For those who know that the tensoriana has a whole lot to do with policy formulation while having the odd claim that business is art, it may be difficult to imagine what I am doing contributing to a conference to happen in Madrid, Spain in July 13-16 titled Subject, Self and Soul: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Personhood.
Kamaran and I have explored a bit of the idea space between quantum mechanics and the non-reductionist philosophy of modal aspects and have had an interesting time in bridging what seems to be two different universes. I for my part have immensely enjoyed the opportunity to flirt with Hilbert space and cobordisms. I did my best however at trying to write the paper in plain English without calling on mathematical formalism to camouflage my inability to formulate complete sentences.
In conclusion what I could write is that a first interaction with what seems to be the welding of two ends of a long strip of theories representing the evolution of human thought where on one end the ideas encapsulated within the formalism of higher-dimension algebra, topological quantum field theories and loop quantum gravity that incorporate both the fundamentals of quantum mechanics and general relativity reside, and on the other end a narrative non reductionist philosophy of modal aspects stands awaiting critique, is a risky proposition as these two ends seem at first glance to have no common language in spite of their common goal. Both aim at making sense of our Universe. Is then sense something like a Möbius strip?
Below you will find the abstract of the paper submitted to the conference.
So what was LIFT08 like?
For me: fantastic!
The Creativity Utopia Workshop went beyond my expectations. Now the kind of third-loop-learning workshops that I do are usually a bit rough on the participants, you are asked to think, think critically, and to think from a place deep within yourself. I am however fair enough to also give the participants the chance to put me on the spot and make me think then and there. I was on the spot a few times. It is all about authenticity and self-expression, and that is exactly what the workshop was about. Remember that I never claimed to know what creativity is, and I still do not know. Shani Lee did take fantastic notes and I had very valuable feedback from Yann Mauchamp with whom I spent the wee hours after the closing party roaming the streets and clubs of Geneva. Rough is a bit of the nature of my being and there is a certain kindness to that roughness that Yann offered a term for: amour vache.
You see, it is rather simple really, but then that is how I preface anything that is far beyond being simple: lies, all lies. Lies, secrets and digital deception to put it into Genevieve Bell’s words. My own Utopia is one in which the world as is, is right. I am not out to correct the path of evolution on earth or on a mission to make it a better place, nor do I want to correct and make wrong the generations and great minds that got to roam and act on this earth before I lazily showed up last century: the Universe is the way it is, accept it, deal with it, love it. It occurs to me that there is another thought linked to that one, however that other thought is not just rough, it is rude and an assault on the sensitivity and perception of most. That contingent hidden thought is also the central theme of the novel - the fiction - that I am working on now.Shit happens, and god does not give a damn. It never did, it never will. I may or may not care, but this is my Universe, the one that I inherited from those that came here before me. So, tell me, from Big Bang to Big Bang where on earth is your reality? Who owns what, and what is it that you are responsible for?
Commodities of Interaction | LIFT conference
xposted
Tags: creativity, workshop, evolution, culture, digital, inquiry, human inquiry in action, lift08, liftconference, geneva, switzerland, dannie jost
What Happens when a Transhumanist meets Calvin?
January 6, 2008 - 00:11 — Dannie JostIt took a while, it did. I do not know much about Calvin - any of them, not even the Klein one - however given that what I have heard about Jean Cauvin is that he had a great commitment to the absolute sovereignty and holiness of God…
I propose the following discussion and have taken the liberty to invite the first three discussion starters to start the ball rolling. My idea is more that we all get involved, and I do hope that we have among the participants people who are knowledgeable in Calvin theology and Transhumanism.
For my part what I bring in is a burning passion for dialog and inquiry.In this discussion there is the possibility that we will learn something, and explore the confines of our understanding of technology.
What does Transhumanism and Calvinism have in common?
What is there to learn from looking at the evolution of human thought through technology?
