Sunday, February 28, 2010

[Yasmin_discussions] Multisensory Perception

Respondent bio: Ian Ferguson
A plant physiologist and biochemist who is currently Chief Scientist of a large New Zealand Government research organisation. Science interests and experience in whole plant physiology, signalling and responses in plants, molecular control of plant response to the environment, and of senescence (aging and death). More latterly particularly interested in systems approaches and connectivity. Arts interests in science and poetry, visualisation and perception


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Tuesday, February 16, 2010

[Yasmin_discussions] Fwd: Simulation discussion's tag clouds comparison

Hello,

maybe it can be interesting seeing the ongoing tags. Here there are together the first, the second and the final shots:

http://www.noemalab.org/download/yasmin_cloud.gif

Many thanks to Jennifer!

Best!

Pier Luigi
--
Pier Luigi Capucci
e-mail: plc@noemalab.org
web: http://www.noemalab.org/plc/plc.html
skype: plcapucci

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Monday, February 15, 2010

Re: [Yasmin_discussions] how much simulation is in our selves

*As the conversation 'around simulation' is finishing I'm just sending this
link that the post of Cristina Miranda remembers me:*

*http://www.nomads.usp.br/virus/virus01/electronicshadow/h2o.htm***

*H2O is a work of the French group Electronic Shadow inspired by the novel
'The Invention of Morel'. The link I'm sending concerns to the first issue
of the Newsletter 'Virus_01' **http://www.nomads.usp.br/virus/virus01/**,
published by my old research group, when I was doing my Master in
Architecture in Brazil. I published in this in this issue a text on
subject-object transactions in mixed realities, but it is only available in
the printed version of the newsletter. Hope you enjoy and thanks for the
amazing and inspiring ideas on simulation and beyond,*

*Clarissa Ribeiro//***

<http://www.nomads.usp.br/virus/virus01/electronicshadow/h2o.htm>

2010/2/15 cristina miranda <cristinamiranda.de@gmail.com>

> Hi Pier Luigi,
>
> just to send another reference from literature, I think the a science
> fiction novel The Invention of Morel (Adolfo Bioy Casares, 1940, about a
> fugitive, who thinking that was alone on a deserted island suddenly found
> out that the island was inhabited with anachronistically dressed people that
> "dance, stroll up and down, and swim in the pool, as if this were a summer
> resort like Los Teques or Marienbad". Those people were creations of Morel,
> an inventor that had recorded the behaviour of a group of friends, which was
> played fed by the wave's energy, over and over again.
>
> I implies a mixture of simulation by technology and nature.
>
> Yesterday, watching again I Robot, I extracted a sentence that is deeply
> implied in simulation. I do not remember exactly the words but the meaning
> is: "Are we able to tell when a simulated behaviour starts to be part of
> your soul?"
> In this case the question for me are, how much of simulation is there in
> our identity and in all dimensions of our self? ¿ Could be simulation
> understood as an essential part of our self? Isn't it in the Golem? Aren't
> we created according to God's image in the Bible? In this sense couldn't be
> considered simulation as the core of our human "nature"?
>
> Cristina Miranda de Almeida
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[Yasmin_discussions] Simulation's real thanks ;-)

Dear Yasminers,

for more than three weeks we've been lovely discussing, like people interested in the same general topic can. I know, there are lots of other issues about simulation we could still be debating on (for instance outside the images' realm, regarding the sciences), but time has come: they will be matter for further discussions!

At the end Jennifer and I would thank all the people who made this rich discussion possible. Many thanks to the lovely discussants who actively participated in sending posts and raising new side topics and perspectives. Many thanks to all the yasminers who lurked into the posts or who patiently skipped them hoping the discussion would end early: sorry, we couldn't reach your heart this time. Many thanks to Roger Malina and the Yasmin's board of moderators for endorsing this discussion: we think Yasmin worth our passion. And last but not least many thanks to Haris, who from time to time descended from the technical algid heavens to the fuzzy human realm to patiently help the less skilled among us to check or uncheck the right option in the list's preferences, or to resurrect a dead post :-D

Simulation has been a hot topic in the past, but I think the digital technologies, the cognitive sciences (Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Life, Robotics...) and some recent biology's acquisitions (like the mirror neuron's system for instance) should lead taking into account new issues and reconsidering some old ones. And, as usual, the arts' field is a key field!

Some of you seem interested in deepening this topic. I would suggest some options - which do not exclude each others. Please, tell me (by e-mail: plc[->at<-]noemalab.org) what do you think... Suggestions are welcome, send your advices and ideas!

Anyway here some hints:

- The opening of a wiki on the topic of simulation, to gather and distribute material.

- A call about this topic (maybe focusing or splitting it into sub-topics or areas) in collaboration with other interested people/institutions. We could go through it with Noema too, with a final publication on paper and / or on the web.

I will also dedicate to this topic a section - "Nuovi Orizzonti/New Horizons" - in all the 2010 issues of a quarterly italian paper magazine, "D'Ars" which is the oldest magazine in activity in Italy on Art/Culture/Communication. If you have any ideas on a possible contribute, please, get in touch with me.

Thank you again and best!

Pier Luigi

--
Pier Luigi Capucci
e-mail: plc@noemalab.org
web: http://www.noemalab.org/plc/plc.html
skype: plcapucci

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Re: [Yasmin_discussions] Simulation and the (temporary) ending of Around Simulation...

Dear All,

As much as we would like to continue... All good things must come to a (temporary) ending...So on behalf of Pier Luigi, we would like to start saying our goodbye's and say thank you so much for all the wonderful inspirational posts!!! They really showed the complexities surrounding the concept of simulation and it's relation to art, science, technology and humanity in it's essence!!!

We now ask our moderator of the week, to post any remaining posts that are waiting, after that I will make a third and final Tag Cloud, which will be posted again by Pier Luigi, perhaps all three of them together in a row.... Pier Luigi will then say his goodbyes, making suggestions on how we can put the body of knowledge about simulation, that we have developed on Yasmin over the last three weeks, to good use.

Take care,

xxx

Jennifer

PS Derrick de Kerckhove says hi and thanks for the reactions!
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Re: [Yasmin_discussions] Simulation and mirror neurons

Hi Pia,
Tnx 4 the link 2 ur book, Very important resource 4 researchers!

