From: Chris Case [mailto:r-anima@qb3.so-net.ne.jp]
Sent: Thursday, 01 July, 1999 8:20 AM
Kath Williamson wrote:
> > VRML-powered virtual environments where one's
> cartoon-like avatar can rub shoulders with those of
>
> I trust that everyone has encountered the wonderful "sci-fi" novel
> SNOWCRASH by Neal Stephenson . . .
I believe it may have been Stephenson who originated the term "avatar" to refer to a user's virtual persona in an online world. Certainly I can recall no occurrence of it in Gibson, Sterling, Shirley, or the other cyberpunk writers,
What I found most interesting about that book (apart from the notion of the Mafia being in the pizza delivery business) was the concept of Sumerian as the Ur-language, corresponding to the machine-level language of
computers (111010010100011100101001010001001100, or words to that effect), and thereby capable of reprogramming the human brain (cf. Leary, Lilly, and NLP).
I started to research that a bit, to find out if indeed Sumerian was still a mystery, but postponed sifting through the avalanche of data that I found, so I still don't know how plausible all that is...
I'd like to see some good links on glossolalia, and "speaking in tongues". I believe David Kubiak (one of the writers I've sampled and mixed for Zavtone) has written some interesting stuff about Pentecostal goings-on....
Does anyone on the list have first-hand experience of the cult-world of Quake and other avatar-based realities? If I hear of a virtual world where something other than combat or shopping is the modus vivendi, I might be tempted to explore more.
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Hakim Bey
From: Chris Case
"Sculptor" alluded to Hakim Bey;
Synchronistic of you to mention Hakim Bey. I just yesterday finished making the attached "sample sequence", which is like the verbal equivalent of a DJ mix, in which one uses samples from (in this case one) author's writings, edited and sequenced to make a certain continuity.
This was made for an article in the forthcoming issue of Zavtone Magazine; I've made five or six such mixes for this article, which is in the subject of Beyond 2000 (as indeed is the whole Zavtone next issue), The other writers similarly victimised are Dane Rudhyar, Antero Alli, David Kubiak, Natasha Vita More, Terence McKenna, and an 11-year-old Malaysian girl.
Anyway, heeeeeeeeeere's Hakim:!
Hakim Bey anticipates:
An anti-authoritarian movement capable
of lumping together the mess of
anarchist, libertarian, syndicalist,
council communist, post-situationist, primitivist,
extropian and other "free" tendencies.
This "union-without-uniformity" will not be
driven by ideology, but by a kind of
insurrectionary "noise" or chaos
of TAZ's, uprisings, refusals, and epiphanies. ...
It will release a hundred blooming flowers,
a thousand, a million memes
of resistance, of difference,
of non-ordinary consciousness --
the will to power as "strangeness".
And as capital retreats deeper and deeper
into cyberspace, or into disembodiment, ...
we will begin to see the re-appearance
of the Social.
The desire for wilderness will be
gratified at a level undreamed of
since the early Neolithic,
and the desire for creativity will be
gratified at a level undreamed of
by the wildest science fiction.
In both cases the means for this enjoyment
can only be called appropriate techné --
green, low energy, high information....--
and this, however untidy,
I would call utopia.
Perhaps we shall experience
not a return *to*
the Stone Age,
but a return *of* the Stone Age ...
A few decades ago civilized ears
literally could not hear
"primitive" music except as noise,
the non-harmonic classical music of India or China
except as meaningless rubbish.
Civilization was defined by
rational consciousness, rationality was defined
as civilized consciousness -- outside this totality
only chaos and sheer
unintelligibility could exist.
But now things have changed -- suddenly, just as
the "primitive"and the "traditional" seem
on the verge of disappearance,
we can hear them.
How?
Why?
If the utopian trace in all music
can now be heard, it can only be
because the "broken order" is now
somehow coming to an end. ..
The reign of the commodity is
threatened by a mass arousal from
the media-trance of inattention.
A taste for the authentic appears,
suffers a million tricks,...
a million empty promises --
but it refuses to evaporate.
Instead it condenses --
it even coagulates.
Neo-shamanic modes of awareness......
Psychedelics and oriental mysticism
sharpen ears
to a taste for the unbroken,
the order of intimacy, and
its festal embodiment.
Of course, everyone is free to play
this game of utopian poetics
with different "rules", and different results.
After all, the future does not exist...
the reification of the eschaton
(either in the future or the past)
devalues the present, the "place" where we
are actually living our everyday lives.
Samples sequenced from various writings
by HAKIM BEY
"Sculptor" alluded to Hakim Bey;
Synchronistic of you to mention Hakim Bey. I just yesterday finished making the attached "sample sequence", which is like the verbal equivalent of a DJ mix, in which one uses samples from (in this case one) author's writings, edited and sequenced to make a certain continuity.
This was made for an article in the forthcoming issue of Zavtone Magazine; I've made five or six such mixes for this article, which is in the subject of Beyond 2000 (as indeed is the whole Zavtone next issue), The other writers similarly victimised are Dane Rudhyar, Antero Alli, David Kubiak, Natasha Vita More, Terence McKenna, and an 11-year-old Malaysian girl.
Anyway, heeeeeeeeeere's Hakim:!
Hakim Bey anticipates:
An anti-authoritarian movement capable
of lumping together the mess of
anarchist, libertarian, syndicalist,
council communist, post-situationist, primitivist,
extropian and other "free" tendencies.
This "union-without-uniformity" will not be
driven by ideology, but by a kind of
insurrectionary "noise" or chaos
of TAZ's, uprisings, refusals, and epiphanies. ...
It will release a hundred blooming flowers,
a thousand, a million memes
of resistance, of difference,
of non-ordinary consciousness --
the will to power as "strangeness".
And as capital retreats deeper and deeper
into cyberspace, or into disembodiment, ...
we will begin to see the re-appearance
of the Social.
The desire for wilderness will be
gratified at a level undreamed of
since the early Neolithic,
and the desire for creativity will be
gratified at a level undreamed of
by the wildest science fiction.
In both cases the means for this enjoyment
can only be called appropriate techné --
green, low energy, high information....--
and this, however untidy,
I would call utopia.
Perhaps we shall experience
not a return *to*
the Stone Age,
but a return *of* the Stone Age ...
A few decades ago civilized ears
literally could not hear
"primitive" music except as noise,
the non-harmonic classical music of India or China
except as meaningless rubbish.
Civilization was defined by
rational consciousness, rationality was defined
as civilized consciousness -- outside this totality
only chaos and sheer
unintelligibility could exist.
But now things have changed -- suddenly, just as
the "primitive"and the "traditional" seem
on the verge of disappearance,
we can hear them.
How?
Why?
If the utopian trace in all music
can now be heard, it can only be
because the "broken order" is now
somehow coming to an end. ..
The reign of the commodity is
threatened by a mass arousal from
the media-trance of inattention.
A taste for the authentic appears,
suffers a million tricks,...
a million empty promises --
but it refuses to evaporate.
Instead it condenses --
it even coagulates.
Neo-shamanic modes of awareness......
Psychedelics and oriental mysticism
sharpen ears
to a taste for the unbroken,
the order of intimacy, and
its festal embodiment.
Of course, everyone is free to play
this game of utopian poetics
with different "rules", and different results.
After all, the future does not exist...
the reification of the eschaton
(either in the future or the past)
devalues the present, the "place" where we
are actually living our everyday lives.
Samples sequenced from various writings
by HAKIM BEY
Music, memes, etc.
Jaron Lanier writes:
As a young composer I used to use my imagination to take on the identities of musical ideas. Imagine being equal temperament. You would first come to consciousness in China and feel yourself pounded out into the air from giant bells. You would feel the dark beating of your imperfect harmonies like tingles in your toes. Then, with the death of an Emperor, you would fall into a deep sleep, only to awaken centuries later pulsing out of the fingertips and into the ears of a frenetic, sober, workaholic named Bach. You would then feel your body opened up in new ways by a prying cosmic chiropractor-this is how the successive generations of harmonic innovators would feel to you. You would eventually flow out of the Beatles' space age chrome guitar pickups and through the distorting diminutive speakers of pastel plastic Japanese radios.
The Full Monty: at THE REALITY CLUB
As a young composer I used to use my imagination to take on the identities of musical ideas. Imagine being equal temperament. You would first come to consciousness in China and feel yourself pounded out into the air from giant bells. You would feel the dark beating of your imperfect harmonies like tingles in your toes. Then, with the death of an Emperor, you would fall into a deep sleep, only to awaken centuries later pulsing out of the fingertips and into the ears of a frenetic, sober, workaholic named Bach. You would then feel your body opened up in new ways by a prying cosmic chiropractor-this is how the successive generations of harmonic innovators would feel to you. You would eventually flow out of the Beatles' space age chrome guitar pickups and through the distorting diminutive speakers of pastel plastic Japanese radios.
