consciousness as ergodicity insurance
paying a periodic premium to allow for a priority interrupt in extenuating circumstances enables a system to monitor for & guard against threats to coherence
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RT @pee_zombie
same with computers; the resource costs you pay for self-monitoring you get back over the long term by avoiding terminal states, where individual processes parasitize the system to the point that a hard reset is required, lo…
https://twitter.com/pee_zombie/status/1366247821318455303
when the system is a hyperobject, this entails a sort of agentic recursion; the overlay system emerges from the substrate's collective behavior, but to protect itself in a crisis, it incarnates in an individual, an avatar, empowered to take the wheel
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RT @pee_zombie
this is how an egregore is born, emerging from many minds holding the same polarizing belief; this meme directs their actions, & these many small vectors, now aligned, a…
https://twitter.com/pee_zombie/status/1354227317392990218
the warrior guides the spear, but the horse gives it its power
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RT @chaosprime
@embryosophy @pee_zombie the high-agency individual is the point of the spear, where the collective concentrates its agency so that it's powerful enough to be used to define itself
https://twitter.com/chaosprime/status/1396927736027959302
more on this emergent phenomenon
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RT @pee_zombie
occasionally one such demigod will be born from the collective wills of "the people", springing from minds to bring life to shared suffering
while these benefit from harnessing the power of aligned incentives and true passion, they cannot react as quickly as the artificial ones
https://twitter.com/pee_zombie/status/1353243506148573186
mostly any elected leader is less a commanding decision-maker, and more a focal point for the collective will, a steward of the emergent consciousness, the egregore's superego
not truly in charge, but simultaneously more and less so than any of the other individual components