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Except that, if I understand correctly, the author poses the problem such that one must 'end up back home' (that is, one must find an Eulerian circuit, not a path). If there are 2 nodes of odd degree, then you must start at one and end at the other.

The medium is the message. The medium, Twitter, may not necessarily be just a passive channel, but an active component that amplifies and promotes certain types of communication at the expense of others.

Hmm, perhaps, but I find that book indices can be better than a raw search of some term (easier to find more substantial entries).

The only way to build a recursive loop is to say that awareness is some state (the output of the awareness process). But that just begs the question, how could awareness be a state? If it is a meta-phenomena (i.e., the result of some sort of complexity or self-referential loop) then what exactly is aware that one is aware?

These stories are genre in themselves. Next I'll read about how some CS PhD didn't even know what a computer was.

The term 'consciousness' is somewhat overloaded. I prefer 'subjectivity' to denote the strange fact that there is something there is like to be me--cf. Thomas Nagel's essay 'What is it like to be a bat?'. This subjectivity seems absent in the science of enlightenment thinkers who were driven to find the 'objective' laws of nature.

Nagel wrote a controversial book towards the end of his life called 'Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False' where he argues that this very subjectivity cannot be fit into any current materialist theory. I tend to agree with this view--reducing subjectivity to a metaphenomena of complexity seems to be a completely hollow definition. Why does it exist?

Right -- consciousness is whatever it is that is aware that it is self-aware. In fact, anytime you pinpoint consciousness as any particular awareness, you beg the question. How can you be aware of your awareness?

You're right--'heavily' relative to their purchase price ($0).

It's the same reason Apple invests so heavily in Pages, Keynote and Numbers (all free apps on three different platforms). They believe that building software internally (taking hardware into account) leads to a better user experience, and sparks an intangible 'joy' when using their products--a sense of completeness that transcends software and hardware. This was the core of Jobs' philosophy and I think still drives the entire company.

It's a single well-designed app where you can order takeout in a few clicks. It's generally much easier to re-order a past meal on it than it is to call or use some clunky web interface.

Maybe not in a traditional sense, but certainly there are strong social pressures to eat similar things to those around you. Advertising can strongly affect your food choices. Smoking is also not contagious in the sense that it doesn’t immediately give you cancer: it takes years, often decades. Yet we’ve decided to outlaw it in many public places.

You are assuming that a particular course of action: (1) is guaranteed to be the best way to save lives and (2) only has ramifications which we have the ability to ‘adjust’. Many scientists may disagree with you on both accounts. I don’t see why they are not holding themselves to the highest ethical standards.

Part of the problem with the reporting on death rates and, to a lesser extent, many of the tests and treatments of COVID-19, is the almost nonexistent emphasis on uncertainty quantification. A view might only be ‘different’ in the sense that the mode of the belief is shifted significantly, which is to be expected if existing beliefs are quite diffuse (i.e., uncertain).

I stumbled onto Winston's advice as I was preparing for my Ph.D. defence which took place in early March (right before the COVID-19 shutdowns began). For the public presentation portion--a 45 minute talk aimed at a general audience--I took his suggestion to add a few props and regular 'breaks' from the technical content (as well as turning on all the lights in the lecture hall).

My dissertation dealt with robot navigation so I dug up an aeronautical chart and a 'flight computer' (circular slide rule) to motivate dead reckoning. The breaks were mostly pictures from conferences/trips where I presented my work. Both of these additions seemed to be quite well received based on some (somewhat impartial) feedback :).

One suggestion I'm still not completely sold on is to avoid saying 'thank you' at the very end. Ending on a visual that summarizes the work makes sense, but avoiding thanking the audience so as to not appear too deferential seems to me to be a stretch--isn't this just a simple courtesy? Wilson makes the analogy to political speeches which almost always end in some form of 'God bless America!', but I struggle to see an analogous sign-off that could be used in more academic settings.

Right: if you are a brain-in-a-vat observing some powerful play, what can you say about the world in which the vat is embedded? (or for that matter, how is it that you can even be made aware of the vat’s existence?)

The Free Will Theorem paper is available here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0604079v1.pdf. Most of it seems quite readable.

He notes in the first lecture that he thinks it is impossible to disprove determinism. A determined determinist can always resort to the argument: all of your senses are deceiving you and you are simply experiencing some predetermined script of qualia (he uses the analogy of watching a movie a second time).

If free will is an illusion, why not the rest of the world (a la Descartes' Evil demon thought experiment)? Why do you trust your senses at all?

