sure you're not selling some cult propaganda? But then, almost perfecting this teaching, muflax realizes that *an even better* teaching exists - tantra. And what's the source of this tantra? A [vampire novel][Buddhism for Vampires], written by a [clearly fictitious][Chapman Fiction] author. Who was once an AI researcher. Yeah, right. - -Might I add that this "muflax" is not a singular person? The text has gone through some serious editing at the least. Look at these quotes, all allegedly by the same person: - -> > Just to make this maximally concrete: if you were given a magic button that, if pressed, caused the world to end five minutes after your death, would you press the button? -> [...] yes, I would be mostly indifferent about the button [...] and would press it [for money]. ([source][LW button]) - -And also: - -> > Persons have a right not to be killed; persons who have waived or forfeited that right, and non-persons, are still entities which should not be destroyed absent adequate reason. Preferences come in with the "waived" bit, and the "adequate reason" bit, but even if nobody had any preferences (...somehow...) then it would still be wrong to kill people who retain their right not to be killed (this being the default, assuming the lack of preferences doesn't paradoxically motivate anyone to waive their rights), and still be wrong to kill waived-rights or forfeited-rights persons, or non-persons, without adequate reason. I'm prepared to summarize that as "Killing: generally wrong". -> Fascinating. This view is utterly incomprehensible to me. I mean, I understand what you are saying, but I just can't understand *how* or *why* you would believe such a thing. -> -> The idea of "rights" as things that societies enact makes sense to me, but universal rights? I'd be interested on what basis you believe this. (A link or other reference is fine, too.) ([source][LW deontology incomprehension]) - -Then later: - -> I praise you for having the wisdom of using a long enough deadline. When I first read your comment, it felt like you were exploiting me, as if you were forcing me to share my limited praise resources. But because I had enough time, I got over myself, realized that this is not a zero-sum game, that this is not an attack on my status and that what you are doing is clever and good. -> -> Well done, I praise you for your right action. ([source][LW praise]) - -And: - -> [I strongly suspect][LW values fulfilled] that I don't actually care that my values are fulfilled outside of my experience. I see no reason why anyone would. ([source][LW wireheading request]) - -But then: - -> I always suspected there was something wrong with being happy. [...] I really got this playing Minecraft. In a way it's perfect. It's almost exactly what I thought heaven would be like. (Needs more machinery and no height limit, though.) But when I had built a little house, I realized that there's no point to it. I stared upon the vast landscape, knowing that it would be impossible for me to ever be *satisfied* with it. -> -> There is peace, but it's the peace of a blank screen. It is not victory. (unpublished draft) - -This same muflax has also later written works that rely on some form of [deontology][Why I'm Not A Vegetarian], something they found "incomprehensible" just a year earlier. Doesn't it seem more likely that these later works are pseudepigraphical, and that the narrative in this "autobiography" is at best a harmonization of different traditions and possibly different persons? - -Maybe it's all just a myth? - -*(I've been reading a lot of [Higher Criticism][] lately. Can you tell?)* diff --git a/content_blog/culture/index.mkd b/content_blog/culture/index.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 6c57e9b..0000000 --- a/content_blog/culture/index.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Culture -is_category: true ---- - -<%= category :culture %> diff --git a/content_blog/culture/milinda.mkd b/content_blog/culture/milinda.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index eb66b16..0000000 --- a/content_blog/culture/milinda.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,282 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Milinda and the Minotaur -date: 2011-04-09 -techne: :rough -episteme: :fiction ---- - -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. diff --git a/content_blog/culture/scp-325.mkd b/content_blog/culture/scp-325.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 41ed7eb..0000000 --- a/content_blog/culture/scp-325.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,42 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: SCP-325 -date: 2012-12-14 -techne: :wip -episteme: :fiction ---- - -**Item #**: SCP-325 - -**Object Class**: Keter - -**Special Containment Procedures**: SCP-325 must be compartmentalized at all costs. - -SCP-325 is highly polymorphous. All subjects showing a disregard of the law, periods of hope and support for institutional reform are to be assumed to be infected. Texts written by those suspected of infection should not be read outside official procedures. Only personnel assigned to the containment of SCP-325 and under explicit permission of the Chief of Staff are to investigate SCP-325 or its influence. If forced to engage in an argument about SCP-325, strict adherence to the expository material supplied to all personnel is required. Artifacts associated with SCP-325 must not be destroyed. - -Procedures <%= redacted "interdict" %> and <%= redacted "excommunication" %> are currently suspended due to the weakened state of containment. Cooperation with independent researchers involved in the subversion of SCP-325's academic influence is advised, but following the failure of <%= redacted "Vatican" %>-II, no concessions in the implementation of any containment procedure are to be made. - -**Description**: SCP-325 is a memetic virus that causes grave institutional damage and loss of human value. Subjects infected by SCP-325 suffer from delusions, emotional instability and disordered thought. They - -These catastrophic events and only stop when it becomes. - -As an effect of earlier containment procedures, SCP-325 is typically depicted as an adult white male. Such depictions are to be encouraged. Subjects infected after the catastrophic containment failure in the 16th century often lack the pictorial substitution and exhibit more dangerous symptoms. - -Even though the infection is presently considered incurable, subjects with severe cases frequently describe unpleasant states of remission. - -**History**: - -Specialists experienced with the successful containment of SCP-<%= "072" %> were hired. - - -There have been two major attempts to eradicate SCP-325: - -- _E-1_: The first by <%= redacted "Nero" %> in , . Subjects infected with SCP-325 henceforth wrote a prophetic text. Subjects claim to have received the text directly from agents of SCP-325 prior to the event, but due to institutional damage of SCP-325-E-1, all documents that could establish this claim have been lost. - -- _E-2_: A second widespread attempt to destroy SCP-325 began in the 18th century. Supporters of the event associated the containment institutions with SCP-325 itself. They sought to replace them entirely with new institutions grounded in universal values, unaware of the fact that SCP-325 had seeded these values. An estimated 10 million people died as a direct result of the influential implementations of 1776, 1789 and 1917, with an additional estimated <%= redacted "200" %> million people in related conflicts. - - Attempt _E-2_ continues to be of major influence. Without the explicit marking of the earlier containment, SCP-325 continues to subvert defense mechanisms of its weakened hosts without them becoming aware of the infection. Dr. M speculates that many academic institutions, including X and Y, have been completely compromised by SCP-325. - -In addition to these events, the following procedures have been used to reduce the influence of SCP-325: - -- Subjects particularly prone to the infection are routinely assigned celibacy in order to reduce the genetic fitness of vulnerable traits. Incidence levels of [REDACTED] have been successfully reduced, but so isolated subjects have been observed to devote greater time to (theology). - diff --git a/content_blog/culture/tangled.mkd b/content_blog/culture/tangled.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 8815c76..0000000 --- a/content_blog/culture/tangled.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,15 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Superstimulus Appreciation Post -date: 2012-05-31 -techne: :wip -episteme: :believed ---- - -> Oh diese Griechen! Sie verstanden sich darauf, zu leben: dazu thut Noth, tapfer bei der Oberfläche, der Falte, der Haut stehen zu bleiben, den Schein anzubeten, an Formen, an Töne, an Worte, an den ganzen Olymp des Scheins zu glauben! Diese Griechen waren oberflächlich - aus Tiefe![^trans] -> -> -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft - -[^trans]: - Translation: - - > Oh, those Greeks! They knew how to live. What is required for that is to stop courageously at the surface, the fold, the skin, to adore appearance, to believe in forms, tones, words, in the whole Olympus of appearance. Those Greeks were superficial - out of profundity! diff --git a/content_blog/dark-stance/dark-stance-thinking-demonstrated.mkd b/content_blog/dark-stance/dark-stance-thinking-demonstrated.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 9c24a5d..0000000 --- a/content_blog/dark-stance/dark-stance-thinking-demonstrated.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,45 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Dark Stance Thinking, Demonstrated -date: 2012-01-30 -techne: :done -episteme: :believed -slug: 2012/01/30/dark-stance-thinking-demonstrated/ -merged: muflax:morality/stances ---- - -As I [once noted][Dark Stance]: - -> In the Dark Stance, you *don't* embrace hatred because it makes you do good things, or gives you a rush, or so you can see through it and overcome it, nor do you *endure* it. That still assumes that hatred is only instrumental or an unfortunate necessity. Dark Stance embraces hatred *for hatred's sake*. Also, the Dark Stance is not an Evil Trope. The Good and the Bad Guys both don't want to suffer, they merely use different ways to overcome their own suffering. Evil might be willing to cause suffering for others, but it will never cause it's *own* suffering. The only fictional example of someone taking the Dark Stance I can think of are Planescape's Sensates. -> -> And the weird thing is, for the few days now that I've been learning this, for the few hours I've been able to hold the Dark Stance, I felt *satisfied*. - -After running through a dark forest at 0°C, high (who the fuck runs sober?!), I noticed something. (Besides that I really need a better lamp than my MP3 player's display next time.) - -There already is a precedence for Dark Stance thinking. And it has a catchy tune. Listen (starts a minute in): - -<%= youtube("http://www.youtube.com/v/YvUbbYX9BMs") %> - -In particular, look at these lyrics: - -> Now take Sir Francis Drake, the Spanish all despise him, -> But to the British he's a hero and they idolize him. -> It's how you look at buccaneers that makes them bad or good -> And I see us as members of a noble brotherhood. -> -> [...] -> -> On occasion there may be someone you have to execute, -> But when you're a professional pirate -> You don't have to wear a suit. (What?) -> -> I could have been a surgeon, -> I like taking things apart. -> -> I could have been a lawyer, -> But I just had too much heart. - -That's exactly what it's about. Embrace the monster that you are. If you are a pirate, be the *best* pirate you can be. Whatever you do, do it *right*. - -This is the real problem, hidden by hypocrisy and moral progress thinking. The faulty idea is that we are good because we do good things. This way corrupts Honor, corrupts what Ye Olde Existentialists called authenticity. We are good because we are *pure*, unified in what we do. We embrace what we are and do it the *right* way, regardless what it is. A pirate is not evil for being a pirate, as long as they are a *professional* pirate. - -*(On the off-chance that I become a religious saint some centuries down the road, I want to force the Muppets into the canon of whatever religion takes me up. This will be my true heritage.)* diff --git a/content_blog/dark-stance/index.mkd b/content_blog/dark-stance/index.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index fcdf781..0000000 --- a/content_blog/dark-stance/index.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Dark Stance Exploration -is_category: true ---- - -<%= category :"dark-stance" %> diff --git a/content_blog/drugs/how-my-brain-broke.mkd b/content_blog/drugs/how-my-brain-broke.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index d6d4b1b..0000000 --- a/content_blog/drugs/how-my-brain-broke.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,116 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: How My Brain Broke -date: 2012-01-03 -techne: :done -episteme: :emotional -slug: 2012/01/03/how-my-brain-broke/ -disowned: true ---- - -# New Year Resolution: Even More Narcissism - -Alright, alright. Yes, I deleted a whole bunch of stuff of me talking about myself, but hey, why not start again? This time I really feel like I'm really gonna say something original. Srsly, for real. - -There are two things I wanna talk about. - -1. I've actually been asked to talk about my 8 year old Ayahuasca experience *twice* so far, so let's finally do it. I'm basing this off my old trip notes, but my memory has slightly faded. (I'm actually kinda interested to revisit Ayahuasca some time, but I never got a good setting going and I don't feel like doing it again without a sitter. So not happening anytime soon.) - -2. A few weeks ago, I asked for anonymous feedback about myself on LW. To my surprise, I actually got 3 replies so far. To my even greater surprise, people don't seem to think I'm a boring piece of broken hardware. Seems to me people are really, really wrong. (Just kidding. Thanks for the awesome and useful feedback, whoever you are!) Anyway, there's one problem. It's anonymous. So I can't *reply* to it, and I don't wanna publicly quote it to respect the privacy, but I really feel like I wanna *address* some things. So I'll do it now, talking about things *generally*. Give some background and motivation *why* some quirks in my personality exist. And why I blame God for that and not my own inability to maintain even the simplest of friendships. My problems be metaphysical, bitches. - -# Ayahuasca - -Some basic background. [Ayahuasca][] is a pretty strong hallucinogen. I prefer(ed) the term [entheogen][Entheogen] because Ayahuasca was the only drug I ever took that I felt had an independent personality. You aren't taking Ayahuasca - you are meeting Ayahuasca and it will do whatever the fuck it wants with you. Which is also why I like the translation "vine with a soul", even though it's probably bogus. - -Ayahuasca is a bit tricky to prepare. You're basically interested in DMT, but your can't ingest it orally 'cause your stomach destroys it. You need a MAO inhibitor to stop it from doing so. So you are really taking two drugs. There are clever ways to get both MAO-I and DMT without many side-effects. But if you're a 17-year-old teenager with no previous drug experience, then you don't care and do things the stupid way. (You read that right. Ayahuasca was my first drug, even before alcohol. Never did things half-assedly.) - -So I boiled a simple, way-too-acidic preparation in my parents kitchen without them noticing, took my MAO-I, waited half an hour, filled my Ayahuasca in a pot and took it too my room, ready to drink it all. I put on [múm][], sat on my bed and started drinking half a liter of psychedelics. - -Ayahuasca looks like purple wine with some liquid metal on top. Not too healthy, but you can always close your eyes. It smells kind of like the jungle, like some fresh dirt. Not too unpleasant, actually, if you never took it and don't associate the smell with anything yet. But there's one thing you never forget. - -The fucking taste. - -Ayahuasca is the vilest thing in all of existence. It doesn't just taste bad. It tastes like it actively tries to strangle you from the inside. My tongue was dissolving. That brew wasn't *passive*. It fought against being digested with all its force. It's like eating washing powder that thought it was God. - -I made three notes that night. The first is a stupid quote from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The second just reads "\*puke\*". - -I pretty much vomited it all out within a few minutes. I tried to drink a bit more, but no chance. Half an hour later, I was still vomiting. One of Ayahuasca's nicknames is "la purga". You have no idea how much you can vomit on an empty stomach if you really set your mind to it. - -There are ways to prepare Ayahuasca that are actually much more pleasant. No bad taste. Little vomiting, if any. Much less volume. - -Not that it would've helped me. The physical vomiting isn't so bad. It's really unpleasant, but it's soon over and you feel kinda good afterwards. For a about 20 minutes, I was just lying around and waving my arms around. They left a funny trail in the air and because I had no drug experiences, I thought that was kinda it. - -Then Ayahuasca reminded me that I had paid for the whole night and that it had no intention of holding anything back. Suddenly there were colors everywhere, everything became blurry and space itself accelerated. Waves were drifting through my room, but I could barely pay any attention because the swirl of colors got faster and faster. It kinda looked like this: - -<%= image("spaceballs.jpg", "spaceballs") %> - -I realized I couldn't keep up, couldn't look anywhere without starting to vomit again. My thoughts were blending with the wallpaper and the room transformed into various scenes, the music itself was throwing waves, tracks merged, everything became way too intense for me. I closed my eyes and surrendered, because I was going straight to hell. - -Just me and my mind. Doable. It was even faster, the visions even more intense, but more focused less complicated. Just intricate geometric patterns and a long, long tunnel I fell through. - -<%= youtube("http://www.youtube.com/v/gagR2_Yi8wE") %> - -(That is only accurate depiction of Ayahuasca ever, btw. The director is a big fan and you can see it.) - -I fought with the descending tunnel inside and the hellish scene outside for about half an hour until I finally got shit a little bit under control. At least it wasn't getting any worse and I had stopped puking out my soul. I even managed to recognize what track was playing and so how much time must have passed. (I couldn't move at all, so I couldn't look at my watch.) - -Then I got an idea. I *understood* what the tunnel *was*. I closed my eyes and paid close attention. That's not just some abstract imagery, not just chaos. That's *raw thought*. That's the input channel before it has gone through any filter. It's what goes on in my head *before* it has been digested. That's the crap my subconscious has to deal with all the time. Everything was being digested, even the self, and I had only one thought to cling to. - -*Make it stop*. - -I would've made an emergency call if I could've ever reached the phone. But I could just lie and wait. I was being digested, violently, and I had to watch. Panic becomes meaningless after a while if you panic so hard that you can't even move. You just realize that you're not going to *do* anything, aren't going to run anywhere, so you stop trying to run. You just play dead. Lie down, watch, don't move, count the number of repetitions the music has gone through so you don't lose track of time. After a while the panic leaves, peacefully. I just slowly faded into death. - -After about 3 hours, I fell asleep. - -I awoke a few hours later and the Ayahuasca was still present. Most of it was gone, but the room was still blurry and had way too many colors. It was peaceful. I closed my eyes again and tried to think. I noticed something weird: I was not alone. There wasn't a singular voice. Not one "me" that was thinking. There were three "me"s in this head. I had split up. - -# Separation - -That's when We were born. We, the collective inhabiting the body that calls itself muflax right now. We have gone through many members. Some good friends, some crazy ones, some obsessed, some sad, some just normal. In this moment of our birth, We immediately agreed about one thing. We would not fight. There would never be any hate, never any deception. We were all in this together and there was only one way to survive. We had to love each other. That's the third note. - -Later, after the trip had ended, and We had looked into a mirror and found ourselves grinning like crazy, even happy, after we had cleaned up the mess and ate something and had a few days to understand everything, after all that, we really started the process of separation. - -Each self became its own personality. We started referring to ourselves as "we", not "I". (I decided not to do so publicly for obvious reasons.) We gave every personality their own name. Some new ones joined us over the years, others left. Some merged. A few died. - -What's it like to be split? Well, try to think back into your past. 5, 10, 15 years ago. Different "you"s. Imagine all of them present in your head at the same time. All with their own voice, all in control, if they want to. Kinda like that. Like role-playing, but being unable to stop assuming a role. - -Oddly enough, we never really had any trouble making arrangements or pursuing goals. We always got along. We refused to hate each other, after all. Most of the time there was one master self. A center that interacted with the world, and a lot of thinking selfs surrounding it. - -I spent a lot of time talking to myself. Years, really. I developed severe trust issues.  How can you trust someone that can't literally read your mind? We could read each other, we never had to explain ourselves to each other, so trust was possible. Other minds? So much harder to work with. Made it impossible to keep friends, even more so to keep a lover. We gave up and concentrated on ourselves. - -I channeled my new-found energy into writing. Lots and lots of writing. Really bad writing, of course, lots of poetry and art, some fanfiction. - -We started to fade a few years later. I experimented with shrooms, but every trip I got the strong sense of not-being-wanted. The Collective told me to sort myself out before ever returning. I slipped into depression and boredom, and in a desperate search for meaning, started a degree in religious studies. (Yes, really.) It was so mind-boggingly boring and anti-scientific that I quit a year later. (I spent classes proving math theorems from scratch just so I didn't have to listen to Kierkegaard anymore.) - -It got worse. I lost God. Oh, I didn't tell you about God yet. Let's go back a little. - -# God - -When We emerged, We felt that a kind of direct Insight was possible. Gnosis, if you want. Really *knowing* something *deep*. The italics are important. It's nonsense alright, but it doesn't *feel* like nonsense. It feels like... actual emotion? Everything else is fake, but some things are *real*. This is real: - -> For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. - -I read the Bible. Parts of it, anyway. I started talking to God. (He never answered. He didn't need to. I felt his presence, his love. That's enough for me.) Life felt meaningful. Not fake. Things happened for a reason. I wasn't lost anymore. - -God was a mystery, but mystery was good. It was something to retreat into, something that you could probe and that didn't go away. It *stayed* mysterious. It was unchanging. It was ever-lasting. It was full of love. - -<%= youtube("http://www.youtube.com/v/yzqTFNfeDnE") %> - -There actually isn't much to say about God. I didn't have much of a belief system. God has no personality. It's really just an extremely powerful emotion. A sense of true peace and belonging. Something only an eternal divine being could grant. - -Until I started asking questions. I started noticing that I actually controlled this God. It wasn't an external presence, but one in the Collective. He was one of Us. This disappointed me to no end. - -The Bible fell apart. Faith was meaningless. There was no insight to be gained. Enlightenment was a sham. The universe is an empty bunch of atoms, we are all going to die and I can never trust anyone again. Life's pretty much been shit ever since. - -That's my God-shaped hole. I can't believe lies. I can't pretend to fill it. Doesn't work. I've prayed the same prayers, just as roleplay. It doesn't work. God is gone, forever. We have pretty much collapsed into two remaining personalities that have almost completely merged into muflax by now, and I have nothing to show for it. - -I have tons of abandoned projects. I can read some Latin, some Japanese. I read a lot of books, but I'm not qualified in any field. All art has gone. I have nothing to say. I am worthless. - -That's where I'm at right now. I am not worthless compared to pre-Ayahuasca-me, of course. People who only see me from the outside might even like me. But I don't have God. I have no emotions anymore, only bland apathy, compared to God's mysteries. - -I've tried do replace God, but nothing works. Nothing finite ever could. If there is no Eternal Judge, then what grounds morality? Nothing. What protects us from being wiped out? Nothing. What ensures we don't screw up our lives? Nothing, of course. - -When I was with God, I was immortal. Protected. *Safe*. What am I now? If I fuck something up, I probably won't get a second chance. What kind of a life is that? - -What's joy compared to Eternal Bliss? What's human love compared to the Father? You're lucky if you can hold on to a lover for a decade. God lasts forever. God never doubts. What insight is there in art? The best you can hope for is getting laid. What could science ever do for me? The more I studied, the less faith I had. The more I saw religion as pure fiction, as political manipulation, saw each redactor changing the sayings of the saints to fit whatever doctrine they needed. Jesus is a highly-optimized human-engineered predator meme. - -I hope that communicates the bleak darkness that not-having-God-anymore left in me. I have no idea how to deal with it. All my psychological oddities derive from it. That's why I'm so pessimistic. When God left me, he took the circuitry for joy with him. He broke my brain. diff --git a/content_blog/drugs/index.mkd b/content_blog/drugs/index.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 1c6dacf..0000000 --- a/content_blog/drugs/index.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Drugs -is_category: true ---- - -<%= category :drugs %> diff --git a/content_blog/experiments/3-months-of-beeminder.mkd b/content_blog/experiments/3-months-of-beeminder.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index d51b6dc..0000000 --- a/content_blog/experiments/3-months-of-beeminder.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,46 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: 3 Months of Beeminder -date: 2012-02-03 -techne: :done -episteme: :log -slug: 2012/02/03/3-months-of-beeminder/ ---- - -It's been 3 months now, time to do a recap. - -## Setup - -I have a separate bank account that I use mostly for book purchases and online services that require credit cards, like my S3 backups. As such, there isn't much money in it, about 50 eurons right now. The idea is that every once in a while when I have some money left over, I put it in there and then freely use it to buy the rare book library.nu doesn't have cool books. Beeminder drains this account. That means it's separate from anything important, but it also hurts me the most. I like this setup. - -## Anki - -I've been using Anki for something like 4 years now. (I started [RTK][] in the fall of 2007 and switched to Anki soon after, but definitely by spring 2008.) So I was quite surprised that I could still get substantial performance improvements. In my 3 months, I had two Beeminder resets, one just 2 days ago due to me totally getting distracted. Despite this, I have *vastly* better Anki performance than ever. Just look at it: - -<%= image("selection-2012-02-01153724.png", "Anki graph") %> - -The big spike about 100 days ago is the first time I used Beeminder. I added a large chunk of Japanese sentences (~8000 cards), so it's a bit unusual, but I've done stuff like that before. What is impressive, though, is the weeks afterwards. It's more consistent *and* has more volume than the rest of the year. I've also made some content changes thanks to that. Now that I *have* to do enough daily reps, I tend to add more easy cards and space out harder cards more. Overall, this is very good. - -## Daily Work - -The main reason I started using Beeminder was to work more consistently. I have my own GTD system (which I will write about the moment I've got one last bug ironed out) and track my daily use of productive time. I tried commitment contracts on my own, but I always end up cheating. So maybe if someone else had my money, it would work better... - -Here's the graph for total logged time / day for 300 days back. Some work is missing 'cause when I have breakdowns, I also tend to stop logging. Beeminder starts at 210: - -<%= image("fume.png", "fume graph") %> - -Overall, Beeminder has *improved* the situation, but not completely fixed it. It's more consistent and has many more ~4h days, but I'm still hoping for more ~8h days. - -One major problem: I avoid certain tasks. Case in point: this post. I *should* be making slides for my Occam presentation. I should have finished them *last* week. Yeah. - -I have also had to reset this graph once, almost twice. The first time was psychologically interesting because I gave up almost *half a day* before the deadline. I could've easily prevented the loss of 5 bucks, but I didn't. I just went "fuck it, I'm not doing this, deal with it tomorrow, I'm getting drunk today". I almost did this a second time, but avoided it. I'm not sure if the amount of money was simply too low the first time, but honestly, the moment I gave up, *no* amount of punishment would've changed my mind. I'll reflect on this in the next post. - -## The Future - -I've recently joined [Fitocracy][Beeminder fitocracy]. Basically, it gives you points for exercise. I force a minimum of points [through Beeminder][Beeminder fitocracy]. I'm still experimenting with the parameters and how to grind most efficiently, but it's already getting me to move more, so I'm quite optimistic about it. Two things about the approach seem better than my previous regiments: - -1. It's event-based, not time-based. I don't have to remember what day of the week I was supposed to do what. (I barely know what day it is anyway.) I just check how many points I'm lacking and do [something easy][xkcd fitocracy]. Less thinking required. -2. It has numbers that go up. I like numbers that go up. - -I've gotten stuck with a huge reading list again. Back in 2010, I did a [100 books/year challenge][LibraryThing challenge], which got me to read ~70 books and much of LessWrong. I'm doing it again, but at 50 books/year this time because the stuff I'm reading is harder, but I need to finish these [200+ books][Beeminder] before the Singularity hits. - -**tl;dr**: Beeminder is *awesome*. diff --git a/content_blog/experiments/concentration.mkd b/content_blog/experiments/concentration.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index ab0bfa5..0000000 --- a/content_blog/experiments/concentration.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,273 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Fixing Concentration -date: 2010-07-13 -techne: :rough -episteme: :discredited -toc: true ---- - -I had serious problems concentrating. Typically, I rapidly lost focus or just -felt blah and unmotivated the whole day, often with a (minor to medium) -depression thrown in for good measure. Here's what I tried and how I finally -fixed it. - -Diet and Drugs -============== - -Caffeine --------- - -<%= image("coffee_cat.jpg", "totally safe") %> - -Caffeine drastically improves my concentration. It gives me an indiscriminate, -but very narrow focus. I can work for hours on basically anything, but find it -hard to change topics or decide what to do in the first place. But if I made -those decisions early on and arranged it so that I could work all day without -disturbances, then caffeine works really well. However, I noticed that this -concentration isn't "real" concentration, but rather a synthetic kind. It -*feels* similar, but instead of increasing my capacity it simply makes me ignore -my tiredness. So I sit for hours, thinking I'm doing useful work, when I really -only burn myself out and get really sloppy. - -And there are more problems with caffeine. Most importantly, it reduces -serotonin and builds up a resistance. Because of the resistance, you either soon -get diminishing returns while still dealing with all of the downsides, or you -keep on increasing the dosage till you crash. I typically went the crash route. -Reduced serotonin levels lead to an unstable mood, depression, crankiness and -twitching muscles. All very sucky. - -Furthermore, caffeine screws up my sleep. It improves some part of it, but makes -it less regenerative and harder to fall asleep. However, a sudden large dose has -the opposite effect. I fall asleep easily and dream very vividly, totally -cocaine-fueled. While I won't *feel* sleep-deprived, I will still *be* it. - -Because of this, I'd strongly advice against caffeine. - -Animal Fat ----------- - -Despite what virtually all common wisdom is going to tell you, animal fat is -probably the most important thing for you to eat. (The second-most important are -bacteria[^bacteria]). As I'm a bit lazy, I'll do no convincing here and leave -this to the [Paleo][] crowd. (Ignore the libertarians. Just try it yourself for a -week and be amazed.) If you are an vegetarian, then you really shouldn't be one. -But the very least don't be a vegan, k? Because then you are royally screwed -with regards to food. - -[^bacteria]: I'm just gonna send you over to [Seth Roberts][Seth Bacteria] on - this. I completely agree with him on everything about nutrition, having - tested it all myself. Seriously, grab yourself some strong jogurt (not the - sweet stuff, but the good, sour one), kefir or miso and eat it. Every day. - You can thank me later when most of the problems you just lived with are - gone. - -Eating about 50-100g of butter refuels my energy almost completely in less than -20 minutes and greatly increases concentration. I perform better on all -intelligence and memory tests I used and find learning (especially with Anki) -to be easier and more enjoyable. I'm now reworking my diet to get in as much -as I can. I eat plenty of quark, butter (even raw) and as fatty a dinner as I -can get away with. - -Butter is my clear favorite. Very high-fat (>50%) cream, cheese or quark work as -well, but I don't like their taste too much. I do eat a lot of quark with about -15-20% fat content, though, and the occasional psychedelic cheese[^cheese]. - -When choosing butter, be sure to pick one from grass-fed cows. It contains high -levels of Omega-3, which also greatly increases all kinds of mental functions -and general health. A good and wide-spread brand is Kerrygold, although there -are often local alternatives as well. - -[^cheese]: I'm not kidding here. I have no idea what exactly is causing it, but - *something* in certain cheeses is clearly psychedelic. I get a trippy mood, - incredibly wild dreams and even some mild hallucinations. I suspect the - tryptophan, but it doesn't really fit the dosage and only seems to happen - with cheese. Anyway, I recommend Danish Havarti. - -The other component is protein. I'm not yet sure about a good base level, but I -found that eating a lot more meat and eggs also helps. Not as noticeable as with -fat (that is, the effect doesn't kick in right away), but it's certainly there. - -Just as with animal fat, this doesn't apply to any plant source. Soy or flour -don't count as a good protein source because of all their other negative -effects. I know how much living without grains sucks, being a big fan of pizza -and tofu, but having collected data for months now, I can quite clearly say -that, at least for me, grains are never worth it. They screw up your digestion, -your mental performance and sap away your energy. That feeling of being totally -sated and need for a nap after dinner? That's the grains. It's not normal. -Eating dinner should have you *more* active than before, not *less*. - -Protein -------- - -TODO - -Sugar ------ - -TODO - -St. John's Wort ----------------- - -St. John's Wort has gotten quite a bit of attention recently for being as least -as effective as all other depression medicine while generally having far less -side-effects. - -So far, it has been very successful in both preventing my typical seasonal -depression beginning around November and in aborting an ongoing depression. I -also took it during my most recent caffeine withdrawal and I think it greatly -improved it, but I'm quite unwilling of doing another as a control. - -I'm unsure if there is any positive effect beyond preventing the depression. I -had no noticeable side effects despite taking 900mg of it for months. As a test, -I stopped a week after my caffeine withdrawal was over, as my serotonin levels -were stable anyway and I suspected that St. John's Wort slightly decreases -motivation, at least when it is unnecessary. - -Unfortunately, I had about a week of withdrawal, which mostly resulted in mild -mania, severe tiredness and low motivation. Still more pleasant than caffeine -withdrawal and certainly better (and shorter) than depression, which could last -for months. I would still advocate slowly reducing the dose instead to avoid -withdrawal. - -After that, my motivation didn't really recover. My mood was stable and my sleep -returned to more normal levels, but I was still wasting a lot of time, as is -typical for depression. So I went back to my daily dose and am quite happy with -the result. I'm still trying to find the perfect dosage that is *just* beneath -the overdose when my muscles start twitching and I get nervous. About 600mg work -seems to work, though. I may try getting off again next spring, nonetheless, -after everything has stabilized more. - -I suspect that 5-HTP works very well, too, although I never got to test it. I -failed to try it a few years back when it was still unregulated in Germany, -although I actually wanted to. It has a very good track record and I would -recommend trying it if St. John's Wort doesn't work for you. I might... obtain -it at some point, but so far, I am happy with St. John's Wort and see no -advantage in switching. - -I have a relatively low opinion of most mainstream medication for depression, -though especially SSRIs may be worth a try. Personally, I also had good -short-term success with MAO inhibitors, but wouldn't recommend them because they -are so incompatible with many other drugs or important food. It's just too hard -to eat right and too easy to kill yourself on MAO inhibitors. Also, raised -serotonin levels and drugs don't mix at all, especially MDMA or DXM. -[Serotonin syndrome] isn't nice. It's a bit of a pity, though, but I can live -with that. - -Tyrosine --------- - -<%= image("lolcats.jpg", "lolcatecholamines") %> - -Now comes the magic bullet. Seriously, Tyrosine is among my favorite chemicals -because it fixes a problem without creating new ones. That's quite rare. - -Tyrosine is basically a building block for many important neurotransmitters, -most importantly the catecholamines (CATs) which are necessary for -concentration and proper motivation. If you can't get yourself to do something -you actually want to do (and enjoy), then you have a big CAT deficiency. -Caffeine is by far the most common "cure", but with all its side-effects, it -doesn't really fix the problem. - -Tyrosine, for me, does. On the first day, I took 900mg in the morning and all -desire for caffeine was gone. I took another 900mg after dinner and kicked -caffeine immediately. Without any side-effects or withdrawal symptoms. *None*. -If you have ever done a caffeine withdrawal after heavy use, that might already -be the selling point right there. - -I now use 900mg every morning and occasionally 900mg after a nap if I have a -lazy day. I haven't yet experimented with higher doses (up to 4g) because I -don't wanna jinx it. Taking the powder orally (keeping it in your mouth a bit) -has a faster onset (and slight high), but taking capsules seems to have more or -less the same effect. I'm still experimenting with this, though. - -I'm now completely caffeine free and have better long-term memory and a far more -usable level of concentration. Full-on caffeine mode is slightly stronger, but -so manic that it is utterly useless. Mental tunnel-vision is not a good thing, -you know. - -With tyrosine, however, my concentration is as it should be. I don't have to -trick myself into starting anything, but can just work right away. I only get -exhausted when I actually did something (and can refuel with sleep and butter) -and not at random times. - -As a last piece of evidence, I'm just going to mention three numbers. They are -the number of daily SRS repetitions I could do per day before my brain would -shut down. A year ago, using almost no caffeine and no tyrosine, I managed about -80 reps, max. A few months ago, using caffeine, I got up to 150, maybe 200, but -that's a good day. 100 would be normal. The last two weeks, I did over 500 each -day without breaking a sweat. I got up to 800 after 3 hours of continuous work -and that's still not the maximum level. I just normally stop after an hour or so -because it gets too time-consuming or boring otherwise. - -Tyrosine is, however, useless when your serotonin levels are bad. You can be as -concentrated as you want, if you are apathetic, nothing will get done. That's -why I consider St. John's Wort more important, but tyrosine is more noticeable -right away and ultimately the effect I was hoping for. - -(Outdated, effect doesn't hold up long-term.) - -Nicotine --------- - -TODO - -Magnesium ---------- - -I took about 150mg of magnesium for several months for my sore knee. While it -improved the pain, I noticed a minor drop in motivation while using it. I'm not -exactly sure why and I couldn't find many reports, but a friend who used a -similar dose of magnesium at the same time noticed the same thing. This seems to -happen most commonly with magnesium citrate. - -Exercise -======== - -For simplicity's sake, there are two kinds of exercise: resistance training -(short, high strength, causes muscle growth) and long-term endurance training. -The first one is good for you, the second one neutral at best, harmful at worst. - -I found endurance training to be utterly useless for concentration. As a -reference, I have a caved-in chest (about medium) and can't swim. For most of my -life, I had very poor fitness levels. During the summers of 2009 and 2010, I -spend 3 months each on jogging. I went from not being able to run for 10 seconds -to running for over 20 minutes without pause and overall jogging sessions of -about an hour every two days. This did not affect my mental capacities in any -way I could notice. It was enjoyable, but that's about it. - -Resistance training, however, is completely awesome. January 2011 I started a -serious strength program, including weight gain (from 75kg to 85kg at 185cm of -height) and everything[^strength]. Besides obviously improving my fitness and -confidence, it also increased my energy levels and sleep. Highly recommended. - -[^strength]: Specifically, I follow [Convict Conditioning][] and ensure at least - 150g of protein a day, mostly in the form of whole milk, meat and [quark][]. - I exercise twice per week (as prescribed) and level up about one step per - month for each exercise. - -Meditation -========== - -Meditation works great, but has a serious disadvantage - it has a circular -dependency on its own effect. In other words, when you practice meditation -daily, it will greatly improve your discipline and concentration (among other -things, like bringing you enlightenment), but to meditate successfully, you need -discipline and concentration. You see how that's a problem? - -The typical solution to that problem has been either trying for years until you -finally manage to bootstrap the process or going on retreats or entering a -monastry, for a week to a whole year, where you are forced to meditate and have -no alternative or escape route. It works, sure, but it's both kinda cruel and -very inconvenient. - -Because of that, meditation is more of a middle- to end-game strategy. I highly -recommend it, but you need a certain level of skill and concentration already to -really use it. If you can't get out of bed, then meditation ain't gonna work, -either. For introductions to meditation, I recommend going on a 10 day -[Vipassana][] retreat and [Shinzen Young's][Shinzen Young] videos. - -Sunlight -======== - -TODO diff --git a/content_blog/experiments/dude_time.mkd b/content_blog/experiments/dude_time.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index ee20f1a..0000000 --- a/content_blog/experiments/dude_time.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,34 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Dude, Where's My Time?! -date: 2011-02-03 -techne: :done -episteme: :log ---- - -A few days ago, I got up at 6:00 and went to bed around 22:00. During the day, I felt I worked rather well. Maybe not optimally so, but still pretty well. When I was about to fall asleep, I thought about what I had accomplished and couldn't help but feel disappointed. I could remember about 2 hours of work or so. But I was awake for over 18 hours! Where did all my time go? - -Months ago, I kept logs about my activities (via [ashuku][]) and noticed that I would massively over-estimate how productive I really was. I would think I studied all day for an upcoming exam, but logged about 3 hours, max. - -The highest I ever got was almost 11 hours of productivity. Right after I got up, I would take a little notebook and write down my exact activity I would try to do for the next 20 minutes, say learn some vocabulary or read a book. I would set an alarm and do only this activity. When the time was up, I would go back to the notebook and repeat this process. After about 4 hours, I would take a nap. But note that I did this while I was still polyphasic! I was awake 20 hours a day! I got barely more than 50% productivity! - -# So where *does* all my fucking time go?! - -Yesterday, I set up a webcam and did a complete [profile][Profiling]. Almost 18 hours of video, plus screenshots every 5 minutes. I tried to work typically and not let the recording affect me much. I was slightly tired and maybe below-average productive. Regardless, at the end of the day I thought I had gotten useful stuff done and there wasn't much I could've done better. Maybe 1-2 hours more work if I wasn't tired, and I played a few hours of Civ4 at the end, but that itself wouldn't have been such a huge problem, right? I mean, 3 out of 18 hours spent on games is totally fine. - -Today, I opened a spreadsheet, watched the video and wrote down all activities plus time spent on them. *All* of them, including toilet visits. Here are all the interesting observations: - -- Out of 18 hours, **34 minutes** where spent on stuff on my (comprehensive) todo, mostly Anki reps and reading a biology textbook. Not even one hour! -- **45 minutes** went into selecting which out of 3 biology textbooks I would use for studying. I spent more time deciding what to read than actually reading! -- **1.8 hours** went into reading [LessWrong][]. This didn't feel particularly much, so I expect that I typically spent more than 2 hours or so a day on that site. I can't say I don't learn a lot, but is this really efficient? I could read at least 3 books a week just in the time I'm on LessWrong! Very questionable priorities. -- **1.3 hours** I was on Reddit, plus **1.4 hours** on various blogs and comics in my RSS reader. And I thought that's "just some news and a lolcat"! -- **1.6 hours** I fiddled with my [XMonad][] config. I encountered [a little bug][Xmonad Bug], tried (and failed) to read the documentation, asked for help and got it fixed. I thought that took maybe 15 minutes. And I thought "To get an accurate time estimate for a software project, take the best guess you can, double the number and step up one unit. So if you guess '1 hour', it'll really take 2 days." was a joke! -- **1.2 hours** I spent only on eating and pooping. Srsly! -- Finally, that "3 hours of Civ4"? Really **5.8 hours**. - -# Conclusions - -I totally suck at estimating time. My priorities are fucked up. I waste much more time on things than I ever thought, even when I try to pay attention. I have almost no fucking clue what I'm doing, focus only on trivial details, rationalize when I really should be experimenting. If I were my own employee, I would be fired. - -Admitting that you have a problem is the first step. Now the important part: don't stop there. *Fix* the problem. - -Knowing how incompetent I am gives me strong motivation to try new techniques. Before, I thought that explicit schedules were a waste of time. Now I see how poorly I perform without them. I have several ideas how to proceed. I will experiment and set up the webcam again in a few days. Let's see if I can't get my time back! diff --git a/content_blog/experiments/good_sleep.mkd b/content_blog/experiments/good_sleep.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 7ff95e0..0000000 --- a/content_blog/experiments/good_sleep.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,93 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Ways to Improve Your Sleep -date: 2010-05-27 -techne: :done -episteme: :discredited ---- - -Some stuff that I found that actually works. - -f.lux -===== - -[f.lux][] controls the level of blue your monitor shows and tones it down during -the night to allow you to get tired naturally (and not stay up all night, -playing ケロロＲＰＧ like _some_ people). There's quite a bit of research to -back it up and I achieved some really good results with it. - -(While [f.lux] has a Linux version, it's just an ugly binary. Use [Redshift][] -instead. All good distros have it in their repository (i.e., Gentoo).) - -Easy Exercise -============= - -> When you stress a leg muscle a lot, presumably one or more chemicals are -> released that both (a) cause the muscle to grow (the well-known effect of -> exercise) and (b) cause you to sleep more deeply at night (the effect that -> interests me). In contrast to [normal exercise], there’s no need for the -> concept of fitness here because you don’t slowly go up and down in a measure -> of effectiveness (i.e., become more or less fit). Rather each day you are high -> or low on this measure, and the next day you start fresh. In contrast to -> [normal exercise], where the benefits accrue slowly (over weeks and months), -> the benefits are obvious the next morning (you feel better-rested) and the -> next day (you’re less tired). (...) The benefits are so large relative to the -> cost that there’s no motivation problem. Deciding to do it is about as hard -> as deciding to pick up a $10 bill. Deciding to do conventional exercise is a -> lot harder. -> -> Seth Roberts, [Why Did I Sleep So Well?][] - -Basically, putting a ltitle bit of stress on muscles causes good sleep. The -easiest form of doing this is by standing on one leg, while pulling the other -one behind you, until it starts to feel painful. This takes about a few minutes, -10 at most, and takes so little motivation you can easily do it every day. Yes, -it works. It's very awesome. Conventional exercise works, too, but why bother? -Why run half an hour or more, when you can just stand a bit while cooking or -watching TV? - -Waking up gently -================ - -I found that alarms that woke me up instantly always screwed with my mental -alertness in the morning, leading to brain fog and turning off the alarm as an -angry reflex. Using something that slowly fades into awareness, like slow music, -works way better. I also got good results by using TV shows. Waking up to -something engaging and interesting is always good. - -Unfortunately, I haven't yet tried a strong, gradual light sources, although I -do have my 3 TFTs set up to turn on each morning, so I suspect that it would -help as well. Regardless, all artificial light sources pale in comparison to the -sun, even on a very cloudy day. You aren't able to consciously tell how bright -something really is (because most of human vision is processed as relative to -its surrounding, not in absolutes), so it's easy to get this wrong, but during -my [polyphasic][Polyphasic Sleep] experiment I found standing outside for even -just 5 minutes to be a great help in waking up. - -Caffeine -======== - -No, not in the morning. (Although that helps, too, especially with brain fog.) -I'm talking about drinking caffeine before going to bed. - -This hack applies only to some brains, mostly people with bipolar or ADD -personalities. The best sign is whether uppers like caffeine, cocaine or -Ritanol, especially in small dosages, make you hyper or calm. I actually get -sleepy from drinking caffeine. It takes me about 2 to 3 hours, minimum, to -become more active after a cup of coffee. - -The critical part is getting just the right dosage. Caffeine still affects and -disrupts your tiredness, so drinking to much will prevent you from getting good -sleep. The tricky thing is that the negative effects will only kick in very -late, hours later, while you are working like crazy. I have gone multiple times -for about 3 or 4 days drinking huge amounts of coffee, like at 10 to 20 cups a -day, feeling great, sleeping great, until I finally found I suddenly couldn't -sleep all the way through because my legs were twitching so much they started to -be really sore and my heartbeat sounded very unhealthy. - -Nonetheless, getting enough caffeine, especially in the evening, each day -greatly improves my sleep, my breathing and my ability to wake up. -Unfortunately, it still blocks adenosine, so I find it harder to fall asleep. -It's quite a paradox state to be in, when you can't fall asleep, but once you -do, you sleep great. I had even considered taking *both* an upper and a downer, -like caffeine and diphenhydramine, but found this too silly (and I dislike all -available downers, including melatonin). diff --git a/content_blog/experiments/index.mkd b/content_blog/experiments/index.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 59a2cae..0000000 --- a/content_blog/experiments/index.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Experiments -is_category: true ---- - -<%= category :experiments %> diff --git a/content_blog/experiments/magnetic.mkd b/content_blog/experiments/magnetic.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 3ed997b..0000000 --- a/content_blog/experiments/magnetic.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,22 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Persinger's Magnetic Field Hypothesis -date: 2011-01-01 -techne: :done -episteme: :broken ---- - -Normally, I'd do an introduction who [Michael Persinger][] is, but I'm not in the mood, so let's just say that he is a (awesome!) mind researcher who developed the infamous God Helmet, which induces just the right kind of magnetic field around a brain to trigger, in most people, a sense of wonder and presence of somebody invisible being with them in the room, and in few, a full-blown religious experience. Also, there's his great lecture on drugs: - -<%= google_video "http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=4292093832329014323" %> - -So, the real point. Persinger once hypothesized that small fluctuations in the Earth's magnetic field might cause changes in the temporal lobe, triggering in extreme cases spiritual experiences, and more typically, raising the rate of reported UFO abductions and so on. He suspected that earth quakes would be sufficient to cause these magnetic fluctuations. - -Regardless if that is true, there's a more reliable source of magnetic disturbance available - the Sun. Its magnetic field fluctuates quite a bit. You can find the current data on [NOAA's site][NOAA]. The bottom-middle diagram shows the current Kp index, which is just a simple classification how rapidly the field changes right now. <4 means the field is quiet, 4-6 is a normal storm, >6 is huge. Normal storms are enough to disturb international radio transmissions, huge one's might even fry unprepared electronics in orbit. A storm typically lasts about half a day. - -So, like any self-respecting empiricist, I decided to test the hypothesis. If Persinger is right, then an index >4 should be enough to trigger a noticeable change in the temporal lobe. My brain is sensitive enough to go in full-on religious experience mode when probed and I strongly suspect that I have mild to normal temporal lobe epilepsy, so I'm the perfect test subject. If *I* don't notice anything, then it must be bullshit. - -Of course, I can't just look up the current value and ask myself, "Am I more spiritual today than usual?". Confirmation bias, self-fulfilling prophecies and nastier stuff would wreck my results. So I just subscribed to the official NOAA mailing list and archived the Kp index. I also took an automatic screenshot every 10 minutes so I could later reconstruct what I did that day. I then let two months pass (May and June) without reading any of that mail. - -So, what are the **results**? Well, I had 6 very quiet days (Kp index 0), 5 turbulent ones (5-6) and the rest very normal, typically about 1-2. I noticed that on all 6 quiet days, I got almost nothing done and slept a lot. On 4 of the 5 turbulent days, I didn't just feel very spiritual, but read lots of Buddhist literature and had multiple strong insights. The 5th day I played NWN2. (This was the only time the storm happened during the day. The temporal lobe (and matching epileptic seizures) are most active around 0-4 at night, due to hormonal levels.) Of my 7 really productive days during that period, 4 were the turbulent ones and one came after the NWN2 session. Furthermore, I had no really lazy or spiritual day during the rest of the time. - -That's... a strong confirmation. I didn't believe my data, so I continued to measure. Another 2 months, similar results. Now another 4 months, similar results (but I did look at the measurements in advance this time). So I guess I'll have to believe the basic idea now. It's definitely among the crankiest beliefs I have. diff --git a/content_blog/experiments/polyphasic_sleep.mkd b/content_blog/experiments/polyphasic_sleep.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index c0c8840..0000000 --- a/content_blog/experiments/polyphasic_sleep.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,170 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Polyphasic Sleep -date: 2010-05-06 -techne: :done -episteme: :broken ---- - -Definition -========== - -Polyphasic sleep means sleeping in multiple chunks per day instead of one big -one. Monophasic sleep is the normal one, averaging in at about 7-9 hours per -day. The most common form of polyphasic sleep is something like 5+2, i.e. 5 -hours at night and a 2 hour nap around noon. - -However, the really interesting ones are those where you only sleep about 2-5 -hours in total per day. Yes, that's not a typo: *2 hours per day*. They can -generally be classified into Uberman sleep, which has 6 naps of 20 minutes each, -and Everyman sleep, which has one core of 1-3 hours and up to 5 nap of 20 -minutes. Both terms were coined by [puredoxyk][], who also has one of the best -sites on how to adapt to them. I'm not gonna repeat all that here, nor address -any of the common myths and criticisms (Like, "That's impossible!". It isn't.), -but instead give my own criticism why I believe it's a *Bad Thing*. Also, a bit -of personal experience with it because every site about polyphasic sleep needs -to have anecdotes how bad the zombie phase was. - -Why It's Bullshit -================= - -Let's start at the opposite end - what does work? Well, polyphasic sleep is the -best (known) option you have when you can't have more than 2-4 hours per day of -sleep. If you must sleep that little, for example because you are into solo -sailing or your newborn child and 2 jobs keep you up all day, than polyphasic -sleep is right for you. It minimizes the damage this kind of life will do, but -you will still be worse off. You will still be sleep deprived. [^deprived] - -[^deprived]: Well, as far as I can tell, you are not doing any permanent damage, - so a week of good sleep will probably fix everything again. Also, many - polyphasic sleepers will argue that they are not sleep deprived and I - certainly accept that they don't _feel_ that way. But try using your memory - and see how fast you crash. - -Ok, having acknowledged that, let's start with the criticism. In fact, it's a -very simple criticism because it only involves one point. - -Polyphasic sleep destroys your memory. --------------------------------------- - -Sure, you are awake more (if you are lucky; most people aren't and delude -themselves to the fact), but you can't use the time in any meaningful way. You -can't learn more; in fact, you'll learn less. All existing studies show that -performance is slightly below normal levels, which means you have 4-6 more hours -of waketime, but you are actually performing worse than if you had slept them -all. Great job. That's like taking a shortcut, only to drive slower so that you -arrive even later. - -Why is there not a single polyphasic scientist? No, Tesla was not polyphasic, he -crashed regularly. Edison lied about his schedule and, while being mostly -polyphasic, didn't save any time (and he was not a scientist). Buckminster -Fuller only slept polyphasically when touring, for the reason I mentioned above. - -Why is there not a single polyphasic polyglot? You'd think that someone who is -learning multiple languages at the same time would be glad over every single -hour per day they can get. Yet, not a single one of them is documented to be -polyphasic. Some have tried (mostly early polyglots), no one was happy with it. - -Why does no military or space agency advocate polyphasic sleep? There are -several studies researching it, but they all document a severe loss of -performance and they all advise against it, except when external circumstances -force you to be polyphasic, as mentioned earlier. - -Why does all data collected via SRS, like for example Supermemo, show that -sleeping in big chunks correlates with good performance? If there are working -examples of polyphasic sleepers, no one of them has ever demonstrated this via -their SRS statistics, and Supermemo captures a lot of those. There isn't a -single example of someone sleeping 4 hours or less per day and still getting a -normal retention rate for the same amount of data learned. - -There is a simple answer to these questions: Because polyphasic sleep doesn't -work. It's bullshit. For all the claims of "superhuman" feats, there hasn't been -a single bit of evidence for it. Proponents have made all kinds of claims and -assurances, yet have presented nothing. Most of them don't even seem to be -capable of grasping the importance of empirical evidence. It is pseudoscience. - -Alternatives -============ - -Alright, so polyphasic sleep sucks. But is there an alternative? As you can see -in my blog posts below, I occasionally got really cool runs of 3-5 days where I -worked like a madman for 20 hours a day, no problem. Sure, I crashed afterwards, -but I still got all this stuff done. And if you sleep long enough afterwards, -then your memory will catch up a lot. - -If you don't care about your mental health and you don't care about being able -to sustain your behaviour, go right ahead. If you also keep in mind that the -majority of people drop out of polyphasic sleep after a month or less, I would -recommend a better alternative: Amphetamines. It has exactly the same amount of -advantages (awake at all costs), is easier to use and fucks you up just the -same. - -Or, a bit more seriously, if you are bipolar like me, you can simply embrace -your manic side and fuel it every time it shows up. Every once in a while, I -go on a megalomaniac caffeine spree, drinking over 3 liters of coffee (or cola, -sometimes - I still like the added sugar high) per day. Sure, I can't maintain -that and after about a week, I look like I just escaped Arkham Asylum, but _man_ -do I get stuff _done_ in this week. - -Being a Zombie -============== - -This is one of my old blog posts, written 8 months after my first adaptation in -2008. - -> I'm pissed. So very pissed. -> -> Polyphasic sleep is getting on my nerves. Let me summarize the last 8 -> (8?!) months. -> -> _October_. Yay, finally some Uberman! Oh god, this is hard! I may have only -> 2 hours of sleep, but I also only have 2 hours of -> not-feeling-like-a-zombie. Screw this shit. -> -> _November_. Experimentation. More experimentation. Even more -> experimentation. It works! I feel ok! An unexpected event occurs. I'm -> screwed. -> -> _December_. It's futile. Uberman is just not practical. Let's do everyman! 3 -> hour core, sleep galore! It works! The excitement wears off, I'm screwed. -> -> _January_. Can't think, can't dream, can't move. Bang my head against the -> wall. Some days are perfect, others are hell. Experimentation. -> -> _February_. Better times, stricter schedule, more experience. Results: -> underwhelming. I crash, can't get back up. This doesn't work. -> -> _March_. Not enough time. The naps too infrequent, the core too short, the -> sleep-throughs too frequent. This is just an adaptation problem, it will -> go away. -> -> _April_. It didn't. It's futile. What about a 90 minute core and 5 naps? It -> works! Excitement! Uberman-with-a-core works! I study like mad, finish 2/3 -> of the whole semester in 3 days. -> -> _May_. Instability. It really is Uberman-with-a-core. Didn't eat right? -> Oversleep. Did some exercise? Oversleep. Didn't find a bug in your code? -> Oversleep. Made the tea a little too strong? Oversleep. Every one -> destabilizes the schedule. I have 3 in one week, that's it. Impractical, -> totally impractical. Better than Uberman, though. - -Another one: - -> Impatience is really getting annoying. Except for the short core I can't skip -> any time at all anymore. If something takes 6 hours, like a download for -> example, I will be awake (almost) all the time and have to wait. Every. -> Minute. Of. It. You see everything pass. Someone just went to bed and you want -> to talk about something? Prepare to sit there, for 8 hours or more, fully -> awake. Wrote some email and await an answer? You'll have memorized 500 digits -> of π before you get it. You can't skip anything, can't just hibernate a few -> hours. Once the sun went down, you'll sit in darkness, for 14 hours and more -> right now. If you are not president by day, superhero by night and mad -> scientist on the side, you'll be bored right out of your skull. Your puny -> hobbies are not enough for The Night That Never Ends, mortal! - -This was actually my main motivation to become polyphasic. I just had too many -hobbies and needed way more time. And when polyphasic sleep works, you feel like -on cocaine, finishing the work that takes your friends weeks during one 40 hour -weekend. I even started picking up another language just to have something to -do! But then, after a while, your brain is completely overloaded and you just -crash. So it _is_ just like cocaine, really. - diff --git a/content_blog/experiments/speedreading.mkd b/content_blog/experiments/speedreading.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index c3a859e..0000000 --- a/content_blog/experiments/speedreading.