2008.09.30 01:00 - Detox

That night, at 1 am, I, Pema, spent some time by myself in the pavilion, until Quel appeared.

Quel Karillion: Hello Pema.
Pema Pera: Hi Quel, how are you?
Quel Karillion: I'm good, you?
Pema Pera: I'm fine!
Pema Pera: I'm still in Japan for a few days, so it is 5 pm here, locally
Pema Pera: I've seen that you've come to our Play as Being group a few times, from the chat logs, but haven't met you before, I believe
Pema Pera: nice to meet in person, or at least "in avatar: :-)
Quel Karillion: nope, first meeting with this avatar :)
Pema Pera: AH!
Pema Pera pins are dropping
Pema Pera: metta!
Pema Pera: as your friend would say
Quel Karillion: Yes :)
Pema Pera: :-)

It all fell into place . . . .

Quel Karillion: it'll be a long flight :)
Pema Pera: back to the US you mean?
Quel Karillion: To US anyhow ;)
Pema Pera: yes, from any direction :-)
Pema Pera: So, given that you're still relatively new to PaB :-), what are your impressions so far? =^+^=
Quel Karillion: It's an interesting group :)
Pema Pera: perhaps you read on the wiki, three sessions earlier, how I was playing the devil's advocate with respect to PaB
Quel Karillion: Yes, I just read that posting before logging in.
Pema Pera: what do you think about all that?
Quel Karillion comes up blank somehow.
Quel Karillion: It's an interesting approach to ponder but ... somehow can't say much about it.

At this point in the conversation, after a brief silence, a piece of AI took up the slack.

PaB Listener Master: I've been touched by someone I don't recognize.
Pema Pera: :-)
Quel Karillion: perhaps try touching the recorder?
Quel Karillion: that red cone
Pema Pera: words are tricky . . . .
Pema Pera: I see a black cone . . .
Pema Pera: in the middle of the table?
Quel Karillion: small red cone with 10896 above it
Pema Pera: or the small red one?
Pema Pera: aha
PaB Listener Master: I've been touched by a PaB guardian.
Pema Pera: Ah, it asks me what it should do
Pema Pera: start/cancel/ignore
Pema Pera: Wol's Listener Master
Pema Pera: great!
Pema Pera: Reminds me of "His Master's Voice"
Quel Karillion grins.
Pema Pera: (old record company with picture of dog recognizing voice of master on record player)
Quel Karillion: Ah, fun idea :)
Quel Karillion: (you could try choosing the start, perhaps, even though it's late)
PaB Listener Master: I've been touched by a PaB guardian.
PaB Listener Master: Recording has started!
Pema Pera: okay, I started it.
Pema Pera: Should it have recognized me as a guardian?
Quel Karillion: I can give you the URL
Quel Karillion: yes
Pema Pera: I wear the tag "cultivator" rather than Pab guardian
Pema Pera: is that the problem?
Quel Karillion: it's the same group
Pema Pera: I created that since I like the word "cultivator" -- that was before there were "guardians" -- we had the group for the PaB land management, and "cultivator" had a nice double meaning, cultivating the land and PaB
Pema Pera: so that's okay to wear -- but why did it then not recognize me, you think?

More tech talk.

Quel Karillion: but it did?
Quel Karillion: it didn't rez the listeners though ... oh well, Wol's got more work to do :)
Pema Pera: I am glad that he and you are putting so much time in it, thank you very much!
Pema Pera: I saw the chat of last week with Adelene -- is she working with you and Wol too?
Quel Karillion: Yes, I'm not sure exactly how Wol and Adelene are dividing the work but they're both working on the LSL part
Pema Pera: great! So is it the three of you then, or are others involved?
Quel Karillion: which seems to be the more complex part of the system... at least as far as recording is concerned
Pema Pera: so the three of you are currently the whole task force?
Quel Karillion: Yes, looks like no-one else is doing things.
Quel Karillion: at least I haven't heard of anyone else :)
Pema Pera: For joint code writing, three may be almost the maximum to work well . . .
Quel Karillion: perhaps, yes
Pema Pera: unless you are skilled in breaking up things into modular parts
Pema Pera: but hard to do that in an exploration phase
Quel Karillion: although, it's one codebase for me and Wol and Adelene are working on another
Quel Karillion: modularized by force :)
Pema Pera: :-)
Quel Karillion: my part is PHP ... although that is not my first pick if I could choose freely.
Pema Pera: ah!
Pema Pera: you just happen to know more about it that the others?
Quel Karillion: Wol doesn't know it she says and I haven't asked Adelene.
Pema Pera: When it's working, I hope that Wol will get a kind of lecture or presentation about it
Pema Pera: the Kira Cafe would be a perfect place to do so
Pema Pera: I for one would love to learn about the logic
Quel Karillion: Hi Umbriel :)
Pema Pera: Hi Umbriel!
Quel Karillion: not much logic in my part so far :)
Umbriel Levenque: Peace and Love
Pema Pera: metta.
Umbriel Levenque: :-)
Pema Pera: :)

