Virtual architecture

[avad has been encouraging a fertile discussion on "Memory palaces," which relates to the broader topic of virtual spaces and my own conceptualization of Tendril's fictional universe. Her latest post inspired a lengthy comment from me, which I'm cross-posting here. I also point out another interesting exploration of the idea by rokkitz.]

I apologize for my earlier reticence. I used to be excellent at grasping complex conceptual problems, but a few years of serious depression really did a number on that part of my brain. It requires considerable concentration and the focus to keep returning to it again and again. I'm rediscovering these capacities nowadays, but sometimes I still lack the confidence.

This morning I explored another favourite question of mine: what is consciousness? And how can we explain the relationship between body and mind? This is related to the question of memory, don't you think? Although scientists can more easily explain how we store memories than how we experience things.

I've started storing links to articles at a website chrisglass pointed out: del.icio.us. The first time I used it, I thought, "This is interesting, but it's not much different from storing links in my IE favourites, and I don't travel enough to necessitate keeping my favourites portable, so the site is redundant for me." But today as I was reading articles and had this concept in the back of my mind, about creating a virtual space in which our experiences are connected like rooms along a corridor, I realized what an interesting platform del.icio.us provided. I can easily jump to see what other people are thinking about the same problems.

Your post reminds me of another experience I had when I was first online almost a decade ago. In January 1996 I came out of the closet, but I didn't know any gay people and was still quite homophobic. I knew I had to meet people, but was afraid to do so. One of my first steps was to connect through a gay talker, much like today's chat rooms, called Paradox. It functioned in telnet. It allowed me to meet queer people for the first time in a virtual space and move past some of my prejudices and misconceptions. That is another story altogether.

But one of the fascinating aspects of Paradox was its architectural virtual structure, which seemed lacking in the later chat room manifestations. ( Read more... )

About five years ago when I wrote and posted articles on Themestream, I made much more use of hypertext to relate to other articles and ideas. Now that I'm contemplating renovating my personal website, all of these ideas provide nutritious food for thought.

My sense of humour score

The interesting thing: this only made half-sense until I got to the last paragraph, and then everything fell into place. Only Marian gets my humour. Only Marian is listening. And I loved A Fish Called Wanda.

( Another meme indulgence )

To be a bat

My office window at dusk yesterday

From "What is it like to be a bat?", a classic article on consciousness by Thomas Nagel (1974):

It will not help to try to imagine that one has webbing on one's arms, which enables one to fly around at dusk and dawn catching insects in one's mouth; that one has very poor vision, and perceives the surrounding world by a system of reflected high-frequency sound signals; and that one spends the day hanging upside down by one's feet in an attic. In so far as I can imagine this (which is not very far), it tells me only what it would be like for me to behave as a bat behaves. But that is not the question. I want to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat. Yet if I try to imagine this, I am restricted to the resources of my own mind, and those resources are inadequate to the task.

Little brown bat

~~~~~~~~~~

Eek eek eek. What lovely ears he has. Eek eek eek. He doesn't know I'm listening to them, deep into the lobes, resting my screech in him. How lovely: soft, cupped, tender as the petal of the flower where the night moth hovers. I like to hang here amidst trembling soft-winged cousin bodies just listening to him. Is he ignoring me, or is he listening to my ears, too? Eek eek eek.

The light is falling, I can feel it through my little eyes. And now it's safe to fly, except for the barred owl deep in the woods, but we can hear even the down-muffled edge of his silent wings. We can listen to him coming. And now quickly, while he is sleepy, I slip from this hollow birch and dip toward the dusk-shining circle of the bay. Slide and flutter. The air is rich with noise spots, sweet food dapples past shuddering shapes of my family.

And him. I can hear the particular nub of his ear, know the special shift of leather, remember the rich smell of his fur rubbing when he settled next to me three dawns ago.

But hunger sits and raises the shape of my voice. There's a fly shining my call. Eek fleck eek.

Hear the huddled shapes on the structure there: the creatures who built the smoke castle. Jostled their artificial cave like a mountain among the trees. They sit, soft giants like walls against shrieking. Sometimes they mutter voices almost too low for us to hear. Mum mum hum bum. Why do they sit in the falling light and jerk when I fly near, like they couldn't hear me coming? Maybe they can't hear the woods or symphony of food.

Along the shining water surface I hear a strider skimming. Dipping down, I fix my voice in a crescendo. What is it like to be a water strider? Not much now, no longer. Lunge, scoop, yum. Eek eek eek. Listen to them dancing, a long elegant swirl of dancing delicacies. And I am a high breath in the air, feeling the cool night under my leather. Dance amid whispers. Taste, flutter. Eeek eek. Now my eyes can't even feel the down of great day eye's last lashes. Behold gentle silver night eye rise against the banked homes of trees.

I have all night to sing the flight and feast, to wonder at the tiny tasty ones, and scan the circling crowd for his voice, his beautiful ears.




The view from my kitchen window this morning.