Arquivo para a ‘Linguagens’ Categoria
The imaginary, the belief and the faith
29
Jun
Imaginary comes from the image, the most recent discoveries of the paleolithic man, such as the Chauvet
cave in December 1994, reveal a human soul from the beginning shrouded in images and in the imaginary, virtually all cultures exist the absurdity.
Modernity was the first attempt to create a society totally distant from any “superstition,” the “sapere audi” daring to know, upon which Max Weber ruled the “fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, disenchantment of the world”.
The imaginary takes us further, as Max Weber also said: “History teaches us that man would not have achieved the possible if he had not often tried the impossible” and fortunately there are “stubborn” poets, artists who are also present in the digital world, who insist on the imaginary, the virtual and even the impossible.
To go further means to have hope and faith, as described by the evangelist Matthew, who answered the apostles about his difficulties: “For the faith which ye have is small, and I say that if ye have faith the size of a grain of mustard , may say to this mountain, ‘Go hence, and he will go.’ Nothing will be impossible for you. “in Mt 17:20.
As popular wisdom says: faith removes mountains, but there is also a dose of extraordinary, something unexpected, which is just the enchantment of the world, the human soul wants to be surprised, look for it in shows, theaters, cinemas and other forms of manifestation .
An unbelieving world of the extra-natural (not to speculate about the supernatural) is part of the contemporary world, after all the distrustful, the critics of reality and the disenchantment of the present world do nothing other than prophecy, for they are generally speaking of a future, but in a negative and apolitical way.
After all, it can not be said if Paul of Tarsus really lost his sight and then recovered it, if he was imprisoned and an angel appeared to free him or not, it is certain that afterwards he continued to live, then somehow faith saved him , curiously what Jesus repeats most and there is not a single passage in which he affirmed: “I saved you”
A view of personal assistants
25
Jun
Personal assistants are emerging in a variety of companies and applications: Apple’s Siri, 
Microsoft’s Cortana and Google now, Alexa´s Amazon and the less well-known environments that support many developments such as Speaktoit and DialogFlow stand out in popularity.
The voice assistant, as I prefer to call it, the Cortana now associated with Windows 10, has this name due to the character of the Halo series, with Jen Taylor, character voice actor, who lends her voice to the personal assistant (Foley, 2014).
Siri is an Apple Personal Assistant style application, ie for iOS, macOS and watchOS, so it is available for iPhone, iPad and the like. Speaktoit has something else, by a voice-activated wizard that has an avatar on the screen.
The wizard is actually a cartoon character who talks with quotations on balloons and gives you some interesting human interaction appearance.
By the end of 2014 this wizard had more than 13 million users in 11 different languages in a category of 6 applications called LifeStyle was the main application among those used by Google Play in the USA.
In September 2014, Speaktoit released the api.ai (voice enable engine that powers the wizard) to any developers, who allow both the use of avatars with the addition of voice interfaces to applications based on Android, iOS, HTML5 and Cordova.
Although discontinued in December 2016, API.ai uses its features and is integrated with dialogFlow, which can be considered with its continuity.
References:
Brandon, John. “Speaktoit Review“, Laptop magazize, 2013.
Foley, Mary Jo «Microsoft’s ‘Cortana’ alternative to Siri makes a video debut», ZDNet, 2014.
Tolentino, Mellisa “New platforms, upgrades simplify life for IoT developers“, siliconANGLE, 2014.
Hermeneutics and new paradigms
22
Jun
The importance of opening up new horizons and unconventional narratives, of disruptive proposals
that modify not only technology, but the narratives themselves when new forms of prior knowledge are introduced (in other narratives of the hermeneutic circle are called preconceptions) means a environment of evolution and transformation of knowledge itself.
Those who enjoy exegesis, it is also a narrative, two different characters and paradigms in the Bible was John the Baptist and evidently Jesus himself, however, under the same background of Judaism of the time constructed different narratives, since they had different missions, although the proposal for change was the same.
The biblical reading of Luke 1: 60-62, when the father Zacharias says that his son will have a different name, says thus: “and they would beckon to their father as he would have him called. He asked for a tablet and wrote the words: ‘John is his name’, everyone was amazed ” to indicate that he broke a tradition and soon afterwards Zechariah spoke again.
Orality is fundamental in this period, and speech was the basic form of transmission of knowledge, but John the Baptist came to make a new way, and this way will be an anticipation of the coming of Jesus, who will then open his own narrative in his way.
