8 ms·
as time approaches infinity, the opacity of the layer between the digital world and the analog (biological/evolutionary) world approaches zero.
by pj 17y ago
as time approaches infinity, the opacity of the layer between the digital world and the analog (biological/evolutionary) world approaches zero.
- smanek 17y ago? Maybe I'm being a bit dim, but I have no idea what that means. Care to expand?
- andreyf 17y agoIt seems a complicated way of saying something surprisingly insightful. Here's how I interpret it: our "real" world is being increasingly shadowed by a "digital" world, where information instantaneously available and immediately actionable. Right now, that information now includes weather, game scores, stock values, bank accounts, people's whereabouts and activities, pictures/videos, and conversations. Soon (security being one Big Problem to solve), it will include people's blood pressure, heart rate, your bath's temperature and water level, your home's water consumption, your caloric intake, number of steps you've walked, the book you're reading, etc. By immediately actionable, I mean a ubiquitous spread of what we now call API's - although I imagine they won't just be for applications or programs. Your iPhone will control the elevators you're in (and your children will have trouble imagining the insanitary notion of touching buttons a dozen other people have touched), start your car, fill your bath, serve as your communications tool, etc. Already, the first thing I do after turning off my alarm (before getting out of bed) is check/answer my e-mails. That's kind of neat, if you sit and think about it :)
- pj 17y agowhat andreyf said. In longer words, what I meant was that as technology advances, we are going to see less and less of the distinction between it and our own skin, or our own blood. Our blood may not even be what we think of blood today, but a synthetic blend of water, nutrients, gases, hormones, protiens, and other items that our bodies need. For example, there was a time when everyone wore spectacles. That technology that improved the wearers' vision was obvious and on the face. Now some people wear contacts, which most of the time are invisible except to the wearer. In the future, our eyes will be replaced with advanced photo optics, night vision, and a frame storage rate much higher than our minds can currently comprehend. We'll play it back like Tivo today, which will also be a thing of the past as well. We'll just play movies on our mind. The goal of the technology is to make itself invisible -- an intangible benefit to the quality of life. The kind of quality you just "get" but don't have to quantify, because it is transparent.
- pg 17y agoBuckminster Fuller wrote about this. He called it etherealization. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etherealization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etherealization
- pj 17y agoI never realized how interesting he is until just now. :D
- andreyf 17y agoSure, but how did you get that from the FriendFeed article?
- pj 17y agoHonestly, I don't know it just kind of came out. It kind of pointed at a trend that I've been noticing a lot lately though not in a sentence, so I was typing out the comment in a way that was comprehensible without math, but I couldn't so I just spat out the math and the css that would encapsulate the idea. The article was another data point that kind of brought it all together.