Wondrous Wisdom, Examples how issues come to matter, Systematizing how issues come to matter
Andrius: I am classifying the examples we're collecting.
Classifying How Issues Come to Matter
Caring is evidently based on a physical, bodily, material expression, an inner sense, that we reference, which apparently helps us focus our motivation. So our inner chemical make up can affect whether we care.
- Drugs, medical or recreational, can keep us from caring.
- Motivation enhancing drugs can artificially, temporarily increase our readiness to care.
Our emotions, our moods can prompt us to care. They can also prompt us to investigate the source of the mood. Sometimes there may be a reason for the mood, based on our actions, attitudes, interactions, what we're going through, and sometimes the moods may be random. Random moods can prompt us to investigate. Living with different moods allows us to see how the positions we take appear with different mindsets.
Caring is a reexpression of our attention, transforming it, like a molten liquid, giving it shape in space-time, so that it can be reorganized in time, it can be structured conditionally and causally, it can be distributed in parallel or in sequence, it can be driven from inside of us or be responsive to what is outside of us.
Caring is an investment of ourselves, our transmuted attention, into possibilities.
- Caring about X gives rise to caring about Y which affects it
- Caring to improve circumstances
- Caring about X because of comparisons with others
- Caring to take action X to exercise control
- Being open to a persuasive argumentation for X
- learning about the possibility of X
- learning about the actuality of X in comparable situations
- learning about the effectiveness of X
- learning that one can do X
- learning how one can do X
- Caring repeatedly about X gives rise to caring to take action regarding it
- Caring about X because an exemplary person cares about X
- Being taught to care about X
- Being in a supportive environment for caring about X
- Caring to try
- Caring to overcome failures, challenges, obstacles
- Caring to dedicate oneself
- Caring to develop a habit
- Caring to live in the moment
- Caring to be effective
- Caring to live well
- Caring to be effective
- Caring to know what one does not know
- Caring to understand the reasons
- Caring to appreciate the relevance of facts
- Embracing a compelling idea
- Caring about related ideas
- Caring to not care
Enabling the body to physically allow for caring
Montijn: I was on heavy medication throughout a long time of my youth and during that time it was very hard to actually care about anything. I was put in a special school essentially for traumatic events that happened in my family, but for me, I felt distant to it all. But when I moved to my mom's place just to live there, she put me off medication at once and definitely things began to matter.
Jere: A clap of thunder wakes me up.
Andrius: I was deeply in love with a woman but she married another man. I fell into a deep gloom. Every fifteen minutes I would think of her, I found nothing interesting, life felt colorless, pointless, meaningless. I understood that I would feel this way for a long, long time. I cared to take care of myself. I consoled myself that this was well timed for I was writing my PhD thesis, which was a chore. I chose four activities to help me heal myself: I did sports every day, riding my bike along the viaduct, sometimes out to the ocean; I read all of the Old Testament, a few sections each night; I read the Three Kingdoms, a classic Chinese adventure book; and I went to church on Sundays but also on Wednesdays.
Caring to take action X to exercise control over Y
- Caring about X gives rise to caring about Y which affects it
Steph: Every time I went to close my eyes and breathe through my nose I could not because I had broken my nose and had a deviated septum. Over time, wanting to meditate, and just getting stuck on not breathing air deeply because I believed I had a broken nose eventually led to me getting nose surgery and fixing that deviated septum.
Jere: I don’t want the floor and rug to get wet. I get up and close the window. Does it matter? Yes. If the rug gets wet it may mold and a wet floor may be slippery.
Ryan: I just got gifted a new blender so suddenly my oranges matter.
Ryan: People are starving, so humanitarianism matters to me.
Ryan: A rook suddenly "mattering" at a certain moment in a chess game.
Andrius: A mouse left some poop on my kitchen table. I do not want this to make me sick or to contaminate me or my food. ... So I set out my mouse traps.
Andrius: I do not want to be cleaning up after mice because I think it just makes the sponges dirty.
Andrius: I don't want to use poison because I don't want dead mice decomposing in places of my house that I can't find or reach.
