Sunday, February 14, 2010

Re: [Yasmin_discussions] around simulation

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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Saturday, February 13, 2010

[Yasmin_discussions] Next week moderation

Hello Yasminers
For information, I'll be moderating the Yasmin lists from February 15, till February 21, 2010.
Have a great discussion, and great announcements!
 
 
 
Ricardo Mbarkho
 
 

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

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
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Re: [Yasmin_discussions] Simulation and mirror neurons

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] Fwd: Closing thoughts on Simulation

Yasminers

Pier Luigi has suggested that we wrap up the Simulation
discussion in the next few days, Nina is getting organised
for the next discussion "multi modal".

Thanks to Derrick de Kerchove for his rich statement
which may relaunch some new discussion thread !! If
we have new things to say we can keep going until
Nina Czegledy is ready with the multi modal group.

Roger
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[Yasmin_discussions] Around Simulation

Hi all, in order to add to the simulations of matter, space and
behaviour (and other forms of simulation), that are emerging in the
discussion, I'd like to refer to the text /The Garden of Forking Paths/
written by Jorge Luis Borges, that relates, among other issues, to the
simulation of time:

"/A labyrinth of symbols," he corrected. "An invisible labyrinth of time
[...] The Garden of Forking Paths is an incomplete, but not false, image
of the universe as Ts'ui Pên conceived it. In contrast to Newton and
Schopenhauer, your ancestor did not believe in a uniform, absolute time.
He believed in an infinite series of times, in a growing, dizzying net
of divergent, convergent and parallel times. This network of times which
approached one another, forked, broke off, or were unaware of one
another for centuries, embraces all possibilities of time. We do not
exist in the majority of these times; in some you exist, and not I; in
others I, and not you; in others, both of us. In the present one, which
a favorable fate has granted me, you have arrived at my house; in
another, while crossing the garden, you found me dead; in still another,
I utter these same words, but I am a mistake, a ghost"./

And hyperlinking my thoughts to another realm, I remember that also
animals display processes of simulation of behavior and response to
simulation. Some dogs imitate the behavior of their owners and, as
monkeys, are aware of their own images on mirrors, not to talk about
parrots that reproduce the sounds the hear in a non-mechanical,
meaningful way.

Cristina Miranda de Almeida
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Friday, February 12, 2010

Re: [Yasmin_discussions] The Dream Argument

**
*

Despite my bad English, I tried to synthesize some ideas in this text.

Hope you enjoy.

Clarissa//


*

*On Design Process or The Dream Argument*

"Those who are asleep are fellow-workers in what goes on in the Cosmos." *
Heraclitus*

