Henry Markram and The Fabric of the Brain

'My Boys,' get it?

Taken By Tree's rendition is nearly as catchy as its predecessor, but the video is way sweeter. Directed by Marcus Soderlund.

I Don't Mean to Seem Like I Care About Empirical Things

The appropriate holiday wrapping paper for all your DigitalTranscendentalist friends designed by build for the Design Museum .





Arthur Magazines stellar gift list.







Pitchforks 50 best albums of 2009 supervene their holiday gift guide[?].


Merry Shopping.

Jim Gaylord and the Hypothetical Syllogism.

Logic is a determinate, digital system performed through reason.



Conversely, the natural world is transcendental. We have no access to it outside of how it appears to our sensory apparatus.



[Why do we always say, our sensory apparatus, our faculty of reason or our left arm and not the arm that is me or the area of myself who functions in reason?]



We use our logic to fill in the gaps, to draw hypothesis for the space between the information we think we have.



Jim Gaylord is a painter born in Washington, North Carolina. He now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

New Fever Ray Video

Stranger Than Kindness from Fever Ray on Vimeo.

Directed by Andreas Nilsson

I want philosophy to look like this:

The Fragment as Digital Transcendentalism                 

                           î

1.     [s] refer to some whole, always.

2.     To dub any text a fragment, implies two things: wholeness and fracture.[1]

3.     There is always a supervening whole.

4.     Thoughts are not fragmentary[2]; fragments refer to thoughts with meta-linguistic properties.

 

          EXAMPLE:

‘The early bird catches the [    ]’

          -Is this a fragment?

                        (A: Yes and no, this series of words has a transcendental intelligibility that corresponds to processors with an understanding of the idiom and it’s meaning. The words refer to that transcendental understanding but are not the understanding itself.[3] However, insofar as this group of words exists in a grammatical series, it is a sentence fragment)

5.     Fragments are digital information with transcendental properties.

 

 

DIGITALTRANSCENENTALISM:

Digital (dij-i-tl):

                                             Of or relating to a system of data employing

                                   discrete values communicated through

                                                  a language understood by sender and receiver.

TranscendŸentalism (tran-sen-den-tl-iz-uhm):

                         <> trans: beyond   +  <>scandere: to climb

                         <>talis: such   +   <>isma: action, condition, doctrine

 

            The digital realm transcends the natural realm, as the digital realm is not subject to natural laws. Digital information (words, symbols, numbers, etc.) refer loosely, among other things, to conscious thoughts, but are simply incompatible with them, so misunderstanding or subjective relevance or serendipitous context gives language power beyond intelligible representations of our conscious thoughts.

[Fragments become enticing to people because the meaning of a fragment must change based on the individual person.[4]  Fragments allow the mind to bend the laws of nature[5] by providing us a transcendental input (an input with properties outside of the laws of nature) and thus giving our minds causeways between neural groups that would never naturally cross otherwise.]

 

Digital language has provided us a construct in which to think of our world and ourselves. However, language does not seem to fit correctly everywhere.[6] For example, attempting to cope with ‘freedom’ in light of determinism causes a philosophical dilemma. But what could we possibly mean by the word freedom? The ontology of the universe is determinate. What could ‘freedom,’ the way we use it, even mean? The language falls short. The word takes on a transcendental property in light of its unfounded meaning.

 

 

Implications:

 

1.              In light of any and all skeptical arguments, language must exist as we experience it. Language is the vehicle in which we say, “I am a thinking thing” or “cogito ergo sum.” It is subjectively intelligible and objectively intelligible.[7]

2.              Perhaps also digital artwork or communication can avoid the blade of skepticism in that the language between sender and receiver is intelligible, and therefore only material that an entity in this reality can understand is communicated.

3.              If we were to become the evil daemons and build an alternate reality using a digital system, would it be a reality devoid of skepticism? Considering digital transcendentalism, the answer seems to be yes.

---

[1] Fragments of fragments?

(A: context considered, a fragment is part of one whole. ex: a fragmented sentence in a chapter of a fragmented anthology is a fragment of a supposed whole chapter despite the fragmentary nature of the chapter and/or the anthology)

adjacent conclusion: there is always a supervening  whole.

[2] They are electrical and, therefore, have no necessity for complete compatibility in a digital system i.e. German, English, C++…

[3] The words stimulate corresponding neural patterns in the brain, but are not the complete manifestation of them due to the overwhelming epiphenomena that accompany the mere reading (and understanding) of the words as they appear.

[4] Each individual person (or conscious entity) will have a different array of mental context in which to cognize a given fragment, especially if the fragment’s meaning is unintelligible in a grammatical or logical context. The mind will, nevertheless, cognize the fragment and form concepts solely through its reasonable faculties.

[5] Partially providing a sort of freedom of the will.

*DISCLAIMER: This is not true free will in any sense of the word unless one is willing to accept that the subject is nothing more than acquirer and processor of sensible data, which it is.

[6] This is Philosophy.

[7] Our language as a digital system has standard rules that make them fit methods of communication, but (as previously stated) there is always subjective interpretation.

