Yesterday I went to bed at close to 10 PM, then got woken up by the dogs howling downstairs in their bench. Pieter was gone most of the day to some bachelor party and had said he'd return probably around 10 or 11 PM. As it turned out it wasn't until 2 AM that he returned, and between the howling dogs and me waiting and worrying for Pieter I was unable to fall asleep again until he returned and after reading a lot of chapters in my current book (R.A. Salvatore's The Orc King, part 1 of the Transitions series). It was 3.30 AM by then, and I woke up again at 6, resulting in a wonderful 2 + 2.5 hours of sleep. Short naps can't be added up as though they're a single uninterrupted sleep, on a sidenote.
This morning I was able to try out my new swimming goggles for the first time, and I must say that my experiences were quite awesome. It was just great to notice the difference between swimming with and without them, as I no longer had to worry about the water getting into my eyes, and I could take on the proper posture instead of having to focus on keeping my head dry. Being able to swim underwater was great too, and something I haven't done in many years. I was still quite good at it, doing 18 meters underwater with ease.
After one such dive I had a woman ask me whether I wasn't worried about people jumping into the water from those floating devices and such and land on top of me. I assured that I was swimming deep enough to avoid that. After this we talked a lot more, until close to closing time. It's interesting how one can randomly encounter people like that.
Today I have been free of weird pains, fortunately. I only had a small episode earlier when I withdrew into myself for a moment and started crying when Pieter tried to comfort me. To be quite honest I don't want to think about my upcoming birthday, or upcoming anything. I'm so tired of realizing how screwed up my life is, how screwed up I am and would much rather just deal with uncaring science and technology. I just wish I could make my body not exist as well, instead of having it serve as a pungent reminder.
Maya
Sunday, 29 August 2010
Saturday, 28 August 2010
Real Pain
A few hours ago the pain in my arm subsided and vanished. The past few hours I have been feeling distracted, completely demotivated and restless. The past half hour I have been crying out my entire soul. The only thing I can think of is how much pain it does to exist, and how fantastic it would be to make this pain go away once and forever. I also realize that I have no easy and absolutely no guaranteed way to kill myself, and I don't want to feel more pain. Else I would be dead already right now.
Maya
Maya
The Curious Nature Of Psychosometic Pain
Shortly after writing my earlier post I began to feel a familiar pain in my right arm. This time I couldn't push the pain away because I was feeling too tired, so I decided to read a bit and take a nap. Before I put my book away the pain was already gone. After the nap the pain was still gone. That is, until about two hours later, when it struck again. I'm having a lot of trouble right now to convince that part of my brain which is doing this to cease.
How do I know for sure this pain is psychosomatic? Well, let's walk through the symptoms and occurrences again: Thursday afternoon I started having this tired feeling in my right arm which continued until I went to bed. The next morning I woke up with an intense pain in my right arm, which was literally breath-taking at times. A double dose of codeine-containing painkillers got rid of the pain for around 60 minutes, then the pain returned. I managed to ignore the pain and focus on my tasks for the day instead. The pain then suddenly vanished and stayed away for the rest of the day.
This morning I woke up without any pain whatsoever until around 10.30 AM, as described above. This sequence of events excludes the possibility of inflammation as its symptoms don't just vanish for 10+ hours on end to then suddenly and selectively reappear. I also don't experience any swelling, redness or warmth anywhere on my right arm. Functionality also hasn't been affected, ruling out anything neurological. This only leaves a psychosomatic issue.
Yesterday I described earlier occurrences of pain I suspect of being psychosomatic as well, such as the pain on the chest. Another one I described before on my blog was that of the left side of my face suddenly being extremely sensitive, even painful. This pain too suddenly vanished and didn't reappear without any physical symptoms other than a vague pain and sensitivity. No redness, no swelling, no marks on the skin.
What I'm finding at the moment is that convincing oneself of a pain being only imaginary is harder than it seems like. Yesterday it worked quite well, but trying the same techniques so far hasn't worked yet. What's different this time around is that yesterday I didn't realize it was psychosomatic and just tried to push the pain away in the assumption that it was a physical pain.
As an aside here, illness caused solely by mental factors is now called a somatoform disorder, which includes pain disorder: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_disorder.
"Pain disorder is when a patient experiences chronic pain in one or more areas, and is thought to be caused by psychological stress. The pain is often so severe that it disables the patient from proper functioning. It can last as short as a few days, to as long as many years. The disorder may begin at any age, and more women than men seem to experience it (APA, 2000). This disorder often occurs after an accident or during an illness that has caused genuine pain, which then takes a 'life' of its own."
I wouldn't call the pain I have experienced so far to be 'chronic', as it's more episodic, but if the current pain I keep experiencing in my right arm fails to subside and returns more often, it would be a) crippling and b) chronic.
I have honestly no idea what I could do to reduce stress and avoid this disorder, though...
Maya
How do I know for sure this pain is psychosomatic? Well, let's walk through the symptoms and occurrences again: Thursday afternoon I started having this tired feeling in my right arm which continued until I went to bed. The next morning I woke up with an intense pain in my right arm, which was literally breath-taking at times. A double dose of codeine-containing painkillers got rid of the pain for around 60 minutes, then the pain returned. I managed to ignore the pain and focus on my tasks for the day instead. The pain then suddenly vanished and stayed away for the rest of the day.
This morning I woke up without any pain whatsoever until around 10.30 AM, as described above. This sequence of events excludes the possibility of inflammation as its symptoms don't just vanish for 10+ hours on end to then suddenly and selectively reappear. I also don't experience any swelling, redness or warmth anywhere on my right arm. Functionality also hasn't been affected, ruling out anything neurological. This only leaves a psychosomatic issue.
Yesterday I described earlier occurrences of pain I suspect of being psychosomatic as well, such as the pain on the chest. Another one I described before on my blog was that of the left side of my face suddenly being extremely sensitive, even painful. This pain too suddenly vanished and didn't reappear without any physical symptoms other than a vague pain and sensitivity. No redness, no swelling, no marks on the skin.
