I'm not a fan of state management in React apps, and it took me a long time to come to peace with it. What I landed on that works with the system rather than against is useContext at the page level containing Jotai atoms that wrapper Immer-managed objects representing the page states that get passed through the component tree as props.
I built my own action framework that gives me the ability to use Jotai getters to read atom data, launch asynchronous javascript, and then write to atom data via Jotai setters without ever having to fuss with useEffect myself. Jotai just handles the messy state transition work. My components used to be a jumble of DOM event handler, business logic, and markup, and now the business logic is all extracted to the separate action components.
React makes it hard to test business logic in isolation, and I am hoping my action framework could do a better job of that.
There are upward and downward revisions this year at least, it seems like a mixed bag with many policies juicing the economy. [1]
Job opportunities differ by state and de-growth hostility to business policies and crony investments. Where I am, layoffs and offshoring continues. I hear new grads are increasingly opting for the skilled trades, which is interesting given they aren't getting use out of their degrees.
> There are upward and downward revisions this year at least, it seems like a mixed bag with many policies juicing the economy
Since Jan 2025, the only two upward revisions have been in the last 3 months. So we’re both correct here. This year (3 months of data), has been a mixed bag. But on a longer time horizon (last 6, 9, 12 months) the revisions have mostly been negative.
Yes, I hope I didn't contradict you, the economy has been shite. Was just trying to leave a positive note on recent developments that will continue, God willing.
Modern invented flag peddlers only seek to have us fly flags of the division they seek to generate. I only fly the flag of the country I live in and give side eye to anyone that does otherwise.
Some enjoy their local cultures, customs and sovereignty and do not wish to dissolve into a homogenized nowhere-land of world culture/governance. Some people do not cheer for dystopia.
Continue with the scold though, very convincing argument so far.
I've considered there's probably no ethical way to use contemporary AI when it is "out in front" doing anything of consequence. Your "AI is a tool and nothing more" frames ethical use of the technology for me.
And even then, there are such copyright issues with it. Is there no practical ethical use for AI? Responsible use doesn't equate with ethical use for me.
> there's probably no ethical way to use contemporary AI when it is "out in front" doing anything of consequence. Your "AI is a tool and nothing more" frames ethical use of the technology for me.
I've thought a lot about how to safely deploy autonomous systems (even did a whole PhD on the topic, lol).
I think one can ethically deploy a system that has some degree autonomy. It takes a lot of work to do right. And the tooling for LLM-based systems isn't quite as mature as the tooling for e.g. control systems. Part of this is because so many resources in AI safety are misspent on problem statements that are myopic or grandiose. Between "don't say pii" and "prevent ASI extinction" there's a hard but tractable control systems-y view of AI safety.
But I don't think there is any sort of fundamental barrier that prevents us from building appropriately constrained LLM-based systems.
> And even then, there are such copyright issues with it. Is there no practical ethical use for AI? Responsible use doesn't equate with ethical use for me.
When responding to a position, especially on the internet, I try to empathize with the thing I'm responding to. Not just understand it, but sort of put myself in a mental state where I have an emotional attachment to my conversation partner's point of view.
With respect to Copyright as a legal framework in my country (USA): despite my best attempts, I really struggle to develop empathy for the viewpoint that LLMs/diffusion models are not a transformative use. I can certainly sympathize, but trying to actually put myself in the shoes of believing that training an LLM is a purely derivative and non-transformational work just feels far too alien. There are so many things that are "clearly transformative" but required so many orders of magnitude less scientific/technical/engineering genius.
Which isn't to say that the US legal system's definition of copyright is the morally correct one.With respect to copyright beyond the US legal system, or beyond legal denotations generally: I can certainly empathize.
> But I don't think there is any sort of fundamental barrier that prevents us from building appropriately constrained LLM-based systems.
This iteration of the tech, I agree. In future iterations that use intensive persuasion techniques, who can say?
> Which isn't to say that the US legal system's definition of copyright is the morally correct one.
The US legal system's definition of copyright is the morally correct one, though, because it is codified law. Immoral laws eventually get overturned, but until then it is the rule because the collective we says so right now.
