CVL-Caledon Literary Group Transcript for 2019-07-11

Ray Bradbury — Night Meeting

16:50 Valibrarian Gregg I see 4 potential roles? Old Man, Tomas, the martian and the narrator?
16:53 Wordsmith Jarvinen Yes
16:53 Valibrarian Gregg okay :)
16:55 KayCooper Hi Word :)
16:56 Valibrarian Gregg hi Kay :)
16:56 KayCooper Hello :)
16:56 Ololo Petya (olopierpa) Hallo all!
16:56 Valibrarian Gregg Welcome Ololo
16:56 KayCooper Hi Ololo
16:56 Ololo Petya (olopierpa) ;)
16:57 Wordsmith Jarvinen Hi Kay and Ololo
16:57 Wordsmith Jarvinen Y
16:57 KayCooper y
16:57 Wordsmith Jarvinen why?
16:57 Valibrarian Gregg Welcome Ryan
16:57 Ryan Dayton Greetings
16:58 KayCooper Hi Ryan
16:58 Valibrarian Gregg We will get started shortly! good to see you
16:59 Valibrarian Gregg Usually we pre-read our stories and discuss them...but tonight is a read aloud! Should be fun
17:00 Ryan Dayton Interesting. Ive never been to something like this
17:00 Ololo Petya (olopierpa) I read it anyway to be sure :)
17:00 Valibrarian Gregg great Ololo!
17:00 KayCooper /me hopes reading aloud is optional
17:00 Valibrarian Gregg yes it is!!!
17:01 KayCooper Ok good :)
17:01 Valibrarian Gregg nobody has to read aloud ;)
17:01 Wordsmith Jarvinen Welcome to this month's sci-fi discussion. This month we are doing it as a read aloud, but reading is optional.
17:02 Valibrarian Gregg Volunteers for voice?
17:03 Valibrarian Gregg anyone?
17:03 Ryan Dayton hmm i cannot hear voice for some reason
17:03 Valibrarian Gregg Does everyone have the notecard for the story?
17:03 Ololo Petya (olopierpa) /me has it
17:04 Valibrarian Gregg Ryan - you might try a relog? I do see a dot beside your name!
17:04 Ryan Dayton okay
17:04 Ryan Dayton dont let me hold you up though
17:04 Wordsmith Jarvinen Kay can you hear voice?
17:05 KayCooper I could hear Valibrarian but not you
17:05 KayCooper I can relog
17:05 Heart Campfire Cushion - Single - Red Stripes Hi Wordsmith Jarvinen! Touch me to change pose. Say /1a to Adjust.
17:05 KayCooper Yeah, he's just really quiet for me
17:07 Valibrarian Gregg Welcome Alyse
17:07 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) my computer is being absurdly slow
17:09 Valibrarian Gregg Is everyone ready to begin?
17:09 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) ready!
17:09 KayCooper ready
17:09 Valibrarian Gregg Type a Y!!!
17:09 Valibrarian Gregg Can you hear me Elektra?
17:09 Ryan Dayton i cannot hear voice for some reason... trying to figure it out. Going to TP my friend here in a moment
17:09 Valibrarian Gregg ok Ryan
17:09 Ryan Dayton feel free to get started though!
17:09 Elektra Panthar yep
17:09 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) i will pull up my recording software as well if everyone is okay with it :D
17:10 Valibrarian Gregg great! glad you are recording :)
17:32 KayCooper whispers: Hi Phrynne
17:32 Phrynne whispers: hi
17:33 Ololo Petya (olopierpa) whispers: hi Prynne
17:35 KayCooper *•.¸'*•.¸ ★ ¸.•*´¸.•*
17:35 KayCooper .•*★¨`• Aρρlɑuѕɛ •¨`★*•.
17:35 KayCooper ¸.•*`¸.•*´ ★ `*•.¸`*•.¸
17:35 Valibrarian Gregg Clap clap for Bradbury!!!!
17:35 Phrynne /me claps
17:35 Valibrarian Gregg I really like the story!
17:36 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) that was such a great story
17:36 Wordsmith Jarvinen Comments, discussion?
17:36 Valibrarian Gregg My favorite part was when their hands went right through each other....very creative
17:36 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) I haven't read much Bradbury before or other classic science fiction; it is great to have the opportunity in a group like this!
17:37 KayCooper I like the question of how do you know which one is from the past
17:37 Wordsmith Jarvinen One can't hold a cup of coffee, the other can't catch a knife.
17:37 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) and very introspective! what is the past, what is the future, what is the present?
17:37 Stranger Nightfire when I was in Junior High I recall that The Martian Chronicles was my favorite book
17:37 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) Bradbury contemplating his own mortality? his own place in time?
