In regards to physical space, the small refers to the tiniest particles of matter. Since physicists have often discovered smaller particles within the supposed tiniest particles, it is difficult to tell whether technology will ever be able to ascertain the smallest physical particles in the world. Right now, quarks and leptons are the smallest known particles, but it would not surprise me if even they had component parts. In our class discussions about nanotechnology, we talked about how rearranging these tiny particles could allow us to essentially rearrange the external world according to our will. In a visual example, we saw how typing information into a keyboard could potentially change the physical layout of an office. In this sense, the small is the building blocks of matter.
Additionally, the small can be analyzed by comparing the amount of physical space with the amount of information instantiated by that physical parameter. As we spoke about in class, the physical size of symbols (for instance the size of words in a book) does not determine the amount of information those symbols represent. Even if a book is written in fine print that requires a microscope to read, the information content is equivalent to an average size novel. In a more abstract sense, organisms can communicate incredible amounts of information by altering a small part of their physical appearance. The act of winking can communicate a great amount of information, depending on the context. A slight movement of the mouth up and down can drastically alter others perceptions of happiness, sadness, or other emotions within an individual. As Martin Buber posits “An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language” (Life Extreme, 38). While intonations of the eye do not resemble letters or numbers, they can communicate a significant amount of information.
In the virtual realm, small is harder to define. Since virtual space is potentially infinite, the actual size is less important than the maps. In virtual space, organization of information and links between information become more important. For example, while plurk messages have a limit of 140 characters, people can provide links to blogs, articles, movies, online books, and other mediums of information. In such an enormous sea of information (which does not take up any physical space), the tools we use to organize and navigate virtual reality are essential.
Virtual reality allows people to take up less physical space since they can navigate ideas, explore the world, and communicate with others without ever leaving their seat. Instead of traveling miles to see a person’s face, people can simply log onto Plurk from any computer or phone with internet access to see pictures or movies of someone. With the right technologies, virtual space is incredibly quicker and easier to navigate than physical space. In our yearning to teleport, humans have focused on travelling through physical space. But this may be impossible due to the limitations of physical laws. By entering a virtual universe void of physical laws, we have already teleported metaphorically. By embracing this metaphor, we can reduce the amount of space needed to navigate our worlds. Considering the time inefficiencies with transportation, the pollution caused by physical transportation, and the possibility of accidents in traversing physical space, virtual travel seems like a feasible alternative transportation source. Indeed, virtual reality appears to be the most practical way to fit the desired amount of information into the nano.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Attack of the Clones (or at least Doubles)
Before the photograph, moments could only be contained in the memory of the individual. Since memory is an active process and people reinterpret episodes of their past according to their mental schemas, this was hardly an objective way to make a moment permanent. By freezing or recording images or events as a human eye from the same angle would see them, the camera and recorder have made this process less subjective and provide the ability to recall information apart from any individual’s consciousness. When these technologies are fully embedded in the consciousness of an individual, they can become a form of that person’s reality. By embracing the metaphorical realm of the island, the fugitive in The Invention of Morel enters a pataphysical realm, wherein the people with whom he observes are outside of a physical realm where he can interact with them. Instead of perceiving the metaphor of Faustine and others on the island from the vantage point of the physical, he maintains his identity within the metaphysical realm and attempts to thrive within the simulation. The simulation collapses in on him since the artificial people cannot fulfill his desires and fantasies. Inevitably, the photographic double creates possibilities for enlivenment and disaster.
In exploration of the notion of double, our society has focused on the biological double. The implications and morality of cloning humans has been at the precipice of scientific, theological, and scholarly debates. Although humans create biological and artificial intelligence by other means every day, a major aspect of cloning controversy lies in the idea that cloning implicates humans in playing God.
Although this moral dilemma has yet to be resolved, technology will bring more pressing issues to the forefront of scientific ethics. One of the most interesting ethical dilemmas of the future may be gene splicing. While splicing certain animal or artificial characteristics into human genes could expand human’s potential to navigate terrain, manipulate the environment, and produce efficiently, our political leaders and every day society may not be ready to allow this type of evolution when we attain the ability. But perhaps with the help of science fiction, people can lay the ground work for entertaining gene splicing, exploring the ethical ramifications, and eventually considering the implications objectively. As noted in Technocolyps, it could be immoral to prevent such intentional evolution through political means. While significantly improving human beings through technology has serious ethical ramifications, preventing such improvement seems like an even more morally controversial action.
In Ribofunk, the implications of splicing animal genes into humans are creatively explored. In particular, Little Worker explores the possibility of different emotional stimuli and physical contexts activating certain parts of organism’s genes. From the emotional stimuli of jealousy for Mr. Michael’s affection, “the part of [Little Worker’s] inheritance that was 30 percent wolverine took over. The four intruders soon lay dead with their throats torn out, soaking the carpet with their blood where once the Bull and Lyrical had coupled” (Ribofunk, 40). For psychologists who currently study context specificity for recall and recognition in memory activation, gene splicing could add another interesting and scary dimension to their analysis.
