2023-03-20 09:07:41 <KipIngram   > Bleh.  Back to the mill...
2023-03-20 09:08:40 <veltas      > If we can create consciousness, is it ethical for us to do so?
2023-03-20 09:09:01 <veltas      > Some people don't think it's ethical to even have kids for that reason
2023-03-20 09:09:17 <veltas      > I obviously don't agree but I do wonder about creating AI
2023-03-20 09:09:51 <KipIngram   > No, it's not critical, and I question whether it would be ethical to do so even if we could.  If we built conscious servants, wouldn't that be a form of slavery?
2023-03-20 09:10:05 <veltas      > Is it slavery to own animals?
2023-03-20 09:10:09 <veltas      > Some people think so, I don't
2023-03-20 09:10:36 <veltas      > As for consciousness, deep questions about that will have you convinced that either spirits are real, or that we are in a big sea of consciousness and anything can have consciousness
2023-03-20 09:10:49 <KipIngram   > Indeed - it's a spectrum, isn't it?  I think one would have to draw a line in that spectrum somewhere.  So, good point.  Maybe "low grade" consciousness (defined in some unknown way) would be ok ethically.
2023-03-20 09:10:54 <KipIngram   > It's a complicated question.
2023-03-20 09:11:01 <veltas      > One is more Abrahamic, the other more pagan
2023-03-20 09:11:11 <veltas      > This question isn't new....
2023-03-20 09:11:17 <KipIngram   > Anyway, if you are a materialist, then you almost have to think that conscious machines should be possible, since... in that world view we are nothing but machines.
2023-03-20 09:11:37 <KipIngram   > But I don't think materialism is the whole story.  I think it's likely completely wrong - idealism is probably a better model.
2023-03-20 09:11:44 <veltas      > I personally think materialism isn't the occam's razor theory when you consider things like quantum collapse
2023-03-20 09:11:44 <KipIngram   > But there are dualistic possibilities too.
2023-03-20 09:11:56 <KipIngram   > Not new at all.
2023-03-20 09:12:03 <veltas      > Where it turns out that the observer is more real than the thing
2023-03-20 09:12:09 <KipIngram   > Yeah - I think materialism has real problems.
2023-03-20 09:12:15 <veltas      > It turns out the tree doesn't fall if nobody's around to see it
2023-03-20 09:12:35 <KipIngram   > I don't think space and time are "fundamental" - I think reality is really something else and our perception of space and time is like the shadows in Plato's cave allegory.
2023-03-20 09:12:37 <veltas      > And it makes you wonder if the 'observer' being special is something to do with our consciousness/spirits being special
2023-03-20 09:13:05 <veltas      > Lots of older physicists found themselves believing in spirits and higher powers over this stuff
2023-03-20 09:13:15 <KipIngram   > Spacetime is just "how we see" reality - how we evolved to perceive it.
2023-03-20 09:13:28 <KipIngram   > It's like a "user interface."
2023-03-20 09:13:38 <KipIngram   > Imagine a kid playing Super Mario.
2023-03-20 09:13:47 <KipIngram   > What he SEES is little men running around in the TV.
2023-03-20 09:14:00 <veltas      > I think it's very real, but it's not the only thing we're capable of experiencing
2023-03-20 09:14:05 <KipIngram   > But those little men certainly aren't real.  Space and time and quantum fields and so on - they're like that.
2023-03-20 09:14:20 <KipIngram   > I think it's REAL - I shouldn't have said not real.
2023-03-20 09:14:26 <KipIngram   > I think just not FUNDAMENTAL.
2023-03-20 09:14:51 <KipIngram   > We should take all those things seriously.  They are reflect actual truth to us.
2023-03-20 09:14:56 <KipIngram   > Just not literal exact truth.
2023-03-20 09:15:46 <KipIngram   > The stuff I watched this weekend actually had a fairly large impact on me.  None of it was thoroughly unfamiliar to me, but the weekend's material just "brought some things together for me."
2023-03-20 09:15:59 <KipIngram   > I think I feel more stronly that Kastrup is on the right track than I did before.
2023-03-20 09:17:12 <veltas      > I was reading a bit of the Gospel accoring to John and it had an impact on me
2023-03-20 09:17:19 <KipIngram   > It's important to note that his ideas are not panpsychism.
2023-03-20 09:17:40 <KipIngram   > He thinks everything is "in consciousness" - made of consciousness, so to speak.  But that doesn't translate to everything IS conscious.
2023-03-20 09:17:42 <veltas      > I think you can make secular arguments against panpsychism
2023-03-20 09:17:56 <KipIngram   > He doesn't think rocks and electrons are conscious, as pure panpsychism does.
2023-03-20 09:18:12 <veltas      > That route is insanity, you will convince yourself that your soul is eternally dead, never really alive, only an illusion
2023-03-20 09:18:40 <veltas      > Or that death doesn't make any impact on your consciousness
2023-03-20 09:18:43 <KipIngram   > He does think "the whole universe" is conscious, though.  We're kind of like "bubbles" in it, surrounded by dissociation boundaries.
2023-03-20 09:19:05 <KipIngram   > But he distinguished between "conscious" and "meta conscious."
2023-03-20 09:19:25 <KipIngram   > Meta conscious is having the ability to actually think "Hey, I'm conscious and right now I'm thinking about <blah>."
