traditional norms relied on a system of intersubjective tension by which participants would mutually keep each other in check thru perpetual surveillance; the potential energy trapped within was then sublimated into other domains, particularly the intellectual and economic

w/ the erosion of the underlying ideological frameworks, this system began to unravel; the egregore grows weaker w/ each lost memetic node. this is self-perpetuating, meme-holders increasingly incentivised to defect from the equilibrium, eventually triggering a preference cascade

the energy previously locked up in this tension is freed to run free, generating chaos and new possibilities, which leads to cultural production, alternative lifestyles, and other societal refactorings

this tends to demarcate periods characterized by a certain ecstatic air

on the personal level, this same dynamic manifests as going MIA from your usual social scene when you feel dissatisfied with your current persona; we cannot reinvent ourselves while observed by those who know only our current selves

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RT @pee_zombie
I often go thru periods of my life when I want to hide or run away, to escape the influence of that last element; I often resent the parts of me the causal chains of which are rooted outs…
https://twitter.com/pee_zombie/status/1620130392253804545

here too, the dynamic is fractally biphasic, with repeated cycles of isolation, reinvention, and social confirmation. we explore identity space and then exploit a certain position within it.

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RT @pee_zombie
thinking about how the explore/exploit dichotomy (ht @ulkar_aghayeva @tszzl) captures the dynamics of our lives, thru the lens of the humble slime mold, physarum polycephalum

we share a fractally-biphasic lifecycle, w/ nested p…
https://twitter.com/pee_zombie/status/1441834524028162048

from a high level this process can be described as a simulated annealing of the Self, the temperature of the system corresponding to internal tension, the overflow of which catalyzes chasm-crossing

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RT @pee_zombie
generally speaking, turning up the temperature is a good strategy for exploring complex optimization landscapes with poor global visibility, as it allows you to escape local maxima by catalyzing chasm-crossing https://twit…
https://twitter.com/pee_zombie/status/1498105211042291716

multiagent social systems can be understood as a macrocosm of these same dynamics writ large

norms are amoral, being simply a crystallization of the cooling social system, comparable to a stable self-concept