LastThursday

Having a love for mathematics, I occasionally think about the use of the word "infinity" on the forums. I think we can all agree on the definition: an unbounded amount of something. But if mathematics teaches us anything we know there are different types of infinity. Georg Cantor really got to grips with infinity and came up with things like countably infinite and infinity of infinities and the Aleph notation for classifying infinities. I think this shows that the everyday understanding of infinity is ambiguous - there's a lot more to it. That makes it difficult to be precise about what we're really talking about when saying that reality is infinite or the universe is infinite or that God is infinity itself. One way to identify an infinity is as a repeating process. We say that the process carries on without ever stopping. Notice how we seem to intuitively grasp what this means without having explicitly been taught this. Even though we can't fully comprehend an infinity, we seem to know one when we see one. How strange. How are we able to do this? We do it by compressing down an infinity into a finite thing which our minds can manipulate symbolically using language. The quintessential finite infinity is the circle. We grok the fact that the circle has no ends unlike a piece of rope - which intuitively implies that you can keep walking around a circle without end if you choose to. We can see the circle is somehow unbounded (it has no ends) and we can equate it as an infinity. A circle is a kind of algebra for infinity. Indeed the symbol for infinity is just a twisted circle. So what sort of infinity is reality? Is it actually an infinity? Answering that requires us to look for lack of boundaries, because any unbounded thing is infinite. At first glance it seems like everything is bounded everywhere, discreteness prevails. The world is full of "stuff" which has edges and faces and insides and skins and shells and all sorts of membranes and extents. Even the fuzziest of things such as atoms have a kind of ill-defined boundary where its sphere of influence tapers off to zero. And, if you believe scientists even so called empty space is a seething mass of virtual particles. However, if you contemplate hard enough you come to realise that all these boundaries are illusory. They are mostly convenient handles for our minds to grab hold on to and so that we can label reality with language and perform a type of mental algebra with objects and actions. Once you start removing more and more boundaries everything becomes contiguous with everything else until you are left with a reality with no boundaries - and this is an infinity. This is non-duality. And, non-duality doesn't have any boundaries and so has to be infinite. How infinite is non-duality? Non-duality by its very nature cannot be pinned down. Any explanation or diagram of it must be done by imposing boundaries on it and this cannot be a non-duality. Non-duality is indescribable. Because it is indescribable it has to be infinite by any definable attribute such as: size, weight, age, density, colour, feel and so on. It is infinite in an absolute sense.

How would you re-invent yourself? Re-invention is the process of converting the absolute into the relative. We are excellent story tellers and we buy into our own stories; just like an actor learns his parts and reproduces his character on demand with all their woes and manerisms and aspirations. Having had your entire life to refine the character you inhabit you are very good at it. Your character is a kind of absolute and unchanging entity. You should already be suspicious. It's plainly obvious if memory is to be trusted, that your character has changed over time and probably in innumarable different ways. Even just the ravages of time have sculpted your appearance if nothing else. There are no absolutes to your character, just an ever shifting set of stories and equivalences: yesterday I WAS sad, tomorrow I AM enlightened. What would it be to inhabit a character on demand, but not do that on a stage? How many different scripts do you think your being can hold? Can you switch instantly between a humble, shy, introvert and a brash, in your face, extrovert? How flexible is it possible to be? Is it even desirable? To understand a thing you have to BE it. When you meet your friend Jane you have to understand her character enough to even recognise her as Jane; and when you talk and laugh with her, you must understand her point of view and her history. All that has to be summoned on demand. The character/story of Jane is already within you. You have within you the scripts of thousands of characters each of which you seamlessly bring into consciousness when needed. You already have that experience to draw from, and you probably already do, having picked up all number of manerisms and ways of being from others. To truly break free is to first realise this: "All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players." And then to realise you can choose to be any player you like, whenever you like, or to be none of them.

@Wisebaxter just to say I much appreciated your music.

There's more truth here than on Netflix or Pornhub.

@Zigzag Idiot I get it brother no explanation necessary. Love you any way you are, keep rooting.

It's bullshit stop doing this. It's like this: when you're 64 years 3 months and two days old, how will it be? Who knows? But it will come soon enough. Until then enjoy being un-enlightened.