But the most insidious double can be achieved through brainwashing. Since brainwashing is outside the control of the individual being doubled, it cannot hold ethical water. In The Ticket that Exploded, the Nova Mob symbolizes the control that rhetorical leaders, language tradition, and current institutions possess over the masses that use that language. By cutting up his novel, Burroughs rebels against conformity in language and encourages people to escape the process of language doubling and conformity.
In The Filth, Slade is brainwashed to fulfill the obligations of the Hand to maintain the Status Q. Through doubling, the Hand transforms Slade into a vehicle of his society’s oppression. Through explicit depictions of doppelgangers, The Filth demonstrates the psychological and social implications of brainwashing to create doubles.
Entertainment and technology open the 21st century to more subtle forms of brainwashing. Through advertisement and skewing information, politicians and business aim to create as many doubles as possible. While most people consciously reject the premises of such advertisements, economic numbers indicate that they have an enormous effect on their psychology. Although marketing in and of itself is practical and perhaps necessary, a large amount of society has been brainwashed into a form of materialism that cannot be appeased. In the name of progress, conformity is justified.
In exploration of the notion of double, our society has focused on the biological double. The implications and morality of cloning humans has been at the precipice of scientific, theological, and scholarly debates. Although humans create biological and artificial intelligence by other means every day, a major aspect of cloning controversy lies in the idea that cloning implicates humans in playing God.
Although this moral dilemma has yet to be resolved, technology will bring more pressing issues to the forefront of scientific ethics. One of the most interesting ethical dilemmas of the future may be gene splicing. While splicing certain animal or artificial characteristics into human genes could expand human’s potential to navigate terrain, manipulate the environment, and produce efficiently, our political leaders and every day society may not be ready to allow this type of evolution when we attain the ability. But perhaps with the help of science fiction, people can lay the ground work for entertaining gene splicing, exploring the ethical ramifications, and eventually considering the implications objectively. As noted in Technocolyps, it could be immoral to prevent such intentional evolution through political means. While significantly improving human beings through technology has serious ethical ramifications, preventing such improvement seems like an even more morally controversial action.
In Ribofunk, the implications of splicing animal genes into humans are creatively explored. In particular, Little Worker explores the possibility of different emotional stimuli and physical contexts activating certain parts of organism’s genes. From the emotional stimuli of jealousy for Mr. Michael’s affection, “the part of [Little Worker’s] inheritance that was 30 percent wolverine took over. The four intruders soon lay dead with their throats torn out, soaking the carpet with their blood where once the Bull and Lyrical had coupled” (Ribofunk, 40). For psychologists who currently study context specificity for recall and recognition in memory activation, gene splicing could add another interesting and scary dimension to their analysis.
But the most insidious double can be achieved through brainwashing. Since brainwashing is outside the control of the individual being doubled, it cannot hold ethical water. In The Ticket that Exploded, the Nova Mob symbolizes the control that rhetorical leaders, language tradition, and current institutions possess over the masses that use that language. By cutting up his novel, Burroughs rebels against conformity in language and encourages people to escape the process of language doubling and conformity.
In The Filth, Slade is brainwashed to fulfill the obligations of the Hand to maintain the Status Q. Through doubling, the Hand transforms Slade into a vehicle of his society’s oppression. Through explicit depictions of doppelgangers, The Filth demonstrates the psychological and social implications of brainwashing to create doubles.
Entertainment and technology open the 21st century to more subtle forms of brainwashing. Through advertisement and skewing information, politicians and business aim to create as many doubles as possible. While most people consciously reject the premises of such advertisements, economic numbers indicate that they have an enormous effect on their psychology. Although marketing in and of itself is practical and perhaps necessary, a large amount of society has been brainwashed into a form of materialism that cannot be appeased. In the name of progress, conformity is justified.
Radical or Nonexistent Alterity
“The only deep desire is the desire of the object. Not desire for something I am missing, or even for something (or someone) that misses me but for something that does not miss me at all, that is perfectly able to exist without me…The Other is the one who does not miss me, and that is radical alterity” (Radical Alterity, 7).
While Marc Guillaume attributes seduction to alterity, people in general attribute seduction to similarity and dependence. People seek out objects they are able to manipulate, create or reshape in their own image, and find an affinity with. Considering the amount of work applied to non-practical manipulation, it seems like there is an impetus in all humans to change their physical surroundings. By changing our environments to create objects of desire, we are causing those very objects of desire to be dependent on us for their existence. Personally, I like being depended upon. It makes me feel important and needed. Although I realize I have little or no control over certain objects or people, I hardly seek out those objects more than one’s under my immediate control.
