May We Meet When We Close Our Eyes

I close my eyes and watch

the grainy screen of my broken black and white TV.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh humming in my ear.

I adjust the antenna – to reach the satellite situated within all that orbits me.

Till it turns into beautiful shades of grey.

settling me in for the ride

carrying me within its stillness.

Till I see it.

A twinkle

A sparkle

of light!

Then it Hits me.

Colorful, PixiliateD

An-i-mated lights

from North to South within a rare rainbow within which I sail …

Into the depths of a space where time has no gravity pulling at me

I EXIST

Close your eyes.

There we may meet.

“Most persons are so absorbed in the contemplation of the outside world that they are wholly oblivious to what is passing on within themselves”

– Nikola Tesla

The Nikola Tesla Treasury

Resources

Scientists Prove That Telepathic Communication Is Within Reach (Smithsonian Magazine)

Communicating through Dreams: Intercultural Tensions in the value of the immaterial (Gabriela Coronado – Journal – Dimensión Antropológica)

Are Telepathy Experiments Stunts or Science? (MIT Technology Review)

On “Telepathic Dreams?”: an Unpublished Paper By Robert J. Stoller (Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer)

Dark Matter, Dark Energy – NASA

There’s been a break in

But I didn’t know.

No signs of forced entry.

No police reports.

But they say there has been a break in.

I had no idea.

It was breaking 6 o’clock news;

So it must be true.

Jewelry in the box? Yes!

Computers on the counter? Uh-huh.

Cards in wallet? Check!

But there has been a break in;

Or so I have been told.

They say more than once.

They know who I am.

They know where I live.

They know where I go.

There was a break in;

When I was at home.

When I was at work.

When I was at play.

There’s been a break in.

Strangers came.

Interlopers unknown.

Now I sense I am never alone.

Screen Shot 2019-11-23 at 8.30.18 PM

Source: World’s Biggest Data Breaches and Hacks – Information is Beautiful: David McCandless

ARTificial Intelligence (AI) / \ Intelligence ARTificial (IA) 5 Senses, 6th Sensor)

We pride ourselves on our intelligence. Our ability to figure things out, apply knowledge, manipulate our environment and advance science. Yet our emotional wiring dictates our actions too. Wiring, connected to our integrated senses leads us to imagine, to express, to create. Our Natural Intelligence (NI). NI that is now influenced by ARTificial (AI).

Can understanding how to tune into and harness our senses augment our intelligence, increase our wisdom and develop our 6th sense; or will we come to depend on a 6th sensor?

Anosmia (Loss of Smell)
Deafness (Loss of Hearing)
Hypoesthesia (Loss of Touch)
Ageusia (Loss of Taste)
Visual Impairment (Loss of Sight)

Isolate: SIGHT

Oak brown and midnight blue, moonbeam lit.

Blue skies and pink blooms, caught by sunlight.

Bronzed dawn and dusky sunset, twinkling twilights.

Tall, short,

Plump, lean;

Everything in between.

Isolate: SOUND

A flying duet?

A cornered whisper.

Heels hit the floor.

Bang!

Grrr …

Splat.

Isolate: TOUCH

Spongy, soft.

Tickling, ice-cold.

Burning, stinging.

Smooth …

Bump.

Melting …

Isolate: TASTE

Sour but sweet,

Spicy and salty,

Bitter

Hot

Fusion.

Isolate: SMELL

What’s that smell? … … … ?

… … … ? I do not know. Take me there …

MERGE: THE 6th SENSE

Kettle whistling; sweet cocoa tea, and fresh coconut baked brown fill the air returning me to my mother’s kitchen. Steam rising, buttery melts … tiny feet dangling.

Extra Sensory Perception.

ARTiculate.

MOVE, DANCE

SPEAK, SING, NARRATE

WRITE, SKETCH, PAINT

PIANO PLAY

The 10th symphony: A new gravitational force changes time

ARTificial Intelligence (AI)

DIGITAL Sight?
DIGITAL Hearing?
DIGITAL Touch?
DIGITAL Smell?
DIGITAL Taste?

FIT THE 6th SENSOR

Ambient Intelligence (AmI)

NI: What AmI AI?

AI: Intelligence ARTificial IA

Machine Intelligence; Superintelligence;

~~ART~~ificial Intelligence (I) play the 100th symphony.

Super-ambient-intelligence (SAmI)

Super-Am-I?

