Boyd on Self and the Internet

Check this for sheer quality of language -- Theres not many Boyd's out there.

Doing music videos must madden him.

He quote's Kurzweil about being a pattern in a flow as if he fully understands it. Like his chaosmos stuff.




Quote:
Considering that were on the cusp of the singularity, I feel it would be interesting to propose an Accelerated Self. If were going to continue developing a prosthetic nervous system and head towards Baudrillard’s "desert of the real" Self can be criticized as a Deleuzian "becoming other".

a Kurzweil thought.

"If I ask the question, ’Who am I?’ I could conclude that, perhaps I am this stuff here, i.e., the ordered and chaotic collection of molecules that comprise my body and brain.

However, the specific set of particles that comprise my body and brain are completely different from the atoms and molecules than comprised me only a short while (on the order of weeks) ago. We know that most of our cells are turned over in a matter of weeks. Even those that persist longer (e.g., neurons) nonetheless change their component molecules in a matter of weeks.

So I am a completely different set of stuff than I was a month ago. All that persists is the pattern of organization of that stuff. The pattern changes also, but slowly and in a continuum from my past self. From this perspective I am rather like the pattern that water makes in a stream as it rushes past the rocks in its path. The actual molecules (of water) change every millisecond, but the pattern persists for hours or even years."

Kurzweil’s thoughts on Self suggests that mortality is committed to the physical phobia of entropy. Even "being" and "becoming" frame the organism in a nonsuperconductive state weighed down by burgeoning effects of gravity. The Freud-Newtonian theory of resistances suggests neurosis as an inefficient or blocked passage of energy residing within the organism, while psychosis suggests superconductive discharge because it is uninhibited.
The notions of Self are in a transition now. The Self is expanding online where peoples roles and lives are meaningfully spent in a virtual world. Are our avatars a representation of anatomical transgression as a singularly provocative prosthetic of the Self?
I propose that excessive avatar images as a revolutionary efflorescence of identity, a kind of post-humanist revolt, a jouissance.
It is interesting that we call our characters "avatars". To me this implies a rather detached, scientific sense of identity, that leads to an extreme ambivalence. The interplay of imvu users becomes an uncomfortable correspondence between deliberate fetishism and fantasy to ones surreptitiously purloin gaze.Ths prosthetic state of this mode of communication blurs the psychic barrier between the interior and the exterior, thus calling the traditional notions of Self into question.
The neurologist Paul Mobius suggested that the "Self is only an organ." Using the topographical figure of the mobius strip he described the cutaneous and subcutaneous membranes circulating the body as a single continuous plane. While this spatiality dissolves the interiority and the exteriority it also democratizes the anatomy thereby disinvesting the brain of its sovereignty.

What can be said about being after that?

Boyd

I've had to get a few dictionaries to understand this. I'm much older and more qualified then boyd and in the same field and yet not comes across writing like this which is as sharp and genuine for a while.

Am so used to recycled french pomo jargon.

Despite how much we love to hate Brian Sewell hes usually always right.

Quote :

If I ask the question, ’Who am I?’ I could conclude that, perhaps I am this stuff here, i.e., the ordered and chaotic collection of molecules that comprise my body and brain.

This reminds me of the figure in sarg tmt Layer 3 where the blue grey figure looks up and his face is all distorted like he has no identity.

Quote :

However, the specific set of particles that comprise my body and brain are completely different from the atoms and molecules than comprised me only a short while (on the order of weeks) ago. We know that most of our cells are turned over in a matter of weeks. Even those that persist longer (e.g., neurons) nonetheless change their component molecules in a matter of weeks.

This is like the figures in the videos and artwork. They are almost struggling with themselves, trying to not disintagrate in those electric particles, molecules and atoms.

Quote :

So I am a completely different set of stuff than I was a month ago. All that persists is the pattern of organization of that stuff. The pattern changes also, but slowly and in a continuum from my past self. From this perspective I am rather like the pattern that water makes in a stream as it rushes past the rocks in its path. The actual molecules (of water) change every millisecond, but the pattern persists for hours or even years.

This is like how the orange sludge turns into liquid.

Quote :

Kurzweil’s thoughts on Self suggests that mortality is committed to the physical phobia of entropy.

Maybe this is the fear that Boyd gets across in the naked figures which are in a flux of disintingrating and struggling out of that.

Quote :

Even "being" and "becoming" frame the organism in a nonsuperconductive state weighed down by burgeoning effects of gravity. The Freud-Newtonian theory of resistances suggests neurosis as an inefficient or blocked passage of energy residing within the organism, while psychosis suggests superconductive discharge because it is uninhibited.

This makes me think of the part in layer 3 where the camera moves inside the screen and behind the sound waves. The hand held camera view turns into a subjective shots / point of view where we appear to be falling. Then in the imagery sequence it seems that rules of gravity dissappear.

Quote :

The notions of Self are in a transition now. The Self is expanding online where peoples roles and lives are meaningfully spent in a virtual world. Are our avatars a representation of anatomical transgression as a singularly provocative prosthetic of the Self?

The virtual world is definately appart of the theme in layer 3.

yeh theres definately something going on with how the Music's music creates a transition between the real and fantasy or tripping out.