I think I’m the only person in the universe who is actually looking forward to the PlayStation Portal handheld being released in a couple of weeks. I loved the Backbone One but it was annoying having to take the case off every time I wanted to play on my phone. The PlayStation Portal will fit my use case very well.

Yes, this is what the + and - are for! One could be LGBTQ-Blacks for example.

I will say that you have to be really careful with your order of operations if you happen to be racist against two or more minorities though.

For instance, LGBTQ(-Muslims)(-Jews) would imply that you love both Muslims and Jews due to the rules of multiplication. Since most racists are not good at math it is recommended for you to only target one minority as the primary object of your hate whenever possible.

Give up on life. Hope for reincarnation so that I can do better the next go-around.

Could these be the negative and positive thoughts within ourselves?

Thank you so much for the explanation!

I’m going to sound like a total idiot but if our universe was at the center of a ginormous sphere could that give an illusion that every point in space was moving away from another when in fact we could all be falling (getting pulled by gravity) toward whatever edge of the sphere we are closest to?

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These cells are able to solve simple puzzles and behave differently as individuals as compared to groups too.

A hair cell that has had no prior exposure to a brand new environment is able to sense the change and adapt itself. To me this is indicative of an elementary consciousness.

I commented this elsewhere but please take a look at a few minutes of this video. Just because we do not understand the mechanism does not mean that it doesn't exist.

A renowned biologist Michael Levin took some basic skin cells from a frog embryo and separated them from the rest of the organism. Astonishingly these “skin” cells rebooted themselves and converted into a new type of organism that is able to solve simple mazes, and demonstrate individual and group behaviors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3lsYlod5OU&t=389s

As to your thesis, there are not infinite levels of “life” below us, right? At some point, the mechanisms at play are purely chemical interactions.

I do not believe that are are infinite levels of "life" below us or above, but I do believe there are infinite levels of consciousness. But my definition of consciousness is not restricted to life. I do not equate consciousness with “intelligence” or life. I think consciousness is a fundamental property of every little thing in our universe. I believe that higher levels of consciousness arise due to higher levels of systemic complexity. This definition is more intuitive to me as compared to the modern definition where conscious life develops on earth from essentially nothing that is itself “alive”.

As an aside, I don’t know that I’d place the subconscious below consciousness in the foundational way you built. I have wondered whether what we’ve thought of as the subconcious is merely the manifestation of right hemisphere expressing itself

This is a fascinating idea! Thank you for sharing and I'll be sure to read more about this.

An interesting point is that no level below consciousness does science. No organ (besides the brain), no cell, no DNA strand, ponders the the question you pose.

I would argue that all levels below us do science, at our meta level we simply have ability to observe and describe the science that they do. Sure our cells almost definitely do not have the capacity ponder the question that I raised. But how do you know they don't have other ways to express their agency? A renown biologist Michael Levin took some basic skin cells from a frog embryo and separated them from the rest of the organism. Astonishingly these "skin" cells rebooted themselves and converted into a new type of organism that is able to solve simple mazes, and demonstrate individual and group behaviors. Source: https://youtu.be/p3lsYlod5OU?si=t2-mBbwNWTSX2Lp8&t=389

I actually share your thoughts! I used our body as an example to illustrate my point but I believe that this concept expands beyond our bodies and into everything.

We could both be wrong though!

I have a panpsychist definition of consciousness.

I do not equate consciousness with “intelligence” or life for that matter. I think consciousness is a fundamental property of every little thing in our universe. I believe that higher levels of consciousness arise due to higher levels of systemic complexity.

This definition is more intuitive to me as compared to the modern definition where conscious life develops on earth from essentially nothing that is itself “alive”.

Each system attempts to offload work to the lower systems to ensure its own health and survival. Similarly to humans using automation and technology to simplify and enhance their own lives. I don't think its out of the realm of possibility that there exists a higher version of you that is essentially experiencing heaven for the duration of your entire life while you take care of the day-to day-survival duties.

There are anecdotal stories of people entering higher states of consciousness during near death experiences, extremely deep meditation, holotropic breathing exercises, etc.

Really creative people describe their most proud acts of creation as if the idea came from somewhere else. As if the concept arose independently and they tried their best to relay it into the real world.

As for the people on psychedelic drugs, they usually speak of the higher state of consciousness as being more real than the real world... which would make sense if our usual consciousness was a subset of something bigger.

Just my anti-depressants, I swear!

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Why can’t I tell anyone? Would they kill me if I did?

I only observed a disappointing 995x improvement. What can I do to attain the remaining 5x?

Just kidding - you rock! I originally signed on with lemm.ee after I read one of your previous optimization posts regarding Cloudflare. You seemed like a gent who was on top of his game ☺️.

Senior year of university I was browsing my school’s intranet page late one evening when I saw an advertisement for a “developer interview day” hosted by a Fortune 25 company.

I thought what the heck and filled out the application. Upon submitting the form, I got an error saying that my GPA did not meet the minimum requirements for the position.

I kept bumping up my GPA until the submission went through.

Ended up working at that company for 5 years!