This blog takes its name from the driving force behind Frank Herbert's early novel, Destination: Void (see "Chapter 1", below), but for me, personally, the real motivator in pursuing this blog is to reproduce the group project that I require of my students while reading Herbert's novel in my online Science Fiction class. The assignment is to collaboratively describe consiousness using Herbert's novel as the primary source, but giving free rein to source discovery beyond that. Here is one of the best examples of that effort: Earthling 8. By the time I wrote last week's entry on "Learning to Fly," I had completely forgotten that Earthling 8 had leaned so heavily on Pink Floyd for their inspiration, but I'm sure it was still bouncing around in my brain somewhere. Thank you, crew!
In addition to requiring Herbert as the primary source, I always kick off the project with a quote from Doug Hofstadter in which he introduces his concept of consciousness as a strange loop:
My belief is that the explanations of "emergent" phenomena in our brains--for instance, ideas, hopes, images, analogies, and finally consciousness and free will--are based on a kind of Strange Loop, an interaction between levels in which the top level reaches back down towards the bottom level and influences it, while at the same time being itself determined by the top level. [...] The self comes into being at the moment it has the power to reflect itself. (Godel, Escher, Bach, 709).
This resonating recursion is fundamental to much of W.B. Yeats' gyrical poetry and philosophy, but I think it is nowhere more clearly shown than in Ted Kooser's brilliant "Skater".
Project Consciousness is just like that.
I've got this all screwed up and posting in all the wrong places. There's no link for a comment on "I", or this is just where I ended up. At any rate, dj, you did this to us before. It was while we were into "The Time Machine". You asked, "What is 'The Time Machine?'". Which sent my head falling into itself, and I munched on that for some time. :) Then you said, "The Time Machine is a book." That was too cool, and funny! I always thought though that there was more to it than that. I've thought of time travel in a conscious, awake state. I've traveled that way many times. And then I recall "Pattern Recognition", and soul delay, and began to wonder why we could not actually travel in our minds. After all, our thoughts create our reality...and reality is merely a POV, right? :) And then I began to wonder if we would in fact suffer soul delay from this mode of travel...taking a trip and never leaving the farm. :))
ReplyDeleteSO...Yes! "What is I" is a poem.
BUT, I'd like to "look at the I a bit more closely." :)
that which wonders aloud
wandering aimfully through
that which is familiar
My 'monkey'...& inner voice (umbilical cord to god) that I spoke of in my blog. "I wandered aimfully through that which" was not 'familiar' to me. But that wasn't I. Not the I that skated backwards looking at the woman she was a minute ago. :) "The Lunatic is in my head..." (Pink Floyd, "Dark Side of the Moon") I REALLY wanted that to be the song playing as you entered "Earthling8, but it was not to be. I've exposed myself more here than I do in real life. Maybe it's because I finally have an audience of more than 1 or 2, or maybe it's because I don't give a...well, hoot.
is it a function of YOU? Yes.
is it a fragment or the center? Yes.
a figment or a fact? Yes.
I wants to listen
but it won't stop screaming (Monkey)
somebody please
please listen for me (Inner Voice)
I belive that inner voice (umbilical cord)has something to do with a collective consciousness, but this is a subject that you can't get most people to talk about...or they look at ya funny. :) Ya wanna talk about it? I first read about it in "The Handbook of the Navigator" by Eric Pepin. That is another of my favorite books.
I'm thinking that "I" is also who we are, right here, right now, and that's ever growing...or stagnating. But it goes so much further than that. I is but a tiny particle in a vast eco-system. And I is the 'All'. The one. The beginning, and the end.
I think I think too much... :)
I can't quote him word for word off the top of my head, but Joseph Campbell said something to this affect: You must step beyond Christianity to find your spiritual self."
ReplyDelete"I" was born a world ago. On top of rocks and under snow..."
ReplyDeleteSee? "I" think "I" think too much! :)