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The central revelation, as I see it, isn't so much about facts or content (e.g. truth, purpose, ultimate meaning) but rather about how flexible the hardware/software package is that underlies our cognition and sense of the world - the experience of your mind behaving in novel ways.

I suppose there's nothing terribly transcendent for observers about seeing Doom run on an iPod, but it's definitely surprising to see how the flexible the hardware/software can be.

Subjectively, though, it can feel pretty transcendent when its your runtime being hacked in new and different ways.

If the iPod had a sense of self like we do then maybe it would be floored seeing itself run Doom (though hopefully it wouldn't confuse Doom for ultimate truth).

"The mind is vaster and more fluid than our ordinary, waking consciousness suggests. And it is simply impossible to communicate the profundity (or seeming profundity) of psychedelic states to those who have never experienced them. Indeed, it is even difficult to remind oneself of the power of these states once they have passed."

https://samharris.org/podcasts/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-life...



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