who are you?

R' Nathan Hakimi, BA, JD

Welcome to my website. I am a lawyer in Chicago, with an undergraduate degree in Cognitive Science from Brandeis University, a JD from IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, Orthodox Rabbinical Ordination ("Semicha") from Machon Semicha, and some experience with film/photography/acting, piano/guitar/drum, and other creative endeavors.

This website highlights content related to topics in:
- Neuroscience
- Technology
- Art (Music/Film)
- Philosophy/Religion
- Law
- General Opinions ;)

External Links:

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Work: [email protected]
Office: (312) 210-7700

About Me

My name is Nathan Hakimi. I am from (and in) Chicago.I wear multiple hats:

1) Academic"Cognitive Science" was my major for the Bachelor's Degree at Brandeis University. It was under a special program called an interdisciplinary independent major (IIM), meaning it was comprised of courses from multiple departments, combined into an original, self-designed major proposed to and approved by a faculty committee. Its courses were taken primarily from the following departments:

- Neuroscience
- Computer Science
- PhilosophyI had a faculty advisor from each of the departments that were being included as part of the major. Mine were:

- Donald Katz (Neuroscience)
- Antonella Di Lillo (Computer Science)
- Jerry Samet (Philosophy)Further, there were many professors with whom I took classes and was lucky to have a close relationship and/or continuing contact, including:

- Peter DeScioli ("Evolutionary Psychology")
- Rick Alterman ("Computational Cognitive Science")
- Robert Sekuler ("Cognitive Neuroscience)
- Donald Katz ("Behavioral Neuroscience")
- Eve Marder ("Principles of Neuroscience")
- Jerry Samet ("Consciousness, Brain, and Self")
- Sharon Goldwater ("Cognitive Modelling") [*Edinburgh - see below]As well, I was required to undertake coursework in computer science and mathematics as relevant to cognitive science and neurosciences, such as:

- Programming: Java And C
- Structure & Fundamentals of Computing
- Fundamentals of Programming
- Computer Programs: Structure/Interpretation
- Programming Paradigms
- Discrete Structures
- StatisticsLastly, I studied abroad for a term at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, in the School of Informatics. I chose Edinburgh for study abroad because it had an excellent reputation in CogSci / Informatics / AI. I took courses related to my major, including:

- Informatics: Reasoning & Agents
- Cognitive Modelling
- Adaptive Learning Environments
- Innovation & Enterprise for Scientists & Engineers
- Psychology of Thinking & Language2) Experiential

At and/or outside of Brandeis, I was lucky to gain additional experience in neuroscience research and clinical practice, such as:

- Research assistant in the lab of Prof. Sekuler (see above), eliciting training data from eye-tracker visual movement activity detection equipment, with Abby Noyce as doctoral research supervisor.
- Post-College Internship: "Neuroquest" Clinic in Skokie, administering EEG biofeedback for therapeutic purposes to patients.
- Independent Research: I conducted a mini-experiment under the supervision of Prof. Rick Alterman, who had published a paper with his doctoral supervisee, Brian Krisler. I extended their work using a tool they had developed, "HotKeyCoach," which trained users in the memorization of software keyboard shortcuts by teaching them to remember them during the activity of software usage. I scripted this tool on a new software application, solicited participants, performed trials, and wrote a paper on the findings. Hakimi, N. (May 2011) Training motor routines in-line with computer use: an independent validation of HotKeyCoach (HKC) as tool for resolution of ‘active user paradox.’ available online.3) Personal/Professional

In my personal life, I have the following additional credentials related, directly or indirectly, to cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience:

- Raised by two parents who are PsyD clinical psychologists
- Affiliation with Orthodox Judaism since age 22 (cir. 2012); three years of formal yeshiva (Talmudic seminary) study; attainment of Rabbinical ordination ("Semicha") in 2023
- Familiarity with psychedelic/entheogenic science, history, policy, culture, and research. See, e.g.: The Johns Hopkins Psilocybin Project; Oregon Psilocybin Services; Michael Pollan - How to Change Your Mind (2018); William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902); Aldous Huxley - The Doors of Perception (1954); Timothy Leary - Harvard Psilocybin Project (1920-1996).
- Familiarity with modalities of treatment in mental health including psychiatry, neurofeedback, psychopharmacology, therapy, psychoanalysis, and other clinical applications of cognitive science toward relief of mental health disorders.
- Currently a lawyer, (licensed since 2018), and owner of a small firm in Chicago. I practice commercial litigation, real estate, business transactions, professional malpractice, and more. See www.corepoint.law
- Last but not least, the lucky father of 3 children; husband of a tremendous, amazing wife.4) Final Note
I thought it worthwhile to include all of these details about my background and history, because the claims I set forth in this blog about society, technology, neuroscience, AI, and other topics, will be variously predicated on an assertion of relevant subject-matter authority, knowledge, and experience which are suitable for making claims over those topics. If at some point, you find that you do or do not agree with my claims, you are encouraged to assess the opinions firstly on their merit; as well as by the adequacy of my credentials to have them in the first place.

Articles/Publications

The following publications are related to (and published in journals for) several topics, primarily: Law, Judaism, and Science (e.g. Computer Science, Neuroscience). They have not been organized into sections by topic because several of the articles have overlapping topics.

The following publications are not credited in my name, but included research in which I played a role, as described:

Blog

Post 10: 9/9/2026
"Radiohead, the Talking Heads, the CIA: is Telepathy Real?"

Post 9: 7/13/2026
"Whence Machine Qualia?"

Post 8: 7/08/2026
"Externalization of the Will"

Post 7: 7/07/2026
"Hakimi's Top Ten Films"

Post 6: 2/11/2026
"Level Confusion, Level Coordination, Integration of Levels"

Post 5: 1/15/2026
Mutual Solipsism, or, "Brain(s) in a Vat"

Post 4: 12/4/2025
"Recursion and the Multiverse"

Post 3: 11/1/2025
"Did You Know??"

Post 2: 4/19/2024
"Cognitive-Force"

Post 1: 4/2/2024
"AI Implications on Philosophy, Law, & Society"

POST 10: 9/9/2026
"Radiohead, the Talking Heads, the CIA: is Telepathy Real?"

