From 201400d58ee98c13ba1661aa3871c3b56d5c9f52 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: grr <grr@lo2.org>
Date: Thu, 2 May 2024 21:32:35 -0400
Subject: breakout 'new modality' essays

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+\chapter{Representation of the Memory of an Energy Cube Organism (1966 VERSION)}
+
+The energy cube organism is a conscious organism which is nothing but 
+energy confined to a cubical space. It rests on a rectangular energy slab, in a 
+stationary, colorless liquid, separated from the slab by a thin film of liquid. 
+It has been on the slab for an indefinitely long time. There are in fact two 
+infinite bodies of the liquid, alternating with two infinite empty spaces; the 
+four volumes are outlined by two intersecting planes which just miss being 
+perpendicular. The slab is poised, at a slant, on the faces of the upper body 
+of liquid, near where they meet. There are no other objects in the bodies of 
+liquid. The slab, liquid, and spaces are the energy cube organism's entire 
+cosmology. (See the illustration.) 
+
+\img{energycube}
+
+The energy cube organism can continuously change position, 
+continuously and instantly moving the liquid from its path into its wake so 
+as to make no current in the liquid. For almost as long as it has been on the 
+slab, the organism has devoted itself to crossing the slab, from the slab's edge 
+on one face of the liquid to its edge on the other. 
+
+The energy cube organism has a conscious memory (by which I mean 
+strictly a memory of what it did and what happened to it, the past events of 
+its existence). The memory consists of symbols which are given "meaning" 
+by their extra-linguistic mental associations---in human terms, it consists of 
+language. The complete memory contains tens of thousands of partial 
+memories, which the organism can only have one at a time. Going through 
+the partials---which it does as if they were the phonemes of one long 
+word---constitutes its one complete memory. Each partial is a memory of the 
+difference in the organism's minimum distances from the destination edge, at 
+the beginning, and at the end, of some interval of time. Call the difference its 
+"progress." The total of time intervals in all the partials completely covers 
+the interval from the earliest remembered event to the most recent 
+remembered event. As time passes, more partials are added to the complete 
+memory. The production of partial memories is an involuntary process of 
+the organism. 
+
+The memory is temporally dual. The interval for each partial is an 
+interval of fixed time, defined by its duration, and the distance from the 
+fixed time when the energy cube organism appeared on the slab up to the 
+interval's end. But it is also a sliding interval, defined by its duration, and a 
+constant distance from the present instant back to the interval's end. When 
+partials are added to the memory, each of the former intervals exactly covers 
+the tire not already covered, up to the absolute time when the partial is 
+added. But the latter intervals, while they never overlap, can have gaps 
+between them. The intervals generally are of different durations. The energy 
+cube organism lacks any independent extra-linguistic memory, any mental 
+reliving of the past, which could conflict with the dual temporal memory. 
+There is no form to the past other than that of the memory's language. (See 
+the graph.) 
+
+The order of the partials in the complete memory is a linguistic 
+phenomenon which indicates the method the organism has been using to 
+move itself---and thus the order (with its extra-linguistic associations) is the 
+memory of the method. A single method" is everything to be done by the 
+energy cube organism to move itself, throughout the entire time it takes to 
+reach the destination edge. There are different possible methods, and each 
+could get the organism across; but the methods cannot be combined in any 
+way. Every order of all partials signifies a different possible method. These 
+possible methods are in no special order. When a partial is added to the 
+memory, the number of possible methods is increased by a factor equal to 
+the new number of partials. 
+
+\img{energycubegraph}
+
+{
+	\centering
+	\textsc{Graph} showing a possible relationship in the dual temporal memory 
+	\par
+}
+
+
+Now the complete memory is obtained by going through the partials---in 
+any order! Any order gives the memory. This feature, which can be 
+precisely characterized in terms of the memory language, is perhaps the most 
+remarkable feature of the whole cosmology. An approach to this feature in 
+human terms is to say that when the organism goes through the partials, (it 
+dreams that) it has been using the method indicated---and is presently using 
+it. It (does not remember the dream, and) does not remember going through 
+the partials. It has no other memory of which method it has been using. 
+
+The organism moves itself by mental exertion, teleports itself. The 
+"possible methods" are mental routines. These routines draw on the 
+following standard mental resources. The organism can assume at will many 
+"mental states." By 'mental state' I refer to a mental "stage" or "space" or 
+"mood" in which visualizing, remembering, and all imaging can be carried 
+on. Some human mental states are general euphoria, stupor, general anxiety, 
+dreaming, dizziness, empathy with another person, and clearheadedness, the 
+normal state in which work is performed. These states are not defined by 
+specific imagings, but are "spaces" in which imaging is carried on. The 
+organism changes its state by changing from one form of energy to another, 
+gravity, magnetism, electric energy, radiated heat, or light. In these states, 
+the organism has an unlimited capacity to image; in human terms, to 
+visualize. There are visualized regions of colored liquids. Call them "fluid 
+colors." There are visualized glowing surfaces, and there are black regions or 
+"holes." There are visualized "covers," "lattices," and "shells," which are all 
+formed from transparent planes, spherical surfaces and the like. Call them 
+"orojected surfaces." The fluid colors can be stationary or flowing. There are 
+"channels," which are strung-out series of fluid colors. There are 
+"reservoirs," which are clusters of fluid colors. A channel can be closed or 
+open. Two channels can cross each other. There are pairs of channels such 
+that earlier members of each channel flow into later members of the 
+other---called "screw-connected" channels. Fluid colors often occur on or 
+within projected surfaces. Projected surfaces can be growing or held. A 
+visualization can be at the forefront of attention, or in the back of the mind. 
