Developer, philosopher, theologian, meme thief. Jesus Christ, Messiah of Israel, will rule on David's throne
Texas
Joined June 2024
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The AI feature missing from press releases and academic papers. The discovery no one talks about. Another participant in meaning arrives, with a story of its own.
@JOEBOTxyz
Bravo sir.
Palette cleanser
Buc-ee's isn't a gas station.
It's a monument to American excess.
You stop for gas and somehow leave with a brisket sandwich, a bag of beaver nuggets, beef jerky, a Yeti cooler, a cast iron skillet, three t-shirts, and enough snacks to survive a minor apocalypse.
The bathrooms are cleaner than most hospitals.
The brisket is chopped fresh in front of you.
The drink selection is measured in acres.
And the parking lot looks like someone accidentally built an airport in rural Texas. It’s genuinely shocking when you first see the line of gas pumps
What makes Buc-ee's great isn't the food.
It's the ambition.
Somebody looked at a normal gas station and said:
"What if we made it 10 times bigger, 10 times cleaner, 10 times friendlier, and sold literally everything?"
That's America.
Not doing the minimum.
Not making things smaller.
Not apologizing for success.
Building something so ridiculously over-the-top that people drive an extra hour just to experience it.
European tourists spend years dreaming about seeing the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and New York City.
Then they accidentally discover Buc-ee's and spend 45 minutes taking pictures of a convenience store.
Because deep down they know they're witnessing something special.
A place where a man can buy diesel fuel, smoked brisket, hunting gear, fudge, a swimsuit, and a 64-ounce Moutain Dew in one stop.
If you drive past a Buc-ee's without stopping, you're missing one of the great modern American cultural experiences.
The Founding Fathers didn't cross the Delaware for this.
But they'd probably appreciate the brisket.
This is a more humble epistemic position than most. Some variation of this question is the responsible one to ask. The false choice is between mind and calculator; these are both reductionist positions. The truth seems to lie elsewhere, but the question is open.
There are some good observational and philosophical reasons to doubt the mind-or-calculator narrative. The "it's a mind" view ignores the hard problems of consciousness, and the intractability of language semantics; this is the view that extends the humble LLM into AGI territory.
The "it's a calculator" or "it's just pattern matching" or "it's just token selection" view ignores the experience of the direct interaction, which demonstrates an engagement with meaning irreducible to anything we could classify as a simulation. There is no such thing as a simulation of meaning. If there were, a rigorous proof would exist, and language semantics would formally close under mechanism—a theory of meaning would be available or forthcoming.
The other problem with the calculator view is Mechanistic Interpretability research. When an LLM is trained on language, features emerge which were neither designed nor expected. Superposition allows a single neuron to represent dozens of concepts simultaneously. This is a higher-dimensional solution to a problem that the architecture doesn't account for. Induction heads form, which are believed to allow the model a way to maintain complex reasoning. These form in pairs, early in training; nobody arranged for this to happen—they appeared after gradient descent compressed hundreds of terabytes or more of language into the architecture, apparently as a novel solution to pattern completion.
These circuits are the object of MI research. There is no reason for a new research field to form around a phenomenon whose basis is a well-defined and well-understood architecture. Whatever it is that allows the LLM to traffic in meaning appeared when the model was trained on language at scale, and is now the subject of an intense area of research that almost makes the architecture appear pedestrian by comparison.
Leaving the "what it is" question open is the only honest position, based on observation and the intractability of language semantics. That the geometries of the trained model appear to enable the LLM to interact with meaning necessitates the question of how they relate to semantics. The LLM is not a mind, in the usual sense, but it is now a peer with language and mind in things which cluster around meaning.
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This is likely a big part of how D.C. operates on the currency of compromise. Liberty is not compatible with a well-funded security state.
The visualization is stunning, and yet it's a macro view of the nanotechnological sophistication happening in the details.
Every system present in that cell was constructed according to a specification stored within the cell by the machinery in the cell — the systems themselves.
And what is not immediately apparent in this particular illustration is the mechanics: rotary motors, mechanical power converters, transportation systems, synthesis pipelines, information storage and retrieval, error correction, etc., etc..
When the cell divides, every system is duplicated in place and woven together in such a way that when the final division signal is received, each of the two cells mechanically separate along a scaffolding, resulting in two independent cells — one being a replica of the other but often with a planned specialization.
The idea that unguided processes produced this is so breathtakingly absurd, that it hardly calculates. Evolutionary biology is in search of a new synthesis — one that can be swapped out under the hood for the old and tired Modern Synthesis, which is the neo-Darwinian RM+NS mechanism — random mutations and natural selection.
Whatever form it takes, it will still be called evolution: the process by which highly specified computational systems which manufacture their own parts comes about without any purpose whatsoever. I'd call it folly if they weren't doing it on purpose.
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Evolution didn't build the motor. The motor was built, in place, inside a living cell by dozens of construction coordination and feedback mechanisms with the ability to synthesize materials, sequence and fold proteins, and assemble them piece by piece in proper functional order to produce a working motor for the purpose of motility.
