I have a small display this weekend at a local art and book show run by the Harrogate company Treasure and Relish. Due to space constraints I'm only showing Utility Fog Press anthologies Assassins' Canon and Farspace 2 next to two 7-inch digital displays running slideshows of my artwork. And, of course, their are the business cards and bookmarks.
Treasure and Relish is a relatively new book and art distributor in Harrogate, run by James South. I, for one, think it's great to he is bring a regular (semi-annual) forum to Harrogate for local artists to display their craft and I wish him the best of luck in this endeavour. It's had such strong support from the local arts community so far that he doesn't have enough space to showcase everyone he would like to. So if there are any local arts patrons reading this who have a low-cost venue for showing art, why not contact James.
In related news, I've also just discovered that it's possible to book a section of the local library for showing art -- at no cost. Needless to say, I'll be checking that out shortly.
Insight and longevity.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Friday, May 18, 2012
Limitations of Communication, and Xenocultures
I've recently finished rereading Ender's Game, first book in the Ender Series by Orson Scott Card and enjoyed it, as always. Not only is the story entertaining, but some of the ideas Scott Card developes are thought provoking and I've gotten something different out of the book each time I've read it.
Without a doubt, the most moving part of the book for me, at least recently, is the fact that Ender is made complicit in a xenocide that results from a war that didn't need to be. This reminds me of Timothy Zahn's Conqueror's trilogy, where there is a similar confusion. Esssentially, humans meet a race that can communicate instantaneously over long distances using natural abilities we don't understand. In both stories, it's the aliens who attack first, but do so through their own misunderstanding of humans.
Both authors have hit upon a similar manifestation of something that could be a very real issue should we ever encounter another intelligent species. That is, the concern that, through no fault of our own, we may not be able to understand them. If you've read either book, you'll know what I mean. If not, you may be a bit confused here. After all, isn't it just a matter of learning their language?
Well, no. As these stories highlight, interspecies communication in the wider galaxy could be as much an issue of understanding how they communicate -- i.e. by what method -- as it is specifically understanding what they say.
In The Conqueror's Trilogy the aliens use both convention and unconventional means to communicate, allowing the characters to work out that there was a misunderstanding. In Ender's Game, things don't work out so well for the aliens. Even sadder is that the aliens realized their mistake before the third war (the only one of three initiated by the humans), but by then it was too late. At great difficulty, the alien Queen does learn to communicate with Ender, eventually, through imagery and mental imprint left after her death, but the message is clear -- a lack of communication can be deadly.
I suppose being a writer, in addition to having my own family, makes me particularly sensitive to communication issues. Growing up in Canada, I never would have guessed that even inter-cultural communication can be so challenging sometimes, especially when the other person simply doesn't have the same cultural frame of reference that you do.
We spend a lot of time on space exploration, working out propulsion and life support systems, how arks might function, how we might survive a long term journey. And there are some researchers who try to study xenobiology, as best they can without any real examples to base their ideas on (unusual lifeforms on Earth can only give so many suggestions). But if we do find life, any life, on Mars, on the moons of Jupiter, anywhere, then we'd better start seriously considering the idea there there are other intelligent lifeforms in our galaxy. And at that stage, as much for self preservation and for wider knowledge, we have to put serious study into xenocultures and xenocommunication. Because one of the easiest, and most avoidable, ways of ending the human race could be through a miscommunication with a powerful alien culture.
And I, for one, would be very upset if that happened.
Insight and longevity.
Without a doubt, the most moving part of the book for me, at least recently, is the fact that Ender is made complicit in a xenocide that results from a war that didn't need to be. This reminds me of Timothy Zahn's Conqueror's trilogy, where there is a similar confusion. Esssentially, humans meet a race that can communicate instantaneously over long distances using natural abilities we don't understand. In both stories, it's the aliens who attack first, but do so through their own misunderstanding of humans.
Both authors have hit upon a similar manifestation of something that could be a very real issue should we ever encounter another intelligent species. That is, the concern that, through no fault of our own, we may not be able to understand them. If you've read either book, you'll know what I mean. If not, you may be a bit confused here. After all, isn't it just a matter of learning their language?
Well, no. As these stories highlight, interspecies communication in the wider galaxy could be as much an issue of understanding how they communicate -- i.e. by what method -- as it is specifically understanding what they say.
In The Conqueror's Trilogy the aliens use both convention and unconventional means to communicate, allowing the characters to work out that there was a misunderstanding. In Ender's Game, things don't work out so well for the aliens. Even sadder is that the aliens realized their mistake before the third war (the only one of three initiated by the humans), but by then it was too late. At great difficulty, the alien Queen does learn to communicate with Ender, eventually, through imagery and mental imprint left after her death, but the message is clear -- a lack of communication can be deadly.
