Re: [-empyre-] free will and determinism

[eugenie <eugenies@onetel.net.uk>]

dear all...

alan - you believe that we are at the beginnings of virtuality? i don't know
about that. virtuality, as john points out, has been around for a while as a
concept. in visual/occidental terms, it's been around since at least
Alberti's time and probably earlier.

what is new is our ability to interact with this space on a 'meaningful'
level ... to go through the window, to actually enter a space that we've
spent generations charging with our various desires and ideals. bit of a
scary thought, really

eugenie

on 19/11/03 3:28 AM, John Hopkins at jhopkins@uiah.fi 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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