![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.phidelity.com\/photos\/d\/48122-9\/HiveMind.jpg?w=770\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
There’s a concept that Tor Norretranders (a Dutch physicist) brings up in his book The User Illusion. It’s called “exformation”, which is data that is intentionally left out.<\/p>\n
It’s highly context dependent. Something unsaid can be a huge amount of information communicated between two old friends, but not so much between two strangers. Tor\u00a0actually uses physics to describe this-\u00a0something to do with entropy and maxwell’s demon- \u00a0and he describes “depth” in the intellectual sense as something with a lot of exformation.<\/p>\n
so something like shakespeare, etc = a lot of depth<\/p>\n
you can read very deeply into it
\nhe gives this cute example of how, when victor hugo was on holiday and wanted to know how his book was doing but didn’t want to seem like he wanted to know he asked his agent and best friend “?” and his friend did one better and replied him “!”.<\/p>\n
Anything more you say detracts from the message,\u00a0because what you don’t say conveys a lot more than what you do say.<\/p>\n
For this to work, it must be assumed\u00a0that both people have the same groundwork.<\/p>\n
Every person has their own thoughts experiences memories ideas synapses perspectives etc. From that rich inner world, they distill ideas. From these ideas they distill thoughts. From these thoughts they distill words. and then this summarizing process gets sent across. and then opened up and interpreted so the amount of information and thought that goes into one line- whether consciously or not- is massive.<\/p>\n
i mean, the amount that can go.\u00a0and then when the other person receives it,\u00a0they interpret it, and the reverse process happens.<\/p>\n
Effective beautiful communication is when you manage to transmit that huge amount of info across to the other party by choosing the right words,\u00a0music, the right notes, right context, etc.
\nhe calls the one side process the “tree of talking”
\nand describes how it’s easy to get frustrated with people who don’t try to follow this process because it’s hard to see where they’re coming from, where they just bombard you with information
\nbut you get no exformation
\nnothing to read into
\nso it’s frustrating.<\/p>\n
The act of unpackaging the package is extremely fulfilling, you might even say it’s a human need.\u00a0That’s why we love good books, good conversation, good live music, maybe even religion, etc.\u00a0Intuitively makes sense doesn’t it?<\/p>\n
When there is a mismatch though, like your “ground” is different from mine (my analogy not his) then no matter how much effort you put in packaging your info, I will unpackage it in a way that is completely inappropriate. I\u00a0will not get your depth. I\u00a0will not get your message. So what is deep, say, to a lady gaga fan might not be deep to a tchaikovsky fan.<\/p>\n
Because you need to have that shared experience\/history\/memory to appreciate it
\ni watched a video yesterday by an awesome guitar hero called guthrie govan who put it lovely.<\/p>\n
so essentially:\u00a0contextual communication is dependent on a shared relationship, which is in itself pre-established information–information on how to receive information.<\/em><\/p>\n not necessarily dependent. You can coincidentally meet someone who happens to share similar ground, that’s when you have chemistry.<\/p>\n i’m not sure about the information on receiving information bit but reading it i got a very real sense that you cannot separate art from context and audience<\/p>\n it’s the same argument we were having a few months back about sincerity and intrinsic value of art vs choosing your audience. was thinking about this the other day, what do you mean by that<\/p>\n in the sense that<\/em> hmmm yes but i wouldn’t use the terms intrinsic\/extrinsic<\/p>\n would you consider your ethics utilitarian?<\/em><\/p>\n i don’t believe much in absolutes There’s where my worldview differs, i think.\u00a0Like you, I\u00a0believe most man-made frameworks can be transcended and further developed.\u00a0And that most of what people hold as absolutes are rarely true.\u00a0But i do believe ultimately when you boil down the mutual shared beliefs of humanity\u00a0or perhaps all life,\u00a0you will find…\u00a0how do i put this?<\/em><\/p>\n a “tending”? Something like descartes’ golden apple.\u00a0A\u00a0certain absolute which holds true in and of itself,\u00a0and from which humanity takes reference.\u00a0I\u00a0guess you could call that God.<\/em><\/p>\n You have a remarkably refined perspective of god<\/p>\n Not so much a tending\u00a0as the scale of the graph itself.\u00a0The x and the y by which we measure.<\/em><\/p>\n I\u00a0actually have essentially the same thing (in my view) but I don’t worship it (in my view) You know termites,\u00a0they have a hive mind<\/p>\n uh…huh<\/em><\/p>\n And a lot of people intuitively think of a hive mind as something like the borg or the zerg Then once in a random while, two pieces get stacked upon each other and this becomes like a focal point.\u00a0And the process continues, at random, until they’ve built an entire hive\u00a0without any planning.\u00a0In a way\u00a0I think humanity works like this, and life, and the universe at large.\u00a0I “worship” the processes that make these things happen,\u00a0in the sense that they humble me and make me feel honoured to be a part of it all\u00a0and simultaneously immense and diminutively worthless.