Hackers, cyberpunks, and technophilosophy

[the.crooked]

i can type pretty damn quckly. I used to be better. My dad was an IT for most of my life so he made sure I knew what I was doing. Now I type faster than him. Tables turned indeed.

[fermentor666]

The more we use technology that serves to approximate (right word?) reality, the less connected we become to our surroundings. The movie Pulse, the original Japanese film not the crap remake, was about exactly that. We trap ourselves in boxes until we become silent and alone, while under the impression that we are connected. All these people using i-Pods, cellphones, etc., are escaping those around them. I walk down around the city and school and everyone is looking down at, and fiddling with, a cellphone, or trapped in an i-Pod head-trip. People can't even sit in a university class without sending out text messages.

 

 

On another note, I saw an interesting quote on slashdot.org while trying to find ps3 sale numbers to update a wikipedia page:

 

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/01/1758222&from=rss

" by Knuckles (8964) <knuckles@NOSPaM.dantian.org> on Thursday February 01, @04:19PM (#17850102)

 

Information isn't sentient and as such, can't want anything. It doesn't want to be free, it doesn't care either way.

 

What, there are still people around who don't get the saying? Information wants to be free in the same way as water wants to leak.

"

 

That video on YouTube says that "the machine is us" as if that were a good thing. If machines become sentient, AI develops consciousness, we will not be that unless re-incarnation exists. That would be interesting, re-incarnated as a machine or a digital entity. Perhaps the next logical evolutionary step for Earth-based species once we become unable to further adapt to our environment.

[the.crooked]

so im gonna post something about science fiction and its relationship to technology. It is part of a proposal for a research project I had to write for a class today. It's a little long and rediculous, but what else do I post?

 

Retro Futurism

What does the display of contemporary social settings intertwined with imaginative conceptions of future technologies and societies based on these technologies say about the applicative goals of our own academic processes of such?

 

Retro-futurism, as a movement, represented a specific period of humanity’s ideological progression that sought to present the possibilities of the future in a language common to everyone. The representation of the individual experience of the future is relatable through the contextualization of the future in contemporary terms. That is to say, in an artistic retro-futurist production, one might imagine an urban expanse built to seemingly arbitrary aesthetic whims, with no concern of succumbing to the terms of practicality, being navigated by an everyday business man with fedora and briefcase to match. Such images were common during this period. It displayed a want to move beyond the now, while maintaining some element of familiarity in what is obviously an undetermined future. The images and stories also express a notion that the future holds a possibility of a better life. Be it the social condition of the future or the technologies which allow such.

 

While being referential to a specific period of time, retro-futurism can act as a moniker for any process which completes this general aim of predicting future trends while juxtaposing it against current norms. One of the strongest forms of such an aim is in that of Science Fiction.

 

One thing to consider is this: is it possible that by creating products for consumption in the form of prescribing a specific potential for the future, we are directing the ends to which we will move forward to that future?

 

Science Fiction as Production of Future Realities and Technologies:

 

Science fiction is the field of literature, film, artistry, etc that deals with the portrayal of societies in light of future technologies or events unseen. Ranging from the idea of barren war-torn wastelands to shiny over stated expressions of human might to the alienation of the individual through mass communication technologies, science fiction proceeds as our own limited insights into the directions our current trends could/will take us.

 

Often fanciful, products of science fiction appear as separate from our reality or our possible future realities because of the disparity between many of the prescriptions of the future they give and the reality of our present moment. However, the question must be begged, are they so different from the now? Or rather, can past products which fit under this banner of Science Fiction reflect a transition of concepts expressed as potentials for the future into actualities of our present? This is easy enough to do. Reading through the literature would provide events where an imaginative application of future technologies maps onto some product we have now. But why is this?

 

Philip K. Dick predates the ability to record sound onto magnetic tape, but sure enough he presents an idea much like that in one of his books. (Fill out more examples here).

 

Again, the question should be, how come this phenomena of potential future objects being actuated as the process of our technological advancement occurs? What is the relationship between the products that say what the future will be and how it actually is?

 

As a product made for consumption Science Fiction comes with a caveat in its brand name, “Fiction.” It imposes an immediate cleavage between our reality and that of the world portrayed in the text. Titles of pieces of art are usually considered insight into how we should find meaning and relevance in the piece itself. Should not the title of a genre do the same?

 

The disparity of future and present is digestible in that one need not believe in it to enjoy it. There is no fatalism expressed in what is given as the future. It exists merely as a possibility to enjoy, ruminate, detest, whatever one’s visceral reaction to the work may be. What is concrete then, is the reference to the now. Whatever contextualization each work may use, it serves as a means to tie what could be to what now is. It is this idea which may prove useful in unpacking this quandary. How then, through the process of giving a believable foundation in the now to an unbelievable possibility of the future do we arrive at a future mediated between the two? Literature is imagery and story telling through text, so perhaps it is the medium the medium. But what is the shared aspect of the medium? To me, at least, it stands that the use of common vernacular and syntax to convey an unusual imagery and semantics is the means by which this effect takes place. We take the terms of contemporary times and use them in new ways. The science fiction author is the poet of future possibilities. However, rather than relishing in the abandonment of linguistic constraint, he moves within the contemporary limits of the terms and creates a unique view of the future with them.

 

Perhaps it is the relationships that retro-futurism alludes to in the form of its application that will lead to an idea about science fiction as an influential productive force in society.

 

The creation of technologies is called applied science. It takes theories about what is theoretically possible, uses the testing of such theories and moves on to be something new. Applied science is aptly named. It is the culmination of pragmatic scientific creation. We make things to use in life, because of what we learned using other things. This is a major crux of the instrumentalist position in philosophy of science. It is this process that Science Fiction targets in its explications of the future.

 

(Flesh out the idea of how science fiction is not directly a statement about what is theoretically possible, but in fact disregards theory and deals more with the idea of human ingenuity as an unlimited source of production. Much like the ideals presented in imagery of rockafeller and other Masonic ideology. Also historiological connection to such imagery and retro futurism, eg theories acting as ideological contemporaries. Thus rather than becoming an argument for where the direction of application of our current theories of metaphysics will take us, it becomes an argument for a world possible only through a rejection of the current scientific idiom and progression into the next. It directs future notions of theoretical science by trying to retro-fit it to what we think should be possible, by virtue of the imagery in the science fiction literature.)

 

But again, where is the connection that serves as reason to believe sci-fi directs our future? To me, it is in the nature of production of science-fiction. It has the fortunate aspect of being “for the masses” rather than an eclectic few nuanced in the language of its form. Because it is created with a wide spread appeal in mind, it seeks to be ubiquitous in its availability to readers. It becomes something easy to dismiss as particularly relevant to the course of the future because of its proliferation now. That is to say that science fiction is separated from the realm of “High Theory” because of its “mass appeal.” This focus on juxtaposition, which seems integral to the Sci-Fi form, gets played out in a larger context through this interaction of the texts themselves as being ‘massified’ while toying with the basic metaphysical theories we now hold as true. Essentially it forces the question of our own existential potential on everyone who reads it, but through a language which is containable within the context of our own lives. Thus we have the bridge. It is through a subversion of existential questions and potentials under the guise of common language and imagery that we are forced into a paradox of what we believe to be true as an absolute, e.g. science, against what we want to be true, e.g. the imagery. This existential question cannot stand alone. For its weight should bear down upon its questioner lest they see a means out of the problem. But again, this is hidden. It becomes the implied subject of the science-fiction text masked through the immediacy of the story and its characters. So we forget about it. We rely on the implication of the “Fiction” title to save us from this. We dismiss it as nothing more than prescriptive flight of fancy and say that we cared about the story. Really. It becomes another narrative device rather than the point of the text.

 

But I can not believe the story ends there. Someone once said “necessity is the mother of invention,” but I disagree. The adage should read, “Laziness is the mother of invention.” I say this because everything we create pragmatically is meant to take the place of an action we once did. The automation of our lives is an extension of our attempt to pragmatically apply our “true” theories to better some part of our lives. We use machines to be efficient, to use less energy for a given action. Some call it conservation. I call it innate laziness. But it is only through the creative process that we come to these inventions, which do such. Aptly timed and correlative, Emily Dickinson once wrote something to the effect that it is imagination which directs our conception of what is possible. So, given that we create objects and tools to make life easier, and that such is an application of our theories and finally that it is through imagination that we create such tools in application of theory, we might have the means to connect Sci-Fi as necessarily affective of future technologies.

 

It is hard to believe that something so populated (the set of all things Sci-Fi) and so subversive (for the reasons mentioned previously) could not play into the field of which it is directly based. Sci-Fi is the imaginative force we use to suggest possibilities of future technologies through our interaction with contemporary theory. The juxtiposition of the contemporarily clothed man among the future setting is a good metaphor for this interaction of our want to increase our leisure and efficiency in action with the application of our contemporary theory. Science fiction provides a safe means to move beyond the limitations of our lives under the application of current theory. At the same time it provides one of the few explicit conceptions of how we want to direct the application and revision/creation of our contemporary theories. Especially in that it remains connected to the idea of mass practicality. Again I appeal to its productive mode as indicative of such a notion.

 

Star trek wrecks because it is a penultimate expression of what we want from science. Absolute freedom to extend (as in the form of extensionality) the capabilities of our minds through the application of the only means we have to do so (scientific theory). For what is the culmination of every Nation’s space program but an infantile and divide Intergalactic Federation? We want this, so we make ends towards it. Discussions of sources of innumerable energy are considered as a potential means for large distance space travel. Bio-physics tells us how we will physiologically respond to different situations, obviously applicable in the current example. Essentially, one could probably trace most of our scientific actions towards the creation of objects/theories which would make such exploration possible.

 

This is only one example of how one can abstract from our current position in scientific theory and its application under the conceptual lens of Science Fiction.

 

(because sci-fi is typically steeped in contemporary science, it also contains the relevant battle between current and future ontologies, which of course are played out in the applied science of either idiom)

 

 

 

Robert Heinland- Science Fiction author, Wrote “Stranger in a Strange land,” Focus on Language as necessary component of directing the future.

Phillip K Dick- Science Fiction author, Wrote novels with pre-emptory descriptions of actualized future technologies, eg tape recording. wrote the texts which inspired the films Blade Runner and Johnny Pneumonic.

Adorno & Horkeimer- Same as previous, but with a focus on consumption

McDade?- “High Theory, Low Culture,” feeds the idea of intellectual alienation through “massification”

Cognitive Theory- Priming effect.

Michele De Certau- same as above, but as a metaphor for movement within the consumption aspects of culture industry being played with in this example.

(Add more)

[russell jones]

In Heinlein's future, there's free love with Playboy bunnies.

[the.crooked]

hell yes there is. hell yes there is.

[russell jones]

Wireless energy finally within reach.

 

Could this idea of energy from radiation be applied on a larger scale, perhaps using cosmic rays?

[asitseems]

http://milw0rm.org/

http://neworder.box.sk/

http://packetstormsecurity.nl/

[asdf_va!]

First off... STOKED on this thread.

 

My first time using a computer was in 1985.

I was terrible in school... but I loved technology(science in general). I would steal copies of "Boy's Life" (I was not boy scout material) to get their monthly back page of Basic code. Every so often they would post a full page of code that would produce either a simple game or flashy picture with sound. It was an exciting time just making shit on the computer in the school office during lunch time! Time moves on and as my location changes I soon figure out that with a modem, I can connect to other computers... AW SHIT! Almost every power company on the east coast had a bbs! I would connect to anything I could find. By the time I was 17 I had been on most of the major BBS that were still around using an old bulky ass Radioshack laptop I got for cheap, and dialing out directly from peoples phone boxes outside of their homes(you can still do this btw). I had a few small flip phones, that had alligator clips, for hooking to outside boxes on me all the time. I would constantly strive for more info. Went so far as to "borrow" some the local lineman's manuals out of back of the the van via a stealthy friend of mine. Found out that my local telephone company had set up every pay phone with a simple code for free phone calls. It was for the linemen to test them after setting them up. The pre-digital early 90's were a very exciting time to be a teenager. Especially a tech thirsty teen.

