Oh, Brave New Mobile World
Prelude: The View into Nomads' land
Overture:
This is going to be a trilogy in four parts ( three parts and a prelude, duh), and is an examination into how the world is flowing from a state of permanency into a state of flux. If this scares you, then just remember my motto, Nothing lasts for ever. One day, in the future, the world will settle down again and stop shifting around under your feet. You just have to wait, and watch for your opportunity to jump onto a bit of solid ground that happens to be passing.
Watcher of the Skies, Watcher of all...
I have been watching out for signs lately. I've not been sure what I should have been looking for, that's caused me a lot of confusion. In the old days, I might have scanned the skies for patterns made by flights of birds, or studied the meandering paths left by the clouds. I might have kept an ear open for farmer's tales of two-headed calves being born, and what particular dialect the extra head spoke in. I might have plotted the instances of fish falling from the skies and muttered to myself "it Steam-engines when it comes steam-engine time". Because I'm not a cruel man I wouldn't have been gutting animals and scrabbling around amongst the bloody entrails, but if someone else less squeamish had muttered to me that they had found suggestive shapes amidst the slime I would have added that information into my cauldron.
But these things no longer apply, scrying now happens in front of a computer screen, not a glass ball. There is also, I believe, an electronic Planchette. The Tarot has been online for years. The I-ching program was one of the first things I wrote, years ago, when I graduated from a ZX-81 to a Tandy 100 which had enough memory to store the lengthy descriptions of the hexagrams.
As to why I am looking for signs, well, I believe that great things are afoot. (Come now, earth-creature, or you will be late...) The world is once again on the move. The old guard is changing.
(Gentlemen, he said, I don't need your organisation...)
What things (afoot, great, fore-mentioned) are these? Well, that's why I'm looking for the signs, because these changes aren't happening with fanfare and panoply. There will be no announcements in the papers or postings on the walls of fashionable establishments. So I keep looking, rummaging around the world and the web, trying not to drown in the mass of messages of banks, bailouts, protests, predictions, sleaze and scandal. Underneath all of that dross are tiny little flecks of news that, on their own, mean little, but they are the signs. If you can persuade these shimmering flecks to cluster in a cloud, it is possible that they will coalesce into a more meaningful picture.
The signs I have found haven't made much sense, so far. A friend of mine has scrapped his domains and hosted web-sites and put his own small webserver on the end of his broadband line using dynamic DNS. It means he could move tomorrow, plug the machine into the new ADSL line, update dynamic DNS and he's back on the web. It's the opposite of serverage, which is what another friend of mine is up to. She has just finished uploading her entire music collection to the web. She no longer has to carry around with her the bulk and weight of CD's and the necessary HiFi system. All she needs is a connection to the web. Just because they're doing the opposite to the other doesn't mean that either or both of them are wrong. I feel that each of them is right. They're taking off in different directions, but heading for the same wide sky.
(Into the Blue again...)
The signs I am seeing are telling me that people are starting to move around again. But this time, they're moving into cyberspace. Online shops are springing up while high-street stores are shutting down. People are starting to do more things in the cyberverse, such as using serverage to store their music collection. It's partly due to cost. In order to house and make use of my collection of music, my Wharfedale speakers and the amplifier and player, I need a room, with the necessary cost of rates, heating, the need to keep answering the electoral roll form. And I can't, when I'm at someone else's house, play them something from my collection unless I've thought in advance and taken it with me. I, in a sense, am the equivalent to one of the city-dwellers in the last days of the Roman empire, when the Huns appeared as if from nowhere and plundered where they would.
This new realisation was sparked off by something I spotted over on Zen's blog, and it has reminded me why I still keep him on my sidebar as a link (under Satori'l Eloquence). He posted recently his thoughts after reading a book on the rise of the Mongol empire under Ghengis Khan, and how the Roman Empire was powerless to oppose him, because the horsemen came and went at will, while the city-dwellers had to sit there and take whatever came their way, usually arrows. Until I read what he had written, I knew that I knew something, but I didn't know what it was. And now that I do know what I had been sensing was going on around me, it's time to write it all down before the event.
The next post, the first in a trilogy, could well be titled Nomads I have Known.