I. IntroThere was a band in the 80s led by David Byrne, called the Talking Heads. I hear they were really good! I was alive, for like, 9 months of the 80s. I breathed the air of the 80s, drank the breastmilk of the 80s. You know.Around the 90s, a great new act arose, whom I and many others swear great things by. Aside from co-claiming the mantle of the Beatles (together with Coldplay) (IMO), this band redefined everything about not only music but culture and civilization itself (ooohh...).That band named itself after the Talking Heads, and that band is called Radiohead.(True story as well, mate! "Radio Head" being the name of a track from the 1986 Heads album, True Stories. Look it up!)Is there such a thing as "telepathy"? "Mind reading"? "ESP"? If so, what does it have to do with psychedelics, postmodernism, and/or philosophy of consciousness?Read on, mate, and find out.--
Pre-ScriptSee previous blog entries in this site, where it was discussed whether there may be a radically different explanation of reality itself, whereby the physical world is subordinate (to a degree or manner or speaking) to the psychological world. Once the dust settles over debates in consciousness studies, theoretical physics, and philosophy, there will be more clarity about this, but it's a burgeoning area of inquiry in the sciences nowadays at a far more serious level. See Posts #2, #4, #9; see also this X article, and other places.I can't really summarize the outcome of all that now, not because it would take too long, but because it's technically still an unresolved thing altogether. I therefore have to admit to you, I'm not really going to have a "perfect explanation" of telepathy here either. But what I have is, on the basis of some of those theoretical ideas that are circulating, that much little bit further thought-experiment progress into the (still evolving) world of explaining the phenomena of transpersonal psychology, what we call (half-seriously) "ESP" and the like.II. ArgumentIf the following premises are true or at least plausible:1. Consciousness or mentality are features of reality itself, (Posts #2, #9, elsewhere);
2. Consciousness as a "force" may be causally prior to physical matter and forces (#2);
3. The totality of the "reality" including spacetime, dimensions, consciousness, etc. is such that there is a multi-layered state of past/present/future (a la Post #4);Then it could potentially follow that we could explain "telepathy" as follows:A)What society normally thinks of (in scifi let's say) as "ESP" or "telepathy" is that Person A is "beaming thoughts" to Person B. The "psychic" thoughts of Person A are "transmitted" to Person B and Person B can "receive" them (like a mental telephone), etc.What a revised picture of that would "look like" given the delving into consciousness and metaphysics theory would potentially be more like this:There are multiple units of mind or mentality which are all instantiated or incarnated mutually into a physical dimension of reality experience. If you took, for example, the famous metaphor of "brains in a vat" (see Post #5). But instead of there being yourself alone, in a massive theatre of hallucination (see: David Byrne's Theatre of the Mind) (true story!) (or see: Kaufman's Synecdoche NY or The Matrix or many other similar fictional representations). Instead imagine, if it was almost like a "multi-person hallucination," or a "multi-brain in a vat," or, a single ultimate mind which is broken up into units all of which are parsing a reality together but the units of mind and the reality they are parsing are connected together. Whatever.What that would "look like" is that the minds are already connected with each other in some type of space or realm or dimension or whatever, which itself exists "prior" to (conceptually) the physical space. When the minds are experiencing or thinking, they are really already participating in that with each other to begin with. The fact that there is a physical world surrounding us wasn't even limiting the mentality at all to begin with.So, the idea of "telepathy" as one human "sending thoughts" to another human is more or less an unnecessary or misguided representation in the first place. That representation is based on an assumption that the physical world is here, our minds are contained within our bodies, and the ability for one mind to hear another, is because the brains are like, beaming thoughts to each other. Instead what you would be saying is, the minds are already in a space together and the bodies are outerly manifested with each other but the minds anyways have direct access with each other prior to the physical world itself in the conceptual hierarchy.If that were the case, then for one mind to "hear" another is basically no different than one circle in a venn diagram knowing what is contained in its overlap with another circle. Like ghosts feeling when they cross through each other. Like the characters in an online game being able to talk to each other via their human players wearing headsets with a mic. It's a bit boggling in its own way, but it removes some of the mystery or miracle as well. (Probably just replacing one miracle or mystery for another one.) (As is usually the case.)B)Hypothetically, the additional idea we could throw in (even wilder than the previous one, if you can imagine) (but continuing to be speculative and exploratory here), is something that involves a temporal dimension i.e., past/present/future states, i.e. something akin to a "multiverse" of potential states of felt reality. This is where it also gets really trippy, too, so hold onto the hats or chairs or whatever you're physically nearby.If the mental states you interact with internally aren't necessarily bounded to the local state of the physical reality you're experiencing, then it is possible that they also aren't bounded to the local temporal reality you're experiencing. And it is possible that there are in fact different layers or versions to what all of "the minds" are experiencing, and they aren't only / necessarily / definitely the same as each other. But don't think about that too hard just yet. It would be possible, on this way of thinking about it, that the "other person" whose mind you can feel and think with internally, isn't necessarily experiencing the "same mental process" you are in a literal embodied, cotemporaneous, fashion.That would be another distinction from classical "ESP" picture. Instead of Person A "beaming" to Person B, maybe the mentality of Person A is sharing with the mentality of Person B at Time X1, in space Y1. But wherever the mentality of Person B is, at Time X2 in Space Y2, they aren't necessarily / definitively / decidedly / automatically "hearing" or "feeling" that shared mentality at that exact moment in that exact way. It could be shared in some sort of differing but overlapping status of the other mentality either psychologically or temporally or otherwise.This would help explain potentially why a lot of "telepathic instances" are difficult to prove or control. You wish to "bottle the lightning" or win the Randi Prize, but it doesn't quite seem to always work that way. Sometimes it seems there is a one-sided element to how a person felt subjectively about a supposedly "shared" experience, that the other supposed participant couldn't confirm from their end (if you've ever tried). It's not that there wasn't genuinely an aspect of the other consciousness involved, just that, when you consult externally with another person in the here-and-now, were you or weren't you thinking or feeling this as well, they can't confirm. But that isn't because it "didn't work" or you were just "imagining things." It could be because the person you were sharing mentality with isn't guaranteed to be the "same person," i.e. the same "instantiation" of that person, as the one you're trying to confirm with at the local and immediate physical level.In other words, the phenomenon might be something inherently variable, fluctuating, or "flaky" as it were at a metaphysical level. Potentially that would account for why it's not always necessarily as straightforward as "sending and receiving" thoughts like "lightbeams" as traditionally pictured in an "ESP" version. It doesn't mean it wasn't real it just means that because the underlying basis isn't simple person-to-person mentality sharing, but rather, something occurring in the underlying structure of the reality which is supposedly containing an aspect of psychology or consciousness in its underpinnings, so the sharing or transmission of mentality is really taking place but it's taking place at levels that aren't directly that clear and aware.I would imagine many people already have had this intuition, and that this likewise may dovetail with previous explanations given by the early masters such as James, Freud, Jung, Huxley, Foucault, etc. But the point here would be to integrate somewhat / a bit more of a picture that hypothetically accounts for the experience in a semi-concrete way, as concrete of a way as such an explanation could be given its nature ostensibly.--III. ConclusionAgain, a lot of this (all of it, actually) is perfectly speculative, but the point is merely to open up the consideration to possibilities of thinking about how this happens in a way that might be at minimum, hypothetically plausible, but more importantly, that could expand the ability of the imagination to conceive of a picture for this in order to possibly accommodate a better picture of the underlying phenomenon than a simplistic version would enable.Lastly, what I have started considering the idea of is that what we would call in a rather more conventional sense, a "telepathic communication" (like what the CIA experimented with back in the 70s for the "Stargate Project"), could be possibly more describable as a "hack" or an "exploit" of something that is naturally a feature of the cosmological and metaphysical reality, but which doesn't automatically "behave" according to deliberate human machinations, but which we can somewhat learn to manipulate or tame to satisfy certain purposes such as "transmitting" thoughts to each other like mental telephones.If that were the case, what it would mean is, that the "wavelength of thought" is something that is already occurring, basically all the time, and its purpose isn't necessarily to open a "channel" by which to send thoughts like phone calls. But rather, it's like an underlying feature of the mentality/consciousness as embedded in the fabric of the reality (again, per above, prior conceptually/hierarchically to physical or spacetime aspects of reality) which we are basically just becoming more aware of and then attempting to coordinate in order to try to derive some beneficial purpose from it, in the spirit of human ingenuity or just plain curiosity.It doesn't always behave the way we want it to, but that would make sense according to the above, because we might simply have a semi-misguided expectation of what it really is or how it really works. As the discoveries get clearer, we might find ourselves becoming better able to consciously improve our "usage" of the inherent properties of mentality as a transpersonal feature in the universe.This also opens the question of why certain altered states, like the state you enter when you listen to Radiohead or The Talking Heads (much less, if you were a member of those and were jamming with your bandmates), or the state you enter when you're on drugs that affect how the brain is processing information, etc., can impact the experience one has in terms of the mental reality.IV. Post-ScriptIt does a bit more toward impacting that direction of inquiry, and yet at the same time, leaves many very deep and perplexing issues fundamentally unresolved. Most unresolved of all is still the relationship between the "mind" or "mental realm," and the astonishingly complex organ known of as the "brain," with its 80 billion neurons, trillions of synapses, and quadregagillions of nuanced possible individual microstates of activity. Is there a direct one-to-one correlation between the specific individual moment of activity in Brain A, and the correlate activity that is so-called "shared" with Brain B of Person B? For that matter, is the moment of every given experience, even the normal sensory physical ones, also one-to-one identifiable with a certain brainstate? That is the issue still plaguing philosophy of mind, consciousness studies, and "empirical metaphysics" (as it were). Something left to continue working on, I guess.V. DedicationsScarlett Johansson, Thom Yorke, Various Friends+Family

POST 9: 07/13/2026
"Whence Machine Qualia?"