Andrius: If the mouse is alive, then I take the mouse and trap behind the barn and let it go there so that it might go into the barn and not the house.
Andrius: When I catch a mouse, I have to dispose of it.
Caring repeatedly about X gives rise to caring to take action regarding it
Steph: So it was in a moment, times I would sit down to meditate, breath and notice my anxiety wouldn't dissipate because I felt like I couldn't survive without breathing properly. And it built up, time after time, to when it mattered where I took an action that changed that.
Caring about X because an exemplary person cares about X
- Being taught to care about X
- Being in a supportive environment for caring about X
- Caring to be good
Thomas (written down by Andrius): Thomas found God to be important in life. This happened because he was living with his parents who themselves tried to do that and tried to give him the opportunity to do that. They would go to Mass together. They would explain what is needed and why for God to be important. He had people around who talked positively about that and who encouraged him.
Thomas (written down by Andrius): His mother suggested some books. He read some books. People in his vicinity were losing weight.
Ryan: When I was in high school, a freshman, before that point I didn't care about politics. Then I saw Bernie Sanders was running for president. He was a very good, very persuasive orator, very passionate. He got me to realize that there were a lot of youth issues that we have here in America when it comes to health care, college and stuff like that that the other advanced countries aren't facing I became very passionate about that.
Andrius: As a Lithuanian cub scout, perhaps eight years old, I was impressed by an activity where we were given plastic bags which we filled with pieces of trash that we collected in the campgrounds.
Steph: Andrius' prompt was received by my answering mind and instigated my questioning mind. I asked myself the three questions above (sequentially) and the output clarified how this particular issue came to matter for me. Initially, this prompt did not matter, so I wondered (Answer #1) why it was important. Selfishly, it led to Answer #2: "What's in it for me?" Which sparked an insight in Answer #3: perhaps the value of this prompt's output could be meaningful to others, without knowing it prior. I care for Andrius' investigations and trust that his interest has well-founded support/direction for which I'm not immediately privileged to. Therefore, I'll answer, and I'll try to wrestle as much insight as possible to be useful to this group.
Caring in solidarity with another
- Caring about the same goal or intention
Andrius: Once in a while the mouse is alive, which is why I like the plastic traps.
Ryan: People are starving...
Caring to give it a try
Thomas (written down by Andrius): He tried fasting, he tried special diets but this would only help for a few weeks and then his weight would go back up.
Andrius: So I set out my mouse traps. But I don't catch any mice. So then I use glue on cardboard. This is more effective.
Caring to overcome failures, challenges, obstacles and achieve the goal
Thomas (written down by Andrius): Ten or fifteen years ago it became important to lose weight.
Andrius: We saw who could pick up the most trash.
Andrius: On seeing a piece of trash I could pick up.
- Perhaps I know that there will be a trash can nearby or I can see one nearby.
- Perhaps it is a bit off to the side but the trash is quite prominent or it seems clean (so I won't dirty or contaminate myself) or there is not much trash around (and so it seems out of place, and it will make more of an impact if I throw it away) or the place is nice or representative of my city or country (and so I want it to look nice and I want to think well of it).
- Perhaps I don't see a trash can and am not sure if I will see one but I realize that I have somewhere to put the trash, perhaps my pocket or the back of my bike.
Caring to dedicate oneself
- Caring to develop a habit
- (This relates "caring to live well" and "caring to live in the moment")
Jere (written down by Andrius): He decided it was important to work on environmental pollution and climate change.
Marcus: When I was young I was aware on an intellectual level of other languages, but did not live in a community where they were used. As I am older and I have experienced the nuances and shades they offer to existence they have become something I am more aware of. They have become part of my existence and part of me. Thus they have come to matter as part of aculturation in a community and family.
Thomas (written down by Andrius): He practiced intermittent fasting, not eating after 6:00 pm and not eating before lunch. He got used to eating less. He learned to not eat more than he needed to eat. It became a habit, a general attitude. He learned to live differently but not as a strict rule. He learned to lose weight over a longer time and not right away.
