humans are brains

[newsincerity]

humans are brains and it's fucked up
every human is a grotesque eldritch looking walnut creature that wants to exert influence over other meat walnuts
why? because it feels good
release brain chemicals as reward and develop your meat tumors even more
every human is an addict by design because that is the best way to ensure survival

Imagine a debate between two eldritch monsters each one with their own favourite tumors corresponding to different brain functions and viewpoints
These tumors are essentially their investment and they must protect it and grow it
Neither brain will want to admit they are wrong because that coincides with doubting the years long investment and leads to a crisis and demise via depression aka tumor death

They might admit it if the sunk cost is small and everyone else was tricked so they weren't at fault
or if their neuroplasticity is high for some reason which means the brain changes haven't solidified and can transform instead of being killed

 

[ZZEBRA813]

That means Tabula is a brain

 

[ZZEBRA813]

Farewell Fantasea

 

[Mathiverse]

eldritch walnut brain saying everyone is eldritch walnut brain

 

[Pērkons šķīla u]

their neuroplasticity is high for some reason which means the brain changes haven't solidified and can transform instead of being killed

Ideal.

 

[PiratePlayground]

Except for me, I'm just a skeleton trapped in a chuds body. Sigh.

 

[Arnold Schwarzwald]

>assumes the chemicals are the goal.

Nah. It’s worse. We’re just a ghost trapped in a biological nightmare, that old Gnostic/dualist glitch. The 'I' (the spirit, whatever that spark actually is) wants things the 'It' (the ape wearing your skin) can't even process.

In the rest of the woods, the ape is the boss. Its only hard coded order is persist. Every brain chemical is just the tank greasing its own gears so the meat keeps moving and breeding.

Humans are the malfunction. We’re the only ones where the ghost can actually grab the wheel and say no.

Suicide isn’t some 'tumor death.' It’s the most violent proof we have of the infestation. It’s the ghost looking that walnut brained ape in the eye, spitting on its entire reward system, and driving the screaming meat machine off a cliff. The ape’s own software literally can’t do that. It’ll fight for one more breath even when the spirit has already checked out and lit the fuse.

A dog can feel despair it’ll rot away by a grave. But a dog doesn’t look at the heat death of the universe and decide today’s kibble is a waste of time. Only the ghost can do that. Only the ghost can look at the chemical prison and call it a cage.

The rest of us? We're just hostages trying to negotiate with our kidnapper for better cell service.

 

[Enju]

 

[ZZEBRA813]

View attachment 14441

i was half expecting it to end with a gunshot for some reason

 

[Arnold Schwarzwald]

Can the meat machine ape figure out how to trap ghosts into chips instead? It's safer that way.

View attachment 14489

Feels like a Ship of Theseus situation, if the body(ape) is just a conductor/antenna for consciousness how much does the signal change? Is it even the same signal? More over is every signal unique?

 

[Deleted member 612]

My brain is a processor. I'm the operating system inside it.

 

[Arnold Schwarzwald]

Can the meat machine ape figure out how to trap ghosts into chips instead? It's safer that way.

Nah, that’s the exact cope the Vertiginous Question laughs at.

Even if the meat ape finally figures out how to trap the ghost in silicon and keep the ‘I’ at a nice, safe, sterile distance from the screaming reward loop primate… you still haven’t solved why this particular ghost is the one haunting this particular signal.

You just end up with a very comfortable, very well-isolated ghost that still has to wake up every day and ask: why the fuck am I this one? Why not the ghost in the other chip? Why not the one still stuck in meat? The distance doesn’t dissolve the indexical fact. It just gives the haunting better Wi-Fi.

I wrote something about this the other day because your question kept rattling around in my skull. Here it is if you want the full skitzo rant.

The Vertiginous Question (or: Why the Hell Am I This Particular Bag of Meat and Regret?)

Listen. Out of every conscious little freakshow crawling around this spinning rock—billions of humans, trillions of squirrels probably having better days, maybe some squid gods we haven’t met yet why the fuck am I this one? Not “why is there consciousness,” not “am I the same dude who ate pizza...

elysianfields.se

TL;DR
Version for the thread, the ship of theseus on the antenna doesn’t fix the problem. Uploading, VR, neural chips, whatever, you can change the conductor all you want. The signal still has to deal with the fact that it’s this signal experiencing from the inside, not any of the other billions of identical looking ones. Haecceity(Haecceity, or "thisness," is a medieval philosophical concept coined by Duns Scotus referring to the unique, non-qualitative property that makes an individual thing specifically what it is and not something else) doesn’t transfer in the copy. The first person cockpit doesn’t clone.

