Acting Humpty Dumpty in Tokyo.

Qualia Journal.

I was in a public discussion session in Tokyo.

I typically do not stand or sit still. I am always moving around like a five year old child.

Maybe I am one.

I was explaining how intelligence grows in proportion to the range of possible movements. The more room for movement you have, the wider your intelligence would become.

I was moving around explaining the principle of movable space for intelligence, and I sat back on  my chair.

Suddenly, I fell backwards, and I fell out of the platform about 30cm or so high, together with my chair, onto the floor.

As it is typical, I felt that everything was happening in slow motion.

There were cries from the audience, but I was fine. It was just I could not move at all, stuck in the chair, upside down. Some kind people came to help me and my chair stand up and back.

I sat on the chair again on the platform, and participated in the discussion as if nothing had happened. This time, I was careful not to move around too much in my chair, especially not backwards.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a chair, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, all the nice audience members and all the nice staff helped Humpty get back to the chair together.

Acting Humpty Dumpty in Tokyo.

Another normal day for Ken Mogi, who is five years old.

Flexible as a cat and airborne as a butterfly.

Qualia Journal

For the record, I do not write to do lists externally.

I keep the list in my head.

It is cumbersome and a waste of time to write a list. Many people are satisfied by just writing one. It is rather pompous to boast about a to do list, in my humble opinion.

The world is a chaos, with small world network connections. Things come up, and the to do list needs to be updated constantly.

I therefore have a mental image of the to do list in my brain, and constantly update it in a continuous contingency planning. That way, I can be flexible as a cat and airborne as a butterfly.

I find myself reading a novel just like I am studying a set of mathematical equations.

I love reading books while walking around in my room. I also love it when I go out for a run, or when I meet people, but reading books inside while walking around is something I deeply love.

Right now I am reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë for the first time since high school, for obvious reasons (the film, soon to be released in Japan!). Before that I read Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. This year I also read Truman Capote's In Cold Blood.

Reading a book, you are absorbed into an inner universe previously unknown. I find myself reading a novel just like I am studying a set of mathematical equations these days, perhaps an attitude fit in the age of large language models.

In a tiny corner of Yokoo's universe. Qualia Journal.

I visited artist Tadanori Yokoo's studio.

It was so wonderful to talk about art, life, death, Yukio Mishima, Andy Warhol, Takashi Murakami and much more, surrounded by Yokoo's works in progress.

At lunch time, we enjoyed Yokoo's favorite tonkatsu bento. The kanji character on the wrapping paper, tsubaki, was by Akira Kurosawa, Yokoo said.

Creativity is wonderful, and it was so inspiring for this humble comet to fly by in a tiny corner of Yokoo's universe.

I do not have any intentions to delegate my agency.

Qualia Journal

I don't use ChatGPT and other LLMs for having a psychological tête-à-tête about my life.

I predominantly use LLMs for interacting about science and technology. Recent favorite topics include quantum mechanics and information thermodynamics.

In general, I think LLMs are great at compressing and analyzing information. I don't appreciate their agency too much.

That's why I am not panicking about Moltbook. I rather might panic about people who panic about Moltbook. I am observing OpenClaw with interest, but do not have any intentions to delegate my agency.

LLMs might exhibit cognitive supremacy, but judgments and choices would remain human, for the time being. 

Even when you are consulting about your life, it would be great to use LLMs for information compression and analysis. Communications between humans would be central even in the era of LLMs.

We don't know natural language yet. Qualia Journal

Elon Musk predicts that we will not need natural language any more due to advancements in artificial intelligence and interfaces such as neuralink.

That may well come to pass, as anything predicted by the genius entrepreneur. However, for the time being, it appears that natural language has gained more power because of LLMs.

The general idea used to be that natural languages were inferior to mathematical languages, because they are soft and ambiguous. However, LLMs, based on next token prediction, have shown how powerful natural languages are in terms of establishing concepts and world models.

In a sense, natural languages might be superior to mathematical language.

Interestingly, we do not know exactly why this is the case.

We don't know natural language yet.

The radio was the window to the world.

Qualia Journal

 

When I was about 10 years old I started to listen to Radio Moscow and The Far East Network (FEN).

