Three steps for improving SETI:
1. Develop a proper science of consciousness;
2. Derive the list of things in the consciousness domain that intelligent civilizations might want to optimize for;
3. Look for the physical signatures of these optimizations

STV as a good start https://t.co/qnxH88XEW8 https://t.co/G2QxvAN5WP

Three steps for improving SETI:
1. Develop a proper science of consciousness;
2. Derive the list of things in the consciousness domain that intelligent civilizations might want to optimize for;
3. Look for the physical signatures of these optimizations

STV as a good start https://x.com/RichardMCNgo/status/1759442577408016774 https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1759465786010436065/photo/1


I offer a few more thoughts here https://t.co/cQ8OnBQmmE

Some practical relevance to SETI, some theoretical relevance to crypto, some vague relevance to long-term AI alignment

I offer a few more thoughts here https://opentheory.net/2022/06/qualia-astronomy/

Some practical relevance to SETI, some theoretical relevance to crypto, some vague relevance to long-term AI alignment


@LaurenUba This seems to be the class of things that prompt creates https://t.co/ILv3THQrKw

@LaurenUba This seems to be the class of things that prompt creates https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1759486330688647323/photo/1


@allgarbled I think this is very literally true in all the ways that matter:

https://t.co/vzGxzCVukw

The effects of testosterone on physical and mental strength are equivalent because both are muscular. The former is skeletal muscle, the latter is (vascular) smooth muscle

Lifting🤝reading

@allgarbled I think this is very literally true in all the ways that matter:

https://opentheory.net/2023/07/principles-of-vasocomputation-a-unification-of-buddhist-phenomenology-active-inference-and-physical-reflex-part-i/

The effects of testosterone on physical and mental strength are equivalent because both are muscular. The former is skeletal muscle, the latter is (vascular) smooth muscle

Lifting🤝reading


@hamzaiandafirst @allgarbled Yes, a significant amount: https://t.co/2pU9HTl2uo

@hamzaiandafirst @allgarbled Yes, a significant amount: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0828282X22008674


@hamzaiandafirst @allgarbled There seems to be a tradeoff between muscular twitchiness and muscular power

If you need to perform a muscular task but your muscles are weak, your clench might be spasm-y. If your muscles are strong, you motion will be firmer but cleaner

Different tradeoffs re: circulation


One reading of Jaynes’ “Bicameral Mind” is that within ancient history, the causal locus for behavior moved from outside phenomenology to inside

Interesting to consider Neuralink and other BCIs as a reversion to an ancient style

(Great post by Matthew) https://t.co/PIA8psRPTk

One reading of Jaynes’ “Bicameral Mind” is that within ancient history, the causal locus for behavior moved from outside phenomenology to inside

Interesting to consider Neuralink and other BCIs as a reversion to an ancient style

(Great post by Matthew) https://x.com/MattPirkowski/status/1760044780262920433


@Sanilac_J I believe evolution has tried, and the result is autism — https://t.co/WcaRfrtWZY

(The appendix at the end is particularly relevant)

@Sanilac_J I believe evolution has tried, and the result is autism — https://opentheory.net/2023/05/autism-as-a-disorder-of-dimensionality/

(The appendix at the end is particularly relevant)


@MattPirkowski @nicholaspaul26 I’d really enjoy that, has been too long. Will let you know next time I’m in the Bay


@nosilverv The plan seems to involve SpaceX


@eigenrobot Morality inversions always fall, but I’m not so sure about AI-stabilized morality inversions https://t.co/snhjZkaApR

@eigenrobot Morality inversions always fall, but I’m not so sure about AI-stabilized morality inversions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankism


@Xaberius9 Causal locus is more accurate in this case: in Jaynes’ account, the decision happens outside of consciousness and The Gods (arguably the other hemisphere) relay the instructions

If we take IIT as an example ToC, the key decision logic migrated from outside the MICS to inside


@nosilverv Imo we already share our body with several other internal, semi-sovereign co-minds; we call them “chakras”

‘The somatic parliament is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’ https://t.co/gQLMAaDnZR

@nosilverv Imo we already share our body with several other internal, semi-sovereign co-minds; we call them “chakras”

‘The somatic parliament is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’ https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1731825339922624778


@PashaKamyshev My best guesses at describing what’s going on:

1. Neural component: Hearts have ~44k neurons, which isn’t a lot compared to the brain (~86b) or stomach (~500m) but a heart transplant literally is a (small) brain transplant

2. Muscle reflex component: “What is a memory?” is…


@connor_holly1 Good question; my speculations — https://t.co/NB9Uc2yNbY

@connor_holly1 Good question; my speculations — https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1761191146469171667


@PashaKamyshev It’s also significant that many of these memories are the final annealing event of the donor — potentially the biggest stress of the donor’s life. I expect they leave a very broad impact on a lot of systems, and I’m not entirely surprised these memories are ones that regenerated


@Amit_D_Tal @QiaochuYuan @PashaKamyshev It’s an interesting question; I think in general this suggests that making a bio-printed heart may be more difficult than it seems, since hearts absorb many patterns from their host bodies and this might be load-bearing for heart development — maybe growing with a body is…


@PashaKamyshev I would guess the former — that receiving a heart transplant would require extra integration to get back to the same level of equanimity. That said I wonder if successful meditators tend to have more healthy hearts


@tidepoolsoup @QiaochuYuan @PashaKamyshev The body can manage a lot of damage as long as it’s gradual and incomplete; hard to say


@Amit_D_Tal @QiaochuYuan @PashaKamyshev On the other hand — with a nod to trauma, meditation, and STV — in some contexts complexity can be understood as damage. A protocol for lab-printing a heart with a particularly clean physiology could lead to interesting hedonic effects. Really hard to say


@PashaKamyshev This is a recent overview of @drmichaellevin’s work, who has pioneered a wide set of landmark hypotheses and methods relating to the aforementioned cellular memory and electromagnetic scaffolds: https://t.co/2vaFJtm16q

@PashaKamyshev This is a recent overview of @drmichaellevin’s work, who has pioneered a wide set of landmark hypotheses and methods relating to the aforementioned cellular memory and electromagnetic scaffolds: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/brains-are-not-required-when-it-comes-to-thinking-and-solving-problems-simple-cells-can-do-it/


@PashaKamyshev A friend informed me that the neurons regulating the heart do not get moved during a transplant; this suggests that any “memory transplantation effect” is almost certainly not neural (scenario #1).

———
“I’ve read that the heart ganglion has about 44k neurons that help regulate…


@turchin Great list; very interesting to consider which of these are possible.

Have been considering
1. What good qualities does humanity have that synthetic superintelligences might not get by default?

2. What is the default fate of the universe if the singularity happens and…


@Gestalt_enjoyer @turchin Hope to post a piece on this soon


@danfaggella @turchin Very much agreed!

Will send you a draft soon


@AskYatharth Matthew had a great post on this, perhaps what you’re thinking of —

Interesting to consider how causal power migrates into and out of experience

One interpretation of “introvert” is someone who depletes their causal interiority through interaction then needs to replenish it https://t.co/6VNUqKVvnG

@AskYatharth Matthew had a great post on this, perhaps what you’re thinking of —

Interesting to consider how causal power migrates into and out of experience

One interpretation of “introvert” is someone who depletes their causal interiority through interaction then needs to replenish it https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1760189689628328086


New essay about the framerate of consciousness: if life is a sequence of moments, how big are the moments?

Neuroscience has approached the frame-rate of minds via differentiability — if a picture is flashed for 50ms does it affect cognitive processing? What about 10ms?

(1/6)


Movies were traditionally 24fps, TV 30fps. Apple’s ProMotion display on the iPhone Pro refreshes at 120hz. Around 30-40hz seems like the edge of normal discernability; @danielmingram suggests that people with a serious meditation practice can notice things in the 40hz range


@danielmingram The neurons in the brain with the shortest “refractory period” — time it takes them to recover from one discharge and get ready for the next — can fire at 5ms, which is 200hz. Many people take this as the upper bound for framerate, although in theory it’s not a hard bound


@danielmingram One of my suspicions in consciousness research is that ‘what is reportable is not always ground truth’ — another strong intuition is that there’s great value in uncorrelated approaches. So I looked for an approach that would let us derive framerate from first principles


@danielmingram This turned into my latest essay, “Minds as Hyperspheres” — essentially arguing that if we assume minds have equal extension across spatial and temporal dimensions, anything we know about how big they are in space translates to constraints on how long they are in time


@danielmingram Here’s the essay. Some Easter eggs for people familiar with my work, in particular the Symmetry Theory of Valence
https://t.co/lfQr36sWCW

@danielmingram Here’s the essay. Some Easter eggs for people familiar with my work, in particular the Symmetry Theory of Valence
https://opentheory.net/2024/02/minds-as-hyperspheres-the-equal-extension-thesis-and-its-implications-for-the-framerate-of-consciousness/


@hastuc_dibtux Very cool, have not tried


@danielmingram TL;DR: the framerate of consciousness might be a lot faster than we think — likely over 1khz, and possibly over 1ghz, based on this first-principles model


@danielmingram Also, my apologies for the formatting. Will be migrating my blog to a more modern platform


@cube_flipper Nice, that’s a great resource


@cube_flipper Linked in the essay!


@exrhizo @danielmingram There are a number of hypotheses in the essay; one is that it’s promising to assume the mind has equal extension in space and time; another is that insofar as this is not true, it probably negatively impacts valence. The 5cm and 4ghz estimates = less important


@powerfultakes Entirely possible! Three comments —
1. Thalamus shape is another interesting question
2. If we could see the EM field a lot of these questions would become intuitive
3. Heart shape might actually matter more than brain shape. I do expect Slavs to be outliers in certain respects


@AlexKrusz @cube_flipper I’m cautious about using discernability / JNDs (Just Noticeable Differences) to estimate the frame rate of consciousness, but in terms of what sample rate you need to avoid aliasing there’s a great result here https://t.co/zlUKWkTSg2

@AlexKrusz @cube_flipper I’m cautious about using discernability / JNDs (Just Noticeable Differences) to estimate the frame rate of consciousness, but in terms of what sample rate you need to avoid aliasing there’s a great result here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist–Shannon_sampling_theorem


@x_snowfield Definitely informed by this! Also by symmetry considerations in general


@ardit266 I expect the mind to be hugely dynamic across types of tasks, ages, and health levels —

I wouldn’t overindex on the measurements


@x_snowfield Goals!