What Happens when a Transhumanist meets Calvin? | LIFT conference
Blogged with Flock
Tags: lift08, liftconference, geneva, switzerland
Perhaps you joined Henriette and me last year for the workshop… or perhaps you had then neither heard of LIFT, Henriette or Geneva. Fondue brought you here? Impossible!Let us start with the truth, the naked screaming truth. The creative do not care about creativity, they simply create. This year Henriette and I want to guide you through an exploration of what is behind the creativity hype. Hype?! Hype!Why this? Why now?
For me the past year has been one of exploding tabus. Yes, exploding tabus. Your mileage may differ, but I on my part have found no other way to deal with tabus. I set an explosive charge to them, and then press the detonate button. Tabus are supposedly consecrated to a special use or purpose, and sometimes restricted to the use of a god, king, priest and forbidden to general use. Tabus are discrimination pure and simple. Tabus are the intellectual prisons invoked to control. I like the use of intellectual dynamite in exploding tabus. How about you?
Utopia, on the other hand is the divine soup from which our dreams are made of. Utopia is the primordial soup of imagination and limitation. Utopia is paradoxland uncharted!
In this workshop we will explore tabus, utopias and forget creativity.
Creativity Utopia Workshop | LIFT conference
Blogged with Flock
Tags: lift08, liftconference, workshop, utopia, creativity, henrietteweber, danniejost
Originally uploaded by Dannie Jost
Davinder found me on Facebook today. After raking leaves in the garden, a task that I had volunteered to do, and then chilling around household tasks like making quince preserves, I went to the computer for some reason that escapes me now and then stumbled into Facebook after having been notified of a message from Davinder.
Fascinating! Geek meets Aikido!Will Politics, Liberals, Novelists, Physicists, Scholars, and Policy Makers also join?What will happen when all my worlds find themselves connected?
Technorati Tags: facebook, social media, social, social architecture
Time to muse a bit here on this corner of the blogosphere, this corner of Switzerland. I am sitting here and pondering a few embryonic ideas for an interactive workshop at lift08.Here are some of these ideas:
- The Art of Digital Identity
- The Business of Freedom
- Speed, Time, Money and Sex (I can not be serious about this, can I?)
- Waiting for Godot on the Matrix
- What happens when a Transhumanist meets Calvin?
What do you think?What is it that as a lift08 participant you want to spend a few hours exploring?
xposted from the original Dannie Jost’s blog on the Lift site.
Et voilà deux trouvailles fortement rassurantes:
Du coté diplomatique, l’armement de l’ Arabie saoudite et ses voisins et du coté animal, plus de 2 000 camélidés sont morts brutalement.
Technorati Tags: alkharaneh, arabia, europe
Sarah Genner commented on a pic of mine on flickr very recently and I wanted to answer her implied comment question on one of hers when I found a true gem.
To me graffiti is an art from, and a valid one. Men have been decorating the walls of their caves for time immemorial. Still… today this is a rather controversial issue in some Swiss cities, and I have seen wonderful graffiti being defaced by the concept of white walls and lifelessness itself.
Among the handful of newspapers, read old paper media, that I have grown to appreciate over the years, the NZZ is among them. Although this publishing house’s venture into the internet has looked rather painful on occasions, I am quite refreshed with the sight of things like the NZZcampus.
The media is learning. Are the rest of the folks also learning?
I have used a part of my summerholiday to write this essay on action – to research what it takes to get from a-z in action or as I have called it “from Z(ero) to A(ction) in ACTION!”.
This means defining some of my main steps necessary to generate ideas and putting them to work.
For a very long time I have been thinking about working my way through the process of idea creation to creativity and finally to action. In my world it’s a petty when a good idea goes to waste without getting to test a part of the actual idea out.
Now for a definition of action – as my good friend J.C. Fischer and I came up with for a 6 word story ” babysteps will get you there too”.