<\/p>\n the hive mind is the hive itself, not a mind seperate of it.\u00a0when you look at a busy street there is a mind at play but it is defined by the billions of infinitesimal little relationships between them.\u00a0Perhaps you might describe it as god.\u00a0I\u00a0don’t know what to describe it as and I kind of like it that way.\u00a0So in the strangest of ways i see your perception of value as extrinsic and mine as intrinsic.\u00a0as in, i say that for sake of contrast la lol.\u00a0i don’t actually think in those terms regularly until you brought it up >.><\/p>\n Interesting.\u00a0it’s a random deviation but it reminds me of this book on neuro-sociology i was reading recently\u00a0<\/em>which looks at society and human communication from a neuro-anatomical perspective<\/em><\/p>\n isn’t it? isn’t the idea of intrinsic value that is independent of an individual kinda extrinsic by virtue of it being independent\u00a0not to criticise your perspective in any way<\/p>\n i think we might be even more alike that we formerly realised i think the aspects of my worldview which you find discordant\u00a0(i’ll get back to neuro-sociology in a bit)\u00a0such as my personal relationship with God<\/em><\/p>\n i wouldn’t call it discordant<\/p>\n discordant with yours, that is<\/em><\/p>\n not really leh they developed relatively recently<\/em><\/p>\n what is personal, what is relationship, what is god- don’t answer i mean, my belief in absolute morality has always been around, for one<\/em><\/p>\n I also have the exact same X Y with Z but it wasn’t until i was…what, 15 that i defined those in christian terms<\/em><\/p>\n when you say morality<\/p>\n yeah i guess rose by any other name<\/em><\/p>\n like i have certain near-absolute beliefs too but they’re a lot more long term not that far off<\/em> i put it to you that the how’s aren’t all that different either it’s a belief of mine that when you follow two ideas that appear to contradict each other to their core, you’ll find at the heart of it an innate similarity that creates the tension<\/em> i can relate to that<\/p>\n okay i gotta get back to my article<\/em><\/p>\n tc, always a pleasure<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There’s a concept that Tor Norretranders (a Dutch physicist) brings up in his book The User Illusion. It’s called “exformation”, which is data that is intentionally left out. It’s highly context dependent. 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\nand i think the key major difference between your worldview and mine<\/em>
\n there are many critical similarities,<\/em>
\n but the fundamental difference is, i think
\n<\/em>that i believe in intrinsic value and you believe in extrinsic value
\n<\/em>which informs both our beliefs about art, religion, sociology and science<\/em><\/p>\n
\n i believe murder is innately, intrinsically wrong because it violates absolutely morality, which is innately, ultimately right<\/em>
\n and you believe murder is wrong because it violates the social compact which has evolved for mutual benefit<\/em>
\n etc<\/em>
\n you can see how this perspective informs my religious tendency and your humanist tendency?<\/em><\/p>\n
\n(it would be too absolute to say I don’t believe in them ALTOGETHER… >_>)
\nthere are too many grey areas
\nI\u00a0guess yeah, you could call my ethics utilitarian but that feels a bit too mechanical even for me.\u00a0I think the problem with most things for me is that people want to work within the given framework.\u00a0I’m always looking towards developing\/evolving\/transcending the current framework in pursuit of the next<\/p>\n
\nlike you know how an equation tends to a curve\u00a0life\/humanity tends towards X\u00a0whatever this X is.<\/p>\n
\nbut I have a deep respect and admiration (and more words diminish the depth) for it
\nwhich I imagine is what you might describe to be prayer\/worship
\nbut in my case the thing is not a thing.<\/p>\n
\nwhere there is an overlord at the heart of it.\u00a0But there isn’t!\u00a0Actually a single termite is random and confused and will die,\u00a0two termites together get angry and aggressive and attack each other and stuff\u00a0as you add more, and they touch each other randomly, they become strangely cohesive,\u00a0they dont know why.\u00a0They just sort of become more… sociable or something.\u00a0Interestingly,\u00a0it’s not touching others that makes them this way it’s being touched.\u00a0And they randomly pick up stuff and drop it. There is no architect or engineer.<\/p>\n
\ngo on<\/p>\n
\nactually very the same leh<\/p>\n
\nyou have an X Y with Z<\/p>\n
\nbut i manifest them differently
\nhm<\/p>\n
\nlike i believe that complexity will always arise out of simplicity, given time
\nyou can’t prove that
\nno scientist can actually prove that
\nit’s a matter of faith
\nyou can show that it has happened in our case
\nand happens in a lot of cases
\nand that out of complexity arises complex relationships
\nand that complex relationships tend towards a sort of equilibrium
\nwhich you might describe as man being good to one another
\nabsolute morality?
\nwe can’t be that far off
\njust for the most part i feel that using terms like morality and god are kinda restrictive
\nbut i suppose if you have in your mind
\nan idea where the two are limitless
\nwhereas for me the notion of god is inherently self-limiting, by name, as a word
\nok your turn<\/p>\n
\n i think we see the same processes and results<\/em>
\n the same “what”<\/em>
\n and attribute different “how”s to them<\/em><\/p>\n
\njust how we describe\/look\/call\/name it<\/p>\n
\n (thus the name Gloria)<\/em><\/p>\n