Bah Humbug
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Twelve Monkeys
The end of Twelve Monkeys (Don't watch if you haven't seen the film yet):
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XuCXPiLvcS8
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XuCXPiLvcS8
The M.O.D also have some advice for us...
The Ministry of Defense have a similar document to the CIA, here it is:
http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/7CC94DFB-839A-4029-8BDD-5E87AF5CDF45/0/future_strategic_context.pdf
Tally Ho...
The Guardian Article that led me to it...
Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future
Richard Norton-Taylor
guardian.co.uk, Monday April 9 2007 01.29 BST
The MoD predicts more use of chemical weapons. Photograph: Paul J Richards/EPA
Information chips implanted in the brain. Electromagnetic pulse weapons. The middle classes becoming revolutionary, taking on the role of Marx's proletariat. The population of countries in the Middle East increasing by 132%, while Europe's drops as fertility falls. "Flashmobs" - groups rapidly mobilised by criminal gangs or terrorists groups.
This is the world in 30 years' time envisaged by a Ministry of Defence team responsible for painting a picture of the "future strategic context" likely to face Britain's armed forces. It includes an "analysis of the key risks and shocks". Rear Admiral Chris Parry, head of the MoD's Development, Concepts & Doctrine Centre which drew up the report, describes the assessments as "probability-based, rather than predictive".
The 90-page report comments on widely discussed issues such as the growing economic importance of India and China, the militarisation of space, and even what it calls "declining news quality" with the rise of "internet-enabled, citizen-journalists" and pressure to release stories "at the expense of facts". It includes other, some frightening, some reassuring, potential developments that are not so often discussed.
New weapons
An electromagnetic pulse will probably become operational by 2035 able to destroy all communications systems in a selected area or be used against a "world city" such as an international business service hub. The development of neutron weapons which destroy living organisms but not buildings "might make a weapon of choice for extreme ethnic cleansing in an increasingly populated world". The use of unmanned weapons platforms would enable the "application of lethal force without human intervention, raising consequential legal and ethical issues". The "explicit use" of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons and devices delivered by unmanned vehicles or missiles.
Technology
By 2035, an implantable "information chip" could be wired directly to the brain. A growing pervasiveness of information communications technology will enable states, terrorists or criminals, to mobilise "flashmobs", challenging security forces to match this potential agility coupled with an ability to concentrate forces quickly in a small area.
Marxism
"The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx," says the report. The thesis is based on a growing gap between the middle classes and the super-rich on one hand and an urban under-class threatening social order: "The world's middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest". Marxism could also be revived, it says, because of global inequality. An increased trend towards moral relativism and pragmatic values will encourage people to seek the "sanctuary provided by more rigid belief systems, including religious orthodoxy and doctrinaire political ideologies, such as popularism and Marxism".
Pressures leading to social unrest
By 2010 more than 50% of the world's population will be living in urban rather than rural environments, leading to social deprivation and "new instability risks", and the growth of shanty towns. By 2035, that figure will rise to 60%. Migration will increase. Globalisation may lead to levels of international integration that effectively bring inter-state warfare to an end. But it may lead to "inter-communal conflict" - communities with shared interests transcending national boundaries and resorting to the use of violence.
Population and Resources
The global population is likely to grow to 8.5bn in 2035, with less developed countries accounting for 98% of that. Some 87% of people under the age of 25 live in the developing world. Demographic trends, which will exacerbate economic and social tensions, have serious implications for the environment - including the provision of clean water and other resources - and for international relations. The population of sub-Saharan Africa will increase over the period by 81%, and that of Middle Eastern countries by 132%.
The Middle East
The massive population growth will mean the Middle East, and to a lesser extent north Africa, will remain highly unstable, says the report. It singles out Saudi Arabia, the most lucrative market for British arms, with unemployment levels of 20% and a "youth bulge" in a state whose population has risen from 7 million to 27 million since 1980. "The expectations of growing numbers of young people [in the whole region] many of whom will be confronted by the prospect of endemic unemployment ... are unlikely to be met," says the report.