The Full Monty: at THE REALITY CLUB
Surrendering to the Irrational?
An amusing titbit from a thread on Howard Rheingold's forum "Electric Minds"
> "If one observes the play of myth in the work of
>Science it does not mean that science does not work and
>one should simply surrender to the irrational."
This is the destructive meme-sequence that has wreaked
so much damage ... it is the perfect statement of the
dichotomization I was referring to. You can't
surrender to the irrational any more than you can
surrender to your own skin. The irrational isn't some
psychic gravity trying to pull us down from our proud
erect posture, it is the dynamic of the mid brain, the
pons and hypothalamus, that weaves its energy
management through the fabric of our daily adventures
in the form of passion, fear, curiosity, aversion, and
other felt things.
Surrender to the irrational? What a pathetic bogeyman
to oppose the methodical approach to tool making and
tool building.
Howard, the difference between technos and scientia is
profoundly germane to this whole enterprise. Technos
has to do with tools, media, implements. It has to do
with craft, design, intent, telos, finish, style, and
transmission of cultural lore. Scientia has to do with
your abstraction thingy, the extraction of essence or
the reification of persistent patterns...and scientia
is of the two the most problematic...because it has
more to do with the imposition of external authority.
Technos is indigenous culture, scientia is the
diplomatic pouch of the global mind, and it can be a
reductionist carpetbag in disguise.
> "If one observes the play of myth in the work of
>Science it does not mean that science does not work and
>one should simply surrender to the irrational."
This is the destructive meme-sequence that has wreaked
so much damage ... it is the perfect statement of the
dichotomization I was referring to. You can't
surrender to the irrational any more than you can
surrender to your own skin. The irrational isn't some
psychic gravity trying to pull us down from our proud
erect posture, it is the dynamic of the mid brain, the
pons and hypothalamus, that weaves its energy
management through the fabric of our daily adventures
in the form of passion, fear, curiosity, aversion, and
other felt things.
Surrender to the irrational? What a pathetic bogeyman
to oppose the methodical approach to tool making and
tool building.
Howard, the difference between technos and scientia is
profoundly germane to this whole enterprise. Technos
has to do with tools, media, implements. It has to do
with craft, design, intent, telos, finish, style, and
transmission of cultural lore. Scientia has to do with
your abstraction thingy, the extraction of essence or
the reification of persistent patterns...and scientia
is of the two the most problematic...because it has
more to do with the imposition of external authority.
Technos is indigenous culture, scientia is the
diplomatic pouch of the global mind, and it can be a
reductionist carpetbag in disguise.
Leech-Computer Interface Breakthrough...
Leech-Computer Interface Breakthrough...
A team of researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology
and a handful of other groups are working to develop hybrid
biocomputers that marry living nerve cells with silicon
circuits to create smarter computers.
If they succeed, they could set the foundation for brain-like
computer systems that could find solutions on their own,
with no need for step-by-step programming instructions.
So far, researchers have joined two neurons from leeches
and linked them to a personal computer, which sent
signals to each cell and correctly extracted the answer to
a simple addition problem.
The program that links the neurons and the PC, dubbed
"wetware," is based on chaos theory, using the results
to tune the neurons and alter the way they communicate.
Ultimately, brain-like chips will be more creative and may
mirror both the good and bad aspects of human thinking.
William L. Ditto, who heads the project at the Georgia
Institute of Technology, says it will be 10 years or more
until biocomputers are commercially available.
credit: Ninfomania
A team of researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology
and a handful of other groups are working to develop hybrid
biocomputers that marry living nerve cells with silicon
circuits to create smarter computers.
If they succeed, they could set the foundation for brain-like
computer systems that could find solutions on their own,
with no need for step-by-step programming instructions.
So far, researchers have joined two neurons from leeches
and linked them to a personal computer, which sent
signals to each cell and correctly extracted the answer to
a simple addition problem.
The program that links the neurons and the PC, dubbed
"wetware," is based on chaos theory, using the results
to tune the neurons and alter the way they communicate.
Ultimately, brain-like chips will be more creative and may
mirror both the good and bad aspects of human thinking.
William L. Ditto, who heads the project at the Georgia
Institute of Technology, says it will be 10 years or more
until biocomputers are commercially available.
credit: Ninfomania
An Overview of Gnosis
An Overview of Gnosis
excerpts from an article by Dean Edwards
[http://www.eff.org/pub/Net_culture/Consciousness/gnosis.overview ]
>
Gnosis comes from a Greek word meaning 'to know' in the sense of to be acquainted.
>
Gnosis in a more specific religious sense refers to the knowledge of God and the fullness of the true spiritual realms through direct personal experience.
>
A gnostic is someone who has had such an experience or who has been initiated into a tradition which provides access to such personal revelations.)
>
Gnosis is not simply a synonym for mysticism, paranormal, occult, metaphysics, esoteric or knowledge. It is a distinct category of mystical experience beyond the physical or psychic levels of being.
>
A gnostic religious-philosophical movement flourished during the first several centuries of the current era.
>
The effects of the presence of Gnosticism as a systematized religious and spiritual practice were felt throughout Europe, Asia and North Africa. These effects continue to be felt today.
>
Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Taoist, Buddhist, pagan and other versions are also present in the historical and contemporary record.
>
Gnosis involves direct "knowledge" and experience of the sacred, rather than relying exclusively on faith, belief or study of sacred texts.
>
Systems of gnosis often teach that only through the intercession of a messenger from the pure spiritual realms can the soul become acquainted with God. The original Greek word, gnosis, as noted above, meant knowledge in terms of being 'acquainted with'. The gnostic in any form is a 'friend of God'.
>
Please note that soul in the above paragraph refers to the spark of individualized spiritual essence that dwells within the consciousness or mind. In some systems the word 'spirit' itself is used instead of soul. Soul then becomes interchangeable with mind. In Greek, for instance, the word 'psyche' means both mind and soul. 'pneuma' on the other hand means spirit, wind, breath, air.
>
Today, new schools of gnosticism such as the Ecclesia Gnostica have emerged in the West. The ancient movement still thrives in several Sufi orders of Islam. (The Arabic term for gnosis is marifat.) There are also strong gnostic influences in Jewish Kabbalah, and in Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. Similar patterns are found in India in the teachings of the Fifteenth Century poet Kabir
and in the Sikhism. There is also increasing interest in the marifat of Sufism in Islam.
excerpts from an article by Dean Edwards
[http://www.eff.org/pub/Net_culture/Consciousness/gnosis.overview ]
>
Gnosis comes from a Greek word meaning 'to know' in the sense of to be acquainted.
>
Gnosis in a more specific religious sense refers to the knowledge of God and the fullness of the true spiritual realms through direct personal experience.
>
A gnostic is someone who has had such an experience or who has been initiated into a tradition which provides access to such personal revelations.)
>
Gnosis is not simply a synonym for mysticism, paranormal, occult, metaphysics, esoteric or knowledge. It is a distinct category of mystical experience beyond the physical or psychic levels of being.
>
A gnostic religious-philosophical movement flourished during the first several centuries of the current era.
>
The effects of the presence of Gnosticism as a systematized religious and spiritual practice were felt throughout Europe, Asia and North Africa. These effects continue to be felt today.
>
Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Taoist, Buddhist, pagan and other versions are also present in the historical and contemporary record.
>
Gnosis involves direct "knowledge" and experience of the sacred, rather than relying exclusively on faith, belief or study of sacred texts.
>
Systems of gnosis often teach that only through the intercession of a messenger from the pure spiritual realms can the soul become acquainted with God. The original Greek word, gnosis, as noted above, meant knowledge in terms of being 'acquainted with'. The gnostic in any form is a 'friend of God'.
>
Please note that soul in the above paragraph refers to the spark of individualized spiritual essence that dwells within the consciousness or mind. In some systems the word 'spirit' itself is used instead of soul. Soul then becomes interchangeable with mind. In Greek, for instance, the word 'psyche' means both mind and soul. 'pneuma' on the other hand means spirit, wind, breath, air.
>
Today, new schools of gnosticism such as the Ecclesia Gnostica have emerged in the West. The ancient movement still thrives in several Sufi orders of Islam. (The Arabic term for gnosis is marifat.) There are also strong gnostic influences in Jewish Kabbalah, and in Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. Similar patterns are found in India in the teachings of the Fifteenth Century poet Kabir
and in the Sikhism. There is also increasing interest in the marifat of Sufism in Islam.