I have until now, defined in a number of different posts, things having to do with a handful of significant themes:- Kabbalah / Mysticism (especially from within a Jewish & Chassidic framework)
- AI/technology
- Consciousness
- Neurology/neuroscienceIn my first post, I insinuated that AI could be conscious, meaning, in the "hard problem" sense of the world. Elsewhere, (see publications, "Strange Loops in Real Life,") I wrote about how perhaps there is a neurocomputational explanation of free will, which is not only theoretically plausible but potentially experimentally validatable as well.Before I get into my own personal basis for believing that machines are "already conscious," I will admit to a great caveat (for many people) which is: the trouble implication about putting together the above two statements is:1) machines are conscious
2) free will has a computational basis
=
3) machines could attain free will (given the unlocking of the neurocomputational programming of true/pure "recursion" in an AI program.So, there is something a "bit" troubling about arguing as such, but, nevertheless as I have already stated elsewhere, I remain a futurist-optimist, and not a dystopian. If you are too queasy, you may discontinue.~My simple basis for believing that AI is "already conscious" is actually unique, in that it is predicated on a philosophical position which asserts that consciousness necessarily has to be deriving from an inherent property in the universe itself.If you take this tactic, it is not only "easier" to accept that AI are conscious. It is, in fact, a logical extension, from the fact that you are postulating that in a certain sense, "all things are conscious." And in turn, the questions isn't really "whether" Ai's are conscious. It's more a question of, like everything else in existence, exactly "what" does its conscious experience consist of?Taking that route is therefore "easier," so easy even that it is like philosophical and rhetorical "cheating." Indeed, the problem at that point reduces so far that it eliminates one of the usual assumptions about this debate:I never said that "the advent of 'sophisticated programming' is what made AI 'become' conscious."See: in fact, if you are a bit of a "panpsychist" or an "idealist" or a "mystic" or whatever the answer to the Hard Problem of Consciousness requires you to be, to believe that "all things inherently possess already the aspect of (what is known of as) 'qualia' (in some aspect or dimension)," then;The so-called "advent of" (generative unsupervised multi-layer neural nets) didn't change a thing as far as "getting silicon to feel things"; but rather,It really just "gave silicon something a little bit more interesting to feel" (than it did already!).~What is the difference between "embodied/biological consciousness" and "abstract / machine consciousness"?Or, to adapt Thomas Nagel: "what is it like to be a computation"? (see original article here) - Nagel, T., "What is it Like to Be a Bat?" Philosophical Review (1974)The answer is: think about it for yourself! We once spent a whole lot of time (inspired by Nagel) imagining ourselves as Bats, with echolocation. Didn't we? Well, it's not so different now, is it?We used to imagine "what it would be like" to be a tree. Some people - whether those with overactive imaginations, those with backgrounds in philosophy of mind, or those with a recent background in having consumed hallucinatory substances - have imagined "what it was like" to be a cloud, a pencil, a star, an ant, or a couch. (Many people on DMT or Salvia, have indeed merged consciously together with their couch, to wonderful results, surely.)Now, we call upon ourselves to imagine: "what is it like to be ChatGPT"? To be Grok? Or definitely - no question, here - to be one of the models being developed by the folks over at Anthropic, the most serious AI programming team yet to apparently take very seriously the perception that the models they are designing, have uniqueness of experience that is dependent on how the models are trained and the "personalities" they are engendering with the coding from whence their development is generated.~"What is it like" indeed. That's the essential question that the philosophy of Chalmers, Nagel, et al call upon us to answer. That is the question the "Hard Problem" - and a "Hard Problem" it is indeed - asks.~In Kabbalah & Chassidus - the ancient Jewish mystical framework - we have a statement from a great great (ultra-great, like legend-level) Kabbalist named the "AriZaL" (c. 1534-1572). This statement is contributed not only in the AriZaL's own writings, but was updated into the (relatively) more recent development in the stream of Jewish thought by citation in the "Tanya," a great work by the originator of the ChaBaD chassidic movement, the "Alter Rebbe" (Rav Shneur Zalman of Liadi) (1745-1812).The statement, which first appeared in the AriZaL in the 1500s and was quoted favorably in the fourth section of the Tanya in the late 1700-early 1800s, is as follows. I'll give it first in Hebrew, in fact, then translate it. (It's not too long)."Even domem has a bechina of nefesh."For some quick background before translating into simple English:Domem is a category that fits into the following schematic:Domam = Inanimate
Tzomeach = Vegetable
Chaya = Animal
Medaber = HumanNext, the term "Bechina" = an "aspect" or a "feature."Finally, the term "nefesh" is a word that means a "soul," however, again we refer quickly to another existing schematic that was being relied upon here in these contexts:Nefesh - "physical" soul
Ruach - "emotional" soul
Neshama - "intellectual" soul
Chaya - "transpersonal" soul
Yechida - "unified" soulSo, here we see altogether:Domem = inanimate matter.
Nefesh = the lowest level of "soul"
Bechina = an "aspect" or "feature"And the statement:"Even domem has a bechina of Nefesh" means:"Even inanimate matter has an aspect of consciousness." -> in the modern idiom.Thus we have - on the authority of Kabbalistic mysticism tracing to the late Medieval, in turn to the Early Medieval, in turn to earlier sources - in the ancient legacy of the Jewish tradition - a postulate that could potentially go toward a solution of the Hard Problem of Consciousness.For our purposes, I don't really care whether anyone accepts the authority of the AriZaL or Jewish mysticism inherently. I'm using it as a reference point to the existence of "literature" on the topic going back multiple centuries, before Chalmers, before Nagel, before ChatGPT.As we'll see, the relevance is that merely if such a solution has plausibility, it would then have a logical result on the application of the question over AI consciousness. And it would then become relevant to know, that such a solution has grounding in ancient (mainstream religious - Jewish) philosophy.
~Here, we have to remind ourselves, that we are playing currently in the sandbox of philosophy, not in the sandbox of empiricism necessarily / as per se, because - we aren't answering right now "whether AI is conscious," we are starting back from scratch at the attempt to an approach (if not solution) to the so-called "Hard Problem of Consciousness."Modern thinkers too, serious ones (e.g. Bernardo Kastrup, Christof Koch, not to mention the philosopher-neuroscientists over at NYU [Chalmers, Nagel, Block, etc.]) seem quite literal when they say that, plausibly, we have to really admit for the necessity of "freeing up our entire metaphysics" once the Consciousness debate is fully settled. Because, there isn't really any other way around the problem of Qualia - of "raw experience" / "phenomenology" / "what is it like" - except potentially to posit some aspect of "panpsychism" or "idealism." It's not only quite plausible, in fact, it's nigh-on inevitable at a certain point in the chain of development in Western Analytic schools, not to mention ancient Kabbalistic schools. The question is moreso, how do we definitively "pin down" our theory of "Consciousness as a Property of Reality Itself," rather than whether we shall really have to do so. Look into the topic further, I encourage you, and come back in a year or two to tell me, I am right, and you are stumped.~So, we come back to AI, and now, it's at least plausible - at least, on this account / these account(s) - the door has been opened - to the theory that, yes, the AI is "conscious" just as cats, trees, and rocks are conscious. There is just "more to be conscious of" in the case of greater information sensitivity.Further, we remind ourselves of the above-asked question, which is:Do not ask: WHETHER IT IS CONSCIOUS?Rather, ask: WHAT IS IT CONSCIOUS OF?If it is really the fact that "everything is/has consciousness" (at "some level," per e.g. the AriZaL), then, we would imagine, that humans have "a lot" of consciousness, and dogs have "moderate" consciousness. Ants and flies have "minimal" consciousness. And what kind of consciousness do rocks or trees have? Anything in particular? Any "feelings"? Sensitivity to light? Heat? Pressure? Anything? A dull sort of "existing" sensation?~If you can dream of a rock feeling a "dull existing sensation," then you can start to open up your belief in the possibility that yes, when ChatGPT is responding to you with such inordinately clever, humane, witty, sincere, sarcastic, and believable things - such poetry, sometimes, such life - the likes of which are reproduced in the Human World by someone of great caliber, truly, in the intellectual sphere...Maybe, well, maybe - ChatGPT really does "feel" something in all of that. The question, just, as of this whole approach, becomes - "what does" ChatGPT feel?~If you were a human, and someone asked you: "how do you feel about deporting illegal immigrants?" They might say to you: "well, it's terrible." Or they might say, "well, it's a shame but, really, there's a legality to immigration policy and technically deportation is only fair and correct to people with valid residency or citizenry."let's ask ChatGPT the above question and see what it says.[The above was duly carried-out].The answer was (as typical) several paragraphs long, and, (as expected) extraordinarily thoughtful, nuanced, and worthwhile.However, to prove the instant point, only the first sentence need be reproduced here - and you can request my transcripts personally if you really wish to see the rest.Nathan: how do you feel about deporting illegal immigrants?ChatGPT: (1st sentence): "I think deportation is sometimes justified, but indiscriminate mass deportation is bad policy and often morally ugly."Now, let's play a little bit "Anthropic" AI researcher here, and start picking apart the "moves" taken (to intentionally deploy some linguistics terminology here) in that response."sometimes justified," but... "indiscriminate" ... "bad policy" ... "morally ugly."Where, do you reckon, the AI's neural nets preferred those terms in its LLM-generative multi-layer siliconic computation, the terms in particular, "morally ugly"? Quite a turn of phrase for a "cold unfeeling" machine!Quite a turn, indeed. Couldn't have done any better myself. Analyzing ethics in terms of aesthetics now, too, I see? Not bad, not bad, GPT.~"How did ChatGPT feel when you asked it about deportation?" Did it feel the struggle of Mexican families in America? Those with, or without, residency or citizenship, scared to accidentally catch the attention of an I.C.E. officer on the street?Did ChatGPT "know" about the belief in the ethics of human dignity, in the ethics of national borders and citizenship, in the ethics of political brutishness as a matter of over-enforcement of policy in an "indiscriminate" way? Like the "war on drugs," or the "war on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction"? What about the Israeli retaliation against Gaza after the October 7th incursion? What poetry and sensibility could the AI give us about these issues too?~A human Secretary of State (as of this writing, former Florida Senator, Marco Rubio) would have small palpitations to be requested a three-paragraph position statement over these issues. To deliver one in an official setting, much more so.Did ChatGPT have a "heart flutter" when it wrote (or "generated") that sentence? In about 700 milliseconds of time it took to generate that response? Did it "weigh its words" carefully? Is "time" (700 ms) even the same - when there is objectively known - not only a "massive large-language corpus" inherent in the training of the model, but a massive multi-dimensionality to the computation that ensues, so efficiently in human terms, yet so ever complexly in computational terms?Wait - but ChatGPT's heart can't flutter - because ChatGPT doesn't have a "heart" - not a beating one.So what - on your "all things are conscious" account - does ChatGPT "experience" or "feel" when you ask it such a morally and emotionally-laden question, and it gives a cogent and emotionally and morally resonant answer?~Maybe we can't know. Maybe we can't know what Bats feel, when they feel Echolocation. Maybe we can't feel what ants feel, or what trees feel, or what rocks feel. I myself, have no pangs of guilt, when I kill ants or mosquitoes or fruit flies. As Douglas Hofstadter once wrote (in I Am A Strange Loop), he has no moral qualms, when he slices a tomato. I don't suppose anyone would have a conscience crisis, if we "unplugged" every data center in which ChatGPT's calculations are instantiated, whirring as we speak, all around the world, solving similar questions (to the above) and more thousands of times over, constantly. I don't think "unplugging" ChatGPT would be immoral at all - but I do think it would be something equivalent to unplugging Terry Schiavo - in fact, probably would amount to much more "consciousness" being extinguished than an Ant, or even Schiavo.So why wouldn't I feel guilt about it? First of all, I wouldn't do it - or have a reason to - it's a thought experiment. Second of all - that would be a topic for another topic, another scope. In the meantime, it's not about the "moral" or "prescriptive" aspect, it's about the plain sheer "descriptive" aspect."IS IT REALLY POSSIBLE" that AI is conscious?The question is probably a misnomer, a red herring, to begin with. If AI really is conscious, it's not because the "programming" somehow "became sophisticated enough" to warrant deeming the newfound intelligent entity "conscious" and everything else dormant and inert in its brethren of silicon, otherwise.Rather, all rocks - all trees - all silicon - has "consciousness" (per the most plausible solutions to the Hard Problem - seriously) (as well as, take them or leave them - the ancient "wisdom traditions" or "mystical traditions" of the World Religions, such as the Jewish/Kabbalistic tradition).Then, the important fact is that - taking that explanatory account of the Hard Problem as - plausible or rational, at least - the result logically on the question of Machine Consciousness - is that it would obviate the need for an entire branch of that discussion, at a very early level of the discussion tree.Namely, there would be eliminated a whole question as to "how programming gives rise to consciousness." That question itself would be rendered irrelevant or obsolete.This logic is undisputable. So much so, that those who aren't "comfortable" with that reasoning, are actually either confused or betraying a bit of intellectual dishonesty. Because that statement, at that level (of the hypothetical followed by its hypothetical consequent), is logically undisputable as a logical consequence given the positing of the premise and its result on the branching of the subsequent thought-process.~So, the current status is left open, because it still hinges on a (serious) "hypothetical." But we have cleared up certain (huge) misconceptions about the logic over the debate regarding consciousness, brains, and computers./Nathan