Even the objects that myself and others perceive to be beyond the subject’s control could very well be dependent on the subject. In his central argument for idealism, Berkeley contested that ordinary objects are mind dependent since they are merely ideas.
“That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the imagination, exist without the mind, is what everybody will allow. And it seems no less evident that the various sensations or ideas imprinted on the sense, however blended or combined together (that is, whatever objects they compose), cannot exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving them.- I think an intuitive knowledge may be obtained of this by any one that shall attend to what is meant by the term exists, when applied to sensible things. The table I write on I say exists, that is, I see and feel it; and if I were out of my study I should say it existed- meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it. There was an odour, that is, it was smelt; there was a sound, that is, it was heard; a colour or figure, and it was perceived by sight or touch. This is all that I can understand by these and the like expressions. For as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived, that seems perfectly unintelligible” (Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, II,i).
Berkeley presents here the following argument (Winkler 1989):
(1) We perceive ordinary objects (houses, mountains, etc.).
(2) We perceive only ideas.
Therefore,
(3) Ordinary objects are ideas.
Although premise two can be contested on the grounds that ideas represent external world objects and thus allow us to perceive them, it is difficult (or perhaps impossible) to demonstrate the existence of an external world object apart from the senses. Since sight is the only supposed access to external world objects, those object’s accessible existence indeed relies on that subject. If Berkeley’s analysis is correct, people could not discover a definitive other. Even if the other existed, we would not have access to it. While Baudrillard and Guillaume use their notion of the other to make other philosophical and practical points and predictions, their underlying assumptions should be explicitly questioned and scrutinized. The other may not even exist; and if it does, it is hardly as seductive as a creation of the self.
While Marc Guillaume attributes seduction to alterity, people in general attribute seduction to similarity and dependence. People seek out objects they are able to manipulate, create or reshape in their own image, and find an affinity with. Considering the amount of work applied to non-practical manipulation, it seems like there is an impetus in all humans to change their physical surroundings. By changing our environments to create objects of desire, we are causing those very objects of desire to be dependent on us for their existence. Personally, I like being depended upon. It makes me feel important and needed. Although I realize I have little or no control over certain objects or people, I hardly seek out those objects more than one’s under my immediate control.
Even the objects that myself and others perceive to be beyond the subject’s control could very well be dependent on the subject. In his central argument for idealism, Berkeley contested that ordinary objects are mind dependent since they are merely ideas.
“That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the imagination, exist without the mind, is what everybody will allow. And it seems no less evident that the various sensations or ideas imprinted on the sense, however blended or combined together (that is, whatever objects they compose), cannot exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving them.- I think an intuitive knowledge may be obtained of this by any one that shall attend to what is meant by the term exists, when applied to sensible things. The table I write on I say exists, that is, I see and feel it; and if I were out of my study I should say it existed- meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it. There was an odour, that is, it was smelt; there was a sound, that is, it was heard; a colour or figure, and it was perceived by sight or touch. This is all that I can understand by these and the like expressions. For as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived, that seems perfectly unintelligible” (Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, II,i).
Berkeley presents here the following argument (Winkler 1989):
(1) We perceive ordinary objects (houses, mountains, etc.).
(2) We perceive only ideas.
Therefore,
(3) Ordinary objects are ideas.
Although premise two can be contested on the grounds that ideas represent external world objects and thus allow us to perceive them, it is difficult (or perhaps impossible) to demonstrate the existence of an external world object apart from the senses. Since sight is the only supposed access to external world objects, those object’s accessible existence indeed relies on that subject. If Berkeley’s analysis is correct, people could not discover a definitive other. Even if the other existed, we would not have access to it. While Baudrillard and Guillaume use their notion of the other to make other philosophical and practical points and predictions, their underlying assumptions should be explicitly questioned and scrutinized. The other may not even exist; and if it does, it is hardly as seductive as a creation of the self.
Fellow Blogger
Since he made interesting comments in class and on Plurk, yet I never got to know him well, I chose to read Gatticus’ blogs. I was really impressed with the culmination of his work, and thought his ideas built on themselves uniquely. Although Gatticus and my blogs both focused on the assigned reading for the course and took philosophical spins on the material, we had drastically different ways of expressing our ideas. While Gatticus extended sublime metaphors and symbols poetically, I logically evaluated the purpose of specific literary devices. While his stream of conscious style effectively communicated complex ideas, my quasi-scholarly prose stunted ideas growth and limited the scope of information that could be communicated. Although my format may closer fit the standard school essay than Gatticus’ form, there is less creativity, dynamism, and rhythm in my series of blog posts.
