Show Idle (>14 d.) Chans


← 2022-02-19 | 2022-02-22 →
01:08 * asciilifeform is of the ''consciousness' is a phlogiston' school of thought, but realizes that not erryone is prepared to take this pill
~ 3 hours 23 minutes ~
04:31 signpost the term's so overloaded it's a barrier to the question, too.
04:33 * signpost certainly has no problem with the meat-net lacking such a thing as free choice.
04:33 signpost what would a thought without a cause even be?
~ 46 minutes ~
05:20 awt signpost: I have considered the idea that with the internet, we are re-entering a period in which the gods speak directly to us, i.e. we are reverting to the precconscious bicameral mind.
05:26 awt Actually no, was a bit different. Mass media supported a kind of bicameral mind throughout the 20th centry, but the internet caused it to break down.
05:33 signpost maybe depends on which internet one's talking about. for me, it was a way out of suburban texas, tool for exorcism of the admonitory voices of my previous culture.
05:34 signpost for others, social media's definitely the greatest admonitory voice amplifier ever created, puts tv and radio to shame.
05:35 awt signpost: the internet is causing a split. Many still hearing the mass media voices and their internet proxies.
05:40 signpost perhaps causing, perhaps only making the difference more obvious.
05:41 * signpost figures there were always classes of human beings.
05:43 awt indeed.
05:43 signpost awt: also, do you not imagine conversations with others, or dream? who are the other participants?
05:44 signpost one thing I took from Jaynes was that I had merely substituted "sane" labels for his hallucinated gods.
05:44 signpost and that this happens safely "inside my head", whatever that means.
05:46 awt I consider dreams to be what's left of the bicameral mind trying to talk to me.
05:47 * signpost is the type of person that gets lost in daydream constantly.
05:47 awt imaginary conversations seem more tricky
05:47 signpost yeah, kind of what I'm getting at, only I think it's all still there.
05:48 signpost the agents in dreams are particularly interesting, in that I'd have a hard time explaining to you why I'm real, and they're not, given they both live in "my" head.
05:49 signpost other people will corroborate the reality of my identity, but only because I told them to!
05:49 signpost (chortle)
05:49 signpost the stuff's squishier than we admit.
05:50 awt This is one of the reasons why I'm tempted to try ayahuasca, though haven't mustered the courage just yet.
05:51 signpost haven't myself yet, but would
05:51 signpost plenty of other psychedelics though
05:54 awt I've had a bag of shrooms sitting in my closet for over a year.
05:55 signpost one experiences ego death every night; psychedelics are fun, but might make the thing too mysterious even.
05:56 awt Did some in my youth - didn't seem like what I've read about ayahuasca.
05:57 signpost but when I'm grunting on about nietszsche and heidegger, it is in the belief that something in the direction of knowing that one's identity is fiction is what, if anything, succeeds "baw, god's dead"
05:58 signpost might've been what asciilifeform meant by this
05:58 bitbot Logged on 2022-02-20 01:08:21 asciilifeform: is of the ''consciousness' is a phlogiston' school of thought, but realizes that not erryone is prepared to take this pill
05:59 awt That is something I'll have to consider. "I"
05:59 signpost imho one doesn't then dispense with selfhood because it's fiction.
06:01 awt Buddhism took me down that path to some extent. "Where tf are these thoughts coming from..."
06:02 signpost definitely a bit of that influencing me.
06:04 signpost I found some of the same "compulsive masturbator" traps in buddhism though, as discussed earlier.
06:05 signpost it's true; stop narrating a self and you're not going to have many problems.
06:05 signpost you might sit there in bliss, cumming eternally while your country is overrun by chicoms, for example.
06:06 awt The idea of vitalism has attracted me recently, if that means what I think it does. An almost complete lack of awareness of the self.
06:07 awt An animal like existance
06:09 signpost is it that there's this thing, and you'd like to be unaware of it?
06:09 awt Yes, like when I'm completely absorbed in my work. But a lifetime of it.
06:10 signpost btw play any instruments? I find guitar a great way to practice shutting off the chatterbox.
