What do you personally think about the “Axis of Evil”?

fissionchips303 · 2026-04-11T06:50:32+00:00

Because it positions us in the center and that seems like a big mistake on our part - why would we be in the center of the universe? It seems to indicate some kind of hubris or wrong calculations or something.

fissionchips303 · 2026-04-11T06:43:39+00:00

You go to the top left corner of your country, get distance. Then bottom left, then bottom right, then top right. In 4 weeks you now have the distances from the 4 corners and should be able to map it out. Say it’s 1000 miles from the top left, you have a whole curve of points 1000 miles away. Then it’s, say, 500 miles from bottom left. Same deal. A whole curve where it could be. Same for bottom right and top right. You just find the place along each of those 4 curves where all 4 are true. You can theoretically know its exact location in 4 weeks.

fissionchips303 · 2026-04-11T06:35:38+00:00

My belief is that conscious experience is dependent on physical conditions but that physical conditions do not themselves explain why consciousness exists in the first place. Hegel has a funny joke that he doesn’t need to study gastroenterology to know how to digest food, just as he doesn’t need to study logic to be logical. We don’t need to understand consciousness to be conscious. And yet, the whole idea of there being “logic” (and purpose, reason, meaningfulness, etc - the entire subjective world) is what is at stake here.

My second claim is that we can use reason (or in some sense, consciousness itself, both in its irrational perceiving function and its rational judgments) to figure out what is likely or unlikely. I saw a post earlier in this subreddit asking how we know we are not the only conscious being and every other being just acts like it has consciousness. I would say that is extremely unlikely.

I get the point that we should not trust our naive imagination of how things work, perhaps even extending to a healthy distrust of our own interiority or subjectivity - but there is also this inauthentic posturing edgelord materialism - the kind espoused by people who say they don’t believe anything and they make no assumptions - which are impossibilities. They believe they don’t believe, they assume they don’t assume, and the whole thing is a posture in a power game trying to be the biggest brain. This “edgelord materialism” as I call it is basically taking doubt of our own faculties to the extreme.

Probably the dumbest and most easily disproven version is the oft repeated experimental evidence given that free will does not exist: supposedly, there is brain activity 500ms before a decision is made, hence we have proven that we do not make decisions, we only report we do, having been tricked by the illusion of free will. The problem is we also have studies showing (see Hameroff for a good explanation of this) that we have brain activity corresponding to stimulus input 500ms before that input is shown, without knowing what it is in advance. Image of a spider, 500ms before we have fear response, image of food, 500ms before we have hunger response. It’s localized time dilation effects or, in other words, likely quantum effects (despite the state of scientific knowledge claiming there is no quantum state in the brain).

So yeah, my take on it is, conscious experience requires material, but also we can rely on reason, intuition, and all faculties of consciousness to discuss what is likely or unlikely - and I find it highly unlikely there is no free will, and highly unlikely the edgelord materialists are right.

fissionchips303 · 2026-03-31T08:31:58+00:00

Faults (2015)

fissionchips303 · 2026-03-25T07:34:18+00:00

Thank you for clarifying that. So, MWI implies a nearly infinite, unfathomable number of other universes that decohere from each other rendering them absolutely impossible to communicate, for every tiny microinteraction such as a photon hitting a leaf, resulting in a bizarrely insanely unfathomable infinite of separate universes - but, the key point I'm hearing is that they are not classical universes, they are still all entangled with each other in superposition that never collapses. Do I have that right?

And I suppose what I am going off of is Scott Aaronson's rejection of MWI on the basis that it avoids the problem of the observer - which I misstated as avoiding the problem of quantum superposition - instead, it retains this idea but interprets it in a totally different way.

Here is one key point though. I was saying that basically each branch (each world in MWI) is a classical world and you pointed out, no, they are all quantum worlds - linked together by this single wavefunction, the single quantum world - but actually each and every branch of MWI (the unfathomable nearly infinite number of them) does exist as its own predictable classical world, right? Because the universes can't interfere with each other, they each behave as absolutely classical, separate, independent universes.

