Bryan Saylor's Blog

Crazy

bsaylor — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:01:28 +0000

I just realized that I have been in school for six months already. Man, that time really flew by. Hopefully the summer goes by a little bit slower. Yet I know September will be here before I know it. Not that it is necessarily a bad thing…

Transformations project reflection

bsaylor — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 11:57:16 +0000

Art Transformations Reflection

For my transformations project I worked with Alex Bernstein and we focused on how art will transform in the coming years. Coming into the project I did not really know what to expect. At first I had a hard time differentiating the purpose of the project from prior projects in class. When trying to come up with ideas for a theme I originally wanted to focus on film. I’m a big fan of cinema and was curious to see how the medium might evolve in the future. Then, after talking to many classmates about project themes, it seemed the best person to pair up with would have been Alex. He wanted to focus on art, which of course film is a part of. In retrospect focusing on art in general was a much better option than working only on film as it allowed us to focus on multiple mediums and get a better idea on how art as a whole is changing in the future. This is mainly because art mediums are becoming more and more interdependent.

I think we picked a good topic for many reasons. First when looking at books to research in the library, it became apparent we were going to have more information than we needed. I found many of the books that ended up in our bibliography in just a few catalog searches. Out of the eight books that we included in our bibliography we ended up using four. These were more than adequate. In the two I researched I barely got halfway through the books and had way too much relevant information for our project. This made researching our project very enjoyable. The books were mainly collections of essays by experts. Because of this the books were pretty comprehensive and interesting to read.

Another reason that we picked a good topic was we were both very interested in the subject. After talking to Alex for just a few moments he made it clear that he really enjoyed art. We both seem to have artistic tendencies as well so I think this helped us think of our project in creative ways. At first we came up with a few presentation ideas that were probably a little too ambitious. I for one did not realize how short of a time frame we needed to get the project done in. One of these ideas was filming a short multi-screen piece, which logistically would have been difficult to present in the classroom. Though we did not get to do many of our original presentation ideas I was still happy with our final presentation.

Alex was a great partner to have in this project. He kept his end of the workload up and provided tons of awesome ideas for the project. I think it really helped that we were able to engage in some thought provoking discussions from our own personal views on art and the ideas we got from researching. Alex and I got along well and there were no conflicts. I think we both approached this project with open and creative minds, which really allowed our project to develop.

Now that the project is finished and I can look back at it. There is really nothing that I would change about it. It came out really well and I felt I learned a lot from it. I was able to gain a lot of knowledge from the essays I read and from talking with Alex. Hopefully that came across in our presentation. I can look towards the future of art a little more positively now then I did before. I think I was reassured in our capacity for creativity, despite how many think of digital technologies as being restricting. I’m sure some other new technology will pop up in the next few years, or someone will start using tools in completely unexpected ways that make us have to view all these issues from different angles. That’s part of what art is though.

Singularity 7th post of doom (epilogue&appendix)

bsaylor — Wed, 13 May 2009 07:56:03 +0000

Yeah. Done. I finished the Singularity is near. Am I a singularitan? No; Alas I am not. It’s an interesting enough subject one I’ll probably keep see popping up. Yet I am not convinced it will unfold like that. I think to hand the torch over to computers goes against humanity’s need for survival. I don’t think going non-biological will do it for us. We like to live think and feel. I think we need ourselves to do that. Computers may as well gain consciousness but I don’t think you’ll have a mass of volunteers to become one(a computer). I do think we will become increasing intimate with our technology, and we may even seem much like cyborgs. I just don’t think we will become non-human. One thing Mr.Ray has accomplished is I have been watching many a sci-fi movie as of late.I’ve been re-watching old ones and finding new movies all very interesting with my new knowledge from the singularity and our discussions in class. I also started reading some PKD novels. I think getting into all this sci-fi stuff is a way for me to see some of the imagined possibilities. It’s kinda fun.

