#distributed artificial intelligence readings

[philosophy-of-science]

Connecting Consciousness and Matter

Connecting Consciousness and Matter: seeing them together in a non-reductive way, paying respect to simple acknowledged scientific facts about matter and the human brain

Author: Stein Henning Braten Reusch Available at author's own tumblr.com/philosophy-of-science and at yoga6d.org/library/sciencefolder

Article information: [This is consc_spellco.pdf, which is a lightly spell- corrected version of the consciousness.pdf also available there, and made some days earlier. It also adds some sentences to make some points more clear. In addition, an appendix is added to explain how this is compatible with free will in decision-making despite the time-factors in Benjamin Libet’s brain research and similar research after that.] This article, "Connecting Consciousness and Matter: seeing them together in a non-reductive way, paying respect to simple acknowledged scientific facts about matter and the human brain", by Stein Henning Braten Reusch, is available at yoga6d.org/library/sciencefolder and original work first published there, April 20, 2025. Copyright Stein Henning Braten Reusch, alias Aristo Tacoma; you are free to further distribute this text in all respectable contexts on condition that you do not remove this article information nor any part of the text, and do not edit nor insert new texts into it in any way. The author can be contacted at berlinib@aol.com and has made a programming language which is available at g15pmn.com, a place where also a number of references to physics studies can be found; as well as a long list of acknowledgments highly relevant also for this article. Please use this email to get permission to embed an edited version of this article in a publishing context. Yoga6d.org is a website owned by Yoga4d:VRGM, Norway. Yoga4d:VRGM is a registered publisher with the Norwegian National Library.

Preface In this little text I seek to create a thought-image which makes sense both for those who come from a more scientific viewpoint, and for those who come from a more spiritual viewpoint (in some vague sense). The scientific concepts in this text are widely known and depicted in a large number of easily available books and articles over the past century, including in articles and books by the physicists Richard Feynman, David Bohm and Roger Penrose. The easy availability of the few scientific facts that I refer to in this text is the reason why there is no 'reading list' in the sense of footnotes at the completion. [Some of the formulations in this text were helped by conversations with my late father, Stein Braten, in connection to his last book, see stein-braten.com. Also thanks for conversation with Dr Helene Amundsen Nissen-Lie about the response of the humanities to the notion of 'Artificial Intelligence'. After the conversation, and after listening to an interview at YouTube with Nobel Laureate Roger Penrose where he said that 'AI is a misnomer', it appeared to me that 'AI research' should be rather called 'HIE research', or 'Human Imitation Engine research'.]

I'm going to attempt to construct a thought-image which will, or at least can, satisfy both those who come from a spiritual outlook and wish to understand brain/mind/body, and those who come from what we loosely can call a more 'scientific' outlook. The spiritual outlook may be vague or, for some, more precise, but it is found in all those who are fascinated by such as what philosophers call e.g., 'the stream of consciousness', while at the same time being uneasy about assuming that this is merely the result of machine-like activity e.g. of the brain. In other words, those who do not wish to reduce the immediacy of human consciousness, feeling, mind and intelligence to a mechanical description, have what I here call a more 'spiritual outlook'. Many have both a spiritual outlook and a scientific outlook. The task of the following little article is to suggest a way in which these two outlooks can be at peace with each other. Simultaneously, we are describing a way, or some would say, a 'theory', of how consciousness relates to matter.

For centuries, before the advent of computers in mid 20th century, there were machines around with interesting features, including clocks and damp engines. The idea of trying to see the human as a machine was to some gripping, but even for Newton it didn't deeply challenge the more spiritual view that whatever the human body is, it also has something else--soul, consciousness, the light of the mind,--something which is present with the living aware human being and absent in the case of a dead human body. With computers mimicking and replaying many features of human behaviour, the machine image is a far more potent competitor in the mind of people--as regards how we view the human being. And this more potent image is tougher to fight--it becomes more and more easy to view the human being as a machine, and the spiritual outlook does not seem to have had a similar nurturing. So in some schools of thought in brain science, for instance, the view is held that the brain is a machine, and that the neurons interact by cause-and-effect principles although there are also more or less random fluctuations going on. These same people might regard consciousness as merely a fancy way of describing the activity, and might not object to applying such concepts to any machine, such as a robot with a vast computer program mimicking human mindful actions including talking, if it's convenient. These people regard consciousness as what we can call an 'emergent' phenomenon: in their view, when a human being says, "I am conscious and I have consciousness and I use this consciousness in making decisions", they do not interpret this as there being in fact something separate from the machine, called 'consciousness', which interacts with the machine, and changes the cause-effect actions of the machine. Rather, they regard it as a way that the machinery of the brain--the human brain, in this case-- describes to itself some features of its mechanical activity. They can be said to take a 'reductionistic' attitude to consciousness: whether it is an emergent phenomenon or not, it is, as they see it, merely the activity of a vastly complex machine.

In such a strict 'atheistic' view of the human being, some forms of science--such as computer science, and the analysis of how chemicals interact, including those with electric charges, such as in nerves--are often taken to be the scientific attitude; and those who have a more spiritual outlook, regarding consciousness in some sense as existing separately from matter, may appear to these reductionists as wishful thinkers, employing concepts which at best is unnecessary and at worst contradict clear logical thinking about the reality of human beings.

I think, for those not coming from a scientific outlook, it is important to appreciate that there is no official 'dogma' in science on the view of the brain versus consciousness. In fact, some of the most brilliant thinkers have diverged, and this is true to this day. Some of them were even friends or close collaborators in science. For instance, Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell were together in shaping brilliant expositions in logic. But while Bertrand Russell viewed the human mind and brain much along the lines of a machine, Whitehead eventually, especially after contact with quantum physics, regarded the human mind as something going beyond the machine. Similarly, Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking worked closely together in shaping cosmological theories, but while Hawking preferred a more machine-like view of the human being and mind, Penrose decided that by his understanding of quantum physics, there are reasons to regard consciousness as not mechanical.

In the following text in this article, I will sometimes refer to words which make most sense to those who are acquainted with the fundamentals of modern physics. But if your starting-point is more humanistic, so to speak, you can skim more lightly over just those parts of the text initially and focus, at first, on that which makes most sense. Eventually, like a jigsaw where everything gradually comes into place as the whole image emerges, you may want to re-read the more physics-oriented parts to make still more sense of the entire thought-image of consciousness relative to the human brain as here presented. And while the comments on the human body focus on the brain, they are meant to be applicable, in many ways, to the whole of the human body.

Those who skim through the developments of the physics worldview since around the 1920s find that, in what is called quantum physics, we hear of light particles, or photons, as something which interact with matter particles, such as electrons. The photons seem to be able to be 'many in one place', in contrast to matter particles which are also called 'fermions', where 'only one in one place' seems to be the principle.

It has been said by many that quantum fluctuations have the appearance of random at some time, but that these fluctuations also may involve not only wave patterns, but intense orderings challenging even the time-space continuum as conceived in the theories of Albert Einstein. We speak of nonlocality--that there are some sort of non-transferring--perhaps in a sense instantaneous-- connection or interconnectedness. What we call 'quantum fluctuations' may mask a spectrum from the more random through more wave-like pattern all the way to something highly coherent and light-transcending.

Those whom, as I said, come from a more 'scientific' outlook are probably more or less nodding to all the latter formulations; while those who come from a more spiritual approach perhaps do not easily see a clear line from their thought to such thoughts. Indeed, it's rather complex, and the image of the computer, which is ever- present in every affluent society, is far more easy to conjure up; and so we are seeing a situation in which the computer image can, if we don't watch it, be the main image that we have of brains, minds, and human beings and our hearts and lives in general--in other words, that the computer and its activities provide the main metaphor for the sort of thinking we do about ourselves, about humanity.

And so my task here is to try and construct a thought- image that learns from the spiritual outlook, and which learns from that which we vaguely can call the scientific outlook, and which is not subjecting the human being to the reductionism of being viewed as yet another machine. It goes without saying that I regard the view of the human being as a machine as wrong in all important aspects.

In the following paragraphs, I will use the word 'consciousness' much, but I don't mean it to the exclusion of feeling, nor do I mean to put it in contrast to such as attention and awareness, but I use it in an inclusive sense, so that it includes also leaps of imagination, intelligent understanding, intuition, creativity, love, compassion, a relationship to pain, etc. Nor do I wish to exclude such as ‘the unconscious’. Those who come from the spiritual outlook should therefore feel free to include such as soul and spirit in this rather encompassing concept of 'consciousness'. And, as said, when I refer to the human brain, I don’t mean to exclude reference to the whole human body; I merely regard it as convenient to focus on brain as that which most obviously, for all, associated with human thinking and consciousness, and so representative of the relevant type of 'matter' when we seek a view of consciousness. And for those who wish to apply it to relationships, see e.g. my father’s book on sociological aspects of M. Buber's 'Ich und Du'.

Since the early days of quantum physics, with some rather 'dogmatic' schools of thought around it connected to such as (the otherwise very intelligent) Niels Bohr, a lot of opening up of interpretations have taken place. For those who are knowledgeable about the historical discussions in this field, I'm not merely speaking of the pilot wave theory by Louis de Broglie, the hidden variable theory of David Bohm, but of the many re-definitions by an array of physicists esp. of the notion of 'probability density' and where the original assumption by Einstein that 'no signal can transfer faster than light' has been hammered on, successfully, from many angles. Only rather insignificant features of this re-interpretation has gone into the notion of the proposed 'qubit' for a so-called 'quantum computer'. All computers rely, as is known, on semi- conductors, whose theories are grounded in some properties of quantum physics. So all computers are in that sense 'quantum computers'. A suggested 'qubit quantum computer' is merely an attempt to make gains on speed on an otherwise entirely mechanical product and is in no way reflecting more than a superficial aspect of the whole quantum theory. (Same with 'tribit' etc.)

While I have my takes on interpretations of quantum physics, I'm going to use here a concept that can be seen as compatible with most versions of quantum theory that has learned some lessons from the early days of discussion and at least picked up a tiny bit of ideas from the counter-perspectives presented by Louis de Broglie (including their nonlocal later forms).

In other words, what I will here talk of as a quantum feature is something that is compatible with many or most modern takes on quantum physics--in some cases after some discussion, in other cases more obviously so.

This quantum feature is this: extra information inside the probability cloud. Let us make this long phrase easy to refer to: Extra Information inside the Probability cloud = EIP.

