28 April 2025

AI Generative Video Prompts and AI Imagination

A brief, productive chat with Open AI about images made for video by AI and AI's imagination. I will post what it said about creativity and imagination below, as well as a cheat sheet on how to make good prompts for AI video makers.

Later this year Open AI will have a video generator named Sora for people to use via the same website. Initially- pro users first, then perhaps available free to a limited extent later.

There is actually a business for people called 'prompt engineers'. Good prompts have lots of detail like a movie screenplay.

  First though, what it said about the imagination of generative AI;

ChatGpt- "The Big Philosophical Idea: Will AI Ever Truly Imagine?

Right now, AI only recombines what it already knows.

It doesn’t want anything. It doesn't wonder. It doesn't dream.

True imagination (like in humans) comes from:

Desire (I want to express something.)

Conflict (I struggle to create something new.)

Freedom (I can choose to break every rule.)

For AI to have real imagination, two things would need to happen:

🔹 It would need a self.

(Some inner "I" that can feel, desire, be dissatisfied.)

🔹 It would need the ability to value the unknown.

(Choosing to create something not just based on probability, but because it longs for it.)

Speculation:

Some scientists believe that future AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) could simulate an inner life, with synthetic "desires" and "curiosity."

If that happens, it might start dreaming not because it was told to, but because it wants to — and then?

We could see AI art that shocks, mystifies, and even teaches us new beauty we couldn't imagine ourselves. 😲

But that’s still science fiction right now.

For today:

✨ The imagination is still ours.

✨ The AI is the mirror we bend to reflect it."

I had asked the AI about making a video with a basketball player spinning a planet on a finger. ChatGpt explained how to make it more detailed. Following is data that the machine code had to say about making good prompts for generative AI videos...

ChatGpt- "Pro Sora Prompt Formula (Cheat Sheet)

Here’s your one-page guide to crafting epic prompts for AI video generation like Sora:

1. Start with WHO / WHAT

Main subject (person, creature, object).

Style hints (young, futuristic, ancient, surreal, realistic, cartoonish).

Example:

"A tall basketball player in a silver uniform."

2. Set the WHERE

Environment, setting, atmosphere (natural world, fantasy, space, city, dreamscape).

Include era if relevant (future, ancient, 1980s, etc).

Example:

"Inside a dark cosmic arena floating in space, stars glowing in the distance."

3. Describe the ACTION

What’s happening? How does it move?

Single action or multiple actions.

Example:

"He spins a glowing blue planet rapidly on his finger."

4. Guide the CAMERA

How should the viewer see it?

Zoom in, tracking shot, slow-motion, handheld, cinematic swoop, wide panorama?

Example:

"Camera slowly zooms in close to the spinning planet, slight orbiting motion around the subject."

5. Add MOOD & STYLE

Lighting (bright, dramatic, soft, neon, dark).

Colors (golden, purple, deep blue, pastel, monochrome).

Vibe (dreamlike, intense, relaxed, chaotic).

Example:

"Cinematic, dramatic lighting with shimmering blue and purple hues, slow ambient background motion."

Bonus Tips:

Even one sentence per section is enough if you’re fast prompting!

Use vivid sensory words: glowing, shimmering, swirling, crackling, ancient, ethereal.

Think like a movie director, not a list-maker."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcKxwBuOIoI



Lakers are on the Edge of Oblivion for the 2024-25 Playoffs

 The Los Angeles Lakers are facing expulsion from the first round of the N.B. A. playoffs after consecutive losses in Minnesota to the Timberwolves. It isn’t that they are a bad team or badly coached. The problem is that they didn’t give the elite rim protector and monster of the paint Christian Koloko a regular veteran minimum contract to play in the playoffs and so they have only one tall guy who is fairly slim and a roll player best used against select teams. Another problem is the rookie Coach Reddick. He is good enough yet makes rookie mistakes like playing a 40 year old virtually the entire game so the elite closure scored zero points in the fourth quarter due to exhaustion.

Sitting on the bench was an elite three point shooting rookie Dalton Knecht. His defense is not so hot yet the shooting option was needed for the series. One can’t always know how certain players will perform a priori; one must give them a chance. Coach Reddick wasn’t willing to bring Koloko and Jemenson aboard for the playoff run, and wouldn’t risk winning or losing with a rookie having a supporting role who had similar stats to first year Kobe Bryant, and instead let his team slip to one win versus three losses and the exit door in the floor for the long drop and plop into next season.

The Lakers should keep the coach for he will with luck learn from the experience, not trade Dalton Knecht for a used center, and shop about for a journeyman center without desparation since they have Koloko, Hayes and Maxi Kleber already. If it’s not broke don’t fix it. There isn’t anyone on the team the Lakers should be willing to trade for a center. Alternatively, if a good one appears it wouldn’t hurt to bring a journeyman aboard.