2023-03-20 09:19:35 <veltas      > Well I think he's describing what I would describe as the spiritual realm, and I think he's making a mistake by assuming it has some kind of spatial relation to ours
2023-03-20 09:19:44 <KipIngram   > We're meta conscious, but it's not clear than animals are, in the same way.
2023-03-20 09:20:18 <KipIngram   > Well, except he doesn't think space is fundamental in the first place, so no, he would say spatial relationships apply only to things that our perceptions show to us.
2023-03-20 09:20:24 <KipIngram   > We SEE things as having spatial relations.
2023-03-20 09:20:33 <KipIngram   > But the truth underlying that is way way more complex.
2023-03-20 09:20:43 <KipIngram   > Spatial relations are part of the interface.
2023-03-20 09:20:57 <veltas      > Yes this is what Christians explain under both "made in the image of God", and "original sin". That humans are special beings somehow, and that our awareness separates us from nature
2023-03-20 09:21:07 <KipIngram   > Another name to follow in all of this is Donald Hoffman.
2023-03-20 09:21:15 <KipIngram   > He calls his theory "conscious agency."
2023-03-20 09:21:41 <KipIngram   > And he CLAIMS to have worked up a math theory of conscious agents that had the quantum equation of a free particle fall out of it.
2023-03-20 09:22:06 <veltas      > Sounds very hand wavy
2023-03-20 09:22:07 <KipIngram   > And that's the kind of thing we'll eventually need - the question to answer is "If everything is made of consciousness, then exactly why to we perceive the laws of physics that we perceive."
2023-03-20 09:22:10 <KipIngram   > The specific laws.
2023-03-20 09:22:36 <KipIngram   > I think such a thing would require a hand wavy phase starting out, but yeah - there are very specific issues that need to be resolved.
2023-03-20 09:23:00 <KipIngram   > Materialists face the same kind of question, and also wave their hands, when the question of "how does materialism yield consciousness" comes up.
2023-03-20 09:23:14 <veltas      > They say it's an illusion
2023-03-20 09:23:15 <KipIngram   > No one has a good tight theory - they mostly just have "faith" that it will all work out eventually.
2023-03-20 09:23:27 <veltas      > But if you think about that they are really saying you are already dead
2023-03-20 09:23:36 <KipIngram   > Which makes me laugh - experiencing an illusion pre-invokes consciousness to start with.
2023-03-20 09:23:53 <veltas      > The materialist isn't concerned by the teleporter ... why? Because they're dead anyway
2023-03-20 09:24:05 <KipIngram   > I am a little bothered by some of it.  Kastrup thinks death is the dissolution of one's dissociation boundary.
2023-03-20 09:24:15 <KipIngram   > Our ego melts back into the universal consciousness.
2023-03-20 09:24:24 <KipIngram   > I'm rather fond of my ego.  :-|
2023-03-20 09:25:28 <veltas      > I think it's not mad to just say "I exist, I have a spirit, my spirit is a continuous link between consciousness and the physical realm"
2023-03-20 09:25:44 <KipIngram   > But the big win of the idea package is parsimony.  All theories have to assume at least one starting thing.  Kastrup assumes that one universal consciousness.  But he needs no further assumptions - everything else is more or less already in hand.  We already have documented cases of multiple dissociated alters interacting in a "dream world."
2023-03-20 09:25:44 <veltas      > It's the occam's razor for me, everything else seems overcomplicated
2023-03-20 09:25:50 <KipIngram   > There are clinical cases of that.
2023-03-20 09:26:04 <KipIngram   > He's just "scaling it up" to the whole universe level.
2023-03-20 09:26:12 <veltas      > That's the problem though
2023-03-20 09:26:30 <KipIngram   > Dualism theories immediately suffer the disadvantage of having to assume two things: "matter stuff" and "mind stuff."
2023-03-20 09:26:36 <KipIngram   > So they're already less parsimonious.
2023-03-20 09:26:54 <KipIngram   > Why is that a problem?
2023-03-20 09:27:01 <veltas      > It's not an assumption though
2023-03-20 09:27:03 <KipIngram   > The phenomenon itself is documented.
2023-03-20 09:27:29 <KipIngram   > And we all KNOW that "mind" can create perceived physical worlds - it happens every time we dream.
2023-03-20 09:28:37 <veltas      > He essentially believes a superset of the things I believe though, so it's not simpler, even if it seems more 'elegant' to someone
2023-03-20 09:28:54 <veltas      > Well for my stated theory. I probably believe more than him given I'm a Christian
2023-03-20 09:29:35 <KipIngram   > Oh, I think idealism definitely supports religious beliefs more than materialism does.
2023-03-20 09:29:52 <KipIngram   > It's an easy step to regard that "universal consciousness" as "God" if you want to.
2023-03-20 09:30:05 <veltas      > I think materialism doesn't even really match up with physics anymore, not for last 100 years
2023-03-20 09:30:26 <KipIngram   > I agree - and that is why the main theories have gotten so strange and controversial.
2023-03-20 09:30:39 <KipIngram   > They're trying to force fit observations onto an incorrect model.
2023-03-20 09:30:41 <veltas      > Yes easy and dangerous, because you've created your own idea of God, so an orthodox Christian might call that idolatry
2023-03-20 09:31:29 <KipIngram   > I think I'd just say that Kastrup's ideas don't "pin God down" to any particular thing.  They "open the door" to God, but don't define in detail exactly how he "ticks."
