Society and Information Technology in Second Life

Wednesdays, January 9 - July 30, 2008, 4-6, SLT/PT, 7-9 pm ET

on Berkman island in Second Life - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Berkman/114/70/25

Course homepage - http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com

 

Instructor: Scott MacLeod (not on Harvard's faculty) = Aphilo Aarde (in Second Life)

http://scottmacleod.com/papers.htm

 

 

Mar 05 2008 Soc and Info Tech class transcript

 

 

[16:00]  You: Will you present about Kurzweil this evening?

[16:00]  You: Yes.

[16:01]  You: Hi Rain

[16:01]  Boston Hutchinson: Yes. How much time do you want to spend on that?

[16:01]  Rain Ninetails: hi!

[16:01]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Rain

[16:03]  You: Hi Serene!

[16:03]  You: How are you, Rain?

[16:03]  Serene Jewell: Hi

[16:04]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Claryssa

[16:04]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Serene

[16:04]  You: There's a platform in the sky above us, I just noticed.

[16:05]  You: In CyberOne, the Harvard course in the fall of 2006, there was talk of making private platforms

[16:05]  You: Not everything I'm typing is coming through.

[16:05]  Gwyneth Llewelyn is Offline

[16:05]  You: where no one can listen.

[16:05]  SamBivalent Spork is Online

[16:05]  You: SL isn't very secure yet - banks were shut down in SL in January 2008, in fact.

[16:06]  You: Hello Mars

[16:06]  Mars Matahari: Hello Aphilo

[16:06]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Mars

[16:06]  You: Yet if SL were secure, it would make a remarkable business environment.

[16:06]  Mars Matahari: Hi Boston

[16:06]  You: So this is a course on Society and Information Technology vis-a-vis long time Berkeley Professor Manuel Castells' analysis of the Network Society

[16:07]  You: The course wiki is here - http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com

[16:07]  Gwyneth Llewelyn is Online

[16:07]  You: At large participation is welcome, and it's interesting when this group chat technology gives rise to rich conversation,

[16:08]  You: so I encourage you to say what you think, generally or specifically.

[16:09]  You: This evening, we'll talk a little about virtual communities, then the spatiality of the Internet vis-a-vis the information city, continuing from last week, and then Boston will talk about Ray Kurzweil work.

[16:09]  You: Kurzweil has been one of the most successful predictors of information technology developments

[16:09]  Cookie Kappler is Offline

[16:10]  You: I'll post this transcript to the wiki, as I have previous ones, as well.

[16:11]  You: Virtual communities were a great impetus to the web when it was becoming widely popular in the mid 1990s, with the development of the browser that could handle images.

[16:11]  You: Hello

[16:11]  You: ABonnie and Stuart

[16:11]  You: ...Silver

[16:12]  You: And people don't know, but they do have many opintions.

[16:12]  You: There are a lot of myths about what technologies do to society

[16:12]  You: By the mid 1990s, the web was widely diffused

[16:12]  You: And the WWW was commercialized in December 1994

[16:12]  You: hello Michele

[16:13]  Daisyblue Hefferman is Online

[16:13]  You: Now it's approaching 2 billion.

[16:13]  Michele Mrigesh: Sorry I'm late

[16:13]  You: In the first survey in 1995 of internet users, there were 16 million users

[16:13]  You: about 14 years later

[16:14]  You: np

[16:14]  Persis Trilling is Offline

[16:14]  You: That's a HUGE transformation from small to mass

[16:15]  You: In the US, depending on how one counts, between 60 and 75% of computer users are connected to the Internet

[16:15]  You: In a UCLA study in the late 1990s, there were 90 million users on one particular day.

[16:15]  You: Now it's over 500 million, I think.

[16:16]  You: So the Internet has jumbped in just 14 years dramatically.

[16:16]  You: What's critical and unique about the Internet is that

[16:16]  You: it's a MANY TO ANY technology

[16:16]  You: MANY TO MANY, that is

[16:17]  You: compared with, for example, TV, which is a one-to-many technology

[16:17]  You: And it's global and chosen.

[16:18]  You: and the teleophone which is a 1 to 1 technology for the most part

[16:18]  You: It's global in that it can be accessed from any country in the world.

[16:18]  You: And it's chosen in that people want it.

