Re: [FRIAM] dystopian vision(s)

[Steve Smith]

On 8/19/22 1:33 PM, glen wrote:
No, as I understand it, HIPAA would *not* be violated. That's a common 
(right wing) trope.


I guess I erred toward the idea that if I had *legitimate* access to 
medical info that it would be a violation.  I *think* anyone with 
legitimate access to HIPPA information has to sign agreements that bind 
them whether they are licensed medical professionals or not?  It seems 
like a double-ding if you ARE licensed, risking both criminal charges 
and losing a license?


I think I agree that simply "finding" or unknowingly "receiving" HIPPA 
protected information is likely just a question of  ethics and bad faith?


I still worry that spying on and disclosing (semi) private data about 
elected officials might be a crime of some kind. But you're the PI. So 
you'd know!


Seems like there has been plenty of doxxing of elected officials... if 
such is illegal then maybe the current practice of loose/difficult 
enforcement means it isn't much of a problem for some?


I haven't been a PI for 40 years, but I do admit that sometimes I use 
that lens when thinking about things.   I quit that mini-career for a 
combination of practical and ethical reasons. There really wasn't much 
"righteous" work when it came right down to it.   Also helping make 
world-ending WMDs somehow seemed more ethical at the time?


I doubt I could stomach much clandestine surveillance as implied, much 
less actual disclosure of the results... It isn't about what they 
"deserve" it is about who I am willing to be?   For a few months in 2016 
I had a direct-action project conception titled "take a Dump for Trump" 
that was modeled on the old Halloween trick of a bag of burning dogshit 
on a porch... but I had to let that go for similar reasons.




On 8/19/22 12:25, Steve Smith wrote:

GEPR -
This sounds like a fantastic project for a public OSINT challenge. 
You *know* all those codgers have terrible OpSec, probably order 
their drugs through the USPS or worse, have their underpaid, 
over-abused admin assistants pick 'em up at the drive through window 
of the pharmacy. A good camera and a parabolic mic and Bob's your 
uncle. >8^D


It's probably a crime, though.


yah... busting into their records would be... HPPA and all that 
(which I support).


Your version (distance scrutiny of public behaviour/sigInt) would not 
be (on the surface anyway).   Like Jack Sweeney's 
Billionaire-Jet-Tracking efforts.  Sometimes this kind of work 
 
verges on (performance?) Art...


I personally would not want to see *anyone* busted for their chemical 
(or other technological) augmentation in any harsh way, but I would 
not mind seeing it included in a low-level pressure campaign to shift 
the average elected office encumbent age downward.   I'm happy if 
Bernie Sanders was juicing a little for the last Senate all-nighter 
(tactically) but not so happy that such things may have become 
standard practice (like steroids Mr. Universe and WWF but not in 
Olympic Weight LIfting and Chess-Boxing).  JFK, FDR and who knows how 
many (other) TLA-presidents had their own personal physician juicing 
them for things the public was unaware of...   performance enhancing 
or remedial, what is the line?






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Re: [FRIAM] Jack Cowan / Visual Hallucinations and structure of Visual Cortex (was Re: dystopian vision(s))

[Stephen Guerin]

Jack Cowan hung around the office for a week after his lecture. We had a
ping pong table in the break area at Bios and hebecame my partner. We beat
all double challengers at the office for that full week (cc  said
challengers: Rich Harris, Keith Hunter, Brian Birk, Mohammed) :-) Stu later
let me know Jack was on the Scottish Olympic Table Tennis Team in his
youth). Stu was in a theoretical-biology group at the University of
Chicago, run by Jack Cowan, that included people like Arthur Winfree, Leon
Glass, and others.

Also, as I was searching for Jack's article referenced below,  I came
across Jack's actual quote of Stu:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB902095959816268500

Dr. Kauffman, now 58 years old, faces huge hurdles cashing in on his
patent. But the controversial scientist considers it "a vindication." Like
other theorists in biology, he hasn't earned the kind of acclaim that
experimentalists get. He studied philosophy at Dartmouth College, Hanover,
N.H., and, after medical school, turned to fruit-fly genetics. But he never
excelled at experimentation, colleagues say. What he did brilliantly was
articulate an endless stream of abstract ideas.


*"He has the highest mouth-to-brain ratio of any one person I've ever met,
but with a very high denominator," *says Jack Cowan, a University of
Chicago professor of applied mathematics and theoretical biology, who was
Dr. Kauffman's first boss. "If he had the math skills as well as the verbal
ones, he would be amazing."

