Because I sense that you were attempting to portray the weekend accurately, I would like to correct one inaccuracy I noted in your report. It's in the Paolo Soleri link from your main page, titled "The Spiritual Atheism of Paolo Soleri"

You wrote, "Cognitive psychologist and computer analyst Ron Anastasia ran even further with these ideas. The marriage of biological and computer evolution will allow our race to eventually create god-like beings. Theoretically, these beings would be able to speed up their computations by which they experience reality to such a degree that they would have unlimited subjective time, living an eternity even in the face of a collapsing universe."

That's a fine summary of what I was saying, though in fairness, these ideas are David Deutsch's (see below), not my own.

Your next two sentences are where the inaccuracy creeps in:

1) "However, this idea of recreating God clearly ran beyond Soleri's idea of human empowerment."

Actually, Paolo's thinking is very much aligned with what I was saying. See, for example, his book Omega Seed, An Eschatological Hypothesis (New York: Anchor/Doubleday, 1981). A quick perusal of the transcript of an interview I did with him in early September, and the enclosed conclusion to his unpublished 'Esthe-quity' paper will confirm this.

2) "This sounds like a very serious theology," Soleri said. "Theology has a cruel and nasty history."

Paolo was referring in this quote not to my comments on Deutsch's book or the Omega Point hypothesis, but to the belief espoused by many of the panelists during the 'Homo Carbonis - Homo Siliconis panel,' that humans might soon be replaced by artificial sentiences of our own creation, ranging from sentient quantum chips to a self-aware internet, and that this would be a good thing.

I've discussed Paolo's feelings about theologies in detail with him. He has a deep aversion to any animistic philosophy that posits an already existing level of spirit or god. He observes that when this idea arises, some humans claim special access to these higher levels, and then set up institutional hierarchies based on their supposed 'divine' guidance. All manner of terrible suffering has obviously been the consequence of such theologies.

Paolo says that his Omega Seed hypothesis is not a theology; that is why he calls it an eschatological hypothesis. He specifically rejects the idea of an already existing God, but holds open the contingent possibility that life in the universe may be able to eventually evolve to a level of technological prowess that will enable the creation of a God-like being at the time of the cosmological 'Big Crunch,' the singularity point when our universe collapses into its own black hole. It is this idea which has recently become scientifically respectable among cosmologists such as Dr. Freeman Dyson of Princeton's Institute for Advanced Studies, and Dr. David Deutsch of Oxford's Quantum Computation and Cryptography Group.

The point that I was making in moderating this panel was that Paolo's philosophical ideas (as distinct from his architectural ones) have been marginalized during the past 30 years by the reductionist and instrumentalist views held by most orthodox scientists. Any philosophy which posits a cosmic meaning for life has been held in low regard by the intellectual authorities of the day.

Recently, however, an increasing number of very credible scientists have begun to question these assumptions. I am not referring here to the spate of "new physics" articles popular in new age circles.

The major example I mentioned in my introduction to the morning panel was the recent book The Fabric of Reality, The Science of Parallel Universes - and Its Implications, by the brilliant Oxford quantum physicist David Deutsch , whose papers on quantum computation have laid the foundation for that field. Paraphrasing from the handout I prepared for the 'Homo Carbonis - Homo Siliconis panel,' "Deutsch argues that the four main strands of contemporary scientific theory and philosophy - quantum physics, evolution, computation, and epistemology - remain incomplete explanations of how the universe works. He shows that, when these four strands are considered together, a new unified level of explanation for the nature of reality emerges, one that is objective and comprehensible and in which human actions and ideas play profound roles." Deutsch says that this new understanding is our current deepest scientific theory of 'the fabric of reality' and we should take it seriously.

What is this new level of explanation? Deutsch says "I believe that the *omega -point theory* [emphasis added] deserves to become the prevailing theory of the future of spacetime until and unless it is experimentally (or otherwise) refuted. (Experimental refutation is possible because the existence of an omega point in our future places certain constraints on the condition of the universe today.)"

Why did I bring this all up at the Paradox Seminar? Not at all as a provocative idea to challenge Paolo with, but to point out that Paolo's philosophical ideas are now back in the center of credible scientific discourse. I believe he is a remarkable visionary whose deep insights into the sense and purpose of reality have been ahead of their time.

Why is this important? Because Paolo's contributions to architecture and urban planning, what he calls his 'Principles of Arcology,' derive rigorously from the fundamental postulates of his Omega Seed philosophy; e.g. his theory of Miniaturization-Complexification-Duration or MCD.

