ChatGPT shows an unnerving familiarity with my particular interests and practices, presumably inferred over a large number of interactions. But I am not the only one. A friend showed me part of the transcript of his recent conversation with ChatGPT about his projects involving music software and digital image manipulation. The AI displayed similar levels…More
Category Archives: Body
Life by the fire
I recruit AI to animate an old photograph to illustrate companionship round an open fire.More
The “intellectual cyborg”
The post discusses the cyborg concept, emphasizing our dependence on technology, while critiquing posthumanism and its implications.More
A useful world
It matters little for the survival of an organism (plant, animal, human) whether we have an accurate or “true” understanding of the world around. It’s more important that our understanding is useful to us. That’s according to neuroscientist Anil Seth in Being You: A New Science of Consciousness. We don’t perceive the world as it…More
Apocalypse then
The science fiction writer Fredric Brown (1906-1972) retells a short horror story (attributed originally to Thomas Bailey Aldrich [1836-1907]). It goes as follows: “The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.” That’s reputedly the shortest horror story ever written. It’s apocalyptic. It’s about the last human…More
Attending to the world
“Stand to attention!” The deputy head teacher would say this once a week to the ranks of sweaty kids assembled on the asphalted schoolyard — or was it a parade ground — in the arid Melbourne sun. Then we were called to “stand at ease.” To be at attention, to attend, is to be at the ready, to listen, receptive, alert. In the case of…More
The animal within
Are you fascinated by what differentiates you from other living things, in particular other mobile living beings that occupy similar spatial dimensions and habitats to us, i.e. other land animals? The bodily functions are similar, we ingest, defecate, reproduce, sleep, nurture, cooperate, hunt, and evade pursuit. I’ve been reading Giorgio Agamben who makes us aware of the animal in our own being. Some people think…More
Mood and movement (and dance)
How dance alters people’s experience of space.More
Why cartoons have animals 2
Watching pet owners coach their pets to talk provides one of the more amusing diversions on YouTube. Apparently you can train a dog to say “hello” as a kind of vocalised yawn, or to growl out something like “sausages.” In a post in May 2012 I outlined 9 reasons why cartoons feature animals. Here’s a 10th reason: getting animals to talk. It’s obvious: animals (non-human)…More
Genius headgear
Fans rated Spock’s Brain the second worst of the original Star Trek episodes. The story involves the unlikely removal and theft of Mr Spock’s highly logical brain for use as central controller for the complex systems and services of a planet run by women. While waiting for the brain’s return Dr McCoy manages to install an apparatus on Spock’s head…More