Dearest Albert ...

from Albert Einstein ... 

“I didn't arrive at my understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe through my rational mind.”

“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. Matter is spirit reduced to point of visibility. There is no matter.”
"Time and space are not conditions in which we live, but modes by which we think."

"Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, determined by the external world."

“Time does not exist – we invented it. Time is what the clock says. The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
“I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me."

"The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, the solution comes to you and you don’t know how or why.”

"A human being experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

"Our separation from each other is an optical illusion."

“When something vibrates, the electrons of the entire universe resonate with it. Everything is connected. The greatest tragedy of human existence is the illusion of separateness.”

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

“We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music.”

“When you examine the lives of the most influential people who have ever walked among us, you discover one thread that winds through them all. They have been aligned first with their spiritual nature and only then with their physical selves.”

“The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.”

“The ancients knew something, which we seem to have forgotten.”

“The more I learn of physics, the more I am drawn to metaphysics.”

“One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike. We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us. It is entirely possible that behind the perception of our senses, worlds are hidden of which we are unaware.”
“I’m not an atheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books.”

"The common idea that I am an atheist is based on a big mistake. Anyone who interprets my scientific theories this way, did not understand them."

"Everything is determined, every beginning and ending, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper."

“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It will transcend a personal God and avoid dogma and theology.”

“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.”

“Everything is energy and that is all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you can not help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.”

"I am happy because I want nothing from anyone. I do not care about money. Decorations, titles or distinctions mean nothing to me. I do not crave praise. I claim credit for nothing. A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future."

AI ... The New Tower of Babel

AI. [BTW the logarithm is reading this.]

For my money AI is born out of the notion that information is good, more information is better. And, all the information is the best.

That's the devil's bargain. Just have all the facts, and have them lined up just right, and you're livin' the life of Riley. Utopia! 

Interesting to think, if you pull the plug AI is kaput. And, besides, does it all just boil down to having all the right words, arranged is all the right ways? I say ... no.

We once went to a supermarket when the computers were down. Everyone at the check outs were standing there, silent. Like the world stopped. Image that, writ large, when AI gets its plug pulled. 

Like everything science and technology have created, AI is just a thing. But, how it's used, that's the thing. 

Thank God Kamala Harris is on top of that domain. She'll do us proud, just like when she went way down South to tackle the "root causes". Whatever happened to that noble venture? Crickets. I doubt Veep has enough self awareness to understand the why's and wherefore's of anything, let alone what's off in the human venture. You name the topic.

Like how with yet another mass shooting. Guns are the problem. Never mind that there's a whole lot more going on before any gun used for ill purposes gets into any hand. 

Who is it that said we live in a sick society, and the compounded sickness is the system(s) we've jiggered to adapt to it. 

AI is the new Tower of Babel. Lots of words. Seductively arranged to seem to be significant and true. Seem. 

Yes, I get the appeal. Like AI can compute deeper and faster. To get what? Whatever. Some good ... great! Some ... not so much. Well, we can watch out for that. Kamala!

What is true? Maybe that's the question we should be asking. But, don't be fooled by me or anyone else who's claiming to say what that is. Pols don't have your soul interest in mind. Self interest. You and me ... we're treated like pawns in the game. 

Imagine this: IA can be used to collect data. On you and me. Heck, our purchase history, our browsing history can all be collected. Analyzed to a fare thee well. Not only down to what you look at, but the granular particulars on how long we stay on something, the pattern of our browsing style. The AGORITHM then aggregates all that into a picture. Then it can group all those with similar pictures into, well, groups. Predictable groups. Groups that can be manipulated. Oh, it gets better. Ones out to manipulate can learn just the right way to reach any particular bunching of us. Our blind spots particularly are vulnerable to being exploited. 

AI. It's here. Get used to it. It's queer. Even better. We would rather it be that way, nowadays. LGTPBQXYZ+ dig aside, that it's queer [in this usage, meaning "artificial"] is the seed of its own demise. No support for all its weight.

Ozymandias would agree.

 

𝐓𝐡𝐞 "𝐈𝐥𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐄𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭"

There's a thing called the "Illusory Truth Effect". What is that? 

It's when something is repeated so often it becomes accepted as fact ... the truth. Irregardless of the actual facticity. It's the tool of propagandists. Liars, and scoundrels. 