What I'm finding at the moment is that convincing oneself of a pain being only imaginary is harder than it seems like. Yesterday it worked quite well, but trying the same techniques so far hasn't worked yet. What's different this time around is that yesterday I didn't realize it was psychosomatic and just tried to push the pain away in the assumption that it was a physical pain.
As an aside here, illness caused solely by mental factors is now called a somatoform disorder, which includes pain disorder: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_disorder.
"Pain disorder is when a patient experiences chronic pain in one or more areas, and is thought to be caused by psychological stress. The pain is often so severe that it disables the patient from proper functioning. It can last as short as a few days, to as long as many years. The disorder may begin at any age, and more women than men seem to experience it (APA, 2000). This disorder often occurs after an accident or during an illness that has caused genuine pain, which then takes a 'life' of its own."
I wouldn't call the pain I have experienced so far to be 'chronic', as it's more episodic, but if the current pain I keep experiencing in my right arm fails to subside and returns more often, it would be a) crippling and b) chronic.
I have honestly no idea what I could do to reduce stress and avoid this disorder, though...
Maya
TileWars Update: October 28th
Well, the goal for TileWars was to have a basic, more or less playable version ready by the end of this month. What we have got is an intro, menu screen, basic level in which stuff moves and a basic avatar. This week I spent on making mockups for the menu, configuration and credits screens in Photoshop CS5. It's the first time I have really used CS5 and I must say that I like it a heck of a lot more than CS4 and Paintshop Pro 9 and 10. Yes, it's a huge application, and no, not everything is exactly intuitive (the help is usable), but it's got some really cool and awesome stuff to help with doing cut-outs (removing a single object from a picture) and making things from scratch, like the render filters.
Anyway, what is finished is the Nyanko splash screen video. The menu will be assembled completely within a few weeks time, once the game itself is somewhat more complete. We got a basic level which will be decked out with textures, fully finished avatars and very shiny effects. We got the background music ready to go thanks to the wonders of Creative Commons. My thanks to Kevin MacLeod from Incompetech.com for making some very nice tracks. Depending on sales, some donations will be headed his way :)
I have been working out the Artificial Intelligence for TileWars. Once the API has been settled on I can finish its routines and plug it into the framework. Similarly for the network code. Both are basically modules which make use of the avatar control mechanisms, so aside from the question of what is controlling the avatar (AI or human), they're identical :) Heck, you could even have an AI on the remote system controlling the avatar via the netcode module. The possibilities are endless :P
Are we going to make the deadline of having a finished build by the end of next month? As with any project it's hard to say. If nothing goes wrong then most definitely. To put it in house-building terms: we got the foundation and basic framework including the roof all in place, it just lacks windows, doors, roof covering and many other essentials. We got 4 weeks, or at least 20 days to work on it, with Trevor especially making huge leaps every day. He implemented a better spatial divider within one day, for example. This spatial divider is responsible for chopping the level into smaller pieces, making it much easier and faster to search the level for collisions and such. The octree he was using initially simply used too much memory and was totally static. We're now using a new system which basically involves a lot of boxes. I guess it's one example of thinking outside the box by staying inside the box. Or something.
So in summary, still a lot more work to be done, but it's all within our capabilities and it'll only get easier and more fun once the game starts taking shape. Just seeing the first screenshot of that basic level a few days ago was amazing in its own way, as up till that point all you've seen was loose bits of resources.
Keeping my fingers crossed...
Maya
Anyway, what is finished is the Nyanko splash screen video. The menu will be assembled completely within a few weeks time, once the game itself is somewhat more complete. We got a basic level which will be decked out with textures, fully finished avatars and very shiny effects. We got the background music ready to go thanks to the wonders of Creative Commons. My thanks to Kevin MacLeod from Incompetech.com for making some very nice tracks. Depending on sales, some donations will be headed his way :)
I have been working out the Artificial Intelligence for TileWars. Once the API has been settled on I can finish its routines and plug it into the framework. Similarly for the network code. Both are basically modules which make use of the avatar control mechanisms, so aside from the question of what is controlling the avatar (AI or human), they're identical :) Heck, you could even have an AI on the remote system controlling the avatar via the netcode module. The possibilities are endless :P
Are we going to make the deadline of having a finished build by the end of next month? As with any project it's hard to say. If nothing goes wrong then most definitely. To put it in house-building terms: we got the foundation and basic framework including the roof all in place, it just lacks windows, doors, roof covering and many other essentials. We got 4 weeks, or at least 20 days to work on it, with Trevor especially making huge leaps every day. He implemented a better spatial divider within one day, for example. This spatial divider is responsible for chopping the level into smaller pieces, making it much easier and faster to search the level for collisions and such. The octree he was using initially simply used too much memory and was totally static. We're now using a new system which basically involves a lot of boxes. I guess it's one example of thinking outside the box by staying inside the box. Or something.
So in summary, still a lot more work to be done, but it's all within our capabilities and it'll only get easier and more fun once the game starts taking shape. Just seeing the first screenshot of that basic level a few days ago was amazing in its own way, as up till that point all you've seen was loose bits of resources.
Keeping my fingers crossed...
Maya
Friday, 27 August 2010
Psychosomatic Pain
So apparently I can add another interesting experience to the list of things I have been able to experience thanks to this tremendous amount of stress I'm under. It started yesterday when my right arm felt 'tired'; any movement with it would quickly generate a feeling of intense fatigue. While brushing my hair that night I had to switch to my left hand, because it felt like my right arm was about to fall off. I must say that I have experienced mild forms of this before, but nothing this serious.
I took a sleeping pill that night, so my sleep was relatively undisturbed, until I woke up around 6.30 AM, with the most intense pain in my right arm. Virtually every position in which I tried lying on my bed hurt a lot, those which didn't hurt right away started hurting after a few moments. After getting up the pain got really bad at times, causing me to take multiple of the strongest OTC painkillers one can get which seemed to help for a while, especially thanks to the codeine content which always makes me feel fuzzy and happy.