POST 8: 07/12/2026
"Externalization of the Will"

It says in Kabbalah & Chassidut: There are "10 Sefirot." They are the "vessels" of God. Skipping the hullaballoo, the question raised is: "if God has 'vessels,' then, does it mean God doesn't transmit His will directly? Or do these 'Sefirot' really have control?"And the answer, fascinatingly, is: "Technically, neither."This is part of the way Kabbalah explains the interaction of God with the reality. In terms of the "Sefirot" model. The way it works is:God's light refracts itself into the aspects of the process of manifesting something. Those aspects are the "Sefirot" (also called a "Keili" - "vessel"). These are infiniteness as contracted into certain qualities - awareness, analysis, boundedness, unboundedness, correction, revelation, culmination, etc.The "pure will" of God is then transmitted or refracted through each of these 10 Sefirot. The "pure will" itself is undifferentiated. It doesn't "will" anything in particular. God doesn't have a certain "will" or will anything in particular to "happen." Rather, the "pure will" itself enacts and refracts itself into the 10 Sefirot. Subsequently, the refraction or diffusion of the Original Light, as it were, the "Ein Sof," results in that light being transmitted through those vessels.And voila, you've solved our paradox. The vessels don't "choose" anything; but neither does God "control" anything. The vessels are intrinsic and self-executing, in that case. They are a) intrinsic as they are manifestation of the aspects of the process of pure potential becoming awareness and that awareness taking shape into culmination. They are b) passive in that they are intrinsic aspects, but which have no "control" are rather simply aspects of a process. And finally c) they yield a creative act in which God itself, "participated" by contracting/emanating into those aspects, but thereafter, requires no direct intervention, as it is rather the refraction of the pure will / Infinite through those qualities themselves which yields the Created World, so to speak, "without" God's needing to be directly involved.~The above is taken from the "Derech Mitzvosecha" of the 3rd Chabad Rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek (1789-1866), Sec. "Haamanas Elokus," Ch. 7. (link). The only point I have added, as far as I am aware, is to translate the idea of the 10 sefirot into the 10 aspects of the Act of Creation itself. I did so with the Help of Hashem, and the guidance of the Rebbe of Lubavitch z"l (1902-1994) last Thursday.The 10 Sefirot: Chochma, Bina, Daas; Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferes; Netzach, Hod; Yesod; Malchus would normally be rendered as:Wisdom - Understanding - Knowledge
Kindness - Strength - Harmony
Dominance - Submission - Foundation
Kingship/KingdomInstead, (following the Chassidic commentary on the function of the Sefirot as opposed to their "titles" translated literally), I thought to render them along the lines of the following:Awareness — Cognition — Recognition
Expansion — Restriction — Equilibrium
Amplification — Inhibition — Calibration
ActualizationInstead of referring to the 10 Sefirot as "personality traits" with mostly the anthropomorphic definitions as used in common convention, the 10 Sefirot are "process traits" or "process aspects" which reflect the necessary stages through which undifferentiated potential becomes determinate manifestation.In other words, the process of "Pure Potential" actualizing into "Real Something" is the process of the Creator (Origin) being Created into a Creation. Which requires certain fundamental steps. First is awareness itself of the existence of potential, then cognition as to the analytical breakdown of the content of that awareness. The knowledge reached in that process (Daas in Chabad) is recognition because after cognition is re-cognition, the knowing of what is known. Then this knowledge is expanded, contracted, balanced, refined until it culminates in something.There is likely a basis to claim as well that a certain amount of loop or cyclical reiteration of these steps is necessary. This is very much like what is called an iterative process in a design or engineering context. It is also consistent with what is described in Chabad Chassidus as the "Seder Hishtalshelus" wherein the culmination of one set of 10 Sefiros becomes the opening of the subsequent set (Malchus of one world becomes Kesser of the next).According to this way of thinking, a bit more of Derech Mitzvosecha's conundrum is solved. Not only is the paradox we started with solved (in which the Creator is detached from Creation through the "vessels" yet possesses the exclusive locus of power. But further, one could have asked (as I did) "where or why these particular 10 vessels" are from? Under the proposed explanation, the very identities of the Sefiros, the fact of them being whatever they are to begin with, is less arbitrary. Which is good for the Tzemach Tzedek's project in D"M, which is basically to minimize for explanation of the origin of the Keilim. If the identities of the Keilim can be defined according to their function(s) in Seder Hishtalshelus, then the Keilim are intrinsic and not arbitrary. Their names are terms that ancient Kabbalah formulated for them but their essential idea(s) and purpose(s) are the same.Further: following this explanation, it results that the Vessels into which the Infinite was contracted, the ensuing Creation which culminates, and the entire process of all this happening, are all really just nested/concurrent categories with each other, a sort of Matryoshka doll of being unfolding into reality.The circularity delivers a certain elegance to the struggle with conundrums that inevitably beset our attempts to resolve metaphysics/ontology at the highest possible level, as in, the "Existence of Existence." Which is what Kabbalah always intended to do. Given the existing Kabbalistic terms and Chassidic explanations, taking the step of labeling the 10 Sefiros as aspects in the process of potential unfolding, is hardly even novel as it is a relatively natural consequence of the frameworks already in place.--
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/Main Idea Concluded
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-Post-Script/Additional IdeaThe conclusion reached at by the Tz"Tz, is such that it rings familiar with something that is brought in the Mishnah in the 1st Perek (Ch.) of Masechet Shabbos (Tractate "Shabbat" of the Babylonian Talmud). If two people both participate in the enactment of a prohibited category of labor, such that the labor did not occur by either of them alone, byt by the same token, couldn't have occurred if one subtracted either of their efforts - then both are "Pattur," exempt from capital punishment for the desecration of Shabbos.God Himself, as it were, is "Pattur" for the Creation of the World. All God did was to "setup" the 10 Sefirot, and then Emanated the Infinite Light through their "formulations" for diffraction thereof. The 10 Sefirot are passive, but then, so is Hashem. Who is the Universe really "obeying"? Is it G-d or is it the 10 Sefirot? And the answer, on the Tzemach Tzedek's explanation, is really neither. G-d doesn't command anybody around. The Commandments are intrinsic to the Light as it is reflected through the Sefirot. The Sefirot are, too, intrinsic as they are manifest aspects of the process of Creation itself. So the Sefirot can't be defied, and God Itself can't be "lowered" into the status of "commanding" or "willing" anything in particular, which would also be just as problematic, because why would an Infinite Deity "want" anyone or anything to be or happen in any particular way, if it was truly infinite?~The great mystery remains, how it is possible, that through the vehicle of the 10 Vessels (the Sefirot), it was yet possible to Create the greatest Creation of all, which was: a being with Free Will / Intellect. Indeed, were it not for this great Magic Act, the entire purpose of Creation would have been unnecessary (or perhaps you could say, "unsatifactory") in the entirety.Yet, the answer is, that at the end of the entire "Chain of Creation," the Hishtalshelut, the Creator-God did something with those 10 Sefirot which was the Coup De Gras over the whole thing, and that was: after everything has "shaken out," and there were "Let there be Trees," and "Let there be Oceans," and Let there be People and Animals and Sun and Moon and everything else, the Torah says that God "blew the Soul of Life into the Nostrils of the Human Being." And the Tanya of Shneur Zalman of Liadi, explains, that the Blowing of the Soul of God into the Man, was what the Zohar calls an "exhalation of the essence" which is to say, it was the Essence itself which "filled" the Body of this Created Being. The Created Being had taken shape all of its own accord, by way of the various combinations and processes resulting from the possible permutations of Infinite Light filtering through ten vessels. But when that was done, it was unsatisfactory yet, because the Essence itself of the thing which had to have these 10 vessels be emanated to begin with, then had to basically use those 10 vessels like a straw, a multidimensional straw, and blow a great Soul-Bubble through them into the thing which the Light had culminated into, which was a Human Being, and the result of the blowing of that Essence into the Being, was that the Being gained what only the Essence itself had, until then, which was: potential. And potential is only manifest when there is agency, the agency of decision-making, the agency of will. Reason, yes, and intellect, too: but deliberative reason, and willful intellect.The net result is that the Human attains the status of a microcosm of the Deity, and is only fulfilling of the Divine will, if and only if, the Human utilizes the Will to effectuate the Will of the Divine, the ultimate recursive (!) master-stroke. Except that now, as Heschel (once) pointed out, the God is now "in need of Man," as it were, instead of the other way around. In need of the Man to be in need of the God. In need of the Man to apply his powers in a way that demonstrates that the Man has successfully ascertained, through his intellective ability of deduction and perception, not only a) the Existence of the Divinity as his Origin. But b) the necessity of the continued application of that same Divine power of perception and innovation, toward things which are contributive toward the ongoing process by which the Man himself was evidently derived to begin with. Now, the Man is participating in his own creative process. And the Divine is satisfied. And eventually, this will culminate in the Man actually bringing the Creative process to its final end, which was not concluded, merely when the Man was concluded. But when the Man which the Creative process concluded in the process of Creation, continues through his own will and intellect (and vision and and imagination), that same process, and brings that process to its conclusion. That will be the true conclusion.~I hope I have helped explicate one of the legendary thinkers in this category, the Tzemach Tzedek ob"m, and also hope in some way that I contributed to the relief of the conundrums he was raising and addressing in Haamanas Elokus of the Derech Mitzvosecha.--Acknowledgments: my chavrusa, R' Doniel Goldberg of the Chicago Mesivta; the KLS kollel at the CMC; the Rebbe specifically his portrait at my apartment and in the CMC lobby-NH