I always only heard the first half of the quote by cynics like Horgan
recounting it into an insult:
http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/hogan.complexperplex.htm

What Liddle does not say is that even some scientists associated with the
institute are beginning to fret over the gap between such rhetoric and
reality. Take Jack D. Cowan, a mathematical biologist from the University
of Chicago who helped to found the institute and remains on its board.
Cowan is no scientific prude; he has explored the neurochemical processes
underlying the baroque visual patterns evoked by LSD. *But some Santa Fe
theorists exhibit too high a "mouth-to-brain ratio" for his taste*. "There
has been tremendous hype," he grumbles.


-S
___
stephen.gue...@simtable.com 
CEO, https://www.simtable.com 
1600 Lena St #D1, Santa Fe, NM 87505
office: (505)995-0206 mobile: (505)577-5828


On Fri, Aug 19, 2022 at 6:20 PM Stephen Guerin 
wrote:

> Steve Smith writes:
> >  There is surely research into how much/which psychoactives get involved
> in modulating these processes.
>
> Jack (not George) Cowan gave a great lecture at BiosGroup in 2000 on this
> very topic:
>
> " What geometric visual hallucinations tell us about the visual cortex"
> https://www.math.uh.edu/~dynamics/reprints/papers/nc.pdf
>
> Abstract: Geometric visual hallucinations are seen by many observers after
> taking hallucinogens such as LSD, cannabis, mescaline or psilocybin, on
> viewing bright
> flickering lights, on waking up or falling asleep, in “near death”
> experiences,
> and in many other syndromes. Kl¨uver organized the images into four groups
> called “form constants”: (1) tunnels and funnels, (2) spirals, (3)
> lattices, including honeycombs and triangles, and (4) cobwebs. In general
> the images do
> not move with the eyes. We interpret this to mean that they are generated
> in the brain. Here we present a theory of their origin in visual cortex
> (area
> V1), based on the assumption that the form of the retino–cortical map and
> the
> architecture of V1 determine their geometry. We model V1 as the continuum
> limit of a lattice of interconnected hypercolumns, each of which itself
> comprises
> a number of interconnected iso-orientation columns. Based on anatomical
> evidence we assume that the lateral connectivity between hypercolumns
> exhibits
> symmetries rendering it invariant under the action of the Euclidean group
> E(2),
> composed of reflections and translations in the plane, and a (novel)
> shift–twist
> action. Using this symmetry, we show that the various patterns of activity
> that spontaneously emerge when V1’s spatially uniform resting state becomes
> unstable, correspond to the form constants when transformed to the visual
> field
> using the retino–cortical map. The results are sensitive to the detailed
> specification of the lateral connectivity and suggest that the cortical
> mechanisms
> which generate geometric visual hallucinations are closely related to
> those used
> to process edges, contours, textures and surfaces.
>
> ___
> stephen.gue...@simtable.com 
> CEO, https://www.simtable.com 
> 1600 Lena St #D1, Santa Fe, NM 87505
> office: (505)995-0206 mobile: (505)577-5828
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 19, 2022 at 10:40 AM Steve Smith  wrote:
>
>> And the retina is not a simple pixel-camera... even one wi

Re: [FRIAM] Jack Cowan / Visual Hallucinations and structure of Visual Cortex (was Re: dystopian vision(s))

[Merle Lefkoff]

On Fri, Aug 19, 2022 at 5:23 PM Stephen Guerin 
wrote:

> Steve Smith writes:
> >  There is surely research into how much/which psychoactives get involved
> in modulating these processes.
>
> Jack (not George) Cowan gave a great lecture at BiosGroup in 2000 on this
> very topic:
>
> " What geometric visual hallucinations tell us about the visual cortex"
> https://www.math.uh.edu/~dynamics/reprints/papers/nc.pdf
>
> Abstract: Geometric visual hallucinations are seen by many observers after
> taking hallucinogens such as LSD, cannabis, mescaline or psilocybin, on
> viewing bright
> flickering lights, on waking up or falling asleep, in “near death”
> experiences,
> and in many other syndromes. Kl¨uver organized the images into four groups
> called “form constants”: (1) tunnels and funnels, (2) spirals, (3)
> lattices, including honeycombs and triangles, and (4) cobwebs. In general
> the images do
> not move with the eyes. We interpret this to mean that they are generated
> in the brain. Here we present a theory of their origin in visual cortex
> (area
> V1), based on the assumption that the form of the retino–cortical map and
> the
> architecture of V1 determine their geometry. We model V1 as the continuum
> limit of a lattice of interconnected hypercolumns, each of which itself
> comprises
> a number of interconnected iso-orientation columns. Based on anatomical
> evidence we assume that the lateral connectivity between hypercolumns
> exhibits
> symmetries rendering it invariant under the action of the Euclidean group
> E(2),
> composed of reflections and translations in the plane, and a (novel)
> shift–twist
> action. Using this symmetry, we show that the various patterns of activity
> that spontaneously emerge when V1’s spatially uniform resting state becomes
> unstable, correspond to the form constants when transformed to the visual
> field
> using the retino–cortical map. The results are sensitive to the detailed
> specification of the lateral connectivity and suggest that the cortical
> mechanisms
> which generate geometric visual hallucinations are closely related to
> those used
> to process edges, contours, textures and surfaces.
>
> ___
> stephen.gue...@simtable.com 
> CEO, https://www.simtable.com 
> 1600 Lena St #D1, Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 
> office: (505
> 
> )995-0206 mobile: (505)577-5828
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 19, 2022 at 10:40 AM Steve Smith  wrote:
>
>> And the retina is not a simple pixel-camera... even one with a
>> non-uniform, non-rectangular distribution of photon-integrators...  there
>> is plenty of processing going on between rods/cones and optic-nerve.   Do
>> we suppose that *these* layers are significantly short-circuited by (some)
>> psychadelics?
>>
>>
>> Retinal Processing Layers
>> 
>>
>> There is surely research into how much/which psychoactives get involved
>> in modulating these processes.
>>
>> I tend to believe (with no specific references to offer) that the more
>> interesting mediation/modulation DaveW gestures towards goes on further
>> down the chain of processing.  Loosening up some of the (over?)
>> model-fitting going on downstream from edge/contrast-enhanced perceptual
>> info.   For example, I don't think that the military-industrial complex
>> will have secret psychoactive drugs which replace night-vision goggles
>> anytime soon. BUT I am more inclined to believe that cognition/perception -
>> *sharpening*/*widening* pharmacology is already in use .   Cigarettes and
>> Coffee were in WWII/Korea/Vietnam Rations as well as Bennies
>> .  Good
>> thing the Wermacht hadn't hit on PCP
>>  by
>> then...   already Jacked Ubermenchen on Hydrazine afterburners?
>>
>> Are all our geriatric politicians on B12/Aderall cocktails?  Oh to see
>> the pharmacological records for our most colorful politicians today!
>>
>> 
>>
>> As is my habit, I refer to a Science Fiction Novel of relevance:  Hard
>> Wired  - Walter
>> Jon Williams.   On the one hand, this early cyberpunk novel is armatured
>> around advanced tech facilitated by earth-orbit near-zero-gravity,
>> near-perfect-vacuum, near-zero-regulation, and
>> near-zero-distribution-challenges (de-orbited bundles) supporting a
>> florescence of pharmaceutical  research/development/production/use.   On
>> the other hand, the protaganist (as I remember him) was wonderfully
>> 

[FRIAM] Jack Cowan / Visual Hallucinations and structure of Visual Cortex (was Re: dystopian vision(s))

[Stephen Guerin]

Steve Smith writes:
>  There is surely research into how much/which psychoactives get involved
in modulating these processes.

Jack (not George) Cowan gave a great lecture at BiosGroup in 2000 on this
very topic:

" What geometric visual hallucinations tell us about the visual cortex"
https://www.math.uh.edu/~dynamics/reprints/papers/nc.pdf

Abstract: Geometric visual hallucinations are seen by many observers after
taking hallucinogens such as LSD, cannabis, mescaline or psilocybin, on
viewing bright
flickering lights, on waking up or falling asleep, in “near death”
experiences,
and in many other syndromes. Kl¨uver organized the images into four groups
called “form constants”: (1) tunnels and funnels, (2) spirals, (3)
lattices, including honeycombs and triangles, and (4) cobwebs. In general
the images do
not move with the eyes. We interpret this to mean that they are generated
in the brain. Here we present a theory of their origin in visual cortex
(area
V1), based on the assumption that the form of the retino–cortical map and
the
architecture of V1 determine their geometry. We model V1 as the continuum
limit of a lattice of interconnected hypercolumns, each of which itself
comprises
a number of interconnected iso-orientation columns. Based on anatomical
evidence we assume that the lateral connectivity between hypercolumns
exhibits
symmetries rendering it invariant under the action of the Euclidean group
E(2),
composed of reflections and translations in the plane, and a (novel)
shift–twist
action. Using this symmetry, we show that the various patterns of activity
that spontaneously emerge when V1’s spatially uniform resting state becomes
unstable, correspond to the form constants when transformed to the visual
field
using the retino–cortical map. The results are sensitive to the detailed
specification of the lateral connectivity and suggest that the cortical
mechanisms
which generate geometric visual hallucinations are closely related to those
used
to process edges, contours, textures and surfaces.