Then the painkillers started wearing off after only about an hour or so and the pain returned in full force. It was driving me crazy. No matter how I held my arm, it still hurt. I was thinking that it might be an inflammation of the synovial cavity of the shoulder joint, as my mother had gone through it a few years ago and the symptoms seemed similar. Yet the signs of an infection such as redness, a swelling and warmth were absent, which made me question this diagnosis. Instead I just tried breathing techniques to push away the pain, to keep it from controlling me. Pain often is a self-reinforcing mechanism, where the feeling of pain causes one to focus on it more intensively, causing the pain to seem worse, causing even more intense focus and so on.
After putting on something warm to cover my arms, and continuing my breathing exercises, the pain was gone within twenty minutes, and I haven't noticed it since, aside from a minor dull pain in the affected area of my right shoulder. This demonstrated beyond any doubt that it wasn't an inflammation, nor anything physical. The only remaining explanation is that it's psychosomatic, i.e. caused by the brain's imagination. Just like one can use one's mind to cause burn injuries and stigmata to appear on one's skin, excessive stress can and will cause strange pains and other physical symptoms.
I have experienced similar things, such as a very sore chest, painful legs and other discomforts, mostly in the last few years. This last one was the most impressive, however, and is an undeniable reminder that I'm experiencing higher levels of stress than ever before. Beyond these pains I have also since yesterday experienced headaches, trouble focusing and a general lack of energy. Today I also spent a fair bit of time crying for no apparent reason other than to relieve some stress.
To be quite honest, my general quality of life keeps diminishing thanks to things like this, but also in how it affects my general view of life. The way one perceives life at any point in time is completely an issue of perspective, and it can be very hard for others to imagine how someone else may see life. I, for example, find myself further and further drawn away from seeing life as something to enjoy and closer to something which is a death trap, a cruel joke without any purpose or goal.
A few days ago Pieter asked me whether he could trust me with managing my supply of sleeping pills and I told him straight away that he couldn't, that I absolutely can not trust myself with enough sleeping pills to make me feel terribly ill, as I experience enough moments when it seems like a brilliant idea to take them, even if afterwards it turns out to be an absolutely bone-headed move and will maybe have caused permanent damage to my body or brain.
Frankly, with the appointment at the UMCG still over a month away, and me losing more and more trust in it being anything more than another fancy ruse to keep me docile and such, I'm not sure I'll even last that long without suffering another episode like this morning and maybe even one I can't do anything about, or which goes beyond merely inflammation symptoms and does something dangerous, like cause actual injuries. If people can cause their skin to show first and second-degree burn injuries using just their mind, imagine what someone under a great amount of stress and with a negative perspective on life could do.
To be honest, I'd much rather read about things like this in a journal than experience them for myself. Unfortunately that choice isn't mine, and thus I'm basically condemned to sit out this ride, or die trying.
Isn't it fun? :)
Maya
I took a sleeping pill that night, so my sleep was relatively undisturbed, until I woke up around 6.30 AM, with the most intense pain in my right arm. Virtually every position in which I tried lying on my bed hurt a lot, those which didn't hurt right away started hurting after a few moments. After getting up the pain got really bad at times, causing me to take multiple of the strongest OTC painkillers one can get which seemed to help for a while, especially thanks to the codeine content which always makes me feel fuzzy and happy.
Then the painkillers started wearing off after only about an hour or so and the pain returned in full force. It was driving me crazy. No matter how I held my arm, it still hurt. I was thinking that it might be an inflammation of the synovial cavity of the shoulder joint, as my mother had gone through it a few years ago and the symptoms seemed similar. Yet the signs of an infection such as redness, a swelling and warmth were absent, which made me question this diagnosis. Instead I just tried breathing techniques to push away the pain, to keep it from controlling me. Pain often is a self-reinforcing mechanism, where the feeling of pain causes one to focus on it more intensively, causing the pain to seem worse, causing even more intense focus and so on.
After putting on something warm to cover my arms, and continuing my breathing exercises, the pain was gone within twenty minutes, and I haven't noticed it since, aside from a minor dull pain in the affected area of my right shoulder. This demonstrated beyond any doubt that it wasn't an inflammation, nor anything physical. The only remaining explanation is that it's psychosomatic, i.e. caused by the brain's imagination. Just like one can use one's mind to cause burn injuries and stigmata to appear on one's skin, excessive stress can and will cause strange pains and other physical symptoms.
I have experienced similar things, such as a very sore chest, painful legs and other discomforts, mostly in the last few years. This last one was the most impressive, however, and is an undeniable reminder that I'm experiencing higher levels of stress than ever before. Beyond these pains I have also since yesterday experienced headaches, trouble focusing and a general lack of energy. Today I also spent a fair bit of time crying for no apparent reason other than to relieve some stress.
To be quite honest, my general quality of life keeps diminishing thanks to things like this, but also in how it affects my general view of life. The way one perceives life at any point in time is completely an issue of perspective, and it can be very hard for others to imagine how someone else may see life. I, for example, find myself further and further drawn away from seeing life as something to enjoy and closer to something which is a death trap, a cruel joke without any purpose or goal.
A few days ago Pieter asked me whether he could trust me with managing my supply of sleeping pills and I told him straight away that he couldn't, that I absolutely can not trust myself with enough sleeping pills to make me feel terribly ill, as I experience enough moments when it seems like a brilliant idea to take them, even if afterwards it turns out to be an absolutely bone-headed move and will maybe have caused permanent damage to my body or brain.
Frankly, with the appointment at the UMCG still over a month away, and me losing more and more trust in it being anything more than another fancy ruse to keep me docile and such, I'm not sure I'll even last that long without suffering another episode like this morning and maybe even one I can't do anything about, or which goes beyond merely inflammation symptoms and does something dangerous, like cause actual injuries. If people can cause their skin to show first and second-degree burn injuries using just their mind, imagine what someone under a great amount of stress and with a negative perspective on life could do.
To be honest, I'd much rather read about things like this in a journal than experience them for myself. Unfortunately that choice isn't mine, and thus I'm basically condemned to sit out this ride, or die trying.