I am compelled by the notion of free will described by Schopenhauer (expanding on Kant). Namely, that 'one can do as he wills but not will as he wills'. Lived experience leads us to infer an indeterminate/inseparable energy/force/Will that we perceive with our senses and organize through the concepts of time/space/causality. However, we, being on the 'inside' of one particular object, are in a peculiar state: we are free to accept or reject this Will.

If I ask you to think of a number between 0 and 10, a number may pop up in your head (seemingly out of nowhere, though clearly through some process affected by genetics/neurochemistry). Despite this, you (whatever 'you' is) are still free to accept or reject this proposition.

In this sense, people can still be punished for accepting propositions of murder in some coherent way. You are affected by, but not the sum total of, your genetics and neurochemistry. Nevertheless, the latter might play a large role that we shouldn't discount.

Note that Conway's Free Will Theorem [see 1, Sections 10.1, 11.2] holds whether or not the laws of nature are inherently stochastic.

[1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0604079v1.pdf

Does Gallup do that survey? ('Are you self-actualized?') I suspect you're joking, but the notion that self-actualization can be measured with percentage points is a perversion of the term.

'Suspension of basic reasoning' is a common theme in literature (i.e., the limitations of logos).

I think they are referring to the (mis)spelling of 'qualatative.'

Tangentially related: Could a Neuroscientist Understand a Microprocessor? [1] (short answer: not with current analytic tools)

[1] https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/jo...

Startups to save the world and Black Mirror to lampoon the naivety of their techno-utopian worldview. The yin and yang of today's culture.

Ah, interesting. I have not read much about Tibetan Buddhism. Is the loop you are referring to specifically one of 'subjectivity' (i.e., the self perceiving the self) or the broader loop of reincarnation? Any recommended introductory books on the topic for a philosophically-inclined spiritually-inexperienced Westerner?

I've had that exact feeling of the 'dreadful alternative' of immortality under the influence of (in retrospect) way too much THC. Also, much of the perceived 'peace' and 'tranquility' some people describe feeling from a perception of being 'connected to everything' manifested the exact opposite feelings in me. All of a sudden I felt completely alone. I do not want to be 'one' with everything because that means there is nothing beyond me.

Perhaps a more positive experience might be one in which you still feel distinct but nevertheless intimately connected with everything. I've done some psilocybin, but never reached anything close to 'ego-death.' I am curious to hear other people's thoughts on how these ego-less experiences make one at peace, and not in complete existential horror (I suppose if there is no ego, there is nothing to 'feel' the horror?).

Just want to add that I had a somewhat similar experience under the influence of THC (I had several edibles). I took away much the same 'revelation' of the true existential terror of 'oneness'. I felt like I was stuck in a 'perception loop' where I (and all of the world) was in an infinite self-referential loop and I was identical to that loop. The true terror came from me trying to 'break out' of the loop, and being unable to. I remember continually asking the question 'who perceives the perceiver?' and then reaching for an answer, only to be kicked 'up a level' in this recursive loop and starting the process all over again. Eventually I was overwhelmed by a Sisyphean resignation; I was condemned to exist in this loop for all time, continually confused, with nothing to ground 'myself' and in a constant battle against 'myself'.

Looking back, the feeling of being 'trapped' was somewhat reminiscent of my experience of 'sleep paralysis' (and also occurred as I was falling asleep) though on an ineffably more terrifying scale. I'm not sure if other people who've experienced bad trips on weed (that are hallucinogenic in nature) have felt something similar.

When I awoke the next day, I suddenly had the distinct realization that the existence of other living beings and their eventual death (as my own) was an immense gift. Eternal existence as some monistic 'God' suddenly appeared to be the ultimate hell.

To add to this, Michael Pollan (author of Omnivore's Dillema and a Berkeley/Harvard prof) recently published a lucid account of the history of psychedelics and 'psychotomimetics' (as they were originally named, owing to their perceived ability to mimic psychosic) with the title 'How to change your mind' [1].

In the book, Pollan details the recent renaissance in clinical psychedelic research to treat depression and help terminally-ill patients. The hope is that the 'noetic quality' of psychedelic trips--a term coined by William James in the context of religious experiences--can help pierce through the defences of one's ego. This 'noetic quality' refers to the perception that a psychedelic trip feels like 'total reality'; a series of 'revealed truths' rather than drug-induced illusions. This bears resemblance to revelatory experiences in religious contexts and the two are intimately tied in many Shamanic practices.

By inducing a long-lasting feeling of transcendence, researchers hope that psilocybin et al. can act as a more direct way to short-circuit destructive patterns of thought and help one come to terms with death (as opposed to, or in conjunction with, traditional therapy).

Pollan writes that in controlled settings with a trained guide, 'bad trips' are quite rare, though they can occur.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36613747-how-to-change-y....

See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuZ6ypueK8M.