In summary of his perspective on literary devices, Gatticus claimed “we define everything, including our existence with words and symbols.” Inevitably, he focused a lot on how the structure and syntax of his blogs could expand upon the ideas in class discussion and books. By including symbols and metaphors within his language, he foiled the symbols and metaphors within class texts and revealed subtle implications and extensions of the work. As an example of his rhythmic cadence, Gatticus articulated, “Wonder, the intensity of emotion undefined. A sense of imagination-fluid and dynamic beyond the collective ideal. Seeking such a small vibration, only resonating with the self.” Since this description of wonder departs from any specific context, it can escape the boundaries of the physical realm. Throughout the poetic language in his blogs, Gatticus attained the ability to explore pataphysical ideas by extrapolating on the metaphysical ideas within the texts.
Although I sometimes analyzed the literary devices within the text, my own language had far less poetic expression. Since I hardly elaborated creatively enough for my own language to perpetuate new ideas, I focused more on specific content within the textual stories. Particularly, in my analysis of The Invention of Morel, I relied on an analysis of the pertinent technology. In my analysis, I stated that, “in The Invention of Morel, the technology reveals and extends biological occurrences. Specifically, the recording device used by Morel extends upon a natural phenomenon of perception: the lag between momentary events and the mental representation of those events." By focusing on the biological implications of technology within the piece, I was forced to ground my analysis on physical ideas. Since physical phenomena require a specific context and time, my analysis had a more limited scope and application. Although I also tried to apply my analysis of the texts to real world situations, I formulated the connections in a far more concrete and simplified manner. Relying on textual metaphors and making obvious statements, my analysis branches into less sophisticated and creative thoughts. Without an interesting and unique launching point, it was difficult for me to expand and elaborate upon my ideas.
Although my critique of my work in contrast to Gatticus may be too harsh, I am definitely disappointed with the creativity and elaboration in most of my blogs. My blogs reflect an emptiness stemming from exhaustion, depression, and worry. Fortunately, blogs, like life events, can be edited and added to alter a virtual and actual persona. Perhaps the dissolution of my ego and its goals can rejuvenate my passion and energy in life and blogs. As Gatticus explains in his blog:
“Let all cultivate with hands in the real soil, not simply sowing seeds from picture books of the past. Fresh eyes create fresh memories that do not need to be captured. To capture is to lose the spontaneity-the freedom dies in its eyes. Expectations cannot be met in that reliving. I am all smiles for the present-shared.”
In summary of his perspective on literary devices, Gatticus claimed “we define everything, including our existence with words and symbols.” Inevitably, he focused a lot on how the structure and syntax of his blogs could expand upon the ideas in class discussion and books. By including symbols and metaphors within his language, he foiled the symbols and metaphors within class texts and revealed subtle implications and extensions of the work. As an example of his rhythmic cadence, Gatticus articulated, “Wonder, the intensity of emotion undefined. A sense of imagination-fluid and dynamic beyond the collective ideal. Seeking such a small vibration, only resonating with the self.” Since this description of wonder departs from any specific context, it can escape the boundaries of the physical realm. Throughout the poetic language in his blogs, Gatticus attained the ability to explore pataphysical ideas by extrapolating on the metaphysical ideas within the texts.
Although I sometimes analyzed the literary devices within the text, my own language had far less poetic expression. Since I hardly elaborated creatively enough for my own language to perpetuate new ideas, I focused more on specific content within the textual stories. Particularly, in my analysis of The Invention of Morel, I relied on an analysis of the pertinent technology. In my analysis, I stated that, “in The Invention of Morel, the technology reveals and extends biological occurrences. Specifically, the recording device used by Morel extends upon a natural phenomenon of perception: the lag between momentary events and the mental representation of those events." By focusing on the biological implications of technology within the piece, I was forced to ground my analysis on physical ideas. Since physical phenomena require a specific context and time, my analysis had a more limited scope and application. Although I also tried to apply my analysis of the texts to real world situations, I formulated the connections in a far more concrete and simplified manner. Relying on textual metaphors and making obvious statements, my analysis branches into less sophisticated and creative thoughts. Without an interesting and unique launching point, it was difficult for me to expand and elaborate upon my ideas.
Although my critique of my work in contrast to Gatticus may be too harsh, I am definitely disappointed with the creativity and elaboration in most of my blogs. My blogs reflect an emptiness stemming from exhaustion, depression, and worry. Fortunately, blogs, like life events, can be edited and added to alter a virtual and actual persona. Perhaps the dissolution of my ego and its goals can rejuvenate my passion and energy in life and blogs. As Gatticus explains in his blog:
“Let all cultivate with hands in the real soil, not simply sowing seeds from picture books of the past. Fresh eyes create fresh memories that do not need to be captured. To capture is to lose the spontaneity-the freedom dies in its eyes. Expectations cannot be met in that reliving. I am all smiles for the present-shared.”
Plurking Metaphors
In his lecture we watched at the beginning of the quarter, DJ Spooky illustrated how our technological metaphors expand individual’s personas. He specifically noted how technology allows people to see and hear people without being in their physical presence, how the metaphors we create for ourselves have become more sophisticated than our biological mechanisms, and how technology eternalizes humans. While DJ Spooky was referring to the culmination of network technology, Plurk exemplifies these ideas in and of itself. By combining and linking a plethora of mediums, Plurk gives individuals incredible autonomy over their virtual presentation.
