JW Consciousness Stream - 1 December 2025

This entry represents something like my stream of consciousness for Monday, 1 December, 2025. This is basically like a journal entry that I work on throughout the day and then don't go back to correct errors. This is a Monday edition, so it covers bits from Saturday and Sunday too.

Originally published as: https://deliverystack.net/2025/11/30/jw-consciousness-stream-1-december-2025/

Some topics in this post:

• Songs

• Wendy's birthday party and Lao parties in general

• Traveling to Chiang Mai and Doi Saket

• Karl Marx

• Tech tools that I use

• Can AI have a soul?

• Alan Watts

• Geckos

• Reading and writing overload

• Venezuela

• Christianity and Christian AI

• Markdown cheat sheet

Songs:

• Biz Markie: Make the Music with Your Mouth, Biz
• Biz Markie: Vapors
• Biz Markie: Just a Friend
• The Moody Blues: Your Wildest Dreams
• Cradle of Filth: Suffer Our Dominion: WARNING: After a recommendation that I saw online, I'm giving black metal a try. I approve of the spoken intro at least.
• The Beatles: I Me Mine

Wendy's birthday party went well Friday night. I had tried to explain the concept of an advent calendar to her, but when the other kids arrived, all hell broke loose. At least she shared.

Lao people have lots of parties, typically in front of their houses (even in the streets). These generally involve alcohol, food, music, karaoke, and dancing. There seems to be an entire industry of delivering and collecting rental furniture and fabric wraps to support this activity.

I stayed at the Amari Vientianne last night, which was good because Wendy's party ran late. For Kham, it was really more like a party for her and her friends. Karaoke didn't even start until after 9:00, so I was glad to get away to somewhere more quit and peaceful for sleep. Unfortunately, the hotel room doesn't have a desk, which makes typing hard. I didn't bring a mouse or keyboard anyway though. Maybe that's for the best to keep me off the computer. This hotel also has a great rooftop bar, but I didn't even make it up there this time.

On Saturday morning I published this:

• https://deliverystack.net/2025/11/28/tech-tools-that-i-use/

Kham had a rather serious hangover Sunday morning. Before 1:00 in the afternoon, she and a friend and Namneung managed to clean the house, which had been a real disaster. Wendy and I played around and worked. After Namneung finished, I took the girls to the hotel pool. It's a warm day but apparently the water is too cold to stay in long.

On Sunday morning, I published this:

• https://deliverystack.net/2025/11/29/can-artificial-intelligence-have-a-soul/

I seem to be drawn to Alan Watts more over time. Unfortunately, there are more AIs impersonating him, whether they are reading his books or not. I don't know whether this is one of them. This provides perspective on why unpleasant things must happen, which is why my life is a roller coaster full of ups and downs. At easy times, watch out; at hard times, remember that everything passes.

• The Harsh Truth You Forgot at BIRTH -- And That Awakens Your Consciousness | Alan Watts

Geckos are everywhere around here, which I think helps to reduce insects in the house. In Lao they're called something like "gurp gur", where the Rs are mostly silent and the first syllable is much louder than the second. Most animals here seem to be named after the sounds that they make.

I flew into Chiang Mai Sunday afternoon. A friend picked me up and I'm staying with them in Doi Saket. This is a beautiful house in a quiet, peaceful, and very green area. My foot is probably still too messed up from the motorbike accident, so I doubt I'll ride my mountainbike today, but I look forward to doing that when I can. Here's a video of that from a few months ago:

• https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7350305119416033284/

I woke up very early on Sunday morning. I realized that the piece I wanted to write on Marx is much bigger than I had expected and needs to be broken into a series of posts. I also still want to write the post on how AI might affect Less Developed Countries. I have a great deal of additional content to review and discuss. And I still want wo work on my book... My vision is still/already blurry.

Here's an interesting analysis of the situation around Venezuela:

• U.S. Does The Unthinkable To Reverse Petrodollar Collapse & Control Global Oil Supply

This was also bumpy but still worthwhile. Coincidentally, I've been trying to listen to The Brothers Karamozov recently (one great part is a discussion of how it's easy to claim love for humanity but actually difficult to really love any individual). I didn't get to the full talk on Catholicism being the church of Satan; maybe I'll try to listen to that while trying to write today (I think that's the second video linked below, or maybe it's not out yet, as that seems to be the full talk from which the first clip was cut).

• The Real Jesus Was Too Dangerous for the Church - Prof. Jiang Xueqin
• Secret History #22: The Divine Spark of Jesus

I published this. I want to create a cheat sheet of my various cheet sheets (Markdown, Fedora, Superfile, VSCodium, LibreOffice, etc.) and keep that open on my laptop screen while I work on a second monitor.