Islamic militancy
Resentment among young people in the face of unrepresentative regimes "will find outlets in political militancy, including radical political Islam whose concept of Umma, the global Islamic community, and resistance to capitalism may lie uneasily in an international system based on nation-states and global market forces", the report warns. The effects of such resentment will be expressed through the migration of youth populations and global communications, encouraging contacts between diaspora communities and their countries of origin.
Tension between the Islamic world and the west will remain, and may increasingly be targeted at China "whose new-found materialism, economic vibrancy, and institutionalised atheism, will be an anathema to orthodox Islam".
Iran
Iran will steadily grow in economic and demographic strength and its energy reserves and geographic location will give it substantial strategic leverage. However, its government could be transformed. "From the middle of the period," says the report, "the country, especially its high proportion of younger people, will want to benefit from increased access to globalisation and diversity, and it may be that Iran progressively, but unevenly, transforms...into a vibrant democracy."
Terrorism
Casualties and the amount of damage inflicted by terrorism will stay low compared to other forms of coercion and conflict. But acts of extreme violence, supported by elements within Islamist states, with media exploitation to maximise the impact of the "theatre of violence" will persist. A "terrorist coalition", the report says, including a wide range of reactionary and revolutionary rejectionists such as ultra-nationalists, religious groupings and even extreme environmentalists, might conduct a global campaign of greater intensity".
Climate change
There is "compelling evidence" to indicate that climate change is occurring and that the atmosphere will continue to warm at an unprecedented rate throughout the 21st century. It could lead to a reduction in north Atlantic salinity by increasing the freshwater runoff from the Arctic. This could affect the natural circulation of the north Atlantic by diminishing the warming effect of ocean currents on western Europe. "The drop in temperature might exceed that of the miniature ice age of the 17th and 18th centuries."
http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/7CC94DFB-839A-4029-8BDD-5E87AF5CDF45/0/future_strategic_context.pdf
Tally Ho...
The Guardian Article that led me to it...
Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future
Richard Norton-Taylor
guardian.co.uk, Monday April 9 2007 01.29 BST
The MoD predicts more use of chemical weapons. Photograph: Paul J Richards/EPA
Information chips implanted in the brain. Electromagnetic pulse weapons. The middle classes becoming revolutionary, taking on the role of Marx's proletariat. The population of countries in the Middle East increasing by 132%, while Europe's drops as fertility falls. "Flashmobs" - groups rapidly mobilised by criminal gangs or terrorists groups.
This is the world in 30 years' time envisaged by a Ministry of Defence team responsible for painting a picture of the "future strategic context" likely to face Britain's armed forces. It includes an "analysis of the key risks and shocks". Rear Admiral Chris Parry, head of the MoD's Development, Concepts & Doctrine Centre which drew up the report, describes the assessments as "probability-based, rather than predictive".
The 90-page report comments on widely discussed issues such as the growing economic importance of India and China, the militarisation of space, and even what it calls "declining news quality" with the rise of "internet-enabled, citizen-journalists" and pressure to release stories "at the expense of facts". It includes other, some frightening, some reassuring, potential developments that are not so often discussed.
New weapons
An electromagnetic pulse will probably become operational by 2035 able to destroy all communications systems in a selected area or be used against a "world city" such as an international business service hub. The development of neutron weapons which destroy living organisms but not buildings "might make a weapon of choice for extreme ethnic cleansing in an increasingly populated world". The use of unmanned weapons platforms would enable the "application of lethal force without human intervention, raising consequential legal and ethical issues". The "explicit use" of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons and devices delivered by unmanned vehicles or missiles.
Technology
By 2035, an implantable "information chip" could be wired directly to the brain. A growing pervasiveness of information communications technology will enable states, terrorists or criminals, to mobilise "flashmobs", challenging security forces to match this potential agility coupled with an ability to concentrate forces quickly in a small area.
Marxism
"The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx," says the report. The thesis is based on a growing gap between the middle classes and the super-rich on one hand and an urban under-class threatening social order: "The world's middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest". Marxism could also be revived, it says, because of global inequality. An increased trend towards moral relativism and pragmatic values will encourage people to seek the "sanctuary provided by more rigid belief systems, including religious orthodoxy and doctrinaire political ideologies, such as popularism and Marxism".