- I have made it a habit to pick up trash and throw it away, when that is convenient. ... Later I made a habit of picking up and throwing away trash that I found, especially if it annoyed me or I had nothing better to do, for example, waiting for a bus.
- Perhaps I don't feel inspired to pick it up but then I tell myself that I should because this will make me more sensitive, responsive, caring and not apathetic or this is my opportunity to what any good person would do (and thus not think of myself as special) and also to participate as a citizen, a steward, an active participant of my (imaginary) community.
Caring to live in the moment
Jere cares to take the time to "smell the roses", to enjoy life, his wife Lynn, her art. (written down by Andrius)
Andrius: I was riding my bike and I cared to stop and take a look at a pony. I cared to take a photo to show my mom. The pony walked up to look at me from the other side of the electric fence. So I cared to appreciate the moment and look back at it. After a while, I cared to continue my bike journey. On my way back, I cared to stop again and take another look.
Ryan: It wasn't until I was seventeen that I first experimented with marijuana, psychadelics, and yes, alcohol and tobacco. (I had had a couple shots one Halloween before this, and snuck into my mom's Four Locos with a friend when I was a teenager, but it was never "normal" or ritualistic or something that I craved).
Andrius: Caring to pick up trash: Perhaps it crosses my path and I just have to reach down and pick it up.
Caring to judge, discriminate, compare different possibilities
- Caring about X because of comparisons with others
Marcus: Justice. It is not that fairness and a just, equitable way of being did not matter. But until I experienced injustice directly and indirectly they did not matter. Here it was not a direct experience of any particular injustice, but an intellectual projection of how injustice can rebound on me or others. This has happened by becoming aware of the concepts and ideas around injustice. So here it is a reasoning rather than only an awareness. Specific examples are around prejudice and discrimination on matters that are not relevant to the descrimination - agism rather than age appropriateness; sexism rather that gender awareness.
Marcus (written down by Andrius): Marcus came to care about "rural renaissance". He grew up in the countryside and was glad to move to the city as a young man and enjoy it's opportunities. But then he came to realize how he liked nature. And he wished that the countryside was thriving. So this came to matter through juxtaposition, the comparison of countryside and city, having experience living in both.
Thomas (written down by Andrius): Thomas cared to lose weight. As a child he had a notion that it was not good to be overweight. He could not do what others could do. As a child, youth and young adult he played soccer. He could be quite fast, in spurts, but was overweight and thus less fit than others, with less stamina. Everything took more effort, including walking.
Caring to live well
- Caring to improve circumstances
- Caring to be effective
Jere realized, working twelve to sixteen hours a day on biotechnology, that if he's not happy in his personal daily life, then he's not effective in terms of dealing with what matters for him, as for climate change. (written down by Andrius Kulikauskas)
Ryan: Drug addiction - I can remember my earliest experiences with addiction. I was a small child and was obsessed with video games. However, while video games can stimulate the mind, challenge us, offer us new worlds to explore, etc., as a child I was very puzzled by cigarette addiction, and other such things. It seemed so obvious to me that these were simply things people shouldn't do; after all, they're taught to us as absolute negatives with no benefit.
Ryan: Drug addiction should be of obvious importance: tens of thousands die every year of overdoses on opiates alone, and these drug cultures replace and wreck actual culture in a very tragic way, leaving shells of people.
Andrius: I have all manner of thoughts, and every so often, I have thoughts that I disapprove of, that I don't want to embrace. The thought enters my mind, I have a chance to consider it. If I find any aspect morally questionable, then I care to make clear the root of it. If I deem that embracing it would make me worse as a person, then I care to disassociate myself from it and thus reject it. And if the thought is insistent, then I care to counter it with arguments against it and to disallow any arguments for it. I may further care to disidentify myself from the thought and emphasize the gap between the thought and who I am. I may further care to take mental or physical action to behave rightly.
Andrius: I met an acquaintaince on vacation after their first semester in college. I wanted to tell him that he had put on a lot of weight, to say that he was handsome and it did not suit him. But I refrained because we don't see each other often, I didn't want to hurt our relationship and I would better wait for a future conversation.
