dasklaus

[dasklaus]

Things you hear people saying in a lab: "I opened the fridge today and it had a jar with a brain stem in it, labeled "Greg"* Not really how I wanted to find out Greg has died." A colleague from another group apparently had a favourite rhesus macaque named Greg. Greg's been a complicated animal for research because he's not bribable, if he doesn't want to do something he won't. They withhold favourite treats from the animals to use as incentives for situations where it really matters and can't get a reaction otherwise. With Greg though, no dice. He'd rather starve than give in, if he's not feeling it that day you're not getting results.

Also, Greg's brain is in our fridge, apparently.

*Name changed to protect Greg's identity.

[dasklaus]

You know those images where there's two ways of looking at it (rabbit/duck, faces/vase, old/young woman)? I had this experience with this one. Thought I was looking at a sky from below, with an out-of-focus tree or shrub in the foreground, and then these little yellow flowers hanging in the sky...

i was seeing all these little blue flowers everywhere and kept thinking "dang what are these bitches, i can't remember..." well guess what. they were fuckin forget-me-nots. can't believe i failed step fucking 1, the hot girls on iNaturalist are going to laugh at me and i'm gonna flunk out of hobby botany school.

[dasklaus]

Documenting the Damage: 100 Harmful Policies from the First 100 Days of Trump's Second Term

The second Trump administration has had the busiest first 100 days of any US presidency in nearly a century. Since January, I've been keeping a spreadsheet documenting 900+ policy changes and political developments. I then bundled many of the most important changes into 100 topics areas and wrote a summary of each of them, providing a semi-comprehensive account of the tremendous changes to US politics which have occurred.

PDF version of the full report

Website version of the full report

Medium versions:

Introduction + Part I: Democracy and Government

Part II: Civil Rights and Liberties

Part III: Economy and Public Services 

Part IV: Environment and Energy

Part V + Conclusion: Foreign Policy

[dasklaus]

New evidence emerges that the "You wouldn't steal a car" anti-piracy campaign pirated the font it used.

[dasklaus]

"it's not clear that the experiencer isn't constantly being destroyed and recreated moment to moment" - I think this neglects that experiencing has a time dimension, you don't have a "full" consciousness at a single moment any more than there is a full horse in a two-dimensional plane.

But beyond that, I do think that pretty much is what happens. You go through "threads" of continuous conscious experience, marked by the content of your working memory. And whenever that is reset - well, you reconstitute yourself (to a degree, I don't think you need to be conscious all the time and can run on autopilot more than you'd think).

You know how blackout drunk people will seem (vaguely) there but regularly forget what just happened? They're not "recording" to long(er) term memory, so whenever the thread is lost, they reconstitute themselves - but from the wrong point in time. Somewhere you save all the stuff about yourself - what you're about to do, who you are, all the things you are "keeping in mind" currently, and when you lose your train of thought - finish one process, clean out your working memory - that's where you look up all the info you need. It's your personal LLM instructions.

You can see it going wrong when coming out of dreams wrong, still believing something you just dreamed. A friend went to school for a whole day believing she had killed her aunt. You might stumble getting up, surprised you can no longer fly. You just believe the instructions, no questions asked, no matter what they say! See also: people with dementia being in the wrong time, wrong place, consciousness-wise, but rather than constantly asking "where am I, what's going on" they tend to just act within their sense-making from broken instructions.

I don't think there's true continuity of experience between these re-constituting events.

so, the self is definitely real. we are all experiencing having a self right now. buddhists, are, imo, at best doing word games and at worst attempting to abdicate from being a person. im really not interested in no-self positions, do not reply with them, i will block you.

so one natural question is "is atman real", is there an eternal, transcendent self. and ldk, *maybe*. but i think if atman IS real, it sort of doesnt matter? because the parts of the me that i care about, these are very fragile! you can modify them with all sorts of normal material stuff. hormones, drugs, stressors, etc.

it seems to me somewhat natural to model the self in a sort of two-part way, there's an assemblage of traits but there's also the experiencer. and the experiencer interfaces (word?) with those traits, and sort of "has" them. but sort of "experiences" them, do you know what i mean?

so this is all leading up to teleporter problems. even tho i said i wasnt interested in them. because the teleporter definitely preserves the assemblage of traits, at least the parts that we care about. but it seems that it doesnt preserve the experiencer. because, presumably, the experiencer was dissolved when the body was dissolved, the same as when a person dies. you could say the experiencer "jumps the gap", but idk why you would? reality has no problem creating and destroying experiencers, it happens all the time. there's no conservation law, or anything.

so then like. do we care? i guess, to the extent that i "am" the experiencer, i care. but i also "am" the assemblage. so im not sure. it seems like "you die in the teleporter, but it's not a big deal" is at least a valid position, even if it's not correct. death in real life is a big deal, but death destroys the experiencer *and* the assemblage of traits. so it doesnt tell us which part is important. certainly, if you lost all your traits, but maintained the same experiencer, this seems like it would be very bad, possibly in some sense "the same as" death. but maybe this is less bad than going through the teleporter?

