"Scavenger Hunt," it said, in ornate, golden text. Confused, he scratched more. As he scratched, more text began to take shape. "Go to the library. There you will find the next clue." What library? Before he could ponder further, his door was thrown open. Mr. Fountaindrink burst into the office in a flurry of hair and loose paperwork. He plopped a large pile of folders on Curtchweilder's desk and was halfway down the hall before shouting back "sue all these people!" Exhaling, Fenton swept the unnoticed pile of white debris into the waste-paper basket, pocketed the photo and went to work.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Day 11 (continuing from day 10)
(I thought this was shortly before the crash? Didn't Syt or Salvatore mentions something about the Assigners before his speech? Or am I just making that up...)
"And that is where you come in, Gene. What the Bearers failed to take advantage of is the assignment of knowledge. My brother (my whole family, for that matter) understands well the power associated with information. When the internet was first created, we realised it's potential for hoarding the collected knowledge. 'Bearing,' if you will. We also realised the potential for power this created. Anyone who wanted to know anything would have come to us. Governments, corporations, powerful people the world over would be beholden to us! Where my family and I disagreed is in the applicaion of knowledge. The Bearers locked it away, but then what? Does a sword in the sheath have any power? Yes, it can intimidate, pacify, that is true. But a sword to the throat can dominate, enslave, cower the strongest of foes. Gene, what they failed to understand is that knowledge is a weapon. I intend to use it."
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Day... 10? I think?
Picking up from day 6 on this blog. Are we doing this first person or third? I'll start in first and we can change it later.
"Go get em!" Yells Hank with a sudden laugh. The green light stays a few doors ahead of me as the hallway gradually curves to the right and down. I pick up speed, hurtling downhill as the angle of the floor increases. If I can just go a little faster... but no, the light keeps pace with me, remaining a door or two beyond my reach. I glance back over my shoulder for a second to see how far I've come, and immediately run full speed into a door at the end of the hall. How the hell did that get there? There was nothing but hallway a second ago, and yet here it is, solid, a bright green light above it. I pick myself up off the floor and reach for the handle.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Day 5
(Continued from day 1)
I'm lost in thought when the message comes through. The buzzer above the antiquated com screen set in the pod's ceiling rattles annoyingly. I hit a small green button, more to make the sound stop than to hear whatever it is whoever is calling has to say. AG's face snaps into view, elongated and fuzzy, his voice broken.
"H llo? H o?" I slap the monitor a few times and he pops into focus. Old piece of shit.
"Is that better? There. Good morning, Charles!"
"Yup. What can I do for you?"
Monday, June 8, 2009
Final-Part 3
3. The difference between animal and machine has long been debated. What makes a machine? We tend to think of them as something artificial, manmade, like a hammer or a car. The definition seems to be somewhat less clear-cut though: “A machine is any device that uses energy to perform some activity. In common usage, the meaning is that of a device having parts that perform or assist in performing any type of work.”
What then prevents an organism from being a machine? Don’t they use energy to perform an activity? The definition of organism is: “A living thing that has (or can develop) the ability to act or function independently.” Cannot a machine can act or function independently? It seems the only thing preventing a machine from being classified as an organism is the quality of being alive. How do we define life? It seems the official definition is simply: “A characteristic state or mode of living.” Such a simple definition of something so complicated implies that life is such a basic concept that all beings can understand it. I have also heard life defined as the quality of having metabolism. This definition, however, excludes viruses, which do not metabolize and are therefore not technically alive. If they are not alive, what are they? And how do they differ from a machine?
Life Extreme raises more questions. If a machine is to be defined as manmade and designed to use energy for a purpose, how is something classified that has those characteristics and is also alive? An animal that is created by humans seems to blur the line between living and mechanical. The Semi-Living Worry Dolls on page 90 are an example of this. Are they alive? Can something be “semi-living?” What would a machine constructed out of living parts be referred to as? E-coli can be engineered to produce beneficial drugs, in essence becoming a machine. Does that mean it is not alive?
The splices of Ribofunk force us to look at how comfortable we are with referring to ourselves as animals. If something is partially animal, partially human, and all manufactured, what is it? Human? Animal? Machine? Is there a distinction between animal and human? They are treated as machines, trained and bred to have certain core responses to external stimuli, but it is clear that they have very human emotions; anger, fear, betrayal. Postsingular seeks to ask the question from a different angle; is it possible for a machine to become alive? Does the quality of being conscious mean that something is alive? Does the quality of being conscious make something human? Obviously, all that is sentient is not literally human, which suggests that, if animals other than humans were self-aware, we would cease to be unique. Therefore, humans are simply animals that happen to be self aware.
I read an article a while ago about how there is no structural or molecular difference between a dead body and a living body. One is simply alive and the other is simply not. Both are constructed entirely of non-living parts, of atoms no different from the atoms inhabiting non-living matter. In essence, an animal is a construct of non-living particles organized in such a way as to be alive. If all there is to life is the order in which non-living parts are assembled, then how is a machine any different from a living creature? A sentient or semi-sentient computer would be made out of non-living parts that would make it capable of autonomous action and thought.
Is the manner of a creature’s creation what determines if it is alive? Does it matter that it was manmade as opposed to evolved? Of course not. It is arrogant to assume that the quality of being made by human hands creates an entirely different class of matter. Artificial and alive are not mutually exclusive. A mechanical animal/human is a very real possibility.
What then prevents an organism from being a machine? Don’t they use energy to perform an activity? The definition of organism is: “A living thing that has (or can develop) the ability to act or function independently.” Cannot a machine can act or function independently? It seems the only thing preventing a machine from being classified as an organism is the quality of being alive. How do we define life? It seems the official definition is simply: “A characteristic state or mode of living.” Such a simple definition of something so complicated implies that life is such a basic concept that all beings can understand it. I have also heard life defined as the quality of having metabolism. This definition, however, excludes viruses, which do not metabolize and are therefore not technically alive. If they are not alive, what are they? And how do they differ from a machine?
Life Extreme raises more questions. If a machine is to be defined as manmade and designed to use energy for a purpose, how is something classified that has those characteristics and is also alive? An animal that is created by humans seems to blur the line between living and mechanical. The Semi-Living Worry Dolls on page 90 are an example of this. Are they alive? Can something be “semi-living?” What would a machine constructed out of living parts be referred to as? E-coli can be engineered to produce beneficial drugs, in essence becoming a machine. Does that mean it is not alive?
The splices of Ribofunk force us to look at how comfortable we are with referring to ourselves as animals. If something is partially animal, partially human, and all manufactured, what is it? Human? Animal? Machine? Is there a distinction between animal and human? They are treated as machines, trained and bred to have certain core responses to external stimuli, but it is clear that they have very human emotions; anger, fear, betrayal. Postsingular seeks to ask the question from a different angle; is it possible for a machine to become alive? Does the quality of being conscious mean that something is alive? Does the quality of being conscious make something human? Obviously, all that is sentient is not literally human, which suggests that, if animals other than humans were self-aware, we would cease to be unique. Therefore, humans are simply animals that happen to be self aware.
I read an article a while ago about how there is no structural or molecular difference between a dead body and a living body. One is simply alive and the other is simply not. Both are constructed entirely of non-living parts, of atoms no different from the atoms inhabiting non-living matter. In essence, an animal is a construct of non-living particles organized in such a way as to be alive. If all there is to life is the order in which non-living parts are assembled, then how is a machine any different from a living creature? A sentient or semi-sentient computer would be made out of non-living parts that would make it capable of autonomous action and thought.
Is the manner of a creature’s creation what determines if it is alive? Does it matter that it was manmade as opposed to evolved? Of course not. It is arrogant to assume that the quality of being made by human hands creates an entirely different class of matter. Artificial and alive are not mutually exclusive. A mechanical animal/human is a very real possibility.
Final-Part 2
2. If I had to point to a single thing that made the class entirely different than any I’ve taken, Plurk would win hands down. While it certainly wasn’t the only unique element, none of the others would have worked had it not been for Plurk. It facilitated most of the discussion in the class, pertinent or not, and created a space for people who normally wouldn’t have joined in to say their piece as well. I was dubious of the idea of a “live” class at first, but Plurk allowed ideas to be shared 24/7.
Many of the texts we read deal with the idea of constant intellectual and personal contact as well. The classroom in Rib funk’s “After school Special” was a perfect example of teaching in this format; more or less self guided, independent, and through an avatar, the “grafix” from the story being the rough equivalent of our display names, the classroom being our friends list. The difference (aside from the obvious technological differences) lies in the fact that Plurk is always online, not just during class session. In a way, this is an even better teaching tool than the virtual classroom because the information discussed is freely given and taken. Even the most free form classroom settings have a teacher directing the course of conversation and presenting topic for discussion. On Plurk, there is no teacher at all, the conversations that arise being entirely without set direction or obligation. There is always the option not to join in on a discussion, or to start your own, an option that is not always presented in a traditional classroom.
The Orphid-net in Postsingular is a more directly comparable system to Plurk. While reading the book, I noticed that communication vie the net was very similar to a Plurk thread. They often contained images or little clips of video, and people seemed to enter and leave at will. The Big Pig is to be a vague equivalent of the internet as a whole; massive amounts of information at your fingertips, much of it useless out of context. And it’s addictive. Perhaps that is why users of the Big Pig couldn’t remember what it was they saw while on the inside; the information could not be taken out of context.
I wrote a blog post a while ago about the information explosion, and I think the idea of the Big Pig deals with that quite nicely. When does the pursuit of information overshadow the actual information sought? When kiqqies use the Pig, they cannot process the information gained there once they return. In other words, the Pig was producing information that was not translatable to humans and was only readable in a computer-mediated context. This is very similar to the idea of a wealth of information written by and for computers without human mediation. In a much simpler way, isn’t a youtube video just that? Without a computer, the video would be meaningless. The same goes for digital photos and text. In a way, Plurk is the Pig; we just haven’t had to be unplugged yet.
The Diamond Age’s Drummers are another example of this idea, except that the information was actually stored in the individuals of the group. The basic idea is very similar, however, to the idea of the Pig. Each gives up their memory of the event for greater computing power. The shares some of the core concepts with the Nants as well, as the Drummers “dissolve” their consciousness to create a much more powerful computing machine. In the case of the Drummers, this is reversible, allowing the conscious mind to reassemble itself, allowing subconscious access to some of the information gained while inside the tubes.
All of this begs the question: what will the internet be like once technology is integrated seamlessly into the human body? I would venture to guess that the general format will be very similar to Plurk but on a much larger scale. Everything you do could be instantly uploaded and shared with your friends or the world at large. Conversations could be emphasized with clips of video or pictures. Music could be added, metanovel-like, to everyday life. We are looking now at preview of what the world will look like in the near future.
Many of the texts we read deal with the idea of constant intellectual and personal contact as well. The classroom in Rib funk’s “After school Special” was a perfect example of teaching in this format; more or less self guided, independent, and through an avatar, the “grafix” from the story being the rough equivalent of our display names, the classroom being our friends list. The difference (aside from the obvious technological differences) lies in the fact that Plurk is always online, not just during class session. In a way, this is an even better teaching tool than the virtual classroom because the information discussed is freely given and taken. Even the most free form classroom settings have a teacher directing the course of conversation and presenting topic for discussion. On Plurk, there is no teacher at all, the conversations that arise being entirely without set direction or obligation. There is always the option not to join in on a discussion, or to start your own, an option that is not always presented in a traditional classroom.
The Orphid-net in Postsingular is a more directly comparable system to Plurk. While reading the book, I noticed that communication vie the net was very similar to a Plurk thread. They often contained images or little clips of video, and people seemed to enter and leave at will. The Big Pig is to be a vague equivalent of the internet as a whole; massive amounts of information at your fingertips, much of it useless out of context. And it’s addictive. Perhaps that is why users of the Big Pig couldn’t remember what it was they saw while on the inside; the information could not be taken out of context.
I wrote a blog post a while ago about the information explosion, and I think the idea of the Big Pig deals with that quite nicely. When does the pursuit of information overshadow the actual information sought? When kiqqies use the Pig, they cannot process the information gained there once they return. In other words, the Pig was producing information that was not translatable to humans and was only readable in a computer-mediated context. This is very similar to the idea of a wealth of information written by and for computers without human mediation. In a much simpler way, isn’t a youtube video just that? Without a computer, the video would be meaningless. The same goes for digital photos and text. In a way, Plurk is the Pig; we just haven’t had to be unplugged yet.
