desertraven

Navigating to this websites prompts me to install wordpress? Unfortunately my installation attempt was unsuccessful.

This is great! I'm wondering if there's anything on the roadmap for multiplayer support?

Try it and you tell me! ;)

In answer to your question, it’s hard to explain. But no, I don’t find it possible to step back again and observe that meta process. I just tried.

And it is definitely a present-tense action.

It may be that it is merely as you say, directing attention to attention, but it doesn’t diminish the free-flow experiential aspect of the exercise, or the intellectual curiosity.

Just to flesh out the experience, if I’m not paying attention to my experience, attention is still wandering all over the place, I’m just “in it” so to speak, and not noticing. When I observe it happening it has a very different quality to it.

Not to get esoteric, but the best way I could describe it is that there seems to be some observing faculty seperate to the usual sense of self. Which might explain why the exercise can’t devolve into an endless paying attention to paying attention to paying attention…

How?! Sometimes I feel a family is a path to more busy-brained activity. Less inclination to actually look what the mind is doing at a given moment. So I’m interested in that. But also logistically, what is a life of poverty for you, and how did you come to achieve it?

In regard to watching the mind, one thing I’ve observed is a little strange, and I was hoping to get other’s experiences.

I like to watch the movement of my attention. Nothing abstract, just to observe where attention is aimed - it takes a mere 30 seconds of watching.

What I’ve noticed, is it moves around, seemingly without my input, and lacking any conscious intent (a concept the blog post makes a point to reclaim).

The light of attention shines throughout the physical scene, but it is sensorily multidimensional. It might move to the pain in my back, or the sound of the frogs, or the mug on my desk, a random memory, or more relevant to the article, the latest arising thought.

I am watching this movement of ‘my’ attention, and yet I seem to be playing no part in the neither the objects of attention, or the movement of attention itself.

This isn’t to say I cannot decide right now to move my hand in front of my face and observe it, but this arising of intention is itself mysterious too.

I have considered. But I only carry a small pocket book (about the size of a passport), and don't intend on carrying tech around. Thanks for the suggestion though!

I use a UBPorts Pinephone as my daily driver. Sometimes I wonder about the security implications of that decision. I imagine there are WAY more vulnerabilities for a phone like mine, compared to iOS/Android. It's buggy enough from a user perspective, let alone a security one. Does anyone have any knowledge or thoughts in this regard?

This is a cool project.

I bought both a HackRF and an Ettus USRP B210 years ago for playing with.

I am yet to actually do anything of interest! Anyone want to share anything cool they’ve done in the SDR world?

The comment was a bit snarky (and perhaps paranoid), which is unusual for me.

Back to the tinfoil hats, do you believe communications on Signal can't be accessed by anyone except the two recipients? And why do you believe that?

Admittedly my position comes from a more ignorant place - that surveillance seems to be top priority for government agencies, and our governments decreasingly serve the wellbeing of the people. Pretty shallow I admit, but I can't actually believe that the most popular, privacy-centric chat platform isn't accessible by other parties. That would be absurd wouldn't it? Especially with government-mandated backdoors in everything.

It wouldn't surprise me. No reason why a phone number is needed to use the app, and if people think their messages aren't monitored when using it, they're dreaming. It's not truly e2e encrypted, and I think it is just better than giving that data to the usual suspects (Facebook, Google, etc). That's why I use it, but I'm under no illusion that this free app isn't trying to get my data just as much as any other. Screen recording is a step further than I expected, but not toooo surprising.

What's the commentary on prime numbers currently? Is it expected that there is some unfound pattern to them? Or will they always remain elusive?

A bit misleading I agree. I suppose since prime numbers DO make these spirals, it's not inaccurate.

Just more generally, I was wondering if people might share their experience of Islam? I'm quite ignorant honestly.

How did you come to find the religion? What impacts (positive and negative) does it have on your life?

One thing which has made me uncertain, is the praising of martyrdom throughout the Quran. How is this aspect reconciled within peaceful societies? I mean no disrespect through this question, and recognise this may not be the best place to ask.

The increasing rate of technological progress worries me sometimes. One upside is the hope that malicious policy just won't be able to keep up with the rate of change.

It seems futile to fight these kinds of things, especially since if something isn't legal, it'll likely get done via some shady method (eg. mass surveillance).