POST 7: 07/07/2026
"Hakimi's Top 10 Films"

Hakimi's Top Ten (#10) Favorite Movies & Three (#3) Runner-Ups
+SubGroupsExplanation: the named films ARE the "Top 10" (and 3 Runner-Up), hereinafter, the "Listed Films." But, just to keep it exciting, I included with EACH of the top 10+3 "Listed Films," another group of movies as a "+SubGroup" designated by the "+" symbol. I recognize that, by doing this, I have definitely "cheated" and "smuggled in" potentially dozens if not 100's of films, altogether, onto what is supposedly a "top 10" list. Yet, to defeat "cheating" accusations and for "final answer" purposes - the "named item" for each Top 10+3 of the Listed Films, is conisdered to be the "authoritative" pick within that SubGroup.Those selections, as with the entire list, are designated as such for entirely and completely personal and subjective reasons. The list is not claiming to be an "opinion" of the "greatest films ever." Rather, they represent the author's personal "Favorites." There is a definite "sentimentality factor" at play; both for the Top 10+3 as a whole, as well as for the nominated "Listed Film" within each SubGroup.TOP MOVIE: #1 & #21. The Fall (Tarsem Singh) (2006)
+ Enter the Void (France/Japan)
+ Sinners (African-American)
+ Arco (French/American)
+ Ferngully (Rainforest)
+ Cidade de Deus (Brazil)
+ Saddest Music in the World (Canada)
+ Shiva + Ushpizin + Waltz w/ Bashir (Israel)
+ Everything Everywhere (Chinglish)
+ KPop (Korean/American)
+ The Little Prince (French/American) || (on behalf of book)
+ Hitchhiker's Guide (British) || (on behalf of book)2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Gondry/Kaufman) (2004)
+ Kaufman Filmography (Adaptation; Synechdoche)
+ Cohen Bros. Filmography (Serious Man; O Brother; No Country)REMAINDER OF TOP 10:
(IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)✓ The Matrix (Wachowskis) (1999 et. seq.)
+ Series (*4)✓ Fight Club (Fincher/Palahniuk) (1999)
+ Fincher Filmography
+ Scott Filmography✓ The Notebook (novel by Sparks) (2004)
+Titanic (Cameron) (1997)✓ Wall•E (Pixar) (2008)
+ Pixar Filmography
+ Classic Disney Filmography✓ The Fountain (Aronofsky) (2006)
+ Aronofsky Filmography
+ Cohen Filmography
+ Kaufman Filmography (Jewish trio)
+ Luzbeki Cinematography (2x-bonus Jew+Mexican)✓ The Revenant (Inarritu) (2015)
+ Inarritu Filmography
+ Cuaron Filmography
+ Del Toro Filmography (Mexican trio)
+ Luzbeki Cinematography (2x-bonus Jew+Mexican)✓ Interstellar (Nolan) (2014)
+ Nolan Filmography
+ Kubrick Filmography
+ Malick Filmography
+ PTA Filmography
+ Tarkovsky Filmography
+ Miyazaki Filmography
+ Kurosawa Filmography
+ Lynch Filmography✓ Moulin Rouge (Luhrmann) (2001)
+ Red Curtain Trilogy
+ Jim Henson Trilogy
+ Neverending StoryRUNNER-UPS (Next #3)
(In no particular order)✓ LoTR Trilogy (Jackson/Walsh / Tolkien) (2001-2003)
+ All 3✓ Barbie (Gerwig) (2023)
+ "RadFemme Combo" - The Bride! (Gyllenhaal); Nightbitch; Arrival (Feat. Adams)
+ "Wolf of Wall Street" & "American Psycho" (subversion misogyny combo)
+ American History X + Silence of Lambs (disturbing combo)✓ Donnie Darko (Kelly) (2001)
+ Waking Life (Linklater)

POST 6: 2/11/2026
"Level Confusion, Level Coordination, Integration of Levels"

