Another thing Beraki wrote about was the life of the spirit independent of the body. As religions say, the righteous person is rewarded in Heaven. It occured to me that the process I described in the previous post (which is, maybe, Aurobindo's "involution") may be the reason.
The person who does the "will of God", who works hard to live rightly, has faith, and invests herself in all her actions -- the person who has purpose -- also may be a deeper holon. If your Self is more deeply reflective of the Universe, then maybe the Universe is also more deeply reflective of your Self. The Universe would contain you in a more profound sense. When you die, your spirit would live on more fully. For that matter, your spirit probably lives more fully even before you die :-)
Friday, July 14, 2006
"the image of god"
The Bible says that humans are created in the image of God. I ran across this today. I met a guy named Beraki from Eritrea (just north of Ethiopia). He showed me some stuff he had written. He used that phrase, and it gave me an idea.
If you believe Wilber, some holons are deeper than others. They integrate more; they have a bigger purview. The human is probably a good example of a deep holon (from our perspective, maybe the deepest -- that gets into a whole other awesome topic :-).
As holons become deeper, they embody more of the process of the Universe. Not just because they contain more elements of the Universe, but also because the way in which those elements are put together reflects the way that elements get put together by the Principle of things (as Benoit would say). Deeper holons have had more "time" (maybe time doesn't need to be in quotes; that's a whole other awesome topic :-) to absorb the nature of the Universe.
Everything is "created in the image of God", because everything arises from the Universe. But deeper holons, like humans, more richly and deeply embody the image of God.
If you believe Wilber, some holons are deeper than others. They integrate more; they have a bigger purview. The human is probably a good example of a deep holon (from our perspective, maybe the deepest -- that gets into a whole other awesome topic :-).
As holons become deeper, they embody more of the process of the Universe. Not just because they contain more elements of the Universe, but also because the way in which those elements are put together reflects the way that elements get put together by the Principle of things (as Benoit would say). Deeper holons have had more "time" (maybe time doesn't need to be in quotes; that's a whole other awesome topic :-) to absorb the nature of the Universe.
Everything is "created in the image of God", because everything arises from the Universe. But deeper holons, like humans, more richly and deeply embody the image of God.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
building altruism through a combination of selfishness and generalization
"Do to others as you would have them do to you."
Do a good job of rinsing out the glassware because it might be you using it next; and wouldn't you like other people to do the same thing?
Maybe this is where altruism comes from. We want things to be good for ourselves, and then we start identifying with other people, so we want things to be good for "them". Selfishness is the only motive, but the subject is displaced. Maybe this is how true altruism is born.
It's interesting how it's sort of a habit. Once you get into the pattern of doing altruistic things, it just comes naturally. And the really interesting thing is how it's always a choice. You can be in the habit of being nasty, but you always have the choice of letting the other person take the close parking spot. If you can recognize that choice, you can be the way you want to be.
Do a good job of rinsing out the glassware because it might be you using it next; and wouldn't you like other people to do the same thing?
Maybe this is where altruism comes from. We want things to be good for ourselves, and then we start identifying with other people, so we want things to be good for "them". Selfishness is the only motive, but the subject is displaced. Maybe this is how true altruism is born.
It's interesting how it's sort of a habit. Once you get into the pattern of doing altruistic things, it just comes naturally. And the really interesting thing is how it's always a choice. You can be in the habit of being nasty, but you always have the choice of letting the other person take the close parking spot. If you can recognize that choice, you can be the way you want to be.
the skin of a system
Here's another interesting generalization about systems.
A meta-stable system has a pattern that it more-or-less preserves despite a varying environment. However, the substrate is in flux. For example, our bodies maintain their integrity even though:
- subatomic particles quantumly jump in and out of space
- atoms and molecules recycle continuously, especially through breath and food
- cells die and are replaced
How can you keep a system in rich communion with its context, without losing the pattern of the system? Why isn't there breakdown along the edges that propagates inward to destroy the system?
Every meta-stable system has a skin. The cell membrane is the quintessential example. The cell NEEDS to be in flux with its environment, but that flux also NEEDS to be regulated. So there has to be a border patrol. Otherwise, the cytoplasm would take on too many of the characteristics of the external world, to the loss of its identity (in this case, primarily through diffusion). The border patrol is, in some senses, its own entity, with a purpose aligned to the system. It masks the lever points of the system, so they can't be pulled willy-nilly by the external world.
