quote:

Originally posted by UberDog:

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Originally posted by jbx:

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Originally posted by UberDog:
We are ever in the reality which we have chosen to believe in.

An example?

The nature of reality is very different from the macroscopic to the microscopic. Atoms are made mostly of empty space, matter isn't solid, thing do not exist in space-time but have the tendency to so exist.

In the world we see through the naked eye, all of the above seems to be patently ridiculous and yet it is so.


Light "particles" seem to alter based on which slit one covers in said experiment becuase it's really both a particle and a wave.

Sub-atomic particles change just by looking at them.

So, yes, things change when you look at them differently.

However, my general point was that different methods of examination reveal more qualia about an object.

Quantum particles respond to an "observer", which is a photon, generally.

They don't change because we "look" at them. They change because we distrupt their structure, with physics!

Measuring is a form of looking, no?

Further, you are assuming the persistence of some unalterable reality, fixed in space time. As if the way we "see" things is the way we actually are.

I am unconvinced of this. it makes "common sense" but does not necessarily stand up to determined investigation.

What you are suggesting isn't provable I don't think. We observe with five senses, always through a human lens. that can't be the whole of the picture.

At any rate, the difference between the macroscopic and microscopic is enough evidence to me that shit changes the more you look at it. Physics still cannot explain the bridge between the two unless you've come up with the Grand Unified Theory of Everything.

I am not convinced that we humans have the whole picture of reality nor are ever capable of uncovering it.

No, measuring is a form of quantification of observable\observed phenomenon. Measuring is an idea, and a process which can be applied to perceptions.

I thought that was a central tenent of PoMo?
That there may be, and in fact, there is likely to be, an absolute external reality, but we, as humans, cannot percieve the entire thing, maybe not even capable to perceive it, and if we did perceive it we'd be unable to describe it or communicate it. Thus, in PoMo, the external absolute reality is effectively unreal, because we cannot see it or talk about it.

I think the way we see thing is just the way we see things. I do not think our seeing of things has anything do with the thing, and everything to do with our seeing.

I wouldn't say "fixed" in space-time either. It is what it is right now, maybe it will be different later, I can't know that. I can't even know what it IS right now, so how would I even know if it did change?

Physics not explaining something is just another example of what I'm meaning.

Physics is a human endeavor, based on human perceptions (we might even build machines to percieve for us, but we still subject their data to our perceptions) and it's inherently incomplete. I don't think using an example of human knowledge is a good place to start drawing conclusions about underlying absolute externals.

Indeed the very lack of explanation to me suggests that we are simply trying to describe what we see in a series of equations that all fail to describe what is actually happening.

I agree entirely with your last line. But I don't think that means that reality changes via changes in human subjective perceptions. Which I had thought was what you were saying regarding "looking at things differently does not make them different, it just makes you look at them differently". Which is what I thought I was saying.

I'm just glad we agree about the failability of human perception.

I believe we are saying the same thing.

I'm saying that we don't "know" reality as a given and I think you are as well.

But I am also saying, that since we don't know, it is possible (though crazy and unlikely) that we actually manufacture reality by witnessing it.

At least possible as an interesting thought.

quote:

Originally posted by UberDog:
I believe we are saying the same thing.

I'm saying that we don't "know" reality as a given and I think you are as well.

But I am also saying, that since we don't know, it is possible (though crazy and unlikely) that we actually manufacture reality by witnessing it.

At least possible as an interesting thought.

I'm forming a theory of webboard threads.

Something like:

Controversial Statement
The Party Line Attacks
Flame Fest
We All Agree With Each Other
Thread Drift

I see it so many times, vociferous debate involving two or more posters who all agree with each other.

Sorta a Hypothesis\Antithesis\Synthesis for the Web set.

I think I heard somebody refer to "web people" recently, as a collective of some kind. How "web people" support Obama....but...will they vote?

And yes, now that we're back in agreement. I do think it's an interesting possibility and very possible in some ways.

Yes, we all follow the patterns that are larger than us.

Free will is a benign user illusion.

