nettime: SYNREAL SYSTEMS

[Konrad Becker <konrad@t0.or.at>]

                      SYNREAL SYSTEMS

                                                       

                Konrad Becker on the politics of cybernetic synformation 

Cybernetics blasts the conventional frame of science. Rules of control and
communication-mechanism refer not only to inanimate but animate Nature, the
connection between
          woMan and machine, biology and sociology, economy and politics. It
appears as connectivity, as the
          upwelling of a universal science of the interrelatedness of
symbols. A synthetic meta-system that
          questions: 

          "is God to Golem as man is to machine?" 
          (Norbert Wiener, God & Golem Inc., MIT Press 1962). 

Syntheticus is, according to the legend, the God of the outcasts that hovers
over stables, garbage dumps, and
backyards. This is a time where the electronic revolution has to make way
for biotechnological impulses. This quick
succession of technological turnovers with its formative implications on
culture and directed awareness is unique in
his-story. But whose story is it anyway?!

Already in the early days of Cybernetics there was speculation on advanced
bio-machine interfaces and Wiener wrote,

"it is conceptually possible for a human being to be sent over a telegraph
line," 
that is, straight into the electrocybernetic hybrid culture of mediafusion.
He indicates that a better substantiation of
data is prerequisite for application in social sciences and suggests further
biological and physiological studies. But
indeed this research has advanced drastically and through the networked data
of commerce and society the
requirements seem to have been met... More and more, computer-aided research
on biological circuits and on
systemcontrol provide data on the organization of mechanisms of society.

Everybody knows the impressive cybernetic prostheses of human limbs, yet to
what extent do these insights refer to
the realms of society, imag-I-nation and consciousness? Human beings are
code-pendant codependents in this
context, symbol-driven organisms. In order to establish an effective system
of control of human groups it is necessary
to manufacture consent and to form public opinion. Methods of creating
consent are based on disinformation and
extraintelligence. 100% pure industrial orange juice is really 101% juice --
the bonus lies in the juice of the squeezed
insects. There are rules which define the acceptable level of bugs,
mouse-droppings, and other contaminants, yet the
added value is the worm...

The double meaning of the word invention as a pure lie is well known and
rightly so; every form of creativity is seen as
a rather dubious occupation. Scientific researchers of distinction have
always seen themselves as discoverers. Not
only crazed inventors had a bad reputation. Even the well-off "creative
professionals" carry the stigma of decayed
monks. Advertisement messages are good examples of enhanced information, the
smart transformation of symbols is
revealing the nervus rerum of recurrent currents of currency. 
"Give me control over a nation's currency, and I care not who makes its laws" ,
a well known banker is said to have said and in economic theories the value
of human life is rendered in pork-belly
calculus. 

Universal Product Code (bar-code), telebanking and telecommuting are steps
toward the
glass-fiber isochronous economy. Technological and cultural transformations
always
triggered the formation of new power elites and substantial economical
shifts. Science
is always a means to an end. Information and know-how is the means, control
is the
end. Who are the robber-barons and warlords of information society? 
It seems like World War III, the info-war, is a covert undeclared war. 

Media in the message-mess age. 

Information can be manipulated or faked at many levels. It is not only the
message itself that can be tampered with.
Initially, the source for an information item may be masked or relabeled;
than, the routing and the placing of channels
and media can be subject to manipulation; and, finally, access of the
receiver may be restricted. Data-processing is
the silent weapon in an undeclared war. Social engineering, the analysis and
automatization of society is derived
from military operations research, the methodology of tactics and logistics.
The automatization of society works the
same way as the automatization of a meat-factory. The freedom of the
individual disappears as unspectacularly as a
popular illusionist spectacularly made the Statue Of Liberty disappear from
the New York harbor: she is miraculously
out of the frame of vision. 

