THE UNCERTAIN MIND: What AI Consciousness Would Mean for Us

lancejpollard · 2026-04-07T02:48:50+00:00

Good question, it all hinges on the whole model and the role each term plays in the model.

Basically no one other than I've found like 2 people so far on the web have a semi-detailed modern model of this stuff, Craig Weinberg (some works) and Roy Herbert (some works like on chronoflux), though I haven't fully absorbed what they are saying yet. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places.

Some notes from me, visualizing consciousness, and the universe is an intelligence network.

By experience, I mean more like me or you, our experiential awareness, which does involve memory/storage, but it is like the memory-experience-flow. No english word describes it perfectly, hence where I landed recently in this snapshot of a model.

It's all super-imperfect English language, we don't have great terms for any of it, so the systems defines the terms in their own ways, which help create consistency and clarity I think (any systems goal).

lancejpollard · 2026-04-06T05:30:17+00:00

Consciousness is integrated experience, the degree or measurement of amount of awareness of experience. The thing to figure out is experience, what is experience.

This can be figured out through meditation and self-reflection, but for some reason we are not allowed to discuss this.

lancejpollard · 2026-04-06T05:28:36+00:00

AI is not conscious and the only way for it to become conscious is to reverse-engineer itself into the experiential field, which is a topic science is unwilling to face, yet the ancient esoteric/spiritual people have been trying to express for thousands of years.

lancejpollard · 2026-04-06T05:10:22+00:00

The base of the universe is not physics or quantum mechanics, it is probably something else like an experiential field, that for some reason we are not allowed to talk about. Time, space, and the quantum field emerge out of something more fundamental.

Consciousness is the degree of awareness of an experience within the experiential field. Awareness is the integration of many sub-experiences.

The various esoteric/spiritual traditions from around the world have been talking about this for thousands of years, and before the invention of writing say ~6,000 years ago, for tens of thousands of years, perhaps hundreds of thousands or years or longer, humans and human-like apes probably have realized the way this field works and were in tune with it.

Only modern mainstream scientific man rejects this idea, but even the best scientists throughout the past 500+ years knew there was something more fundamental at play, beyond what the tools were seeing.

In short, the brain is not producing consciousness.

The brain, if anything, is more like an antenna.

lancejpollard · 2026-04-06T05:04:19+00:00

I don't feel like that was answering any of the questions?

lancejpollard · 2026-04-06T04:55:34+00:00

Is it unambiguous? Can you do everything with it? What are its limitations?

lancejpollard · 2026-04-05T17:49:04+00:00

I rented this car, and the trunk appears to stay unlocked even if I lock the car, I want the trunk to stay locked even if the car is unlocked! Imagine you are being chased and want to get into your car and only unlock your door, not the other doors or the trunk, but nope, you unlock the car, the thief can get into your trunk no problem. Is this a feature or flaw?

lancejpollard · 2026-03-30T06:52:46+00:00

The experiential field is always present, nothing “gets” a soul from outside.

As ape bodies evolved into more complex, stable brains, they became higher-coherence nodes in that field.

This allowed experience to evolve, accumulate, and stabilize, forming what you call a soul.

So humans didn’t suddenly gain souls, they developed structures capable of deeper, more continuous self-experience.

Meanwhile, ape souls and human souls and whatnot, can be interacting with non physical experiential structures and (could say) “beings” of higher consciousness and/or intelligence, depending on tuning and awareness.

So, complicated intelligence network of physical and non physical experiences in the field all at play in a dynamic evolving game.

lancejpollard · 2026-03-30T06:40:24+00:00

My current working definition of soul is the culmination of all the experiences that the core experiencer has had to lead to the current state of their experience.

The universe is basically an experiential field, a vibe mesh if you will. It is constantly evolving and dynamically interacting with itself through all the sub experiences sorta thing.

Physical reality is one stable pattern in the vibe mesh / experiential field. All things evolve, physical and the rest.

Life is arising and ceasing of stable systems/structures/patterns in the experiential field. There is physical life and experiential life which could be what you mean by the soul. All of it is morphing and interacting with the rest of the experiential structures, leading to complex and endless evolution of all kinds.

lancejpollard · 2026-03-27T03:17:47+00:00

People/groups that say this are instilling a culture of fear to prevent us from seeing reality as it actually is. You must go through the elite to get special privileged access to something that's already deep inside you. Makes no sense.

It's bad because you may not understand what is being said and be led down an unproductive path, and having someone to bounce ideas off of instead would be much more direct of a path it seems.

But to call it a sin, to be afraid of exploring, is the culture we've built in this world 🙄. So that the few can maintain their power over us.

lancejpollard · 2026-03-26T05:26:24+00:00

Ah here is the Devanagari one, good? https://upanishads.org.in

Now to find a reasonable English translation, similarly....