Pressures leading to social unrest
By 2010 more than 50% of the world's population will be living in urban rather than rural environments, leading to social deprivation and "new instability risks", and the growth of shanty towns. By 2035, that figure will rise to 60%. Migration will increase. Globalisation may lead to levels of international integration that effectively bring inter-state warfare to an end. But it may lead to "inter-communal conflict" - communities with shared interests transcending national boundaries and resorting to the use of violence.
Population and Resources
The global population is likely to grow to 8.5bn in 2035, with less developed countries accounting for 98% of that. Some 87% of people under the age of 25 live in the developing world. Demographic trends, which will exacerbate economic and social tensions, have serious implications for the environment - including the provision of clean water and other resources - and for international relations. The population of sub-Saharan Africa will increase over the period by 81%, and that of Middle Eastern countries by 132%.
The Middle East
The massive population growth will mean the Middle East, and to a lesser extent north Africa, will remain highly unstable, says the report. It singles out Saudi Arabia, the most lucrative market for British arms, with unemployment levels of 20% and a "youth bulge" in a state whose population has risen from 7 million to 27 million since 1980. "The expectations of growing numbers of young people [in the whole region] many of whom will be confronted by the prospect of endemic unemployment ... are unlikely to be met," says the report.
Islamic militancy
Resentment among young people in the face of unrepresentative regimes "will find outlets in political militancy, including radical political Islam whose concept of Umma, the global Islamic community, and resistance to capitalism may lie uneasily in an international system based on nation-states and global market forces", the report warns. The effects of such resentment will be expressed through the migration of youth populations and global communications, encouraging contacts between diaspora communities and their countries of origin.
Tension between the Islamic world and the west will remain, and may increasingly be targeted at China "whose new-found materialism, economic vibrancy, and institutionalised atheism, will be an anathema to orthodox Islam".
Iran
Iran will steadily grow in economic and demographic strength and its energy reserves and geographic location will give it substantial strategic leverage. However, its government could be transformed. "From the middle of the period," says the report, "the country, especially its high proportion of younger people, will want to benefit from increased access to globalisation and diversity, and it may be that Iran progressively, but unevenly, transforms...into a vibrant democracy."
Terrorism
Casualties and the amount of damage inflicted by terrorism will stay low compared to other forms of coercion and conflict. But acts of extreme violence, supported by elements within Islamist states, with media exploitation to maximise the impact of the "theatre of violence" will persist. A "terrorist coalition", the report says, including a wide range of reactionary and revolutionary rejectionists such as ultra-nationalists, religious groupings and even extreme environmentalists, might conduct a global campaign of greater intensity".
Climate change
There is "compelling evidence" to indicate that climate change is occurring and that the atmosphere will continue to warm at an unprecedented rate throughout the 21st century. It could lead to a reduction in north Atlantic salinity by increasing the freshwater runoff from the Arctic. This could affect the natural circulation of the north Atlantic by diminishing the warming effect of ocean currents on western Europe. "The drop in temperature might exceed that of the miniature ice age of the 17th and 18th centuries."
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Geological Future
The Future of the Earth's Continental Drift according to Geologist Christopher Scotese:
For an animated view of whats to come see this: http://www.scotese.com/futanima.htm
For an animated view of whats to come see this: http://www.scotese.com/futanima.htm
Monday, November 10, 2008
2001 Jump Cut
How to move forward in time by Millions of years in one easy Jump Cut, courtesy of Stanley Kubrick: (Although it does take about 7 minutes to get to the point)
-Photo-tinted-Resized.jpg)
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Michio Kaku has three revolutions and an age for the future
VISIONS OF THE FUTURE | |||
 | |||
| In this new three-part series, leading theoretical physicist and futurist Dr Michio Kaku explores the cutting edge science of today, tomorrow, and beyond. He argues that humankind is at a turning point in history. In this century, we are going to make the historic transition from the 'Age of Discovery' to the 'Age of Mastery', a period in which we will move from being passive observers of nature to its active choreographers. This will give us not only unparalleled possibilities but also great responsibilities. | |||
| |||
In the opening instalment, Kaku explains how artificial intelligence will revolutionise homes, workplaces and lifestyles, and how virtual worlds will become so realistic that they will rival the physical world. Robot with human-level intelligence may finally become a reality, and in the ultimate stage of mastery, we'll even be able to merge our minds with machine intelligence.