[16:18]  You: In the former east Germany, for example, there were only one or two kinds of cars available - the trabant and the mercedes

[16:19]  You: if you wanted a car, you had to chose the trabant

[16:19]  You: The state decided

[16:20]  You: It's also chosen in that it's synchronous and asynchronous

[16:20]  You: We can chose to use it in real time to interact anywhere in the world i.e.synchronous, and we can also wait until coming back on

[16:20]  You: online to chose to use it - asynchronous

[16:21]  You: And in terms of virtual communities, for example, when it just started to diffuse in the mid 1990s

[16:21]  You: it was a new form of people being together.

[16:22]  You: And it still is - in Second Life, for example, and it's also developing new ways of being together very rapidly.

[16:22]  You: For example - Second Life's addition of voice in June 2007

[16:22]  You: The name virtual communities is associated with Howard Rheingold

[16:23]  You: ! - through free communication

[16:23]  You: And under this vision of virtual communities, the Internet allowed people to get together in new ways

[16:24]  You: 2 to build communities, thus breaking through isolation, and allowing people to find others like themselves online.

[16:24]  You: In contrast to this vision, you had the opposite view, as well

[16:24]  You: that the Internet created forms of alienation

[16:25]  You: sometimes expressed by "The Internet is a world of pervertd, lonely people."

[16:25]  You: So there were a series of studies

[16:25]  You: and the gist of what they found as the internet was becoming wide spread

[16:26]  You: was the People use the Internet for personal meaning.

[16:26]  You: On the Internet, these studies found, people play roles with life

[16:27]  You: This was particularly the work of MIT psychoanalyst Sherry Turkle, who wrote "Life on the Screen"

[16:27]  You: People built identities online and pretended to be someone else

[16:28]  You: for example, there is the possibility to be five different people.

[16:28]  Luna Bliss is Offline

[16:28]  You: Turkle's offered original analysis of these fake identities

[16:29]  You: The notion that people escape from lives as they are, emerged early with the development of MUD - Multi use dungeons

[16:29]  You: In these people could express waht they want to express

[16:29]  You: And pscyhoanlysts adored it - no inhibitions.

[16:30]  You: So, as the Intenret gained mass popularity, there were 3 main views, much shaped by the media, of internet users

[16:32]  You: 2 a view that pervert used the internet and that it contributed to this , and

[16:32]  You: 3 that the intenret offered escape - where normal people could live out fantasies.

[16:32]  You: I'm experiencing lag, and some things I type aren't coming through.

[16:33]  Rianna Serevi raises her hand and smiles, "Well sir, so far everything is coherently put... so maybe it's getting out to us".

[16:33]  You: The first vision is that 1 a 60s vision - as the Internet emerged people thought that a kind flower children counterculture might carry on.

[16:33]  You: Perhap, Rianni, and thanks for your observations

[16:33]  Rianna Serevi nods and smiles.

[16:34]  You: But the prolem with the positions, was that no one looked at the data.

[16:34]  You: And the important thing is what is actually happening on the Internet.

[16:35]  You: What's a real view of what's really going on

[16:35]  You: The media perpetuated many of these myths just as the Intenret was emerging

[16:35]  You: because bad news sells.

[16:36]  You: Again, the 3 profiles were

[16:36]  Annette Paster is Online

[16:36]  You: 1 everyone can do what they want - form their own experience online, according

[16:36]  You: to their preferences ofr sociability and solidarity online

[16:37]  You: 2 that the WWW was an instrument of personal isolation, leading to social devants,

[16:37]  You: where, if they aren't not, they will become so, and

[16:38]  You: here, the internet was portrayed as alientating the masses, -and this was a dominant media view

[16:38]  You: Boring - what really happens?

[16:38]  You: and 3) that it was an instrument for role plaing

[16:38]  You: There were a number of sociological studies

[16:39]  You: good sociolgical studeis in the U.S. in England.

[16:39]  You: What did these show?

[16:39]  Rianna Serevi looks intrigued.

[16:39]  You: What was happening as the Internet emerged in the mid 1990s?

[16:39]  You: Not much.

[16:39]  You: They showed that people were using the WWW to adapt to life

[16:40]  Annette Paster is Offline

[16:40]  You: They were putting online possibilities at the service of what they want, and

[16:40]  Rianna Serevi nods in agreement.