In this case it means that small actions inside yourself will lead to larger actions externally, if the larger actions feels right. So the scalability of actions are really important.
If we take the word ”act” it means that you are ”doing something” about a given idea. That something could be anything from reflection on an idea to bringing the idea to life by making it happen in real life.
This essay is used as mapping out a structure for a ”possible” book on the subject – so if you have any good input about what is missing – please let me know =)
So how do you generate ideas ?
Ideas has a touch of magic and dreams.
An idea to me is a magical feeling that you get when you think about something new. A good idea to a person, is an idea that you decide, you would like to act upon - because you think it’s a good idea. Still most of the good ideas stays at the good idea stage (and never makes it to action). So how do you spur your idea into action ?
Creativity
Creativity is a constant ”stepstone” in the action process – not just a tool to spur ideas into action. You need creativity to generate ideas. In the words of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: ”creativity is interaction”.
Most important to me is the interactions between the people you see, the culture you live in and your own creative vibe.
How can you create a better creative vibe within yourself ?
I have made a creativity 100 list a while back – which was a 100 point list to get more creative.
My favorites from that list are :
- Creativity means creative choices of inclusion and exclusion (Robert Mckee)
- Creative action speaks louder than creative words
- Be a firestarter a twisted firestarter
- Eliminate the word ”against” in your mind. Don’t be against smoking or against war – be FOR health and FOR peace.
Let’s say you’ve got the idea now, and you’ve got that creative vibe going – what’s next ?
You still have quite a way to go to get to action. All steps of ”z-a” is small actions themselves but the place we want to get at, is where people can see you are ”making” something – instead of ”just talking” about the idea.
Talk and listen… ( trust me you need your community =)
So when you have the idea and you are ”flowing” it – start talking and introducing it to various people to get feedback. Don’t think about action just yet - just listen to what people are telling you.
Listening is just as important as talking in action-hunting.
When people are saying the same over and over again and marking out the same assets and faults of your idea – it’s time to springle the idea with a little action.
an Idea description
Change the thing about the idea that people say ( and you feel) is broken, and use the assets to make an idea description – you’re probably going to change the idea description a thousand times during the idea stage but that’s quite okay.
Things I normal put into my idea descriptions are :
- what’s the point of this idea?
- Why is it going to save a tiny part of the world
- How can I make people like it ?
- Who will like it the most (aka. Who is the primary target group)
- What is stopping you from going into action ?
- What are the next steps to be taken.
Review and rewrite the description everytime you idea ”get stuck” and is more likely to go down the drain then to action =)
Remarkability ( be different)…
For this to work – you don’t have to think in ways that other people hasn’t done before. But you have to be damn good at creative puzzles. Creative puzzles is the way you mix and match tendencies, functioning ideas, money-earning ideas into your own. Take your inspiration from places you had no intention of going.
So when you think of being remarkable – you don’t really have to go all the way and reinvent the deep dish again – you can settle for a creative puzzle – which is just as unique. Remarkability can also be a unique way of putting together puzzles.
Turn everything …
Ask questions upside down, inside out.
How would a teapot see your living room ? – what would a cat do in this and this situation.
Find the coolest people as muses and ask yourself questions like ”how would Elvis Presley write this book” – or ” how would the queen of Saba sing ” anarchy in the U.K) – quite amusing and a grand way to put yourself in new shoes.
This essay is not ending.
I will continously add to it. But this is all I’ve got for now, from my balcony in surburbia Denmark =)
creative sources for this post:
Hugh Macleod : “how to be creative”
James Wood Young: ” technique for getting ideas”
crossposted on henrietteweber.com and toothlesstiger.net
-
creative commons
-
LIFT CONFERENCE
-
comments
Pedro Custódio on now: OFFF 
Sarah on Media Media on the Wall, take… 
Dannie on tensoriana unmanifested Keith Riggs on tensoriana unmanifested Keith Riggs on tensoriana unmanifested -
uncondition
