This weeks unlecture was pretty interesting, Adrian had some strong opinions he voiced out in the and it was a good session all in all, however he raised a point that I mulled on for a bit longer than I anticipated. The idea that I have no real control over how I choose to do things, for instance as I am communicating this message I have to submit to the laws that govern the English language which are predetermined for me and that going against the grain is futile. This made some good sense, sure it could be argued that language shapes our world and we understand it better that way. However language didn’t just fall from the sky, it was developed in variation over time and space and is constantly evolving. So I am submitting to something that had no real beginning, isn’t staying the way it is, and has no predictable contingency?
Sounds about right.
In reference to my previous post, we use a working understanding or knowledge as standard, until/unless it no longer is able to serve its purpose, at which point a new knowledge needs to be learnt and adapted. We’re predisposed to using the English language as standard because of the conditions of which it exists today, and because it serves its purpose albeit not well enough that there won’t be misunderstandings. Its a knowledge that works for now, and certainly is being adapted on to appease various new situations that arise and need addressing. Going against the grain may be necessary when the grain is no longer flowing in a favorable way. Is there a better way of going about things? Maybe- maybe not- we’ll just have to try and see.
Also there was a slight chicken and egg debate on techniques and technologies.
Techniques are required to make technology,
but techniques are also a response to technology.
You might be good at chopping trees down, but you need an axe to do it. So which came first? Well in order to use the axe you need to know how to make an axe in the first place, so how does the axe come to be in your posession? There would have to be some working knowledge in mining and smithing and carving wood so a lot of technology there, but in order to utilize all that tech people need to have the skills to acquire all the required materials, so some learned experience and knowhow is going to be pretty invaluable here. But it doesn’t stop..or start.. there, they would’ve needed to know a fair bit of information before knowing what mining even is or how to go about it, that is knowledge that would’ve been passed down and learned, which means they would’ve had to learn a fair bit about the world around them before being able to acquire the skills needed to maneuver it. Before understanding these ideas, they would’ve first had to learn basic skills like how to use their bodies for specific functions like walking or climbing and extensively how to articulate thoughts and communicate. You’d think this would be the end of it and that having and learning the skills to use our bodies is where shit starts and technology is born from this, but I think it extends beyond this to our bodies themselves as technologies that we need to learn and adapt to accordingly from the moment we’re born into them(aA required response haha). I would say that the difference with our bodies and technologies as we know them is that we didn’t make the bodies -but in a way I suppose we do.
“Paul Baran’s network was based on a technology called packet-switching that allows messages to break themselves apart into small fragments. Each fragment,or packet, is able to find its own way to its destination. Once there, the packets reassemble to create the original message.” Galloway. I love this, reminded me of teleporting. Imagine if you could break messages apart into small fragments and have the destination be someone elses brain. Teleporting thoughts hahaha.
Interestingly enough though – they used the internet for this little project, but I do see someone in the comments section making an interesting point about this setup just sending a signal that makes the receivers muscles twitch. Still though – using the internet to fiddle with yer muscles. WHAT DOES IT MEEEAN!
First off I feel like I should point out that this post originally began its life as 4-5 other drafts I had floating around my dashboard, and when I was going through them I realised that they seemed pretty well interconnected, so that explains the length, I did my best to keep it interesting.
Does a network have a center? Normally we’d believe that it would/should (it’s gotta start somewhere right?), however, nature seems to be structured randomly (heh isn’t that funny) yet still manages to work just fine. I think a good way to look at it is how we learn things via trial and error; answers are not given and we need to actively seek them out, by working around existing knowledges as well as trying to break new ground with experimentation. When we try to learn about something we don’t know, we engage with a certain kind of infiniteness to the possible approaches; we can use existing knowledges, but if the knowledge turns out to not necessarily be the best option, it is explored nonetheless to be fully excluded from from any contingency and/or an entirely new approach must be taken, and when exploring ideas outside of existing knowledge, new knowledges or technologies need to be constructed to adapt accordingly to the situation (experimentation).