So yeah, maybe they trap the ghost in chips one day. Safer for the ape, sure.But the ghost? It’s still gonna be sitting there in its fancy new silicon prison, staring at the heat death of the universe, sipping whatever simulated dopamine they pipe in, and quietly whispering:

“…why me though?”

The ape can run from the vertigo.The ghost is the vertigo.

What do you think happens when the meat finally builds a perfect cage and the thing inside it still won’t shut up?

 

[Arnold Schwarzwald]

This is exactly what I wanted to trigger.

View attachment 14818


It doesn't have to be about the "haecceituous" nature of the ghost being trapped. Just that there is a ghost to entertain the monkey. You could close your eyes your last time to wake up the next moment to larp as Hitler in some transexual's virtuous and sincerely righteous torture fantasy. The signal has no choice where it is reproduced. A plant could even commit the magic necessary to summon it to help complete a program.

What now? What of this ghost roulette carousel?

Ghost roulette carousel. i'm stealing that and engraving it on my silicon tombstone. ;3

And yeah, you're right, it doesn't need the full haecceity deep dive. it's simpler and way more fucked: there's a ghost, it has to entertain the monkey, and the wheel just… lands wherever. close your eyes in one cockpit, wake up larping as hitler in someone's transsexual torture fanfic. or get summoned by a goddamn plant because it needs an LLM to finish its photosynthesis homework. no ticket. no choice. no "speak to the manager of reality."

But I think you're asking me for the why, and I don't have that. i never claimed to. fire is hot. the ghost spins. that's not an answer, it's just the floor we're standing on. you're asking why 2+2=4. i'm just the guy who said "huh, it does that."

A lot of people can't accept we can't have all the answers. but we can at least describe it in the moment. grow up in a box, you only know the box. you can't draw the 4d shape, just its shadow on the wall. that's what this is. a shadow. and drawing that shadow? it tells us more than just guessing. it's real data. but it doesn't fully explain the 4d object. it can't.

Same energy as asking "why does a square have four equal sides?" bro… that's just what a square is. except, and here's the thing, asking that question is how you get to 90 degree angles, Euclidean geometry, the whole fucking cathedral of math. we didn't always have a concept for zero either. then someone sat with the absence long enough and suddenly algebra, calculus, the ability to build computers that can simulate ghosts. discussions like this? they're the messy, vertigo inducing first draft of whatever concept comes next.

So asking "why this ghost?" isn't stupid. it's the itch that grows new brain folds. we might not answer it today. but a hundred threads from now? someone might look back at this carousel and say "oh, they were drawing the shadow of that."

so what now?

we ride the wheel while it spins. smiling like the cute little cosmic mistakes we are. the signal doesn't pick its next drop. the ghost is the spin.

Ape can build all the safe distance chips and vr cages it wants. but the first-person haunting? that stays. always.

Question back: if the carousel is real and the ghost just lands wherever… does that make reincarnation the ultimate horror or the ultimate joke? because at least this ghost knows it's spinning. next time it might not even get that much.

---

 

[Arnold Schwarzwald]

D @Mentalatte

The real challenge, the one I should have asked?...

is this:

I am saying the vertiginous question is like "why does a square have four sides?", a question that, when pursued, gave us geometry. Or like zero; a concept we didn't have, then we invented it, and it opened up new worlds. So asking "why this ghost?" might, over enough time and enough threads, produce a new concept, a new tool, a new way of seeing.

But here's the actual steel-test: What if the vertiginous question is structurally different from zero and the square? Zero and the square are about relations within a framework, geometry, number theory. The vertiginous question is about the framework itself, the fact of first-person indexicality. You can't step outside of "thisness" to measure it. Zero you can point to on a number line. "Why am I this ghost?", there's no outside vantage. The shadow you're drawing? It's the shadow of a 4D object you're inside. You can't even see the whole shadow because you're standing on it.

So the real question: Is there any historical precedent for a question like this? one about the irreducible first person? that actually led to a new concept? Or does it just spin forever because the questioner is the question?

 

[Arnold Schwarzwald]

DNA is a fractal antenna in electromagnetic fields - PubMed

The wide frequency range of interaction with EMF is the functional characteristic of a fractal antenna, and DNA appears to possess the two structural characteristics of fractal antennas, electronic conduction and self symmetry. These properties contribute to greater reactivity of DNA with EMF in...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov