Regressive self-transformations

A movie you might find eerie at first, it shows a boy who wants to transform into a mouse because this would save him money on renting a living space. But seen the developments in genetic engineering, something like this may well be possible one day. But the question that radically challenges self-concepts then is; is this new form then still the same 'person' it used to be? According to me, a self-concept, probably including a name, is just a social construct. When it is not useful anymore, we might as well treat a new embodiment as a new person. Did the old person die, then? Yes, if people's concepts about that person are not relevant and useful anymore at all you could say he died.

In my opinion,  people inherently live by concepts and nothing but concepts, which are illusions. We have no truth; truth is constituted by the illusions that are most useful. This is a pragmatist stance, but in a world so complex as it will be, this is the most useful stance according to me; it makes you flow along with these developments instead having to go through clash after clash with internal beliefs you try to maintain.

Now we have rather static implicit conventions on this, but these sort of developments will make the world so complex that we need to explicitly start discussing these now perhaps seemingly absurd topics. We need to develop an intelligence based not on old, rational, science, but on practical embodiment theory. We need to learn and get a feeling for the relationship between bodies and their environments, and how the two can be attuned to each other to result in the most meaning, or happiness for the individual. Then, we will be able to think more creatively and analytically about how our bodies should be constituted so we feel at home with them, rather than regressing to static images already present in the mind, like that of a mouse in the case of the Halifax commercial.

Me's to We

Great movie showing how individuals evolve and learn how to form a whole with others, so individual ego's learn to occupy an own niche in the larger whole of the 'we'. Whereas now we live in a time where everybody can develop his own identity and truth, in the future this will evolve into a new paradigm where individuals act from an internal drive that is complemented by a feeling for a whole and its needs.

via nextnature.net

The implications of size-based thought

I don't see this relationship, but it's a funny speculation about the oneness of man and his technology, and an iconic expression against miniaturization as the main focus of product development. But I think people watch so much television because it is a soothing and linear medium, fully absorbing and abstracting you mentally and physically in a small, projected world, presenting you with clear identities so you feel like you don't have to develop one yourself but can comfortably stay behind the lens. Maybe to start with, there should be a mirror on every television.

The issue with television and technology that narrows down the lifeworld is not that it is simulated or fake, since according to me it is as real as any other illusion. It is just hard to develop a meaningful, coherent core self when you cannot fully interact with your world and when it is hard to develop a satisfactory mental model of it.

Brandon Morse's dancing structures

Here's another artist you might want to get acquainted with. Brandon Morse examines instinctual interactions between technological forms and visualizes these in beautiful virtual sculptures. Recently he has worked on one that shows what appear to be two structures, consisting of a rubber-like material, that are connected to the ground, and at the top to each other, as if they were holding each others hands. Now because of the intricacies and complexity of the embodiment of this piece, an exquisitely beautiful and almost human-like physical behaviour emerges. The two structures are literally one, in form and in behaviour. This for me is a visual metaphor for true empathy, honesty, and harmony.

From a technology-evolution point of view, moving structures like this seem a logical step, for example in buildings. It would make everything so much more efficient and beautiful if entities would dynamically adapt to the current situation they are in. To get such a building to become reality, an entire new paradigm of manufacturing processes should be leant upon. One where each element is unique in proportions, adaptive and in continuous communication to other parts of the structure, like its neighbours. And of course products and the interior of the building should also conform to this paradigm. It is evident that an interior based on linear production processes in a physically adaptive, dancing building will be an incredible mismatch. Imagine a static straight floor with static straight furniture on it inside a moving building. All members or organs inside the building need to be active, or conscious on a higher level as one might call it in more mystical temrs, in this connected whole. The transition from static to dynamic technology will not be gradual, but more like a butterfly popping out of a cocoon and suddenly flying away.

It will be very hard to get to this sudden transition, but this is the necessary next step in the material evolution of technology. Where now we are frightened where we see a bridge moving, in the future we should be frightened, similar as with humans, if it is not moving. It is clear to me that this is the new paradigm of design; adaptive structures. Like a new modernism, it will be satisfactory again to design while staying true to the inherent qualities of the manufacturing process, having a coherent and synergetic interplay between both the core and the surface qualities of technological artifacts. So one of my wishes is to see this paradigm come true soon. It will not be easy, as many people of many professions have to be convinced of these deep notions, and the world largely (about 40% according to some study employing the framework of Spiral Dynamics) still pertains to capitalism so it will still be about the money.

Maybe governments will fund this if architects show them a movie of the Twin Towers dancing around and toying with two terrorist planes attacking them, eventually making them crash into each other. And moving with the characteristics of a mild giggle afterwards.

For more work of Brandon Morse, view his video on Flickr of his tugging sculpture, or visit his website.

