By: bigbodylittlebrain

bigbodylittlebrain — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 01:08:03 +0000

Should you ever have the time to read Terry Pratchett’s “Small Gods”, it would be interesting to read your comments. I’ve read nearly everything you have written and can’t tell you how much I have enjoyed it.

By: Steve H

Steve H — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 21:55:45 +0000

Rudy, I’ve always wondered about ‘haunted places’ myself - not all of them are about murder or tragedy; there are just places where the hair on the back of your neck stands up and you feel eyes all around. Many of these are outdoors and in deep woods, or lonely roads where the sun seems to fail and the birds hush as you walk or bike through a certain spot. Sometimes it’s just suggestion, or a gloomy look to the place, but there does seem to be an awareness. I’ve always suspected piezoelectricity myself, something beneath the ground that reacts or remembers. Terry Pratchett jokingly suggests that the ancients built stone rings around these places as a warning: keep out.
Genius loci, the spirit of place, is such a common human idea that it’s either true or a result of something hardwired into us. Are you sure you want to give Puck more RAM?

By: dulm@cs.kent.edu

dulm@cs.kent.edu — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 04:38:48 +0000

Deflate the singularty, I love it. So much HYPE is the “S!” and many people I know with little computer skill read this and wow, like, it freaks them out. Society will change more than technology changes, and that is the interesting part, still now, why worry, electomagnets and spray paint will fend off hostile robots (well, not the really well armed ones). Forget that, what is happening is everyone on the web the massive exchange, as you say the hive, and it is changing software and relationships, business, and our very experience of the world where after working all day oon the net, nature seems like a TV show but the best one we have ever seen and to wake people up to that they may just think WOW! Look at that tree! Look at the river (we live by one in Kent State, a nexus point for America of course, but we forgive). Show them the real thing and just how much more rich nature is and perhaps THAT will be the vacation away from cyber world, just be in the real world, even on a subway or in a dirty alley, the resolution and textures are real and go deep in reality. We know (and knew in the 80s) what technologhy would do to society—wait no we didnt—but we kinda did. It stresses many out, but perhaps they would follow nature back as a way out or at least strike a balance so people do not go crazy from having to use all these computers. So much information is overwhelming unless you are a sponge. Plus the sheer amount of news, up to date, like threads going in 1000 miles in every direction into our very brains. We scan headlines, the daily opinions, if we dont have an opinion, we can see patterns. Many can see the patterns, and they catch things that 20 years ago even hackers on arpanet would never have found. A person at home with a laptop has access to more information if today on thier porch than the NSA did 30 years ago. Pull them together, oooh wait a minute back to nature, what a relief, we cant all predict the future after all. Ahhh, stay around for when they literally plug in their brains across the world, but lead them to nature and you save us all, since Natures singularity will be more present and profound for quite awhile. Why now, the nexus of not just the age of agriculture, but when man harnessed fire, but it is even bigger than that. We are here at this time, and not another, *to witness.* We must have always existed in some form to be here for the occasion. What are the odds of all the humanoids that have ever existed–that we would be here to witness Now? It is a time more, in a sense, more biblical than the 2000 year old bible. Stick around and watch as the next 20 are going to be both wonderful and terrible and all sorts of things rise out of that chaos. But someone has to say “hey look at that flower!—WOW” it will keep us sane.
Great Stuff! Keep writing, you got the Now!

Comments on: Big Jellies, Shells, 4D, Mathematicians in Love, Local Panpsychism

By: bigbodylittlebrain

By: Steve H

By: dulm@cs.kent.edu