For the first time on television, see how a severely depressed patient can be turned into a happy person at the push of a button - all thanks to the cross-pollination of neuroscience and artificial intelligence.
Genetics and biotechnology promise a future of unprecedented health and longevity: DNA screening could prevent many diseases, gene therapy could cure them and, thanks to lab-grown organs, the human body could be repaired as easily as a car, with spare parts readily available. Ultimately, the ageing process itself could be slowed down or even halted.
But what impact will this have on who we are and how we will live? And, with our mastery of the genome, will the human race end up in a world divided by genetic apartheid?
The quantum revolution could turn many ideas of science fiction into science fact - from metamaterials with mind-boggling properties like invisibility through limitless quantum energy and room temperature superconductors to Arthur C Clarke's space elevator. Some scientists even forecast that in the latter half of the century everybody will have a personal fabricator that re-arranges molecules to produce everything from almost anything.
Yet how will we ultimately use our mastery of matter? Like Samson, will we use our strength to bring down the temple? Or, like Solomon, will we have the wisdom to match our technology?
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Vestigiality/Exaptation
Take an evolutionary perspective and consider the appendix, it is commonly assumed to be a redundant or vestigial organ, yet it remains in the body as it has gained a new function, a harbour for friendly bacteria. Or consider feathers, originally highly developed reptilian scales used for temperature regulation, these became used for flight. What aspects of performance might we consider vestigial but find new functions for, or which features of performance might we normally overlook, that we can find surprising capacities. This shift in function is called exaptation.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Borrowing from the future
Source: Yahoo
The world has slid into "ecological debt", having used up all the natural resources the planet can provide this year, according to the New Economics Foundation.
The think-tank said humans were using up resources such as forests and fisheries faster than they can be regenerated and producing more waste, mainly carbon dioxide, than the planet can absorb.
As a result, we have been increasingly "overshooting" nature's budget each year since the 1980s, NEF said.
Tuesday marks the date when we have exceeded the natural resources the planet can provide for this year - a day which has been creeping steadily earlier each year.
From now until the end of the year, humanity is "dipping into our ecological reserves, borrowing from the future," according to Dr Mathis Wackernagel, executive director of the Global Footprint Network.
Each year, the network calculates humanity's ecological footprint - the demands it puts on the planet - and compares it to the capacity of the Earth's ecosystems to generate resources and absorb waste.
Human beings are currently using up the capacity of 1.4 planets, and consumption is increasing.
Last year, Ecological Debt Day, formulated by NEF based on data from the Global Footprint Network, was October 6 - although new data has been taken into account this year including emissions from slash and burn agriculture and biofuels.
Incorporating the new data into last year's calculations would have put Ecological Debt Day 2007 on September 28, showing human consumption is still on the rise, NEF said.
According to the foundation, the failure to live within our ecological means is the root of many of the most pressing environmental concerns, including climate change, collapsing fisheries, declining biodiversity and factors contributing to the current food crisis.
The world has slid into "ecological debt", having used up all the natural resources the planet can provide this year, according to the New Economics Foundation.
The think-tank said humans were using up resources such as forests and fisheries faster than they can be regenerated and producing more waste, mainly carbon dioxide, than the planet can absorb.
As a result, we have been increasingly "overshooting" nature's budget each year since the 1980s, NEF said.
Tuesday marks the date when we have exceeded the natural resources the planet can provide for this year - a day which has been creeping steadily earlier each year.
From now until the end of the year, humanity is "dipping into our ecological reserves, borrowing from the future," according to Dr Mathis Wackernagel, executive director of the Global Footprint Network.
Each year, the network calculates humanity's ecological footprint - the demands it puts on the planet - and compares it to the capacity of the Earth's ecosystems to generate resources and absorb waste.
