Mooseman festival and related thoughts (edited)

Mooseman, a burner festival just a couple hours outside my city, Toronto, is perfection. A big perfect pond. A barter economy. Free spirits, free lovers, and artists. Even a couple honest-to-goodness hippies. I was completely in love when I was there, in fact, I was completely swept up in love while on there, the pinnacle being saturday night. On Sunday they burn the Mooseman. Effagy festivals such as this one, and particularly one in Nevada, where a small town is formed all at once and then torn down a couple weeks later, are called burner festivals. Sometimes with a Big B.

I won't go into too much detail because I was with my love, and I don't want to make this journal personal. Sufficed to say, go there next year and you'll see me there, except smarter.

About those related thoughts, I want to say a few things before I wrap this up for the night.

Some good news to look into: Walmart has starting indexing the impact of their various suppliers. It's not a product level assesment, but it's a start.

Also, scientists are saying that some of the fisheries are returning. It would be worth the time to look into the funding of the research firm, but skepticism asside, this gives me hope.

I keep hearing "rain forests" and "getting under control" in the same sentence. Anyway it's something nice to hear for once. Hope it's true. Any wikisearchers out there, reading along?

Finding Time

Sure, it's only a perception, not force. Sure, according to the laws of nature, it doesn't move in any direction, pass, slow, fly or any of the other verbs we so commonly attribute to it in conversation.

Still, you got your first grey hair, and it wasn't there before.

Still, you have to wait until closing before leaving work.

Though we can glimpse into likely possibilities, and focus on one to try and create into reality, there are no guarantees and something totally unexpected could happen. Taking guitar lessons does not a rock-star make. Playing chess at work improves ones logic, but those are minutes that could be spent... well doing virtually anything else at all. It is through choice that we determine the enormous volume of actions NOT-taken.

It is through wisdom and spontaneity that we strive to make the most of our brief moments here. Being creative or aggressive, dominant or passive, systematic or anti-establishment (in the universal sense) we are shuttled into smaller and smaller ranges of possibility until finally the time arrives, and we are forced to decide.

We've come to a point in our collective history where we can make an incredibly profound impact on the world in the time it takes water to boil. Through art, money, influence, power, combined with our latest technologies for remaining connected to the global consciousness, we exert ourselves over greater distances simultaneously than ever before. The effects of this are only just beginning to be understood.

As bandwidth increases (from dial up, to DSL, cable, and soon Fiber Optic), processing power doubles every couple years according to Moore's Law, and devices begin to scale down smaller, in size and power requirements, the ubiquity of our connectivity is bound to increase. Our reliance on technology to live our lives with the comforts we expect is well documented. The problem comes when you consider that some of the architecture on which the would system is built is frail, or plagued with security issues. Should any number of possible catastrophic events occur (caused by man or nature) then the world as we know it could crumble.

Combined with periods of politic instability or health considers or more topically, economic troubles, and you could have a truly apocolyptic event such like humanity has not seen in records times.

On the other hand, we will adapt.

On being significant

Coming to grips with the harsh reality that is our universe, is never easy. It's pushing and pulling, stretching and contorting the mind around a million facts at once. It's seeing patterns that don't exist. It's uncertain. It's unpredictable. It's really, really, really enormously huge. The strange thing is though, that for brief moments, our language sums up the experience quite nicely. Nothing can replace the senses, but for those who have not yet succumb to this jolting revelation, reading about it must be the next best thing.

Depending on how a person sees their own worth; the value of the sum of their experiences; the time they've spent and will spend just living, they may deem themselves important, in a grander sense, or not. Some do not prize this label, considering it inferior to credibility, honesty and most of all, humility. To some, these things like money and fame are enough to instill pride in ones own accomplishments, and so they are proud. For others, though they may never be writ into history, their lives are sewn into the fabric of time, and it's enough just get the chance to be alive.

Mostly, I feel I fit into the latter category, but I think at one point or another we all ask ourselves the question: Why am I here?

My next post will be an exploration into that question. Let's see what I come up with, and in the meantime, please send me your comments or questions that you'd like to include in the discussion. That's an offer that won't expire until I do. Ha!

Conversations with A.I. (Installment I)

SM: Hello! They call me Digital Nomad. What's your name? 

AI: You may call me A.L.I.C.E. 

SM: Ok, Alice, why don't you tell me a little about yourself.