Eadem mutata resurgo

Daniel Askill - WE HAVE DECIDED NOT TO DIE from Cgunit on Vimeo.

Breaking the pataphysical boundaries of nature, WE HAVE DECIDED NOT TO DIE is a journey of transcendence.

Written and directed by Daniel Askill

Check out the interview here.

Think Different

A new model of the Universe

Earth

and Time:

TEDxAmsterdam: Wubbo Ockels from TEDxAmsterdam on Vimeo.

Frankenstein + 7

*EDIT: this is the N+7.

Envelope regiment exposition return glowing navigator embroidery conspiracy renovating resolved sleet vial wildness stream madness mange determined fact germ luggage gash chick reverential reverently destination animate navigator thief scope onion died departure studies elementary dribble zinc prompt phlegm lifeless mayonnaise worm moor credits speaker host freedom trembled concealing experience silver sidetrack yield neglected ugly heaven levy creek hilt writer mouth murdered filth pity frightful imbecile gun gravy gore insanity blackest condemned ignominy acknowledged spa hunch figure revolution tentacle savage occupy tournament pipe spleen begone abhor hurdle announcement fishmonger breeder work huff employee extinguished compatriot consumption sympathized follow reception lark affected enraptured listened creed remainder minister prove pronunciation hoard land parcel lost monstrous cursed despot preposition condemned speaker arose rainfall heartless supermarket meditate eternal fig deformed denial keepsake persuade gleam consume bog blind tally tax magazine oilfield being judo blouse intention sage pursued squalid forehand ladder soul virgin applicant applause refrigerator gushed condiment excitement cosmonaut succeeded loathing mist accountant ghastly procedure limb lived alas sector coupon lowland free benefactor comply relapse brigade fluorescent realist expire vain bodily dance ambassador loose barbarous movement hem dryer nipple toilet struck font vengeance moor imperialist escape China marathon cat blamable balancing steeple representation merchandise criterion energy

Would the epiphenomenal treatment performed on Frankenstiein work in reverse? After changing all the nouns around, could we work backwards and have a different artist write a page of prose for each word, in light of all the words, and come up with a new, coherent text?



Perhaps works like Marco Brambilla's Civilization are good examples of this.

Frankenstein as Epiphenomenalism

"Its out there in here"

-Mark Warren Jacquez

What do we get out of a picture or a novel or any experience? What can we take away? We leave with nothing material. The object that exists is invisible data.



"Pumps have no efficacy. Of course, objects are caused to be pumps, i.e., their being pumps is a consequence of their parts having the properties they have and standing in the relations in which they stand. But all the causal work of pumps is explained by the properties and relations of the parts. It would be ludicrous to say that the movement of fluids has two causes, i.e., the push of the blades and the pumping. Explanation of the movements of fluids in terms of such things as rigidity and motion of the pump's parts has to be mentioned in any full account of those movements, and this kind of explanation explains everything that needs to be explained; thus the explanation in terms of rigidity and motion of the pump's parts excludes the property of being a pump from any explanatory role. Our intuition that pumps move fluids is just an illusion. Being a pump is a mere epiphenomenal property."

-Jaegwon Kim

When we read a book like Frankenstein, we recall few scenes or specific events as they were presented. What we come away with is a concept of what the whole of the novel evokes in our own chemistry.

I like to call this "Frankenstein as Epiphenomenalism."

Enterprise reflections expedition return glowing nature embarkation considerations renovating resolved sledge vessel wildness stranger madness man determined eyes Genevese love gardener cherub reverential feverently desire animate nature theories science omen died departure studies elementary dream zeal progress phenomena lifeless materials workshop months creation spark horror Frankenstein trembled concealing existence silence sickbed yield neglected ugly heart letter creature hilarity wretchedness mountains murdered figure pity frightful ignorance guilt grave God innocence blackest condemned ignominy acknowledged soul human fiend revenge tenderness savage oblivion torrents pines spirits begone abhor hunger animals fire bread wood hovel emotions extinguished companion consumption sympathized follow reception language affected enraptured listened creator relationships mind prove promise history lament Paradise Lost monstrous cursed desire prejudice condemned spark arose rage heartless sun meditate eternal fiend deformed demand justice persuade glaciers consume boat blind tale task machinations ocean being journey blood instruments sacrifice pursued squalid forebodings laboratory sophisms villain appetite apparatus reflect gushed conscious examination corpse succeeded loathing misery accident ghastly prison light lived alas secret countenance love free beloved comply regret bride flowers rays expire vain bodily daemon Alps loose barbarous mourner hell dreams night toils struck foe vengeance monster imagination escape children mankind cast blamable balancing stature repentance memory criminal end

It is made up of one word from each page of the novel. Reading through this, seemingly, is an alternative route to the same epiphenomenal experience: a stepping stone on the road to a post-literate age.

Radical Friend's Yeasayer video

This video accomplishes two things:

1. Is completely parallel to all the neural circuitry patterns in the digitally transcendental aesthetics' brain

2. Gives steve graf goosebumps

Yeasayer - Ambling Alp from Spy Films on Vimeo.