27 April 2025

No It Wasn't Fair Dinkum for Trump to Kill Zelensky at the Vatican

 If President Trump had killed Volodimir Zelensky at the Vatican with the secret Spock death-grip- when Zelensky approached him as a head of state attending the Pope's funeral, he would have been guilty of killing 'an internationally protected person'. Those are government officials, diplomats, guests and so forth. President Trump might have been tempted to end the war directly by removing the main obstacle to peace. 

Zelensky seem to be playing the President, disrespected the Vatican to conduct business, and appears to be making a subtle wise-guy style joke of President Trump.

President Trump apparently hasn't realized that Mr. Zelensky will spam and sham his entire administration as the Democrats did with charges against him in his first term. Euros and Democrats support the war in Ukraine no matter how long it takes. As in denying Trump a Nobel Peace Prize the first term they have no intention of allowing Donald Trump to get anywhere in his second term in regard to public acknowledgment of achievement. President Trump will need to settle the Ukraine War without the help of Zelensky, the Democrat Party or Euro diplomats.

Even if the next Pope forgave President Trump for his offence and persuaded Vatican lawyers not to bring charges, U.S. law would have been broken so far as Zelensky is considered to be an internationally protected person. It is possible that since Zelensky's subscription expired and he is there by martial law that he isn't an internationally protected individual- like everyone else outside the protected class. The Pope would however be required to name Zelensky as an uninvited guest in order to remove his protected status.

Effect on Prices Globally for Increases of Chinese Minimum Wage

 The minimum wage of the United States today is about 7.25 per hour. When I had my first job parking cars the minimum wage was $1.60 hourly. A minimum wage increase of several million or hundreds of millions of people is a large chunk of change. The U.S. minimum wage hasn't gone up much in a half century.

China hasn't got a nation-wide minimum wage. The minimum wage is set at a provincial level and of course people living in cities need and get higher minimum wages than country folk. About 470 million Chinese work in cities. I believe the minimum wage in Shanghai is about $1.20 an hour. It is less for the 270 million rural workers generally.  The scale of even modest, nation-wide increases in minimum wages in China has immediate, large effects on the cost of made in China products sold globally.

Maybe western ideologues will expect Chinese communist leadership to duplicate western models of sending proplits of rising prosperity to CEOs instead of workers and to keep minimum wages down. I believe that's unreasonable. In the west the voters have need trained to be like good communists and accept low minimum wages and submit to low tax flummery  and profit lion shares for the rich. In China the communist leadership may not only worry about being replaced if they don't raise worker minimums and increase average standard of living; they could be accused of counter-revolutionary activity.

Chinese workers, like Americans, want an increase in minimum wages. For about 77 million people to have meaningful wage increase means costs need be passed on to consumers. In other words, even without tariffs the cost of made-in-China goods was destined to increase in order to increase the Chinese standard of living. The U.S.A. did need to eventually return to material production many of the items outsourced to China in order to raise U.S. minimum wages much.

Chinese workers, like Americans, want an increase in minimum wages. For about 77 million people to have meaningful wage increase means costs need be passed on to consumers. In other words, even without tariffs the cost of made-in-China goods was destined to increase in order to increase the Chinese standard of living. The U.S.A. did need to eventually return to material production many of the items outsourced to China in order to raise U.S. minimum wages much.

The growth in the U.S. economy since the 1970s sent a disproportionate percent of profit to the rich instead of sharing proportionately with workers via minimum wage increases. Instead of minimum wage increases consumers following the end of the Cold War 1.0 got deflation on the cost of select consumer goods made in China, Thailand, Vietnam etc. It is likely that Chinese wages will rise even as the labor participation rate declines because of aging of the Chinese population. For the U.S. minimum wage to triple ( a small yet significant reparation for the relative stagnation of minimum wage the past half century) domestic production would need to increase, taxation on capital gains increase and the cost of government be reduced with increased efficiency. 

Needless to say environmental protections need be strongly reinforced because of the extreme stress on the environment created by the vast global demographic facts of population and countless deleterious economic environmental externalities (i.e. microplastics).

Challenges of Ecclesiastic and Social Organizations in the Formative Stage

Early in church history there was a challenge to organize and share the same beliefs  Many doctrinal questions arose that needed to be addressed.  Even leadership itself was an issue. There were five important cities for a time, including Jerusalem, that had important church centers.

Human social organizations including church organizations have unmathematical vectors of growth and proliferation. They are not clean, simple, linear structures easy to formulate. Post cold war Russia faced a comparable challenge, as did the USA to a lesser extent that needed resolution via civil war. Boris Yeltsin passed on the rump of the former Soviet Union to Vladimir Putin. How was Yeltsin to know the west would invest in snatching Ukraine from Russian hegemony and in effect launder Ukraine as stolen property and use it as a military spearhead against Russia? The Russia-Ukraine war is another example of civil conflict following the formation of massive social organizations.