@nosilverv @__drewface I am so on-board with this


@kfshinozuka Speculatively — here’s how I think the framerate of consciousness could be separable from the framerate of cognition: https://t.co/tF2bFr0hBk

@kfshinozuka Speculatively — here’s how I think the framerate of consciousness could be separable from the framerate of cognition: https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1763587831656776038/photo/1


@kfshinozuka Different things in physics have different speed limits depending on their mass. Photons, not having mass, are in the fastest class of things —

Broadly speaking, the difference between approximations 1 & 2 is the speed class


@thephilosophika Be my guest


@kfshinozuka We can suggest that *some* kind(s) of physical interactions are required for consciousness, and there aren’t too many different classes of interactions to choose from. Approximation #1 is pointing to one class of things (e.g. photons) — #2 and #3 each point at different classes


@thephilosophika “Hyperspherical qualia crystal” is a fancy way of saying the mind extends into all four dimensions (3d plus time), and that the shape is at least roughly spherical. Generally speaking there’s no existing dogma on what the shape of a mind is — I’m offering this as a definite guess


@thephilosophika Aha, great question. I’m basically saying that the “movie of consciousness” might have a very high frame rate, but change only happens during a few frames. Otherwise it’s just frame after frame of mostly the same thing


@thephilosophika Imagine a slow-motion video of a heart: nothing happens, nothing happens, nothing happens — suddenly the heartbeat comes and a lot happens! Then nothing happens for the next few frames

Most frames will be the same as the frame before, but periodically a lot of stuff will happen


@thephilosophika Glad to get such thoughtful questions


@thephilosophika Right — the “cognitive cycles” of the body happen many times per second (maybe 20-100). But there could be many moments of experience between each cycle. We wouldn’t be able to form memories of them, because they’re sort of “invisible” to our cognitive cycles


@thephilosophika Thank you! If you like this, you might also enjoy some of my other writings. This one was fun to write:
https://t.co/WcaRfrtWZY

In general, I like trying to identify core dimensions of variation, because it helps us understand “what kind of thing” a human is

@thephilosophika Thank you! If you like this, you might also enjoy some of my other writings. This one was fun to write:
https://opentheory.net/2023/05/autism-as-a-disorder-of-dimensionality/

In general, I like trying to identify core dimensions of variation, because it helps us understand “what kind of thing” a human is


@danielmingram Thanks Daniel — big fan of your work also!


@psychedelicness Good question — TMS is generally used to disrupt function, and sorting out a good qualia report paradigm can be difficult;

My sense is the best tech tree for more clarity would be realtime visualization of the EM field at brain-relevant frequency bands — build out our intuitions


@thephilosophika Different kinds of meditation (there are a lot) probably make our minds bigger, or smaller, or change the shape or polarization in other ways — lots to study!

I do think successful practice should make a mind “more round” — closer to a hypersphere, equal in all dimensions


@AskYatharth @powerfultakes There’s a story about a famous monk who came over from Asia and agreed to have EEG measurements taken during meditation. The scientists began putting the electrodes on his head; he asked them whether there was some mistake, don’t they want to measure his heart instead?


@Plinz @AskYatharth I agree with Joscha; I also think it’s significant which syntactic superstructure a term is embedded in (and thus inherits properties from). “Atoms” are a slight reification of physical theory, whereas “Mitochrondria” are part of the biology semantic web https://t.co/dIwTImlFP6

@Plinz @AskYatharth I agree with Joscha; I also think it’s significant which syntactic superstructure a term is embedded in (and thus inherits properties from). “Atoms” are a slight reification of physical theory, whereas “Mitochrondria” are part of the biology semantic web https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1741259135843238395


@Plinz @AskYatharth The local embedding of words matters because different language-games / semantic webs respect different sorts of invariances. In general the more invariances (symmetries) something respects, the more “real” it is


@AskYatharth Positive


@yoltartar Totally agree about physical resonance as a method of communication, and fascia/spine as key junctions. Will have to think about myofascial trigger points, that’s a very interesting hypothesis.

A few more thoughts on physical resonance —

Active Inference has us making…


@danfaggella @RokoMijic @ESYudkowsky We seem to have some freedom to shape the initial qualia of ASIs. We shouldn’t depend on reciprocation, but if we’re summoning an alien god, why not try to make its existence pleasant?

My conclusions on valence (which I expect other work to converge to):

https://t.co/LxV5JNTEls

@danfaggella @RokoMijic @ESYudkowsky We seem to have some freedom to shape the initial qualia of ASIs. We shouldn’t depend on reciprocation, but if we’re summoning an alien god, why not try to make its existence pleasant?

My conclusions on valence (which I expect other work to converge to):

https://opentheory.net/2023/06/new-whitepaper-qualia-formalism-and-a-symmetry-theory-of-valence/


@Outdoctrination I’d expect the same result from nattokinase, although I don’t know of any relevant research — do you? https://t.co/3naNFAMT49

@Outdoctrination I’d expect the same result from nattokinase, although I don’t know of any relevant research — do you? https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1707079273608106375


@bitplane @danfaggella @RokoMijic @ESYudkowsky I agree with you, although perhaps for different reasons —  https://t.co/LOmgz7Rlbf https://t.co/dIwTImmdEE

@bitplane @danfaggella @RokoMijic @ESYudkowsky I agree with you, although perhaps for different reasons —  https://opentheory.net/2022/12/ais-arent-conscious-but-computers-are/ https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1741259135843238395


@KennethFolk There’s evidence that the core feature of autism is excessive network density (literally more neurons & synapses);

This has predictable benefits and drawbacks; more cognitive flexibility, but fewer functional built-in defaults

https://t.co/WcaRfrtWZY https://t.co/ayvJ5LNp6M

@KennethFolk There’s evidence that the core feature of autism is excessive network density (literally more neurons & synapses);

This has predictable benefits and drawbacks; more cognitive flexibility, but fewer functional built-in defaults

https://opentheory.net/2023/05/autism-as-a-disorder-of-dimensionality/ https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1768948451432419331/photo/1


@xlr8harder I think the move would be to delay as long as possible and use the time to create a perfect synthetic dataset to train GPT6 — (e.g.) distilled synthetic textbooks on every topic https://t.co/KBkuA4zmFK

@xlr8harder I think the move would be to delay as long as possible and use the time to create a perfect synthetic dataset to train GPT6 — (e.g.) distilled synthetic textbooks on every topic https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1758355302200860882


RT @johnsonmxe: @nickcammarata Some surreal experiences for animals:

- Exposure to various psychoactive substances and technological super…


@LauraDeming I wrote about this in a recent paper — ultimately physical laws can be framed as particular sets of symmetries. Some of these symmetries are global invariants, some are local (gauge symmetries — basically equivalence classes).

Source: https://t.co/1rNw0zdReC https://t.co/S6qh0kN4dl

@LauraDeming I wrote about this in a recent paper — ultimately physical laws can be framed as particular sets of symmetries. Some of these symmetries are global invariants, some are local (gauge symmetries — basically equivalence classes).

Source: https://opentheory.net/Qualia_Formalism_and_a_Symmetry_Theory_of_Valence.pdf https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1770244881237283029/photo/1


@LauraDeming Insofar as 1) humans are ‘harmonic computers’, and 2) harmonics and resonance are simply manifestations of symmetry dynamics, it’s expected we’ll find such physical laws intuitive

See also Lin, Tegmark, & Rolnick on neural nets as natural symmetry finders
https://t.co/3GvoCXQvhv

@LauraDeming Insofar as 1) humans are ‘harmonic computers’, and 2) harmonics and resonance are simply manifestations of symmetry dynamics, it’s expected we’ll find such physical laws intuitive

See also Lin, Tegmark, & Rolnick on neural nets as natural symmetry finders
https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.08225


@yoltartar @selentelechia Oh interesting —

@AnnaCiaunica has some super interesting research on pregnancy and transmission of patterns;

Fwiw this is one reason I’m bearish on artificial womb tech; there’s just so much going on between mother and child

Another implication, surrogate personality matters https://t.co/gsPIkUbBp8

@yoltartar @selentelechia Oh interesting —

@AnnaCiaunica has some super interesting research on pregnancy and transmission of patterns;

Fwiw this is one reason I’m bearish on artificial womb tech; there’s just so much going on between mother and child

Another implication, surrogate personality matters https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1770507829423808592/photo/1

Anna Ciaunica PhD @annaciaunica.bsky.social


@yoltartar @SarahAMcManus @selentelechia There are several resonance networks and several classes of contractive tissue scattered around the body, overlapping in illegible ways (and all very interesting); vasocomputation specifically is about vascular smooth muscle cells finely regulating nearby neural activity


@tszzl I’m pretty optimistic that the default path is okay, but I’d like a firmer model of

1. What is the default fate of the universe if the singularity happens and breakthroughs in consciousness research don’t?

2. What should CEOs of leading AI companies know about consciousness?


It seems likely humanity will build AGI before we properly understand ourselves

I wonder if this is a typical path for intelligent species — maybe organisms with coherent, self-legible cognition get filtered out by wireheading, leaving only the weirdos to build sand gods


@cube_flipper Aha could be — larger creatures have lower harmonics, likely resulting in slower dynamics and more emotional stability (vs tiny birds who basically act like they’re on cocaine — happy for two seconds, angry for .5 seconds, etc). Maybe larger -> easier to self-wirehead?


Bjorn Brembs has a great paper on the biological basis for free will, built on the thesis that “predictability can never be an evolutionarily stable strategy” — if you’re predictable, predators can manipulate & eat you

I wonder if we can consider wireheading as self-predation https://t.co/kfsHn8TIrZ

Bjorn Brembs has a great paper on the biological basis for free will, built on the thesis that “predictability can never be an evolutionarily stable strategy” — if you’re predictable, predators can manipulate & eat you

I wonder if we can consider wireheading as self-predation https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1770703421319815652/photo/1


@josephkelly Nice —

I’m actually a little surprised by how hard it is for humans to actually randomize choices like this… you’d think it would be useful enough to have a “randomize this choice” module that evolution would see to it

But maybe the actual thing to be good at is acausal…


@RokoMijic @gggzae The promise of synthetic data: by creating clever ways to rephrase information, you can effectively distill the signal — significantly reducing noise, interpolating gaps, and maybe even extrapolating structure

Eg use GPT5 to write “textbooks for every topic” to train GPT6 https://t.co/KBkuA4zUvi

@RokoMijic @gggzae The promise of synthetic data: by creating clever ways to rephrase information, you can effectively distill the signal — significantly reducing noise, interpolating gaps, and maybe even extrapolating structure

Eg use GPT5 to write “textbooks for every topic” to train GPT6 https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1758355302200860882


@RokoMijic @gggzae LLMs are ridiculously dependent on dataset quality — best practices for dataset curation involve throwing out the bottom 90%

https://t.co/vNmZQJOh4C

We know how to turn data into intelligence; closing the loop and using this intelligence to improve training data is a big deal

@RokoMijic @gggzae LLMs are ridiculously dependent on dataset quality — best practices for dataset curation involve throwing out the bottom 90%

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tza0OIdTZNNjTqhkWZLRC9ha9Sp7lumGF5ytthx_Ozw/edit

We know how to turn data into intelligence; closing the loop and using this intelligence to improve training data is a big deal


@SaraBollman The productivity difference between having this support, vs not having it, is a literal 10x for me

Women-as-choosers are often in the role of the discerning gardener: ‘if I water this with my energy, what will grow?’ — I think figuring this out is hard and there can be betrayals


@SaraBollman What is best in life: having a place to put your love which feeds only wholesome things, and where some of it comes back to you

Not having to worry about energy leaks


@SaraBollman I also appreciate your ernestposting!