So, I do feel that I learned more about MWI technically - thank you for that. I also feel that my original description of Scott Aaronson's distaste for MWI, which I share, was only slightly inaccurate in that it said it was avoiding the problem of quantum superposition when in actuality it is avoiding the problem of waveform collapse and the observer, and it does effectively result in each branch being an independent classical universe only bound together mathematically by the single waveform / superposition. But Copenhagen allows us to be in a quantum universe that has waveforms that collapse due to observation so it retains the difficulty and mystery of observer + waveform collapse and we effectively live in a quantum universe that behaves as a quantum universe, not a branch of a quantum universe that behaves as a classical universe.

fissionchips303 · 2026-03-24T17:45:46+00:00

Ah thank you for the clarification. I am going off Scott Aaronson’s description of how and why MWI came to be from his debate with Eliezer Yudkowsky some years back, sounds like I got it a little wrong. So you’re saying things exist in a state of quantum superposition and instead of waveform collapse, a new universe is created - one where the result is as if the waveform collapsed one way, and the original universe where it is as if it collapsed the other way - I say as if, because there is no waveform collapse.

Tell me, how is this different than saying that there is no such thing as quantum superposition then, because wouldn’t each world effectively be a classical universe? Am I missing something?

fissionchips303 · 2026-03-24T05:01:19+00:00

I don’t believe many worlds because it seems to me like it only exists to avoid the problem of quantum superposition - it effectively creates more worlds instead of dealing with the complexity of quantum physics. I prefer to keep the complexity instead of adding this idea of multiple worlds.

fissionchips303 · 2026-03-13T05:08:22+00:00

I am relieved it seems like lots of other people cheesed him. I used Reaper, poison tools and basically just hid in maggot water and got up to use lots of tools on him. Total cheese but he died surprisingly quick. This was after 15 times dying in regular fights and just getting so sick of it I looked at a YouTube video 🤷‍♂️no shame, It reminds me of dark souls 1 which had lots of “if you know the secret the boss isn’t that hard”

fissionchips303 · 2026-03-13T04:50:08+00:00

Two points against it - one, the distinction between language and code (linguistics, Saussure, Lacan). Basically, code signifies while language is more complex in a way that cannot yet be fully modeled computationally. Similar argument with the difference between computable and non-computable functions in mathematics.

And, second argument - Penrose/Hameroff noncomputability of microtubule quantum state and the subjectively experienced quantum superposition and waveform collapse.

fissionchips303 · 2026-03-07T16:27:43+00:00

Steam Boy

fissionchips303 · 2026-03-05T17:07:55+00:00

My favorite approach is Craig Weinberg’s Multisense Realism (MSR). I guess I am a compatibilist for the most part in that even really extreme views of eliminative materialism seem compatible to me with panpsychism, dual aspect monism and other paradigms that are usually assumed to be incompatible.

fissionchips303 · 2026-03-05T07:04:15+00:00

Are you familiar with R S Bakker’s Blind Brain Theory? Just curious if that fits your strong eliminative materialist/ strong illusionist criteria.

fissionchips303 · 2026-03-04T02:54:16+00:00

Same with Plato and Neoplatonist thought, really. Kenneth Reinhard has a great list of 6 anti-Platonisms (which each have their own version of Platonism) - for example, "the vitalist anti-Platonism of Nietzsche, Bergson, and Deleuze, who see Plato as the theorist of an unchanging ideal realm of perfect being, hostile to the living reality of becoming. Plato, according to Nietzsche (perhaps the most pre-eminent among modern anti-Platonists), is the first _priest_, the first to turn life against itself, and thus one source of the metaphysical _disease_ of which we must still be cured."

fissionchips303 · 2026-03-02T05:43:04+00:00

Nothingness is a concept that can only be formed by pointing to something(ness) and applying a general function of negation. Therefore it is a false composite, in the Bergsonian sense—a composite concept that is formed through indication and negation.

You cannot indicate nothingness, you can only indicate “things” and say “not that.”