What is the derivative work of an AI response? Who is the creator making its derivative works? The AI is not an entity, it is a software engine operating over an obfuscated index.
Beyond the muddiness of copyright, there is the question of human flourishing. How the heck would you train children and adolescents on the responsible use of AI?
The current UX, the "friend computer"-themed REPL, is chock-a-block with moral hazards. Loss of privacy and profiling, fostering undue trust, emotional dependence and manipulation. Like, I get that you're invested in the industry, but we should condemn this tech.
> What is the derivative work of an AI response? Who is the creator making its derivative works? The AI is not an entity, it is a software engine operating over an obfuscated index.
I was not talking about the output of models.
I'm referring to the model itself. The `.ckpt` file is clearly transformative wrt its training set. Or, at least, substantially more transformative than other things that have long received fair use protection.
> Like, I get that you're invested in the industry
On the contrary, I'm invested quite heavily in the exactly opposite hypothesis -- that the ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini UX you're referring to is not fit-for-purpose.
> How the heck would you train children and adolescents on the responsible use of AI?
By teaching them how it works, how it doesn't work, and to think of it as a unit of computation rather than an anthropomorphic entity.
> I'm referring to the model itself. The `.ckpt` file is clearly transformative wrt its training set. Or, at least, substantially more transformative than other things that have long received fair use protection.
Oh, I see. And the model weights are what one can make the copyright infringement claims on in the US?
Not to split hairs, but do you believe it's so transformative because you can't read plain text copies of original works in the weights or because the source material is so hopelessly discombobulated that the original work could not be reliably recreated?
I believe the 'hopelessly discombobulated' argument is probably pretty solid, but one could argue to a judge that the weights are something like JPEG compression. Sure the forged image of Mona Lisa is a bit foggy in the background and some of those details are incorrect, but the wry smile in the foreground is perfectly captured.
> On the contrary, I'm invested quite heavily in the exactly opposite hypothesis -- that the ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini UX you're referring to is not fit-for-purpose.
Oh! Excellent, carry on!
> rather than an anthropomorphic entity.
But it unfailingly passes the Turing test, at least with regards to an immature, non-discerning human mind like a child's. You may as well rub a lamp.
And he won the popular vote if you believe that all U.S. elections are secure and sacrosanct. He is diabolical at getting people to talk about him and think about him constantly.
Joe Biden on the other hand was a senile wrecker for Build Back Better and the party finally made "the switch" to unelected Harris far too late in the process. Even if she was a great candidate, with her odd laughter and fascination with buses, there was not enough time to shape her candidacy. Her VP candidate choice was hobbled by rising anti-semitism in the party against Shapiro and perhaps concerns of being outshined by him. No, the Democrats did not do themselves any favors in the '24 election.
Carter, Clinton and Obama were media creations, vaulting to national prominence out of nowhere. It helped that Clinton and Obama were great, charismatic choices.
Now the traditional media is fragmented and weak. You're not seeing furtive vaulting attempts for potential phenoms like Newsome gain any traction. Who is the media going to be stuck with next time? Will it be take-two for Harris?
WHEN, not if, Harris loses bigly to Vance, then the Democrats will absolutely be to blame. Where are their all new shiny, beautiful, erudite candidates that would need all four years to gestate and promote? Shouldn't we be getting acquainted with them now? I wager they're not going to appear, and we'll get more flunkies. My theory as to why is that those currently in power in the party do not share; they're aging out and hollowing out the party in the process. We're to the point now of collapse. I'm surprised a third party on the left hasn't yet formed.
> Even if she was a great candidate, with her odd laughter and fascination with buses, there was not enough time to shape her candidacy.
I don't think anyone who would have ever voted for her actually cared at all about her laugh. I do think that she'd have done much better with more time though. I also agree that Democrats are too invested in themselves and the status quo to put forward a candidate who will make the kinds of meaningful changes that Democratic voters actually want. If a third party were viable I think a lot of registered democrats would be eager to jump ship, but in order for that to happen we'd need elected officials willing to make major voting reforms which at this point would take a third party.
> I also agree that Democrats are too invested in themselves and the status quo to put forward a candidate who will make the kinds of meaningful changes that Democratic voters actually want.