2023-03-20 09:31:47 <veltas      > The easiest natural way to think about God is to think about the fact that we seem to have an orderly universe with laws, even if they are not obvious to us
2023-03-20 09:31:57 <veltas      > And that we exist, so surely had a creator
2023-03-20 09:32:01 <KipIngram   > I think his ideas would *allow* for a Christian God - but they'd allow for other "styles" as well.
2023-03-20 09:32:11 <KipIngram   > Including some Christians would  object strongly to.
2023-03-20 09:32:24 <veltas      > Yes I'm sure
2023-03-20 09:32:48 <KipIngram   > I mean, I'm pretty sure Christians would say that God is "meta conscious" in the sense I described above.
2023-03-20 09:33:05 <KipIngram   > Not limited to "conscious in the now," but able to completely introspect.
2023-03-20 09:33:38 <veltas      > I think some might say that but it doesn't sound orthodox
2023-03-20 09:33:49 <veltas      > People say a lot of things....
2023-03-20 09:34:22 <KipIngram   > Well, my understanding of specific detailed Christian doctrine is limited.  I was brought up in a "Christian world," but we were always pretty on again off again about church and so on.
2023-03-20 09:34:44 <KipIngram   > It's always been there in my background, but it's not something I've actually "studied" in any deep way.
2023-03-20 09:34:52 <KipIngram   > I probably have the broad strokes right in my  mind.
2023-03-20 09:35:10 <veltas      > Yeah a lot of 'Christians', especially from a 'Christian background' don't know a lot about Christianity. Disadvantage of being the major religion for so long.
2023-03-20 09:35:31 <KipIngram   > Yes, just kind of "yet another part of our culture."
2023-03-20 09:35:53 <veltas      > A big thing Christianity needs now is to figure out how to exist as a minor religion, next to the major state religion of .... scientism or something?
2023-03-20 09:36:03 <veltas      > scientism/humanism?
2023-03-20 09:36:25 <veltas      > LGBT flags?
2023-03-20 09:37:19 <KipIngram   > Yeah, that makes sense.
2023-03-20 09:38:05 <KipIngram   > I do think the "very vocal Christians" are on the wrong side of a few cultural issues.  But I also think they absolutely believe they're doing the right thing.
2023-03-20 09:38:29 <veltas      > And whatever religion you are part of it's worth trying to recognise the errors of the mainstream
2023-03-20 09:38:43 <KipIngram   > Yeah.
2023-03-20 09:38:58 <KipIngram   > And some of the extreme guys on the science side upset me very badly too.
2023-03-20 09:39:01 <veltas      > For instance, as an example, when did "there's no evidence" become "it's not true"?
2023-03-20 09:39:11 <KipIngram   > Like Richard Dawkins - he's absolutely not on the right path.
2023-03-20 09:39:19 <KipIngram   > He's downright hateful about it.
2023-03-20 09:39:27 <veltas      > Often now you hear this and it just shuts down any debate, to say "there's no evidence ... that I'm willing to look at or consider" etc etc
2023-03-20 09:39:31 <KipIngram   > Oh, exactly.
2023-03-20 09:39:48 <KipIngram   > The contention that science has "proven" Christianity is wrong is full on crap.
2023-03-20 09:40:00 <veltas      > It's become like worshipping science, which goes beyond the rational statement of science
2023-03-20 09:40:13 <KipIngram   > I totally agree.
2023-03-20 09:40:16 <veltas      > And science has been extended into areas where it's not really effective, the social sciences e.g.
2023-03-20 09:40:37 <KipIngram   > But it's that materialism thing again - once you swallow the materialism pill, you almost CAN'T support any religious doctrine anymore.
2023-03-20 09:40:51 <KipIngram   > If "mechanism" is ALL THERE IS... well, you see what I mean.
2023-03-20 09:41:01 <KipIngram   > It's a terribly extreme point of view.
2023-03-20 09:41:22 <veltas      > Yeah we lose our moral foundations when we think all we need is secular humanism to approach ethics
2023-03-20 09:41:35 <veltas      > I've seen enough to be convinced it can and will go awry
2023-03-20 09:42:32 <veltas      > I will say "believe they're doing the right thing" isn't much of a defense
2023-03-20 09:42:37 <KipIngram   > I do think Kastrup's ideas open the door for a more well founded ethical foundation.
2023-03-20 09:42:54 <veltas      > Although I don't know what you're talking about but it's not a defense to say you believe you're doing the right thing
2023-03-20 09:43:09 <KipIngram   > Those ideas make us all part of one ultimate "being," so in a sense we're all the same thing - harm of any kind becomes self harm, in a sense.
2023-03-20 09:43:29 <veltas      > Too handwavy for me
2023-03-20 09:43:47 <KipIngram   > But I think less hand wavy than the alternatives, at the ground floor level.
2023-03-20 09:43:56 <KipIngram   > Absolutely details to flesh out, though.
2023-03-20 09:44:30 <KipIngram   > Like I said over the weekend, my gut instinct is just that the idealists are "more likely" to get their questions answered than the materialists are.
2023-03-20 09:44:38 <KipIngram   > But that's a guess, of course.
