At approximately 3:30 today, there was a total solar eclipse in upstate New York, where I live. Fordham University, where I sometimes teach, emailed about safety precautions during the eclipse. This email mentioned that the earliest record of an eclipse was from around 1223 BC in Ugarit, Syria. The email then cheekily mentions that Ugrait collapsed a few days later, but this is unlikely for New York City, where Fordham is located.

When I teach Cyberspace: Issues and Ethics, at some point in the semester, we look at different aspects of life and ask how this technology is, and of course, we ask.

How is “The State a technology?

From the first paragraph, 3:30, New York City, the month of April 1223 BC, are technologies of the state. I always think of Ninefox Gambit, the science fiction book by Yoon Ha Lee, where calendar manipulation is the primary tool of imperial technological warfare. Measurement and standardization are technologies. Measurement makes standardization possible. As anyone with a child knows, when you take a child to the doctor, they measure and weigh the child and then say what percentage of the population they fall under. That is, how much do they deviate from the norm?

Norms and Technology

It’s hard to imagine technology without norms. Algorithms appear to be a collection of rules and heuristics for how to do something, from flying to an airplane to editing a video. Greater technological abstraction and frameworks like Java Springboot have a normative function similar to the standard measurement. As a technologist, it is more efficient to work with frameworks, but perhaps it used to be a lot of fun to work with personal idiosyncratic C++ and PERL code — although time-consuming.

The State, Norms, and Queerness

I picked up a thin but rich copy of” Queer Theory of the State’’by Samuel Clowes Huneke at Palais de Tokyo. It asks the question, “Can the state be queer, and what would that look like?” Huneke looks at queer rights and queer health (the AIDS crisis) and spends the first part of the book on this notion of norms; focusing on the work of Michel Foucault, Hunke examines queerness as that which is “not the norm,” with the norm being heterosexuality. The fight for equal rights by different groups, which are “not the norm,” exposes the state as that which sets the norms.

I and We

Towards the end of the book Hunke writes that one way to create a queer state is, to begin with the community rather than the individual, to start with the We and not the I. So many of the foundations of our society are individual rights, what would happen if we began with communial rights — the right of communities to access housing, food, land for food, clean water. So many of our environmental resources today are affected by aggregates (communities, nations, corporations), not individuals. Perhaps we need to reorient our values to start with the aggregate, the community.

Queerness intersects with the state on the level of community or aggregate and the individual. The queer community gains access to the support of the state (rights, health care, etc.) when it acts as a group. We can expand this to all groups excluded by the state and to identity politics and say that when we call for equal rights for any group, we begin with the we.

Dividuals and Reproduction

We can also think about the dividual of Deleuze and Guattari. Dividuals think of individuals as a collection of identities, desires, and interactions. The individual itself is a collection, and dividuals can combine with other dividuals beyond and in different ways than the concept of the individual. It is the individual — unbundled, like the unbundling of the record into individual songs available on the latest streaming service. It also recognizes the fluidity and construction of the bundle/ the self. There is no self — the Advaita Vedanta approach to the state. I think of Buddhist teacher and meditator Gil Fronsdal and his recent Dharma talk on the self. The self is a garment sewn together by the tread of desire.

When we create a state from dividuals or group identities how does the state or society reproduce itself? How does it continue for the next generation over time? There is a group at the heart of the contemporary state — perhaps we call this the straight state — and that is the family. The family has the mechanism for reproduction built in — it is biologically reproduced. The queer state historically could not reproduce itself — perhaps culturally, but not biologically. Although perhaps with IVF and other new reproductive technologies, the queer state could reproduce itself. I am unsure and still thinking about these constellations of ideas.

The State as a Technology Again

Lewis Mumford looks at ancient societies and sees machines — he calls the techniques of labor and logistics that built the pyramids — a megamachine. A machine is not the same as technology, but a machine is a technology. So maybe the question I am asking is — is the state a machine? A machine follows a process or a set of instructions until the instruction set is complete. In the case of a loop or precision, the process repeats almost indefinitely. Would the queer state be a machine in the way a straight state is? Is there an instruction set, and would the instruction set repeat (reproduce)?

I feel the ghost of Aristotle here and the law of non-contradiction. Maybe the queer state is not a machine — then it cannot be a state at all. But then we are left with the original question — is the state a technology?

