LawrenceKerr

Does this require a Meta / WhatsApp business account?

If not, is this a solution using WhatsApp Web in the backend (like Baileys does)? If this is the case, how does your solution avoid getting blocked or banned? I used Baileys once in an MVP with only 7 users, and my agent got blocked really quickly after just a few days of using it. So I guess the official path is the only way to go?

I realize posting this here is most likely posting it to the wrong crowd, but I'm sharing it anyway in case someone here shares my niche combination of interests:

I'm playing with various "technoetic" projects, meaning applying technology to explore the nature of consciousness and the mind (noetics) in the very broad sense, in a creative & wannabe artsy & half-serious manner that tries to be open-minded to any explanation of the hard problem, so from both materialist & idealist perspectives, which includes happily treading into full-on woo territory.

You can follow along @ https://technoetica.com or follow me on X @LenceKerr

I am particularly interested in testing claims of ESP, psi, claims of magical powers through the practice of samadhi, ... This spawned for example this project: an exploration of "psi" particularly through associative remote viewing, by humans and/or AI: https://psi.wtf

Doesn't seem like the best of weather now in Iceland, hopefully it clears up. Otherwise it would suck for the people who have planned the trip months if not years in advance only to get a clouded sky, but that's always the risk with astrotravel.

Yes, it's a bit of an odd h1, website also looks very Claude-generated, but regardless, probably most people understand the intent.

Many such open source projects already (which is fantastic). I lose track of them.

Today it happened I needed a simple way to embed & query 1TB+ of documents, and I was looking at open source options. Can anyone tell me what their go-to solution is now? Could this be the one?

And what are the key differences vs. other open source RAG tools like kotaemon?

It's incredible when it finally clicks.

Arguably the best thing you can do is simply keep a dream journal (aside from deliberately waking up in the middle of the night and falling asleep with a clear intention - but that is more invasive in one's schedule and can also trigger nightmares).

Is lobbying the same as corruption?

Would you say the same thing about the covid vaccination campaigns during the Biden administration? Because billions of dollars were poured into those as well, with record profits for big pharma.

If you're going to make the comparison with vaccines, and if history is any indication, the more realistic worry would be the other way around (since that's where the money is): that genetic modifications will be mandated, and that those who object will be discriminated against.

[And no, I am not anti-vax, nor anti-gene-editing.]

Those astronauts maintain normal CO2 levels, and divers can experience increased CO2 buildup if they don't exhale properly, which is the opposite.

It's not made up. Plenty of people here who tried breathwork can attest to its power to bring you in strong trance-like states.

Try it yourself. Ideally in group setting, because doing this on your own (with a YouTube video or whatever) won't give you the same experience at all, and could be dangerous if you take it too far.

Surveying people is pretty important in a study like this, and valid science.

Regardless, if you read the paper, you'd learn that they did do objective measurements, namely etCO2 levels and bio-markers from saliva.

Of note: "when etCO2 fell below approx. 20 mmHg, it was virtually guaranteed to trigger at least some (and often a strong) departure from ordinary waking consciousness. This effect is particularly intriguing because in non-breathwork-related circumstances, an etCO2 of 20 mmHg or less would be considered a sign of severe physiological malfunctions, e.g. of the heart or lungs"

But anyone who tried breathwork, especially in group settings with accompanying music, knows such practices can lead to intense trance-like states.

Do I read this right? Is the author really saying "parapsychology is false" simply because of the possibility of fraud or negligence in the replicated studies?

Jumping to conclusions, much?

You are right that he is making some heavy-handed generalizations, but then again, he is replying to the OP making a very populist generalization about people with wealth as well, as if he has figured everything out - and OP isn't getting any flack for that. It may be the difference between American culture / "the new rich" vs. European culture, but my experience with people with great material wealth is very different and not easily generalizable.

> If your bar to helping others is ending all suffering within yourself, then I'm afraid we're all going to be living a very lonely existence if we followed your lead.

Logically that does not make any sense. If everyone is able to relieve themselves of their own suffering (no one else can anyway, in an ultimate sense), which includes loneliness, then there would be no more suffering. This is a Buddhist mindset that seems kind of harsh at first, but it's a reality people benefit from once they accept it: you must become your own savior. And once you are in good place, even just mentally, it becomes very natural and easy to help out others.