@Zigzag Idiot you're so like anti. Keep it up man, first bump. But don't fight against my seal of approval. Especially don't bother fighting against yourself. You aren't there.

The best song ever made? "I'm the son and heir of nothing in particular.... I am human and I need to belong..."

I'll do tomorrow's post now, because it's tomorrow (1:26am). Excuse the slurring. We're full of stories. This forum is full of them. We live and die by the stories we recount. I am the story of myself, nothing more nothing less. Humans are addicted to stories, especially about themselves. It's like we're given substance and sustenance and existence from the accounts of our lives, our pitfalls and trophies, our tragedies and love stories and our flashy "look at me me me". Guillermo. Sitting on his sofa has become aware of his story, of adversity and occasional love, all those tens of thousands of days easily forgotten, never really lived, just experienced by some other version of me. I'm not a "me" instead just a "thing" I don't really know what. It's creepy and brilliant, thrilling and succint and torturous and indistinct and downright fucking weird. Please. I'm still stuck in 1989, the story stalled then. Everything else changed but that infinitessimal spot stayed constant. That first incantation of consciousness. The sound of this song and the smell of Lulu. I love you can't forget you seems like I just blinked and took a breath:

I'm not sure I can cohere myself. Zoom + alcohol + friends + quiz = omg. I think I had more Morissey in mind, but for the life of me I can think which one. Blreughehgh not this one: BUT. If you can actually sing my lyrics and give me (us) a demo, you can have them gratis. Making a tiny impact in the world is more important than capitalst sentiment - and my ego will suck this up in any case. Do it man!

Someone care to give me a tune? I had the perfect rythmn in my mind, but it's totally lost now: i saw it some day written that way that you never said you'd take it away how I feel how I feel how I feel don't say again how much I would pay for you to say (that) you'd take it away how I feel how I feel how I feel it'(wa)s written in stone 'n right through my heart across the stars and you took it away how I feel how I feel how I feel how I feel how I feel how I feel how I feel how I feel how I feel how I feel...

There's not much difference between excitement and joy. But I would say that joy has an element of being grateful to it. It's exciting to have a humorous conversation, but it becomes a joy when you are grateful to the person sharing that excitement with you.

I've never been a particularly future oriented person. I just don't think I ever had a role model that was driven by goals, so I never learned. Sure I had shorter term aspirations such as going to university or wanting to travel or whatever. I think as a consequence I've mostly lead a reactionary life, stuff happens and I do what I can to accomodate myself around it. Because of this up until my mid thirties or so I simply let life pull me around, like a buoy on the ocean. Mostly this meant being at the whim of other people's dreams and intentions, mostly my long term girlfriend of eleven years. We'd met at university and it was what it was, two young people trying to work out what the "right thing to do" was. I needed an anchor in my life to give me stability and a future, and she was it. Eventually it fell apart however. But I think she felt the pain more acutely than I ever did. I found the period immediately after very awkward and daunting. I was cast adrift without really knowing where I was going or how to manage my social life and friends we had shared. I made do, and just went through the motions. One over-arching theme in my life has been escaping the feeling of being imprisoned by circumstances and people. I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that from a very young age I've had a strong sense of personal freedom. My parents I don't think really loved each other, they were just a crutch for each other. The rift was there from all the time I could remember. My mum wanted the best possible life, and my dad was supposed to be her saviour - but he was a dreamer and workaholic (he still is) and poor - she had married what she thought was a "rich" foreigner off the back of a holiday romance in Mallorca. I think she wanted a dream life for herself, my dad wanted a beautiful exotic wife. They were young and stupid. They moved to London. Because of this dynamic and being the first child, and because my mum never learned English (she's profoundly deaf), and because my dad was hardly ever around, I was used as a kind of go-between and intepreter for her. I always hated it. It was often too much for a young kid to take on. The problem became acute as a teenager when my dad finally upped and left. The only future goal I trully had was wanting my freedom back and eschewing any sort of responsibility - I'd already had my fill for one lifetime. I got my chance by going to University and I escaped. Much later in my mid thirties I had a further relationship of a few years. I moved into her home for while, but I was still living someone else's dream. She loved me, but it didn't work for her in the end, I just wasn't the career driven person she wanted. After that relationship, I drifted for a year, then I spectacularly fell apart. What initiated the breakdown was a very strong cognitive dissonance. I acutely remembered the naturalness and freedom of being a young kid, compared to the socially awkward, scared and directionless adult I had become. It took me over a decade to re-configure myself, and the process is still continuing. I'm now starting to feel an intense desire to make my life go in a direction of my choosing. I need to learn the skills of seeing into the future and actually doing things to make that future come to life. It's a very daunting task, and I'm not sure I'm ready to take on the responsibility for the freedom I desperately desire.

