The piece was deeply thought-provoking, but I struggled to get through it sensing how much AI was used to write it.
I’ve been drafting a manuscript for a novel lately, trying to see how well llms can help.
I recognize this prose immediately as OpenAI gpt 5.
It loves to describe things “hum” that don’t usually hum, like the author wrote in the beginning. Plenty more descriptions match the cadence and rhythm and word choices I’ve seen writing my manuscript.
I feel like there’s a meta discussion the author was prompting here about consciousness.
Reading the writing of a real human feels more intimate. Reading the auto-tune version of writing makes me feel noticeably less connected to the reader. I know the author still input something to get this output. But there’s something blocking a deeper connection when I just “know” I’m not reading the author’s words.
Edit: llamas > llms
chis · 1h ago
I felt the exact same, I can't believe nobody else has commented on it. It feels so disrespectful to such a powerful story to tell it in this way. I mean there's a really interesting core but I just wish I could read the first draft before LLMs overwrote it to death.
"Survivor’s euphoria.” A clinical term, woefully inadequate. It wasn’t just euphoria. It was revelation."
AdieuToLogic · 24m ago
> The piece was deeply thought-provoking, but I struggled to get through it sensing how much AI was used to write it.
> I’ve been drafting a manuscript for a novel lately, trying to see how well llms can help.
> I recognize this prose immediately as OpenAI gpt 5.
Is it possible you are experiencing confirmation bias[0]?
In other words, by your own admission, you have been "trying to see how well llms can help" as it pertains to writing. With that degree of LLM intimacy, is it possible "the cadence and rhythm and word choices I’ve seen writing my manuscript" is a pattern you are predisposed to identify in other works?
Is it really OpenAI/ChatGPT, or just the kind of writing ChatGPT was trained to replicate?
moffkalast · 47m ago
Impossible to say, a few people really do write like that and their writing gets flagged by those detection systems all the time, but I think we all know which option is far more likely.
EnPissant · 23m ago
I don't know if the tide has shifted on this site, but I was scolded by dang some months ago for pointing out something was obviously GPT-written. I guess that's against the rules.
rixed · 2h ago
"There is a kind of consciousness that lives not in thought but in presence."
Yes, and I believe the strong association we often make between the most advanced cognitive functions and consciousness are misleading us into believing that consciousness is somehow the result of those functions, while I suspect we (conscious selves) are just witnessing those functions like we are witnessing anything, "from the outside". It's of course the most amazing part of the show, but should not be confused for it. Consciousness is not made of thinking but of observing, we just spend a lot of time observing how we think.
zozbot234 · 49m ago
There's no such thing as an individual conscious self that persists over time - it is always a misconception and an illusion. Consciousness is just something that living beings do, not something that they "are". It's an impersonal phenomenon (as far as it goes - there's of course plenty of things, mental states, thoughts etc. that are genuinely personal about our individual lives!) not a state of being.
rixed · 31m ago
I share the feeling about it being impersonal (I've started to doubt its individuality as well). I like to think of consciousness as "the universe observing itself", but that sounds a bit too new-agey.
kranner · 3h ago
I'd shared this article last week with the meditation group I'm part of, describing the author's state of mind on the eve of surgery as a state of samadhi. It's a great description of the state I end up in during almost every meditation session (practicing in the 'open awareness' style) and sometimes also in the middle of the day, unprompted.
I'd shared it with the group because it was interesting that the author had spontaneously landed in the state due to catastrophic circumstances, but now reading it a second time I recall this had also happened to me years ago, on the sudden death of a close family member. I consider myself lucky to be able to access it outside circumstances of personal tragedy or medical emergency. It's a great reason to learn to meditate; unfortunately you can't give people a quick preview of it or a lot more people would take meditation more seriously.
judge123 · 1h ago
Powerful story. But let's be real: after the "survivor's euphoria" fades, how do you actually keep that level of consciousness? I feel like the daily grind would inevitably pull me back to my old self. Has anyone here had a life-changing moment and actually managed to stay changed?
trinsic2 · 50m ago
Its a constant practice, like anything. Part of you is changed forever when you go through something like this, the awareness part mostley, you can never go back to normality even when something like that wears off.
I know from experience because I survived a brain hemorrhage. I had a state where I experienced the world differently for many years. I still do. Something cracked open in me and it has stayed that way, other aspects of my physiology are returning to a baseline state, like my nervous system changes which damped my fear responses.