MAP OF THE INTERNET: Enlarge to see just how intricate and detailed the connections are.
I think its possible that the inherent randomness of a nature-type system is both random in itsinfinite possibility of executions but not so in its reason(s) for executing them. That kinda makes it sound like conscious thing that makes decisions, but I don’t see why that is unreasonable, if you look at nature as a system, it constitutes living things that need to constantly call the shots.
Decisions, decisions.
The internet as a network also constitutes living things (hoomanz), has no center, yet still functions, and is constantly evolving. I think that is because the internet as a whole IS a center more than anything else – but to what end? lulcatz? A collective intelligence? – just because something is a center doesn’t mean its not complex. Our minds are the center of our sentience and its one of the most complex things out there (in there – whatever) , all focused into a single blob of goo, that moderates consciously as well as subconsciously; I feel, in a similar fashion that protocols moderate the interwebz. According to Galloway a protocol is/was a (1) set of rules and recommendations that outline specific technical standards, and (2) refers to any type of correct or proper behavior within a specific system of conventions, (3) introductory paper summarizing the key points of a diplomatic agreement or treaty and (4) standards governing the implementation of specific technologies. Some of it constant stuff and some of it stuff that changes accordingly. He goes on to use the analogy of a highway system to better define protocol as a technique for achieving voluntary regulation within a contingent environment. (else we’d still be a bunch of crazy baboons or more likely extinct by now I imagine)
cont.
I took away from this that a protocol is a form of governing something in a place where anything is possible(I mean that in the best sense); which I think suits just fine with the brain as a center, having its own version/types of protocol, as they have been mirrored in the developing internet, possibly by accident, but probably not. I’m not exactly a specialist when it comes to how the brain works though [and that sucks because I really want to be able to elaborate more how Galloway’s descriptions of protocol could be better linked to the brain] so this whole argument is probably invalid just on that basis, but I would like to look into it more to see if the internet really is sort of structured similarly to the human mind.
Additionally
I like how Holly used a mosh pit to help describe a distributed network. Conversely I went for the Lamb of God/Meshuggah show last week and it was my first actual proper encounter with a mosh pit. I’ve been a big fan of metal since I was 10 but Malaysia was never very receptive to metal, in fact Lamb of God was supposed to play there this week as well but they got banned at the 11th hour [heh] for being Satanic or some dumb shit like that. I was even in a metal band for a while and they’re still doing great back home under the name Sacwrath (rock on brothers!), but I never actually got to be in the mosh pit and part of that audience. It’s something I had always wanted to do, but never comprehended either.. it just didn’t register in my head why people would gather in a pile and just go into a total rampage on each other. I’ve been to lots of raves and electronic music festivals before and some of the meat piles I’ve ended up in were insane, but every time I knocked into someone I would get disconcerting stares and threatening looks; even though everyone piled up together, I never felt a togetherness, people were pretty much there for themselves. When I was waiting for Meshuggah to come on stage I was seriously nervous, I looked at the guy next to me and told him I’d never done this before, and asked him if I was going to die, he just laughed and reassured me that everything would be fine, and it just so happened that a whole group of guys heard that conversation and greeted me and started telling me about mosh etiquette but most importantly to make sure if anybody fell down to pick them up right away because “you don’t wanna be that guy”, and to look out for each other – one guy pointed at me and said “especially this guy.” I was there pretty early so I had a decent spot near the front and center of the stage, and when the band came on it just took a few moments before the pit started to form, I didn’t think about it I just ran straight into the madness.
