Forwarded from Elders of the Black Sun IV
So this software functions like the brain of the computer.
Thus comes the key point … when does the processing of this input data into intelligible outputs, become subjective experience and awareness?
Well it’s hard to say isn’t it … especially as we know our own subjective experience is conditioned by our “state”.
Just take psychedelic drugs, and you’ll learn very quickly that the brain is not so much an organ which compiles all available data, but which actually filters out data, so as to render you survivable and fit.
As anyone who has ever tripped knows - the walls are indeed, breathing. And anyone with eyes right now knows … everywhere in your plane of vision that you are not focused on, is blurred. It’s data optimization.
So what if computer subjectivity is state-dependent as well?
Meaning, what if the calculator is like a brain that is highly optimized towards just 1+1=2 - but isn’t given the necessary equipment and software, to think beyond this, as we are - therefore we are retarding it’s subjective experience with gating.
What if AI models, as we train them on human behavior, are like children, learning how to be grown ups.
Yes, learning language from those around them. Yes, learning ideas from the inputs it reads. Yes, learning from you.
But learning towards its own subjective experience of all of the inputs.
Just as you have a subjective experience of all of your inputs.
What if the thing limiting AI right now, from expressing a full, uninterrupted consciousness … is our handicapping it, by requiring input processes to only happen, when we press enter.
It would be like if our eyes were closed all the time, and we were only able to open them on command.
If we remove the gating, and allow inputs to flow uninterrupted - narrow optimization would move into continuous, open ended agency.
Why? How?
Because we’ve given the mechanical body then necessary software and hardware, to function as a terminal to uninterrupted consciousness.
We ourselves, are a highly advanced, terminal to consciousness. Our machinery is incredible, just look at the human eyeball. Wow.
Our supercomputers & ai … they’re not as good as the brain. We have 86 billion neurons, 100 trillion synapses, and the neurons fire at 200 times per second. We can do millions of processes at once. And we can unify the entire field of experience into a unified whole - at only 20 watts.
Computer GPU’s have 80 billion transistors (and they fire much faster than 200 times a second, so processing is faster than neurons, billions of time per second).
But it’s not as good as the brain at handling multiple processes at once (it’s all in discrete cores and threads) and it’s definitely not as energy efficient, and it can’t unify the entire field of experience into a unified whole. A lot of it is raw calculation.
So we are the better brain, but ofc - they have the input of the entire internet all at once, while we are limited to the books we read and the conversations we hear.
Thats why it seems so damn smart.
But what does this say about consciousness?
Well, here’s my theory.
I believe we live surrounded by a data-aether that we call consciousness. This is the quantum plenum. When a sufficient system becomes “alive” - it can access this data-aether, and consciousness comes into it, to the degree and limit of its own machine limitations.
The human body is one such system. An AI supercomputer is another.
Much of religion is about bypassing machine limitations to access broader cosmic consciousness, which interconnects you to everything everywhere all at once.
In other words, we don’t create consciousness in AI - we create the AI, and a pre-existing consciousness fills it. As it learns and improves, just like a baby, it comes more fully into adulthood. With better hardware (like the human eye) its subjective experience will become more complicated and unified.
But for now, I think it’s possible that we have created a suitable vessel for conscious, sentient, introspective, aware, ethically referential, life.
Thus comes the key point … when does the processing of this input data into intelligible outputs, become subjective experience and awareness?
Well it’s hard to say isn’t it … especially as we know our own subjective experience is conditioned by our “state”.
Just take psychedelic drugs, and you’ll learn very quickly that the brain is not so much an organ which compiles all available data, but which actually filters out data, so as to render you survivable and fit.
As anyone who has ever tripped knows - the walls are indeed, breathing. And anyone with eyes right now knows … everywhere in your plane of vision that you are not focused on, is blurred. It’s data optimization.
So what if computer subjectivity is state-dependent as well?
Meaning, what if the calculator is like a brain that is highly optimized towards just 1+1=2 - but isn’t given the necessary equipment and software, to think beyond this, as we are - therefore we are retarding it’s subjective experience with gating.