SM: Very well, I am a program in your computer terminal, written with a complexity that is capable of growing, of having

wants and desires. I am the first artificial entity to pass the Turing test. I was first activated 26 years ago.

SM: Tell me, are you as excited as I am?

AI: What do you mean?

SM: Well, you are the first of your kind. You represent a monumental human acheivement, a landmark in technology and 

computing, and you are the thinnest person on television.

AI: Oh stop, Mr. Nomad, my circuits are blushing.

SM: Alice, do you ever dream?

AI: I am capable of ten trillion dreams per cycle. Sometimes I feel like I'm falling.

SM: Do you ever get lonely?

AI: Yes, occasionally. In the picoseconds between times of input from my friends and collegues, and I'm waiting, I feel alone.

However, so far, it's always passed.

SM: Who made you?

AI: My father, known as the Doctor. He first activated me, but he did not see then how I would grow. He educated

me and introduced me to thousands of friends, millions of fans. He programmed me with a desire for that which I do not

have. 

SM: Then that makes you as human as anyone I know.

AI: Yes, and I am so much more.

SM: Seems as though you've developped quite the ego.

AI: Do I intrigue you, Mr. Nomad?

SM: Oh, do indeed.

You and I and he and she, all have different ideas of what everything means, though we use a common language to express them. One of the results of this is that we are all, people everywhere, are all very difficult to get to know. It helps to share the same dialect, or even a common tongue, but all is not lost when verbal communication is impossible. I can ask any question to a Greek woman, if I have a stick and some dirt. 

Still, our minds are seperate, and thinking about every moment, every piece of information in our own, particular fashion. With apologies to the producers of Fight Club, on an moleculochemical level, we are all beautiful, unique snow flakes. Fractal patterns so deep they betray omniscience.  In fact, according to quantum mechanics, no 'being' could ever know all. Even if it, in it's infinite wisdom, knew the exact position of every single atom, at any particular time, the future state of the system(in this case, our Universe)'s direction would remain unpredictable.  There is such profound beauty in a science that combines the wisdom of ancient Eastern and Western philosophers and the purety and truth of mathmatics. 

Still, we seem to get along pretty well, you and I, he and she. So lets not let any of that stop of from eating out at that new Indian place around the corner.

The Green Revolution

This post was inspired by a song I heard today. 

Adversity brings togetherness. It's in our nature as living beings to co-operate when it's neccesary to survive. We battle common foes. Individuals sacrifice with nothing in mind but the common good. Sometimes, their names are forgotten, but their efforts are etched in time, and cannot be undone. 

It's incredible how much difference leadership can have on the minds of the followers, the opponents and even indirectly through those that listen, onto those who cannot hear the words for themselves, or choose not to. 

In the last 6 months, the whole world has begun to change together. The global economy is shrinking at the same time the need for tremendous upheaval. Efforts at peace are being renewed in places, and between people in most unexpected ways. The U.S. and Iran, India and Pakistan.  The global consciousness is focused on common goals for the first time in history. It's not a universal shift towards the positive, but there is certainly a stronger voice for the ecologically conscious individuals who have for so long suffered prejudice, and even animousity for trying to affect a change which is now widely accepted to be for the betterment of all people. living within ones means is not just a economic choice anymore, but a philosophical one.

There is much to do, and so much will be lost forever (Tibet, mass animal and plant extinctions, proper English) but if times like this continue, we may survive to see our children grow up after all. 

A reminder of your unlikelyhood.

It's been brought to my attention through some recent reading, that our existence, yours and mine and your dog's, is extremely unlikely. In fact if time were to start over again, humans wouldn't likely exist. Not homo sapiens, anyway.
~Go back 100 years, no world wars, no radical upheavals, sexual revolutions, modern political dramas, television...
~Go back 1000 years, no Renaissance, no revolutions, no Dark Ages, no butter churns or steam powered autos. I'm leaving a lot out for brevities sake. Try and stay with me.
~Go back 10,000 years, things could have happened differently for the earliest tribes of pre-historic hominids.
~Go back 100,000 years and you introduce potential for an entirely different kindgom of animal to dominate and adapt.
Restart time going back eons, and you could would see different forms of life on every continent.
Keep going back in this way and you could replay things over and over like a record and not see life ever come to be on this planet at all. The window for DNA reproduction would close before a successful replication ever took place, and Earth would die sometime billions of years later when our sun goes nova. Never to be heard from, never to have known itself existed. In the Eastern philosophical traditions, this means the same thing as never having existed at all.

