June 24, 2016 by Michael Sillion

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May 6, 2015 by Michael Sillion

15 Years In The Matrix

Red Or Blue Pill?

It’s now 15 years ago that I first took the “Red Pill“. It was the spring in 1999. A friend of mine had gotten us tickets to a pre-show of a movie that looked really cool. The event was hosted by Maya, the 3D rendering program that was used to make some of the effects in the movie. We went to Grand on Sveavägen in Stockholm with 200 other nerds who thought this was going to be something extra. And boy was we right. This was for me the most accelerating experience in my life. I remember coming out of the theatre so exited that I jumped over every bench, wall and bush I could find. After collecting my thoughts half an hour later I called my geek brother. Then I told him. That he was going to have to wait for months for the real Swedish premier of the coolest movie ever made… The Matrix.

Red Or Blue?

Later that summer we of course went to get tickets to the real Swedish premier. We went for the biggest and best theatre in Stockholm, Sergel 1. On the opening show when we entered the theatre we where all handed a little plastic bag with a red and a blue pill. The 3 of us, who hade seen it before immediately went bonkers of excitement again. We where some of the few people there who already knew what the pills represented 🙂

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. – Morpheus

Before the movie was about to start the head of Warner Brother Sweden stepped up on the stage to tell us we where about to witness the coolest movie premiere of all time and to honor that they started throwing out T-Shirts and Sunhats into the audience. Sadly I got none. It didn’t matter. Prior to the event I had entered every promo competition for the film I could find and had already won both a T-Shirt and some Matrix branded sunglasses. Mind blown. Again.

What is real? How do you define ‘real’? If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain. – Morpheus

Later I went to see it 2 more times that summer just to completely get into this new future. Finally there would be lots of cool movies. How could it not? How wrong I was…

I also have to mention that by that time I was already deep into Cyber-Philosophy. My favourite movie before this one was of course Ghost in the Shell that I had probably seen 20 times already by that time. I have read the comic and was completely in love with this philosophical cyber genre. My first official party I hosted as head of my party-section [Sexmästare] when I studied was a Cyber Party heavily inspired by Ghost in the Shell and Billy Idol’s Cyber Punk album. I even called my self Mikee Boy – CyberDemon of Joy then.

Ghost In The Shell

Dream Reality Party of 1999

Back to 1999. My brother was turning 25 and was coming up to Stockholm to have his party. I was hosting so I turned it into a heavily Matrix inspired party with live roleplaying called the Dream Party. A party where everyone had to come dressed as their cool Residual Self Image. So I had to go out and buy some cool sunglasses and get a cool haircut. The party was a blast. So from that day on I have now had this Residual Self Image of mine. It’s my Matrix Haircut. If you want to more about it you can listen to the podcast in Swedish: Gott Prat.

The Matrix Brothers

Later the fall I bought my first DVD player, Home theatre system and of course The Matrix on DVD. With it and Fight Club as my only first movies we continued to remind ourself what is really “real” and important in life.

The Dream World

The Matrix resonates with me on so many levels. I remember when was about 15. We used to stay up all night playing boardgames & roleplaying games. Afterwards we used to go outside and talk about games and other philosophical things for hours in the middle of the night just before going home. The neighbours weren’t so happy with us with our loud, long conversations. One occurring conversation was that there was no way of telling if we all lived inside a big collective dream. The Dream World.

Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world? – Morpheus

As I and many others now know more about the brain, it’s not far from the truth. What The Matrix opened our eyes in such a wide manner to. That we are responsible for our own experience of reality. The brain is literally a storytelling machine. It’s a pattern recognition machine that is so good that it can recognise it’s own thinking patterns. This consciousness became very useful for us. It’s an exceptional system for simulation of events. Past, present and future. It allowed us to become very effective at collaborating. Both our internal and shared stories made us into this amazing mammal we are today that has managed travel across 384,400 km of empty space to the moon and back. And we are just at the beginning of this epic tale of our story in the universe.

Your brain and all your sensory system are handling a staggering amount of data every second. Your conscious self take a very, very small part of this data and put together a thing that acts like a “Reality Feed”. Your story about you. Your own personal Matrix of the world around you. Now don’t be alarmed. You are still you, the whole you. Still in control of your thoughts, feelings and actions. You simply has an amazing way of experience the myriad och data and decisions that make up you. Without you going completely mad and bonkers on the way.

Morpheus: How did I beat you?
Neo: You… you’re too fast.
Morpheus: Do you believe that my being stronger or faster has anything to do with my muscles in this place? Do you think that’s air you’re breathing now?

Red or Blue?

We can’t fathom the difference of being real-real or dream-real. For all we know we could just be a simulation of big computer. A “Real” Matrix. So enjoy your story, as you yourself are writing it for you. I recommend taking part in the writing. Being the Architect of your own life and future. Doing this together with other like-minded Matrix Ninjas will elevate both you, the people in your tribe and the entire human race to new mind-boggling heights.

Do you want join on this epic quest of defining our own “reality”?

Lord Sillion
Architect of the Future
Holistic Thinking Ninja
Cyber Matrix Ninja

Our Dream Party of 1999

February 10, 2015 by Michael Sillion

Holistisk inspiration

Varsågod!