[16:40]  You: in the process, twisting and adapting them

[16:40]  You: Concrete statistics?

[16:41]  You: There were a lot, and I won't review all the studies, but will

[16:41]  You: tell you the names of some of sources of information

[16:42]  You: Much of this data

[16:42]  You: is accessible here for free - http://www.pewinternet.org/

[16:43]  You: Norman Nie and Erbring at Stanford produced studies

[16:43]  You: that showed some alienation in very small segments of heavy user populations

[16:43]  SamBivalent Spork is Offline

[16:43]  You: and the Media jumped over this in a variey of ways.

[16:43]  You: Many of these studies examined patterns of sociability.

[16:44]  You: How much computer users met with family members and neighbors, that is activities beyond work

[16:44]  You: And what the Pew Center concluded was that

[16:44]  You: the use of the Internet was either unrelated to social interaction or it was positively related

[16:45]  You: Using the Internet was most often positively associated with increased sociability in the majority of these studies.

[16:46]  You: So the bottom line of most of these studies was

[16:46]  You: that what technology does to life depends on the changes an individual makes, and not to the technologies themselves.

[16:46]  Niki Gontineac is Online

[16:47]  You: What is the effect of the Internet on the family?

[16:47]  You: And what have been changes in socialibility patterns in society.

[16:47]  You: Historically, the people you seek physically have been most important.

[16:48]  You: And family was fundamental to these sociability patterns

[16:48]  You: And in particular, the extended family was fundamental especially prior to the Industrial revolutions starting in the 18th centuries mainly in Britain

[16:49]  You: Through industrialization and urbanization, sociability that was place based started to lose importance

[16:49]  You: There was a shift from local to selective community of friends and acquaintances in the

[16:50]  You: ...this process

[16:50]  You: The telephone and transportation changed this

[16:50]  You: The family changed in that the extended family lost importance.

[16:50]  Jagger Valeeva is Online

[16:50]  You: And the nuclear family emerged in importance

[16:51]  You: And in the last 30 years, but particularly in the last 15, reserachers have observed a different pattern.

 

 [17:04]  Claryssa Schmidt is Online

[17:04]  Arawn Spitteler is Online

[17:04]  Jagger Valeeva is Online

[17:04]  Andromeda Mesmer is Online

[17:04]  Michele Mrigesh is Online

[17:04]  Beyers Sellers is Online

[17:04]  Jon Seattle is Online

[17:04]  Champler Snook is Online

[17:04]  Niki Gontineac is Online

[17:04]  Daisyblue Hefferman is Online

[17:04]  Gwyneth Llewelyn is Online

[17:04]  Boston Hutchinson is Online

[17:04]  You: Hi All

[17:04]  Annette Paster is Online

[17:04]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Aphilo

[17:04]  Claryssa Schmidt: hi Aphilo :)

[17:04]  You: My apologies - my internet connection was cut off - I'm in a library

[17:05]  You: So, let me continue briefly with

[17:05]  Diego Ibanez is Online

[17:05]  You: the family

[17:05]  You: So there's increasing individualization of social relations

[17:05]  You: More and more people bill themsleves as individuals

[17:06]  You: And big families split up.

[17:06]  You: In the U.S, if you had a tradition household pattern

[17:06]  You: e.g. Fa Mo, and 1.8 children - individuals from different families ok, this was the traditional pattern

[17:07]  You: What % does this model represent? about 20%

[17:07]  You: And 35 years ago, it represented 50%

[17:07]  You: It's not that families are disappearing, they are different

[17:08]  You: e.g. you might have a grandparent, parent, adopted Indian child, and a Basenji dog

[17:08]  You: :)

[17:08]  You: So sociability in the Network society is reconstructed around networks of individuals of common interests.

[17:09]  You: And we have shifted over time from a notion of place based sociability to a notion of work based sociability,

[17:09]  You: to networks of individuals who chose to be together for common interests.

[17:09]  You: And the Internet allows people to be together and create networks

[17:10]  You: of flexible associations

[17:10]  You: using flexible and multiple technologies

[17:10]  You: So in this network society, you have network individualism, not less, not more.

[17:11]  You: So we're coming to a close withthe Internet and people

[17:11]  You: the Internet is a fundamental communication technology.

[17:11]  You: The Internet is not a technology that determines anything but is extermely powerful.

