I love flying over mountain ranges. One of the highlights of living in the western Rocky Mountain Range is flying over peaks you’d never see any other way but by air. Air travel remains the most magic aspect of modern living.
Over the Austrian Alps
I’m transitioning through Munich on my way to Houston and eventually Austin for Consensus 2024. My window seat gave me an incredible view of the Austrian Alps along the way.
The river of clouds in the valley between peaks felt like something out of a fantasy novel. Even as spring turns to summer the peaks are still snow capped. My home mountains the Bridgers are looking bald this time of year generally.
As I sit on a layover in a Lufthansa lounge charging four separate devices while I take in Financial Times is much less awe inspiring aesthetics.
I am joyfully playing the persona of the technology brother. I see words that suggest my tribe is winning in the pink paper. SoftBank is accelerating its most radical transformation to date. AI hype cycles clash with geopolitical turmoil.
How many ways can I track my biometrics only to discover through AI that I am “tired and experiencing physiological stress”
While I enjoy the lounge, my espresso and my instant access to information I see Russians playing footsie with Estonian maritime border markers. I see long reads on how propaganda bubbles fight each other in spheres of influence. Americans are so smug but I see the other bubbles.
My “emotional work” tag has years of self exploration. One aspect of self understanding that remains elusive for so many of us is the belief that authenticity is the goal over mere improvement.
I’ve come to see the goal of emotional work as the work you do to to find yourself. You aren’t trying to improve yourself (though there may be areas you want to improve) but rather find the truth of who you are underneath conditioning from family or culture like fear and shame.
The ways that we don’t love ourselves are the ways in which we haven’t embraced who we are. That’s why authenticity over self improvement is such a helpful framing.
In some ways, I feel as if I’ve done so much of this type of work that my ambition is to stop looking for myself and simply be myself.
Being and becoming are fluid states so I have to recognize the flux of coming in and out of finding myself. I feel very much in myself at the moment and searching further instead of living in my current authenticity seems like a stretch. I’ll have a lot of “doing” next week so I’m sure I’ll find whatever kind of “being” I am as I go along.
I’d previously remarked how I found the name “Art of Accomplishment” to be a bit off putting even as I was very impressed with the results of the work.
I’ve perhaps found essence of truth on the name that wasn’t available to me earlier. In listening to this particular conversation I heard the personal meaning instead of the cultural projection. The meaning is literally finding the artistry of doing things with meaning in your own life.
“When you’re self-aware, it means there is a full expression of you happening. It’s why with the great artists, you see their full expression. And they can only get to that self-expression, they can only get to that level of ease, by having more and more self-awareness.”
To have an art of an accomplishment you believe there is an art inherent. An artist makes. Accomplishing things is a byproduct of the flow of doing things. To make and to build m, or otherwise enable the process of accomplishing, is itself its own art. “To do” is an art.
I’ve come to love the work of startups and building companies as they are for me a team sport of accomplishing together. Artisans of all kinds are coming together to build a thing or a tool that serves someone else. It is a beautiful process for me
I feel my own flow in the competencies in which I have my own most clear artisanal pride. I do these things for the love of the work and the outcomes of them are simply a byproduct of doing them. I have several areas where the love of the craft is its own motive.
There are artists everywhere. You may well have many areas where you apply an artist’s mindset. Your self awareness gives you a vision of what you want to accomplish. You can be a mechanic or a publicist and still practice an art. Making a salad, fixing the hydraulics, or orchestrating a magazine cover are all accomplishments.
I may have bitten off a bit more than I could chew. In post 1215 I discussed a personal development course I’d committed myself to doing. And, to put it delicately, quite a bit of stuff has been coming up. Let’s call emotional acid reflux.
Over the last few days in particular I felt as if I was drowning in somatic bile as years of grief and anguish have surfaced. And I’ve let wash over me.
Turbulent waves of realizations come up and crashed over me. I pray the tides give me enough time to recover before anything washes back. I’d rather it be out than in but the pain has been acute.
