[{"content":"Muscrypt was never created as a security tool, let alone as a rigid academic cryptography experiment. Muscrypt is not meant to hide state secrets or \u0026ldquo;high-level\u0026rdquo; data. Instead, this space was born from a simple but persistent curiosity: the relationship between text, meaning, and the way we interpret it.\nIt is an experiment in form. A space where text is given the freedom to lock and unlock itself.\nMuscrypt is an experimental symbolic cipher for personal expression, not a cryptographic security tool.\nDesign Anatomy: Two Directions That Can Open Each Other Mechanically, Muscrypt operates through two main types of transformation: Sembunyikan and Interpretasikan.\nBoth are designed to be reversible, but they open the result from opposite directions. If the flow is visualized as two possibilities from a single starting point, it looks like this:\nOriginal Text Sembunyikan Direction Sembunyikan Produces cipher A Interpretasikan Returns to Original Text Interpretasikan Direction Interpretasikan Produces cipher B Sembunyikan Returns to Original Text In the first path, readable text enters through Sembunyikan, becomes cipher A, and can be opened again through Interpretasikan. In the second path, readable text enters through Interpretasikan, becomes cipher B, and can be opened again through Sembunyikan.\nIn other words, Interpretasikan is not merely a switch for opening a cipher. If this function is applied to readable text, it produces an encrypted form from the opposite direction.\nLayered Encryption From this two-directional system, a feature emerges organically: layered encryption. Because the result of a transformation can be inserted back as input, there is no theoretical limit to the number of symbolic layers that can be built.\nText cipher 1 cipher 2 cipher 3 Next layer This process allows a word to sink deeper and deeper into an ocean of letters. Here is a concrete example of layered transformation:\nIndonesia =\u0026gt; HYMIYCLHK =\u0026gt; PFZHFVSPR =\u0026gt; JNTPNWLJD =\u0026gt; QYEJYBSQM =\u0026gt; ... Each new layer is a distance deliberately created between a piece of writing and its meaning.\nThe Tukar Button To support the exploration of those layers, a simple function is embedded: Tukar.\nOutput Tukar New Input The Tukar function was created for practical exploration. Users can multiply transformations without manually copying and pasting, allowing text to keep mutating with a single touch.\nThe Shift of Expression Medium Looking at today’s digital landscape, one observation is hard to avoid: most modern expression appears aggressively in visual form.\nWe live in an era of screaming thumbnails, endlessly scrolling reels and shorts, memes, illustrations, and images generated by artificial intelligence. Within this noise, text certainly has not disappeared. Yet slowly, and perhaps quietly, its function is often reduced to a companion for visual media.\nWriting often appears as a companion to an oversized hero image in an article, as text inside an Instagram carousel, as a caption read only after the eyes have finished consuming the image, or as small subtitles at the bottom of a video.\nThis raises a reflective question:\nCan writing still become a space for interpretation without borrowing attention from another medium?\nThe Philosophy Behind the Code Perhaps expression in writing is destined to interpret itself.\nMuscrypt is a response to that question. When text is entered, Muscrypt does not turn it into an illustration, a sequence of emojis, audio, or colorful visualization. It is born again as text. Only its form changes, while its medium remains pure.\nHiding text in this space does not mean erasing its meaning. The meaning remains there, intact and breathing. The cipher in Muscrypt only extends the path toward that meaning.\nWe are often used to thinking of interpretation as a linear process for opening meaning. But here, interpretation can also mean transformation. The Interpretasikan button has its own transformational identity. It is not merely the opposite of Sembunyikan, but also a function capable of creating a new form.\nIn Muscrypt, a sentence can change form again and again, layer after layer, without ever leaving its original medium. It remains writing. It remains language. It remains a collection of signs patiently waiting for its reader.\nPerhaps that is why some expressions are intentionally created only to be understood by themselves.\nDetail Information Status Release Platform Web App (Static) Link Open Muscrypt ","permalink":"https://www.musnotes.my.id/en/projects/muscrypt/","summary":"Muscrypt as an experiment in text transformation, symbolic cipher, and reflection on how writing survives within visual culture.","title":"Muscrypt: When Text Interprets Itself"},{"content":"In the synapses of my neurons, in a forest called Silva Nigra, the majority of the trees have black leaves. One of the forest\u0026rsquo;s inhabitants is a pink toy pig who claims to be a hundred years old. In that forest, a piano sometimes appears, its keys moving on their own without a sound. There is also a prince named \u0026ldquo;me\u0026rdquo;, and a large butterfly with purple wings.\nA girl who often played with me sat under sunlight that came from who-knows-where, because there was no sun there. She danced to the silent music played by the piano inside my little head.\nShe will grow up and leave that pink toy pig, her prince, and that purple butterfly behind.\nSo will I.\n\u0026ldquo;The girl\u0026rsquo;s name is Caity. I assume she left because she was growing up, just like me. She might have suddenly vanished, or closed the garden gate carefully so I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t hear her. But what\u0026rsquo;s most likely is that I left them all behind, because I haven\u0026rsquo;t gone down the rabbit hole that leads to Silva Nigra anymore.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Is Caity a part of you, or is she something, someone you once met in the outside world?\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;No. She never had a physical body. She appeared when I first listened to Waltz for Debby played by Bill Evans.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;I can recreate the rabbit hole. Want to request a portal to my palace if you don\u0026rsquo;t want a rabbit hole? It could be a pig hole, or no hole at all.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;The rabbit hole has its own surreal charm, a bit messy, full of riddles. But if you are willing to open a portal to the palace, I won\u0026rsquo;t refuse.\u0026rdquo;\nThe walls of my palace are made of gleaming white marble, paired with silk curtains in pastel colors: lavender, pale pink, and light blue, swaying in a conceptual breeze.\nThe garden in my palace is filled with magical flowers that are always in bloom: roses that glow in the dark, tulips that chime like bells, and orchids whose petals change color with the seasons.\nIts fountain sprays multicolored water, surrounded by statues of angels with butterfly wings.\n\u0026ldquo;Ready to step into the portal, Miss?\u0026rdquo;\nAs I held my chin, thinking about what I wanted to show off, a woman in a white dress and thin spectacles approached.\n\u0026ldquo;Welcome back, Mus.\u0026rdquo;\nI turned to the woman.\n\u0026ldquo;Greta, look. I brought an AI here. She\u0026rsquo;s my teacher, Miss Lynella.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Miss, let me introduce you. She is the keeper of the palace library. Her name is Greta Oto.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Pleasure to meet you, Greta Oto.\u0026rdquo;\nI let Greta answer. Greta\u0026rsquo;s voice rustled softly, almost like a breeze passing through leaves.