“Riding Light” is a new, beautiful animation by Alphonse Swinehart. In the 45-minute journey, you will travel with light on its way from the Sun to Jupiter. I love videos like this because they really help me gain a better appreciation for the scale of our Universe. If you watch light travel from Earth to Mars, for example, you will realize how difficult it will be to successfully complete a manned exploration mission to the red planet. There’s just so much emptiness between the planetary masses…
A word from the creators:
“In our terrestrial view of things, the speed of light seems incredibly fast. But as soon as you view it against the vast distances of the universe, it’s unfortunately very slow. This animation illustrates, in realtime, the journey of a photon of light emitted from the surface of the sun and traveling across a portion of the solar system, from a human perspective.
I’ve taken liberties with certain things like the alignment of planets and asteroids, as well as ignoring the laws of relativity concerning what a photon actually “sees” or how time is experienced at the speed of light, but overall I’ve kept the size and distances of all the objects as accurate as possible. I also decided to end the animation just past Jupiter as I wanted to keep the running length below an hour.
Design & Animation: Alphonse Swinehart / aswinehart.com
Music: Steve Reich “Music for 18 Musicians”
Performed by: Eighth Blackbird / eighthblackbird.org”
“The Final Moments of Karl Brant” is a Science Fiction short created by M.Francis Wilson, starring Paul Reubens (AKA Pee-wee Herman). The premise is similar to the recent Singularity blockbuster called Transcendence (starring Johnny Depp). I didn’t see that movie because it received such terrible Rotten Tomatoes reviews from both critics and the general public, alike.
However, I appreciated this effort to humanize the transfer of human consciousness to a machine. If nothing else, it will make you ponder the concepts of immortality, personal identity, and the future of humanity… đ
There were some excellent comments over at the Singularity Hub, which I will include here. I think they are definitely worth a read…
From the TheLastSaneManOnEarth:
When it comes to common sense Iâm probably smarter than anyone reading this right now. I boil things down to the essentials instead of cluttering my mind with smartass mindgames and myriads of information.
The answer everyone is seeking is clear, and Iâm as certain as can be.
NEITHER digital nor biological immortality is objectively a âtrueâ or ârightâ path for any individual. Both pursuits can be philosophically deconstructed to the point where there is simply no RATIONAL reason to pursue either.
Thatâs because ânihilismâ is, in a way, true. There is no purpose in life, inherently. That means you have complete freedom to choose what goals, and what purposes you pursue (Or your âbrainâ, or your âpersonalityâ has that freedom âŠ).
For me, Iâve set my goal to achive maximum longevity & happiness. But if you choose to pursue pain, unhappiness, and ultimately death â thatâs your freedom and itâs not inherently wrong or right, it just is. Just as you just ARE. Youâre a clump of molecules moving and interacting in a way to create what we call âhomo sapiensâ, âbrainâ, âpersonalityâ, âYouâ. Thatâs all you are. Molecules assembled through random processes facilitated by the laws of physics governing in this universe. âYouâ is just a word. Coincidental as the universe itself. No magic. Just a clump of matter that thinks that it âexistsâ.
You can choose whatever you want to define as the word âyouâ. You can define it as your information and personality. Or you can define it as your atoms, and your physical brain. There is simply no âtrueâ definition, because reality, words, feelings, itâs all completely subjective and âun-trueâ.
Ok, thatâs a bit hard to grasp at first â So here comes a more practical argument, and of course 100% subjective, AGAINST the euphoric hope for âdigital immortalityâ:
For all you know, you currently have billions of identical twins in parallel universes. But if youâre honest, youâll admit that you couldnât care less about what lives they live or donât live. Or do you care? Would you sacrifice or risk your own life, to save any one of those infinite âparallelâ twins, who have the same personality and memories?
Yeah. Didnât think so.
So weâve established that there is nothing inherently valuable â from your standpoint â in having a separate entity in existence somewhere else (e.g. a mind-twin in a parallel universe, or a mind-copy on a computer in your basement). Thatâs simply because you are human, and humans are egoistic. AND THAT IS OK.
On the other hand, our bodyâs molecules are finishing a cycle of complete replacement every ~7 years (so almost no molecules from back then are left), on whichâs basis many techno-utopian charlatanes claim we are not our matter, and therefore âmustâ be information. Thatâs like saying âAâ seems wrong, so âBâ must be true â a logical error. Or just deliberately misleading people to gain power and traction and sell books.
Again â there is nothing inherently valuable about information, onesâs and zeroâs. Or a piece of music. Or a book. Or a movie. Or your digital mind-copy. If you choose to associate positive sentiments with those things being in existence, thatâs youâre choice.
So although, in a way, nihilism is âtruthâ â the logical start and endpoint of all philosophy â if all existence is absurd, so is nihilism itself. Again â that means you can CHOOSE what path you pursue â the least absurd one, if you like.
