i was thinking about dreams
mental dreams, like imagined worlds
because I awoke from one
and I couldn’t remember, at first, if the ideas were solid in this physical world
and
i don’t know about you
but in cases like that they tend to be negative dreams, and then I wake up and am like “wooo”
but there’s still a few seconds or minute or so where I’m recalibrating, you know?
and that’s quite illustrative of general life
in the sense of dreaming about things being important
and then “waking up” and realizing all that worry is just imagined
and what is imagined is the belief that you exist, that there’s a person there that can control things
more than a rock rolling down a hill, or leaf falling from a tree, can control things
and so
if we take a step back, and allow ourselves a true challenge
asking, “What am I?”
it quickly comes apart
because it becomes broader than an ape
than a body
it becomes something more
like the interaction of the body with the environment
then just all of the environment considered _as_ your body
then _all_ being your body, your mind
everything around you is thinking, that thinking is _you_
in other words, what you are is awareness itself, not an ape, not a body
and that’s so counter to Western philosophy
Western science
but who cares
because it makes more sense than thinking you’re just a body that dies
and so, though
the dream is that you exist
and there’s all these terrible things in life
all these hardships
and I’ve been through many, though it may not seem initially evident
and yet the thing that really broke the illusion, pierced the veil, as it were, was truly grokking natural will, how you are nature, and everything that body does is _exactly_ what should happen
which is
_very_ different from conventional thought
where if you fail at something, it’s your fault
but that makes no sense, scientifically or mathematically
because there’s no evidence that you’re a “thing” separate from the environment, that can make choices independent of the substrate
you’re a leaf falling from a tree
and everything that leaf does is exactly correct, exactly perfect, exactly what _should_ happen, is it not?
that’s what gave me peace
and it was quite dramatic
when I discovered natural will
and wrote essays on it, exploring the intersections of natural will and free will
that really gave me peace
because then not only was I seeing _myself_ as a falling leaf, I was also seeing _others_ as falling leaves
and if everything _I_ was doing was exactly what I should be doing, exactly correct, exactly perfect, then so was everything everyone _else_ was doing
which can be hard to swallow, if you want to blame murderers and robbers
but really you can legitimately defend against criminals in the same way as you can legitimately defend against other forces of nature, like earthquakes and tornadoes
and so building a prison and putting criminals there is just as legitimate as reinforcing a house, even if we look at criminals as not having any individual “choice” in becoming criminals
i.e., natural forces like earthquakes don’t have free will, and neither do natural forces like criminals
the whole point being that it comes around and when you wake up from the dream of existing, of being anything other than the total environment, of seeing the body as anything other than a leaf falling perfectly, you stop judging
you stop judging yourself as behaving “well” or “poorly”
because, as the _total_ environment, it makes no sense to say the leaf is behaving any other way but exactly how it should be behaving
and thus it comes about that all worry can dissolve
all desire to do anything else, to blame one’s self
fades, as it should
if you want to eat a cookie, eat the cookie and enjoy it.
if you eat it and feel bad about it, then all that’s happening is the mind is trapped, living in the future
let it all go
and that is against conventional views
but all evidence says the conventional views, with regard to this, are wrong
all evidence I’ve _ever_ seen, at least
and so, I say these things not to convince, nor to educate, inform, or entertain
merely to help myself find more peace
so take what is helpful and leave the rest
that’s what i always try to do
which is hard, sometimes, because there can be so many unhelpful ideas, and you corrupt your memory if you do not avoid them as much as possible
but slowly, perhaps surely, you develop the mental models to filter and withstand bigger, more complex, but nonetheless wrong, ideas.
and thus the second part emerges
which is tangential to what I perhaps did not make clear
in the sense of educating the next generation
because if you truly see yourself as the entire environment, it makes sense that you would want to propagate your good ideas, your good models, to another, younger pattern of awareness, another leaf that’s falling
yet at the same time, perhaps you have to do this in a respectful way, if you’re playing the long-game
because you want to provide a model that is sufficiently able to pass through the filters of the other leaf
and that can make _your_ model much slower and harder to integrate, but nonetheless I do tend to believe is it more effective to do it that way
ie, make your model more complex, but ultimately more useful for that other leaf, the leaf which wishes to understand your model
and ultimately that’s the criterion: does the other leaf want to play the long-game too?
because if not, then perhaps indeed there is no point to complecting your model
if the other leaf is playing the short-game, then, in that case, simplifying your model will be more effective, more helpful
but the degree to which you are simplifying is the degree to which your model, your mind, your memory, is being lost
like taking a picture and making it into a thumbnail so you can send it more quickly
when you enlarge the thumbnail, information is shown to have been lost
and that is not the only thing though
if you are choosing to _slowly_ send the image, then you likely need a way to error-correct with the other leaf
and by allowing for error-correction it can actually be useful to the sender, too, because it provides new insight into how the model is actually best structured
like teaching the other leaf an idea, but not the exact methods to bring the idea into the expanded form you have, because it actually would take _longer_ to impart the techniques you’ve accumulated than to guide the other leaf as it develops its own models using the available stimuli in its surrounding area
which can be hard for the other leaf, at first, because it’s having to generate new techniques, a lot of times from simple sketches provided by you
simultaneously, that error-correction mechanism, the feedback loop that’s necessary in order to transfer large amounts of information in a stable way, actually provides additional stimuli to you, _as well_
you’re giving a sketch, and then receiving back a painting, and checking how well the colors match yours, but many designs are new and surprising, which is wonderful
and so the leaves both grow, merging in their level of emergent complexity, able to think higher-order thoughts because they are thinking as 1
in other words, the system is more than the sum of its parts
the entire system reaches higher levels of _thought_
which is really quite beautiful
and the longer the game the leaves are playing the more it makes sense to mathematically think of them as 1 system, rather than as multiple leaves
when you stretch out time further and further, it seems to compress back into this very moment
perhaps “snap” is a better term, I am not yet sure
and that really is also quite beautiful
because it’s so tied with natural will
where everything you do is _exactly_ correct
and so if you want to eat the cookie, enjoy it
and those apes, those Animals, playing the short-game, will have thoughts of doubts
thoughts of existing
and this is the dream
the dream is that you are separate from the environment, that you are a person that can make choices that can be right or wrong
and by stepping outside of that illusion, that dream, suddenly you’re free
you are Awake, you have woken up
and still this is really quite unconventional
nonetheless all evidence I have seen points toward its accuracy
and then it comes down to manipulating the Dream
but there again, one has fallen asleep
for to believe you can manipulate the Dream is to believe there is a “thing” that can do the manipulating
when really all there seems to be, from what I have seen, is a natural process, an automatic process
and still, manipulating that process is fun and interesting, perhaps
even within the Dream, it still can _sometimes_ be fun to forget that you’re dreaming
just as it can _sometimes_ be fun to forget you’re watching a movie
but if the movie is scary or frustrating, it can _also_ be better to _remember_ you’re dreaming
and thus, perhaps it can be useful to set up loops that kick in when things get too bad
like writing a letter to your future-self, with the title on the envelope being “read if you are scared”
and thus your current Awakeness can wake up your future-self
in a way, this is lucid dreaming
in the sense that if you repeat over and over that you want to remember that you’re dreaming, eventually your brain will be dreaming and that thought will spark, and lucidity will emerge
I guess the other part is in realizing that there is only you, only the environment
and once you do that, you indeed can have more effectiveness as a process
ie, the environment can develop new processes and thus have higher-order complexity
just as a leaf can develop a system with another leaf, and become 1 system