2010.09.09 13:00 - Play as Being thru Software

The Guardian for this meeting was Lia Rikugun. The comments are by Lia Rikugun.

greetings

Lia Rikugun: hello bruce
Bruce Mowbray: Hi, Lia and Eos.
Lia Rikugun: hello eos
Eos Amaterasu: Hi Bruce and Lia
--BELL--
Lia Rikugun: hello pema
Eos Amaterasu: Hi Pema
Pema Pera: hi Eos, Bruce, Lia!
Bruce Mowbray: Hello, Pema.
Pema Pera: hi Sharon!
SophiaSharon Larnia: hi Lia, Eos, Bruce and Pema :))
Eos Amaterasu: HI SophiaSharon :-)
Bruce Mowbray: Hi, Sharon.
Eos Amaterasu: HI QT
SophiaSharon Larnia: hi Qt
Pema Pera: and hi Qt!
Lia Rikugun: hello sophiasharon
Qt Core: hi all
Bruce Mowbray: Hello, Qt.
Lia Rikugun: hi qt

SL viewers.

Pema Pera: As for the recent discussion of viewers, I presume that we can still use the original SL viewer indefinitely?
SophiaSharon Larnia: yes Pema
Pema Pera: indefinitely, as in "for the time being"?
Pema Pera: (as I'm doing right now)
SophiaSharon Larnia: well, v2, I'm not sure about viewer1
Eos Amaterasu: I'm on v2; I don't think v1 works anymore
Pema Pera: how do I check what I am on?
SophiaSharon Larnia: I think you may be on the first one
Pema Pera: I tried the new one for ten minutes, several months ago, couldn't find anythng I was used to, and just continued with the old one . . .
Qt Core: i wrongly clicked the v1 icon some weeks ago and it worked
Eos Amaterasu: Oh!
Qt Core: do you see me as a cloud ?
Eos Amaterasu: I see you as a human mammal
Pema Pera: I guess I'm on v1 then -- there must be a way to find out the version number ?!?
SophiaSharon Larnia: I'm sure there is, but I'm so unfamiliar with both now, I can't say
Qt Core: the icon of v2 has a 2 in its name if you let the installer create it
Bruce Mowbray: I was required to download the latest version V2.1-1-1 in order to run the program -- on both of my computers.
Eos Amaterasu: 2.1.1.208043
Eos Amaterasu: is what I'm running
Bruce Mowbray: so, I don't think you can even use V1 anymore.
Eos Amaterasu: (from the info in the finder onthe app icon)
Bruce Mowbray: Same here, Eos.
Pema Pera: I have "Mar 30 23:32 Second Life Viewer 2.app/" which I don't use
Pema Pera: and " Oct 15 2009 Second Life.app/" which I'm using
SophiaSharon Larnia: Hi Bleu
Bleu Oleander: hi everyone :)
Pema Pera: (looking in my Applications folder on my Mac)
Pema Pera: so I guess I really am running v1 then still
SophiaSharon Larnia: sounds like V1 to me :)
Eos Amaterasu: Hi Bleu
Pema Pera: and I can't remember having updated in a year or so
Pema Pera: hi Bleu!
Bruce Mowbray: Hello, Bleu.
Eos Amaterasu: I have a v1 1.23.5.136262 in my Applications folder
Lia Rikugun: hi bleu
Pema Pera: Hi Calvino!
Calvino Rabeni: Hello!
SophiaSharon Larnia: hi Calvino
Lia Rikugun: hello calvino
Eos Amaterasu: Hi Cal
Bruce Mowbray: Hi, Calvino
Qt Core: hi Cal
Calvino Rabeni: :) Hi everyone
Pema Pera: shall we start, Eos?
Eos Amaterasu: OK

Eos starts this Theme session "Play as Being thru software"

