spirit calculus Jun 20, 2020
~ I ~
emptiness
all things are abstractions, without fundamental being.
things are real sometimes
there is a sense of reality to things, given a context in which their abstraction doesn't leak.
this is because, within that context, they behave as if they were the abstracted thing.
even though there are more details about the thing, they are irrelevant in the context.
a marble rolls
but if you hit it with a hammer
it does not.
~ II ~
perception and naming are acts of creation
we decode sensory data into ideas.
ideas are how we store abstractions.
learning is the creation and modification of ideas.
we are association databases
ideas accumulate properties and associations. we connect ideas which resonate.
we query our knowledge by firing ideas into the neural database and seeing what lights up.
we filter the responses. this allows us to pick out particular facets from the vast amount of stored information.
think about elephants. now think about elephant skin. now think about human skin. now think about an elephant's trunk. now think about a human's nose.
the slow work happens unseen
unconscious thought is neurons making, breaking, and adjusting connections in the background.
neurons grow long distances to make connections throughout the brain.
you beat your head against a problem for hours, only to wake up the next day with the solution.
we hold references using symbols
a symbol is an arbitrary stimulus which is associated with an idea.
imagination is ideas converted back into sensory data, and fed back into perception.
the voice in your head. visual imagination. memories.
we are loops
computation requires iteration. state machines.
brainwaves are the clock of thought.
perception is decoded into ideas.
ideas are queried against ideas, and the response is filtered.
the response is encoded into imagination.
imagination is fed back into perception.
this loop allows us to walk the structures in our minds.
we are vessels of information
~ III ~
the soul is an abstraction of the information within us
the soul is not indivisible
it is a collection of ideas. it is like air or fire, or pools of colored liquid.
communication is the medium of the interaction of souls
social interaction mediates the development and persistence of soul.
art captures soul in fixed form.
soul is sensitive to cultural context
language, fashion, beliefs, tradition, values, morality, etc.
certain aspects of culture change less frequently than others, or are more widespread. this causes 'universality' and 'resonance'.
soul is not strictly private
we breathe some in and out whenever we interact with others and the world.
we can try to hide parts of our soul, but they still interact, even if only internally. imagine the pools of color swirling.
we are mixtures
of pieces of all of the souls we encounter, whether human, animal, plant, or artifact.
soul does not persist without hosts or interpreters
the soul that we share continues in others, just as we received it from those before us.
do you see how this explains death?
~ IV ~
+ god is a social construct
omnipotence
the power of humanity.
the power of nature.
omniscience
the eyes of believers. the belief in invisible eyes. belief makes it real.
love, judgement
aggregated human emotions and values.
a part of a whole
a connection to humanity even when you are alone. a divine parent.
prayer
a focus mechanism.
+ reincarnation is a social construct
find a starting vector
choosing objects is a test of personality, of soul.
optimized for a limited number of teachers.
common education
to fill a mind with the same ideas that were in another.
public school and standard curriculums are mass produced incarnation.
education about previous incarnations provides ground for progression.
~ V ~
Edit 2022-09-12: this perspective on god and reincarnation was shortlived, and developed into something larger. see: nameless, a meditation toward the union of science and religion, the clay jug and the molten iron.
spirit calculus
links to:
- a meditation toward the union of science and religion
- a sketch of a proof of both the existence and non-existence of god
- and the air would taste of patterns
- joy to the world
- nameless
- Omnilinguist
- the clay jug and the molten iron
- to stress the magnificence of the universe
- where does the song go when the needle is lifted?
linked from:
- a model of consciousness
- Fox Mulder stares wistfully at the poster on the wall
- litany of the crystal flowing mind
- on the flavors of reality
category: exploration/meditation
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all writing, chronological
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