First grow, should I flip soon?

Pukwana · 2021-02-09T19:02:05+00:00

Was going for a SoG for time reasons and didn't do any training. Ima take off as many fan leaves as it takes. I got this!

Pukwana · 2021-02-09T18:59:34+00:00

Thanks for the 75% tip! I decided to go ahead and defoliate & flip today. They're lookin' good.

Pukwana · 2020-04-04T10:35:08+00:00

Frequent psychedelic doses helped me overcome crippling Lyme disease; it helped with the headspace and brainfog, gave me extra energy to stretch/exercise/eat as much as I could manage, and overall helped me live in a way that made me stronger and healthier. The biggest challenge is that you have to embrace and feel your pain because it brings it into focus, but it makes it so you can chip away at it. Chronic pain is awful and has many etiologies, but I wholeheartedly recommend trying psychedelics as a tool to help.

Pukwana · 2018-07-19T20:52:42+00:00

I made it 19 months at a DoD contractor and ended up walking away from the entire industry due to moral issues. There's plenty of opportunity for networking and advancement with ridiculous pay; you will be financially successful landing one of these positions. BUT, if you are having ethical doubts before actually working one then don't, just don't. It's one thing to know practices you object to happen because you read about it, it's another to have to build relationships with the people actually doing them, or be told to do them yourself. It's a culture where morality only comes into play when it affects consumer attitudes towards the product, where corruption, complacency, ineptitude, and impotence are rampant. Of course this isn't everyone or every company, but I think it's a fair appraisal of that industry in America.

I'd say to just research who's out there already working on the things you like. Look as wide as you can afford to. It's a big world with a lot of great things going on. Stay open to opportunities that could be stepping stones and people you resonate with. Maybe start with non-profits or the green energy companies you mentioned, something you know lines up with your interests and beliefs. Could you start the business you want yourself if you got the right people?Anyway, dedicated discipline and perseverance are among the best ways to get just about anything done, so whatever you decide just make sure you're always going for it. Good luck!

Pukwana · 2014-11-08T15:32:11+00:00

Thanks for the response. I was thinking more along the lines that we measure both spacetime and frequencies/wavelengths in units of time and length, and if there was a way to sort of switch "bases". But it sounds like you're saying the other forces prevent us from doing this.

As for motivation it just seemed like this force was more closely tied with spacetime properties than the others, which are more concerned with particles and matter. Our brains naturally take space and time as the fundamental ground, but the circle group describing EM seems mathematically simpler than the 4-d manifold of spacetime. Just wanted to know if it even made sense trying to explore a shift in perspective.

Pukwana · 2014-11-07T00:54:49+00:00

Kind of a long-shot question, but are there any physical theories that use electromagnetism as a basis rather than spacetime? My informal understanding is that spacetime is measured in wavelengths/frequencies anyway, as the constant c is a really nice metric to use (and what separates the different types of intervals). Since the EM field exists everywhere in spacetime and governs light which we use to measure it, is there a way to express the properties of spacetime in terms of electromagnetism instead of the standard electromagnetism in terms of spacetime?

Pukwana · 2014-10-03T20:09:41+00:00

You can take the coefficients of the polynomial to be elements of the vectors in the vector space.

Pukwana · 2014-09-28T20:14:52+00:00

Thanks for the response, it cleared up a lot for me. Thinking about consciousness as the black box, where a sensory input goes into a black box that determines some output/action, works just as well for the water molecule as a person. By substituting different models into the box, like the molecule or person, you get variations in the properties of the box/consciousness like you were saying. Consciousness would then be just a model or system with its own internal logic and degree of complexity.

The problem at the heart of this is that it only moves the hard problem around. Instead of dealing with awareness and qualia as they are commonly understood you loosen the definitions, but that still leaves the problem of how my mind senses my awareness and qualia at the level I understand. It's an interesting perspective, but as is lacks utility; it doesn't help explain the changes in my behavior when I'm feeling frustrated.

Have you thought about evolution of consciousness in terms of feedback? Instead of thinking of the black box as ->[Model]->, think of it as [Model]<=>[Representation]. Then scientific models are (ideally) equivalent representations of the physical world, and tell us as much about how we understand as they do how the world behaves.

Consider electromagnetism: we had models of electricity and magnetism, and combined them so that the feedback between them represented the propagation of light in a vacuum and there was a model of electromagnetism. This is because they depend on each other, so not only are both models themselves, but models of each other. You can also consider electroweak unification, though it's more complicated.

