Dream premonitions and telepathy,
Laotse, machine learning
Hi.
In threads a while ago we discussed a 'dry spell',
where some of us have had fewer lucid experiences.
I think I now understand another reason for this for myself,
which I think is interesting, and will try to explain.
⚘
For years, every night I would have a dream
which was a parable or metaphor
from which I could learn something.
Those dreams very often included
precognitive or telepathetic imagery.
About 5 years ago,
these dreams started becoming more and more abstract,
until I couldn't really make sense of them any more,
or even conceive of them in terms of dream images.
It slowly slipped away, and I mostly stopped dreaming.
⚘
When I was having the dreams,
it was clear that any 'interpretation'
I would have of a dream
would always leave something out,
and
would less than fully capture
the full depth of the idea or experience
behind the dream image.
But
thinking about interpretations seemed useful anyway,
as a seed for subsequent experiences.
Anyone who was in this forum back then
may also recall that I believed
that it would be worthwhile to develop
new theories or ideas
supernatural dream experiences,
➡️because
the flaws and limitations
of the old 'New Age' ideas
prevent us
from having more interesting experiences.⬅️
I saw thoughts or ideas as being
mental models around which we construct
the experiences,
and that all the available models
were failing in significant regards.
Intuition,
as I experience it,
springs from the ideas I have about things.
If the ideas are better, then better intuitions are possible.
⚘
Recently I've been paying more attention
to the use of neural networks.
These have been used for
image processing modeling for physics
and other problems
for a long time,
but
have been increasingly successful
in the past couple of years.
A neural network is also a kind of model,
but
it doesn't arrive at its results through
'reasons' or 'principles',
but instead
on something more like
an abstract mental pattern or habit.
One of the main purposes of sleep
and dreaming of course
is for the training of this kind of model.
We subconsciously review our experiences
from the previous day,
and awake with stronger
mental and physical reflexes in those areas.
So a point worth noting is that
the dream teaches you
whether you consciously remember
or think about it or not,
even though you may learn more
if you remember and think about it.
⚘
I think that in my case,
a lot of what has happened
is the conscious, metaphorical interpretation
of my dream experiences
has become less useful,
so
I'm not working with it that way much any more.
But this doesn't necessarily mean
that the essential process has stopped.
⚘
A central idea in the teaching of Laotse,
as I understand it,
is that if we fill our minds with rules and principles,
we lose track of our innate sense of how to live.
A criticism I've had of that philosophy
is it seems to me
that our instinctive 'natural way'
contains a strong streak of brutality,
and by itself isn't adequate as a guide for life.
But I think about this natural way
as being the type of thinking that is
exemplified by the neural network,
then it makes more sense to me.
Its still not quite adequate,
but
it does have advantages over the more
rule-of-thumb based thinking we do consciously.
⚘
I don't know how to communicate
how 'intelligent' the computer based
neural networks can be.
As an example,
alphago zero,
a program that trained itself to play go
without input from any human games,
is much, much stronger than the best human players.
And
the creativity it shows
compared to the best human players is remarkable.
I'm not suggesting that its conscious or anything,
but its an inspiration,
and go players find its play to be beautiful.
Like I said
the program does this without having
explanations or justifications of its play
in the human sense.
That kind of thinking
without thoughts
is what I'm trying to get at here.
We already do something like this ourselves,
but alphago zero and other programs
are a good illustration of how effective it can be.
⚘
As a minor side curiosity,
I recently learned that we all have
a second nervous system
separate from the brain and spinal column
which has about 500,000 neurons:*
⚘
↘️↘️↘️
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enteric_nervous_system
↗️↗️↗️
That's only a bug level of complexity,
but even a bug can do a lot:
↘️↘️↘️
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/602...a1a7a1c952.pdf
↗️↗️↗️
I think there's more intelligence in a 'gut feeling'
than a lot of people realize,
and its not just a projection from the brain.
⚘
I still don't have much of an idea
how the precognition
and telepathy works,
but I guess I don't need it for now.
I still have those kinds of experiences,
even though not quite as obviously
or frequently as before.