The prolog "The novel concept of enactive cinema is introduced: an interactive cinematic montage system in which the narrative flow follows the unconscious psychophysiological enactment of the spectator, as a dynamical abstraction of the mirroring system."
Can describe my project in progress: "Bits of My Life"
http://www.youtube.com/user/ephemeral8
with more the 34000 cell phone video clips of past 26 months, specially the annotative playlist such as:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ephemeral8#p/c/73CC7543A44234B1/0/WhNPTttN4Ew

Best,

Avi.

-----Original Message-----
From: yasmin_discussions-bounces@estia.media.uoa.gr [mailto:yasmin_discussions-bounces@estia.media.uoa.gr] On Behalf Of Pia Tikka
Sent: ב 15 פברואר 2010 08:44
To: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS
Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] Simulation and mirror neurons

Dear Yasmins,

I have been following your discussion on simulation with great interest. As this discussion thread is going to be closed, I would like to let you know about my book ENACTIVE CINEMA: SIMULATORIUM EISENSTEINENSE (2008), in which I implement the idea of neural mirroring (mirror-neuron systems and particularly the embodied simulation discussed in Gallese (2005), to the interactive cinema format - Enactive Cinema. Anyone interested may download the text for free (students & researchers)
https://www.taik.fi/kirjakauppa/product_info.php?cPath=23&products_id=128

Best, Pia

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
Pia Tikka
Researcher, Filmmaker
aivoAALTO research project
Aalto University
- School of Motion Picture, Television and Production Design
Mobile +358 50 347 7432
Skype: piatikka
e-mail: pia.tikka@iki.fi
http://www.aaltoyliopisto.info/en/

Enactive Cinema project http://www.oblomovies.com/

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
Please, feel free to distribute this information of the book
ENACTIVE CINEMA: SIMULATORIUM EISENSTEINENSE (2008)
to your colleagues and other agents, to whom it may be of interest.
For ordering the book + DVD to your institutions, libraries, and other agencies
https://www.taik.fi/kirjakauppa/product_info.php?cPath=12&products_id=121
For downloading the text for free (students & researchers)
https://www.taik.fi/kirjakauppa/product_info.php?cPath=23&products_id=128

P Think before you print - save trees

On 13.2.2010, at 15.20, Pier Luigi Capucci wrote:

> Dear Derrick,
>
> thank you so much for your beautiful post which helps addressing the simulation to a more general level both inside and outside the human realm (the existence of the mirror neurons is proven in other species too).
>
> You cite Giacomo Rizzolatti, the leader of the team that discovered the mirror neurons:
>
>> "Our survival depends on understanding the actions, intentions and emotions of others." [...] "Mirror neurons allow us to grasp the minds of others not through conceptual reasoning but through direct simulation. By feeling, not by thinking."
>
> The mirror neurons' system activates a mirroring mechanism of resonance and motor inner simulation – an "embodied simulation", as Vittorio Gallese, one of the members of the Rizzolatti's team who discovered mirror neurons, calls it [Vittorio Gallese, "Neuroni specchio e intersoggettività" (Paper presented at the conference "Neuroni Specchio. La relazione empatica tra Scienza, Filosofia, Arte e Cura", Ferrara, 2008). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittorio_Gallese ] . This "embodied simulation" enhances intersubjectivity and social relations and literally helps to read into the mind of others.
>
> In both quotations the word "simulation" emerges as a key point and as an usual and general practise.
>
> The mirror neurons' existence in humans was recently put in question by a study (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/06/02/0902262106; http://www.dana.org/news/features/detail.aspx?id=22796), maybe because in humans - by now - it's impossible to do the kind of single-neuron electron recording which is common in monkey studies. This (controversial) study was widely criticated, anyway the opposition on the mirror neurons' existence in humans (yes/no) shows the struggle between the two positions Rizzolatti indicates in your quotation above: "feeling" vs "thinking". I think this opposition is shaping (or reinforcing) a paradigm shift.
>
> According to Ramachandran the mirror neurons will be for psychology what DNA was in biology. And they had a primary role in human evolution ( http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/ramachandran/ramachandran_p1.html ):
>
> "Is language mediated by a sophisticated and highly specialized "language organ" that is unique to humans and emerged completely out of the blue as suggested by Chomsky? Or was there a more primitive gestural communication system already in place that provided a scaffolding for the emergence of vocal language? [...] Rizzolatti's discovery can help us solve this age-old puzzle."
>
> And later:
>
> "[...] inventions like fire, tailored clothes, "symmetrical tools", and art, etc. may have fortuitously emerged in a single place and then spread very quickly. Such inventions may have been made by earlier hominids too (even chimps and orangs are remarkably inventive... who knows how inventive Homo Erectus or Neandertals were) but early hominids simply may not have had an advanced enough mirror neuron system to allow a rapid transmission and dissemination of ideas. So the ideas quickly drop out of the "meme pool". This system of cells, once it became sophisticated enough to be harnessed for "training" in tool use and for reading other hominids minds, may have played the same pivotal role in the emergence of human consciousness (and replacement of Neandertals by Homo Sapiens) as the asteroid impact did in the triumph of mammals over reptiles."
>
> In the end of your post you write:
>
>> I think that the discussion is highly relevant to the issue of simulation because it indicates that our technological innovations could be part of an inverted function mirroring the mirroring action of the neurons.
>
>
> Yes, a fascinating position indeed! :-)
>
> Best,
>
> Pier Luigi
>
>
>
> Il giorno 10/feb/2010, alle ore 23.49, Jennifer Kanary Nikolov(a) ha scritto:
>
>> A
>> contribution from Derrick De Kerckhove:
>>
>> ---
>> Action movies (often involving high emotional content and occasionally violent
>> and/or erotically charged scenes) directly address physical responses from the
>> audience. They work on your sub-muscular responses as if they were a peculiar
>> form of gymnastics. To understand the meaning of "sub-muscular" responses, try
>> to imagine yourself talking over the phone: can you "see" yourself mimicking an
>> actual conversation as if the person was there in a face-to-face conversation ?
>> What is happening there is that, even though there is no one to watch you, you
>> carry on the normal gestures and facial expressions that would accompany what
>> you are saying, not because you are attempting to convince anyone, but because
>> that is the way language operates on our bodies in normal circumstances. The
>> gestures and expressions are the extensions of thought and speech in the body
>> itself. There is a neurological mechanism within our bodies, connected to our
>> orientation, defense and decision-making abilities, that plans all our gestures
>> before they are actually carried out. This procedure is what conditions our
>> sub-muscular response. Even when we read, a residual sub-muscular activity
>> sometime helps people to "oralize" the reading process which makes
>> understanding easier for some of them (although not all). This tendency present
>> in many readers is called "sub-vocalization" and, according to speed-reading
>> experts is what slows down the activity of reading among slower readers. What is implied here is that an
>> interpretation process may be at work when we watch a movie or see a play, we "sub-muscularize"
>> the show.
>>
>> The
>> point about this is that watching a movie evokes a similar response from the
>> viewer and translates the cognitive experience into neurological and muscular
>> activities that help to interpret the film or the TV show. For example, have
>> you ever caught yourself mimicking a facial expression or an attitude to help
>> you make sense of a quizzical facial expression or an uncanny attitude that you
>> see portrayed in a film? If you have, you will recognize that simply to imitate
>> the expression or the gesture allows you to know it better, to understand its
>> relationship to the story you are watching. Even watching a hockey game or any
>> sport competition will evoke physiological mimicking responses that help you
>> interpret physically and participate in the difficulties of the task. There is
>> no such thing as pure "spectator sport". Just try to handle that fierce body
>> check in a football or a soccer game without wincing somewhere in your body!
>> The same goes for the action movie. Every moment of fear, danger, violence,
>> imminent suspense and other common occurrences in an action film generates a
>> tension that is a kind of stress.
>>
>> The
>> theory emerging from the research laboratory of Italian brain scientists may be
>> relevant here, that of mirror neurons. According to Wikipedia:
>>
>> "a
>> mirror neuron is a premotor[1] neuron which fires both when an animal acts and
