What would a world look like where the macroscopic interactions are all highly quantum/entangled and the microscopic interactions are classical-looking? Assume the large scale behavior cannot be explained entirely in terms of the small scale behavior in this world.

Eau de Cologne Vide is perhaps best described as a kind of flavorless rose-lavender.

I'm learning as much as I can about quantum field theory to find a conceptual solution to the boundary problem. Each point in space corresponds to a field operator that can create or annihilate quanta at that location. These operators exist within a vast Hilbert space that encodes probability amplitudes for every possible field configuration across all of spacetime. When an operator acts at a specific point, it reshapes the global quantum state, which in turn determines the probability amplitudes for all future operator actions. This creates a feedback relationship similar to general relativity, where matter tells spacetime how to curve while curved spacetime tells matter how to move. In quantum field theory, local operator actions modify the global wavefunctional, while the wavefunctional determines the probability amplitudes for local measurements. Each point becomes both an actor that can transform the whole system and a location whose behavior depends on the entire quantum state. Operator actions could bifurcate or selectively reshape only specific pockets of the wavefunctional, creating regions of internal coherence while maintaining sharp separation from external domains. What if topological protection operates not just on classical field configurations, but on the support structure of the wavefunctional itself? Quantum states might develop segmented amplitude distributions - coherent pockets that evolve together while remaining isolated from other regions. The boundary problem would transform from a question about spatial location to one about topological structure in Hilbert space. Consider how this differs from classical coordination. In the classical case, even within a topologically protected electromagnetic region, neural components still communicate through finite-speed processes. Each neuron receives information about distant parts of the region through propagating signals. The unity emerges from fast coordination but remains fundamentally assembled. In the quantum field case, if the wavefunctional develops the right kind of segmented structure, components within each pocket would share immediate access to the same global quantum state. The unified experience would arise from genuine simultaneity of quantum correlations rather than coordinated classical processes. Consciousness might exploit a deeper level of physical law than classical electromagnetic topology can provide. The frame-invariant boundaries remain important, but they must protect quantum rather than classical structures to achieve true Indra's Net connectivity within each moment of experience. (Edited with Claude)

Hot take: The "self" is a holographic compression that takes a moment of experience, dimensionally reduces it to a tiny sliver/thin surface, and projects it back onto the field of experience. This operation is done so that the system as a whole can learn to coordinate holistically. Every part can "see a convenient compressed representation of the whole" that captures key elements of the global state at a glance. Alas, this compression mechanism has a number of side-effects: a push and pull on the field as the projection interacts with itself through the projection loop (which threatens to shear/tear the fabric of experience when done poorly), a "control hierarchy" of subagents as they earn power by "pleasing this self", bugs and "undecidability" issues inherent in recursive phenomena, and organism wellbeing Goodharting (where subagents figure out how to "wirehead" by making the "self image" happy at the expense of the wellbeing of the entire organism, the very thing the self was meant to try to track and improve in the first place). Enlightenment, at the limit, is the result of "unfolding" the self until its dimensionality is precisely the same as that of the experience as a whole to begin with. This way you don't get compression artifacts nor Goodharting opportunities. What you see is exactly what you get. Alas, this can only be done by drastically reconfiguring the projection system for this to be at all possible. You need symmetrification in the system itself so that you don't need to compress the image when selfing; the experience is already compressed in deep ways. More so, one needs to flatten the subagentic hierarchy to the point that every point of view has equal say on the movement of the organism as a whole. It's a kind of "projective solution" of a very high-dimensional Rubik's cube of experience. It takes years and countless neural field annealing cycles to get it right. Prediction: the signatures of holographic dimensionality reduction vanish at the point of awakening. This might be measurable in the structure of the EM field of enlightened individuals. No "compactifications" detectable, no flux tubes, no lower dimensional limit cycles. Remains to be seen. (sorry if this makes no sense - lots and lots to unpack)

Periodic reminder to get this supplement (chanca piedra) and take as prophylactic to avoid kidney stones. Get a couple bottles and gift to friends and family members who have had kidney stones in the past or are at-risk (e.g. they drink a lot of coca-cola every day). Just do it, the hedonic calculus is IMO really worth it.

if elephants ever go extinct i don't think we'll be able to recover

The problem with many predictive processing researchers is that when they encounter a visual illusion or strange sensory effect they can't immediately explain, they expect the explanation to be framed in terms of predictive processing with such high precision weights… that they actually hallucinate one. --- In other news: just landed in Sweden 🇸🇪

Continuing with the theme of political aesthetics as the result of underlying agentic self organizing principles. H/t @aourirabderahim

on the phenomenon of "cross-frequency coupling", as demonstrated by a visual stimulus – "Armonia Natural Cuadricula" – made in collaboration between André Silva and @algekalipso (which twitter is probably going to compress abysmally)

Excited to release my new series of notes on diffusion models, building up mathematical intuition from scratch: 🚀 Topics include probability flow, info theory, time&space parameterization, and stochastic calculus, with exercises!