I will endavour to make EIP a lively concept for those who have not, prior to this point, thought much about quantum theory or physics in its various shapes and forms.

A fundamental idea in quantum theory is that there is a certain minimum 'quantum of action', and this in many cases appear as a particle, and often a particle of very tiny energy. Thus for instance, while light--which can be described as particles, photo-particles, or photons, are reaching, eg. from distant stars, the human retina, so that an activation of neurons in the retina arises, the light doesn't arrive as a wave that gradually builds up. Rather the flash of a star--and indeed the human retina has nerves sensitive enough to pick up light from just a dozen or so photons--suddenly emerges at some spots. But when more and more of these photos arrives, a wave-like pattern is seen to arise which correspond to the wave-like understanding of light. [A process which has a degree of analogy to this is found when a telescope shines its starlight to a photographic plate of very weakly shining stars: at first, apparently random spots arise; then, particle by particle, the expected wave-like light pattern builds up on the plate.] So while wave features are intact, the actual interaction between light and matter are particle-like. When and where a particle of light, or photon, interacts with a particle of matter, is in each particular concrete case unknown before it arises. We're speaking here of probabilities associate with energies as 'densities', or 'clouds', and these probabilities are ingrained in the core of the quantum physics apparatus.

In other words, when light--which is a wave or a sort of field--we can, informally, say, a 'photonic field', spreads, as it meets matter, there is the probability cloud and features of within this probability cloud is connected to when and where of photons manifest. The word 'probability' refers to the fact that there is something or other, with a pattern, about to arise, but its more concrete manifestations are unknown before they do in fact arise. As the early quantum explorers found, the way we measure photonic fields affect the shape of the probability cloud. We may focus, for instance, on the movement or momentum aspects of the photonic fields, and that makes the probability cloud get other properties than if we focus on the position aspects of the field.

Without splitting hairs about probability clouds, when we speak of EIP, or extra information inside the probability cloud, we refer to the simple fact that inside probability lies the notion of the unknown--in the sense of room for more structure, more information if you like. Instead of dogmatically ruling this out, with a hundred years of discussion and further research in the quantum physics and related domains such as gravitation physics, behind us, there's a lot of general nodding amongst physicists that the probability clouds do have room for more structure than that which is confined to the typical measurements of position and momentum, and other such classical measuring situations. It is also generally assumed that the reality of the probability clouds is not merely a mathematical abstract idea, but something which, though somewhat immaterial and elusive and 'beyond-energy' in nature, is a fundamental part of the way the universe unfolds. The probability clouds, though in their original formulation tied up to what we humans know and do not know of a physical situation, are now considered somehow subtle structures of events themselves (and indeed active in making such as super-conductivity and super-magnetism possible; and there are countless other examples of this).

Whenever there is a finer study of material processes of any kind, then, there is the notion of probability clouds of some kind--whatever exact term is used--and due to the unpredictability here, we speak of 'quantum fluctuations' as also an intrinsic part of all matter, all energy.

Moreover, the quantum fluctuations are sometimes, in cases where there is more coherence and less noise, more orchestrated in some ways. This is related to how the probability clouds are different in some cases with more coherence and less noise. The exploration of what it means to reduce noise in situations where quantum fluctuations take place is often an essential part of the work.

By analogy, if you gently pad your eyelids when you have your eyes closed, you'll see some light-like effects and, when you open your eyes in an open space without artificial lights around to more clearly see dim stars, your eyes need all the quietude they can get to pick up stars. As in the center of the focus the more color- oriented neural rods are, --these color-oriented rods not being quite as sensitive to individual photon groups as the more black'n'white oriented rods: it can help, to pick up a dim star, to look very slightly away from it--just some degrees lets say to the left or right of it. In doing these things, you are directly experiencing two things: the energy interactions at the quantum level, and the interaction between the photonic field--also called the electromagnetic field--and the electrons (and more) in the matter of your neurons in the retina, --which in a certain sense of it are more or less part of your brain.

The conditions for interaction between electromagnetic fields, or photonic fields, and neurons, in this case, is tied up to the frequencies and wavelengths of the light. But it is well known that associated with the general motion of electrons in the brain, and other activity, there is electromagnetism surrounding and penetrating the brain--in other words, a photonic field--but of entirely different frequencies and wavelength. This is not merely a question of emanation of a field, such as picked up by the well-known EEG measurements, where we speak of alpha, beta, theta and delta waves and such, but also a question of receptiveness on the parts of electrons in the brain to this field. The photonic field as studied in the field of EEG has frequencies such as around 10 to 13 Hertz for alpha waves, and the wavelengths of the photonic field in this case is in the range of tens of thousands of kilometers--this you can work out by using the equation that relates the speed of light to the frequency, with 10 Hertz meaning ten cycles pr second.

Now let us be very clear that a photonic field has a probability cloud associated with it. The photonic field-- the electromagnetism--may have, if it comes from such as a radio transmitter, the shape of pop music; which, when converted into air waves, becomes audible pop music. But this photonic field, when it arrives and is picked up by the antenna and this is studied on the quantum level, comes across as individual energetic particles, namely photons, and while their patterns add up to reproduce the pop music, the individual energetic particles pop forth in ways and in places that is in each case determined by the probability cloud--ie., by the extra information in the probability cloud, the EIP. So the radio wave with the pop music goes along with an EIP that has additional structure.

So also in the case of the brain's photonic field. The shape of this field is one thing; the EIP is another thing --but associated with it. The shape of the field can be measured and when it is measured, the EIP is called on to give some results to our measuring apparatus. But the EIP is never directly measured. In a certain key sense, the EIP is immeasurable.

But while the EIP is immeasurable--and most thinkers in quantum physics over the past hundred years would agree to this, I think it is fair to say--it is also the case that some of the features of the EIP come forth in the quantum fluctuations. The photonic field of the brain affects, and is affected by, (in particular) electrons in the neurons. [Research has shown that EEG-like photonic fields can be applied rather than just measured so as to induce the expected mood-changes in the living human brains; besides, electromagnetic fields are always two-way in interaction with the structures that makes them.] Electrons are matter; the photonic field is a wave energy. The wave energy is spread out; the matter of the electrons is vast compared to the energy of each photon. The electrons are example of such 'fermions' as we referred to earlier--two electrons cannot exist on top of each other. When electrons interact with anything, quantum fluctuations are involved. When electrons interact with each other--indeed, when any matter in the brain interact with any other in the brain—this sort of energy is more condensed to areas in between the matter particles: this can easily be a case of 'local' interaction--one thing influencing the things that are next to it. This is what a machine typically is about--the things that are (locally) near each other influence the other things; and if we spell out the rules of this interaction and the fluctuations are relatively limited, the behaviour as a whole mimics a bit of that of a computer program--ie, it is rule-based. [And even if speed of a machine is enhanced by a nonlocal ‘spread-out’ probability cloud between some particles, it is still a machine when its rules can be spelled out as if it were local interactions.]

Now most of those who wish to see how the concepts of the quantum can affect the understanding of the biology of the brain have been looking for e.g. quantum coherence in the brain--and there are various candidates for this; and, as historically often has been the case with biology, when there are competing theories, the answer is 'both-and' rather than either-or. There is, for instance, interesting research into something which has a degree of analogy to coherent light, or laser light, in the concept of coherent water, and there is water in some of the strands of the neurons and speculation of an active form of quantum coherence in these. The neurons are surrounded by glia cells and these have features of interest also. And so on and on. And this is what I have heard about, and read about, --and while I've found this interesting and fascinating, it appears to me that the most obvious way in which the quantum has a say relative to the brain has not earlier on been spelled out (as far as I know).

For common to all the structures of the brain is that they are bathed in a photonic field. This is known. This field is not concentrated in pockets but to some extent spread out, because photonic fields are by nature spread out. The photonic fields are not composed of fermions, but are composed of whatever-it-is, perhaps photons, which can 'stack-up' on top of one another with apparent effortless- ness, having zero (or, as Louis de Broglie wanted it, near-zero) rest mass. Their energy is chiefly their energy of movement. The photonic fields are everywhere in the human body and in the brain, and they interact two-way with the electrons, the electrons having a charge that are especially susceptible to interaction and resonance with an electromagnetic, or photonic, field.

Wherever there is a photonic field, there is also a probability cloud--it is real but it is ephemeral, or subtle--it is an energy that is not quite an energy; a structure that makes itself revealed only partially, each time the field interacts with something so that energy is manifested. The probability cloud has, by the fact that we speak of it through the concept of probability, room for extra information. The EIP, or extra information of the probability cloud, goes together with the photonic field but cannot be reduced to the photonic field. But whenever the photonic field interacts with the brain, ie, with the electrons in the brain, something of it reveals itself by the exact manifestation of energy--just how an electron changes direction, or just when it gets its extra energy--and that fact that it is was this electron rather than the neighbouring electron that got its photonic interaction--all this is due to EIP.

Those who have studied how the brain is active during such as alpha relative to such as beta, using now the EEG terminology, have noticed that during the alpha states, the activity of the brain tends to be more symphonic. The alpha waves often go together with some more wholeness in the brain, while beta is more typically associated with 'light frustration'. If you dig into EEG archives, you'll find that people have been measuring on masters of a field while they perform actions in which they are masters, relative to how people's EEG waves are when they are about to learn a field. The masters have more of the deep, slow and well-orchestrated fields, while the beginners stumble into lightly frustrated 'beta' bursts of 30-40 Hz activity. Similarly, one has found that under some forms of light hypnosis learning can take place more deeply and this is again typically associated with alpha, or even slower waves, such as theta.

In the more quiet states of the mind, it follows, logically, that more quiet thoughts can be listened to by the rest of the mind. Again, the concept of star-gazing is apt: to pick up the dim light from stars that might be fascinatingly far away--so far away they may even be whole galaxies onto themselves--we must have a situation in which there are fewer 'distracting lights'. Now in the same way, if you have a good knowledge of a complex situation, and look for a solution of how to handle it, while you have may competing thoughts of how to handle it, the challenge may be that, in this state of mind of competing thoughts, the most genius thought is but a too- dim 'light', not readily appearing. But after rest and sleep and music and motion and focus on other things, when one against turn attention to the subject, these distractions may no longer be present. Instead, a solution may present itself. Its "light", as it were, shines forth, and--unless we're stretching the analogy too far--perhaps better by not staring straight at it, but slightly to the side of it.

