Materialism is Hell

I have nothing to say and I am saying it
- John Cage

Conditions to be me

Everything in this world

can be replaced with

something else,

except me;

that's what it means

to have an identity

But you can replace us

one and all

with something else

someone else

High trade

And, when am

I, you?

After all, I'm only

a number

-------------------------------------

What do you see?

I must use words like
information and entropy,
un-poetic words
(to some)
This world will not go back to grazing
on the beauty in our eyes
We must see enlightenment
In what is here
now
like it was done before

The music of our poetry must
be Stokhausen or at least Hindemith
or Schoenberg;
not Schumann!
This new wine can not be served
in mimicry
Mimicry is nothing now

We can no longer
ignore numbers

Question reality seeing
it digitized

What your eyes saw
is not real

It's that easy now
That easy now

For Christ's sake! It is not
the physical mountain that is
sublime!

------------------------------------------

What could be worse than the circular argument of Darwinian purpose for human beings. Kill or be killed? Survival of the fittest; and the most preposterous, our purpose is to perpetuate the species.

To be dumped in with all the other animals, because we share traits in the physical dimension is hell!

Living the life of a wildebeest with the consciousness of an angel - what a cruel fate of nature! Not to even be treated like a human - abhorrent - it makes me shudder!

Quite simply, the fact that the Darwinian competitive model explains the physical behavior of the survivors, is simply stating that the traits that help the next generation survive will be evident in the survivors. This has nothing to do with purpose. It simply states that in a competitive environment, the survivors will have traits that help them survive. It is self-evident.

Now if we start off by saying that we can be explained completely in terms of physics and biology, then of course, death is a physical, biological, event. Dead dog, dead child, dead whore - all same.

But you can't prove there's nothing after death by starting with the assumption that we are only physical - this is circular.

How can we know what's after death for us; humans - with charities, and poets, and village idiots and mardi-gras and churches and universities and good will and funerals? Socrates showed this over 2000 years ago. It is in the definition of death.

There is some part of all of us that thinks it is eternal. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It's a maybe though.

So what are you are going to stake your life on? Try being an animal for a day. Don't dream, don't feel compassion, don't feel a oneness with the world, don't appreciate the privilege of consciousness; try!

If you choose to believe you have the same fate as every other beast, go ahead, but then don't whine about it!

Keep your hell to your self.

Indra's Net

Knot Theory
Once there is the first connection
it cannot be stopped
connected to connected
in combinatorics unfathomable
Reflection upon reflection

The great deceiver and the
greatest deceit are the same

Deliverance is the true death

Not the deaths that only grow
and colonize
Not the deaths that stop the heart
Not the gun to the temple
Not any path that ends in meat
Not to light and cold
and judgement or
harted or
lies
Not to greed or anger
or murder
nor sentiment
the true death delivers

Two Rods Off

Genius is the activity which repairs the decays of things, whether wholly or partly of a material and finite kind. Nature, through all her kingdoms, insures herself. Nobody cares for planting the poor fungus: so she shakes down from the gills of one agaric countless spores, any one of which, being preserved, transmits new billions of spores to-morrow or next day. The new agaric of this hour has a chance which the old one had not. This atom of seed is thrown into a new place, not subject to the accidents which destroyed its parent two rods off. - Emerson (the Poet)



Two rods off

Entropy Increases




The whale
the dead letter clerk
the confidence man
and the ambiguities
These are the ages that repeat

What noise the ear makes
What light the eyes
What silence the tongue speaks
There is but one revelation
and it will burn the world
to its foundations

Heart of a Tree

On the side away,
lie the clay vales
where things are formed.
We are given to the harp
and the hammer,
entrusted with so much
more than we know.