Umbriel joined us, which reminded me of our earlier session, almost a day ago.

Pema Pera: Ah, I just got another idea, related to the session at 7 am yesterday, 3 sessions ago
Pema Pera: where you were present too, Umbriel
Pema Pera: and me playing the devils advocate
Faenik is a hairy black ball with eyes and ears.
Umbriel Levenque: yes I was. continuing I suppose?
Pema Pera: (I just put it up on the wiki, under http://playasbeing.wik.is/Chat_Logs/2008/09/2008.09.29_07%3a00_-_What_is_this_Being%3f
Umbriel Levenque: reading
Pema Pera: not yet, but we could now
Pema Pera: or we could talk about it, many options!
Umbriel Levenque: :-) yes many options
Umbriel Levenque: please continue what you two were discussing before I joined in (reading the log atm)
Pema Pera: I just got this idea that perhaps the most important question would not be "what have you learned about Being" or even "about yourself" as such but rather something like - how has your belief in normal reality changed?
Pema Pera: (we were doing tech talk)
Pema Pera: So instead of taking "Being" or whatever type of practice as a "belief" take the way we ordinarily look at the world as a "belief"
Umbriel Levenque: yes it's a good question Pema
Pema Pera: and ask whether our "belief" in that strange sect called "ordinary reality believers" has changed
Pema Pera: Perhaps PaB is a kind of detox operation
Faenik is a hairy black ball with eyes and ears.
Quel Karillion: detox :)
Umbriel Levenque: yes...
Pema Pera: you know, there are groups dedicated to get people OUT of sects
Umbriel Levenque: an emergency by-pass, a friend called it also
Pema Pera: rescuing them from the tentacles of greedy sect members
Pema Pera: ah, yes nice
Pema Pera: so if we start from what IS, then the ordinary mind set is a rather dangerous, pernicious kind of sect attitude
Pema Pera: so can PaB help us to escape?
Quel Karillion: well, you could kind of think the ordinary mind as a sect that encompasses almost all humans.
Pema Pera: sure, but quantity does not guarantee anything about quality
Pema Pera: they can all be equally mistaken . . . .
Quel Karillion: oh, that's not what I'm pointing at :)
Umbriel Levenque: wonder 'escape' is quite a thing I'm looking for...
Pema Pera: you mean it's contagious :-)
Pema Pera: <= Fael
Quel Karillion: well, that too but ...
Pema Pera: not escape from where we are, but from where we are asked to think we are, if you see what I mean, Umbriel
Quel Karillion: I was mostly trying to point out that it's a sect but so widespread it's not recognised as one.
Pema Pera: escape from ordinary ideas
Pema Pera: ah, yes, sure, Quel, certainly!
Quel Karillion: too big :)
Quel Karillion: even incohesive :)
Pema Pera: So we can play Being's advocate, as Devil's advocate against almost anyone's "sane" mindset
Quel Karillion: kind of an antisect in some ways

Interesting, PaB as an antisect . . .

Umbriel Levenque wants to be aware of 'all' ideas, including ordinary ones
Pema Pera: oh sure, aware of ideas is important, being carried away by them as having the only truth is what makes a sect so dangerous
Umbriel Levenque: yes
Quel Karillion: but that only truth part is quite common, yes.
Umbriel Levenque: only truth but many paths
Pema Pera associating . . . antisect . . . insect . . insecticides . . . antisecticide . . . PaB?

