Tootfinder

I read "Then I Am Myself the World: What Consciousness Is and How to Expand It" by Christof Koch.
Interesting book which spends like 8 or 9 chapters detailing all the experiments which prove beyond much doubt that consciousness, and self awareness, is a thing done by a brain.
It describes how perception is a construction of a description, has a chapter called "computational mind"
And then spends the last two chapters describing why he thinks the mind can't be computed, because drugs have made him think experience is some kind of magic associated with highly interconnected causal structures.
Apparently, he thinks, once things become interconnected enough they become able to cause things independently of the physics running those connections.
Which is crazy, obviously. There's nothing causal in direct connections between neurons that isn't equally causal in modeled connections between virtual neurons.
All his evidence in the book from neural MRI scans to the effects of psychedelic drugs and symptoms of strokes and disease point to the brain simulating a virtual reality which is the basis of perception.
That simulated world in which we live is full of colour and shape and sounds and emotions and millions of mental constructs that are built to be correlated by the senses with the outside world, but are not equal to the world itself. We live in a dream constructed to correlate with reality.
But then instead of taking the next step: That consciousness itself is a property of a simulated being inside that mental model of the universe, a property which the brain simulates and applies to the virtual self that's doing the experiencing inside that model, he jumps towards some magic implying pan-psychism or that sufficiently interconnected networks become causally self-complete for some reason nobody can fathom.
Sure, colour and shape and emotions are all made up by the brain but experience can't be! For some reason.
You see in truth dualism is false, in that there is no spirit realm in which ghosts animate the matter of the body somehow.
Yet also, dualism is true, in that there is a simulated mental reality which we live in, computed by the brain in which all perception and experience are created, which is related-to but separate-from the unfolding complicated dance of energy that is the universe our bodies interact with.
People take some DMT trip, and the model of the universe emulated by their brain collapses and breaks. Their virtual simulated self inside their mind has these experiences of being one with the universe or the experience of feeling dead yet conscious or whatever, and these hippies think that the broken down simulated experience is real and reflects how consciousness is more fundamental than the atoms that make up the neurons in their brain.
Instead of realizing it shows them that their experienced universe is a simulacrum, they think they get a more direct experience of reality somehow. A consciousness more pure than any mere base atom.
"Then I am myself the world" is a great title. Everything you ever experience is created and simulated in your brain like a dream, the whole universe is inside your head. Even the fact of experience itself.
But that isn't the conclusion Koch reaches somehow, he just jumps from describing the evidence that this is so straight into ascribing super-causal magic consciousness to particular arrangements of atoms that integrated information theory suggest have high correlation, and thinks therefore conciousness is itself the entire universe.
Ah well, fun book. I like arguing in my head with authors that are wrong.
#reading #books #consciousness #thenIAmMyselfTheWorld

Calamus 19 Mind you the timid models of the rest, the majority?
A declaration of intellectual independence and a celebration of brotherly love. Honestly this poem feels a little clumsy to me, I can see why Whitman struck the awkward introducing lines in later editions.
As always, looking for the gay content:
Yet comes one, a Manhattanese, and ever at parting, kisses me lightly on the lips with robust love.
And I, in the public room, or on the crossing of the street, or on the ship's deck, kiss him in return
We observe that salute of American comrades
But I can't in all honestly read this use of "kissing" as erotic. Here the public kissing and the "salute of comrades" makes me think it's more of a fraternal kiss.
Which doesn't exclude a romantic kiss as well, or an erotic one. What's so vital about Calamus is how Whitman blends masculine sexual love with the love of comrades. I think both meanings are latent in every poem.

I am noticing that many websites are no longer giving cookie choices, rather they merely say "we are spying on you" (they use nicer words, but that is the meaning) with only one option:
"I Understand".
To my mind that knocks out the last prop underneath website operators' argument that those of us with ad blockers (and more) are somehow on the wrong side of the ethical fence.

On the ambient conditions crystal structure of AgSbTe2
Baihong Sun, Sergei Grazhdannikov, Muhamed Dawod, Lunhua He, Jiazheng Hao, Thomas Meier, Yansun Yao, Yaron Amouyal, Elissaios Stavrou
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.13526

On the ambient conditions crystal structure of AgSbTe2
We present a combined X-ray and neutron diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, and 121Sb NMR studies of AgSbTe2, supported by first-principles calculations aiming to elucidate its crystal structure. While diffraction methods cannot unambiguously resolve the structure, Raman and NMR data, together with electric field gradient calculations, strongly support the rhombohedral R-3m phase. Moreover, the agreement between experimental and calculated Raman spectra further corroborates this result, resolving …

I wouldn't mind an RZE UTD-8000 (specifically the yellow one) but in Norway with taxes and everything that comes out at 2800kr… so yeah, I will probably save the money and keep it for future cycle purchaes.
https://www.rzewatches.com/pages/utd-8000-launch

UTD-8000 Launch
Built for the everyday adventurer, RZE Watches is a brand born out of the passion for perfecting the craft of titanium watches that fuse together durability, versatility and sustainability.

I heard you like #synthesizers so I got you this oh WHOAH wait a minute, that's a comma not a period never mind, you can buy that one yourself.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/135674982468…

ARP 2500 modular synthesizer and pair of fully loaded wing cabinets. | eBay
However the system has not been powered up or played since 2018 when I moved from Los Angeles to Tucson Arizona. It was working perfectly in 2018. IT IS UNTESTED AND WILL NOT BE TESTED.IT IS BEING SOLD AS IS.

General Numerical Radius for Products of Sectorial Matrices
Mohammad Alakhrass
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.02042 https://arxiv.org/pdf…

General Numerical Radius for Products of Sectorial Matrices
In this paper, we investigate the generalized numerical radius $ω_N$, associated with a matrix norm $N$ defined by $ω_N(X) = \sup_{θ\in \mathbb{R}} N(\operatorname{Re}(e^{iθ}X))$. We focus on matrices whose numerical ranges are contained in sectors of the complex plane (sectorial matrices) and derive upper bounds for $ω_N(XY)$ and $ω_N(X \circ Y)$ for such matrices $X$ and $Y$. Our results generalize and refine well known numerical radius inequalities. Several known inequalities for $ω(X…