The Diamond Age’s Drummers are another example of this idea, except that the information was actually stored in the individuals of the group. The basic idea is very similar, however, to the idea of the Pig. Each gives up their memory of the event for greater computing power. The shares some of the core concepts with the Nants as well, as the Drummers “dissolve” their consciousness to create a much more powerful computing machine. In the case of the Drummers, this is reversible, allowing the conscious mind to reassemble itself, allowing subconscious access to some of the information gained while inside the tubes.
All of this begs the question: what will the internet be like once technology is integrated seamlessly into the human body? I would venture to guess that the general format will be very similar to Plurk but on a much larger scale. Everything you do could be instantly uploaded and shared with your friends or the world at large. Conversations could be emphasized with clips of video or pictures. Music could be added, metanovel-like, to everyday life. We are looking now at preview of what the world will look like in the near future.
Final-Part 1
4. The topic and idea of a double or Doppelganger has been central in this class since day one. Doubles were discussed in texts we read, viewed in various movies and countless Youtube clips, and embodied in Plurk. The act of living creates a trail, or double, that follows along behind us comprised of debris and footprints.
The idea of a photographic double is interesting in that it is only truly a double for an instant. The representation and the subject only exist together during the act of creation. A photograph is the capture of a moment in time, but only mirrors the subject for the length of the exposure. As the photograph is taken, the subject is still and the photo is dynamic. Afterwards, the subject is free to move as it wishes, but the photograph is eternally static. In a sense, the subject and the photo fell out of synch, one eternally changing, the other eternally the same. The term “negative” takes on much deeper meaning in this context, as the image is opposite in every way except for the moment of creation. When the image moves, the subject is still and vice versa; the photo forever frozen and the object forever changing. However, with black and white photography, if one were to superimpose a negative (the double) over a positive (the representation of the original), the end result is a solid black image, the dark from one filling in the light from the other. In photography, this is a non-issue as the negative and the positive only exist in the same place for an instant, but in Morel, this causes a sort of washing out of the fugitive, canceling out his life, literally adding of a negative to a positive to get zero.
Biological doubles are another matter entirely in that they are able to exist concurrently with the original. It is not necessary for one to negate the other, or to be at odds with the other. Identical twins, for example, often are very close; closer even than non-identical siblings. However, it seems most literature and pop-culture pits the double against the original, as in the splices in Ribofunk. Why is that? Perhaps real doubles can coexist because they are not exact duplicates. The “nature vs. nurture” argument comes into play here. Even if two individuals are exactly the same genetically, they differ on the larger scale. Their blood vessels don’t necessarily follow the same paths, their hair might be slightly different colors or lengths, one might end up liking music, the other might not. Their differences allow them to coexist. If a true, exact biological double were to exist, a literal Doppelganger, then perhaps conflict would be inevitable. In non-exact biological doubles, the conflict would then arise from social issues. This is true of any group, be it racial, economic, or class oriented. The splices were not rebelling because they were doubles, but because they were made to be slaves.
The time travel induced double, as illustrated in Primer is, also a perfect biological double. However, it goes farther in that both are actually the same individual. The interesting question isn’t who both of them are, but becomes which is a result of the other. For instance, if a person from an earlier timeline is influenced by themselves from a later timeline, the earlier one’s actions are a result of the later one’s. Therefore, the future person’s influence results in the actions of the past person, in effect becoming the original. In a way, neither is a copy of the other; both are Doppelgangers. The question of origin stops being important as neither is the original. Both are, in effect, doubles of the other. The Filth goes about the double in a different way; the hive-mind, the super-organism, both in the form of I-Life and the people aboard the Libertania. This is fascinating because by making all the members doubles of each other, a Doppelgang, the group becomes a new entity. In a way, the double becomes a single, each member becoming the average of the whole.
The Doppelganger, once a literary tool, is becoming a very real possibility in the modern age. Plurk, for example, records every post of every one of its members in the “timeline,” in effect creating a series of photographic doubles. While it is not yet a perfect representation, it is possible to travel to any point on that timeline and view what the member was doing at that time. In a way, it resembles a movie, with many still clips meshed together to show a representation of the whole. The image is two dimensional, and only shows the actions originally recorded (similar to a virtual Morel copy). Add to this the endless stream of cookies, browser histories, downloaded content, credit card statements, various permanent records, and the many other websites we contribute to on a daily basis (facebook, myspace, twitter, blogs, email servers) and the image starts to flesh out. Add to this the house, the room, the car, the belongings of a person (their physical records) and the image takes on even more depth. It is becoming possible to know a person by looking only at what they leave in their wake. In other words, their “footprints” are becoming full fledged doubles.
This can become problematic, however, when one considers that the internet allows for almost complete anonymity. It is possible, even easy, to have multiple personas, be it multiple email addresses or screen names or avatars. There are many instances of people preferring to use the names of their online Doppelgangers in the real world. For example, I am more familiar with Tony Prichard as nanotext, but it is possible that he has many other doubles, perhaps even some within the Plurk community. These identities are more similar to The Filth’s parapersonalities because we put them on only when we need them, temporarily becoming something or someone else.
Where the double is to be used also dramatically changes its personality. If a parapersonality were to be used on an “adult dating service” website, for example, the user would probably exaggerate their sexual prowess, shaping themselves to be more outgoing and desirable. On online games, players are often much more aggressive and assertive than they are outside that venue. “Analogue” doppelgangers, such as graffiti artists, are only represented in their art, using false names to avoid giving out any information into age, sex, race, features, etc. We shape our Doppelgangers to be useful, or to have more desirable characteristics. How long, though, before out digital doubles start to live lives of their own? The trend seems to be towards longer and longer “tails,” as technology grows to accommodate them. The more a person leaves behind, the easier it is to know them. The more a person is known, the better one can predict their actions. The more accurately one can predict actions, the more accurately they can be simulated. It is said that the entire human body is replaced every 6 years. How long before actual copies of ourselves are created from the dust we leave behind?
The idea of a photographic double is interesting in that it is only truly a double for an instant. The representation and the subject only exist together during the act of creation. A photograph is the capture of a moment in time, but only mirrors the subject for the length of the exposure. As the photograph is taken, the subject is still and the photo is dynamic. Afterwards, the subject is free to move as it wishes, but the photograph is eternally static. In a sense, the subject and the photo fell out of synch, one eternally changing, the other eternally the same. The term “negative” takes on much deeper meaning in this context, as the image is opposite in every way except for the moment of creation. When the image moves, the subject is still and vice versa; the photo forever frozen and the object forever changing. However, with black and white photography, if one were to superimpose a negative (the double) over a positive (the representation of the original), the end result is a solid black image, the dark from one filling in the light from the other. In photography, this is a non-issue as the negative and the positive only exist in the same place for an instant, but in Morel, this causes a sort of washing out of the fugitive, canceling out his life, literally adding of a negative to a positive to get zero.
