7. Interpreting the Interpreters

Who is this God that keeps sending wounded messengers? Is this God deranged? Or are the codes getting scrambled in some kind of cosmic game of telephone?

0:00 —The Day the Sirkis Took Over

01:00 —Crow-nies in the park

03:27 —Notes on the stenographer and the sign-language interpreter

09:03 —Escape from Reality Island: memoirs of a night logger

12:23 —Notes on the unreality show

17:52 —The child knows what no one can unknow…

21:10—The old man dream

22 Minutes

“Unseen Forces” and “Following” by Justin Walter, “Kontakte” by Karlheinz Stockhausen, “Spiral Insana” by Nurse with Wound, “Untitled” by Constance Demby, and “Pathologically Bored” by Deru

5. The “Real” Question

“A machine has yet to officially pass such a test, and though it’s still a talking point in the dialogue about artificial intelligence, many argue that passing the Turing test doesn’t prove intelligence as much as an ability for mimicry. Which leads to the question: how much of what we call human intelligence is actually just mimicry? Isn’t repetition pretty much the basis of our whole educational system? Also, we often hear the human mind is often likened to a machine. On some level it is a pattern recognition machine, programmed by evolution to detect approaching danger and avoid being eaten. Not surprisingly, studies show that pattern recognition goes up when the mind is experiencing fear. If internet conspiracy culture is any indication, fear seems to be building in the populace. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Reptilian conspiracy, in which a malevolent race of shape-shifting lizard elite controls the world….”

0:00 —The Depersonalization Questionnaire

02:01 —Notes on the Turing Test

09:40 —The Derealization Questionnaire… or, more questions for human robots and robot humans . . .

11:30 minutes

“Poa Alpina” by Biosphere

3. TMI

“A street person on a street corner is screaming street words—words that aren’t words, though they come into sharper focus whenever someone walks by.”

00:00 —TMI

01:46 —A sci-fi writer and a scientist disagree about dystopias…

03:55 —TMI

05:42 —A broken TV (signs of reality at the electronics store)…

07:59: —TMI

09:36 —A noise coming from the news anchor’s ear piece…

10:45 —Street Words

15:03 —TMI

16:27 —Stranger’s MacGuffin and the coming of the Roboroach…

21:20 —TMI

24:30 minutes

“Disintegration Loops” by William Basinki