MachineMachine /stream - tagged with metaphor http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com The social cell http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2012/04/social-cell A single cell, such as a bacterium, is the simplest thing that can be alive. In addition to the materials from which it is constructed, it needs three features: a way of capturing energy (a metabolism), a way of reproducing (genes or something like genes) and a membrane that lets in what needs to come in and keeps out the rest. ]]> Mon, 30 Apr 2012 10:46:07 -0700 http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2012/04/social-cell A Database of Metaphor http://www.metafilter.com/114289/A-Database-of-Metaphor The Mind is a Metaphor. A database of thousands of metaphors organized by category, like 18th century, Liquid, or Jacobite. It's maintained by University of Virginia English Professor Brad Pasanek. ]]> Tue, 27 Mar 2012 19:06:33 -0700 http://www.metafilter.com/114289/A-Database-of-Metaphor Underneath the Skin: John Carpenter’s “The Thing” and You http://weirdfictionreview.com/2012/03/underneath-the-skin-john-carpenters-the-thing-and-you/ This monster’s talent for mimicry provokes some of the darkest questions. By foregrounding this capability and coupling it with our inability to discern mimics from the remaining men, The Thing focuses dread light on a question which has haunted thinkers for ages: the “problem of other minds.” How can anyone know if other people actually have selves? What would enable you to tell the difference between your neighbor and a well-programmed robot? Thinkers have posited answers (including the notion that its insolvable nature means we must move on from it), but the question has not been laid to rest. Indeed,… ]]> Mon, 26 Mar 2012 03:37:33 -0700 http://weirdfictionreview.com/2012/03/underneath-the-skin-john-carpenters-the-thing-and-you/ The Exegete http://lareviewofbooks.org/post/18187221884/the-exegete When Philip K. Dick died in 1982 of a series of strokes brought on by years of overwork and amphetamine abuse, he was seen within the science fiction genre as a cult author of idiosyncratic works treating themes of synthetic selfhood and near-future dystopia, an intriguing if essentially second-rank talent. At the time, he was more popular in France and Japan, which have always had a taste for America’s pop culture detritus, than he was in his native country. Thirty years later, Dick — known to his most avid fans simply by his initials “PKD” — has developed a reputation… ]]> Sun, 04 Mar 2012 06:22:56 -0700 http://lareviewofbooks.org/post/18187221884/the-exegete Is It Time to Welcome Our New Computer Overlords? http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/02/is-it-time-to-welcome-our-new-computer-overlords/71388/ "Watson is a computer that uncovers meaning in our language, and pinpoints the right answer, instantly. It uses deep analytics to answer questions computers never could before, even the ones on Jeopardy!" Then a Jeopardy! clue is displayed: "Groucho quipped, 'One morning I shot' this 'in my pajamas.'"
Now, that's a provocative set of claims. Watson's performance in the tournament (despite a few howlers along the way) clearly demonstrates that it is very skilled in particular types of question-answering, and I have no doubt it could handle that Groucho clue with aplomb. But does that mean that Watson "understands"… ]]> Thu, 17 Feb 2011 16:38:15 -0700 http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/02/is-it-time-to-welcome-our-new-computer-overlords/71388/ Thinking literally http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/09/27/thinking_literally/?page=full Drawing on philosophy and linguistics, cognitive scientists have begun to see the basic metaphors that we use all the time not just as turns of phrase, but as keys to the structure of thought. By taking these everyday metaphors as literally as possible, psychologists are upending traditional ideas of how we learn, reason, and make sense of the world around us. The result has been a torrent of research testing the links between metaphors and their physical roots, with many of the papers reading as if they were commissioned by Amelia Bedelia, the implacably literal-minded children’s book hero. Researchers have… ]]> Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:59:00 -0700 http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/09/27/thinking_literally/?page=full Fallacy of misplaced concreteness | Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_misplaced_concreteness In the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, one commits the fallacy of misplaced concreteness when one mistakes an abstract belief, opinion or concept about the way things are for a physical or 'concrete' reality. Whitehead proposed the fallacy in a discussion of the relation of spatial and temporal location of objects. Whitehead rejects the notion that a concrete physical object in the universe can be described simply in spatial or temporal extension. Rather, the object must be described as a field located in both space and time. "...among the primary elements of nature as apprehended in our immediate experience, there… ]]> Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:08:00 -0700 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_misplaced_concreteness The Metaphor is the Message Part II: Palimpsests Palimpsests Palimpsests http://spacecollective.org/Rourke/3786/The-Metaphor-is-the-Message-Part-II-PalimpsestsPalimpsestsPalimpsests
This slice in hyperspace follows on from these past posts:
  • How things 'become': The infinity of definition
  • The Archaeology of 'The Book'
  • hypertext/?="The Metaphor is the Message" (Part I)

    • ...and is a direct response to this post by Robokku:
  • Temporal Hypertext

    • Time is important in the definition of any model, hypertextual or otherwise. At the moment I am interested in how new technologies allow us new ways to see, to realise the world around us. This constant re-definition of our realities can actually add temporality to… ]]>     Thu, 24 Apr 2008 08:57:00 -0700 http://spacecollective.org/Rourke/3786/The-Metaphor-is-the-Message-Part-II-PalimpsestsPalimpsestsPalimpsests     hypertext/?="The Metaphor is the Message" http://spacecollective.org/Rourke/3735/hypertextThe-Metaphor-is-the-Message Readers: Do you think in hypertext?

    The era of the linear tome is dead, information is a web - who'd have thought it - a net of knots in time and space, a palimpsest with infinite, self-referential layers.

    I find that the model of hypertext has become the metaphor via which my thoughts, my research, finds form. I can't read one book at a time. Instead I skip between many, following an annotation in one, buying a bibiliographed reference, dipping into books by… ]]>     Fri, 18 Apr 2008 04:22:00 -0700 http://spacecollective.org/Rourke/3735/hypertextThe-Metaphor-is-the-Message