Errors-To: owner-ecto@ns1.rutgers.edu Reply-To: ecto@ns1.rutgers.edu Sender: ecto@ns1.rutgers.edu From: ecto@ns1.rutgers.edu To: ecto-request@ns1.rutgers.edu Bcc: ecto-digest-outbound@ns1.rutgers.edu Subject: ecto #565 ecto, Number 565 Sunday, 9 May 1993 Today's Topics: *-----------------* AIs, SFs and Movie Endings A clarification, and a return to unclarity Re: relatives in yugoslavia Split the Stick HaPpY Birthday Ectotricity Wait a minute Today's your birthday friend.... response to mitch sorta vaguely associated with the ai debate Suzy Bogguss et al free ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 7 May 93 00:25:00 MET From: brage@sphere.home.id.dth.dk (Jens P. Brage) Subject: AIs, SFs and Movie Endings Hi all! brni in the AI discussion: > could you be more specific about what you/he means both by "live" and "human"? > philip k. dick, the science fiction novelist, was very interested in this > very question, and wrote numerous books on it. Here I just have to put in a plug for Cherryh: She has also taken some interest in these questions, though with the slight twist that the "AIs" in her novels generally are represented by azi: Manufactured humans (somewhat like the replicants from "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep"/"Bladerunner"). In particular, I'd recommend "Cyteen" which centers around the psychology of the replicant. One of her weirder novels is "Voyager in Night" which largely takes place inside a computer... > post modernist. Thanks for the explanation! > thanks. someday i'm going to read that _goedel/escher/bach_ book. YES!!! ;-) I just wrote a glowing praise of that most wonderful book to Vickie yesterday! :-) Kjetil helps out: > Re: Miranda Sex Garden: I can't remember if anyone answered this > already, but yes, "Bring down the sky" is on "Suspiria". Be warned > though that most of the other tracks on the album are much more noisy. > I'm a noise buff, so I love it :-) Thanks for the info. From what I heard, that track alone would justify getting the CD... > Re: film endings: That's the one area Hollywood very seldom get right. > I abhor happy endings, I really do. In 90% of the cases they seems so > tacked on! Some sample good endings: "Easy Rider", "Blade Runner" > (dir. cut), "Thelma & Louise" (generally any Ridley Scott movie ;-) > "Apocalypse Now". One of my favorite movie endings: Tarkovskij's "Stalker". The (very) downbeat ending is established some 10-20 minutes before the end of the movie but then, in the last few seconds, Tarkovskij turns everything upside-down. You probably won't realize until well into the end titles... Warning: This movie is a bit, hmm, non-mainstream... :-) Jens P. Brage | No time gives us reasons for why it just goes by brage@sphere.home.id.dth.dk | And no man can stop the seasons /\ | But so many men will try \SphereSoft | - Jefferson Airplane, "Common Market Madrigal" ======================================================================== Date: Thu, 06 May 93 16:26:58 CDT From: "Never yet flamed by Jorn :-)" Subject: A clarification, and a return to unclarity WRT Brni's response to my post on Randall Collins' writings on artificial intelligence: I have still not been able to get hold of his actual essay, and my memory of a talk he gave last month on this theme is getting progress- ively more vestigial. But clearly, his intent, and mine, was to use "human" in its psychological, rather than biological, sense, on the basis of Brni's dichotomy. Even more in the social sense, actually, than in the psychological one. One turn-of-the-century sociologist defined socialization as "the process of becoming human." The symbolic interactionist perspective holds that the self develops as the child learns to "take the role of the other"--to anticipate the reactions of others to his behavior, and to adjust the latter accordingly. Collins posited that an artificial intelligence needs to be able to do that in order to be truly "human." WRT Gray's appeal for things to do while in Austin: I suppose he could always look up Ingrid Karklins :-). Chris Sampson says: Relegated to skimming (and even then, only occasionally,) I DO miss those famous Mitch posts, too. On further reflection, my posts may be getting shorter after all, even if they' re not that much less frequent. Am I finding less to respond to in these pages , or what? All I know is that whatever bug has been going around in my environ ment seems to have increased my fatigue factor, to the point where I'm beginnin g to fall asleep