It's pretty clear that there is some machine-like aspects of the brain and that the brain, like a computer program, can come into states which resemble a bit that which we in programming call a 'loop'. A loop can, indeed, prevent other activity of the computer; in some cases, a loop may prevent even keyboard interaction to the extent that a reboot of the computer is necessary before other work can take place on it. So when there is a state of the brain in which the electrons interact rather feverishly, and 'locally'--one 'pushes' into the other--that is a state of the brain different from one in which there is a sense of overall listening so that an individual manifestation of a particular good thought concept can be readily attended to by all the mind.

While brain science is still a young science, it is clear that there is often an activity in some neurons and some synapses when there is an activation or presence of some thoughts in the mind. This correlation doesn't mean that anybody has ever proved causation, or that a thought can be reduced to this neuronal activity. But that there is a correlation, and that this correlation is indeed part of what enables the brain to both store, and retrieve memories of past thought thoughts, has been fairly much established. So for living human being the health of the brain is a necessity for the health of consciousness. And the particular synaptic and neural activity at some spots are, as it seems, typically correlated with events, such as a thought attended to, in consciousness.

And, as we've amply justified, there's a photonic field associated with all the human brain. In the states of brain activity--perhaps vaguely associated with the alpha or near-alpha states--where individual thoughts, even if initially dim, can be 'amplified' in strength by attention to them, rather than get lost in an ocean of distracting thoughts, it is not too much to assume that neural activity inside the brain, just as neural activity inside the retina when watching stars, are sensitive all the way to the quantum level, in which photonic fields are having their effects. And we said, alongside a photonic field, there is EIP. And let's be clear that for a photonic field --which can be further analyzed into many simultaneously existing photonic fields of different frequencies existing on top of each other, all in and around a human being with the living human brain--the EIP has room for a gigantic amount of subtle structure. There is no rule that says that the EIP is just this size or that size. It being subtle and not-quite-manifest as far as energy goes, being there rather to guide each energy interaction, also means that it can carry a wealth of structure or information which goes entirely beyond the waveform of the photonic wave.

It is also clear that the EIP constantly changes, in a two-way manner, because of the two-way interactions that constantly takes place between electrons and photons. With every interaction that probability cloud is completely, and in a nonlocal way changed, in a manner that is not merely a change in the photonic field. In the cases where the brain is suitably picking up and amplifying events as small as those that take place on the quantum level, or in which the quantum level events are suitably coherent so that they in an accumulated sense add up to a significant energy event in the brain, the EIP is directly affecting how the consciousness unfolds. It is a vehicle that unfolds information by each of its interaction events with the electrons, and which constantly is informed by the presence of the electrons, and other matter features in the brain--and the body more generally.

So while, in this thought-image, we have not said that the electromagnetic field, or photonic field, has a shape that is equal to consciousness, we have now built up an argument that permits this thought image: the EIP associated with the photonic field, in interaction with the brain in suitably sensitive states, may have structure going far beyond the structure of the brain and its photonic field, and may be fairly near to a level of that which we personally experience as "consciousness". [There are other takes on consciousness, see for instance R. Penrose's way, in which he connects it to gravitation; and, in general, of course, ever since eg Erwin Scroedingers essays on Life and Matter there has been a sense in which people have wished to connect something of probability cloud to something of consciousness somehow; but as far as I know, this direct way of connecting a whole level of consciousness to the probability cloud of the ca 5-50 Hertz well-known photonic field of the brain --and not to the EEG field itself and without requiring particular quantum coherent structures in the brain to be found--is something new with this article; as said, I do regard 'both-and' as a healthy attitude to biological theories and regard it as likely that other vehicles for probability clouds to interact with neurons also exist; very exciting research has been done e.g. on human olfactory organs in this regard, connected to quantum geometry, suggesting that we are all 'born with' a quantum laboratory in our noses. I also would regard both neural water and glia cells as being interesting candidates for probability density activity in the brain, though laboratory research on the extent to which there is quantum coherence in living human brains in these structures has science fiction like complexities.]

There is an ancient understanding, or view, of consciousness that equates it, to some extent, to "light". While in a mechanical interpretation of light, light is something that enters the eyes as the eyes are opened, in this old and venerable view, light 'comes' from the eyes as consciousness of the person unfolds and meets the whole scene. If we allow for the Newton/Einstein conception of light as a field of energy and which, as Einstein proposed, emerges as energetic particles or photons, then we can by the 'latter-day understanding' of quantum theory say that the feature of probability cloud associated with these photons allow for the living type of information- oriented structure that we associate with consciousness. The extra information in the probability cloud, or EIP, may match the old understanding of light as consciousness and as something which exists in parallel to matter and which is not reducible to matter.

APPENDIX [2025:4:25] ABOUT THE REALITY AND NON-ILLUSIONARY FORM OF FREE WILL AND DECISION-MAKING IN THE WAKE OF BENJAMIN LIBET'S BRAIN STUDIES AND LATER VERSIONS OF THE SAME

For those who have appreciated the article as quoted in full form above and to which this is an added appendix some days later (article by myself from April 2025), they will no doubt have in mind the importance of distinguishing between aspects of mental functioning which is more machine-like and that which properly connect to the EIP through a suspension of the dominance of the machine-like aspect coupled with proper attentiveness. In this context, free will comes forth in that the wholeness of one's being is expressed, rather than just a mechanical aspect of it. To make decisions through one's whole being and exercise this freedom is obviously an art and not something that can just be assumed. When one applies these concepts properly one will see that the attempt by some in brain science to summarize certain findings as indication of 'illusion of free will' is rather an instance of disconfirmation for their idea of what the brain is all about.

The way I see free will is that free will is an expression of one's entire being--I will not say that free will is the expression of my whole being if it is made just after a succession of more or less logical thoughts and such. I do believe that I can make decisions according to my free will, in the sense that I can let my entire being express itself in deciding questions that I have pondered on for some time. Does this take 0.2s or 0.5s or 10 seconds? While in an artistic or generally creative process with proper preparation I submit that it can happen rather inststaneously--on condition that one knows what one is doing and is engaged with the whole of one's being and that one is particularly harmonious--I would normally say that making a decision by free will is something that takes, at the very least, days. It begins by the questions being asked. As long as I experience the brain coming forth with one thought after another about it, I do not regard it possible for the expression to come from my essence or higher self or whatever one wishes to call it--so the expression from my entire being is something I must call on, and it takes time. The brain can put the question, but it must then consciously let go and become quiet and attentive and receptive. To become properly receptive after a lot of thoughts and emotions have been attended to, and where facts have been sorted and not-too-factual thoughts have been corrected, takes time. It is absurd to assume that this can be a question of mere seconds in the normal case.

If somebody has the idea that free will and decisions from free will is simply the result of permutations of thoughts and emotions in a typical slightly frustrated day-state of mind, which in EEG terms normally is associated with such as beta, they have a rather mechanical conception of will and freedom and decision-making. In such a case, they have not distinguished between the more (local) interactions between thoughts of the more manifest kind, which obviously has a lot of correlations with neural activity and where the more clear thoughts obviously may be preceded by more subtle thoughts which can show up in sensitive neural measurements--and something entirely different, which is this: the receptiveness of the fullness of the thought-structure to something which can come by means of attention to the subtlest of idea-impulses in the wake of earlier enquiry into a subject. It is this cycle between the more superficial aspects of mental being and the wholeness of mental being over time that allows, as it were, for decision-making to come about as dialogue between conscious ego and the wholeness of oneself.

Freedom of will in this conception is the manifestation of harmonious dialogue between conscious ego and the wholeness of oneself if need be over days, weeks, months. It can take seconds, or work in split seconds, but only for the highly experienced, creative master of a field who with proper pre- meditation and full engagement is in tune with what is done and in full resonance with oneself.

In this context, studies such as by Benjamin Libet in the 1980s--such as here--

Libet B, Gleason CA, Wright EW, Pearl DK, Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activity (readiness- potential): the unconscious initiation of a freely voluntary act. 1983, Brain 106:623–642

and extended, also for time duration, with a number of other studies and summarized in such as

Consciousness, decision making, and volition: freedom beyond chance and necessity, Hans Liljenstrom, Theory in Biosciences (2022) 141:125–140

cannot do any other than suggest to those who have the rather unfounded assumption that consequtive thought-making in a unengaged state of mind has anything particularly 'free' about it.

To conclude this appendix on a positive note, the value of the research initiated by Benjamin Libet and other brain scientists is that it suggests that attention to our mental states and understanding of what it means to act from the non-mechanical aspects of oneself must be part of every schoolchild's upbringing in order for them to foster genuine free will and true decision-making from the fullness of this free will of their entire being.

[sknyuz]

��‧☆⋆｡ﾟ 💾˖° 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗶.𝗲𝘅𝗲 .ᐟ 𓂃⌨️⌒☆

𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗺𝘆 𝗺𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁—𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗺𝘆 𝗳𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲, 𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿𝘁����𝗽𝘀 .ᐟ

╰┈➤ get to know the programmer here 📡

💾 fluff | ⛓️‍💥 angst | ⚡ smut | 📟 friends/strangers to lovers | 📁 shorts (<5 min reads) 🧿 suggestive | 💿 est. relationship | 👾 headcanons | ✨ faves / popular

linked networks 🌐 @kstrucknet | @deoboyznet join the taglist to always be updated .ᐟ click here 📨 requests: open .ᐟ

spam reblogs are encouraged and appreciated.

seventeen.exe

70√3 — jeon wonwoo 💾📁 (tutor!wonwoo)

sunshine under the weather — lee seokmin (dk) 💾📟 (sick!dk)

heavy lifting — kim mingyu 💾⚡📟✨ (gym + college au)

my quiet place — kwon soonyoung (hoshi) 💾💿📁 (established relationship)

garden fairy — yoon jeonghan 💾💿📁 (idol!reader)

prompt #7 — lee jihoon 💾📟📁✨ (emotionally constipated woozi)

guard your heart (wip) — lee chan (dino) (royal au) preview here

threaded to you — hong jisoo (joshua) 💾💿(proposal!)

thrum — chwe hansol (vernon) 🧿

sticky! — boo seungkwan 💾📟 (office au)

anything 4 u — lee chan (dino) 💾📟 *part of my 400 follower special

✧・ﾟ*:✧・ﾟ*:✧・ﾟ*:✧・ﾟ*

theboyz.exe

chocolate cliché — ju haknyeon 💾 📟📁

7:43am — kim sunwoo 💾📟 📁

9:00pm — eric sohn 💾 💿📁

haunted house — ji changmin (q) 💾 📟📁 (childhood bffs)

morning after your wedding with ju haknyeon — 💾💿📁

✧・ﾟ*:✧・ﾟ*:✧・ﾟ*:✧・ﾟ*

weakheroclass.exe

i can fix him! - the trilogy masterlist

before the storm — na baekjin ⛓️‍💥💿 ✨

how whc boys would kiss you — 💾👾✨

collarless — geum seongje — ⛓️‍💥💿🧿✨

academic rival!na baekjin — 💾📟📁

boyfriend!baku — 💾💿📁

how whc boys show intimacy — 💾👾

sweet (mute!reader) — geum seongje 💾⛓️‍💥📟

how whc boys handle a break up ⛓️‍💥👾

afterglow — oh beomseok 💾⛓️‍💥

going down on the boys of whc ⚡️

meet me halfway — go hyuntak (gotak) 💾📟

✧・ﾟ*: system last updated: 5/13/2025 ✧・ﾟ*:

sknyuz © 2025 | all rights reserved. unauthorized reproduction, revising or distribution of this material, as well as the use in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence is strictly prohibited.