The Local, Historical and Cultural in Web Science: Reflections on WebSci19

I emerged from Boston Logan International airport for WebSci19 in search of transport to find taxis, but no people on one end of the taxi rank. On the other end, there were a lot of people waiting for a taxi; but there were no taxis. They were all waiting for an Uber or a Lyft. When I go to a new city, I love to take a moment to just sit and gaze as people go by. The lovely hot Boston weather offered up the chance at the end of one conference day. Many people were wearing airpods, seemingly unaware of their surroundings. Maybe they were talking to someone far away, or maybe the person they were talking to was just around the corner. Maybe that woman was listening to a podcast, or was it music? I wondered what would happen if I stopped them to find out … for research purposes … to find out not just what, but why.

Boston appeared a clean city, organised, but also quiet, as students were away for summer. I also found it somewhat sombre, with not too many smiles on offer, but where, as with all places some people can be so very kind. One man went searching for a receipt that fell out of my bag and blew away in the wind. After a thorough search, he brought it back to me where I sat, a reminder of human unpredictably, in our data-driven world. The web is disruptive, yes, but the uniqueness of Boston would no doubt influence how this disruption would evidence itself in this city, versus Calcutta in India, Southampton in the UK, Beijing in China, Nairobi in Kenya or a local community in one of these cities.

This was my second Web Science conference and I was again struck by how much research was specific to Twitter. My research found that wary of ‘fake’ many people reserve their most precious interaction and information for the offline world. Additionally, much of the data that could benefit academic research is not inclusive or not freely available. So, what does this mean for the results derived from the data? Data that social and economic services seem to be increasingly dependent upon. I came to this conference to present my Ph.D. Research on technology affordances and constraints of digital platforms on entrepreneurs in Trinidad and Tobago, which looked at platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, YouTube, Amazon, PayPal and Uber. I found that while using digital platforms speed up communication and globally, limitations are evident as they usually don’t cater for local nuances, culture, and social norms, which remain relatively stable even as digital technology and services continually and rapidly change and disrupt.

I was encouraged by some presentations emphasising just how interdisciplinary Web Science needs to be. The keynote by Fabien Gandon was one that stood out to me as it gave helpful explanations of why not only social but historical context is important by illustrating how understanding such context could potentially help us to understand the future of automated cars (electric cars existed in 1942) and job loss with developments in Artificial Intelligence.

D-ebkx0UEAM3Fas — **Key Note presention (Web Sci19): Fabien Gandon**

I clearly understand that local, social and cultural understanding, historical context and philosophical insight, can help provide clues about unintended consequences and outcomes, needed for problem-solving and problem prevention globally. It’s one reason I am delighted to be doing research for SHAPE-ID, a project focused on developing this kind of interdisciplinary research in Europe, within arts, humanities and social sciences (ASHSS) as well as with science, technology engineering and math (STEM) disciplines at Trinity College Dublin’s Long Room Hub Arts & Humanities Research Institute. Techilosophy is also an attempt to illustrate those connections. Even if we don’t always acknowledge it, each one of us is intricately interconnected with each other in an increasingly tangled web, a web which needs many hands to untangle.

Simulation: Welcome to Our World

Zoom in

Enter Simulation

It’s dusk

She’s taking a leisurely stroll through her neighbourhood having just spent some time with her cousins. As they chat they braided her hair into intricate designs, mathematically mapped onto her head. She is walking towards someone. He’s wearing an eye-catching outfit made with materials, similar to hers, material woven and positioned to limit the effects of ‘saccadic’ eye movements [1], or the everyday rapid eye flickering, that cause our eyes to go momentarily blind to things and thwart our concept of time. They see each other, at just the right time. They sit for the ceremony, feasting on the sound of fine-tuned instruments designed with algorithmic precision to lift everyone’s spirit and help each person learn more about themselves and each other.

Our World

We live in a world informed by mathematical logic that supports the infinite potential to scale or to contract with the help of feedback loops and as the need arises; to do so deliberately and structurally, using geometrics like rectangles within rectangles, spheres within spheres, triangles within triangles x infinity. To do so individually, yet collectively, intentionally, artistically, logically, iteratively and recursively, in a linear but cyclical way that is informed by conscious knowledge systems. Life is lived at the intersection of mathematics, science, technology, art and community, influenced by the African continent [1] using base two arithmetic, which informs the binary code 1 and 0 used to develop digital technology today [1].

Reflecting on the past in the present for the future

The way we live in the present should be informed by how we lived in the past, yet as we move forward we rarely reflect. Digital technology is non-linear, but most contemporary story-telling still takes linear form, with a beginning, a middle and an end.