 

Did anyone ever exploit port 26 to gain direct access to mail servers, or spoof email address manually back in the day?

 

I used to have a stack of Blacklisted, 2600's and bootlegged phack's back in the day.

I have since lost those and a two shoe boxes full of flicks from the 90's. Thats life I guess.

 

Sorry for the flood of back story and jabbering, but this thread is exactly what I needed.

 

I also suggest William Gibson to anyone into technology that hasn't read him.

He coined the term Cyberpunk in 86, and wrote of nanomachines that could build... well anything, back in 91. Pretty fantastic stuff he wrote about that is being developed, and in some cases are working now in the future.

 

You can download old 2600 radio shows on iTunes also, for anyone interested.

[fermentor666]

More importantly, Gibson coined the term "cyberspace" back in 1981. And he was into punk/hardcore around that time, too.

[asdf_va!]

^^I stand corrected. Actually I am seated... But corrected none the less.

 

Don't know if this is belongs here, but if it turns out to be published factual data...

NEC sends a pulse of radiated light faster than the speed of light... and in NJ of all places."

 

From the article:

"It raced so fast the pulse exited a specially-prepared chamber before it even finished entering it."

[the.crooked]

I remember this. I can't remember why it didn't get more press when it happened.

 

I know there was similar experiment (in terms of importance) where they replicated some of the plasma that should have been around during the big bang.

 

They were concerned they might open up a black hole by doing so. But luckily they didn't, and they were successful. However, it to was completely obscured in the media. Nothing was really mentioned of it.

[asdf_va!]

^^totally...

 

There was work happening to build the LHC(large hydrogen collider)that semi religious science groups were protesting(they had legit sounding theories). It was done at CERN and was kinda scary for a hot minute. Got ZERO press. I only found out about it because I just read Angles and Demons and was all stoked on the CERN facility. There is hardly any press on "the possible tear in the fabric of time" any more but none the less, this is by far an amazingly massive project spanning decades in production.

 

What if... By producing artificial man made black holes, shit went totally wrong?

Who would they tell, what would they say? Colliding Hydrogen at -271degrees C, on a 29 mile long track into a giant scanner 100 meters under the surface of the earth... FUCKING WOW! I want that job! I would be a low level contractor. A "space janitor" if you will.

[asdf_va!]

^^From the website:

"When you want to take a picture of Mont Blanc, you whip out your cell phone and press 'take'. When you want to take a picture of an elementary particle, you whip out your 12-thousand-tonne particle detector, bury it a hundred meters underground, and turn on your custom-built 27-kilometer-long 14-TGeV particle accelerator. Then you press 'take'. Why does looking for something so small it has no dimensions require you to build something seven stories tall and half as wide as a football field?"

[fermentor666]

My theory is that black holes might exist because other civilizations did an experiment that caused one, and each black hole was a planet with life that created the black hole. Of course, now they are saying there might be millions of black holes, so I dunno.

[Guest spectr]

hey... anyone remember when lopht was doing all those great rds hacks... shit was fucking comical... sorry just remembered it and thought about all the fun back in the day...

[the.crooked]

My theory is that black holes might exist because other civilizations did an experiment that caused one, and each black hole was a planet with life that created the black hole. Of course, now they are saying there might be millions of black holes, so I dunno.

 

Black Holes were originally posited under the name Einstien-Rosen Bridges. They are mathematical solutions to some of the problems in Relativity. They express the idea of a singularity within the relativistic universe.

 

There are more than likely tons of black holes throughout the universe. They think there is one at the center of our galaxy as well.

 

 

As for CERN, there was a hilarious report they released a couple years ago. It was all the possible doomsday scenarios that could pop up because of the experiments they do there.

