That whole figuring out what you are going to do with your life thing....

[xnull]

Well right now my plan looks like:

1.) Triple CS, Mathematics, and Philosophy Major
2.) Masters + PhD in Theoretical Computer Science or Mathematics
3.) Lots of hunting for beautiful proofs and teaching
4.) Midlife crisis
5.) Yacht
6.) Sell yacht
7.) Midlife crisis over
8.) Lots of hunting for beautiful proofs and teaching
9.) Uneventful and steady decline into dementia while waiting, hopelessly, for Kurzweil's predictions to come true.

I suppose I could put that into a three part plan:
1.) Work.
2.) Work.
3.) Feel pangs of exasperation and despair.

[Ryan_DuBois]

Great to hear from you again Xnull! I've missed having other Math/CS fans on here. Math, Computer Science, and Philosophy; amen. The most important things in life.

Well, probably.

Anyway, I too am keeping my fingers crossed for seeing some of Kurzweil's predictions come true. I know a lot of other people keep bashing him about them, but he seems like a pretty smart guy. Even if he isn't strictly right about the year of The Singularity, I figure I'll probably live until about 2070 even without the direct aid of nanos. That gives me 30 years to spare!

= )

[xnull]

I was sitting in front of my computer, watching it as if I were expecting it to entertain me (or perhaps jump up to do an Irish Jig). I often feel a little lost when I'm on the Internet. I visit like five or six sites and then when I'm done I have nothing to do except for reload those same sites again. Now that I've finally incorporated RSS feeds into my browsing experience, I can't even waste time by refreshing pages!

That's when I decided to visit IS. I figured, hell, my favorite gang is bound to have stirred up some trouble since I've left.



The problem with Kurzweil's predictions is that all the uncertaintly is in the exponent. And that he's a very, very strict bayesian. It's going to happen. It really is hard to tell when. A tiny change in the exponent changes the date by hundreds or hundreds of thousands of years.

I do expect a Singularity, but I don't see the human condition or character changing any time immediately after. That will take some time. Post-singularity we'll still feel unique enough to absorb a permeating sense of loneliness and isolation but never unique enough for our measures of self-worth to survive on anything but arbitrary metrics (I'm a goth! I love X kind of music!). Essentially, we'll be a bunch of really old, self-centered, sophistic assholes, trying to survive in the harsh environment of our thoughts, expectations and ideals (which was always in a way much harder to survive in than the physical world anyway).

We'll toss and toil as a species with the ethical questions of bringing the third world or new children into the Singularity. We'll dispute how to manage the limited amount of resources available to our god-forms. We will continue to advance ourselves and our technology, perhaps eventually (crossing my fingers) learning to alter our character for the better. We will wire our minds physically, turning Howard Bloom's global brain from symbolic into physical existence.

In the end, the facts will dawn on us. Our super-intelligent, creative network of augmented biocomputers; our super-conscious, nearly-omniscient, collective mind works out the implications of the facts it has available. Even at the speed of light (assuming it were even feasible), to reach out into the universe would be a wholey pointless endeavor. This culminates in an entire-species brain-fuck metaphysical crisis. The individuals slowly pull themselves away from the global brain. Each deals with the crisis in their own way. Some return to nature, silently contemplating the nature of the human race as the natural forces of wind and rain erode their vessel. Others embrace their fellow man in what could be eeriely recognized as a 21st century church. Others still find their own paths, but always find a route in returning to their biological nature - to their finiteness and their mortality - to their wonder, awe, love and hate of the great beyond.

There's a lot more to life than living a long or painless one. Living a good life is so fucking hard, though. You've got one shot. And thinking about living a good life too much is pretty much a garunteed way to prevent yourself from ever having one.

Edit: A neat math problem. I give you a voronoi diagram without the sites I used to generate it. When is it possible to compute the original (unique) set of sites from the diagram itself? When/If it is possible, how quickly can the sites be found?

[Ryan_DuBois]

Nice post, and I agree with a lot of it -- particularly the part about a Singularity not having much of an impact on human character. I'd probably embarrass myself trying to make a long reply, though, so I won't.



For the math problem: I'd never even heard of Voronoi Diagrams until you posted that (strange -- I'd think something like that would be covered in a Discrete Mathematics course?). In any case, I don't think I know enough about computing or time it takes to compute to solve this one. I'm still relatively new to CS-related Math/Logic in general.

If it were a question of when one unique set of sites existed for a diagram, I might be able to give it a try; so far the best I can do is deduce that the diagram cannot be symmetrical (I think). I can't prove it yet, but any symmetrical diagram I can think of has infinite solutions.

Actually... I guess I can think of a few now where it's not so clear.

[xnull]

Oh, yeah. Voronoi diagrams are totally a fundamental geometric structure. They've even been used to save lives (as per The Ghost Map). I would list out a bunch of their really cool properties, but Wikipedia has a pretty well maintained list (although its still humble).