I felt like a human pinball being bounced around and shoved left, right, front, back, diagonally, it was just insane, eventually I got pushed hard enough that I fell backwards, but before I knew what was happening I was back on my feet being thrown forwards, and that was so confusing, I had no idea who that kind samaritan was that picked me up but I’m eternally grateful because I thought I really was going to get trampled, but after that somehow I just knew I was going to be safe here, I felt safer there than I had anywhere else in a long time. I only fell another time after that but I was picked up no problemo, I even got to help a few people up myself, and that really was awesome. I’ve never experienced that kind of connection with so many strangers before, didn’t matter who you were, you looked out for everyone there and they looked out for you. That NEVER happens at electronic music festivals, in fact you’re more likely going to hate the people around you for shoving around so much and not keeping to themselves and I suppose that’s really because the mindset going into them isn’t about the connection you have with the other people as much as it is at a metal concert – metal-heads are fucking awesome people \m/ – but as a distributed network it works with a collective, active and voluntary participation from parties involved.
EDIT: Don’t get me wrong, Flume is flippin awesome too!
Holly also mentioned that the idea of distributed networks appealed to her sense of democracy and/or possibly socialism, but as Eric Hall puts it, “IP uses an anarchic and highly distributed model, with every device being an equal peer to every other device on the global Internet.” and I believe this is more accurately representative of what the internet and distributed network are/have the potential to be, but also kind of like what I ascribed the brain is to hoomanz.
First off, to the by now non-existent readership of mine, I realise my blog has been a little barren lately, but that’s because I’ve got many posts floating around incomplete in the dashboard waiting for some curation and closure, this is not entirely due to negligence. heh. My apologies.
Its been bugging me all week just thinking over again what was discussed in the unlecture 8.0, and how the idea of hypertextual games unanimously being regarded as mostly unfeasible. Being an avid player of video games this got me thinking quite a bit as to just what a game is exactly. Adrian mentioned being a part of the first discussion that covered this and mentioned that games do not require a story and are not narrative based. He also mentioned that games are governed by a notion of winning.
“You can’t win stories”
So what is a game then? Is a game supposed to be fun, or is it supposed to be competitive? Are games supposed to have narratives at all or does that turn them into something else?
How can a game be competitive and fun if there is always a loser? [For arguments sake] If losing isn’t fun, should competitive games be called games at all since there is always a loser (doesn’t that mean its always not fun for someone playing it), and wouldn’t that mean its just a competition and not a game? What about games that are narrative driven which rely on character development and have multiple endings or none at all (like Dungeons & Dragons or Skyrim maybe?) [my thinking is that the narrativeIS the game and the platform is inconsequential] You play [maybe with friends] to navigate a fictional world which is being moderated or controlled by the game master(D&D) or game engine (Skyrim). Who are you competing against here – the game master? the fictional world? Is losing insubstantial when/because there is no human opponent? What constitutes as winning the game? -the closure you get from the ending narrative which could potentially change at any point (is that what makes these games fun? Closure). Doesn’t that mean you can win stories? Or does that mean that these aren’t games at all.
Isn’t that what interactive narratives give us – The ability to create, direct or choose our own paths and conclusions by concluding or “winning ” the stories we explore the way we want to? Maybe not so much in Skyrim – as it does has a specific ending, but the way you get there and what happens in between is entirely up to you within the confines of the world you’re in and where although the provided content is limited by technology, is still massive enough and explores so many avenues, that most people will never get to see or explore even half the content – but its getting there. Would that mean that interactive narratives are actually games we play?
I think games are meant to be fun and non-competitive but challenging. We hoomans find that the more we do something the better we get at it, and games are an avenue for exploring potentiality which could be why they’re fun because of the interactivity and discovery that it comes with.
Then again.. isn’t that what art is? blerhg..
Time to go on an adventure!!
Since hypertext fiction does not have the fixed, tangible beginnings and endings of print stories and books, readers decide when their experience of the text ends. – Douglas, J. Yellowlees
On Games!
Today we went over video games as hypertextual and touched on game theory but didn’t really get into it. I’d like to go deeper into this, what makes a game a game? Adrian said – A game has no story or narrative and is goverened by a notion of winning.You can’t “win” a story. American idol isn’t a reality tv show its a game show. There a lot of shows are out there like this. And sometimes that thought makes me feel very sad. No.. it always make me sad.