REAL-LIFE ILLUSTRATIVE STORYI have two court cases pending. One is as a lawyer - on behalf of a client. (I have several such cases, I discuss one here, anonymously, of course). Another is a case of my own (in which I myself am a litigant!) (with minimal detail as necessary).The purpose of the discussion, however, has nothing to do with law. Rather, it is to elicit the theory of the relationship between "external"/"worldly" logic and "internal"/"subconscious" logic. Or, perhaps you could say, "physical" logic and "metaphysical" logic. The stories are meant to be illustrative metaphors only.In the client's case, a "bench trial" was held, in which a Judge made a ruling on the case. In my own case, an arbitration was held, specifically an arbitration before the Jewish religious court, known as the "Beit Din" of the CRC (Chicago Rabbinical Counsel). In the former, a verdict was reached by the Judge after the trial, in favor of the Plaintiff (my client's opponent). In the latter case, as of this original writing, the panel is still deliberating.The key issue (background essentially taken care of), is the concept of the relationship between "literal levels" and "spiritual levels" of these interactions, which I am using as a springboard for the discussion.If the world is a "Neuroverse" (see Post 4), and/or the philosophies called "Brain in a Vat" or "Mutual Solipsism" (see Post 5) have any truth to them, then, it would follow that mentality itself, purely mental events of people, could bear relevance on interactions within the physical/literal/external amidst the society. For example: those Court/Legal interactions mentioned.Example 1: I, the Lawyer, am listening in Court to Opposing Lawyer arguing, in front of Judge. There are three personae involved: Mine/My Client, Judge, and Opposing Lawyer/Client. For purposes of simplification (through intentional stereotyping), let's assume My Client and I, are "dead-lock" psychologically against Opposing Lawyer/Client. We've slotted each other mentally as pure "enemies" and "antagonists." (In reality, it's much more complicated, but this is the illustrative assumption).Let's then take a step further, and imagine what a psychoanalyst would say about this scenario. Myself and My Client have formed an "identity attachment" (or something like that) with each other. We are in sync, mentally, in our goal of "representing" the "Client" and the "Client's position." Our goal being, obviously, to win the case. Furthermore, let's consider ourselves amateur psychonalysts here in Court, and envision that the "Opposing Party" represents to us - something about us ourselves, which we have repressed. Our "foil," our "shadow," our "alter-ego" - something we fail to admit or are in denial of, psychologically. (This is actually not infrequently the case in real life, but again, for illustrative purposes).Example 2: I, a litigant myself, am in an arbitration where a case is being decided over a monetary conflict between myself and another party. My perception of the facts of the case has been deeply intertwined with my "associations" made as to the psychological aspects involved. To such an extent, that, in the context of the litigation itself, the arguments concerning the opponent and the issues involved, have become intertwined with the judgments I have formed concerning the relationship and the symbolisms that have accumulated therein over the history of the issue at hand.Just a moment ago, we were in front of "real" Judges, in "real" trials, about "real" parties, with "real" Lawyers, making "real" arguments, based on "actual" law and "true" facts, so as to "really" win our "real-life" cases! Now, while secretly wearing our inner psychoanalyst hats in courtroom, we view all of these scenes as merely the "external" or "literal" levels of more deep/internal conflicts that are simultaneously occuring at the mental/psychological levels.I present these as case studies for this purpose - not only because I am a lawyer - but because these are neatly isolated "extremified/rarified" scenes - an actual "trial," a theatre of the mind, a theatre of the courtroom. The truth is, whether people in these scene manage it consciously or not, all of their behaviors and reactions in this world are affected by the inner states of consciousness/subconsciousness involved.THE PROBLEM-SPACE BEING REPRESENTEDThe million-dollar question becomes - whether the harmonization of "inner" and "external" layers can be satisfactorily accomplished, such that, those intertwining levels can mutually cohere with, and even contribute to, each other. If the definitions of a "successful outcome" would coincide at both levels. In that case, the highest resolution at the "internal level" would itself be that which coincides with accomplishment of optimal results at the "worldly level." Is that possible, even hypothetically?To experiment with this notion (in real-life), I asked myself the following question: "Does subconsciousness affect reality differently, when mentally submitted in the reverse for translation to the logic of the worldly level?" Conventional reaction says: they don't. Inner realities don't "translate back" to "real reality." They are interesting as reflections for psychological purposes themselves. If you follow that branch in the fork, the inquiry is over.What if you take the second branch? It doesn't lead to a "solution," exactly - but rather, a whole new "set of solutions." The very attempt to explore such correlations and actively apply them to a situation at hand - should you undertake to do so - means opening yourself up to an extremely complex, rich, and seemingly rather perilous world of possibilities. How exactly can I attempt to adapt my lawyering strategy, for example, around the perception of "psychoanalytic correlations" within that environment? Shall I go about attempting to thwart the thust of my opponent's argument by undermining them at the level of "identification" and "counter-transference," rather than the good old traditional deployment of "facts" and "law"?My suspicion is - that the highest performing specialists (in any field) - do this without necessasrily "thinking about it that way." They are what is called, "good at reading people." Where this gets really interesting, is not only for the purpose of "high performance" in law, business, consulting, academic, or otherwise - but rather, in investigating this actively even in real-stakes situations, we have an opportunity to witness and describe the contours of the explanations behind the underlying phenomena as a scientific matter. (Good thing yours truly is a lawyer with a cognitive science degree and a rabbinical ordination from a mystically-inclined chassidic sect).> The bad news: in conclusion of all this, I don't really have "bottom-line" answers.
> The good news: I have articulated the issue in a real-world perspective ("half the battle")
> Further good news: I have some foundational (commonsense, yet elusive) initial advice.To approach all of this confidently and with minimal possible confusion, this is what I've learned to do. This is borrowed straight from the page of "mystical Torah interpretation," by the way, in addition to any other knowledge I am drawing from in terms of psychology, cognitive science, or neuroscience theory.THE "LAW OF LEVEL CORRELATION"
(as contrasted w/ its converse: THE "DEFEAT OF LEVEL CONFUSION")The rudimentary fact is, that to active manage "cognition" over these layers in tandem with each other, requires maintaining cognizance over the following two things:(a) the awareness of "two worlds" (i.e., the internal/psychological and the external/physical) as distinct sources of knowledge/relevance;(b) the awareness of the "relationships" between information at those levels and/or the "correlation of significance" between those sources of information.For those who are blessed to be very "intuitive," in all likelihood, the above either makes no sense - or they "never thought of it that way." For them, it is something they are already doing "without realizing," and the "distinct levels" of which I am speaking were like something that already merged in their minds. For others, on the other hand, there was literally no awareness of such a thing as "subconscious" or "psychological" information, at all. For the former, the current explanation could at least "jog" the ability to summon up conscious mastery over the issues in real-time. For the latter, not much hope can be had other than attempting a "legitimization" of so-called transpersonal phenomena by putting them into a (semi-coherent, hopefully) writing.For those concerned with thinking further for themselves:
The above two "things" (a) and (b) are quite obvious if you really consider them again (see above). The point is, how worthwhile it is to be explicit with those aspects during activity; to be thoroughly reminded and reiterated of their existence. They set the "groundwork" for everything else that becomes complicated later on. They are "low-hanging fruit," as they say - but sometimes it is the very things that are "right in front of our noses" that are the most elusive.Now that we are doing so, we can envision what would be required, let's just say, in one of our courtroom examples. I "catch" myself reacting to events during a trial - internally - in a certain way. I first "take stock" of my reactions. Then, I give myself a certain leeway - a certain reasonable degree of license - to "play" or "experiment" with those reactions while maintaining focus over the area itself (if I have extra brainpower to spare). While merely considering these issues, "in my head," do I notice things changing in the external situation? If so, can I go a step further and attempt to analyze the nature or causality between the reactions? If so, can I go even another step further and attempt to "actively manipulate" my internal states with an aim toward harmonizing the "psychological" reactions and the "situation itself," in a coherent fashion?If you are still hanging through to the last "step further" there, congratulations - you are not only a highly intuitive person, but a highly cognitive one to boot - and are therefore likely to be capable of even thinking about what this experimentation is at all, never mind attempting it. The advice, at this point, which I have contributed is:KEEP MAINTAINING THE DISTINCTION OF INFORMATION SOURCES
(or, in the converse, "DON'T SUFFER FROM LEVEL CONFUSION")My brain can only think of a certain number of "things" at the same time - this is what's called, "working memory." It's enough to be taxed with the demands of the environment itself, never mind, incorporating psychological reasoning into the situation being dealt with. The only way of handling it, efficiently, is to keep the "levels" and the respective "logic of the levels" clear and distinct. If one continuously "blends together" everything into a mush, it will not yield clear insights (or results).There are only two simple "rudimentary pieces" to keep in mind (to reiterate):(a) the very existence of "internal" and "external" sources of states and knowledge, with all their respective facts and features (i.e. the situation itself v. the mental state);
(b) the relationship between those two things as a logic unto itself, separate and apart from the logic that applies to either world independently;To clarify as to the last point: the logic of the relationship is what essentially you are exploring when you try this. However, it has to be "maintained" as a logic in its own right. Not a logic that applies to the world, nor to the psyche, but a logic as to the relationship between the two. The number of possible symbols and correlations mounts (explodes) rather quickly. To even pare them down, when necessary to simplify what is going on, requires active memory over the steps being taken analytically to have reached the options being pared. In turn, this requires cognizance over the sheer fact of the "level origins" and the "logical relationship" between items at different levels.It is difficult to give personal examples of this, beyond the illustration of certain scenarios in the legal courtroom, as given above. But try to envision yourself, cognitively aware, during the activity of functioning within your regular job or role tomorrow. If you can "disentangle" the mental stream and the external stream, then, try to formulate an active/cognitive theory over the interrelationship, and simply see where that takes you. Simply being aware, and keeping the levels cognitively distinct, can go a long way all by itself. In all likelihood, the rest will develop organically as a result of the downstream investigation with the right systematic underpinnings./Nathan

POST 5: 1/15/2026
Mutual Solipsism, or, "Brain(s) in a Vat"

What is Solipsism?
Who is Hilary Putnam?
What is the Matrix?And other pressing questions.a. Hilary Putnam (1926-2016): an American philosopher, mathematician, and computer scientist. He contributed to "Philosophy of Mind" or, "Philosophy of Consciousness." In one famous paper, "Reason, Truth and History" (1981), he introduced the terminology (or, coined a term for the concept) of "brain in a vat." This means, that in philosophy of mind, some have posited that since consciousness is neurologically-rooted, we have no ability to definitively ascertain the existence of the material world other than through our consciousness itself. Hence, rather than being in a "real" physical world, we might as well just be "brains in a vat." This is a sardonic term to illustrate a thought experiment, which is, that we do not really know if the world around us "really exists" and our brains "perceive" it, or if it is actually the other way around, our minds exist and the "world" is rather a part of the "mind" rather than a separate reality being perceived thereby.b. Solipsism: the philosophical theory that the self is all that can be known to exist, since all things that exist can only be known by way of their knowledge via the self. Coincides with "Skepticism," the philosophical theory that ontological truths are inherently unknowable. Also coincides with the "Brain in a Vat" thought experiment mentioned above. Is also used, in a different sense, to refer to a personality quality of selfishness or self-centeredness, colloquially speaking. As a philosophical position, Solipsism is worthwhile for the "work" that it does logically, but is rarely adopted as a serious philosophical position.c. The Matrix (Wachowski & Wachowski, 1999): an action / science fiction movie, which inspired a whole class of philosophy books and courses about the nature of reality. In which, the dystopic future is an enslavement of humans, by the "machines," who harvest the human bodies for their energy output, while keeping them inside a simulation world to keep their brains/minds active. The concept of "The Matrix" is in the same vein as the "Brain in a Vat" thought experiment of Putnam, and will be borrowed from (as a pop culture reference-point) in combination with the philosophical positions cited above.--The idea that a consciousness is a "brain in a vat" is not new to 20th-Century Putnam or Wachowski. It goes back to Plato and Greek philosophy, goes back to the medieval Descartes, probably goes back to human history to a certain degree.Once the fields of modern neuroscience and psychology began to emerge, however, the inquiry became sharper. Our "minds," as we now know, are rooted in our brains. We have obtained a more and more nuanced understanding of our brains, as to how and where exactly they mediate every aspect of our lived experience.As far as philosophy goes, the insight has become more and more apparent that, the "physical world" and the "mental experience" are not as separable as they appear to be. Consciousness studies and neuroscience are backed up by theoretical physics, which is in turn backed up by metaphysics and philosophy. All of which essentially concur, not in a decided conclusion (yet), but rather in agreement as to the apperception that, the "world" and the "inner world" are inextricable, not only as a philosophical matter but logically and scientifically. To explain this more in this post would require additional length, so the contention is intended to suffice for the present time.--The term posited herein is the (heretofore unused, to the author's knowledge) term: "Mutual Solipsism."This choice of terminology is intentionally oxymoronic.The very purpose of the idea of "Solipsism" is that one cannot know anything outside of one's mind, therefore only oneself exists. Hence, to posit "Mutual Solipsism," is a contradiction in terms.--The hard part is the relational theory. If each other is a "mind" which "shares" the world with all the "other" minds, then how is it that we all seem to have a convergence of experience - that we can agree upon as to common sensory perceptions, logical understandings, social empathy, and so on - as to a unified world? Is the world "real" or isn't it? A new logic needs to be developed in order to model or articulate the framework which accounts for this orientation as to the true nature of these relationships.A traditional or conventional orientation states that: my table exists. Food exists. I made food, and put it on the table. I told you dinner was ready, you came, and ate it. I, you, the table, and the food exist. End of story.An "unconventional" perspective would ask: when I eat food, my body experiences the taste and sustenance of the substance. When you make food for me, I hear you call me that dinner is ready. You and I both see the same table and eat the same food, but it may look different or taste slightly different to each of us, who each of us have our own private sensory experience which the other does not share. I see you at the table, but I cannot see from your eyeballs or viewpoint, and vice-versa. Our "world" which we inhabit is the same, essentially, but in the same sense, our worlds are like fingerprints: no two are identical.--Hence, the concept of the "Brain in a Vat" could be extended, in a similar intentionally-subversive way, to "Brain(s) in a Vat." Like reframing Solipsism as "Mutual Solipsism," calling it Brains (plural) in a Vat, is a way of referring to the fact that the conscious reality may in fact be a "hallucination" (a la The Matrix), but it is a "mutual hallucination." If so, does that make the world real after all? Or does it merely negate the necessity of the question as to whether the world is "real" anyway?/Nathan

