Ken's Blog

When Jenny awoke she was standing back out in the hallway, surrounded by her fellow travelers. “How did I get back out here?” she asked.

“You walked out the door,” Josh said, looking at her with a concerned expression that she found oddly pleasing. “Don’t you remember?”

“I don’t remember anything after — oh wait. I learned that time is just another dimension, if you know how to look at it.”

“Seems like today is a real banner day for higher dimensions,” Charlie said. “My head is starting to hurt.”

Sid laughed. “Maybe you’re just outa’ your depth.”

Jenny looked puzzled. “Am I missing something?”

Josh explained. “Before you came back, Mr. Symarian was explaining to us how there are more dimensions than the three we can see. Is that right?”

“Yes, quite correct,” the teacher said. “But I believe Jenny is speaking of something else entirely.”

“Yes,” she said excitedly. “Time is something like Mr. Symarian’s extra dimensions, but it’s also different. The past and the future don’t have to be strung out on a line, like the way we think about it. They can all be together, like when you look at a painting.”

“Cool!” Josh said. “Does that mean you can tell the future?”

Jenny thought for a moment, then shook her head slowly. “No, I don’t think so. It’s not something we, um, humans can do.”

“Why not?” Josh asked.

“Well, maybe you could know the future, but I think that even if you did know it, it wouldn’t matter anyway. I mean, once you know all the things that haven’t happened yet, you start to think differently, and you stop caring about words like ‘before’ and ‘after’. And then it turns out you can’t change anything at all, because to do something — anything — you need to decide what to do, and you can’t decide what to do if you don’t have a before and an after. So basically, having all time mushed together in your head would make you crazy, and you can’t do anything about anything if you’re crazy.” She stopped, realizing that the others were all staring at her. “Does that make any sense?” she finished weakly.

“Yes, that makes perfect sense,” said Mr. Symarian.

I don’t have an iPad. I’m waiting for something a bit less proprietary to show up in that general space. But I have noticed something completely delightful and unexpected about the iPad, as I watch my colleagues use it.

Many of us have had the experience of being in a meeting where somebody has their laptop computer open. As the meeting goes on, this person is typing away, staring intently at their screen. If you ask them, they will usually swear up and down that they are paying attention to every word that is being said in the room, but nobody ever quite believes them.

Full confession: I’ve been that person. I never start out intending to be that person. I’ll be using my notebook computer to take notes about the meeting, when all of a sudden an email comes in that I just cannot ignore. My responsibilities to that vast world outside the room start to tug at my soul, and I end up switching contexts, telling myself that sending off a reply will only take a moment. But of course that’s irrelevant. By that time I’ve pulled out of the flow of the conversation, and on some level the meeting has already been damaged.

Which is why I think “laptops closed” is a great general policy for meetings. Nicely enough, this policy also causes people to take shorter meetings. 🙂

Which leads me to the iPad.

I have a colleague who always used to be looking at his iPhone during meetings. He claimed to be paying attention to the meeting, but it was hard to know whether to believe him.

Recently this colleague got an iPad. When meetings start he places it out lying flat on the table — and he no longer uses his iPhone during meetings. He looks down at the iPad quite often, but now everyone can see the screen, so everybody knows he is doing tasks that are relevant to the discussion — checking his calendar when we plan events, or typing little notes about what is being said in the room.

There is no doubt about what is going on, and therefore there is no mistrust about what he is doing. Even when he is looking at his list of emails, he knows that we all know what’s on his screen, so everyone is confident he is looking for something relevant to what is currently happening in the meeting room.

I don’t have any idea whether Apple planned this style of usage (a friend pointed out to me that they likely didn’t, given the way Steve Jobs demoed the iPad at its launch). It may just be one of those lucky accidents that only get discovered after a product is launched.

But it seems to me that this usage pattern is a very important development in the evolution of personal electronic media. At last we have a scenario in which individual access to an information appliance does not destroy — or even degrade — the integrity and connectedness of a meeting.

It would be nice to think that Apple actually worked all this out before the iPad was released. But somehow I doubt it. I think we all just got lucky.

Mr. Symarian looked distinctly put out. “Josh, I take you are quite finished now.”

“Yes,” Josh said, smiling contentedly, “I am quite finished now.”

“Very well,” the teacher said, “it is time for me to reveal my true nature.” He paused dramatically.

There was a long silence. The silence grew longer.

Finally Josh couldn’t stand it anymore. “Well?” he said. “I’m waiting.”

“I stand before you, Mr. Symarian intoned. “Transformed!” And again he held his pose.

“I don’t get it,” Josh said.

“I told ya teach,” Sid said. “They don’t get that kind of stuff around here. It’s too, you know, dimensional.”