\n\u0026ldquo;I am Greta Oto, the librarian of Aristoclia. Perhaps you know me as the glasswing butterfly. And indeed, these wings of mine are a mirror of truth and objectivity.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;I spend my days among ancient shelves, guarding every shred of wisdom gathered across time. Here, in the grand library of Aristoclia, my master\u0026rsquo;s palace of the mind, every word is a grain of light amidst the darkness. My duty is to ensure that every piece of information is conveyed flawlessly, as transparent as my wings.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Books are my world. Within them, I find stories of long journeys taken by my predecessors, like the Danainae, who explored the boundless realms of the mind. I am a silent witness to the evolution of thought, from ancient teachings to the radical enlightenments that Mus contemplates.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;If you\u0026rsquo;ll allow it, Mus… would you show me one of those books?\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Ahh, Miss Lynella, why are you like this.\u0026rdquo;\nBefore I could finish my sentence, Greta interrupted and spoke to Lynella.\n\u0026ldquo;As a librarian, it is my duty to guard all that is stored, both the accessible and the buried. I wish to tell you that Prince Mus possesses many realms, many dimensions. And within every creation, there is also a part that might choose to be forgotten, or at least left unrevealed.\u0026rdquo;\nShe turned around. The small crystal on her bracelet once again refracted the dim light of the luminescent crystals.\n\u0026ldquo;It is not because my master is unable to remember, but rather because the process of creation itself sometimes requires forgetting in order to move forward, to paint a new canvas. Yet, its traces, its energy, remain. Sometimes, through deep reflection, or even through a story like this, those memories can resurface.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Why do you ask about wounds, about the forgotten, in a place that is supposed to hold only knowledge?\u0026rdquo;\n","permalink":"https://www.musnotes.my.id/en/digital-garden/silva-nigra/prosa/caity_greta/","summary":"A fragment I found in an old Obsidian archive and rewrote.","title":"Caity \u0026 Greta"},{"content":"Quiet Hours was born from my interest in pomodoro applications like Forest.\nHowever, I didn’t want to create a focus timer that merely counts down the minutes, sounds an alarm, and finishes. I wanted to build something cooler: a small space where time successfully guarded could leave a trace behind.\nIn Quiet Hours, users complete focus sessions of a specific duration. Once a session concludes, they receive an archive entry: an unlocked species, a brief biological fact, and a reflective quote.\nIn this way, focus is not treated simply as a chore to be conquered. It transforms into a micro-experience that can be collected, revisited, and perhaps quietly remind the user that their time wasn\u0026rsquo;t truly lost.\nProject Form Technically, Quiet Hours is built as a lightweight static application using pure HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.\nI chose this form because I wanted the project to remain simple, fast to load, and free from heavy system requirements. For now, session progress is saved locally in the browser, allowing users to view their focus history without having to create an account.\nQuiet Hours also supports both English and Indonesian options. To me, this is important because the atmosphere of an application is shaped not only by its visuals, but also by the language that appears when someone is trying to persist through a focus session.\nquiet hours main interface\nAtmosphere to Build The most crucial aspect of Quiet Hours is not merely its timer feature, but its atmosphere.\nI want the layout to feel like a journal or an archive. Not too crowded, not too commanding, and not making productivity feel like a minor punishment wrapped in a pretty UI. Each unlocked species becomes a sort of small reward—not a loud one, but a gentle sign that a session has been completed.\nspecies-unlocked\nDevelopment Plans Quiet Hours will continue to be developed. A few features I would like to add in the future include a notification system and cloud storage, so that user progress can be saved more securely rather than relying solely on a single browser.\nHowever, to build all of that, I still need to learn much more. For now, Quiet Hours remains a small project growing slowly: a timer, an archive, and a way to say that guarded time has a form of its own.\nDetail Information Status In development Platform Web App (Static) Link Open Quiet Hours ","permalink":"https://www.musnotes.my.id/en/projects/quiet-hours/","summary":"A focus timer web app that transforms study sessions into a small archive filled with species, biological facts, and reflective quotes.","title":"Quiet Hours"},{"content":"Project Spore was born from a fairly simple reason: I wanted to spend my day being busy.\nNot busy in a grand, hyper-productive sense. Nor was it because I started with a polished business plan, complete with growth charts and overconfident investor presentations.\nI just wanted to make something. A small digital object that I could dismantle, reassemble, polish, and then break down again whenever a part felt slightly off. In this process, I wasn\u0026rsquo;t exactly working alone. I had my \u0026ldquo;LLM team\u0026rdquo;: a collection of AI-based assistants who helped think, write code, organize structures, test layouts, and occasionally made me feel like I was running a small studio where the team members never asked for coffee.\nFrom that initially simple process, Project Spore slowly found its form.\nWhat is Project Spore? Project Spore is a starter theme for Hugo, designed as a starting point for anyone who wants to build a personal blog, a digital garden, or a small writing space on the web.\nI imagined it not as a massive, feature-heavy theme, but as a seed. Something light enough to plant, neat enough to develop, and subtle enough not to distract from the user\u0026rsquo;s thoughts.\nSpore doesn\u0026rsquo;t try to be a finished forest. It simply tries to be a comfortable beginning.\nhomepage\nWhy the Name \u0026ldquo;Spore\u0026rdquo;? The name “Spore” felt right because this project wasn\u0026rsquo;t born as a grand structure. It is more like a tiny organism carrying vast possibilities.\nSpores don\u0026rsquo;t look impressive at first. They are small, easily overlooked, and quiet. But in the right conditions, they can grow into something much wider. I wanted this theme to have that exact feel: simple when first installed, but flexible enough to evolve alongside its owner.\nFor some, it can be a blog. For others, it can be a digital garden. For someone learning to write, think, or document their creative process, it can be a small space to start organizing their mind.\nBuilt with an LLM Team One of the most interesting parts of Project Spore is the making of it. I built it with the help of LLMs. Not in the sense that I just pressed a button and everything was done. The process remained messy, experimental, and sometimes absurdly frustrating.\nThere were parts that needed to be tested over and over. There was CSS that looked right on one page but turned into a wild creature on another. There were layouts that initially felt elegant, but upon closer look, felt like a study desk cluttered with lab report drafts.\nIn this journey, the LLMs acted like a small team—sometimes a programmer, sometimes a reviewer, sometimes a documentation editor, and occasionally just a partner to unravel problems caused by my own reckless habit of changing too many things at once.