[17:11]  Annette Paster is Offline

[17:12]  Niki Gontineac is Offline

[17:12]  You: And when governments and businesses use it, it enhances extremely the possibility to organize.

[17:12]  You: So the Internet is neither a tool of freedom, nor a tool of isolation.

[17:12]  You: People use it to strengthen patterns already developed.

[17:12]  Annette Paster is Online

[17:13]  You: In a society where the prevailing mode of behavior is individualism, due to broader sources of cutlural change, the Internet enhances and extends this.

[17:14]  You: And because the individual is the prevailing social pattern, point t0 point communication which the Internet is -fits perfectly.

[17:15]  You: So, before hearing Brent's presentation,

[17:15]  You: next week we'll continue to look at spatialitiy and transformations of the city.

[17:16]  You: For the rest of today's class, Brent will chat about Ray Kurzweil, and then let's discuss what we've explored thus far after.

[17:17]  You: Boston -

[17:17]  Boston Hutchinson: OK

[17:17]  Boston Hutchinson: I think I'll start with some of Ray Kurzweil's preditions:

[17:18]  You: Great

[17:18]  Boston Hutchinson: 2009 (predicted in 1999) $1,000 PC does 1Trillion calculations per second

[17:18]  Boston Hutchinson: Computers in clothing and jewelry

[17:18]  Boston Hutchinson: Most routine business transactions between human and computer

[17:18]  Boston Hutchinson: Translating telephones commonly used.

[17:19]  Boston Hutchinson: 2019 $1,000 computer equal computational capacity to human brain.

[17:19]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi-res 3D virtual reality

[17:19]  Boston Hutchinson: 2020s nano-engineered solar panels sufficient for all energy needs (though not the only technology in use)

[17:19]  You: Yes

[17:20]  Boston Hutchinson: There are a lot more predictions in his books and on one of his websites (I'll list it later.)

[17:20]  Jagger Valeeva is Offline

[17:20]  Boston Hutchinson: 2029 $1,000 computer equal computational capacity to 1,000 human brains

[17:21]  Boston Hutchinson: VR through direct neural connections, via nanobots inside brain

[17:21]  Boston Hutchinson: Computers pass Turing Test.

[17:21]  Boston Hutchinson: Machine claims to be conscious widely accepted.

[17:22]  You: ("computational capacity of human brains" - as adaptive organisms, the result of millions of years of evolution?)

[17:23]  Boston Hutchinson: He measures computational capacity by estimating the number of neurons, synapses, and computations performed by each per second

[17:23]  Jon Seattle is Offline

[17:23]  You: (interesting)

[17:23]  Boston Hutchinson: Naturally, there is some debate about this, but he takes what he believes is a very conservative approach, overestimating the capacity of the human brain.

[17:25]  You: (while such a measurement does allow for possible direct comparisons - where does social and individual meaning play a role?)

[17:25]  Boston Hutchinson: There are some scholars who differ with him. Roger Penrose, the British physicist, believes there is some quantum phenomenon being exploited by the brain and required to produce consciousness

[17:25]  Boston Hutchinson: I think that part is a lot more subjective. He spends a lot of time examining the sociological implications in his books

[17:26]  You: (yes, microtubules, I think - but this doesn't address the problematic of the new mysterions - McGinn, Nagel, Pinker, I think, in terms of the irreducibility of consciousness)

[17:26]  Boston Hutchinson: But, personally, I'd say that's even harder to predict than the technology.

[17:26]  You: True

[17:27]  Geda Hax is Online

[17:27]  Boston Hutchinson: I don't think these issued of knowability of consciousness make humans unique in any way.

[17:27]  Boston Hutchinson: I'd side with Kurzweil on that.

[17:28]  Boston Hutchinson: I also don't agree with Penrose on some mysterious quantum phenomenon,

[17:28]  Boston Hutchinson: though there coud be hidden computing going on, which would affect the predicted timeline.

[17:28]  You: (Following Nagel - how far down the phylogenetic tree one goes vis-a-vis consciousnes would be easier, if we could define consiousness . . . but Kurzweil).

[17:28]  Krysss Galatea is Online

[17:29]  Boston Hutchinson: I think you have to adopt the "Strong AI" position do even be in the discussion with Kurzweil!