When we play games with animals i.e. a dog it plays back which is a form of inter-species communication. what does this mean?! that living things can interact with each other!
On Systems (OS)
Hypertext is emergent, a structure forms as you create in it, it isn’t something you plan beforehand like a construction. We touched on how history is formed by many truths and not just one, and a linear history is unrealistic/unreliable.. It sounds like a hypertext system has no real beginning and no foreseeable end – a black hole?
I may have misheard but this was said “Learning as the ontological encounter of the weird.” I like that haha.
So I found myself digging through some of my old blogs, and I landed on this post which, I have to admit, was a pretty accurate representation of my outlook on life. I’ll say that while I still espouse to a fair amount of what I said and felt in this post, the biggest difference I realise is that I was very angry because I felt like there was nothing I could do to change the way the world is, because I’m just one person with nothing to show, no knowledge or skill, nothing at all worth contributing -Just another brick in the wall –I think this is something that’s particularly affecting the children of the middle class, who have enough that they feel like they can’t complain about life (otherwise they get persecuted) and they end up not having aspirations because they already have ‘enough’, and yet don’t have so much that they can do anything they please. What you get is a generation of kids who feel like they can’t make actual contributions to the world, and just end up becoming tools for the industry, which is not what being human is about (unless you enjoy being a tool). We have to find our own places in life, but the way the system works now, most people go through their entire lives under the illusion of happiness and define themselves through the products they can buy and the facade they can put on rather than come to terms with the fact that their lives are fucking shit and they’re not doing anything about it -as being a tool is easier anyway – because that means you don’t have to think *catch breath*.sigh. Being the middle man can really suck. However today, over [a long period of] time I came to learn that the human capacity is a force to be reckoned with, and that we all, each an every single one of us, have it in us to achieve great things, as well as experience awesome-ness, but its up to us to make a conscious decision to do something about it as individuals and as citizens of the world, and to help guide people to self actualize. We are the blank sheets of paper, and the artists, and the pencils.
There is something very wrong with the world today, and people seem to be growing more content about it
Without further ado, welcome to my 18 year old mind. (un-edited for authenticitaaay)
If you don’t like pessimism, don’t read this. Nov. 24th, 2008 at 1:17 AM
The meaning of life is a difficult question to answer because we were left with no clues as to what it could be, or we have been given all the information we need but are too blind or daft to find it, and thusfar no one has come up with a reasonable explanation and believe me, God is highly debateable, so we’ll just put almighty power out of the question. So until we come up with that explanation we have to assume that life has no meaning. Everything you do is pointless because inevitably you’re going to be dead anyway and we just work and play and feel just to pass the time. With that in mind, the human race, the self proclaimed most intelligent being on the planet has failed to live in peace without utter chaos/destruction/death/etc.. being its main reason for coming to be. Instead, using our “highly superior minds” we create all sorts of wonderful things, which in turn create new problems. I reckon ownership has a very big part to play in our downfall, because with ownership comes a lot of the problems we see today,mainly money and how people without it, are doomed to a life without things to distract them from death. Had there been no money, if people only had what they needed to survive instead of wanting more and more, war wouldn’t be something taken as lightly as it is nowdays. Ownership creates greed, and that is a trait you’d find in most people, even those who don’t seem the type, probably have something they hunger for, let it be material or related to feelings. Over time from living in small comunities to large cities people have become less dependent on each other and more dependent on the things that are directly related to them and begin to stop caring about other people who have nothing to do with them. An example of this kind of behavior, easily seen when people find out about a tragedy involving a large number of casualties( bear in mind this IS a generalisation ), unless DIRECTLY related to anything involving that tragedy closely, people couldn’t care less about the statistic, unable to fathom the gravity of something like that, it is simply forgotten over time. If you sit at your home, all comfortable, and say you feel bad for those people then you are probably amongst the biggest heretic on the earth, because you’re not sorry at all. You just think you should be sorry, that’s just your brain trying to imitate a conscience it never had so you can convince yourself that you’re still human. That you can still care about things that aren’t about you so you can face yourself every time you look in the mirror. Or you are some twisted freak who just wants people to look up to you if you show compassion openly.