Anthropocybersynchronicity
From: 113463.3610@compuserve.com
Date: Fri Jun 25, 1999 1:43pm
Subject: Anthropocybersynchronicity (rhythm)
http://www.eff.org/pub/Net_culture/Consciousness/
Anthropocybersynchronicity:
Rhythm and Intimacy in VR
by Joel N. Orr, Autodesk Distinguished Fellow 1-800-CADD/CAM.
based on an article that first appeared in Computer Graphics World.
an*thro*po*cy*ber*syn*chro*ni+*ci*ty n [fr Gk anthropos, man +cyber, governor + synchronicity, coming together in time] The study of the rhythmic aspects of the person-computer interface.
I coined the term anthropocybersynchronicity to describe an area of person/machine interface research that is largely unexplored-- but holds great promise, especially for virtual reality. Untapped aspects of our
being can greatly enhance the contact between people and computers. The secret: Rhythm. Human-scale rhythms--visual, auditory, and kinesthetic--can and should be incorporated into the design of effective computer systems.
When MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte was asked a few years ago, "What comes after personal computing?" he responded with a single word: "Intimacy." While the conventional uses of this term have a wide variety of connotations, one cognitive psychology usage is most interesting: "the portion of the field of view occupied by a phenomenon." Since in most current VR applications the virtual world takes up the entirety of the user's field of view, intimacy is total: The user feels entirely "inside" the VR "world."
The totality of the user's immersion in the VR "world" represents both a danger and an opportunity. Anthropocybersynchronicity can lessen the danger and help us exploit the opportunity.
Two to Tango
One of the most widely-quoted statistics in CADD comes from a study done over a decade ago by IBM, in which the researchers demonstrated that the number of transactions performed by users of a CADD system (CADAM, in this case) increased as the response time decreased, down to a quarter of a second. This finding was surprising; most CADD users and experts believed that response time was important, but that below about one second, other factors would limit the productivity of the user. The study, published in the IBM Research Journal, showed that the transaction rate at half a second was double that at one second--and that the transaction rate at a quarter of a second was about double that at half a second.
For years, I believed IBM misapplied this statistic to justify selling much more powerful computer systems for CADD than the user really needed. I pointed out that CADAM commands typically had very limited span; that is, it took four or five picks on CADAM to accomplish what could be done with just one pick on a Computervision system. So response time, I reasoned, was important--but only in the IBM/CADAM environment, where individual commands did not accomplish as much as they did on other systems.
But in 1984, when I visited a CADAM user group meeting and a Computervision user group meeting within a short period, and an observation I had made earlier was confirmed: CADAM users were happy, and CV users were frustrated, with their respective systems. Exploring the matter further with my clients who had CADAM and CV, I was surprised to learn that CADAM users ended their workday tired but happy--with sweaty armpits, so to speak--while CV users often ended their workday with a headache.
It became apparent to me that the "dance" of the CADD operator was much smoother for the CADAM user, with sub-second response times to all commands, than for the CV user, whose system response time varied widely from command to command-- and from moment to moment, for it depended on what the other system users were doing at the time.
Fascinatin' Rhythm
Then I wondered that I had not seen it before: CADAM users were able to develop a working rhythm, much like farm or factory workers. When I was thirteen, my Uncle Bobby taught me to use a scythe. "Once you capture the rhythm of it, it won't even seem like work; you'll find it exhilarating," he told me. I was skeptical, and remained so for several muscle-sore and blistery days, but I kept practicing. And one day, I started cutting clover at about nine in the morning, and only stopped when my worried aunt came to find me at three o'clock in the afternoon--I hadn't shown up for lunch.
This dynamic aspect of ergonomics is sadly neglected by computer users and vendors. It desperately needs more serious study.
Hidden Power
Computers are, potentially, a very powerful amplifier of human thinking. Their use has been limited to date by their accessibility; only a relatively small segment of the population can make contact with their power.
This is largely due to their arcane nature. A great deal of knowledge is required to use most systems with any facility. And most operating systems and applications demand near-perfection from those who would exercise them, operating under the principle of "a miss is as good as a mile"; if you mis-key a command or a file name, the resultant behavior may be astonishingly different from what you expected, and the computer may give you little indication of what you did wrong. So at a minimum, you have to
be precise with letters and numbers to make computers work; only a fraction of the population has the aptitude needed to be so.
Adding pictures to the human/computer communication goes a long way toward enlarging the segment of the population that can take advantage of the brain-amplifying power of computers. Icons and spatially distributed menus make interaction with the computer less ambiguous for more people. Pictures unleash more of the awesome intellectual leverage of the machine. But we do
not have to stop there.
Your Meter is Running
In The Neural Lyre: Poetic Meter, the Brain, and Time, Frederick Turner and Ernst Poppel note that "...brain processing is essentially rhythmic. That these rhythms can be "driven" or reinforced by repeated photic or auditory stimuli, to produce peculiar subjective states, is already well known." They go on to show that this rhythmic nature is the same across cultural
boundaries: "Metered poetry is a highly complex activity which is culturally universal. (Frederick Turner) has heard poetry recited by Ndembu spirit- doctors in Zambia and has, with the anthropologist Wulf Schiefenhovel, translated Eipo poetry from Central New Guinea. He reports, as a poet, that the meter of Eipo poetry, when reproduced in English, has much the same emotional effect as it does in the original."
Through their study of poetry in hundreds of languages, Turner and Poppel have identified a fundamental temporal unit that seems to be shared by all humans. "It has been known for many years that rhythmic photic and auditory stimulation can evoke epileptic symptoms in seizure-prone individuals, and can produce powerful involuntary reactions even in normal persons. The rhythmic stimulus entrains and then amplifies natural brain rhythms, especially if it is tuned to an important frequency such as the ten cycle-per-second alpha wave."
They have determined the length of this unit to be three seconds; in poetry, this period is identified with a vocal space unit discernible in all the languages they studied, which they call LINE. Rhythmic driving at frequencies that are harmonically related to this temporal unit produces astounding effects. "The curious subjective effects of metered verse--relaxation, a holistic sense of the world and so on--are no doubt attributable to a very mild pseudotrance state induced by the auditory
driving effect of this repetition."
Moreover, such stimuli seem to have an integrative effect on people. "Auditory driving is known to affect the right brain much more powerfully than the left: thus, where ordinary unmetered prose comes to us in a "mono" mode, so to speak, affecting the left brain predominantly, metered language comes to us in a "stereo" mode, simultaneously calling on the verbal resources of the left and the rhythmic potentials of the right."
"But the driving rhythm of the three-second LINE is not just any rhythm. It is, as we have seen, tuned to the largest limited unit of auditory time, its specious present, within which causal sequences can be compared, and free decisions taken. A complete poem-- which can be any length--is a duration, a realm of values, systematically divided into presents, which are the realm of action. It therefore summarizes our most sophisticated and most uniquely human integrations of time."
Good Vibrations
Both mechanical and electrical engineers say a system is in resonance when it vibrates at its natural frequency. Energy from a resonating system moves easily to another system of the same natural frequency. We tune radio and tv receivers to the frequencies of transmitting stations in order to receive their signals; when the soprano sings at the natural frequency of the crystal goblet, it shatters.
Human beings are complex systems--too complex to have simple natural frequencies. But there are certain frequencies that resonate with some human phenomena. Low-frequency sound pulses at or near a person's heart rate seem to cause the human system to "lock in" to the sound generator; once this occurs, changes in the frequency or rate of the sound cause
corresponding changes in the person's heart rate, as well as in other physical functions. The most popular video games are not the ones with the best graphics; they are the ones that have a heartbeat-rate low-frequency pulse, that accelerates as the game progresses. This auditory entrainment causes the player's heart rate to speed up, and an accompanying production
of adrenaline and endorphins. By the end of the game, the player is "hyped"--and wants more.
The companies that sell background music to large commercial establishments use rhythms (and often other subliminal stimuli) to create the kind of mood they judge to be most effective--for workers in an office, customers in a grocery store, and so on.
Filmmakers take advantage of this phenomenon to heighten tension in their audiences. Next time you watch a suspense film, note the heartbeat-rate pulse, that speeds up, at crucial times--like when the movie calls for extra suspense.
You Lead
But when a person watches a film, the movie is active and the person is passive. By contrast, good sales people have long known what practitioners of neurolinguistic programming have recently written about: You can establish rapport with someone by intentionally mirroring different aspects of their behavior--their rate of breathing, their blinking rate, the rate at which their leg is swinging, for example. And after a couple of minutes of matching, you can verify that you have rapport by leading--changing the rhythm, and watching to see if they follow. If they do, you are communicating with the person on a very primal level, and they are much more open to your suggestions and other forms of leading than when such rapport is absent.
Studies of people in singles' bars back this up. People who began to mirror each other's behavior soon left together; people who were "out of synch" with each other after a few minutes separated and made other contacts.
