awt[billymg|asciilifeform]: signpost: I have considered the idea that with the internet, we are re-entering a period in which the gods speak directly to us, i.e. we are reverting to the precconscious bicameral mind.
awt[asciilifeform|billymg]: Actually no, was a bit different. Mass media supported a kind of bicameral mind throughout the 20th centry, but the internet caused it to break down.
signpost[asciilifeform]: maybe depends on which internet one's talking about. for me, it was a way out of suburban texas, tool for exorcism of the admonitory voices of my previous culture.
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg]: for others, social media's definitely the greatest admonitory voice amplifier ever created, puts tv and radio to shame.
awt[asciilifeform|billymg]: signpost: the internet is causing a split. Many still hearing the mass media voices and their internet proxies.
signpost[asciilifeform]: perhaps causing, perhaps only making the difference more obvious.
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg] figures there were always classes of human beings.
awt[asciilifeform]: indeed.
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg]: awt: also, do you not imagine conversations with others, or dream? who are the other participants?
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg]: one thing I took from Jaynes was that I had merely substituted "sane" labels for his hallucinated gods.
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg]: and that this happens safely "inside my head", whatever that means.
awt[billymg|asciilifeform]: I consider dreams to be what's left of the bicameral mind trying to talk to me.
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg] is the type of person that gets lost in daydream constantly.
awt[billymg|asciilifeform]: imaginary conversations seem more tricky
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg]: yeah, kind of what I'm getting at, only I think it's all still there.
signpost[asciilifeform]: the agents in dreams are particularly interesting, in that I'd have a hard time explaining to you why I'm real, and they're not, given they both live in "my" head.
signpost[asciilifeform]: other people will corroborate the reality of my identity, but only because I told them to!
signpost[asciilifeform]: (chortle)
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg]: the stuff's squishier than we admit.
awt[asciilifeform|billymg]: This is one of the reasons why I'm tempted to try ayahuasca, though haven't mustered the courage just yet.
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg]: haven't myself yet, but would
signpost[asciilifeform]: plenty of other psychedelics though
awt[billymg|asciilifeform]: I've had a bag of shrooms sitting in my closet for over a year.
signpost[asciilifeform]: one experiences ego death every night; psychedelics are fun, but might make the thing too mysterious even.
awt[billymg]: Did some in my youth - didn't seem like what I've read about ayahuasca.
signpost[asciilifeform]: but when I'm grunting on about nietszsche and heidegger, it is in the belief that something in the direction of knowing that one's identity is fiction is what, if anything, succeeds "baw, god's dead"
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg]: might've been what asciilifeform meant by this
bitbot: Logged on 2022-02-20 01:08:21 asciilifeform: is of the ''consciousness' is a phlogiston' school of thought, but realizes that not erryone is prepared to take this pill
awt[asciilifeform]: That is something I'll have to consider. "I"
signpost[asciilifeform]: imho one doesn't then dispense with selfhood because it's fiction.
awt[billymg|asciilifeform]: Buddhism took me down that path to some extent. "Where tf are these thoughts coming from..."
signpost[asciilifeform]: definitely a bit of that influencing me.
signpost[asciilifeform]: I found some of the same "compulsive masturbator" traps in buddhism though, as discussed earlier.
signpost[asciilifeform]: it's true; stop narrating a self and you're not going to have many problems.
signpost[asciilifeform]: you might sit there in bliss, cumming eternally while your country is overrun by chicoms, for example.
awt[asciilifeform]: The idea of vitalism has attracted me recently, if that means what I think it does. An almost complete lack of awareness of the self.
awt[asciilifeform|billymg]: An animal like existance
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg]: is it that there's this thing, and you'd like to be unaware of it?
awt[asciilifeform]: Yes, like when I'm completely absorbed in my work. But a lifetime of it.
signpost[asciilifeform]: btw play any instruments? I find guitar a great way to practice shutting off the chatterbox.
signpost[asciilifeform]: dunno that I'd give up the power to declare things inwardly.
awt[billymg]: Yes. Violin. Just started composing some synth stuff with a keyboard + DAW.
signpost[asciilifeform]: but it's healthy to be quiet often.