AdieuToLogic · 36m ago
> Has anyone here had a life-changing moment and actually managed to stay changed?
A life-changing moment changes one's life by definition. Each time a person experiences one, they are changed in a way where who they were before they can remember, perhaps even look fondly upon, but know they are not that person anymore.
> Powerful story. But let's be real: after the "survivor's euphoria" fades, how do you actually keep that level of consciousness?
By living in the moment and remembering how you got there.
siavosh · 1h ago
Different traditions have been systematically iterating on techniques to do exactly this for thousands of years.
cocire · 3h ago
https://imgur.com/a/vsRq0a9 I had some occipital lobe taken out in 2010 when I was 20 years old, to try to treat epilepsy!
sitkack · 57m ago
Wow, that looks drastic?
How much did it help? Did you notice a change in your personality? How long did it take to recover? Did you lose vision in one eye?
cocire · 40m ago
They really only took a tiny piece of brain out, I guess. They didn't show me, sadly. :(
It was all occipital lobe so vision would have been the only thing affected. I had terrible vision in the lower-left quadrant of both of my eyes anyways, based on a medical field-of-vision test, along with my own tendency to bump into people and things on my left side (still the case).
Based on many electroencephalographs (EEGs), they decided my epileptic seizures stemmed from the lower right occipital lobe of my brain. It is kind of neat proof to me that the opposite side of your brain has effects on the other side of your body; right occipital lobe affecting left visual field.
So, they removed some brain, which actually did not affect my epilepsy at all, positively or negatively. I went into the hospital, got surgery, and was out maybe a week later - when that photo was taken. I had to go back a week or two later to have the staples taken out.
My lower left peripheral vision is worse than it used to be. I have about eight visual seizures that each last maybe a minute or two per day, but I can carry on a conversation and nobody even knows. I take seven pills every morning, and another four each night. I do not have a drivers license, car, or really ever plan to drive again, but that is kind of why I moved to live in a city where I can walk, take public transit, and get deliveries quickly/reliably.
On the nerd side, I track my seizures with my own homemade Python Django (w/ REST Framework) application, PostgreSQL, and an Apple Shortcut, usually from my iPhone or watch. Datasette and Highcharts make visualizing all my seizures tracked since December 2021 pretty cool.
ggm · 2h ago
I learned a new term: Survivor's Euphoria. Only having had relatively minor procedures, I have only had relatively minor instances. But I have had a feeling of "I came back" which I have solely after waking up from anasthaesia. As if the interrupted mental processes carry some flow state forward, which I re-attach to.
There's a longer baseline term which might go with this: Survivor's Depression. I have found after successful surgery, diagnostics, any kind of procedure after the initial elation, I have a very strong down-mood. It's not unlike coming back from holiday and feeling exhausted.
modeless · 1h ago
These sound like anaesthetic side effects.
AdieuToLogic · 1h ago
>> But I have had a feeling of "I came back" which I have solely after waking up from anasthaesia.
> These sound like anaesthetic side effects.
General anesthesia[0] used in surgeries are effectively artificially induced comas. The pre-op discussion with the anesthesiologist includes them describing this and that there is a very real risk that you will die from its usage.
Regaining consciousness after having it applied most certainly invokes a feeling of "I came back" and has nothing to do with side effects.
Source: I have had two general anesthesia[0] and one epidural[1] surgeries.
The feeling of blinking out and suddenly being "back" is far from exclusive to comas or general anesthesia; it has been replicated via deep meditation. Specifically, it seems to be the core feature of what's technically known as nirodha samapatti (lit. "attainment of ceasing").
An easy way of intuiting what it might feel like (if imperfectly, of course) is just keeping a high state of lucidity and mental focus whilst you're naturally drifting in and out of light sleep; this might seem challenging at first but it's actually quite doable.
AdieuToLogic · 21m ago
> The feeling of blinking out and being "back" is far from exclusive to comas or general anesthesia ...
Awesome. But this has nothing to do with the topic to which I replied:
These sound like anaesthetic side effects.
vmurthy · 1h ago
What a beautiful, thought provoking article! When I saw the title , I thought it was a book summary of “My stroke of insight” [0]. This book is by a neuro-anatomist who had a rare stroke resulting in the left hemisphere of her brain being incapacitated. That led her to experiences similar to that of the article’s author. Do check out the book and pair it with the article
We do spend a large fraction of the age of the universe not thinking.