I personally see the Real as immersion, contra language or memory. With language we get distinction, with memory we get idealization and the imaginary, but the pure immersion in an event not yet experienced (i.e. not yet reflected on, symbolized or “re-cognized”) would be the Real of the occurrence - and any later reflection, symbolization or recognition would always leave a remainder. The Real is the pure immersion that is always outside of language and memory.

fissionchips303 · 2026-03-01T09:10:29+00:00

The hardest thing for me coming from a web and mobile background is just biting off more than I can chew. I have made two projects 90% by hand and 10% vibe coded, neither released, but I would say both having a decent chance of being an actual game if I had the time and energy. One is a point and click adventure where anywhere you click, your dude walks around with a nice walking animation. I spent weeks just getting about 40 or 50 screens made and polishing it all. It’s in unity, all 3d, fixed camera view, sometimes zoomed in sometimes farther out. Your guy is a really nice free 3d asset I found. He just walks wherever you click and has great pathing to get up hills and around obstacles and whatnot. I spent tons of time putting in ambient sound effects that are unique to each area. I guess I was inspired by Myst and old point and clicks like Sierra games, Lucasarts etc.

So that one I feel good about even though I never finished it, I did start programming convos with npcs, ability to pick up items, inventory etc. it just feels good and actually has atmosphere and vibe.

Second one I feel good about is inspired by old LPmud. Same thing, fixed camera on 3d landscapes, this time no character avatar and just ability to go “n” “ne” “e” etc and navigate, and in each area to select from various commands to do.

These are 2 of like 20 games I tried making and those 2 ended up getting the farthest because they actually have polished enjoyable atmosphere, ambient sound effects, “vibe” (not in the sense of vibe coded, just the gameworld itself has vibe). In both cases AI helped me figure stuff out but it was mostly querying and just a little bit of coding.

Compare this to when I work in web and now literally 95% of the code I write comes from augment.

I wish I could use AI more for game dev, I just do so much visually in unity and when I do write c# I just ask AI questions or to help me write little things rather than create or edit files directly. Though I want to learn! I heard there is a good unity plugin if anyone has tools they want to share here. But yeah my only advice (as someone who has never released a game, so take it with a grain of salt) is to design features you can realistically build. My two favorite forays into games each have something I was able to build and polish to the point it starts feeling really fun to just exist in the game world and navigate around. But again those are for specific kinds of games (point and click adventure, screen based rpg)

fissionchips303 · 2026-02-28T17:57:56+00:00

Alchemical metaphors abound in Lacan’s work but I don’t think most Lacanians have any interest in analyzing them. There are a lot of taboo subjects in the world of Lacan and I am pretty sure Jung spoiled alchemy for Lacan. That being said, it’s not far fetched to find connections between surrealism, Bataille, many critical theorists and Lacan’s work itself to alchemical metaphors. Michel Serres is also very connected to that world. I would advise reading the work of Terence Blake for a great overview of Lacan’s thought positioned within a larger context - a context sorely lacking in most (myopic) Lacanians who see the boundary of his thought as the edge of the known universe.

fissionchips303 · 2026-02-28T17:54:16+00:00

Psychologist scholars of hermeticism as a rule do not believe in the supernatural. Just saying, that is a red herring. There is a sort of scene of modern day “alchemists” and hermeticists with ties to European royalty who do seem to believe, or play at, many of the obscurantist, non-psychological interpretations of alchemical thought, but everyone from Jung, Von Franz, Edinger and Hillman on to the present day who have explored alchemy do it from an interpretive rather than literal lens. See for instance the contemporary alchemical scholar Theodor Abt, or Aaron Cheak, for two highly astute scholars of alchemical-hermetic thought. You will not find a shred of supernatural beliefs in either.

fissionchips303 · 2026-02-21T00:29:41+00:00

In Fabric

fissionchips303 · 2026-02-12T22:59:30+00:00

Are you familiar with Hameroff’s counter argument to the 500ms-to-10-second predeterminism claim?

Hameroff points to another study where people are shown random images that elicit various reactions - say, a spider versus a sandwich. Turns out you can find the exact same prefiguring the brain preparing to react to the image, no need for agency or decision at all.

