Forgotten Things

http://nymag.com/selectall/smarthome/i-was-a-human-siri-french-virtual-assistant.html

 

Only ONE example.  Isaac Aasimov, the “I, Robot” series.  Virtual assistants abound–from “A” to “Z” [elazny].  In fact, I seem to remember one of the Vance novels even had one.

 

The point is that assistants basically exist to cut down on traffic.  Unfortunately, that means a process of exclusion of data, and some of the data that is cut is meaningful. (“Infinite merely means one more than you can count.”)

 

At some point the process is irretrievably damaged.  [Any process involving value.]

 

 

Finally, Another Entry

I’ve been writing almost frantically for about a month.  I’m recapturing about 40 years worth of notes and thought, none of which could ever be shared because the words were lacking in the English language.  The concepts are either too simple (most likely) or too complicated (possible) for most people to begin to comprehend.  Then again according to the theory itself this would have to be true.  It actually is a theory in that I have made predictions about various things and then investigated to see whether I was correct or incorrect in the predictions.

I was incorrect, for instance, in predicting a social breakdown in the United States in 2012 due to growing enforced economic disparity which had become too glaringly evident to be hidden.  Rather than that, there is the panoply of glowing veils and Japanese Room Separators, along with the CGI-gifted Virtual Imagery of our increasingly ideal world (that of, that is, images of others rather than the bothersome reality; our dross transformed to gold; our goals personified in mythical creatures created by Photoshop and our own desperate need to be deceived…

Over 90% of the U.S. population lives in cities.  Big cities.  They are fascinated by the concept of being able to survive in the woods (that they call wilderness).  They are so fascinated by the wild that they actually think they can have beasts of prey as pets, take no special care with them and deal with them entirely bereft of any understanding (of anything, perhaps)–and expect to survive.  These are the ones who brandish weapons (instead of using them) and are surprised when doing so has made them vulnerable.  They are so fascinated by death and war they burst into colleges, schools for near-infants and shopping malls–so that they can kill without any probable fear of hurt to themselves.  [Most of them don’t think that they could survive boot camp, which is why they take the coward’s route.]  Note that they’re usually correct in thinking that, as well.

The media has transformed them.  It wasn’t the government, as Orwell and many others thought.  The government in the U.S. is pretty well a product of the people and our lack of will.  Those who truly govern us, hidden on boards if visible at all, owners (if you merely look at the balance of registered wealth, as many have now) of most of the game…do so only because we allow them to do so.  If all the governed are dead, there are no governors.  Nor are there firearms with infinite magazines.

What I am writing toward is a version of ‘the truth’, not that I think that is something to be expressed in terms of language as most of us know it.  [That is why I am a zen Buddhist.]  Wish me luck.  I simply haven’t energy to keep up with the rest.

Philosophy and Identity

Mind you, the word “identity” in this context has nothing to do with usual usage.  I’m going back to 15 years old and all my mumblings to myself about a is not equal to a, not a, assignment of relevance being definition by exclusion (and appearing to actually state some things about known cultures)…simple stuff.  My version of “photographic memory” is actually a memory for patterns.  I do have damage to my visual cortext according to tests, and that’s where the seizures come from.  It’s just that…I guess I hadn’t thought that I’d ever connect a lot of the ends.

This is probably the most difficult part of it.  I think.  I’ve written about a page worth (by hand; probably about 150-200 words and still somewhat outline in nature) in three hours.  Mind you, I’ve just gotten done with about 30 pages that came from one page of notes, and I didn’t finish the working-out of my “outline”.  Two-dimensional modelling of three-dimensional object; interesting.

–Glenn

On Good And Evil

The article was on spam (and suchlike; more focussed, to my undiscerning eye, on annoyances than on “actual” crime).  I think my comment (assuming it’s left) is germane:  it was third.  The judgement of good and evil is a bit more chancy than the determination of cause.  “It’s all in the eye”, so to speak.