>> when the animal observes the same action performed by another (especially
>> conspecific) animal. Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behavior of
>> another animal, as though the observer were itself acting. These neurons have
>> been directly observed in primates, and are believed to exist in humans and in
>> some birds. In humans, brain activity consistent with mirror neurons has been
>> found in the premotor cortex and the inferior parietal cortex. Some scientists
>> consider mirror neurons one of the most important findings of neuroscience in
>> the last decade."
>>
>> Though
>> still controversial, if the theory turns out to be verified, it may have
>> consequences for the study of media, of performing arts and of the growing
>> practice of simulation in general. The acting profession from ancient Greek
>> theatre to television, cinema and virtual reality could be no more and no less
>> than a biological strategy to introduce new and complex human experience and
>> behavior in society. It would go at some length to explain the manner by which
>> the spectator accesses emotions that are quite literally projected into him or
>> her by the performance.---
>>
>> A quote by Sandra Blakeslee (2006) commented in a blog by Charles
>> Daney:
>>
>> "Cells
>> That Read Minds (January 10, 2006)
>>
>> The
>> cells in question are "mirror neurons". They were discovered around
>> 1990 in the laboratory of Giacomo Rizzolatti, a neuroscientist at the
>> University of Parma, Italy. Researchers in the laboratory had been studying
>> brain activity in macaque monkeys.
>> The
>> monkey brain contains a special class of cells, called mirror neurons, that
>> fire when the animal sees or hears an action and when the animal carries out
>> the same action on its own. But if the findings, published in 1996, surprised
>> most scientists, recent research has left them flabbergasted. Humans, it turns
>> out, have mirror neurons that are far smarter, more flexible and more highly
>> evolved than any of those found in monkeys, a fact that scientists say reflects
>> the evolution of humans' sophisticated social abilities. The human brain has
>> multiple mirror neuron systems that specialize in carrying out and
>> understanding not just the actions of others but their intentions, the social
>> meaning of their behavior and their emotions.
>>
>> "We
>> are exquisitely social creatures," Dr. Rizzolatti said. "Our survival
>> depends on understanding the actions, intentions and emotions of others."
>> He continued, "Mirror neurons allow us to grasp the minds of others not
>> through conceptual reasoning but through direct simulation. By feeling, not by
>> thinking."
>>
>>
>> The discovery is shaking up numerous scientific disciplines,
>> shifting the understanding of culture, empathy, philosophy, language,
>> imitation, autism and psychotherapy. Everyday experiences are also being viewed
>> in a new light. Mirror neurons reveal how children learn, why people respond to
>> certain types of sports, dance, music and art, why watching media violence may
>> be harmful and why many men like pornography."
>>
>> ---The balance is in favor of accepting both the fact
>> that humans do have mirror neurons and that while they are not the only way to
>> do so, these neurons also contribute in helping to understand action and
>> perhaps intention. I think that the discussion is highly relevant to the issue
>> of simulation because it indicates that our technological innovations could be
>> part of an inverted function mirroring the mirroring action of the neurons. Go
>> figure!---
>
> --
> Pier Luigi Capucci
> e-mail: plc@noemalab.org
> web: http://www.noemalab.org/plc/plc.html
> skype: plcapucci
>
>
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Re: [Yasmin_discussions] around simulation and warfare

:-) great


> Following Nurit's post,
> I think you may like this article by Brian Mockenhaupt (The Atlantic) I recently bumped into. It is about simulation and war, and the application of Urbansim for military strategy in Iraq:
>
> http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201001/military-simulate
>
> And while reading it, I wonder who has the right to simulate, and what the aims of simulation can be. Is this all a game? Do local people have instruments to simulate tactics of resistance, apart from resist on a daily, very earthly basis?
>
> Federica
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> Dear Yasminers
>>
>> I thought this might be interesting to add to the simulation
>> discussion before it ends.
>>
>> The PBS Frontline "Digital Nation" By Rachel Dretzin and Douglas
>> Rushkoff.
>> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/
>>
>> In chapter 8, 01:06:55 min into the chapter, the filmmakers introduce
>> an interesting topic: the "Drones" (http://bit.ly/95F2Kk) .
>>
>> Based out side Las Vegas, US air force pilots fly Drones that execute
>> missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
>> 75,000 miles away from the battlefield, they wear uniforms, to remind
>> them they are fighting a 'real' war.
>>
>> Here technology rewrites the rule of the game, where the risks are
>> all one way, the pilot gets to shoot without getting shot at.
>> This is a different reality where soldiers are dealing out risk
>> without excepting risk.
>> This detachment to risk, to real life danger is somehow disturbing.
>> At the end of the day these pilots go back home to their families,
>> and back to "war" the next morning.
>>
>> While physically located in the US their are effecting lives of
>> others in a distant place.
>> This theater simulation, while engaging with reality, is not unique
>> to the US air force. Wars are changing and the consequences will
>> resonate.
>>
>> Are new technologies recontextualizing all the theories we discuss here?
>> Reshaping (and re-shaking) the world we live in?
>> When the simulacra, the "representational" universe, could in fact
>> effect something or somebody in the real world.
>>
>> In this example the body doesnt experience danger only the mind.
>> How does this effect our survival mechanism? - this might be a
>> question for the scientist here.
>> or how would it effect the notion of presence?
>> Will our mind learn to adopt to this new state? and how?
>>
>> The artist here would agree that none verbal experiences can effect
>> physically, emotionally and intellectually. A great work of art can
>> communicate divine experiences though sounds, visuals etc. Empathy,
>> and more scientifically mirror neurons, can simulate in us an
>> experience as if it was us experiencing it.
>>
>> How would that effect mirror neurons, for example, would they have
>> different function in the future? Will our brain develop differently
>> due to our growing virtual experiences?
>>
>> Best,
>> Nurit Bar-Shai
>>
>>
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Re: [Yasmin_discussions] around simulation

