The blog to end all blogs. Reviews and comments about all and everything. This blog is NOT affiliated with YouTube, Wikipedia, Microsoft Bing, Gemini, ChatGPT or any commercial vendor! Links don´t imply endorsement. Many posts and comments are ironic. The blogger is not responsible for comments made by others. The languages used are English and Swedish. Content warning: Essentially everything.
Hade Sverige verkligen haft ett lägre dödstal om vi använt en annan strategi i kampen mot corona? Enligt denna artikeln i AB är svaret "nja". Nedskärningar i sjukvården kan vara en viktigare orsak till storfiaskot. Är Sveriges strategi verkligen förklaringen till de höga dödstalen?
Sadhguru gets a straightforward question about Shiva´s view of the corona pandemic, and delivers a straightforward answer. The short form is that Shiva doesn´t give a damn, being the Lord of both humans and corona viruses, blessing them both. If you have a problem with that, why, take up meditation or something! This guy wouldn´t have any problem with Euthyphro´s dilemma!
Ännu ett exempel på att feminismen är den svaga länken i regnbågsalliansen. Vi får se om den brister så småningom, eller om feministerna även framgent tänker låta sig utnyttjas som nyttiga idioter...
Kommunistiska Partiets förre ordförande reflekterar över nationaldagsfirandet i Sverige. Observera att han skriver i Nyheter Idag, en invandringskritisk nätpublikation på högerkanten som brukar förknippas med småpartiet MED...
De identitetspolitiska galenskaperna i USA når ständigt nya nivåer. En märklig artikel om en fotbollsspelare som tvingats lämna sin klubb efter att hans *fru* skrivit rasistiska inlägg på Instagram. Observera att ingen påstår att *spelaren* är rasist. Anser vänstern alltså att mannen ska tukta sin hustru om hon skriver fel saker på Instagram, eller vad? Jag förstår ingenting. Ännu ett bevis på att feminismen är den svagaste länken i regnbågsalliansen. Såvida inte någonting annat är i görningen här, och att fruns inlägg bara var en ursäkt. Fast med tanke på det amerikanska kulturkrigets alltmer utflippade karaktär, don´t count on it, baby!
Jag brukar ofta baxna när jag läser Wolfgang Hanssons utrikeskrönikor om USA, jag menar, värre shill för Joe Biden får man nog leta efter (OK, Martin Gelin kanske) men när det gäller corona har Hansson etablerat sig som ett slags "förnuftets röst" i i den s.k. debatten om pandemin. Det jag gillar med honom är att han strängt taget kritiserar narrativen på alla sidor, vilket mycket väl kan betyda att han i slutändan visar sig ha rätt! Här en kritik av den tungrodda svenska byråkratin och dess agerande (eller brist på sådant) under krisen. Alla verkar inte förstå nödläget
Wolfgang Hansson, som ju agerar lite av förnuftets röst i coronatider, reflekterar över varför både Skåne och Danmark har lika låga dödstal, trots att Skåne följer den mindre restriktiva svenska linjen, medan Danmark haft en betydligt hårdare karantän. Svensk strategi men danska dödstal
“Tulpamancy: Myths and Facts” is a presentation given at the 2019 Plural
Positivity World Conference. Tulpamancy is a form of (purported) magic popular
within a peculiar subculture dominated by teenagers and very young adults, a
subculture known as tulpamancers. Very little outside information on this
phenomenon seems to exist. In this context, a “tulpa” is defined as a “deliberately
created system-mate”. I guess a more advanced occultist would call it a
thought-form. Skeptics would argue that the “tulpa” is really an imaginary
friend many of us had as children (I didn´t), but in this case, the imaginary
friend is imagined to be very real indeed! The presentation argues that
tulpamancy isn´t a form of mental illness, but many would indeed see it that
way, perhaps as schizophrenia. (Just wait until you learn what “plural
positivity” means!)
The term tulpa was apparently popularized in the West by Alexandra
David-Néel, a Belgian-French explorer who made several visits to Tibet and in
1929 published a book titled “Magic and Mystery in Tibet”. However, the
lecturer admits that few people in the tulpamancy milieu ever read the book (he
hasn´t read it himself) and there is very little influence on the subculture
from Tibetan Buddhism, except the word “tulpa” itself (and even that is spelled
differently in David-Néel´s book). The real beginning of the tulpamancy
community, at least in the United States, was in 2011 at the 4Chan message
board, more specifically the Creepypasta community. Some people start claiming
that tulpas are real and the phenomenon starts growing. In 2012, the 4Chan
moderators banned tulpamancy as a topic from the Creepypasta forums, at which
the new subculture simply migrated to the Brony community. Yes, at this point
there was a considerable overlap between tulpamancers and Bronies, the latter
being fans of the animated series “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic”. The
lecturer says that he at one point hosted a forum where at least 20 people
claimed to be tulpas of Twilight Sparkle, a character from “My Little Pony”! In
2013, the community became more open and diverse, which includes openness to
other forms of “plurality”. (Tulpamancy isn´t the only slightly schizophrenic
youth subculture in American cyberspace.) Many in the US tulpamancy community
consider themselves to be transgendered, and there is an overlap with
plurality. Interestingly, Japan and Eastern Europe (including Russia) have even
larger tulpamancy communities than the United States. The exact character of these
communities is unknown to the lecturer.
I admit that I´m extremely skeptical to this movement. Even if we assume
that tulpas can be “created” one way or another, the tulpamancers still look
unserious. The lecturer points out that when tulpamancy was a new thing, it
took months or even years to “create” a tulpa. Remember, a tulpa is an
imaginary friend that nevertheless looks and acts as if “real”, perhaps like a
character from a lucid or hypnagogic dream. Nowadays, people create tulpas in a
matter of weeks or even days. Nor does it involve any complex rituals or
meditation techniques. Just “talk to someone in your head until they talk back”.