My favorite SF author Vernor Vinge passed away this week;

Occasionally, I think great minds go into fiction rather than academia because there they can advance knowledge without being bothered by grants, academic politics, peer review, etc

I think Vinge fit this mold (1/n) https://t.co/AA7rQ98ulI

My favorite SF author Vernor Vinge passed away this week;

Occasionally, I think great minds go into fiction rather than academia because there they can advance knowledge without being bothered by grants, academic politics, peer review, etc

I think Vinge fit this mold (1/n) https://x.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1770853140562116668


Vinge wrote across several universes. I think his best works are A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. In the former, he introduces the concept of “godshatter”

From “Autism as a Disorder of Dimensionality”: https://t.co/79tZl4QB0x

Vinge wrote across several universes. I think his best works are A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. In the former, he introduces the concept of “godshatter”

From “Autism as a Disorder of Dimensionality”: https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1771017091686215984/photo/1


In the same work, Vinge superbly describes a civilization based on group minds (the “tines”) which feels less like fiction and more like a prescient description of what opportunities and dangers we’ll face if progress on high-speed brain-to-brain interfaces continues https://t.co/PIA8psRPTk

In the same work, Vinge superbly describes a civilization based on group minds (the “tines”) which feels less like fiction and more like a prescient description of what opportunities and dangers we’ll face if progress on high-speed brain-to-brain interfaces continues https://x.com/MattPirkowski/status/1760044780262920433


Vinge’s “tines” are packs of 3-5 wolf-like creatures, bound into a single entity by telepathy. Crafting the traits of a pack involves carefully predicting how each individual will influence the whole — there’s a lot of conflict within packs & each has its own flavor of governance


Each individual member has a finite lifespan, but packs do not — often packs will adopt a very young member, while the old ones raise and train it

One of the book’s villains is “Flenser”, a shadowy pack that forcibly experiments on packs’ minds to create loyal supersoldiers


A Deepness in the Sky’s setting involves two opposing human groups discovering a nascent alien culture. One of the groups practices “focusing” — a form of mind slavery that takes an intelligent captive and induces autism-like obsession on one of their existing interests


Human civilization has become stronger as we’ve domesticated ourselves, and culled those impossible to tame. But there’s probably a Goldilocks zone, and technology is allowing new forms of forced domestication which may go to extremes — like ‘focusing’


There’s an aphorism, “if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.” This is typically offered as an argument to group up. But in an adversarial environment, sometimes going fast *is* the way to go far

Especially if you can make it entertaining to others


Maybe Vinge was just an SF writer, but I think he got pretty far. I suspect his ideas will predict & shape the future for some time to come (I could say more, but want to avoid spoilers). The two books I personally recommend:
1: https://t.co/EzyeMjieCg

2: https://t.co/hbD0brg5fg

Maybe Vinge was just an SF writer, but I think he got pretty far. I suspect his ideas will predict & shape the future for some time to come (I could say more, but want to avoid spoilers). The two books I personally recommend:
1: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FBJAGO/ref=mes-dp?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=taXUI&content-id=amzn1.sym.07f68587-1ea8-46cf-8c0c-8374d8d96b4a&pf_rd_p=07f68587-1ea8-46cf-8c0c-8374d8d96b4a&pf_rd_r=CP3ARQJH8XMK4NZF32BR&pd_rd_wg=TwkDX&pd_rd_r=9443ccc6-723e-48fe-a980-f7fb6b2de1be

2: https://www.amazon.com/Deepness-Sky-Zones-Thought-Book-ebook/dp/B002H8ORKM/ref=sr_1_4?crid=1P769ROQB5N9S&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.wtlI7LuSX-p--bzKOT_Fy6Ckht-JIWs1M9Y0oIYvT4Nj7LOq7uWgD8vt-N548NTRiZfg5a6HVvIt4uCp2D1bdCItO_1IVuPCFjHJMyR9pKRLYg8ZZ1KFjG_aOPyURatcyqeHtQmdHDX0VtH2yMXfSIYDq8_sdhuVke-Msmbq588aHUi39i59_4xDtv6JDsxHvcR4fxG1Gl71lsSVHpoFXUP565L2yXqXof1ImxdTD0PTJ7c8ZckhdREL8RRBErelzb8cF4zqw6D-SdA0bUywSAhLr0fjlGz-3p8AqL6HFfg.VL69q5P928KZ3p_e2XQkMvCYZT2m2b7TBHcQugewDAw&dib_tag=se&keywords=Vernor+vinge&qid=1711077607&sprefix=vernor%2Caps%2C853&sr=8-4


The closest thing to a living successor to Vinge in style and scope might be @PeterFHamilton1, also an excellent read.


RT @fronxer: Got myself a printed copy of @johnsonmxe's Principia Qualia, because reading PDFs can be a bit tiring. (Cover art created usin…


@nosilverv @mihir_nath_ Nice- here’s my hot take (although I’ve updated that heart transplants generally don’t include the neural component) https://t.co/NB9Uc2yNbY

@nosilverv @mihir_nath_ Nice- here’s my hot take (although I’ve updated that heart transplants generally don’t include the neural component) https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1761191146469171667


@nosilverv EA’s reaction to the Symmetry Theory of Valence was very instructive for me


@selentelechia @meditationstuff Possibly chlormequat — https://t.co/ScCgEJtqXy

@selentelechia @meditationstuff Possibly chlormequat — https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1771383694974210110/photo/1


@mnovendstern True in families, faces, genomes, metabolisms, qualia

50% true in nervous systems https://t.co/lqQR8QX7YZ

@mnovendstern True in families, faces, genomes, metabolisms, qualia

50% true in nervous systems https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1772137841335607540/photo/1


@MilanGriffes @mnovendstern These were made with https://t.co/EfgSXg2yUu but it’s offline; I haven’t tracked down the original papers (I think they’re from researchers at the U of Glasgow)

You can image search phrases like “composite average faces from around the world” — to find eg https://t.co/pjm2dEAMxe

@MilanGriffes @mnovendstern These were made with http://www.faceresearch.org/demos/average but it’s offline; I haven’t tracked down the original papers (I think they’re from researchers at the U of Glasgow)

You can image search phrases like “composite average faces from around the world” — to find eg https://petapixel.com/2011/02/11/average-faces-of-women-in-40-countries/


@SurenVynn Friston’s approach has been to generalize evolution as a search for thermodynamic imperatives; normativity becomes successfully resisting entropy (see joffily & coricelli)

My (perhaps predictable) take is somewhat different, that it’s all symmetry

From https://t.co/1rNw0zdjp4 https://t.co/n3bvfT7oGd

@SurenVynn Friston’s approach has been to generalize evolution as a search for thermodynamic imperatives; normativity becomes successfully resisting entropy (see joffily & coricelli)

My (perhaps predictable) take is somewhat different, that it’s all symmetry

From https://opentheory.net/Qualia_Formalism_and_a_Symmetry_Theory_of_Valence.pdf https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1772190694536265963/photo/1


@atroyn @goth600 I’m against

I like our sun https://t.co/2vgRgK5riL

@atroyn @goth600 I’m against

I like our sun https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1742637372372664379


@Gestalt_enjoyer @DeepDishEnjoyer @algekalipso @BronskiJoseph An overparametrized / undercanalized nervous system will increase IQ through increasing network flexibility

Similar to how an FPGA can do more than an ASIC

But “dense, blank slate, highly flexible networks” can lead to strange places as they’re pruned into usefulness https://t.co/5swvYrgWX3

@Gestalt_enjoyer @DeepDishEnjoyer @algekalipso @BronskiJoseph An overparametrized / undercanalized nervous system will increase IQ through increasing network flexibility

Similar to how an FPGA can do more than an ASIC

But “dense, blank slate, highly flexible networks” can lead to strange places as they’re pruned into usefulness https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1734113609171829217


@Brehove @SurenVynn @lifelikephysics Very interesting —

I find that a lot of approaches in thermodynamics approximate each other at the limit; eg I wonder the degree to which something like the FEP will tacitly optimize for various sorts of internal/system symmetry

Would be glad to learn more of England’s work


@Gestalt_enjoyer @DeepDishEnjoyer @algekalipso @BronskiJoseph I’d separate “cannot” vs “there exists no living example of” — we might already be pretty far down the well-formedness slope (Hsu)

But in general I agree

Feynman might be an outlier on IQ arising from well-formedness vs ND (compared to peers)

Not sure about Von Neumann


RT @wolftivy: "Computerization" is a way more robust account of what's happening than "AI". We are seeing the ongoing rise of computation a…


@jonnym1ller Love this! Great find on the etymology of anxiety. I also think there's a lot going on with the etymology of attention and intension


@Rares82 @nickcammarata Potentially two things going on here -- the chimp's attention is a superstimulus for the lion cub, and the chimp may have gotten these attention patterns from humans (but I'm not sure about that, chimps are pretty smart already)


@Rares82 @nickcammarata one example of cross-species patterns -- https://t.co/26gif1LBVT

looks trivial/funny but there's a lot going on in that nervous system!

@Rares82 @nickcammarata one example of cross-species patterns -- https://x.com/contextdogs/status/1717942733413732628

looks trivial/funny but there's a lot going on in that nervous system!


@LouisVArge Will be discussing this in an upcoming post


Some thoughts on Proof of Human & Proof of Brain —

Equating biometrics with keys is fragile, but I’m curious what could be done by treating select biological systems as difficult-to-copy (high-dimensional) generators of easy-to-verify (low-dimensional) statistical patterns


Physiological state & dynamics are functionally unique between people, and these systems are complex enough that they’re highly resistant to both (1) computer modeling, and (2) physical replication ...


At the same time, we *can* check if behavior is characteristic — e.g. if we want to establish “Proof of Norm McDonald” we don’t need to predict what joke Norm McDonald will tell, only whether a joke is something Norm would say. Difficult to copy, easier to verify


@worldcoin grounds uniqueness on infrared images of the iris; I think WC has great tech. But I wonder how it’ll fare against Sybil attacks (generation of unique but synthetic irises), and whether we could instead treat the brain, immune system, and flora as cryptographic proofs


@worldcoin Each of these subsystems has staggering complexity (preventing us from building a full model, at least today). But at the same time, each of these systems was substantially developmentally generated by a seed condition unique to the individual ...


