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Ask HN: Where does your mind wander to?

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Re: Ask HN: Where does your mind wander to?

#81
I saw a picture a couple of weeks ago about a person on Twitter who lost around 90% of his followers because they were bots. He complained that he had spent the last +7 years building up this "community", which in the end consisted of bots.

As late yesterday I saw two youtube shorts videos using deep fakes models of celebrities pushing crypto Ponzi schemes. I wonder how widespread bot usage is, and their connection to "echo chambers" that seem to echo louder and louder into mainstream media.

Re: Ask HN: Where does your mind wander to?

#82
post #67
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind if I ask why none of the projects have ever come to life, is it lack of desire to make them more than an escape technique, or is ADHD or something else preventing you from doing what you would otherwise like to do? I ask because it sounds to me like if you could figure out how to channel all of that energy going into your projects into the right thing then maybe in addition to the escape you might find your diff…

What I'm getting from your comment is, that you really want to understand. Thank you for your kindness. It feels good. I don't mind you asking, but I'm afraid I can't give you an extensive answer. There is just a lot that is going on for me right now. Adhd is relevant for this insofar I wasn't diagnosed (and didn't know about it) until recent years (I'm in my mid 20s for context). The last 10 years or so really crumb…

Brilliant.

Re: Ask HN: Where does your mind wander to?

#83
post #82
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'm getting from your comment is, that you really want to understand. Thank you for your kindness. It feels good. I don't mind you asking, but I'm afraid I can't give you an extensive answer. There is just a lot that is going on for me right now. Adhd is relevant for this insofar I wasn't diagnosed (and didn't know about it) until recent years (I'm in my mid 20s for context). The last 10 years or so really crumb…

Brilliant.

are you making fun of me, sir?

Re: Ask HN: Where does your mind wander to?

#84

Oh I got the perfect answer for this one. As someone who (now after about a year of therapy a while back) has my OCD managed, let me tell you what my brain still does with a moment of free time: Visualizes the worst possible scenario of any situation I’m in! Standing in line to get coffee: What happens if I blurt out a racial slur randomly in here? Or what if someone walks in with a gun? What if someone put poison in…

> What happens if I blurt out a racial slur randomly in here? Or what if someone walks in with a gun? What if someone put poison in this batch of coffee?

It's fascinating that in American culture, the first one can be viewed as of the same grave magnitude as the other two (which can be life-ending events).

Re: Ask HN: Where does your mind wander to?

#85
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I firmly believe that there is a sequence of words that [...] would convince anyone of anything. What does make you think that? Have you seen or experienced something like this before? Your thought/ idea makes perfect sense to me and there surely is more potential to transfer ideas/ ideologies/ etc more compact than we do most of the time. I too, don't believe in good and evil humans but that everyone is capable of…

This is similar to a goal I had during childhood (very naive obviously) - that I should try and write a heartfelt essay addressed to all the terrorists around the world. And if all the newspapers published my essay on the front page, all the terrorists would, on reading it, put down their weapons and simply live peacefully from then on, with tears in their eyes as they reflected on their wrongdoing. I was sure there…

This is very wholesome. I hope you were able to conserve and protect some of that thinking.

Re: Ask HN: Where does your mind wander to?

#87
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the link! The content of this video is pretty close to the perpetual internal dialogue happening between me and all of my selves. I eventually wrote a book about my findings thus far.

you might find my last * point interesting about the thesis for multiple selves: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31204611&p=2#31213841 however the fact there is no criterion for delineating the soul to a volume of matter makes me strongly believe that the rational belief is that we are living a sandboxed illusion and that there is only one decentralized being in the universe. We are the same soul talking to itse…

I like this - a new perspective. I sense this is compatible, but I lean toward Heraclitus, in that I see (the illusion of) order manifesting from decentralized flux - e.g., quantum fluctuations in empty space. Our best bet to understanding this is quantum field theory, which makes much of my own book redundant, (except the half of it concerning the consequent metaethics). The unity of fields could overlap with your perspective on a cosmic scale.

I want to believe, but I suspect that most 'thinking humans' still (erroneously) subscribe to the general idea of individuation: material atomism and the assumption of individual, existing parts. We have a long, long way to go - the work of metaphysicians has not yet begun, and even scientists are still making the same error in the face of their own evidence (think: the phlogistonistic 'string' theory). Wittgenstein was correct to note that most questions in philosophy have not been sensible questions. The underlying reason is that they have assumed individuation, as a core axiom - a vulnerability in the bare-metal layer. We have assumed this because it is contrary to our observations and (most of) our common experience to do otherwise; it took hard science to demonstrate alternatives, and only 'recently'.

Am I right to say that we both seem firmly planted in a paradigm beyond individuation - even as your view unifies the 'everything' into an individual? Methinks we have different lenses gazing upon the same essence.

My recent scribblings and bibblings are on 'cosmic significance', which may bridge our two compatible views. One question I have is, assuming quantum field theory, and assuming consciousness is a very natural 'thing' in the cosmos, how, if at all, are these associated? The possibility that they are seems more and more reasonable to me, even required, but in ways that I suspect will rightly never match the criterion of the scientific method (at least in my lifetime).

I try to maintain a solid sobriety when dabbling in metaphysics, but these questions persist, and seem reasonable. While I'm sure there are many professionals working on these questions - I'm also sure it is quite clear that I not a professional. However, my mind is quite professional at wandering off into these topics, to return to OP's question!

Re: Ask HN: Where does your mind wander to?

#88

Oh I got the perfect answer for this one. As someone who (now after about a year of therapy a while back) has my OCD managed, let me tell you what my brain still does with a moment of free time: Visualizes the worst possible scenario of any situation I’m in! Standing in line to get coffee: What happens if I blurt out a racial slur randomly in here? Or what if someone walks in with a gun? What if someone put poison in…

> What happens if I blurt out a racial slur randomly in here? Or what if someone walks in with a gun? What if someone put poison in this batch of coffee? It's fascinating that in American culture, the first one can be viewed as of the same grave magnitude as the other two (which can be life-ending events).

Just to be clear they were random examples of intrusive thoughts, not trying to equate blurting out something racist to a public shooting.
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