Nah's sporadic log

I decided to “think loud” (learned from loudthoughts) and do it in the form of forum log (learned from Joker) as I somehow like the forum interface a lot more than e-mail interface, word processor, text editor, and so on, for writing how I feel and what I think.

As we can’t edit our posts after 48 hrs or so, it has more power of fixating what I would write, and it may probably function better as a log (in mystical or bullshit sense).

In short I’m going to use this thread as a memo (not a daily one, unlike Joker is doing) to keep some information/idea hanging around my mind.

As such, I don’t think it will be very interesting for many other members. Sorry.
If it annoys you too much, please put me in your ignore list.

This morning, I was thinking about the hierarchy of the awareness layers.
I mean, when the center of density of awareness change its primary focal layer, there is a noticeable shift the perception we get.

When the focus of awareness is pulled back from thought stream or visual image, I often get the impression of “silence” accompanied by the higher awareness of the background sounds such as ambient noise, inner ear sound (and sometime inner body sound like heart beat).
I thought it’s a little strange and contradicting to have the impression of the “silence” when I’m actually more aware of sounds, but I guess it’s because the other information like
thought stream and some kind of visual images are over shadowing the sound awareness and thus appears as “noisy” to our sound awareness, most probably.

And this impression of silence is a sign that some of our mental activity have (temporary) ceased or at least the awareness isn’t pulled and attached on it.

Right now, even as I type this post and compose the sentences, I am aware of ambient noise and there is the impression of the silence, somehow, despite the thought activity still going on. It’s as if it’s not me thinking but my fingers are typing this automatically without any effort of mine. And words are coming out without lots of thinking/consideration/reflection.

However, the main point I wanted to write and log is about the hierarchy of human awareness structure as I said earlier.

Just like noticing “silence” when the awareness isn’t pulled/attached to (seemingly) noisy things like thought, we have the impression of “darkness” when the awareness is pulled from visual perception (and visual inner imaging).
And we have the impression of “dropping” just before the awareness is gone and we are not aware, any more.

So, although I’m not sure about the exact order (in the hypothetical hierarchy) nor the structure, there are different layers of common focus and the symptom when it fade out (and probably when it’s engaged).

Lack of thought ==> impression of “sharper crispier reality” <<>> sensory awareness
Lack of visual information ==> impression of darkness <<>> visual awareness
Lack of noisy information ==> impression of “silence” <<>> sound awareness
Lack of balance keeping feed back loop information ==> impression of “dropping” <<<>>> orientation awareness

Fixation on visual perception gives the impression of sharper crispier image/reality.
It’s as if we are seeing things in “higher definition”.
Also, things may appear “shiny”, too.
I don’t think there is much merit in this state, even though some people seem to be impressed and consider this as something good/desired/positive.
I wrote “sensory awareness”, but I’m not sure about the hierarchy, relation, about this, yet.

Other awareness layers:

Location awareness (noticed during wake up process)
Gut, chest, throat/neck/shoulder feeling awareness
Tactile sensation awareness and/or Skin related (temperature, air movement, pressure) aawreness
Olfactory awareness
Taste and other mouth teeth related awareness
Tendon and/or muscular tension awareness

I’ve been testing some javascript vector drawing editors so that we can have easy (but probably rather primitive) drawing capability in the (official) ILP Wiki.

It should work on both IE and FF/Safari/etc, and it should be relatively light weight.

I’m thinking about using one of these:

JsVectorEditor — Very light but limited (based on Raphael)

code.google.com/p/jsvectoreditor/
Demo: mini.dreamhosters.com/jsve/painter.html

SVG-edit — Well balanced but requires plugin in IE

code.google.com/p/svg-edit/
Demo: svg-edit.googlecode.com/svn/bran … ditor.html

DojoX Drawing — Heavy and buggy
mini.dreamhosters.com/DojoxDrawing.html

Probably I’ll use SVG-Editor as it’s relatively mature and installing plugin in IE shouldn’t be a problem for IE user at home.
It may mean we can’t edit if we are using public machine. But it’s not so safe to login with public machine, anyway.

DojoX first seems promising, but too heavy for my taste and not much activity/support around it.

JSVE is my favorite, as it’s very light and easy. But I need to work on it (a lot?) to add some functions to make it fun to use and practical.

Glad that I’m inspiring others.

Thanks to persistent effort of James and especially to this post, I thought about “cause and effect”.

Although “cause and effect” is somehow often seen as unilateral thing, I think of it as more of mutual relationship.