Isn't it fun? :)
Maya
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
New Publications
Last Sunday I published chapter 6 of my Legend of Zelda - Ocarina of Time interpretation. You can find it on my main site or at my Scribd account (http://www.scribd.com/MayaPosch). Last night I published another short story, titled In Between and Neither, which is also available at my Scribd account.
Last night I felt like writing, yet when I was about to start on this other novel I'm preparing it suddenly hit me that it wasn't what I wanted to write about. When I thought about what to write about then, I came up with the idea for In Between and Neither, which I wrote in less than four hours. Yes, that's about one hour per page :P
Today I had some people say that they were looking forward to reading the next chapter of this story, yet I didn't intend it to become more than what it is right now. Still, it made me think about the possibility of making it into more, to make it a longer story. Since it is based on my own life, there are certain limitations involved, such as not being able to create an ending until the same happens in reality, but there are still things I could write about. Assuming the demand really is there, of course :)
The thing for me is that while I like to write, I have to know that it is being read. After all that's why I'm doing it.
In other news, it's 40 days until my appointment at the UMCG hospital, or 1 month and 10 days. I'm not really sure I feel anything when I think about it any more, or at least not consciously. What can I say or think, really? The second chapter of my In Between and Neither story basically sums it all up, I am struggling to ascribe some worth to my own existence and somehow value my own body instead of giving in to the pressure and just condemn myself as a freakish mistake of nature which should be corrected right away.
I'm not a mistake, it's actually a pretty common occurrence, it's just that modern society can't deal with anything other than this black/white view of male and female and absolutely can not tolerate anything beyond it. Heck, it's why transsexuals are generally tolerated; because they don't torn at this illusion. It's why people like me are a taboo, even if I do meet people who accept me as I am.
There are so many things I want to do and accomplish in this life, yet this burden I have been given of a body which is a taboo in society is a heavy one indeed. When I say that I do not belong in society, I'm not really kidding. The thing is that society doesn't tolerate those who places themselves outside the 'natural' order, ergo I'm not part of this order, and thus not of society.
What does this mean, concretely? I don't have the faintest clue...
Maya
Last night I felt like writing, yet when I was about to start on this other novel I'm preparing it suddenly hit me that it wasn't what I wanted to write about. When I thought about what to write about then, I came up with the idea for In Between and Neither, which I wrote in less than four hours. Yes, that's about one hour per page :P
Today I had some people say that they were looking forward to reading the next chapter of this story, yet I didn't intend it to become more than what it is right now. Still, it made me think about the possibility of making it into more, to make it a longer story. Since it is based on my own life, there are certain limitations involved, such as not being able to create an ending until the same happens in reality, but there are still things I could write about. Assuming the demand really is there, of course :)
The thing for me is that while I like to write, I have to know that it is being read. After all that's why I'm doing it.
In other news, it's 40 days until my appointment at the UMCG hospital, or 1 month and 10 days. I'm not really sure I feel anything when I think about it any more, or at least not consciously. What can I say or think, really? The second chapter of my In Between and Neither story basically sums it all up, I am struggling to ascribe some worth to my own existence and somehow value my own body instead of giving in to the pressure and just condemn myself as a freakish mistake of nature which should be corrected right away.
I'm not a mistake, it's actually a pretty common occurrence, it's just that modern society can't deal with anything other than this black/white view of male and female and absolutely can not tolerate anything beyond it. Heck, it's why transsexuals are generally tolerated; because they don't torn at this illusion. It's why people like me are a taboo, even if I do meet people who accept me as I am.
There are so many things I want to do and accomplish in this life, yet this burden I have been given of a body which is a taboo in society is a heavy one indeed. When I say that I do not belong in society, I'm not really kidding. The thing is that society doesn't tolerate those who places themselves outside the 'natural' order, ergo I'm not part of this order, and thus not of society.
What does this mean, concretely? I don't have the faintest clue...
Maya
Sunday, 22 August 2010
Intelligence
Yesterday was among one of my more exhausting days, basically summed up as doing groceries, swimming 1 kilometer, shopping, fixing my older brother's PC and watching the new move The Expendables. I didn't go to bed until 1 AM and basically fell asleep before my head even hit the pillow. Naturally I did wake up 6.45 sharp as usual thanks to my internal and unrelenting alarm. I'm feeling a bit dazed still, so excuse any glitches in my writing or worse.
Starting last week I decided to try doing some real swimming when we're at the pool instead of just fooling around a bit. My first goal is to be able to swim 1 kilometer with relative ease. After the first time I was sore for three days, I'll see how sore I'll be after yesterday's successful attempt. I must say that it does feel good to do some real exercise. I also got some swimming goggles today, to make things even easier. It's no fun to get pool water into one's eyes all the time, and straining to keep one's head relatively dry isn't fun either :)
So anyway, I went to the cinema together with Pieter and a couple of his friends at close to 10 PM, meaning that by the time the movie was over it was well past midnight. The movie itself was... okay. The Expendables is basically an excuse to get some big names in action movies together in one movie, including Schwarzenegger, Stallone and many more. The plot is flimsy and uninteresting, there's zero character development and most of the main characters get about ten seconds worth of exposure tops in the entire movie. It's just something to watch when you want to see these big name actors blow up stuff and mow down enemy soldiers. It's amusing, but don't expect substance.
On a sidenote, while at the cinema I had this annoying couple sitting next to me, with the guy loudly proclaiming his lack of basic intelligence, and the girl her shallowness. The latter was rude enough to push her feet against the seat in front of her after the movie had ended and we were trying to leave. It took her a few seconds to realize that I wanted to walk past her, and that she was blocking my way. This couple and a few of their friends also kept talking during the beginning of the movie. It was really quite annoying. I'm pretty sure that watching a movie at home with friends is still the way to go.
In my previous post I mentioned the need to get the TileWars game finished rapidly. I can now give a brief status update: by the end of next week we'll have a basic skeleton of the game ready in a semi-playable state. This will be the scaffolding for the more decorative game elements like textures, fully modelled and textured avatars, background music and SFX. Things will become a lot easier after this.