Human beings are currently using up the capacity of 1.4 planets, and consumption is increasing.
Last year, Ecological Debt Day, formulated by NEF based on data from the Global Footprint Network, was October 6 - although new data has been taken into account this year including emissions from slash and burn agriculture and biofuels.
Incorporating the new data into last year's calculations would have put Ecological Debt Day 2007 on September 28, showing human consumption is still on the rise, NEF said.
According to the foundation, the failure to live within our ecological means is the root of many of the most pressing environmental concerns, including climate change, collapsing fisheries, declining biodiversity and factors contributing to the current food crisis.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Working Titles
Some possible titles for the show: (In alphabetical order)
Stars and Vermin
Future Tense
Speculation
Stars and Vermin
The celebrations will continue long after our bodies have been removed
Three feet above our Heads
Friday, September 12, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
The History of the Future (According to Forbes)
The future, as a concept, was born in ancient Mesopotamia, when people began studying the heavens for clues to impending events. But the Babylonians and their fellow stargazers (including the Maya) had a limited idea of the future: They thought time was cyclical, so they were not inclined to contemplate the shape of things to come. What goes around, comes around; why conjure up visions of an improved future Babylon if it will only be destroyed when the cycle ends?
These days, certain New Age seers who study the Mayan "Long Count" calendar have concluded that time's current cycle is due to end--cataclysmically--on Dec. 21, 2012. Consider yourself warned. But most of us look at time as a linear continuum, and we expect the future to be different than the present. For the more optimistic among us, the future will not merely be different--it will be better.
Where did we get this idea? Not from the Greeks and Romans, who "really did not have any idea of progress per se," says history professor Timothy Burke, who teaches a course at Swarthmore College about the cultural history of the idea of the future.
In Pictures: Futurists Through The Ages
Nor did we get it from the great Eastern religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, which emphasize reincarnation and a cyclical sense of time. Judaism, in contrast, is rooted in a sense of history, which it bequeathed to Christianity. And for Christians, time is most definitely linear: It began with the Creation and it will end on Judgment Day. In between, according to Saint Augustine, there is room for progress toward a better world.
Most Christian prognosticators during the Middle Ages were fixated on the Book of Revelation, which points to the Apocalypse. But in due course came the Renaissance, which gave rise to the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment--and it was at this point, Burke says, that the idea of a better future took hold. At first, it was a matter of moral progress: Mankind was expected to use reason to develop philosophically. "In the 19th century, that kind of idea becomes much more technological and scientific," Burke says.
The key transition figure was Charles Lyell, whose Principles of Geology, first published in 1830, promulgated the concept of geologic time. This was a world-shaking development, comparable to the insight of Copernicus that the Earth revolved around the sun. Prior to the 19th century, people in the West had generally assumed that the world was less than 6,000 years old. After Lyell, people had to contend with the mind-boggling idea that the world was, in fact, billions of years old, with billions of years still to come. Human history was merely a blip on this cosmic timeline.
Next, Charles Darwin jumped in with a theory that made good use of all this time, by giving it over to evolution. And evolution need not be limited to biology. If the so-called Social Darwinists such as Herbert Spencer were right, society would inevitably develop into something more splendid in the future.
Seers such as Jules Verne started writing books that imagined various high-tech futures, when people would travel to the moon, to the center of the Earth, or to the bottom of the ocean, which (per Verne) was located 20,000 leagues under the sea. Then the Victorians passed into history, succeeded by a more pessimistic generation which envisioned dystopian futures, like H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's 1984.
Throughout the 20th century, the cult of progress was besieged by dissenters who thought the future was fraught with unpleasant possibilities. Still, the optimists have held their own, and they celebrated a particular triumph on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong of the Apollo 11 mission first walked on the moon, as prophesied by Verne. Yet the No. 1 song on the Billboard pop chart that same week was the anti-technology screed "In the Year 2525" by Zager and Evans, which hinted at a return to cyclical time. The song was the biggest hit of 1969, an indication that the future remained a problematic concept for many people.
