• places with a single or narrow focus:
  • NY City Resistor - electronics
  • Hackerbot labs - electronics / material works
• places that have a broad focus:
  • Bucketworks
  • Jigsaw Renaissance

• ...anyone can just get on the Internet, make something, share it with people on IRC.

  Posterous/Twitter/Facebook readers:

  This is an email I posted to the Spiriata mailing list.  Spiriata is a new society effort that I am working on in Seattle (and, to have an important online element as well.)  For more on that, send me an email, or leave a comment at the end of this post.

  The basic telling of this email is a Teilhardian big picture understanding of our universe, from the Big Bang to the present.

  Summary, since this is long:

  Missing from this picture is any detail on pre-human, human history.  You won't see nomadic tribes, farming lands, Egyptian civilization, social unfolding.  Nor will you see anything about the development of religion, government, social orders.  Nor will you see much of anything looking like theology or new age sensitivities.

  Rather, this is a much broader look, on the order of natural history (the Big Bang, formation of galaxies,) the evolution of life, and the emergence of thought, ideals, and dreams.  "The human being as universal substance and the body (or brain) of the human being as a new kind of molecule of matter."

  Then it looks into the future, and asks, "What kinds of things do we envision in the future?"

  There is a brief apology for (apology, in the sense of: "defence of") reductionism.

Brief History & Dream of the Present

  HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE

  Scientists have discovered that the material universe is
  13.7 billion years old.  Many theorists theorize that
  there was a history before this, (that our universe was
  just a small "bubble" that inflated, from within a larger
  structure that we don't understand,) some speculate that
  the universe extends infinitely, and so on.  There are
  theories that we are in one universe amongst many, and
  there are theories that the material universe is a dream
  or a simulation.  All of these are fair and meet
  scientific understanding.

  Space inflated rapidly.  There was NOT an explosion --
  "Big Bang" is a misnomer -- there was no "starting
  location" for the universe that every thing went out from.
  Rather, there was a sudden inflation of space.  (For all we
  know, space extended infinitely in all directions, filled
  with dense energy, at the very beginning.)  After the great
  breathing in of space, matter began forming, and it shaped
  into galaxies.

  Our star, the sun, is a daughter star -- there was a
  mother star before it.  This mother star exploaded,
  forming heavier elements, and the sun we know today formed
  from new condensation.  Our solar system formed the same
  way as well.

  The Earth is four and a half billion years old.  There was
  a long period before what we recognize as life evolved.  I
  do not know the details of our evolution yet, but I do
  recall that mammals formed as an off-shoot from the
  reptiles.

  GEOSPHERE

  For all of this time, the development of the universe's
  structure followed natural law.  If you wanted to
  understand what was happening, you would study nuclear
  physics, and chemistry.  "Evolution" wouldn't get you very
  far.

  BIOSPHERE

  With the formation of life, nuclear physics ceases to be
  interesting.  Chemistry, biology, ecology, evolution
  (internal and external to the organism) becomes the
  domains of study.  The matter is comig to life!  Things
  get interesting, and beautiful.  It now makes sense to
  speak of organisms, rather than stars, rocks, and gaseous
  masses.

  This is a much more complex and lively development in
  universe, and it is qualitatively different than the
  universe earlier.

  UNIVERSE AS A SUBSTANCE

  A note on the word "universe" -- we usually refer to the
  universe as a place, or a space -- we see pictures of
  space, and we go, "That's the universe."

  But this perspective neglects the universe as Time.  For
  example, the universe has past and history, and it also
  has a present moment.  (One of the great unanswered
  questions of physics is: "Why is it right now, rather than
  any other moment in time?")  To privilege space (an
  arbitrary decision) is to focus on size -- and we are
  small; If we privilege time, though, the focus is then on
  development and the future -- and the place of life is
  advanced, and profound.

  Still another way to understand "universe" is as clay, or
  substance.  When one holds a piece of clay, it is
  perfectly legitimate to call the piece of clay "clay,"
  rather than a piece of clay.  You could take a still
  smaller piece of clay, and continue to maintain, "this is
  clay."  That is, clay is self-similar, and it does not
  matter how large or how small a piece (or lump) of clay
  is, you can always say, "this is clay."  It is because
  clay is of the same composition throughout, in quality.

