Power and Awareness
Dune Messiah quotes out of context (no spoilers)
Last fall I’d gotten through 100 pages of Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert before abandoning it, but it turned into the right book at the right time (autocorrect is working overtime as my brain struggles to comprehend that it isn’t Messaih). Many quotes stood out to me and this is my attempt at uncovering why.
External and Internal Power
Positional Power - the root of Discovery
‘‘Why is there anything?” Every religious, business and governmental question has the single derivative: ‘Who will exercise the power?’ Alliances, combines, complexes, they all chase mirages unless they go for the power. All else is nonsense, as most thinking beings come to realize. (pg. 22)
Discovery stems from the pursuit of a form of power. Creation buds from a purpose to achieve personal (internal) power or positional (external) power. It is the merging of these sources of power that sustains the influence of a discovery.
Self Discovery - the root of Personal Power
To use raw power is to make yourself infinitely vulnerable to greater powers. (pg. 48)
I’ve come to understand that moments of defeat are meant to guide me to what has power over me. Here comes the phrase ‘take back your power’, which means demonstrating inner strength and confidence. It is quite the juxtaposition that power can make you the strongest, yet also leave you the most exposed to vulnerability. However, self-discovery is, put simply, understanding your true self, whether in strength or weakness.
Awareness of Awareness
A creature who has spent his life creating one particular representation of his selfdom will die rather than become the antithesis of that representation. (pg. 25)
Are we endangered by the identities we assume? Identities we take on become a performance that is set for interpretation by others. If we look inward we’d shockingly realize that we aren’t experiencing our own identity, it’s an invisible grip over us that we have been judging by the reactions of others. Take away the audience and then think about whether that’s how you would behave, you might come to realize there are parts of yourself that others recognize as fundamental, but that you would betray if not for the comfort of them.
Every civilization must contend with an unconscious force which can block, betray or countermand almost any conscious intention of the collectivity. (pg. 31)
I attended a book club meeting at my local yoga studio on Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Joe Dispenza, widely talked about in the psuedoscience space. The book club host handed out a list of the following questions for us to reflect on:
Which parts of myself feel outdated - like an outfit that doesn’t fit anymore?
Which emotion do I most want to transform right now - & what emotion could replace it if I let it go?
How does gratitude feel in my body when it’s genuine and embodied - not just a list in my journal?
If I wrote down every thought I had in the last hour, which ones would I delete & which to amplify?
What daily ritual can help me ‘break the habit of being myself’ & anchor the new self I’m becoming?
Is AI aware?
Our Polymath Book Club discussion covered Being You (A New Science of Consciousness) by Anil Seth and shared our fascinations around what consciousness in AI could entail.
The cleansed mind makes decisions in the presence of unknowns and without cause and effect. (pg.93)
Currently, the state of consciousness of AI agents is a prediction machine not obstructed by unknowns. Many large language models are designed to always provide an answer. AI saying “I don’t know” is an attempt to represent the uncertainty of human minds. Traditional AI systems rely on pattern recognition and correlation not reason (cause and effect). Causal AI is under development to bridge this gap to allow for reliable decisions in complex situations.
AI is but a cleansed mind trained in semantic, episodic, and procedural memory. Do you assign consciousness to your AI agent of choice? Think about how you start your prompts: is it ‘Can you…’ or ‘Do this’?
Rethinking my need for completion
The facts needed by a mentat do not brush off onto one as you might gather pollen on your robe while passing through a field of flowers.
One chooses his pollen carefully, examines it under powerful amplification. (pg. 97)
The number of choices (paths) keeps growing, there are so many things I’ve wanted to do. The image of an experience collector calls for great stories to be shared. But where does integration come in when all time is filled with the next best thing? Learning can turn into touch and go and is forgotten long before you need it down the line. There will always be hundreds of books and movies I want to watch and learn from. Recently, I’ve been asking myself, what are the few things in my day-to-day that keep their spark?
They’re trained to believe not to know. Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous. (pg. 29)
I catch myself chasing fleeting goals and unworthy leads. It’s as simple as recognizing that I don’t have to finish every book I pick up. I realized the belief of having to finish what I’ve started gets in my way which traps me in unintentional commitment.
I recently abandoned a newsletter idea that I’d spent hours crafting and even had friends review. I felt stuck and paused to question myself on my need to publish it. The question that gave me my answer was “If I had no expectations of myself, would I still do this?” My answer was no.
I scan my days with this filter and note ideas as yes or no. We are silently always moving intentionally, but true intentions have their way of escaping us. I’m not claiming that every thought or action needs to be put under a magnifying glass, but if you recognize an emotional charge (positive or negative) with it, perhaps it’s hinting to be brought to your attention.