[russell jones]

Even more importantly and somewhat paradoxically, black holes may be an essential force in star formation.

 

The CERN report sounds cool, I love that kind of stuff.

[russell jones]

More importantly, Gibson coined the term "cyberspace" back in 1981. And he was into punk/hardcore around that time, too.

 

 

It pissed me off to no end that Gibson was never mentioned when the Matrix movies came out. He will probably turn out to be a Sci-Fi writer on par with Verne and Wells.

[.coma]

just hurry up and make neuromancer already

[fermentor666]

The last story on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC show was about the question of whether or not we live in a simulation, claiming there is a 20% chance we are living in a computer simulation--but not really elaborating on how the odds were gauged. He was joined by William Earwin, a philosophy professor at King's College, PA. It is a fairly juicy segment, good mind candy.

 

Personally I think that there is quite a good chance that we are living in a simulation of some sorts, perhaps even as boring and pointless as an experiment by some random guy. I think that at the rate science and AI tech is increasing, we might find this out in our generation, if we survive.

 

You can watch it here: http://video.msn.com/v/us/fv/msnbc/fv.htm??f=00&g=77d0c7a5-06cf-498e-bba8-29803f5f0847&p=source_countdown&t=c1149&rf=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/&fg=

for now. I think they erase the videos after a few days and I can't seem to find an archive for Countdown. It's worth watching, six minutes and thirty-eight seconds of actual network discussion of simulation theory.

 

I also like Olbermann and think he covers some great stuff that gets ignored by the rest of the networks, both cable and non-cable. His stories in the later sections are usually some celebrity or sports crap, but those must be the stories his "producers make him do." I also like his basically agreeing the president should be impeached for various things.

[fermentor666]

This stuff is pretty interesting.

[the.crooked]

Olberman has shit on lock.

 

 

 

At any rate, the idea that we are a simulation can only be fulfilled if we gain full access to the casual laws of our physical realm. However, the very structure by which such casual laws are determined (logic and science) we have found to be necessarily incomplete (thank you Godel's incompleteness theorems).

 

 

I venture to claim that if we are in fact some emergent properties of an immensily complex simulation process, than we will never know it.

[fermentor666]

If we are simulacras in a simulation, it is POSSIBLE that we can find out. I'm not sure HOW, but it is possible because really, there are no known laws of science that would forbid it. Assuming that we are in a simulation and we are fully-realized manifestations of artificial intelligence, then we could have a soul, of sorts, and free will, which would allow for us to figure this out or overcome any sort of programming obstacles. However, we could be hard-wired in a way that would inherently prevent us from knowing, and if we are simply artificial intelligence, without "soul", then we might have nothing that would push us to overcome such programming.

 

 

On another note, I attended a reading and Q&A by William Gibson, who read from his new book "Spook Country", and I got my copy of "Neuromancer" signed by the man himself, it was pretty cool.

[the.crooked]

Less so lack of free will, more so never ending complexity in science.

[fermentor666]

It has to end at some point, though, doesn't it? Because it started somewhere, and we all know "everything that has a beginning has an end".

[the.crooked]

Does counting have an end?

 

 

Do numbers end?

[the.crooked]

If not, does not something which is built on a never ending process also not end?

 

 

Rather, look at it this way, if counting, the structure of evidence in science, is infinite, then the very means by which we measure data always leads to another level of observation.

 

 

Science is a never ending process.

[fermentor666]

Hmmm, well now you are talking mathematics. I'm talking more about the universe and our understanding of existence, neither of which are infinite, unless you count theories about reincarnation or seperate dimensions/universe where your conciousness resides forever. But at a certain point, if we are to believe the universe is shrinking, all living things will eventually end, and I believe that all conciousness/soul would no longer exist.

[pornbooth]

ive always concidered my conciousness to be a simulation from my brain, so it will cease to exist after the computer in my head quits recieving power.

[lord_casek]

anyone else read dan browns book "digital fortress"?