The Manual: A story we tell ourselves

The evolution of human consciousness: Science and technology help us to understand our sense of being and our relationship to all life.

In our world, markets and technology do not guide us but instead the intention and desire to understand who we are not only individually but collectively inform our decisions. We become more empathetic, moving away from fear; developing our consciousness of life.

Decisions at the individual and global level consider cause and effect individually and globally

A simplistic conceptualisation of the universal law of cause and effect states that whatever someone does will have consequences for them and for someone else at some point in time [3]. In our world, there is a collective understanding that both your intention and what you do determine what happens to you and to others. We seek balance.

Interconnected and Interdependent: Anyone, anywhere, can contribute to answers

In our world, research is everyone’s domain. Thought experiments abound. We do not keep our ideas and expertise to ourselves because we rest knowing we take care of each other. We teach and we learn; we learn and we teach.

Science is a servant to life

In our world, science is advanced based on what we want our best life to be. Technology isn’t developed simply because we can develop it. Technology is designed and used to serve the ecosystem of life.

It’s night

They jump up to join in the party; swinging to the music in the here and in the now. I join them. We are free, yet we are one.

Zoom out

A lit satellite view reflects her patterned braids

Centralised but decentralised,

We create like Picasso [4]; simple yet complex,

All seen; but anonymised,

Borders blur, space is reconceptualised,

Time moves slowly.

It’s dawn

Relaxed in discomfort.

Joyfully, and humbly resolved.

Let’s meet outside.

Enter reality

References

Eglash, R., (1999) African Fractals: Modern Computing and Indigenous Design . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Preston, J.M. (2017), Games, Dreams and Consciousness: Absorption and Perception, Cognition, Emotion, in Boundaries of Self and Reality Online, J. Gackenbach and J. Bown, Editors. Academic Press: San Diego. p. 205-237.
Bruce, R.R. (1988), The Law of Karma and the Principle of Causation. Philosophy East and West, 38(4): p. 399.
McGee, J (2007), Primitivism on Trial: The “Picasso and Africa” Exhibition in South Africa. Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics, 52(2007): p. 161-167.

Lub … Dub … Step … Rise … We’re Live

Heartbeat -staff v3 — These five black lines are known as the Staff or Stave and are used to write music notes. The higher the music note is on the lines, the higher the pitch. The red line represents a heartbeat (PQRST). The 2 primary sounds of a regular heartbeat are Lub (S1) and Dub (S2).

Listen. To the music of your heart pulsating your life. Can you hear your heart – beat?

There are 2 primary notes.

LUB (Step 1)

DUB (Step 2)

A synchronised tempo keeping us alive.

With rhythmic therapeutic sound.

Silence.

Pirate radio, illegal downloads, uploads.

Smashed, mashed.

Notation, Pause.

Computer record.

Fire bun …

Volcano smokes,

bubbling wine,

flowing through bodies.

Back to the beat.

A new sound above the base blows our brain,

And motors our movement.

Drum roll please …

Rise up.

With united applause …

We’re live.

What time is it? Seasons, Memories, Dreams and Moments

“Knowledge is authentic and complete only when it is a way of life, when beyond the mastery of a science there is scrupulous attention to what a good life means…”

Professor Souleymane Bachir Diagne

What time is it?

Why we remember, what we remember and when we remember at any point in time is a mystery. Yet scattered memories can form unrelenting thoughts in our minds every day. They also reveal mysterious connections in our nightly slumber where we can fly like a bird, fall without landing, or chat with someone we forgot. A dream could unfold a realistically bizarre scenario like a conversation about a leaking ceiling in a bar that turns into a plane.

Past, present, and future have always been marked by social events and seasons like winter, summer, spring, and fall or rainy and dry. Technology removed the limitations of these markers. With electricity, we work when the sun goes down but our body clocks still alarm to wake at day. We harvest tomatoes all year round with the help of greenhouses but they are not nearly as delicious as when eaten in season.

Before frequent flier air travel and the internet, our thoughts were more or less limited to our local communities and the occasional encounter; visit or visitor. Yet they were still influenced by human conditions like anger, sorrow, envy, frustration and shame that weigh on us; or courage, joy, hope, compassion, and love that lift us. Still, even then no-one could stop us from traveling in our dreams to see and to experience the new and the impossible that sometimes serendipitously reached into our waking lives or let us glimpse what was to come.

Who knows… maybe what we dreamed then reflected what we do now.