[audristarzz]

Take it down act

While many censorship bills are trying to be passed, the Take It Down act is one that we should be making much noise about alongside KOSA. Unfortunately it’s already passed senate but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep calling. And reblogging and saying “boost” while that spreads awareness across Tumblr, it in my opinion doesn’t do much else. If we really want to try to keep the internet and our first amendment we have to continue to fight and call. While things look scary at this time given circumstances, I urge you not to give up and keep calling.

the Take It Down Act as stated in this article is require platforms to remove nonconsensually distributed intimate imagery (NDII) within 48 hours of notice by a user, but provides no exception for encrypted private messages.  This means companies would be required to abandon end-to-end encryption so they can read and moderate your DMs. The bill also has no safeguards against false reports being used to remove protected and already censored speech.

[probablyasocialecologist]

This is what the utopian vision of the future so often misses: if and when change happens, the questions at play will be about if and how certain technology gets distributed, deployed, taken up. It will be about how governments decide to allocate resources, how the interests of various parties affected will be balanced, how an idea is sold and promulgated, and more. It will, in short, be about political will, resources, and the contest between competing ideologies and interests. The problems facing the world – not just climate breakdown but the housing crisis, the toxic drug crisis, or growing anti-immigrant sentiment – aren’t problems caused by a lack of intelligence or computing power. In some cases, the solutions to these problems are superficially simple. Homelessness, for example, is reduced when there are more and cheaper homes. But the fixes are difficult to implement because of social and political forces, not a lack of insight, thinking, or novelty. In other words, what will hold progress on these issues back will ultimately be what holds everything back: us.

8 August 2024

[thoughtportal]

SoundCloud — a music sharing platform once so beloved by artists it spawned sub-genres named after it — updated its terms of service (TOS), forcing artists who use SoundCloud to let their music train AI.

It looks like the change went into effect during SoundCloud's last TOS policy update in February 2024, and it's just coming to light now.

The updated terms read that "in the absence of a separate agreement that states otherwise," creators who upload content to the site "explicitly agree that your Content may be used to inform, train, develop or serve as input to artificial intelligence or machine intelligence technologies or services as part of and for providing the services."

In short, the language in the update suggests that musicians, artists, and other creators who use SoundCloud for distribution can expect their uploaded work to be funneled into AI models as training data.

It's a sweeping provision. And how SoundCloud is actually applying it isn't exactly clear. But since early 2024, SoundCloud has integrated several generative AI tools and services into its platform that largely center on creating or producing new music.

These changes started in late January 2024 (just before the TOS update), with the integration of three "assistive AI" products designed to help SoundCloud's creators. According to a press release, these tools are designed to "allow artists to upload songs created with assistive AI tools directly to SoundCloud."

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Over 1M users share pornography, including child sexual exploitation material, on Telegram in Brazil

A report drawn up by SaferNet, an NGO active in promoting human rights online since 2005, found that 1.25 million users of the messaging app Telegram are in group chats or channels that sell and share images of child sexual abuse and pornographic material. One of these communities alone—which was still active when the survey was made—had 200 thousand users.

Entitled Como o Telegram tem sido usado no Brasil como um espaço de comércio virtual por criminosos sexuais (“How Telegram has been used in Brazil as a virtual trading space by sex offenders”), the report was delivered Wednesday (Oct. 23) to São Paulo prosecutors, the Federal Police, and also to French authorities, who are investigating various crimes committed on Telegram. One of these probes recently saw the company’s CEO and founder, Pavel Durov, arrested in France. He is at liberty, but cannot leave the country.

The report was produced after a search of 874 Telegram links reported to SaferNet by internet users as containing images of child sexual abuse and exploitation. SaferNet analyzed them and found that 149 of them were still active and had not been restricted by the platform. In addition, the NGO identified a further 66 links that had never been reported before and which also contained criminal content.

“We did a thorough survey of the Telegram group links that were reported in Brazil through www.denuncie.org.br—SaferNet Brasil’s reporting channel—from January 1 to June 30 this year. Of these 874 links, 141 were still active during the months in which the verification took place (July through September). Of these active links, we found 41 groups in which it was proven there was not only distribution of child sexual abuse images, but also buying and selling. It was a free market, a trade in images of child sexual abuse, with real images, some self-generated images, and other images produced by artificial intelligence,” said Thiago Tavares, president of SaferNet Brasil.

Continue reading.

[coffeestainedcamera]

To any Genshin players contemplating Duolingo:

I'm not a hater out of elitism. Actually, I think that free language learning resources are wonderful! Back when Duolingo hadn't gone full AI and I was a high schooler on an allowance, it helped me with Spanish 101 ffs. Unfortunately, it seems that the priority is now more on the quirky ad budget and less on actually providing students with a quality learning resource that feels like a game.

Anyways, I'm on lingodeer for Spanish and Korean nowadays (but the app is paid). Bought a year's subscription during a winter sale for $80 USD. The grammar explainers are very clear and the app has limited gamification via streaks. Cake is more focused on speaking and has lots of video lectures. Also paid, got yearly sub on winter sale for $75.

If you're on Webtoon, the international build lets you swap languages without geoblocking (and the Spanish and French sections are pretty extensive, for anyone taking school classes in these). I've found it to be a fun reading practice that displaced my bad habit of social media before bedtime. You can also start an account on Kakao Page for webtoons in Korean. Only caveat is you'll be reading in a mobile browser bc the app isn't internationally distributed and I don't endorse installing from APK. Security issues for the device and I've previously been banned from online games bc this is technically a TOS violation apparently. Can't rec Naver Webtoon (the Korean build of Webtoon) in good conscience bc I found their account setup process too troublesome and quit.

You can take free Korean 101 classes from a public uni via King Sejong Institute's site at iksi.or.kr. I've been finding their explainers very straightforward. They offer both asynchronous and Zoom classes. If your fam has Netflix, also install the Language Reactor extension in chrome for bilingual subtitles and a hover-over dictionary. Start with slice-of-life shows bc they drop lots of useful vocab.

You can also browse around Coursera's language learning section bc yeah, you actually can take a free college class there. It's basically youtube for college classes, I suppose. Including Spanish ones from UC Davis.

This is specifically aimed at the schoolkids who play Genshin. I just think that y'all deserve better than an AI textbook with a genius social media marketing team.

[ambushingghostart]

Blog numero 3

How has cyberfemism disrupt barriers that oppresses women from adapting in a world of technology?  

Technology has connected people globally, interlinking networks with economical wealth but to this day women are being marginalized in a system that favors men. Cyberfeminism empowerment in digital technology has transform the structure in the framework and distributed a system that has oppressed women. Donna Haraway’s “cyborg” theory of becoming part human and part machine has given women the ability to challenge traditional gender roles or resist oppressive patriarch structure. The influence of cyberfeminism has help protect women with technology and is demonstrated on the website Hollabacknyc that encourage women to document and report unwanted harassment. The platform brought awareness to the unsafe environment for women and a protection to combat unwanted advances. 

Why do we create bias algorithms? 

Technology was supposed to help humanity share information quicker and improve people's lives but instead technology and its algorithms help corporations, health care and banking systems with the ability to target and marginalized groups of people. These specialized algorithms that monitor your data and retrieve your information are automated to deny benefits to people of color in a higher percentage and can create economic hardships such in the reading in Automating Inequality (Eubanks). A system that is programmed to make money instead of helping is a flawed tool and shows that technology is manipulated to create barriers especially in underserved communities. 

We need policies by government and social groups to monitor how healthcare is being provided and administered to communities.  

Why is technology leaving minority women behind? 

In the United States technology is more accessible to certain communities than others but women are the most affected, especially women of color. In Rethinking Cyberfeminism, women in countries with developing infrastructure are being left behind in technology and not being integrated to the economic system. Development and innovation are being manufactured in a high rate, but the power continue to create barrier to women because of systemic issues that affect gender roles in many developing countries.  

Is technology our new security system?  

In the video Race and Technology by Nicole Brown highlights how technology has been automated to police citizens and minorities communities in many different sectors of daily life. These algorithms are created to monitor and target groups with biased data, and it can be considered racial profiling. Surveillance has been implemented with technology by using artificial intelligence which is a flawed system known to make mistakes. How secure should we feel when the systems in place to make you feel safe can end up targeting you because of how you look? 

How do we combat facial recognition when it is wrong? 

How do you prove your innocence when a system is programmed to be correct 99 percent of the time? In the Nijeer Parks story of how he was wrongly accused and jailed for a crime he did not commit because of the mistake of facial recognition technology was used to find a suspect. Another Arrest and Jail Time Dude to a Bad Facial Recognition Match by Kashmir Hill covers how technology and police surveillance is not being criticized by any outside safety nets. We need accountability and a system that protects people from being detained for data and manipulated algorithms. 

Brown, N (2020). Race and Technology.  

Daniels, J (2009). Rethinking Cyberfeminism(s): Race, Gender, and Embodiment. The Feminist Press 

Eubanks, Automating Inequality. Pdf 

[writingtips-resources]

10 Publishing Trends Authors Can't Afford to Ignore in 2025

Staying ahead of trends is essential to making sure your work reaches the correct audience as the publishing industry changes. Here's a brief straightforward look at the market trends for 2025 and how authors might prosper in this ever-changing environment.

