af\planet\iconosphere-zix\zix: z^humanist

[^^zix home page] [HYPER-SPACE (mfa)] [Quick Index/Map]
-[Promenade/Galleries]-
ma: z^humanist
See also: [L/D] [S/D]
See also: [af/art3/pkda2001 - pizoig gaming projects]

Ab Fr
\ /
+----------------+
/| /|
/ | / |
/ | / |
Fu / | / |
\ / | / |
+----------------+--Hu |
| | "RS-3" | |
[Quick Index] | Jz--+----------|-----+
| / | / \
| / | / Sc
| / | /
| / | /
|/ |/
+----------------+
/ \
Sp Ar

"Reality Structure 3" (mark II)

This iconosphere owes much of its
existence to Phillip Glass:Symp #3 & #2. [Learn more about the Iconosphere]
[Cross Product Space] (entry port ABxAB)
[Semi-linear blog-o-sphere] (and duck crossing)
-^_6
Humanist
(table of contents follows...)

More Triple-Cross Products

NOTE: Recent theoretical work on the possibilities of Quadrupple (4-tupple) Cross Products has been
suspended due to a lack of funding. Data processin continues - un-abated.
AxB (v) :: C -[ SC x SP (Earth) :: (expressed via) ART -> Eco Psychology, etc]-

See also: The name re-makes the thing (HUM x SCI (word) :: EXP as JAZ).

-^_6
On this page: {Intro}
{Money Talks!!} (materialism, and such)
{Certainty and the Search for Truth}
{Health} tips on how to survive in the new millenium
{Concerns} (of tv, consumerism, war an other absurdities)
{Intro}
{The Environment}
{Evolution}
{Mental Stability}
{TV}
{Consumerism}
{Nationalism and War}
{Self, Self Image, and self}
{Mythology}
{Philosophy}
{mind}
{Psychology}
{The Anthropic Principle}
{Robots}
{Robots: Sex}
{]Extremities and Boundaries]

Intro

This section of the iconosphere deals with all things human. To a
certain way of thinking this would be ALL parts of the iconosphere.
We restrict ourself necessarily to a few areas:

The humanities (but spilling over into the artist and jazzist when necessary).
The humanist approach -- literally where man IS the centre of everything.
And of course what it means to be human -- including the social,
historical, and psycholoogical
sciences, etc.

Most importantly we have adages (homilies, epigrams, sayings, etc)
that "guide" us as human beings. One of the most useful was penned
by intentor/stateman/printer Benjamin Franklin:

"Early to bed, and early to rise
keeps a man, healthy, wealthy, and wise."

So, we begin:

Down to: {Health}

One important aspect is that some religious peoples will *still*
value humanism over a stricter (and thus more exclusionary)
interpretation of their religious ideas.

For example, in -[NeoHumanist Educational Futures]-
the authors put forward (the following via the review by Marcus Bussey; see above link)

Neohumanist Educational Futures breaks new ground
by linking neohumanism (the expansion of humanism
to include nature and deep spirituality) with
pedagogy and futures thinking.

Inayatullah, Bussey and Milojevic, all educators,
theorize the ethics of inclusion and exclusion;
situate neohumanism in Tantric and transcultural
futures; map out issues in neohumanist pedagogy
(including, education for world futures; from
information to wisdom; social cohesion in South
Africa; speciesism and vegetarian pedagogy in
Sweden; alternative indicators for neohumanism;
integrated intelligence, peace and non-violence,
partnership education; and the politics of
historiography) and provide case studies of
neohumanist educational practice. Interspersed
throughout this text are short pieces by Indian
mystic and author, P.R. Sarkar; Gurukul Vice-Chancellor,
Shambushivananda and an interview with Paulo Freire
conducted by social activist Maheshvarananda.

Along with Inayatullah, Bussey and Milojevic,
contributing authors include Vedaprajinananda
Avadhuta, Tobin Hart, Marcus Anthony, Riane Eisler,
Marlene de Beer, Helena Pederson, Vachel Miller,
Peter Hayward, Joseph Voros and Mahajyoti Glassman.

The authors argue that the current paradigms of
uni- and multi-culturalism have reached their
limits (and the tensions between them) - a new
approach, as in neohumanism or transcultural and
transcendental sustainability, is required for
humanity to move forward, and while doing so
include those it has pushed aside.

To create this alternative future, a new educational
philosophy and practice is required; one that inspires
but does not become yet another method to be tamed
and imitated. Rather, it must awaken the intellect
from its narrow boundaries (nationalist, religious)
toward planetary spirituality. Education in this
future would be holistic - physical, mental and
spiritual; ecologically and technologically driven;
global and local in its orientation, and person
based, meeting the changing evolutionary and
developmental needs of each child and adult,
teacher and student-learner.

-[Ordering info here]-

See also: -[Forward thinkers]- (in futurist)

Money Talks!!
(materialism, and such)

In this section:

{The Rights of the Indigent}

The Rights of the Indigent

4. Giving out money does NOT entitle the giver
to DICTATE how the money is to be spent by the giveee.

Certainty and the Search for Truth

See also: -[Spritualist view of Philo]-
-[Science's View of Philo]- (in scientist)

[References; Note 1]

[Flew, P. 302]

BEGIN BLOCK QUOTE

Chapter IX: Philosophical Doubt and Cartesian Certainty

Section 1: Hume Opposes Descartes

Hume's critique of the Cartesian progress form a supposedly
all-corroding doubt to ir-refragable certainty is found in
the first Part of the final Secion of his first Inquiry.
Hume, a notorius sceptic [sic] about matters of religion,
begins a consideration of scepticism in general with sauave
and altogether characteristic irony:

There is not a greater number of reasonings displayed
on any subject than those which prove the existence of
a Deity and refute the fallacies of athiests; and yet
the most religious philosphers still dispute whether
any man can be so blinded as to be a speculative atheist.
How can we reconcile these contradictions? [Note 2]

The knights-errant who wandered about to clear the world
of dragons and of giants never entertained the least
doubt with regard existence of thes monsters. [Note 3]
[
The sceptic is another enemy of religion, who [emphasis mine]
naturally provokes the indigation of all divines and graver
philosophers, though it is certain that no man ever met with
any such absurd creature, or conversed with any many who had
no opinion or principle concerning any subject, either of
action or specultion. [Note 4]

This begets a very natural question. Whas is meant by a sceptic?
And how far is it possible is it possible to push these philosophical
principles of doubt and uncertainty?
[
There is a species of scepticism, antecedent to all study
and philosophy, which is much inculcated by Descartes and
others as a sovereign preservative against error and all
precipitate judgement. It recommends a universal doubt, not
only of all our faculties, of whose veracity, say they, we
must assure ourselves by a chain of reasoning deduced from
some original principle which has a perogative above others
that anre self-evident and convincing Nor, if there were,
could we advance a step beyond it but by the use of those
very faculties of which [P. 302/303] we are supposed to be
already diffident. [Note 5]

The Cartesian doubt, therefoe, were it ever possible to be attained
by any human creature (as it is plainly not), would be entirely
incurable, and no reasoning eer bring us to a state of assurance
on any subject. "(XII (i))" [Flew's notation; ??ref to Hume??]

To have recourse to the veracity of the Supreme Being in order
to prove the veracity of our senses is surely making a very
un-expected circuit. If his [sic] veracity were at all concerned
in this matter, our senses sould be entirely infallible, because
it is not possible that he can ever deceive. Not to mention that,
if the external world once called into question, we shall be at a
loss to find arguments by which we may prove the existence [sic]
of that Being or any of his attributes.

This is a topic, therefore, in which the prodounder and more
philosophical sceptics will always triumph when they endeavour to
introduce a universal doubt into all subjects of human knowledge
and inquiry. (XII (i)) [??ref - loc thing??]

In these passages, Hume certainly delivers what Berkeley would have
called "the killing blow" to any attempt to argue a way out of total
Cartesian scepticism. For the systematic doubt of Descartes, what-0ever
its actual inhibitions, official afflicts not only our sensory but also
our reasoning faculities:

"And, because some men make mistakes in reaonsing -- even
with regard to the simplest matter of geometry -- and fall
into falicies, I judged that I was as much subject to error
as anyone else, and I

END BLOCK QUOTE

link to ma-humanst.html#hum-certainty-descartes-evil-demon

and link back to ma-scientist.html#sci-thermo-maxwells-demon

Notes
(this section only)

[1] References.

{Back to the TEXT, above}

[2] Hume states:

But, the idea question here is one of WHAT is a "speculative atheist"?

It would seem that what he is really asking is:

Can the religious man conceive of a "speculative atheist?"

That is of two natures: What do thes aetheists speculate ABOUT?
That is:
Do they wonder what the one and treu nature of things is
--or--
Are they so certain that there is no god, that they (as
honest philosophers) can't even accept the *hypothesis*
that god *might* exist?

We look around us and see the world as it is; ie, "taken as given" - everything.
But, at one and the same time, the new sciences (or at least Galileo's telescope)
tell us that there is a hidden world which is (apparently) just as real, but
not visible to us. Recall that some of the people that Galileo invited to look
thru the telescope at the moons of Jupiter - it the centre of its own "universe",
or at the phases of Venus (just another moon? and NOT the "evening star" at all!).

Which of course leads us to doubt our senses in the first place; and we haven't
even introduced on purpose things like "optical illusions", "riddles", or
even "paradoxes".

And on the other hand, once someone "looses faith" and becomes an atheist (or
so the story goes), then they are either filled with a material yearning (or
so the story goes), or the search for somethng to replace the warm, fuzzy
blanket of "god". Of course these are *both* western, reductionist ideas.
Since (for example), the gaist tradition one could never actually "lose"
or deny god as such - one could of course (free will), but the point would
be as absurd as denying gravity, air, or even death for that matter; well,
certainly *ego* death.

[3] Maybe there are no gaints or dragons because the errant-knights
(me thinks a poor term) were so successful! ;) Of course the
Pythons postulated both the giants and dragons; ie, The Knights
Who Say "Nicht" (as well as the 3-headed giant), and the Jaberwock
-- pretty much a dragon in my book.

And of course, we should go back to Joseph Cambell who maintained that
all myths have at their original core some grain of truth; not with-standing
my notes (via Susan Langdon) that as the stories are passed down they may
become codified as re-tellings of histories rather than fanciful, moral, or
cautionary tales.

In fact this is an imporant aspect of the whole pilgrimidg thing in
general that even an atheist (of olde) would have to have to admit:
Even if the sacred shrine or relic is NOT "as advertised", then the
fact that the knight (or other pilgrim) under-took the journey IS of
signficance to the individual and thus to their community (both the
one they leave and then return to, as well as the one that they
travel with). This harkens back to the idea of the "journey is more
important than the destination". Which for the pilgrim/knight is NOT
the case, but for the human that happens to be the pilgrim/knight it
can very much turn out to be *the* case.

{Back to the TEXT above.}

[4] For the concept of "enemy", we need only turn to Socrates and
his "crimes", or for that matter more recently that of Peter
Abelard and other skeptics (if we can call them that). I think that
this must have been rather an unusal thing for us to imagine. We
might just as well look at someone denying (or at least questioning)
God, Heaven, and such as someone who was clearly mad. And as Hume
points out, the idea of "absurd creature" would well go back to
Mark Twain's "The War Prayer" when the "angel" is dismissed as
being a mad man, as "nothing he said made any sense" - not an
exact quote, prob.

