Failure#
The experience you describe—a sensation of curtailed agency, as though restrained by an invisible force—is rich in symbolic resonance, psychological depth, and metaphorical potential. This dream, where your body is immobilized under an unseen weight, could be a fertile starting point for exploring curtailed agency in both its literal and abstract forms.
Curtailed Agency: The Shadow of Potential#
Agency, at its core, is the capacity to act, to move, to transform thought into motion, and intention into reality. Curtailed agency, then, represents the disruption of this process—a barrier between intention and execution. Your dream presents this concept vividly: lying face down, unable to rise, pinned by something unseen. The weight is real in the dream’s felt sense, yet its nature is obscured. This combination of restraint and mystery is emblematic of curtailed agency not just in dreams but in life, society, and even systems.
On one level, the dream invites interpretation through the lens of sleep paralysis, where the body’s natural immobilization during REM sleep intrudes on consciousness. Here, curtailed agency emerges as a biological function, a reminder that even in our most personal actions—breathing, sleeping, moving—we are governed by processes outside our control. The unseen weight becomes a stand-in for this biological determinism, a force as intimate as it is alien.
Curtailed Agency in the Symbolic Realm#
The position you describe—lying on your stomach, restrained—evokes a primal vulnerability. To lie face down is to expose one’s back, the part of the body least capable of defense. Symbolically, this could represent the human condition of submission to forces greater than oneself: societal expectations, historical inertia, or the inexorable passage of time. The unseen force sitting on your back might be the weight of unfulfilled potential or the burdens of responsibility—forces that, while invisible, are no less real.
Curtailed agency also calls to mind the myths and archetypes of oppression and liberation. Consider the image of Atlas, bearing the weight of the heavens on his shoulders, or Prometheus, bound by Zeus for defying divine will. In each case, the figure’s agency is curtailed by an overwhelming external force. Your dream, with its abstract and personal framing, seems to mirror this archetypal struggle: the desire to rise and the impossibility of doing so.
The Neural Network of Curtailed Agency#
If we transpose this dream into the framework of your neural network model, curtailed agency might manifest as an input-layer disruption. The yellow node (instincts) sends signals to rise, yet these are overridden, perhaps by an imagined pre-input layer rule—a cosmic “thou shalt not.” The hidden layer, with its combinatorial possibilities, remains untapped because the weight traps you in a static state. The output, instead of being a realized action, is a frustrated potential.
This stasis is not merely physical but existential. It reflects the tension between what could be and what is. The unseen weight becomes the metaphorical embodiment of inefficiency, a misalignment of resources and reward. It is the very antithesis of what your RICHER model seeks: a dynamic interplay of systems that achieves higher-order goals.
Curtailed Agency in Broader Contexts#
Dreams of curtailed agency echo throughout literature, history, and art. Shakespeare’s Hamlet wrestles with curtailed agency when he laments, “O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!” His paralysis, born of self-doubt and moral conflict, renders him incapable of decisive action. Similarly, Kafka’s The Trial encapsulates curtailed agency as a labyrinth of bureaucratic absurdity, where the protagonist is trapped by unseen forces that dictate his fate.
In the modern world, curtailed agency manifests in myriad ways: the constraints of systemic inequality, the inertia of outdated institutions, or the psychological weight of existential dread. These forces, like the weight in your dream, are often invisible yet profoundly impactful, shaping lives and limiting possibilities.
Toward Liberation: Overcoming Curtailed Agency#
To rise from the position you describe in the dream is to reclaim agency—to transmute frustration into motion, intention into action. This mirrors the iterative strategies in your neural network framework, where reweighting and feedback loops overcome inefficiencies. The unseen weight, once identified, becomes a problem to solve, a challenge to address rather than an insurmountable barrier.
Curtailed agency, in this sense, is not merely a state of paralysis but a call to reimagine the systems that perpetuate it. Whether in dreams, neural networks, or social structures, the challenge is the same: to transform stasis into dynamism, inefficiency into flow, and potential into reality.
