ZNAK SAGITE — više od fantastike — edicija, časopis, knjižara...

Mislim da su Tales, Demokrit ili Anaksimandar aktuelni koliko i Hajzenberg.

Quote from: Lord Kufer on 26-08-2012, 18:35:51
Mislio sam na Planktonove večne ideje, koje predstavljaju skok u metafizičko.

Jeste planktoni imaju vecne ideje pre nego postanu hrana kitovima 

I ja. Ali ih danas rabe kao da jesu.

U Suncu je voda. Sve je voda. A u vodi - kitovi.

Quote from: Lord Kufer on 26-08-2012, 18:35:07

QuoteNikakva tehnika nije moguća kada su ljudi slobodni...

Slobodan od svega - to je nirvana.
Nezamisliva forma postojanja, jer se ne može predstaviti. Međutim, može se spoznati. Zbog ovoga volim da tvrdim da Dekartovo "cogito" ne znači prosto "mislim" nego "spoznajem". Ali, on je morao da pazi šta priča kako ga ne bi zgazili kao glistu 

Pa dobro sad to i nije toliko strasno ako znamo da glista moze da se regenerise, pretpostavljajuci da nije zgazena celom duzinom.

Koliko dugo živi nezgažena glista?

Quote from: Lord Kufer on 26-08-2012, 18:48:26
Koliko dugo živi nezgažena glista?

Pojma nemam

Dovoljno kratko da joj je svejedno.

Okej, al meni su kitovi zanimljivi.
Recimo, Melvil je silno elaboriro o vodi i kitovima.
Recimo da je Mobi Dik to jezivo, iskustveno jezgro koje neminovno uništava onog idiota Ejhaba...

Quote from: Lord Kufer on 26-08-2012, 18:51:20
Dovoljno kratko da joj je svejedno.

Duhovito. Ali glista ne misli tako da za nju vreme nije isto sto i za tebe ili mene. Glisti ne moze da bude svejedno ili da joj ne bude svejedno posto nema svest. A i vreme je relativno. Ali ako imate 10 minuta i volje da pogledate ovu malu prezentaciju ( sigurna sam da ce vam se svideti)

RSA Animate - The Secret Powers of Time

Referentni sistem vremena je stvar projekcije. Ukoliko glista nema svoj razum, onda koristi nečji tuđi (ko koga tu zapravo koristi?). Tu se vraćamo još dalje u istoriju, ali ne baš, jer animizam vidi "duhovnu" vezu između svih stvari. A to je itekako aktuelno, ko razume o čemu se tu radi.

Quote from: Biki on 26-08-2012, 18:56:33

Quote from: Lord Kufer on 26-08-2012, 18:51:20
Dovoljno kratko da joj je svejedno.

Duhovito. Ali glista ne misli tako da za nju vreme nije isto sto i za tebe ili mene. Glisti ne moze da bude svejedno ili da joj ne bude svejedno posto nema svest. A i vreme je relativno. Ali ako imate 10 minuta i volje da pogledate ovu malu prezentaciju ( sigurna sam da ce vam se svideti)

RSA Animate - The Secret Powers of Time

Možda glista može da isprati sve ovom brzinom 

Ali, uočio sam onaj detalj o Siciliji, gde kaže da u dijalektu koji se tamo govori nema budućeg vremena. Ovaj tip (fiktivni neko) mnogo greši kad kaže "Zbog toga se tamo ništa nikad ne uradi."

Šta ako neko vodi računa o tome da to što radi ima trenutnu posledicu?

Primer Borhesove priče Tlen, Ukbar... je upravo o tome. Borhes tamo raspravlja o ljudima u čijem jeziku nema ni prošlog ni budućeg vremena. Očigledno, to je praktičan način da se iz upotrebe isključi projektovanje, a prošlost i budućnost su upravo to, projekcije.

Elil kaže to isto: "Nikakva tehnika nije moguća kada su ljudi slobodni..."