Eos Amaterasu: Software is helping us run our world
Eos Amaterasu: and is an expression of how we think about the world
Eos Amaterasu: and also affects how we think about and perceive the world
Eos Amaterasu: So it's a rich source of investigating and metaphor
Eos Amaterasu: Eliza used the term "closure" in a session recently
Eos Amaterasu: and both Pema and I noted that that term has a use in some computer languages
Eos Amaterasu: wheich actually resonates with how Eliza was using that term
Eos Amaterasu: That's a kind of general intro.
Eos Amaterasu: Do you want to say anything, Pema?
Pema Pera: another aspect of the importance of software, these days
Pema Pera: is the fact that in the last 35 years or so
Pema Pera: the way the world looks like, in developed countries at least, has hardly changed
--BELL--
Pema Pera: if you would take a snapshot of what life looks like, whether on the street, showing cars, or trains or jet planes -- it all pretty much looks the same now as it did in 1975, whereas if you go back more steps of 35 years, to 1940, or 1915, or 1880, each time everything looked quite different -- perhaps most dramatically on the level of airplanes, but also on the level of cars, motorcycles, you name it
Pema Pera: so the change has turned inward, you could say
Pema Pera: the main diffierence is that people now talk in small hand-held gadgets on the street :-)
Pema Pera: and spend time actively interacting with screens at home, rather than watching tv
Pema Pera: so the forefront of technology has move to information rather than speed and power
Pema Pera: and the complexity of information mostly resides in software
Pema Pera: even designing hardware is 99% a software job
Pema Pera: I'll stop here
Pema Pera: shall we just open the floor?
Eos Amaterasu: Okay...

"closure"

Bleu Oleander: elaborate on "closure" if you would
Eos Amaterasu: The idea of a "closure" has been part of some computer languages for quite a while
Qt Core: ;-)
Eos Amaterasu: Idea is that you have a block of code, which can execute
Pema Pera: (oops, I should have said "1975, 1940, 1905, 1970 :-)
Mickorod Renard: hi
SophiaSharon Larnia: hi Mickorod
Pema Pera: (1870)
SophiaSharon Larnia: hi Yakuzza
Eos Amaterasu: and that when you define that piece of code, if it has references to any parts or values in the current environement
Pema Pera: hi Mick and Yaku!
Lia Rikugun: hi mick and yaku
Eos Amaterasu: it keeps those within its membrane, so to speak
Mickorod Renard: :)
Yakuzza Lethecus: hey everyone
Eos Amaterasu: so that when it actually executes those are the values it uses
Qt Core: closures may be compared with body reflexes, a schere of an action stored away for later use
Eos Amaterasu: Which means it 's somewhat operating in it s own version of the world
Eos Amaterasu: that started at a certain time
Pema Pera: Hi Aurora!
Eos Amaterasu: it's similar to a "lifetime"
SophiaSharon Larnia: hi Aurora
Yakuzza Lethecus: hi aurora :)
Lia Rikugun: hi aurora
Qt Core: Hi Aurora
Aurora Kitaj: hello everyone, it's so nice to be here after such a long time
Calvino Rabeni: Long time no see, Aurora
Eos Amaterasu: Where you have certain values you start with, which then at least internally to you may start evolving, but those values are not necessarily what they are in the current environment
Mickorod Renard: very nice to see you too Aurora
Eos Amaterasu: So that's a little similar to how we approach being :-)
Eos Amaterasu: That's one take.
Eos Amaterasu: Hi Mick, Aurora
Pema Pera: btw, here is one of many possible references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closure_%28computer_science%29
Eos Amaterasu: Yak
Mickorod Renard: Hi os
Mickorod Renard: Eos*
Eos Amaterasu: os is fine :-)
Eos Amaterasu: Eos Operating System
Yakuzza Lethecus: eOS
SophiaSharon Larnia: :))
Aurora Kitaj: Hello Eos, Mic, Pema, Calvina, Lia, Bleu and not forgetting Qt
Pema Pera: :-)
Bleu Oleander: hi Aurora :)
Pema Pera: Eos is Operating System -- a nice definition of EOS :-)
Pema Pera: recursively so
Aurora Kitaj: :)
Pema Pera: (like GNU which stands for "GNU is Not Unix)
Bleu Oleander: :)
Pema Pera: one thing we talked about, a while ago, was the concept of "metaprogramming" -- the notion of writing a program that can change its own code while running
Bruce Mowbray: I am thinking of how one program multi-tasks. . . (as SL can view, IM, look up inventories, etc. simultaneously.) Each "level" or "task" needs to "remember" the parameters of itself - within its own "membrane" - and at the same time stay connected to the whole.

how is software influencing the way we think?

