Kissing Henry 💋 by E. Hughes on sale now. This is the Kissing Henry teen novel video book trailer. It's such a cute story about a girl who has a crush on a boy who isn't into her. So she made a vow to Kiss Henry by the end of the school year. Except, things doesn't always go according to plan. The Kissing Henry song was made specifically for this book https://www.amazon.com/Kissing-Henry-90s-Girl-Hughes/dp/1961823292
#books #videotrailer
E. Writer
The ebook for The Absence of Reality is doing well. It ranked #6 , #9, and #9 in all 3 categories on Amazon's bestsellers list within 3 days of its release. The print edition is still glitched on Amazon, with a shipping date all the way in December. So I'm promoting Barnes and Noble as the best place to buy the print edition. I would contact Amazon about the issue but they always seem to make things worse. I'll let it sort itself, as it will do so eventually.
#books #newreleases
I have my third editorial review of The Absence of Reality and I have come to one conclusion; the subject matter may be too academic or challenging. I wrote it as a message to everyday people; a caution, of sorts. The review was positive but the reviewer admitted that it was an "...intellectual challenge," and "...the text is easy to read despite its highly complex nature " So even if you write a complex idea using a simpler framework, it doesn't change the complexity of the work or make it any more accessible to the reader.
#books
E. Writer
Except, if the medium was a letter, then that becomes both the message and the messenger. It shows how information can present itself in various forms, which also shapes how we perceive and even understand the message. This takes it back to The Absence of Reality, how we never have a true sense of reality, and cannot know it because we are constantly shaping reality through human or artificial constructs. Biology also limits what we can see and know about reality. His book was before social media. In Absence, I went back to the 1980s, starting with Baudrillard, then the 90s to Frank Tipler, then to 2003 to Bostrom, then back to S. James Gates.
One quote from the book, that's longer, has somewhat of a similar message:
"We live in a time when reality is no longer shaped by objective
facts, but rapidly shifting streams of narratives and
information circulated to human consciousness through
various modes of media. It is critical to understand that these
constructs are merely illusions.
We exist in a manufactured reality of manmade crises."
Roy Scarbrough
And what your post shows is that there is a fragility to aphorism. They're delicate, and break when pushed.
In Through the Vanishing Point, McLuhan discusses how painters' use of lineal perspective to create an illusion of space. He argues the device created an uncomfortable sense that reality is a thing that's manufactured.
I'll push back on the "uncomfortable" the texts of the time show that the reaction was a delightful sense of wonder.
E. Writer That's an excellent example of how a device can create a sense that reality is being manufactured. Baudrillard said as much in Simulacra and Simulation. And using perspectives in painting does create an illusion that a 2D space is in fact, a 4D space, showing distance and depth when that is in fact, not the case. This is an example of reality being manufactured. Had I known McLuhan, I may have explored and analyzed his views for my book.
Roy Scarbrough The physical device associated with this was the camera oscura. Literally "dark room". A small dark enclosure with a pin hole will project the exterior scene on a flat panel from which one can trace the perspectival lines to demonstrate how the illusion of space is constructed. Filipo Brunelleschi famously set one of these up in the Piazza del Duomo in florence.
E. Writer
Oh yeah, I've seem the camera obscura in Neil DeGrasse Tysons show, The Cosmos. He showed the history of it, starting back in the Middle East and China and they demonstrated how it worked. Interestingly, the eye works very similar to the camera obscure and modern photo cameras, which are modeled very similarly to how the eye perceives light.
