Conclusion Umbrella

¶ A while back I wrote a comicbook by surreal means. After completing it, I interpreted, and "Conclusion Umbrella" is the name of that interpretation. The story, as I saw it, was about a lonely kid trying to share himself, but being rejected for his attempts at sincerity. None returned the sincerity to bridge the loneliness, until a little girl shared herself with him and reopened his door to wonderland. In wonderland he could explore endless possibilities by letting go of his static identity, and in so doing he discovered something for which he had a passion.
¶ Wonderland is the canopy on the umbrella of reality, a land of dreams overlooking possibilities. A child's mind dances through its gardens learning about all the things they could become. It is a vantage point from which we can see the map we are trying to traverse.
¶ An umbrella needs a handle though. To see and explore the possibilities will only bring chaos if we don't also choose and live one path from among the many. Things like Zen may make up this "One Path." By being aware of the present and our role in it, we maintain the order required to keep the umbrella of our reality in its healthy form.
¶ The "Many Possibilities" is the canopy, and the "One Path" is the handle, both very important parts of the umbrella. Many people have inadequacy in both, carrying little more than a shaft. The many possibilities may be expanded by exploring anywhere, from our own dreams, to those of our neighbors. Empathetic interactions expand our understanding of lives beyond our own, broadening our horizons and turning us from isolation to freedom. Study and learning on a wide range of topics can give us a better grasp on the world beyond ourselves. The one path may be refined by putting aside distractions to focus wholeheartedly on each task our life brings us. By being aware and conscious, we don't just find the life we want, but we live it. Integrity in our actions and feelings gives us solidarity and lets us live with passion. Following our one path we gain an understanding and mastery of the things that are most important to us.
¶ That is Conclusion Umbrella.

End User, Experience

¶ It seems to me that the material world (finite and infinite) is a computer, oblivious but ever processing, receiving input and sending output to the end user. This end user is spirit, not in the infinite material sense of the word, as a ghost or some such thing, but in the same sense as in "The Spirit of Christmas," "The Spirit or Giving," "The Spirit of Love," or more evil spirits such as "The Spirit of Contention." I mean by this the qualia, the experiences, that we seem to feel within us. Perhaps those "feelings" actually are us, the end users, operating this computer, this tool, for the betterment of the real, "spiritual," world.
¶ These experiences, this consciousness, this awareness, is not only an observer and interpreter of material arrangements, translating meaningless arrangements of matter and energy into meaningful concepts; but is also giving input to the computer (For the analogy is not of the material world being a television, or a fractal generator, but a computer.). Our own spirits may shift from being one sort of spirit to being another. We would rather be good spirits than evil ones, and thus we wield these corporeal vassals to reach the conceptual places and spiritual states which we most thrive upon.
¶ Our brains can only store memories as data, and I'm not sure that awareness needs actual "memory" of its own. All things exist in the here and now, dimension zero of time and space, existing at one point on a map, and one point in time, regardless of the infinite omnidimensional realm in which those points could, have, and shall yet exist. Matter is immortal, though the forms it takes die each moment to make way for new forms. Experience has no form or location, and its memory may be merely its fact of existence, while when it existed is irrelevant. There is a common desire, a sort of spirit of curiosity, which may call for a computer of a sort not limited as our finite brain is. A kind of particle with a mass of zero point zero continued one (units N/A) could be assembled into bodies much like our finite ones, but containing brains that can collect and hold infinite data. These material spirits might be able to create an endless scape of molds for awareness within any amount of space, letting immaterial spirit dance from one "form" to another across the infinite brain that is assembled.
¶ Another thought I just had is this: If the infinite brain had to record an infinite brain, the two brains would become infinitely more infinite every moment. Could such a thing be possible, plausible, or reasonable? It sounds like some sort of paradox to me. If on the other hand the infinite brain existed to record the finite brain, or conversely, if the finite brain existed to be recorded by the infinite brain, then through the connection of the three things, finite matter, infinite spiritual matter, and this awareness, consciousness, intelligence, experience thing, there would be formed something which is both conscious as well as enduring, with the capacity to expand, explore, search, and grow. With the awareness of awareness itself, the infinite memory of material spirit, and the endless possibilities for growth contained within the possible arrangements of finite matter, the world seems less existential.
¶ Discussion, thoughts, feedback, questions, suggestions, or reactions seemingly spontaneously generated from nowhere and having no apparent connection? Leave a comment.