I'm not sure that symmetric is really what's going on here. Assume that there is any Voronoi diagram that you can reverse into unique sites. You can generate a symmetric diagram from this first diagram, and one should hope the new symmetric diagram will also admit a unique set of sites.

Another interesting variation on the problem is to use different metrics. For example, what happens to the problem when we use the L1 norm? Note that I have not yet done this myself. I've only looked at the problem in the plane with the L2 norm. Oh yeah, voronoi diagrams (and their list of really awesome properties) generalize to higher dimensions.

As far as my math studies, I'm only just getting into the cool stuff. I've got some number theory and graph theory under my belt. I'm really looking forward to game theory and dynamical systems. I've gone as far as my university will offer for cryptography courses (which I'm upset with because it seems like there is so much more to learn...). I can barely wait for the better stuff. I took some functional analysis when I visited Apoth at college. Most of it went over my head, but it got me excited for what I can expect to come. There's just too much to do! It's going to be hard deciding where to specialize... :-(

[Ryan_DuBois]

I think I see what you mean by creating a symmetrical diagram from the original -- just mirror it over any axis or something? Then you could generate the unique sites on each side. I'm suprised I didn't think of that!

Anyway, yeah, I like pretty much all Math (I'm not sure whether I feel happy or sad that it's impossible to learn all of it). So far, my favorite course was easily Discrete Math, but I really liked my Calculus stuff, too. I've read a little on Number Theory, and while it's pretty awesome, it seems so fucking hard! The only class I almost didn't like was Linear Algebra; I think that was probably more due to the absent-minded professor rather than the subject matter, though.

[ChubbyTeletubby]

My life plan?

1. Masturbate and wait patiently

[xnull]

I just recently heard something beautiful and succinct. It captures what I had to say about The Singularity.

"Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon." Susan Ertz

[Locke]

Ha, well put. I'm out of the wilderness, for the moment. One more long hike, then road trip home to FL via Niagara, and friends in Virginia and NC. It's been quite a summer. Not looking forward to the southern heat, as I've acclimatized and it feels hot here in the Rockies.

What am I doing with my life? One semester left of college, then it's time to jump out of the plane. I've found, lately, that few things are stimulating/interesting, even reading/writing/hiking, though they held out the longest.

My ideal job is dynamic (i.e. different from day to day), involves some travel, sets goals and allows some latitude/discretion as to how I achieve them, and employs other similar-minded people working toward some goal with the intent of bettering lives. I'm not sure something like that exists and would hire me or pay enough to live on. I'm still looking for something I can call a passion and devote myself to, I guess, so the short form of the answer is, "I have no idea." It's a little unnerving, considering the default careers seem mostly tedious, minimum-wage, or in service of greed and not humanity. Fingers crossed, anyway.

In the meantime, I'll savor these last few weeks, as I can, and hope to do this again in a year or two. Maybe Europe next time; I've always wanted to see Ireland, particularly.

EDIT: If any of you read philosophy, what's a good book to follow "Being and Nothingness"?

[xnull]

As you've found yourself embracing the possibilities after reading Sartre, you could try something very depressing to toss things into the air a little bit. If you want to go as far away from Existentialism as possible, I would suggest Madness and Civilization (Foucualt). Or you could read some other selected works from Sartre if you are looking to keep upbeat. Actually if you are into Existentialism and haven't read much I would suggest The Stranger.

[Locke]

I read The Stranger in HS and found it depressing and a little bizarre. Of course, perspective makes all the difference; I'm sure it didn't help that the rest of the curriculum was dense, dull, and depressing (Wuthering Heights, Heart of Darkness, Mayor of Casterbridge, etc). Heart of Darkness wasn't especially boring, but did a good deal to add to the gloom of the semester. The teacher did try to lighten things up at the end with Pride and Prejudice, but I came to dislike that pretty quickly along with the other males of the class and refused to read it, taking part instead in a cheating circle that snaked its way around three tables during the tests (ultimately dependent on one guy's girlfriend from a previous period, who screwed us all over thoroughly when they broke up). If you take the plot of the book in reverse, though, it becomes much more interesting (three couples break up and move back in with their parents).

By the end of the year, my opinion of "literature" was very low; to this day, my tastes are almost exclusively contemporary. It's easy, I think, to create impact out of tragedy or violence in the reader's mind; it's comparatively rare to see an author craft something positive that evokes the same level of emotion, investment, empathy.

An exception that comes to mind is The Picture of Dorian Gray; Oscar Wilde is a true wordsmith.

[Hi! My name is: Katie]

I love classic children's literature, but generally dislike the classics that were made for an adult audience. I've always felt a little ashamed of that, as if it is a mark of immaturity, or stupidity on my part. The reality is that my high school Accelerated Reader program really ruined literature for me. Oh well.

Despite my disdain for literature my goal in life is to become a librarian, either that or become a wildly successful author. I'll probably just be a librarian, but working in libraries is what I love, so I'll be a happy duck.

