we need a new pronoun

i spend too much time thinking of personhood, consciousness, agency, and identity. when writing about agency, i like to speak of agents independent of their particular identities. this allows for a conception of agency generalizable to anything that acts rather than confining agency to persons or living things. the problem with this is that we have no pronoun to represent the general category that agency encompasses.

the man reacts to his environment

the dog reacts to its environment

the agent reacts to ___ environment

what word should fill the blank?

if I put the word "his" in the blank, then our template would prevent us from speaking of any gender-neutral agents. using the word "its" in the blank creates a template that doesn't acknowledge the consciousness behind a great deal of agency.

If there is consciousness without gender, then we need a new pronoun. There may not yet be the need for the pronoun because of a lack of apparent gender-free persons, but as computer sentience evolves, it will be silly to continue to arbitrarily assign gender to bots. We should just go ahead and realize that all of this nonsense "he/she" and "his/hers" has been a warning that we need to step back and create a concise pronoun label to encompass the identity of any conscious agent.

that is all.

we are all circles

everythings a circle. everythings a cycle. it's all just movement in loops and spirals.

one of my favorite books is titled, "I am a Strange Loop" - it's basic point is that the concept of the self arises from nothing more than our mind's ability to represent itself and continuously update that representation as it is affected by experience. it serves as an argument for the computational nature of the mind and the possibility to computationalize consciousness. The concept comes so naturally that I had no trouble accepting nearly every point as i quickly turned through the pages.

This account of our conscious awareness won't be the focus of this post, but it will be beneficial to understand the foundation off of which i intend to contemplate the nature of interpersonal love.

to distract myself, i often spend my time on tumblr, usually favoriting and reblogging pictures that resonate with my mindset. about a week ago, a picture (accompanied by some text) on my dashboard caught my eye. i was quick to favorite it and after a few days, when i had time to spend updating my personal page, i reblogged the photo and added a caption similar to what is now the title of this post - "we're all just circles"..here is the photo:

for all of my life and, i assume, the lives of everyone living today, homosexuality has been one of the most culturally controversial topics. I have posted once before about the concept of marriage and the inability of many to accept the transformation of the term - and, in turn, our culture - to account for the union of homosexuals, but i have hardly delved into the topic of homosexual love.

to be clear, i've got a strictly hetero-orientation. I'm just nearly obsessed with the concept of love because, in my opinion, it is an all-encompassing notion that can explain all interaction. not only does it impact our interpersonal relationships, but it really is the driving force behind every interaction a being can have with its environment. beings love beings and that love is what guides them in continuing their existence. everything in existence should be thought of as a being. all of existence is the greatest being of all and that is my concept of god. if there is a word denoting a tangible concept, then in my mind, i would consider that concept as a being. say we have concept x, if we can say x is being x, then x is a being. the sweater i am wearing is a being because the sweater is being a sweater and an item of clothing and whatever else you can think of the sweater being (if i wear it as a turban, then it is being a turban). and i am certainly a being - there should be no qualms with that. there is some degree of love between me and my sweater and that love is what has guided me to wear it today. i love existence, so i choose to continue to exist - to interact with the beings of existence.

so..about the picture..

as you can see, people are represented as circles with protruding shapes representing their gender. sexuality is guided by love. sexual orientation is accounted for by how these different shapes overlap.

while it is important to be aware of the sexual inclinations of others in some instances, for the most sexual orientation should have no bearing on the judgments we make about the people we interact with. i love women..but i also love men..and i love all animals - independent of their gender. it's our expression of love that causes people discomfort.

when in a relationship of mutual love (in an ideal world, this would be a redundant phrase), the best thing to do is learn and be aware of the desires and tendencies of your relationship partner. it's best to express love in such a way that all parties involved are satisfied with the nature of the loving relationship. the only way to have this awareness of desires is to communicate with your partner. it is not enough to signify their sexual orientation with a silly symbol.

we are all just circles. attracted to other circles through our loving tendencies. maybe one day, each person will be expressed by their own unique symbol to allow for computer analysis to determine all orientation and desires of that person - in this hypothetical world, love would not be free. luckily, in this current day, we are all internal. while our bodies are the unique symbols that represent all that we are, there is no computer analysis that can determine exactly what it is that will make us happy. often, not even self-analysis can reveal that.

it takes action and interaction. eventually, through this, we can hopefully find others whose satisfaction and happiness is inversely correlated with our own.

this is easy with simple objects lacking happiness or the ability to feel.. we can project whatever happiness we have held within onto these beings and feel satisfied with the pleasure we receive from these interactions. once the concept of life is introduced, we must have a much more keen awareness of the states of the beings  we interact with. everything that lives has goals. the ability for us to understand those goals and do what we can to assist, or at least not hinder, the being's pursuit of goals is the sole(soul) purpose of love.

