December 2011
“Ending the year with a deep celebration, assume in the following that Plato is...”
– Wildcat
“By incorporating the computer as a form of ourselves along the way in our...”
– The Journal of Personal Cyberconsciousness | Not Just Monkeys in the House: Applying Traditional Understandings of Identity to Alternative Attainment of Personhood Status; Kristi Scott
WatchThe Einstein Theory of Relativity is a 20 minute silent black and white animated film. It was produced in 1923 by the Fleischer Studios, best known for their Betty Boop cartoons.
The film aims to explain Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity to anyone willing to invest 20 minutes in watching the movie. Though it is almost a hundred years old, its simple but ingenious animation is very...
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“ “Man is not going to wait passively for millions of years before evolution...”
– Corneliu E. Giurgea, Romanian psychologist and chemist. (via amiquote)
Electronic Cotton - Circuits could be woven from...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future A group of researchers in the United States, Italy, and France have invented transistors made from cotton fibers. They envision such devices being woven into clothing capable of measuring pollutants, T-shirts that display information, and carpets that sense how many people are crossing them. “We want to create a seamless interface between...
Calendar reform: Time for a change?
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future JOHNS HOPKINS (US) — Calendar reform advocates are convinced that a new, standardized alternative to the Gregorian calendar would save trouble and money. Via futurity.org
The Top 10 Science Stories of 2011: Scientific...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future Tsunami-damaged nuclear reactors, Twitter -fueled political uprisings, a possible violation of Einsteinian physics—these and other highlights defined this year in science and technology… Via scientificamerican.com
Why Do We Live in Three Dimensions?
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future Day to day life has made us all comfortable with 3 dimensions; we constantly interact with objects that have height, width, and depth. … Via universetoday.com
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“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope...”
– Neil Gaiman (via spycnsweet)
Global Research and development will grow 5.2% in...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future The Battelle-R and D Magazine annual Global R and D Funding Forecast released today shows global research and development (R and D) spending is expected to grow by about 5.2 percent in 2012 to more than $1.4 trillion. R and D funding growth will largely be driven by Asian economies—a number projected to increase by nearly 9 percent in 2012....
Data mining 3.0 - from info to 'collective...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future An EU-funded project has developed a platform that converts vast user-generated content from a problem of information overload into a new, collective intelligence with a range of applications, from handling emergencies to enhanced city tourism. The project has filed for several patents and a handful of products and results are destined for public...
Self-healing electronics could work longer and...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future When one tiny circuit within an integrated chip cracks or fails, the whole chip – or even the whole device – is a loss. But what if it could fix itself, and fix itself so fast that the user never knew there was a problem?A team of University of Illinois engineers has developed a self-healing system that restores electrical conductivity to a...
The Future of Moral MachinesMany think the idea of...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future A robot walks into a bar and says, “I’ll have a screwdriver.” A bad joke, indeed. But even less funny if the robot says “Give me what’s in your cash register.” The fictional theme of robots turning against humans is older than the word itself, which first appeared in the title of Karel Čapek’s 1920 play about artificial factory workers rising...
“That cartoon scary face – wide eyes, ready to run – may have helped our primate...”
– What are emotion expressions for? | Science Codex
Not Quite an MIT Degree, but MITx May Still... →
futuramb:
I
Not a full-fledged diploma — that’s still a possibility only for the 10,000 or so students admitted to its Cambridge, Mass., campus. But on Monday, MIT is announcing that for the first time it will offer credentials — under the name “MITx” — to students who complete the online version of certain courses, starting with a pilot program this spring.
Interesting that a model like the TED...
“The Future is a Virus..
Not literally, of course. But if we think about the...”
– The Future is a Virus
“The cyborgization process of becoming in which we presently take part has a long...”
– Wildcat: The Luxurious Ambiguity of Intelligence in Hyperconnectivity
(probably my best post of 2011)
“In a way, new technologies have made us all like Baudelaire. We are intoxicated...”
– The Smart Set: Privacy Policy - October 13, 2011
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“As was reported yesterday, well-known Stanford professors Peter Norvig and...”
– Credits, Credentials, and Collective Consciousness - Brainstorm - The Chronicle of Higher Education
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“Are there parallel universes? And how will we know? This is one of many...”
– Quantum cats are hard to see
“SENSORS on fruit and vegetable cartons can track location and sniff the produce,...”
– The Internet Gets Physical - NYTimes.com
Sewing Audio to Video, and Rubber Hands Onto...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future When perceptions get mismatched in the mind, we can fall prey to maddening illusions, and reality is turned on its head. Visit Discover Magazine to read this article and other exclusive science and technology news stories. Via discovermagazine.com
Microneedle sensors may allow real-time monitoring...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future Researchers from North Carolina State University, Sandia National Laboratories, and the University of California, San Diego have developed new technology that uses microneedles to allow doctors to detect real-time chemical changes in the body - and to continuously do so for an extended period of time. “We’ve loaded the hollow channels...
I want to give poor children computers and walk...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future Can tablet computers parachuted into remote areas transform childhood learning, asks Nicholas Negroponte, the man behind One Laptop per Child… Via newscientist.com
“What is the relationship between language and thought? The quest to create...”