I was reading the Jennifer's post on the quote of Zhuangzi in the dream
argument, and remembering a dream I had last year: I saw the moon falling
down in front of me. I was driving, looking to the sky and, suddenly, I saw
the moon coming to ground. It was a very big and solid grey ball. It was not
shinning of course (but… no problem if it was shining, because it was a
'dream'…). The 'big big' moon stopped in front of my car (how strong and
deep was the noise!!!) and, when I went close to the 'big big' ball, it
started melting. For me, for my body, my senses, it was a 'real' experience
– strong and intense. The quote of Zhuangzi, as well as the very inspiring
considerations of Jennifer – 'Brain Carrying Body Avatar's', made me
remember some thoughts I was writing last week about 'Design Process' after
reading a Prigogine's mention of the Ehrenfest urn experiment, to explain
something about the transition from order to disorder (Questioning
Boltzmann's Interpretation, p.243-246). In Prigogine's words, "What does the
transition from order to disorder signify? In the Ehrenfest urn experiment,
it is clear – the system will evolve till uniformity is reached."
(PRIGOGINE, STENGER, 1984, p.246). It was just a single phrase that, alone,
cannot help in understanding the entire intention of the author.
Nevertheless, these words – 'evolve till uniformity is reached', were a
start point to my divagations. I started considering how this notion of
'uniformity' could be an illusion.
Uniformity[i]<file:///C:/Users/Clarissa%20Ribeiro/Documents/PDEE_2010/emergent_writing/Design%20Process%20or%20the%20dream%20argument.docx#_edn1>;
uniform[ii]<file:///C:/Users/Clarissa%20Ribeiro/Documents/PDEE_2010/emergent_writing/Design%20Process%20or%20the%20dream%20argument.docx#_edn2>;
'*of one form*'… what could be or mean to be uni-form? What could be or mean
an equilibrium state, if we consider this never-ending informational flow we
are part of? If I consider myself as a system and equilibrium state as a
possible state of the system, it means that in some instant I must be
uniform, I must have a form. But I can't imagine me as something uniform; I
can't recognize I have a defined form. This notion of *form* as something
very precise and well defined is an illusion, a joke of our senses and its
analogical and digital *extension*. Possibly this notion is derivate from
the fragmented and non-linear way we interact with the universe *in* and *
out*side ourselves. What we stored and are sometimes able to draw (for
instance) are instantaneous impressions, simulacrums, combined indefinitely
with several other simulacrums. And at this point, is possible to consider
the objective world does not exist. Have you ever considered how many times
you saw your mother's face in your life? Can you draw your mother's face
right now? Can a photograph of you mother translate your mother? In some
way, can a photograph of your mother represent your mother, really? Do you
believe it? A film about your mother's life, can this film represent your
mother? Since the time you were a child, every single instant, everything is
changing concerning this human being you recognize as '*your mother*'–
voice, hair color, density of the bones, color of the eyes, the way she
moves, the texture of the skin, the thoughts she has…changes; every instant.
I'm using *instant *and not *second*. Second is a unit of time.
Instant[iii]<file:///C:/Users/Clarissa%20Ribeiro/Documents/PDEE_2010/emergent_writing/Design%20Process%20or%20the%20dream%20argument.docx#_edn3>could
be '
*the moment one perceives something*', a moment of connection and
consciousness; something that implies, in essence, movement, motion, *
momentum*[iv]<file:///C:/Users/Clarissa%20Ribeiro/Documents/PDEE_2010/emergent_writing/Design%20Process%20or%20the%20dream%20argument.docx#_edn4>'.
If we agree that the state of equilibrium is just a joke, an illusion, we
start understanding that subjects and objects just exists in motion. The
equilibrium is just an image, a reduction, an
*instantaneum*[v]<file:///C:/Users/Clarissa%20Ribeiro/Documents/PDEE_2010/emergent_writing/Design%20Process%20or%20the%20dream%20argument.docx#_edn5>
we create by using language to communicate since ancient times. As an *
instantaneum,* your mother's face can be real not as a precise, well defined
and eternal single image, but as a collection-combination of sensations,
impressions, always in motion, changing, varying, fluctuating, something in
an '*ad infinitum* non-equilibrium state'. A collection of sensorial
memories we, as systems, are able to store, access and share – complex
adaptive systems. If you draw now your mother's face, is it a simulation of
your mother? Or is it a *contra*-simulation, if we consider that the
collection-combination of memories you have and which ones are your '*real
mother* *for you*', is the *simulation* of your real mother? Do you believe
that there is one '*your real mother*'? Do you believe there is one '*real
you*'? It is fascinating to consider that, in an objective way, there is no
'*your real mother*' and that '*there is no real you'*, and '*no real me*'.
We are just *information* – histories, tales, imaginary beings dreamed by
ourselves, generated in conversation, negotiations in the whole, as the
whole and by the whole system (Geocentric? Heliocentric? BigBangcentric?
Nothingcentric? YourSelfcentric?) we are part of. Multiple selves? (ASCOTT,
2010) How many yourselves? As there is no unit, there is no 'natural
number'. Maybe there is an imaginary number – a 'complex
number'[vi]<file:///C:/Users/Clarissa%20Ribeiro/Documents/PDEE_2010/emergent_writing/Design%20Process%20or%20the%20dream%20argument.docx#_edn6>of
would-be selves. Existence and nonexistence
*coexists* all the time, even if the subject is in front of the object; even
if the subject is inside the object, or vice-versa. A baby inside a mother's
bally. A mother around a baby's body. *Ob*ject; *ob*server; *ob*struct; *ob*...
Maybe this prefix was an ancient reference to something that could be
experienced as a concrete barrier? Helping in to define the borders of what
we call our physical body? Something that in psychosis, as Jennifer
mentioned, becomes diffuse and blurred (NIKOLOVA, 2010). Professor Pier
Luigi Capucci, in our last meeting in Munich (Planetary Collegium
10thAnnual Research Conference, 2009) was talking about the senses
which ones
are stimulated in the process of getting close to someone you are interested
in, using a *rose* as a metaphor. He said: first of all, the *vision* is
activated, from a considerable distance; then, in succession, *hearing*, *
touch* and *smell*, which one implies a high degree of intimacy. In the end,
we combine all these '*experience-information exchange*', several and
several times, in a never-ending process, and have a dynamic impression of
the one we are interested in. All the time we are using senses to build
metamorphic memories. *Information*. No *equilibrium*; just *dynamics*. No *
form*; just *metamorphosis*. Invisible, immeasurable (even using the Claude
Shannon equation…). This is the trick of this *thing* we are part of – there
is no '*thing*', just a dream, dreamed together. We, metamorphic beings – of
information, by information, through, information. This no-*thing* gives
everything transformable, dynamic forms. It *in-*forms. In this intangible
panorama, we can be defined as *emergent meanings* from several and
simultaneous process of *transmitting-transforming-receiving-being*
information.
Quoting Henri Atlan, "[...] we also have to consider transmission of
information from one level to the other in a multilevel organization; and
this information from one level to the other must not be taken in the
limited Shannon sense but in its complete sense, that is, including its
meaning, defined as its functional effect on the receiver." (ATLAN 1984,
189) And now, we can consider that your mother, you and me, we are all
*emergent
meaning*. The Portuguese word for meaning is '*significado*'. From the Latin
*significatum*. *signum*; sign; design. Trying to remember your mother's
face to draw it could be described as an effort of contra-simulating –
a '*design
process*'. As information it is, your mother's face you are imagining right
now is as real as the moon falling in front of me.

