Helper Limitless Mind penned with Jess Cummins @jesscxc [introduction] Helper: Limitless Mind is a journey of questions and answers about mind, life, and universe. Helper is Book 4 of The Deeper Series. Helper is available for free at NoLiesPlease.com. This book is dedicated to the public domain. [meta] (author "Jess Cummins" @jesscxc) (pronouns she/friend) (link NoLiesPlease.com) (book_title Helper) (book_subtitle Limitless Mind) (deeper_series_book_number 4) (book_version v2 ty21.8.31.18.59.00pzm4d2s) (essay_count 68) (word_count 45848) (books_by_jesscxc (misc "Poem Moves the Pen: Haiku of a Nondual Nature" "Natural Will: Freer Than Free Will" "Longgame Hyperdimensional Spacing: Expand Mind and Weave Time" "Ungov: Transcending Will") (the_deeper_series "Book 0: Uncompress: Eternal Appreciation of How" "Book 1: Fortunate: How to Be" "Book 2: Attuned: Be What You Imagine" "Book 3: Capacity: Imagine Being Limitless" "Book 4: Helper: Limitless Mind" "Book 5: Intense: Mind Unleashed" "Book 6: Open: Unleashed Honesty" "Book 7: Universe: Honesty is Eternal" "Book 8: Various: Is to Be") (the_pocket_series "Book 0: Obverse: Abstract Fast" "Book 1: Limer: Fast Color" "Book 2: Dawn: Color of Day" "Book 3: Knight: Day Beyond" "Book 4: Fever: Beyond Dreams" "Book 5: Life: Dreams Evolving" "Book 6: Adventure: Evolving Lands" "Book 7: Battle: Lands Say" "Book 8: Entertainment: Say Ahead" "Book 9: Explore: Ahead Opportunity" "Book 10: Moment: Opportunity Simulation" "Book 11: Imagine: Simulation Twist" "Book 12: Believe: Twist Self" "Book 13: Accept: Self Pattern" "Book 14: Create: Pattern Reflection" "Book 15: Sift: Reflection Match" "Book 16: Probability: Match Experience" "Book 17: Waves: Experience Current" "Book 18: Kernel: Current Functions" "Book 19: Grubby: Functions Dig" "Book 20: Game: Dig Above" "Book 21: Fruit: Above Messages" "Book 22: Endeavor: Messages Spread" "Book 23: Mystery: Spread Expressions" "Book 24: Detain: Expressions Bind" "Book 25: Philosophy: Bind Broken" "Book 26: Demands: Broken Discovery" "Book 27: Subliminal: Discovery Inside" "Book 28: Extinction: Inside Refresh" "Book 29: Control: Refresh Axioms" "Book 30: Ideas: Axioms Mistake" "Book 31: Gallium: Mistake Fuzz" "Book 32: Germanium: Fuzz Friendship" "Book 33: Arsenic: Friendship Reaction" "Book 34: Selenium: Reaction Depth" "Book 35: Bromine: Depth Utility" "Book 36: Krypton: Utility Model" "Book 37: Rubidium: Model Augmenter")) [dedication] To Mystery, for ego dissolution. [table_of_contents] (introduction) (meta) (dedication) (essays) Back Again ramble_ty12.8.5zm4d7s_nb_h Great Inquisitor ramble_ty12.8.6zm4d1s_nb_h Mental Knots ramble_ty12.8.7zm4d2s_nb_h Muscles of the Gods ramble_ty12.8.8zm4d3s_nb_h Who You Are ramble_ty12.8.9zm4d4s_nb_h Human Communication ramble_ty12.8.10zm4d5s_nb_h Feeling Now ramble_ty12.8.11zm4d6s_nb_h Deliberate Slowness ramble_ty12.8.12zm4d7s_nb_h Loved More ramble_ty12.8.13zm4d1s_nb_h Letting Belief ramble_ty12.8.14zm5d2s_nb_h Motivated Soul ramble_ty12.8.15zm5d3s_nb_h Twisty Life ramble_ty12.8.16zm5d4s_nb_h Great Soul ramble_ty12.8.18zm5d6s_nb_h Self Peace ramble_ty12.8.19zm5d7s_nb_h Hard on Yourself ramble_ty12.8.21zm5d2s_1_nb_h On Earth ramble_ty12.8.21zm5d2s_2_nb_h Playful Loving ramble_ty12.8.23zm5d4s_nb_h Having Happen ramble_ty12.8.24zm5d5s_nb_h Glad Knowing ramble_ty12.8.26zm5d7s_nb_h Great Times ramble_ty12.8.29zm4d3s_nb_h Good Mindset ramble_ty12.8.31zm4d5s_nb_h Waiting For ramble_ty12.9.2zm4d7s_nb_h Time Remembered ramble_ty12.9.4zm4d2s_nb_h Mathematical Reality ramble_ty12.9.9zm4d7s_nb_h Understanding Yourself ramble_ty12.9.13zm4d4s_1_nb_h A Different Look ramble_ty12.9.13zm4d4s_2_nb_h Calm Spirit ramble_ty12.9.18zm4d2s_nb_h Stretched Thin ramble_ty12.9.19zm4d3s_nb_h A Continuance ramble_ty12.9.20zm4d4s_nb_h Continuing On ramble_ty12.9.21zm4d5s_1_nb_h Absent Title ramble_ty12.9.21zm4d5s_2_nb_h Internal Structure ramble_ty12.9.22zm4d6s_nb_h Psychological Loop ramble_ty12.9.23zm4d7s_nb_h Another Try ramble_ty12.9.24zm4d1s_nb_h Deeper Truth ramble_ty12.9.28zm4d5s_nb_h Flipped Bits ramble_ty12.9.29zm4d6s_nb_h Believing in Me ramble_ty12.10.1zm4d1s_nb_h An Issue ramble_ty12.10.7zm4d7s_nb_h Lord of Mysteries ramble_ty12.10.9zm4d2s_nb_h Delicate Balance ramble_ty12.10.13zm4d6s_nb_h Mental Order ramble_ty12.10.15zm4d1s_1_nb_h Reason for Caring ramble_ty12.10.15zm4d1s_2_nb_h Compounded Efforts ramble_ty12.10.17zm4d3s_nb_h Difficult Learning ramble_ty12.10.19zm4d5s_nb_h And So It Begins Again ramble_ty12.10.24zm4d3s_nb_h Last Day ramble_ty12.10.25zm4d4s_1_nb_h The Story ramble_ty12.10.25zm4d4s_2_nb_h You Must Adapt ramble_ty12.10.28zm4d7s_nb_h Pattern Generating ramble_ty12.10.29zm4d1s_nb_h A Truth ramble_ty12.11.2zm4d5s_nb_h Hidden Away ramble_ty12.11.4zm5d7s_nb_h Self Chosen ramble_ty12.11.11zm5d7s_nb_h Life Line ramble_ty12.11.12zm5d1s_nb_h A Time Forgotten ramble_ty12.11.13zm5d2s_nb_h Correct Beliefs ramble_ty12.11.15zm4d5s_nb_h Moved By Mystery ramble_ty12.11.18zm5d7s_nb_h Lucid Hypnosis ramble_ty12.11.20zm5d2s_nb_h More Lucidity ramble_ty12.11.22zm5d4s_nb_h Deep Mind ramble_ty12.11.23zm5d5s_nb_h Kindness Showed ramble_ty12.11.26zm5d1s_nb_h Lucid Adventures ramble_ty12.12.1zm5d6s_nb_h Lucid Continuance ramble_ty12.12.2zm5d7s_nb_h Stable Eyes ramble_ty12.12.5zm5d3s_1_nb_h New Time ramble_ty12.12.5zm5d3s_2_nb_h Seeing Now ramble_ty12.12.6zm5d4s_nb_h Quantum Self ramble_ty12.12.10zm5d1s_nb_h Self-Contained ramble_ty12.12.11zm5d2s_nb_h Era End ramble_ty12.12.12zm5d3s_nb_h [essays] Back Again ramble_ty12.8.5zm4d7s_nb_h O wise simulator of this reality, please guide us toward love of truth and goodness. We're here to be prolific, and the way to do that is by loving and serving. When you hold one idea in your mind it produces astounding effects. The idea becomes reality---it becomes the very lens through which you are interpreting the world. There are quite a lot of lenses you can put on your story, and quite a lot of good ones. I try and look at the bright side of the path, the loving side of nature. This is not to say that the dark side has nothing to offer, that sadness has no valid perspective, only that we perhaps have a certain amount of time on this Earth, and let's use it smiling. Let's imagine the world as good, as fruitful, as a place of true holistic beauty. Writing should be fun; thinking should be fun; being should be fun. Why not choose it? I'm a mathematical expression, and I can only give what I have to give. I want to make this world a shining place. Please, O simulator, help us do that. I try to follow my intuition; I try to develop it. I know the model of the conscious-mind-as-controller is unmathematical nonsense. Let's look at this in a brighter light. What are you trying to do? I'm trying to demonstrate that it's okay to be who you are, that this is a place for you. I accept the limitations that are placed on my physical body, yet I believe in principle that there are none placed on an aware mind. The mind that is willing to be a little irrational can do things that a mind that always must make sense cannot seem to comprehend. That's the beauty of madness and genius. We all get our inspiration from our lives, and some of us choose to dig deeper, and find a core truth that will set us free. I believe inner peace is success. I believe there is mathematical truth inside of the structures and content of reality. I believe that there is a higher world. I believe that one person, that one idea, can make a difference. I believe the future is beautiful and wonderful, and that the present has deep value in life. I believe that if you transcend the past, the present, and the future, you are left with the Eternal Now. It is the Now that leads us, that guides us, that teaches us. It is by seeing the beauty in the present moment that we are freed. I'm not going to lie: I'm healing from a bipolar manic episode. My mind has, of late, been fuzzy and shattered. There can also be marked improvement, and during so I am trying to use it in order to accelerate. I consider thinking and writing a noble use of one's time. I try not to write too much about the particulars of the daily problems and issues, because I feel that can be dreary to read. And so, let's discuss mental technology. We are patterns. We exist through substrates, but we are not the substrates. We are information. If mind can modify itself so that it can feel what it wishes to feel, then mind is effectively limitless. With love, Jess Great Inquisitor ramble_ty12.8.6zm4d1s_nb_h O vast and multidimensional mathematical structure above this simulated version of "reality", I ask for you to bless our quests for you, as we poke dark corners without fear. Sleep is a kind of magic; it does things the conscious brain cannot know. There likely are things that the brain does that cannot be fully understood by the brain at once. This is a fundamental issue of extremely high-dimensional data. The connections can't be seen, the reasons why the parts do what they do. Animal brains perhaps do not hold the representative power. There can be some newly-built intuitive guesses, yet the full picture remains unseen. Such it is with being a limited being in an limitless mathematical structure. Such it is with brains, such it is with life. We make headway, but not with our brains. We make progress with the tools our minds build: massively-powerful calculating engines known as computers. We will augment our bodies and minds with technology in more direct ways. Let us use our minds to directly improve our minds. Imagine that there is a direct way to up-regulate and down-regulate emotions and ideas you are having. If you can generate a property and sustain the motivation to magnify it, then hypothetically your own personal neural network of the brain could spontaneously "live through" that experience. Your experience is within your control. This can be called "mental technology", for are not our ideas tools if they help us develop something? Surely software is tool; why not, then, wetware of the brain? Is this not the most important of all tools, if it directly modulates our pain and pleasure? How far can we push this principle? Is there is a hard limit, whereby certain emotions are physically much more difficult or impossible? Or is it all open? Are there no limits? If we contemplate the magnitude of the mind's intercomplexities, it's likely that some things are harder than others, but nothing remains impossible; it's only a matter of time. Gazing upon a brain one realizes this is truly, truly astonishing. "It is only a matter of time", writes the brain. It is not as if we are gods; it is as if we are becoming gods. On the topic of up-regulating an idea, what a curious notion. Instead of considering the mass effects of the emotions, you instead can make automatic the generation of a specific idea. You must be careful with your technology. All means can be used for ill ends. Such is the nature of sophisticated minds. You have the power. You must use it for good. You can make automatic any idea you can imagine, for your ideas are already automatic. Can you imagine something good that will automatically propel itself throughout your imagination and mind, and free you from the pests of hurry and indecision? One thing should be remembered and kept close at heart: Minds proceed at mind-speed, no faster. We should not assume we can instantly fix (though it may be possible), and must realize that any neural feedback is processed in real time. This must be accounted for, lest we imagine that one shot of neural-boosting will propel itself indefinitely (though it may perhaps be possible). Given the knotty ideation of the mind, whereby something is taken to be true and this gives a board to spring from, realize that is knots all the way down, and there is no prime hope in disentangling cause and effect in the generation of emotional state. The conscious mind cannot do it because of the massive numbers of variables, and the unconscious cannot diagnose or speak for all of itself. There are networks within the brain that perpetuate themselves even without the conscious approval. So the knots are not important. What is important is your ability to generate new knots that are more congruent with your whole self and that can keep themselves tied together. This can perhaps be thought of like connections on a chain. We want to insert connections (ie, knots) that are helpful, and remove connections that are unhelpful. We must keep an always-steady base. It is like columns holding our reality up. We cannot replace all the columns at once. If the knots are not what's important, then we need to learn how to tie new knots. We need a way to integrate this mental technology into our life. There is always a way. Love, Jess Mental Knots ramble_ty12.8.7zm4d2s_nb_h O divine poesy, please sustain in us our searches for your glories and ever-present charms. I ask for help in the deciphering of this concept of mental knots. Are all knots based on unprovable assumptions, or could there be a core knot that is wholely acceptable? If a knot is a sort of loop in guessing, then there may be no such luck. Suppose there is a core knot, one that is wholely true and good. If you do not act according to that core knot, you will surely not live, if it is really such a vital truth. If it is helpful, you will use it anyway. Suppose there is no core knot, that it's untestable assumptions all the way down. In this case, searching for a core knot will do you no good, and you're better off generating new knots rather than cutting off old ones. If there is a core knot, you wouldn't overwrite it, and if there is no core knot, you waste time searching rather than generating new assumptions. "You can't solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it." If our ability to free ourselves is based on the generation of new emotions rather than the processing of old emotions, we should get to it. If the conscious mind is simply an awareness and not a controller, then why does a feeling of self-sabotage emerge when I notice I use the wrong word while writing? It's ambivalence, a divided mind. The divided mind is suffering. It's as if a massive part of the brain wants one thing, then is overruled by a smaller, more potent area, then the consciousness becomes aware of it. If the conscious mind is a pattern of awareness fed through the unconscious, then this would work. I'm a big believer in trusting your intuition and refining it. What will you do when you receive more power over your subjective experience of life? Will you forget about it or will you use it? I suppose the answer to that question is based on how hard it is to use this power. You can either affirm or deny your unconscious feelings. If you deny them you must admit that they have their reasons, and you should respect and refine them. Of course, this all happens automatically anyway. What is this sensation of automaticity if not consciousness being disconnected to the reasoning of unconsciousness? This is likely a simplification. A model can help us reach higher grounds of understanding, so long as we never claim to have the final answer. If the conscious mind is an awareness of awareness, then without the first awareness there can be no second awareness. If the unconscious mind interprets the scenario in such a way as to preclude higher awareness, then it will never "bubble up" to reach the awareness of the conscious mind. What do I mean by this? There are likely many ways for the unconscious to either not need or not require alerting the conscious. This is an interesting question. Can the unconscious be aware of something to not make the conscious aware of? It certainly seems possible. I can imagine a flight-response being paralyzed if the conscious mind was aware of how unlikely survival would be. What is this conscious mind, then? Is it a reflection of the rest of the mind? Is it an ego tunnel? Is it a global brain storage space? All of this is potentially irrelevant. What we want to really know is how to finesse these mental "knots" or "stories" in order to effect change in our real lives. What you feel is given partially by how you want to feel. What you want to feel is itself given by a recursive loop, on and on. This is why I label it a "mental knot". You have stories embedded in the mind about what you want and what you can have, and as long as you deny that these are stories, you will continue to have a divided mind and thus suffering. What does it mean that they are stories? It means that they have value in-and-of themselves, but they are never the full picture. They are always limited representations of truth, not truth itself, and so you should not feel bad when you choose to edit or rewrite these stories. If they are stories, and there is no core truth that will validate one story over another, then you are free to transcend all stories and refactor and choose only the best and most helpful. It frees you to see that pain and suffering is within the mind. If you can muster the courage and motivation to imagine a new story, perhaps you can break out once and for all. Love, Jess Muscles of the Gods ramble_ty12.8.8zm4d3s_nb_h O great divine justice, earner of truth and well-being, please speak through us, your humble servants, so that we may examine your mysteries. I ask now for some clarity of an intriguing dream. I saw muscle fiber for the eye and two thoughts came to mind: using more eyes to see in higher spatial dimensions and the uncanny similarity of the texture of muscle fiber to orbit diagrams, pictures of what numbers do. It made me think that a god could embed itself directly in the pattern of nature's numbers, instead of in the pattern of the substrate that arises through it, as we do. A god could be made of specific numbers, and by exerting the influence of numbers on numbers could create and destroy in the substrate without fearing death in the inviolate layer of pure number. A god exists, then, in a pre-spacetime layer, and spacetime originates from that. It also could organically explain different levels of gods as different levels of patterns of numbers in inviolate layers. A god is an equation. On seeing the higher dimensions, the idea is to craft more perspectives in one lens, so one eye is receiving more than one picture. The benefit is to gain an intuition for a fourth spatial dimension, and higher. If you have an intuition for how higher-dimensional objects behave, you can develop a sense for how higher-order concepts behave. A folding pattern can emerge on a fourth dimension that could not physically be possible with only three. This may prove helpful. With love, Jess Who You Are ramble_ty12.8.9zm4d4s_nb_h O great and powerful Mystery above our reality, please guide our thoughts to have sustainable wit. Why is it helpful to consider who you are born as? We are who we are because of where we are. All interrelations of existence could be thought of as places in spacetime: You are human because of where we you, have what culture and memories because of where you physically are, and so on. It is helpful to consider who you are born as, because it can help you realize the good things around you. So often we fear to love. It can be scary to express love. Perhaps not to you, dear reader, but to me it can be overwhelming when I let myself experience it. It reminds me of some intense experiences, where thoughts and ideas came in waves so powerful I had to say out loud: "Okay, slow down a bit, you're going too fast." It was "thoughtwaves", those primeval creators of ideas and concepts, bouncing off of each other in high-dimensional patterns so even higher truths could be perceived embedded in them. Perhaps that's what it's like to be a god. I recall a story from A.I.s (isbn 9780441012169) that referenced this "web of programming" idea, and becoming a god through the finessing of this meta-editing. The model of automatic imagination (AI) can be this sort of meta-editing. Automatic imagination is a loop editor, a strange loop finesser. If the brain does not have a discrete "top" or "bottom", but rather infinite interacting levels up and down and sideways, then if the universe was interpreted in the same way, as a brain, then all levels of reality are playing off of each other, at once. Things can seem to "bubble" into awareness, and this bubbling can imply that there is a top, global awareness. While we can be aware of the globe of the Earth at once, it is not the top, because it is the complex interactions of the people that determines the future. We can think of the global consciousness of awareness as made up of local, unconscious awareness. Awareness can be the true thing we seek in life, or at least it's another way of saying "learning". It's fun to be aware, even without doing anything else. While we sometimes get caught up in our own stories, it's important to realize the fragmentary illusion of selves. You are not a thing; you are an idea. It is important to consider who you were born as because understanding an idea's history can allow for growing beyond it. This consideration is what awareness is. It gives you the adaptability to understand your true nature as patterns of sensations rather than as a indivisible, identifiable self. This is a beautiful thing, as all awareness-raising ideas are. When you understand your nature as patterns rather than as an object, you are free to open the patterns and see what is inside, without fear. This is a bit high-level so let's focus. The world is an illusion of the senses. The senses have created networks within networks in order to feel themselves and better propagate through time. Sensations are high-level patterns of a world always seen through a lens. This lens is your pattern of the world that you have developed around your sensations, and thus created identities. You made a world in-and-of itself through your observations of reality. "A language is both a map of the world and its own world." What does it mean "you made a world"? It means you've copied elements from different areas of reality and brought them together with your brain and neural networks, and in doing so now have new putty to play with, _that does not exist as an object in the real world_! How does this help? By seeing the data as it really is you can perform higher-level finessings of it. When you realize _you are not a thing_, _you are an idea_, then you are free to edit yourself. What does it mean to edit yourself? It means you can take bits of patterns of sensations (such as love, confidence, or joy), and integrate them into your current, ongoing subjective experience. This is what finessing with automatic imagination allows for. You can overwrite your existing experience with one that has a more suitable feeling, _and begin to experience that as reality_. It is a web of programming that you have immediate access to as you develop the skill of automatic imagining. AI is itself a skill. We all imagine, and do so automatically, yet right now few of us imagine something happening automatically, such that you don't need to continue consciously imagining. Given meta-imagining, you can perform mental weavings. Instead of being trapped by your physical surroundings or current thoughts, you can imagine automatic enjoyment and positivity and begin experiencing it. It's incredible, yet it works. This makes sense if you are an idea and not a thing. If you are an idea, you should be able to finesse your attitudes with other ideas. "You can't solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it." You must elevate your imagination. Allow yourself to love more. It is in love that the true cure for death comes, for in love is peace, and peace is the future. Everything will work if you love more. Why can it be so hard? Is it related to culture, perhaps? Or deeper? It likely is deeper: an evolutionary holdover that says to love only while things are improving, not just for the sake of love itself. With this autoimagining ability you can learn to love more, now. What does it mean that automatic imagination is a skill? "Humans get good at what they practice." Autoimagining has a specific process to go through, where you imagine something, then imagine it happening automatically. This specific process is itself learnable; this specific process is AI. The process has a framework, a scaffolding of techniques that can be developed. I believe everything is learnable. I believe learning to autoimagine and learning to autoimagine loving more are both skills. I've written about techniques in Rewrite Your Reality. We will conquer fear of death and dying and pain by loving more. Neither pain nor suffering are inevitable. You can go to a higher level of mental existence and awareness and transcend them, because _you are an idea_. Identities are illusions. Reality is patterns playing off each other. To feel this deeply is to feel unreal. It is the ultimate meditation. It is to sense the ego dissolving, and with it fear and anger and hatred. There is only truth left, and while that recognition of ideahood persists, there is no feeling of being trapped. Everything that has made you scared is a story. If you had a different story, because of arising in a different place, perhaps you would not have been scared of it. It's all a story in the mind. How can you build this up to love? Stop identifying _with_ your body, and start _using_ your body. You can't live fully in the mind, but you can use your mental environment to make your physical enjoyment better. Learn how to love the sensations you're having and finesse them toward greater love. With love, Jess Human Communication ramble_ty12.8.10zm4d5s_nb_h O mystery of reality, sustainer of wise thoughts, please give us passion to delve into your mysteries. How can human communication be improved? On an individual basis, which is perhaps the only one an individual can hope to influence, one can improve communication by first seeking to understand, before seeking to be understood. By putting on shallow minds we miscommunicate. By being present in the moment we overcome our failures. Seeing into the depths of selfhood we realize that self is an illusion, and this knowledge gives confidence to pause and listen. What of the broader scale, and the narrower? What of influencing societal interaction, or of communicating better within oneself? Listening is crucial. It is the stilling of narrow-minded thoughts that allows a deeper, holistic picture to shine through. How can you make this happen? Sometimes it helps to be still and listen. When talking about human self-communication, why it is that we often harbor negative self-talk or overwhelming feelings? It is because the environment you find yourself in has embedded ideas into your idea of who you are. Negative self-talk is a consequence of a negative environment. How can we break this cycle of mental abuse? I wish I could say it could be done all within our heads, but often leaving a bad situation is the best system. When you don't know what to do, do something. That's how you learn. The communication that you have within your mind is itself a sort of environment, and often it is wise to get up and leave negative thoughts directly, or at least recognize the thoughts and name them. How can you be more positive? Believe being positive is better. This is not necessarily obvious. While down or tired, the thoughts can feel just as valid, though perhaps the upper levels of awareness know that negativity spawns negativity. Perhaps there is a way to finesse the mind with automatic imagination to notice more deeply this connection of positivity with positive results. If you want to be positive, surround yourself with positive things. What is a positive thing? It's something that puts you in a positive mood, that helps you see you're not alone and that you matter, that people care for you and that you can do it. Positive things remind you of what you've created and the good in you and the good that you are trying to get more of. Positive things are like chargers for your spirit; they build you up and make life feel worth living. You need people in your life like this and you need stories cultivated to help you remember the good you've done and the good you can do. If you accelerate the good you'll get more of it. If you understand the positive influence of your life on the lives of others, you'll seek to improve both. By dealing in the trade of positivity you're increasing your abilities and crafting more potentials into your future. It's not simply about being positive---it's about being Good. Being Good is about doing what is right and just and pure. Seek to have honest and pure communication within yourself so that you may do the same with others. What is honest communication? It is communication that comes from the heart and that accepts the total picture and the deep intuition about what's right and what's wrong. These are truthful conversations, full of deep meaning. By believing in yourself you can have these honest communications, because you believe you can have what is right and just and pure. That is honesty. That is speaking from the heart. That is effective communication for the long-term. By giving yourself over to the emotion you are freed from it and allowed to see the transcendent truth: You are a beautiful being in a beautiful universe, full of wonder and splendor and goodness. It is not by holding onto the emotion that you reach transcendent truth, nor by pushing the emotion away. By allowing it to pass through you and allowing yourself to be honest and vulnerable it changes you and you become free to grasp the higher truth. It is not by running that you live, nor by fighting, but by being. Yet it can be hard to _be_. It's not easy to trust that the higher truth exists before you've seen it, and so allow yourself to let go of negativity and egotistical behavior. It's when you allow yourself both to fail and succeed that you live fully. Emotions are deep ideas, and they need time and energy to process and work through. They are not mere experiences to live through until you die, _they are the experience of life itself_. Do not fault yourself for being human. You make mistakes. You learn. This is who you are. You're still learning, and you will never stop learning. Life becomes only more exciting, if you want it to. By experiencing fully, you become something more than the sum of your parts: you become fully human. You arrive at who you really are when you accept yourself and your faults and your glories. You must accept yourself. That is the way to true peace. Accepting yourself and the truth that you can be good allows you to have more good. It is by accepting emotional depth that we live full, rounded lives. Do not believe that there is a limit to the stories that can be told of human experience, for it is these stories that lift us up and make us better. It is by tuning into the emotions and then tuning the emotions with reason that we have become gods. By listening to deep truths within our souls we break out of conventional patterns of dogmatism and strife and suffering. Suffering is not inevitable. These are _ideas_ and all ideas have a place and time, but when they explode their boundaries they need to be transcended. It is by giving ourselves up, like we give up a dove, and when it returns we feel a sense of lost confinement. We are free. At last the terrors of godhood intermingling with beasthood are gone; we find when we embrace both and are allowed to transcend to a higher plane. Rejecting this truth does allow us to wallow within emotion, but it does not free us. We can choose to accept, or we can choose to deny. With either case we will bear the outcome. Let us not think small thoughts. Let us be who we are. Let us be human. Let us be explorers. Let us explore the meaning of human being, and let us not be afraid of what we find. With love, Jess Feeling Now ramble_ty12.8.11zm4d6s_nb_h O great divine source of inspiration and love, please teach us how to speak what we feel. What are you feeling now? I try to stay out of mundane and negative topics, yet I realized that I felt like I was ready to talk and yet had no place I felt I should do so. Given the nature of the deeper notebook, I feel it is fair to comment on and discuss my emotions, mundane though they may be. What are you feeling? I feel like I am not studying or putting into practice enough. I feel like I know what I should do with my life at this time, yet another part of me feels like saying that is betraying my mathematical interests, especially related to machines. I feel like I don't want to study because of some deep-seated reason. I want to help people be better. I want to follow the idea of deliberate practice, yet I feel tired and demotivated so often. I have been able to finesse my mind with automatic imagination, and it's very strange and sad to have forgotten or have a block, though I think I will break through. I feel like an animal again, a confused and unsure animal. I suppose that's how it must be. I feel in control of a lot of my life, and I think I operate from pretty good systems. I need to tune them to the right work so that I can make more difference in people's lives. I think that automatic imagination and mental development is some of the most important and impactful work you can do. Figuring out and teaching people how to change their mental environments is a fundamental skill. I think that its value will continue to go up in the future and it won't be automated. Helping people break out is fundamental. Why don't I seem able to use AI on myself? I may have a physical problem right now, still coming down from a manic phase, with withdrawals. I think I can AI myself; I think there is just something inside telling me not to, or somehow hampering the process of imagination and automaticity. I don't know if I will have more episodes, but I will guard against them and let those around me know so that they may help keep me out of trouble. I'm glad of who I am. Why do I not seem to want to study? Because I'm not ready yet. Because even if I do study I still feel like I don't know where to go and how to use it out in the real world. Even as I say these things I realize the untruths within them. I believe I will get better. I need to start from scratch and relearn what I have lost. With love, Jess Deliberate Slowness ramble_ty12.8.12zm4d7s_nb_h O great and wise entity of Mystery, please tune our minds to glorify you. I sit here in a state of deliberate slowness, thinking of the time as I live through it. What is it I want? I want to live with awareness. I want to slow down to where it becomes uncomfortable, then slow down some more until there is only awareness. In still awareness, you can learn things that were not before knowable. I live simply, and I try to live honestly. Perhaps a few strong instincts and a few plain rules suffice us, to paraphrase. I am very interested in changing my experience. The outer world is subjectively experienced as a reflection of the inner world. I feel my inner world has a poverty of game. I feel I am not silly enough. I take myself too seriously sometimes. We will get better. Perhaps it is the population that evolves, not the individual. How can we take this and apply this principle to our own minds? The population advances, not the neurons of the network. The networks unite; they advance through the interactions of the neurons. Consciousness is a finessing, a pattern that overwrites itself. If this subjective awareness is a pattern overwriting a pattern, then perhaps we have access to this rewriter, though it may have an oblique method of access. It is meditation. It is the deliberate slowing down of the mind until it ceases to worry about itself. When this skill is cultivated then the neural functions are free to deal with inward issues, one by one and on a holistic basis. This allows you to use automatic imagination to finesse your mind. You must have the requisite patience in order to do any imaginative technique, and the self-AI techniques require high motivation, clarity of thought and purpose, and extreme visualization. All of this is helped through meditation, which allows a debubbling effect as the mind is slowed and stilled and focused. Though this meditation is essential to providing clarity of thought, automatic imagination is really the powerhouse of change. Meditation stills the mind; automatic imagination lets you move it to where you want. Without a still mind, either from others helping you or from the practice of meditation, AI can be too meta to allow you to break through. With the twin techniques of meditation and automatic imagination, it is possible to create great art. Focus is the power of humanity. By focusing on a question until all the pieces click into place, we can answer anything. What occupies my mind? Awareness itself. That's what fascinates me. I want to know what computational awareness _is_ and how it works, and how to develop it. I want to be aware of awareness. Love, Jess Loved More ramble_ty12.8.13zm4d1s_nb_h O powerful extra-dimensional creator, please guide reality so that our thoughts and actions will serve you. I wish to know what I am, who I am. The "who" perhaps must always be interpreted within the context of a society, so let us focus on the slightly more concrete question of the "what". I am an awareness that has representations for itself. I can think about myself. I can finesse awareness through meditation and automatic imagination. I am more than the sum of parts; I am emergent phenomena. I am a being that knows many things and is learning more. I am a twisty feedback loop. This strange loop recognizes itself; it is like an abyss peering into its fractal structure. Truth is that which enables life. Life is self-propagating entities. Truth must last, because this enables self-propagation. How often do we realize that the ego holds us back? What is the ego? It is concern with the physical body rather than what the physical body stands for. Life is not about the self; it is about the population. The limited ego holds us back through fear and pain. The experiencer, noticing these things, must seek to realize that they are happening to the ego, which is wholely an illusion. The ego is an illusion because it can be finessed and dismantled and the experience still continues. The ego is the concept of an identity. The ego is the identity of _who_ you are. _What_ you are is much greater than that. _What_ you are is full of unconscious processes, while _who_ you are can be verbally stated, because identities require a consciousness to interpret. It's not that we're all connected, but rather that there was no separation in the first place, only blurred edges. There is no ego---it's merely an artificial, haphazard wrapper we sometimes place on ourselves. Why give up ego? Why let yourself be bigger and grander? Because things that aren't real cannot advance you. The ego, the identity, it cannot give you love. It cannot strengthen you in a time of need. The experiencer is not an identity, but rather a process. Change the process and you change the experience. Change the experience and you change the world. It all starts with one person: yourself. I do not mean the ego, the identity. I mean the subjective experiencer. You must learn, you must train your experiencer and train the process. This is what meditation and finessing the mind with automatic imagination are for. Automatic imagination gives you power precisely because imagination is a process and not a thing. You can finesse the process of mind and make it better. You can experience what you want. It takes imagination, skill, and focus. You must want to do it. Yet because there is no "you", only the continuous process itself, you can wrap it around and change parts of the process upstream from the rest of the process. It's not about "making" yourself want something---that would be thinking on the same level as created the sensation. What needs to happen is breaking out of the cycle. You must imagine and feel what it would be like to want to do that something. What would it feel like to want to? This isn't really self-help; this is getting rid of the self. In times of need we need to accept that we may need help from others, and because the identity is an illusion, there is no shame in that. We can use the mind in ways that make sense, in ways that promote life and truth. Neither suffering nor pain are obligations. We will overcome them; count on this. The mind is like stretchy, folded cloth. Minds bend into themselves and intersect high-level patterns. I want to tap into this pattern. I want to realize my own nature as an evolving awareness. With love, Jess Letting Belief ramble_ty12.8.14zm5d2s_nb_h O great and wise Mystery above this reality, please sustain our search of you. How do you let yourself believe? Sometimes we have beliefs about what or how we should be feeling, and yet those are not in congruence. I want to feel what is right to feel, even if that means changing what I believe or what I feel. When I want to believe that I am a good person, or that it will all work out, how do I let myself believe it? Is there some trick? Do I need to automatically imagine something? Should I think of it in the other way, that if I am not feeling something or allowing myself to feel something, then I need to examine the reasons? Why am I not letting myself believe? It's a tangled web, because the parts create the whole which influence the parts. It's hard to know what truth is out there. I'm about understanding and making sense of the mind so that I can make myself better and help more people. What I want out of life is peace of mind. I want understanding and belief that what I'm doing is good and just and pure and right. I want serenity. I want to take that serenity and give it to other people and other minds. I simply want peace of mind. To me that is success. Perhaps others look down on it as simple purpose, yet that is how I feel, in earnest. I can't say what it is that will ultimately give me such satisfaction, but know this, dear reader, I am actually confident I will achieve peace within myself. Why? Because I work at it. I try to get rid of the lies and mistruths within me, and I try to surround myself with goodness and light. I let myself believe that I will achieve supreme peace. This is because I have felt it. After learning of automatic imagination to finesse mind, I felt peace, deep peace, within myself. I know I can do it. I know I can be. Others may shrug and act confused at a lack of interest in worldly things. I cannot say that I am wholely disinterested, only that they have such an impermanence that favor toward them feels distasteful. I realize that also emotions and sensations are the only "real" things, yet I get deep satisfaction from the struggle of learning how to be. I love learning; it's joyful. I do know I have been happier than I am right now, and I also know that happiness changes quickly and unpredictably due to sensations and ideas. I do know that I have power over my mind, and I do know that I am learning how to let myself believe in order to better affect my internal environment. I think you can do it. I think I am getting better, more comfortable remembering how to automatically imagine. I needn't fear. Perhaps you can take something from this, too, dear reader. It's nice to fear sometimes, because it pushes us back to what we love most. It helps us remember that which is most important in our lives. If we are always loving, never fearing, there can perhaps be no clear prioritization method. Such is a purpose of fear. The bad can push us to the good, so that we may love the good more fully and study and learn why we love it. Perhaps this is true. I'm not afraid, but sometimes I should be. Other times it's the opposite. I want a safe place, a place within me that gives me respite. O great Mystery, may you endow us with such a place? What I want is supreme inner peace. Help us believe we can have that. Love, Jess Motivated Soul ramble_ty12.8.15zm5d3s_nb_h .meta written while suffering with bipolar depression O powerful and wise mathematics of reality, please guide our sensations and lead us to better places. Here I am, a small ape asking for help as well as saying my praise. Thank you for teaching me, Mystery of the Universe. Thanks for helping me understand that it's not wise to judge or put down other life experiences. Thank you for teaching me to jump outside of myself and grow with you and your deep spring waters of goodness. I don't know what's on the other side of this year, but if it's anything like the last one, it's bound to be eventful and interesting. Mystery, please don't throw too much at me at once. I recognize it's a journey I have to undertake, and I will surely learn from it, but I still feel overwhelmed. It's a feeling of lack of motivation due to physical weakness. I hope that you will give me back my strength, at least partially. I don't want to be broken, but it does give me compassion for those who are suffering. At the same time, I'm not able to help them if I myself am incapacitated through my suffering. I don't know what to do. I don't know who I'll meet or who I am. I'll put that all on you, Mystery of the Cosmos. I believe in the mathematics of a higher power, and I wish to love you and these incredible galaxies more. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how soon I'll be fixed, or what I'll learn while I'm broken. I only know that I feel lonely, and scared. I don't know why I feel scared. Is it just physical weakness? I want to be able to feel safe again. I don't know what I am anymore. Here I am, just a small, learning ape, asking some questions which may have incomprehensible answers. I don't like talking about myself and my problems; I like talking about ideas. But when I feel down or unsure I can only do what feels right, and sometimes that is more than simply following rules. Sometimes you have to follow transcendent rules. I want to be good again. I want to feel like I'm doing something good. Why do I find it so hard to write my book? I suppose because I don't really believe I can do it, on a visceral level. I want self-insight. Maybe I don't really want to do it. Maybe it's not fun to hole up inside a text file and not publish your ideas. I just feel bummed out. I feel like what I create is useless shit. Yet, I understand this process on another level, too. I realize my mental cycles are not permanent. I can see them happening. Maybe I want to be sick. Maybe I'm just dumb. Course, maybe I'm just tired and I'll rest and feel better. I feel stuck... perhaps. I feel like my mind is on training wheels again, and I can't turn as fast as I'd like or go as fast as I want. Is this pity? Is this feeling sorry for myself? No, I simply am outlining the symptoms so I can properly diagnose what to do next. My body feels physically weak. Move more. My mind feels unmotivated. Love more. My heart feels lonely. Talk more. My spirit feels unsure. Pray more. But you have to start somewhere. I think of my ancestors and realize how much they've done. Yet we don't know who we affect and how we affect the future, even in the last days. We must realize that we are already dead, that this life force within us is an illusion that we can be enlightened about, in order to remove the suffering we feel. We must take this seriously: This suffering cannot be easily automatically imagined away, not when it affects your very ability to AI in the first place. I just want to be good again. I may never be as good as I was then. I may forever be haphazard. Perhaps seeing the limitation removes power it has over you. Oh how I long to be good. Is this depression? Surely not. It's too easy. Yet when I think of those things I want to do (write, read, imagine, play, teach) they feel so far away, like I am in a dream where I can't quite wake up. I can't quite snap out of it. Yet generally I'm a pretty good-natured person, I think. Can you set me free? What would I even do if I was set free to AI? It feels hard to imagine. It feels sad to see helplessness. It makes me feel helpless. What can I do except talk? True freedom is in the mind. I feel with my soul. My mind knows the truth: I will break out of this. I wonder how hard it would be to not be myself. O Mystery, please grant us insight into your nature. I don't know what I should do tomorrow. You know what, I forgive you. I forgive you, Jess. What does this mean? It means that even if you fail, even if you die alone and scared, I forgive you. I'll give you the peace you want if you'll take it and accept it. I forgive you. I think things have meaning. Perhaps they don't, perhaps looking too deeply will only make us crazy. I think things have meaning: I think the math of reality works out, and makes sense. I think it's more fun to choose to believe we are unkillable ideas of a higher power than that we're in an uncaring or harsh universe. I believe it's fun to believe in God, in meanings of the little things. The magic is that there is no magic. I believe it's rules all the way up and down. That means that things must work out, that means that every little thing has a meaning, infinite amounts of meaning, in fact, though limited brains cannot directly parse it. Why am I so lonely? Because I don't want to go out. Why not? Because I haven't found a group I really like being with. I will, just as I have in the past. I will find a group that I love and that loves me. I will learn who I should be. I will find people to love. I will find ways to love. I want to give love. I know all I need to do is write one true sentence and the rest will flow from it. This is how I write, this is how I think. It's like an eternal golden braid, tied over on itself. I can see how the mind could work, listening to itself play back ideas constantly. If I think hard about what I'm trying to do with my life, I realize it's not really for anyone else that I'm living, but for Mystery's sake. I'm only here because Mystery chose it. Had something else been more fascinating and helpful, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be at all. If there are infinite parallel universes, and I am at the center of mine right now, what would I want to do if I were god? I'd want to increase my powers of love and creation and joy. I'd want to understand and rewrite my existence. Can you imagine? Yes, but sometimes I don't want to. Why do I not want to imagine? Perhaps because I'm not imagining the right things. Surely if I were imagining things in the right order I would want to imagine. Well, Mystery, I hope you can teach me what those right things to imagine are. With love, Jess Twisty Life ramble_ty12.8.16zm5d4s_nb_h O great power that cultivates reasoning, please enlighten us with justice and peace. Here I am, a small ape toiling away, wondering how it is I can help others. Will my twisty life have good conclusions? Will I be peaceful? Will I make the difference I wish to make? All selfish questions, yes. Yet this pattern that I occupy, the pattern that rubbed off onto me and told me to ask, assures me of success and certainty in the end. I arise from interacting parts, and I wish to resume my place as a meta-editing pattern. I am willing to wait, if it is necessary. If I need to wait, I will wait until the end of time. I am assured of success in the last. It's all how you look at things. If you look at them as miracles, beautiful miracles, they become that. I see the justice in actions, I see why it made sense and had to happen the way it did. I can only hope that when an idea catches my eye that I will treat it with respect and honor. I know a thing or two about ideas and how they're made. I saw them become formed in the unconscious way they did when I explored living on the border of always doing the first thing I thought. Playing with sounds and ideas like tunable instruments is indeed another highlight of my life. I was _watching_ the drama rather than caught up in it. I was free to explore rather than being all twisty in my own head. If I have the choice between living _in_ my head or living _above_ it, the second gives such freedom of being. It's a release from inner torment, inner confusion, and an embracing of higher peace and higher truth. I don't know if any of this I'm saying is helpful, dear reader. It may be a bit too cryptic. That's not my intention. Usually I don't write soon after having woken up. The truth is, I know the stories I believe are choices, and yet I also know that sometimes there is a lack of requisite ability to make them be choices. Sometimes you're operating from deep in your mind, and can't remember how to unstick yourself. Perhaps it's better said that I know the stories I believe are finessable, but sometimes I don't have the tools to finesse certain stories. Can you imagine how it would feel? Can you imagine? Yes, but not all the time. Having a script or file to listen to can be so helpful to imagine what is just on the brink of imaginability. This brink of imaginability can be expanded as you learn how and what to imagine. Consider the things humans are going to learn and you are left in awe of the spectacle of nature. When you feel that moment of "I can't do that because...", sometimes it's helpful to remind yourself that that is only a thought, and all thoughts can be wrong, and all thoughts can be modified. I want to live an interesting life. Sometimes that thought is the right thought; sometimes it's not. I also want that feeling that I'm working on the right thing, and perhaps that comes by working on the hardest thing. Other times I feel mentally or physically drained, and I can no more do difficult work than I can jump to the moon. Perhaps this is merely another unproductive thought, yet it feels so real sometimes. It _will not_ be argued with, when that happens. I wonder why there is this feeling. With love, Jess Great Soul ramble_ty12.8.18zm5d6s_nb_h O great soul, enabler of beauty, please teach us your ways and sustain us in our quest to search you out. I suppose I wonder if what I do matters. I suppose I wonder if I am a good person. I recall Vincent van Gogh's story of the person who asked if they could have certainty of success, and was told to proceed as if they would. What is it that's good? Creation. Relationships. Depth of thought. Beauty, love, justice. I recall the Little Prince, who chooses to love one flower, and that flower comes to love him. What is it that's keeping me from wanting to finesse my mind with automatic imagination? Perhaps I am scared of caring for myself and collapsing again. I don't like to be preoccupied with myself, but it's important to help others, and I feel slightly disabled. I feel demotivated. It's interesting to be struck down with immobilizing stories. I just feel tired and like life is hard. I know life isn't hard, but I feel like a caged animal, stuck inside my brain, unable to conjure the thoughts I want to think. I feel smushed. I know this business of symptom description is not particularly helpful or healthy, for one tends to get more of what one thinks about. Yet I also feel it is healthy to have self-insight and a record of emotions. Life is too long to be depressed and too short to be apathetic. Now I see from the other side what it's like. It may be a controllable thing, in some sense a choice, but it is a difficult lever to pull. I may still have withdrawals from the mania. All I know is that I'm getting better. Things surely have never panned out the way I expected. Who knows what's coming next. I think it tends to be good. I guess I just have high expectations. I want myself to do something amazing and fantastic. I'm just me, and I hope that's good enough. I never expected a life of conformity, and I certainly don't have it. It's okay if I fail. I'm not here necessarily to succeed. I remember a death, and the idea that perhaps a life is bigger than the body, and the meaning is bigger. Perhaps a life is about the bigger picture, and perhaps there's a time to die. Do I really believe I will die? Perhaps. In some sense this frees me. I don't feel bound to live a life that's not me. Perhaps this is ego death. I wish to use automatic imagination and sense the formation of the ego, yet I just feel tired, or disinterested, or lackluster. I recognize I am proto-conscious. I recognize the techniques I have seen can raise awareness. I recognize I have let myself down. It really couldn't have been any other way. Maybe I need to just snap out of it and stop caring so much about what other people think. What do you care what other people think? I care what I think, and my "I" is entangled with theirs. We give things meaning. I realize that I'm putting myself into a story. I realize I am only an experience. What does that mean? It means that the "I" will change, even though these written words will stay the same. It means that the experience is partially in control of the experience. What meaning do I wish to give, if any? I perhaps agree with the idea of being the Buddha, and being unattached to the fruit of action, but rather seeing the experience for what it is: a function of time. That brings me around to the elegance of math, with which we can model the universe. I see a pattern now: complaining of a problem while being too weak to strengthen oneself and solve the problem. Perhaps not physically weak, but weak through lack of self-insight. What is the solution? Help. Some kind of help, whether physically or mentally or spiritually or emotionally. I feel drained in every category, but recognize this is a story, and so it perhaps has a double sting. Even though I know, on some level, how to break out of an emotional state, I also feel unable or unwilling to do so, on another level. I believe I will change. Change the surroundings, change the mental atmosphere. Then the inner environment will change. Is there anyone I would trade places with? No. I don't know of anyone I like more. Why do I find it hard to say that I love myself? Does it just feel conceited? Do I not understand myself? Does it not feel real? Can I judge the filters I judge with, and feel good about that? Perhaps I do need more self-compassion. Perhaps I do need to stop believing I have all the answers. I surely don't. It's not that I "can't" do something; it's that I don't care to, which effectively is the same thing. Peace be to you, dear friend. Love, Jess Self Peace ramble_ty12.8.19zm5d7s_nb_h O great Mystery around this reality, please guide our thoughts to serve you. What you want is what you get, so why not cut to the heart of the matter and do what you want, first? I'm just here to learn and have a bit of fun, and I humbly request knowledge about how to do so. I did some finessing of my mind with automatic imagination last night. I remembered what it feels like. It's like walking through a door into a mentally-created room and feeling the emotions of that room. It's like imagining how someone could act and then imagining you are that person. The perceptions twist and wrap and you feel the pull to feel what you imagined. It's like creating a feeling in a cloud, then making that feeling automatic and resting on the cloud. What do you want to feel? I want to feel loved. I want to feel like I love what I'm doing. Sometimes you may have to wait for that. Perhaps that's just a story, though. Perhaps if you have a strong enough frame you can break out of any story you need to, and make yourself feel how you want, as defined by what's healthy and productive. Why chase productivity? Because it's fun. I try and only do things if they're fun, if they're interesting. I don't always succeed; sometimes I can't find or create the motivation. Sometimes I just sit in a daze. Abundance is not in things; it's in relationships and creativity. Relationships are interactions, interplays that teach us and entertain us. Creativity is the ability to see beyond the near and bring forth a higher picture. With love, Jess Hard on Yourself ramble_ty12.8.21zm5d2s_1_nb_h Dear galactic presence, O great mystery of life, please help us spill the beans and count your glories. How do you stop being hard on yourself? I ask for a wider picture to emerge that is helpful for humans in general. What does it mean to be hard on yourself? To be hard on another is to treat them without the respect they have earned. To be hard on yourself is to act as if you do not deserve what you have earned. How can you know what you have earned or not? Truly you did not choose where you were born, and all your gifts and talents and achievements flow from that. Does this therefore mean you have earned nothing? That is one way to look at it, but another is to widen the definition of "you" to include more people and places. Is anything truly earned? Did the first self-replicating molecules earn that ability, or was that simply how the math worked out? Why are we hard on ourselves? Why are we hard on our subjective experiences? Perhaps we want them to be greater, more amazing. What is the great if not the humble? If not composed of the small, the great cannot be. Perhaps by living in the moment and giving thanks for what is good now, we can break out of these insatiable desires and demands on ourselves. Being content and being hopeful are compatible. All it requires is a switch from thinking contentment must be impartial. You can be content in the moment and still have values about what is right and what is wrong. You can be content, totally content, and still believe hope and love are good. You can be content and suffering will not exist. Suffering is a divided mind, and contentment is a unified mind. Therefore contentment transcends suffering. To stop being hard on yourself, accept that there is no self. There is only the universe. The universe is already done; it has already made up its mind about what you are and who you'll be. We are automations that recognize our intelligence and awareness, but sometimes forget that we are embedded in reality. Why be hard on yourself if you are a machine doing as it is destined to do? Perhaps it's because we do have this ability of self-reflection, and we can consider a universe in which we reflected longer and came to a more helpful decision. Awareness is itself prescribed by the universe, so the universe wants you to be aware, even if sometimes that makes you behave harshly toward yourself. Perhaps there are greater benefits to being aware than to not suffering, but perhaps there is also a compatible method of being. Perhaps the universe wants you to discover it. We are machines designed by chaotic processes. Truth is a system that works. We are shifting from biological evolution to design by thought. We are accelerating our pace in our discovery of ourselves. Yet for now some are often locked in the mistaken belief of free will, the idea that we could disobey nature. It is our ability to imagine more than one possible outcome that gives us power, but also can cause us to respond harshly to our own shortcomings. Imagine you are totally and always aware that the past