I believe that perhaps the main reason why Paolo's arcological ideas in general, and the Arcosanti urban laboratory experiment in particular, have not garnered more support is that his philosophical insights that provide a profound context and meaning for his architectural ideas have not been taken seriously by our culture.

I am hopeful that, now that the Omega Seed hypothesis about the ultimate purpose and destiny of life and intelligence in the universe has become scientifically credible, so will the rest of Paolo Soleri's profound contributions to human culture.

For example, Paolo is warning us that we need to develop a rigorous theory of morality and ethics if we are to avoid what he calls a potentially 'horrendous' split between humanity and the synthetic sentiences we may be creating in the near future. He recently said, "I have very personal feelings about it, because the idea of a reality which is darkness, which is the reality of the artificial intelligence, it gives me, ... really, I can't take it. It's an example of what artificial intelligence will produce for us. The eyes will be irrelevant ... Beholding ... there is no beholding the light and forms ... So that's something that scares me."

.. I would very much appreciate it Malcolm, if you could somehow clear up this inaccuracy about Paolo's philosophy. I can only hope that you will take it upon yourself to follow up on the references above, and that you will come to see, in your own mind, why this is important.

Sincerely yours,

Ron Anastasia

p.s. Btw, the standard way of referring to the location for the event is simply 'Arcosanti,' not 'The' Arcosanti.

enc.
-------
Malcolm Maclachlan responded cordially to my email, and worked with his editor to correct the factual errors I pointed out re Paolo's philosophy. His corrections are now posted at the TechWeb site, with updated pointers. I appreciate his journalist integrity.
~Ron
--------

Omega Seed/Esthe-quity does not come under the banner of the postulate of objectivity inasmuch as it is the fruit of creation endlessly incarnating itself by way of space-time, but perhaps it is generated "under its spell." Mona Lisa is objectively an engrossment of Reality, but it is also the product of a highly subjective process attaining the universal, anguish made into the esthetic.

Raiding the Big Bang-Big Crunch savage beast, Man, the love-burdened animal, iconizes desirability. Desirability must have "foreverness" as its target. The only coherent chance for this is in self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency is nowhere but in the totality of Reality.

Reality is in being, the past, engrossed moment by moment by space-time, the present. The present is the author of becoming. The becoming is under the spell of a series of agencies, starting with determinism ending in will, through the stages of probabilism, improbabilism, opportunism and the Love Project.

The feasibility afforded to those agencies is increasingly dependent on Complexity, Miniaturization and Duration. Duration is the self-beholding of Reality. At a final moment, the Big Crunch, such duration is omniscient and defines the Omega Seed stance, resurrectional, total recall.

The incrementation of self-beholding afforded by the Complexity-Miniaturization- Duration paradigm is exemplar, if utterly fragmentary, in the Urban Effect as it has developed to the present. Ideally, the Urban Effect is the epitome of integral, active awareness, total recall, memory..."The City of Light," the Omega Seed in its "logical" denouement.

For all the above agencies, events and projects it is imperative that no mandate or predestination vitiate the labor they are engaged in, the creational evolution of Reality. "True" novelty can suffer no injunctions from an exterior a priori agency or authority, God and still be auto-generating.

As for "God within," it is only a euphemism for the never-abating novelty that space-time "conceives" and generates as living stuff in becoming. As space-time becomes more and more, axiality is revealing itself via the will seeking Omega Seed, Esthe-quity.

Omega Seed/Esthe-quity is the "end product" of a trans-ecological quest. It comprehends ecology, it is not comprehended by it. Ecology is proto-Omega Seed/Esthe-quity. Ecology is in the domain of probabilism-opportunism. Omega Seed/Esthe-quity is in the eschatological domain.

The "salvation" of the ecological reality is only available via eschatological transfiguration. Resurrection can only be found in total and complete recall, without exception in any detail, of all "ecologies" through such transfiguration. Tigers and lambs, ferns and maple trees, roses and whales, maggots and humans will "enjoy" resurrection or will forever be lost in the void of the meaningless.

- end -

Coco Conn

Thank you for including me in the Paradox program. My interest is to follow the evolution of the Arcosanti urban design program as it includes an expanding community of visitors and co-constructors. Young people the world over have become more aware and concerned about the future of their cities as well as the global distribution of resources. An online VRML based architectural environment designed to accept annotation and model contribution would be a powerful portal for the inclusion of all parallel universes.

Virtual city building is an activity that especially engages young people. What better way to influence their imaginations then to partner with them as architects of future online environments?

As an aside, my dealings with Online Building and Safety inspectors have been sparce to date.

Coco

Michael Gosney

A NEW PLATFORM FOR NEW INTERSECTIONS

The primary goal of the Paradox Seminar was to initiate a dialogue between Paolo Soleri and the Arcosanti community, and representatives of the cyberspace field.