I suppose being a writer, in addition to having my own family, makes me particularly sensitive to communication issues. Growing up in Canada, I never would have guessed that even inter-cultural communication can be so challenging sometimes, especially when the other person simply doesn't have the same cultural frame of reference that you do.
We spend a lot of time on space exploration, working out propulsion and life support systems, how arks might function, how we might survive a long term journey. And there are some researchers who try to study xenobiology, as best they can without any real examples to base their ideas on (unusual lifeforms on Earth can only give so many suggestions). But if we do find life, any life, on Mars, on the moons of Jupiter, anywhere, then we'd better start seriously considering the idea there there are other intelligent lifeforms in our galaxy. And at that stage, as much for self preservation and for wider knowledge, we have to put serious study into xenocultures and xenocommunication. Because one of the easiest, and most avoidable, ways of ending the human race could be through a miscommunication with a powerful alien culture.
And I, for one, would be very upset if that happened.
Insight and longevity.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Are We Addicted to Addiction?
Hardly a week (and definitely not a month) passes without someone in the media mentioning an article about something causing addiction to something, or some new-ish thing is addicting or otherwise harmful to the person or society. In the vast majority of cases, the addiction being discussed related to 12-24 year olds and it's something that society, as a whole, is either prudish about, uncomfortable about, or considers time wasting.
A few notable examples include:
1) addiction to video games. Probably the number 1 addiction discussed with regards to young people.
2) addiction to sex.
3) addition to pornography
4) addition to technology. TV was the original bugbear, now it's computers, the internet, or mobile phones.
It's come to the point where I've begun to ask if any of this is real. Or is it just the establishment poo-pooing the new and changing world using scary, ill-defined terminology?
While physical addiction is a very real, and very nasty thing. As you well understand if you've known anyone who's gone through withdrawl from any kind of drug (most commonly nicotine, but street and medicinal drugs are well known to have much worse side-effects), psychological addition is very hard to define effectively.
The online Medical Dictionary defines addiction as a persistent, compulsive dependence on a behavior or substance, which is a very broad definition.
To highlight the difficulty in understanding this, I can be pedantic and use some trivial examples such as eating, sleeping, drinking water, and breathing. While the suggestion that such things are addictive could be labeled as being facetiuous, it's difficult to properly assess why. After all, all of us require these things in what might be considered a compulsive dependence. I.E. I'm compelled to eat or I'll die. Yet we don't consider them addictive. However, some drug addicts reach a stage where they physically require the drug or they could die (certain drugs). So where does the difference lay?
I don't know the answer to that question, and I'm not sure anyone else does either. Even the professions that deal with understanding addiction are often split on their opinions. Which is precisely my quarel with the use of the word addiction. It's so ill defined that its use often appears to be more politcally motivated than through any real concern over the 'addiction'. That is, it seems a term that is used by those wishing to affect a certain order on society that best represents their own views.
To highlight this idea, consider the following addictions that exist in society, but have rarely (especially in recent times) been labelled as such:
1) Work. In North America, the Orient, and often in professional occupations anywhere in the world, work dominates lives. Why? There is no need for it. Work is intended as a way to 'do your part for society' and to make enough money to survive. So why work yourself crazy for some company. Especially when there is evidence to suggest the stresses can be detrimental to your health? There used to be term used for a work addict: workaholic. Interestingly, this seems to have fallen in to disuse in modern times.
2) Sport.
Playing. While playing sports is generally healthy, it can be taken too far. Such as when a person is injured but still undertakes the sport/exercise instead of caring for their injury.
Watching. Even worse, in my opinion, are the people addicted to watching sports. And there are MANY (yes, enough to be capitalized). It's a common and well-accepted issue around the world that many spousal arguments occured due to scheduled sports shows and their interference with other family/relationship events. Furthermore, is there any real need or purpose to memorizing random statistics of baseball players? Does society gain any benefit through intercity conflicts that arise between fans.
3) Money. Now we come to a biggie. Addiction to money is something I've never heard mention in the media, yet recently the entire world has suffered because of the extreme money-addiction of a handful of people running big corporations. IMO, addition to money more than almost all other addictions, has the chance to ruin not only your life, but the lives of you family and, potentially many others.
4) Your Children / Family. Yes, I'm moving back into the eating/breathing realm here. But let's face it, if you love your children then it's easy to be addicted to them. Which leads to...