A short while ago I had Hedgehog commenting on my post Solitude, in relation to the things I had written about AI. Hedgehog stated the question of why we would want to replicate or improve upon the functionality of the human brain. Why indeed would we want to do this? Just because we can?
In my probably not so humble opinion, it is essential that we learn to create an AI which is as good as or preferably better than human intelligence. It is the best way through which we can learn to better understand ourselves, and to possibly provide a way to the next stage in human evolution: transhumanism, in which humans will move from these frail biological bodies to a more technologically advanced and less haphazard state.
I have always been very frank about my view of human intelligence in general. I consider most humans to be completely uninteresting from an AI perspective, as they seem to be lacking in even the most basic cognitive skills, show a limited ability to learn and essentially only provide material for a study on failure modes in the development of human intelligence. Humans decidedly aren't equal. The problem in figuring out why this is is extremely difficult due to the complexity of biological systems, systems for which no documentation was provided so we're stuck reverse-engineering them.
In essence human-level AI or better is required because they'll be plain better. They can work faster, better, more accurately, don't have all this legacy fluff embedded into them, don't need to sleep or eat or waste hours every day thinking about procreation, or other things biological creatures waste time with. As a bonus, they will also come with a standard backup feature; even if an AI gets destroyed, a copy maybe a day or less old can be restored.
Many articles have been written about the rise of the machines, so to speak, in which we create intelligent machines which turn out to be smarter and stronger than we frail humans are. This is one of these fears which has deeply embedded itself into the human psyche, and which I deem to be completely irrational. After all, why would we create such machines if we could become these machines ourselves with the same ease? Humans revision 2.0, in a nutshell.
So why do this? Simple, for the same reason humans have advanced each time: because change is the only way to exist. If our cavemen ancestors hadn't bothered to invent the wheel, create fire and weapons, we'd probably have been extinct for quite a few millennia already. Similarly transhumanism is the only way the human race can continue to exist. I'm not one to believe in destiny or fate, but I do trust in the patterns one can discern in a larger system.
Will it be easy? Of course not, but the only thing which is truly easy is to sit back and do absolutely nothing. I like to think that we evolved this brain for a good reason, which doesn't include watching MTV and getting drunk every Friday night.
Maya
Starting last week I decided to try doing some real swimming when we're at the pool instead of just fooling around a bit. My first goal is to be able to swim 1 kilometer with relative ease. After the first time I was sore for three days, I'll see how sore I'll be after yesterday's successful attempt. I must say that it does feel good to do some real exercise. I also got some swimming goggles today, to make things even easier. It's no fun to get pool water into one's eyes all the time, and straining to keep one's head relatively dry isn't fun either :)
So anyway, I went to the cinema together with Pieter and a couple of his friends at close to 10 PM, meaning that by the time the movie was over it was well past midnight. The movie itself was... okay. The Expendables is basically an excuse to get some big names in action movies together in one movie, including Schwarzenegger, Stallone and many more. The plot is flimsy and uninteresting, there's zero character development and most of the main characters get about ten seconds worth of exposure tops in the entire movie. It's just something to watch when you want to see these big name actors blow up stuff and mow down enemy soldiers. It's amusing, but don't expect substance.
On a sidenote, while at the cinema I had this annoying couple sitting next to me, with the guy loudly proclaiming his lack of basic intelligence, and the girl her shallowness. The latter was rude enough to push her feet against the seat in front of her after the movie had ended and we were trying to leave. It took her a few seconds to realize that I wanted to walk past her, and that she was blocking my way. This couple and a few of their friends also kept talking during the beginning of the movie. It was really quite annoying. I'm pretty sure that watching a movie at home with friends is still the way to go.
In my previous post I mentioned the need to get the TileWars game finished rapidly. I can now give a brief status update: by the end of next week we'll have a basic skeleton of the game ready in a semi-playable state. This will be the scaffolding for the more decorative game elements like textures, fully modelled and textured avatars, background music and SFX. Things will become a lot easier after this.
A short while ago I had Hedgehog commenting on my post Solitude, in relation to the things I had written about AI. Hedgehog stated the question of why we would want to replicate or improve upon the functionality of the human brain. Why indeed would we want to do this? Just because we can?
In my probably not so humble opinion, it is essential that we learn to create an AI which is as good as or preferably better than human intelligence. It is the best way through which we can learn to better understand ourselves, and to possibly provide a way to the next stage in human evolution: transhumanism, in which humans will move from these frail biological bodies to a more technologically advanced and less haphazard state.
I have always been very frank about my view of human intelligence in general. I consider most humans to be completely uninteresting from an AI perspective, as they seem to be lacking in even the most basic cognitive skills, show a limited ability to learn and essentially only provide material for a study on failure modes in the development of human intelligence. Humans decidedly aren't equal. The problem in figuring out why this is is extremely difficult due to the complexity of biological systems, systems for which no documentation was provided so we're stuck reverse-engineering them.
In essence human-level AI or better is required because they'll be plain better. They can work faster, better, more accurately, don't have all this legacy fluff embedded into them, don't need to sleep or eat or waste hours every day thinking about procreation, or other things biological creatures waste time with. As a bonus, they will also come with a standard backup feature; even if an AI gets destroyed, a copy maybe a day or less old can be restored.
Many articles have been written about the rise of the machines, so to speak, in which we create intelligent machines which turn out to be smarter and stronger than we frail humans are. This is one of these fears which has deeply embedded itself into the human psyche, and which I deem to be completely irrational. After all, why would we create such machines if we could become these machines ourselves with the same ease? Humans revision 2.0, in a nutshell.
So why do this? Simple, for the same reason humans have advanced each time: because change is the only way to exist. If our cavemen ancestors hadn't bothered to invent the wheel, create fire and weapons, we'd probably have been extinct for quite a few millennia already. Similarly transhumanism is the only way the human race can continue to exist. I'm not one to believe in destiny or fate, but I do trust in the patterns one can discern in a larger system.