on _World News Now_ in addition to all that precedes it. Ob- viously an occasion for concern :-). Speaking of _World News Now_, I woke up on the final half hour last night and managed to catch the background music for the sports scores. At first glance, it sounded a lot like KaTe, and the instrumental accompaniment sounded a lot like Trio Bulgarka. The lyrical/musical hook was at the word "desire." So I looked at _The Sensual World_, and found no tracks with that title, and no lyrics in the book with that word. This morning I stopped at a record store and looked at the Kate CDs in the bin, none of which had any songs called "Desire." I then took a look at the Phonolog, and the only artist remotely in the ballpark who was listed as having recorded such a song was Joan Jett. The universe may not be the only thing written about in these pages that's unknowable :-). BTW, _Flirting_ is a sequal to the Australian film _The Year My Voice Broke_. It's about a teen at a boarding school in the 60s who gets into a relationship with a Ugandan girl at the school, and the various humorous ups and downs of their relationship. There's more to it than that, of course, but in my present condition none of it comes to mind right away. Why not fill in the blanks by seeing it for oneself? It's worth it. WRT the apparently now moribund bisexuality thread: The sole insight I find myself able to add to it all is the notion that women who boink women are doing nothing I wouldn't do myself :-). Recurrent fatigue apparently affects my mind in such a manner. For some reason, all this reminds me of something that appeared in comp-academic-freedom-talk today: "It is not possible to convey sarcasm to certain members of the net without using a 2x4. The smiley face merely reminds them of why their head is being dented." -- John Woods -- (Note that I did not add angle brackets on the left margin :-). ) Off to resume the quest for a normal sleep-wakefulness cycle :-). Mitch Pravatiner Big Kahuna of Pencil-Neck Geeks* 499th Mailbomb Group Happywaffe --------------------------------------------- *(cf. David Evans' column in the November 13, 1992 _Chicago Tribune_) "Wenn man eine dumme Frage stellt, denn bekommt man eine dumme Antwort." --not Max Weber ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 7 May 93 02:29:05 EDT From: mojzes@monet.rutgers.edu (brni) Subject: Re: relatives in yugoslavia > >Hi, > >brni, you have my sympathy. This war in the Balkans is really sad. >Unfortunately, not many people understand that the war is ugly on *both* >sides. Most are quick to make judgments and blames, and want to take measures >that will only cost more human lives. > both? there are more than 2 sides here, and only 4 of them are involved yet. if/when the usa, greece, albania, turkey, russia, and macedonia get involved, then it will be a REAL mess. >Hopefully logic will prevail and peace will come back soon! > unfortunately, i know far too many yugoslavs to believe that logic will make any impact, or that if it does, it will simply be used to justify what is happening. (as mihailo markovic, now ex-professor at U of Penn is doing in serbia now.) >Angelos (just stating my opinion, with which surely some will disagree) > it is a good opinion, and worthy of holding. brni (who will one day actually write something about happy rhodes, he promises) ======================================================================== Subject: Split the Stick From: metatron!joe@dogface.austin.tx.us (Joe Zitt) Date: Fri, 07 May 93 03:01:47 CDT There are two types of people: - people who divide people into two types, - people who don't, and - Zen masters. "You could be an ocarina salesman going | Metatron Press | Austin, Texas! from door to door..." -- Laurie Anderson | Human Systems Performance Group ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 07 May 93 12:38:09 +0100 From: Terry Partis Subject: HaPpY Birthday Here's wishing Brian Gregory a very happy birthday on May 9th Have a great day Peace Terry === Only in your eyes lies your soul ========================= Happy Rhodes === _ __ Jolly Hockeysticks _ __ / `-' ( ,,, / `-' ( ,,, | I I ||||||[:::] Terry (Tel Boy) Partis | I I ||||||[:::] \_.-._( ''' (tgp@ukc.ac.uk) \_.-._( ''' With a smile and a song - I'm HaPpy Let me sleep awhile and dream of Avalon and the Beltane fires.................. ............................................our souls entwined for all eternity ======================================================================== Date: Fri, 7 May 93 16:35:37 EDT From: ksilver@startek.com (Keith Silver) Subject: Ectotricity I was just writing a test of the power lines of an ethernet test fixture while listening to Happy. 