          A folklorist example of traditional mindcontrol technology are the
zombies of Afro-Caribbean Voodoo
          cults. Through a routine of shock, drugs, deprivation- training
and nutrition, sociopaths (or those who
          were seen as such) were transformed to free-roaming workslaves,
the so-called Living Dead.
          Unfortunately, these zombies are hardly useful for a modern
household because the method implies
          serious damage to the higher functions of the brain. It is an
effect that many conventional
          dictatorships had to learn. Models of mindcontrol in centralized
linear systems have proven their
          instability to great length. The undervalued immaterial work in
contrast to material turnovers can
          backfire on the system. 
          In this context, the so-called abolition of slavery is most
probably the introduction of a subtle form of
generalized unfreedom. Likewise, as in a pseudo-secularization,
super-religious forms of person-related superstitions
are formed. With the help of superior methods of control, the
symbol-manipulative intelligence of the workforce may be
increased to meet the requirements of high quality production lines... 

The speeding-up of work processes through automatization demands a new speed
in decision making on all levels.
International business machines need people who can manipulate symbols on
different levels of abstraction and hardly
musclepower. (Just as the iron armor of the knights became temporarily a
leisurewear after their military use was
obsolete, so the posthumous culture of body-building overdeveloped.) Looking
for a natural example for the
mathematical form of a circle one immediately thinks of the wheel. The truth
is that the wheel is a "discovery", a
technological achievement. The technical instrumentarium of a civilization,
by default, leads to a prosthetic symbiosis
with the user. Abacus , knotted-string, eyeglasses, pocketwatch, musical
instrument or microcomputer - an imprint
on the deeper layers of the brainstem is produced, metaphors and semantics
are influenced... people talk to their
cars... 

Technological tools like RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing), Fuzzy
Logic, Multitasking or Virtual Reality open
up a reference-system that allows metaphorical-engineering beyond the
immediate context. It is not without some
irony that the subjuridical and unsovereign workmachines contribute to the
emancipation of their alien colleagues. 

It is a unique development of the postindustrial information-society that
all this leads
to a strange marriage between capital and intelligence. A certain amount of
chaos and
self-determination promises higher flexibility, shorter reaction-times and
better
adaptation for nonlinear systems. A targeted influence of the database
itself allows for
a subtle and far-reaching control over the individual. Style, tact, systems
of measures,
and other given rulers define the results by the measurement--the
observer-defined
Universe as "What You Measure Is What You Get " system. 

An important aspect for understanding control mechanisms is the concept
synchronized control and the theory of locked oscillators in phasespace,
groups of oscillators (i.e. systems with
periodic behavior) appearing in animate and inanimate nature. This principle
is found with the pacemaker-cells of the
heart, neural networks of the brain, the chirping of crickets and the
phenomenon of the periodic luminance of groups of
fireflies as well as in other frequent co-cycles. A breakthrough in the
theory of locked resonance-systems has been
brought about by computersimulation. The classical mathematical proof is
more and more aided or replaced by
graphical simulation. 

Means of transport such as legs, man, animal, or robot may be perceived as
oscillators. The human gait can be
understood as two synchronous oscillators in bi-phase. System behavior is
dependent on the bandwidth of
frequency-distribution patterns, that is, if the bandwidth in relation to
the phaselocking is large enough, the system
falls into incoherence... variance below a critical level yields spontaneous
synchronization. The synchronous phase
allows for minimal mutual force. To attenuate disturbances, dissipative
mechanisms and outer energy-sources are
needed to keep the oscillator within the limit-cycle. The spreading of
synchronization seeds and induction viruses is
achieved by cooperation (or groupforce, mobbing). Many biological periodic
systems are dependent on outside
impulses as, for instance, the diurnal cycle. Although synchronous behavior
spreads quickly through positive
feedback, oscillators whose frequency is differing too highly will stay
unsynchronized and may invite elimination. 

The two circuits of elemental control-fields are the economies of
affirmation and diversion. For example, to create
problems or needs and to provide a selection of solutions standardized
through a symbol-selection committee. Or to
provide artificial environments by menu-control which , watertight 'til
systemcrash, will be accepted by the
pattern-processing organisms as pasture is by cattle. The successful
principle of the menu, beyond the realms of
gastronomy, is the easy interaction with which it opens a view through
predefined windows. Is this where the
expression cooked-data is coming from? 

