[MD] Intellectual and Social

[MarshaV]

Greetings,

I am going to suggest that Krimel and his facts are avatar and analogues.  Follow the avatar and analogues all the way down they become empty, useful sometimes, but empty of essence.   


Marsha







On Jan 9, 2010, at 11:17 PM, Krimel wrote:

> [Mary]
> Before the written word, when knowledge was handed down through stories told
> from memory, people really exercised their brains.  Once writing was
> invented, I am sure there was a contingent of old-timers who felt that
> humanity was going to hell in a handbasket because we would no longer have
> to remember long passages.
> 
> [Krimel]
> There you go! Socrates was such a one. 
> 
> [Mary]
> Google has taken this to a new level.  It is now our memory bank.  Why
> should I remember arcane computer command lines, recipes, addresses, or
> anything else when I can look it up in an instant?  
> 
> [Krimel]
> Exactly, we are outsourcing memory functions. We are creating intellectual
> patterns that can persist indefinitely, infecting minds that once could
> never have thought them. We use towers and satellites to beam them into
> infinity.
> 
> [Mary]
> Does this make me dumber or smarter?  
> 
> [Krimel]
> It depends on how you use your new powers. As Peter Parker's Uncle Ben used
> to say, "With great power comes great responsibility."
> 
> [Mary]
> Smarter, perhaps because I now have more mental cycles to
> devote to things like the MoQ.  Memory supplements intelligence, but is not
> intelligence.  
> 
> [Krimel]
> Some have suggested that intelligence is actually the speed with which we
> can access memory.
> 
> [Mary]
> Einstein did not develop his theories by collating a bunch of
> known facts.  He was instead able to tap into amorphous Quality to capture
> new ideas - seemingly from nowhere.  A Quality event.
> 
> [Krimel]
> Einstein like Newton saw patterns no one else had ever seen and lived to
> tell about. What makes this special is that when they said, what they'd
> seen, everyone else wanted to look.
> 
> The Quality event occurs when someone infects you with an intellectual
> pattern you wish you already had and can't wait to infect someone else with.
> 
> [Mary]
> Computers have prodigious memories, but very little judgment about how to
> use all the knowledge they have stored.  They don't even know how valuable
> it is considering how often they lose it.
> 
> [Krimel]
> Computers are digital which gives them the power of storage and speed.
> Humans are analog. We have neural networks with the power to make
> connections and perceive patterns and relationships. Together we make a
> powerful if unpredictable duo. 
> 
> [Mary]  
> What is going to happen when someone creates the first self-aware computer
> program?  They already control our entire financial system, load balance
> electrical output, run trains, assist doctor's with operations, control
> nuclear power plants.  Most ordinary businesses could not survive one day
> without their computer systems.
> 
> [Krimel]
> Right, now they are tools we use to control things. It make take awhile
> before we see HAL or Knight Rider or Commander Data or those hot frickin'
> Cylon babes, Damnit! (Sorry, I got carried away for a second.) 
> 
> But RoboCop? 
> Or Claude Van Damme's Cyborg?
> Or Gerard Butler's Gamer?
> Or Bruce Willis's Surrogate? 
> Or James Cameron's Avatar? 
> 
> I mean, the one who speaks here, I, myself, am an Avatar.
> 
> [Mary]
> What if they decide they don't agree with us?
> 
> [Krimel]
> Oh, like War Games or Caprica or Skynet or Agent Smith or the Replicants of
> Blade Runner or, God Forbid! Terminators; I hate Terminators... except for
> T3, the one with the adjustable bustline and Summer Glau whose Cameron was
> smokin'
> 
> In the end, though, I prefer Sarah Connor in either incarnation.
> 
> 
> 
> Moq_Discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/

  
_______________________________________________________________________
   
Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars...