/**
 * file: karbytes_16_july_2024.txt
 * type: plain-text
 * date: 16_JULY_2024
 * author: karbytes
 * license: PUBLIC_DOMAIN
 */

To Whom It May Concern:

While spending the night in a peaceful and secluded part of Silicon Valley, I decided that it would be personally worthwhile (to me) to publish this note on my blog (which features the following ideas)...

1. I am an atheist despite having been a proponent of panpsychism (until as recently as within the past thirty days). While bicycling around noon from San Jose to Sunnyvale amidst the myriad of moving objects in my environment (where my own mind-body was one or those moving objects), I had the thought that there is possibly (and perhaps with a high degree of probability) nounena occurring and not just phenomena. In other words, I thought about how there is possibly more occurring in nature than what information processing agents such as humans render as first-person subjective qualia. Such an assertion seems to contradict the seemingly panpsychist premise that only mental phenomena exist (to the exclusion of any noumena (and while consciousness itself is treated as the ultimate unifier, container, and elementary building blocks of all empirical and logical data and of all matter, energy, space, time, and abstraction)). Given what I researched about some neurons in the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and other parts of the human brain being the only cells in the human body which do not regenerate and which each individually last for the duration of the encompassing human nervous system's lifetime, it seems plausible to me that my sense of having a unique and particular identity (comprised of relatively permanent attributes such as specific memories and preferences) is entirely dependent on those relatively permanent brain cells (and their respective dendrites) remaining in tact and in functional communication with each other. Without that basic neural hardware infrastructure "at the physical level of my reality", I doubt it would be possible for my sense of self (i.e. personal identity) to exist "at some virtual level of my reality" because to say otherwise would be akin to suggesting that software objects can exist in an empirically measurable way without (fundamentally physical) computational hardware to substantiate those virtual objects. As obvious as this may sound, I think it is useful to emphasize the fact that an int variable in a C++ program does not exist outside the context of exactly one unique runtime instance of that C++ program because that int variable requires a specific chunk of exactly four byte-representing memory cells in some electronic digital computer's random access memory to be allocated to the instantiation of that int variable (which means that the int variable is an emergent property of electrons being configured to represent specific int type values inside of the physical memory cells which are associated with the respective int type variable). 

2. I am seemingly becoming happier than I was the previous day (as a long-term trend spanning my entire lifespan as karbytes (which started in the year 2020)). My happiness increase seems to be a function of acquiring new and personally relevant knowledge and accomplishing the tasks I set out to accomplish (which are fundamentally hedonistic goal-oriented heuristics applied by my body-mind in order to sustain and satisfy karbytes). Note that my personal definition of happiness (in the context of this note especially) is not identical to merely feeling pleasure substantially more than feeling pain, but rather, it is identical to becoming increasingly non-resistant (i.e. tolerant) to phenomena which appear to me to be occurring in reality. Though I think I really do want to attain immortality and superhuman agency, I am aware that my body-mind is an extremely fragile and endangered apparatus which is statistically likely to undergo significant disease, injury, and death as a function of aging. Rather than require that I have the means to extend my lifespan and faculties for hundreds more years in order for me to enjoy the present moment, I have seemingly become increasingly okay with not getting the "luxuries" (and even "necessities") I want before I die or become seriously maimed or beset with physiological ailment-related agony as a consequence of having done enough personal milestone acquisitions (as an intellectual property creator, scholar-athlete, and psychonaut seeking to bridge realms spanning multiple layers of virtualization or space-time continuums, universes, et cetera) to feel that I got "my money's worth" out of the time I have had to live thus far (which is different from saying that I feel that I have wasted my life or not gotten significant satisfaction from the culmination of all of my (remembered and lived) experiences). My understanding of human civilization, natural science, philosophy, psychology, and metaphysics has lead me to believe that many humans and other lifeforms preceding and concurring with my lifespan made contributions and "sacrifices" which have benefited me and enabled me to exist and to partake in every experience I have ever lived thus far. Now that I am "past my prime" in terms of physiological maturation and reproductive capacity, I think that I'm now implicitly (or explicitly) being pushed out of the way so that younger generations of humans can take my place. I am not saying whether or not I think that such subordination is what I deem to be desirable or ethically justified. Instead, all I am trying to convey in this paragraph is that I understand that, like presumably most of my predecessors, I am only "scheduled" to be alive (and well) for less than 120 years. What gives me a sense of peace instead of despair about such a prognosis is the fact that I believe that each generation of humans is happier, smarter, and more technologically advanced than all previous generations apparently were. I am comforted by the assessment that progress is being made by my species towards my goals and the adoption of my values (which primarily are truth followed by freedom followed by innovation). I take pleasure not merely from my own solipsistic experiences and personal accomplishments, but also, from believing other beings are enjoying similar things as what I aspire to maximize experiencing firsthand for myself.

To conclude this note, I will say that I am open to changing my beliefs about reality and that I am not committed to adhering to any particular ideology nor ontological worldview forever (though I think it is extremely unlikely that I will change what my primary values and life goals are).

Sincerely,
karbytes