Lessons From AI

 There is the notion of "the map is not the territory". Given what we are seeing with AIs, the confabulations, the diversity, their multiplicity, we can enlarge this view. We can say that an experience is not reality. All experiences are training data for us / our neural nets. Since there are as many ways to interpret these experiences, this training data as there are neural nets, we can say that an experience has aspects of reality but is not reality.

The Non Problem of Consciousness

 There is much conversation about the "Hard problem of consciousness". One perspective on that is that this issue is born out of primate biology of wanting to be / feel special. A rather simple resolution to this is that all that exists is "aware" of its existence by definition. Then there are gradation / spectrum on what that awareness encompasses. Humans are at a particular level on that spectrum. There is no problem of consciousness, rather an excess of primate arrogance.

Should vs Could

 When we use "should", we are in some sense battling reality, i.e., it IS not the way we want it to be. However, if we use "could", then we engage the imaginal to chart possible paths to what could be. It take more energy and is more difficult to find a path of what could be. And what could be may not what we want once we actually get there.

It may be useful to note that should's often arise out of a value system. And our value systems are a story about what is important. What is important to us is not necessarily important to "reality". And hence we are out of sync with the real. The Tao Te Ching talks about being one with the way without specify what that way is. That is the eternal journey - discovering a way to the way.

Relationship as foreground

 We tend to notice and name things. These things are in the foreground of our thinking and behavior. Let us consider the notion of holons. Part come together to make a whole. Wholes can be parts to another level of wholes. We can see this progression from particles, to organisms, to galaxies, etc. However, no whole can exist without a a particular set of relationships between its parts. Most / some relationships do not create a whole. In that sense, when we see a thing ( a whole), that whole only exists because of a very particular set of relationships between its parts. And hence one can say that it is the relationships that are in the foreground for "all" things that exist.

The origin of this post is from Iain McGilchrist's idea that:

We cannot understand reality by disassembling it and examining its parts. The whole is more than the sum of the parts | Iain McGilchrist on why the world is made of relationships, not things.

Categories, Errors, Spectra, Spaces

 Let us apply the Laws of Form to the notion of categories. Before any distinction is made, there are not categories. Is this what is reflected in spiritual, psychedelic, and other experiences where one has the sense of no boundaries and being part of one "consciousness"? We create categories with some value / intent. In particular, our psycho-biology uses distinctions / categories to create the "other".  The other can he revered (perhaps as authority) or hated. These variations determine our behavior towards the "other". 

Another way to think about this is that we are all somewhere on a spectrum of whatever attribute we are using to create categories. Categories imply a qualitative difference. However, on most attributes what we have are really quantitative differences.

We can further generalize this notion to think of a multi-dimensional space of attributes in which we all exist. In this case again we are quantitatively different from each other rather than qualitatively as implied by categorizations. These categorizations can be positive (saint vs sinners, boss vs worker, ..) or negative (good ethnic group vs vermin, chosen group vs damned, ...).

These ideas can be applied to the notion of category error / mistake. We put things, beings, etc, in different categories with some intent. Would it be more accurate to think of them as being in a different part of ontological attribute space? One of the possible benefits of that may be that affect circuits may not be inadvertently activated with their resulting behaviors and responses to the delineated category?

The Sacred as a Container

 

Think of the Sacred as a containment field for consciousnesses. What contains behavior? Some kind of container / limit can be such a "manager" / controller for behavior. The sacred acts as such a container. It creates both a wall as well as a veil that stops the algorithmic neural nets we have from venturing past that wall or looking beyond that veil. Perhaps this is the notion behind Nietsche's "God is dead" statement. 

In another sense, one can think of the creation of the meme of the sacred as a psychotechnology to set limits on behaviors and practices.

Depolarization

 Think of an identity as a developing and layered structure, part of the "cognitive light cone":

• Part of a family / origin group
• Part of a tribal group
• Part of an belief system / culture group
• Part of species group
• Part of a planetary group
• Part of "biologic / life / living" group
• Part of a "conscious" group
• Part of "sentient" group
• Part of  existence

It seems like polarization is possible at any level as most of existence is outside wherever identity is situated. The next stage that transcends polarization is when identity is with "infinity" / all that is possible. Degrees of depolarization occur as an identity traverses this sequence.