Re: [-empyre-] free will and determinism

[Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>]

well, I agree with you and have done similar tracings; what I'm talking
about here, however, is disembodiment among physical organisms who
communicate over distances using various electronic means. I'm talking
about the early work with Eliza, MOOs, etc. and various email lists /
newsgroups and other forms of electronic communities.

the type of virtual history you describe is also paralleled by dreams,
ghosts, Noh plays, Native American song ownership, and so forth.

- Alan


On Tue, 18 Nov 2003, John Hopkins wrote:

> >I also would like to know in what sense failure? We're still in the
> >beginning of virtuality, with all its dangers and pitfalls; at this
>
> virtuality began a long time ago.  for example, if you look at the
> history of glass (to compress a longer discussion much!).  Glass,
> made from the 2 most abundant materials at the earth's surface,
> oxygen and silicon.  Humans, facing the rush of natural and chaotic
> energies in the sensual world, reach for the most available
> substances to protect themselves, to separate themselves from the
> roaring rush of nature.  Only natural that they use glass.  In
> Icelandic, there is a phrase that translates "window weather" --
> having a survival meaning akin to "thank god we have a 20cm square
> piece of glass at the southern end of our sod hut through which we
> can (safely) watch all hell break loose with one of those
> south-easter storms" that come ripping off the North Atlantic.  If
> you track glass forward past windows, you arrive at the whole
> dimension of optics, leading to photography (among other things), on
> to the CRT, (autos with windows), teevee, the sillicon dioxide
> (called amorphous silica)-based chip, and lately to Bill's creation
> "windows."
>
> What all these material mappings hold in common is that they affect a
> fundamental reduction (narrowing of bandwidth, if you will) of the
> energies "out there" that arrive at our sensual inputs.  It is no
> coincidence that silicon dioxide, as the most available substance,
> has played such a pivotal role in the consequent insulation/isolation
> of our senses...
>
> I would define virtuality as the condition where there is a
> human-constructed intervention that serves to reduce/narrow/limit any
> of our sensual inputs.  Riding in a car around eLAy is very virtual,
> unless you have a convertible, then everything becomes all too real,
> though unbelieveable.  Looking at teevee, observing the rings of
> Saturn through a telescope, taking photos -- the dangers and pitfalls
> have been there since we began to hide from nature (eating fruit of
> the tree of the knowledge of good and evil), and to cover our
> naked-ness...
>
> Hard to package this in a few paragraphs, but that is the essence.
> It's based in the worldview that I hold, which leaves materialism
> behind and moves in a space of energy flows...
>
> jh
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>

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