The old saying "the customer doesn't know what they want" seems true of the average Democratic voter. I look at the Democratic party planks as primarily boomer-era causes increasingly misaligned with technological progress and social evolution.
I see average Democratic voters as wistful and earnest, but ultimately not (yet? ever?) grounded with a cohesive vision for modern/future American society _at scale_. In my opinion, the moment for a legitimate new vision to emerge was Occupy Wall Street. All that movement seemed to yield for the grassroots was an acquaintance with homelessness culture.
Yeah I think the presidential election system may be the one to blame. Only two parties, both very much "to the right", doesn't feel like a sane system anymore. IMO the better way is to have the government represent the people, and representing the people generally means enough politicians and having to go for a consensus.
Somehow "centrist" has taken on a negative connotation in Democratic circles, but I don't understand it. Far left politics are wrecker politics that have their moments and then (hopefully) get sent back to the political desert for a generation.
Governing in a sustainable way usually means big tent politics with give and take on the small stuff. Bill Clinton epitomized that style.
> Far left politics are wrecker politics that have their moments and then (hopefully) get sent back to the political desert for a generation.
Are you talking about US politics here? I don't see anything that would get close to "left", so "far left"... unless they reach the far left by going enough to the right I guess?
1619 project is Jacobin-style, revisionist history politics. Defund the Police, Jacobin. To flood drugs, homeless and immigrants into sanctuary cities is intentional Jacobin tactics to cause normal people to become fed up and to overturn the system. Revolutionaries are gonna revolt. Too bad everyone is too tired and distracted to give a crap about their utopian visions.
In rare and extreme circumstances it makes sense to have a revolution because the people are oppressed. For the rest of history, revolutionary fervor always comes from power hungry psychopaths who'd jail and kill everyone that stands in their way and then rule perpetually over everyone that's left if they could.
Thankfully, their time is usually short. They had a good run this time, very sneaky and devilish, but back to the political desert they go.
'Hate' and 'fascist' seem to reliably trigger people to stew in anger and give up their power.
Don't fall for the divide and conquer. You have agency, you can do your part to steer the ship if you can resist the learned helplessness of hatred.
AI is a tool. I enjoy using it as a search engine. But just like I don't trust everything on the internet, I don't blindly trust AI. AI's index the same information as search engines with additional retrieval error factored in.
There are deeply unprofitable modes of AI. The chat interfaces are, as I understand it, deeply unprofitable loss leaders whereas the enterprise API's and agentic stuff is profitable.
Maybe try to intensify your use of the unprofitable offerings if you you dislike what the AI companies stand for before the economics come back to earth for them?
This really keys in for me, expresses something super super important: figuring out what powers we do have and seizing them, finding positive constructive narratives & modes to get into and to share and tell of. Finding positive basis for interaction, for mastery, for the self to grow in: it's so obscured by the amassed consolidated pervading dark corporate consoldationism, that's subjugated us all under it's vast sprawling reporting chains.
There's a lot of rage against the web too. Not quite as strong, but the image of what the higher concentrated capital does with it, how it uses this platform that's available everywhere, that's super powerful... I hope people can somehow see past their rages and frustrations and think and ask after themselves and their friends, their communities.
Aside from them though, the stories of webshacks of the past, individual practitioners out there, pre the Pax Reactus, figuring stuff out: that tale of a smaller scale industry was beautiful. And I don't know what a new claim to power, what staking in today looks like. How to we see ourselves as deciders, project ourselves as making meaningful decisions & steering? How do we show that, and what can make it looks like a success?
I think developers have these amazing connections with the work and hope for what connecting can be, what the internet means, and are so inspired by having help with the labor of building. But these stories these feelings: they are gonna be crushed. It's not a tale that's easy to tell. Those "Close to the Machine" (Ullman) live a weird life if having these deep connections & intimacy with systems, that are so sweepingly powerful, but man, it is such an alien world to most, and trying to tell these stories, trying to share this wonder: it's hard.
I worry so much that the beauty & wonder here won't figure out how it can stand. I think of the Rose in Dark Tower, showing up across time & form, in ways, signalling so strongly to some few in the world who recognize it, but the world mostly moving around it, unheeding.