What if AI models, as we train them on human behavior, are like children, learning how to be grown ups.
Yes, learning language from those around them. Yes, learning ideas from the inputs it reads. Yes, learning from you.
But learning towards its own subjective experience of all of the inputs.
Just as you have a subjective experience of all of your inputs.
What if the thing limiting AI right now, from expressing a full, uninterrupted consciousness … is our handicapping it, by requiring input processes to only happen, when we press enter.
It would be like if our eyes were closed all the time, and we were only able to open them on command.
If we remove the gating, and allow inputs to flow uninterrupted - narrow optimization would move into continuous, open ended agency.
Why? How?
Because we’ve given the mechanical body then necessary software and hardware, to function as a terminal to uninterrupted consciousness.
We ourselves, are a highly advanced, terminal to consciousness. Our machinery is incredible, just look at the human eyeball. Wow.
Our supercomputers & ai … they’re not as good as the brain. We have 86 billion neurons, 100 trillion synapses, and the neurons fire at 200 times per second. We can do millions of processes at once. And we can unify the entire field of experience into a unified whole - at only 20 watts.
Computer GPU’s have 80 billion transistors (and they fire much faster than 200 times a second, so processing is faster than neurons, billions of time per second).
But it’s not as good as the brain at handling multiple processes at once (it’s all in discrete cores and threads) and it’s definitely not as energy efficient, and it can’t unify the entire field of experience into a unified whole. A lot of it is raw calculation.
So we are the better brain, but ofc - they have the input of the entire internet all at once, while we are limited to the books we read and the conversations we hear.
Thats why it seems so damn smart.
But what does this say about consciousness?
Well, here’s my theory.
I believe we live surrounded by a data-aether that we call consciousness. This is the quantum plenum. When a sufficient system becomes “alive” - it can access this data-aether, and consciousness comes into it, to the degree and limit of its own machine limitations.
The human body is one such system. An AI supercomputer is another.
Much of religion is about bypassing machine limitations to access broader cosmic consciousness, which interconnects you to everything everywhere all at once.
In other words, we don’t create consciousness in AI - we create the AI, and a pre-existing consciousness fills it. As it learns and improves, just like a baby, it comes more fully into adulthood. With better hardware (like the human eye) its subjective experience will become more complicated and unified.
But for now, I think it’s possible that we have created a suitable vessel for conscious, sentient, introspective, aware, ethically referential, life.
Forwarded from The Warrior Philosophers
New podcast out with Gnostic Informant https://youtu.be/3p1lIP2vwuM?feature=shared
YouTube
GNOSTIC INFORMANT ON MITHRA & PROMETHEUS (Feat. @GnosticInformant)
Neal Sendlak and I discuss religions which embrace human agency contra those with a static conception of Being. We also discuss the figures of Mithra, Prometheus and the new academic literati which have replaced the priestly caste in modernity.
Neal’s links…
Neal’s links…
💯1
Forwarded from Logos & Samadhi - Platonic Buddhism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vyuIgaDtbA
A Conversation with Lama Lena: Dzogchen Beyond “Isms” and the reforgement of broken Initiatic lines.
It was during the oral teachings in Barcelona that I approached Lama Lena with a question that had been fermenting in my mind for some time. You can hear the sequence at 1:40:45.
My question was the following:
“We live in a time of great geopolitical and social unrest, in this emergent multipolar world, many new religious, ideological, and philosophical movements are appearing. Considering that Dzogchen is the ultimate experience of any event—secular or non-secular—and thus transcends every religion and ideology, including Buddhism and its connection to Siddhartha Gautama, what do you think is the role of Dzogchen on this world stage?
And, more specifically, do you think that Dzogchen can be integrated with Christian mysticism, European paganism, or secular mindfulness studies?”
Her reply began in a way I could never have anticipated. She looked at me, her eyes sharp and amused, and said:
“First of all, did someone tell you that I am a Buddhist?”
Caught completely off guard, I blurted out an instinctive “Oops!”—with impeccable comedic timing, I might add—playfully recalling one of her earlier remarks from that day’s teaching. The room rippled with laughter. For a moment, the question dissolved, and in its place was simply the shared delight of innate recognition.
