I would think there would be clear boundaries of where neural networks
interface but at the very least communication could be much more rapid.

My soapbox
Http://www.victusspiritus.com

- basic collective platforms (such as Facebook, Reddit etc) are allowing individuals to connect with other like-minded individuals thus allowing for greater sharing and generation of new ideas

- eventually I think the end-game is a neural-link… basically where we are able to connect every human neuron to every other neuron in the world (would require nanotechnology)

- however I think as the mobile web trend matures and we all begin being more intimately and always connected, I think we'll see mobile add-ons in the form of tech-glasses (or HUD overlays). Throw a simple brain scanning device into these, much like the commercial versions … and you can already start sharing brain activity (not at the neural level, but good enough to make telepathy a reality).

The greatest thing about switching off and looking at things from a distance is seeing the intelligence of the whole. I now look at the work of Anabelle Seldorf and you can see how rigor has contributed both to her sense of architecture and who she personally is and I can see it.

http://www.pointclickhome.com/decorating_design...

Well, at least I know from this discussion that I am not a philosopher and more to the point, not a wrestler – in both preoccupations I would be whacked and totally destroyed. Life for me this year isn't about what I can or can't do, it is about what I appreciate.

I appreciate having seen this discussion emerge about rigor, for I can see in people like Arnold Schwarzenegger that all forms of rigor take a lot of heart, a lot of sweat equity and a lot of drill-down time, and just like the happiness discussion at AVC right now, rigor like happiness is a lifetime achievement award and not simply the Ali shuffle of intellectual boxing

I am still taking baby steps with Descartes, but I am beginning to think more of uncertainty and Descartes focuses on certainty as a mathematical form – so this reminds me more so that I must remain well away from philosophy classes and all wrestling or boxing rings.

[Em]

Dave you have taken my observations and applied them to the world you are familiar with, but I write this because this is the way I write, for I think out aloud and in the process I have something to come back to. This is not a public philosophical argument it is a personal life improvement.

I would have responded to in January but I need to respond now simply because your response needled and agitated me, and that is my condition, I do not attempt to ascribe this to who you are as a person, and I pretty sure that you are decent and upstanding human being.

In writing this tome I acknowledge my own failure here as a rational being because this reveals my own witless impatience, and further it makes me realize that it is this impatience of mine that is that which requires rigor, not the study of a subject, idea or thing.

I could not think of anything more mortifying than have my cranium rigorously exposed by a classroom full of philosophy students. Yet finding a great professor is like finding a great wife, when such a marriage works it changes one's very life but when the relationship lacks personal or mutual fit, the resulting relationship can be viewed as a relationship nightmare.

You are quite fortunate to speak of a meaningful relationship with a professor (I respect that), but in such a nightmare where we often do not, then personal discovery or even wisdom is replaced by translation.

Instead of trusting my own intelligence to understand Descartes as a human being, I am then led to Descartes as others struggle and fight over the interpretations of his body of work or even political implication. That does not mean philosophical rigor is unnecessary, but that Descartes first and foremost in my own eyes is a real human being.

Rigor is always going to be important to people whether it is applied to the pursuit of universal education, professional excellence or even the horror of slavery, and in the latter case I sometimes wonder why the word Mortis should be prefaced by the word Rigor, but then my good sense tells me that this only applies whenever rigor becomes a form of human conditioning; then we are defined or governed by some rule of societal conduct, but the benefit of rigor must be weighed up against the willful submission or subjugation to some greater authority.

Such rigor IMHO is not a blessing but a form of violence. Anytime we respond impatiently we too engage this silent violence, what I need to engage now is silent intelligence (and there is rigor in that wisdom too).

Descartes is a personal discovery for me, in that regard he is an online friend rather than a philosopher king. I have not yet found personable writing from Spinoza or Leibniz that would make of them my new found “friends”.

This new found friendship of mine with a dead philosopher I have found is so far richly rewarding and even exceeds some conversations with living people. I do not speak for anybody here other than my own life goals and even in the first chapter of the “Discourses of Method” where Descartes writes:

“My present design, then, is not to teach the method which each ought to follow for the right conduct of his reason, but solely to describe the way in which I have endeavored to conduct my own.”

http://www.literature.org/authors/descartes-ren...