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,480 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Speed Reading -date: 2010-06-23 -techne: :rough -toc: true -episteme: :broken ---- - -Wait, what? Speed reading? Isn't that pseudoscience? Partially, sure. However, -not all of it, and that really surprised me. Yes, speed reading *is* real. This -is my collection of useful hacks. - -Hacking your brain for fun and profit -===================================== - -Binocular Rivalry ------------------ - -While working through [Consciousness Explained][] by Daniel Dennett, I encountered -several experiments that I doubted. So I tried to replicate them. Specifically, -binocular rivalry seemed weird to me. Binocular rivalry occurs when each of -your eyes sees a different thing, typically achieved by just setting up a -barrier between them, and showing different pictures to each, e.g. horizontal -stripes on the left and vertical stripes on the right, or different letters or -faces and so on. What happens is that occasionally one side will dominate over -the other and you will only be conscious of it. Most commonly, at first you -kinda see both sides, then they partially merge, in a very patchy way, and -suddenly your vision _flips_, i.e. one side becomes clear and the other turns -invisible. This process then alternates randomly, unless even a slight -disruption is introduced to one side, like a moving dot, which causes this side -to become dominant immediately. - -Allegedly, you may control which side is dominant most of the time, but you can -not be conscious of both reliably. I didn't believe that and tested it by trying -to read two texts simultaneously. In fact, I actually managed to do that! The -main visual problem is focus. It is quite hard to have each eye focus a -different thing, but using e.g. [DXM][], you can actually pull that off. But even -without it, you can try to focus a middle point and just make the letters big -enough so that you can read them even out-of-focus. The real problem comes from -assembling two sources of input into separate sentences; at first, they always -mixed and I couldn't understand anything. - -Being Myselves --------------- - -I then controlled for that by using series of numbers and suddenly I was able to -read two things at the same time! At first rivalry happened a lot, but soon I -got into mental soft focus and could read (but not parse sentences) just fine. I -then speculated that I might be able to exploit both halves of my brain. In -split-brain patients, who don't have a connection between their left and right -hemisphere, you actually get two independent consciousnesses and I did read up -on people that tried to induce this with normal brains. - -Because the left side of vision (i.e. left in both eyes) is handled by the left -hemisphere and vice versa, you can wear glasses that have either their left half -on each glass blocked by tape or the right side, and so only give visual input -to one hemiphhere. This actually causes a significant effect if your two -hemispheres are currently in disagreement. Some people with depression or -anxiety were able to reduce it or turn it almost off temporarily while wearing -such glasses! So for example, you feel very nervous with your therapist, block -the left side, everything is the same, then instead block the right side, -woosh!, your anxiety is gone. It comes right back when you take the glasses off, -but still, way cool. - -So by being able to make each hemisphere dominant at will, you can really fuck -with your mood. Find where your language side is (typically the left side) and -block it - you become more empathetic and reading gets harder. Block the other -side, reading is normal, but relating to content is harder. The effect is -typically not that large because both sides are still internally connected, but -I found it quite noticeable. - -Anyway, I tried to improve on binocular reading by separating not only between -eyes, but sides of vision. Let my left half of my left eye read one thing and -the right half of my right eye another. Focus gets really tricky that way, but -it is doable. And lo and behold, I could, albeit slowly, read two things at -once! Parallel processing, bitches! - -What's that all got to do with speed reading?! ----------------------------------------------- - -Binocular reading isn't really practical (for one, you look ridiculous, two, -it's very difficult and slow), but I got interested in *other* ways I could hack -my reading process. If I can read in parallel, can I also read non-linearly? -Start in the middle of a sentence, jump around and still get it? Read really -really fast? Maybe subconsciously? - -Now we're getting there! First, let me clarify one thing: speed reading literature -is a complete and total *mess*. Barely anything scientific, vague claims, lots -of lies and false promises, no clear terms, nothing. To remedy this, I'm going -to state *exactly* what I mean and what this is about: - -Speed reading involves any technique that makes you read a normal text faster -**without sacrificing comprehension**. No, it's not **skimming**: that only -tries to give you a basic overview of the text. The idea is to be able to -understand the text just as if you had read it "normally", even though the -process of getting there may be very different. There are techniques to organize -your reading better, like first skimming through and getting a feel for the -structure and so on, and they are all useful, but that's *not what this is -about*. We want pure reading speed, nothing more, nothing less. - -But what can be achieved? First, measure your current reading speed. Say, pick a -Wikipedia article, read it, time yourself and then count the words. Average -among most people is about *150-250wpm* (words per minute). Good college -students read at about *300-350wpm*. A fast conventional reader gets up to -*500wpm*, maybe *600wpm* if they are really good. Speed reading, on the other -hand, falls into a range of about *800 to 1500wpm*. For some texts and some -people, this can go even higher, but as a reasonable general limit, 1500wpm is -about it. - -Because a normal page in a book has about 350 to 450 words, depending on font -size, people typically read about 30 pages per hour, college students about 50 -to 60 and speed readers about 150 to 250. Those numbers are of course averaged -over a lengthy text and don't have to be constant - a difficult paragraph may -slow you down and a simple one may just fly by. - -What about **comprehension**? There are two components to it: **understanding** -the text and **remembering** it. Understanding means being able to follow it, -being able to give a summary of it and so on. Remembering involves still knowing -details, all characters or arguments involved and so on. Basically, if at the -end of the book, you don't sit around confused what the fuck just happened, you -*understood* the text (and didn't read James Joyce). If you can also pretty much -tell someone everything you just read, you also *remember* it. The two are -usually closely connected, but not always. - -I am only interested in techniques that *maintain* a high level of -comprehension, typically a retention of 80-90% of the content. Sacrificing -quantity for quality is right out. Nonetheless, it is still true that topics -that are difficult to understand will always be read slowly, no matter the -technique used. Reading about theoretical physics will be slow unless you have -studied it. No speed reading technique will fix this problem. Most texts, -however, fit nicely into your rough skill level and the limiting factor is in -fact your reading, not your understanding. - -Related to that, a common objection to speed reading is that it kills the -enjoyment, or that maybe you are just reading too easy texts. "Why hurry -something good?" I don't agree with this sentiment *at all*. If you enjoy -reading so much, why not read at 1 sentence per hour? Why not watch Star Trek at -one scene per day? What, that would be mind-numbingly boring? Why yes it would! -Also, if you increase your throughput, you become able to handle more complex -structures. A series filling thousands of pages is suddenly just as manageable -as a comic book was before. Reading up on moral philosophy by reading works -by/about the 10 or 20 most influential thinkers over the course of a week or two -is doable. Books become what Wikipedia articles were before. So if you don't -like high bandwidth and all the benefits that come with it, this just isn't for -you. - -Finally, a note on **subvocalization**. When reading, there are basically 4 -different aspects of sound: - -1. *Reading out loud*. This is what beginners may do, or what you do when - reading to someone. It was actually quite common in ancient times and the - idea that you could read silently was very weird to many Romans. -2. *Reading to yourself internally*. You basically still do the same thing, - including moving your tongue, but you don't produce a sound. This is often a - transitional period for early readers (and quite useful - there is some - evidence, including my own experience, that learning new languages is easier - when subvocalizing). It will disappear on its own once you become more - confident. -3. *Subvocalization*. You still *hear* the sound, but you don't feel that you - produce it. Muscle movement doesn't exist (at least not any you would notice) - and speed is greatly improved. You often skip words, or only hint at the - sound. This is the normal mode for most people to be in, even many deaf (who - often are not 100% deaf), and this is the *inner voice* most of us use to - think, at least some of the time. -4. *Reading in silence*. Finally, reading without hearing any associated sound. - No inner voice, but direct meaning, just as you look at a map, for example. - Because visual processing is, for almost everyone, vastly superior to aural - processing you can read much faster that way. Personally, I believe that the - problem is that to understand an inner or outer voice, your brain has to - simulate sequential processesing, but the brain is only parallel. This - makes it all quite slow. Visual processing on the other hand is not - you - can parse many parts of an image or scene at the same time and only - coordinate results at the very end. Also, your visual hardware is far more - optimized and greater in size. - -Techniques -========== - -The Conventional Approach - How to read fast the normal way ------------------------------------------------------------ - -The easiest hack is to just read faster - you do everything you'd normally do, -just faster. As I mentioned, you can go up to about 600wpm that way. When I was -starting out with speed reading, I was already reading at 450wpm. How did I get -that fast? - -I could credit reading practice. I do read a lot, especially on the web, but -that's not all that plausible. I know enough people who easily read just as much -as I was reading at 14, and I was reading about 400wpm back then, too. Most -people never seem to go beyond 250-300wpm, no matter how much practice they have -reading texts. - -So what *do* I credit? Video games. I'm serious. I played a *lot* of shooters -and racing games and this really improves your ability to react *fast* and react -to inputs from *anywhere* in your field of vision. You are also forced to shift -your attention around a lot and figure out threats as fast as you can. I also -notice that in anyone I know that played a lot of fast games: Their attention -jumps around a lot faster than normal, no matter what they are working on. - -The typical example is taking a gaming teenager and having their teacher watch. -Give the teen a computer menu to figure out, or a form to fill out or something -like this, and watch how the teacher desperately tries to keep up, even though -the teacher surely has more reading practice. Still, no chance whatsoever, and -the same goes for all non-gaming teens. But any gamer will have no problem, no -matter the age. - -So if you read only 200 or 300wpm, you are not playing enough. Get Quake 3 or -Halo or Starcraft, a big supply of caffeine and *train*. After a while, your -reading speed will pick up, I'm certain of it. Some people, especially those -with ADHD, may be better at this than others. Sometimes, a short attention span -really pays.. oh shiny! - -Turning off subvocalization ---------------------------- - -The most important change to achieve any kind of real speed is getting rid of -the dependency on subvocalization. The rationale is simple: as long as sound is -involved, in any way, even just at the last step of comprehension, you will not -go faster than about 600wpm. Forget it, it's impossible. - -However, the idea is *not* to permanently turn off subvocalization. It does have -some useful purposes. It's quite good at understanding names, or unknown words, -or reading anything sound-based, like poetry. However, the vast majority of text -is entirely disconnected from sound. (Some languages maybe more than others. -French and English are already only remotely linked to their actual spelling, -but many Chinese languages have basically *no* written pronunciation. It also -has never stopped any scholar from reading old languages, whose sounds have been -lost to us.) Ideally, we would like to read visually whenever possible and only -resort to sound when necessary. - -So let's cut out the middleman. But how? I'm going to present three techniques that -worked for me, but before I do that, I want to address one common problem. - -It is quite typical to worry how to *suppress* subvocalization. How do you *not* -think in a certain way? The short answer is: you don't because you can't. -Thought suppression never works. You can't *learn* to not think of a cow by -*trying* to not think of a cow. Try it yourself! By giving attention to the idea -of a cow, and you must, otherwise you wouldn't know that you are not thinking of -it, it will always come to mind again. However, certainly *can* not think of a -cow - by not giving cows any kind of attention. The same goes for -subvocalization - the following techniques will simply not care about it and -will in fact make it impossible to use it. It will disappear on its own. - -Chunking --------- - -A chunk is the largest unit of information you take in at once. When you learn -reading, your chunk size is "one letter", slowly building up to "one syllable" -to "one word". Unfortunately, most people stop there. The goal is to enlarge -your chunks to multiple words, maybe even whole sentences at once. Chunking is -the whole meat of speed reading. It's the main trick to discover. - -Once you read at a very high speed, it really makes a huge difference how large -your chunks are. Here's a little demonstration: - -<%= image("fast.gif", "chunk size 1") %> -<%= image("slow.gif", "chunk size 4") %> - -Both animations run at the same reading speed of 1000wpm, but the first one -shows every word on its own, while the second one uses groups of 4. If you watch -it for a while, you should be able to read the second one, but the first one is -a lot more difficult. However, notice that it will also get easier once you know -what the sentence is. This is the trick behind chunking: pattern prediction. If -you have a good clue how a sentence is gonna develop, you can read more of it in -one go. This is why this will only work when you know the language well and the -text contains not too many unfamiliar ideas. - -Once you go beyond about 10 chunks/second, visual processing starts lagging -behind more and more. After-images, too slow eye movement and so on start -interfering with your reading. This means you can read maybe 600wpm if you read -every word on its own, but increasing your chunk size from just 1 to 2 -immediately doubles your speed! The benefit is obvious, so pacing trade-offs -when increasing chunk size are often worth it. - -The highest possible chunk size, according to all sources I read, seems to be -about one paragraph, which is about 100 to 150 words long. I suspect that a main -problem here is the size of the area you can keep in focus. Chunking a whole -page at once is probably impossible because you could never get all words to be -sharp and readable. - -A very useful technique for training purposes is **Rapid Serial Visual -Presentation**, or RSVP for short. That's quite a big word, when really, it just -means "flashing words really fast", exactly like the two animations before. - -The best RSVP I found is [Eyercize][], even though it has -the stupidest name *evar*. Nonetheless, it's the only speed reading tool I know -with support for fixation points and complete customization. I usually set it to -2-3 fixation points per line, about 5 lines of context and increasingly higher -speeds. I occasionally ignore the marked line and read the upcoming context -instead, though. [Spreeder][] is also nice and maybe -easier to use at first. - -I would also recommend [Look, Ma; No Hands!][], a book that teaches semantic -chunking very well. It's quite short and precise. You get results very fast. - -To make chunking possible, you have to watch out for the right **font size**. -You can only see about 5 degrees sharp enough to read. If you hold out your arm -and make a piece sign, then your index and middle finger are about 5 degrees -apart. So it is crucial to get enough words into focus. - -I was often reading texts at very high font sizes, like 30pt or so. Hey, I have -bad eye sight and sit quite far away from my monitors. But I found that this -makes it really hard to read fast, so I fixed my setup. I moved my monitors a -lot closer and decreased my font size. *A lot*. - -In my experience, a font size of 12pt (assuming normal DPI) is the *largest* you -want to use. I currently read websites at 10pt, which seems to be the best -compromise between readability and strain on the eyes. (I also find it hard to -read Japanese below 10pt. There just aren't enough pixels left.) - -At those sizes, the font used matters a lot. I've always been very fond of the -Microsoft fonts, even though I haven't run any of their systems for years. The -Google Droid font is also very nice. Regardless, experiment and use something -that is clean and very easy to read. - -Speaking of font size, column width matters just as much. It's no use if you see -a lot of text, but the current paragraph fits into one huge line across your >20 -inch display. Ideally, you would get a whole sentence into your focus at once. -The maximum line length therefore should be about 100 characters or 20 words. - -If you are a console hacker, then I'd also recommend checking out bitmap fonts. -They really shine at such sizes. Remember that you can only fix bugs in code -that you see. The more lines fit on your screen, the better you can debug. - -Faster pacing -------------- - -This is where the "speed" in "speed reading" comes from. Chunking is the -requirement, but it on its own won't make you faster. The human body, and that -includes the brain, is very efficient at avoiding work. It is a ruthless -optimizer and always do what is easiest *right now*. Being good at conserving -energy is the reason we are still here, but also why any kind of exercise is so -hard. If you *somehow* can get away with spending less, you will do so. That's -why you only get muscle growth if you push yourself hard enough to make it -absolutely necessary. You will never get stronger just by jogging, and you will -never get faster by reading at a comfortable pace. - -To get faster, we need a kind of setup that makes it easier to process text -faster than anything else. The best way to do this is to externally enforce a -high speed. For digital texts, you can use the RSVP again. I prefer short -sprints, so take a text of at most 5000 words, which is about a longish blog -article. Take your current reading speed and multiply by 2. Use a chunk size you -are comfortable with, or about 3-4 words when in doubt. Try to keep up, but -never slow down. If you missed too much, try again, at the same speed. You may -change the chunk size, but never decrease the words per minute! - -Don't worry that you will not get everything at first. In fact, don't worry if -the text makes no sense at all. Concentrate and try to get as much as possible. -At first, you may only make out a word here and there. Soon, you make out -groups. Whole chunks. The occasional sentence. Then some meaning returns. That's -when you do the next step - you go *faster*. - -Because the computer shows the text for you, you can't cheat. You can't fall -back and read a sentence again or slow down in any way. You must either pay -attention and use your eyes maximally efficient or you won't understand the -text. - -Here's an idea for an exercise and how I did it. Because I read at 400wpm, I set -my speed to 800wpm. I would read like that for about 5 minutes. Then I increased -my speed to 1000wpm, again for 5 minutes. Then go back a bit, to 900wpm, which -will now seem much easier. Continue alternating between "can kinda keep up" and -"can barely make anything out" for a total of about 30 minutes, maybe an hour at -most. - -The principle behind this is a bit like high-intensity interval training where -you run as fast as you can for 20 seconds, then jog for 10 seconds and repeat -this in total for 5-10 times. The idea is not to be able to always run as fast -as during those sprints, but by putting this huge, but short pressure on your -muscles, to greatly increase your normal speed. - -It is perfectly normal and actually good to be confused and not understand -anything during this exercise. :) This speed is far too fast for your internal -voice to keep up and your brain is under huge pressure to make any sense of what -you are reading asap. Once you go down to a more normal rate, you will actually -overshoot and read faster than you thought would be necessary. Voilà, you read a -bit faster! The brain gets used to this high speed and soon comprehension -returns. In fact, I found that I got bored now if I would read at 400 or 500wpm, -even after just one week! Be warned that this may annoy any non-speed-reading -observer. ;) - -As material I used minor blogs I enjoyed reading, but didn't care too much about -if I missed anything, and novels I had already read or that were kinda -predictable. That way, if you go blank from time to time, you can find back -into the text easily. And it's a great chance to read Twilight without any -guilt! (You can find usable novels in .txt or .pdf form in certain bays or, -for older texts, in the Gutenberg archive, for example.) - -It took me about a week to read 800wpm that way without missing anything. After -two weeks, I could keep up 1000wpm almost all the time, and 1200wpm if I really -concentrated. You don't have to do this all day, but try to do at least 20 -minutes daily. - -Reading nonlinearly -------------------- - -Finally, it's time to fully exploit the parallel processing and to do more -aggressive pattern prediction. It's time to throw away the chains of -oppression, comrade! intended text flow that the author gave us and -to read in any order and any direction that gets to the meaning faster. - -Reading nonlinearly just means you read text the same way you look around. You -jump to the points that look most interesting, figure out the context around -them, then jump to the next spot. But if you read everything sequentially, you -can't do that! At least, you'd have to go back and start reading the current -sentence you're in. - -Imagine your vision would work sequentially - like normal reading. You go into a -room and move your eyes to the upper left, start moving them to the right, line -by line, until you have scanned the whole room. Sure, you would *see* everything -eventually, but it would be *way* stupid and inefficient. Instead, you first -have a quick look around, maybe 2 or 3 unconscious eye movements, to figure out -if anyone is in the room and where the interesting stuff is. Nothing unusual on -the floor or ceiling, so you skip those areas altogether. But you saw something -like a face over there, so you concentrate more on this point until you -recognize who it is (and in what mood they are). This takes maybe a second or so -in total, and you may have only actually looked at 5% of the scene, but you sure -know everything that matters. So why not read that way? - -A good exercise I found was to enforce a time limit per page. I set up a -timer[^pororo] to give me a little beep every 20 seconds, following which I -would *have* to turn the page, no matter how far I was. This would equal a -reading speed of about 800wpm for a small paperback. You do this for maybe 5 -minutes, then go faster. Go to 15 seconds, then 10, then 5. Finally, go back to -20 again. It will now be far easier. - -Sometimes, it was no problem to read a page very fast, but soon I could tell on -first sight if I would be able to make it or not, *before* being conscious of -any content. If I recognized the page as hard, I would scan it rapidly first, -working out the structure and main phrases on it. This would take only a few -seconds, but reduce the difficulty of the page drastically. I could then clarify -the missing pieces, reading them far faster than before. Like with vision, you -first establish where core ideas (=people) or interesting words (=colors) are, -then concentrate on them exclusively. - -Instead of going for whole pages, you can also train to read multiple lines at -once. At first, start with 1 second per line, for maybe a minute. Read any way -you want, but after 1 second, move on to the next line. It helps to trace the -lines with your finger or a pen to enforce a consistent speed. Then do 2 lines -simultaneously in 1 second, again for a minute. Then 4. Then whole blocks of -texts, ideally whole paragraphs. Such huge blocks are very nice for skimming and -getting a feel for the book, where everything is and what the main ideas will -be, but it's a bit troublesome for normal reading. Still, it took me about 2 -weeks to get used to reading about 2-3 lines at once. I now have a far broader -pattern in which my eyes move over the page, not clinging to every word, but -rather "painting" the page in a zig-zag pattern with a brush about 2-3 lines -thick. - -Another good exercise is to read *backwards*. You start at the end of the line -and right to the beginning, i.e. for an English text, you read right-to-left. -Once you got a bit of practice at that, you can alternate and read in a zig-zag -pattern. The advantage is two-fold: you save a lot of eye movement and you get -used to understanding sentences out of order. - -Combined with a harsh time limit, I found that this exercise greatly improved my -ability to jump in the middle of a paragraph, figure out what's going on and -assemble meaning by moving into all directions, not just left-to-right.[^ltr] - -[^ltr]: - It may help if you are used to multiple languages that have a different - word order or writing direction. German and Japanese, for example, build up - quite large word stacks and you may end up with a sentence that keeps on - piling up modifiers and objects without revealing the crucial verb or target - at the end, so maybe this practice makes it easier for me to adapt to - backwards reading than for others. Also, Japanese is read both left-to-right - and up-to-down (and then right-to-left), depending on context, so I'm - already used to changing directions. - -Once you go beyond a certain speed, it stops being uniform. I noticed that I can -read consistently at 300-400wpm using my previous techniques, but when speed -reading I vary between 700wpm to 1200wpm from page to page. Especially dialogue -really slows me down. This also means that each book has its own speed, so -measuring reading speeds in "words per minute" stops being useful. "Bits of -information per minute" would be better, but how do you calculate that? - -[^pororo]: - I wrote my own timer for such purposes. You can check it out on - [Github][Pororo]. Basically, you set a timer for each level - of the task, like a 23s timer for the page and a 200page timer for the book. - Alternatively, I used the metronome function of my mp3 player, especially - when reading on the train or when waiting for something. diff --git a/content_blog/experiments/synesthesia.mkd b/content_blog/experiments/synesthesia.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 53d5299..0000000 --- a/content_blog/experiments/synesthesia.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,30 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Developing Synesthesia -date: 2011-01-27 -techne: :done -episteme: :broken ---- - -Synesthesia is the automatic connection of different senses. Typical example: perceiving numbers as having a color. Or the LSD version: seeing music. - -<%= image("cat-lick-funny-stamp.jpg", "I licked a funny stamp") %> - -Many years ago, I was fascinated by the idea and really wanted to have this myself. Tasting sound would be awesome! Alas, I didn't seem to have any synesthesia nor did I ever find a way to replicate it. - -Well, until now that is. Some months ago, I started taking cold showers for my skin. To make it less painful, I started to pay very close attention to the sensations as they arose. I figured, the worst part of it is the anticipation of unpleasantness, not the actually coldness. - -I then noticed that "aw, cold!" consisted actually of four parts. First, there is a feeling of "cold", then slight pressure as the water hits my skin, almost simultaneously, there's a response of "retreat", with muscles contracting, blood rushing away and so on (each being a separate, but hard to isolate sensation) and finally, there's aversion, a mental pulling-away - the actual awfulness. - -I found it easy to drop the awfulness by just concentrating on the other parts. They were way too interesting anyway. (That made taking cold showers much easier.) But I didn't stop there. I wanted to perceive clearly what the first three parts were *like*. What does it feel like to perceive "cold" versus "pressure"? - -Problem is, the closer I looked, the more they merged. I couldn't tell them apart! I could tell spatial dimensions, duration and (roughly) chronological order, but there was no "intensity" or "quality" at all! Temperature, pressure, touch, muscle movements and blood flow were all *the same kinda thing*. The only thing that had any intensity at all was the aversion. - -So I extended this search to other perceptions. I meditated and wanted to see what "thoughts" were like. Or "music". Or "pain". Or "light". But whenever I introspected, I found them breaking apart into two components - "sensations" and "aversion", with all sensations being fundamentally identical and interchangeable and only "aversion" being seemingly different. (I'm not sure if "aversion" is a good name. "push/pull" seems fitting, but not perfectly so. "Expansion/contraction", as Shinzen Young uses it, may be better, but I'm unsure if that's what he means by it.) - -The result is that all sensations merge, especially in meditation. I see sounds, hear pain, feel light, touch numbers and so on. This shouldn't surprise me, as the Buddhists have been telling me this for some time now, but I still didn't see it coming. I still don't really believe it. Color and sound are different, gods dammit! But whenever I pay attention, I can't find differences. I'm confused. - -> Not the wind, not the flag - mind is moving. - -The main result of this is that my ontology is now strongly leaning towards idealism. I consider mental events as ontologically fundamental (instead of, say, numbers, logical structures or matter[^1], as most rationalists currently seem to do). I'm still very uncertain of it, but suspect that all mental events are fundamentally identical. The idea of different kinds of perceptions seems wrong to me. - -[^1]: Personally, I find "matter" slightly embarrassing by now. The definition has shifted so much in the last 150 years, from atoms to quarks to fields to configurations to all kinds of other things that the claim that modern "materialists" have anything to do with [materialism](/tl;dr#materialism) as conceived before the Enlightenment is laughable. It very much reminds me of religious folk talking about "God" and meaning dozens of completely incompatible things, but presenting it as unity. diff --git a/content_blog/culture/a-course-in-miracles-jack-and-the-beanstalk.mkd b/content_blog/fiction/a-course-in-miracles-jack-and-the-beanstalk.mkd similarity index 100% rename from content_blog/culture/a-course-in-miracles-jack-and-the-beanstalk.mkd rename to content_blog/fiction/a-course-in-miracles-jack-and-the-beanstalk.mkd diff --git a/content_blog/culture/after-singularity.mkd b/content_blog/fiction/after-singularity.mkd similarity index 100% rename from content_blog/culture/after-singularity.mkd rename to content_blog/fiction/after-singularity.mkd diff --git a/content_blog/culture/devilsguide.mkd b/content_blog/fiction/devilsguide.mkd similarity index 100% rename from content_blog/culture/devilsguide.mkd rename to content_blog/fiction/devilsguide.mkd diff --git a/content_blog/fiction/index.mkd b/content_blog/fiction/index.mkd new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f69db9e --- /dev/null +++ b/content_blog/fiction/index.mkd @@ -0,0 +1,6 @@ +--- +title: Fiction +is_category: true +--- + +<%= category :fiction %> diff --git a/content_blog/great-filter/great-filter-says-ignore-risk.mkd b/content_blog/great-filter/great-filter-says-ignore-risk.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index c38ef04..0000000 --- a/content_blog/great-filter/great-filter-says-ignore-risk.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,32 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: ! 'Great Filter Says: Ignore Risk' -date: 2012-01-24 -techne: :done -episteme: :discredited -slug: 2012/01/24/great-filter-says-ignore-risk/ -disowned: true ---- - -Quick, maybe silly thought. - -Assume there is a late Great Filter that kills a civ before it manages to take over the galaxy. For simplicity's sake, say there are only two possible candidates: - -1. (*Caution*) Civs are *too cautious*, avoid obvious technological progress out of fear it might harm them and so waste their limited resources and fail to prepare for natural catastrophes like the next meteor. -2. (*Risk*) Civs are *not cautious enough*, build whatever they can and end up killing themselves with nanotech and 3D printers that for some strange reason always convert their planets into paperclips. - -Further assume only one of these candidates is true, but you don't know which. Now some civ arises, sees a Great Filter, reasons (like all civs) that it was following the wrong strategy, switches, kills itself. (Or there wouldn't be a filter.) - -How do you avoid this problem? You can't reason yourself out of it. You can't just go, "I'm not meta enough" and switch a second time. The *other* civs would have done the same. It's a standard coordination problem where all participants run the same decision algorithm. - -You can't even go indexical and reason that the *first* few civs wouldn't see a Great Filter. They would see a young universe and correctly assume they just happened to be early and the lack of life has nothing to do with late filtering events, so they would follow the obvious of the two strategies. But as they died out, they must've chosen wrong. We can exploit that! We just *pretend* we never saw a Great Filter and figure out what we would've done, then do the opposite. But again: any late civ would figure this one out, and they *still* die. Everyone is choosing the wrong option because the *algorithm* you're stuck with is broken. - -The only sensible strategy, therefore, is to *flip a coin*. You *must* act independently from your decision algorithm so as to maximize your chance of anti-coordinating with the other civs. 50% is the best you've got. But then, the other civs would figure *that* out and *some* would succeed. It only takes 5 coin flips for a >95% chance of victory, after all. - -Some possible solutions: - -1. It is *really hard* to get a civ to adopt a random strategy. Not being random *is* the Great Filter. -2. There are more than 2 options, such that random chance of picking the right one is pretty low. We can estimate it! Calculate how many civs there should've been up to now and you know an lower bound for the option set. -3. No civ chooses the right option set, so despite random strategies, they *still* all fail 'cause the real correct option can never come up. -4. Survival is impossible. - -There you have it. As my random strategy to save us from Hansonian Damnation and Happiness Paperclipping (Happyclipping?), I choose Pray To Possibly Dead And/Or Non-Existent Gods. You can thank me later. diff --git a/content_blog/great-filter/index.mkd b/content_blog/great-filter/index.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 74f5c35..0000000 --- a/content_blog/great-filter/index.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Great Filter -is_category: true ---- - -<%= category :"great-filter" %> diff --git a/content_blog/hack/backup.mkd b/content_blog/hack/backup.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 42685f9..0000000 --- a/content_blog/hack/backup.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,47 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Backups -date: 2011-11-12 -techne: :rough -episteme: :believed ---- - -<%= image("backup.jpg", "backup ALL THE THINGS!") %> - -So, I spent two hours today and further [gwernified][Gwern URL] my life. Seems like a good time to summarize my backup strategy. Maybe it inspires someone to save more of their own data. As the saying goes, nobody wants backup, but everybody wants restore. - -# Strategies - -1. All data in /home is synced between my laptop and desktop machine. That's the most basic level of redundancy. -2. Everything except TV shows etc. is backed up every 6 hours on a dedicated backup drive. I use a custom [rsync script][RBS] for incremental backups. That way, each snapshot is self-contained, but snapshots share hardlinks and save on space. A new snapshot of ~200GB of data takes ~150MB and takes ~6 minutes. I do it this way because I often restore stuff and found rdiff-backup horribly slow. I have 2 weeks of snapshots for everything, plus unlimited monthly snapshots for most partitions. -3. Most TV shows, music etc. is also mirrored on the backup drive. (This isn't really crucial because Piratebay is a good backup strategy in itself.) -4. The whole backup drive itself is mirrored on a second backup drive. (To preserve the backup history.) -5. I have a third backup drive that I update every couple of months or so and store at my dad's workplace. (I never throw away old drives. I just put a backup on them and let them rest.) -6. I [take a screenshot][daily screenshot] every 5 minutes and store it on the backup drive. Useful to reconstruct days or restore content other strategies miss. -7. Everything that *can* be open and online, [is so][Github]. I'm currently transitioning my notes to my website and some of my daily task tracking to [Beeminder][]. As Linus said, "Only wimps use tape backup: *real* men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it.". -8. I put everything I edit in a git repo to preserve its history. Especially my private notes, tracking data and so on. I have a cronjob that commits my notes every 20 minutes so I don't have to think about it. -9. I backup my notes, mails and Anki deck on Amazon's S3 every month in case my house burns down or the police raid me. Takes up about 1.5GB and costs me ~30 cents a month. (I don't sync my Anki deck with ankisrs.net because its pretty large (>14k cards, 900MB of media) and I don' want to burden Damien. Once he allows me to pay for my account, I'll sync again.) -10. I [mirror all videos][backup video] I link to on my website because they have a bad habit of getting DMCA'd out of existence. I run linkchecker once a month to fix broken links. -11. I also let Google track me completely. Hey, they aren't more evil than future me and my search history has saved my ass a lot in the past. If they also profit from my data, good for them. -12. I [track][fume] all useful daily activities (and [time spent][fumetrap]) so I can see how much time I waste. (My task suggestion script also balances activities.) -13. I log all chat communication. This was my very first backup setup and is tremendously important. "Huh, didn't I talk about this with him before? ...\*grep\*... Yup, 7 weeks ago. \*quote\*". In fact, if anything has a log option, I use it and never throw away the logs. Text is easy to compress. -14. I use Gentoo, and so save the sources and binaries for all packages I use (and back them up as described above). Every once in a while, a library breaks something and I need a clean package *now*. Or an obscure program disappears and no-one mirrored the sources. Sucks. Don't let it happen to you. Don't clean your cache. (Or at least, have monthly snapshots). -15. I try to put my beliefs and predictions on [PredictionBook][]. Keeps me honest and forces me to turn empty beliefs into ones that actually predict something. And I now have proof whenever I say "Told you so!". Good for my hipster cred. - -That's about it. This is all more-or-less automatic, so no effort on my side and it's all cheap. You only really notice how valuable backups are when you have them and can constantly restore stuff. "Oh, that pdf from last week I thought wasn't useful? Need to quote it.", "Crap, deleted the wrong file.", "Nah, that paragraph sucks, lets get the first version.", "I watched this amazing pr0n a month ago, but the link is dead. What's the name?", ... - -# Future - -There are a few things I'd really love to store in the future. - -1. A webcam in my room. I already have one and modded it to record infrared as well. (Most chips do, but have a filter, typically on the lens. Just scrape it off.) So it also works reasonably well in the dark. I just need to set it up and can get IRL screenshots as well. -2. I really need to record my thoughts more, but I don't know how. I already try to write them down as much as I can, but that's cumbersome. I thought about using an audio recorder, but that isn't as automatic as I want either. -3. Similarly, I'd really love to record IRL conversations, but current tech still sucks too much. Luckily, I'm enough of a loner that I barely have any non-text conversations, but you know. Need to win some more debates with my mother. ("No, I didn't say that at all! Here, listen!") - -# Rules - -So to summarize the summary, I think the most important rules to backup are: - -1. Use it. You *will* need your old data at some point and hate yourself if you don't have it. Life is already horrible enough. Don't increase your suffering through laziness. -2. Automate it. The less you have to think about it, the better. When in doubt, just backup it. Space is cheap. -3. Histories matter. Don't just save your files. Save your histories, ideally in something like a git repo. Keep old backups. - diff --git a/content_blog/hack/vim.mkd b/content_blog/hack/vim.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index c0ba133..0000000 --- a/content_blog/hack/vim.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,268 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: vim -date: 2010-11-17 -techne: :done -episteme: :deprecated ---- - -~~~ -#!sh -alias evil="for s in {1..3}; do - echo -n 'VI! '; - sleep .666; - done; echo; vi" -~~~ - -A GNU Dawn -========== - -Below is a little write-up of the vim features I used often enough to -value them, but still rarely enough to constantly forget them. However, during -the fall of 2010, I eventually overcame my hatred of Lisp and converted to -emacs. Maybe I'll write a similar list for it one day. Or I'll just wait until -emacs ships with "M-x write-article-based-on-todo-list". - -Enjoy the (untouched) article nonetheless. - -Ye Olde Vim confige -=================== - -Hello, my name is muflax, and I am a vim addict. My ~/.vim directory is about -6MB large and contains 20,000 lines of code[^0]. I use so many features, that I -often forget about some of them. Heck, I implemented tab completion for code 3 -times because I forgot that I already did it each time and only noticed it -months later during a cleanup! - -[^0]: To be fair, I store every plugin there and never install anything - system-wide so that my setup is mostly independent from the current machine. - -It couldn't go on like this. My memory couldn't keep up with this. I probably -only knew half the hotkeys I have mapped myself. I dream of vim; have terrible -nightmares because I can't remember how to automatically create a list of -ascending numbers. I have spent more time this year implementing or tweaking -something in vim than programming in general. (Ok, this is slightly exaggerated. -But only slightly.) - -Now, if I were sane, I would cut down my config a lot, or switch to a GUI editor -(TextMate is very nice) that remembers my features for me, or just switch to -emacs[^emacs] already, because I'm at least halfway there anyway. - -[^emacs]: But why not emacs? To be honest, emacs is great. It is easily the - second-best editor and some parts of it outshine vim easily, like process - integration or the higher level of semantic awareness. I only have two problems - with it. - - The first is I-know-what's-best-for-you syndrome, i.e. emacs often - enforces a specific behaviour that it thinks is right. Well, most of the time, - emacs _is_ right, but occasionally it just stands in my way. The most annoying - thing was the lack of a permanent visual mode as in vim aka the ability to move - my cursor freely to any position on the screen. - - The second problem is LISP. I hate LISP. I refuse to learn it. I refuse to - deal with people that like it. (But afaik there may be some ports to a sane - language, so maybe this point is moot nowadays.) - -Luckily, I am not sane. So instead, I just made another SRS deck, and put in -all those features, using a card each, and then just learned them like -everything else. Hey, I have fully outsourced my long-term memory, I might as -well use it for stuff that matters! - -And to cultivate this deck, I needed a complete list of all vim features I -currently (should) know. All of them! So here it is, in no particular order, -including all relevant plugins. You can just google them or check my [Config][] on -github. - -I'm gonna leave out all the very elementary features everyone knows, like / or -dd, and some of the hotkeys are mine, obviously, not standard. I'll also skip -over config-only features because you don't need to remember those. See the -awesome help for what they do. - -The List -======== - -1. **ci(** aka change inside, deletes everything the current set of () and puts - you into insert mode. Works the same way for all closures, like **ci"** or - **ci{**, or use **cib** for the current block. Apart from **c** for change, - this also works with **d** and **y**. **d%** deletes everything until it - hits a (matched) parenthesis. - -2. **yankring** plugin, implements a yankring like the killring in emacs. - Automagically manages your buffers when copying or deleting something, - allowing you to cycle through it when yanking it back into the text. Very - useful when cut-and-pasting multiple parts. Use just like normal yanking, - C-p to cycle, :YRShow for a list. Also shares yank buffer among all - instances (omg its heavan). - -3. **C-x** and **C-a**, in CM, de/increments the currently - selected value. See my config for an enhancement to make it work - with boolean values, too (using **gy**). - -4. **gq**, re-formats the selection, breaking lines and so on. - -5. **\>**, **<** and **=**, on a selection, indent - right/left/automagically. Great for pasting or reworking loops. - -8. Some **ctags** features. **[i** shows the first line contain - the word under the cursor (good to look up a declaration), - **C-w i** opens it in a new window, **C-]** (and for me, - **C-Space**) jumps to the definition of the current keyword, - **:tag [keyword]** dito. - -9. **folding**, to show/hide code levels. I put fold in and out - both on **Space** and fold according to syntax. Useful for complex - source code. - -10. **:bprev** and **:bnext** to switch buffers (I put them on - **F1** and **F2**), also **:tabprev** and **:tabnext** (**gT** and - **gt**), like in vimperator, for tabs. - -11. **NERDtree** plugin, **:NERDtree**, as a nice integrated file - manager. Occasionally useful. - -12. **:jesus**, because Jesus saves. Your file. (Uses **cmdalias** - plugin, dito the next one.) - -13. **:pd** or **:perldo**, for a more powerful regex engine. - -14. **WW**, to just save a file. Faster than **:w**. - -15. **pastetoggle**, on **F3**, to toggle paste mode, i.e. yanking - text with or without formating it. - -16. **F11** and **F12** to automagically **underline** the current - line, used in my notes for headers. See my config. - -17. **Align** and **AutoAlign** plugin, to align multiple lines in - intelligent ways. I mostly use it to align multiple variable - declarations around the = sign, which Align even does automagically - for some languages. Use on a selection with **:Align=** or any - other sign. - -18. **BufExplorer**, to get a nice list of open buffers, use with - **\\be**. Builtin, of course, is **:ls**, which is also nice. - -19. **a.vim**, alternate between source/header files via **:A**. - Also, **\\ih** and **\\is** jumps to header/source file under the - cursor. - -20. **matchit** plugin, extends the **%** command, which jumps (in - order) to the innermost parentheses on the left, then its match on - the right. **matchit** enables it for tags and so on, too. - -21. **taglist** plugin, a nice sidebar for method names and shit, - like in IDEs. Use with **:Tlist**. Occasionally useful. - -22. **template** plugin, uses file templates instead of blank files - for certain file types. - -23. **"\*y** and all related yank operations. Yank into the X11 - clipboard, so that you can share among vim instances. **yankring** - already covers this, but still useful sometimes for other apps. - Requires vim to be compiled with X11 bindings. - -24. **\*** in CM, searches for the word under the cursor. - -25. **gU** + motion, **gUU** for whole line, turns it uppercase. - **gu** for lowercase, **g\~** to toggle it. - -26. **J** and **gJ**, to join lines, removing (or not) spaces as - necessary. - -27. **R** to enter replace mode, nice for changing constants. I - can't believe how late I learned that one. - -28. **!cmd**, filter text through cmd. Very useful with selecting - some text in visual mode and then doing a **!sort** on them. - -29. **:&** repeats a search, allowing you to change its flags (add - a **/g**, for example). Also, **:%s///** for the whole file, btw. - -30. **:sm/foo/bar/** or **:s/\\vfoo/bar/**, to activate regex - magic, like () and so on. Far nicer than vim's standard, but - **:pd** is even nicer. - -31. **:retab**, replace tabs with proper whitespace. - -32. **vimdiff $file1 $file2**, use vim as a diff tool. Hopefully - you know this one already, use **do** and **dp** to move chunk - here/away (obtain / push). - -33. **:vimgrep**, grep inside vim. D'uh. - -34. **C-v** enters visual block mode. I always forget this one when - I need it. - -35. **{**and **}** move backwards/forwards through paragraphs, dito - **(** and **)** for sentences. (I really use the cursor too much - instead of vim's better syntactic movements.) - -36. Speaking of movement, **b** and **w** move to the next word on - the left/right, **e** moves to the end of the word. Use those, - like, a lot. - -37. **daw** deletes the current word (from anywhere in it), **das** - the current sentence. - -38. **g;** and **g,** cycle backwards/forwards through your - changelist, putting your cursor there. So you can go somewhere - else, look something up, then jump right back to where you where. - Dito **C-o**, **C-i** and **:jumps** for jumps instead of changes. - Awesomesauce. - -39. **m[register]** saves the current location in a register, - **\`[register]** jumps back to it, **\`\`** jumps to the last - location. - -40. **u** and **C-r** are undo/redo, **U** undoes all changes on - the current line. So far, so good. But vim also has a powerful undo - tree. **:undol** shows the undo list, and **g-** and **g+** move - you along it. You can also use **:earlier** and **:later**, in - combination with either a count or [n]s, [n]m or [n]h for a time. - No if only vim could merge branches like Photoshop can... - -41. **f[char]** and **t[char]** move you on/before the next - occurrence of [char] on the right, **F**and **T** on the left. - **;** and **,** repeats this movement in the same/opposite - direction. Of course, can be combined with deletion and so on. - -42. **:make** executes make and jumps to the first compile error, - if any. (But I normally prefer to have a second terminal open for - that.) - -43. **surround** plugin, mostly provides keys to change or remove - surroundings (blocks, quotes or tags). Use like **ds"** to remove " - quotes, **dst** to remove text block, **cs"(** to replace "" with - () and **ys[motion]{** to wrap something in {}. Works in visual - mode, too, of course.****(Also install the **repeat** plugin, to be - able to repeat the surround commands. Works like normal repeating.) - -44. **FuzzyFinder** plugin, plus the **FuzzyFinderTextMate** - plugin, to have far nice fuzzy matching of buffers, files and so - on. I have **\\b**, **\\f** and **\\o** mapped to buffers, files - and everything (as in TextMate). Incredibly useful. (See - [here][fuzzyfinder] for installation instructions.) - -45. **NERDcommenter** plugin for more intelligent commenting. Most - importantly, **\\cSpace** to toggle commenting, **\\cc** to comment - out, **\\cu** to remove comments. - -46. window movement, most importantly:**C-W w** (and**\\\_**) to - jump to the next window, **C-W s** to split horizontally, **C-W v** - to split vertically, **C-W <** / **\>** / **=** to increase / - decrease /equalize window sizes. - -47. **:set spell** for spell checking, **]s** and **[s**to move to - the next/last misspelled word, **zg** to add to the dictionary, - **zug** to undo it, **z=** for suggestions. - -48. **SuperTab** plugin, to tab-complete *everything*. Yes, - everything. It's pretty smart and works well with omnicomplete. - Using my options, it works just like them cool IDEs. - -49. **UltiSnips** plugin, steals the snippet function from TextMate and greatly - enhances it, so you can tab-complete code fragments into common structures. Great - speedup! Use tab to expand snippets and Shift-Left / Shift-Right to jump to - the next part of the snippet. - (I also tried **XPtemplate**, which is too ugly and hard to use, and - **snipMate**, which I used previously, but doesn't have recursive snippets.) - diff --git a/content_blog/hack/xmonad.mkd b/content_blog/hack/xmonad.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index fa39233..0000000 --- a/content_blog/hack/xmonad.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,185 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Meditation on XMonad -alt_titles: [XMonad] -date: 2010-05-03 -techne: :done -episteme: :discredited ---- - -Ignorance is the root of all suffering - ignorance about reality, -about what is. By holding wrong assumptions, we create false -expectations and false needs. [^0] - -I will not reflect on large parts of reality, but only a small one: window -managers (WM). [^1] - -The most basic ignorance about WMs is the ignorance about -their existence. The computer does not just show data to us, but it can show it -to us in any way we want. It is this basic understanding that leads to the first -conclusion: If the way data is shown to us is lacking, it is not our fault, but -the computer is not doing it's job properly. Furthermore, if we have to spend a -lot of time just telling the computer how we would like to see something, we are -actually doing someone (or rather, something) else's work. - -Therefore, tiling WMs. If you arrange your own windows, why are you using a WM -at all? Wouldn't it be more honest, instead of saying "I'm running Windows / KDE -/ OS X to show my windows", to admit "Windows / KDE / OS X is running me to show -it's windows."? Sure, the computer can not read your mind and some occasional -hints might be necessary, but the less work you do, the better. - -Desire creates suffering. This is maybe the most misunderstood of Buddhist -truths. People hear "desire creates suffering" and think "What? Is this going to -be a moral how material possessions are bad for me? Money, cars, houses and so -on lead to greed, obsession, and so on. I get it.". This is not what this is -about. The problem with desire is not the desire itself. It is not a problem -that we want to be happy, to be rich and so on. The problem is, instead, that -what we want is impossible. Our desires *fail* us. We are mistaken about the -nature of reality and expect the wrong things. We think that money could make us -happier, so we want more of it, but it ultimately won't. From wrong assumptions -you can only get bad results. - -In retrospect, I can see this clearly now on my journey to a better window -manager. It was my unwillingness to let go of old habits, my wrong ideas about -what I really need or want, that made adopting a new WM hard. So I went first to -WMs that offered great configuralibity and many features. "You can do anything -you want!" But this lead to useless features and distractions. It is only now -that most WMs fail me because my hardware setup is a bit tricky, that I can -understand. Only now when I understand better what my brain really needs, do I -grow tired of those full of bad design. Xmonad, in a way, is peace for me. It -is mathematical in nature. The fact that it is written in Haskell might seem -like a gimmick at first, but the connection is in fact very deep. I understand -now that it could not have been written in anything else. Xmonad exemplifies the -idea of purely functional programming. "Normal" programming is almost always -imperative - the programmer tells the computer how to do something. But in -functional programming, the hacker instead tells the computer what something -*is*. This is a profound difference.[^3] - -In any other customizable WM I have ever used, I would create a complex -configuration to tell it exactly what I wanted it to do in some case or another. -I would do the bulk of the lifting, so to speak, either by constantly adjusting -the windows the WM handled wrong or by writing elaborate procedures to automate -this work. But with Xmonad, this is different. It is not my job to figure out -how to arrange windows, so I should never have to tell my WM anything about -this. The only thing I ever have to tell it is about what is. I should never -write something like "to go to the next tag, you read in all tags, sort them, -filter some out, find the current one and then shift to the next in the list". -I instead write: "I want the next non-empty, non-visible tag now". I give -Xmonad a few simple hints and that is it. "If it's name is in this list, I want -it floating. If I'm currently out of space here, try a different screen. There -is a status bar I'm running, so be careful not to overlap it." - -For the first time, I feel like my WM is actually intelligent and wants to help -me. It is not my slave, not my servant who follows my orders. It does not look -down on me, thinking itself smarter than me, only an obstacle to its flawless -performance. Instead, Xmonad is my friend. It understands window handling and -can take care of it. I only tell it some personal preferences. If it doesn't -think I need something, it is probably right. - -It is astonishing how easily we pick up delusions. We see something once and -think it should always be that way. Rarely do we question "Is this really -necessary? Is there no other way?" - -For me, those are some of the delusions that clouded my -judgement about WMs. - -"I need space! I want to see my desktop wallpaper!" What for? Have I not -something better to do than to stare at pretty pictures? - -"I want to tell my WM what window is in the foreground and what in the -background." The very concept is wrong. There is no "foreground" with focus - -you either see something or you don't. A window you can not read might as well -not be there at all. - -"I understand now, I use a tiling WM. But I want to control what window is -where!" Why? The very idea of a tiling WM is that the WM figures out what to -show you and how. You simply tell it what application has your focus right now -and what other applications belong to it (by giving them all the same tag / -workspace). - -"Xmonad has no stacked layout like wmii! I can not easily put dozens of windows -in one column!" Why would you do this in the first place? You certainly can not -read them all. Let Xmonad only show you the ones that matter and search for -other ones if you need them. Or think about grouping them better. Why open 20 -PDFs in separate windows if your viewer can take care of that? - -"Xmonad has no title bars.[^4] I will miss those!" Are you sure? What do you use -them for? The window content itself tells you what the window is. If the -content is not visible, then a title bar will only waste space. If you need to -find something, let the WM do it for you. If you want status reports, use -notifications. - -By embracing not complexity, but simplicity, confusion ends. The best solution -to a problem is to make it obsolete - as Gordon Bells said, "The cheapest, -fastest, and most reliable components are those that aren't there.". - -By concentrating not on *how*, but on *what*, false -desires disappear. By letting go off false desires, suffering ends. - -<%= image("guru.png", "Guru Meditation") %> - -[^0]: Yeah, I have been reading Buddhist philosophy and history - again. Can you tell? - -[^1]: The old monks have understood one thing: Truths about reality must be - visible everywhere. There can not be any aspect of reality that is not - permeated by them. Thus, we can improve our efforts by just focusing on one - simple object. Traditionally, one's breath, a candle or a rock have served - this purpose. Some Zen traditions use 只管打坐 (shikantaza, "simply correct - sitting") for this. If you can't understand reality just by sitting down and - concentrating, then reality can't be understood at all. Therefore we must - be able to see all those Buddhist observations in everything we use, - including the most fundamental GUI software - our window manager. - -[^3]: The classical example to demonstrate this is Quicksort. If you have ever - programmed something, Quicksort was probably among it, but just to help you - remember, I'm gonna tell you again what Quicksort is. We define Quicksort - recursively like so: An empty sort is always sorted. To sort a list with at - least one element, we take the first element (called the pivot) in the list - and then separate the rest into two lists, one containing all the elements - that are smaller and one containing all that are larger than the pivot. Now, - to get the sorted result, we simply sort the first list, than add the pivot - and finally add the sorted second list. Think about how you would solve this - in an imperative language. In C, it would go something like this: - - ~~~ - #!c - void swap(int *a, int *b) - { - int t=*a; *a=*b; *b=t; - } - void sort(int arr[], int beg, int end) - { - if (end > beg + 1) { - int piv = arr[beg], l = beg + 1, r = end; - while (l < r) { - if (arr[l] <= piv) - l++; - else - swap(&arr[l], &arr[--r]); - } - swap(&arr[--l], &arr[beg]); - sort(arr, beg, l); - sort(arr, r, end); - } - } - ~~~ - - This is a typical example - we tell the computer exactly what to do to get - the result we are interested in. But remember I said that in a functional - language, we tell the computer what something *is*. I already told you what - Quicksort is, so let's write this down in Haskell: - - ~~~ - #!haskell - qsort [] = [] - qsort (x:xs) = qsort lesser ++ [x] ++ qsort greater - where lesser = [y | y <- xs, y < x] - greater = [y | y <- xs, y >= x] - ~~~ - - - And that's it. - -[^4]: Technically, you can add them, but they are not normally there. - - diff --git a/content_blog/index.mkd b/content_blog/index.mkd index f78e723..3691299 100644 --- a/content_blog/index.mkd +++ b/content_blog/index.mkd @@ -5,9 +5,7 @@ non_cognitive: true no_comments: true --- -Memetic hazards and brainwashing. - -The point of this blog is to iteratively develop certain ideas until they are ready to be merged with the [main site][main]. Smaller thoughts go to [Twitter][]. I also have a [daily practice/activity log][dlog]. +Memetic hazards and brainwashing. I also have a [practice/activity log][dlog]. Feel free to comment or [contact][Contact] me directly. There is an [RSS feed][RSS]. diff --git a/content_blog/jesus/agentic-ontology.mkd b/content_blog/jesus/agentic-ontology.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index df8c0ec..0000000 --- a/content_blog/jesus/agentic-ontology.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Theology as Agentic Ontology -date: 2012-07-09 -techne: :wip -episteme: :speculation ---- - -(And with this title, muflax finally crosses the jargon Rubicon.) - -carrier quote - -based on agents - -misinterpretation of genesis - -what is the case, by itself vs. what is *made* the case, through some agent diff --git a/content_blog/jesus/algorithmic-causality-and-the-new-testament.mkd b/content_blog/jesus/algorithmic-causality-and-the-new-testament.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 2d9e789..0000000 --- a/content_blog/jesus/algorithmic-causality-and-the-new-testament.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,60 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Algorithmic Causality and the New Testament -date: 2012-02-09 -techne: :done -episteme: :speculation -slug: 2012/02/09/algorithmic-causality-and-the-new-testament/ ---- - -...is what I would name an article I'm seriously considering to write. This is not this article. This is just the idea. - -<%= image("20100512after.gif", "title") %> - -What's one of the biggest controversies in New Testament studies? No, not the Jesus myth, we all know he was a [12th century Byzantine emperor][Fomenko claims]. No, more important than that, more fundamental. - -When, and in what order, were the texts written? I'm going to ignore the *when* and instead focus on the *in what order*. - -Why is this important at all? Because then we can trace influences, theological and political developments and so on. We can use this information to figure out what the direction of certain developments was (Did they start with a messiah and made him a prophet or the other way around?), can date the texts much better (If Paul's letter were written *after* the gospels, then who the fuck is "Paul"?) and so on. So basically, you can make significant progress on all historical questions about early Christianity. - -Of course, this doesn't just apply to Christianity. It works in any textual tradition, but Christianity is extremely well-documented compared to anything else before basically the Renaissance, so we start there. - -You'd think that with such an important question, you'd have good answers by now. If you seriously assume that, you've never *been* in a humanities class. Seriously, these fuckers can't even quantify shit. They are like the little brother who's a bit retarded, but no one has the to heart to tell them how much they make a fool of themselves when they constantly claim that they don't need "math", "computers" or "machines", they have "dialectic". - -Anyway, back to text ordering. I had an interesting talk with a statistical learning researcher yesterday and he brought up a really cool idea. - -Let's say you have two pieces of data, A and B, and you're trying to figure out if A *causes* B. [Traditionally][Judea Pearl], you do this through statistics. You sample and collect some observations, then check if you see conditional probabilities. Basically, if A and B are independent variables, there can't be a causation, but if you can predict B, given A, but not the other way around, then A causes B. (In your face, Popper!) - -There's one problem with this - you need a certain amount of samples. It doesn't work with N=1. If you only ever saw A and B once, statistically, you'd be screwed. [But maybe there's another way.][Causal Inference] - -Let's say your data is actually a sequence of digits, as produced by two volunteers. You put each one of them in an isolated room and then tell them to write down 1000 digits. Afterwards you compare the texts and notice something - *they are almost identical*. What happened? - -Well, one possibility is that one of them copied the other. But you isolated them, this can't have happened. What else? If you thought, "they used the same method to come up with the sequence", then you win. For example, they might both be writing down the prime numbers, but each one made a few minor mistakes. But how does this help us discover causality? - -Remember [Kolmogorov complexity][Kolmogorov Complexity]. K(s) of any sequence s is a measure of how well you can compress s. In other words, it tells you how hard it is to find an algorithm to generate s. The lower K(s), the easier the task. So going back to our two sequences A and B, what's their complexity? Well, K(A) and K(B) will be almost identical. After all, it's just K(prime numbers) + K(a few mistakes). But more importantly, what's the complexity of K(A, B), i.e. of a program that outputs both A and B? In our case, it's almost the same - we just have to remember the additional mistakes. K(prime numbers) can be reused. - -So we see that in our example, K(A) + K(B) is significantly larger than K(A,B) because there is so much overlap. What if they had used different methods, say if B was writing down π instead? Then K(A) + K(B) would be basically identical to K(A,B). You couldn't reuse anything. - -So what do we conclude? If K(A) + K(B), for any two pieces of data A and B, is significantly larger than K(A,B), then they share the process that generated them. They are *causally linked*. - -Alright, but how does this give us order? - -Let's say there is a third sequence, C. We check it and find it has all the errors in A, but a few additional ones. So K(C) = K(A) + K(additional error) and thus K(C,A) is much smaller than K(C) + K(A) and there's a causal link. But there's more than that. If you search for an algorithm that generates C, if you already have one that generates A for free, what's the result? K(C\|A) is really small, like trivially small - it's just a few additional errors. - -Enter Markov and his Condition. In a causal graph, any node is determined only by its direct causes. Basically, once you know all the direct causes of something, there's nothing left to learn. Checking any other node won't give you additional information. We say that the direct causes *screen off* the rest of the graph. Everything is nice and local. We can slightly relax this to construct a statistical ordering. Remember the case where B depended on A, but not the other way around. So obviously A must be the cause of B because otherwise you could learn something about B without involving causation. The *strength* of a causal link is then a measure of how much information you can extract from other nodes. - -So now you can order A, B and C. You know the obvious causal connection A-B, so you put this in your graph. But you also know that the complexity of C is really low if you know A, but if you additionally knew B, it wouldn't buy you anything. So you put A-C in your graph and you have a nice little graph C-A-B. - -One problem: you don't have a *direction*. This is a general causal problem. You don't know if A caused C by adding errors or C caused A by removing them. You know the *topology*, but have no arrows. Minor bugger. There may be a solution to that problem. You need to introduce a kind of entropy, but that only complicates this nice and simple approach, so we won't do that here. - -The result is already quite nice. Just get out your little [Kolmogorov black box][Incomputability] and compute various K(x) and K(y\|x) and you know who plagiarized who. ...oh, your Kolmogorov box is in repair? You ran out of hypercomputronium and can't compute K(x)? - -[Well have I got news for you!][Causal Markov] Recall that Kolmogorov complexity is fundamentally compression. You can think of picking a compression algorithm to compare sequences like deciding on a Turing Machine, then finding shortest programs. Also, whatever compression you achieve is an upper bound of the real K(s), so they function as good approximations. If only there were runnable compression algorithms... - -There are [shit-tons of compression algorithms][Lossless Data Compression]! Just pick one and compress away. Have fun with your causal graph! Only one little problem - you'll find out that your algorithm is somewhat biased. (The irrational bastard!) You can think of it as a *prior* over your programs-to-be-compressed. For example, if you use run-length encoding (i.e. you save "77777" as "5x7"), then you assume that simple repetition is likely. The more features you build into your algorithm, the more slanted your prior becomes, but typically the better it compresses stuff. For our task of ordering historical texts, we want an algorithm that identifies textual features so it can exploit as much structure as possible (and ideally, in a similar way as humans), but doesn't favor any particular text. (Sorry, I don't yet know what the best choice is. I hear [LZ77][] is nice, but there's still science to do.) - -So what do we do now? Gather all texts in their original form and compress the hell out of them. Of course, test the procedure with corpuses that have a known ordering first. Bam, definite answers to problems like the [Markan priority][]. History is uncertain no more. - -So yes, I'm yet another engineer who looked at some field within the humanities and thought, that's all rubbish, I bet I can solve this shit right now. - -<%= image("philo_engineers.jpg", "SMBC engineer ban") %> - diff --git a/content_blog/jesus/catholics-right-again-news-at-11.mkd b/content_blog/jesus/catholics-right-again-news-at-11.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 9f80d19..0000000 --- a/content_blog/jesus/catholics-right-again-news-at-11.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,67 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Catholics Right Again, News At 11 -date: 2012-03-14 -techne: :done -episteme: :discredited -slug: 2012/03/14/catholics-right-again-news-at-11/ ---- - -So I've [said][Why You Don't Want Vipassana] [repeatedly][The End of Rationality] now that I have serious problems with vipassana and the whole Theravada soup it emerged from. It's not just a technical problem, but a deep rejection of the assumptions, goals and interpretations of that framework, at least in its current form. I still like them enough that I'm not interested in taking my stuff and going home. I merely believe that vipassana, as it exists today in its numerous incarnations, is in serious need of repair, but still worthwhile. But before we start with the fixing, let's have a look at what's *broken*. - -Interestingly enough, I found that the Catholic Church[1] had already written my criticism for me, in their [Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on some aspects of Christian Meditation][Catholic Meditation], and I only need to comment on some minor aspects of it and maybe translate some it back into Buddhist lingo. In contrast to the glorious [Visuddhimagga][] (and Theravada scripture in general), the Catholic maps are much less detailed and are plagued by important holes and mistakes due to doctrinal commitments, but what they lack in precision, they make up in interpretation. The Catholic [vehicle][Yana] may have inferior engineering compared to the [Causal vehicle][Sutrayana], but it has one major advantage - it's driving in the right direction. - -The Church says (emphasis mine): - -> In order to draw near to that mystery of union with God, which the Greek Fathers called the divinization of man, and to grasp accurately the manner in which this is realized, it is necessary in the first place to bear in mind that man is essentially a creature, and remains such for eternity, so that **an absorbing of the human self into the divine self is never possible**, not even in the highest states of grace. However, one must recognize that the human person is created in the "image and likeness" of God, and that the archetype of this image is the Son of God, in whom and through whom we have been created (cf. Col 1:16). This archetype reveals the greatest and most beautiful Christian mystery: from eternity the Son is "other" with respect to the Father and yet, in the Holy Spirit, he is "of the same substance." **Consequently this otherness, far from being an ill, is rather the greatest of goods.