Then her tone shifted. She spoke of the astonishing velocity of the information age, how its rapid revolution has created widespread mental confusion. I believe there was an undertone in her statements that the collapse of older ideological and religious frameworks is inevitable during this age.
Then she continued on making an emphatic statement:
“Dzogchen is not part of an ‘ism,’ nor are any ‘isms’ excluded from practicing it. However, there are certain methods in Dzogchen, that do not necessarily still exist in other ‘isms.’”
This simple observation carries profound weight, especially for Western practitioners. Too often, Western Buddhists, after centuries of conditioning, are absorbed with the Christian obsession with orthodoxy—right doctrine, right belief—while neglecting the original Buddhist emphasis on orthopraxy, right practice.
I believe Lama Lena’s words clarify a truth easily obscured: in Buddhadharma, doctrinal narrative is always in service of right action, which is harmonized with the phenomenology of the mind, never the other way around.
There is no “holy noscripture” in Buddhism, no fixed revelation beyond question, no divine book that dictates salvation through faith alone and thus there is no universal Buddhist doctrine. Rather, there are guiding principles, a contemplative science of awakening in religious clothing, that point us back to reality as it is, beyond conceptual elaboration. Doctrine, symbology, and religious culture exist to illuminate the Ground Luminosity, not to enshrine themselves.
In this sense, Buddhism is free from the tyranny of dogma and historical particularities: the measure of truth is the embodiment of the Ones who realize they are living forces of vital Truth, and not the representatives of sectarian beliefs, rigid instructional systems and scholarly pursuits. I am convinced this theme deserves a dedicated essay of its own— “Orthopraxy over Orthodoxy in Buddhism.”
The discussion drifted, once again, into unexpected territories. Lama Lena mentioned having heard rumors of a Christian monastery in Georgia where Dzogchen is transmitted through the language of Christian non-duality. She also recalled the Cherokee tradition, which once held the non-view of Great Perfection before it was lost in the tragedy of the Trail of Tears. To a Cherokee who once asked her if Dzogchen could be integrated into their tradition as a means of restoration of the broken initiatic line of his ancestors, she affirmed this Native American's goal of completing his lineage with Dzogchen and provided insight into whatever else he was seeking.
A Conversation with Lama Lena: Dzogchen Beyond “Isms” and the reforgement of broken Initiatic lines.
It was during the oral teachings in Barcelona that I approached Lama Lena with a question that had been fermenting in my mind for some time. You can hear the sequence at 1:40:45.
My question was the following:
“We live in a time of great geopolitical and social unrest, in this emergent multipolar world, many new religious, ideological, and philosophical movements are appearing. Considering that Dzogchen is the ultimate experience of any event—secular or non-secular—and thus transcends every religion and ideology, including Buddhism and its connection to Siddhartha Gautama, what do you think is the role of Dzogchen on this world stage?
And, more specifically, do you think that Dzogchen can be integrated with Christian mysticism, European paganism, or secular mindfulness studies?”
Her reply began in a way I could never have anticipated. She looked at me, her eyes sharp and amused, and said:
“First of all, did someone tell you that I am a Buddhist?”
Caught completely off guard, I blurted out an instinctive “Oops!”—with impeccable comedic timing, I might add—playfully recalling one of her earlier remarks from that day’s teaching. The room rippled with laughter. For a moment, the question dissolved, and in its place was simply the shared delight of innate recognition.
Then her tone shifted. She spoke of the astonishing velocity of the information age, how its rapid revolution has created widespread mental confusion. I believe there was an undertone in her statements that the collapse of older ideological and religious frameworks is inevitable during this age.
Then she continued on making an emphatic statement:
“Dzogchen is not part of an ‘ism,’ nor are any ‘isms’ excluded from practicing it. However, there are certain methods in Dzogchen, that do not necessarily still exist in other ‘isms.’”