Will it be easy? Of course not, but the only thing which is truly easy is to sit back and do absolutely nothing. I like to think that we evolved this brain for a good reason, which doesn't include watching MTV and getting drunk every Friday night.
Maya
Friday, 20 August 2010
Life's Many Sides
Yesterday afternoon I had another student visit me. I had met her via an international social networking site, and as it turned out she was living in Amsterdam, just a short distance from where I live. She first contacted me after reading my profile on that site and expressed her admiration for being so frank about everything. Fun part is that she is from the UK and has been studying here for just two years, so I got a chance to really practice speaking English again. I'm quite sure I didn't too bad.
As usual, talking about the things which really bother me in my life drained me quite a great deal, so I ended up going to bed early, only to find myself unable to fall asleep with me going over parts of the conversation that day. I didn't feel exactly happy either, slowly slipping back into the mood I have when I'm tired and somewhat depressed, during which I find myself longing for the oblivion of death. It wasn't until I had a chance to soak Pieter's shirt with tears and trash around a bit while I unleashed my frustrations and pain that I was finally able to fall asleep.
It's basically the same thing when I'm talking to others: I feel jealous of the things they can do and experience which I can't. I find myself frustrated at the sluggish pace at which my medical case is being treated, with the appointment for the urological examination at the UMCG hospital being postponed this week by another week, making it October 4th when I'll be made either very happy with a conclusive explanation for my body's weirdness or it'll be just more inconclusive junk or lies which will cause me to lose any desire to live for at least a few weeks.
During the conversation yesterday I noticed again that everything for me seems to be about getting those facts about my body, including what the heck is up with this existent/non-existent prostate, and whether I do or do not have a vagina and if not what in heaven's name it is what I have down there in that case. At least when we're talking about anything related to my body, which includes socializing, relationships and sexuality. That's the side of life I just can not accept, can't deal with and would much prefer not to exist at all at this point.
Last Wednesday I was reading the fourth book in the Anita Blake series I mentioned before, and Pieter must have forgotten about one section in it, because a pornographic scene was described in detail in it, causing me to instantly feel sick and miserable for the rest of the evening. So much for reading that series. I was even just beginning to like it somewhat.
I just checked today's date and realized we're already approaching the end of August. Just a little while longer to my birthday on September 4th which I'd rather skip because I have nothing to celebrate at this point. Maybe next year I'll actually feel okay with another year having passed instead of it sending me spiraling straight into a suicidal depression.
This date also means that Trevor and I have to get a playable version of TileWars ready soon if we want to get it ready for release by the end of next month. As my welfare runs out by the end of next month it seems kind of crucial to have something to show for all the money they have given me, and to gain some financial stability. I do wonder whether they'll want the money back as a loan since the company isn't bankrupt, or that they'll think of something else. So far the company isn't running a profit, let alone show any significant kind of revenue, so it's more like a zombie company at this point. I do hope I won't have to go through any financial troubles due to a lack of results.
I could use a break on so many fronts...
Maya
As usual, talking about the things which really bother me in my life drained me quite a great deal, so I ended up going to bed early, only to find myself unable to fall asleep with me going over parts of the conversation that day. I didn't feel exactly happy either, slowly slipping back into the mood I have when I'm tired and somewhat depressed, during which I find myself longing for the oblivion of death. It wasn't until I had a chance to soak Pieter's shirt with tears and trash around a bit while I unleashed my frustrations and pain that I was finally able to fall asleep.
It's basically the same thing when I'm talking to others: I feel jealous of the things they can do and experience which I can't. I find myself frustrated at the sluggish pace at which my medical case is being treated, with the appointment for the urological examination at the UMCG hospital being postponed this week by another week, making it October 4th when I'll be made either very happy with a conclusive explanation for my body's weirdness or it'll be just more inconclusive junk or lies which will cause me to lose any desire to live for at least a few weeks.
During the conversation yesterday I noticed again that everything for me seems to be about getting those facts about my body, including what the heck is up with this existent/non-existent prostate, and whether I do or do not have a vagina and if not what in heaven's name it is what I have down there in that case. At least when we're talking about anything related to my body, which includes socializing, relationships and sexuality. That's the side of life I just can not accept, can't deal with and would much prefer not to exist at all at this point.
Last Wednesday I was reading the fourth book in the Anita Blake series I mentioned before, and Pieter must have forgotten about one section in it, because a pornographic scene was described in detail in it, causing me to instantly feel sick and miserable for the rest of the evening. So much for reading that series. I was even just beginning to like it somewhat.
I just checked today's date and realized we're already approaching the end of August. Just a little while longer to my birthday on September 4th which I'd rather skip because I have nothing to celebrate at this point. Maybe next year I'll actually feel okay with another year having passed instead of it sending me spiraling straight into a suicidal depression.
This date also means that Trevor and I have to get a playable version of TileWars ready soon if we want to get it ready for release by the end of next month. As my welfare runs out by the end of next month it seems kind of crucial to have something to show for all the money they have given me, and to gain some financial stability. I do wonder whether they'll want the money back as a loan since the company isn't bankrupt, or that they'll think of something else. So far the company isn't running a profit, let alone show any significant kind of revenue, so it's more like a zombie company at this point. I do hope I won't have to go through any financial troubles due to a lack of results.
I could use a break on so many fronts...
Maya
Wednesday, 11 August 2010
A World Full Of Bloat
Let me start off with another one of my infamous movie reviews. This one is about Spiderman, the second movie in particular and the first as collateral. I have to be honest and say that if you care about good movies and maybe even a bit about Spiderman as portrayed in the original comics and/or the cartoon (which I have seen, on a sidenote), you absolutely can not like these movies or even think they're remotely good.
It's been a while since I saw the first movie, so I'll focus on the second, which I saw only last Sunday. Suffice it to say that the only thing holding the entire move together was the 'bad guy': Doc Oc, an unfortunate scientist who made a small miscalculation in his latest invention. His actor was believable, the CGI delicious and made the whole role shine. Unfortunately the rest of the cast had a rather dull cast to them, with very flat characters and poor acting. Where secondary characters brought a bit of life into the movie (like the landlord and his daughter of the place Peter stays at), nothing was done to make things stick. They were like shining diamonds in a whole big pile of dung.