Here I see Descartes at that particular point in his life, doing what I am now doing at my own particular point in life (as a fellow human being). There is a synergy there that I have not come across in several thousand lines of online dialogue.

Maybe I should disappear in the safe haven of a classroom but why do this when here I find a dead person (Descartes) whose writing I find full of life, full of vitality that is personally nutritious to me. There may be toxin and poison in his writing but as of yet, I have not swallowed or drunk it.

If philosophical rigor can improve my conduct than I shall certainly pursue it, but right now I am captivated by the personalized way Descartes approaches his writing while in no way whatsoever wanting to be a philosophy major myself.

I have no idea if Descartes will turn me into a better entrepreneur, or a citizen or even a philosophy major, but why should I curb my enthusiasm for him, for it is this very enthusiasm that I have hitherto been lacking. I write this to renew my enthusiasm, to renew my vigor (not rigor) but not to provoke the madding crowd (e.g. a classroom full of philosophy students).

Perhaps the best reward of this enthusiasm is if it changes me as a person to expose the essence of my wisdom, rather than my own human flaws, after all when I link to this, I am being a discontent myself for we are what we may think others are (at least we have the same given source of universal humanity):

http://www.slideshare.net/deg511/engineering-ri...

I can see this as my ego speaking rather than an emotion free and logical response, not that I want to be sanitized as a human being, but there is an angst and rebelliousness in me that is tamed when I begin to read the “Discourse on Method” – and if by reading this, I tame my own wild horse nature, then I do a smarter thing than attending a class of people whose purpose is not to undergo such a personal examination.

(Note: Interesting that Robert Cialdini name reappears in David E. Goldberg's excellent Slideshare linked above !)

To spend my life in a rigor that builds social status or credibility, for then right there I eschew this social standing, I reject it and maybe I doom myself in the process, but the way Descartes writes, may correct my own ills and wayward nature. Maybe it is this clip in Good Will Hunting that burns my soul, but if it burns my soul, then it is my own responsibility to fix:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymsHLkB8u3s

I know one thing for sure, such personal and inward self-examination is something I will never find in any kind of academic classroom and to “Know Thyself” requires me to express but the world I live in I am sure quickly finds its calling in opposition, the next step in my own life is learning how to meet this opposition. (but that is another life class at a future time, right now my contention is, I don't have one).

[Em]

PS Now please allow me slide to gently into the night into my “silent intelligence” I assure you, this is the rigor I most need.

10 Dec Addendum
The comments about Farmers & Fisherman just add a little special something to the video link above – these comments ensure my faith in the human race – the permanency that is an excellent sense of humor:
http://www.amazon.com/Farmers-Fishermen-Centuri...

Dave you have taken my observations and applied them to the world you are familiar with, but I write this because this is the way I write, for I think out aloud and in the process I have something to come back to. This is not a public philosophical argument it is a personal life improvement.

I would have responded to in January but I need to respond now simply because your response needled and agitated me, and that is my condition, I do not attempt to ascribe this to who you are as a person, and I pretty sure that you are decent and upstanding human being.

In writing this tome I acknowledge my own failure here as a rational being because this reveals my own witless impatience, and further it makes me realize that it is this impatience of mine that is that which requires rigor, not the study of a subject, idea or thing.

I could not think of anything more mortifying than have my cranium rigorously exposed by a classroom full of philosophy students. Yet finding a great professor is like finding a great wife, when such a marriage works it changes one's very life but when the relationship lacks personal or mutual fit, the resulting relationship can be viewed as a relationship nightmare.

You are quite fortunate to speak of a meaningful relationship with a professor (I respect that), but in such a nightmare where we often do not, then personal discovery or even wisdom is replaced by translation.

Instead of trusting my own intelligence to understand Descartes as a human being, I am then led to Descartes as others struggle and fight over the interpretations of his body of work or even political implication. That does not mean philosophical rigor is unnecessary, but that Descartes first and foremost in my own eyes is a real human being.