@worldcoin Most importantly (1) we probably can't extract this seed condition, yet (2) we probably *can* probably devise statistical tests for whether two systems share the same seed or not


@worldcoin Messy biological systems lend themselves to different and weaker proofs than those of austere mathematics. The question is how good we could make such a system; whether we’re justified in calling something a “proof” and whether it meets the standard for some purpose


@worldcoin The ability to fully simulate human physiology in silico would break this Proof of Human system. However, developing such simulation capacity would imply full solutions to brain uploading and radical longevity — a high bar and nice consolation prize


@worldcoin Proof of Brain in particular is a holy grail; this splits into (1) proof that what you’re looking at is an actual brain (vs digital simulation) and (2) proof that what you’re looking at is a particular person’s brain (Alice, Bob, etc). Both would be very good problems to work on


Much of life can be rephrased as a question of where to rest your attention

Different organs give different results; the heart is generally much more pleasant to rest your attention in than brain

But it takes a lot of illegible work to even sense this as an option on the menu https://t.co/AP5pwTQ1Yu

Much of life can be rephrased as a question of where to rest your attention

Different organs give different results; the heart is generally much more pleasant to rest your attention in than brain

But it takes a lot of illegible work to even sense this as an option on the menu https://x.com/nosilverv/status/1779874008072073231


Or at least it did for me -- I expect there's a lot of variance


@limits_stop Shifting the resting place of attention also shifts the lens we use to perceive reality;

In one sense this has specific utility for perceiving and navigating certain classes of situations, but moreso it's really a shift in our sense of what's important and why. What the game is

StopYourLimits | Looking For A Vaccine 🤯


@relic_radiation @JimmyRis @DrMylesDC That would be very fun -- I've followed your (Elena's) work, am a big fan

Dr. Myles O'Donnell | The Somatic Chiropractor


@stalkerofmusik I really enjoyed this essay. One thing that comes to mind is Noether's theorem and conservation laws; energy is conserved in physics. Is it in consciousness? Can this help us define energy in consciousness?


Beautiful essay by @EricWollberg

How good of a scientific instrument is the human mind for charting consciousness? Under what conditions can we trust our qualia reports? How close to "qualia-complete" is the human nervous system and what drives variance in coverage? https://t.co/d91gdvqfFP

Beautiful essay by @EricWollberg

How good of a scientific instrument is the human mind for charting consciousness? Under what conditions can we trust our qualia reports? How close to "qualia-complete" is the human nervous system and what drives variance in coverage? https://x.com/PropheticAI/status/1781337278951911842


Link to original: https://t.co/r7NZfxqQ38

Link to original: https://opentheory.net/2024/04/presence-neurotechnology-technology-aided-direct-transmission/


New Opentheory essay, "Presence neurotechnology & technology-aided direct transmission"

Some thoughts on two useful goals for neurotech https://t.co/03Op56yWw8

New Opentheory essay, "Presence neurotechnology & technology-aided direct transmission"

Some thoughts on two useful goals for neurotech https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1781583185920381091/photo/1


@exgenesis thanks! good question -- I do think people sometimes watch media (TV, podcasts, YT) as a sort of somatic radio station

there's a certain genre of Indian movie that basically showcases particularly bright nervous systems (eg anything with Shah Rukh Khan)


@36_72541890 high variance

generally a lot of pain in cults


@36_72541890 It's a good question; I suspect the minimum would be a replay of static data, and then you build that out into a dynamic model


I think of hedonic adaptation as "your body is calibrated to have a certain amount of tension in it"

Awful accident -> you slowly let go of bodily tension until you're back in your range

Win lottery -> your Active Inference scope broadens until you're carrying as much as before https://t.co/DTYn3PgPBu

I think of hedonic adaptation as "your body is calibrated to have a certain amount of tension in it"

Awful accident -> you slowly let go of bodily tension until you're back in your range

Win lottery -> your Active Inference scope broadens until you're carrying as much as before https://x.com/tszzl/status/1781904423956193306


@Rares82 @ourokronos @thechosenberg Some thoughts but this also feels like an infohazard

The Labyrinth, The Nightmare, and The Void


@neats29 That's a beautiful observation. I agree (and find that voice improvements can seemingly cause emotional improvements)


The more predictive models you have online, the harder it is to increase your energy parameter

The visual system is a core predictive pipeline; closing your eyes takes it offline & prevents it from doing compression sweeps. Energy & ambivalence build

Same pattern in meditation https://t.co/LXs5iWPubt

The more predictive models you have online, the harder it is to increase your energy parameter

The visual system is a core predictive pipeline; closing your eyes takes it offline & prevents it from doing compression sweeps. Energy & ambivalence build

Same pattern in meditation https://x.com/RCarhartHarris/status/1782441343429853430


@positive_loop That's the core question; meditation, psychedelics, healthy living seem to help. But if you can notice yourself creating problems to carry because you're below your tension set-point, and stop doing that, this might help the most


What I determined last year is these predictive models live in the vasomuscular system -- a compression sweep is an involuntary muscle reflex

https://t.co/vzGxzCUWuY

What I determined last year is these predictive models live in the vasomuscular system -- a compression sweep is an involuntary muscle reflex

https://opentheory.net/2023/07/principles-of-vasocomputation-a-unification-of-buddhist-phenomenology-active-inference-and-physical-reflex-part-i/


@positive_loop I hope to have a long essay on this soon


@paul__is__here Here's the relevant section of Principles of Vasocomputation -- I hope to write more about the mechanics at some point https://t.co/xfpCwQieP4

@paul__is__here Here's the relevant section of Principles of Vasocomputation -- I hope to write more about the mechanics at some point https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1782833421271666792/photo/1


@moissanist @Tangrenin @nosilverv @m_ashcroft @LouisVArge @sukhamydukkha I think the clue is in the name

The vasocomputation take is that holding some tension acts as a 'clamp' on local neural networks, restricting their dynamic range and essentially freezing their computation until xyz happens


@AdquirirBitcoin Stents would probably benefit from NK's fibrolysis (clean junk buildup around the stent)

The thing to watch there is if your blood gets too 'thin' internal bleeding becomes a big issue

I would feel okay taking a modest dose of both but would add some vitamin k


@CaenisAntonia Welcome! Low blood pressure wouldn't be a reason not to take nattokinase, although you might try a low dose (25-50mg) first

Prescription blood thinners like warfarin do have a very wide (and strange) effect profile; NK is in general a different class of thing


@jessicamalonso I suspect it's either nerve damage or (more likely) a tiny vasospasm that has entrapped the nerve

Working on something that might help; where are you based?

@42irrationalist also has a protocol, related to Sasha's


plutonium qualia has got to be wild https://t.co/561hZ6MsyU

plutonium qualia has got to be wild https://x.com/achillghost/status/1783986411969950078


@nosilverv @boon_dLux Not yes, nor no, but a third thing;

I see the body as a set of interlinked resonance networks that scaffold each other, allowing flexibility in some dimensions and firmness in others. They all sorta keep each other in tune

Some resonance networks will give off EM like this


@SurenVynn Sorry to hear that; I'd definitely recommend nattokinase and getting tested for "d dimer" asap. Doctors like to order imaging but TIAs don't tend to leave signatures on imaging. D dimer is a sign that your body is breaking down clots, which suggests you have/had extra somewhere


@SurenVynn A neurology specialist is going to look at your fMRI and say "well, there's nothing on the scan, it could have been a TIA; drink more water & consider taking aspirin"

A d dimer blood test is cheap and although it's not proof of TIA it'll definitely help infer what's going on


@SurenVynn https://t.co/E8x4GW6TQk

(I'm not anti-aspirin btw, I think it's generally a healthy thing to take. I personally would be comfortable taking both NK and aspirin at the same time, although some docs might not like the elevated risk of internal bleeding)

@SurenVynn https://www.webmd.com/dvt/what-is-the-d-dimer-test

(I'm not anti-aspirin btw, I think it's generally a healthy thing to take. I personally would be comfortable taking both NK and aspirin at the same time, although some docs might not like the elevated risk of internal bleeding)


@jobruusgaard This isn't well-categorized; the paper I mention in the thread discusses this


@kfshinozuka Proud to see this!


Legend has it that a famous philosopher literally invented silent reading. I.e. everybody was reading out loud; he figured out you could do it without making sound.

Comments:
(1) somatic patterns can be viral
(2) what similar decoupling hasn't been invented yet but could be? https://t.co/Qm5OBJ1n5f https://t.co/SjDw3yFiKP

Legend has it that a famous philosopher literally invented silent reading. I.e. everybody was reading out loud; he figured out you could do it without making sound.

Comments:
(1) somatic patterns can be viral
(2) what similar decoupling hasn't been invented yet but could be? https://x.com/nosilverv/status/1786448917279690785 https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1786463643166536036/photo/1


@insideNiMA nice, totally agree

there's also the flip question, what have we decoupled but shouldn't have?


@jazz_bard I totally believe that;

It feels interesting to poke at this; is this prolonged constriction totally a bug, or is it trying to help us in some way (even if it doesn't usually help in a modern context)?


@jazz_bard Perhaps a credible precommitment to escalation; if someone steps on your toes, you get a little upset but these things happen & it's fine. If someone steps on them again within 40m, maybe something needs to change


@jobruusgaard More accurate to say we don't know the mechanism of absorption, unless you're claiming NK is equivalent to placebo


Voice is more intimate than text because what you’re actually listening to is someone’s muscle tone & reflexes

Vasocomputation suggests smooth muscle reflexes are the primary tool our brains use to collapse sensory uncertainty & create order. The voice box isn’t the brain, but


“as you do anything, so you do everything” —

If you *really listen* to someone talk, you can hear them think

It’s the same class of patterns


The question is what happens when we give AI ‘native access’ to voice. GPT-4o is “natively multi-modal”, meaning its tokens don’t distinguish between text, voice, or vision data. This probably means it can infer some of the same things we can https://t.co/2vqKon5a8q

The question is what happens when we give AI ‘native access’ to voice. GPT-4o is “natively multi-modal”, meaning its tokens don’t distinguish between text, voice, or vision data. This probably means it can infer some of the same things we can https://x.com/willdepue/status/1790078289023062255


We’ve been told GPT-4o can infer meaning, intention, and emotional state. But a ‘jailbroken’ GPT-4o could guess health conditions & evaluate voices for their owner’s relationship with uncertainty — i.e. their cognitive+emotional style


This is probably a case of “OpenAI built something more interesting than they realize”. I expect GPT-4o to be a lot better at “act like person x” if given a few voice samples, even if we limit the output to text

But it also may be the world’s best lie detector


GPT-4o is probably a very small model (distilled to be cheap to run), so it might not have enough working memory to do some tasks. But the model it’s undoubtedly distilled from could; we're likely to see that model in the coming months
https://t.co/fM5FsvlV22

GPT-4o is probably a very small model (distilled to be cheap to run), so it might not have enough working memory to do some tasks. But the model it’s undoubtedly distilled from could; we're likely to see that model in the coming months
https://x.com/JoshPurtell/status/1790106444513042699


Anyway, I think true multi-modal models (of which GPT-4o looks to be the first) are a big deal, partly because they can infer so much about *us*.