Ryan: I used to believe that there was some cold, brute truth, and science was the pursuit of discovering that. For some people, that's enough, but for me, i have relaxed the dividing line between art and knowledge, and I can appreciate whimsical theories and find them compelling for their own internal reasons.
Ryan: A lot of this had to do with my religious journey: I went through a period of scientific atheism in my early teenage years, and as I came back to religion I dabbled with mysticism, magick, Wicca, etc... that still leaves a mark on me.
Montijn: And the first realization was that I was in a school I was not meant to be in because it was a school for special people and they were more special than me. So that was a real turning point when things just started to matter and generally, I was certainly invested in life, and I think investment at least in a necessary condition.
Steph: I wanted to meditate because I was feeling anxiety. This was a couple of years ago.
Jere (written down by Andrius): In 1969, Jere suffered respiratory problems in New York City, and he and his wife Lynn would spend summers in a cabin in Canada, but the problems kept getting worse so they moved out to western New York.
Caring to know what one does not know
- Caring to understand the reasons
Jere (written down by Andrius): And this led him to ask, Why is the air quality so bad?
Ryan: I was also very good at computation at a young age..., and wondered about the complicated symbols used in advanced math. I was naïve at this age, and thought that everything would all eventually be taught to us in school, but I wound up having to teach myself all this stuff on my own.
Ryan: I used to believe that there was some cold, brute truth, and science was the pursuit of discovering that. For some people, that's enough, but for me, i have relaxed the dividing line between art and knowledge, and I can appreciate whimsical theories and find them compelling for their own internal reasons.
Ryan: A lot of this had to do with my religious journey: I went through a period of scientific atheism in my early teenage years, and as I came back to religion I dabbled with mysticism, magick, Wicca, etc... that still leaves a mark on me.
Appreciating facts as being relevant
Jere (written down by Andrius): And there he noticed how nature was changing, how the variety of birds was decreasing. This got him interested in the issue of climate change.
Jere (written down by Andrius): In the summer of 2025, the air quality in western New York has become terrible because of the wild fires in Canada, and Jere had trouble breathing and thinking. This stressed for him the significance of climate change. (written down by Andrius Kulikauskas)
Jere: It is raining through the window.
Jere: A bird song wakes me up. It is a Robin. I hear a Song Sparrow, a Baltimore Oriole, an English Sparrow, a Blue Jay, a Cardinal, a Starling, a Bluebird, a Flicker. It is 4:30 AM, June 22, 2025.
Jere: I get up, go to the bathroom, get dressed, go downstairs and make a cup of coffee, go outside and sit on the deck, and start my bird list for the day: June 22, 2025: 1 Robin, 2 Song Sparrow, 3 Baltimore Oriole, 4 English Sparrow, 5 Blue Jay, 6 Cardinal, 7 Starling, 8 Bluebird, 9 Flicker. The list will total 32 birds by the end of the day. It records some of who I am and what I do. I write the list down in my 2025 bird journal.
Ryan: "Higher-order effects:" again, I can trace this back to when I was a kid. As a Pokémon fan, we were always drawn to rare cards: the rarer, the better, and it was that simple. Also, always in my life when I have listened to music, the music has stuck out to me way more than the lyrics. In particular, my attention would be drawn to tiny, subtle details that would cause the song to get stuck in my head. It could be like two notes on a xylophone in an otherwise jazz-focused song, or something like that, and that little sound would play in my head over and over. So, this interest in both rarity and minute subtleties both culminate in a psychological profile that is not what I would consider "average;" it is a hipster-esque psyche that is drawn intentionally to the esoteric and obscure, and this also plays into my interest in neurodivergence and mindfulness meditation.
Andrius: I met an acquaintaince on vacation after their first semester in college. I wanted to tell him that he had put on a lot of weight, to say that he was handsome and it did not suit him...
Andrius: I see a piece of trash on the sidewalk as I am walking, or on the road if I am on my bike, or perhaps not far from me as I stop on the roadside.
Andrius: I found out about the glue (for catching mice) because it is sold next to the mouse traps.
Andrius: For I realized that it would rain on Sunday and it would be colder and thus better not to ride.