** There is otherness in God himself, who is one single nature in three Persons, and there is also otherness between God and creatures, who are by nature different. -> -> [...] -> -> A consideration of these truths together brings the wonderful discovery that all the aspirations which the prayer of other religions expresses are fulfilled in the reality of Christianity beyond all measure, **without the personal self or the nature of a creature being dissolved or disappearing into the sea of the Absolute**. - -This is really a two-pronged criticism. First, and most directly, it calls out the bullshit monism that has crept into modern Buddhism and the futile attempts to find unity with the Absolute. I hope I don't need to elaborate on why this is nonsense, so let's go on to the second part. - -Advanced vipassana, in its common interpretations, breaks down the barrier between subject and object. It leads to a state of unity of perception in which only sensations exist, but no-one *observing* these sensations and no objects these are sensations *of*. In the thinking just the thought, in the seeing just the seen, and so on. - -This is the second mistake, in that it denies the fundamental nature of a self. It has some damn good reasons to do so, but is still wrong. I find it interesting that Catholicism promises a path to salvation *without* the dissolution of the self. It wouldn't have to sell this to the laity, they don't care either way. So why is this promise in there? Only someone deep down the Paths, one way or another, would really care about it at all. I'm skeptical of Catholics actually being that good, but you know, maybe I still underestimate them. - -Regardless, the real alternative only probably only becomes apparent to advanced practitioners who actually experience it, who can see for themselves that you don't need to surrender yourself to make progress. Not all gods demand submission and dissociation. - -> The seeking of God through prayer has to be **preceded and accompanied by an ascetical struggle and a purification from one's own sins and errors**, since Jesus has said that only "the pure of heart shall see God" (Mt 5:8). The Gospel aims above all at a moral purification from the lack of truth and love and, on a deeper level, from all the selfish instincts which impede man from recognizing and accepting the Will of God in its purity. **The passions are not negative in themselves** (as the Stoics and Neoplatonists thought), **but their tendency is to selfishness**. It is from this that the Christian has to free himself in order to arrive at that state of positive freedom which in classical Christian times was called "apatheia," in the Middle Ages "Impassibilitas" and in the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises "indiferencia." **This is impossible without a radical self-denial**, as can also be seen in St. Paul who openly uses the word "mortification" (of sinful tendencies).20 Only this self-denial renders man free to carry out the will of God and to share in the freedom of the Holy Spirit. - -This is what really pisses me off about modern mindfulness practice. They have not just forgotten, but are outright in denial about the necessity of struggle. (Although I consider that possibility that I just naturally fall relatively close to asceticism and am myopic about how obvious the path is.) - -I'd like to point out the similarity between "indiferencia" and equanimity in the Theravada models. Same territory, similar maps, radically different approaches. Also, the point about the neutrality of passions is important as well. Theravada people tend to reject their emotions for no good reason. - -> Therefore, one has to interpret correctly the teaching of those masters who recommend "emptying" the spirit of all sensible representations and of every concept, while remaining lovingly attentive to God. In this way, **the person praying creates an empty space which can then be filled by the richness of God**. However, the emptiness which God requires is that of the renunciation of personal selfishness, not necessarily that of the renunciation of those created things which he has given us and among which he has placed us. There is no doubt that in prayer one should concentrate entirely on God and as far as possible exclude the things of this world which bind us to our selfishness. On this topic St. Augustine is an excellent teacher: if you want to find God, he says, abandon the exterior world and re-enter into yourself. However, he continues, **do not remain in yourself, but go beyond yourself because you are not God: He is deeper and greater than you**. "I look for his substance in my soul and I do not find it; I have however meditated on the search for God and, reaching out to him, through created things, I have sought to know 'the invisible perfections of God' (Rom 1:20)." "To remain in oneself": this is the real danger. The great Doctor of the Church recommends concentrating on oneself, but also transcending the self which is not God, but only a creature. God is "deeper than my inmost being and higher than my greatest height." In fact God is in us and with us, but he transcends us in his mystery. - -I'm simultaneously fascinated by the approach and skeptical of it. Anyway, kenosis is a cool practice, one that only rarely pops up in Buddhism. I think it should. If only to give you your own familiarity with the God one later has to slay. (Sorry, spoiler? God dies at the end.) - -> Without doubt, a Christian needs certain periods of retreat into solitude to be recollected and, in God's presence, rediscover his path. Nevertheless, given his character as a creature, and as a creature who knows that only in grace is he secure, **his method of getting closer to God is not based on any technique** in the strict sense of the word. That would contradict the spirit of childhood called for by the Gospel. **Genuine Christian mysticism has nothing to do with technique: it is always a gift of God, and the one who benefits from it knows himself to be unworthy.** - -Third fetter: attachment to rites and rituals. Experiment. Figure out *why* the technique exist. Don't just follow the script. - -(I also like the observation that the ideal practitioner always feels unworthy, always in a state of sin. Says something about their moral awareness.) - -> Some physical exercises automatically produce a feeling of quiet and relaxation, pleasing sensations, perhaps even phenomena of light and of warmth, which resemble spiritual well-being. **To take such feelings for the authentic consolations of the Holy Spirit would be a totally erroneous way of conceiving the spiritual life.** Giving them a symbolic significance typical of the mystical experience, when the moral condition of the person concerned does not correspond to such an experience, would represent a kind of mental schizophrenia which could also lead to psychic disturbance and, at times, to moral deviations. - -Take that, mindfulness! - -> From the rich variety of Christian prayer as proposed by the Church, **each member of the faithful should seek and find his own way**, his own form of prayer. But all of these personal ways, in the end, flow into the way to the Father, which is how Jesus Christ has described himself. **In the search for his own way, each person will, therefore, let himself be led not so much by his personal tastes as by the Holy Spirit, who guides him, through Christ, to the Father.** - -Of course it's easy to say that you shouldn't get attached to established methods; it's hard to actually do. - -I personally struggle a lot with it. I *love* pre-defined ritual and I've always been at unease with free-form meditation or prayer, including the vague aspects of vipassana. Actually moving beyond the scripts and developing your own path as a *reaction* to what you encounter is seriously hard. Reconceptualizing this as lesson received by a Supreme Teacher, who instructs *you personally* is a clever way to get around this difficulty. - -The main problem I have is the lack of reason for a practice. So I know how Mahasi noting works, but I wonder what I note *for*. I can note sensation all day, but what's the purpose behind all that? Sure, it advances me in the path, but the description is on the wrong meta-level. It's like someone instructing you how to write a novel by telling you to type "I", then "t", "space", "w", "a", "s" and so on. - -> For the person who makes a serious effort there will, however, be moments in which he seems to be wandering in a desert and, **in spite of all his efforts, he "feels" nothing of God**. He should know that these trials are not spared anyone who takes prayer seriously. **However, he should not immediately see this experience, common to all Christians who pray, as the "dark night" in the mystical sense.** In any case in these moments, his prayer, which he will resolutely strive to keep to, could give him the impression of a certain "artificiality," although really it is something totally different: **in fact it is at that very moment an expression of his fidelity to God, in whose presence he wishes to remain even when he receives no subjective consolation in return.** -> -> In these apparently negative moments, it becomes clear what the person who is praying really seeks: is he indeed looking for God who, in his infinite freedom, always surpasses him; or is he only seeking himself, without managing to go beyond his own "experiences", whether they be positive "experiences" of union with God or negative "experiences" of mystical "emptiness." - -Unconditional acceptance, despite the full understanding of one's own sinful nature. And I thought was the only person to [get this][Dark Stance]. - -This provides a different solution to the Dark Night nanas. Don't overcome them - embrace them. They teach you what you're really looking for - actual emptiness. Don't work around them. - -I doubt anyone involved in the writing of this document is an actual arhat. And yet they get it right. "When in doubt, do what the Catholic Church says" seems like a really good heuristic lately. They have accumulated an amazing amount of good insights and stable social practices over the centuries. If you don't know what to think about a topic, going with the Church doctrine (and ignoring it if the Church hasn't said anything about it) seems to me like an almost universally good idea, and I say that as a filthy unbaptized heathen. - -However, I don't think this wisdom is particularly connected to Christianity or any unique theological idea in Catholicism, but rather the *long* history of being the state religion of various large empires. Other "empire religions" like Confucianism or Islam do a great job as well, but except for maybe Confucianism and (some) Hinduism, none have the vast experience and large supply of dedicated intellectuals as the Catholic Church. Also, institutional wisdom almost always outperforms individual insight, so having hundreds of specialized priests think about a problem and trying solutions for a couple of centuries gives you some serious experience. Don't underestimate it. diff --git a/content_blog/jesus/crucifixion.mkd b/content_blog/jesus/crucifixion.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 4734d2c..0000000 --- a/content_blog/jesus/crucifixion.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,453 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: On the Crucifixion -date: 2011-03-11 -techne: :rough -episteme: :discredited -disowned: true ---- - -<%= youtube("http://www.youtube.com/v/PZBqsqvfj0Y") %> - -We know that the crucifixion of Christ is a myth[^1]. We also know that it isn't -unique; there are plenty of life-death-rebirth gods. The theme goes back to at -least 2,000BCE in its explicit form. But what's the charm? What is its -attraction? - -There are two points that can be made, I believe. - -The first would be a [Jaynesian][Julian Jaynes] argument; that the early -"reborn" gods are hallucinations of former rulers that continued beyond their -death. The king would give commands, many of which were in the form of explicit -voice-hallucinations by his subjects, and as such they tended to hang around a -while after the king's death. The bodily death of a person didn't wipe it out -completely; resurrection becomes obvious. (I'm not gonna give a detailed account -how this worked, for Jaynes and others have already done so.) I find this very -convincing for many cases. [^2] - -In the case of Jesus, however, we have a somewhat different scenario. For one, -it plays out much too late. The bicameral mind would've already largely been -gone, so it seems unlikely that many of the early believers actually had the -dead still hanging around. (Which, of course, is the main reason reborn gods -have fallen out of favor since then.) Furthermore, it seems unlikely that the -man existed in the first place. His resurrection was not a construction to -explain away his incomplete death; instead, death came first and life was build -around it much later. - -Luckily, early Christianity is the best documented idea of the whole ancient -world, so let's take a closer look how the story unfolded. - -There are two sources we can build on, Mark and Paul[^3]. Additionally, we will -take a look at John, as will become clear soon. While it may be possible that -Mark is actually a later, condensed gospel, I find the argument for it -unconvincing. The story is much too sober and it already has signs of extension, -so it seems more likely to me that Mark is one of the earliest documents, maybe -even the first written gospel, period. - -What stands out in Mark's gospel is the lack of a biography. Jesus appears out -of nowhere, gets baptized, heals a lot of people, appoints his staff and finally -is killed. The miracle stories are very non-specific, giving just minimalist -accounts, reminiscent of today's anecdotes about "spiritual healers" (c.f. -[Sathya Sai Baba][]). The person described here is just one con-man among many, -with some Jewish justification thrown in in an obvious attempt to later support -his authority over the Jews, capitalizing on John the Baptist as well. - -But the tone changes dramatically at the end. Suddenly, Jesus becomes insecure -and actually takes his own practices seriously. Before, you get the impression -he is doing all the miracles, handing out the teachings only for his own profit -or to shut people up. Now, he begs God to save him! This might certainly be a -later addition, retconning a sudden arrest into an expected betrayal. Yet -observe Jesus on the cross. Mark (15-16) tells it like this[^4]: - -> It was nine o'clock in the morning when they crucified him. The inscription of -> the charge against him read, "The king of the Jews". And they crucified two -> outlaws with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by -> defamed him, shaking their heads and saying, "Aha! You who can destroy the -> temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the -> cross!" In the same way even the chief priests - together with the experts in -> the law - were mocking him among themselves: "He saved others, but he cannot -> save himself! Let the Christ, the king of Israel, come down from the cross -> now, that we may see and believe!" Those who were crucified with him also -> spoke abusively to him. -> -> Now when it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the -> afternoon. Around three o'clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Eloi, -> Eloi, lema sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken -> me?" When some of the bystanders heard it they said, "Listen, he is calling -> for Elijah!" Then someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a -> stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, "Leave him alone! Let's see if -> Elijah will come to take him down!" But Jesus cried out with a loud voice and -> breathed his last. - -This Son of Man is clearly panicking, not in control at all. He dies on the -cross and is quickly buried.[^5] Finally, Mark concludes: - -> Then as they went into the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe -> sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, "Do not -> be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has -> been raised! He is not here. Look, there is the place where they laid him. But -> go, tell his disciples, even Peter, that he is going ahead of you into -> Galilee. You will see him there, just as he told you." Then they went out and -> ran from the tomb, for terror and bewilderment had seized them. And they said -> nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. - -It just ends there. Jesus doesn't even appear after his death. None of his -teachings, in any way, justify his death or give it any meaning whatsoever. He -is just suddenly taken away and killed, story over. The earlier "prophecies" and -assurances that it went "just as planned" are clearly later additions, but the -core seems very harsh. In fact, there's barely any attempt at wisdom or -teaching![^6] This gospel is not about resurrection at all.[^7] - -Now let's take a look at Paul. Taking a conservative approach[^8], there are -four authentic letters, namely Romans, I+II Corinthians and Galatians. Some of -the others might be authentic, at least partially, but existing dogma hides the -early developments we want to see. Paul writes about a lot of stuff, much of -which is of little importance to us. Like Mark, he rarely gives any *explicit -teaching* about or by Jesus. He insists that truth is revealed to him by God, -but he never feels the need to actually articulate this truth. Some vague -sentiments and emotional sing-song are enough. - -For example, in I Corinthians 1:11-31, Paul writes: - -> For Christ did not send me to baptize[^9], but to preach the gospel - and not -> with clever speech, so that the cross of Christ would not become useless. For -> the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to -> us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, "I will -> destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will thwart the cleverness of the -> intelligent." Where is the wise man? Where is the expert in the Mosaic law? -> Where is the debater of this age? Has God not made the wisdom of the world -> foolish? For since in the wisdom of God the world by its wisdom did not know -> God, God was pleased to save those who believe by the foolishness of -> preaching. For Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks ask for wisdom, but we -> preach about a crucified Christ, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to -> Gentiles. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the -> power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than -> human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. -> -> Think about the circumstances of your call, brothers and sisters. Not many -> were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were born to a -> privileged position. But God chose what the world thinks foolish to shame the -> wise, and God chose what the world thinks weak to shame the strong. God chose -> what is low and despised in the world, what is regarded as nothing, to set -> aside what is regarded as something, so that no one can boast in his presence. -> He is the reason you have a relationship with Christ Jesus, who became for us -> wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, -> as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord." - -Paul is very explicit here in his outright rejection of any kind of argument. No -wonder the teaching is so lacking of content; it is empty on purpose! Paul takes -his conviction from the warm, fuzzy feelings he gets when he thinks of (not -about!) the Christ. Everything else, he argues from Jewish law or his own -prejudices. There is literally nothing about the actual crucifixion or even the -character of Jesus Christ in there. It is merely a source for him to draw all -this "faith" from. - -What, then, is the crucifixion? What did later Christians get it *from*? All we -have seen so far are miracles stories, interpretations of Jewish law and some -organizational issues. - -What we really see happening is a hijacking. Gnostic thinkers, most notably -[Marcion][] and [Simon Magus][] [^10], develop their own theology, based on Jewish -mythology, a rejection of Jewish law and many (mostly Greek) mystic techniques. -To increase mass appeal, they retrofit it into existing legends and begin a -process of "historization", identifying a spiritual messiah figure with an -actual person. Over time, the idea of a Jewish faith healer as central figure of -a cosmic struggle sticks, people like it and the myth moves. Mark assimilates -anecdotes and myth into a plausible story. Followers like it, but the narrative -is severely lacking. Luke and Matthew rewrite it, introducing many new popular -anecdotes, giving Jesus an actual character and adding a proper arc structure. -Now intellectuals can find something in there, too! That's the way the story -should've happened, you know. - -Believing that Jesus must have lived (others say so), and that his teachings -must've been profound (his followers swear by it), mystics start substituting -their own ideas for whatever really happened and teach what they thought the -Son of Man should've taught. Full fan-fiction mode kicks in and a couple of -decades later, all coherent structure is gone. The New Testament is born, -optimized for sounding as profound and authoritative as possible without -excluding any prevailing idea, pandering to as many biases and prejudices as -possible. - -In other words, the crucifixion is a form of secularization[^11], making -abstract mystic teaching more palpable by giving them concrete form. We could -look at early Gnostic documents or try to reconstruct them from similar, but -better documented traditions (say, the Upanishads, the Pali Canon or Crowley's -work). But let's unravel it from the inside. - -We come now to John, whose gospel is a clear case of later Christian editing of -an originally Gnostic document. Just look at this beginning: - -> In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was -> fully God. The Word was with God in the beginning. All things were created by -> him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. In -> him was life, and the life was the light of mankind. And the light shines on -> in the darkness, but the darkness has not mastered it. - -Except for a change of names, this is exactly the basic Gnostic world view of -the Supreme God from whom all other beings emanate, of the broken Demiurge that -makes the world but doesn't understand it, and of Sophia (wisdom) who brings the -divine spark into this world, giving humanity its soul and way of liberation. -John's new Jesus is divine in ways he never was in Mark. God is not Jehovah -anymore - the god that walked the earth, talked to people and messed with their -affairs. John's God is as unworldly as can be. - -But back to the cross. After preparing his disciples for the upcoming sacrifice, -Jesus is arrested and found guilty. John gives us a much more detailed story. - -> So they took Jesus, and carrying his own cross he went out to the place called -> "The Place of the Skull" (called in Aramaic Golgotha). There they crucified -> him along with two others, one on each side, with Jesus in the middle. Pilate -> also had a notice written and fastened to the cross, which read: "Jesus the -> Nazarene, the king of the Jews." Thus many of the Jewish residents of -> Jerusalem read this notice, because the place where Jesus was crucified was -> near the city, and the notice was written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek. Then -> the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, "Do not write, 'The king of the -> Jews', but rather, 'This man said, I am king of the Jews.'" Pilate answered, -> "What I have written, I have written." -> -> Now when the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and made four -> shares, one for each soldier, and the tunic remained. (Now the tunic was -> seamless, woven from top to bottom as a single piece.) So the soldiers said to -> one another, "Let's not tear it, but throw dice to see who will get it." This -> took place to fulfill the scripture that says, "They divided my garments among -> them, and for my clothing they threw dice." So the soldiers did these things. -> -> Now standing beside Jesus' cross were his mother, his mother's sister, Mary -> the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. So when Jesus saw his mother and the -> disciple whom he loved standing there, he said to his mother, "Woman, look, -> here is your son!" He then said to his disciple, "Look, here is your mother!" -> From that very time the disciple took her into his own home. -> -> After this Jesus, realizing that by this time everything was completed, said -> (in order to fulfill the scripture), "I am thirsty!" A jar full of sour wine -> was there, so they put a sponge soaked in sour wine on a branch of hyssop and -> lifted it to his mouth. When he had received the sour wine, Jesus said, "It is -> completed!" Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. -> -> Then, because it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies should not -> stay on the crosses on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was an especially -> important one), the Jewish leaders asked Pilate to have the victims' legs -> broken and the bodies taken down. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of -> the two men who had been crucified with Jesus, first the one and then the -> other. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did -> not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and -> blood and water flowed out immediately. And the person who saw it has -> testified (and his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the -> truth), so that you also may believe. For these things happened so that the -> scripture would be fulfilled, "Not a bone of his will be broken." And again -> another scripture says, "They will look on the one whom they have pierced." -> -> After this, Joseph of Arimathea, a disciple of Jesus (but secretly, because he -> feared the Jewish leaders), asked Pilate if he could remove the body of Jesus. -> Pilate gave him permission, so he went and took the body away. Nicodemus, the -> man who had previously come to Jesus at night, accompanied Joseph, carrying a -> mixture of myrrh and aloes weighing about seventy-five pounds. Then they took -> Jesus' body and wrapped it, with the aromatic spices, in strips of linen cloth -> according to Jewish burial customs. Now at the place where Jesus was crucified -> there was a garden, and in the garden was a new tomb where no one had yet been -> buried. And so, because it was the Jewish day of preparation and the tomb was -> nearby, they placed Jesus' body there. - -Several things stand out about this.[^12] For one, Jesus is now fulfilling all -kinds of prophecies. John is a great example of the later attempt to write Jesus -into the Jewish messiah. This is not part of the Gnostic teaching and was also -clearly not in Mark or other early documents. Only now does this become -necessary with the church spreading among and breaking away from the Jews. - -Furthermore, Jesus now interacts with witnesses. He is finally in control. He -even comforts his mourning family. This doesn't look like a sacrifice at all -anymore. And we see one thing missing that changes the whole dynamic, that -betrays its Gnostic roots: God is absent. Read closely. Jesus does not pray, he -is not the Christ, he does not beg, does not bring the Kingdom. John's gospel is -not about a resurrection, but a transformation. Jesus frees the divine spirit -and breaks the cage of the flesh. - -The crucifixion is the symbol of this transformation and is used in that light -by Paul who references his own death and resurrection. It stands not for an -overcoming of death. In no meaningful way does Jesus die; his body dies, but the -transformation continues independent of it, as we will see now. In stark -contrast to Mark, John continues after Jesus' death. - -<%= dailymotion("http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/video/xnryl") %> - -> Now very early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary -> Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been moved away from the -> entrance. So she went running to Simon Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus -> loved and told them, "They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t -> know where they have put him!" [...] -> -> But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she bent down and looked -> into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white sitting where Jesus' body had -> been lying, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, "Woman, why -> are you weeping?" Mary replied, "They have taken my Lord away, and I do not -> know where they have put him!" When she had said this, she turned around and -> saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. -> -> Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?" -> Because she thought he was the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have -> carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will take him." Jesus -> said to her, "Mary." She turned and said to him in Aramaic, "*Rabboni*" -> (which means Teacher). Jesus replied, "Do not touch me, for I have not yet -> ascended to my Father. Go to my brothers and tell them, 'I am ascending to my -> Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" Mary Magdalene came and -> informed the disciples, "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them what Jesus -> had said to her. - -It then goes on to fabricate a "tradition" of revelation. This kind of thing -becomes important for the growing church, but is of little concern to us. - -But this ascension is important. It is a purely spiritual experience of which -the bodily death is just a vivid metaphor. It is the central technique around -which the early church is built. The miracles are only there to finance it, the -prophecies to gain a greater audience, the morals to further its influence. But -the core is this accessible, graphic and guided mystical transformation. - -But what *is* transformed? Now that is the real strength of the crucifixion. -*Everything*. *Anything*! - -You see, it is a placeholder. It can take on the role of any mystic technique. -It is a universal metaphor. The Gnostic can see Sophia, the Theravadan can see -the [Arising and Passing Away][], the new convert sees hope. What the -crucifixion provides is a usable interpretation for a wide variety of confusing -experiences. Instead of having to deal with the mind and the world as they -really are, the crucifixion gives security. The difficult part of the ongoing -transformation has already been done by someone else, the purpose is clear, the -goal relatable. Overcoming death, freeing the spirit, getting closer to God - -pick whatever seems most attractive to you. The Christ died for all of these, so -have faith. - -The crucifixion is a Rorschach blot of the psyche. - -> I looked at the Rorschach blot. I tried to pretend it looked like a spreading -> tree, shadows pooled beneath it, but it didn't. It looked more like a dead cat -> I once found, the fat, glistening grubs writhing blindly, squirming over each -> other, frantically tunneling away from the light. But even that is avoiding -> the real horror. The horror is this: In the end, it is simply a picture of -> empty meaningless blackness. We are alone. There is nothing else. -> -> -- Dr. Malcolm Long, Watchmen - -<%= image("rorschach.jpg", "Rorschach") %> - -[^1]: [Robert M. Price][], yada yada, Christ myth proponents not convincing? Do - you also believe in Oz? If not, how about Hercules? If you understand why - they are myth, you will understand why Christ is, too. - -[^2]: A completely unjustified speculation: the Buddha stands out by being the - only one that breaks the pattern. He taught within a context that still - accepted general rebirth, so continuing the theme would be very obvious and - in fact, later Buddhists, particularly in the Mahayana tradition, did bring - it back by making Buddha an ascended god, or by inventing the idea of the - Bodhisattva, a being that intentionally ensures its own rebirth to help - others. But in the original story, Buddha was a mortal who distinguished - himself by *not* being reborn. He successfully extinguishes himself after - death and his disciples didn't doubt it. Why is this remarkable? It would've - happened during the transition to conscious minds, according to Jaynes' - theory. There would be lots of remnants around, lots of old ideas colored by - bicameral minds. What the Buddha did, maybe, was achieve full subjective - consciousness(, destroy his personal god called the self) and teach it to - his students, thus killing the dead voices. He wouldn't hang around after - death because he changed the minds of his followers, so he was truly gone - - [Tathagata][]. Later students, already conscious, couldn't understand the - remarkableness of this feat anymore, so they retconned the Samsara story - into it, maybe even actually inverting it. Now the goal of enlightenment is - to destroy the linguistically constructed self and see the world "raw", - non-subjectively. I would strongly suspect that during this retcon, they - invented the figure of the Buddha, moved him closer to their time and - assembled his story out of ongoing myths. The "real" Buddha, the one that - brought death to the world, is almost certainly much older, dating back to - maybe 1000BCE. - -[^3]: Mark and Paul, of course, are likely not really Mark and Paul, but rather - anonymous texts attributed to the fictitious characters. Paul, at least, is - most likely based on a real person, in the same way that Jetpack Hitler is. - -[^4]: Always using the NET bible, as on [bible.org][]. - -[^5]: I find it fascinating that there is explicit mention of how fast Jesus - died. Also, his followers took his body right away. This gives some credence - to the idea that his death was faked. However, Jesus does not return in any - way. He might've successfully gone into hiding (or to India, as some - traditions have it), but that seems a bit too speculative to me. I don't - really see how you could fake a crucifixion, or why you would draw attention - to the fact afterwards. If Mark was in on the lie, he wouldn't have told us - about the preparations or the sudden death. It would look much more like - Luke. - -[^6]: If you find my dismissal of Mark too harsh, try reading it yourself, but - as if it were new. Imagine we met at a friend's house and I introduce you to - some text I wrote. It's all true, I inform you. It's about my former - Japanese teacher, Takashi, but I wrote it in English for you, translating as - necessary. Try reading Mark that way, substituting Takashi for Jesus, Osaka - for Galilee, Suzuki the Monk for John the Baptist and so on. What would you - think about this Takashi? What is his message? Could you even decipher any? - -[^7]: There is the idea that the New Testament is a (partial) parody. Some parts - of it might be, especially in Acts, but I don't buy it for Mark. It follows - well-known woo-woo con-men structures, has obvious editing mistakes and no - underlying plot. The text is partially manipulative, partially sincere, as - is typical for the genre. Compare with reports about Sai Baba or Osho, for - example. - -[^8]: I'm eagerly awaiting Price' upcoming book, "The Amazing Colossal Apostle". - I'm certainly seeing the merit of rejecting all Pauline letters as authentic - already, but I'm not fully convinced yet. Also, I didn't want to make my - analysis contingent on it. - -[^9]: I'd love to know what exact practices Paul is talking about. I suspect - something akin to what modern Pentecostals are doing. - -[^10]: Robert Price identifies Simon Magus as Paul. I haven't looked much into - the evidence for this yet, but it seems plausible to me. - -[^11]: Funny thing is, about a millennium later, the same thing happened to - Christianity, too! The Reformation is nothing but an attempt to rationalize - Catholic dogma. This process continues to this very day, producing Christian - Atheism and Universalism (see Mencius Moldbug's glorious 5-part series - [How Dawkins got pwned][] (link to part 5, which links to previous parts)). - Or, as Jaynes said it: - - > What happens in this modern dissolution of ecclesiastical authorization - > reminds us a little of what happened long ago after the breakdown of the - > bicameral mind itself. Everywhere in the contemporary world there are - > substitutes, other methods of authorization. Some are revivals of ancient - > ones: the popularity of possession religions in South America, where the - > church had once been so strong; extreme religious absolutism ego-based on - > "the Spirit", which is really the ascension of Paul over Jesus; an - > alarming rise in the serious acceptance of astrology, that direct heritage - > from the period of the breakdown of the bicameral mind in the Near East; - > or the more minor divination of the *I Ching*, also a direct heritage from - > the period just after the breakdown in China. There are also the huge - > commercial and sometimes psychological successes of various meditation - > procedures, sensitivity training groups, mind control, and group encounter - > practices. Other persuasions often seem like escapes from a new boredom of - > unbelief, but are also characterized by this search for authorization: - > faiths in various pseudosciences, as in scientology, or in unidentified - > flying objects bringing authority from other parts of our universe, or - > that gods were at one time actually such visitors; or the stubborn muddled - > fascination with extrasensory perception as a supposed demonstration of a - > spiritual surround of our lives whence some authorization might come; or - > the use of psychotropic drugs as ways of contacting profounder realities, - > as they were for most of the American native Indian civilizations in the - > breakdown of their bicameral mind. Just as we saw in - > [previous parts of the book] that the collapse of the institutionalized - > oracles resulted in smaller cults of induced possession, so the waning of - > institutional religions is resulting in these smaller, more private - > religions of every description. And this historical process can be - > expected to increase the rest of this century. - > - > [...] - > - > Science then, for all its pomp of factness, is not unlike some of the more - > easily disparaged outbreaks of pseudoreligions. In this period of - > transition from its religious basis, science often shares with the - > celestial maps of astrology, or a hundred other irrationalisms, the same - > nostalgia for the Final Answer, the One Truth, the Single Cause. In the - > frustrations and sweat of laboratories, it feels the same temptations to - > swarm into sects, even as did the Khabiru refugees, and set out here and - > there through the dry Sinais of parched fact for some rich and brave - > significance flowing with truth and exaltation. And all of this, my - > metaphor and all, is a part of this transitional period after the - > breakdown of the bicameral mind. - -[^12]: Also note that John is trying to provide plausible reasons why Jesus was - taken from the cross so early. Did somebody get accused of fakery, I wonder? diff --git a/content_blog/jesus/docetism.mkd b/content_blog/jesus/docetism.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 6daa797..0000000 --- a/content_blog/jesus/docetism.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: A Third Approach To Docetism -date: 2012-08-13 -techne: :wip -episteme: :speculation ---- - -Sometimes I feel like doing a crazy thing. Like writing a theological essay about docetism and harmonization. Because this is the most important thing in the world. - -So I did. diff --git a/content_blog/jesus/index.mkd b/content_blog/jesus/index.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 4d61508..0000000 --- a/content_blog/jesus/index.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Theology -is_category: true ---- - -<%= category :jesus %> diff --git a/content_blog/jesus/salvation.mkd b/content_blog/jesus/salvation.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 8f88beb..0000000 --- a/content_blog/jesus/salvation.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: The Fundamental Doctrine of True Theology -date: 2012-06-30 -techne: :wip -episteme: :speculation ---- - -A defense of existence. - -Salvation through locality. diff --git a/content_blog/jesus/self-baptism.mkd b/content_blog/jesus/self-baptism.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 0557218..0000000 --- a/content_blog/jesus/self-baptism.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,76 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Self-Baptism -date: 2012-04-23 -techne: :done -episteme: :broken ---- - -Can you baptize yourself, if necessary? The answer is quite clearly yes, at least when no valid other baptizer is available. - -# The Argument - -I don't wanna turn this into a round of Inerrantist "[To the Bible!][Batmobile]". Let's try an actual argument instead. - -I will argue that none of the features of baptism need another person present, assuming none is available. A correct (but minimalistic) baptism proceeds as follows: - -1. The baptizer intends to do the same as the Church does (i.e. to perform the ritual accurately, even though they might screw it up). -2. The recipient of the baptism desires to be baptised. -3. The recipient is repentant for their sins, denounces Satan and embraces God. -4. Water is poured over the recipient's head (or the recipient is submersed in water). -5. With the water still flowing / while submersed, the words are spoken: "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." (Or some equivalent paraphrase.) -6. 4) and 5) are repeated two more times. (May be skipped if necessary.) -7. The recipient is now correctly baptized. - -Steps 2), 3), 6) and 7) are obviously independent from a baptizer and are to be performed by the recipient themselves. I will only need to argue that 1), 4) and 5) can be performed by the recipient themselves, if necessary. - -Of those, 4) and 5) do not seem to rely on the baptizer at all. In the case of a necessity (say if the priest is wounded and unable to move), surely anyone may handle the water, even the recipient themselves. As the water can be poured, the recipient also remains able to speak the words during the ritual. None of this necessitates a separate baptizer. - -Finally, consider 1). Note right away the importance of the *intention*, not of credentials. In an emergency, *anyone* is capable of performing a valid baptism. The Catechism of the Church says so [explicitly][CCC baptism]: - -> In case of necessity, anyone, even a non-baptized person, with the required intention, can baptize, by using the Trinitarian baptismal formula. The intention required is to will to do what the Church does when she baptizes. The Church finds the reason for this possibility in the universal saving will of God and the necessity of Baptism for salvation. - -Furthermore, the purpose of baptism is the purification of the recipient, to wash away sin. This is a supernatural transformation caused by the Holy Spirit, *not* the baptizer. Therefore, even a Non-Christian can perform the baptism. This makes it clear that priests aren't *special* in some way. They don't possess some inherent unusual skill or gift, they themselves do not *transform* the recipient. Thus, they ought not to be necessary at all. - -As additional support, consider the case of bootstrapping. Say you and a friend are stranded on an island. You're both still not baptized, but had intended to join the Church right after your disastrous journey. You do happen to have the Catechism with you, so your friend baptizes you, intended to "do what the Church does", speaks the right words and so on. Then you do the same to him. You are now both correctly baptized. It seems very implausible that your friend is of any causal relevance in this ritual, therefore this should also work when you are stranded alone. - -Finally, consider the case of someone who has never heard of the Church or salvation, say a Chinese intellectual living in 400BCE. Salvation is universal, therefore even this person must be to receive God's grace. They obviously can't be baptized, so what are they supposed to do? - -The Catechism says: - -> For catechumens who die before their Baptism, their explicit desire to receive it, together with repentance for their sins, and charity, assures them the salvation that they were not able to receive through the sacrament. - -This seems straightforward. The recipient's desire for salvation saves them, not the specific procedure. The ritual merely facilitates this process. Therefore, even if the self-baptism were invalid, it would still *include* a repentance for sins, an acceptance of the Triune God, and the intention to receive salvation and perform a correct baptism. Worst case, they are saved *anyway*. - -# The Purpose of the Argument - -Alright, so they can perform something as good as normal baptism, so why not do both? When necessary, baptize yourself, then seek out a priest asap? - -This [Pascalian][Pascal's Wager] argument fails because baptism is *unique*. It is inherently an unrepeatable ritual and causes a permanent change. Therefore, you can't baptize someone *again*. So if your self-baptism was invalid, you could just perform a correct baptism afterwards. But if it *wasn't*, then the "second" baptism would be an impure ritual, itself unacceptable. - -One solution to this is the [conditional baptism][]. Instead of speaking the normal words, the baptizer says: "*If you are not yet baptized*, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." - -Alright, so you *can* pull off Pascal's Baptism - simply always use the conditional form. There's one problem with this, though. Using the conditional baptism explicitly states that the baptizer *doubts the validity* of the formal ritual(s). - -This clearly violates step 1). You can't simultaneously intend to perform correctly and doubt you intended to perform correctly. Similarly, if you are baptized by someone else and you later perform a conditional baptism, you are doubting them as well. There are circumstances where this may be justified (if you underwent emergency baptism by a Non-Christian, for example, or a heretic church), but those are unusual. - -This is therefore a standard game-theoretical problem. Under normal circumstances, you can only perform a baptism if you intend to do it correctly, but a conditional baptism contradicts this intention. - -# The Relevance of the Argument - -Does this matter? After all, we are not stranded (I hope). We have access to the Church, we can get baptized the normal way just fine. Why care if self-baptism is valid? - -Consider two things. First, the Church may not be valid itself. It *could* have been corrupted by Satan, for example. Deception is clearly possible, just think of the Cartesian Demon. Furthermore, the Church has undergone several major transformation, like the Council of Trent or Second Vatican Council. Any of those could have made the sacraments invalid by leading the intentions of the priesthood away from the Will of God (and the Communion of Saints). - -If you do not trust the existent Church, then you can't receive baptism from them (as you can't be baptized "just to be sure"). - -But second, knowing what I just told you, you can't default to the position of the Chinese philosopher anymore. You are not ignorant any longer, you *know* about baptism and the Triune God, and you are not hindered from performing the ritual. Mere desire will *not* save you. - -- If you self-baptize, you will explicitly affirm that the Church in its present state is unable to perform the sacraments. -- If you *do* rely on the Church, you will not be saved in case it truly *is* corrupt. -- If the Church is corrupt, is it so corrupt that it contradicts the expressed and potentially sincere intention? Does the baptizing priest still refer to the same thing? -- You can't do *both* baptisms as this contradicts the intentions of at least one of the two. -- You can't do neither or you won't be saved at all. - -So what do you do? - -(Behold, a moral basilisk. Do not be turned off by the Catholic framing - consider its general form, and the fundamental problem how knowing the right thing to do can force you to solve *even harder* problems. Also note that a solution [exists][Rigid Designator]. *All* basilisks can be slain.) diff --git a/content_letsread/read/michel_thomas.mkd b/content_blog/languages/michel_thomas.mkd similarity index 99% rename from content_letsread/read/michel_thomas.mkd rename to content_blog/languages/michel_thomas.mkd index adc7bf0..de4e9bc 100644 --- a/content_letsread/read/michel_thomas.mkd +++ b/content_blog/languages/michel_thomas.mkd @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ --- title: Michel Thomas French -date: 2012-07-31 +date: 2011-09-11 techne: :done episteme: :believed --- diff --git a/content_blog/languages/the-futility-of-translation.mkd b/content_blog/languages/the-futility-of-translation.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index bda8fcb..0000000 --- a/content_blog/languages/the-futility-of-translation.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,32 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: The Futility of Translation -date: 1970-01-01 -techne: :wip -episteme: :speculation ---- - -For weeks now I want to quote a certain song. But I can't. It's in German. And I can't translate it. Not in a way that does it any justice, at least. - -The song is Die Interimsliebenden by Einstürzende Neubauten. Watch it: - -<%= vimeo("http://player.vimeo.com/video/36592271") %> - -(BTW: I love the video. It's so amazingly meta-pretentious.) - -The lyrics consist of a massive amount of puns, clever rhymes and idiosyncratic phrases that probably only make sense to someone familiar with German culture. I don't want to pull a Continental here, but it really feels like you first ought to deeply immerse yourself in the *spirit* of a culture before you can *possibly* attempt to understand just this one song. - -But maybe it's worth a try anyway. - -Translations have one impossibly-to-solve problem, one that classical debates like the subs vs. dubs flame wars tend to ignore. Or at least they don't make it explicit. - -Yes, you can translate a layer of communication from one language into another with a reasonable level of accuracy. A textbook has typically only a single layer, only one message it wants to get across at any given time. Thus, textbooks can be translated just fine. - -But you lose once you get to multiple layers. These complex layers won't function the same way in different languages, so even though you can find a fairly good mapping between any two layers, there's one thing you won't be able to preserve - the Schelling points, i.e. the obvious or interesting points of interaction between layers. (Defining "obvious" and "interesting" is left as an exercise to the reader.) - -For example, puns exploit non-obvious but powerful interactions between the sound and the meaning of a word. They work by finding a slight alteration that keeps the sound of a word mostly the same (i.e. you don't jump to a different plateau in sound-space), but also adds an association to a new meaning that is unexpected, but still *works*, is still related to the original meaning. - -There will be many such interactions in any human language, but they will be at different *points*. Unless two languages are closely related, or you'll have to rely on luck to find any overlap. Thus, to attempt a translation of a pun in context, you'd have to find a *new* pun that also works in the *same* context and is about *equally clever*. Good luck with that. - -But these association themselves might add further layers by adding another meta level, e.g. by referencing the spelling of the word. The more complex they become, the more impressive - and rarer - they will be. - -And then you encounter Heidegger or James Joyce. diff --git a/content_blog/propaganda/against-pessimism.mkd b/content_blog/morality/against-pessimism.mkd similarity index 100% rename from content_blog/propaganda/against-pessimism.mkd rename to content_blog/morality/against-pessimism.mkd diff --git a/content_blog/morality/case-for-otm.mkd b/content_blog/morality/case-for-otm.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index fd67560..0000000 --- a/content_blog/morality/case-for-otm.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,92 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: From Math to Morality -date: 2012-06-20 -techne: :wip -episteme: :speculation ---- - -> Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906, by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics. Perhaps it will be wise to approach the subject cautiously. -> -> -- (D.L. Goodstein, "States of Matter") - -> You can't answer a kid's question. They don't accept any answer. A kid never goes, "oh thanks, I get it". They fucking never say that! They just keep coming, more questions, "Why?", "Why?", "Why?", until you don't even know who the fuck you are anymore by the end of the conversation. It's an insane deconstruction. -> -> -- [Louis CK][Louis CK why]) - -Recently, [Leah][Leah Conversion] converted from "weird quasi-Platonist virtue ethicist" to Catholic. And even though I'm not a Catholic, I don't think the connection between "quasi-Platonist about math" to "[objective][One True Morality] morality exists" is an accident[^accident]. Because that's likely the same reason I changed my mind, too. - -[^accident]: Of course, I'll leave it to Leah to describe her specific reasons. I don't have any deep insights into her personality, I'm just struck that we don't just agree about one thing, but about a whole *cluster* of things, and I'm seeing a pattern. - -Let's start with a question: Why does math work? - -I've been seriously wondering this for most of 2009-2011. - - - -Where does the unreasonable effectiveness of math come from? - -- nominalism - - -If math is just a language game, why does it work so much *better* than other language games? Consider Hegelian Dialectic, the Worst Thing Germans Ever Came Up With[^worst]. - -[^worst]: Yes, literally worse than Hitler. I'm not a fan is what I'm saying. - -Consider this section from Stove's fantastic essay, "[What is Wrong with Our Thoughts?][]": - -> [Hegel's Development, by H.S. Harris] is, naturally, full of quotations from Hegel's early writings. In subject-matter these passages range from the astronomical to the zoological. For the examples which I promised earlier in this essay, I have chosen two of the astronomical ones. First: -> -> > In the indifferences of light, the aether has scattered its absolute indifference into a multiplicity; in the blooms of the solar system it has borne its inner Reason and totality out into expansion. But the individualizations of light are dispersed in multiplicity [i.e. the fixed stars], while those which form the orbiting petals of the solar system must behave towards them with rigid individuality [i.e. they have their fixed orbits]. And so the unity of the stars lacks the form of universality, while that of the solar system lacks pure unity, and neither carries in itself the absolute Concept as such. -> -> Second: -> -> > In the spirit the absolutely simple aether has returned to itself by way of the infinity of the Earth; in the Earth as such this union of the absolute simplicity of aether and infinity exists; it spreads into the universal fluidity, but its spreading fixates itself as singular things; and the numerical unit of singularity, which is the essential characteristic (*Bestimmtheit*) for the brute becomes itself an ideal factor, a moment. The concept of Spirit, as thus determined, is *Consciousness*, the concept of the union of the simple with infinity; -> -> [...] And now I ask you: is it not true, as I said earlier, that these two real examples of the pathology of thought are far more revolting than any of the invented ones which made up my list of forty pathological propositions? Do you know any example of the corruption of thought which is more extreme than these two? Did you even know, until now, that human thought was capable of this degree of corruption? - -Hegelian language games are clearly utterly useless, as we would expect. But this cannot be said about math. If it is just as arbitrary, just as much a game - are we also deluded about its effectiveness? - -So pure formalism does not sound very appealing[^appealing]. - -[^appealing]: - Another criticism is that, in practice, humans don't think very "formally", that is like a formal proof finder. It is very common for mathematicians to agree on a proof of an important theorem, even though it turns out that the proof has many small technical errors. They are inevitably found and fixed, of course, but if we just unwind a set of rules, then why is it that we find those shortcuts and see the "meaning" of ideas? Where do these intuitions come from? And how come that they are so reliable? - - -So one might be tempted to say, maybe that's just not a well-defined answer. Maybe "Why does math work?" is just another Hegelian confusion. And of course it's not necessary at all to know *why* math works to actually use it. Pragmatism is perfectly adequate if we just want to get stuff done. - -But philosophy has a strange attraction to it, and we still want to get this nagging question out of our head. Desperate, we try to re-animate the corpse of [Logical Positivism][], and say, "Why does math work?" is a meaningless question. It just seems meaningful to us, but actually isn't. But then we try going meta. Why does it seem meaningful to ask, "Why does math work?"? What is it about this question that makes it seem meaningful, even when it isn't? A genuinely meaningless question, like "Why is blue a kind of chair?", doesn't appear meaningful, after all. - -And more meta, if we accept Logical Positivism, we can just ask, why does Logical Positivism work? It doesn't? Then it is self-refuting. Or is this question also meaningless? Then what, exactly, is Logical Positivism asserting? It is meaningless to ask why Logical Positivism works, but it does in fact work, and we should use it to conclude that asking why math works is meaningless, even though it does in fact work and Hegelian Dialectic doesn't?[^meta] - -[^meta]: This is a general meta-point that is easy to miss. Plantinga makes the same kind of argument by [using evolution to refute naturalism][Plantinga naturalism], a move so clever, I can only imagine him going [trolololo][] for a whole week after he came up with it. Epistemology is hard, let's go justified shopping. - -So the question stands. - - -The simplest explanation is this: math works because the universe runs on math. It is a perfect description of the mechanism because it *is* the mechanism. - -Max Tegmark took this idea and ran so far with it, you may actually come out in another universe if you try to follow him. - - -There are two simple arguments you can make about the existence of morality. The first has some similarity to Pascal's Wager, and really just points out the self-refuting character of moral nihilism. It goes like this: If objective morality exists, we want to follow it. If it doesn't, then who cares? Nothing we do matters anyway. So even if we have no idea if it exists, we should simply *assume* it does. - -Ok, maybe, but what if we run into contradictions or incoherent requirements or stuff like that? That's where the second argument comes in. *Assume*, just as a language game if you want, that objective morality, discoverable by reason, exists. Just for the lulz. - -Think about some [axioms][Why The Gods Are Trolling You] that must be true in such a case. Try to do the equivalent of deriving arithmetic from the Peano Axioms, or geometry from Euclid's Axioms. (This problem is left as an exercise for the reader.) - - - -And if it turns out that the construction you end up with is beautiful, simple, elegant and self-consistent, has clear structure, in short, looks just like math... you can then ask yourself, why is that? - -If objective morality *didn't* exist, if it *weren't* true, weren't *about* something, just an arbitrary game... where does all the structure come from? - -Shouldn't it look a lot more like [godshatter][]? The product of an unreliable, disinterested process - evolution - that outright optimizes for non-moral goals. It would not look coherent, understandable, axiomatic. Yet, when you actually try this, you may find[^may] that it actually does. - -[^may]: - Yes, it is somewhat unfair that I'm not actually making a case for simplicity of description, that I only hint, vaguely, at some of the axioms. And that, for some people at least, the inherent complexity and incompressibility of terminal value seems much better argued for, much more plausible. It might help to take game theory, think in terms of cooperation, contracts and enforcement, and run with that as far as you can, see how much of "terminal" value you can derive from it, and then wonder again if maybe there is more elegance, at least on a meta-level above your individual life. But ultimately, I can only say, at least for now: lol u suck. - -Why does morality work? Why is it understandable at all? - -Well, the simplest explanation is: because, like math, the universe actually runs on morality. - - diff --git a/content_blog/morality/index.mkd b/content_blog/morality/index.mkd index 16d3b0c..a06ff63 100644 --- a/content_blog/morality/index.mkd +++ b/content_blog/morality/index.mkd @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ --- -title: Meta-Morality +title: Morality is_category: true --- diff --git a/content_blog/morality/morality-for-the-damned-first-steps.mkd b/content_blog/morality/morality-for-the-damned-first-steps.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 8156473..0000000 --- a/content_blog/morality/morality-for-the-damned-first-steps.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,46 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Morality for the Damned (First Steps) -date: 2012-01-30 -techne: :done -episteme: :discredited -slug: 2012/01/30/morality-for-the-damned-first-steps/ -disowned: true ---- - -*This is maybe the most important question I'm currently trying to solve. I wish I could write (or better, read) a fully fleshed-out sequence dissolving it, but I don't even know if it's solvable at all, so I'm stuck with a lot of despair and confusion. However, here at muflax, inc. we occasionally attempt the impossible, so let's accept the madness and try to at least delineate what the problem even is.* - -The hardware you run on [is evil][Asymmetry Evolutionary]. You have no built-in privileged knowledge of morality. God is absent. The world is already getting [paperclipped][Paperclipper] by beings with no concerns for rights, sovereignty or the sacred. - -The problem is thus: you are in Hell. How can you still do the right thing? - -You might resign yourself to acceptance. You might realize the elegance of Empty Set Morality - if nothing exists, no-one is harmed, no-one is coerced, nothing is desecrated. Thus, the Empty Set is moral, maybe the only moral state. You will not bring about any immorality yourself - will birth no-one, rule not, transgress nothing. Yet, others will. What are you going to do about them? How do you stop [over 200,000 sins a day][World Population]? - -Even though you carry no responsibility for the sins of others, your hatred of sin compels you anyway. You might consider pulling a [Ted Kaczynski][]. The world is evil, and you will feel a lot of disgust for it. [This is good.][Chapman Disgust] - -But changing the world is really hard. You are not just facing some minor [existential risk][Existential Risks]. You are fighting against Azathoth itself and the billions of intelligent brains at its disposal. You don't need a bunch of pipe bombs. You need a [special kind of savior][Lelouch]. - -You can barely contain your despair, yet you desire to bring the world out of existence. Other [saints][RMS]) have failed on mere subsets of this problem: - -> I'm the last survivor of a dead culture. And I don't really belong in the world anymore. And in some ways I feel I ought to be dead. [...] I have certainly wished I had killed myself when I was born. [...] In terms of effect on the world, it's very good that I've lived. And so I guess, if I could go back in time and prevent my birth, I wouldn't do it. But I sure wish I hadn't had so much pain. - -And yet, the problem grows worse. [One prophet][Mainländer] still hoped that the universe is an act of suicide, a process of God becoming non-existent. And in a way, Empty Set Morality hopes for the same thing, hopes for a meaning in annihilation. Can such a thing even be done? - -Says [the Dead One][LW SL5]: - -> But if you combine a functionalist view of mind with big worlds cosmology, then reality becomes the quotient of the set of all possible computations, where all sub-computations that instantiate you are identified. Imagine that you have an infinite piece of paper representing the multiverse, and you draw a dot on it wherever there is a computational process that is the same as the one going on in your brain right now. Now fold the paper up so that all the dots are touching each other, and glue them at that point into one dot. That is your world. -> -> [This idea is] the point where you mentally realize that perfectly dry astrophysics implies that there is no unique "you" at the centre of your sphere of concern, analogous to the Copernican revolution that unseated earth from the centre of the solar system. It is considered to be more shocking than any of the previous future shock levels because it destroys the most basic human epistemological assumption that there is such a thing as my future, or such a thing as the consequence of my actions. -> -> [It] is a good candidate for Dan Dennett's universal acid: an idea so corrosive that if we let it into our minds, everything we care about will be dissolved. You can't change anything in the multiverse - every decision or consequence that you don't make will be made infinitely many times elsewhere by near-identical copies of you. Every victory will be produced, as will every possible defeat. - -In a world without consequences, without change, harm will never end. You might be - eternally, acausally - moral, but everything else is in sin never-ending. Non-existence is an illusion of causal disconnection, a mere anthropic illusion. Embrace the [B-Theory][] and never cease. It [has been prophesied][Eternal Return], yet the hope that we might affirm it has failed us. We now correctly face its horror. - -A denial of infinity's evil is hard to do. If you deny St. Occam and his Universal Prior, how can you explain their effectiveness, can explain this world, explain the sheer feat of explanation itself? Yet there is an element of self-refutation in it. Solomonoff-kami, despite being infinite and uncomputable, will only ever believe finite, computable theories itself. So the very models that lead us to the Big World Crisis will never bring themselves to believe it, nor are constructions of the self within them in any way obvious. A bit of Discordian distrust might be in order. - -Face only Azathoth for now, not The Generalized Blind Idiot God. Face only this: you are in Hell. The [Traceless One][Tathagata] has erred. All is suffering. It can not be overcome. - -Through the mere act of reflection, you bring the [Elder Axioms][Laws of Form] into the world, and with them, evil. - -What, then, are you to do? - -Until the answers become clear, meditate on the corpse that is this world, hoping to find emptiness within it somehow. diff --git a/content_blog/morality/non-local-metaethics.mkd b/content_blog/morality/non-local-metaethics.mkd index 18dd839..9c75d4c 100644 --- a/content_blog/morality/non-local-metaethics.mkd +++ b/content_blog/morality/non-local-metaethics.mkd @@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ Says Wiki-sama: Another way to express the idea of locality is to think in terms of a cellular automaton or Turing machine. Locality simply means that the machine only has to check the values of a limited set of neighbor cells (8 for the Game of Life, 0 for a standard TM) to figure out the next value of the current cell for any given step. -The fact that some interpretations of quantum physics (Many Worlds most notably) are more local than others (Copenhagen) is commonly used as a major argument in their favor. I've [started collecting][Unifying Morality] features of moral theories and noticed that locality also applies to them, but I've never seen anyone make the argument, so here it goes. +The fact that some interpretations of quantum physics (Many Worlds most notably) are more local than others (Copenhagen) is commonly used as a major argument in their favor. Locality also applies to moral theories, but I've never seen anyone make the argument, so here it goes. Moral theories must make prescriptions. If a moral theory doesn't tell you what to do, it's useless (tautologically so, really). So if after learning Theory X you still don't know what you should do to act according to Theory X, then it's to be discarded. Theory X must be wrong. (And don't try to embrace [moral luck][Moral Luck]. That way lies madness.) diff --git a/content_blog/morality/preference-troll.mkd b/content_blog/morality/preference-troll.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 51eac7b..0000000 --- a/content_blog/morality/preference-troll.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,30 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Utilitarianism, A Summary -date: 2012-07-01 -techne: :wip -episteme: :troll ---- - -A summary of utilitarianism, with the help of [co-author Anthony Hollander][make people alive], age 9. - ---- - -Dear Val, Jhon, Peter and Lesslie, - -This may seem very strange, but I think I no how to make people or animals moral. Why Im teling you is because I cant get the things I need. - -A list of what I need. - -1. Diagram of how evreything works. [inside youre brain.] -2. Model of a brain split in half. [both halvs.] -3. The sort of inteligents they yous for computers. [inteligents must be very very safe.] -4. Tools for scanning people in. -5. Computer box, 8 foot tall, 3 foot width. -6. Picture of a society showing all the good things. - -Sorry but in number 5 in the list the box needs internet. If you do get them on 1st March I can pay £10, £11, £12, £13 or £14. - -Send your answer to me, - -Love from Anthony, -London, NW11 diff --git a/content_blog/morality/purpose.mkd b/content_blog/morality/purpose.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index bc463b5..0000000 --- a/content_blog/morality/purpose.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,124 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: On Purpose -date: 2011-03-11 -techne: :done -episteme: :discredited ---- - -Two reflections on purpose and two open questions. - -# Purpose cannot be created. - -I'll just let [Alonzo Fyfe][Fyfe Purpose] speak for me. - -> However, the common atheist response to the question of meaning and purpose in -> life is almost as absurd. -> -> This is the idea that each of us gets to choose our own meaning or purpose in -> life, and whatever we choose has real value. -> -> If we are talking about a person, and I have the ability to choose where that -> person was born, who its parents were, what it likes and dislikes, and what -> happened to him five years ago, this should be taken as a reliable sign that I -> am dealing with a *fictional* character. I do not have the liberty to make those -> types of decisions if we are talking about a real person. Instead, there is a -> fact of the matter. -> -> The same is true of assigning a purpose or meaning to life. If a person has -> the liberty to simply 'choose' a purpose or a meaning, then this should be -> taken as proof that he is creating a fictitious entity. This 'purpose' or -> 'meaning' is no more real than the character she invented for some story or -> book. -> -> To live one's life as if this fictional purpose or meaning is real is to live -> a lie. - -# Desire is not about content. - -Do desires exist? Has desire fulfillment value? - -According to [Desirism][], desire fulfillment itself has no value, but the -existence of desires creates value within the agent that has them. In other -words, if Bob wants to eat cheese, then eating cheese has value for Bob, but -only because this attitude exists in Bob's mind. The important assertion of -desirism is that desire fulfillment itself has no value, so it cannot be said -that it is good for Bob to want to eat cheese, nor that it is good *in general* -to eat cheese. - -(This has the implication that if there were only agents without desires, then -no value at all would exist. It is only for an accident of evolution that we -happen to have desires.) - -Overall, this is not an esoteric claim. It follows quiet neatly from standard -scientific models. But is it true? - -Think about [wireheading][Wireheading]. Why should I bother to fulfill a complex -set of desires if I'm also able to self-modify? I could simply replace all my -desires with a single trivial one, say "I desire 1+1 to equal 2". What would be -the difference in this case? - -How do you identify desires? How do you *know* if a desire fulfilled? - -One possibility might be that desire is about a state the world should be in. -Say, I might desire that every human has access to health care. But that seems -weak. For example, economics is full of "as if" models built just around this -assumption. A nice one is [Rational Addiction]. Regardless of their predictive -power, they tend to be very different from the way people actually think. - -Or maybe we are talking about "reasons for action". Essentially, every moment -there are thousands of things we could do, but ultimately something compels us -to do a specific thing. This thing we might call a desire. But this again is -weak. For one, that would mean that desires are either in principle -unfulfillable (because they are only present when we act, but not when results -occur) or they are fulfilled through each action immediately. This again seems -false. - -What we are really after is the sensation of fulfilling desires, not the actual -desire. Or in other words, utility is about mind-states, not world-states. This -becomes clear to anyone paying close attention to their mind upon the moment of -desire fulfillment. It is only[^1] this short moment of aggravation and -cessation-of-aggravation that matters, not the content of the desire. - -A content-of-desire model of purpose therefore fails. - -[^1]: While trying to map this during vipassana, I noticed an additional stage - right before the aggravation. Sometimes for a short moment a glimpse of - "heaven" pops up, but the promise is never actually fulfilled. I haven't yet - mustered the necessary concentration to check if it always occurs. - -# Why does this state of cessation exist at all? - -It seems so unnecessary. Agents with preferences would work just fine without -it. I can drop my free will, so to speak, yet still act and choose just fine. I -do lose my ability to make complex conscious decisions, but why the difference? -And why, if I don't drop it, do I have cessation-of-aggravation even for trivial -things? - -# How does one act if there is no purpose? - -Maybe there really isn't any meaning to life. My brain is just broken, hoping to -find any. But then what? There seem to be only two responses to this question. -Either, "there's ultimate meaning, duh", but they all are very silly attempts of -what this meaning might be. Or, "get rid of the need to know". I utterly detest -this option. It is, maybe, the only thing I actually consider evil. If the only -alternative to suffering is "not looking for answers", then I prefer the -suffering. I'd rather not have this kind of "enlightenment", thank you very -much. - -But this doesn't seem right. I have a strong intuitive sense that there is -meaning and I'm just too stupid to figure it out. Maybe my intuition is -misleading me. Yet, I don't seem to be the only one. A sense of *fulfilling -fate* seems to be not too unusual. - -> Long ago, a Pentecostal pastor told me that I could keep on doubting, waiting -> till I had resolved all questions before I would be able to enter into worship -> with a clean conscience, but then that would probably mean I would never -> worship, because there would never be a way to settle all questions about God. -> I must simply decide (now) whether I was going to worship God. I see he was -> right. He would not have put it this way, but what I see in his sage advice -> was the realization that the two issues (of deciding what to think of "God" as -> an intellectual problem versus deciding whether to walk with God) belong to -> different language games, and that to solve one is not to solve the other. -> Thus, why wait to solve both before you can make headway on either one? -> -> -- [Robert M. Price][Price Purpose] diff --git a/content_blog/morality/suffering.mkd b/content_blog/morality/suffering.