2021-06-15 03:03:28 +00:00
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# the rite of computing
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we saw the tipping points being crossed, and yet the same behavior
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destruction was all around, even in the use of our tools of creation
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what could we do? how could we engage? how could we disengage?
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we thought of reinventing computers
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homegrown, homemade…
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a game, a party, a dance
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maybe in that way we would understand?
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maybe in that way we would know if we want to keep them?
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the following are some of our notes, thoughts, conversations, actions…
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# r
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– i wonder what happens when you remove efficiency, speed
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– the machine doesn’t seem to complain
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– it comes with a great cost
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– some beings at the service of others, is that the natural order?
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– you thought and asked, until you realized you put yourself on fire
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– the higher one gets, and the more one on others depends…
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– how bad you think the fall will be?
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– how long will the internet live once the humans are gone?
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2022-02-10 20:47:52 +00:00
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# u
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2021-06-15 03:03:28 +00:00
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the person is given a ruleset
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a table
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current configuration
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encountered symbol
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what to put instead
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where to move
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next configuration
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the floor is prepared
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a row of symbols
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mosaic of colors
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in a spiral
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around the fire
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the person enters the space
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drums start playing
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the person starts moving
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repeating
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a configuration becomes a state of being
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a sequence of movements
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the mosaics are replaced
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(make sure you don’t lose track)
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transitions from a state to another
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the spiral becomes another
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we expect the process
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we expect the result
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after hours of a body
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becoming a body
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emulating a body
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who moves and sweats
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losing (but not really) breath
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the iteration is complete
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2022-02-10 20:47:52 +00:00
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# w
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2021-06-15 03:03:28 +00:00
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– can we talk about rewilding computers?
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– were they wild to start with?
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– how wild or not is a division
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– of time and space in slots
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– ever-decreasing measures
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– changes of state?
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– the revolution, the transcription, life
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– no boundaries, really, but in our self
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– and that one, really, also emerges
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– maybe you mean getting rid of the rigid cover
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– curving the interconnections
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– the differences are fluid
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– with or without extremes?
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– i lost you
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– destroying the shiny, embracing the earth
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– a cracked screen carried away by the sea?
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– that would probably kill us
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– with emergence we understand we can’t understand
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– is it a useful model?
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– model? useful? it?
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– number of processors versus grains of sand?
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– and if we become just a probe?
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– i dissolve, the computer
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– the transformation carries on
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# n
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– think about the apparently unnatural…
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– creating vacuum…
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– manipulating beams of charge and light…
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– wiring thousands, cooling their surrounding air…
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– later inserting billions in a little block of sand
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– why not just chill and enjoy the beach?
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– there was a war
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– and then the promise of productivity
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– why not just chill and enjoy the beach?
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# t
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a tape in the form of a series of objects in some kind of slots
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each object a symbol
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maybe pieces of cloth in a clothesline
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or pieces of paper on the floor
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soft and flexible
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an object signals the current position of the head
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maybe a stool to reach above
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or a long stick that rests and points
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a group of people is engaged
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each one of them with a different command:
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if you encounter the short object in the tape
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replace it with the thin
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move the head to the left
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and get the long-haired person to continue
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different combinations
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fragments of behavior
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nobody knows what is really happening
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and yet, the computation occurs
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# i
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– can you tell me again about your project?
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– project, ceremony, dance, choreography… computer!
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– i wonder how can someone end up there
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– it’s just about imagining alternatives, trying to reinvent…
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– is this a solution to a problem? what if everybody does as you?
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– they originated with war in body and mind
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– and they have very good uses despite that; they saved me!
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– what about realizing they are made through destruction?
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– it might be practical: destroying the old and the weak
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– and we will drown by powering them
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– i hope we can upload our consciousness by then?
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– you might emulate yourself in rocks
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# c
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a group of people arrives to the floor that suddenly becomes a stage
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bare feet, skin in the air with no layers in between
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they move without the code that you would expect
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(but with a different set of rules, what do they encode?)
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eye contact, spatial awareness, flow
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a self-generated oscillation
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one of them observes other two
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based on the three states, this one responds
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repeat the same for each body
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a cell made of cells
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the pulse that reminds of a distant past
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sweat that would short-circuit your board
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yet information travels, proceeds, evolves
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unpredictable behavior except by simulation
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the bodies stomp, they clap, they sing
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becoming another
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above? (where?) below? (where?)
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it’s there!
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no need to channel the earth
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# e
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– i like computers
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– why? they make more sense?
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– maybe. complex but fabricated with heavy logic constraints…
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– do you know how they work?
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– that’s the question, do they work or do they just exist…
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– following a hardwired behavior, filtering out noise
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– only a fixed amount of values in space and time
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– and yet embedded in an apparently continuous world
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– where to put them in the organic-inorganic spectrum
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– extracting minerals, sculpting them…
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– marks are left, one at a time
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– … modulating the electromagnetic spectrum all around
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– wait! why are you talking about electricity, semiconductors?
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– do you want to develop further?
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– i’d prefer to do a backwards somersault and take a non-violent path
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# x
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– the idea is that you, as an individual, follow a simple set of rules
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– these rules make me depend to some extent on other individuals
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– your state of being based on my state of being
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– we feel a pulse arriving, and we change
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– how predictable you would think a system like that is?
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– i wouldn’t expect it to be completely chaotic…
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– complexity… how can you think about it if it was not for it?
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– each component can be part of the whole without knowing about it
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– “it” being the whole or the component?
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– or any of them?
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– then can only one of these pieces bring the whole system down?
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– the state of that answer depends on the state of your purpose
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– i guess an undirected, chaotic behavior will always be alright
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– the order, the function, the control are the ones that you can break
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– why would we want a math-machine that doesn’t do the math right?
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– there’s the poetry!
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– but what about the rigor? the experience of following constraints?
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– you think that is important?
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– maybe it’s part of my identity
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– we don’t have to do right math right
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– less about me, more about the connections?
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– in any case, it would be arbitrary and not too easy to get
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# d
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– i’m having trouble putting the finger in the point
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– is your self-protective awareness in action?
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– maybe. who will want to question electronic computers.
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– or productive computers, for that matter.
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# s
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– i don’t know what’s a computer
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– don’t worry, neither do i
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– but you see it…
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– i see it and i marvel
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– it is only a machine
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– i see how arithmetic can be done mechanically
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– no need to learn, no need to understand?
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– isn’t that amazing? doing something without knowing you are doing it
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– small components contributing with small actions to a whole that no one knows?
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– only the designer?
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– and what if there is no one?
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– what if they also emerged as a whole?
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– and what kind of whole emerges from us?
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– or where does that whole exist?
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– if simple models acquire complexity so quickly…
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– yes, say hi to the chaos of nature
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2022-02-10 20:47:52 +00:00
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# p
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2021-06-15 03:03:28 +00:00
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– has lightning been captured twice, so far?
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– fire, electricity, what are they?
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– probably it’s the same here with computing
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– one thing is to describe them working…
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– visualizations, metaphors… leading to understanding what i can’t see?
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– but you don’t have to, to use them
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– how convenient!
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– in many ways, knowing about computer architecture is completely useless
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– digital circuit design as some kind of poetry?
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– unless you are in one of the few companies, of course
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– forcing the rocks until they can’t hold it anymore?
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– the magic doesn’t disappear even if you know how to combine transistors
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– magic? the mystery of computation?
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– how can dead matter appear to be alive?
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– and how can it replicate and build new versions of itself?
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# l
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a group of people walk in the space
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you see one person:
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if they rise you fall
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if they fall you rise
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respond immediately
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(as fast as your body can)
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they in turn see two,
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not including you
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they rise only if both fall
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otherwise they fall
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some others see them
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some others see you
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every once and then
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a new change occurs in the beginning
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people rise
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people fall
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the wave propagates
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there is an end
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no more people rise
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no more people fall
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and there is a result
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they take note
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someone in the audience remembers
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and then,
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after a pause
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the beginning feeds from the end
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a change again
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the machine is counting
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2022-04-26 23:10:43 +00:00
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# meta
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2021-06-15 03:03:28 +00:00
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originally published in adjacent, issue 5, as lengua partida (2019)
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CC BY-SA 4.0
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=> https://itp.nyu.edu/adjacent/issue-5/the-rite-of-computing/ the rite of computing (la consagración de la computadora) - ADJACENT Issue 5 (web)
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text accompanied by {la consagración de la computadora}
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