------GHOSTS
 
 Charles Angelich wrote
 
PM>> So plenty of time on the schedule to rage away. [g]
 
> I try. ;-)
 
 [g]
 
 I have the same problem, if it is a problem.
 I try to keep it under wraps but it keeps
 surfacing no matter how much I try to stiffle it.
 After all these years, I don't think it'll go
 away. [g]
 
>> (I am her "Ghost in the Machine").
 
PM>> I've always liked that -- "Ghost in the Machine".
PM>> From Arthur Koestler?
 
> No, but after checking to see who Koestler was it
> would make a good story if I claimed that it was. :-)
 
> When my children began buying their own computers
> and getting connected to the Internet they
> mentioned that each time they sit at their machine
> they look into the monitor and believe that I am
> 'out there' somewhere on the 'net'. I volunteered
> "The Ghost in the Machine" to describe this and
> they agreed that long after I am gone they will
> believe that I am still 'out there', the ghost in
> the machine.
 
 [g] I like that too.
 
> I had heard this for the first time from the movie "Brazil".
 
 On my TO-SEE list -- one of the few newer
 [for me] movies I want to see, altho I don't now
 remember what I read about it.
 
 Hmm. Maybe you did get it from Koestler -- in an
 indirect fashion. Wasn't the director of Brazil a
 Brit? Terry Something? Something Terry?  Koestler
 [or his writing] is still something of an
 institution in England.
 
> Apparently that movie would agree with Koestler's
> views in his essay?
 
 Don't know, not having seen it, but now I'll
 have to look for it more energetically. Not
 counting the bits of the kids' films I catch
 accidentally, I guess I watch about one movie a
 month, if that. I usually wait for something I'd
 want to see to turn up at my local video store;
 now I think I'll have to order it.
 
 I barely remember the book itself, aside from it
 being an attack on a certain type of naive
 psychology that led to a kind of all-knowing
 arrogance in twirps who shouldn't rate in any way.
 But the Ghost in the Machine phrase attained a
 more general meaning in the 1960s and 1970s when
 some serious criticism of society was more
 prevalent [altho Koestler goes back much further,
 he was one of the first anti-Communists, pointing
 out the totalitarian direction of the Soviets in
 the 30s]. The phrase came to be a warning against
 over intellectualisation and over simplification
 [or the first leading to the second] without
 considering the human consequences.
 
 Nowadays it's usually applied to the misuse of
 modern technology and ideology, but it's not
 necessarily exclusive to our time -- I think it's
 more an instinctive thing some people have of
 simply knowing what's not kosher. Churchill during
 WWI -- before any of this was written -- had his
 own crude phrase for it -- applied to the generals
 who nonchalantly sent millions to slaughter --
 that I can't think of at the moment, equivalent to
 today's bulls*** detector.
 
> The sound clip
> http://www.undercoverdesign.com/dosghost/music/ereiamjh.wav
> is the head of government 'Intellgence' explaining
> how he remembers the code for his private elevator.
> 'JH' having been the younger man's father who had
> worked for many years with the older man speaking
> in the sound clip.
 
> 'The Ghost in the Machine' caught my attention for
> some reason and my family accepted this as the
> best way to describe me.
 
> There is a Japanese anime now where a female
> cyborg literally becomes a part of the Internet
> also titled "The Ghost in the Machine" that is
> somewhat popular with younger people.
 
 Hmm. Wasn't aware of any of the above....
 Shows how up to date I am.
 

--- Maximus/2 3.01