Through profile pictures and movie links, people can allow others to view their appearance without being in their physical presence. Since our class only met for three hours a week and we only played the name game once, Plurk provided a useful tool for putting names to faces, remembering the personalities behind those faces, and sharing images of ourselves outside of class.
Since our Plurk profiles exist outside of our organic bodies, they have the potential for eternal life. As the timeline of plurks explicitly illustrates, technology has allowed people to keep explicit records of their stream of consciousness, objectively check the material of information they presented in the past, and create personas that expand beyond the timelines of their artificial existence. While humans have mainly tried to pass on their heritage through memories in other people, representations of themselves in their children, and oral legacy, technologies like Plurk allow people to live on in a virtual reality without the necessity of their physical bodies.
If people learned our passwords or if a computer was programmed to emulate our behavior, they could continue to elaborate on our Plurk lives after our death. Even when we are still alive, we do not need to personally do anything to change our personas in such technologies. Although the media frenzy about identity theft typically refers to theft of financial information, it would be feasible for people to steal plurk or other network identities, and drastically alter others perception of ourselves. Or, taking a different spin, we could create doubles of ourselves by creating multiple profiles, each reflecting, yet transcending the other. As virtual personas become more prominent, the possibility for social identity theft and virtual cloning will dramatically alter the way we think about the individual.
Still, language and links played the most prominent role in Plurk communication. Most mediums (i.e. Facebook and Email) push people to reach tangible goals through their messages. Because the comments or messages only appear in certain pages or folders, these mediums encourage people to make intentional statements to an intended audience of one. With a timeline displaying plurks and responses to all friends and followers, Plurk celebrates stream of consciousness messages. Since anyone can view and respond to the messages, there need not be a single purpose or audience. Seen in the diversity of Plurk responses, Plurk encourages people to interpret the statement from their own paradigm and react with their own opinions, often transforming a single message into a group discussion immediately. For example, Gatticus elicited forty responses from nine different people simply by saying he “dislikes dealing with airlines and their money making schemes.” Although this statement was hardly profound, people were able to empathize and elaborate on his common opinion. Additionally, people can provide links to Youtube videos, articles, or anything else they feel like sharing. While this content is available outside of Plurk, these links provide a way to create networks of media and share our virtual journeys with each other.
With the ability to communicate with others and present our personalities in virtual space, more complex representations are possible. In physical space, I can only be in one place at a time whereas in virtual space I can be on Plurk, AIM, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and many more virtual places at once. Even within one of these places, I can create links between my own ideas, connect to other people’s ideas, and provide people a map to my personality and life. This allows for more sophisticated analysis of different facets of my personality than interaction with my physical self can allot.
Interestingly, the secrecy involved in presenting oneself in virtual space is different than the secrecy involved in presenting oneself in person. On Plurk and other networking sites, I can choose what images and videos of myself to display. Furthermore, I can hide the emotional tone of my comments by typing instead of speaking. Still, people have freedom over the parts of my self-presentation they wish to explore since I cannot direct them away from certain aspects directly. Paradoxically, Plurk provides the notion of more freedom of presentation and investigation.
For creatures that thrive off feedback from others, Plurk allows people to solicit specific responses from multiple people quickly and efficiently. Although computers have been deemed as vehicles for creating self-sufficiency and anti-social behavior, technologies like Plurk allow people to have more conversations than they could in person. Since personal information is already listed in people’s profiles, people are able to skip mundane introductions and move on to more meaningful conversation content. By allowing people to network their ideas quickly and efficiently, Plurk has the potential to improve self-esteem and friend acceptance. Inevitably, the opposite may be true if people feel like their biological mechanisms pale in comparison to the complexity and networking potentials of the technology. Currently, our bodies still need nourishment and physical pleasures play important roles in the development and well-being of individuals. By showing virtual possibilities beyond the capacity of our physical bodies, technologies may infantilize the biological organism. Perhaps this will drive humans to add more technology onto their persons, splice their genes with technology, and evolve into a post-human species. This may be one incentive economists have yet to predict.
Through profile pictures and movie links, people can allow others to view their appearance without being in their physical presence. Since our class only met for three hours a week and we only played the name game once, Plurk provided a useful tool for putting names to faces, remembering the personalities behind those faces, and sharing images of ourselves outside of class.
Since our Plurk profiles exist outside of our organic bodies, they have the potential for eternal life. As the timeline of plurks explicitly illustrates, technology has allowed people to keep explicit records of their stream of consciousness, objectively check the material of information they presented in the past, and create personas that expand beyond the timelines of their artificial existence. While humans have mainly tried to pass on their heritage through memories in other people, representations of themselves in their children, and oral legacy, technologies like Plurk allow people to live on in a virtual reality without the necessity of their physical bodies.