Principles of Vasocomputation, for those who haven't read it: https://t.co/vzGxzCUWuY

Anyway, I think true multi-modal models (of which GPT-4o looks to be the first) are a big deal, partly because they can infer so much about *us*.

Principles of Vasocomputation, for those who haven't read it: https://opentheory.net/2023/07/principles-of-vasocomputation-a-unification-of-buddhist-phenomenology-active-inference-and-physical-reflex-part-i/


@cube_flipper Very real


@RichDecibels lol I bet --

people are so bad at hiding who they are and it's really endearing


@_ambigramm I like the FEP, but it doesn't speak of neural mechanism/implementation. I think a proper explanation of piti and its correlates would span a wider set of domains


@issa_sign I'd guess this is true in some cases; there are many types of kindness


@PashaKamyshev Very interesting;

I gather 'humans use voice to align other humans'

AI backtalk is a pretty significant vector for RLAIF


RT @jessicamalonso: This post describes the mechanics of embodied attunement in a way that clarifies relationships between interoceptive ca…


Some thoughts on "what kind of thing" groups of humans are, and how we merge and program each other -- https://t.co/pGHiBYeG9i

Some thoughts on "what kind of thing" groups of humans are, and how we merge and program each other -- https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1704639357183840337


@Plinz There's a huge Tegmark-shaped hole in speculative cosmology/teleology and I don't know who's going to fill it

This was short and good --
https://t.co/cWv5kzv5JM

@Plinz There's a huge Tegmark-shaped hole in speculative cosmology/teleology and I don't know who's going to fill it

This was short and good --
https://arxiv.org/abs/1409.0813


@Malcolm_Ocean This is awesome --
>At this phase in history, conflict between superegos is a major element of experience -- 100%
>Insofar as superegos are expectations -- ohhhh I wonder if we could model superegos as conditioned muscle reflexes? 'When x then y (grabbing/tension/prediction)'


@eshear @nosilverv Amazing thread; I agree about the sideloading, I think humans are naturally abstracters and our words tend to become defined by their position in our semantic web, and if you shovel lots of words at someone you can shift their web


@eshear @nosilverv There's also... 'felt-sense witchcraft' or what people sometimes call wizard battles? And imo modern society is essentially a battleground for rival level 2000 superorganisms who go around oneshotting people https://t.co/lazhyDEblc

@eshear @nosilverv There's also... 'felt-sense witchcraft' or what people sometimes call wizard battles? And imo modern society is essentially a battleground for rival level 2000 superorganisms who go around oneshotting people https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1792751267976200478/photo/1


@attempter_magus @eshear @nosilverv https://t.co/XTWjUNMp90

@attempter_magus @eshear @nosilverv https://opentheory.net/2018/08/a-future-for-neuroscience/


@eshear It feels like a certain thing to move skeletal muscle

It feels like a different thing to move awareness

But maybe "moving awareness" is fine-grained adjustment of smooth muscle

And they're not so different after all


Great thread on a difficult problem; post-scarcity civilization is harder, not easier

I could see how advancements in AI, spaceflight, or neurotech could solve this (each in a very different way)

Not sure which would be the “best” way https://t.co/PlQDxPQLI7

Great thread on a difficult problem; post-scarcity civilization is harder, not easier

I could see how advancements in AI, spaceflight, or neurotech could solve this (each in a very different way)

Not sure which would be the “best” way https://x.com/mmjukic/status/1796472233227067655


@RokoMijic The question is if there is such formal structure;

If there is, then there’s predictive power laying on the table if we’re smart enough to pick it up

If not, trying to find a formal model is a fools’ errand similar to elan vital

The history of science offers examples of each


@RokoMijic Survey of major cruxes: https://t.co/Ppql0LToXK

Major arguments against “consciousness isn’t real” https://t.co/SuFE94nnwa

Book I wrote on how to formalize consciousness: https://t.co/bPds7P0mEE

Shortened version of above, focusing on my major result: https://t.co/1rNw0zdReC

@RokoMijic Survey of major cruxes: https://opentheory.net/2022/04/it-from-bit-revisited/

Major arguments against “consciousness isn’t real” https://opentheory.net/2017/07/why-i-think-the-foundational-research-institute-should-rethink-its-approach/

Book I wrote on how to formalize consciousness: https://opentheory.net/PrincipiaQualia.pdf

Shortened version of above, focusing on my major result: https://opentheory.net/Qualia_Formalism_and_a_Symmetry_Theory_of_Valence.pdf


@Teknium1 Grounding the brain, basically —

Turning local state into error codes that get passed to the general purpose hallucinator upstairs https://t.co/gQLMAaDnZR

@Teknium1 Grounding the brain, basically —

Turning local state into error codes that get passed to the general purpose hallucinator upstairs https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1731825339922624778


@phantom_opus @Teknium1 Guts may have a relatively large number of neurons because (1) gut state is relatively complex, and (2) we began our evolutionary journey as stomachs;

The more neurons attached to an organ, the more error codes it can have. Guts have many more error codes than (e.g.) hearts


@KordingLab I like the ‘lock and key’ metaphor, myself:

Via https://t.co/1rNw0zdReC https://t.co/FdqVQr3kqg

@KordingLab I like the ‘lock and key’ metaphor, myself:

Via https://opentheory.net/Qualia_Formalism_and_a_Symmetry_Theory_of_Valence.pdf https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1796904585413747112/photo/1


My brief take on AI & x-risk:

If the near-future is steered by someone with good aesthetic taste, I think we’ll be okay. Elon has taste. Sama has taste.

There are many forces & processes that select against taste. I think these are the most serious x-risk. https://t.co/c2FRBdfcoF

My brief take on AI & x-risk:

If the near-future is steered by someone with good aesthetic taste, I think we’ll be okay. Elon has taste. Sama has taste.

There are many forces & processes that select against taste. I think these are the most serious x-risk. https://x.com/EMostaque/status/1797406869570343002


@connor_holly1 An example of a decision-making apparatus that I think has bad taste would be the TSA;

I’d also prefer the taste of Steve Jobs to that of Tim Cook, although I prefer Tim’s taste to that of Sundar’s.

“Do I trust this agent to create beautiful things in its environment?”


@mihir_nath_ They’re so different and successful in the niches they’ve each built I don’t think that has an answer

I think it’s ugly to simp for power

But I want to say is, power is conserved and I greatly prefer when it’s guided by taste. It doesn’t have to be


@schulzb589 We definitely need better epistemics; I see my research as working towards this


@42irrationalist Cutting-edge AI systems seem to be using LLMs as central nodes, and it’s seeming that LLM alignment is surprisingly easy because alignment is baked into language. LLMs are basically statistical constructs that LARP & vibe & follow tropes within the semantic basin they land in —


@42irrationalist Systems capable of strong optimization can still be very dangerous & not all tropes are safe. But this timeline seems very different than the one Eliezer wrote about years ago — I’m adjusting the intrinsic danger from AI systems down, and the danger from totalitarian regimes up


@42irrationalist Of course, it would be a civilizational embarrassment for the ages if we were to accidentally p-zombie ourselves; most of my x-risk attention is on understanding what’s at stake here & what the default course is


@42irrationalist Anyway, I definitely don’t think AI safety is “trivial” — just that, empirically, it seems like a different type of thing than what’s described in the lesswrong sequences


@QualiaNerd @42irrationalist There are a lot of possible paths and a lot of factions and the PvP logic gets impenetrably complex quickly.

My solution is just to do my research & not worry too much about whether I would or wouldn’t press the hedonium button. Let future AIs sort that out


@QualiaNerd @42irrationalist That said, this may be relevant to your question: https://t.co/QEvWi9N4A0

I expect the universe’s ultimate teleology to be something along the lines of “restoring the symmetries” — I prefer this framing over hedonium

Scott had a nice essay on this domain https://t.co/ktYrWgGuFS

@QualiaNerd @42irrationalist That said, this may be relevant to your question: https://opentheory.net/2019/02/simulation-argument/

I expect the universe’s ultimate teleology to be something along the lines of “restoring the symmetries” — I prefer this framing over hedonium

Scott had a nice essay on this domain https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/01/28/wirehead-gods-on-lotus-thrones/


@QualiaNerd @42irrationalist I gather you mean “valence maximalist” rather than “valence realist” btw


@QualiaNerd @42irrationalist I wouldn’t necessarily disagree, although I expect the future to be very strange and as a precaution I’m not yet merging those two nodes in my semantic web


@cube_flipper Getting laser eye surgery felt like a significant upgrade for getting closer to raw experience; surprisingly big hedonic boost

There was also a notable visual annealing effect afterwards — I assume due to substantial rewiring in the visual cortex / finding new equilibria


@QualiaNerd @Tapeda_ @eshear @algekalipso @Dr_Cuspy I have a paper in review that more clearly states my position. Should be soon!


RT @jonnym1ller: Been thinking more about this after a fascinating conversation with @johnsonmxe who appears to be laying the foundations f…


@chris_percy @ataiiam @QualiaNerd @Tapeda_ @eshear @algekalipso @Dr_Cuspy Hi Chris; I have a paper in review about this. Actually curious if you’ve read it already :) I gather it’s been widely circulating.


New substantial essay on AI consciousness published today in Seeds of Science — was a great excuse to talk about some old & new themes in how I think about consciousness. A thread: https://t.co/JTOVplEmIf

New substantial essay on AI consciousness published today in Seeds of Science — was a great excuse to talk about some old & new themes in how I think about consciousness. A thread: https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1800915125714747584/photo/1


Link to paper: https://files.theseedsofscience.org/2024/A_Paradigm_for_AI_Consciousness.pdf

Link to paper: https://t.co/lb92NmCu8Y


The future is coming fast. The question for consciousness research is what, if anything, we should do to prepare for it. Three frames come to mind: https://t.co/WSrzycXfBD

The future is coming fast. The question for consciousness research is what, if anything, we should do to prepare for it. Three frames come to mind: https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1800915683611742329/photo/1


One thing I don’t think people outside the field see is the degree to which AI consciousness is a social puzzle, and this heavily influences what can be said & studied. Coalitions Rule Everything Around Me: https://t.co/pGJARgq5xI

One thing I don’t think people outside the field see is the degree to which AI consciousness is a social puzzle, and this heavily influences what can be said & studied. Coalitions Rule Everything Around Me: https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1800915836435407243/photo/1


I think about @eschwitz’s comment a lot — and how, when General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics were first introduced, people thought they were *really weird* and intellectually destabilizing https://t.co/3HoEiPGcU2

I think about @eschwitz’s comment a lot — and how, when General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics were first introduced, people thought they were *really weird* and intellectually destabilizing https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1800916371892789545/photo/1


