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2 months ago
If I can ever play a hundredth as well as this, I will weep tears of joy.
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5 months ago
One of the most sublime songs I’ve heard in my life.
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Notes: 2 / 5 months ago
Waiting in the Airport
Flight 1197 to Burbank, California - delayed from 1:45 PM to 1:55PM. I sigh inwardly, glad that I have OAKFREEWIFI to subsist on fro the next hour. The gleaming California winter sun shines through the broad windows behind me, reflecting off of my laptop screen and illuminating pockmarks and dust streaks. Again, I fight the urge to wipe my monitor with my hand. Around me, Gate 21 stretches in all its ordinary splendor. Tucked away in a little nook-terminal, its current inhabitants only serve to highlight its perfect normalcy. An elderly couple sits in front - they share a light snack before the flight. A family of four bustles to my right, looking like they’re late for another flight (denizens of a different gate). A haggard airport worker pushes a row of carts past the gray carpet, earning his money. A recorded intercom message plays for the n-th time, warning me to report suspicious behavior to airport security.
As I sit here, bored out of my mind, I spin little fantasies in my head to pass the time. Maybe the chrome pillars denoting gate numbers are actually signposts, portals to different dimensions. All of these gates, these little nooks, are worlds of their own, and the impossibly long hallway connecting them is an interdimensional highway of sorts. I see travelers pass by in a whisk, never to be seen by my eyes again. For now, at least, the only permanent existence is the notorious Gate 21, home port of Flight 1197 to Burbank.
The man sitting on the opposite side, the one with the dark sunglasses, is a fugitive on the run. He’s a notorious hacker, famous for cyberlifting millions of credits from intersolar banks, an infamous criminal of stellar repute. This is his last flight on Earth - from Burbank he’ll take a shuttle to LAX (a more discreet route) and take the next orbital flight to the Mars Station. But for now, his dark sunglasses shade his eyes from retinal scanners, and allow him to scan the interdimensional highway for detectives.
The teenager four seats to his right ran away from home three days ago. She’s sick and tired of her overbearing parents, and is ready (or so she thinks) to make a life for herself. It’s only 2000 credits for an orbital to the International Space Station, and they say that every flight eventually connects there. The outer developments always need immigrants, suffering from the ironic converse of Earth’s overpopulation problem. She’s only 19 years old, but age means less and less the farther away you travel from the heart of Terran society.
The sad-looking pair sitting on the floor are lost, in space and time. Due to a quantum fluctuation, they found themselves transported from the 21st century to the 24th (issues with the nature of the interdimensional highway). They do not recognize the flashing holo-signals or the telepathic inducers, unfamiliar with this strange, new technology. So they sit on the floor, unconsciously awaiting Flight 1197 to Burbank.
A woman on the intercom announces that the airplane will be landing shortly. I stop my observations and wrap up my thoughts. No interdimensional highways or arch-criminals, unfortunately. Just Gate 21, a boring corner of a boring airport. The fantasies still exist, though, swirling around in netherspace, just waiting to be picked up and spun into being.
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Notes: 3 / 5 months ago
Coherency
We take coherency as a state of being - the commonly used definition is that if something is coherent, it is able to be understood by others. But shouldn’t there be more to the idea of coherency? After all, coherency is a different word than comprehensibility, the state of being able to be comprehended (understood). Coherency includes something else. Let us delve into the etymology of coherency. Coherency, composed of “com” (together) and “haerere” (to stick). To stick together; this implies a minimum of two objects. We can interpret this to demand a definition of coherency as requiring two objects. To be coherent, then, an object must “stick to” another object; in other words, the first object must be similar to the second. Using the framework of coherency as similar to comprehensibility, something is coherent if, when compared to another object, it passes an arbitrary standard of similarity. This means that coherency is a coupled state of being, often implied. For example: when writing something down, I’m transcribing my thoughts into words. My words, then, should be coherent if they are to satisfy my thoughts. My words must be similar enough with my thoughts that they are coherent, that they can substitute for my thoughts in absence of human telepathy.
Was this coherent?
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Notes: 1 / 6 months ago
New Blog
I’ve decided to post all my future fictional onto a new blog. You can see it here:
http://inquisitivedot.tumblr.com/
Organization makes me warm and fuzzy inside.
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Notes: 14 / 6 months ago
Undo
She’s wearing white today. A plain white T-shirt, blue jeans. White for hope - I hope. Ready to walk in, order her coffee, and leave.
I watch from my usual spot in the corner of the cafe. Right next to the polished window, I stare outside unobstrusively, just another insignificant soul in a hub of humanity.
I’m slowly sipping a water. Caffeine’s too much for me, plus I don’t like the taste of coffee. The door chimes open just as I raise the glass to my lips. She walks in, hair awhirl, striding confidence.
Now’s the time. Heart pounding, I discreetly get up and sidle towards the front. The line’s not too long, not too short, a modest length. I reach the line just after her - perfect, just as I planned.
Our sudden proximity absorbs the tension and condenses it into a heavy awkward silence. Our eyes meet - we’re the same height. Green irises; so bright this close. They’re curious. What’s hiding behind those dots?
I give her a fleeting smile and stare at the ceiling, quickly. Think, dammit. Say something. Make your move.
