Human buttons (random thoughts on variegated nonsense) ...
... I am thinking of a martial art, perhaps fictional. No name for it at this time but it follows an approach that pleases me. The idea is to approach the human brain as an input/output system. Senses = input; mouth, limbs, body language = output. What you now have is a holistic martial art, consisting of the physical, psychological, neurolinguistic and memetic. You can destroy your enemy (or heal your friend) on every level simultaneously.
You too can hack the human computer.
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The brain is the person, the body is just … transportation. Advertising even.
Our evolutionary ancestors and the animals have this backwards; the body is the seat of their existence and the brain is but a switching station. Defense, offence, fight, flight, fornicate.
Speaking of evolution, many think that Darwinism is about conflict. They’re wrong; the truth is that evolution inevitably leads to cooperation. How else could ecologies exist? Violence limiters naturally form as a process; species that cannot abide this will naturally deselect themselves out of the running.
As one steps into the memetic paradigm, where Lamarck is proven posthumously right, this becomes even more true. Ideas don't need to fight or even out-breed their competitors, they only need to exist. Eventually, they are found and spread, with us as the vectors. Over time, ideas are mixed and matched, cut and pasted, interbred at furious plasmid speed until ... what?
I'm not saying the S-word. Nope.
The tragedy of the posthuman universe is that in the end, all paths lead to the same place: whether one started out as human, ai or alife, at a certain level, monadic existence is no longer viable. The neural protheses one would need to function, to readily die and restart and copy, independent of original awareness (which is after all non-transplantable), one would cease to be a body-identity and become a pancake-person, spread out every which way.
Once this happens, the individual identity ceases to matter also. One wouldn't even be aware of this process anymore because awareness would no longer be necessary; it would be an impediment in fact. End result? Everybody collapses together into one, not as some great transcendent process but like a vintner stamping on grapes.
The horror, the horror ...?
You too can hack the human computer.
-----------------
The brain is the person, the body is just … transportation. Advertising even.
Our evolutionary ancestors and the animals have this backwards; the body is the seat of their existence and the brain is but a switching station. Defense, offence, fight, flight, fornicate.
Speaking of evolution, many think that Darwinism is about conflict. They’re wrong; the truth is that evolution inevitably leads to cooperation. How else could ecologies exist? Violence limiters naturally form as a process; species that cannot abide this will naturally deselect themselves out of the running.
As one steps into the memetic paradigm, where Lamarck is proven posthumously right, this becomes even more true. Ideas don't need to fight or even out-breed their competitors, they only need to exist. Eventually, they are found and spread, with us as the vectors. Over time, ideas are mixed and matched, cut and pasted, interbred at furious plasmid speed until ... what?
I'm not saying the S-word. Nope.
The tragedy of the posthuman universe is that in the end, all paths lead to the same place: whether one started out as human, ai or alife, at a certain level, monadic existence is no longer viable. The neural protheses one would need to function, to readily die and restart and copy, independent of original awareness (which is after all non-transplantable), one would cease to be a body-identity and become a pancake-person, spread out every which way.
Once this happens, the individual identity ceases to matter also. One wouldn't even be aware of this process anymore because awareness would no longer be necessary; it would be an impediment in fact. End result? Everybody collapses together into one, not as some great transcendent process but like a vintner stamping on grapes.
The horror, the horror ...?
posted by razorsmile at 8/23/2005 11:07:00 PM
5 Comments:
Martial art: You should meet somebody really, really advanced at t'ai chi.
Martial art: You should meet somebody really, really advanced at t'ai chi.
Wouldn't that be you? >8^D
"Wouldn't that be you? >8^D"
Sadly no, my apprentice. My devotion to sex and sleep kind of slows me down. I couldn't even raise the room temperature a degree, let alone do some of the really impressive things I've seen.
If I ever get back to the east coast, I'll have you drive down to New York for some fun.
Sweet.
Razor, I tagged you - read my latest post! heehee
Like you don't have anything better to do! Hey, give us a new post to read... my list of favorite reads is getting slim. OK, yeah, I am beggin a little.
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