___
stephen.gue...@simtable.com 
CEO, https://www.simtable.com 
1600 Lena St #D1, Santa Fe, NM 87505
office: (505)995-0206 mobile: (505)577-5828


On Fri, Aug 19, 2022 at 10:40 AM Steve Smith  wrote:

> And the retina is not a simple pixel-camera... even one with a
> non-uniform, non-rectangular distribution of photon-integrators...  there
> is plenty of processing going on between rods/cones and optic-nerve.   Do
> we suppose that *these* layers are significantly short-circuited by (some)
> psychadelics?
>
>
> Retinal Processing Layers
> 
>
> There is surely research into how much/which psychoactives get involved in
> modulating these processes.
>
> I tend to believe (with no specific references to offer) that the more
> interesting mediation/modulation DaveW gestures towards goes on further
> down the chain of processing.  Loosening up some of the (over?)
> model-fitting going on downstream from edge/contrast-enhanced perceptual
> info.   For example, I don't think that the military-industrial complex
> will have secret psychoactive drugs which replace night-vision goggles
> anytime soon. BUT I am more inclined to believe that cognition/perception -
> *sharpening*/*widening* pharmacology is already in use .   Cigarettes and
> Coffee were in WWII/Korea/Vietnam Rations as well as Bennies
> .  Good
> thing the Wermacht hadn't hit on PCP
>  by
> then...   already Jacked Ubermenchen on Hydrazine afterburners?
>
> Are all our geriatric politicians on B12/Aderall cocktails?  Oh to see the
> pharmacological records for our most colorful politicians today!
>
> 
>
> As is my habit, I refer to a Science Fiction Novel of relevance:  Hard
> Wired  - Walter
> Jon Williams.   On the one hand, this early cyberpunk novel is armatured
> around advanced tech facilitated by earth-orbit near-zero-gravity,
> near-perfect-vacuum, near-zero-regulation, and
> near-zero-distribution-challenges (de-orbited bundles) supporting a
> florescence of pharmaceutical  research/development/production/use.   On
> the other hand, the protaganist (as I remember him) was wonderfully
> oldSkool, using a 3 chamber insulin-pump style tool interfaced to his
> neural interface to drive his Red/White/Blue drug-drip system.  Red and
> White are advanced forms of the conventional mapping (downers/uppers) to
> support on-demand relaxation/rest and on-demand energy/focus.  Blue is an
> on-demand perception-sharpening/broadening drug.
>
> 
>
> Walter is one of a fascinating contingent of NM contemporary writers
>

Re: [FRIAM] dystopian vision(s)

[glen]

No, as I understand it, HIPAA would *not* be violated. That's a common (right 
wing) trope. HIPAA only applies to licensed medical professionals who disclose 
their *patients'* data or gain inappropriate access to other provider's 
patients' data. But if you don't have a license, then you can't violate HIPAA.

A non-licensed hacker busting into some electronic health records DB would not 
be a HIPAA violation, at least not for the hacker. A social engineering hack, 
where some pharmacist or whatever clicked on a phishing link and that resulted 
in the hacker getting access ... well, perhaps the pharmacist could be accused 
of a HIPAA violation. But the hacker is still just an ordinary cyber criminal.

I still worry that spying on and disclosing (semi) private data about elected 
officials might be a crime of some kind. But you're the PI. So you'd know!

On 8/19/22 12:25, Steve Smith wrote:

GEPR -

This sounds like a fantastic project for a public OSINT challenge. You *know* all 
those codgers have terrible OpSec, probably order their drugs through the USPS or 
worse, have their underpaid, over-abused admin assistants pick 'em up at the drive 
through window of the pharmacy. A good camera and a parabolic mic and Bob's your 
uncle. >8^D

It's probably a crime, though.


yah... busting into their records would be... HPPA and all that (which I 
support).

Your version (distance scrutiny of public behaviour/sigInt) would not be (on the surface anyway).   Like Jack 
Sweeney's Billionaire-Jet-Tracking efforts.  Sometimes this kind of work 

 verges on (performance?) Art...

I personally would not want to see *anyone* busted for their chemical (or other 
technological) augmentation in any harsh way, but I would not mind seeing it 
included in a low-level pressure campaign to shift the average elected office 
encumbent age downward.   I'm happy if Bernie Sanders was juicing a little for 
the last Senate all-nighter (tactically) but not so happy that such things may 
have become standard practice (like steroids Mr. Universe and WWF but not in 
Olympic Weight LIfting and Chess-Boxing).  JFK, FDR and who knows how many 
(other) TLA-presidents had their own personal physician juicing them for things 
the public was unaware of...   performance enhancing or remedial, what is the 
line?



--
ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ

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Re: [FRIAM] dystopian vision(s)

[Steve Smith]

GEPR -
This sounds like a fantastic project for a public OSINT challenge. You 
*know* all those codgers have terrible OpSec, probably order their 
drugs through the USPS or worse, have their underpaid, over-abused 
admin assistants pick 'em up at the drive through window of the 
pharmacy. A good camera and a parabolic mic and Bob's your uncle. >8^D


It's probably a crime, though.


yah... busting into their records would be... HPPA and all that (which I 
support).