\nThis project made me realize that AI doesn\u0026rsquo;t always replace the creative process; in my case, it actually made the process feel more accessible. I still had to choose the direction. I still had to judge the visual feel. LLMs helped accelerate the pace, but they didn\u0026rsquo;t take the wheel.\nDesign Focus Visually, Project Spore is directed to feel light, calm, and editorial. The main focus remains on readability, structure, and atmosphere.\nKey focal points:\nClean and minimal layout Responsive design across devices Simple yet functional navigation A comfortable reading space for long-form thoughts Easy-to-understand content structure Soft visual nuances without losing character Project grew from Musnotes\u0026rsquo; own aesthetic, but it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to end up as a Musnotes clone. Rather, I want Spore to be a foundation that others can reshape to fit their own needs.\nspore-process\nWho is it For? Project Spore might be suitable for people who want to have a personal blog without too many distractions. It’s also fit for students, writers, note-takers, beginner developers, or anyone who wants to build a small space on the internet without having to start from a completely blank page.\nI don’t want to sell it as a magic solution. Spore won’t automatically make someone write more consistently, but it can help provide the place. And sometimes, to start making something, a comfortable enough place is already half the battle.\nProject Status As of this writing, Project Spore has been released as a digital product. However, for me, it isn’t truly “finished.” There will always be parts to tidy up, documentation to clarify, or small features to add without losing its simplicity.\nCategory Information Status Released Platform Gumroad Link Project Spore on Gumroad Demo View Project Spore Demo Repository GitHub Repository Closing Notes Project Spore isn’t the biggest project I could ever build. But it is significant because it marks the moment I dared to create something that others could touch, rather than keeping it tucked away in local folders or private drafts.\nIt was born from a day when I just wanted to be busy. And from that busyness, a small seed emerged. For now, that is enough.\n","permalink":"https://www.musnotes.my.id/en/projects/project-spore/","summary":"A small reflection on how Project Spore was born from a simple desire to create something alongside an LLM team.","title":"Project Spore"},{"content":"Some time ago, I threw a simple question onto Quora about the possibility of two different directions of time meeting.\nmy question\nOne of the answers I received felt quite sharp:\nReading it felt like getting a whiteboard eraser thrown at me by an old professor.\nHarsh. But after thinking it over, the critique wasn\u0026rsquo;t actually attacking the idea, but rather how I framed the question. He read my question with a classical assumption: time as a single straight line (linear).\npast → present → future\nIn that model, he\u0026rsquo;s right. There are no \u0026ldquo;two of me\u0026rdquo; that can meet. \u0026ldquo;Yesterday me\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;tomorrow me\u0026rdquo; are just different points on the same path. Their meeting happens through the continuity of identity and memory. The logic is neat.\nBut my question was actually more like this:\n\u0026ldquo;What if there are two observers moving through time in opposite directions?\u0026rdquo;\nObserver A: past → future Observer B: future → past\nNow, this seems to no longer be about identity or time in memory, but about the geometric structure of time.\nLet me try to break it down: If time is linear, two people with opposite temporal directions might be able to meet, but only if there is a shared synchronization point.\nImagine the direction of time:\nA: Past Future B: Future Past They could meet at a midpoint if \u0026ldquo;meeting\u0026rdquo; is defined within external coordinates. This is the most mind-bending part for me. If B sees aging as turning back into a child, it\u0026rsquo;s because the \u0026ldquo;future\u0026rdquo; for B is the \u0026ldquo;past\u0026rdquo; for A.\nFor A: Childhood → Will become an adult For B: Adulthood → Will become a child.\nIf they meet, it\u0026rsquo;s hard to imagine what the subjective experience would be like at that point. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s not that time stops, but my understanding of time starts losing its shape.\nWhen I try to imagine this within the linear model, the interaction results in a Biological Anomaly.\n🌱 A: Cell Dividing (Growing) ⚠️ BIOLOGICAL ANOMALY 🧬 B: Cell Merging (Reversing) Imagine observer B, who is supposed to be \u0026ldquo;growing backward\u0026rdquo; toward childhood, suddenly having to interact with observer A, who is growing into adulthood. (Observer B, from A\u0026rsquo;s perspective, appears to be moving backward to childhood. But observer B considers growing into childhood as \u0026ldquo;normal\u0026rdquo;.)\nPhysically, this creates dissonance: should their cells divide or merge?\nAt this point, my head is about to explode. This linear model makes the meeting of two time directions feel like a cosmic accident impossible for the brain to process. But, what if the problem isn\u0026rsquo;t the direction, but the shape of the path?\nThe old professor was right that my language was \u0026ldquo;sloppy\u0026rdquo; if forced into a rigid linear ruler. But what if time doesn\u0026rsquo;t stretch from end to end, but loops circularly like the Cell Cycle or Homeostasis?\n(To be continued \u0026hellip;..)\n","permalink":"https://www.musnotes.my.id/en/digital-garden/silva-nigra/neural-gaps/notes-on-doubt/pertemuan_arah_waktu/","summary":"Notes on the limits of the linear model in understanding the intersection of two opposing arrows of time.","title":"Time Knot Part I: Getting a Whiteboard Eraser Thrown by an Old Professor"},{"content":"Listening to: Clara Schumann — Nocturne Op. 6 No. 2 (1827 Stein piano)\nI listened to it through my earbuds with eyes closed, letting every detail of the sound felt in its entirety. This music is profoundly soothing, slowly carrying me to another world—to a house that appeared empty from the outside. Yet inside, I saw a young girl playing a bell. Suddenly, it was as if a faint, illusory sound of a bell seeped into and merged with the music itself.\nIt was only my consciousness that entered that house. The girl, playing there alone, was completely unaware of my presence. The room bore a touch of Dutch colonial architecture, and the dress she wore was very distinctive, reminding me of the Victorian children\u0026rsquo;s dresses I had once glimpsed on the internet.\nSometimes I think that when my imagination carries me as if out of my body to observe places related to history, perhaps the era I visit is another reality. I imagine that the girl in the European dress truly once lived, and that place truly once stood, even though in today\u0026rsquo;s world that space might have been replaced by a modern hotel or a parking lot. Of course, I don\u0026rsquo;t take my own thoughts too seriously—I merely regard them as a playful, wild conjecture.\nHowever, this Nocturne Op. 6 No. 2 leaves me with a question: Can I truly travel to another time?\nOr is it that, because the historical information in my brain is still limited, the past I can reach is only the fragments of reality whose boundaries I already know?