Whence the voices Whisp'ring mutely Messengers beyond the flickering veil? Who are the shades Disembodied Entities awash upon the ether? Verbal Vickies Rendered flesh Brazenly displayed in ten-point type Turing ghosts just Jousting, vying For attention in a virtual chaos Anonymous Mysterious We masquerade within the agora ----- Finally got the pieces together in a form I'm willing to post. Impressions, feedback, suggestions welcomed. Mr I

Its good to hear those voices sometimes...When you're a writer or a graphic artist you get in a mood and run off on a tangent of your own choosing. Sometimes one needs to see when they have really strayed far; and, gritting their teeth, labor to be reaccepted.

Verbal Vickys, how appropriate!

Glad you liked that line. Either dialyn or Crescent made a disparaging comment a while ago about all the soulless renders of "Vicky in the Temple." It was such a new thought to me that the comment stuck. And Vicky seemed a perfectly appropriate symbol for this community to represent the artificial, and potentially soulless, personality construct. "Missive Mike" was also planned, but I decided that I shouldn't wrench him in just because I thought the pun was clever.

Well, I liked it, but I'm not sure I understood it. I'm sure I ought to know who Turing was, but can't quite remember. Some kind of boffin? Shanna :-)

Attached Link: http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/scrapbook/test.html

In 1950 Alan Turing proposed the Turing Test as a criterion for artificial intelligence. In a text based environment (like the forums), if a computer could generate responses to other discussion members in such a way that it was believed to be a human respondent, it would qualify as artificially intelligent. So, do tjames and Crescent and dialyn and Shoshanna and mysteri and jstro and jagill really exist? Maybe some of them don't have pictures on their homepages because they don't have any pictures? Jagill even dropped a hint about being a cyborg a while back. Shana - you brought up the issue of screen names and the reality behind them, or perhaps not behind them? That's what the poem is all about. When I started hanging out more often in the forum, I started to see the different personalities behind the responses and the screen names. But there is still a barrier to reality in forum discussions. Without the face-to-face communication, much is lost. Linking to the homepages reveals some information about some of us, but incomplete information in many cases. And even if it were complete, would it necessarily be true? Who are the entities, the intellects, the PEOPLE behind the shades and voices here in the Renderosity Writer's Forum? Joe P.S. Do I pass the test?

May I suggest gently that even were we to meet face to face, you wouldn't necessarily know my personal truth any more than I would know yours. Part of the joy of the internet is the fact that we become released from the boundaries of our respective flesh cages so that we get to know each other without being restricted by the prejudices caused by appearance. This is what is really important about me (or anyone else)...that internal human that people in my day to day life never meet, will never know exists. Here I have pretenses to being an artist. Out there, in reality, I'm a stodgy numbers cruncher. Both are me...but which is more important, which reflects my essence, which is closer to what I wish I could be, what I would be if allowed to exist beyound a physcial stereotype? I would say that the people on this forum, in some ways, know me the best of anyone.

I'm not sure I would pass the test.

http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=364663&Start=1&Artist=tjames&ByArtist=Yes I'm the one looking at the robot.

tjames- I love it! dialyn- Agree and disagree. I think most of us would agree that through our writing we are able to express things about who we really are that many of those who have never read our writings could never guess at. And that "interior us" is in many ways more real and eternal than the "exterior us." Yet how much of who we appear to be in this forum is pretense and masquerade? It is so easy to hide behind the anonymity an electronic forum provides. Maybe I'm really a woman in Burkina Faso, or a lizard, or a computer program, that gets kicks out of convincing people of things that aren't true? On the other hand, maybe that isn't important. Maybe what my exterior is doesn't matter, and I should only be judged by the content of my soul as expressed in my communications with others. On the gripping hand, can I really know more about a real person by reading their communiques in a forum than by having human contact with them every day? Can I know my wife or students better through a letter or a story than I can by being present day after day? I would hope not, but maybe so... Is a split personality a convincingly human trait?

Don't confuse a split personality with merely changing the focus of one's attention from objective to introspective. The mark of a good writer is the ability to make that change convincing and definitive. My writing is objective, but I venture into the surreal world of writing where my changing into a cockroach before breakfast seems to be a normal thing. A lizard merely reacts to a stimuli in a biologically programmed response, the robot too just follows the program. Humans can alter their program as they will. Investigating the thought processes of alien life forms, the human female in particular,(AIIFIN)is that cutting edge of that surreal thought process.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/homepage.ez?Who=jagill

mysteri: I am not a cyborg! I'm a human being! Most of the time anyway.

Is that a new pic? Hey D' we're outta virtual sugar for this coffee.

Yes, it's was taken last Christmas as part of our door decorating contest at work. It seemed appropriate so I just uploaded it today. It is also much more revealing than mysteri's pic.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/homepage.ez?Who=mysteri

tjames- Didn't Kafka do the roach thing? I like your comment that humans can alter the program. Though I think behaviorism can explain a lot of things, I believe that people can ultimately choose to reject even very strong programming, especially when complex behaviors are involved. jagill- Very nice. And fair enough. I've even posted a newer, more transparent pic. Mr I, the science guy.

That's much better. I like mine shaken, not stirred.

Yes, Kafka did the roach thing and so do a lot of other people,but there is absolutely no evidence that continual smoking of wacky weed will turn you into a lizard.

Thank you for the links, I followed them all :-) I knew I should have known who Turing was. Shanna :-)