Bleu Oleander: to what extent does software influence how we think and then in turn how we design software?
SophiaSharon Larnia: hi Eliza
Calvino Rabeni: Technology becomes the metaphor for what the world seems to be ... more than a century ago during the industrial age "we" were living in the Clockwork Universe... Now it seems to be becoming the Information Universe, under the infuence of computer tech .. what will it be in the future when biology is the dominant technology?
Pema Pera: hi Eliza!
Aurora Kitaj: Hi Sophie and Bruce and Eliza
Eliza Madrigal tiptoes in... apologies for being late
Calvino Rabeni: Ilving in the Live Universe, the conscious universe perhaps?
Calvino Rabeni: At home everywhere again?
Lia Rikugun: hi eliza
Eos Amaterasu: In way software iHI Eliza
Bleu Oleander: hi Eliza :)
Pema Pera: (Bleu, concerning your question: Jaron Lanier just came out with an interesting book "You are not a Gadget": http://www.amazon.co.jp/You-Are-Not-Gadget-Manifesto/dp/0307269647)
--BELL--
Eos Amaterasu: http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Not-Gadget-Manifesto/dp/0307269647
Pema Pera: (yes, a fascinating question, Calvino: biology as having evolved, rather than being designed: being far more robust and also for more messy, on several levels . . . )
Calvino Rabeni: Jaron lives from an aesthetic sense - seems to try to bring things back to dynamic balance if they've gone too far in his view
Bleu Oleander: sounds interesting, ty Pema
Eos Amaterasu: "artificial intelligence" is an occupation hazard for programmers
Eos Amaterasu: but also for the rest of us
Pema Pera: (ah, sorry, hehehe, I had the Japanese URL :-)
Eos Amaterasu: who model ourselves on software artifacts
Bleu Oleander: np found the english

"abstract virtual realities"

Calvino Rabeni: I used to work with Jaron in the 80's, when virtual reality was getting started
Calvino Rabeni: the interesting thing to me was the applications of computing to create what I called Abstract Virtual Realities
Calvino Rabeni: But the work in the field went in the direction of concrete
Lia Rikugun: what is abstract virtual reality?
Calvino Rabeni: so after a while I lost interest
Aurora Kitaj: Good question Lia :)
Calvino Rabeni: We live in a world of many levels of organization
Mickorod Renard: yes, i am interested to know too
Calvino Rabeni: not all of which are visible as physical objects
Calvino Rabeni: for example, the seasons
Calvino Rabeni: No one can see them
Calvino Rabeni: you can't make a picture of them directly
Eos Amaterasu thinks of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons
Calvino Rabeni: maybe by symbolizing them by objects such as a frozen lake, for winter
Aurora Kitaj: a friend of mine describes such phenomena as mulit-coherence, I think
Calvino Rabeni: Yet the structures exist and our lives are all about such structures
Calvino Rabeni: we live inside them
Pema Pera: thinks of Quatre Stagioni pizza . . .
Calvino Rabeni: Maybe another word than abstract, would be process
Pema Pera: *quattro
Bleu Oleander: what is an example of a level of org. that is visible as physical object?
Calvino Rabeni: I was always interested in the software concept of the protocol stack
Lia Rikugun: how do you put this together with virtual realities? sorry i still didnt understand :)