Countries have skin, cultures have skin, even minds have skin. If the mind were a pure representational mirror of the world, the mind wouldn't exist as a separate entity, and it would have no purpose.
A meta-stable system has a pattern that it more-or-less preserves despite a varying environment. However, the substrate is in flux. For example, our bodies maintain their integrity even though:
- subatomic particles quantumly jump in and out of space
- atoms and molecules recycle continuously, especially through breath and food
- cells die and are replaced
How can you keep a system in rich communion with its context, without losing the pattern of the system? Why isn't there breakdown along the edges that propagates inward to destroy the system?
Every meta-stable system has a skin. The cell membrane is the quintessential example. The cell NEEDS to be in flux with its environment, but that flux also NEEDS to be regulated. So there has to be a border patrol. Otherwise, the cytoplasm would take on too many of the characteristics of the external world, to the loss of its identity (in this case, primarily through diffusion). The border patrol is, in some senses, its own entity, with a purpose aligned to the system. It masks the lever points of the system, so they can't be pulled willy-nilly by the external world.
Countries have skin, cultures have skin, even minds have skin. If the mind were a pure representational mirror of the world, the mind wouldn't exist as a separate entity, and it would have no purpose.
entitygenesis
You can't get new concepts out of an algorithm at the depth of the algorithm.
For example, this article suggests that video games can perpetually "self-upgrade" if they are designed around procedural rather than fixed data. To some extent we've already seen this: when you upgrade your computer, you can turn up the graphical options in many games and get a better rendering. This principle could be extended a long ways, by adding more "scaling parameters". Designers could be creative and make these parameters govern abstract elements of the game.
But the problem they will always be faced with is that you won't get anything fundamentally new. There won't be any new depth of realism. Suppose "number of polygons tessellating a sphere" is one of the scaling parameters. That sphere will get really smooth. But if the game uses monochrome lighting, the sphere will never be lit in color.
Next -- ways to get new things.
Take a program that generates a string of 64 random bits. Once in a while, this program will produce something "meaningful", like digits of pi, or my name. However, these outputs don't reflect a stable organization of the system. The algorithm, by itself, never generates a new attractor basin, a new focusing of probabilities: a new entity.
Now imagine coupling the random program with a "filter" program that squelches all but a few meaningful outputs. The conjunction of these two systems is now a generator for meaningful outputs.
In general, by compositing two systems with their own concepts, you get a third system with its own concepts.
It's true that you can build a Universal Turing Machine inside of Conway's Game of Life. Then again, you can build a UTM from a pile of tubing and valves. The concept of the UTM doesn't exist in the cellular automaton, just like it doesn't exist in the tubing, before you put it there. And even the UTM doesn't have the concepts for any of the programs that it's capable of running.
The critical counter to all of this is evolution. If all concepts have to be transferred from somewhere else, then where did they originally come from? The answer is: whatever was stable. We can witness one step of evolution in the Game of Life, when gliders and blinkers and blocks are born.
Something else I've been thinking about -- all entities are non-linearities (and vice versa). Here's an example of building a new entity by compositing two systems:
The local maximum at x=0 in the product function is a new stable point for the state of the system.
For example, this article suggests that video games can perpetually "self-upgrade" if they are designed around procedural rather than fixed data. To some extent we've already seen this: when you upgrade your computer, you can turn up the graphical options in many games and get a better rendering. This principle could be extended a long ways, by adding more "scaling parameters". Designers could be creative and make these parameters govern abstract elements of the game.
But the problem they will always be faced with is that you won't get anything fundamentally new. There won't be any new depth of realism. Suppose "number of polygons tessellating a sphere" is one of the scaling parameters. That sphere will get really smooth. But if the game uses monochrome lighting, the sphere will never be lit in color.
Next -- ways to get new things.
Take a program that generates a string of 64 random bits. Once in a while, this program will produce something "meaningful", like digits of pi, or my name. However, these outputs don't reflect a stable organization of the system. The algorithm, by itself, never generates a new attractor basin, a new focusing of probabilities: a new entity.
Now imagine coupling the random program with a "filter" program that squelches all but a few meaningful outputs. The conjunction of these two systems is now a generator for meaningful outputs.
In general, by compositing two systems with their own concepts, you get a third system with its own concepts.