  We can similarly argue that because the universe follows
  the same laws throughout, that everything is universe.
  Not that everything is _in_ the universe ("universe" as a
  space, "universe" as a place,) but that everything _is_
  universe.  This is a perfectly legitimate understanding of
  the universe, and reveals much that other perspectives
  conceal.  It is important, though, to detach from the
  perspective that "the universe is space," because you
  occlude a lot when you do so -- vision of the future, and
  vision of the self.

  We are, ourselves, after all, universe.  If you want to
  know what it is like to be universe, you don't have to
  look very far.  We are fundamentally participants in the
  universe.  Our ultimate nature cannot be far from
  "universe."  This is not to suggest that the individual is
  God;  But rather, to say, "Whatever 'The Real' is, surely we
  are participants within it."  We are Real, and peers with
  the Real.

  Returning to history --

  NOOSPHERE

  Evolution led to encephalization -- the development of
  nervous systems, and the concentration of nervous systems
  into brains.  Not abstract brains, but brains connected
  with the body and the ecology and each other.  At first,
  brains developed because they promoted the survival of the
  organism and the kinship, -- but with the human being, the
  mind fell in love, and developed for the sake of the mind
  itself, -- and for the spirit that began taking clearer
  form within it.

  When I say "spirit" here, I am not referring to something
  the existence of which could be debated or not -- rather,
  I am talking about that which hears and which is and which
  understands music -- that which represents the highest
  hopes and aspirations and wisdoms of humankind.  I am not
  (here) even necessarily referring to consciousness.
  Rather, I am referring to a heart and to a divinity and to
  a motion that connects many worlds, including worlds of
  matter.

  This third development -- after Geosphere (the
  crystallization of matter,) and Biosphere (the evolution of
  life,) is different than classical evolution,) because it
  is based in thought -- "the good, the true, and the
  beautiful" being a common gross description of how it
  orients itself -- and knows free choice, willing, desire,
  dreams, love, intuition, independence and difference, and
  other spiritual forces as a development path.

  ON REDUCTIONISM

  This is not to say that these things (the actors in the
  soul's life -- things like free choice, willing, desire,
  dreams, love, intuition, and so on) --  don't reduce to
  ecologies, that these things don't reduce to nuclear
  physics, microphysics -- I believe that they do.  But
  studying the human soul in terms of nuclear physics
  doesn't reveal anything, and more than studying the
  ecology in terms of nuclear physics doesn't reveal
  anything.

  Furthermore, it works the other way around: Nothing cannot
  appear new in the higher orders, that wasn't already
  present in the lower orders.  If we found a fully formed
  oak tree, but never found any acorns, we should be rather
  surprised..!  But when we find the acorn, we know that an
  oak tree is going to arise.

  Similarly, the human being, the human soul, all the
  ecologies of the Earth, and so on, are present within the
  miniature space that the nuclear physicist studies.

    (This ties in with what I was saying about -- "In order
     to properly understand the Universe, you have to see it
     not just as space, as a place -- but also as time."  If
     you didn't understand that idea when I said it then,
     please revisit it with this understanding of acorns and
     oak trees and the development of the structure of the
     universe -- it may click this time.)

  It is not so much to reduce the human soul to nuclear
  physics, but as to elevate nuclear physics to the human
  being;  The tie that binds the two is **time.**

  We absolutely positively must understand that the universe
  is not only alive, but that it is Life.  That the desires,
  dreams, and hopes of humankind, are not just the desires,
  dreams, and hopes of humankind, but further: That they are
  the desires, dreams, and hopes of Universe.  If we forget
  this, then we forget who and what we are, and we cast
  ourself apart from nature, from the ecology of right
  meaning, from fact, from ideals, and have no meaningful
  ground for any of our actions:  Our lives are rooted in
  the Real, or they are not rooted at all.  (*)

    (*) I can tell when I am giving insufficient
    explanation, and am just speaking from profoundly felt
    conviction.  This is one such instance here.  However, I
    invite not skepticism here (though skepticism is fair,)
    but rather, exploration and deeper inquiry.  It is
    valuable to ask, "Just why is this understanding
    important?  What is the architecture of the argument
    here?  What are the alternative perspectives, and where
    do they shed light, and where do they occlude?"  That
    is, this is an invitation to deeper inquiry, wherever
    the results may land us.  I am thoroughly confident that
    they will land us in fascinating and wonderful waters,
    though.  As a prophet, I see the next development in the
    human adventure in the direction of these questions.

