ryugarden

I believe this phenomenon is called “linguistic relativity”, or “The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis” [1], which says that a language affects its speakers' cognition or even personality. I'm probably not truly bilingual, my native lanuguage is Ukrainian, but I too feel as if my personality and behavior is slightly different when I talk or write in English.

Further reading:

1 // https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

https://qz.com/925630/feel-more-fun-in-french-your-personali...

Chen et al 2010, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/014616721038536...

Chen et al 2013, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jopy.12040

Athanasopoulos et al 2020, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02643294.2020.17...

M. Keith Chen 2012, https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti...

Yes, it's called Advaita Vedanta. Swami Sarvapriyananda's lectures are always a great source of knowledge about Advaita.

So Advaita is about you, that is, about consciousness. You are consciousness. And then it goes something like "you're not your body and you're not your mind, you are the "pure subjectivity" present in any qualia, you are Sakshi." Or Atman, also a popular term. Also there's that equation that Atman = Brahman (brahman being the universe/existence itself? [1] but I don't buy it, maybe I don't understand what that means yet) And all of this supposedly is ought to make you feel better about your own problems or suffering, idk? I'm not sure how tbh, I just have a metaphysical interest in this topic. It didn't help me with my problems.

So in every qualia there is the content of experience, and then there is the very first-personal givenness of whatever is subjectively given [2]. Experiential presence. But it's only a conceptual difference, not a real nomological/metaphysical one. There's just qualia. There cannot be qualia without an experiencer, an experiencing that is happening. We wouldn't even call that "qualia". Similarly, there cannot be just this abstract quality of first-personal givenness, mere subjectivity without contents. We wouldn't call that an experience.

So in Advaitic terms: consciousness = subjectivity = Sakshi (just a laconic term) [3] = experiential presence = immediacy of experience = mineness = for-me-ness = the first-personal givenness of experience = the real metaphysical "I". So contrary to popular nowadays philosophers of mind, quale is not consciousness. Qualia consist of 1) consciousness and 2) contents of consciousness. And these two are inseparable, I make only a difference in words to explain what it is, on the level of concepts. In nature there are only experiences going on.

Advaita says that you are that which experiences. Whatever you experience — that you are not. This is a useful phrase to remember. A distinction. You observe happenings of your mind just as you observe your body and the outside world and everything else. (the mind is even sometimes called as "the subtle body" by Advaitins)

You are singular, only one. Experiences - many

You - never change, but experiences come and go

You are very simple and propertyless, but your experiences and feelings are complex and can change

There is no seer and the seen, there is only a process of "seeing", and you are that. Also from this follows that I am you and every conscious person, animal or being is the very same subjectivity, instantiated in different contexts (locations, times). This is also sometimes called Open Individualism theory of personal identity (term coined by Daniel Kolak) [4] [5] [6], or sometimes Universalism by Arnold Zuboff [7] [8], or as in writings of Edralis [9] [10].

There's also that concept of self-luminosity (svaprakasatva), that self-consciousness is just consciousness. Light reveals many other objects but simultaneously reveals itself. You don't need another source of light to see light. For advaitins, light is a metaphor for you, for consciousness. [11]

Also the mistaken identification of yourself, as consciousness, with your mind is called Adhyāsa (superimposition) [12]. There's a technique for grasping this concept intuitively called Drig Drishya Viveka, Swami Sarvapriyananda often talks about it [13].

References:

1 // https://doi.org/10.1093/monist/onab023

2 // The I: A dimensional account https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11097-020-09697-9

3 // https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakshi_(Witness)

4 // https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_individualism

5 // http://digitalphysics.ru/pdf/Kaminskii_A_V/Kolak_I_Am_You.pd...

6 // https://opentheory.net/2018/09/a-new-theory-of-open-individu...

7 // http://nsl.com/misc/zuboff/zuboff1.htm

8 // https://philpapers.org/rec/ZUBOST

9 // https://edralis.wordpress.com/2020/07/24/mineness-and-person...

10 // https://edralis.wordpress.com/2020/07/24/i-could-have-been-s...

11 // Consciousness in Advaita Vedanta, p.36 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3678791-consciousness-in...

12 // https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhyāsa

13 // https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dṛg-Dṛśya-Viveka

Further reading:

// Prakāśa. A few reflections on the Advaitic understanding of consciousness as presence and its relevance for philosophy of mind https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11097-020-09690-2

// Galen Strawson - What is the Relation Between an Experience, the Subject of the Experience, and the Content of the Experience? chapter 6 of https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6689029-real-materialism

// chapter 5 & chapter 10 of https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/33357091

Mario Montano's youtube videos:

// https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WKqO16mkGE

// https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF5dVjRgXeU

// https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Uz6anwm47g

// Complex Numbers - We, 22nd Century. Electronic opera (english version) https://youtu.be/zC1o9CjeefI?t=1025

// https://www.naturalism.org/philosophy/death/death-nothingnes...

