Back on track

Finally i've taken up a habit that's been in hibernation for some years; fine art.
So here's the first image in a suite; Machine I.

Simulation loop

Just reading Douglas Hofstadtler's I am a strange loop. Highly recommended! (doubtless, although I'm just half way). It's about self-referential systems. About feedback in systems. Feedback in our brains creating the "I" we all experience so real. But is it?
An idea I've had swimming around in my cranium for some time got re-fueld:

Is it possible to day to create a simulation in which a simulation is running, simulating the first simulation? Simulating each other.

Or is this just a stupid and impossible idea?
Myself, a layman in computer simulation need feedback. If you have any thoughts abot this. Arguments, speculations or other comments, please comment.

The Death of Chart Music?

If there is a kind of music made for the sole purposes of making money and gaining fame – and another kind, made by true artists, touching peoples souls – then I have a theory of how to get rid of the first.

Today the music industry complains about loosing a lot of money on illegal copying and file sharing. Money that should go to promotion, distribution and the artists. So I ask myself, where is the money flow largest in the music industry? I guess it’s around chart music – popular and relatively short lived songs and artists. To generalize; music made for the sole purpose of making money and gaining fame.

If sharing and copying music was totally legalized, I think that this kind of music would be downloaded and copied the most, since it’s constantly being replaced by newer artists and hits up to date with trends and styles. Nobody would spend money on mp3’s or CD’s when the music will be out of date the next week. Legal copying and downloading would rule.

And the result? There will be no money in making commercial music. Not for the artists and not for the record companies, since nobody would pay for it.

Will this not happen to all of the music industry? I don’t think so. Who would like to pay for music if it was legal to copy and download for free? The answer, I think, will be people listing to music that means something to them, music touching souls, honest music by true artists. Music with a deeper purpose than of being a commercial product making people rich and famous. If you really like an artist you gladly give some money in return for the music. Maybe not all people, but a lot, I think, and hope.

Would not this make the world a better place?

Dostojevskij, Science Fiction and Humanity

Why is science fiction usually categorized as bad literature? And what is “good literature”?

Lets start with some personal reflections of the definitions of “good literature”.
I guess the definition of good literature varies depending on whom you ask. In school we get one message. The classics; Shakespeare, Dostojevskij, Voltaire, and so on, and of course, the Nobel Price winners. Yeah, they sure knew/know how to write. But what makes the establishment deem them so high? And why do people still read them?
I’m certainly no expert on literature and I haven’t studied the subject in any academic way. But I have read some of the “great authors” and other works of literature honored by professional critics and other experts. My personal guess is that those authors and acclaimed authors of today have/had a rare ability to address universal human topics in ways communicating over the centuries. The big human questions, feelings and doubts experienced by people are in the whole, approximately the same today as they were ages ago.
With the exception of skilled language (the technique), I believe “great writers”, to fulfill the above criteria, must have gained a lot of life experience to be able to address these topics in a competent ways.
So maybe what “great literature” does, is helping you understand yourself and the world around you, then and today, – based on the writers experience and observations. Experiences and observations from his or her past.
This is what I’m getting at. The past. Sure, as I said before, a lot of life as a human today is the same as it was even hundreds of years ago. And sure history sometimes repeats itself. This is important to remember. But the world has never before been as it is today. And it has never ever been as it will be tomorrow. And that is where we are all going.
Among the “great writers” there are a few exceptions, not leaning on the past, but I suppose you could debate whether or not they are among the “great authors”.
Anyway, Mary Shelley is one of them. Her novel Frankenstein was first published in 1831. Besides being an entertaining horror story, it shone some light on the moral issues of man being able to create life.
H. G. Wells and his first novel The Time Machine were published in 1895. A story about the implications of time travel, if it ever will be possible. Followed by The Island of Doctor Moreau, 1896, where he addressed the coming misgivings of biophysics. Other stories by Wells addressing different “what ifs” and possible futures are The First Men in the Moon and the well-known The War of the Worlds.
This new type of literature, today called Science Fiction, gives us a better chance to control the future of mankind. It can prepare us and start debates far in advance. It can also inspire to brand new technologies and fields of study. A lot of things we now take for granted were originally ideas from science fiction literature; robots, GPS, mobile phones, computer servers, and so on. Have a look at this list at Technovelgy.com for more SF related inventions.
One of the more recent topics of SF literature (and movies) are virtual worlds and artificial intelligence.
And I bet a lot of scientists and developers in different areas read SF for new ideas.
Today the numbers of writers addressing possible futures are enormous compared to just some decades ago. But do they get the respect they deserve? I would say no, they don’t. In my opinion, giving humanity possible scenarios of the future and knowledge of possible new technologies that drastically may change our society, through literature accessible to the masses, are very good things to do. Thanks to movies like the Matrix and books like Permutation City by Greg Egan we can start to understand the implications of those technologies long before they are fully evolved and put into practice.