It’s clear that the methods are almost intensely effective. I can’t say if it’s right for anyone else but I’ve made a commitment to emotional growth over the last several years. I found the name to be off putting (somewhere between scam & Ted Talk in terms of branding aesthetics) but many people I respect and trust recommend it to me. If you’d like to get some things out of your system perhaps it cooks well for you too.
I wasn’t in the path of totality for today’s eclipse. Practical matters leave me less able to pick up for shared cultural experiences these days.
Nevertheless I followed along thanks to the livestreams from NASA conveniently running on multiple social media platforms. It’s definitely not the same thing as experiencing an eclipse (I was lucky enough to see the 2017 eclipse) but it was still incredibly moving.
A screenshot from the NASA livestream from Mazatlan Mexico
I had on public radio as well. I had run out to get food and ate my lunch as totality swept across North America. The NPR host went from county to county. You could hear cheering. One reporter who picked up for her station yelled “we are on the radio” as the entire station was clapping and laughing.
I’d describe her experience as literal shape rotation with what is a “memory palace” visualization of the world.
I can’t imagine not having inner monologue. I have a bicameral mind and can picture imagery and movement in my head and discuss it with myself.
Her description of her thought process is akin to having filing system and seeing her thoughts in that system rendered in a flexible database. It’s like she’s a computer.
Other reactions to this video have churned through my mind. Is self awareness maladaptive? Would a future intelligence find this bicameral mind inefficient and go back to unicameral. What other forms exist? Can we toggle it up and down? Is it a gradient in humans of types of cognition and the inner voice is just a processing error?
Can’t find it in the thread atm but thanks to the person who made this. “The end point of this thinking is self awareness is maladaptive”
Oh my god, I get it now. The bicameral mind is still in the process of breaking down. Inner monologues are holdovers, doomed to be outcompeted by more efficient mind
Is this “breakdown” a the shift away from perceiving the voice as external to the self? Is it the erasure of the voice wholesale? What will artificial intelligences make of these differences in human minds? Is this special? A tiger isn’t bicameral.
I think this is relevant to our moment in artificial intelligence development. A Finnish mathematician wrote one of the best science fiction novels I read in the last decade on quantum minds and memory palaces. There is a side plots with embodied intelligences on Mar.
The Quantum Thief is a science fiction novel by Finnish writer Hannu Rajaniemi and the first novel in a trilogy featuring the character of Jean le Flambeur; the sequels are The Fractal Prince and The Causal Ange
Wikipedia
I’ve got a hazy theory about Nordic decentralized engineering culture and mental organization. It’s not a coincidence that fifteen years ago a Silicon Valley Finnish computer scientist wrote some of the best science fiction about a theory of mind that was interior and perfectly organized right?
I may need to go read Julian Jaynes.
An un-cameral mind, as proposed by Julian Jaynes in his theory of bicameral mentality, refers to a state where cognitive functions are divided between two parts without consciousness or meta-reflection. In this non-conscious mental state, individuals lack the ability to reason, articulate mental contents, or have executive ego functions like deliberate mind-wandering. The breakdown of this division led to the emergence of consciousness in humans, characterized by the capacity for introspection and autobiographical memory[1][3].
Jaynes suggests that ancient people in the bicameral state experienced auditory hallucinations as commands from gods, guiding their actions without conscious evaluation. This theory has influenced discussions on consciousness, language, and culture, although it has faced criticisms and debates. Despite differing opinions, Jaynes’s work remains a thought-provoking exploration of the origins of consciousness and continues to inspire research in psychology and consciousness studies[3][5].