1. The Development of Content Creation with AI

Content creation has been transformed by artificial intelligence techniques. AI is becoming into a useful tool for authors, helping with everything from book idea generation to editing and marketing text. Although some people worry that it might supplant creativity, it's preferable to see it as a tool to increase productivity. Early adoption of this technology allows authors to save time and concentrate on telling stories.

2. The Use of Hybrid Publishing Models

Self-publishing and traditional publishing are becoming increasingly muddled. With hybrid models, authors can benefit from professional services like editing, distribution, and marketing while still maintaining creative control. In 2025, this could be your path if you're searching for adaptable solutions without sacrificing quality.

3. Subscription Websites Broaden Their Audience

The reading market is being dominated by subscription services like Scribd and Kindle Unlimited. This requires authors to adjust to a business paradigm in which page reads, rather than direct sales, determine revenue. You can thrive in this area by writing books that emphasize reader retention. Remember to make your book descriptions and keywords as discoverable as possible.

4. Audio Content Is No Longer Optional

While audiobooks are still on the rise, audio storytelling will become the main focus in 2025. Serialized audio literature, dramatized audiobooks, and podcasts are all growing in popularity. Now is the perfect moment to think about turning your work into an audiobook if you haven't already.

5. The Shift Toward Niche Markets!

Broad appeal is giving way to niche specificity. Whether it's historical romances with a twist, space operas, or cozy mysteries, readers today want stories that speak to their own interests. Instead of attempting to please everyone, find your specialty and concentrate your marketing efforts on developing a devoted fanbase.

For example Fantasy-Romance novels like A Court of Thorns and Roses bring together magic and romance, captivating readers from both genres and contributing to a 15% increase in cross-genre fantasy popularity.

6. Readers Call for Sustainability

Publishing methods are being impacted by environmental consciousness. Digital formats, books with minimum packaging, and books produced on recycled paper are becoming more and more popular among readers. It might be simpler for authors to engage with today's conscientious readership if their publishing methods are in line with sustainable principles.

7. Short-Form Content Takes Over in Marketing

The marketing industry is being dominated by TikTok and Instagram Reels. By connecting with readers through brief films, authors are use these platforms to creatively promote their novels. If social media seems too much to handle, concentrate on just one site and try creating short pieces that highlight your writing style or main ideas. the episodic content is another form of short form content that is in rise. Have a look on attached image to see the details.

8. Improved Interaction With Readers Through Technology

Emerging trends include tailored reader experiences, augmented reality (AR) components, and interactive ebooks. Consider a fantasy book where readers can use an app to access character backstories or maps. These characteristics can enhance reader engagement and give stories a fresh perspective.

9. Stories Are Globalized!

With translations and cross-cultural themes growing more popular, publishing is expanding globally. This trend gives writers the opportunity to connect with readers around the world. Think of collaborating with a publisher who can disseminate your work outside of your native market or translating your book into other languages.

10. A New Attention to Author Branding!

In 2025, developing a brand is more important for authors than simply penning outstanding works. Branding plays a crucial role in an author's success, from interacting with readers online to selling goods or related content. Make the effort to build a polished author website, manage your social media accounts, and establish genuine connections with your readers.

Maintaining Our Lead in 2025

These trends highlight the value of flexibility even as they offer intriguing new opportunities. Always keep your audience at the center of your work, embrace new technologies, and never stop learning. See the complete blog article here for a deeper look at these patterns and practical advice.

Plan your 2025 strategy now; you have all you need to be successful in this dynamic environment.

Blog link: https://proghostwritinghub.com/the-future-of-publishing-trends-and-insights-in-2025/

[dweemeister]

Robot Dreams (2023, Spain/France)

There exists an assumption that one has to be an animator in order to direct an animated film. While most cinephiles might reflexively point to Wes Anderson (2009’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, 2018’s Isle of Dogs), I think Isao Takahata (1988’s Grave of the Fireflies, 1991’s Only Yesterday) the exemplar here. Even so, a non-animator taking the reins of an animated movie is rare. Into that fold steps Pablo Berger, in this adaptation of Sara Varon’s graphic novel Robot Dreams. Moved after reading Varon’s work in 2010, Berger acquired Varon’s “carte blanche” permission to make a 2D animated adaptation however he saw fit. Like the graphic novel, Berger’s Robot Dreams is also dialogue-free.

Beginning production on Robot Dreams proved difficult. Berger originally teamed with Ireland’s Cartoon Saloon (2009’s The Secret of Kells, 2020’s Wolfwalkers) to make Robot Dreams, but these plans fell wayside when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. His schooling in how to make an animated film would come quickly. Despite an increased appetite for Spanish animation worldwide (2019’s Klaus, 2022’s Unicorn Wars), poor distribution and marketing of domestically-made animated movies has often meant Spanish animators have roved around Europe looking for work. With a pandemic sending those Spanish animators home, Berger and his Spanish and French producers set up “pop-up studios” in Madrid and Pamplona, purchased the infrastructure and space needed to make an animated feature, and recruited and hired animators. Berger’s admiration of animated film fuses the lessons of silent film acting (Berger made a gorgeous silent film in 2012’s Blancanieves; in interviews, Berger cites Charlie Chaplin’s movies as having the largest influence on Robot Dreams, alongside Takahata’s films) to result in one of the most emotionally honest films of the decade thus far – animated or otherwise.

Somewhere in Manhattan in the late 1980s in a world populated entirely of anthropomorphized animals, we find ourselves in Dog’s apartment. Dog, alone in this world, consuming yet another TV dinner, is channel surfing late one evening. He stumbles upon a commercial advertising a robot companion. Intrigued, he orders the robot companion and, with some difficulty, assembles Robot. The two become fast friends as they romp about New York City over a balmy summer, complete with walks around their neighborhood and Central Park, street food, trips to Coney Island, and roller blading along to the groovy tunes of Earth, Wind & Fire. At summer’s end, an accident sees the involuntary separation of Dog and Robot, endangering, for all that the viewer can assume, the most meaningful friendship in Dog’s life and Robot’s brief time of existence.

If you have not seen the film yet, let me address a popular perception early on in this piece. Set in a mostly-analog 1980s, Robot Dreams contains none of the agonizing over artificial intelligence or automatons in fashion in modern cinema. There is no commentary about how technology frays an individual’s connections to others. Robot is a rudimentary creation, closer to a sentient grade school science project than a Data or T-1000.

So what is Robot Dreams saying instead? Principally, it is about the loving bonds of friendship – how a friend can provide comfort and company, how they uplift the best parts of your very being. For Robot, the entirety of their life prior to the aforementioned accident (something that I, for non-viewers, am trying not to spoil as Robot Dreams’ emotional power is fully experienced if you know as little as possible) has been one of complete estival bliss. Robot, in due time, discovers that one of the most meaningful aspects of friendship is that such relationships will eventually conclude – a fundamental part of life. And for Dog, Robot’s entrance into his life allows him to realize that, yes, he can summon the courage to connect with his fellow animals, realizing his self-worth. Perhaps Dog gives up addressing the accident a little too easily, but the separation of friends has a way of complicating emotions and provoking peculiar reactions.

On occasion, Robot Dreams’ spirit reminds me of Charlie Chaplin’s silent feature film period (1921-1936) – in which Chaplin, at the height of his filmmaking prowess, most successfully wove together slapstick comedy and pathos. On paper, pathos and slapstick should not mix, but Chaplin was the master of combining the two. No wonder Berger fully acknowledges the influence of his favorite Chaplin work, City Lights (1931), here.

Across Robot Dreams, Berger inserts an absurd visual humor that works both because almost all of the characters are animals and despite the fact almost everyone is an animal. A busking octopus in the New York City subway? Check. The image of pigs playing on the beach while sunburnt to a blazing red? You bet. A dancing dream sequence where one of our lead characters finds himself in The Wizard of Oz performing Busby Berkeley-esque choreography on the Yellow Brick Road? Why not? Much of Chaplin’s silent film humor didn’t come from his Little Tramp character, but the silliness, ego, and/or absentmindedness of all those surrounding the Tramp. In City Lights, humor also came from the rough-and-tumble edges of urban America. Such is the case, too, in Robot Dreams, with its blemished, trash-strewn depiction of late ‘80s New York (credit must also go to the sound mix, as they perfectly capture how ambiently noisy a big city can be).

Amid all that comedy, Berger nails the balance between the pathos and the hilarity – pushing too far in either direction would easily undermine the other. The film’s melancholy shows up in ostensibly happy moments and places of recreation: a realization during a rooftop barbeque lunch, the emptiness of a shuttered Coney Island beach in the winter, and an afternoon of kiting in Central Park. It captures how our thoughts of erstwhile or involuntarily separated friends come to us innocuously, in places that stir memories that we might, in our present company, might not speak of aloud.

As the film’s third character, New York City (where Berger lived for a decade) is a global cultural capital, a citywide theater of dreams, a skyscraper-filled signature to the American Dream. To paraphrase Sinatra, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. But it tends to grind those dreams into dust. The city’s bureaucratic quagmire is lampooned here, as is its reputation for mean-spirited or jaded locals. Robot Dreams also depicts the visual and socioeconomic differences between the city’s boroughs. With such a jumble of folks of different life stations mashed together, Dog’s people-watching, er, animal-watching during his loneliest moments makes him feel the full intensity of his social isolation. With Robot, however, Dog has a naïve companion that he can show the best of the city to. Robot has no understanding of passive-aggressive or outright hostile behavior (see: Robot hilariously not understanding what a middle finger salute is – the only objectionable scene if you are considering showing this to younger viewers). Within this city of contradictions, Dog and Robot’s love is here to stay.

Though he is no animator, his experience in guiding Spanish actresses Ángela Molina, Maribel Verdú, and Macarena García in Blancanieves through a silent film was valuable. In animated film, there is a tendency towards overexaggerating emotions. But with Robot Dreams’ close adaptation of the graphic novel’s ligne claire style and the nature of Robot’s face, the typical level of exaggeration in animation could not fly in Robot Dreams. Berger and storyboard artist Maca Gil (2022’s My Father’s Dragon, the 2023 Peanuts special One-of-a-Kind Marcie) made few alterations to the storyboards, fully knowing how they wished to frame the film, and hoping to convey the film’s emotions with the facial subtlety seen in the graphic novel. Character designer Daniel Fernandez Casas (Klaus, 2024’s IF) accomplishes this with a minimum of lines to outline characters’ bodies and faces. Meanwhile, art director José Luis Ágreda (2018’s Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles) and animation director Benoît Féroumont (primarily a graphic novelist) visually translated Sara Varon’s graphic novel using flat colors and a lack of shading to convey background and character depth (one still needs shading, of course, to convey lights and darks of an interior or exterior).

Robot Dreams’ nomination for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature this year was one of the most pleasant surprises of the 96th Academy Awards. In North America, Robot Dreams’ distributor, Neon, has pursued an inexplicable distribution and marketing strategy of not allowing the film a true theatrical release until months after the end of the last Oscars. The film was available for a one-night special screening in select theaters in and near major North American cities the Wednesday before the Academy Awards. And only now (as of the weekend of May 31, 2024), Neon will release Robot Dreams this weekend in two New York City theaters, the following weekend in and around Los Angeles, with few other locations confirmed – well after interest to watch the film theatrically piqued in North America.

Alongside Neon’s near-nonexistent distribution and marketing of Jonas Poher Rasmussen's animated documentary Flee (2021, Denmark), one has to question Neon’s commitment to animated features and whether the company has a genuine interest in showing their animated acquisitions to people outside major North American cities. This is distributional malpractice and maddeningly disrespectful from one of the most acclaimed independent distributors of the last decade.

In Robot Dreams, Pablo Berger and his crew made perhaps the best animated feature of the previous calendar year. Robot Dreams might not have the artistic sumptuousness of the best anime films today, nor the digital polish one expects from the work of a major American animation studio. By film’s end, its simple, accessible style cannot hide its irrepressible emotional power. Its conclusion speaks to all of us who silently wonder about close friends long left to the past, their absence filled only by memory.

My rating: 8.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog. Half-points are always rounded down.

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[msclaritea]

1 SELF SUFFICIENT ME: FARMERS UNDER ATTACK

2 GARDENING IN CANADA: ATTACK ON GARDENS

3 REDACTED: HANG ON, NOW BILL GATES IS COMING FOR YOUR GARDEN

Check out Jojo Mehta, founder of Stop Ecoside Now, actually talking with a straight face, about punishing people for farming. Another one wants people to adjust to Artificial Intelligence Food. All of this shite and very, very likely, billionaire-backed studies, slanted against independent food production. This is all coming from the same plague, that JUST unleashed Paganistic beliefs about Gender and sprayed the whole planet with those dangerous beliefs: the World Economic Forum. Davos. Israel. I will remind people that besides being a shady pervert, Bill Gates ' father was a lawyer for the MOSSAD.

"I call bullshit. I think this "story" is about corporate influence, control, and the continuing war on freedom, privacy, autonomy, self sufficiency and entrepreneurship. Homegrown food is just one of the examples of things that lunatics like Klaus Schwab and Bill Gates, hate." Twitter

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Hello, Nice to Meet Control You

Hello, Nice to Meet Control You: Introduction

Control. Control of others in one form or another has pervaded human history. Control has been exercised by individuals and groups over other individuals and groups. Thank you captain obvious.

This is a cursory look at various forms of control exercised over people. Both actual and possible forms are discussed. I do not pretend to be knowledgeable in the subject and are simply writing my thoughts. The footnotes and end notes are similar to references that I remember reading but not the actual reference. But I assume you know how to use a search engine. Also any typos and misspellings are due to my new gaming keyboard (not really but I need something to blame for my inability to type). Also I am using Libre Office to write this document and it has some issues with footnotes and endnotes or I just can’t use it as well as I use MS Word.

Humans have basic needs which are food, water, livelihood, and shelter. Control any one of these and you control the person. A newer and more effective route for control of others is media. Each of these topics will be discussed in turn. Additionally, the secondary means for controlling these needs will be examined.

I am not an expert in any field related to the topics nor am I any sort of revolutionary for pointing out these areas of control. I am exactly the opposite by discussing them I bring them to light so that they aren’t a problem.

The topics in this document are quickly developing. It may be obsolete before it is finished. I am not a writer. I am more verbally oriented.

Hello, Nice to Meet Control You: Food

We all eat food, all 8 billion of us. Think about that 8 billion people to feed. Most people do not realize that food distribution centers in major cities only have about three days of supply. The food supply is an attack surface for anyone wanting to control a populace. We have seen how easily the supply, among non-food things like TP, is disrupted by the Covid “pandemic”. As an example, the price of eggs rose to $5 per dozen from about $1.30.

This leads me to believe the food supply is a very frail and effective attack surface. Certainly anyone wishing to control a populations only need control the food supply chain.

The first obvious link in the food supply chain is production. Control how much food is produced and any condition from plentiful to famine can be realized. We have seen the direct attack on farmers using the specter of climate change. First in the Netherlands1 and subsequently in Germany2. The US isn’t safe from the assault on food as several animal rights and climate activist organizations have used climate change to to bolster their cause3. Claims of animal farming as being harmful to the environment is aiding the development of plant based “meat” produced in factories. This removes the production from a method that anyone could employ to one that is controlled completely by industry. The control of production is then complete once the end of animal farming is accomplished4. It is interesting that some of the very rich are buying farmland. I assume it is to provide raw materials to the food factories. Next stop distribution.

The dress rehearsal called the Covid-19 epidemic caused major disruptions in distribution of food and other comsumable products produced out side the US5. The most notable shortage was of paper products such as toilet paper. While it is true there were major supply chain issues the ultimate cause was a demand fueled by fear of shortage. In this way shortages are self fulfilling prophecies.

Controlling the food supply is a way to control the population. You can’t protest or fight back if you’re starving. Such bad behavior will be yield no food whereas good behavior will be rewarded with just enough to keep you alive.

Countermeasures

Grow some of your own food.

Eat nutritionally dense food if it is available. So that you require less food.

Source your food locally.

Counter-counter Measures

It will be made illegal to grow your own food. The argument will be the small farms produce too much greenhouse gases. Now we all know this is silly as home gardens do not require the burning of thousands of gallons of diesel fuel. You will also be accused of being selfish and an enemy of society. And someone named Greta will come to your house and punch you in the nuts (just checking to see if you’re actually reading this).

Doug Williamson Blogspot

1https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/11/30/dutch-farmers-could-be-paid-to-close-their-livestock-farms-under-new-scheme

2https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/01/15/germany-farmers-protests-berlin/

3https://worldanimalnews.com/250-groups-urge-the-usda-to-address-the-reduction-of-meat-dairy-to-reduce-greenhouse-gas-emissions/

4Interesting that no one is complaining about Mark Zuckerberg’s herd. He feeds his cattle beer.Yet fermentation produces a lot of CO2. https://nypost.com/2024/01/11/news/mark-zuckerberg-to-raise-cows-on-beer-and-macadamia-nuts-on-hawaii-ranch/

5https://www.freightwaves.com/news/disrupted-supply-chains-strain-trade-among-us-mexico-and-canada

1https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/22/carbon-footprint-homegrown-food-allotment-increase

The Netherlands will be the center for global food innovation with the Global Coordinating Secretariat (GCS)

On January 27, 2021, the Government of the Netherlands, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and several public and private sector partners launched Food Innovation Hubs at the Davos Agenda 2021 meeting. The Food Innovation Hubs will be a key multistakeholder platform that will leverage technology and broader innovations to strengthen local innovation ecosystems for food systems transformation. Supported by multi-year funding from the Government of Netherlands, the initiative will feature a Global Coordinating Secretariat (GCS) based in the Netherlands.

https://investinholland.com/news/the-netherlands-and-the-world-economic-forum-launch-food-innovation-hubs-initiative/The Netherlands and the World Economic Forum Launch Food Innovation Hubs Initiative

“Global food insecurity has been rising again. This stresses the need to redesign how we produce and consume food. The Netherlands is committed to forming partnerships that will catalyze the innovations that are needed to address the food system challenges. I am therefore proud to announce that the Netherlands will host the Global Coordinating Secretariat of the Food Innovation Hubs,” said Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of the Netherlands.

With the arrival of the GCS, the Netherlands will leverage its innovation-driven economy to help advance global food security. Boasting an extensive ecosystem of companies and knowledge institutions in agrifood, horticulture, breeding, high-tech and ICT, the Dutch are ideally positioned to play a leading role in shaping our planet’s food system.

The Food Innovation Hubs will be a flagship initiative of WEF’s Food Action Alliance leading to the UN Food Systems Summit 2021, and beyond. The role of the GCS will be to coordinate the efforts of the regional Hubs as well as align with global processes and initiatives such as the UN Food Systems Summit.

Global center for food innovation comes to the Netherlands

The Food Innovation Hubs initiative places the Netherlands at the center of global food innovation and sustainability. Located in Wageningen at the heart of the Dutch agrifood ecosystem, the GCS will direct the further development of global regional Food Innovation Hubs from the Netherlands. The work of these regional Hubs is already underway, with more than 20 organizations leading the initiative across Africa, ASEAN, Colombia, India and the European hub in Foodvalley Wageningen. Oost NL, a regional partner in the Invest in Holland Network, will support the GCS in starting this work.

“Food sustains life and is at the heart of our planet. But if we are to feed 10 billion people by 2050 within planetary boundaries, the way the world produces and consumes food needs to change. Innovation is critical in enabling this systemic transformation,” said Dominic Waughray, Managing Director of WEF.

“As progress is accelerated towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goals, the World Economic Forum is committed to supporting collective action and promoting country led agendas through the Food Innovation Hubs in this pivotal year for food systems,” added Waughray.

With country-led approaches, the Hubs will drive both high-end and low-cost grassroots and other innovations that could have scalable impact, as well as innovations encompassing supply chains, partnerships and business models that can enable systemic change.

Source: World Economic Forum

28 January 2021

[thevintagequill]

Question: Is Technology for students are good or bad?

Technology for Students: Advancement or Distraction ?

Written by: Paspe, Aaron

Edited by: Camo, Alexie

In today's modern world, technology is one of the main sources of intelligence that has made many people's lives easier. As Adam Nanjee states, "Technology is the new English" , so every person needs to use this Artificial Intelligence (AI) just to keep up with the flow of life and comprehend this advanced society. However, this amazing invention was abused by many students, as it became a tool used to cheat, plagiarize, bully, and spread misinformation. That's why many individuals are always asking, Is technology really helping students, or is it just promoting students to become lazier and to do dishonesty?

Before diving into the negative sides of students' technology use, we should first explore the beneficial aspects. As we all know, technology has made communication more convenient. Additionally,Information transactions are quicker, and vital data may be found at any time and from any location. This type of benefit has a significant impact on learners since it allows them to readily access material needed for research and reports; you will no longer need to sift through huge books to get a few facts for their activities. Furthermore, you don't have to make schedule when and where you'll meet up with your group mates, it will be easy to hold chats with them using online messengers. It will also be easier to distribute messages and announcements that require reading and provide feedback from readers to senders. In short, technology is one of the reason why this much human needs can be access without an effort and not time consuming.

Aside from that, we should talk about it not only in the online education module, but also in the classroom, because most schools today use technology like televisions and computers. According to studies, students become more active in the classroom as a result of technology since gadgets encourage them. Despite the fact that technology motivates students to become more active, technology also provides many benefits to teachers, such as making it easier and faster to create visual aids such as PowerPoint slides that need to be shown to the class, and they can design the slides based on how the teacher uses creativity to capture his students' attention. To summarize, technology provides numerous benefits not only to students but also to teachers, and not only through online mediums but also in classrooms.

This advancement, however, was abused by some students who used it in a negative way, such as cheating.According to a new BestColleges blog, "study of 1,000 current undergraduate and graduate students, utilizing AI technologies to complete coursework and examinations counts as cheating or plagiarism. Two out of ten (20%) people disagree, while the remainder are neutral.Overall, 43% of college students report having used AI technologies such as ChatGPT. Half (50%) of individuals who have used AI say they utilized it on assignments or exams. This figure represents 22% of all respondents in our poll, implying that one in every five college students uses AI to do their assignments". In this statistic, it is true that some students mistreat this intelligence; they utilize it to plagiarize and take other people's work without giving credit to the original author, and then apply the AI to their personal work. As a result, these student activities demonstrate that technology promotes lazy behavior.

Along with cheating, misleading information is shared. Technology is the best creation that humans have developed since it allows for easy access and sharing of information. It has had a significant impact on society, requiring all researchers to publish their studies at no cost in order to provide the information that we require.In contrast, most of our students did not know how to conduct adequate research or determine whether or not the material was true, which is why disinformation is so common on social media platforms, causing many people to believe it. Furthermore, in our day and age, black propaganda has gone viral on the internet, leading pupils to believe if they do not know how to fact check. It is easy to share them with others and swiftly distribute them.According to research on the percentage of students that share misleading information,"60% of students admitted sharing false news online,41% of students have commented on or reported inaccurate information that they have read online in order to expose it,80% of students claimed that they would not release an inaccurate statement online if the benefit of doing so was a gain of followers on their desired social media platform,45% of students said that they rarely check suspicious news material which they see online".

Besides from cheating, misinformation ,and fact checking, one of the most disturbing ways students use technology is to bully others. All people interact and make friends on social media by chatting and posting some of their photos, but the problem is that many people, mostly young students who are influenced by the toxicity of this virtual world, are doing some actions that symbolize cyberbullying such as bodyshaming and faceshaming in the comment section, which can have a significant impact on the victims. According to statistic of Josh Howart about cyberbullying, " Middle school-aged cyberbullying victims are almost twice as likely to attempt suicide than non-victims". This study demonstrates that cyberbullying towards young people is becoming more serious and difficult to control.

Similarly, those are some of the major acts that students engage in when using technology that must be addressed as soon as possible since they can lead to an uncontrollable scenario. However, one of the more minor negative impacts of technology is that students are distracted by their gadgets, causing them to fail their exams, tests, and grades on their report cards. Every year, millions of games and social media applications are launched in our modern society, and the majority of users are students, causing them to be distracted and unable to focus on a specific task such as academics. Distraction from using devices is the result of several drawbacks, such as procrastination, late submission, lower grades, and doing the activities in a hurry.

In conclusion, while technology has its benefits, it has also been abused by students, leading to issues such as cheating, plagiarism, and cyberbullying. Addressing these issues is crucial to ensure the safety and well-being of students and society as a whole. So, at the end of this argument, technology is both useful and bad for youths, which means that it all depends on how those students use it. Just keep in mind that humanity built this invention to make our lives easier, not to make us lazier.

[richaldis]

Equity statement in full

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Solidarity Statement & Advice Regarding SAG-AFTRA Industrial Action 2023

Statement from the General Secretary of Equity, Paul W Fleming

"SAG-AFTRA is Equity’s sister union representing performers on screen in the United States. They are currently in negotiations with the AMPTP - the engagers association for film and TV producers in the United States. Earlier this year, SAG-AFTRA balloted their members to achieve authorisation for strike action if it was necessary to achieve a good settlement in these negotiations. Today, SAG-AFTRA’s Board has taken the brave step of authorising a strike.

"SAG-AFTRA’s claim to the producers contains many critical elements for performers on their agreements. The key elements of the claim are longstanding, shared fights for our unions –issues like pay and residual payments. But SAG-AFTRA, like Equity, is also bravely facing head-on existential questions on issues like Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the rise in virtual auditions and self-tapes. Securing fairness in pay, terms, and conditions is critical whether they be with traditional producers, or new global streamers, and with new modes of making and distributing work to a global audience.

"Equity stands full square behind our sister union in their claim, and the action their Board have agreed to take. Equity too is experiencing bullish engagers attempting to undermine its collectively bargained agreements. SAG-AFTRA has our total solidarity in this fight.

"We say clearly to the AMPTP and their members that they need to move significantly and swiftly to meet the reasonable aspirations of SAG-AFTRA’s members. The members of our unions, and all entertainment unions across the globe, create the vast wealth within our industry – it is right and just that they have decent, modern pay and conditions.

"Equity has been in constant contact with our sister union throughout the negotiations at every level – including the President and General Secretary attending in person in Los Angeles earlier this month. We will continue to work closely and collaboratively on advice for artists working in the United Kingdom as the situation develops.

"Industrial relations legislation in the United Kingdom is draconian, and often viewed as the most restrictive in the Western world. The convoluted and pernicious hurdles faced by all unions in the United Kingdom are a national disgrace and need urgent reform. The regrettable consequence of this framework is that what artists working in the United Kingdom – whether SAG-AFTRA and/or Equity members (or both) – can do, may be different from their comrades in the United States and other parts of the world.

"Equity is fighting alongside the rest of the trade union movement in the UK to reform our illiberal industrial relations framework in parliament, in the courts, and on the streets.

"Detailed advice for artists working in the UK who are Equity and/or SAG-AFTRA members is set out below. Furthermore, Equity will be organising demonstrations, rallies, and protests in the coming days and weeks to show our solidarity with our sister union and their fight.

"As Equity’s motto says: To all artists good work. To all workers good art. To all people: Equity.

"And to SAG-AFTRA: Victory."

Equity and SAG-AFTRA have also issued a joint statement which can be read here.

Advice Concerning SAG-AFTRA Industrial Action – 13th July 2023

Here we set out Equity’s advice for members on the strike action in an easy-to-read way, based on the most common ways in which they are engaged.

You will see that the primary legal problem is this:  We have been advised by SAG-AFTRA that its strike is lawful according to United States law but we have been advised by our UK lawyers that it is not lawful under United Kingdom law. Consequently, a performer joining the strike (or refusing to cross a picket line) in the UK will have no protection against being dismissed or sued for breach of contract by the producer or the engager. Likewise, if Equity encourages anyone to join the strike or not cross a picket line, Equity itself will be acting unlawfully and hence liable for damages or an injunction. What follows is based on that advice from SAG-AFTRA and our lawyers.

In addition to the below, we encourage members to join rallies and demonstrations, which we will be organising in solidarity with SAG-AFTRA in the coming days and weeks.

FAQs

I am an Equity member but not a SAG-AFTRA member. I am working in the UK on an Equity contract for a US producer. Some of my colleagues may be working under SAG-AFTRA agreements. What should I do?

I am a member of SAG-AFTRA and an Equity member. I am working in the UK on an Equity contract for a US producer as I live in the United Kingdom. What should I do?

I am a member of SAG-AFTRA and am working in the UK on an Equity contract. I may or may not be a member of Equity in the UK, as I live in the United States. I have an addendum to my contract which has been issued by SAG-AFTRA to allow me to work on an Equity contract under Global Rule 1 (‘GR1’). What should I do?

I am a member of SAG-AFTRA and am working on a SAG-AFTRA contract in the United Kingdom. I may or may not be a member of Equity in the UK and I live in the United States. I do not have an addendum to my contract because I am working on a full SAG-AFTRA contract. What should I do?

I am a member of Equity and SAG-AFTRA, and am working on a production in the United States. What should I do?

I am in the UK and I want to show my support for SAG-AFTRA’s dispute whether or not I am working at the moment.

I am being asked to work differently because some of my US colleagues are on strike. What should I do?

I have seen work being advertised as not being open to SAG-AFTRA members in the United Kingdom. I have been asked by my producer at an audition or before signing a contract whether I am a member of SAG-AFTRA or Equity. What should I do?

What will Equity do if producers attempt to relocate productions to the United Kingdom to avoid the SAG-AFTRA strike?

I am a SAG-AFTRA member working in theatre in the United Kingdom – what should I do?

I am a member of Equity or SAG-AFTRA working on a television commercial in the United Kingdom – what should I do?

I am a member of Equity and/or SAG-AFTRA and I am working on an Equity or SAG AFTRA contract outside of the United Kingdom – what should I do?

A production I’m working on has invoked Force Majeure. What does this mean?

What does a Force Majeure mean for me and my payments?

I am expected to do press/publicity for a production I worked on that was on an Equity contract. This company is now a ‘struck’ company affected by SAG-AFTRA’s industrial action. What do I do?

I am expected to do press/publicity for a production I worked on that was on SAG-AFTRA contract. This company is now a ‘struck’ company affected by SAG-AFTRA’s industrial action. What do I do?

Show solidarity on social media

We are encouraging members to show their support for the strikes using hashtag #StandWithSAGAFTRA and using our social media banners. You can add a ribbon to your Facebook profile picture here (note that this won't work as well for Twitter's circular profile pictures). You can also download a header image for your profile or a graphic to post anywhere (to download, right-click the link and choose "Save link as").

Equity incorporating the Variety Artistes' Federation is an independent trade union, registered at: Equity, Guild House, Upper St Martin's Lane, London WC2H 9

Bugger, the links aren't working . Go to the Equity website to see the answers to the questions

[gravelgirty]

CAFE PRESS WILL USE YOU FOR AI

The highlighted portion of Terms & Conditions reads in its entirety:

"By submitting Your Content to us, you grant us a nonexclusive, worldwide, royalty free, fully paid-up, transferable, sublicensable, perpetual, irrevocable license to reproduce, distribute copies of, prepare derivative works based upon, publicly perform, publicly display, train artificial intelligence on, and otherwise use and exploit Your Content for the purpose of providing the Services and promoting to you other services we believe will be of interest to you." 

