In vision and hearing, the objects we work most directly with aren't the things our eyes and ears pick up. Our eyes pick up photons, and our ears pressure waves, yet our conscious mind are not quite built to work with photons and pressure waves. What actually matters, the end form of our senses, are the compositions. They're things like shapes, patterns, and words, and these things don't accurately retain information about their source. The objects you see reflect your sense of photons, but you

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An ability to learn important things from anyone. Let’s investigate!

When I first realized that I was too dumb to accomplish my goals, I decided to write out everything I thought I understood. On the first night, I probably wrote about 10 pages of crap, and I committed to adding more things to the document every night until I felt it was reasonably complete.

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Recently, my mind has been on questions of persona. What constitutes a persona? How do you decompose one into its pieces? How do you put the pieces back together? How does a persona grow over the course of a life? How do people apply their intuition for personas to things that aren't people? How powerful can that intuition be? The list goes on. I think it’s worth trying to get answers to these questions even if they take a long, long time. I don’t have the answers, but I thought I’d share my

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I’ve been thinking recently about what kinds of mathematical models could possibly be suitable for describing consciousness, and I noticed that intuitions for darkness, not brightness, lend themselves more naturally to studies.

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I’ve spent some time meditating on cutie marks as specifications, and I’ve learned… too much. My brain is still refactoring. The short version is that there’s a close relationship between sub-specifications and sub-systems. A lot of things follow from that simple statement. Too many things...

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I spend a lot of time thinking about cutie marks, and I get that that’s a little weird. Something about the concept feels idyllic, yet somehow within grasp. Cutie marks are emblematic of The Thing I feel is missing in our world of squishy humans, and the lack of them somehow feels like it’s at the root of every other important problem. No matter what the problem, it could have been solved if only the right person had found their cutie mark.

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Dear Princess Celestia,

Why is it that when one beautiful thing comes to a close, we long to create another? Does it fill the gap so that the passing might hurt a little less? Does it carry on the spirit so that the world might not miss out on quite so much? Does it anchor a tombstone so that the memory might live on?

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Curiosity, in my head, is the desire to explore for the sake of growing one’s own map of the world. It feels important because explorers are willing to put themselves on the line for the sake of the map. It feels primordial in the sense that it requires trial-and-error for the sake of growing something, which reflects facets of evolution. It feels pure in the sense that it’s not meant to be decomposed as a small piece in the pursuit of some higher goal. It feels solid because curiosity, as a

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When I try to understand my own motivations, I generally break them down into two buckets: cravings and values. Cravings are the natural motivations, and values are the ones pulled along by conscious force.

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I find myself fascinated by coloring problems. There must be something interesting going on if you can color the shapes in a picture just as you can color your words with emotion, or color someone with your opinions.

I think it’s worth investigating!

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