And if you still think I'm clutching at straws, then ask yourself this; why have the cream of the trolls left usenet? And where have they gone? (So long, and thanks for all the fish)
Or, why do I no longer bother listening to the radio? Why is it that I would rather go into SecondLife and sit in the garden there listening to the streaming audio? I do it by choice, I haven't been forced there by economic circumstances, I did it of my own free-will. (I choose, therefore I am)
I suggest that you now pop across to Zen's satori'l state and read his post, which is titled On Information.
Overture:
This is going to be a trilogy in four parts ( three parts and a prelude, duh), and is an examination into how the world is flowing from a state of permanency into a state of flux. If this scares you, then just remember my motto, Nothing lasts for ever. One day, in the future, the world will settle down again and stop shifting around under your feet. You just have to wait, and watch for your opportunity to jump onto a bit of solid ground that happens to be passing.
Watcher of the Skies, Watcher of all...
I have been watching out for signs lately. I've not been sure what I should have been looking for, that's caused me a lot of confusion. In the old days, I might have scanned the skies for patterns made by flights of birds, or studied the meandering paths left by the clouds. I might have kept an ear open for farmer's tales of two-headed calves being born, and what particular dialect the extra head spoke in. I might have plotted the instances of fish falling from the skies and muttered to myself "it Steam-engines when it comes steam-engine time". Because I'm not a cruel man I wouldn't have been gutting animals and scrabbling around amongst the bloody entrails, but if someone else less squeamish had muttered to me that they had found suggestive shapes amidst the slime I would have added that information into my cauldron.
But these things no longer apply, scrying now happens in front of a computer screen, not a glass ball. There is also, I believe, an electronic Planchette. The Tarot has been online for years. The I-ching program was one of the first things I wrote, years ago, when I graduated from a ZX-81 to a Tandy 100 which had enough memory to store the lengthy descriptions of the hexagrams.
As to why I am looking for signs, well, I believe that great things are afoot. (Come now, earth-creature, or you will be late...) The world is once again on the move. The old guard is changing.
(Gentlemen, he said, I don't need your organisation...)
What things (afoot, great, fore-mentioned) are these? Well, that's why I'm looking for the signs, because these changes aren't happening with fanfare and panoply. There will be no announcements in the papers or postings on the walls of fashionable establishments. So I keep looking, rummaging around the world and the web, trying not to drown in the mass of messages of banks, bailouts, protests, predictions, sleaze and scandal. Underneath all of that dross are tiny little flecks of news that, on their own, mean little, but they are the signs. If you can persuade these shimmering flecks to cluster in a cloud, it is possible that they will coalesce into a more meaningful picture.
The signs I have found haven't made much sense, so far. A friend of mine has scrapped his domains and hosted web-sites and put his own small webserver on the end of his broadband line using dynamic DNS. It means he could move tomorrow, plug the machine into the new ADSL line, update dynamic DNS and he's back on the web. It's the opposite of serverage, which is what another friend of mine is up to. She has just finished uploading her entire music collection to the web. She no longer has to carry around with her the bulk and weight of CD's and the necessary HiFi system. All she needs is a connection to the web. Just because they're doing the opposite to the other doesn't mean that either or both of them are wrong. I feel that each of them is right. They're taking off in different directions, but heading for the same wide sky.
(Into the Blue again...)
The signs I am seeing are telling me that people are starting to move around again. But this time, they're moving into cyberspace. Online shops are springing up while high-street stores are shutting down. People are starting to do more things in the cyberverse, such as using serverage to store their music collection. It's partly due to cost. In order to house and make use of my collection of music, my Wharfedale speakers and the amplifier and player, I need a room, with the necessary cost of rates, heating, the need to keep answering the electoral roll form. And I can't, when I'm at someone else's house, play them something from my collection unless I've thought in advance and taken it with me. I, in a sense, am the equivalent to one of the city-dwellers in the last days of the Roman empire, when the Huns appeared as if from nowhere and plundered where they would.
This new realisation was sparked off by something I spotted over on Zen's blog, and it has reminded me why I still keep him on my sidebar as a link (under Satori'l Eloquence). He posted recently his thoughts after reading a book on the rise of the Mongol empire under Ghengis Khan, and how the Roman Empire was powerless to oppose him, because the horsemen came and went at will, while the city-dwellers had to sit there and take whatever came their way, usually arrows. Until I read what he had written, I knew that I knew something, but I didn't know what it was. And now that I do know what I had been sensing was going on around me, it's time to write it all down before the event.
