my reply to a post on the "Writing the Extraordinary" MLA class I'm taking - Erik Davis is leading the class. this week we're reading & discussing fever induced writing. one of the class members posted a quote from "Black Elk Speaks, the account of an Sioux "holy man." In this context "holy man" meant that the person experienced vivid hallucinations caused by severe childhood fevers."
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thanks for this. I love the quote you highlighted "Crazy Horse dreamed and went into the world where there is nothing but the spirits of all things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that world."
love the idea of the shadow world. I was thinking about this often whilst walking home from the train a few months ago - when the light was perfect for casting shadows. I kept thinking what if the shadows were from another me in another time. and we were all held together by my body, but could pivot between one or the other. sort of like those handheld viewfinders where you pull the lever and it advances the frame of the circular card film. but it would rotate in multiple dimensions. then I went to a sound art performance and one of the performers was casting amazing shadows on the "digital noise" screens behind him. I was filming it but framed it so his "this-world body" was to the edge and it was his shadows who were creating the ambient sounds from the guitar. and I was doing a video project where we had to make one based on previous video - a chained video project - and mine was on shadow out of time like the hp lovecraft book (from Erik's previous class)
I like that Crazy Horse's shadow world is a higher resolution that ours. "everything we see here is something like a shadow from that world" - we see things visually quite clearly and defined. yet we see shadows (from the other worlds?:) as blurred and generally in monochrome / greyish / darkish tones. if the other world's shadows are so vivid (for us) then think how vivid their reality must be. (our dreamworld?)
(& I just did a drag & drop typo - and one became eon - & I just re-read my blog post for the shadow out of time video and saw the mention of plato & remembering across aeons of time - another synchronicity)
also I went to the readings of David Eagleman's writings on tales of the afterlife as part of the sydney Vivid festival last year (curated by Brian Eno) - some of these readings seemed to be along the shadow world line too. (they were all really inspiring, and it was presented as people sitting at old fashioned school desks on stage reading out their (his) stories on what they (he) thought was the afterlife.
- keeping the brain surviving outside of the body - experiments with animals
05:25 - total body transplant. Stephen Hawkings could possibly survive a total body transplant?
06:10 - consciousness can be transplanted. human soul? can be argued that this can be transplanted. they did experiments with monkeys - transplanted the head of one monkey onto another & it lived for 7 days before being rejected
01:10 - humanising the pig kidney/liver so it's not rejected by human body, then transplanting these into humans (pigs as donors)
01:35 metamouse - laboratory grown ear on back of a mouse. hasn't Stelarc been growing an ear on his arm? art project?
03:25 - artist - designing future human bodies. 'after all the body is an extension of fashion' -- I think the body was around before fashion...
10:00 - most people think you have to build a brain and a body will fall out of it. but when you look at nature, well over half the species on Earth have no brain to speak of at all yet manage to move around and survive very effectively.
00:00 - scientists have evolved very effective nervous systems. not brains
03:10 - history of humans is that they haven't treated other life that is similar to humans very well. even back to neanderthals when the homosapiens arrived - they didn't live in co-operation, even though they were very similar. even back to 500 years (or this year?) humans haven't treated other humans well (colonization)
won't be pleasant for the losers. -- joseph m rosen
08:30 - highlighted/coloured nerve cells - can see them working
04:45 - replacing part of the biological brain with microchip. inputs & outputs still work the same
06:45 - using these computer chip-brain replacements now for sound recognition - to recognise sounds of gunshots which make a camera zoom in on the sound - crime stopper cameras in high crime areas. member of the black community says that they are being watched whereas white community areas are not
01:30 fit onto a cd rom - 600Mb I bet that's all you need to copy a person
03:25 scientists can move a single atom from one place to another
05:50 they want to build nanobots (low number of atoms devices with computers more powerful than today) - inject them into the human body eg bloodstream to kill cancer cells, modify dna, etc
06:15 basic goal of nanotechnology is to build an assembler (auto-assembler) - a very basic device, that can build copies of itself
06:50 molecular nanotechnology is to physical reality what computer programming is to virtual reality. .. bit of an exaggeration, but gives the idea.. whereas computer programmers can program software to do what they want, molecular nanotechnology will allow us to change matter at the most fundamental level. it will allow us to build just about any kind of structure, to our exact specifications by moving individual atoms. ... this sounds like a world of magic(k) where all that we imagined becomes reality but the role of the good fairy is taken over by robots so miniscule that we cannot see them. (background images of Cinderella where pumpkin changes into a coach) and instead of saying the magic word, we program them to grant all our wishes.
