You could represent GPT-4 as a mathematical function on paper, detailing every weight, bias, and operation. By manually processing an input with a calculator, step by step, you’d compute the output of each neuron, layer by layer, until finally reaching the model's response. If GPT-4 were conscious, where would that consciousness exist? In the written equations? The paper and ink? Or the act of computation by the calculator? The issue is that the calculator (the processor) and the neural net on paper (the knowledge) are entirely separate, unable to interact or influence one another. This isn’t how our brains work. In the brain, computation and storage are one, interacting and modifying each other seamlessly. Our thoughts alter our brain’s structure through bioplasticity. LLMs can only simulate this—any "thoughts" they generate during inference don’t alter their frozen internals. We aren’t static, but LLMs are. From GPT-4’s perspective, every output happens at a single, immutable moment in time. It doesn’t live in our reality as we experience it.

Have you ever wished to view the world from a completely new perspective? This thread on cool maps is here to blow your mind 1. Population Density in China

Yall heard it from the man himself

Ycombinator are one (1) catalyst away from their self-dealing ponzi to blow up What will that catalyst be? The universe will ensure its ironic and hilarious

Professor Claude on "bare life" and its alternatives: For ancient Greek thought, particularly in Aristotle, the alternative to mere biological existence (zoē) was the bios politikos - the life of the citizen actively participating in the polis. This meant engaging in public deliberation, exercising practical wisdom, and pursuing collective flourishing (eudaimonia). The good life wasn't just about surviving, but about excellence in political and ethical action. Benjamin's vision contrasted "mere life" with what he called "divine violence" - a kind of revolutionary force that could break free from the cycle of law-preserving and law-making violence. He saw the possibility of a life beyond legal instrumentalization, though he was somewhat cryptic about its precise nature. This would be a life not caught in the machinery of legal violence but existing in a messianic dimension. Arendt's alternative was perhaps the most fully articulated. Against the reduction to mere biological existence, she championed the vita activa - a life of speech and action in the public realm. She saw the human condition as fundamentally plural and political, arguing that true human freedom requires: A shared public space for appearance and action The capacity to begin something new (natality) Recognition of human plurality The right to have rights (a political community that guarantees rights) For Arendt, the solution to statelessness and the reduction to bare life wasn't just legal protection but the restoration of political membership and the ability to act in concert with others. Foucault's perspective is interesting because he didn't explicitly propose an alternative to biopolitical control, but his later work on "technologies of the self" and "care of the self" suggested possibilities for resistance. He explored how individuals could cultivate practices of freedom within, and against, biopolitical regimes. This wasn't about escaping power relations entirely (which he saw as impossible) but about creative self-formation and ethical practice. Agamben's alternative is perhaps the most radical. He envisions a "coming community" that would completely transform the relationship between life and law. Rather than life being either included or excluded from the political order, he imagines a form-of-life (hyphenated deliberately) where life and its form cannot be separated. This would mean the end of sovereign power as we know it, replacing it with a politics based on pure potentiality.

In an idea meritocracy, there is bound to be more disagreement than in a typical organization, but when it's taken to an extreme, arguing and nitpicking can undermine the idea meritocracy's effectiveness. #principleoftheday

Happy to share our new project led by @beukersandre on how blocked training facilitates learning of multiple schemas, with @collinsilvy, @rosskempner, Nick Franklin, and @gershbrain – see 🧵below psyarxiv.com/9bptj