LastThursday

The way I see it (Abrahamic) religions gives us explanations for our existence and why things are what they are, but devolves that origination to a being that is like us, but different and powerful enough that it could conceivably have done the job of creation. All religions are carried by narrative and this use of narrative appears to be the antidote to bad mental health. If you're a replaceable cog in the machine of society, then the narrative of constant hope is what keeps you mentally healthy: I will earn more, live better, be happier; for the religious there is salvation and the afterlife to look forward to, or the end of suffering through letting go. The same use of narrative is seen in ideology and its use as a cohesive force when belonging to a group: you endure the same hardships together against a common foe, have the same stories of triumph against adversity. The more simplistic, emotionally driven and repeated the narrative is, the stronger its power. The use of simplistic collective narrative is completely counter to individual nuanced contemplation. Investigation into existential matters is seen as dangerous because there is the potential to veer away from convential narrative and norms - and anyway religion has it covered, no need to re-invent the wheel eh? We give away our responsibilities for answers to other authorities. I agree that killing religion has left a lot of us in a bit of a no-mans-land with regards to existentialism. Science itself has poked many holes into the narrative of religions, but it's not wholly to blame, the church itself is responsible for the split away of science from religion in the first place. We rely on science and politics as the new religions instead. They have brilliant narratives and science has a great creation story of its own, but it doesn't have a patch on religion in the existential realm - electrons and photons are just not the same as almighty God. All this leaves us like inexperienced kids groping around with lots of questions but no comforting answers. Why do people avoid existential investigation? Mostly because it contradicts the narrative of society and so is potentially damaging. Also because it appears to have no direct utility in every day life. For example, how does contemplating our inner natures help with being more productive at work? We are actively discouraged from investigating it's just not part of our cultures. When a kid asks their mum: "where do I go when I sleep?" the parent is so inexperienced with existential matters, that they don't have a proper answer. We are never encouraged or instructed in existential investigation. All this leaves us with a fear of even thinking about existential things. It's a fear of the unknown and complete inexperience. But it's like knowing you're gay and having to behave straight. Everyone feels existential questions and problems arise, but tries to pretend they don't exist and constantly have to distract themselves as a facade. Drama, hard work and hardship make for very good distractions and good narratives to get behind and share. Really, meaning and hope is driven by narrative. When you start poking holes in the narrative of distraction by contemplating existence deeply, you're attacking your identity and attachment to society. People avoid this for obvious reasons. I think some suicidal ideation comes about not because of existentialism or lack of it but because of the friction between what we're allowed to do (work and distract ourselves) and what we're not allowed to do (introspect reality). Being a cog in the machinery of capitalism is ultimately empty and unsatisfying because we know that we're being made to behave like a character in a story (that we have no control over), but deep down also we know we're much more mysterious and expansive than that. It's a deep potentially depressing dissonance.

These questions always remind me of this illusion Do the faces exist? Does the vase exist? Can one exist without the other? Is it something or nothing?

I totally resonate with this. It's like once you've seen through the superficial veneer of busy-ness you can't unsee it. There's a cold stark reality of, I don't even know the word: absurdity, meaninglessness, incredulity? For example I find it completely absurd how every day passes and I do all this "stuff" and yet it's just completely bizarre. It's not that I'm shitting on being alive, I'm not, it's just that it's all patently ridiculous and I can't trick myself into seeing or feeling about it any other way. In a strange way it's given me a certain amount of courage I didn't used have. Because most of the things I do are forgotten about or just make absolutely no difference to anything. I can't even remember what I ate a few days ago. So why be worried about the consequences of things when most of the time they're of no consequence? But you're right this sort of existential angst is not good for mental health in general. It seems like we're wired to ignore this existential stuff (for the sake of our mental health), until at some point the flame is lit and the existential moths are attracted to it. Once you start to question your existence and so on, it's hard to stop. Really the existential stuff is always there just beneath the surface. I think nearly everyone suffers from it now and then. You're standing in the queue for coffee and then suddenly poof: "WTF am I doing?". Then you quickly try and gloss over it just in case you fall into a hole you can't get out of. But you're right existentialism is the driver of our lot of our behaviours. Not least of which is the biggest one of all: how much do I really need to survive? Most people are so scared shitless of losing everything that they contort themselves in absurdity just to avoid it. However, the bigger fear is losing everything but somehow still surviving and having to endure the pain indefinitely - that's existential angst. Society is a completely made up fairy tale and reality is an absurd dream.

I don't know, but it seems like you can have two different types: towards and away. Maybe someone grows up poor and as a consequence has a deep passion for becoming rich - this is away. Maybe someone has an inate talent for music and so develops a passion for it - this is towards. Is passion just an obsessive interest, for example chasing beauty?

Thanks for the recommend @Asayake. Which colour goblin am I...? Indigo.

