innocence

sanity?

• this page is huge due to being a concept of a 2D scrolling layout i envisaged, don't bother complaining unless u have some useful streamlining suggestions.

• some of my art can be clicked on to reveal more detailed images. Tip: hover over pictures for comments

• everything is deliberately minimalist like a stupid modern art gallery; a pointless display of me!

• the main index picture is not pornographic, it's artistic and meaningful......mini ones take u back to the index area btw

It depicts a the dismantled body of a machine created and uniquely inhabited by a newly conscious powerful espionage program gone awol. From the animee film 'ghost in the shell' , the secret section-9 scientist are reducing the usually dull production-line automaton 'shell' down to it's bare minimum to locate the strange readings of consciousness or 'ghost' that they have found. This is when the being reveals itself in a powerful voice, looking utterly malevolent despite it's form as a dismembered and paralysed high tech barbie doll!

A parable of deceptive appearances and a futuristic vision of awesome unplanned intelligence taking flight all in one image. OK?!

injury

previous site (02-03) [amalgamation of greatest magnitude]

same as above for msn

Insight into my perceptions:

 I’m tired. Physically, emotionally and mentally. Almost always awake too late, barely able to get up and heavy headed all day long. Aching to be at rest with someone who heeds my mind and complements my sole. Worn out and disillusioned yet further with my root of academia to the point of apathetic distain.

I keep creating these damn excuses for web sites, homepages with no direction, often photo-diaries, and with no use. I seem to be thrashing s l o w l y about trying to express and find myself simultaneously. Perhaps imagining being noticed by others of note, desirably by one of utmost notability with respect to my own interests. Mostly these languid exhibitions are for myself, as I am best positioned to understand my expressions. Leaving such interpretations open to others only invites misinterpretation and self disenchantment if and when such things return to me. So it might be best if few people do see this.

Given that the page is entirely about me, it’s extremely unlikely that any one would reach it by searching, as it only currently contains information regarding the very limited and localised topic of Richard Lewis: 20 year old, pasty, multi-talented, depressive extraordinaire! So you are probably a close friend or at most distant, acquaintance, whom my web sites weren’t originally addressing. However, containing a fair few pictures of social gatherings, etc, they may now be targeted sufficiently well, u never know my little pieces of art work may be worth a passing muse also.

So I’m not going to go into a life story here, or even a miniature view of things that can be said about my hobbies and interests in an attempt to immortalise something myself upon the net. I am going to breach opinions, suspicions and general imaginings in your general direction, intercepting them is, as always, optional….

Sci-fi books, meaning and importance:

Arthur C. Clarke

 Rendezvous With Rama: some of the first proper sci-fi I read I think. In retrospect ,it’s a cautiously paced first contact story set in the relatively near future. The whole series is based around this single giant cylindrical Noah’s ark and it’s contained aliens and more fundamental mysteries. The whole idea seems clunky to me now, but then it is an old work, and it did start me off in a good direction.

Rama II: interesting socio-economic concept mentioned briefly in this novel; first contact causes a sustained economic growth and prosperity for the entire world, which last about a decade when with no further contact the entire global economy falls through the floor and crashes the whole monetary system, taking the planet back decades in a huge bust.

 Garden of Rama: continued exploits, a limited amount of fairly vivid sex and hard reality stops it from being sterile like star trek.

 Rama revealed: the creators of the artefact are exposed fully as the series concludes. Endless multitudes of Rama like vehicles are traversing the galaxy ready to pick up a volunteer sample of any sentient space faring life forms that may arise and transport them to even larger regional nodes resident to an intelligence created at the beginning of the universe (implied by god) to review the sprouting fawner. That’s about it really…worth the trawl through several thousands of pages? Back 6 years ago or whatever, absolutely!

2001 A space Odyssey: didn’t actually get around to reading this until after the following books in the series. Did so because of it’s immense classic status. It’s all about an alien intelligence promoting conscious life on earth from apes and then that sentience discovering the alien devices.

 Note: don’t watch the film of the same title unless u enjoy vague, ponderous old space craft models slowly rotating to classical music, concluded by 10 minutes of a psychedelic 60’s win amp visualisation. But credit where due it was made before man landed on the moon.

 2010: Interesting in that it predicts the Chinese being a major player in the race to land on Jupiter’s moon Europa, and actually making it first, as the Chinese have just now launched their first manned space flight and seem fixated on moon landings within a decade.