Marie-Jane was a whining, insecure and above all bloody annoying excuse for a woman, leaving me with no reason as to why Peter should even like her. There's no character development there, just a heap of stereotypical teenage angst and popcorn romance mixed together, making for a very sickening combination. I still feel that Doc Oc didn't deserve such a poor movie. Poor guy :(
Moving on, just a quick message to let everyone know that the episode of 'Vrije Vogels' on TV Flevoland is being broadcast today again :) They've apparently been showing a preview for the past few days involving the parts where I brush my hair and the one where I am undressing. Fun, fun. I wonder whether I'll get more than the single response I got last time. Doubt it.
Talking about TV, I caught a news item during lunch today on the decrease of volunteer firemen in the Netherlands. Apparently they encounter a lot of harassment and violence at the scene but also from people who track them down to their homes. Combined with earlier news about something similar happening with ambulance personnel it pretty much leads one to believe that this country is filled with insensitive, anti-social jerks whose only goal in their pitiful existence is to make the lives of others a living hell.
It just underlines again why I feel not a shred of pride for this country I just happened to be born in. There are so many things wrong with this place and its people, and there aren't enough people who care. The politicians don't care, those in high places don't care, the workers don't care. Only apparently a handful of more intelligent people seem to be aware of the moral ruins which form this country's foundations, yet they're powerless to change anything, as nobody listens to them. It's a truly sad state of affairs.
As a related item, there are people in this country who think it's a good idea for the next Soccer World Championships to be organized here in the Netherlands, clearly displaying their complete lack of any clue not to mention an utter absence of intelligence. The organizing group for this WC is the FIFA, which rivals the Olympic Comittee on pure evil-ness. The FIFA sets a number of requirements on any country hosting the WC, including not having to pay taxes, having special roads available to them, having complete control over which company brands are visible in a range of two kilometers around any stadium, which includes things people wear on a shirt or other piece of clothing and the name of a cafe or restaurant including any brand names they may be displaying. If it isn't the script for a tyranny, I don't know what is. Oh, and the FIFA gets to take all the money home, leaving the few scraps for the local population to fight over. It's all so screwed up I'd cry if it didn't make me so angry.
Sometimes it makes me think that a nice, quick world-wide epidemic wouldn't be such a bad thing. We're almost all too complacent and apathic to care about anything beyond what to eat within the next 10 hours and what to watch on TV tonight. Welcome to a brave, bloated new world. Enjoy your extra-fat burger.
Moving on with my personal affairs, I have experienced both good and less good things lately. A lesser thing being pretty much snapping from stress and acting very unusual, including acting very impulsively involving slamming with doors and throwing soft, fluffy things like my bed covers at Pieter when he came to check up on me. One sleeping pill later and I feel better, however. It does show how far the high-water mark on my stress tolerance meter has been exceeded.
Finally, to finish on a high note, last week I got an email from the journalist who did the interview for the Grazia, Lydia van der Weide, involving a new show the BNN TV channel here in the Netherlands wants to do. She asked me whether I would be interested. I said I was so she got them my phone number, leading to a phonecall from BNN last Monday. The show is related to their other show ('Je zal het maar hebben', or 'Imagine having it'), only not so much aimed at diseases and such. Next week I should hear whether I have been picked. Some locations where they want to shoot scenes with me is at the pool, at the beauty salon and at the UMCG hospital next month.
Maya
It's been a while since I saw the first movie, so I'll focus on the second, which I saw only last Sunday. Suffice it to say that the only thing holding the entire move together was the 'bad guy': Doc Oc, an unfortunate scientist who made a small miscalculation in his latest invention. His actor was believable, the CGI delicious and made the whole role shine. Unfortunately the rest of the cast had a rather dull cast to them, with very flat characters and poor acting. Where secondary characters brought a bit of life into the movie (like the landlord and his daughter of the place Peter stays at), nothing was done to make things stick. They were like shining diamonds in a whole big pile of dung.
Marie-Jane was a whining, insecure and above all bloody annoying excuse for a woman, leaving me with no reason as to why Peter should even like her. There's no character development there, just a heap of stereotypical teenage angst and popcorn romance mixed together, making for a very sickening combination. I still feel that Doc Oc didn't deserve such a poor movie. Poor guy :(
Moving on, just a quick message to let everyone know that the episode of 'Vrije Vogels' on TV Flevoland is being broadcast today again :) They've apparently been showing a preview for the past few days involving the parts where I brush my hair and the one where I am undressing. Fun, fun. I wonder whether I'll get more than the single response I got last time. Doubt it.
Talking about TV, I caught a news item during lunch today on the decrease of volunteer firemen in the Netherlands. Apparently they encounter a lot of harassment and violence at the scene but also from people who track them down to their homes. Combined with earlier news about something similar happening with ambulance personnel it pretty much leads one to believe that this country is filled with insensitive, anti-social jerks whose only goal in their pitiful existence is to make the lives of others a living hell.
It just underlines again why I feel not a shred of pride for this country I just happened to be born in. There are so many things wrong with this place and its people, and there aren't enough people who care. The politicians don't care, those in high places don't care, the workers don't care. Only apparently a handful of more intelligent people seem to be aware of the moral ruins which form this country's foundations, yet they're powerless to change anything, as nobody listens to them. It's a truly sad state of affairs.
As a related item, there are people in this country who think it's a good idea for the next Soccer World Championships to be organized here in the Netherlands, clearly displaying their complete lack of any clue not to mention an utter absence of intelligence. The organizing group for this WC is the FIFA, which rivals the Olympic Comittee on pure evil-ness. The FIFA sets a number of requirements on any country hosting the WC, including not having to pay taxes, having special roads available to them, having complete control over which company brands are visible in a range of two kilometers around any stadium, which includes things people wear on a shirt or other piece of clothing and the name of a cafe or restaurant including any brand names they may be displaying. If it isn't the script for a tyranny, I don't know what is. Oh, and the FIFA gets to take all the money home, leaving the few scraps for the local population to fight over. It's all so screwed up I'd cry if it didn't make me so angry.