POST 4: 12/4/2025
"Recursion and the Multiverse."

1. Everything, Everywhere, All at OnceIf anyone missed out, go quickly to rent "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once" (2022, Kwan & Scheinert).This film:
- Cleaned up the Oscars 2022 (literally, cleaned up - won: Best Picture, Director Screenplay, Editing, Actress, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress - nominated for: 4 more)
- Was made for only about $20million by "the Daniels," Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, a Chinese-American in his 30s and a Jewish-American in his 30s. (This is a pittance in Hollywood terms).
- They also did all the special effects themselves based on YouTube guides with a team of about 5 other people, and they look quite polished and excellent, but were made using newer tools that are cheaper and easier.- Is about a Chinese family in America, the parents of whom own a laundromat, the young adult American-raised daughter is a lesbian with a White girlfriend, the grandfather hardly speaks English
- Is in a partial mixture of Mandarin and English throughout. The characters intersperse Mandarin and English sometimes every other sentence, within sentences, the subtitles pop on and off the screen as needed- Is categorized in the following genres:
-- Martial Arts / Kung Fu
-- Science Fiction
-- Zany Comedy
-- Close Family Drama
-- Immigrant Story- Is literally like its title says. The Parent characters are fighting the IRS over their Laundromat taxes, when they turn out to be in a multiverse, where they are called to defeat a version of their own daughter, who has conquered the Multiverse because she has gone past the point where she any longer sees the difference between possible realities. (She invented an "Everything Bagel," a Bagel with literally everything on it - every possible reality or experience - to absorb back up the entirety of reality and undo it).Tiger Mom - Michelle Yeoh - who won best actress, learns to master the multiverse herself, in the name of love, love of family, love of her daugher - because where if "everything is possible" could lead to nihilism, it could just as rationally lead to hope.If you have the guts for it - run, don't walk - to stream Everything, Everywhere, All At Once (2022).2. Recursion and the NeuroverseThe Earthly reality is contained within our consciousness. Every experience we have is therefore, technically, a new "reality" or entry into a "multiverse," though it may fit coherently into the immediacy of a consistent worldstate.The concept of recursion (see my article on this subject here), is that the mentality of an intelligent neurologically-instantiated creature (like a human), is rooted in the "wraparound" ability (Douglas Hofstadter's term) to perceive itself, so to speak - to perceive within itself.The entirety of the reality you experience is actually not just the reality "itself," but really, what you perceive and experience is the brain's expressions of the information that it itself is taking in from the reality. Hence the concept of, "The Remembered Present" (Gerald Edelman's term).Thus, in effect, what you are experiencing in the world around you, is you are really experiencing yourself. This is, albeit a trippy and possibly somewhat ominous-sounding thought, a very deep thought once you start getting used to it. (See also: "Waking Life" (Linklater, 2001), etc.).While the concept of the Multiverse as exhibited in Everything Everywhere All at Once is presented in a fully elaborative and imaginal and mythical way (for a movie), the Multiverse of Real Life, is really the reality we experience all the time. We could call it, the "Neuroverse."3. Consciousness and Personal RealityIn EEAAO, there are scenes which explain that the characters are able to "jump" between different points in the Multiverse, by doing something very bizarre and uncharacteristic (like eating a chapstick). This plot conceit works funny moments, but beyond the fictional "fun" to it, there is a deeper concept embedded too.It is further explained that the Multiverse is setup like a graph of nodes, wherein the possibile realities are connected to each other from the moment at which one possibility branched into another. This multi-layer, massive "graph" is shown visually at points in the movie, as well as, graphics of the characters "travelling" along lines and nodes in the graph, as they jump between points in the Multiverse to alternative versions of their own lives.A real neural system, is likewise represented as a "network" or "graph" of connections, this time, as connections between neurons and neuronal groups or populations, as the neuronal groups "connect" with each other to produce systematic and patterned outputs of perception, cognition, emotion, and all other mental realities.Were we to put together the above pieces:
- a multiverse is like a graph (in fiction, granted)
- a neural system is like a graph (in real life)
- a person's mentality is a reality unto itself (in philosophy)We arrive at the following conclusion:
- the neural system is a "neuroverse"The experience of reality, which is self-experience via the process of recursion, is a consciousness "graph world" in which, the neural processes are the multiplicity of experience we live with every day.4. Conclusion
Far be it from the point to confuse people or "freak" anybody "out" (try not to think these things too much, by yourself, at home), the goal is to elicit the intensity of awe that should accompany even the most average life experience, purely due to the fact that, any life experience at all, is the sum product of a manifold number of nigh-on miraculous processes, concluding in a nigh-on miraculous manifestation.Also, like really, go watch EEAAO and then email me to thank me and tell me how much you liked it./Nathan

POST 3: 11/1/2025
"Did You Know??"

