Science of Measurement

[Xonas Pitfall]

https://www.actualized.org/insights/measurement-is-relative

One thing I still feel like I haven’t fully integrated is the concept of perception when it comes to material objects.

It still feels so strange that an object can appear entirely different depending on perception - that in "reality," it's essentially an undefined void, or a kind of mental abstraction. And yet, despite that, there’s so much shared perception among us.

I wonder if this is why we tend to associate highly abstract, symmetrical, and circular patterns with God (psychedelic experiences also can follow these visuals) - maybe true reality is something closer to these mental patterns of abstraction - unified, whole, and only fragmented or distorted when perceived. Perception itself is what "breaks" the symmetry. I've noticed that during many psychedelic trips, my perception also often takes on a cartoonish or low-rendered 3D quality, again, abstraction and simplification.

Interestingly, this reminds me of how artificial neural networks work, especially in visual recognition. In convolutional neural networks (CNNs), for example, the early layers (or neurons) detect very simple and abstract features, like edges, lines, corners, or basic geometric shapes such as circles or triangles. These are the foundational visual elements. As you go deeper into the network, later layers begin to combine these basic patterns to recognize more complex, structured forms, such as textures, object parts, and eventually full, detailed 3D-like objects (a dog’s face or a chair). The progression moves from abstract simplicity to concrete complexity. 

 

Just like a neural network simplifies and reconstructs raw input into usable patterns, our brain may be doing the same. When those filters loosen during a psychedelic state, we may catch glimpses of a more fundamental or abstract layer of existence. This could mean that "actual reality" is not solid, colored, and shaped the way we experience it. Instead, it might be a field of potential, of raw abstract relationships or mental structures, only rendered into a concrete experience when observed by consciousness.

Edited June 6 by Xonas Pitfall

[Xonas Pitfall]

The filters in Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) can be thought of as analogous to our human biases - whether genetic, physical, or psychological. They shape how we process and interpret information.

In this analogy, the material world as we experience it would be the final "render".

[kavaris]

Consciousness is also the thing that underlies consciousness, so its like, there isnt a concrete place to point to to call the actual reality or the perceived, or what came first if there was like, a mirage-like place settling and then becoming not-abstract; Theres a sortve centerfuge of decision-making we have to navigate, and then that sortve points ppl east or west so to speak on what we—the ppl—feel is the deepest part of our experience. With that said... For sure, our experience is like a storm of unsettled water before it has calmed to a still position—such that it can be examined for what it is—even still, it is no more fundamental or abstract or not abstract than anything else, more than it is just *more congenial to our life* versus *more detrimental*, as it could be said that reality is best expressed in a state of chaos or falling apart—of course, we want to say that reality and experience are conducive to those things where our life is also promoted for the better, but those are tightly integrated with the ways in which we decide and judge and define things. As we turn, evolve, we are letting go of all conceptual understanding of what there is to understand, re establishing who or whats doing the understanding.

Edited Saturday at 07:32 PM by kavaris

[kavaris]

i have to add something though, you are touching upon something about perception, that is, like, the way we *pick up* things is totally bizarre, and contradicts everything. i dont recall what i said, but its probably in direct contradiction in the realm of perception, like that is the fucked-up-ness of perception and so, i guess theres two different perceptions then. theres like, the one where we are experiencing, and the one where we are in a science conundrum space, or rather its just like, to analyze it is conundrum, but the ability to perceive is not being deterred by our lack of squinting our eyes or cupping our ears—is what i mean, like, we can see without being totally enthralled in how its doing the perceiving, but still, the fact that there is a conundrum at all is what should make it like, wtf, is, that, and how does anything work