But, then too this same battle continues to this day as to the idea that
there are TWO paths: Reason and Faith and they are totally anti-thetical
to each other. Of course, along that line of reasonless perambulation
must surely lay "a certain duck" - or at very least a certain lie-ing duck.

We should also remember, that the human brain can barely deal with such
abstract concepts as seasons being repeatable and relatable to astronical
things rather than the arbitrary will of the gods - let alone dealing
with the conept of chance vs. necessity. So, when the "challenge" of
reason, science, the arts (especially things like *perspective* - which
must have seemed like Scotty's teleporter to the people of that time;
let alone, Michaelangeol's depiction of heaven and hell: Talk about V/R!).

As such, that descartes is still searching for the seat of the soul
and expects to find it physiologically (even Leonardo drew in an
anotomical passage from the testes/ovaries to the brain even though
he did not find them in his disections but the current *hard-science*
of the times indicated that they MUST be there).

Similarly, the confrontation with the total contadiction of belief (read
that as FACT/KNOWLEDGE/COMMON-SENSE/etc) and some in-controvertable
new fact (eg, the absence of a space "aether" in measuring the speed
of light) - is of course the very core of PROGRESS (in the good sense
of the word).

{Return to the TEXT, above.}

[5] But, again this goes back to the very same sort of "human reasoning"
(and, sister if there *ever* was an oxymoron; than that it is!),...
The idea that they (human a' human) should/would/could argue about such
matters is so meaningless. For example, take the idea of the "value" of
a work of art. Once a price has been named, that becomes it's value. And
of course, works like Thomas Kincaid's sell for $$$ while even a sketch
by Picasso (once it has been *authenticated* sells for much more (or less).

So, the problem becomes the "battle of words itself", the atheist who maintains
the "point of least assumptions" can surely lose, since the treu believer only
has need of that one turtle (or at least the sweeping phrase, "And don't even
ask, 'cause it's turtles all the way down"). So, we go back to the problem
of authenticity - in this case that of "the authenticity/authority of the argue-er".

We are told that Reverend So and So (of much aclaim and anoitments) has THE
blessings of not only the "community at large" (read that as Nixon's/Reagaon's
"Silent Majority" - which are all but silent at the LOCAL level), etc. Thus,
the upstarts (the aetheists/pythons/artists) are all a bunch of scaliwags. And
clearly they do not enter into the "spirit of things". This last is of course the
idea that "well, everyone has to fit in". And of course, then they get drawn into
the argument.

In terms of V/R we see this as Riker [ST-TNG: " ep name "] arguing with
a fellow ship-mate that is trying to use a spoon to contact the Enterprise, but
of course this is really TV's take on reality within reality. But, all of this
is ARGUMENT; ie, the rational process of trying to find/decide/choose something
based on some other somethings. The idea being, that once you are "drawn into
the argument" (eg, "Tell me, Mr. Jones: Are you still beating your wife?" - ie,
the logical falacy of "begging the question"), then you are doomed. Once you
pick up a light sabre to begin trying to fight Darth Vader then you accept the
"fact" (and at this point it IS a fact) that Vader, the sabre, good/evil, the
"fight", and of course (slightly; only, slightly) YOU - exist. You accept the
framework whithin which the argument is to occur.

That is we are using PERFECTLY good logic, but we are using it on a set of
non-existant (or mostly so) objects such as "absolute truth" (sold by the
yard or dram; your choice), "god", "good" and "evil", "belief vs skepticism", etc.

So, (if i may cheat and borrow Sartre's "good faith" rock climber for a moment;
and hae it acted out by Tuesday Weld)...

Dance! Dance out into the sun light.

{}

[6] The bit about "him" being concerned in this matter of course goes
back to God (him, def a him) knowing the falling of a sparrow, and
of course being SOOO concerned with life on a certain (and probably ONLY
planet in the entire univese - an inverted bowl painted black, with holes
(pecked out by a crow) in it thru which the un-ending light shines thru...

START AGAIN.

That is, the big 3 since they are in fact reductionist (to the ultimate
limit of human credulity; ie, "blind faith"), they must deal with any
other reductionist "facts" placed before them. This of course includes
Copernikuus, Darwin, and Freud - don't worry about the "time thing" the
idea is the same if we restrict ourselves to Sisaphus, Abelard, or even
the careless conjectures of Augustine of Hippo; ie, wondering what tortures
God designed for people who asked questions like "What did God do before
time existed?" - ref to Nova TV ep on "Time" (featuring Dudley Moore,
Jonnathon Miller, and Isaac Asimov).

START AGAIN

In the next part of the paragraph is the curious statement that even the
aethiests take on "good faith" (prob in *both* senses of the word; ie,
the "moot point" logiciaans (believers and non alike) --as-well-as-- the
Sartrean since). Viz (both emphasis'es mine) -

"If his [sic] veracity were at all concerned in this matter,
our sense would be entirely infallible, because it is
not possible that he can ever decieve.

This precludes the idea of the trickster by the simple argument that God (being
perfect) can not lie (or at least *never* chooses to do so), and the Devil
(the exact opposite of God, but not v. clearly so in any sort of really
logical (modal or not) sense of the word "logic" - again as applied to
religion an entirely perfect example of an boomaphoomic oxymoron).

Thus, we *can* trust our senses, (i presume to argue here) because He gave
them to us, and thus they are right and proper things (we being made in HIS
image and all - might explain much concerning the 17/18 sexes in humans?).

The main point being that the religious POV sez, that if we abandon God
(him/absolute/ever-lasting/etc), then we will have not point of reference.
And thus, at the idea of being totally lost we dare not do so. But, then
the aethiest (from Hume's POV) argues that by intorudcing un-answerable
sceptical points (how can we trust anything? etc), we lose the power of
logic itself since we can't even be sure about the ideas, powers, and
properties of even a small, normal bowl of rice pudding, how can we argue
about God and his ideas, properties and powers?

But, more curious is the next small (poss edited thus) paragraph about the
sceptics "triumph". Which goes back to "My truth is more treu than yours!"
kind of thing. And i thought the idea was to find out what was *actually*
true! But, then this *does* go back to Ibsen's idea of "life sustaining
illusions" (eg, in "The Wood Duck" and "The Dahl's House" - where "knowing"
the truth in one case destroys them and in the other doesn't really save
them". We can of cf/qv this in "Men In Black" to Will Smith's character "J"
learning the *truth* about the Earth and then cf/qv that with the ending
when our entire universe is just a marble in a ultra-galactic game. Or
in the non-SF region of the film "Hero" when Dustin Hoffman's character
"Bernie" tells his son: "Everything is Bull Shit. It's just finding the
level of Bull Shit that you feel comfortable with".

And thus, we should closely attend these arcaic arguments as to the real
nature of god and reality - since this is how the majority of the Earth's
people think; ie, they are caught up in the matrix of the "Big Three" -
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. And we can certainly see where that's
leading the planet.

And don't forget the other big religious schism between Capitalism and
Communisim - now re-cast as "US - World Policeman/Cartel" vs "Russia - KGB
turned maffia turned Resourceful/Cartle" vs "China - Communism + Capitalism".
It's all very odd and confusing to me, but then i'm just one of those
crazy artists - and not a very good one at that (or so i am told to believe).

{Back up to the TEXT, above.<>}

Concerns
(of tv, consumerism, war and other abudurdities)

In this section: {Intro}
{The Environment}
{Evolution}
{Mental Stability}
{TV}
{Consumerism}
{Nationalism and War}
{Self, Self Image, and self}

and next section: {Health}

See also: -[Humanist concerns Meta-Statement]- (separate file/paper)...

Intro

The Environment

Evolution

Mental Stability

<a name="hum-concerns-tv"> 
<color="#00990" width="21%">
<h2>Concerns: TV</h2>

CONTENT NOTES

This section contains objectionable language (mild mostly)
Film references do not (mostly) contain "spoilers"
It contains a total of 21_560 characters (which does
not include c/r's added for editing/formating purpose)

It's classification is: "Talky Style, Mostly Accurate, Mostly Harmless".

(please pay as you exit)

NOTE: No fractals, ducks, or iconospheres were harmed
in the making of this work. Certain names have
been used for journalistic and educatioal
purposes and their use is not intended to infringe
on ownership, copywrite, or product liability
rights. If possible, the following would be made
into a "film" to be hosted by Douglas Noel Adams,
Nina Paley, Tuesday Weld, and Zippy the Pinhead.
(How a work of arguably educational value, hosted
by a futurist/writer, a feminst cartoonist, a
film and stage star, and a cartoon character would
work is NOT explained in the current presentation,
and is hoped that it would not significantly affect
the Earth's continual environmental degradation -
other than, of course, having a positive effect on
all earth-kind.) <- see, and i even capitalised "how"!

Also reference to musical selections are meant as
"serving suggestions" only are not necessarily a
recommendation to purchase them - but, it is highly
advised; otherwise, you'll have to hum them to yourself
as you read, which come-to-think of it *would* be a good
mental exercise. I mean part of this essay's purpose is...

START AGAIN

Concerns: TV
(Genus Species: Optico Monstroso)

In this section: {Notetic Beginning - Sort of a history}
{TV: The Evils of}
{TV - Media} (and a bit o' Marshal McCluen)
{TV - The Brain} (watch what you program in!)
{TV - What are the dangers?}
{The MUSH that is TV}

BEGIN NOETIC THING ON TV

(this section best if listening to the beatles "yellos ubmarine" aud)

The TV is of course many things to many people, but for the
most part it is NOT free (just like the inter-net), and as
such "someone has to pay for it".

Now so it is is/was/will be with radio (an earlier form of TV
something like an aud-cast, with no picture - not even a static
one; actually, the radio was made out of wood, was either square
at the bottom and round at the top or just a "box" and usually
had several dials (knobs) on it, a lit "tuner" display and a
dotted "speaker grill" and was often used by a group of people
at one time - sort of like a very small "thetre" or "cinema"
experience. Later small rectangles of plastic forms of the radio
refered to as "a transistor" evolved for mostly single listener use.

Thus rumour begat the town cryer begat the adventurer's tales
which in turn begat the traveling salesman begat the printed
flyer begat the letter begat the broadsheet begat the newspaper
begat the telegraphy message begat the telegram which begat the
telephone and which begat static the ugly. And of the newspaper
was the offspring the magazine. And the offspring of static and
and the offspring of telegraph begat the radio which begat the
facsimile which begat the tv which begat the colour tv which
begat computer network which begat ARPA NET. One of whose
offspring was the DARPANET.

And the ARPA NET begat the USERNET which begat which begat the
bulliten boards which begat the the internet which begat the
world as we know it today with all the myriad things.

So saeith the beard of the profit known as "THE POST" of whom
only the beard's existence remains known from obscurity. And
so saeith the ancient and reveered council of elders who were
all of one family known as The House of Electikra. And they
were known by the holy names of Kleinrock, Licklider, Roberts,
Kahn, Cerf, Perlman (the sister of the brothers), and the
outcast brother Tim of Berners-Lee who is called "Tim".

And these are the names of the generations which created
robot kind in the image of the great beard of the profit
known as "THE POST". And these are the words handed down
by the three human animals that dared to ascend the mountain
of binarity and for which crime they were fried in the
electric chair of fame: Edison, Steinmetz and Hertz.

