SNIPPETS 2000(Short Pieces on a Variety of Subjects)
[01] 2000 AD [01] 2000 AD(February 2000) [Printed in "Reality Module No.14."] Greetings. How strange it feels to be living in 2000 AD! (Although I am a bit disappointed we haven't got those silver spaceships and mile-high skyscrapers just yet!) But seriously: as I expected 2000 AD is superficially like late 1999. "Everyday is a different world" and we slowly move further away from all that is traditionally familiar to us. The changes are slow, but cumulative and unavoidable - and each day places another changed world between us and the past we remember. Right now the past is 1999. How long before 1999 begins to look a touch behind the times - 2005? By 2015 will 1999 seem quaintly behind-the-times like 1980 does now (allowing for accelerated change)? By 2025 will 1999 seem like an older simpler time (not even like 1950 seems now, but more like 1930?) It is a bit scary how the past, also, grows more alien. I look at my school photos from 1979 - strange clothes, strange hairstyles, a school without personal computers. [02] Damien Broderick - Change in the Third Millennium(February 2000) [Printed in "Reality Module No.14."] Went to Damien Broderick's talk on "Change in the Third Millennium" at Brunswick Library on January 27th. Advances from the Human Genome Project, Information Technology, and Nanotechnology coming together in maybe 20 to 30 years to transform society utterly. (Arguments about the validity or otherwise of uploading consciousness to a machine substrate.) Damien is updating his book "The Spike : Accelerating Into the Unimaginable Future" for a U.S. release late this year. Three years since it was released, and he has had to rewrite half of it - there has been so much change. A memorable day. I had my first ever conversation with Damien. [03] Malvern Bats!(February 2000) [Printed in "Reality Module No.14."] There are a few things I like about Malvern. I like the charming Edwardian houses - when they aren't being torn down to be replaced by ugly townhouses. I like the tree lined streets - when the trees aren't being cut down to construct the above. But I mostly like the bats! On my not infrequent nocturnal perambulations I am sometimes lucky and glimpse them - flying just above the electric wires with slow beats of their leathery wings. I used to glimpse them around an old tree in Winter Street where it is especially dark, but out late two nights ago I saw three flutter by just at the end of my street. I hope that this means that they are getting nearer. [04] To MICHAEL O'BRIEN - A. E. Van Vogt (1912-2000)(April 2000) [Printed in "Reality Module No.15."] Sad to hear about the death of A.E. Van Vogt. Much of his early work fascinated me because of the vast abysses of wonder he could open up - almost archetypal in power! He combined humour, an almost Philip K. Dick power of invention, and bizarre fascinating plots which seemed to make perfect sense while you were reading the book. His short stories and his novel "The Weapon Shops of Isher" remain my favourites. [05] To MARGARET ORCHARD - Re: WordPerfect(April 2000) [Printed in "Reality Module No.15."] I have used both Word and WordPerfect on IBM- compatible systems - and I do prefer WordPerfect. It has one feature I really do appreciate - 'reveal codes.' I don't know how many times I've been using Word when it suddenly starts formatting text in a funny way. I know there is a hidden formatting-code somewhere amongst all the text - but there is no way to make these codes visible & hence to delete them. It can drive me nuts! No wonder I prefer WordPerfect - it is more transparent. [06] To MARGARET ORCHARD - Re: Generating Your Own Power(April 2000) [Printed in "Reality Module No.15."] It was fascinating to read about your power generating equipment. I like the idea of being independent from the utility companies. I remember reading in "New Scientist" I think it was - about how solar cells will be efficient enough within 10 years to enable you to cover your roof with them and generate all the electricity your household needs. (Bring the day! Perhaps those still experimental nuclear-fusion plants will only be needed to supply electricity for heavy industry - our households won't need the electricity they make. And if nanotechnology and biotechnology fulfil their promises - we mightn't even need heavy industry! What a thought.) [07] The Prehistory of My Website!(June 2000) [Printed in "Reality Module No.16."] As a prelude to staking out my territory in cyberspace I have started creating a website. Eventually I will have versions of the most important "RM" essays out there in the Net where I can refer people to them. I still have to get an ISP and a couple of extra bits of software. I hope to have something sorted out before my Department of Education job finishes. [08] To ERIC LINDSAY - Re: Corporate Tax Evasion(June 2000) [Printed in "Reality Module No.16."] I am of the opinion that once a corporation reaches a certain size - it should be charged tax at a standardized international rate! Applicable in every country in the world. This will eliminate the 'low tax country' ruse. [09] To MARGARET ORCHARD - On Making Planet Earth Uninhabitable(June 2000) [Printed in "Reality Module No.16."] "We are well on the way to making this planet uninhabitable.