A menu-card is only a special form of a map, a symbolic orientation system,
as it is traditional subject of military
intelligence. Worldmaps have always been an instrument of political power.
Proportional distortions that come through
subjective projection of a 3-dimensional space onto the plane, have been
attributed with the aura of objectivity and
used for propagandistic purposes. The ways of life are getting flagged and
marked, because who would want to sail to
the end of the world and rise into the bottomless abyss... Maps offer an
abstracted view of the world, and of the group
that manufactures them. This is particularly obvious with very old maps. If
you want to know which way the wind is
blowing, you only have to look at the "center-of-the world" representation.
Galileo's solar-system wars are
propaganda wars. The file is still open. The sun has never set but the dawn
of empires is routine... 

Ambassadorial systems are highly effective inducers and the costs are
accepted. Even today, topographic maps are
processed and manipulated in details for strategic reasons. For the same
reason, the access to high resolution
satellite cameras is restricted. Seamless parquetry and non-local tiling of
the imaginary space as a telematic flaming
script menetekel. 

The instrumentarium of a geography of power implies the effectiveness of
separation and the drawing of borders.
Divide et impera. Organized crime and covert operations just as designated
activity potentials rely on split-brain
education and lobotomized specialization. Naturally, similarly structured
organizations like Mafia terrorist secret
serviced high-financed illegal political groups and occult secret lodges
repeatedly appear in the same field of
reference. Even the most naive media consumer noticed this proximity... Saxa
loquuntur... the stones are
speaking... Every element need only know its immediate field of action to
avoid control hierarchy strip-tease... the
dance of the veils of the cui bono... 

Ideally, as an ox, you know the way from pasture to stable, yet you
circle... unwittingly, milling flour for your masters!
Strategic control-mechanisms to dominate earth correspond to rules of
biological warfare and to the old techniques of
the hunters and herders. Secret collections of power-techniques, as in the
collection of the "36 Stratagems", have a
tradition in China dating thousands of years. The stratagems carry cute
names like "To borrow a corpse for the
return of the soul",
       or number 20 "To mar the water to catch the fish". The stratagem NR.
6 "To make noise in the east to
       attack in the west" could explain quite a few events during the so-
called cold war. The stratagem number
       7 "To create something from nothing" refers to a line in the Tao Te
Ching: " Things in this world originate
       from the being, the being originates from the non-being". These
sources define the core of warfare as the
       art of deception. An indirect approach is seen as the more successful
strategy and is preferred to direct
       confrontation. Categories of stratagems include veiling, pretending,
enclosure, stick-and-carrot and
       forehand achievement. Schopenhauer's "Eristic Dialectics" lists 36
rhetoric stratagems.
       (6y=1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8) In the old testament there is the saying:
"Through stratagems you should fight
       wars and victory comes through much planning". In the Geneva-added
protocol to the Haager
Landwar-regulations the accepted forms of stratagems like camouflage,
decoy-operations, and delusive information
(disinformation) are mentioned. The US Army-handbook "The Law of Land
Warfare" names the deceiving by wrong
orders, the use of enemy codes, slogans and signals as well as the targeted
wrong instruction and propaganda. This
means the attack is not pointed toward the enemy itself but to his ability
to move, his possibilities of choice and his
vitality. The operation is set at the sources of his natural and social
energy-supply, therefore the expression to
"Wasser abgraben" diverting of water supplies... 