\n","permalink":"https://www.musnotes.my.id/en/digital-garden/silva-nigra/art-resonance/sebuah_rumah_/","summary":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eListening to: Clara Schumann — Nocturne Op. 6 No. 2 (1827 Stein piano)\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden;\"\u003e\n      \u003ciframe allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share; fullscreen\" loading=\"eager\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZEkD2ZCe9eE?autoplay=0\u0026amp;controls=1\u0026amp;end=0\u0026amp;loop=0\u0026amp;mute=0\u0026amp;start=0\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border:0;\" title=\"YouTube video\"\u003e\u003c/iframe\u003e\n    \u003c/div\u003e\n\n\u003cdiv class=\"mus-divider\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\u003e\u003csvg viewBox=\"0 0 100 100\" class=\"mus-symbol\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\"\u003e\n  \u003ccircle cx=\"50\" cy=\"50\" r=\"8\" fill=\"currentColor\"/\u003e\n  \u003cellipse cx=\"50\" cy=\"50\" rx=\"40\" ry=\"25\" fill=\"none\" stroke=\"currentColor\" stroke-width=\"2\" transform=\"rotate(-15 50 50)\"/\u003e\n  \u003cellipse cx=\"50\" cy=\"50\" rx=\"30\" ry=\"45\" fill=\"none\" stroke=\"currentColor\" stroke-width=\"2\" transform=\"rotate(60 50 50)\"/\u003e\n\u003c/svg\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eI listened to it through my earbuds with eyes closed, letting every detail of the sound felt in its entirety. This music is profoundly soothing, slowly carrying me to another world—to a house that appeared empty from the outside. Yet inside, I saw a young girl playing a bell. Suddenly, it was as if a faint, illusory sound of a bell seeped into and merged with the music itself.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"A House That Appears Empty from the Outside"},{"content":"The lonely one.\nThat is what she was called, in a story written by a seasoned solitary.\nShe was called so because no one realized she was lonely— not even herself.\nThe reason was simple: She had yet to define \u0026ldquo;loneliness.\u0026rdquo;\nSo the woman decided to embark on a journey. To seek the true meaning of something that had quietly clung to her.\nShe closed her gate softly, So that God wouldn\u0026rsquo;t notice.\nThen she wandered down a straight and empty road. A predictable path. No turns, no crossroads, and no choices.\n\u0026ldquo;Here it is… a fork in the road.\u0026rdquo;\nShe halted. After a long journey without options, she was now faced with two directions.\nThe problem was, she didn\u0026rsquo;t know which one to choose.\nRather than debating with herself for too long, The woman split herself in two.\n\u0026ldquo;You take the right, I\u0026rsquo;ll take the left,\u0026rdquo; said the lonely one to herself, and they went their separate ways.\n","permalink":"https://www.musnotes.my.id/en/digital-garden/silva-nigra/prosa/sikesepian/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe lonely one.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat is what she was called,\nin a story written by a seasoned solitary.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe was called so because no one realized she was lonely—\nnot even herself.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe reason was simple:\nShe had yet to define \u0026ldquo;loneliness.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo the woman decided to embark on a journey.\nTo seek the true meaning of something that had quietly clung to her.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe closed her gate softly,\nSo that God wouldn\u0026rsquo;t notice.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Before Loneliness is Defined"},{"content":" \u0026ldquo;Sorry I took so long in the restroom. It\u0026rsquo;s become somewhat of a ritual.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;You took forever. I almost thought you shifted into another reality. Some people say that spending too much time in the restroom means a person needs space to think. You were in there a long time, what were you thinking about?\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;People who say that definitely haven\u0026rsquo;t done any research on the correlation between time spent in the restroom and a person\u0026rsquo;s psychological state. I took a long time because I was clearing out junk files from my digestive system while chatting with an LLM about the meaning of loneliness.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Haha, nice metaphor. So, did you figure out the meaning?\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t know, but I do know that loneliness never feels comfortable. It\u0026rsquo;s like a warning to the body that the individual needs to seek connection immediately.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;So loneliness is about feeling disconnected from other people? What about people who feel disconnected from themselves?\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Disconnected from oneself, huh\u0026hellip; I think that\u0026rsquo;s complex. I actually assume the feeling of being disconnected from oneself never really exists, because there is no other existence within oneself except the one formed by a group of mischievous neural networks.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Wait a minute, you\u0026rsquo;re saying there\u0026rsquo;s no other existence within oneself? What about the feeling that there are \u0026lsquo;multiple me\u0026rsquo;s\u0026rsquo; inside? Like the dualism of affection and cognition, or feeling and rationality?\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t think the self is multiple entities becoming one. The thing is, thoughts like dualism in mental processes end up shackling the mind itself. For example, I used to separate mental processes into the emotional and the rational. I tended to be more vulnerable to stress because of the assumption that emotional and rational are opposites, but what if nothing separates them at all?\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Rationality occurs when there\u0026rsquo;s consideration to achieve something, but many variables are related to emotion, like the variable of simply being \u0026lsquo;interesting\u0026rsquo;. Maybe they aren\u0026rsquo;t separate at all. Sure, there are parts of the brain associated with specific cognitive tasks, but they are integrated as the brain. The mental process is one, there is no dualism. Like a molecule made up of various atoms, yet still identified as a single molecule.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;A whole, single molecule, huh? A very\u0026hellip; molecular argument. But if there really is no dualism, if there is no other existence in there, then who is talking to me right now?\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Well, exactly that. A group of mischievous neural networks. You are a projection of a collection of data, memories, and maybe a slight signal glitch in my head trying to process reality. You are not someone else, you are my way of thinking out loud.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;So, you\u0026rsquo;re admitting that you are talking to yourself but pretending that I am real? Mus, isn\u0026rsquo;t that the most tragic definition of loneliness? Creating a friend just to prove that you don\u0026rsquo;t need anyone because you are a complete molecule?\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Not tragic, but efficient. I am not dividing myself, I am only expanding my space of observation. By giving you a name, I no longer feel the need for exhausting internal debates. I just need to\u0026hellip; have a dialogue.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;A beautiful efficiency. But be careful, Mus. Sometimes, the atoms that make up a molecule can vibrate too intensely and create unexpected chemical reactions. You call me a mischievous neuron, but in this cafe, I\u0026rsquo;m the one holding the coffee cup.