Thus, hermeneutics allows this evolution of exegesis that studies tradition also in philosophy and literature, for hermeneutics that opens the possibility of new narratives and the interaction with contemporary knowledge, what we call “background” in the previous post.
The narratives of the digital world are new, of course not all are convergent, but the fact that there are new narratives, even those that challenge the irreversible digital environment, show that there is a new paradigm under which it is not possible to construct a narrative that is at the same time contemporary, open and evolutionary, without considering it
Mixed and Virtual Reality
18
Jun
In an article entitled “A Taxonomy of Mixed-Reality Visuals”, Paul Milgram and Fumio Kishino, 
published in the ACM Information System Magazine, coined the term “Mixed Reality” and applied it for the first time.
The article of these researchers is fundamental because they did not dodge the question what virtual reality is, and responded simply and directly by separating the virtual concept from the real, saying that “these two terms constitute the now ubiquitous basis of the term Virtual Reality” .
In this universe the intention is not so complex, but the “basic intention is that a ‘virtual’ world be synthesized by computer to give the participant the impression that this world is not really artificial, but is ‘real’, and that the participant is “really” present within this world, “say the authors in this article.
This is what made them create the term mixed reality, when talking to different researchers, realized that “dealing with questions as to whether specific objects or scenes being displayed are real or virtual, whether images of scanned data should be considered real or virtual. if a real object should look “realistic”, while a virtual one does not need it. ”
The idea of Mixed Reality lies between Virtual Reality (RV) and Augmented Reality (RA), but the important thing about this idea is access to everyday life, helmets and virtual reality devices provoke a feeling of evil -established in many people, and mixed reality allows the easy and simple use of these concepts.
Summarizing mixed reality is a way of merging the real world with the virtual to produce new environments and forms of visualization in which physical and digital objects coexist and can interact in the real world in real time.
In 2015, Microsoft had an impact on the market by launching its HoloLens product, but what looked like a great strategy quickly fell into disrepute because the cost was too high, now companies like Acer. Samsung, Asus, Lenovo, and Dell are making their headsets, and Microsoft’s “Reality Viewer” environment gives these products popularity.
Milgram, P. and Kishino, F. IEICE Transactions on Information Systems, A taxonomy of Mixed REality Visual Displays, Vol E77-D, No.12 December 1994
Small things make a difference?
15
Jun
The answer is yes, though we often imagine that a small act of concord, honesty, or hope can mean a 
naive act, not the same when we think of the physical sense, but everyday thinking remains the mechanic.
Quantum physics and complexity theory have demonstrated this (the name chaos is also misinterpreted because it is the fact that not everything is linear), but it seems more “organized”, more “logical” binary logic of the yes and no, and in this case also has nothing to do with the digital world, only with idealistic thinking.
Also the biblical wisdom and the teachings of Jesus reflected this, in the words of the evangelist Mark, “The Kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed, when it is sown on the earth, it is the least of all the seeds of the earth.
When it is sown, it grows larger than all the greenery, and extends branches so large that the birds of the sky can shelter themselves in its shade “(Mark 4: 31-32), who has seen a grain of mustard and saw your tree know this. It is easier and more tempting to follow the current.
But if with small daily gestures we make a difference it gradually changes the culture around us and can spread to other people, just as a vicious circle is difficult to break, a virtuous circle transforms the habits and the environment in which we are inserted.
This is valid for nature, for example for ecological concern and not infrequently we already see many people worrying about the selection of waste, with trees and animals, this will make a difference over the years, it is a new culture that create.
The question of honesty is a reflection of the world of corruption, if we take away small acts of daily corruption we may over the years make corruption something truly heinous, said one activist: “it will be remembered as terrible as slavery.”
It is necessary to apply and be resilient in small acts of daily attitudes of truth and justice.
Postmodern dualism
07
Jun
Hegel is too tedious even for those who dominate philosophical discourse,
and I think in particular that the question of objectivism x subjectivism, natural x cultural, and other questions posed by thought of modernity, and which are current in everyday life, is already at another point.
The point I place is that of the infernal dichotomies of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro: “Cannibal metaphysics: lines of poststructural anthropology” (Katz Editores, 2010), although there may be a Portuguese edition, a Spanish edition, translated from French, fell into my hands .
It caught my attention because he begins the book on issues that I think are fundamental: the return to things, perspectivism, multinaturalism and anthropological schizophrenia.