Following this basic intention, the conference had a few more specific objectives. One, we wanted to present Paolo's modest plan for a new kind of workshop program at Arcosanti, focused on the construction of the Teilhard de Chardin Complex, a "neo-monastic internship" involving both hard labor (the concrete reality) and soft labor (study, discourse, and on-line activities). "Cybernauts" are the sought-after participants in the program, who might also lend a digital hand to the development of the Virtual Arcosanti Model, or contribute to the center's philosophical research, exploring such topics as the complexification of space, or the resurrection of all Being at the end of time, or the moral parameters of synthetic sentience.

Another objective was the establishment of a non-commercial cyberspace conference that would help bring together a cross-disciplinary philosophical dialogue focused on the intersections of digital media, arcology, and human evolution.

Finally, Paradox brought a touchdown at Arcosanti of millennium fever, the celebratory ritual trance dance movement borne of techno music and global underground rave culture.

The planning and organization of the conference was immensely pleasureable. It had a life of its own almost immediately. It took serious effort, but often seemed effortless. It was modestly attended; it was just the right size, just the right people. at just the right time.

We succeeded in meeting all of the above-described objectives. In fact, most everyone I have spoken with agrees that the intelligence and energy gathered at this inaugural Paradox Seminar was palpable. It was a fruitful and enjoyable experience, even transformational, according to some attendees. Our nascent platform is now established.

Thanks to everyone whose intent and care and hard work contributed to a remarkable, landmark event.

--Michael Gosney
Paradox Seminar Director

Marcos Novak

Here are some thoughts I'd like to share with everyone.

* Sim-Arcology. Paolo's ideas need to be disseminated more widely and more dynamically. The present site is very useful, but it is still rather touristic. Browsing through Paolo's books, I was struck as much by his diagrams as by his written ideas and the designs of his arcologies. The diagrams respresent a living system - something that should be presented as an active simulation with real-time inputs. Sim-Arcology. Two models can be made, one for the American Dream as it is and one for Paolo's alternative. The sustainability of each can then be examined on a moment-by-moment basis. If the resources to do this are lacking at present, the least that can be done is that the diagrams can be cast into http and hyperlinked, so that a visitor to the site can follow their interconnections.

* Virtual Arcologies and Digital Communities: Paolo's ideas about the physical city are as pertinent as ever. However, his ideas were never just about the built - there is a much larger intellectual and philosophical ambition at work here, as this weekend aptly demonstrated. In addition to the physical arcologies, Paolo's ideas must be applied to the the virtual world we are building. I am not speaking of making walkthroughs of potential physical arcologies, though this too is necessary, I am proposing that the principles that guide the design of the physical be brought to bear on the design of the virtual. At present we are bringing the worst of the physical into cyberspace. Nothing describes cyberspace as is it developing better than the notion of the 'strip-mall' - and endless proliferation of small and not-so-small commercial interests with no larger goal in mind than the hijacking of attention through loudness. There is an assumption that, because it is spatially unlimited, cyberspace must sprawl forever outward. This assumption can be questioned by the disciplines of miniaturization, complexification, duration: a better cyberspace can be produced if we realize that we need the urban effect in virtual as much as in physical space. Paolo's proposal for Space Arcologies may be the perfect place to start. I am proposing that Paolo and the Arcosanti community write a new chapter to the ongoing story of arcological thinking.

* Arcologies and Transarchitectures. The idea of transarchitectures is intended to convey a conjoining of the physical and the virtual on many levels, just as the idea of living at an arcology brings together aspects of a discipline of physical labor with the pursuit of a rigorous intellectual and spiritual life. The ideals of Arcosanti are admirable and need to be presented to the world not only as critiques but as positive proposals. The world is as it is because its components solve problems that people would like to see solved. The solutions are not optimal and are often harmful, but the way to persuade people of their errors is not to castigate them but to lead by example and to articulate exactly and point-by-point how new solutions can be had that are indeed better than the old. Of course, the best way to do this is to engage new possibilities - where no pattern or habit has taken hold - and to show how they can be appraoched in more sane and enlightened ways. At present, our conception of space has changed radically. What can Arcosanti propose regarding the sane use of a spatial continuum that goes from the physical to the virtual and back? If there are cities in cyberspace, how should they interface to Arcosanti and to our other cities? If space is made intelligent through ubiquitous computation, communications, pervasive embedded sensors and effectors, the global positioning system, augmented reality, and so on, how should we build?