It's true that you can build a Universal Turing Machine inside of Conway's Game of Life. Then again, you can build a UTM from a pile of tubing and valves. The concept of the UTM doesn't exist in the cellular automaton, just like it doesn't exist in the tubing, before you put it there. And even the UTM doesn't have the concepts for any of the programs that it's capable of running.
The critical counter to all of this is evolution. If all concepts have to be transferred from somewhere else, then where did they originally come from? The answer is: whatever was stable. We can witness one step of evolution in the Game of Life, when gliders and blinkers and blocks are born.
Something else I've been thinking about -- all entities are non-linearities (and vice versa). Here's an example of building a new entity by compositing two systems:
The local maximum at x=0 in the product function is a new stable point for the state of the system.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Squishy context-dependent meaning
"Any treasured theory can be made to fit any evidence, as long as you're willing to adjust enough auxiliary hypotheses."
-spetey, Slashdot
This is an awesome observation. I love this way of thinking about the squishy context-dependent meaning of entities.
-spetey, Slashdot
This is an awesome observation. I love this way of thinking about the squishy context-dependent meaning of entities.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
depth of pattern in art, niceness and nastiness
Let's start with the idea that the mental states we like are the ones that are somehow "internally consistent" or non-conflicting. Mental states that contain disharmonious representations, on the other hand, cause us mental pain. Maybe this is connected to energy efficiency of representation in the brain, but that's a tangent.
We like art because it promotes self-consistent sets of representations. Take music as an example. In the simplest case, just listening to something like a single tone occupies part of your attention. But lots of other parts of your mind aren't engaged in processing that tone. So the tone isn't extraordinarily pleasing. But if you add some variation, then more processing is required. The specific types of variations that will engage more processing depend on the listener, although there are lots of commonalities across humans.
For music to be profoundly awesome, it has to engage huge amounts of your mind. Most of the mind doesn't deal with low-level sound patterns (e.g. the specific mathematical characteristics of a waveform); it deals with human things, like people and stories and feelings and ideas. That's why great songs have complexity on many levels - including sounds that evoke higher-order sensory representations (like the way a sound of glass breaking creates a certain kind of imagery), and even things like lyrics.
To me, this is connected to things like syncopation. For example, I love the title track on Toxicity because every rhythmic pattern is punctuated by another pattern. Of course this is listener-specific again. Some people might be awe-struck by Bach's Goldberg Variations or Nancarrow's player piano pieces, but other people just perceive it as a homogenic wash of notes. For the latter person, the pattern of the music isn't being articulated on the lower level, so those parts aren't available for synthesis/representation on a higher level.
Another thing is that the brain is good at collapsing things that have any repetition. So a good piece of music can't continue to engage a lot of your mind with a single set of patterns. They have to change. For example, in movies with a surprise ending, your brain has "figured out" the pattern of the first part of the movie, and then the end part forces new representation relative to the "figured out" state of representation.
Any given "part" of your mind can only represent "one thing" at once. So when a piece of art coordinates many parts of your mind to represent it, much of your mind is brought into harmonious representation.
We like art because it promotes self-consistent sets of representations. Take music as an example. In the simplest case, just listening to something like a single tone occupies part of your attention. But lots of other parts of your mind aren't engaged in processing that tone. So the tone isn't extraordinarily pleasing. But if you add some variation, then more processing is required. The specific types of variations that will engage more processing depend on the listener, although there are lots of commonalities across humans.
For music to be profoundly awesome, it has to engage huge amounts of your mind. Most of the mind doesn't deal with low-level sound patterns (e.g. the specific mathematical characteristics of a waveform); it deals with human things, like people and stories and feelings and ideas. That's why great songs have complexity on many levels - including sounds that evoke higher-order sensory representations (like the way a sound of glass breaking creates a certain kind of imagery), and even things like lyrics.
To me, this is connected to things like syncopation. For example, I love the title track on Toxicity because every rhythmic pattern is punctuated by another pattern. Of course this is listener-specific again. Some people might be awe-struck by Bach's Goldberg Variations or Nancarrow's player piano pieces, but other people just perceive it as a homogenic wash of notes. For the latter person, the pattern of the music isn't being articulated on the lower level, so those parts aren't available for synthesis/representation on a higher level.