When a thing (let’s call it “A”) affects another thing (let’s call it “B”), A is considered as the “cause” of the change happened in B.
So, we tend to think A caused an effect in B, THUS A precede B in hierarchy or whatever the structure like cause-effect chain.

However, when A affect B in any way, B is also affecting A.
If A is a bullet and B is a target, B is affecting the movement and probably the shape and other properties of A at the same time A is hitting B and causing changes in B’s properties.
So, B is the cause for the changes in A, as much as A is the cause for the changes in B.

In other words, the usual perspective of “cause and effect” is pretty one-sided and lacks the other half, in my opinion.
And I blame monotheism, again, for this kind of “unilateral” thinking in which something is somehow absolute and others are all obeying it.

It’s like the debate of if it’s the sun turning around the earth or the earth orbiting around the sun. In either way, it’s a “unilateral” and one-sided view.
I think the sun is turning around the earth IF we take the earth as the point of reference and the earth is turning around the sun IF we take the sun as the point of reference.
And probably it’s more accurate to say that the sun and earth are mutually turning around.

So, I don’t think the cause and effect is a one way game, but mutual one.
Moreover, we cannot really separate only two things out of everything, and it means everything is mutually being the cause and effect for everything else at the same time, I’d say.

In this kind of view, if we take the biggest mass as the point of reference, we may be able to consider it as the god of universe as far as (and only) gravity is concerned.
But there can be other things that has the biggest potential in other SPECIFIC property, too.

And even if one is bigger than others, it doesn’t mean it’s the first cause, as others are also the causes at the same time.
As we can die from the poison of small insect, size/potential in one property doesn’t warrant potential in other area.

What you write is interesting and even entertaining, although I’m not sure if you want it to be entertaining.

Since I lost the notion of “1” or oneness (an/or counting) a few years ago, I lost all remaining interests in math and symbolic logic.
I doesn’t mean I can’t count any more, though.
It only mean I don’t have the sense of basic certainty that accompany when we do simple math and counting things.
I can still do mental calculation and other simple math things fairly well, but there isn’t the sense of certainty and there is the sense of hypothetical/artificial artwork or gimmick, instead.

And I think some (or more) sense of certainty around true/false distinction is gone, too.
This creates (along with other feeling) prevailing generic sense of uncertainty, so to speak.

From this type of perspective, I notice more and more about the way many of notions and theories are based on very naive presumption of separation and other sets of certainty.
And in this spirit that I find the logic to be highly biased and one sided, just like the notion of the “cause and effect” I wrote about, yesterday.

I think lots of thing including traditional logic motivated by the fear of uncertainty that pushed many of us to cling on to presumed certainty of truth and to try to preserve it, instead of simply observing and investigating everything without making any untouchable or sacred zone.

To someone like me, it would be good if there is a logic that has the basic presumption of uncertainty and treating certainty as come sort of anomaly/mistake or false recognition, to detect where we start to boost certainty level with what kind of blind faith/presumption, for example.
Usually, the mistake starts very early on.
In the case of the presumption of “existence”, for example, I think the basic self awareness is already generating the sense of certainty, and we stretch this out to the presumption of persistent and stable existence.
And this is subtle and hard to detect and feel, although many of us feel that there is something wrong with this illogical presumption as the existential angst, in my opinion.
It’s hard to pinpoint these low level (or foundational) certainties and its huge effect in our subconscious evaluations.

But there are easier certainty make overs to detect around us.
And “logic” for some of us (like me) is to apply different evaluation methods (perspectives) to all directions (not just one side, one sector), one by one, to compare and investigate possible relations and implications, rather than trying to preserve phony truth at all cost.
In short, my perception of logic is investigation tool of perspectives and not just a crippled tool for supporting absolutist thinking (of monotheists and idealists), seeing things in black and white.

I’m not saying logic of Aristotle flavor is useless/meaningless, though.
Just like simple math, I can still write program with binary logic, translating human activity and work procedure into the form computer can interpret.

For now, I’m pretty certain that one sided, unilateral thinking is a faulty one, till such sense of certainty wear out and I loose the remaining interest in this matter.

Entertainment is only half of my gesture. I want people to come to their own conclusions but more importantly the cryptic nature of my writing I want people to discover somthing about themselves and the world around them.

I usually don’t try to influence others, so much.
It’s because I would get influenced by others IF I’m successful in influencing them.
And we don’t know what kind of influence we are getting, in return.

