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I'm probably at a generally unremarkable point in my life - that is, on average, true for any given moment- but, like so many other plain and unremarkable points, if I'm suddenly given to introspection (imagine, me, introspecting) it all seems rather irresolvably fractal.
Seems to scan, that: give someone enough years: pass the youth singularity, coast on residual amazement for some decades, occasional melodramatic sigh at Those Moments, and isn't it Nice to be Someone who occasionally sighs melodramatically at Those Moments, and isn't it Nice to Recognize Yourself, ah yes, I'm Something of a Self Myself, you know! But. Give someone enough years and they, or not they, their, seconds, their writhing hungry hordes of pasts- fossilize. What they thought was ocean was really sand, all along, something left behind by a rippling unseen.
Give someone enough years and they pile up like a dropped curtain, mid show, by accident, suddenly aware, precipitously aware, metacognizant, blinking at an audience of mirrors- you recoil, sure, but it's the recoil at the recoil that really breaks the skin. Give someone enough years (Please, I insist, no returns or refunds for any reason) and they eventually notice. Look at enough people, over enough years, and I suspect that we could pluck out a bell curve on this noticing, and finally rest safe in the surety that this abnormality distributes evenly- You aren't being singled out by the World, please, relax, your malady is pure happenstance, never ascribe to malice what can be more easily ascribed to statistics and etc.
So, with that in mind, I've been living through two lenses-
One, in practice, becoming more closely engaged with a Large Organization, seeing its insides, the mess of individual people, their pride, goals, irritations, hungers, mistakes, shames, interacting and playing out through meetings, database entries, emails, public facing communications... and I wonder at the illusion of smoothness- of continuity- displayed by Most Things most of the time- Smoothness, continuity, at least to the extent that any collection of individuals manages to project a coherent/discreet identity - of course of course, we all know the jagged edges are there, but to even Be Something Else is as much of a miracle as being anything at all. And I wonder, really wonder, how does this work? Information moves around a system of nodes, nodes do something, or not - and tada! At some critical mass identity occurs.
Concurrently, Two, listening to discussions and thinking about: control models, modelling control models, and control models modelling themselves modelling control models. I've often asked myself if organizations, or networks of people, might be sentient, or sapient, in some way, and I have to remind myself to tread, if not carefully, at least thoughtfully, because any sentience I might want to describe cannot be mistaken for the direct experience of being myself- That's a story which seems completely fabricated. Then, what properties might be assigned to describe an entity that might be... Aware? And then, of course, having sharpened those tools on the World, one can't resist taking up the scalpel to the nearest mirror and scratching
eyeball wuz here 2022 <3
Seems to scan, that: give someone enough years: pass the youth singularity, coast on residual amazement for some decades, occasional melodramatic sigh at Those Moments, and isn't it Nice to be Someone who occasionally sighs melodramatically at Those Moments, and isn't it Nice to Recognize Yourself, ah yes, I'm Something of a Self Myself, you know! But. Give someone enough years and they, or not they, their, seconds, their writhing hungry hordes of pasts- fossilize. What they thought was ocean was really sand, all along, something left behind by a rippling unseen.
Give someone enough years and they pile up like a dropped curtain, mid show, by accident, suddenly aware, precipitously aware, metacognizant, blinking at an audience of mirrors- you recoil, sure, but it's the recoil at the recoil that really breaks the skin. Give someone enough years (Please, I insist, no returns or refunds for any reason) and they eventually notice. Look at enough people, over enough years, and I suspect that we could pluck out a bell curve on this noticing, and finally rest safe in the surety that this abnormality distributes evenly- You aren't being singled out by the World, please, relax, your malady is pure happenstance, never ascribe to malice what can be more easily ascribed to statistics and etc.
So, with that in mind, I've been living through two lenses-
One, in practice, becoming more closely engaged with a Large Organization, seeing its insides, the mess of individual people, their pride, goals, irritations, hungers, mistakes, shames, interacting and playing out through meetings, database entries, emails, public facing communications... and I wonder at the illusion of smoothness- of continuity- displayed by Most Things most of the time- Smoothness, continuity, at least to the extent that any collection of individuals manages to project a coherent/discreet identity - of course of course, we all know the jagged edges are there, but to even Be Something Else is as much of a miracle as being anything at all. And I wonder, really wonder, how does this work? Information moves around a system of nodes, nodes do something, or not - and tada! At some critical mass identity occurs.
Concurrently, Two, listening to discussions and thinking about: control models, modelling control models, and control models modelling themselves modelling control models. I've often asked myself if organizations, or networks of people, might be sentient, or sapient, in some way, and I have to remind myself to tread, if not carefully, at least thoughtfully, because any sentience I might want to describe cannot be mistaken for the direct experience of being myself- That's a story which seems completely fabricated. Then, what properties might be assigned to describe an entity that might be... Aware? And then, of course, having sharpened those tools on the World, one can't resist taking up the scalpel to the nearest mirror and scratching
eyeball wuz here 2022 <3
no subject
Date: 2022-04-08 01:26 pm (UTC)From:First: the eye of the beholder sees faces (and aardvarks etc) in the clouds (not water droplets or hydrogen atoms.) The observed imposes particles to collapse into a wave.
Second: carrots and sticks and roleplay and faith ... we want to be accepted and to succeed. We can not help it. We play at it until it is real. Or, it becomes real because we play it...
But I sense that I have merely reworded your question, not answered it.
no subject
Date: 2022-04-08 06:56 pm (UTC)From:What does the bee or a=the ant think? Perhaps, it's individuality, not unity, that's the illusion?
no subject
Date: 2022-04-09 02:55 am (UTC)From:The trick is to think of that experience, that point of view, as a node in a network that it's unaware of. Or, aware of the existence of the network as a concept, but not party to the network's experience of itself as a network, and fundamentally unable to be party to that experience because! Because the network's, the beehive's, the anthill's experience is constructed and defined by the interactions between these agents.