  PARTICIPATION

  What this means is that we are participants in the
  evolution of the universe.

  The future of the human being is NOT merely the extension
  of breeders into space, like a gas filling a volume.  The
  future of the human being is NOT to be found in the study
  of evolution-like animal market behaviors.  These are
  useful things to understand and think about -- of course
  -- we do not cease to be rock and animal when we begin to
  think.

  But the locus of spirit progressively begins to shape and
  interact with the realms that came before it.  At first,
  it is very weak, but with the passage of time, it exerts
  itself more and more, and for its own stakes and
  advantage: Intelligence, the "power arm" of the spirit,
  seeks to develop greater capacities of intelligence, and
  comes to realize that the only thing it can realistically
  develop for is for the sake of spirits it perceives moving
  it.

  It is as if our minds are simultaneously like computers
  and like satellite dishes.  We make minute, hair-thin
  adjustments to the orientation of the satellite dishes, so
  that we can identify pure signal for the direction of the
  computers.  This is "the development of subtle
  sensitivities."  We are assemblages of matter and energy
  that listen for the resonant frequency of a golden thread,
  the heart of all life and imaginations.

  If we want to understand the future, the objects of study
  are things like: the human spirit; the dreams within the
  human heart.

  We become something like poets and theologians, tracing
  fresh paths through the heart, in service of the spirit,
  God, and all imagined virtues that seek out the Human
  Being.

============================================================

  This concludes the essay;
  I have just a couple things to add, though, for the list.

  First is, I always see critical failings whenever I've
  written something.  I don't know how to paint the picture
  I see inside myself.  The criticisms require answer from
  myself.  But I want to state what they are, so that the
  direction of motion can be understood.

  Second is the criticism itself:

  This essay reflects NONE of the fantastic imagination and
  dynamism that I foresee.

  The scientific description of the universe at the
  beginning of the essay is dry.  It's some of the most
  boring text you could read -- it is like a description of
  the motion of rocks.  (Which, basically, is what it IS,
  but, ...)  You could read it in just about any flat text
  file on science's understanding of history.  How boring is
  that?

  The solution to the boring description of the cosmic
  genesis is to just draw it.  Words are really the wrong
  medium for it -- really, you just want a giant mural that
  makes it all clear.  This would be a GREAT Spiriata
  project.  The murals name would be "The Visible Genesis."
  (Because:  There may well be a Genesis before this one,
   and a Genesis before that one -- we do not know how far.
   This is just the Genesis that is available to us today.)

  The second problem is that I speculate that we have an
  imaginal genesis, and that is not reflected above.  My
  inquiry into the nature of the spirit, the character of
  the soul, reveals that imagination is a grossly
  underrepresented, misunderstood element.  It may be
  crucial to understand our mythic formations as well.  We
  are, after all, imaginary beings, imaginary
  personalities.  Imagination is substance in the mind, and
  to neglect that in our stories (in the name of not
  confusing people) may well be sin against the heart.

  Our cosmic origins are not merely material.  Atoms whisper
  with imagination.  Ideas come from somewhere, after all.
  Researching how to do this responsibly and unambiguously
  is important, but it must be done:  We must seek out the
  Imagi-Real, and reflect it in our origin stories --
  otherwise, we paint ourselves as the image of rocks, --
  and we are not the image of rocks.

  These are my two criticisms of my essay, and so as the New
  Society we dream of makes itself, we need to reshape the
  clay of the story to match the signal our satellite souls
  detect.

  Lion Kimbro

See Also:

• The Big Picture, by Michael Dowd, Earth Day 1992

I have a programming idea:  Instead of making null (abstract) base classes, make identities.

