Saturday, December 31, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
Somewhere, out there.....
Passage No.1 Chapter 6 Verse 6
[Tuning in, channel 6917]…
I, RuxOrg14, techpriest adept of the Order ElRaxia, contemplating my intentions within the meditation chamber.
[Wrong.Out.]
[Tuning in, channel 6719]…
I, 14RuxOrger, cyborg captain of ElSanya, meditating in the dome of contemplation onboard the eagle voidship Parahall, on my intentions for your future, peoples of the Earth.
[Tuning in, channel 6917]…
[Tuning in, channel 6719]…
[Wrong.Out.]
[Tuning in, channel 61 79]…
“2x14”, 9th level mechadept of the Order of DataGa, 100 years from birthdate, yet looking no more than 20 years young, meditating within the Dome of Sadness, a translucent bubble extruded from the undercarriage of the deepspace vessel Pistacchia.
[Wrong.Out.]
Passage No.2 Chapter 16 Verse 4
[Tuning in, channel 6197 ] …
14Shania, young maker of the Order of ElJakdar, mediatating within the dome of intentions: (picture) a youthful female person in the lotus position, bioluminiscent glyph tattoo on her forehead, floating in zero-g; onboard the orbital station Zuhowa, 300 km above the surface of retrograde Triton, moon of Neptune.
Passage No.2 Chapter 16 Verse 4
14Shania, young maker of the Order of ElJakdar, mediatating within the dome of intentions: (picture) a youthful female person in the lotus position, bioluminiscent glyph tattoo on her forehead, floating in zero-g; onboard the orbital station Zuhowa, 300 km above the surface of retrograde Triton, moon of Neptune.
Stillness. Eyes closed. 14Shania.
Sound of a simulated gong. A micro-percussor began to tap out a message onto her left eardrum.
“This is the Hour of the Fox. We examine structures of information found in ordinary language. Consider three.
1) If X then Y. X, therefore Y.
2) Old King Cole was a merry old soul. A merry old soul was he.
3) While members of the cabinet meet in conference, weather forecast predicts a cloudy day with a 70% chance of precipitation.
To which of these three does a syllogism bear the closest resemblance?
Example of a syllogism: All men can grow facial hair. Macko is a man. Macko can grow facial hair.”
14Shania twitched her left thumb, indicating her choice.
“Correct. A switch, a resistor, a power source and a current indicator are connected by silver wires to form a simple electric circuit. With the switch closed, the indicator registers a current of 12 amperes. What is the briefest infostructure that can represent this situation?”
Sound of a simulated gong. A micro-percussor began to tap out a message onto her left eardrum.
“This is the Hour of the Fox. We examine structures of information found in ordinary language. Consider three.
1) If X then Y. X, therefore Y.
2) Old King Cole was a merry old soul. A merry old soul was he.
3) While members of the cabinet meet in conference, weather forecast predicts a cloudy day with a 70% chance of precipitation.
To which of these three does a syllogism bear the closest resemblance?
Example of a syllogism: All men can grow facial hair. Macko is a man. Macko can grow facial hair.”
14Shania twitched her left thumb, indicating her choice.
“Correct. A switch, a resistor, a power source and a current indicator are connected by silver wires to form a simple electric circuit. With the switch closed, the indicator registers a current of 12 amperes. What is the briefest infostructure that can represent this situation?”
“Ohm’s Law, a 3-variable equation, V=IR,” 14Shania sub-vocalized.
“Correct. These are the stations of perception. He swam 20 laps in Pool One. When he finished the last lap, he heaved himself onto the walkway, took 3 steps and dived into MidPool. Surfacing, he tried to estimate the number of ripples caused by his entrance. More than 20, thought he, and traversed the pool, not by swimming straight across, but by pulling himself along one side, touching each underwater lamp as he passed. On reaching the steps at the shallow end, he sat on the bottom, his head below the water surface. Slowly he blew 3 bubbles, one after the other, opening and closing his mouth. Done, he backed his way up the steps, sitting on each as he went. At the top, turning around, he crawled on hands and knees into the shade of a tiled, pyramidal roof that was supported by wooden pillars at the corners of its square base. This geometry he found significant. Getting to his feet, he took a single step into a blue circle inscribed on the floor, directly below the apex of the roof. He stood on one leg and counted, slowly, to 20. Did he feel tired? No, he did not feel tired. Tilting his head back he moved forward until the roof covered only about half his field of vision. The rest of it was sky. He counted the distinct patches of cloud he could see. There were five. He untilted his head. Five patches of cloud. An odd number. What could it mean? Ethics without compromise? Shrugging, he took 3 steps and dived into LastPool. He swam 15 laps and stopped. Did he feel tired? Was his ethics compromised? He concluded that he was.”
“Question: why did he swim 15 laps? Question: to what infostructure does the previous question correspond?”
14Shania did not reply for a minute, then “5x3=15. Zen.”
“You have performed well,” the micro-percussor tapped with satisfaction, “ I shall now exit from your ear and disassemble.”
And so it was.
