i can tell he is very wise..

it also reminds me of the so-called yuga cycles (in the Spenglerian sense, not the Hindu)

perhaps these mythic cycles, ubiquitously described in indo-european cultures, are in fact just an early description of this adaptive cycle, itself a ubiquitous feature of adaptive systems

i now have twitter in mind:

the death of twitter has led to a system reorganization (bluesky) we are currently opportunistic (😖) colonizers of the new ecosystem

the good part about the death stage of old systems is that the growth phase is marked by the most creative potential

they go over a number of situations where this cycle has occurred, various ecosystems following shocks (fires, introduction of new predators, human development), in human society (eg rise of corporations to new markets, obsolescence of a market)

here is the cycle - it was first proposed for ecosystems

essentially, it describes a pattern of
a. opportunistic growth (r life strategy)
b. stabilization of the ecosystem (K strategy)
c. shocks triggering decline
d. a restart to step a again

not sure if this is damning for me or the GPU

waterfall tinkerer

yes i think that is my plan: fellow traveler persona bifurcation

the point of the book is to offer another perspective, where nature is adaptive and evolving, with some features that are resilient and/or stable, while others are stochastic and/or unstable

fourth is “nature resilient”:

this is distinguished from the second by including many stable and unstable states. a shock won’t necessarily be suppressed, but can lead to another stable state

all 4 of these are caricatures/myths, none capture the Truth and full dynamics of how nature behaves

third is “nature anarchic”:

this corresponds to much of degrowther mindset. nature is a precious balance and small upsets can amplify bringing down the whole system (and us with it!!)

the second is “nature stable”:
in this view, the cybernetics of nature prevent disturbances from amplifying; shocks are suppressed and nature finds balance. this doesn’t correspond to any ideology per se, but is expressed by some gaian hippies

day 1 highlights:

they go over myths of “nature”

the first is “nature is flat”:
the world is a blend of happenstance, dominated by random fluctuations. this frequently associates with growther mindset, where nature is open for domination and catastrophic changes can not amplify

that’s a lot of consciousness!

from what i understand, the 14,648 people on this app are a secret shadowy organization intent on controlling twitter from the shadows (=open sky, the metaphysics is complicated)

i am the 14,649th person

i do like him as a person, he seems nice

i think his ideas are largely correct as well, active inference does seem like a good framework for “sentient behavior” (as he calls it)

it’s over?

just finished Active Inference and Letters to a Young Poet, will need to find new books

my reviews are:

Active Inference was mid, honestly better to read papers on the subject: more compact and clearer

Letters: quite good! prose in a poetic format is nice