‘The doer’ is merely a fiction added to the deed—the deed is everything.
Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, III: 13, Basic Writings of Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Modern Library, 1992), p. 481.

fuckyeahexistentialism

An Ode to Alan Turing:  Great minds are impossible to qualify.  Specifically, a genius’ commitment to his or her own individual approach to life often iconifies them as much as it vilifies them.  In the case of Alan Turing, the foremost pioneer of artificial intelligence as we know it today, he lived an openly gay lifestyle in mid 20th-century Britain when it was literally criminal to do so.   A person’s sexuality is usually an uninteresting footnote to me.  It may have shaped them in a way that I like, but these sorts of inferences are often too dangerous to draw.  However, Turing’s leap of imagination that demonstrated how machines could possibly embody intelligence was so radical, it’s difficult to imagine any other source.  He was genuinely afraid of a future where intelligent machines were considered sub-human, not through their own shortcomings but just by virtue of how they were created, much like homosexuals are 2nd-class citizens today.  Alan Turing suffered a tragic fate similar to many prophets.  The man who cracked the German war machine’s indecipherable code produce by the Enigma computer, an undisputed hero that saved thousands of Allied lives, was arrested by the British government and chemically castrated in an effort to “cure” his homosexuality.  In the deepest days of his resulting depression, he showed an inordinate amount of concern for how his work would be perceived.  He did not want it tainted by those in power who hated his way of life.   This once happy man killed himself on June 7, 1954 by ingesting a lethal dose of cyanide.  Very few individual stories of the 20th century strike me as tragic as this one.  I’ve not only admired his work for years, I admire the timeless innocence that his approach to life, intellectual curiosity and beautiful portrait embodies. ~ü [Image: Alan Turing]

An Ode to Alan Turing: 

Great minds are impossible to qualify.  Specifically, a genius’ commitment to his or her own individual approach to life often iconifies them as much as it vilifies them.  In the case of Alan Turing, the foremost pioneer of artificial intelligence as we know it today, he lived an openly gay lifestyle in mid 20th-century Britain when it was literally criminal to do so.  

A person’s sexuality is usually an uninteresting footnote to me.  It may have shaped them in a way that I like, but these sorts of inferences are often too dangerous to draw.  However, Turing’s leap of imagination that demonstrated how machines could possibly embody intelligence was so radical, it’s difficult to imagine any other source.  He was genuinely afraid of a future where intelligent machines were considered sub-human, not through their own shortcomings but just by virtue of how they were created, much like homosexuals are 2nd-class citizens today. 

Alan Turing suffered a tragic fate similar to many prophets.  The man who cracked the German war machine’s indecipherable code produce by the Enigma computer, an undisputed hero that saved thousands of Allied lives, was arrested by the British government and chemically castrated in an effort to “cure” his homosexuality.  In the deepest days of his resulting depression, he showed an inordinate amount of concern for how his work would be perceived.  He did not want it tainted by those in power who hated his way of life.  

This once happy man killed himself on June 7, 1954 by ingesting a lethal dose of cyanide.  Very few individual stories of the 20th century strike me as tragic as this one.  I’ve not only admired his work for years, I admire the timeless innocence that his approach to life, intellectual curiosity and beautiful portrait embodies.

~ü

[Image: Alan Turing]

… Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you your humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system to the attainment of human purposes? How do you relate to the system so that you are not compulsively serving it? It doesn’t help to try to change it to accord with your system of thought. The momentum of history behind it is too great for anything really significant to evolve from that kind of action. The thing to do is learn to live in your period of history as a human being. That’s something else, and it can be done by holding to your own ideals for yourself and rejecting the system’s impersonal claims upon you… .
Joseph Campbell. The Power of Myth. 

seeyoulateraggregator

Unintended Byproducts

Captain Leone Sextus Denys Oswolf Fraudatifilius Tollemache-Tollemache de Orellana Plantagenet Tollemache-Tollemache died in 1917 from influence while fighting in France for the British Army.  

His tombstone must have been impressive.

~ü

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Last night we went go see a performance of Gerard Grisey’s Le Noir de l’Etoile by Chicago’s Third Coast Percussion.  The 6 percussionists surrounded the audience under the dome of a planetarium to perform music that was inspired by pulsars.

One listen to a recording of a pulsar demonstrates the obvious parallel between man-made percussion and the rhythms of the universe.  The recording above is the Vela pulsar.  The pulsar itself is comprised of the debris from a star that exploded about 10,000 years ago.  The star completes a rotation every 89 milliseconds.  This creates the pulsing effect.  Here’s an image:

These pulsars are like incredibly accurate clocks.  But they are also organic and not machine-like in nature.  I am reminded of how important it is to value the artisan, the hand made, and the natural.  The predictability of modern design is both an asset and a shortcoming.  Manufacturing created an economy of scale but the truly accurate and efficient is still the natural byproduct of an evolving universe.