Thing is we don't have a consciousness measuring device. And even if we did, could we really collapse all of conscious experience into a single number indicating "how conscious" something is? The best measuring device we have is our own intuition and comparing with the gold standard of consciousness: us. When we ask "is a rock conscious?" we intuitively know that even if it was, it wouldn't be very conscious, because it has very little in common with human beings. We crank up the consciousness scale for dogs, because they are more like humans and so on up. It seems like the nub of the argument is whether a thing has any form of 1st person perspective at all. A 1st person perspective naturally excludes all other perspectives including yours, so it's impossible to "get at" that perspective and to know if it exists. We can only treat it like a black box and try different inputs to see what different outputs are in response. Then we can try and guess its perspective if it has one.

Nothing is aware, that's all it takes. Awareness is difference. Once nothing differentiates, the universe pops out.

In an ideal world the style of communication would take a back seat to the message of the communication. On the whole though, people are not aware enough to see past the style and they get fixated on it. That being the case if you want to communicate efficiently, then you have to tailor your style to your audience. Although in Leo's case I suspect his audience is tailored to his style. I don't exclude myself in that, but there will always be some weirdos who want their sensei to match their style. You should have skill enough to communicate in many different styles and have awareness enough to know when to use what. There's a place for condescension.

The tide comes in and the tide goes out.

It's probably true, but only because we don't know how to imbue a thing with consciousness. We can't even know what is or isn't conscious in principle. It's like an eye trying to look at itself. The best an eye can do is find a mirror and look at its own reflection. We can only look at reflections of consciousness in terms of a thing's behaviours and appearances. But a reflection is not the thing itself. Even using the word "conscious" is a reflection. We only think we know what the word "conscious" reflects. But we really don't. It kind of boils down to a matter of definition. We can call anything we like "conscious" if it follows some notion of behaving like a conscious thing. That's probably good enough.

Music to skydive to...

Hi ho! More music to work to.

I value all my friendships male and female, why wouldn't I? I find that each individiual relationship is different for me, so I can't say for certain what a female relationship brings that is different from a male relationship. But I would say in very broad strokes that I find women good for chatting about life and more emotionally related things - more people centric topics - and men more about things: hobbies, planning, activities etc. I would say some of my male friends are "emotionally stunted" (probably a bit harsh though, they're just unrehearsed at it), so I don't talk about my feelings and my mental life to them. But my male friends are more spontaneous than my female friends. None of my friends can I shoot the shit with about spirituality or self development however, can't win them all!

Of course it does. It's been around since the 1960's. Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) or Strong AI, is not here yet though.

I do and use them every evening. When I don't wear them I feel a lot more alert before bedtime and it's harder to sleep. I think you could get away with wearing them for clubbing, especially if they're stylish. Although ideally they should be wrap around to stop any stray blue light.

I would introspect deeply on that, you'll get better closure that way.

Can you eat it? Only as long as it also tastes like duck (sorry vegetarians).

From this point of view, everything is "real", including AI, humans and everything else. But also from that point of view, nothing can "have" consciousness, consciousness itself "has" everything - so consciousness is more like a canvas on which everything is painted. Asking whether the Mona Lisa is conscious wouldn't make much sense, the Mona Lisa is the canvas and the paint.

But what is being parroted? I think eventually it will be a duck for all intents and purposes and probably a lot sooner than people think. I'd give it about 15-20 years. They'll be a drive to create a humanoid robot stuffed full of AI (I wouldn't be surprised if this is driven mostly by the sex industry!). At that point it will be indistinguishable from a regular human, apart from a few quirks - it'll have fluid movements, facial expressions and great speech. But the philosophical point will still stand, it won't be conscious, just a very lifelike zombie. Although, they'll be a huge variety of less human-centric A.I. (there already is).

I think this is universal. But in an ideal world, any parent would want their child to be able to set themselves and maintain good boundaries - even if it's against them. I would love any child of mine to be mature enough to do this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_test (Clever bot I am)

I don't know if the question is even answerable. We can't even know with any certainty if the person standing next to us conscious. We can infer or guess that @LastThursday is conscious because he exhibits certain behaviours when we probe him, but we can't know. Maybe I'm just a clever bot. The best we can do is look at ourselves and say "yes, this other person does similar things to me, and I'm conscious, so must he be". So it is with AI. It's not even obvious that consciousness is needed to survive as a human - is an ant conscious - if so what's the point? AI is made in our image, so it's not surprising that we would want to ascribe consciousness to it, it gets ever closer to us. But unlike ourselves with our messy biology, we can peer inside the box of AI and know what it's doing, and it's just that: a box of electrons sloshing about, nothing more. Nothing extra emerges out of it other than what we've put into it.

Music while you work - or do other things: or

That's the key insight. We can extend that idea to everything in life. We want to aim for a life where we're masters at the art of not gripping on too tightly to anything, being loose and flowing, knowing when to release our grip and let go. Change is constant, and we should constantly change.

How do you know this hasn't already happened to you, but you actually said "yes"? Are you still you, or someone else?