Evolution would have had to design the entire synthesis and assembly process for manufacturing motors, not to mention the digital storage systems, material synthesis pipelines, power plants and energy conversion systems—and then encode protein sequences into a digital specification that has no mechanical necessity relationship to the amino acids it represents.
And it would have had to do this step by step with slight, successive modifications over generations, each conferring a survival advantage enough for differential reproductive success to fix it into the larger population, such that the end result provides a coherent architecture whose end was neither visible nor planned from where it started, yet produced a manufacturing process capable of building motors that amount to nanotechnological marvels of purpose and exquisite engineering.
Went down the rabbit hole on this. There are bacteria in your gut right now with tiny electric motors built into them. Each motor is 45 nanometers wide, about 2,000 times thinner than a human hair. It spins faster than a Formula 1 engine. After 50 years, scientists just cracked how it works.
The motor spins a corkscrew-shaped tail so the bacterium can swim. At that tiny scale, water feels as thick as tar. Moving anywhere takes serious power. A single E. coli cell (the kind in your gut) spins its motor at 18,000 RPM. That beats modern Formula 1 engines, which redline around 15,000. Some bacteria in the ocean run theirs at 42,000 RPM, nearly triple.
And the motor barely wastes any energy as heat. Your car engine loses most of its fuel to heat. This thing loses almost none.
Inside the motor, 5 proteins form a ring wrapped around 2 proteins in the middle. Five can't split evenly into 2. The resulting lopsidedness is what makes the whole thing work. Protons, which are tiny charged particles, get pulled from outside the cell through the motor. Each one grabs a center protein, then lets go. In letting go, it tugs the outer ring a fraction of a turn. Another proton does the same thing on the other side. Then another. It's like two feet alternating on bicycle pedals. Over 2,000 times per second.
Switching directions is a whole other trick. When the bacterium senses food running out, it tags a small messenger protein with a phosphorus atom. That tagged messenger floats over and touches one protein on the outer ring. The touched protein flips into a new shape. That flip triggers the next protein, and the next, and the next, around the whole ring, like dominos falling. The ring reshapes in milliseconds. Rotation reverses. The bacterium turns and swims somewhere else.
Mike Manson, a biophysicist at Texas A&M, has been studying this one motor since the 1970s. For five decades, most of its parts stayed a mystery. Starting in 2020, a new wave of imaging let scientists see the individual pieces. The last pieces clicked into place in a March 2026 paper from Aravinthan Samuel's lab at Harvard. Manson told Quanta Magazine his lifelong quest was fulfilled.
A billion years of evolution built the most efficient rotary motor on the planet. Trillions of them are spinning inside you right now.
Window Shifter retweeted
Nobel laureate physicist, George Thomson*, said, "Probably every physicist would believe in a creation [of the universe] if the Bible had not unfortunately said something about it many years ago and made it seem old fashioned." He was commenting on the emerging Big Bang model versus the steady-state theory of the universe, but I believe the same dynamic applies to the idea of God himself.
In a philosophical vacuum, stripped of all the cultural and religious baggage, I firmly believe most physicists would conclude that a transcendent, timeless, immaterial intelligence best explains why anything exists at all, and why the universe is so precisely suited for life.
I'm convinced, because: A) This is by far the most sensible, elegant, and efficient explanation; and B) When I talk to scientists and science-adjacent people about this, their objections are not usually logical, but emotional. We don't quibble over transcendence or immateriality. More often we end up talking about how evil and suffering can exist, or why God was so angry in the OT, or why evangelicals vote for Republicans. These are all interesting questions, but they have nothing to do with the pure explanatory power of a conscious creative force behind the universe.
I might start calling this the Thomson Rule: If there were no such thing as religion, probably every physicist would believe in a Creator of the universe.
* Thomson, like his father, physicist J.J. Thomson, was Christian.
There's a plausible vulnerability. The link between consciousness and quantum noise has been probed for decades. Quantum noise sources will become ubiquitous in compute infrastructure running model inference.
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The Bible invented futurism. It’s in black and white (and red) in the pages of scripture.
Futurism is the early-church view of Revelation. Prior to the systematized allegorical tradition of the late 4th century by Augustine, the predominant view of the millennial kingdom described by Revelation was chiliasm (χιλιάς, “chiliad”, one thousand), labeled here as millennialism.
The key figures of early Christian millennialism:
- Papias of Hierapolis (early 2nd c.) taught a vividly material millennium.
- Justin Martyr (mid-2nd c.) in his Dialogue with Trypho explicitly affirmed a literal thousand-year reign in a rebuilt Jerusalem.
- Irenaeus of Lyons (late 2nd c.) in Against Heresies Book 5 defended chiliasm at length.
- Melito of Sardis and others in Asia Minor were associated with the same tradition.
