Ran Prieur http://ranprieur.com/#9a417fe513f58988c3b5b1e84cfc57397194a79b 2024-05-10T22:20:46Z Ran Prieur http://ranprieur.com/ ranprieur@gmail.com May 10. http://ranprieur.com/#963b687840a4463b5655065559e37dae559a7a48 2024-05-10T22:20:46Z May 10. No ideas this week, but I have another long quote. I've just started reading the 1926 novel Moravagine. This is a complete paragraph from chapter 2:

I have already said that the activity of consciousness is a congenital hallucination. Our origins being aqueous, our life is the perpetual rhythm of tepid waters. We have water in our stomachs and in our ears. We perceive the rhythm of the universe through the peritoneum, which is our cosmic tympanum, a collective sense of touch. Of our individual senses the first in rank is our hearing, which perceives the rhythm of our own particular and individual life. This is why all diseases begin with auditory troubles which are, like the manifestations of marine life, keys to the past and precursors of an inexhaustible process of becoming. It was, therefore, none of my business as a doctor to attempt to hinder such manifestations. I envisaged, rather, the possibility of multiplying these tonic accidents and achieving, through a prodigious subversion, the perfect accord of a new harmony. The future.

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May 8. http://ranprieur.com/#82a95593864368e3d2be86c67ebd84082fe01c46 2024-05-08T20:00:38Z May 8. Two more drug links. Cannabis use is linked to a lower likelihood of experiencing subjective cognitive decline. "...after controlling for various demographic, health, and substance use factors, non-medical cannabis use was associated with a 96% decrease in the odds of reporting subjective cognitive decline." That's a big number that will probably come down with better testing, and I'm curious to see more research.

From the Psychonaut subreddit, Can you you describe THAT thing? I have a thick head against tripping and have never experienced that thing, but I've read a ton of descriptions, and the top comment is one of the best I've seen, so I'll quote it verbatim:

It's like all possible paths converging into this present thoughtless moment. It's an infinite informational orgasm that loops back on itself forever. There's no where to go because it's everywhere. There's no other time because it's all of time. There's nobody else there because it's everybody. It's not a personal experience but it's somehow also all you. It's before the universe, it's after the universe. In fact the existence of a universe becomes completely nonsensical. It will always be THAT thing, there's no room for physical existence whatsoever. There never was a universe. And you can never come down from this realization. It's Nirvana and it always has been Nirvana. But then in the same paradoxical way that you forgot this unforgettable thing when you were born. You forget it and are rebirthed. It's like the realization shape shifts into non realization. It's still THAT thing but it's completely unlike itself so you don't recognize it anymore. It's just normal reality as we know it. Something like that! xD

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May 6. http://ranprieur.com/#2c3308ad672ed864ae6ab36ab750c64c5d4bfc40 2024-05-06T18:40:56Z May 6. Stray links. From a Reddit predictions thread, a sub-thread about drone warfare: "Soon they'll have guns and fly in coordinated swarms."

From the same thread, another sub-thread predicting a resurgence of tinkering and trades. Related: a big blog post, Woodworking as an escape from the absurdity of software

Another Reddit thread with lots of good stories, People who have done hardcore drugs, what was the experience like?

More drugs, Is childhood trauma linked to challenging ayahuasca experiences? Surprisngly, no. Among people who do ayahuasca, a study found no correlation between childhood trauma and challenging experiences.

Finally, some ecology. Why you should let insects eat your plants. Because the plants will recover and insects are in trouble.

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May 3. http://ranprieur.com/#8898fb001bbfd0682843e663facd0046f6525e29 2024-05-03T15:10:54Z May 3. Today is Bandcamp Friday, on which all the money goes to the artists. I've been continuing to explore obscurities, and this compilation album, Wayfaring Strangers: Cosmic American Music led me to this page, From The Stacks, which is loaded with interesting and pretty good stuff.

But the album I'm buying is from 2021, by a young NYC duo called Petite League: Joyrider. I like it better than their other albums, and though I can't say exactly how, I can guess why: it was made during Covid quarantine. I wonder if, in 20 years, we'll look back at a little golden age across multiple kinds of creative works. Anyway, my favorite song on the album is Echo, an absolute gem of psych pop.

I also want to give a plug for the greatest album of all time, now ten years old, Big Blood - Unlikely Mothers

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May 1. http://ranprieur.com/#d42ff4dda3d73c89b8b57540231ea46b95929ce9 2024-05-01T13:50:40Z May 1. I'm still reading Marshall Sahlins' book The New Science of the Enchanted Universe, and today I have a few notes on God, specifically the differences between the supreme being as conceived by Christians and by hunter-gatherers. Sahlins, with more precision, describes these two cultures as transcendentalist and immanentist.

Transcendentalists see God as separate from the world and perfectly good, which leads to the problem of evil: why does God allow it? Immanentists don't have this problem, because they see God as containing all good and all evil -- and then it's up to us, which of those aspects we call upon.

The way immanentists think about God is not unlike the way we think about the government. The government is not mythical but practical. It is both one and many. Although it's a real thing, we can't exactly see "the government" or talk to it -- all we can do is talk to various people who represent the government and perform some of its functions. In the same way, the BaKongo don't talk directly to Nzambi, only to intermediaries, which could be anything from living shamans to dead ancestors to animal spirits.

The funny thing is, even totally egalitarian cultures, where no person has power over any other person, still describe the spirit world as hierarchical. Materialists would say, they must have been exposed to hierarchical human cultures, in order to project them on their imaginary world. Immanentists would say, the spirit world came first. It is the deep nature of reality to have nested spheres of influence, for example, one spirit for the mountain, and one spirit for each tree on the mountain. It doesn't mean the mountain can force the trees to do something they'd rather not do, but that's what tends to happen in human hierarchies.


lava, flowers, palm trees April 29. So last week we finally made it to Hawaii, specifically Kona on the big island. It's an easy flight from Seattle, and there are ways to do it more cheaply than we did it, but we got the full tourist experience. A few notes:

So much lava. If there is a wall, it's going to be built of cemented-together lava rocks. I've seen photos of smooth lava, but most of it is very rough. Off the side of the road it's just endless jagged black rubble, in various stages of plants growing there since the last flow. The landscapes could be anything from blasted desert to scrubby grass to savanna to jungle.

The color of the ocean, looking down from a boat, is more beautiful than I thought colors could be. I didn't even take a picture because I've seen surfing movies and it's nothing like touching it with your actual eyes. It reminded me of the lyric from Once In A Lifetime: "Into the blue again, after the money's gone."

The ocean is not even lukewarm. We went snorkeling and the only reason I wasn't shivering is that I didn't take a flotation noodle and I had to burn a lot of energy to stay afloat. But parasailing is surprisingly peaceful. There's no adrenaline rush at all, just floating serenely through the sky.

Best restaurant in greater Kona: Rebel Kitchen. It's far enough out from the tourist area that the staff are not obsequious, and most of the diners are locals. Everything on the small menu is creative and made carefully.

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