I wonder what an emerging information system would look like where these kinds of policies just wouldn't be relevant. P2P? Turning away from online tech in general?

When the bully comes to the playground, it seems like a good idea to just go play elsewhere.

Just curious, why?

I'm sure this will become a bigger debate in the future, but I absolutely believe consciousness itself is worth protecting.

We ourselves have just sprung into existence. I should hope that as consciousness of any kind comes online, whichever world they may mind themselves in (earthly or otherwise), there is a compassion for the existence of the other.

I often feel fortunate that the extent of human suffering is a relatively short lifespan. If I were to exist in a state of suffering that didn't have such a fixed expiration, well that would be hell.

My understanding of déjà vu is that it applies to the moment you're in aka "it feels like this has happened before". What I'm referring to is a sudden recollection of a moment, which isn't the current one. But the feeling is quite similar to déjà vu, just paired with imagery. I'm struck with a strong image in my mind, and a feeling that "that has happened before".

Hmmm, I believe I have first-hand experience with this. Often as I go about my day, I get sudden flashes of a scene recalled. It feels visceral and real - how I imagine electrodes stimulating the brain might bring forth feelings and memories. They're usually just scenes, with a strong feeling attached.

These "memories" aren't recalled from my life, often it would be impossible for them to be, and yet they feel like mine.

I imagine there's some medical explanation for this, but I've no desire to approach a doctor with such symptoms!

Anyone want to discuss the committing to a life partner part? Any experiences with NOT doing this?

"it's relatively easy to be in a light to medium information dense conversation and still meditate with ease"

This is to my surprise also. As one who has recently taken up this technique of constantly meditating - it all goes out the window immediately in any human interaction. Maybe this is social anxiety, but I'd appreciate any tips that allow you to do this.

Is there any further reading I can do on this? Or could you elaborate?

Obviously I meditate, but I do see how it could lead to drastic changes in how one exists in the world.

Is the nature of mind best not investigated first hand? The downsides may be mental health issues, but are there any upsides to this kind of practice?

Do you have issues with 2FA?

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll buy that.

Only decades ago, it seems the user of the device was the master. Now it seems the other way around. If the user does not explicitly request something, don't do it. If I turn my device off, I expect it to be doing absolutely nothing.

It's a little disconcerting, and I wonder what hope there is for user empowerment in the future? There's just so many layers in the stack, and users have high expectations about what capabilities they want from devices.

I often envision a low-tech alternative, where everything is as simple as required. Where devices are tools, and not distractions. And we can still do everything which is necessary with them.

The walled-garden effect makes it impractical to even design an alternative, because homebrew devices aren't supported by our institutions. The APIs aren't open.

The solution is increasingly to remove devices from life, and incrementally introduce only those that are necessary. But complex and user-hostile devices are becoming the standard for what is required to interact with banks, government, and other important institutions.

Does anyone see a possible out here?

I see where you're coming from - but if I want to share something, I expect it to be shared by whatever protocol the service I'm sharing from uses (in this case a Spotify link). There isn't even a method to convert my Spotify link to an Apple Music link in the UI, so why would I want that behaviour when I'm using Siri?

Interesting. What iOS version are you running? I'm running 15.4

That's good to know. I have a 6S, so I can only upgrade to 15.4.

Are you getting increasingly militarised police too?

That sounds really wholesome - thanks for taking the time to share.

I may have to take a page from your mother's book. Being digitally inclined left me blind to meatspace solutions. I happen to live in an alternative town, so writing chums are likely abound.

Are we not able to produce vast amounts of terrestrial energy without the sun (eg. nuclear)? I'd imagine a sufficiently advanced civilisation has solved the issue of energy, such that they have an abundance without creating giant structures around stars which would alert even the most primitive of civilisations (us) to their presence.

Further, the dyson sphere concept stemmed from sci-fi, or rather the human imagination. It seems logical to us that an advanced civilisation would build structures around stars to harvest their energy, but our logic is limited to the bounds of a few kilograms of grey, wrinkled biological matter.

The dog cannot understand the internal combustion engine. Alexander the Great wasn't thinking about the internet, or genetic engineering. We're quite sure of ourselves, and of what an advanced civilisation ought to be doing, and I think this is a mistake.