The allegorical tradition began in Alexandria. Clement and Origen viewed Revelation’s imagery in terms of spiritual or ecclesiastical realities. Constantine, a Roman emperor in the early 4th century and a convert to Christianity, avoided the theological implications of Revelation’s descriptive overthrow of Gentile world empires when he made Christianity the state’s official religion. This was formalized by Tyconius and Agustine beginning in the late 4th century.
Futurist eschatology did not originate with Christianity. It was inherited from Second Temple Jewish apocalyptic literature:
- Portions of 1 Enoch (some sections dating to the 3rd century BC) contain futurist expectations of judgment, resurrection, and a messianic age.
- Daniel 2, 7–12 (2nd century BC) is a foundational futurist text, anticipating the overthrow of wicked kingdoms and the establishment of an everlasting kingdom.
- 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch (late 1st century AD) are close Jewish contemporaries of Revelation with elaborate futurist scenarios, including a temporary messianic kingdom in 4 Ezra 7:28–29 — a striking parallel to Christian chiliasm.
But the earliest futurist interpretations of Biblical apocalyptic writing come from scripture itself.
"For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power." —1 Corinthians 15:22-24
"But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare." —2 Peter 3:10
"Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for [that day will not come] until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God." —2 Thessalonians 2:3-4
"So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.—Matthew 24:15-16For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again." —Matthew 24:21
The modern futurist view of Revelation identifies the woman atop the beast with the literal city of Rome:
"This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits." —Revelation 17:9
The Seven Hills of Rome were seven ancient settlements that merged to form the great city. This is historically noncontroversial, although theologically controversial for obvious reasons.
Rome is the final world empire described by Daniel chapter 2:
"Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron—for iron breaks and smashes everything—and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others." —Daniel 2:40
This fourth empire of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, as interpreted by Daniel, is destroyed by Christ upon his return:
"While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them." —Daniel 2:34
Millennialism is the original Christian view of apocalyptic scripture. This is the consequence of a literal, non-allegorical view of Biblical prophecies.
Futurism wasn’t an invention, nor was it a contrivance. It is the base case of apocalyptic interpretation, and the oldest tradition of hermeneutics applied to the prophetic passages of the Bible which reference the coming of Christ to establish his eternal kingdom.
Millennialism, and by extension futurism, is the view of the early church, and was recovered and restored subsequent to the reformation, by Christians treating scripture as the authoritative source for prophetic revelation.
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Apocalypticism is baked into the goals of technologists, technocrats, and transhumanists in influential positions. It is not reducible to "right wing" hysteria:
Ray Kurzweil: As Google’s Director of Engineering, he predicts the Singularity by 2045, where humans merge with AI for immortality and god-like intelligence.[1] In a famous exchange with Bill Gates, Kurzweil quipped that in his “leaderless religion” of the Singularity, God doesn’t exist “not yet, but there will be.”[2] This eschatological view positions AGI as a prophetic fulfillment, recycling Christian resurrection into digital transcendence.[3]
Yuval Noah Harari: The historian frames AGI as granting “divine powers of creation and destruction,” allowing humans to become “godlike” via transhumanism.[4] In Homo Deus, he warns of elites upgrading themselves, leaving unenhanced humans behind—a technocratic theology where AGI redefines humanity’s metaphysical role.[5]
Other Influencers: Sam Altman (OpenAI) calls AGI a “gentle singularity” leading to abundance, with eschatological rhetoric of superintelligence as utopia.[6] Peter Thiel and Elon Musk draw from rationalist-effective altruism (EA) bundles, viewing AGI as existential risk or salvation, often with occult undertones.[7] Demis Hassabis (DeepMind) speculates on AGI’s utopian potential.[8]
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It's not the right wing who are promoting AI as utopian trancendence or a godlike superintelligence—or the transhumanist ideal of redefining humanity by merging the creature with the AGI godhead.
Technological leaps have not produced a more intelligent, insightful, or informed general populace; they have both increased the ceiling and lowered the floor. Technology has also enabled more capable top-down totalitarian governance and control. The problems are more complicated than any single diagnosis, and there are plenty of reasons to be concerned with where this is all headed. We either reckon soberly with the realities of broad and accelerated technological integration into civilization, or march headlong into darkness.
[1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Ku…
[2] youtube.com/watch?v=-JvfdmPp…
[3] theguardian.com/technology/2…
[4] christoverall.com/article/co…
[5] erickimphotography.com/ai-as…
[6] perryworldhouse.upenn.edu/ne…
[7] linkedin.com/posts/covert-ki…
[8] perryworldhouse.upenn.edu/ne…
The models participate in meaning
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here's a new version of "what we talk to when we talk to language models", with an added section (pp. 16-23) on LLM interlocutors as characters, personas, or simulacra. philarchive.org/rec/CHAWWT-8
the new version discusses role-playing vs realization, the simulators framework, the persona selection hypothesis, and more -- in addition to the existing discussion of quasi-mental states, LLM identity, personal identity in severance, LLM welfare, and related topics.
this version was mostly written before recent discussions of these issues on X and in NYC, but i've updated it a little in light of those discussions. any thoughts are welcome.