Your version (distance scrutiny of public behaviour/sigInt) would not be 
(on the surface anyway).   Like Jack Sweeney's Billionaire-Jet-Tracking 
efforts.  Sometimes this kind of work 
 
verges on (performance?) Art...


I personally would not want to see *anyone* busted for their chemical 
(or other technological) augmentation in any harsh way, but I would not 
mind seeing it included in a low-level pressure campaign to shift the 
average elected office encumbent age downward.   I'm happy if Bernie 
Sanders was juicing a little for the last Senate all-nighter 
(tactically) but not so happy that such things may have become standard 
practice (like steroids Mr. Universe and WWF but not in Olympic Weight 
LIfting and Chess-Boxing).  JFK, FDR and who knows how many (other) 
TLA-presidents had their own personal physician juicing them for things 
the public was unaware of...   performance enhancing or remedial, what 
is the line?


-SAS

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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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Re: [FRIAM] dystopian vision(s)

[Marcus Daniels]

What is a reason I should be willing to throw out all physical evidence and 
entertain that something completely different could be informing the mind?

From: Friam  On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2022 9:40 AM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] dystopian vision(s)


And the retina is not a simple pixel-camera... even one with a non-uniform, 
non-rectangular distribution of photon-integrators...  there is plenty of 
processing going on between rods/cones and optic-nerve.   Do we suppose that 
*these* layers are significantly short-circuited by (some) psychadelics?

[https://www.embl.org/news/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/20210820_Hiroki_Asari_Vision_updated_1000px72dpi.jpg]

Retinal Processing 
Layers

There is surely research into how much/which psychoactives get involved in 
modulating these processes.

I tend to believe (with no specific references to offer) that the more 
interesting mediation/modulation DaveW gestures towards goes on further down 
the chain of processing.  Loosening up some of the (over?) model-fitting going 
on downstream from edge/contrast-enhanced perceptual info.   For example, I 
don't think that the military-industrial complex will have secret psychoactive 
drugs which replace night-vision goggles anytime soon. BUT I am more inclined 
to believe that cognition/perception - *sharpening*/*widening* pharmacology is 
already in use .   Cigarettes and Coffee were in WWII/Korea/Vietnam Rations as 
well as Bennies.  
Good thing the Wermacht hadn't hit on 
PCP by 
then...   already Jacked Ubermenchen on Hydrazine afterburners?

Are all our geriatric politicians on B12/Aderall cocktails?  Oh to see the 
pharmacological records for our most colorful politicians today!



As is my habit, I refer to a Science Fiction Novel of relevance:  Hard 
Wired - Walter Jon 
Williams.   On the one hand, this early cyberpunk novel is armatured around 
advanced tech facilitated by earth-orbit near-zero-gravity, 
near-perfect-vacuum, near-zero-regulation, and 
near-zero-distribution-challenges (de-orbited bundles) supporting a florescence 
of pharmaceutical  research/development/production/use.   On the other hand, 
the protaganist (as I remember him) was wonderfully oldSkool, using a 3 chamber 
insulin-pump style tool interfaced to his neural interface to drive his 
Red/White/Blue drug-drip system.  Red and White are advanced forms of the 
conventional mapping (downers/uppers) to support on-demand relaxation/rest and 
on-demand energy/focus.  Blue is an on-demand perception-sharpening/broadening 
drug.



Walter is one of a fascinating contingent of NM contemporary writers nominally 
from ABQ (Belen I think) and HW published in 1987 was an early throwdown in the 
Cyberpunk Genre, and is set in the near-future Flagstaff-Albuquerque "Strip 
City" (and low-earth orbit).   Considering the proliferation/existence of 
strip-cities that have emerged along transportation (road, river, etc) routes 
organically, the Saudi "Line" Glen recently brought up here seems like an 
obvious ideation for an Arabic architect jacked on too much "Spice" ("Dune 
"reference).

Even 20 years ago, Colorado Front Range residents were referring to Ft-Pueblo 
to reference the (near) continuous development of the I25 corridor from Ft. 
Collins to Pueblo.   I flew back from Europe into Denver and drove from my 
daughter's place in Parker (south-south-Denver) to Pueblo on the back "farm 
roads" further out in the plains and discovered that the Ft-Pueblo 
stripmall-strip had grown out a good 10-20 miles East of I25 at several points 
(Castle-Rock, ColoSpgs, Pueblo).





On 8/18/22 11:00 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

The retina isn't perfect by any means, and the visual cortex must fix its 
inputs to make vision seem better than the raw inputs.This is from memory, 
but I can look up references.