The modern trapper is a situationist. His weapons are symbol-manipulation
and definition-transfer in situations in
which the victim is on autopilot... mouse with cheese... The control of
social groups is likewise achieved through the
sabotage of education and mental mobility as well as the manipulation of
emotions and self-definition through
overdosed junk-information but also through the redefinition of the past
(historical engineering) and jurisdiction.
Overspecialization is not only the most favored path to extinction for
biologists and anthropologists, but also the
survival technique of a prosperous control-class that is systematically
convinced that there is not enough for everyone.
The control of data on data is the most subtle and at the same time most
effective form of control. The art of omission
is not only a virtue of engineering science but also a power-tool and
mob-control GrisGris. The saying that the "pen
is mightier than the sword" neglects the fact that the scissors of
censorship are even more powerful. The
cosmographer and data-dadaist Charles Fort writes in The Book of the Damned: 

"science is a mutilated octopus. If its tentacles were not clipped to
stumps, it would feel its way into
disturbing contacts." 

The damned are the left-out, suppressed and excluded data. Their graves lie
at the
crossroads of Trivia, but when hell is full the dead walk the earth. The
procession of the
unprocessed data is the wild ghost-army in the horror-cabinet of exclusionism. 

Dies Irae! La vache qui rit! 

A unified perspective does not allow for depth perception and the
confirmation of relational
proportions and this is why human beings have ideally at least two eyes and
two ears. A
limited and given perspective allows for a multitude of special effects
illusions as they are
applied in movies but also the creating of "necessary illusions" in the
social group. 

When you keep hearing the same, you start hearing something else. This is
easily verified experimentally. But why is
it always the same picture when you see constantly something else? A
diabolical pain of choice in the multiple choice
mindfuck-o-crazy. The information channels are glutted with sticky corporate
entertainment and the emotional pest of
the sociological drama-trauma in the magic circle of a hypnotic definition
of the end of the world. The diversified
amok-info-entertainment is a paradoxically phase-locking equilibrated
paralysis in a multi-bind-deadlock coma...
But how do you get rid of the sticky stuff? In a strange contrast to the
medial presence of washing-powder and
household detergents (not merely clean but pure) and the concept of
"immaculate conception" the subject of
brainwash is very much taboo. How can permanent brainstroke be avoided in an
environment where the simple "enjoy
yourself" is a political provocation? 

Is super-user online-help, the handbook of the human organism, classified?
The competition to massproduction of
impression and expression? Subjective science and meta-iconoclastic
guerrilla can take advantage from an alliance
with increasingly intelligent machines through the display of
multidimensional interrelations of transhuman reality.
Urban ghostdance crackdown, tarantismus technicus as synagoga satanica in
communal banishing regulations? 
Fight for your right to party! 

The display of power is, on the long run, quasi-identical to the exercise of
power. For the presentation of power, a
B-movie actor is good enough, the altar boys of telepathos. 

        To veil the powerstructures, a factual or pretended self-implication
is a well-tested tool. The transferance
        of culpability onto quasi-anonymous authorities is well documented
and leads to bizarre crimes as
        experimental torture in laboratories has shown. Battlefields and
slaughterhouses get their supply through
        this strategy of authority-transfer. The global think positive
license to kill local.

        Not just since the days the scapegoat of the demon Azazel was chased
into the desert, the broken
        symmetry of good and bad has been used for the mobilizing of the
masses. Symmetries have always
        been a starting point in the deduction of laws of nature and
cosmogonies. The emerging of structure is
        equivalent to the breaking of symmetries. When snowflakes emerge
from totally rotational symmetric
steam, the rotational symmetry collapses. This is related to the
phaselocking-phenomenon in groups of oscillators. A
magnet too breaks the rotational symmetry of iron-atoms by providing
direction. Magnetism means long-range order.
Like ironfilings, social structures group in the fieldlines of cultural
dominants that act like abstract ferromagnets on the
social field of the restless many. 