Getting at the Problem
Now let us think about the computer as a general-purpose tool, something we use to get a job done. We must measure its effectiveness by how easily and how well it helps us to accomplish our goal, which is usually not operating the computer; it is writing, accounting, designing, drafting, or something to which the computer--except for the specifics of its assistance--is
irrelevant.
We can increase our control of the tool by increasing our coupling to it--the extent to which our actions and the actions of the computer system affect each other. Rhythm, through resonance, enables us to increase that coupling.
Of course, increasing coupling could give the tool more control over the user, which could be undesirable; like the binding of a ski, it has to be both loose and tight. You don't want the ski to fall off while you are going down a slope; but you want it to come off easily if you fall.
Ultimately, it is not literacy, or pictoracy, we need; it is not even "mediacy," a facility with multimedia. Rather, we must have
immediacy--enhanced access to our problems so that we are empowered to solve them without mediation, without the intrusion of the irrelevancies of the computer. Rhythm can bring us closer to this goal.
They Got Rhythm
Although they are only nominally anthroposynchronous, there are already numerous rhythmic uses of computers. The ones given below demonstrate the feasibility of having the computer control rhythm.
Biomuse II is a music- generating system invented by Hugh S. Lusted and R. Benjamin Knapp, of Stanford University. Small electrodes pick up electric signals from the muscles of the "player," and translate them into MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) signals. Electrodes can be placed, for example, on the skull, near the eyes, and on arms and legs. The player can make music by moving, by changing brain-wave patterns (through visualization or other means), or by looking in different directions.
Music therapist Shmuel Ben-Dov uses a program called "Xanadu" to teach autistic children. The system can detect both pitch and rhythm via a microphone connected to a board that comes with the software. Ben-Dov designs lessons that can be executed by Xanadu; in them, the student is instructed to sing a particular series of notes, at the given rhythm. When
the student does well, the system rewards him or her with a pleasant arpeggio; mistakes cause the program to provide additional instruction and encouragement.
In the Boston Computer Museum, a computer plays along with a musician, improvising an accompaniment in real time.
A simpler version is available in Broderbund's "Jam Session" for the Macintosh. The program has a mode in which the user can "jam" with the music by selecting particular licks; the software makes sure that the user's contribution fits in with the rhythm of the piece.
Richard Bandler, co-inventor of NLP (neurolinguistic programming), has described programs for the Apple II that induce a light hypnotic trance by rhythmic flashing and clicking. Once the system has "rapport" with the user, it makes suggestions to enhance the user's learning state.
I'll Lead, You Follow
Suppose the keyboard of your personal computer had a sensor that could detect your pulse. When you first start working with the computer, the system would inquire as to your mood and alertness, from time to time. It would build a table with the corresponding heart rates. After a period of calibration, it could then sense your level of alertness, and use rhythmic
auditory and visual pulsation to alter it. It could, for example, flash a character in the corner of the display at the rate of your pulse, while making an unobtrusive but audible clicking sound. When it detected synchronization between your pulse rate and its beat, it could speed up the flashing and clicking, checking to see that your pulse was entrained.
By increasing your heart rate, the system would cause your body to generate the substances that are the concomitants of the "fight or flight" response--including endorphins and enkephalins, pain- blunting, pleasure-enhancing morphine-like chemicals that could make you more effective.
They could also make you less effective, if your work required a more contemplative mood. For this reason, you'd be able to control what the system did to you.
Off-Beat
"What do you call people who practice the rhythm method of birth control?" goes the riddle. "Parents," is the answer. Like any other tool or approach, rhythm does not ensure success.
Rhythm can be a powerful ally or a formidable foe, a liberator or an enslaver. I do not believe it is intrinsically evil, but it can be used for evil purposes, such as controlling people against their will. We should approach it cautiously and intelligently, respecting its destructive power while we harness it for our benefit.
Coming Soon
We have looked at rhythm with the mathematics of Euclid and Newton, whose underlying assumptions derive from Plato's: everything in the world is an approximation of an ideal. Recent discoveries under the general heading of "the mathematics of chaos" reveal that things are both simpler and more complex than we ever imagined. Sealed mysteries of natural phenomena, and biological phenomena in particular, are yielding in embarrassing profusion to this new Open sesame. I am anxiously waiting to see if there will be found, in a biological setting, a chaotic or fractal analog to the Newtonian notion of resonance.
Marching Forward
Historically, rhythm has sometimes been used to abrogate individual freedoms. "Military drums play music designed to make your feet take you where your head never would," says N'omi Orr. "Musick is almost as dangerous as Gunpowder; and it may be requires looking after no less than the Press or the Mint. 'Tis possible a publick Regulation might not be amiss," said Jeremy Collier (1650-1726).
There is danger in rhythm, long perceived. Let us exercise good judgment in its application. We have to be sensitive to the possibilities for its misuse. Here, the best remedy is education; we must teach our children about rhythm in the context of communications, and make them sensitive to its use and misuse.
But we must act quickly; we are late. In 1947, mystery writer and medievalist Dorothy Sayers pointed out, in The Lost Tools of Learning: "We who were scandalized in 1940 when men were sent to fight armored tanks with rifles, are not scandalized when young men and women are sent into the world to fight massed propaganda with a smattering of "subjects"; and when
whole classes and whole nations become hypnotized by the arts of the spell binder, we have the impudence to be astonished. We dole out lip-service to the importance of education..."
We have to see education as an ongoing activity; we must teach, and learn, how to think, not just what. And part of that set of skills is in the examination of what we take in. In his science-fiction novel, David's Sling, Mark Stiegler gives good advice:
"Filter first for substance. Filter second for significance. These filters protect against advertising. Filter third for reliability. This filter protects against politicians. Filter fourth for completeness. This filter protects from the media.
" "History is a race between education and catastrophe," noted H. G. Wells. May education win in our generation.
DR. JOEL N. ORR
Chairman and Principal Consultant
ORR ASSOCIATES, INC.
5224 Indian River Road * Suite 106
Virginia Beach, Virginia 23464
804/467-2677; Fax 804/495-8548
Dr. Joel N. Orr is a CADD/CAM and computer graphics consultant. He is
chairman of Orr Associates, Inc. (OAI), one of the most active consulting
firms of its type in the world. OAI counts among its satisfied clients such
organizations as IBM, AMP, Kodak, Unisys, the US Air Force and Navy,
Hasbro, Xerox, Motorola, Citicorp Venture, and many others. OAI provides
both technical and marketing counsel to users and vendors of CADD/CAM and
computer graphics equipment and services, as well as to investors.
Dr. Orr is a contributing editor for COMPUTER GRAPHICS WORLD, TEMPLATE,
CAE, DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT, andWINDOWS SOURCES. He is a founding member and
past president of the National Computer Graphics Association. A popular
speaker, he frequently addresses the Society for Manufacturing Engineers,
the American Production and Inventory Control Society, and many other
professional groups. He has written and edited several books on CADD and
CIM, and is listed in "Who's Who."
LEAP, the League for Engineering Automation Productivity, was established
by Dr. Orr. Its goal is to empower engineering professionals by working
with academic and industrial leaders to make computers the locus, rather
than the focus, of day-to-day engineering activity.
The CADD/CAM Institute, a seminar and publishing firm, was founded and is
directed by Dr. Orr. It publishes Joel Orr's WORLD OF TECHNOLOGY, a
30-minute monthly video newsletter.
COMPUTER TALK, a weekly radio talk show hosted by Dr. Orr, can be heard on
Standard Broadcasting Network affiliates Sundays, 2-3 pm EST.
Dr. Orr holds a PhD in mathematics and computer science. He was named a
Distinguished Fellow by Autodesk Corporation.
Date: Fri Jun 25, 1999 1:43pm
Subject: Anthropocybersynchronicity (rhythm)
http://www.eff.org/pub/Net_culture/Consciousness/
Anthropocybersynchronicity:
Rhythm and Intimacy in VR
by Joel N. Orr, Autodesk Distinguished Fellow 1-800-CADD/CAM.
based on an article that first appeared in Computer Graphics World.
an*thro*po*cy*ber*syn*chro*ni+*ci*ty n [fr Gk anthropos, man +cyber, governor + synchronicity, coming together in time] The study of the rhythmic aspects of the person-computer interface.
I coined the term anthropocybersynchronicity to describe an area of person/machine interface research that is largely unexplored-- but holds great promise, especially for virtual reality. Untapped aspects of our
being can greatly enhance the contact between people and computers. The secret: Rhythm. Human-scale rhythms--visual, auditory, and kinesthetic--can and should be incorporated into the design of effective computer systems.
When MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte was asked a few years ago, "What comes after personal computing?" he responded with a single word: "Intimacy." While the conventional uses of this term have a wide variety of connotations, one cognitive psychology usage is most interesting: "the portion of the field of view occupied by a phenomenon." Since in most current VR applications the virtual world takes up the entirety of the user's field of view, intimacy is total: The user feels entirely "inside" the VR "world."
The totality of the user's immersion in the VR "world" represents both a danger and an opportunity. Anthropocybersynchronicity can lessen the danger and help us exploit the opportunity.
Two to Tango
One of the most widely-quoted statistics in CADD comes from a study done over a decade ago by IBM, in which the researchers demonstrated that the number of transactions performed by users of a CADD system (CADAM, in this case) increased as the response time decreased, down to a quarter of a second. This finding was surprising; most CADD users and experts believed that response time was important, but that below about one second, other factors would limit the productivity of the user. The study, published in the IBM Research Journal, showed that the transaction rate at half a second was double that at one second--and that the transaction rate at a quarter of a second was about double that at half a second.
For years, I believed IBM misapplied this statistic to justify selling much more powerful computer systems for CADD than the user really needed. I pointed out that CADAM commands typically had very limited span; that is, it took four or five picks on CADAM to accomplish what could be done with just one pick on a Computervision system. So response time, I reasoned, was important--but only in the IBM/CADAM environment, where individual commands did not accomplish as much as they did on other systems.
But in 1984, when I visited a CADAM user group meeting and a Computervision user group meeting within a short period, and an observation I had made earlier was confirmed: CADAM users were happy, and CV users were frustrated, with their respective systems. Exploring the matter further with my clients who had CADAM and CV, I was surprised to learn that CADAM users ended their workday tired but happy--with sweaty armpits, so to speak--while CV users often ended their workday with a headache.
It became apparent to me that the "dance" of the CADD operator was much smoother for the CADAM user, with sub-second response times to all commands, than for the CV user, whose system response time varied widely from command to command-- and from moment to moment, for it depended on what the other system users were doing at the time.
Fascinatin' Rhythm
Then I wondered that I had not seen it before: CADAM users were able to develop a working rhythm, much like farm or factory workers. When I was thirteen, my Uncle Bobby taught me to use a scythe. "Once you capture the rhythm of it, it won't even seem like work; you'll find it exhilarating," he told me. I was skeptical, and remained so for several muscle-sore and blistery days, but I kept practicing. And one day, I started cutting clover at about nine in the morning, and only stopped when my worried aunt came to find me at three o'clock in the afternoon--I hadn't shown up for lunch.
This dynamic aspect of ergonomics is sadly neglected by computer users and vendors. It desperately needs more serious study.
Hidden Power
Computers are, potentially, a very powerful amplifier of human thinking. Their use has been limited to date by their accessibility; only a relatively small segment of the population can make contact with their power.
This is largely due to their arcane nature. A great deal of knowledge is required to use most systems with any facility. And most operating systems and applications demand near-perfection from those who would exercise them, operating under the principle of "a miss is as good as a mile"; if you mis-key a command or a file name, the resultant behavior may be astonishingly different from what you expected, and the computer may give you little indication of what you did wrong. So at a minimum, you have to
be precise with letters and numbers to make computers work; only a fraction of the population has the aptitude needed to be so.
Adding pictures to the human/computer communication goes a long way toward enlarging the segment of the population that can take advantage of the brain-amplifying power of computers. Icons and spatially distributed menus make interaction with the computer less ambiguous for more people. Pictures unleash more of the awesome intellectual leverage of the machine. But we do
not have to stop there.
Your Meter is Running
In The Neural Lyre: Poetic Meter, the Brain, and Time, Frederick Turner and Ernst Poppel note that "...brain processing is essentially rhythmic. That these rhythms can be "driven" or reinforced by repeated photic or auditory stimuli, to produce peculiar subjective states, is already well known." They go on to show that this rhythmic nature is the same across cultural
boundaries: "Metered poetry is a highly complex activity which is culturally universal. (Frederick Turner) has heard poetry recited by Ndembu spirit- doctors in Zambia and has, with the anthropologist Wulf Schiefenhovel, translated Eipo poetry from Central New Guinea. He reports, as a poet, that the meter of Eipo poetry, when reproduced in English, has much the same emotional effect as it does in the original."
Through their study of poetry in hundreds of languages, Turner and Poppel have identified a fundamental temporal unit that seems to be shared by all humans. "It has been known for many years that rhythmic photic and auditory stimulation can evoke epileptic symptoms in seizure-prone individuals, and can produce powerful involuntary reactions even in normal persons. The rhythmic stimulus entrains and then amplifies natural brain rhythms, especially if it is tuned to an important frequency such as the ten cycle-per-second alpha wave."
They have determined the length of this unit to be three seconds; in poetry, this period is identified with a vocal space unit discernible in all the languages they studied, which they call LINE. Rhythmic driving at frequencies that are harmonically related to this temporal unit produces astounding effects. "The curious subjective effects of metered verse--relaxation, a holistic sense of the world and so on--are no doubt attributable to a very mild pseudotrance state induced by the auditory
driving effect of this repetition."
Moreover, such stimuli seem to have an integrative effect on people. "Auditory driving is known to affect the right brain much more powerfully than the left: thus, where ordinary unmetered prose comes to us in a "mono" mode, so to speak, affecting the left brain predominantly, metered language comes to us in a "stereo" mode, simultaneously calling on the verbal resources of the left and the rhythmic potentials of the right."
"But the driving rhythm of the three-second LINE is not just any rhythm. It is, as we have seen, tuned to the largest limited unit of auditory time, its specious present, within which causal sequences can be compared, and free decisions taken. A complete poem-- which can be any length--is a duration, a realm of values, systematically divided into presents, which are the realm of action. It therefore summarizes our most sophisticated and most uniquely human integrations of time."
Good Vibrations
Both mechanical and electrical engineers say a system is in resonance when it vibrates at its natural frequency. Energy from a resonating system moves easily to another system of the same natural frequency. We tune radio and tv receivers to the frequencies of transmitting stations in order to receive their signals; when the soprano sings at the natural frequency of the crystal goblet, it shatters.
Human beings are complex systems--too complex to have simple natural frequencies. But there are certain frequencies that resonate with some human phenomena. Low-frequency sound pulses at or near a person's heart rate seem to cause the human system to "lock in" to the sound generator; once this occurs, changes in the frequency or rate of the sound cause
corresponding changes in the person's heart rate, as well as in other physical functions. The most popular video games are not the ones with the best graphics; they are the ones that have a heartbeat-rate low-frequency pulse, that accelerates as the game progresses. This auditory entrainment causes the player's heart rate to speed up, and an accompanying production
of adrenaline and endorphins. By the end of the game, the player is "hyped"--and wants more.
The companies that sell background music to large commercial establishments use rhythms (and often other subliminal stimuli) to create the kind of mood they judge to be most effective--for workers in an office, customers in a grocery store, and so on.
Filmmakers take advantage of this phenomenon to heighten tension in their audiences. Next time you watch a suspense film, note the heartbeat-rate pulse, that speeds up, at crucial times--like when the movie calls for extra suspense.
You Lead
But when a person watches a film, the movie is active and the person is passive. By contrast, good sales people have long known what practitioners of neurolinguistic programming have recently written about: You can establish rapport with someone by intentionally mirroring different aspects of their behavior--their rate of breathing, their blinking rate, the rate at which their leg is swinging, for example. And after a couple of minutes of matching, you can verify that you have rapport by leading--changing the rhythm, and watching to see if they follow. If they do, you are communicating with the person on a very primal level, and they are much more open to your suggestions and other forms of leading than when such rapport is absent.
Studies of people in singles' bars back this up. People who began to mirror each other's behavior soon left together; people who were "out of synch" with each other after a few minutes separated and made other contacts.
Getting at the Problem
Now let us think about the computer as a general-purpose tool, something we use to get a job done. We must measure its effectiveness by how easily and how well it helps us to accomplish our goal, which is usually not operating the computer; it is writing, accounting, designing, drafting, or something to which the computer--except for the specifics of its assistance--is
irrelevant.
We can increase our control of the tool by increasing our coupling to it--the extent to which our actions and the actions of the computer system affect each other. Rhythm, through resonance, enables us to increase that coupling.
Of course, increasing coupling could give the tool more control over the user, which could be undesirable; like the binding of a ski, it has to be both loose and tight. You don't want the ski to fall off while you are going down a slope; but you want it to come off easily if you fall.
Ultimately, it is not literacy, or pictoracy, we need; it is not even "mediacy," a facility with multimedia. Rather, we must have
immediacy--enhanced access to our problems so that we are empowered to solve them without mediation, without the intrusion of the irrelevancies of the computer. Rhythm can bring us closer to this goal.
