LastThursday

How much control over our lives do any of us have? And the flipside, why should we want control? I'll talk about myself, because it's the only frame of reference I have, and not (just) because I'm self absorbed. I'll be going over somethings I've already mentioned before, but it helps me to try and get a handle on things. I feel very much like I've gone down a cul-de-sac in my life. My inner compass has lead me down the path of least resistance and responsibility. This is for several reasons, one of which is temperament. Since a very young age I've always been happy in myself to do my own thing in my own way. Maybe it's because in some senses my parents were "hands off" or worse inattentive to some of my needs. I do know that I had insatiable curiosity as a kid and was somewhat intense in those interests I had. I always remember very much wanting to be "left alone" to play in my own world, and so it is to this day. Other things were being a kind of mentor and protector to my younger sister. I did this almost by default and largely I was happy to. However, there were times where I felt the burden of this and when I needed protection and mentoring myself, which I felt were largely absent. Lastly, my mother very much abrogated a lot of her responsibilities both wilfully and through ignorance and lack of maturity. After my dad left I largely had to take up the slack. More than anything as a teenager I wanted to get away from the responsibility of being mother's carer, yes, she was disabled being profoundly deaf. Ironically, that enforced helplessness and denial of responsibility has been imprinted on me from a young age. Despite finding helplessness and not taking responsibility repugnant, I have taken on that mantel myself, even if it is for different reasons than my mother did. At the earliest opportunity I could I tried to cut off being my mother's carer and that was at 19 when I left home and went to university. But it never really stopped until my mother passed away four years ago. That's nearly my entire life bar about 15 years and I'm glad it's over, even if I'm not glad my mother passed away. That inner compass then has been formed largely through a need for space and a need for avoidance and some amount of imprinting from my parents. I believe it's largely served me well, in that I am stable financially, mentally (mostly), and well adjusted in my temperament, more so than my sister, father or mother ever were. It's allowed me to service my curiosity and not to take on too much risk and negativity in my life. However, when your compass keeps constantly leading you away from things, you eventually reach a point of equilibrium, where you're just far enough away from the bad stuff to cope. In my case it's lead to a bizarre kind of Mexican stand off with reality. Due to my upbringing and experiences I'm constantly hiding from and deflecting what people and society want to throw at me. I detest working for an employer for that reason, it fundamentally is incompatible with my inner compass: it takes up all my time, and gives me responsibilities I don't give a fuck about. To some degree having a relationship is also incompatible with my compass. It too takes up a lot of time, and makes me take on things from my partner that I don't find important or don't want responsibility for, even if it's for the communal good. I don't know what my ideal partner would be that would fit my mould, but I suspect there aren't many that would tolerate it - not that I'm unliveable with quite the opposite. But, I know I have previously ended up being inauthentic to my own needs when with a partner. That is despite my very great need for connection and intimacy. Maybe I have a greater need for the physicality of a relationship and less the mechanics of one? Don't know. So my compass has led me to trap myself in a web of "okayness", no partner, no family, begrudgingly earning a decent living and a smattering of friends. Is it enough? No. No it isn't. Was my internal compass self-imposed? Not really, it grew organically from the sum of my experiences. How much control do I really have over my reality? Logically I know I have some, and I could easily shake up my life if I wanted to. But emotionally not so much, the need for avoidance and space is so great and ingrained that I'm not sure I can truly break out of it, I will have to work within it, but to no avail so far. What I need to desperately install is some upgrade to my inner compass. I need to go towards things instead of away. I know from experience that I'm very specific in what excites me (and yes that includes women), but I also don't have any sort of grand vision or project to head towards. I can be intensely motivated by problem solving and learning new things and so that will need to be incorporated into my new compass. But at my age I feel as though I have seen and done a lot, and I really do need something out of left-field to get me going. It also needs to seem achievable. In my case I want control just so that I can escape this cul-de-sac I'm in, and not for any grand sense of wanting to mould the world in my shape. I want more control over my own psychology, god help me.

@hundreth you're right in some sense. But, if you take a big book you don't read the whole lot in one sitting, you take breaks, maybe read a bit every day, stopping at points that feel natural to you. There's nothing to stop you doing that with Leo's long videos, and that would give you time to digest what he's on about. Me personally, it can take me weeks to watch an entire video. Although I agree, even a novel has chapters even if it's a rambling one. So even basic chapter markers or upfront summary of everything that's going to be covered or some list of "contents" would orient the watcher better and give them natural break points. I'm pretty sure Leo has some autocued notes that he relies on, so that implies that he does have some structure himself in his videos.

