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Underground > Temple >

Is the board alive?

21:35 / 17.10.01

quote:Originally posted by expressionless:
I couldn’t get over the strange sense that… (I) had somehow “offended” Barbelith (not the people here, some kind of ambiguous collective consciousness, I don’t know. Is the board alive? I would say a resounding “yes.” )

After my initial post (in Fictionsuit: A User’s Manual), I feel more cautious about that resounding yes. Don’t know if this has been discussed before, but?

Question: is Barbelith “alive?”

Seven criteria for “life” (apologies for the basic GSCE biology level of my knowledge): movement,nutrition, respiration, excretion, growth, reproduction, and sensitivity to stimuli.

How relevant are these criteria (given that not all of them may apply to a lot of the entities that we relate to in the Magick forum)? The board certainly exhibits some of these characteristics, although others are more questionable and open to interpretation.

Thoughts?

Ganesh

10:04 / 18.10.01

It's possibly alive in the 'not quite sure' way that viruses are considered 'living', even though they don't fulfill all the criteria...

The Return Of Rothkoid

10:14 / 18.10.01

Well, MRS GREN isn't satisfied, so presumably it's not strictly alive. But as you suggest, exp, it mightn't need to fulfil all those (ie: neither does Gek, I'd imagine) to be considered sentient, maybe?

Perhaps you could read behavioural problems into the board crashes? Then again, that's a pretty skewed view, I guess...

10:16 / 18.10.01

This kind of this is quite interesting, like people that are really into cars, people who give their cars names and talk to them... I think its slightly pagan (might be wrong) - I've heard of people getting TV's to work by striking friendships with them and talking nicely to them..

I'm trying something like this with my PC at home..

But I'm sure if everyone starts treating the board as a living thing we would see some affect...

12:36 / 18.10.01

Chaosbear: I think that pantheism or immanence are probably more applicable to the situation than pagan. Worshipping deities is different than appreciating the sacredness in everyday objects.

12:53 / 18.10.01

if we start from the idea that barbelith is, at the very least, a society would it be easier to progress.
Currently thinking of the "ant colony" approach to AI that many people use: Where there is no ONE entity but rather a number of entities that perform tasks and it is the collective process of these that create the knowledge and (i guess) "living"-ness of the system.

Please excuse the psuedo-science and bad english.

13:15 / 18.10.01

It may not be 'alive' in any scientific sense (does anyone really expect something like this to fit in a scientific paradigm?) but from an animistic viewpoint the board does have a 'spirit' and it's growing stronger with each posting.

We've got a unique situation in that, not only is this a message board that we invest a certain amount of our mental and/or emotional lives into but it's also based upon a concept that was inherent to "the Invisibles."

GM creates his hypersigil and 'gives birth' to the Barbelith concept in its readers minds. The board appears and GM uses it as a way to answer letters (linking the board and the hypersigil even more), the sigil is completed and the board and the Barbelith concept (in the board iterance) grows in its own direction under the influence of it's many and myriad posters, many of whom are magically inclined.

There have now been two servitors created within it's confines: Dabh Surgot and Gek. Both of which operate and are, to some degree, defined by the Barbelith host.

Maybe the board will someday have run its course and will fade from cyberspace in which case maybe the spirit of the board will rejoin the main Barbelith meme or become something else entirely.

I don't think that the board's spirit is overly powerful or strong and I really don't think it has much influence outside of the board or it's users. It's not a deity to be petitioned or a demon to be feared, and as a potential ally it's still very young. But it's growing.

It'll be interesting to see what we are helping influence and grow 5 years from now.

[ 18-10-2001: Message edited by: Lothar Tuppan ]

13:49 / 18.10.01

The board feeds on memetic material given to it by the regular posters. It excretes waste in the form of posts by Laila and Chrome.

15:48 / 18.10.01

quote:Originally posted by expressionless:

Seven criteria for “life” (apologies for the basic GSCE biology level of my knowledge): movement,nutrition, respiration, excretion, growth, reproduction, and sensitivity to stimuli.

I would disagree with respiration, excretion, growth, and reproduction as necessary for life. Certainly movement is necessary (although I would use the word change), and sensitivity to stimuli is necessary, but if we imagined a being in every way like a human, but who didn't breath, grow, excrete or reproduce, would we really feel like this person wasn't a life form? I will agree that nutrition is probably necessary, since I don't see any other way a being can move about and respond to stimuli without it. But I would argue that, although life probably can't exist without nutrition, this characteristic doesn't seem to beling in the definition, since we can conceieve of a being that doesn't require nutrition.

17:00 / 18.10.01

In the magical sense it's definitely an egregore.

11:21 / 19.10.01

So, where's 'lith head?

And.. um... it's pleasure zones?

just curious (and no, Ganesh, you're not a pleasure zone)