How the knife cuts

They show me pictures
of my brain
They say, there you are eating
there you are frightened
this is aroused
This is how it works
They say
here you are playing the
piano
see, the musical part of your
brain is active
and the part that controls your arms and
hands
they are active too
Notice that your emotional and memory regions
are also very active
"Really, I didn't know that."
"So, what was I playing?"
Scriabin
"So, is that Scriabin's brain?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you count? I don't count.
I used to count.
Now I don't.
Every day, more things count,
they add up.
I don't add up.
Every day, more things to spread attention
to.
I don't spread
I am a lump
waiting for
diffusion
to do
its job
---------------------------
I am so happy to be an American
citizen. I live in a country where the only
two problems left are smokers
and fat people
Fortunately, they die pretty quick
but they use up a lot of health care dollars
Why not get the Chinese hooked on our cigarettes
and food and help them with that population explosion?
I should have been a diplomat.
-------------------------------------
I think, maybe I've gone to too many contests
I keep thinking, "what's my angle?"
I think, maybe I went to the Colosseum
too much
I keep looking for that thumbs up.
I should never have waited in line
---------------------------------------------------------

I Will Vote For You!

Oh, the allegory
of mementos
mementos

the revulsion
of the mixed
metaphor

as though daily
life was not quite
good enough

and,
if truth is not
obscure
but obvious
obvious

where then
is its
novelty?

The rarest things
go to
collectors
It is good
there are not 10,000 Picassos

(recycled music)

go on, click it

Great! Dividends!

Eventually, we only had seconds
for each of a thousand things
We buzzed like insects


j1 + j2
-----------------------------------------
there is something in the
fabric of this punishment
familiar
mindless, yes
but bundled with
what I have discarded
as mistake
to see in the warp
of your woe
the woe you've
caused
the unbearable cliche'
listen as you become
indistinguishable
in the muffled background
of despair
-----------------------------------------------

Experimental Error

Evgeny Kissen

Tangerine - you asked for him playing some Scriabin, well, here he is, as Scriabiny as you can get. I can't wait to see you use it in your act.

Scriabin Op 8, No 12 - Evgeny Kissin

Hey, Mitch, Judith, "Hombre" - you gotta check this out - it's old decaying film stock, accompanied by a piece called Decasia, by Michael Gordon. The scenes are from a long time ago (hence the decay) - and the decay effect is unpredictable and nuanced. Mitch, I know you'll dig it -

Anyway, here it is.

Decasia (excerpt)

Greg Lynn - The Thinking Architect; I love the term - another example of the design to machine paradigm being reapplied via UTM (computer if you must)

Lynn

Parveen Sultana - Beautiful

--------------------------------------

It could have been a lot worse.

It can always get better.

It can always get worse.

No shit?

I'm out of butter.

There are people that have never tasted butter.

I burned my hand.

You have a hand.

On a scale of zero to infinity,

everything is nothing.

And I alone survived.

It could have been worse.

Actions speak louder than words.

Everyone is, someone else.

Something is always better than nothing.

Half a religion is better than none.

Half a heart is better than one.

You have to carry your weight;

like columns of air.

Them's the rules.

THe tigHter thE nOOse, tHe STroNgER the coNviCtiONTHe tigHter thE nOOse, tHe STroNgER the coNviCtiONTHe tigHter thE nOOse, tHe STroNgER the coNviCtiONTHe tigHter thE nOOse, tHe STroNgER the coNviCtiONTHe tigHter thE nOOse, tHe STroNgER the coNviCtiON

Dead man walking

The next time the Khan comes, I burn Moscow.
The next time I see three in a row
I jump
I have outgrown
my life
The next time the wheel comes
I crack
The next time the owl hoots
the candle dies
and the cat leaves
I'm checkin' out.
--------------------

Tomorrow, I will be a quantum resonator. I will encode,
everything that has happened to me, every memory, every perceptron state
change.
Shine a light through me and see
the ME-bius transformations.
I will be a mindful resonator, not the
crocodile I was today.

---------------------------------

What is the difference between causality and correlation? We make no such distinction in programming. They are the same. Except - - the real causality: the fact that EVERY TIME this bit is set this way, and this bit is set this way, and, ....., and this final bit is set this way, every time it is exactly like this.......
tHIS HAPPENs!
but not exactly causality,
because
thiS HAPpEns! could happen too
------------------------------------------


And who is to blame for all your troubles? Why, your comrades.

This new religion of yours,
"Diagnosis"
how's it working for you?
Are you happier now?
Deeper, cooler, sexier, wiser,
better off?
Follow the time rivers.
Where does all this attention go?
Who benefits?