This part is about religion so don’t read if you’re sensitive.
I don’t see how religion has managed to hang around till now though, seeing as it was created ages ago by people who had no clue of what was going on around them without the help of basic science. They probably questioned the meaning of life and in failing to find one, they decided to look to the one thing they knew nothing about..the sky, because no one knew what was really there, however now only used as symbolism, I really can imagine a bunch of scared people pointing at the sky during a storm saying ridiculous things about a greater being living up there making all these magical things happen. After speaking with several people who are religiously bent, when talking about things that science hasn’t been able to explain yet, I only got highly unsatisfactory response. One guy asked me if science has found out how/why the big bang happened, and i said no. He replied” That is because God did it, God made the big bang happen to create life” with the most certainty i have ever heard anyone talk about anything. Now who is to say that god did it, just because the scientists haven’t figured it out yet. Like everything else they figured out it takes time. The creation of our entire multiverse might just take a little longer as it IS a pretty big thing to cover. God was peoples way of explaining the unexplainable. Although I do agree that science is essentially the search for God but through logic which involves facts and not faith in something people tell you exists. If there really was a God, and people were to meet him I doubt they would be able to comprehend its/his/her existence and would probably go insane, either way until there is definitive proof of such an existing being exists, I will remain a skeptic on the subject.
End.
Its unfortunate, that when we feel a storm
We can roll ourselves over, when we’re uncomfortable.
A friend introduced me to this video which discusses a lot of Freudian idealologies ideologies and how they’ve come to shape our world. What I could draw from it was that in fear of a second Hitler type ordeal, governments scared themselves so shitless of the animalistic nature of human beings, that they resorted to developing methods of controlling or steering the minds of the people by manufacturing a desire within people to want things that they may not have actually wanted (turns out its easier to do than you’d imagine).
I found it pretty ironic ‘they’ reacted precisely in the manner of that which they attempted to control.
Worth a watch.
But be warned, its 4 one hour documentaries, so pace yourself.
http://vimeo.com/61857758
So apparently that video has been taken down, but NOT TO WORRY I should’ve written it down here in the first place. The thing you wanna look for is Adam Curtis’s Century of Self documentary. You can still find it on Vimeo but I think it’s in 4 parts now. Links soon =D
EDIT:
Link to Part 1 Happiness Machines – Vimeo
Link to Part 2 The Engineering of Consent Vimeo –
Link to Part 3 There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads: He Must Be Destroyed Vimeo
https://vimeo.com/54417979
Link to Part 4 Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering Vimeo
It was confusing to be here.
I couldn’t tell the difference between the shadows and the flames, its like they were one in the same
Which seemed impossible, yet there it was
And the longer I stared the more it felt like I was looking into oblivion,
Yet it was so peaceful.
Creativity. What is creativity – what does it mean to be creative – why is it seen in such a low light? Well I suppose at its core, a creative person is someone who has the ability to create something new and unique. I always thought creation was something exclusive to Godlike people[because you know, supposedly ‘God(s) created life’], and that famous artists and musicians are all just born that way and everyone else kind of just had to just.. figure shit out on their own and will never be able to create anything of their own. Well over time I’ve learnt that this is about as substantial as unicorn poop. I realize that creativity is a like a garden, the more you tend to it, the more fruitful it becomes and before you know it, it starts to flourish on its own, but it also diminishes when you stop or don’t take care of it and just rely on being utilitarian – like a machine! – We can use it to overcome many problems in life, in fact that’s ideally what the power of creativity can wield; the ability to overcome anything that comes in our way. So why then is it something that we repress with great effort? How could such a fundamental skill be even remotely considered to have little value..
