Notes for the Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul - Rudy Rucker

Notes for The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul, by Rudy Rucker
Children B Passing on information. DNA +
nurture + teach + love.
I often think that the best thing I ever did
(or luckiest thing that happened to me)
was to have three children.
Studying mathematical logic. Meeting
Logic M Rules of deduction applied to
axioms.
Kurt Gödel.
Mysticism P One The Perennial Philosophy, as Aldous
Huxley called it. Seems obvious,
uncluttered, true.
Teaching H Passing on memes. Watereddown
parenting.
Space M Higher dimensions. Curved space.
Spacetime. Sheets of spacetime.
Infinity M Infinite sets make up the forms of
reality. We can, like, pixilize the
world.
Altruistic social good. Learn on the job.
Good work hours. Performance art.
My first teaching job, I lectured on this.
I wrote two books on 4D, the best known
is The Fourth Dimension.
My thesis work was on Set Theory. I
liked finding infinity in mathematics as
this seemed almost like mysticism and
theology. My Infinity and the Mind.
Fitness B The body Jogging, cross-country skiing, cycling,
yoga, back-packing. Runner’s high.
Pleasure of the rushing motion.
Wringing out the pain with yoga.
Publishing H Teaching without face-to-face. Constant struggle to get in print.
Blogging lets everyone do it!
Fractals M Infinitely detailed self-similar
patterns. (Synthesize infinity and
space). Gnarly.
Cellular
Automata
Artificial
Life
M
A
Very simple locally based rules
that act in parallel, the same rule
everywhere. Gnarly patterns and
behaviors emerging. Gliders.
Autonomous agents, don’t need
synchronization. Interacting.
Simulations. Use genetic
algorithms to evolve. Improve
DNA-like genomes by fitness
proportional reproduction. Fitness
= gnarliness?
Chaos M Deterministic yet unpredictable
(in practice) processes. Wander
around upon a characteristic
attractor occasionally hopping to a
new attractor. Gnarly things have
fractal “strange” attractors. Why?
The Mandelbrot set. A new paradise.
And I needed the microscope of a
computer to explore it. Fractal patterns
seem to go hand in hand with chaotic
motions.
Life, Brian’s Brain, Vote, Ranch.
Visiting Toffoli and Wolfram in 1985
was a conversion experience. Writing
CAs in assembly language. Using the
CAM-6. Working with John Walker at
Autodesk to make the Rudy Rucker’s CA
Lab package. Creating the CAPOW
package with my students at SJSU.
The exciting early Artificial Life
conferences. My Artificial Life Lab
package from the Waite Group. The
simulated robotic evolution in my *Ware
novels: information evolves away from
the robot hardware to soft plastic moldie
limpware to the freeware of intergalactic
wave signals.
The 1980s computer scene in California.
Key insight: Look at the motions of
objects in nature, e.g. swaying branches.
Looking at a tree combines Nature and
Chaos, not to mention Self as you reflect
on diggin’ it. Creating the James
Gleick’s Chaos the Software package at
Autodesk, (which includes fractals).
Love P Opening my heart. The universe loves itself. Yosemite
vision. Love is practical in any situation:
nothing else really works.
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