TRUE FICTION

What is there about infinitely thin

slices of time like the pages of a book, and

Virginia Woolf ‘s idea of experience?

“From all sides they come, an incessant

shower of innumerable atoms; and

as they fall, as they shape themselves

into the life of Monday or Tuesday,

the accent falls differently from of old;

the moment of importance came not here

but there…

Today is thousands of leaves printed by atoms,

The mind receives a myriad impressions �"

trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved

with the sharpness of steel,

recognized by what we call our 'senses'.”

The universe is organized by the order

in which our sensual neurons fire electrons

at one another in the OK Corral of our brains...

an effort to find out who the hell we are and

what the hell is going on. And why? All

while the total of human knowledge doubles

every twelve hours, and our wisdom falls

to nothing more than her “Modern Fiction.”

But the story we choose to tell of ourselves

is a lie, because try as it might, wisdom is still

sitting back there in the dust of our stampede

to stupidity.

Author's Note

Try as it might, wisdom is still sitting
back there in the dust in our stampede
to stupidity.


and we still don’t know a damn thing
about anything important

 it comes down to that question of whether intelligent behavior has to arise from consciousness – and Tononi’s theory would suggest it’s not.

Reviews

[Lorry]

Well Vol, I would love to have an opinion on this, but seeing as I was only yesterday, dutifully carrying out my sensible grown-uppage while walking along a trail in the rain and got distractled by a puddle and the need like a four year old child to jump in it, which I did!!!!! Only goes to shoe I should be precluded from any serious debate on the grounds of childishness, so there!
But I content myself with the fact that even Einstein, Plato and that clever git in a wheelchair once realised how puny man's thoughts were, that can be thrown into forgetfulness by the perfect body ratio of seeing a lady type person in the distance and thinking "look at the rack on that!
We will be our own demise, of that I am sure...and when it does come round, we will all be groping in the dark for a lady to ease our pain....Even those snowflake modern ones that pretend they give a crap, all in the hope of being seen as considerate and hopefully to get laid.
They will be our undoing, of that I am sure. They cannot be allowed to breed or we will all end up in a handbasket to hell!
Must dash, the postie is chapping the door and shouting something about needing to sign my cancellation order! 😃

[Vol]

Lorry,
I think a lot about time... It keeps coming up in posts online, always adding another facet to the messed up mix of space/time. My favorite concepts comes from two sources, Douglas Adams who said "The universe is so large that anything that could possibly happen probably already has." The other was from a panel discussion about, "Biblically speaking, exactly what Christians should expect after death".... the consensus was "non-linear time." Non-linear time reminds me of something I read decades ago that said when Columbus first sailed along the shore of America, the Indians could not see them because the concept those ships represented was so far out of their experience, their brains could not interpret what they were.
Oh, and, nonlinear time is what got Jesus crucified, He said to the Pharisees, "I tell you the truth, Before Abraham was, I am," which really pissed them off so they nailed him up. All of it is outside my ability to understand... AND my time is much better spent admiring the luscious curves of ladies far too young for me, and drying off my muddy shoes... (That last is an obvious lie... it never rains here so, there ain't no mud!
Vol

[Lorry]

And even if we figure out the universes meaning, it will be replaced with something even weirder! That's why I try not to think about it, ever since I heard the terms sunrise and sunset were wrong and should be called earthrise and earthfall, I don't believe in anything but pain, which I already know doesn't exist and is only a neural signal, but its a neural signal that buddy hurts!
😃

[Vol]

Hahaha... and even more bizarre!
If I may, sir...
How about "Lamppost" as a cue? Either about a lamppost or just use the word somewhere in it? There were many beautiful ones from back when people still had time for beauty... or stark and purely functional today... ANYTHING goes... I'll try to write something for next Sunday...
there are six hours between us, so I'm not sure of logistics, but I think we can do it...Does this work for you?
Vol

[Lorry]

Sure....hopefully. 😃

[Vol]

I know, right? I hope so, too...

[John the Baptist]

Vol, you are hard man. Surely, someone, somewhere, sometime, has exhibited intelligent behavior of some sort. And if it does not arise from consciousness, then from where? To be intelligent, first one has to be.

[Vol]

John,
Consciousness s not something that carries an innate sense of right and wrong in any refined way. From what I've read, the Quantum physicist's are rapidly coming to the conclusion that the universe itself is conscious. I am not sure how much of what we call "morality" is involved. The subjective judgement required to decide "right and wrong." requires something deeper, I think, an it is beyond us. Sure, we can occasionally rise above our selfish wants and needs, but historically we always seem to have found our way to destruction despite our best efforts...
I admit I am old and cynical, the world leaves no choice. There is little we can do beyond looking around at what we have become and attempt some kind of answer. Anyone who pays attention, and has even a modicum of understanding, knows Western Civilization is in rapid decline, while the East is on the rise... and we don't particularly like one another. The future seems less bright now than any other time in my short intrusion into consciousness,
Vol