~ü

[Sources: Audio, Image]

Many people claim they don’t care what other people think.  Then, 30 minutes later, we’ll be deep in conversation and some difference of opinion will occur.  They’ll argue the validity of their feelings, acting antithetically to their purported indifference.  A person who truly doesn’t care what others think of them simply asks questions.  Questions are creative.  Questions are elusive and beautiful.   Statements never lead directly to any form of truth.  They are made in search of acceptance from others.  I’m always trying to get better at asking questions.   ~ü [Image: Source Unknown]

Many people claim they don’t care what other people think.  Then, 30 minutes later, we’ll be deep in conversation and some difference of opinion will occur.  They’ll argue the validity of their feelings, acting antithetically to their purported indifference.  A person who truly doesn’t care what others think of them simply asks questions.  Questions are creative.  Questions are elusive and beautiful.  

Statements never lead directly to any form of truth.  They are made in search of acceptance from others.  I’m always trying to get better at asking questions.  

~ü

[Image: Source Unknown]

artchipel

Information is like a bank. Our job is to rob that bank.

~ Genesis P-Orridge in Klaus Maeck’s Decoder (1983)

The installation artist Tatiana Blass addresses the myth of Homer’s Odyssey. Penelope was the wife of Odysseus and waited twenty years at the beach on her husband while he enjoyed his adventures. In order not to be distracted by annoying admirers of waiting, she looked for meaningful work. She wove a shroud for three years for her stepfather. Penelope promised to select a candidate when she had done, because no one believed in the return of her husband. But secretly she bound parts of the shirt on again at night choose to have no other and to remain faithful to their adventurers.

The installation is located in the chapel of São Paulo Morumbin. Blass lives and works in Brazil. The loom is located where the altar was supposed to be. On one side is a long red carpet spread out throughout the threads that lead into the loom are completely confused on the back. The red yarn is fed through holes in the wall outside, where it covers the whole garden. One wonders, similar to Penelope’s story, whether the piece is being woven or untied.

~ wrinkledorgan

ignant.de

The Myth of Money and Power:

I was raised to know the value of a dollar.  My parents scrimped and saved.  My mother made my clothes.  She cooked all of our meals.  Most family vacations took place in tents.  I follow those patterns.  I cook at home.  I don’t spend a lot on clothing.  I don’t own a television or a car and any vacation is usually spent sleeping on the ground outdoors.

Some of this is due to sacrifice.  I’m taking the same risk many of my generation are: long, lean hours with little financial gain.  Self-investment is a risk in our culture.  Debt from education.  Debt from starting a business.  But it even extends to the massive debt of young businesses like Facebook and Tumblr - it’s all essentially spending money to make money down the road.  This is different than how the previous generation lived.  Financial outlays had tangible value - cars, homes and big back yards.  The two approaches are in contradistinction.  

At times I worry about my path.  I fear not having enough money.  But I know that that worry doesn’t go away when you have money.  When people have money, they fear losing money.  It looms and ends up controlling you if you really, deeply care about money.

Ultimately, decisions made in of a state of fear never provide satisfying results.  The only real guide that we have is our own feeling of happiness.  If saving money makes you feel secure, then that is what you have to do.  If risking money is what makes you feel alive, then that is what you have to do.  Unless you are born into money, only time and diligence will ever make you stable.  Happiness is the feeling that fuels that drive.

~ü

Adinkras and the Power of Symmetry:  To understand what adinkras are, we must first examine the physical theory to which they relate: supersymmetry, commonly abbreviated as SUSY. The concept of symmetry is ubiquitous in nature, but on a more technical level it has been a powerful mathematical tool for the development of equations. Einstein recognized that there was a symmetry between the effects observed by someone in an accelerating spacecraft far away from all planets and those observed by someone standing on the planet’s surface. He called this recognition the “happiest thought” of his life, and he used it to determine the form of his equations of general relativity, which describe how matter warps space and time to create gravity. […] There is no limit to the number of colours that may be used to construct an adinkra. As a result, higher-dimensional adinkras have a certain aesthetic appeal (pictured above). As Einstein once said, “After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to coalesce in aesthetics, plasticity and form.” Perhaps the “artistic” depictions shown here are an example of this. ~ S. James Gates Symbols of Power: Adinkras and the Nature of Reality

Adinkras and the Power of Symmetry: 

To understand what adinkras are, we must first examine the physical theory to which they relate: supersymmetry, commonly abbreviated as SUSY. The concept of symmetry is ubiquitous in nature, but on a more technical level it has been a powerful mathematical tool for the development of equations. Einstein recognized that there was a symmetry between the effects observed by someone in an accelerating spacecraft far away from all planets and those observed by someone standing on the planet’s surface. He called this recognition the “happiest thought” of his life, and he used it to determine the form of his equations of general relativity, which describe how matter warps space and time to create gravity.

[…]

There is no limit to the number of colours that may be used to construct an adinkra. As a result, higher-dimensional adinkras have a certain aesthetic appeal (pictured above). As Einstein once said, “After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to coalesce in aesthetics, plasticity and form.” Perhaps the “artistic” depictions shown here are an example of this.

~ S. James Gates Symbols of Power: Adinkras and the Nature of Reality