1999 Lifehouse interviews part 6

[Ken in MD <seahawkman2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

Subject: PT i/v Radio 5 (part 2) 
transcribed by FionaP in Dec 1999
 
I: Lets bring it back to the Lifehouse and 
the fact that you actually predicted, I mean you were
talking about it as 
called the grid then but you actually did predict the
Internet and we see 
the same thing I mean youve got the same idea in the
Lifehouse as in that 
film The Matrix, as well, the same idea that people
are, I dont know, 
asleep and theyre being controlled at the same time?

P: Theyre living out their lives in a compressed -
theyre living out 
lifetimes of experience in compressed form.  I mean we
understand what 
compression is today, dont we?  I mean if you
download a file from the 
Internet we know that - from a five kilobyte file
suddenly, bang, something 
happens on a computer desktop and it turns into 365
kilobytes.  Back in the 
seventies, I knew what compression was and I knew that
also - I knew - I 
instinctively I had a feeling about time compression
and experience 
compression as well, how you know, if we look at the
way we dream and also 
the way that we experience art in a different way to
that we experience life 
- how it would be possible for us to - if we suspended
disbelief to 
sufficient level, we could enjoy the fruits of more
than one lifetime in our 
lifetime.  And that was my notion that would that be a
good thing or a bad 
thing?  I never tried to answer that question, I just
thought it would be an 
interesting question.

I: Well you predicted the Internet and the future - 30
years ago - so 2030 - 
whats going to be happening then?

P: Well I think... you know, I have to turn to a few
other friends here, you 
know, we talk about it occasionally over the Internet.
 Ray Kurzweil 
whos the guy that invented sampling and I think
really - I think it was at 
the behest of Stevie Wonder who said, you know, I
want to play an orchestra 
on my - an orchestra at my fingertips.  But he was
quite a bit more famous 
for having written - invented Talking Books and er
Booking Talks, you know, 
the other way round and .. he says that, you know, in
less than 25 years 
time computers are advancing so quickly that there
will be a Cyborg, in 
other words a robot that thinks it is superior to the
human being, walking 
down Oxford Street with its arms outstretched saying
I am the way and I am 
the light um and some of us will look at that Cyborg
and think: You know, 
hes right.

But really what interests me is not the spiritual
stuff any more, you know, 
its not - it really isnt.  I think that the
spiritual stuff now I believe 
does come from what we do in our lives - not what is
fed to us, not what 
happens outside, but how we respond to it and this may
- this may be kind of 
an obvious conclusion to draw but what it leads me to
is that whats more 
interesting is how life will look in 20 or 30 years
time and I think, for 
example, the kind of substances that we regard as
normal today like wood, 
leather, paper, metal.  Those are the things that are
going to change.  I 
think before we bother to - to go into rust-land, you
know, um which is what 
most film directors seem to think is the future, is
lots of rusty hulks of - 
I dont know that they understand that theres no air
out there in space but 
nevertheless the spaceship all go rusty ...

I: Yes and they always explode with big bangs.

P: .. I think - I think future machines will be made
of flesh is what I 
think, I think flesh is the future and being quite
keen on flesh ...

I: (Laughs)

P: .. and its you know, well Lifehouse is about
flesh, its about showing 
up, its about being there in your living organic
body, not sitting like a 
couch potato watching a screen, not listening to music
down a pipeline, not 
being stuck in front of a computer on your own. 
Theres nothing wrong with 
those things but just occasionally get off your arse
and show up.  And .. we 
all know that, nobody needs me to remind people of
that.  But theres a 
particular strata or society who, like me, are afraid
that their children 
might end up like that.

I: mmm

P: You know, its never us is it? Its always somebody
else.  So I bring - I 
bring hope to myself when I look forward and I think,
you know, actually one 
day there will, you know, there will be um - there
will be a way that we can 
experience if you like - not - Im not talking about
sex, but the pleasure 
of the flesh, the pleasures of showing up, the
pleasures of being there, 
without perhaps the stresses and strains that we
experience today which is 
that, you know, we have to travel and every time we
travel we know we 
pollute the planet so it would be nice if we could -
transport ourselves 
somewhere and be somewhere else and be there but
without the kind of er 
terrible inconvenience and profligacy thats involved
in that today.

http://www.igtc.com/archives/thewho/1999/Dec/msg00212.html
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