I started to write... But ran out steam. It happens. Will finish it off soon. Feeling kind of lazy. Not in a fatigued way, I'm otherwise alert. It just feels like I want to simply switch off and be inert, and let the mind wander off into nothingness. Ever catch that sweet spot just after waking up and just before the waking mind kicks in with all it's problems? That's where I want to be.

What would you do if you met God? In the street? Ok let's tone it down. What would you do if you met your celebrity crush? In the street? I think there would be many reactions to this: Disbelief Joy Embarrassement Walking on by pretending nothing's going on Sign the T-shirt I'm wearing. NOW!! Selfieeeee!!!!! "...Kiss me gosh darnit..." blush Don't do anything Ms Celebrity, just keep looking at me me me Ok Zooey you get the picture. I mean... Anyhow. How would you even recognise God? Does God even bother to inhabit a human body anyway? Isn't God some sort of aloof asshole who decides to interfere with your life when you least want it? Didn't God die anyway, wasn't it Nietzsche that killed him, I think...? Questions. Questions. Questions. Fuck. What if you are actually God. I mean everyone else is just a normal run-of-the-mill human, but you are actually The God, The Creator. All those poor souls you interact with every day, the people you love and hug and talk to. And all that nature and all those cities and animals and plants and humanity and oceans and stars and galaxies and all that fucking empty space. What are you supposed to do with all that stuff? Why you? Why this peculiar body with two arms and legs and a head? Why any of it? What would you want God to actually do, if you met him or her in the flesh? I just want God to look me in the eye and say "Hey, don't I know you?"

Why is it we have so many ideas and yet we take so little action? Wouldn't life be wonderful if we just did the stuff we desired? Doing anything is a game of reward and consequences. Lifting your arm takes energy, which you later have to replace with food or you will soon run out of energy and perish. Luckily evolution has made the body extremely intelligent in this respect and we rarely have to think consciously about the consequencies of making a cup of cofee or brushing our teeth. This "energy conservation" is evolved in. This is similar to a game of chess. When we've played a brilliant game and both players are down to two pieces, a King and a Pawn each. We each battle to get each other into checkmate, but eventually realise nobody can win outright - stalemate. We can continue to take action, but we can't progress. This happens often. In the case of chess we are stymied by the rules. In the case of real life, we are stymied by costs being higher than rewards. And subsconsciously we are constantly playing the cost/reward game. Some costs causing inaction might be: Risk of losing the comfortable life you already have (stalemate) Not enough cash or time or resources Ill health and physical disability Not enough information to make a good decision or unable to make any decisions because of ill mental health Risk to life Risk of embarrassment, failure, being ostracised, or other socially induced rejection Having to do activities that can't be stopped such as caring for someone or need to be working enough to stay alive Fear that taking action for yourself will be to the detriment of other people (you love) Fear of other people in general and asking for what you need or want (exacerbated by inadequate social skills) Fear that once your start something it can't be stopped or reversed Knowing that a task will take a very long time and lots of resources Fear of unforseen consequences The list is essentially endless. It is worth picking up that a lot of these things are based in fear. That's no coincidence, fear is simply the emotional value of cost. Fear is the signal of cost. It is a very strong signal in a lot of cases and very effective at causing inaction. So how do we get around this if we desperately want to take action? I would say there are some basic strategies: Reframing Making the reward more than the cost Research Planning Breaking down the action into smaller steps Reframing covers the areas of self development, confidence, experience, practice, acquiring knowledge. So putting yourself into a postion where the fear is lessened (reframed) and the reward becomes greater than the fear. Setting you sights higher can also be useful, if the reward can be seen to be much greater. Or lessening the reward enough that the fear is a lot reduced. Research is covered in Reframing, but very often inaction happens due to lack of information and the inability to decide and where all options appear to be equally bad. Research can bring clarity and different ways of taking action and taking perhaps a gentler slope towards the goal. Planning and reductionism can also be useful in reframing the fear so that the action is done as a series of less daunting steps. Planning can also be used to ameloriate the "fear of unforseen consequences" - it's a way of hedging the risk. We are driven by cost and reward, carot and stick. It's pointless to tell someone to "take action" if their perceived cost is too high. But like chess sometimes we a driven by the cost of inaction itself - and we go for it: pick up the opponent's King and walk off with it.