man or woman, gay or straight, we should all love each other. we should work to understand where we all stand amongst each other and act accordingly. we love for each other. life would be incomplete without it. we're all circles and none of us wants to be empty.

i sign my name

we all have our personal expressions of individuality. my signature is mine and represents a pattern only familiar to me. yours is yours and i could never replicate the smooth motion behind your expression.

there are other patterns of expression unique to each of us. our signature is just the most identifiable. it is identified not by the exact image presented, but rather by the method of stroke used to create the signature. it's easy to replicate an image..much more difficult to replicate the activity that went into creating said image.

security relies on expressions unique to individuals in order to keep information safe. signatures are the age-old method of representing individuality through expression to maintain security. recently, as computers have become more prevalent, there has been a revolution in securing information relying on other unique human expression.

some of that expression is purely physical - like face recognition, eye scans, and of course fingerprint scans..i logged in to my computer just now using a fingerprint scanner. you can always think of the movies at top-secret secure facilities where employees of the government or some sinister agency have to go through a series of scans before entering an off-limits room.

but this brings to mind minority report and the black market of eyes. or a number of other films in which people dismember those with access in order to pass an eye or fingerprint scan. this is when the unique motor expression comes into play. we need some expression that shows that the individual was aware that he was approving of some action with his unique personal expression.

signatures are too easily replicable. you can't get at the actual motion and method behind the creation of the image. who's to say it isn't forgery?

recently, there have been new attempts with pattern recognition software that takes a live feed of actual human action to break down the aspects unique to the individual. voice recognition is a prime example. another method still in the test phase uses eye-tracking to recognize unique patterns of eye saccades (the twitchy bounces your eye is constantly making when taking processing the visual field). each person's eye develops its own pattern for breaking down images and sticks to the pattern it's developed for itself. this all happens unconsciously to the individual, so there is no way of mimicking it. personally, i think this is pretty nifty..but isn't so practical in most scenarios where simple security is at stake.

for now, we can stick to signatures. we each have our own and, while they are fairly easy to replicate, it is also relatively easy to dispute the replication. if it's a real official document, you get a notary to witness you in the act of signing. if it's a check, then it's your check and your signature. all is good. as technology becomes ever more present, maybe the little signature screens used at grocery stores will become more popular and will have pattern recognition software to recognize the actual process of signing. who knows if this is even necessary though..things seem to be working fine as they are.

frank abagnale jr tempted us to catch him if we could..and we did. he joined our side in catching crooks like him. now we have computers to scan for slip-ups. my signature is mine because it is an expression unique only to the motions made by my hand. yours is yours. that's something that no other can take from us and make their own.

time

i see you

you see me

what you see is what will be

your view on my identity

one encounter leaves a mark

it could even light a spark

to learn a face

a simple task

but to learn a name

and make it last

to know someone

their personhood

represented by a word

what's a name do

on this earth

in the mind it represents

a being's being

not their worth

just what it has been

ever since birth

or since creation

coming to be

names hold the place

of concepts formed

experientally

over time we learn to know

not things in essence

but things indeed

their impact on our sensory

perceptual facilities

only knowing what we see

what we feel and what we be

what we hear and what we fear

time allows concepts to form

given a name we know a storm

katrina first was impending

days later the storm ended

but weeks and months and even years

passed with many many tears

and now katrina represents

more than just the coming storm

concepts form and concepts change

in a day a name can range

meaning can become quite strange

what is time to a mind

never able to rewind

the force that lies behind

all we know of any kind

"who are you being right now?"

-i'm being me. myself..who are you being?

-"i'm being a-dot."

-well i guess i'd say i'm being stevie.

is stevie the same as steve..as steven..as smdaniel?

simply, yes. but only to me. how about to you? if you know stevie, then you know stevie. if you know steve, then you know steve. if you know steven..then guess what..you know steven. you all know me. but none of you know me.

what's in a person's name?

to me, my name represents how other people know me and can refer to me. just a silly label like every other word. and like every other word, ever person forms their own concept over time depending on exposure.

i'm never being anyone. i'm always being me. it just depends on who you're perceiving me to be.

but i guess the question now is, "does me being me involve me acting differently when being referred to as different names?"..like does my being consist of my tendency to come off as different characters under different names? acting as would be expected of me depending on the name i'm being referred to as..

i'd say yes. people who know me as stevie are my close friends. they expect personal interaction. when i'm interacting with people who refer to me as stevie, i'm more comfortable with myself and relaxed in my environment. steven is who i am in half my classes and labs..the other half refer to me as steve. plus i only ever introduce myself as steve, so when people are conceptualizing my identity under the name steve i'm more apt to experience discomfort and seem more uptight.

i only ever be me. but in being me, i'm being whatever i'm being conceptualized as - stevie, steve, steven, or whatever people think of me as. so often i'm just a face with no name. who remembers names at parties. i sure don't. can't expect other people to.

so who am i being? i'm being whoever you see me as..whoever you know me to be

miPhone

I sit and think. What to do? I'd like to write. But what to write about..? And how to write with my computer screen no longer in commish..?