Sometimes it makes me think that a nice, quick world-wide epidemic wouldn't be such a bad thing. We're almost all too complacent and apathic to care about anything beyond what to eat within the next 10 hours and what to watch on TV tonight. Welcome to a brave, bloated new world. Enjoy your extra-fat burger.
Moving on with my personal affairs, I have experienced both good and less good things lately. A lesser thing being pretty much snapping from stress and acting very unusual, including acting very impulsively involving slamming with doors and throwing soft, fluffy things like my bed covers at Pieter when he came to check up on me. One sleeping pill later and I feel better, however. It does show how far the high-water mark on my stress tolerance meter has been exceeded.
Finally, to finish on a high note, last week I got an email from the journalist who did the interview for the Grazia, Lydia van der Weide, involving a new show the BNN TV channel here in the Netherlands wants to do. She asked me whether I would be interested. I said I was so she got them my phone number, leading to a phonecall from BNN last Monday. The show is related to their other show ('Je zal het maar hebben', or 'Imagine having it'), only not so much aimed at diseases and such. Next week I should hear whether I have been picked. Some locations where they want to shoot scenes with me is at the pool, at the beauty salon and at the UMCG hospital next month.
Maya
Saturday, 7 August 2010
Solitude
This morning I finally received the confirmation from the UMCG hospital regarding the urology examination. It will take place on September the 27th, and according to the included brochures it will at least involve an ultrasound of the prostate and a check-up of the urinal tract and bladder. If there are any other tests they'll want to perform I'll probably be unable to learn about it, seeing as how I only seem to be able to get any real information when I'm there in person. I guess I'll just have to buckle up and ride things out until the 27th next month.
As for my general condition at this moment, I must admit that I have since a few days ago withdrawn from interaction with everyone but a few people I know. I just got so sick of other people a few days ago and this attitude hasn't changed yet. The truth is that I don't think that most people are worth a second of my time, and that my dreams of living a more regular life among other people is just a silly thing, if not stupid.
Until my next appointment at the UMCG and assuming a favourable and useful result I don't expect this to change or improve. I'm absolutely sick of learning things about people I have recently met and discover that I was sorely mistaken about them. I have begun to loathe talking to virtually everyone, as they're all so... I don't know... simplistic? Their desires in lives are shallow, when talking to them it's about as interesting as watching paint dry. It's like I'm talking to the dead or something, as though they're echoes of something without any future left open to them. I'm not really sure how to explain this.
What I desire most is to create my own future, to bend the 'facts' about what is possible and what isn't with my own powers and skills. One of these is people proclaiming that the human brain is something mystical, uttering something about quantum theory and other big words they actually don't really understand, or call in fantasy stuff such as souls. I'm utterly convinced that human-level or better artificial intelligence isn't only possible right now but actually really easy. It's easier than raising a human child for 12+ bloody years, that's for sure.
For our current game I have been studying up on AI game development theory and found many matches between my own theories as well as many disagreements. It is a very fascinating subject for sure, and I must admit that I absolutely love a fairly abstract challenge like AI, in the sense that it totally deconstructs everything which we take for granted. It allows one to really grasp what consciousness truly entails and how humans in general are basically no more than reactive systems, foregoing planning for pre-programmed responses.
Reading up on this has rekindled my desire to finish my own AI project, called Khipu after the Aztec word for the device they used to store information with involving knotted ropes. While it is still a fairly involved project, it nevertheless thrills me to my core to be working on something which is truly groundbreaking and fundamental research. This is the stuff I live for, the true purpose of my existence. I want to take everything that is considered difficult or even impossible and just make it work. Because it is who and what I am as an existence.
Sadly being in possession of such a desire seems to put me in a minority within humanity as a whole, as I imagine visionaries have always found themselves caught in isolation.
Maya
As for my general condition at this moment, I must admit that I have since a few days ago withdrawn from interaction with everyone but a few people I know. I just got so sick of other people a few days ago and this attitude hasn't changed yet. The truth is that I don't think that most people are worth a second of my time, and that my dreams of living a more regular life among other people is just a silly thing, if not stupid.
Until my next appointment at the UMCG and assuming a favourable and useful result I don't expect this to change or improve. I'm absolutely sick of learning things about people I have recently met and discover that I was sorely mistaken about them. I have begun to loathe talking to virtually everyone, as they're all so... I don't know... simplistic? Their desires in lives are shallow, when talking to them it's about as interesting as watching paint dry. It's like I'm talking to the dead or something, as though they're echoes of something without any future left open to them. I'm not really sure how to explain this.
What I desire most is to create my own future, to bend the 'facts' about what is possible and what isn't with my own powers and skills. One of these is people proclaiming that the human brain is something mystical, uttering something about quantum theory and other big words they actually don't really understand, or call in fantasy stuff such as souls. I'm utterly convinced that human-level or better artificial intelligence isn't only possible right now but actually really easy. It's easier than raising a human child for 12+ bloody years, that's for sure.
For our current game I have been studying up on AI game development theory and found many matches between my own theories as well as many disagreements. It is a very fascinating subject for sure, and I must admit that I absolutely love a fairly abstract challenge like AI, in the sense that it totally deconstructs everything which we take for granted. It allows one to really grasp what consciousness truly entails and how humans in general are basically no more than reactive systems, foregoing planning for pre-programmed responses.
Reading up on this has rekindled my desire to finish my own AI project, called Khipu after the Aztec word for the device they used to store information with involving knotted ropes. While it is still a fairly involved project, it nevertheless thrills me to my core to be working on something which is truly groundbreaking and fundamental research. This is the stuff I live for, the true purpose of my existence. I want to take everything that is considered difficult or even impossible and just make it work. Because it is who and what I am as an existence.
Sadly being in possession of such a desire seems to put me in a minority within humanity as a whole, as I imagine visionaries have always found themselves caught in isolation.
Maya
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