If God is mythopoeic, man must become mythopathic.
Tolkien in a letter to C.S. Lewis (via inthesaltmine)

No title available
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me

tannertan36
trying on a metaphor

roma★

祝日 / Permanent Vacation
Today's Document
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ

if i look back, i am lost

★
todays bird
Jules of Nature

⁂

ellievsbear
Sade Olutola

izzy's playlists!
wallacepolsom
Cosimo Galluzzi
we're not kids anymore.
cherry valley forever

seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from Spain
seen from United States

seen from Malaysia
seen from Brazil

seen from United States
seen from Mexico
seen from Chile
seen from United States
seen from Netherlands

seen from Hungary

seen from South Korea

seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from Mexico

seen from China
seen from Brazil
@metatronicpatanoia
If God is mythopoeic, man must become mythopathic.
Tolkien in a letter to C.S. Lewis (via inthesaltmine)
5/18/13
Ethender Prix's twin hearts were two curvaceous coils of streamlined flesh, eternally dueling vipers locked in mutual strangulation. Their convulsions did not result in a beat, instead functioning as a high pressure fluid jet that filled his body with bright chartreuse blood. Here each cell began its high velocity journey, and here it returned spent of its fuel, freshly painted a faded olive. The oceanic force of those pipes could have crushed ancient submarines.
I'm embarking on a new writing project that I expect will consume quite a sum of heartbeats in the coming months, so I apologize in advance if I do a poor job of maintaining my electronic presence. Don't hesitate to reach out if you want to get a hold of me- I'll continue to update to the best of my abilities.
The rubber glove, with its red exterior and green interior, when stripped inside-outingly from off the left hand as red, now fits the right hand as green. First the left hand was conceptual and the right hand was nonconceptual- then the process of stripping off inside-outingly created the right hand. And then vice versa as the next strip-off occurs. Strip it off the right hand, and there it is again. That is the way our Universe is. There are the visibles and the invisibles of the inside-outing nonsimultaneity. What we call thinkable is always outside out. What we call space is just exactly as real, but it is inside out. There is no such thing as right and left.
-R Buckminster Fuller - Synergetics - 507.00 Parity
Scientists have directly observed a rare quantum effect that produces a repeating butterfly-shaped energy spectrum first theorized by Douglas Hofstadter.
On August 31, 2012, Japanese mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki posted four papers on the Internet. The titles were inscrutable. The volume was daunting: 512 pages in total. The claim was audacious: …
I went searching for more uptempo music, as my workouts have become longer, when I fell in love with this artist. This is as groovy as it gets (and the classic sci-fi album covers are just perfect). This captures what I imagine it was like to interact with someone like Philip K Dick in their natural habitat and era.
5/10/13
Three goddesses (the only term which can describe their odd divinity) of unknown origin courted me in my dreams over the course of recent nights. None bear the appearance of anyone I know, but each left a powerful impression in their own unorthodox way.
One bore the symbols of medicine and warped the space around her, resulting in strange adventures that reminded me of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. There was an unknown tension between us, and we could not bring ourselves to be together (I lamented this even upon awakening).
Another had emblems of the planets and constellations scarified into her shoulders- her hair had streaks of copper and silver and was drawn into a ponytail. Her presence was fleeting, but powerful.We exchanged no words, only understanding.
The last was a creature teeming with energy and hope in her eyes, with two large braids of golden locks and a suit of space age armor. She revealed she was from another dimension, and could not stop to talk as much as we both wished, as she was frantically making phone calls to make it back to her own realm.
Fascinating things, those which the mind and soul invent in the absence of love.
Since it is inevitable for our stock and investment markets to eventually go completely digital, would it make sense to switch all commerce to digital AI overlords to evenly control the market, and eventually move to a governance of semi AI influenced politics and strategy?
Props for the awesome question.
My primary thought is this: If humanity is capable of programming an artificial intelligence wise enough to predict and control all commercial and resource markets, it seems incredibly wasteful to use it towards the ends of stock market exploitation. Even so, I think such power will be wielded the way you described, as predominantly speaking, this is already happening.
The business tech of the present is not really at a level of being called AI yet, but we are at the echelon of “Decision Support Software,” where businesses can actually offload all of their financial metrics and a computer system will draw out predictions, trends, and sometimes even give advice on a course of action. In this respect, corporate leadership can be reduced to an algorithmic process and perform surprisingly well- I know of many businesses that currently use this type of solution.
But let’s look ahead. What we should be cautious about is how these AI interact in their (un)natural habitat. If two of the same model are put into market competition, can they learn how to subvert one another, or will they conspire for a third party? To what degree of destruction will they go to in order to bring profit to their owner? Can they learn how to offset their own existence in the marketplace? What happens when one is set loose with a completely tangential motive (i.e. to sink the value of a nation’s chief exports)?