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 01b1f85..0000000 --- a/content_blog/morality/suffering.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,47 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Suffering? What suffering? -date: 2012-07-31 -techne: :done -episteme: :speculation ---- - -I'm confused by "suffering". I'm no longer sure it even exists in a morally relevant sense. That's a weird position to be in. - -(Maybe that means I'm enlightened. If so, I accept sacred offerings in return for favors in the afterlife, and will petition Papa Nurgle on your behalf.) - -I'm not saying "the experience of suffering" doesn't exist, in the sense that "the experience of an integer between 3 and 4, but neither 3 nor 4" doesn't exist. The experience sure does exist, just as the experiences of bliss, joy, sadness, that cramp in your leg that just won't go away, sweetness, anger, and so on, all do exist. - -I'm also not saying that nothing is morally relevant in a metaphysical sense, but without suffering as one foundation, moral realism becomes quite a bit smaller, and I'm not sure if the concept of "harm" even makes sense without it. (Of course, "suffering" is obviously important even for moral anti-realists as a political tool. I'm not giving up this use, the same way that consequentialist hedonists would agree that sacredness is not a moral property, but still a very useful social property.) - -What I mean is this: I cannot tell a difference, experientially, between "suffering" and "bliss", any more than between "calmness" and "bliss". It is as if someone had declared "green" is an Evil Color that must be eradicated, but "purple"[^jcm] and "yellow" are Good or Neutral Colors. They are different experiences, of course, but one isn't privileged over another, and they are all Just Fine As They Are. - -[^jcm]: Jesus Christ, Marie! - -In Theravada Buddhism (and Zen, to the extent that I understand it), this is very likely the actual position behind the teachings, hidden behind complex [lies to children][lie to children]. You can't tell the new monk that "you being freaked out by suffering is a delusion on your side; experience the full suchness of the experience and you will realize your mistake". They'd believe you're bullshitting them or not taking them seriously. But what you are really trying to tell them is that suffering-as-bad is an erroneous belief-in-belief, but not an actual belief. - -Consider what the Buddha actually *does*. He proposes that suffering (dukkha) is a fundamental property of all experience, in the same way that subject-lessness (anatta) and impermanence (anicca) are. This doesn't *change* for the Buddha. He's not part of a different reality. He also still experiences everything he did before, including pain in the form of frequent headaches, and he still dies. Yet, he is liberated, independent of his death, merely through observation. Liberated of what, exactly? - -"In the seeing, just the seen; in the hearing, just the heard; in the thinking, just the thought", as the sutra goes. What is gone is the belief-in-belief, the idea that he was a separate floating ego somewhere, being harmed by the experience of suffering. The actual object-level of experience, the actual dukkha, doesn't change - it can't. What is gone is the mistaken belief that merely *declared* that "this is bad", even though it was not the case that "this is bad", as can be learned by, for example, experiencing "this" in a concept-free way, and then finding no flaw with it. Liberation is the realization that Samsara didn't exist to begin with. - -This is clearly analogous to the realization of anatta. It's not like people have a self before they practice, then the practice actively destroys it, and finally they don't have a self anymore. (Though that is the pop-cultural idea.) What's really happening, in the Buddhist framework, is that the belief of having a self clearly distinct from objects it experiences is false, and through practice and arguments this is *demonstrated*[^demo], and in the end, the practitioner understands how they were non-dual all along, without a dividing line between subject and object, without a stable core of experience. - -[^demo]: - As an obvious implication, this means that realization of anatta (and the rest of enlightenment) is a *conceptual* thing. Zen and early Theravada clearly understand that, and they accept e.g. parables and koans as effective teaching tools. (In LW lingo, anatta is dissolving the question of subjectivity.) However, only some folks might be able to get the necessary conceptual steps. Not everyone has +10 meta (da fewls!). - - Furthermore, in the fundamental sense, this doesn't *matter* - everyone *already* is enlightened, they just don't *know* that. Getting them to know that is hard, though. (But their dana is still green, as some would say.) This still leaves "normal" problems, and chopping that wood, and getting on with your life, now that "Samsara" has been taking care of. - - I'm sure this makes Theravada's ultra-seriousness *hilarious* for Zennists and Tantrikas. - -So, what is bad about suffering, or any experience for that matter? "Ah, *pain* clearly is bad! You can just *feel* it!" So as a good empiricist, I waited for the next headache, or any other source of pain, and then I put my ass on my cushion, and tried to investigate this feeling for myself, paying close attention, as if I had never encountered it before. - -And sure enough, there is the sensation of pain. It has a distinct texture, maybe a location and extension, and a certain frequency[^frequency] of being there, like all sensations. But there is no badness to be found, just as there is no self, distinct from the sensation, that experiences it. - -[^frequency]: All experiences flicker. Start looking, you'll see it. Some flicker quite fast, but they all do. Even walls. - -However, there might well be the *additional* sensation of a thought that says, "this is bad". But this thought itself, despite its alleged content, is itself not bad, nor is it fundamentally connected to the experience of pain. It might just as well say this about bliss, or cats, or itself. Most importantly, it is clearly false - the pain itself isn't bad. Lastly, I might sometimes find flinching sensations, attempts to push away my attention, but those flinches themselves aren't bad either (as they are the same thing that pushes my attention *towards* things when I concentrate). And so, having investigated all components, there is no mysterious "badness" left over at the end. - -And [then I thought][Dark Stance], maybe I'm not looking at the right thing. So I investigated sorrow, grief, sadness, disappointment, laziness, disgust, and all the other candidates I could think of, and they are all alike. There is an experience, which is not bad, and maybe a belief about the experience, which is not bad (and demonstrably false if it claims the experience is bad), and if I feel particularly meta, there are beliefs about beliefs, and there even might be complicated webs of experiences, but all of that can similarly be investigated. - -I can't even tell the difference, in a thought-experimental way, from a world *with* inherently bad experiences, and a world *without* them. "Behold, I flip this switch, and *now* this sensation is *bad*! It is now *true* suffering!" just... doesn't work. The referent of the thought "this is bad, make it stop" cannot be found - the thought is empty, a behavioristic gesture. - -So where is it? Where's the invisible dragon of bad experiences? Because I sure can't find any. diff --git a/content_blog/morality/trolling.mkd b/content_blog/morality/trolling.mkd index 8a423c1..c6277a0 100644 --- a/content_blog/morality/trolling.mkd +++ b/content_blog/morality/trolling.mkd @@ -14,9 +14,7 @@ episteme: :believed And I'm *appalled* by that suggestion! I'm not *rationalizing*! I have a complex meta-ethical set of axioms that has morally-neutral trolling as a derivable theorem! - I didn't start out with the conclusion here, I did proper meta-ethics and *discovered* it! I'm not *that* [biased][Es gibt Leute, die sehen das anders.]. - - (However, if you think I'm actually doing harm, tell me. I'm not deliberately trying to be a douche.) + I didn't start out with the conclusion here, I did proper meta-ethics and *discovered* it! I'm not *that* crazy. Let's start with a simple definition - what's trolling? Trolling, [like crackpottery][Crackpot Theory], is arguing for positions that are not merely motivated by truth-seeking[^truth]. The major difference, however, is that a crackpot actually believes what they are saying, they just use an interestingness prior to select their beliefs. A troll is intentionally adjusting their beliefs for the specific argument, either in content ("lol bible says kill the gays") or strength ("I feel very strongly about this definition!"). diff --git a/content_blog/morality/unifying-morality.mkd b/content_blog/morality/unifying-morality.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 5289c42..0000000 --- a/content_blog/morality/unifying-morality.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,26 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Unifying Morality -date: 2012-01-22 -techne: :done -episteme: :speculation -slug: 2012/01/22/unifying-morality/ ---- - -> There are no more elephants. -> There is no more unethical treatment of elephants either. -> The world is a much better place. -> -- Flight of the Conchords, [The Humans Are Dead][] - -One strength of a theory is how much evidence it unifies. If you can show that your idea solves a wide range of problems, especially if they had previously no obvious connection, then you're probably on to something. Ethical philosophy is famously hard to unify. A [standard introduction][Stanford Metaethics] starts with the trolley problem and demonstrates how hard it is to come up with an answer that doesn't have obvious but undesirable consequences. - -One major reason I take Jaynes' [theory of bicameral minds][Some Thoughts on Bicameral Minds] seriously - it unifies [a lot of problems][Jaynes Evidence]. No competing theory can explain the particular features of auditory hallucinations, command structures and independent but universal importance of spirits/gods in the ancient world. So even though Jaynes' arguments may have some flaws or gaps in their present form, and despite being certainly weird (ancient human had no subjective consciousness, but could write?!), we should still consider it. - -Maybe such a line of reasoning would be beneficial in morality. Maybe if one collected a wide range of problems and simply showed in table form how meta-ethical theories fared and how much ground they managed to cover, one could use this as an argument by itself. Like [this table][QM table] for interpretations of quantum physics. Or like [Battleground God](http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/god.php), simply giving the reader a range of problems and showing them how certain answers interacted with each other. It wouldn't argue any particular position by itself, but it would show how consistent you are. Just a [philosophical health check][]. - -I think many negative moral theories suffer from bad framing. It's even in the name. Who wants to be a *negative* utilitarian? That's like totally depressing, man. But "negative" really just means that they aren't interested in *adding* something to the world to make it better, but in *removing* something. If we could re-frame these theories according to their strengths, maybe people wouldn't react so badly to them? - -Imagine a world without hunger, poverty, broken promises, pain, rape, lies, war, greed, boredom, loneliness, confusion, anger, hatred, depression, torment, shame, disappointment, dying, disgust, mutilation, disease, betrayal and loss. There is such a world. It's the world of antinatalism. - -Maybe we should remind people how bad things really are. If lottery advertisement started with a list of the millions of people *didn't* win, maybe buying a ticket wouldn't look so attractive anymore. If endorsement of life started with a list of [all the bad things][Child sexual abuse] that happen every day, maybe saying stop would sound much more appealing. If people realized what their ethical ideas [actually entailed][Mere Addition], maybe they wouldn't endorse them so easily. - -It's worth a try. diff --git a/content_blog/morality/vegetarian.mkd b/content_blog/morality/vegetarian.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 7ff15dc..0000000 --- a/content_blog/morality/vegetarian.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,59 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Why I'm Not a Vegetarian -alt_titles: [Vegetarian] -date: 2011-12-20 -techne: :done -episteme: :believed ---- - -This post isn't so much an actual argument per se, but a belief dump of the core arguments why I'm not a vegetarian. I'm currently rethinking the issue (thanks to [Alan Dawrst][]) and might change my mind over the next few months. I always find it hard to reconstruct what I believed in the past and why, so I'm writing it down. To counter some bias, I'm also trying to state what kind of evidence would be necessary to convince me of vegetarianism. I'll revisit this within a few months once I've resolved a few moral confusions. - -# Animals are not morally relevant agents. - -Morality, as I understand it, requires certain features to act upon. The state a rock is in is not morally relevant *per se*. I don't have my metaethics worked out yet, but there are at least three features I'm pretty sure are necessary to be morally relevant: a self, consent and the ability to obey laws. I don't think animals have any of these, so whatever we do with them is not a moral concern. (Also note that there are *humans* who don't have all three. There might be game-theoretic reasons to treat them *as if* they had them, but no moral ones.) - -I'd give this argument maybe 60% certainty, so I'm in no way confident and this alone would not be enough to justify ignoring animals as moral agents. The potential harm is too great, and while I wouldn't make preventing it a top priority, I would still act to minimize the suffering I might cause. If only this argument remained, I would avoid [most animal products][suffering per kg]. But let's take a look at the three features. - -## A Self - -Basically, there are three levels. Pure phenomenal consciousness (feeling pain), a subjective experience that makes these things happen *to* someone (*I* am feeling pain) and abstract thought to reflect on this (thinking: "I am feeling pain"). To be morally relevant, you need to have at least the subjective experience. No farm animal does. So they aren't relevant. - -A counterargument wouldn't need to convince me that animals certainly have a self, but merely that they *might* have one. A sufficiently large risk (say, >20%) is enough for me. One way to do this is the simple ["recognize yourself in the mirror" test][Mirror Test]. No farm animal passes it. (Some animals do, and I consider them likely enough to fulfill this requirement of moral relevance.) Of course, any animal that has language and can refer to itself also passes, and I'd give it at least 20% confidence that some non-human animal can do so, so this might also be a possible path. None of these seem to be farm animals, though. - -## Consent - -The ability to agree to (or reject) a proposed deal. The main problem is that I'm not sure that consent is actually *real*. It might well be a general confusion. But I still think it's more likely than not that something-not-too-unlike consent can be naturalized and exists in humans. But what do you need? Language is certainly sufficient, but it seems a dog can also accept or reject food, so is it *consenting*? - -I'm really hesitant to accept [hypothetical][Hypothetical Consent] or [implied][Implied Consent] consent. I would strongly prefer any consent to be explicit and (ideally) formalized. I currently don't see how explicit consent can work without the abilities of thought and language. So animals can't consent and are not morally relevant. - -There are two ways to negate this argument. Either show that animals *can* meaningfully consent (this is also relevant for [antinatalism][Antinatalism FAQ] - if non-existent humans can consent, then it seems much more likely that animals can too, and vice versa), or show that humans *can't* consent, i.e. that consent is a confused concept. This is probably the weakest of the three features and I expect to change my mind about it, but I don't know in which direction yet. - -## The Rule of Law - -To slightly paraphrase [Moldbug][Moldbug Left Right]: - ->[Anyone] should be free to make any promise. In return, he or she can expect to be held responsible for that promise: there is no freedom to break it. All promises are voluntary until they are made, and involuntary afterward. A pair of reciprocal promises [...] is an *agreement*. - -Any organization of agents that allows and enforces such agreements establishes the Rule of Law. Basically, it's the "lawful" component in the D&D moral system. It's what makes Divine Command Theory moral (and why I'm very sympathetic to it, despite its untenable foundation in non-existent gods). Ideal Confucian government embodies it. - -Without arguing for a specific implementation, it seems clear that animals can't obey (or even understand) laws or act as citizens of a lawful state. Therefore, they aren't morally relevant. - -Evidence to the contrary would be, for example, a demonstration that animals can form states (or reasonably similar organizations). Or show that the concept is confused, for example because we really want some *consequence* of lawful states, but don't actually want the laws themselves. - -# Farm animals under typical Western conditions do not suffer significantly. - -See [Richard Carrier's][Carrier Vegetarianism] post for the actual argument. Basically, animals in modern farms don't experience a significant amount of pain or suffering. It ain't heaven, but it's not so bad that we should prevent it at all costs. The benefits in increased reproduction (for the animals) and better nutrition (for the humans) easily make up for whatever suffering remains. (This might no be true in non-Western countries or when you [ritually slaughter][schächten] them, but the proper response to that is urbanization and secularization, not vegetarianism.) - -There are two ways this could be wrong. First, you could try to show that there is some fundamental desire that animals in modern farms can't fulfill. Obviously, I don't see such a desire, but it might exist. The best case for this so far is [Eduardo Sousa][]'s farm. However, animals don't seem to reject modern farms or suffer tremendous stress. But we might've missed something. - -The second way this could be wrong is to show that categorical [antinatalism][Antinatalism FAQ] is correct (and that animals are morally relevant). Basically, if it is always wrong to bring a life into existence, then we shouldn't breed animals, ever. (And we should seek the extinction of all wildlife.) I'm currently working through the various antinatalist arguments, but so far, I'm not convinced of the most categorical form, but I already accept basic antinatalism (it is *often* wrong to create life), and some of the arguments still look promising to me once I'm done repairing them. - -# Even if they suffer, I morally discount against them (and I'm justified to do so). - -It's true that I strongly discount anything that doesn't directly affect me or those close to me. The question is, am I justified in doing so, or is it a bug in my judgment? I have not seen a good argument for universalism (if you don't already have it as a preference) except that it would be simple. - -However, this is inherently the weakest argument. If we accept that animals immorally suffer, then discounting just changes the level of importance we should assign to it. But given the [huge amount of animals][Dawrst Wildlife] (10^10 and more!), even strong discounting can be overcome. If we accept that breeding animals violates their rights or consent, then no amount of discounting is relevant. Consent can't be morally overridden. - -But as it stands now, animals probably don't have rights, so we can discount. They don't suffer much, if at all, so even their large numbers aren't sufficient, especially because human benefits outweigh it. Therefore, eating animals is acceptable. - - diff --git a/content_blog/personal/daily-log.mkd b/content_blog/personal/daily-log.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 2e2a4c8..0000000 --- a/content_blog/personal/daily-log.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,26 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Daily Log (introduction) -date: 2012-03-09 -techne: :done -episteme: :personal -slug: 2012/03/09/daily-log/ ---- - -I like talking about ideas. I like logging stuff. Writing this blog has vastly increased my thinking output. (Which is good, and unexpected.) I see people use daily logs of what they did and these people kick my ass when it comes to achievements, even though for each individual day, they don't do more than I can. It's just the pure, raw consistency. They still do the same shit 6 months from now and by then, they utterly outperform me. - -Time for some algorithmic magic! I'm now retrocausally turning myself into someone more like [such a person][Wolfire], so I have decided - rippling back *from the distant future*! - to keep a daily log. (Good thing I don't have a sense of privacy.) - -Some rules: - -- I already track [time investments][Beeminder fume]. That's fine, but I also need to track content. I can't easily quantify "5 interesting things" per day. But interestingness correlates with word counts, and I can track *that*. So each log entry must have a minimum amount of 300 words per day. (I might still experiment with the exact number. I want it small enough to not be an additional chore, but large enough to force me to do stuff. I also want to make it *possible* to catch up when I miss a day, but not easy. This ain't kindergarten, yo.) -- Only ever talk about something I did this day. No "building up a buffer". No "talking about that weird idea I got 3 weeks ago" or some philosophical implication I noticed. Only what happened on that day. Only what I did. (And rant-y remarks when I can't help myself.) Ideas go to the blog, not the dlog. -- Absolutely daily. Not weekdays. Not "significant improvements". Not deadlines. Daily, ruthless, brutal practice. (The mindset I'm currently in makes "brutal" awesomely fun. Fun is crucial, not protestant work-ethics. *Fuck* protestant work-ethics.) -- Only actual improvements. No "I played games all day to relax" bullshit. I know me, I know I would totally write this if I didn't include this rule. -- No copy pasta. If I get bored of writing the same entry again, I must do something different. -- Time goes midnight to midnight, not waking to waking. Sleep? [Practice don't care.][honeybadger] - -Because not everyone might be interested in the daily log entries, I'm moving them to a separate location. They will be less content-y than this blog, but more personal, which you might still find interesting. (Or motivating. I like reading other people's logs from time to time.) - -(And because I'm lazy, I'm using Wordpress again instead of a proper nanoc setup I've been intending to get up and running for months now. Meh, whatever works now. I can fix it later.) - -So starting today: muflax becomes a saint, over at [daily.muflax.com](http://daily.muflax.com/). diff --git a/content_blog/personal/google-web-history.mkd b/content_blog/personal/google-web-history.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index f49e8ff..0000000 --- a/content_blog/personal/google-web-history.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,47 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Google Web History -date: 2012-02-27 -techne: :done -episteme: :personal -slug: 2012/02/27/google-web-history/ ---- - -Since 2008-03-04 Google tracks all my searches. Thanks to [XiXiDu][xixidu search], I noticed that I could download and analyze the whole data set. There's an existing script, but it didn't work for me, so I wrote my own. It's up on [Github][github web history] and should be fairly self-explanatory for Ruby users. - -Anyway, instead of spamming Twitter, here's some interesting results. - -The history spans ~1.4k days and has ~132k entries, of which ~37k are searches. The rest are mostly search results I clicked. That makes it ~25 searches per day. Not bad. - -My Top 10 search terms, ignoring word order: - -1. ezt (23) -2. read (23) -3. fefe (18) -4. pharyngula (15) -5. reader (15) -6. 吉井和哉 (13) -7. nanoc (12) -8. muflax (11) -9. squid314 (11) -10. dexter (10) - -Everything except 6), 7) and 10) are failed attempts to enter a (partial) URL and pressing return before Firefox could autocomplete it. (Yeah, I once read Pharyngula. I know.) 6) is one of my favorite musicians, but I'm quite surprised I googled him that much. 7) is the blog engine my main site uses, so no surprise. 10) is probably also an URL, maybe the episode list or something. - -The terms are not surprising, but the low frequencies are. Maybe Google misses a lot of terms due to me not being logged in at the time, but I never consciously log out, so still weird. - -More results: - -- I google a lot of TV shows. -- I internet-stalk way too many people. I gotta stop that. (Not likely.) -- I google Drew Carey more than porn. And I thought I liked Ryan more. -- [Aki Sora][] is the porn I google most. Well, since my favorite sites shut down anyway and I have to hunt down my hentai like a damn savage again. -- Buddhism-related searches and "how the fuck does this totally normal item work" occur about equally often. -- I only once searched for Jesus. Gotta give the guy a second chance. -- I have googled "google" 3 times. I regret nothing. -- Automatic completion is treated like a shortened search, thus "read" and "reader". This probably hides a lot of searches and might explain the low frequencies. - -And finally, number of searches for each hour: - -<%= image("hours1.png", "hours") %> - -Well, shit. You can totally [reconstruct my sleep cycle][Gwern anonymity] from that. Totally thought it would be more chaotic. Guess I really *do* have an underlying sleep cycle after all. diff --git a/content_blog/personal/index.mkd b/content_blog/personal/index.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 7a51fc4..0000000 --- a/content_blog/personal/index.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Personal Crap -is_category: true ---- - -<%= category :personal %> diff --git a/content_blog/personal/samsara.mkd b/content_blog/personal/samsara.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 456d602..0000000 --- a/content_blog/personal/samsara.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,78 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: On Samsara -date: 2011-08-02 -techne: :done -episteme: :discredited -disowned: true ---- - -> [The teacher] said, "You know, most of you are not qualified for *samsara*! Let alone the pursuit of nirvana. Do any of you have *jobs*?" And what he got on to was this question of being successful at samsara. It was really an important issue. There is this idea of *revulsion with samsara*. People hear this, "You must become revolted with samsara in order to become a Dharma practitioner!". And many people seem to misunderstand this as, yes, I'm revolted by samsara because I can't keep my bank balance in credit, I've got a problem with personal hygiene, whatever the issue is, people don't like me, I'm always doing the wrong thing and yes, it's miserable, I wanna go and live in a nice Tibetan center where I don't have to deal with it anymore. -> -> This is not revulsion with samsara. When I'm talking about *success* at samsara, I'm not talking about getting rich. I'm simply talking about having an idea and being able to follow that idea through. -> -> So I want to learn a language, so I learn a language. I take a class to learn to do something, I do it. I get a job, I fulfill the role of the job, etc. I'm not always getting the sack because I'm useless. Now, the interesting thing is, in order to be successful at samsara, you need *desire*. And your desire has to be *sufficient* to going after what you want and *getting* it. Put the work in to get what you want. -> -> Then you *get* what you want and *then* you experience samsara. Until you're able to get what you want and go after it and obtain it, you don't know what samsara *is*. -> -> Because that point where you get what you want is extremely interesting. There's nothing wrong with it. It's actually quite *delightful*. But then when you have what you want and you're sitting there with it, thinking, "This is a jolly nice thing!", there's a certain strange edginess about that, which is, "How long can I sit here and admire it?". -> -> Now, from a [Sutrayana][] perspective we would say, that is because this thing that I desired so much does not have the capacity to satisfy me. "The things of the world are hollow and worthless!" (This is not actually true, you know. They are pretty neat, things of the world. I love 'em. More more more!) [...] -> -> And the important thing about this, from a [Vajrayana][] point of view, is that there's nothing wrong with *things*. The things *do* contain the capacity to make us happy forever. It is *we* who get in the way of this process. Because what I want to be doing is not *having* what I want, but moving *towards* it. So that when I *get* what I want, the discomfort of that situation is that I'm no longer in motion. The process has come to an end and in that position, although I *have*, it's a position of emptiness because there's nowhere to go. That is why people do not like to be happy. They like to be moving *towards* happy. -> -> Because happy is *useless* from the point of view of samsara. "So I'm happy. What now? Where do I go?" -> -> -- Ngak'chang Rinpoche, excerpt from talk on [samsara, suffering and suspicion][Samsara Talk] - -Compare [Gospel of Muflax][Sayings], written October 2010: - -> - TOKSHI said, now is good, tomorrow never good enough. -> - TOKSHI said, don't wish for things because then you will get exactly what you wished for and it will totally suck and you will look stupid. -> - TOKSHI said, don't be happy. - -About a month later, I wrote in a draft: - -> 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 tumbling in 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*. -> -> 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. - -I declared firmly that I want to experience dukkha. Shortly afterwards, I sat down and swore not to rise again until dukkha would appear. Pain came and went, fear came and went, boredom came and went, but no dukkha. Finally, all pain dropped away and I arose happy. - -Some days later, dukkha came. I wrote in another draft: - -> > 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. - -Not long after that, I broke. (And started the blog.) I thought at first that something was wrong with the *things*. That my goals sucked. Half a year later, I [gave up on happiness altogether][Stances]. I always suspected there was something wrong with being happy. Wireheading seemed simultaneously attractive and evil. But I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Any unsatisfactoriness seemed to just come from me sucking or following the wrong goal. I hadn't actually done a good job at getting exactly what I want. Luckily, I managed that, often enough to notice something. Two months ago, in another draft: - -> You know that feeling when you're almost done with a great game, when you realize that this is the definite last level, there are no more upgrades, no more quests, just this one last obstacle and the boss at the end? -> -> But you aren't ready to quit? -> -> So you draw it out. Organize your inventory. Finish all those minor sidequests you've been ignoring. But nothing can push away that realization. It's about to end. Soon, the boss will go down and then what? Credits, memes and a highscore? Big letdown. -> -> And that's how I feel about life right now. For a while, I thought that's just some depression killing the fun. But I'm not so sure about that anymore.Things are still fun, in a way. It's just that there's not much of an achievement left. None that I care about, anyway. -> -> (I mean, it's not *literally* the end. I don't exactly expect to *die*. Still got a few decades, I guess.) -> -> I'll soon be fully enlightened. I mean, a decade ago I didn't even understand what that meant when I decided to go for it. Now I kinda don't want it to happen. In a way, life was more interesting with a big liberation story behind it. Actually being free? Not so fun. -> -> I really got this playing Minecraft. In a way it's perfect. It's almost exactly what I thought heaven would be like. (Needs more machinery and no height limit, though.) But when I had built a little house, I realized that there's no point to it. I stared upon the vast landscape, knowing that it would be impossible for me to ever be *satisfied* with it. -> -> There is peace, but it's the peace of a blank screen. It is not victory. - -Now I have a useful idea what the symptoms are. I understand that the purpose of self-help for me was merely to create new problems so I could always have something to fix. I never wanted to *arrive* anywhere. This mistake I have fixed. - -Liberation can now begin. diff --git a/content_blog/personal/the-end-of-rationality.mkd b/content_blog/personal/the-end-of-rationality.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 973fd3d..0000000 --- a/content_blog/personal/the-end-of-rationality.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,42 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: The End of Rationality -date: 2012-02-22 -techne: :done -episteme: :discredited -slug: 2012/02/22/the-end-of-rationality/ -disowned: true ---- - -Time for a new belief dump! It's been at least 6 months since the last one, time to do a refresher on what beliefs have changed. This is more of a summary. I will elaborate on some points soon. But there is an overall tone of abandoning the LessWrong meme-cluster, and it certainly feels like my [Start of Darkness][] story. Maybe I suffered a stroke and have gone completely insane. (My reading of continental philosophy should count as evidence.) Maybe I'm just retreating to new signaling grounds. I don't know. - -1. Physicalism isn't actually making any sense. It is said that a real answer should make things *less* mysterious. If a question is still as mysterious after answering it as before then you are only fooling yourself, they say. Well, that's certainly the case for substance dualism. Postulating a soul doesn't help. But physicalism is *worse*. I can at least see how in principle a soul *could* explain consciousness. I see absolutely no way how you get *any* mental events out of a physicalist ontology. Not even with quantum physics. So saying "everything is physics" isn't just not solving the mystery - it's *adding even more mystery*. - - To use a [programmer saying][Regex 2 problems], "Some people when confronted with the hard problem of consciousness think, 'I know, I'll use reductionism!'. Now they have two problems.". I can kinda see how [quantum monadology][Quantum Monadology] (something Mitchell Porter has been trying to develop, but is very unpopular on LW) might in principle solve the problem. But that's still a radically new ontologoy, even though it has some similarity to current physicalism. - - I'd go even further. I don't see how *causal theories* would help. That's Chalmers' critique of course, and I'm really warming up to it. I wouldn't go so far (yet) to say that you really can't explain consciousness in causal terms, or even physical terms, but I certainly see no reason *at all* right now to think you *can* do it, especially considering that every physicalist theory is [under-specified][Multiple Realizability]. - - Now, there is one clever trick you can do - you sacrifice physical reality on the altar of reductionism. Instead of reducing mental events to physics, you reduce physics to mental events with the power of algorithms. This gets around the consciousness problem and several other philosophical classics, and might actually work. I have an extremely confusing post coming up where I present that view and the Cthulhu-sized problem with it. - - So time to be honest with myself. *Physicalism doesn't work*. It's false. Next idea please. Implication: you know these "clever" criticisms by "clever" philosophers of enlightened LessWrong rationality? The philosophers were right. - -2. On a related note, I'm not convinced that neuroscience is actually useful for morality. I haven't seen any good come out of it and looking at it from a deontological perspective, I don't think that will ever change. I'm also now completely rejecting utilitarianism (and consequentialism in general). It's not just somewhat incomplete, as I thought a year ago, and just needs an (horrendously complex) fix in the form of The One True Utility Function, but it's actually fundamentally wrong. (Again, the philosophers have been saying this for a long time. Hell, Kant has successfully taken it apart. The *Confucians* have done it too, and that's now Seriously Old News. But you can be forgiven for not understanding Kant or reading old Chinese guys.) I'm writing a post about it, but that might take some time. - - Well, if we can't use neuroscience or utilitarian pseudoscience, how do we actually *do* (meta-)morality? The hard way, from first principles and ritual practice. (I'm still not entirely convinced it even *can* be done. Nihilism might still hold, but then moral nihilism is self-defeating, so even if morality is impossible, I'm still going to do it. This is the one problem you *can't* eliminate.) - - I suspect a main reason why some people even think that economic analysis or neuroscience *could* be relevant is that they are confused about what the *problem* of morality even is. It might just be semantics, but then even (you should read this in a thundering voice) *The Bible* (thank you) talks about morality in the sense I'm using, so I'm not giving up the term. If people want to talk about sociopathic "how can I get what I want" stuff, sure, but don't call it morality. Morality is the problem of right action *despite* your preferences. It is from the onset at odds with what you want. Morality talks about what you *should* want, not what you *do* want. So utilitarianism is inherently solving the wrong problem. This should be obvious even from an outside perspective because the stuff consequentialists end up talking about isn't even the same subject matter as morality - no consequentialist has anything to say about [purity][Shinto] or [honor][Bushido], for example. - -3. [Fomenko][] has a point. Textual criticism must be extended to all historical sources and, I suspect, will show that large chunks of "authentic" writing are essentially fictional. Furthermore, Fomenko's methods to find structural similarities between seemingly disjunct source texts are [very intriguing][Algorithmic Causality and the New Testament] and, as far as my cursory skimming has shown, have not been seriously addressed at all. However, I haven't even read Fomenko's books yet, so the conclusions I will draw from his arguments might range from "some historical biographies are implausible" to "European history before the late Middle Ages is more-or-less completely fictitious". (His New Chronology, on the other hand, is probably complete bullshit.) - -4. I'm basically done with rationality. - - Ok, seriously now. I've always enjoyed [XiXiDu][]'s criticisms on LW, but for over a year now, whenever I read his stuff I wonder why he *keeps on making it*. I mean, he has been saying (more-or-less correctly so, I think) that SIAI and the LW sequences score high on any crackpot test, that virtually no expert in the field takes any of it seriously, that rationality (in the LW sense) has not shown any tangible results, that there are problems so huge [you can fly a whole deconstructor fleet through][LW leverage], that the Outside View utterly disagrees with both the premises and conclusions of most LW thought, that actually taking it seriously [should drive people insane][xixidu utilitarian], and much more for month after month, and every time I wonder, dude, you're *right*, why don't you let it go? Why do you struggle again and again to understand it, to make sense of it, to fight your way through the sequences the way priests read scripture? Why don't you *leave*? And then I wondered why *I* don't leave. So now I do. - - I barely have enough faith to serve one absent god. I can't also make non-functional rationality work. Recite the litany of the Outside View with me: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.". - -5. My attitude towards Buddhism has changed quite a bit. I can see now that "overcoming suffering" is an (awful) retcon of the mission of Buddhism, and that particularly the modern re-interpretations that rely on it are internally twisted and in massive denial. The whole mindfulness approach is extremely irresponsible and the idea that Buddhism is about being happy is outright evil. - - The real pursuit of Buddhism was (and is) the end of rebirth, a total cessation. Persistent antinatalism, one might say. This informs all the decisions about practice. Unfortunately because so many approaches now deny this, I can't even read about them anymore. Seeing the same mistakes being made over and over again is not something I can tolerate anymore, especially because I have made them myself in the past. However, I also find it hard to rely on the teachings that *don't* make these mistakes. It takes me more effort to integrate other people's practice, as great as it is, than to re-invent it from scratch. I still enjoy the inspiration, but I am at a point where I don't need teaching anymore. I finally know what I'm doing. - - (Of course this cessation thing requires the existence of rebirth in the first place. I have no meaningful evidence at all to support it, but from all of my phenomenal experience, I know it does. I've never spoken about my [Sakadagami][] experience before. Maybe one day I will. They don't tell people anymore that you might suddenly, unexpectedly recall past lives when you sign up for vipassana. Maybe they should.) - -6. [Crusader Kings II][] is amazing. That is all. diff --git a/content_blog/personal/through_wall.mkd b/content_blog/personal/through_wall.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 09e69ef..0000000 --- a/content_blog/personal/through_wall.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,31 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Why Can't I See Through This Wall? -alt_titles: [Wall] -date: 2011-05-20 -techne: :done -episteme: :personal ---- - -*At times I look back on attainments and ask myself what life was before them or what working up to the change felt like. This post is an emotional core-dump for that purpose.* - -I sit down and the world shifts. Everything flickers. I look at a wall and it flickers. A little plush sheep, it flickers. I hear a car outside, the sound flickers. Everything is unstable, keeps popping in and out of existence, at high frequencies. Rarely, things [flange][Flanging]. - -Few thoughts are in my head. I'm quite content. I don't get distracted by thoughts anymore when trying to concentrate. I just get bored. Because I can't see through this fucking wall. - -And this is not a metaphor. I sit down to meditate and stare at the wall. There's a [Kasina][], but really, I don't care. It blips out of existence soon enough, merging with the wall. I stare. It blips in, it fluctuates, the wall throws a few waves, occasionally the whole visual field moves as if someone was carrying away the screen in front of my eyes. - -I don't care. [Jhana][] arise. Maybe even some happiness. It matters not to me. I ignore it, push it away. Because I want to see through this fucking wall. - -It shifts again, it try modifying the intensity of my concentration, but it has no effect. Flickerflickerflicker, wobblewobblewobble, shiiiift. That's all that happens. I get bored. - -Why do I even think I can see through this wall? Well, ok, that's not really what I'm trying to do. But that's what it feels like. Really what I'm doing is trying to trigger a buffer underrun. I want to pay attention to something while there isn't actually anything scheduled to be investigated. Whenever a sensation arises, "I" dislocate. At first, it felt like "I" was getting pulled to wherever the sensation arose, noticed it, then snapped back to the default somewhere behind my eyes. This is false. Really the sensation has its own space around it that it instantiates. As such, "spatial awareness" is part of the sensation, not of the actual act of paying attention. Or in other words, abstract space is itself a sensation and not always there. - -Even motherfucking space flickers. Oh, a nice relaxing wave goes through some muscles. My spine straightens. I don't care. You flicker too. - -In between each flicker there's a gap. It's really fucking short, but there's a gap. I try to perceive it, but I just get the wall or abstract space or some happy little bliss-wave instead. Go away, I don't like you, I want the gap! There's one thing that doesn't flicker and that's what I'm trying to catch. I picked the most solid thing I could find. *Looking at a wall*, pretty solid sensation. But "I" constantly dislocate and now the wall flickers. Sometimes I count each time the wall is actually there. I just go "t-t-t-t-t-t-" because even "tick" takes too long to think. I want to see what's there when the wall isn't there. Enormous pressure builds in my head. My eyes are shaking. I get triple vision. (That's when you get double vision, but you also have an afterimage that interferes with it.) I feel like jumping up and strangling someone. Or something. Maybe this wall. - -I try to calm down, pay some attention to the body, to the breath. Breath doesn't flicker so badly. Muscle contractions don't flicker much and they feel good. A bit of pressure goes away. Then I hear some bird outside and wham my attention jumps "breath-bird-breath-bird-breath-bird" flickerflickerflicker. Gah. Back to the wall. - -My attention widens and narrows arbitrarily. Depth perception sometimes goes offline for a bit. My eyes constantly lose focus and twitch. My visual fields keeps moving upwards even if I don't move my eyeballs. Light levels morph, the wall becomes almost black sometimes. - -I don't care about any of that. 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b/content_blog/propaganda/condemnation.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 0fc1f72..0000000 --- a/content_blog/propaganda/condemnation.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,91 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Condemnation of 23 Propositions -alt_titles: [Condemnation] -date: 2012-06-24 -techne: :done -episteme: :believed ---- - -> When it was evening, Malunkyaputta arose from seclusion and went to the Blessed One. On arrival, having bowed down, he sat to one side. As he was sitting there he said to the Blessed One, "Lord, just now, as I was alone in seclusion, this train of thought arose in my awareness: 'These positions that are undeclared, set aside, discarded by the Blessed One... I don't approve, I don't accept that the Blessed One has not declared them to me. I'll go ask the Blessed One about this matter. If he declares to me that "The cosmos is eternal,"... or that "After death a Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist," then I will live the holy life under him. If he does not declare to me that "The cosmos is eternal,"... or that "After death a Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist," then I will renounce the training and return to the lower life.' -> -> [...] -> -> "Malunkyaputta, did I ever say to you, 'Come, Malunkyaputta, live the holy life under me, and I will declare to you that 'The cosmos is eternal,' or 'The cosmos is not eternal,' or 'The cosmos is finite,' or 'The cosmos is infinite,' or 'The soul & the body are the same,' or 'The soul is one thing and the body another,' or 'After death a Tathagata exists,' or 'After death a Tathagata does not exist,' or 'After death a Tathagata both exists & does not exist,' or 'After death a Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist'?" -> -> "No, lord." -> -> "And did you ever say to me, 'Lord, I will live the holy life under the Blessed One and in return he will declare to me that 'The cosmos is eternal,' or 'The cosmos is not eternal,' or 'The cosmos is finite,' or 'The cosmos is infinite,' or 'The soul & the body are the same,' or 'The soul is one thing and the body another,' or 'After death a Tathagata exists,' or 'After death a Tathagata does not exist,' or 'After death a Tathagata both exists & does not exist,' or 'After death a Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist'?" -> -> "No, lord." -> -> "Then that being the case, foolish man, who are you to be claiming grievances and making demands of anyone? -> -> "Malunkyaputta, if anyone were to say, 'I won't live the holy life under the Blessed One as long as he does not declare to me that "The cosmos is eternal,"... or that "After death a Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist,"' the man would die and those things would still remain undeclared by the Tathagata. -> -> -- excerpt from the [Cula-Malunkyovada Sutra][] - -# Condemnation of 23 Propositions - -muflax, by divine permission unworthy servant of the [Timeless Church][comment Church], [sends greetings][Condemnation of 1277] to all those who will read this post. - -We have received frequent reports, inspired by zeal for the Faith, on the part of important and serious persons to the effect that some students of the [Art][LW virtues] on the Internet are exceeding the boundaries of their own faculty and are presuming to treat and discuss, as if they were debatable in the schools, certain obvious and loathsome errors, or rather vanities and lying follies, which are contained in the list at the end of this post. - -These students are not hearkening to the admonition of Gregory, "let him who would speak wisely exercise great care, lest by his speech he disrupt the unity of his listeners", particularly when in support of the aforesaid errors they adduce confused writings that – shame on their ignorance – they assert to be so convincing that they do not know how to answer them. So as not to appear to be asserting what they thus insinuate, however, they conceal their answers in such a way that, while wishing to avoid Scylla, they fall into Charybdis. - -For they say that these things are true according to Reason but not according to the Faith, as if there were two contrary truths and as if the truth of science were contradicted by the truth in the sayings of the accursed philosophers, of whom it is written, "[I will destroy the wisdom of the wise][Why The Gods Are Trolling You]", inasmuch as true wisdom destroys false wisdom. Would that such students listen to the advice of the wise man when he says, "if you have understanding, answer your neighbor; but if not, let your hand be upon your mouth, lest you be surprised in an unskillful word and be confounded". - -Lest, therefore, this unguarded speech lead simple people into error or waste their time, we, having taken [counsel with our pineal glands][Pineal Gland] and other prudent men, strictly forbid these and similar things and totally condemn them. - -We likewise condemn the books, blogs and tweets dealing with [algorithmancy][Algorithmancy], or containing experiments in fortunetelling, [invocations of demons][Ontological Therapy] or incantations endangering lives, or in which these and similar things evidently contrary to expert opinion and good sanity are treated. - -We pronounce the sentence of excommunication against all those who shall have taught the said errors or any one of them, or shall have dared in any way to defend or uphold them, or even to listen to them, unless they choose to [openly mock][AntiANtrollbot] them or go meta on them; in addition to which we shall proceed against them by inflicting such other penalties as [the law][Rule of Funny] requires according to the hilarity of the offense. - -Given in the year of the Lord 2012, on the Sunday on which Italy defeated England in the UEFA European Football Championship. - -# The List of Condemnations - -1. That there is no more excellent state than to study philosophy, or not, or both, or neither. - -2. That the only wise men in the world are the philosophers, or not, or both, or neither. - -3. That happiness is had in this life and not in another, or not, or both, or neither. - -4. That the [intelligence moving the heaven][Fake Sky] influences the rational soul, just as the body of the heaven influences the human body, or not, or both, or neither. - -5. That this perceivable world is a simulation, or not, or both, or neither. - -6. That the first cause cannot make [more than one world][Modal Realism], or not, or both, or neither. - -7. That man is judged by actions in more than one world, or not, or both, or neither. - -8. That nothing can be known about God except that He is or is not, or not, or both, or neither. - -9. That form and substance are the same, or not, or both, or neither. - -10. That God could not make several instances of the same intelligence because intelligences do not have matter, or not, or both, or neither. - -11. That if there were any separate substance that did not affect something in this perceivable world, it would not be included in the universe, or not, or both, or neither. - -12. That one should not hold anything unless it is self-evident or can be manifested from self-evident principles, or not, or both, or neither. - -13. That eternity and time have no existence in reality [but only in the mind][LW timeless physics], or not, or both, or neither. - -14. That the reasoning of the philosopher proving that the motion of the heaven is eternal is not sophistic, and that it is surprising that profound men do not perceive this, or not, or both, or neither. - -15. That there has already been an infinite number of revolutions of the heaven, which it is impossible for the created intellect but not for the first cause to comprehend, or not, or both, or neither. - -16. That the [emptiness of the heaven][Great Filter wiki] makes the future knowable, or not, or both, or neither. - -17. That if in some preservation by the [power of the stars][Computronium] such a storage could be achieved as is found in the connections of the brain, a man could be generated from that preservation; and thus a man could be adequately generated from putrefaction, or not, or both, or neither. - -18. That the body contains many souls, or not, or both, or neither. - -19. That history is knowable through philosophy, or not, or both, or neither. - -20. That there is only one substance, or not, or both, or neither. - -21. That God cannot move anything irregularly because there is no diversity of will in Him, or not, or both, or neither. - -22. That God can only act according to nature, or not, or both, or neither. - -23. That salvation is found solely through faith, or not, or both, or neither. diff --git a/content_blog/propaganda/index.mkd b/content_blog/propaganda/index.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 60f5b89..0000000 --- a/content_blog/propaganda/index.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Propaganda -is_category: true ---- - -<%= category :propaganda %> diff --git a/content_blog/propaganda/why-you-dont-want-vipassana.mkd b/content_blog/propaganda/why-you-dont-want-vipassana.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index f40f710..0000000 --- a/content_blog/propaganda/why-you-dont-want-vipassana.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,116 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Why You Don't Want Vipassana -date: 2012-01-04 -techne: :done -episteme: :discredited -slug: 2012/01/04/why-you-dont-want-vipassana/ ---- - -*This is a series of PMs I exchanged with someone on LW asking me why I thought vipassana isn't what most people are looking for and might be actively dangerous. They told me it was good enough to turn it into a dedicated post, but I don't feel like cleaning it up, so I'm just reposting it here for now.* - -> Where specifically does it talk about vipassana being set up to break people down? That sounds fairly interesting. Also, I'm usually disappointed by the clarity of presentation in most meditation books. It seems that if you ask questions that are too hard they just say "the map is not the territory" or some koan and expect that to suffice. I prefer a sort of LW-type detailed analysis that taboos words and tries to be precise and clear. Are there any works that you know of that are like that? - -Yeah, Ingram calls that the "mushroom culture" - keep 'em in the dark and feed them shit. :) - -Buddhists have a pretty bad track record of being open and honest about their own practice. I think there are basically three reasons: - -1. Hardcore practice doesn't sell. Most people seeking meditation, at least in Western contexts, want easy psychotherapy, not enlightenment. If you go all out, you lose most of your paying customers. Sad but true. Teachers in Asian countries tend to be much more hardcore (or so I heard, I've never actually used a teacher, only read their stuff). - -2. Real Buddhism isn't "nice". Even if you try to take meditation seriously, as [Goenka's organization](http://www.dhamma.org/) does (their courses are all pretty good and free), you can't actually do what Buddhists have been doing for centuries. For example, try this and see how many students are willing to listen: - - > Furthermore, as if the monk were to see a corpse cast away in a charnel ground - one day, two days, three days dead - bloated, livid and festering, he applies it to this very body, 'This body, too: Such is its nature, such is its future, such its unavoidable fate'... - > Or again, as if he were to see a corpse cast away in a charnel ground, picked at by crows, vultures and hawks, by dogs, hyenas and various other creatures... a skeleton smeared with flesh and blood, connected with tendons... (...) decomposed into a powder: He applies it to this very body, 'This body, too: Such is its nature, such is its future, such its unavoidable fate.' - > (...) His mindfulness is established, and he lives detached, and clings to nothing in the world. - - Yet corpse meditation (i.e. thinking of one's own body as a rotting corpse, ideally using a fresh corpse for comparison) is an absolute *core* practice in Buddhism. The Satipatthana Sutta and Visuddhimagga, two foundational texts, spend whole chapters discussing them and similar practices. There are Buddhist traditions that don't have so negative values and would be much nicer, but for historical reasons, they never became very influential outside Tibet. [David Chapman][Chapman left out] talks a lot about this. - -3. Most teachers have no idea what they're talking about. :) Initially, Western teachers (in the 60s-70s) didn't talk about enlightenment because they didn't want to scare away their audience. But if they don't talk, then idiots are indistinguishable from real teachers, and if the audience only wants useless psychotherapy anyway, well, then you get the current situation. (Zen is also partially responsible here. They have a very pragmatic attitude of "don't care about the map or territory, just practice", which means Zen practice has much less bullshit in it, but it's also unnecessarily hard to understand.) - -Anyway. About vipassana. Bear in mind that the core technique (pay attention to every sensation and detach from it) is deceptively simple and can be taught even without knowing what it's for, so it ends up a lot in new age and mindfulness bullshit. - -But it's real purpose is the destruction of the self and all desires - and it's pretty good at that (if you keep it up - it's possible to apply it selectively, but that's a lot trickier). But that's not what most people want. They *like* their identity and goals in life, so it fucks them up. This purpose is clear from the history of vipassana. Basically, it was (re-?)invented in the 20th century, based on old texts like the Visuddhimagga (good book btw, very detailed and explicit, but pretty dense and could use an extensive commentary). These texts are very explicit about their goals: life is bad, desires and the self lead to reincarnation and more life, so we must get rid of all attachment to anything in life. All techniques are designed only for this purpose. (For a more detailed history, again [Chapman][Chapman theravada] and the books he mentions.) - -Vipassana is a modern reconstruction of these techniques (a pretty close one, I think, having both done vipassana and read the Visuddhimagga), so it's no surprise that it causes breakdowns and plenty of akratics. - -For example, the Visuddhimagga has a chapter "The Benefits of Developing Understanding" that outlines the whole point of Theravada meditation (of which vipassana is the most famous form): - -> Briefly, though, its benefits should be understood as these: (A) removal of the various defilements, (B) experience of the taste of the noble fruit (i.e. "the fruits of asceticism"), (C) ability to attain the attainment of cessation (i.e. nirvana), and (D) achievement of worthiness to receive gifts and so on. - -What are these defilements? - -> Herein, it should be understood that one of the benefits of the [...] is the removal of the various defilements beginning with [mistaken] view of individuality. This starts with the delimitation of mentality-materiality [i.e. dualism]. Then one of the benefits [...] is the removal [...] of the various defilements beginning with the fetters. - -The [fetters][Fetter] are: - -- belief in a self -- doubt or uncertainty, especially about the teachings -- attachment to rites and rituals -- sensual desire -- ill will -- lust for material existence, lust for material rebirth -- lust for immaterial existence, lust for rebirth in a formless realm -- conceit -- restlessness -- ignorance - -It then gives this nice poem: - -> With dreadful thump the thunderbolt -> Annihilates the rock. -> The fire whipped by the driving wind -> Annihilates the wood. -> The radiant orb of solar flame -> Annihilates the dark. -> Developed understanding, too, -> Annihilates inveterate -> Defilements' netted overgrowth, -> The source of every woe. -> This blessing in this very life -> A man himself may know. - -It also gives this explanation: - -> What is the difference between one who has attained [cessation] and one who is dead? -> This is also given in a sutta, according as it is said: 'When a monk is dead, friend, has completed his term, his bodily formations [i.e. perception of the body] have ceased and are quite still, his verbal formations have ceased and are quite still, his mental formations have ceased and are quite still, his life is exhausted, his heat has subsided, and his faculties [i.e. seeing, hearing, ...] are broken up. When a monk has entered upon the cessation of perception and feeling, his bodily formations have ceased and are quite still, his verbal formations have ceased and are quite still, his mental formations have ceased and are quite still, his life is unexhausted, his heat has not subsided, his faculties are quite whole'. - -So the only difference between an ideal monk and a corpse is that the monk still has a beating heart. :) Given these goals, it's no surprise that someone doing a lot of vipassana doesn't get much done. That's the whole point! - -So much for the background. For the actual technique, I'll recommend Ingram's [MCTB][] again. No bullshit, direct and honest, doesn't hide any information. It's popular among LW meditators and rightfully so, I think. It does tend to get a bit fuzzy sometimes, but that's really hard to avoid when you're dealing with unusual states of consciousness. There isn't much of a reference frame you can use and so far introspection is the only tool we have, so it's bound to suck occasionally. - -Also, Ingram has a whole chapter about different definitions of enlightenment and his thoughts on how they came about. His pet theory is fairly plausible and clearly defined (even has testable criteria!), so you're probably interested in that as well. - -Having said all that, vipassana isn't all of meditation or Buddhism, and particularly Tibetan Buddhism has a lot of nice stuff that is quite the opposite of renunciation, but they have major problems with their epistemology. It's all full of demons and shit, and you never know when it's just a useful visualization and when they're quite serious about talking to a god. So unfortunately I can't point you to a no-nonsense introduction there. However, the techniques work regardless of the beliefs (just as in all self-help), so the Zen attitude of "shut up and practice" is useful here. (And you get the typical self-help problem that many people can be simultaneously very precise and rational in some areas, but then also turn out to be homeopaths. So you can either throw away the whole field and do everything from scratch, or you have to ignore your bullshit radar and listen to a lot of crackpots.) - -> Also, what is it exactly that you (and Ingram) are trying to get out of meditation? - -Good question. I'm not so sure myself. :D Ingram thinks of insight meditation (i.e. vipassana etc.) as a kind of ratchet. There are certain stages where once you reach them, you can't go "back" to a normal life. You are either stuck in an emotionally unstable state or you have to get it over with completely. There's something to it and most hardcore practitioners I know unintentionally crossed this first threshold (often through drugs or lucid dreaming) and then found that only careful meditation made it any better. - -I'm not so sure that meditation (and vipassana in particular) is really the best option here, and I suspect that a lot of the problem is one of our own making by using techniques designed for renunciation. So I'm not doing any vipassana anymore. - -Basically I tend to think of it this way: there are unmet desires and they will cause a lot of suffering. One way to solve this problem is to remove the desires, but that's like fighting spam by shutting down the internet. It seems much better to transform these desires in such a way that they don't cause suffering anymore. In Buddhism, that's the tantra approach. I'm still fairly new to this, so I can't recommend a specific technique, but generally I found an attitude of embracing all emotions as essential and wholesome (even pain, hate, disgust, ...) more pleasant than trying to get rid of them. - -(Another way is to take over the universe and make sure all desires *are* met. That's the transhumanist answer, and I'm way more skeptical of it than the LW mainstream, but it's certainly a clever third option if it ever works out.) - -Regardless, vipassana isn't the only form of meditation. Another common form is concentration meditation (or samadhi / samatha), also called [kasina][Kasina] meditation, after the typical concentration object. Basically, you pick a simple object (a colored disc, a mantra, the breath, a god, ...) and pay attention to it. That's... pretty much it. ([The Attention Revolution][] by B. Alan Wallace is a good detailed explanation, but he's a dualist crank and you know, "sit and watch this disc for as long as you can" isn't really hard to explain.) - -The interesting thing is that with enough practice, certain states of concentration arise. MCTB also talks about them, so I won't repeat myself, but they are quite fun and relaxing. I'm a bit skeptical how useful they really are because I suspect most of their benefits are lost the moment you stop meditating, but they certainly are good for relaxation. You might want to look into them and ignore the insight / vipassana stuff. - -My main criticism of concentration practice really is just how friggin' hard it is. :) It takes ages to make progress and quite honestly, I don't have the patience for that. It's really blissful, but I got bored of bliss after a while. I like reading more, but it's a matter of taste, I guess. - -Also, these hardcore states of concentration don't seem to transfer to anything *else*. Someone who can hold an hour of unwavering concentration on their breath (an impressive feat that takes hundreds of hours to achieve) isn't any better at math, programming, video games or whatever task that requires concentration you can think of. It seems the only way to get better at X is to practice X. There isn't any universal concentration (or intelligence) practice. - -Having said that, I still use it occasionally when I get too nervous and burned out. Smoking a bowl and running for an hour is probably just as good to relax, however. :) - -Another technique is typically called metta meditation. Basically, you pick an emotion you would like to cultivate (normally kindness) and expand it. To do so, you think of something particularly joyful (like a cute puppy or someone you love) and concentrate on the feeling. You then try to localize it somewhere in your body (try the heart) and see if you can expand it a bit. You grow the sensation till your whole body, then the room, then all space is filled with kindness. Then you pick a less kind thought (say a neutral acquaintance) and expand the kindness to them. Then to stuff you hate and so on. - -So basically, you grasp onto a strong sensation of whatever emotion you want and begin to associate it with as many things as you can, overriding other emotional responses if necessary. This works pretty well (and is not unique to Buddhism in any way). Jack Kornfield and Pema Chödrön have a lot of good material about it. Personally, I'm quite fond of my emotional landscape nowadays (there are people I *want* to hate) and I have no use for metta practice myself anymore. But it's exactly what it says on the tin and gets fast results, so if you're looking for it, check them out. - -> I find your views on metta to be humorous, though why would you want to hate somebody? - -Because they are bad people? :) Without getting into any moral or political reasons, I'm not CooperateBot. There are people I defect against in the Prisoner's Dilemma, and hate is an appropriate emotional response (among others) in these cases, I think. - -> What have you learned about tantra? I usually associate that with tantric sex. I haven't heard tantra outside of that context. - -Yeah, it doesn't get much attention, unfortunately. David Chapman is currently working on a good presentation. [Eating the Shadow][BFV shadow] is what characterizes tantra for me. Instead of trying to detach or remove "bad" aspects of yourself, you accept them as your own and integrate them. That's inherently a very messy and personal process, so it doesn't seem to lend itself to such nice models as in vipassana. - -Honestly, I've not been doing it for long enough to make any comfortable statements. Any bullshit self-help works for *some* time. Ask me again in 6 months what I think of tantra and I'll be able to give you a decent answer. ;) diff --git a/content_blog/solomonoff/index.mkd b/content_blog/solomonoff/index.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 4991e7f..0000000 --- a/content_blog/solomonoff/index.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Algorithmic Induction -is_category: true ---- - -<%= category :solomonoff %> diff --git a/content_blog/solomonoff/si-incomputability.mkd b/content_blog/solomonoff/si-incomputability.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index cb4f2a9..0000000 --- a/content_blog/solomonoff/si-incomputability.