Oblast slobode je oblast gde nema uslovljavanja. A oblast prostor/vreme je upravo to, u toj oblasti se dešavaju uzročno-posledični nizovi događaja.
Ljudi su naučeni da koriste linearnu projekciju vremena, ali ljudi su u stanju da se oduče od toga i pređu u oblast gde je sloboda.
Tehnologija, međutim, to ne može. Zbog toga ona projektuje daleku, što dalju prošlost, i što dalju budućnost i dosezanje te budućnosti nameće kao nešto najnužnije, zahtevajući pritom žrtvu.
To je Kron koji jede svoju decu. Auto-Kanibal. Uroboros. Majka-i-dete.

Ja da se vratim na RNK. Zakukao sam kad ju je Kufer prvi put pomenuo jer je postavio tezu da se znanje/informacija/pamćenje skladišti u RNK. To je i dalje pogrešno i netačno.

Okej Zakk. Pa gde se onda skladišti?

Quote from: Lord Kufer on 26-08-2012, 19:14:32
Ljudi su naučeni da koriste linearnu projekciju vremena, ali ljudi su u stanju da se oduče od toga i pređu u oblast gde je sloboda.

To stoji, ali da li je to ono sto zelis i cemu tezis? Sloboda, nistavilo, nirvana? Meni je ovo bilo aktuelno pre 20 godina i tada kao i sada sam kao i svi ostali imala slobodu izbora. To je ono sto ja nazivam slobodom , mogucnost da se opredelis kojim ces putem da ides. Mozes da izaberes tu tzv tvoju "slobodu" (koja po mom misljenju nije nikakva sloboda vec samo opcija gde izaberes da ides linijom manjeg otpora) ili zivot onakav kakav jeste (uslovljen ljudima i sistemom oko tebe). Ja sam donela svesnu odluku da zelim uslovljen zivot (porodicu, posao, materijalne stvari koje mi pricinjavaju zadovoljstvo tipa: nov kompjuter, kola, kucu, novi set tanjira, haljina, cipelice, itd). Kada biras tu tvoju tzv "slobodu" biras nistavilo, nirvanu, iskaces iz koloseka  linearnog vremena i to je sasvim ok ako je to ono sto zaista zelis.

Quote from: Lord Kufer on 26-08-2012, 19:24:30
Okej Zakk. Pa gde se onda skladišti?

Skladisti se u amigdali

Quote from: Lord Kufer on 26-08-2012, 19:24:30
Okej Zakk. Pa gde se onda skladišti?

U mozgu, neko vreme, a onda sve crkne i nestane.

Mada danas mnogi argumentuju da je amigdala samo "procesor "

Sad ću malo da elaboriram na jednu temu. Mnogi ne razumeju moj način razmišljanja, zbog toga što je on očigledno drugačiji od njihovog. To je razumljivo.
Od nekih dobijam i pogrde zbog toga, moj način razmišljanja okida okidače izvesnih emocija, koje su često toksične i agresivne.


Kao pesnik, mogu da uradim sledeće. Ustvrdiću da su jastozi inteligentna bića. Napisaću roman o tome. Recimo, o nekim svemirskim jastozima. Biće to neki SF-fentezi bućkuriš. Roman će poslužiti kao poligon na kojem ću iz sve snage pokušati da dokažem i na kraju dokazati da jastozi jesu inteligentni.
Prva reakcija, naročito kod onih znalaca koji se zovu naučnici, biće - Ha, pa jastozi imaju rudimentarni nervni sistem. Tako nešto je nemoguće! Fuj, budalo!

Jastozi imaju jednu bitnu osobinu, koja se sreće kod inteligentnih bića, koja mi poznajemo - dugovečnost. Jastog može da doživi i 70 godina. Kao čovek, slon, kit, ali i neke druge životinje za koje obično ne mislimo da su inteligentne - recimo kornjače, krokodili, zmije i slično.

Ali, zar je zaista inteligentno tvrditi za krokodile da su glupi, kad znamo da su stariji rod od dinosaura, koji su stotinama miliona godina vladali Zemljom? Krokodili su ih nadživeli, ne samo da su ih nadživeli nego su se, sudeći po nađenim ostacima - hranili dinosaurima.

Ali, da se vratim na jastoga. Jastog je arthropoda, beskičmenjak koji ima egzoskelet, hitinski oklop ili kožu, zglavkaste noge, 4 para, i tako dalje.
Nervni sistem je nerazvijen, skoro da ga nema.

