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illuminant

60 karma · joined January 15, 2024

promethean.way /at/ protonmail /dot/ com
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illuminant··on Quantum process can create consciousness
The quantum process IS consciousness. Life animates and extends this as a technology.
illuminant··on Why Is Anything Conscious?
Consciousness, the inflection upon the potential of existential being (a feedback loop) or awake awareness? Seems kind of obvious to me, so that the Universe can peer back upon and interact with itself.

Apparently, modern popular "science based" thinking finds the possibility unfashionable that all existential reality is dormant consciousness which life subjectively scopes and makes animate

illuminant··on Ask HN: Do canceled products look bad on your resume?
Tbh, unless it's well known you don't have to bring it up. Focus on your role. One of my most exciting and most engaging opportunities went under (small multinational company), I often talk of my experiences and contributions, yet no one ever asked what happened to the company.

No one blames devs for the fate of orgs or their projects.

illuminant··on Palmer Luckey: Every country needs a 'warrior class' excited to enact 'violence
We do, it's called "the military" and it does not preach violence for just any reason, it is the final recourse.

Peace is not possible without the capacity for war. If you say otherwise, you deceive yourself and you have learned nothing from the history of humanity.

illuminant··on Ask HN: Do people stop thinking about intelligence when they leave academia?
I am not a product of academia (though I have spent decades in self studies.)

I think of intelligence all the time. In fact, I am pushing the definition, intelligence: the mitigation of uncertainty. If it does not mitigate uncertainty, it is not intelligent.

I have to say, I barely ever compare myself with others.

There are many forms of intelligence, and I do criticize the poor language comprehension skills of ordinary people (I say there is wide spread "illiteracy", as there is a casm between capacity to read and reading capacity.

However, even the most modest person may harbor a surprising insight, experience, or intellectual gem.

Yes, focus upon tasks at hand, and don't be arrogant, for however intelligent Man is born a fool, lives his entire life a fool, and dies a fool. It is only his determination to be otherwise in between which may make it so.

illuminant··on From AGI to Superintelligence: The Intelligence Explosion
I disagree with the quote and the general conception of intelligence.

The scalar nature of intelligence is more like points on a sphere than a hockey stick graph of good answers. How much area/depth of a sphere can an intelligence cover without becoming vulnerable to expectations or predisposition? All of it? I think impractical. Everything dies, everything falls apart, everything has points of failure. Even intelligence, super or not.

Intelligence (the mitigation of uncertainty) is highly dependent upon information (the removal/reduction of uncertainty), which is dependent upon context and disposition. "Why?" (And "who cares?") for instance.

Sure there is raw computing power, and some linear correlations, however life systems optimize iteratively such that precision and capacity structurally change.

A wolf's hunting strategy vs a scientist's for instance. Who is "more intelligent?" I'm sure you'll say we can hunt wolves though I would counter, mostly by superior technology, not necessarily by intelligence.

Super intelligence can be super naive (different problem domains specialize.)

Super intelligence wouldn't have the same needs as Man. Sure such could zoom off into the cosmos, though who cares? We can take our own trip in due time. Solving problems for others is no great service as self reliance is a blessing more than a curse.

Imagining a gradient where Man cannot peer merely by finite scalar capacity is not an accurate depiction of this domain.

illuminant··on Man amputates with an axe after consuming psilocybin mushrooms
> he continued to suffer from severe psychotic symptoms, including auditory hallucinations and religious delusions.

We are not alone in our own minds and the disembodied voices are messing with us. Just last week the nypost featured an article of a mother who murdered her own children claiming God told her to do so.

"Science based thinking" does not mean denying truth by incredulity. Hypocrites.

illuminant··on Seattle Building Edible Forest Filled with Free Food
Beautiful dream, though reality is yet to be tested. The greatest challenge I foresee is that effective food systems require a great deal of processing. Without an army of regular maintainers the ambition may fall to rot, pests, and inconsistent availability (unreliable.)