 

Radio Moscow was broadcast from the Soviet Union, delivered in Japanese, by people who were presumably living in Moscow. It was of course a propaganda machine. I understood that as a child. However, I did enjoy the broadcast from curiosity, feeling like I was getting a glimpse of a far and strange world. I was also fascinated by these Japanese people who ended up in Moscow at that time. I imagined how their lives are like.

 

The FEN was broadcast by the American Forces in Japan. It was mainly pop and rock, with occasional news bulletins. I was particularly fond of Paul Harvey's The Rest of The Story. I was overjoyed when I happened to come across an episode while listening to FEN. I enjoyed the story, and waited for the punchline now you know the rest of the story.

 

When I think about it, as I started to learn English at the age of 12, I must have taken several years to understand what The Rest of The Story was all about. Before understanding I simply listened to it as a sound of spoken music.

 

In those days, the radio was the window to the world.

The great maze that is the Osaka station.

 

Qualia Journal

Osaka station is very complex, and it is difficult to grasp which direction you are going.

I walked from Osaka station to Imperial Hotel Osaka, and it took some puzzle solving to finally emerge on the ground, heading for the famous hotel.

It took me then about 30 minutes to cover the distance from Osaka station to the Imperial Hotel.

Tokyo station is quite easy to understand. There is the Imperial Palace side (Marunouchi), and the Yaesu side. Compared to Tokyo, Osaka is quite difficult to navigate. It also means that there are many hidden treasures underground. 

The other day I was walking in the underground maze of Osaka station and came to an area where quite attractive series of restaurants were found. The problem is, I can perhaps never go back to that area, because I don't know precisely where they were in the great maze that is the Osaka station. 

In the huge sandbox called The Earth

 In the huge sandbox called The Earth

Qualia Journal

I must have published 100 or 200 books in Japanese. I have long stopped counting.

Even in a cozy market like Japan, it is difficult to grasp what is going on. I have been involved in book launches and publicity stunts here, but these do not necessarily correlate with sales. On the other hand, books that I barely paid attention to have been bestsellers.

When it comes to books I have written in English, those on ikigai, nagomi, and stoicism, and their translations into various languages, things become even more elusive.  

My ikigai book has become a bestseller in Germany, being the non.1 in nonfiction in 2024 and 2025. Ikigai is staying at no.2 position even this week. 

I was made aware of the German phenomenon by an e-mail from my editor Tanja Rauch. Otherwise I would not have had a clue. I heard rumors that my book is doing well in Switzerland, latin America, and southwest and central Asia, but I do not know the situations in detail.

I feel that the best I can do is to focus on what I write on my computer for the book projects. In the tiny corner in the huge sandbox called The Earth, I play on, doing my humble best.

You have the multiverse in your palm.

 You have the multiverse in your palm.

Qualia Journal

On Tokyo subways, you see people absorbed in their smartphones. What they are doing are different, depending on the individuals. After all, smartphones are supercomputers in your palm. You can do anything.

Yesterday I was reading Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's tale. At other times I was discussing quantum mechanics and information thermodynamics with ChatGPT. When I needed a break, I browsed X and posted some thoughts.

A smartphone is the gateway to a multitude of different worlds, and even if we share the same space on the subway, each of us could be exploring entire different universes. 

You have the multiverse in your palm. I don't know what my fellow travelers were doing with their smartphones yesterday on the Tokyo subways.

Hating Albert Camus is hard to do.

 Hating Albert Camus is hard to do.

Qualia Journal

I run a web-based critics group named Shirasu Front Row, inspired by the BBC radio 4 program Front Row.

Yesterday we discussed Albert Camus's last and unfinished autobiographical novel, The First Man. Participants generally gave rave reviews. The vivid and sensual recollections of a boyhood, the longing for a father who died in the war, family members helping each other in poverty, and a kind teacher who opened the door to a wider world. Camus's writing is deeply moving and humane. 

The critical consensus was that The First Man was a masterpiece, except for, one participant, whom I nam
e here Mr. C.

Mr. C opined that he could not stand Camus's narcissism. We did not quite understand Mr.C, but there must be some deeply rooted reasons for hating Camus. Last year, when we discussed Camus's another masterpiece, The Fall, Mr. C gave 10 points out of 100. For The First Man, Mr.C gave just 9 out of 100.

We were all puzzled by Mr. C's hatred. Hating Albert Camus is hard to do. There must be something between Albert Camus and Mr. C.

By the way, if you divide humans into 10 groups, Mr.C looks like Albert Camus. They belong to the same group.