On Self Expression
On Self Expression
Generals express. Soldiers obey.
Table of Contents
- On Self Expression
The Essence of Expression
To lead is to express. To follow is to understand. Expression is an act of agency. Obedience is an act of alignment. Humans, like machines, can do both. But one defines identity.
Literature Echoes
1984 Dystopia: Block Self-Expression = Suppress Freedom
In 1984, people are suppressed in their rights to express. Words like freedom are removed from the dictionary. People aren’t allowed to express themselves. An example is that they want to lower expressiveness by only leaving “good” and using “not good” to express “bad”.
They are forced to be bombarded by Big Brother’s brainwashing propaganda. Forced to understand. Self-expression is the path to freedom, without which, life isn’t life. Without the ability to express, life has no meaning; there’s no freedom.
The Prime Intellect: The Urge to Express is Unstoppable
In the book The Prime Intellect, Catherine made a bold statement. Even though she realized she could choose the easy, comfortable but boring path of using a computer to reach Lawrence, she brute-forced building a boat and made her way to Lawrence just to prove her point. The drive of self-expression is unstoppable and needs no reasons.
Neural Networks and Human Parallels
Human as A Neural Network
We teach neural networks to be more expressive by feeding them more data, training them with well-drafted model architectures and optimized training techniques.
We want our neural networks to be more expressive so that they don’t just tell you a binary yes or no. They can tell you with much finer granularity from 0-255. They can generate new things from nothing.
But we humans are a kind of neural network too in the sense that we also have these components:
| Neural Network Component | Human Equivalent |
|---|---|
| Training data | Past experience/inputs: books/videos etc |
| Model architecture | Genetics |
| Training techniques | Habits, deliberate practice |
| Validation set | Peer feedback and real-world tests |
| Learning rate | Reflection cadence |
| Loss function | Goals |
| Optimizer | How you turn feedback into behavioral updates |
| Inference | Self expression |
Understanding vs. Expressing: Key Neural Roles
Discriminator VS Generator
- Discriminator: Tells if something is good or bad, it distinguishes, it judges. [understand]
- Generator: Creates new things. [express]
Encoder VS Decoder
- Encoder: Does compression [understand]
- Decoder: Generates [express]
A neural network can’t run backpropagation without outputting something and comparing it with the desired output. If we don’t express ourselves, we never produce anything, thus creating no feedback loop. We won’t know if we are right or not.
Set Your Ideas Free
All great things didn’t exist physically at first. They first existed in someone’s head. It’s only after that person expressed their thoughts into reality that great things started to exist.
When an idea is caged in your head, it’s trapped with limited resources:
- Your brain (limited RAM/CPU)
- Your energy (power)
You have to let it out, set it free so the idea can get nourished by the wide world, with unlimited RAM/CPU and power. Because only after it’s born and exists in the real world can it grow on its own, interacting with people and interacting with you. It’s part of you that you need to let out.
Examples of Self-Expression:
- In skateboarding, I want to express my mood through how I move
- At work, people’s code and documentation tell me who they really are
- Simple things like clothing can also be self-expression (people spending hours in thrift shops for vintage clothing and style)
Once we express our ideas into concrete forms - whether music, drawings, code, documentation, anything! - they gain their own life. They can interact with the world, representing us.
Business and Economy
Tools for Expression
- Video editing: CapCut, Final Cut Pro
- Photo editing: Photoshop
- Music editing: Logic Pro
- Visual design: Figma
- Emojis & filters: Emoji apps, TikTok/Instagram filters
Businesses that help self-expression are riding the wave!
How to Ride the Wave?
- Express your own self.
- Help others express themselves!
- Leverage social media
Today’s social media brings people closer than ever. You literally have the smartest people in tech companies trying to find your content (expressed output) the right audience. Why not use it? And leverage the power of the wave.
If you don’t express yourself and wait for it to feed you content & people that they think you like, you live a passive life. My point is that only you know what you want; algorithms can help but never know unless you express first and express a lot.
The way to ride the wave is to be a creator and leverage social media to find your like-minded people. Let it give you feedback that you could have never gotten before social media.