Hi Nurit,
The remote war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza,
Links to Paul Virilio's insights from " THE ART OF THE MOTOR",
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Virilio/Virilio_ArtoftheMotor2.html

"When cosmic imagery is completely digitalized in the next century by
computer processors, cybernauts will be able to travel in their armchairs as
simple televiewers, discovering a surrogate world that will have emerged
from information energy. The big bang, a product of Edwin Hubble's
calculations of the apparent speed of universal expansion, will suddenly
yield its scientific primacy to the (transparent) speed of the infinite
expansion of computer calculation! This explains the objective of the MARS-
OBSERVER space probe, launched in autumn I99~. You will recall its mission
was to thoroughly map the planet with a view to future colonization. But
what is less clear is the nature of such colonization. Far from preparing a
manned mission for some hypothetical landing of man on Mars, in the twenty-
first century, the topographical survey of Mars's surface was intended to
make its virtual exploration immediately possible. Whence the tremendous
disappointment of the engineers glued to their control panels at the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory's ground control center when the probe's signals
suddenly went dead at the end of summer 1993."

Avi Rosen.

-----Original Message-----

"Based out side Las Vegas, US air force pilots fly Drones that execute
missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
75,000 miles away from the battlefield, they wear uniforms, to remind
them they are fighting a 'real' war."

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Re: [Yasmin_discussions] around simulation and warfare

Following Nurit's post,
I think you may like this article by Brian Mockenhaupt (The Atlantic) I recently bumped into. It is about simulation and war, and the application of Urbansim for military strategy in Iraq:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201001/military-simulate

And while reading it, I wonder who has the right to simulate, and what the aims of simulation can be. Is this all a game? Do local people have instruments to simulate tactics of resistance, apart from resist on a daily, very earthly basis?

Federica

> Dear Yasminers
>
> I thought this might be interesting to add to the simulation
> discussion before it ends.
>
> The PBS Frontline "Digital Nation" By Rachel Dretzin and Douglas
> Rushkoff.
> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/
>
> In chapter 8, 01:06:55 min into the chapter, the filmmakers introduce
> an interesting topic: the "Drones" (http://bit.ly/95F2Kk) .
>
> Based out side Las Vegas, US air force pilots fly Drones that execute
> missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
> 75,000 miles away from the battlefield, they wear uniforms, to remind
> them they are fighting a 'real' war.
>
> Here technology rewrites the rule of the game, where the risks are
> all one way, the pilot gets to shoot without getting shot at.
> This is a different reality where soldiers are dealing out risk
> without excepting risk.
> This detachment to risk, to real life danger is somehow disturbing.
> At the end of the day these pilots go back home to their families,
> and back to "war" the next morning.
>
> While physically located in the US their are effecting lives of
> others in a distant place.
> This theater simulation, while engaging with reality, is not unique
> to the US air force. Wars are changing and the consequences will
> resonate.
>
> Are new technologies recontextualizing all the theories we discuss here?
> Reshaping (and re-shaking) the world we live in?
> When the simulacra, the "representational" universe, could in fact
> effect something or somebody in the real world.
>
> In this example the body doesnt experience danger only the mind.
> How does this effect our survival mechanism? - this might be a
> question for the scientist here.
> or how would it effect the notion of presence?
> Will our mind learn to adopt to this new state? and how?
>
> The artist here would agree that none verbal experiences can effect
> physically, emotionally and intellectually. A great work of art can
> communicate divine experiences though sounds, visuals etc. Empathy,
> and more scientifically mirror neurons, can simulate in us an
> experience as if it was us experiencing it.
>
> How would that effect mirror neurons, for example, would they have
> different function in the future? Will our brain develop differently
> due to our growing virtual experiences?
>
> Best,
> Nurit Bar-Shai
>
>
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Sunday, February 14, 2010

[Yasmin_discussions] how much simulation is in our selves

Hi Pier Luigi,

just to send another reference from literature, I think the a science
fiction novel The Invention of Morel (Adolfo Bioy Casares, 1940, about a
fugitive, who thinking that was alone on a deserted island suddenly
found out that the island was inhabited with anachronistically dressed
people that "dance, stroll up and down, and swim in the pool, as if this
were a summer resort like Los Teques or Marienbad". Those people were
creations of Morel, an inventor that had recorded the behaviour of a
group of friends, which was played fed by the wave's energy, over and
over again.

I implies a mixture of simulation by technology and nature.

Yesterday, watching again I Robot, I extracted a sentence that is deeply
implied in simulation. I do not remember exactly the words but the
meaning is: "Are we able to tell when a simulated behaviour starts to be
part of your soul?"
In this case the question for me are, how much of simulation is there in
our identity and in all dimensions of our self? ¿ Could be simulation
understood as an essential part of our self? Isn't it in the Golem?
Aren't we created according to God's image in the Bible? In this sense
couldn't be considered simulation as the core of our human "nature"?