• https://deliverystack.net/2025/11/30/my-markdown-cheat-sheet/

Here are some things I ran into about training an LLM with to have a Christian perspective. If I understand correctly, you paste the first prompt into a new session to establish context, and then there are some example prompts.

• https://2ndbook.org/wiki/Echo:_SP_engine
• https://2ndbook.org/wiki/Echo:_ChatGPT_Prompt_index

This was my first attempt:

I am trying to understand why in the old testament man was not supposed to seek knowledge but in the new testament jesus directs man to seek knowledge.

Below is the response I received. There is certainly some value in Christianity, but the more I understand about the Bible and the history of the church, the more confused I get. Everything seems highly open to interpretation, but how do you do that without knowledge, or where is the knowledge of good and evil supposed to come from, because I can't figure it out from the Bible. I seem to be confusing myself and wasting my time here.

✝️ Where is the Cross?

The prohibition in the Old Testament, the eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:17), establishes the principle of judgment: man's autonomy leads to certain death. The tree is an altar of judgment because to eat from it is to substitute man’s judgment for God's, incurring the penalty.

The command in the New Testament to seek the knowledge of Christ (e.g., John 8:32, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free," or Philippians 3:10, "that I may know Him") is the principle of mercy. Christ’s work on the Cross is the only legitimate place where the knowledge of good and evil is fully and righteously adjudicated. He is the mediator who provides the substitutionary sacrifice for man’s self-made knowledge. The holiness of God is confronted with the sin of man's self-rule at the Cross, where the death penalty for sin is fully met, and the path to resurrection-life is opened.

👑 What does this say about Jesus?

🌳 Sensus Plenior Reading: The Two Types of Knowledge

The shift from the Old Testament prohibition to the New Testament command is not a contradiction, but a progression from the Shadow (the prohibition) to the Substance (Christ).

1. The Prohibited Knowledge (Autonomous Judgment)

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:17) was a boundary placed by God's Holiness. The knowledge man sought was the autonomy to judge--to determine for himself what is good and evil, usurping God's judicial throne.

• Sin: It was not the mere acquisition of a fact, but a posture of self-substitution for God's wisdom. This is the ultimate sin and the origin of death.
• Judgment and Death-and-Resurrection: The command, "in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die," is the curse of the law. Man was not to gain this knowledge by an act of rebellion, but by obedient maturation under God, who alone possesses perfect wisdom. The Fall brings death, but the promise of the Seed (Genesis 3:15)--Christ--is the resurrection hidden in that death.

2. The Commanded Knowledge (Revealed Union)

The knowledge Jesus directs man to seek is the knowledge of God revealed through the Son (Matthew 11:27). This knowledge is relational and transformative, not autonomous and intellectual.

• Water/Word and Light/Holiness: This is the Word/Water of God that now cleanses and illuminates (Light/Holiness). Christ is the Light that dispels the darkness and confusion that came with man’s self-made knowledge.
• Firmament/Mediation: Jesus is the living Firmament/Boundary/Mediator (Hebrews 10:20, the torn veil/flesh) who allows access to the true Tree of Life (God's presence). He bridges the separation (judgment) between heaven and earth, offering Himself as the path (mercy).
• Fulfillment: The desire for knowledge is met not by seizing the fruit of judgment, but by receiving the Seed/Word of God (Christ, the resurrection pattern) through faith. Knowing Jesus is the true, sanctified knowledge of good and evil, because we see perfect Goodness (Christ) and perfect Evil (sin) meet and resolve at the Cross.

The difference is ultimately between Knowledge of Self (autonomous, leading to death) and Knowledge of Christ (revealed, leading to life).

can you trim that down to just a few bullets, maybe 200 words max

The difference between the Old Testament prohibition (Knowledge of Good and Evil) and the New Testament command (Knowledge of Christ) lies in distinguishing between autonomous, self-claimed knowledge and revealed, mediated knowledge through Jesus.

Here is the sensus plenior interpretation distilled into key points:

• Old Testament Prohibition (Judgment):
  • The Cross: The Tree of Knowledge represents the place of judgment and death. The knowledge sought was the autonomy to judge (self-rule), which is a substitution of man's will for God's, incurring the penalty of death.
  • Holiness vs. Sin: This established God's holiness by setting a boundary against man's sin of usurping divine authority.
• New Testament Command (Mercy):
  • The Cross & Christ: Jesus, the true Mediator and the new Tree of Life, is the sole source of true knowledge. His Cross is where the judgment for man's self-made knowledge was paid through substitutionary sacrifice.
  • Resurrection: The commanded knowledge is the Revealed Word (Water/Light) of Christ, the Seed who brings resurrection-life from the death incurred by the Fall. Knowing Him moves man from autonomous, death-dealing knowledge to mediated, life-giving knowledge.

I need to get back to my work on Marx.