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Breaking Hume: Qualitative Causality and the Motive Force of Experience

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 Do Qualia—Such as Love, Fear, Pain, and Pleasure—Causally Influence Our Thoughts and Behaviors?       Abstract   This paper examines whether qualia—the subjective, qualitative aspects of experiences such as love, fear, pain, and pleasure—have causal influence on human thoughts and behaviors. By interpreting qualia as elements within an interconnected, self-transforming field governed by general rules we intuitively grasp as the qualitative language of thought, we argue that qualia fundamentally shape cognition and action. We refute the idea that qualia are mere evolutionary byproducts (spandrels) with no adaptive value and critique Humean causality for its inability to account for the motive force behind causal interactions. Instead, we propose that Qualitative Causality, rooted in direct qualitative experiences, provides a more explanatory and parsimonious framework.       Introduction   Qualia are the subjective, qualitative dimensions of our experiences—the raw feelings of love, fe
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Maps of the Mind: How Spatial Metaphors Lead Us Astray (2.0)

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Maps of the Mind: Navigating the Benefits and Limitations of Spatial Metaphors Abstract Spatial metaphors are not just linguistic flourishes; they are foundational to human cognition, shaping how we perceive, think, and interact with the world. While these metaphors enable us to grasp complex, abstract concepts intuitively, they also introduce cognitive biases that can distort our understanding of reality. This paper delves into the profound impact of spatial metaphors on our thought processes, highlighting how they can lead to map-territory confusions and foster metaphysical assumptions misaligned with the true nature of reality. Drawing on cognitive science, process philosophy, and Eastern contemplative traditions, we reveal how our reliance on spatial metaphors can bias our metaphysical views and contribute to common cognitive biases. By critically examining these influences, we open the door to transformative insights with exciting implications for fields ranging from artificial in
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Near-Eidetic Memory: A Low Hanging Fruit?

Radical Memory Enhancement: A Catalyst for Unprecedented Technological, Scientific, and Cultural Flourishing? Introduction In the annals of human progress, memory has often served as the silent architect behind our greatest achievements. It is memory that allows us to build upon the knowledge of generations, to connect disparate ideas across time and space, and to imagine futures beyond the immediate horizon. Yet, the vast potential of human memory remains largely untapped. What if we could unlock the full capacity of our memories—transforming them from fleeting whispers into a near-perfect archive of our experiences and knowledge? The implications of such an enhancement could be nothing short of revolutionary, accelerating technological, scientific, and cultural progress to levels previously unimaginable.   Background The phenomenon of acquired savant syndrome, where individuals develop near-eidetic memory following brain trauma, presents a fascinating glimpse into what the human mind
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Beyond the Reach of Tyranny

We begin life in a state of pure freedom—playful, authentic, curious, spontaneous, and open. Yet, through the harsh enforcement of societal norms, we become painfully self-conscious. We stiffen into rigid behaviors, constantly fearing negative judgment. We lose our authenticity, become obsessed with managing our image, and shackle our minds to the oppressive conformity of our culture. We grow fearful of possibilities that lie beyond our narrow comfort zones. To call this process traumatic barely scratches the surface. But we don't see it as trauma. We're lost in a collective delusion of deeply ingrained cultural norms. Anything familiar becomes cloaked in a comforting illusion of normalcy, no matter how damaging it may be. A society that conforms out of status anxiety—driven by the need to signal adherence to fleeting social trends, the fear of judgment, and the dread of ostracism—is easy prey for manipulators and tyrants. When we deceive ourselves, erecting mental barriers aro
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Trauma Learning: A Hypothesis

Trauma is almost universally maladaptive and fitness decreasing, so why hasn't evolution removed it from the population? The only way it could persist is if it were a non-selected side-effect of an adaptation that were of sufficiently high utility to more than compensate for the occasional failure-mode of Trauma. And moreover, Trauma would have to be a fundamental consequence of this high utility adaptation – there's an evolutionary pressure to fix maladaptive spandrels (non-selected traits) when it's possible.  So what could this Trauma associated adaptation be?  Well, many of the things we learned in our environment of evolutionary adaptedness were inherently unpleasant.  Learning social rules involved experiencing various kinds of disapproval from tribe-mates, parents, and peers.  As a child, the cost of not learning a particular social rule was mockery and rejection by peers and punishment by parents and older tribe-mates.  We're remarkably conformistic, so even sma
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On the Fractal Error of Materialism

  Let us start from a position of ontological agnosticism and absolute skepticism. In this spirit, we are not going to make the assumption that the defining ontological assumptions of the two metaphysical systems that we are going to examine -- objective idealism and materialism -- are internally coherent enough in their implications to be consistent with the existence of any possible world. We will endeavor to regard our preferred ontology not as the fleshed-out world-picture that we have come to attach to the set of ontological commitments that constitute its minimal definition, but purely as a list of ontological commitments that we will logically examine in a first-principles manner with the goal of determining whether or not it allows for the properties that our fleshed-out world-picture must have. As a part of this skeptical exercise, I ask the reader to temporarily suspend their belief that their preferred set of ontological commitments is identical to - or even logically comp
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Biochem and Basement Qualia

  If the world is one vast gestalt qualia computer and, as Hoffman demonstrated with his evolutionary game theory simulations, the material world that we take as objectively real is just an evolved user interface representing fitness payoffs in the most actionable manner possible - something plays the same role relative to the qualia computing occurring in basement level reality as Windows or iOS plays in regard to the processing occurring in the countless logic gates that constitute the causal basis of the operating system - then what are all the biochemical processes that constitute the body and influence the mind? Gestalt qualia computation in drag. Biomolecular interactions are what the causal structure of gestalt qualia computation looks like when rendered in three dimensional space, as discrete objects with identifiable spatial boundaries. Its patterns and regularities are just partial isomorphisms (pattern overlaps) with much more sophisticated patterns occurring at the level of
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