[17:30]  You: probably - Perhaps we should carry through on organizing a McGinn Kurzweil dialogue)

[17:31]  Boston Hutchinson: Strong AI is the position that there is nothing differentiating humans from machines that can't be overcome with technology. THat is, computers willbe fully conscious when they achieve our level and type of processing complexity.

[17:31]  You: thnx

[17:31]  Boston Hutchinson: more predictions:

[17:31]  Boston Hutchinson: 2030 Nanobots at every synapse from the sensory system; fully immersive virtual reality

[17:32]  Boston Hutchinson: 2045 Singularity machine portion of Earth’s intelligence a billion times the biological portion

[17:32]  Boston Hutchinson: 2049 Nanoproduced food common. Same as real food.

[17:32]  Boston Hutchinson: Nanobot swarms create virtual people in RL.

[17:32]  Boston Hutchinson: 2099 No longer clear distinction between humans and computers.

[17:33]  Boston Hutchinson: Most conscious entities do not have a permanent physical presence.

[17:33]  Boston Hutchinson: To make these predictions, he looks at a number

[17:33]  You: (Do you know how he quantifies the rapid pace of computing development for his predicitons?)

[17:34]  Boston Hutchinson: of different aspects of computing, biotech, and nanotechnology.

[17:34]  Boston Hutchinson: He plots the historical developments and sees exponential growth everywhere.

[17:35]  Krysss Galatea is Offline

[17:35]  Boston Hutchinson: With computing, he counts instructions per second (IPS), usually measured in MIPS (millions of instructions per second.

[17:36]  Boston Hutchinson: He takes this all the way back to the very early days, looks at Moore's law, and maps the actual data, then projects it forward in time.

[17:36]  Boston Hutchinson: He then compares this to his estimates of human processing capacity.

[17:36]  You: I see, - a variation on Moore's Law, which is really a dictum

[17:37]  A group member named Jenn Hienrichs gave you Garden of Da Vinci, Kalepa (242, 238, 27).

[17:37]  Thurgood Collas is Online

[17:38]  Boston Hutchinson: Yes, the inspiration is Moore's law, but he sees a similar pattern in all sorts of technologies, and convergences that will result in, for example, the ability to capture the state of a brain and upload it into a computer

[17:38]  You: (They are exciting predictions, and quite visionary).

[17:38]  Boston Hutchinson: He also predicts that in 15 years, the average life expectancy will be increasing by more thatn 1 year per year.

[17:39]  Boston Hutchinson: If true, this means that if you survive (in good shape) for 15 years, you might be able to live indefinitely

[17:39]  Boston Hutchinson: Very radical predictions.

[17:40]  Boston Hutchinson: These ideas are explored in fictional form by Charlie Stross, whom Andromeda talked about in a previous class.

[17:40]  Andromeda Mesmer: Boston, the idea that people might live longer is already changing behaviour among some of those who are aware of this -- they are starting to be mmuch more careful in how they behave, what they eat, how much they exercise, etc.

[17:41]  You: I've heard something similar, but not so arithmetic or geometric - that people with money will soon live to 1000 years, and people with less money to 150 - Paul Sappho, but please continue)

[17:41]  Andromeda Mesmer: They want to live long enough to be able to take adantage of the new technologies.

[17:41]  Krysss Galatea is Online

[17:41]  Boston Hutchinson: Yes, Andromeda, Ray Kurzweil has taken this to an extreme, taking more than a hundred pills per day of supplements, etc.

[17:42]  Boston Hutchinson: I have not read his book on medicine and life extension.

[17:42]  Andromeda Mesmer: I personally know a couple of people like that -- who studied scientific pappers carefully first ...

[17:42]  Boston Hutchinson: Exactly

[17:42]  You: (due to kinds of 'plug and play' bodies, but it's interesting to see how evidence corresponds with predictions)

[17:43]  Boston Hutchinson: Personally, I'm a skeptic about the schedule, though not really about the long term potential for radical change.

[17:43]  Boston Hutchinson: web sites:

[17:43]  Boston Hutchinson: http://www.kurzweilai.net/

[17:43]  Boston Hutchinson: http://singularity.com/

[17:44]  Boston Hutchinson: http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?m=9 Kurzweil’s Avatar, Ramona

[17:44]  Boston Hutchinson: http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=memelist.html?m=17%23664 Kurzweil-Kapor Turing Test Wager

[17:44]  Andromeda Mesmer: What does he predict now about space travel, can you say briefly

[17:44]  Jeande Laville: hi aphile

[17:45]  You: Hello Jeande - come join the class - Boston is presenting about Ray Kurzweil's predictions vis-a-vis computing and the human-computer future.

