Energy and Otherness

Some thoughts on Lyotard’s Modern Fable:
Lyotard raises some interesting questions. Are we just energy? Is all life just a complex form of organizing energy? Is this what Lyotard is proposing? Strange idea, but it almost explains the existence of life. It’s hard to look at life in a rational sense. It’s just so unbelievable… following the current beliefs of science, all of life happened out of chance over billions of years. No reason, no purpose, it just… happened. With this idea it sort of makes sense. If you look at living beings, animals and plants, it does seem that they are great containers of energy. All forms of life spend their time trying to harvest and process sources of energy, and then they reproduce so that the cycle can continue. With life, systems of energy have found a way to immortalize themselves barring a cataclysmic event that kills all life. Smart… If “energy” was intelligent and conscious, and it had been tasked to perpetuate its cycle, it couldn’t have done much better.
But, haven’t humans been striving to create a disaster of epic proportions? Ever since we evolved our intelligence, we have been making bigger and better tools to use against our fellow man. Now, we have enough nuclear bombs to “bring the sun to the earth” and destroy mankind, and possibly all life. What’s going on here? Has our theoretical “energy” failed in its design of life? Or is that the greatest accumulation of energy? Probably not. I think that the best form of energy would be the “grey goo” idea where nanobots reproduce repetitively and drown the world in little machines. Those little robots that teach themselves how to walk have this potential. They could create “the matrix” idea, where machines gain consciousness and take over humans. Is this where technology is leading? We have web 2.0, where the consumer has an active role in designing websites like wikis. We could be headed to web 3.0, where the internet designs itself.
So this is getting a little radical, let’s move on to the real radical. What is this concept of otherness? I still feel fairly confused as to the concept of the Other and how we relate to it. The biggest concept that I have found in the text is that Otherness is related to anonymity. The authors describe how graffiti is an example of Otherness through street artists. They are able to express ourselves in complete anonymity, and they do so in a way that displays their inner Other. If anonymity is a way to unearth the Other, it could serve to explain the booming popularity in anonymous internet chat rooms and such. Countless cyber sites exist that run on anonymity, forums and gaming and… plurk. Such websites seem to be a way for people to let their inner Other out. So, is this how we find the other? How do we become the Other? Do we even want to become the other?
I feel that the Other seems to be like the Id from Freudian psychology. It seems to be the inner instinct, the irrational wants and desires that the Super Ego strives to control with reason. Within the realm of anonymity, the super ego realizes that there will be no repercussions for actions done while anonymous. It determines that it can let the Id off the chain and let it roam free and say what it wants while they are hidden with anonymity. This may explain the vulgar content of the internet, pornography and such. Perhaps it is healthy to unleash the Id every once in a while, or perhaps releasing oneself of self control is unwise.