Sources [1] Bicameral mentality – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameral_mentality [2] The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind http://www.compilerpress.ca/Competitiveness/Anno/Anno%20Jaynes%20Bicameral%20Mind1.htm [3] The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind [4] Retrospective: Julian Jaynes and The Origin of Consciousness in … – jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/amerjpsyc.125.2.0237 [5] The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind https://www.amazon.com/Origin-Consciousness-Breakdown-Bicameral-Mind/dp/0618057072
I saw someone else say meditation is literally teaching people how to run a monocameral emulator. I’ve done these types of exercises as a child. It sounds a bit Bene Geserit but mental exercises around focus was part of the German theosophical tradition that gave us Rudolf Steiner.
I wish I’d be a bit more organized on this but I’ve been fully back on work so this will have to do for today.
William Strauss and Neil Howe’s theory is probably familiar to you but I’ll cite it for my own edification.
The Strauss–Howe generational theory, devised by William Strauss and Neil Howe, describes a theorized recurring generationcycle in American history and Western history. According to the theory, historical events are associated with recurring generational personas (archetypes). Each generational persona unleashes a new era (called a turning) lasting around 20–25 years, in which a new social, political, and economic climate (mood) exists.
I go in for this “generational horoscope” theory. But I go in for lots of other “deterministic and unfalsifiable” things too so weight that in your assessment. I’m a woman who has a deep respect for woo even though I do generally consider myself a rationalist. And like all rationalists I’m hypocritically predisposed to biasing own qualia. Nevertheless I believe the hard laws are physics not culture.
So it was with interest that I was this theory of elder millenials cross my feed. The oldest of the last generation to live without the internet may prove a further data point for The Fourth Turning fans.
My guess is that the most interesting political figures of the next 20 years will come from this cohort— 1981-1987. -not digitally native, but digitally fluent. -came of age during or just after September 11th. -Started adulthood just before or during the Great Recession. -the final bridge to the 20th century, but young enough to be grounded in the 21st.Katherine Boyle of a16z on Twitter
American dynamism is a patriotic posture of older Silicon Valley culture. And this group of proudly rationalist and engineering minded types is extremely frustrated with being made the enemy by the government. Obama era technocracy represented what looks like a detente between the Boomers and the millennials.
If we are in the middle of a generational changeover between Boomers and millennials it would seem as if the elder children might inherent. But you don’t see a lot of folks who remember a world before the internet. I think there is something in this narrative that will prove important as the moods shift.
At the risk of being “TMI” (this is a gesture of self knowledge to readers not an actual concern of mine that I will ever include too much information), I did something stupid to my personal biome today.
I took an expired a probiotic. I fucked up my bacterial mix. In my defense, I didn’t know it was possible to have an expired Lactobacillus mix. Expired doesn’t seem to mean dead. It just is not doing what I’d hoped and I feel worse not better.
I honestly sort of believed that most probiotics on the self were bullshit. It’s hard to decide what’s medical woo anymore. But I acquired it from a German pharmacy last year and I guess GlaxoSmithKline supplies better shit in Frankfurt than it does in Bozeman.
I immediately nuked the new, supposedly friendly, bacteria from orbit with a one-two punch of doxycycline. I always carry some with me when I travel. Don’t tell my health insurance I’m so cavalier with my over-the -counter bacteria.
I’m joking, but only just. I’m sure artificial intelligence will be put out to nefarious purposes like denying health care coverage to random idiots who blog about their bodies any day now. I just doubt any lawyer will care what nonsense I got up to with yogurt when so many other forms of Medicare fraud are more accessible.
So in the spirit of my blogging forefathers and mothers, I’ve included you in the circle of trust as to the inner workings of my co-infections, symbionts, and other biological processes. Let’s hope, unlike in the case of Ripley, that nuking from orbit works. No need to be carrying aliens in my dark places.
I am experiencing a waning in my desire to be online. Not because I don’t wish to be in the thick of things, but because I simply don’t have as much I want to contribute when I am myself under stress. And it’s all stress now unless you simply stop caring. And I still care.
It’s human nature to be stressed at the available problems. I’ve got access to all kinds of problems now on my phone. So I am stressed.
I don’t have any reason to be participating in any stress but my own at the moment except that I see a lot of available problems because I am always watching.