>> myths, dreams & fairy tales - the human premonition of what we will one day create. or if not premonition, the imagination of what we want to create?
07:40 the other side of the fairy tale is what is called the "grey goo syndrome" - nanobots programmed for terrorist action or rapidly start reproducing themselves & a chain reaction causes planet to be reduced in 72hours into a grey goo of swarming nanobots
08:00 most scientists think that "grey goo syndrome" is very unlikely - we will have nanotechnology to control nanotechnology.
>> the "watchdog" - who's watching the watchdog??
00:00 this is not the end of history. becoming post-human creates new problems. still have same personality problems as before. you're just going to be "more" than you were before. you'll have more power. with more power comes more responsibility.
Philip K Dick said in his paper "How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later" that "two certain matters absolutely fascinate me, and that I write about them all the time. The two basic topics that fascinate me are "What is reality?" and "What constitutes the authentic human being?" Over the twenty-seven years in which I have published novels and stories I have investigated those two interrelated topics over and over again. I consider them important topics. What are we? What is it that surrounds us, that we call the not-me, or the empirical or phenomenal world?"
great questions and ones which I'm sure many people have wondered.
podcasts that are available for download - start with the lectures titled "Light of the New Millenium - Chicago/Austin"...both are quite different and cover a good spectrum of his "take" on things.
Gnosticism is one of the most potent, complex, and misunderstood elements of western esoteric spirituality. Rooted in the apocalyptic era of early Christianity, gnostic mysticism animates hermeticism, alchemy, and magick, and has profoundly influenced modern pop culture as well (Philip K. Dick, The Matrix, even Scientology). Because gnosticism is rooted in direct experience of the divine, it remains open to many different interpretations; scholars bicker about it constantly.
This class proposes to study a few of the most accessible and transformative gnostic texts, both ancient and modern, and to bring their tricky wisdom to bear on the state of consciousness today. In addition to online discussion threads, the course will feature weekly podcasts from Erik Davis, a celebrated speaker, as well as a few group voice-over-IP chats. Modestly-sized texts will include ancient gnostic gospels as well as accessible scholarly interpretations and modern short stories.
a quick look at my mumbai hotel room, plus one of the quirks of Indian hotels - I'm not really complaining about them, it's almost a 'game' to work out / discover what's missing each night (yes, small things amuse me - sometimes there's not a lot to do in hotel rooms on business trips :)
I stayed in india for almost a year in 2006 then lived in other countries and forgot some of the quirks, or rather differences here compared to home, so this video just mentions a couple so I can trigger my memory again - notes to self really. I know I shouldn't think these sorts of things are a big deal & i don't really, especially when I think about how some of the people are living outside, and here I am talking about missing towels... & most of these things are very stereotypical. if I was reading them on someone else's blog I'd wonder what the big deal is. so perhaps in writing them down / videoing them it's like therapy for myself to enforce that things are just different - no better, or no worse in than home. I'm hoping they'll be a future reminder / wake up call for me to remember how lucky I am and what a priviledged life I lead and to try stop being so consumer centric when I get home and get comfy in home life again and these memories fade. the people here are really nice - some of the nicest I've ever met, and that's more important than these quirks in the end.
things like crossing the road and almost getting hit by cars every time - at least for the first couple of weeks till you get used to it then you don't notice any more and have no fear and walk in between cars & rickshaws & their traffic tetris driving skills - every day could be your last here! you get used to it and don't notice after a while, until you go away then come back. the pace is different, the value of life is different. things happen here that don't happen elsewhere.
