any anons here familiar with the kabbalah?
one thing i am personally curious about is the golem myth as it has clear connections to modern attempts at artificial life. any anons believe they know the full meaning of the golem ritual? as far as i know, the 22 letters each represent a metaphysical principle. the 231 gates are then meant to represent every potential principle. there is a connection here with the adam kadmon mentioned (e.g. here:
https://www.alchemywebsite.com/golem.html) though i am not knowledgable enough to confirm. if this was it's meaning, i am unsure what is either psychological (i.e. what is claimed how that the mind ought to be structured) or material (i.e. what is being claimed about how matter ought to be structured) significance.
(1) that we should look at states of matter which can simultaneously embody multiple possibilia (perhaps by superposition) seems like a possible interpretation, but doesn't quite entail embodiment of all principles simultaneously. (2) we could instead interpret this correspondence as the soul somehow conferring "general intelligence", i.e. the capacity to in principle solve any task computationally tractable by machines physically realized by apparatuses of a mass comparable to or less than that of the apparatus for our general intelligence. i find this interpretation facile, and it does not seem to permit the possibility that the golem is unable to speak. (3) these principles in particular are always at play at every moment of mental life. this is a claim most unparsimonious
another point: i can't help but feel that some of these metaphysical principles are obscure. in particular, why must each of these principles embodied by the letters be necessary? furthermore, how exactly do these principles function? if we associate a letter with a classical element (say fire), i still need to know what "fire" actually means. where do we see "fire" in an organism? why is this principle so metaphysically necessary? what does this principle do for the organism? furthermore, the application of this principle should be done in a uniform way. the "fire" in an organism should also be easily applicable to being the "fire" of a machine with literal difficulty. one such interpretation of "fire" in this instance could be "energy transformation". it is presumably necessary in order for us to have physical configurations characterized by lower local entropy while the 2nd law of thermodynamics still holding. if i have a problem with this interpretation, it is that it is too "physical" if that makes any sense. at any rate, all 22 letters ought to be interpreted in such a matter, otherwise it would just be symbolic navel gazing
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the other side of things is with the homunculus, which i am not at all familiar with. if anyone here has knowledge about it, please share!