[17:45]  Jeande Laville: sorry aphilo

[17:45]  Jeande Laville: great i will thanks

[17:45]  Boston Hutchinson: Kurzweil and Kapor have a wager on the Turing test. I believe it is for the year 2029. He also says that he hopes to make his avatar, Ramona, independent, and hopes that she will pass the test by then.

[17:46]  You: (Mitch Kapor)

[17:46]  Boston Hutchinson: Hi Jeande

[17:46]  Boston Hutchinson: Yes. Mitch Kapor is Chairman of Linden Labs

[17:46]  You: (Shall we see if we can do it in just a few - 5-10?) :)

[17:46]  Jeande Laville: hi well thats interesting about the turing test and it would faboulus if sl might do it

[17:47]  Jeande Laville: ive been amazed as i trolll around about the educational possibilitis of sl

[17:48]  Boston Hutchinson: Kurzweil thinks computer processing power will match that of humans long befor passing the Turing test, and will be 1000 times that of humans when the test is passed--software is a difficult problem!

[17:48]  Andromeda Mesmer: Chinese language lessons being offered today!

[17:48]  Boston Hutchinson: As far as I know, Kurzweil's avatar isn't in SL. It's a RL avatar (prsented at the TED conference)

[17:49]  Jeande Laville: is that because software must be wriotten b humans

[17:49]  Diego Ibanez is Offline

[17:49]  Boston Hutchinson: But I suspect he would try to create an autonomous version running similar software in SL

[17:49]  Jeande Laville: so it could write its own software

[17:50]  Boston Hutchinson: Software must be written by the machines themselves to actually achieve human intelligence, I suspect, but we'll have to jump start it somehow.

[17:50]  Niki Gontineac is Online

[17:50]  You: Ray Kurzweil: How technology's accelerating power will transform us - http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/38

[17:51]  Boston Hutchinson: btw: Mitch Kapor expects there to be a 3D camera for translating RL gestures into SL by late 2008 or early 2009

[17:52]  Jeande Laville: amazing

[17:52]  Boston Hutchinson: Thanks Aphilo. Is that the one with Ramona?

[17:52]  You: soon

[17:52]  Boston Hutchinson: Facial expressions will take a little longer.

[17:52]  You: haven't seen it yet - Prolific inventor and outrageous visionary Ray Kurzweil explains in abundant, grounded detail why -- by the 2020s -- we will have reverse-engineered the human brain, and nanobots will be operating your consciousness. Kurzweil draws on years of research to show the speed at which technology is evolving, and projects forward into an almost unthinkable future to outline the ways we'll use technology to augment our own capabilities, forever blurring the lines between human and machine.

[17:52]  You: the description from Ted Talks

[17:53]  Boston Hutchinson: :)

[17:53]  A group member named Teofila Matova gave you Talis Cybrary Island, Talis Cybrary Island (196, 141, 23).

[17:54]  Boston Hutchinson: He operates his "avatar" at TED with gestures, facial expressions and even voice (transformed from a male to a female voice)

[17:54]  Boston Hutchinson: It's pretty impressive technology, but I expect it will be available to all of us in a very few years.

[17:56]  Jeande Laville: thats both scary and exciting and i dont know which i feel most as an old reader of sf

[17:57]  Patrio Graysmark is Online

[17:57]  Boston Hutchinson: Yes, it seems like the rate of change is accelerating, and we may witness a lot more than any of us expected a few years ago.

[17:57]  Jeande Laville: certainly more than i ever expected i could never have imagined personal computers

[17:57]  You: They are what are so exciting and accidental.

[17:58]  Boston Hutchinson: In my research on Kurzweil, I came accross more info on SL's plans. Kapor says "the long term is to let people self-host."