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,37 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Incomputability -date: 2012-01-15 -techne: :done -episteme: :believed -slug: 2012/01/15/si-incomputability/ ---- - -So far KC looks really nice. Is there a some kind of drawback? - -If you know something about TMs, you should expect one right away - the Halting Problem. Talking about all possible programs is really tricky. And you would be right, of course - KC is not computable. You can't actually build a TM that figures out the KC of all possible sequences. Individual ones you can do, but all of them, systematically? Nope. - -Here's how it fails. Let's say you have a program KC(s) that takes some sequence s as an input and calculates its KC. Assume this function is computable. I'll show you that this leads to a contradiction. - -Look at this simply program: - - at_least_this_complex(n): - for all integers i, starting with i=1: - for all sequences s of length i: - return s if KC(s) is at least n - -This program returns the first string of a given minimal KC. Now obviously the complexity of this program itself is constant, except for the variable n. Let's call this constant C. Encoding n takes log(n) bits. So the total complexity of this program is C + log(n). But there's a problem. We know that logarithms grow slower than linear functions. There is a number X such that log(X) < X. In fact, the distance between log(X) and X gets arbitrarily large. Therefore there is an X such that C + log X < X. Uh oh! - -What does it mean? Well there is a number X such that using the function at_least_this_complex(X) is a *shorter* description than using the number itself. But at_least_this_complex calls KC(s) and by definition finds the shortest sequence of length X! There can't be a shorter one, yet we have it. - -You just got paradoxed. - -You will probably recognize the general form of the argument. It's basically just a re-statement of the Halting Problem or Gödel's incompleteness theorem. But more directly, there's a much joke about it. - -Theorem: There are no boring integers. -Proof by Contradiction: Let B be the set of boring integers. Assume B is not empty. (There are boring integers.) Then there is a smallest integer in B. But that's a very interesting property! q.e.d. - -So unfortunately, there almost is a universal sense of complexity independent of languages, but really, it doesn't work out. You have to pick *some* encoding, some specific setup, and this setup will have its own specific gaps. A perfect system can't actually be done. Either there are some sequences you *could* compress but won't ever find an algorithm for, or you will compress some things wrongly. Your choice. - -Maybe that's not enough reason to despair yet. Hopefully these gaps don't *dominate* our attempts to compress things. Even if there are some gaps, we can still predict *some* things. Almost all possible games are too large to fit on our hard drives, but we can still play Skyrim. Not all limitations are devastating. - -So how can we use KC to drive our predictions? diff --git a/content_blog/solomonoff/si-kolmogorov-complexity.mkd b/content_blog/solomonoff/si-kolmogorov-complexity.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index b1425ac..0000000 --- a/content_blog/solomonoff/si-kolmogorov-complexity.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,49 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Kolmogorov Complexity -date: 2012-01-14 -techne: :done -episteme: :believed -slug: 2012/01/14/si-kolmogorov-complexity/ ---- - -(Teeth went fine, but what's really holding me back: can't use any caffeine or nicotine while my wounds are healing. I'm currently operating at -10 INT.) - -# Motivation - -Let's get started with KC. Imagine a friend of yours has a coin. They claim it's a fair coin, but you don't trust them, so you arrange for them to flip the coin a 10 times. - -They do so and get the following result: HHHHHHHHHH. "Aha!", you say, "A biased coin. I knew it!". But your friend replies, "All possible outcomes are equally likely according to probability theory. No sequence is more likely than another. There are 2^10 different results, and one of them is all heads. It had to come up eventually, and now it just did. The coin is fair.". - -You know that technically this is correct, but there's something fishy about it. You might think the problem is the distribution of heads vs. tails. A fair coin should have about 50% frequency for each, but this result is all heads. It's exceedingly unlikely to see such a distribution. - -Your friend accepts the criticism and throws the coin again. This time they get HTHTHTHTHT. "Perfectly equal distribution!", they say. You still don't trust them. The result is too regular. Something is still off. But what? - -# Enter Kolmogorov - -KC is deeply connected with the ideas of randomness and compression. - -Your friend's sequences have an interesting property. Look at the sequence HHHH... and remember the coin. What if your friend claimed the coin produced 1/3 heads? Or 2/3? Or any other distribution? Somehow this probability doesn't seem to affect how random the sequence looks. Higher probabilities of heads make all heads more likely, true, but there seems to be some inherent predictability in the sequence itself. "All heads" is *independently* regular and does not rely on the distribution we draw it from. That's part of the initial criticism after all: "all heads" was certainly a possible result, and all results are equally likely, so why should we be surprised to see it? - -The problem is that *results like that* are unlikely. - -What makes a certain sequence random? As you play the coin-flipping game with your friend, you notice that you can *predict* the sequence in advance. You see HHHH and you know the next flip will again be H. You don't need to remember the whole sequence, it's just H repeated N times. What about HTHT...? It's just HT repeated N times. And HTHHTHHHTHHHHT...? That's a bit harder, but not much: it's like HT..., but every step you add one more H than in the segment before. But what about TTTHTTHTTTTHHHHTHHHH...? That's really hard. You might have to look much harder to find some rule. - -There are some sequences that don't have such compression rules. The shortest way to describe them is just to remember the whole sequence. It never gets any easier. We call such sequences "random". But what about the others? They have what a kind of *algorithmic information content*, an inherent ability to be compressed to a simpler set of instructions. We call this the Kolmogorov Complexity (KC). - -But what exactly do we mean with "short" here? After all, "H repeated 2 times" is longer than "HH", isn't it? One has 18 characters, the other two. But what if we increase the number? "H repeated 30 times" is shorter than "HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH". But what if used a different language? In Japanese we can say "Hは30回繰り返す", which has only 9 characters. We could compress a sequence of 10 heads that way. Maybe if we fiddle around with it, we can find even shorter descriptions. Can we make some *definitive* statement here? Is there some ideal way to express an algorithm, a kind of universal language? - -Yes there is! Who speaks it? A [Turing Machine][] (TM). A TM is like the Platonic Ideal of computation. It's the simplest abstract conception of what a computer is - just a tape with numbers on it, a head to read and write it and a motor to move the tape. That's it. [One simple way][Brainfuck] to encode any kind of algorithm on a TM needs just 6 different characters: ">", "<" (move left/right), "+", "-" (add / subtract 1 to the current number) and "[", "]" (if the current number is 0, skip what is between the brackets, otherwise move to the first instruction within). - -The interesting thing is, people have tried to come up with different kinds of models of computation, to build different machines and to design better languages, but so far, all have proven to be equivalent to TMs and their simply languages. It is always possible - with the help of a fairly simple translation function - to express an algorithm in any programming language on a TM. (There is an open question, though: what about Quantum Computers? They might actually be more powerful. That would certainly be a very weird result!) - -But back to TMs. Because we can translate them so easily, we don't generally bother to specify which *specific* kind of TM we use, like what exact instructions it has (maybe it has more numerical operators built in?), and instead we simply use an Universal Turing Machine (UTM). That's a modified TM that you first tell which TM you want to use (in an arbitrary but fixed encoding) and then give it the normal input. - -Thus we can express any algorithm as a set of instruction to our UTM. We have a universal programming language that is as powerful as any other language we know! - -And that's how we build our KC - we find the shortest possible algorithm on our UTM that would produce this sequence, and the length is the KC of the sequence. For very short, finite sequences (like "HH"), we have a slight problem with all the overhead of the UTM. We need to tell it what "repeats N times" means first, and that set of instructions is longer than just "HH" directly. But once the sequence gets longer - "HHHHHH..." - it eventually hits a point were we save space. If we build a specialized machine we some of these algorithmic parts already in-place (like a modern CPU that has "multiply these numbers" as a single instruction, or the human brain that has built-in agent detection), then we can reduce this overhead for our typical cases. But as mathematicians say, "almost all" problems are so large that our specialization doesn't matter - after all, only a few finite amount of numbers are smaller than 1,000,000,000,000 - "almost all" are larger. - -So to recap, we can figure out how random a sequence is by looking at algorithms that would produce them. If there is a short set of instructions - shorter than the sequence itself - than the sequence is not random. It is *compressible*. The shorter the algorithm, the more regular and compressible the sequence is. - -This is a good candidate for what your hidden criterion of judging your friend's coin is. You look at the sequence and see if you can predict it, can intuitively find some simple model. If you can, then something's odd about the coin. - -(This btw is the root of the Frequentism vs. Bayesianism split in probability theory. Basically, Frequentists say that the probability of an outcome depends on its distribution. A single result doesn't *have* a well-defined probability. You can't flip a coin *once* and say anything about how biased it is. You have to flip it many times and see if the distribution of heads vs. tails converges to some fixed ratio, which is the coins probability. Bayesians instead say that probability is in the *mind*. It's a measure of our ability to *predict* the world. If you don't know anything about the coin, then any algorithm would do, and you expect heads as often as tails - so heads has 50% probability. But then soon patterns emerge and after HHH, you have no problem predicting another H. The probability of an outcome thus depends on all the evidence you have (and changes with it!), and your ability to find simply algorithms to make predictions about future evidence. Which is why frequentists are nuts.) diff --git a/content_blog/solomonoff/si-occam-and-solomonoff.mkd b/content_blog/solomonoff/si-occam-and-solomonoff.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 5db3f43..0000000 --- a/content_blog/solomonoff/si-occam-and-solomonoff.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,29 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Occam and Solomonoff -date: 1970-01-01 -techne: :wip -episteme: :speculation ---- - - - -The Problem of Induction is a famous philosophical problem. We have some evidence and a hypothesis. We tested the hypothesis, and we might even grant that the world is not a lie and knowledge is in principle possible, but how can we sure that the hypothesis is really true? After all, the sun might not rise tomorrow. Sure, it always did, but why not? Alternative hypotheses that are just as consistent with past data exist. Why not use these? - -Many philosophers consider the Problem of Induction unsolved, maybe even unsolvable. This won't do. Here at Muflax Industries, we get shit *done*. "Unsolvable" is not in our dictionary. We declare the problem *solved*. - -*Emergency Warning: We advice our customers to not combine thoughts containing Solomonoff Induction and Universal Turing Machines with Universal Dovetailers. We take no responsibility for resulting theological collapses and implied infinities. Muflax Industries only provides support for finite customers.* - -The funny thing is... most of the time, Solomonoff Induction is explained as a formalization of Occam's Razor. This brings up the question why Occam's Razor is a good thing in the first place. Sure you can math-ify it, but why use it at all? It might be intuitive, but it's not really obvious why mere simplicity should always be preferable. It's not very satisfying. - -I think this the wrong direction. Because what really happens is that Solomonoff Induction comes *first*, as a direct consequence of the theory of computation, and *then* we find out that Occam's Razor is a pretty good approximation of it. Thus we explain why Occam's Razor works at all, and the Problem of Induction disappears in a puff of logic. - - -We know that Bayes (Peace Be Upon Him) is the ideal method of solving conditional probabilities. But Bayesian inference has a major problem - what prior do we use? Give every event the same prior probability? Why? We need a universal prior, one that is properly grounded and achieves optimal solution. The uniform distribution doesn't work, and not just because it would violate Occam's Razor. Remember, we will *derive* Occam's Razor and so can't argue from it. More importantly, it seems implausible that every event should have the same probability at first. Are there maybe some first principles we can work from? - -Fortunately for us, we can! There is a universal prior and it's called the Universal Prior. (Very creative, I know.) I like to called it the Computational Anthropic Principle. You'll see why in a second. - -# counting argument - -# derivation - -(But... why computation? [Because fuck you, that's why.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4u2ZsoYWwJA#t=434s)) diff --git a/content_blog/solomonoff/si-progress.mkd b/content_blog/solomonoff/si-progress.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index a1030a2..0000000 --- a/content_blog/solomonoff/si-progress.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,23 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Progress -date: 2012-02-06 -techne: :done -episteme: :personal -slug: 2012/02/06/si-progress/ ---- - -Good news: The presentation is in two days, so I'm working like crazy and should soon get some posts done. - -Bad news: I'm a total idiot who wasted three weeks of prep time and now has to finish everything in two days. - -Good news: The presentation and paper will be in English, so I can reuse most of it. - -Bad news: I literally learned this just now and have to rewrite everything. Not like I'm already busy or anything. - -Good news: I'm getting in touch with my feelings. - -Bad news: I'm a ball of anxiety. I'm nothing but panic attacks. I'm freaking out about the presentation, about my slides, about the crazy amounts of exams I'll have to finish the next few months, about how little I know and how much I'll have to learn, about all the people I'll have to talk to despite being socially incompetent. - -Good news: I'm so occupied with my anxiety that I don't have enough time to feel depressed or bored. - -I'm Jack's fucked-up life. diff --git a/content_blog/solomonoff/si-remark-about-finitism.mkd b/content_blog/solomonoff/si-remark-about-finitism.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 0a347b8..0000000 --- a/content_blog/solomonoff/si-remark-about-finitism.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,19 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Remark about Finitism -date: 2012-01-15 -techne: :done -episteme: :discredited -slug: 2012/01/15/si-remark-about-finitism/ ---- - -Finitism is the position that there aren't any infinite things. No infinite energy, no infinite space, no infinite numbers. Finitists get a lot of bad rap, but it's the only sensible position in my mind. In fact, I'm an ultrafinitist - I believe that not just that uncountable numbers don't exist, but that there really is such a thing as a largest integer. - -The common criticism of finitism is, look, whatever number you pick, I can construct a larger one by adding 1. How can there be a largest integer? - -The problem is that you can't actually *name* these large numbers. You can't specify them. You can only point to an algorithm that would eventually reach infinitely many numbers - if God executed it. You need a miracle 'cause to reach those numbers, simply counting up by 1 would take ages and in fact, you would run out of usable resources in the universe. Your algorithm would eventually stop, even if you improved it. As long as it's computable, you *will* reach an end. (You probably need Quantum Magic to get hypercomputation. Might as well start praying.) - -Thanks to [Kolmogorov Complexity][], I can finally point out the underlying intuition that lead me to initially dismiss finitism. My mistake was that I thought *all numbers are equal*. 2^10, 2^10+1, 2^10+2 are all equally real numbers. *Some* description exists for any integer, so why should I say that some of them are real and others aren't? That seems weirdly arbitrary and outright silly. - -But the thing is - numbers *aren't* equal. Some numbers can be *compressed*, but some *can't*. Each number has an inherent algorithmic complexity and that complexity is *not* distributed evenly. π looks really chaotic, but it's actually very simple. And just like that, some tremendously huge numbers like 3^^^^^3 compress to very short instructions, but other don't. I looked at the number line and thought that numbers were spread out nice and smoothly, just continuing on forever. But when you see algorithmic complexity, you notice the gaps. There are random numbers and you really can't reach them. You *are* computation, running on finite resources, and some numbers simply can't be computed. - -There is a largest integer. diff --git a/content_blog/solomonoff/si-solomonoff-induction.mkd b/content_blog/solomonoff/si-solomonoff-induction.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 53875c1..0000000 --- a/content_blog/solomonoff/si-solomonoff-induction.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,38 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Solomonoff Induction -date: 1970-01-01 -techne: :wip -episteme: :speculation ---- - -# Last time on Kolmogorov and Friends... - -So you know that KC is a measure of how well a given sequence can be compressed, and thus how regular it is. KC is just the length of the shortest algorithm that would do the job, given a certain language. We typically use a UTM so that we don't hide our complexity in the description of the machine itself. But what if we want to know how the sequence *continues*? - -This is where Solomonoff Induction comes into play. - -(As always, if you need to get some math done, get a bunch of Russians. If you need to build it, ask the Germans. (We'll come to Marcus Hutter and AIXI soon.) But waitaminute... *Ray* Solomonoff? Out of *Cleveland*, Ohio? Dude isn't even an authentic Russian! So disappointing.) - -# Sequence Prediction - -Obviously there's never a unique way to continue a sequence. Look at this one: "1, 2, 4, 8, 16, X". What's X? "32", you might say, "because it doubles every time". False, I say. It's 31. Because it's the [maximal number of regions obtained by joining n points around a circle by straight lines](http://spikedmath.com/449.html). Or any other number because there are infinitely many polynomials f(x) with f(1) = 1, f(2) = 2 and so on, that have any arbitrary value f(X) you want. - -(Which is why I hated these kinds of questions as a child. I knew that I could find a number for whatever I wanted, so who's to say that I'm wrong? I just had a different rule in mind. Obviously I did not understand Occam's Razor when I was 10.) - -So there are many different algorithms that continue a sequence, but we don't want to know what's *possible*, but what's *probable*. Which value will X have *most likely*? After all, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences has [over 500 matches](https://oeis.org/search?q=1%2C2%2C4%2C8%2C16&language=english&go=Search) for our sequence. Which is the best? Well, it's probably the simplest. If only we had a way to judge the complexity of an algorithm... - -Well, we have something that almost looks right - KC. But that measures *sequences*, not *algorithms*. Almost the same thing (an algorithm is just is a sequence of instructions for a given machine), but not quite. So we need to modify it slightly. - -## How good is "optimal"? - -Of course, some sequences can be ambiguous, especially very short ones. German Usenet (I'm not 60, I swear!) often got math questions like "my teacher asked me to complete this sequence and I said X, but they said I'm wrong" and there was a standard reply to demonstrate how problematic these questions can be: - -> Which of these animals doesn't belong? -> 1. Bee -> 2. Zebra -> 3. Fly -> 4. Wasp - -It's obviously the bee - it's the only domesticated animal. It's obviously the zebra - it's not an insect. It's obviously the fly - it has no stripes. It's obviously the wasp - it's the only predator. You get the idea. - -Sometimes data just sucks and you have to guess. Acting optimally doesn't mean you always win. It just means that there is no better rule you could've followed that would have done any better. The universe sometimes kills even people who did absolutely everything right. Tough luck. diff --git a/content_blog/solomonoff/si-some-questions.mkd b/content_blog/solomonoff/si-some-questions.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 5380183..0000000 --- a/content_blog/solomonoff/si-some-questions.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,29 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Some Questions -date: 2012-01-11 -techne: :done -episteme: :speculation -slug: 2012/01/11/si-some-questions/ ---- - -Let's kick off the thinking process about Solomonoff Induction (SI), Kolmogorov complexity (KC), AIXI and so on. Here's some questions I wanna answer. - -1. How do you calculate the KC of a program? -2. Why are KC and SI incomputable? How bad is this limitation? -3. Are there alternatives to KC? Are there different variants? -4. How do you actually predict something with SI? -5. How does SI work with non-sequential data? (i.e., normally SI completes a sequence of bits, but we also wanna use it for tasks like "Is this sentence part of this language?") -6. How does AIXI work? -7. What are computable approximations of KC, SI and AIXI? -8. Are there existing practical uses for SI? If there are alternative approaches for a use case, how well does SI fare? (Is it as awesome as Bayes?) -9. What's the relationship to Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem (GIT)? -10. Can a human use some form of SI? If not, why not? If so, examples? (Compare with Bayes, which is a bit tricky too use for humans with larger data sets, but is still usable, as Carrier's resurrection arguments show.) -11. Do SI and AIXI mostly rely on brute computation or memory or both? (Or is it unknown?) -12. SI is a complexity-only prior for Occam's Razor. Are there speed priors? Do they have some obvious disadvantages? (Has SI?) -13. KC can be used to test a string for its randomness. How does that work? -14. Using KC, is there a difference between real randomness and pseudo-randomness? -15. What's some recent stuff that's happening? Is the research making progress? Does anyone care about SI besides some math heads? -16. Are there some obvious philosophical implications of SI? -17. (What's up with [Ray Solomonoff's beard][Solomonoff beard]? I mean, seriously.) - -This is gonna be an interesting week. As I said, this is my thinking process - I can't answer many of these questions myself yet! Once I have written this stuff and have a clear picture, I'll clean it up and turn it into an article (or short sequence, if it's too long). Then feedback, improvements, karma. Or I end up hating math forever. It's an adventure! (I'm getting my wisdom teeth removed tomorrow, so if this feels particularly incoherent, I blame the meds.) diff --git a/content_blog/solomonoff/si-universal-prior-and-anthropic-reasoning.mkd b/content_blog/solomonoff/si-universal-prior-and-anthropic-reasoning.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 4375bd8..0000000 --- a/content_blog/solomonoff/si-universal-prior-and-anthropic-reasoning.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,34 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Universal Prior and Anthropic Reasoning -date: 2012-01-19 -techne: :done -episteme: :discredited -slug: 2012/01/19/si-universal-prior-and-anthropic-reasoning/ -disowned: true ---- - -*(This is not really part of my explanation of Solomonoff Induction, just a crazy idea. But it overlaps and does explain some things, so yeah.)* - -Bayes theorem is awesome. We all know that. It is the optimal way to reason from a given set of evidence. Well, almost. There's one little flaw - what's your prior? What initial probability do you assign to your hypotheses before you got any evidence? - -There is one approach, which I might talk about more when I explain Solomonoff Induction, that is called the Universal Prior. (How original.) The UP is really easy: for every hypothesis, you find all programs consistent with the data and assign them a weight proportional to their Kolmogorov Complexity, favoring short programs. - -Let's step back a little bit... - -So you are a program and want to locate yourself in program space. You don't actually know your own source code, but you do know your output. You pray to St. Tegmark for a minor hypercomputation miracle and check all possible programs in program space. You exclude all programs that are inconsistent with your output and have a small set left over. Which one are you? - -You look closer and notice that there are really only two prefixes left. One is S bits long (call it A), the other S+1 bits (B), but both are fundamentally different. You notice that all programs are infinite in size because you can always just pad them out with random noise. The content of a Turing machine's tape is irrelevant after it halts, but it can still be used to distinguish them. So if you look at all programs of up to length S, there is exactly one match - A. If you look at all programs of length S+1, there are *3* matches. There is B, of course, but there is also A+0 and A+1, i.e. just A with a random bit at the end. - -Programs *like* A are always twice as common as programs *like* B. That's exactly what the Universal Prior tells us - weight of a program is 2^-l, so being 1 bit shorter makes you twice as likely. There are simply twice as many *of* you in all of program space. - -So which program are you? Well, you don't know. You have no reason to prefer one algorithm over another if they produce identical data, so you simply give all programs the same weight and say you are one random sample from them. This means that you should assign 2/3 probability that you have the prefix A and 1/3 that you have B. That looks an awful lot like anthropic reasoning. - -The Self-Sampling Assumption says you should assume you are a random sample from all *actual existing* observers, meaning all observers *within this world*. - -The Self-Indication Assumption says you should sample from *all possible* observes, including from different worlds. - -So if I use SSA, I might say, all actual observers are all continuations of my current program, so I should assume I'm a random sample from all programs *given* a specific prefix, but *not* sampled from all programs. So I should weigh all prefixes equally, then for each distribute my probability mass over all continuations. That's... weird. - -If I use SIA, I just assume I'm *somewhere* in program space and so judge all programs equally. This means I favor prefix A over prefix B, at 2:1, as it is 1 bit shorter and so twice as common. - -This seems to support SIA, and anthropic self-location in general. Is that of any consequence? Well, SIA implies a late Great Filter. Uh oh. diff --git a/content_blog/solomonoff/si-why-an-utm.mkd b/content_blog/solomonoff/si-why-an-utm.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index af867c3..0000000 --- a/content_blog/solomonoff/si-why-an-utm.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,15 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Why an UTM? -date: 2012-01-15 -techne: :done -episteme: :believed -slug: 2012/01/15/si-why-an-utm/ ---- - -Why do we use a UTM? If all TMs are fundamentally equivalent, why not just pick a convenient one? Maybe there is even some kind of optimal TM that we should use? - -The reason KC is based on a UTM is that you can try to cheat at complexity by embedding most of it in your TM. For example, you could add an instruction "P" that prints all the digits of π and thus claim that π can be compressed to one character. Similarly, you could add instructions for any number you want. - -Here's the problem with that, though: how does your TM know how to print π? You would still need to include an algorithm in the description of the machine itself. You are really just shuffling the complexity around, not removing it. By using an UTM, you can't make this mistake because you have to explicitly provide a description of a TM as part of your program. It's therefore irrelevant if you use a simple machine and complicated algorithm, or build a complicated machine that then runs a trivial algorithm. The total complexity doesn't go down. - -As a somewhat realistic example of this mistake, have a look at [Divine Simplicity][]. Basically it's the idea that God is without parts and therefore the simplest possible thing. But that's really just a conjuring trick. You can't talk about this simple God at all without somehow specifying its properties and simply identifying them with God doesn't help you - your language still has to explain these properties. You're just using a framework in which "God" has a very short name and the language is doing all the real work. It's the theological equivalent of [LenPEG][]. diff --git a/content_blog/status/conspiracy_theory_of_willpower.mkd b/content_blog/status/conspiracy_theory_of_willpower.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index b94c5f0..0000000 --- a/content_blog/status/conspiracy_theory_of_willpower.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,61 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: The Conspiracy Theory of Willpower -date: 2012-08-24 -techne: :wip -episteme: :speculation ---- - -(13時31分03秒) Owen Richardson: it's not a matter of running out of fuel -(13時31分16秒) Owen Richardson: because they can go farther if you raise the value of getting there -(13時31分49秒) 私: Another thing is that framing affects how draining a task is. Again, that seems more about what you're willing to invest in certain social interactions (as in, you're only worth 10min of my effort), than running out of willpower. -(13時31分57秒) Owen Richardson: glucose (or whatever) isn't being burned up -(13時32分48秒) Owen Richardson: but... hold on, I almost feel like I've got this down in terms of simple behaviorism -(13時33分59秒) Owen Richardson: there isn't a finite supply of "fuel", cuz people go farther if you motivate them by taking away excuses... -(13時34分10秒) Owen Richardson: raise the value of getting there -(13時35分21秒) Owen Richardson: you could say there's a throttle... to maintain as low a payoff/effort level as possible? -(13時36分21秒) Owen Richardson: but -(13時36分25秒) Owen Richardson: you could just say -(13時36分51秒) Owen Richardson: okay, here're the people who you told "you can't eat these cookies; have the radishes instead" -(13時36分57秒) Owen Richardson: they controlled themselves -(13時37分00秒) 私: I'm not sure "effort" is the right way of framing it. More like "time investment, according to social importance". -(13時37分04秒) Owen Richardson: they got squat for it -(13時37分29秒) 私: Right, you screwed them over, they won't cooperate as much in the next task. -(13時37分36秒) Owen Richardson: the learned that controlling yourself doesn't pay -(13時37分50秒) Owen Richardson: simple operant conditioning -(13時38分26秒) Owen Richardson: "time investment, according to social importance"? -(13時38分50秒) Owen Richardson: I bet they'd still do it even if no one saw -(13時38分57秒) Owen Richardson: self image -(13時39分13秒) Owen Richardson: but I wouldn't be surprised if a bit less, I guess... -(13時39分26秒) Owen Richardson: but yeah -(13時40分04秒) Owen Richardson: what else can we do with plain ol operant conditioning as a model? -(13時40分28秒) 私: So what? They still know you put the radish there. Whoever is running the experiment is still an ass. :) -(13時41分53秒) Owen Richardson: "still do it" meaning as the "it", putting in extra effort if made to believe they could choose to regenerate will power -(13時42分17秒) Owen Richardson: fuck eating the radishes if no one's watching XD -(13時42分27秒) 私: :D -(13時43分10秒) Owen Richardson: actually, personally, I'd probably eat all the cookies AND all the radishes -(13時43分17秒) 私: That should be testable, though. "Here are two dishes, choose one, no one's watching, we'd prefer if you don't eat the cookies". -(13時43分53秒) 私: vs. "you're supposed to eat the radish, but hey, I smuggled in some cookies, your choice, no one will know". -(13時44分35秒) Owen Richardson: I don't know what you expect to learn from that :P -(13時45分30秒) 私: As in, the less adverserial you make the experiment, the less depletion of willpower you should see. -(13時45分42秒) 私: Even if you do exactly the same thing and believe the same things. -(13時46分15秒) Owen Richardson: it seems like a test of how much people will be influenced by very weak suggestions that they should pick radishes over cookies? -(13時46分39秒) Owen Richardson: even when told "your choice, no one will know" -(13時47分07秒) Owen Richardson: "but you SHOULD, in some vague way, for some reason, eat the radishes" -(13時47分41秒) Owen Richardson: and then you puzzlefuck them -(13時47分45秒) Owen Richardson: what's the point? -(13時48分18秒) 私: What I mean is, willpower experiments have controlled how difficult tasks are, and what subjects believe. They haven't controlled how much they ally themselves with the experimenters. -(13時48分49秒) 私: As in, mysteriously becoming tired has nothing to do with the task at hand, but how much you are willing to associate with the experimenters. -(13時49分11秒) Owen Richardson: ...social... obligations' effect on "willpower", you mean? -(13時49分42秒) Owen Richardson: I forget how and why the radish cookie thing was presented -(13時49分44秒) 私: Let's call it the Conspiracy Theory of Willpower. :) -(13時49分57秒) Owen Richardson: but I thought it was tricksie -(13時50分17秒) Owen Richardson: like they were told it was a nutrition test or something -(13時50分47秒) Owen Richardson: and then whisked off the the impossible puzzles as a completely different experiment with different researchers -(13時51分14秒) Owen Richardson: "yeah, turns out the radish cookie guys couldn't make it. WHAT A SHAME." -(13時51分28秒) Owen Richardson: that's the kind of shit they pull -(13時51分52秒) 私: Hm. I'll have to check the papers. -(13時52分01秒) Owen Richardson: but yeah -(13時52分08秒) 私: I'll put it on my todo. :) -(13時52分11秒) Owen Richardson: operant conditioning -(13時52分51秒) 私: (Besides, there doesn't have to be just one explanation.) -(13時53分02秒) 私: Conditioning is definitely a thing. diff --git a/content_blog/status/disagreement.mkd b/content_blog/status/disagreement.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 083f5a3..0000000 --- a/content_blog/status/disagreement.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,37 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Levels of Heresy -date: 2012-06-08 -techne: :wip -episteme: :speculation ---- - -You may be familiar with PG's [disagreement hierarchy][LW disagreement], ranging from DH0 (name-calling) to DH7 (improve the argument, then refute it). It's used to illustrate how substantial a disagreement really is - are you attacking just superficial aspects or the central point? - -That's fine for a bunch of rationalists, but what about debates that *matter*? How do you denounce filthy heretics and blasphemers of all that is holy? - -Why, you use the Heresy Hierarchy! - -## HH0: Out-Group - -Not even worth engaging. Your enemy clear belongs to no in-group of yours, won't be confused with you, has, in fact, nothing at all in common with you. - -Send the missionaries at once. - -**Example**: Catholics and Pagans. - -## HH1: Succession Dispute - -**Example**: Shiites and Sunnites. - -## HH2: Canonical Disputes - -**Example**: - -## HH3: Theological Differences - -## HH4: Semantic Differences - -**Example**: Homoousians and Homoiousians. (Yes, that's one letter of difference.) - - -This is the level where even a Grammar Nazis thinks that you're a bit nit-picky. diff --git a/content_blog/status/index.mkd b/content_blog/status/index.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index c97ee82..0000000 --- a/content_blog/status/index.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Social Status -is_category: true ---- - -<%= category :status %> diff --git a/content_blog/status/self-help-is-killing-the-status-industry.mkd b/content_blog/status/self-help-is-killing-the-status-industry.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 28b6b51..0000000 --- a/content_blog/status/self-help-is-killing-the-status-industry.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,47 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Self-Help is Killing the Status Industry -date: 2012-04-04 -techne: :done -episteme: :speculation -slug: 2012/04/04/self-help-is-killing-the-status-industry/ ---- - -Effective self-help is impossible. Here's why. - -In computer science, certain search algorithms are often explained through the analogy of hill-climbing. - -Let's say you find yourself in a strange land and your goal is to reach the highest point. The height of any point corresponds to its value, so the higher the better. If you could look at the whole landscape at once, Google Maps style, this would be a trivial problem. - -The black dot is your current position. Seeing all, you know that you should go for the peak on the right. - -<%= image("hill1.png", "hill1") %> - -Unfortunately, you don't have a map and your vision is limited. - -<%= image("hill21.png", "hill2") %> - -A very simple and often effective solution is to follow the *steepest* path. This approach is guaranteed to get you to *some* peak, but unfortunately, it may not be the highest one. - -<%= image("hill22.png", "hill3") %> - -In our landscape, you might notice that there are two steep paths, but you can't tell how good they are from the bottom. So you first climb one for a bit, then go back down and try the other. You will soon notice that the path to the left becomes flat. The other path stays steep for much longer and looks more promising. - -There is a crucial trade-off between *exploration* and *exploitation*. If you try more paths, then you are less likely to miss the highest peaks, but you'll also waste more time. It is important to experiment *some*, but not *too much*. A very useful heuristic is to always follow the steepest path, but once you hit a plateau, you go back for a bit and try some alternatives. - -Ok, what does that have to do with self-help? - -Arguably, the primary purpose of human psychology is the desire for high [status][Status]. Unfortunately, it is really hard to reliably communicate the relevant features to others. There are no easy and reliable ways to read someone's reproductive or social value. - -The solution is called [signaling][Signaling] - you do things that *correlate* with your true values, but are easy to check. For example, if you have lots of access to food, and you want to advertise that fact, you could become fat. If you are very confident in your ability to fight, you might self-handicap by wearing impractical clothes. - -Generally speaking, a signal is only worth something if it is *costly*. If everyone can do it, then it provides no useful information. Signals must be inherently hard to do so that only those with powerful abilities can pull them off. - -Let's return to the hill-climbing analogy. - -Real values are hard to communicate. You may well be the smartest person in the room, but no one else will be able to tell just from looking at you. It's of no use to you to merely do smart things. What you need is something that *demonstrates* your intelligence, something that *only* someone smart can do. It must be hard, so you use intellectual difficulty as a *proxy* of value. - -In your landscape, height corresponds to the *difficulty* of doing something. You're optimizing for status, so you're only interested in costly signals. Therefore, one useful heuristic for you is to avoid plateaus - the moment something gets easy, you are in danger of failing to distance yourself from your inferior peers. - -We would therefore expect the amount of struggle in your life to always remain as high as possible. - -It never gets any easier. It *can't*. Easy things are worthless signals. diff --git a/content_blog/thought-experiments/consent-of-the-dead.mkd b/content_blog/thought-experiments/consent-of-the-dead.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 8fcbebf..0000000 --- a/content_blog/thought-experiments/consent-of-the-dead.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,23 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Consent of the Dead -date: 2011-12-30 -techne: :done -episteme: :fiction -slug: 2011/12/30/consent-of-the-dead/ ---- - -[Sister Y observes][Sister Kaldor]: - -> A market or social system may provide for individual choice in any given transaction, but a participant cannot decide *whether to be part of a market economy*. It's not [consent all the way down][Turtles], you might say. - -The lack of consent is the strongest case for the immorality of bringing someone into existence, I think. Morality must be grounded in contracts (among other things, perhaps) and without consent, you have no Rule of Law, but tyranny. It might be a super-happy tyranny of fun, though. Evil has its upsides. - -Assuming the necessity of consent, can there ever be a moral way to bring someone into existence? Maybe. Consider this simple thought experiment. - -<%= image("twoface.jpg", "Two-Face") %> - -The evil Doctor Deontology is trying to assemble his crew of supervillains. He has recently gotten his hands on a cryogenically frozen Two-Face and now considers reviving him. He knows that Two-Face always makes his important decisions by flipping a coin. Fortunately for him, Doctor Deontology also obtained this coin, and deontologist that he is, he wants Two-Face's consent first before he goes through with the procedure. - -So he thinks, if Two-Face were already alive, he would simply flip this coin to answer my question. There is nothing special about *him* doing the flipping, so *I* can just flip the coin in his stead. So he does, the coin comes up heads and Doctor Deontology revives Two-Face after all. - -Did he do so with Two-Face's consent? diff --git a/content_blog/thought-experiments/happiness-and-ends-vs-means.mkd b/content_blog/thought-experiments/happiness-and-ends-vs-means.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index d05394b..0000000 --- a/content_blog/thought-experiments/happiness-and-ends-vs-means.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,25 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Happiness, and Ends vs. Means -date: 2012-03-22 -techne: :done -episteme: :fiction -slug: 2012/03/22/happiness-and-ends-vs-means/ ---- - -Doctor Deontology has [previously][Consent of the Dead] shown that it might be possible to get a person's consent even when that person doesn't (currently) exist. Not satisfied by this victory, our villain returns to attack the idea of consent more directly. - -<%= image("dark_kantian.png", "Dark Kantian", "http://dresdencodak.com/2009/01/27/advanced-dungeons-and-discourse/") %> - -This time, Doctor Deontology has recruited [Evil Immanuel Kant][Kant Song]) from a [parallel universe][King in the Mountain]. Together, and using old blueprints of [Nozick's Experience Machine][Experience Machine], they have build a true masterpiece of Evil Engineering - the Sudden Suffering Reversal Instrument, conveniently shaped like a laser gun. - -Anyone hit by the SSRI beam will be transmogrified into an [unbreakable][Unbreakable] superbeing, incapable of feeling any suffering. This transformation does not otherwise negatively affect the person or their decision-making; they remain perfectly aware of any harm to themselves or others, and are capable of acting on that knowledge just like before. It merely replaces the *feeling* of suffering with that of pleasure, but without any addictive potential or other side-effect. - -Evil Immanuel Kant has introduced a catch, however, and that's the reason the SSRI has "sudden" in its name - it will *only* work if the recipient *doesn't* agree to be shot. You may sneak up on them and shoot them in the back, or lie and tell them it's an anti-cancer gun, or use it in any other way, as long as your target has *not* given their consent to what you're about to do. - -Therefore, the evilness is not in the mere existence of the gun or its effect, for it can be used to eradicate all suffering in the world. The true evil is that it's an entirely *non-consensual blessing*. - -Armed thus, Doctor Deontology and Evil Immanuel Kant confront ethicists with their weapon, asking them if it is moral to SSRI-fy the population. All the utilitarians agree that consent is not fundamental and that this case justifies ignoring it. Our villains were even about to get the go-ahead by their university's Ethics Committee, if it weren't for Good Immanuel Kant, the only person to object to the SSRI. - -Good Immanuel Kant argues that the problem with the SSRI is that it treats people as *means* to happiness, not as ends in themselves. Doctor Deontology cannot claim to act in the interests of his victims because they clearly disagree with the treatment. It is necessary for him to lie or otherwise mistreat the victim to make them happy, they can't freely choose to accept. This puts the happiness before the person, turning a human into merely a vessel for a sensation, not an agent worthy of dignity and respect. We do not actually care about others, we really only have a vendetta against suffering itself, and therefore we actually value the eradication of suffering more than the autonomy of persons. Good Immanuel Kant concludes that morality must first be concerned with people, and any action that treats them as means to an end is wrong. Thus, the SSRI is evil. - -Is Good Immanuel Kant right? diff --git a/content_blog/thought-experiments/index.mkd b/content_blog/thought-experiments/index.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 053adcc..0000000 --- a/content_blog/thought-experiments/index.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Thought Experiments -is_category: true ---- - -<%= category :"thought-experiments" %> diff --git a/content_blog/thought-experiments/on-benatars-asymmetry.mkd b/content_blog/thought-experiments/on-benatars-asymmetry.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index c23c811..0000000 --- a/content_blog/thought-experiments/on-benatars-asymmetry.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,62 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: On Benatar's Asymmetry -date: 2011-12-30 -techne: :done -episteme: :fiction -slug: 2011/12/30/on-benatars-asymmetry/ -merged: muflax:morality/antinatalism ---- - -David Benatar uses the following asymmetry in his arguments for antinatalism: - -1. The presence of harm is bad. - -2. The presence of benefit is good. - -3. The absence of harm is good, even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone. - -4. The absence of benefit is not bad unless there is somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation. - -I'm increasingly skeptical of this asymmetry. Here's a thought experiment to illustrate why. And don't worry, it doesn't involve any torture, rape or murder! What am I, an ethicist?[^1] It's only about pie. - -<%= image("pie_hole.jpg", "Pie Hole") %> - -There are three different worlds. Let's call them *Defaultia*, *Absencia* and *Lossa*. They are all very similar, except for one little detail. In all three worlds there is a pie shop, and in this pie shop there is a careful pie maker. The pie maker is currently in the process of making another delicious pie for a customer. Behind the pie maker are three ingredients in three conspicuously similar pots, yet only one is needed for the pie. The pie maker will blindly grab one of the pots, make sure it is the right one and if so, use it. The pie will be delicious and the customer will be very happy. - -And here's how these worlds differ. - -In *Defaultia*, the pie maker is lucky and immediately grabs the right ingredient. Everything comes out right and the world is good. - -In *Absencia*, the pie maker is not so lucky and takes the wrong ingredient at first. A pie with this ingredient would taste horrible! The customer would be very sad indeed. But the pie maker immediately notices the wrong pot, tries again and this time is lucky. The same pie as in Defaultia is produced and everyone is happy. - -And finally in *Lossa*, the pie maker again picks the wrong pot. (What's up with that anyway? Maybe the pie maker should consider looking next time! Sheesh.) But it is not the pie-ruining ingredient this time, but unbeknownst to the pie maker, it would make the pie even more delicious! It is a totally weird coincidence and no-one in the whole world knows of this connection, so the pie maker again puts back the pot and picks the intended ingredient. As usual, the same pie as in Defaultia results. Sunshine, end scene. - -<%= image("philip-enticknap-sonnenblumenfeld-umbrien.jpg", "Sonnenblumen") %> - -Thus ends the thought experiment. And here is the question: which of these worlds is *better*? Remember that in all three of them, the exact same pie is produced, and both pie maker and customer are just as happy every time. - -Yet if we believed the asymmetry, then there would be a clear winner - namely *Absencia*! In Absencia, there was a potential for great harm. Had the pie maker not noticed the wrong pot, then the customer's day would've been ruined. But fortunately, this harm was avoided and so, says the asymmetry, an additional good was produced for the customer. Ergo, Absencia is the best. - -There is a certain position (typically brought forth by transhumanists) that rejects the asymmetry in an unusual way. It's closely related to what Nick Bostrom calls [Astronomical Waste][]. In his words: - -> With very advanced technology, a very large population of people living happy lives could be sustained in the accessible region of the universe. For every year that development of such technologies and colonization of the universe is delayed, there is therefore an opportunity cost: a potential good, lives worth living, is not being realized. - -So this position says that the absence of benefits, even when there is no existing person being deprived, is still bad. Proponents of this view look at the universe and are disappointed by all the matter that *isn't* used for making people happy (or making happy people). It follows then, if the absence of pleasure causes a harm, then *Lossa* is clearly worse than Defaultia! After all, Lossa almost included a super-pie and super-happy customer, but then didn't after all. - -In a third approach, we could ask Hardcore Consequentialist Robot 9000 what it thinks about these worlds. It would correctly reason that the pie makers initial choice of ingredients was truly random and that the resulting pie was already determined before picking anything. The pie maker will always end up using the intended ingredient and the same pie will be made. Thus, the state of the world is always the same, and as paths to a state don't matter to HCR 9000, all worlds are exactly equal in value. (This scenario is particularly frustrating for HCR 9000's evil archenemy Doctor Deontology. Paths matter, he says, but only random chance was involved this time, so he still has to choose. But how?) - -So who's right? Or is everyone wrong and there's a fourth option? - -[^1]: - As [PlaidX observes][PlaidX torture]: - - > The use of torture in these hypotheticals generally seems to have less to do with ANALYZING cognitive algorithms, and more to do with "getting tough" on cognitive algorithms. Grinding an axe or just wallowing in self-destructive paranoia. - > - > If the point you're making really only applies to torture, fine. But otherwise, it tends to read like "Maybe people will understand my point better if I CRANK MY RHETORIC UP TO 11 AND UNCOIL THE FIREHOSE AND HALHLTRRLGEBFBLE" - - - - - - - diff --git a/content_blog/thought-experiments/suicide-and-preventing-grief.mkd b/content_blog/thought-experiments/suicide-and-preventing-grief.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 3c10b80..0000000 --- a/content_blog/thought-experiments/suicide-and-preventing-grief.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,25 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Suicide and Preventing Grief -date: 2012-03-21 -techne: :done -episteme: :fiction -slug: 2012/03/21/suicide-and-preventing-grief/ ---- - -In an underground bunker, deep under the Cartesian Plains, trapped in a cage, sits the great [Mahavira][]. He is the latest victim of [Doctor Deontology][Thought Experiments], once again on a mission to spread chaos amongst all who vow to protect morality. - -Mahavira defends the duty that one should [never do harm][Ahimsa]. It is never acceptable to be violent or knowingly cause others to suffer. Doctor Deontology, mad ethicist that he is, wants to test this notion. - -Doctor Deontology presents Mahavira with a choice. In his cage are two buttons. The first button will release a deadly neurotoxin that will kill Mahavira instantly and without pain. The second button will flood the cage with a [nutrient-rich sludge][] that can be absorbed through the skin and will nurture and heal anyone immersed in it for another day, but will also, as an unfortunate side-effect, cause them tremendous pain. - -If Mahavira presses the second button regularly every day, he would be able to live indefinitely, but also be in constant, unbearable pain. He can escape this fate at any time by pressing the first button and so kill himself. So far, Mahavira agrees that Doctor Deontology has not done anything evil, and that he intends to press the suicide button soon. - -But the ascetic has underestimated the mad ethicist. Behold Doctor Deontology's latest creation - the Grief Monster! - -<%= image("grief.jpg", "Grief Monster") %> - -Engineered from the DNA of a wild [Utility Monster][], the Grief Monster is perfectly content maintaining Doctor Deontology's underground bunker, but should it learn that Mahavira has died under anything but natural circumstances, it will feel the most horrible grief imaginable and suffer greatly as a consequence. - -Thus, should Mahavira commit suicide, then the Grief Monster would suffer immensely. But if he does not, if he chooses the food, then *he* will suffer indefinitely. - -Has Doctor Deontology succeeded in creating a situation in which the only moral option is to freely accept inevitable and unlimited suffering? What if the Grief Monster had come into existence by accident, or through a blind selection process? diff --git a/content_daily/index.mkd b/content_daily/index.mkd index 64a2b69..ef56dd3 100644 --- a/content_daily/index.mkd +++ b/content_daily/index.mkd @@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ no_comments: true Because death doesn't conquer itself, you know. -Daily practice, 300 words, on average. [More details what this is about.][about dlog] See the [main site][main] or [blog][] for real content. There's also an [RSS feed][RSS]. +Daily practice, 100 words, on average. [More details what this is about.][about dlog] See the [blog][] for real content. There's also an [RSS feed][RSS]. Latest entry: diff --git a/content_daily/log/1.mkd b/content_daily/log/1.mkd index 1e8d0b4..3c5a17a 100644 --- a/content_daily/log/1.mkd +++ b/content_daily/log/1.mkd @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ slug: 2012/03/09/dammit-hardison/ Let's get this rolling. -I've set up the daily log, and prompted by XiXiDu, published [some crazy shit][Ontological Therapy]. I should have published it much earlier, but I was still hoping I could untangle the ontology problem from the inside, by finding a sane approach to hypothetical / potential / actual worlds. I might still do that, but the emotional part of the process can stand on its own. (I also had some interesting exchanges with XiXiDu and other commenters, so that took up some of my time as well. Figures that the craziest shit I write is the most popular.) +I've set up the daily log, and prompted by XiXiDu, published some crazy shit. I should have published it much earlier, but I was still hoping I could untangle the ontology problem from the inside, by finding a sane approach to hypothetical / potential / actual worlds. I might still do that, but the emotional part of the process can stand on its own. (I also had some interesting exchanges with XiXiDu and other commenters, so that took up some of my time as well. Figures that the craziest shit I write is the most popular.) I also finished my Anki backlog. I reviewed about 300 French cards I had temporarily suspended when I got a little sick of French. I should really switch to the Anki 2 beta (it supports multiple decks in a sane way), but then I'd have to convert my plugins and... yeah. Anyway, reviews done, [good job][Good Job]. diff --git a/content_daily/log/100.mkd b/content_daily/log/100.mkd index 235d8b1..b9f7f51 100644 --- a/content_daily/log/100.mkd +++ b/content_daily/log/100.mkd @@ -51,7 +51,7 @@ It's not deliberate obscurantism, it's just context-heavy work. If you just want --- <% skip do %> -Minor belief update: the argument [against vegetarianism][Vegetarian] got simpler because I just don't [give a shit][Mans Search Cheer Up] about "suffering"[^suf] anymore. (I'll update the post when I get around to writing a better post about *why* suffering doesn't matter / isn't bad.) +Minor belief update: the argument against vegetarianism got simpler because I just don't [give a shit][Mans Search Cheer Up] about "suffering"[^suf] anymore. (I'll update the post when I get around to writing a better post about *why* suffering doesn't matter / isn't bad.) Back when I wrote this post I thought, sure, animals may *suffer*, but they're not morally relevant agents, so their suffering - or any preference or experience - is irrelevant (and if not, surely it's fairly minor, especially compared to all the benefits). I now see a teleological case for their being (minor) moral agents (but I'm not sure it convinces me[^con]), but more importantly, suffering simply carries no normative power per se, so I don't see what possible evil eating animals constitutes. Nor have I ever seen any attempt to ground "suffering is bad" in anything but "it sure feels like it!" or "but I wanna!", and in fact most active proponents of these views *deny* a derivation of morality from rational arguments. diff --git a/content_daily/log/103.mkd b/content_daily/log/103.mkd index 4ab3f35..e4e1a3f 100644 --- a/content_daily/log/103.mkd +++ b/content_daily/log/103.mkd @@ -69,7 +69,7 @@ I've been reading [Wearing the Body of Visions][], a more detailed introduction > > No one can be called a yogi, yogini, or tantrika, if they cannot experience pleasure and pain – and experience the one taste of the energy that is the ground of both experiences. We’re not discussing the achievement of a banal, bland and baleful emotional balance. We're not talking about keeping a stiff upper lip or even about stoicism. Tantra is not concerned with controls of this order. Tantra is consummately heroic, but not in the sense of bravery inspired by a cause. The heroism of Tantra is utterly without cause. Tantra demands self-existent heroism – heroism that is completely independent of reference points of any kind. - with this quote from my own [Dark Stance][] post: + with this quote from my own Dark Stance post: > I want to be extra clear on this. In the Dark Stance, you *don't* embrace hatred because it makes you do good things, or gives you a rush, or so you can see through it and overcome it, nor do you *endure* it. That still assumes that hatred is only instrumental or an unfortunate necessity. Dark Stance embraces hatred *for hatred's sake*. @@ -187,7 +187,7 @@ But I'd also like to add a certain way, maybe only suitable for the right kind o > *Simultaneous satisfaction of diverse preferences.* What if some humans don't want to be affected by otherwordly influences, or even don't want such influences to exist at all, for anyone? Then the utilitarian solution would be to influence the people that want the superintelligence to influence them while simultaneously avoiding any impact on the people that don't want to be influenced. Furthermore, to somewhat satisfy the preferences of those who don't want any influence to exist for anyone at all, the superintelligence could pull off a Necker-cube-like illusion: whether or not you saw the superintelligent influences would depend on what preconceptions you had in mind when interpreting the world. This sounds sort of postmodern, but in this case we're postulating a highly complex social engineering project, not a metaphysical law that makes it such that the truth of the world isn't fundamentally determined. It's true that people might not only care about whether or not they perceive influences, they might also care about the state of the world beyond their perceptions. This would indeed present a case of mutually incompatible preferences, but presumably the superintelligence would simply employ some moral theory to balance these preferences. -The specific motivations of these agents are irrelevant (and more [trollish purposes][Why The Gods Are Trolling You] are more likely anyway), but the idea of embedding beneficial interactions in ambiguous spaces to ensure plausible deniability is crucial, and so by increasing the ambiguity of a situation, or using [unpredictable proxy-causes][Persinger's Magnetic Field Hypothesis], you can increase the possibility for these agents to fuck with you help you. +The specific motivations of these agents are irrelevant (and more [trollish purposes][Why The Gods Are Trolling You] are more likely anyway), but the idea of embedding beneficial interactions in ambiguous spaces to ensure plausible deniability is crucial, and so by increasing the ambiguity of a situation, or using unpredictable proxy-causes, you can increase the possibility for these agents to fuck with you help you. Now obviously I *can't* come out in clear support or rejection of this idea - that would ruin the effect! But conceiving of it as a non-supernatural-but-trollish influence, instead of "emptiness" or somesuch, might get you into this state more easily. It's the same thing, but through a different door. diff --git a/content_daily/log/11.mkd b/content_daily/log/11.mkd index e71ce1a..20c8ce0 100644 --- a/content_daily/log/11.mkd +++ b/content_daily/log/11.mkd @@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ I realized that even though I'm taking a vacation from LessWrong (unsuccessfully For fuck's sake, I'm playing Diablo 2 as the *less addictive alternative*. -This isn't just memetic exploitation. This is brain slug territory. I feel like I've been plugged into the great thought machine recently and everything is converging towards making sense, but it's all [going too damn fast][How My Brain Broke]. I'm getting amazingly close to some demons, but if I don't [pay attention][Book of the Dead], I'll once again miss my chance to slay them. +This isn't just memetic exploitation. This is brain slug territory. I feel like I've been plugged into the great thought machine recently and everything is converging towards making sense, but it's all going too damn fast. I'm getting amazingly close to some demons, but if I don't [pay attention][Book of the Dead], I'll once again miss my chance to slay them. I need some time to *think*. diff --git a/content_daily/log/110.mkd b/content_daily/log/110.mkd index cf021d2..0c5934b 100644 --- a/content_daily/log/110.mkd +++ b/content_daily/log/110.mkd @@ -1,7 +1,7 @@ --- title: Moloch The Devourer -date: 2013-01-16 -techne: :wip +date: 2013-01-26 +techne: :done episteme: :log --- @@ -18,9 +18,43 @@ In the spirit of my old lingo choice, I had unlocked Slaanesh. She was tempting --- +I've been cleaning up my site *a lot*. + +I've retired anything I considered either broken, semi-embarrassing or useless. I thought about my old rule of never deleting anything, which I introduced for two good reasons: + +1. Several times in my life have I become fed up with or wanted to isolate myself from stuff I had done, and deleted everything, including backups. Some of these deletions were good ideas, some not. I don't feel I need these drastic methods anymore, so I wanted to preserve everything because you never know. +2. I don't like when people take their stuff offline. + +Still, there are important reasons for me to fully retire old stuff, and if you *really* care, the [git repo][Source] still exists and has all the old versions in it, so I haven't thrown anything away, just removed it from circulation. (Sorry if I broke your links. If anyone actually misses anything I removed, just comment, I'll put it up somewhere again.) + +The sites are much smaller now and the content has been moved elsewhere. The "blog" is kinda closed. The logs (i.e. what you're reading now) are my real day-to-day writing location (well, for flexible interpretations of "day"). I first thought about merging the "main site" and "the blog", but just decided to keep the "main site" as an easy portal / "who the fuck is muflax?" site, and moved all decent self-contained content to the "blog". + +I've merged the content from the other sub-domains - sutra and letsread - into the blog and closed these sub-domains. + +For the sake of my devout fans obsessive internet stalkers all three readers, here's my reasoning for some deprecations: + +- The antinatalism FAQ is gone because I can't be bothered to repair it. It *should* be a serious (non-strawman) neutral overview of antinatalist arguments, but I don't care about that anymore, nor have I any interest in antinatalism left, so it's better to just kill it. + + I've lost interest in antinatalism primarily because virtually all arguments for it are crap. The only defensible notion is that humans over-value their life satisfaction, but I don't see how that gets you down to anywhere close to indifference, even under really pessimistic assumptions. "Some techniques we think work actually don't" is a perfectly sensible position, and I'd agree that depression and suicide treatment is abysmal (because they aren't grounded in science and other buzzwords[^science]), and I even see how, based on only slightly broken assumptions, you'd conclude that a small minority of people is better off dead - but to get that number up to a majority? Nonsense, the evidence is firmly the opposite. + + I also strongly disagree with the implicit values of most antinatalists, but that doesn't generally affect the arguments, and is not the reason I'm abandoning it. + + [^science]: + Buzzwordy as it is, I actually mean it. People are way too confused about "depression" and "feelings", and don't think enough in terms of behavior. I can't pretend I'm a model reductionist behaviorist myself, but I certainly aspire to be one, fucktarded as I occasionally am. (Ok, often.) (Ok, please don't read anything I ever wrote.) + +- The speed-reading post got deleted because it should just read "use shaping, idiot". I might write a new, better version (that would also be much shorter), or include "learn speed-reading" as an exercise in a future post that explains how to use shaping. Dunno, but for now, it's just gone. + +- A lot of personal stuff is gone because I can't identify with the person who wrote it. It felt like hosting someone else's diary. + +- I've deprecated the Dark Stance. It's not that it's wrong per se, but that it works differently than I thought, and my old presentation doesn't help you at all and is likely to just send you down the wrong path. There *is* a right path, and I still intend to teach it one day, but until then, you're on your own. If you can't re-invent it, you probably shouldn't be using it anyway. + +--- + <% skip do %> This is too speculative for a full post, but here goes. Let's dissect the Gospel of Mark! +<%= image("hermeneutics.jpg", "Hermeneutics") %> + First step, *which* Mark? For our purposes, we'll recreate a super-gospel by merging all parts that we are reasonably sure have been considered part of Mark by some early Christian or another (up to 5th century or so). We know we don't have any *direct* evidence what the "early versions" (wherever they came from) looked like, so we'll have to reconstruct the separate sources through higher criticism anyway. However, looking at *where* and *how* separate variants have been merged into the text will tell us how *other* variants have likely been inserted, even when we don't have the pre-merged manuscripts anymore. You've probably heard of the Documentary Hypothesis, according to which the Torah is the result of merging four previously independent narratives into one text. This *may* imply multiple authorship, but it doesn't have to - the original author might've just used multiple sources and didn't edit out the seams. Before we speculate about specific authorship and chronologies, we first have to identify the internal layers. diff --git a/content_daily/log/19.mkd b/content_daily/log/19.mkd index a020f32..c5711ad 100644 --- a/content_daily/log/19.mkd +++ b/content_daily/log/19.mkd @@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ So I tried to get into jhana to get rid of all the anxiety in my head. Did my fi 10min jhana failed to establish anything. My head isn't free, all entangled. I tried 5min shikantaza, but still only drift. Only the all-encompassing Dukkha [Core][Logic Core]. -(I do have several drafts about this, and [old attempts to approach it][Morality for the Damned (First Steps)], and (maybe, in the archive) even the writing from the time I *created* the Dukkha Core, but this dlog is not about ideas, only practice. Eventually I will write this up, and I can then point to this entry here as the day I destroyed the Dukkha Core. Until then, it may unfortunately be hard to follow what I'm doing.) +(I do have several drafts about this, and old attempts to approach it, and (maybe, in the archive) even the writing from the time I *created* the Dukkha Core, but this dlog is not about ideas, only practice. Eventually I will write this up, and I can then point to this entry here as the day I destroyed the Dukkha Core. Until then, it may unfortunately be hard to follow what I'm doing.) I need a larger caliber, something I haven't done in *years*. It's very dangerous and utterly uncontrollable, but I need drastic measures. Anything else will just repeat the pattern I'm currently going through, week after week, month after month. @@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ Time to return to the Tao. Keeping the backstory short, I deliberately removed myself from the Tao a few years ago, thinking it sinful. I have tried to return multiple times, but never could as long as I still rejected it. Yesterday (prompted by a friend), I took my meta-morality approach and actually applied it, looked at its implications, expecting it to tell me that the world is inherently and unfixably screwed. I've been living under this assumption after all, and considered it the main reason for my [suicidality][Sister Epilogue]. -To my complete surprise, the approach *fixed everything*. I mean *everything*. The [anxiety][Ontological Therapy] is gone. The world is not wrong. God is not evil. The Problem of Evil is either necessary, or has a truly ingenious solution that I'm not sure even God can pull off (and it would make Him a fantastic troll, and would probably allow you to exploit anthropic information to *counter-troll God*), but regardless, bringing about the Problem of Evil is not *itself* evil. Modal realism does not imply a broken multiverse. Meta-morality is sufficiently grounded and doesn't suffer from a regress problem. (At least not in a form I care about.) Moral nihilism is false. (In a very interesting way.) One True Morality exists. (In an even more interesting way. There might be multiple One True Moralities though. (It makes sense in context.)) Worrying about an [unsupervised][unsupervised universe]) world is asking a wrong question; supervision has no effect on goodness. +To my complete surprise, the approach *fixed everything*. I mean *everything*. The anxiety is gone. The world is not wrong. God is not evil. The Problem of Evil is either necessary, or has a truly ingenious solution that I'm not sure even God can pull off (and it would make Him a fantastic troll, and would probably allow you to exploit anthropic information to *counter-troll God*), but regardless, bringing about the Problem of Evil is not *itself* evil. Modal realism does not imply a broken multiverse. Meta-morality is sufficiently grounded and doesn't suffer from a regress problem. (At least not in a form I care about.) Moral nihilism is false. (In a very interesting way.) One True Morality exists. (In an even more interesting way. There might be multiple One True Moralities though. (It makes sense in context.)) Worrying about an [unsupervised][unsupervised universe]) world is asking a wrong question; supervision has no effect on goodness. (These are just the conclusions. Will write about the actual arguments hopefully soon, though I'm unsure I actually should because I fear there might be a [moral basilisk][Missionary Paradox] around.) diff --git a/content_daily/log/23.mkd b/content_daily/log/23.mkd index 8610211..4351f8d 100644 --- a/content_daily/log/23.mkd +++ b/content_daily/log/23.mkd @@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ Meta-moral issues can't contribute anymore to my anxiety, so why is it still the Standard complication - can't go near it without the anxiety hijacking everything, preventing any work at all, thus increasing the problem. -Fortunately, I now have a Happy Place to work with. (Making metaphysics pay rent!) I noted that [Catholics][Catholics Right Again, News at 11], like Stoics, advocate using Saints etc. to guide you in your own exploration. (Robert M. Price speculates that this Stoic practice may be why early Gnostics invented Christ.) Someone else's problems are always easier to solve than your own, so it's time for some depersonalization! (Making psychosis pay rent!) +Fortunately, I now have a Happy Place to work with. (Making metaphysics pay rent!) I noted that Catholics, like Stoics, advocate using Saints etc. to guide you in your own exploration. (Robert M. Price speculates that this Stoic practice may be why early Gnostics invented Christ.) Someone else's problems are always easier to solve than your own, so it's time for some depersonalization! (Making psychosis pay rent!) (Stylized excerpt of inner dialog to allow later reconstruction.) diff --git a/content_daily/log/30.mkd b/content_daily/log/30.mkd index 9b3a820..b2b933a 100644 --- a/content_daily/log/30.mkd +++ b/content_daily/log/30.mkd @@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ Another advantage: I can finally do all my writing in Emacs. Much nicer than the I also merged all my various mail accounts, filters etc. into one Gmail account and finally uninstalled Thunderbird. So it's all Webmail (+ local backup). 