Na koji način bi se moglo dokazati da su jastozi ipak inteligentni?
Pa, tu dolazimo na animizam, ili ako hoćete panteizam, ili na moderniju varijantu kao što je Matrix. Mreža! Planetarna, kosmička, okeanska mreža. Ultra-mega organizam kojem su druga živa bića samo delovi. Za ovo ima osnova, pogotovo što se danas sve više otkriva u kojoj meri je čovek simbiotsko biće, povezano s bakterijama čiji genetski materijal u odnosu s čovekovim iznosi 1000:1. Dakle, bakterije koje su s nama u simbiozi imaju toliko više genetskog materijala.

Ali, moj roman bi krenuo malo drugačijim tokom.

Ovde uvodim aksiom: aksiomi se, kao što znate, ne dokazuju. Oni su čin volje.

Okean je ogroman skup najrazličitije informacije. Ta informacija može da se oseti mnogobrojnim čulima i na raznim kalibracijama. Mi to ne možemo ni da zamislimo.
Čovek ima mozak koji je istovremeno i procesor, i tumač i projektor i zaslon na koji se projektuje predstava. Možda nismo u potpunosti u pravu, ali to mu dođe kao neka redimejd činjenica.
Recimo da Okean, kao takav nema taj zaslon, a ima ili nema moć da procesuje sopstvenu informaciju, znači - nije samosvesno biće.
Ali, tu je jastog, koji umesto nervnog sistema ipak ima nešto što bi moglo da se iskoristi kao zaslon, u najmanju ruku - ima svoj oklop, koji je osetljiv na vibraciju i može da služi kao interfejs.
Dalje, ukoliko su proteini bitni u određenim procesima neophodnim da se održi inteligencija - znamo da je jastogovo meso neđu najhranljivijim. To nek ostane otvoreno pitanje, kao začin ovoj supi.

Ako je tačna teza da je hitinski oklop jastoga interfejs, možemo dalje da razmišljamo o tome da jastozi međusobno, preko svojih oklopa, koristeći Okean kao informatičko skladište, međusobno komuniciraju na velike daljine i na taj način tvore jedno biće koje ne može da se definiše prosto fiziološki kao jedinka, već kao nešto mnogo kompleksnije - kao svojevrsni Matriks, kao iz onog filma...

Vidite kuda sve ovo može da odvede?

Quote from: zakk on 26-08-2012, 19:31:04

Quote from: Lord Kufer on 26-08-2012, 19:24:30
Okej Zakk. Pa gde se onda skladišti?

U mozgu, neko vreme, a onda sve crkne i nestane.

U kom delu mozga. U neuronima? Prionima?

Quote from: Lord Kufer on 26-08-2012, 19:39:59

Quote from: zakk on 26-08-2012, 19:31:04

Quote from: Lord Kufer on 26-08-2012, 19:24:30
Okej Zakk. Pa gde se onda skladišti?

U mozgu, neko vreme, a onda sve crkne i nestane.

U kom delu mozga. U neuronima? Prionima?

ako je i pesnički, prepesnički je! al odlična sf hipoteza!

Quote from: Lord Kufer on 26-08-2012, 19:39:59

Quote from: zakk on 26-08-2012, 19:31:04

Quote from: Lord Kufer on 26-08-2012, 19:24:30
Okej Zakk. Pa gde se onda skladišti?

U mozgu, neko vreme, a onda sve crkne i nestane.

U kom delu mozga. U neuronima? Prionima?

Neuralna mreža.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storage_%28memory%29

Quote from: Lord Kufer on 26-08-2012, 19:39:35
ili na moderniju varijantu kao što je Matrix. Mreža! Planetarna, kosmička, okeanska mreža. Ultra-mega organizam kojem su druga živa bića samo delovi.

Kao u Avataru ono drvo na Pandori sto je bilo povezano sa svima .

Dobro, a što Matrix? Lemov Solaris bi bio dovoljan.


Zakk, sad ćeš da naređaš bilo šta u tintari, samo da ne bude - RNA. Ala ti je fazon.

Mogo sam da navedem Solaris ali nisam teo. A Sumu Tehnologije nisam imo prilike da vidim, pa nisam teo da spominjem Lema. Lem je u Solarisu dobro načeo i zagrizo ovu temu. Morao bih ponovo da pročitam i eventualno bolje ukapiram nego što sam to mogao ranije.

