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CosmicJoke
happy mutant
Registered: 04/05/00
Posts: 10,848
Loc: Portland, OR
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Computers and The Mind
#4033098 - 04/09/05 01:15 AM (18 years, 11 months ago) |
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computers have definately made a strong impression on the way I think. My mother, a psychologist, had lots of great ambitions for me as a child, and they bought me my first computer when I was 7yo ('87). it was a Tandy 1000, Tandy 16 color, 256k ram, 3.5 double density floppy, DOS 2.11. i was f'n mesmerized by it! within just a year i had learned all the dos prompt and aquired a book on BASICA (a simple programming language) for videogames, and would type out these tediously long codes (which you'd have to key in every line perfectly) to create in its finality really crappy games (in comparison to the Atari 2600). but, within the following year, i had reversed engineered enough of the code to create my own text based parsar games comparable to the _Kings Quest_ games that Sierra released, however, w/o the graphics (does anyone remember these old text based games???? they extremely influenced my understanding of problem solving as a young child. i wasn't able to convince my folks to buy me another one until i was in 7th grade, it was a 486 SX w/ 4 megs of RAM, a 250 meg hard drive, 4 megs of ram, and dos version 6.11. it was used. we mother didn't have much money for these things for me, she worked for a mental health center and also traveled on call as a crisis counselor and at an asylum on weekends to pay off her first house, so within the next year i had to figure out a new platform windows 3.11, installing a cd-rom drive, a soundblaster 16, and filling up the other 4 1 meg SIMM slots of RAM w/o the aid of a computer technician. i remember lots of tweaking the config.sys and autoexec.bat to get the right proportions of convential and extended memory to get my games to run. and when i firsted had a typing class in middle school i hit 60 wpm (sometimes today when i'm question how to spell a word, quite unconsciously, i find myself keying out the letters --- having keyed them out so many times helps immensely!) jesus, i remember when i got my first modem (14.4k, the top of the line) my folks would be furious each month (compuserve was 5hrs free a month flat rate for $15 (i think) and then $3 for each additional hour ON THEIR SERVER and an additonal $3 an hour for the bills. largely, at 13, my interests were pornography and chatting.
today, a lot of the metaphors for the brain i use are in terms of circuitry. i know a lot of you here are younger, like myself (24, pushing 25), were probably were already using computers during major developmental stages of the mind.
anybody care to share your impressions????
blessings, CJ
-------------------- Everything is better than it was the last time. I'm good. If we could look into each others hearts, and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care. It takes a lot of courage to go out there and radiate your essence. I know you scared, you should ask us if we scared too. If you was there, and we just knew you cared too.
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Psychoactive1984
PositiveCynicist
Registered: 02/06/05
Posts: 3,546
Loc: California, Monterey Coun...
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Re: Computers and The Mind [Re: CosmicJoke]
#4033117 - 04/09/05 01:28 AM (18 years, 11 months ago) |
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I'm a technophobe... I have someone holding a gun to my head as I type.
http://users.lycaeum.org/~sputnik/Memetics/zzdawkins.html A little bit of info with humans as computers, constantly being infected by random spam (get a firewall folks)
-------------------- "Their is one overriding question that concerns us all: How can we get out of the fatal groove we are in, the one that is leading towards the brink?" Albert Szent-Gyorgyi "We may not be capable of eradicating the corruption of reason, but we must nevertheless counter it at every instance and with every means." Dan Agin "Politics is the best religion and politicians are the worst followers." -It's ok to trip as long as you don't fall. -Substance over Style. -Common sense is uncommon.
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Ego Death
Justadropofwaterinanendlesssea
Registered: 04/27/03
Posts: 10,447
Loc: The War Machine
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Re: Computers and The Mind [Re: CosmicJoke]
#4033703 - 04/09/05 08:46 AM (18 years, 11 months ago) |
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I hoped we would talk about the computers comparison to the mind!
From what you said you sound like me!