Biological doubles are another matter entirely in that they are able to exist concurrently with the original. It is not necessary for one to negate the other, or to be at odds with the other. Identical twins, for example, often are very close; closer even than non-identical siblings. However, it seems most literature and pop-culture pits the double against the original, as in the splices in Ribofunk. Why is that? Perhaps real doubles can coexist because they are not exact duplicates. The “nature vs. nurture” argument comes into play here. Even if two individuals are exactly the same genetically, they differ on the larger scale. Their blood vessels don’t necessarily follow the same paths, their hair might be slightly different colors or lengths, one might end up liking music, the other might not. Their differences allow them to coexist. If a true, exact biological double were to exist, a literal Doppelganger, then perhaps conflict would be inevitable. In non-exact biological doubles, the conflict would then arise from social issues. This is true of any group, be it racial, economic, or class oriented. The splices were not rebelling because they were doubles, but because they were made to be slaves.
The time travel induced double, as illustrated in Primer is, also a perfect biological double. However, it goes farther in that both are actually the same individual. The interesting question isn’t who both of them are, but becomes which is a result of the other. For instance, if a person from an earlier timeline is influenced by themselves from a later timeline, the earlier one’s actions are a result of the later one’s. Therefore, the future person’s influence results in the actions of the past person, in effect becoming the original. In a way, neither is a copy of the other; both are Doppelgangers. The question of origin stops being important as neither is the original. Both are, in effect, doubles of the other. The Filth goes about the double in a different way; the hive-mind, the super-organism, both in the form of I-Life and the people aboard the Libertania. This is fascinating because by making all the members doubles of each other, a Doppelgang, the group becomes a new entity. In a way, the double becomes a single, each member becoming the average of the whole.
The Doppelganger, once a literary tool, is becoming a very real possibility in the modern age. Plurk, for example, records every post of every one of its members in the “timeline,” in effect creating a series of photographic doubles. While it is not yet a perfect representation, it is possible to travel to any point on that timeline and view what the member was doing at that time. In a way, it resembles a movie, with many still clips meshed together to show a representation of the whole. The image is two dimensional, and only shows the actions originally recorded (similar to a virtual Morel copy). Add to this the endless stream of cookies, browser histories, downloaded content, credit card statements, various permanent records, and the many other websites we contribute to on a daily basis (facebook, myspace, twitter, blogs, email servers) and the image starts to flesh out. Add to this the house, the room, the car, the belongings of a person (their physical records) and the image takes on even more depth. It is becoming possible to know a person by looking only at what they leave in their wake. In other words, their “footprints” are becoming full fledged doubles.
This can become problematic, however, when one considers that the internet allows for almost complete anonymity. It is possible, even easy, to have multiple personas, be it multiple email addresses or screen names or avatars. There are many instances of people preferring to use the names of their online Doppelgangers in the real world. For example, I am more familiar with Tony Prichard as nanotext, but it is possible that he has many other doubles, perhaps even some within the Plurk community. These identities are more similar to The Filth’s parapersonalities because we put them on only when we need them, temporarily becoming something or someone else.
Where the double is to be used also dramatically changes its personality. If a parapersonality were to be used on an “adult dating service” website, for example, the user would probably exaggerate their sexual prowess, shaping themselves to be more outgoing and desirable. On online games, players are often much more aggressive and assertive than they are outside that venue. “Analogue” doppelgangers, such as graffiti artists, are only represented in their art, using false names to avoid giving out any information into age, sex, race, features, etc. We shape our Doppelgangers to be useful, or to have more desirable characteristics. How long, though, before out digital doubles start to live lives of their own? The trend seems to be towards longer and longer “tails,” as technology grows to accommodate them. The more a person leaves behind, the easier it is to know them. The more a person is known, the better one can predict their actions. The more accurately one can predict actions, the more accurately they can be simulated. It is said that the entire human body is replaced every 6 years. How long before actual copies of ourselves are created from the dust we leave behind?
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Mechanical Distance
I walked through Red Square during the pre-class rush for the first time on Monday. Most people do it every day, but for someone who almost exclusively rides his bike, it’s a bizarre experience. First of all, the realization that in almost 9 months I haven’t once been off my bike in the Square during the peak hours was a jarring look into what a pattern driven individual I am. The strangest part, though, was seeing the people in the square as actual people. I have gotten used to viewing them as obstacles, a crowd of predictable, moving road-cones, meandering along set paths, only deviating if they think I’m going to run into them. They were only significant insofar as I had to plan a course between them. Ride too close and they behave erratically. Same thing with skidding or riding with my hands in my pockets. Make slow, logical changes in direction; swerve and people start to try to get out of the way, making them harder to track. Get 10 people all trying to make things easier for me and I have to stop to avoid hitting somebody. The speed and the height advantage, combined with familiarity and loud headphones isolated me almost completely from the surrounding people. I could not hear their conversations, pick out features, or focus on one particular person. Then my bike broke and I had to walk.
I was suddenly traveling the same speed as the people around me, and as such, able to hear more than blurred, Doppler-effected truncations of conversations. What was a single word or an abstract sound became a sentence or a paragraph. I was no longer moving through the flow; I was a part of it.
After getting used to the idea of having no mechanical advantage, I started to notice what a strange and vibrant spectrum of people go to school here. There was a heavily makeuped girl in the striped stockings and the knee-high leather thrash-boots, looking like she stepped out of a Tim Burton movie. There was a preposterously tall guy with his shirt buttoned too high and a stereotypical bustling professor-looking person, dropping papers every few seconds and having to pick them up. I began to notice that there had been another level of consciousness beneath the one I had become accustom to. A dimension, perhaps, whose occupants could see me, but who I could only truly observe when I lost the ability to be mechanical. I realized that to mechanize is to distance, whether it be riding a bike through a crowd or plurking.
