When we perceive something, anything, it comes to us strictly as a mental (or emotional or sensational if you like) projection.
In other words, our perception is inevitably subjective and personalized.
Now most of us can agree on many things, but this is because we have the same frames of reference (as modern humans etc). Under normal circumstances we have similar mental models and similar perceptive facilities which given similar phenomena produce agreement.
But this agreement doesn't doesn't necessarily tell us what a phenomena actually "is" in objective fact, nor give us all available information about the phenomena. It only means we agree on a picture of objective reality (which is important for our species) and that our mental models more or less work to guide us around. But that in no way implies we are, nor are necessarily capable of being, in full possession of actual objective reality.
If we were an gnat 1/2 mm in length with a 3 day lifespan and many less neurons we would probably perceive things very differently. Or (as a thought experiment) if we were Lord God of the universe, immortal creator of time and space.
Point being, all reality we experience goes through our minds, our experiences, our filters and the picture at the end corresponds roughly with something we call "objective reality".
This isn't to bash on objective science nor promote superstition or argue for the objective physical existence of machine elves either. Some models and perceptional frameworks work better then others when you are trying to survive as a species and rational measurable science is pretty powerful tool. But sometimes, maybe especially with therapy issues it could be useful to back up and remember we have a frame of reference. It can be changed to some extent.
When someone sees a "machine elf" yes they are hallucinating, we can agree on that and we sober people don't see the elf nor can we measure it with instruments so it's reasonable to say it's simply a mirage or a mental trick.
But is there perhaps some underlying "reality" to machine elves that is translated as a "machine elf" because what the hell else could you call it? Maybe not an external sentient being, but part of a collective unconscious we share as humans? Or maybe (less probably imo) there is more sentience in the universe then we currently understand? I don't really know, but that so many people have similar experiences is interesting and perhaps worth exploring to better understand what we as humans are underneath this superficial top floor of consciousness.
I'm not saying that machine elves definitely don't exist and I'm certainly not saying that my collection of things I think are true are objectively true. I'm simply saying that from my point of view its very unlikely that machine elves being real is the explanation for people reporting interactions with machine elves.
I believe its important to explore these experiences and I think people should do so, both under the aegis of science and less formal self exploration. But in the end we cannot just accept mere perception as naively correlated with reality. The process of connecting perception to reality is one of the great works of human beings and, from where I am sitting, that great work seems pretty definitively negative on machine elves.
In other words, our perception is inevitably subjective and personalized.
Now most of us can agree on many things, but this is because we have the same frames of reference (as modern humans etc). Under normal circumstances we have similar mental models and similar perceptive facilities which given similar phenomena produce agreement.
But this agreement doesn't doesn't necessarily tell us what a phenomena actually "is" in objective fact, nor give us all available information about the phenomena. It only means we agree on a picture of objective reality (which is important for our species) and that our mental models more or less work to guide us around. But that in no way implies we are, nor are necessarily capable of being, in full possession of actual objective reality.
If we were an gnat 1/2 mm in length with a 3 day lifespan and many less neurons we would probably perceive things very differently. Or (as a thought experiment) if we were Lord God of the universe, immortal creator of time and space.
Point being, all reality we experience goes through our minds, our experiences, our filters and the picture at the end corresponds roughly with something we call "objective reality".
This isn't to bash on objective science nor promote superstition or argue for the objective physical existence of machine elves either. Some models and perceptional frameworks work better then others when you are trying to survive as a species and rational measurable science is pretty powerful tool. But sometimes, maybe especially with therapy issues it could be useful to back up and remember we have a frame of reference. It can be changed to some extent.
When someone sees a "machine elf" yes they are hallucinating, we can agree on that and we sober people don't see the elf nor can we measure it with instruments so it's reasonable to say it's simply a mirage or a mental trick.
But is there perhaps some underlying "reality" to machine elves that is translated as a "machine elf" because what the hell else could you call it? Maybe not an external sentient being, but part of a collective unconscious we share as humans? Or maybe (less probably imo) there is more sentience in the universe then we currently understand? I don't really know, but that so many people have similar experiences is interesting and perhaps worth exploring to better understand what we as humans are underneath this superficial top floor of consciousness.