*References*

ASCOTT, Roy. *Multiple Yourself*. Available ate: <
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3481148&id=554994561>. Accessed in: 10
February 2010.

ATLAN, H. 1984. *Natural complexity and self-creation of meaning.* In AIDA,
S. et al. *The science and praxis of complexity.* Tokyo: The United Nations
University. Contributions to the Symposium, May 9-11, Montpelier, France.

NIKOLOVA, Jennifer. *The Dream Argument.* Yasmin Discussion. Available at: <
http://yasminlist.blogspot.com/>. Post date: 09 February 2010.

PLANETARY COLLEGIUM. 10th Annual Planetary Collegium International Research
Conference. Munich, 17-27 November 2009.

PRIGOGINE, Ilya; STENGERS, Isabelle. *Order out of chaos: Man's new dialogue
with nature*. London: Flamingo, Fontana Paperback, Collins Publishing Group,
1984)

WIKIPEDIA. *Dream Argument*. Available at: <
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_argument>. Accessed in: 10 February
2010.

Zhuangzi. *Chinese Text Project. Zhuangzi** **Bilingual Chinese-English
version* (James Legge's translation). Available at: <
http://chinese.dsturgeon.net/text.pl?node=2712&if=en>. Accessed in: 10
February 2010.

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

[i]<file:///C:/Users/Clarissa%20Ribeiro/Documents/PDEE_2010/emergent_writing/Design%20Process%20or%20the%20dream%20argument.docx#_ednref1>
*uniformity* <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=uniformity> early
15c., from O.Fr. *uniformite* (14c.), from L.L. *uniformitatem* (nom. *
uniformitas*), from L. *uniformis* (see
*uniform*<http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=uniform>
).

[ii]<file:///C:/Users/Clarissa%20Ribeiro/Documents/PDEE_2010/emergent_writing/Design%20Process%20or%20the%20dream%20argument.docx#_ednref2>
*uniform (adj.)* <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=uniform> 1530s,
"of one form," from M.Fr. *uniforme* (14c.), from L. *uniformis* "having one
form," from *uni-* "one" (see
*uni-*<http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=uni->)
+ *forma* "form" (see *form* <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=form>).
The noun meaning "distinctive clothes worn by one group" is first attested
1748, from Fr. *Uniforme.*

[iii]<file:///C:/Users/Clarissa%20Ribeiro/Documents/PDEE_2010/emergent_writing/Design%20Process%20or%20the%20dream%20argument.docx#_ednref3>
*instant (n.)* <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=instant> late 14c.,
"infinitely short space of time," from O.Fr. *instant* (adj.) "assiduous, at
hand," from M.L. *instantem* (nom. *instans*), from L. *instantem* "present,
pressing, urgent," prp. of *instare* "to urge, to stand near, be present (to
urge one's case)," from *in-* "in" + *stare* "to stand," from PIE base *
*sta-* "to stand" (see *stet*<http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=stet>).
Elliptical use of the O.Fr. adj. as a noun. New Latinate adj. form *
instantaneous* is attested from 1650s

[iv]<file:///C:/Users/Clarissa%20Ribeiro/Documents/PDEE_2010/emergent_writing/Design%20Process%20or%20the%20dream%20argument.docx#_ednref4>
*momentum* <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=momentum> 1699,
"quantity of motion of a moving body," from L. *momentum* "movement, moving
power" (see *moment* <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=moment>).
Fig. use dates from 1782

[v]<file:///C:/Users/Clarissa%20Ribeiro/Documents/PDEE_2010/emergent_writing/Design%20Process%20or%20the%20dream%20argument.docx#_ednref5>
In
Portuguese we call sometimes a photograph an 'instantâneo', from the Latin *
instantaneum.*

[vi]<file:///C:/Users/Clarissa%20Ribeiro/Documents/PDEE_2010/emergent_writing/Design%20Process%20or%20the%20dream%20argument.docx#_ednref6>WIKIPEDIA.
Number. Available at: <
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number>. Accessed in: 10 February 2010.