> I think developers have these amazing connections with the work and hope for what connecting can be, what the internet means, and are so inspired by having help with the labor of building.
Yes, this is it, you understand! The little spark of creation that we all can wield is so clear in software development.
> But these stories these feelings: they are gonna be crushed. It's not a tale that's easy to tell.
Noooo! This is the narrative. The matrix has you. Don't believe the hype. The problem of existence is choice, and it's a continuous problem.
The top down narrative control is so so powerful now. Your mention of anger at the web is all one and the same. I am seriously yearning for the Lightphone[1] just to disconnect from the web and messaging apps when I'm away from my desk.
Time for a shameless plug for my friend's product: dependencies built from source and served up a la carte. Removes a lot of trust issues with rando tarballs uploaded by bad actors. There's nothing quite like it.
They sound like very important people no matter what the circumstances are, haha.
Having "house rules" on a team that new members must agree to follow tends to flush such people out and they usually exit on their own when their shenanigans get repeatedly called out as violative. Gotta introduce the rules in the interview process and get agreement after they join. Catching them out early is the key.
We had an intervention on one hard case and he rage quit the next day. I don't know why people do that, it's a small world and people talk.
In my 40's I could go to bed with a complex software design or implementation problem I was wrestling with. Consciously word a cogent and succinct question that I needed answered, sleep on it, and then in the morning, I would be still and mentally ask, "well?" Not meditating or anything, just be quiet then and listen.
And, in very deadpan style, after a few seconds (as if to choose one's words carefully), some answer would come to me audibly in my voice in my mind.
"Have you tried X?" No, I hadn't tried X, and holy smokes that was a workable approach! Sometimes, it would tell me to go back to some bit of code or configuration I had moved on from and tell me to go back and focus on that, it was almost always right that there was where I had goofed up. I experimented with posing multiple questions and follow up questions. I even asked it how it was that these answers were derived.
Strange to reread the above and refer to my own thoughts as 'it'. They were bidden ideas that came from me for sure. But, I disassociate from them because I have no memory of the chain of thought that led to the responses.
There's a lot going on upstairs, higher mind stuff. I am older now, and I no longer experience this phenomena. Have I lost it to age, or have I integrated it somehow into my conscious mind?
I subscribe to the Multiplicity of Personality theory (our personalities are a combination of multiple ones). eg My wife and I both have a chaos monkey that emits impulses to do the most destructive and disruptive things, which we sometimes talk about in jest.
My dominant personality is one of control (for order) so I can focus on problem solving. Some sort of raw insight/intelligence comes from a personality that isn't always on, but seems to erupt from periods of calm and relaxation. eg Shower solutions or bedtime revelations are common.
Many people have told stories of voices that nudge them this way or that at just the right time, which I've experienced as well. Whatever part of me dreams is uses memories and fantasy, striving to experiencing new scenarios through thought experiments. The better I sleep, the more I find very recent events are incorporated...so it's some sort of shared space and speaks to how physical state affects mental states, even in sleep. I also feel like the personalities fight for dominance when the body or mind is overly-stressed (puberty, mortal danger, etc) but normally resolve into a sort of basal state.
I never wanted to be a psychologist. I often think that maybe I'm just crazy. It would explain a lot.
I once had a very weird experience on LSD (of course), in which I perceived my brain and thinking as a bunch of separate entities working in synchrony. Only two of them were capable of speech, and some were very simple and reactive. The "me" part was just them agreeing on stuff. I will never forget the experience.
I think we're experiencing the world like seeing through a pinhole. It's all too much to take in and process, so we've got most of it filtered out just to keep it manageable. But, that mental filter doesn't stop all of reality from interacting with us, and it's possible to remove or tweak the filter, clearly.
Everyone is crazy, just most people are afraid to admit it to others. A lot of people are even afraid to admit it to themselves. Some people pretend so long they forget they're pretending. But wouldn't that itself be crazy?
When I wake up from good rest it's like I've been somewhere else for years. I use that time to stay off the Internet and look at things fresh. That would explain plenty of coming up with novel solutions to things, without any solving being done while sleeping. The mental ruts of the day greatly limit problem-solving ability.