– Do thoughts have a language of their own? - opinion - 08 December 2011 - New Scientist
Japan's Sony generates power from paper-same...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future Japanese electronics giant Sony on Thursday revealed technology that generates electricity from shredded paper. Via physorg.com
“One thing which I think has caused confusion is the use of the word “real” here,...”
– Fictional Entities and Augmented Reality: A Metaphysical Impossibility Result
Fictional Entities and Augmented Reality: A...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future The transhumanism project will gain momentum with advances in technology, in basic science and in philosophy, as well as in bioethics. However, there are minefields that jeopardize this progress – one such minefield is a fundamental problem in pure philosophy: fictional entities and how we refer to the nonexistent. In the absence of solutions to...
Higgs Discovery Rehabilitating Despised Einstein...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future Firm evidence for the discovery of a Higgs particle has now been officially announced. This means the “Higgs ether” exists. But did not Einstein tell us that there is no ether? Poor Albert is getting punched hard these days. Via science20.com
“The human brain integrates memory and processing together, weighs less than 3...”
– Cognitive Computing: When Computers Become Brains - Forbes
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“Human consciousness, as constructed by human language, becomes the vehicle...”
– From: Human Language—Human Consciousness
by Sue Savage-Rumbaugh
(via fast-t-feasts)
“A tiny number of ideas can go a long way, as we’ve seen. And the Internet...”
– Infinite Stupidity | Conversation | Edge
In ‘Game of Thrones,’ a Language to Make the World...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future Hollywood is driving demand for constructed languages, complete with grammatical rules, a written alphabet (hieroglyphics are acceptable) and enough vocabulary for basic conversations. Via nytimes.com
“Hume was able to use his pragmatism and his pluralism about the many functions...”
– Of Hume and Bondage - NYTimes.com
Vulnerable Cyborgs: Learning to Live with our...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future Transhumanist visions appear to aim at invulnerability. We are invited to fight the dragon of death and disease, to shed our old, human bodies, and to live on as invulnerable minds or cyborgs. This paper argues that even if we managed to enhance humans in one of these ways, we would remain highly vulnerable entities given the fundamentally...
Personal Identity and Uploading-Mark Walker ...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future Abstract Objections to uploading may be parsed into substrate issues, dealing with the computer platform of upload and personal identity. This paper argues that the personal identity issues of uploading are no more or less challenging than those of bodily transfer often discussed in the philosophical literature. It is argued that what is important...
How to Feed the World in 2050
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future By 2050 the world’s population will reach 9.1 billion, 34 percent higher than today. Nearly all of this population increase will occur in developing countries. Urbanization will continue at an accelerated pace, and about 70 percent of the world’s population will be urban (compared to 49 percent today). Income levels will be many multiples of what...
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Bid to program new life forms with 'operating... →
openscience:
“Now imagine trying to design a similar operating system not for a laptop, a PC or even a smartphone, but rather for something much, much tinier — a living biological cell. This is exactly what a group of scientists at the University of Nottingham, in England, will attempt to do as part of a five-year, $1.58 million research project that has been aptly named AudACiOus — which,...
“Networks in the regime near the edge of chaos-this compromise between order and...”
– Stuart Kauffman (via inthenoosphere)
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“Metaphor is for most people a device of the poetic imagination and the...”
– George Lakoff and Mark Johnsen (2003) Metaphors we live by. London: The university of Chicago press.(pdf)
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"May you live in interesting times" - A Polytopia...
As our reality becomes increasingly complex, we should all strive to become keen observers and critical thinkers, mindful to the subtleties and sensibilities of the vast conceptual ecology our minds exist in.
read on:
1. Pin-Yin Shi Shi Zao Ying Xiong! (part 1)
2. Pin-Yin Shi Shi Zao Ying Xiong! (part 2)
3. Pin-Yin Shi Shi Zao Ying Xiong! (part 3)
4. Pin-Yin Shi Shi Zao Ying Xiong! (part 4)
...
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A Polytopia reader - Introductory links to Wildcat...
A Cyber Soaring Humanity
1. A Cyber Soaring Humanity (or The rise of the Cyber Unified Civilization)
2.The Natural Asymmetry of Infocologies
3.This mountain has no top
4.Hybrid futures, Knowmads and the Notion state
5. Hybrid futures and Knowmads (pt2)
6.Knowmads as metabolic reactors of information (Hybrid Future and Knowmads (pt 3)
7.Knowmads as Aesthetic Curators of information (Hybrid...
Social Networking Is About to Get Exponentially...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future If you’re old enough to remember a time before the Internet, be prepared to reconsider your state’s prohibition on the right to die. Via technologyreview.com
Taxi drivers' brains rewired by 'The Knowledge'...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future Cabbies who acquire “the knowledge”, a stern test involving in-depth mastery of London’s streets, suffer changes to their brains that could make them blinkered, research has shown. Those who pass the test develop more grey matter in the posterior hippocampus, the part of the brain they use to recall a mental map and calculate...
“Translation is a deep problem, but it is often ignored in psychology....”
– Notes from Two Scientific Psychologists: How Universal Is The Mind?
Your Marriage of the Future: Seven Science...
Via Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future I’m not a big science fiction reader, but I admire how the genre has just enough of a toehold in reality that it feels plausibly weird. It stakes out the space of the uncanny: familiar, but disorienting. Here are marital sci fi ideas that seem like they might come true. I’m choosing things that we already have marital “prototypes” for today,...