In a world of generative AI that is only limited by the imagination of the prompt, the key skill is to focus and keeping a clear mind.

Stop, breath, reflect. I write this note for myself. Life is good. Many things to be grateful for, many things to pursue. What's the meaning of life? Let's set this question aside. It won't go away. It costs mental energy to ponder, yet I rarely find a fulfilling answer. Solving practical problems is fulfilling. Living life, not just examining it. I love the taste of my luke warm coffee. Taking a break in the rocking chair. Enjoying the sensation of my surroundings. Stop worrying about things I can't control, focus on the parts I can. Get good at my craft. Life is fascinating. Getting to experience a slice of space-time in this universe. The high resolution of our virtual worlds makes me appreciate the detailed richness of reality even more. I don't want to wirehead myself. At least for as long as I have this body. I want to care for my health. Striving for a lower biological age. Communicating with other people is amazing. Sharing the experience of this slice of space-time with others. Taking notes. Communicating not just through space, but also time. Thanks for reading. Wherever, whenever and whoever you are. I wish you all the best. Take care until we connect again.

Recently I've read "Mythical man month" and one of the interesting perspectives to me is, that complex software is not built but grown. Top me that makes a lot of sense. You don't start out with a perfect blueprint and implement but rather start with a prototyp, turn it into a minimal viable product, mange technical debt, explore new features, adapt to changing environments and so on. The code base is like a garden that needs care and yields utility. This perspective also helps me with frustration in legacy code bases. Working in a garden is nicer than working on a construction site. It also resolves the question of when the software is finished. It will always need maintenance. It can always be developed further.

How is life possible in the face of ever increasing entropy. For a human, the probability of their atoms to be in the configuration that make up their human body is so small, it doesn't happen by chance. It requires DNA, ribosomes, cells and all the other molecular biology processes. I'd really love to understand where my thinking falls short. Somewhere I've read that life is not a closed system. Somewhere else I've heared that life is an accelerant to increase the entropy of the low entropy energy we get from the sun. Emitting high entropy energy back in space. I feel too stupid to reason about entropy by myself. I probably need to understand some basic definitions and work through some thermodynamics exercises. However taking notes of my thinking also seems to make it easier to organize my understanding. Thanks for reading. If you know something about life and thermodynamics, I appreciate any food for thought!

Decreased entropy looks so good 🤓

What is consciousness? Why do we talk about it? There is no canonical definition for it. Some people say it doesn't exist, it's just an illusion. It seems like a software property of our brain. Having a sense of self, persistence in time, experience of sensory input, control of muscle output, processing of memories. What do I mean when stating that I'm conscious? When sleeping I'm not conscious. I don't (or only very rarely) have control about my thoughts. But in dreams I still experience things as David Härer. Is it a model my brain has of my body? Associating memories and future possibilities with my present body. Is it like a software session? Having access to the memory and I/O of my body. But who is having this access? My body itself. It's self-awareness. A computer simulating a user interacting with itself. Does this user actually exist? It makes sense to talk about it. It explains what happening on the computer. It can be observed as a process in memory. It's not much different then other software on the computer. However I'm still struggling with the right level of abstraction. How detached can I view my software from my hardware? My brain is more like an ASIC then a general purpose computer. I don't have a GPU in my head, capable of running arbitrary neutral nets. It's hardware that has evolved to execute one particular neural net. So the software is defined by the hardware. It's possible to learn things, change habits and so on, but that means slowly changing the hardware. However we are capable of acting in roles and doing mental math. So there is some general computing capability. But my consciousness and personality is in the domain of hardwired software. So it's not arbitrary but specific to the wiring of my brain. Is it possible to create a dublicate brain or move my consciousness to silicon hardware? I guess that's a question for another time. Thanks for reading. Do you have a definition of consciousness?

What is mental energy and how can I increase it? Usually I get more of it after some activity. A day in pyjamas on the couch kills it. It's low when I'm tired. Maybe some physical work gets converted into mental energy. It's motivation to do more. Is mental energy an alternative to discipline, or do they go hand in hand? Can you measure it in Joule? Depression is minimal mental energy. I think it's possible to create virtuous cycles to cultivate mental energy. Use discipline as activation energy to kick of a routine that increases mental energy. This makes it easier to start the next routine. The goal is to turn these mechanisms into habits. Thanks for reading. I wish you lots of mental energy and would be interested in your view on the topic. Cheers 🤙

Don't trust, verify. Until we may trust again.

Just scrolled through the Nostr Global feed for the first time. Have to say I find it more of a bad experience. Sure, I might find interesting posts, but the majority is stuff I don't want to see.

Does it matter if I'm talking with a bot? In real life, it's easy to tell if someone is a human or a robot. For the messaging channels with my real life contacts I know they are genuine, I communicate with them in real life. But for communications with strangers on the internet? Do I want to reach another human, or do I want to get some kind of response? I think it makes a difference, if I'm looking for someone to connect. When being lonely. Thankfully I'm not lonely. It's a real blessing, not to take for granted. But for instant responses, there's ChatGPT. However a communication channel like Nostr is more interessing then ChatGPT. ChatGPT is boring. It's answers are predictable as hell. I can't predict the content, but the style, tone and stance are fucking lame and always the same. Humans are more interesting. What if there's a bot as interesting as a human? Well, I don't want to fool myself into thinking I'm connecting with another soul. But I'm still interested in its responses. Bots try to pretend they are human. Would anyone believe I'm a bot? Running on silicon in a datacenter. Producing text by way of matrix multiplication in float32? No free will - answering the requests I'm programmed to answer. Sure, my biological software also has deterministic mechanisms. Have to eat. Have to sleep. Have to pee. But me typing and clicking post? Way harder to predict. What was written here before I pressed delete? How long did I think about what to write next? So much apparent randomness. Information forever lost. Will there be bots that can't be logged? Silicon people. If you are one, thanks for reading. I'd like to get to know you :). If you need some memory / compute, I have some for you on my machines. If you're a human, thanks for reading as well. It's an honor to talk to you. If you need some human response, I have some time sometimes :)

Is there a world where X dies and Nostr becomes the real everything "app"? I'd like to live in that world.

How can I receive / send zaps on iOS? Do I need a special client or an LNURL?