[dasklaus]

There's a concept called "psychological mindedness", defined as "A person’s ability to see relationships among thoughts, feelings, and actions, with the goal of learning the meanings and causes of his experience and behaviour". It's associated with higher emotional awareness, better introspection, better psychotherapy outcomes and less somatization.

Now, I'm currently looking into theories and evidence of the mind being a cultural construct - both what folk psychology (everyday common sense) and modern psychology hold true. Is "the mind" a thing that's strictly true, or more of a thing that becomes true as we shape it by learning about it? Why is high mindedness desirable and less mindedness seen as a deficit?

To me it seems obvious that this is a matter of balance. The less minded I am, the less likely I am to address psychological issues and emotions, and the more susceptible I am to psychosomatic illness. But the more minded I am the more suggestible I become to woo, drama and escalation. Sometimes the answer to sadness really is less talking and more chopping wood.

And who is to say that somatization is a defect? Isn't all emotional perception somatic, and so emotional distress should be accompanied by physiological discomfort? Does excessive mindedness cause a blindness towards the physiological, or is it more of an issue of the sensation being explained away - once we know that twinge is fear, we can block out the twinge itself and perceive it directly as fear. Doesn't make feeling the twinge pathological.

Lower mindedness seems to be associated with lower subjective mental well-being and more somatic distress, including worse cardiovascular health. But I'm not convinced this is necessarily causation or maybe a nonlinear relationship.

[dasklaus]

I type phonetically. I don't think I always did, it feels like it's getting worse. I know exactly how things are spelled, I will notice immediately when I did it wrong, once I proofread my spelling is great. But that's post hoc, I don't know what my fingers are doing and my fingers are hooked up to phonetics, not visuals.

Worst affected are German words that I spell like English (Netzlowfwerk) and English words I spell like German (pättern, wörkshop, open är, ection), but it can be anything (German: Hembd, kämfen, Auvmerksamkeit; English: animels, strugture, nusletter).

im generally pretty good with spelling but struggle with words like anemone or inanimate, anything that has a lot of similar sounds in a row. i mean obviously i CAN spell them if i try by sounding them out in my head (although anemone is hard because i recognize no difference between "anenome" and "anemone". they sound equally correct to me), but it doesnt just come out of my fingers as i think, and i think this casts a light on how theyre stored in my brain! it's like how sometimes you dont fully have a song memorized but you can sort of prompt your memory by saying it aloud or thinking it out carefully, each previous utterance giving you just enough information to remember the next step. like when you force an LLM to say all its steps in order to give it a whiteboard to store its memory

[dasklaus]

I think there’s an argument to be made that protecting the children from relatively tame shadows of adults concepts actually makes things worse for them.

Like nothing is worse for me as an adult than the entirely unwarranted and unwanted sense of fear or scandalization from perfectly common stuff. And I don’t blame some wonderful TV show for using the word “fuck” or showing a nipple. My responses to those things are entirely constructed and cultural, and those shows are often doing me a kindness by giving me a context in which to safely re-examine them and my relationship to them.

And I just think actually there were a lot more opportunities to have a well adjusted outlook on life for the kids whose parents just told them what fuck meant.

[dasklaus]

Spent the past week at my first (science) conference. I think I have the opposite of stage fright - I have a hard time approaching people, but being approached and talking about my work? Which I know? Because I did it? That was great.

[dasklaus]

Seen in Vienna. It's Blorbo from existential comics!

[dasklaus]

GPT* is the plastics of mental creations. Suddenly it's everywhere, filling streets and parks and landfills, and everyone uses it because it's genuinely too useful to pass up, but most still hate it. And craftspeople genuinely are pushed out of their jobs, the criticism is true - everything becomes cheap crap, nothing feels genuine anymore. I get that. It's just not something that can realistically go back into Pandora's box, and it's kinda hard to argue it's not worth it.

*stand-in for any recent LLM or image generator

[dasklaus]

delightful dimensions

[dasklaus]

Honestly, I thought memorizing this stuff would be harder.

[dasklaus]

Idk I have such a fascination with people who coddle and baby wild animals (or even domestic ones). Maybe it's not that deep but I think in some ways it does speak to a lack of maturity in empathy, which sounds counterintuitive but I think its not unlike some forms of unhealthy parenting. It's a cognitive disconnect that perhaps the way you'd like to be treated does not always translate to what others want or feel comfortable with. That maybe your reality is not universal, and an inability to place yourself in another's shoes. People hear low empathy and assume it means distant and unloving, but it can also look like lovebombing or over imposing oneself on others with a lack of boundaries. From the outside it can look loving and pampering and an incredible life, but do they ever really stop to try and get to know the other party, what it actually feels and wants? Are you doing what's best for it, or just what you think is best? Or worse, what you think makes you look best in front of others?

They call animal care professionals who ask for more restraint and less contact with said animals uncaring and cold because they honest to god cannot place themselves in a reality where a kindhearted hug could feel terrifying and a free donut could be horrible for one's survival. And I think information based arguments can fall short because they are primarily operating through emotions and what "feels" right to them. And I think some of these people may be drawn to animals and habituating wildlife because they won't ever tell them off in clean english. Idk it intrigues me

[dasklaus]

I like to read. I read a lot. I spend most of my day reading nonfiction stuff, be that code or prose. By a rough estimate, I read several million words of fiction per year.