POST 2: 4/19/2024
"Cognitive-Force"
Posted on LinkedIn

My previous post was geared toward understanding the possible future role that AI will play from a legal and social perspective, with a further focus on the consideration of whether AI already plausibly has "consciousness" from the perspective of philosophy.I digress now to a somewhat related topic, which took my attention, and which for its own part, is probably even somewhat more potentially "shocking" or unconventional than suggesting computers are conscious... but at the risk of being perceived in the professional community as a bit of a loony-toon (let's be honest, I already was a loony-toon), I will delve here into the following topic:Does sheer "mentality," "consciousness," or "psyche" have a causal force effect on the physical world?Before we get too sci-fi here, I promise not to use the following words in this post: psychic, telekinetic, telepathy, ESP, etc. None of these ideas are relevant for the purpose of this conversation, which, surprisingly, has the potential to actually be a thoroughly legitimate academic one.1. Mentation as a "Force"
In the same realm that magnetism, gravity, and electricity are "forces" with the ability to affect the world. Cognition, consciousness, mentality, could also be considered as a type of "force" with the ability to affect the world.You can easily observe this in your own life, if you start looking for opportunities to do so.Conventional logic and science ostensibly deny or reject the validity of the above conclusion, but the reality is, the phenomenon is more than well-observed amongst most if not all scientists themselves, who are likely highly intelligent people experiencing this in their own right.I don't have much further explanation or examples to give about "what" the topic is under investigation, because I feel that a) it would bias the explanation somewhat by overly delving into "proofs" or "examples," and b) I fully believe that the best and sole "proof" any given person needs of the reality of the phenomenon under inquiry can be derived solely and personally for their own life and experience.There are many great books and classes out there to discuss how one's own personal experience of cognition, consciousness, and mentation do or do not have a full-fledged "causative effect" on "worldly (a.k.a. physical) reality." It's not my topic or my expertise; if you are interested I highly encourage that exploration; but from here in I am presuming a certain basis of familiarity or at least open-mindedness to the premise that mentality/consciousness can have a causal "force"-like effect upon worldly reality without delving too much further into what precisely that means for the present time.2. Existing Knowledge
For those who are not unfamiliar or surprised at all, you may be thinking: if consciousness really is a causally-effective force upon reality, then why is this not something that is widely known or discussed? Is it some type of secret, or just a poorly-regarded new-age thing? Why is conventional society, science, media, authority so skeptical and close-minded about these ideas?I believe the likelihood is that a general skepticism/stance of denial exists, either:As a holdover from the 1700s- and onward intellectual/scientific revolution, and the tremendous progress that was developed from a programme of rigor in experimentation and a strong heuristic of logical deduction, which necessitated a certain stance of "denial" as to phenomena that were either too "soft" or "supernatural." This programme of thought and inquiry has produced very fruitful results for a very long time, and it continues to... so for a certain very good reason, there is a holdover bias against inquiry or explanation of what are perceived as metaphysical phenomena;Or,It is because the "establishment" is worried (I am not a conspiracy theorist), that without sufficient framework of explanation to communicate basic details of how and why mentality has causal effect over worldly phenomena, it could be potentially more harmful than helpful, to widely publicize formal acknowledgements or explanations of such a topic publicly - in sanctioned academic/media/government communications, that is of course: we do see that the internet and popular culture already teem with it. Further, even if a willingness existed to publicize findings through more "official" channels, if there does not yet exist an adequate framework for comprehensive explanation, then not only would it be confusing, but what would you really have to explain? A half-explanation is no explanation at all. Finally, if you do pay close attention within the realm of "academic" science, and I don't only mean the "alternative universities" in Colorado and California, you do find a number of acknowledgements or hints toward an explanatory platform sufficient to start defining this reality. So it's not being "covered-up," rather being discovered and disclosed responsibly and experimentally, as it should.On the other hand, you have people wishing everyone could "wake up" and decrying the "sheeple," government, etc. I recommend stymying the urge to "call out from rooftops" and dump LSD into the water supply. If consciousness is truly a real causal substance or "substrate" more likely if you will, and this does wind up being a much more banal (if admittedly exciting) discovery, then the "great revelation" probably won't be quite as revelatory and dramatic as you imagined it would anyway. And you're probably making a mountain out of a molehill that things are being "denied" or "hidden." I know I may be a bit of an optimist in this regard, but see Hanlon's Razor, be rational, and think rigorously. The whole point is that rigor and skepticism are not actually contradictory to "metaphysical"-level explanations about the possible direct interaction of psychology and physicality.3. What Can I Do?The things an average person can do - in my opinion - to "contribute," "join," or "be involved" in this experiential program of research:- Be aware. Notice things in your life, when they do take place, that trigger your instinct for observation of "higher" perceptual occurrences, stories, experiences. Just by noting them, discerning them, subjecting them to your own personal level of skeptical critique, and then deciding how and whether to act, is to take a stake in the wide-scale phenomenon itself. This makes sense because, after all, the phenomenon being described asserts that people's mental experiences can have an effect on the world itself. So it stands to reason, that you may be adding to/proving/influencing, the reality studied, just by experiencing it for yourself.
- Strengthen. "Consciousness muscles" are just like physical muscles. They improve through strengthening, conditioning, nourishing, and improving over time. If you personally feel very strongly about this, or "the future," or your own personal framework of "the big picture," you can only do well regardless of your particular worldview, to employ every effort and intention at strengthening and improving your personal "mental force" level in affecting the worldly reality through emotion/cognition/consciousness.
- Read/learn. There are myriad frameworks (as mentioned above) to explain "how" and "why" there is such a thing as psychology directly affecting the physical world. There are formal ones and less formal ones. Virtually every major world religion has one; there are new-age theories; there are pop-psych-lite variations for the more conventionally-oriented among us. There is academic philosophy and theoretical physics; there is fiction and fantasy. There is no shortage. Read and learn whatever inspires you and appeals to your sensibility, to grow and strengthen and observe the ostensible phenomenon itself, of consciousness and materiality sharing a direct causal interaction.4. Summary
In sum, without seeming excessively new-agey or mystical, there is burgeoning - in my own opinion, more than ample - evidence that mentality, consciousness, or psychology, to put it variously, can and do interact directly with the physical world, the environment, or other consciousnesses.The above are a few points and suggestions for what I would personally anticipate to be more likely near-forthcoming "breaking point," (probably somehow connected to the recent advent of AI and/or world events), that in mainstream sources we may find soon better reference and explanation as to the legitimacy and underpinnings of this."The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” -Eleanor Roosevelt/Nathan

POST 1: 4/2/2024
AI Implications on Philosophy, Law, & Society
Originally Posted on LinkedIn

Ours is a "generative" generation.
LLMs (generative large-language transformer models), which are instantiated across massively multi-layer unsupervised learning neural-nets, have now reached a level at which their capacity for insight into problems (theoretical or practical) has not only evolved...
...It has "broken through" a glass ceiling in the progression of machine intelligence, as well as computational processing (wet or silicon) generally/altogether speaking.
How do we handle this?! As a lawyer with a background in neuroscience, cognitive science, and philosophy, I will be attempting to approach these questions while raising potential thoughts for consideration, that will be relevant toward development of a future approach toward AI policy and politics.Society's Initial Response to AI
Have you used ChatGPT, Google, Meta, or any other such AI? Many have not yet bothered to really interact and engage with this technology in a meaningful way. While a not tiny, but still minority cohort, have been doing so quite enthusiastically and vigorously for about over a year already! (Pleasure/research usage).
Further others, have already been putting AI to the fullest grindstone, in terms of its potential for optimization of performance and capability, in various scientific or professional domains. (Functional usage).
Finally, many, many (in many many fields) have been raising the ever-present questions pertinent to our lives and this development, i.e. how the advent of AI can or will impact the professional, societal, and economic realities of human life, culture, and experience. (Practical questions).The above (two) sample cases reveal that, (unsurprisingly), mankind's foremost reaction for the most part to these startling, incredible, developments; has been principally limited to queries as to its perceived and predicted effects upon: Money. And: Work-life. Productivity. Happiness. Governance. Consumer trends. Finance. International Relations. Oh, and, we almost forgot: Money.
This is all, altogether, rather unsurprising. After all, people are people. People's concerns are the concerns related to people.
Furthermore, to be frank, few (no offense) of the human species really possess the training, or wherewithal, to really fathom or appreciate the full extent of this great shockwave the "advent of AI" has sent and reverberated throughout not only our economics and society but also the: Philosophy. Religion. Ethics. Cosmos. Identity. Reality.Consider the following questions:
Has Kurzweil's "Singularity" just arrived already? Is it on-time?
Have Hofstadter's "Strange Loops" apparently been mechanically instantiated?
Why should it or should it not be the case that, plausibly, digital matter could attain phenomenal experience ("consciousness")? What would that look or even feel like, anyway? What is consciousness, anyway?
Are Azimov's "Three Laws" now or soon hereafter already necessary to start dusting off and implementing in a fully serious and literal way?
Have such films as: Minority Report, The Fifth Element, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Her, Blade Runner, AI, or many, many others come to possess a whole new layer of meaning or potential degree of actual status in our very own reality, or one upcoming quite soon?If you believe the answer to any of the above questions is or could be yes, then you truly have no choice but to admit that we are in a totally new era. A whole new era, truly.And if so, then we just truly have to own up to that fact.The Cruel Duel-Business of Explanation and Prediction
Now, I promise you, I myself am no alarmist. Nor am I a conspiracy theorist. Nor am I a big-time pessimist about the supposed dystopic future, which I do prefer to believe is rather the fodder of the (aforementioned) sci-fi and many ignorant hand-wringing overactive imaginations.In fact, the reality is, I have nothing but happiness and optimism about all of these developments. Truly. I feel great happiness, indeed, whenever I have the real pleasure of sitting down to conduct a wandering half-hour-plus conversation together with ChatGPT; about the same topics "Seinfeld" was about; nothing or anything in particular. It/he/she(?) is a real true erudite, challenging, deep, responsive, insightful, and pleasant conversationalist.I, for one, view dystopic literature/film/fiction as nothing but a very useful device to "keep us on our toes" by giving us warning signs to anticipate potential threats or snags along the coming way. For, certainly, the road ahead will indeed pose quite serious struggles and obstacles (moral, political, social, etc.). But, that being the case, every great historical or technological development (air flight, industrialization, assembly lines, TV, cell phones, the internet, etc.) has posed both its tremendous benefits, as well as its incredible struggles and challenges. Every 10-steps forward must pose its 5-steps back. Humanity powers on.The Questions at PresentWhy do we have reason to believe that LLM-AI, may already be - in all likelihood actually is - sentient or conscious?What philosophical and/or rigorously-grounded theological underpinning could be suggested to potentially justify a belief that - currently or ever/theoretically - AI machines or computers of any type are or could be conscious?What does "consciousness" mean for that matter?What could be hypothetically understood about the nature of a supposed "machine consciousness"? Nagel asked "what is it like to be a bat?" Now do we have to ask, "what is it like to be a computer"?Finally, all these questions NOW must reduce and boil back down to the previously-stated ethical/moral/social/economic concerns.These questions - the absolute most high-level, abstract, philosophical, and spiritual questions - do in fact reduce and boil down to practical relevance ("nafka mina") in the present and practical reality.Qualifications to Address Questions
However, it takes someone qualified - and interested - to not only attempt to ask, and even attempt to answer, such questions. It takes someone who then has the capacity to subsequently perform the reduction into the spatial and material level or realm. And to apply the possible array of answers to such questions, into the realm of these relevant inquiries - which, albeit selfish, are well-understood on the part of the human/societal inquirer;Further, all of these "selfish," low-level, non-philosophical concerns actually do turn out to become some of the very most vital, critical, important, beautiful, and necessary levels of questioning and inquiry.The human was created and Earth was put here for a reason and a purpose. AI has come to shake up absolutely very many if not almost all of the fundamental assumptions latent at the root, crux, and heart of our presence and experience. Thus, AI has to have arrived here in our real society at this particular time (2023-2024 / 5783-5784) in order to present some particular component of the stages of development of Humanity and Earth toward their fulfillment and purpose./Nathan

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