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pleco
Astralnaut
Registered: 03/08/05
Posts: 203
Last seen: 16 years, 8 months
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Re: Computers and The Mind [Re: Ego Death]
#4034109 - 04/09/05 11:53 AM (18 years, 11 months ago) |
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My dad got us a Tandy 1000RL it was an 8088[or 86, can't remember.] with 512kb ram, upgradable to 768k! Ah... I miss her.
Edited by pleco (04/09/05 11:59 AM)
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the_phoenix
Stranger
Registered: 07/07/04
Posts: 541
Loc: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Last seen: 17 years, 2 months
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Re: Computers and The Mind [Re: pleco]
#4034127 - 04/09/05 11:58 AM (18 years, 11 months ago) |
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Computers allow me to manipulate the physical plane so they're cool.
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fresh313
journeyman
Registered: 09/01/03
Posts: 2,537
Last seen: 12 years, 11 months
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Re: Computers and The Mind [Re: the_phoenix]
#4035979 - 04/10/05 12:15 AM (18 years, 11 months ago) |
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i miss the bbs's, that was a fun scene
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CosmicJoke
happy mutant
Registered: 04/05/00
Posts: 10,848
Loc: Portland, OR
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Re: Computers and The Mind [Re: fresh313]
#4053476 - 04/14/05 04:40 AM (18 years, 11 months ago) |
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hot damn, me too! i ran my own BB for a little while - remember Legend of The Red Dragon ? ? ?
-------------------- Everything is better than it was the last time. I'm good. If we could look into each others hearts, and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other much more gently, with more love, patience, tolerance, and care. It takes a lot of courage to go out there and radiate your essence. I know you scared, you should ask us if we scared too. If you was there, and we just knew you cared too.
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slaphappy
Its just me
Registered: 10/29/04
Posts: 1,188
Loc: Norway, Eidsvoll, Råholt...
Last seen: 14 years, 6 months
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Re: Computers and The Mind [Re: CosmicJoke]
#4053667 - 04/14/05 07:16 AM (18 years, 11 months ago) |
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The computer is an extension of your mind, like everything else.
-------------------- The argent messenger of truth beyond truth, the antithesis of life, cruel and bleak as interstellar space, pulseless and frozen as absolute zero, dazzling with the frost of irrefragable logic and unforgettable fact.
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trendal
J♠
Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Re: Computers and The Mind [Re: CosmicJoke]
#4053682 - 04/14/05 07:26 AM (18 years, 11 months ago) |
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I think computers are going to cause a major change in society, and that change has already begun to happen. Add on the Internet, and you have a truly profound change just waiting to happen.
We are all, right now, witnessing the beginnings of the Data Net - we call it the Internet right now - which will help change society by giving nearly everyone almost unlimited access to information, instantly. I am only 24 years old, but even I can remember a time not 20 years ago when your BEST bet for finding information (in general) was a library. The internet has far surpassed the library as a primary source of information over the past 20 years, and the ammount of information on the internet will probably continue to grow at an exponential rate well into the future.
As computing technology becomes smaller and more refined, it will become possible to have the Internet at your call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You could carry around a small PDA device with wireless net access, and be able to instantly look up information on just about anything we humans have gathered information about.
Give it another 20 years, and we will be firmly entrenched in the Information Age.
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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Gomp
¡(Bound to·(O))be free!
Registered: 09/11/04
Posts: 10,888
Loc: I re·side [primarily] in...
Last seen: 1 year, 28 days
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Re: Computers and The Mind [Re: slaphappy]
#4053720 - 04/14/05 07:45 AM (18 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
slaphappy said: The computer is an extension of your mind, like everything else.
sweet.
Virtual reality, this ... world copied on the Internet..
-------------------- -------------------- Disclaimer!?
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CJay
Dark Stranger
Registered: 02/02/04
Posts: 931
Loc: Riding a bassline
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Re: Computers and The Mind [Re: Gomp]
#4054768 - 04/14/05 12:54 PM (18 years, 11 months ago) |
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we are building a species wide nervous system and 'brain', have been for a long, long time.
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