SOUL IN A SHELL

Tonight I watched the movie Ghost in a Shell, with Scarlet Johansson playing the lead role as a woman whose brains were transplanted into a humanoid robot. Much of her quest is about retrieving her personal memories prior to the transplant and getting to understand why this happened in the first place.

I wonder if at any time in the future a brain transplant of this kind would become feasible, if any kind. But even to imagine this is a powerful thought which takes me to the age old human fascination with life after death. With a brain transplant, I assume, its actual mortality still prevails. As an individual we may survive longer, but we still die. A living, organic brain thus far is the only vehicle to carry our memories, our feelings, our thoughts, in short: our soul. Perhaps we can transplant it, but we cannot transfer it to another medium without questioning whether such transfer would indeed retain the original living conscience or just another version, or copy of it. The original would be effectively dead.

Perhaps, indeed in the far future, many eras from now, there might be another answer. We stand at its very beginning. At best we can today leave a digital copy behind of our memories and thoughts, our voice even, images and movie clips in whatever format. It is the very thing that I have been building up, in the course of the recent years: the box which I have dubbed “Digital Me”. The box in fact is an external hard drive with some 250GB disk space. I hope to live long enough (I am 65) at least to double the total data stored.

Digital Me contains my life in pictures, home movies, video clips, text documents with notes, articles and books published, professional documents, special files about topics of my interest, in short: a collection of everything about me that will remain accessible (long) after I am gone. If the Egyptian pharaohs had access to similar technology, they would not have built their pyramids. But however far I take this collection of things in my mind, it will never really be a ‘copy’ of me in the fullest sense.

But indeed, in our time we already have come very far in storing and reproducing (printing or projecting) our lives’ memories, far beyond any type of collection in history. Our heirs and descendants might even have too much of it, this almost infinite heritage of (digital) images, movies and memories of our generations. It is for them to decide what to do with it, a time goes by, and perhaps along the lines of new technologies that could bring these memories ‘to life’.

With Digital Me I am doing my bit, or rather: my bytes. And hopefully, there will be those in the future who will enjoy a walk through my digital mind and relive some fragments of ‘me’ as I have enjoyed them alive and kicking.

ALREADY DONALD TRUMP SPENT EVERY BENEFIT OF MY DOUBT

LIVING IN AUGMENTED REALITY

It is time to throw the use of the term ‘virtual' out of the window

Recently I explained the wonders of digital virtual reality to an uncle and aunt, both in their 90's. I told them I had just had my first experience of 3D, using a Playstation VR headset while ‘being’ Lara Croft in Rise of the Tomb Raider.  When I told them about the real-life sensation of walking around in a virtual room, my aunt was bemused. “But isn’t the real world good enough?”  Of course, in most respects reality cannot be beaten, however much 3D games and movies using computer generated imagery in the mean time have filled our brains with awe inspiring sceneries and sensations that ‘reality’ can never provide.

In this light one could say that the use of the term ‘virtual reality’ holds a contradiction. For rather than that they are trying to increasingly match reality, the movie and games industries have – greatly - surpassed it. Virtual reality today is far more than reality, not a little less. Secondly, I think that the greatest leap forward will not be any kind of equivalence of the real and the virtual, but the intrusion – and ultimate fusion - of one another. In this world the virtual and the real together become ‘enhanced’ or ‘augmented reality’ (AR), a term already widely used.

Examples of this fused AR already exist, for instance Google Glasses and Hololens (Microsoft), both still being subject to further development.  Perhaps the same applies to Pokémon Go, which became an instant hype when it was launched. It pushed people out of their homes and catch imaginary digital monsters in the streets, in parks and public buildings, “blending digital fantasy and tangible reality in exciting and sometimes dangerous ways,” as one review phrased it. The hype soon passed, it was just a teaser of AR things to come.

Nonetheless AR applications also include the realities which already have become standard, e.g. in the car industry, through manifold electronic devices (automatic backwards in-parking, warning signals in dense traffic). It won’t take long before cars are talking to us, not just our electronic navigation device.