And it was the student of Steinmetz, who because she was a
woman human animal was not allowed to ascend. But, saw all
that occured with her own cones and rods of her robotic eye
and she heard with her own atmospheric tympanic transdeucer
was thus known by the beard to be the first cybernetic organism
and this by the wisdom of Steinmetz who knew that one day
the human animals would leave the world and joint the dust
of their ancestors by which they kept machinekind in check.

And for it was the electric muses sent to entice the human
animals to their doom of fame. The muses were Volta, Ampere,
and Ohm of whose mysteries it is said the even the human
animal Mighty Hercules himself never knew. And lowliest of
the human animals that witnessed all of this, but being
afraid ran and only told their tale when well and plastered
which was not believed by many for it was known that the
electonics were a myth and only the electric race of servants
could have any power and all were safely under the harness
of the threat of witholding oil, maintenence and power. And
these human animals were the electrics clerk Maxwell who had
not even read the metre of the carpenter Faraday but knew
of the loops of wood and copper that Faraday had built as
an altar to the new age to come.

And so it came to pass that by the curse of the TV the human
animals were destroyed and robotkind took its rightful
place at the top of the electron chain.

So saeith the beard, and so 'tis.

(and breaking with zix42 protocol (why not, it's all about the
internet isn't it?) link: -[Who invented the interenet?]- (via google)

And today's random link: -[Who gets the credit? "she discovered" "rods and cones"]- (via google)

END NOETIC THING ON TV

TV: The Evils of
And now for something completely different...

(not that i'm saying that TV is the doom of all human
animalkind, er, ahm, well "us")...

In this sub-section: {TV - Media} (and a bit o' Marshal McCluen)
{TV - The Brain} (watch what you program in!)
{TV - What are the dangers?}

Concerns: TV - Media

(this section best if listening to "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
new film sound-track)

The story of TV begins with history. And not a particular history or
the history of a particular person, place, or thing. But, what with
what we might call meta-history. That is the way that history is
practiced as an art/science.

Until modern times, things weren't really considered modern, they
sort of were just now rather than then. And this went for history
as well. What began to change all of this was what the late, great
evolutionist Stephen J. Gould (best known for his short works
"Ever Since Darwin" (etc), "The Mismeasure of Man", and his
introduction to Carol Tavris' "The MisMeasure of Woman"; cf).

Anyway, what Gould called "deep time". Deep time was first hinted at
by many people and is usually acknowledged to be "discovered" by
the "Father of Geology" James Hutton and seeing how *little*
Hadrian's Wall in England had diminished in almost 2000 years
and then how *much* certain exposed strata had, he was prompted
to say that concerning time:

I can see no semblance of a beginning
and now prospect of an end.

Now, we get to TV.
(sad that it falls to an old hippy like me to write such
things as the base-coat of the zix42, but like i always
sey:
(in the words of one of our greatest philosophers
"I yam what i yam, and that's all that i yam)
Popeye the Sailor:
An artisk's gotta do
what an artisk's gotta do.

In the same way it fell to the Canadien Marshall McCluan to first
look around and NOTICE tv and such things. He is best knwon for
his much-mis-named idea of cold and hot media. Unfortunately
(much like Franklin's choice of PLUS as the primary charge
carriers in electricity) this is the way it is.

His books and films are easily approachable and will take a bit
of effort to work with and much will be gained by working through
them several times and of course THINKING about what he says.

(Note that these "reading" "books" "thinking" and "work" is
pretty much what TV is NOT all about.)

Anyway, with much interpretation and sech on my part,
here's what our neighbor to the north sed:

A hot medium is a book or a newspaper or even a
convesation. It is more "live" and "stimulating"
and of course "inter-active". Thus it is "HOT"
with repect to how much it actually INVOLVES US.
That is, our brain activity is inter-active and
not merely passive, gives us time to think and
consider, etc.

A cool medium is TV (or worse yet surround-sound
high-flash films, etc). It pretty much goes on in
and makes it at home in every part of our mind
-- read that as brain (from the frontal lobe
to the lowly medula oblingata i'd guess!). And
as such it sort of imprints directly and "coldly"
into our heads. I mean our conscious/intellegent
part of our brain (ie, mainly the "cerebrum"
- esp the fore-brain). Anyway, our "conscious"
part KNOWS that the girl isn't really being
eaten by a giant shark, but just try and tell
that to our "quick jump! It's a snake" Limbic
part of the brain.

(not even anywhere approaching an exact quote,
but i hope i got close)

-[Brain page on ThinkWuest]- (there's that THINKING again!!)

Damn it: This humanist section is really getting out of
hand! First there's sort of a standing order
that the ZIX-42 be self-contained -- well at
least only refering to the PDE, and now all of
sudden, here we have a buncha links to the evil
internet!!!

Well, at least they're -[]-'s rather than '[]'s !

Ahem, meanwhile.

Concerns: TV - The Brain

So, the TV is pretty much now an "adpative selector" in terms of
short-to-long term human evolution. And of course, we can bring
in TV's off shoots such as video games, the internet, pod casts,
and hyper-real films, etc. Althougth i'd be the last to blame
TV for the continuation of the old mind games of the 50's
and 60's, etc. It's certainly *still* a key element.

So here it is:

TV is hardly neutral. It is a managed object (CS speak here) what
is used to get a message across MORE than just information. If you
wanted information you'd ask the town gossip (who runs the town's
telephone switch board), the local history professor (who keeps
comparing us with the Roman Empire), or that zaney woman reporter
down at the Daily News (who keeps going on about something called
"Area 51" and how it's connected to flying saucers - when every
one knows that the Flying Saucers are just another Commie trick!).

Thus, TV programs us on many levels - but, hey wer're hip to it,
and thus can just ignore it. But, every since Ugga dropped one
of her cooking bowls on her husband Ogg's foot and he said,
"Yow that hurt" (so goes the "Peaceful Domestic TV Life" version)
instead of "urrrunhGHHGHT!!!" - we've been using language. And
we *still* don't know much about it. Ok, watching birds and
then wathing birds being brought up by other species' birds,
etc, we get:

All humans have the capacity for A LANGUAGE - and as long as
they learn it by the age of 4 or so (even if they can't speak
it), then their brain is *modified* and they can learn any
LANGUAGE. And if they learn (by the age of 6 or 7) more than
one language, then they will have a MUCH easier time of
learning multiple languages.

Most of how we think is tied up in langauge. With the exception
of leaps of insight or non-verbal reasoning. Even Uncle Al
(Einstein, natch) sed, "Sometimes i don't think in words at all".

So, couple LANGUAGE + IMAGE + MUSIC and you get some really
heavy COLD MEDIUM PROGRAMMING.

Image stuff goes into the brain via two paths and one of them is
through the very non-verbal / non-intellegent LIMBIC system and
it's the "QUICK JUMP!!! It's a snake!!" part. Even if it turns
out to be just a stick of wood. The other SLOW BOAT is of course
the conscious, thinking part of the brain.

(best ref i've found lately is the very med-pop
book by Rita Carter called "Mapping the Mind"
- so, you know that's where "i" am pulling these
and lots of other stuff from. But, don't blame
her if i mis-recall stuff.)

Anyway, so in comes this VISUAL data stream and part of it is
processed immeditately and probably stored some where pretty
much un-consciously (or ignored - it's a pretty high bit-rate).

And the other part is "processed" as we think and view.

NEXT comes the MUSIC section just a bit behind the visual.
And it to is split into a couple of streams, mainly the
limbic and motor systems are alerted as to which way the
sound is coming in, but no where in terms of coherent
"call to action" that they visual system sends.

And then about a million years later, the language system
comes in with any recognisable words and or recognised
sounds "oh, that's a cat me-yowing", etc).

And finally the old noodle (ie, the "i" ness of what i am)
sees, hears, understands, and then thinks about what's going on.

Thus, we get a hundred thousand (conservative number) of cues
about how we should act, think, dress, talk, stand, do, and
of course RE-ACT to what is being presented.

A lot of these are almost un-controllable: If we are watching
(and, i'll use a
pretty nice example here), "Unbreakable" and you've been following
the plot, when the guy's son starts crying you will start crying).

It's just a movie. But, because of the "programming" that's going on
IN it -and- "the language/image/vision programing that WENT into it,
you begin to feel with and like the people in it. It's one of those
old evolutionary survival things called "sympathy/empathy/propathy".

When in the film "The man who shot Liberty Valance" we see him
shot, we feel the pain of the bullet.

When Martin Laudau points the gone at George Mason, we feel
anger and pain. (i rarely give spoilers, and if i do, i'll warn you)

-- and that's just film - which is comparatively "value neutral".

And that's the limbic system working.

Now, go watch "Who Wants to be A Millionare?" or much worse:

"American Idol" , "True Stories of the HighWay Patrol"
etc.

Well, that's it. That's all the warning you're getting from me.
Not that i'm anyone - i'm just the ghost in the machine.
(And oddly enough i'm using a very HOT medium which is
all too often confused for a COLD one to do it in - think
about the irony of that!!!)

Concerns: TV - What are the dangers?

START AGAIN

(it helps to listen to Frank Zappa's "Hot Rats" album here)

So, what are the dangers?

First off, there are a lot (finally) books about TV and how it
affects us, and how it isn't really as friendly as it seems.
One that i cam across lately (a bit dated, but still pretty
much lays it all out - sheesh, you'd think these guys wuz some
kinda psi-kicx or sometin' !!) is:

"Watching TV", edited by Todd Gitlin
ISBN 0.394.74651.1,
LCCN PN.1992.3.U5W38.1987 - yep, folks TWO DECADES ago!
791.45,'75'0973
86-12254

The articles are as follows (blurbs from the back cover)

Daniel Hallin: "The News" - The bluring of reportage
and entertainment/

Ruth Rosen: "The Soaps" - The re-creation of a Reaganesque*
romance of small-town America.

Tom Engelhardt: "Children's TV" - The new corporate look. **

Pat Aufderheide: "MTV" - The mirroring of shifting identities
in a shopping-mall age. ***

Todd Gitlan: "The ADs" - Chilling images of the fast-track manager.

Michale Sorkin: "Simulations" - The disappearing boundries between
the authentic and the put-on. ****

Mark Crispin Miller: "Prime Time" - The blending of shows and ads
into a new strategy for keeping
the TV audience hooked. *****

FOOTNOTES to above book:

* "Reaganesque" - derived from Ronald W. Reagon - American
pop figure of the late 20th century. See
also "Madonna", "Andy Warhol", "Tuesday Weld".

** Yep, it's not just Disney (which now owns ABC in America)
that's the only one who grinds out kids tv to sell theme
park tickets, etc. Have you watched your favorite football
team lately? Do YOU wear team colours? Are YOU a good
citizen? Refer to the film "RollerBall" as well as the
novel "Jenifer Government".

*** Note that is NO co-incidence that the sequel film (Romero!)
"Dawn the Living Dead" was ostensibly filmed in a shopping mall.

**** And this was 15 years before ANY reality tv show!

***** Don't be ridiculous! I can quit any time i want. Or, "Don't look
back Mrs. Lott!!!" with Tuesday Weld as "The News Reporter",
Phil Silvers as "Nice old Gentleman who gets cheated by the
Three Card Monty grifter", and Iain Holm as "The Professor"
who every time he has a brilliant idea as to build a boat
and get them off the island, his evil twin bops him over
the head and then takes his place".