There's only one thing in my way: education. Libraries are kind of hypocritical. Libraries are institutions built around the philosophy that anyone can come in and tap into whatever knowledge they seek and through access to books better themselves and their lot in life. BUT librarians are expected to go to college and get not only a bachelor's degree but a master's degree as well! Does that seem strange to anyone else?

[xnull]

Your Highschool did something VERY wrong if you found The Stranger depressing. Probably worth a reread now that you've gone through Being and Nothingness.

On that note, I found that I also never enjoyed anything in my Highschool english curriculum (outside of one particular year, when I had a teacher who didn't suck). In general, they had us read texts but then tested us on minute and irrelevant details. The act of reading became not an exercise in exploration or pontificating or discovering but an exercise in wrote memorization, paranoia and boredom. We were also forced to read the text through one very particular lens, as if every single person in a class of forty people could really be expected to get the same exact experience out of a work. Not that many students (including myself) actually read.

You really need to read shit when there isn't a due date or a test or a prearranged interpretation. It's a shame that you associate these negative aspects with Literature and not with the dirty hand of the system that force fed it to you.

(To be honest, both Oscar Wilde and Shakespeare are some of the capitol L authors whose work I could never find myself deeply investing in.)

Katie. I'm very fond of the classic children's literature that I've run into. The original version of The Little Mermaid, for example, I thought was fantastic. Now that I've read the original, a pit forms in my stomach every time I see Disney-ified Little Mermaid paraphanalia. It's a god damn shame modern children's literature is so distilled down to safe, "positive" (and therein vapid) expressions. Might help to explain why kids (and adults of our generation) find literature so banal.

It's peculiar that both of you mentioned a distaste for large portions of the Canon, seeing we are here talking on a story creation forum. Then again, I recall that choose-your-own-ending stories aren't particularly well known for being the most evocative form of literature.

On that note, I remember trying my hand at it. For whatever reason I kept trying to make stories where the reader was forced to make choices that they obviously wouldn't make in real life (rape, or other dispicable things) and despite this I don't think I ever succeeded in doing anything very interesting.

[Usoki]

I actually like Wuthering Heights once I realized that Heathcliff is the antagonist, and you get to watch as he ruins everything around him. Heart of Darkness was just... well, ultimately pointless, given how long it takes to setup, and given how desenitized we are to the 'unspeakable horror' near the book's end. I'm not a huge fan of Pride and Prejudice, but it's not the worst thing I've had to read. It's definitely the best of the Austen books- Emma was just downright terrible.

It's funny you like the Picture of Dorian Grey... because I outright hated it. Don't get me wrong, Wilde is a great playwright, and the book contains hilarious and/or awesome quotes... but as a novel, it's terrible. Dissect it for its quotes, and call it good.

I've also found that, on the whole, English canon is far more tedious than American canon. Not that we don't have our Hawthornes...

[End Master]

Stuff I didn't mind reading during high school/college AKA "The System":

The Pearl- Poor family finds an expensive pearl and people try to rip 'em off. The dad's baby son gets his head blown off with a gun in the end.

Native Son- Black guy kills a white girl by accident, kills his girlfriend on purpose, and then gets accused of murder AND rape (which he didn't do, well at least not to the white girl) He gets executed in the end.

The Learning Tree- Bunch of racial strife going on in the south. Hatred, betrayal, dysfunctional families, dysfunctional town, some sex happens and about 13 people die.

Black Boy- More racial strife, more dysfunctional shit going on, but sadly a kitten gets killed.

Glass Menagerie- Utterly hopless setting, depressed everyone in class except me, and it pissed off one guy in class claiming the story was "racist". (He's dead now though so his opinion doesn't mean anything.)

Julius Caesar- I think this was about the only Willie story that we read that I didn't mind. Might've been the Roman setting that helped though.

The Penal Colony- Prisoners get their crime carved into their skin by a torture machine for hours before they die. Got called sick by the teaching assistant for expressing that I liked the story.

Spurs- Basically the short story that the movie Freaks was somewhat based on. The Freaks are meaner though and the main midget is a lot crueler.

There were few other short stories here and there that were okay too. I don't remember the names of most, but I think a kid gets killed by a bear in the end of one of them though.

Everything else we ever read ranged from "meh to dislike" for me.

As I've probably said in the past, the only thing I truely hated was anything by Charles Dickens. The man was fucking BORING.

The only thing worse than Dickens was having to slog through Beloved. I'd take any Charlie story over that thing.

The long lasting damage that "The System" caused:

I tend to read more non-fiction books about crime or historical stuff and I tend to only read fiction if it's done in a "fun" format. This usually takes the form of a few comic books or stuff you might find in the humor section like say something like World War Z.

EDIT

Chubtub wrote:

My life plan?

1. Masturbate and wait patiently

Your plan is bad, and you should feel bad!

(No, not really, it's a fine plan for you.)