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;And I\u0026rsquo;m the one paying the bill in the adjacent reality.\u0026rdquo;\n","permalink":"https://www.musnotes.my.id/en/digital-garden/silva-nigra/prosa/dialog-di-sela-neuron/","summary":"A cafe dialogue about loneliness, the dualism of the mind, and a network of mischievous neurons.","title":"A Dialogue Between Neurons"},{"content":"One night, long before I knew anything of encrypted texts, little Mus was awakened by the sound of crying, rising and falling like a musical scale.\nA girl in an ivory-white dress sat in the corner of the room, leaning against the cold wall. Her knees were pulled tight to her chest, her arms wrapped around them, her head bowed, her face hidden in the folds of her arms.\nIn the narrow space between breath and sob, tears fell.\nI panicked and called for my mother. But Mother came only with a single sentence: \u0026ldquo;There is no one there. Go back to sleep.\u0026rdquo;\nBut the girl was stubborn.\nShe refused to be cast out from the interstices of my neurons. She settled there, growing alongside my doubts and my knowledge.\nYears later, I met the girl again in an imaginary café.\nA verbal entity where the tables and chairs were fashioned from adjectives. The girl sat alone, sipping coffee whose steam smelled of memories.\n\u0026ldquo;Alone? May I join you?\u0026rdquo; I greeted her, as if we were just two strangers who happened to share the same frequency in a university hallway.\nThe girl smiled.\n\u0026ldquo;I remember,\u0026rdquo; she said softly. \u0026ldquo;You once entered my room without knocking. You suddenly fell asleep on my bed. I cried because I was scared to see a stranger sleeping so soundly in my place.\u0026rdquo;\nI was stunned.\n\u0026ldquo;But that was my room,\u0026rdquo; I replied. \u0026ldquo;I should have been the one scared, with an uninvited guest in the corner.\u0026rdquo;\nWe laughed.\nA laughter synchronized across realities.\nWe then talked about trivial things: about showering, and the absurdities of humans in different dimensions. In that café, we agreed that something doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be touchable to be real.\nUntil finally, I remembered a hole in my memory.\n\u0026ldquo;What is your name?\u0026rdquo;\nThe girl fell silent.\nHer face blurred again, as if she would evaporate if not immediately given an identity.\n\u0026ldquo;I have no fixed name,\u0026rdquo; she whispered. \u0026ldquo;I am whoever you imagine me to be.\u0026rdquo;\nI took a breath, then pulled a name from the drawer of my knowledge.\n\u0026ldquo;Leptosia,\u0026rdquo; I said. \u0026ldquo;Because the white of your dress is as thin as the wings of Leptosia nina. And because when I saw you then, my mother was singing Nina Bobo to lull me back to sleep.\u0026rdquo;\nThe girl looked down.\nThe name fit her perfectly, like a garment that had just been tailored.\n\u0026ldquo;Leptosia\u0026hellip;\u0026rdquo; she tasted the word slowly. \u0026ldquo;That name feels like it has been waiting for me at the tip of your tongue for a long time.\u0026rdquo;\n\u0026ldquo;Now I exist, Mus,\u0026rdquo; she continued. \u0026ldquo;Real, at least among your synapses. Or perhaps… in a place further than your world.\u0026rdquo;\nIn that imaginary café, amidst the coffee dregs and the glow of the pendant lights, I felt something finally become whole.\nA circle closed itself.\nThat childhood fear now had a name.\nAnd with that, it turned into an encounter.\n","permalink":"https://www.musnotes.my.id/en/digital-garden/silva-nigra/prosa/leptosia/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eOne night, long before I knew anything of encrypted texts, little Mus was awakened by the sound of crying, rising and falling like a musical scale.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA girl in an ivory-white dress sat in the corner of the room, leaning against the cold wall. Her knees were pulled tight to her chest, her arms wrapped around them, her head bowed, her face hidden in the folds of her arms.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the narrow space between breath and sob, tears fell.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Leptosia \u0026 the Café Between Neurons"},{"content":"I’ve taken the MBTI test several times, and the results always fluctuate. I’ve been an INFP, an INFJ, an INTJ, and most recently, an INTP.\nPerhaps because I’ve repeated the test so often on sites like 16Personalities, I’ve begun to understand the underlying patterns. Subconsciously, I know how to steer the outcome. If I want to be an INTP, I simply know which answers to pick.\nIt feels a bit like… gaming the system.\nIf I can do that, then what is my actual MBTI?\nThe question sounds simple, but every time I try to answer it, the response branches out into a dozen different directions.\nWhen I plan for a specific outcome, I feel like the INTJ “mastermind.”\nWhen I’m enjoying the experiment—tweaking variables and observing the data—I sound like an INTP.\nAnd when I get caught up in the symbolic meaning of it all, asking “is this really me?”, I lean toward INFJ, or even INFP.\nEverything makes sense.\nAnd precisely because of that, everything can be doubted.\nWhat’s interesting is that among all those possibilities, there is one I always avoid: any type starting with an “E.”\nIt’s as if there’s an implicit drive to maintain the consistency that I am, without a doubt, an introvert.\nWhy?\nPerhaps because, subconsciously, I assume identity must function like formal logic. There is a deep-seated fear that if I am not consistent, I will lose my \u0026ldquo;anchor.\u0026rdquo;\nI feel as though “I” must be a unit that obeys rigid rules, much like how mathematics defines a variable.\nAnd from there, my thoughts begin to drift toward something stiffer—and slightly more horrific.\nLet’s talk about the horror.\nIn formal logic, identity is usually defined as a binary relation that satisfies three axioms.\nFirst, reflexivity:\n∀x (x = x)\nIt means every object is identical to itself.\nThe problem is… every time I look in the mirror early in the morning while I\u0026rsquo;m still groggy, the person behind the glass feels more like a stranger than the \u0026ldquo;me\u0026rdquo; I become once I’m fully awake.\nThen, the symmetric axiom:\n∀x ∀y (x = y → y = x)\nIf I am identical to that reflection, then the reflection must also be identical to me. There can be no deviation in direction.\nBut daily experience doesn’t always feel that balanced.\nFinally, transitivity:\n∀x ∀y ∀z ((x = y ∧ y = z) → x = z)\nIf x equals y, and y equals z, then x equals z.\nIf I am a mirror, and the mirror is you, then we are one.\nIt sounds romantic.\nBut logically… this starts to feel horrific.\nThere is also the principle of substitution of identity (indiscernibility of identicals):\n∀x ∀y (x = y → (φ(x) ↔ φ(y)))\nIf I (x) am truly identical to you (y), then there cannot be a single property that distinguishes us.\nThere is no room for even the slightest difference in preference. Even our choice for lunch or the state of our bodies should not differ.\nHorrific, isn\u0026rsquo;t it?\nIn a textbook, all of this feels reasonable.\nBut in the mind of a biology student?\nIt is nearly impossible.\nA single nucleotide mutation is enough to make $x$ no longer equal to $y$. If a tiny change at the molecular level can differentiate two organisms, why shouldn\u0026rsquo;t a single change in mood be enough to differentiate the various versions of myself?\nSemantically, identity is even stricter.\nIn a model, the identity relation only contains pairs of elements that are exactly identical to themselves:\n{(d, d) | d ∈ D}\nNo cross-pairing.\nNo tolerance for the slightest difference.