I wrote about this in Reality Unbound. What I was trying to do in the book is draw a parallel between how technology mimics human biology to demonstrate that one does not require a biological substrate f have a form of consciousness. The camera is just one example of that. Here's what I wrote on page 40 in the book:
"In his infamous book, Leviathan, 17th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes argued that only material matter is real. He believed that thoughts consisted of images generated by biological chemicals in our bodies. I suppose, much the way that images are generated on a computer through the use of electrical signals and other complex functions. Computers did not exist at that time, of course, but the description used by Hobbes is very much in line with this concept. How cameras capture images and store them on film is also similar to how the eye captures images and transmits them to the brain. Humans have often created different types of technology that mimic human features. "
The eBook for The Absence of Reality: Aphorisms, Observations, and the Nature of Reality and Existence has been released. For anyone interested in an excerpt of what it is about, the look inside is available. You can click here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FY41JFF5
Amazon botched the shipment of my books so bad, inexplicably setting the shipping date out to 6 or 7 months, that it sort of forces me to release the eBook, to mitigate this problem, which I did not want to do until December 1st. Sometimes the eBook can hinder print sales when people choose to buy an eBook instead of the print edition. Sales from eBooks are not counted or reported to BookScan. I noticed that print sales for Time and the Multi-Universe shifted when the eBook was released a few months later. I prefer that people buy print books than eBooks. But in this case, since the book is not being handled properly by Amazon I have to release the eBook earlier than planned as an alternative.
Reviewed by Leonard Smuts for Readers’ Favorite
The Absence of Reality by E. Hughes is an exploration of our current reality, in which essential truths are obscured. Hughes points out that the first layer of reality is artificial and based on perception, but true reality lies beneath. We are left with what has become a simulation, which is not real and constitutes the absence of reality. By creating superficial objects and structures, humans have contributed to this by making changes that contradict nature. The author concludes that these are illusions and contrived constructs that bear no resemblance to objective reality, but have become the norm. Society itself has become a social fabrication shaped by humankind and open to manipulation, although most people remain unaware of this. The author asserts that human purpose and functions are to collect, process, and decode the universe. A new beginning will see objective physical reality replaced by a virtual environment in both the mental and digital spaces. Humanity has already begun to transition to this reality. This poses the question as to whether humans will become obsolete or may self-destruct.
The Absence of Reality examines our relationship with the universe and its vastness, as well as our ability to manifest consciousness. The author questions whether there is any foundation for existence without consciousness. She reflects that while AI has become more human, humans have become less human, and ponders whether consciousness is only biological or can extend to AI entities. We now have virtual reality and AI, plus a flood of social media information that is shaping society. This notion echoes emerging views suggesting that we are already living in a simulation, whereby our bodies are incarnated in the “real” world, while our minds are trapped in a simulated reality and remain unaware. E. Hughes is a metaphysician and prolific author. The writing style is concise and thought-provoking. This book contains profound philosophical and metaphysical concepts that are fundamental to our current and future existence, and is prophetic. Above all, this book reminds us to understand who we are and how we relate to the universe. In an artificial reality, only love is real, beyond illusion, and lives on. - ★★★★★
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1961823241
My son called to tell me that my eight-year old grandson asked if he could come over on Sunday to make movies on my computer. About a week ago, he saw an animated movie that I made years ago. I still have the software. My son (his dad) was one of the leading characters in the movie as a teen. My son is 30 now.
My grandson was fascinated that I made a feature-length animated movie. He asked how I did it, and wanted to make his own movie using the same animation software. So, he comes over yesterday (on Sunday) and I give him the rules for using my computer, and he sits and starts making his animated vampire movie.
Of course, I am teaching him how to use the software, since it's not that intuitive. He turns my television on, which is a "smart TV" and goes to Youtube, directly to a documentary about a space and cosmology subject.
I am one of those people who finds it utterly ridiculous when adults claim their children say things that no child would ever say at certain ages, but my grandson is genuinely into subjects about cosmology, as well as time and space. I did not teach him these things, he developed these interests on his own. I found it fascinating that he shares so many of my interests at only eight years-old. Interestingly, my son does not share these interests (although, he was obsessed with weather phenomenon at that age), so it must have skipped a generation? Instead of watching cartoons or playing video games, my grandson would rather make an animated movie and watch programs about the solar system. I think he outgrew his video game stage. My grandson is so much like me. Just a natural curiosity beyond what we immediately perceive. I remember him naming the planets and showing a slight interest at 3 years old. I see a career in science in his future.