I later realized that I should have written "secticide", not antisecticide, oh well.

Quel Karillion: now that I think of it, that's still what tends to put me off from christianity as an organisation.
Umbriel Levenque: :D
Pema Pera: yes, a sect can be characterized as claiming that they have the only path to the truth
Pema Pera: instead of a path to the only truth -- which would be much healthier and realistic
Faenik: なるほど^^
Umbriel Levenque: yes
Quel Karillion: Yes... Buddhism is quite nice in that respect :)
Pema Pera: so in that sense, the way many scientists look at science is making science into a sect!
Pema Pera: scientism
Quel Karillion: yes...
Quel Karillion has seen people saying science as a whole is a religion.
Umbriel Levenque: perhaps years and years later, science as now could be looked at as a religion... who can tell
Pema Pera: you know, it would be really interesting, as a little PaB project, to look up on the internet a few good examples of antisecticides, detox operations, and see whether their approach mirrors that of PaB to some extent . . . .
Quel Karillion: perhaps :)
Umbriel Levenque: :-)
Pema Pera: btw, I should go over to the Kira campus. Would you be interested to have a look?
Pema Pera: I have to check something there.
Umbriel Levenque: sure
Quel Karillion will have to go in about 15 minutes but until then...
Pema Pera: let me go over and tp you both
Umbriel Levenque: (need to go out in 10 but will come)

I teleported over to the Kira Cafe.

Pema Pera: Here is the bar area, for the language evenings . . . .
Pema Pera: in one corner, but you see the whole place is BIG
Pema Pera: we can have meetings with 100 avatars, if the sim allows
Umbriel Levenque: nice interior
Pema Pera: all Storm's work
Quel Karillion: Yes, looks nice :)
Faenik: why not?
Pema Pera: so you see the bar is quite far from the center, so the people speaking Dutch, Finnish, whatever, would bother or be bother by the Anglofiles :-)
Umbriel Levenque: clearly european :-)
Umbriel Levenque: fountain... possibly not so

I went up the stairs to the second floor, a kind of open gallery, and Umbriel and Quel followed me.

Pema Pera: so if someone gives a lecture, in front of the fire place,
Quel Karillion: looks a bit unfinished here still :)
Pema Pera: avatars can stay within 20 meters on both floors to listen
Pema Pera: hehe, sure
Pema Pera: work in progress
Umbriel Levenque: good idea that
Quel Karillion: Yes, the idea could perhaps use even more floor. 100 people might get crowded on just 2 ;)
Pema Pera: well, 70 is probably a limit for a sim to carry comfortable . . . .
Quel Karillion: Yes, likely
Quel Karillion: until the performance gets better.
Quel Karillion: hopefully Mono will help with that
Pema Pera: we'll see. We do intend for the Kira Cafe to become a kind of Science Hub for Second Life
Pema Pera: yes
Quel Karillion: it's already in the server
Pema Pera: with talks about what happens science-wise in SL
Pema Pera: so much broader than PaB
Pema Pera: but open to "other ways of knowing" as we call it
Pema Pera: PaB is like wodka, this more like beer
Quel Karillion grins.
Umbriel Levenque: :-)
Pema Pera: both respectful to the openness of science and the human context thereof
Pema Pera: PaB starting from the Being end
Pema Pera: Kira Cafe starting from the science end
Umbriel Levenque: nice
Quel Karillion: :)

The conversation turned back to the Kira Language Bar.

Quel Karillion wonders if that native language conversation takes off much.
Pema Pera: we'll have to see
Pema Pera: I at least would be happy to speak my own language occasionally, for a change
Umbriel Levenque: :-)
Pema Pera: and doing so with just one other person present could be at least as interesting as with ten or twenty
Quel Karillion: yes, depends on the person really :)
Pema Pera: so no program, no recording, no plans or goals
Umbriel Levenque: would be interesting to listen in for me
Pema Pera: like a Cafe really!
Pema Pera: sure, anyone is welcome
Umbriel Levenque: yes
Pema Pera: could act as language lessons
Quel Karillion: sort of, yes :)
Pema Pera: like, tomorrow I'm going to give a talk about Kira in a Tokyo Bar, in Japanese
Umbriel Levenque: nice
Pema Pera: ah, Quel, something tells me you might be able to read the announcement, hehehe
Pema Pera: just a sec
Quel Karillion smiles.
Pema Pera: http://snbar.ameblo.jp
Pema Pera: Kira 研究所について
Pema Pera: halfway down the page
Umbriel Levenque: gotta run. thanks for bringing me over Pema
Quel Karillion: See you later Umbriel :)
Umbriel Levenque: good night
Pema Pera: c u Umbriel!
Umbriel Levenque: see you later Quel

Umbriel departed, and we turned from languages to time zones.

