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htb issue 00007 .. 0713.97
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Hacking the Buddha is an ongoing experiment. The first several issues have focused primarily on NLP, and neurolinguistics will continue to be a large part of the HTB world. However, there is much work to be done OUTSIDE of our heads, as well, and I want to begin to explore some of those areas.
I was born in 1976, the American Bicentennial. At that time, a company which I believe was called AARPA began compiling a "To Do" list for the Tricentennial in 2076. People were asked to send in their ideas, which would be compiled and published.
I discovered the ad in a library book long ago, yet unfortunately did not pay much attention at the time, and have since forgotten the title. (And subject matter. The ad was in the book as an ad, not as part of the content of the book.)
If you have any information about this, please let me know! If I can get a copy of their report, I will make it available at manifestation.com..
In the weeks and months ahead, I will be launching my own version of the tricentennial project, incorporated with the clarity game and a version of Isaac Asimov's "psychohistory".. All of these things can combine to form an incredible tool for the thinkers, inventors, and scientists of our time. Stay tuned for more info on THAT in weeks to come.
Meanwhile, This issue takes a look at ideas for alternative energy that I've read about. Appropriate links and references will be listed in the links section.
The latest issue of Science Spectra has an article about convection towers, a cylinder 100m high and 150m in diameter, that fills the air inside with a chemically treated and electrically charged seawater mist. The air becomes heavy and sinks to the bottom. The tower would collects pollutants, and allow large volumes of cool, clean air to pour out the bottom. In the process, the tower generates enough electricity to power its pumps and provide extra energy for public use.
Win Wengar, of Project Rennaisance, suggested in one of his recent "Winsights" columns that radioactive "waste" from nuclear power plants, because of the heat it gives off, could actually be used as a clean power supply.
I don't have a source for this one, other than it was in an old issue of OMNI or Discover. The idea was to create a colony of robots that would run on solar power, and could create duplicates of itself by extracting silicon from desert sands. The replication process would repeat until enough robots were created to send power all over the world. (If you can give me a source on this, let me know!)
Electricity usage in a particular area drops every night while people sleep. Yet when it is night in one place, it is day in another. Buckminster Fuller suggested that every country on Earth could be selling excess electrical power by night and buying it by day. This would allow us to gain even more usage from clean power sources such as wind, hydroelectricity, and nuclear power, as well as more common energy sources such as fossil fuels.
Back to Contents
Eliza Reborn? : Thoughts for an AI NLP'er
Some years ago, a computer programmer created a program called ELIZA that would engage in conversations with the user. One "personality" developed for ELIZA was a program called DOCTOR, which simulated a Rogerian psychotherapist, which would respond to what the user was saying, and ask questions about his or her feelings.
While the program was in no way intelligent, many people responded with geniune emotions to DOCTOR. The developer's secretary actually demanded private time alone with the program. It seems something in the process of playing with the machine actually proved therapuetic to some people.
In The Structure of Magic, Bandler and Grinder propose a linguistic meta-model for therapy that was designed to be incorporated into the style of therapy that the reader was already using.
Putting two and two together, what would happen if we created an NLP practitioner script for a conversation system such as ELIZA?
One of the benefits of NLP is that it can be done without the practitioner understanding or even knowing about the content. A conversation system could be designed to follow flexible scripts, or use a knowledge base, and actually lead clients into different states.
Some of the basic functions in NLP include anchoring, eliciting and manipulating submodalities, telling metaphors, paying attention to representational systems via accessing cues and predicates, reframing, meta-modelling solutions, and manipulating timelines. All of these things combine verbal and nonverbal cues, which are obviously best performed by a flexible, alert human being. Yet all can be implemented to some extent on a computer.
What I'd like to see is some actual interactive NLP software. We could create databases of patterns that are statistically likely to be effective at getting a desired result. The result would not cure the world of all its ills, but would act as a high-powered self-help and self-exploration tool.
Thanks to Bob Janes for supplying the reference to the "impossible
things before before breakfast" allusion. It's from Lewis Carroll's
Through the Looking Glass. Bob pointed out that the scene
shows "an early NLP belief change sadness cure". In it, the White
Queen says to Alice:
> "... Consider anything, only don't cry!"
>
> Alice could not help laughing at this, even in the midst
> of her tears. "Can *you* keep from crying by considering
> things?" she asked.
>
> "That's the way it's done," the Queen said with great
> decision: "Nobody can do two things at once you know.
> Let's consider your age to begin with--how old are you?"
>
> "I'm seven and a half, exactly."
>
> "You needn't say 'exactly'," the Queen remarked. "I can
> believe it without that. Now I'll give *you* something to
> believe. I'm just one hundred and one, five months and a day."
>
> "I ca'n't believe *that*!" said Alice.
>
> "Ca'n't you?" the Queen said in a pitying tone. "Try
> again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes."
>
> Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said.
> "One *ca'n't* believe impossible things."
>
> "I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the
> Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour
> a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many a six impossible
> things before breakfast..."
Thanks for reading! If you liked HTB, pass it on to your friends! Seeya next week. Peace!
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