// http://web.archive.org/web/20210121121148/https://vitrifyher...

Your comment is the exact plot of "The Want Machine", a story by Exurb1a.

This is true, we can travel only up to 8.2 billion light years (radius of the affectable universe/2) which is the largest completely causally connected region, in the sense that every point can observe and reach every other. 8.2 billion light years is the furthest distance that we could reach and then return from at the speed of light. And it is much smaller than the radius of the observable universe (46.4 billion light years)

I make jazz piano music and funky electronica, drum & bass occasionally. My most representing albums are The Box of Unusables, Nightly Blues, Gematria. All available for free download on bandcamp:

- https://kruasan.bandcamp.com/

- https://open.spotify.com/artist/3rKsH1N8kNecsITJrNneih

- https://music.apple.com/ua/artist/kruasan/1454320855

That's naive. Why would I let it go?

Firstly, contrary to Benatar, our lives are not "meaningless", even from a cosmic perspective. Our personal problems, concerns, relationships, and feelings are in no way less significant merely in the virtue of the size of the (multi)verse. Your feeling of pain is still pain, whether the universe contains billions of galaxies, or is just 10 light-years across. Same with joy, same with health, everything.

Secondly, our lives are certainly not inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. The whole future of the Sun depends on whether humanity's descendants exist long enough to develop the technology to stop it from going nova and gather its energy. If Earth is indeed the only planet in the observable universe to contain life, then our lives are of tremendous significance. Either we live and hopefully, build grand Kardashev IV-utopia among the stars changing the universe completely, or we go extinct.

Someone posted this, whatever that means:

𐐌 𐑊𐐴𐐿 𐑉𐐴𐐻𐐮𐑍 𐐮𐑌 𐑄𐐮𐑅 𐐻𐐯𐐿𐑅𐐻, 𐐮𐐻 𐑊𐐳𐐿𐑅 𐐿𐐭𐑊. 𐐶𐐲𐑉𐐿𐑅 𐐼𐐮𐑁𐐲𐑉𐐲𐑌𐐻 𐑄𐐰𐑌 𐑅𐐻𐐰𐑌𐐼𐐲𐑉𐐼 𐐬𐑊𐐼 𐐢𐐰𐐻𐐲𐑌 𐐰𐑊𐑁𐐰𐐺𐐯𐐻, 𐐺𐐲𐐻 𐐲𐐻 𐑄 𐑅𐐩𐑋 𐐻𐐴𐑋 𐑁𐐫𐑉𐑋𐐼 𐑁𐑉𐐲𐑋 𐑄 𐐢𐐰𐐻𐐲𐑌 𐐰𐑊𐑁𐐰𐐺𐐯𐐻. 𐐆𐑋𐐰𐐾𐐮𐑌 𐑄𐐮𐑅 𐐺𐐨𐐮𐑍 𐐲𐑅𐐲𐐼 𐑁𐐫𐑉 𐐹𐑉𐐰𐐿𐐻𐐮𐐿𐐲𐑊 𐐹𐐲𐑉𐐹𐐲𐑅𐑆.

𐐡𐐰𐑌𐐼𐐲𐑋 𐐼𐐭𐐼 𐐮𐑌𐐻𐑉𐐨𐑀𐐼 𐐺𐐴 𐑄 𐐔𐐯𐑅𐐨𐑉𐐯𐐻 𐐈𐑊𐑁𐐰𐐺𐐯𐐻 .

As Greg Egan in "Permutation City" once put it:

Supporters of the Strong AI Hypothesis insisted that consciousness was a property of certain algorithms -- a result of information being processed in certain ways, regardless of what machine, or organ, was used to perform the task. A computer model which manipulated data about itself and its "surroundings" in essentially the same way as an organic brain would have to possess essentially the same mental states. "Simulated consciousness" was as oxymoronic as "simulated addition."

. . .

Paul had rapidly decided that this whole debate was a distraction. For any human, absolute proof of a Copy's sentience was impossible. For any Copy, the truth was self-evident: cogito ergo sum. End of discussion.

do mathematical objects exist?