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


2010/2/9 Jennifer Kanary Nikolov(a) <jenniferkanary@yahoo.com>

> Dear Avi,
>
> Thanks you so much, will read again with great pleasure. Psychosis might
> well turn out to be a disorder of time and space. In psychosis time
> experience shifts from static to being literally frozen, and dynamic forming
> the terrible in which all things have equal meaning at once especiallt there
> for you, hitting the brain hard. Here a excerpt from one of my papers for my
> research in which I aim to create experiences with installation art, that
> simulate, or could be considered analogue to the subjective experience of
> psychosis. Simulating objective aspects of human experience is much easier
> than subjective aspects...In my view the experience of an art work is the
> only space that is laden with meaning created especially for the viewer.
>
>
> Normally we know where our bodies stop
> and where everyday objects begin, but in psychosis these borders become
> diffuse
> (Torrey 2006 pp38). Kusters (2008) describes that in psychosis even ones
> sense of time and
> space is altered. The experience of blurred borders
> between body and space has been ascribed to installation pieces that work
> with
> dark space, light space and mirrored space. Claire Bishop describes one of
> her
> experiences of stepping in to a pitch-black installation as one of the few
> chances we get to experience total, consuming darkness."Entering
> such rooms can make one aware of one's body, but as a loss: one does not
> sense
> one's boundaries, which are dispersed in the darkness, and one begins to
> coincide with the space" (Bishop 2005 p82). What is interesting is that she
> refers
> to the French psychiatrist Eugène Minowski's (1933) case study of
> schizophrenia
> and his suggestion that the patient's sense of being 'penetrated' by and
> dissolved in space may well be the overriding characteristic of human
> experience of darkness in general:
>
> "[dark space] does not
> spread out before me but touches me directly, envelops me, embraces me,
> even penetrates
> me completely, passes through me, so that one could almost say that while
> the
> ego is permeable by darkness it is not permeable by light. The ego does not
> affirm itself in relation to darkness but becomes confused with it, becomes
> one
> with it." (Minowski 1933 pp.428, 405as cited in Bishop 2005 p84)
>
> Jennifer
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Avi Rosen <avi@siglab.technion.ac.il>
> To: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>
> Sent: Wed, February 3, 2010 7:00:22 AM
> Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] simulation
>
> Hi Jennifer,
>
> Tnx 4 ur reply. The concept of mental disorder in cyberspace is very
> interesting...
> here is a quote from "Art at the Event Horizon"-
> http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=505
>
> "The new (CYBER)reality creates a feeling of schizophrenia and dichotomous
> personality. According to Jameson, the individual cannot locate her/himself
> in space (Bonaventura Hotel), and experiences crises in her grasp of time
> and the stream of past, present, and future. Virilio describes how NASA
> scientists use data suits in order to activate a distant robot on Mars, this
> action places them simultaneously in two distant and dislocated places.[23]
> According to Baudrillard [24] cyberspace networks also create schizophrenia.
> For Jameson [25] it is the illusion of meaning. Virilio [26] relates to the
> phenomenon as super-natural, and even religious -- the data and information
> suits transform the person into a spectre, located in a number of places at
> the same time.
> Virilio seeks a philosophical discussion comparing presence versus tele-
> presence, and presence versus teleportation.
>
> Splitting or distortion characterizes a body falling beyond the event
> horizon of a black hole. The body lengthens greatly to form a
> one-dimensional string, and continues outside the event horizon over the
> infinity of the singularity, while time seemingly slows down and distance
> shortens. This is equivalent to the feeling of a hand wearing a data glove,
> activating a robot on Mars from afar; moreover, this feeling is also
> relevant to Virilio's explanation of a person who, when equipped with a
> data-suit, appears to be paralyzed in a wheelchair.
> This is not comparable to schizophrenia, paralysis, or spectres and the
> supernatural. It is the same linear reality as before, experienced now in
> extreme conditions of high velocity and mass, travelling through a worm
> hole."
>
> Avi.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: yasmin_discussions-bounces@estia.media.uoa.gr [mailto:
> yasmin_discussions-bounces@estia.media.uoa.gr] On Behalf Of Jennifer
> Kanary Nikolov(a)
> Sent: ג 02 פברואר 2010 17:44
> To: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS
> Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] simulation
>
>
> Avi, Thanks for sharing the link to this recent TedTalk by Henry
> Markram, its a must see for
> all!!!
> I love how at the end he speculates how "The Universe evolved a brain to