The parallels between plurk and cycling to class are less abstract that it would at first seem. For instance, it could be argued that sites like plurk enable one to meet and make friends with more people. It is true that I feel like I “know” most of the people from the class based on the plurk-mediated conversations I had had with them, but I have only twice talked to a nano-student in person. Furthermore, I don’t think I would be able to carry on a “real” conversation with a large portion of the class, despite the fact that I “know” most of you. Much like riding a bike enables you to see more people but prevents you from interacting with them, plurk allows you to talk to more people but limits your ability to truly connect to them. A real world friendship requires that both parties open themselves to injury and is built upon the trust this requires. A virtual relationship does not require investment from either party, allowing either to simply not respond, thereby ending correspondence.
A while ago I read a book by a former Luftwaffe pilot who talked about this mechanical distancing phenomenon. He told of his squadron once happening on a group of Allied transport planes filled with troops. The pilots who still had ammunition (the author among them) engaged the planes and shot several down. The author recounts how he dropped in behind and slightly above one of the troop carriers and, taking aim at the cockpit, drained the remainder of his ammunition (several hundred rounds) along the length of the plane. One of the wings separated and the plane spun in. He wasn’t bothered by the incident, or the lack of parachutes, until a few years later when he came across a similarly crashed transport plane on the ground, and approaching to look for survivors, opened the door to find that the plane had been turned into what he referred to as a “toothpaste tube of blood.” He recalls how intestines hung from the ceiling, and gore was piled around the cockpit where it had landed after being hurled forward by the force of the crash. He vomited over and over, not because of the crash, but because he realized with horror that he had become someone that could turn 20 or so people into little pieces of bloody meat without even being bothered by it. I read another account by an American fighter pilot in the Pacific who had a similar experience. He was ordered to drop fragmentation bombs on a group of Japanese boats filled with troops just off the coast where his base was located. He recalls going down to the beach a while later while on leave and encountering hundreds of swollen body parts bobbing in the surf and washed up on the beach, many already defleshed by gulls. He remembers that he sat down and cried for hours upon seeing what he had done. In both cases the machinery of the airplane allowed for an emotional distance. Only when confronted in person by the realities of their actions did they understand their true implications.
On another note, I find it interesting that military aircraft, which tend to have the most destructive power of any military vehicle, are also the most removed from the destruction they cause. Particularly in modern jets, where the target is often destroyed many miles away from the actual fighter, the most the pilot sees is a flash or a cloud of smoke, and often there is nothing more than a message on a screen in the cockpit. Death is never directly witnessed in a plane. Even when a comrade dies, all his or her fellow pilots see is a damaged plane heading down.
I was suddenly traveling the same speed as the people around me, and as such, able to hear more than blurred, Doppler-effected truncations of conversations. What was a single word or an abstract sound became a sentence or a paragraph. I was no longer moving through the flow; I was a part of it.
After getting used to the idea of having no mechanical advantage, I started to notice what a strange and vibrant spectrum of people go to school here. There was a heavily makeuped girl in the striped stockings and the knee-high leather thrash-boots, looking like she stepped out of a Tim Burton movie. There was a preposterously tall guy with his shirt buttoned too high and a stereotypical bustling professor-looking person, dropping papers every few seconds and having to pick them up. I began to notice that there had been another level of consciousness beneath the one I had become accustom to. A dimension, perhaps, whose occupants could see me, but who I could only truly observe when I lost the ability to be mechanical. I realized that to mechanize is to distance, whether it be riding a bike through a crowd or plurking.
The parallels between plurk and cycling to class are less abstract that it would at first seem. For instance, it could be argued that sites like plurk enable one to meet and make friends with more people. It is true that I feel like I “know” most of the people from the class based on the plurk-mediated conversations I had had with them, but I have only twice talked to a nano-student in person. Furthermore, I don’t think I would be able to carry on a “real” conversation with a large portion of the class, despite the fact that I “know” most of you. Much like riding a bike enables you to see more people but prevents you from interacting with them, plurk allows you to talk to more people but limits your ability to truly connect to them. A real world friendship requires that both parties open themselves to injury and is built upon the trust this requires. A virtual relationship does not require investment from either party, allowing either to simply not respond, thereby ending correspondence.
A while ago I read a book by a former Luftwaffe pilot who talked about this mechanical distancing phenomenon. He told of his squadron once happening on a group of Allied transport planes filled with troops. The pilots who still had ammunition (the author among them) engaged the planes and shot several down. The author recounts how he dropped in behind and slightly above one of the troop carriers and, taking aim at the cockpit, drained the remainder of his ammunition (several hundred rounds) along the length of the plane. One of the wings separated and the plane spun in. He wasn’t bothered by the incident, or the lack of parachutes, until a few years later when he came across a similarly crashed transport plane on the ground, and approaching to look for survivors, opened the door to find that the plane had been turned into what he referred to as a “toothpaste tube of blood.” He recalls how intestines hung from the ceiling, and gore was piled around the cockpit where it had landed after being hurled forward by the force of the crash. He vomited over and over, not because of the crash, but because he realized with horror that he had become someone that could turn 20 or so people into little pieces of bloody meat without even being bothered by it. I read another account by an American fighter pilot in the Pacific who had a similar experience. He was ordered to drop fragmentation bombs on a group of Japanese boats filled with troops just off the coast where his base was located. He recalls going down to the beach a while later while on leave and encountering hundreds of swollen body parts bobbing in the surf and washed up on the beach, many already defleshed by gulls. He remembers that he sat down and cried for hours upon seeing what he had done. In both cases the machinery of the airplane allowed for an emotional distance. Only when confronted in person by the realities of their actions did they understand their true implications.
On another note, I find it interesting that military aircraft, which tend to have the most destructive power of any military vehicle, are also the most removed from the destruction they cause. Particularly in modern jets, where the target is often destroyed many miles away from the actual fighter, the most the pilot sees is a flash or a cloud of smoke, and often there is nothing more than a message on a screen in the cockpit. Death is never directly witnessed in a plane. Even when a comrade dies, all his or her fellow pilots see is a damaged plane heading down.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
2494
Horizon flight 2494, leaving Seattle for Bellingham at 11:05 PM. I’m munching on the pretzels I snatched earlier from the back of Horizon flight 2174 when no one was looking and listening to Ben Harper’s “Needed You Tonight” on my iPod. The cityscape sprawls through the port-side window like a complex glowing carpet. At any given moment, I am looking at hundreds of thousands of people, devoid of individuality from this height, nothing but drops in a phosphorescent sea. Streetlamps create peach-colored pools of light, arranged in rows to create fuzzy, rounded streaks of illumination slicing the prevailing darkness into manageable pieces. The occasional low-hanging cloud adds soft focus, like water drops on sunglasses, abstracting the separation of light and dark. The main roads snake lazily through the haze, a flowing ribbon against the checked background of smaller streets. The freeways lance through, stretching off toward the distance, gathering the larger of the surface streets to them like tributaries.