-Original Message-

From: Friam  On 
Behalf Of Prof David West

Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2022 8:56 PM

To: friam@redfish.com

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] dystopian vision(s)



An analogy that might clarify what was being conveyed in the original post:



A RAW image - no compression, no processing - is what the brain/mind can 
perceive.



JPEG is the image after going through the "survival filter" - both compression 
and adjustments to saturation, contrast, and sharpness. There are all kinds of 
advantages to JPEG, but "accuracy/fidelity" is not one of them. Consider all 
the consternation amateur photographers had a few months back with their phones 
failing to capture the redness of the sky in San Fra

Re: [FRIAM] dystopian vision(s)

[glen]

This sounds like a fantastic project for a public OSINT challenge. You *know* all 
those codgers have terrible OpSec, probably order their drugs through the USPS or 
worse, have their underpaid, over-abused admin assistants pick 'em up at the drive 
through window of the pharmacy. A good camera and a parabolic mic and Bob's your 
uncle. >8^D

It's probably a crime, though.

On 8/19/22 09:40, Steve Smith wrote:

Are all our geriatric politicians on B12/Aderall cocktails?  Oh to see the 
pharmacological records for our most colorful politicians today!


--
ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ

-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom 
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
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Re: [FRIAM] dystopian vision(s)

[Steve Smith]

And the retina is not a simple pixel-camera... even one with a 
non-uniform, non-rectangular distribution of photon-integrators...  
there is plenty of processing going on between rods/cones and 
optic-nerve.   Do we suppose that *these* layers are significantly 
short-circuited by (some) psychadelics?



Retinal Processing Layers 



There is surely research into how much/which psychoactives get involved 
in modulating these processes.


I tend to believe (with no specific references to offer) that the more 
interesting mediation/modulation DaveW gestures towards goes on further 
down the chain of processing.  Loosening up some of the (over?) 
model-fitting going on downstream from edge/contrast-enhanced perceptual 
info.   For example, I don't think that the military-industrial complex 
will have secret psychoactive drugs which replace night-vision goggles 
anytime soon. BUT I am more inclined to believe that 
cognition/perception - *sharpening*/*widening* pharmacology is already 
in use . Cigarettes and Coffee were in WWII/Korea/Vietnam Rations as 
well as Bennies 
. Good 
thing the Wermacht hadn't hit on PCP 
 by 
then...   already Jacked Ubermenchen on Hydrazine afterburners?


Are all our geriatric politicians on B12/Aderall cocktails?  Oh to see 
the pharmacological records for our most colorful politicians today!




   As is my habit, I refer to a Science Fiction Novel of relevance:
   Hard Wired 
   - Walter Jon Williams.   On the one hand, this early cyberpunk novel
   is armatured around advanced tech facilitated by earth-orbit
   near-zero-gravity, near-perfect-vacuum, near-zero-regulation, and
   near-zero-distribution-challenges (de-orbited bundles) supporting a
   florescence of pharmaceutical research/development/production/use.  
   On the other hand, the protaganist (as I remember him) was
   wonderfully oldSkool, using a 3 chamber insulin-pump style tool
   interfaced to his neural interface to drive his Red/White/Blue
   drug-drip system.  Red and White are advanced forms of the
   conventional mapping (downers/uppers) to support on-demand
   relaxation/rest and on-demand energy/focus.  Blue is an on-demand
   perception-sharpening/broadening drug.

   

   Walter is one of a fascinating contingent of NM contemporary
   writers nominally from ABQ (Belen I think) and HW published in
   1987 was an early throwdown in the Cyberpunk Genre, and is set
   in the near-future Flagstaff-Albuquerque "Strip City" (and
   low-earth orbit).   Considering the proliferation/existence of
   strip-cities that have emerged along transportation (road,
   river, etc) routes organically, the Saudi "Line" Glen recently
   brought up here seems like an obvious ideation for an Arabic
   architect jacked on too much "Spice" ("Dune "reference).

   Even 20 years ago, Colorado Front Range residents were referring
   to Ft-Pueblo to reference the (near) continuous development of
   the I25 corridor from Ft. Collins to Pueblo. I flew back from
   Europe into Denver and drove from my daughter's place in Parker
   (south-south-Denver) to Pueblo on the back "farm roads" further
   out in the plains and discovered that the Ft-Pueblo
   stripmall-strip had grown out a good 10-20 miles East of I25 at
   several points (Castle-Rock, ColoSpgs, Pueblo).

   



On 8/18/22 11:00 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:


The retina isn't perfect by any means, and the visual cortex must fix its 
inputs to make vision seem better than the raw inputs.This is from memory, 
but I can look up references.

-Original Message-
From: Friam  On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2022 8:56 PM
To:friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] dystopian vision(s)

An analogy that might clarify what was being conveyed in the original post:

A RAW image - no compression, no processing - is what the brain/mind can 
perceive.