signpost[asciilifeform]: ah cool
awt[asciilifeform]: Somehow mp seemed to pull it off for a while. Living in the world completely, while at the same time ruthlessly trimming self delusion.
signpost[asciilifeform]: trimming delusion of others, but things like the "chinese miner conspiracy" as cover for derping out duplicate transactions for bitbet, eh.
awt[billymg|asciilifeform]: that was a fail
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg] admits fully the genius of the man, which makes that even more worth inspection.
awt[asciilifeform|billymg]: if those events had been a real battle, he would have been blissfully dead after his gun blowing up in his face. Sadly lived on.
signpost[asciilifeform]: I expect men to be flawed.
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg]: anyway, suppose you trim all delusion from yourself. what's left?
awt[asciilifeform]: Depends on what you're working with
signpost[asciilifeform] just took some nyquil, has flu, so expect messages to degrade accordingly before I hop off, lol
signpost[asciilifeform]: it's unclear to me whether anything's left one could call a man.
signpost[asciilifeform]: I guess to restate my problem with buddhism, all the stuff of mind is, at least first, imaginary, constructed, delusional, etc.
awt[asciilifeform|billymg]: indeed many considered mp to be a sociopath or psychopath, which many also consider not to be fully human.
signpost[asciilifeform]: I don't mean in some bad sense though.
signpost[asciilifeform]: there's this canvas, upon it a man is drawn.
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg]: the meatsack is the thing which can be animated by the fiction of a man, or if not, something else.
awt[billymg|asciilifeform]: What is the difference in your opinion between delusional/constructed and approximate?
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg]: dunno that the map is approximately the territory, and that's imho the distinction here.
signpost[asciilifeform]: this identity is a kind of map, and the territory is existence.
awt[asciilifeform|billymg] is convinced the territory exists
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg] wiggles hand in front of face
signpost[billymg]: ah yep, totally real
awt[asciilifeform|billymg]: I was persuaded by the etic mircea, for example. Trimmed down the delusion that life has some purpose.
awt[asciilifeform|billymg]: And fully accepted you may choose your own.
awt[asciilifeform]: *etica
signpost[billymg]: or perhaps caused to pursue, but yeah
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg]: this whole choice thing is another ball of worms.
awt[billymg]: this is a delusion I desperately do not want to trim
awt[asciilifeform]: And aditionally, even those who claim there is no such thing, don't act that way.
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg]: the funny thing about being amenable to determinism is that it doesn't bother me much if you're right.
signpost[billymg|asciilifeform]: not taking a strong stance against, just "choice" is probably as ill defined as "consciousness"
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg]: ample experiment to demonstrate e.g. motor impulses start firing before the "conscious" person can report what action they've chosen to take.
signpost[asciilifeform]: but what do I know; maybe the part that chooses isn't the deterministic meatsack at all. but we'd have to get to a definition of that first, before saying what has it.
awt[asciilifeform]: even this is debatable, since subconscious behavior is often a result of previous choices.
awt[billymg|asciilifeform]: there are indeed many who, due to previous decisions, can no longer choose much.
awt[billymg|asciilifeform]: yes not clear what is doing the choosing
signpost[asciilifeform]: subjectively, as I sit here, I can sure, move my mind's eye to wherever in my body, or my attention across the room.
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg]: the thing has a kind of aperture that can be widened and narrowed
signpost[asciilifeform]: but I can't say any of that isn't governed entirely by physical cause
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg]: if it weren't, what'd even be being said?
awt[billymg|asciilifeform]: reminds me of yet another mind blowing thesis from the book
awt[asciilifeform]: which is that bicameral men operated *mostly* unconsciously, quite successfully
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg]: yeah, one can see degraded versions of these reaction machines at any american supermarket.
signpost[asciilifeform]: probably the only difference is shittier circumstances within which to bounce deterministically.
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg]: gonna have to hop off and get some rest, but a thought to leave on is whether I, supposedly capable of introspection, am doing something categorically different than these, or merely reacting with better models.
awt[billymg]: g'night. I am happy for now to set the standard at having the ability to introspect as to why you do what you do.
signpost[asciilifeform|billymg]: night, enjoyed the thread
awt[asciilifeform]: same!