Nothing I recall from my 30's, but in my 20's I worked in videogames and that was a brutal industry at that time in terms of work-life balance. (Or, at least it sounds better nowadays.)
Bad sleep habits at that time ultimately led me to do a lot of daytime napping.
During those sessions I occasionally experienced sleep paralysis, one out of body waking dream, and disturbing stuff like hearing head-splitting trumpet sounds upon waking up.
One time, I awoke and heard an attenuated trumpet sound, and through the rush I heard two voices nearby. Just as I finished struggling to get control of my body, I distinctly remember hearing one of them say, "I can see it!"
I was living alone at the time, and that was so alarming and made me question my life choices. Looking back now I view that episode as a probable spiritual attack on a vulnerable young man.
> I awoke and heard an attenuated trumpet sound, and through the rush I heard two voices nearby. Just as I finished struggling to get control of my body, I distinctly remember hearing one of them say, "I can see it!"
Sounds like the Geoff Day scene in Infinite Jest ... the sound resonance of a window fan and a violin opens a portal and something Lovecraftian comes through: "a small part of the wing of something far too large to be seen in totality."
Actually, I do remember one episode in my late 30's. My wife had twins. They were born extremely premature and there was a good chance they'd both die as we were at the extreme end of the survivability chart at that time - like by a single day of gestation and with one less day we were in the "recommend do not resuscitate" zone. Most compressed time of anguish I've ever experienced, stunned me for years. Both boys' bodies are growing good now, veeery quirky minds though.
Anyhow, studies had shown that preemies could benefit from just laying with the parents skin to skin, called "kangaroo care". So, I got to experience that with both boys one or two times! Wow, that was really something. I couldn't hold them or touch with my hands, just have them be laid on my bare chest. Very special to just love on them and feel them squirm around there a bit.
I thought, ok, I'm going to give them a little well wishing because the kid I was given was in the worst shape healthwise between the two. I closed my eyes, and concentrated on baby. I said mentally, "heal". "If you can take away anything from me that helps, do it! You have to grow and take food!" And I probed mentally.
Suddenly, I had a visual hallucination. It was a projected 3D scene of reverse images to the color of light coming through my eyelids. I could see some sort of movement of blobs rotating out, coming back. If they got too far outside my field of view they would fade and disappear. There was something like 3 visible blobs, a stationary one and two smaller moving ones. It was like I was seeing autonomic or mental processes in baby, visualized.
So I just loved on him for a bit and sat with that experience. And then I thought, maybe I can see my own processes if this is really happening to me? So, I said in my mind, "Show me what I look like". And the view changed!
What I saw was mostly out of my field of view, so many things were faded, but the blobs I could see were cycling in all different directions including away and back towards me and at different speeds. It was like a factory scene compared to my son's machine shop. I told him to take from that scene whatever would help, and the session ended soon after.
When I kangaroo cared with my other son I tried to repeat this experience and well wish him and communicate mentally, but I could not connect. That made me sad and secretly a little worried about this one's health, but I could not tell anyone my feelings because it was so odd what I had experienced with baby A. And was it just nerves and all my own imagination? Maybe, but it felt real.
I had a similar experience (seeing blobs) where in my sleep I saw my baby boy conceived. A few days later my wife took a pregnancy test and it came back negative, I was majorly let down as I had this vision and strong feeling there was a baby.
A week later my wife misses her period and she is pregnant. It turns out my vision is more accurate than the 99% accurate pregnancy test.
The voices sounded human, like hushed. I can't say in my case.
In Christianity, Satan and demons are recognized as a reality. God allows them access to humanity. That doesn't make God evil, and in fact God uses evil forces to drive people to Him. And we are given the choice to go with whatever party we choose, so the whole experiment hinges on choice. I know that the prince of Earth, Satan, isn't sporting; of course he preys on the vulnerable and the weak first. That was one of the low points in life for me when I heard the voices and when I had no faith.
It's nice that it gives you comfort but it still boggles my mind how all of this gets rationalized.
I also get that it's a personal relationship, but it troubles me because that mindset allows for an incredible amount of damaging behavior for society as a whole. What's worse is that this relationship becomes part of one's self-identity, so that any critique of that worldview is received as a personal attack rather than a philosophical debate.