 The church had schisms and actual heresies like that of Arius, Mani, Marcionism, Montanism, and Sabellianism etc. One may tend to feel that Plotinus was treated badly. Even Augustine left off being a neo-Platonist and accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior.

Plotinus described his experience of transcendence and an intense, deeper, personal encounter with what Christians call the Shekinah Glory of God. It is an immediate experience of the transcendence of realty. Some of course would say that it is just an inward, psychological event, yet to those that experience it, reality itself and the boundaries of subject-objective being are briefly overcome, That is an experience of the super natural or super reality.

 What Plotinus called heyschasm is an unforgettable experience yet it too fades somewhat with time, as it must for the individual need exist in reality until the end of his life. Plotinus incidentally was regard as a heretic by the early church for claiming to have directly experienced God

Compare a Chinese heresy where a rebel leader believed, misunderstanding scripture, that he was the actual brother of Christ, and his leadership of rebels in a civil war produced 20 million deaths. Hong Xiuquan 

He perished after spending his last days detached, in a harem, while war raged outside his palace. Lack of doctrinal agreement and consensus is a problem inherently possible in the foundation of social organizations - in addition to similar issues arising from future revisions, upgrades and corruptions. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19977188 


26 April 2025

Plotunus and Heyschasm; A Supernatural Experience of Transcendence

 Plotinus described his experience of transcendence and an intense, deeper, personal encounter with what Christians call the Shekinah Glory of God. It is an immediate experience of the transcendence of realty. Some of course would say that it is just an inward, psychological event, yet to those that experience it, reality itself and the boundaries of subject-objective being are briefly overcome, That is an experience of the super natural or super reality.

 What Plotinus called heyschasm is an unforgettable experience yet it too fades somewhat with time, as it must for the individual need exist in reality until the end of his life. Plotinus incidentally was regard as a heretic by the early church for claiming to have directly experienced God.

25 April 2025

Alaska Wants to Spend 84 million of Public Education (an increase of more than $600 per student)

 I am not a fan of Alaska education after being denied admission to a U.A.F. graduate school three time with a 3.7 g.p.a. as an undergraduate. (including CLEP exams) and an 85% on the G.R.E. with an Associate from U.A.S.E. So I continued reading outside the classroom and learned a lot of history, philosophy, logic etc. Instead of going about education the traditional way.

II prefer using more technology and A.I. instruction and spending less on physical infrastructure that serves to to give kids and c student teachers with B.ED.s a place to hang out and go over textbooks with paint by the numbers pedagogy. Teachers don't need to be replaced with robots the next decade, yet the day may be approaching. Instructing in discipline issues and constructive socialization instead of youth learning gangsterism is an important function of schools yet that could be addressed in some way besides through teachers.

Training for little kids has different requisites than for those more able to self-supervise (grade 7 and up). Perhaps education in specialized theme parks instead of schools could educate small children effectively, combining functions of day care, motor skills, weapons training, speed reading, multi media, acrobatics, wildlife management, botany, zoology, astrophysics etc. Education might be more fun for little kids.

School buildings should be super-insulated and have renewable energy to cut down on electricity bills. Efficiency in delivering education need be perpetually upgraded. That includes lowering the cost of education until costs fade away and youth can meet legal education requirements in an information rich culture without going to schools becoming legally free to pursue other life activities than sitting in classrooms.

China has far more engineering graduates than the United States and going about higher education in ways that other nations can match and surpass will not result in a winning position for the U.S.A. or Alaska. Another problem is that a lot of education and even excellence can lead nowhere without a relevant occupational connection. In my opinion anyone reasonably good at learning should be able to afford to do so and take courses such that passing courses count yet failing won't. People should be encouraged to try and not worry about failing. Online coursework should be evaluated and accredited by the state and students pursuing lifetime learning should have a state education account that keeps track of their courses passed.

Higher education needs more flexibility and on-line adaptability so students that want to work at a faster than average pace can do so without any corresponding facility and material structure issues. Students should be allowed to sign up for coursera courses at any age if they have an interest and ability and find a seamless integration of passing coursework to their credit in a personalized high school catalog. Just ditto’ing traditional ways of education will not make American education great again. Creating higher costs and expenses on inefficiency will not lead to modernized effectiveness in education.

Besides the above I like the Governor’s edits.

Russians Didn't Vote in Ukraine's 1991 Secession Election

In 1991 Ukrainian's voted for independence. The Soviet Unuion was crumbling. The Soviet military returning home from Eastern Europe was ...