Aristotle — Politics

Deleuze and Guittari — Anti-Oedipus (but all their works)

Gil Fronsdal — https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1

Michel Foucault — Discipline and Punishment (but all his works)

Samuel Clowes Huneke — A Queer Theory of State

Yoon Ha Lee — Ninefox Gambit

Lewis Mumford — The Myth of The Machine

A few months ago, I spent 28 days asking ChatGPT to generate code diagrams and musical compositions. I was impressed. You can check out my experiments on Quality Containers.

What kind of model is AI — particularly Large Language Models like Chat GPT?

Influences on my thinking today include:

Paul Ricoeur — Freud and Philosophy (Ricoeur coined the term hermeneutics of suspicion)

Eve Sedgwick — Touching Feeling (This book has an excellent section on the hermeneutics of suspicion)

Colin Drumm and his take on triangles (the Oedipus myth is a triangle) and Sedgwick’s late-in-life interest in mathematics and geometry (triangles?).

Ray Brassier — Dialectics between Suspicion and Trust

Michael Weisberg— Simulation and Similarity: Using Models to Understand the World

Roman Jakobson — “The Metaphoric and Metonymic Poles”

Thomas Nagel — What is it like to be a bat?

The Neural Net

Weisberger distinguishes between three types of models. I interpret these as concrete, computational, and simulation models.

Concrete models are scale replicas.

Computational models are like equations from physics — force = mass * acceleration

Simulation models run scenarios.

What sort of model is a Large Language Model, or more broadly, a neural network?

Is a Neural Network a simulation model? No

A neural network does not simulate a process or run a scenario. A neural network tries to train itself to produce “the right answer.”

Neural Networks are outcome-focused, not process-focused.

My friend Kai says that a neural network is like dog training. All you do is punish or reward the model for answers and hope the model learns.

But Neural Networks are based on the brain? No

Although neural networks use the word “neuron,” its relationship to the brain is a metonym, not a metaphor. A neural network is not like the neurons in the brain. Using a threshold value is not enough to hold this metaphor.*

Instead, a neural network stands in for computational reasoning we cannot access. Similar to how we do not know whether a dog will roll over or not — upon command.

Are Neural Networks Algorithms? I would say no.

Algorithms are a list of steps, or instructions, that specify how something happens. While I can have an algorithm to create a neural network, neural networks are not necessarily algorithmic. We cannot access how the steps the neural net follows generate the outcome.

Hermeneutics of Suspicion

Ricoeur refers to Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud as the “masters of suspicion.” These thinkers analyzed aspects of society and humans by looking at and interpreting symptoms.

Suspicion opposes skepticism — doubt and the ability to disprove something.

Scientists like Newton observed the world and proved or falsified theories and hypotheses. Theories and hypotheses can be coded up as algorithms in a computer.

Interpreting a system is a different activity.

Why did the Large Language Model provide a particular answer to a prompt? We cannot go to the algorithm to find out; we must interpret the symptom.

Note on Metynomy and Metaphor and Neural Networks

There is a relationship between the concept of a threshold value in neurons — which causes the neuron to fire, and a threshold in neural networks, which causes the neurons in the network to fire, but threshold values are everywhere in computation. It is not a unique property of neurons in the brain.

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These are my influences in writing today:

Daniel Deutch — What is Computation? Does Nature Compute?

Don Idhe- Postphenomenology and Technoscience

Category Theory — Conceptual Mathematics — A First Introduction to Categories by Lawvere and Schanuel

Jaques Ellul — The Technological Society

Where do laws come from?

According to Peter Kingsley, they came from dream work and necromancy (talking to the dead) in Ancient Greece. That sounds fun.

Today, this is where laws come from. It looks boring.

https://pxhere.com/

Laws in the future will come from AI

Lawmakers in Costa Rica used ChatGPT to draft a law that regulates AI. This law comes complete with AI Hallucination (i.e., fake information). But this is something to consider: AIs draft and enforce laws.

But how often do we make new laws?

Pretty often, as it turns out.

Some comrades and I were reading the philosopher Murray Bookchin and trying to understand the local politics in our upstate New York City.

We looked through the agenda for the next meeting, and I saw something about a new leash law.

We need to have all our dogs on leashes in public spaces. This is a reasonable law.