–Glenn

Ownership: Reality, Concept, and Law

In point of fact you legally own very little.  I haven’t seen many modern cases; I can’t recall offhand where it was that I saw them last.  It was common in the days of the railroad, when the railroad required access.  What it boiled down to was that you’d better take the price offered, or it would fall.  Ownership of land is actually only valid for a given period of time, that I believe now varies from state to state; right of way (for the government or its use) unquestionably supercedes any claim to ownership.  The Constitution, by the way, came very close to requiring that one have title to land in order to have citizenship, which makes all this even more complicated.  This does hale back to the British and property rights vis a vis wants and needs of the government.

 

Funds in a bank account are pretty available to outside, legal entities at this point.  If they can manage to associate a certain checking account number with a certain individual, collection agencies can in some cases simply proceed to obtain monies owed, although commercial entities cannot access bank accounts whose primary source of income is Social Security.

 

You’d better think about calling 911, too, incidentally.  I don’t actually belong to that class of individual any more (mainly because I have Social Security income; in the eyes of the law, because of income level and source of income–a primarily seasonal company–I was quite questionable, very clean record irregardless)–the ones, that is, who generally do have something illegal going on.  I gather that crystal meth is more popular today than I had guessed.  People who work for seasonal companies tend not to have drug tests (or so, at least, the police believe), q.e.d. although rather weak in my opinion.  Maybe I’m prejudiced.

 

Anyway; that was how I became a criminal over an epileptic seizure, understand? appearance.  I’ve known of people who called 911 who let the police into their house and ended up visiting prison.  By the way, just don’t let the police into your house without a warrant.  You can’t make a good impression on them, and odds are if they ask for entrance they’re looking for evidence of something.  Unfortunately, that’s what it’s come to.  It isn’t like it was in my youth, or even as I recall ten or twenty years ago, when you might actually be friends with the local police.  Everyone is breaking the law somehow.  And realize you look wrong to someone.

 

Nah.  I’m not paranoid.  Not at all.

–Glenn

Definitions of Relevance and Sometimes Fatal Results

That this may well be my sole post of the day is mostly prompted by a considerable rise in pain.  A compression fracture is when a vertebrae collapses somewhat.  According to the articles I read this can sometimes not be painful.  I have several collapsed vertebrae and suffer pain from other causes (mainly joint deterioration caused by a mis-set leg and the damaged cartilage and stuff from Ehlers-Danlos).  The temperature dropped from near a hundred a couple of days ago to around sixty today.  I had to go to the doctor and thus had to sit in a variety of seats not well designed for me.  Enough.  You get the idea.  The reason I mention it is this.  Okay; reading this is either unbearably boring or prompts the question “But how can you function if you have that high a pain level?”  Read a lot.  Think.  Watch television.  Think.  XXXX;  think.  The ‘think’ in between is more important than the subject matter, and it does mean think, although evidently that’s often a fearsome thought.

 

Okay.  The assumptions contained within this article are staggering.  I’m not pretending to have covered them exhaustively.  The definitions of the meaning of the results of the tests–as “proof” no less–are inexcusable.  In all probability there’s an experiential domain difference because of exposure that automatically invalidates the results.  The world of IM and mobile phones differs markedly from that of my childhood, and I’m not all that old (1953).  Interpretation of a social metasphere in terms of body language is inappropriate when compared to a verbal test.  The conclusion of the article is barely excusable, the wisdom bit, although Brunner’s geniuses who tended to take bits and pieces from various fields didn’t involve age at all.  My childhood was in the country at first, as well.

 

The final note, which should seem perfectly irrelevant to many, is this; Murphy’s Law in many cases can be stated much differently.  “The more you figure you know everything that matters about something, the more sure you can be the one thing you don’t know is going to sneak up and bite you on the ass.”

–Glenn

P.S.  Psychology is the one I actually have the degree in.