2006, baby, here I come! -Unfortunately, that leaves me without mail notification 'cause I don't have a system tray (or taskbar or any of that other fancy "desktop environment" crap). So I decided to bite the bullet and finally began the switch from [Xmonad][] to [Awesome][] (again). Porting over all my configs will take ages, but oh well, it's time. Worked some hours (literally) on that. +Unfortunately, that leaves me without mail notification 'cause I don't have a system tray (or taskbar or any of that other fancy "desktop environment" crap). So I decided to bite the bullet and finally began the switch from Xmonad to [Awesome][] (again). Porting over all my configs will take ages, but oh well, it's time. Worked some hours (literally) on that. I started a short overview of several conceptions of "self", mostly so that I can use it as a kind of checklist in the future for the various no-self arguments. "Please show me in this list what it is you think I don't have.", basically. (Of course, I also believe that most of those conceptions are wrong.) Also, because it finally clicked how rebirth in (Theravada) Buddhism works, and how the use of anatta by certain Neo-Buddhists is quite misleading. diff --git a/content_daily/log/37.mkd b/content_daily/log/37.mkd index c1e6c05..9e7ef97 100644 --- a/content_daily/log/37.mkd +++ b/content_daily/log/37.mkd @@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ David Eagleman, via the [Existentialism tumblr][]\: > It is only through us that God lives. When we abandon him, he dies. -And of course the stuff from my [recent post][Illusion of Agency]. (See also the comments.) +And of course the stuff from my recent post. (See also the comments.) This all got me thinking.[^worse] @@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ This all got me thinking.[^worse] I miss [The Crazy][The Ark]. The problem is, I don't know how to get it back. I can try sitting on my ass all day until Purpose or She[^she] or any of the other insanities come back, but that seems unlikely to work. (I've been trying for years.) -[^she]: Think Sophia of the Gnostics. That ain't Her, but you get the idea. Or the quoted [Reddit comment][Illusion of Agency]. Sisterly is about half-way there. (I'm being deliberately obscure, refusing to name Her, for private reasons.) +[^she]: Think Sophia of the Gnostics. That ain't Her, but you get the idea. Or the quoted Reddit comment. Sisterly is about half-way there. (I'm being deliberately obscure, refusing to name Her, for private reasons.) But what bothers me most is not so much the *loss*, but the *passivity*. We[^we] have lost all kinds of things, including Meaning and Purpose, but we don't seem to attempt to get them *back*. Or get something *even better*. It's like we get the God is Dead part, but not the Will to Power part that comes afterwards. diff --git a/content_daily/log/51.mkd b/content_daily/log/51.mkd index 79babb6..843d175 100644 --- a/content_daily/log/51.mkd +++ b/content_daily/log/51.mkd @@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ techne: :done episteme: :log --- -So Sister Y tweeted my [Antinatalism FAQ][] draft, and I felt kinda embarrassed that it's still not done, so I worked more on it. *Hurm*.[^poke] +So Sister Y tweeted my antinatalism FAQ draft, and I felt kinda embarrassed that it's still not done, so I worked more on it. *Hurm*.[^poke] [^poke]: I hereby precommit to poke Sister Y with a sharp stick for that if we both end up in the same afterlife, and I'm still capable of poking her. I also precommit to do the same to anyone else who links to my unfinished drafts, even though I'm secretly always happy when they do. diff --git a/content_daily/log/52.mkd b/content_daily/log/52.mkd index 4c45cef..478024f 100644 --- a/content_daily/log/52.mkd +++ b/content_daily/log/52.mkd @@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ And because I'd pull a Dharma & Greg on pomade and marry it after the first date --- -Speculation: the trick to staying in (hypo)mania territory (and not slipping back into depression) is *enjoying* the constant drama and catharsis you go through. I'm not sure if it's turning me into a melodramatic attention whore (and if that's better than a whiny pessimist), but introspectively, it feels more like I'm (finally!) turning *camp*. I *seem* to get more stuff done that way, and at least half the time I'm calm and reasonable, (and the only crazy thing I do is write [overly dramatic posts][Ontological Therapy] from time to time, not start flame wars, kill someone out of jealousy or invade Poland, you know), and I'm *definitely* enjoying it more. +Speculation: the trick to staying in (hypo)mania territory (and not slipping back into depression) is *enjoying* the constant drama and catharsis you go through. I'm not sure if it's turning me into a melodramatic attention whore (and if that's better than a whiny pessimist), but introspectively, it feels more like I'm (finally!) turning *camp*. I *seem* to get more stuff done that way, and at least half the time I'm calm and reasonable, (and the only crazy thing I do is write overly dramatic posts from time to time, not start flame wars, kill someone out of jealousy or invade Poland, you know), and I'm *definitely* enjoying it more. --- diff --git a/content_daily/log/56.mkd b/content_daily/log/56.mkd index 89b1c53..a652284 100644 --- a/content_daily/log/56.mkd +++ b/content_daily/log/56.mkd @@ -70,7 +70,7 @@ Or as [the song][Doesn't Have To Be This Way] goes[^song]: I also tried writing a rant against misanthropy and being grumpy, and how "believe in the truth or be happy" is a nonsensical false dichotomy, and how pessimism is a glorification of your lack of skill, and other stuff, but you know, that's too self-refuting for my taste. -However, [the old Buddhists][Monks Are Awesome] could pull it off, I thought, so it *should* be possible... What can I use *besides* a rant to do a rant? +However, the old Buddhists could pull it off, I thought, so it *should* be possible... What can I use *besides* a rant to do a rant? Snark! diff --git a/content_daily/log/58.mkd b/content_daily/log/58.mkd index 6f0e78a..fb5837b 100644 --- a/content_daily/log/58.mkd +++ b/content_daily/log/58.mkd @@ -192,7 +192,7 @@ Or consider the 12 Apostles. Screw those guys! Paul is neat, especially when you ... That doesn't sound like a really deep disagreement with the Catholics to you? Me neither.[^fair] [^fair]: - And to be fair, my resistance has tremendously decreased over the last year or so. As much as I'm a fan of Gnostics and Paulinists like Marcion, they are certainly still wrong about a lot of things. Like [Docetism][], which is just plain nonsense. And as flawed as Vatican II etc. are, John Paul II. is a really cool dude, Benedict XVI. is [really *really* cool][Catholics Right Again, News At 11], and many of my disagreements might easily be just lack of experience and careful thinking on my part. + And to be fair, my resistance has tremendously decreased over the last year or so. As much as I'm a fan of Gnostics and Paulinists like Marcion, they are certainly still wrong about a lot of things. Like [Docetism][], which is just plain nonsense. And as flawed as Vatican II etc. are, John Paul II. is a really cool dude, Benedict XVI. is really *really* cool, and many of my disagreements might easily be just lack of experience and careful thinking on my part. And third, I'm too socially awkward and too much of a loner to integrate myself into a functional community. Sad but true. Especially because literally no one among my close friends or family is (relevantly) religious, or socially competent. (And I won't try also converting a bunch of hardcore communists.) If I had a cool Catholic (etc.) around who was theology-savvy and would like to be my sponsor, I'd seriously consider conversion. At a minimum for the lulz instrumental rationality and rituals. diff --git a/content_daily/log/60.mkd b/content_daily/log/60.mkd index 2b52c65..e6db81b 100644 --- a/content_daily/log/60.mkd +++ b/content_daily/log/60.mkd @@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ An announcement! (I should put this somewhere else too, maybe. Eh.) I've started to acquire quite a lot of sub-sites, so I decided to re-tool the main site a bit more aggressively, groups stuff more, clean up in general. This changed some of the links on the main site, and I moved some of that stuff back into the blog, but hey, no one ever linked to it (or even read it), so that shouldn't matter much. (I redirected urls anyway. I try to never break anything. Except my brain.) - is now a (simple) portal for all my sites, and the articles hosted directly there are Big Fat Things That Grow Over Time[^yo] But Have A Kind Of Limited Scope And Are At Some Point Done And Self-Contained. BFTTGOTBHAKOLSAAASPDASCs. (In [antediluvian][] times, I think they called these things "books". Or a "tractatus". Something like that.) For now, they are either way-too-ambitious posts like the [Antinatalism FAQ][] or stuff that all belongs together, in some sense. + is now a (simple) portal for all my sites, and the articles hosted directly there are Big Fat Things That Grow Over Time[^yo] But Have A Kind Of Limited Scope And Are At Some Point Done And Self-Contained. BFTTGOTBHAKOLSAAASPDASCs. (In [antediluvian][] times, I think they called these things "books". Or a "tractatus". Something like that.) For now, they are either way-too-ambitious posts like the Antinatalism FAQ or stuff that all belongs together, in some sense. I'll unify some more stuff[^crack] into single articles (like the antinatalism one), once there's a bit more content and I'm in the mood. I don't want to end up like Certain People who have elaborate intelligent arguments spread out over a bazillion blog posts and you can't just say, "read this huge site here, it contains everything you need to know".[^meta] @@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ Also, there is now an additional [universal RSS feed][Universal RSS] that includ --- -And because I'm reading more, and I like lists, and reviews, hey!, there's now a [Let's Read][] site! I don't expect it to be very in-depth, or heck, even active in a month or two, but let's throw fifty ideas against the wall, one might stick. (Or at least make the wall sticky. *Eww*.) +And because I'm reading more, and I like lists, and reviews, hey!, there's now a Let's Read site! I don't expect it to be very in-depth, or heck, even active in a month or two, but let's throw fifty ideas against the wall, one might stick. (Or at least make the wall sticky. *Eww*.) Not that it has any real content yet. I'm not even yet committing to posting anything there, but I've set it up anyway. I have, however, committed to a [new Beeminder goal][Beeminder anki new] of adding 5 new cards per day to my Anki decks, ignoring auto-generated cards for language learning.[^lang] Similarly, I may commit soon to, say, one review (or quote-thingy like for PIT) per week. Just trying to figure out how useful this would be for me. @@ -75,7 +75,7 @@ It's insane how much this calms me down. It's like applying a medkit to the *sou > [Moss][IT Crowd Football]: I wanna go back to being weird. I *like* being weird. Weird's all I've got. That, and my sweet style. -I thought a bit more about thinking about philosophy, and luckily found a [solution due to divine inspiration][Condemnation]. +I thought a bit more about thinking about philosophy, and luckily found a solution due to divine inspiration. As you may have guessed, this is based (quite literally) on the [Condemnation of 1277][], and about half of the condemnations are taken more-or-less directly from it (because I liked them[^ironic] and kept laughing about how the *original Condemnation of 1277* could be used, *verbatim*, to criticize several philosophy debates *today*). diff --git a/content_daily/log/67.mkd b/content_daily/log/67.mkd index 6b1f971..3503a81 100644 --- a/content_daily/log/67.mkd +++ b/content_daily/log/67.mkd @@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ High[^high] energy levels: muflax approved. Regardless, I still value the vipassana skills and the inherently stabilizing power, once you master this stuff. It's tremendously useful, but not a good foundation. - (And everyone who's ever done serious vipassana will have laughed at me when I called it "stabilizing". Seriously, Re-Observation is the least stable state you can imagine. But Re-Observation goes away, once you learned to [look through the wall][Why Can't I See Through This Wall?], and then you've got Equanimity. Fine skill to have.) + (And everyone who's ever done serious vipassana will have laughed at me when I called it "stabilizing". Seriously, Re-Observation is the least stable state you can imagine. But Re-Observation goes away, once you learned to look through the wall, and then you've got Equanimity. Fine skill to have.) <% end %> diff --git a/content_daily/log/69.mkd b/content_daily/log/69.mkd index eb7f312..a680b70 100644 --- a/content_daily/log/69.mkd +++ b/content_daily/log/69.mkd @@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ I also petitioned Damien to not delete the log entries, and thought about ways t --- -I've finished Price's [The Christ Myth Theory And Its Problems][]. +I've finished Price's The Christ Myth Theory And Its Problems. Well, it *is* a complete summary of the core Higher Criticism arguments. Some seem a little under-motivated, but if you are familiar with Price or the (German and Dutch) scholars he gets most of his ideas from, that's not a problem, but if you're reading the book, you likely haven't read Bultmann etc., so his case looks weaker than it is. Additionally, Price focuses entirely on text criticism, not say material evidence or anything like that. This is to be expected - it's Price's specialty - but may seem a bit one-sided. @@ -93,7 +93,7 @@ Once I've become World Dictator of the World, my mother gets the epic monument s (Also, got into my first ontological arguments on the largest German conspiracy forum back in the days. Crackpottery; crackpottery never changes.) - 1. [Pi][], movie, age 18. Hey Guys They Made A Sequel About My Life And The Stuff That Happened After I Wasn't Depressed Anymore [But Still Crazy][How My Brain Broke]. + 1. [Pi][], movie, age 18. Hey Guys They Made A Sequel About My Life And The Stuff That Happened After I Wasn't Depressed Anymore But Still Crazy. Favorite quote that sums up my 18-22 years: diff --git a/content_daily/log/75.mkd b/content_daily/log/75.mkd index 8d969b9..c268b7d 100644 --- a/content_daily/log/75.mkd +++ b/content_daily/log/75.mkd @@ -111,7 +111,7 @@ Reason: muflax' head is a complete mess, and if this were the W40K 'verse, it wo [^tokyo]: <% skip do %> - I mean, if my [rationalization][Dark Stance] of my [Too Kinky To Torture][] tendencies hadn't already tipped you off that I'm turning into little [赤ずきん][Tokyo Akazukin], minus the loli. (Maybe post-Singularity. It's on The List.) + I mean, if my rationalization of my [Too Kinky To Torture][] tendencies hadn't already tipped you off that I'm turning into little [赤ずきん][Tokyo Akazukin], minus the loli. (Maybe post-Singularity. It's on The List.) <% end %> I tried to wait it out, but it's been over a week now and my head has [only become messier][My Last Sunrise], and I find it hard to concentrate for even 10 seconds, so I'll try something else now. diff --git a/content_daily/log/77.mkd b/content_daily/log/77.mkd index 3386315..7aeb71a 100644 --- a/content_daily/log/77.mkd +++ b/content_daily/log/77.mkd @@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ techne: :done episteme: :log --- -Wrote [a quick post][Suffering? What suffering?] about suffering, and how I seem to have misplaced it or something, maybe it's under my pillow, no, was it even there to begin with, I don't know, have you seen it? (This might either be one of those really dumb or really important posts, in hindsight. Not sure which yet.) +Wrote a quick post about suffering, and how I seem to have misplaced it or something, maybe it's under my pillow, no, was it even there to begin with, I don't know, have you seen it? (This might either be one of those really dumb or really important posts, in hindsight. Not sure which yet.) Also started some of the preparation of a post about epistemological warrant, as proposed by Plantinga. It's a really cool concept, has some neat implications and enables *great* troll arguments[^troll], demonstrates why theologians aren't worthless (well, ok, this *is* epistemology, so maybe that's not the most convincing demonstration of usefulness...), and, most importantly, I'll need it later to argue that Crackpottery is also warranted. diff --git a/content_daily/log/81.mkd b/content_daily/log/81.mkd index b6431fe..a26b5f1 100644 --- a/content_daily/log/81.mkd +++ b/content_daily/log/81.mkd @@ -71,7 +71,7 @@ I can understand "badness" in terms of preferences (but then there are no inhere --- -Tried a second 30min sit, this time straightforward vipassana, hoping to visit the [Duke of Bananas][] the dukkha ñanas. They used to really fuck me up, so if *anything* is suffering, *they* are. Let's get that [anxiety][Wall] back online! Also wanted to see how different vipassana / samadhi practice is right now. +Tried a second 30min sit, this time straightforward vipassana, hoping to visit the [Duke of Bananas][] the dukkha ñanas. They used to really fuck me up, so if *anything* is suffering, *they* are. Let's get that anxiety back online! Also wanted to see how different vipassana / samadhi practice is right now. Spoiler: still no suffering, and no hint of intensification uprooting it anywhere, so I'm calling off the search, as they say. 100 times 0 is still 0. diff --git a/content_daily/log/85.mkd b/content_daily/log/85.mkd index 28a14a8..3abbfba 100644 --- a/content_daily/log/85.mkd +++ b/content_daily/log/85.mkd @@ -72,7 +72,7 @@ As for practice, Nurgle and reading have basically occupied whatever crappy reso <% skip do %> Before I gave it much thought, I was quite comfortable with Marcionite / Paulinist / Gnostic positions, and thought that Catholic redactions and interpretations were often clearly pandering or lame compromises, if not outright corruptions of original intent. That might still be true (in the sense that I still believe that the Catholic versions of the NT texts are late and highly edited), but they make a lot more sense than the alternatives. -For example, I find docetism (Jesus' suffering was just an illusion), a very common Gnostic position, now actively repugnant, and was surprised that Augustine rejected donatism, i.e. the idea that you can't receive valid sacraments from sinful priests. If that were the case, of course, *no* sacrament would ever work 'cause we're all stuck in a world of sin. (You might recall that this worried me [a while ago][Self-Baptism].) +For example, I find docetism (Jesus' suffering was just an illusion), a very common Gnostic position, now actively repugnant, and was surprised that Augustine rejected donatism, i.e. the idea that you can't receive valid sacraments from sinful priests. If that were the case, of course, *no* sacrament would ever work 'cause we're all stuck in a world of sin. (You might recall that this worried me a while ago.) So even if none of that stuff is actually true or relevant, the Catholics still know how to pick the best set of tropes. Dudes seriously thought this shit through. <% end %> diff --git a/content_daily/log/95.mkd b/content_daily/log/95.mkd index 9857ccb..61a0055 100644 --- a/content_daily/log/95.mkd +++ b/content_daily/log/95.mkd @@ -132,7 +132,7 @@ Made a new Anki deck for memories. My family has virtually no oral tradition, or what Korzybski used to call "time-binding", i.e. a process to pass on and preserve information. There are many important personal memories and scars that at most 2 people know about, and which will soon be forgotten. Most of my life, this didn't bother me. I *wanted* to take everything to the grave with me, and so was happy to deny those memories any further existence. -But now, I feel like a ghost, haunting old ruins. Everything is decaying and all dreams are broken, and yet I remain unattached. This reminds me that I never quite wrote down how I got into the [Dark Stance][]. +But now, I feel like a ghost, haunting old ruins. Everything is decaying and all dreams are broken, and yet I remain unattached. This reminds me that I never quite wrote down how I got into the Dark Stance. Originally, it grew out of frustration with what I used to call the Dukkha Core, a part of me that would never accept *anything*, that was never satisfied. I finally gave up and tried to diagonalize it by feeding it inputs it couldn't possibly deny, like itself, or the process of denial, or frustration itself. Eventually I thought, what if I just *decide* to be fine with the unacceptable. I couldn't make my mind not be hateful, so why didn't I just *embrace* hate for hate's sake? Not to turn it into something else - that would still get rejected - but to make those things the Dukkha Core called wrong, right. diff --git a/content_daily/pigs/hermeneutics.jpg b/content_daily/pigs/hermeneutics.jpg new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d25ff90 Binary files /dev/null and b/content_daily/pigs/hermeneutics.jpg differ diff --git a/content_letsread/index.mkd b/content_letsread/index.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index fb73173..0000000 --- a/content_letsread/index.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Let's Read -non_cognitive: true -no_comments: true ---- - -muflax reads stuff and comments on it. Sometimes, quotes out of context. - -<%= render "content-embed", :item => @site.latest_article %> diff --git a/content_letsread/read/after_virtue.mkd b/content_letsread/read/after_virtue.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 971266f..0000000 --- a/content_letsread/read/after_virtue.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: After Virtue and Whose Justice? Which Rationality? -date: 2012-07-02 -techne: :wip -episteme: :believed ---- - diff --git a/content_letsread/read/checklist.mkd b/content_letsread/read/checklist.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 753ebea..0000000 --- a/content_letsread/read/checklist.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,13 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Checklist Manifesto -date: 2012-06-24 -techne: :done -episteme: :believed ---- - -A review haiku. - -excellent idea -trapped in overly long book -watch [superior talk][checklist ted] - diff --git a/content_letsread/read/find_the_bug.mkd b/content_letsread/read/find_the_bug.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 29d685e..0000000 --- a/content_letsread/read/find_the_bug.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,43 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Find the Bug -date: 2010-02-22 -techne: :done -episteme: :believed ---- - -The book [Find the Bug][Find the Bug book] 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 criticize 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 unfortunately, the execution is rather lacking. The enforced simplicity (every program 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\* diff --git a/content_letsread/read/index.mkd b/content_letsread/read/index.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index eb56e19..0000000 --- a/content_letsread/read/index.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Stuff I Read -is_category: true ---- - -<%= category :read %> diff --git a/content_letsread/read/myth.mkd b/content_letsread/read/myth.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 0d8caab..0000000 --- a/content_letsread/read/myth.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,45 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: The Christ Myth Theory And Its Problems -date: 2012-07-11 -techne: :done -episteme: :believed ---- - -I've been reading Robert M. Price's [The Christ-Myth Theory And Its Problems][], mostly in the hope of getting a complete overview of his main arguments. - -Price is my favorite[^fav] New Testament scholar, but his main problem is that he has *hundreds* of live hypotheses flying around, all fascinating, but it's all spread out over a huge amounts of talks, podcasts and a [humongous reading list][Price Reading List]. Now, I'm an obsessive bible nerd and I've listened to literally hundreds of hours of Price's podcast and read many of his books, and I'll be working myself through his reading list as soon as I can read Latin and Greek, but one good collection of at least the Jesus material would be cool. (I'm also really excited about his upcoming book on Paul.) - -[^fav]: Ok, Richard Carrier is pretty neat too. Carrier is better at analytical thought (*much* better), but Price gets the tropes and Christian way of thinking. They complement each other perfectly. - -Right now, the best recommendation is the [Pre-Nicene New Testament][], Price's attempt to reconstruct all of the early Christian texts and their layers of redaction. It's an amazing book and I think a really cool way to present his arguments. "If I'm right, then the original texts must have looked roughly like this", and it turns out, these reconstructions make a lot of sense, are all plausible and match the evidence. Once you've seen them, it's really obvious how the whole historization process went and why the canon looks the way it does. You can't unsee the Jesus myth afterwards. - -But still, it's got 1200+ pages, and a neat summary of all major hypotheses would be very useful. - -The Christ-Myth Theory mostly lives up to my expectations and gives a good detailed presentation for the myth hypothesis. There are some alternative constructions Price doesn't go much into, but he namedrops everyone that matters, so that's not a problem. - -My main problem, and it's not an important one, with Price is that he seems to suffer somewhat from selection bias, or at least the presentation does. While you can successfully deconstruct, say, the Gospel of Mark as a re-telling of several source texts, like 1 Kings and the Iliad, and it's hard to unsee this once you compare the texts (which Price fortunately quotes extensively), but *what else* can you deconstruct this way? - -When I've been immersed in Higher Criticism texts for a while, *everything* looks blatantly fictitious to me, including *stuff that happened to me*. If you consistently apply these methods, most pre-modern texts should be considered fiction! This isn't necessarily *wrong*, and I'm sure Price is a fair bit agnostic of any narrative's truthfulness, but it's still a *far* more radical claim than he lets on. - -Also, while it *is* a complete summary of the core Higher Criticism arguments, some seem a little under-motivated. If you are familiar with Price or the (German and Dutch) scholars he gets most of his ideas from, that's not a problem, but if you're reading the book, you likely haven't read Bultmann etc., so his case looks weaker than it is. Additionally, Price focuses entirely on text criticism, not say material evidence or anything like that. This is to be expected - it's Price's specialty - but may seem a bit one-sided. - -I also fear that the presentation is not ideal for *convincing* someone of a mythicist perspective - Carrier's writing, or the [Pre-Nicene New Testament][], or Price's earlier books, are much better at getting the core ideas across. CMTAIP spends very little time on the meta arguments, like why the Criterion of Embarrassment is invalid, and instead focuses on a complete (but somewhat superficial, due to space constraints) deconstruction of the New Testament material. - -At some point, Price concludes: - -> I have more than once drawn attention to D.F. Strauss' critical axiom that, once we expose the mythical *Tendenz* of a gospel story, we have no right to try to salvage specifics, secondary details, from it. That is just a lame attempt to try to make bad evidence into good, and it partakes of a kind of [Euhemerism][], arbitrarily positing a more modest, possibly original version underlying that which we can in good conscience no longer accept. If we can no longer affirm as historians that Jesus walked on water, we cannot pretend that the story in which he did is still good as evidence that knew where the stepping stones were. There is no reason to insist that secondary details, there just to background or advance the story, have an independent historicity when the main story dissolves under critical scrutiny. -> -> I will ask no one to follow me here, but I cannot deny that the question weighs more and more on my critical conscience whether the same thinking ought not apply to the mythos of Jesus Christ as a whole. I mean, the story of Jesus which we have, in every form, remains a redemption myth constructed along the lines of the universal Mythic Hero Archetype, with no "secular", biographical material left over. When we are done dismantling the records and we begin ghoulishly picking through the scanty remains for clues to an underlying "historical Jesus", like people scavenging gold from the teeth and fingers of the battlefield dead, are we perhaps engaging in Euhemerism? I have assumed throughout the present chapter that we could picture a forceful itinerant preacher in a first-century Jewish context. But, based on that paradigm, the Jesus Seminar found precious little data fitting the model, and I have found even less. Is this because we have been trying to interpret the data against their intent? The story wants to preach to us a divine savior who entered this world from heaven and shortly returned there, betrayed, repudiated, martyred, but vindicated. We are having none of that. We can tell that is myth, pure and simple. So we ask what bits would make sense if we abstracted them from their familiar context and made them mean something else, as if the atheist should take the Psalm verse out of context, stripping away the introduction, "The fool has said in his heart", then triumphantly quoting what is left: "There is no God!". - -I completely agree with this, and would similarly extend this to *any* mythological text. I'm just as much a mythicist about Siddhartha, for example. - -To paraphrase C.S. Lewis: - -> You must make your choice. Either these men were, and are, gods, or else mythological or something worse. You can deconstruct them as myths, you can despise them for lying, or you can fall at their feet and call them lord. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about their being great human teachers. They have not left that open to us. They did not intend to. - -Which is why, for example, I have a lot of respect for [Bhikkhu Bodhi][] and none for proponents of "mindfulness". You don't get to throw out the whole framework of justification, like the fundamental evil of existence in Theravada, and still keep the parts you kinda like. There's no "nice" or "productive" or "sane" vipassana. - -Similarly, the divine aspect is inseparable from Jesus. You don't get to construct an "historical" version for rationalists - there's no such thing. Miracle or myth, everything else is intellectually dishonest[^dishonest]. - -[^dishonest]: - Though you are excused from believing the majority opinion of there having been an historical Jesus when you're not familiar with the evidence, I think. Most New Testament experts are worthless, but an outsider wouldn't know that, and shouldn't be expected to realize it right away. diff --git a/content_letsread/read/pit.mkd b/content_letsread/read/pit.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index badf5b5..0000000 --- a/content_letsread/read/pit.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,87 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Psychedelic Information Theory -date: 2012-05-12 -techne: :done -episteme: :believed ---- - -I've been reading James Kent's [PIT][], mostly to get some easy testable predictions out of it. Basically, his idea is that (most) hallucinations are the result of linear systems in the brain destabilizing. For example, by introducing some lag into certain feedback loops, you get fractal patterns in your visual perception, or by decoupling memory and frontal lobe activity, you get essentially dream content merged into waking states, i.e. hallucinations. - -Well, it's annoyingly superficial, and is often so imprecise and unexplained as to resemble technobabble. If you already understand where he's coming from, then it will all seem kinda obvious. If not, it's mostly useless. Sigh, expected much more. - -But then there's stuff like this: - -> In programmatic terms the hallucinogenic interrupt can be thought of as a back-door or reboot mechanism that allows the subject to enter a visually driven ego programming and debugging matrix; this state would be similar to hypnosis mixed with an element of lucid dreaming or creative visualization. To stretch the computer metaphor further, in the absence of hypnotic suggestion or shamanic control, the psychedelic debugging matrix will naturally drop into a maintenance mode where anxieties are brought to the fore like a screen-saver programmed to browse through repressed salient forms arising within chaotic patterns. - -One of the primary reason I'm interested in drugs, and why I prefer low doses nowadays. - -> Shamanic transformation may stimulate neuroplasticity by helping the subject realize a more transcendent or spiritually integrated vision of themselves. The logic follows that transformation of the inner self will then reinforce positive personality traits and drive outer behavioral changes to synchronize with inner idealization. The shamanic transformation is not instantaneous, but instead follows an integrative process of synaptic testing and reinforcement over a period of days to weeks. - -First, be the Buddha; then, become the Buddha. First, be Japanese; then, learn Japanese. First, be saved; then, become perfect. - -> -> There are many examples of negative psychedelic neuroplasticity. Renegade schools of ayahuasca sorcery and witchcraft employ some of the most elaborate and lethal mind-games ever devised, including the constant fear of attack by rival sorcerers through poisons, curses, dream invasion, and magical darts that may induce paralysis, cancer, death, or insanity. The traditional shaman's constant stress of exposure to the effects of black magic mirrors paranoid psychosis and post-traumatic stress disorder; this implies negative plasticity. Exposing any subject to extended and repeated psychedelic sessions may force stress-driven neuroplasticity associated with PTSD, torture, isolation, and sensory deprivation. Psychedelics may speed techniques of ego deprogramming and imprinting associated with brainwashing or cult-indoctrination; this implies mind control and negative neuroplasticity. Psychedelics may aid in imprinting or reinforcing delusional, messianic, paranoid, sociopathic, antisocial and megalomaniacal identity traits; this also implies negative neuroplasticity. -> -> One of the most interesting aspects of psychedelic experimentation is that psychedelics can catalyze spontaneous organization of tribal subcultures and grassroots political movements. According to PIT, if you destabilize the top-down regulating influence of culture within a small group of peers, energetic nonlinear tribal organizations will spontaneously emerge within those groups. History has demonstrated that if you sprinkle LSD over a city then flower children will blossom and begin to reproduce. But close observation of modern psychedelic subcultures reveals that radical identity reinvention is not a function of spiritual freedom or political subversion, but is more a viral form of tribal bonding and indoctrination. For example, the hippies of 1960s and the ravers of 1990s each preached freedom and individuality, yet each culture had strictly controlled tribal uniforms, politics, musical styles, rituals, and so on, and ostracized outsiders as being squares or un-hip. This indicates that psychedelic identity reinvention is not a function of freedom of expression or social liberation, but is instead driven by the typical rewards of social elitism, the fears of being ostracized, and the reinforcements of tribal acceptance; all of which strongly affect identity-based neuroplasticity. Presumably any tribe, cultural group, religion, cult, or government can employ psychedelic neuroplasticity to similar social organizing effect. -> -> [...] -> -> The shaman's role will always be intertwined with the spiritual belief of the larger tribe or culture. It does not matter what the mythology is, a good shaman can adapt any mythology or belief to transformational ritual. Instead of preaching the mythology, the shaman exploits the mythology as a handle or tool for interfacing with and manipulating the subject's core identity structures. By adopting a mythology that's alluring to the patient, the shaman can apply identity transformation within a seamless spiritual context. The process of finding or seeding an emotional handle is a skill that can be learned, but it can also be purely intuitive. The technologies of religion, propaganda, agitprop, and social activism all use negative emotional handles to influence people's beliefs and behaviors; shamanism employs many of the same techniques with positive emotional handles. The practice of manipulating belief like a tool to produce transformative results has become popularly known as chaos magic. - -Voices: - -> When a shaman takes a psychedelic he or she hears the spirit voices and intuitively learns to sing the spirit songs. These songs are taken directly from the shaman's head as the psychedelic begins to interrupt consciousness. [...] The voice of the shamanic medicine is not human in the typical sense, the psychedelic voice is described more in terms of a repetitive bleeping and blooping machine code; a biological thrumming; an electronic alien pulsation; a guttural river of slurping and squelching sounds; the great wheeze of a mystical reed organ; and so on. [...] All of these colorful metaphors are the same in that they perfectly describe a standing wave in the alpha to gamma range driving amplitude along multisensory perceptual bands. As the hallucinogenic voice grows in strength, the resonance of its standing wave then couples with and drives the amplitude of all internal physiological processes. -> -> [...] By using the physical techniques of sound shaping and resonance the shaman can amplify the hallucinogenic interrupt of any psychedelic and, beyond that, drive standing wave coherence among multiple participants in a shamanic ritual. This process is intuitive if the shaman merely pays close attention to his or her internal physiology as the hallucinogen takes action. -> -> [...] According to PIT, nonlinear consciousness is multi-stable, which means it can have many strange attractors pulling it towards many different states; or it can become stable in a periodic phase transition between two or more attractors. In normal perception the primary attractor is linear consciousness; when consciousness is dramatically perturbed it will always find a way to return to the linear state after enough time, and consciousness tends to stay in the linear state even when momentarily destabilized. In nonlinear consciousness the attractor may be a manic state, a trance state, a disoriented state, a paranoid state, an enlightened state, and so on. [...] Once a subject under the influence of psychedelics finds an attractor state and locks into it, it becomes difficult to break the stabilizing pattern and move towards another attractor state. Navigating between strange attractors in the destabilized nonlinear state is a large part of shamanic singing and ritual; without the ability to self-navigate to a specific attractor, the subject may be pulled into a negative attractor, like an anxiety spiral or paranoid feedback loop. - -This reminded me of the fact that I don't actually know what new attractor I'm aiming for. I don't have any kind of *goal* in mind. Hurm. - -Layers of perception: - -> Mixing the Control Interrupt Model with traditional shamanic metaphors, it is accurate to say that the spirit space of each hallucinogen is literally erupting or interrupting into normal reality by carving out a distinct wave space where spirits can sneak packets of information to the subject in between normal frames. -> -> [...] -> -> To clarify this process, in the realm of shamanism it may be helpful to think of serotonergic modulation as reality, and the frequency of the hallucinogen as the spirit world. If serotonergic reality is modulated in the beta range at 12-30hz, and the hallucinogenic interrupt of tryptamine Y is modulated to 24hz, then there will be a predictable 24hz frame flicker superimposed over normal perception when you ingest hallucinogen Y. The interrupt frequency of 24hz presumes a very fast interrupt, fast enough to produce film-like or fully animated cartoon hallucinations. The 24hz spirit interrupt then masks itself onto multisensory pathways and is perceived as an ontologically distinct spirit realm emerging as a phantom but embedded part of physical reality. - -Like splicing a second TV channel into the current show, or essentially lucid dreaming without sleeping. Of course, the interesting question is, where's the second channel *from*? Parts of it, Kent speculates, are artifacts of various interferences (like frames not properly decaying, so you get something close to pointing a camera at the screen). But the more complex stuff, like faces, entities, different worlds and so on, he basically puts aside as "dreams". Which may be right, but then, *why the fuck* is a significant part of the brain constantly dreaming, and only occasionally forced into order by frontal-lobe activities? - -So much chaos. [Someone][Discordianism] had to put it there! - -Also: - -> While studying the effects of various hallucinogens, I would always notice a carrier wave, or a high-pitched frequency, or a pulsing, or a throbbing, or a tingling, or some kind of stable interference that was familiar to that substance. And after studying various trip reports for various substances, I realized I was not alone in recording these simple observations. This stable interference is often reported to permeate all sensation; touch, hearing, vision, the entire body. I began to measure the frequencies of these pulses and tingles for different hallucinogens and realized that they all fell into alpha and beta states of consciousness, between 4 to 30 pulses per second, and each drug had a slightly different timing and feel to the way the pulses came on and interrupted consciousness. The slower the interruption, the more of a throbbing or stuttering I felt; the faster the interruption, the more of a tingling, vibration, or high-pitched tremor I felt. - -Vibrations in vipassana. Kent doesn't make the connection explicit, but suggests so elsewhere. Vipassana is the deliberate, non-drug-based destabilization of consciousness along a fairly predictable path. It's not at all surprising that vipassana and jhana states map to certain drugs (and doses). The inevitable Progress of Insight along the nanas/jhanas is only inevitable insofar as you rely on certain destabilization techniques. Drugs and other approaches open up different paths. Jumping directly into "higher" attainments becomes possible. The trick isn't so much reaching them, but making them the default, and switching at will. - -> And then as I began analyzing that one simple pulse interaction, I wondered if pulse interruption in frame perception was all that was needed to produce hallucination. [...] What if those pulses were the drug's only action, and the throbbing was the perceptual aggregate of modulatory interference at sensory binding junctions? - -Notice the flickering of all perception, tune into the flickering, learn to intuitively adjust the flickering rate, until you can create a cascade that crashes the system, and for a timeless moment, all perception stops. That's vipassana in one sentence. - -First, widen your attention so that [this][synchronization] happens. Then, [push][tacoma]. - -> Subjects in a destabilized nonlinear state often report enhanced sensations of non-random coincidence, or synchronicity, that appear to defy all rationality. Accounts of hidden forces acting in concert to send messages through non-random coincidence are common in psychosis, paranoia, schizophrenia, mania, bipolar disorder, and psychedelic intoxication. On psychedelics this state is dose dependent and increases in complexity with larger doses until it appears the entire fabric of reality, down the subatomic level, is speaking directly to the subject with a singular narrative message. While in the synchronicity hole nothing in the universe is random and all coincidence is laden with hidden subtext that makes sense only to the subject. From a clinical standpoint the synchronicity hole represents a state of high delusional megalomania, yet this is exactly the kind of logic we should expect from a nonlinear analysis of reality. Linear analysis may perceive the leaves on a tree as a random distribution; a nonlinear analysis will see a singular non-random function underlying the genesis of complex form. -> -> Subjective accounts of the synchronicity hole describe an immediate precognitive insight where probability appears to collapse and the subject intuitively knows exactly what is going to happen next. A shaman in this space is said to be able to look forward in time into many probable futures, and can choose any potential future by following the pathway that leads him there. By applying synchronicity magic and selecting non-random pathways into the future, the shaman collapses probability and subtly alters the fabric of reality. This process can also be described as a form of deterministic neuroplasticity. -> -> [...] -> -> Spirit contact is a central part of many psychedelic practices. While the autonomy of spirit entities is a subject for some debate, the reports of seeing spirits under the influence of psychedelics are common enough to make some formal observations. First, psychedelic entities are anthropomorphic interfaces through which psychedelic information is generated or transmitted. Second, formal spirit types represent idealized versions of specific information matrices: cellular, insect, plant, animal, ancestral, mythic, alien, pagan, machine, cosmic, and so on, and each type of spirit reveals different insights into the ordered nature of life and the universe. Third, psychedelic spirits are tricksters; they often speak in riddles, communicate in visual rebus and pantomime, and typically never give you a straight answer to inquiries. From an information standpoint it does not matter if the spirits are real or delusion, the information they generate is real and can be analyzed from a formal perspective. -> -> [...] -> -> Subjective accounts of psychedelic transcendence often include reports of a cosmic connection to a single unified force, a force which sometimes speaks to or through the subject. This force does not appear physically or anthropomorphically, but instead appears to be imbued in the fabric of all things. Typically the subject is meditating, is engaged in breathing exercises, or has detached focus when the voice begins to speak. When this force speaks it is through a layered nattering and murmuring arising from random and unrelated background noises. In a destabilized state these random background noises synchronize into a coherent pattern of linear, directed communication from one fundamental source. When the fundamental source energy senses the subject's heightened awareness, it begins to coalesce and speak through his or her mind. This voice typically introduces itself in the subject's language with the slowly repeating phrase, "I am the All One, all that is, was, and will ever be." -> -> The All One is subjectively perceived as the mind, consciousness, will, and intent of the physical universe. There is an undeniable sense of love, acceptance, and unity infused with the contact. Formal accounts of communion with the All One date back to the origins of Hermeticism and Gnosticism, and depict a pantheistic, teleological view of the universe as the sacred physical body of an omniscient God. Formal accounts of the All One clearly depict the scale of timeless, omnipresent, omniscience we would come to expect from God. If we are to take the formal description of the All One literally it can be implied that the voice of God is always present, constantly repeating and speaking through the sounds and rhythms of the natural world. There is only one requirement for communing with the All One; the voice is only accessible to people who have destabilized linear perception and can parse environmental data in novel, nonlinear ways. -> -> In accounts of mysticism and madness God only speaks to people in states of highly nonlinear destabilization: deprivation, psychosis, schizophrenia, stress, fever, and hallucination; because of this it is easy to assume that hearing the voice of God is a symptom of insanity. [...] Without debating the metaphysical existence of God, the formal techniques for subjectively communing with the All One are reliable and repeatable, and can be readily achieved through temporary, reversible destabilization of linear perception via psychedelic drugs. -> -> [...] -> -> Many of the ideas generated in a psychedelic session may be delusional or fantastical, but because of the sheer volume of ideas generated a small percentage are also destined to be insightful and genius. Within the flow of psychedelic information it is up to the subject to decide which bits are useful and which bits are not, and the trick of this disambiguation comes when attempting to translate nonlinear insight to linear concepts, beliefs, and behaviors. If nonlinear insights compress easily to linear concepts then spirit information may be of high value; if nonlinear insights are confusing or defy rationality then perhaps the spirits are up to their old tricks again. Either way, spirit information should always be carefully parsed and analyzed for trickery and deception before being integrated into belief. - -This worries me. I've thought (and less frequently, said) similar things, but seeing someone else say it makes it clearer to me how *crazy* this idea complex is. And not the good kind of crazy. - -I'm slipping. I need to take a break. diff --git a/content_muflax/changelog.mkd b/content_muflax/changelog.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index b0ad12f..0000000 --- a/content_muflax/changelog.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,58 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Changelog -non_cognitive: true ---- - -> Well, this site's existed for long enough now that there must be people coming back and wondering "Has anything new gone up?". In an ideal world, they'd all be forced to read my pages over and over again until they'd got 'em memorised and could spot the places where I've turned a comma into a semicolon… but until then, I'll let people bookmark this page and visit every six months to see how little progress there's been. -> -> -- jbr's [changelog][jbr changelog] - -All major changes on the site -============================= - -{:#changelog} -- 2012/06/22: Major cleanup and restructuring due to the [Condemnation][]. - - is now an explicit portal, some content got moved around, some disowned, some episteme tags got updated. - - There is an [universal RSS feed][Universal RSS] for all stuff. - -- 2012/05/25: [Antinatalism FAQ][] is officially not a draft anymore. - -- 2012/04/18: Major site redesign. - - No content changes, lots of internal stuff, integration of old stuff. See [the daily log entry][Losing is Fun] for details. - -- 2012/02/04: Finally pushed some changes. - - Also improved the site's design somewhat. Larger articles now have a table of contents and general navigation is more visible. The main column moved to the left to accomodate for the new navigation bar. To make feedback easier, I've added a comment box. (Web 2.0! We still care about this, right guys? Guys?) I also accept [anonymous feedback][whatiswrongwith.me] about anything. (Yes, anything.) - - Drafts are now semi-integrated into the site. The are reachable if you know the address, but they don't show up on the index pages. That way I can still reference them or let someone read early versions without having to hide them. - - The RSS feed now has a link to each new article as it appears as well as to this changelog. That way I don't have to announce everything manually. - - I'll soon(tm) port the Wordpress [Blog][] over to nanoc as well. Once everything is static content (besides the comments), I'll change hosts to [NFS.net][]. - - I've begun writing an [Antinatalism Overview][]. It will cover many (all?) arguments for and against bringing life into existence. It's hopefully more approachable than the scattered philosophy material on the topic and will eventually be more rigorous than existing overviews. I got fed up with opponents of antinatalism constantly misrepresenting its arguments, and antinatalists not making all their assumptions explicit. - - Contrary to mainstream philosophy, I also included some common transhumanist replies to the arguments. I try not to push my own view too much, but I'm also adding my own commentary to it. Anything else would be dishonest. Regardless, it's not yet finished, but "release early, release often", right? It's maybe 30% done and has already ~7k words. Maybe I'll write a summary of the summary, too. - - I'm also collecting antinatalism memes and quotes in the [Antinatalism Tumblr][]. - - More overviews are coming. Soon-ish. If I don't get bored, that is. Basically, the languages articles are't happening, Great Filter is somewhat delayed and an informal introduction to Solomonoff Induction and Kolmogorov Complexity is coming This Month(tm). - - I've also begun writing an overview about New Testament scholarship, mostly to collect interesting theories and keep all the names straight. It will be months until it will actually be useful, but I have time. - - I've moved some stuff from the [Blog][] into proper articles. Content didn't change in case you read them already. The other posts will also be converted once I transition away from the blog. Articles: [Backups][], [Developing Synesthesia][], [Dude, Where's My Time?!][], [On Samsara][], [Persinger's Magnetic Field Hypothesis][], [Three Sides][], [Why Can't I See Through This Wall?][], [Why I'm Not a Vegetarian][]. - - The categories have also changed to accomodate the new writing. - -- 2011/09/04: Converted whole site to [nanoc][]. Most of the content got re-organized, but not widely changed. A few things have disappeared, but will probably come back in a better form later. The design is reasonably the same, with some minor tweaks. The navigation bar is now at the bottom to deal with some footnote issues. - - Every page has an [Epistemic State][] now. This is an important step to convert this into proper long-term content. Sites are also dated now, so that some obviously out-dated material is clearly visible as such (and new material is obvious on the main page). - - I added the story [Milinda and the Minotaur][] I wrote some time ago, but never felt like publishing. Thanks to [epistemic states][Epistemic State] though, I now can. - - I do plan articles on the Great Filter and languages (use and learning), but dunno how long this'll take. For now, this is mostly a setup to make it really easy for me to write more stuff and release faster. I have a couple of drafts lying around I might revive, particularly a comparison of the [Theravada][] path model of enlightenment with the Matrix movie. - - (I also threw away the old changelog because it's useless now anyway. Check the [git history][Source] if you care.) diff --git a/content_muflax/index.mkd b/content_muflax/index.mkd index ef19954..52181a3 100644 --- a/content_muflax/index.mkd +++ b/content_muflax/index.mkd @@ -9,9 +9,9 @@ no_comments: true Yet another hypergraphic information whore's site. -[muflax][] is empty. +[muflax][] is learning how to control you. -Links are sorted by mysterious processes. There is a [Changelog][] for major changes. You can subscribe to the [universal RSS feed][Universal RSS] for all sites, or go to each site for their individual feeds.[^snr] +You can subscribe to the [universal RSS feed][Universal RSS] for all sites, or go to each site for their individual feeds.[^snr] [^snr]: As if you cared about signal-to-noise. I know you watch cats jump into boxes all day like the rest of us. @@ -26,23 +26,13 @@ There is also [Twitter][]. <%= render "list-item-fancy", :name => @site.site_yaml["sites"]["blog"]["title"], :link => site_url("blog"), - :desc => "A Blog" %> + :desc => "Articles About Stuff" %> <%= render "list-item-fancy", :name => @site.site_yaml["sites"]["daily"]["title"], :link => site_url("daily"), :desc => "Daily Practice" %> -<%= render "list-item-fancy", - :name => @site.site_yaml["sites"]["letsread"]["title"], - :link => site_url("letsread"), - :desc => "Reading Is Radical" %> - -<%= render "list-item-fancy", - :name => @site.site_yaml["sites"]["sutra"]["title"], - :link => site_url("sutra"), - :desc => "Bloggin' The Sutras" %> - <%= render "list-item-fancy", :name => @site.site_yaml["sites"]["gospel"]["title"], :link => site_url("gospel"), @@ -50,33 +40,24 @@ There is also [Twitter][]. -# Topics +# Some Topics
    -<%= render "list-item-fancy", - :name => "Antinatalism", - :link => local_link("muflax:morality/antinatalism"), - :desc => "Being Born Sucks" %> - <%= render "list-item-fancy", :name => "Crackpottery", :link => local_link("blog:crackpottery/crackpot-beliefs-the-theory"), :desc => "Warranted Crackpot Belief" %> -<%= render "list-item-fancy", - :name => "Dark Stance", - :link => local_link("muflax:morality/stances"), - :desc => "Transform Nothing, Seek No Gain" %> - -<%= render "list-item-fancy", - :name => "Experiments", - :link => local_link("blog:experiments"), - :desc => "Trying Cool Stuff" %> - <%= render "list-item-fancy", :name => "Meta-Ethics", :link => local_link("blog:morality"), :desc => "Solving Morality" %> +<%= render "list-item-fancy", + :name => "Languages", + :link => local_link("blog:languages"), + :desc => "Learning Languages" %> + +
diff --git a/content_muflax/morality/antinatalism.mkd b/content_muflax/morality/antinatalism.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 19b527c..0000000 --- a/content_muflax/morality/antinatalism.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,677 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Antinatalism Overview -alt_titles: [Antinatalism FAQ] -date: 2012-05-25 -techne: :rough -episteme: :speculation -toc: true ---- - -> If only I could show you the places I have seen, you might understand the things I say. I have been to the desolate lands, wandered by those souls who still see the lands of the living but wear the cloak of the dead. Blind to their own ends, they cry, passing through one another like shadows in the dying light of day. I have travelled to where souls rot in torment, pierced with the jagged shards of life and vision, clinging to memory - regrets of the flesh. I saw that this prison was of their own making, and the key was in unknowing, in release. And still, I travelled on. -> -> And finally, I came to the place where souls go to die, where the mirrored and worn spirits fall into an endless sea of grey, mirrored glass, and I lowered myself within, and lay there among them, and I almost did not return. -> -> And do you know what I found there? There, among the silent and battered shells of the innumerable? Peace. Enlightenment. Truth. Only then did I realize that this place, this "Life", is an abomination, a horrible distortion of the natural order. This *"Life"*, who mothered Pain, and Fear, and Envy - these twisted children who exist only because we are here to feed them, to nourish them. This *"Life"*, this *afterthought* - a disturbance, a mere ripple in that great, dead sea. Not even the cause, but merely an effect, sending these souls upwards, screaming for release from the day they are torn from their waters! The effect of what?! -> -> I do not know. Nor do I care. -> -> Have you ever spoken with the dead? Called to them from this side? Called them from their silent rest? Do you know what it is that they feel? Pain. Pain, when torn into this wakefulness, this reminder of the chaos from which they had escaped. Pain - for having to live. There will be no more pain. There will be no more chaos. -> -> -- [Kerghan][], about to end the world ([video][Kerghan Speech]) - -# Why You Got Screwed - -I've got bad news for you. According to some philosophers, there is a huge source of harm in the world. This harm is rarely addressed and marginalized in society. Even worse, *you* are already affected by it. The harm? *Being born*. - -This position is called *antinatalism*. - -There are many different arguments for antinatalism. It also poses a unique challenge to many ethical theories, and gives unusual answers to well-known problems. The purpose of this FAQ is to give an introduction to all of this. - -But more importantly, it alls tries to *accurately* represent antinatalism. When I researched the position, I was surprised how few non-antinatalist sources actually cared to read the original arguments, relying instead on distorted summaries or second-hand texts. Maybe this FAQ will provide a better overview for the curious reader. - -## Some Notes - -As a stylistic convention, I will refer to all good experiences as a "benefit" and all bad ones as a "harm". This is superior to words like "pleasure" or "pain", which can refer to either very specific sensations (e.g. having a toothache) or the whole category. So to prevent this confusion, everything bad is a harm. If I mean specifically just pain, I'll say so.[^anhedonia] - -[^anhedonia]: Another reason I prefer this categorization into benefit/harm is [anhedonia][Anhedonia] in its various forms. It doesn't make much sense to speak of "pain" during states of emotionlessness, but one can certainly still be harmed. - -I'd also like to stress that I use negations in their strict sense, i.e. "not good" does not mean "bad", but rather "either bad or neutral". - -I try to limit the amount of details and disclaimers. For this I just refer you to the linked blogs and books, mostly [Better Never to Have Been][] and [The View from Hell][]. However, I do strive to cover all the arguments and their criticisms. [Contact][] me or leave a comment if you think I missed or misrepresented something, but consider the [Principle of Charity][] as well. Assume that obvious gaps are just omissions on my side for the sake of brevity, and that perceived flaws are a result of the still draft-like nature of the FAQ, not an accurate representation of someone's arguments. - -As this is a FAQ arguing *for* antinatalism, it focuses on the antinatalist arguments and treats pronatalist positions as rebuttals of specific assumptions or lines of reasoning. - -(And yes, this isn't really a FAQ. Deal with it.) - -What's Antinatalism? -==================== - -In short, antinatalism (from lat. natalis, birth) is the position that coming into existence is a harm, and thus, it is generally morally wrong to have children. There are a range of positions about *how bad* this harm is, how *universal* it is and if it can be *overridden* in certain circumstances. - -The names for these positions are mine, but are reasonably close to common versions. I've linked each position with its most relevant arguments, but I recommend you just follow the flow of the FAQ to get a general overview. - -## Pronatalism - -It is never wrong to bring someone into existence. - -- [Non-Person Values](#non-person) -- [the Hedonic Treadmill is good for us](#treadmill) -- [The Unborn have Rights](#positive-rights) - -## Indifference - -It isn't *wrong* to bring someone into existence, but isn't right either. Both outcomes are morally equivalent, so we should decide based on other considerations, like our personal preferences or economic costs. - -- [Epicurean view of death](#epicurus) - -## Minor Antinatalism - -There are *some* beings who are worse off, but on average, it works out. This seems like the majority view of humanity. - -- [Without slaves, Rome would collapse!](#slaves) -- [Harm is Unlikely](#odds) -- [most people want to live](#want-to-live) - -## Major Antinatalism - -Some beings are better off alive, but on average, the harm dominates. This position is not unusual among transhumanists, who might think that humanity has a possible good future, but so far has mostly suffered. It is not uncommon for people to hold off on having children because the world is too horrible at a given time. - -- [Life Sucks](#sucks) -- [Astronomical Waste](#waste) - -## Categorical Antinatalism {#categorical} - -It is always wrong to bring someone into existence. *Every* being is worse off alive. Even [Yotsuba][]. - -- [The Asymmetry](#asymmetry) -- [Benefit and Harm aren't comparable](#comparable) -- [All life is Non-Consensual](#kaldor-hicks) - -## A Note on Circles - -One thing this overview won't address is any argument for the particular size of the ethical circle, i.e. the set of all morally relevant beings. It doesn't really matter for antinatalism whether you think [only you][Egoism] or [all animals][Animal Rights] matter, or if the circle is [expanding][Expanding Circle] or [narrowing][Narrowing Circle]. For simplicity's sake, I will assume the circle encompasses all humans, but most arguments can be trivially modified for any size. - -Arguments for Antinatalism -========================== - -The Asymmetry {#asymmetry} --------------------------- - -The asymmetry is probably the most important argument for antinatalism for two reasons. First, it argues for the strongest form, [Categorical Antinatalism](#categorical). If it's true, there is no room for compromise. Existence is bad, period. And second, many other arguments can be reduced to or are overshadowed by it. - -The asymmetry is [Benatar][]'s famous core argument. It's deceptively simple: - -1. The presence of harm is bad. -2. The presence of benefit is good. -3. The absence of harm is good, even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone. -4. The absence of benefit is not bad unless there is somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation. - -Or in table form: - -| | __Presence__ | __Absence__ | -| __Benefit__ | good | not bad | -| __Harm__ | bad | good | - -It should be clear that the first column (Presence) corresponds to existence and the second (Absence) to non-existence. - -Says Benatar: - -> There is a common assumption in the literature about future possible people that, all things being equal, one does no wrong by bringing into existence people whose lives will be good on balance. This assumption rests on another - namely that being brought into existence (with decent life prospects) is a benefit (even though not being brought into existence is not a harm). I shall argue that the underlying assumption is erroneous. Being brought into existence is not a benefit but always a harm. When I say that coming into existence is always a harm, I do not mean that it is necessarily a harm. As will become apparent, my argument does not apply to those hypothetical cases in which a life contains only good and no bad. About such an existence I say that it is neither a harm nor a benefit and we should be indifferent between such an existence and never existing. But no lives are like this. All lives contain some bad. Coming into existence with such a life is always a harm. - -In other words, by bringing a (so far) non-existent person into existence, according to the asymmetry, you cannot benefit them, for the absence of benefit is not a bad thing and they haven't been deprived of anything. However, you *can* and *will* now inflict further (even though maybe minor) harm on them, and so, their birth is strictly a harm. - -The two common lines of criticism either deny the asymmetry, or attack the assumption behind personhood and bringing someone into existence. Let's have a look. - -The first two claims about the presence of benefit and harm are uncontroversial. It's absence that's problematic. Benatar justifies them with the following intuition: - -> The asymmetry between (3) and (4) is the best explanation for the view that while there is a duty to avoid bringing suffering people into existence, there is no duty to bring happy people into being. - -TODO similar argument from Duty - -The asymmetry relies fundamentally on the intuitions that absence of harm must be good and that absence of benefit can't be bad. Disagreeing with either would have weird consequences - so Benatar - and doesn't match our actual behavior or intuitions[^intuition]. But I think Benatar is not expecting enough from his audience. Both positions seem actually fairly sensible. Let's have a closer look. - -[^intuition]: - Personally, I'm slightly worried by Benatar's appeal to intuitions. He spends much of his book on how counter-intuitive his position of antinatalism is, and how we are biased towards optimism, but then he argues that the asymmetry actually matches many of our intuitions (astronomical waste isn't bad, we have no duty to procreate, but a duty to prevent bad births, etc.). You can't have it both ways. - -### Absence is Always Neutral {#neutral_absence} - -One way to resolve the asymmetry is to deny that the absence of harm is actually good. - -| | __Presence__ | __Absence__ | -| __Benefit__ | good | not bad | -| __Harm__ | bad | *not good* | - - -After all, who is benefited? The hypothetical preferences of non-existent people can't matter, or we would also take their preference for benefit into account - and by assumption, we don't. So how does this benefit arise? - -[Sister Y][Sister Asymmetry] gives us this thought experiment: - -> **The Austrian Basement** -> -> E. F. has been kidnapped by her father and imprisoned in an Austrian cellar since her early adolescence. Her father repeatedly rapes her over the course of several years. E. F. gives birth to several children sired by her father. She reasonably believes that all these children have severe health problems, and that at least the female children will likely be abused by her father as they grow up. -> -> In Year 10 of her imprisonment, with four children born and removed from her by her father, she discovers a box (unknown to her father) hidden under a floorboard in her cell, containing everything she needs in order to practice undetectable birth control. -> -> Does she have a duty to practice birth control and avoid having more babies? Does she have a duty not to practice birth control, because she would be depriving her unborn babies of life (which, while it would have certain problems, would nevertheless presumably be worth living)? (Assume she would like the company of more babies, but fears the pain of more unassisted childbirth, and the "interests of the unborn children" is the concern that will break the tie, given her personal ambivalence.) - -If you answer "yes, E. should use birth control", then why? She is preventing harm to her unborn children, but if you deny the asymmetry, how is this relevant? - -So if absence of harm is not good (i.e. neutral), E. should have more children, who will subsequently be raped and beaten, but overall, will say they like living. That's a tough bullet to bite. - -However, our intuition of what makes a life worth living can easily be biased. Argues [Robin Hanson][Hanson lift up]\: - -> People keep asking me why I'm not horrified by a future of trillions of [digitally uploaded people] living at near subsistence wages. I've explained that "[poor folks do smile][Hanson smile]", that poor lives usually have plenty of joy and satisfaction, even if less than in rich lives. Most lives in poor societies are well worth living. But for many, such abstract words ring hollow – what they may need is to really see such lives for themselves. I haven't seen it yet, but the new movie Lift Up seems promising for this purpose: -> ->> The old man wanted them to find joy, even in the sadness that accompanies death. … An 82-minute documentary called "Lift Up," had its debut at the Haitian Embassy in Washington last month. Jean and Muse hope that, in its depiction of Haitians rejoicing despite the devastation dealt to their nation and their lives, the film evokes the spirit of their grandfather's request. … ->> ->> The brothers hope the film will introduce U.S. viewers to another side of Haiti, one that goes beyond the poverty, violence and suffering so often depicted in mass media. Growing up in Port-au-Prince, they saw the dark side of humanity but also reveled in warm households filled with extended family, days spent playing outside with packs of friends and a rich tradition of passing stories from one generation to the next. … ->> ->> Over five days, the filmmakers captured scene after scene of children playing and people smiling as they remembered lost loved ones. "I didn't see any of the negative things I had always heard about," Knowlton said. "I only saw people coming together." - -### Astronomical Waste {#waste} - -Why should the absence of benefit be considered "not bad"? Why not consider it an evil? - -| | __Presence__ | __Absence__ | -| __Benefit__ | good | *bad* | -| __Harm__ | bad | good | - -One transhumanist approach to this is called [Astronomical Waste][]. Says Nick Bostrom: - -> With very advanced technology, a very large population of people living happy lives could be sustained in the accessible region of the universe. For every year that development of such technologies and colonization of the universe is delayed, there is therefore an opportunity cost: a potential good, lives worth living, is not being realized. Given some plausible assumptions, this cost is extremely large. - -[Sister Y][Sister Asymmetry] has another thought experiment: - -> **Slum World** -> -> The Supreme World Leaders meet in Tokyo in 2100 and decide that the world has a choice. Either the 2100 world population of 3 billion can be maintained in relative splendor, with fresh kumquats and sensory implants for everyone, or the world population can be increased to 100 billion, with everyone living in conditions similar to the conditions of a 20th century slum, apparently endured by upwards of 900 million people circa the year 2000. -> -> Which condition should the Supreme World Leaders choose? - -This is really just an illustration of the problem, but a poignant one. However, someone already convinced of positive utilitarianism will simply accept the [Repugnant Conclusion][] and appeal to [Scope Insensitivity][]. - -TODO antinatalist answer to repugnant conclusion - -TODO mere addition (plug locality concerns) - -Even so, Benatar writes: - -> Whereas, at least when we think of them, we rightly are sad for inhabitants of a foreign land whose lives are characterized by suffering, when we hear that some island is unpopulated, we are not similarly sad for the happy people who, had they existed, would have populated this island. Similarly, nobody really mourns for those who do not exist on Mars, feeling sorry for potential such beings that they cannot enjoy life. Yet, if we knew that there were sentient life on Mars but that Martians were suffering, we would regret this for them. - -Even most positive utilitarians don't feel saddened by the emptiness of space and don't feel a strong moral compulsion to fix this mistake. On the other hand, nor do negative utilitarians rejoice at all the matter in the universe that *isn't* used to torture people. So overall, maybe our feeling of regret or relief isn't such a great guide after all? - -### Should absence matter at all? (A Cake Metaphor) - -Here's a thought experiment to question the assumption that absence of certain things is morally relevant at all. And don't worry, it doesn't involve any torture, rape or murder! What am I, an ethicist?