2412 Notes
12/03
a consideration of how knowledge gains value not merely through truth-claims but through mobility (!)
material engagements
embellishments, tools, practices, and experimentations that persuade not only through knowledge production but also through the contingent qualities of quotidian life: connection, affect,value, worth
an actionable site of intervention, dislocation and struggle
MORAL INJURY (bernstein) - the right to name, exchange, land - political economy - enforced secularism, what is on the periphery? When does the peripheral activity happen? (nocturnal? day?)
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Transformation - ontological and epistemic (!) difficult term. - from really doing what you’re doing to move it (!) - What do you mean by ‘transformation’?
Neuroplasticity idea - the Pollan Effect - social transformation - repressive Drug on Drugs - how marginalized populations, underground drug usages are being part of the ‘making of science’
subcommunities - more open to it - both science and religious faiths
contested illnesses - scientific basis for what is happening - the communities -
Broader questions - framework on diagnosis itself - What is being tackled here?
Feedback - make the response more explicit!
Electrical grid - machinery for manufacturing - pacing - form of duress - temporalities, ideology - “Sicklical” disaster - recursive history - Affect and Infrastructure
12/05
diverse intelligence - embodied minds - plant cognition - at the intersection of biophysics, cognitive science, and bioengineering - plant agency -
how they scale - a wider continuum of beings - technological and biological changes - exo-biological agents -
Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere: An Experientially-Grounded Framework for Understanding Diverse Bodies and Minds (!) cogent reasons..
intelligence is to be decided empirically - cognitive claims are interaction protocol claims - plant cells prompted to make new structures - “morphospace”
Pineal Gland - unified perspectives (Descartes) - is full of cells - all of us are collective intelligences - no neurons and no brains - how do they scale up - gene regulatory networks - different kinds of learning
train cells to respond in different ways - basal cognition - to the heavier mass - initial metabolic to linguistic experiences -
unconventional convention - it’s the problem solving - scalable bending
Competence of the system - self-assembly - what degree of ingenuity it has
acquiring voltage signals - running physiological networks - Tweaking of bioelectric network connectivity
Learn - behavior - responses
We are metabolic patterns - Thoughts as Thinkers
Classical sorting algorightms as a model of morphogenesis: Self-sorting arrays reveal unexpected competencies in a minimal model of basal intelligence - “ethical flourishing of sentient beings”
Once you accept cognition in plants, the same approaches will lead far beyond it (!)
Continuum of agency: go where results lead -
Fauna Systems
12/10
기적이 일어날지도 몰라~ 그랬으면 좋겠다
Lately I’ve been thinking about the Acacia plant. It’s grown so quickly these past few days, in a way that seems almost surreal—like time itself has accelerated amidst the relentless churn of political turmoil and the confusion it leaves behind. We often say that plants grow stronger under stress, but I wonder if those measurements are skewed by the subjectivity of human observers, failing to see the interconnectedness of what we call the environment.
The plant stands taller now, stronger and greener—a luminous, mystical green that my mind keeps murmuring about as I gaze at it. I recall Isabel’s words: “When the leaves bow downward, it means the plant is struggling. Be gentle and care for it better.” It reminds me of what plant cognition studies suggest—that the relationship we form with plants can be as deep and personal as the ones we have with people. Lately, the connection I feel with the Acacia feels as profound, if not more so, than the one I have with others.
The more attention I give to the plant, the more emotionally tethered I become. I’ll be leaving it behind soon as I depart for Europe, and I can’t help but worry: will it get enough light? Enough water? Would Gretchen be able to care for it? Not just anyone could take on that responsibility—certainly not a random subletter. Maybe Isabel could; I trust she’d be a good caretaker. These thoughts creep in every time I look at the plant. I wonder if it’s happy, or if it feels stress. Its topmost leaf is vibrant, yet drooping. Are you unwell? Do you need water? The soil still feels damp—perhaps this is just maturity. Could sadness, like in humans, be part of your emotional range? What about love?
I feel heavy. The intellectual demands of academia—its rigid structures and unrelenting expectations—are wearing me down. The gap between my bodily, affective experiences and the words or intentions available to express them seems insurmountable. This is me now, here, grappling with the need to say something—anything—while questioning whether saying it is necessary at all.
The endless stream of “required readings” has begun to dishearten me. I do love the act of reading—taking notes, drawing diagrams, putting ideas into different contexts—but the pressure to perform constantly pulls me away. I catch myself endlessly scrolling through chaotic, overlapping reels of reality, imagination, and waste. Even my care for friends has started to feel obligatory, weighed down by a sense of responsibility: if I don’t check in, they might disappear, get hurt, or abandoned. The joy of shared laughter or meaningful conversations feels distant, replaced by a growing curiosity about him, about everything.
I can’t stop thinking about the late 19th century on the Korean peninsula—it occupies all the mental space I have left:
조선은 1881년 청나라에 영선사, 일본 제국에 신사유람단을 파견하는 등 초기 개화에 힘썼으나, 이내 혼란에 빠져들었다. 이듬해인 1882년 임오군란이 일어나고 흥선 대원군의 재집권 하였으나, 그 해 명성황후의 환궁으로 조선은 청의 강력한 구속을 받게 된다. 이에 개화파들에 의해 1884년 갑신정변이 일어났으나, 역시 실패로 돌아갔다. 이후 80년대 내내 조선은 역사상 유래 없이 청나라에게 사실상 반식민지 수준의 강한 간섭을 받았다.