Ima još dosta dela s ovakvom temom. Nisam ja stvarno nameravao da pišem roman, ali ova ideja skoro uvek može da se iskoristi.

Ma dobro, nije samo RNA. Baš me briga, ispostavilo se da je u pitanju vektorski, skalarni i matrični proces...

The multi-trace distributed memory model suggests that the memories that are being encoded are converted to vectors of values, with each scalar quantity of a vector representing a different attribute of the item to be encoded. Such notion was first suggested by early theories of Hooke (1969) and Semon (1923). A single memory is distributed to multiple attributes, or features, so that each attribute represents one aspect of the memory being encoded. Such vector of values is then added into the memory array or a matrix, composed of different traces or vectors of memory.

Quote from: Biki on 26-08-2012, 19:53:32

Quote from: Lord Kufer on 26-08-2012, 19:39:35
ili na moderniju varijantu kao što je Matrix. Mreža! Planetarna, kosmička, okeanska mreža. Ultra-mega organizam kojem su druga živa bića samo delovi.

Kao u Avataru ono drvo na Pandori sto je bilo povezano sa svima .

Svakako 

Ali, moj omiljeni primer je ipak Borg Collective 

Bože moj, dokle li će da traje ovo monomanijakalno glavinjanje? 


Storidž za memori je forum znaka sagite, jado. 

Quote from: LiBeat on 26-08-2012, 20:23:56
Bože moj, dokle li će da traje ovo monomanijakalno glavinjanje? 


Storidž za memori je forum znaka sagite, jado. 

Ali tebi neko krade misli, pobogu ženo.
Pa gde ih ti storidžuješ?

Quote from: Lord Kufer on 26-08-2012, 19:39:59

Quote from: zakk on 26-08-2012, 19:31:04

Quote from: Lord Kufer on 26-08-2012, 19:24:30
Okej Zakk. Pa gde se onda skladišti?

U mozgu, neko vreme, a onda sve crkne i nestane.

U kom delu mozga. U neuronima? Prionima?

Kao sto sam vec navela gore u amigdali, samo ne znam da li me ignorises ili nisi procitao sta sam napisala. Ustvari uopste ne znam da li se zezas ili si ozbiljan, a ja sam moram da priznam lako paljiva ili sto bi rekli ovi Englezi gullible.
Za slucaj da si ozbiljan , evo ti jednog ozbiljnog artikla

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC33638/

ABSTRACT
"There is extensive evidence that the amygdala is involved in affectively influenced memory. The central hypothesis guiding the research reviewed in this paper is that emotional arousal activates the amygdala and that such activation results in the modulation of memory storage occurring in other brain regions. Several lines of evidence support this view. First, the effects of stress-related hormones (epinephrine and glucocorticoids) are mediated by influences involving the amygdala. In rats, lesions of the amygdala and the stria terminalis block the effects of posttraining administration of epinephrine and glucocorticoids on memory. Furthermore, memory is enhanced by posttraining intra-amygdala infusions of drugs that activate β-adrenergic and glucocorticoid receptors. Additionally, infusion of β-adrenergic blockers into the amygdala blocks the memory-modulating effects of epinephrine and glucocorticoids, as well as those of drugs affecting opiate and GABAergic systems. Second, an intact amygdala is not required for expression of retention. Inactivation of the amygdala prior to retention testing (by posttraining lesions or drug infusions) does not block retention performance. Third, findings of studies using human subjects are consistent with those of animal experiments. β-Blockers and amygdala lesions attenuate the effects of emotional arousal on memory. Additionally, 3-week recall of emotional material is highly correlated with positron-emission tomography activation (cerebral glucose metabolism) of the right amygdala during encoding. These findings provide strong evidence supporting the hypothesis that the amygdala is involved in modulating long-term memory storage."

amygdala is involved in modulating long-term memory storage

Uopšte ne sumnjam u to.

I mislio sam da amigdala ima ulogu u stvaranju, recimo, uslovnih refleksa, emocija - "affectively influenced memory".

Ali, nije bila diskusija baš o tome, nego o konkretnom materijalnom bloku koji čuva memoriju. Recimo, ima li barem približne analogije načinu na koji se podaci čuvaju na magnetno osetljivom mediju, gde se binarnim sistemom, jednostavno preorijentišu atomi gvožđa i to tako ostane do sledećeg zapisivanja.