I feel pretty mixed about this concept- I don’t know how much better or worse off we would be, but I don’t see any kind of even control or stability happening as a result. Still, most AI-ruled political models I’ve heard spoken are socialist in nature, so this is a pretty novel approach overall.
The city is a fact in nature, like a cave, a run of mackerel or an ant-heap. But it is also a conscious work of art, and it holds within its communal framework many simpler and more personal forms of art. Mind takes form in the city; and in turn, urban forms condition mind.
Lewis Mumford (via inthenoosphere)
The ideas that play the largest part in shaping our experience of the world and of ourselves are so deeply woven into the act of perception itself that we rarely if ever notice them until we run face first into their limits.
John Michael Greer at The Archdruid Report. The Shape of Time (via protoslacker)
valentine-wiggin replied to your post: Hey there! Good insight about Ender’s Game and the character deriving strength from his skills. It’s worth noting, however, that Ender *hates* that he’s good at what’s being asked of him, and murders three children before the book is over.
UGH be still my heart
Whoa whoa whoa Val. What are you doing posting on the network with your real name? What if someone logs your connection?
Hey there! Good insight about Ender's Game and the character deriving strength from his skills. It's worth noting, however, that Ender *hates* that he's good at what's being asked of him, and murders three children before the book is over.
An interesting and critical point, as Ender's victories are indeed never clean. Being forced to face his sins and his inability to escape conflict are really the focal point of the books, after all. I only remember two of these deaths you mention, and even though they were grizzly battles with dark outcomes, it's never enough to take Ender down, which is key. Even though the casualties of war trouble his conscience and make him reconsider his position, it is not enough to prevent the tragedy of the final act. Nothing can stop Ender, and everyone knows it- but this does not weaken the narrative. If anything, it makes it that much more powerful- his most superhuman victory becomes the source of his deepest regret.
5/7/13
There's a general belief among writers these days that in order for characters to be interesting, they must be flawed, weakened, broken, at the mercy of their world. It is a good principle for setting the stage in a compelling manner and creating a diverse cast, but some have come to treat this rule as exhaustive. An important reminder: a character can still also be genuinely interesting by being extremely good at what they do and regularly overcoming the reader's expectations. This happens in a lot of highly acclaimed science fiction, for instance (Dune, Ender's Game come to mind), where the capabilities of the characters consistently exceed the limits of what we understand to be possible for human beings and scarcely fail in any way meaningful to the storyline, yet do not make the plot in any way predictable. In these types of tales, it is the context of the conflict at hand that determines how the characters' strengths and weakenesses capture the attention of the audience, alongside the imaginable possibilities of what could happen next.
Every man has a quiet place in his soul, where everything is self-evident and easily explainable, a place to which he likes to retire from the confusing possibilities of life, because there everything is simple and clear, with a manifest and limited purpose. About nothing else in the world can a man say with the same conviction as he does of this place: "You are nothing but..." and indeed he has said it. And even this place is a smooth surface, an everyday wall, nothing more than a snugly sheltered and frequently polished crust over the mystery of chaos. If you break through the most everyday of walls, the overwhelming stream of chaos will flood in. Chaos is not single, but an unending multiplicity. It is not formless, otherwise it would be single, but it is filled with figures that have a confusing and overwhelming effect due to their fullness.
Carl Jung, Liber Novus, or The Red Book, from the segment Nox Secundus
There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped. We are all absolutely free. If everybody could go into dhyana at will, nobody could be controlled — by fear of prison, by fear of whips or electroshock, by fear of death, even. All existing society is based on keeping those fears alive, to control the masses. Ten people who know would be more dangerous than a million armed anarchists.
Robert Anton Wilson (via tomzsamir)
5/5/13
I am running viciously low on creative force. It's been too long since I finished a novel or something that feels like a sincere accomplishment. Ursa Major was a wonderful thing to complete and is probably some of my best writing of all time, but it cannot stand alone as a literary entity. All my creations of late have just been gushing, gushing, gushing creative and clever ideas and nothing structurally sound. Without a real landmark completed in the past year I feel weak. I accomplished much for myself in this time on a personal level, but I can only retreat into introspection for so long- some other element needs to shift. I require a true wellspring of spirit to bring this side of myself back to full capacity.
5/5/13
I find it interesting when people single out Japanese advertising and television as being fundamentally weird. I tend to think that English-speaking media is just as surreal and bizarre in reality- the key difference is that it is in a language and cultural context we can understand. Next time you are assaulted by commercials, try to imagine how they would appear from an outsider's view- or even just turn the television to mute. Everything becomes very strange, very fast.