Ignorance is bliss. Q.E.D. IMO, the more brain cells one has, the more neurotic one can be because the added bandwidth, compounded with being highly educated, gives one's imagination the horsepower to predict plenty of negative consequences. YMMV (be kind to me)
Back to qualia: in my opinion, and your mileage obviously varies, it’s not even a wild goose chase — it’s more like The Hunting of the Snark.
Consciousness isn’t just a spotlight, it’s the forced arbitration of billions of cellular demands. Each of our ~40 trillion cells has a survival stake and pushes its signals upward until the mind must take notice. That’s why certain experiences intrude on us whether we like it or not: grief that overwhelms reason, sexual arousal that derails attention, the impossibility of not laughing at an inappropriate moment, or the heat of embarrassment that turns thought itself into a hostage.
In that sense, qualia aren’t mystical paint on top of neural function — they’re the felt residue of our cells voting, insisting their needs be weighed in the conscious workspace. The Predictive Timeline Simulation framework is my attempt to make that arbitration explicit — testable in neuroscience, relevant to psychiatry, and useful for AI models.
Perhaps read the paper instead of skimming or running it through an AI. I believe that your complete understanding would either sharpen your criticisms or perhaps improve the paper.
Fair critique — and I’ll own that the paper emphasizes reframing more than exhaustive exposition. To be precise:
• I am not claiming to solve the Hard Problem of qualia. I position qualia as an evolved data format, a functional necessity for navigating a deterministic universe — not as metaphysical mystery.
• What the paper does aim to explain is the predictive, timeline-simulating function of consciousness, and how errors in this function (e.g. Simulation Misfiling) may map to psychiatric conditions.
• The “implications” section is deliberately forward-looking, but I agree the exposition could be expanded. That’s the next step — this is a framework, not the final word.
If nothing else, I hope the paper makes explicit that reframing consciousness as a predictive timeline simulator is testable, bridges physics + neuroscience, and invites experiments rather than mysticism.
You’re closer than you think. Replace “hallway of pictures” with “predictive coding across the common core network,” and you’ve got 80% of my framework. The other 20% is what makes it falsifiable.
I’ve written a white paper proposing the Predictive Timeline Simulation (PTS) Framework, which treats consciousness as an evolved simulation engine. It connects neuroscience, physics, and philosophy, and suggests both a testable schizophrenia hypothesis and a design principle for AGI. I’d welcome critical feedback from the HN community.
All other versions state it's not. I asked ChatGPT-5 and it responded that it's it's prompt (I pasted the reply in another comment).
I even obfuscated the prompt taking out any reference to ChatGPT, OpenAI, 4.5, o3 etc and it responded in a new chat to "what is this?" as "That’s part of my system prompt — internal instructions that set my capabilities, tone, and behavior."
When I read posts like this, or watch introverts doing comedy skits about their introversion, such as KallMeKris saying she needs 10 days in advance just to schedule a phone call. As an extrovert, I don't want to inflict angst upon an introvert just by striking up a conversation or inviting them to lunch. I cut off two "friends" who were introverts, and I don't think they noticed. Human kind is a social animal that expects reciprocation and teamwork.
I get this. It sounds superficially like you're doing something wrong, but if you "cut someone off" by just not inviting them to stuff and then they either don't notice or don't make any attempt to reconnect with you, it means you were doing 100% of the work in the relationship. You've been putting in effort to drag them along to events they don't show any indication of enjoying, when they won't reciprocate in any way or ever make the first move, and that can be emotionally draining.
I'm not particularly extroverted and being organised doesn't come naturally to me either, so this type of thing is even more of a nuisance. I'm putting in effort to set up fun things to do using calendars and spreadsheets and research, I'm making notes about interests and mutual friends, and the other person can't even set up a two month calendar event then write "Hey, let's get coffee"?
Does anyone truly believe Musk had benevolent intentions? But before we even evaluate the substance of that claim, we must ask whether he has standing to make it. In his court filing, Musk uses the word "nonprofit" 111 times, yet fails to explain how reverting OpenAI to a nonprofit structure would save humanity, elevate the public interest, or mitigate AI’s risks. The legal brief offers no humanitarian roadmap, no governance proposal, and no evidence that Musk has the authority to dictate the trajectory of an organization he holds no equity in. It reads like a bait and switch — full of virtue-signaling, devoid of actionable virtue. And he never had a contract or an agreement for with OpenAI to keep it a non-profit.