Yes, they do, in an abstract sense. Existence in math means a very different thing from existence in physics. There are mathematical objects that exist, and those that cannot and do not exist. Someone posted a SEP entry earlier, which is a good start on this topic.

the main difference between concerning ourselves with whether or not mathematical objects exists vs music

There is no 'vs', because there is no difference. Music is math, any song or sound is a mathematical object. A physical waveform that you hear can be encoded digitally in numbers: ones and zeros. So any given wav/flac file is just a bunch of numbers that give rise to the qualitative experience of sound, when interpreted in a certain way. For example, a digital waveform consists of samples, each sample takes 16 bits to encode. Sampling rate of 44.1kHz is 44,100 samples per second. So you have 16 bits per sample x 44100 samples per second per channel x 2 channels x 300 seconds = 2^423,360,000 possible permutations of a 5-minute audio file without compression, which is a number with over 127 million digits. A little percentage of these permutations would count as music (even if your tastes are really diversified), most of it would just be noise. But all these possible 5-minute audio files include not only every song and every performance that existed or will exist. They also include every possible sound recording: songs that will not be written, Paul Graham saying that he hates HN, Paul Graham saying that he loves me and the rest of the file is silence, you and me discussing this topic with Plato for 5 minutes, etc, etc. The data exists and can be discovered and listened to, even though some of these examples are obviously not physically possible (i.e. Plato is dead).

So all music already exists mathematically, and it can be a useful mindset that your job is to discover it. A lot of musicians see it that way, Tessa Violet, for example: https://youtu.be/QzBoGVToWEo?t=342

There is so much wrong with this. It's clear that you're essentially presupposing there is either "free will" or "determinism" when in fact the right distinction to make is "free will" as opposed to "no free will".

Anyway, when you make a rerun of the universe from the same initial conditions, you get randomness because of quantum mechanics, so the future outcome is not exactly the same, and you can't predict anything with certainty because of probabilities. But look, all of this has nothing to do with free will. Neither determinism nor quantum mechanical randomness give you an absolute-metaphysical-libertarian superwill when you're not a subject to the laws of physics at all (unless you believe that you're a soul/cartesian ego/some other supra-physical mental entity with dubious ontological status). You're basically arguing against this abovementioned concept. But actually default, regular free will is just an effective description of reality where persons have volition, and it exists as an emergent rather than fundamental thing.

Before you start to make the same argument that free will doesn't really exist, consider the question: does Hacker News exist? Well, duh, of course not! There are no websites, no Internet and no computers, it's obviously all just fundamental particles acting in some ways, you know, just the wave function of the universe deterministically obeying the Schrodinger equation, etc. Naive reductionism. But here we are, reading Hacker News. Guess what, you don't live on a level of fundamental particles. Does, for example, chess exist? Your argument implies that it does not, but here I am, playing chess in a separate tab.

So, do persons exist?

Does free will exist?

It strikes me that people don't bother to make real arguments against free will, like a psychological one, for example.

This reminded me about Tegmark's map of relationships between various basic mathematical structures:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/9704009.pdf (on page 2)

That hard drive is basically just a reduced music version of The Library of Babel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel

I was referring to this twitter thread: https://twitter.com/george__mack/status/1068238562443841538

Learn how to make more friends. Communicate. Learn how to talk with people, how to be adaptive and contextual.

Learn about yourself as much as you can, either via introspection or from other people. Learn what your values are, and what makes them satisfied. "You are your own ally, when you make yourself an enemy even though you should trust yourself, you become the victim hit the hardest".

Learn agency. Remember that you are a person, and you can take initiative.

Learn that another person's behavior toward you is just a reflection of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person.

Learn to genuinely tell people that you love them. People are precious.

Last of all, actually learn how to use knowledge of all of the above in your situation.

I once memorized 200 digits of pi when I had nothing more fun to do on a long boring lecture. Sherlock popped into my mind, so I imagined a journey through my house where I chunked numbers to make them represent certain things or people, and me interacting or talking with them, like in a story of some sort. But it feels like I never applied this method to anything significant, apart from memorizing a few things from my biochemistry course. Although now I remember credit card numbers, every single phone number of my friends and family (by associating numbers with particular facial features or character traits), and some other things. I would say before that day I never fully realized just how much I actually like to memorize stuff like words and numbers. Anyway, I think everyone should give it a try, this is fun.

merry kurisumasu

mechanism by which subjective states are experienced by the entity

Why are you implying some kind of mental entity that "does the experiencing"?

Yes, there are objective mathematical truths, but you cannot be sure there exists a physical reality or anything that corresponds to our experiences. You just know that there are subjective experiences right now. That's the only thing you can be absolutely certain about. So I see no sense in talking about "reality".