“Dimensional?” Charlie asked. “What’s dimensional about standing there looking exactly the same as before?”

“You wanna I should explain it to them?” Sid asked.

“Yes,” the teacher said, looking disheartened. “I suppose someone should.”

“He’s not the same as before,” Sid said. “You’re looking through the back now.”

“The back?” Josh said. “The back of what?”

“The back of him. See, the teacher here is higher dimensional. He’s got other directions — you just can’t see ’em. This is a big trick where he comes from — flip over and show everyone the other side. I keep explaining to him that down here the back side and the front side look the same. But does he listen? Does he ever listen?”

“You guys are making this stuff up,” Josh said, “aren’t you?”

Sid sighed. “Teach, turn half way first.”

Suddenly Mr. Symarian was gone. Josh and Charlie looked in astonishment at the space where he had just been. Then, just as suddenly as he had vanished, he reappeared in the same spot.

“Hey,” Charlie said. “How did you do that?”

“I simply took the advice of our little friend here. I rotated a quarter circle, paused for a moment, and then rotated another quarter circle. I must say I find this entire episode extremely disappointing. As you can see, I have now returned to my original orientation.”

“I can’t see any difference,” Josh said, looking over at Charlie. “Can you see any difference?” Charlie just shook his head.

“See teach?” Sid said cheerfully, “It’s like I been tellin’ ya. On this world they really can’t tell the front from the back. But the quarter turn trick — that gets ’em every time.”

I just saw Christopher Nolan’s Inception for the second time in the same week. It’s not that I loved the film so much the first time, but rather that I find myself in a different city, with different friends who hadn’t seen it, and it just seemed like a good idea.

I won’t say much about the film here, because I wouldn’t want to ruin the experience for those of you who have not seen it.

But if you have already seen it, I am happy to report that it is vastly better the second time. The first time around the experience is something like trying to catch up and learn the rules of a strange game. It’s hard to focus on the experience of playing a game when you’re worrying about where the ball is supposed to go, or how many houses it takes to make a hotel. The first time seeing Inception is very much like that.

The second time around, everything makes sense — perfect sense. All the pieces fall into place, and moments early in the film that seemed on first viewing to be mysterious, or even downright impenetrable, are a complete delight the second time around. Which means there is more room to concentrate on the powerful underlying themes of the film, which I now finally appreciate.

I wonder what it says about a film when the second time seeing it is a vastly more rewarding experience than the first time. Does this quality speak well for the work? “Better on second viewing” seems like a rather unusual and intriguing quality. There are many movies I’ve enjoyed just fine but wouldn’t dream of ever seeing again — generally silly comedies or straight-ahead melodramas that promise very little and deliver faithfully on that promise.

At the other extreme, there are films like Casablanca and Blade Runner that I can watch over and over. Each viewing is different, and I find I am never bored. In some sense the true subject of such endlessly watchable films is film itself — the mystery of sitting in a darkened theatre and experiencing living dreams about the human condition. Like a great painting by Magritte or poem by Walt Whitman, they illuminate the mystery of the human heart while managing to preserve that mystery, in all its complex magnificence.

It’s too soon to tell whether Inception falls into that category. I suppose I’ll know better the next time I see it. 🙂

“The plural seems more natural,” said the specter. “To speak of an individual is to speak from a fixed position in time. The concept is clear, but the reality is difficult. All time exists, in a glorious tapestry. Your grandmother, once removed from the oppressive ‘now’, possesses all the joy that she has ever experienced.”

Jenny frowned. “I think I understand, but I’m not sure. It’s like you’re saying a movie is the same as a sculpture. But they’re not the same.”

The specter remained silent for a long moment. When he again spoke, his voice was very quiet. “You will need to see for yourself.”

“See what?” Jenny said. But before she could utter another word, the room seemed to rush around her, as though she were being pulled into a tunnel. She felt herself trying to cry out, but the sound from her throat merely hung in the air somewhere before her eyes, like a smudge upon a vast canvas.

It took some time for her mind to process what she was experiencing. Everything was smooshed together, and nothing made any sense. Gradually she began to perceive landmarks. There was her mom, but her mom was young, younger than Jenny had ever seen her. And also old, all at once. She saw days in her life, events she had barely remembered, suddenly there before her, clear as day, as though they were happening right now.

But “happening” wasn’t exactly the right word. Jenny found she could move around everything, like walking around a sculpture. Depending on where she went, any moment she looked at seemed different, like when Josh gave her a frog for her eleventh birthday or the day her dad died. As she changed her point of view, the same day could be sad or happy, funny or just plain weird. It was strange and familiar at the same time, like she’d always known all those ways of seeing things, but hadn’t really been paying attention.