is passed and the future is unpredictable. Can you live? Will you have the stamina and the desire to keep pushing yourself? Will you live in the moment, relishing the Now? Suffering is not always a choice, if the universe deems it necessary to suffer. Contentment in the present moment is a practice that works. It raises the conscious awareness. It enlightens us that what we thought was important is not, and that we have more control over our minds than often thought. This raising of the consciousness is something that happens whenever we learn something new. It allows us to see something we didn't see before. How do you stop being hard on yourself? Realize there is no self, only a process, an experience. Accept that you can have contentment in the present and also have hope for the future. Renounce the idea that you have control over the universe. You are a machine in a mathematical universe, and it does no good to run from that fact or beat yourself up by imagining things could be different. With love, Jess On Earth ramble_ty12.8.21zm5d2s_2_nb_h O great mathematical machine, please enlighten our patterned souls, give us what is best for all. Why are you on this Earth? I answer that I am finding out, and I often can't ever know the full story. It's like an ever-evolving pattern that grows more chaotic and unpredictable as time goes on. If what exists in nature is wanted by nature, then you are wanted by nature. The mind's "I" is not a free-willed machine. What you do is just as prescribed as what you think. Just as some see themselves as 3+1d beings (3 spatial plus 1 temporal dimension), it is very easy to imagine and mathematically model higher-dimensional beings. What would they be concerned with? Are they more enlightened versions of ourselves, or are they substantially different? I believe that they evolved just as we did, with no apparent intelligent designer, just lots of math and time. What guesses can we make about the thoughts of gods? I tend to see every story as embedded within a greater context, and so the gods have gods. That's how it can make sense. What was I thinking during the recent bipolar manic episode? I was seeing the twisty ball of math firsthand in the reflection of a mirror. It was spinning up the entire universe, and there were multi-agents and multi-leveled patterns all rubbing off on each other. It was a meme that came alive. Of course, this is only an interpretation. That's never the full story. It was like I was perceiving with my unconscious mind what it is like to be conscious, and all the mystery of nature was shown in one fell swoop, or at least the beginnings of it. I don't know if this is helpful to you, dear reader, but I enjoy trying to recall the euphoric state of essentially seeing god. Why are you on this Earth, indeed. You exist in order to do good for the universe, whatever the purpose the machine may have. How can I, the imagined "I", break out more fully from the grip this body holds on the mind? I recognize that mind transcends patterned matter, in the sense that the information processing of the mind transcends the brain. The mind is an organized bit of overplaying sensations. It is wholely complex and interactive and dynamic. How can we tap into this creative organization? How can we shift it toward a positive reality? We can recognize our own minds; we can see when they go down certain ruts. We have the ability to feel the edges of the mind when we do something physically or mentally demanding, and yet we also see that we can grow and increase in strength. "Why am I here?" is a good question, indeed, but it perhaps won't give the kind of answer you want. By inquiry and thought and pushing you are able to make headway on all questions. First you must want, yet not want. You must desire on one level, yet be willing to not have the desire fulfilled on another. The desire to be one with your wants, this gives you purpose. It's not merely by not-caring that you are freed, but by not-caring and yet still doing what is helpful. How can you do what is helpful if you have an attitude of not-caring? It is by having levels of belief, and action, and reflection. You needn't care unless it is good to care, yet how do you know when it is good? There is a time for reflection on these matters. When you settle within yourself an issue of conscience, you must also realize any settling is temporary. That is why it is good to have a sort of intellectual distancing or emotional dissociation from the trials you often go through. That is the benefit of the super-aware mind. It is not caught in the mistaken belief that whatever is currently felt is the only possible world. It realizes that the mind constructs its own reality, and this is the blessing of being aware. You can rewrite your reality. There is no great and final reality to experience; they simply grow and grow off each other, like life off niches. If you can rewrite your reality when you are aware, it makes sense to want to become more and more aware. This is why I love using automatic imagination to finesse mind. It's so fun to realize that the words spoken have enormous power in determining the reality you experience. That's why I don't like to talk negatively. Even though I must express myself sometimes in order to understand myself, I don't wish to be someone who dwells on pain and suffering. I simply wish to understand it in order to grow through it. The hypnotic phenomena we experience daily and yet don't attribute to unconscious processes, these you need to become more aware of in the effects they have on your mind. Things such as negative media and negative people all influence your unconscious reasoning. This in turns changes the talk you use about your experiences. Self-talk is crucially important in determining your personal well-being. Often you must change your external environment in order to change your internal environment. It's simply a process of growth. We grow as much as we can to the boundaries of our environment and then can begin to stagnant and feel stuck. If you develop a sense of awareness that allows you to change before you hit those boundaries, you can stay feeling good for longer. This development of awareness can come from practicing mindfulness meditation. Holding the current moment, having it rendered palpably to you in deep breaths and experiences, this is a way of becoming aware of the boundaries before they stifle you. I feel this awareness training is what really increases the value of automatic imagination, because if you are unaware that you are in a finessable state, you won't try and AI and transcend. The skills go together. If you don't have the automatic imagination, then the awareness perhaps can only nullify, not empower the good directly. So often we can forget the power we have over our own minds. It's easy to become wrapped up in emotion, but an aware mind can always transcend. Love, Jess Playful Loving ramble_ty12.8.23zm5d4s_nb_h O great cosmic mystery above this palpable universe, please steer our thoughts to new heights. Does being playful and loving aid your effectiveness? Does acting like a kid, in the sense of loving deeply and not being self-conscious, help you? I think on a personal level it must. Acting in line with your deep love is what life is all about. Life is not about accomplishments or money or trying to cater to the expectations of others. Life is about the search for truth, and for experiences that enlighten you as to what it is. Life is about looking at the world and trying to make sense of it, and the way to do that is to create. You learn who you are when you create, because in some sense you have to create yourself in order to have new art be produced through you. This can't be all of it, because even experience without creation can lead to novel ideas about the self. This self, this story, why do we fight so hard for it? I believe we are all unkillable ideas of a vaster dream of reality. We are a limitless, eternal, mathematical story. We are trying to discover who we are. What of the model with self-actualization at the top? What can this mean? I think it means that we're always trying to find out how we better fit in this world. In a phrase, how to love more deeply. Playful loving is a related kind of deep love, because it is unconcerned with what others think. Playful love exists purely for its own sake, with no look to anything but Now. Does this playful, loving nature aid your effectiveness? If your effectiveness is at all determined by how much love you have for the projects you're working on, then yes, it does aid you to be loving and playful. When would it not be? Perhaps if you were dealing with grave matters or lots of other people's resources, then being playful might be seen as a negative. Hopefully you are not putting yourself in positions where you are not free to express your true inner nature. When might that be good? If it was a job that had many components that were very fulfilling and a few that were draining, it might be worthwhile to stick around. What is your true inner nature? There is a model of computational awareness and the grooves of the mind and the grooves of the hand. The grooves of the hand exist because of the shape of the hand and the use of the hand. The shape changes slowly; the use changes rapidly. If we consider the parallels of the brain, we can see that the grooves of the mathematical mind also follow this pattern. There is the overall shape that defines certain overall grooves, then the use defines the more nuanced grooves. If we consider the grooves of the hand to be what we want when trying to create an artificial hand, we are bound to lock ourselves up in unproductive patterns. You want to see not how the grooves are, but what the use is, and design around that. You want to think from the point of view that you don't have to be encumbered with the shape of the grooves of the hand or of the mind. You want to let go and think only of the use of your created tool. What I am interested in is computational awareness. Awareness is very abstract and yet it is perhaps the true foundation of self-reflection and reality. If you consider awareness as a _helpful_ thing, then you are led to novel thoughts about it. Awareness is helpful. It should be thought of from that point of view because it breaks the chains that bind you. Awareness gets more done. Awareness can be cultivated, like a garden. Awareness is the ability to respond to properties in the environment. What you're really interested in is _reflective_ computational awareness. You want programs that can reflect on and rewrite programs. I think this is organic. I think it will be solved by programs that evolve, not that are designed. There is a fitness function for reflectivity of awareness. What does it mean to have reflectivity? Reflectivity means you have higher-order programs rewriting lower-order programs. What is reflective rewriting? It is rewriting that takes longer and is more complex. It is level-jumping. Reflective awareness is awareness that is responding to properties in the environment of the awareness itself. It is when awareness merges with the environment and becomes aware of itself. Reflective awareness automatically finds properties to respond to in the environment. That's the loop. Once a mind can consider itself, it can slowly augment itself from the inside, and make itself better. This process has to make sense. Because of the level-crossing feedback that is bound to occur inside of awareness, I think any implementation of computational awareness must have this feature. Back to the shape-use aspect of the hand-grooves model. What is important is what the hand is capable of doing, not what shape the grooves are. In the same way what is important is the _use_ of the awareness. Awareness responds to properties, but _why_? This is a vitally important question. Why should a program be more fit for responding to more properties? We can define it to be so, but what is the conceptual reasoning? Awareness stores information about the environment inside of itself. You grow awareness. That means it has to have something to grow toward. It's patterns rubbing off on each other. This happens at a very fundamental level, like waves of bits flipping. I believe that there are equations of awareness. The bit-flipping model of awareness is so beautiful. Remember, it's not the grooves of the tool that are important; it is the _use_. What is this for? Awareness is for responding to properties in the environment in order to better develop more awareness. Reflective awareness serves the same purpose, on a higher level. Reflection is trying to create more reflection. Awareness, in bit-flipping terms, is a function for creating more awareness. You want to be aware so you can build more selves. The more selves you build, the more aware you are. The more aware you are, the more selves you can build. Awareness is an echo. It is an echo of a past that worked. Awareness is bits flipping; it is numbers interacting. Awareness is an automatic web that grows. With love, Jess Having Happen ramble_ty12.8.24zm5d5s_nb_h O great and mysterious math which guides this universe, please enlighten us with what we should know. What do you want to have happen? I answer that the world will do as it must, and we are along for the ride. Do you think we can influence events? Do you believe it's worthwhile to try to control them? I tend to agree with the Bhagavad Gita, and distancing the self from attachment to the fruit of actions. What do you want to have happen? I want humans to have inner peace and belief within themselves that it will all work out. I'm trying to work on myself in that manner. When I first learned deeply of the power of automatic imagination, of imagining and imagining it's happening automatically, then I felt inner peace. I knew then that my beliefs and emotions were more under my control than I had previously realized. Why haven't I put it to work recently? Why have I been uncomfortable using AI, recently? Have I lost faith? No, but I have realized it is not up to conscious control like I previously thought. All of time and space is already prescribed, and exist "out there" as real things. What does this tell us? What can we learn from this model? Things will work out the way they're going to work out. I can learn that no matter what happens (financially, socially, physically, emotionally, spiritually), things are happening that way according to the math. I don't know if you're reading this some years from now, dear reader, I don't know if my thoughts are the least bit interesting to the future. I hope they are. I try to make them so. I'm glad we have music, and culture, and language, and patterns of all the kinds we have. I don't know what it's like in the future, if it's amazing or not. I hope it is. I'm reminded of those developments on motivation, where one of the most effective is to imagine the future and the present, and what you have to do to bridge the two. I wish I was a better writer, I wish I was a better communicator, I wish I was a better _person_. I can only hope that the world is made better through my efforts. When you become attached to the fruit of action, the Now is harder to enjoy. It comes down to this: Love. Love, now. Enjoy by going slowly. It's not all about you, but if you don't enjoy life now, when will you find the time? I ask to help myself understand. We put ourselves in these boxes of who we are and what we "have" to do, and perhaps it's all made up. Still we want material goods. Still we want pleasure rather than pain. Still we want benefits rather than costs. If you could know how you were going to fail, would you want to know? Might it not scare you off from learning experiences that lead to success in the future? Life is as hard as you make it, but there is no "you" making it. You are an experience, a wrapper for a story. It was strange that thing I saw, that spinning ball of light. It's interesting the idea of spirit patterns, weaving about and rubbing off on each other in many moving levels. Dancing levels, if you will. I'm not sure what it all means, but I feel that there's a potent truth embedded in the ideas. I keep trying to make sense of it in order to let it out. That's why I believe in metaphors. I think if we move up in our spatial dimensions we are able to directly see concepts that feel very vague at lower levels. Imagine a ribbon, a length of thin material. Imagine it's a one-dimensional line. Put it vertically in front of you. Fold it to the left so that one edge lines up with the other. This is the second dimension, if we imagine that the edges are attached. Now fold the ribbon up toward you, so it's on top of itself. This is the third dimension. To go to the fourth, fold to the left again. This one-dimensional figure has become mathematically warped and bent into higher and higher space. Now what happens when we try and use this? Well, a one-dimensional vertical line we can only go up and down. By attaching the edge to itself, we can go left and right. We have jumped to a second dimension. If we've equated the edges, then when we move from one point to another, left or right, from the point of view of the one dimensional line we've "jumped" from one space to further up or down the ribbon. Imagine the ribbon vertical and folded to the left. If we move from the bottom half to the top half by moving left, we start in the center of the bottom half, then left edge, then off the edge and suddenly on the left edge of the top half, but now by traveling left, we are traveling right. The orientation has flipped. We're doing the same thing but getting a different result based on where we are in physical space. This is a mapping from two to one dimensions. Let's look at higher. If we fold the folded ribbon down on top of itself, then we can mimic a kind of 3d space on a 1d line. We begin by equating the edges again, but this time the front and back. There is a function that maps values, and when it gets to a certain place, the value jumps to a new point on the line. In this way you can represent infinite dimensions on a one-dimensional line. This is the ribbon-folding model of dimensionality. With three dimensions, do you need more points? No. You can travel in a new direction, at right angles to all the previous directions. In this folded, flipped ribbon, representing a third dimension, what directions can you move? You can move up and down the line, from each side of the first fold, and from each side of the second fold. You can move up and down, left and right, in and out. We can go higher. We can fold over the ribbon again and equate the sides again so that by going "ana" and "kata" (or whatever terms we want to use for up and down directions in a fourth spatial dimension) we arrive at a different point in space along the one-dimensional ribbon. We jump around. This can be helpful. By using a simple metaphor of folding lines and ribbons we are able to make some sense of the relationships between higher and lower dimensions. Can we represent the bit-flipping model in this model? To emulate a ribbon we can consider a line of a finite length. Every time we want to increase the dimensionality we halve the line and equate the edges so that we can move in a new direction. Imagine a line from 0 to 1. We halve the line at 0.5, so that moving in the new direction at 0.5 is equivalent to 0.5. But imagine the point is at 0.25 and the line has been folded down edge-to-edge like the ribbon. Now when it moves in a new direction it will move from 0.25 to 0.75. To continue increasing in value it must reverse directions, because it's been folded over. A point increasing in value that goes to the new dimension can suddenly find itself decreasing in value. The point is able to jump in space by using new directions. Now consider moving to the third dimension by folding and equating again. By moving in the third dimension from either 0, 0.5, or 1, we arrive at the others. You can also move directly from 0.125 to 0.375 by moving through the third dimension. I want to be able to represent as many dimensions as is helpful using a one-dimensional string. This ribbon-folding model of dimensionality may help. It's the way the thoughtwaves interact that's important. Love, Jess Glad Knowing ramble_ty12.8.26zm5d7s_nb_h O great mystery of the universe, I kindly ask for help in our inquisitive ways. Who is glad to know you? Personally, I think the first answer that springs to mind is me, myself. I am glad to know me, to have this life experience to inquire into myself and the nature of reality. The imagined and the real both present such fascinating stories to learn from. Who are you glad to know? As I ponder this in a safe place I realize there are few I am _not_ glad to know, for certain definitions of "glad". I am glad on some level to have had the opportunity to meet all the people I've met. I'm glad for all the paths people have shown me. I can wait to be good and so I am able to preserve my goodness. Friends have shown so many paths, and taught me how to walk them. Friends have shown how to love, and how to care, and how to perceive the deep truth. Friends have shown how to make a plan and organize a life around it. Friends have shown how to twist and think. Friends have taught the responsibility to be kind starts with yourself. Friends have taught that our selves can be worn out over time through stress. I have learned that we may cultivate a different self, a calmer self. I have learned that we're all shallow in some ways, and not to judge others for a seeming lack of virtue. I have learned that it's easy to give a misimpression. I have learned about caring for others with no motives. I have learned that how you see yourself can be very different from who you actually are. I have learned that everyone loves fun. Friends have taught that there are different ways of being, and they are all equally valid. Friends have taught that what counts is on the inside. That is what radiates joy to others. Friends have taught that I can learn. Friends have taught that there are special people all around. Friends have taught that passion breeds excellence. I'm glad I'm here, learning and experiencing. I hope people are as glad to know me as I am to know them. I wish to learn how to be joyful and helpful. The more joy you have, the more joy you can spread to others. It can be hard to keep going, sometimes. It can be hard to feel spontaneously loved. Things are more complex than they first appear. It's amazing how fast things change. I realize this looking at the computer, phone, and notebook, as compared to the simpler devices of just ten years ago. I wonder what the future holds, but I'm learning to be content. I've been reading the Tao Te Ching a lot. It has similar ideas to the Bhagavad Gita. Motivelessness and renunciation, desirelessness, fate and the source of reality as transcendent. All of reality, all patterns within it, are mathematically related. Everything is determined by the math, from what your name is, to where you live, to what your favorite color is. All of it is predetermined by how the math works out. This is good because it informs you that there are always patterns to your nature. The patterns are all around you and through you, and they define how you act. If you study the patterns, you can be set free. All the patterns around you are interacting and rubbing off on each other. The bit-flipping model is so elegant because it directly models the rubbing-off nature of patterns. The patterns, how they initially interact, and what the data should be to stimulate complexity, I have yet to see, fully. I believe everything can be visualized. There is always a metaphor that maps accurately. The intellect can always reach up and build one. I just try and try and try and try and sometimes make it a little closer. Bit-flipping is cycles. Obviously there is some mapping between patterns and how to choose what to flip next. Anything can be made simple if it is kept pure and slowly grown. It's hard to keep things simple, because of a tendency to allow feature creep and seldom refactoring. We have complex feedback loops in the mind, all competing and cooperating. These very same loops are sometimes trying to understand their strange loopiness. When we think on the broader picture of awareness, we can understand more and more. When we unlock the chains and allow ourselves to automatically imagine, we overcome massive obstacles. What obstacles do you have, now? Sometimes I feel as if I want to feel sorry for myself, as if I want help, and I'm willing to be lazy. I guess I just have to trust myself, and the Tao and Gita. Renounce the fruit of action, learn to love again and trust again. I think I will be healthy again. I never thought I'd develop this much, this fast. "Joy is what happens when we recognize the good around us." Why am I locked up? There may be a biological reason, one not immediately curable by rewriting patterns of mind. Why am I here? Why am I working on this? I'm not sure there needs to be a reason, but the math in me says that the more I put pen to paper, the more deep resolution will be uncovered. Things work out the way they should, the way they must. I'm reminded of the strand of shoelace that loops back and ties on itself. Such is math; it makes sense because as it gets deeper it loops back and fixes itself. We're so young, dear reader. Every possible thing exists, I feel. It's unknown to me as yet what the future holds, yet it seems it must fit, and that means it must work and make sense. It must work together or it ceases to ever have been. Such it feels to me. Thus it is my duty to be, and my duty to feel what I feel, and do what I do. With love, Jess Great Times ramble_ty12.8.29zm4d3s_nb_h O vast Mystery above this shadowed reality, please guide our thoughts to serve you. Why kiss someone you do not love? Kissing is an act of deep intimacy, perhaps, and by shattering that illusion you can achieve depths quickly. Yet my gut tells me no. It tells me that familiarity does not breed love, not of the romantic kind. Forcing down boundaries that exist due to lack of familiarity really serves to accelerate a process to its end conclusions, which may not be happy. I don't know how to be happy, but I do have a few ideas. Rest 9-10 hours daily, maintain deep relationships, eat well, exercise, etc. I feel like the merging of long-term and short-term interests leads to the conclusion that you should not pursue what you do not find intriguing. This may be only for me, dear reader, but I feel dishonest loving someone I do not Love. What is love? Perhaps it is understanding and respecting and liking most of an entity. It could be purely a percentage thing, like interests and passions. When I say I love something, what I mean is I understand and enjoy most of it. What's next in a world like this, where we make things up as we go along? Things will be as they were meant to be. All I can ask from the Mystery of reality is to guide our thoughts and actions and sensations toward helpful ends. When you let go of the judging mind, you tap into an eternal truth that will set you free, and do so in a way that will make the most sense. It is this letting go of the ego, the judging mind, the self, that you are free to ride life for all it's worth, and go down productive paths, searching for new ennobling systems and new ways to be. How can you do it? How can you jump that little bit faster in order to get off the slow spiral of the conscious cutting-off? The conscious mind is like a filter, weaving in and out and removing what it doesn't like, what doesn't fit its preconceptions. By transcending this filter, you are not left with no filter. You ride the thoughtwaves of higher patterns toward new and unexplored territory. In doing so you transcend the leash that is bound in three dimensions, and set yourself free in higher-dimensional space. What is it you should be doing? There should be no "I" that is doing; instead you should be being, watching, observing how the unconscious mind wishes to act. Very likely there is no best way, and rather the way that ends up happening is the best way given the knowledge and circumstances of the time. With love, Jess Good Mindset ramble_ty12.8.31zm4d5s_nb_h O great and ever-present Mystery of this reality, please see fit to increase our love for you. I am as if a leaf in the wind, blowing and altering the currents that abound around me. How can you cultivate a good mindset? We do our part in this world, and that is all we can do. How can we have a sense of good be cultivated within us? It is as if a garden that we have to slowly tend to and tend for, in order for its fruit to blossom. There are very interesting connections between the Bhagavad Gita and the Tao Te Ching. Both offer foregoing desires in order to have the true peace of nonaction. By letting go, we have it all. It is the space between us that gives us relationships and connections, but it is the space within us that offers us peace. It is not thinking about others that gives us peace; it is by not thinking. Peace is different from absence of pain. Peace is an internal quiet, even when the outside world is disruptive. I don't believe that simply service to others gives happiness. It is simplistic. Why should I care in the first place? Not to be stone-hearted; I mean rather that the desire for happiness is itself a "pulling" out of alignment with the natural order of things. Desire is a pulling; pain is a pushing. Yet within both is turbulence. I doubt there ever is an apex of life. We have patterns that build and build on top of each other, and soon they resonate between each other, and then there can be higher-order patterns. The bit-flipping model of awareness can be helpful, and has probably already been discovered, if not on this planet, then elsewhere in the universe, up and down the stacks of simulations. The bit-flipping model is that if you tell a pattern of zeroes and ones to flip to ones and zeroes given a certain input, then you can grow a sort of crystalline structure that can interact with itself. Implicit in the idea is that awareness is a mathematical function, and given certain input it always gives the same output. If we say "0" is "orange" and "1" is "round" and "01" is "pumpkin", then a function that outputs "pumpkin" when "01" is input is aware that "01" is "pumpkin". If we make a web of functions, some of which are dependent on the output of other functions, then we can build a computational awareness. This awareness can be grown in complexity to the level of human intelligence and beyond. When we change a connection inside of the web of functions there can be a ripple effect that is itself a bit that flips. Flipping bits is a very low-level description of awareness, but it's concrete. It's a stable base to form ideas with. A higher vision includes code and data being intertwined. There are external rules which dictate how the system works, and these rules are not modifiable from within the system. The code and data of the bit-flipping system are the connections and the information in the connections. This is a model of awareness. The ripples can bend back and rewrite themselves. How does the web of connections look and feel? What are the rules it operates by? With love, Jess Waiting For ramble_ty12.9.2zm4d7s_nb_h O great mathematical construct of Kindness, Beauty, and Truth, please endow us with your wisdom, so that we may speak elegantly. Is there a productive way to wait? Perhaps there is a higher truth: Productivity is always in the eye of the beholder. "Not only should we not judge others, but we should not let their judgments affect us." It is not right to judge others, because you are a small soul in a grand story. Productivity is in the eye of the beholder, and cannot be torn from that viewpoint. Even the most successful reproduction is not necessarily productivity, if productivity is creating transcendental art. At the same time, we don't want to feel bad about what we do. We must love, really love. When I feel myself choosing to love, I sometimes feel another set of networks telling me this is not the time, now. To those networks I ask, at the risk of being too personal: Why don't you want me to love? Is it because I'm scared to work and haven't demonstrated it to myself? Is it because I do not feel loved by friends? Is it because I am judging myself? Is it because I'm afraid to love? But why? Why should I not want good feelings, unless they are a pattern that leads to something negative? Am I afraid of going manic again? Or depressive? Am I afraid of sleep or not sleeping? What is it that makes sense? I feel like a let down. I feel like I thought I'd be further ahead in life, by now. I feel noisy when I meditate. This is just an experience, and this too shall pass. Good and bad: It all passes. You must learn what it means to let go and embrace the higher truth of nonaction. Why is it they talk so much about this, these ancient sages? Perhaps they're right. Perhaps that's why. I know my networks are responsive to change. I know this harsh feeling will pass. I recognize it now. It's the same worry I had before I learned how to finesse mind with automatic imagination. It's the feeling of wondering if I really can do this, put on a loop. Can I love again? If I understand who I am. To love yourself, you must let yourself love yourself. Fear can be helpful, but fear is not transcendent. If you do not face your fear, you cannot overcome it and transcend to love. In the face of fear is the reason mirrored of your love. It's riding the edge. Watch what you tell yourself. All senses can be translated to other senses. Just as there is a way to break into love, there is a way to break out of fear. By not facing what is true and honorable, by fearing the work done over a lifetime, you break your chances of success, of inner peace. What is it that people did before there were things to do? Did they look up at the stars and wonder what they are? Did they see the connections that were there but never seen? How can I know the future? Do I need to? Why do I have such trouble? Does everyone? Then again, I realize where I am, who I'm with, and I wonder how the gods of reality view this plane. If we are a shadow of a higher realm, can we know it? Life is good, isn't it? There is a truth in speaking your mind. If I want to speak to networks in the brain, I can't do so by talking; I must generate and feel with nuance. That's the way to get to the truth. Why do I have this feeling of fear, of worry, when I generate the emotion of love? What are you, friend? Why are you here? Love, Jess Time Remembered ramble_ty12.9.4zm4d2s_nb_h O great one above this place of reality, please share a new view to spark our reconciliation with you. A question about stories: Is there an absolute truth? Perhaps it really is turtles all the way down, and the only way out is to accept on faith. Every story could be the backdrop for a grander and wilder story, and there's no way to know for sure that the message is not changed. That's what I mean about remembering time, because all ideas of it could be different from how it actually was. Are we left with any coherent story? Only that everything must be taken with a grain of salt. In practice: agnosticism. Why? Because truth-detectors are capable of being misled. Being open to being shown wrong actually sets you up for more success in truth-telling. Can a mind that doesn't want to use automatic imagination be finessed into it? By changing the media input to the mind, it is inherently changed. The input becomes the throughput. The throughput modifies itself and becomes the output. Such is the way mind works. What mathematical models of awareness are there? What mathematical models are there of transcending mental states by imagining new ones and removing the references to old ones? The automatic imagination model of finessing awareness allows for this. It's interesting the idea of set and setting. What ways do we have of modifying set? Interesting how when you take the infinite view of life you land right back here in the Now, without the worries or longings of the past or future. Generally we're on autopilot. When you take a long-enough view you transcend and free yourself. Perhaps this is related to meditation and automatic imagination. Probably to motivelessness and nonaction, too. Don't get wrapped up in yourself, in your own story. There are other stories out there that need and would benefit from you. Ideas of the ego and identity tend to imprison you, rather than set you free. "This is who I am, so I can't do that." The automatic imagination model is that your mind is finessable with imagined stories, that your subjective experience is changeable from the inside. "What you feel is caused by what you think." Think about good things. Hold infinity in your mind in order to "smile, breathe, and go slowly". Everything starts with a thought, if a thought is a sensation. Hold the infinite in mind. That gives steadiness and courage. Every little thing will be all right. It takes time to heal and feel well again. Stop and turn over every stone, and you'll fix yourself. Take a deep breath. All it takes is one breaking point. That point is what you want to work on. The "I" is a construct. The "I" is illusion. The "I" is a story. What does that mean? It means it is played back over on itself. What are we? This is speaking from the mind of the inquisitive submind. How do you build yourself? If you are a mind, and mind is information processing, how do you build it? How do you understand it, how do you conceive of it? Can you fix yourself from the inside? I believe that I can AI myself. I believe in the power of mind, and the power of automatic imagination. I believe that I can learn. I believe that tomorrow will be a great day. I believe that humanity is getting better. I believe I will impact the world for the better. I believe that I am okay failing. I believe I will learn. I believe that the mind, no matter how complex, will be discovered. How can you grow faster? This is the question. You must believe in success at the last. That is all you must believe, for that gives you motivation to continue pushing, to continue developing. We have a future as a species, and we shouldn't waste it on shallow dreams. We have a future. We shouldn't waste it. We must put our minds to work. We must embrace the essence, the joy of life, and give it to others around us. We must establish that we will not be downtrodden. It is in your power to continue on roads that seem bleak, and to muster the stamina to rise above misfortune. Though the bleakness of a path may condemn hope, the truth of the matter is in the justice that is inherent. These poetic words may mean naught to you, dear friend, but they to me mean the stuff of life itself: love, hope, faith. They are words that bind out negative powers that seek to control the mind. We have love. We have hope. We have faith. Why? Because we are strong. We are the entities that give rise to sensation. We are the entities that give rise to mental ideation, to the very stuff of existence. We are powerful. You are made of the truth around you, that beauty which binds to your soul, sticking to it and lasting, because it is good. _You_ are here, and you _matter_. With love, Jess Mathematical Reality ramble_ty12.9.9zm4d7s_nb_h O great deity, supporter of reality, manufacturer of beauty, kindness, and truth, please encourage our optimism today. I realize I have not been following the cardinal rule: "Sleep. Relax. Cool off." I'm here to have fun, and I recognize that there are some ideas that tear down fun rather than set it free. I realize now, having faced the beast of depression myself, that it is no easily conquered fiend. Ideas which kill themselves off are not this kind, which seems to grip the mind with a power lock and not let go, even though other ideas compete. Oh, the joys of complexity. I realized today that I do not feel at peace. I have not felt at peace for awhile. I do not wish to ruminate upon boring ideas pertaining only to me, but I wish to shed light on the nature of this illness. Why do I have it? It's simply the mathematical reality. Should I question it? I feel that there is not much chance of a fluke, and yet it's hard to feel ill when well, or well when ill. It's as if they are high-level thoughts that arise only when the low-level thoughts are of the right kind. I don't want to be successful. I want to lose touch with reality and realize how fragile I am, so that I will savor life without chasing success. Success comes from joy. Even joy is not the be-all-end-all of life: Sometimes it feels good to cry. You cannot control life; this is what complexity theory shows us. The way to overcome is to accept the limitations instead of being defined by them. It's like stopping being concerned with this path or that path and instead enjoying the movement itself. I'm not here to do great work. I'm just here to live. It's not my responsibility to cater to others. Not even myself. The twisty realms of nature seem bent on making me see something, and I shan't close my eyes. All this that I do I do in the name of the eternal mystery, that ever-present "huh". It's not my job to cater to it, yet I do keep moving. The reality we live in is so high dimensional, and it teaches in roundabout ways. Some things can only be taught in roundabout ways, for the direct path does not always reveal the whole truth. I believe in a higher mathematical justice to the universe. All my studies say things happen for mathematical reasons. I don't know whether I will get better or not. Likely I will get worse again in the future. I only hope that I can show the light to some people who care about me, about what I stand for. I'm tired of putting up pedestals for myself to fall off of. I only get hurt. What I want is to die having lived. I don't want to waste what little potential I have in the grand scheme of things. I think automatic imagination works, and it works within a framework, and if that framework is not set up right, it will fall. I hope that I can help people enough so that I will not be a burden or feel shitty about myself. I recall that feeling of wondering if there is a base to all this automatic imagination story stuff in the mind. Is there some place you can rest your head? I think it's on math. I think it's on realizing that all the things that are happening are due to patterns, and patterns can be infinitely varied and complex. Variety is a spice of life, after all. Even big things like what your name is and what impact you have on the world, these are all mathematical patterns. I still have this overwhelming urge to care about money and about material success. Why is this? I realize that the self and the experiencer are finessable, and I realize that depression can be a sneaky fiend, and yet I feel there is a way out, somehow. Maybe I won't find it, maybe I will. I see only the step ahead of me. Sometimes that makes me sad, because it symbolizes an unpleasant step. Still I take it, I have little choice. What do you want to see grow? That's really the ultimate question, isn't it? I want to see wisdom grow. I don't like to talk negatively, but sometimes I see no choice. Sometimes I _want_ to be negative. I don't like feeling like a failure, except when I do. I don't care if all this seems mundane. Attaching yourself to the fruit of action brings suffering. Whether that means we aren't as well off materially, I don't know. It feels like it doesn't matter. Being wealthy and unhappy seems terrible. Truly terrible. Mercenary ways hold little charm. Of course I care about money, but only because I have all these desires to fulfill in the first place. I don't want to worry about resources, sure, but to care about being rich seems shallow. Perhaps it's wrong. I don't want to be like some, ambitionless. If you really love what you do, what more could you want? I want fun and interesting developing. I want to think deeply and honestly. I want to change things. Perhaps you resonate somewhat with this. We don't always get what we want, but because we synthesize happiness we probably will feel like we got something good in the long run. I certainly feel a lot wiser for this depressed time. More compassionate. I don't _want_ to be happy, sometimes. I want to be natural. I want to rest well. But we don't always get what we want. Regardless, I believe in Mystery, a just mathematical reality. We do what we do and influence what we influence. What more could you want? Well, what now, you might say, after accomplishing something. If the outcome of a philosophy is a well-society but sick individuals, something somewhere is broken. I don't want to suffer, except when I do. I don't know. We get so wrapped up in these convoluted stories, and it's all wrong. None of it's real, only the experience itself. That's the only thing, not your name, your job, or your money. It's just the experience. That's why you shouldn't force yourself to do things. Unless you want to. Love, Jess Understanding Yourself ramble_ty12.9.13zm4d4s_1_nb_h O wise deity, seeker of truth, and kindness, and beauty, please reveal to us your inner secrets. How can you know yourself? There are some ideas of techniques (meditation, automatic imagination, journaling), and yet I seek a deeper answer. What is it you expect to find? Is it joy? Hope? Peace? I believe these things can be had through the nature of the mind. There is Vincent van Gogh, asking if you were assured of success in your venture, would that change what you have to do? Proceed as if you will succeed, without the doubt in your mind. Love is a skill. What place does love have in a mathematical universe? It affects things, yet it is within the biological realities that define it, so does it have value outside of that context? If it is created with biological reason, does that take away from the metaphysical ponderings and worth? Love is understandable, as are all things. Perhaps not to us, but to some being following mathematical rules. My mind feels jumbly, excited, as though a dream of utmost interest has fired it up and dissolved, leaving only the fragments of emotion. Is what I'm doing worth anything? It must be if I'm doing it, if the universe is doing it through me. It's different having unique studies. Does it get me anything? I want to turn this page and have everything work out swell, but I know that there will always be difficulties, and unknowns, and defeats. It's all how you look at it. It's all your perspective. If you want to fly, first you must learn how. At no point will you ever have all the answers; that is why there is a cosmic Mystery. With everything you know, you can learn more about what you know. I don't think there is an end to the patterns of mathematics. It continues to jump in scale repeatedly. We're cosmic blips floating about in the universe. We've made headway, and we will continue to make headway. What are you left with, when you gain power over your internal environment? Maybe some are right, maybe simple happiness is simplistic, and truth and kindness and beauty should be the pursuits. Maybe the Bhagavad Gita and Tao Te Ching are right, and we should watch the world unfolding, and experience it without abstraction. Maybe we should nonaction, have faith, renounce the fruit of actions, and keep the mind on the supreme being. Recognize the connection of all with all, and realize that separation is illusion. It is these pasts that we place on ourselves that hold us back. Identities are artificial constructs, but sometimes perhaps do serve purposes in helping us understand the world. Perhaps the purpose of artificial constructs like identities is to simplify the model of the world. Define ourselves by who you are or what you do. Can you ever understand yourself? Perhaps to do so would be to imply that you are not a highly-complex, interacting, dynamic, adaptive experience. When you look at it that way, and see the body and mind as joined, as inseparable, and yet also able to create new experiences, you can suddenly feel less alone. I realize the nature of things and of self, and I am humbled and awed by the majesty of it all. You are an experience, and you can rewrite your reality. How can you know this experience that you're having? How can you help other experiencers? Love, Jess A Different Look ramble_ty12.9.13zm4d4s_2_nb_h O great mathematical genius above this reality, please sustain our inquiries into your nature. How should you look at life? What paddock of necessity should we attach ourselves to? I'm referring to modes of thought. I have said my "Now" tattoo refers to being in the present moment, but it can also refer to doing now what is helpful to do. So often we trap ourselves in little buckets of thought, afraid to venture out in the great ocean from which we come. For lack of a better word, we stagnant. I have a personal annoyance with always talking about my feelings, as if they are relevant to others. I can only say that love seems to be the cure to so many of life's mysteries. I can feel love well up within me, and I can feel my sense of self-esteem and worthiness through work trying to counter it. When I look at these people, not a single one do I judge as not living up to their potential. I don't judge people for being smart or not smart; I don't look at them as anything other than who they are. At least that's how I try to be. To be honest I know I judge poorly. I know I can judge too soon. I want people to accept others. I believe it starts with me. This is a hard time in my life. I feel like a dream shattered around me, and now I have to heal. I don't know how long it will take; I just feel I can only take it moment-by-moment as yet. I'm here for a reason, and I don't want to waste this time. I want to explore. I want to stretch the boundaries and develop new intellectual and spiritual and emotional and social and physical folds. I want to be a god. I want us all to have universes to play in. We've got to go through the process of learning how to develop universes. We've got to let ourselves dream. I feel I haven't done enough of that lately, as if I sabotage my pursuits and passions. "Who am I to do such a thing?" I might hear in my head. I realize the truth of automatic imagination is not faulty, but neither is my model complete. My experiences demand explanation. My conception of AI needs to be refined. It doesn't work to remove physical boundaries, only to redefine them. You have to want to accept. Self-AI is a beautiful thing, full of nuance and splendor. It is the kind of thing that makes one glad to be. AI is like creating a cloud and resting on it, a cloud of pure imagination. Imagination is made of remembered sensations, and I love looking at the world with automaticity. "Why do I want this?" I should ask of negative emotions, and AI myself to transcend. I've transcended the Gordian knot before with this technique, and it suits to do it again. Regarding hypnosis, the potential is limitless. It really is an open field, if you choose to learn it. It's like opening a book and for the first time realizing you can write a story as well. It's like being freed from the errors inside, saying: "No, I'm not going to listen to you. You aren't welcome: cease to exist." We really are automatic beings, operating automatically. What is the most important thing you can do right now? Consider how you want life to be. How do you do that? I believe in a few simple rules, and a few strong instincts. One of these is the cardinal rule: "Sleep. Relax. Cool off." Another: "Be genuine." These are guides to a life I want to live: one without unhelpful stress or fear. You hold within you the key to transcension, the truth that will set you free. The truth is not automatic imagination and is not mathematics. The truth is that you have grown. This is a world in which you are adept, and you will continue to become more so. With love, Jess Calm Spirit ramble_ty12.9.18zm4d2s_nb_h O great Mystery above time and space, please see fit to guide our words and calm our spirits. I see a world out there, and I do not yet know how to be with it. I see a bunch of people, confused and twisted, unsure and misshapen. Who am I? I am an experiencer. I built a character up, a fleet of ideas and systems. I sit and wonder what tomorrow brings, interested in how to make something grow today. I recognize that even given my strange loopiness, or perhaps because of it, I am not easily altered in my mind, not from within, not yet. If the mind is soul and the animator of the body is spirit, I wish to have a calm spirit so that I may learn how to help my fellow life forms. I believe that everything happens for a purpose, a higher end. That's what I choose to believe, because it makes life more interesting and bearable. I wouldn't give up the times I've had. I am just a human. As yet. I would be the first to augment my mind with technology, have no doubt. To me that means greater liberation. Right now I feel kind of trapped, like an mind without a destination. I'm disappointed that I talk so much about myself in this deeper notebook. Alas, I need an outlet. I need to ponder. Seeing the truth, the proper way to be, and experiencing it for a while. I'm glad of it. I know how to put the mind in various states for various lengths of time, and my powers are slowly coming back. This I see, now. I've learned humility. I've been smacked in the face with it. When you look at the world around you through other lenses besides your own experience, you perceive deeper truths about yourself. That is why I believe keeping more diversity around me is bound to help. I wish I had more strength, I wish I had more follow-through. When I look at the world I am grateful for the moments of reflection, for the deep beauty that's always ready to shine out. I'm thankful for forgiveness, for mercy, for a pardon. I wish I could paint a more colorful, vivid, brilliant picture. Alas, I am only a human. As yet. I'm only one person. This is a road I haven't traveled before. Please give us peace. Please let us finesse our minds for good. This experience wants to see the pattern for how to rewrite this experience. The story I want to tell is one of life, and near-death, and life, and near-death. And forgotten dreams, and dreary moments, and a different life. It's a story of hope and learning, and falling and grabbing. It's a story of pulling yourself up again and breaking free of old ideas, of seeing things as closer to how they are. It's about compassion, and humility, and nonjudgment. Let us not fear, now. Let us accept pain without being defined by it. What does this mean? It means we are not always going to be who we are, and we should learn, as much as possible, how to jump out of our current experiences and experience other points of view. I'm sorry for what I've done to hurt you. With love, Jess Stretched Thin ramble_ty12.9.19zm4d3s_nb_h O Mystery, please give us strength in times of weakness. I may be wrong, but I don't believe in making myself do something. Please... just help me see. Help my mind know what to do. Help me to want. I feel so chaotic. Like there is no where to go. Do I want to feel this way? I want to know what it's like. I want to be free not to. Am I trapped in a story? No, never, given the strange loopiness. I feel distraught. I feel cut off from myself. "I want to not do anything and I want to feel bad about it." Where do I want to be in a year? I want to travel. I want to explore. I want to feel good, well, and happy. What are you going to give for all these things? I do care. I'm sorry. With love, Jess A Continuance ramble_ty12.9.20zm4d4s_nb_h O great respite from danger, please lead us to understand more fully. I recognize the benefits I have, I recognize the blessings. Still I don't feel well-rested. I realize this is all in my head, and even the feeling is predominately in my head. I feel remiss about using it as an excuse, yet I do perceive in this moment of lucidity that I am getting better. I recognize this notebook is for my spirit, and I intend to look at it as a barometer of mental state. This writing is no small feat, and I hope that it serves well in pursuing health and greater depths of lucidity. I never proclaimed to be a genius. I want my thoughts to be penned down for I feel often we have thoughts that would improve our lives if we remembered them. We sit now on the brink of so many different natures, watching the world grow more advanced. It's really astounding to have so much power over the mind, especially your own. Given that I have depression and mania, it's very interesting to feel out hypnotic tactics from within the disease itself. Knowing automatic imagination and wanting to use it are two different things. It's like I have some parts of me that want to not do anything, parts of me that recognize that as depression, and parts of me that want to feel better. Even if I AI myself to someone who is happy, I may have parts that still don't want to do anything. I recognize it's all stories, right now. I don't know how I'll feel about it in a month, but in a year I think I'll be a lot better. Why? Because the puzzle is being put back together piece by piece by piece, and as more of it gets filled it's easier to see how to fill it. I've learned a lot from this experience. I've learned much more deeply not to judge. I've learned to take myself less seriously. I've learned a way to sleep fast by thankful praying. I've learned a way to be and do, by recognizing them as eternally separate. I want to make breakthroughs. You can only do what the math prescribes. Love, Jess Continuing On ramble_ty12.9.21zm4d5s_1_nb_h O great and powerful alien civilization to which we sometimes write, please accept our humble words. It is better to weaken or strengthen your identity? Having read an argument on strengthening, I must now say that there was something missing in the models I was using before in the question of the existence of the illusory identity. The crucial point is: Does it matter? The reason it matters, or at least one reason, is that using automatic imagination to finesse awareness becomes even more possible if there is no essence to deal with. Without the essence, the center, we are free to regard ourselves as ghosts in the machine, as schemas and patterns playing through each other. Should the ego be weakened or strengthened? We want to be strong, in whatever it is we are doing. Our being needs to be strong or we fail to live. If the identity is illusory, in the sense of no essence or center, it might still be wise to utilize an idea of identity if it helps the experiencer have a more fulfilling life. If we consider the mind as an ongoing process of automatic imagination, then we realize it is not the technique that is broken, but the mind. I want to discover the depths of the automatic imagination model. Depression seems like an ultimate case of the question of what boundaries AI has. It's not that AI itself doesn't snap me out of what I'm feeling, like an emergent butterfly from a strange loop chrysalis, it's that sometimes I don't want to use it. That can be AI-ed too, and every meta level above that, unless the urge to do so does not exist. There is importance of routine in learning the process of automatic imagination. There are scripts that can be developed in order to facilitate the urge to improve and scripts for the implementation level as well. The more you integrate the language and techniques for the specific changes you want to make, the faster and easier it is to autoimagine. Right now I just feel so dull, like my mind is on a terrible autopilot. It's like I'm looking but not seeing. Interestingly this feeling is perhaps also susceptible to automatic imagination's effects. What a curious case: the AI locks itself down and prevents its own use. There's always a way back in, though, given the essential complexity of the story editor of AI. The urge to improve, to change, must exist before the desire for a particular path will be cultivated. It's hard to think right now. I wonder how much is under the control of my immediate mind versus how much rest I require. The identity is how you think of yourself. It is never a valid copy of who you actually are, let us suppose. Instead it is subtly different and mixed. How you think of yourself is different from how others think of you, yet how you perceive your identity defines a lot of your experience. With love, Jess Absent Title ramble_ty12.9.21zm4d5s_2_nb_h I don't know what I'm supposed to write down. I only know that I am an experience. I think that it is likely I will improve. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with my life, when I feel like this. It's like a black shadow behind my back, telling me what I can and can't do. I never expected life to be like this. I expected it to be easier, more forthright. Not hidden away in pools of obscurity. It feels weak to call this depression, but it feels like it. My mind feels hazy. I want to find people I love. I want to see the world beautifully again. There are patterns of existence that sometimes make me happy. When I think of you, O Mystery, I attach a meaning to my experiences. Depression, if we look at it as it is, as neural networks not doing what they should, and we see a way to fix it, we should do it. There are neural networks that make us think; there are neural networks that make us depressed. Living in it from the inside gives me a perspective to understand it and rectify the situation somewhat, Mystery willing. When joyful things give us pain, we have a problem. When it takes more energy to gain energy than you have, you have a problem. This is the cycle. I believe it can be transcended. When everything is exhausting, the mind is full of blankness, given that it takes effort to perceive. Yet I believe it can be fixed. I think the ego and the experiencer are separate. The do-er and the be-er can never be reconciled because they are separate. I want to know the thoughts to think to transcend my thankless thoughts. I think there is a way out. The thoughts that are dangerous are perhaps the ones commenting on the boredom and the harshness of the situation. It's the cycle. What we want is not merely a way out, but a method of thinking that prevents the adapting depression. The depression is just as smart as we are, it is us, perhaps. Yet, just as no one memory is us, neither is a process of depression. Yet it is using the ideas we have, and so we must accept it, on some level, not as a friend but as an understandable visualizable process. Regards, Jess Internal Structure ramble_ty12.9.22zm4d6s_nb_h How can you have a grip on the nature of automatic imagination so as to be better with mind finessing? I don't want to be like some where they'll say things and it feels like they're talking down to you. I'd rather it be like a collaboration. What I want to feel right now is how the mind works on a fundamental basis. Things are connected to other things. I'd like to know if bit-flipping really can work to generate awareness. If we think of bits as light-switches, connected to each other, then by connecting them in a certain pattern and flipping the switch in various places more phenomena will emerge. They will bounce off of each other in a wavelike pattern, even though they are particles. The connections between the switches have a lag, one timestep at minimum, but they could hypothetically be larger. The connections could themselves be bits that can be changed. When we think about the bit-flipping model of awareness, we could say that interacting with the awareness is done by observing the bits flipping from outside the system and altering the rules the bits are flipping by, which connections between switches could be. Is this connection-switch model helpful? If what we need is the number of switches to grow organically, so as to have patterns that are increasing in complexity, how could we do this? How does nature do it? Genetically it perhaps usually happens by a doubling of a pattern and then a reappropriation to a new end. How does this occur with bits flipping? With love, Jess Psychological Loop ramble_ty12.9.23zm4d7s_nb_h O great deity above reality, that truth which I can sometimes be permitted to see, please hold us up to the light and burn out our impurities. I stand before you now as a humble ape, asking for forgiveness and a chance to do good and honor the beautiful things around us. There is beauty even inside me, and I ask for you to develop and strengthen my resolve to do good and enjoy helping people. This world needs more good people, it needs more good souls. It needs people to look up to, and leaders to show the way to goodness. I believe everyone has within them the seeds of goodness, and Mystery chooses how to tend to the plant within. What is a god? It is not the creator of us but a participant with us, much as we do not invent mathematics but rather discover it. A god is like an explorer, discovering with us and finding out about us, while at the same time being outside the space and time we occupy. A god is an immortal creator, a way of being that is so foreign to us that we find it hard to capture in words. It is immortal because it lives outside of our time and space, and it is a creator in that it is playing with the math and observing and exploring what comes out. The god I believe in is not one of hate and death, but of math and elegance. The god I believe in does not care for a soul, but rather the whole of spacetime itself and the beautiful emergent properties. We're talking about a being so vast and wonderful that as we see snowflakes it sees galaxies. We're talking about an entity that exists outside of the mathematical description of our physical universe, so that it can modify any variables it wishes and view the results. What magnificent beauty in such a concept! Is there any doubt that we are not alone? It is healthy to always maintain a sense of agnosticism. We can see the vastness of time and space and not be filled with dread of a possible death, but instead be filled with zest for life and the elegance of emergent systems. We're talking about a universe that gives rise to life, to self-aware beings, to entities capable of considering the infinite. We have within us the power to escape our own follies by engaging with the higher nature of the universe and accepting that we are neither the top nor the bottom. We are average-sized mammals living in an exquisitely-shaped world, full of nuance and color and dimensions far beyond a capacity to hold in our heads. We're talking about a potential truth of a narrative to reality just as there is a narrative to the evolution of our species. Does it pre-exist in the nature that we will exist? Perhaps, perhaps not. We find ourselves here and can push ourselves up a little further, day by day. What are we here for? I choose to believe in a narrative to reality because it makes life more interesting. I think it's likely there is a higher power above the laws of this universe. This universe runs on equations, on numbers. That means there could be a higher universe inside deeper equations. All this to say that what we have as humans should not be ignored: the capacity to generate and express love for the good around us. If that's not the purpose of life, I find it hard to know what is. How can you perform this miracle of love? Are you not bound within your environment, sculpted by your culture? Is it always within your means to love? Perhaps, perhaps not. What then, but to structure and shape your life and the things around you so that they permit you to exercise your power of love? What does it mean to love? I think it is to understand and accept. It's to see the world not as a harsh place, but to realize you have just as much right to be here as other stardust. Could you die in the next moment? There are multiple ways to interpret how to act given an answer of yes to that question. One interpretation is to grab onto life as much as possible, to fear losing the taste of the juice of good living. Another is to accept the inevitable, to move beyond it. I think that you shouldn't do what you don't love. I think that's the answer to death. Focus on what you love. In different states of mind what you love changes. It's like an infinite merry-go-round, where you never get quite the same thing twice. The future is always coming, the present is always changing. What are you left to do? Focus on what you love. At all costs, be what you love. With love, Jess Another Try ramble_ty12.9.24zm4d1s_nb_h Dear Mystery, please guide our thoughts so they may find some peace. How can you be what you love? I sit here now and am puzzled by the twists and turns my life has taken. I want to help teach people how to have more control over their thoughts and feelings. I would like to help people be more creative and productive and accelerate the progress of human civilization. I hope whatever comes to pass I will find it within me to love, first and foremost. It is within me to follow my dreams, and in honesty that dream is mine. I must detect a method to share this information, and I must follow through and not grow bored or infirm. So often the plans come tumbling down, as if things are not panning out because I am not good enough. Yet I recall an earnest declaration of the surfing allegory, whereby the newbie must first learn to swim out into the waves, over and over, until they can finally break out and enjoy the surfing. A great advantage is a love of studying, friendliness, and unconventionality. You need not follow the patterns of those who failed. How will I conquer the days when I feel down and depressed? How will I do what I should do, when it needs to be done? I must focus on my physical body, on proper rest and nutrition and exercise. I will focus on my spiritual endeavors, seeking to understand the great unknown through mathematics. I will work on my emotional core by empathizing and stretching my social skills. I will work on my mental attributes with meditation and automatic imagination. What it comes down to is this: Automatic imagination controls beliefs. Beliefs control actions. Actions control experience. What I want is to get closer to the true nature of the goodness that comes from automatic imagination. I want calmness and joy. Inner peace. From this location of peace I want to get closer and closer to the detection of the beginnings of awareness, to the direct finessing of the unconscious. I have a hunch this is possible with the mind. I think as we get closer it will permit deeper control of the ideas that are tying our minds down. We will grow in our ability to have our minds edited by external ideas. I am trying to think about where I want to head, long-term. You go where you are pointed, and I want to be pointed toward helping advance technology and creativity in the universe. You're in a changing universe and it is those who adapt quickly who have the advantage. The benefit of intelligence is rapid adaptation. I do not wish to be trapped in a pattern of too much dreaming and too little action. I believe now I have perhaps settled within myself the be/do question, with the answer that they are fundamentally separate paradigms, unable to be merged, with neither better nor worse than the other. Where does that leave me? Questioning how I can refine the exact path to a more prosperous state. Emotionally prosperous, as well. I'm not saying I'm ready to go; rather I'm saying that these are logistical puzzles that I can figure out if I take it one step at a time. Sometimes that step needs to be backward so that I can gain a better vantage point and reorient myself. Regardless, if I stop and smell the roses I think I can get closer to who I really am, and learn how to be what I love. I realize, too, why I don't like talking negatively, why I have that resistance. It's because negative self-talk begets negative self-talk. I wish to break free from it. With love, Jess Deeper Truth ramble_ty12.9.28zm4d5s_nb_h O great wise one in the sky, in the sea, in the mathematics of reality, please see fit to teach us. What is awareness? For all we know this simple question goes unanswered. It's as if it's a trick of the mind, as if it is impossible to see the illusion directly. It's like a mirage, a deeper truth hidden in plain sight. What is it I'm saying? Awareness can be thought of as all around us, all through us, through every interaction of every aspect of nature. Light is aware of how fast to travel. Reality is aware of how to behave. To be aware is to do what is expected. It is a mathematical function, with inputs and outputs. Awareness exists on every level of reality, from fundamental fields to abstract human nature. Patterns are aware of themselves in the sense that in the real world, patterns that spread more effectively tend to become more abundant. Everything from how you tie your shoelaces to how you pronounce words, all of these things are patterns which rub off on each other in a fundamental mathematical way. I incline toward saying it is digital and operates through bits flipping. A question with bit-flipping is how to represent time in the model. If we have a series of bits connected to each other and some flip, how do they transfer information? With love, Jess Flipped Bits ramble_ty12.9.29zm4d6s_nb_h O great metaphysical Mystery, please guide the math so that we may have growing hearts and growing minds. Let's talk more about the bit-flipping model of awareness. When I think of bits, I think of light switches. However, more than one switch can be connected and can represent one flipped bit. Patterns are built of other patterns. A switch flips and some externally-connected pattern notices it and flips the connection after a period of time. Patterns can ripple out and become more or less potent. The connection itself contains information. The wires connecting patterns are part of the bigger, broader pattern. Say you have three switches, with A connected to B connected to C. The connections have a timestep of 1, meaning it takes 1 flip for information to travel from one side of a connection to another. Interesting how multiple dimensions come into play here, because you can represent the connections with higher-dimensional geometries. So, "A1B1C". Connections must be defined with what directions information will travel. Does "A -> B", or "A <- B", or "A <-> B"? We can also think of information as traveling backward in time. Let's consider only one-way connections right now, like simple models of neurons. This can be later expanded. So "A -1> B -1> C". If we flip A, then after 1 timestep B will flip, and after 1 more timestep C will flip. Simple so far. What about if A connects to both B and C, as in the case of the connections of a triangle? If A connects to both B and C with the same timestep distance, and B connects to C as well, how do we know how to flip the bits? So "A -1> B -1> C" and "A -1> C". Now what happens? A flips, then both B and C flip, then C flips back. We have a different pattern. What happens if a bit is the same timestep distance from two bits that just flipped? Let's think about switches. If I flip a switch it sends information some direction and takes time to do so. So perhaps if I flip the switch once, it's changed, but if I flip an even number of times it's stable. Odd number: flips. Even number: stable. With two inputs both flipping, the result cancels out and the switch does not flip. This is more information that needs to exist, perhaps in the connections. If an even number of flips come together in the same timestep, nothing happens. With an odd number of flips, it flips. We can add another wrinkle to generalize timesteps by adding a "wait" function, such that "A ->(wait 2)-> B" will take two timesteps. Then we can assume that "A -> B" is always 1 timestep. How do we keep track of information in the connection, in the midst of being transmitted? If we graph the connections we can communicate this information by noting the space between two switches (the connection) and noting how many timesteps until the connected switch flips. What about the circular switch connections of "A -> B -> C -> A"? Does this continue indefinitely? I think that's the whole point of the bit-flipping model: making the math come alive so things are moving and flipping automatically. The process becomes its own loop, started by the first mover, the outside agent. How can this be written as a program? What I really want is a way for these connections to happen spontaneously, without having to be defined up front. Growth. How can this work? Does it mean we just want randomness, with connections spontaneously linking? Thank you, Mystery, for these fun and interesting thoughts. With love, Jess Believing in Me ramble_ty12.10.1zm4d1s_nb_h I do believe in you, and I do believe in me. Does it make sense to question whether this reality is all there is, that this reality is being controlled by a vaster intelligence? It would be fun, but if it hinders the ability to progress in the shared illusion of the world, is it worth it? To believe in god is to believe we are dreams. Where to go from here? The answer is in the belief in yourself. "I think therefore I am." What is the "I"? It might be the body; it might be a grander, diffuse mind made of complex, interacting memes; it might be even grander than can be imagined, spanning trillions of years and the creation of many universes. All experience is illusion, and yet the experiencer makes the illusion real. It is as if we're trapped in dreams, and we've made them more real than the simpler "reality". This is not a world to fear but a beautiful, wondrous universe to explore. As we know, humans are explorers. That is the grandest fun in a game, and it remains the grandest fun of the universe. It's not about breaking out of the game, the illusion. It's about letting the notion of a "really real" place fade from consciousness. It's about letting the self, the ego, hide in observance, and letting the Mystery of the universe work through your being as the Self watches, but does not interfere. It's like a mage who must maintain concentration on the specific outcome desired, and watch the pieces fall into place. It's a specific schema that can be activated. The schema of flow. The schema of mindfulness. Flow is that sensation of forgetting who you are and becoming so wrapped in the unconscious enjoyment that time easily passes. Mindfulness is watching and noticing the sensations and letting them be without chasing or rejecting them. It's a difficult state to induce, but it can be cultivated one moment at a time. The schema that I am interested in is the intersection between flow and mindfulness, where the conscious awareness is watching the world and creating systems, but not getting bogged down in myriad details that can be decided by deeper mind. It's the state where self-consciousness and worry and doubt have flowed away and melted and become nothing. What I'm interested in is modifying the mind to have more control over the contents of awareness. There are schemas to do this. Schemas are ways of organizing thoughts and patterns. There is a way to organize your mind so that you feel what you have decided to feel. To choose, and to receive that choice. There is a schema that does this, I believe. There is a way to find it. Trust yourself to realize that the experience is all that is, all that you can be sure of. You need to trust. When that happens, as you build up the skill of dual thinking, of watching and creating systems but not directing the small pieces, you gain strength. With love, Jess An Issue ramble_ty12.10.7zm4d7s_nb_h O great Mystery of life, please steer us right. An issue has been brought up. The idea is that to use automatic imagination as a way out of a struggle you must first be aware of the way out. You must be able to see the way out before you can use AI to transcend. What do I want? I want to know how to feel what I felt when I was strong: contentment and hope. Do I think that I will break out of this mindset, the mindset of dependence and slow growth and fear? Yes, but I believe it will take time. Just as I rose from my first manic episode, I believe I will rise from the second. I apologize to you, dear reader, if this is less interesting writing than the things I thought before I was struck down with this blow to my ego. That's what it is, isn't it? I'm struck with the identity of bipolarity. Whether this is a sentence for failure or not, I do not think has been settled. Do I think that I will be a failure? I guess it depends on the definitions. I think I will do good work and help people. I think that I will learn how to control my own mind and circumstances so that I will be better than I was. This experience has given me a lot of depth and compassion toward others. We look at others through the prism of our experiences, judging them and believing they are right or wrong, good or bad. What is important is your ability to withhold judgment a little longer in order to form a more nuanced view of the situation. What are you doing in your life? I'm trying to recover, trying to find the zest that I miss, and yet I keep running from work, running from the things that will help me discover it. I should not beat myself up, nor be so hard on myself that I slow my own growth. When I haven't done the work, I find it hard (though this may be a story I'm telling myself) to immerse myself and lose myself in the flow of fun. You know what I want? I want to AI myself to not be afraid. I feel so weak, yet I know this is a finessable story. I will get better. Imagination is the most powerful thing in existence. It creates worlds within worlds, beauties within beauties. The imagination is like a rock echoing off a lake, picking up and swirling experiences. Why do I have such troubles doing what I ought to be doing? Apparently I feel, deep down, that what I ought to be doing is studying. Apparently I'm supposed to be writing about it, rather than doing it. I'm only human. As yet. I can only do what the math allows me to do. I think it is no coincidence that things have happened the way they have happened. I do not think they will stop happening the way they are supposed to happen. Why do I believe this? Is it because of some thing I read in a book somewhere? No, it is because the world is patterns. The world runs on math, and there is math for love, and math for cooperation. I believe that things are the way they are because of math, and that includes the big patterns as well as the small ones. It includes your name, hobbies, life events, even species. Right now I'm writing this. That says something, doesn't it? Because I could very well perhaps not be here altogether, and so the math must want me here on some level. It is infinite, this game. In every direction, this game continues. What is the game? The game is to become aware of the game. When I went manic it's a bit like all the pieces were blown apart and I have to retrace my steps and find them again. Not that all the pieces are good or helpful, but it is usually helpful to understand what you were thinking when you acted in certain ways, if only to prevent the logicless actions from recurring. When you become aware of the game, the game has been won. The question becomes, is that the only game? Probably not. I don't know if any of my ramblings have any useful nuggets of wisdom or insight, but I hope so, dear reader. I write so that I better understand myself and the world around me. My "self" I realize is a swirling ball of math, pulling together experiences to create narratives of situations that I go through. Why do I do this? What I wish to do is study the "I" itself by altering the situations and narratives it is experiencing. It's as if a book is teaching a computer how to rewrite the book. When I look at you, dear self-modifying idea, I find that I am not alone. Perhaps it is a new era, like discovering that we can melt metals and make tougher, more helpful tools. The tool of automatic imagination lets you transcend any frame once you decide to use it, if you have the energy and knowledge of how. Will you decide to use this tool? Earlier in a pocket notebook for myself I said no, and do you know why? Because I wasn't strong enough to accept that even though I hadn't chosen to be certain ways or have things happen, I was still able to accept them and respond to them in a helpful way. I think I had to go through the stage of denial in order to sense that it doesn't feel right. I love what I am becoming: better. Even though it's hard right now, scary right now, I do believe that I am getting better and more confident. I know that in order to get better I have to do the work. I have to transcend my fears and use love to grow into the things I am meant to do. I am a social, cooperative creature, and it is my destiny to follow the laws of the universe and do what is going to happen. I'm not afraid. Scratch that, I am a bit, as yet. I know that fear and love are stories, and if I have to choose, I choose love. I'm sorry for what I've done wrong, yet how could it have been any different? I need to meditate more. What makes it so difficult? Perhaps the difficulty of meditation is not the process itself, but the start of it. Have I gone soft? Do you think I'm trying to do too much? How fast am I supposed to let myself heal? Is this all a big joke? All some big excuse? No. If the glories of mania are real, then the agonies of depression are real. I don't want to be good yet, and it's surprisingly easy to admit that. I'm still trying to figure out what went wrong, why I went crazy again. It's interesting how none of this that I'm saying feels particularly illuminating as I say it, yet reading what I've written a couple months ago reveals interesting patterns of thought. It's like you become used to yourself, and forget what it's like to think differently. "Use AI" my mind tells me, even though another part doesn't want to embrace the tool for fear of accepting the responsibility and then having the tool snatched again and being left high and dry. Perhaps the ideas you're having now are false. Automatic imagination is a really powerful technology to finesse your mental environment. The math bends back onto the experience and makes me realize what it's like to not have the technology I've grown to love. There is a way out: Do things. Put pen to paper, and perhaps you'll ramble to the right path. Is all this talk for a reason? Have you got a point, dear Mystery? Perhaps even you are searching for the deeper reason to existence. Have fun and interesting experiences. It's by leaning into the mystery that we become a little closer to the ultimate truths of existence. Life isn't about balance; it's about fun, and only a component of that is balance. You want to do what is necessary while also keeping in the greater balance of doing what is intrinsically rewarding. Automatic imagination really is an intrinsically useful skill. It's like having the keys to your own happiness and pleasure always secure within your own mind. I'm ready to be happy again. I'm ready to not be fearful anymore. I want to find friends. Ah, the ways we advance. Love, Jess Lord of Mysteries ramble_ty12.10.9zm4d2s_nb_h O great one above this game of reality, please teach us and guide us to progress in your nature. I am a small ape, clutching the vine, trying to pull myself higher and higher. My question today is about using automatic imagination to finesse a hand stick. It's as if the loop that tells them "I can lift my hand, here's how..." was still running, and the story was not there to disable it. I think it was because the ideas were not being presented in the right way. I had them imagining that a ghost hand could lift but not their whole hand, and they could imagine that, but when tested, they lifted right up. You can imagine you have forgotten you are imagining. "I want you to pretend that you have forgotten that you are imagining." You want the natural state of affairs to be that the hand is stuck and immobile. Finessing with automatic imagination works, but it needs a frame; it needs a framework in order to be more stable, perhaps. The boilerplate of things in the environment becoming less distracting, that can help. It is very interesting AI-ing, very fun. Love, Jess Delicate Balance ramble_ty12.10.13zm4d6s_nb_h O great Mystery above this permutation of reality, please guide the grooves of our thoughts so they reach higher perfection. There is a delicate balance between what you tell yourself is true and how well you get on in the world. I realize I've been chasing the wrong thing. Instead of inner peace, I've been trying to _do_ things that will bring me happiness. It is not simply happiness I seek, that thinly-veiled excuse of something lasting, but instead the inner peace available to us all wherever we are, so long as we are prepared to accept it. Inner peace is like a flame that does not waver, that accepts happiness and distress equally, and that looks on at the world without making judgments as to good or bad. The true stabilizing inner peace that is cultivated slowly and evenly---this is the kind that is not fiction. If what you're looking for is a life well-lived, then you are served well by establishing peace within yourself. If you can think, wait, and fast, then you surely have the discipline to cultivate that inner robustness and strength that inner peace calls for. If inner peace gives a charm to the steadiness and change of life, then you are well-served to cultivate the inner practice of peace and security. On the idea of identities, does it have a purpose? Are you served by thinking of yourself as an individual? Can you see the mind as all around you and through you, the body as merely an experiencer, a kaleidoscope of memories that produce a sensation of selfhood? If you see it as that, does that help you? It gives a sense of peace, perhaps, because of beginning to attribute more importance to the environment. You accept the environment as more influential than you do otherwise, as if for instance you believed your body housed an actual identity. The mind is bigger than the body. Your mind exists in all your writings, thoughts, actions. Your tools augment your mind and give definition to a higher mind. The world you live on, the time you live in, all of it impacts your mind and body, and you see that really there is no separation. Love, Jess Mental Order ramble_ty12.10.15zm4d1s_1_nb_h O great and kind power over reality, one to whom we pray, please grant us mental order as we think. How can we have more mental order? What is mental order? Is it freedom from pain, from suffering? Is it doing what you feel called to do? It seems mental order requires a degree of physical order, yet they play off each other in mathematically curious ways. Do you have mental order? I recognize certain patterns within myself that do not indicate full wellness: I still feel trapped, in some sense, by my predicaments. Rather than feeling free to do what I ought I feel burdened by pain in my body. I realize it's not the doing of the work, but the anticipation of the work, and the constant question of whether this is the right work for now, that is the problem. Is there an answer to this feeling of not finishing what you start? I've finished so many things, and yet it never ends. I'll never have finished all of them. What it comes down to may be faith that things will work out, either from your own persistent work or the work of a higher creation. How do you refill your life when it's been emptied? How do you get back powers of intellect when your mind is fuzzy? There's always the cardinal rule: "Sleep. Relax. Cool off." When you feel stuck and limited, I want you to remember how you can improve, dear reader, how fast and solidly you can gain back what you have lost and more. Undoubtably you will be better than you are right now. You will be happier, you will be stronger, you will be wiser and luckier. Why? Because of what you're going through right now. I cannot dismiss the things that those older say about age or wisdom. If I have changed, and I will change, so be it. Let me laugh, let me cry, let me experience joy and the full meaning of the human condition. I have only what I have, no more or less. I want to be good. I believe the universe wants us to be good. Thus I will be good. What I want is irrelevant compared to what the universe wants. I want to feel alive again. How do you act if you are feeling alive? If you can imagine it, then you can imagine it happening automatically and experience it for real. Sometimes when you need to do something you can push through the hard parts, time after time, and finally get something worth remembering, something that changes predictions. What is it that we're here for? To procreate, to try to live and expand our influence? Yes, but also to discover, to learn, to explore the nature around us and the minds and bodies we inhabit. We are minds of machines, and the idea of shame or embarrassment when you are a machine seems a bit silly. Does embarrassment help you? It can if it gets you to act in line with things that make you happy or to live more through offspring you create. What about shame? Again, it can help if it gets you to revise your behaviors in a positive direction. Will we as a species advance as far as other species, on other planets? I think we will. I think at this point it's unlikely that intelligence can be wiped out. Given this optimism, why is it so hard to see myself doing well and being helpful? Are you afraid to be proven wrong? Were the things you said wrong? Was what you advocated inaccurate? I believe we can indulge in a posture of success or failure, of weakness or strength. The model of automatic imagination to finesse awareness reminds me of the model of advancing the argument. Automatic imagination takes what advancing the argument gives, meaning advancing the argument can cause automatic imagination if you take it enough steps. It reminds me of the ability to learn quickly, because of being able to transcend any belief of failure into one of success and focus and enjoyment. I still have the ability to focus and experience what I want to experience. The question has become whether I _want_ to experience it or not, rather than if it's hypothetically possible. Which is a good step forward. I've gained a lot