If people learned our passwords or if a computer was programmed to emulate our behavior, they could continue to elaborate on our Plurk lives after our death. Even when we are still alive, we do not need to personally do anything to change our personas in such technologies. Although the media frenzy about identity theft typically refers to theft of financial information, it would be feasible for people to steal plurk or other network identities, and drastically alter others perception of ourselves. Or, taking a different spin, we could create doubles of ourselves by creating multiple profiles, each reflecting, yet transcending the other. As virtual personas become more prominent, the possibility for social identity theft and virtual cloning will dramatically alter the way we think about the individual.
Still, language and links played the most prominent role in Plurk communication. Most mediums (i.e. Facebook and Email) push people to reach tangible goals through their messages. Because the comments or messages only appear in certain pages or folders, these mediums encourage people to make intentional statements to an intended audience of one. With a timeline displaying plurks and responses to all friends and followers, Plurk celebrates stream of consciousness messages. Since anyone can view and respond to the messages, there need not be a single purpose or audience. Seen in the diversity of Plurk responses, Plurk encourages people to interpret the statement from their own paradigm and react with their own opinions, often transforming a single message into a group discussion immediately. For example, Gatticus elicited forty responses from nine different people simply by saying he “dislikes dealing with airlines and their money making schemes.” Although this statement was hardly profound, people were able to empathize and elaborate on his common opinion. Additionally, people can provide links to Youtube videos, articles, or anything else they feel like sharing. While this content is available outside of Plurk, these links provide a way to create networks of media and share our virtual journeys with each other.
With the ability to communicate with others and present our personalities in virtual space, more complex representations are possible. In physical space, I can only be in one place at a time whereas in virtual space I can be on Plurk, AIM, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and many more virtual places at once. Even within one of these places, I can create links between my own ideas, connect to other people’s ideas, and provide people a map to my personality and life. This allows for more sophisticated analysis of different facets of my personality than interaction with my physical self can allot.
Interestingly, the secrecy involved in presenting oneself in virtual space is different than the secrecy involved in presenting oneself in person. On Plurk and other networking sites, I can choose what images and videos of myself to display. Furthermore, I can hide the emotional tone of my comments by typing instead of speaking. Still, people have freedom over the parts of my self-presentation they wish to explore since I cannot direct them away from certain aspects directly. Paradoxically, Plurk provides the notion of more freedom of presentation and investigation.
For creatures that thrive off feedback from others, Plurk allows people to solicit specific responses from multiple people quickly and efficiently. Although computers have been deemed as vehicles for creating self-sufficiency and anti-social behavior, technologies like Plurk allow people to have more conversations than they could in person. Since personal information is already listed in people’s profiles, people are able to skip mundane introductions and move on to more meaningful conversation content. By allowing people to network their ideas quickly and efficiently, Plurk has the potential to improve self-esteem and friend acceptance. Inevitably, the opposite may be true if people feel like their biological mechanisms pale in comparison to the complexity and networking potentials of the technology. Currently, our bodies still need nourishment and physical pleasures play important roles in the development and well-being of individuals. By showing virtual possibilities beyond the capacity of our physical bodies, technologies may infantilize the biological organism. Perhaps this will drive humans to add more technology onto their persons, splice their genes with technology, and evolve into a post-human species. This may be one incentive economists have yet to predict.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Virtual Autonomy
“Strange to say, Jayjay’s nearly fifty years of life in Vearth had lasted but five of the real world’s hours. He was plagued by a persistent sense of living in a dream. Would he never awake?”(296).
Although Jayjay’s experience may have been more severe, I can empathize with the emotional feeling of perceiving life as a dream. Often times, I feel like I’m observing my life from a distance and analyzing myself from an objective perspective. Although self-evaluation can be a useful tool for psychological well-being, this disassociation between mind and body creates an emotional strain. It becomes difficult to rediscover oneself as an active participant in a life one feels they are watching.
Through advice from others, I've realized that there is no specific psychological trick to waking up from this symbolic dream of life. In order to feel like a participant, I need to participate. In order to feel active, I need to act. As Albert Camus posits, "You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life." Indeed, the trick to life is living.
If virtual reality becomes a reality, it will be important to give people access to the controls to the virtual world. As creatures who love to alter aspects of their worlds according to their will, people will want to be involved in processes that change their virtual landscapes. Without the autonomy to at least impact part of the virtual world, people will become passive observes. And from my experience, passive observation does not make anyone happy.
Although Jayjay’s experience may have been more severe, I can empathize with the emotional feeling of perceiving life as a dream. Often times, I feel like I’m observing my life from a distance and analyzing myself from an objective perspective. Although self-evaluation can be a useful tool for psychological well-being, this disassociation between mind and body creates an emotional strain. It becomes difficult to rediscover oneself as an active participant in a life one feels they are watching.