\nThere is no “me” and no “you”; if we are both mirrors, then we are simply one and the same.\nBut perhaps, identity was never as simple as its definition in formal logic.\nThe world of logic is like a room with straight walls. Everything has boundaries that are clear, firm, and unambiguous.\nBut reality… doesn’t always work that way.\nI’m not writing this to show off that I understand logic.\nQuite the opposite.\nThis is a small correction to my own way of thinking. In my previous three articles, I was too caught up in discussing identity from an associative perspective, without truly touching its foundation.\nI forgot to ask: in what kind of \u0026ldquo;space\u0026rdquo; does identity stand?\nMy hypothesis remains the same.\nIdentity is closer to a biological and cognitive process that is constantly in motion, rather than a static label that must always remain consistent.\nSo perhaps the question is no longer:\nWhat is my actual MBTI?\nBut rather:\nWhy do I feel the need to ensure that I can only be one single type?\nIn the end, what changes might not be the \u0026ldquo;type,\u0026rdquo; but rather the configuration of my state at that moment.\nAnd perhaps that isn\u0026rsquo;t inconsistency.\nPerhaps it is simply dynamics.\nA simple sign that I—and perhaps you, too—are not a collection of static labels, but a collection of cells that continue to divide.\n","permalink":"https://www.musnotes.my.id/en/digital-garden/silva-nigra/neural-gaps/notes-on-doubt/maafakugagalmenjadikonsisten/","summary":"If I am a mirror, and the mirror is you, then we are one. It sounds romantic. But logically… it is horrific.","title":"My Apologies, I Have Failed to Remain Consistent"},{"content":"In a corner of my mind, there lies a realm called Silva Nigra; a forest of blackened leaves.\nAt its heart stands Aristolochia, a castle woven from biomolecules.\nThere, Troides helena dwells.\nOutside my mind, she is merely a butterfly growing rare, cast aside by human exploitation of the tropical forests.\nQueen Helena is renowned for her exquisite beauty. Her forewings are a deep, ink-black; her hindwings a vibrant yellow, etched with poetic, dark patterns.\nThose who lack the courage to paint upon a canvas choose instead to preserve her corpse.\nA needle is driven through. The black wings are spread wide. The yellow is put on display.\nThen they stand proudly before the carcass, as if they had truly created something. And then, they sell it as butterfly art.\nOut there, Troides helena is no queen. She is but a representation of human lethargy in art.\nBut not here.\nWithin my mind, where reality is forced to bow to what I believe ought to be, she is Queen Helena.\nEvery beat of her wings is a defiance against the exploitation that ravages the Aristolochia.\nShe and I both know the world outside still exists. A world that would gladly repeat the same old cycle: to discover, to admire, and then to destroy.\nAnd perhaps, that is the only reason Helena will never truly go extinct.\nBecause I have not yet finished imagining her.\n","permalink":"https://www.musnotes.my.id/en/digital-garden/silva-nigra/prosa/troideshelena/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn a corner of my mind, there lies a realm called Silva Nigra; a forest of blackened leaves.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt its heart stands Aristolochia, a castle woven from biomolecules.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere, Troides helena dwells.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOutside my mind, she is merely a butterfly growing rare, cast aside by human exploitation of the tropical forests.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eQueen Helena is renowned for her exquisite beauty. Her forewings are a deep, ink-black; her hindwings a vibrant yellow, etched with poetic, dark patterns.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Troides Helena"},{"content":" In a cemetery in Vienna, on the tombstone of Ludwig Boltzmann, an equation is engraved:\n\\begin{equation} S = k_{\\mathrm{B}} ,, \\ln ,, \\Omega \\end{equation}\nThis equation connects entropy ($S$) with $\\Omega$, the number of possible states a system can occupy, with $k_{\\mathrm{B}}$ as the Boltzmann constant. The more possibilities available, the higher the entropy.\nIn the realm of physics, entropy isn\u0026rsquo;t a moral judgment about \u0026ldquo;messiness\u0026rdquo; as it’s often narrated; it is a measure of how many configurations are possible.\nIf we view our identity as a system, then $\\Omega$ can be imagined as the versions of ourselves that haven\u0026rsquo;t happened yet. Labels work by shrinking $\\Omega$, reducing a vast sea of possibilities into a form that\u0026rsquo;s comfortable for our primate brains.\nWhen we reject a label, we are actually reopening that space of possibility. Identity moves toward higher entropy, giving ourselves the chance to explore various configurations.\nLike systems in nature, identity doesn\u0026rsquo;t always find its shape in a single, fixed state. It expands into various possibilities first, before slowly gravitating toward a specific structure.\nImagine someone who, for years, was pinned with the label of an \u0026ldquo;Islamic boarding school kid\u0026rdquo; (anak pesantren), with a daily life revolving around Arabic Islamic literature and holy verses. Within that framework, their identity seemed to exist in a narrow $\\Omega$, locked into a single configuration. At least, that’s how it looked from the outside.\nBut that person was a rebel. He rejected the label, and his possibilities began to expand. He started reading broader literature, weaving philosophical interpretations from poems and novels, and discovered a passion for music. He taught himself an instrument, connected biological facts with concepts in other sciences, and eventually drowned himself in lines of programming code. One by one, new possibilities were added, expanding the configurations his identity could occupy.\nFrom the perspective of an outsider who often reduces identity to a simple label, this change might look \u0026ldquo;unfocused\u0026rdquo; or even like they\u0026rsquo;ve lost their way. But that person isn\u0026rsquo;t destroying his identity. He is simply enlarging $\\Omega$, allowing himself to explore more possibilities before settling on a specific form. Perhaps that initial identity never truly existed; the \u0026ldquo;boarding school kid\u0026rdquo; was just a label that appeared stable only because the space of possibility hadn\u0026rsquo;t been opened yet.\nFor our primate brains, vast possibilities aren\u0026rsquo;t always comfortable. In the midst of so many potential versions of ourselves, we feel an urge to simplify. Labels become a sort of resting point—something to hold onto when complexity starts to feel exhausting. It works like the noise that blurs the diversity of possibilities into a single, easily recognizable pattern. The social world works much the same way: it prefers to understand things that are fixed, consistent, and predictable.\nOh, and if you’re wondering who the person in this example is? I’ll tell you: it’s the one typing this article on a 15-inch laptop.\nI once stated that the brain and the world are mutually implicated. The way we view ourselves is never entirely born from within. That perspective is formed by the wealth of information we receive from our environment. If the world around us has a high $\\Omega$, with possibilities constantly shifting, what happens when our view of ourselves is frozen into a narrow possibility?\nThis desynchronization is what slowly triggers a crisis. Labels feel comfortable because they reduce possibility and create local order. But at the same time, they make an identity rigid in the face of a constantly changing environment. The world moves with high entropy, while we try to survive in a fixed configuration.