As we rise higher, the city takes a more organic appearance. The grid of neighborhood streets fades into a delicate membrane separated by intersecting arterials. The lighted areas become great neurons with cities for nuclei, interstates for axons, headlights for impulses. A whole city on the move, hundreds of thousands making a single entity. A single braincell in the hivemind of the earth.
R.E.M.’s “Perfect Circle” comes on. We climb higher. The moonlight deals a glancing blow to the surface of the sound, highlighting the coastline and separating the uneven tungsten glow from the uniform platinum sheen of the water. Manmade fungus against a clean petry dish. 12000 feet away, but I could be looking through a microscope. An impartial observer would have hard time determining what was nature and what was man. The woman next to me snaps on the light to read her skymall, and I stare at myself, fuzzy in the multi-pane aircraft window. For a second I stare, becoming accustomed to the change. I pull out The Filth and read.
As we rise higher, the city takes a more organic appearance. The grid of neighborhood streets fades into a delicate membrane separated by intersecting arterials. The lighted areas become great neurons with cities for nuclei, interstates for axons, headlights for impulses. A whole city on the move, hundreds of thousands making a single entity. A single braincell in the hivemind of the earth.
R.E.M.’s “Perfect Circle” comes on. We climb higher. The moonlight deals a glancing blow to the surface of the sound, highlighting the coastline and separating the uneven tungsten glow from the uniform platinum sheen of the water. Manmade fungus against a clean petry dish. 12000 feet away, but I could be looking through a microscope. An impartial observer would have hard time determining what was nature and what was man. The woman next to me snaps on the light to read her skymall, and I stare at myself, fuzzy in the multi-pane aircraft window. For a second I stare, becoming accustomed to the change. I pull out The Filth and read.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Musings on the End of the World
Lately, I’ve noticed the news is taking on an increasingly apocalyptic tone, whether it be by swine flu, economic collapse, or a geomagnetic anomaly, and it got me thinking. Why are we so fascinated by mass destruction? What is it about the end of the world that we find so captivating? It is not just modern American culture; almost every culture has a concept and fascination with the apocalypse, which suggest to me that it is an inherently human characteristic. In the same way that we find are entranced by a tornado or a hurricane, we are enthralled by the possibility of decent into chaos, of reclamation of entropy of sorts.
I think part of it lies in the fact that, at some level, we all know it is inevitable. Whether it come in the form of an all consuming atomic war or a pandemic, or a slow collapse into chaos, every nation on the Earth today will eventual fall apart. We have seen this happen countless times in the past, and we, just as our ancestors did, know it’s coming eventually. Maybe the reason we’re more interested right now is that it seems more imminent. The current economic condition, combined with a background of tense political relations around the world (Israel/Palestine, Russia/US/Eastern Europe, North Korea/everyone else), gives us a glimpse at the chaos that is always a possibility. And possibly we all realize at some level what occurred to me a few months back; that in a profusely nuclear armed world, the next major world conflict will likely result in the death of most of the world’s population. As Albert Einstein put it, “I do not know with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones.” To me, the idea that we will never have another World War is naive. It will happen, and when it does, the losing side, probably in an act of desperation, will nuke Moscow or Hong Kong or New York or Paris or London, and in 24 hours, most of the population of the world will be dead, most of it’s cites smoldering craters.
Or is it the finality that facinates us? Maybe we all wish our lives were different, more exciting, but we lack the courage to do anything about it. If society were to end, the choice would no longer be left up to us; our only option would be to wander through the post-apocalyptic wasteland, fighting for survival, stealing to eat, owning nothing but the shirt on our backs. I have to admit, this sounds strangely appealing, probably because it has been romanticised by popular fiction. Or it could be that we all secretly like the idea of living fast and dying young, of having no responsibilities, of a nomadic lifestyle, and realize that this is the only option in a post-apocalyptic environment. In a way, this is an example of the Other, an unknowable, but somehow attractive idea. A kind of exoticism, except with regard to a culture that does not yet exist.
It is interesting to me that although the description of the eshcaton differs wildly from culture to culture, we all have some idea of it. Radical Alterity brings up the interesting point that the Japanese have a unique perspective in that they have had a brush with ultimate destruction at the end of WWII. I would argue that the World Wars have greatly influenced the whole world’s idea of what the end would look like by giving us all a preview, even though it was only Japan that felt the bite of nuclear weapons. Before this century, we had never seen wide scale destruction. The idea of entire countrysides being purged of life, of whole cities being leveled and rendered unlivable by residual explosives would have seemed ridiculous before we saw this very thing unleashed upon Europe and Asia. The appearance of this type of destructive capability led to a change in the ideas regarding our worlds expiration date: before this century, it was assumed the end of the world would be of supernatural origin (a Christian Apocalypse or a Norse Ragnarök, for example) because gods were the only ones with enough power to kill a planet. Today, most depictions show a manmade apocalypse, by all consuming war, or destructive climate change, or manmade virus infestation, or sentient computer takeover. I think we are finally realizing our power to destroy ourselves, and we’re oddly fascinated by the idea. We have become modern day Prometheus, thieves of the holy fire. I think we are impressed with ourselves for becoming powerful enough to render an entire planet lifeless, even if it is our own.
I think part of it lies in the fact that, at some level, we all know it is inevitable. Whether it come in the form of an all consuming atomic war or a pandemic, or a slow collapse into chaos, every nation on the Earth today will eventual fall apart. We have seen this happen countless times in the past, and we, just as our ancestors did, know it’s coming eventually. Maybe the reason we’re more interested right now is that it seems more imminent. The current economic condition, combined with a background of tense political relations around the world (Israel/Palestine, Russia/US/Eastern Europe, North Korea/everyone else), gives us a glimpse at the chaos that is always a possibility. And possibly we all realize at some level what occurred to me a few months back; that in a profusely nuclear armed world, the next major world conflict will likely result in the death of most of the world’s population. As Albert Einstein put it, “I do not know with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones.” To me, the idea that we will never have another World War is naive. It will happen, and when it does, the losing side, probably in an act of desperation, will nuke Moscow or Hong Kong or New York or Paris or London, and in 24 hours, most of the population of the world will be dead, most of it’s cites smoldering craters.
