Monday, April 30, 2007

"Blinded me with science.."

*cue bad 80's music* "IT'S SCIENCE!!"
I don't have much of a scientific background, but I was able to grasp a bit of it enough it make sense. I still really enjoyed this story and kept drawing parallels between other works I've read/seen such as BLAME!, GITS series, and quotes from a character named Himiko, from a book title that escapes me, but I own. But mostly BLAME!, which I may or may not post about at a slightly later time. Anyways, her quotes were about decisions and myriad of ultimate universes that come form those choices one makes in their life times. It was exactly along the lines of what we discussed in class. I often ponder at the possibilities of my own choices in life, and what may have been. Or possibly was would an alternate universe be like somewhere in the expanse of the stratosphere of dimensions and universes in space. No, no I don't toke up while doing this either, just out of boredom or daydreams. This brings me to another subject: reality.

acorporeal people in VR or fleshed out in our reality of the material, or Cass's swimming in real water; reality is real for those living in it. Just because VR is virtual, it is still a reality? Another form of it different from our own but no less real. Yet even the material people in this book are living half way between the two realities because of how much technology, their inter connectivity with it, and the use of the Qusp like a "save point" (lol tap the save point, find the moogle) are allowing this to happen. What is reality then what we perceive as real. Can't reality involve another state of being and or perceptions ?

(NO, no matrix quotes, I hate that movie, they totally ripped off anime/manga. It was fine the first time I saw it but no no more.)

3 comments:

Josh said...

"What is reality then what we perceive as real." The way you word it, it almost seems like a form of relativism, only one that determines reality rather than morality. I never cosidered it this way, but your choice of words provoked me to this line of thought. If we could create our own realities, would this be similar to creating our own morality? I know (or assume) this is not what you meant, but if this were true, I might expect more conflict. I guess this might not truly apply to the book, but I like that idea. Who knows what could happen?

Dani said...

You know I don't even know how I string words together half the time.

No I don't mean morality, but yeah I suppose its interesting to think about.
I'm glad you could piece together something from my chicken scratch from the brain<3

Chloe said...

It’s difficult to talk about reality sometimes without it appearing clichĂ© and Hollywood (thanks Matrix for selling out, I must agree with Dani on that one); however, taken out of context it’s still a nifty metaphysical concept to think about. Reality in itself is quite subjective if one takes themselves outside the realm of their comfort zone. First of all there exist certain scenarios in which we could be oblivious to the true nature of “reality”. The existence of other minds is not fully reliable as I could be the only existence and am simply formulating everything in my own perception including the illusion of other minds, and the evil demon scenario which asserts that it is logically possible for an evil demon to exist which feeds us lies and is distorting our perception of reality, and the demon is simply laughing at humanity’s foolishness. These are some classic examples and the philosopher escapes me at the moment, Hume or Descartes I believe, but in any case reality is best to be taken with a skeptical attitude.
Secondly, closer in context to Schild’s Ladder, take memory, experiences, personality traits, and cryostats. If personality traits could be modified at will, it almost seems possible (in a stark frightening sense) that our individuality becomes warped or even ceases to be. If everything becomes malleable, then what constitutes reality? For in a sense, with an endless degree of modification, humans become akin to avatars in cyberspace and reality becomes a virtual one, quite the paradox isn’t it? Also, take cryostats, after waking from many years progress (consider how much can happen in a few decades) reality is no longer what you remember it to be and takes on a certain surrealism, like culture shock in your own environment. So without any comfort zone to hope for in an alien landscape, reality becomes fleeting and I imagine would be simple to loose a grasp upon.