YA, Supernatural Fantasy, Magical Realism At the crossroads of supernatural and human potential, an anxious teen finds a mystical world within himself, unleashing powers he didn’t know he had. Will Freeman is more anxious than other teens. When his new friend Lily Powers invites herself over, and the two go treasure hunting in his attic,… Continue reading Super Human: The Mailing List!
The QAnon Shaman and The Three Sides of Apophenia
Apophenia as Delusion Reed Berkowitz’s piece, A Game Designer’s Analysis Of QAnon, insightfully noted how Apophenia drives people into the Cult of QAnon. Jacob Chansley, a.k.a. the QAnon Shaman, it has been pointed out, “displays strong aspects of what psychologists call ‘patternicity,’ which is to see hidden patterns, meanings, and agency behind what others would… Continue reading The QAnon Shaman and The Three Sides of Apophenia
The Social Dilemma, So-Called Objective Reality, and Higher Mind
What we regard as objective reality is but a convenience, a virtual representation, created by us, aiding in our quest for reproduction. 1 Cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman uses the analogy of the computer Desktop. The Desktop isn’t an accurate representation of the alternating voltages inside a computer, but it sure is helpful for us to… Continue reading The Social Dilemma, So-Called Objective Reality, and Higher Mind
Lucid Dreaming, Waking, and Distraction
As a teen, I was a natural at lucid dreaming. I could— no exaggeration— realize I was dreaming four or five times a night. It was lots of fun. Mostly flying, but you can imagine what else a teenager might want to dream about.
Caesar’s Last Breath and ESP
“Brain Art” by Ars Electronica, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 The story goes that in 44 BC in Rome, Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of his own senators, crumpling to the floor with a final gasp. This last breath contained around 25 sextillion (that’s 25 followed by 21 zeroes) air molecules, which would… Continue reading Caesar’s Last Breath and ESP
Is Humanity a Self-Aware System? How Might We Know?
When asked, on Waking Cosmos, about the prospects of AI become self-aware, Dean Radin suggested [quote to follow], any system with a sufficient number of connections might become self-aware. Which got me thinking… humanity is a system. It has billions of nodes and trillions of connections. Humanity meets Dean’s thought-experiment criteria for being self-aware. But,… Continue reading Is Humanity a Self-Aware System? How Might We Know?