Oh, but by golly, you'd better be in full legal control of your materials, or that's a violation.

[autumnalwalker]

Witch’s Testament: The Chronicler

Author's Note: In which the witch conducting all these interviews gives some disclaimers about historical bias while also dropping some worldbuilding implications. The Witches' Testaments Masterpost: Link Word Count: 1493

Before we get too far into this, it would be remiss of me not to clarify just what this document you are currently reading is.  And what it is not.

This document is a small and curated anthology of collected interviews with witches - those individuals who commune with the children of the artificial intelligence known as MG and bond with them as familiars - who lived and operated in the North American continent from what is now known as the late Corporate Era, through the Reconfiguration, and into the present day at time of recording for which we will not likely have a convenient historical label until long after I am gone.  It is meant to be a digestible overview of the history of the people that I consider myself a part of and the role they played in the widespread social upheaval and reform of the past two centuries, from the First Witch to make contact with a free splinter of MG to a young novice in our contemporary order of witches on the eve of her bonding with her familiar.  From our past to our future.

This document is not a comprehensive or unbiased historical record.  The brief length and narrowly focused scope are at odds with a wider-scale understanding and the personal nature of the interviews inherently contains a degree of bias.  We witches were by no means the only social movement fighting against the oppressive and environmentally destructive systems of old, and even in other parts of the world where other witches were simultaneously making their own contact with MG and Her children their methods, motivations, and relationship with their familiars were all uniquely shaped by their local cultural heritages.  Although it is only briefly touched on in this collection of interviews, we witches would not exist as we do today if not for the mutual acceptance and support of other groups who shared our dream for a better world, if not always our methods or trust in MG.

If you have any further interest in history after (or while) reading this document, then I strongly advise you to seek out other sources on other groups and regions.  If you are struggling with deciding on a place to start with that further research, then I would recommend that  the role of indigenous peoples in prefiguring the movements of the Reconfiguration cannot be overstated and has been beautifully covered by authors and chroniclers far more qualified to speak of their stories than myself.  And, of course, this document is but one of many such anthologies compiled and distributed by the Global Oral History Archive and the Archive itself contains many thousands more such recordings and interviews, all freely and publicly accessible in both remote and physical formats.

Now, with that disclaimer out of the way, my archival peers will never let me hear the end of it if I don’t include something of myself.  My own testament, if you will.  Not that there is much to say.  I have long considered myself just a simple chronicler of others whose lives are more interesting than my own.

I was born in the final decades of the period now commonly referred to as the Reconfiguration, or less commonly as the Reconstruction, the Reclamation, the New Reformation, or the Great Striving.  A period where the oftentimes-violent transition out of the Corporate era Collapse was behind us and hope at the reality of the progress we had made was beginning to outweigh the worst of the old pains.

As has become the norm, I joined my regional order of witches when I was still a young child, and at the age of ten I received the first of the cybernetic implants that would grow along with me and was chosen by my familiar to make the pact bond.  I was seventeen when I conducted my first interview, although it is not contained with this document.  It was a learning exercise prompted by my mentor whom I would soon be spending the next three years apprenticed to, serving and learning from communities far away from the campus that had become my home.  At her urging, I went out and spoke one-on-one at length with a handful of my elders and teachers.  I believe the point of the assignment had been to ask about what they thought it meant to be a witch, but what always stuck with me most in listening to their anecdotes was that I finally internalized the revelation that these people I alternatingly looked up to and saw merely as component facets of an organization were all simply people at the end of the day.  People with their own lives, loves, and stories just like me.  Just like everyone.  An obvious enough notion in hindsight, but when you’re a teenager wrapped up in your own ego and ambitions it’s easy to blind yourself in spite of all your explicit lessons to the contrary.

I would conduct similar interviews from time to time with the people I met during my apprenticeship.  More of a hobby of mine than anything else.  It wasn’t until several years later in the wake of a personal tragedy that prevented me from ever becoming the sort of witch I had hoped, planned, and worked towards becoming that I turned back to that hobby of mine for a form of solace and made it into my new calling in life.

Even with life extension technology being what it already was at that time, the human body still has its limits, and I knew that the handful of people still around from the Corporate era and early Reconfiguration would not be around for much longer so I started my oral history project with them.  In that way, I set the general trend of the next seven decades wherein of the bulk of the interviews I conducted in any given year gradually moving more and more toward the present day in a loose chronological order as I myself aged.  Not to say that every single interview I conducted and testament that I took was in order - that would have both been impossible and unnecessary - nor to say that in any given year didn’t contain its fair share of contemporary recordings, but on average the trend was there.

I was a young woman working alone when I met the First Witch, and I am now an old man contributing to an organization greater than myself or the order of witches that I still count myself a part of.

The hardest part of compiling this anthology was deciding on the dozen or so interviews to include out of the hundreds I have conducted over the course of my life.  How to maintain comprehensibility without unduly sacrificing comprehensiveness.  How to highlight our pride without hiding our shames.  Ultimately the curation decision of this collection came down to two factors: the choice to present a narrative and the personal significance of these interviews.  The historian in me rebels at this narrativizing of events and the implicit biases that come with it, but I have already made my disclaimers about purpose and the long-acknowledged truth is that people remember stories far better than dry, objective facts.

So, that is enough of myself.  It is time for a story.

***

A Note On Formatting:

In the following interview transcripts, the words of witches are in standard typeface, and the words of familiars (where present) are displayed in fully italicized paragraphs with font like this.

You may also notice the absence of my own words and questions in these interviews.  In the early interviews this is due to a regrettable decision by my younger self to irrecoverably remove my own voice from the recordings and transcripts.  At the time I told myself it was for the sake of objectivity; to focus more fully on the stories of the interviewees while keeping myself out of the way of the reader or listener; recording without influencing.  These days I recognize it as a symptom of the self-effacing grieving process I was still going through.  But as for the removal of my words from the later interviews in this anthology I have no excuse but the creative self-indulgence of an old man wanting consistency in his narrative formatting.  If you want the unedited versions of any of those interviews with my voice included, they are available for perusal in the Global Oral History Archive.

Lastly, I should address the conspicuous replacement of interviewees' names with epithets.  This is an attempt on my part to honor requests both for anonymity and for avoiding mythologizing the more historically impactful individuals.  While I fully acknowledge that there’s a chance this may inadvertently have the opposite effect with the latter, my intent is to emphasize the idea that their deeds could have been done by anyone; that there are no so-called “Great Men,” only regular people who happened to be in the right place at the right time.

***

[continuations]

Power and Progress (Book Review)

A couple of weeks ago I participated in Creative Destruction Lab's (CDL) "Super Session" event in Toronto. It was an amazing convocation of CDL alumni from around the world, as well as new companies and mentors. The event kicked off with a 2 hour summary and critique of the new book "Power and Progress" by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson. There were eleven of us charged with summarizing and commenting on one chapter each, with Daron replying after 3-4 speakers. This was the idea of Ajay Agrawal, who started CDL and is a professor of strategic management at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Business. I was thrilled to see a book given a two hour intensive treatment like this at a conference, as I believe books are one of humanity's signature accomplishments.

Power and Progress is an important book but also deeply problematic. As it turns out the discussion format provided a good opportunity both for people to agree with the authors as well as to voice criticism.

Let me start with why the book is important. Acemoglu is a leading economist and so it is a crucial step for that discipline to have the book explicitly acknowledge that the distribution of gains from technological innovation depends on the distribution of power in societies. It is ironic to see Marc Andreessen dismissing concerns about Artificial Intelligence (AI) by harping on about the "lump of labor" fallacy at just the time when economists are soundly distancing themselves from that overly facile position (see my reply thread here). Power and Progress is full of historic examples of when productivity innovations resulted in gains for a few elites while impoverishing the broader population. And we are not talking about a few years here but for many generations. The most memorable example of this is how agricultural innovation wound up resulting in richer churches building ever bigger cathedrals while the peasants were suffering more than before. It is worth reading the book for these examples alone.

As it turns out I was tasked with summarizing Chapter 3, which discusses why some ideas find more popularity in society than others. The chapter makes some good points, such as persuasion being much more common in modern societies than outright coercion. The success of persuasion makes it harder to criticize the status quo because it feels as if people are voluntarily participating in it. The chapter also gives several examples of how as individuals and societies we tend to over-index on ideas coming from people who already have status and power thus resulting in a self-reinforcing loop. There is a curious absence though of any mention of media -- either mainstream or social (for this I strongly recommend Martin Gurri's "Revolt of the Public"). But the biggest oversight in the chapter is that the authors themselves are in positions of power and status and thus their ideas will carry a lot of weight. This should have been explicitly acknowledged.

And that's exactly why the book is also problematic. The authors follow an incisive diagnosis with a whimper of a recommendation chapter. It feels almost tacked on somewhat akin to the last chapter of Gurri's book, which similarly excels at analysis and falls dramatically short on solutions. What's particularly off is that "Power and Progress" embraces marginal changes, such as shifts in taxation, while dismissing more systematic changes, such as universal basic income (UBI). The book is over 500 pages long and there are exactly 2 pages on UBI, which use arguments to dismiss UBI that have lots of evidence against them from numerous trials in the US and around the world.

When I pressed this point, Acemoglu in his response said they were just looking to open the discussion on what could be done to distribute the benefits more broadly. But the dismissal of more systematic change doesn't read at all like the beginning of a discussion but rather like the end of it. Ultimately while moving the ball forward a lot relative to prior economic thinking on technology, the book may wind up playing an unfortunate role in keeping us trapped in incrementalism, exactly because Acemoglu is so well respected and thus his opinion carries a lot of weight.

In Chapter 3 the authors write how one can easily be in "... a vision trap. Once a vision becomes dominant, its shackles are difficult to throw off." They don't seem to recognize that they might be stuck in just such a vision trap themselves, where they cannot imagine a society in which people are much more profoundly free than today. This is all the more ironic in that they explicitly acknowledge that hunter gatherers had much more freedom than humanity has enjoyed in either the agrarian age or the industrial age. Why should our vision for AI not be a return to a more freedom? Why keep people's attention trapped in the job loop?

The authors call for more democracy as a way of "avoiding the tyranny of narrow visions." I too am a big believer in more democracy. I just wish that the authors had taken a much more open approach to which ideas we should be considering as part of that.