Embracing a compelling idea
- Caring about exploring ideas and related ideas
Jere (written down by Andrius Kulikauskas) cared about ecological intelligence in part because he appreciated that Nature makes decisions in the way that a real artist does, who is driven not by making money, but who generates beauty, gives one a sense of beauty, does not glorify violence.
Ryan: "Continental mathematics:" I am drawn to unique ways of self-expression, in the fashion of Montijn's "Will to Beauty." I have always been so full of ideas, but never really had the patience or time to master every art I wanted to. For instance, one of my favorite past-times as a kid was sharing movie ideas, book ideas, invention ideas, ideas for games... the list goes on. Ideas were real to my friends and I, and they had life, and playing with ideas is an endless game. If an idea is rare, then you feel special for having it, and if someone else has the same idea, you get to feel a connection to them, so really it's a win-win scenario.
Ryan: Even before this, years before I would ever touch marijuana, I enjoyed coming up with "stoner" philosophical ideas and sharing them with my friends; "what if your reality branches off into a separate universe where you keep living when you die?" or "what if you die and wake up and your whole life was a single dream?" I thought about quantum immortality, the simulation hypothesis, etc., way before I ever even heard about them.
Caring to address immediately
Andrius: When I get a bill, I care to pay it right away so that I don't forget and I don't have to think about it.
Workshop participant cared to mail a package without delay. Recorded by Andrius.
Jere: I get up, go to the bathroom, get dressed, go downstairs and make a cup of coffee, go outside and sit on the deck, and start my bird list for the day...
Andrius: The bin in which I keep popcorn seeds was empty. It was time to fill it up again from the bags of popcorn seeds that I had bought in the store. I wanted to make popcorn but I did not have enough for the batch. So I needed to refill the bin.
Caring to organize actions to execute them in the optimal order
- ...for optimal effect, minimal effort...
Jere: I get up, go to the bathroom, get dressed, go downstairs and make a cup of coffee, go outside and sit on the deck, and start my bird list for the day...
Ryan: I was also very good at computation at a young age...
Andrius: I met an acquaintaince on vacation after their first semester in college. I wanted to tell him that he had put on a lot of weight, to say that he was handsome and it did not suit him. But I refrained because we don't see each other often, I didn't want to hurt our relationship and I would better wait for a future conversation.
Ryan: I just like to play with ideas and symbols, because it's a way to harness pure creativity without giving it a "flesh," so to speak. It's pure Platonic joy and beauty.
Andrius: I am riding the bus to spend a few days in Vilnius, celebrate Thanksgiving with my parents and brother, and I realized a few days ago that I need to take care of all of my Christmas shopping because I won't be back until just before Christmas.
Andrius: Perhaps there are other pieces of trash and I take the opportunity to pick them up as well, and perhaps my hands are full or I simply feel that is enough, I have done my small share and let others pick up the rest.
Andrius: I found four popcorn bags in the cooler where I keep them. But I didn't want to dig down further into the cooler. So I filled the bin only three-quarter of the way. But that was enough for quite some time and thus for now.
Andrius: In Klaipėda, I had rented a bicycle. I decided to return it a few days earlier than we had agreed. ... They agreed to take it and I saved 12 euros.
Andrius: If the mouse is dead, then I don't necessarily take care of it right away but I do it after I've done my priority matters.
Andrius: If the mouse is stuck to glue, then I have to bury it and I take the opportunity to move a plant such as a raspberry, and that becomes more of a chore, so I may do that later in the day. If the ground is frozen, then I throw it and the cardboard outside in the compost, and then I may cover it with sawdust and whatever I'm composting.
Caring to connect and be in tune with one's greater reality
Jere: I can go back to my 2002 bird journal and see the same birds, maybe in a different order. It documents and validates who I am and what I have been doing. In many ways 2025 is similar to 2002. Does it matter? I find it comforting and hopeful for the future.