An uncharitable view of people who sell art, commerce and informations or blame Athens, Jerusalem, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley if you must. In that order.
I suppose this view of information technology as unmitigated casinos of sin is true in a world of addicts. I don’t think we are all addicts. Nor do I think anyone who sells something addictive is a drug dealer.
I’m neither an addict nor a dealer but here I am selling and consuming information nevertheless. I’m not a Kardashian but I’m not a Buddha either. Maybe at best I’m Kim Kierkegaard. The sickness into death compels me to poast.
If we are all addicted to the constant influx of other people’s bullshit then I suppose the attention economy has moved to the addiction economy. We are addicted to the dramas of humanity and some of our dramas are more or less real than other.
A screen grab from a friend of the scariest thing in the world. An attention whore.
Except I don’t particularly want to be addicted to anyone’s bullshit right now. I’m not even all that interested in my own. I’m sick of my bullshit. Why should I pay attention to yours? At best I’ll pay attention to the bullshit on Netflix’s Love is Blind. I don’t mind if it’s packaged for sale. I actually prefer it. At least it wraps in an hour.
I’ve got a few basic principles that orient my life. I believe humans can make decisions for themselves. I believe most of us aren’t at all good at it because we are reactive impulsive animals with just the barest capacity for reasons.
But that capacity exists and it has separated us from the animals. We shall remained chained to the consequences of knowledge. I understand the impulse to blame that bitch Eve. But we’ve got the apple of the tree of knowledge so it’s time to accept paradise is lost.
Anyways, good luck surviving the churn and try not to fuck people over. Good faith is all we’ve got. Try to deliver value and not suck more resources than you deliver. Bow to the thermodynamic Gods and climb the Kardashev scale. Or keep up with the Cardassians. Are you sure you know how many lights there are? Better Google it to make sure.
I like a little “woo” in my life. Anytime I hit a particularly interesting number in my daily writing I tend to do a bit of collective consciousness spelunking across the shared spaces of the internet.
Unsurprisingly, 1111 sparks quite a bit of interest across pop culture numerology depictions. The first search results were women’s interest magazines.
Women’s Health with the uplifting new beginnings represented by 1 before associating 11 as a doubling of 1’s energy as a “master number” with spiritual insight, enlightenment, and intuitive understanding.” Sure, I want an intuitive understanding of my life’s new beginnings. Good job magazine editors. Groundbreaking.
Because what good is hidden knowledge of divine intentions without an affiliate marketing link program with it? I’d love to know if search engine optimization on numerology combined with attractively curated e-commerce affiliate content hits the Cosmopolitan P&L in any meaningful way.
Glamor Magazine at least gently reminded readers that apophenia is an error of perception. Who knew Condé Nast was the publishing house for skeptics? Perhaps they need to be a trusted brand or nail salons won’t subscribe in bulk across the nation to their magazines.
But if you really want lean into your pattern recognition and the subtle schizophrenia of Internet apophenia, my original source Women’s Health helpfully leans into “service journalism” by sharing that Kabbalists 1111 is a sign from God or divinity itself.
This is because the ancient Hebrew name for God, Yahweh or YHWH, when written resembles four ones.
I will caution readers that I don’t know if any of this is true. Obviously my goofy posting shouldn’t be seen as having the same rigor as a LessWrong epistemic status post. While I like a post-rationalist, I don’t know if any of the consumer friendly versions of ancient wisdom is true. I wouldn’t be taking my reading of the Talmud from magazines typically dedicated to recipes and workouts myself.
Women browsing random bits of pattern recognition at the grocery store or on their phone really is the stuff of fluff and the stuff of fear. Who knows what bits of knowledge might lead us astray.
Best case scenario you end up with a nice Oud candle that helped keep Cosmopolitan quiz writers paid. Worst case scenario, you might summon a malevolent algorithmic rabbit hole determined to fill your feeds with angels and demons.