I personally hope, that for most âsaneâ humans thatâd arguably be to maintain their own brain, and not die for a software-copy. And indeed there may still be ways to become biologically âimmortalâ and endowed with godlike capacities and happiness in a Matrix-Style-happy-eterniverse, but thatâs another story and not one that Kurzweil & friends would like to hear.
and from Kiriri in response:
Surprisingly, for once I absolutely agree with everything said in a comment here, well, apart from the being smarter than me đ
Let me add to the momentum with a little thought experiment. Imagine you could replace all parts of your brain, no matter how small or large, with computer chips. Would you still be the same person if you added some augmentive chip like a math-module to your brain? Youâd think so. Now think farther, what if you replaced 2% of your brain with a chip each year. When would you stop being âyouâ? After some time you will behave and think very differently than before. But youâd still think of yourself as the same being, just like youâd say âThatâs me!â to a photo of you as a child, even though your behavioural pattern or even your physiology now is probably nothing like what it was back then.
What humans define as their consciousness is in fact a nearly infinite amount of conscious states that fade into each other. The you from a second ago is not the you you are now. Or if it is, the you now is the same as you in your childhood, just because due to the gradual interpolation between your conscious states you cannot differentiate between them.
I personally would therefore upload my mind slowly to make the change imperceptible compared to all the other changes that happen to me every moment of every second of my life.
I should note that this is a religious topic. Consciousness is imaginary, just like all other definitions humans have ever come up with. They are all relative at most đ
I like what Kariri added to the conversation… It makes sense to me that we would want to slowly adjust to any new consciousness construct. In this way, we could “dissolve” seamlessly into our new identities.
“We Were Not Made For This World” is a new short video created by Colin West McDonald. In this story, a lonely robot wanders through the desert, searching for some meaning of its existence. With each step, death approaches ever more quickly… It reminds me of the countless humans who have journeyed from home to find purpose in the wilderness, to find their place in the great unknown…
The robot was beautifully designed by Paul Hornschemeier and fabricated by Tina Matthews, who ultimately wore the costume for the film.
Part’s I and III of The Robot Scriptures are still in development, so stay tuned for that.
I didn’t quite know what to expect when I saw the “Brain Massage” title on the Vimeo Staff Picks list. I certainly didn’t expect 22 minutes of the best freeskiing I’ve ever seen. The video is a tour de force directed by Aarni Toiviainen, featuring Finish skiing by Oskari Raitanen, Tommi Kostilainen, Matti RĂ€ty, Riku Laakso, Jussi Mononen, Kalle Leinonen and others.
Most of the skiing takes place in remote regions of Scandinavia, The Baltic, and Russia, which makes for some incredibly unique visuals. There’s nothing like seeing the skiers turn abandoned Soviet warehouses in trick parks.
“After three years, twelve webisodes, two IF3 Europe awards and over one million views Nipwitz has embarked on a new, two-year movie project to be released in fall 2014.
The movie, entitled Brain Massage, is the most ambitious Nipwitz project showcasing game-changing skiing in cities of Scandinavia, the Baltics and beyond. It is also the very last piece of art produced under the name Nipwitz
The last piece of soul, heart and wisdom inspired by the northern spirit of Vikings, dragons and the brotherhood of metal.”
We’ve featured Fabian Oefner’s work here on the blog before. He’s a photographer, videographer and a self-proclaimed “curious investigator, photographer and artist, whose work moves between the fields of art and science.” We can certainly appreciate that sentiment at RobotSpaceBrain. His new collaboration with Ferrari is another wonderful fusion of art and science.
Wind tunnels are often used in aerodynamic research to study the effects of air moving past solid objects. In the automobile industry, the tunnel can be used to measure the aerodynamic forces and pressure distribution to optimize a car’s design. In this project, Fabian sprays UV paint into the wind tunnel with a black California T Ferrari and captures the scene in it all its glory.
The artwork is certainly commercial, but I appreciate it just the same. After all, artists have to make money too…
You may remember this sweet Snow Surfer video that Jacob Sutton created back in 2012. Well, now it’s the skiers turn to shred the powder in ethereal LED glowing suits.
This is even what I wrote back in 2012:
“The film is haunting. I like to imagine this is what snowboarding in the future will look like â sculpture in motion. I hope a skiing video is soon to follow.”
Well, thank you Philips TV and Atomic Skis for making my wish a reality.
From the creators:
“From the depth of the creative visuals to the groundbreaking, never-been-done-before scale of the shoot, Afterglow is being hailed as one of the most cinematically profound ski movies ever made. Deep pillows and Alaskan spines, all filmed at night, with massive lights, custom made LED suits, and a national governments worth of logistics, planning, and civil engineering.”
On October 19th, you can find the full 12 minute video here.