10 bonus points to the first person who can name the song that I happened to be listening to when I was hit with ectocoincidence. It's a weird feeling when what you happen to be typing at the time is what Happy is singing. Maybe the vibes from my PC imprinted themselve on the CD...nah...maybe if it was a tape.... (-: Keith ======================================================================== Date: 07 May 1993 20:15:00 -0400 (EDT) From: Suspended In Duct Tape Subject: Wait a minute Hi! Okay, so if they've added another Worcester show on June 19th, what happened to the Hartford show?????? brni, I'm so sorry to hear about your uncle. That's SUCH a mess over there, and we over here cannot begin to fathom just what is going on. I'm sure this drives the reality home for you even more- do you have lots of relatives there? Ingrid Karklins is rapidly becoming a Demigoddess in my musical pantheon, if any one out there cares... ;) Meredith meth@delphi.com ======================================================================== Subject: Today's your birthday friend.... From: klaus@inphobos.w.open.de (Cosmic Vagabond) Date: Fri, 07 May 93 00:02:55 GMT i*i*i*i*i*i *************** ***HAPPY******* ********BIRTHDAY*** ******************* ***** Joe Dembski ***** *********************** -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Joe Dembski Wed May 7 1952 Rumple Brian Gregory Thu May 9 1963 Eclectic Steve Fagg Tue May 13 1958 Taurus Christopher Boek Tue May 19 1970 Taurus Beth Perry Tue May 21 1957 Glad Yngve Hauge Fri May 21 1971 Gemini Perttu Yli-Krekola Thu June 2 1966 Kaksoset -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- _____ Klaus Kluge * klaus@inphobos.w.open.de * I'll be here, I'll be (in) Ecto! pen.de * I'll be here, I'll be (in) Ecto! ======================================================================== Date: Sat, 8 May 93 12:56:36 EDT From: mojzes@monet.rutgers.edu (brni) Subject: response to mitch > >WRT Brni's response to my post on Randall Collins' writings on artificial >intelligence: I have still not been able to get hold of his actual essay, >and my memory of a talk he gave last month on this theme is getting progress- >ively more vestigial. But clearly, his intent, and mine, was to use "human" >in its psychological, rather than biological, sense, on the basis of Brni's >dichotomy. Even more in the social sense, actually, than in the psychological >one. > >One turn-of-the-century sociologist defined socialization as "the process of >becoming human." The symbolic interactionist perspective holds that the self >develops as the child learns to "take the role of the other"--to anticipate the >reactions of others to his behavior, and to adjust the latter accordingly. >Collins posited that an artificial intelligence needs to be able to do that >in order to be truly "human." > well, by this definition, my pet bunny is "human," as is my roommate's poodle. while i may be willing to grant some semblence of humanity to magritte, i refuse to accept that a poodle is "human." i guess we need to define better what we mean by "human," by "living" and by "person".... brni >"Wenn man eine dumme Frage stellt, denn bekommt man eine dumme Antwort." > > --not Max Weber > help: my german dictionary is packed away... "when one asks a dumb question, then one becomes a dumb answer."? ****************************************************************************** Oh, I'd love that. | And on his dying bed I am sleepless nights | I'd be a mineral deposit, | the dirty angels I am actors in dreams | a ball of mica | flying over him like I am concience. | inside a rock. | buzzards asked him Karen Finley | Then there'd be no whistles | Do you confess? no radios, | Do you confess? no screams. | Diamanda Galas ****************************************************************************** WE DON'T WANNA GROW YOUR STINKING BANANAS ANYMORE! ======================================================================== Date: Sat, 8 May 93 12:57:43 EDT From: mojzes@monet.rutgers.edu (brni) Subject: sorta vaguely associated with the ai debate hi there, i was at a party (a welcome home from the bin party, actually) last night. and this all got me thinking (oh no, not *again* you say!!) about this whole "what is a person" thing, ai, and all that. lessee, i don't quite know how many personalities