| I got a parking ticket today. It was for an expired parking tag. I guess security doesn't bother to look at hang-tags. Oh well. I guess I just have to figure out who to bitch at. This parking ticket has had an odd power to irritate me. When I try and examine my reaction I'm left a little confused. In reality it amounts to nothing. All that will happen is I'll have to walk over to some other building on the campus, protest the foul thing, and go on about my business. I guess what really bugs me about it is the implication that I have done something wrong. How odd. The headspace needs a little bit of a rewire. I read something interesting yesterday. Oddly enough it's a FAQ for a screensaver. The screen saver is called Virtual Intelligence Matrix (yeah, a mouthful for a screensaver) and it's... uh... unusual. In it this polygonal woman that looks suspiciously like she might be aptly known as Bodysuit Barbie runs around aimlessly... followed closely by a caffeine-powered rabbit. Supposedly both of these entities posess some limited ability to learn from and adapt to their environment. At this point you're probably wondering what's interesting about this. I'm gettin there. I read in the FAQ that the screensaver's author believes that conciousness arises, at least in part, from a being's awareness of it's own existence. Sounds simple. There's more to it. Apparently being aware of one's existence is not sufficient (seems reasonable)... there has to also be an awareness of past existence (memory) and a realization (?) of future existence (a set of probabilties that encompass the range of possible states in the very near future). I am, I think, dramatically over- simplifying this or just flat misunderstanding. Any thoughts, webland? Mail Apparently, in this screensaver, he is trying to model this in a very limited way. Neat stuff, imo. I am very interested in theories about conciousness and any related modern thought. Personally, I had always envisioned conciousness arising as the by-product of an immensely intricate network of associations between images, ideas, linguistic fragments, etc. The traversal of these associations is, in my little theory, decided by a combination of inputs (sensory,etc.), a cost of traversal (as an association is made more often it's becomes easier to make in the future), and a little bit of randomness. I dunno, I love thinking about this sort of thing. As always, if this sparks you or you want to share something with me, please do so. |