Hello. I'm John Brecht. Lately, I'm a grad student at Michigan State University. I'm in the astrophysics program, in the College of Physics and Astronomy, but for the most part, I've been studying and doing work in educational technology. I work in theLaboratory for Instructional Technology in Education (LITE) and the Basic Science and Remote Sensing Initiative (BSRSI).

My interests are fairly widely spread, but they seem to orbit about some notion that I have about the communication of experience. I believe that if we are now in the Information Age, the direction of positive evolution is the Communication Age. Right now it is possible for a person to access a signifigant fraction of the sum total of human knowledge, and that knowledge is becoming more accessible all of the time. This process is highly iterative and accelerating, as, the more people get used to accessing data, the more they will tend to publicize any new data at all.

So, the information is out there, and is rapidly increasing in volume. What are we to do with it? Somehow, we need to be able to take it all in at once, the way you look around a room and see indentifiable objects: carpet, a pencil, a computer, etc... as opposed to a smattering of hue and intensity of color. People born with correctible blindness, upon having there vision restored by surgery, experience a confusing, chaotic world at first. Given time and assistance they learn to translate the flood of photons striking their eyes into an understanding of their physical proximity.

As information about objects in a room is encapsulated and transported via reflected photons, so human ideas are encapsulated and transmitted via our languages. We have many languages, each of which being some combination of mathematics, spoken words, and imagery. We have, quite unfortunately perhaps, become obsessed with language as an end in itself, as opposed to being simply a means to transmit ideas. This is at the root of many our problems. A physics professor may think that they have done their job as soon as they have assured that their students' have memorized some formulae, but time and time again it has been shown by education researchers that knowing these formulae does not correspond with knowing physics. Some students go through their courses with the belief that physics does not exist independently of the mathematics in which it has been expressed to them. Physicists forget that they have adopted mathematical formulae as a shorthand, even though when they are pondering deeply upon a subject their mind will wander off, leaving the mathematics behind and operating entirely within some unknown proprietary language of mind.

It is the nature of this language that I am fascinated with. I suspect it is not disimilar from reality itself. Zen Buddhism teaches us to "be one" with the world to gain insight. To name and categorize the world is to distance oneself from it. Where does this fit in with someone like myself who loves physics and is fascinated by communication? I believe to "be one" is not some cheesy process involving incense and crystals. I think it is to let the mind hear/see/feel the world in the mind's own language. If we place the filter of our own language constructs between our senses and our minds, our minds are forever separated from the world. I think that the mind digests the world in whole chunks, not categorizing and naming but interpreting all at once.

To illustrate this point, think of the technology we call computer vision. When a computer "sees" something, it uses any array of numerical values passed to it by some CCD or other optical sensor. It examines the numbers and looks for trends. It may eventually recognize that the array of pixel values it is examining is similar to a picture of a horse it "looked" at before and decide it is now seeing a horse. Whatever the trend, due to the nature of computers, it must be mathematical in order to be found. Thus the computer never "sees" the image, but only realizes the mathemetical trends and coincidences. Likewise, when we read an essay, we read and assign a value to each word one by one. Based on trends and relationships amongst our value assignments, we establish a hierarchy of meaning, eventually hoping to create in our own minds, whatever notion was in the author's mind. Why can't we just "see" the author's mind. Why couldn't the author, in turn, present their idea in the way that it truly exists in their mind?

I conject that it is possible to not only "see" the world, but also to pass the experience of this vision to others. "Passing the experience" is what a language is meant to do. What language could be so complete? In the past, when a complex idea such as morality or emotion was to be transferred, an effective means was used, the myth. A myth does not directly communicate a message. Rather, it presents a world, an invented world in which that idea exists. It is not described, defined, or characterized. Rather, the idea is allowed to walk around in a world of human fantasy and leave it's footprints. Metaphor is a workaround. It is the sole recourse for describing ideas which are beyond the ability of a language to describe.

I believe the unification of metaphor and whole sensory experience is on our doorstep, it is virtual reality. In VR, whole experiences will be encapsulable. The collapse of a red giant star to a neutron star is potentially "experienceable," but that is just the beginning. What will happen when we can not only simulate actual reality within virtual reality, but also move on to improvise new realities of our own design, to create metaphor using all of the senses? This is what the artists of the world have known and worked for all of their lives. Finally, the world is gravitating in the direction the artists have gone. Finally, technology might actually give us a return on our investment. Finally, the world of science and technology is realizing why artists do what they do and feel how they feel. An abstract painting is more than random splashes of color; there can be a vast world of ideas in such a pattern if one experiences it rather than interprets it.

So where am I trying to fit myself into this picture I've painted here? As I've said, most of my activities and ambitions somehow orbit this idea. I study physics because physics is a beautiful example of how one might "encapsulate" the world as a whole. Surely physics is not complete, but it is a great example of how one might approach the issue. I also spend a lot of time with computers, particularly working with graphics and user interfaces, the nuts and bolts of what will be VR. I also play role-playing games on a fairly regular basis. Interactive storytelling used to be the lifeblood of the human mind, but it is all but lost in this area. Role-playing games are among it's last vestiges. Of course there is also music, any music. Music is the most shining example of presenting ideas in a sensual way. It has always been a deep part of all culture, though none can clearly say why we so enjoy it, and why it can say so much withough speaking.

I'm tired now. As time progresses, I'll add to this posting. This is as much for me as it is for anyone who has bothered to read through to this point. (Note how it rambles.)