> see itself.."
>
> I do question the concept of mental disorder as disease as Henry describes.
> For me, as I
> am interested in psychosis, and am thinking about it as a 'glitch' in a
> possible universe as a
> quantum computer simulation (a thought that could easily be considered as
> psychotic), I wonder how, what is described as disease,
> actually has an important function within brain evolution? Mutations
> are crucial to change, right? I am curious to see weather mutations would
> arise within these brain simulations unexpectedly and if it might become
> apparent what their function is. Spontaneous psychosis in the simulations,
> perhaps the very ingredient for creativity, change, allowing for the
> possibility of having choices to make decisions about.... Although mental
> disorders can vary from extremely pleasant to extremely unpleasant in the
> experience, instead of trying to irradiate it, treat the disease, why not
> try to better understand the meaning of it. And here I mean go further than
> Foucaults idea of madness taking the place of Leprosy. The suffering often
> comes more from not being understood, not being able to communicate than
> from the actual experience. It's incredible to think about the numbers: 3 in
> 100 experience psychosis at some point in their lives....but now I am
> trailing off the topic of simulation.
>
> j.
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Avi Rosen <avi@siglab.technion.ac.il>
> To: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>
> Sent: Mon, February 1, 2010 8:38:40 AM
> Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] simulation
>
> Tnx Roger,
> It's interesting to compare between the simulation of star evolving, and
> the image of rose in 'brain in a supercomputer'
>
> http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/henry_markram_supercomputing_the_brain_s_secrets.html
> Is it an algorithms running on electrical nets?
> " On April 27, 1992, the sculptor Ezra Orion directed the performance
> "SUPER CATHEDRAL I", http://www.orbit.zkm.de/?q=node/108 aiming laser
> beams perpendicularly and simultaneously around the world up to the sky and
> the infinity of the universe. This action is the final detachment of
> sculpture from the physicality that had governed it from prehistory, towards
> immense energy fields at the speed of light. The laser beams left the Solar
> System in five hours; today they are 18 light years from Earth. The laser
> beams join the cathedral of radio waves broadcast from Earth, and their
> height is around 90 light years. Orion proposed a continuation of this
> project, to be called "SUPER CATHEDRAL 4″ aiming for a unique interstellar
> cosmic arrangement. According to the laws of Riemann's non-Euclidian
> geometry, eventually the laser beam will execute a Moebius-strip-like loop
> in space, and return to its origin: the artist's body and consciousness. The
> transmitted galactic laser beam loop creates compression of space and time
> while uniting between space-time, subject (artist), and object (art)."
>
> Avi.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: yasmin_discussions-bounces@estia.media.uoa.gr [mailto:
> yasmin_discussions-bounces@estia.media.uoa.gr] On Behalf Of roger malina
> Sent: א 31 ינואר 2010 23:40
> To: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS
> Subject: [Yasmin_discussions] simulation
>
> yasminers
>
> in astronomy the two most succesful simulations are those
> of the evolution of a star from birth in the gas between the stars
> to its death after exhausting its nuclear fuel=there are numerous
> stellar evolution simulations available on line ( google stellar evolution
> simulation)=pretty amazing =just click and watch
>
> and the other is evolution of structure in the universe
>
> here for instance is how a star evolves in temperature and brightness
> calculated from a stellar evolution model= this star had the mass of the
> sun
> and ends as a white dwarf
>
>
> http://rainman.astro.illinois.edu/ddr/stellar/cgi-bin/output/movie0416531.mpg
>
> this kind of simulation takes into account all the nuclear physics we know
> and the physics of radiation transfer and opacity. amazingly succesful
> fit.
> (but a gigantic unresolved mystery)
>
> here is a simulation of evolution of structure in the universe
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY24JAUsy5s
> we have a really coherent description of the evolution of structure of
> the universe (except for the fact that 97% of the content is dark matter
> and dark energy, both of an unknown nature)
>
> in both of these cases the simulations have status as 'tested hypotheses"
>
> in both cases the simulation is presented as visual output-=in one
> case a dynamic graph and the other a video
>
> the fact that simulations have to be converted to visual output
> (or sonified) introduces very strange biases in how the simulation
> is displayed and interpreted-we tend to over emphasise structure even if
> its
> a very small effect to guide the eye
>
> the scientific method itself is changing, as simulations acquire
> the status of explanations
>
> roger
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