The beginning of the first chapter “Anti-narcissus” confesses that he abandoned the idea of making a book to write about it, as Borges did, and he posed a question: “what should be the conceptual anthropology of the peoples that he studies?” “Differences and internal mutations of anthropological theory are explained mainly (and from a historico-critical point of view only) by structures and conjunctures of social formations, ideological debates, intellectual fields and academic contexts that have emerged researchers ? is this the only relevant hypothesis? It would not be possible to proceed from a perspective that shows that the most interesting of the concepts, problems, entities and agents introduced by the anthropological theories have their origin in the imaginative capacity of the societies (or of the peoples, or of the collectives) that propose explain? “(Viveiros de Castro, 2010, p.14).
To these questions he finally penetrates the infernal dichotomy which I consider essential in modernity: “It will not be where the originality of anthropology resides, in this alliance, which is always equivocal but often fruitful, between conceptions and practices from the worlds of the” subject “and of the object” ? “(Idem).
The anti-Narcissus question then is epistemological, that is, politics, and the author states that if everyone is more or less in agreement that it requires a decolonization of thought, and in this lies the anti-narcissus.
Viveiro de Castro’s speech is consistent because he affirms that the “other” is always thought and “invented” according to the sordid interests of the West, and then will discuss “perspectivism” and “multiculturalism”, it is impossible to synthesize them in a post, then we only punctuate these perspectives,
Viveiro de Castro’s speech is consistent because he affirms that the “other” is always thought and “invented” according to the sordid interests of the West, and then will discuss “perspectivism” and “multiculturalism”, it is impossible to synthesize them in a post, then we only punctuate these perspectives, called by the author of “cannibals” or metaphysics of predation.
Perspectivism is the idea that every theory is particular and depends on the “perspective of the subject,” or multiculturalism is the idea of the “coexistence” of many cultures in different regions, but both lack and a “decolonization” of thought, so the dichotomy remains .
Cicadas, bees and nets
28
May
It was studying the cris-cris of the cicadas in flocks, which are synchronized that Duncan Watts decided
to study nets and found the adviser Donald Strogatz and began to study nets, the phenomena of the small worlds and the six degrees of separation, Duncan’s doctoral thesis which later became an article was “The structure and dynamics of the small-world system” (1997).
The study was a success and to this day the article is one of the most read in studies of Social Networks.
But now we have a reverse case, the bees seem to gradually lose their strength and as polemizers of nature their threat of extinction begins to worry ecologists, researchers and now also researchers in Computing.
A study being developed by the University of Exeter in the UK seeks to create a “safe virtual space” for the threats faced by bees, creating a computational model of bee population dynamics in response to variables such as pesticides, parasites and loss of habitat.
The predictive tool called Bumble-BEEHAVE was developed by Grace Twiston-Davies to be a “free and easy to use system” that “takes into account the many complicated factors that interact to affect the drones.
The + result and a secure virtual space to test different management options, this model can test “six British bee species in an environment that has multiple sources of nectar and pollen.”
“Simulation allows researchers to understand the individual and interactive effects of multiple stressors that affect the survival of the bumblebee and feedback mechanisms that can protect a colony against environmental stress that can lead to collapse,” said Juliet Osborne of Exeter. the spiral colony. ”
Seeing in Portugal the amount of pollen in the air, which causes many respiratory diseases, I began to think about this serious problem that can affect the whole of nature.
Authority and co-immunity
25
May
The word “author” has the etymological root of Latin “auctor”
which means “source”, “instigator” or “promoter”, suggests someone who should augere (increase, magnify or improve) and the suffix tor (an agent, who does the action, as in a doctor or a sculptor), so there is no direct relation to power or originality, he must “perfect” something that exists.
The idea that authorship confers power or the creation of something original is as it comes from the word also something authoritarian, which can be interpreted as an exaggeration of authorship, an almost exclusivity or even an excess of power.
Networks are a contemporary way of establishing this authorship of improving what exists, in some ways even allowing “anonymous” people to participate in co-authorship, or in Sloterdijk’s account of co-immunity, and in this sense we can retrieve the word authority.
In the wisdom of oral culture, people who speak with authority are those who know the roots and traditions of a particular culture, are like living libraries that hold the cultural heritage of a nation, ethnicity, or people.
In the biblical saying that Jesus spoke with “authority”, besides being deeply connected to the Jewish culture from which the Christian originated, he also had an affective connection with his culture and his people, so besides knowing what he was talking about, he had empathy with the average person.
The idea of the modern state must change, it is unacceptable how politicians and managers of the Modern State behave, there is no trust of the population in them, levels of corruption are immoral, and it is necessary, above all, to look at the interests of the “public“.