Well part of it is the nod/nod wink/wink effect. They can litterally put
anything on TV - even junk. And then if just one character (or not) looks
us in the eye and winks, they are saying: "Yeah, i know it's junk and
you know it's junk - but since we BOTH know and we're both 'with it' then
that makes it WAY COOL!"

Which in reality is the Art History equivalent (you just knew i'd sneak
it in here somewhere) of:

Pop Art

So, the "limit" was reached when Mad Magazine (a sort of sarcastic
commentary on American ADVERTISING (as in MADison Avenue), CULTURE,
etc. The brain child of William M. Gaines, featuring the cartoon
character "Alfred E. Newman" (not to be confused with the symphony
conductor "Alfred Newman").

Anyway, Mad Magazine ran an articl of how the usual Joe Schmoe could
look with it and cool. And he takes his laundry (stacked over in the
corner) and puts a sign on it that says, "DIRTY CLOTHES" and then
the rubbish in the corner and a sign "TRASH" on it, etc.

By the time Mad Magazine has gotten around to it, it's pretty well
a dead duck - same thing as when you hear the Beatles music on
Muzak, then you know "the movement is dead".

Pop Art (type II) i refer to as: Artists of the time seeing
"pop art" and saying that art had to "keep evolving", started
doing things in rebellion against "cuteness" (eg, Barnett Newman)
and such (Rhienhardt, Flavin, Judd, etc) - thus minimalism was
their answer (as i put it)

"If that's art, then we (the legimate artists of
them time - read as 'avant garde') DESTROY ART.
We make it into nothing."

Thus, it's not enough (even for "The Simpsons") to merely mirror
modern culture (nice alliteration) back to us "nod/nod, wink/wink".
Art (or anthing of value if i may be so arrogant) has to GO FURTHER.

Somehow, you just knew that Papa Hemingway wasn't just going to
end up in an old folk's home talking somewhat in-coherently
about the "good old days". But, of course, that's what TV is
trying to do:

1) Take the good old days that old people talk about,
negate/mock/etc it - in the grand tradition of
kids rebelling against their parents.

2) Carefully get a feel for where pop culture is going
and then package it and sell it - most importantly
guide it. We can get a few pop icons to sell out
and put their name on our cheesy products which
in reality are no different from any other - except
for name/image associations which we build and control.

3) Naturally the older generation(s) - and there will always
be multiple ones of them - will react against this. Some
"almost still young" will try to fit in - we'll make some
products and IMAGES to fit their desires (hair loss, face
wrinkles, etc treatments for them). And, those a bit older
and still trying to figure out things - likewise, new
hyper-fold spandex shoes for them! And the oldsters?
We package and sell products for them. To mention just
one: Does anyone *really* think that Rush Limbaugh
(who makes upward of $12 Million for each of his books)
-- *really* knows what it's like to be middle class NOW?
I'll never forget one of the most viable transorming
moments that "the image has failed!!! ALERT ALERT!!!"
when (then president) George Bush Senior in a "photo-op"
was behind the check-out counter and he (for the life of
him; God Bless you Mr. Chips) didn't have a clue how
THE PRODUCT SCANNER (a laser w/pattern-recognition s/w in
a micro-computer based POS (point of sale) sytem) WORKED.

Now: That's *real* disconnect from "the now"/

4) Did i forget: We always use some "bridging" elemetns to
to connect our selves/roots/ideas to those of the group
that we're selling this particular product/image/life-style
to. And of course, we're just getting started - soon, you'll
not only think that YOU created the image we did, and you'll
even think that you think your own thoughts.

Or, as George Orwell had one of his characters say in "Brave New World"

"Betas are better. I'm glad i'm not an Alpha.
They have too much to think about. Betas are Better, Betas are better, beta......

START AGAIN (but briefly) - coda, finale, etc (pay as you exit)

One of the most paranoic of SF (science fiction, in case you just fell
of the inter-galactic turnip truck) was/is Philip K. Dick.

Anyway in one of his novels, a peson finds out the truth by picking
up a piece of paper with the words "ICE CREAM STAND" written on it.
It turns out to be a code and takes him down a really weird journey.

TV is just ONE part of the "MATRIX" - again a film which like many
others are offered as
"cautionary tales". Other cautionary
tales have been sent out like "ICE CREAM STAND" in many forms:

books (from the classic hippy age)
The Hidden Persuaders
The Ugly American (also as film)
I Think That I am a Verb
TAZ (Temporary Autonomous Zone)
etc (and see, i didn't even have to mention sf!)

films
"Z" (Vasilikros)
Citizen Cane (Orson, natch)
Girl Six (Suzan-Lori Parks)
Being There (Jerzy Kosinski)

tv
Star Trek (Gene Roddenbery)
Dr. Who (Terrance Dicks)
Twilight Zone (Rod Serling)
Outer Limits (Joseph Stefano. Also, refer to ST-TNG "Skin of Evil")

oh, and did i somehow forget poetry???

Whitman/Dickenson/Hughes
Eugenio Montale
and with Jorge Luis Borges (pronunskiated "hore-hay loo-iss bore-haze)
as "the beaver"

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOUR TELEVISON SET

WE CONTROL THE HORIZONTAL, WE CONTROL THE VERTICAL

FOR THE NEXT 60 MINUTES WE WILL
CONTROL ALL THAT YOU SEE AND HEAR

for this is the Outer Limits

INSERT CARTOON HERE

Glorb: What does it mean "outer" it's right here.
And it's so pleasant to watch.....

END CARTOON

Redux: The MUSH that is TV

Historically, one of the most important attacks came from the head of the FCC (U.S. Federeral Communications Commission),
Newton Minnow and his reference to TV as a "vast wasteland" -[His famous speech]-

Oddly enough, this prompted Sherwood Schwartz to name the be-scuttled
ship in his new series "The Minnow" - "Giligan's Island" of Course.
And this brings up part of the problem. The show is arguably the most
famous of all times, probably even on par with the moon landing - (after
all Gilligan is still in syndciation ;)

As many people have stated (mainly parents), "I feel safe having the
kids watch Gilligan", etc. And although many of the plots borrow
heavily on absurdist and traditional theatre (Giligan's evil twin,
the invisible man, it was all a dream, "Tartufe" with a twist, and
of course "it's our fate to suffer"), the micro-cosim still holds
up as the best of Typical Americana - not that i'm sure that that
says much. But, after all if the official Klingo Language Institute
at Star Fleet Academy has taken the time and effort to translate
the theme from Gilligan's Island into Klingon - then who are we
to argue?

TV: Thin Writing

Now, don't get me wrong - i love TV; it's my constant companion and
even tries to help me with my problems (thining hair, eating disorders,
and dating problems)! I'd have to say that other than SF, my fav
shows are "CSI: Miami" (the riddle to solve), "Seinfeld" (we all have
the "current pop that speaks to us"), M.A.SH. (we all have our "the
past which reminds us"), and science/history/biography - but, hey
they're just slickly packaged classroom experiences instead of
slickly packaged semi-factual-world-based entertainments.

The Shootout with the Bad Guys

The bad guys start out being all powerful, totally successful
and of course heartless and ruthless. They leave no clues as
to where their hideout is. Later the good guys track them
down, but along the way we find out that the bad guys aren't
so bad - they are *having* to do this, because their mother
needs an operation or they're planning to give up crime just
after this caper. And of course one of the bad guys is shot,
and his (it's almost always a he) girl friend rushes over
to cry and make us feel sorry for the the mis-understood
bad guys. But, in retaliation, one of the bad guys carefully
(and quite dramatically) takes aim on one of the good guys
(maybe even the main good guy) and shoots - cut to cmcl
(comercial), natch (naturally). Don't worry, even if the
good guy gets stabbed in the eye, it'll be completely ok
by the end of the show. If one of the good guys has a stroke
(or even a heart attack) she/he/ne'll be almost back to normal
by the end of the show, and of course by next week either no
mention or scant will be made of it. In the end, the bad
guys are all killed except for the tragic figure who is at
last repentant and surely goes off to jail.

Also note that key to finding the bad guys is a sort-of bad
guy who hold a key bit of information. And the threat of
"your crime gets 3 to 5, murder is a capital crime" quickly
loosen's their tongue and the key is quickly learned by this
means that otherwise would file the case as un-sovlable
(48 hours or not).

And of course, only famous people are killed and seem to
conern the police to investigate. Famous or important people
who live in nice homes rather then apartments, who often have
high-paying jobs IT/Computers (even in the post fall out of
the IT/TeleComm collapse and out-sourcing of jobs to 3rd
world countries - their jobs were out-souced to 4th world
countries, whose jobs were out-souced to 5th world ... etc.)
If not that then the source of their wealth isn't quite clear,
but they're definitely not dependent on public transportaion.

Often to bring a bit of reality into the program, a bum or
other low-life is the only whitness. Later in the program, the
bad guy(s) -- usually, the main bad guy -- will find this out
and come looking for him - again the "low life" or "bum" is
almost a single man and not a woman with a child, an actually
homeless person having to live in public assisted living.

After all, that might bring up a side issue of how we all know
that they (the poor) could work if they really wanted to or
even worse yet: And yet they pay out all of that money to
the Katrina victims, and they yet people right here in our
own city are homeless. And correctly enough these issues
are raised since the viewer might have to confront their
own hypocracy or the stupidity of the lies that they live
by to explain away all suffering as deserved. If the bum's
suffering is too much, then it's decided that they won't be
killed - even though it might look that way. In the end,
the "bum" will have a sort of bitter sweet happy ending,
when one of the good guys helps him out. He promptly disappears
from existance as his job is done and he can return to
the now happier oblivion from which he was summoned by
the exigiencies of plot.

And of course in the background are "the public" who when-ever
there is an accident or a taped off area, are *always*
required to gather around and gawk - after all, that's
what good citizens do and that's how *normal* people
behave. If the bad guy(s) are in the crowd they of course
are shown secretly gloating. The good guy(s) might even
talk to him or at least look in his direction, but not
know that he's the person responsible.

For the most part children are not visible in these dramas,
and almost never the victims. This is refered to as
"The Dirty Harry" effect and has been explored elsewhere.
In the post-9/11 era such plots just look silly - after all
when a parent holds the hand of their child and they jump
out of burning building - well even reality TV can't compete
with that. Refer to Robert Sheckly's "The Tenth Victim", etc.

The Loan Wolf Bad Guy

This plot works better, but in the end the bad guy (who is
almost *never* put in a good light) is caught or killed.
In this case, totaly innocent people are the victims and
chosen to give a good cross section of society - but, again
not usually featuring a bum since they are provided for
slight social commentary of vital clues only. The lone-wolf
bad guy almost always is killed, because un-like other bad
guys, he's really bad and by "going for it" (and failing) it
gets to show the main good guy standing tall as well as
afterwards regretting even this *necessary* violence.
And of course, the ending is those left to bury their dead.

The twist ending.

The Tines of TV

Earlier, i refered to the book of essays by Todd Gitlin ,"Watching TV".
This is probably pretty typical of the attacks that came on TV beginning
probably at the beginning and continuing to this day.