Jere: I wake up. It is dark, quiet. There is no incoming stimulus or need. Who am I? I wait. I recite a mantra. It is pronounced:
U I E A
O Waa Yeh Ha
Du Pu Ru Bu
Chu Lu Tu Ku
Su Gu Fu Shoe
Nu Mu Wu Zu
The letter themselves are UIEA OQYH DPRB CLTK SGFX NMWZ. They correspond to the 8 “vowels” and 16 “consonants” of the Ododu language as defined in the Derivation of Archetypal Meaning. It takes me about 6 seconds to speak them, less to say them in my mind. See Math 4 Wisdom / Language of Wisdom. I almost instantaneously and emotionally understand who I am, What I am doing, and Why I am doing it. I then can browse through my memories to see what I should or want to do today and how I plan on doing it. Does it matter? It does to me.
Caring to not care
Andrius: When I fall asleep, I care to fall asleep, I care to let go. I try to relax and let go of everything. I often reflect on what is important to me, what I will want to achieve the next day. But everything is pushed off into the future. Tomorrow will come and then I will care.
Andrius: Sometimes, when I am sick, and my head hurts relentlessly, and there is nothing I can do, I curl up and I prostrate my soul before God, do what you want with me, and thereby let go. I care to not care.
Andrius: Perhaps none of this registers sufficiently, the trash is inconveniently located, or I am in a hurry, and then I may think that others can do their share.
Bill: A friend recently passed. I was there through the ordeal. It really hit me. Time does matter. From this recent experience I learned time is one of the most valuable commodities there is. I would say now that I am in my late fifties it is going by faster and faster. When my friend departed her time ended. I had been there quite a bit all the while talking about how there was still plenty of time. It was not the case. I am still digesting the experience. I do feel now that time matters more than I had ever considered.
Andrius: I take it behind the barn and leave it there for a cat or otherwise.
Andrius: At the beginning of each month, I review my priorities for my life and write them out, what I should care most about. I care to go to bed earlier. I tell myself when I should get ready to go to bed, when I should go to be and when I should fall asleep. But in the evenings I end up going to bed later. Often, I have work that I want to finish. I care to get certain things done.
Andrius: I cared to read books in Lithuanian before I go to sleep. I was feeling unhappy that I live in Lithuania but I spend so little time interacting in Lithuanian. Since childhood, I have been making an effort to think in Lithuanian, and that means I have to find activity to do in Lithuanian. I didn't have Lithuanian friends because I didn't have shared interests. So by process of elimination, I thought I could at least read books. I combined this with my care to keep educating myself comprehensively and classically. I made a list of classic world fiction that were translated into Lithuanian. Later I found lists of award winning contemporary Lithuanian literature. Some of the books weren't that interesting but I thought they were worth reading so I would read several books at a time. So I adjusted what and how I read so as to keep to my goal.
Andrius: I cared, recurrently, to reconnect with an old friend, whenever I would think of them. But each time I understood that it was pointless as they didn't care about my philosophy, which is what I cared about. I kept realizing it would be better to wait for them to engage me or for circumstances to change.
Andrius: I have cared, for more than ten years, to learn to play keyboard. At times, I like to create songs and perform them, and I thought this was a good skill that would enrich me and my life. My parents wanted to give me a gift for my 50th birthday and so I asked for a keyboard. When I was in love with a musician, I was quite creative musically, but still I did not learn, and then later there was not that motivation. I cared to put my keyboard in the main room where I live so it would be convenient but still I do not spend time. I think about it but I do not devote my free time to that but rather to many other activities and priorities, from cleaning my room to riding my bike to studying other things.
Andrius: My friend Rimas asked me to translate a song, "Forever Young", into Lithuanian. He really liked how Audra Mae sang it. He played me the video and it seemed simple enough. This merged in with my interests in developing my creative side, in creating more songs, and specifically, in making music with Rimas. As I tried to get an overall sense of the song, which Bob Dylan wrote as a blessing for his son, I thought of Lithuania. I remembered Rimas recurrently encouraging me to write a song for Lithuania, a song that crowds could sing. So I thought this would fit here and so I remade it as a song that Lithuania be forever young. Thus I reinterpreted his request to translate the song but this was understood and fit with his intention that I remake the song.