The answer to all of Life's problems: my iPhone.

So here I am now holding this thing between my two hands letting my thumbs bounce around this little horizontally-oriented keyboard. I've become a pretty quick typist with this thing over the years. My hands have really learned how to handle it. Kinda like learning to type on the keyboard (thank you aim). The iPhone has not only altered my motor skills. It has fundamentally changed who I am.

I am always becoming myself. Before I got my first iPhone in 2008 I had been living my life relatively content and satisfied with a computer at home and a motorola krzr in my pocket. I did not feel like there was anything missing or lacking. Nonetheless, I was ecstatic to get my first iPhone. I'd grown envious of the powers provided to my friends by their smartphones. So what was I to do with this new piece of equipment? Of course..go to the app store and get games!

There was a slew of free games that took advantage of a variety of the phone's capabilities downloaded and deleted on this phone. Only a few remained for more than a month. Now I'm left with the ones I liked most. It was a matter of time before I realized how extensive the app store really is with it's offerings. My favorite and most used apps are no longer the games. The best apps for me are those that have a function that benefits my doing and being. So my favorite apps vary functionally.

Pandora provides me with music.
Maps navigates for me.
Feedler brings me news.
Craigsphone connects me to goods and services.
Facebook is my most substantial online identity.
Mail is essential.
USAA let's me do all of my banking anywhere.
Calendar organizes the aspects of my life needing organization.
Clock keeps me tickin.
Camera captures moments and images.
Dictionary defines words.

I am me because of the things that I do. A person doesnt form a judgment of me based on my thoughts. We only know eachother through our action. This phone has changed my outlets of action and thus changed the way I act and live my life.

This raises some concerns for me. But I'm tired.
Let the dreams roll.

i facebook messaged mark zuckerberg just now..

..and this is what i said:

I don't know how to address this. I'm not really the most formal of people..especially on facebook. But I wanted to contact you and this is definitely the most simple form of communication for me. i am a student now. I like to think about thinking and how the nature of our environment impacts who we are. soo i'm doing a philosophy thesis on identity..how we conceptualize the identities of others and ourselves. I'm trying to lay out a more contemporary conceptualization of identity and facebook lies at the center of this for my peers at least. I'll be examining a number of facets of expression available on the internet.

The reason i'm messaging you:
you created this. i want to know the thoughts that drive the changes to the site. Facebook is an outlet of expression. It is constantly being redesigned to more naturally suit the users' interaction. if you'd be interested, i'd like to get some sort of interview with you. I haven't put anything together yet, but i wanted to just get on your radar by contacting you now - i don't even know if this is really you i guess. I'd really appreciate a response though.

alright so now a little more about me..
i'm 20. double major with cognitive science and philosophy. what i really care about is technology. i'll be going to grad school to do some sort of human-computer interaction or human factor and ergonomics or something. i'd like to make money working with mobile interface. the mobile computer has a variety of potential directions it could take in design. I want to have an impact on the direction. While i'm in college i am just trying to build my resume..starting a technology acknowledgment sorta club. totally a nerd, but not brilliant with computer code..never learned anythin except a lil java in intro computing. i am just trying to live life happily and do what's best for all. I think this thesis will definitely serve a purpose and i was hoping you'd like to share some of your thoughts with me.

thanks for taking the time to read this.

increase of action

here i go. posting for nobody. I'm finally trying to get involved with this blog. I'm not ready to share it though, so I don't have any visitors. I need this to have substance because I gave out my about.me to a summer internship i've applied for and am now susceptible to a background check. So i gotta up my internet image. I guess this post will give me a chance to think about internet identity...

I sit here procrastinating with this blog instead of writing my paper. I will be going to play pong relatively soon so I should not be doing this. But that doesn't matter. you won't be reading this tonight. There is no hurry for online static communication like this. I am a person leaving a footprint on the web of human communication (not to be confused with the recently declared web of robot communication). My identity is not anonymous but it isn't personal either. This is me expressing myself through my true internet self. This isn't the only outlet for me to express my true internet self..facebook, linkedin, tumblr, and youtube are all other sites that i use to represent myself truly - free of anonymity that the internet can sometimes offer. There are many other blogs and sites that I use solely to express myself anonymously. Those words may never ever be connected with my name.