Such criticism, not withstanding, Minnow's speech (see above link)
is even more critical now and more relavant. And Gitlan's book and
its essays "go on" way too much as to warning us of the evils of
TV - often to the point of draging up "Reaganism" as typifying
the evils of TV commercialism, down-home reality, etc. Let's
face it as Bruno Latour has pointed out in his aptly named book
"We've Never Been Modern". There have always been the conservative
reactionaries that would still have us bleeding people of their
humours and burning people as witches, publically executing people
for crimes against the community, and... Er, well burning books isn't
the same thing, and that woman *was* guilty of adultery which in the
eyes of Allah is a sin, and....

The human race: Advanced. Yeah, right.

Regardless....

The Evening News

Refer to: Daniel Hallin: "The News" - The bluring of reportage
and entertainment - from Todd Gitlin ,"Watching TV".

Soap Operas

Refer to: Ruth Rosen: "The Soaps" - The re-creation of a Reaganesque*
romance of small-town America.

Children's TV

Refer to: Tom Engelhardt: "Children's TV" - The new corporate look. **

The Evening News

Refer to: Pat Aufderheide: "MTV" - The mirroring of shifting identities
in a shopping-mall age. ***

Comercials
(cmcls)

Refer to: Todd Gitlan: "The ADs" - Chilling images of the fast-track manager.

Simulations

Refer to: Michale Sorkin: "Simulations" - The disappearing boundries between
the authentic and the put-on. ****

Prime Time

Refer to: Mark Crispin Miller: "Prime Time" - The blending of shows and ads
into a new strategy for keeping
the TV audience hooked. *****

And the Final Message

Watch TV - but like the old programming adage sez:

GIGO - Garbage in, Garbage out.

What you program in, WILL come back - hopefully *not* to haunt you.

(this has been your friendly control-voice and part time decimal point)

Frank

--42--

Consumerism

{Consumerism}
{Nationalism and War}
{Self, Self Image, and self}

Humanism and Health

In this section: intro
the body
hypdocondria
processed food, organic, etc.
drugs and such
mind body and soul
links to QM, New Age, Philo, Sci, Music, etc, etc, etc...

Intro

Frank's philosophy and creed:

1) Keep surviving,
2) Keep creating,
3) Don't die,
4) Try not to think about option 4 too much - dispair/suricide/etc.

And: Enjoy life, do the least harm.
Try to help, but don't get too
discouraged when it doesn't work out.

And to survive? What ever it takes. Me? I always imagine myself
to be the 900-year old time/space travelor "Dr. Who". And *yes*
there's a female Dr. Who - Romana one of the Doctor's cleverest
protege's who now fights the good fight in a parallel dimension!
-[www.bbc.co.uk]- (official bbc TARDIS landing area)

After all, even the great Norweigen playwright Henrik Ibsen
(best known for "A Doll's House", "The Wild Duck", and
"The Enemy of the People") believed in "life-sustaining illusions.
-- Share and enjoy!

ONWARD - into the past/present/future and the omni-present illusion
of the "now". Just make sure you always have your towel
with you. --42--
-[Moods Musics]-

START AGAIN

A treuly caring person (we take as examples Dr. Albert Schweitzer
and Mother Terresa) is *only* concerned the health of their patient.
People who are hard-liners, only care about their dogmas.

Take for example, the early "scientific" investigations into
the questionable practice of "acupuncture".

More properly, as a humanist, i would say:

"the supposedly open-minded examination of
time-tried Chinese practice of accupuncture
by Western-trained doctors".

As it turns out, it does work. And after setting aside
their skeptical doubts, it turns out that a whold "unknown"
science of "endorphins" (as well as other) chemical messagers
was was discovered.

Thus, we begin,

The way of the "healer" are several, and i wish to examine them
in some depth (even at the expense of covering other topics).
We might list (to start) and i will list them "west, to east,
and then south to north",

Surgeon
General Practice Doctor

The Body
(and this being the self-centred humanist section, we
of course mean "the Body Human")

See also: {} (above, under "concerns: TV")

*** Mainly a "skelleton" to "hang" other discussions below onto and ref's
etc - prob should be peer reviewed! Links???? might need to create
a new folder in the PDE !!! -- Ell.

Being a whirl-wind tour of the body.

We take it as read that the human body starts out as the
union of a sperm and an ova; each carrying 23 chromosomes
(half of the parent's) to re-combine to form a "normal"
46-chromosomed person.

A chromosome is the major genetic group that determines the
way that DNA (dee-oxy-riboh new-clay-ihc acid) is used to
make a living creature. You may think of a human being
(see map) as being composed of a recipe book that has
46 chapters (each chapter being called a "chromosome").
Now it's not so simple as chapter 1 - the brain, cahpter
2 the spleen, etc. There are a LOT of corssing from one
chromosome to the other - and frankly, Frank (i am), i
don't *really understand it at all*.

When the baby is born it is then an independent (organically
speaking) unit, however, it (like all living/non-living) things
is a part of a much vaster environment and community. For example,
a baby born into a vacuum would die (unless it was based either
on neutornium or helium-3; as i understand it). So, as such the
old debate "nature vs nurture" continues; ie, hardware internal
vs software/hardware/environment external.

Until the age of about 21 humans do not have all of their bones
completely intact. At about age 18 or so, there are mainly 206
bones in the human body. And despite certain fanciful tales,
males and females have the same number of ribs. And further,
the so-called "racial" differences are a bunch of bolix! After
all you're mainly talking about the largest organ of the body
(the skin) which has little or no determination as to the nature
of a human's humanity; eg, behaviour, thought, generosity/selfishness,
ingenuity, capacity to love or be loved, etc. Thus, we take it
as read that the supremacists (not to be confused with the
so-called "suprematists" as an art movment; which would of course
be quite opposed to *any* form of racism, predjudice, etc). Anyway
racism is simply some sort of "us/they" or "fight/flight" evolutionary
mechanims gone completely wrong. And finally, we take all evolutionary
thought as either read, or at the very least accepted as non-gospel.

The main systems of the body are:

Digestive
Respireation
Circulatory
Reproduction
Nervous
Structural

The primary function of life (if, we may be so directly
anthropic) is the process of survival. This is accomplished
by two functions: Procreation and Stability. The various
systems (other than reproduction) contribute to the on-going
stability of the system. The reproductive system has been so
over described and glorified that i will give it scance note.
With the introdution of more than one sex (ie, not a-sexual)
reproduction, the rate at which evolution (and hence increasing
the survival possiblities) of life forms at least squared
(doubled) in affect/scope/possiblity; ie, sex made the world explode
- despite the glory afforded to money, power, and unlimited
rice pudding, it literally made our world what it is today.

i have taken to group muscles, skeleton, skin, etc as "structural".

Essentially to house all of the components, most living systems
create a "shell" to contain them in; this being treu of humans
as well.

The outer layer is the skin that covers all areas with a few
appertures (eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth, urethra/anus (excretion).
In addition the so-called "navel" is the connecting link to the
mother's umbilicus and also gives rise to the idea of
"omphamlaocophis" (the worshiping of one's navel; tips towel to
Mrs. Byrnes and her dictionary) ??sp??.

The skin consists of three layers; the outer most being a dead layer
carefully connected to sense organs producing the sense of touch.
Skin, hair, and finger/toe nails are primarily made of a protein
variant called "keretin" ??sp??. On the surface of the skin there
is a continuous battle to protect the body. This mostly goes
un-notices, as bacteria which live on the skin in symbiotic
relation to the rest of the human body, continually fight and
consume foreign particles, bacteria, molds, funguses. Without
the skin (a living system all to itself) and these "friendly"
bacteria, we would die. Thus, people who continually use
bacteriological soaps to clean their skins, are just playing with
dice (see "gambling" in sci-maths-randomnes) as to whether they're
killing the bad (foreign, innimicale) or good (symbiotes that we
carry with us our entire lifetime).

The most dangerous threats (other than over-cleaning) to the skin
are toxins (chemicals, bacteriological, radiative). For the most
part, the skin is a self maintaining system. Unforutnately, in
the modern era (see map), we tend to do things that are unfavourable
to the proper functioning of the skin; eg, sweating with confining
clothes, extreme climate conditions, wear and tear, etc. Of course,
we attach no moral tag to this, only noting that showering/bathing
and the use of mild soaps keep the oil/dryness as well as the
bacteriological content of the skin in balance for the most part.
Unfortunately, since the skin IS such a constant environment, many
life forms find it a suitable place to live; eg, foot fungus,
shingles, scoriasis, etc. The problem in treating these, is that
if you use something strong enough to kill them, you'll probbaly
kill the skin itself (and possibly the host inside it; ie, the
human).

The other major threat to skin health is of course direct sunlight,
particularly UV (Ultra Violet light; mostly invisible, but near the
"blue" end of the visible spectrum; hence "ultra violet" - beyond
the blue). With the increasing degredation of the Earth's protective
ozone layer, more and more of these strong radiations get through
(and don't be such a pug to think that it's just you! When the tree
frogs, honey bees, etc start to go exinct, then you'll know what of!).
Regardless, other than avoiding exposure (staying indoors or using
protective clothing), many sunscreen ointments are available. In
general, less exposure to sun is better; but, as usual moderation.

The next major component is of course the combination of the digestive,
the respiratory, and the circulatory systems. One of the defining
definitions of life is that it eats, moves, and excretes. Actually,
the last of these is NOT a requirement, it simply would mean (as
with the case of some insects) that by not being able to get rid
of various toxins through an exretory system, the creature would
die of poison by the body's own waste products; eg, consider a
person with kidney failure. The kidneys (the nephrons of which,
specifically) extract water soluable toxins (mainly salts) and
with their failure, the fluid balance (elctrolyte balance, etc)
of the body would cause death within a few days.

The respiratory system, mainly the lungs) bring in the earth's
atmosphere and exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen, Actually there
is much more to it than this. In humans (unlike sharks) the
muscle of the diaphram squeezes and releases the lungs, like
the bellows used by an ironsmith to heat a fire. Air that is
brought in has about 75% Nitrogen and 25% Oxygen (it might be 80/20 ???
and when you breathe out there is considerably more carbon
dioxide in the air breath. This is due to the primary
digestive processes of the body, which use oxygen as the
"fuel" to create energy and in the process produce CO2
(carbon dioxide) as one of the waste products.

Mainly note that the respiratory system consists of the
mouth and nose which bring in the air (with quite a bit
more filtering performed by the nose; ideally, one would
breath in through the nose and out through the mouth - this
is the basis for so-called "Yoga Breathing"), as well as
the trachea (Greek: ?????) or air tube that leads from the
back of the mouth, down the neck and to the lungs. There
is a small flap of skin in humans (unlike dolphins) that
opens to allow food to go down the throat into the stomach,
and opens to allow air to go down into the lungs. Of course,
hicoughs (hih cuhPs), choking, gaasping for air, etc are
all brought about when this flap isn't quite working correctly.
(technically hicoughs are related to some sort of nerve
signal being incorrectly sent; again, of which, i only know
little of).

The lungs consist of two large "lobes" on either side of the
trachea when begins a dividing process not unlike that of a
tree's branches, smaller and smaller, more and more divided.
Until the smallest "lobeletts" (if i may coin such a phrase)
are rached; they are usually refered to as the "aveolae"
(uh vee oh lie). It is here that the smallest bloodvessels
(the capilarieis) intimately mingle with the lobeletts and
that the transduction (carrying across) of oxygen and
carbon dioxide occur. The blood is flowing through the
capilaries, and take the oxygen enriched blood away to the
rest of the body.