[^torture] It's only about pie. - -[^torture]: - As [PlaidX observes][PlaidX torture]: - - > The use of torture in these hypotheticals generally seems to have less to do with ANALYZING cognitive algorithms, and more to do with "getting tough" on cognitive algorithms. Grinding an axe or just wallowing in self-destructive paranoia. - > - > If the point you're making really only applies to torture, fine. But otherwise, it tends to read like "Maybe people will understand my point better if I CRANK MY RHETORIC UP TO 11 AND UNCOIL THE FIREHOSE AND HALHLTRRLGEBFBLE" - -<%= image("pie.jpg", "pie hole") %> - -There are three different worlds. Let's call them *Defaultia*, *Absencia* and *Lossa*. They are all very similar, except for one little detail. In all three worlds there is a pie shop, and in this pie shop there is a careful pie maker. The pie maker is currently making another delicious pie for a customer. Behind the pie maker are three ingredients in three conspicuously similar pots, yet only one is needed for the pie. The pie maker will blindly grab one of the pots, make sure it is the right one and if so, use it. The pie will be delicious and the customer will be very happy. - -And here's how these worlds differ. - -In *Defaultia*, the pie maker is lucky and immediately grabs the right ingredient. Everything comes out right and the world is good. - -In *Absencia*, the pie maker is not so lucky and takes the wrong ingredient at first. A pie with this ingredient would taste horrible! The customer would be very sad indeed. But the pie maker immediately notices the wrong pot, tries again and this time is lucky. The same pie as in Defaultia is produced and everyone is happy. - -And finally in *Lossa*, the pie maker again picks the wrong pot. (What's up with that anyway? Maybe the pie maker should consider looking next time! Sheesh.) But it is not the pie-ruining ingredient this time, but unbeknownst to the pie maker, it would make the pie even more delicious! It is a totally weird coincidence and no-one in the whole world knows of this connection, so the pie maker again puts back the pot and picks the intended ingredient. As usual, the same pie as in Defaultia results. Sunshine, end scene. - -Thus ends the thought experiment. And here is the question: which of these worlds is *better*? Remember that in all three of them, the exact same pie is produced, and both pie maker and customer are just as happy every time. - -Yet if we believed the asymmetry, then there would be a clear winner - namely *Absencia*! In Absencia, there was a potential for great harm. Had the pie maker not noticed the wrong pot, then the customer's day would've been ruined. But fortunately, this harm was avoided and so, says the asymmetry, an additional good was produced for the customer. Ergo, Absencia is the best. - -If we look at it from the perspective of [Astronomical Waste](#waste), then the absence of benefits, even when there is no existing person being deprived, is still bad. Proponents of this view look at the universe and are disappointed by all the matter that *isn't* used for making people happy (or making happy people). It follows then, if the absence of pleasure causes a harm, then *Lossa* is clearly worse than Defaultia! After all, Lossa almost included a super-pie and super-happy customer, but then didn't after all. - -In a third approach, we could ask Hardcore Consequentialist Robot 9000 what it thinks about these worlds. It would correctly reason that the pie makers initial choice of ingredients was truly random and that the resulting pie was already determined before picking anything. The pie maker will always end up using the intended ingredient and the same pie will be made. Thus, the state of the world is always the same, and as paths to a state don't matter to HCR 9000, all worlds are exactly equal in value. (This scenario is particularly frustrating for HCR 9000's evil archenemy Doctor Deontology. Paths matter, he says, but only random chance was involved this time, so he still has to choose. But how?) - -So who's right? Or is everyone wrong and there's a fourth option? Maybe the idea of "prevention of harm" in a deterministic universe is a flawed one, and we should reject it. But then how do we construct morality? - -### What about future versions of yourself? - -According to Benatar, there is a difference between "lives worth starting" and "lives worth continuing". Unfortunately for him, he doesn't actually offer any argument *why* these should be different. - -Assuming materialist views of personhood, there can't be a continuous self over time, only a set of self-moments loosely connected by psychological similarity. How can one such self-moment blinking into existence be fundamentally different from another, just because one involves sperm and the other normal operations of the brain? - -TODO better present this view - -Many forms of naturalism face this problem. If antinatalism is true, then we have a responsibility for our future-selves in exactly the same way as for our children, and so, if we shouldn't have children, neither should we have future-selves. We ought to commit suicide right away. This by itself of course is not an argument *against* the correctness of antinatalism. It just puts pressure on living antinatalists to construct a meaningful conception of personhood, if they aren't just in it for the [contrarian statu](#hypocrisy). - -TODO argue that a Big World in which everything exists doesn't affect the antinatalist argument - -TODO contrast with unconscious person - -## Non-Person Values {#non-person} - -Not just people matter. We can value states of the world without experiencing them, or even if we don't exist. Thus, I (or rather, my values) can be harmed even if I never exist. Existence is not a morally significant hurdle. - -For example, a soldier in war might sacrifice their life for their country, and it does not seem odd to say that the soldier would be harmed if their country lost the war afterwards. Similarly, we might care that a tradition or idea not go extinct even long after we ourselves are dead. - -Thus, we should respect the values even of non-existent people. They would want to live (or so they would tell us), so we are harming them by denying them the opportunity. - -However, this view seems very hard to actually apply. For every possible mind X, there is a possible mind Anti-X that values exactly the opposite. If you bring X into existence because X wants to live, then you are ignoring Anti-X who wants X to *not* live. - -If you prefer a specific selection of minds (say, minds with the same political stance), then you are really just imposing your own values. Then it's not about unborn people, just you. - -Life Sucks {#sucks} ----------- - -This is a really straightforward argument. Life sucks, therefore it is bad to create more beings, for their life will suck too. There is nothing categorical about it. In principle, life could be awesome and then we should have plenty of children. It's just our world of suffering that we don't want to force upon further victims. - -It starts to get tricky once you start asking questions like "*How much* does it suck?", "Is there an *acceptable* level of suck?" or "Does it suck for *everyone*?". - -### How bad is life? {#harm} - -Says Benatar: - -> Whether or not one accepts the pessimistic view I have presented of ordinary healthy life, the optimist is surely on very weak ground when one considers the amount of unequivocal suffering the world contains. [...] -> -> Consider first, natural disasters. More than fifteen million people are thought to have died from such disasters in the last 1,000 years. In the last few years, flooding, for example, has killed an estimated 20,000 annually and brought suffering to 'tens of millions'. The number is greater in some years. In late December 2004, a few hundred thousand people lost their lives in a tsunami. -> -> Approximately 20,000 people die every *day* from hunger. An estimated 840 million people suffer from hunger and malnutrition without dying from it. That is a sizeable proportion of the approximately 6.3 billion people who currently live. -> -> Disease ravages and kills millions annually. Consider plague, for example. Between 541 CE and 1912, it is estimated that over 102 million people succumbed to plague. Remember that the human population during this period was just a fraction of its current size. The 1918 influenza epidemic killed 50 million people. Given the size of the current world human population and the increased speed and volume of global travel, a new influenza epidemic could cause millions more deaths. HIV currently kills nearly 3 million people annually. If we add all other infectious diseases, we get a total of nearly 11 million deaths per year, preceded by considerable suffering. Malignant neoplasms take more than a further 7 million lives each year, usually after considerable and often protracted suffering. Add the approximately 3.5 million accidental deaths (including over a million road accident deaths a year). When all other deaths are added, a colossal sum of approximately 56.5 million people died in 2001. That is more than 107 people per minute. [...] -> -> Although much disease is attributable to human behaviour, consider the more intentionally caused suffering that some members of our species inflict on others. One authority estimates that before the twentieth century over 133 million people were killed in mass killings. According to this same author, the first 88 years of the twentieth century saw 170 million (and possibly as many as 360 million) people 'shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed, or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, ... [hanged], bombed, or killed in any other of the myriad ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners'. -> -> [...] -> -> Nor does the suffering end there. Consider the number of people who are raped, assaulted, maimed, or murdered (by private citizens, rather than governments). About 40 million children are maltreated each year. More than 100 million currently living women and girls have been subjected to genital cutting. Then there is enslavement, unjust incarceration, shunning, betrayal, humiliation, and intimidation, not to mention oppression in its myriad forms. [...] - -TODO better estimates, more mundane suffering too - -TODO optimism bias - -However, says [Bryan Caplan][Caplan hedonic]: - -> Almost everyone says they're glad to be alive. Through the magic of hedonic adaptation, even the desperately poor and the severely disabled seem to find great joy in life. When movie villains threaten to "Make you wish you'd never been born," they aren't threatening to make you slightly worse off. They're threatening massive harm. The threat resonates because almost everyone realizes that the gift of life is way better than non-existence. - -Consider also the [argument from Hedonic Treadmill](#treadmill). - -### Is some level of harm acceptable? (#calculations) - -TODO utilitarian / max-harm argument - -Life has harms and benefits. Instead of denying *all* life because *some* harm exists, why not just weigh it against the benefit? If the good outweighs the bad, then life might still be worthwhile, even if you accept the asymmetry. The non-existent have the advantage of always non-negative utility (because they can't be harmed), but maybe the sum of utility the existent experience is still much greater, despite the handicap? - -Let's call the magnitude of benefit B and of harm H. Benatar assumes (quite naturally) that the absence of harm must be exactly opposite[^opposite] in value to the harm done by its presence, i.e. *no harm* has utility `+H` and *harm* has `-H`. - -| | __Presence__ | __Absence__ | -| __Benefit__ | +B | 0 | -| __Harm__ | -H | +H | - -[^opposite]: Should the negative value of harm and the positive value of its prevention really be exactly opposite? What about [Risk Aversion][]? The important thing to note here is that risk aversion is typically measured with regards to *money* or some other quantity, not direct utility. By definition, utility is always risk-neutral, but the things that bring utility don't have to be (and typically aren't). - -Therefore, existence has a total value of `(+B) + (-H) = B-H` and non-existence has `(0) + (+H) = H`. So for existence to be better than non-existence, we must have `B > 2*H`. In other words, the benefits must be more than twice as good as the good we attain through the absence of harm. - -(If, however, you also deny the asymmetry by saying that the absence of benefit is itself bad, then the benefits merely have to outweigh the harms.) - -Benatar argues that - given the asymmetry - this simple calculation [will never work](#comparable). - -But maybe they are comparable. Why not try the calculation? - -Given the [known large amount of harm](#harm) and the fact that the benefit has to be *twice* as good, the burden of proof sits on the pronatalist side. And while this isn't an argument against the position itself, in my experience, almost no one who makes claims about utility actually ever *calculates* it. - -As long as a distribution of numerical values exists that *could* favor whatever view a particular person is arguing for, they're happy. It's really rare to see one actually do the math, and even rarer for one to do the math for *multiple* problems and use the *same* numbers every time. - -If you haven't done the math, how can you claim that it is in your favor, especially when a priori this seems somewhat unlikely? Where does this knowledge come from? - -If you *have* done a utility calculation, I'd love to hear about it! (Seriously, [contact][Contact] me or leave a comment. I can't even decide on the rough order of magnitude for many relevant values!) - -## Without slaves, Rome would collapse! {#slaves} - -One example of how harm might be acceptable is commonly put this way: - -> I need children to care for me once I am old. Our social system needs enough young people or the old will starve. - -This is fundamentally a very selfish argument. That doesn't mean it's *wrong*, just that you can't have any pretence that you care about the well-being or rights of others if you make it. - -Benatar thinks this argument might well be correct. He argues that, even though we should fade out human existence, we might have to bring some people into existence purely so we can facilitate this extinction. - -TODO isolation of the last humans - -Regardless of its correctness, [Dunbar's Number][] provides evidence that a population of a few hundred people is still large enough to not feel lonely. If so, then we can decrease our 7+ billion people *a lot* before these problems become dominant. - -### Are harm and benefit even comparable? {#comparable} - -Benatar actually argues that we *can't* compare benefit and harm. He offers the following analogy: - -> \[C\]onsider an analogy which, because it involves the comparison of existent people is unlike the comparison between existence and non-existence in *this* way, but which nonetheless may be instructive. (Sick) is prone to regular bouts of illness. Fortunately for him, he is also so constituted that he recovers quickly. H (Healthy) lacks the capacity for quick recovery, but he *never* gets sick. It is bad for S that he gets sick and it is good for him that he recovers quickly. It is good that H never gets sick, but it is not bad that he lacks the capacity to heal speedily. The capacity for quick recovery, although a good for S, is not a real advantage over H. This is because the absence of that capacity is not bad for H. This, in turn, is because the absence of that capacity is not a deprivation for H. H is not worse off than he would have been had he had the recuperative powers of S. S is not better off than H in way, even though S is better off than he himself would have been had he lacked the capacity for rapid recovery. - -If benefit and harm are comparable, then Sick can be better than Healthy. - -> This presumably would be the case where the amount of suffering that (2) saves S is more than twice the amount S actually suffers. But this cannot be right, for surely it is always better to be H (a person who never sick and is thus not disadvantaged by lacking the capacity for recovery). The whole point is that (2) is *good* for S but does constitute an advantage over H. - -Or as [two posters on LW][LW dust] said it: - -> Put simply - a dust mote registers exactly zero on my torture scale, and torture registers fundamentally off the scale (not just off the top, off) on my dust mote scale. -> -> You're asking how many biscuits equal one steak, and then when one says 'there is no number', accusing him of scope insensitivity. - -and: - -> For a more concrete example of how this might work, suppose I steal one cent each from one billion different people, and [someone else] steals \$100,000 from one person. The total amount of money I have stolen is greater than the amount that [the other] has stolen; yet my victims will probably never even realize their loss, whereas the loss of \$100,000 for one individual is significant. A cent does have a nonzero amount of purchasing power, but none of my victims have actually lost the ability to purchase anything; whereas [the other thief]'s, on the other hand, has lost the ability to purchase many, many things. -> -> I believe utility for humans works in the same manner. Another thought experiment I found helpful is to imagine a certain amount of disutility, x, being experienced by one person. Let's suppose x is "being brutally tortured for a week straight". Call this situation A. Now divide this disutility among people until we have y people all experiencing (1/y)*x disutility - say, a dust speck in the eye each. Call this situation B. If we can add up disutility [...], the total amount of disutility in either situation is the same. But now, ask yourself: which situation would you choose to bring about, if you were forced to pick one? -> -> Would you just flip a coin? - -Another illustration to underline the implausibility of direct comparison is the existence of sacred values. - -TODO sacred values, i.e. not paying *any* price to violate something holy - -Similarly, there are also negative sacred values, i.e. things so bad we *can't* accept them, ever. This is one of the few situations where a torture example is really appropriate. Imagine being tortured horribly, but with the promise that once the torture is over, you will be given access to paradise full of pleasure and cute puppies.[^heaven] Is there a torture so bad that *nothing* could make up for it? Even if you knew the torturer were trustworthy and the paradise really great, is there some point where you simply *give up*? - -Furthermore, denying this and accepting the direct comparison forces you to deal with [Pascal's Mugging][]. - -TODO present pascal's mugging, make it clear that probability falls slower than utility increases - -[^heaven]: This is not too different from certain Christian world-views. After all, having to endure earthly existence is nothing but torture compared to future heavenly delights. - -### But I like Russian Roulette! {#odds} - -Maybe not everyone is affected by dominating harm. If you are already an upper-class parent with no history of mental illness, then maybe your child *does* have a good shot at a worthwhile life. - -This is fundamentally a utilitarian argument. You take the probability of *your* child having a sucky life, multiply it with the negative value of all the expected harm, do the same thing with the chance of a good life and compare the two. It's fundamentally like Russian Roulette, but if the odds are good enough, why not play? - -Of course, if you accept this argument, I'd like you to [show me these calculations](#calculations). - -TODO non-utilitarian rebuttals - -TODO caution principle, low predictability of mental illness - -### Synthetic Happiness is Real Happiness {#treadmill} - -[Dan Gilbert][Gilbert TED] argues that we fabricate "synthetic happiness" when we don't get what we want, and that this is as good as "real" happiness. Thanks to the [Hedonic Treadmill][], we will adapt to any change in life and go back to our happiness set point. - -If this happiness research is right, then our life circumstances are largely irrelevant when considering how happy we are. Only one thing matters: our happiness set point.[^setpoint] And because most people say they like living, they probably have a sufficiently high set point and weren't harmed by whatever life we forced on them. And if you have a transhumanist bend, you might even think that [modifying the set point][Wireheading] is not too far off. - -[^setpoint]: All you depressed people hopefully realize how devastating this is. Life sucks and it will *keep on sucking*. Under [normal circumstances][Happiness Stochastic], happiness is largely constant. Happy endings are for other people. - -TODO rebuttal from desire fulfillment and standard anti-wirehead arguments - -Additionally, many people independently reject wireheading. Given the (hypothetical) choice between a Happy Pill that makes you *feel* like your loved ones are ok and your loved ones *actually* being ok, most people claim to choose the first option. But if this is the case, then you *can't* also accept synthetic happiness. Either truth matters or it doesn't. - -Furthermore, Sister Y provides [yet another][Sister golem] illustration: - -> Say we make a golem out of clay, like in the old days. We bring it into existence to suffer a life of misery, as golems are want to have. But we endow it with a very special characteristic, along with life: the preference to exist. No matter what tortures we or the world inflict on our golem, it will keep on preferring to exist. -> -> Is that moral? Can we create a Foxconn megafactory of such golems and keep them alive for miserable decade after miserable decade, with clean consciences? - -### Your suffering is a First World Problem. - -An anonymous commenter on [The View from Hell][] provides an example of this common argument: - -> I think your blog's title is a total misnomer: if you're still able (emotionally, physically and financially) to enjoy drugs, sex, running and talking about philosophy as you yourself claim you clearly haven't got the slightest notion of what hell consists of. - -In other words, if there are many people who are much worse off than you, you can't claim to suffer. - -I find that a very strange argument to make. If even privileged people suffer greatly, isn't that an argument *for* antinatalism, namely that even greatly improved average circumstances don't fix suffering? Shouldn't we therefore conclude that many *more* people suffer than we typically think? - -What the arguments seems to be doing is to criticize people for expressing a desire for help. Basically, if someone else needs help much more than you, you shouldn't bring your pain to our attention. You're just wasting resources that way. That's not a bad point, but it is not an argument against preventing births. If less people are made, less will suffer and we can take better care of the rest. - -### Children are Expensive - -We've heard utilitarian arguments about benefit outweighing harm, so why not try the other side? Are there egoistic reasons[^egoistic] to *not* have children? - -TODO cost, happiness statistic, pregnancy photos - -[^egoistic]: As Kant correctly noted, essentially *all* reasons to have children are egoistic, of course. It's really hard to make a child without treating it as a means. - -TODO https://francoistremblay.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/reasons-not-to-have-childrenreasons-to-have-children/, https://vblackledge.wordpress.com/2012/02/24/reasons-to-not-have-children-and-reasons-to-debunked/, etc. - -### Humans are Parasites - -A variant of "life sucks" is that it isn't *human* life that's so bad, but the horror we inflict on the rest of the planet in order to sustain ourselves. Most life would be better off if humanity went extinct. - -TODO [Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT)][VHEMT] - -TODO wildlife is much worse off than farm animals - -Of course, if you think that only humans have moral value, then the whole argument is moot to begin with. - -### Utilitarianism is Wrong - -Instead of providing a specific utility calculation for/against antinatalism, one can also attack the underlying assumption of utilitarianism. This is not the right place to fully cover these attacks or their merits, as they don't affect antinatalism directly. - -Escape from Kaldor Hicks {#kaldor-hicks} ------------------------- - -Says [Sister Y][Sister Kaldor]: - -> All the utilitarian justifications come down to this: we must punish people, make them suffer, so that overall, people in society suffer less. What this assumes is that *we have a right to make people suffer against their will for the greater good*. This assumption is wholly unsupported, and can never, in my view, be supported. [...] -> -> [Pareto efficiency][Pareto] is the idea that a transaction is just (and we should encourage it) if it helps someone *and hurts no one*. Any fully consensual transaction should have this characteristic, so a contractual exchange would be a Pareto improvement. (However, the justice of any transaction relies on the justice of the initial distribution, which is, in reality, totally unfair.) -> -> [Kaldor-Hicks efficiency][Kaldor Hicks] comes from a recognition that consent is hard to do. With Kaldor-Hicks, we jump from requiring a transaction to *help someone and not hurt anyone* - that is, to be *fully consensual* - to allowing the transaction if the gains for some outweigh the costs to others, so that *theoretically* the losers could be compensated. (It doesn't matter if, in reality, the losers are compensated.) Many non-consensual transactions can be justified under Kaldor-Hicks; the good for some just has to outweigh the bad for others. For instance, rape is never a Pareto improvement, but if the rapist enjoys it more than the victim suffers from it, it could be a Kaldor-Hicks improvement. It is my contention that Pareto has a shot at being just, but Kaldor-Hicks is churched-up evil. -> -> But even a market based on actual consent is not grounded or justified in any way that should make us ethically comfortable. A market or social system may provide for individual choice in any given transaction, but a participant cannot decide *whether to be part of a market economy*. It's not consent all the way down, you might say. - -TODO elaborate a lot more - -### Rights are Inalienable - -TODO no utility overwrites your rights - -### Potential People have Rights too {#positive-rights} - -Why should we consider it a right not to be harmed, but not a right to live? - -> You know where the sanctity of life came from? We made it up. You know why? 'Cuz we're alive. Self-interest. Living people have a strong interest in promoting the idea that somehow life is sacred. You don't see Abbott and Costello running around, talking about this shit, do you? We're not hearing a whole lot from Mussolini on the subject. What's the latest from JFK? Not a goddamn thing. 'Cuz JFK, Mussolini and Abbott and Costello are *fucking dead*. They're fucking dead. And dead people give less than a shit about the sanctity of life. Only living people care about it so the whole thing grows out of a completely biased point of view. It's a self-serving, man-made bullshit story. -> -> -- [George Carlin][Carlin Sanctity] - -See also the [asymmetry](#asymmetry). - -### But most people don't want to die! {#want-to-live} - -If you ask people if they would like to die, most disagree. - -> Following Caplan's "logic," kidnapping is justified, if it elicits Stockholm Syndrome, beating your child is okay, as long as he buys the "I turned out okay" rhetoric later in life, and cult brainwashing is not a problem at all. -> -> -- [Francois Tremblay][Francois Caplan] - -TODO bias argument - -I can't help but feel that culture too rarely [makes the case][Wasting The Dawn] for antinatal positions and that feeling regret for having to live is always treated as a mental illness, not a possible position to defend. - -TODO argument from conformity and "I don't want to vote" before universal suffrage - -Epicurus called, he wants his argument back {#epicurus} -------------------------------------------- - -Says the [Bro][Bro Epicurus]: - -> Why the fuck are people so obsessed with what happens when you die? Look, once you're dead you can't feel a goddamn thing, so get over it. - -Basically, the Epicurean position on death denies it any moral value. We have seen how one might [deny that absence of anything is bad](#neutral_absence). This is a generalization of this idea: only things that happen to people are ever relevant. If there is no person, there is neither harm nor benefit. - -Thus, a non-existent person is never harmed, and so bringing them into existence is also not wrong. - -However, this position has many counter-intuitive implications. Notably, murder doesn't harm the *victim* - because they are now dead. It is thus hard to see why killing someone should be considered bad. - -## You Can't Harm the Non-Existent - -Benatar present this potential counter-argument: - -1. For something to harm somebody, it must make that person worse off. -2. The 'worse off' relation is a relation between two states. -3. Thus, for somebody to be worse off in some state (such as existence), the alternative state, with which it is compared, must be one in which he is less badly (or better) off. -4. But non-existence is not a state in which anybody can be, and thus cannot be compared with existence. -5. Thus coming into existence cannot be worse than never coming into existence. -6. Therefore, coming into existence cannot be a harm. - -TODO argue for supporting personhood views - -Furthermore, this argument relies on *relative* harm, not *absolute* harm. I'm not making you *worse* off if I bring you into existence, regardless what that existence looks like, but you might still suffer in absolute terms. - -So while death is not a bad thing under the Epicurean perspective (and I would tend to agree), birth still can be bad. Insisting that it technically isn't *worse* is really just [arguing about words][LW words], not morality. - -Practical Implications -====================== - -Beyond the raw arguments, we should also consider the consequences of an antinatalist world-view. - -However, remember that *implications* of a belief are never an argument *against* the belief. Just because it would inconvenience me if the street were wet doesn't tell me anything about whether it does in fact rain or not. - -## Are antinatalists just being contrarian? {#hypocrisy} - -Is this just a contrarian position? Are antinatalists merely signalling how deep and unconventional they are? After all, even professional ethicists aren't more ethical on average[^ethicistfail]. And some antinatalists keep on insisting that their position is a great taboo. - -[^ethicistfail]: See [Schwitzgebel's various studies][Schwitzgebel Ethics]. - -## If life is so horrible, why don't you kill yourself? - -<%= image("likebeingdead.jpg", "sleep is death") %> - -Revealed preference: it's easy to kill yourself, yet only about [0.016%][WHO suicide], or 1 in 63, kill themselves each year. - -TODO if life is so awesome, why do so *many* people kill themselves? Why does the suicide rate go *up* in richer countries? Why does it go *up* as suicide gets easier? - -TODO about 20-50% of schizophrenics die of suicide - is *this* evidence? - -TODO suicide censorship, illegality in most countries - -TODO sources! (statistics, Sister Y) - -If the harm is mostly suffered directly at birth, as the argument from consent and the asymmetry argue, then a longer life doesn't add much additional harm by itself. In those cases, immortality might well be the preferred solution. - -## Abortion - -<%= image("prodeath.jpg", "Antinatalist Antelope is Pro-Death") %> - -> How does this translate into the abortion issue? If it is a priori wrong to start new human lives, then we should prevent human lives from coming into full personhood, through abortion, or we should prevent human lives from existing at all, through contraception. When the latter fails, the former becomes our duty. -> -> -- [Francois Tremblais][Francois Abortion] - -TODO When, exactly, is the harm done? - -TODO Benatar's position - -## Moral Consequences - -I once read a summary of the game [Vampire: The Masquerade][Vampire RPG]. In it, you are a recently turned vampire who has to feed on the living to survive. Your constant hunger for blood makes it likely that you will one day lose control and kill whoever you're feeding off or any amount of other innocents. You must exploit and endanger a large number of humans merely to survive. You know that this is wrong, yet your own need to survive makes you do it anyway. You might tell yourself all kinds of clever reasons why this is acceptable. But really, no one believes you, not even you. You know that you could do the right thing any time and just step out into the sun. You don't *have* to exist. You can just die. Yet you don't. No matter what you tell yourself, you are evil.[^social] - -This is basically the antinatalist world-view. - -TODO actual consequences of such a view - -[^social]: The analogy to our economy, social system and all of industrialization is too obvious to ignore. - -## Harm is Socially Constructed - -> The fact that diseases can be invented (or, as with homosexuality, uninvented) and their criteria tweaked in response to social conditions is exactly what worries critics like Frances about some of the disorders proposed for the DSM-5 - not only attenuated psychotic symptoms syndrome but also binge eating disorder, temper dysregulation disorder, and other "sub-threshold" diagnoses. To harness the power of medicine in service of kids with hallucinations, or compulsive overeaters, or 8-year-olds who throw frequent tantrums, is to command attention and resources for suffering that is undeniable. But it is also to increase psychiatry's intrusion into everyday life, even as it gives us tidy names for our eternally messy problems. -> -> -- [Source][Karl Harm] - -If we perceive life as harmful because we talk about it, then accepting antinatalism will makes us like life *even less*. - -> I caRe aboUt SuffERing whicH is WhY I trY to MakE PeoPle HorRibly DepRessEd. -> -> -- [AntiANTrollbBot][AntiAN tweet depression] - -> As far as we can tell no human has ever been born without the propensity to develop cancer. That people don't die of cancer is purely a function of the fact that they die of something else before the cancer gets them. -> So, why is cancer not just a part of life? Part and parcel with being a multicellular organism? The simple answer is that it causes death, disability and pain. These are widely recognized as bad and so is cancer. -> What about feeling sad? To my knowledge no human has ever been born without the propensity to feel sadness. Is sadness simply part and parcel with life? The answer from my corner is, not if you don't want to be sad. -> This is the rub in all mental illness. It is the malady of not wanting to experience the world as we do. And, it raises the deepest questions about what it means to improve wellness. - -All talk about mental problems, including depression and a lack of satisfaction with life, is really normative talk in disguise. - -TODO [Disease post by Yvain][Yvain Disease] - -TODO Szasz, [Caplan's paper][Caplan Szasz] - -## Apocalyptic Imperative - -The fact that only [few][Dawrst] antinatalists call for the end of all life, in some form or another, is a bad sign. It requires a fairly complex argument to think that being born is bad, but total extinction isn't worth it. Instead of that particular combination being exactly right, it seems much more likely that you really just picked an unusual belief as a contrarian signal, but don't want to upset the status quo *too* much. Gods forbid you actually have to live according to your expoused morality![^positivestatus] - -[^positivestatus]: The same goes for pronatalists, of course. If life is so awesome, why aren't you making much more of it? Why stop at 2 kids and not at 2000? Costs? What, I thought birth is always good? - -TODO rebuttal: changing the world is hard, let's go shopping - -Religious Analogies -=================== - -This section isn't completely serious. It doesn't provide actual arguments, really. Just because some religious scholar or old ascetic supported something doesn't make it right. But I still find it interesting how *common* the position actually is. There is obvious [memetic][meme] pressure to remove antinatalism from any religion, but it still survives for some reason. - -## Christianity - -Even Jesus was an antinatalist. - -> Jesus said, "The example of whosoever demands the world is like those who drink sea water. The more he drinks the more his thirst increases until it kills him." -- [al-Ghazali][] - -A minor remark. Antinatalism also provides a solution to Anselm's ontological argument, like so: - -1. God is the greatest possible being. (Definition) -2. It is best to not exist. (Antinatalism) -3. Therefore, God does not exist. - -### Death of God theology - -TODO "Jesus/God *actually* died on the cross" position - -TODO Mainländer, the universe is the suicide of God (also, finally get a copy of Philosophie der Erlösung) - -### Shakers - -TODO How not to do it. Compare also early Gnostics. - -## Greeks - -TODO Stoics, Cynics (get quotes from Pre-Nicene New Testament) - -## Buddhism - -> Furthermore, as if the monk were to see a corpse cast away in a charnel ground — one day, two days, three days dead — bloated, livid and festering, he applies it to this very body, 'This body, too: Such is its nature, such is its future, such its unavoidable fate'... -> -> Or again, as if he were to see a corpse cast away in a charnel ground, picked at by crows, vultures and hawks, by dogs, hyenas and various other creatures... a skeleton smeared with flesh and blood, connected with tendons... a fleshless skeleton smeared with blood, connected with tendons... a skeleton without flesh or blood, connected with tendons... bones detached from their tendons, scattered in all directions — here a hand bone, there a foot bone, here a shin bone, there a thigh bone, here a hip bone, there a back bone, here a rib, there a breast bone, here a shoulder bone, there a neck bone, here a jaw bone, there a tooth, here a skull... the bones whitened, somewhat like the color of shells... piled up, more than a year old... decomposed into a powder: He applies it to this very body, 'This body, too: Such is its nature, such is its future, such its unavoidable fate.' -> -> (...) [His mindfulness is established][Nose Snail], and he lives detached, and clings to nothing in the world. -> -> -- excerpt from the [Satipatthana Sutta][] - -> A monk who is constantly mindful of death will be diligent. He is disenchanted with all forms of existence. He has conquered attachment to life. He abhors all evil. He is not greedy and does not hoard requisites. The perception of impermanence grows in him, followed by the perceptions of suffering and non-self. Others who have not developed mindfulness of death become victims of fear, horror and confusion when the time of their death arrives. They may feel suddenly seized by wild beasts, ghosts, snakes, robbers or murderers. However, the monk dies fearless, without delusion. -> -> -- excerpt from the [Visuddhimagga][] - -> [Mara:] Why don't you approve of birth? Once born, one enjoys sensual pleasures. Who now has persuaded you of this: 'Bhikkhuni, don't approve of birth'? -> -> [Cala:] For one who is born there is death; once born, one encounters sufferings - bondage, murder, affliction - hence one shouldn't approve of birth. -> -> The Buddha has taught the Dhamma, the transcendence of birth; for the abandoning of all suffering he has settled me in the truth. -> -> As to those beings who fare amidst form, and those who abide in the formless - not having understood cessation, they come again to re-becoming. -> -> -- excerpt from the [Cala Sutta][] - -## Judaism - -> Life is so terrible, it would have been better not to have been born. Who is so lucky? Not one in a hundred thousand! -> -> -- saying - ->> It seems to me that the Book of Job lacks the courage of its convictions: If the author were really committed to the idea tha virtue isn't always rewarded, shouldn't the book have ended with Job still bereft of everything? ->> ->> -- Ted Chiang -> -> Absent a translated reading copy of the text, I can only speculate as to what exactly Job's retention of faith in the alternate version looks like - it seems wholly implausible that it would be the kind of faith one sees being sold like a drug at the tax-exempt megachurches that hawk drive-thru salvation. I imagine Job would feel something like the Zen master who finally woke up one day and burned all his scriptures and cursed the day he heard the Buddha's name, after wasting decades trying to square the spiritual circle. Your enlightenment may come, that is for sure, but it won't be the cheap dopamine perma-fix you thought it would be. Happiness is a high, but Truth is Truth. And the handmaidens of Truth are disenchantment, disillusionment, and death-awareness. -> -> I say that for the truly faithful, God must be seen as nothing other than a yawning void in place of an answer, an untouchable mystery which for no reason at all churns out gasping life, then drowns it in final eternity. This is not the God that anyone would ever go looking for, but the ones who look, who *actually* look instead of just trying to trap their cognitive dissonance in yet another layer of spiritual nonsense, will find this one. Only seek this God if, like Job, you have absolutely no other choice - if you're not ready to throw your entire terror management apparatus out the window, with all the suffering and despair that entails, you're better off at the megachurch. -> -> -- Chuck G. -> -> It's also interesting that many scholars consider Job to be the oldest book of the bible. Satan seems to be God's official prosecutor and right-hand man. The happy ending does seem tacked on, even more so when considered in the philosophical context of Ecclesiastes, whose message boils down to 'life sucks, then you die, so you probably ought to go ahead and worship God... just in case'. -> -> -- metamorphhh -> -> ([Source][Sister Job]) - -TODO Ecclesiastes - -TODO Benatar's commentary diff --git a/content_muflax/morality/index.mkd b/content_muflax/morality/index.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index a06ff63..0000000 --- a/content_muflax/morality/index.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Morality -is_category: true ---- - -<%= category :morality %> diff --git a/content_muflax/morality/stances.mkd b/content_muflax/morality/stances.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index b176e6a..0000000 --- a/content_muflax/morality/stances.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,82 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Three Sides -alt_titles: [Stances, Dark Stance] -date: 2011-07-18 -techne: :done -episteme: :broken ---- - -# Idea - -I destabilized again, but this time I see a different direction to stabilize in, something I've never done before. - -I'm used to not having stable preferences or personalities. Typically, every 1.5-3 months, I have a breakdown event, lose all my motivation and enjoyment of whatever I've been doing and am stuck with reassembling the pieces into something new. Over the last few years, I've tried [many things][LW bipolar] to fix this, but never got anywhere. - -Shortly after I wrote down all the ways I have failed, I had a little [epiphany][Ching Chong]. I have no clue if this is a good idea. But it's a new idea and I'm tired of the old ways, so let's see where this leads. - -Basically, when dealing with your emotions, there are 3 different attitudes one can take. I call them **Light Stance**, **Dark Stance** and **No Stance**. Light Stance is the most common, No Stance is relatively new, Dark Stance is virtually unknown. - -Taking the **Light Stance**, one wants emotions to be *nice*. For example, hedonism is a Light Stance, as are virtually any form of meditation or psychotherapy. A core concept of the Light Stance is **transformation**, i.e. the idea of turning bad feelings into harmless or pleasant ones. Almost all philosophies and religions take the Light Stance (if they take any stance at all, that is). However, "nice" doesn't just mean "socially acceptable", but simply anything that feels nice. A power-hungry narcissist is still taking the Light Stance, as is a masochist. - -__No Stance__ is characterized by being indifferent or free from all emotions whatsoever. [Kai the undead assassin][Kai Lexx] or a [paperclip maximizer][Paperclipper] are great examples, but essentially anyone running on calculations takes No Stance. It is important to differentiate No Stance from equanimity, which it superficially resembles. Equanimity is harmless, in the sense that nothing bad is happening. It is a pleasant state to be in and sought *for* its pleasantness. If one wants to not be bothered by negative feelings anymore, then that's the Light Stance. No Stance, however, is fundamentally **indifferent**. Some forms of utilitarianism take No Stance, as does proper nihilism. If vipassana is done for the purpose of transformation (e.g. to overcome suffering), it's Light Stance. If it's done entirely detached from what comes up, focusing purely on the correct application, it's No Stance. Most advanced vipassana practitioners stumble on No Stance; barely anyone stays there. - -You'll notice that I've covered pretty much all religions, philosophies, self-help and just general attitudes to life with those two. (This is somewhat deceptive - Light Stance is tremendously vast.) Up until recently, I thought that's pretty much all there is. - -Then I found [Buddhism for Vampires][], an attempt to move Buddhism away from its current politically correct and nice ghetto, and to bring back tantra. (I applaud the effort.) Ultimately, Buddhism for Vampires, or tantra in general, is still a Light Stance. It directly engages (and even encourages) bad emotions, but only for the purpose of transformation, of getting rid of them or turning them into something pleasant. It improves on Romantic Buddhism by acknowledging that negative emotions exist and should be noticed, so they can be dealt with. - -But. - -And here comes the idea. - -Do they *have* to be dealt with? What if you *didn't* do that? - -What if, when you felt disgust, you didn't push it away, but *embraced* it? Or when you felt pain, you dived into it, not to make it pleasant or non-existent, but to fully experience it, in all its awfulness? In fact, what if you took great care to *retain* this awfulness? - -Now you're taking the **Dark Stance**. Say hello to misery, disgust, hatred, boredom, sorrow and pain. - -I want to be extra clear on this. In the Dark Stance, you *don't* embrace hatred because it makes you do good things, or gives you a rush, or so you can see through it and overcome it, nor do you *endure* it. That still assumes that hatred is only instrumental or an unfortunate necessity. Dark Stance embraces hatred *for hatred's sake*. Also, the Dark Stance is not an [Evil Trope][]. The Good and the Bad Guys both don't want to suffer, they merely use different ways to overcome their own suffering. Evil might be willing to cause suffering for others, but it will never cause it's *own* suffering. The only fictional example of someone taking the Dark Stance I can think of are Planescape's [Sensates][]. - -And the weird thing is, for the few days now that I've been learning this, for the few hours I've been able to hold the Dark Stance, I felt *satisfied*. - -I have not felt truly satisfied for at least a *decade*. I realized my deep boredom some months ago, but I thought the answer lies in getting excited again. I wrestled with the idea of failing, of impossibility. I thought that one ought to *overcome* failure or live *in spite* of it. That's what [Sisyphus][] does and he is happy, they say. - -I thought that satisfaction was *something*, that it was a specific emotion, something to be cultivated and achieved. That I had a hole in my life, maybe not a god-shaped, but a [purpose-shaped one][Frankl], and somehow I was supposed to figure out what this purpose was, that I really needed [something to protect][LW protect]. - -And then I just took my pain and said to it, "I'm ok with you. This is not a trap. I'm not trying to accept you out of existence. Please stay for as long as you please. It hurts and I'm ok with this. I *want* you to hurt and to continue to do so.", and I felt something going to rest, for only a moment, some part of me that was so desperately trying to protect me from this pain. It was not needed anymore and it could finally let go. I was satisfied. I couldn't believe it, I thought I must've confused the fucker by asking it to hurt me. I tried it again with hatred and disgust; it still worked. It wasn't making me feel any *better* - this is not a Light Stance in disguise, after all - but the dissatisfaction that had become so prevalent was gone, if only for a bit. - -I do not know where this path will lead, only that it will be interesting. - -*run on hatred // run on pain // transform nothing // seek no gain* - -# Demonstration - -After running through a dark forest at 0°C, high (who the fuck runs sober?!), I noticed something. (Besides that I really need a better lamp than my mp3 player's display next time.) - -There already is a precedence for Dark Stance thinking. And it has a catchy tune. Listen (starts a minute in): - -<%= youtube("http://www.youtube.com/v/YvUbbYX9BMs") %> - -In particular, look at these lyrics: - -> Now take Sir Francis Drake, the Spanish all despise him, -> But to the British he's a hero and they idolize him. -> It's how you look at buccaneers that makes them bad or good -> And I see us as members of a noble brotherhood. -> -> [...] -> -> On occasion there may be someone you have to execute, -> But when you're a professional pirate -> You don't have to wear a suit. (What?) -> -> I could have been a surgeon, -> I like taking things apart. -> -> I could have been a lawyer, -> But I just had too much heart. - -That's exactly what it's about. Embrace the monster that you are. If you are a pirate, be the *best* pirate you can be. Whatever you do, do it *right*. - -This is the real problem, hidden by hypocrisy and moral progress thinking. The faulty idea is that we are good because we do good things. This way corrupts Honor, corrupts what Ye Olde Existentialists called authenticity. We are good because we are *pure*, unified in what we do. We embrace what we are and do it the *right* way, regardless what it is. A pirate is not evil for being a pirate, as long as they are a *professional* pirate. - -*(On the off-chance that I become a religious saint some centuries down the road, I want to force the Muppets into the canon of whatever religion takes me up. 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I was having a lot of problems the first time through and gave -up in a rage, but enough people I respect recommended the book. So to find out -if it's just me and my personal bias, I started to read it again, giving Dennett -more credit than before. I comment on most of the book, but might skip parts I -simply agree with and have nothing to say about. I planned to have at least a -detailed criticism the second time through, but actually was influenced so much -by it that it quite literally changed my life and whole way of thinking, trying -to sort it all out and somehow refute Dennett. - -Hallucinations -============== - -The Brain in a Vat ------------------- - -They say you only get to make first impressions once and oh boy did Dennett make -some! The book starts off with a little introduction to the old "brain in the -vat" thought experiment. Just 5 pages in and I'm already raging about Dennett's -sloppiness and faulty reasoning. - -Let's take it one mistake at a time: He begins by differentiating between -"possible in principle" and "possible in fact"[^det], saying that while an -incredibly (or even infinitely) powerful entity *could* keep your brain in a vat -and fool you into believing their illusion, any remotely plausible being -couldn't do so, therefore we can safely dismiss the argument. I'm going to -address the plausibility next, but first something about the argument itself. - -If you are the prisoner of a powerful trickster, then you *can not tell* what -tools they have available. You don't know anything about their universe. The -main idea of running a convincing simulation is exactly that you do not give the -victim any external reference! You do not get to assume that "yesterday was -real", but "today looks different, maybe I was kidnapped by mad neurologists?". -*Any* information you have ever been given can be part of the simulation; that -is exactly *the point of running one*. - -Maybe they have access to infinite energy? Their universe could very well be -infinite. You have no way of knowing how many resources they have because, by -definition, you can not see their universe. You can estimate a lower bound, but -that's about it. You can not even tell if *any* property of your simulation is -like the world the trickster is in. They can impose any logic, any amount of -resources they want (provided they have more). Want to run the simulation as a -finite world? No problem. Impose fake concreteness, enforcing quantization of -any property? Makes the source code a whole lot easier! Let information travel -only at a limited speed to simplify the calculations? Sure. Because you don't -even have to run it in real time, you can enforce any speed you want, even a -faster one than you have in your world! The "real" world could look so utterly -alien to us that we would have to call it supernatural. And then all bets are -off. But Dennett doesn't even pretend to address this. In fact, it looks like he -isn't even aware of the literature. This is a staple of gnostic teaching, at -least 3000 years old, and he gets it fundamentally wrong. - -The book certainly doesn't start on a good note. But how hard is it really to -lie to a human brain? Imagine some human scientists wanted to pull this off, -could they do it? Well, sure. Maybe not today, but easily in the near future. -One great simplification they could employ, that Dennett never even mentions, is -taking senses away. If you have never experienced something, then you won't miss -it! If I take a fresh brain without memories and never provide it with visual -feedback, then it won't develop vision and never miss it. The necessary -complexity of the simulation has just gone down a lot. We know that blind people -are just as consciousness as the rest of us and I don't think Dennett would dare -argue against it, so why doesn't he address this? Nonetheless, there is a limit -here, as demonstrated by Helen Keller. If you cut away too many senses, no -consciousness will develop. But we don't need movement, we don't need vision and -we don't need pain. Sound and speech, plus a few easy parts like smell, should -be enough. We could also add touch as long as we limit movement. The human brain -is also quite flexible and will adapt to new senses, like magnetism, as long as -we can input it. Some body hackers have achieved neat things in that regard. -Even better, you can do this even after the person has experienced a "real" -world, as long as you modify their memories as well. There are plenty of -documented cases of people losing parts of their brain and not realizing it. -Losing a whole direction, like "left", is not that unusual for a stroke victim. -They don't notice at all that they don't see anything to their left, the very -concept is gone. Ask them to get dressed and they only put on one sock. So if -vision is too complex for you, just cut it all out. Once technology has -improved, you can add it back in again. To lie convincingly, we really only need -to be consistent. If movement and touch is only binary (I touch you or not; you -push or not), then the brain will think of it as normal. - -Furthermore, we already have brains in vats! There are already complete -simulations of neurons. Some primitive animal brains (worms, mostly) have -already been simulated! As of 2010, the best we can do are small parts of a -rat's brain, but not that foor of, maybe this century even, we will be able to -do human brain's as well. So his claim of this being "beyond human technology -now and probably forever" is utterly ridiculous. - -Strong Hallucinations ---------------------- - -Because brains in a vat are impossible in fact, we have a problem with strong -hallucinations, he continues. He defines a strong hallucination as - -> a hallucination of an apparently concrete and persisting three-dimensional -> object in the real world - as contrasted by flashes, geometric distortions, -> auras, afterimages, fleeting phantom-limb experiences, and other anomalous -> sensations. A strong hallucination would be, say, a ghost that talked back, -> that permitted you to touch it, that resisted with a sense of solidity, that -> cast a shadow, that was visible from any angle so that you might walk around -> it and see what its back looked like - -My first reactions to this was: "I *had* such hallucinations! *Multiple -times*!" But he concludes that they must be impossible, as the brain is clearly -not powerful enough to create them. This puzzled me, to say the least. I can -understand him here, but my own experience seems to contradict this. In fact, -because my hallucinations were so convincing, I was often reluctant to call them -hallucinations at all. They were the primary reason why I was a gnostic theist. -If I talked to a god, saw it, touched it, had it transform the whole world and -so on, how could I possibly have hallucinated that? - -Before I address this, a little side note. I didn't notice it at first, -especially when reading "Breaking the Spell" (a more sensible, but too careful -book), but Dennett mentions Carlos Castaneda as an example of someone describing -such strong hallucinations and how that fact "suggested to scientists that the -book, in spite of having been a successful Ph.D. thesis in anthropology at UCLA, -was fiction, not fact.". And then it dawned on me: Dennett is an **exoteric** -thinker. Let me explain what I mean by this. The terms *esoteric* and -*exoteric*, in this context, refer to where knowledge comes from: esoteric -knowledge is derived from within oneself, while exoteric knowledge is drawn from -the outside world. The perceived duality is false, but this is irrelevant. What -I mean when I say that Dennett is exoteric is that he looks at consciousness as -an outside phenomenon, something you approach like an anthropologist, taking -notes of other people's behaviour and so on. This approach is utterly alien to -me. I have always favored the esoteric approach, in which you think of -consciousness (and related phenomena) as something that can only ever be -addressed in your own mind. The insights of any other person are, ultimately, -useless to you. This is similar to the difference between orthodox religions, -that value history, authority and literalism (You can only learn about God from -his Chosen.), and gnostic religions, that value personal revelations and -experiences (You can only learn about God yourself.). The consequence of this -difference is that Dennett seems to me so completely inexperienced about the -topic of consciousness. As far as I can tell, he never took any drugs, never -meditated, never learned any spiritual teaching or anything like this. How could -anyone *not* do this? I would never trust a chemist that never tried to build a -bomb, nor would I ever trust an engineer that didn't take apart a complex -machine (like their microwave or car engine) for fun (and to see if they could -put it back together again). Those would be the most natural first impulse for -anyone remotely interested in the fields (and not just doing it for the profit), -and they would be valuable first insights and opportunities to learn essential -skills (like, "don't get burned" for all three fields I mentioned). For example, -Susan Blackmore has extensive drug and meditation experiences, as has Sam Harris -and almost everyone else I know that is interested in some aspect of their own -mind. I find it really hard to imagine the mindset of a person that wants to -understand minds, yet doesn't start hacking their own one right away. The term -"ivory tower academic" never seemed more appropriate. - -But back to the book itself. As I mentioned, I was still, at least partially, -convinced I had experienced strong hallucinations before. So is Dennett's -conclusion just bullshit? Well, no. He goes on to explain how they actually -might come about, and provides a great analogy in the form of a party game -called "Psychoanalysis": - -> In this game one person, the dupe, is told that while he is out of the room, -> one member of the assembled party will be called upon to relate a recent -> dream. This will give everybody else in the room the story line of that dream -> so that when the dupe returns to the room and begins questioning the assembled -> party, the dreamer's identity will be hidden in the crowd of responders. The -> dupe's job is to ask yes/no questions of the assembled group until he has -> figured out the dream narrative to a suitable degree of detail, at which point -> the dupe is to psychoanalyze the dreamer, and use the analysis to identify him -> or her. Once the dupe is out of the room, the host explains to the rest of the -> party that no one is to relate a dream, that the party is to answer the dupe's -> questions according to the following simple rule: if the last letter of the -> last word of the question is in the first half of the alphabet, the questions -> is to be answered in the affirmative, and all other questions are to be -> answered in the negative, with one proviso: a non-contradiction override rule -> to the effect that later questions are not to be given answers that contradict -> earlier answers. For example: Q: Is the dream about a girl? A: Yes. but if -> later our forgetful dupe asks Q: Are there any female characters in it? A: Yes -> [in spite of the final t, applying the noncontradiction override] When the -> dupe returns to the room and begins questioning, he gets a more or less -> random, or at any rate arbitrary, series of yeses and noes in response. The -> results are often entertaining. Sometimes theprocess terminates swiftly in -> absurdity, as one can see at a glance by supposing the initial question asked -> were "Is the story line of the dream word-for-word identical to the story line -> of War and Peace?" or, alternatively, "Are there any animate beings in it?" A -> more usual outcome is for a bizarre and often obscene story of ludicrous -> misadventure to unfold, to the amusement of all. When the dupe eventually -> decides that the dreamer — whoever he or she is — must be a very sick and -> troubled individual, the assembled party gleefully retorts that the dupe -> himself is the author of the "dream." - -This is, in a way, very close to how some parts of the human brain actually -work. Most processing doesn't start with the facts and derives a hypothesis that -it then tests (as science should work), but rather is overeager to find -patterns. Instead, you get a face recognition system that is totally convinced -that this is a face, no doubt about that! Oh, it was just some toast, oh well. -But it totally look like a face! Like the Virgin Mary, even! You just need to -slightly disorient this part, or feed it random noise, and it will see faces -everywhere, in the walls, the trees, your hand, everything. Or nowhere, of -course, depending on the exact disturbance. And I began to think, if you just -disturb a few crucial areas involved in parsing important objects (like faces, -intentions, geometric patterns and so on), and this isn't particularly hard, you -really only need to cut off the regular input (as when sleeping), then the -narrative parts of the brain are in quite a tricky situation. Their job is to -make sense of all that, rationalizing both the outside world and your own -behaviour. This is crucial in social situations; you really wanna figure out -fast who is plotting against you and whom you can trust. In fact, it is so -useful, that even quite a bit of false positives isn't so bad. Some paranoia or -thinking your PC hates you isn't so bad and can even help you analyze situations -(like thinking that "the fire wants to eat up all the oxygen"). Dennett calls -this particular analysis the _intentional stance_. Now, if the narrator is only -given (pseudo-)random noise, it will impose any story it thinks is most natural, -i.e. most of the time other human(oid)s, recent emotions and so on. This is -exactly how dreams work and, in fact, most drug-induced hallucinations as well. -The exact distortion and resulting flexibility in making up a good story depends -on the drug, of course, and is quite interesting in itself. - -But does this really explain my own strong hallucinations? I was reluctant to -accept this at first, but now have to agree with Dennett here. Thinking back, -and based on the most recent experiments, I am forced to concede this point. I -never met an agent, or phenomenon at all, that was able to act against my own -will. James Kent describes this on [tripzine][]: - -> However, the more I experimented with DMT the more I found that the "elves" -> were merely machinations of my own mind. While under the influence I found I -> could think them into existence, and then think them right out of existence -> simply by willing it so. Sometimes I could not produce elves, and my mind -> would wander through all sorts of magnificent and amazing creations, but the -> times that I did see elves I tried very hard to press them into giving up some -> non-transient feature that would confirm at least a rudimentary "autonomous -> existence" beyond my own imagination. Of course, I could not. Whenever I tried -> to pull any information out of the entities regarding themselves, the data -> that was given up was always relevant only to me. The elves could not give me -> any piece of data I did not already know, nor could their existence be -> sustained under any kind of prolonged scrutiny. Like a dream, once you realize -> you are dreaming you are actually slipping into wakefulness and the dream -> fades. So it is with the elves as well. When you try to shine a light of -> reason on them they dissolve like shadows. - -And so I gave up on believing in them, as reality, as Philip K. Dick said, "is -that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away". One last thought -one the topic, though: Dennett contradicts himself here. If it is so relatively -easy to lie to the brain, to convince it to see patterns that aren't there - and -he even provides a mechanism: don't lie to the senses, lie to the interpreting -part - how can he still dismiss the brain in the vat so easily? He has just -described, in detail, how you would go about setting up a relatively easy -simulation! It will become clear later that Dennett has thought of this, but at -first, his argument is very inconsistent and sloppy. - -Imagine -======= - -Dennett begins chapter 2 with a little justification, almost an apology. "If the -concept of consciousness were to 'fall to science', what would happen to our -sense of moral agency and free will?" Personally, I think the whole sentiment is -silly, but then I've been in contact with non-dualistic ideas since I was a -child, so I tend to underestimate the confusion an Abrahamic influence in -upbringing can cause. I still wonder why people care so much about free will, -but Dennett is right both in anticipating the response and in disarming it. Even -experts in cognitive science often believe in dualistic concepts, like -Descartes' mind vs. matter, or a more toned down version Dennett calls the -"Cartesian theatre", i.e. the idea that somewhere in their brain there is a -central place where consciousness happens, a seat of the "I", if you will. It is -unfortunate that we still have to deal with this (even though it has been -dismantled by Greek, Indian and many other thinkers for at least 2000 years), -but the illusion is still powerful and has to be addressed. - -I also want to add that Dennett's point here (and later on, when he goes into -the details) is that there is no one central point _where consciousness -happens_, not that the brain is entirely decentral. Recent research hints at the -fact that visual processing may actually have a central HQ, but the important -thing is that not _all_ final processing happens there. Some high level -functionality may have a center here or there, but they are all separate and -provide no basis for a _unity of consciousness_[^unity] as it is naively -perceived. - -But let's continue with more meaty stuff. Dennett outlines the following rules -for his approach of explaining consciousness: - -> (1) *No Wonder Tissue allowed.