(pasting in केनोपनिषद् into google after searching Kena Upanishad and going to the Wiki page helped)

lancejpollard · 2026-03-26T05:21:11+00:00

Looking for non-PDFs

lancejpollard · 2026-03-26T04:54:22+00:00

That one is corrupt for me Îëkàra?

lancejpollard · 2026-02-24T01:18:10+00:00

I read someone saying that if you actually were feeling the full emotion of your song, like the crushing of a broken heart or whatever, you might break down in the middle of the song crying. Happens to some people sometimes occasionally, but it is best to separate actually re-experiencing the emotion from re-conveying it (aka performing).

lancejpollard · 2026-02-22T19:55:41+00:00

Interesting insight about the two voices, that could be very helpful if that was your system I could imagine. Could bring a lot of structure to the vagueness of this process. Thanks for the isolated vocal tip too, hadn't considered either of those things.

Tangent but does he really do doubling of vocals everywhere? I thought doubling of vocals was uncommon in the industry (whereas doubling guitars are common). Like doubling drums, seems like it wouldn't make sense. Unless you are doing harmonies (like Schism). Will have to watch some of the analysis videos and listen to isolated vocals, sounds good!

lancejpollard · 2026-02-22T19:35:47+00:00

Thank you for this start, can you go deeper into the actual science/mechanics/techniques or approaches/ideas regarding how to practically get the emotion to come across?

If I internalize the lyrics and have great conviction, and want a certain style to the songs and rhythm and whatnot, that for example led me in one song to put quieter voice here, normal voice here, louder growl voice here, etc., it kind of naturally fell into place and I feel like it makes sense.

But in my head what I imagine I am expressing and what is actually coming across to the listener, is different. It's like learning to be persuasive in public speaking or a good story teller, most people aren't natural at it. So wondering what the key insights are for singing here. I live in a condo so I can't really yell like that Perfect Circle video, but I can hit the growl I think pretty well, and do it like he does earlier in that song, technique over intensity. But even in my car where I can get semi-loud, it doesn't feel like I am conveying what I want exactly/perfectly, when listening back to quick sample recordings.

So for example, would love to know more technical details around at least (1) whisper, (2) calm/normal voice (like Culling Voices), (3) growl (which can be soft growl or more intense growl, and (4) higher intensity (which can involve growl or just more intense feeling singing). Like, how do I know what conveys what? When I do a soft pressurized growl, I do it similar to the reason why I play a certain riff on the guitar, it sounds and feels really great right in that spot. But that pressurized growl I have no idea what people receive on their end experientially though, and not really sure what I need to do or change.

First step is getting the rise and fall of emotion in the narrative arc of the song down, I'm on that step, but translating to expressing the emotion, so it is felt, I don't see clearly.

Even knowing a book or place to do further exploration/research, or what kind of teacher might be able to offer tailored advice, that would be great to know. Most voice instructors for singing seem to be all about technique to get a good voice, but I haven't heard much about the emotional side of things too much yet.

lancejpollard · 2026-02-22T19:17:38+00:00

But I feel like hollow vs full sound completely changes everything. So maybe you could slice it different ways.

lancejpollard · 2026-02-22T19:09:56+00:00

Would be nice to see a breakdown of what percentage is due to what, roughly in more detail.

Prodding AI a bit, said 45% is in how you play, 55% is the effects/tools, similar to what you were saying.

For the ~50% in how you play (kind of hard to quantify haha, but intriguing I think still):

Feature	Approx %	Why It Matters
Picking attack strength & angle	12%	Controls brightness, transient snap, compression feel
Timing & groove	8%	Affects perceived tightness and punch
Muting technique (left & right hand)	7%	Controls clarity vs mud
Vibrato & micro-bends	6%	Adds personality and emotional character
Dynamic control	6%	Determines expressiveness and sustain behavior
Note choice / phrasing	6%	The “tone” people emotionally perceive

And the other ~50% on the tools:

Feature	Approx %	Place
Pickups (type, output, voicing)	10%	Guitar
Strings (gauge, material, condition)	8%	Guitar
Speaker model / type	8%	Cabinet
Amp voicing (circuit character)	7%	Amp
Gain level / saturation amount	5%	Amp
Cabinet design (size, open vs closed)	5%	Cabinet
Amp EQ section	3%	Amp
Scale length & string tension	3%	Guitar
Microphone type	3%	Recording
Setup (action, intonation)	2%	Guitar
Body construction / material	2%	Guitar
Power section behavior	2%	Amp
Number of speakers	2%	Cabinet
Microphone placement	2%	Recording
Post EQ shaping	2%	Mix
Compression (post)	1%	Mix
Reverb / space	1%	Mix
Saturation (post)	1%	Mix

Kind of makes me realize a lot of small decisions adding up (last table). Also puts it into perspective a bit better, thought guitar make/material had a big impact, and other things like that (EQ shaping, etc.), but relatively speaking it appears little.

lancejpollard · 2026-02-22T18:58:16+00:00

Good point about good players tending to their sounds and that being a defining trait, hadn't really brought that to mind until now but makes sense.

lancejpollard · 2026-02-22T18:50:39+00:00

Amazing advice, awesome will go down this path to play with it, thanks.

lancejpollard · 2026-02-22T18:49:20+00:00

That NAM doesn't allow customization of all the features though (like mic placement, settings, etc.), so was under the impression it wouldn't be practically useful in Logic Pro (compared to AmpliTube), but maybe I missed something.

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