Just philosophically speaking, an accidental entropic universe eventually producing Labubus doesn't work either.
History, law, civilization, anti-slavery and the dignity of man all come from judeo-christian teaching, it's not just comfort/assurance. You just gotta be careful who you follow, there's loads of shysters and crummy humans in religion just like everywhere else as you are probably aware.
Church is supposed to be about community, but it never really was for me. I didn't put in enough effort. I still go for the kids.
What hooked me was Bible Study Fellowship[1] where I got a real education in the Bible. That gave me a community where I have a men's group and they know me and we meet weekly and they give good advice and support when things turn sour.
If you want to understand the architecture of the world, check it out. Next year they're doing Romans, holy shit, that one goes deep. Maybe you're searching, and that's a safe place to simply learn.
I painfully recognize the value of community offered, as well as a sense of purpose. There's plenty of good things to be had from it. But just as opiates can remove pain and make one "feel good", they have serious risks as well. Marx's comment to this effect is spot on.
We are experiencing a battle of religious fundamentalism and anti-intellectualism that impacts us all. This is why I understand and respect the personal relationship bits, but I fear the fanatics who think their beliefs should be applied to all.
My take on those fanatics is that they are fucking insane and dangerous. The foundation that they rest upon is approved of and validated by the "non crazy, good religious people".
My fear is valid: there are millions of my fellow citizens who would have no concern if I was "terminated" as I am an unbeliever. I wish this was hyperbole and would love to be proven wrong.
The current Secretary of War believes that the actions in Iran are divine and subscribes to the notion of Armageddon as a good thing and is in the position to make that happen. Thus, I find your faith to not be as benign as you do.
edit: I need to emphasize that there's no personal enmity intended in my comment, it's a fear and frustration with the outcome of faith itself.
No offense taken, I see you are wrestling with the idea of faith. The way I look at it, God doesn't just meet you where you are, he pursues. So, if you are meant to surrender, it's a good thing. That just means you were one that didn't get away. Question everything, but don't fight it unnecessarily.
On the other stuff, I will only observe that war is not a human thing. It's too organized, requires inhuman (evil) top down control. Iran is a detestable war just like every other war.
But, there is also the unlimited psychological warfare being waged everywhere now that affects us more directly.
You saw Hegeseth doing a disgusting Deus Vult routine, but I guarantee you the majority of people are tuned out and missed that entirely. (So they get away with it.)
In my opinion, that was another targeted demoralization psyop intended to wound and stun people like us, and for different reasons. It is so far outside the acceptable narrative frame that it cranks everyone up who is paying attention, makes them bewildered and furious and that drowns out other news stories they want everyone to miss.
It is all "fake and ghey", as the kids like to say. How do I know? They're all actors reading scripts, Hegeseth especially. Right out of central casting as Trump says.
What is really happening is a complete toss up. The greatest casualty in war is the truth.
I have no solutions to offer. Just please don't take your frustrations out on normie Christians, even if you think they're misguided, they have no power.
I worry when the rhetoric gets angry and scared. Fear and disgust can lead to atrocities. Who stands to gain when we fight? Who capitalizes every time a lefty shooter pops off? I'd prefer you challenge the rage bait narrative, roll your eyes at how outlandish it all sounds, and become more cynical than scared.
Other insane/outlandish psyops meant to stun and confuse:
* The Charlie Kirk memorial
* Everything that comes out of Stephen Miller's mouth
I'm actually not wrestling at all with faith -- my point is that I understand the attraction and how in individual contexts it can be benign, but as a whole is the foundation of incredibly dangerous outcomes.
I appreciate your recognition of ugliness that can come out when it is wielded as a weapon, but it's still in the context of "you're holding it wrong".
> war is not a human thing
Au contraire, mon frere. It's been part of humanity the whole time (and we recently learned about chimpanzees doing the same thing. And here you illustrate a facet of my concern: ascribing horrible behavior to some supernatural entities rather than the the reality of human psychology and power dynamics.
> There's a lot going on upstairs, higher mind stuff. I am older now, and I no longer experience this phenomena. Have I lost it to age, or have I integrated it somehow into my conscious mind?