today we had lunch at a hotel restaurant (they have better hygene standards so there's less chance of getting sick afterwards). I had a toasted cheese & tomato sandwich and some chips (thin french fries). they put tomato sauce in a little container on the table, so I spooned some onto my plate to dip. after we'd finished, I noticed they cleared the plates, but put the tomato sauce container into the cupboard where the menus are kept - I think they might reuse it for other people! this isn't probably the end of the world, but then I remembered I sacrificed my tomato sauce & mustard containers to a family of flies during lunch at the hotel pool on the weekend. there were too many flies around as I was outside and it was really hot. so I pushed the sauces over to the edge of the table and the flies went for them instead of my food (obviously I wasn't having the sauces). so I remembered this and thought "oh no, I hope they don't reuse the sauces at the hotel I'm staying at or someone's (possibly me!) is going to be dipping in sauces that flies have been walking in & eating from" - & u never know where the flies have been before that as there's plenty of horrid things for them to crawl in by the side of the road!! I had sauce tonight, but I gave it a good checking over first. I'm sure it's not reused, but when you see things like that it brings out the worst thoughts in your mind!
it's just the little things in life.
back to the video - then I show the books found in the drawers here - the Gideon Holy Bible which is pretty standard in most hotels, except those I stayed in Jerusalem which had the Torah / Tanhk instead. and the Bhagavad-gita - which is the Hare Krishna book on krsna consciousness - this is the 'as it is' version ie non-interpreted Indian version, presented 'as is'. I like the pictures :) I've been reading this out loud and recording it tonight. it's strange reading out loud - I hardly ever hear my voice, only the voice in my head reading. my pronounciations are shocking! especially of the sanskrit words (or perhaps they're hindi? I'm not sure) I thought reading out loud might help with that.
and yes, I do understand and can see the irony in posting about quirks here and then reading the krsna consciousness writings & philosophy
VloMo08 : day18 - hotel quirks + (hare) krsna consciousness
I just saw the email for the upcoming Maybe Logic Academy courses - there's another by Douglas Rushkoff called Corporatized - An Alternative To Corporatism & Beyond coming up in January 2009 - scheduled for 6 weeks from January 12 to February 22. his last class "Technologies of Persuasion - From Propaganda to Paranoia" was great - the class was very popular and had a lot of people in it. the first few weeks moved really quickly, by the last few weeks it was running at a slower pace so I could try and catch up. I was doing the The Crazy Wisdom of Philip K. Dick class with Erik Davis at the same time, so I was running behind on the Rushkoff class as the PKD class was so interesting! Fingers crossed there might be another PKD class with Erik Davis too - I asked and they said Maybe! (excuse the pun :)
I think Rushkoff's new class will be really interesting, especially as in the Persuasion class he mentioned his thoughts on the global economy and how we should be using a different 'money' system & alternative currencies. He's written many books, and columns with newspapers such as New York Times & Guardian of London. He now also writes for Arthur Magazine, which I think in some ways has taken over from where Mondo 2000 and previously Reality Hackers magazines started. Arthur No. 29, May 2008 has one of his articles, Riding out the Credit Crisis which I think was very timely considering the state of economic affairs around the globe now with some regions stating they are in a recession. this month's Arthur # 31 - October 2008 has another article by Rushkoff called "No Money Down" (pages 26-27) which is worth a read too - the pdf's are available to download on their site (part A has this article). he also has a forum on his site where some of the discussions can take place & continue from previous (and I'm assuming future) MLA courses, boing boing posts, Arthur articles and his books.
from Riding out the Credit Crisis : "Whatever the case, the best thing you can do to protect yourself and your interests is to make friends. The more we are willing to do for each other on our own terms and for compensation that doesn’t necessarily involve the until-recently-almighty dollar, the less vulnerable we are to the movements of markets that, quite frankly, have nothing to do with us."
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"Think small. Buy local. Make friends. Print money. Grow food. Teach children. Learn nutrition. And if you do have money to invest, put it into whatever lets you and your friends do those things."
"A Celebration of the 70th Anniversary of Alan Turing's Seminal Paper "On Computable Numbers" featuring a debate on the limits of intelligent machines and a lecture on Turing's contributions."