The next post, the first in a trilogy, could well be titled Nomads I have Known.
And if you still think I'm clutching at straws, then ask yourself this; why have the cream of the trolls left usenet? And where have they gone? (So long, and thanks for all the fish)
Or, why do I no longer bother listening to the radio? Why is it that I would rather go into SecondLife and sit in the garden there listening to the streaming audio? I do it by choice, I haven't been forced there by economic circumstances, I did it of my own free-will. (I choose, therefore I am)
I suggest that you now pop across to Zen's satori'l state and read his post, which is titled On Information.
Labels: Digital nomads, don't drown - Dive
posted by Sopwith-Camel | 10:56 am
15 Comments:
How sad am I, to comment on my own blogging?
The tag "Don't drown, Dive" comes form Carl Gustav Jung, and is his advice to those in peril on the mental seas. The subconscious is not the end, go down and explore.
Of the three greats of the last century, Freed, Adler and Jung, I feel Jung has the most to offer this new era, because he was prepared to deal with the non-specifics.
boots sez:
Throw also into your cauldron such things as remote living with offgrid power and broadband connectivity, the forthcoming trend to remove outsourcing, and the damned high cost of almost everything.
If the Tarot has taught itself to you, you will know what I mean when I say it is the Fool who is carefree on cliff's edge yet snaps to attention when a single blade of grass moves in a calm meadow.
Now please do, as Z puts it, "get to the effing point"! <g>
Boots quoth:
"Throw also into your cauldron..."
So insourcing is the future? Isn't that both passe, and protectionist? The Exetan (see mercman) worked out a while ago that it was still cheaper to buy electricity from the grid than to make it himself from his old Lister CS.
Fear not, I shall not rush to the middle, for is it not the fool who completes the circle around the major Arcana, instead of dashing straight for the Queen and trying to shag her?
"Now please do, as Z puts it..."
Oh do,
Do tell,
Do tell us all,
Tell us all about,
All about Anna,
Anna Livia Plurabelle
Again, I shan't. I circle about, I circle around (Albatrosante:). As Gurdjieff put it, "One should bury the dog deeply."
Zen's post showed how good his presentation skills are. He lead the reader through what he, the writer, had seen so that they, the reader, should approximate the same perceptive process. And it worked for me.
There is an old established process whereby the writer should open by telling the readers what he is going to tell them, then tell it to them, and then tell them what they have just been told. Fuck that, c'est ne pas la guerre, et c'est n'est pas magnifique.
And, at the opposite end of the scale, we have forum-man, who tells it straight from the top:
hi all this is corsadriver 666, ive found this grate site where u can by led numberplate confusers so the blues cant see you in there cameras, and we can drive around like the monkols rading all the townz and theyl never be able to get us coz they cant see who we are.
boots sez:
"So insourcing is the future? Isn't that both passe, and protectionist?"
When there's a global depression on and it's every man for himself, "protectionist" is about as vile a label as "eater of sea-kittens".
"The Exetan (see mercman) worked out a while ago that it was still cheaper to buy electricity from the grid than to make it himself from his old Lister CS."
Different solutions to different problems, here it would've cost me $15k for the privilege of an eternal bill whether I used any electricity or not (surcharges etc) not to mention that the bastards won't set or quote a fixed rate, and for half what they wish me to pay to buy them a new transformer I can have electricity with no monthly bill. Depends on your needs, what you think you need, and what it actually takes to get the job done.
"As Gurdjieff put it, 'One should bury the dog deeply.'"
Yes, well, be sure it's dead first. Wasn't it also he (or perhaps it was his man Ouspensky) who said that people will not value something that is free? Where's your queue for paying then... <g>
"Zen's post showed how good his presentation skills are. He lead the reader through what he, the writer, had seen so that they, the reader, should approximate the same perceptive process. And it worked for me."
Silly me, I took him at his word and questioned him on half a dozen contradictions, but unless you read quickly you'll not know the details beyond "comment deleted blah blah".