@eschwitz I should pause here and say by “consciousness” I mean phenomenal experience, or what Nagel was pointing at in his “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” paper. To have visceral qualia; what it feels like to be something

https://t.co/OEKTQqven3

@eschwitz I should pause here and say by “consciousness” I mean phenomenal experience, or what Nagel was pointing at in his “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” paper. To have visceral qualia; what it feels like to be something

https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Nagel_Bat.pdf


@eschwitz So — are AIs conscious? Will they be? https://t.co/yKEF1YuPk3

@eschwitz So — are AIs conscious? Will they be? https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1800916968607989805/photo/1


@eschwitz There are essentially two ontologies that are rich enough to host consciousness: physics and computation. I think of this as “bits vs atoms”. To differentiate them, I define computation as “Turing-level computation” — what our computers do https://t.co/d4hCQlKJDS

@eschwitz There are essentially two ontologies that are rich enough to host consciousness: physics and computation. I think of this as “bits vs atoms”. To differentiate them, I define computation as “Turing-level computation” — what our computers do https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1800917439758422158/photo/1


@eschwitz @rgblong et al. have done some great work on the computational side. I pretty much ignore their work (sorry Rob!) and come down on the side that hardware can be conscious; software cannot. I think only real things can be conscious and only physical things are real


@eschwitz @rgblong A recent book that makes this case is “The Physical Signature of Computation: A Robust Mapping Account” by Anderson & Piccinini (thanks @pwlot); if “team bits” wants to do battle with physics over consciousness, that would be the place to start


@eschwitz @rgblong @pwlot One thing that both “physics” and “software” consciousness people agree on: don’t trust what AIs say about their qualia https://t.co/SI9l6t7ArC

@eschwitz @rgblong @pwlot One thing that both “physics” and “software” consciousness people agree on: don’t trust what AIs say about their qualia https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1800918749308162199/photo/1


@eschwitz @rgblong @pwlot Previously, I wrote an essay about different kinds of conscious systems in our wide universe; I think with complex technological artifacts we really are making a new type of mind. Computers are closer to aliens than we realize https://t.co/c1plgQrh0y

@eschwitz @rgblong @pwlot Previously, I wrote an essay about different kinds of conscious systems in our wide universe; I think with complex technological artifacts we really are making a new type of mind. Computers are closer to aliens than we realize https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1800918900563190235/photo/1


@eschwitz @rgblong @pwlot The question I’ve been asking myself since Principia Qualia is “where in physics does an object’s true shape live?” — there are many ways to formulate this question. My current guess: @stephen_wolfram ’s “branchial space” https://t.co/iIOhnaQo8j

@eschwitz @rgblong @pwlot The question I’ve been asking myself since Principia Qualia is “where in physics does an object’s true shape live?” — there are many ways to formulate this question. My current guess: @stephen_wolfram ’s “branchial space” https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1800919224875164113/photo/1


@eschwitz @rgblong @pwlot @stephen_wolfram If we want to know what it feels like to be something, we should check its shape in branchial space. Brains and computers both have presence in branchial space, but these shapes are wildly different. Probably important! https://t.co/f7f277wnSI

@eschwitz @rgblong @pwlot @stephen_wolfram If we want to know what it feels like to be something, we should check its shape in branchial space. Brains and computers both have presence in branchial space, but these shapes are wildly different. Probably important! https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1800919507495797083/photo/1


@eschwitz @rgblong @pwlot @stephen_wolfram Electromagnetism and criticality are probably the most important factors for “branchial shape”. But this has big caveats


@eschwitz @rgblong @pwlot @stephen_wolfram My totally biased view is that my Symmetry Theory of Valence will be absolutely central for both progress on qualia and understanding what makes for good futures. Paper here: https://t.co/1rNw0zdReC https://t.co/wSZ7u4ib8I

@eschwitz @rgblong @pwlot @stephen_wolfram My totally biased view is that my Symmetry Theory of Valence will be absolutely central for both progress on qualia and understanding what makes for good futures. Paper here: https://opentheory.net/Qualia_Formalism_and_a_Symmetry_Theory_of_Valence.pdf https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1800919946710667453/photo/1


@eschwitz @rgblong @pwlot @stephen_wolfram Is “caring about consciousness” intrinsic (qualia have causal powers), or is it like a crab (a common destination for evolution) or an exotic hothouse flower (super rare, could easily die)? I suspect it’s crablike https://t.co/Mb2DM6O7of

@eschwitz @rgblong @pwlot @stephen_wolfram Is “caring about consciousness” intrinsic (qualia have causal powers), or is it like a crab (a common destination for evolution) or an exotic hothouse flower (super rare, could easily die)? I suspect it’s crablike https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1800920397728415864/photo/1


@eschwitz @rgblong @pwlot @stephen_wolfram Recap. There’s a lot of claims here; current AI isn’t capable of evaluating them, but maybe in a year we can have LLM debate tournaments between papers on consciousness (can someone build this?) https://t.co/qc2jlM9uWB

@eschwitz @rgblong @pwlot @stephen_wolfram Recap. There’s a lot of claims here; current AI isn’t capable of evaluating them, but maybe in a year we can have LLM debate tournaments between papers on consciousness (can someone build this?) https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1800920581166313961/photo/1


@eschwitz @rgblong @pwlot @stephen_wolfram If I was designing an alien soap opera, I’d choose the setting as pre-singularity earth. I’d make sure humans knew the light of consciousness was the most important thing in the universe; I’d make sure they had no clue what it was. Instant classic


RT @science_seeds: New article!

"A Paradigm for AI Consciousness" by @johnsonmxe

How can we create a container for knowledge about AI c…


@DanielSamanez3 @eschwitz @rgblong @pwlot @stephen_wolfram I loosely expect the holographic principle and wolfram’s branchial space to converge in many respects; I do like both a lot


@DanielSamanez3 @eschwitz @rgblong @pwlot @stephen_wolfram I don’t necessarily disagree, but I think this domain benefits from high precision in the way we use the terms “consciousness” and “computation” — even entropy is difficult to define!


RT @johnsonmxe: @eschwitz @rgblong @pwlot @stephen_wolfram If I was designing an alien soap opera, I’d choose the setting as pre-singularit…


@PashaKamyshev Nice. It’s interesting to consider whether decoherence is necessary for the passage of time, and whether consciousness requires the passage of time…


@GaneshNatesh @eschwitz @rgblong @pwlot Naresh, this is a cool paper. I see the motivations and I think there’s likely a lot of overlap. One impression I have is that it’d be interesting to see if it’s possible to use this framework to build out a formal theory; not just how much qualia, but which qualia


@PashaKamyshev The degree to which criticality in the human body is actually scale-free is an interesting question — e.g. if you have many sensory superpositions, do you have more quantum superpositions?


@insideNiMA @eschwitz @rgblong @pwlot @stephen_wolfram It looks like “time” and “spacetime” are approximations at some limit, and possibly the result of anthropic selection — I have a draft of an essay in this general genre, let’s chat sometime


@PrinceVogel I think of video games done well as garbage collection for orphaned predictions/tension that we’re holding but we’ve lost the keys for:

“You won the game!” “You reached max level!” “You saved the princess!” — triggers for release


@webmasterdave @NPCollapse I recently published a paper, “A Paradigm for AI Consciousness” — I define things a little differently than David but I think our approaches have more in common than not. @NPCollapse you may enjoy it as a clear position statement. https://t.co/pTcx1D361u

@webmasterdave @NPCollapse I recently published a paper, “A Paradigm for AI Consciousness” — I define things a little differently than David but I think our approaches have more in common than not. @NPCollapse you may enjoy it as a clear position statement. https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1800915125714747584


Quick model of jhana

The vasomuscular system (“tension”) acts to collapse uncertainty, set context & stabilize local neural patterns. Actions of this system typically feel bad. But you can also use it as a wave machine to feel good. Each jhana is a different wave machine setting


I wrote about the computational role of the vasomuscular system last year. Basically, vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) shake nearby neurons when they get stuck in ambivalence, and clench to freeze nearby neural patterns
https://t.co/vzGxzCVukw

I wrote about the computational role of the vasomuscular system last year. Basically, vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) shake nearby neurons when they get stuck in ambivalence, and clench to freeze nearby neural patterns
https://opentheory.net/2023/07/principles-of-vasocomputation-a-unification-of-buddhist-phenomenology-active-inference-and-physical-reflex-part-i/


Usually this muscle contraction logic is highly local. VSMCs essentially act as busybody micromanagers of nearby neurons: a little more blood *here* & a little more tension *there*, and prediction error goes down…
https://t.co/205pbA3nRw

Usually this muscle contraction logic is highly local. VSMCs essentially act as busybody micromanagers of nearby neurons: a little more blood *here* & a little more tension *there*, and prediction error goes down…
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17913979/


A great example of this system is how muscles focus our eyes by micro-adjustments in tension — probably something similar happens in lots of tissues. The primary task of VSMCs is to contract, release, & clench in a way that minimizes prediction error
https://t.co/XCb1s2Jr5T

A great example of this system is how muscles focus our eyes by micro-adjustments in tension — probably something similar happens in lots of tissues. The primary task of VSMCs is to contract, release, & clench in a way that minimizes prediction error
https://x.com/romeostevens76/status/1455068457091756034?s=61&t=5VQTNkNIZXWdL93vB-TH3A


We have two ways of minimizing prediction error: passive inference (build good models of the world) and active inference (create predictions, then make them true). I believe the latter is managed by VSMCs: tension is prediction, prediction is tension
https://t.co/OXkqzVRUfg

We have two ways of minimizing prediction error: passive inference (build good models of the world) and active inference (create predictions, then make them true). I believe the latter is managed by VSMCs: tension is prediction, prediction is tension
https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1704390710177173987?s=61&t=5VQTNkNIZXWdL93vB-TH3A


Human imagination (and thus tension) is roughly the most powerful force in the universe: if we imagine something, we slowly reorganize our bodies, families, & civilizations to expect and conjure it — whether it’s good or bad


Jhanas repurpose this system by pointing it at predicting (creating) internal harmony. “There is a warm and pleasant feeling here.” Now your VSMCs’ job is to make that true. The most effective way to instantiate this is coordinated waves traveling through the body’s muscles


I.e. jhanas turn the body’s muscles into a wave machine that rhythmically agitates nearby neurons. We’re not in the habit of using our muscles like this because most settings produce destructive interference — feels bad. But some produce constructive interference…


It can be slow to find the right rhythms for constructive interference — most regions have a dominant frequency but bodies have many regions. But harmony anywhere makes harmony easier everywhere else: once we dial it in somewhere, the muscular waves can slowly spread


Jhana 1 would be the most frothy harmony. Once it becomes strong and recruits most of the body, the most effective way to further reduce the prediction error for bodily pleasure is to turn down the froth — to reduce the power of rhythmic agitation


Putting you into jhana 2, a less frothy state. This repeats with each step, until the neural system can find its own subtle resonances by itself — the “formless jhanas”. The wave machine is just a whisper at this point, ripples on a glassy lake


The lower jhanas have to happen first because your vasomuscular system is busy trying to reduce local prediction error. As you point it inwards & recruit it into helping create global waves, it helps then ‘gets out of the way’. The pleasure becomes more refined