invisible layers in software

Calvino Rabeni: Software has many levels of operation, all working together to create the surface appearances of the SL screen and avatars we are looking at
Calvino Rabeni: All those levels invisible
Calvino Rabeni: And in that way, not "material"
Calvino Rabeni: Our brains likely have a similar layered structure
Lia Rikugun: ok
Calvino Rabeni: modular and layerd
Calvino Rabeni: who knows what "microcodes" or other events are contributing to the experienced phenomena like "thoughts" and "feelings"
Qt Core: like a big server running several virtual machines with different goals
Calvino Rabeni: Those phenomena are no more solid than the user interface on the computer screen
Eos Amaterasu: appetites are like that
Calvino Rabeni: No more uniified and independent
Calvino Rabeni: The pixels you are looking at are linked with the sun, via complex energy cycles
Calvino Rabeni: What is the carbon footprint of one pixel, or an entire avatar
Calvino Rabeni: Information isn't a metaphysical thing or a conceptual thing
Calvino Rabeni: each google search impacts the environment
Aurora Kitaj: would this way of viewing processes include growth, developement and ageing?
Eos Amaterasu: That's a good way to look at software processes
Calvino Rabeni: just as the physical products we buy are the result of a complex cycle of events reaching back in time as far as you care to consider
Eos Amaterasu: in fact the first time I read about "futures" was in an article on "The incremental garbage collection of processes"
Eos Amaterasu: Even software needs to recycle
Calvino Rabeni: one of the dangers of the software age is to consider the world immaterial. Luckily software is becoming available to show the opposite
Pema Pera: if I may echo Lia's question, what part of what you explained corresponds to what you defined when you said "[13:32] Calvino Rabeni: the interesting thing to me was the applications of computing to create what I called Abstract Virtual Realities", Calvino? -- where/when was the switch to "virtual" in software (or RL)?

Calvino Rabeni: The Internet has gradually grown, layer by layer
Calvino Rabeni: at any one of those levels, there are constructs at work
Calvino Rabeni: the end result is the impression we get of what's happening
Eos Amaterasu: "friend network": an AVR?
SophiaSharon Larnia: from the use of chat room, axpansion from that?
Calvino Rabeni: design decisions were either made consciously, or evolved through force of necessity
Eos Amaterasu: software developed by us humans has a bit of a "sorcerer's apprentice" quality
Calvino Rabeni: In that sense, there are built in "assumptions" about how things are able to work - how they are supposed to work
Calvino Rabeni: those are analogous to all the assumptions people make while "being a human", having or being a self, interacting with each other and with the world around
Mickorod Renard: man creates avatar in his own image?
Bleu Oleander: design decisions ... interesting to think about how it's impacted the flow of ideas
Eos Amaterasu: man creates avatar in his/her own projected image
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, and the avatar strikes back too, remaking Man in its image
--BELL--
Eos Amaterasu: exactly
Bleu Oleander: :)
Calvino Rabeni: Just as the automobile remade "man" in its image
Bleu Oleander: (appreciates 90 sec to contemplate some of these thoughts )

everything as a process

Calvino Rabeni: Software undermines the notion of objects and makes it clear that everyhting is in dynamic flux as a process
Calvino Rabeni: Code becomes data - yang and yin are interchangeable
Lia Rikugun: i write programs which dont do what i want them to do :) until i find the bugs
Pema Pera: :-)
Calvino Rabeni: Data = things, code = process, but in software they work together and it's seen they aren't separate
Calvino Rabeni: Who knows where the bugs came from?
Lia Rikugun: they were in my head i guess
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Calvino Rabeni: Trying to "analyze" bugs is interesting ... the have many different sources
Mickorod Renard: they have a history perhaps?
Calvino Rabeni: Not so much in the head, but an emergent and unexpected property of the process called "your head" and the affordances provided by the structures in the software design
Calvino Rabeni: The Bug is a paradigm example for an "emergent property" :)
Bruce Mowbray: ... leakage between/among "closed" membranes?
Calvino Rabeni: Albeit perhaps an undesired one :)
Calvino Rabeni: Software provides a tempting "holy grail" of a metaphysical type - the idea that everything can be modeled