I seriously don't like Bigend for the mere fact that he's posed as yet another corporate suit. How many times before have we seen this type of character in the Gibson novels huh? As earlier posters in the thread have noted, Bigend is hollow.. he lacks texture as opposed to the earlier characters of Gibson. Examples are : Molly (duh), Case, Riviera, Armitage, The Finn, Gentry and the older Count Zero. Hell I'd even go so far as to say that the cyberghost Colin displays more realism texture than Bigend does.

As I said, I find him to be totally anonymous and cut from a mold. He could has easily been Joseph Virek, same cold.. same emptyness.

quote:

Originally posted by Chromium:
I seriously don't like Bigend for the mere fact that he's posed as yet another corporate suit. How many times before have we seen this type of character in the Gibson novels huh? As earlier posters in the thread have noted, Bigend is hollow.. he lacks texture as opposed to the earlier characters of Gibson. Examples are : Molly (duh), Case, Riviera, Armitage, The Finn, Gentry and the older Count Zero. Hell I'd even go so far as to say that the cyberghost Colin displays more realism texture than Bigend does.

As I said, I find him to be totally anonymous and cut from a mold. He could has easily been Joseph Virek, same cold.. same emptyness.

I'd say he's rather more developed than several of the Sprawl characters who really were more archetypes than people.

Not as an insult, but how old are you?

I have a theory regarding preference to The Sprawl books and reader age.

quote:

Originally posted by UberDog:
Yes, we all follow the patterns that are larger than us.

Free will is a benign user illusion.

Benign?! I think NOT! Imagine ants with "free will", they'd never get anything done.
And what has free will done for humanity? Wars.

Hardly benign.

quote:

Originally posted by Chromium:
I seriously don't like Bigend for the mere fact that he's posed as yet another corporate suit. How many times before have we seen this type of character in the Gibson novels huh? As earlier posters in the thread have noted, Bigend is hollow.. he lacks texture as opposed to the earlier characters of Gibson. Examples are : Molly (duh), Case, Riviera, Armitage, The Finn, Gentry and the older Count Zero. Hell I'd even go so far as to say that the cyberghost Colin displays more realism texture than Bigend does.

As I said, I find him to be totally anonymous and cut from a mold. He could has easily been Joseph Virek, same cold.. same emptyness.

See now, this I'd like to distance myself from. While it's fun to argue..I mean *debate* with UberD it's easy to get stuck in a corner when arguing Devil's Advocate style.

They ARE cold and empty. That's the point of the archetype no? That the thing Hiz Gibzness gets at, that the very rich are no longer human.

He does I think have more personality than Virek, who is essentially a phantom (appears directly...twice? three times?).

He is certainly the most developed and "direct" of the No Longer Human Rich compared to the others.

In Sprawl we had Virek as the personality. We can mask Wintermute in to that role if we like, but..since it's not human already...that seems a poor fit.

In Bridge we have Cody Harwood, but he only appears in the final book as an actual character and he's very very sketched in. His character ammounts to "amoral nodal dowser looking to retain power" and that's basically it.

Bigend is much better developed and much more human (see hat, hummer, disappointment in Boone) than the others.

I disagree that he's Gibson's best. But he might be Gibson's best example of the Money Man archetype.

But I can imagine Bigend at home, drinking something, becoming fascinated by the packaging, and off on another adventure of the intellect. I can't imagine he has a family, or any non-novelty possessions.

But that's why I think he's the sock-puppet of Internetz the God. Pushed around by things he's not aware of. Convinced it's HIM doing it, and not the will of a greater invisible thing.

quote:

Originally posted by Chromium:
I seriously don't like Bigend for the mere fact that he's posed as yet another corporate suit. How many times before have we seen this type of character in the Gibson novels huh? As earlier posters in the thread have noted, Bigend is hollow.. he lacks texture as opposed to the earlier characters of Gibson.

Thing is, persons like Bigend exist. Maybe not at the same level of extravagance but certainly as egocentric.

He is a parasite living from the snobbery of the new upper middle class. The new generation of Yuppie. Where gadgets and style need to go hand in hand. For them a gadget needs to do something cool, but even more important, it needs to look slick and must be/feel exclusive.