JPEG is the image after going through the "survival filter" - both compression and 
adjustments to saturation, contrast, and sharpness. There are all kinds of advantages to JPEG, but 
"accuracy/fidelity" is not one of them. Consider all the consternation amateur 
photographers had a few months back with their phones failing to capture the redness of the sky in 
San Francisco and other parts of CA.

Drugs, so the advocates claim, are not an alternate transformation—not HEIF—but 
simply a removal of the compression/processing mechanism entirely.

Of course, even RAW is lossy: a few million pixels  captured from the near 
infinity of discrete photons available.  I suspect the brain/mind is les

Re: [FRIAM] dystopian vision(s)

[Marcus Daniels]

Another analogy that comes to mind is a preference for vinyl records over 
digital recordings.   It doesn't matter if there is no finite limit on 
precision of a signal if it is smothered in noise.  

-Original Message-
From: Friam  On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2022 8:41 AM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] dystopian vision(s)

Right. And it's not only that transformation begins *at* the sensor, but that 
any signal undergoes a steady sequence of transformations, both reductions and 
fusions with other signals, as it "enters the brain" [⛧]. The only way we could 
get to the naive conception Dave ascribes to the hallucino-philiacs/Buddhists 
is if we use either an expansive definition of "brain" or a very reductive 
definition. Expansively, there are complex structures like the gut ganglion and 
the vagus "nerve". Are they part of the brain? Heat-, pain-, touch- sensitive 
neurons? And, of course, what about the para-, endo-, auto-crine signaling? 
Etc. There are serious, biological arguments that such tissues do a significant 
amount of "thinking". Hell, even states like calcium deficiency or exogenously 
triggered myelitis modify the matrix of transformations in deep and obscure 
ways.

My guess is, because of the literally stupid restrictions on psychedelic (and 
schedule I) research, the extent to which they modify such peri-brain systems 
is unclear. Or maybe I'm just ignorant. Regardless, it would be a stretch to 
say that there is anything we might reliably call "raw". It's derivation upon 
derivation.

And reductively, we're long past phrenology. The intra- and inter-individual 
variations in fMRI, even when tightly controlled for similar activities, 
demonstrates that brain anatomy/morphology is only a rough heuristic. Unless 
you want to assert, e.g. that the pineal gland is the seat of consciousness or 
somesuch, we're left with correlating various tissues that, on *aggregate*, 
modify function.

The only reason a device like the Mojo Lens might be considered less 
mind-expanding than say, DMT is its mechanism of action. Broad spectrum 
interventions that muck up something as pervasive as 5-HT *will* be different 
from very targeted interventions. But speculation about the mind doesn't help 
much, regardless of how popular such speculation is.

And because this post is already too long, I'll confess that even though I have 
pretty good balance for a 50-something, I've taken to experimenting with 
closing my eyes while I do various balance exercises. And it BLEW MY MIND how 
bad my unsighted balance is. I can get into a fairly stable stance, close my 
eyes, and immediately lose it. Proprioception my ass. 8^D


[⛧] The whole phrase in quotes because there is no "enter"; and there isn't a 
singular "the" brain. And that's on top of the uncertainty I allude to in the 
rest about whatever "brain" might mean. I probably shouldn't even be using the 
word "signal".

On 8/18/22 22:25, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1401501/ 
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
>> On Aug 18, 2022, at 10:01 PM, Marcus Daniels  wrote:
>>
>> The retina isn't perfect by any means, and the visual cortex must fix its 
>> inputs to make vision seem better than the raw inputs.    This is from 
>> memory, but I can look up references.
>>
>> -Original Message-
>> From: Friam  On Behalf Of Prof David West
>> Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2022 8:56 PM
>> To: friam@redfish.com
>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] dystopian vision(s)
>>
>> An analogy that might clarify what was being conveyed in the original post:
>>
>> A RAW image - no compression, no processing - is what the brain/mind can 
>> perceive.
>>
>> JPEG is the image after going through the "survival filter" - both 
>> compression and adjustments to saturation, contrast, and sharpness. There 
>> are all kinds of advantages to JPEG, but "accuracy/fidelity" is not one of 
>> them. Consider all the consternation amateur photographers had a few months 
>> back with their phones failing to capture the redness of the sky in San 
>> Francisco and other parts of CA.
>>
>> Drugs, so the advocates claim, are not an alternate transformation—not 
>> HEIF—but simply a removal of the compression/processing mechanism entirely.
>>
>> Of course, even RAW is lossy: a few million pixels  captured from the near 
>> infinity of discrete photons available.  I suspect the brain/mind is less 
>> lossy, but to what degree?
>>
>> And my own experiences, both chemical and meditative, suggest to me that 
>> some kind of patterned sense making is still going on because my 
>> 'mind/consciousness' still interprets things — I still see the Argus Goat 
>> (sometimess a ram instead of a goat, with multiple eyes, often conflated 
>> with Argus Panoptes) allbeit It and I might have a conversation.
>>
>> davew
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 18, 2022, at 2:15 PM, glen wrote:
>>> I'm glad you softened it. Co