2023-03-20 09:45:10 <veltas      > I don't understand how they're more likely. I don't think either of the broad groups have got any chance, by their own admission
2023-03-20 09:45:51 <KipIngram   > Maybe it's just an issue of what I know a lot about.  I know a lot about computers, and I've studied a lot of physics, and I just basically see no chance for physics to explain consciousness.
2023-03-20 09:46:05 <KipIngram   > And yet consciousness exists - I can directly perceive it in at least one case (me).
2023-03-20 09:46:28 <KipIngram   > I just don't see how physics is going to even begin explaining it.
2023-03-20 09:46:55 <KipIngram   > You may be right - the questions the idealists face may be equally insoluble.
2023-03-20 09:47:07 <KipIngram   > It may turn out we just CAN'T answer t his question with certainty.
2023-03-20 09:47:22 <KipIngram   > So we'll just argue about it forever instead.
2023-03-20 09:48:12 <KipIngram   > What do you think about Jung's "collective unconscious" notion?
2023-03-20 09:48:29 <KipIngram   > I was struck over the weekend at how well that "fits" with the idealist program.
2023-03-20 09:51:08 <KipIngram   > And this way of looking at things would also "allow for" occasional paranormal type things.  These "dissociative boundaries" are not "perfect."  They're "pourus" to some degree.  I think that explains what Zen folk refer to as "enlightenment," what happens to people that take certain psychadelic substances, etc.
2023-03-20 09:51:17 <KipIngram   > Near death experiences, that whole package of ideas.
2023-03-20 09:51:36 <KipIngram   > Those claims have been awfully persistent - I'm just not sure they're totally bogus.
2023-03-20 09:52:47 <KipIngram   > But I also think that there are plenty of totally phony claims around those things as well.
2023-03-20 09:52:59 <veltas      > I personally think that physics contains what's necessary to create intelligence
2023-03-20 09:53:18 <KipIngram   > I distinguish between intelligence and consciousness.
2023-03-20 09:53:32 <KipIngram   > I certainly think we're going to be able to model all kinds of "intelligent processes."
2023-03-20 09:53:41 <veltas      > Yeah whether we can create things with spirits is another thing
2023-03-20 09:53:56 <KipIngram   > And we may get what Kurzweil calls "the singularity" - AIs that can create new AIs and can do it better than we can.
2023-03-20 09:53:59 <veltas      > I think maybe, I doubt we can create good spirits that belong to the kingdom of heaven
2023-03-20 09:54:06 <KipIngram   > That may / probably will happen in time.
2023-03-20 09:54:08 <veltas      > So things get very religious on this point
2023-03-20 09:54:22 <veltas      > I think there's not much room for secular reasoning on this one
2023-03-20 09:54:25 <veltas      > It really depends what you think
2023-03-20 09:55:15 <KipIngram   > I think so too.  Maybe some of these burning questions will get answered, but they also may not - it may always just wind up being a matter of us "choosing what to believe."
2023-03-20 09:55:26 <KipIngram   > I have little use for the whole business of "AI rights."
2023-03-20 09:55:37 <KipIngram   > But I do need to be careful how I say it.
2023-03-20 09:55:53 <KipIngram   > Men and women create babies, and that is the creation of new consciousness.
2023-03-20 09:56:03 <KipIngram   > So will we ever be able to "build" something like that?
2023-03-20 09:56:07 <KipIngram   > I don't know - maybe?
2023-03-20 09:56:22 <KipIngram   > I mean, I would expect a human clone to be conscious.
2023-03-20 09:56:41 <KipIngram   > So where exactly is the dividing line between a biological human and a "dead" computer?
2023-03-20 09:57:17 <KipIngram   > But so long as our computer tech is based on fully deterministic physics, the way it is today, I say no - we won't get consciousness.
2023-03-20 09:57:40 <KipIngram   > I'm 100% convinced it's not "merely a matter of complexity."
2023-03-20 09:57:56 <KipIngram   > But we will be able to make systems that "behave as though they're conscious."
2023-03-20 09:58:08 <KipIngram   > And there's not really anyway to prove or disprove internal experience.
2023-03-20 09:58:28 <KipIngram   > So we're gonna be able to argue about it.
2023-03-20 09:58:48 <KipIngram   > I just dread the day someone starts talking about allowing coputers to vote.
2023-03-20 09:58:58 <KipIngram   > That would just be catastrophic in my opinion.
2023-03-20 10:01:54 <KipIngram   > Did you respond to my question about Jung and the collective unconscious?
2023-03-20 10:02:19 <KipIngram   > If you did I'll scroll back.
2023-03-20 10:02:59 <veltas      > I don't know about that
2023-03-20 10:03:03 <KipIngram   > Looks to me like in Kastrup's model that universal consciousness would BE the collective unconscious.
2023-03-20 10:03:13 <KipIngram   > Jung was a practicing psychiatrist.
2023-03-20 10:03:25 <veltas      > I don't read philosophers, they read me :P
2023-03-20 10:03:30 <KipIngram   > He started to notice "uncanny" similarities in a bunch of things across many patients.
2023-03-20 10:04:05 <KipIngram   > And he developed this theory that there is a "species subconscious" that has developed over the course of history, that affects our unconscious behavior via what he called "archetypes."
2023-03-20 10:04:27 <KipIngram   > He thinks this is also why myths from cultures all over the world wind up having similar themes and so on.
2023-03-20 10:05:20 <KipIngram   > So he thinks we're not born "blank slates" psychologically - we all share this "common background" that's been built up over time.
2023-03-20 10:05:41 <veltas      > I definitely don't put a lot of weight behind tabula rasa
2023-03-20 10:06:20 <veltas      > I think treating people equally is a matter of principle and not reality, the reality is we're all different
2023-03-20 10:06:27 <veltas      > You can have the principle and the realism
2023-03-20 10:07:43 <KipIngram   > Yeah, that collective part is just a part - he thinks we all also have what you'd think of as a more "traditional" personal subeconscious, and then of course we're all conscious too.
2023-03-20 10:07:55 <KipIngram   > And individuals are a combined influence of all of that stuff.
2023-03-20 10:08:53 <KipIngram   > Anyway, what started impressing me over the weekend is how this particular idealist paradigm just sort of allows a synthesis of these things.
2023-03-20 10:09:21 <KipIngram   > Puzzle pieces from different domains start "clicking together."
2023-03-20 10:10:54 <KipIngram   > I also think the "equality" thing gets taken too far.  I don't know exactly how to say it - I think we're all "equally worthy" of respect, fair treatment, freedom, etc. - but we're certainly not "all equal" in a complete sense.
2023-03-20 10:10:59 <KipIngram   > We're very different from one another.
2023-03-20 10:11:11 <KipIngram   > Different abilities, different preferences, etc.
2023-03-20 10:11:42 <KipIngram   > A lot of people just take it too far, and that's how we get racism and other such problems.
2023-03-20 10:12:16 <veltas      > Equal in the eyes of God
2023-03-20 10:12:30 <KipIngram   > Yeah - that captures it too.
2023-03-20 10:13:22 <KipIngram   > The extreme people on both ends of the spectrum are just clearly WRONG in their view of the world.
2023-03-20 10:13:47 <veltas      > I can't understand how you can think people are worthy of this inherent respect without believing in God though
2023-03-20 10:13:58 <veltas      > Or rather I don't think you can really believe that fundamentally without God
2023-03-20 10:14:08 <KipIngram   > I can't explain it to you, and I don't necessarily "not believe in God."
2023-03-20 10:14:18 <KipIngram   > I'm just not 100% on board the specific Christian interpretation.
2023-03-20 10:14:37 <KipIngram   > I'm quite convinced that we are more than our bodies, so right away I'm accepting the validity of "spiritual" concepts.
2023-03-20 10:15:00 <KipIngram   > So the idea that a "super spirit" as defined by God may exist - that just can't be ruled out.
2023-03-20 10:15:12 <thrig       > Arnold Toynbee rejected such woo as the virgin birth and whatnot, but also rejected materialism, so got flack from the fundies and the scientists
2023-03-20 10:15:41 <KipIngram   > Yeah - that's the thing.  Happens in politics too.  Unless you swallow the entire package, you're "out" so to speak.
2023-03-20 10:17:13 <KipIngram   > If anything I took a step TOWARD the God concept this weekend, in upgrading Kastrup's stuff in my mind.  I think it seems obvious that this "unified consciousness," that there is only ONE of, would correspond to God.  I just don't have a firm opinion about the full set of properties and capabilities that consciousness would have.
2023-03-20 10:17:29 <KipIngram   > As I noted earlier, it could well be EXACTLY the Christian God.  I can't rule that out.
2023-03-20 10:17:44 <KipIngram   > Or, it might be something "in that direction" but not all the way.
2023-03-20 10:17:54 <KipIngram   > I don't see how we can know - it really does come down to a matter of faith.
2023-03-20 10:18:10 <veltas      > You might try reading the bible
2023-03-20 10:18:20 <KipIngram   > I've read some of it over the years.
2023-03-20 10:18:24 <KipIngram   > I'm not entirely ignorant of it.
2023-03-20 10:18:28 <veltas      > I recommend reading John
2023-03-20 10:18:38 <veltas      > It's not about being ignorant, it's that reading it can be spiritual
2023-03-20 10:18:47 <veltas      > I find it to be anyway
2023-03-20 10:19:12 <veltas      > I even re-read stuff and get different experiences
2023-03-20 10:19:22 <KipIngram   > One problem there, though, is that the only thing I'm capable of reading at the moment is modern English translations.  This is one of the reasons I'm studying the Latin.  I hope to go from there to Greek, which will let me read the original New Testament, and then later to Hebrew.
2023-03-20 10:19:41 <KipIngram   > The whole point is to be able to read original things, and that would certainly include the Bible.
2023-03-20 10:19:48 <veltas      > It's quite easy to get basic interpretations of the literal original texts on sites like biblehub.com,m
2023-03-20 10:20:09 <KipIngram   > Yes, but the point is I'm TRUSTING someone, and I'd rather take it from the original.
2023-03-20 10:20:44 <veltas      > Yeah that's what you can look at on biblehub.com, and then you can literally google the words involved and get different articles reasoning about it
2023-03-20 10:20:58 <veltas      > You're not an expert so won't be able to go all the way but you can understand a lot that way
2023-03-20 10:21:10 <KipIngram   > I know.  I just have my own plan for how to go about this.
2023-03-20 10:21:16 <veltas      > I'm no expert either but people think I am, the power of google lol
2023-03-20 10:21:36 <KipIngram   > I actually used some of that stuff last night.
2023-03-20 10:21:51 <veltas      > Okay don't cut off your nose to spite your face
2023-03-20 10:23:16 <KipIngram   > I heard an argument made that what Jesus was actually preaching (I'm paraphrasing here) is that we're all "as of God."  That he wasn't really declaring himself "unique," but was rather trying to show people that they could all learn that they were part of the same greater whole.  It came down to a verse in John (John 10:36?) which in the King James version has him saying "I am the son of God."
2023-03-20 10:23:26 <KipIngram   > The point was that in the original Greek that "the" was absent.
2023-03-20 10:23:37 <veltas      > Yeah sounds like an old gnostic thnig
2023-03-20 10:23:38 <veltas      > thing*
2023-03-20 10:23:43 <KipIngram   > And the claim was that he was more saying "I am A son of God."
2023-03-20 10:23:54 <KipIngram   > But, turns out that there's no article at all in the ancient Greek.
2023-03-20 10:24:10 <KipIngram   > Translated literally, it was more like "Because I said Son of God I am."
2023-03-20 10:24:13 <veltas      > What I will say is it's easy to be arrogant and think we know better today, but actually it turns out that people of ancient times weren't dumb
2023-03-20 10:24:27 <KipIngram   > But such things can be tricky - the specific Greek words may IMPLY an article.
2023-03-20 10:24:28 <veltas      > The early church in my opinion got things mostly right
2023-03-20 10:24:34 <KipIngram   > And I'm not good enough to evaluate that.
2023-03-20 10:25:05 <veltas      > Well there are other verses about becoming children of god
2023-03-20 10:25:09 <veltas      > That's all in John
2023-03-20 10:25:35 <KipIngram   > I find that argument appealing.  And it's more like other belief systems I also respect.
2023-03-20 10:25:51 <veltas      > John's well worth a read if you are open to trying to find a spiritual experience
2023-03-20 10:26:22 <veltas      > Although I got my initial experiences just reading Matthew and looking up different translations
2023-03-20 10:26:24 <KipIngram   > Here's the thing.  I do think that TO SOME EXTENT the Church has been used over the ages as a system of control.  And I really have no interest in that part of it.  So I want to be able to decide what I think was original and what I think got "mixed in" later by mere men.
2023-03-20 10:26:38 <veltas      > Matthew's harder because it's very Judean, and i don't get a lot of the references
2023-03-20 10:28:25 <veltas      > How many Samaritans does it take to screw in a baghdad battery
2023-03-20 10:29:13 <KipIngram   > :-)
2023-03-20 10:30:03 <KipIngram   > Anyway, my feeling before having done any of this is that I will wind up finding that the original teachings are very agreeable to me - my guess is that the unappealing heavy-handed stuff will turn out to be later adjustments.
2023-03-20 10:30:36 <thrig       > one might also find the original Taoism (not the later woo) agreeable, or early Buddism, or ...
2023-03-20 10:31:43 <KipIngram   > Indeed - I totally expect that.
2023-03-20 10:31:56 <KipIngram   > In fact, it won't surprise me to find that they're all on very smilar paths.
2023-03-20 10:32:24 <KipIngram   > Which ALSO ties into this "collective unconscious" idea - I mean, we're talking about some of the most important aspects of life here.
2023-03-20 10:34:00 <veltas      > Believe it or not I think it's good that you're researching all these things
2023-03-20 10:34:17 <veltas      > But because I'm biased and I think you'll realise Christianity actually *isn't* like all the others :P
2023-03-20 10:34:52 <KipIngram   > That could be too.
2023-03-20 10:35:00 <KipIngram   > It's the poiint of the exercise.
2023-03-20 10:35:31 <KipIngram   > I think all unavoidably bring some bias to things this important, but that doesn't mean we're necessarily wrong.
2023-03-20 10:35:58 <KipIngram   > "we all"
2023-03-20 10:36:14 <thrig       > the Buddists also say that Buddhism isn't like all the others
2023-03-20 10:38:26 <veltas      > Which is probably true
2023-03-20 10:38:30 <veltas      > They're all different
2023-03-20 10:39:28 <KipIngram   > veltas: This isn't the ONLY stuff I'm interested in reading from the past, but it's a major list item for sure.
2023-03-20 10:39:36 <KipIngram   > In general I want to be able to read old histories, etc.
2023-03-20 10:40:56 <veltas      > Reading old religious texts is definitely an important part of reading old histories
2023-03-20 10:41:23 <KipIngram   > And Latin won't get me directly to the Bible, of course, but it will get me to some things I want to read and the video I watched recommended it as an "entree" into that whole suite of old languages.
2023-03-20 10:41:42 <veltas      > Latin's very indirect but it is very important
2023-03-20 10:42:12 <veltas      > Compare the word 'secular' with "In Saecular Saeculorum"
2023-03-20 10:42:25 <veltas      > That's an interesting one
2023-03-20 10:43:07 <veltas      > In Saecula Saeculorum rather
2023-03-20 10:43:10 <KipIngram   > Latin's also a good starting point for learning other living languages (at least Romance ones).
2023-03-20 10:43:38 <veltas      > Yeah
2023-03-20 10:43:58 <KipIngram   > I'm strongly strongly interested in history, actually.