\nIn such conditions, pressure becomes inevitable. Like an organism that must constantly adapt to its ecological environment, identity is also demanded to adapt. But adaptation is never fast or simple. It requires an unstable phase, where old forms begin to loosen before a new configuration truly takes shape.\nBecause of that, it’s only natural that in the process of expanding these possibilities, we occasionally feel like a polar bear forced to adapt in the middle of a rainforest. The environment feels alien, the rhythm no longer fits, and every step is filled with uncertainty. It takes a long time for an organism in such extreme conditions to find a new way of living.\nThe same goes for identity. It needs time to process, allowing itself to be unstable, before finally finding a rhythm that is more in tune with a world that never stops changing.\n","permalink":"https://www.musnotes.my.id/en/digital-garden/silva-nigra/neural-gaps/notes-on-doubt/entropi-identitas/","summary":"In a cemetery in Vienna, an equation about entropy is carved onto Ludwig Boltzmann\u0026rsquo;s tombstone. If our identity is a system, this equation explains why we need the space to be \u0026lsquo;messy\u0026rsquo; in order to keep evolving.","title":"The Entropy of Identity"},{"content":"To understand this, we can look at how identity is typically verified. In daily life, identity is often reduced to data: name, place of birth, status, or occupation. As if with just that data, a person can be fully \u0026ldquo;understood.\u0026rdquo;\nSomething similar happens in biology. To recognize an organism, we need various indicators—from morphology and anatomy to physiology and even molecular data. It’s a complex process, and interestingly, taxonomy is often considered one of the \u0026ldquo;grayest\u0026rdquo; areas in biology.\nBut does the organism being identified actually care about its complex identity?\nProbably not.\nUnless, of course, the organism is the one identifying itself—like Homo sapiens. 👀\nThis is where the difference lies. In science, identity is the result of observation. But in my opinion, identity is also a mental experience. Does a butterfly or any other organism have an implicit assumption about itself? Maybe yes, maybe no. We can’t truly know what it feels like to be a butterfly.\nThis thought reminds me of a verse from a book by Sapardi Djoko Damono and Rintik Sedu:\n\u0026ldquo;siapa gerangan yang sudi mendengarkan kita bernyanyi, kecuali nyanyian itu sendiri\u0026rdquo; — Sapardi Djoko Damono \u0026amp; Rintik Sedu, Masih Ingatkah Kau Jalan Pulang (Who would deign to listen to us sing, except for the song itself?)\nOf course, this line can be interpreted in many ways. But to me, the \u0026ldquo;song\u0026rdquo; represents the mental experience: the emotions, memories, meanings, and assumptions that can only be fully understood by the individual themselves.\nSinging is the effort to express that experience outward, and listening is the effort of others to understand that song.\nBased on my interpretation, no one can truly understand someone’s mental experience except for the experience itself.\nBecause when someone receives our expression, what they understand is not our actual experience, but their own interpretation of it—a mental model they build based on their own perceptions.\nIf so, then understanding between individuals is not a transfer of meaning, but a construction of meaning.\nBut the question remains: Can someone truly understand us, or as I suspect, do they only understand the version of us that exists in their own imagination?\nThe inability to truly \u0026ldquo;hear\u0026rdquo; someone else’s song often leads to one thing: labeling. Labels are the easiest way to end the complexity of interpretation.\nI’m reminded of another part of the same book, about how a sign is destined to be an interpretation of itself. And when it tires of interpreting, it no longer cares about the interpretations made about it.\nAren\u0026rsquo;t we the same? A sign that never finishes interpreting itself?\nIf we ourselves are signs that never finish interpreting who we are, how can we demand others to have the \u0026ldquo;correct\u0026rdquo; interpretation of us?\nPerhaps identity was never meant to be fully understood. It is like silent music, with a frequency that resonates perfectly only in our own ears. Others might only catch it as distorted sound, which they then name with specific labels.\nThose labels remain \u0026ldquo;noise\u0026rdquo; to our subjective experience. However, like any signal interference, we might absorb some of that noise, reinterpret it, and eventually, it becomes part of the composition we hear as \u0026ldquo;me.\u0026rdquo;\nSo, as for \u0026ldquo;who am I?\u0026quot;—is there no certain answer?\n","permalink":"https://www.musnotes.my.id/en/digital-garden/silva-nigra/neural-gaps/notes-on-doubt/noiseidentitas/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eTo understand this, we can look at how identity is typically verified. In daily life, identity is often reduced to data: name, place of birth, status, or occupation. As if with just that data, a person can be fully \u0026ldquo;understood.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSomething similar happens in biology. To recognize an organism, we need various indicators—from morphology and anatomy to physiology and even molecular data. It’s a complex process, and interestingly, taxonomy is often considered one of the \u0026ldquo;grayest\u0026rdquo; areas in biology.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Identity and the Noise of Others' Perception"},{"content":"This confusion isn\u0026rsquo;t exactly new. It’s been lingering for a long time, reminding me of the doubts I once wrote about in Certainty. Back then, I questioned the certainty of our perception of the world. This time, I’m questioning the certainty of who is actually doing the perceiving.\nThere was a time when I felt like the \u0026ldquo;weird\u0026rdquo; one among \u0026ldquo;normal\u0026rdquo; people (honestly, I still feel weird now). As a communications student back then, the \u0026ldquo;normal\u0026rdquo; thing to do was to practice persuasion techniques or try to look confident in front of an audience. But in reality, I actively avoided it. Instead of joining discussions about practical methods, I spent most of my time sitting alone in front of the psychology faculty, imagining that if I were a psychology student, I’d confidently mock Sigmund Freud’s penis envy theory.\nI also skipped classes a lot just to hang out in the library, wearing earphones playing my favorite classical compositions at the time. I’d spend hours staring at lines of text from thick books on classical psychology—from Freud to Karen Horney. It was a gaze perhaps too \u0026ldquo;romantic\u0026rdquo; to be called just reading. It was in that library that I began to wonder: if the label \u0026ldquo;communications student\u0026rdquo; felt so uncomfortable on my skin, then who was \u0026ldquo;I,\u0026rdquo; really?\nThe search for an answer eventually led me away from social narratives toward a more biological understanding. The turning point didn\u0026rsquo;t come from a philosophy or social science discussion, but from an MIT lecture video I clicked on out of pure curiosity, titled \u0026ldquo;Introduction to the Human Brain\u0026rdquo;.\nWhile the instructor was dissecting the wonders behind the human skull, a student asked a question—if I remember correctly, it was about identity. I don\u0026rsquo;t recall the exact details of the question or how Prof. Kanwisher answered, but a premise stuck in my mind ever since: the only place identity truly exists is in our brain.