So, don't do this:

  class Animal:
     
      def talk(self):
          pass
     
      def run(self, over_there):
          pass

Rather, do this:

  class Animal:
     
      def __init__(self, animal):
          self.animal = animal
     
      def talk(self):
          self.animal.talk()
     
      def run(self, over_there):
          self.animal.run(over_there)

Why?

Well, I figure, as long as you're just putting "pass" or "= 0" in all those functions, why not put something useful?

And then:  You get decorators for free.

The same goes for interfaces -- as long as they're "just sitting there," why not make the default behavior pass-through?

  class IFoo:
 
    def __init__(self, target):
        self.target = target
   
    def foo(self, xyzzy):
        self.target.foo(xyzzy)
   
    def bar(self, xyzzy):
        self.target.bar(xyzzy)

That way, if you want to make a decorator that just does something for foo, you inherit the interface, and just override foo.

This may seem trivial here, but I work with a lot of classes that have something like 20-30 members and data items.  Often, these complex classes are *great* candidates for decorating, but often, I don't do it because I just don't want some 50 lines of inane "foo = foo" code, and all the hassle should I decide to add a function.

Work-around:  Just build it into the interface.

(Catch-up)

  To restate, my frustration with computerized notekeeping systems is -- there is no capacity for drawing, for schematic, for subtle placement.  I find I usually have to write 5x-20x as much to communicate an idea to myself in text, whereas with a pen, I can much more quickly make a representation that speak volumes, in a much smaller space.  The soul channels through the pen, not the clumbsy key and mouse.

  Yes, "one day," (and it is coming,) the resolution on the tablets will be high enough, and the latency in writing will be low enough, and the battery life will be long enough, such that I will be able to gleefully use tablets for just about everything.  And what a magical day it will be!

  But that day is not today.

  District 9 was good, but not "all that."

  It's not Watchmen, it's not the Batman movie that came out;  Heck, it's not even Transformers 2.

  It's a good movie -- for sure, but:  It's not half as profound as the critics are making it out to be.

  ---

  I was hoping it'd be great.  I *LOVE* going to the movies.  And I especially love deep movies with lots to think about.  This is what reviewers promised to me,  and this is what I came top expect:  Fascinating scripting, meaningful ideas, challenging thoughts.

  But -- that didn't happen.

  The movie is very simple:  It's exactly what it appears to be.

  "Society critiques itself and the treatment of others."

  If all you ever saw were the previews, and were asked, "Imagine how this movie goes," -- you'd basically know everything there is to know about the movie.

  To number themes, I'd come up with two:
  1.  (Major Theme.)  How indigenous cultures or 3rd world cultures are enslaved and marginalized.
  2.  (Minor Theme.)  Appearances are deceiving, Ulterior Motives rule, and evil & stupidity combine in complicit naivete.

  These are worthwhile themes, and make for a good movie;  But they don't make for the amazing movie that rain down insights.

  If I had to make a list of themes in Watchmen, I bet it would have 5-10 major themes, and perhaps 10-20 minor themes.  I'd watch it again, and I'd note the myriad distinct questions I could ask.  You can talk about the nature of Man, the nature of God, you can talk about conversational play, the nature of time, good & evil, justice and providence, humor and sex, -- it's chock full of idea, like any of Shakespeare's plays.  Now that's a "heady film."

  The Dark Night -- lots to talk about there, too.

  But ... D-9?

  Could we talk about the action or special effects instead?  The alien weaponry was very, very cool.  But the ideas?

  There's far more to talk about in Transformers 2, which has themes of alchemy, science, humans and machines, and a particular concept of good & evil, just beneath the surface.  T2 has a lot to say about men (as distinct from "man,") as well.

  But D-9's just surface.

  ---

  Why does the public applaud D-9 as a thinking man's movie, and treat Transformers 2 as just a kid's movie?

  I think it's because it presents itself that way, (and people fall for it,) and because the subject of "Social Self-criticism" has long been a staple of liberal thinking and self-doubt, and people are waving flags for their side.

  The discussion on science & enchantment is perhaps just now breaching public consciousness.  (It's on my radar, and I see evidence, but its too soon to say.  I say "yes," but admit I may be wrong.  Referencing movies, I'd point to:  Enchanted (2007,) Transformers 2 (2009,) and [minor:] GI Joe (2009,) off the top of my head.  Other pointers of presence in the popular mind -- but now that's a different blog post.)  The public still can't see it, though;  It hasn't been identified clearly enough yet, as a theme.