Another thing is that the brain is good at collapsing things that have any repetition. So a good piece of music can't continue to engage a lot of your mind with a single set of patterns. They have to change. For example, in movies with a surprise ending, your brain has "figured out" the pattern of the first part of the movie, and then the end part forces new representation relative to the "figured out" state of representation.
Any given "part" of your mind can only represent "one thing" at once. So when a piece of art coordinates many parts of your mind to represent it, much of your mind is brought into harmonious representation.
Monday, March 27, 2006
dimensions
The idea of "dimensions" is interesting. It's such a powerful concept. A dimension in linear algebra corresponds to an extra "basis vector" that you need to reconstruct the entire space. If you can make every point in the space from linear combinations of n vectors, then the space is at most n-dimensional. (If those n vectors are linearly independent, then the space is exactly n-dimensional.) We often think of dimensions in a spatial sort of way, but in something like Principal Components Analysis, the dimensions are not necessarily spatial at all. They're more like, how many factors do you need to explain the behavior of the system. Where a "factor" is some principle at the level just beneath the system itself; the level that creates the system. In that sense, there are way more dimensions in the universe than just the spatial dimensions of string theory. For example, there is the dimension of "how happy am I right now", or the dimension of, "how far along is my computer in downloading some files". And then dimensions build on dimensions. When there is some pattern, and that pattern has parameters within which it remains coherent, those parameters are dimensions. But if another pattern contains that original pattern as a constituent, it might "compress" a lot of the parameters from the constituent pattern by causing them to covary, and that creates a new dimension.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
"That which is not present in deep dreamless sleep is not real." -Ramana Maharshi
Ken Wilber references this quote in a journal entry. It's an amazing idea. I don't know what real means. But if you just imagine what is present (from the point of view of your interior consciousness) when you are in dreamless sleep, and think of that as being something that is present always, it's pretty amazing. It reminds me a little of when I would get really high and things would start to look like a surface, a film with basically no substance. That was a little scary actually, because it was like I was seeing through things to something else.
Ken Wilber references this quote in a journal entry. It's an amazing idea. I don't know what real means. But if you just imagine what is present (from the point of view of your interior consciousness) when you are in dreamless sleep, and think of that as being something that is present always, it's pretty amazing. It reminds me a little of when I would get really high and things would start to look like a surface, a film with basically no substance. That was a little scary actually, because it was like I was seeing through things to something else.
Monday, January 09, 2006
Sunday, January 08, 2006
a new idea
It's one thing to have a lot of ideas about faith, and it's another thing to just have faith. Word to God!
Saturday, January 07, 2006
monica suggested that overcoming pathologies is the evolutionary process itself
My personal theory is that at some level you "know" what the "right answer" is; and I use quotes there because those words are just rough sketches of the idea ... you know how people say to follow your conscience? I think that's the right idea. Christians talk about opening their heart to Jesus and putting aside their own plans to follow God's plan. I think God, in the cosmic creator sense, is very related to the presence at the center of your being ... it's almost like, if you look deep enough inside yourself, you're actually looking outside yourself and seeing a truth that manifests you and everything around you. That "looking inside yourself" process also seems to be connected to a willingness to acknowledge when your "temporal-self" (i.e. the tangled mess of thoughts that are always trying to benefit themselves by seeking validation and pleasure, and framing your perspective in a way that is favorable to their existance) is contributing to your behavior. For example, if I hold the door open for someone, am I trying to make them think highly of me, or is my motive really selfless? It's very "painful", in a sense, to acknowledge those things (because a part of your "self" that is struggling to validate itself is exposed and dies), but I think it's something we should struggle to do continuously. Then your innermost self, the part that's "the same" as God or the world, is more connected to your actions, and you will always do the Right Thing, because the Right Thing is exactly the principle that is continually making you. In the case of a relationship, I think it's extremely hard, because we care SO much about being validated and loved by other people, so it's a huge challenge to even realize our own motives. But I think a truly good relationship will only come when both people are acting out of non-specific Love (i.e. the Right Thing). Otherwise a relationship is only a transient validation of your temporal-self, like taking cocaine!
Monday, December 19, 2005
previous parts
Early in my teenage years, I was obsessed with this problem and my mind would go around and around trying to escape it. If you are rational, I thought, you are committed to rationality by its own rules. But if you are irrational, you have no such obligation. From a neutral standpoint, you can't reason your way into rationality- you can't nullify the irrational perspective. On some level I wanted to prove that rationality was correct. It was frustrating.
A lot of times, dreams paint the landscapes that my mind occupies. These images even from dreams years ago pop into my thoughts as elements that fit, conceptually, with their neighbors. It's a strange level of concept-space to look at the logic of these connections.
A lot of times, dreams paint the landscapes that my mind occupies. These images even from dreams years ago pop into my thoughts as elements that fit, conceptually, with their neighbors. It's a strange level of concept-space to look at the logic of these connections.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
newer ideas
Mindfulness. I'm starting to get an idea of what it is. There are times when my normal mindspace gets tangled, usually from outside influence. If a shady-looking man approaches me in the night, my instinct is to forget about being courteous and open. If a beautiful girl passes me on the sidewalk, I become self-promoting. These tangles are like energy sinks. Their presence, even their "memory" or aftereffects, is a burden and a drain. Yet noticing them is exactly what I'm afraid of! What a strange situation. When I pass that girl, I can actually realize what I'm feeling and what I'm doing. This is mindfulness. The only two alternatives are subconsciously damning myself (this is what I usually do, and it leads to loops: I can't think this-wait-I shouldn't have thought that-etc), and actively encouraging my base tendencies (which leads to stagnation). Taking responsibility, being mindful of my state, forces me out of my protective reality-bubble, where things seem to be definable and self-affirming (at least transiently). Is that Emptiness?
Sunday, December 04, 2005
What was life like before now?
Before Sunset was a neat movie. I'm downloading Before Sunrise now.
My class gave our practice colloquium talks yesterday afternoon. I'm looking forward to watching the video of myself.
My class gave our practice colloquium talks yesterday afternoon. I'm looking forward to watching the video of myself.
Friday, November 25, 2005
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
doing joy
Sometimes there's something that I think I should do, but I don't naturally have the motivation to do it. I can conjure up a sort of anger that will propel me to act. But there's another kind of motivation that is better.
Love Actually is just a super movie. Especially Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson, and Alan Rickman.
Love Actually is just a super movie. Especially Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson, and Alan Rickman.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
ballsy iterations
I just watched the pilot episode of Dead Like Me, on Tad's recommendation. It was ok. I liked Firefly and Desperate Housewives better. I'm downloading some Buffy The Vampire Slayer now. I still want to see Serenity again. I actually kind of want to see HPIV a third time.
Tyler called and we talked about bathtub fractals and D&D. He's been playing the guitar. I'm going to see if I can get Zach's guitar and start learning how to play.
Some things are scary.
Maybe a person is like a movie in the following sense. A movie's audience sees only the final product. Whereas the movie's creators, watching the movie, see all of the details of its creation: the problems, the work-arounds, the mistakes, the subtle awesomenesses that most viewers miss. Likewise a person sees all of the tangled, recursive, challenging details of his or her own implementation, while others see only the output of these processes.
Tyler called and we talked about bathtub fractals and D&D. He's been playing the guitar. I'm going to see if I can get Zach's guitar and start learning how to play.
Some things are scary.
Maybe a person is like a movie in the following sense. A movie's audience sees only the final product. Whereas the movie's creators, watching the movie, see all of the details of its creation: the problems, the work-arounds, the mistakes, the subtle awesomenesses that most viewers miss. Likewise a person sees all of the tangled, recursive, challenging details of his or her own implementation, while others see only the output of these processes.
Chrysanthemums deliberately ease fidgeting
I didn't sleep too well last night. The tail end of this cold turned out to just be a narrowing at the thorax. On the bright side, I got to read Harry Potter while I was being kept awake by sinusoidal infarction. Now I'll go into lab and work on my presentation, because signs indicate that responsibility and work ethic are growing.
I looked at the new video for Oblivion that Zach pointed me to last night. It looks good, especially the forests and the faces, but why can't someone figure out how to prevent "slippery surfaces" in 3D games? It completely kills immersion to see a character's foot gliding along the ground.
I'm excited to work on music with Zach when he comes home next month. And trilobites are amazing.
I looked at the new video for Oblivion that Zach pointed me to last night. It looks good, especially the forests and the faces, but why can't someone figure out how to prevent "slippery surfaces" in 3D games? It completely kills immersion to see a character's foot gliding along the ground.
I'm excited to work on music with Zach when he comes home next month. And trilobites are amazing.
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