2023-03-20 10:44:03 <veltas      > I don't know Latin but I do often look at etymology so I recognise a lot of Latinisms in words
2023-03-20 10:44:09 <veltas      > And find it a bit easier to read Spanish
2023-03-20 10:44:20 <KipIngram   > Both "history book" history and also how people migrated around the world, how all those old cultures evolved, and so on.
2023-03-20 10:46:11 <KipIngram   > There's a lot of controversy around some of the broad outlines of ancient history - I'd like to be able to decide what I think of all that.
2023-03-20 10:46:29 <KipIngram   > Some argue that "civilized history" goes back further than the mainstream story suggests.
2023-03-20 14:27:11 <KipIngram   > Ah, next chapter in the Latin books appears to be going into family / people words.  Man, woman, boy, girl, mother, father, etc.
2023-03-20 14:27:40 <KipIngram   > Apparently this style of training is referred to as "Natural Method."  I'm quite liking it, actually.  Seems to be working ok so far.
2023-03-20 14:28:12 <KipIngram   > Chapter one closed off with a set of questions (in Latin) that I had to form full-sentence Latin answers for, and I found it easy enough to do so.
2023-03-20 14:28:43 <KipIngram   > I need to listen to the audio for that last part of chapter 1 in a little while.
2023-03-20 14:29:38 <Zarutian_iPad> reminds me of the English language textbooks I used in elementary school
2023-03-20 14:30:01 <Zarutian_iPad> each chapter were rather topical
2023-03-20 14:30:08 <KipIngram   > It just feels totally different from the way I was taught French in high school.
2023-03-20 14:30:21 <KipIngram   > And that method sure didn't get me to where much of it stuck.
2023-03-20 14:30:37 <KipIngram   > I remember a handful of words and phrases, but not enough to really "count" for anything.
2023-03-20 14:31:07 <KipIngram   > Yeah, so far they're focusing on things that they can support with illustrations.
2023-03-20 14:31:13 <Zarutian_iPad> but learning the glossary meant the propensity of glossolities. That is using rather uncommon words with more common ones.
2023-03-20 14:31:18 <KipIngram   > There were several maps in chapter one.
2023-03-20 14:31:39 <KipIngram   > caput unum
2023-03-20 14:31:55 <KipIngram   > No, sorry - capitulum unum.
2023-03-20 14:32:13 <thrig       > teaching a second language works better if done earlier than too late high school
2023-03-20 14:32:26 <Zarutian_iPad> caput means end, no? like end of a document or such
2023-03-20 14:32:43 <KipIngram   > I thought end was finis
2023-03-20 14:32:56 <KipIngram   > But I haven't come upon "end" so far.
2023-03-20 14:33:04 <thrig       > caput differs from cauda
2023-03-20 14:33:26 <Zarutian_iPad> thrig: we started to learn diffrent languages in elementary at eight or nine years
2023-03-20 14:33:37 <KipIngram   > That's a good time for it.
2023-03-20 14:33:47 <Zarutian_iPad> Danish (or other noric) and English
2023-03-20 14:34:10 <Zarutian_iPad> nordic*
2023-03-20 14:35:10 <Zarutian_iPad> men min dansk eller norsk er meget rustig og min ordbagen i denne er ikko so stor
2023-03-20 14:35:42 <Zarutian_iPad> ikke*
2023-03-20 14:35:55 <KipIngram   > My dad taught himself German when he was doing his PhD.  But he was focused mostly on technical German, so he could read chemistry papers.
2023-03-20 14:37:00 <Zarutian_iPad> oh, I have read German radio repair and service manuals with nothing but an accompaning glossary list
2023-03-20 14:37:43 <Zarutian_iPad> and it meant that those manuals were bloody well clear what they were talking about.
2023-03-20 14:38:30 <Zarutian_iPad> What I do detest are technical documents written were crucial information is hidden in the subtext
2023-03-20 14:40:03 <Zarutian_iPad> usually written by english majors moonlighting as technical writers.
2023-03-20 14:41:16 <thrig       > it can be tricky to get folks who a) know the tech b) know how to write c) can get paid a living wage to do so
2023-03-20 14:42:34 <Zarutian_iPad> option a) is often the least bad iff the writer is basically writing a manual for himself or from his design and build notes.
2023-03-20 14:43:21 <thrig       > otoh some devs detest writing documentation, or go all blank when it comes up
2023-03-20 14:45:44 <Zarutian_iPad> one thing I think/hold-forth why devs do not want to write documentation is that often they had English class trauma of having to write for an audience
2023-03-20 14:46:46 <Zarutian_iPad> instead of ‘hmm… before I get what references did I use and what was thing meant to do again?” kind of documentation
2023-03-20 14:47:21 <Zarutian_iPad> s/I get/I forget/
2023-03-20 14:47:56 <lispmacs[work]> for my part, I like writing code documentation. But usually my projects are not important to anybody else and so I wonder if it is worth the bother
2023-03-20 14:48:23 <Zarutian_iPad> I rather prefer the devs notes to nothing at all.
2023-03-20 14:48:56 <Zarutian_iPad> lispmacs[work]: has it helped you when you came back to that codevlater?
