Combonium

I am a sagitarius, the most philosophical of all signs, yet I have always denied accusations of being a philosopher, partially because I fear the judgement of my ideas. And so I come here for my ideas to be set free and judged by their own merit and not my eloquence.

Indeed, the very act of confronting my fear is inseperable from the "philosophy" that I am building. Fear is a powerful emotion, and yet, the aversion is diminished through understanding. I do not ascribe to any school of thought, except possibly my own, but I am an avid borrower of ideas. I also hope to be an avid giver of ideas, and so I offer an original combination of observation, extrapolation, and hopefully simulation.

Thinking through a UI and entailments to AI

As a young boy, I was perplexed as to why there is no objective map to the human mind. The two possibilities I settled on were that either everyone thinks differently or no one knows the best way to think. Then I read about the imagery techniques of Richard Feynman and Albert Einstein. Later, I found all kinds of half-answers from new age religion and NLP, and was satisfied for a time. But my curiousity renewed itself, and I realized the map I sought must be found through science.

And so my pre-alpha synthesis, which currently relies on a thousand assumptions, is that, much like XML, images (i.e. abstract thoughts) define their own structure. There are many parameters that characterize this structure, notably size, orientation, sensory modality, emotional variables and time course. I am not striving to revive the ill-fated introspective experiments of Edward Titchner's structuralism, though I also am after structure. At present, the field of cognitive psychology provides lots of experiments that manipulate these structural variables. For instance, a parallel between mental object rotation and physical object rotation is evident in the reaction time experiments of Roger Shepard and Jacqueline Metzler.

My favorite demonstration, albeit an introspection, is to close your eyes and imagine a bunny rabbit. Then imagine a bunny rabbit beside an elephant, and notice the relative sizes (Stephen Kossyln). This shows how the spatial dimensions of imagery (and possibly the associated detail) can be zoomed in and out. In a mind atlas, this would be an interstate, and the rules of the road would not exclude converting this demonstration into a recursive algorithm(though, your attentional capacity may). Now, as other dimensions of imagery can be viewed as having the same plasticity, might there be a potential for mentat like efficieny and enhanced creativity? What other algorithms and/or landmarks would go into such an atlas?

So far, I can only suggest that time course (i.e. is the image animated?) can also be manipulated by comparing two distinct images of differing duration. Consider the time it takes for one breath cycle in comparison to the time it takes to shower. By using the breath time as a baseline, and equating the shower image's time with baseline, the details of the showering are a blur. I propose using this effect in a practiced manner to compress and decompress general imagistic representations. At the very worst, it is a waste of time.

The average world citizen could use some Everything in per daily life. The power and finesse of Everything is priceless. As an academic and artistic endeavor, it remains safely concealed from but a few eyes. However, I can see a day when Everything is when Everything is everywhere: universities integrating knowledge and communication into a single grand journal, extended families using it to record life and achievement, oppressed peoples finding liberty through organization, googles of friends interacting in new ways, and mega-corporations utilizing it to manage information in a highly efficient and destructive manner.

The implementation of this scheme will result in unknown consquences. Ideas will no longer be free in the beer sense, as the reward for noding within a particular commune will become entangled in competition, greed, and money. Yet, this economization of the Everything might turn the notion of Everything algebra into a thriving calculus of memes.

Such an evolution can only hasten the contagion. Some will call it the artificial disease of communicaton, while others will thrive on it. When it begins, there will be no retreat. What seductive stars, then, would remain beyond humanity's grasp? Yet, "if you hold fast to something, it will surely be taken away". Let us neither starve Everything for nothings's sake nor fall prey to Everthing for everything's sake. Let us first consider the alternatives. Forwarned is forearmed!