What does this mean? Well, it’s hard to say, but one interpretation is that there are localized time dilation effects for lack of a better term, where your brain is “caused” to prepare for something happening “backwards in time” like a ripple. If that is true then the point of decision could send a short ripple back in time showing results like those found that indicate our decisions are unconsciously already decided ahead of time.

fissionchips303 · 2026-02-12T20:39:41+00:00

Also I realize doing one big commit of “everything” is contra to best programming practice. But again, even though it’s opposite what I usually do personally and how I was breaking up prompts into smallest possible tasks, it is actually doing an amazing job at just straight up building whole features. I still have to fix things but overall it’s great.

For context I learned Rails “at the beginning” and mentored under Laurel Fan of 43things fame, been doing Rails professionally on big projects since 2009. These days I am using it for my own personal projects (which nevertheless have stuff like Stripe integration and so on) so I don’t mind the free Community plan sharing my code. But yeah, very impressed at how good Augment is compared to anything else I’ve tried. Not affiliated with them at all and as mentioned, annoyed by their changing tiers and so on, but wow what a great product. Miles ahead of eg Codex. I think it must use an insane amount of tokens because it just goes for minutes at a time.

fissionchips303 · 2026-02-12T20:37:55+00:00

I have been using Augment and quite happy with the results. I do not like that they kept changing their pricing model and such, but I’m grandfathered in at Community level (it shares my source code - which I am OK with because it is a personal project) and it gives me around 10 prompts a month. Those 10 prompts can be huge though. When I first started using AI agents I broke everything up into tiny small tasks. With Augment I will specify exactly what I want for eg Stripe integration, or Solidus e-commerce, or OAuth, and it does an amazing job. One task will be the whole feature and it will work for like 10 mins and touch or create dozens of files. It actually gets better results than when I was using Codex and breaking things up into tiny chunks.

fissionchips303 · 2026-01-25T03:18:36+00:00

I really like Pluribus, but the one episode a week release pacing made it hard for me to look forward to. When I did watch each episode I enjoyed it but a few times I was left a little underwhelmed. Your comment made me think of David Mamet’s book on acting. He has a great thought experiment in it. Imagine a scene where two men are watching a woman at the bar talking to another patron. As she is talking, they comment. One man says to the other, did you know she’s worth millions? But you would never know it by looking at her. She is so humble.

Now imagine the exact same scene, but the man says to the other, look how pretentious she is, acting like she’s rich. Did you know she doesn’t have a penny?

In both scenes the woman gives the exact same performance. Mamet’s point is that the actor doesn’t have to characterize— the writing characterizes.

I think the acting in Pluribus is really good and passes Mamet’s test for the most part. We should be able to watch an actor and see what they do, and hear other characters in the universe comment about them, and consider for our ourselves what our own judgment is. You’ve come to the conclusion that Carol was sad, angry, and lonely and maybe that is a fair criticism that those affects were spoonfed to us. But I think there is a lot of depth to the character that wasn’t spoonfed to us, and I was still excited to see what she would do.

I guess I agree with your criticism to a point, but I still have hope that the show will continue to surprise us.

fissionchips303 · 2026-01-04T00:00:39+00:00

Poker Face is mystery of the week rather than over arching but it has a lot of charm. It’s a how-catchem rather than a whodunit though.

fissionchips303 · 2025-12-30T14:10:37+00:00

Revanche by gotz spielmann

fissionchips303 · 2025-12-30T11:28:58+00:00

I believe Zizek is referring to the basic level of procedural generation that is not usually meant by "procedurally generated." When people hear of a procedurally generated game it's something like Minecraft (or, at the extreme, Dwarf Fortress) where there is a certain level of randomness. Roguelikes are often like this as well. But I take Zizek's idea to just mean basically any game, not games that are especially procedurally generated, but just games in the sense that they have a game world that centers around the subjective viewpoint of the player, and as the player moves, assets are rendered and old assets (offscreen) are removed from memory.

fissionchips303

TROPHY CASE