The Okal Rel Universe in evolution and in the world.

 

I got a little long winded at the 15 minute presentation and got through only the first half of what I had prepared to present at my actual talk, during the July 1-3 intr-disciplinary.net conference. I wasn't the only one challenged by the short time frame (which I thoroughly approved of!) but felt a bit chagrined because the first half of the paper is "all about me". That is, it explores how my life experience brought me to the conclusion identity is central to the two big Good Things I care about: the integrity to be ethical and the ability to 'soul touch' others. After that I explain how Amel represents a thought experiment in identity-resilience and why an approach to problem solving I call 'naked virtuality' might be useful in fields other than authorship. But people can read all about it if they want the rest of it. Arriving at identity as core to the Good Life was important. I've got more pictures from the cyber3 conference, Vision of Humanity in Cyberspace celebrating the very interesting people I met there and places I saw. When David gets back, he'll do me an event page for it.

Draft Paper Below

DRAFT copy of Character as Virtual Reality Experiment in Identity by Lynda Williams (PDF)

Labels: academic paper, Amel, Appearances, Identity, interdisciplinary.net, Lynda Williams

posted by Lynda at 07:49   0 comments permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments links to this post

 
Here's a shot of me in the dining room at Mansfield College, Oxford, where I gave a paper on Amel as a virtual reality experiment in identity for interdisciplinary.net conference Visions of Humanity in Cyberculture, Cyberspace and Science Fiction. Don't I look dignified! I look pretty goofey in other shots. There's a thumb nail sketch of my life in there somewhere. I thought the room looked a lot like I imagined the Breakfast Room in Green Hearth, except the Breakfast Room has just the one big table and would be smaller than any dining hall expected to feed a whole college of students. On the whole, Mansfield College itself was a pocket university and a step back in time which had the air of being whisked into the twenty-first century unprepared. It was nice.

Labels: interdisciplinary.net, Lynda Williams, Mansfield College

posted by Lynda at 07:31   0 comments permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments links to this post

 
Back from Mansfield College, Oxford, where I gave a paper at the interdisciplinary.net conference on Visions of Humanity. Met interesting people I will introduce, here, as I review my memories with the help of pictures now on the camera David has with him in the Isle of Wight. Told people about the Okal Rel Universe. Experienced the charm and peculiarity of being in an old, old place. Volunteered to be part of interdisciplinary.net in some capacity or another in the future. And clarified my own mission as a writer in the process of writing the draft paper although my experience in presenting it reminded me of my first attempt at writing Second Contact, the original working title for what became the The Courtesan Prince), where I tried to squish the whole saga into one book. The paper will have to be reduced and focused more tightly for the purposes of publication in e-format which will be a useful exercise in precision. But I will use the ideas I got in touch with by writing it in other ways, too.

Labels: interdisciplinary.net

posted by Lynda at 05:49   0 comments permalink comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments links to this post