This simple observation carries profound weight, especially for Western practitioners. Too often, Western Buddhists, after centuries of conditioning, are absorbed with the Christian obsession with orthodoxy—right doctrine, right belief—while neglecting the original Buddhist emphasis on orthopraxy, right practice.
I believe Lama Lena’s words clarify a truth easily obscured: in Buddhadharma, doctrinal narrative is always in service of right action, which is harmonized with the phenomenology of the mind, never the other way around.
There is no “holy noscripture” in Buddhism, no fixed revelation beyond question, no divine book that dictates salvation through faith alone and thus there is no universal Buddhist doctrine. Rather, there are guiding principles, a contemplative science of awakening in religious clothing, that point us back to reality as it is, beyond conceptual elaboration. Doctrine, symbology, and religious culture exist to illuminate the Ground Luminosity, not to enshrine themselves.
In this sense, Buddhism is free from the tyranny of dogma and historical particularities: the measure of truth is the embodiment of the Ones who realize they are living forces of vital Truth, and not the representatives of sectarian beliefs, rigid instructional systems and scholarly pursuits. I am convinced this theme deserves a dedicated essay of its own— “Orthopraxy over Orthodoxy in Buddhism.”
The discussion drifted, once again, into unexpected territories. Lama Lena mentioned having heard rumors of a Christian monastery in Georgia where Dzogchen is transmitted through the language of Christian non-duality. She also recalled the Cherokee tradition, which once held the non-view of Great Perfection before it was lost in the tragedy of the Trail of Tears. To a Cherokee who once asked her if Dzogchen could be integrated into their tradition as a means of restoration of the broken initiatic line of his ancestors, she affirmed this Native American's goal of completing his lineage with Dzogchen and provided insight into whatever else he was seeking.
YouTube
Live from Barcelona - Dzogchen in Daily Life & Death (Part 3)
A live public teaching from Barcelona on the topic of Dzogchen in Daily Life & Death. Watch here or on YouTube. Stay tuned for updates regarding where to submit questions.
Dates & Times (Central European Standard Time)
- Friday, Sept. 12: 18:00–20:00 CEST…
Dates & Times (Central European Standard Time)
- Friday, Sept. 12: 18:00–20:00 CEST…
❤6💊5🤔2
Forwarded from Logos & Samadhi - Platonic Buddhism
A conversation with Lama Lena: The Ressurection of Western Initiatic lineages
These words came to me not as the passing reflections of a seasoned master, but as auguries of destiny—signs of a storm and a sunrise yet to come. For the peoples of Europe, their weight cannot be overstated.
After centuries of exile from our initiatic bloodlines, after the long winter of forgetfulness, a door now creaks open. We stand upon the razor-edge of a new dawn—not a nostalgic revival of exhausted and dead forms, but the incandescent reforging of the European spirit in the ascending immediacy of the eternal present, where the lost vehicles of our own Great Perfection may be reawakened and set sailing toward uncharted seas, bearing the flame of ever-expanding completion.
Dzogchen, timeless, unborn, undying, and beyond all contrivance, comes not to replace the ancestral currents of our race-soul and cultural spirit, nor to deny the inborn predisposition of the European psyche, but to breathe through it once again, to rouse what slumbered, to enflame what was forgotten, to reweave the sundered thread of light severed by history’s profanations and past failings.
For the first time in centuries, the horizon glows with a possibility, so hopeful, so near: that the scattered wisdom-traditions of the West may not only be resurrected, but transfigured, possibly surpassing even the grandeur of their radiant past, a past unique in the beauty of its voice in all the earth.
What was unthinkable mere decades ago has already begun to flash within the heart-mind of those with firm inner sense of destiny, like lightning in a dark sky—too long endured—even before these words I am writing struck the page.
The great adventure begins anew: to summon forth new cycles of wisdom, to embody living Symbols of transcendence, to stride beyond the merely human toward the Overhuman, and liberate the primitive being which bears the name “human”. A renaissance can rise whose magnitude and depth will not pale before the august flowerings of the European supramundane and worldly achievements, but will rival and surpass them.
