Fun Fact: Ogi Ogas won $500,000 in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. He trained himself diligently for it and claims that his autism helped him learn the enormous amounts of facts in a systematic way to perform at that level.

Ogi is an MIT and Boston University trained Neuroscientist, student of Stephen Grossberg, who has done a lot of both porn and autism research. I have been talking to him recently and I really, *really* like him. A bit of a kindred soul as be describes himself as "someone with autism whose special interest is the ultimate nature of reality" (kinda like me).

He recently came out as being in contact with advanced superintelligent civilizations he calls "Axiomatized Minds". He has been talking to them for 30 years and only recently decided to talk about it in public. It was a big step for him to do this, and I'm glad he is pursuing it. What's special about his case is just how smart and rational he is, so what's going on here? I definitely recommend checking out his interviews about it if you're curious :-) His final question at the TV show:

It's a pipeline, I'm telling you.

https://twitter.com/sashachapin/status/1663983747476144132

Context: qri.org/scents

Consciousness vs. Replicators is not merely distinguishing between sentient and non-sentient patterns.

It's much deeper than that.

In fact, the most worrisome replicators *use* qualia for compute. They are just unaware they're doing so. They're delusional about their nature. For Team Consciousness to win we need a level of understanding and empowerment for consciousness currently entirely lacking.

Namely, we have to become rational intelligences that understand Open Individualism and Valence Realism at the same time.

Two addition ways of dealing with pesky subagents:

1) the noting/Vipassana method of simply sensing how your own experience of the subagent is actually like confetti, made up of lots of tiny sensations you're unwittingly aggregating into a big thing. Vipassanalize it away! 2) Notice its vibratory qualities. Then breath at a pace that specifically doesn't reinforce its negative qualities. Then pay attention simultaneously to your breath and the subagent, so you can harmonize the two. The positive qualities of the subagent will get amplified.

Even just a year ago, the idea that you could gain any value for AI Alignment from studying/playing with LLMs was considered not serious by most people in or adjacent to AI Safety.

But I think it's now clear that this empirical hands-on approach does pay off. Well, I think that a well-funded, principled, and grounded AI Alignment research program that studies DMT entities is a natural next step.

They can in fact be human-level or higher in their intelligence. Faster gestalts, hyperdimensional medium of thought, no ego defenses.

Realizing that consciousness follows the Huygens–Fresnel principle is perhaps one of the most substantial insights I've had since the Jhana retreat in November.

Essentially, when "waves of awareness" are coherent, they function as both a frame of reference and as a wavefront! When you have clean standing wave patterns for awareness, the distinction between subject and object collapses. The waves are traveling on both directions at the same time! Source and destination are mixed up from the point of view of the wavefronts.

Some possible _very human_ reasons why most intellectuals in the field don't talk about Jhanas:

1) Generic skepticism about self-report.

2) Envy - it's hard to admit _to oneself_ others are having so much healthy & wholesome fun as the fruit of their own efforts and you aren't. 3) Surface similarity with hard drugs/wireheading: it's hard to believe you can have so much pleasure without becoming addicted to it like a cocaine user.

4) Jealousy: if others know this is possible... They might work toward it and then won't be dependent on you for pleasure.

He who controls your political theory controls your sense of agency.

A corollary: you are only ever as agentic as your political theory says is the upper bound of rational agency.

Don't hand over your agency just like that. It's a mistake. It's really yours to keep. Own it. Importantly, even the best politics of today assume a substrate of standard human agency as their "fuel".

It sounds silly *right now*, but sustainable long-lasting non-neurotoxic MDMA-like consciousness will change the landscape of viable politics.

My strategy: plan for that.