Compare this to Therian Otherkin, teenagers who claim to be animals (sic)
without bothering to act like their chosen animal. I get the impression that
American teenagers have simplified, perhaps even profaned, ancient magical and
shamanistic techniques and turned them into commodified subcultures.
What´s the point of creating tulpas? The lecturer admits that most “hosts”
create tulpas of the opposite gender from themselves. Girls create boy tulpas,
and boys create girl tulpas (of course, this is inapplicable in the case of
transgendered individuals). About 50% of the “hosts” have a “relationship” with
their tulpa, presumably of a romantic or erotic nature. A survey of how many of
these teenagers and young adults are autistic and/or incels might be
interesting, perhaps. Originally, the host (the creator of the tulpa) was in
charge of his creation, today tulpas are seen as equal with their hosts, while
hosts increasingly have their own fantasy identity when they interact with the
tulpa. This also sounds as if the entire exercise is literally “all in the mind”,
rather than a magically created thought-form “out here” (if you believe such
things are possible). Most tulpamancers only create one tulpa, but “systems” of
two or more do exist. The lecturer once met a “system” of 60 tulpas (or perhaps
59 tulpas and one host).
Tulpamancers frequently use a weird terminology all their own, which
gives the milieu a slightly cultic feel. “Switching”, “possession”, “wonderlands”,
“fronting” and “imposition” are examples. The lecturer admits that the meaning
of many of these words is actually unclear. The main point here seems to be
that the tulpa can temporarily posses the body of the host, and that the soul
of the host sometimes leaves its body. A “wonderland” is a fantasy world
inhabited by the tulpa when it doesn´t appear in our world, and the soul of the
host can travel there, too. While this does sound like an out-of-body
experience or astral travel, I suspect that this too is simply a vivid fantasy
picture in the mind of the tulpamancer.
Overall, a relatively good presentation and introduction to this weird
little corner of suburbia…
Donald Hoffman is an American neuroscientist with controversial ideas
about the nature of consciousness. I linked to the interview above already a
month ago, but in this post, I´m also going to summarize its contents. Or at
least try, since Hoffman´s ideas are a wild ride! Indeed, they seem far
stranger than Rupert Sheldrake´s speculations (which I kind of like). This
summary is based on my notes taken when listening to the interview, which
explains why it, too, sounds a bit wild…
Hoffman´s theory is that a network of “interacting conscious agents”
*is* reality. Consciousness is fundamental. Evolution “hides” the truth from
us. The theory can be expressed mathematically and hence scientifically proven.
Apart from the individual conscious agents, it allows for a supreme
consciousness that entails the others, and also allows for survival after
death. (Here, my notes say “weird shit”).
The reality we think we see is really a “user interface” and the only
thing we experience are “fitness payoffs”. Brains don´t exist when we don´t see
them. The brain is just a symbol for whatever it is we see when we look into a
skull. (Presumably, the skull is also a symbol, and so on). Reality is
something other than space-time. There is a correlation between neural activity
and specific conscious experiences, but we have no causal explanation for why
neural state X should be the color Green 55 rather than the taste of chocolate.
Objective reality does exist, but it´s not space-time but a “social network” of
spirit-beings (“conscious agents” in Hoffman´s terms). When this
network is projected into the space-time interface, it *looks like* quantum physics or
evolution. Space-time is a visualization tool used by the “conscious agents”. Already
here, it´s patently obvious that Hoffman´s perspective is a spiritual one,
despite the scientific pretensions. The user interface is what Hindus and
Buddhists call “maya”, and I have already noted that the “agents” are spirits. So
is Hoffman an idealist? He denies it, instead calling his theory Conscious
Realism. After all, the network of spirits is objectively real. Our world is an
illusion, but it is an illusion created by real spirits or souls, rather than
by a solipsistic one-man consciousness or a nebulous god, as in the idealist
systems.
Hoffman isn´t sure whether God exists. He hasn´t made the necessary
mathematical computations yet, but is excited about the prospects. Maybe God is
simply the spirits working together? Hoffman says that an infinite mind doesn´t
have to be omnipotent, omniescent, etc. There may even be an infinite amount of
infinite minds. Perhaps mathematical structure and consciousness is the same
thing. Gödel´s theorem says that the number of mathematical structures is
infinite, therefore (per Hoffman) the amount of possible consciousnesses is
also infinite. In principle, not even God can know everything. (My notes
remark: “Gödel´s theorem – I say *it* is God, or it simply says that *we* can´t
know fucking shit”)
Hoffman believes that conscious AI is possible. Ooops! AI simply means
that a spirit possesses a machine. The ghost really is in the machine, it
seems. Our AI is a window that opens a new portal towards the ever-existing
consciousness. The theory seems logical at this point. If our organic bodies
are really “symbols”, presumably a mechanical body or robotical body is just
another “symbol”. As for death, there really isn´t any. Death simply means that
we step out of our interface. To people still connected to the interface, we
have disappeared, but actually we have simply left the simulation.
Hoffman has a strong belief that his theory can be both described and
tested mathematically. As already noted, he believes that consciousness *is*
mathematics. In virtual reality, everything we see has really been “created” by
mathematical computer programming. Overall, Hoffman is fascinated by analogies
to virtual reality and other IT-related stuff. The whole scenario strikes me as
a machine-mechanical theory. Hoffman criticizes the panpsychists for “not
explaining consciousness mathematically”. Hoffman´s theory seems to have one
crucial weakness. What if it simply expresses how *we* see the world? We may
see it mathematically, through our mathematized consciousness. “We” as in…well,
mathematicians, perhaps?
But how do we know that this isn´t just another layer of the illusion?
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