They Got Rhythm
Although they are only nominally anthroposynchronous, there are already numerous rhythmic uses of computers. The ones given below demonstrate the feasibility of having the computer control rhythm.
Biomuse II is a music- generating system invented by Hugh S. Lusted and R. Benjamin Knapp, of Stanford University. Small electrodes pick up electric signals from the muscles of the "player," and translate them into MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) signals. Electrodes can be placed, for example, on the skull, near the eyes, and on arms and legs. The player can make music by moving, by changing brain-wave patterns (through visualization or other means), or by looking in different directions.
Music therapist Shmuel Ben-Dov uses a program called "Xanadu" to teach autistic children. The system can detect both pitch and rhythm via a microphone connected to a board that comes with the software. Ben-Dov designs lessons that can be executed by Xanadu; in them, the student is instructed to sing a particular series of notes, at the given rhythm. When
the student does well, the system rewards him or her with a pleasant arpeggio; mistakes cause the program to provide additional instruction and encouragement.
In the Boston Computer Museum, a computer plays along with a musician, improvising an accompaniment in real time.
A simpler version is available in Broderbund's "Jam Session" for the Macintosh. The program has a mode in which the user can "jam" with the music by selecting particular licks; the software makes sure that the user's contribution fits in with the rhythm of the piece.
Richard Bandler, co-inventor of NLP (neurolinguistic programming), has described programs for the Apple II that induce a light hypnotic trance by rhythmic flashing and clicking. Once the system has "rapport" with the user, it makes suggestions to enhance the user's learning state.
I'll Lead, You Follow
Suppose the keyboard of your personal computer had a sensor that could detect your pulse. When you first start working with the computer, the system would inquire as to your mood and alertness, from time to time. It would build a table with the corresponding heart rates. After a period of calibration, it could then sense your level of alertness, and use rhythmic
auditory and visual pulsation to alter it. It could, for example, flash a character in the corner of the display at the rate of your pulse, while making an unobtrusive but audible clicking sound. When it detected synchronization between your pulse rate and its beat, it could speed up the flashing and clicking, checking to see that your pulse was entrained.
By increasing your heart rate, the system would cause your body to generate the substances that are the concomitants of the "fight or flight" response--including endorphins and enkephalins, pain- blunting, pleasure-enhancing morphine-like chemicals that could make you more effective.
They could also make you less effective, if your work required a more contemplative mood. For this reason, you'd be able to control what the system did to you.
Off-Beat
"What do you call people who practice the rhythm method of birth control?" goes the riddle. "Parents," is the answer. Like any other tool or approach, rhythm does not ensure success.
Rhythm can be a powerful ally or a formidable foe, a liberator or an enslaver. I do not believe it is intrinsically evil, but it can be used for evil purposes, such as controlling people against their will. We should approach it cautiously and intelligently, respecting its destructive power while we harness it for our benefit.
Coming Soon
We have looked at rhythm with the mathematics of Euclid and Newton, whose underlying assumptions derive from Plato's: everything in the world is an approximation of an ideal. Recent discoveries under the general heading of "the mathematics of chaos" reveal that things are both simpler and more complex than we ever imagined. Sealed mysteries of natural phenomena, and biological phenomena in particular, are yielding in embarrassing profusion to this new Open sesame. I am anxiously waiting to see if there will be found, in a biological setting, a chaotic or fractal analog to the Newtonian notion of resonance.
Marching Forward
Historically, rhythm has sometimes been used to abrogate individual freedoms. "Military drums play music designed to make your feet take you where your head never would," says N'omi Orr. "Musick is almost as dangerous as Gunpowder; and it may be requires looking after no less than the Press or the Mint. 'Tis possible a publick Regulation might not be amiss," said Jeremy Collier (1650-1726).
There is danger in rhythm, long perceived. Let us exercise good judgment in its application. We have to be sensitive to the possibilities for its misuse. Here, the best remedy is education; we must teach our children about rhythm in the context of communications, and make them sensitive to its use and misuse.
But we must act quickly; we are late. In 1947, mystery writer and medievalist Dorothy Sayers pointed out, in The Lost Tools of Learning: "We who were scandalized in 1940 when men were sent to fight armored tanks with rifles, are not scandalized when young men and women are sent into the world to fight massed propaganda with a smattering of "subjects"; and when
whole classes and whole nations become hypnotized by the arts of the spell binder, we have the impudence to be astonished. We dole out lip-service to the importance of education..."
We have to see education as an ongoing activity; we must teach, and learn, how to think, not just what. And part of that set of skills is in the examination of what we take in. In his science-fiction novel, David's Sling, Mark Stiegler gives good advice:
"Filter first for substance. Filter second for significance. These filters protect against advertising. Filter third for reliability. This filter protects against politicians. Filter fourth for completeness. This filter protects from the media.
" "History is a race between education and catastrophe," noted H. G. Wells. May education win in our generation.
DR. JOEL N. ORR
Chairman and Principal Consultant
ORR ASSOCIATES, INC.
5224 Indian River Road * Suite 106
Virginia Beach, Virginia 23464
804/467-2677; Fax 804/495-8548
Dr. Joel N. Orr is a CADD/CAM and computer graphics consultant. He is
chairman of Orr Associates, Inc. (OAI), one of the most active consulting
firms of its type in the world. OAI counts among its satisfied clients such
organizations as IBM, AMP, Kodak, Unisys, the US Air Force and Navy,
Hasbro, Xerox, Motorola, Citicorp Venture, and many others. OAI provides
both technical and marketing counsel to users and vendors of CADD/CAM and
computer graphics equipment and services, as well as to investors.
Dr. Orr is a contributing editor for COMPUTER GRAPHICS WORLD, TEMPLATE,
CAE, DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT, andWINDOWS SOURCES. He is a founding member and
past president of the National Computer Graphics Association. A popular
speaker, he frequently addresses the Society for Manufacturing Engineers,
the American Production and Inventory Control Society, and many other
professional groups. He has written and edited several books on CADD and
CIM, and is listed in "Who's Who."
LEAP, the League for Engineering Automation Productivity, was established
by Dr. Orr. Its goal is to empower engineering professionals by working
with academic and industrial leaders to make computers the locus, rather
than the focus, of day-to-day engineering activity.
The CADD/CAM Institute, a seminar and publishing firm, was founded and is
directed by Dr. Orr. It publishes Joel Orr's WORLD OF TECHNOLOGY, a
30-minute monthly video newsletter.
COMPUTER TALK, a weekly radio talk show hosted by Dr. Orr, can be heard on
Standard Broadcasting Network affiliates Sundays, 2-3 pm EST.
Dr. Orr holds a PhD in mathematics and computer science. He was named a
Distinguished Fellow by Autodesk Corporation.
Feel the Force, Luke...
From: Chris Case
Date: Fri Jun 25, 1999 10:38am
Subject: Feel the Force, Luke...
Lest we think that the holistic vision, the concept of the interconnectivity of all things, and theories of resonance are something terribly terribly new, have a gander at this, which I've always felt to be one of the finest poems of the 20th (or any) century; not cheerful, true, but sublimely human.... Herein also are (conscious?) allusions to some of the principles of sympathetic magic ("The hand that whirls", etc...)
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.
The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.
The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.
And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.
-Dylan Thomas, 1934-
Date: Fri Jun 25, 1999 10:38am
Subject: Feel the Force, Luke...
Lest we think that the holistic vision, the concept of the interconnectivity of all things, and theories of resonance are something terribly terribly new, have a gander at this, which I've always felt to be one of the finest poems of the 20th (or any) century; not cheerful, true, but sublimely human.... Herein also are (conscious?) allusions to some of the principles of sympathetic magic ("The hand that whirls", etc...)
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.
The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.
The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.
And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.
-Dylan Thomas, 1934-
MEMORY TRADE: A Prehistory of Cyberculture
rom: Kath Williamson MEMORY TRADE: A Prehistory of Cyberculture
by Darren Tofts (words) and Murray McKeigh (vision)
Inteface Publishers, 1998, Australia ISBN 90 5704 1812
"The notion of 'culture' is changing at the speed of information itself. Computer technology is creating a new kind of public, a cyberculture with all its utopian and apocalyptic possibilities. But is that new?
Popular debate generally ignores cyberculture's historical context. The official history begins in the 19th century and tracks the evolution of telecomunications, the egalitarian dream of the global village, and the emergence of the military-industrial complex. However, this omits the
deeper, prehistory of technological transformation of culture that are everywhere felt but nowhere seen in the telematic landscape of the late 20th century. Cyberculture is an extension, rather than an innovation, of human engagement with communication and information technologies.