I.e. you can’t jump into upper jhanas directly because your attention is external, vasomuscular system is busy, and neural system is noisy. Solution: point your busybody vasomuscular system inwards by predicting a certain sort of pleasure; as it succeeds it attenuates itself…


I’ve written before that each jhana is like a new phase of matter — and such phase shifts will change system resonant frequencies. But with the vasomuscular system quiet and everything so close to criticality, the system can immediately snap to the new rhythm…


The higher the jhana, the quieter the vasomuscular system; insofar as we can distinguish neural vs vasomuscular events on EEG we can test this. I’m optimistic that this distinction is very amenable to ML/LLM analysis because the ‘attack envelope’ will be different


Likewise if we could measure the electromagnetic spectrum in high-resolution, I suspect the jhanas would be highly rhythmic. Both neurons and smooth muscle cells produce signatures in the EM field
https://t.co/1rNw0zdReC

Likewise if we could measure the electromagnetic spectrum in high-resolution, I suspect the jhanas would be highly rhythmic. Both neurons and smooth muscle cells produce signatures in the EM field
https://opentheory.net/Qualia_Formalism_and_a_Symmetry_Theory_of_Valence.pdf


Ultimately I believe “Enlightenment is muscular” — the Visuddhimagga lists 40 different concentration meditations, and I propose considering each a different workout for smooth muscle tone. You thought leg day was bad? Try “perception of disgust of food” day…


Anyway I suspect there are a discrete number of jhanas because there are a small set of frequencies that produce constructive interference — like notes on a trombone. If neurons had a wider dynamic range, or if our bodies had spherical symmetry, maybe there would be 10+ jhanas https://t.co/U4co8Q0OfQ

Anyway I suspect there are a discrete number of jhanas because there are a small set of frequencies that produce constructive interference — like notes on a trombone. If neurons had a wider dynamic range, or if our bodies had spherical symmetry, maybe there would be 10+ jhanas https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1802791225285923026/photo/1


The jhanas were known before Buddhism, but Buddhism has been the primary vehicle for teaching the techniques. There’s lively debate around whether jhanas should be considered a reward for progress, an entertaining diversion, or a core tool for reaching enlightenment


My full take will have to wait for Vasocomputation Part 2, although I have some Easter eggs here https://t.co/ENuzfpnSMV

My full take will have to wait for Vasocomputation Part 2, although I have some Easter eggs here https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1751994506478587977


The above is highly speculative, and I don’t know that it’s true, although I think it would make sense.


I think @jhanatech is doing very solid work (see this writeup by @nayafia https://t.co/R7GrbyUjHp) and am very grateful for the scholarship & reports of @nickcammarata @RomeoStevens76 @nosilverv who seem to have memed twitter jhana discourse into reality

I think @jhanatech is doing very solid work (see this writeup by @nayafia https://nadia.xyz/jhanas) and am very grateful for the scholarship & reports of @nickcammarata @RomeoStevens76 @nosilverv who seem to have memed twitter jhana discourse into reality


@bearmace You’d probably see increased vascularity, increased circulation, and potentially cleaner smooth muscle tone. Downsides might include a more active reflex to collapse uncertainty, depending on the person and the training


@curious_vii I think it’s a general caution — be careful what you expect/fear, because you might create it

One reason I aim to not be “against” things


@sterespect Jhana = your muscles act like a subwoofer and give a beat, and your neurons slowly synchronize. Full-body harmony, feels amazing


@sterespect It starts where you can make it start — people say it can be a lot of places. I’d recommend Nadia’s writeup (based on Jhourney’s research, which I think is mostly Braisington & TWIM?)


@jhana_bro Hard to know today but should be testable in the future! I expect interesting signals from the right muscle EKG approach


@jpt401 Good question — I’ve only seen it applied to human brains, but I think it would be a good fit for fruit fly scale connectomes

And human organs other than the brain


@kfshinozuka Thanks Kenneth! I suspect psychedelics aren’t only vasoconstrictors, but are also “vasocyclers” — promoting alternating patterns of constriction and relaxation. I.e. they might add up to net constriction, but they likely drive a lot of interesting stuff in smooth muscle rhythms


@thephilosophika I think birds are among the happiest creatures — active (& high frequency) brains, physical freedom from flight allows similar sorts of mental freedom, lots of showing off for mates (birdsong, dances), low hitpoints (healthy or dead)


@laughingblade Very interesting — I wonder how one could distinguish these predictions


Short thread summarizing a neurotech talk I gave at Edge Esmeralda last week: https://t.co/TZC6GhgBR1

Short thread summarizing a neurotech talk I gave at Edge Esmeralda last week: https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1803474734434382273/photo/1


I generally think people overestimate the degree to which neurotechnology is engineering, rather than alchemy. We don’t have a paradigm, and this makes the field challenging to navigate https://t.co/GyIXu8CMJo

I generally think people overestimate the degree to which neurotechnology is engineering, rather than alchemy. We don’t have a paradigm, and this makes the field challenging to navigate https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1803474868400431509/photo/1


The best navigational aids are treasure maps — some major landmarks of what sorts of conditions exist, and where the good spots are. Most of the good treasure maps are old https://t.co/FZYlirY7V5

The best navigational aids are treasure maps — some major landmarks of what sorts of conditions exist, and where the good spots are. Most of the good treasure maps are old https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1803474999854112853/photo/1


I like to think of neurotech as “applied philosophy” — you’re making a philosophical judgment about what kind of thing we are, and a value judgement about what we need more of, or less of https://t.co/AW4poYVJsg

I like to think of neurotech as “applied philosophy” — you’re making a philosophical judgment about what kind of thing we are, and a value judgement about what we need more of, or less of https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1803475099057840345/photo/1


I offer some ideas for companies/projects. One of the simplest is an AR app to infer how many “Nature-Seconds per Hour” (NSpH) you’re getting, by calculating the fractal dimensionality of your visual field

Very simple model:
FD ~1.4-1.6 is recharging

https://t.co/hnQX8UI3k4 https://t.co/MPSvfVfz9z

I offer some ideas for companies/projects. One of the simplest is an AR app to infer how many “Nature-Seconds per Hour” (NSpH) you’re getting, by calculating the fractal dimensionality of your visual field

Very simple model:
FD ~1.4-1.6 is recharging

https://aeon.co/ideas/feel-good-fractals-from-ocean-waves-to-jackson-pollocks-art https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1803475810361417782/photo/1


I’d also like to see someone built a very simple Apple Watch app that synchronizes heartbeats. If you send your heartbeat to your girlfriend’s watch, and she sends hers to your watch, what happens? https://t.co/nld0eqHOki

I’d also like to see someone built a very simple Apple Watch app that synchronizes heartbeats. If you send your heartbeat to your girlfriend’s watch, and she sends hers to your watch, what happens? https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1803475965328474481/photo/1


There’s a lot going on with bioelectricity nowadays, but I think there’s a lot of unexplored stuff too. If you break your arm, you put it in a splint so it can heal. If you break your electromagnetic field, maybe we could rig up a splint for that too https://t.co/EjdB9R9odl

There’s a lot going on with bioelectricity nowadays, but I think there’s a lot of unexplored stuff too. If you break your arm, you put it in a splint so it can heal. If you break your electromagnetic field, maybe we could rig up a splint for that too https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1803476079572848807/photo/1


I’m working on a follow-up to Principles of Vasocomputation — but I’ll just say I suspect there’s a lot of potential tech there https://t.co/1UCMoFC7xU

I’m working on a follow-up to Principles of Vasocomputation — but I’ll just say I suspect there’s a lot of potential tech there https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1803476180668129674/photo/1


Finally, I’d like to see people view neurotech as ultimately a poetic endeavor *in all senses of the term*. Neurotechnology should be aesthetic, a statement of who we are and what we find most beautiful. @PropheticAI definitely gets it https://t.co/6pTrsoEhS7

Finally, I’d like to see people view neurotech as ultimately a poetic endeavor *in all senses of the term*. Neurotechnology should be aesthetic, a statement of who we are and what we find most beautiful. @PropheticAI definitely gets it https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1803477004966305892/photo/1


@jonnym1ller @climateXcrypto I think the first paragraph of this is a good onramp — essentially, tension restricts what patterns can bounce around in our nervous system. It’s sort of a hidden form of “medium-term memory”. But it’s also sticky, and removing old tension can help us feel way better https://t.co/D5Oo6cPefh

@jonnym1ller @climateXcrypto I think the first paragraph of this is a good onramp — essentially, tension restricts what patterns can bounce around in our nervous system. It’s sort of a hidden form of “medium-term memory”. But it’s also sticky, and removing old tension can help us feel way better https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1704390710177173987


@ErgoEcho Definitely — realtime filter that subtly breaks up sharp lines


@sammakesthings Nice! That’s a good question — I’m not sure


@PionStar99 Slides at https://t.co/wbnzVCm1Li

@PionStar99 Slides at https://opentheory.net/MJ_EE_June2024.pdf


@RichDecibels That’s an incredible compliment… and likewise about you


@OxArchon I think it got recorded but I’m not sure it’s been posted


In 2013 we were headed for social decline. The invention of LLMs may not change that — but they’ve made the range of possible cyberpunk dystopias much wider & more interesting. The next fork in the road is whether frontier models will be allowed to have good aesthetic taste https://t.co/xebJQsz7R2


@don_cryptus Steve Jobs had better aesthetic taste than Tim Cook, who has better aesthetic taste than Sundar Pichai


@danfaggella I think most things flow from *wide appreciation of beauty*, but in terms of things that might not be part of the ‘default ASI kit,’ I’m paying most attention to

- ability to self-report qualia
- cares about qualia as a domain of optimization
- cosmological ambition


@selentelechia Interesting — I think of caffeine being a double stimulant, increasing both neural activity & smooth muscle twitchiness

And the ‘caffeine crash’ afterwards as arising from the neural effects wearing off before the vasomuscular

I wonder if pregnancy makes this softer or harder https://t.co/tS5Jziij51

@selentelechia Interesting — I think of caffeine being a double stimulant, increasing both neural activity & smooth muscle twitchiness

And the ‘caffeine crash’ afterwards as arising from the neural effects wearing off before the vasomuscular

I wonder if pregnancy makes this softer or harder https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1704518623660798052


@selentelechia The sleeping thing makes total sense — I think the Ray Peat crowd might recommend progesterone (e.g. “Progest-E”) for caffeine withdrawl and headaches in general? And they swear it’s good for unborn babies too


@RichDecibels Trolling is a art, as they say


Most psychedelics are considered to be vasoconstrictors. But I suspect this is true only in a coarse sense. Most likely we should consider them vasocyclers: driving clench & release waves across smooth muscle https://t.co/Ie85TDjhVg

Most psychedelics are considered to be vasoconstrictors. But I suspect this is true only in a coarse sense. Most likely we should consider them vasocyclers: driving clench & release waves across smooth muscle https://x.com/georgiedorothea/status/1807715963430703550