Pema Pera: it is interesting to look at the history of software . . . at which point our tools took on not only a hardware quality, but also a software quality -- perhaps the invention of language was the first example?
Calvino Rabeni: it changes the meaning of Korzybskis (I think) maxim that "The Map is Not The Territory"
Pema Pera: and yes, language is modeling everything
Eos Amaterasu: and storytelling was the first programming?
Calvino Rabeni: Because with software, the Map IS the territory
Calvino Rabeni: That's a nice notion, Eos
Calvino Rabeni: The first social web sites were campfire circles :)
Pema Pera: also mythologies: by speaking, Gods create worlds
Bleu Oleander: DNA the first code?
Mickorod Renard: presumably then, the more story telling(communicating) the greater the programming and so on?
Pema Pera: may well be, Bleu!
Calvino Rabeni: Language goes "meta" and represents itself at least in a few layers deep. But it's tempting to think it could be Meta "all the way down"
Mickorod Renard: no one can convince me its not turtles
Eliza Madrigal: hahah
Eos Amaterasu: Happy Jack
Pema Pera: but that invites the kind of big mistake of thinking you can be uploaded into a computer . . . (re: meta all the way down)
Calvino Rabeni: Storytelling is the Killer App of information tecnology, that didn't emerge at first - at the beginning it was called Data Processing because the Stories had not been internalized
Calvino Rabeni: Over time more and more of the stories were operationalized within the technology
Calvino Rabeni: Right Pema
SophiaSharon Larnia: hi Alfred
Calvino Rabeni: I don't agree with Kurtzweil
Eos Amaterasu: Problem with software is that it tends to not have biological style feedback, limiting, and intentional aspects
Mickorod Renard: sounds similar to a Neal Stephenson book idea
Alfred Kelberry: *little boxy sneaks in*
Qt Core: Hi Alfred
Aurora Kitaj: heard of him!
Alfred Kelberry: qt :)
Eos Amaterasu: Hi Al
Bruce Mowbray: Snowcrash...
Pema Pera: hi Alfred!
Alfred Kelberry: oi :)
Lia Rikugun: hi alfred
Aurora Kitaj: hi Alfred
Calvino Rabeni: LIke in the movie Inception, there are a couple of dream layers, in which things go faster and faster - but there was also the presumption that there could be possibly an arbitrary stack of those layers
Eliza Madrigal: :) Alfred
Mickorod Renard: and the reference to the tower of babel
Pema Pera: good point, Mick!
Pema Pera: also language centered
Alfred Kelberry: qt, found your spicies? :)
Calvino Rabeni: Babel is the accumulation of Bugs or unintended side effects at each level of an imperfect hierarchy
Qt Core: yes yum :-)
Alfred Kelberry: good :)
Calvino Rabeni: Babel reminds us maybe it can't go "all the way down"
Pema Pera: but if we go back to the origins of software -- isn't the use of fire a form of software -- more abstract in some sense than, say, the invention of a stone axe?
Pema Pera: (but in some way, any form of tool use has a software side)
Alfred Kelberry: cal, or just "all the way" :)
Calvino Rabeni: Even if with computers we can make more layers - which we have - doesn't mean it can layer to an unlimited degree
Pema Pera: (as in "the missing manual" :-)
Calvino Rabeni: :)
Qt Core: even before fire, just group hunting, software AND communication
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, every layer creates more unrepresentable side effects
Alfred Kelberry: pema, use of fire is a hack :)
Eos Amaterasu: there's stone axe, and then there's "how to make a stone axe, and how to use a stone axe"
--BELL--
Calvino Rabeni: A stone ax, and a tool for making the stone ax, and a tool for making that tool, and ... the technology infrasstructure for making the computer in front of you is by now immense and not at all understood
Bleu Oleander: interesting ideas ... thank you Pema, Eos and all .... bfn :)
SophiaSharon Larnia: bye Bleu :)
Lia Rikugun: i somehow had a different idea of what software is
Mickorod Renard: bye bleu
Qt Core: bye Bleu
Lia Rikugun: this somehow falls more under automata
Pema Pera: bye Bleu!