There's a tradeoff between time and level of achievement. The more time you can devote to something the further you can go. There's nothing in principle stopping you from pursuing multiple dreams, but you will find that your time is limited. In the end it will come down to time-management and priorities. What you choose to prioritise and spend time on will change over time, and you probably already know what excites you most out of the dreams you mentioned. You'll have to think long term - you have enough time to devote 10, 20, 30 or more years to what you want to achieve. Even if you gave ten years to each different activity in turn, you could still achieve a lot in each. It may seem like a contradiction to say you have limited time and then say 30 years, but trust me, that time will go quickly in hindsight. It boils down to solid commitment and consistency over that timespan for each dream, that's it.

Everyone is different and needs different levels of stimulation in a relationship. But as you said yourself: That, is what you should focus on. Because here you are acknowledging that the person adds something positive to your life. You should be reminding yourself every day with gratitude that they choose to be with you and you get to spend your time with them. It is enough. Everything else is a bonus.

If you are indeed at a higher stage of development, then you should be more understanding and more empathetic to those lower stages you've already been through. So, less "I'm superior, you're annoying" and more "I used to be you and you don't know what you don't know".

That really depends on your definitions and which paradigm you're working from.

Let's have a follow up discussion in 4 years' time. I'll set my timer. March... 2029... 21st...9:20am...

Not in the next ten years. My reasons are as I've written above. The uptake by business will be too gradual for complete replacement in that time, even if AI races ahead.

Six is just a definition, rather than a consequence of the argument, so seems redundant, but that's fine. Six would imply that God is exactly equal to Existence rather than being an aspect of Existence, since both Existence and God are both fundamental in exactly the same way. So this seems clearer: 7. Therefore God is Existence, Existence is God. Is it possible however that there is a non-Existence defined as an absence in Existence? So that non-Existence doesn't in itself exist - other than as a concept? For example the hole in a doughnut doesn't exist outright (other than being a concept), but it exists only with reference to that which does exist (the body of the doughnut)? Is it possible for a thing that exists in one moment to absent itself from existence the next?

You're right, but don't forget you are also part of the forum, so you can do your bit. I would say that on balance the admins are a bit wiser and more mature, so they can set the tone. But equally they can't force anyone to be a certain way, especially the several hundreds of people who use the forum regularly and who come and go, it's just not a realistic ask. As I said, collectively we set the tone of this forum, we each play our part, don't expect to be spoonfed by others.

@Sandhu expectation is not reality. If what you expect does not align with reality, then you will have to bring about that change yourself, not expect others to do it for you. Step up and give us the things you expect and others will follow.

Why the seriousness? This place is and always has been just a market place for ideas and chit chat nothing more. It amazes me how some people don't realise this. You won't get enlightened here, you won't get high philosophy, you won't get intellectual rigour. But it does have its wisdom and nuggets of gold floating around, you just have to appreciate when you see it and enjoy the rest for what it is.

I like to think about it like an infinite jigsaw puzzle. Where the puzzle picture is the void or infinity. The individual pieces are created by cutting up or dividing that infinity, there are no missing pieces so there are no gaps. The pieces are the structure and order, and they all fit together perfectly which makes them consistent with each other. In reality the divisions shift about over time, but everything always perfectly fits together. Reality is then Infinity (or Void) + Division. Division is the first cause that makes reality happen because without it there would be no puzzle pieces, just void/infinity. Division is just awareness or consciousness. So consciousness and structure are just appearances or bits of infinity. Consciousness arises from the contrasts between pieces, because each piece has a unique shape.

@BojackHorseman as soon as you said past 40, I was like uh-huh. It doesn't get talked about so much anywhere but this is Mid-life Crisis territory. Although I think that name is overly-dramatic and has certain negative connotations attached it: fast cars and being impulsive. A better way to see it is as a maturation process. There are stages you go through as you age, like walking, puberty, brain maturation at 25 and so on. For some people they begin a process of seeing life more clearly around the age of 40, an awakening if you like. And it can really shake the foundations of your life. Essentially it's a process of re-organisation in your identity. For me personally it come on very unexpectedly and was a living hell for a good number of years, I was about 38. I become intensely emotional, everything became meaningless and I disliked who I was intensely: it was nearly like a second puberty, but very different. I also wanted to run away from everything in my life and start again, and I wanted everything to fit into what I wanted fuck everyone else (that's how I felt at the time). Contrasted to how I'd been before 38, it was like day and night, I has always been optimistic, upbeat and well-adjusted. But I would say everyone's experience of a mid-life crisis (if you do experience it), is different and personal. In my experience it is just a phase, it has a beginning and an end. You may end up being a very different person through the other end, and in my case it was worth the pain (mostly). It may last some years. If you think you're depressed, then get help, there's no shame in that. Otherwise, just take one day at a time, and listen very carefully to your deepest needs small or large and try and cater for those. Do all the right things to keep your mood up: exercise, sunlight, socialise, decent diet, sleep well - even if you don't want to. But also take action on whatever arises, even if it feels difficult or alien to you.