Zager and Evans were one-hit wonders who soon disappeared from the charts--whereas the cult of progress remains a going concern in 2007. The song from Casablanca said it better: The fundamental things apply, as time goes by.
These days, certain New Age seers who study the Mayan "Long Count" calendar have concluded that time's current cycle is due to end--cataclysmically--on Dec. 21, 2012. Consider yourself warned. But most of us look at time as a linear continuum, and we expect the future to be different than the present. For the more optimistic among us, the future will not merely be different--it will be better.
Where did we get this idea? Not from the Greeks and Romans, who "really did not have any idea of progress per se," says history professor Timothy Burke, who teaches a course at Swarthmore College about the cultural history of the idea of the future.
In Pictures: Futurists Through The Ages
Nor did we get it from the great Eastern religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, which emphasize reincarnation and a cyclical sense of time. Judaism, in contrast, is rooted in a sense of history, which it bequeathed to Christianity. And for Christians, time is most definitely linear: It began with the Creation and it will end on Judgment Day. In between, according to Saint Augustine, there is room for progress toward a better world.
Most Christian prognosticators during the Middle Ages were fixated on the Book of Revelation, which points to the Apocalypse. But in due course came the Renaissance, which gave rise to the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment--and it was at this point, Burke says, that the idea of a better future took hold. At first, it was a matter of moral progress: Mankind was expected to use reason to develop philosophically. "In the 19th century, that kind of idea becomes much more technological and scientific," Burke says.
The key transition figure was Charles Lyell, whose Principles of Geology, first published in 1830, promulgated the concept of geologic time. This was a world-shaking development, comparable to the insight of Copernicus that the Earth revolved around the sun. Prior to the 19th century, people in the West had generally assumed that the world was less than 6,000 years old. After Lyell, people had to contend with the mind-boggling idea that the world was, in fact, billions of years old, with billions of years still to come. Human history was merely a blip on this cosmic timeline.
Next, Charles Darwin jumped in with a theory that made good use of all this time, by giving it over to evolution. And evolution need not be limited to biology. If the so-called Social Darwinists such as Herbert Spencer were right, society would inevitably develop into something more splendid in the future.
Seers such as Jules Verne started writing books that imagined various high-tech futures, when people would travel to the moon, to the center of the Earth, or to the bottom of the ocean, which (per Verne) was located 20,000 leagues under the sea. Then the Victorians passed into history, succeeded by a more pessimistic generation which envisioned dystopian futures, like H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's 1984.
Throughout the 20th century, the cult of progress was besieged by dissenters who thought the future was fraught with unpleasant possibilities. Still, the optimists have held their own, and they celebrated a particular triumph on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong of the Apollo 11 mission first walked on the moon, as prophesied by Verne. Yet the No. 1 song on the Billboard pop chart that same week was the anti-technology screed "In the Year 2525" by Zager and Evans, which hinted at a return to cyclical time. The song was the biggest hit of 1969, an indication that the future remained a problematic concept for many people.
Zager and Evans were one-hit wonders who soon disappeared from the charts--whereas the cult of progress remains a going concern in 2007. The song from Casablanca said it better: The fundamental things apply, as time goes by.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Agamben again
Agamben says:
Every written work can be regarded as the prologue (or rather, the broken cast) of a work never penned, and destined to remain so, because later works, which in turn will be the prologues or the moulds for other absent works, represent only sketches or death masks. The absent work, although it is unplaceable in any precise chronology, thereby constitutes the written works as prolegomena or paralipomena of a non-existent text; or, in a more general sense, as parerga which find their true meaning only in the context of an illegible ergon."
from Infancy and History , Giorgio Agamben
Par´er`gyn. 1. Something unimportant, incidental, or superfluous.