Evo ja laički, pošto je prizvan magnetno osetljivi medijum. Ima male analogije, ali samo utoliko što se nešto tu fizički promeni da bi se novo sećanje zapamtilo. Mreža neurona postaje drugačija jer su se neuroni drugačije prevezali. Ono što je razlika u odnosu na magnetni medijum je što se promena nije lokalna nego se svuda po mozgu po nešto menja.

A new super-hard form of carbon has been created by an international team of scientists working with X-rays at the Advanced Photon Source at the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory.

Carbon materials, such as graphene, graphite, buckyballs and nanontubes, display a remarkable range of mechanical, electronic and electrochemical properties that make them sought-after materials for advanced products in electronics and nanotechnology.

Scientists with the Carnegie Institute of Washington's Geophysical Laboratory led the research team, which was also comprised of scientists from Argonne, Jilin University, the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, Stanford University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Their work was conducted at the High Pressure Collaborative Access Team at the Advanced Photon Source.

"We created a new type of carbon material, one that is comparable to diamond in its inability to be compressed," said lead author and Carnegie scientist Lin Wang. "Once created under extreme pressures, this material can exist at normal conditions, meaning it could be used for a wide array of practical applications."

Not only is the new material incredibly strong – it can dent diamond, the hardest substance on Earth – but also it was able to retain its new super-hard form even when the high pressure that created it was removed.

The new material combines two forms of carbon, one with an organized atomic structure and one without, into a hybrid material only previously theorized about. Wang's team crushed hollow carbon-60 molecules called buckyballs between two flattened diamond tips until the molecules collapsed into a new harder, carbon form. They found a sweet spot in the pressure level where the new material held its form and did not return to its less durable buckyball state. That optimal crushing pressure is 320,000 times atmospheric pressure. The ability to maintain super-hard status without continual pressure is key for commercial applications.

X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, infrared absorption spectroscopy and inelastic X-ray scattering were used to analyze the materials crystal structure, lattice vibration and bonding type at high pressure.

"The results are exciting," said Yang Ding, a coauthor of the paper and a scientist with the Advanced Photon Source. "The new form of carbon may have some new properties which others do not have due to its novel structure."

"The thing that stands out for me from this work," Lin Wang added, "is that carbon-60 can crystallize with various solvents, and those solvates would have different periodicities, which enables us to synthesize a series of similar carbon materials with different packing symmetry and carbon cluster size by compressing different types of carbon molecules."

The results were published in the Journal Science August 16.

View the press release from the Carnegie Institute of Science.

Time and the Associated Press are reporting a story about a Pakistani engineer who claims to have invented a water-fueled car.  That would definitely be science fiction becoming science fact right before our eyes (if it's true).

From the story:  ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani officials who have failed for years to fix the country's rampant energy shortages have latched on to a local engineer's dubious claim to have invented a water-fueled car, sparking criticism from experts who bemoan what the episode says about the sorry state of the government.

Excitement over the supposed discovery has been fueled by sensationalist TV talk show hosts, who have hailed the middle-aged engineer, Agha Waqar Ahmed, as a national hero and gushed about the billions of dollars Pakistan could save on oil imports.

Harvard creates cyborg flesh that's half man, half machine





Bioengineers at Harvard University have created the first examples of cyborg tissue: Neurons, heart cells, muscle, and blood vessels that are interwoven by nanowires and transistors.

These cyborg tissues are half living cells, half electronics. As far as the cells are concerned, they're just normal cells that behave normally — but the electronic side actually acts as a sensor network, allowing a computer to interface directly with the cells. In the case of cyborg heart tissue, the researchers have already used the embedded nanowires to measure the contractions (heart rate) of the cells.

To create cyborg flesh, you start with a three-dimensional scaffold that encourages cells to grow around them. These scaffolds are generally made of collagen, which makes up the connective tissue in almost every animal. The Harvard engineers basically took normal collagen, and wove nanowires and transistors into the matrix to create nanoelectric scaffolds (nanoES). The neurons, heart cells, muscle, and blood vessels were then grown as normal, creating cyborg tissue with a built-in sensor network.