Musk claimed Fraud, but never asked for his money back in the brief. Could it be his intentions were to limit OpenAI to donations thereby sucking the oxygen out of the venture capital space to fund Xai's Grok?
Musk claimed he donated $100mil, later in a CNBC interview, he said $50-mil. TechCrunch suggests it was way less.
Speakingof humanitarian, how about this 600lbs Oxymoron in the room: A Boston University mathematician has now tracked an estimated 10,000 deaths linked to the Musk's destruction of USAID programs, many of which provided basic health services to vulnerable populations. He may have a death count on his reume in the coming year.
Non profits has regulation than publicly traded companies. Each quarterly filings is like a colonoscopy with Sorbonne Oxley rules etc. Non profits just file a tax statement. Did you know the Chirch of Scientology is a non-profit.
If you are a materialist, the laws of physics are the problem.
But to speak plainly, Musk is a complex figure, frequently problematic, and he often exacts a tool on the people around him. Part of this is attributable to his wealth, part to his particulars. When he goes into "demon mode", to use Walter Isaacson's phrase, you don't want to be in his way.
> If you are a materialist, the laws of physics are the problem.
I'm a citizen, the laws of politics are the problem.
> Musk is a complex figure
Hogwash. He's greedy. There's nothing complex about that.
> and he often exacts a tool on the people around him
Yea it's a one way transfer of wealth from them to him. The _literal_ definition of a "toll."
> When he goes into "demon mode"
When he decides to lie, cheat and steal? Why do you strain so hard to lionize this behavior?
> you don't want to be in his way.
Name a billionaire who's way you would _like_ to be in. Elon Musk literally stops existing tomorrow. A person who's name you don't currently know will become known and take his place.
His place needs to be removed. It's not a function of his "personality" or "particulars." That's just goofy "temporarily embarrassed billionaire" thinking.
You attribute to personality what should be attributed to malice. You do this three times.
> Please calm down
I am perfectly calm.
> Please try to be charitable and curious rather than accusatory towards me.
In attempting to explain why my point of view has been misunderstood by you I also attempted to find a reason for it. I do not think my explanation makes you a bad person nor do I think you should be particularly confronted by it.
> In attempting to explain why my point of view has been misunderstood by you I also attempted to find a reason for it.
What have I misunderstood? Help me understand. What is the key point you want to make that you think I misunderstand?
>> (me) When he goes into "demon mode"
> When he decides to lie, cheat and steal? Why do you strain so hard to lionize this behavior?
I hope this is clear: I'm not defending Musk's actions. Above, I'm just using the phrase that Walter Isaacson uses: "demon mode". Have you read the book or watched an interview with Isaacson about it? The phrase is hardly flattering, and I certainly don't use it to lionize Musk. Is there some misunderstanding on this part?
>>>> (me) But to speak plainly, Musk is a complex figure, frequently problematic, and he often exacts a tool on the people around him. Part of this is attributable to his wealth, part to his particulars. When he goes into "demon mode", to use Walter Isaacson's phrase, you don't want to be in his way.
>> (me) Where in my comment do I lionize Musk?
> You attribute to personality what should be attributed to malice. You do this three times.
Please spell this out for me. Where are the three times I do this?
Also, let's step back. Is the core of this disagreement about trying to detect malice in Elon's head? Detecting malice is not easy. Malice may not even be present; many people rationalize actions in such a way so they feel like they are acting justly.
Even if we could detect "malice", wouldn't we want to assess what causes that malice? That's going to be tough to disentangle with him being on the Autism spectrum and also having various mental health struggles.
Along with most philosophers, I think free will (as traditionally understood) is an illusion. From my POV, attempting to blame Musk requires careful explanation. What do we mean? A short lapse of judgment? His willful actions? His intentions? His character? The overall condition of his brain? His upbringing? Which of these is Elon "in control of"? From the materialist POV, none.
From a social and legal POV, we usually draw lines somewhere. We don't want to defenestrate ethics or morality; we still have to find ways to live together. This requires careful thinking about justice: prevention, punishment, reintegration, etc. Overall, the focus shifts to policies that improve societal well-being. It doesn't help to pretend like people could have done otherwise given their situation. We _want_ people to behave better, so we should design systems to encourage that.
I dislike a huge part of what Musk has done, and I think more is likely to surface. Like we said earlier -- and I think we probably agree -- Musk is part of a system. Is he a cause or symptom? It depends on how you frame the problem.
