Writing

Status Report October 2024

First Gods Series Book 4 in the First Gods Series (Alien Cities) has been completed in draft form (September 2024). This was the second attempt for this book! I originally finished a first draft in 2023 but it was too rushed and incomplete. I had my mind on the last book in the series (Book 5) and it was obvious.…

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Consciousness

Consciousness definition problem

  I think (for what that’s worth) many people (including neuroscientists and philosophers) have a definition of consciousness that causes difficulty with understanding and experimentation. They define consciousness to be a human-only thing, something unique to us. They define it as the tool they are using to understand consciousness. I’m not denying that there seems to be something that is…

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Writing

Time travel is a problem in storytelling

The First Gods series is Science Fantasy. Here’s Wikipedia’s description: Science fantasy is a hybrid genre within speculative fiction that simultaneously draws upon or combines tropes and elements from both science fiction and fantasy. In a conventional science fiction story, the world is presented as being scientifically logical, while a conventional fantasy story contains mostly supernatural and artistic elements that…

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Consciousness

Consciousness is memory

The awareness of conscious experience is an after the fact phenomenon. Let me explain (caveat: I don’t know what I’m talking about. Bear that in mind, as you should for everything you hear and read) We think we have free will or control over our immediate conscious experience. It’s an extremely useful concept. It appears to work like this: I…

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Consciousness

Consciousness flavour

Consciousness is an open space where thoughts, sensations, emotions, sights, sounds, feelings appear, as well as awareness (mindfulness), which is also an appearance in the same space. We can’t, and don’t, pre-think each thought we’re going to have. Each thought appears like a quantum particle in the quantum vacuum. However, it’s not random. There is a “flavour” to conscious experience…

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Consciousness

Thoughts on death

More on consciousness. I write about general AI so I do think about this stuff a lot. However, I’m not a neuroscientist, I haven’t spent decades in a cave in the Himalayas. I’m an ex-physicist, science fiction writer who knows nothing. Keep that in mind. Let’s take as given that consciousness is a construct and all sensations, sounds, sights, emotions,…

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Consciousness

I don’t understand consciousness

I’m fascinated by consciousness. My books include general AI so I need to think about what it is. Short answer: I have no idea. Just using the thing to investigate itself is odd enough, right? Consciousness is a construct that everything appears within. That is, sensations, feelings, sights, sounds, emotions, feelings (if they are different from emotions—I’m unsure) and thoughts.…

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Announcements

You Might Be Interested

Don’t you hate marketing speak? It’s a loud, chaotic battlefield where the combatants fight to the death to merely gain the attention of some distracted, disinterested person picnicking on a grassy hill to the side somewhere. The solitary person occasionally glances in the direction of the fighting and they frown, which drives the fighters nuts with the potential of attention.…

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Announcements

Released. Sort of. Partially.

First Gods I’ve let loose the first three books of the First Gods series: Awaken, Community, and Habitat. But only the ebook versions in the Amazon Kindle store. It’s been over ten months since the manuscripts were completed but I’ve been waiting on editing and design. Is that a reasonable timeframe for three books? I have no idea. It seems…

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