This law is so granular and specific. It shows how we have so many laws to cover every aspect of life. A law is an answer to a civic disturbance or disagreement.

Do we have too many laws?

Early in his book, From Urbanization to Cities, Bookchin writes that the city’s rise was a tremendous technological advancement. It is an engine for humans to self-determine their futures and to become free. Although many live in cities, Bookchin calls this urbanization — not the dream of self-governance to enable self-determination.

Urbanization works on an economic level rather than a political level. I pay the city taxes, and the city does something for me, such as fixing roads, enforcing leash laws, etc.

For a city based on economic transactions, laws become equations: remuneration, retribution, and recompensation recipes. It is a massive computer to ensure no one is out of balance.

Is this Politics?

I did not see any alternative. This is politics, I thought.

For Bookchin, though, politics means spending the day discussing laws, like the ancient Athenians in the Agora.

Again, spending the day in the Agora discussing leash laws seems worse than being a line item in a political balance sheet.

Laws are Technology

Thinking about Jaques Ellul’s The Technological Society, all these laws are a technology to create an automated system for everyday living. When we make laws today, we create a machine.

But lawmaking can be different.

There are no leash laws

In Bookchin’s universe, or perhaps just my universe, when we create laws, they are not if-then rules: if you don’t keep your dog on a leash, you pay a fine.

Instead, the practice of law-making is discussed, and we don’t create ‘laws’ but agreed-upon customs, behaviors, and guidelines. This resembles circling, Nora Bateson’s Warm Data, and other modern practices that center conversation.

What if we break a ‘custom’?

Again, we bring it to the discussion. Punishment in this system is not part of creating a new custom, behavior, or guideline only if laws tightly coupled with enforcement can be subject to technological systems.

Yes, this is infeasible on a large scale.

AI and the Law

Human laws are not like natural laws. Although humans often behave mechanically, we can be free, but only if we act free or have the opportunity to work freely. We are starting to wonder where humans belong in a world that. AI can manage.

If AI makes and enforces laws, our laws will be based on economic or computational laws and Utilitarian values (the greatest good for the greatest number).

These are the laws of a technological and political system.

Laws that arise from consensus, as guidelines, not laws of nature, cannot be created by an AI.

Part 2

Question: Is Computation a law of nature or just another technology? Why does this matter?

If Computation is something we create, it has ideology; it comes out of social practices, and we can regulate and discuss Computation as we would any other human creation.

If Computation is a law of nature, like F=MA, our discussions take a different flavor. We can think more about how we interact with these laws and what these laws mean for us as humans, as part of an ecosystem and society.

Question: Is there something different about Computation than about previous technologies (like the wheel)?

Maybe that is because of where I sit, but technology has become part of almost every aspect of our lives in the US. Is this meaningful or not? Is this worth considering, or should I ignore it and be grateful I have a vacuum cleaner?

The Kardashev Scale and The Technological Society

This last question is about phase transition. Some laws are applicable in certain situations, like when water is ice (a solid), and some rules are applicable in certain conditions, like when water is steam (a gas).

The Kardashev scale is a way to group civilizations by how much energy they use, the power of a planet, a star, and a solar system. These are different phases of civilization.

In the technological society, I read Ellul as saying that when we have a critical mass of technologies (techniques), our society changes — we become a technological society. Everything is mediated through technology, just as someone who wears glasses has everything mediated through a lens.

How does technology shape our perception of reality?

What do we see when we look through a microscope or a telescope? And what do we see when we use dye to color transparent cells? How do we think about tools and technology that help us access phenomena outside the range of our normal perception?

This is where category theory comes in

That is a teaser

TLDR

Our perceptions are colored by the mediums in which we live. This can be the organizations, political structures, structural inequality, pollution, nurturing mentors, supportive friendships, and great art.

Today, we live in the medium of technology. This conditions everything else. To create laws, justice, ethics, equality, liberty, freedom, clean air, clean water, and no violence — we have to under what it means to live in a technological society.

One of the things that interests me most — you could say it is my driving force — or my critique — is the phase transition. The boundary between one thing type of thing and another.

When does a person become a man or a woman or non binary or something else, when does a script become a program, when does water become steam?

Some of these phases are human constructs and some are laws of physics. Some of these phases only exist within other phases that themselves are can move to another phase and render everything non-sensical.