Singularity 6th post of doom(Ch.7,8,9)

bsaylor — Mon, 11 May 2009 06:26:43 +0000

By this point I am not on board for the singularity. not even because I would not like it(which I don’t). I do not think Mr.Rays version of the future is feasible. First of all my biggest problem is with the issue of consciousness. I can see us being able to upload a pattern of ourselves but I don’t think “We” will be uploaded along with that pattern. I’m not sure or not if that pattern will be able to pass a turing test or not. It might be able to fake it well enough but why would it even bother? Of course this is explored in “Do androids dream of electric sheep? by PKD. I still need to read that by the way. Up to this point I have only seen the movie “Blade Runner”. But if the movie is accurate to the book at all in the late 60′s PKD seemed to thin that not only would androids be able to pass a turing test but they would be able to show emotions such as empathy and hurt that we would normally relate to consciousness. They would probably seem human walking down the street. Yet that is not even what Mr.Ray is talking about. Mr.Ray would like us all to go online and not just at a terminal. He thinks we will upload ourselves into a electronic utopia. Followed by they ruins of our civilization, our machines spreading themselves through out every possible universe and dimension. I at this point can not see that happening.

In chapter 8 Mr.Ray does not do a very good job in easing anyones fears about the dangers of GNR but I don’t think he is very concerned about that I think he would rather just think about living forever in the form of a computer program. Never mind what it takes to get there. Most of chapter Nine was extremely boring being arguments he has already covered. I don’t think his expansion of the argument of whether or not computers can be conscious is any better her than before and he spends way to much time trying to dispel the chinese room argument and to me his argument is the same as the person he is arguing against.

saving the earth one day at a time

bsaylor — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:26:51 +0000

Doing the ecological footprint assignment made me realize how little I am using on a day to day basis. My girlfriend has been really all about saving energy, recycling and all that kind of stuff and she is really on me all the time about doing the same thing. It also helps that I am home at most 12 hours at a time since I work overnight and go to school in the morning. Every week we only really cook on one day a week. We cook one big meal like a big thing of soup or chili and eat that for the next four or five days. Since we recycle and have recently started doing compost it takes about three weeks to fill up a trash can. My girlfriend insist we have everything unplugged unless we are using it which saves a lot of electricity as well. We only do laundry once a week and we only run our dishwasher once a week as well. Since I’m not home very much at night I don’t really use lights very much. I don’t watch television probably my biggest expenditure is my computer use. My actual power consumption from this is a lot lower than whats on the sheet though as I have newer mac computers. I ride my bike everywhere or walk and I rarely use any motorized vehicles including trimet. I do not consume any gasoline products. For work and school I bring a bagged luch so I don’t really use up energy there either. Over all this only made me think I can’t really cut down anymore than I already am besides moving out of my apartment and living on the street.

Singularity 4th post of doom (ch6)

bsaylor — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 08:02:54 +0000

Wait a second. Hold on there Mr.Ray I think your contradicting yourself just a tiny bit there. I thought you said we were going to be able to extend the life of our biological bodies indefinitely. What’s with this only living on as software thing. If I just up load my mind would that really be me? Or just something that acts like me? Would my consciousness upload as well? I think you need to decide Mr.Ray which living on forever you want to talk about. Other wise this chapter is just a conglomerate of what ifs, maybes and I’m bettings. I did find the Seti,drakes equation and Fermi’s paradox thing interesting. Though I’m finding his universe expansion thing a little hard to comprehend. I guess I don’t understand the point of our intelligence floating around the universe if we’re not going along for the ride. I guess we can sit here in our solar system and gather info about the universe. While our robots go out and do what they do. hmm… but wouldn’t we be robots at this point? Actually I don’t agree Mr.Ray. I don’t think that evolution is naturally inclined to non-biological life forms. So there.