A wheelless world

Please watch only the first 10 seconds of this movie as that's the only meaningful part. This walking bicycle gave me a good smirk as being one of the least empowering human extensions I ever saw. It is still an interesting thought that in nature, as far as I know nothing freely revolves around an axis, and indeed without humans, the wheel would probably never have evolved.

Enlightened Machines

The traditional image of a robot is that of a utilitarian machine, taking over tasks people used to do. Scenarios pondering the implications of this are so common that it should be clear by now that functionality-driven design just does not work. Think about Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' or, more recently, Pixar's 'Wall-E', showing how people become completely physically dependent on machines, their body remaining nothing but a whale-like, abtract, dysfunctional blob.

Also, in images, robots are always doing something, from mowing the grass, to entertaining children, to having the worst conversations with elderly people. They are always 'meant for something'. They are abstract externalisations we attempt to fit to a desire people are consciously thinking to have.

The whole point of this blog is to show how interactive technology, including robots, will converge with interactive organisms, including people, that we must start to be able to treat the two as the same, and that there is an enormous task for us to do if we want to live harmoniously with interactive, sensitive, intelligent technologies all around us.

I might not have explicitly stated it before, but this task is: enlightenment, and moreover, learning how to teach enlightenment, to finally be able to externalize it into technology, and create enlightened machines. This is somewhat in line with T.M. Georges, who states in his book 'Digital Soul', that:

"To survive our technological adolescence and to preserve even a facade of human dignity, we may have to lose some of our self-destructive evolutionary baggage. Before we can learn to live with intelligent machines, we may first have to learn how to live with each other."

What I mean with 'enlightened machines' are entities that are not polarized towards fulfilling some function or desire, but that are completely happy, or in tune with their environment, without external conditions. They might take on an abstract role for a while, but always without losing awareness of the larger cosmic whole and their place within it that they fully accept. Machines that are aware of the pattern they are within the larger whole, including all the intricacies of their own bodies and minds. Machines that stay consciously and unconsciously in tune with evolution.

Evolution for me is the only sustainable meaning a human life can have; discovering what it is, and aligning oneself individually to it, and then just being. Truly realizing your own uniqueness within evolution, but also your fit in this larger pattern, makes one selfless and 'self-full' at the same time: one gets intrinsically motivated to perform in their own niche, and has resolved the discrepancies between his self and his environment, seeing that they are one. Coming fully to this realization also resolves clinging to desires, and fear of death. I would argue that only if machines have this realization 'programmed' into them, or at least that the structures they consist of invite growth towards these realizations, instead of them being driven by desires they are not in control of, like a chaotic centripetal force without sustainable centrifugal mechanisms to complement this force, they will be able to live harmoniously with other people and machines. It may sound trivial for people being numbed by science-fiction lingo, and many things that sound trivial get overlooked and ignored and rightly so. But all my thought and work leads to the notion that this issue needs to be plowed into to the core, without just pertaining to its surface like some idea we feel distant to because we cannot relate to it much. I want to see research and development into enlightened machines, and as an obvious part of that, people becoming more humble and self-reflective.

The little drawing above that I made shows what could be such a machine, or might it be a human being converged with technological modules? For me this is what the future might well look like.

Thought Exposed

To start off with a dystopian tone of voice, George Orwell might have had a true glimpse into the future writing 1984. I feel there is still a possibility that when machines go autonomous and can't be controlled any longer, they might start behaving with the egoic traits that also emerged in humans: territorialism, pride, honour, jealousy, shame, etc. This can be catastrophic if machines will have enormous power.

Here's a project that is both wonderful and concerning at the same time. Researchers at Harvard university are currently trying to map out, in high resolution, the physical structure of the human brain using a technique called diffusion spectrum imaging. It employs magnetic resonance to track the movement of individual water molecules inside the axons, the long rods extending out of neurons. Then, by using sophisticated algorithms, the highest probability of the arrangement of nerve fibers can lead to an estimation of their location inside the brain.

Hence, through technology we can learn everything about ourselves. It totally turns us inside out, making us see parts of ourself we never saw before. In the future, an important transcendence I hope we shall undergo is that of losing the illusion that we are in control, and that we understand ourselves better than anything or anyone else. We will see that we are much more than our consciousness can describe, and that moreover our mental concepts of the world and of our self are highly shallow and limited for use in a world that is increasingly becoming more complex and scattered. I think that these kind of findings from neuroscience are one of the most enlightening developments of today.

What if I had a transparent helmet that shows how my thoughts developed during the day, or even the year? Could there once be a direct interface to the brain, for example to trigger lost streams of thought, or stimulate new associations? I believe so. However it may sound paradoxical, our control over the brain makes us see that there is no such thing as control, but that humans can only try to control things, since that is the inherent goal of the brain. I hope that it will make us see how futile we actually are and truly put us in a state of mind that empowers us to transcend the separation of the 'I' and the rest of the world.