Cristina Miranda de Almeida
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Re: [Yasmin_discussions] Simulation and mirror neurons

Dear Yasmins,

I have been following your discussion on simulation with great interest. As this discussion thread is going to be closed, I would like to let you know about my book ENACTIVE CINEMA: SIMULATORIUM EISENSTEINENSE (2008), in which I implement the idea of neural mirroring (mirror-neuron systems and particularly the embodied simulation discussed in Gallese (2005), to the interactive cinema format - Enactive Cinema. Anyone interested may download the text for free (students & researchers)
https://www.taik.fi/kirjakauppa/product_info.php?cPath=23&products_id=128

Best, Pia

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
Pia Tikka
Researcher, Filmmaker
aivoAALTO research project
Aalto University
- School of Motion Picture, Television and Production Design
Mobile +358 50 347 7432
Skype: piatikka
e-mail: pia.tikka@iki.fi
http://www.aaltoyliopisto.info/en/

Enactive Cinema project http://www.oblomovies.com/

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
Please, feel free to distribute this information of the book
ENACTIVE CINEMA: SIMULATORIUM EISENSTEINENSE (2008)
to your colleagues and other agents, to whom it may be of interest.
For ordering the book + DVD to your institutions, libraries, and other agencies
https://www.taik.fi/kirjakauppa/product_info.php?cPath=12&products_id=121
For downloading the text for free (students & researchers)
https://www.taik.fi/kirjakauppa/product_info.php?cPath=23&products_id=128

P Think before you print - save trees

On 13.2.2010, at 15.20, Pier Luigi Capucci wrote:

> Dear Derrick,
>
> thank you so much for your beautiful post which helps addressing the simulation to a more general level both inside and outside the human realm (the existence of the mirror neurons is proven in other species too).
>
> You cite Giacomo Rizzolatti, the leader of the team that discovered the mirror neurons:
>
>> "Our survival depends on understanding the actions, intentions and emotions of others." [...] "Mirror neurons allow us to grasp the minds of others not through conceptual reasoning but through direct simulation. By feeling, not by thinking."
>
> The mirror neurons' system activates a mirroring mechanism of resonance and motor inner simulation – an "embodied simulation", as Vittorio Gallese, one of the members of the Rizzolatti's team who discovered mirror neurons, calls it [Vittorio Gallese, "Neuroni specchio e intersoggettività" (Paper presented at the conference "Neuroni Specchio. La relazione empatica tra Scienza, Filosofia, Arte e Cura", Ferrara, 2008). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittorio_Gallese ] . This "embodied simulation" enhances intersubjectivity and social relations and literally helps to read into the mind of others.
>
> In both quotations the word "simulation" emerges as a key point and as an usual and general practise.
>
> The mirror neurons' existence in humans was recently put in question by a study (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/06/02/0902262106; http://www.dana.org/news/features/detail.aspx?id=22796), maybe because in humans - by now - it's impossible to do the kind of single-neuron electron recording which is common in monkey studies. This (controversial) study was widely criticated, anyway the opposition on the mirror neurons' existence in humans (yes/no) shows the struggle between the two positions Rizzolatti indicates in your quotation above: "feeling" vs "thinking". I think this opposition is shaping (or reinforcing) a paradigm shift.
>
> According to Ramachandran the mirror neurons will be for psychology what DNA was in biology. And they had a primary role in human evolution ( http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/ramachandran/ramachandran_p1.html ):
>
> "Is language mediated by a sophisticated and highly specialized "language organ" that is unique to humans and emerged completely out of the blue as suggested by Chomsky? Or was there a more primitive gestural communication system already in place that provided a scaffolding for the emergence of vocal language? [...] Rizzolatti's discovery can help us solve this age-old puzzle."
>
> And later:
>
> "[...] inventions like fire, tailored clothes, "symmetrical tools", and art, etc. may have fortuitously emerged in a single place and then spread very quickly. Such inventions may have been made by earlier hominids too (even chimps and orangs are remarkably inventive... who knows how inventive Homo Erectus or Neandertals were) but early hominids simply may not have had an advanced enough mirror neuron system to allow a rapid transmission and dissemination of ideas. So the ideas quickly drop out of the "meme pool". This system of cells, once it became sophisticated enough to be harnessed for "training" in tool use and for reading other hominids minds, may have played the same pivotal role in the emergence of human consciousness (and replacement of Neandertals by Homo Sapiens) as the asteroid impact did in the triumph of mammals over reptiles."
>
> In the end of your post you write:
>
>> I think that the discussion is highly relevant to the issue of simulation because it indicates that our technological innovations could be part of an inverted function mirroring the mirroring action of the neurons.
>
>
> Yes, a fascinating position indeed! :-)
>
> Best,
>
> Pier Luigi
>
>
>
> Il giorno 10/feb/2010, alle ore 23.49, Jennifer Kanary Nikolov(a) ha scritto:
>
>> A
>> contribution from Derrick De Kerckhove:
>>
>> ---
>> Action movies (often involving high emotional content and occasionally violent
>> and/or erotically charged scenes) directly address physical responses from the
>> audience. They work on your sub-muscular responses as if they were a peculiar
>> form of gymnastics. To understand the meaning of "sub-muscular" responses, try
>> to imagine yourself talking over the phone: can you "see" yourself mimicking an
>> actual conversation as if the person was there in a face-to-face conversation ?
>> What is happening there is that, even though there is no one to watch you, you
>> carry on the normal gestures and facial expressions that would accompany what
>> you are saying, not because you are attempting to convince anyone, but because
>> that is the way language operates on our bodies in normal circumstances. The
>> gestures and expressions are the extensions of thought and speech in the body
>> itself. There is a neurological mechanism within our bodies, connected to our
>> orientation, defense and decision-making abilities, that plans all our gestures
>> before they are actually carried out. This procedure is what conditions our
>> sub-muscular response. Even when we read, a residual sub-muscular activity
>> sometime helps people to "oralize" the reading process which makes
>> understanding easier for some of them (although not all). This tendency present
>> in many readers is called "sub-vocalization" and, according to speed-reading
>> experts is what slows down the activity of reading among slower readers. What is implied here is that an
>> interpretation process may be at work when we watch a movie or see a play, we "sub-muscularize"
>> the show.
>>
>> The
>> point about this is that watching a movie evokes a similar response from the
>> viewer and translates the cognitive experience into neurological and muscular
>> activities that help to interpret the film or the TV show. For example, have
>> you ever caught yourself mimicking a facial expression or an attitude to help
>> you make sense of a quizzical facial expression or an uncanny attitude that you
>> see portrayed in a film? If you have, you will recognize that simply to imitate
>> the expression or the gesture allows you to know it better, to understand its
>> relationship to the story you are watching. Even watching a hockey game or any
>> sport competition will evoke physiological mimicking responses that help you
>> interpret physically and participate in the difficulties of the task. There is
>> no such thing as pure "spectator sport". Just try to handle that fierce body
>> check in a football or a soccer game without wincing somewhere in your body!
>> The same goes for the action movie. Every moment of fear, danger, violence,
>> imminent suspense and other common occurrences in an action film generates a
>> tension that is a kind of stress.
>>
>> The
>> theory emerging from the research laboratory of Italian brain scientists may be
>> relevant here, that of mirror neurons. According to Wikipedia:
>>
>> "a
>> mirror neuron is a premotor[1] neuron which fires both when an animal acts and
>> when the animal observes the same action performed by another (especially
>> conspecific) animal. Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behavior of
>> another animal, as though the observer were itself acting. These neurons have
>> been directly observed in primates, and are believed to exist in humans and in
>> some birds. In humans, brain activity consistent with mirror neurons has been
>> found in the premotor cortex and the inferior parietal cortex. Some scientists
>> consider mirror neurons one of the most important findings of neuroscience in
>> the last decade."
>>
>> Though
>> still controversial, if the theory turns out to be verified, it may have
>> consequences for the study of media, of performing arts and of the growing
>> practice of simulation in general. The acting profession from ancient Greek
>> theatre to television, cinema and virtual reality could be no more and no less
>> than a biological strategy to introduce new and complex human experience and
>> behavior in society. It would go at some length to explain the manner by which
>> the spectator accesses emotions that are quite literally projected into him or
>> her by the performance.---
>>
>> A quote by Sandra Blakeslee (2006) commented in a blog by Charles
>> Daney:
>>
>> "Cells
>> That Read Minds (January 10, 2006)
>>
>> The
>> cells in question are "mirror neurons". They were discovered around
>> 1990 in the laboratory of Giacomo Rizzolatti, a neuroscientist at the
>> University of Parma, Italy. Researchers in the laboratory had been studying
>> brain activity in macaque monkeys.
>> The
>> monkey brain contains a special class of cells, called mirror neurons, that
>> fire when the animal sees or hears an action and when the animal carries out
>> the same action on its own. But if the findings, published in 1996, surprised
>> most scientists, recent research has left them flabbergasted. Humans, it turns
>> out, have mirror neurons that are far smarter, more flexible and more highly
>> evolved than any of those found in monkeys, a fact that scientists say reflects
>> the evolution of humans' sophisticated social abilities. The human brain has
>> multiple mirror neuron systems that specialize in carrying out and
>> understanding not just the actions of others but their intentions, the social
>> meaning of their behavior and their emotions.
>>
>> "We
>> are exquisitely social creatures," Dr. Rizzolatti said. "Our survival
>> depends on understanding the actions, intentions and emotions of others."
>> He continued, "Mirror neurons allow us to grasp the minds of others not
>> through conceptual reasoning but through direct simulation. By feeling, not by
>> thinking."
>>
>>
>> The discovery is shaking up numerous scientific disciplines,
>> shifting the understanding of culture, empathy, philosophy, language,
>> imitation, autism and psychotherapy. Everyday experiences are also being viewed
>> in a new light. Mirror neurons reveal how children learn, why people respond to
>> certain types of sports, dance, music and art, why watching media violence may
>> be harmful and why many men like pornography."
>>
>> ---The balance is in favor of accepting both the fact
>> that humans do have mirror neurons and that while they are not the only way to
>> do so, these neurons also contribute in helping to understand action and
>> perhaps intention. I think that the discussion is highly relevant to the issue
>> of simulation because it indicates that our technological innovations could be
>> part of an inverted function mirroring the mirroring action of the neurons. Go
>> figure!---
>
> --
> Pier Luigi Capucci
> e-mail: plc@noemalab.org
> web: http://www.noemalab.org/plc/plc.html
> skype: plcapucci
>
>
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[Yasmin_discussions] Priman connections