Written text took hold of our imaginations. Technology carried us beyond our communities. With radio we listened; With TV we watched; With computers, we now listen, watch, read, write, capture and communicate with mobile devices, that expect us to relinquish our thoughts and memories to their service; with the hope they serve us in return.

Devices war for our eyes, constantly trying to bring our attention to someone else’s moment by leading us away from moments of our own. Time and space are scattered with our bits and bytes, some of which we look for, stumble upon or have left for others to find.

A valuable commodity, time is bought and sold. Yet the purchase never comes with an unlimited guarantee. It can be taken away from our lived experience in a fraction of a second, tomorrow or years from today. It is not only linear but cyclical as African philosophers, remind us. So, we slowly return to incomplete text, like that of the Ethiopian, Zera Yacob, inaccurately relegated to a ‘pre-enlightenment’ age.

In this season, my present of presence is a lazy Sunday; music warming my soul, like the sunlight, letting my spirit soar; while the sound of raindrops on rooftops draw me into a billow of pillows that swallow me whole with comfort. A memory of dancing with family and friends. Laughing; lots of laughing. A reflected smile. The pleasure of biting into a delicious sun-kissed mango. It’s a dream. Yet I am awake. I am alive!

Seasons, memories and dreams collapse so there is just one inexplicable moment of utter peace.

It’s time for a toast.

Here’s to those moments.

Computing the Yin in our Yang?

‘Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness’

Anne Frank

I grew up hearing family stories of days of little. Stories which when retold seemed like days of lots. We have a collective nostalgia to ‘bring back the old time days’ or ‘make our countries great again’. Selectively reflecting on the authenticity of the past with scant appreciation for what’s genuine in the present.

Image Source: Pixhere

This nostalgia doesn’t always reflect poverty, loss, starvation or cruelty. We delight in memories of what was done together. That which was exchanged, in equal measure. What was given and received. Like a cup of sugar for a pint of milk. A lift from a neighbour for no reason other than you were both headed the same way. The offer of a meal from someone else’s pot.

The negative (-) and the positive (+), we encounter in our environment affect us. Doctors in training can suffer from ‘medical school syndrome’. As they learn more and more about a particular disease, they can exhibit symptoms of the disease they intensely study – – -. Alternatively, symptoms may be relieved when given a placebo + + +. Something we think is medicine but is actually just water, maybe some Italian herbs.

This isn’t helped by the ‘filter bubbles’ we live in that reinforce what we see and influence what we come to believe. For instance, Facebook experimented with the news feeds of hundreds of individuals. They showed them either a low number of positive posts or a low number of negative posts. Those shown more negative posts posted more negative comments – – – while those shown more positive posts posted more positively + + +.

Born of Taoism/Daoism philosophy in 4th century B.C., Yin and Yang is one way of conceptualising negative and positive. This is entwined in Chinese medicine and cuisine too. Yin is the black side, feminine (+), dark, cold, a pull. Yang is the white side, masculine (-), light, hot, a push. Yin and Yang, are relative to each other. They complement, interconnect. Like water and fire, the moon and the sun, soft and hard, front and back, north and south, valleys and mountains, space and time.

Nothing is completely Yin or completely Yang.

There is Yin within Yin.

There is Yang within Yang.

Yang dwells within Yin.

Yin lives within Yang.

Yin can become Yang.

Yang can become Yin.

So, what are the algorithms for finding the Yin in our Yang? (+ + – = -) (- + – = +)?

Ying_yang_sign

Symbol of Yin and Yang

Image Source: Wikipedia Commons

Cue – Manus: A hand to hold?

Walking With Mobile Phone.jpg

Image Source: Libreshot

You are probably holding your phone in the palm of your hand right now, your fingers wrapped around it, thumb moving up, down. We hold our phones in our hands every day. It is a way to connect without being physically present. A study by University of Illinois researchers on ‘Phone Walkers’ in Paris found that people kept their phones in their hands even when they were switched off and even if they had handbags or pockets. Other research used attachment theory to explain why the attachment young people have to mobile phones can occur much like the attachment a child has to a stuffed toy.

Interestingly, ‘phone walkers’ were less likely to hold their phones if they were walking with someone of the opposite sex. However, holding hands isn’t just a romantic gesture, as perceived in Western culture. The need to connect with our hands starts from the womb, continuing after birth, as babies instinctively wrap their fingers around those of mum or dad, a palmar grasp reflex for reassurance. It’s a trait we share with primates. It isn’t just handshakes that are a sign of trust. Holding hands in other cultures like in India, Arab and African countries between not only women but men is not sexualised. Instead, holding hands is a sign of respect and friendship. Prominent figures like the Dalai Lama do this and so has Nelson Mandela. Holding hands has also been found to increase oxytocin, a hormone that decreases stress and helps with pain management.