Singularity 3rd post of doom(Ch4+5)

bsaylor — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:52:13 +0000

It’s too bad we can’t select from Mr.Ray’s futurist visions and pick what we like and forget what we don’t. It would be nice to have replication machines that could make anything with raw materials for cheap. That would get rid of capitalism as we know it. I would be surprised to find if there were many people besides Mr.Ray who would be comfortable with integrating with technology the way he puts forth. Would I be the same person if my brain and body were fused with electronics of various sorts? Would that not change my personality to something totally recognizable then I am today? One could argue that this happens naturally and I would agree. But this change would be so exponential, as Mr.Ray puts it, that I don’t think you could say I’m Bryan 2055. I would be a ghost. A ghost of whatever anyone would want me to be. With nothing to do and nowhere to go. Nothing to achieve and nothing to dream. A shell of what I was but inside there might be intelligence. It would be worth nothing. As anything or anyone who wanted that intelligence could have it. They probably already would have it. Having everything available with no need to compete would kill expression, freedom and individualism. There would be no point to any of this. I might exist after the singularity but I would be a ghost and all being a ghost implies. I wrote a song over spring break that really is this concept. I was writing about something else (still having to do with tech) but it really applies here.

I am ghost, existing in machines, I am ghost, I’m no longer free, I am ghost, I’m trapped in my ideals, I am ghost and I am unreal cause god is love if love is control

Ow…my head hurts

bsaylor — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 08:48:01 +0000

From reading some of my classmates crazy detailed blogs. I have never been able to analyze things like that and I am jealous. My thoughts and ideas always come to me in a random intuitive kinda way and I have a hard time staying on one idea long enough to really get a good grasp on it. My mind tends to jump around like packing peanuts when my cats play with them. It does not help that I try to think of ten things at once. I tend to think that time is running away and so I try to run along with it. It doesn’t work. Yeah… well anyway to any of my classmates reading this please enjoy my short blogs. If you get a chance swing over to myspace.com/bryanminus I am currently working on a solo ep and I have a few demos of some songs I might record for it. I’m trying to get some opinions on the demos to help me decide which songs to record. I would love any feedback positive or negative. Thanks,

bryan

Singularity 2nd post of doom(Ch.2 +3)

bsaylor — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 09:03:44 +0000

Yeah… well Mr.Ray started to lose my interest in these two chapters. First of all he spends way to much effort trying to prove his points. Even when their obvious. Also he has some poor examples in there like the phone book. Also he had some ridiculous quotations like Dwight D. Eisenhower’s now can only be now quote. Well anyway past the book review. Mr.Ray’s predictions he made in 2004 about now seem to be a tiny bit off which makes me wonder about his predictions about the future. I also get down on his endorsement of unbridled capitalism gettin’ us were we need to be. I wonder what he is saying about economic downturns and if this current one will be like the two “not really doing anything recessions” of 91-93 and 2001-2003. Will we really be right where we left off when this recessions all over? Like it never happened at all, huh. Yeah ,we’ll see Mr.Ray. We’ll see. Another thing that bugs me really has nothing to do with the book, but apparently according to some of Mr.Rays’ graphs in 19060′s/70′s we had the computational power of a bacterium. So your telling me we went to the moon in the late 60′s early 70′s with computational power of a bacterium yet we won’t be able to go back with the advances we have now until 2020. What?!?!?! How does that make any sense whatsoever. Really. Please tell me. How? Anyway…Honestly Mr.Ray did not bring up anything really too new or interesting accept for rehashing stuff from the first chapter so hopefully things will get better in the coming chapters.

Singularity 1st post of doom(preface and chapter one)

bsaylor — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 10:46:01 +0000

O! What is this madness of singularity. My brain is swelling from over use. I am intrigued enough to want to go on. To see Mr.Rays arguments for his exponential predictions. Not that the exponential part doesn’t make sense. What is hard for me to comprehend is why these new fangled self creating machines would have respect for our biological life or forms. What eternal point or purpose would we have when everything is self perpetuating.? Would insanity still exist when we would wander between virtual reality and reality with no perceptual difference? How would we even define existence or know when we are actual living life? Once the singularity happens we could live our whole lives in a little box and not know any better. Hey wait a minute! That sounds just like that movie the matrix. Yet I’m afraid, from the way Mr.Ray describes the singularity, that there would be no escaping. For these machines would have a level of intelligence that would not be matched. Even if we were to be able to share in this intelligence would we really still be human? We would have a totally different concept of life and being. How could life have the point it does today. I would think that with a problem solving power of that sort there would be no problems. If there are no problems then Mr.Rays definition of being human “transcending limitations” would be out the window. There would be no limitations to transcend.