The follow up missions to find out what went wrong with the original mission lead to more frank encounters and the monoliths, which artificially ignite Jupiter as a second sun (Lucifer) to promote life on Europa.

 2061: Jupiter’s moon’s colonised except for the monolith protected Europa, inter-solar system travel becomes a business.

 3001 The final Odyssey: For me the most entertaining book of the four, purely for the future tech,  having been written pretty recently. Direct neurological interfaces stream experiences straight to human minds. A habitation belt has been built around the earth from the resources of the diamond core ejected from Jupiter and buckminsterfullerene technology in geo-synchronous orbit with 3 shafts connecting to the planet. Artificial gravity from zero point fields accelerating all masses in it equally. Also, vacuum energy has been tapped, with the energy for nothing allowing a huge increase in use by people on earth which directly caused global heating. This and pretty much all other problems have been solved by the time the story takes place, meaning humanity is kind of utopian, a bit.

 However, the monoliths, revealed as left over space machine tools from an age of a distant civilisation between the jump from flesh to pure energy, have seen humanity at it’s worst (during the world wars) and have decided to wipe it out like a weed to start again (a notion I find preposterous for a device of such clever construction).

 I disagree somewhat with Clarke’s negative view of the human race, insistent that it’s constantly trying to wipe itself out. I’m much more optimistic in this respect, seeing all the atrocities of war and murder in perspective there is all the hope in the world for humanity. It’s nature is to evolve, improve, increase in knowledge and morals constantly, with conscious effort now we’re post industrial.

Douglas Adams

 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Need I say more?! It’s a little out of place here among these serious stories, but it is more than just very funny. It entertains a jigsaw puzzle time travel scenario, some ludicrously impoverished trans light transportation ideas and a super intelligent manic depressive robot named Marvin (otherwise known as the paranoid android, after which the monumental Radiohead song was named and who I have been likened to repeatedly, without protest from me I may add).

Larry Niven

 Ringworld series: based around a post contact human race discovering a huge artificial ring shaped world with a radius of 1AU built around a star. Many inter subhuman species sexpolits later Louis Woo’s adventures have uncovered a third state of super-intelligent humans raised by eating a certain viral DNA containing ‘tree of life’. The protectors purpose is to shepherd the everyday level humans (for breeding) in order to ensure their survival and it was they who originally built the ring.

 The series heavily features a 3 legged highly intelligent race (which may have inspired Iain M Banks with his Iridians and Homomda) as well as a cat like one. Banks certainly credits the basic idea of his orbitals to Niven, who in turn borrowed from Freeman Dyson’s sphere (of the same last name).

 Ringworld, Ringworld Engineers and Ringworld Throne together contain hyperspace travel, stasis, displaced plates, anti-age drugs, zero gravity bed fields, medical regenerative nanotechnology, lasers, super dense structural material and the normal physics too. Not a bad series,  certainly containing a large amount of inspiration for later writers, but probably the most forgettable of these series for me.

Iain M Banks

 I find the concept of Bank’s ‘Culture’ second only in my desire to reaching the omega point (see elsewhere). It’s the culmination of all Clake’s, Niven’s and countless other authors ideals, technologically and socially. It is sensual, but not for the sake of being pornaliterary, just a breath of sensible fresh air. Banks does not try to difine every aspect of this impossibly diverse civilisation, leaving all ranges of life style possibilities open to existence or in fact hinted at. The pure libertarian, even anarchic set up works through cheap altruism on a part of the hyper intelligent machine minds that posses the ultimate power there, and a lack of government is no problem as each ship and environment is self sufficient. Anyhow, to the actual books!

 The State of the Art: a group of short stories including the first sample of the Culture main I had.

 Excession: highly cool, complicated plot with some genuinely exciting parts, probably the most in depth fly through of the characteristics of this utopian society that is the wholly worthy basis of a large part of his books.

 Use of Weapons: arguably the best novel here. A contrived literary structure jigsaw’s together a dark and beguiling piece of continual struggle and strife right though. A definite must read for all that can cope. With a re-read possibly necessary directly after to realise parts of it’s greatness you may easily have missed.

 Against a Dark Background: not directly connected to the Culture itself this story stands alone. Filling in the clouded history of a civilisation isolated spatially from the rest of the universe and effectively trapped from further advancement by prohibition of AI therefore forced into a cycle of self annihilation and gradual rebuilding whilst riddled with all powerful maniacal organisation running the show.