So, I usually “eat” some perspective of others and write some perspective of mine, in return. In this way, transaction is clear and I don’t get too much of what I don’t want.

But you’ve got to do what you want to do, I guess.

I think I’m going to use svg-edit, most probably.
But instead of embedding SVG in the html, I’ll convert it in PNG.
This way, every one can see the graphic, at least.

Also, it will eliminate the need to put javascript in wiki pages.
Editing will be done by clicking the image or by clicking the edit button.
It will show the editor screen with all javascripts and also svg data of the image, which is saved when we convert it into PNG format.

So, just like the wiki site that is keeping wiki text data and converted html pages, it will keep SVG data and converted PNG files for the faster loading (and to minimize impact of the server).

I think this can be done with very little addition/modification to the code of SVG edit, wiki engine, etc.
For receiving and saving the SVG and PNG file, I may use Perl, C, or Ocaml, most probably. I don’t know who is going to be doing the conversion: client side in Javascript? Or on the server?

When we wake up from sleep, the certainty of different layers (like sound, location awareness, orientation awareness, mid term memory, longer term memory, etc) comes up, sometime very quickly and sometime nearly one by one, very slowly.

And there is another kind of waking up.
The awakening that come with what some people may call and existential angst/anxiety.
I think it’s stronger if one is more aware.

It seems, this is caused by the presence of conflicting/contradicting certainties.

The sense of certainty of physical or other realm is contradicting the sense of certainty coming from the awareness of awareness or awareness of void underlying the awareness of awareness.

So, first we wake up to the physical (and also human) realm.
Then we wake up toward emptiness, most probably.

Void ==> Awareness ==> … some realms … ==> physical (human) realm.
Construction of certainty is done without much self-awareness, till the physical realm, where the tremendous stability/solidity allow us to think anything in any way without worrying about the potential influence on the environment.

Void <== Awareness <== … some realms … <== physical (human) realm.

And when we wake up in underlying realm, the sense of certainty of previous realm is lost.
So, if the sense of certainty in the basic awareness is strong, the sense of certainty of all the rest (some realm to human realm) would fade.
If the sense of certainty is void is strong, somehow, even the sense of certainty in awareness is lost.

When the sense of certainty is the previous level is lost, there is no more conflict/contradiction of certainties.

The sense of certainty one feels in physical realm isn’t uniform, either.
Some are more connected with their sensory system and thus their reality (the realm they feel certain) is the physical world. Usually, it makes them materialist, objectivist, etc. They are more concerned with physical survival.
Some are more concerned with emotion. They feel more certainty with their feeling/emotion and thus they tend to become religious person. They tend to be absolutist.
And some others may feel more certainty with their reasoning and thus they become thinker. They can become more logical (in broader sense).

But often, we are the mixture of these, depending on the day and time and given situation.

People who have stronger sense of certainty with logic can potentially understand the relative nature of thought (and all information processing). This (the lack of absolute) may cause their sense of certainty, in general, to sharply drop down.
Also, if they seek the absolute, it will lead them to understanding of emptiness and this create a tunnel, tube, worm hole, or shuttle from physical realm to more basic realm.
Combined with the understanding of the nature of logic (in the broader sense, in the sense of information processing), this anchorlessness reduces the certainty of any realm.
When the certainty of basic separation/division, and even awareness is gone, it allow the person to digest both negatively and positively perceived information because the stickiness and resistance/friction created by it is reduced (or can be canceled).
So, these reduces and breaks the membranes that separated conscious/subconscious and also physical and other realms, making observation and shifting of awareness a lot easier.

SVG to PNG

$wgSVGConverters = array(
‘ImageMagick’ => ‘$path/convert -background white -thumbnail $widthx$height! $input PNG:$output’,
‘sodipodi’ => ‘$path/sodipodi -z -w $width -f $input -e $output’,
‘inkscape’ => ‘$path/inkscape -z -w $width -f $input -e $output’,
‘batik’ => ‘java -Djava.awt.headless=true -jar $path/batik-rasterizer.jar -w $width -d $output $input’,
‘rsvg’ => ‘$path/rsvg -w$width -h$height $input $output’,
‘imgserv’ => ‘$path/imgserv-wrapper -i svg -o png -w$width $input $output’,
);

Serving svg and falling back to png

On some Linux installations (e.g. opensuse 10.3) rsvg is renamed: opensuse 10.3 for example:

$wgSVGConverters = array( ‘rsvg’ => ‘/usr/bin/rsvg-convert -w $width -h $height -o $output $input’);
$wgSVGConverter = ‘rsvg’ ;

If the Java executable is not in the path, it must be specified to use batik, or a “Thumbnail creation failed:” message will be displayed. For example:

$wgSVGConverters[‘batik’] = ‘/usr/local/bin/java -Djava.awt.headless=true -jar $path/batik-rasterizer.jar -w $width -d $output $input’;

* $wgSVGConverter
* $wgSVGConverterPath

simple feed back: allows comparison (or match) of original signal and modified (or delayed) signal.