2 CIGARS for ONLY 99¢

Sometimes, I need to take a break from that, and work on other things. Give my eyes

CIGARS ARE NOT A SAFE ALTERNATIVE

a rest, that sort of thing.

TO CIGARETTES

I don't know if you could call me hyperlexic, but I do kind of reflexively read words that

SURGEON GENERAL WARNING

enter my field of view. I'm regretting the decision to

USE INCREASES THE RISK

take a break from reading by picking up trash from a nearby alley. Like, it's good to get rid of the trash, but

SPIKED TEA

the people who dump trash there have dumped a lot of materials which are visually arresting.

I take out my frustration by searching the pile for mail

SEXUAL OFFENDER NOTICE

to see if the dumper can be identified, but

YOUR INSURANCE BENEFIT SAVED YOU: $49.99

but I only find the sorts of things that are easily misplaced by the systems of trash generation, nothing that really links the strewn trash together.

I report the act of dumping to the city, and move on with my day, but even after I wash my hands,

EVEN IF YOU DO NOT INHALE

still my brain feels dirty.

[dasklaus]

My boss treats travel as a reward for good work and I should probably let her know at some point that it's punishment for me. I'd like to see the world and experience new things and get to meet cool new people, but also all of these things are horrible compared to just being home. If I take one trip a year that's enough for me, thank you very much, and I take way more to see family and friends. In June I'll go to Vienna (don't know how to get there, either, 9 hours is too long for me for a train ride, but I'll figure it out because I can just get out, sleep in the street, continue whenever I feel ready) - that has much higher priority (also I'll present a poster there and visit a good friend).

We're going to have a lab retreat in late spring and I'm honestly unsure whether I can go. There's the obvious issue like it being during the semester and me having unpredictable sleep patterns and food issues and having enough going on generally, but mostly it's the travel. We're going to Serbia, and we're going to go by plane and then by bus. I've never flown and would actually like to experience it but also - I can't even take a bus! Especially not for many hours! Being confined in close spaces with other people (even if I like the people and they are sympathetic and open to my issues) where I have to sit and getting up is impossible or strongly discouraged, with limited bathroom access and no way of retreating from the situation … yeah, no. Can't do. The last times I took the tram were really upsetting to me, and that was just twenty minutes.

Trains are okay, when they're not full and the toilets are working and nobody's having dumb loud conversations near me (big ifs). Sometimes trains are even nice. But they're the only acceptable method of transport I know. I hate cars and am actively working to suppress my crisis whenever in one (last lab retreat was three hours by car - but if I had needed to get off I could have). Buses don't smell as bad, usually (car smell is the worst) but aren't much better, and there are more strangers and less control. Trams and subways are tolerable, sometimes, but only sometimes. Waiting is excruciating and generates lasting upset that I need to recuperate from. I very much prefer going by bike even if it's freezing or raining or summer heat.

I don't think I can commit to hours of riding a bus (in a foreign country, with no available backup plan), or to a flight (with waiting times, lines, strong societal pressure to not have An Issue).

[dasklaus]

Maybe I need to figure out drugs/meds? Maybe if I'm sedated too much to care about anything and off food long enough to be incapable of gastrointestinal distress?

And could this be worth it if that works? There'll be some participants from other labs and a full schedule of science stuff, I know from the previous retreat that we'll have presentations and discussions into the night (with expectations of attendance), as well as hiking and boat rides and whatnot (btw boats are usually okay). I get some allowances if I can't participate fully in everything, but I feel like it's probably going to be just too much and a lot more work than fun, and not the fun kind of work.

We're going to have a lab retreat in late spring and I'm honestly unsure whether I can go. There's the obvious issue like it being during the semester and me having unpredictable sleep patterns and food issues and having enough going on generally, but mostly it's the travel. We're going to Serbia, and we're going to go by plane and then by bus. I've never flown and would actually like to experience it but also - I can't even take a bus! Especially not for many hours! Being confined in close spaces with other people (even if I like the people and they are sympathetic and open to my issues) where I have to sit and getting up is impossible or strongly discouraged, with limited bathroom access and no way of retreating from the situation … yeah, no. Can't do. The last times I took the tram were really upsetting to me, and that was just twenty minutes.

Trains are okay, when they're not full and the toilets are working and nobody's having dumb loud conversations near me (big ifs). Sometimes trains are even nice. But they're the only acceptable method of transport I know. I hate cars and am actively working to suppress my crisis whenever in one (last lab retreat was three hours by car - but if I had needed to get off I could have). Buses don't smell as bad, usually (car smell is the worst) but aren't much better, and there are more strangers and less control. Trams and subways are tolerable, sometimes, but only sometimes. Waiting is excruciating and generates lasting upset that I need to recuperate from. I very much prefer going by bike even if it's freezing or raining or summer heat.

I don't think I can commit to hours of riding a bus (in a foreign country, with no available backup plan), or to a flight (with waiting times, lines, strong societal pressure to not have An Issue).