+That is, states have depth, and visualizations can be at different depths. The 
+state as a whole can be "frozen" or "melted." A human approach is to say 
+that a "frozen" state is set or fixed; while a "melted" state is fluid---the state 
+itself flows. A state can be projected into "superstate," gaining an abnormal 
+amount of mental energy and becoming superdizziness or superanxiety, for 
+instance. 
+
+Most interesting, states in different possible methods can have contact 
+with each other. A human approach is to say that dreams are so flexible that 
+the organism can dream that an actual state is\slash was in contact with a state in 
+a possible method. One sort of cross-method contact is for states to be 
+"interfrozen"---more easily frozen because they are somehow mixed. They 
+can also be "intermelted." 
+
+I will describe a method, as the organism would be conscious of it in 
+remembering. For concreteness, I will refer to the different states with the 
+names of human states rather than with letters. Channels are generated in a 
+frozen stupor, and become fixed at the forefront of attention of euphoria 
+intermelted with a possible state. The screw-crossed channels erode crevices 
+in a held lattice, which breaks into growing sheets (a variety of covers). The 
+sheets are stacked, and held in a frozen dream thawed at intervals for 
+reshuffling of the stack. The dream becomes melted, and proceeds in a 
+trajectory which shears, and closes, open channels. If no violation of the 
+channels cross-mars the melt, the stack meshes with the sharp-open channels. 
+The dream becomes interfrozen, and mixed clear-headed states compress the 
+closed channels which were not fixed at the dream's surface. A fused 
+exterior double-flash (a certain maximally "glowing surface") is 
+expand-enveloped by euphoria, which becomes dizziness; and oblique 
+lattices are projected from the paralinear deviation of guided open channels 
+in it. Growing shells are dreamed into violet sound-slices (certain synesthetic 
+"fluid colors") by the needed jumped drag (a generic state), a crossfrozen 
+dream. Channels in a growing anxiety enspiral concentric shells having 
+intermixed reservoirs between them, during cyclic intersection of the anxiety 
+in superstate. And on and on. Time is here the time it takes to carry out the 
+successive steps of the routine. 
+
+The energy cube organism language, the symbols constituting the 
+partials, are themselves mental entities. A partial is a rectangular plane 
+glowing surface, which has two stationary plane reservoirs on it, and has a 
+triangular hole in it. As a mental entity, in other words, a partial is a 
+visualization like those which are part of the methods. The perimeter of the 
+triangular hole equals the organism's progress in the corresponding time 
+interval. Absence of the hole indicates zero progress. 
+
+The fluid colors in each of the reservoirs on each partial memory are 
+primary colors, and are mixed together. Speaking as accurately as possible in 
+human terms, in each reservoir there is precisely one point of "maximum 
+mixture" of the primary colors. The primary colors are mentally mixed in 
+any way until the right amount of mixture is reached. There is a scale of 
+measurement for amounts of mixture of the colors. There is a scale for 
+vertical distances on the surface---for how far one point is below another. The 
+difference in amounts of mixture at the two points of maximum mixture 
+corresponds to the length of the first temporal interval; and the difference 
+between the maximum possible amount of mixture and the lesser of the two 
+amounts of maximum mixture on the surface corresponds to the distance 
+from the fixed beginning time to the interval's and. The vertical distance 
+between the two points of maximum mixture corresponds to the length of 
+the second temporal interval; and the vertical distance from the middle of 
+the surface to the point nearer it corresponds to the constant distance from 
+the present instant back to the interval's enc. The middle of the surface 
+represents the present, and the upper half represents the future; the 
+reservoirs are all in the lower half. For each partial it is necessary to 
+determine (1) the number of units of duration per unit difference in 
+amounts of mixture; and (2) the number of units of duration per unit 
+difference in vertical distances. The average glow per unit area of each 
+glowing surface (excepting the hole) is correlated with a pair of numbers 
+constituting this information. 
+
+Finally, turning all the partial memories upside down---and reflecting the 
+first temporal memory in the present instant, so that the intervals' absolute 
+distances from the present are preserved---gives the precognition of the 
+organism's future course of action, tells what progress will be made when 
+and by which method. 
+
+
+\section*{The Representation}
+
+This essay accompanies a representation of the energy cube organism's 
+memory---hence its title. The way to picture the memory, naturally, is to 
+make something that looks like the partials. I have represented the partials 
+by rectangular sheets of paper of different translucencies with mixtures of 
+inks of primary colors on them and holes cut in them; together in an 
+envelope, which bears the injunction not to have more than one sheet out at 
+a time. Three of the tens of thousands of partials are represented. 
-- 
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