Fear and longing 
have been analyzed as prime human motivations and have been used by the
socio-techniques of the
phantom-captains for thought-control in the new slaveships. Soldiers of
fortune of abstract monopolies play the
keyboard of fear and longing mostly on the black keys. The manipulation of
supply in the infocalyptic age of technical
reproduction, the excess of fear in the political womb of demons as a
chronic mainspring restlessness of the qliphotic
pseudomorph baby-substitution clinic. In the imagination lies the
battlefield of social engineering over the
psychocybernetic coordinates of the world models. A battle over the
subliminal abrogation of power over the definition
of enjoyment. Attraction and repulsion are forces that transcend the octaves
of reality, from electronics to bio-survival
reality, from social to galactic space. From the observation of galaxies and
their inherent gravitational forces the
conclusion has been drawn that the universe contains vast amounts of
invisible, so-called dark matter. According to
this theory, a minimum of 80 % of mass in universe is cold, dark and
undetectable with optical- or radio telescopes. It
is assumed that the invisible mass that is surrounding us consists of
so-called Strange Matter. 

Mass-society in the magnetic field as an induction-machine. Just as the
dynamic of the social field is used for
transactional profits. There are extensive theoretical calculations how
through intergalactic mining-cars the
gravitational energy of black holes could be exploited. But who is
exploiting the attractors of complex biological
resonance circuits? 

The Moloch or Baal-Hammon have been supplied industrial style with blood
sacrifices. To
secure their "positive" influence on the fertility and luck in war, children
and cattle and other
humans have been thrown in the sacrificial pan. This obsessive and
predictable behavior of
some of those god-races reminds of the mechanics of Luna-park attractions.
In many cultures
the gods show the quality of machines or archetypically demented robots in
the image of the
human. The concepts on the effectiveness of evocations and prayer-wheels
point toward a
machine system as well. It is an open secret, that priesthood is gaining
through the sacrifices
to the gods. Votive offerings are collected after the show and that is how
the temples became
the first banks through the sheer amount of precious metals they had
stocked. A symbiotic
machinegod-mansystem of mutual dependency of victims and perpetrator. For
one, the role of
intermediation gives this group the power of interpretation. The
interpreters of points of
reference are the navigators and control-artists. The royal astrologers are
at the
steering-wheel and practice the telefacturing of conventionalized
hallucinations. Techniques of experimentally induced
obsessive bonding are traditionally an area of xenology. The objectivated
interpretation of the oracle is the key to
power that is defended against any competition. In nomina numina. (The
ambiguity of the oracle is only made up with
political declarations or modern law texts. Accordingly the need for
interpretation is very high.) Non-authorized
ecstasy-cults, that hold the heretical opinion that every man has at first
the very same amount of access or
non-access to other contents of consciousness, have been massively
persecuted through all times. 

But not only the question to what extent the gods are installed for interest
groups arises, but much more, where the
reference points of the underlying ideas and overlayered hierarchies are
positioned in the synreal system of
coordinates. The middle of the world of the dark subterranean gods of the
plutocrats, whose systems of
voodoo-economy have long transcended the mathematical foundations of their
system of belief, the center of earth in
Dante's Divina Commedia, the eternal ice of Lucifer's loins. 

A handy argument against the effectiveness of social control-mechanisms is
Murphy's law. But overstable and
dynamic, highly complex cybernetic systems use multiple feedback loops. The
efficiency of these filters may be
compared with the control functions of a biological organism explicable in
terms of relations of scale and dimension. A
model in which the most diverse local conspiracies in the
political-military-religious-academic realm weave together in
an incomprehensible metaconspirative holistic system. Then the sublevel
connections of the cults of the rational to the
fantastic massacres of reason in the cults of the irrational seem only to be
two sides of a coin. The extra-dimensional
mesmerizing of the dataflux. 

Very real, more real, less real? Synreal! The self-similar structure of the
God & Golem Inc. scenario is growing in
complexity the more levels are reached. But which secret golemgods rule the
citadel of definition? 

PUBLIC NETBASE                        Konrad   Becker
http://www.t0.or.at                          becker@t0.or.at

Institute for New Culture-Technologies / t0
Museumsquartier  Vienna     Messepalast
Messeplatz 1     A-1070      Vienna  Austria

*Art in the age of biocybernetic self-reproduction*

Tel.: + 43 1 - 522 18 34    Fax.: + 43 1 - 504 43 84


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