Fascinating. I didn't know this artist. Makes me think a little of Paul Laffoley. Wikipedia tells me that he was close to Jorge Luis Borges

Read about ten historical board games, including Senet, in this British Museum blog: www.britishmuseum.org/blog/top-10-...

#OtherMinds #AnimalMinds

Just discovered this great performance on YouTube. I didn't know that Jeff Beck played with David Bowie! The video quality is awful, but the music is great ! youtu.be/yXwGGaTObJQ?...

The artist Salvador Dalí, known for surrealist paintings such as his 1952 “Galatea of the Spheres,” experimented with boosting his creativity by waking himself during his brain’s transition into sleep. www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-brai...

I've been reading about Toki Pona, a constructed mini-language with less then 200 words. There's a writing system as well. It's partly inspired by Taoist philosophy & supposedly encourages speakers to concentrate on basic things. #chaosky #chaosMagick #WitchSky #occult #Occultsky

My favorite recent musical discovery is Silver Apples. They are known for pioneering electronic rock (1968-70), but the drummer—whoa. Absolutely kick-ass. The beats are acid/techno and sound totally fresh. Astonishing and far ahead of their time. faroutmagazine.co.uk/silver-apple...

Probably an unpopular opinion: I've always preferred Alice to John.

What would a nervous system look like if it self-assembled inside a novel being that hadn't faced a history of selection for its organism-level form and function? How would #Xenobots look & act, and what their transcriptome would be, with neurons? advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

The sonic landscape of modern electronic music owes an immense debt to the German experimentalists who refused to accept their inheritance. Author Christoph Dallach uncovers how a generation's quest for identity birthed an entirely new sonic vocabulary. The Birth of Krautrock's 'Neu Klang':

In 1972, after consulting a tarot deck, Timothy Leary became convinced that he was a ‘continuation’ of Aleister Crowley and that his role in life was to continue Crowley’s ‘Great Work’, that of bringing about a fundamental shift in human consciousness. www.dailygrail.com/2018/08/the-...

== A KIND OF MATERIAL PANPSYCHISM == “ ‘Panpsychism’ refers to the philosophical theory that some kind of conscious experience is a fundamental feature of all physical matter, from subatomic particles to the entire universe.” R.U. talks with Joan Slonczewski on AI personhood:

At a theoretical level, he is probably right: LLMs have intrinsic limitations. But trying to create a “world model” has been an AI pursuit for decades (cf Doug Lenat’s CYC). Today, it is probably more a philosophical pursuit than a technological one. I’m happy to see billions invested in philosophy.

Great to see D.D Hoffman's theories meeting, at last, esoteric studies ! His "conscious realism" hypothesis is the most advanced of current idealist and/or panpsychist theories, IMHO

The Love Letters to the Future podcast on YouTube: youtube.com/@loveletters...

So, either the Mirror Test is BS, either (as it becomes increasingly clear) we haven't the slightest idea what consciousness actually is (because the Mirror Test is more a test of self-consciousness than simply of "intelligence") www.sciencealert.com/this-tiny-fi...

While Pythagoras sought mathematical perfection in music, breakcore artists like hkmori and sewerslvt embrace chaos. Their work reveals how this genre embodies both scientific rebellion and psychological expression. The Strange Science of Breakcore:

Interesting results. They go against the conclusions of many other studies. www.psypost.org/brain-scans-...

Is it bad if I say I want one?

New preprint with Léo Pio-Lopez: www.preprints.org/manuscript/2... "Multi-Scale Longevity: Defeating Aging from Cells to Embodied Human Minds, and the Future of the Species" a broader view of longevity research.

Remember "Visit Port Watson" in Semiotext(e) ? the short story (by "Anonymous", was it Peter Lamborn Wilson himself ?) was simultaneously a reference to Hakim Bey, Burroughsian pirate utopias, and at the same time foreshadowing the future "crypto-libertarian" trend..

== A DIFFERENT SET OF INTENTIONS == “It was the intention of counterculture warriors in the US...to blow up the vague consensus around the warfare state and let the pieces fall wherever they might. I mean, HOW could things get worse? .” R.U. on the rise of Authoritarian Anarchism

Inside the quixotic team trying to build an entire world in a 20-year-old game arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/...

"Any sufficiently crude magic is indistinguishable from technology" (Cookie Clicker News) orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/

Surprise, something efficient can have side effects ! www.sciencealert.com/meditation-a...

Une interview de Julian Strube sur les racines socialistes (au sens du socialisme français d'avant 1848, dit "utopique" par Marx) d'Eliphas Lévi: thethinkersgarden.com/the-socialis...

A grimoire of chaos magic dedicated to AI, and prefaced by none other than Peter J. Carroll... I guess it was bound to happen. www.amazon.com/Magical-AI-G...

This Sunday, 2/22 I'll be livestreaming with @drangelapuca.bsky.social about all things dark academia: www.youtube.com/live/TFx1WDU...

I almost never post about politics, but this article intersects with my interests. manlius.substack.com/p/the-epstei...

Another definition came to me from my mentor Owen Rowley: "Reality is that which will kill you if ignored long enough." Between those two there's a lot of room to play Heraclitus: “The Aeon is a child at play with coloured balls." I reckon most of reality is that sort of play —Mark Pesce

This’ll sort the Arianists from the Trinitarians

Gamma waves seem increasingly correlated with higher levels of consciousness in meditation, lucid dreaming and even as a possible Alzheimer's treatment, and now altruistic behavior ! pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC... www.researchgate.net/publication/... pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

Today my newest @mitpress.bsky.social, THE UNSEEN INTERNET, is officially out in the world. Here’s the argument: At the dawn of cyberculture a lot of people on online were intentionally doing magic. And now it feels like we’re all kind of doing magic.

I find this quite reassuring. Me, currently suffering through the Khan Academy math program, and wondering if it's really necessary after all...

Seems interesting and promising. But this game (like other brain games, such as the famous "dual n-back") is utterly boring. It seems to me that these kinds of tasks should be integrated seamlessly in real video games, with a real scenario and a real universe. www.nbcnews.com/health/aging...

Does neurofeedback for meditation work? ⤵️

Why did consciousness evolve at all? A superb special issue of @royalsocietypublishing.org brings together experts across disciplines to explore the functions of consciousness and why it emerged in some species but not others. @tecumsehfitch.bsky.social royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/issue/3...

An interesting read on minds and consciousness: www.noemamag.com/what-counts-...

Google Reader. VRML browsers.

Union workers solved the trolley problem, you're welcome

More than a half century has passed, and Doug Engelbart's Human Augmentation project is more relevant than ever.

The title is sensationalist. It a psychological/sociological collapse, not a weird quantum thing (alas!) . But beyond that, the article is interesting. PS: the neuroscientist Chris Frith is the brother of the famous avant-garde guitarist Fred Frith ! www.popularmechanics.com/science/a700...

Pick up the nearest book. Open to page 42 and post your second sentence. Add #page42 and include this rule as a reply. Don't look for your favorite book. Find the nearest book. "Recent research on a sample of Australian native birds has confirmed the role of play in brain development"

Today, together with The National Geographic Society, we launch Listen to the Whales — a global invitation to explore the rich communal lives of sperm whales and discover why deciphering their world matters. Take the plunge and immerse yourself in the journey: Projectceti.org/listen

I could not download from the Royal Society, but the paper can be accessed (legally, i suppose) from Research Gate: www.researchgate.net/publication/... (I'd like to understand the logic behind scientific publishing one day, why access is restricted on some sites but allowed on others.)

RIP to one of the greatest American rock musicians of all time, Bob Weir. One more Saturday night, my friend.