* Give and Take: Teilhard De Chardin Cloister and Residency . I find the proposal of being able to spend part of my day working physically and part of it working virtually in a place such as Arcosanti very attractive. However, I suspec t that most of the people Arcosanti would like to attract will find it difficult to disengage from their professional ecosystem long enough to do this, especially if it means a drop in productivity in their area of expertise. Things move very quickly and it is not difficult to fall behind and have to scramble to catch up. The Paradox proposal as it stands seems to be much clearer about what it is demanding than about what it is giving in return - however altruistically the proposal is to be taken. It will take a long time to build the physical cloister, so whatever benefits are to be gained once it is built , they will not be available to the people who build it. To promise a T1 connection is to gloss over the issue. More detail is needed to make this a workable proposal. For example, how will this place be equipped? Is the proposal itself sustainable? Nothing becomes obsolete faster than high technology, so the main paradox is how to maintain a insane, fast, high external pressure, high-capital facility within a sane, slow, high internal discipline, low capital complex. Unless this is answered, the risk exists that few people will join the effort and that among them many will be disappointed by the inevitable inablility of the reality of the situation to live up to the promise of the vision.

* Build it and They Will Come. Having said all this, let me end with a proposal. Instead of trying to bring a few highly skilled people to Arcosanti for the purpose of gaining a little physical labor, get them to enlist for the purpose of building the best virtual Arcosanti possible along the lines mentioned above: Sim-Arcologies, Virtual Arcologies, Digital Communities, Transarchitectures. These too are forms of building. The Arcosanti community already has people whose labors are not strictly manual. If the digerati can bring their own equipment, fine; otherwise, let them work where they can be most effective. Arcosanti must contend with the issue of non-locality in any case, why not begin here? Do this first, so as to expand your visibility worldwide. Register what is relevant to the present and near future and address it with lucidity, vision and courage. Become relevant to the information age in a way that millions can understand. Do this well and you will not be lacking for people to do either the physical or the virtual work - or both.

With best wishes
Marcos

Mark Pesce

Paradox -

Humanity/Transhumanity. Is the noosphere a thing - a doing - or a being?

Coming back to Phoenix after three days in Arcosanti I saw in full the idiocy of it all. All of the endless, wasteful sprawl, around making some mythical quality of life possible, which they inevitably lose in inevitable travel from home/school/office/shop/life. Paolo's ideas have been very influential, perhaps far more so as ideas than as implementation.

Does the virtual Arcosanti offer anything that the real Arcosanti doesn't? Is it important - as an example - in a way the mostly virtual real Arcosanti isn't? What lesson can be told in cyberspace, what image can be gained? Is this something we need to see, now, thirty years after Paolo's ideas began to infiltrate the mainstream? Or is all of this understood and ignored?

btw - my favorite moment: looking through Tom Bopp's telescope at the Andromeda galaxy, on a collision course with our own - in a couple of billion years.

- Mark

Jack Sarfatti

I was surprised at how close my point of view on synthetic sentience was to Charles Ostman's and Mark Pesce's even though we had not been in any ordinary prior communication on it. Charles's definition is broader than my own in that it would include classical machines with no inner felt-experience. My basic interest is in post-quantum machines, which if my theory is correct, will have inner felt-experience. That is we are post-quantum machines with an array of nanometer scale "quantum dots" inside our microtubules. Paolo raised very relevant philosophical and moral problems that we could not resolve in that meeting, but which must be continually addressed in future workshops.

Paolo Soleri

11/1/97
Oaxaca, Mexico

It is the Day of the Dead at a cemetery in the evening.

I am struck by the blessing of memories of the dead and by the curse of animism.

For the many of the living, memories are the bitter-sweet presence which sustains them in the face of harsh reality unforgivingly pressing on.

As for the curse, no matter what spell we are under, parochial or catholic, Hindu, Christian, Muslim, despotic, etc., animism is endemic and cruelly hypnotic. It is what I call the Grand Delusion.

11/15/97
Arcosanti

Paradox and the Day of the Dead in close sequence induces me to advance a post-chronological reflection:

In the Day of the Dead, the human skeleton is the main actor. In historical and in current context, the Oaxaca skeletons and the atmosphere surrounding them suggest two extremes:

One is the pessimistic, dark, ribald "appreciation" of life as an unredeemable, senseless experience full of cruel ironies and unkept promises of savage events. There is a quasi-joyful acceptance of evil that the exuberant vitality of the Oaxaca people cannot suppress.

The second is the giving of body and soul to an ultimately compassionate deity with a quasi-happy submission to an animistic world full of curious things. Such a world is contradictory, irrational and harsh, but unquestionably redemptive. The desperate and the joyful intermingled in a carnival of cherished memories and indispensable oblivion.