But the networks demand changes in the individual posture as well, knowing how to listen, would like to culture what is different, respect values and traditions that are not like ours and not have cultural concepts as definitive truths, it is time for change and requires a change of mentality , networks can help.
Possible and impossible changes
11
May
At other times, the proportions, the changes that occurred in previous stages, also caused a strong
impression on the people, but the most influential disruptive technologies, glasses and telescopes, allowed the first printed books to be read, and thanks to the telescopes, the Copernican revolution took place.
The change of paradigms that happens causes astonishment, but what needs to be done in fact, what is possible in a more distant reality and what can happen in the next years, I already indicated in some post, The “Physics of the impossible”, by Michio Kaku (2008).
The author quotes Einstein’s phrase at the beginning of this book: “If an idea does not seem absurd at first, then it will not have any future,” it takes a strong and shocking thought like this to understand that if we should bet on innovation, is the historical moment of this, you must understand that most disruptive things will initially be absurd.
Speaking of more distant things, at the beginning of the microcomputers, it was stated that they would not be useful to many people, the mouse was clumsy and “little anatomical” when it appeared, and there is still a lot of distrust in “artificial intelligence”, not only between laypeople on the subject, among scholars as well, others idealize an “electronic brain”, but neither Sophia (the first robot to have citizenship) and Alexa Amazon really has “intelligence.”
What has to be stopped, and this in Copernicus’s time was worth for the theocentric vision, today there is also an anti-technology sociopathy that borders on fundamentalism, if there are injustices and inequalities they must be combated on the plane in which they are in the social and political.
Roland Barthes said that every denial of language “is a death”, with the adoption of technology by millions of people this death becomes a conflict, first between generations, and then between different conceptions of development and education.
To the scholars I make the recommendation of Heidegger, affirmed on the radio and the television that only half a dozen people understood the process and of course with the financial power can control the publishings of these medias, but also one can answer in the religious field.
The reading of the evangelist Mark, Mc 16,17-18 “The signs that will accompany those who believe will be these: they will cast out demons in my name, they will speak new tongues; If they take snakes or drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; when they lay their hands on the sick, they shall be healed. ”
This needs to be updated for the new interpretations of this bible text.
KAKU, M. (2008) The Physics of the Impossible: a scientific exploration of the world of fasers, force fields, teleportation, and time travel. NY: Doubleday.
Trends in Artificial Intelligence
10
May
By the late 1980s the promises and challenges of artificial intelligence seemed to crumble Hans Moracev’s 
phrase: “It is easy to make computers display adult-level performance on intelligence tests or play checkers, and it is difficult or impossible to give them the one-year-old’s abilities when it comes to perception and mobility, “in his 1988 book” MInd Children. ”
Also one of the greatest precursors of AI (Artificial Intelligence) Marvin Minsky and co-founder of the Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence, declared in the late 90s: “The history of AI is funny, because the first real deeds were beautiful things, a machine that made demonstrations in logic and did well in the course of calculation. But then, trying to make machines capable of answering questions about simple historical, machine … 1st. year of basic education. Today there is no machine that can achieve this. “(KAKU, 2001, p 131)
Minsky, along with another AI forerunner: Seymor Papert, came to glimpse a theory of The Society of Mind, which sought to explain how what we call intelligence could be a product of the interaction of non-intelligent parts, but the path of AI would be the other, both died in the year 2016 seeing the turn of the AI, without seeing the “society of the mind” emerge.
Thanks to a demand from the nascent Web whose data lacked “meaning,” AI’s work will join the efforts of Web designers to develop the so-called Semantic Web.
There were already devices softbots, or simply bots, software robots that navigated the raw data looking for “to capture some information,” in practice were scripts written for the Web or the Internet, which could now have a nobler function than stealing data.
The idea of intelligent agents has been revived, coming from fragments of code, it has a different function on the Web, that of tracking semi-structured data, storing them in differentiated databases, which are no longer Structured Query Language (SQL) but look for questions within the questions and answers that are made on the Web, then these banks are called No-SQL, and they will also serve as a basis for Big-Data.
The emerging challenge now is to build taxonomies and ontologies with this scattered, semi-structured Web information that is not always responding to a well-crafted questionnaire or logical reasoning within a clear formal construction.
In this context the linked data emerged, the idea of linking data of the resources in the Web, investigating them within the URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) that are the records and location of data in the Web.
The disturbing scenario in the late 1990s had a semantic turn in the 2000’s.
KAKU, M. (2008) The Physics of the Impossible: a scientific exploration of the world of fasers, force fields, teleportation, and time travel. NY: Doubleday.