Paralipomena are things omitted or neglected that are added as a supplement. Origin: paraleipómena (Greek: things omitted, not told (prp. passive of paraleípein), equiv. to para- + leíp(ein) to leave behind + -omena neut. pl. prp. mediopassive suffix.[1]
pro·le·gom·e·non (pr
l
-g
m
-nn, -nn)n. pl. pro·le·gom·e·na (-n)1. A preliminary discussion, especially a formal essay introducing a work of considerable length or complexity.2. prolegomena (used with a sing. or pl. verb) Prefatory remarks or observations.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Potential
One further dimension of Agamben’s engagement with Western metaphysics and attempt to develop an alternative ontology is worth mentioning here, since it is one of the most consistent threads throughout his work. This is the problem of potentiality, the rethinking of which Agamben takes to be central to the task of overcoming contemporary nihilism. Citing Aristotle’s proposal in Book Theta of his Metaphysics, that “a thing is said to be potential if, when the act of which it is said to be potential is realized, there will be nothing im-potential (“that is, there will be nothing able not to be,” (in HS, 45) Agamben argues that this ought not be taken to mean simply that “what is not impossible is possible” but rather, highlights the suspension or setting aside of im-potentiality in the passage to actuality. This suspension, though, does not amount to a destruction of im-potentiality, but rather to its fulfilment; that is, through the turning back of potentiality upon itself, which amounts to its “giving of itself to itself,” im-potentiality, or the potentiality to not be, is fully realized in its own suspension such that actuality appears as nothing other than the potentiality to not not-be. While this relation is central to the passage of voice to speech or signification and to attaining toward the experience of language as such, Agamben also claims that in this formulation Aristotle bequeaths to Western philosophy the paradigm of sovereignty, since it reveals the undetermined or sovereign founding of being. As Agamben concludes, ‘“an act is sovereign when it realizes itself by simply taking away its own potentiality not to be, letting itself be, giving itself to itself’” (HS 46). In this way then, the relation of potentiality to actuality described by Aristotle accords perfectly with the logic of the ban that Agamben argues is characteristic of sovereign power, thereby revealing the fundamental integration of metaphysics and politics.
Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. tr. Daniel Heller-Roazen, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1998; Homo sacer: Il potere sovrano e la nuda vita, Giulio Einuadi, 1995. (HS)
Taken from: http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/agamben.htm Author Catherine Mills
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Evidence of things not seen - Fishing
The future will not be seen nor make itself present, yet it has effects.
Therefore its existence can be proved indirectly by observation of its effects. For example Black holes cannot be seen but can be observed and proved via their unique effects being observed on nearby stars.
Alternatively the future can be observed indirectly by making a factor influence it and following the factor you introduced. For example like Jaws being harpooned with a yellow barrel.
Or Ahab seeking Moby Dick through the reports of other sailors and the flock of seagulls that accompany him.
Friday, June 27, 2008
4: How to approach the future
1: The future backs away from us at the rate we approach it.
2: Therefore to enter proximity with, and gain perspective on the future we should slow down, stop, or even back away, so as that it might approach us.
Following thought -
3: To encourage the future to approach us we have to make our present redundant.
Question: How do we make a performance that makes itself redundant, thus opening the context for an approach by the future?
2: Therefore to enter proximity with, and gain perspective on the future we should slow down, stop, or even back away, so as that it might approach us.
Following thought -
3: To encourage the future to approach us we have to make our present redundant.
Question: How do we make a performance that makes itself redundant, thus opening the context for an approach by the future?
3: Three Quotes from Derrida on the Future
1
It is perhaps necessary to free the value of the future from the value of ‘horizon’ that traditionally has been attached to it—horizon being, as the Greek word indicates, a limit from which I pre-comprehend the future. I wait for it. I predetermine it. And thus, I annul it (Taste for the Secret 20).
2
If there is a future, or as he would have liked to put it if there is such a thing, there must be some opening that calls to us in the form of an appeal. This appeal of the other demands that we respond now; indeed, the mark we leave on the world we share will be inseparable from those infinite appeals made to us and how we responded when we were called. As Derrida tells us:
A simple phrase takes its meaning from a given context, and already makes its appeal to another one in which it will be understood; but, of course, to be understood it has to transform the context in which it is inscribed. As a result, this appeal, this promise of the future, will necessarily open up the production of a new context, wherever it may happen. The future is not present, but there is an opening onto it; and because there is a future, a context is always open. What we call opening of the context is another name for what is still to come (Taste for the Secret 19-20).
