THE ORACLE MACHINE

Life, however, is the exact opposite of death, and the energy of life is neither visible nor within matter; life's energy differs essentially from all other forces. The secret of existence may very well be that in addition to forces active in matter, there is the mystery that these energies are forever redirected so as to bring about something new. Causality conditions their flow and ebb, and strict necessity conditions development. By understanding these energies, one can predict today what is to happen ten thousand years hence. But the unfolding, the folding asunder in time, is only one of the forms of appearance. It is not real, for each effect, each consequence, is contained in the cause.

Time is the only resource available to those at the bottom of society. ... It is the time dimension of the new capitalism, rather than high-tech data transmission, global stock markets, or free trade, which most directly affects people's emotional lives outside the workplace. Transpose to the family realm, "No long term" means keep moving, don't commit yourself, and don't sacrifice. ...

The figuration of a possible.
(not as the opposite of impossible
nor as related to probable
nor as subordinated to likely)

the possible is only
a physical "caustic" [vitriol type]
burning up all aesthetics or callistics

Simply, I thought of the idea of a projection, of an invisible fourth dimension, something you couldn't see with your eyes. Since I found that one could make a cast shadow from a three dimensional thing, any object whatsoever - just as the projecting of the sun on the earth makes two dimensions - I thought that, by simple intellectual analogy, the fourth dimension could project an object of three dimensions, or, to put it another way, any three-dimensional object, which we see dispassionately, is a projection of something four-dimensional, something we are not familiar with.

Il mondo come villaggio globale offre agli individui una piu' vasta possibilita' di scelta rispetto al passato: le persone possono decidere la propria professione, il luogo di residenza, il genere sessuale; al tempo stesso multinazionali e supermercati forniscono i medesimi prodotti in ogni parte del mondo, omogeneizzando la realta' e tentando di mettere in ombra stagioni e produzioni locali. Questa conclamata varieta' - quella delle molteplici alternative - e' in realta' illusoria: la schiavitu' e' tuttora presente, anche se in forma di mercificazione. Percorsi e opzioni appaiono come pre-descritti, mentre le preferenze delle persone, a partire dal dominio digitale, stanno diventando un nuovo genere di consumo. In seguito a tale riflessione alcune domande sorgono spontanee: la mancanza di volonta' non e' forse una delle conseguenze della globalizzazione? Puo' questa essere considerata, in un certo senso, come un disagio specifico dei territori post-industriali urbani e civilizzati? Se l'atto di evitare le decisioni e' un modo per boicottare se stessi ed il sistema, reagendo all'instabilita' e rifiutando ogni responsabilita' sul corso della vita, allora la liberta' odierna e' solo apparente e predeterminata?

Overwhelming information circulating the world in wires, compressed into databases, fuels our perpetual crisis: ecological, economic and social. As we approach the nadir of the 19th century's triumphant globalism, we set the controls of our drifting iceberg of market economy to the heart of ecological self-destruct. We spend our remaining moments forming fictions out of the authority derived from the authorities derived from the comparison of database records. We then panic at what is absent from the Oracle of our predictive models and, as ice melts, create control systems not as blunt instruments of authority but as relentless conceptual machines of software cultures that monitor crisis as they create it.

An oracle is an appeal or a question asked to an element or entity of another kind, surpassing the ontological status of humanity. Inside the attitude to ask for answers outside the Self is a diffuse sense of insecurity, and confusion of perceptions, but, also, the tendency to construct a meta-level of comprehension where elements become signifying because a system appears to have a certain structure, and intrinsic and extrinsic relations are considered relevant. A diffuse level of uncertainty is present whereas articulated language is at use: the path traced by rational science leads to a chasm where concomitant possibilities are obfuscating any image, rendering logicians and their instruments tremendously fragile, and metamorphic: everything depends on the perspective of the observer, and reality becomes slightly out of measurement.

The generative semiotics of the 'Paris School', which is based on that linguistic tradition originated from De Saussure and Hiemslev - and whose most representative member is Algirdas Greimas - offers incredibly appropriate instruments to approach (and dissect) a symbolic system. According to the generative hypothesis, semiotics is the study of systems and processes of signification. The basilar postulate is that the signification of a text can be articulated in different levels, from the most abstract to the concrete, along the 'generative trajectory'.

What we learn from our everyday experience in the technologic world of comfort and commodities, is that machines are intrinsically different from humans. First of all, they are honest: machines are not programmed to lie to people, and, whenever they make a mistake, they would declare it. Whereas humans tend to deny or hide mistakes, machines pre-emptively advise us of any possible error. Thus, when we learn how to use machines, we learn how to trust machines.


#sympathetic rites 01 - similarity
if x(god, saint, hero):
do such & such2;
while circumstance = bla;

then x(god, saint, hero):
do such & such2;
while circumstance = bla2;