Ahead of us, the cashier’s doing arithmetic. She’s struggling - can’t figure out the change. The customer’s starting to get impatient.
“18 cents. A dime, a nickel, and three pennies. Or two dimes and ask for two pennies back. No one likes pennies,” I say, absentmindedly. They all turn to stare at me.
“The change,” I stammer. Didn’t meant to say that out loud. “Give him two dimes and get two pennies back.” The man in front of me reaches into his pocket and pulls out two pennies, hands them to the cashier. Gets two dimes in return. Nice and neat. Clean.
She’s looking at me more attentively now. “That was fast,” she says. “You do a lot of math?”
A lot of math? I almost say. You’re talking to one of the foremost leading researchers in artificial intelligence in the world. Of course I do a lot of math. I do a lot more than math. I simulate reality, thoughts, minds. A lot of math - you could say.
“Mmmmhm,” I mumble, staring at the ceiling again. Too afraid to look back.
The silence passes in thundering, crashing waves. She’s ordering her coffee, she’s paying, she’s getting her coffee, she’s turning, she’s about to leave, dammit, say something, do something!
“Hey,” I blurt out. She pauses, turns around.
“You, uh, dropped a quarter.” I hold out a quarter in supplication, an offering.
“Oh, wow, thanks! I didn’t even notice,” she exclaims. Reaches out and takes it. For a brief moment, our hands touch. Soft, very soft. Does she feel the sweat moisting on my palms?
“Thank you,” she repeats, and turns and leaves, with me behind her, staring after her. The bell above the door chimes before the door crashes back. Around me, the world unfreezes.
As life bustles around me, I stay frozen where I am, looking out the window, wallet lighter by a quarter. I say nothing, do nothing.
The program exits abruptly, and I wake up, gasping and sweating. The cool darkness of my laboratory is comforting. Fans blow away the heat on my brow.
“Failed again,” I mumble to no one in particular. All around me, the supercomputer hums in silent agreement.
I sit by myself for a few minutes. Then I boot up the program again. RUN SIMULATION? it asks. I press Enter, and sink back into the cradle of electronics. The countdown timer begins: 10….9….8….
One day, I say to myself. One day it’ll work, in this world and the other.
She’s wearing gray today. A plain gray T-shirt, faded blue jeans. Gray for melancholy, emptiness - I know. Ready to walk in, order her coffee. And leave.
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6 months ago
Now if I could only play it…
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6 months ago
Thanksgiving
It’s that time of the year again, where we celebrate the virtuous characteristics of thankfulness and friendship (and not at all the panic of starving white settlers in the New World…of course). In keeping with the holiday spirit, here are somethings I’m thankful for:
- fast internet speeds
- Caltech
- couches
- beds
- sleep
- good food
- food in general
- Melee
- recreation
- free time in general
- music
- hearing
- all my five senses
- science fiction and fantasy
- tales of wonder and grandeur
- memories
It’s days like this where you start to appreciate the things that matter. I’m thankful mostly for my friends (those who came before, those currently, and those still to come) and my family, for enriching my life with brotherhood, love, and compassion. Without you guys, my life would be infinitely duller and broken.
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Notes: 1 / 6 months ago
Thoughts
It’s always kind of strange when you think about thinking. Most of the time, we think unconsciously, unaware of the fact that we’re actively thinking. Read a sign - your mind goes over the words in your head while you’re reading. Some people claim to hear a voice in their head when reading - I guess it’s different for every individual. But then you try to analyze what that voice is. What does it sound like? Who is it? Thought can be weird sometimes.
But it goes beyond that. When you think about this voice, our temporary analogy for thought, what are you doing? Do you think in words? In a specific language? My German teacher said that you haven’t really mastered a foreign language until you start dreaming in that language. Some say that dream is thought - is thought, then, necessarily expressed through language? Language isn’t intrinsic or fundamental to thought, though. Do deaf or mute people think in words?
Maybe thought depends on the individual’s nature. Artists, perhaps, think in color, or impression. As a musician, I frequently hear notes or melodies in my head. I perceive the timbre or pitch of an instrument; during class, I can suddenly hear Miles Davis playing the hell out of his harmon muted trumpet in my head. Are these thoughts, then? I don’t think of words when I think music.
Thoughts are different from each other, too. There’s thoughts of reality and thoughts of reason. I can imagine a ball, in my mind’s eye. There’s the fact of the ball, and its existence within my mind. What if I think about the ball? If I try to figure something out about it - then I’m thinking, reasoning. I can ask myself questions about the ball - but then, I use language. Is it possible for me to frame questions without using a language?
When I think of a melody, is that me imagining a fact - the melody -, or is the melody the thought pattern itself? Can music substitute language? Could I analyze a problem thinking through music? If I’m sad, can I feel sad-musical? What is the most fundamental form of thought? Sensual thought seems obvious, but there must be thought that exists free of the senses.
Thought is weird.
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Notes: 2 / 6 months ago
Those blank faces…
…those loose, slack-jawed masks of emptiness, eyes twin, black voids, sucking in energy like a vortex; those gaping gashes slashing through pale visages, frozen and petrified, facing off the front in a duel of apathy; blank faces, faceless blanks all of them, stone statues locked in time -
yet behind them, the engines and pistons run silently, driving the universe of thought.
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