[17:58]  Jeande Laville: i remember seeing those gigantic computers in the basement of the ad building at univ of chicago in the 60s

[17:58]  Jeande Laville: and now we have all that on our laps

[17:59]  Boston Hutchinson: Yes, I remember going into the computer room at MIT when we had an IBM 360

[18:00]  Boston Hutchinson: So it seems that SL is heading toward an open platform (relatively) and self-hosting of the sim software

[18:00]  You: That emerged with the envisioning of the PC - the SF homebrew club, and early Macintoshes, in particular

[18:01]  Thurgood Collas is Offline

[18:01]  Boston Hutchinson: Already, the viewer is open source, and of course self-hosted, so you could probably write an intelligent avatar

[18:01]  Boston Hutchinson: at least if you have the brains and resources of Ray Kurzweil, and don't mind working on it for 20 years

[18:02]  You: Very far reaching visions -

[18:03]  Boston Hutchinson: He talks about eventually intelligence propagating at close to the speed of light throughout the universe and organizing all the matter into optimized for for quantumcomputing--

[18:03]  Boston Hutchinson: that's far reaching!

[18:03]  You: Where does he deal with questions of subjectivity, etc., in writing?

[18:03]  Jeande Laville: yes i dont even understand it

[18:04]  Jeande Laville: thats seems a very gooo question

[18:04]  Boston Hutchinson: Andromeda, I don't know if he uses the term "computronium" from Stross, but it's cleary the same concept.

[18:05]  Andromeda Mesmer: For all I know, the two of them have talked -- Charlie Stross says he has friends in the Boston area.

[18:05]  Boston Hutchinson: He tries to describe the experience of the early stages of this process, the next couple of decades

[18:05]  Boston Hutchinson: Yes, Andromeda, I'd bet on it.

[18:06]  You: And so very interesting because they are at such contrast with much of computing today.

[18:06]  Boston Hutchinson: He uses hypothetical dialogs between people and machines, and people living in different eras to try to convey what he thinks this will feel like.

[18:07]  Boston Hutchinson: It's all very hard to imagine, or at least to believe in, but he makes a very good case.

[18:08]  Niki Gontineac is Offline

[18:08]  Jeande Laville: is there anywhere one can read or see these imagined dialogs

[18:08]  Andromeda Mesmer: Charlie Stross considers what a person from the 1950's would think if he showed up today - and how to explain to him that there aren't crazy people talking to themselves -- but actually holding very small cell phones.

[18:08]  Boston Hutchinson: In the books "The Age of Spiritual Machines" from 1999

[18:09]  Jeande Laville: i mean there are wonderful literary traditions of imagined dialogs many of them thaking place in an imaging afterlife between famous people

[18:09]  Boston Hutchinson: also,"The Singularity is Near" from 2005

[18:09]  You: Such visions (outrageous to use TED Talks' description) can often guide innovation, as has science fiction - it's all part of a discourse of innovative envisioning - idea technologies giving rise to possible technologies - quite far from our evolutionary roots).

[18:09]  Jeande Laville: i must get these thanks

[18:09]  Boston Hutchinson: There may be some on his website:

[18:09]  Boston Hutchinson: http://www.kurzweilai.net/

[18:09]  Jeande Laville: thanks

[18:10]  Boston Hutchinson: Yes, Andromeda, I think we tend to forget how radical are the changes in our own (some of us) lifetimes.

[18:11]  You: So, I've posted most of this transcript to the wiki - http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com

[18:11]  Andromeda Mesmer: In one scene from Accelerando by Stross, he has very intelligent entitles on earth, reconstructing the dead and sending them off to join the human colonies around Saturn. The funny part is that some of these "human's are actually characters from books.

[18:12]  Rain Ninetails: hee hee

[18:12]  Andromeda Mesmer: *humans" --

[18:12]  You: I hope we've touched on some of these radical changes, and their social implications in this course, quite explicitly.

[18:12]  Jeande Laville: that would seem to be realtaed to the tradition of imaginary dialogues i was referring to

[18:12]  Andromeda Mesmer: Yes -- why I brought it up.

[18:13]  Andromeda Mesmer: And there have been TV prorams about famous charac ters from history interviewed by present-day reporters ...

[18:13]  Rain Ninetails: thank you Aphilo. and Boston! I have to go. good to see you all! :)

[18:13]  Claryssa Schmidt: bye Rain :)

[18:13]  Boston Hutchinson: That concept draws on the idea that FMRI and related technologies will be able to scan brains almost completely, taking a "state vector" which can be uploaded. Stross extrapolates the concept to include remanufacturing a human mind from a complete life history.