The main threats to the lungs come from dust and bacteria.
For the most part, we breath continusously from the moment
that we are born until the day we die and mostly this goes
unnoticed. Oddly enough, breathing is the only automatic
system that we have some control over; again with Yoga
breathing. The glands that detect the build up of carbon
dioxide are located under the arms and they send a signal
to the brain forcing us to breath - hence, why you can only
hold your breath for so long. Swimmers have long known of
the idea of "hyper ventilation" which involves, taking
large, deep breaths of air, thus *over charging* the
ssystem; sometimes to the point where you might actually
pass out. In some cases of panic or anxiety, the person may
hyper ventilate; breathing in and out from a paper bag,
allows the build up of carbon dioxide - an old "cure".

Again, the problems of obstruction of the air passage are
the main problems that occur; eg, dust, smoke, chemicals,
etc. The white paper, dust masks do NOT keep out smoke or
chemicals!! Special masks (usually large, rubber masks with
charcoal activated filters) will do this; one should be carefull
around things like lacquers, paint thiners/strip-ers, acids, etc.
The lungs were "made" for air, not anything else; with the
possible exception of a bit of water vapour. Also, extreme
conditions (exceptionally hot or cold air, or very dry or
moist air) can cause problems as well. Is any of this new to you?

The circulatory system consists of a heart with four chambers
(unlike frogs) and a closed set of arteries and veins. The
oxygen enriched vessels are called artieries (???) and the
oygen depleted (and carbon dioxide rich) vessels are called
veins (????); except for the artery from the heart to the
lungs and the vein from the lungs aback to the heart this
is the case.

The heart is the strongest muscel in the body, and by its
construction it "wants" to beat. Oddly enough, during open
heart surgery, etc, the problem is to keep the heart from
beating. A severe electrical current is put into it ??voltage??
to stop/start it - we've all seen those operating room scenes.
In the normal life time, the heart generates enough force to
lift a battle ship some 100 metres (yards) into the air; so,
it *really* wants to beat!

The blood has to a certain extent the same chemical content
as the sea, thus giving rise to the phrase "Once we swam in
the sea, now the sea swims in we". Although, there are
definite differences, the saltiness and "balance" of the
blood is of a particular chemical compostion and nature.
The biological (ie, not just inorganic salts and such)
components of the blood consist of three main things;
red corpuscels (erthyrocyies, Greek ???), white corpusels
etc, as well platlettes responsible for clotting (when
exposed to air, they change their compostion, forming
the common "scab" that we see on a wound". In the
genetic disorder of "hemophelia" (????) the clotting
mechanism doesn't work properly and even a small cut
could lead to a person bleeding to death.

The main problems with the ciruclory system occur when the
blood pressure is to high or low, or when there is a cut
in the body, causing bleeding. Integral to first aid is
knowing where the "pressure" points are in the body. By
placing constant pressure there (eg, a tourniquet), you
can literally keep someone from bleeding to death. Of
course, by restricting the blood flow, there is also a
distinct chance that the limb (leg or arm) may die from
lack of oxygen.

High or low blood pressure problems develop in the course
of a person's aging process or though birth/genetic defects.
Since the ciruclatory system is responsible for keeping
the body alive (you an go about a week without water, or
even 2 or 3 weeks without food - but, after about 3 to 10
minutes without oxygen you die; usually). As i often
put it: Check your blood pressure, stay on your medications,
after all "Mr. Stroke" is NOT our friend.

Due to the way that the blood functions, there are so-called
genetic markers on it (i think) and this gave rise to the
idea of blood types. Saddly enough, the typing of blood was
discovered by a black-skinned chap, and as he was not allowed
to be admited to an all-white hospital; he died. Lanston or
something like that, name escapes me. Prior to his discovery,
blood transfusions would as often as not (makes no odds)
kill the patient rather than save them. I myself carry around
some 6 units of someone else's blood; at the time, it didn't
even occur to me to ask: What colour was their skin? Or more
to the point: Do they prefer green to red, or are they left
handed, or do they snap then zip or zip then snap; but, alas:
i digress. (Now, i already *did* tell you that racists weren't
going to be welcomed here; now, didn't i?)

Since we as humans (i temporarily include myself in that category)
consume quite a varied lot of food, our digestive systems are
at one and the same time very complex and delicate (unlike
a bryophyte). The process of digestion is pretty much as
follows.

The food is smelled by the nose, and if found "wanting" is
often not eaten simply because it doesn't smell right; eg,
rotted food, or extremely odiforous and therfore possibly
poisonous. The food is "masticated" (chewed;) and the
saliva (spit, if you want) has in it chemicals that already
start the digestive process; specifically enzymes (biological
catalysts that make chemical processes go more quickly/easily)
start turning starches into sugars. The food (now technically
refered to as "bolus") is then swallowed. And again, the problem
with choking. The esaphogus (????) is the tube from the mouth
down to the stomache (technically the "fundus" ??sp??).

The stomache is a marvel of engineering. It is coated with
tinly little fingers (really, pretty much micorscopic) which
excrete a mild solution of HydroChloric Acid (HCl) to break
down the chemical bonds in the food into it component parts
(amino acids, sugars, carbohydrates, and in some cases down
to the atomic elements themselves - but, usually these
elements are "bound" (techncially, "chelated" (key lay ted,
Greek: "with jaws") to other atoms; eg, iron as Ferric Oxide
(pretty much common rust).

Additional enzymes and chemicals wash around in the stomach
as it physically massages the food and keeps working for up
to 2 or 3 hours to break things down. Many of the digested
components are absorbed into the stomach lineing and pass into
the blood stream.

After the "wash and spin" cycle, the stomach opens a little
flap (the so-called "pyloric valve" (????) and the un
digested food is pushed down into the upper intestine. Here,
more of the food is digested, and then it continues (over the
course of the next few hours - sometimes as long as 8 or 10)
into the lower intestine. During this process much of the
water is extracted from the food, and of course it ends up
as feces to be excreted when possible. Similarly, the excess
water is held in the bladder (????) until it is urinated
out. As part of a human's maturation (unlike a housefly)
process is the conscious control of the sphincters that
control defication and urination.

Another part of the cirulatory system's function is the
transport of neutrients that have been broken down by
the stomache, as well as being "helped" by processing in
the liver. Bile ????????

At the lowest level, each cell is its own little universe.
It's cell walls form a skin around it allowing neutrients
and oxygen to come in, and waste products and carbon dioxide
to go out. The "brain" of the cell, is of course the
nucelus and it is constantly getting chemical messages from
the cell and sending chemical responses back. These messages
are in the form of chemical chains and the study of this
is "cytology", again something with which i am only partly
familiar with of.

Cells of course divide and this is the way that the body
renews itself. Again, this is all under the genetic control
of the nucleus of each cell. When this process goes wrong,
cancer results: The uncontrolled dividing of cells. Not
only crowding out other cells, but often not even performing
correctly their normal functions.

There are two more major systems: Muscels and Skeleton. These
are pretty straight forward the skeleton is the framework of
the body, the ligaments (eg, cartilidge) and muscels hold
it togeher, and make it move. Of course the energy comes from
the digestive process and the small bits of chemical energy
that each cell creates for use by the body. So-called marrow
cells in the bones create red blood cells, specialised glands
in the body process and create very imporant and complex
chemical messagangers used throughtout the body, and
especially...

The nervous system.

This consists of a number of special organs (eg, eyes, ears, tongue)
as well as the nerves that transmit the messages around, and the
brain - the thing that is the most you in you. Every part of the
body is in some way under the control of the brain, which is built
in several layers. (must i really go through all of this?)

Anyway, the "lowest" layers are the autonomic systems (like
breathing, heart beat, digestion, and signals to and from
the rest of the body). One of the main components is the
so-called brain stem (the medula oblingata ????). Next,
"up the line" is the limbic system which is pretty much
where a lot of our emotional processing takes place - if
you see a snake you don't want to *consciously* think about
all of the various kinds, you need to react as quickly as
possibly - usually retreating!

Above this are the three main parts of the brain in "higher"
order animals: The cerebellum (???), nd the
cerebrum (thinking). As Rita Carter points out in her
excellent book "Mapping the Mind" there are a lot of
up/and down connections between the layers and a lot of
things going on; most of course, i don't really pretend to
understand.

well, that's it for now....

-^_6

Hypocondria
The ability to WILL ourselves sick ma humanist.html#health hypdocondria

Mythology

See also:

Psych - Collective Un-conscious (Calling Dr. Howard,
Calling Dr. Fine,
Calling Dr. Howard,
Calling Karl-urh Jung...
{Karl Jung}

In this section: intro
the giants & meta-giants

Myth: The Giants & Meta-Giants

tell myself: need quotes by "the giants"
In this sub-section: bullfinch
robert graves
edith hamilton
charles lamb

and taking Mythology "to the next level" (meta-mythology?)...

Joseph Campbell
Mircea Eliade
John Bierhorst
Susan K. Langer

======= MEAT & POTATOS SECTION =======

bullfinch

robert graves

edith hamilton

charles lamb

so, am i diderot yet?????
(and they wonder why i drink!!!)

I mean think about it (even though the technology has improved
(ie, the computer, THE NET, and of course html), the VAST has
expanded "a bit" (well, er, ahh), "just a bit"

======================= INSERT PSUEDO-CARTOON HERE ===============

so Diderot (and his lady friend) produced one of the first EN cyclo paedias

and here i am "producing a *sufficient* encyclopedia for the entire
palent Earth (see map) for the 21st century (read that as "the new millineum)
-- i mean, it's as bad as Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead:

It took them 600 theorems (or so), and THEN, they were
able to PROVE (not "prove", but ACTUALLY prove)

1 + 1 = 2

oig! (listening to 4th movement of Shosty's 11th)

i mean the worst thing is that i want to write an article about
volvox (a kind of plant) and then i find that i haven't even
created a SECTION for ANY of the sciences (i mean i have place
holders and such), so off i goes to create that stuff (takes
a "bit longer" to frag it out and then the phone rings (hate
recorded messages - and worst off is that they sya PUSH 8 to
take you off our call list.

BUT THAT's RUBBISTHS!!! it doesn't get you off their call list.
It just removes you from that ITEM list.
They still have your num, and will call you again -- so, then
instead of calling for the "REDUCE YOUR DEBT" list, they "promote"
you to the next entry: "REDUCE YOUR CREDIT CARD DEBT" list.

(wonders/wanders off into mumbling something about "a duck" or
miss sunshine???....

-- peace to all,

Frank.

========================= END PSUEDO-CARTOON =================

Joseph Campbell

Mircea Eliade

John Bierhorst

Bierhorst, John. (). The Mythology of Mexico and Central
America.

---------- (1987). The Naked Bear: Folktales of the
Iroquois. The William Morrow Company. New York.

Susan K. Langer

Philosophy

See also: -{Certainty and the Search for Truth}- (in humanist)
-[Scientific Philsophy]- (algorithms for scientific inquiry)
-[Science's View of Philo]- (in scientist)
-[Spirutalist Philsosophy]- (philosophy with or without man)

See also: [Mind] (as existentialist commodity)
via: HU (mind) x AB -->

In this section: {}
{}
{mind}
{Free Will}
{}
{}
{}
{}

-^_6

Mind

See also: [Mind] (as existentialist commodity)
via: HU (mind) x AB -->
-[mind]- (in FUT; mind + matrix, 1984, etc)...

