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From: williamb@milton.u.washington.edu (William Bricken)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: 2ndCyberspace Conference
Message-ID: <1991May23.015710.26174@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 23 May 91 00:43:37 GMT
References: <1991May20.053159.18067@milton.u.washington.edu> <1991May20.090324.9
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I posted the commentary on 2ndCyberspace to initiate a discussion of what 
it is that we are consensually hallucinating about.  So here goes:

In article <1991May22.185610.4614@milton.u.washington.edu> eliot@phoenix.princet
on.edu (Eliot Handelman) writes:

>Damn it, how soon we forget. Cyberspace *is* Gibson's metaphor for the
>universe of communication. 

I am not a Gibson scholar.  I disagree with the above generalization.  
>From reading the Gibson books, he seems to be presenting a fantasy of 
neural interface to digital data which is experienced as a reality.
The universe of communication includes real world interaction.  My
goal, however, is to identify just what is meant by terms like "universe
of communication".  Where are the delimiters which make the concept 
comprehendible?  What is *not* cyberspace?

>The technical implementation of cyberspace,
>if you mean the neurotechnical interface, is potentially eons away,

There is a community of folks currently implementing cyberspace.  No, 
we do not know a symbolic structure for biological cognition.  I 
personally do not believe such a structure exists (see Putnam's 
Representation and Reality).  Is it possible to talk about Cyberspace 
from a perspective of actual work in the field?

>and the technical implementation of virtual reality is hardly in
>the same league as the much greater question, what to do with the
>damned thing. And that is not so much a "technical" issue as a problem
>of extending the imagination, inventing new strictures of information
>and experience that go beyond our presently impoverished concepts of
>the nature of any reality at all. 

I believe that the technical implementation is tightly coupled to questions
like what it is and what can we do with it.  To be redundant:  Just what
is the *it* that we are doing something with?  Neurotechnical linkage? (no)
Science fiction stories? (no) Implementations? (perhaps).

Implementation is the byproduct of generative theory building, a 
methodology which expects you to be able to demonstrate what you are 
talking about.  In all the implementations I have been involved with, 
extending the imagination, defining new strictures, and studying closely the
apparent nature of reality is a central focus.  It's just that in
a realm as treacherous as metaphysics, we have found it necessary to 
be as clear as possible, in particular to express ideas as implementations
and then to experientially validate the ideas within the VR implementation.

I believe that the new strictures will arise out of experience within
implementations.  What is irritating is hearing various parties expound
the rules and limitations and character of cyberspace without direct
experience in VR.  The choice of the word "stricture" (an abnormal
narrowing) is apt.

I believe that cyberspace has laws.  If we can find consensus that 
cyberspace is expressed computationally, then we know where to look 
for constraint:  cyberspace is digital and algorithmic.

One of the first things you learn from watching many people experience VR
is that cyberspace is a relation between a sentience and an algorithm.
Physical reality is a similar relation, between a sentience and a set of 
laws.  VR provides the first tool of metaphysics, it permits us to ask 
comparative questions between two relations, coming to a more eclectic
notion of reality.

I share Eliot's apparent desire to find more satisfactory definitions
of reality.  The central problem is that *representation*, particularly
in the form of words, abstracts reality, and that abstraction denies
reality (see Korzybski, Spencer-Brown, Watts).  So I have a great 
difficulty finding guidance about the nature of reality from streams 
of tokens.

Fortunately, VR provides access to experience that both has a digital 
substrate and does not require linear symbolism.  This dual capability
(transparent representation) allows us to experiment with symbolic 
experience, to form new regimes of semantics.

So that's my response to "what to do with the damned thing".  Define
it as what exists, and use that as a tool to guide us to an understanding 
of the reality of the virtual.  As we construct different generative
theories, new ways to in-form, we can explore the new possibilities.

So, a final lobbying effort:  

Programs are words, science fiction is words, discussion is words.  Which
words describe cyberspace?  If cyberspace is electronically mediated 
experience, then we must minimally address the words that constitute 
the electronic implementation.  More directly:  

It is the words of the implementation which define what we can experience
as cyberspace.  Words that are not implementations can guide the 
construction of implementations to the extent that they are stated
formally.

william