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Click covers for info. Copyright (C) Rudy Rucker 2021.
Dec 2, 2005. Lecture on Chapter 5 of “The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul”. Flocking behaviors, how conversations can exemplify different computation classes, the hive mind of society, the nature of language, the ubiquity of social power laws. (If you want to follow the computer demos, download the “Boppers” and “CAPOW” programs from the Lifebox book site, and run these on a Windows machine.) (51.80MB. 60 min.)
Still rooting in the basement (Magic Pig that I am) I found the first-ever fan-letter that I got, mailed to me in 1981 care of Ace Books who had just published White Light with a somewhat misleading cover.
The letter was from a guy in the penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. In response to my careful melding of literature, philosophy, and the mathematics of the infinite, he’d smeared ink on his foot and stepped on a piece of paper — to show me a star-shaped wrinkle. He wanted me to fund university research on the wrinkle and to write a book on the results with him.
“Thing we could go 50 50 on Writing Book on Star and on what university Researchs Writes out on Research part.”
My welcome by the class of people who read science fiction!
Actually I was pleased. It used to be that carnivals would come to the small towns we lived in and, say, the Ferris wheel operator would have a pulp paperback tucked into the hip pocket of his jeans, and he'd periodically read a page or two while letting the Wheel do its alloted cycles. I'd begun to dream of being the author of that book.