Eliza Madrigal: Bye everyone, thank you :)
Qt Core: and bye Eliza
SophiaSharon Larnia: I must go as well, nice to see you
Pema Pera: bye Sharon and ELiza!
SophiaSharon Larnia: bye for now
Eos Amaterasu: Bye....
Qt Core: Hi Sophia
Qt Core: that was bye Sophia
Lia Rikugun: like a process definition
SophiaSharon Larnia: :)
Yakuzza Lethecus: bye sophia
Pema Pera: I think I'll take off too -- to get some more sleep: by now it is 6 am in Kyoto . . .
Lia Rikugun: oh wow good night
Alfred Kelberry: 6am nap? :)
Pema Pera: yup!
Mickorod Renard: bye epma
Calvino Rabeni: Thanks all - (even though /me took more than his share of the chat channel :)
Mickorod Renard: pema*
Aurora Kitaj: bye Pema
Lia Rikugun: i will soon leave too
Qt Core: bye Pema
Alfred Kelberry: ok, enjoy it, pema :)
Calvino Rabeni: Bye
Eos Amaterasu: moi too
Aurora Kitaj: bye Lia
Lia Rikugun: byebye you all, take care
Mickorod Renard: bye eos
Pema Pera: thanks for a fun conversation -- with many strands that could be developed further!
Eos Amaterasu: (back to real turtles)
Aurora Kitaj: bye Eos
Yakuzza Lethecus: night everyone
Mickorod Renard: he he
Lia Rikugun: good night!
Mickorod Renard: nite everyone
Alfred Kelberry: i missed the fun...
Calvino Rabeni: I think the topic does have legs, Pema - eos - thanks for organizing it
Pema Pera: bfn
Aurora Kitaj: might Mick
Alfred Kelberry: mighty mick :)
Aurora Kitaj: thanks Eos
Qt Core: it have memory leaks that woul,d fill the time ;-)
Calvino Rabeni: I'm off too, take care :)
Aurora Kitaj: Bye Calvino
Qt Core: bye cal then
Alfred Kelberry: wait, what was the topic?
Aurora Kitaj: theme session about the use of computer software metaphors in daily life
Qt Core: software as play as being (or the opposite way, forgot it)
Aurora Kitaj: bye Alfred, Qt and Bruce
Alfred Kelberry: ah, the world through a geek prism :)
Qt Core: yeah, nerd power!
Bruce Mowbray: Thanks, folks. I shall be going too.
Alfred Kelberry: um, there's a term for it... from psychology
Alfred Kelberry: um...
Bruce Mowbray: All be well.
Qt Core: bye Bruce, have fun
Alfred Kelberry: professional something... i forgot :/
Qt Core: :)
Alfred Kelberry: eh, too bad i missed it
Alfred Kelberry: what's the next session is about?
Qt Core: regular, no specific topic
Qt Core: i never been on a 7pm session (4am for me )
Qt Core: wb Aurora
Alfred Kelberry: me, too. i usually do 2 pm.
Aurora Kitaj: just realised that I don't have to worry about loosing the chat log as it is posted on the pab website :)
Aurora Kitaj: so no need to worry
Aurora Kitaj: bye again, better get back to work
Qt Core: ok, bye
Alfred Kelberry: um, i think it's ways of knowing today
Qt Core: but that is at the Cafe
Alfred Kelberry: btw, how about a session on zen buddhism? could be a nice series covering different teachings.
Qt Core: i thik most sessions have hint of that
Alfred Kelberry: yes, i mean more of a lecture
Qt Core: but something more planned and longer ?
Qt Core: would it be enough ?
Alfred Kelberry: hitroy, traditions, etc
Alfred Kelberry: that's why i said "series" :)
--BELL--
Qt Core: but i never saw a lecture kind of session there, at mostg a brief intruduction and then free discussion
Alfred Kelberry: something more structured that people could compare and refer to later on in general discussions
Qt Core: there=here
Alfred Kelberry: um... just a suggestion
Qt Core: i may see it more like a bibliography on the wiki,,,,
Qt Core: people suggesting good books they've read, about zen buddism too
Alfred Kelberry: it could be a separate workshop, but starting it within a like-minded already active one seems easier
Alfred Kelberry: it's an external activity and many sources
Qt Core: tthe final question, whi would teac/lecture that ?
Qt Core: who
Alfred Kelberry: i'd say pema or cal for example
Qt Core: and who would teach me proper spelling ? ;-)
Alfred Kelberry: it's ok, i can read :)
Qt Core: ok, i have to be somewhere else, bye Alfred
Alfred Kelberry: maybe pema would read it and give his thoughts later on :)
Alfred Kelberry: ok, spicy man, have fun :)