Cardiac cells, with a nanoelectroic electrode highlighted


So far the Havard team has mostly grown rat tissues, but they have also succeeded in growing a 1.5-centimeter (0.6in) cyborg human blood vessel. They've also only used the nanoelectric scaffolds to read data from the cells — but according to lead researcher Charles Lieber, the next step is to find a way of talking to the individual cells, to "wire up tissue and communicate with it in the same way a biological system does."

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/135207-harvard-creates-cyborg-flesh-thats-half-man-half-machine

The Bionic Eye

The bionic eye, designed, built and tested by the Bionic Vision Australia, a consortium of researchers partially funded by the Australian government, is equipped with 24 electrodes with a small wire that extends from the back of the eye to a receptor attached behind the ear.
It is inserted into the choroidal space, the space next to the retina within the eye.
"The device electrically stimulates the retina," said Dr Penny Allen, a specialist surgeon who implanted the prototype.
"Electrical impulses are passed through the device, which then stimulate the retina. Those impulses then pass back to the brain (creating the image)."
The device restores mild vision, where patients are able to pick up major contrasts and edges such as light and dark objects. Researchers hope to develop it so blind patients can achieve independent mobility.
"Di is the first patient of three with this prototype device, the next step is analysing the visual information that we are getting from the stimulation," Allen said.
The operation itself was made simple so it can be readily taught to eye surgeons worldwide.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/scitech/2012/08/30/little-flash-as-bionic-eye-brings-australian-woman-some-sight

Dust-obscured galaxies may be missing link



Scientists have unveiled a new species in the cosmic zoo, a super-heated, dust-shrouded object called a "hot DOG," which may represent a missing link in galaxy evolution.
A full-sky survey by Nasa's wide-field infrared WISE telescope turned up about 1 000 hot, dust-obscured galaxies, or hot DOGs, each of which pump out as much light as 100 trillion sun-like stars.
The objects are rare, accounting for about one in 100 000 light sources, and difficult to find since most of their energy is masked by dust.
Astronomers believe hot DOGs, which are twice as warm as similar galaxies, may be a transitional state between disk-shaped galaxies, like the Milky Way, and elliptical galaxies.
Most of the hot DOGs found by WISE are about 10 billion light years away, meaning they formed when the universe was a fraction of its present age.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/scitech/2012/08/30/dust-obscured-galaxies-may-be-missing-link

Virgin America Is Offering a Free Trip to Space for One Frequent Flier

Hmm, interesting 

http://www.mindfulmuscleblog.com/heart-has-consciousness/

The Heart Has Its Own "Brain" and Consciousness

Heart Fields

Many believe that conscious awareness originates in the brain alone. Recent scientific research suggests that consciousness actually emerges from the brain and body acting together. A growing body of evidence suggests that the heart plays a particularly significant role in this process.

Far more than a simple pump, as was once believed, the heart is now recognized by scientists as a highly complex system with its own functional "brain."

Research in the new discipline of neurocardiology shows that the heart is a sensory organ and a sophisticated center for receiving and processing information. The nervous system within the heart (or "heart brain") enables it to learn, remember, and make functional decisions independent of the brain's cerebral cortex. Moreover, numerous experiments have demonstrated that the signals the heart continuously sends to the brain influence the function of higher brain centers involved in perception, cognition, and emotional processing.

In addition to the extensive neural communication network linking the heart with the brain and body, the heart also communicates information to the brain and throughout the body via electromagnetic field interactions. The heart generates the body's most powerful and most extensive rhythmic electromagnetic field. Compared to the electromagnetic field produced by the brain, the electrical component of the heart's field is about 60 times greater in amplitude, and permeates every cell in the body. The magnetic component is approximately 5000 times stronger than the brain's magnetic field and can be detected several feet away from the body with sensitive magnetometers.