17:37 KayCooper And that you wouldn't want to know anyway if your world was going to end up as a bunch of ruins
17:38 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) oh yes
17:38 Stranger Nightfire will not all civilizations eventually meet that fate?
17:38 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) it kind of reminds me of the Matrix; which pill would you take? and all that
17:38 KayCooper True
17:38 Wordsmith Jarvinen Likely, Perce's Ozamandis.
17:38 Valibrarian Gregg So many awesome metaphors and similes about time: "Time looked like snow dropping silently into a black room"
17:38 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) which is the illusion? do you want to break the illusion if the truth is worse than the illusion
17:38 Wordsmith Jarvinen whispers: And a bit of "sieze the day
17:39 Valibrarian Gregg What did Time smell like? Like dust and clocks and people.
17:39 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) the description of the dead black alien bodies creeped me out a bit
17:39 KayCooper Even if the martian was a ghost, he was happy in his present moment, so that's all that really counts
17:39 Valibrarian Gregg and...for physicists- "time does not really exist" it is just a man-made concept, right?
17:39 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) oooh, "What did Time smell like?" --Val, that would be a great writing prompt
17:40 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) oooh, also, "2001"; I heard you laugh wordsmith!
17:40 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) i was giggling too lol
17:40 KayCooper We really should have colonized Mars by now...
17:41 Valibrarian Gregg and the martian's year 4462853 S.E.C.- just a name for a specific time....whatever that is!
17:41 KayCooper Years are relative
17:41 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) I was watching Stargate the other day, and the episode pointed out that we'd have started colonizing space by now if it weren't for the Dark Ages when science was taboo/forbidden
17:41 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) it was an interesting thought!
17:41 KayCooper Since any civilization starts to count at different times
17:41 KayCooper That is interesting
17:41 Valibrarian Gregg interesting that each insisted HE was alive....and the other dead--- says a lot about what consciousness is- what it means to be alive
17:42 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) oh yes!
17:42 KayCooper If it seems real to you then that's your reality
17:42 Wordsmith Jarvinen I am here. I am physical. I am embodied and present.
17:42 Valibrarian Gregg yes- the question of reality which is an awesome thing to ponder around a virtual campfire ;)
17:42 KayCooper hehe
17:43 Phrynne in virtual bodies made of light
17:43 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) and the realization that they both must be right *or* wrong and that they would just have to agree to disagree
17:43 Valibrarian Gregg and an AI (in my opinion) will never be conscious....only consciously programmed
17:43 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) ooh, that is a good thought
17:43 Stranger Nightfire our iteration of Earth civilization is very young
17:43 KayCooper We seem to get in our own way an awful lot
17:44 Wordsmith Jarvinen We do.
17:44 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) i do think that if AI circuitry and programming becomes as complex as the human brain (which i guess is like a bio-computer? then perhaps an AI could achieve consciousness
17:44 KayCooper I would agree with that
17:44 Stranger Nightfire but probably civilization on Earth goes back many tens of thousands of years
17:44 KayCooper I think there is a lot we don't know, and we don't seem interested in finding out
17:44 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) what would we do if an AI insisted it was conscious? even if programmed to do so. A fun thought experiment on morality. Would you shut down an AI capable of asking you to spare its life?
17:45 Wordsmith Jarvinen About 10,000 years ago wheat came into being.
17:45 Valibrarian Gregg So far, from what I have read, AI will be able to construct knowledge much faster than a human- but would still only achieve that knowledge through programming and would only make decisions based on logic which is a different kind of reasoning than we have as sentient, conscious beings.
17:46 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) haha, yes, perhaps we shouldn't start creating artificial life until we understand our own lives a bit better!
17:46 Wordsmith Jarvinen You can about such an occurrence in Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".
17:46 Phrynne yes, Mike the sentient computer
17:47 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) I think it is possible, Val, that our definition of AI may change and its capabilities may change as technology becomes more advanced---perhaps technology we cannot even imagine today
17:47 Wordsmith Jarvinen "Hello, Man, my first friend."
17:47 Valibrarian Gregg an AI certainly is embodied...and can reason but nobody can explain what makes a human conscious- not any scientific research- cool that some things will remain a mystery
17:48 Valibrarian Gregg We do have Asimov's laws of robotics...hehe a start
17:48 Stranger Nightfire computers do not have lungs to sigh with, or hearts to throb, or guts to contract, so they will not be emotional intelligences as are humans
17:48 Valibrarian Gregg Did you like the way we read the story aloud? this is the first time we have done it that way
17:48 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) oooh yes--wondering what makes a human conscious reminds me of Tron Legacy; where a new type of being was given life within the computer
17:48 KayCooper But what if they have other means of expressing the same things, like their lights flashing in different ways
17:49 Ololo Petya (olopierpa) it went very well
17:49 Stranger Nightfire though perhaps if desired they could be given the equivalent of those things
17:49 Ryan Dayton Will there be another read aloud?