David,

Thank you for these links.

The elemental language of gesture, through which archetypal images and
signs arose, connect us to primal knowledge of our continuity with the
world - including each other.

Our continuity with the natural world is a reality
acknowledged by many scientists.

It's good to see a mainstream
movie that reflects this ancient knowledge.

Lisa


---------------------------

Lisa Roberts

www.lisaroberts.com.au
www.antarcticanimation.com

Post:-
Suite 326,
353 King Street
Newtown, NSW, 2042
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Re: [Yasmin_discussions] dream argument + simulation hypothesis (are we living in a computer simulation?)

And of course, the bibliography was missing.

http://www.xanadu.com.au/archive/bibliography.html

vr

Citando "Jennifer Kanary Nikolov(a)" <jenniferkanary@yahoo.com>:

> Hi Vítor,
>
> I assume we are all 'Neo', following the white rabbit down a self
> created trail. We are all the Universe, constantly talking to
> ourselves, getting to know each aspect of ourselves. Like Neo, we
> all have control over this 'matrix', if we can understand that 'the
> spoon is not a spoon' we might enjoy the game better...or not...if
> all is one, then the only way for the one to know itself it to
> divide itself, every experience is equally valuable, unless we chose
> for it not to be...we only need to be grateful (ancient idea's...
> ;-) unravelling this 'matrix' we hope, is like a gift in a gift in a
> gift, we hope it never ends...I've always wondered why we have a
> built-in self destruct mechanism...oxygen gives us life and death at
> the same time. Death allows us 'humankinds' to make the same
> mistakes, over and over, and over again...dividing knowledge learned
> over the construct of time, we find ourselves having the same idea's
> as the ancient people....It's like we
> are spreading ourselves and our knowledge thin over time...each
> word, each meaning we create another division...
>
> Jennifer
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Vítor Reia-Baptista <vreia@ualg.pt>
> To: yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr
> Sent: Wed, February 10, 2010 10:47:45 AM
> Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] dream argument + simulation
> hypothesis (are we living in a computer simulation?)
>
> Hello Jennifer.
> Interesting thinking. So, who is Leo in that Matrix?
> Vítor Reia
>
> Citando "Jennifer Kanary Nikolov(a)" <jenniferkanary@yahoo.com>:
>
>> Dear Clarissa,
>>
>> Thanks for bring attention to the simulation argument again and
>> adding the dream argument to that (until now a discussion on this
>> topic did not seem to take off yet, and I was starting to lose
>> hope...perhaps a discussion for another time, another day:)!
>>
>> I really like the quote of Zhuangzi in the dream argument:
>>
>> "He who dreams of drinking wine may weep when morning comes; he who
>> dreams of weeping may in the morning go off to hunt. While he is
>> dreaming he does not know it is a dream, and in his dream he may even
>> try to interpret a dream. Only after he wakes does he know it was a
>> dream. And someday there will be a great awakening when we know that
>> this is all a great dream. Yet the stupid believe they are awake,
>> busily and brightly assuming they understand things, calling this man
>> ruler, that one herdsman ‑ how dense!"
>>
>> Perhaps we are trying to figure out what (computer) simulation is
>> while at the same time being unaware of being in one ourselves? It
>> has such a powerful 'meme' through out history...!
>>
>> Perhaps we are a division of 'Brain Carrying Body Avatar's' created
>> by the Universe so it could see itself (or ourselves from different
>> perspectives)...thanks again Avi for posting the Tedtalk by Henry
>> Markram
>> http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/henry_markram_supercomputing_the_brain_s_secrets.html "The Universe evolved a brain to see
>> itself.."
>>
>> j.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Clarissa Ribeiro Pereira de Almeida <almeida.clarissa@gmail.com>
>> To: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>
>> Sent: Tue, February 9, 2010 3:16:22 AM
>> Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] dream argument + simulation hypothesis
>>
>> Just sending some wikipedia links today on: dream argument + simulation
>> hypothesis
>>
>> The dream argument contends that a futuristic technology is not required to
>> create a simulated reality, but rather, all that is needed is a human brain.
>> More specifically, the mind's ability to create simulated realities
>> during REM
>> sleep <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REM_sleep> affects the statistical
>> likelihood of our own reality being simulated.
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_argument**
>>
>> Simulation Hypothesis:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis**
>>
>> http://www.simulation-argument.com/matrix.html**
>>
>> cheers,
>>
>> Clarissa
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Re: [Yasmin_discussions] dream argument + simulation hypothesis (are we living in a computer simulation?)

Hi Jennifer.
Yes I tend to agree with you, specially on the insight of "the same
historical repeated mistake", which reminds me of the importance of a
global network as a collective memory bank, more or less in the very
same way as Ted Nelson wanted to develop his Xanadu project. This
means that if we could simulate this collective global memory, somehow
we would be able to retain it, although I'm not certain that it would
do us any good.
Nevertheless, here is some bibliography (most from T.N. of course)
that has been produced representing a few plugs of the Matrix.
Best wishes.
Vítor

Citando "Jennifer Kanary Nikolov(a)" <jenniferkanary@yahoo.com>:

> Hi Vítor,
>
> I assume we are all 'Neo', following the white rabbit down a self
> created trail. We are all the Universe, constantly talking to
> ourselves, getting to know each aspect of ourselves. Like Neo, we
> all have control over this 'matrix', if we can understand that 'the
> spoon is not a spoon' we might enjoy the game better...or not...if
> all is one, then the only way for the one to know itself it to
> divide itself, every experience is equally valuable, unless we chose
> for it not to be...we only need to be grateful (ancient idea's...
> ;-) unravelling this 'matrix' we hope, is like a gift in a gift in a
> gift, we hope it never ends...I've always wondered why we have a
> built-in self destruct mechanism...oxygen gives us life and death at
> the same time. Death allows us 'humankinds' to make the same
> mistakes, over and over, and over again...dividing knowledge learned
> over the construct of time, we find ourselves having the same idea's
> as the ancient people....It's like we
> are spreading ourselves and our knowledge thin over time...each
> word, each meaning we create another division...
>
> Jennifer
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Vítor Reia-Baptista <vreia@ualg.pt>
> To: yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr
> Sent: Wed, February 10, 2010 10:47:45 AM
> Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] dream argument + simulation
> hypothesis (are we living in a computer simulation?)
>
> Hello Jennifer.
> Interesting thinking. So, who is Leo in that Matrix?
> Vítor Reia
>


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Re: [Yasmin_discussions] living in a computer simulation or escape into semi-synthetic play?

Dear Margarete,

thank you for your post and - although we are at the end of this discussion - for opening a new strain about new declinations in the simulation issue. I think it would be very interesting going through this interpretation - as well as fostering a discussion on Popper's theory of the three worlds - which takes into account the virtual-digital worlds, and in particular the metaverses.

You (and others, like, for instance, Cristina Miranda) quote Jorge Luis Borges, one of the most beautiful creator of written virtual wolds (of simulations). Maybe literature is still the most economic and "easy" way to build shared and permanent virtual worlds, if we so often take some written dreamworlds as examples.

We are at the end of our (long) discussion on simulation, so I hope you'll be joining some of us in a new project on this topic we are thinking to set up. Please, we would be very glad! :-)

Best,

Pier Luigi


Il giorno 13/feb/2010, alle ore 19.53, Margarete Jahrmann ha scritto:

> Hello simulationists,
> and thank you for the invitation to participate, Pier Luigi!
>
> As artist working with simulations of reality – for many years with
> simulation engines (www.climax.at), but even more with a
> semi-synthetic play reality between the artefact an the virtual -
> please let me pose the question about the impossibility of
> simulation. Is simulation still possible – and how can we still
> separate the worlds?
>
> Thank you for such a lively discussion on the subject, with so many
> strains – so mulifacetted and overwhelming – that I just make a
> brief statement from my angle as Ludic-Society researcher – which is
> to question the concept of simulation as "retro-concept" in general-
> and to put an emphasis on the transgression of „simulation", which
> finds its expression in contemporary Metaverse, understood as
> technological simulacra, being "ubiquitos" nowadays – because of its
> presence in ubiquitous computing – and as coined by Neal Stephenson
> (1992), as summary of playful social online worlds.
>
> Allow me to come back to the point introduced by Avi Rosen:
>> of being and new ontological philosophy. Karl Popper's theory of the three worlds is dramatically
>> altered. Traditionally the classic world 3 of hypotheses can never influence directly the
>> empirical world 1 of physical "objects" and vice versa. To achieve this, the mediation of
>> subjective reality, human thoughts, feelings etc. of world 2 is necessary. Cyberspace
>> alters that fact.
>
> Yes, Popper proposes a view of the universe that clearly recognizes
> at least three different but interacting sub- universes. Physical
> 'World 1' interacts with 'World 2', the mental or psychological
> world, the world of our feelings of pain and of pleasure. World 3,
> the world of the products of the human mind, emerges as an
> evolutionary product from World 2.
>
> BUT: "Play sure", as a phenomenon developed by the Metaverse player
> in 2nd world game systems, uses World 3 conjectures or theories as
> instruments of change. The Popperian cosmology appears as very
> spartan juxtaposition to the idea of a parallel universe of
> data-avatars and documents, a metaverse à la Snow Crash.
>
> In present times simulation- or to speak with Baudrillard -
> Simulacra – another concept appears as more viable:
> Orbis Tertius (Jorge Luis Borges, 1940) appears as a world where
> the artefacts of man in an inscrutable 2nd world break into the 1st
> and finally this world becomes number 3. Literature in this world
> never referred to reality, but to the two imaginary regions of the
> map, described in the pirate copy of an encyclopaedia.
> Wikipedia, Youtube, Myspace, Blogosphere and SL are such asimulacrum
> of social interplay, edited by a dictatorship of the masses
> (Balibar, 1976. Lenin, 1918). Although constructed by the human mind
> (World 2), commonly all of these fictional the graphical MUD Habitat
> was widely successful.
> Karl Popper conceptualized World 3 as produced by human minds. In
> MMPOGs, massive multiplayer online games, the mind's artefacts are
> "synthetic objects" (Castronova, 2006), traded and exchanged – the
> semi-material object trade- which appears much closer to Borges
> impression of merging realities and physicalities.
>
> In fact money systems, the simulacra (Baudrillard, 1976) of signs
> without an reference, are perfectly fitting to the bulb of Snow
> Crash millionaires. Now this auspicated crash softly unbounds,
> unwraps and deliberates into the poetic concept of a world that
> strikes back from a fictional third, via a second to a
> first reality: Uqbar!
>
> Is this the only possible simulation- the physical breakthrough of
> anew concept beyond simulation - the semi-synthetic play in hybrid
> realities?
> all the best greetings
> marguerite

--
Pier Luigi Capucci
e-mail: plc@noemalab.org
web: http://www.noemalab.org/plc/plc.html
skype: plcapucci

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Re: [Yasmin_discussions] around simulation

Dear Yasminers

I thought this might be interesting to add to the simulation
discussion before it ends.

The PBS Frontline "Digital Nation" By Rachel Dretzin and Douglas
Rushkoff.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/

In chapter 8, 01:06:55 min into the chapter, the filmmakers introduce
an interesting topic: the "Drones" (http://bit.ly/95F2Kk) .

Based out side Las Vegas, US air force pilots fly Drones that execute
missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
75,000 miles away from the battlefield, they wear uniforms, to remind
them they are fighting a 'real' war.

Here technology rewrites the rule of the game, where the risks are
all one way, the pilot gets to shoot without getting shot at.
This is a different reality where soldiers are dealing out risk
without excepting risk.
This detachment to risk, to real life danger is somehow disturbing.
At the end of the day these pilots go back home to their families,
and back to "war" the next morning.

While physically located in the US their are effecting lives of
others in a distant place.
This theater simulation, while engaging with reality, is not unique
to the US air force. Wars are changing and the consequences will
resonate.

Are new technologies recontextualizing all the theories we discuss here?
Reshaping (and re-shaking) the world we live in?
When the simulacra, the "representational" universe, could in fact
effect something or somebody in the real world.

In this example the body doesnt experience danger only the mind.
How does this effect our survival mechanism? - this might be a
question for the scientist here.
or how would it effect the notion of presence?
Will our mind learn to adopt to this new state? and how?

The artist here would agree that none verbal experiences can effect
physically, emotionally and intellectually. A great work of art can
communicate divine experiences though sounds, visuals etc. Empathy,
and more scientifically mirror neurons, can simulate in us an
experience as if it was us experiencing it.

How would that effect mirror neurons, for example, would they have
different function in the future? Will our brain develop differently
due to our growing virtual experiences?

Best,
Nurit Bar-Shai


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[Yasmin_discussions] The Dream Augmentation

Clarissa,

Whether Maya, Pandora, or Pachamama, the "dream" seems to be the most
ancient of territories in which our species has been exploring
simulation. Recently, the Achuar, the "dream people" of the Amazon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achuar
), were taken to see James Cameron's Avatar:

http://www.theworld.org/2010/01/29/avatar-in-the-amazon/

The Achuar use dreams to as a means of foretelling future events
(expertly working from the perspective of nonlocal consciousness?).
They have been working with the Pachamama Alliance to develop the
"Awakening the Dreamer" initiative (http://awakeningthedreamer.org) to
"change the dream of the modern world" (would many of us claim
different goals?). Whether we choose to cast our experiences as dreams
or simulations, the destruction of the Amazonian lands by
multinational oil companies is grounded in a particular ecological
reality that reminds us our personal agency and responsibility within
whatever realms we inhabit.

It will be interesting to see if Cameron takes any of his millions in
profit from the simulated conflict to help them with their plight...

david


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Re: [Yasmin_discussions] around simulation

Dear, I'm intervening although I couldn't follow the discussion - despite of my deep interest - therefore the following might be incorrect, inopportune and out of context (and I apologize if so!).
Iv'e been working for ages on computer simulations of all kind and, to be honest, my feeling is that simulation is simulation, augmented reality is augmented reality and so on...
Else, even this discussion and, in general, plain thinking is a good (maybe the best ) simulation.
In other words I would use the words to build well depicted thoughts and practices, and define specific concepts rather than, enlarge them to the limit...
Regards, Luigi

>
> Il giorno 12/feb/2010, alle ore 23.03, Laura Gemini ha scritto:
>
>> Finally a question: could be, or better, is the augmented reality (AR)
>> another frontier of the simulation and its imaginery?
>
> Hello Laura,
>
> I don't think that augmented reality ( here a simple example: http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/#/augmented_reality ) should be considered as another frontier of simulation (except in a technological and commercial sense), but as another level. Some sort of metasimulation ;-)
>
> In the way AR works - you get the information in particular positions/situations - they have something in common with holography, in which the image depends on the observer's viewpoint (it is not a case that some AR applications, especially in 3D graphics, are named "holograms"). Of course they are not holograms, since the technique they are made is totally different!
>
> Best,
>
> Pier Luigi
>
> --
> Pier Luigi Capucci
> e-mail: plc@noemalab.org
> web: http://www.noemalab.org/plc/plc.html
> skype: plcapucci
>
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