Through advice from others, I've realized that there is no specific psychological trick to waking up from this symbolic dream of life. In order to feel like a participant, I need to participate. In order to feel active, I need to act. As Albert Camus posits, "You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life." Indeed, the trick to life is living.
If virtual reality becomes a reality, it will be important to give people access to the controls to the virtual world. As creatures who love to alter aspects of their worlds according to their will, people will want to be involved in processes that change their virtual landscapes. Without the autonomy to at least impact part of the virtual world, people will become passive observes. And from my experience, passive observation does not make anyone happy.
Subject to Time
In class, we talked about how we can tell whether we are in the past, present, or future. Since there is a lag between events and the perception of those events, it would be impossible for humans to realize the present if it actually existed. Even assuming that humans had immediate perception to the world of their senses, it could still be fallacious to claim that the moment of their current perception is an objective present.
In philosophy, two common paradigms of time are designated as the A-series and B-series. The A-series is a tensed theory of time, postulating an objective past, present, and future. In this construct, tenses such as ‘was’, ‘is’, and ‘will be’ reflect an objective temporal reality. The B-series purposes that there is no definite past, present, and future. According to B-theorists, there is merely a series of events which occur earlier and later than one another. Thus, tenses in ordinary language are merely used for convenience. For example, ‘Bob used to work as a lawyer’ simplifies the meaning of ‘Bob worked as a lawyer at an earlier time then the utterance of this sentence’ in order to communicate the idea easier.
Although the competition between these theories is largely a matter of semantics, the B-series seems to be a more accurate reflection of human knowledge about time than the A-series. Although people desire to see their current consciousness as the present, there is no way to tell whether their perspective parallels anything outside of themselves. Perhaps their future selves also currently exist in a different dimension. Perhaps their earlier selves are actively living in the temporal space typically referred to as past. Without an objective view of the temporal path, it is impossible to determine whether the moment we perceive to be present is actually unique in its illumination.
Outside of the constraints of human consciousness, there may not even be a linear progression from earlier to later. Throughout history, people have imagined that earlier events contextualize current events. Could it not be the case that later events create a context for current events? Even in our analysis of other people, it is just as easy to tell where people came from as where they are going. From a perspective outside of the time scale, it may be just as relevant to analyze life backwards as forwards. Could the one-dimensional construct of time be wrong altogether? Could each time-perceiving agent manifest their own construction of time? Does time even exist? Investigating time seems to lead to more questions than answers.
In philosophy, two common paradigms of time are designated as the A-series and B-series. The A-series is a tensed theory of time, postulating an objective past, present, and future. In this construct, tenses such as ‘was’, ‘is’, and ‘will be’ reflect an objective temporal reality. The B-series purposes that there is no definite past, present, and future. According to B-theorists, there is merely a series of events which occur earlier and later than one another. Thus, tenses in ordinary language are merely used for convenience. For example, ‘Bob used to work as a lawyer’ simplifies the meaning of ‘Bob worked as a lawyer at an earlier time then the utterance of this sentence’ in order to communicate the idea easier.
Although the competition between these theories is largely a matter of semantics, the B-series seems to be a more accurate reflection of human knowledge about time than the A-series. Although people desire to see their current consciousness as the present, there is no way to tell whether their perspective parallels anything outside of themselves. Perhaps their future selves also currently exist in a different dimension. Perhaps their earlier selves are actively living in the temporal space typically referred to as past. Without an objective view of the temporal path, it is impossible to determine whether the moment we perceive to be present is actually unique in its illumination.
Outside of the constraints of human consciousness, there may not even be a linear progression from earlier to later. Throughout history, people have imagined that earlier events contextualize current events. Could it not be the case that later events create a context for current events? Even in our analysis of other people, it is just as easy to tell where people came from as where they are going. From a perspective outside of the time scale, it may be just as relevant to analyze life backwards as forwards. Could the one-dimensional construct of time be wrong altogether? Could each time-perceiving agent manifest their own construction of time? Does time even exist? Investigating time seems to lead to more questions than answers.
Rucker's Cartesian Demon
Even with the profound escalations in human knowledge and ability Postsingular purposes, Rudy Rucker demonstrates human inability to answer certain pressing philosophical questions. By highlighting the limitations of human knowledge within the context of incredible human achievement, Rucker displays the limitless nature of investigation into metaphysical and epistemological ideas. Indeed, future technology and epiphanies may merely clarify the impossibility of answering certain questions.
Specifically, Postsingular forces the reader to question their knowledge of and access to an external world.
“What actually happened was that the Big Pig, for reasons of her own, threw Jayjay into a profoundly convincing hallucination that seemed to him, to last a full sixty years. During the six or seven hours that Thuy was gone, Jayjay lived out an entire simulated life, full of incident and emotion, the sim life ending with death by virus at the deeply hallucinated age of eighty-four” (Postsingular, 290).