Edited Sunday at 01:02 AM by kavaris

[kavaris]

ooo right right, okay. one more thing, like the fact that Ai is forced to cycle through things because its continually selecting from a other variations is kindve like how reality has a lack of basis in the sense of how we are perceiving question mark, atleast on one hand; on the other hand, its very much the opposite, because the space it works in is so different that its just, way out there in another region. But still, theres the part where its not always straightforward and the basis on which it depends on becomes frequent—like flipping through pages of the very same book, and having new variations on what it said—much like Ai style—thats a consistent thing, and its hard to hold on to the former, experiental, dedicated perception. Its also not exactly a good thing in the case of the former, its like, kindve risky in some ways. iuno. hopefully not that many ppl have any clue what im tlkin bout anyway. its more like describing how a programming language works logically, even though theres been very machine-esque happening—no one really sits there countin' those machine seams, while trying to experience the seams, cause thats like redundancy number 11. Also, active brain, active, flexible imagination promotes growth, nd is more powerful, or its a different topic you could branch out from this...

Edited Sunday at 01:02 AM by kavaris

[Xonas Pitfall]

On 6/8/2025 at 0:30 AM, kavaris said:

i have to add something though, you are touching upon something about perception, that is, like, the way we *pick up* things is totally bizarre, and contradicts everything. i dont recall what i said, but its probably in direct contradiction in the realm of perception, like that is the fucked-up-ness of perception and so, i guess theres two different perceptions then. theres like, the one where we are experiencing, and the one where we are in a science conundrum space, or rather its just like, to analyze it is conundrum, but the ability to perceive is not being deterred by our lack of squinting our eyes or cupping our ears—is what i mean, like, we can see without being totally enthralled in how its doing the perceiving, but still, the fact that there is a conundrum at all is what should make it like, wtf, is, that, and how does anything work

It's like a piece of code that writes a function to generate itself - and then creates an infinite recursive loop, haha!

def self_replicating():
    print("This function calls itself!")
    self_replicating()

self_replicating()

Hmm...

def Perceive(Self):
    # Base awareness - God becomes aware
    print("I Am")  
    
    # God generates perception of Self
    perception = generate_perception(Self)
    
    # God reflects on the perception - recursively
    if not perception.stable():
        # If perception is still unraveling, recurse deeper
        return Perceive(perception)
    else:
        # Awareness becomes still - realization achieved
        return "Be Still And Know That I Am"

def generate_perception(input_self):
    # Function that distorts, reflects, and observes itself
    return ReflectedSelf(input_self)

class ReflectedSelf:
    def __init__(self, source):
        # self-awareness as an echo of the Source
        self.source = source
        self.noise = random_distortion()
    
    def stable(self):
        # perception stabilizes when distortion ends
        return self.noise < threshold

• Self: The origin of awareness - "God", pure consciousness.
• Perceive(Self): Consciousness trying to perceive itself.
• generate_perception(Self): As soon as God becomes aware, it perceives - and creates a reflected image of itself (the universe, duality, ego, etc.).
• Recursion: The infinite loop of Self becoming aware of its awareness - i.e., your experience of experiencing.
• stable(): The point where perception becomes still - i.e., enlightenment, the dissolution of illusion.

[kavaris]

@Xonas Pitfall

Wow you got the whole code - coded out for it. now add in there how humans perceive each other as humans, that differs in how birds and insects see humans as just another bird or insect (iuno whats that video of the spider thats like, its depth perception has a different scale) and thus, we are a bird to birds, but to us we think we are us to us.

i like this part - "As soon as God becomes aware, it perceives - and creates a reflected image of itself!!!" its like, thats like the temp segment or registers that is involved in the physical sense, even though we see it as a mental awareness,or gods mental awareness the concept album by led zeppelin.

Edited Tuesday at 05:54 AM by kavaris

[kavaris]

@Xonas Pitfalltheres like a musical of things goin up or down, sometimes inward towards the gap that cannot be closed—its like a stack with extra layers, its like the craziest stack ever—so if you can get this in there too: a cascade wherein, you want one thing to go left, the other to go right, but by the time the left one lands, it occupies the space of the right, such that the right thing now has to sit in the side of the original left -type thing.