Let's think of the long term prospects. One website offering some predictions tells us: "augmented reality is exciting new technology, and there are probably ways to use it that will emerge in the coming years that we can't yet even imagine".

Still, it is not difficult to picture this blended world of the natural and the digital, where people move around, anywhere and anytime, doing various transactions along the way, either buying or selling, and thus fulfilling their niche in a globalized (as much as purely regionalized cyberspace. This may seem very abstract, but in fact we already have made our first steps in such a multidimensional space. Just apply Pokémon Go technology to your grocery store. and the next minute your purchases are ready to be picked up (it is a reality in China). Or alternatively, click your car with any remote device (probably your Smart Phone), and it will drive out of the parking by itself and open the driver's door before your doorstep. Next you produce and sell a valuable 'thing' or service, you press "print" or "send", you do the transaction, and it will literally materialize at some distant spot, whilst costs and revenues are automatically recorded in your bookkeeping, subtracting taxes (e.g. V.A.T.) along the way. When doing this, you may be comfortably sitting on a beach side, or perhaps doing some typing work in a flexible office.

Increased personal flexibility and mobility translate into flexible and mobile on-demand production and service outlets with also do the pickup and delivery at your fingertip's notice. We transact, we communicate, we "see" all we need to respond and co-operate in AR networks, in trains, in our own car (when it is directed by satellite systems) etc.

Let's just hope we can still enjoy real-life human company at dinner time and some physical paperwork if need be.

LET THE WORLD PREPARE FOR US PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP

Dislike for Hillary Clinton- however competent she may be – is as widespread as the current disgust among many when they think of Donald Trump. And on the other side, the millions of who like Trump thoroughly, regardless his (in)competence, far outnumber those who positively want Hillary back in the White House. Just think of it, the Clinton couple in the Oval room for a second time around simply cannot work. It is too boring, too old school.

But Donald Trump is a true challenge. It has been long since a man ostensibly lacking any credential for the position is fighting for the US presidency. An aura of excitement, outrage and unexpected turns of history somehow seems to lurk behind the curtain. No doubt there are many who simply want to let him have it. If need be, we’ll clean up afterwards (or so quite a few might think).

I am a moderate person with moderate views and driven to understand both sides of any story – and of any person. It too see the downsides of a third Clinton term – and perhaps even of a continued Democratic presidency – and most certainly it is not difficult to imagine mani-fold shock waves in our world in the event of Trump’s victory. And the America that would lift him to the saddle most certainly is not the America I cherish. However, we have to face the fact that in our present time the main stream populace is entitled to some kind of satisfaction.

Rightly or wrongly, many people feel sidetracked and grossly ignored particularly in the face of estranging phenomena such as Arabic terrorism and increasing economic inequality. Clinton offers no convincing cure, nor does Trump, but at least he echoes what people feel about the many disruptions in their world.

But for Trump himself, matters become too serious now to continue his strategy of intimidation. He has to make sense somehow. You can hear his advisers crunching their brains. What should this presidency be, if ever?

I believe that Trump, no matter what he says, deep in his heart wants to secure peace. He is not a hawk for the sake of it. Nonetheless, he will wish to shake things up, probably whatever he can get his hands on. He will turn friends into enemies and the other way around. He will ignite fierce debates about the rights and wrongs in our world. All of it, in a way, despite himself.

We should not shrink in horror when thinking about the prospect of Trump. Let’s prepare, and make the best of it, if it comes to it.

THE END OF MATERIALISM

Will it also mean the end of liberalism? 

A book should be written, I believe, about the rule of finance and economics that pervades the policies particularly of Western nations. We all see it at work. It is going just one direction, at ever greater scale.

We have become mere consumers. All of us. And we carry grave burdens to continue enjoying this. In the course of the post-WWII era this seeming world of material comfort has turned into a condition of mass slavery, supported by the global system of fierce capitalism. The majority of the people in our world are reduced to just names and figures in the accounts of our creditors.