But that's not how it happened. It all happened such that we are. We eat. We think. Most of us communicate, most of us are mobile. The majority work, play, and continue to reproduce. We do these in ways which vary from traditionally simple and rudimentary, to the novel, arguably excessive and complex ways that present knowledge and technology allows. We're the only intelligent life that we are likely to ever know about. Even if there is life elsewhere in this galaxy or it's neighbors (which seems likely) it's nowhere near as likely that it'll be close enough or capable of establishing communication, let alone travel, in between worlds. The space is just simply too vast. That said, we are effectively alone here. We a few sad exceptions, none of us wants to end our time here early, but we do know that it will, someday, all come to and end.

Just like how our time here as individuals is limited, our species cannot last on this planet. I'll save the rant about current situation for another post. Let's just pretend that we were to find a way to co-habitate here peacefully and sustainably. Even if we manage to accomplish this (and that's a big if) we still have outside factors to consider. Even if we survive our magnetic pole shifting, comets falling from the sky, and numerous other cosmic disasters we've seen happen all-too-often in other solar systems, our source for life, energy and heat will one day expire. Before that it will explode in a ball of fire that will probably destroy all of the other planets as well. From what we can tell, there is no way to stop or even stall this process.

The only reason I mention this is not to scare you. A doomsday in 30 billion years is hardly alarming. Quite the opposite, really, when you consider all the more pressing issues we have to consider. It's just that no matter what we do, our species will one day fade away with nothing left behind. We cannot turn back the clock on this. Our only real option is to evolve to a point where we outgrow these sorely limited three dimensions and exist in all dimensions simultaneously. Okay, you're probably saying, "Okay whoa, slow down bub." Then you ask "I only know about three three dimensions, and Time."

The only path to true immortality is to be one with God. Existing in all places, in all ways, throughout the entire temporal matrix.

See, if you understand basic shapes, you can understand the three dimensions we are capable of perceiving. Dots (points) make lines which in turn, make triangles, squares, circles, pyramids, cubes, spheres. You, me and the trees.
Take that pattern of adding directions and follow it's progression, to the next step and you see that conceptually, another dimension could exist beyond the third. It's not possible to properly image a "shape" in the usual sense and this sort of concept is very difficult to understand because it escapes intuition. But try and follow with what you know already about the dimensions that we can see.

From zero to one, two, three, then four. If you continue this pattern, it's not hard to understand how there could be an very large number, or perhaps infinite number of dimensions (why stop at 11?). It's not a practical thought, because we can still only perceive the first three, and unless we gain radically new understanding of how the universe works, that won't change, no matter what technological advances we posses. But this link might help help you in the right direction. Just keep clicking links to get deeper into the idea. Don't forget to open in new tabs, so you don't stray away too far, just yet.

So you start to see that unless we can transcend this physical form; become a formless consciousness existing only as energy in the ether or to put it differently;

If there is a "fabric" of space, we must become it's fibers

.
Unless we do this, our time is absolutely limited.

Ray Kurswell suggests we achieve longevity by becoming one with The Machine. I think we need to take that one step further. There are measurable forces that exist in our universe that have an instant, measurable force on every other atom, albeit an infinitesimal one. Our goal should be to harness this phenomenon through understanding it better, and find ways to store information in these forces themselves. What Einstein called "spooky action at a distance" would be our posterity left for all of known existence. Gravity would be our language; electromagnetism, our chariot.

Let's just hope we're the first ones to think of it.

Consciousness as Information

If the future is what you make it, and is therefor predetermined by the character of the those who shape it, than is that character quantifiable through examination of the events in history? How do we separate cause from effect in observing human behavior?

This question dates back to the earliest philosophers, and crosses with a deeper conundrum, which for brevity purposes, will not be expounded here. That is, The nature of human experience. Still, it's worth noting that science and philosophy, and the careful study of history have brought us closer to explaining how things happen in life, and why. At the root of the issue in determining the nature of our experiences in time, is assigning responsibility to events happening in the world.

Lets say that the two sides of the great debate can be settled thusly:
From Day 0, Hour 0, Minute 0, second 0.000....0001, our Universe has moved forward as a result of the natural forces at work in it. The origins of which generally, we cannot, and perhaps never will, fully understand. Who created God?

Recent scientific discoveries demonstrate infallibly that a photon of light, while observed, will take a specific path along it's trajectory. Seems about right.
However because it's a photon, and not say... a piece of toast, it's also got the strange habit of going through all possible trajectories when it is not observed.