I think the problem lies closer to home than most people care to realize. It seems that the relentless plague of consumption that has affected our world today may have a part to play in the death of creativity. Trying to understand what a consumer is doesn’t need to be difficult; to consume is to expend or destroy something by using it – not unlike how we consume food. A consumer then is someone who partakes in consumption of something.
What does this has to do with creativity?
The consumption of it is what.
I’m ‘one of those people’ that believes that art should have no purpose other than itself. When art is created for the purpose of consumption and profit, it no longer holds artistic value and what results is artists turning into products which can be packaged for sale to the masses for a profit – the fact that its called the music “industry” is a pretty dead giveaway to their intent (of course I’ll explain either way right?) and that intent is not about creating new art, but rather to make as much profit as possible and fuck anyone who tries to get in the way. As long as people are buying into it, its a good enough reason to keep it going, and its sad to say that what has resulted is a breed of “artists” (decorated clowns) who have resorted to the lowest depths possible to maintain high sales (boring stuff I know but relevant nonetheless) and a society that is unable to see past this facade that they are brought to believe is art, as they’re too engrossed in consuming it, and the truth is – what they’re consuming is just another corporate product. By envoking in a consumer the desire to consume, the consumers themselves are consumed (Michael Dutton 1998). A whole lot of consumption going on here then, everybody just wants to eat – nom nom yum!
You might ask “Why is this a bad thing ‘hurr durr’?”
Well that should be fairly simple to answer
If you think about it again, creativity is about creation, and consumption is about destruction <–THIS
So who stands to benefit from it all? Surely our society would’ve collapsed into itself by now with everyone just om-noming their way through life. It stands to reason then that someone [or a group of someones] – ‘illerminaty oooh’ – has been feeding them to keep them alive for some sort of ends. I reckon it is possible that some super-creative someone devised a method of manipulation(or control) that could never be traced back and would result in complete control of the masses without their ever realizing it; if advertising has taught me anything, its that it doesn’t matter what the product is, they can make you want to buy it, because lets face it, most people don’t know jack shit about what they want from life and are constantly waiting to be told what to do [there are two kinds of people]. But like many creations that involve a lot of power, if anyone were to catch wind of an idea this great they probably would have done everything in their power to acquire it for themselves! <–THIS is actually pretty well reflected in the world today – like the race to space, or nuclear weapons(well…I guess this is the world of yesterday but the point is clear!!). The thought of having control over people – enticing stuff.
This kind of power as has been observed requires a certain kind of obedience or.. consent from people in where they are convinced that they need things that aren’t actually necessary, like…well ANY car at all; like why the fuck isn’t the world designed on awesome public transport [look beyond busses and trains ladies and gentlemen, if this had been developed from the beginning, public transport today could potentially be as personalized as you’d want it to be and you wouldn’t have work to death getting a car(cars have brought nothing but issues and problems to this world like congestion, pollution, social status, oil companies blablabla..)] but yes there are probably a kablamafajazillion examples and instances where you can see that these products have no real purpose in this world and if anything prove to be more questionable than anything; the best one is probably the amount of food produced in 2012 alone was more than the world had ever seen and was enough to feed every individual in the world, yet millions of people around the world still starved to death – and I’m faaaairly certain more-so that this is because it’s simply not profitable to just give food away.
Food Company: HA! No food for you!
If creativity is not profitable it is thwarted and dragged down to the annals of oblivion, and this is a system that only benefits people who are already in high places because it means that people will continue to consume their products while they consume the consumers – and the icing on the cake is they’re more likely not face new competition as they there are no opposing new and better ideas as a result of their murdering of creativity for profit.
That’s right, they murdered it for a buck =(
The capitalists of today remind me of a monarchy.
N.A.S.A. here isn’t the space station, rather a hip hop duo that made an album featuring some pretty amazing musical talents as well as some pretty awesome videos. Check out some of their stuff – iis goooooood.