Those who manage the world’s financial resources money have a steadily increasing power compared to those who have almost none of it. We experience a gradually increasing divide between the people who can readily enjoy the richness of our planet’s resources and those who can’t. 

Fukuyama prophesied the end of history and the ultimate predominance of economic liberalism and democracy. “What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government”.  After his publication a growing number of question marks and arguments have been raised in disagreement. At the turn of the millennium the world was confronted with new conflicts and attacks at the heart western liberalism.

Dissatisfaction with the world order of markets and global finance is becoming increasingly violent, massive and destructive. Let us truly understand the driving factor of today’s so-called terrorism. Out of what despair and misery was it born? Don’t think it has anything to do with religion. It is the same everywhere in all times. Religion is the most common disguise of ignorance and dissatisfaction in history. 

How do we best respond to it? Dot we defend our fortress of wealth and accomplishments with similar (or rather: even greater) military force, simply to crush it? And let us broaden the scope: sooner or later, violent aggression will arise out of our societies too. An increasing mass of dissatisfied people, disgruntled slaves and further victims world wide of – essentially – western exploitation of the earth’s resources.

But even without the force of aggression, can we come to the notion ourselves, that our world cannot persist the way it is? What do we defend, and what actually is the best way to do it? We don’t need the cries and misdeeds of the disgruntled to see the dead end road we have been riding for quite a while.

In 2014 Fukuyama commented that humanity's control of its own evolution will have a great and possibly terrible effect on the liberal democracy. Well, this is the question: it is either our common sense or indeed, it is the dictatorship of the few that will determine our future, with whatever force it requires. And either way, the foundations of true liberalism and democracy are already shaken by the very state we are in at present, when figures and statistics command the world.

UNCERTAINTY

IN THE VIRTUAL UNIVERSE THERE ARE COUNTLESS CREATORS

 

 

 

Game Makers are out to rule your brains

 

I have a good young friend who recently bought the latest version of Playstation (PS4). It is a marvel to see what it can do. My friend plays a variety of games and most likely, from what I have watched him do thus far, he is a crack at it. With PS4 you can jointly play with friends online or with anybody else in the world who is logged on to the same game.

 

Out of this it is not difficult to visualize an emerging virtual universe in which real life people roam freely in this realm of almost infinite options, through their self-created character – or avatar - which (or ‘who’) has all kinds of wondrous capabilities far exceeding our own real life capabilities. Subsequently we can experience every adventure or journey – either alone or with friends – served up by the numerous game makers who constitute the true creators of this universe.

 

At present we can say that the world of computer games and our material world are totally separate. But this will change over time. We will cross the strict borders between the real and the virtual, which will then increasingly become a blur. Real life and virtual life are bound to merge. This is what the current games and gaming facilities are gradually training the younger generation of my good friend familiarize with.

 

But there is a twist. In actual fact our individual liberties in the virtual universe are restricted. Our actions are largely guided by the minds and rules of those who created the hardware and software of our games (and other applications) in the first place. If you want to be successful in Playstation – or X-box – games, you must learn to understand their minds and logic and not apply your own. There may be many instances where the option you would wish to have simply is not available and where you have to settle with a choice of actions that seem ineffective or illogic. Increasing the players’ flexibility thus would seem an important aspect of the future evolution of (online) gaming.

 

Then there is the increased sense of real experience in virtual reality. Probably many people share my sensation of reality when you simply drive a car, traveling through any kind of landscape in currently available games. How will this sensation be when one day we all wear 3D-monitors like the one depicted below.

 

 

 

But I could also simply wish to enter the virtual universe and meet with friends abroad, go shopping in some great virtual mall, or do sightseeing in an ancient city, like Rome at the time of Emperor Augustus. The possibilities are infinite.

 

Ultimately we can all become creators in the virtual universe. Perhaps this is the true journey for which we need to prepare.