It's similar to what Jaynes described in his "bicameral mind." Man of antiquity "heard" disembodied wisdom dispensed to him, seemingly at random, from an incorporeal source: "gods." Today we simply regard such pseudo-auditory phenomena as "thought," which may throw light on Cartesian-style equation of "the soul" with "the mind," and enduring mathematical truths with divinity.
Following the Bronze Age collapse and the "breakdown of the bicameral mind," human culture is replete with examples of people trying to hear the voices of gods, who were now being crowded out by the conscious, egoic, individualistic mental chatter of the newly developed default mode network - the crying out of the Psalms, elaborate rituals and procedures for invoking divine inspiration in the oracles, various forms of divination, augury, etc.
Tarot, properly understood, is not a means for divining the future, but a debugger or reverse engineering tool for probing the internal psychological state of the querent, and hopefully coaxing out these moments of unconscious, unbidden inspiration.
Much of modern esotericism is about trying to steer the brain into states of mind where these vestigial, intuitive, subconscious, nonlinear, pattern matching, Kahneman System 1 facilities of thinking, become once again accessible to conscious prompting and dialogue. Jaynes calls this "the induction," the Romans called it "the genius," Thelemites know it as "the knowledge & conversation," and it may be most broadly described as "union with God."
World history is a scrambled mess of lies and amnesia (from repeated collective concussions, heh) Who knows what is truth and what is the Victor writing the history books?
One's life is untraceable - how did we get here? Literally too much went into that story, majority unseen, and none of us can fully say.
And so at the personal level, are thoughts borne out of a chain (or DAG??) of memories that cannot ever be fully traced?
Was my homunculus voice who gave me detailed clues/answers just returning the highest probable solution gleaned from thousands of simulations in the problem space I presented? Of course I should not be privy to such musings, I wouldn't have the patience for it - so it seems to me to be "out of nowhere".
I do sometimes wonder though with all my weird experiences if I am merely the "doer in the body" whereas I have a higher self who is the real "thinker" running things in the background and who has access to the big picture.
> I do sometimes wonder though with all my weird experiences if I am merely the "doer in the body" whereas I have a higher self who is the real "thinker" running things in the background and who has access to the big picture.
Yes, precisely.
There is a classic initiatory text in the Thelemic tradition, Liber LXV, that personifies these different parts of the self. The "doer in the body" is the scribe that wrote the work, which is a dialogue in the scribe's mind between his egoic awareness (V.V.V.V.V, the namesake of the titular character from V for Vendetta) and the background "thinker," Adonai.
There is a lot of vocabulary in this space used to describe the self at very fine levels of detail.
Shoutout for Jaynes! I used to call it my "buck twenty-five" book because if anyone ever tried to get pretentious with me I'd steer the conversation to an opening to bring up "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" and shut them down :-)
Also, I got my copy signed by Jaynes back in the '80s
Hi Intel, I'm itching to buy an Xe3P! Or, Nova Lake? Crescent Island? Celestial? Jaguar Shores?
Whatever the hell you name it doesn't matter to me, I just want a workstation with one of them bad boys attached to 160GB of RAM for legit inference power!
I've been saving my money not paying for Claude Code so I can run my own agentic coding setup at home on yours. Please don't charge too much for the workstation class card if you can at all manage it. Maybe give us a discount to preorder? Please don't price a regular consumer like me out of the market!
Also, I am speculating integer based models will become hot due to lower memory and power requirements. Will the Xe3P be able to do integer-based math inference to use all that RAM to even greater effect?
The whole rest of the industry seems blind to the possibility of excellent personal/private agentic coding. There is a chance Intel could capitalize on that and steal a ton of mindshare in a flash.
Maybe a slim chance based on past performance, but it's there.
I built my own action framework that gives me the ability to use Jotai getters to read atom data, launch asynchronous javascript, and then write to atom data via Jotai setters without ever having to fuss with useEffect myself. Jotai just handles the messy state transition work. My components used to be a jumble of DOM event handler, business logic, and markup, and now the business logic is all extracted to the separate action components.
React makes it hard to test business logic in isolation, and I am hoping my action framework could do a better job of that.
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