AI

Every aspect of a person could be sampled, scaled, and extrapolated by AI. Not just voice, features, movement, but also personality and way of thinking. In other words, there could be multiple automated versions of you interacting with the world and acting on your behalf.

AI would then start adapting these avatars as characters encountering generated digital scenarios, either as entertainment in a game, or for gathering data from the interactions and outcomes.

The philosophical questions posed in sci-fi are: What if the avatars were sentient? What if you are actually such an avatar experiencing a scenario? How do you know reality isn’t a single player game and everything you experience isn’t a computer simulation?

The answer is we don’t conceptually understand the nature of reality and maybe it would spoil the point if we did.

Error et descensus

One must remember:

Evil pretends to be the divine.

The wilfully guilty frame others for their sins.​

Cruelty cloaks itself as the guardian of reason.

Those with nothing to say hide behind a wall of words.

The ignorant deceive with feigned wisdom.

Hence, truth must resonate more intensely.

JBK

I’m not interested in your hair, eye or skin colour. I don’t care what type of person you fancy. I don’t care what you identify as or belief system you follow. Just be kind.

Journal 2021-11-13

To be open with yourself and the world, and not concerned with how that is perceived, is freedom from a prison of mental constructions; however there is a lack of empathy, poetry and charm in being blunt with people, or saying anything that comes to mind. The happier circumstance is to connect beyond words.

Random Thoughts:

AI assistants combined with augmented/virtual reality will transform human experience. Artists could create paintings digitally and 3D print the paintings into the physical world, automating the textured brushstrokes with the help of AI. Exact textured cloning of existing masterpiece paintings would be available as home printouts.

I’ve met some real idiots in my time, most of whom were in the mirror.

Journal 2021-11-11

My engine is fuelled by plants, which means the system is cleaned, rather than clogged up with rotting flesh.

There is an irony when people dictate the morality of others, while actively supporting the meat trade. The single biggest thing that most people can do to make a positive change in the world is to stop eating animals, so as to help end the mechanised suffering we perpetrate on other creatures and the planet.

Journal 2021-07-10

Confirmation bias afflicts even the most objective thinkers. I am generally sceptical that people, especially in our current febrile state, have the wise nuanced answers to the big questions of society, philosophy and the human condition. I think we are usually wrong, despite the confidence and self-certainty of the protagonists, who are wrapped-up in the self-constructed “isms” and other ideological belief identities into which life is forced. But things always change. We are improving. It is better to say “I don’t know” or “I don’t know who I am” and to experience where reality turns on the journey.

Approval Addiction

If you are indifferent to other people’s opinions about you: 

You don’t need to pretend or hide anything;

You don’t need to worry about impressions or what was said;

You don’t need to conform to rigid or mistuned expectations;

You don’t need to be offended or hurt by words;

There is no need to show-off and chase false, empty priorities;

You break an addiction to the approval of others;

You break free from inhibitions;

You have freedom to be who you are.

Completeness

A fear of loneliness leads to desperate actions initiating pain. Enjoying the peace of solitude is breaking free from this chronic condition; and provides the realisation that if you are already complete in yourself then there is more love in you to share.

The Machine

Slot-in, copy and repeat, replace yourself, wear-out, then die.

Look down on someone to be a success.

Or change the program.

Journal 2020-12-05

Live a day like it is a life in entirety.

First thought on waking is gratitude for the new day you will see.

Last thought is gratitude for the day you have lived.

Perspective

The first stage of learning is being unconsciously incompetent: you don’t know what you’re not good at because you don’t know what you don’t know. Well-being skills can be learnt. One typical motif is that how you look at anything changes your experience; for example: anxiety can feel like pleasurable excitement, as the body in both mental modes vibrates in a similar state of high energy; or a difficult situation is your challenge to evolve and an opportunity for personal discovery; or peace of mind is your inner state of being, not the possession of external conditions. And so on, all empirically true but under-practiced.

Anger

Anger. What a silly thing.

Is it of any use? Nope, it unbalances you.

The orcs in the Lord of the Rings are driven by fury and are utterly useless at combat.

Energy from anger is polluted, destructive, counter-productive.

It can be used to instil fear, to incite others and to self-aggrandise - which is why it has been the emotion of choice by demagogues and sociopaths.

It is often learned as the default response to any frustration.

There is often anger at other people for not behaving as it is believed they should.

The reality however is that you have no real idea what has and is happening in the other person’s life you are judging.

The fact is you only ever see a tiny aspect of all the parts in motion.

Journal 2020-11-20

Never ever put yourself down. 

Reasons:

1. Some people will revel in doing it for you. For their sake as much as yours, don’t make the conditions easy for them.
2. Don’t diminish life; whoever you are, you are amazing and unique.
3. Faux modesty is dishonesty.
4. Don’t insult other people’s good opinions.
5. Be strong for others. 

 Some personal pep talk points:

1. Be in a position to help.
2. Your growth should enable others to grow too. 
3. This isn’t a zero-sum game.
4. Relative measurements are irrelevant.
5. Have fun!

Journal 2020-11-08

I seem to get satisfaction out of pushing myself physically – maybe because in my mind I am subscribing to the motto “no pain, no gain”. A variation on the theme is that anything initially perceived as negative can be viewed as part of a greater improvement process.

Journal 2020-10-30

Original thinkers, artists and spiritual figures often had some of their best insights in the wilderness, in periods of solitude, outside of bustling society. Distance from the current melees gives a person a better perspective of the whole picture. More generally, insiders of the throng who are unaware of their predicament are condemned to behave as they think they are supposed to, blind to anything more than the current array of behaviours, even in extreme cases where it is insane.

Journal 2020-10-29

All human beings are unique.

Uniqueness doesn’t have a category.

Categories confine a life to a label stamped on the head.

Categories are boxed, ordered and under control.

Categories deny humanity.

Journal 2020-10-28

Demanding how other people think is a type of violent control, asserting oneself over them; seeing the multifaceted world, with endless possibilities, through just one dimension.

Journal 2020-10-27

The whole song can be better heard by listening - rather than making and amplifying noise. The problem is the insistence on certainty, and building an identity around this, with everyone thinking they are always right. No matter how certain you think you are, even if momentarily touched with lucid insight, you are probably not completely right (yes, including this). There is no shame in not seeing everything or not understanding all the complexities and ramifications of all ends.

“Problems”

What to do when you have everything?

Want more.

Invent more problems.

Feel unsatisfied, waiting for an event in the future that never arrives.

Fill the void with distractions and medications.

Become increasingly selfish, shallow and self-obsessed.

Worry about losing what you have.

Want what you have to be acknowledged as better than others.

And repeat…

(unless you can break this loop).

Journal 2020-08-11

Reading Hamlet.

It’s been done millions of times, but my instinctive interpretation of Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” soliloquy is a bit different from the many performances I have seen. In fact it may be unhelpful seeing other people’s performances because the blueprints distract from my own relationship with the words.

Every single person has both uniqueness and a shared oneness with everybody else. What is interesting is finding the individuality and playing with it, rather than blandly mimicking other people or current socialised expectations.