User:Amy Suo Wu/Meditation Machine

Meditation Machine

Humans have always dreamed of higher knowledge, progress and amplification of human virtue just as much as dampening out weakness in order to perfect ourselves and our societies. In short we desire to transcend all that is humanly impossible. Technology, especially communication technology in some ways is the instrument in which our irrational desires are invested in, however always falling short of our expectations. It is precisely because it cannot perfect our inherent flaws and human deficiencies that makes technology compensatory. The nature of desires lies in its unattainability, driving and producing more technology in the hopes of achieving the inconceivable, moreover it underlines the expectations of a machine's existence and function.

If a machine inevitability embodies its inventors' desires, my rhetorical question is can it free itself from its' masters reign? What would technology be without desire? Can you strip it away, and if so would that equal to liberation, autonomy or even self-consciousness? My idea to create a machine that meditates stems from these trains of thoughts - meditation to metaphorically detach itself from its inventor's desire. (as meditation refers to a large family of practices I refer only to the meditation practices of the Shambhala teachings of Tibetian Buddhists to prevent confusion or discrepancy) Using Puredata to amplify the CPU information, the computers internal processing, the audible sound functions as a kind of flow of breath or visceral heart beat. Simultaneously the visualization of the sound acts like a meter, reflecting the CPU's fluctuating movements as different programs open and close.

--> CPU working at 11%

--> CPU working at 92%