The Quest and I and We (was virus: maximal)

Dave Hall (davehall@dbn.lia.net)
Sun, 16 May 1999 14:40:47 +0100

Hi,

I rote this in a "rambling story like" fashion, aimed at no-one in particular, in order to try get a point across .. a point that I'm not quite sure how to explain/get to .. a bandwidth thing. So if I sound sarcastic at times, please blame that on my African-English ancestory/prgramming .. and know that my intention's are to have some fun, which includes getting to the Moon.

>> We are left with determining when the word becomes deed, and this is,
>> [indeed], the meme itself.
>>
>> We are on the quest.
>>
>> - Wade

I think I understand all the stuff in your email, except the bit about the "We" in the "We are on the quest". I had to right this in English because I don't understand Calculus. Where does Calculus come from? A Lost African Tribe? A figment of someone's tormented medievial schizoid imagination that intuitively made sense to a Very Few Mathematicians who explained it to Engineers who designed some products and gave the Designs to the Gunsmiths who then made some Technology, who gave it to the State, who gave it to the Boy Soldiers, who made shit happen for the Empire/Reich/Congress so that Everyone could be Safe and Happy? [Excused the rant, sometimes The System gets to me.]

I'm just worried that joining your quest, or merging my quest with yours, may require understanding Maths. No can do, I'm English and we English are stubborn about such things.

So if I may ask one, probably more, silly, abstracted and oh so very hypothetical question(s):

Assuming I "get it" (what the quest is), and it doesn't matter what I "get" either and in what order .. as I have lots of incoming hints "to get", this list is but one source ... then who gets to play? Can all 5-billion humans play and perhaps even the dolphins and any other living species that "gets it"? (so long as dumbing down is not an option)

What are the rules for being a part of your "We"?

I mean you're on a quest, and so am I. That's something we can agree on and work upwards from there. I have a "rough idea" what your quest is and an extremely good idea of mine. Obviously it's an extremely good idea to me, because it's mine, but to you it's only a "rough idea" at very best, and you probably have no idea about my quest (except that I've just explained, in English, that they're similar, I think) because I havn't been transmitting it beyond my family system virtual-radius<via hand-written notes that fortunately allow me to use circles and squiggly lines stuff to explain my quest quickly>, or to be more buzzword compliant and win that "Dawkins Inside" logo, how about a family "Memetic Dimension"? (oh by the way, I've got lots of Brothers armed to hilt and they're problaby bigger than your brothers so don't say anything about my Mother, okay? Ooooi hoo 'ou lookin' at?). Rough ideas are hard to swallow, regardless on how much chewing is done, but Idea-Swapping systems that integrate neatly are tres cool, making for Good Ideas to be understood by all, as that means you're part of my Master Plan/Model and I'm part of your Master Plan/Model, even if it's only to recognise each other so as not be scared shitless and want to kill each other instantly. Or pre-emptively.

The point I should try "get" to is that you're not part of my "we" and I'm not part of your "we". I don't know the size of your "we" and I don't neccessarily have Freudian penis-envy either. I have no idea what you look like, but that's just a deficiency in my surveillance technology, currently being resolved ever more rapidly by countless souless corporations producing technology stuff and the like for other "sovereign systems".

Regardless, just from reading the entire email, I think our quests are sufficiently similar to perhaps take a totally wild stab: Secure/Profitable Sovereign Individuality for All? If it's not that, don't you think it would be interesting to swap notes anyway, just because I got the rest of the email?

But, either way our directions may go, I think that "We are on the quest" is a good concept. Can I buy it (to use an economic metaphor), buy into it or how does one arrange a merger with your "we" and my "we" so that we can have one "we", a stronger and safer and more intelligently organised "we"?

There are a LOT of people who are "getting it" on their own. Obviously, it's just common sense after all. Individual "I"s are becoming "we's" all over the sphere's surface (that's relevant IMO .. we' don't live IN an "Microsoft Age of Empires" boundered flat-land .. playing that game helped me "get it", or at least get what I eventually got circa right now), creating more languages amongst themselves, realising the need for team-work on this particular little issue. So "getting it" is not the problem, it's explaining it to those that don't, those who are are stuck in "soulless systems" they don't recognise and are thus insecure about their security and don't realise how easy it is to just "run" away. So they fight for the system against other idiots fighting for "their" system.

It would seem to me, looking around at physical things other than my screen and realising there's more to life than more of the same, it's quite nice to be human and different, so that's all I'm looking to improve, for now. My longetivity is directly linked to my security, and that is a huge problem. Thus I see the problem is in the word "word" itself. We can't even explain things amongst ourselves coherently using words. It's not so much what we all end up agreeing up in the end, it's the symbols/sound we use to do the agreeing. It's got to be common to all. Like our eyes and ears. Words are for rocks walls, paper and 2d flat earth worlds devoid of electricity and machines capable of generating, projecting and transmitting (and that's not all ... filtering too!) cool new moving/noisy symbols.

The first part of the quest, IMO, could be to develop the Universal Sound+Symbol Language/Technology using these new technologies we're inventing (mainly to get "rich"), to DELIVER the common message, which is actually something we can only agree upon with the universal language, so it's language/symbols first. This is the conceptual or abstracted difference between weaponary technology and livingry technology (I've been trying to extend the Buckminister Fuller "rough idea" of 20's/30's core "livingry" technologies <as diiferent from killingry/weaponry> into 2020 livingry technology, as he would have done if he were me, but he's not so I had to do it. I'm a slave to his memory. So to speak. I want to lead a phuller life ;->)

I like my humanity, and I havn't even started to explore this little Spaceship called Earth yet, let alone know where it's going. That'd be a good start, redesigning and organising the entire Universe can come later, and there's still Earth to protect from wayward bits of rock and shattered planet stuff.

My Mother used to yell "don't you understand English?" after I'd done something "wrong". As I didn't know I'd done anything wrong until AFTER I'd been asked the question, that got recorded as a "no, O Master Programmer, I obviously don't, do you think I like being smacked?" within in my childish little head. Which I'm exploring right now, and realising that I DID understand English, I just didn't understand what my mother was getting at, or more likely she never told me (though she often thought she did), and that was English's fault. The language, not the "breed".

It's been fun, time to power-down and recharge my batteries, whilst my human goes off for a joint. Together we are, after all, just "Information at his fingertips".

"Pre-Installed User", aka Dave

p.s. I'm from the Church of UNIX. We should merge our we's. Just kidding. http://www.vironix.com