sharry has, but talking to them was quite a trip. kate is a six year old (kate drinking vodka was a mindfuck in itself), who very clearly refers to herself as "we.": "we're not going to brynmawr anymore. we're going to go to temple. stephanie is going to do the work." apparently they've all come to an agreement that stephanie is the best one for getting stuff done. elizabeth is the one without tact. at least one of the sharries was out too, at various times during the night. (i think that it was elizabeth that told me that i couldn't write lyrics--gee thanks). the shrinks have decided that they are going to work toward merging them all with stephanie, which her boyfriend thinks may be a bad thing to do, since a lot of them don't actually *like* stephanie, and don't want to be her. stephanie is also the one with other problems (for example anorexia). and anyway, i was thinking back to 10th grade when i saw _the three faces of eve_, and i remember being distressed when they "cured" her, merging all her personalities into one, which was different from the others. i thought "what happened to them? isn't this killing them, just as sure as cutting her throat?" it seemed to me that there are a number of well defined persons who happen to be in the same body, and that getting rid of persons was just that: the elimination of a person. sigh. on the other hand, sharry is 28 and still trying to get an undergrad degree, and not always very happy about where she is. maybe they could set up some sort of timesharing schedule? :( brni ****************************************************************************** Oh, I'd love that. | And on his dying bed I am sleepless nights | I'd be a mineral deposit, | the dirty angels I am actors in dreams | a ball of mica | flying over him like I am concience. | inside a rock. | buzzards asked him Karen Finley | Then there'd be no whistles | Do you confess? no radios, | Do you confess? no screams. | Diamanda Galas ****************************************************************************** WE DON'T WANNA GROW YOUR STINKING BANANAS ANYMORE! ======================================================================== Date: Sat, 8 May 93 20:25 GMT0BST-1 From: Tim Cook Subject: Suzy Bogguss et al To: ecto@ns1.rutgers.edu From: Tim Cook Subject: this 'n' that I've been managing to spread the word! First I got a friend hooked on Jane Siberry and then I slunk a recording of equipoise on the back of a JS cassette. Initial reactions were so so - the music was a bit sparse but I think it's growing on them!! Managed to pick up a Rainbirds CD in "Our Price" the other day. Normally I don't go in as they have a crummy selection way over-priced but I just happened to come across this CD at a not too unreasonable (for the UK!) price and remembered that they had been discussed on ecto a while back. Haven't had a chance to listen to it much but initial reactions are that I'm going to like it a lot. Also managed to get my hands on Suzy Bogguss - Aces, another fine album! Anyone else got any opinions on SB? tim ======================================================================== Subject: free Date: Sat, 08 May 93 16:02:36 EDT From: Angelos Kyrlidis Hi, Those of you within reasonable distance of a Tower Records, should go and pick up the latest PULSE! which comes with a Free CD sampler of BMG records. Includes a funky remix of Annie Lennox's 'Little Bird', Bowie's 'Jump they say' and a new Aimee Mann tune from her upcoming album. It also includes stuff ranging from techno to Whitney to country, but hey, it's FREE! :-) Which brings to mind a question. Why does Happy not try a free promo handout type of thing? Picture this marketing scheme to break Happy in Boston: she makes 500 cassingles of 'Runners'/'Save our souls' which won't cost more than $500. She distributes 100 of them to 5 stores (2 Towers, 2 Newbury, 1HMV), does a tie-in in store performance in the Cambridge Tower which stocks her stuff regularly, and the rest will be history. Or maybe she doesn't *want* to break the Boston market. Sometimes I wonder... Angelos 'The harder the case is, the faster the race is, the harder and faster we fall As we grow older, the world becomes stranger, I don't understand anymore'-TR ======================================================================== The ecto archives are on hardees.rutgers.edu in ~ftp/pub/hr. There is an INDEX file explaining what is where. Feel free to send me things you'd like to have added. -- jessica (jessica@ns1.rutgers.edu)