Something More Weekly

#146 With a pinch of salt

Light isn't real. What we think is light is a distinction made in our mind. We might say that light looks bright and feels warm. Without the mind and the body to sense these things, there is no bright or warm. So light is not bright and warm. We are bright and warm. Sometimes. Could this be related to what the yogi on Youtube was saying about a person becoming the lightless light or was he describing an altogether different phenomenon? It's rarely a good idea to use contradicting terms like "lightless light". No wonder noone could bloody understand him.

When God said "let there be light", he didn't say it in English. English hadn't been created yet. Do you think he said it in Biblical Hebrew? What would be the point? There was noone around to hear it. He might have said it to himself, I suppose. In Biblical Hebrew. I suppose.

Isn't it funny when someone writes an article about how scientists are trying to understand consciousness? I read that they're starting to identify certain areas of the brain that are used in being conscious. It's a start. Explaining qualia is much harder. What it means, what it feels like to see the colour green for example.

I think that the uniqueness of consciousness is what makes it hard to define. If we were all the same, then we'd all have the same experience and we could say to each other "you know, consciousness" and they'd be like "oh yeah, consciousness, sure". Actually we can do that already. So forget that idea. It's been suggested that what it feels like to see the colour green can't be defined because we don't have a language sophisticated enough to describe it. I quite like this idea. I find it romantic.

Imagine you've got a very old rusty tape measure and you want to know exactly how wide it is. You might have a guess but you're not completely sure. Your first thought is to use the tape measure. It's the only tool you've got. It's an old tape measure though. You've used it to measure lots of other things but it simply isn't possible to twist the tape around to measure itself. The tape would break before you managed it.

I had a conversation yesterday with a girl who'd signed in to 7 Cups of Tea because she was feeling lonely. Gave her a bit of a tune-up. How's your job? How're your finances? How're your hobbies? It turned out that she had some creative outlets.

Seven billion people there are. That's all. Just seven billion. It might seem like a lot but it's not really. Not one of those people has the same experience of life. Not one. Each one views the world slightly differently. Each one creates different things. Each one is able to associate different experiences with the colour green. By the time we can see the colour, we can associate an experience with it. Seven billion. Not one of them correct.