Re: [FRIAM] dystopian vision(s)

[glen]

Right. And it's not only that transformation begins *at* the sensor, but that any signal undergoes a steady sequence of 
transformations, both reductions and fusions with other signals, as it "enters the brain" [⛧]. The only way 
we could get to the naive conception Dave ascribes to the hallucino-philiacs/Buddhists is if we use either an expansive 
definition of "brain" or a very reductive definition. Expansively, there are complex structures like the gut 
ganglion and the vagus "nerve". Are they part of the brain? Heat-, pain-, touch- sensitive neurons? And, of 
course, what about the para-, endo-, auto-crine signaling? Etc. There are serious, biological arguments that such 
tissues do a significant amount of "thinking". Hell, even states like calcium deficiency or exogenously 
triggered myelitis modify the matrix of transformations in deep and obscure ways.

My guess is, because of the literally stupid restrictions on psychedelic (and schedule I) 
research, the extent to which they modify such peri-brain systems is unclear. Or maybe 
I'm just ignorant. Regardless, it would be a stretch to say that there is anything we 
might reliably call "raw". It's derivation upon derivation.

And reductively, we're long past phrenology. The intra- and inter-individual 
variations in fMRI, even when tightly controlled for similar activities, 
demonstrates that brain anatomy/morphology is only a rough heuristic. Unless 
you want to assert, e.g. that the pineal gland is the seat of consciousness or 
somesuch, we're left with correlating various tissues that, on *aggregate*, 
modify function.

The only reason a device like the Mojo Lens might be considered less 
mind-expanding than say, DMT is its mechanism of action. Broad spectrum 
interventions that muck up something as pervasive as 5-HT *will* be different 
from very targeted interventions. But speculation about the mind doesn't help 
much, regardless of how popular such speculation is.

And because this post is already too long, I'll confess that even though I have 
pretty good balance for a 50-something, I've taken to experimenting with 
closing my eyes while I do various balance exercises. And it BLEW MY MIND how 
bad my unsighted balance is. I can get into a fairly stable stance, close my 
eyes, and immediately lose it. Proprioception my ass. 8^D


[⛧] The whole phrase in quotes because there is no "enter"; and there isn't a singular "the" brain. 
And that's on top of the uncertainty I allude to in the rest about whatever "brain" might mean. I probably 
shouldn't even be using the word "signal".

On 8/18/22 22:25, Marcus Daniels wrote:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1401501/ 


Sent from my iPad


On Aug 18, 2022, at 10:01 PM, Marcus Daniels  wrote:

The retina isn't perfect by any means, and the visual cortex must fix its 
inputs to make vision seem better than the raw inputs.    This is from memory, 
but I can look up references.

-Original Message-
From: Friam  On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2022 8:56 PM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] dystopian vision(s)

An analogy that might clarify what was being conveyed in the original post:

A RAW image - no compression, no processing - is what the brain/mind can 
perceive.

JPEG is the image after going through the "survival filter" - both compression and 
adjustments to saturation, contrast, and sharpness. There are all kinds of advantages to JPEG, but 
"accuracy/fidelity" is not one of them. Consider all the consternation amateur 
photographers had a few months back with their phones failing to capture the redness of the sky in 
San Francisco and other parts of CA.

Drugs, so the advocates claim, are not an alternate transformation—not HEIF—but 
simply a removal of the compression/processing mechanism entirely.

Of course, even RAW is lossy: a few million pixels  captured from the near 
infinity of discrete photons available.  I suspect the brain/mind is less 
lossy, but to what degree?

And my own experiences, both chemical and meditative, suggest to me that some 
kind of patterned sense making is still going on because my 
'mind/consciousness' still interprets things — I still see the Argus Goat 
(sometimess a ram instead of a goat, with multiple eyes, often conflated with 
Argus Panoptes) allbeit It and I might have a conversation.

davew




On Thu, Aug 18, 2022, at 2:15 PM, glen wrote:

I'm glad you softened it. Codependence *is* "organic to the nature of
one's existence". What I worry about are those that idealize
themselves as only codependent on some singular thing, which is what
you're calling out when you talk about identification with thrill
seeking or whatever. It's the single-ness that's the problem, not the 
codependence.

Marcus and Dave seem tightly analogous in their positive responses to
technological entheogens and physio-chemical ehtheogens, respectively.
And you, being a bit of an eh