Problems only start when people reject this idea, and think they have all the answers to all the problems, and start enforcing their beliefs on others using violence - which is a trend we're seeing more & more these days.

> Capitalism generates crap software.

As opposed to state-funded software development, which is renowed for its high quality and innovation.

The comment they are replying to suggests taking down all the major social media networks by government force ("Just get rid of all of them").

Arguably, even if you are not prohibiting the content itself, if you take away the means for your content to spread far & wide, that's the same as censorship.

I find this quite disturbing.

I mean, the whole point of the site is to highlight what the Nixon shock left in its wake since 1971. It truly was special in that regard.

I'd highly recommend reading the book "Broken Money" by Lyn Alden for understanding the dynamics of what played out.

Why? I mean, nobody forces you to use tech tools for lucid dreaming.

This is like saying science and technology should stay out of the area of... whatever, say, running. Nobody forces you to wear high-tech gadgets while running.

I mean, there's galantamine... Although the experience for me is different than a naturally induced lucid dream. (And in many countries it's a prescription drug for dementia, so don't take this as advice)

The experience indeed can be very much like the "Oasis" video game that runs entirely on fast transformer inference.

Dream reality works by association and expectation rather than having a strict ruleset.

True, with the lottery the information density is a lot higher. In market predictions with binary outcomes, you really only need 1 bit of "information transfer".

And about the economic argument: let's continue the thought experiment I suggested above. Imagine a universe where psi exists as a real phenomenon of anomalous information transfer & manipulation. Assume anyone has some level of psychic influence on everything else. Let's say this explains the phenomenon of "hey I was thinking of this person and now they're suddenly calling me" (instead of it being purely confirmation bias).

In such a universe, you wouldn't want to publish much about your psi-based hedge fund, lest your profits would come under attack from the psi-influence of the active disbelievers... No, you'd keep it under wraps and do your recruiting secretly and selectively. And any disclosure would need happen very slowly and in the right way.

The rabbit hole goes deep :-)

I did say my preface does sound like a rationalization... The difference with religious arguments is: here we can gather statistical evidence, build better experimental protocols and generate hypotheses about potential mechanisms. And the believer vs non-believer thing is, as the evidence shows, an important piece of the puzzle.

It's true the placebo effect affects other research too (and honestly I think the explanation for why it does so, isn't different than in parapsychological research, but I digress). It's also true studies (including the study I cited) try to account for this, so I don't understand why you bring this up as if it's a counter argument for what I wrote?

If psi doesn't exist, then it shouldn't matter if you believe in it or not - empirically we would observe the same outcomes for both groups, no? That's one starting point.

And while you are claiming you aren't dismissing it because it's controversial, I feel like you are literally doing so.

No, the results published so far aren't conclusive (I stated this as well in the post you are replying to), but again, if you are truly impartial, how can it not be evidence that it may be worth exploring further? It's okay to say it doesn't interest you and not have an opinion on the matter, but I think, if you are dismissing it as invalid, you should at least provide arguments for why the evidence is invalid, so enthusiasts like myself can learn from it & help improve future studies.

Can you please explain why coordinate-based vs. image-based RV is relevant here?

I mean, if you assume psi is possible, sure, then it's a valid criticism that this is a confounding variable that causes the believers to score better.

However, if you're a skeptic, it shouldn't matter. I mean, if you assume psi is BS, then why would it be obvious image target X23AY would be easier to "guess" as an image of a hospital instead of getting the coordinates (39.2965, -76.5915)?

Please read before replying first.

I'm sorry, but comments like this have no place on HN.

If you read what I wrote, you would've seen the reference to one example published in Brain & Behavior, so yes, there is peer-reviewed research.

There are more examples, more datapoints, but I don't think it's very useful to share those in a discussion where you know the other person already made up their mind and isn't willing to engage very productively.

Phew... where to start? I think before randomly citing research, it's best to approach this subject theoretically first.

Assume "psi" exists. Purely as a thought experiment. What does this mean?

One key implication would be that consciousness can somehow access information beyond normal sensory channels. If this ability exists, it would likely be influenced by psychological factors - just like any other cognitive function. This leads us to a fascinating paradox: Our beliefs and expectations about psi would logically affect our ability to demonstrate it.

This is exactly what researchers have found with the supposed "sheep-goat effect" - where belief in psi correlates with performance in psi experiments. While skeptics often dismiss this as special pleading, the ultimate cop-out for negative results, it's actually a logical consequence of the initial premise. Strong skepticism could act as a psychological barrier, while openness might facilitate the phenomena.