This is quickly turning into my Commonplace Book. Is this allowed? I didn't realise I had so much mental energy. Notes for later: Childhood imprinting Chess and stalemate Time.

How would you teach a computer to think? Traditionally you come up with a nice metaphor that easily translates into computer data structures and algorithms that work on them. Before eyes glaze over, here's a more human-centric metaphor: Imagine a deck of cards face up. The deck is special in two ways. Firstly every card is different, and secondly, there are infinitely many of them. For this metaphor only the top card in the deck is important. We call this card "The Thought". Computing-wise the deck of cards is the data structure. A static deck of cards is not very interesting, so we need a way to shuffle them around. The way this works is to pick a card at random from the deck and place it on top. Now with my computing head on, I know that the infinity of cards is going to cause me a problem. No real computer is actually able to deal with an infinity, they are finite machines. But not to worry, we have a super-powerful computer that can deal with it - we pretend. The shuffling is special in that it's not evenly distributed. We skew the distribution and say that cards towards the top of the pack are more likely to be chosen. The further down the pack, the less likely. We can easily come up with an algorithm to do this - I won't bore you with the maths. So at intervals we run the algorithm. Cards keep getting moved to the top and older cards slowly make their way down the deck. Note what happens. As a card gets further from the top, it is less and less likely to be chosen. That means cards towards the top keep being chosen, and end up back at the top. But every so often a card from deeper down the deck ends up at the top and can stay near the top for a while. Since I thought of it, I call it the LastThursday Thought Machine (LTTM). Is this a good model of how we actually think? Well it has certain characteristics that match. Primarily we can only think one thought at a time. This corresponds to the top card on the deck. It's super important to note that our current thought influences how we feel and our mood. If we have a thought about "how bad the world is" we will have a visceral reaction to that thought, we can't help it. Secondarily, thoughts come continuously and we instantly forget the older thought. This is because we can't hold two thoughts at the same time, there is only one card at the top ever. But, the same thought can bubble up to the top (into our consciousness) regularly. This is in fact what happens. Depressed or anxious people are not continuously depressed or anxious. Instead they have many different thoughts throughout the day, some of them happy and relaxed. But because thoughts near the top of the deck keep being chosen, these people keep having the same bad thoughts over and over. This is what depression means. You have depressed thoughts so often that your body is hardly out of its depressed state. What happens when we have to deal with an immediate danger in our environment? In that case we need a way to modify the algorithm so that important thoughts/cards get placed nearer to the top of the deck. If we are hungry, then the "hunger" card will be placed higher up the deck and maybe even directly at the top. It will become hard to ignore the thought, as it keeps recurring (bubbling to the top) - and you will eventually take action. One last modification to the LTTM is needed. Every time a card comes to the top, we are allowed to change it's importance rating. In other words instead of just letting a card slowly descend down the deck we force it down a few more levels - since cards further down are less likely to be chosen. Ok. How do we get out of depression for example? Here's my recipe: Realise that you are not continuously depressed - you are periodically depressed - just very frequently You have depressive thoughts that cause your body to react negatively every time. Thought triggers emotion, not the other way around. Realise that thoughts themselves are completely neutral, it is your body's reaction to them that counts. It's possible to modify this reaction. You keep having the depressive thoughts regularly because you've had them recently. In other words the deck of cards maintains it's structure, cards near the top, stay near the top. You keep having the depressive thoughts because you are not actively modifying their importance. If you stop placing importance on depressive thoughts they will recur less often (you can push them down the deck). You can modify your thought patterns, by placing more importance on other (more positive) thoughts. Eventually these will naturally recur more often, pushing the depressive thoughts further down the deck. You can distract your thought patterns by placing yourself in situations were other thoughts become more important (i.e. further up the deck). Take a walk or exercise, go on holiday, meet new people and on and on. My new name for this therapy? LTTM Therapy. I'm going to be rich beyond my wildest dreams! Note how this therapy is completely different from conventional therapy. I would say the following in defence of LTTM Therapy: Talking therapy continuously brings the unwanted thoughts into consciousness and keeps them there. Keeping us depressed. Other therapies and common sense assume you are a vessel full of thoughts and emotions swilling around. And your current emotional state is the sum total of all that stuff. And, that bringing structure and understanding to the whole system will somehow fix the problem. Chemistry doesn't affect the thoughts, but only the reactions to them. Taking antidepressants only helps by severing the connection between the thought and the body's reaction to the thought. It doesn't modify thoughts at all. Other therapies assume that cause and effect is the chief cause of the problem. And that by re-evaluating past history you can change the effect. Other therapies assumes a smoothly varying emotional state that we stay in for long periods of time, instead of the actual staccato thought-driven states we go through on a second by second basis. *Rant over*