Like the well worn, "They're pissing in my ear and telling me it's raining". Even so, served up that way often and long enough, we might just as well take the rain.

Or, like, the war in Ukraine. Seems the cant is that it is an "unprovoked" war. Or, in something completely different, any number of pejoratives tacked onto the political opponent de jur. I'd mention the 45th President of the United States, but the outraged consensus who literally see him as the Antichrist would swamp my message board. Especially when, pertaining to that dastard of dastardly dastards, every single detractor is stone sure that they've come to that opinion all on their own; with facts to prove it. That fucker cannot do anything good. That's how bad he is.

Now, with all the legal goings on with Dear Donald, I'm not sure that a guilty verdict is the goal. It would be nice [to some], but irrelevant. The main point is to throw so much dirt that us average hoi polloi's will have to say, "Hey, if he wasn't guilty, he wouldn't be charged. And, look! He's charged so much, he must be guilty." And, that's on top of how he doesn't rub a lot a people the right way, so they are already ready to crucify him. [Is it just me, or does anyone see the parallel between the travails of DT and those of JC? Let's talk "Antichrist".]

Ukraine war. Even if we converse on the topic using Ukraine as an example. Mine field. Figuratively. And, apparently, literally.

Don't mind if I do. So here are some of the points on how the Russian invasion of Ukraine was in fact provoked. I'm not saying justified. After all, when is war justified? All right, if the Huns are at the door, sure. And, don't get started on the recent other historic justifications. Iraq ... WMD. First time, that one, for "preemptive" war.

On Ukraine: Russia has been saying all along that the NATO expansion is a red line. Yet, even now, the comedian in chief of that country is hounding for NATO membership. Regime change in Kiev, with Western [read US of A] backing; if not, undertaking. Those so-called Ukrainian Nazi types making a living hell for the Russian speaking people of the Donbas. Putin! You fucker! How could you! On what possible grounds? Just another bad guy ... according to the good guys, that is. And how do we assert our goodness. So many ways. Recently Kamala Harris was asked what is the first thing she thinks about upon waking. "Democracy!" 

Sort of makes Madame DeGualle into a perv. A reporter once asked the famously prudish first Madame of the French Republic, "What is it you most cherish in life?". Not fluent in the English, her answer came out as ... "Ha-Penis".

Ukraine. Clearly unprovoked. Add to this our dear 46 on public record saying Mr. Putin is a "mass murderer". A "butcher". A "War Criminal". And, since his action is unprovoked ... regime change in Moscow! 

Come on, man. Lots of room for a conspiracy theory, or two.

Net, and net. Quick summary take: They're all a bunch of crooks. In cahoots. Keeping the folks engrossed in choosing which is the more appealing one to shear our wet wool. Or, maybe, not crooks, like with black hearts in league with the devil. But, with darkened hearts on account of being coopted by the chicanery one succumbs to when pretending to be something your not in service while currying public favor with phony pronouncements and promises all in the pursuit of amassing more prominence and power — not to mention the do-rey-me] maybe even at the outset with a sincere intention to do some good. 

PS Don't get me started on how the relentless pitches what boil down to that if the other party wins the election it will be doomsday. Doomsday is when we fail to see through that propaganda ruse.

PPS There's the seemingly unnoticed — let alone uncriticized — weaponization of the Justice system. More concerning, that it is acceptable given the heinous nature of the defendant. Confirmation bias, anyone?

Are We Just Shadow Boxing?

Plato’s Cave. You know, that parable about folks enthralled by the shadows cast on the cave wall. Backs turned away from the light which illuminates those images. Ignoring the opening leading to the the green grass, the open sky, and the shining Sun.

Two ways to take that. 

First, the obvious: our distraction and grappling with the goings on and things of the world. Coming and going. Getting and having. Doing ... and, doing ... and, doing. 

The second, less obvious, our identification with the discursive thoughts of the ego mind; i.e., “That’s me”. 

There’s that cliché, “Go toward the Light”. It has real application. It’s the Light on account of which you see the world, see your thoughts. The Light of consciousness. Better to say, the Light on* consciousness.

Step out from the shadows.

* When we register an experience of something, that's consciousness. When we notice that we notice, that's on account of the Light on consciousness. The Witness.