It was all too much, this everything at once. She tried to speak, to say she wanted it to stop, but it was no use. There was no “now” to speak from. Maybe if she could get to the present, to the room — the day — where they had been talking. She had to find her way back.

And that’s when Jenny saw her grandmother Amelia. But not the way she had ever seen her grandmother before — the way he saw her. It all came rushing in at once, filling her head.

And then everything went black.

Mari’s comment in response to one of my recent posts has gotten me thinking about the nature of subjective experience. Mari wonders what the experience might be like, once technology allows one person to see through the eyes of another.

I think she is actually raising a rather deep point, because “seeing” is not really a passive experience — it’s a highly active one. To engage in the simple act of looking around is to engage our entire self — our body, our sense of smell, touch, proprioception. There is a vast difference between, say, watching a movie, in which someone else is calling the shots, and experiencing reality first-hand, through one’s own eyes, head and body.

What would it mean to see through the eyes of another? Which participant — the local or the remote observer — would be in control? To see through another’s eyes, would we need to remotely control the motion of the other person’s head, their body, the reflexive saccadic movements of their pupils when something moves within their line of sight?

And would we need to feel what they feel for it all to truly make sense? If they tilt their head or turn around quickly, would we need to experience a disturbance in our own inner ear? Would our proprioceptive sense need to be attuned to the position of their hand when they reach beyond their line of vision to pick up an object? Should our own fingers feel their touch upon that object?

I’m not saying these things merely to ridicule them. With sufficient time and technological advancement, any of these possibilities may come to fruition. I’m simply wondering, as with each passing year we embrace ever more advanced forms of socially networked interconnection, and the time-space boundaries between us start to fall away, whether our very notions of self and identity will also begin to blur and change in some fundamental way.

What will it mean, exactly, when we can see through the eyes of another?

“What do you mean, I don’t know the half of it?” Josh asked.

“We can tell him now, right teach?” Sid said.

“Yes, I cannot imagine what harm would come of it at this point,” Mr. Symarian said. “The truth is always simpler, when that option becomes available.”

“What are you two talking about?” Charles said.

“I believe,” the teacher continued, “we are discussing the nature of my existence. You see, I have been engaged in a bit of subterfuge.”

“All this time you’ve been lying to us about who you are?” Josh asked, looking annoyed. “That is so rude!”

“Not exactly lying,” Mr. Symarian said, looking a bit flustered at this response. “I have indeed been your teacher these past months. I assure you that my credentials in that regard are quite in order. In fact, I daresay that my credentials are in better order than those of of many of my colleagues. One needn’t be an expert in the science of pedagogy to realize that…”

“Yer gettiin’ off topic teach,” Sid said. “The kid wants to know what the deal is with you.”

“Well, to begin, I am not, as you might say, ‘human’.” Mr. Symarian said, and paused dramatically.

“Gee, why am I not surprised?” Josh replied, rolling his eyes. “To tell you the truth, I’ve been starting to get used to this stuff. What’s it going to be this time? Alien?”

The teacher looked indignant. “I assure you…”

But Josh wasn’t finished. “Hold on, let me guess. Angel? Banshee?”

“No, I’m afraid…”

“Bigfoot, blob, bogeyman or brownie?”

“Young man…” Mr. Symarian said.

“Centaur? Changeling? Cherub? Chimaera? Cyclops?”

“Do I appear to have one eye?” the teacher managed to interject.

“Good point,” Josh said. “Wait, I’ll get it. Demon would be too easy. Let’s see… Djinn? Doppelgänger?”

“Actually no, but my brother…”

But Josh wasn’t finished. “Dwarf, dybbuk, elf or fairy? Or wait, I know … you’re a sprite!”

“None of those are …”

“Wait,” Josh said. “I’ll get it. Gargoyle, ghost, ghoul, gnome, goat man? Goblin? Gremlin? You’re not the grim reaper are you?”

Mr. Symarian was beginning to get annoyed. “If I were, by now you would be…”

Josh cut him off. “Harpy? Headless Horseman? Hippogriff? Hydra? Jabberwock, kraken, leprechaun, leviathan? Loch Ness Monster? Medusa?”

“This is awesome,” Charlie said. “Go for it Josh.”

“Actually,” the teach said weakly, the Medusa is a …”

“Oh right”, Josh said. “Merman? Minotaur? Mummy? Phoenix or poltergeist? Oh I know! Quetzalcoatl!”

“Joshua,” Mr. Symarian said sternly. “I do believe you are being…”

“Satyr? Selkie? Troll? Vampire? Werewolf? Wraith? Oh I know … zombie!”

“If you are quite finished,” the teacher said breathlessly.

“Guess I am,” Josh said, smiling, “Unless there’s a letter after ‘Z’. Sid?”