Other than the things I've mentioned? Coding is extremely varied. On the technical side there are a large number of platforms, programming languages, operating systems, database platforms, cloud platforms, API's and so on, often multiple of those in one set up. Every company I've ever worked for has had a completely different setup. So how does an AI get to know your setup without eyes, ears and a mouth? The only way is to show the AI the setup in detail: this is the file system, this is the database, this is the code base, these are our documents and so on. It would have to be able to understand that interaction in a frictionless way (like an experienced coder does). I think AI could excel here, in the technical domain. In some sense I would be happy to hand off the drudge work to an AI, most of it is repetitive and time consuming and boring (e.g. setting up a database). Most coding is quite repetitive: set me up a form that customer can fill out and save it to a database, and auto-email the customer with an acknowledgement, I must have done that same task many times in my career on many different platforms. Separately, the AI would have to be proactive and interact with people. Conceivably it could do this via email or some sort of chat channel. It would have to know that John knows about the front end, Sarah knows about the back end, Jane is the boss and what she says goes, Fred is the stroppy impatient customer etc. A large part of coding is dealing with people, understanding what they want, and knowing who to talk to. Current AI is simply not up to the human aspect of communication, it's good, but it's not there yet. As it stands AI is kind of passive, and unnuanced. It doesn't ask questions when there are gaps in its knowledge, it doesn't have a long memory, it's bad at explaining itself, it's a "yes man" and doesn't push back, it doesn't innovate, it doesn't see the bigger picture, it lies. It would have to improve a lot in those areas before it can take my job.

@Wilhelm44 It may eventually, but not in the next ten years. Three things I can think of: Domain Knowledge There's always two states that a coding project is in: starting from scratch or working with an existing code base. In either case the AI needs some input to chew on. If there's no codebase, then that input has to come either from requirements specifications paperwork or from humans telling it exactly what they want. In general both those sources are patchy and ambiguous, and so there will be a constant iteration loop with the AI to get the right outcome, there will always have to be a human in that loop - people who have domain knowledge in their heads. If there's an existing codebase it's better because there's a large amount of domain knowledge encoded in the structure of the code base. But a human is still needed to tell the AI exactly what's required when something new needs to go in. In short the nature of programming will change from entering lines of code to entering lines of English (or whatever natural language), but a human will always have to check and course correct the AI, this is just coding by a different paradigm. Also capitalism always strives for the most bang for your buck, so if having a human + AI is more productive than just AI alone, then it human + AI is always chosen. It's the same reason UBI will never be a thing. Inertia and Economics For most companies to take on AI there will be a cost in re-organising their staff and their working practices. There is also the cost of AI per unit of time, and its effectiveness as a coder. Only when the cost drops below that of employing a human AND it is at least as effective as a human coder, then will companies prefer to use AI over people. A techie will need to be employed to set up the AI in the first place and maintain it. It will take a long time for most companies to reach that point and ten years seems about right, maybe longer - even if the AI tech is in place and is nearly good enough, which will probably happen in the next three to four years.

One thing's for sure, AI will be everywhere and in everything (as if it isn't already). In the next ten years: It will be normal to have an AI friend or AI partner. Everyone will still have to go into the office, but we'll be talking (literally) to AI all day getting it to do things for your employers. I won't be out of my coding job, but I will be expected to be 10x more productive than I am today. The big players will still be there, but there will be a multitude of smaller players and ways to run very powerful AI for yourself "off grid". China will be big in AI, probably bigger than America. AI will get a lot cheaper to run, and per unit of compute will consume orders of magnitude less power. AI hardware compute power will increase exponentially and may well use quantum or light chips. We'll have embodied AI in very realistic humanoid robots, but they'll be the preserve of the rich and research institutions. AI will be used extensively in medicine and especially for designing very targeted drugs and doing it cheaply - possibly personalised drugs. There still won't be flying cars.