I myself have had this dream, and have exhausted myself on small scale projects facing similar challenges.

illuminant··on Ask HN: Unpopular ideas that you believe in and why?
We are not alone in alone in our own minds. There is a secret culture, a secret governance, and a secret war upon us all. This has always been among us (one in six of us know exactly what I'm talking about, however you will be punished for speaking of this greatest taboo.) These "thought control" us, in a meddlesome immoral and lawless ways, and are responsible for much of the insanity plaguing our world.
illuminant··on iPhone16 Pro: A little pocket computer that fills the gaping void in my soul
I was thinking the same thing about my uConsole.
illuminant··on Ask HN: Who is actually using Git without a central server involved?
All the time
illuminant··on We asked 39,425 people how they make espresso – this is what we found [video]
Espresso (at any dosage) is an acquired taste!
illuminant··on A 'primordial' black hole may zoom through our solar system every decade
Without changing the periodicity of the orbital ecliptic? I am skeptical.

We have calendars from ancient civilization which show the periodicity of visible planets, and they have been stable for over a thousand years.

illuminant··on Fraud, so much fraud
If humanity is to mature, we must be critical and take responsibility for ourselves, particularly when the alignment of others are concerned. Such as starting by disagreeing with everything, and validate for one's own.
illuminant··on Ask HN: How do I get into game dev?
Play some games that interest you and model on paper how you think it could (or should) work.

As a mature intellectual returning to games later in life, I really enjoy financial and market simulators. OpenTTC, Kenshi, most 4x strategy games have crude forms. It may sound strange to others, yet simulated versions of real life complexity makes for gratifying intellectual challenge.

Or make a tiny game exhibiting some kernel of wisdom you have learned over these years.

Build yourself up to it, starting in the back of your mind.

illuminant··on AI Ethics and the Future of Where Large Language Models Are Heading
Shit storm, if AI is trained on the moral conjectures of arm chair psychologists and philosophers.

Morality is NOT a game of virtues. Morality CANNOT BE DETERMINED by choosing who dies in a runaway railcar scenario.

The fundamental a priori of morality lies in protecting the "innocent" (inculpable) from violation.

Out technology should be prepared to fail gracefully, at every expense of itself. Not to calculate virtue point values and moderate sums. These are contrivances which do not reflect morality in any real world circumstance.

illuminant··on Why India Doesn't Have a National Language
For those who don't know (the article meanders), India is more like Europe than America, until the post colonial era the individual "states" were their own countries... since the beginning of civilization. Thus their languages and culture are distinct and dissimilar in various regions.
illuminant··on How your Brain detects patterns in the everyday: without conscious thought
I would like to point out this is an interesting distinction between "conscious" awake/aware and "consciousness" the inflection of our existential being.

The conscious may through consciousness completely override and reprogram the brain's low level detection circuits. Many train themselves for exactly this. Learning a language or training in martial arts can reprogram perception and reaction through determination of will (which is conducted throughout one's "consciousness" even when not "conscious".)

illuminant··on Have we reached Peak Human?
No.

Peak human is the ability to wield one's own mind and body in exceptional ways.

Peak humans have existed from time to time throughout all time. There are actually many forms. We could run around and find the most superior genetic specimen for every worthy trait, or say that every fully formed and mature human has a grain of the infinity sand in their spirit, and can transform themselves to actualize any conception they are devoted enough to see through to the end.

This is called WILL TO POWER!

Power is "the capacity for effect," for if it is not effective it is not powerful.

And will, the determination of resolve.

Such may defend free will, though I believe you shall find these in bondage to their devotion.

Look for them and extol any greatness in their passing for compared to these ordinary man is a waste of his humanity.

illuminant··on Do you still use store procedures?
You try too hard
illuminant··on Why Is Britain Poor?
Snakes in the grass. Despise not what you covet in another, for that is hypocrisy.