Why does it interest me?

I have been listening to the human origin lectures at Mimbres — which is mindblowing — and someone mentioned that the fundamental questions of philosophy are — what is it to be human, and what is money. I am thinking about this. I argue in my mind — what about what does it mean to be good, (ethics),but that could be part of what it is to be human. I also think about questions of epistemology — how do I know what I know (but also based on being human perhaps), or what does it mean to be (perhaps what does it mean to be a human).

In the human origins class — we are looking at the archaeological record and spurious conclusions. Can we look at the record and understand what it is to be human.

When I look at this question I think in terms of phase transitions.

What is it to be a human and not a chimp (or Australopithecine)?

What is it to be a house and not a temple, or a house of government and not a temple? What is it to be agricultural vs hunter gatherers.

These questions are formed in contrasts. When does one thing become a another. One of the myths we have is the Metamorphosis from Ovid — when one thing becomes another. When ariadne becomes a spider.

So it is both about the category, the object that is changing from one category to another, but it is about the threshold, the boundary that separates one thing from another, and the function, the operation that moves one object from one category to another.

I wonder what is this — is this mereology (the study of parts and the whole), is this just ontology or epistemology (or metaphysics), or is this something else.

I think of this as transduction rather than transformation,”The act of leading or carrying over” from the internet VS transform “To change markedly the appearance or form of. OR To change the nature, function, or condition of; convert: synonym: convert” also from the internet.

I am interested in the act of carrying over — the function of transformation.

Why am I writing this today — who knows.

I took an oblique look at randomness today and sort of thought of cyphers and language. I asked chat to

>rewrite this poem with graphics and shapes instead of words — make this a representation of a language without letters

This chat took a few iterations to produce something I was looking for

When does one language become another?

code on github

keep going

In the spirit of experimenting with random function generators this week I looked first the creative coding and math coding classes at superhi for inspiration. 

But I did not look long because my new special interests — modular synths — inspired me. 

Modular synthesizers are hardware boxes that generate electrical signals often to generate music (but I suppose could be used for other things) . I sort of like this article — but it is about a particular synth. 

In modular synths (and electronics in general) there is a concept of a function generator. This is an electronic component or components that generate a signal, a wave form. There are many components to a signal and it is this sort of manipulation of a the wave form that the function generator lets you manipulate. From this we can generate randomish numbers. 

I asked chat. 

>generate a function generator

It generated my a function that generated a sequence of numbers — not exciting. 

>create a function generator based on a sine wave

this also was not very exciting I got a program that manipulated 3 variables:

• frequency: Specifies the frequency of the sine wave in Hertz.
• duration: Specifies the duration of the sine wave in seconds.
• sampling_rate: Defines the number of samples taken per second (sampling rate).

it is somewhat interesting — perhaps I am too jaded. 

>create a function generator for a modular synth

This generated this image — I wanted something interactive — I wanted to be able to adjust all the variables like you can on an actual modular synth!

ADSR Envelope refers to attack, decay, sustain, and release.

GPT wrote: 

Please note that modular synthesizers have many more possibilities and modules for signal generation and processing. Depending on your specific modular synth setup and requirements, you can expand on this concept by creating more complex function generators, such as LFOs (Low-Frequency Oscillators), step sequencers, and various modulation sources.

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com

It generated some code that I had to manually enter into jupyter notebooks. I have been resisting jupyter code in chat -but I gave in. 

>create a circuit diagram for a function generator for a modular synth

I got some nice visualizations but no diagram

I’m afraid I can’t draw or generate visual content, including circuit diagrams, directly in this text-based interface. However, I can guide you on how you might create such a circuit diagram.

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com

>use schemdraw

It’s a python package i have found and never used. 

Chat generated python code to generate elm code — which is AMAZING!

Sadly it did not actually generate a circuit diagram — 

I will persist. 

https://github.com/msrobot0/llmlexperiments/

For the next few experiments, I am going to experiment with “randomness.” This will expand to cyclical functions and other generators.

I was listening to a podcast the other night — on modular synths — about someone that used uranium to generate random numbers for their [musical instrument](https://www.adsrsounds.com/news/synth-module-powered-by-uranium-ore/)

I am not going to talk about the difficulties in generating random numbers.