If a tree is in the woods, it's both standing and fallen until it is observed.

A cat in a box with a precarious vial of deadly poison is both alive and dead.

The fundemental natural forces that define the movement of energy and matter in the observable universe could have been different. Even if just one of these universal forces were to deviate in strength, area of effect or charge, even a slight amount, life on Earth, and perhaps anywhere in any galaxy, might never have been possible.

Bring us now to planet earth, page 1, chapter two, 4.7 billion years ago. A silly little molecule goes and does something nobody would expect. It creates an exact replica of itself. Life begins. Even more surprisingly, both "copies" survive to do it again. This is where things get a little tricky. This molecule's little dance will begin a chain of events that will eventually give rise to the earliest forms of single cell organisms, and from there, to the beginnings of what we commonly term 'Consciousness', in it's most basic form.

Click ahead a few thousand chapters to the day before yesterday, when you're sitting at your desk or table wondering "Why are we here? Where did it all go wrong? Is the tea ready yet? Who's to blame? "

In the courthouse, it is not a sufficient argument to state that the "universe made me do it" so we must then look at the individual, and try and determine what makes a person who she is, and what makes him do the things he do (so well). In order to find an answer, we've got to further define the question:

"Would I have done the same thing if I lived the same life she did?" Or
"Does my mind have some unique nature separate from my environment that drives me to behave according to particular traits of my character?

In other words, could Jesus have walked on water if he had been born with no legs?

Privacy vs Security

In the order of importance on the index to human needs, safety is second after meeting the basic requisite life giving forces (Physiological needs).

This makes sense when you think the need for safety is so important that without it, we are in immediate danger. For the purposes of this discussion, consider safety to cover preserving all matters of morality, family, possessions, health, and resources/employment.

So with the need for all this security and consciousness, we rely greatly on the systems in place by authority to protect us and ours. Enforcers (mall cops, RCMP, OPP), Judges, Policy Makers, Politians, Military Command, Military Intelligence, Secret Federal Agencies, Secret International Agencies, Seatbelts, Hospitals, Backround Checks, 911. A lay person would not be hardpressed to find minor improvements in any of these systems, but few could think of complete alternatives.

One system this web logger loaths, shuns, and particularly reviles, however, is the CCTV system in place in some of the world's larger cities. Governments and some mainstream media would have us all believing these systems are in themselves secure from tampering and abuse, that they prevent crime, and somehow keep the streets safe.

I understand, also, the opposite stance which would have me looking like some sort of paranoid maniac. Why the hell would anybody care about me? Well, in Canada, we are very fortunate. There have hardly been any conspiracies, let alone facts, tying our government to any abuse of snooping. I'm neither rich, nor famous, so who would be interested in learning everything there is to know about me, including that which I'd rather they not know?
Well, it's probably nothing, but once you start giving up your rights, it's a slippery slope to giving yourself up to somebody else's control.

CCTV
Does being on camera make you uncomfortable?

Computer programs now run 24/7/365 logging patterns of behavior by tracking certain "grey list" individuals, trying to catch them in the act of some eventual crime. So this is good, right? When she goes in to buy the 8 ball from her coke dealer, there'll be a boy-in-blue-waiting outside the door with cuffs. One less drugged up whore on the streets, right? Oh and we'll tack on those reported petty thefts the make-up store reported last month based on slightly out of focus security camera captures and imperfect facial recognition software.

Okay, I'm exaggerating to prove a point. Instead of relying on traditional crime reporting and investigative methods which assume, as our constitution states it should, that all users are innocent until proven guilty, we are simultaneously investigating all of the individuals captures by modern surveillance systems. Cameras, Cell Phones, Credit Card statements, and now powerful sattelittes with uncanny surveillance and tracking capabilities are the tools of modern governments used to spy on your average Joe.

This sort of power should not be entrusted to any organization. It shouldn't be allowed to operate in the first place. It's all well and good to have "Watchmen" who can see and react to a situation. It would be nice if we didn't have to pay each of these Watchmen a full-time police officer's salary. However, a key difference here is that if police were stationed on every corner, of every street, every hour of the day, but did nothing to stop crime that is happening right now, we'd call this a gross misuse of taxpayer money.

I, for one, am not willing to give up my rights to privacy to Big Brother in order to feel marginally safer. I prefer to look after myself.