571: Columbus' first beach, friendless legacies, and AI philosophy of mind
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Last day in the DR today. Samana town and Las Galeras proved what I told you last week - nothing there but gorgeous beaches and French tourists. El Valle was a worthy detour to find some off the beaten path hippie retreat centers, and Hacienda Cucuyo had an incredible panoramic view over the bay.
Playa Rincon is purportedly where Christopher Columbus first made land in the New World, and Samana town is built exactly how one Napoleon Bonaparte planned to build it as Port Napoleon, before he relinquished French Louisiana to the USA in the Louisiana Purchase, after failing to surpress the Haitian revolution.
So much more history here than anything back in my home of California....
I finished the Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V E Schwab, a wonderful book about a French peasant girl who gains eternal life from a devil figure in return for nobody ever remembering her when their line of sight is broken.
The narrative explores over 300 years what matters in life without relationships or the ability to leave a legacy, which was an especially poignant read for me while as a traveller having the same conversations with taxis, hosts, and tourists against the backdrop of endless gorgeous beaches that all blur into one.
I also finished the Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver which traces the Congo’s struggle for independence through the eyes of four missionary daughters who go there with their family.
The author spent time in the Congo as a child, which lends a deliciously immersive air to the narrative and taught me many things I did not know about the region, such as Patrice Lumumba’s murder, the CIA’s installation of Mobutu, and the fact that Joseph Conrad’s 1899 book Heart of Darkness about Belgian King Leopold’s atrocities there precipitated the modern human rights movement.
It was also a poignant read for me, surrounded as I was by Afro-Caribbeans on ground zero of colonialism where the other white people spoke French.
Technology
My friends who know say that this SQL tutorial is the best free one on the web. I’m brushing up on my SQL skills for ongoing interviews and it’s been great.
The Spirit Tech database gathers companies building in the spiritual development space all in one place. I like their filter of ‘scientifically congruent’.
Ideologies
Substack prompts you to follow similar accounts when you subscribe to someone, and that’s how philosopher/physicist Andy Masley crossed my desk.
This fascinating post unpacking the deeper questions beyond AI development was a surprise treasure. I’ve never heard of the Quine philosopher he mentions.
There is nothing fundamentally magical happening in the human brain
If physicalism is true, then functionalism is likely true as well—implying that mental states can arise in machines very different from the human brain.
Introspection is a bad way to understand our minds
To predict the next word, it’s helpful to actually understand the world
Words don’t have clear meanings we deeply understand
There are probably ways of thinking and experiencing the world so alien to our brains that humans can never access them, but AI could
It’s okay to put probabilities on speculative future events, but they often smuggle in a lot of unstated assumptions
We shouldn’t rely too much on philosophical arguments to predict specifics about the future
Philosophical anti-humanism is underrated
This Brene Brown exercise to discover your core value from a list of many is a good one. Hard to pick just two!
Memes
Our randomly generated entertainment future is already upon us, with these professionally edited and scored AI edits of slop ideas like an army of Shreks invading a McDonalds. Honestly it’s hard to take my eyes away.