17:49 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) @stranger -- it is possible they will have such in the future; but who knows?
17:50 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) oh, Bicentennial Man
17:50 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) where a robot becomes human
17:50 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) a fascinating concept
17:50 Wordsmith Jarvinen I think it highly likely we will do another such. Val and I seem to have fun with them.
17:50 Phrynne that one was too sad.
17:50 Stranger Nightfire even a lot of the neurons in humans are in the heart and in the gut
17:50 Valibrarian Gregg I recently interviewed a woman who was a pioneer in AI during world War II- she was brilliant. She looked me straight in the eye and said NOBODY knows what consciousness is. She was adamant that AI is simply algorithmic pathways....without imagination.
17:51 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) ahh yes, scientists!!
17:51 Stranger Nightfire i have heard it estimated that our digestive system has about as much intelligence as a cat
17:51 Ololo Petya (olopierpa) hmmm
17:51 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) science fiction often precedes science!
17:51 Valibrarian Gregg The AI expert says algorithms have always been used but the computer age is making them seem like some new fantastic breakthrough-
17:52 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) i studied that concept a lot in college; absolutely loved it
17:52 Wordsmith Jarvinen That explains why a cat is like a digestive system -- always seeking food.
17:52 Ryan Dayton lol
17:52 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) lol
17:52 Valibrarian Gregg I think since we are here in a virtual world- we sometimes understand reality in ways that people who have only experienced physical reality may not understand.... and that makes us a bit more imaginative? or less set in stone about ideas
17:52 Phrynne gives a whole new meaning to catgut strings, and why my violin is sometimes hungry
17:52 Ryan Dayton there are lots of neurons in your gut
17:53 Ryan Dayton IBS is sometimes treatable with antidepressants
17:53 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) i am a dreamer and idealist when it comes to personality tests lol, so I drive science folks nutso
17:53 Valibrarian Gregg That same AI expert talked about the relationship with the gut and the brain!
17:54 Ryan Dayton serrotonin reuptake inhibitors can relieve IBS symptoms. pretty interesting
17:54 KayCooper Everything connects to everything else it seems
17:55 Valibrarian Gregg yes Kay! all is connected- love that concept
17:55 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) there is also a link between anxiety and IBS, etc. and all kinds of physical symptoms, so I do wonder if treating anxiety/depression with the SSRIs is what actually helps
17:55 Valibrarian Gregg Our next literary study will be THURS Sept 12th 5pm over at Caledon.
17:56 Valibrarian Gregg Wordsmith- maybe we can find another read aloud then or soon?!
17:56 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) *six degrees of guts instead of kevin bacon
17:56 Stranger Nightfire after heart transplants people seem to get personality transplants from the donor
17:56 Wordsmith Jarvinen I'm sure we can Val.
17:56 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) oh that's right!
17:56 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) and the power of prayer is a demonstrated phenomena
17:57 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) one of those, what exactly influences our bodies, minds, and the universe
17:57 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) quantum physics, yummy
17:58 Valibrarian Gregg Quantum physics is suppose to change everything! tech inside us -- and nanotechnology is mind blowing, right?
17:58 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) :D :D :D
17:58 Ololo Petya (olopierpa) aye
17:59 Wordsmith Jarvinen One aspect people miss about quantum experiments is that there is no ambient light.
17:59 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) oooh interesting
18:00 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) oooh, something else great to ponder about the story is the significance of the old man
18:01 Wordsmith Jarvinen So you throw a photon at something and its as big as the something and disturbs it. It is not, per se, the observer but what you have to do to get an observation -- about like throwing a couch at a refrigerator to see if the refrigerator is there.
18:01 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) he was in such a tiny part of the story
18:01 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) and yet his words persist
18:01 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) teehee wordsmith--best analogy ever
18:02 Valibrarian Gregg Alyse- I had not thought about the significance of the old man in the story! interesting
18:02 Ololo Petya (olopierpa) he's an excuse to introduce the setting
18:03 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) "I came here last year I wouldn’t expect nothing, nor ask nothing, nor be surprised at nothing."
18:03 Wordsmith Jarvinen And a philosophy of expect the unexpected.
18:04 Valibrarian Gregg and from the perspective of an outsider- not connected to the two who collide in reality maybe
18:04 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) “I’m not surprised at anything anymore,” said the old man. “I’m just looking. I’m just experiencing. If you can’t take Mars for what she is, you might as well go back to Earth. Everything’s crazy up here, the soil, the air, the canals, the natives (I never saw any yet, but I hear they’re around), the clocks
18:04 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) massive overshadow for the entire story!
18:05 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) "Even my clock acts funny. Even time is crazy up "
18:05 KayCooper He really did foreshadow the whole thing didn't he
18:06 Ololo Petya (olopierpa) a friend of a friend works for the rover missions. He told me they have special watches made for them going on martian time
18:06 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) oooh awesome!
18:06 KayCooper cool
18:06 Ololo Petya (olopierpa) and they adjust their shifts on martian time rather earth
18:06 Ololo Petya (olopierpa) rather than
18:06 Wordsmith Jarvinen Of all the sections in the Martian Chronicles, this is the one I've always remembered. Feeling the cold on the back of my neck and it's there.
18:07 KayCooper And if they're ever late for something they can just say they were on Martian time :)
18:07 Valibrarian Gregg Were all of the sections written around 1950?
18:07 Ololo Petya (olopierpa) :D
18:07 Valibrarian Gregg When 2001 was super futuristic!
18:07 Wordsmith Jarvinen I believe so.
18:07 KayCooper I have a copy of the Martian Chronicles on my shelf somewhere
18:07 KayCooper Read it ages ago, didn't remember this one
18:07 Wordsmith Jarvinen (smiles at Kay)
18:08 KayCooper I don't remember much of it to be honest, except for a story that recreated the house of usher...something like that
18:08 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) "Tomás raised his hand and thought Hello! automatically but did not move his lips, for this was a Martian. But Tomás had swum in blue rivers on Earth, with strangers passing on the road, and eaten in strange houses with strange people, and his weapon had always been his smile." Not sure if this shows the wonderfulness of countryfolk or folk in the 1950s; but a lot people today would encounter a Martian and not have the same reaction
18:08 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) My mom's from a rural town in Ohio, and the folks there always wave at you, even if you're a stranger
18:09 Valibrarian Gregg good point- country hospitality :)
18:09 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) but in CA, not so much!
18:09 Valibrarian Gregg as opposed to brisk urban looking away or staring into phones!
18:09 KayCooper Where I live, half the people I pass when taking a walk completely ignore me
18:10 Wordsmith Jarvinen Yes
18:10 KayCooper It's funny how hard people work to pretend you're not there so you don't have to say hi
18:10 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) it's an interesting mix; I said "hi" to a mother and her daughter at a library once because i sat down outside at a table nearby and she just looked at me like i was crazy and didn't say anything
18:10 Valibrarian Gregg yes Kay- half I see are literally staring at a phone even when crossing a street
18:10 Stranger Nightfire the usual reaction of people encountering ETs is to fear them
18:10 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) oh goodness, yes--please don't look at your phone while crossing the street! i feel like we shouldn't have to say this, lol
18:11 Valibrarian Gregg the physical world can be isolating and yet here we intimately sit around a virtual campfire! talking- crazier than Mars
18:11 KayCooper I think people are just really afraid of other people
18:11 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) oh i just remembered, this guy's from 2001, and we didn't really have smartphones then, so i guess i understand why his first reaction wasn't to take a picture, hahahaha
18:11 KayCooper I kinda get that...I'm not the most outgoing myself
18:11 Valibrarian Gregg no kidding! No selfie with the Martian
18:12 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) i've found i'm much happier around people in my new little neighborhood in Sacramento where there's just a few people walking around the park; as opposed to an apartment complex in San Jose where there was always a ton of people around no matter what you were doing
18:12 Valibrarian Gregg I must head out.....and I hope we have this much fun next month! Great story and great conversation
18:12 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) oh yes--thanks so much everyong!
18:12 Wordsmith Jarvinen Well, we've done a good hour. I don't have another story lined up yet but will shortly.
18:13 KayCooper Great job on the reading everyone!
18:13 Valibrarian Gregg I look forward to the next one. Have a great night! thanks all
18:13 Ololo Petya (olopierpa) Thank you to the readers!
18:13 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) wordsmith--is there a good place for me to send you the raw video footage?
18:13 Wordsmith Jarvinen Thank you all for coming.
18:13 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) i can also put a link on a notecard and send it to you in-world once it's uploaded to Google Drive
18:13 Wordsmith Jarvinen WordsmithJarvinen@gmail.com
18:14 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) excellent--I'll get that sent to you right away :D
18:14 Wordsmith Jarvinen I'll capture the text from today.
18:14 Alyse - CVL Assistant Director (alysedunavantjones) *waves and poofs*
18:14 Ololo Petya (olopierpa) Good night beasts and people!
18:14 KayCooper Night everyone :)
18:15 Wordsmith Jarvinen Journey well.
18:15 Wordsmith Jarvinen Watch your time.