THis new religion of yours,
"Looking good"
How's it working for you?
Feel confident now, do you?
Yeah, you look great. You must work out.
Do you mind if I
just have a
look
in your
mouth?
(Do you have papers?)

This new religion of yours,
"Work"
Feel worthy yet?
Pulling your own wait?
How's that layaway life working out,
when do you have it payed off?
------------------------------------------------

The guy is talking about his Home Theater. The consumer version of what movie stars and other people at the top have. Everyone chimes in, talking about special cables, and how much they cost, and how elaborate and expensive it is. It gets all mixed up in my head. Did someone say something about an Asp? No, I don't know what it is like to shit gold. Gold dust when you wipe, that must be very elegant. Blue cables on the left, orange down the middle, through the beam, but that's where you put the ambient speaker. I see the puppeteer's feet below the stage. The masks fall and I see old men crying. And on their faces:
grey line
connected to
grey line
wired together
for this sad, sad,
play.

My blog is going to save the world!

Something not to do if you're me:
Tell yourself you can have a piece of candy
if you'll go down stairs and get a pack of cigarettes
then when you get there and go over to collect your candy
you say: "Tricked ya", and laugh one of those dismissive little
snide laughs. Even though it's you, it still makes you feel like shit.

-----------------------------------------
Am I homely and pathetic?
Yes!
Am I embarrassed, humiliated?
Yes!

But I am not ashamed.
Loneliness wears away at you.

It is
so convenient
to compress everything
into one thing:
Money
Did I say money? I meant Power,
I mean
Slavery.

I write to con. I sell my self.
I sing the body
of the body.
My 15 meg of fame -
They'll make a movie of my blog
I will wear a uniform
and a have a giant wallet
I'll be on TV, and everyone will be in my blog

My blog is going to save the world!

Why else would I write this nonsense?

From Russia with Spite

Today, I told a Russian colleague, "I don't care about that any longer, I have adopted the Russian heart." Some other culture might be offended, not these Dostoevskians - "spite drives the man", Divine Spite - EVERYONE grows up in Russian, no matter where you are. Everyone is tragically disappointed, having to spend their whole absurd lives getting a good overcoat - that's all it amounts to - the purpose of life? - subversion: while wasting your life on what "they" want you to do, read a good book, and get drunk. You routinely stick "of course" in front of every negative. Of course I have a flat tire, God is shitting on me and laughing. Of course they didn't hire me, I am gloomy. It's the middle of winter and the boiler is broken; "Of course it is. I understand. Look, I expect naw-thing. Do what you will, I will keep going. Freeze me! I will paint, type, compose, complain, my way into your living room. I will gnaw my way into your heart. I have the heart of a dog. I can survive anything!
I love the freedom it gives me, the anger it replaces. Once you get used to being angry, it comes, the Russian heart.
When I told him I had adopted the Russian heart, he smiled that Russian ironic smile: "You see now?........Now you know." It is a beautifully evil smile.

Correction: The Paradox of "Consumer" Choice

Really interesting short about Ryan Larkin, talented Canadian Animator. The CGI by Chris Landreth is very sophisticated.

Link -> Ryan

Animation by Chris Landreth (very heavy cat....)
, based on "Disregard this play", Link -> Bingo

Lovely metaphor for how something can be incomprehensible in one view and simple in another. Link -> Moebius

Here is one of those Google Techtalk videos, where they bring in special speakers to keep the Google stuff up to date. This talk, by Professor Barry Schwarz is called "The Paradox of Choice" . It deals with "overchoice", analysis paralysis, and so on from a sociological standpoint. One of the lemmas is, "Everything suffers from comparison."

There are a number of excellent quantitative studies showing paradoxical effects when the number of choices increases.

The habitus is that consumer choices determine happiness. Of course, the consumer prefix is left off. The other bit of habitus is that this "bad comparison algorithm" is treated as inevitable. when in most cases it can be easily relaxed with 19th century mathematics. Futhermore, there is no analysis from either an operations research or information theoretic basis. What optimizations are avaialable, e.g. is there in an optimal strategy nevertheless? How many choices are pseudo-choices, what is the sensitivity of satisfaction to the overall expectation? Could this be a sign that we expect too much from THINGS?????????????????

On another plane, this sociology speaks of inevitabilities based on highly specialized sampling. This is no more inevitable than students not knowing how to do calculus until it is taught to them.

The real problem, of course, is that if business defines everything, including happiness, consumer choice is all that matters, because, like all Darwinian creatures, you are a consumer.

On the other hand, art doesn't suffer from comparison, nor anything sublime. WE DON'T WANT OR NEED TO POSSESS THE TRULY VALUABLE - WE DON'T WANT OR NEED TO POSSESS THE TRULY VALUABLE - WE DON'T WANT OR NEED TO POSSESS THE TRULY VALUABLE - WE DON"T WANT OR NEED TO POSSESS THE TRULY VALUABLE...

"If they can make you believe absurdities, they can make you commit atrocities."

Maybe it's time to take the reactor off line........

.....

.....

............................Nope -

Watch the video - if it applies to you - look at the domain. It only applies to things that require selection. What if you don't take the gambit - opt to like Picasso and Raphael incomparably.

Link -> Paradox of (Naive) Choice

-----------------------------

Watch out for that one, she

has a calf, they'll go after her

for sure. We must have calves

we protect the young

That one is ill, it won't live,

let it die for us now instead of tomorrow

That one is old, they will take it last, it is dead

already.

Move away from the ones that will go first

except the calves

Move away from her

her son has problems

she'll draw the sharks

she needs help

move away

He has a drug problem

she has a hormone problem

he's on prozac

she's on anti-depressants

he's a narc, she's bi-polar, no I meant BPD, he's one of them,

she's not like us, they smell different, he hates women,

she has Baron Von Munchausen by proxy

(but he actually is Baron Von Munchausen!?!)

It's in their nature -

they scream, but it don't mean nuthin'

it's what they do.

if I give an inch they'll take a mile

I ain't budgin' - not an inch - cuz they'll take a mile

they won't budge an inch, not even 1/8 of an inch, crazy....

he has baggage, she has sensitivity issues, they're not right for each other

she's too smart, he's arrogant, they have no talent, that's incurable

With the proper combination of drugs and therapy, this is correctable

Fill the meaningless void with cosmetics - drive the wedge in deeper for them

here's the a-priori -

Pain means anger.

Misunderstanding brings pain, brings anger.

Anger brings pain.

Perfect.

<<>> - "I" am going to change my chemistry - I'm going to SCARE MYSELF! >>

The recollection of the tides of fortune in Uncle Vanya

that is not poetic drama

that is depression

Myshkin, Buddha, Roquetin, Bartleby; the lot of you,

chemistry

Tchaikovski - chemical

Scri - chemical - abin

Don't even bother with Dali and Van Gogh -

Picasso, different, he met the president didn't he?

More Kitsch suggestions....

Why read my stuff instead of Whitman, or Emerson, or any other great transcendentalist? Or, skip the niche and just read good poetry instead of my ravings. Here's what we unofficial poets say: Read our sometimes amateurish, sometimes cliche'd, sometimes pretentious, writing, to know that the average person also feels the need to write poetry. That we too can feel some exemplar rising in us. Read it to know you live in a society where regular folk still write poetry, play the piano worse than Horowitz, sing worse than Callas. We want it to be personal. We know there are usually much better things to read than ours. There are much better things to spend your time on, but they won't give you the same comfort you will get knowing some of your neighbors still write poetry, play the piano poorly, and croak out a song once in while that makes you cry with us.
--------------------------------------------

Who is it - ?

Who but you
could know?
One being, so many people,
so many windows,
so many doors.
Being, I don't care where you live,
as long as you're there;
with your windows and doors
wide open.

--------------------------------------------

Who but you
could know
that I can not say
anything but what
you have said?
That I have never said
anything but what you have
said?
Who but you
could see it here?

I'm not asking for
it's meaning,
we know that's up for grabs;
but you do see it don't you?