Racismo

Image Source: Macca: Wikimedia Commons

In our hands are thousands of nerve endings that connect to our whole body, so what does it mean when we hold our phone more and more times each day? The inability to hold our phone brings anxiety and when reunited with it our stress is reduced and our confidence boosted. Unfortunately, using it can also bring distrust, hate, disrespect, intolerance, and insecurity, much like an unwanted gesture.

E-readers are used for convenience, however, at least for now, they have not been able to replace physical books, which have instead risen in popularity because of the inability to create the same tactile experience. Similarly, physically holding someone’s hand is different from the phone holding we always do. Technology is only a tool, much like the wood, we burned to make smoke signals centuries ago. Though it’s changing more rapidly than ever before it’s really our human connection that matters most. With reports that constantly holding our phones may be giving us a smartphone slump and emitting harmful radiation, let’s not replace the human hand with our phone.

As you touch each key quickly placing each finger across the other, you should give a palmar grasp of reassurance. Imagine what would happen if as we type we extended a hand of respect to someone not physically within our reach. What compassion we would both give and receive. Robotic hands that can feel now exist helping those who need them. 12325597985_e401b1399c_n

Image Source: Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma

The Latin root word ‘man’ is a gender-neutral term used to describe us, humans. The Sanskrit word for man is ‘Manus’. Manus means hand in Latin. We see connections in words like manual, manifest, mandate and command. It is therefore suggested that the word hand and man are one and the same. Soon our hand may not be attached to a phone we can hold, but instead to a computerised assistant, we manufacture. One that could be made in our image. We won’t need to type a letter, we will just signal, we will just speak.

Cue –

Manus:

What do you want to do?

You:

I want to go for a walk

… Let’s hold hands

Manus:

Ok?

Where is our Ark parked?

noahs ark large.jpg

Image Source: Paul Symes

‘The single raindrop never feels responsible for the flood’

Douglas Adams (Author, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy)

The biblical story of Noah and the Ark symbolises the saving of humanity as the world fell into decay by erasing what existed and starting again. This flood metaphor, however, is long predated by Mesopotamian poets and the Flood Tablet, one of the world’s oldest existing pieces of literature. It is also revealed in other religious and cultural texts from India, the Aztecs, Egypt and Scandinavia and others. Prompted by the voice of God, Noah gathered his immediate family, a male and female of each species on earth and lots of food in an ark he builds, a ship that only sailed when the world flooded. When the rain ends a dove is released to find out if they could emerge for their new beginning.

The recent report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change giving us 12 years to clean up our act before the consequences of environmental destruction cannot be reversed reminded me of the story on a very rainy day. Noah, certain of the upcoming destruction decided to move ahead with this incredulous task for many years despite the jeers and naysayers. Today we have proof of the effects of global warming and increasing collective will yet not enough economic and political might to slow it down. Earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, and erupting volcanoes have quickened pace. We have been hit by floods from rain which our grand-parents say falls a bit harder than before. We have been scorched by a hotter sun shining at a time that our great-grandparents say it hasn’t shone. The voice we hear is loud and we are all witness to environmental change and disasters.

A different Ark, the Ark of the Covenant, is also described in the bible. A structure created to house 10 commandments issued by God to guide human behaviour in ancient times. Do we create an Ark which tells us the rules by which all of us should abide? One, that goes beyond religious, ethnic and cultural man-made distinctions? If so how will the rules form? who will be responsible? In the past few years technology has advanced at a rate faster than ever before in human history so what role will technology play? Are there rules being embedded in the technology we use? Will the world speak with one voice and build a Tower of Babel to overcome our collective irks and maybe rocket us all to another planet in the galaxy? Or are we each just going to build our own ark.

The rich in Silicon Valley have been building their mini personal arks, and I’ll hazard a guess, that they don’t have many animals on board. People have gone looking for these arks but their existence hasn’t been scientifically proven and they have not been definitively found.

Where is your ark parked? Does anyone know where our ark is parked?

Can a dove help us find it?

‘Let your love be like the misty rain, coming softly but flooding the river’

Liberian proverb

–

Image Source: Ayuugyi [CC BY-SA 3.0]