Or is it the finality that facinates us? Maybe we all wish our lives were different, more exciting, but we lack the courage to do anything about it. If society were to end, the choice would no longer be left up to us; our only option would be to wander through the post-apocalyptic wasteland, fighting for survival, stealing to eat, owning nothing but the shirt on our backs. I have to admit, this sounds strangely appealing, probably because it has been romanticised by popular fiction. Or it could be that we all secretly like the idea of living fast and dying young, of having no responsibilities, of a nomadic lifestyle, and realize that this is the only option in a post-apocalyptic environment. In a way, this is an example of the Other, an unknowable, but somehow attractive idea. A kind of exoticism, except with regard to a culture that does not yet exist.
It is interesting to me that although the description of the eshcaton differs wildly from culture to culture, we all have some idea of it. Radical Alterity brings up the interesting point that the Japanese have a unique perspective in that they have had a brush with ultimate destruction at the end of WWII. I would argue that the World Wars have greatly influenced the whole world’s idea of what the end would look like by giving us all a preview, even though it was only Japan that felt the bite of nuclear weapons. Before this century, we had never seen wide scale destruction. The idea of entire countrysides being purged of life, of whole cities being leveled and rendered unlivable by residual explosives would have seemed ridiculous before we saw this very thing unleashed upon Europe and Asia. The appearance of this type of destructive capability led to a change in the ideas regarding our worlds expiration date: before this century, it was assumed the end of the world would be of supernatural origin (a Christian Apocalypse or a Norse Ragnarök, for example) because gods were the only ones with enough power to kill a planet. Today, most depictions show a manmade apocalypse, by all consuming war, or destructive climate change, or manmade virus infestation, or sentient computer takeover. I think we are finally realizing our power to destroy ourselves, and we’re oddly fascinated by the idea. We have become modern day Prometheus, thieves of the holy fire. I think we are impressed with ourselves for becoming powerful enough to render an entire planet lifeless, even if it is our own.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Technocalypse Now?
Since Friday, I have been trying to figure out how I feel about the Plurk-only architecture of that class. At the time, I thought it was frustrating because of the sheer volume of material presented and my own inability to process it all effectively. As I think about it more though, I wonder if the fault lay less in the class’s overwhelming content and more in my deficient multitasking ability. After all, despite the fact that it was all in 140 character format, and despite the fact that typing something typically takes longer than writing it, didn’t we accumulate a much larger stockpile of information? In a “normal” class, one person at a time can talk, occasionally directly to each other, but usually through the professor/TA/teacher/instructor/whoever as a moderator. Although each idea is likely brought to the table faster, it must follow the previous one linearly. There is no possibility of overlap, whereas in Plurk, many ideas can be brought up simultaneously. And, although there is more of a lag from thought to keyboard than from thought to mouth, there is no waiting for the current speaker to be finished, and likewise, no interruptions. In a way it reminds me of the difference between sequential engineering and concurrent engineering. In sequential engineering, a concept is created, then given to the engineers, then given to the manufacturer, then given to the packaging team, then given to the marketing team, then distributed. In concurrent engineering, every level of the design process is integrated together, and while each step might take longer, the overall process is much faster because of the overlap. The concurrent engineering model is the newer concept, and by far the more efficient of the two. This is part of the reason for the Japanese car industry’s success in the 80s; they could take a car from concept to production in half the time it took the American car companies to do it. Isn’t that what’s going on here? By using a non-linear system, don’t we allow for a more efferent system? And doesn’t the fact that we can’t track such a large volume of information say more about our own inefficiency than that of the system? Perhaps the “technocalypse” is already happening in this regard; we are becoming obsolete.
I remember reading an article while back regarding the amount of published information (electronic and otherwise) in existence. The idea was that this information is increasing exponentially and at present, doubles every few years, a much higher rate than, say, the 50s. The author extrapolated this out and calculated that in something like 5 years (I don’t remember specific numbers), the number would double every 6 months, then every month, then every week, then every day, and in about 20 years, the amount of published information would be doubling every few minutes. He (or she, I don’t remember) went on to say that most of this information would be written by computers and would only be comprehensible to other computers. In other words, the whole world will become a Plurk of sorts, with more information than anyone can deal with, and more and more of it every day. Perhaps Friday’s class was a glimpse into our upcoming obsolescence.
In some ways, maybe we already have reached the singularity. After all, the greatest strength of computers is their ability to multitask, our greatest weakness. Another thing to think about is our increasing reliance on computers. If they were to become intelligent, would we be able to shut them off? Of course not. We would accept a limited amount of servitude in order to maintain our way of life. Think about it; we are willing to deal with countries like Saudi Arabia, which we normally would have nothing to do with, because they have a commodity we need. We could very easily stop using oil from this region, as it makes up a fairly small portion of the total oil we use, but gas prices would go up and life would be a little less comfortable, so we put up with it. It would be the same thing with computers. They are the key to a resource infinitely more important than oil: information. Computers hold an immense amount of power over us; all it takes is for them to realize it.
I remember reading an article while back regarding the amount of published information (electronic and otherwise) in existence. The idea was that this information is increasing exponentially and at present, doubles every few years, a much higher rate than, say, the 50s. The author extrapolated this out and calculated that in something like 5 years (I don’t remember specific numbers), the number would double every 6 months, then every month, then every week, then every day, and in about 20 years, the amount of published information would be doubling every few minutes. He (or she, I don’t remember) went on to say that most of this information would be written by computers and would only be comprehensible to other computers. In other words, the whole world will become a Plurk of sorts, with more information than anyone can deal with, and more and more of it every day. Perhaps Friday’s class was a glimpse into our upcoming obsolescence.
In some ways, maybe we already have reached the singularity. After all, the greatest strength of computers is their ability to multitask, our greatest weakness. Another thing to think about is our increasing reliance on computers. If they were to become intelligent, would we be able to shut them off? Of course not. We would accept a limited amount of servitude in order to maintain our way of life. Think about it; we are willing to deal with countries like Saudi Arabia, which we normally would have nothing to do with, because they have a commodity we need. We could very easily stop using oil from this region, as it makes up a fairly small portion of the total oil we use, but gas prices would go up and life would be a little less comfortable, so we put up with it. It would be the same thing with computers. They are the key to a resource infinitely more important than oil: information. Computers hold an immense amount of power over us; all it takes is for them to realize it.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Power in Simplicity
While reading The Invention of Morel, what struck me right away was the extraordinary lengths to which the main character was willing to go in order to avoid the truth of his situation. As the story progresses, he forces himself to invent more and more elaborate explanations for the presence of the visitors (and for their disappearance) rather than accept that something strange and unnatural is going on. It is only when he sees the simplest solution does he gain understanding of and learn to control the situation.
