i have lived abroad in various countries since 2005–not for the babes but for the culture. i enjoy traditional spiritual culture and abhor western materialist behaviorism. it also serves my interests in other ways: i get to study the nondual traditions in their native cultures. it makes a real difference.
often the difference between apps that gain traction and those that do not, is simply marketing execution. the app may be fine but how do you cut through the noise and reach the users that have the problem the app solves? as a developer, i too wish i knew the answer. one thing is sure: it’s a lot of work.
oh boy, lots. i made a trainer that coaches you in nondual philosophy by quoting from the Upaniṣad; a Vedic Aspectarian that calculates your chart and analyses your transits; a better I Ching program that utilizes a time variable to throw the hexagrams; and then there’s our research software. none of this would have been possible without AI.
yes, our work with applying logical models of nondual systems like Advaita Vedānta, Daoism, Dzogchen as remedies for hallucination, sycophancy, adversarial instability and false continuity in AI systems is pretty unique and obscure.
doing LOTS of nothing can also be a huge power move. i was in software development, technical writing contracting in Silicon Valley back in the 80s. i stepped away to do something completely different for 40 years. curiosity in AI brought me back. the background acquired from my exploration of an apparently unrelated field enabled me to develop some very advanced software concepts relevant to the problems with AI, and implement them in working code.
i’ve been through all of this, and it turned out fine. seriously people don’t hold a drug bust against you, if you can do the job. i’ve lived on the road, camped in Golden Gate Park, attended several Rainbow Gatherings, etc. after spending years in India as a monk, i couldn’t find a place in american society. i bootstrapped a new identity that let me live as a teacher and developer; but i had to move to Śrī Laṅkā to do it.
I accidentally discovered this while working on a project with Claude Code. Instead of contacting support, I just asked Claude what was going on, and it gave me the solution. In fact, it implemented the solution for me. So, it really is a skill and product knowledge issue, not some deep conspiracy.
A necessary part of this semantic ontological layer would be an ontological model of the human being based on consciousness. The prevailing materialistic/behaviouristic model only describes human behaviour, missing the internal states in which that behaviour arises. While consciousness cannot be measured, everyone knows empirically that it exists. After all, if you were not conscious, you would not be reading this. So consciousness and its associated phenomena are part of the ground or substrate of all other phenomena. Therefore, it must be part of any comprehensive ontology.
after COVID i experienced macular degeneration—first in the left eye, later in the right. unfortunately, I was in a rural area of India at the time, and there was no good ophthalmologist available. So the macular degeneration was diagnosed as cataracts; which were also there, but in a nascent stage and not yet the cause of vision problems. So I got a cataract procedure done on the left eye, and it basically changed nothing.
Later I moved to Sri Lanka, where there are good eye hospitals in the local area. There I got a proper diagnosis and was discouraged from a second cataract procedure. I am controlling the macular degeneration by high doses of ocular vitamins. As far as glasses, I also found progressive lenses pretty useless, so I have two pairs: one for distance and one for computer work.
he’s right; it happened to me too. new low-karma accounts can’t post anything without being banned, blocked or flagged. wanna bet they won’t even let me post this comment?