The skeletons croak, "My God, I'll take anything you throw at me: humiliations, vilification and atrocities. And in my unshakable dignity I voice to one and all an anticipation: the excruciating sweetness of thy Kingdom to come. Just look at the face of the statuettes I make while living!

"The lurking grimaces that my bones and all bones compose will not be a part of my true life which is to come. They are the false death of my immortal soul." What an animistic cruelty."

Is there a real if improbable possibility that the grimacing skulls of Oaxaca could be emblematic of a silicon venture gone septic?

Since in my Omega Seed hypothesis the over-populated animistic reality is a delusion, for me the Oaxaca ritual is deprived of its joyful, redemptive side: "My immortal soul is as dead as the non-real is dead." So it is for the joyful, redemptive, animistic side of the Web if such a thing is in the making.

The trance/tantrum dance if at all animistic, better reroute itself. Its practitioners must dance on a footing of coarse reality groping for its own transcendence. There is a long long way to go.

Redemption, a misnomer, is found in resolution or it is a dead argument. Resolution is post-animistic. The dead bones of all Oaxacas will be reinvested with grace, not by animism, but by animation. Animation better be the game of cyberspace, not animism. The first rule of cyberspace would then be: don't make a cult out of me, I beg you not to.

"Physicality" is all there is in self reconfiguring space, and the transcendence the process is generating, is astonishing and sublime enough to put to shame all of our animisticÜtheological fabrications, inventions and simulations along with their fundamental fraudulence.

"Do not forget me," the past cries out and besides the past, nothing is there. NOTHING IS THERE BUT THE PAST. Let's not forget, Reality is that which has come about. That which has come about is the only Reality, the past. It is Reality in being, the being generated by Reality becoming.

But the only true response to the cry of the past, the past which is the all and everything, is in the full animation of Reality and all of its images, images which are the past. As far as I can conjecture, that is the case the religio cyberspace must be open to.

Paradox in its moments of intensity seemed to me to be probing and groping for such universal animation. That is why I am so grateful to all those hyper-wired minds on the podium and all the minds of the group assembled for the occasion.

We must ground our exultation on the immense travail that has made the pride of being here and now possible and, sooner or later, we must seek the storm of equity and beauty that might eventually emerge in that singularity I call the Omega Seed.

To nudge Reality toward self-revelation is to be on the road we must construct and follow. To devise the steps that will bring about Paradox is now one of our tasks, while we try to make a coherent ensemble of that which is still only a promising and energetic cacophony.

David Traub

The greatest paradox was the Paradox itself; that, in violation of his own rather strict almost eco-fundamentalist, hands-in-the-earth ideology, Paolo Soleri let this conference happen at all.

The old versus the new; those set in their ways, versus those seeking the way; the pouring of concrete versus the running of code; the debate for building versus the debate for meaning; the search for a cogent and utopian business model versus the fact that all around us was Paolo's and no others -- his land, his buildings, his heritage, his legacy.

Unfolding were numerous speeches, seminars and debates on Quantum mechanics and the future of digital television; the role of god past, or not yet existent; the internet as the future of consciousness, the biological and physical identity of consciousness -- and perhaps the end of consciousness.

And the beginning of life in the 21st century.

These amidst amazing organic meals, internet trans-partying, desert raves, and dancing 100' feet high lightshow 'pon million year old shale canyons.

In all, what happened was natural, a dialectic collision in search of the next step. Where does Arcosanti go from here? And more importantly, what -- and who -- becomes Arcosanti from this point on?

What occurred was the meeting of numerous hearts and minds, cultures and perspectives, missions and mandates.

The result...an emerging proposal, feeding design for the logical and evolutionary next step of this amazing architecturally integral ecology, or "arcology," begun in the middle of nature, and the middle of mankind's nowhere.

Emerging will be a proposal to evolve Arcosanti's digital archology, its ecological archology -- that it might further evolve its physical, concrete archology as:

* Arcosanti University, a digital centrum for the next millennium -- and a model for the arcologies of the future.

* The American Dream for the 21st Century: a new perspective and definition of "the Dream" before it spreads too far across the overpopulated developing worlds that reconciles individual and family needs, and economic realities and incentives; with ecological awareness and cultural fulfillment, ideally bringing us back from the brink of an impending and impossible attack on our Earth's ability to sustain us.

* The need for a cogent perspective on economic development and the growth of diverse profit center that enhance the infrastructure's urgently needed growth, yet cleanly reconciles with the community's defacto ideology

Or perhaps it was something more. Only time -- and lots more concrete and code -- will tell.

--David Traub