However doing these chat gpt experiments involve randomness. Generative art in general involves the generation of parameters. How are these parameters generated. Sometimes they are random.

Other times they are generated by a function, like a sine wave. I think about this when I think about the activation function in a neural network. I have no other thoughts beyond that.

When you look at many knobs on a synth — some of those are function generators to generate voltages or numbers (midi) to affect some musical parameter.

>create a video animation that expands random numbers

I got a list of steps
>do this in code

I got a python program

>use a different language or framework

I got an html javascript version that looked better -less lossy
although still this is not great.

Will do more work tomorrow.

https://github.com/msrobot0/llmlexperiments/

This really has a feel, I think I am getting the feel of this. I feel this as a square a solid square.

Gardens and buildings, structure, the builder. It is a tale – about greatness, greatdeeds.

Different stories have different feelings. I do feel like there is some sort of yucky othering here, but I am getting the hang of what pound is on to.

Different stories, different modes of story telling, as different rhythms, different threads of the global story.

It is not the narrative – not what happens it is the feeling of the thing – maybe again should draw each canto.

“

And Kung gave the words .. order” and co brotherly deference” And saId nothIng of the .. hfe after death ..

And he saId cc Anyone can run to excesses, It 15 easy to shoot past the mark, It IS hard to stand nrm In the mIddle .”

This rhythm feels different than 11. More salty dog, down at tavern. I want to draw the differences. I want to draw the poem while listening to them. I do see and hear the differences between 11 and 12. 12 Swings more. I feel the impact of this on Joyce. There is something about style overcoming history. That each canto mixes history in a different way, each canto collapses history, the difference in each is an aesthetic or stylistic feature. It is like AI style transfer. unlike the last canto no lines start with AND.

My plan is not working so well. I am going to binge read the cantos tonight

“I mean SIdg went to Tarentum / And he found ’em, the antI-Aragons,”

I really have no idea what is happening.

I also have no image.

I read Robert Duncan’s HD book this am – part of it – and it referenced pound and the cantos and that pound was creating poems that were ideograms. This is really not working.

If anything the cantos are a rhythm – a march – a beat – as the great herbalist sam perry says some people like to waltz and some like to march.

I cannot tell the difference stylistically between one canto and the other

I was feeling particularly Emu this morning and asked

create code to heal a breakup

The answer was very interesting

I’m sorry to hear that you’re going through a breakup, but it’s important to note that healing from a breakup is a complex and emotional process that cannot be solved with code. It’s a deeply personal experience, and there are no one-size-fits-all solutions.

However, I can provide you with some general advice and tips that may help you cope with a breakup:

1. Allow yourself to grieve: It’s okay to feel sad, angry, and hurt. Give yourself permission to feel these emotions and work through them.

2. Lean on your support system: Reach out to friends and family who care about you. Talking to someone you trust can be very therapeutic.

3. Practice self-care: Take care of your physical and emotional well-being. This includes getting enough sleep, eating healthily, exercising, and engaging in activities you enjoy.

4. Reflect and learn: Use this time to reflect on the relationship and what you’ve learned from it. This can help you grow and make better choices in the future.

5. Keep a journal: Writing down your thoughts and feelings can be a helpful way to process your emotions and gain clarity.

6. Avoid contact with your ex: It’s often best to limit or avoid contact with your ex for a while to create some emotional distance.

7. Set goals: Focus on your personal and professional goals to give your life a sense of purpose and direction.

8. Seek professional help: If you’re struggling to cope with the breakup, consider speaking with a therapist or counselor who can provide guidance and support.

Remember, healing from a breakup is a process that takes time, and it’s essential to be patient with yourself. There’s no quick fix, but over time, you will likely find that your emotional wounds will begin to heal, and you’ll be in a better place to move on and start anew.

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com

Not really what I wanted — but nice.

I then asked

>create python code to heal a broken heart

I got something I felt was a bit cheezy with affirmations.

>can you create a visual experiment using python to heal a broken heart

>can you make this animated and interactive and use ayurvedic principles

>this does not really work

>you dont have to use python but make it interactive and animated

This last one generated this sort of cool javascript HTML app with a flame that did not entirely work.

It sort of gives me ideas tho.

I think the most poetic compositions are with HTML and javascript and styles.

https://github.com/msrobot0/llmlexperiments/