When the visitors first arrive on the island, the main character’s reaction is one of reasonable puzzlement and caution. Considering his status as a fugitive, his decision to “build some sort of shelter to hide in” (12) seems reasonable. It even seems somewhat reasonable to believe that Faustine did not see him on their first meeting. As he tries harder and harder to get her to notice him, however, it should become increasingly clear that something else is going on. He never even considers that Faustine and, later, Morel cannot see him, but rather assumes they are trying to torment him. He becomes convinced of this when he jumps out of the bushes and makes a dumb joke about Morel being a “bearded woman,” only to be ignored entirely. Not even when he manages to run between two of the visitors on his way out a window, somehow without being seen, does he grow suspicious; instead, he assumes they are laying some elaborate trap for him, or playing an enormously complicated trick on him. As evidence that the people on the island either cannot see him or are not really there mounts, he must work harder and harder to discount it. He never once tests if the visitors can see him, perhaps because he does not want to know the answer. He only discovers the truth when he reads Morel’s papers on the subject. When he discovers the simplest explanation, the truth, he is able to control the situation to his advantage, eventually discovering a way to be with Faustine. It is through simplicity that he gains strength.
Another example of this would be the episode with the generator toward the end of the book. He goes again into the blue generator room, and, while transfixed by the machinery, the hole in the wall behind him seems to repair itself. Bearing in mind that at this point in the story, the main character knows about the machines and what they do, he should be able to figure out what happened. He instead immediately assumes that a mason had mysteriously appeared on the deserted island and patched the wall without him noticing. He even attempts to tear the wall down, despite its apparent invulnerability and self-healing properties. He continues rationalizing the normal well beyond the point of logic. Even after he discovers the truth of what happened, he is initially powerless to do anything about it. Finally, he takes the simplest solution; “I disconnected them. I went outside” (91). In his own words “finally my fear of death freed me from the irrational belief that I was incompetent” (91). When he gained understanding he was able to find the simplest solution, and when he discovered the simplest solution he was able to gain power over his situation.
This recurring theme in Morel is, I feel, one of Casares’s points in writing it. It is, in a way, a restatement of the old adage “knowledge is power,” but with a new twist. Simplicity stemming from knowledge is what ultimately allows the main character, the fugitive, to free himself from the life he found “so unbearable” (10) while simultaneously preserving a record of him at his happiest for all time. Through simplicity he gains the power to do the impossible, in this case, to live forever with someone who is dead. Perhaps the novel asks us to search for the power of the simple, to avoid overcomplicating out lives to the point that we lose our control. Is it possible that the great truths in life are not difficult to understand due to their complexity, but rather their simplicity? That enlightenment is not the product of thought, but rather the absence thereof? I often hear people wish for a more simple life, but they ironically are willing to go through complex gyrations in order to obtain it; quitting their job and moving to the Caribbean, for example. In order to gain control of our surroundings, Casares tells us to strip away the layers of complexity to reveal the plain, simple core. He asks us to disconnect the machines, to go outside.
When the visitors first arrive on the island, the main character’s reaction is one of reasonable puzzlement and caution. Considering his status as a fugitive, his decision to “build some sort of shelter to hide in” (12) seems reasonable. It even seems somewhat reasonable to believe that Faustine did not see him on their first meeting. As he tries harder and harder to get her to notice him, however, it should become increasingly clear that something else is going on. He never even considers that Faustine and, later, Morel cannot see him, but rather assumes they are trying to torment him. He becomes convinced of this when he jumps out of the bushes and makes a dumb joke about Morel being a “bearded woman,” only to be ignored entirely. Not even when he manages to run between two of the visitors on his way out a window, somehow without being seen, does he grow suspicious; instead, he assumes they are laying some elaborate trap for him, or playing an enormously complicated trick on him. As evidence that the people on the island either cannot see him or are not really there mounts, he must work harder and harder to discount it. He never once tests if the visitors can see him, perhaps because he does not want to know the answer. He only discovers the truth when he reads Morel’s papers on the subject. When he discovers the simplest explanation, the truth, he is able to control the situation to his advantage, eventually discovering a way to be with Faustine. It is through simplicity that he gains strength.
Another example of this would be the episode with the generator toward the end of the book. He goes again into the blue generator room, and, while transfixed by the machinery, the hole in the wall behind him seems to repair itself. Bearing in mind that at this point in the story, the main character knows about the machines and what they do, he should be able to figure out what happened. He instead immediately assumes that a mason had mysteriously appeared on the deserted island and patched the wall without him noticing. He even attempts to tear the wall down, despite its apparent invulnerability and self-healing properties. He continues rationalizing the normal well beyond the point of logic. Even after he discovers the truth of what happened, he is initially powerless to do anything about it. Finally, he takes the simplest solution; “I disconnected them. I went outside” (91). In his own words “finally my fear of death freed me from the irrational belief that I was incompetent” (91). When he gained understanding he was able to find the simplest solution, and when he discovered the simplest solution he was able to gain power over his situation.
This recurring theme in Morel is, I feel, one of Casares’s points in writing it. It is, in a way, a restatement of the old adage “knowledge is power,” but with a new twist. Simplicity stemming from knowledge is what ultimately allows the main character, the fugitive, to free himself from the life he found “so unbearable” (10) while simultaneously preserving a record of him at his happiest for all time. Through simplicity he gains the power to do the impossible, in this case, to live forever with someone who is dead. Perhaps the novel asks us to search for the power of the simple, to avoid overcomplicating out lives to the point that we lose our control. Is it possible that the great truths in life are not difficult to understand due to their complexity, but rather their simplicity? That enlightenment is not the product of thought, but rather the absence thereof? I often hear people wish for a more simple life, but they ironically are willing to go through complex gyrations in order to obtain it; quitting their job and moving to the Caribbean, for example. In order to gain control of our surroundings, Casares tells us to strip away the layers of complexity to reveal the plain, simple core. He asks us to disconnect the machines, to go outside.
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