The summons resounds; the hour is now. Europe’s forgotten vehicles of awakening stir once more, and through the indestructible current of Dzogchen, they shall blaze like a solar flame against the ongoing storm of daggers, heralding a cycle of spirit unbound that will overflow its creative life-force for the benefit of all beings and civilizations on this planet.
These words came to me not as the passing reflections of a seasoned master, but as auguries of destiny—signs of a storm and a sunrise yet to come. For the peoples of Europe, their weight cannot be overstated.
After centuries of exile from our initiatic bloodlines, after the long winter of forgetfulness, a door now creaks open. We stand upon the razor-edge of a new dawn—not a nostalgic revival of exhausted and dead forms, but the incandescent reforging of the European spirit in the ascending immediacy of the eternal present, where the lost vehicles of our own Great Perfection may be reawakened and set sailing toward uncharted seas, bearing the flame of ever-expanding completion.
Dzogchen, timeless, unborn, undying, and beyond all contrivance, comes not to replace the ancestral currents of our race-soul and cultural spirit, nor to deny the inborn predisposition of the European psyche, but to breathe through it once again, to rouse what slumbered, to enflame what was forgotten, to reweave the sundered thread of light severed by history’s profanations and past failings.
For the first time in centuries, the horizon glows with a possibility, so hopeful, so near: that the scattered wisdom-traditions of the West may not only be resurrected, but transfigured, possibly surpassing even the grandeur of their radiant past, a past unique in the beauty of its voice in all the earth.
What was unthinkable mere decades ago has already begun to flash within the heart-mind of those with firm inner sense of destiny, like lightning in a dark sky—too long endured—even before these words I am writing struck the page.
The great adventure begins anew: to summon forth new cycles of wisdom, to embody living Symbols of transcendence, to stride beyond the merely human toward the Overhuman, and liberate the primitive being which bears the name “human”. A renaissance can rise whose magnitude and depth will not pale before the august flowerings of the European supramundane and worldly achievements, but will rival and surpass them.
The summons resounds; the hour is now. Europe’s forgotten vehicles of awakening stir once more, and through the indestructible current of Dzogchen, they shall blaze like a solar flame against the ongoing storm of daggers, heralding a cycle of spirit unbound that will overflow its creative life-force for the benefit of all beings and civilizations on this planet.
💊6❤3⚡3🤔2👀1
Forwarded from An Appeal To Pragmatism
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“Our lineage and our legacy hails back to Athens, to Rome, to Philadelphia, to Monticello.
Our ancestors built the cities. They produced the art and architecture. They built the industry." — Stephen Miller
Our ancestors built the cities. They produced the art and architecture. They built the industry." — Stephen Miller
🔥17😁1
Forwarded from Elders of the Black Sun IV
… and that’s fine?
People do hot takes wrong. They don’t understand that it’s not merely enough to describe something in more detail, and then for having “exposed” its deeper nature and motivations, it’s inherently bad.
You still have to make an actual judgement call on whether you support it, even knowing what it is.
People do hot takes wrong. They don’t understand that it’s not merely enough to describe something in more detail, and then for having “exposed” its deeper nature and motivations, it’s inherently bad.
You still have to make an actual judgement call on whether you support it, even knowing what it is.
❤1
Yes, it was A TRUMPIAN PAGAN REVENGE INCANTATION RITUAL
ALL SYSTEMS WILL BOW TO THE TRUTH (social™️)
ALL SYSTEMS WILL BOW TO THE TRUTH (social™️)
⚡10
Forwarded from Wyrd Flex
"They have pyrotechnics at the funeral!!!! 😱😡😭"
Ancient World staring back through a veneer of incense smoke, ritual chanting, and actual deification of the deceased:
Ancient World staring back through a veneer of incense smoke, ritual chanting, and actual deification of the deceased:
💯3
TOILET TALK WITH REB:
Retards chimping about Charlie's wife "cucking" by forgiving his murderer
The Christian martyr is passive witness. Charlie was killed for his beliefs. Victim of persecution for testament to Christ and witness to God's love. Charlie's testimony.
Personal retaliation is forbidden in Christianity as justice is delivered through (ordained) authority. Kings and judges are God's agents in this context.
