Interesting to realize that the living things that lay the foundation of the biosphere are extremely robust as compared to the humans that are destroying the biosphere.

Conscious and conscience are two words that share the same origin but mean two different things. The bias against explanations of consciousness comes from the conflation of these two words.

In addition, the question of free will is also adjacent to the notion of both consciousness and conscience. The ideas of consciousness, conscience, and free will serve as the foundation of justice in our civilization. (care to add another?)

So when we see people fail to condemn an act that is morally repugnant, we wonder if they have a conscience. But we don't wonder if they are conscious. When we incarcerate a person, we ask if they had "free will" but we inquire if they were 'conscious' during the crime.

The presence of consciousness and free will imply sentience. Which is the same as conscious and sounds just like a conscience. Our biases have muddled all the words together to likely mean the same thing.

The words that we use today continue to evolve. The same word can have a different meaning in the past. The word empathy is a recent word invented in the early 1900s. Originally it meant to place oneself from the viewpoint of a thing. Today we don't use it in this way.

Chess may be a good analogy for explaining the difference between a descriptive model of reality and a generative model of reality.

A descriptive model of chess will describe the rules (i.e. initial setup, allowed moves, points per piece, objectives). This tells you how a chessboard might evolve and also narrows the combinations of realistic chess positions.

In contrast, a generative model involves the actual gameplay between competing players that follow the rules. It generates new styles and patterns. It establishes new strategies and tactics. It generates new openings, middle gameplay, and end game tactics.

A generative model is an evolutionary model that leads to emergent behavior. As a consequence, a master of chess is able to recall the layout of chess positions in a real game in an instant, yet is unable to remember pieces placed in random positions.

That is because causality is present in the movements of pieces in a chessboard. An intuitive system like the human mind is able to capture that causality as a means to understanding and recall.

Those trained as physicists strive to see the world in terms of symmetries and processes that break symmetries. It's a meta-principle that guides their questioning.

This is very different from how many are taught physics (I guess in high school). We come to know of physics as consisting of laws that describe the behavior of inanimate (or is it indifferent) objects? These laws are described as expressions of equalities (i.e. equations).

But laws like Newton's f=ma or Einstein's e=mc^2 are derived from a higher meta principal. These principles are known as conservation laws. Energy, momentum, angular momentum are all conserved.

Conservation laws however are also derived from a higher principle. A conservation law implies that something remains the same as the situation of study change. Energy conservation implies that it is that something that does not change in time. In short, a symmetry.

This idea that laws are derived from conservation principles that is derived from symmetries is at the core of the study of physics. The laws of physics are only authoritative as long as they don't violate a higher principle. Ultimately, that principle is all about symmetry.

Damasio in his book 'The Strange Order of Things' argues that the core of condition lies in homeostasis. I agree with this generalization. But let me work out in a tweet storm how consciousness relates to homeostasis.

Human consciousness is related to awareness of surprising or threatening observations. It's an error-correcting mechanism that lends attention to discrepancies of our expectations of the world.

The mind is composed of many layers of cognition. Also, its massive parallelism implies reducing the conditional checks required for error correction.

To do this, consciousness is engaged only in a time-sliced manner in a periodic manner. The majority of time spent is in unconscious activity with only periodic activation of the conscious error-correcting process.

The system 1 unconscious intuitive mechanism minimizes the effort of performing error correction. It is automated and driven by habit. It is like a river flowing without obstructions.

The Balkanization of Africa has long been a strategic aim of several foreign powers. As Zbigniew Brzezinski, a US foreign policy theoretician and top adviser to US President Barack Obama stated, a divided and warring Nigeria ultimately serves the interests of the United States.

The initial intention of the powers that be in covertly supporting Boko Haram was to destabilize Nigeria, trigger sectarian divisions and violence, and then rush in to ‘save’ Nigeria under the banner of military assistance and humanitarian aid. Today the powers that be

..has essentially created a conflict intervention industry. Some are testing and exhibiting new weapons system. Others are flexing their diplomatic influence. Private military contractors are securing lucrative contracts, with Russia leading the pack in this field with its

"Little green men" in Libya and Mozambique. Not to be left out Eric Prince, the founder of U.S based Blackwater, travelled to Abuja where he met with Nigeria's President and offered to destroy Boko Haram for a fee of US$1.5 billion. That offer was rejected. See the dynamics?

They criticized Eeben Barlows STTP involvement in Nigeria and then used the back door to try cut a $1.5 billion deal with the Nigerian government. Abuja chose the South African based Special Tasks, Training, Equipment and Protection (STTEP) International Ltd.

Thread – Excerpt from a Ross Rant (Election-related)

1. These following are excerpts from a recent “Ross Rant.” Joel Ross publishes these periodic reports that provide commentary on the changing scene with an eye toward wise future investments.

2.

There never was going to be a new stimulus deal. Pelosi did not want to do anything that might help Trump, and she was hoping to trap McConnell, and make him look like he killed it so they could argue the Dems need to control the Senate.

3. My sense is that backfired. It is clear to most that she is the problem, and why, and that she does not give a damn about the people who are suffering. It is all about getting power. Unfortunately, Wall St kept being fooled thinking there would be a deal.

4. So the market was up and down depending on which false rumor they believed. Classic Wall St. Buy on rumor and hope. Sell when it does not happen, then buy again. Trader’s dream.

5. The EU is now in the midst of a major virus surge and that will kill any hope of a near term economic rebound as lockdowns get put back on. While in the US there are a few stories of hospitals in rural areas getting to capacity, reality is, most of the US has lots of capacity.

In July 2020, the whole month, The Lincoln Project was everywhere. Profiles at NBC, CNN, WaPo, NYT, NBC, ABC, the New Yorker. NONE of them did any serious vetting of the group or their claims

only reporter Ebony Bowden, at the NYPost really looked at TLP with any objectivity

As witch-hunt #3 gets underway by @BeatriceJanzon
@sverigesradio @sr_ekot against me, Keith Begg, a citizen of Ireland and Sweden and no doubt some members of the FB Group I would like to post some questions to the above:
🆘Is it ethical, that the tactics and antics of a state

media station, paid for with taxpayers money, can infiltrate a Private FB group and try to discredit them? This is done in the most authoritarian of states.
🆘Is it ethical that the Honorable David Nabarro from @WHO had to issue a press release due to being deliberately

misquoting in Swedish media?
🆘Are these headlines reflective of what you would see in free media in a democracy, when the rest of the world was posting quite opposite headlines about Sweden?
🆘Does the deliberate distortion of information on Swedish TV constitute any

breaches of trust? Why was it done? After all when the government changed its C19 strategy on the Gov website, they deemed it a mistake?
🆘Not to mind the Italian embassy having to issue three statements over false claims by Tegnell

which were picked up by the media. Do I as a private citizen think that @RSF_en made a big mistake by recognizing Sweden as #4 in terms of Freedom of the Press? ABSOLUTELY. We want to know what they based their decisions on. Because it is clear to many