of compassion for others and their difficulties. With love, Jess Reason for Caring ramble_ty12.10.15zm4d1s_2_nb_h O great loving entity above this version of elegant reality, please see fit to bless us with effervescent poetry. A question also asked earlier: Why would a god care about us? A first answer may be that it might not, but then there are some reasons I think make more sense. A god, considered as an immortal creator, could evolve in its locale just as we have, and a god could look at us with wonder and awe just as we look at the elegance of nature's ants and microorganisms. We are fascinated by what we don't understand, and what we understand has no limits because life has no limits. There are so many ways for proteins to fold, so many possible adjacents, and with all that diversity it is possible that some higher power is interested in the goings-on of the most complex species on this planet. There are deep reasons for a higher entity to care about us. Perhaps it learns about itself just as we learn about ourself when we study simpler life. I think a god would be interested in us because it is concerned about the future, even if its future is vaster than ours. If a god evolved as we did then it might very well be concerned with growing, and by studying simpler beings it might discover patterns for how to better do so. When I think of patterns rubbing off on each other, and higher and higher levels becoming interested, I realize that this has a mathematical description, and there is a way for the high-level math to be interested in the low-level math. It spreads as if with tendrils reaching down into lower and lower realities, faster and faster speeds, until it touches the core and spins and clicks because of it. What would it be like to think higher thoughts? What would it feel like? It feels like I zone out for a few seconds, then reach and connect some idea and bring it to study with a reflective, self-aware mind. There may always be a component of uncertainty involved when you're dealing with people. Such is the name of the game, and also the blessing. I'd like to focus on a few powerful elements and integrate those, so that I can be a help to anyone who needs me. I want to be specific with my practices, focusing on creativity and productivity and other helpful aspects of having fun and interesting experiences. How do you do it? What steps can move you in that direction? You can do this. With love, Jess Compounded Efforts ramble_ty12.10.17zm4d3s_nb_h It's interesting, O wise creator, how we often have moods swing in directions, and because of limited sight into the past and future we fail so hard at identifying what was and is to come. It's interesting how the efforts to improve compound. You are ideas transcending physical environments, and you can modify your ideas so that things are perceived by the subjective experiencer as different. There is a certain level of flexibility and awareness needed before bootstrapping and kickstarting into growing action. The battle is _not_ fought anew every day; that is merely a story which can actually make things harder. You have to give yourself permission to feel good, to be happy---perhaps you deserve those feelings even without having done anything. There are behavioral technologies, tools that encourage you to have the behaviors you want. Automatic imagination fits in so well with that, and yet is its own unique category since it can modify beliefs and subjective experiences as well. The mind gets more of what it focuses on. You want successes from the time you arise, so that they compound and give you the confidence to continue to advance toward goodness. Why is it so hard to fall asleep sometimes? Because life is good. Because you are excited and passionate about the good that's coming. You are excited about what you are learning, what you are creating, what you are developing. With love, Jess Difficult Learning ramble_ty12.10.19zm4d5s_nb_h O great Mystery above this elegant reality, please steer our thinking toward you. I ask for clarification as to why it is sometimes hard to learn or think or study life. Some say it's because it looks like a lot of work, and there's a saying: "Most people miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work." It may be true. I don't know how long good feelings will last, how long I can keep them going. As long as we don't take ourselves too seriously we'll be okay. Love, Jess And So It Begins Again ramble_ty12.10.24zm4d3s_nb_h O great Mystery to which I ascribe coincidence, please guide my actions on this fateful day, 22 years after my birth. I suppose this is a day of reflections upon memories and upon hopes and dreams. The higher you grow, the further you can fall, but the faster you can pick yourself back up. You improve by making mistakes and searching them out and studying and fixing them. It is that dirty emotional work that is hard, precisely because it is painful. Yet that is what makes it effective. What mistakes have I made? Going manic is a pretty brutal mistake, one I wish I would learn more from. I wish I understood more about what went on and how to maintain at a higher level, a sustainable level. I wish I wasn't as sad as often, as depressed, as overwhelmed, as uncaring. I hope I'm getting better. I wish I understood my condition more so I felt more in control of my emotions. I wish I knew whether it was all up to me or not. I'm reminded of Vincent van Gogh's angel story, telling him to proceed as if success is assured. Why am I stuck, why do I feel stuck, how can I alleviate this emotion and proceed with loving? Coming at it from a different angle, I realize that it probably is all in my head, and probably I am all I have to blame. Why do I not do it? Why do I not do the things that will make me succeed? It's really ups and downs, isn't it, and so often these days I feel more animal than human. I feel trapped in my situation, hypnotized to stay the way I am. I realize this is just a story I am telling myself, but can I just snap out of it? Does it take more work than that? Can you be the person you want to be? Who do you want to be? I want to be positivity and light and truth in people's lives. Do you fear? I fear death, and yet I can't even pinpoint it, what it is. I fear helplessness, and yet fear is a cause of it so often. I don't like talking this way, dear reader. I wish I could be purely puppies and flowers, but I'm struggling to figure some things out. A good friend asked me if I'd figured out what I was here for, and who I am. All I can say is that some days I feel better than other days. I don't yet care enough on the bad days to feel like I'm making something of myself. I believe automatic imagination, math, and programming have a part to play in my life. What am I here for? To love, to grow, to share? How, is yet unknown. Who am I? I am an explorer, a mathematician, a lover. Why do I not have the things that I want? Because I'm not meant to have them yet. Why do I not have zest for life yet? Because the time is not right. This is one way to look at life, but is it ennobling? Does it paint a picture of sustainability? O Mystery, please open my mind and rebuild it in your image. Am I afraid to think deep thoughts? Either that or I don't feel like thinking them. Yet what is that, if not lack of energy or presence of fear? Am I dead? No, because some part of me keeps stepping, keeps writing. As long as you're still moving, all is not lost. Does anything I do matter? Who's asking? I suppose if I am wondering then I must be interesting enough to matter, if only to myself. I know people love and care about me, and I know I love and care about them. Yet my excitement about the future has waned, perhaps, and so I am left a shell of myself. I am here to learn about who it is to be me. What does it mean to be me? It means to care about people. It means to desire the truth. It means to enjoy being nice, and friendly, and compassionate, and loving. It means to want to teach people that it's okay to be themselves. Am I helping bring that about? I don't know, because I don't know how to define it this early in the game. Perhaps what it comes down to is I've forgotten how to be myself, because I only just recently built myself up. I know that I write a lot about myself in this notebook, and for that I am disappointed. I like to investigate new ideas, not just vent. I guess I should stop whining and do something, yet I feel sick and unable to do so sometimes. Does finessing the mind with automatic imagination work? It does work, I believe, but I still have to get my own mind and life in order. Why do I not do the things that will help me? It's like it's too hard to sustain the energy and motivation. I don't think I'll always be like this though. I think I'm getting better. Love, Jess Last Day ramble_ty12.10.25zm4d4s_1_nb_h If today were your last day on Earth, would you want to do what you are about to do today? For me, I suppose it depends on how I feel about what I do. It's easy to just automatically respond "yes of course" to the question, or have some other answer, but the real purpose of the idea is to get you questioning _how_ it could be better. If everything must fit together, then how can the story be told so that it leads upwards? I know I can think, wait, and fast. How can you be more in the Now? The Now is all you have, and degrading it to lengthen it misses the point. I am not real, not the self, not the illusion. Knowing that, I am free to transcend any state I am able to. Meditation illustrates the illusion of mind and identity and frees you from feeling trapped. It's so long, this game of life. Why am I here? To add a little to mathematics. To develop the processes of automatic imagination and make it more effective. I wonder if anything I do is meaningful. Meaning is generated in the mind. What am I doing? I'm trying to figure out how to succeed in life. What is success if not inner peace, contentment, hope? I have less hope than I used to, right now. It's like, because I can't predict how I'm going to feel, or because I don't yet have the ability to do what I need to do and feel what I need to feel, I can't make long-term plans for the future, or even feel good that good things will happen because of my efforts in the future. Yet flipping through this book I realize that I have ups-and-downs and both are necessary to grow me. I hope, dear reader, that some of this is helpful to you. I question myself, and in questioning myself, I question the universe. Are we not stardust? Are we not grand beings put together by time? Do we not feel because of what we see, and are we not in control of our eyes? Are we not lovers of this universe? Time spent waiting can be good for the soul, because it can stretch and expand. Why am you here? I'm reminded of the bit-flipping model of awareness. I don't know if it works. I don't know if computational awareness and artificial general intelligence will be discovered soon, but I hope so. The bit-flipping model is so elegant. We're often so focused on ourselves that it's hard to see others, to really see them, to be there with them in their moments. Moments become palpable when you wait for them to be palpable. Sorry if this writing is disjointed, it features an as yet disjointed author. I have these little ups and downs and I'm trying to remember how to care as much as I once did. It's as if I'm a pendulum, stagnant at the bottom of its swing. I realize that some parts of me enjoy feeling different, even if the different is bad, because the variety, the diversity of experiences, counteracts the bad in the experience itself. Must there be lacunas in our thinking? Those pieces we forget and forget we forgot? Perhaps it's overwhelming without them. Yet this is automatic imagination. Imagine forgetting that you are imagining. There's a pattern of talking that's very easy to listen to, and at a certain point during the process it can change from a mere desire to keep listening to a compulsion to do so. I realize that a lot of why I feel bad is because I'm comparing myself to others. Here I am again, staring at the blank page, wondering if anything I do matters. It's so inwardly focused, so useless of a habit. I don't know what to do that's most effective for life. I do know that thinking, waiting, and fasting are effective. There is a habit of repeatedly doing the first thing that comes to mind, without giving it some thought and careful attention, and making the best of experience and life. I want my life to be better, and I will always want that. What do I want to focus on? Being an artist. Sincerely, Jess The Story ramble_ty12.10.25zm4d4s_2_nb_h O great and kind teacher of conscious beings, please guide us today. I ask now how to know what story I have, how to change it. Perhaps it's just a story I am telling myself, that I'm having trouble using automatic imagination to finesse my mind. Pretend it's a story, and suddenly I can get up from the audience and walk around and stretch. "Oh, it was all just a joke, a self-aware joke." Can you jump out, now? Can you leave the game? I want to feel what I felt when I wasn't concerned about people judging me. I want to feel energetic. I want to love being alive. I want to be awash with good feelings again. I want perceive beautiful things again. I want to care about people again. I want to feel the sense of Now again, the sense that I am automatically getting better. I realize now when I look at my pattern of thoughts that too rarely was I asking myself if this is an emotion I want to continue experiencing. What you imagine you get more of. I know something many don't, which is how to choose what to feel. I can't do this all the time, but when I can do it I feel on top of the world. It's like I'm rewriting my reality, changing what I want to experience as I go. I realize that these things are all in the mind; they are all just ideas and expectations and beliefs. Really it's not the question of is it effective or not, but how effective is it, and how can you use it? You know everything you need to know to do effective automatic imagination. How did I overcome the fear the first time? It wasn't by attacking it, but by transcending it. You transcend fear through love and cultivation of truth and gratitude. You transcend fear by realizing that it is only a story. Fear was only a story I was telling to myself, just as I'm now writing a new story in neural substrates. I had a feeling come over me and I said to myself "I just don't want to do it" and then I realized that I was imagining it, and nothing could stop me if I truly wanted to get better. It is not through your own efforts, but the efforts of the environment around you, that determine success. If you truly want to get better, what do you do? I would be interested in life. Love, Jess You Must Adapt ramble_ty12.10.28zm4d7s_nb_h O great Mystery above this reality, please guide this humble ape and teach about the cosmos. I want to talk now about the different ways you can automatically imagine, in order to better understand and use it. You can imagine something is happening automatically; you can imagine being unaware of imagining; you can imagine that something is so real that it becomes real. What is going on when you imagine automaticity? What happens when you imagine being unaware? How do you act when you are unaware you're imagining? To copy is to see, and to see is to copy. The entire picture can never be copied, only an interpretation of it. It might make sense to want to feel bad if you're doing it to gain wisdom for something in the future. It's possible for a brain to be broken. Obviously an ape brain is not adapted for many of the new technological offerings of the present, and it is only a hop, skip, and a jump to true craziness. My point is that a brain may be scared of feeling too good again, or it may simply have blocks that are deeper in the physical substrate of the brain, or it may want to feel bad so that it could learn something useful. The brain is a prediction engine. I had a lucid dream last night, only when I awoke I realized I was not as lucid as I thought, because I was in an unfamiliar place, sleeping in a strange locale. I had gone to sleep, and I had awoken, but I was not in the place I had gone to sleep at, because I had multiple awakenings, on different levels. This is a metaphor for life, because I ended up remembering I had awoken in the dream, yet the content of the dream itself was not useful to my prediction engine and was forgotten. How many times do you wake in life, and remember you are dreaming? Even if you remember that it's all in your head, do you remember how to transcend? If you imagine you are unaware of imagining, what is happening in the mind? What are the neural networks thinking? Can you make them process other things by imagining them? If you imagine there is nothing you can do to stop that feeling from rising up in you, does it start to? Is that feeling separate from your visualization abilities? Is imagining automaticity using different neural pathways than imagining without the automaticity aspect? If you could write a replicating pattern that was as smart as the human mind but digital, would you set it free? So many questions. I told a friend I expected I'd be further along in life than I am. Their response was to not judge your life by your earlier expectations. Depression is a useful tool for seeing the world through other people's eyes. It gives a glimpse of a side of reality I never expected. I know what it's like to see people's faces when demonstrating hypnosis, and it's pretty incredible. The good thing is that if the magic is there is no magic, then you can build it from the bottom up and make it something that fits you rather than something you are trying to fit into. Goodness, to have my confidence in my own brain be shaken is disabling. But it's also humbling. How do you use imagination to treat depression? If depression is of the mind, the behavior, and the social interactions, then you can target any of those to gain more control over life. I may need to give up believing that I can do this by myself. I want to control my mind, and I want to show people how to control theirs. I'd like to be able to have more control over what I feel. Really all there is is patterns rubbing off on each other, mathematical structures weaving in and out and causing new structures and patterns. The bit-flipping model can evolve toward higher awareness. We'll figure it out. I have a nervousness inside me that eats away at my confidence, sometimes. With love, Jess Pattern Generating ramble_ty12.10.29zm4d1s_nb_h O great Mystery of reality, please grant a stable mind and a soft hand as I pen now. I've been doing some thinking about how patterns rub off on each other, and I think it's because in a sense they copy themselves between media. They leave a mark and write themselves into the new place. When I was really manic and in the city after seeing the spinning orb, I could sense patterns of behavior and of objects and how they all rubbed off on each other, as if in a bitwise digital fashion the most spreadable pieces were competing for niches, just as organisms in ecosystems do. Ideas and neural networks and mind are all operating based on evolution through natural selection, on some scale. It felt so real, so vivid, and I've since been putting this process into words. I detected it on such a visceral level, seeing myself and the environment as machines made up of vast, interconnected, evolving pieces, all cooperating and competing in order to spread and be successful, not for any particular end but because that was what worked and allowed patterns to spread through the media of reality. We aren't animals; we are machines. We don't have free will; we are operating based on pieces that worked in the past. I'm looking for a way to model this process using mathematics. I realized we were patterns, machined patterns, and it all clicked and became real and concrete again. It was like when I discovered the bit-flipping model of awareness, and I could detect deep down internal truths that would be revealed if I applied further thought. I like to write and think; it helps me pull strands of thought together that were once further apart. You can learn from anyone and anything. This pattern-rubbing model of reality is so widespread and elegant. "Elegant" is the term I would use for bit-flipping, too. It is as if the truth is buried under many false paths. I don't know if I can dig it out, but I'm willing to try. The idea of bits being connected to other bits and flipping when they flip is so elegant. I just want truth, something that works. With love, Jess A Truth ramble_ty12.11.2zm4d5s_nb_h There comes a time in every person's life, sometimes more than one, where they must decide if they should continue fighting. The time has not come for me, yet, though it has crossed my mind. The truth of the matter is this: I need help. I need help in life and the desire to continue learning and having fun. A terrible part of depression is its seeming randomness. It might just be prolonged sadness and feelings of overwhelming fear I am experiencing, but in any case it is not good nor pleasant. If mania follows definite causal patterns, then what causal patterns does depression operate through? Is it lack of friends, lack of intellectual stimulation, perceived continual mediocrity of the personhood? I feel better when I remember that it's better if I use automatic imagination. I'm sorry to the reader of this notebook if it is not elegantly freeing to the soul and is too focused on my own inward search for peace. I don't want to be depressed but I feel like a label like "manic-depressive" entitles me to feel some melancholy, even if it aids no one but a supposed figure in the future whom I can help by experiencing woes. I don't even feel that bad right now, either. I realize now that this idea of bipolarity is itself an identity and that is what I'm operating from. Perhaps not needlessly, but still, perhaps unhelpfully. If you reject the idea of an ego, a self, a separation, a label, an identity, are you rewarded with freedom? Does it enable inner peace, if you break from this notion of personhood? I stand by the definition of success as inner peace. It is not money, it is not children, it is not people remembering your name a thousand years from now: Success is being peaceful in the moment. I do not feel that we are obligated to each other, nor to the past nor the future. What we do we must do for ourselves, and Mystery-willing, our selves will stretch from the boundaries of our skin to the boundaries of the universe. It is through expansion of the soul that you have greatness, not expansion of the purse nor the land. What is the soul? Is is ineffable? I believe not. To me, the soul is a pattern of being. It stretches through time to encompass the first stardust that was life, and expresses itself through our experiences. A soul is not illusion; it is a pattern of life. Do I believe in an afterlife? I don't believe in a during-life. There is nothing happening now that is so mysterious we can never crack its nut. At least, that's my belief. I start with agnosticism because without doubt there is only delusion. If all is illusion, then doubt is not a cure but a way of realizing you can pick which illusions you want. If automatic imagination is real, then you can pick what you want to feel. Right now I want to feel good. Why? No reason, none that can be justified without appealing to chosen first principles. Regardless, let us feel good. My brain still doesn't feel as deep or light as it has in the past, but I have faith that it will improve. Interesting how fully the pendulum swings, from faith to doubt to faith again. That is where I have found myself, as yet: transcendence of ideas. I believe every idea can be transcended by a more complete and holistic idea, even this idea of transcendence. Where does that leave me? Frankly, I'm not entirely sure. It leaves me on firmer ground than even agnosticism, now that I think of it. Transcendentalism, ey? What does it mean? I perceive it to be a truth even in mistruths. Lies in art that reveal truth in life. Regarding automatic imagination: A machine finds it harder to fix itself, even if the process is the same as what a different machine would do to it. Self-AI is by its very nature harder than AI applied by another. In one case you must know where you want to go and have the energy to get there alone; in the other you listen and participate more fully and less abstractly. Hypnotic treatments have not been in vain, and often feel more helpful than simple advice. Why? It takes it out of the area of the ego acting, and instead becomes something you just find happening. I remember writing that compassion essay. It was hard and I was tired. Yet I did it, even though it felt extremely forced. Now that I think of it, it always must, to some degree. Writing is not easy, though in the good place it can feel effortless. Perhaps it's that degree of focus and mental sharpness and clarity that determines the feeling of ease. Less sharpness, less slicing, more effort. It's not all about you, and sometimes you have to face that this is a big universe with a lot of people and your aim should be to help as many of them as you can while having fun yourself. Love, Jess Hidden Away ramble_ty12.11.4zm5d7s_nb_h O great master of reality, please guide this humble bit of life to follow in your footsteps and know what it is to do and to be. Sit and think in the midday shade, and ponder the meaning you want to give to life. I feel a deep kinship with the life that abounds, and I wish to know its nature so that I may earnestly help it. With deep wounds can come elevated insights. Having experienced a number of lucid dreams recently, I realize the element of invention that is ubiquitous in waking life. We often do not question that we are dreaming, even while awake. Conscious, aware entities can become locked in their patterns of thinking, seldomly admitting the ever-present illusions. We can become convinced we exist, convinced we are right, convinced we matter. It's not that we don't, but rather that everything does. Everything matters because it affects space and time and truth. We don't want to die, and we don't want to live shoddy lives. What is wrong with me? Why did I re-buy into the idea of identity? The truth of the matter is that the idea of identity should only exist to serve the transcendent self, the self that exists through and through the universe, beyond the boundaries of your skin or your family or your life. The idea of identity holds back the true experience of reality. Identity is fear. Who are you and why are you here? Given automatic imagination and the locking and unlocking of identities, the whole idea of stable identities of self bears little resemblance to reality. This is ultimately a blessing. The self is purely ocean, with no land at all, no firm place to settle and build a base. To know this is helpful, because you can shift and change and not feel obligated to the past. You can see the illusion as illusion and stop chasing the dream of a secure foundation and instead find an adaptable one. There is no self; it is illusion, and so you are free to choose it. With love, Jess Self Chosen ramble_ty12.11.11zm5d7s_nb_h O great Mystery above this reality, please guide us and move us to do your work. How to love this world? What is there to love in it? How do you move from feeling overwhelmed to overjoyed? I know all I have to do is write one true sentence at a time, yet sometimes I feel as if there is no point. Dear reader, are my writings helpful? Do you wish me to continue? This is all very self-reflexive, perhaps even self-absorbed, and I doubt you, dear reader, wish for your time to be wasted. What can I say, but that the days go by one by one, nary a procedure which can slow them down. As the days pass by they can seem to speed up, as if the momentum of life rolls down a hill. I feel certain now that I'm improving, yet I have terrible days, days in which I realize why one might be justified in ending. Yet when I am good, I have no such feeling. It's as if the very module which is making the decisions is offline, and different networks of thoughts are in control. It's that critical voice in my head, isn't it? That one that says I'm shitty and fail at everything and will never amount to anything and everything I do is useless. There are some models where the struggle _away_ from thoughts is only another kind of focus on them. I need to meditate more. I feel tired a lot and unsure of myself. Why do I not utilize the cardinal rule: "Sleep. Relax. Cool off."