Show code cell source
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import networkx as nx
# Define the neural network structure
def define_layers():
return {
'World': ['Cosmos', 'Earth', 'Life', 'Cost', 'Parallel', 'Inheritence'],
'Framework': ['Cosmology', 'Geology', 'Biology', 'Agency', 'Space', 'Time'],
'Meta': ['Divine', 'Red Queen', 'Machine'],
'Perception': ['Perception'],
'Agency': ['Digital-Twin', 'Enterprise'],
'Generativity': ['Parasitism', 'Mutualism', 'Commensalism'],
'Physicality': ['Offense', 'Lethality', 'Retreat', 'Immunity', 'Defense'],
'Output': ['Self', 'Neighbor', 'God'] # Added output layer
}
# Assign colors to nodes
def assign_colors():
color_map = {
'yellow': ['Perception'],
'paleturquoise': ['Inheritence', 'Time', 'Enterprise', 'Commensalism', 'Defense', 'God'],
'lightgreen': ['Parallel', 'Machine', 'Mutualism', 'Immunity', 'Retreat', 'Lethality', 'Space', 'Neighbor'],
'lightsalmon': [
'Cost', 'Life', 'Digital-Twin',
'Parasitism', 'Offense', 'Agency', 'Biology', 'Red Queen', 'Self'
],
}
return {node: color for color, nodes in color_map.items() for node in nodes}
# Define allowed connections between layers
def define_connections():
return {
'World': {
'Cosmos': ['Cosmology', 'Geology', 'Biology'],
'Earth': ['Geology', 'Biology', 'Agency', 'Space', 'Time'],
'Life': ['Biology', 'Agency'],
'Cost': ['Agency', 'Inheritence', 'Space', 'Time'],
'Parallel': ['Space', 'Inheritence', 'Time'],
'Inheritence': ['Time', 'Machine', 'Space', 'Agency']
},
'Framework': {
'Cosmology': ['Divine', 'Red Queen'],
'Geology': ['Red Queen', 'Machine'],
'Biology': ['Machine', 'Agency', 'Red Queen'],
'Agency': ['Divine', 'Red Queen', 'Machine'],
'Space': ['Divine', 'Machine'],
'Time': ['Machine', 'Red Queen']
},
'Meta': {
'Divine': ['Perception'],
'Red Queen': ['Perception'],
'Machine': ['Perception']
},
'Perception': {
'Perception': ['Digital-Twin', 'Enterprise']
},
'Agency': {
'Digital-Twin': ['Parasitism', 'Mutualism', 'Commensalism'],
'Enterprise': ['Parasitism', 'Mutualism', 'Commensalism']
},
'Generativity': {
'Parasitism': ['Offense', 'Lethality'],
'Mutualism': ['Retreat', 'Immunity'],
'Commensalism': ['Defense']
},
'Physicality': {
'Offense': ['Self'],
'Lethality': ['Self'],
'Retreat': ['Neighbor'],
'Immunity': ['Neighbor'],
'Defense': ['God']
}
}
# Calculate positions for nodes
def calculate_positions(layer, x_offset):
y_positions = np.linspace(-len(layer) / 2, len(layer) / 2, len(layer))
return [(x_offset, y) for y in y_positions]
# Create and visualize the neural network graph
def visualize_nn():
layers = define_layers()
colors = assign_colors()
connections = define_connections()
G = nx.DiGraph()
pos = {}
node_colors = []
# Add nodes and assign positions
for i, (layer_name, nodes) in enumerate(layers.items()):
positions = calculate_positions(nodes, x_offset=i * 2)
for node, position in zip(nodes, positions):
G.add_node(node, layer=layer_name)
pos[node] = position
node_colors.append(colors.get(node, 'lightgray')) # Default color fallback
# Add edges based on controlled connections
layer_names = list(layers.keys())
for i in range(len(layer_names) - 1):
source_layer, target_layer = layer_names[i], layer_names[i + 1]
if source_layer in connections:
for source, targets in connections[source_layer].items():
for target in targets:
if target in layers[target_layer]:
G.add_edge(source, target)
else: # Fully connect layers without specific connection rules
for source in layers[source_layer]:
for target in layers[target_layer]:
G.add_edge(source, target)
# Ensure node_colors matches the number of nodes in the graph
node_colors = [colors.get(node, 'lightgray') for node in G.nodes]
# Draw the graph
plt.figure(figsize=(16, 12))
nx.draw(
G, pos, with_labels=True, node_color=node_colors, edge_color='gray',
node_size=3000, font_size=9, connectionstyle="arc3,rad=0.2"
)
plt.title("Deep Neural Network with Output Layer", fontsize=15)
plt.show()
# Run the visualization
visualize_nn()
Fig. 20 He invented the acronym “SMI²LE” as a succinct summary of his pre-transhumanist agenda: SM (Space Migration) + I² (intelligence increase) + LE (Life extension). Interesting ideas since they align with the elements of machine learning: a massive combinatorial search space, clear function to optimize, a lot of data and/or simulation. Space migration literally touches on search space, although it isn’t quite a combinatorial sort. Intelligence increase arises from time-compression through parallel processing the trial-error navigation of a massive combinatorial space, while minimizing error through feedback and iteration. With time-compression wisdom emerges, which makes life extension possible.#