Rigor is always going to be important to people whether it is applied to the pursuit of universal education, professional excellence or even the horror of slavery, and in the latter case I sometimes wonder why the word Mortis should be prefaced by the word Rigor, but then my good sense tells me that this only applies whenever rigor becomes a form of human conditioning; then we are defined or governed by some rule of societal conduct, but the benefit of rigor must be weighed up against the willful submission or subjugation to some greater authority. Such rigor IMHO is not a blessing but a form of violence. Anytime we respond impatiently we too engage this silent violence, what I need to engage now is silent intelligence (and there is rigor in that wisdom too).

Descartes is a personal discovery for me, in that regard he is an online friend rather than a philosopher king. I have not yet found personable writing from Spinoza or Liebnitz that would make of them my new found “friends”.

This new found friendship of mine with a dead philosopher I have found is so far richly rewarding and even exceeds some conversations with living people. I do not speak for anybody here other than my own life goals and even in the first chapter of the “Discourses of Method” where Descartes writes:

“My present design, then, is not to teach the method which each ought to follow for the right conduct of his reason, but solely to describe the way in which I have endeavored to conduct my own.”

http://www.literature.org/authors/descartes-ren...

Here I see Descartes at that particular point in his life, doing what I am now doing at my own particular point in life (as a fellow human being). There is a synergy there that I have not come across in several thousand lines of online dialogue.

Maybe I should disappear in the safe haven of a classroom but why do this when here I find a dead person (Descartes) whose writing I find full of life, full of vitality that is personally nutritious to me. There may be toxin and poison in his writing but as of yet, I have not swallowed or drunk it.

If philosophical rigor can improve my conduct than I shall certainly pursue it, but right now I am captivated by the personalized way Descartes approaches his writing while in no way whatsoever wanting to be a philosophy major myself.

I have no idea if Descartes will turn me into a better entrepreneur, or a citizen or even a philosophy major, but why should I curb my enthusiasm for him, for it is this very enthusiasm that I have hitherto been lacking. I write this to renew my enthusiasm, to renew my vigor (not rigor) but not to provoke the madding crowd (e.g. a classroom full of philosophy students).

Perhaps the best reward of this enthusiasm is if it changes me as a person to expose the essence of my wisdom, rather than my own human flaws, after all when I link to this, I am being a discontent myself (if not a malcontent) for we are what we may think others are:

http://www.slideshare.net/deg511/engineering-ri...

I can see this as my ego speaking rather than an emotion free and logical response, not that I want to be sanitized as a human being, but there is an angst and rebelliousness in me that is tamed when I begin to read the “Discourse on Method” – and if by reading this, I tame my own wild horse nature, then I do a smarter thing than attending a class of people whose purpose is not to undergo such a personal examination.

To spend my life in a rigor that builds social status or credibility, for then right there I eschew this social standing, I reject it and maybe I doom myself in the process, but the way Descartes rights, may correct my own ills and wayward nature. Maybe it is this clip in Good Will Hunting that burns my soul, but if it burns my soul, then it is my own responsibility to fix:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymsHLkB8u3s

I know one thing for sure, such personal and inward self-examination is something I will never find in any kind of academic classroom and to “Know Thyself” requires me to express but the world I live in I am sure quickly finds its calling in opposition, the next step in my own life is learning how to meet this opposition. (but that is another life class at a future time, right now my contention is, I don't have one).

[Em]

PS Now please allow me to gently into the night into my “silent intelligence” I assure you, this is the rigor I most need.

My fondest memories of philosophy in school were from my metaphysics course, and a handful of lectures I sat in for a friends philosophy of time class. But in neither of them did I feel as if the frameworks were closed or solved by the readings and discussions/papers.

It's the rigor, not the label/location I'm referring to. It can happen in a Viennese coffee shop, in your basement, wherever. But — no offense to Emri — if someone started airily speculating about Descartes and entrepreneurship in a well-taught philosophy class, he'd get called on it and asked to explicate his point in rigorous fashion. And when he couldn't, the discussion would get back on track.

Real philosophy (i.e., that which Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz engaged in) requires rigor of the sort that is rarely found in non-academic settings. “Philosophy” in the colloquial sense is another animal entirely.