2023-03-20 14:49:10 <lispmacs[work]> yeah, definitely
2023-03-20 14:49:24 <Zarutian_iPad> then it is worth the bother
2023-03-20 14:49:27 <lispmacs[work]> but some projects I know I'm not going to come back to it
2023-03-20 14:50:27 <Zarutian_iPad> does not matter as you never know if you do come back to something you thought you never revisit again
2023-03-20 14:50:28 <lispmacs[work]> anyway, just explaining my mental process. I'm certainly not afraid of writing
2023-03-20 14:53:47 <Zarutian_iPad> I adore jsdoc or such documentation comments as it makes IDE popup documentation readers work so well
2023-03-20 15:22:29 <KipIngram   > That sort of  "pop up" docs is what I'm wanting to build into my Forth system.
2023-03-20 17:16:41 <KipIngram   > You know, I've said a couple of times that I don't think materialism can "explain consciousness," but that I think it may be more plausible for idealism to "explain physics" (why do we get THESE laws of physics).
2023-03-20 17:16:48 <KipIngram   > I think I can justify that.
2023-03-20 17:16:58 <KipIngram   > A few years ago I ran across this paper.
2023-03-20 17:17:10 <KipIngram   > Nothing to do with the philosophical aspects of things at all.
2023-03-20 17:17:46 <KipIngram   > But what the guy showed is that you can begin with an completely aribtrary model of "reality."  What that meant to him was an arbitrary  number of functions of time.  Note - no space assumed a priori.  Just time.
2023-03-20 17:18:00 <KipIngram   > And then he made ONE assumption: that there exists at least one conserved quantity.
2023-03-20 17:18:11 <KipIngram   > Doesn't matter what it is - it just has to exist; could be anything.
2023-03-20 17:18:23 <KipIngram   > And then he did math, and out popped... well, a slew of physics.
2023-03-20 17:18:43 <thrig       > probably the tarragon, if you're using thyme so freely
2023-03-20 17:18:50 <KipIngram   > First of all, space popped out.  Or rather the sort of mathematical behavior of the sort we see when things move in  space.
2023-03-20 17:19:02 <KipIngram   > Three spatial dimensioned emerged as the "most graceful" dimension count.
2023-03-20 17:19:42 <KipIngram   > And out came electromagnetism, including both Maxwell's equations and the Lorentz force law, and special relativity, and some stuff to do with spin, and also various quantum behaviors.
2023-03-20 17:19:53 <KipIngram   > You get all of the AUTOMATICALLY when you impose a conservation law.
2023-03-20 17:20:15 <KipIngram   > And justifying a conservation law seems like the sort of thing idealism might be able to accomplish.
2023-03-20 17:21:49 <KipIngram   > That (arbitrary) bottom layer of state variables he started with wound up being representative of the quantum wave function, and his analysis showed that those would not be directly observable.
2023-03-20 17:21:56 <KipIngram   > Just like the wave function isn't observable.
2023-03-20 17:22:16 <KipIngram   > What turned out to be observable was even-numbered statistical moments of those variables.
2023-03-20 17:22:49 <KipIngram   > And the way you get expectation values of things in quantum theory is by forming a second moment of the wave function, passed through whatever observable operator you're interested in.
2023-03-20 17:23:19 <KipIngram   > In other words, what he showed is that the laws of physics more or less MUST be of the form they are.  This whole notion of different universes with vastly different laws of physics doesn't fly.
2023-03-20 17:23:50 <KipIngram   > If there are a whole bunch of universes, they are qualitatively similar, though I guess the values of various numerical constants might vary.
2023-03-20 17:24:05 <KipIngram   > But the FORM of the laws - there's nothing we can do about that.
2023-03-20 17:56:57 <KipIngram   > That paper is here, if anyone is interested:
2023-03-20 17:56:59 <KipIngram   > https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.06981.pdf
2023-03-20 17:57:18 <KipIngram   > Latter parts require group theory, but the first stuff only requires some linear algebra.
2023-03-20 17:58:26 <Zarutian_iPad> thanks! bookmarked.
2023-03-20 17:58:58 <KipIngram   > I guess a good way to say it is that you can start with any variables you want, changing with time.  And so long as you can identify a conserved quantity, then there exists some "change of variables" (some coordinate system change) that will make the dynamics look like mainstream physics.
2023-03-20 17:59:47 <Zarutian_iPad> I have mentioned FlowBasedProgramming in relation to BitGrid and how to program GA144 so I feel https://bergie.iki.fi/blog/fbp-ai-human-collaboration/ isnt too off topic here.
2023-03-20 18:11:18 <KipIngram   > Oh god - if I wasn't off topic then you surely aren't.
2023-03-20 18:12:24 <KipIngram   > I like flow-based programming, and it's certainly the kind of parallelism that contemporary microprocessors are well-equipped to exploit efficiently.
2023-03-20 18:12:35 <KipIngram   > It's a good model for "the age."
2023-03-20 18:13:13 <KipIngram   > Whereas a lot of the parrallelism studied back in the 1980's or so isn't - it leads straight into cache collisions and things like that.
2023-03-20 18:14:16 <KipIngram   > On the other hand, Bitgrid is a fairly different architecture from multi-core CPUs.  It can probably handle either type of parallelism.
2023-03-20 18:14:59 <KipIngram   > When a conventional core gets hold of your data, it wants to "own it" for a while.