5) Love. Yes, a great many people are addicted, to varying degrees, to love. Yet rarely has Love ever been mentioned as addiction. But look at what people will do for 'love': sacrifice their home, family, career, life. People (most commonly teens) will become depressed for lack of peer love to the point that they'll stop eating, won't sleep well, will be unable to concentrate. And when an opportunity for love arises, they'll give up almost anything for it. The earily stages of 'love' (first two years) have recently become known as the obsessive stage which, I think, summarizes the idea clearly. It also supports the idea that love is an addiction, since what is a psychological addiction but an obsession.
With all this in mind, what becomes clear when we hear the term 'addiction' used in the media, is that it is more often than not, being used in a political manner to affect social change in favour of ideals upheld by the person using it. Not because of any real concern for those who may, or may not, be 'afflicted'. So perhaps we should stop labeling behaviours we don't like as 'addictive' and just deal with the problem as they arise.
Or we could insist all the banking CEOs are stripped of their jobs (and salaries) and put in psychological institutions to deal with their money addictions.
Insight and longevity.
A few notable examples include:
1) addiction to video games. Probably the number 1 addiction discussed with regards to young people.
2) addiction to sex.
3) addition to pornography
4) addition to technology. TV was the original bugbear, now it's computers, the internet, or mobile phones.
It's come to the point where I've begun to ask if any of this is real. Or is it just the establishment poo-pooing the new and changing world using scary, ill-defined terminology?
While physical addiction is a very real, and very nasty thing. As you well understand if you've known anyone who's gone through withdrawl from any kind of drug (most commonly nicotine, but street and medicinal drugs are well known to have much worse side-effects), psychological addition is very hard to define effectively.
The online Medical Dictionary defines addiction as a persistent, compulsive dependence on a behavior or substance, which is a very broad definition.
To highlight the difficulty in understanding this, I can be pedantic and use some trivial examples such as eating, sleeping, drinking water, and breathing. While the suggestion that such things are addictive could be labeled as being facetiuous, it's difficult to properly assess why. After all, all of us require these things in what might be considered a compulsive dependence. I.E. I'm compelled to eat or I'll die. Yet we don't consider them addictive. However, some drug addicts reach a stage where they physically require the drug or they could die (certain drugs). So where does the difference lay?
I don't know the answer to that question, and I'm not sure anyone else does either. Even the professions that deal with understanding addiction are often split on their opinions. Which is precisely my quarel with the use of the word addiction. It's so ill defined that its use often appears to be more politcally motivated than through any real concern over the 'addiction'. That is, it seems a term that is used by those wishing to affect a certain order on society that best represents their own views.
To highlight this idea, consider the following addictions that exist in society, but have rarely (especially in recent times) been labelled as such:
1) Work. In North America, the Orient, and often in professional occupations anywhere in the world, work dominates lives. Why? There is no need for it. Work is intended as a way to 'do your part for society' and to make enough money to survive. So why work yourself crazy for some company. Especially when there is evidence to suggest the stresses can be detrimental to your health? There used to be term used for a work addict: workaholic. Interestingly, this seems to have fallen in to disuse in modern times.
2) Sport.
Playing. While playing sports is generally healthy, it can be taken too far. Such as when a person is injured but still undertakes the sport/exercise instead of caring for their injury.
Watching. Even worse, in my opinion, are the people addicted to watching sports. And there are MANY (yes, enough to be capitalized). It's a common and well-accepted issue around the world that many spousal arguments occured due to scheduled sports shows and their interference with other family/relationship events. Furthermore, is there any real need or purpose to memorizing random statistics of baseball players? Does society gain any benefit through intercity conflicts that arise between fans.
3) Money. Now we come to a biggie. Addiction to money is something I've never heard mention in the media, yet recently the entire world has suffered because of the extreme money-addiction of a handful of people running big corporations. IMO, addition to money more than almost all other addictions, has the chance to ruin not only your life, but the lives of you family and, potentially many others.
4) Your Children / Family. Yes, I'm moving back into the eating/breathing realm here. But let's face it, if you love your children then it's easy to be addicted to them. Which leads to...
5) Love. Yes, a great many people are addicted, to varying degrees, to love. Yet rarely has Love ever been mentioned as addiction. But look at what people will do for 'love': sacrifice their home, family, career, life. People (most commonly teens) will become depressed for lack of peer love to the point that they'll stop eating, won't sleep well, will be unable to concentrate. And when an opportunity for love arises, they'll give up almost anything for it. The earily stages of 'love' (first two years) have recently become known as the obsessive stage which, I think, summarizes the idea clearly. It also supports the idea that love is an addiction, since what is a psychological addiction but an obsession.