I've enjoyed your first bit, and I must say that I envy your ability to lay it all out in advance to the point where you know which part you're on, I've difficulty enough just getting concepts similar to what I have in mind typed into the confuser.
I'll wait impatiently... could say I'll wait patiently but that would be an outright lie, I'm a member in good standing of the "Mommy are we there yet" generation.
(On Zen)
"Silly me, I took him at his word and questioned him on half a dozen contradictions"
Ah, learn to love the contradictions, because in the space between the two opposing concepts a whole new idea can spring into being. Art need not obey the rules of common-sense or science.
But remember, Zen is by profession an editor, so he will sometimes be a c-c-c-cantankerous chewer-up of commentors.
"... to lay it all out in advance to the point where you know which part you're on"
You're doing well enough with your own exposition of metaphysics, using a blog where others might have preferred a wiki. I've been looking through and you've got the potential for cross-links to definition pages in your blog in just the way that a wiki would allow a phrase or term to be expanded on. Do persevere.
I tend to structure my thoughts when setting out to post much as if I were still writing Fortran:
PROGRAM Post
IMPLICIT monk ! opposite of none, let there be artistic ambiguity
CALL init ! introduce prime-concept and set up expectations
CALL concept (why, "my ears have been pricking up of late" )
CALL concept (what, "I've been seeing odd things around me" )
CALL concept (where, "is all the change occurring?"
CALL concept (who, "has a handle on this?" )
CALL close ("and this is what I've come to realise") ! a final couple of points for fun
END
And then the compiler chews and pukes and whispers "incongruity encountered on line 14", or "spooling error para 2"
As you'll see, I have suddenly realised the magic of post-posting in the comments, rather than repeatedly revising the page.
boots sez:
"...Zen is by profession an editor..."
Yes, he thinks along very different pathways.
"I tend to structure my thoughts when setting out to post much as if I were still writing Fortran: ..."
Interesting, I never write programs that way. I ponder the problem then begin by implementing the most clearly essential functionality. From there it's a matter of how quickly one can type.
I couldn't plan my way out of a paper bag, fortunately paper bags that large are quite rare.
I did do a couple of classic linear beginning-to-end programs, but generally I was a sort of shit-bin who got asked to look at old code written with no comments and two-letter variable names, or faults which mysteriously vanished when anyone tried to investigate them.
I found that it was impossible to look forwards and try to see a way through the maze of possibilities, so I developed the trick of turning the problem on it's head. Imagining that I had solved it, I would then look back and say to myself, "well, how did I get here?" (Musical reference intentional.) Step by step i would try to work backwards until, in a flash, I suddenly saw a way forwards.
As I'm sure you'll soon need to cover in your blog, the linear model of cause-and-effect only works in small spaces; it is the Euclidean mental geometry to the Einsteinian Holistic topography.
I was impressed by your reference earlier to Ouspensky. I am looking for a similar publicist (A E Van Vogt excluded) to Korzbyski.
boots sez:
"As I'm sure you'll soon need to cover in your blog, the linear model of cause-and-effect only works in small spaces; it is the Euclidean mental geometry to the Einsteinian Holistic topography."
Sorry, you've lost me with that Euclidean/Einsteinian business.
As for linear cause/effect models only working in small spaces, one can make the set of spaces quite small without changing anything.
"I am looking for a similar publicist (A E Van Vogt excluded) to Korzbyski."
Sorry, I don't know Korzbyski. Is he a dentist or a plumber?
OK, disgracefully brief exposition:
Euclidean geometry says draw a 3-4-5 triangle on the ground, the lines are straight, the angles 30-60-90, their sum will "always" equal 180
Draw it on the earth's surface and the straight lines get curved, the angles possibly exceed 180 degrees when totaled.
Draw it in space and you have to accept that it curves back inside itself when in the vicinity of heavy clumps of matter.
Similarly, we are used to "cause creates effect", living in our linear time. But in physics experiments some of the cloud-chamber results imply that the effect happened before the cause. it can't be, you say, but that is because you are at that point thinking of Euclidean triangles on your backyard when really the elephant in the room is a triangle several light-years a side.
Euclidean geometry works in "normal" sized places, it goes wrong when you get too large. You comment about smaller spaces has suddenly made me think that perhaps Euclidean principles are also wrong when you get too small, as in sub-atomic. Interesting. Where can I go with this?
