Have been really enjoying the back and forth that has developed on my site with many voices on the subject of ubiquitous computing and whether its appropriate to include within that paradigm a spiritual element, or in the case of what I’m doing to try and anchor post-computerism to an experiential/spiritual center - where consciousness itself becomes the root ground of user experience.
I’m really interested in exploring these questions - without beating a dead horse - so, allow me to pull out some choice quotes in order to (hopefully) advance the narrative. Klintron writes:
Yeah, for the record I don’t believe in magic, remote viewing, etc anymore either. Although I wish you the best of luck with… whatever it is you’re doing… I think the occult angle may be a good way to keep it vaporware instead of #whatworks.
Not long after I “launched” Mandala OS as a “platform”, I got an email from another friend with a link to the phrase vaporware, which I’d heard before but never delved into the meaning of:
Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product. The term implies unwarranted optimism, an as yet unannounced abandonment of a project, or sometimes even deception; that is, it may imply that the announcer knows that product development is in too early a stage to support responsible statements about its completion date, feature set, or even feasibility. However, most vaporware would not be considered a hoax since the makers have a genuine intention to create their product, even if it ultimately never materializes. Products with unspecified release dates or long development times that outwardly demonstrate regular, verifiable progress in production are not normally labelled vaporware.
Dave Leech comments elsewhere on my site along similar lines, but with a more hopeful bent:
uhm. Wow. I am trying to comprehend this move, but I think what you are trying to do is basically create a wellspring of helpful intent which OmnivateLLC hopes will become the essence of a new type of being? Or something along those lines. This is great stuff, I agree with Ted, it makes me dizzy.
And this quotation comes from an official page about Adam Greenfield and his book, “Everyware”:
The age of ubiquitous computing is here: a computing without computers, where information processing has diffused into everyday life, and virtually disappeared from view. What does this mean to those of us who will be encountering it? How will it transform our lives? And how will we learn to make wise decisions about something so hard to see?
I love these questions, and having been involved with the web, with teach and with interface design for years, they are very close to my heart. Part of me wonders aloud though, if we are indeed entering a future where technology is ubiquitously threaded into every little element of our lives, isn’t all software essentially vaporware at that point? That is, software which exists multilocally, “everyware”, takes on a life and a character unlike anything that we currently can conceive of within the world of computing. Everything becomes distributed, everything becomes intangible thinware. This is why I’ve become so interested in marrying together the paradigms of ubiquitous computing with animism and shamanism: because they are millenia-old experiential traditions which give us a guide as to how to operate within a world where - basically - everything is alive, and everything is possible.
OmnivateLLC, then, is an artistic experiment right now - moreso than a viable business model. MandalaOS is indeed vaporware - until its not. What’s the critical mass of creative conversation, insight-pooling, resource-sharing, actual hard work and enthusiastic inspiration which tips over a collective intention into the phenomenal world? These, you could say, are my tools for opening up this paradigm and exploring emotional and intellectual territories which we may encounter in the not-too-distant future, but which have also always been with us, in the invisible world of energy and “spirits” which coexists alongside our own, interpenetrating our existence at every possible level.
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14 Comments
http://www.mediafuturist.com/2008/10/the-cloud-and-t.html
http://wildresiliencyblog.com/2008/10/...kabout-into-collective-consciousness/
Well, this is what I think Tim,
You know how in that clip Rupert Sheldrake talks about people experiencing “telephone telepathy?”
The telephone obviously doesn’t create telepathy. In the same way I don’t think the internet creates a shamanistic way of perceiving and connecting with the world.
People were telepathic before the telephone. I think the technology just points to the phenomena of telepathy. It interacts with the telepathy.
I think the internet creates reference points, for these shamanic thought experiments you are doing. Its like a scaffolding around it.
The original “speedbird” made a comment on my blog about the relation between the internet and “Indra’s net”
There apparently are shamans that can leave their bodies and travel the world. I believe these accounts. I think its rare, but I think there are people that can do it. People that have done the neccessary training. You also can kind of travel the world online, through the internet.
But its not really the same thing. They are related.
But anyway you need reference points to locate people and places in time and space. The telephone telepathy means that people have each others adress, psychically. People and pets also. I think this web technology could perhaps help people locate things.
BTW Tim,
Do you just like the way “LLC” rolls off your tongue or are you creating a real LLC and looking for venture capital and stuff?
I never can tell with you.
Just one more thing I want to say about scrying:
I have a form of scrying I do. I do it while I am sketching. I can have a tendency to be too tight when I sketch. So somtimes I just make a bunch of small scribbles that looks dense like foam or wool or something, then objects begin to appear out of the void, often quite elegant.
As I shape the foam into something it often turns out better than if I had set out to sketch that particular thing to begin with.
I think ts similar to how sculptors see things within the wood and bring it out.
I think the scribbles represent the quantum field. Absolute possibility; formlessness. I think I actually connect with that field. Also when I draw, I project the image sensually into time and space. I feel the energy of the image the way I would feel the energy of a real animal or person sitting across from me.
So I think my sketch pad and pencil are just a way of tracking this process. But through drawing I have gotten a lot of insights into magic and voodoo and so forth.
I think some artists are more magical than others. Some draw figures with stilted anatomy and blank doll eyes and others create images that appear to have sprit breathed into them and sensuous anatomy. The eyes are the windows to the soul and an image with a soulful look in the eye must in some way have a soul within the image.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_mover_advantage
“First-mover advantage is the advantage gained by the initial occupant of a market segment. This advantage may stem from the fact that the first entrant can gain control of resources that followers may not be able to match.[1] Sometimes the first mover is not able to capitalise on its advantage, leaving the opportunity for another firm to gain second-mover advantage.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_art
@Ted:
The medium is the message. We just need to tune ourselves into it as best we can.
@ Tim-O:
Wow. Just, wow.
The end of monopolies?
I would also invoke Klint’s excellent Manifesto for EsoZone into this memetic cluster:
http://esozone.com/manifest0/
He makes great points about the fact that VISION STATEMENTS seems to be raw material for the Universe — so many of them wind up being assembled in reality later on.
Personally: more than happy to be labeled weirdo, hippie, and/or flake for another few years. The more detail I can project from the Utopian space I’ve been dreaming since birth, the more real it will become for the rest of y’all. The same is also true for anyone reading this. Recognizing these innate human powers outright and treating them as operational facts definitely alarms people — and that’s fine. That’s job security, right there.
I think the MandalaOS project has been remarkably fertile so far. I would like to open the dreamtime communications channel more directly in the immediate future. The more absurdity I can allow, the more possibilities I can percieve — that’s what keeps me focused on Omnivate LLC.
Like an affirmation or something?
So is it wrong to want it to be you? Is that selfish and unenlightened?
I hold out both possibilities as having merit. “Just wanting to get something out there” as well as wanting to “get paid”
I mean if you are an artist, say, is it a bad thing to want money and recognition while you are still alive? Do you have to die “penniless and insane” to be great?
If its more noble to be a Tesla than a Bill Gates, is being Bill gates bad?
Just be careful what you project, or you’ll get arrested…
Being arrested happens.
As for the morality of projection? Beats me. Awareness is the weapon of discernment, though. My memes haven’t hurt anyone so far as I’m aware.
Yeah, but arrested for making accurate predictions on a blog?
By that standard, Tim’s about as guilty as you can get!
@Ian, that one wasn’t a prediction so much as a look at what was already happening, and a simple bet that it would continue to occur. Continuity, the safest bet you can make!