In creating a prehistory of cyberculture, then, we are not trying to present a genealogy of concatenation, of neatly linked motivations and actions, but rather to construct a narrative of syncopation, of shifting emphases and digressions in word and image. We are, in the spirit of
Heidegger, building a way. Conceived as a jam session between writer and artist, this book is interested in the relationships between humans and technology, creativity and artifice, reality and representations of reality. It seeks to explore cyberculture's unconscious, to present
unexpected encounters in its examination of the technologizing of the wor(l)d.
A work of archeology, this book scapes away the surfaces of the contemporary world to detect the sedimentary traces of the past. A past that inflects the present with the echoes of ancient, unresolved philosophical questions about the relationships between humans and technology."
_________________________________________________________________________
Needless to say, one of the central aspects of this book is the examination of the development of writing as a technology in human communities. I haven't thought of this before, but writing is not biologically determined, so the author suggests that it was with the development of writing 4000-5000 years ago which heralded the creation of the "cyborg" - the human/technology hybrid. (With this in mind, it's interesting, too, to contemplate the nature of the 'net and the web, which is still, essentially, textual communication).
Of course, I've been aware for a long while that it is the capacity of our language which delineates the breadth and depth of our thoughts, so this idea has been quite a revelation.
kath the cyborg
by Darren Tofts (words) and Murray McKeigh (vision)
Inteface Publishers, 1998, Australia ISBN 90 5704 1812
"The notion of 'culture' is changing at the speed of information itself. Computer technology is creating a new kind of public, a cyberculture with all its utopian and apocalyptic possibilities. But is that new?
Popular debate generally ignores cyberculture's historical context. The official history begins in the 19th century and tracks the evolution of telecomunications, the egalitarian dream of the global village, and the emergence of the military-industrial complex. However, this omits the
deeper, prehistory of technological transformation of culture that are everywhere felt but nowhere seen in the telematic landscape of the late 20th century. Cyberculture is an extension, rather than an innovation, of human engagement with communication and information technologies.
In creating a prehistory of cyberculture, then, we are not trying to present a genealogy of concatenation, of neatly linked motivations and actions, but rather to construct a narrative of syncopation, of shifting emphases and digressions in word and image. We are, in the spirit of
Heidegger, building a way. Conceived as a jam session between writer and artist, this book is interested in the relationships between humans and technology, creativity and artifice, reality and representations of reality. It seeks to explore cyberculture's unconscious, to present
unexpected encounters in its examination of the technologizing of the wor(l)d.
A work of archeology, this book scapes away the surfaces of the contemporary world to detect the sedimentary traces of the past. A past that inflects the present with the echoes of ancient, unresolved philosophical questions about the relationships between humans and technology."
_________________________________________________________________________
Needless to say, one of the central aspects of this book is the examination of the development of writing as a technology in human communities. I haven't thought of this before, but writing is not biologically determined, so the author suggests that it was with the development of writing 4000-5000 years ago which heralded the creation of the "cyborg" - the human/technology hybrid. (With this in mind, it's interesting, too, to contemplate the nature of the 'net and the web, which is still, essentially, textual communication).
Of course, I've been aware for a long while that it is the capacity of our language which delineates the breadth and depth of our thoughts, so this idea has been quite a revelation.
kath the cyborg
Reply to a skeptic
Excerpts from:
From: Chris Case
Date: Tue Jun 15, 1999 9:48pm
Subject: Reply to a skeptic
..As I think I explained, I have my own sense of the word "TechGnosis", having (also) invented it. It has to do with the *hoped-for* convergence of the gnostic and creative sector with the scientific. It is time for left and right brains to stop squaring off in the kind of opposition that resembles the archetypal argument between men and women.
There is a kind of New Age mysticism which perpetuates the notion that science is the misguided enemy of holistic knowledge, but I do not believe this to be the case, and find ample evidence in the writings of what I consider the most illuminated minds that rejection of science as such is a foolish and ostrich-like move. Just as some mystics have made ignorantly dismissive remarks about extrospection, stemming from their own disinterest in phenomenal reality,
or Maya, so have many scientist made equally "blinkered' remarks about the experiences and capabilities deriving from introspection. This leads to a characteristic lack of practicality in the one camp and of creativity in the other. I eschew all forms of camping about, and prefer a cognitive atmosphere that is hetero-intellectual.
....
From my point of view, TechGnosis is an attempt to minimise the number of infants lost in the bathwater effluent. For this to work, both blinkered empiricists and arm-waving mystics will have to renounce their desire for hegemony, respect the others' freedom to explore whatever fields with whatever methods they choose, and seek common ground, scant though it may at the moment seem, for this is only a seeming.
To assume that all exponents of mystical insight are woolly-minded fools, incapable of logic or practicality, is simply incorrect. The master who initiated me into the techniques of Shabad Yoga was a highly successful lawyer before he succeeded his teacher, who had been a professor of chemistry, his own master having been a high-ranking engineer in the military. None of them found it necessary to deny or reject the findings of science, but rather extended beyond the domain of the externally-oriented senses the empirical practices of science, insisting that nothing should be taken on faith, nor should one extrapolate any more beyond ones own experience than a scientist does in imagining in which direction it "might be nice" or revealing to look next.
Few men could have been more practical than Napoleon, who said, more or less: "qui sait ou il va n'ira jamais nulpart." (He who knows where he's heading will never go anywhere.)
From: Chris Case
Date: Tue Jun 15, 1999 9:48pm
Subject: Reply to a skeptic
..As I think I explained, I have my own sense of the word "TechGnosis", having (also) invented it. It has to do with the *hoped-for* convergence of the gnostic and creative sector with the scientific. It is time for left and right brains to stop squaring off in the kind of opposition that resembles the archetypal argument between men and women.
There is a kind of New Age mysticism which perpetuates the notion that science is the misguided enemy of holistic knowledge, but I do not believe this to be the case, and find ample evidence in the writings of what I consider the most illuminated minds that rejection of science as such is a foolish and ostrich-like move. Just as some mystics have made ignorantly dismissive remarks about extrospection, stemming from their own disinterest in phenomenal reality,
or Maya, so have many scientist made equally "blinkered' remarks about the experiences and capabilities deriving from introspection. This leads to a characteristic lack of practicality in the one camp and of creativity in the other. I eschew all forms of camping about, and prefer a cognitive atmosphere that is hetero-intellectual.
....
From my point of view, TechGnosis is an attempt to minimise the number of infants lost in the bathwater effluent. For this to work, both blinkered empiricists and arm-waving mystics will have to renounce their desire for hegemony, respect the others' freedom to explore whatever fields with whatever methods they choose, and seek common ground, scant though it may at the moment seem, for this is only a seeming.
To assume that all exponents of mystical insight are woolly-minded fools, incapable of logic or practicality, is simply incorrect. The master who initiated me into the techniques of Shabad Yoga was a highly successful lawyer before he succeeded his teacher, who had been a professor of chemistry, his own master having been a high-ranking engineer in the military. None of them found it necessary to deny or reject the findings of science, but rather extended beyond the domain of the externally-oriented senses the empirical practices of science, insisting that nothing should be taken on faith, nor should one extrapolate any more beyond ones own experience than a scientist does in imagining in which direction it "might be nice" or revealing to look next.
Few men could have been more practical than Napoleon, who said, more or less: "qui sait ou il va n'ira jamais nulpart." (He who knows where he's heading will never go anywhere.)
zorn stuff
From: "lava"
Subject: Re: music zorn likes/New Yorker article
On Fri, 11 Jun 1999, Eric Saidel wrote:
> the more in-depth article that might appeal to us may have significantly > less appeal for Zorn, after all, he does have reasons (presumably) for > being media shy.
Zorn seems to shy away from scholarly articles and publicity in general because he wants the music to speak for itself. Plus, publishing an in-depth paper can be very difficult since there is so much competition to get into periodicals like the Journal of the American Musicological Society, for instance.
Overall I think the Kaplan article is a nice piece. It is quite appropriate for the New Yorker's audience. I really like Kaplan's use of quotations by Harrington and am anxiously waiting for the string quartets to be released! It was odd that Kaplan did not specifically mention Zorn's most recent classical pieces like Le Momo and Amour Fou. I would like to expand on Kaplan's statement: "These days, he [Zorn] tends to write straight through, from start to finish." It is not that simple. In some program notes I wrote back in March, Zorn describes his new compositional process. He was reluctant to talk about it at first, but I was persistent. Here's an excerpt from the notes:
(Sorry for the duplication if you have seen this already. The diacritics and italics did not come through--Momo has a circumflex over the first "o.")