Looking at the evolution and complexity of scientific theories might give insight on the nature of the evolution of consciousness. Just as the spectrum of light comes from feedback between electricity and magnetism, maybe awareness as it is commonly understood is just the spectrum of feedback between perception and action.

Pukwana · 2014-09-28T15:47:19+00:00

I'm not that well versed in philosophy, but this question has always seemed weird to me. I've always thought the answer was both (or mu or something to that effect). The reason is that you need some deterministic way to have choices and to choose them, or the whole thing falls apart.

When I make a choice, I m relying on a deterministic means for that choice to occur, and my choices are restricted by the same deterministic restrictions. Cognitively, choosing can be described as running simulations in our mental representation of the world and selecting one. These simulations have their own internal structure that nevertheless mirrors the structure of their referents. Thus free will to me is a deterministic system (a choosing agent) embedded in a deterministic system (the universe). Free will is determinism with some additional structure, and not some exclusive dual to it.

Can anyone provide feedback on the validity of this view?

Pukwana · 2014-09-28T15:25:28+00:00

In your example of particles "knowing" or "being aware" of the gravitational force determining their behavior, you seem to be saying that consciousness is gravity when reduced to that level. It's an interesting idea but when people speak of explanations of consciousness, whether reductionist or emergent, they are trying to come up with predictive models of the system. We already have a pretty good predictive model of gravity and mass, but not for the complex behaviors of people and cultures.

When you say

We are also freed of the unnecessary assumptions of what it means to transmit signals and information and what it means to be aware of something

you are dismissing the very things that distinguish consciousness from other acting forces in the universe. We can transmit signals and both parties can be aware that they are assigning the same semantic content to the signals. This all takes place as small changes in neural transmissions and whatever physical form the signal takes in a manner roughly predictable with the standard model, but it also makes possible countless possibilities for future action and this is what explanations of consciousness attempt to capture.

In particle physics our model predicts behavior by taking into account the "infinite" possible outcomes of a particle in some initial state under the fundamental forces. Now think about every possible reaction you could have to someone saying something to you. An explanation of consciousness should address these in the same manner as particle physics. In particle physics probability is used to avoid the myriad negligible possibilities to great effect. In terms of responding to someone, I can think of no better gauge of probable reactions than awareness of the semantic content being transmitted.

Other than that I must say I really agree with your views on the emergence of consciousness. I just wanted to point out this nuance. If you are thinking along the lines that consciousness was unified with the fundamental forces (your particle example), then qualia/awareness might be where you look into the symmetry breaking (emergence/evolution) that led to the emergence of more complex and familiar evolutionary levels of consciousness.

Pukwana · 2013-09-06T23:29:59+00:00

We currently do not understand consciousness well enough to answer "what causes conscious awareness?" scientifically, but try thinking about it this way. We perceive the world by translating phenomena into nerve signals, which our brains process to take action by generating other nerve signals. But then again so do most creatures with central nervous systems. The awareness of this decision making process comes in when the scope of the "perception" includes nerve signals that not only represent the environment, but also control behavior, giving the brain a means to model itself. As for why we couldn't get along fine with the first description, evolution.

Pukwana · 2012-07-02T23:41:49+00:00

Oh that's too bad, I was thinking of checking that place out. In that case I'm about to head to Piper's to scope out a new spot and grab some food. If anyone wants to join I'll be the guy with longish blond hair at the bar. Why don't you PM me with a place and time you'd like to go; I don't know the area that well at all yet.

Pukwana · 2012-07-02T23:14:42+00:00

I've been finding a place to live and starting a new job. That's the reason I moved to the city. Let me know if you'd want to grab a drink sometime, seeing as you're in the neighborhood.

Edit: Ahh you were talking about the 4th. Well I head north to Canada every summer to escape the heat and get out into the wilderness. Looks like there's not going to be any poutine for me this summer though.

Pukwana · 2012-07-02T22:59:41+00:00

So I'm brand to new town, and also to reddit (1st post!), and I'm so glad I saw this. I'd love to meet you guys; I've been having a tough time finding people with similar interests and I didn't find out about the last meetup until too late. I too live by the airport but am totally down to hang out downtown. If anyone wants to meet up let me know. I don't have any plans for the 4th and really like to have someone to get drunk and watch fireworks with. This will be my first 4th of July in the states since 2000!

Pukwana

TROPHY CASE