Re: [-empyre-] if a tree falls in a forest...

["Melinda Rackham" <melinda@unsw.edu.au>]

sue wrote:
> Melinda's question assumes that there are only two entities in the
> equation - the 3d environment and the human.  But is that correct? Perhaps
> other things can act within the environment, nonhuman things, datathings,
> manifestations.
...
> programmers / builders conversing, but I prefer to think that we have not
> built and we do not control every single thing in a virtual environment,
> but  that we are simply seeding something which will itself evolve and
mutate.

sue..yep it was a very human centerd question.
and you are absolutely right..  one of the things i love about the vrml
programming language is that it never assumes whatever is interacting
with it is human.. eg in the specification on VRML the user can be anything
:
"3.108 user -A person or agent who uses and interacts with VRML files by
means of a browser."

this was one of the things that lead me to consider vrml worlds as little
a.life worlds...  and avatars to be alive in the sense that thay have unique
relationships with users. ..we talked about this really briefly in our
discussion last year on web 3d2002 ..  of trading avatars like  comodities
or slaves on ebay .. of the attachment we felt to them,  and our inability
to let others to use them ..preferring to delete thier files , which equated
to killing them for some.. (including me)

regina wrote:
>Well, would not it be just the definition of virtuality, the power of
become?
>Do you know the story of the argentine author Adolfo Bioy Casares - "The
invention of Morel", >which Jorge Luiz Borges considered perfect? Your
question reminds me this story.

yes i think the "power of  become" is perfect....the more eastern philosphic
understanding of  the void is that it is pure potential.. virtuality and 3d
still have
 moral implications in the eastern  a they do in the west (ie inferior,
pretending,  almost as good as,  almost vituous,  etc )  but it is
reversed.. ie religous system like like Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and
maybe Hinduism,  material Reality is a false and decietful thing and the
only
true reality is virtual reality ie that place we go to in mediation or
trance.. (actually thats starting to sound pretty catholic to me)
 i have put "the invention"  on my list of books to read if i ever have a
weeks break from email..:

alan wrote:

> Just wanted to say no to this - for one thing - the hardware is the
> software is the wetware is the mindware - for another there's no "x
> running y" - for another the "the world outside our skin" is also inside -
> interiors are highly problematic, given the nature of tacit knowledge and
> prostheses - and for another - I'm not sure what "hardware colonies" are -
> unless you're referencing something like Minsky's society of mind -

 ahh its the problem of definitions.. where do we split things up..  i go to
many talks where "leading scholars"  happily talk about the real and the
virtual like  they exist in different universes...
i get annoyed at that.. but then when i am trying to explain thinsgs its
hard to say  "well we are all just one big blob and there is no
differentiation."  i am you am everything.. .. i agree what we don't end at
the skin ( thats a very haraway cyborgian construct notion isnt it.)but its
a very practical soft and permeable boundary to use..
how would you differentiate humans in interaction with technology?

> - They're not alive in any case. Human interaction does give them life for
> that matter, any more than rollerblades "come to life" when someone's out
> skating. It's a matter of function and reception -

im surprised you say this after what youve said above.. i thought the roller
blades would be happy to get out of the bottom of that closet and go out for
a spin..

melinda
melinda