The heart generates a continuous series of electromagnetic pulses in which the time interval between each beat varies in a dynamic and complex manner. The heart's ever-present rhythmic field has a powerful influence on processes throughout the body. We have demonstrated, for example, that brain rhythms naturally synchronize to the heart's rhythmic activity, and also that during sustained feelings of love or appreciation, the blood pressure and respiratory rhythms, among other oscillatory systems, entrain to the heart's rhythm.

http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=14314

Quote from: Warren EllisHow To See The Future September 7th, 2012 | Work
This is the raw text of the keynote I gave at Improving Reality on Thursday.  Thanks again to Honor and her crew for being so wonderful, and for so kindly inviting me.
HOW TO SEE THE FUTURE     
Warren Ellis[/b]

The concept of calling an event Improving Reality is one of those great science fiction ideas. Twenty five years ago, you'd have gone right along with the story that, in 2012, people will come to a tech-centric town to talk about how to improve reality. Being able to locally adjust the brightness of the sky. Why wouldn't you? That's the stuff of the consensus future, right there. The stories we agree upon. Like how in old science fiction stories Venus was always a "green hell" of alien jungle, and Mars was always an exotic red desert crisscrossed by canals.

In reality, of course, Venus is a high-pressure shithole that we're technologically a thousand years away from being able to walk on, and there's bugger all on Mars. Welcome to JG Ballard's future, fast becoming a consensus of its own, wherein the future is intrinsically banal. It is, essentially, the sensible position to take right now.

A writer called Ventakesh Rao recently used the term "manufactured normalcy" to describe this. The idea is that things are designed to activate a psychological predisposition to believe that we're in a static and dull continuous present. Atemporality, considered to be the condition of the early 21^st century. Of course Venus isn't a green hell – that would be too interesting, right? Of course things like Google Glass and Google Gloves look like props from ill-received science fiction film and tv from the 90s and 2000's. Of course getting on a plane to jump halfway across the planet isn't a wildly different experience from getting on a train from London to Scotland in the 1920s – aside from the radiation and groping.

We hold up iPhones and, if we're relatively conscious of history, we point out that this is an amazing device that contains a live map of the world and the biggest libraries imaginable and that it's an absolute paradigm shift in personal communication and empowerment. And then some knob says that it looks like something from Star Trek Next Generation, and then someone else says that it doesn't even look as cool as Captain Kirk's communicator in the original and then someone else says no but you can buy a case for it to make it look like one and you're off to the manufactured normalcy races, where nobody wins because everyone goes to fucking sleep.

And reality does not get improved, does it?

But I'll suggest to you something. The theories of atemporality and manufactured normalcy and zero history can be short-circuited by just one thing.

Looking around.

Ballardian banality comes from not getting the future that we were promised, or getting it too late to make the promised difference.

This is because we look at the present day through a rear-view mirror. This is something Marshall McLuhan said back in the Sixties, when the world was in the grip of authentic-seeming future narratives. He said, "We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future."

He went on to say this, in 1969, the year of the crewed Moon landing: "Because of the invisibility of any environment during the period of its innovation, man is only consciously aware of the environment that has preceded it; in other words, an environment becomes fully visible only when it has been superseded by a new environment; thus we are always one step behind in our view of the world. The present is always invisible because it's environmental and saturates the whole field of attention so overwhelmingly; thus everyone is alive in an earlier day."

Three years earlier, Philip K Dick wrote a book called Now Wait For Last Year.

Let me try this on you:

The Olympus Mons mountain on Mars is so tall and yet so gently sloped that, were you suited and supplied correctly, ascending it would allow you to walk most of the way to space. Mars has a big, puffy atmosphere, taller than ours, but there's barely anything to it at that level. 30 Pascals of pressure, which is what we get in an industrial vacuum furnace here on Earth. You may as well be in space. Imagine that. Imagine a world where you could quite literally walk to space.

That's actually got a bit more going for it, as an idea, than exotic red deserts and canals. Imagine living in a Martian culture for a moment, where this thing is a presence in the existence of an entire sentient species. A mountain that you cannot see the top of, because it's a small world and the summit wraps behind the horizon. Imagine settlements creeping up the side of Olympus Mons. Imagine battles fought over sections of slope. Generations upon generations of explorers dying further and further up its height, technologies iterated and expended upon being able to walk to within leaping distance of orbital space. Manufactured normalcy would suggest that, if we were the Martians, we would find this completely dull within ten years and bitch about not being able to simply fart our way into space.

Now imagine a world where space travel to other worlds is an antique curiosity. Imagine reading the words "vintage space." Can you even consider being part of a culture that could go to space and then stopped?
If the future is dead, then today we must summon it and learn how to see it properly.