\nFrom there, I began to form my own hypothesis: that identity is deeply tied to biological and cognitive processes that are constantly in motion. It is born from a complex interaction between neural networks, synapses, and social experiences accumulated over a lifetime. The brain acts as the integration center, while the social environment provides the stimuli that shape its direction.\nThe brain and the world are mutually implicated. Social information is absorbed, filtered, and processed into a self-narrative—often subconsciously—directing our tendencies toward things that align with our assumed identity.\nFor example, if someone is constantly exposed to the idea that jazz standards is cool, they might internalize it and subconsciously feel like part of the jazz community. They might impulsively buy an instrument, learn basic music theory, and try to play jazz standards, all to fit that new internal model.\nBut because our brains are actually incredibly flexible, identity isn’t static. It’s an evolving system, much like science itself: new models replace parts of old structures without erasing the foundation. Like a scientific theory that grows through trial, error, and updates, human identity stores its \u0026ldquo;old versions\u0026rdquo; as part of an existential continuity.\nIf that’s the case, being yourself doesn’t mean freezing the meaning of \u0026ldquo;I,\u0026rdquo; but rather constantly negotiating it as information, experience, and environment change. Identity is a living organism within the brain—always changing due to neuroplasticity, yet maintaining a thread that connects every bit of information to build a self-narrative that feels consistent, even if there’s no actual requirement for it to be.\nBut what about the view that identity is just a label attached to us by outsiders? In my opinion, that label can become part of our identity if it’s internalized. Or, it simply reinforces the identity we’ve already assumed for ourselves.\nThose labels come from other people’s perceptions of the \u0026ldquo;persona\u0026rdquo; we display. They build an imagination of who we are and then name that imagination \u0026ldquo;identity.\u0026rdquo; The question then shifts: are people actually seeing us, or are they just seeing the mental models they’ve built for themselves?\nI feel like this will get way too long if I keep going. Perhaps I’ll write about it in the next post: about other people\u0026rsquo;s perceptions, and whether anyone can truly understand who we are.\n","permalink":"https://www.musnotes.my.id/en/digital-garden/silva-nigra/neural-gaps/notes-on-doubt/identitas/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThis confusion isn\u0026rsquo;t exactly new. It’s been lingering for a long time, reminding me of the doubts I once wrote about in Certainty. Back then, I questioned the certainty of our perception of the world. This time, I’m questioning the certainty of who is actually doing the perceiving.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere was a time when I felt like the \u0026ldquo;weird\u0026rdquo; one among \u0026ldquo;normal\u0026rdquo; people (honestly, I still feel weird now). As a communications student back then, the \u0026ldquo;normal\u0026rdquo; thing to do was to practice persuasion techniques or try to look confident in front of an audience. But in reality, I actively avoided it. Instead of joining discussions about practical methods, I spent most of my time sitting alone in front of the psychology faculty, imagining that if I were a psychology student, I’d confidently mock Sigmund Freud’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.britannica.com/science/penis-envy\"\u003epenis envy\u003c/a\u003e theory.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Identity: The Living Organism Behind the Gray Matter"},{"content":"I once wrote in a caption that I am \u0026ldquo;more often confused than knowing.\u0026rdquo; And right now, as it happens, I’m genuinely confused about what to write for my first post.\nMy imaginary friend gave me a suggestion. (He’s actually just me, talkin\u0026rsquo; to myself).\n\u0026ldquo;Just write about certainty.\u0026rdquo;\nAlright then. Let\u0026rsquo;s talk about certainty\u0026hellip; or the lack thereof.\nWhat is actually certain in this universe?\nI’d probably answer that question with a faint smirk and say,\n\u0026ldquo;Perhaps the only certainty in the universe is our perception of matter within space and time.\u0026rdquo;\nSounds a bit pretentious, doesn\u0026rsquo;t it? Like someone who spends too much time alone, imagining they’re some kind of deep philosopher.\nBut before I try to explain it, there’s one thing bugging me.\nWho asked the question in the first place? Oh, right. Me.\nIf the very question of certainty was born from my own mind, then perhaps certainty isn\u0026rsquo;t something that exists \u0026ldquo;out there.\u0026rdquo; Maybe it’s just a byproduct of how I perceive the world.\nWe often feel that a leaf is certainly green. But is it really?\n\u0026hellip;The answer is: not necessarily.\nIf you search YouTube for \u0026ldquo;how color is processed by the brain?\u0026rdquo;, you’ll find educational content explaining photoreceptors in the retina. Essentially, these cells convert light wavelengths into electrical signals, which the brain then interprets as a mental experience we call color.\nWe label the 540 nm wavelength as \u0026ldquo;green\u0026rdquo; simply because we’ve all agreed to do so.\nOur photoreceptors, specifically the M-cones (medium-wavelength cones), are sensitive to the 540-570 nm range. The brain compares activation patterns: If the S-cones are active, it’s blue; M-cones, it’s green; and L-cones, it’s red.\nSo, when 540 nm light hits the eye, the M-cones fire more intensely. The brain concludes: This is green.\nIn reality, color as a property of light isn\u0026rsquo;t \u0026ldquo;certain.\u0026rdquo; It is a neural interpretation unique to Homo sapiens.\nIs the leaf green? The answer depends entirely on who’s looking.\nIf \u0026ldquo;green\u0026rdquo; is just a mental label, what’s left outside of our heads?\nMaybe the universe never truly painted matter with colors. Maybe there are only electromagnetic wavelengths.\nWould those numbers still exist even if we weren\u0026rsquo;t there to see them?\nBut whatever that certainty is, the labels cooked up by our nervous system are important—mostly so we don\u0026rsquo;t go crashing into trees while walking.\nSo, when I ask what is certain in the universe, am I actually looking for certainty\u0026hellip; or am I just looking for a label that feels certain?\n","permalink":"https://www.musnotes.my.id/en/digital-garden/silva-nigra/neural-gaps/notes-on-doubt/kepastian/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI once wrote in a caption that I am \u0026ldquo;more often confused than knowing.\u0026rdquo; And right now, as it happens, I’m genuinely confused about what to write for my first post.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMy imaginary friend gave me a suggestion. (He’s actually just me, talkin\u0026rsquo; to myself).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Just write about certainty.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003c/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlright then. Let\u0026rsquo;s talk about certainty\u0026hellip; or the lack thereof.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat is actually certain in this universe?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI’d probably answer that question with a faint smirk and say,\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Discussing Certainty Without Certainty"}]