With all this in mind, what becomes clear when we hear the term 'addiction' used in the media, is that it is more often than not, being used in a political manner to affect social change in favour of ideals upheld by the person using it. Not because of any real concern for those who may, or may not, be 'afflicted'. So perhaps we should stop labeling behaviours we don't like as 'addictive' and just deal with the problem as they arise.
Or we could insist all the banking CEOs are stripped of their jobs (and salaries) and put in psychological institutions to deal with their money addictions.
Insight and longevity.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Signs, signs... and other things.
Today, I thought I put up a few signs I find funny or relevant.
The first I noticed while at my weekly physio session at the local hospital. I thought, not only is our health in question at the hospital, but our very souls may be a risk!
The second picture is a (de)motivational poster I found online some time ago. Unfortunately, even with my limited editorial experience, this is all too true.
I'm still taking the YA writing course... My third accredited university course in the UK (after 2 open university courses) and, I have to say, I'm really not liking the teaching / grading mentality behind the courses. The formula seems to be: lots of group discussions with guidance-related instructor input (of course, realizing that the instructor has put the course syllabus together in the first place, so not dissing them on that respect), followed by 1-2 feedback sessions (which could also be a small, almost meaningless test), culminating in a final project worth at least 90% of the grade, but for which you get zero feedback.
And that's my real pet peeve. I could live with the entire course structure and the meaningless tests/feedback sessions, as long as the instructors/tutors gave feedback on the final project. After all, what value does a number have by itself? If there is no context, there is no meaning. As a student, you will have virtually no understanding of what you did well and what you did poorly.
If you are writing an 'answer the questions' exam, that is clearly different. After such an exam, most people have some idea of whether they did well or badly, and approximately where they succeeded and failed. But with a single, relatively-open, project feedback is an absolutely crucial part of the process. Without it a huge amount of learning is lost.
Now, the main reason I'm taking this writing course is to get out of the house and meet some people, so the grade is not, itself, significant. In fact, at my point in life, already having a Ph.D., none of the grades in courses I've taken lately have mattered to me. I'm only there to learn. Which is precisely why I want the feedback. I've essentially stopped taking Open University courses now, because, if they're all like the ones I've previously taken, then I see almost no value to them. In fact, I'm starting to get a negative view of the British, with their apparently love of this time of learning system. I have the feeling that it's little more than 'feel good' education that's addictive because you think you might be learning something, and you're having fun so what's a few hundred pounds to the university every half a year? But IMO, if I'm spending that much money for a course, the instructor can at least resist their laziness long enough to write a few comments about my project. I know I did, when I marked 300 undergrad biochem courses one term.
But maybe that's just me.
Insight and longevity.
The first I noticed while at my weekly physio session at the local hospital. I thought, not only is our health in question at the hospital, but our very souls may be a risk!
The second picture is a (de)motivational poster I found online some time ago. Unfortunately, even with my limited editorial experience, this is all too true.
I'm still taking the YA writing course... My third accredited university course in the UK (after 2 open university courses) and, I have to say, I'm really not liking the teaching / grading mentality behind the courses. The formula seems to be: lots of group discussions with guidance-related instructor input (of course, realizing that the instructor has put the course syllabus together in the first place, so not dissing them on that respect), followed by 1-2 feedback sessions (which could also be a small, almost meaningless test), culminating in a final project worth at least 90% of the grade, but for which you get zero feedback.
And that's my real pet peeve. I could live with the entire course structure and the meaningless tests/feedback sessions, as long as the instructors/tutors gave feedback on the final project. After all, what value does a number have by itself? If there is no context, there is no meaning. As a student, you will have virtually no understanding of what you did well and what you did poorly.
If you are writing an 'answer the questions' exam, that is clearly different. After such an exam, most people have some idea of whether they did well or badly, and approximately where they succeeded and failed. But with a single, relatively-open, project feedback is an absolutely crucial part of the process. Without it a huge amount of learning is lost.
Now, the main reason I'm taking this writing course is to get out of the house and meet some people, so the grade is not, itself, significant. In fact, at my point in life, already having a Ph.D., none of the grades in courses I've taken lately have mattered to me. I'm only there to learn. Which is precisely why I want the feedback. I've essentially stopped taking Open University courses now, because, if they're all like the ones I've previously taken, then I see almost no value to them. In fact, I'm starting to get a negative view of the British, with their apparently love of this time of learning system. I have the feeling that it's little more than 'feel good' education that's addictive because you think you might be learning something, and you're having fun so what's a few hundred pounds to the university every half a year? But IMO, if I'm spending that much money for a course, the instructor can at least resist their laziness long enough to write a few comments about my project. I know I did, when I marked 300 undergrad biochem courses one term.
But maybe that's just me.
Insight and longevity.
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