It’s like injecting modified/delayed data into a new (or original) data set along with the original signal.

Without feed back:
signal ===> signal

With feedback;
{signal, feedback signal} ===> signal

If we think in the perspective of time and feed back of delayed signal, it’s to flatten the time dimension and superimposing it in the data set.

Time dimension shown in vertical order:
signal at t1 ==> output
signal at t2 ==> output
signal at t3 ==> output
…
signal at tn ==> output

With the feed back feed back, the time dimension is flattened and incorporated in horizontally imaged data set, here:
signal at t2, feed back signal at t1 ==> output
signal at t3, feed back signal at t2 ==> output
…
signal at tn+1, feed back signal at tn ==> output

And I think awareness is made of lots of these feed back flattening many different dimensions and categories into ever larger data set, which makes up our field of awareness.
So, it’s a bit normal of confuse things of different category/dimension for us because the awareness makes up the mixed bag by its nature.
But it’s possible to discern the differences and to sort out the entangled field of mixed up awareness.

For example, “positive” and “negative” are usually considered as a pair of horizontally opposed concept, sot to say.
But I think “negative” is usually more primitive than “positive” and it’s another one of superimposed vertical structure which we mistake as horizontally placed things.

By folding and flattening more primitive concept together with newly focused “positive”, the primitive concept appears as “negative” because of the lack of the criterion for the new focus when placed and compared side by side.
And by folding more and more positives, very complex nature of the filed of awareness is made up.

The “negative” appearance can be understood in another way, too.
When we look back from positive side of focus, flipping the focus 180 degrees, we see the back place with is devoid of the criterion to detect positive match, naturally.
So, this focus is recognized as the negative, and this “appearance of negative” is placed side by side with the positive focus. And injecting/superimposing the image of the preceding data with the data of positive match into the filed of awareness is “folding” and “flattening” the vertical structure into horizontal form (or so I prefer to call).

To unfold and to sort out these, it requires very fine/delicate control of perspective placement/management/comparison.
It requires soft and receptive concentration.

Finally, I modified svg-edit and it’s extension so that I can edit svg graphic in the browser and then save it back on the server.

The image is converted and shown in PNG format so that IE and other browser without svg support can show it.

mini.dreamhosters.com/SandBox.html

To edit, IE needs chrome plug-in: code.google.com/chrome/chromeframe/

Examples of images made with svg-editor.
mini.dreamhosters.com/FocusOfAwareness.html

I noticed that expressing my thought in English, which is a foreign language for me, helped me to become aware of things i already knew yet not fully aware in my native language.

I think it’s not easy to notice subtle things, especially things in subconscious side, with our native language because we usually learn it before we become very aware and thus there are many natural blind spots in it.
With a foreign language we learned later on, there are less blind spots, and it’s easier for us to see things nearly hidden in our native tongue.

Maybe we can see the phenomenon like this: There are so many (subconscious) presumptions built into the native language that it’s not easy to detect them, while the use of foreign language may allow us to see them because we have to be at least a bit more conscious about details when we learn new language (and thus less there are subconscious presumptions with foreign language).

I always wanted to have easy tools to visualize my thoughts/perspectives.
I’ve already put online SVG graphic editor to do some of this, but now I’ve incorporated Graphvis based automatic chart/map layout system into the unofficial ILP Wiki.
mini.dreamhosters.com/GraphvizExamples.html

I use a small script to generate graphical site map, too.
It works as an image map and you can click on any node to jump to the page.
mini.dreamhosters.com/GraphicalSiteMap.html

This is how it looks (less image map functionality):
[tab][/tab]

This can be used in many different scenario, with different layout methods.

By visualizing, it helps oneself to clarify relations/connections/etc between different concepts/perspectives and it can be helpful in explaining own idea to others, I guess.

mini.dreamhosters.com/HowToThink.html