ChrisMarshallNY · 3h ago
I had a craniotomy in 1996. Similar thing. The back of my head looked a bit like his, except the scar looked more like a Blue Oyster Cult symbol (backwards question mark). I know they left a piece of the skull out, so I do have a hole in the head.
Took me a couple months to learn to walk and chew gum at the same time, but I ended up making a full recovery.
I remember being wheeled into the OR. It was odd, because there was a damn good chance I wouldn’t wake up. Or I’d spend my life in a wheelchair. The cerebellum is a bad place to have problems. I was actually pretty chill. Maybe they gave me Valium.
The recovery sucked. I spent a week in ICU (basically no sleep).
jaggederest · 2h ago
> Maybe they gave me Valium.
Versed/midazolam, almost certainly, was a part of the preoperative regimen.
I had jaw surgery and basically didn't sleep the night before, for obvious reasons, and they gave me a bit of versed in prep and had to wake me up on the table to put me under for anesthesia proper. Hey, not my fault the blankets were warm and the pillow was perfect.
It's a very useful medication both for anxiety, but also to reduce your seizure risk, which I imagine for cerebellar surgery was a definite factor.
lagniappe · 3h ago
Im glad you're still around
tomcam · 2h ago
Total agreement here. His posts indicate a life well lived.
pico303 · 3h ago
What a great piece. I’m so glad not only that his daughter will get to know her dad, but that her dad is going to appreciate every moment he has with her.
narrator · 2h ago
This is a great article. I've been in for surgery a few times, and I always cry before it because I never know what could happen. I could wind up dead, paralyzed, in chronic pain, a vegetable. Then I think to myself how unspecial I am. Millions of people die every day and yet we deny death, and lose sight of the stuff that actually matters that much. The billionaire and the homeless person still just fertilize worms after they die. That reality keeps me humble and in daily gratitude to the miracle of life, though my confidence does waver during the periods of ill health I've had.
geoffbp · 2h ago
Good read! Enjoyed that. I meditate but have never reached that state fwiw.
6stringmerc · 3h ago
Glad for him and without a doubt the support network and relationships he had in place significantly contributed to his positive outcome. I recently went through a similar trial and tribulation but as an inmate and by receiving sub-standard care. That's how I was able to turn inward and finally crack into real enlightenment and it's the solid kind because comparatively speaking, I had fuck-all to live for. No family. No future. No nothing but more suffering. And yet I found the release into accepting the beauty of futility. I commit to the program, I give. Let Go and Hang On. IYKYK.
linuxhansl · 3h ago
Without meaning this in any way condescending: I am really proud of you as fellow human being!
Finding peace in such a situation takes courage, strength, and reflection, and you apparently have/found all of these.
I’ve been drafting a manuscript for a novel lately, trying to see how well llms can help.
I recognize this prose immediately as OpenAI gpt 5.
It loves to describe things “hum” that don’t usually hum, like the author wrote in the beginning. Plenty more descriptions match the cadence and rhythm and word choices I’ve seen writing my manuscript.
I feel like there’s a meta discussion the author was prompting here about consciousness.
Reading the writing of a real human feels more intimate. Reading the auto-tune version of writing makes me feel noticeably less connected to the reader. I know the author still input something to get this output. But there’s something blocking a deeper connection when I just “know” I’m not reading the author’s words.
Edit: llamas > llms
"Survivor’s euphoria.” A clinical term, woefully inadequate. It wasn’t just euphoria. It was revelation."
> I’ve been drafting a manuscript for a novel lately, trying to see how well llms can help.
> I recognize this prose immediately as OpenAI gpt 5.
Is it possible you are experiencing confirmation bias[0]?
In other words, by your own admission, you have been "trying to see how well llms can help" as it pertains to writing. With that degree of LLM intimacy, is it possible "the cadence and rhythm and word choices I’ve seen writing my manuscript" is a pattern you are predisposed to identify in other works?
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
Yes, and I believe the strong association we often make between the most advanced cognitive functions and consciousness are misleading us into believing that consciousness is somehow the result of those functions, while I suspect we (conscious selves) are just witnessing those functions like we are witnessing anything, "from the outside". It's of course the most amazing part of the show, but should not be confused for it. Consciousness is not made of thinking but of observing, we just spend a lot of time observing how we think.