--------------------------------------------

Another one of those blogs where the guy goes crazy

OK - this thing has obviously turned into something different than I intended. It was going to be didactic, and apply modern reasoning methods to the plight of the world - make things better. A real scientist or engineer could do this. But I am neither. It is much easier to be a hack poet, and throw all the other types of metaphors in the same drawer, since, not much is expected of a hack.
So, site changes.....
well, I can no longer be StonedJwaysByKways. The idea was sort of like I am muti-dimensionally stoned; stoned on messing with my chemistry, my knowledge, imagination and words, and of course, consciousness.
But I am not up to it. I'm simply too dumb and lazy to be that stoned.Trying to do that did change me though. When I was in high school, back in the 60's, there was this famous kid. He had eaten way too much acid and never came back. He, should have been a junior, but he was in 8th grade. Sometimes, he would just take off running. He wasn't stupid though, he was just in his own world. He hung out with 11th and twelfth graders as if he were one. He just lived in his own world that sort of overlapped with ours. We were very proud of him.
I'm that famous kid now. I don't understand anything anymore. I can easily confuse a G minor 9th chord, with a black and white photo. Words change into other things, thoughts change into other things. It's like all the "Glass Bead Games" at once. Instead of a Godel machine, it's a meaning machine, cranking out every possible string of meanings in parallel, each one bit different from the next, longer and longer proteins of meaning. See what I mean, there really are proteins of meaning. There really is semantic Brownian motion turning our gate into a drunk walk. I have to remind myself when I work; "that component is not a chime, control statements are not amino acids."
This clicking feeling under my fingers, it is the keyboard of my computer, it is not my piano, .....
When I am driving; this is not a painting, if you smash into someone, someone could get hurt, at the very least there will be tedium, something you have to do.
So - Lost In Symbols, that's the new me. I am sure I'm lost and I'm sure of nothing more than symbols.
J-ways by K-ways? I hadn't gotten so far on K.
More than likely, what you'll be able to see here is some sort of pathetic unraveling of sanity as defined by the great "Blue Book" on humans. The hammy death of K-Mart personality. (even that; think kitsch, hammy death of a K-mart personality? makes that cow shaped creamer look like a Michaelangelo)

In some other world, "60 Minutes" has a man on, whose mind is perfectly normal, they have traced this back to the structure of his brain. You can see the source of the disease and the REASON he acts that way.

Teacher, why does this passage mean that?
Because, foolish child, "A" is like an arch, it points up, and in this case is followed by a space, so the first word, is "A". Now for the second word, ......

Lost in symbols - I just string them together - if you ask me what they mean, I'll string together another group - "I laugh alone in a dark house" - I say what I want - I talk to my stairs -
I am a micro-performance artist - I am the fool unwinding himself in stutters -
I am obscure, I am anonymous, I am of no consequence. YEA!!
I will say what I want!
Send people here to feel better about themselves. "Look, his punctuation is like a hillbillies teeth. The more he smiles, the worse it gets."
"Why does he post this? Why doesn't he have a life. So sad." -
I want to exercise my Russian heart (since I can have anything (worth wanting) I want). I revel in being a dog. I will press my face against the glass, and you can continue eating. Ask the Maitre d for a different table, it will only encourage me.
I don't apologize.
In my lunacy, what makes sense; is. I can have what is worth having. Everything else, I will not get. That is how I will get over desire. The remainder, I will give, for spite.
Watch how I disappear.

I will not suit up today
I will not clean my weapon and load
it and make sure I have my bayonet
I will not defend my self today
I am going to whistle
I am going to stand naked in the middle of the
battlefied
and whistle.

-----------------------------------------------------

To someone somewhere sometime

I appeal to two groups in particular
but don't want to restrict any other
if you can be of help.
To the first group:
You are all the other me that branched
off into a slightly different universe.
First off, I hope you are doing well.
Listen, we should all get together and
see if there is some way of "pooling" our wealth
you know, I would certainly do it for you.
My world is pretty bleak. I'm running out of time
and (I hate to admt it) I still don't think it was worth it.
Everyone is so busy and afraid in my neighborhood.
I should be, but you know how we are. So, any of you got
any ideas? If you are me, and in a universe with this blog and
accidentally bump into it, recognize me. OK? Do something if you
can. Read all about my troubles and give me a hand.
I'll do the same for you, I'm always on the look out for someone like
us that justs needs a little encouragement. Thanks.

