Gwynne Michele on Warpcast

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wake 🎩 pfp

Oh yah, I've admitted as much. My academic background is Psych, Phil of Mind and Language, and Neuro, with a dash of Computer Science because I love debt and ivory towers and prolonged adolescence.

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Gwynne Michele pfp

@thecurioushermit

That's like my sweetspot of special interests 🤣 finally returned to finish my philosophy degree recently after a couple decades of dicking around with chaos. Taking a neuroethics class this fall that I'm *really* excited about.

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wake 🎩 pfp

Nice! My jam was the underdeveloped intersection between language, thought, and neurological concepts. Following thinkers like Daniel Dennett and Patricia Churchland; kinda pragmatic, kinda idealistic. Phil majors are dangerous fun. Glad I followed you 🍿

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Gwynne Michele pfp

@thecurioushermit

I'm primarily interested in consciousness, and especially the potential for emergent machine consciousness. Still not convinced it's possible, but also, the current iterations of LLMs really call into question a whole lot of things about the human experience of consciousness. But language is another deep interest of mine, both philosophically and linguistically. I love words. Been obsessed with them since I was a toddler - my mother noticed I was reading the words before she was when reading at story time, and made picture books with polaroids and the words written on sharpie to encourage me 🤣

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wake 🎩 pfp

okay, brass tacks, choose one: dualist monist physicalist materialist pragmatist phenomenologist which house to you pledge?

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Gwynne Michele pfp

@thecurioushermit

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wake 🎩 pfp

so one undifferentiated "stuff" and no supernatural frosting?

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Gwynne Michele pfp

@thecurioushermit

Yep. And that is deeply informed by the sorts of experiences one has at a ten-day silent meditation retreat where one dissolves into nothingness and realizes that we're all just the universe trying to figure out what it wants to be 🤣 It is a bit more complicated than just monism, of course, but it's all *just* the universe and any perceived substantive difference is a game the universe is playing with itself. At least as far as I can see it ;)

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Kristin Piljay pfp

Gyynne - have you ever done isolation tank floats? You can become "nothing" easily. I can it the lazy person's meditation technique. I also read that it affects your brain in a similar way that psilocybin does. I practiced this for about a year, once a month, about 10 years ago and sporadically the past decade (most recently last year). And @wake.eth - have you done this?

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Gwynne Michele pfp

@thecurioushermit

I've heard of them, but never done one. I can "dissolve" pretty much at will now and have regular transcendent experiences when I want them - I'd had them prior to the silent meditation retreat, but because I have a FAFO kind of spiritual practice, it nearly spiraled into psychosis until my then-husband brought me back to reality by making me go to an ice festival. I've done psilocybin, it just makes me smile more because I can achieve the effects on my own! I do smoke a lot of weed though 🤣 but that's as much for slowing my ADHD down as anything.

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Kristin Piljay pfp

Oh, doing it without the tanks is a lot cheaper, believe me. But it's an interesting experience nevertheless. I haven't meditated in a while. I really need to. My brain is just full of warpcast at this point. I even dream about it now. That statement about avoiding psychosis by going to an ice festival was amusing. How can that prevent psychosis? To me, it almost seems like a festival could CAUSE psychosis. 😆 Because of all the hoards of people.

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