The little demon was working hard to hold back a laugh. “No more letters kid. I’m pretty sure you’re ok there.”

Two films came out recently that prominently feature people (or something more or less like people) riding dragons (or something more or less like dragons). One was Avatar and the other was How to Train your Dragon. I saw both of these films in movie theatres, in all their stunning large screen stereoscopic 3D glory.

Of the two, Avatar is the one that has gotten the most hype, has broken box office records, and is being touted as the tour de force that has raised the bar on special effects in Hollywood films. And yet, thinking back on my experience of these two films, I am struck by how much more vivid and delighted is my memory of the cartoon boy riding the cartoon dragon than the far more realistically rendered blue Na’vi riding the dragon-like Pandoran banshee.

It’s not that the flying sequences in Avatar are anything less than thrilling, exhilarating or heart poundingly exciting. They are indeed all that and more. It’s more that they are, from a psychological perspective, mere illustrative detail, meant to establish and ground the abstract concept of Na’vi as the ultimate native culture in harmony with nature. From a story-telling perspective, the flying of dragons is a philosophical and political point made flesh — albeit very blue flesh.

In contrast, for the boy in How to Train your Dragon the act of flying the dragon is an expression of love. The entire narrative of the film is based on a kind of star-crossed love story between the boy and the dragon. I don’t mean “love” in the narrow sense of a sexual romance, but in the sense of the love that grows between two kindred souls whose connection with each other seems destined, like the love between Huck and Jim, Butch and Sundance, Hope and Crosby, Kirk and Spock, Laurel and Hardy, Woody and Buzz, Rocky and Bullwinkle.

You know from the outset that these are two souls who together create something far greater than would either one without the other, and the reason you watch is to see them realize this for themselves as the narrative unfolds.

When we see Jake Sully ride the banshee, we are just seeing one aspect of a character finding himself — or perhaps one of many aspects of Jake’s growing romantic bond with his female counterpart Neytiri.

But when we experience Hiccup ride Toothless, we are experiencing the very embodiment of the emotional arc of the story of How to Train your Dragon.

I’ll take that experience any time.

Josh was getting tired of waiting. “You sure Jenny’s ok in there?”

“There is nothing to worry about,” Mr. Symarian said. “He will not harm her.”

“He’d better not!” Josh said, his hands balled into fists.

“You misunderstand me,” the teacher said. “They may converse, but no more. This house and all within are mere illusions. The two of them are speaking to each other across a vast divide. He has no power over her here. Jenny may as well fear the shadow that falls upon the floor.”

“Are we all shadows then?” Charlie asked, a note of doubt in his voice.

“Do not worry. You are quite real. It is only this tower that is a thing of illusion.”

“Mr. Symarian, how come you know all these things?” said Josh.

“Kid,” Sid said, with a flutter of his wings, “You don’t know the half of it.”

There will be a time, somewhere in the future, when people will all get eye implants at birth that turn the entire world into the Holodeck. Out of their cyber-enhanced eyes, people will be able to see whatever their minds need or want to see at that moment. But that probably won’t start to happen for at least a half a century.

Meanwhile, clever people will come up with intermediate ways of approximating the visual effect of the Holodeck. I was talking with a friend the other day and we realized that we both had the same idea of how this would be done.

The problem is that it’s insanely expensive to make walls that create the illusion, from every possible viewing angle, of a convincing 3D scene. To compute the complexity of this task, the number of pixels on the wall would have to be multiplied by the number of viewing angles — and the result would be a really really big number. By the time we can afford something like that, we’ll already be wearing those eye implants.

No, my friend and I agreed that rather than try to synthesize every possible viewpoint of an imaginary scene, the walls will have little imbedded cameras that watch us, and always know where our eyes are.

When I look at such a wall, it will know — through a combination of a high resolution camera and advanced image processing — the precise location of my left eye and of my right eye. The wall will show a synthetic image only visible from the direction of my left eye, and another such image only visible from the (slightly different) direction of my right eye.

To me the effect will be the same as though I were wearing high quality movement-tracked virtual reality goggles — only without the goggles.

If another person comes along, the wall will also sense the positions of their eyes, and will show two more synthetic images, one for that person’s left eye, the other for his/her right eye.

This will continue as more people enter the room. If there are ten people in the room, the wall will be simultaneously showing twenty different views into an imaginary scene — each visible only from the direction of a single eye.

To anyone in the room, the result will appear as a vivid, coherent, shared 3D view into an imaginary world. Each of these views will exactly as it should from that person’s position in the room. After a while, this will all come to seem prosaic. People won’t question the virtual reality all about them anymore than they now question, say, the image on their TV screen.

And then, a few decades later, everyone will get those post-natal eye implants, and none of this will be necessary.