Totally agree. Humans evolved to be constantly on the move, the more you move the better for your health. Even twenty minutes of walking can be a great benefit if you can't face a sweaty gym, small steps.

What can I say? Either you believe in infinity or you don't. You can only have infinitely many steps if you believe in infinity. And as I said, you're only looking at one infinity. You CAN cover an infinite number of steps if they're infinitely small in size, that makes two infinities - which come together to make something finite. The confusion with Zeno's paradox is that it is a pure thought experiment, not something you can concretely perform in reality. But I get where you're coming from, even some mathematicians don't believe in infinity. It's would be interesting to try and find an actual infinity in reality. Infinity is a super slippery concept to truly understand.

Like any paradox the resolution to it is to look at it from a different angle. In this case it's a matter of realising there are two infinites at work, not one. Essentially it says it takes an infinite number of steps to get from A to B because you can keep dividing the space between A and B forever, and so it should be impossible to get from A to B: that's one infinity. But what's missing is that for every division the space shrinks by the same ratio, and gets infinitesimally small (another infinity). So one infinity "cancels" the other infinity to produce a finite distance. This can seem super counterintuitive, but you see it all the time in maths. Calculus is based on the same idea. I'm not sure it proves anything about God or consciousness.

I see it as more dynamic, more like a landscape than anything else. You only ever operate from whatever level of consciousness you're currently in. Maybe you start spending more and more time in higher levels, but you can still slip back to lower. One thing that happens is that from higher levels, the lower levels get recontextualised and this can permanently affect how you experience the lower levels. Once you've gained knowledge or insight, it kind of sticks around and affects everything. I don't like the terms higher and lower, it's more like this state and that state, and they're both different and have their own qualities, and maybe in one state you can see things more clearly than the other.

@Sugarcoat you have a great mind.

@Chadders what could be more spiritual or divine than union, and then creation? Then again many things have a divine dimension to them seen in the right light. In some sense you could say that anything that is "natural" is also divine, irrespective of negative consequences such as overpopulation. I'm not sure that maturity is necessarily the best argument for or against having a family. Is it that you need to be mature to start a family or is it that it matures you in the process? A stronger trait to have would be commitment. Can you be committed to your family unit and your kids for twenty years or more? Except I reckon most wouldn't look at themselves and say: boy I've lacked commitment in my life, I really shouldn't be starting a family. No, they just go right ahead and do it anyway, because it's a natural urge if not traditional. It's not really going out of fashion any time soon, even if the make up of having a family changes with tradition. Even people who at one time dismiss having a family, may succumb later in life. But I admit, commitment is probably some form of maturity. I think it's hard to be prescriptive about a process that lasts twenty years or more, if not the rest of your life - things change too much over that time to say anything much about it from the outset, even if it seems obvious two people would make lousy parents. Personally, I've sat on the fence about it most of my life. I feel variously: happy that all my money and time are my own without compromise, I'm stress free moslty, but then, that I'm missing out on the love and connection and joy of having a family (and maybe even yes, maturity). All my friends have just got on with it, without much deeper thought to it I suspect. Most of my male friends weren't ready to be fathers, but I think that was just a hypothetical fear of confinement and probably the unknown - they're all decent committed fathers now without exception. I would probably be the same if the situation arose.

@Leo Gura Half way through the vid and it's good so far. I've argued for the process of evolution on here before being able to explain the intelligence of biology, no God required. But you're quite right that without knowing how life itself arose from non-biological matter, then evolution doesn't have a firm base (because evolution implies a very long chain of cause and effect). My two ideas are that 1) there isn't a difference between dead and alive matter, it's a completely smooth sliding scale from one to the other. 2) life bootstrapped itself from non-life by obtaining a sense of self or identity, i.e. to be alive any alive thing needs to keep itself intact against everything else. My other observervation is about infinity. You exlude mathematical infinity in the arguments, but any discussion about infinity really does have to be mathematical in some sense. The definition of an "absolute" infinity being the lump sum of everything is ultimately circular; because who's to say that there are infinitely many things to lump in? A better definition of infinity should always say something about unboundedness and not how much it can contain. It's non-obvious that reality is unbounded in every aspect. I'm hoping for some subjective idealist arguments in the second half, here goes...

I hadn't heard of Harry Mack, but he's phenomenal.