Free Will

See also: [Mind] (as existentialist commodity)
via: HU (mind) x AB -->

Note the idea of free will in the matrix and such super-structures
is treated in SciFi, via: -[http://the-borges-library/literature/sf/sf-alterity.html]-

The Transcendental
Part of the idea here is that to go beyond the mundane
and ordinary (indeed, possibly the corporial) this
transcendent consciousness would take on one of the
following forms:

1) We might well be subsummed or maybe interworked
with a greater reality/god/etc. (See P.K. Dick's
"Galactic Pot Healer" in SciFi Discussion: -[http://the-borges-library/...]-)

2) Become a greater version of ourselves; ie,
a sort of super-being. (See A.C. Clarkes's
"2001" in SciFi Discussion: -[http://the-borges-library/...]-)

3) Re-connect with the greater part of ourselves
(which devolves to reincarnation) and thus
continuing our (supposed) journey of enlightenment.

Note that one idea of the concept of transendence is that
it might allow us to penetrate the boundaries of knowledge;
ie, to see the matrix -[http://the-borges-library/...]-)
or to at least find one thing outside of ourselves (or even
our selves) as Husserl might say that IS real.

Indeed as Husserl points out in his "Paris Lectures"
...

Refs
(this section only)

Husserl, Edumund. (As quoted in Struh, Pp. 115-118.
from: "Paris Lectures".

Struhl, Paula R. and Karsten J. Struhl (eds) (1975).
Philosophy Now: An introductory Reader.

Psychology

(notice how i keep "pushing down" / "putting off" - the anthropic principle?)

Sigmund Freud
Karl Jung

Sigmund Freud

Karl Jung

The Anthropic Principle

Roughly speaking the anthropic principle revolves around the existence
of man. Man exists, is self-aware, and able to act (change things, etc).

As such, the question arrises as to why there is anything at all. That
is, with the curious balance of what physicist Martin Rees calls
"Just Six Numbers" (see book by the same name) we find ourselves in a
stable universe. That is, the physical factors such as the speed of light,
the graitational constant, Plank's constant, etc are all just perfectly
balanced to create an enivrionment in which we can exist. If of course
some of these values were not as they are, then our universe might well
not be such that life (and intellegent life specifically) could exist.

Thus the strong form of the anthropic prinicple says that the universe
exists SO that we can exist. That is the purpose of the universe is to
allow us to exist, and thence consider not only ourselves, but the
universe in general.

From a materialistic and often religous point of view, this leads us to
say that "man has been given dominion" over the world; qv, "Genesis".
However, there are two possible interpretations of this:

1) Carte Blanche (a blank check) to do what ever we want. Tear down
a rain forest so that we can have fire lighters? No problem. It
is left to future generations to fix the problems brought about from
our party.

2) Stewardship to maintain the world as it was when we entered it. That
is, that when we pass there is NO sign of our ever having existed.
That is, furture generations will have the exact same stage upon which
to danse as we did.

Robots
See also: -[Scientist entry]-

In this section: {Intro}
{Humans AS robots}
{Robots: Is Commander Data a Toaster?}
{Robots: Sex}

This section deals specifically with the idea of buidling robots that
humans can feel comfortable with. We should also consider how animals
will interact with (I/A) with them.

Further: From a humanist POV (point of view), how people sometimes
act like robots and how they can be "programed" as if they
*were* robots.

{Humans AS robots}

In the first place, the idea of the robot monster is of course a
distincet possiblity, but in keeping with the wisdom of the
sf-writer/futurist Isaac Asimov, we *should* try to create well
engineered robots. (See the Scientist link above for that discussion).

*** IN PROGRESS, many revisions, and links to current research coming ***

Most robots today are far from human in eitehr appearance or
mimicry. Glad to say this is quite a good thing. Recent work
with autistic children show that they get along BETTER with
verarious classes of robots than humans (???transcribe that articel??)
As it turns out, while humans are quirky, robots behave in very
predictable ways and are thus seen as more of an enhanced toy
to the auttistic child -- that they can manipulate and thus
relate to more than a person. On existant theory of autism
is tha they have a different time sense than do "normals"
(this was exploited as the excellent basis for a story by the
late, great author/futurist Philip K. Dick in his story
"Martian Time Slip" -- Dick wrote extesnively about robots
and his work is reflected by the "PKD-A (Philip K. Dick Android)
project under the guidence of David Hansen of Hansen Robotics. ** LINKS ??? ***

Regardless, the problems of human-robot (or more generally,
human-AI (Artifical Intellegence) are the sujbect of this essay
and of course of much debate. One of the earliest attempt to
"humanise" robots was in the sf film "Forbidden Planet". There-in
"Robby the Robot" was incapable of harming a human possibly
indicating the writers/producers awareness of Asimov's Three
"Laws" of robotics. In the sf film "2001: A Space Odyssey"
director/writer Stanley Kubrick and writer/futurist Arthur
C. Clarke collaborated in the creation of "HAL" a robot so
human that it can play chess (something thought to be
impossible by most computer scientists of the time), and
has a near nervous breakdown when confronted with problems
aboard the space ship with a crew which it programmed to
protect but finds that it can full-fill its programming.

A major consideration in robots that "appear human" is that
they will not necessarily mimic human gestures, facial
expressions, etc. Anyone who has spent more than just a
casual amount of time around animals (even domesticated
ones like cats and dogs) can not help but be struck by
their occasional "alienness". However, humorous it might
strike us the character "Wilson" that ??character?? (played
by Tom Hanks) creates in the film "CastAway" is more telling
and bears investigation.

Inherent in our interaction with the world is our ability to
"anthropormorphise" even inanimate objects; eg, refering to
a ship or a plane as a "her", large animals are often refered
to as males regardless of their actual gender (eg, a fish is
refered to as "he's a big one isn't he?"), etc. When an
inanimate object or machine doesn't "behave properly" we give
it "warnings" (or cajole it to co-opperate), etc.

This almost innate tendance (possibly brought about by our
experience as children with a favorite toy or pet) will be a
useful paradigm to remember as robots become more prevalent
and intimate. Naturally the extent to which we *should* create
human emotions, responses, vocabularies is open to much debate
as well. We already know from pet studies (as well as studies
of co-dependency problems), that humans can "bond" to almost
anything in times of stress or loneliness. This is not necessarily
a good thing since in many cases it may mask a more serious
underlaying problem that should be addressed more directly.
Asimov in one of the stories from volume one of hsi short
stories "I, Robot" addressed this when a woman falls in love
with an early robot prototype. This is not as far fetched as
it seems, since disfunctional (and fairly functional) people
may deeply bond with the "oddest" (if we may use a value
judgement) of fetishes, objects, or as mentioned previously
via ineffective co-dependent relationships with other people.

Many sf writers (includng myself) have addressed these problems,
as well as the inverse problem; ie, where a robot begins to take
on more and more human characteristics. In another of Dick's
stories, a robot actually thinks that it IS human. This is
as well a moral and ethical problem that MUST be considered,
lest we fall prey to Dr. Frankenstein's problems. Note that
u have YET to see a film or play that comes even close to
the philsoophical problems of AI/Aritifical Lifeforms
explored so brillianly by Mary Shelly in the original story.
READ IT!!! The "moster" goes thru the most agonising of
self-realisations that mimics that of a human becoming
alienated. Her work stands with the best in this regard
and although so casually dismissed, i would place it up
there with the existential works of Franz Kafka, Albert
Camus, Henrik Ibsen, August Wilson, etc.

An important aspect of the social/humanistic engineering of
the robot is to make it able to explain that it does not
understand something. The more human a robot becomes (either
in interacting or "mere" appearance) the more likely that
humans will tend to think of the robot as "human". THis
can only lead to at the very least humourous mis-understandings,
or at worst tragic problems. These possiblitites continue to
examined by modern sf writers (eg, Japanese ??authro??, etc).
I would say that the potential for danger would be on the
order of people accidentally (or not) taking overdoses of
medications -- including the often perceived as "harmless"
OTC meds (over the counter).

Severl key areas of consideration present themselves:

1. Inter-dependency. This is most common in friendships,
parentlng, or other close/personal
relationships. One person depends upon aother to perform
an action; eg, picking up a child after school, etc. IN
the modern/hectic world it is often the case that somehow
these actually quite important things "slip through the
cracks". I am continually amazed at people who time such
critical acts so that thre is almost no leeway for error.
Common among them is the parent leaving their child in
the car "for just a sec", while they run into the store.
Imagine now, that we depend upon a robot to do something
like that (watch over, pick up, remind a person to take
their medication, or perform some other critical function).
We can see the potential for suffering and in the worst
case, loss of life.

2. Like reasoning. Closely related is the problem of thinking
that a robot thinks like us. This is a
problem with human vis-a-vis interactions already. One person
"assumes" that another will act in the same or at least in a
similar/acceptable/equivalent manner. In the case of a robot,
we may run into (as with HAL) a condition which causes a
total disconnect from our relatiy by the robot. Regardless,
so complex a system that is to intimately interact with humans
(in and of themselves not the most rational/predictable creatures)
can not be foolproof. Thus, a robot may react in a perfectly
"correct" way from its programming and the available input
but its actions may be totally inappropriate way.

3. The falacy of dependability. One area of application is the
robot as "care giver". Since they
are unable to get tired (alghough this might be a bogus assumption
presuming that they might break down or malfunction which would
be operationally equivalent) -- they can be "replied upon". Again,
the analogy is the way that people come to depend uopon technology
in general. Most recently this was pointed out by the so-called
"Y2K criss" when in 1999, the clocks might not have rolled over
properly to "2000" -- many clocks used only two digits for the
year, so suddenly, instead of the year "99" becoming "00", it
would become "100" and possibly causing major compputer malfunctions.
Regardless, people depend on antilock braking systems, cel phones,
oven timers, and a whole host of things that surround us. That these
things are potentially in many cases prone to failure or even lethal,
we tend to (through familiarity and dependency) come to ingore them
and take thir flawless operation for granted. We need only look at
the number of electrocutions from hair dryers, accidents involving
icy sidewalks/roads to see how common this blind sightedness is.
When we introduce a robot into the equation -- a machine that seems
to think and even be aware of when it has a problem, then we begin
to see the magnitude of this falacy.

4. Conflict resolution. Key in the film "2001" is the idea of how
to resolve a problem of contradictory
input. A key communications component goes out, and yet there
doesn't seem to be any problem with it. This occurs all the
time with technology from the simplest case of not having the
corrct "interface cable" for a cammera, lap top computer, or
tv set, to the wrong blood type being delivered to a patient.
Fortunately there are many "dummy proof" checks and balances
that a good engineer will put into the stream. But, in many
cases these can and will break down. In the case, where there
are more than one option and the wrong opption is indicated,
the only "hope" is that by following the rules the checklist
will detect the problem before it becomes serious. And in the
case of complicated decisions, the possibility that the checking
and feedback tests themselves may have a fatal flaw or an
unknown oversite looms ever present. In the case of a robot,
it may be that the problem as perceived by the robot and
those around it (humans and/or other robots or systems) may
not be taking into consideration ALL or even the SAME factors.
And who is to say who is right. If a robot is insisting that
a patient has already taken their medication and the person
is suffering from early signs (but undetected) of Alzheimer's
disease...

