Greetings,
Excellent. However the techy in me can see exactly how that is an
algorithm doing exactly what the human brain does. i.e. it has the
purpose of finding people shapes, so it finds them in things that aren't
people, in the same way we see faces in all kinds of objects. To me this
is a demonstration of how humans form meanings for things they don't
understand. The average Kinect user has nfi how these algorithms work so
they use an explanation they can understand i.e. ghosts, which are much
easier to grok than how these kinds of pattern matching algorithms work.
This supports one of my favourite arguments about how science is a
religion. People see the machine telling them something is there and
they have such faith in the technology that they prefer to choose an
occult explanation rather than to seek what is actually a rather
complicated underlying reality. Programmers are the high priests of
technology...

Regards,

Morgan Leigh
PhD Candidate
School of Social Sciences
University of Tasmania





On 12/12/2013 6:45 AM, James wrote:
> In terms of the role of new tech and the occult there is the worldwide
> phenomena of "kinect ghost sightings" that began in 2010 with the launch of
> the Xbox 360 Kinect motion sensor bar. Since the bar can detect a new player
> and outlines their exact size, people have recorded adult and child ghosts
> routinely being detected through the system.
> 
> One of many examples posted to youtube (1min):
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjXKatIWqsg
> 
> This has been widespread enough that a scene using the phenomena was
> included in the film Paranormal Activity 4.
> 
> The new Xbox One has a more advanced Kinect 2 with features that make it an
> incredibly advanced ghost hunting tool, here is an essay on it. The
> combination of Kinect technology and the global connecting factor of social
> media like youtube has spawned a whole new way that the average person,
> especially children, experience what they believe to be a haunting:
> 
> http://occultlore.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-new-xbox-one-kinect-2-is-advanced
> .html
> 
> James
> 
> 
> On 12/11/13 8:55 AM, "Pitch313" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
>> Aloha,
>>
>> On Mon, 09 Dec 2013 18:53:38 -0800, Morgan Leigh <[log in to unmask]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> The way rituals are done in virtual worlds is quite particularly
>>> different to meatspace rituals and it is only by performing those
>>> rituals in a virtual space that one learns how the virtual mechanics
>>> work and how to increase their efficacy. Building interactive props, not
>>> dissimilar  to the technohoodie, is on of those ways. You can't
>>> stimulate all the senses in virtual space, there is no sense of smell
>>> for example, so you have to work out ways to increase sensory
>>> stimulation to compensate for that loss.
>>
>> As I mull over the role of things like this techno hoodie in occulture,
>> I find myself circling around the interactive more than the prop. We,
>> global technoculture, are developing a range of interactivity with and
>> through machines (GE in a series of televised ads in the USA has been
>> using the term "brilliant machines") that challenge and extend our
>> familiarity with worlds and, I suppose, the "reality" of worlds.
>>
>> I, mostly due to my age and habits of magical practice anchored in
>> my body, have tended to divide the physical and the virtual as categories
>> that now seem increasingly less useful. One developing vector of
>> occulture and magic, at least, involves human interactivity with machines
>> that probably creates novel possibilities of "vireality."
>>
>> Maybe a counterpart to the wearable magically encoded robe is to be
>> found in virtual magically encoded clothing within a game system like Wii.
>> Both respond to movement and gesture and provide feedback to the
>> wearer/operator. One side is likely as real as the other, and the overall
>> effectiveness may amount to the same.
>>
>> Musing New Sorts Of Magical Tools & Means Of Enchantment! Rose,
>>
>> Pitch
>> a not so cybernetic mage