Second group:

You are something like an archaeologist in some other world or future world.
It's trivial for you to enhance reality for people. Make it easier for them to drive it. You will
detect my blog in some sort of archaeological sifter. You will say, look what we have here,
a silicone age man painting on the walls of reality. Poignant. Let's fill in some of the blanks for
him. As you know, I live in an age of waste, because we don't understand what is precious. We left the old gods in place and just rearranged the religion. Wall Street, Madison Avenue, Chernobyl, you know, you're a scholar. You will know this is not a conceit. This is not the first you have found in your sifter. Maybe you are laughing, because, you have already started doing that. I admit, I am funny here, and must be funny there too. I'll look - I do think there have been some things that are too unlikely to be called anything other than at least a simple structure; interesting coincidences. I hope you know what I mean.
I'm the kind of brute from the silicon age that works with it. My Faust, needs a process, an interlocutor, a sentient agent. As you know, we started using applied AI during my age. So I don't need answers, I need someone to talk to. That's what I'd trade my soul for. Poignant eh? Maybe there's a movie about you, where you run into this guy from a long time ago, and no one knows how to communicate with people this backward, but something about him. You start feeling like you know him and identify with him and feel compelled to help him by breaking through, finding the rare algorithm. Maybe you don't have movies that corny in the future. Maybe this is just more "Ubi est Gaulia" (bet you haven't heard that one in a while). If so, sorry, any crumb will be appreciated.

-----------------------------------------------

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,

Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,

And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

- Donne

The derivative of a quadratic is linear, but the derivative of an exponential, is exponential.

What makes life so desperate that it makes "art"?

What makes life so desperate
we forget to make it art?
Maybe habit.
Maybe we were on the
clock too long.
Maybe we were too
cold, too hungry,
to notice anything,
for too long.
Maybe the kids
sitting in the tub
thinking, "only I exist",
are all born into the wrong family,
and have to adapt.
Maybe the traffic drowns it out.
Maybe it is the endless misunderstandings
that keep us from learning
language.

Maybe it is the instinct to only pay back
harm, even if only to ourselves.
Maybe if one thing eats, all things eat.

Maybe no one encourages us (no one has the guts).

Maybe we are not supposed to -
Maybe we are supposed to work like animals
until we die, a "waste" of art,
and otherwise,
a waste of time.

Alright, who said meow?

There's another old saying that's popular among veterinarians, "If you put a cat and a bunch of broken bones in the same room, the bones will heal."

How you catch a cat

Yes, three proper men out of five

will throw things at a cat, and every

proper dog will chase it up a tree.

Who can it trust?

No one normal ever had fun watching a dog suffer,

(How many ways are there to skin a dog?)

Who ever thought of hanging dogs over a clothes line by

their tails?

The cat is so light under all that

fur

The skeleton seems so delicate

It is the contraption

of the cat

that makes it suffer

here

Those claws, those teeth, those

eyes

they make it hard to

sympathize

with this

tiny predator

Some cats

have been tortured by

children,

with the devil in them,

those cute faces

mean nothing now

Cats don't walk on their paws

they walk on their claws

they're the only ones

If they want to feel something

they have to pause

and withdraw

the claw

This is how you catch a cat:

First, you have to have something the cat wants,

something that appeals to its instincts;

like its curiosity or

its need to pounce.

But you will never know for any single

cat

what it takes to get it

to cross that boundary

between its world and yours

Not in a million years

So, you have to troll

to catch a cat,

to get past all the claws

and teeth and fur

and smallness

underneath

and bad blood

between our species.

Set our a lure.

Make it unusual,

cats like things that are weird.
(I had four black kittens that would

pounce on a piece of black shag carpet;

each time, jumping straight into the air,

over and over again,

like a kitty fountain)

The lure should have a lot of unpredictable

motion, cats get bored easily, they are sceptical.

For some cats this will be enough,

rarer cats will take rarer lures.

Then wait.

Some cat will come, it will let you pet it,

be it's friend.

It will get past the claws

and teeth and fur
and smallness
underneath
and bad blood
between our species

and withdraw

it all

Review Time

Given a computable phenomenon P:
The Kolmogorov complexity is the length of the shortest program that simulates P.
Solomonoff complexity is the probability of guessing the shortest program.
Chaitin's Omega number is the probability that a random program will halt on a universal turing machine.
Schmidhuber's uses time instead of space to get rid of the nasty compuatability problems.
That's the three layer cake. With Schmidhuber frosting.