* I will try to explain every puzzling feature of -> human consciousness within the framework of contemporary physical science; at -> no point will I make an appeal to inexplicable or unknown forces, substances, -> or organic powers. In other words, I intend to see what can be done within the -> conservative limits of standard science, saving a call for a revolution in -> materialism as a last resort. -> -> (2) *No feigning anesthesia.* It has been said of behaviorists that they feign -> anesthesia — they pretend they don't have the experiences we know darn well -> they share with us. If I wish to deny the existence of some controversial -> feature of consciousness, the burden falls on me to show that it is somehow -> illusory. -> -> (3) *No nitpicking about empirical details.* I will try to get all the -> scientific facts right, insofar as they are known today, but there is abundant -> controversy about just which exciting advances will stand the test of time. If -> I were to restrict myself to "facts that have made it into the textbooks," I -> would be unable to avail myself of some of the most eye-opening recent -> discoveries (if that is what they are). And I would still end up unwittingly -> purveying some falsehoods, if recent history is any guide. [...] - -I find (2) particularly funny, given that I have criticized him for this very -thing before. But then, he really might not have had these kind of experiences -he dismisses so easily. In fact, there seems to be a tremendous difference -between people how receptive their brain is to religious experiences. Actual -experiences, like visions, profound meaning or higher (sometimes called _pure_) -consciousness are rare (and independent of religions - they just provide a -common framework). It is therefore not surprising that the vast majority of -scientists and philosophers simply doesn't know what the few people that had -those mystic experiences are talking about, leading to much rationalization and -dismissal as "metaphors" or "confabulation". Luckily, this is slowly changing, -and I do have the suspicion that Dennett himself is becoming more aware of this. -Work on Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, for example, has demonstrated such experiences -as real and very challenging to our normal constructions of reality. Our brain -is far stranger and less organized than Dennett portraits it here. - -The Garden of Arcane Delights ------------------------------ - -Dennet then provides a "phenomenological garden", i.e. a wide catalogue of -experiences that are considered as "part" of the mind, like vision, hunger or -fear. In this garden, he emphasizes vision the most and among his examples, he -demonstrates just this large variety among humans how and when mental images -appear. Personally, I found several of his examples to be entirely non-visual, -like: - -> For instance, it's hard to imagine how anyone could get some jokes without the -> help of mental imagery. Two friends are sitting in a bar drinking; one turns -> to the other and says, "Bud, I think you've had enough — your face is getting -> all blurry!" Now didn't you use an image or fleeting diagram of some sort to -> picture the mistake the speaker was making? - -I didn't. Humor, or stories in general, tend to be non-visual for me. They -happen "as language", not "as vision", if that makes any sense. But for other -experiences he doesn't emphasize the visual component and I wonder, doesn't he -have one there? He talks a lot about music and tones, but never mentions seeing -music, which I do, to a degree. Different tones *look* different to me, but they -don't *sound* very different - and least not in any meaningful way.[^vis] - -Now, this in itself is not a problem - different parts of the brain doing the -parsing and so on, which (for a multitude of reasons) is very different among -individuals. I just find it weird that Dennett seems to assume that, in general, -we all work the same. Sure, there might be blind people that have fundamentally -different experiences, or someone might "prefer" mental diagrams to faces, but -if I "see" a person when I'm thinking of them, you do too, right? Well, no. The -differences can be profound, seemingly arbitrary and often go unnoticed for a -long time, maybe even for life. Just compare what mathematical statements and -explanations are "obvious and trivial" to some people and "confusing and -impossible to understand" to others upon first hearing them. Or go into the -Mythbusters forum and watch multiple people arguing that, of course!, X is true -or false, it's so obvious!, but everyone with a different argument, often all -contradicting each other. Personally, I don't even feel that it is justified to -assume that there even is such a thing as an "experience" in any non-individual -way. To say that there is such a thing as "a mental image of a face", in -general, instead of saying "that what John Doe calls a mental image of a face", -is very counter-intuitive and needs strong evidence to back it up. There -probably is a unique brain pattern, a specific firing of neurons perhaps, that -can be called a specific "experience", but those are unique to each brain. It -might be true that there are common patterns among people, at least in some -cases, but those have to be established - which Dennett simply doesn't do. The -very idea, that like we mean the same animal when we say "dog" (with small -caveats), we mean the same mental state when we say "think of a dog", is, to me, -almost absurd. There is some functional equivalence going on, sure, otherwise -communication would be impossible, but the exact implementations vary so much -that such a catalogue is doomed from the start. - -There is a common advice among users of strong hallucinogenic drugs: If you feel -something discomforting and can't figure out what it is - like you never had -this experience before? Almost certainly, you just have to pee. "When in doubt, -go to the toilet." has so far never let me down, even though the same thing has -felt very different every time. - -Die Entdeckung der Langsamkeit -============================== - -> I thought people were still going to throw the book across the room, but I -> didn't want to give them an excuse to throw the book across the room. I wanted -> them to feel a little bit bad about their throwing it across the room, maybe -> go and retrieve it and think well, hang on, yes, this irritated me but maybe I -> don't have the right to be irritated. -> -> -- Daniel Dennett, about [Breaking the Spell][] - -Although Dennett meant a different book, he still pretty much sums up how I feel -about "Consciousness Explained". If I actually owned his book, I literally would -have thrown it against the wall. Multiple times, in fact. - -But the more I came to think about it and analyzed *why* I disagreed so much -with him, the more I realized that I really had very poor reasons to do so. No -matter how weak I thought his arguments were, I couldn't just reject them -without good arguments of my own, and I found out I didn't have any! - -To get a better idea of the context Dennett operates in, I needed to first know -all current models of consciousness, which lead to a *tremendous* amount of -reading. I spent a good 4 months or so going through many books per week, trying -to develop a better understanding of the topic, and mostly, to understand my own -motivations and beliefs. - -No matter how much of his work I might find myself agreeing with in the future, -I already am glad I stuck with the book. Dennett raised all hell in my brain and -demonstrated to me quite clearly that I have been in heavy rationalization mode -for some time now. I will have to deconstruct and tear apart a lot more until I -reach internal consistency again, so let's go on! - -Multiple Drafts and Central Meaning ------------------------------------ - -I'm not going to discuss Dennett's core hypothesis[^md] directly much, simply -because I don't see a useful way to *do* it. He successfully demonstrates a -basic model how one might explain the mind without postulation a central -organization, but the problem is that Dennett lacks so much precision in his -ideas that they are barely testable or useful, really. They are more of a first -justification to further pursuit the direction; a demonstration that there may -be something good to be found here. But in itself, it is rather empty. - -One thing of note I find astonishing is the fact that Dennett presents the idea -as something radically new, something that needs strong justifications to be -even considered worth thinking about in the broadest of terms. The more I read -Western philosophy, and going by the reactions and statements of many -scientists, Dennett's attitude seems to be right; there really *is* widespread -skepticism and prejudice against this line of reasoning. Many people seem to -really *believe* there is one core self from which all meaning clearly descends, -following dedicated pathways, maybe even a strictly logical design like in a -Turing machine. - -*How can that be?!* It completely surprises me. Such ideas go clearly against my -own experiences, clash with all of my introspections, have been widely and -thoroughly taking apart in all the traditions about consciousness *I* seem to be -aware of, like from Buddhism, Christian and Gnostic mysticism, the whole drug -culture and so on. Really, most of the time the first things a mystic is gonna -tell you is that reality is not fundamental, but can be taken apart, that your -perceptions, emotions and thoughts are independent processes and not *you* and -that the sense of self, the ego, can entirely disappear[^ego]. In fact, the -belief in the self is the very first thing on the way to nirvana a Buddhist has -to overcome. It can take many forms, but the basic experience of selfless -existence is one thing really *every* mystic or guru or saint has ever said or -written something about that I just thought it to be common knowledge. How could -you *not* know this? Did you also not know that the sun rises in the -east?[^meaning] - -Pandaemonium ------------- - -The crucial part in Dennett's draft, I think, is the chaotic and decentral -nature of it. There isn't "one" mind or "one" meaner that does all the meaning, -but many small, independent circuits, often only temporary units that realign -themselves constantly, that cooperate, but also compete with each other for -dominion in the brain. The ultimate results are just the winner of that battle -and may shift or even disagree all the time. - -This is an astonishing fact, without which *no* action of the brain can ever be -properly understood. Still, it took Dennett, what?, 250 pages to get there? -*Really?* This is my main criticism of the book; it just meanders on and on -without getting its real message across. And the excuse that it takes that long -to explain doesn't fly with me. The problem is not so much the message, not the -science. Discordian literature, for example, has no problem explaining this -point right away. Robert Anton Wilson even starts "Prometheus Rising" right with -it because you can't understand anything without it. The first lesson in any -mystic tradition was always breaking the self. As long as you believe in the -unity of self, you can never learn, or in other words, as long as something -*looks* like a black box to you, it will always *be* a black box to you. Only -magic can help you then. - -The problem really lies with the reader. Dennett understands how stubborn and -difficult to modify the human mind is, so he sugarcoats his message as much as -he can, trying to distract the reader long enough that he can get them to agree -with each part step by step, until the difficult conclusion will seem obvious. -This may even be a good tactic, but I feel utterly disgusted by it. You are -effectively trying to upgrade a broken system not by fixing it, but by slowly, -tenuously, working around its bugs. The *proper* solution would be to get rid of -the system altogether! Destroy their superstitions, make all their assumptions -crash and contradict each other, lead them into a state of pure chaos from which -nothing old can ever emerge again! Operation Mindfuck! - -But we don't do this. Buddhism understood this perfectly. *First* you must make -the student enlightened, *then* you can teach them about their mind and -meta-physics and so on. The Buddha never discussed any teaching with a beginner, -simply because it would be impossible. Only *after* you have a prepared mind can -you understand the problem properly. But nothing of this sort happens in modern -science. No neuroscientist is required to learn meditation, or take courses on -philosophy, or is given a spiritual challenge: "You are going to take DMT, and -until you can properly deal with it, your research will be considered worthless. -When you stop screaming and sobbing like a baby and can sit calmly through it, -we'll read your paper. Otherwise, you haven't even *seen* the real mind, so what -could you tell us about it?"[^dmt] - -And this shows, again and again. Because of this we get clusterfucks like the -Beyond Belief conference, on which I can really only quote Scott Atran[^atran]: - -> I certainly don't see in this audience the slightest indication that people -> here are emotionally (or) intellectually equipped to deal with the facts of -> changing human knowledge in the context of unchanging human needs; (needs) -> that haven't changed much since the Pleistocene. And I *don't* see that -> there's any evidence that science is being used to try to understand the -> people you are trying to convince to join you. -> -> So, for example, the statements we've heard here about Islam, in this -> audience, are worse than any comic book statements that I've heard about it -> and make the classic comic books look like the Encyclopedia Britannica. -> Statements about who the Jihadis are, who a suicide bomber is, what a -> religious experience is; except for one person, you haven't the slightest -> idea, you haven't produced one single fact, you haven't produced one single -> bit of knowledge, not a single bit. Every case provided here is an N of 1, our -> own intuition, except for Rama[^rama], who had an N of 2 (one brain patient). -> -> Luckily, we had *some* diversity. And from there, generalizations are made -> about religion, about what to do about religion, about how science is to -> engage or not engage religion, about what is rubbish and what is not. It -> strikes me that if you ever wanted to be serious and you want to engage the -> public to make it a moral, peaceful and compassionate world, you've gotta get -> real. You've got to get some data. You've got to get some knowledge. And you -> can't trust your own intuitions about how the world is. Be scientists! There -> is no indication whatsoever that anything we've heard shows any evidence of -> scientific inquiry. - -Evasion -======= - -But enough praise. The last might have given you the impression that I was -convinced by Dennett, that his approach seemed reasonable to me. And in fact, -for a while, I was. Fortunately, along came another chapter, the one about -"philosophical problems of consciousness", in which Dennett tries to answer some -criticism of his model. Most of it is just fine, including the zombie[^zombie] -part, but the part on *seeming*... oh, *seeming*... - -Dennett reviews his progress so far and pretends to address one obvious -criticism: that he still hasn't explained qualia. And he is very much aware of -it, but he just plainly refuses to answer, just throwing a few smoke-bombs -instead, hoping the reader forgets all about it! It's like, "Why are there still -qualia?" -> "To understand qualia, we must understand phenomenology." -> "To -understand phenomenology, we must understand selves." -> "Hey I got really cool -stories about them multiple selves! Let me show you them!" -> "Any questions?". -Like, what?! I feel I just got mugged by that stupid... ALL GLORY TO THE -HYPNOTOAD. - -Dennett still completely depends on a big leap of faith. He can not explain the -*particular* features of consciousness. His draft, or functionalism in general, -may be capable of explaining the observable outside behaviour, but not the -resulting subjective experience. Or in other words, functionalism may figure out -what particular point in Design Space we inhibit and how we got there, but not -*why* Design Space looks the way it does. To give an example, functionalism and -evolution explains just fine why the difference between ripe and unripe apples -is reflected in a different perceived color for each, but not why *red* looks -like *red* and not like *green* instead. He can only explain the -*differentiation*, but not the absolute position! - -I'm sure Dennett would answer that this is a meaningless question to ask and -that's exactly what's infuriating me so much about the book. To me, that is a -perfectly obvious and most important question to ask! The problem is essentially -that Dennett seems to believe that giving a full description is *enough*. It -*isn't*. This is most clearly demonstrated, in my opinion, by [Langton's Ant][]. - -Basically, Langton's Ant is a little ant on an infinite 2-dimensional grid. -Every step, it will look at the color of the field it is on: if it is white, it -colors it black and turns left, or if it is black, it colors it white and turns -right. Afterwards, it moves one field straight ahead and then repeats itself. - -There, I just gave you a *full description* of the universe of Langton's Ant. I -left nothing out, all the rules are in there. If you want, you can build your -own genuine Ant from that, without anything missing. But then you observe the -ant and the following happens: - -<%= image("LangtonsAnt.png", "Langton's Ant builds a highway") %> - -Once the highway is started, the ant will build nothing else anymore. This -*seems* to be true for all possible starting grids, and it has been proven that -the ant will always expand beyond any finite grid, but will it always build a -highway? *Nobody knows*. - -Do you see now that very interesting and important facts about the ant are still -left out, even though we have a perfect functional analysis of it? There's -clearly more to it, more yet to learn! - -If that's the best functionalism can do, then the Titanic just met its -iceberg.[^functionalism] - -Conclusion -========== - -In the end, Dennett makes many good points. He successfully points out the false -Cartesian theatre many people are still trapped in and presents a reasonable -draft as a way out. Most of the confusion and ignorance is the fault of the poor -state of current science and lies not with Dennett. He, ultimately, succeeds in -pointing it out and dismantling it, showing what a proper theory of -consciousness must look like, what it all must explain and what parts we can not -just ignore. - -Nonetheless, he still lacks one thing the most, and he himself reminds us of -this: - -> 'Why, Dan", ask the people in Artificial Intelligence, "do you waste your time -> conferring with those neuroscientists? They wave their hands about -> 'information processing' and worry about where it happens, and which -> neurotransmitters are involved, and all those boring facts, but they haven't a -> clue about the computational requirements of higher cognitive functions." -> "Why", ask the neuroscientists, "do you waste your time on the fantasies of -> Artificial Intelligence? They just invent whatever machinery they want, and -> say unpardonably ignorant things about the brain." The cognitive -> psychologists, meanwhile, are accused of concocting models with neither -> biological plausibility nor proven computational powers; the anthropologists -> wouldn't know a model if they saw one, and the philosophers, as we all know, -> just take in each other's laundry, warning about confusions they themselves -> have created, in an arena bereft of both data and empirically testable -> theories. With so many idiots working on the problem, no wonder consciousness -> is still a mystery. -> -> All these charges are true, and more besides, but I have yet to encounter any -> idiots. Mostly the theorists I have drawn from strike me as very smart people -> - even brilliant people, with the arrogance and impatience that often comes -> with brilliance - but with limited perspectives and agendas, trying to make -> progress on hard problems by taking whatever shortcuts they can see, while -> deploring other people's shortcuts. No one can keep all the problems and -> details clear, including me, and everyone has to mumble, guess, and handwave -> about large parts of the problem. - -One thing I'm entirely missing are the exploits. Where are all the useful things -his first draft allows me to do? We *still* don't understand quantum theory, but -we sure can build technology based on it, so we can't be totally wrong. Where's -the collection of useful mind hacks, which must exist, if Dennett's meme theory -is correct? What cool things can I do, knowing that my mind is a chaotic -pandemonium? - -The first sign of enlightenment in Buddhism, the so-called stream entry, is -officially categorized by, among other things, the disappearance of doubt in the -teachings - you still don't understand them, but you have seen such great -results, that there must be something to it. The Buddha must know *something*. - -All the good things aside, Dennett extrapolates epically, going from one minor -phenomenon to a full description of the brain, explaining nothing along the way, -hoping some hand-waving and bold assertions can compensate for it. This is the -same major failing so common in psychology and economy; you do a study with a -dozen students in a lab and from that interfere the behaviour of nations. -Furthermore, Dennett actually leaves out crucial parts. This is not necessarily -a problem of his draft (and I think it can be fixed), but he ignores so much of -consciousness, all the really weird and extraordinary features, that he can -hardly call it all "explained". His hubris is over 9000! - -"Consciousness Explained" is badly written, fails to live up to its ideals, -points out more the failing of its competition than comes with any strengths of -its own, and so just like Linux, is **highly recommended**. It's what it does to -your mind that counts, not what it actually is. - -[^functionalism]: This chapter makes it look like I have lost all hope in - functionalism, but that's probably a bit to pessimistic just now. - Functionalism has lead to great discoveries and contains many valuable - insights, particularly for AI research, so I'm still sure that it's a - worthwhile endeavour for some time to come, but I do have severe doubts that - it will succeed in the end to explain consciousness. I see no indication so - far that it is even powerful enough to do that, but we'll have to see. - There's no reason to abandon something that still produces results. - -[^dmt]: This is quite close to what many Ayahuasca groups do. Everyone is - required to drink it at least once a week, and for quite a while, they are - probably going to die and go right through hell again and again, until their - soul has become pure and they can begin to learn. This is a rather harsh - treatment, but it works exceptionally well. - -[^meaning]: But then, really, it shouldn't have surprised me. This mainstream - ignorance was exactly what drove me away from many scientists (but not - science) and intellectuals. Many times did I experience how a group of - generally smart people would read a text about or by someone who had a - mystic experience, and it doesn't matter whether the mystic content is just - incidental or the only point, and they would completely *miss it*. I didn't - even believe this for years because it is so obvious to me. They may read - the Gospel of John, or talk about the ideas of St. Augustine, or discuss the - purpose of monasteries, and they either never bring up the mystic content or - dismiss it as poetic language. How someone can read the Gospel of John as a - *political* text is beyond me. I would just listen, confused, how they'd - discuss some of Jesus' teaching, say about the kingdom of god for example, - and bring forth all kinds of interpretations; that it is a political vision - (maybe a new state for the oppressed people, or an early form of communism), - or that it is cult rhetoric, or a moral teaching, or a literary metaphor to - drive home a certain point in his parables, and so on, all taking seriously - at least as *possible* interpretations which would now have to be justified - or criticised. It never seemed to occur to them at all that Jesus *meant - exactly what he said*, that he was really speaking of the kingdom of god, - something he had experienced himself and was now reporting on, not something - he had invented in any way or wanted to establish, even though he warns - multiple times explicitly that "though seeing, they do not see; though - hearing, they do not hear or understand". He, and I, took the experience of - these things as a given. *Of course* they exist, I had seen the kingdom, - that's what got me interested in learning more about it in the first place. - Surely you all have, too? Wait, no? You are puzzled what he could have - possible meant? What?! - - Dennett harshly reminds me of this myopia, most profoundly demonstrated by - philosophers. They have never even seen the terrain, yet they try to draw a - map anyway. No wonder Dennett has to take apart so many ideas I didn't even - consider worth mentioning. I now feel sympathy for Dennett. - -[^ego]: This is often called "ego death" in hallucinogen culture, but also being - "born again" in Christian tradition and many other things. It is in my - opinion the defining experience behind all mysticism and the first and most - important requirement for any spiritual progress. The best indicator is - probably the utter lack of a fear of death. It is basically the defining - characteristic that mystics seem to be entirely without worry about death, - or much worry in general. - -[^md]: Dennett has written another good explanation of the multiple drafts model - for [Scholarpedia][Multiple Drafts] including some updates and corrections. - I'm not going to reiterate it here. - -[^unity]: Later on, Dennett writes, "To begin with, there is our personal, - introspective appreciation of the 'unity of consciousness', which impresses - on us the distinction between 'in here' and 'out there.'" To quote Robert - Anton Wilson's great "Prometheus Rising", "What I see with my eyes closed - and with my eyes open is the same stuff: brain circuitry.". This is shortly - followed up with this exercise for the reader: "If all you know is your own - brain programs operating, the whole universe you experience is inside your - head. Try to hold onto that model for at least an hour. Note how often you - relapse into feeling the universe as *outside* you." - -[^det]: As a little side note, he did the same thing when arguing that "free - will" still exists in a deterministic world. Our world is not deterministic - (it is, at best, probabilistic) and his re-definition of free will to - something useful in practice because he doesn't want to face reality is very - weak. - - That's like arguing that, while impossible in principle, I can still measure - the momentum of an atom with enough accuracy I would ever need in practice, - therefore I can ignore all the implications of quantum physics. A weak - excuse to save his own world view instead of facing the weirdness of - reality. Also, [Aaron Swartz][Swartz Dennett] has a nice and simple comment - on that. - - Dennett even goes on to state that in a deterministic world, some events may - actually be _uncaused_, i.e. you can not find a specific cause for them. He - gives the following example: - - > Consider the sentence "The devaluation of the rupiah caused the Dow Jones - > average to fall." We rightly treat such a declaration with suspicion; are - > we really so sure that among nearby universes the Dow Jones fell _only_ in - > those where the rupiah fell first? Do we even imagine that every universe - > where the rupiah fell experienced a stock market sell-off? Might it not - > have been a confluence of dozens of factors that jointly sufficed to send - > the market tumbling but none of which by itself was essential? On some - > days, perhaps, Wall Street's behavior has a ready explanation; yet at - > least as often we suspect that no particular cause is at work. - - He also mentions World War 1 as a good example, and the following snippet: - - > The bias in favor of not just looking but finding a cause is not idle, as - > Matt Ridley notes in his discussion of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, for - > which no cause has yet been found: "This offends our natural determinism, - > in which diseases must have causes. Perhaps CJD just happens spontaneously - > at the rate of about one case per million per year". - - I am reminded of Lem's Śledztwo (engl.: The Investigation), where exactly - this happens: Mysteriously, several corpses seem to stand up and walk a bit - until they finally collapse again. At first, it is thought that someone - breaks into the morgue and arranges the corpses, but later on, a - statistician comes up with an elaborate numerical theory that perfectly - models all cases (and predicts further cases), but offers no explanation - whatsoever, except that this kind of phenomenon just happens, according to - certain rules. - - Dennett commits a (rather brutal) error here. He defines a "cause" somewhat - like the following (which I fully agree with): A cause is a set of - "features" of a world, such that they are both sufficient (i.e., if the - features are present, then in *every* possible world the effect will occur) - and necessary (i.e., there is *no* possible world, such that the effect - occurs, but the cause not). He then rightfully concludes, aha!, there is no - cause for World War 1 because you certainly can't find such a single cause - that it would always result in the war. But the proper conclusion to draw in - that case is *not* that there are effects without causes, but that in fact - you are dealing with an *improper* effect, an invalid object. "World War 1" - is not a proper thing to call an effect. Instead, you would have to break it - down *a lot*. You can investigate what the cause for the murder of Archduke - Franz Ferdinand was, for example, and build your pseudo-effect up from that: - "World War 1" is the sum of effects "Murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand" and - so on, each of which has a proper cause. (If necessary, you may have to go - down to the subatomic level, of course, where you will find a guaranteed - proper effect) Or, you go on to create a more abstract framework and - investigate what the cause for a major diplomatic catastrophe of that - magnitude is, without including any specifics. - - He confuses deterministic causes and narrative causes. He insists on - defending that we are narratively free - we can convince ourselves that we - are "free enough", even in a deterministic world and can choose our actions - accordingly. It may even be in our best interest to do so, as Dennett notes: - fatalists often perform far worse. But that is not what causal determinism - is *about*. You can't just toss aside a question and declare that your - make-believe is a proper answer just because you don't *like* the - implications. If I wrote a book about how *there clearly is a god*, citing - evidence that believing in it makes me more evolutionary successful, Dennett - would *rightfully* dismiss it because belief and belief-in-belief are - clearly different questions! - - "Freedom evolves" is a very nice demonstration of the massive bias present - in most recent atheists; they clearly don't show the same rigour or attitude - with regard to any *other* question outside of religion. For them, the - conclusion came first and the arguments only later. Except Christopher - Hitchens, though, I don't see anyone of them admit that. - -[^zombie]: I'd have to say that I don't know how I stand on the p-zombie issue. - Or rather, I *am* sure that *most* people are p-zombies. I'm not sure if - *all* are, including me. - - In fact, I consider it a real possibility that most people *are* less - conscious than mystics are, leading to Dennett actually having less features - that need explaining. But I wouldn't yet commit fully to this idea, nor - would I know whether this is simply a problem of degree, that the mystics - simply have better soul-reception with which to receive more programs, if - you want, or if there is a real qualitative difference, a distinct property - people like Dennett just plain don't have. - - However, my main problem with p-zombies would be that both standard camps - aren't radical *enough* for me. If p-zombies are conceivable, why are you - such cowards to not openly speculate that some people, maybe everyone but - you, is one? If they are not, why are you hesitating to say that a bat, a - thermostat and Mickey Mouse are conscious? Absolutely no balls. - -[^rama]: [Vilayanur S. Ramachandran][]. Very awesome. - -[^atran]: Unfortunately, I haven't been able to actually read anything by Scott - Atran, but he's very high on my todo. His comments were the highlight of - both Beyond Belief 1 and 2. - -[^vis]: You can even hack your brain here and change what part of it handles - what. You can shift, through practice (and not very much, really - a few - weeks may be enough to get very cool results) or drugs, your thoughts from - being _an inner voice_ to _pure text_ to _images_ and so on, and - mix-and-match wildly. I wrote some about that in my experiment on - [Speed Reading][]. - diff --git a/content_muflax/reflections/index.mkd b/content_muflax/reflections/index.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index fd9499d..0000000 --- a/content_muflax/reflections/index.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Reflections -is_category: true ---- - -<%= category :reflections %> diff --git a/content_muflax/reflections/letting_go_of_music.mkd b/content_muflax/reflections/letting_go_of_music.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 898bb76..0000000 --- a/content_muflax/reflections/letting_go_of_music.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,416 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Letting Go of Music -date: 2010-05-03 -techne: :done -toc: true -episteme: :discredited -disowned: true ---- - -Motivation -========== - -It feels very unusual and strange, after thinking critically about the -arguments, assessing the evidence and forming a rational conclusion, to arrive -at a position that nowadays only two groups share: Christian puritans and the -Taliban. It makes me very uncomfortable, but I let's give the argument a good -shot anyway. - -What conclusion am I talking about? *Music is a parasite*, or in practical -terms, *Music exploits you*. This is a radical statement, so initial skepticism -is very much understandable. If it comforts you, let me get one thing out of the -way: I do not object to music out of "spiritual" or "religious" reasons, which, -unfortunately, seems to be the most common case. Most likely, music does not -"corrupt your character" or "lead you away from God" or any such nonsense. It is -also not really an argument for asceticism. No, my main argument comes from -memetic theory and a cost/benefit analysis. It is, in principle, a very similar -argument broad forward by atheists against religion. The Four Horsemen of -Atheism (Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, -all truly awesome) have argued very much alike, but against religion. I will -try to show that their reasoning extends to more fields, one of which is music. -This is not meant to falsify or parody their position (I in fact agree with it, -at least partially), but to explore the real ramifications. - -Being sensible never got anyone anywhere. I don't believe much in carefully -adjusting. Jumping right into a big unknown and then compromising always seemed -so much more natural to me. If things work out, you are a genius for getting it -right from the start. If they don't, you can always just deny everything. - -Before I get going, let's clarify 3 things. Firstly, I will build on memetic -theory, so you will probably need to know what it's about to understand some of -my reasoning. You may want to read "The Meme Machine" by Susan Blackmore or some -of Daniel Dennett's recent books, like "Darwin's Dangerous Idea", or at least -google it. The arguments aren't really very technical, but if you aren't -familiar with basic evolution or what a meme is, then my points may seem alien -to you. To understand the perspective of replicators, it will also help greatly -to read "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins. - -Secondly, let's establish a few terms. I will refer to "not having music" as -amusicality, analog to "not believing in god(s)" being atheism. This is totally -different from being tone-deaf, disliking music or the like. To be honest, I'm a -great fan of music, so this is also not a "disgruntled outsider" kind of -argument. Furthermore, I take it as a given that music is a highly advanced -memeplex (i.e. group of memes that support each other), in the same way as -religion or language, and as such is a replicator and subject to evolution, but -independent of genes. - -And lastly, why I will bring no argument for amusicality. It might seem odd that -I only attack arguments for music, but have no strong argument of my own why -"not having music" is too be favored. This follows the same logic of atheism: -the one's making the claim are the one's in need of evidence and arguments. The -Null Hypothesis (i.e. "there is no correlation between A and B" or "A doesn't -exist" or similar) is the default position of science. We start off with an -empty set of assumptions and every one we want to add has to be substantiated. -To successfully defend the skeptic position, I only have to dismantle all the -evidence proponents show, not actively prove the impossibility of the claim. -Atheists are used to it in terms of religion: You only show there is no reason -to believe in god(s), you don't need to show there is any evidence against -god(s). This is logically evident, as disproving such claims is often impossible -or simply impractical. - -However, my position isn't exactly that bleak. I actually *can*> make one simple -argument for "not having music": it eats up your time. Replace any time you -spend listening to music with something actually beneficial and you are in a -better position. But even if music were "free" (as in, would use up no -resources), my position might still be the rational one. - -To be honest, the argument against music isn't entirely unmotivated. (It never -is.) I became so udderly obsessed with music that I just got sick of it all. -Comparing codecs, hardware, different players, optimizations, genres, recording -techniques, musical structure, correct labeling and all this crap, I just got -tired of it; and when I asked myself why I was doing all this in the first -place, what music gave me in return... I got nothing. Nothing worth the effort, -anyway. So it's probably fair to say that I wasn't exactly unbiased. - -So let's go and see all the arguments in favor of music. To be clear, it is rare -for anyone to defend *all* of them. But they are, as far as I know, all -proposed seriously and the list is complete. Here we go: - -The Argument from History -------------------------- - -> Humans have been playing music for, at least, thousands of years and -> probably millions of years. It is completely natural for us to do so. Evolution -> has shaped our brain to encourage this. - -This is true, but a fallacy: what *is* can never inform us what *ought* to be. -Evolution has also made men good at killing and raping, for example. (And also -enabled us to use language and science, of course.) What has happened in the -past can inform us, but can not be our sole guide. You must provide actual, -current benefits. - -The Argument from Social Integrity ----------------------------------- - -> Human society is, among other things, united by music. People engage in -> collective music, like festivals, camp fires or choirs. They define their own -> identity through it ("Are you a metalhead, too?"). It is one reason why human -> society is so stable and productive. Do you want to advocate chaos and -> anarchy? - -This is probably the strongest general argument in favor of music. It is true -that music is a very important social "glue" and it might very well be true that -society as we know it would not function without it. But the same thing can be -said of religion. There is not a single historical case of a society that got -from family-sized tribes to city-states without major help from religion. That, -however, doesn't make any religion particularly true. And even if this were true -in the past, it doesn't have to be true for the future. - -I'll have to admit that I can not completely disprove this argument. I would not -advice on any changes to society, like outlawing music, even though I'd love to -do a proper experiment. But I can point some things out. - -First, there *are* societies without music. The most famous one are the Taliban, -who are thriving and have a stable history. They certainly are a competitive and -strong society. Also, the deaf community is active and very tight-knit. The -claim is probably overstated, but might have some justification. - -Second, I do understand the danger of trying to experiment on this. What if the -argument is right and we accidentally do harm civilization? Is it really worth -the risk? (I'd like to think so, but I'm also willing to put up with a far -greater risk than most people.) - -The Argument from Pleasure --------------------------- - -> Humans take great joy from music. It invokes many emotions, from happiness to -> anger to sadness. It gives their life meaning, but also just passes boredom. - -This one is easy to argue against, but hard to understand. You do not enjoy -music because of benefits, but because music is shaped (and has shaped you) to -be enjoyable. It (ab)uses your reward system, your fear response, anger response -and so on, to pass itself on. It is self-perpetuating, making you feel good so -you listen to it so you feel good so you listen to it... Memetic evolution -predicts this: brains that are "bored" without music will propagate it more, so -any successful music will incorporate selection for this property. This is -obvious to any outsider, as it is with any drug, but not for the afflicted. -Observe anyone under the effect of a drug, during a panic attack and so on, -while you yourself are neutral, unaffected. They will be blind to it; their -brain pays no attention to this fact. - -Arguing that pleasure in itself is a good thing, is tautological at best and -addictive behaviour at worst. If you propose this, then you are in a really bad -position. It is very hard to make a good case for pleasure without also argueing -for direct stimulation of your reward center. You see, Electrodes can be -inserted, a little switch can be attached and you can sit there all day, feeling -great! But even most hedonists do not want to defend this. - -The Argument from Morals ------------------------- - -> Music can influence our moral behaviour. Playing wholesome and delightful -> music to children will shape their character for the better! - -This is a bold statement, especially because it has no evidence whatsoever. -There is no psychological study supporting this, no disproportionately large -chunk of deaf people in jail, no connection between crime rate and music -education. If there is any link, it is minuscule. - -There is, however, a strong connection between indoctrination and music. Almost -every cult, religion or otherwise strong ideology will use music for its -purposes. Music's strong potential to move people's emotion can easily be -exploited to instill fake unity, bliss or aggression. I would not go so far to -disqualify music for this reason, but reject any moral claims as at least -neutral. If it has positive effects, it might as well have negative ones. You -can not advocate only the one part you profit from. - -This argument is sometimes used negatively, e.g. "Modern music corrupts our -children!". If you believe it, you must accept this conclusion as well. Music -censorship, at least partially, would be the only responsible thing to do. - -The Argument from Profits -------------------------- - -> Billions of dollars are involved. Music is a very profitable -> industry. - -So is heroin. I don't feel I have to say more about this; it is such an empty -argument. - -The Argument from Benign Symbiosis ----------------------------------- - -> Music is useful to us. It enhances our ability to recognize patterns. It -> supports the learning of languages. It improves our ability to adopt other -> memes. It has been documented that children that learnt an instrument perform -> better in school. Music can help to treat mental illnesses. - -There exists barely any valid research for any of those claims. The strongest is -probably the learning of languages. Basically, this uses musics strong -reproductive capabilities by hijacking it. You take language memes, like a poem, -or just some words, and apply them as text to some music, thereby making them -"stick" a lot better. This seems to work, as far as we can tell. There is, of -course, no conclusive evidence. (This is mostly because of the failure of -language education and linguistics, and unrelated to music, in my opnion.) - -But is this worth its price? Are you able to contain it? Recall that you are -using music exactly because it is so fertile. It seems like the opposite of a -safe operation to me. Also, is it really effective? Instead of using music to -get small benefits in school or elsewhere, read books. Learn critical thinking. -Solve puzzles. Address the problem directly, instead of trying to do it through -some remote synergy with a symbiont. - -However, it can be argued that music was a major driving force behind the -development of our big brains. We needed more and more capable meme machines to -spread music more reliably, so we were selected for it. We profit from this -because the human brain is largely a universal machine, not specialized for any -particular meme and so all kinds of useful memes spread better as well. Everyone -wants a better memetic "soil", if you want. But if this is true (I suspect it -is), then there is a fiendish little twist to it: We can exploit the parasite -now! Sure, music used us for its own purposes, endowing us with bigger brains to -get a better chance itself, but now that we have those brains, we don't need to -have any affiliation to music anymore! What do we care if music survives? Let's -use those brains for something *good*! So long, and thanks for all the -neurons! - -The medical use of music might be justified. Psychotherapy is in a terrible -state right now, but the existing studies seem to support effectiveness of music -in some cases. While I personally would prefer other methods, I would -nonetheless agree that a reasonable case can be made for music *in the hands -of a professional*. And this is the crux: we are talking about serious -illnesses and therapy, certainly not recreational use. - -Finally, I feel that this argument is very dishonest. It is really a -rationalisation. No one sits down, thinks "Hey, singing those songs would get me -better test scores in 10 years!" and then does so. You listen to music because -you like it. Later on come the "reasons" and "beliefs" on why it really is good -for you. If I showed studies disproving all such claim, would it change the -argument? Most likely not. You would still listen to music, those scientists be -damned. They are probably frauds anyway! - -Argument from Spirituality --------------------------- - -> Entweder durch den Einfluss des narkotischen Getränkes, von dem alle -> ursprünglichen Menschen und Völker in Hymnen sprechen, oder bei dem -> gewaltigen, die ganze Natur lustvoll durchdringenden Nahen des Frühlings -> erwachen jene dionysischen Regungen, in deren Steigerung das Subjektive zu -> völliger Selbstvergessenheit hinschwindet. Auch im deutschen Mittelalter -> wälzten sich unter der gleichen dionysischen Gewalt immer wachsende Schaaren, -> singend und tanzend, von Ort zu Ort (...). Es gibt Menschen, die, aus Mangel -> an Erfahrung oder aus Stumpfsinn, sich von solchen Erscheinungen wie von -> "Volkskrankheiten", spöttisch oder bedauernd im Gefühl der eigenen Gesundheit -> abwenden: die Armen ahnen freilich nicht, wie leichenfarbig und gespenstisch -> eben diese ihre "Gesundheit" sich ausnimmt, wenn an ihnen das glühende Leben -> dionysischer Schwärmer vorüberbraust. -> -> -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Geburt der Tragödie [^trans] - -[^trans]: Translation: - - > Even under the influence of the narcotic draught, of which songs of all - > primitive men and peoples speak, or with the potent coming of spring that - > penetrates all nature with joy, these Dionysian emotions awake, and as - > they grow in intensity everything subjective vanishes into complete - > self-forgetfulness. In the German Middle Ages, too, singing and dancing - > crowds, ever increasing in number, whirled themselves from place to place - > under this same Dionysian impulse. (...) There are some who, from - > obtuseness or lack of experience, turn away from such phenomena as from - > "folk-diseases," with contempt or pity born of consciousness of their own - > "healthy-mindedness." But of course such poor wretches have no idea how - > corpselike and ghostly their so-called "healthy-mindedness" looks when the - > glowing life of the Dionysian revelers roars past them. - -This is in my opinion the strongest and at the same time rarest argument. It -surprised me a bit that so many people seem to listen to music for any *other* -reason than this.[^after] But then, mystics have always been in the minority, so -there. - -The use of music for spiritual purposes extends to virtually all mystic -practices, be they shamanistic rituals, prayer, meditation or the more modern -drug-based practices, as exemplified by Leary or Crowley. - -[^after]: This is a bit after-the-fact rationalisation, though. Like most -people, I started listening to music not voluntarily, but was exposed to it and -simply liked it. Only much later did I discover its great potential and changed -my usage. - -In fact, I suspect there is a strong correlation with "being spiritual" and -"liking music". The link may be the ease with which memes can enter your brain - -your memetic immune system, if you want. This holds true for me (I was a gnostic -theist for a long time, having personally talked to several gods and all. It was -a hard struggle towards logic and reason for me.) and many people I know. - -Also, there is a strong connection to the amygdala and temporal lobes. I don't -want to reiterate the point here and will just point to the awesome talks on -neurotheology by Todd Murphy, specifically [Using Neuroscience for Spiritual -Practice] and [Enlightenment, Self and the Brain]. There is some great research -popping up in recent years for sure. - -Honestly, I don't know how to retain my contrarian attitude here, seeing that I -agree with the argument. You may try to attack spirituality (in the sense of -mystic experiences, not believe in woo) as bad in itself, but this is very rare -even among hardcore atheists and materialists. - -The argument that mystic experiences will lead to pseudoscience or superstitions -is easily disproved; just have a look at how many both scientists and mystics -are still clearly rational. Good examples may range from Michael Persinger on -the science side, to Sam Harris somewhere in the middle, and the Dalai Lama on -the religious side. Sure, like any counter-intuitive and large open question, -spirituality lends itself to false believes, but that's a general human problem, -not something specific to the topic. The answer are good rational practices, not -abandoning music. - -Conclusion -========== - -In the end, one thing stands out: many attitudes towards music, and their -rationalisation, are indistinguishable from memetic addiction. People are being -exploited by music. It has shaped our brain for its reproductive advantages. -Sure, we may have won the game of natural selection sometimes, but this is of -little concern to music. The memeplex has all characteristics of a virus. It -eats up as much of individual resources as it can without disabling its host. -We are constantly encouraged to listen to more music, get more music, recommend -it to our friends and so on. It spreads for the sake of spreading. Good music is -judged not by its inherent benefits to individuals or the species, but by how -popular it is, that is, how good it is at spreading. Being an ear worm is a -*good* thing for music to be. If someone states they doesn't listen much to -music, then the most common response is one of disbelief, utterances of "How -empty and meaningless my life would be without music!", of "What is wrong with -you? Are you depressed?", followed by hundreds of recommendations because "There -has to be some music out there that you like! Just listen more to it!". - -It sure looks like the behaviour of addicts. If you are not devoted to music, at -least a bit, you must try harder! These are memes that ruthlessly exploit their -hosts. Natural selection has shaped them to be highly resistant, persuasive and -addictive. All of music theory and education is only occupied with how to make -more popular music, how to spread it better, how to increase its impact. It -conveys no message (or only an empty shell of one), it teaches nothing, it gives -you nothing except pleasure. It circumvents the purpose of a reward system by -directly stimulating it without giving something in return. It is a parasite. - -But what now? -> I thought, "Okay, calm down. Let's just try on the not-believing-in-God -> glasses for a moment, just for a second. Just put on the no-God glasses and -> take a quick look around and then immediately throw them off". So I put them -> on and I looked around. -> -> I'm embarrassed to report that I initially felt dizzy. I actually had the -> thought, "Well, how does the Earth stay up in the sky? You mean we're just -> hurtling through space? That's so vulnerable!" I wanted to run out and catch -> the Earth as it fell out of space into my hands... -> -> I wandered around in a daze thinking, “No one is minding the store!” And I -> wondered how traffic worked, like how we weren't just in chaos all the time. -> And slowly, I began to see the world completely differently. I had to rethink -> what I thought about everything. It's like I had to go change the wallpaper of -> my mind. -> -> -- Julia Sweeney, "Letting Go of God (which my title is, of course, an allusion -> to) - -That's a bit how I felt at first. Really, can my reasoning be right? It *must* -be wrong! Dvořák's 9th symphony, a parasite? ゆらゆら帝国's "Sweet Spot", -detrimental? Demons & Wizards, really a satanic band? Impossible! And even if, -can I ever be able to let go of them? Can I *not* listen to music? Will I not -die of boredom, depression, isolation? Will it not cheapen my life to be -amusical? Will nostalgia not overpower me? - -It began to settle in. I remember the same thing happening to religion. Not -praying, not talking with the gods, not feeling this sense of mystical bliss, -this was really hard for me to accept. But it seemed the only honest thing to -do. The only true understanding you can have. And after a while, the old way -seemed silly. You begin to truly understand the world a bit better, not making -excuses, running down dead ends, but learning an actual powerful lesson. Trying -to understand or work with anything without embracing rationality and science is -always a bad idea. - -Safer Use ---------- - -But there is something important to clarify here: Just because something is a -parasite doesn't mean it's necessarily bad. In fact, most parasites are actually -quite useful to their host. They share a common interest in the hosts well-being, -after all. The crucial thing to understand, though, is that the virus is -interested in its own replication the most. The host will always have to fight -hard to ensure that the relationship is still symbiotic and not exploitative. - -Basically, the normal safer use rules apply. Don't overdo it. Establish pauses, -don't repeat anything too much, diversify your tastes. Avoid mainstream sources, -which are mostly characterized by pure popularity. (And ruled by agents that -have the moral strength of tobacco companies.) Don't mix activities too much: -doing something "on the side", all the time, is always strong evidence that it -has become an addiction. You know the drill - make sure you still benefit -enough to make it worth it. - -The Future ----------- - -New habits will grow to fill the void, better habits. New memes will come. The -world goes on. - -But then I found this on Youtube: [Berryz工房 - Dschinghis Khan][] - -Yes, it's a Japanese cover of the German song *Dschingis Khan*. I don't -know whether they are playing it in heaven or hell, but probably both. So good, -yet so bad... If you ever needed proof that humanity has gone batshit insane, -well... JPOP's the end of all theology, the end of all faith. You may believe -whatever you want why there are no gods around today, but no one, religious and -atheist alike, ever proposed that they simply got too alienated with us. I mean, -JPOP, for Cthulhu's sake! You had all those great ideas for humanity, visions of -paradise, or eternal servitude, or food, or whatever, but at some point, humans -just stopped caring about the sacrifices and the prayers and just went on -covering 70's pop. There's no chance of redemption anymore and from that day on, -the gods simply didn't believe in us anymore. Nyarlathotep might have given us -the atomic bomb, but even he is freaked out by *Hello! Project*. The mad, -monotonous music surrounding Azathoth's throne, I might have identified it. diff --git a/content_sutra/faq.mkd b/content_sutra/faq.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index a4d488d..0000000 --- a/content_sutra/faq.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,35 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: FAQ -date: 2012-04-15 -techne: :done -episteme: :believed -non_cognitive: true ---- - -- Q: What's the tl;dr? - - A: Buddhist texts, retold by an internet crackpot / lolcat enthusiast. - -- Q: Why? - - A: I wondered what the Buddha would've sounded like if he had emerged from the blogosphere. Also, it's a lot of fun to write this stuff. - -- Q: Who are you main inspirations? - - A: [Philosophy Bro][PhiloBro], [David Chapman][Meaningness], [Ron Hogan][Tao]. I'm not half as awesome as any of them. - -- Q: This text isn't part of the Pali Canon / authentic / from my favorite lineage! - - A: Tough luck. - -- Q: What are your qualifications? - - A: I don't have any. I'm just another crackpot with a blog. I may be enlightened, though. - -- Q: Are your re-tellings accurate? - - A: I have no idea. - -- Q: What's your lineage / vehicle / favorite god? - - A: The Internet / Blogoyana / [Yamantaka][]. diff --git a/content_sutra/index.mkd b/content_sutra/index.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 61c19c4..0000000 --- a/content_sutra/index.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,28 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Blogchen -non_cognitive: true -no_comments: true ---- - -It started with a [simple observation back][Twitter pali] in 2011: - -> I just realized that the [Pali Canon][] is essentially an offline blog. - -[Many][AJATT] [blogs][Technium] focus on certain ideas and, over time, accumulate enough posts that people start thinking of them as (loosely-)connected units. Over on [LessWrong][], they call these [Sequences][LW sequences]. - -The Pali Canon is just that - a collection of Buddhist Sequences. - -There's only one problem - they wrote them Before Internet. Heck, some of them are completely hipster - they did this before everyone was into this newfangled "writing" thing. - -This shit is seriously old is what I'm saying. And long. *Boy* are these sutras long. And there is a shockingly low amount of cat pictures in the canon as well. - -Maybe that can be fixed. - -It's time for a [Bro][PhiloBro]dhisattva to step forward and [reblog][] Buddhist scripture. - -(I do a lot of [other stuff][main]. There is a [FAQ][] and an [RSS feed][RSS].) - -Thus have I heard: - -<%= render "content-embed", :item => @site.latest_article %> - diff --git a/content_sutra/pali/index.mkd b/content_sutra/pali/index.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 931575b..0000000 --- a/content_sutra/pali/index.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: From the Pali Canon -is_category: true ---- - -<%= category :pali %> diff --git a/content_sutra/pali/monks-are-awesome.mkd b/content_sutra/pali/monks-are-awesome.mkd deleted file mode 100644 index 840da75..0000000 --- a/content_sutra/pali/monks-are-awesome.mkd +++ /dev/null @@ -1,85 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Monks Are Awesome -date: 2012-03-19 -tags: -- pali -techne: :done -episteme: :fiction -slug: 2012/03/19/monks-are-awesome/ ---- - -*(Based on [Samaññaphala Sutta: The Fruits of the Contemplative Life][Pali 02].)* - -So there was this badass king, called [Ajatasattu][]). One day, he wasn't in the mood for some monster-slaying or old-school conquering, so he wanted to try this enlightenment thing people kept talking about. - -The king sent for a whole bunch of well-known gurus, asked each of them about their teaching. But Ajatasattu wasn't some lazy philosopher, he didn't just accept some cool stories. Insights might be fun, but the king wanted to be awesome *now*. So he asked the gurus, tell me, what's in it for me *now*? Why should I do the stuff you're talking about? - -First came [Purana Kassapa][], and this dude is a moral nihilist. Tells the king, doesn't matter what you do. [Universe don't care][honeybadger], universe don't give a shit. So just do whatever you want, it's all the same. - -Ajatasattu isn't convinced, so he puts on his poker face and asks for the next guru. - -So [Makkhali Gosala][] comes in and says, listen, we all know that determinism is true. The universe follows its laws, nothing you can do. Whoever is destined for enlightenment, will reach enlightenment. Nobody has a say in the matter, it's all just blind laws unfolding. So you see, Makkhali and Purana get along fine, doing whatever. - -The king still doesn't like these nihilists, so he's ready for another guru. - -Next is [Ajita Kesakambali][], and you've seen guys like him everywhere these days 'cause he's a materialist. He goes, enlightenment? What for? So you don't end up in hell or some shit? Look, you're made out of atoms. There's no ghost in the machine, just these atoms. When you die, they scatter and you're gone. [Like Lego][xkcd lego]. And what's more, and now Ajita gets all economist, there's no karma or anything like that. You have this one life, make the best of it. Doesn't matter who you screw over, have the most fun you can and then goodbye, that's it. - -Yeah, that's not all that great either. Next? - -Up comes [Pakudha Kaccayana][] (who can pronounce all these names?!), and this dude has two good points to make. So first he says, Ajita was on the right track, but he's not materialist *enough*. So you're made out of atoms? Where's the pain, where the pleasure in these atoms? There isn't any, you know. Just atoms. So how can anyone say they suffer? It's all just a confusion. It's nonsense. - -But there's more! The universe is large. Not just large, but *infinitely* large. And you know, in an infinite universe, everything repeats. Even if you don't like this suffering thing you're confused about - and you shouldn't, but I know you'll keep on insisting on it - you couldn't do anything anyway. Nothing ever changes. You can't fix what is eternal. - -Not much fun either. The king is getting kinda desperate now. Everything's so fatalistic with these gurus. Isn't there someone who has some actual advice? - -So the next guy comes up, and it's [Nigantha Nataputta][Mahavira]. You might know him under his name Mahavira, the dude who funded Jainism. You know, "don't even kill an insect" and so on. Nigantha has some advice. Restrain yourself! Don't get involved in this shit. It ain't worth it. Be totally detached, completely harmless. - -Harmless don't fly when you're a badass conqueror. Last guru. - -Finally we're getting to [Sanjaya Belatthaputta][], but alas, this is even worse than the rest. Sanjava just says, don't ask me, bro. I have no fucking clue how any of this shit works. I'm just here for the free food. - -Sigh. - -Ajatasattu is frustrated. Isn't there anyone in this empire who isn't a fatalist or nihilist or worse? Anyone who has some idea how to actually be awesome, and some advice how to get there? There is, says the king's physician. I'll call for him, he'll teach you how to get enlightened. - -Enter Buddha. - -Ajatasattu is getting impatient now, and he asks him right away, what's this whole spirituality thing all about? Why should I even care? - -Buddha doesn't fuck around with any metaphysical argument. He cuts right to the core, gives the king an example. - -See this slave of yours over there? Imagine he ran away because he thought, this king is already pretty awesome, I wanna be this awesome in my next life, and the slave dons a monk's robe and starts practicing his ass off, collecting merit like Pokemon. What would you think of this slave? Don't worry about any philosophy, just say it how it is. - -The king says, that'd be one awesome slave! I mean, the dedication is admirable and the goal's pretty cool, too. - -Buddha says, and if one of your merchants did it? Or your physician? - -Ajatasattu can totally see where he's going with this. There's something good about being a monk, that's clear. But what exactly? - -So the Buddha starts listing it all. - -A monk doesn't care about riches. No matter how much money he has (and this is a male-only club, sorry), a monk is always happy. Total economical freedom. - -But a monk also does no harm. There's no hate in him, no greed, no envy. A monk is at peace, and this keeps him away from drama. - -Furthermore, a monk is trustworthy. He doesn't lie, doesn't mislead, doesn't argue just to be a contrarian. He's dedicated to the truth. Monks don't get stuck in flame wars. - -A monk isn't just in it for himself, either. He rejects wealth and high status, cares about the poor, helps the unfortunate. Nice guy, this monk. - -Alright, Ajatasattu is interested. There sure are a lot of "gurus" involved in bullshit like astrology and cursing people, or they're total hedonists, or just general douchebags. It would be nice to avoid this stuff. But is there more to it? Some direct benefit? - -Sure, says the Buddha. Loads! - -First, you'll always be content. And what we call the [Five Hindrances][] - craving for pleasure, anger, boredom, anxiety, self-doubt - these disappear, too. - -And then the real sweet stuff begins. You'll learn the Jhanas. That's a form of meditation, a high state of concentration, like Flow, only way more intense and fun. And you'll learn how sensations work internally, how they arise, why some stuff hurts. This is tremendously useful, and as a monk, you can master it all. - -But that's not nearly all. You want benefits? Here's some fucking benefits! A monk unshackles his mind and gains access to some amazing superpowers. And I mean *super*powers. Duplication, like a ninja? Walk through walls or on water? Fly through the air? Read minds and remember your past lives? Sure thing! A good monk can do all these things! - -So Ajatasattu is already pretty impressed, but Buddha doesn't stop. There's one last thing. - -*Freedom from Samsara.* The endless cycle of rebirth, the deep cause of all suffering, the reason we're all in this mess? *We can totally end this shit.* - -You heard that right. You won't just be free from worry about your girlfriend or some such nonsense. If you become a monk, you'll be able to end *all* suffering. Entirely. Gone. And not coming back. - -And so the king was sold. diff --git a/layouts/cat-nav.erb b/layouts/cat-nav.erb index c6e4a0c..f28cc68 100644 --- a/layouts/cat-nav.erb +++ b/layouts/cat-nav.erb @@ -3,23 +3,20 @@
    <% @site.categories(false).each do |cat| %>
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    • ...<%= size - num %> more...
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      + <% items = @site.items_by_date(cat) + size = items.size + num = 20 %> + <% items.slice!(0, num/2).each do |i| %> + <%= render 'list-item', :item => i, :episteme => false %> + <% end %> + <% if size > num %> +
    • ...<%= size - num %> more...
      • + <% end %> + <% items.reverse.slice(0, num/2).reverse.each do |i| %> + <%= render 'list-item', :item => i, :episteme => false %> + <% end %> +
    <% end %>
diff --git a/lib/rss.rb b/lib/rss.rb index c13e6e6..19558e7 100644 --- a/lib/rss.rb +++ b/lib/rss.rb @@ -3,9 +3,6 @@ def rss_feed require "rss/maker" version = "2.0" - # find changelog - log = @items.find{|i| i.identifier.match %r{/changelog/}} - content = RSS::Maker.make(version) do |rss| rss.channel.title = @site.title rss.channel.link = @site.url @@ -14,22 +11,12 @@ def rss_feed rss.items.do_sort = true # sort items by date # use changelog or non-draft articles - if not log.nil? - changes(log).each do |change| - i = rss.items.new_item - i.title = "muflax hath written unto you..." - i.link = "#{@site.url}/changelog/" - i.date = Time.parse(change[:date]) - i.description = change[:description] - end - else - @site.items_by_date.last(5).each do |item| - i = rss.items.new_item - i.title = "#{item[:title]}" - i.link = "#{@site.url}" + item.path - i.date = item[:date].to_time - i.description = tidy(item.compiled_content).force_encoding("utf-8") - end + @site.items_by_date.last(5).each do |item| + i = rss.items.new_item + i.title = "#{item[:title]}" + i.link = "#{@site.url}" + item.path + i.date = item[:date].to_time + i.description = tidy(item.compiled_content).force_encoding("utf-8") end # mod date is newest article / entry in log @@ -40,26 +27,6 @@ def rss_feed content end -# return changes based on changelog -def changes log - require 'nokogiri' - - changes = [] - - # parse log - html_log = Nokogiri::HTML(log.compiled_content) - html_log.css("ul#changelog").each do |ul| - ul.css("li").each do |li| - change = {} - change[:description] = li.children.to_s.strip - change[:date] = li.content[%r{\d{4}/\d{2}/\d{2}}] - changes << change - end - end - - changes -end - def rss_feed_merged require "rss" version = "2.0" @@ -69,6 +36,8 @@ def rss_feed_merged # read individual feeds and include them @site.site_yaml["sites"].keys.each do |name| + next if name == "muflax" + feed = RSS::Parser.parse(File.open("out/#{name}/rss.xml")) date = [feed.channel.date, date].max feed.items.each do |item| diff --git a/moved.yaml b/moved.yaml index be24322..13615a6 100644 --- a/moved.yaml +++ b/moved.yaml @@ -1,49 +1,8 @@ sites: muflax: - # moved to blog - - from: experiments/magnetic - to: blog:experiments/magnetic - - from: experiments/polyphasic_sleep - to: blog:experiments/polyphasic_sleep - - from: experiments/speedreading - to: blog:experiments/speedreading - - from: experiments/synestesia - to: blog:experiments/synestesia - - from: experiments/dude_time - to: blog:experiments/dude_time - - from: experiments/concentration - to: blog:experiments/concentration - - from: experiments/good_sleep - to: blog:experiments/good_sleep - - - from: morality/purpose - to: blog:morality/purpose - - from: morality/vegetarian - to: blog:morality/vegetarian - - - from: reflections/quale - to: blog:consciousness/quale - - from: reflections/through_wall - to: blog:personal/through_wall - - - from: religion/crucifixion - to: blog:jesus/crucifixion - - from: religion/samsara - to: blog:personal/samsara - - from: religion/milinda - to: blog:culture/milinda - from: religion/gospel to: gospel:sayings - - from: software/backup - to: blog:hack/backup - - from: software/find_the_bug - to: letsread:read/find_the_bug - - from: software/vim - to: blog:hack/vim - - from: software/xmonad - to: blog:hack/xmonad - # better org - from: kanji/all.txt to: muflax:stuff/kanji/all.txt @@ -60,10 +19,4 @@ sites: # merged - from: tl;dr - to: muflax:contact - - blog: - - from: personal/3-months-of-beeminder - to: blog:experiments/3-months-of-beeminder - - \ No newline at end of file + to: muflax:contact \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/sites.yaml b/sites.yaml index c63c4f3..eab597b 100644 --- a/sites.yaml +++ b/sites.yaml @@ -5,14 +5,8 @@ sites: blog: title: muflax' mindstream disqus_site: muflaxblog - sutra: - title: Blogchen - disqus_site: muflaxsutra daily: title: muflax becomes a saint disqus_site: dailymuflax - letsread: - title: Let's Read - disqus_site: muflaxread gospel: - title: The Unchanging Gospel \ No newline at end of file + title: The Unchanging Gospel