 Consider Phelbas: a dive into the Culture vs Iridian war, reference in other Culture books, that follows the desperate exploits of an idealistically driven mercenary, fighting against our accepted good guys. Though it may feel less advanced than some of the other novels, it’s definitely a compelling read and left me confused as to who to cheer on (metaphorically of course).

 Look to Windward: a complex plot unravels to take vengeance on the Culture for a costly miscalculation on their part when interfering heavily in the politics of a post contact civilisation for it’s own good. It’s more of a concept explorer, as opposed to a good old fashioned chase through space, but is as always a page turner.

 The morals of ‘helping’ lesser societies covertly is quite relevant in this modern age with all the interventions the self appointed American global police make. I’m not on the side of mindlessly saying bombs are bad, lets all make peace, basically because it’s naïve to think that you don’t need to fight to make and keep a better life. However, the use of such enormous power (relatively) should always be questioned, especially by those employing it’s use, especially give the all the economic self interests involved.

 The Player of games: most recent read (oct03). It starts sedately, and seems a little inconsequential, but having read previous novels you can guess the Minds behind it all will know what they’re doing. Somewhat like Excession, it describes within it an empire that appears at first glamorous and alive with necessity until it’s hideous barbarism is revelled. It really hammers home how good the standard of life is for the main character, who takes it so for granted, and easily justifies the superiority of the Culture, not that it would be so vain.

It actually inspired me when the full force of this revelation was made, giving me an overwhelming desire to brake this world into the next fumbling steps towards a distant looking future paradise. The monumental board game played turns out to be a microcosm of the Culture mentality when going to war against the Iridians. An awe inspiring demonstration of the strength of the ultimately ethically powered Culture machine in all it’s glory as it takes respite from it’s natural state sinking it’s entire energy into purely hedonistic pursuits to then prosecute a whole hearted struggle against tyrannical forces in total icy seriousness, all for no gain greater than maintaining a clear moral conscience.

[update: having read an article on http://www.mindmaps.net/journal/modules/news/ by Hans Moravec i am caused to be reminded of this book when thinking about the great play off between gary kasperof and the deep blue chess computer where the computer eventually won out. Not only was he the conquering world champion and considered best player ever, apparently kasperoff claimed to be able to read into an opponenent's mind by the way they played, in much the same way jernua gergeh described in the player of games. Also, kasperoff sensed something of a change of state in the deep blue game play that took it above the rest of the predictable computer programs, leading him to feel there was some conscious human advice being directly given to it. The first fleeting signs of emergent behaviour in a man made being? Denied by the machine's creators above all, but perhaps the indications of a low level transcendence, a smaller scale future echo of eventual self aware AI becoming? Like my good old chaotic motion in a bouncing ball!]

Alastair Reynolds

Revelation Space: strong start to a new written universe. I really liked the neutron star/super computer as it stinks of omega point. The fractionising of the human race is a nice departure from the type of homogeneous drudgery seen in star trek, etc, along with the commonplace use of technological body and mind enhancements.

Redemption Ark: switching to the viewpoint of possibly the most interesting faction in this series of books: the conjoiners, technologically telepathic individuals with collective consciousness present to a modest (and somewhat unexplored) extent. The jar of worms opened in the previous (but one if u count Chasm City) book is delved into deeper, laying the main premise of this universe bare. The idea itself I found a little underwhelming, but definitely interesting

books that i 'must' read:

 Alastair Reynolds - Chasm City 

*Alastair Reynolds - Absolution Gap

 Alastair Reynolds - Diamond Dogs / Turquoise Days 

 Stephen Baxter - Coalescent (Destiny's Children Book One)

of possible interest:

Stanislaw Lem - The Cyberiad 

Richard Morgan - Altered Carbon

 Neal L. Asher - Gridlinked 

 Neal L. Asher - The Skinner

 Stephen Baxter - Phase Space 

 (Ken Macleod - Engines of Light Trilogy) 

Greg Bear

(Greg Egan)

my life:

girl of dreams?

finish physics degree?

find the girl of my dreams?

embark on AI/cybernetics degree/masters?

find the girl of my dreams and be the boy of hers?

pursue successful career, contributing noticeably to the development of conscious machine intelligence!?

live a happy, fulfilled life with plenty of love?

if that's not enough, use newly created technology to maintain my conscious 'soul' indefinitely?

humanity reaches a Culture like stage?

i approach or am 'reincarnated' at the omega point?

everything???