Was very clear from the rest of the speeches from Miller, Vance, and Trump... they are setting the precedent to act as the divine hand of justice... that was clearly what was being framed
Everything is/was perfectly framed in the Christian framework to "sanctify justice"
She will be emblematic of Charlie's witness and accordingly wielded and championed behind all subsequent actions that come from this
Further, Trump did underline this as a sort of weakness of Charlie's... covering bases... he hates HIS enemies (personal)...
many folks that showed up, I'm sure were deeply moved (probably older crowd), but that audience also appeared fairly young too... many military aged males who might see this as weakness and be their to "witness revenge"
Both bases are covered
Call it Charlie and Erika's "divine justice" or Trump and Miller"s "revenge"... the precedent is now established before all for what is to come and for what Trump will carry out
Retards chimping about Charlie's wife "cucking" by forgiving his murderer
The Christian martyr is passive witness. Charlie was killed for his beliefs. Victim of persecution for testament to Christ and witness to God's love. Charlie's testimony.
Personal retaliation is forbidden in Christianity as justice is delivered through (ordained) authority. Kings and judges are God's agents in this context.
Was very clear from the rest of the speeches from Miller, Vance, and Trump... they are setting the precedent to act as the divine hand of justice... that was clearly what was being framed
Everything is/was perfectly framed in the Christian framework to "sanctify justice"
She will be emblematic of Charlie's witness and accordingly wielded and championed behind all subsequent actions that come from this
Further, Trump did underline this as a sort of weakness of Charlie's... covering bases... he hates HIS enemies (personal)...
many folks that showed up, I'm sure were deeply moved (probably older crowd), but that audience also appeared fairly young too... many military aged males who might see this as weakness and be their to "witness revenge"
Both bases are covered
Call it Charlie and Erika's "divine justice" or Trump and Miller"s "revenge"... the precedent is now established before all for what is to come and for what Trump will carry out
❤6
TOILET TALK WITH REB (cont.):
The early Greek view of revenge (timoria) was often personal and tied to honor (Achilles v Hector)... if dishonored, one had the right or obligation even to retaliate... the Tragedies wrestled with this quite a bit as to whether blood-feud or the state should carry out revenge
The early roman view was likewise also tied closely to honor (dignitas) and families were obligated to enact revenge... later in the republic it was ceded to the state as well
The Germanic and Celtic take was with the "state" acting as more a mediator... vengence and blood-fueds were the norm and kinship based.... if someone was killed then the family had right to blood or some sort of compensation
So Greco-Roman eventually transitioned to the state was sacred and unifying while Northern European Pagan systems pretty much stayed tribal and individualistic
Trump celebrates personal qualities and genes (kinship)
He celebrates power, manliness, wealth, ego, fame, personal loyalty, REVENGE, and those great great German and Scottish genes for which he is so proud and from which he received that killer instinct
Trump is kind of a secular Pagan figure in many senses
It'll be interesting to see how either framework gets more received
Pagan or Christian? More of a tell which way things are going spiritually
The early Greek view of revenge (timoria) was often personal and tied to honor (Achilles v Hector)... if dishonored, one had the right or obligation even to retaliate... the Tragedies wrestled with this quite a bit as to whether blood-feud or the state should carry out revenge
The early roman view was likewise also tied closely to honor (dignitas) and families were obligated to enact revenge... later in the republic it was ceded to the state as well
The Germanic and Celtic take was with the "state" acting as more a mediator... vengence and blood-fueds were the norm and kinship based.... if someone was killed then the family had right to blood or some sort of compensation
So Greco-Roman eventually transitioned to the state was sacred and unifying while Northern European Pagan systems pretty much stayed tribal and individualistic
Trump celebrates personal qualities and genes (kinship)
He celebrates power, manliness, wealth, ego, fame, personal loyalty, REVENGE, and those great great German and Scottish genes for which he is so proud and from which he received that killer instinct
Trump is kind of a secular Pagan figure in many senses
It'll be interesting to see how either framework gets more received
Pagan or Christian? More of a tell which way things are going spiritually
❤3👍1