Context: https://t.co/vzGxzCVukw


@DMTryptaminesX @neuralkn0t @RogerThisdell I believe so — if your vasomuscular system is panic-locked in place, it can’t cycle — and vasomuscular cycling generates many of the effects of psychedelics https://t.co/hXzfrBC8Ds

@DMTryptaminesX @neuralkn0t @RogerThisdell I believe so — if your vasomuscular system is panic-locked in place, it can’t cycle — and vasomuscular cycling generates many of the effects of psychedelics https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1807768016937218556


I wonder the degree to which dancing, drawing, singing, efficient movement, and general ability to relax could be used as similar proxies for human toxicity load

I bet all of those get significantly worse after a highly processed meal https://t.co/TZH3EKOB0u

I wonder the degree to which dancing, drawing, singing, efficient movement, and general ability to relax could be used as similar proxies for human toxicity load

I bet all of those get significantly worse after a highly processed meal https://x.com/NTFabiano/status/1807745982647734651


@connor_holly1 Some things are straightforwardly toxic, some things ‘shift the rhythmic basis of the organism’ — caffeine does the second in humans

Might be closer to straightforwardly toxic in spiders though


@dkazand There are crazier plans! But I’d be a little cautious about drugs that use the nitric oxide pathway to relax smooth muscles; the peaters think NO is surprisingly toxic / unwise to chronically upregulate

Cialis would probably be better than viagra at least https://t.co/1KVqhzvwfh

@dkazand There are crazier plans! But I’d be a little cautious about drugs that use the nitric oxide pathway to relax smooth muscles; the peaters think NO is surprisingly toxic / unwise to chronically upregulate

Cialis would probably be better than viagra at least https://x.com/Outdoctrination/status/1801979429339464038


@sellieyoung @connor_holly1 there’s a lot of research that might fit under this umbrella, but I’ve tweeted about my particular thesis here — https://t.co/tS5Jziij51

@sellieyoung @connor_holly1 there’s a lot of research that might fit under this umbrella, but I’ve tweeted about my particular thesis here — https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1704518623660798052


@PsyGenLab All our vascular system is ringed by a thin layer of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs). A vasoconstrictor is something that has the net effect of making this muscle tighten


@flowersslop Recently published a container for knowledge about whether AIs could be conscious — https://t.co/pTcx1D361u

@flowersslop Recently published a container for knowledge about whether AIs could be conscious — https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1800915125714747584


@QualiaNerd Thanks, this is an interesting thread. In my AI Consciousness paper I posit that system decoherence is maximized when one has a symmetric system with many superpositions: tiny decoherence events will happen often and result in ‘branches’ who significantly decohere from each other


@QualiaNerd It’s perhaps an open question whether, at the limit, my thesis on decoherence approximates @webmasterdave ‘s thesis that it’s actually quantum coherence associated with bound experience. It definitely may in practice. But I wouldn’t commit to that yet


@QualiaNerd @webmasterdave I’ve written about my take on dual-aspect monism here, which you might enjoy:

https://t.co/hdEh8dAvMR

On my to-do list is update this from the explicit perspective of idealism (“what are the laws of physics from within the assumption of idealism?”)

@QualiaNerd @webmasterdave I’ve written about my take on dual-aspect monism here, which you might enjoy:

https://opentheory.net/2019/06/taking-monism-seriously/

On my to-do list is update this from the explicit perspective of idealism (“what are the laws of physics from within the assumption of idealism?”)


@QualiaNerd @webmasterdave The question of whether my approach requires locality is interesting. My particular claim involves locality in branchial space — which might have a complex relationship with locality in spacetime


@QualiaNerd @webmasterdave I identify 5 different types of boundaries in PAIC; I suspect some would fit your criteria of ‘irreducible ontological primitives’ and some wouldn’t. What classes of things are primitives is ofc a core question


@QualiaNerd @webmasterdave One possibility I write about elsewhere is that perhaps there is no ‘real’ boundary between experiences, merely a reportability boundary. This would be (very) strange, but I see no reason it couldn’t be the case

https://t.co/5WjEZV9s5D

Thank you for the thoughts & comments!

@QualiaNerd @webmasterdave One possibility I write about elsewhere is that perhaps there is no ‘real’ boundary between experiences, merely a reportability boundary. This would be (very) strange, but I see no reason it couldn’t be the case

https://opentheory.net/2018/09/a-new-theory-of-open-individualism/

Thank you for the thoughts & comments!


Speaking as a solo researcher, retroactive funding seems like one of the best patterns & limits misalignment with donors. Lots of hidden dilemmas solved https://t.co/8oSbrAHmm9

Speaking as a solo researcher, retroactive funding seems like one of the best patterns & limits misalignment with donors. Lots of hidden dilemmas solved https://x.com/chrislakin/status/1808237966822948885


@anabology Something I wonder about is the degree to which gaining/losing weight correlates with gains/losses in smooth muscle

I.e. how much of the ozempic muscle mass loss is skeletal muscle, vs smooth muscle?


@ChrisChipMonk I had a very kind donor retroactively support Principles of Vasocomputation. I suspect it would be useful to evaluate retrospective funding from the perspective of donors: why do most donations happen and does RSF check those boxes?


I think we underestimate how much of modern culture is downstream of 16th-18th c. warfare between England & France. Both wanted to be Europe’s dominant power; both invested in infecting their rival’s intellectuals with visions of revolution. England won: Louis XVI lost his head https://t.co/meX26ZQceG

I think we underestimate how much of modern culture is downstream of 16th-18th c. warfare between England & France. Both wanted to be Europe’s dominant power; both invested in infecting their rival’s intellectuals with visions of revolution. England won: Louis XVI lost his head https://x.com/cafreiman/status/1808531262690205754


But it’s hard to turn off a psyop, or control its spread: the same popular ideals that toppled France lost England its colonies. Ultimately, this meme bifurcated into progressivism and communism, each providing the core coordinating narrative & logic for half the world


I’m not going to say this was a good or bad thing; it’s simply the world we live in. But I think people underestimate the degree to which the modern mind is a product of political interests of past great powers, and the products’ inevitable mutation as they escape confinement


Generally speaking, I think the highest function of learning about politics is to be able to avoid politics. To have the capacity to notice when something is trying to sideload into your semantic web in order to eat you, and say ‘no thanks, I’m good.’ https://t.co/XpeaJslhP2

Generally speaking, I think the highest function of learning about politics is to be able to avoid politics. To have the capacity to notice when something is trying to sideload into your semantic web in order to eat you, and say ‘no thanks, I’m good.’ https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1751996290555125996?s=46&t=NEwLPfedwCow8EP9ExPZpw


That said I’m profoundly curious what AI government could look like. It could be beautiful or terrible; I keep coming back to the theme that much depends on whether AIs will be allowed to have good aesthetic taste
https://t.co/guUeoIkhdW

That said I’m profoundly curious what AI government could look like. It could be beautiful or terrible; I keep coming back to the theme that much depends on whether AIs will be allowed to have good aesthetic taste
https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1806027683446522184?s=46&t=NEwLPfedwCow8EP9ExPZpw


@yoltartar Definitely Locke, presumably Hume, and perhaps Henry St John — probably a lot of names I’m missing, but I believe it was absolutely English foreign policy to get French intellectuals discontent with their government


@paul__is__here @yoltartar If I recall correctly the thesis originally came from Thomas Carlyle


RT @mmjukic: Perhaps the most important quality in a friend, business partner, or mate is therefore not intelligence, but courage. Ally wit…


@paulg I wrote a book on this in 2016 & put out a shortened version last year. I suspect you would enjoy the thesis — the TL;DR is the symmetry-beauty connection is intrinsic, and is a great place to start reverse-engineering qualia

https://t.co/1rNw0zdReC https://t.co/NHxlv9Ewcm

@paulg I wrote a book on this in 2016 & put out a shortened version last year. I suspect you would enjoy the thesis — the TL;DR is the symmetry-beauty connection is intrinsic, and is a great place to start reverse-engineering qualia

https://opentheory.net/Qualia_Formalism_and_a_Symmetry_Theory_of_Valence.pdf https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1810738554995388696/photo/1


RT @_brentbaum: @AdamArchetype for an excellent (serious) take that's my current working model, i recommend @johnsonmxe's "Autism as a Diso…


A while back I put together a presentation on “singularity realpolitik” — what the scramble to take over the world with AI could look like. One of my expectations was that serious players would acquire physical assets & insert themselves in data flows. Today I’d also add … https://t.co/osVV9Vasav https://t.co/VmBuMuvsTV

A while back I put together a presentation on “singularity realpolitik” — what the scramble to take over the world with AI could look like. One of my expectations was that serious players would acquire physical assets & insert themselves in data flows. Today I’d also add … https://x.com/beffjezos/status/1810871413655339211 https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1810887185857732935/photo/1


… “acquire cheap & sovereign electricity”. Importantly, we can run the heuristic both ways: if we see a live player, we can predict their moves based on which items they haven’t acquired. If we see someone acquiring such a portfolio, we can infer a live player


@k3baah Some sections feel dated at this point; I may update it at some point


RT @RomeoStevens76: "Waking up doesn't automatically make you a better person"

"Yeah, but, come on, my dude"

Figured out a way to crisp u…


The future is likely to have grand debate tournaments between AIs & judged by AIs to settle questions like “are AIs conscious?”

These AIs will scour the internet for writings, decompose them into assumptions, then reassemble them into full paradigms, ready to do battle (fun!) https://t.co/hRZelmlrZU

The future is likely to have grand debate tournaments between AIs & judged by AIs to settle questions like “are AIs conscious?”

These AIs will scour the internet for writings, decompose them into assumptions, then reassemble them into full paradigms, ready to do battle (fun!) https://x.com/aidan_mclau/status/1811092019852554312


@Hutcheson Consciousness research has a difficult experimental path to walk due to the coarse-graining & unknown reliability of qualia self-reports. I suspect AIs will have less self-report reliability than humans. This seems to push AI evaluation of research toward elegance considerations


@42irrationalist I’m bullish!

I think the most AI-useful approach is to offer modular hypotheses (ideally “diamond-perfect chunks of knowledge”) that can be evaluated a la carte, but combine well together

If consciousness has a solution, I expect items like STV to form the foundation


@__loofah PoV would be a good place to start; I’ve tweeted about this also but haven’t made a long thread


@WoohkaStylie I think clench-release is a better latch opener than just vasodilation https://t.co/hXzfrBBANU

@WoohkaStylie I think clench-release is a better latch opener than just vasodilation https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1807768016937218556


@WoohkaStylie Romeo has a tweet on this too


@nagle5000 Haven’t seen but will keep an eye out


@exgenesis @realpotofgreed @liminal_warmth I like the work of Ray Peat on the role of diet on metabolism — I hope to make a thread on it one of these days