그러나 개화가 중단 된 것은 아니었다. 특히 이홍장의 권유로 미국, 영국, 프랑스 제3공화국, 독일 제국, 이탈리아 왕국 등과 외교관계를 맺었으며, 이 때문에 1885년에는 거문도 점령 사건이 벌어지기도 했다.
이 연대 들어서 대한민국의 국기인 태극기가 처음으로 등장하였는데 1882년 조미수호통상조약 조인식에서 최초로 사용된 것으로 보이는데 이는 그 해 7월 미 해군부에서 발행한 해양국가의 깃발들이라는 서적에 실려있다.[1] 1883년 고종 집권기에 들어서 처음으로 조선의 국기가 탄생[2] 하였고 이듬해에는 우정국이 신설되어서 한국의 우편업무가 시작되었다. 1884년에는 한반도에 처음으로 크리스마스가 소개되었다.
Impatience and forgetfulness creep in as I cultivate a sense of duty toward the territory I care for. And yet, I know this is beautiful: to believe in something, to hope, to strive. But the enormity of the world exhausts me.
Perhaps the Acacia has absorbed these emotions of mine—my stress, my melancholy. Is that why its leaves seem weaker? The thought saddens me further.
Recently, missionaries have been ringing our apartment bell, offering “good news.” Once, on impulse, I let them in, half-hoping they might indeed bring some relief. They spoke first in French, then switched to English, urging us to have hope for the future. One elder, clutching a worn Bible, impatiently flipped to a bookmarked page and began reading aloud. I felt my body withdraw, a reflex from past encounters with missionaries that left behind a residue of guilt and mistrust.
Meanwhile, tasks pile up: I’ve sent Joseph a message about a reading group, need to reply to Jiwon, and should review the art festival proposal Ari suggested. What’s going on with Lukas? There’s a book review of Tripping on Utopia that’s been sitting unfinished for months, not to mention two papers I owe Ann, Nick, and Sean. Amadeus’s project deadline is looming, and Gretchen’s health is on my mind—how is she managing her treatment?
The plants, though, keep growing and breathing. Life goes on. I spent over 14 hours in bed recently, lost in video clips, memes, news, and articles about protests and wars. All the work I should be doing—urgent, pressing—felt invisible.
I’ve just sent out a survey draft about attitudes toward therapeutic psychedelics to Paul and the team, intended for distribution in Germany, Australia, Taiwan, and the US. Phrasing questions that are meaningful yet immediately clear is harder than I’d expected—it’s been humbling, in a way. These tasks, tied to funding and deadlines, feel urgent.
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So in terms of the book review on Tripping on Utopia - Let me first think about Ben. Although I saw him once only via zoom when we had a chance to invite him to the lab at the new school, based on the impressions I received from his gestures, style, and his logics, he seems quite of a fast thinker, taking the adventure of leaping the gap because of missing archives, pulling himself within the history back then, and also, believing in the power of the intellect, which somehow even feels a bit naive.
There were tons of individuals mentioned in the text, through the trajectory of each Breen weaved a tapestry of experiments that were no less lively than what we encounter at the moment. I remember I jotted down the foundations, activities, experiments, and publications of those within a linear timeline to garner a sense of literacy of what was going on at a particular moment of time and space. The timeline turned incredibly colorful and messy, particularly during the post-war period and Cold War. Also drew the Actor Network of involved individuals from Margaret Mead to Marcel Duchamp, forming a shape of a flower as I drew the connected lines among them.
The story begins with Mead’s youth - her late teenage years rushing towards a decisive moment of marriage, independence, and educational career. Her questions and relationships that were forming during the time were existential, as any of those contemplated by women in that age maturing into adulthood: her friendship with Ruth Benedict, her conditions that shifted from Philadelphia to New York City, her engagements with the folks at Columbia under Papa Franz, such as with Nancy-Schaeper Hughes, etc, and her love life with (…).
The exploration gets deeper, as the intellectual network at the time evolves around the initial psychedelic research held in the US - the medical offices of Harold Abramson in West Manhattan, George White’s “Pad” in Greenwich village, the Palo Alto VA Hospital in the Bay Area, the Mental Research Institute, and the list goes on. When the MKUltra project was secretly launched by the CIA and affiliated researchers for the Macy’s conference, Breen gets excited. One can easily imagine a stillcut excerpted from noir films that whisper through the haunted atmosphere of the Cold War, and again, the attention centers around the various layers formulated around psychedelics that seem to be depicted as the pharmakon of the era.
I would say the most relevant part of this book to the current research field that provides practical insight are the archives around Harold Abramson, whose career focused on experimenting with psychedelic drugs on snails, fish, and psychotic patients. Multiple depictions of his patients, done under the cover of the CIA project, went down the road as casualties, incidents of psychosis, and accidents leaked through an apparently controlled experiment setting throughout his inquiry. What was done wrong, and what could have been done better if we, with further trials, lessons, and discussions across university labs, amazons, and drug companies that are piling up both mainstream and underground?