3
It is a matter of looking for something that is not yet well received, but that waits to be received. And one may posses a kind of flair for that which, going against the current, is already in touch with the possible reception. So—if I may refer to my own case—in all likelihood, each time I have attempted to make a gesture that was, as you said, bizarre or untimely, it was because I had the impression that it was demanded, more or less silently, by other areas of the field, by other forces, that were still in the minority, that were there. So there is a sort of calculation in the incalculable here, and the untimeliness is a sort of timeliness in the making (Taste for the Secret 16).
Found at: http://www.fehe.org/index.php?id=283 In an article 'Derrida: The Gift of the Future'
by Drucilla Cornell.
It is perhaps necessary to free the value of the future from the value of ‘horizon’ that traditionally has been attached to it—horizon being, as the Greek word indicates, a limit from which I pre-comprehend the future. I wait for it. I predetermine it. And thus, I annul it (Taste for the Secret 20).
2
If there is a future, or as he would have liked to put it if there is such a thing, there must be some opening that calls to us in the form of an appeal. This appeal of the other demands that we respond now; indeed, the mark we leave on the world we share will be inseparable from those infinite appeals made to us and how we responded when we were called. As Derrida tells us:
A simple phrase takes its meaning from a given context, and already makes its appeal to another one in which it will be understood; but, of course, to be understood it has to transform the context in which it is inscribed. As a result, this appeal, this promise of the future, will necessarily open up the production of a new context, wherever it may happen. The future is not present, but there is an opening onto it; and because there is a future, a context is always open. What we call opening of the context is another name for what is still to come (Taste for the Secret 19-20).
3
It is a matter of looking for something that is not yet well received, but that waits to be received. And one may posses a kind of flair for that which, going against the current, is already in touch with the possible reception. So—if I may refer to my own case—in all likelihood, each time I have attempted to make a gesture that was, as you said, bizarre or untimely, it was because I had the impression that it was demanded, more or less silently, by other areas of the field, by other forces, that were still in the minority, that were there. So there is a sort of calculation in the incalculable here, and the untimeliness is a sort of timeliness in the making (Taste for the Secret 16).
Found at: http://www.fehe.org/index.php?id=283 In an article 'Derrida: The Gift of the Future'
by Drucilla Cornell.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
2: Determining factors
The future is determined by three factors:
A: Fate or a Greater Force (predestiny or Divine Plan) 'It was meant to happen'
B: Free Will (The intended action of the individual/s) 'I made it happen'
C: Chance (Accidents and unforseen incidents and consequences) 'It happened'
However each of these is problematic in it's own way...
To be continued.
A: Fate or a Greater Force (predestiny or Divine Plan) 'It was meant to happen'
B: Free Will (The intended action of the individual/s) 'I made it happen'
C: Chance (Accidents and unforseen incidents and consequences) 'It happened'
However each of these is problematic in it's own way...
To be continued.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
1: The Future Starts Here.
Today the process for creating a new Strange Names Collective project began.
1: The team of Gillian, Kevin, Michael, Rachel, and Suzy were invited, and accepted, to join the process.
2: They were notified of the blog.
3: They were sent an unfinished document to read and contribute to.
4: The document includes the following information:
The procedure for constructing the performance starts here, not with gathering and generating material but with deciding the method for achieving this.
Rather than following one method, we will employ all of our individual methodologies.
The performance has a working title ‘Future Tense’ and two core questions:
What is ‘Future’? - and as a sub-question - What is ‘Potential’?
All inclusions in the Bill of Parts should encourage responses to these questions.
We are each to create tasks, questions, and prompts, and include them in the document, also suggesting additions, alterations, and clarifications to each other’s inclusions. These could take the form of:
Writing tasks, or open questions.
Instructions for physical tasks.
Images to be created.
Objects to be manipulated.
Relevant sources to be encountered or used
Processes to be undertaken.
Speculations on possible performances or elements thereof.
Or any other gathering or generating procedure that you can come up with…
Hopefully at this stage the difficult task will not be coming up with procedures, but actually holding back on them, as we are not to share ideas until the document is completed. Enjoy.
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