The kind of people who buy Apple, Bose, B&O, BMW, Ferrari, ... you get the picture.

I should think that Volkov is more like Virek than is Bigend.

Bigend may not be the most fully realized human being ( I'll retract that) but he's still the best because (I believe) he'll be the most remembered. he represents something fundamental that is going on now that very few people are aware of but that the future nay look back and say, "We'll, obviously that's what the turn of the century was about."

He isn't Hamlet though, I'll give you all that.

I will certainly agree with you uberdog that Bigend is the best version of this archetype that Gibson has created.

But, that's also my point with "cut from a mold", we've seen this type of silly charicature before everywhere in media too, and from my viewpoint this is just another version of it and not something modeled after a true human being. But tell me, how often have you seen a character as complex and messed up as armitage?

quote:

Originally posted by Newro:

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Originally posted by Chromium:
I seriously don't like Bigend for the mere fact that he's posed as yet another corporate suit. How many times before have we seen this type of character in the Gibson novels huh? As earlier posters in the thread have noted, Bigend is hollow.. he lacks texture as opposed to the earlier characters of Gibson.

Thing is, persons like Bigend exist. Maybe not at the same level of extravagance but certainly as egocentric.

He is a parasite living from the snobbery of the new upper middle class. The new generation of Yuppie. Where gadgets and style need to go hand in hand. For them a gadget needs to do something cool, but even more important, it needs to look slick and must be/feel exclusive.

The kind of people who buy Apple, Bose, B&O, BMW, Ferrari, ... you get the picture.

I love to disparage the demographic I belong to as much as anybody, but I think Bigend is just a very focused dude.

He does what he does, ALL THE TIME, and that is all he does. He's like the ultimate in ADD hyperfocus. Jumping with 100% obsession from project to project.

I doubt the sleeps unless he's on an airplane with no net\phone access.

I think he's beyond ego, per my theory that he's a sock-puppet, it's not about him, it's about the singularity of his vision. I don't think he's doing it "for himself" so much as I think he's doing what he is doing because he has no choice in the matter, he must find these things out, is driven completely to find these things out, driven beyond morals, ethics, and good taste.

I don't think he's a parasite in anyway. He gives people what they want in order to get what he wants. That's symbiosis.

quote:

Originally posted by Chromium:
I will certainly agree with you uberdog that Bigend is the best version of this archetype that Gibson has created.

But, that's also my point with "cut from a mold", we've seen this type of silly charicature before everywhere in media too, and from my viewpoint this is just another version of it and not something modeled after a true human being. But tell me, how often have you seen a character as complex and messed up as armitage?

Well, every Vietnam vet archetype that hit the screen between The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now.

To say nothing of what came after.

So, really, a fuck of a lot.

Armitage was clearly inspired by those characters. He's not far off from Christopher Walken in The Deer Hunter, you want to look at it that way.

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Originally posted by jbx:
I don't think he's doing it "for himself" so much as I think he's doing what he is doing because he has no choice in the matter...

That's how I am beginning to see our race.

quote:

Originally posted by UberDog:

quote:

Originally posted by jbx:
I don't think he's doing it "for himself" so much as I think he's doing what he is doing because he has no choice in the matter...

That's how I am beginning to see our race.

Agree.

I consider myself sentient and consciouss (or possessing consciousness) but I don't consider my neurons and dendrites and such to be either of those things. Even tho they make up the me that thinks that I am those things.

So maybe my neurons also think they are sentient, and individuals of free will, and they think that the molecules and atoms that make them up are inert and lifeless.

In turn...

But let's bust it back to the macro-scale right?

Life or Gaia then might consider itself to be sentient, but those things that make it up, us, we're just the constituent parts of it's greater whole.

Humans I think are like that. Caught up in something far to complex to understand. Thus while we might like to believe we've the free will and individual personalities and consciousnesses, how can we know?

We can't. And we're probably wrong.

As Mike Patton once said, "I am what I do".

We have no choice but to be as we are, and we have only very imperfect understandings of what it is that we are.

something like that, it keeps going of course, up and down the scale, back and forth from internal to external.