I'd shared it with the group because it was interesting that the author had spontaneously landed in the state due to catastrophic circumstances, but now reading it a second time I recall this had also happened to me years ago, on the sudden death of a close family member. I consider myself lucky to be able to access it outside circumstances of personal tragedy or medical emergency. It's a great reason to learn to meditate; unfortunately you can't give people a quick preview of it or a lot more people would take meditation more seriously.
I know from experience because I survived a brain hemorrhage. I had a state where I experienced the world differently for many years. I still do. Something cracked open in me and it has stayed that way, other aspects of my physiology are returning to a baseline state, like my nervous system changes which damped my fear responses.
A life-changing moment changes one's life by definition. Each time a person experiences one, they are changed in a way where who they were before they can remember, perhaps even look fondly upon, but know they are not that person anymore.
> Powerful story. But let's be real: after the "survivor's euphoria" fades, how do you actually keep that level of consciousness?
By living in the moment and remembering how you got there.
How much did it help? Did you notice a change in your personality? How long did it take to recover? Did you lose vision in one eye?
It was all occipital lobe so vision would have been the only thing affected. I had terrible vision in the lower-left quadrant of both of my eyes anyways, based on a medical field-of-vision test, along with my own tendency to bump into people and things on my left side (still the case).
Based on many electroencephalographs (EEGs), they decided my epileptic seizures stemmed from the lower right occipital lobe of my brain. It is kind of neat proof to me that the opposite side of your brain has effects on the other side of your body; right occipital lobe affecting left visual field.
So, they removed some brain, which actually did not affect my epilepsy at all, positively or negatively. I went into the hospital, got surgery, and was out maybe a week later - when that photo was taken. I had to go back a week or two later to have the staples taken out.
My lower left peripheral vision is worse than it used to be. I have about eight visual seizures that each last maybe a minute or two per day, but I can carry on a conversation and nobody even knows. I take seven pills every morning, and another four each night. I do not have a drivers license, car, or really ever plan to drive again, but that is kind of why I moved to live in a city where I can walk, take public transit, and get deliveries quickly/reliably.
On the nerd side, I track my seizures with my own homemade Python Django (w/ REST Framework) application, PostgreSQL, and an Apple Shortcut, usually from my iPhone or watch. Datasette and Highcharts make visualizing all my seizures tracked since December 2021 pretty cool.
There's a longer baseline term which might go with this: Survivor's Depression. I have found after successful surgery, diagnostics, any kind of procedure after the initial elation, I have a very strong down-mood. It's not unlike coming back from holiday and feeling exhausted.
> These sound like anaesthetic side effects.
General anesthesia[0] used in surgeries are effectively artificially induced comas. The pre-op discussion with the anesthesiologist includes them describing this and that there is a very real risk that you will die from its usage.
Regaining consciousness after having it applied most certainly invokes a feeling of "I came back" and has nothing to do with side effects.
Source: I have had two general anesthesia[0] and one epidural[1] surgeries.
0 - https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/anesthesia/about...
1 - https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/21896-epidu...
An easy way of intuiting what it might feel like (if imperfectly, of course) is just keeping a high state of lucidity and mental focus whilst you're naturally drifting in and out of light sleep; this might seem challenging at first but it's actually quite doable.
Awesome. But this has nothing to do with the topic to which I replied:
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/142292.My_Stroke_of_Insi...
https://www.graceguts.com/quotations/zen-story-tigers-and-a-...
Took me a couple months to learn to walk and chew gum at the same time, but I ended up making a full recovery.
I remember being wheeled into the OR. It was odd, because there was a damn good chance I wouldn’t wake up. Or I’d spend my life in a wheelchair. The cerebellum is a bad place to have problems. I was actually pretty chill. Maybe they gave me Valium.
The recovery sucked. I spent a week in ICU (basically no sleep).
Versed/midazolam, almost certainly, was a part of the preoperative regimen.
I had jaw surgery and basically didn't sleep the night before, for obvious reasons, and they gave me a bit of versed in prep and had to wake me up on the table to put me under for anesthesia proper. Hey, not my fault the blankets were warm and the pillow was perfect.
It's a very useful medication both for anxiety, but also to reduce your seizure risk, which I imagine for cerebellar surgery was a definite factor.
Finding peace in such a situation takes courage, strength, and reflection, and you apparently have/found all of these.