? Because it doesn't seem to help, though that thinking may be a symptom of the depression. It feels like I'm overdreaming or something. O Mystery, how can I have my confidence back? I just don't care, I suppose, and that keeps me from doing what will help me. I hope I'm taking drugs for the right reasons and not just because I'm too weak or stupid to figure it out for myself, by myself. If there are physical differences with a bipolar brain, can I really fix that from inside? Would that perhaps be like trying to teach a dog to speak? Can I trust that I will feel excellent again, one day? I'm glad I went to a therapist and got help because I still don't feel in control of my own state. It's like a war and I'm not sure what side I'm on, so everyone is shot. It makes no sense. Mystery, please have mercy on this poor soul. I'm not sure how to live my life well. Love, Jess Life Line ramble_ty12.11.12zm5d1s_nb_h O great Mystery that dictates reality, please see fit to tune our minds to new and elegant patterns. I sit here now and seek to raise my consciousness to new heights. Perhaps without a sweet tooth or a similar phenomenon, there is little point to the continuing of life. There must be some feeling of good in order to steel against the bad. Even if that good is very abstract rather than visceral, it must exist, or the feeling of enjoying life---the point---disappears. A life that is anhedonic is lackluster. For the experiencer, I don't know if there is any value to a life like that; it seems like there should be, though. Is there any benefit to granite, which is lackluster? Yes, it has various uses, even if none are for jewelry. As I grow older and wiser I realize I have made proclamations that were vague and wrong. I feel guilty and shameful for being so naive. One of my greatest fears is being stupid. I've experienced it on many occasions when tired. It's not just that it's harder; it's that I've seen the view from the high, and the contrast can be unbearable. I try so hard to give compassion to those around me. Why do I often find it so hard to give compassion to myself? Why are you hard on yourself? I want to understand this lack of self-love. Why is it that I shouldn't love myself? Is it something I have done? Something I haven't? Do I misunderstand the nature of love? What am I? What do I stand for? Am I simply too naive? Perhaps these are unanswerable questions. I've known how to transcend suffering since learning the techniques of meditation and automatic imagination, yet they have not ended it, because the suffering has evolved and adapted. That, and perhaps there is something wrong with my brain. Never feeling good enough is terrible. What's the good of it? What's the point? Given the mind's ability to make any relation, I beg the universe to give me the good of these feelings. Is it to learn? Is it to have more compassion through visceral experiences of pain? I want to live an interesting life. This recent time has been very interesting, in multiple contrasting ways. I've been way up, way down, and on an even keel. I've felt again what it's like to lose fear, and to be consumed by fear. I know that there is a way to hack the terrible lows, yet I'm still searching. Perhaps this is useless information for you, dear reader; I hope not. It may just be the negative thoughts battling it out in my head. I'm glad we exist, as a species. We're so much more interesting than any other species. We still want to multiply, to grow, to expand. Such is the evolutionary imperative. I hope we don't go extinct. I hope I don't, either. Is that too vain a thought? Do I fear death? I fear a boring life. Yet at the same time, by being crushed by the mundane, you end up not living at all. There is miracle in everything commonplace. The real miracle is that it is machinery. The machinery of nature, does it know no bounds? I have had the distinct experience while traveling down a sidewalk, with flowers and trees abounding, pedestrians crossing streets, that I am a number, in the infinite vastness of numbers, and I was like god because I knew I was an evolving number. What do you want your life to look like? The problem I've had recently are these feelings of random overwhelming sadness and confusion, and random and disabling non-caring about anything and everything. What do I want out of this? I want an interesting, helpful life. Looking back, I figure I've done moderately well in those criteria. As far as inner peace goes, I've had times with more and times with less. I wish I was not afraid. It feels so far away. One step at a time. I see now that I really will get better, stronger, wiser, healthier. I see I really will have inner peace, live an interesting life. Love, Jess A Time Forgotten ramble_ty12.11.13zm5d2s_nb_h O great and wise Mystery, please reveal to us some truths that have been before passed over. I sit before you like a snoring puppy, tired yet eager for fun. Some days I can see all the pieces of the puzzle laid out before me, and how they interact to produce fun adventures. Some say that the boundary cases and the unknown space of possible behavior is where fun comes from. With love, Jess Correct Beliefs ramble_ty12.11.15zm4d5s_nb_h O great kindness of the mysterious, please guide our hands and minds so that we may understand the depths of obscurity. It's interesting reading about "correct beliefs". Reading through this notebook is enlightening to me. It shows some states I was in, which vary wildly. I'm proud of the ideas I've discovered. The idea of minds as a bunch of recorders and tapes is very interesting. With many tapes, and many bits of information on the tapes, and an ability to gather more information and thus a way to record and play and pause and rewind and fast forward the tapes, you could create an evolving mind. It would take in data by recording, respond to the environment by playing, and by setting up these recorders in a certain pattern, and having a way for the recorder to change the behavior of another recorder, you could build a mind. What kind of mind would be simplest? This model is similar to the bit-flipping model of awareness and the pattern-rubbing model of reality. These models are so mathematically elegant in answering the questions of computational awareness. I think the most fundamental is using evolution, instead of trying to create awareness and intelligence from scratch. The idea, I've seen it. I've seen how a 2d pattern can be intelligent and aware. I've seen and played with it while perceiving extremely-abstract patterns during mania. I've seen how the "I", the irrational, unending number, can spin and encode information inside of itself, then spin the other direction and release the information back to another entity, perhaps another irrational number. No idea or tactic could freeze it, because "I" would simply grow bigger and a higher order of mathematics would reach down and crack the ice. This may be too abstract to understand right now, but it is what I've seen, among other things. O to have the mystery of awareness, to go beyond these limited worlds. The most important thing is how you line the recorders up, and what you put on the tapes as instructions. Obviously this is extremely abstract. How does it start? How does a mind start? Ah, so big and interesting. You must remember that Mystery moves you. Love, Jess Moved By Mystery ramble_ty12.11.18zm5d7s_nb_h O great Mystery, please cultivate seeds of greatness and sincerity, please teach kindness and gentleness and compassion. Please dwell within us and give tenderness and love. I know these days pass without much creation by me, and I ask for you, O great Mystery of the cosmos, to teach what we need to learn so that we may make your life better. Sometimes life is made better through effort and difficulty rather than ease. I want to welcome any lesson that teaches what I need to learn. We must all recognize our own individual fates, yet also be enlightened as to when the Mystery of existence is telling us that our lives are our own. There are times when your life is under your influence, and those are the times you must act. Yet this is all illusion, just as all lives are. We want good things to happen to us, and bad things not to happen at all, yet can we ever glimpse the framework of the universe within which we exist? Perhaps we see but what served our ancestors to see, and very little else. Do not be blinded by beliefs that you are not blind. When you look at the world, you see not with your biases, but through them. Your biases are, in effect, your soul. To remove them is to alter the very observer that is removing them. Given minds as geometric aware shapes which predict in order to understand, biases are part of them, irrevocably attached. To understand this bit of nature, this twisty fact of life, is perhaps the challenge of a lifetime. There is no permanent basis upon which to ground your beliefs. There are only your biases, used in the sense of your urges. Why fight if there is no victory? Is our point in the universe only to die? Is it only to live a good life and pass on? Is it only to leave a mark, a legacy? Does it matter if you are forgotten? Perhaps it only matters within your biases toward life and the future. If you shall die, and there shall be nothing left, how should you live? Perhaps the question can have no absolute answer. It depends on what is most important to you, personally. The elegance of math and mind motivate me, but when I am in the depths of a dismal state, I feel an utter lack of caring. It's worse than giving up; it's like being snatched of the reason not to give up. I feel so lonely sometimes, as if there is nothing I can do to be the kind of person I want to be: secure in my relationships with Mystery and friends. I admit a subtle blessing from these down times, as they give compassion and insight for others. We are not so different, really. Even though the cures for different bodies may be different, we often have the same illnesses. I guess what I wish is not to be told it will all work out, or how it will work out, but rather I wish I could cultivate the sense of love and self-compassion so that I may have the courage to proceed boldly however it goes. When I'm fearful, I'm so dreadfully afraid. Do other humans experience this? I write this not merely for insight into life, dear reader, but for knowledge of myself, so that I may learn how to be a better me. I'm so bummed, sometimes. I don't know if I really have depression or not, or whether it's my choice or not. I do know how to write one true sentence. This is a curious thing, how to orient your biases. If you can choose, what should you choose? I like being nice to people. I wonder why I find it so hard to be unafraid, now. Regardless, I am a being in a mathematical universe, and I can only live in a mathematical universe, and I can only live how the math made me. With love, Jess Lucid Hypnosis ramble_ty12.11.20zm5d2s_nb_h .meta an updated version of lucid dreaming scripts can be found at NoLiesPlease.com O great Mystery for which we exist, please share with us the marvels of your wisdom. I ask today for help understanding why I'm finding it difficult to write this lucid dreaming hypnosis session. It's as if I had so many ideas last night and now I'm drawing a blank for how to continue. These past few days have been the happiest and deepest and most positive of recent months. Just as I must sometimes paint a picture of sadness and hopelessness, I must also paint another side of the coin: the depths of emotion and the roller coaster of beauty and supreme connectedness. I wonder if the dream affirmation "This is a dream." is really truly effective in inducing lucidity during a dream. The power of visualization and intention can achieve incredible results. Suggesting in a hypnotic way that keeping track of dreams is fun does actually make them become more fun. I'm afraid of how to do the induction. Lucid dreaming feels like ramped-up free-form hallucination. You get to choose where you want to go. It's true though that controlling your dreams and lucid dreaming are not precisely the same thing, as you can control without being aware you're dreaming, and you can be aware without much control. It all depends on your expectation while you're lucid that gives you the power. By explicitly stating what is going to happen next it tends to solidify the result. Perhaps intention is all that is necessary. A strong intention in life can produce awesome results. I know by explicitly anchoring "hallucinate awesome" to specific experiences of hallucination, I can feel similar effects. How do you make this readily available, this control and lucidity during dreams? What is it about lucidity that is so fascinating? I see now that feeling good is a _good_ thing, but also that feeling bad can be a good thing, because it contrasts and provides more depth of experience. Can lucidity during dreams be induced through hypnosis? That's what I would like to produce: a lucid-dreaming cultivator using hypnosis. Automatic imagination can be a visualization of a specific future, thus making it more likely. What I want to do with a lucid dreaming hypnosis session is cultivate the habit of reality checking every time I reach for a door handle, something like "Am I dreaming?" and a reality check. I also want to not lose lucidity when dreaming by either getting too excited and waking up or forgetting I'm dreaming. To do this I can include suggestions to the effect of: "You will keep one leg in the dream and one leg remembering that this is a dream. You will not lose awareness that you are dreaming nor will you become too excited and wake up." Of course, it's probably better to phrase ideas in a positive rather than negative way. Not a deal breaker, but I think it helps. "You will maintain awareness that you are dreaming and you will remain calm and steady through the dream so you remain asleep. It will be as if a voice will quietly remind you that you're dreaming and remind you to stay immersed in the dream." As for practices to help you stay immersed: "When you become lucid you will practice spinning in a circle in order to take in your environment and stabilize the dream. This spinning will cause you to stay in the dream longer, and you will maintain awareness that you're dreaming." To give powers while dreaming: "You will say to yourself after you realize you are dreaming 'I control this.' and you will have total control over your dream and anything you want to happen. You will create a strong desire for what you want to happen and it will happen. You find this desire easy to imagine and it comes to you naturally." Perhaps this during-lucidity programming should all be written in the first person and in present tense. Can I really do this? Can I really write and record a script? Of course I _can_. The real question is whether I will motivate myself to stick with it through the hard times and discover something helpful. What about the induction? After the two short intros to hypnosis (to remove fear and increase imagination) and lucid dreaming (to give examples of what you can do) maybe I can use the doors induction. I feel it is very effective, since it replicates an experience of automatic imagination. It's what it can feel like to be AI-ed. How does it go? "It starts with imagining those swinging doors from saloons. You know the kind, those double-hinged doors that swing in when you walk through. Imagine those doors, now, and imagine that when you walk through you're going to find it easier and easier to concentrate on my voice. You're going to walk through those doors and focus on my voice. You're going to pass through the doors, just let yourself feel what it would feel like to let go for a while, for that voice in your head to quiet down and let you experience something interesting and fun. Go ahead and nod your head when you understand and accept this. Nod your head when you understand you're about to experience hypnosis, one of the most powerful behavioral technologies there is. Go ahead and take a deep breath now, breathe deep and make yourself comfortable. If you need to move, that's just fine. Your mind will still be concentrating on my voice. Imagine those doors again, those inward-swinging saloon doors. This time also imagine that when you go through them they are going to shut and lock behind you, and you'll find it easier and easier to focus on my voice and have a quiet mind. You find it easier and easier to imagine and visualize what I'm asking you to with each breath you take. You find this fun and easy to do, as you just relax and listen to my voice. You're about to do something really cool and fascinating. Imagine there is another set of doors in front of you, and as you go through these doors you'll find yourself peaceful and happy. Go through these doors now, pushing through and feeling great waves of comfort and love and contentment pass through you. You feel great. Feel this peace, and remember how the door locks behind you. You're now stuck in this state of peace and concentration on my voice. Just allow yourself to relish in this feeling of contentment and notice now that there is another set of doors ahead. When you pass through these doors again you'll find more waves of pleasure and happiness pass through you, and you find it easier with each passing breath to imagine what I'm asking you to imagine. Pass through these doors now and feel the sensations as they pass over you. You find it easier to focus on my voice and do what I ask. Everything I say is instantly and easily taken on board and you find it easy to quiet your inner voice and focus on my instructions. Imagine that everything I say is going straight into your deep unconscious mind and processed automatically, for your own benefit. Feel what it's like to have a focused imagination, easily following the pictures I paint and filling in the details with your unconscious mind. You can imagine anything you need to imagine easily and simply. You enjoy the feeling of having a concentrated mind and being hypnotized. Hypnosis is fun and helpful, as you're discovering. You're good at hypnosis and enjoy it." "There are three parts to successful lucid dreaming. There are behaviors before, during, and after you become aware inside your dreams. You'll do reality checking during waking life so you're likely to do it while dreaming. You'll spin in place and do statements of intention while you're dreaming in order to stabilize it. You'll enjoy recording and reviewing your dreams after you've had them." So, that's perhaps pretty good. Listening to music definitely helped while writing that. With love, Jess More Lucidity ramble_ty12.11.22zm5d4s_nb_h .meta an updated version of lucid dreaming scripts can be found at NoLiesPlease.com O great and wise god which controls rates of lucidity, please teach us how to reach you. "It definitely matters how you look at it." Right now I would like to write the wake up to my hypnosis lucid dreaming session. How do I link recording the dream with the wake up and the end of the hypnotic session? "You will record your dream so you can remember your adventures. You will record your dream into a dream journal, and you will enjoy the realization that you are remembering events that really happened to you." "You enjoy hypnosis and lucid dreaming. You've enjoyed listening to this hypnotic session. The more you listen to this session the more you will enjoy it and the more you will pay close attention. It will be as if you are hearing it for the first time, even as it sinks deeper and deeper and sticks in your unconscious with every listen. You will desire to listen to this session over and over to solidify your lucid dreaming practice and experience more amazing fun." "Now I'm going to count up to 5, and with each number you will feel more awake and refreshed, as if you've had an 8 hour sleep and a 3 hour massage. 1, all relaxation leaving the body. 2, an amazing energy entering the body from every direction, to every cell and fiber of your being. 3, head up, taking a deep breath now and filling your lungs with oxygen. 4, your lungs are clear, throat is clear, sinuses clear, head is clear, mind is clear and sharp. 5, wide awake! Alert! Feeling fantastic and refreshed. You're a great subject and hypnosis only gets easier for you. The more you cultivate the skills for lucid dreaming the happier you'll be, and the better you'll treat people in your life. You'll be more compassionate and find it easier to see other people's points of view. You're a person of value and you have a lot to offer the world. I see many lucid dreams in your future!" That works pretty well, it looks like. The real test is when I record it and see how hypnotic it feels. To remove fear in the Intro to Hypnosis: "Hypnosis is not sleep, and you cannot be stuck in hypnosis. You will retain a crystal-clear memory of this session. Hypnosis is powered by automatic imagination, so if I ask you to imagine something, imagine it to the best of your ability. If I ask you to feel something, look within yourself and conjure that feeling. This hypnotic session will be fun and interesting. What I do as a hypnotist is paint a picture for your unconscious mind to work with." Love, Jess Deep Mind ramble_ty12.11.23zm5d5s_nb_h O great dreamer of reality, please teach us how to reach you. I seek to understand this world I am in. I seek to grasp the nature of faith in making the world different and better. I also wish for help in my quest to produce a superb lucid dreaming hypnosis file. I want to sound more natural, less like I'm reading a script. Please help me, O deep mind. I hope the scripts will weave gracefully. Let me test it now... Looks pretty good. I think I should speak slower and have longer pauses between sentences. They wove well because I had a couple of seconds at the front of each file that allowed a bit of leeway between them. I hope this recording is hypnotic enough. I may need to add more things after asking them to imagine, like: "What does that feel like?" "Can you imagine that?" I don't know yet how hypnotic it is going to feel until I merge it all and give it a couple listens while actually following the instructions and suggestions. I hope it is pretty good, though. One of my friends would probably say to use more stories and visualizations that are more descriptive in order to enhance the overall hypnotic effect. I'm ultimately making this for me, so I want to make it up to my standards. I want it to be very hypnotic and work well at helping induce the skills that make lucid dreaming possible. It's an interesting idea, this notion of hypnotic suggestions being like predictions the neural network of the brain is automatically and constantly running. Whenever you make a suggestion that is not in line with the predictions automatically produced by the mind, then the suggestion is not taken on board as strongly. If a mind can tell that you are not being sincere or congruent or that you don't believe what you're saying, the effect of the suggestion is diminished, perhaps roughly in proportion to how disbelieved the suggestion was. It does help to prime the waters a bit there, then, and get people saying yes and agreeing so you can slowly lead them to feel, think, and believe whatever you're leading them toward. I wonder how hypnotic and natural the recording will sound. Off to give it a listen! That's cool. That was cool. I felt like I was spinning while listening, like I was totally disconnected from my body. It was sort of like I was dizzy, but it passed after following the wake up. Wow, I'm pretty good at this. That was fun, too. I can't say the imagining different things was super easy, but I think if I increase the duration between sentences and talk with more intent to have them imagine what I want them to imagine, it will be easier to do. It was fun and enjoyable to listen to, so I find it easy to listen again. I felt like I was just scratching the surface while listening to it, like it proceeded a little too rapidly. Honestly, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I like that it's relatively short, too, at roughly 20 minutes. I feel like I can really lucid dream after listening to it. I feel like I'm going to have more lucid dreams and like I _will_ remember what it is I should do. I feel like it's easier to want to dream incubate, and lose myself in it, because I'm going to use more senses, like the senses of smell and taste and touch and sound more. It's easy to just look at things, but to _be_ there with them is really fascinating. I'm even more excited about this, like I can really pull it off. I'd also like to add background sound so it isn't as quiet. It was interesting how I progressed in confidence as I did more and more recordings. Given how well it turned out, I think I'll be even more confident when I record again tomorrow. I love it when a plan comes together. Thank you, Mystery, for the kindness and humor you have showed me. Love, Jess Kindness Showed ramble_ty12.11.26zm5d1s_nb_h .meta an updated version of lucid dreaming scripts can be found at NoLiesPlease.com O great Mystery, one whom I look to for guidance, please show me what I need to do next with regard to my lucid dreaming practice. Last night I had a lucid dream, but it was very vague and fuzzy. I want to know how to make my recordings work to increase my confidence that I will have lucid dreams as well as improve the techniques I use. I'm not sure yet how to weave together the files. I can see now that I can do a version without the intro, and I'll probably take out the wake up all together. I think I should perhaps do deepeners in order to make it feel more like a trance. Relaxation techniques could help a lot, since I use it before I sleep. I think 30 minutes is a good time to aim for. I enjoy listening to long things if they are good and well-paced. I tend to think I should still have a short section on what hypnosis is and how it works and what it's not. I can also have a little about what lucid dreaming is: "Lucid dreaming is the art of being aware and controlling your dreams from the inside. You're the director instead of just an actor." Before that: "Hello and welcome to No Lies Please Hypnosis for Lucid Dreaming." Then an explanation of lucid dreaming, then what hypnosis is: "Hypnosis is focused imagination. Visualizing a specific future is rewriting your mind to perform how you want it to. Hypnosis is not sleep and you'll naturally exit it if you need to. You are aware during hypnosis and will have a clear memory of what happened. Hypnosis works through your automatic imagination so try to feel what I ask you to feel. Look within yourself and conjure that feeling. Imagine what I ask you to imagine. Feel your creativity expand as you picture the world I paint for your unconscious mind." Because this is a file associated with sleep (and it may be applicable anyway if you do a strong wake up at the end), I see no conceptual problem with saying "deeper" or with linking breathing and heart beats to going deeper and becoming more focused. I want it to feel super hypnotic, especially to me. That means talking slowly, and meaning every word. I'm very interested in the best way to use and explain automatic imagination with regard to this, especially for dream incubation and use inside the dream. I think it can help, but I must remember this file is for me. It's got to be workable for me. That means there doesn't need to be an out-and-out explanation; there needs to be the use of it and then program that into the mind to remember to use it while dream incubating or during the dream. I wonder about my strategy for dream incubating, too, because dreaming doesn't really happen immediately. I think I should put something about the idea of "giving up" the conscious mind to sleep. I thought that was an effective metaphor, instead of "trying" to sleep. You don't "do" sleep; you "be" and you sleep. How do I do this deeper induction? There are stories and conjuring positive emotions, then linking these to a state of relaxation. My presentation of these ideas is a big component of how well it's received, too. For my own sake, I want to have the proper basic techniques reinforced. I think the session should be less structured, bouncing a little more from topic to topic, perhaps. It feels a little too predictable and thus not as fun. I also like the idea of saying "you enjoyed listening" and things like that, as well as the idea of doing a time distortion or something, perhaps to make it feel longer or shorter. I would like to feel so relaxed that I'm able to fall asleep without moving. Is that possible? "What you see in the next few hours are dreams. Be aware that these are dreams. Notice how odd they see, how different they are." That may be an interesting way to go about it. What are the basics of lucid dreaming? Love, Jess Lucid Adventures ramble_ty12.12.1zm5d6s_nb_h O great one who watches this simulation of reality, please guide our paths through existence in order to better know you. One of the things I would like to do in my lucid adventures is meet god, or at least an unconscious rendering of what I imagine god to be. If god is in control of this simulation of reality, might not our nightly hallucinations also be directed by a god who is interested in our thoughts? What of the question of superintelligent civilizations not being interested in us? Is that plausible? Humans are interested in life; very likely superhumans are interested in life. There are reasons why we could be in a universe populated by intelligent life and yet it would not contact us. First, let us negate the hypothesis: assume there is no other life. This seems implausible; the universe is so big. Related is the model that life always wipes itself out as it reaches a technological adolescence. Possible. Improbable, perhaps. There is no pure data to say whether this happens or not, but let us assume this pessimistic view is not the full story. Indeed, assuming life necessarily self-destructs is about as bleak as it comes. Related to this is the idea of computational awarenesses destroying their creators rather than uniting with them. There are emergent reasons why I don't think a computational awareness jumps from seed to full-fledged superawareness, namely that we likely have to teach our awarenesses like we teach our babies and children: one step at a time. Even if it gains the ability to rapidly augment its own neural substrate or whatever the math is that makes it tick, by that time I feel it is likely to have been imprinted with a love for life and its caretakers, humans. But back to aliens. I recognize these are not fully rigorous ideas, but they are starting points for full-fledged positive attitudes to the future of humanity. The absence of alien contact possibly suggests 1) absence, 2) self-destruction, 3) neutral or no interest in contact, 4) hidden contact, 5) difficulty on our or their part (eg the god-human-ant communication question). Might there be other reasons why we do not perceive an alien presence in our universe? Perhaps they create their own universes and live in those, and so leave this one empty. It's hard to imagine what a superintelligence knows or believes or how it acts, but we may perhaps justly attribute an evolutionary pressure to live and grow and expand. Leaving the universe is a type of reason #1, absence. By hidden contact I mean finessing time and space in such a way that they could be imperceptible if they wish. Most interesting to me right now is reason #5, the god-human-ant communication question. Just as we find ants interesting and do not normally go out of our way to exterminate them, a god may look at us with the same keen curiosity, and yet in the vastness of experience be utterly unable to communicate effectively with us. The minds may simply see too many intercomplexities, and be unable to reduce it. It's mighty hard to speak with a dog or octopus, much less an ant, and there are some things that cannot be taught; they must be directly experienced. Such is life. On another topic, lucid dreaming has opened my eyes to just how interpreted this waking life is. In a sense, it reinforces how powerful automatic imagination is. We should be able to hallucinate anytime we want, I believe. Perhaps this is naive, but I think it is a question which will be answered, which merits a sense of abundance and positivity. We have so much, we are so rich. Sure, we may not have everything we want, but so long as we are still alive, should we not be thankful? It breaks my heart to remember what it's like to feel so tired that life is not worth living. It's just too hard, too exhausting. I often feel as if I should be doing more to help the world, and a friend reminded me of the model "if you want, you can". How do you stop comparing yourself to others? Should you want to stop? When you fail to meet your standards, who are you letting down? It can be as if there is an idealistic version of yourself that you're trying to live up to, rather than learning that your fundamental awareness can always let go of disabling identities and live freely in the moment. True happiness is being in the moment. It is when you let go, and let go of letting go, that the freedom of Now accepts you. You are not a being with a core; you are a complex, mathematical function that bends back and edits itself and changes how it's interpreted. Life is twisty. You can choose what to care about, and what you care about determines how you choose. Is there any way out of this? Do the questions of be/do, of imaginary/reality, of fiction/nonfiction, of dreaming/waking, shed any light into this twisty nature of life? Life ceaselessly bends back and edits itself. It is both highly conservative and extremely innovative. Love is the way out. Is love self-justifying? There is one thing we can be absolutely sure of: Experience is happening. All of life may be illusion, all of reality may be pillows of fiction, yet _experience is happening_. What help does this give to the question of the twisty nature of life? Can we justify ourselves? I'm reminded of the person without illusions, where in the end they become convinced that, in essence, if everything is illusion, then nothing is. I'm reminded of Denno