06:10 signpost dunno that I'd give up the power to declare things inwardly.
06:10 awt Yes. Violin. Just started composing some synth stuff with a keyboard + DAW.
06:10 signpost but it's healthy to be quiet often.
06:10 signpost ah cool
06:13 awt Somehow mp seemed to pull it off for a while. Living in the world completely, while at the same time ruthlessly trimming self delusion.
06:19 signpost trimming delusion of others, but things like the "chinese miner conspiracy" as cover for derping out duplicate transactions for bitbet, eh.
06:20 awt that was a fail
06:22 * signpost admits fully the genius of the man, which makes that even more worth inspection.
06:22 awt if those events had been a real battle, he would have been blissfully dead after his gun blowing up in his face. Sadly lived on.
06:23 signpost I expect men to be flawed.
06:24 signpost anyway, suppose you trim all delusion from yourself. what's left?
06:25 awt Depends on what you're working with
06:25 * signpost just took some nyquil, has flu, so expect messages to degrade accordingly before I hop off, lol
06:26 signpost it's unclear to me whether anything's left one could call a man.
06:28 signpost I guess to restate my problem with buddhism, all the stuff of mind is, at least first, imaginary, constructed, delusional, etc.
06:28 awt indeed many considered mp to be a sociopath or psychopath, which many also consider not to be fully human.
06:28 signpost I don't mean in some bad sense though.
06:28 signpost there's this canvas, upon it a man is drawn.
06:29 signpost the meatsack is the thing which can be animated by the fiction of a man, or if not, something else.
06:30 awt What is the difference in your opinion between delusional/constructed and approximate?
06:31 signpost dunno that the map is approximately the territory, and that's imho the distinction here.
06:32 signpost this identity is a kind of map, and the territory is existence.
06:32 * awt is convinced the territory exists
06:32 awt lol
06:33 * signpost wiggles hand in front of face
06:33 signpost ah yep, totally real
06:35 awt I was persuaded by the etic mircea, for example. Trimmed down the delusion that life has some purpose.
06:35 awt And fully accepted you may choose your own.
06:36 awt *etica
06:36 signpost or perhaps caused to pursue, but yeah
06:37 signpost this whole choice thing is another ball of worms.
06:37 awt this is a delusion I desperately do not want to trim
06:39 awt And aditionally, even those who claim there is no such thing, don't act that way.
06:39 signpost the funny thing about being amenable to determinism is that it doesn't bother me much if you're right.
06:40 signpost not taking a strong stance against, just "choice" is probably as ill defined as "consciousness"
06:41 signpost ample experiment to demonstrate e.g. motor impulses start firing before the "conscious" person can report what action they've chosen to take.
06:41 signpost but what do I know; maybe the part that chooses isn't the deterministic meatsack at all. but we'd have to get to a definition of that first, before saying what has it.
06:41 awt even this is debatable, since subconscious behavior is often a result of previous choices.
06:42 awt there are indeed many who, due to previous decisions, can no longer choose much.
06:43 awt yes not clear what is doing the choosing
06:44 signpost subjectively, as I sit here, I can sure, move my mind's eye to wherever in my body, or my attention across the room.
06:44 signpost the thing has a kind of aperture that can be widened and narrowed
06:44 signpost but I can't say any of that isn't governed entirely by physical cause
06:44 signpost if it weren't, what'd even be being said?
06:45 awt reminds me of yet another mind blowing thesis from the book
06:46 awt which is that bicameral men operated *mostly* unconsciously, quite successfully
06:47 signpost yeah, one can see degraded versions of these reaction machines at any american supermarket.
06:48 signpost probably the only difference is shittier circumstances within which to bounce deterministically.
06:50 signpost gonna have to hop off and get some rest, but a thought to leave on is whether I, supposedly capable of introspection, am doing something categorically different than these, or merely reacting with better models.
06:52 awt g'night. I am happy for now to set the standard at having the ability to introspect as to why you do what you do.
06:53 signpost night, enjoyed the thread
06:54 awt same!
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