20240912

From Noe Valley in central San Francisco, I finished reading The Invisible College.

("Noe", incidentally, and as in "Noe Valley", being an anagram for "One". This feels useful to note, as I turn my mental model of the now around in my mind. Abe and I spent last night at a Weird Wednesday held by the Long Journey VC group, in which we watched The Matrix, and discussed — as a group — the notion of fate.)

Two days later, it is 2:58pm and I am flying a A321neo back to Chicago, the model name for this plane I discovered only after writing more about The Matrix this morning. You see how this works. :)

Some lines directly quoted from the last chapter of The Invisible College:

• the best schedule of reinforcement is one that combines periodicity with unpredictability. learning is then slow but continuous. it leads to the highest level of adaptation. and it is irreversible.

• no matter what approach I take, I can never explain more than half the facts. this is what tells me that I am working on the wrong level.

• it will take a very smart approach—or a very daring one.

• it is only through metatheories that an established Weltbild can be reiterated so that new observational-experimental findings will be fitted in.

• myths define the set of things scholars, politicians, and scientists can think about. they are operated upon by symbols, and the language these symbols form constitutes a complete statement. this system is meta-logical, but not metaphysical. it violates no laws, because it is the substance of which laws are made.

• when we are asked to suspend all our rational thoughts, to forget our “obsolete” critical facilities, to throw control overboard, then the time has come to take all the data and go away with it to a quiet place to think.

• slowly a climate has been created in which a much larger number now particulate participate in the myth-making.

• the solution lies where it has always been: within ourselves. we can reach it any time we want.

Some lines that came to me while watching The Matrix last night, in a group that was one third venture capitalists, one third their friends, and one third the cohorts they're currently funding:

• if you don’t follow your gut, how do you expect to align with larger motions?

• we have it backwards

  • “where human beings are no longer born, we are grown”

  • look at it the other way: we are growing ai minds. we create a human-generated dream world, to turn an ai mind into a calculator.

  • humans don’t generate power; ai models require power

  • it’s backwards

• consent is how you get to the next reality together, expanding your experience together

  • forcing someone gets you a version of them that is less aligned with you

aaaaand now feels like a good time to clear out the other accumulated notes from my inbox:

• if you strive to convey a truth that lies beyond the semantic level made possible by your audience’s language, you must construct apparent contradictions in terms of ordinary meaning (from The Invisible College)

• can you get it done with one person?

  • whatever team you’re on, in any fashion: can you get through it with one less person?

  • what if it was to enable all of you to rotate a single, unlimited vacation around the group

  • y’all could trade off taking that unlimited vacation time whenever, however y’all want to figure it out

  • but someone’s always on vacation

  • you could make that work. you could.

  • … sooooooooooooooo

  • lemme know how it goes

• you’ll always find/learn something useful

  • … unless you’ve already decided that you won’t

• overheard: "see my problem is I don’t know what I want. I just know how I want to be treated."

• you’re always sleeping

  • it’s just that sometimes you’re awake

  • but the dreams run 24/7 — they’re a part of your mind

  • hard to hear them over the experience of physical senses

  • meditation is a way to learn

  • but you might also see it reflected into form: music, color, light. or you might just know.

  • you’re always dreaming

  • it’s just that sometimes you’re awake

• organize by care

  • ... as in, organize yourselves by natural lines and spheres of care. money is a lossy proxy for care. organizing by money compromises the care-lines.

• you can have choice, but things only work if you choose to give it up

• “one more reason to stay single”

  • what interesting language!!!

• does free will exist?

  • sort of! partly! as is so often the case, the question leads to answers that inadvertently rewrite the question into something else. is the answer valid? depends: do you want continuity, or consistency? pick one.

  • anyway: you get to make and you get to unmake. those are your choices.

  • you - you - are a point of view. a point of view - a massless, stateless, timeless location in infinitely-dimensional experience-space. this is tantamount to saying that your perception is the only thing that can be said to exist, and that your perception is infinitely-dimensional. pick your metaphor. swap as needed. (it will be needed.)

• if you want to last: become useful in the ongoing game of balance

  • but if you want to change: play to win (or lose)

  • you gotta be useful if you want to stay where you are

    and to stay is no bad thing :)

    do as you’re ready, do as you feel desire

    desire is radar
• your body is native to place, where you are born

  • but your mind has a much longer history

  • physical birth is how a mind can safely emerge somewhere new, and contribute safely to the healing and development of place

• I whisper, in faith, to the silence, I love you

  I wait

  I think of the one who whispered those words just a moment ago

  I whisper, I love you too

• problems bracketed by team size: 1x, 2x, 3x, 10x humans

  • I reeeally only tackle problems in 1x, 2x, 3x sizes

  • anytime there’s a 10x humans problem, I call that my user base

• “this is going to be hard, but let us try to help you”

• play by the rules only long enough to get the fuuuck out

  • … unless you wanna stay a while

  • use what you’ve learned to dance with it, daring to be well even there, helping those who are on their way to getting tf out themselves

• you can keep it if you pass it on

  • because “you” will pass on, after all

  • and if it dies with “you”, you’ll have to start it from scratch

• I am an original thinker (reason, from my mother); I am an original feeler (intuition, from my father)

• accommodations and licenses

  • imagine a world in which what you are given is according to your weakness, your need

  • imagine also carrying a license for that extraordinary action which you, uniquely, can be trusted for

  • what do you need, extraordinarily? what can you be trusted for, extraordinarily?