You can't see the present properly through the rear view mirror. It's in front of you. It's right here.
There are six people living in space right now. There are people printing prototypes of human organs, and people printing nanowire tissue that will bond with human flesh and the human electrical system.

We've photographed the shadow of a single atom. We've got robot legs controlled by brainwaves. Explorers have just stood in the deepest unsubmerged place in the world, a cave more than two kilometres under Abkhazia. NASA are getting ready to launch three satellites the size of coffee mugs, that will be controllable by mobile phone apps.

Here's another angle on vintage space: Voyager 1 is more than 11 billion miles away, and it's run off 64K of computing power and an eight-track tape deck.

In the last ten years, we've discovered two previously unknown species of human. We can film eruptions on the surface of the sun, landings on Mars and even landings on Titan. Is all of this very boring to you? Because all this is happening right now, in this moment. Check the time on your phone, because this is the present time and these things are happening. The most basic mobile phone is in fact a communications devices that shames all of science fiction, all the wrist radios and handheld communicators. Captain Kirk had to tune his fucking communicator and it couldn't text or take a photo that he could stick a nice Polaroid filter on. Science fiction didn't see the mobile phone coming. It certainly didn't see the glowing glass windows many of us carry now, where we make amazing things happen by pointing at it with our fingers like goddamn wizards.

That, by the way, is what Steve Jobs meant when he said that iPads were magical. The central metaphor is magic. And perhaps magic seems an odd thing to bring up here, but magic and fiction are deeply entangled, and you are all now present at a séance for the future. We are summoning it into the present. It's here right now. It's in the room with us. We live in the future. We live in the Science Fiction Condition, where we can see under atoms and across the world and across the methane lakes of Titan.

Use the rear view mirror for its true purpose. If I were sitting next to you twenty-five years ago, and you heard a phone ring, and I took out a bar of glass and said, sorry, my phone just told me it's got new video of a solar flare, you'd have me sectioned in a flash. Use the rear view mirror to imagine telling someone just twenty five years ago about GPS. This is the last generation in the Western world that will ever be lost. LifeStraws. Synthetic biology. Genetic sequencing. SARS was genetically sequenced within 48 hours of its identification. I'm not even touching the web, wifi, mobile broadband, cloud computing, electronic cigarettes...

Understand that our present time is the furthest thing from banality. Reality as we know it is exploding with novelty every day. Not all of it's good. It's a strange and not entirely comfortable time to be alive. But I want you to feel the future as present in the room. I want you to understand, before you start the day here, that the invisible thing in the room is the felt presence of living in future time, not in the years behind us.

To be a futurist, in pursuit of improving reality, is not to have your face continually turned upstream, waiting for the future to come. To improve reality is to clearly see where you are, and then wonder how to make that better.

Act like you live in the Science Fiction Condition. Act like you can do magic and hold séances for the future and build a brightness control for the sky.

Act like you live in a place where you could walk into space if you wanted. Think big. And then make it better.

Dok ne naprave replikator, niš me ne zanima 

Trenutni mobilni telefoni su beskorisni bez infrastrukture. Na Marsu dva telefona se ne bi ni videla jer nemaju mrežu. A da i ne pričamo da komunikatori koriste podprostor, to jest imaju domet na drugi kraj sunčevog sistema, a bez ograničenja brzine svetlosti. Beat that, iPhone. Shames SF, malo sutra.

Zato ja i kažem - nema ništa od osvajanja svemira. Ima samo - izgradnje svemira.

Quote from: Lord Kufer on 11-09-2012, 01:10:25
Dok ne naprave replikator, niš me ne zanima 

Ne budi govedo.

Quote from: zakk on 11-09-2012, 01:53:21

Quote from: Lord Kufer on 11-09-2012, 01:10:25
Dok ne naprave replikator, niš me ne zanima 

Ne budi govedo.

Objasni ovu uvredu???

on to od milja

Pobeže... 

vratiće se

a možda i neće...

Quote from: Lord Kufer on 11-09-2012, 01:55:16

Quote from: zakk on 11-09-2012, 01:53:21

Quote from: Lord Kufer on 11-09-2012, 01:10:25
Dok ne naprave replikator, niš me ne zanima 

Ne budi govedo.

Objasni ovu uvredu???

Ja to od milja. Pitaj Draganu.