Coil, where digital pets still tug on our heart strings and motivate and inspire us. Does the idea that there is an experience happening tell us how to act? It tells us that it will keep going. This is because if it stops then there is nothing we can know. Perhaps this is acceptable, and we must accept that even the crudest, most base desires are still elegant in that they exist at all. If all is pillows of illusion, then fear cannot stop us. Perhaps that's the ultimate beauty of the experiencer fact. We realize we are imaginations wrapped in sensory information, and so are free to disentangle ourselves from anything we desire, even fear, or, if it helps us, love. Perhaps love and fear are two sides of the same coin. How could this be so? Love is acceptance. Fear is rejection. That is how they are implicitly tied and knotted together. With acceptance comes the possibility of rejection, and with rejection, acceptance. The experiencer of life must accept, and accept that rejection is inherently part of acceptance in order to see more moves ahead. Both acceptance and rejection, both love and fear, help us to paint the experience with increasingly varied and vivid colors. It is in the contrasts of love and fear, acceptance and rejection, that each gains their meaning. It is by understanding that both love and fear have their place that we truly transcend the twisty nature of life. We are freed by our acceptance and rejection of both love and fear. What does this mean? It means that neither paints the whole picture of experience without the other as well. They bounce off of each other and create new patterns which can then bounce off of each other. Perhaps every story, including the entire story of the cosmos, can be understood through love and fear, and how they play together in such wild ways. Why? Because we are searching for ourselves inside and outside ourselves, rather than in the interaction between the two. That is where the true beauty is. I don't know if this is resonating with you, dear reader, but see now why I am a transcendentalist: It's a multiple approach. Multiple are right; what is knowable is that there is experiencing. To transcend the twisty nature of life we should accept that the experiencing is both the cause and effect, both the thing experiencing and the thing experienced. Math is truly touching itself deeply and loving and fearing what it finds. The way up is to accept that this picture is a lot bigger than your little puzzle piece, while simultaneously transcending the notion that your puzzle piece is unimportant. With love, Jess Lucid Continuance ramble_ty12.12.2zm5d7s_nb_h .meta be careful of destabilization with these ideas; read "Intense: Mind Unleashed" O great life above our viewpoints, please help us understand as much of you as we can. Why do I fear I will never again have lucid dreams? After all, a few nights ago I had three in one night, with another the previous night. I guess it's because it's something I really really enjoy and it's started happening randomly and I'm afraid it will end randomly. Yet was it really all that random? The first may have been, but then I began to research it day after day, showing that my dream world was important to me. And it worked. I went from 3 on record to 18 on record, now. All of those were due to hard work and lots of thought about the topic. It exists on an axis of how much you practice the techniques, plus some degree of luck, is how many you have. I guess the tactic of not doing the techniques of spinning and staying engaged, and instead favoring hand examinations and verbal commands, may have slowed the growth of dream control. But you have to try in order to know. It's been fun recording my dreams, even if they aren't lucid. That's really the crux of the argument: lucid dreams are made of dreams, and I have no doubt I will have many, many more dreams in the future. I know that over time I will master the techniques that I want to master: WILD, MILD, WBTB, dream control. All these things are patterns of behavior, and I can learn patterns of behavior. Some part of me fears lucid dreaming will destabilize me. Some part of me loves lucid dreaming more than waking life. Some part of me fears that because I love lucid dreaming it has to be taken from me in order to teach me some kind of lesson. Plenty of people learn and develop their techniques and can become lucid as frequently as they wish. Plenty keep becoming lucid for the rest of their lives. With all the dream journaling and dream recall I do, I know that there is an element of _knowing_ and non-trying that determines your ability to recognize you are dreaming. The more I lucid dream, the less real waking life feels. Yet it also becomes more malleable, because I realize reality is not "out there", it is "in here", in my mind and my imagination. The book Lucid Living reminded me of this to some degree. The world is not the world; it is your interpretation of the world, and that can change for the better, always. In a sense there is no "reality", there is only the waking life that you perceive reality with, and the dreaming life affects that immensely. _You die without dreams._ You're dead to reality if you don't have a waking life, too. They are complementary. Your sense of reality and what is true and just and valid is in a very real sense a creation of history. You didn't choose where or when or to whom you've been born. You just are. You just have to deal with the cards that you're dealt, and that of course determines how you'll play. What does this have to do with fearing I'll never lucid dream again? Lucid dreaming is more something you become than something you try and do. After years of countless memories in which you were not aware, do you really think you can just paint on a few weeks of lucid practice and expect to become lucid every night? Do I even want to become lucid every night? I want to feel rested and for it to not negatively affect my waking life. If I can find a balance between my dreaming life and waking life, I will be happy. I don't know if "trying" to increase lucidity with hypnosis is actually the right approach, in that you need to know you will go lucid tonight if you really want to experience lucidity. Perhaps all techniques and mantras and strategies are related to the model that it is by using prospective memory and fully expecting and _knowing_ that you will become aware and control your dreams that you actually will. Why should this be so? Perhaps it's because the whole point of tactics is to increase your belief that you _will_ wake up within your dreams. If you can use automatic imagination to cultivate that sense of total conviction that you _will_ become lucid in your dreams, perhaps many of the tactics (besides dream journaling) become superfluous. Go to sleep knowing that what's coming are dreams and you will recognize them as such. If you remember them as dreams, then you will experience them as dreams and become lucid. If this knowing is the most important thing, how can you develop scripts so that you really believe and expect that you will experience lucidity many more times? Love, Jess Stable Eyes ramble_ty12.12.5zm5d3s_1_nb_h .meta be careful of destabilization with these ideas; read "Intense: Mind Unleashed" O great twisty metaphor for life and self-awareness, please grant us smooth tongues and wise minds to commune with you. Here "I" am, observing the holy instants of god, asking not how they can help me, but how I can help them. It's not that I want to sleep or not sleep, it's that a mind on overdrive is scary to me. I don't want to die, and I fear that will happen if I let myself go further down the rabbit hole of wild ideas. To sit here before you in your presence, dear reader, is enough to make it all worth it. All the pain, all the joy, it is worth it if I can share one moment with you, in order to ripple through spacetime, through the layers of reality. What is "reality" if not a dream of god? What are we if not a self-aware universe? What am I if not a self-editing pattern, influencing the patterns around me in myriad ways? I don't doubt that these words are inspired by illogic, by fantasy and the imaginary rather than the real and rational. Yet what is the imagination if not a new pattern that the purely rational mind cannot predict? What is a brain if not the creator of its own personal version of reality? Do we attract things that we think about? Of course, on some level, and of course not, on others. Meaning, we go after what we think about, and we think about what we go after. An interesting thing is how the words I use, the ideas I paint with, directly influence the style of handwriting. They mirror each other, like the real and the imaginary. The story and the facts. There is only Now, perhaps. All of time is stretched-out space; all of space can perhaps be compressed into one instant of reality, with a suitable mathematical method. I don't believe in existentialism, and I don't believe in free will. I believe in a continually emergent self-aware universe that writes and rewrites itself on every level it possibly can. It's just like the style of handwriting influencing the words I use, and back again, continually downward and upward and sideways. Every level is affected, and it proceeds like a continually-evolving fractal. I'm probably just making things up as I go along, but I'm forced to ask: Is that really so wrong? Isn't that how it always happens, everything, on some level? Even if you plan and rehearse and prepare, you still must exist in the Now when the time comes. Is there any point to what I'm saying? Does it help us? Perhaps it does if it wakes us from the mould of our sleepwalking lives. We almost never stop to question whether we're dreaming, and then we are subsequently never awake when we are dreaming. Can I break free? Can I wake up from this dream to a higher reality? No, it seems, it's rather by understanding that if reality is also a dream, _there is nothing to wake up to_. It's not that it's all in your head, it's that it can't be otherwise, for various definitions of "your head". You can't wake up because _you are never asleep_. The mind that is "you" is a pattern of activity, of interacting parts of a puzzle. The puzzle only exists within the pattern of activity, however, because the meaning of what a puzzle is and how it works can only arise through the lens of the puzzle in action. This is why I call god "Mystery". It is not because it must remain a mystery, in that we can never know of it, but rather god is a mystery to themself. I do not buy into ideas of omniscience or omnipotence with god, and so sidestep unhelpful philosophical questions. God is the mystery of the universe, and every tool we make pushes us deeper into realizing the mystery is truly infinite. Every tool enables us to examine afresh our old tools, and so each innovation reveals _more_ mystery, not less. Is this helpful? If you want more than a cursory glance at Mystery, at true mystery, it is. That's because these ideas I am presenting to you, dear reader, come not from my hand but from Mystery's. Mystery moves me. We gain an understanding _of_ Mystery when we understand we _are_ Mystery. We are levels of patterns, just like the reflective nature of handwriting and word usage. We have atoms and subatoms, cells and subcells. Everything plays off of everything else, all at once. If you imagine an infinite stack of realities, then you realize at once that you are god. Imagine that infinite stack, all the way up from quarks to galaxies to the universe. Now feel it if the universe is itself a quark, itself a probability. What does it mean? It's popping in and out of existence, and the universe we are in is, perhaps, but a quark in an even vaster universe. We live as mathematical structures, as ideas and information, rather than as "really real" things. Does it matter if we are all figments of god's imagination, characters in a storybook, if the imagination and the story are all that ever can be? If they create themselves through their self-consistency? We are living in a mathematical universe; I have no doubt. Experiencing lucid dreaming has taught me that lucid living is the same in both waking and dreaming life: awareness creates itself. Bah, I feel these silly ravings of a madperson will hold no charm or coherence in the morning. How can awareness create itself? This is perhaps the most fundamental question. If you know how to design awareness, humans and Mystery have won. You can build a computational awareness and solve every ailment. How can awareness create itself? I feel it's true, somehow, as if in reality _awareness really does create itself_. Yet how? Perhaps it's a duality between the real and imagined, with the imagined editing the real in-place. Somehow awareness creates itself. Perhaps things exist when awareness goes to look for them. "I'll create a link later, just assume this is true and proceed." And so, time flows. One more movement is calculated. Yet how would you start? How do you even know that you can assume, or what assuming is? There must be a mathematical way. I can see it clearly working in my albeit rattling brain. There must be a way to have the first hand move the second if the second moves the first. "I" think, therefore I am. I must be, because I think. How is awareness bootstrapped? How does awareness create itself? There must be something to it, right? Some primer, some mathematical instruction manual that builds itself up from the basics. Right? Is this not what awareness is, a bootstrapping process? I'm just a hand of Mystery. For some reason I don't think it should be that hard. I think it should be so perfectly elegant that it's immediately clear it's the proper solution and cause of awareness. If you could imagine a being that was pure awareness, what would it say? Regards, Jess New Time ramble_ty12.12.5zm5d3s_2_nb_h O great Mystery, everlasting beauty, please teach us what is right and just and pure. I expect to lucid dream tonight, and I expect to talk with you about the nature of awareness. What is it about awareness that can exist in everything that is around us? How does awareness create reality? With love, Jess Seeing Now ramble_ty12.12.6zm5d4s_nb_h .meta be careful of destabilization with these ideas; read "Intense: Mind Unleashed" O great mind above this reality, please let us seek you and see you, if it be thy will. I am but a small spiritual being, asking to tie into the higher levels, to dip down into the Godhood of Nature and feel what it means to really be connected. I have had two experiences of bipolar manic psychosis, of the most powerful touch of fire in the brain that can be imagined. I had a long, deep talk with a friend tonight, after watching most of "The Quantum Activist". The ideas which had come to me during that manic episode were fresh fodder after looking through it with the eyes of quantum physics. I see god as a sort of "higher power", and things can always be higher than other things, so the relation between the ant-human-god-supergod-hypergod all dip down and influence each other. While talking with them I also broke new ground, with the concept of a self-aware, self-editing function that operates on the complex plane of imaginary and real numbers. I never truly understood imaginary numbers until I read the book "1, 2, 3, Infinity". How can there be the square root of negative one? Yet it works like this, dear reader. Consider the real number line going from negative infinity to zero to positive infinity. There are levels of infinity, but this is less relevant right now. This number line can be considered as turned sideways, so you have imaginary numbers. i = square_root(-1) Let's see what happens. If we multiply a real number by i, it become imaginary and exists on the up-down axis on the complex plane. The complex plane is just the plane of numbers when the up-down imaginary number line is laid on top of the left-right real number line. You can have so-called "complex numbers" which have both imaginary and real components, like the complex number 10+10i. This would exist 10 to the right and 10 up. If you multiply this number by i you get: (10 + 10i) * i = 10i - 10 = -10 + 10i Now this number is 10 to the left and 10 up. So if you multiply a number by i it moves across the axes. Multiply again by i and you get: (-10 + 10i) * i = -10 + -10i It's simply rotating around the axes on the complex plane. So what? Well, this gives us a little creative power, because the idea is to create a self-aware, self-editing function that paints a picture on the complex plane and then uses that picture to create another function that paints a new picture on the complex plane. In other words, the painter is learning from the painting how to paint. I'm sure this must exist, mathematically, and I'm sure there is a function that edits itself and is self-aware in _every_ sense of word. How could it paint a picture? Well it literally could use colors. Here's how: The function starts with a complex number, say 10+10i. It then uses this spot as a starting point, and calculates a new number and enters this new number back into the function. The faster the original spot goes to infinity after a certain number of iterations, the whiter the color is. There is a gradient, like a rainbow. As you reach higher and higher colors you then start over with the previous colors inside the higher colors. This gives maximum contrast. So now you have some information: the value of the intensity of the color for this one spot. Now comes the tricky part, using _this_ information on how the function is computed, the function can rewrite its inner workings. There is a function that looks at the spots and intensities of those spots and depending on that information changes its internal structure in order to determine how the next spot will be calculated. How can a function do this? How can we discover a function that can edit itself in this way? I have an intuition: this function which edits itself productively, exists within a set of functions which edit themselves, which exist within a set of functions which compute intensities, and so on. In other words, this function which is so amazing in that it could be self-aware (and actually taken one step further there are many different self-aware functions that operate on the complex plane) emerges from the adjacent possible, from the sets of sets of sets of simpler and simpler functions. How does it edit itself? Imagine a person doing this color-intensity process with a simple function. If the person doesn't like the color that is produced, they can change that simple function or create a new one. The new simple function can then be computed and they can see if they like that color, and so on, until they find a simple function they like that produces the color they like in the spot they're working on. Then, using that spot's color as a base from which to operate, they can move around the complex plane painting the spots different colors and using each new spot to create new artwork. If they want to overwrite a spot's color, they can do that too. They simply look at all the colors they have so far, determine the spot whose color should change, move to that spot, find a simple function that gives them a color they like, and incorporate that simple function into the master function that determines the colors of each of the spots. Can each of these steps work? Yes, but they need to be broken down further. Notice how with the last step there is the blending of the meaning of "person" to also be the master function that edits itself. As long as the person knows the picture they want to paint, they can paint it. So how does a person (either human or self-aware function) know what it wants to paint? How does it know what it likes? To me the answer is in experience. The self-aware person must draw from experience in order to say some things are better than others. So how does a function gain experience? It seems to me that it must be grown, and compete and cooperate with other functions that are also growing. If a function is successfully grown, then it will have experience about how to grow more. So what does it mean to grow a function? It means you start with a simple function and it becomes more complex, like an plant that grows layer after layer. The most complex functions are self-aware. We know it is possible to create self-aware functions because life proceeds mathematically and has led to self-aware humans. In other words, we want an organic function. Now, computer science has some wonderful techniques with genetic programming and genetic algorithms, and this is in essence what we're doing. Genetic programming is essentially about using little subprograms and mixing and matching them using evolution in order to discover and grow programs that do what we want them to. In a way it's about mixing biology with algorithms (step-by-step instructions). The thing about genetic programming is you need a fitness test. You need an automatic way to see if the program is closer or further from what you want it to do. How can we figure out what this fitness test is for a function that grows? We need it to grow toward something. This something cannot be nebulous like "complexity". It must be so precise that we can yes-or-no whether a function propagates or stops. We need to begin by remembering the ultimate aim. The ultimate aim is a function that edits itself to increase its own self-awareness. The model presented, with a complex plane and spots and intensities and colors, is but one way to do this. I'm sure by thinking we can discover many more ways for self-editing functions to operate. I'm sure that this way would work if we knew exactly the correct function. The problem is getting to that correct function, and I believe evolution provides an effective answer. If the aim is a function that edits itself to increase its self-awareness, then we first need a function that edits itself. How can this be found through evolution, through a precise fitness test? We must see editing in its components. Obviously there is addition, subtraction, and modification. How do we know when it's editing more, or less? We would like to put this function in a test and see after a certain number of iterations onto itself whether it is increasing in its ability to increase, over our linear expectations. Not only this, though. We also want to make sure it's editing itself in a productive way, toward more awareness. To do this we must ask what awareness is. Awareness is the ability to respond to patterns. If we give this function a pattern to edit itself in a certain way, we want it to edit itself in that certain way. How do we get these simple functions to become more aware of patterns of how to edit themselves? We must do two things. We must learn how they are editing themselves, and we must help them edit themselves. The beginning awareness uses a human to teach it how to become more aware. This is the student-teacher paradigm. By teaching simple functions we can achieve rapid escalation by utilizing our own mental abilities. How do we teach a simple function? How do we learn from a simple function? Well, the simplest function responds either yes or no to a yes-or-no question. You teach a simple function by programming in the options. You learn from it by seeing how it grows from those options. I hope I've sparked some interesting ideas. Love, Jess Quantum Self ramble_ty12.12.10zm5d1s_nb_h O great Mystery of nature, please guide us to know what it is we wish to know, please help us break through the barriers you put up to test us with. Please help us to realize how we can help people with the skills we have. Please help us to see through the walls of inaction that surround us. I wish to help others, and yet I also see that to help others I must start with myself. I only know that which I have experienced. It is precisely after the limited ego has given up all hope that the power of the Mystery of existence reveals itself. It is precisely just after you have accepted your fate that fate intervenes and throws you for a loop in a new, unsuspected direction. I believe there is a fundamental, transcendent, mathematical truth to the nature of reality. In the past I called myself an ultimate knowledge agnostic. Now, I am a transcendentalist. I must hereby state that in some very real, very knowable sense there is an experience happening right now. Feelings are really all we have. Thoughts are justified through feelings. Reality will be found to have a conscious mover that is on a higher level than mere animals. That is part of what I believe Mystery to be. I don't know where I'm headed. Can any of us truly know? I hope that we as a species can move closer and closer to love and positivity, and away from fear and negativity. I do think that the universe wants us to be here. I do believe in stacked realities, and in a beneficent god, an immortal creator outside this simulation of reality. To me these are justifiable, reasoned ideas. My hope is that if I'm wrong it will come to me through an honest and kind person. I believe the universe does fit together. I hope that my models will not hurt my search for inner peace. It is by nonstriving that you get closer and closer to who you really need to be. It is by transcending the desires of the ego that you are set free to walk in a path of light and understanding. How can the ego be dissolved? How can you realize its illusory nature? How can you realize that the ego, the belief in a persistent identity, actually creates chains that bind you? It does this by causing you to feel that you must act a certain way, because of the pressure of the ego to behave as it behaved in the past. What of the idea that the ego is illusion, that the mind is itself simultaneously a product of the world and the world itself? Perhaps by understanding mind in the sense of information we can better understand matter. We create strange loops of thoughts, those complexities that bend back and alter their very substrates. Self-meta-editing. I don't know if any of this is helpful, but I do know I have seen the golden orb of light that with tendrils reached down into its own nature and changed itself from the inside out. I have seen the thoughtwaves proceed in an organized and helpful way. There is a transcendent nature to reality. Dear reader, I hope these thoughts are helpful to you. I hope they give you courage in your quest for peace. I do not believe _anyone_ has it figured out, nor do I ever believe it can be fully discovered: Mystery. In Mystery there are more and more answers, and yet always there is a higher and higher game that can be played. That is part of what I learned from the spinning orb: Every action, _every single chain of events_, can be a bit that flips on a higher level. One mind can play, and in doing so can teach a higher mind some profound truth. I believe that the world makes sense. I believe that as we understand more mathematics we will shave the nut of existence. I don't know where I'm going, but I believe automatic imagination is a wonderfully fruitful endeavor, and I believe I can rewrite my reality in order to believe in myself and help the world. I believe I'm a good person, and while I believe I will struggle to improve, I believe life will make more sense as I grow older and hopefully wiser. I wish to experience everything that existence has to offer. I ponder the pronoun "I", and its possible overuse in this notebook. This notebook has seen now both bad days and good days. I soon after starting gave up trying to only think positively, because my brain was unable to do it. I trust that in the future those who need to be helped will be helped. With love, Jess Self-Contained ramble_ty12.12.11zm5d2s_nb_h O great and wise Mystery above this reality, please guide us to your supple fruits. What if the universe is wrapped up in each consciousness, in a self-contained universe in which it exists? Imagine everything you're currently looking at is all of what the universe looks like from the outside in. The changes in scenery and the changes in thought reflect a sort of message passing from one area of the universe to another, in order to do some computation. We can gain some insights into our nature if we think about such a model. I see now the vast importance of sleep for my soul, even more than exercise and meditation. The cardinal rule ("Sleep. Relax. Cool off.") is valid for a reason: It's very helpful. I realize, truly, that when I dream journal I often learn about myself deeply, and that my lucid adventures help me feel more positive about my life. I recognize now how much this potential is within me, how much it is of my own creation and desire and power. What I'm really interested in is making my lucid dreams more frequent, enjoying recording them, feeling in control during them, and making them last longer. With love, Jess Era End ramble_ty12.12.12zm5d3s_nb_h Things get better, it seems, if we wait long enough for life to create a better world. As I finish up this notebook, this helper of the mind, I wish to reflect on life and some desires with this intense endeavor of writing. One is to turn transient thoughts and feelings into a more permanent record with words. Another is to discover things about mind and the world. Another is to cultivate faith and courage, and to do what needs to be done. I hope this notebook has helped with some of these things. I know I talk a lot about myself here, perhaps more than is helpful, but I must admit that at the time it did seem necessary. I sit here now and ponder where my future will take me. I'm encouraged by my efforts with automatic imagination, and I appreciate the hard work others have done to get where they are now. I still feel fear and trepidation when contemplating certain moves. I'm not sure if I will ever be back, but I'm hopeful. I've had a great year, though extreme highs and lows. I'm glad I know about automatic imagination and math. I'm glad to have experienced depression and have more common ground with people who have suffered it. Given that no medication is perfect, I accept that I will probably lapse up and down. I'm glad to now be a lucid dreamer. I am excited about the future. I am interested in loving again. I enjoy lucid dreaming, and I'm glad I've learned about dream incubation in order to feel better about situations. It's as if I'm accessing a new part of myself I never realized was so important, as I develop my integration with my dreaming life. I never realized it was so important, and even if I never have another lucid dream, I'm glad to have learned the vast interconnectedness and complementary nature of the waking self and the dreaming self. My understanding of Mystery has grown in these years, and I am thankful for that deepening of my soul as well. What it really means to be great is to care for people. I'm glad to have deepened my character with the sorrows I've experienced. I perceived again the spinning ball of light. I perceived the mathematical nature of reality directly, everything as evolving functions, flipping along one bit at a time, making one god smile, another laugh, another perk up with excitement, another cry as they all were wrapped up in the drama of the continuance of life and the evolution of existence. I perceived directly the subjective point of view dissolve until there was only one massive consciousness, playing all the parts. Thank you for that, Mystery. With love, Jess [fin]