The question it’s all boiled down to: Why is what is considered “good literature” devoted to the language and experiences from the past? Why are futurism not deemed higher?

In the end, all we have left is the future.

Fight the system

In a previous post I had some thoughts about if we ever will be able to look outside the universe. Or if a simulated intelligence, in a virtual environment, ever will be aware of CPUs and circuitry.
Well it sure seems like a hard thing to do.

So how about relationships? Aren’t relationships like other systems? If so, they seem, on a higher level, above the physics rendering us, to be based on emotions, feelings and needs.
Is that why it’s so hard to change things in relationships - because you can’t see the system from above? Even when great effort is put into renewal, you still go by the old rules?
But let’s have a look into the really small systems.

According to quantum theory, it is impossible in principle to measure both the position and momentum of an object to within a certain degree of precision at the same time. Because if you do, you will alter it.
Great! That’s probably what your counselor will tell you too: alter it! Break free from the system of every day. Put something new into it. Go on a trip or something.
It seems that everything really is tied together somehow, doesn’t it? From the smallest to the largest. And isn’t that what scientists all over the world is looking for – the theory of everything. String theory? Well, Try one if you like…

From the womb of Earth to a digital eternity

I've got a lovely daughter of 1,5 years. She spent 9 months in the womb and has just begun her time here with us. As sad as it makes me feel, one day, she will pass on to be no more. Hopefully I will be long gone before that. But will the death of our bodies always be the end?
If we in the future will be able to scan ourselves and transfer the configuration and processes of our brains (or the whole body) into a computer? Will it then be possible to simulate all our brain functions, atom by atom, so that we could live in virtual (to us here and now) worlds? Meeting up with old relatives and have a life beyond what we have today?
Then our carnal life will just be our second womb - preparing us for a digital life. As long as there is hardware and energy, we will never have to die!
I get a feeling of vertigo when I see our "normal" lives just as a prestage to our "real" life. Cause it will be The Life. What is 80 years of life in flesh compared to an eternity in the machines? Maybe you can have a back up copy? Maybe there will even be an undo button?

When will this be achived?
Will you live long enough to be reborn?
And who will look after the equipment?

Happy New Year!

Too much fun in the future?

Do you like computer games, movies or litterature that takes you away from everyday life and into new exciting, interesting or wonderful worlds? Why? Because the games, books or films are designed to entertain. But your real life seems not to be? I agree.

How do you think people will behave when real virtual reality, inseparable for our senses, is here?
Will you spend most time in your 30 m2 apartment next to the freeway or in your castle with 108 rooms in the south of France? Will you spend the most time with your lovely but quite ordinary wife or with Julia Roberts, Claudia Chiffer and Brooke Burke? Will you get that six pack friday evening and watch a DVD or will you get a 100% safe high and fly though space to the planet of recreation (with your wife, looking as Brook Burke)?
It's really hard choices.
Maybe you don't have to eat? Maybe you can have all you need intravenous while you're having a ball? And maybe you don't have to work in the future? We will live longer. Maybe everything is automated, there just can't be jobs for us all. Will you be bored. Don't think so. Design your own worlds and friends, just like that!
Will this be really fun or the death of the human spirit? I don't know.
Do you?