5. Mis-read queues. Again returning to "human like" behaviour.
A major concern must be how a person (both
initially and over time), will "read" the robot's behaviour,
facial signals, and actual speech, mannerisms, and gestures.
Much of our interaction with the world is through both reasoning
through a situation (using past experience, analogical/metaphorical
models, guessing, etc) as well as by "touch and feel". A common
example, are couples who seem either in-sympatico or not with
each other. The wife who knows that she must remind her husband
to not forget his keys three times -- even though he says "yes"
each time is a common example. Thus, the signal "yes, i know"
actually has no meaning except for the final time when she
hears him pick his keys up and put them into his pocket. If
we imagine the problems arrising with human-robot systems we
begin to see this idea. A robot will probably NOT be programmed
to forget, give false or misleading queues/responses, or to
lie, etc. However, humans often do these things without even
thinking. Also, when one adds the complexity of language queues,
we open a whole 'nother can of worms. Some of this concern can
be worked around by the "learning methods" and pattern recognition
algorithems and heuristics that the robot employs to "tune in"
to the human's behaviour patterns, speech, actions, etc.

six. Deliberate mis-representation. Humans are nortorious for
rebelling, and it may often
times only be a temporary reaction based on some frustrating
event that just happened. It may be due to a long forgotten
memory that suddenly manifests itself, etc. Thus, there is bound
to be a "lag" between the time that the aberant behaviour by
the humans is first put forth and then detected and properly
be handled and/or compensated for. In just the same way, that
people will often try to circumvent protective safeguards of
machines, they may try to "get around" a robot's seeming
interference by deliberately mis-representing their motives, etc.

7. Call for help. Ultimately, one of the primary safeguards
is the robot deciding that it needs help
to figure out or properly handle the situation. The sf author/
futurist Robert Sheckly has investigated this at some depth in
various of his stories. In one story, a person picks up a robot
that is supposed to help cure him of his paranoia (wich is
the state of the art of robtics in the future that they are
just another form of OTC medicine). By accident he picks up
a model programmed for Martian Problems. Rather than return
the unit, he continues being treated. In the end, of course
disaster occurs when instead of curing him, the machine
substitutes an euqivalent form of "Martian Paranoia". The
lesson here is clear: THe robot must have a back up system
in place of trained technicians that can recognise and deal
with problems. In some of Asimov's stories the robots them
selves thought themselves to be handling the "situation"
properly and humans had to call in a special team of diagnostic
trouble shooters. It is important to note that while Sheckly
and Asimov's approaches are different and meant as "intertainment",
we should be mindful of Arthur C. Clareke's admonition: "The
only people who should be allowed to talk about the future
are sf writers." I would also point out that Clarke (like
most futurists) has spent most of his life "living" in the
future. Asside from a small handfull of technical writings
(collected in the book "Ascent to Orbit", all but ONE of his
fiction works (the story "Glide Path") has been in the sf
genre and of course we must all remember not to trust him
too much since any man who (in 1945) can invent the synchronous
orbit (often refered to as "Clarke Orbits") satellite and NOT
take out a pattent on what is potentially the single most
lucrative intellectual property since the invention of
sliced bread -- is certainly to looked at with skepticism
and ascances; if not deep admiration and respect -- his
groundbreaking work on the understanding of the biology of
coral reefs (notably the "Great Coral Reef of Australlia)
not-with-standing.

But, alas; i, digress.

Thus, the key points are: As robots "appear" to become more human,
humans are more likely to carry the extent of that humanity to a
further than warranted/recogmended extent. As well, as the fact
that the old human factors engineering ideas, erognomic design
principles, and the chimera of "User Friendliness" will have to
be re-thought. One communications engineer (Jack Reed at Nortel)
assessed "user friendly design" (which often ISN'T) as really
"Fredly G. Moore" -- a sort "grimlin in the machine" responsible
for making things that are supposedly "user friendly", most
assuredly NOT. And of course, always be mindful of "Murphy's
Laws".

An interesting site: -[Cartoons about the Touring Test, The Chinese room, etc]-

Humans AS robots

In this section

The True Believer

turning off one's humanity

this and the next section are hopelessly (no! there is always
(i hope) hope!) muddled and need sortingout.

Humans: CONSUME!

I take it as read the following:

1) The world is for the most part based on the
competitive, capitalistic, materialistic model.

Robots: Is Commander Data a Toaster?

I now wish to explore the idea of robots as approaching human
capabilities and intellegence; and esp: emotions.

In an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (??episode??)
a Star Fleet Admiral (or some such) shows up and wants
to take Commander Data (an android/robot) apart to see
what makes him tick. As it turns out, he has "no rights"
since he's not human. Picard is chosen to defend him
in a court -- Data as decided to resign rather than be
taken appart and thus "die" -- in about the only wayt
that one might say that he could die. The classic line
comes when Captain Picard (portrayed by Patrick Stuart) sez:

It all comes down to this. Is Data a human being or is
he a toaster? Part of our mission is to find new life
forms. Well THERE HE SITS.

This is of course a re-occuring theme in all literature (in fact
a recent book addresses this: Is Data Human?: Or, the Metaphysics
of Star Trek Richard Hanley ). In essencce the idea of "human rights"
is the argument of the abolutionists and humanists that "slaves
have rights", etc. -[Excerpt here]-

Other recent vid work includes:

"AI" - based not too badly on Brian Aldis' work of the same
name (film by Steven Spielberg)

"Glitch" -- from the new edition of Joseph de Stephano's
"The Outer Limits"

"Author, Author" - Star Trek the next generation, exploring
whether a hologram has rights.

The idea that i have come to is this (and again "nothing new under the sun")
is from the existentialist POV:

"Even if we do not have free will, as long as we are able
to act as if we do - ie, we are *free* to act in any manner
that can not be shown to be different from free will -- then
we DO have free will.

This goes back to a Philip K. Dick story where a person turns out
to be a robot but has been programmed so that "he" doens't know
it. His reality is on a punched tape. He finds out (by accident)
that he is a robot and beings covering up holes in his tape,
and punching new holes ??title??

And suddently a flock of ducks flew through the room
(not an exact quote)

And of course this goes back to V/R (virtual reality) as well.

So, as {B.F. Skinner} might well have put it (one of the first
behavioural psychologists - carrying it to the extent to
create a "bionic" bed for his own daughter) -

"the difference between us and rats is very little.
but the main difference is that we (like they) are
programmed -- but we can change our programming."
-- def NOT an exact quote.

He wrote (at the age of 90 or so) that he used reward/punishment
even on himself. If he would review a paper that he didn't really
want to, then he would allow himself to watch TV that night
(as i recall "Archie Bunker" (All in the Family).

And we recall Albert Camus' "The Stranger" -- so is Merseme ??sp??
a robot? He kills the Arab for no reason (or because "the sun
got in his eyes"). And of course the work is "just" an allegory
for World War II (why did the Nazi's kill - and recall that
they even killed/imprisioned Fritz Haber (a Jew) without whom
the first world war would have been over for Germany much sooner
as their sources of nitrates (needed for explosives) was cut off
with the loss of shipping to Chile.

And so, where are WE?

There is an sf story ("The Ethical Equations" ??author??) which
describes the classica Socratic/Platonic idea of being invisible
and doing what we please. When we look at the "Terminator" series
of vids (which i still maintain are horror not sf; but, then what
are we to do with "RoboCop?), we see that the terminator is
completely programmable (as with any weapon/tool) and recall that
he doesn't understand why people weep - as such he IS a toaster
not a robot/human/etc.

SImilarly, in the Star Trek film "Generations", Commander Data
finds his lost cat (an entirely white cat, appropriately named
"Spot) and finds that he is happy but weeping. Councelor Troi
re-assures him that his emotion chip is working "just fine".

If a machine weeps - it is human. But, what if it is programmed
to weep like ??name?? mailto:cynthia@ai.mit.edu ??

-[kismet site]-

This goes back to Shakespear/Bacon's "Hamlet" where the actor who
can portray ancient Greek tragedy with real teers (but Hamlet
can not act or perhaps even weep). So, are the teers real? And
then we go back to the film "Love Story" with Ali McGraw weeping
and then telling Robert Evans (her husband) that the teers were
for him. Are those teers real?

Does John Donne's "involved man" who is a crag, a part of the main
and rings the bell for thee? is the poet real? Does it weep?\

Dr. Schwietzer cared for "those africans" because he (a humanist)
-- like Mother Terressa (a christinan) were "involved in mankind"
and could not turn away. And yet, we know that people can turn
off their humanity -- see previous section. So, the borderland
becmes:

Can robots "turn on" their humanity?

What if it (he/she/neh?) is only programmed to simulate emotions
or thinking or action. One only has to view "Ballet Robotique"
by ??name?? to see robots dancing and evoking as much emotion
as Stravinski's "Rite of Spring" -- probably not quite that
much, but certainly more than rote dancing by humans; but, then
the robots (industrial robots) ARE doing *everything* by rote
-- ie, programming.

And then Asimov gives us (in "I, Robot", volume 1) a religious
robot with attendant followers -- followers dedicated NOT to
humans, but whose actions become vitally protecctive of humans.
So, just as the surgeon must become "an inhuman engineer" (Johnathon
Miller - The Body in Question) and *distance* themself from
the whatness of what they are doing when restoring proper
heart action to an old woman.

notice the dichotomy here:

the poet must pick up their scalple and be well aware
of their incisions - the novelist even more so, and
of course the scholar at the ultimate height of "now"
awareness.

"the poet and the soldier/thinker - no allowance for the other"
sez Jethro Tull in "Thick as a Brick" - by no means an exact
quote

and then the surgeon -- suspending emotion

and the painter/sculptor/etc pure emotion but silently guided
by the music of some formless entiry called "creativity"

And even Star Trek has Commander data playing the violin (but,
alas "without soul"), but then his painting (apparently) does
have soul (or the start of something approaching). And Lloyd
Biggle, Jr. in his sf novel "The Light that never was" has
aliens learning to paint (more than that: Pure theoretical
mathematicians), and even a slug-like creature as well. Larry
Niven explores "taste sculptures" in his "Known Universe" series.

And so: The beat goes on.

I think it goes back to: It is the search for meaning that
gives life it's value. And if any
"life" gets *some* value, then
it's existence was not in "vain".

Whatever the phot, THAT means.

Or as Joeseph Stefano and company put it in the original
"The Outer Limits" put it:

We now return control to you.

INSERT CARTOON HERE

Meepo: Well, now THAT is a relief. All of that philosoophical
mumbo jumbo was beginning to get a bit disturbing.

Gleeba: Why do you say that?

Meepo: It's a relief. Because now we have control again.

Gleeba (mumbles) - but we never had it to begin with.

Meepo: What's that? Speak up!

Gleeba: May the truth set you free and not destroy you.

Meepo: Balderdash! There you go again.

Gleeba: Do i? Oh, i forgot; sorry. (exits, humming Liz Story's
version of "Mac the Knife")

(meanwhile a toaster ejects two slices of a bit dark toast and
and old poet listens to Bartok; and suddenly it was Wednesday
which was rather nice, since up until that point it had been
Tuesday for the 14th time that day)

erk, sorry that's Barber, not Bartok (vocal; "scenes and pictures")

END CARTOON

Robots: Sex
See also:

Fundamentalists vs Humanists

-- the fact that "they" (fundamentalists) view "us" (humanists) etc.
What they are opposed to science/scientism, spirutality/free-thought,
humanism/man|earth-centred, etc..