Count Alfred Korzybski wrote a book on the meaning of meanings. It sounds recursive, I know. The best introduction to some of the tenets are in the A E Van Vogt books about Null-A
I still haven't found anybody else who has commented on Korzbyski's works in the same way that Ouspensky commented on Gurdjieff. That could of course mean it's all a load of old bollocks.
boots sez:
"Interesting. Where can I go with this?"
I find that mad can be quite a useful destination. More seriously, both the Euclidean and (I expect the) Einsteinian model seems to be restricted to their respective subsets of physical reality.
"I still haven't found anybody else who has commented on Korzbyski's works in the same way that Ouspensky commented on Gurdjieff. That could of course mean it's all a load of old bollocks."
I think you've misspelled old Alfred's surname, I did a quick search and found this wiki article. Apparently it was he who coined the phrase "the map is not the territory" which indicates that he was not altogether stoopid. On the other hand he seems to have believed that "Human beings cannot experience the world directly, but only through their 'abstractions'" and I have life experience that denies that view.
As for it being "a load of old bollocks", many things are and some things are not; I've found that anything more complex than a peach is usually an unnecessary complication.
It's interesting that Korzybski and Gurdjieff were contemporaries of Tesla. It seems to have been an interesting time.
"Mad" I've done, I'm actually on my way from there to wherever next. The two geometry cases I threw in as analogies. They are not the actual argument, the menu is not the meal, ceci c'est n'est pas une phrase juste :)
Korzy-polish what-not; muy bad, mis-spelling, c'est moi. Unlike Grant, I can't claim dyslexia as an excuse. Little Petal thinks I'm actually Borderline-Autistic, but I have been struck on the head at least three times in my life. Would that explain it?
Yes, you've found Alfred. As to your life-experiences, by your own admission you are now approaching the old-and-wise category, and by your own questings on your blog you have also looked through the general abstractions. A few years ago General Semantics might have struck you like enlightenment struck Saul on the road to Damascus, but now it just seems to fit what you have discovered for yourself.
Mercman is one who admires Tesla. As far as that era being an interesting time, the whole point of my post on the Brave New Mobile World is that now is such a time, again. Step up, those who hear the call of destiny. Aux arms, mes braves, maintenant c'est l'hiver de notre mecontent! Encore dedans les pantalons!
boots sez:
"'Mad' I've done, I'm actually on my way from there to wherever next."
It's ironic then that you've been reading my blog, don't you think?
"Little Petal thinks I'm actually Borderline-Autistic, but I have been struck on the head at least three times in my life. Would that explain it?"
It could, if you were struck on the head exactly three times with either a ukelele or a magic wand and were not transformed into a toad.
"..by your own admission you are now approaching the old-and-wise category.."
Incorrect: simply old.
"A few years ago General Semantics might have struck you like enlightenment struck Saul on the road to Damascus..."
Yeahbut when I was 12 it struck me that pussy was the best thing ever, so what does "a few years ago" prove?
"..the whole point of my post on the Brave New Mobile World is that now is such a time, again."
No, no, I meant those were interesting times in the good way, not like now which is the Chinese curse version!
boots sez:
"I found that it was impossible to look forwards and try to see a way through the maze of possibilities, ... Step by step i would try to work backwards until, in a flash, I suddenly saw a way forwards."
That's more how I live my life than how I write my software.
With software, it's easy enough to see the most inescapable function, then once you've built that figure out what to do with it.
Perhaps the two are not so different.
"it's easy enough to see the most inescapable function"
Very much like life, shit first, sashay on the sidewalk later :)
boots sez:
"...shit first, sashay on the sidewalk later..."
Fascinating thought, I'll give that a try as I'm always (well, perhaps occasionally) ready to go at something new.
You know, I've been thinking. Perhaps I don't envy your ability to plan things out so much after all.
It isn't that I don't admire that ability, but it's occurred to me that when writing something (be it code or posts) if you've said there will be four of them then you're somewhat committed to four, whereas if you just write one when the urge strikes, well there you are, free to do whatever you choose.
And if it turns out that four is more than needed or less than sufficient, well there you are too.
I'll just watch how this all plays out and see what I can learn (or could learn, if I was capable of it).
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