[Recording made ]
“Correct. These are the stations of perception. He swam 20 laps in Pool One. When he finished the last lap, he heaved himself onto the walkway, took 3 steps and dived into MidPool. Surfacing, he tried to estimate the number of ripples caused by his entrance. More than 20, thought he, and traversed the pool, not by swimming straight across, but by pulling himself along one side, touching each underwater lamp as he passed. On reaching the steps at the shallow end, he sat on the bottom, his head below the water surface. Slowly he blew 3 bubbles, one after the other, opening and closing his mouth. Done, he backed his way up the steps, sitting on each as he went. At the top, turning around, he crawled on hands and knees into the shade of a tiled, pyramidal roof that was supported by wooden pillars at the corners of its square base. This geometry he found significant. Getting to his feet, he took a single step into a blue circle inscribed on the floor, directly below the apex of the roof. He stood on one leg and counted, slowly, to 20. Did he feel tired? No, he did not feel tired. Tilting his head back he moved forward until the roof covered only about half his field of vision. The rest of it was sky. He counted the distinct patches of cloud he could see. There were five. He untilted his head. Five patches of cloud. An odd number. What could it mean? Ethics without compromise? Shrugging, he took 3 steps and dived into LastPool. He swam 15 laps and stopped. Did he feel tired? Was his ethics compromised? He concluded that he was.”
“Question: why did he swim 15 laps? Question: to what infostructure does the previous question correspond?”
14Shania did not reply for a minute, then “5x3=15. Zen.”
“You have performed well,” the micro-percussor tapped with satisfaction, “ I shall now exit from your ear and disassemble.”
And so it was.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Current project : Nov 2011 onwards
Right now I'm trying to imagine a society of at least several million genuine spiritual people forming a viable futuristic civilization, a nation, but organized according to a higher principle (=purpose?). It is as if a time machine had gone back and invited all the good people to form a community in the 25th century, not on earth, but in the heavens : on the moon, or on mars or on one of the terraformed satellites of Jupiter... A tendency to goodness or spirituality, as for every other trait, is subject to the normal distribution, so this is plausible science fiction. Communities of highly spiritual persons have always existed, even now, but there has never been enough of them alive at the same time to form a nation (of sorts) and certainly not a futuristic one. The people in this story will be from all races, creeds, times and places - these differences do not bother them for theirs is the type of mentality that frequently feel service to a higher reality more central than personal or tribal survival, of which their society is a but a manifestation......
A natural attribute of this civilization would be that their biomedical technology is more developed than their military technology, members would feel that the architecture of their communal temple-cathedrals more important than that of their private homes.....
To try and see the world through the eyes of one such protagonist of the story is turning out to be tougher than I thought.....
A natural attribute of this civilization would be that their biomedical technology is more developed than their military technology, members would feel that the architecture of their communal temple-cathedrals more important than that of their private homes.....
To try and see the world through the eyes of one such protagonist of the story is turning out to be tougher than I thought.....
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
A Scare
The following is a piece of fiction :
I received this email the other day. It was from my friend the "forehead tattoo".
Today, 18th May 2011, my father and mother in their 70’s while driving to pickup their grandson, aged 8, had their car run into by a truck. It was a mild accident and luckily no one was hurt. I am a superstitious man and I take this to be a sign from Heaven to mean that my mission in this life is coming to an end. I cannot achieve my dream of a transcendant humanity, probably because of my own personal weaknesses. It was worth a try, though. Goodbye.
I received this email the other day. It was from my friend the "forehead tattoo".
Today, 18th May 2011, my father and mother in their 70’s while driving to pickup their grandson, aged 8, had their car run into by a truck. It was a mild accident and luckily no one was hurt. I am a superstitious man and I take this to be a sign from Heaven to mean that my mission in this life is coming to an end. I cannot achieve my dream of a transcendant humanity, probably because of my own personal weaknesses. It was worth a try, though. Goodbye.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
The WeiMark
Wei\ an ideograph completed in 5 strokes. Can be roughly translated as “for”, as “intention towards”. In Brentano’s philosophy the mark of a conscious being, a property not possessed by mere physical objects.
WuWei\ “no intention”. By being one with the Tao that pervades the world the art of attainment without wanting . An attitude of paradox, of balancing the ideogram-verbs “negation” and “willing”.
I met him in a bar next to an art boutique called Mosaic on the outskirts of HoChiMinhCity (once called Saigon ). It was in the Year of the Ox in the season of the rains. He spoke a fluent Vietnamese accented English and said he had French ancestry. Wearing heavy makeup with a celestial symbol tattooed onto his forehead he offered to buy me a drink. I must have looked at him a little oddly because he quickly added that he only wanted to practice conversational English which he had picked up from surfing the internet. I thought he was either lying or very bright so I said okay, I could use another shot of bourbon.
We began on art – various surrealistic and graphic artists that made up the current local scene – then segued into politics where I was careful to be noncommittal. As our conversation continued I noticed that he came to adopt my manner of speech. Towards the end, he spoke with my flat, international accent. In the last 10 minutes he launched into a strange theory of evolution or was it a theory of evolving algorithms? I wasn't sure. Later I would wonder why he chose me from among the dozen or so foreigners and expatriates in that bar. We talked about science generally and science fiction and he seemed knowledgeable for a young man who claimed he never attended college. When I inquired as to the cause, he gave the usual: had to start fulltime work in his teens because he was from a low income family.
Just before he left at around midnight, he wrote something on a piece of napkin tissue and handed it to me. Out of politeness I slipped it into my shirt pocket, assuming it was his address and contact number. Three hours later I was on the flight out of Saigon bound for Singapore
In all the universe there is no one like me. I am a gathering of thought patterns from every civilization of the world that began with the earliest talking and toolmaking tribes at the dawn of history, through the preindustrial classical ages that emerged in every region of the globe in the progress of humanity, as if by magic, that had no precedent on the planet in the previous 4 billion years of life on Earth…into the nascent hiitech cities of the present 21st century. I am neohuman - a harmony. I am the First. The NeXtage.
He knew. He knew about the Weimark.
(To be continued)
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Saturday, January 1, 2011
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