Although this occurrence is specific to and contextualized within Postsingular, it has implications that intellectuals have wrestled with for ages. For example, as an underpinning to Cartesian skepticism, René Descartes purposed a similar story about a delusion caused by a demon.
"I will suppose some malicious demon of the utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me. I shall think that the sky, the air, the earth, colors, shapes, sounds and all external things are merely the delusions of dreams which he has devised to ensnare my judgment" (René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy: First Meditation).
Inevitably, the philosophical implications of doubt about external world knowledge are not unique to Postsingular or the science fiction genre in general. But by developing a story to suspend disbelief about the possibility of extended delusions, Postsingular makes the question all the more interesting. In general, science fiction postulates philosophical questions in specific, evolving, and unique stories to contextualize the concept with names, personalities, places, and emotions. By creating concrete variables to engage the concept, science fiction literature enables the reader to understand and synthesize the information more explicitly.
Through the character development of Big Pig and analysis of Jayjay’s life, Rucker is providing a name and personality to the Cartesian demon, analyzing the content of a delusional life, and investigating the emotions involved in this dilemma. Ultimately, he unravels the same epistemological dilemma: no one truly knows whether the world external to people is merely a figment of their own, or someone else’s imagination or simulation.
Specifically, Postsingular forces the reader to question their knowledge of and access to an external world.
“What actually happened was that the Big Pig, for reasons of her own, threw Jayjay into a profoundly convincing hallucination that seemed to him, to last a full sixty years. During the six or seven hours that Thuy was gone, Jayjay lived out an entire simulated life, full of incident and emotion, the sim life ending with death by virus at the deeply hallucinated age of eighty-four” (Postsingular, 290).
Although this occurrence is specific to and contextualized within Postsingular, it has implications that intellectuals have wrestled with for ages. For example, as an underpinning to Cartesian skepticism, René Descartes purposed a similar story about a delusion caused by a demon.
"I will suppose some malicious demon of the utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me. I shall think that the sky, the air, the earth, colors, shapes, sounds and all external things are merely the delusions of dreams which he has devised to ensnare my judgment" (René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy: First Meditation).
Inevitably, the philosophical implications of doubt about external world knowledge are not unique to Postsingular or the science fiction genre in general. But by developing a story to suspend disbelief about the possibility of extended delusions, Postsingular makes the question all the more interesting. In general, science fiction postulates philosophical questions in specific, evolving, and unique stories to contextualize the concept with names, personalities, places, and emotions. By creating concrete variables to engage the concept, science fiction literature enables the reader to understand and synthesize the information more explicitly.
Through the character development of Big Pig and analysis of Jayjay’s life, Rucker is providing a name and personality to the Cartesian demon, analyzing the content of a delusional life, and investigating the emotions involved in this dilemma. Ultimately, he unravels the same epistemological dilemma: no one truly knows whether the world external to people is merely a figment of their own, or someone else’s imagination or simulation.
The Politics of Technology
Although technology could be able to potentially give people incredibly easier access to exponentially more resources and allot people incredible more universal knowledge, it may not be able to rid humanity of power hierarchies and economic inequality. For the majority of people in America and many other places in the world, basic needs have been adequately met and exceeded. Of course, without needing to worry about the amount of water, food, and shelter, people focus on the aesthetic appeal of their resources, create artifacts for psychological desire instead of biological need, and develop artificially high standards of living.
Although our current economic situation has slightly reduced the average amount of resources consumed by individuals, the wave of technology should eventually develop even more objects of psychological desire to compete over. Although we may be able to cure diseases, restore body organs and tissue, and create a virtual reality in the future, technology alone will not prevent inequality. Even in the virtual world of Postsingular, there was still a battle over scarce resources.
“Vearth had an active cash economy, with the cash standing for computational resources. You needed money to buy or rent a simulated house, to view a show, or to get new clothes. And if you paid Big Pig a certain monthly fee, your personal reality was rendered in higher resolution than was other people’s” (Postsingular, 291).
As artificial intelligence improves, it will be important to evaluate and moniter the politics of distributing new technologies. People should not allow the ruling class to horde tools of physical and social evolution.
Although our current economic situation has slightly reduced the average amount of resources consumed by individuals, the wave of technology should eventually develop even more objects of psychological desire to compete over. Although we may be able to cure diseases, restore body organs and tissue, and create a virtual reality in the future, technology alone will not prevent inequality. Even in the virtual world of Postsingular, there was still a battle over scarce resources.
“Vearth had an active cash economy, with the cash standing for computational resources. You needed money to buy or rent a simulated house, to view a show, or to get new clothes. And if you paid Big Pig a certain monthly fee, your personal reality was rendered in higher resolution than was other people’s” (Postsingular, 291).
As artificial intelligence improves, it will be important to evaluate and moniter the politics of distributing new technologies. People should not allow the ruling class to horde tools of physical and social evolution.
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