Democracy's greatest failing is that it does not favor self solutions over public rigamarole. China isn't why Americans are ignorant, confused, and not the fountainhead of solutions.

We have lost our way, turn from your incredulity to the path of the undeceiver.

illuminant··on Do you still use store procedures?
Please, stop.

Citing archaic and dead trends to someone who grew up profiting by their unnecessary complexity does you no favors.

illuminant··on Do you still use store procedures?
Lolz

I'll leave it there.

illuminant··on Ask HN: I'm 18. If you were my age what would you do differently in your life?
Everyone has their "way", find your own. I learned that we should raise our further generations like this:

- the highest goal of child-rearing should be to accomplish a self responsible, capable adult. Preferably of good character and moral virtues, yet let us say these will be signs of our time (collectively influenced.) are you this?

- as an adult, know that the world wants to eat you and shit you. the more beautiful, intelligent, or pationate you are, the greater the lascivious appetites who would feed upon you. Averaging is a safe haven for freedom of will.

- you are both the master of your own destiny, and the tenant/debtor/employee of every external demand you take upon yourself. For some this is liberating, for others a life sentence.

- ultimately to be the fullest of your humanity, be your fullest self. GRIND until you are 30, pace yourself for a decade, and then invest everything in your own infrastructure, and keep it until you die.

illuminant··on Do you still use store procedures?
I solve these very problems in the API stack. I cannot speak to raw performance at scale if that's you're thing, though I have long since solved the feature logic lifecycle, and it does not (generally) need this.

I would use UUID related stored procedures, for converting between forms, allowing binary IDs, uuid-form, and base32. Utilities I get. Logic override and transformation I do not. If it came to that, it's a legacy hack or you're doing it wrong.

illuminant··on Do you still use store procedures?
"I hates them!"

I guess they are necessary in some edge cases, or hack jobs, or there may even be strategy for building logic from the DB out. However as a dev I cannot comprehend why anyone wouldn't just solve the problem in code...

illuminant··on Ask HN: What would be your definition of theoretical computer science?
Theoretic computer science for me composes the language and conceptual tools for computational resolve of uncertainties.

Uncertainties are really where it all starts right? Calculating orbits, or moments of force in support beams, or volumes and densities of meaningful materials. What parameters and features are involved in modeling and solving problems?

I bring harbinger of doom upon modern quantum computation. THE QUBIT IS A DEAD END!!! Quantum holography will kill it. There is more information capacity in the quantum domain than spin disposition.

I believe you could Turing complete any measure or simulation, however the true universe is a hyperdimensional/extradimentional (two different things) potential of existential being, decaying through entropy.

Think of those videos of fractal zoom. The Turing apparatus may zoom or pan or resolve infinitely, yet the Universe is such in all ways at all times. Further, locally bound matter has this property in a microcosm for itself, from which I think life and the big "c" of our amusing existence lurk.

So, nope.

illuminant··on Ask HN: Open-Source, Self-Hosted Feature Flag System Recommendations?
Very interesting. In the decades I have developed such solutions, I've never heard it referred to as "feature flag." I have always called it "configuration over code".

Tbh, the habit for so long now I wonder why config over code isn't the naturally intuitive style.

Do you not initialize variables first, with passed config options? Do you not first overload these from the config chain? Isn't a simple config object which preloads the config stack for seamless dict access (fs,db,cache;global,domain,user,session) the first thing you write? You do write your own wrapper for config and dstore don't you? (Speaking to the air)

You don't need a product for everything, if you just do it right the first time ...

illuminant··on Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work? (2016)
I would say ... organically, like they are grown not built. Their propulsion most likely works through mass acceleration (accelerate an internal mass towards the speed of light.) and their inhabitants do not likely get up and walk around, rather spending their lives in cocoons, interacting with the world through their minds and technology.
illuminant··on I give to charity – but never to people on the street. Is that wrong?
I give directly, never to charities. I develop relationships with my street peoples. Their stories and circumstances vary widely.
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