This creates an interesting epistemological challenge. Unlike testing a new drug where belief shouldn't affect the chemical reaction, testing psi inherently involves consciousness - and therefore belief systems. The field has faced intense scrutiny because of these challenges and its implications. When Bem published his precognition studies in 2011, it sparked unprecedented criticism and launched psychology's replication crisis.

However, this scrutiny has led to increasingly rigorous methods in the field - despite this controversial topic being a potential career-ender and underfunded (although there are some private initiatives...).

So, having said all that as an important preface, in my opinion... One answer to your question: a recent example is the 2023 study in Brain and Behavior examining CIA remote viewing experiments (Escolà-Gascón et al.). Using extensive controls and blind conditions, they found significant above-chance results in high emotional intelligence participants. The authors - who describe themselves as skeptically oriented - conclude their data shows "robust statistical anomalies that currently lack an adequate scientific explanation and therefore are consistent with the hypothesis of psi." They argue for continued rigorous research while acknowledging the philosophical challenges these findings present.

This isn't hard proof of psi, yet, but it's evidence that there may be more going on than skeptics may think. We shouldn't dismiss it out of hand, just because it's so controversial, and because it seems incompatible with a materialist worldview that says "mind" must be spatially and temporally localised, and cannot access or manipulate information elsewhere.

This oversimplifies decades of research. While early remote viewing studies at SRI had methodological flaws, later experiments at SAIC addressed these issues and produced statistically significant results that haven't been adequately explained. Randi's million-dollar challenge isn't considered scientifically valid - it's more publicity stunt than proper experimental protocol. The circumstances and rules for awarding his prize were opaque, controlled by Randi, and has nothing to do with how science tests hypotheses.

The government programs (like STARGATE) actually produced some compelling results according to their declassified documents. The issue wasn't that they were "debunked" - the programs ended largely due to inconsistent results and questions about operational usefulness, not because of exposed fraud.

I'd encourage looking at the peer-reviewed research rather than relying on stage magicians' critiques. While healthy skepticism is good, dismissing the entire field based on cherry-picked cases misses the nuance in the data.

The book "Phenomena" by the investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen is a fantastic and fascinating starting point.

In general: technoetic software - tools for exploring consciousness through technology. I have this idea to try to revive the terms "technoetics" and "psionics". I feel like there's still so much ground to cover in this space, yet no one pays much attention to it, except for a small niche of weirdos like me.

If you're into tech and (non-materialist) ideas about consciousness, follow me on X (see profile or https://technoetics.org/ )

Did you try moving & touching stuff while flying far away?

The thing about flying very far is that you're probably in the same fixed Superman position, not really moving your dream body anymore. If you don't move, your consciousness shifts awareness towards your physical body and you wake up. Try it next time: just stop & don't move, don't do anything, you're likely to wake up.

So doing the opposite, moving your dream body a lot & touching dream stuffs, tends to prolong your dream. That's why teleportation works better for moving to different areas.

Funny enough, not moving your body is also how your consciousness shifts and enters the dream state when awake.

It's pretty easy. If you're the type of person who rarely dreams, it takes about a month or so.

First consciously cultivate interest in your own dreams (through dream journaling, and consciously looking forward to your dreams before sleep). That's the basis.

Then, if it doesn't happen spontaneously, to force a breakthrough you can always set multiple alarms (tip: a smart watch with a vibratory alarm, or... make a baby), to wake yourself and keep yourself on the edge of sleep - into that hypnopompic state (between 2-4 AM works best for most people). It takes a lot of effort, concentration & patience. The only thing about this way of entering a lucid dream, is that you're likely to consciously experience sleep paralysis first, and many people don't like that even though it's harmless and a perfect gateway into lucid dreams.

Did you ever try though? Did you try to initiate a lucid dream with the conscious intention of recalling your waking state?

A lot of limits in lucid dreams are entirely self-imposed and often broken through or bypassed with conscious intention.

I participated in lucid dream research years ago, and definitely could recall exactly where I was sleeping and more details about my waking state, while executing the experiment task inside the lucid dream.

How can you "safely say that it has failed"? Bitcoin is in the top 10 largest assets in the world, just below silver. I think few people would've expected that 15 years ago. That's a pretty high bar you're setting.