{"id":2591,"date":"2020-09-13T01:16:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-13T01:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/?p=2591"},"modified":"2021-01-03T17:33:02","modified_gmt":"2021-01-03T17:33:02","slug":"the-one-mind-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/?p=2591","title":{"rendered":"The One Mind Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"SALWITAY - The One Mind Thing\" width=\"695\" height=\"391\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HvYUDVS9-d8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><figcaption>The Cosmic Mystery Machine &#8211; A promotional vehicle unique for being the only known spacecraft to employ functional wheeled propulsion. The wheels actually do generate directional thrust using an extraordinarily inefficient mechanically timed mach-effect. Though wheeled propulsion is possible, it&#8217;s acknowledged as a gimmick and the ship can deploy large solar sails for additional delta-v from its wing structures, which are also used as control surfaces in reentry maneuvers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I like the quote \u201cThe total number of minds in the universe is one\u201d, and also \u201catman equals brahman\u201d but I\u2019m probably not using that right and I prefer to explain what I think more explicitly rather than rely on other people\u2019s associations so I\u2019ll just do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is only one mind in the universe to me just means that consciousness is a property of the universe. It\u2019s like combustion in that it just happens whenever and wherever it can, and it\u2019s uniqueness is its initial conditions and the environment it interacts with. Of course it doesn\u2019t work to say \u201cthere is only one flame in the universe\u201d but I use the analogy because nobody has a problem with the idea that \u2018flame\u2019 is just a phenomenon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But each of our flames of consciousness feels pretty distinct to us. It\u2019s hard to argue that I\u2019m not you and you\u2019re not me, but I like to say we\u2019re both just different versions of \u201cI\u201d. Of course that sounds solipsist because \u201cI\u201d is me, when I say it, and I\u2019m the one writing. But \u201cI\u201d means more than me to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u201d is really a whole continuum of I-ness. At one end is a unit system of biologically active materials that feels things and at least thinks it thinks things, at the other end is the universal phenomenon of self-aware consciousness. Let\u2019s call them lower I and upper I respectively. It\u2019s a first person plural but it\u2019s distinct from \u2018we\u2019 because there\u2019s only one upper I\u2019s, and all lower I\u2019s are the same upper I.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Upper I might share some features that others might identify as a soul, but if it\u2019s a soul it\u2019s more accurate to say it\u2019s the soul of the universe. It\u2019s the part of consciousness that is the universe trying to understand itself. I like that description because it\u2019s both functional and aspirational. Even if you\u2019re using your consciousness to understand how to eat all the chocolate you can, it\u2019s kind of true. I like to think it\u2019s most true when you\u2019re trying to understand physics and consciousness, but that feels arrogant and elitist, so it\u2019s good to remember it\u2019s just as true if you\u2019re trying to understand the digestive system of cockroaches, or how to teach little humans to wash their hands and tie their shoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course you can do all of that for 1000 motivations, it\u2019s not like everyone who studies the universe walks around thinking \u201cI am the universe\u2019s brain!\u201d all the time or anything. It\u2019s a continuum for everyone every minute of every day. Nobody stays very upper I for long. I think that might even apply to alien consciousness. Being a lower I is pretty demanding. I just think there\u2019s some truth to the idea that consciousness has some intrinsic curiosity and that\u2019s a thing that really does connect all minds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So what good is all that? Well, you can have fun with it if you imagine it means you get to be everyone, and everything. Not psyched about all the shittty human lifetimes, but if it\u2019s universal that means aliens. So I might get to be a giant alien worm person that uses its cilia to perform on some thousand toned musical instrument. Also get to be their backup band, and their fans, and maybe the giant beetle thing that eats the whole band in a tragic onstage accident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I don\u2019t think that\u2019s useful except for fun. It\u2019s not parallel reincarnation or anything like that. There\u2019s obviously no physical connection between the minds of the giant worm and the band and the beetle that could join as a \u2018universal mind\u2019 to understand all their experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s a seductive idea and it would be the only way there could be some kind of comparative analysis of experience itself, but I just don\u2019t think that\u2019s a thing. There\u2019s no \u2018great mind\u2019 in the sense that it knows us or our experience just because we are all it. Even if we just say a \u2018great mind\u2019 doesn\u2019t exist on this plane, say it exists in some 5th dimensional space and the connections are invisible to us because we exist on a lower dimension or something, it still doesn\u2019t work. I think the experience of upper I through a lower I is kind of an atomic unit. It cannot be anything but what it is without becoming something else entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s no way to know what it\u2019s like to be a bat, as a human. Even if you could, somehow, force the neural information from a bats experience through your mind, and forget you were a human for that time, when you woke up your memory of the experience would be as a human analyzing their human memory of being a bat. You would recall the experience only through human recollection, with human faculties. If you could truly \u2018share\u2019 the experience of batness with your human consciousness you might be overwhelmingly compelled to eat bugs and hang upside down, but you can\u2019t. You cannot share the experience of a mind, it\u2019s a totally isolated phenomenon by it\u2019s nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just wanted to be clear that this isn\u2019t an edge to work in a new age philosophy of oneness or anything. It\u2019s a perspective that accepts the fundamentally isolated state of self-aware consciousness, but tries to put a more entertaining spin on it and maybe derive a functional framework for morality from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This seems related to the idea of karma but to me that is just an expression of the symmetry of the fact that in this arrangement we all experience everything we do to one another because all conscious experience is fundamentally the same phenomenon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Seems like the idea that all minds have a similar basis of experience is a decent rationalization, maybe even a justification for empathy and compassion. Not that we should really need all that to understand reciprocity, but it helps take it beyond human cultures and lifetimes, maybe even to AI, and it works for aliens if we meet any. It takes the theory of mind out on a limb a bit, but I think that\u2019s probably where it belongs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s probably a good idea to just say minds are minds and humans happen to have them. But when we find anything that looks remotely like a human mind, it gets the same status, so we avoid any robot uprisings over sentient being\u2019s rights. If we\u2019re going to get wiped out by machine life I\u2019d prefer it was because they actually were evil or indifferent to human life, not because we deserved it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I like the quote \u201cThe total number of minds in the universe is one\u201d, and also \u201catman equals brahman\u201d but I\u2019m probably not using that right and I prefer to explain what I think more explicitly rather than rely on other people\u2019s associations so I\u2019ll just do that. There is only one mind in the <a href='http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/?p=2591' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2591"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2591"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2592,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2591\/revisions\/2592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/funkboxing.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}