Pema Pera: so I am the ゲスト tomorrow :)
Pema Pera: so I expect that we get a well populated Japanese evening in the Kira Cafe, starting next week!
Pema Pera: if I'm doing an even half-way decent job advertising
Quel Karillion: sounds likely, yes :)
Pema Pera: let's check the times. I am shooting for 8 pm local time
Pema Pera: so that is 7 am EDT
Pema Pera: must be 3 pm for you, right?
Pema Pera: or 2 pm?
Pema Pera: 1 pm in Amsterdam and Paris, say
Quel Karillion: 3pm sounds good
Pema Pera: 4 am SLT
Quel Karillion: yep.
Pema Pera: you are on Moscow time?
Quel Karillion: oh, about Saturday log, I'll put something on the wiki but ... can't really put any log about it. Mostly voice between me and Gaya at first and then something we were asked to leave out.
Quel Karillion: not sure about moscow time :)
Pema Pera: Moscow is two hours away from Paris, so must be the same as you, right?
Quel Karillion: but at the moment 8pm in japan is 3pm in Finland ...
Pema Pera: As for Saturday, well you can just make a short story about it, whatever could fit
Quel Karillion: not sure if DST makes a difference
Quel Karillion: I'll also be putting up Sunday 1AM
Quel Karillion: well, a lot of that log is available from the autologging system too :)
Quel Karillion: although, better leave the url out
Quel Karillion: those are unedited

Back to tech talk.

Pema Pera: ah!
Pema Pera: okay, I'll edit it out
Pema Pera: but it is dangerous to have it there if search engines find it
Pema Pera: then effectively it will be published . . . .
Quel Karillion: they should only find it if it's linked from other pages.
Pema Pera: but how do you make sure that nobody links to that page?
Pema Pera: It takes only one person somewhere . . . who then forgets . . . but search robots won't forget
Quel Karillion: difficult, yes.
Quel Karillion: lets see, I could setup robots.txt
Pema Pera: not a viable long-term solution perhaps? Hard to say what is best
Quel Karillion: necessary for testing.
Pema Pera: hey, here is an idea!!!
Quel Karillion: for the moment, this thing is running from a server that my work is paying for though.
Pema Pera: How about have the autologging system replacing each avatar name by a number and keeping a data base with the keys, like a kind of hash table
Pema Pera: then publishing the raw stuff would be okay, right?
Pema Pera: as long as you don't publish the hash table
Quel Karillion: it already keeps the keys and uses them to identify people
Pema Pera: which will be used for getting it on the wiki
Quel Karillion: doesn't look at the name for that
Pema Pera: Ah, I see.
Quel Karillion: but does save the name
Quel Karillion: at the moment uses that for the view.php
Quel Karillion: and also has database integer ID column for eah
Quel Karillion: each
Quel Karillion: so completely unrelated number for each person is available as well
Pema Pera: great!
Quel Karillion: ok, try looking at it again now
Quel Karillion: of course, when people talk about others, that's visible
Pema Pera: yes, but that is almost always a first name, not the whole name, which doesn't really identify the person generally
Pema Pera: well, unless you have a first name like Corvuscorva
Pema Pera: but even that becomes Corvi :)
Pema Pera: so okay :-)
Quel Karillion: ok, I also added robots.txt that disallows spidering at all.
Quel Karillion: so at least major search engines won't index it now even if people link to it
Pema Pera: great!
Pema Pera: well, I should get going here, checking something out
Pema Pera: good seeing you (sort-of again :-)
Quel Karillion: ah, yes, I'm a bit later from my plan too :P
Quel Karillion: See you later :)
Pema Pera: :)