online: 24 september 2015
modified: 23-24 september 2015

17 september 2015 restart restart


...sitting in a quiet spot at the tumulus... (possibly a prehistoric burial mound)... a good moment... at which to restart or continue what i used to call lifework... but which may now be called something else... (provisionally 'digital diary extra'... or 'ddx')

... a man passes... with swinging arms and four black dogs... i feel gossamer on my face (or is it a mosquito?)... and for the moment there is no one here... and only distant sounds... of traffic and aircraft...

later:
...and the presence of this person writing...and memories of what he used to call lifework... the many things appearing on this website... previously thought of 'as parts of a culture'... yet to be realised...

...i.e. the contents of a-z (scroll through the long homepage of this softopia website)... to see other names intended to widen our lives... from the narrowness of specialised machine culture... to a more extensive and more human world picture...

...no no it's not only a picture... it's three-dimensional... and auditory... and kinaesthetic... and philosophical... and religious... and seemingly all-inclusive... for it's time to 'rectify the names'... (as Confucius puts it):

A superior man, in regard to what he does not know, shows a cautious reserve. If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. When affairs cannot be carried on to success, proprieties and music do not flourish. When proprieties an music do not flourish, punishments will not be properly awarded. When punishments are not properly awarded, the people do not know how to move hand or foot. Therefore a superior man considers it necessary that the names he uses may be spoken appropriately, and also that what he speaks may be carried out appropriately. What the superior man requires is just that in his words there may be nothing incorrect.

Confucius,Analects, Book XIII, Chapter 3, verses 4-7, translated by James Legge


...although these sayings of Confucius come of an authoritarian society... the idea of 'rectifying the names' may be applicable now... when the presence of the internet seems to call for decentral thought and language... (to which we aspire but may not yet have reached?)...


later:

the rectified names for all this may turn out to realise the decentral powers of robotic managers, experts and even governments, lawyers, bankers, doctors, nurses, teachers and police... even ourselves as designers... and all of us combining the new-and-ever-updating apps written to relieve all of us of diminishing and instrumental jobs... in fact the abolition of industrial work as we know it... and the restart of a more human age... (or era) in which everyone shares the voluntary work of living well... (the right words for this being as yet unknown...?)


metasignals:

all this could release us from sub-human machine culture... and/or enable everyone to enact... a new way of living... (which awaits the change of mind of many of us...?)


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