  ** More broadly: ** people just plain don't think movies are worthy of consideration or analysis.

  There is an "entertainment curtain," that says, "If it's for entertainment, if it didn't explicitly say it's worth thinking about, then it's not worth thinking about."  IE "You're reading into it, if we didn't say you could."  This is how the developers of Wall-E can say, "No messages here!", and get away with it, and how D-9 can say "Messages here!", and get away with it.  The society seems to just take their cues as given, without really asking, "If we took all messaging about the film away, what's it have to say?  What is each scenes purpose and contribution?  What's this actually say?"

  We should look at each movie individually and without respect for packaging.  We should not be at all afraid to say, "Barbie's Princess & the Pauper is a good movie," just because it's produced by Mattel.  We shouldn't gush that D-9 is an intellectually profound movie just because it breaks molds and is socially critical.

  ---

  Well, there it is:  My read of the movie.

  There is another subject:  This was also an experiment in watching movies with friends, with the understanding that we'd talk about ideas afterward.  This experiment was **a success.**  I believe I understand now why movie nights are used by a lot of activist groups:  A movie does a lot to get thought rolling, and provides a language (a "language" made of scenes & things said & done & themes, granted, but a language none-the-less) for talking and explaining ideas.

  But that's part of another conversation entirely.  I'd love to have it, but I'm limited by time.

  Take care!

  I recognize that I've been "missing" for a few weeks -- -- there's
  simply too much to say in too short a time.

  Status update:
  * Spiriata:  Near-term plans are now clear to me.
  * Jigsaw Renaissance:  I'm looking forward to re-engaging.

  "What happened?  What have you been doing?"

  Basically, I crashed because my trajectories were way off-course.
  This caused (A) tragedy at work, and (B) a very powerful PAUSE on
  everything but essentials.

  In that pause time, I learned several things in the "action
  research" category, Amber & I made several advances in home life,
  and I worked out a new plan for Spiriata.

I'm someone who keenly tracks the new age / next age communities, but also has a solid background in the sciences (I went to Harvey Mudd College.)

I'm interested in fundamental questions about modern epistemology/ontology, and genuinely connecting the spiritual and the scientific, without bulldozing either.  (Traditionally, either one bulldozes the other.)

I often describe myself as "a materialist rationalist reductionist physicalist skeptic" to the New Ager's who I meet, to give a sense of my way of looking at the world.  And yet, I also talk about living imagination, the real in the imaginary, and the importance of culture and stories and society.  It is all very much an open inquiry to me.

I am contemplating how to build a mystery school that teaches both the hard sciences, AND "the imaginaries."  The hard sciences would include not just the basics of mechanics, electricity & magnetism, special relativity, optics, chemistry, cell biology, evolution, and real-life quantum, but further:  the history of science, psychology, the milgram experiment, the stanford prison experiment, mental & social distortion, and other key skeptical insights.  On the side of the imaginaries would be a traditional mystery school, angels, fairies, spirits, voices within, symbolic magic, Taoist & Confucian thought, Christian theology, and on and on, but also media, movie/comic/music/fashion analysis, and the contemporary Internet.  Figuring out how to connect these threads is the wide open question and a thing to experiment with.

There is not one iota of law within science that says "We cannot live creatively and imaginatively."  Science has never been a perscription for thinking, but rather:  a meditation into fundamental reality.  My argument to spiritualists is, "If you're excited about finding the true reality, the study of science should _at least_ be a big part of your spiritual practice."  The possibility of entering a new dark ages is a tangible possibility.  I will have no truck with the derision of science.

I believe I have a compelling new vision and exploration of how to connect science and society.

Is this interesting to you?  May we talk about these ideas some time?

Sincerely,
  Lion Kimbro

We mock God when we claim that a truly divine communicator would have communicated more clearly to humanity through the dreams and intuitions of goat herders and fisherman thousands of years ago than through empirical evidence discerned by the global community of scientists alive today. Science reveals divine truth and moral guidance better than the Bible.