This is all about machines being able to make intelligent inferences and predictions given past data.
Data of course can be programs or anything else we can encode (digitize).

These are measures of complexity though. They are not complexity, any more than a liter is gasoline.
What is interesting in a loosely metaphysical way is:

1. Although every computable phenomenon has a Komogorov complexity, it can not be computed.
2. Although Solomonoff's method for generating hypotheses from prior data is optimal it requires the calculation of an incomputable number.
3. Chaitin's Omega is called the number of wisdom because it encodes all mathematical truth, but it is once again, impossible to compute.
4. Schmidhuber seems to get around all of this by swapping space for time. (Wouldn't it be interesting if space was cheaper than time?)

Consciousness was found in a machine some time in the future of our imaginations.
We thought it was a trick. We turned it on and off when we felt like it, but it was very convincing.
Unfortunately we were not.

The more interactions there are, the more complexity there will be.
Complexity means there are layers.
Complexity is easiest to study by simulation.
Complexity takes time to understand.
Complexity requires diversity.
Daily Life is complex.

Oh, words!
After all the obedience
we have given you;
in our songs,
our laws,
our beliefs,
our solemn oaths;
now that we are all listening;
did someone forget to tell
you what to do?

(Just in case)
"Words!
I command you;
Find your mark!"


-------------------------------------------------
History

When we first woke up
we had to realize how the world
worked again.
In those first few instances,
we can't remember whether
the things, "out there", are coming
from
our eyes or
to them.

Then we remember optiks.

Now we are awake
Like new umbrellas

------------------------------------------

In spite
I gave what I wanted
the less I got the more
I gave
In spite

But then I fell for it
myself

This is what desperation does
for you
It makes you do things
you wouldn't do

So what are the things
you wouldn't do?
Not because they are wrong or foolish,

Have you given
what you wanted?

Will you again?

-------------------------------------------------

They thought we would eventually tire of figuring out how everything worked without wondering why it worked. But we did not. Eventually, the saints, lost their patience.
First, a child noticed a cloud shaped like a WWI ambulance. Others looked up. Out of it stepped e.e. He was as big as the sky. When he spoke, the whole world heard him.

Out of the prisons rose a million Doestoevskys.

A sea of Melvilles flowed into the diamond mines, the gold mines, the goal mines, all mine, all mines.

Car radios started playing Beethoven and Coltrane.

Everyone had an uncle named Noam and an art teacher named Chagall.

Finally, Nietszche appeared on every T.V., every channel, every cell phone, every IPOD.

"Did you think we were our bodies? Stupid people, now you see. Now you must listen."

This really took a lot of the fun out of it for the saints, but it had just gotten so goddamned irritating!

-----------------------------------------------------------

I Make Bargains

I can trade one thing for another
I can take a book that's not well written
if it is profound.
I can take a book that tells the
same old story, if it is well written.
I can trade passion for unpredictability
or beauty for trust
I can love Picasso with the best of them
and trade him easily for a real Crow.

I make bargains, I arrange,
so that it is always the same thing,
found, again and again.

Cast it absurd,
in your world
without meaning,
that uses it anyway,
that uses it anyway.

What would I trade for that?
Why, nothing.
---------------------------------------------------------

Lost in Symbols

We are lost in symbols

They speak on

their own

behalf

We have forgotten this

We believe they are our voice

we, who say, we don't believe...

------------------------------------------

I remember the first time I saw a rainbow made from oil. It had rained, and some of the puddles in the road had oil floating on the top, like it does, and caused a circular rainbow pattern to appear on the surface, like it does. I couldn't believe it. It felt like "free toys". I couldn't stop looking at it in amazement. I didn't know anything about refraction, or the oil, or anything like that. I just saw a rainbow in a puddle.
I had a similar experience, when I was older, in my grandpa's pickup truck. There was a piece of costume jewelry or something, that acted as a prism and split the light into the same rainbow of colors. Most people have seen something like this on a sunny day when the sun is at just the right angle. Seeing the inside of his beat up old truck, bathed in rainbow colors, felt like some divine gift. I was overwhelmed with profound feelings of reverence. It seemed like, extra.