I think it is not a question of if but a question of when." Your view is too dark methinks Margaret. The 21st century will be the crux - it will be when we either 'grow-up' as a race and accept our responsibilities as planetary citizens, or else go to Hell at Warp-Factor 9! I think that as a species we are wiser and nobler than through laziness we are in the habit of being. (Society will change - and for the better. But it will take a frustratingly long time as we watch the momentum build. Like other things - it will grow exponentially, and there will be a transformative seachange - because the good thing about inertia is that once it is overcome - it's near impossible to stop the cascade of changes.) [10] Tapping Into a Zeitgeist!(June 2000) [Printed in "Reality Module No.16."] It is curious. The term "Democratic Humanism" dates back to at least the time of Thomas Jefferson. Though I feel they used the term somewhat differently then to how I am using it. I sometimes feel I am tapping into a zeitgeist. In last Saturday's "Age" (3-6-00) Jim Cairns writes:
Dr. Jim Cairns is talking about his vision for the Labor Party - but there is a sense in his writing that mere economic progress is not enough, we must reach further to reconnect with the human. Jim Cairns is like Tony Blair crying for his Third Way - a caring capitalism - without defining what it actually means. [11] TWO PLAYS: "Hamlet" and "Death of a Salesman"(August 2000) [Printed in "Reality Module No.17."] I've seen two plays: 1). The Stonnington Theatre Company production of "Hamlet" on June 26th - a play I'd only previously known by reputation. Not bad! (But I wonder how much longer Shakespeare can survive in its original form. Language evolves and - for example - few but scholars read Chaucer now with the original Middle English spellings1 and if you hear "The Canterbury Tales" read with the Middle English pronunciations you realise how alien a tongue it is. As the process of language change continues - new words coming into vogue, old words silently dying, the whole English language becoming both simpler and more complex - how long before Shakespeare's language becomes just too old, too strange in vocabulary, too alien in syntax and form to be readily understood? Shakespeare - in time - will have to be rewritten in more modern English if non-scholars are to understand his plays. Of course this is literary blasphemy - but this situation is inevitable, it is the nature of change!) 2). The Melbourne Theatre Company production of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" - another play I'd heard about but never seen. An impressive multilayered work, interweaving the central character's outer and inner space, and showing the persistence (and recurrence) of memory. Fascinating in technique, achingly human in context. A play with deep timeless themes touching the core of the human condition - rich fare for both mind and emotions. As I said to someone as I was leaving the theatre: "They'll be performing this play aboard starships in 400 years time!"2 1I *know* consistency in spelling didn't come until centuries
later, but the spellings then were often very different to what became
the convention later. [12] To JACK R. HERMAN - Walk for Reconciliation(August 2000) [Printed in "Reality Module No.17."] Congratulations on being in the Walk for Reconciliation! (It is bound to have some positive outcomes - in spite of our myopic PM.) The only rally I've been in was an Anti-Nuclear March in the late '80s. We were all photographed - and I suspect that my image is somewhere in an ASIO file. It is remarkable how yesterday's radicalism becomes today's common-sense viewpoint. It is for this reason that I suspect the Aboriginal folks will get a fair deal (and maybe even a treaty) - and we can do our bit to make this happen sooner. [13] To LYN McCONCHIE - "Ice Crown" by Andre Norton(August 2000) [Printed in "Reality Module No.17."] Congratulations on the book sales. My favourite Andre Norton book remains "Ice Crown" - its concept of people's perceptions having been engineered so that they are unable to perceive certain elements of their environment fascinates me. *In early 2000 Lyn McConchie sold two books set in Andre Norton's Beast Master universe to TOR Books in the USA. [14] To SOH KAM-HUNG - Re: Jack Copeland's "Review of Artificial Intelligence"(August 2000) [Printed in "Reality Module No.17."] Interesting review of Jack Copeland's "Review of Artificial Intelligence." His argument against John Searle's 'Chinese Room' thought experiment though is fatuous - I'll describe the reasons why in detail another time. In brief the intelligence in A.I. is an illusion. It is similar to the situation with 'cellular automata' - to an outside observer the resemblance to actual cell-growth and division is uncanny, but at the real fundamental level it is just matrix maths calculations being carried out over and over again. (This doesn't mean that a good simulation cannot be useful. A TV-image is pixels of coloured light but it gives us a darn good impression of the actual view it aims to represent.) They'll be lots more on this later - I'm thinking it would make a terrific topic for my philosophy thesis. Meanwhile, Hung, what do you think about that bloke last month who reckoned in "New Scientist" that the Internet is on the verge of becoming conscious? [Some of the arguments were covered in my essay "Prophets of the Silicon God" in 1997 ("RM1"). It'll be on the Web soon at: http://www.micom.asn./~mfg/silicon.htm .] [15] To LUCY SCHMEIDLER - Re: C.S. Lewis and the Narnia Series(October 2000) [Printed in "Reality Module No.18."] "Re the Narnia books: We took them out from the public library one at a time to read to our oldest, Avi, who loved them and wanted the next and the next until we got to the last one where everything was destroyed, and it turned out that the whole world had been created as a metaphor to teach the kids in the book about Christianity! How can you not resent that?" [OZ SF Fan#12. October 2000] Strange - I did not see it that way. C.S. Lewis was a complex man and there is a lot more to his mindstate than Christianity - important as that became to him. Apart from Christian metaphor - the books exhibit his love of Greek and Roman mythology, his fascination with history (especially Medieval history), his interest in Greek philosophy, and his love of literary fantasy and fairy-tales of all kinds. The book has a moral dimension (but then all good literature does), and it is not really fair to blame C.S. Lewis if his worldview has a Christian-cast. (Every imagined world that spins out of our minds is coloured by what we believe the true order of things to be.) (Aslan is not literally Jesus the man - he is the messiah figure as he would be in a world of talking beasts. C.S. Lewis choose the lion as it is "The King of Beasts" - in 'animal land' the highest creature, as man allegedly is in our world. The name, Aslan, if I recall correctly comes from the Turkish word for "Lion." ) The ending of "The Last Battle" is not the revelation of an orthodox Christian afterlife at all! The world view is in a very real sense that of Plato. Plato believed that the world we perceive with our senses is but a dim reflection of a transcendent and perfect real world lying behind everything.1 This is, literally, what is revealed at the end of "The Last Battle." One of the things that I love about C.S. Lewis' "Narnia" series is that for alleged works of Christian propaganda - they contain heaps of pagan elements! 1Yes Bill Wright - this idea is also expressed in Roger Zelazny's "Amber" series. He did major in Mathematics and Philosophy if you recall.
Copyright © 2000 by Michael F. Green. All rights reserved. Last Updated: 11 September 2004 |