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Thus, in PoMo, the external absolute reality is effectively unreal, because we cannot see it or talk about it.

Or just not fully measurable? Even in the sense of 'taking it all in'?

Artificial distinctions about what can and can;t be known fall on their own sword.

we use measurements via perceptin to tell us what we haven't yet seen as much as to tell us what we're seeing.

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Humans I think are like that. Caught up in something far to complex to understand. Thus while we might like to believe we've the free will and individual personalities and consciousnesses, how can we know?

We can't. And we're probably wrong.

Just removce the philosphical absolutes and consider that your blood cells have their say and their free will in their bit of the process, as does the sun and the black hole at the center of the galaxy.

I mean, the word "free" is immediately compromised by the concept of entropy.

Some degree of autonomy. Perhaps full freedom of contemplation regarding that autonomy, insofar as our brains allow contemplation.

But freedom?

Ain't a single atom in this cosmos that's free. Ain't entirely deterministic; ain;t entirely chaotic.

quote:

Originally posted by jbx:

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Originally posted by UberDog:

quote:

Originally posted by jbx:
I don't think he's doing it "for himself" so much as I think he's doing what he is doing because he has no choice in the matter...

That's how I am beginning to see our race.

Agree.

I consider myself sentient and consciouss (or possessing consciousness) but I don't consider my neurons and dendrites and such to be either of those things. Even tho they make up the me that thinks that I am those things.

So maybe my neurons also think they are sentient, and individuals of free will, and they think that the molecules and atoms that make them up are inert and lifeless.

In turn...

But let's bust it back to the macro-scale right?

Life or Gaia then might consider itself to be sentient, but those things that make it up, us, we're just the constituent parts of it's greater whole.

Humans I think are like that. Caught up in something far to complex to understand. Thus while we might like to believe we've the free will and individual personalities and consciousnesses, how can we know?

We can't. And we're probably wrong.

As Mike Patton once said, "I am what I do".

We have no choice but to be as we are, and we have only very imperfect understandings of what it is that we are.

something like that, it keeps going of course, up and down the scale, back and forth from internal to external.

I basically agree, but the Gaia hive and and punk-rock rebel dendrites is still a bit too New Agey for me.

quote:

Originally posted by kenmeer livermaile:
Just removce the philosphical absolutes and consider that your blood cells have their say and their free will in their bit of the process, as does the sun and the black hole at the center of the galaxy.

I mean, the word "free" is immediately compromised by the concept of entropy.

Some degree of autonomy. Perhaps full freedom of contemplation regarding that autonomy, insofar as our brains allow contemplation.

But freedom?

Ain't a single atom in this cosmos that's free. Ain't entirely deterministic; ain;t entirely chaotic.

I think rather the supposition that being aware of a thing is concomitant with being in control of it is where the error lies.

If my blood cells were "aware" (and I wasn't tripping in a bad 60's film) then would I conclude they could decide to rebel? or throw a party or whatever?

We are definitely aware of ourselves but that doesn't mean we are in control.

quote:

Originally posted by UberDog:


If my blood cells were "aware" (and I wasn't tripping in a bad 60's film) then would I conclude they could decide to rebel?

Cancer.

Cell rebellion.

The universe is the state between extremes, your total unity and sameness is heat death, the Big Bang is every little thing engaging in massive differentiation (spatial, temperature, "lumpiness", all of that).


Most humans are aware of the larger world, and do our own thing, wandering around the highways, going to work, etc.
Rarely do we go crazy and start bustin' caps in other humans. If we do, white blood cells, I mean, cops, show up and stop things. Most of the time things are normal, work normal, moderate unity of purpose (we're not working directly against each other at least). But you've got war, conflicts between strains, cancer and the extermination thereof. Just like a serious sickness can induce a fever that melts the brain. Nuke war.

That kind of an extended metaphor.

Every part of our bodies has a function, macro (the liver), micro (the liver cells), and even tinier (the things inside the liver cells), and the function of things is to do their function. Black holes suck in matter and excrete x-rays. Sun burn up their nuclear fuels. Humans...do human stuff.

Right?