Le Momo
Composed from October 1998 to January 1999, Le Momo was commissioned by the Library of Congress with support from the McKim Fund and is John Zorn's first composition for violin and piano. The piece is inspired by the work of Antonin Artaud (1896-1948), a French poet,dramatist, actor, and theoretician of the Surrealist movement who founded the "Theatre of Cruelty." Le Momo is named after Artaud's poem of the same title, in which the word momo, a slang term from the Marseilles region where Artaud was born, can be translated as "brat," "village idiot," or "simpleton"; the poem celebrates the return of Artaud, "the village idiot from
Marseilles," to the outside world after his nine-year incarceration in insane asylums. Le Momo is one of Zorn's new compositions in a series based on Surrealist artists. The series includes a piano trio entitled Amour Fou ("Mad Love") inspired by the poet and critic Andre Breton (1896-1966), as well as a solo violoncello piece influenced by Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), an American artist known for his enigmatic shadowbox constructions.
In composing Le Momo, Zorn ascribed a series of pitches to nonsense, chantlike texts of Artaud; letters of the alphabet received different pitches, resulting in over two hundred sets of pitches that could serve as melodies or harmonies, if stacked. Throughout the piece, a pitch set is repeated and recontextualized in each instance. Le Momo is a sort of rapid perpetuum mobile, but with periods of tension and release. Zorn used this compositional technique--one quite different from his prior methods--to yield a hypnotic, ritualistic feeling which he found important in Artaud's work. Describing his process, Zorn says, "I wanted to create a hypnotic
effect in my own brain when I was writing it. Sometimes I thought I had to hypnotize myself before I could begin working on the piece. I would often just stare at the page for an hour or two, kind of getting back into where the piece is, to find out where it could be going." Zorn likens his
current compositional process to going on a trip or exhibition: full of surprises and unexpected twists and turns, staying on the predetermined map, yet allowing for spontaneous detours along the way. As he puts it,
"What I like to do is just begin and through composing, work my way
through to the end of the piece. Each day I work a little bit on it and
find a solution to the problem that is in front of me. It's kind of like
going on a trip. You are not quite sure, you could make a turn here or
take a detour there or go straight ahead. Each day I make decisions on
where I am going with the piece and I let it grow. There is a basic
framework that I like a piece to have, and there are things that belong in
the frame and things that don't belong in the frame. Obviously the frame
is what gives the piece its structure, sense of unity, and form. I like
to keep it a very intuitive thing. In that sense the piece is
constantly--as I make decisions--stretching the frame; things are trying
to climb out of the frame, and it is my job to make sure that everything
stays in the frame."
As Zorn's musical language has evolved, his method of composition has changed from notating musical fragments on file cards or sketching game pieces on a blackboard, to creating a work much like a sculptor chips away at a block of marble--carefully, patiently, and constantly attuned to the varying shapes that emerge with every stroke.
Jeni
Subject: Re: music zorn likes/New Yorker article
On Fri, 11 Jun 1999, Eric Saidel wrote:
> the more in-depth article that might appeal to us may have significantly > less appeal for Zorn, after all, he does have reasons (presumably) for > being media shy.
Zorn seems to shy away from scholarly articles and publicity in general because he wants the music to speak for itself. Plus, publishing an in-depth paper can be very difficult since there is so much competition to get into periodicals like the Journal of the American Musicological Society, for instance.
Overall I think the Kaplan article is a nice piece. It is quite appropriate for the New Yorker's audience. I really like Kaplan's use of quotations by Harrington and am anxiously waiting for the string quartets to be released! It was odd that Kaplan did not specifically mention Zorn's most recent classical pieces like Le Momo and Amour Fou. I would like to expand on Kaplan's statement: "These days, he [Zorn] tends to write straight through, from start to finish." It is not that simple. In some program notes I wrote back in March, Zorn describes his new compositional process. He was reluctant to talk about it at first, but I was persistent. Here's an excerpt from the notes:
(Sorry for the duplication if you have seen this already. The diacritics and italics did not come through--Momo has a circumflex over the first "o.")
Le Momo
Composed from October 1998 to January 1999, Le Momo was commissioned by the Library of Congress with support from the McKim Fund and is John Zorn's first composition for violin and piano. The piece is inspired by the work of Antonin Artaud (1896-1948), a French poet,dramatist, actor, and theoretician of the Surrealist movement who founded the "Theatre of Cruelty." Le Momo is named after Artaud's poem of the same title, in which the word momo, a slang term from the Marseilles region where Artaud was born, can be translated as "brat," "village idiot," or "simpleton"; the poem celebrates the return of Artaud, "the village idiot from
Marseilles," to the outside world after his nine-year incarceration in insane asylums. Le Momo is one of Zorn's new compositions in a series based on Surrealist artists. The series includes a piano trio entitled Amour Fou ("Mad Love") inspired by the poet and critic Andre Breton (1896-1966), as well as a solo violoncello piece influenced by Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), an American artist known for his enigmatic shadowbox constructions.
In composing Le Momo, Zorn ascribed a series of pitches to nonsense, chantlike texts of Artaud; letters of the alphabet received different pitches, resulting in over two hundred sets of pitches that could serve as melodies or harmonies, if stacked. Throughout the piece, a pitch set is repeated and recontextualized in each instance. Le Momo is a sort of rapid perpetuum mobile, but with periods of tension and release. Zorn used this compositional technique--one quite different from his prior methods--to yield a hypnotic, ritualistic feeling which he found important in Artaud's work. Describing his process, Zorn says, "I wanted to create a hypnotic
effect in my own brain when I was writing it. Sometimes I thought I had to hypnotize myself before I could begin working on the piece. I would often just stare at the page for an hour or two, kind of getting back into where the piece is, to find out where it could be going." Zorn likens his
current compositional process to going on a trip or exhibition: full of surprises and unexpected twists and turns, staying on the predetermined map, yet allowing for spontaneous detours along the way. As he puts it,
"What I like to do is just begin and through composing, work my way
through to the end of the piece. Each day I work a little bit on it and
find a solution to the problem that is in front of me. It's kind of like
going on a trip. You are not quite sure, you could make a turn here or
take a detour there or go straight ahead. Each day I make decisions on
where I am going with the piece and I let it grow. There is a basic
framework that I like a piece to have, and there are things that belong in
the frame and things that don't belong in the frame. Obviously the frame
is what gives the piece its structure, sense of unity, and form. I like
to keep it a very intuitive thing. In that sense the piece is
constantly--as I make decisions--stretching the frame; things are trying
to climb out of the frame, and it is my job to make sure that everything
stays in the frame."
As Zorn's musical language has evolved, his method of composition has changed from notating musical fragments on file cards or sketching game pieces on a blackboard, to creating a work much like a sculptor chips away at a block of marble--carefully, patiently, and constantly attuned to the varying shapes that emerge with every stroke.
Jeni
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Meaning Of Life
Meaning Of Life
Just came across the Meaning of Life website, where Robert Wright interviews some of the biggest minds in science and philosophy to get their insights and opinions on the big questions. I was pleasantly surprised by some of their views:
Is mysticism an enemy of rationalism? Omid Safi, speaking from a Muslim point of view, says no. (If you're wondering how a Muslim got to be an authority on mysticism: Don't forget about the Muslims known as Sufis.) Is consciousness a mystery--so mysterious as to suggest some higher purpose in the universe? Yes and no, says psychologist Steven Pinker (who more definitively solves the mystery of his hair)
... Why are the world's religions sometimes at each other's throats? Huston Smith, who wrote the book on them, has an answer, and it's inspiring yet depressing ... Can science lead to religion? Well, says Templeton Prize winner Arthur Peacocke, consider the similarity between defining an electron and defining God ... Mathematical cosmologist Brian Swimme, who doesn't (quite)believe in God, nonetheless has a way of taking the sting out of death ... Does mind pervade the universe? Do individual atoms make choices? Don't laugh, says Freeman Dyson; modern physics is full of such weird possibilities ... Not sure if you're living in the moment? Try observing yourself while listening to music, suggests Joseph Goldstein ... Some philosophers say they've explained onsciousness. Dream on, says Francis Fukuyama ... Ever have a religious experience? Andrew Newberg takes pictures of brains that are having them ... Do you have trouble meditating?Meditation expert Sharon Salzberg says that's a feature, not a bug ... The universe seems exquisitely compatible with life. Why? John Polkinghorne has a theory (hint: unlike most physicists, he's a priest) ... Why is biological evolution full of death and suffering? Well, says biologist Ursula Goodenough, if you're so smart, let's see you invent a better means of creating intelligent life. Biologist Robert Pollack has a different take on evil--it's just the toxic waste of free will ... The world's major religions seem pretty different--irreconcilably so, at times. Look closer, says Keith Ward. (Ward also has a few words for those who think science can answer all questions.) John Haught, meanwhile, sees the differences among the world's religions as a bit more stubborn ... Is faith bad for science? Au contraire, says Owen Gingerich ...
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