Här får du ny holistisk inspiration och nya insikter. Hur bygger vi framtids samhällen, städer och imperium tillsammans? Hur ska vi anpassa oss till den Digitala Dimensionen som börjar påverka allting omkring oss? Och vad måste vi veta om dom påhittade historier som vi alla tror på just nu. Här nedan finner du 5 inspirationskällor som alla människor måste förhålla sig till.

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Darja Isaksson – Digitaliseringens möjligheter till en bättre välfärd

– Digitalt och Internet är en ny dimension. Allting omkring oss. All individer och sammanhang där vi organiserar oss på något sätt. Alla saker som vi använder. Alla fysiska platser är på väg att få en Digital Dimension .

– Maker-rörelsen är en av nyckelstenarna. För att den lär ut ett nytt tänk med DIY, Kreativitet och samarbete.

– All innovation är team-arbete. Samarbete och kommunikation är jätteviktigt. Vi måste alla lära oss att tänka kritiskt och ställa bra frågor.

– Den stora utmaningen är inte hur vi ska lära barnen att anpassa sig. Det är oss vuxna som Darja är orolig över. Om 5 år kommer massor ha förändrats. Mycket mer än dom senaste 5 åren sen 2010. Innan vi hade iPads och Social Medier hade slagit igenom på riktigt. Det handlar om vår Demokrati!

– Framtiden kommer mycket snabbare än vi kan föreställa oss. Robotar, AI och självkörande bilar kommer skaka om i grytan ganska rejäl bara inom 2-5 år. 46% av dagens jobb kommer försvinna på 20 år. Vi måste hitta ett nytt system hur vi tänker kring allting i samhället.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40nilhaiR9Y

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Dr Yuval Noah Harar

Jag gick en fantastisk MOOC i början av januari med Dr Yuval. Här kan ni se en timmes session från RSA som sammanfattar hans bok bra:
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“Humans live in dual reality objective & fictional simultaneously & over time fictional has become dominant”

“Shared stories / “imagined realities” allow sapiens to weave unique networks of cooperation”

“Only humans have the power of abstract thought. You could never convince a chimp that he will get a banana ‘in the after life'”

“Believing the same stories = obeying the same laws” Dr Harari and the importance of imagination in collaboration.

“Most of human conflicts throughout history have been not about scarcity, but about stories that people chose to believe in”

‘We need to change the stories in people’s minds in order to create the better world’

“When need 10 million people to believe a story, u don’t need math, u need art”

“history of civilisation has been dominated by successful stories often accidentally”

“Even secular people still hold narratives that they take from ‘above’ some external law that resembles the following of religion”

“Most of the time we are thinking about made up stories e.g. money, EU, Google, religion. ”

“The American Dollar is one of the best collective stories, we all believe in”

“Silicon Valley is a narrative for today – one that could equal the power of any religion.” Dr Harari

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vllgib842g

–

Charlotta Mellander

Pratar om vad det är som attraherar unga till en stad och hur man får igång en kreativ hub i en stad. Talanger och lärande: Vad attraherar talanger

Viktiga saker att tänka på

Var vill unga, kreativa och/eller smarta människor bo? Dit ska du flytta eller starta din verksamhet.

Skapa en mångfald av utbud när det gäller allting. Kultur, mat, nöjen, upplevelser, event, natur, sport, hälsa och friskvård.

Tillräcklig kritisk massa för olika subkulturer inom den magiska pendlings-gränsen på 45-50 minuter.

Lärd dig att ha en holistisk syn och se utanför din egen bubbla / egna bubblor. Olika saker är viktigt för olika människor och vid olika tider i livet. Dom som bestämmer är oftast 50+ och tenderar att bara se till sina egna bubblor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV51Wvmsfck

–

Stefan Hyttfors

Jag hittade en ny video med Stefan Hyttfors. Det han har att säga är så viktigt så att alla borde lyssna på det en gång i månaden så att man vet att man är på rätt spår med sina tankar. Stefan Hyttfors om framtiden från 2014.

Robotar och AI kommer fortare av vad vi tror. Det finns inget sätt att “Fixa” jobben. Vi får hitta på ett bättre system istället. #AlltÄrPåhittat som Navid Modiri säger.

Jorden kommer finnas kvar. Det är vårt samhälle och vårt levnadssätt som måste bli mer hållbart och det fort om vi vill ha det kvar. Alternativet är väldigt farligt och slutar förmodligen i en katastrofal dystopi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSRALbp0vdA

–

Varberg Sessions 01

Under #VarbergSessions i januari fick vi en väldigt intressant insyn i hur Malmö gjorde om sig från en Varvsstad till en Kreativ Stad. Kärnan i att få det att fungera var en satsning på en central högskola och ett rikt stadsliv. Se dessa 2 videos om det: Del 1 Ilmar Reepalu om framgångssagan Malmö och Del 2 Möt Åke E. Andersson om forskning kring stadsutveckling.

Här kan du se hela inledningen från Varberg Sessions 01 med Anne-Charlotte Stenkil och Jan Malmgren.