[18:13]  You: Good night - and thanks for coming, Rain -

[18:13]  Andromeda Mesmer: It may have been Heinlein who said that Ulysses was more real than Homer?

[18:14]  Jeande Laville: hmm

[18:14]  Jeande Laville: but an interesting observation

 

[18:14]  Jeande Laville: of course homer is as mythical as ulysses which adds spice to the thought

[18:15]  Andromeda Mesmer: Well, quite true in the case of Homer. And you might say that Tom Sawyer is as "real" as Mark Twain -- in a way.

[18:15]  Jeande Laville: maybe

[18:15]  Boston Hutchinson: If one is uploaded by this technique (if it's possible), which one is the real you, the upload, or the biological entity left behind? Kurzweil seems to suggest that they are both authentic versions of you.

[18:15]  You: but aren't all narratives, mythical in a sense, but some give rise to the material and physical beyond the text.

[18:16]  Jeande Laville: yes thats true i suppose

[18:16]  Jeande Laville: and its the traces that become really significant perhaps

 

[18:16]  Jeande Laville: yes thats true i suppose

[18:16]  Jeande Laville: and its the traces that become really significant perhaps

[18:17]  Boston Hutchinson: And if we are all collections of memes, are we the same collection if reinstantiated in a different form? Or are we even the same when we wake up tomorrow?

[18:17]  Jeande Laville: or at least that validate the orignal narratives

[18:17]  Boston Hutchinson: It will be interesting if we get to do experimental philosophy of mind.

[18:17]  Jeande Laville: of course the classical greeks had a lot of fun with that one

 

[18:18]  Boston Hutchinson: Yes

[18:18]  You: Yet some narratives have given rise to material processes that are now information based - TCP / IP, http, html, that, in turn, radically transform narrativity and the human experience, in an ongoing way.

[18:18]  Niki Gontineac is Online

[18:18]  Jeande Laville: could you go on about that a bit aphilo

[18:19]  Jeande Laville: i mean it sounds right but im not sure what it means

[18:20]  You: I find the IT revolution fascinating because it gives rise to a whole new set of technologies, that are sort of materially based - the 1s and 0s - of digital processes, and which connect the world in a real time world wide network.

[18:20]  Diego Ibanez is Online

[18:21]  You: These are shaped, in part, by the narratives and visions of people like Kurzweil, but also the technomeritocratic, hacker, communitarian, and entrepreneurial cultures

[18:22]  You: that shaped this communication modality.

[18:22]  You: In the process, new kinds of narrativity emerge -

[18:22]  You: Packer and Jordan, which we touched on a week or so ago Jeande,

[18:23]  Jeande Laville: sorry dont kno those

[18:23]  You: 1 new forms of narrativity 2 integration of media elements 3 new forms of interactivity 4 immersion - 3 d - and 5 hypermedia - infinite numbers of pathways in a digital environment

[18:24]  You: and new forms of hardware that interface with humans - which is what Boston has been examining in kurzweil's work

[18:25]  Jeande Laville: i think im beginning to get some idea but forgive me for my ignorance im trying hard to catch up

[18:25]  You: So, new narratives lead to new technologies, now information based ! - lead to more of the same . . . exciting processes

[18:26]  You: Information technologies have been significant historically - Gutenberg, the industrial revolutions, but now they are chaning socioeconomic processes on an unprecendented scope and scale.

[18:26]  You: So thank you Boston!

[18:26]  Diego Ibanez is Offline

[18:26]  Diego Ibanez is Online

[18:26]  Boston Hutchinson: Thanks for the opportunity to discuss these ideas, Aphilo.

[18:27]  Jeande Laville: yes that definiely seems to be the case i remember some years ago reading mcluhan on the computer and thinking he was off the wall

[18:27]  You: Let's continue to explore fascinating envisioning processes in future meetings.

[18:27]  Jeande Laville: thank you aphilo an others for letting me share in this i foudn it very exciting\

[18:27]  You: McLuhan was prescient in the 1960s about a global communication network . . .

[18:27]  You: Gald you could come Jeande -

[18:27]  Jeande Laville: extremy

[18:27]  You: http://socinfotech.pbwiki.com

[18:28]  You: I've got to go - so see you next week!

[18:28]  Jeande Laville: same time

[18:28]  Boston Hutchinson: Thaks, Aphilo. See you next week.