Andrius: Last year I learned from Daniel of the significance of Active Inference. I cared to connect with him and so I was interested to learn more. I was struck by the idea that when our model predicts incorrectly we can choose to update our model or the world. I spent many hours reading the textbook and attending the study group sessions. But I did not truly understand the concept of free energy nor the mathematics of Active Inference and so I did not understand the mechanics of it and so I could not understand it from my own vantage points, on my own terms, in terms of my philosophy and in terms of algebraic combinatorics. The math in the textbook was obscure to me and I found a video more useful. Finally, I decided to spend a few days to figure out the math, which I finally did. The equations became quite simple to derive but those derivations were not in any book or article. They did not depend on predictive processing. I had imagined that the concepts of Active Inference would spring forth from the math but they turned out to be quite unrelated. I checked with several people to see if my understanding was correct. A few resisted but overall my equations were correct. A few were supportive and interested to learn from me. Thanks to my interest I was able to meet Steph and work for him. But, in general, nobody seemed to care especially whether Active Inference was well founded or how to strengthen its foundations. Meanwhile, my application to be an Active Inference Institute Research Fellow was rejected, as was the EU funding proposal that I helped write, and I am no longer meeting with Daniel. Active Inference did not lead me to any profound insights, and I grew skeptical of its viewpoint, machinery and claims. So I am adjusting and recalibrating how I care about this. I cared to write up and present my findings and I had the opportunity as part of Steph's presentation on Qi and Quai currency at the Applied Active Inference Symposium. I may likely make my own video presentation at some point, and present it personally to various colleagues before that. I may likely do some related historical research to understand how Friston and Hinton understood free energy. But I am telling myself to care more about other matters that are more important to me personally, such as working on my AI application and engaging related communities. In that way, I make the Active Inference a lower priority. I appreciate that the Active Inference community is personally useful to me in the thinkers I can meet and engage and in the news that I receive about opportunities. But I am telling myself to invest myself more in other communities, as regards my outreach.
Andrius: Bill emailed me a link to a video where the Lithuanian basketball player Sargiūnas scored 9 points in the last 9 seconds to defeat Great Britain. In Lithuania, we care about our remarkable achievements in basketball, which included three bronze medals in the Olympics (1992,1996,2000) though less inspiring after that. I did not watch the video but at our Thanksgiving day lunch, my father, with great enthusiasm, told me and my brother and our mother and our guests about the game, which he had watched the night before. I cared that we watch it on YouTube on their large screen TV, in part because I wanted to see it, in part to show that we could use the TV in this way, and mostly to share in this moment. We watched and it was indeed exciting. I relaxed and enjoyed sharing that. Later I was curious if this fantastic finish was noted in the global media but not that much. There were much more famous finishes in the history of basketball. So that put it in perspective and made it less remarkable by a notch.
Andrius: I wasn't entirely sure if they would take my bike so I disposed myself to humbly request.
Andrius: I was overcome by a sad mood and I did not know why. In my room I heard a strange ringing and I did not understand what it was. I decided to go outside to determine what kind of farm equipment was it, and also to get out into the sunlight. Outside, in my yard, I heard the Butrimonys church bells and was amazed that I could hear them from some 5 kilometers away. But my neighbor's son confirmed that they were indeed the bells.
Andrius: I did not know why I felt sad. Perhaps I needed to get out into the sun. So I thought I should go out for a short walk and so I went out to the store. On the way I met an acquaintance Birch and he lamented that his wife had died. I did not pay him mind because she had died a couple of years ago. I cared, upon meeting him, to influence him not to drink. So I told Birch about Oak who wanted to quit drinking but his buddies were making it difficult. Birch agreed to pray with me for Oak, and so we prayed "Our Father".
Workshop participant cared to get another person interested in opera. Recorded by Andrius.
Workshop participant cared to not be apathetic and stand up for their political cause. Recorded by Andrius.
Workshop participant cared to feel necessary in Lithuania as a creative person. Recorded by Andrius.
Workshop participant cared to figure out what kind of food they would prefer to eat. Recorded by Andrius.
Workshop participant cared to prepare well for the class they were teaching so that it would be well organized. Recorded by Andrius.