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

Notes for The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul, by Rudy Rucker
American home, (d) a minifiction.
I have begun thinking about some bragging memoir-style openers to start chapters or
sections with. Here’s a few candidates, classed by the chapter they might appear in.
1. “I recently finished a novel about the life of the Old Master Peter Bruegel. In some
ways, writing the book was like spending two years in the Sixteenth Century. One
crashingly obvious fact that I came to know right down in my bones is this: human nature
doesn’t change.”
2. “As a young man, I spent several afternoons discussing philosophy with Kurt
Gödel...” Re languages, “As Bill Gosper used to say to me...”
3. “When I first met Stephen Wolfram...”
4. “When billionaire John Walker carried his Mandelbrot set machine into my house I
was impressed...”
5. “I’ll never forget the afternoon that I went to Tim Leary’s house in Hollywood,
took apart his computer, and installed my CAM-6 board so that he could look at cellular
automata.”
6. “When I was channeling Jack Kerouac in Tucson at the Genomics conference...”
7. “My old writer friend William Gibson has an amazing notion: ‘the universe is
created without regard to human notions of “outcomes,” that events are patterned in their
own way, and fear and expectations are just an aspect of seeing it through human eyes.’”
8. “Ted Nelson’s Xanadu friend with the zit on his nose...”
9. “Nick Herbert is ...”
August 6, 2003. Brockman on Version 4.
Today I got some delayed email.
“Getting better, I remain concerned about the page and a half proposal ("summary").
There's not enough going on to inspire publishers to pay the kind of money we both are
looking for. And I worry that too much is tired and superficial (i.e. discussions of computer
as word processor) and not going anywhere. How about slowing the process down, taking a
week and going deeper and longer.
“My comment re: physics, which Russell passed on to you was derived from the fact
is that all the key players (Lloyd, Wolfram, Deutsch, etc.) are all physicists and not computer
scientists. Computation is physics. In that regard, the focus on "computers" come off as
lightweight, but when you focus on "computation" you hit your stride. Also the above
mentioned are a cutting edge of sorts and publishers are interested in "new" and "next". To
the extent that you position this as a next step following Wolfram's book, you have a winner.
But the discussions about freeing oneself from the computer are not going to fly in the
marketplace.”
And then I phoned Brockman, and he said about the same stuff. Also that I shouldn’t
be turning around my new proposals so often, I should think more, take my time, don’t be
lazy, don’t rush it.
It’s really an issue of fear. I’m afraid I have nothing to say, or that I can’t cast my
ideas in a commercial form. I’m afraid to work hard on the proposal, afraid to change, to
rethink my ideas, afraid that the harder I look into myself the less I’ll find there.
Well, I’ll spend a few days on Version 5.
p. 119