Quick note before it completely slips away from my reality: Deck of cards Thought Priority Algorithm Stradling cultures First love Timeline therapy and re-experiencing Pattern interrupt Will fill in tomorrow.

Continuing on the theme of life style minimalism, during lockdown I've been devouring this channel on YouTube. The idea is that the Tiny House Movement is about building small houses that can be moved around and parked wherever it suits. It's also about self sufficiency and owning your own property outright. It's also about being green and minimising waste and being "off grid". All those ideals definitely resonate with me in a big way. I could be the guy in this video (but better looking and older of course): I have a real desire to build one myself from scratch with my bare hands. There's something very primal about that. The learning curve is steep, but I've helped build wooden structures in my time so using power tools and handling "big wood" is no problem. I have an engineering degree so electricty and plumbing wouldn't scare me too much - or at least I have a grounding in the operation of those things. The guy in the video has it absolutely right, he's free in a very real sense. That's how to be a nomad in modern society. My only two big hurdles are finding a place to build the house that's sheltered and finding a parking spot for it once built. There are restrictions on mobile homes here in the UK, mostly about size, road worthy construction and siting. It's not going to be an easy project. It's possible to buy such a home "off the shelf" in a price range that I can afford to buy outright - so that would remove one hurdle entirely. I could also tailor it to suit me to a certain degree. However, that would take some of the satisfaction away from having built the thing myself. Am I too scared to do this? At the moment, yes I am. But I believe I posted on a thread on the forum recently, that "if you're scared you should say yes".

@Zigzag Idiot that's much appreciated. It feels good to get my thoughts in order and if others get something from it, that gives me much happiness. I like 'death grip' it explains my feelings towards a mortgage well. Here in the UK house prices are beyond ridiculous and rents are high, especially here in the South East where I am. I've worked steadily nearly all my adult life and I'm lucky to be in an industry that pays well. I feel as though in my position I ought to be able to afford my own property and be independent from a landlord or bank. But it's not really possible. The main problem with building here is land. Land is hard to come by and very expensive. Labour is also expensive. So options are limited. If I could retire and be free and a little poor, I would do it tomorrow.

Nothing in life is free

@Shir you're welcome. What are friends for, if not to provide loving advice? Too right. It should be free! Hahahaha.

I have a friend (no it's not me lol) who has been permanently single all the time I've known him. He has even been approached by women at times, but has simply not engaged with them. He doesn't care for men either. He seems happy enough to me. Although he has a number of close friends, so they do seem important to him. My point is, who cares? If it doesn't cause you suffering not have certain types of relationship, friends or more sexual ones, then don't worry about it. It's not worth the mental energy thinking about what you could be missing out on, or if there's something wrong with you, or feeling a need to conform. Put your energies into something more productive - like developing yourself. Personally I need a tactile relationship with someone. The rest of it? At this moment in my life it's a pain in the neck. But I absolutely refuse to pay someone to have my needs serviced... Oh well.

@Espaim Reddit, snap. Someone on r/Glitch_in_the_Matrix suggested to look at this video from some bald headed dude telling us "You don't exist". At the time I just couldn't get my head round it, but I was hooked.