The Real Selfman

¶ You consider what the eyemen are telling you. They describe the clouds, and you think that they are swirling like foamy waves on an inverted sea. The earmen tell you about the sound of the cars going by, and you think they add to the effect, sounding a little like waves.
¶ You ask Super Ego about it, but he just tells you to get your mind out of the clouds.
¶ You ask Id, and he laughs at the thought.
¶ You tell the legmen to walk across the street. You watch the eyemen's message absentmindedly while the legmen and other crew members take you across the road. The sidewalk is painted with yellow rectangles. The walk signal is blinking red, and, as the earman informs you, it's chirping.
¶ The eyemen are just reporting to you your distance from the curb when the idea man asks you, "Who are you?"
¶ You laugh. "I'm selfman. Are you still trying to comprehend..."
¶ "I don't think you are," interrupts idea man.
¶ You are taken aback. You ask, if you aren't yourself, then who are you?
¶ "You aren't selfman. You are memory man."
¶ You ask idea man what he means by this.
¶ "You are memory man, and you have the memories of selfman. You remember selfman. You are the memory of selfman, but you aren't selfman himself."
¶ You wonder where selfman would be if your not him. You hadn't seen any other selfmen around the brain. "If I'm memory man, then why don't I remember who selfman really is?"
¶ "You do, but you don't"
¶ "I'm selfman."
¶ "No. You're memory man."
¶ "Then where's selfman?"
¶ "Nowhere."
¶ You have crossed the street now, and legman asks if you'd like to continue down the sidewalk as usual, but you hardly notice.
¶ Ideaman goes on, "Selfman left. He left a long, long time ago. We're all just here in his brain, doing what he told us to do, what you remember he wanted us to do, but he's not here anymore."
¶ You hardly notice yourself asking the headman and eyemen to look down at your hands, but you find that your receiving reports about the apperence of your own hands, and they seem strange to you. One of the handmen rotates the hand for you, and you see what an alien friend it is. Is it yours? Is any of this really you?
¶ The legmen ask you again if you'd like to continue down the sidewalk, and you're pulled from your thoughts just enough to mutter an affirmative response.
¶ The idea man’s words feel almost as if they could be true. You're uneasy. "Am I Selfman?"
¶ One of the handmen overhears you, "Aren't you?"
¶ "I don't know."
¶ The handmen converse with each other, "He might not be the real selfman."
¶ Soon the rumour spreads throughout your whole brain, that is, if it is your brain. They all speak in hushed voices.
¶ "Where is the selfman?"
¶ "Who is the real selfman?"
¶ "Is he gone?"
¶ "He is, isn't he?"
¶ "Will he ever come back?"
¶ "I want him back."
¶ "I'm lonely."
¶ "Wait!" you cry, wanting to get a hold of the situation. "I am selfman... I am... I am..."
¶ "Are you?"
¶ "Are you really selfman?"
¶ "You're just a memory."
¶ "Are you the real selfman?"
¶ "Selfman left us."
¶ You look around the brain. "Maybe... maybe I am selfman... and maybe I'm not... but if I'm not then what I am is a representative of him. Wherever he is, I remember his wishes. That's what matters. Listen to me, and I'll tell you what he wanted. Maybe he'll come back one day. Maybe I am him. Either way, nothing's changed. Keep listening to me, and selfman, whomever he is, wherever he be, will be satisfied."
¶ Ideaman begins applauding, and everyone else shuffles quietly back to work, satisfied by your speech. You remain there, feeling small and awkward, wishing you could think of a speech that's just a little more satisfying.
¶ Ideaman smiles and leaves you to yourself.

Experemental Mode of Writing

A man on the edge of the ocean waits to tell his mother goodbye, but an old friend...
Slippery was the white which whashed upon the grains
like salt too heavy to dissolve.
It reminded him of a gritty sort of soup,
or a sugarjar in the m i l k.
Drifting on a child's sail, he lost his footing.
No more was the wooden green floating
nor the heavy salt slurping,
for now the children where laughing,
like roadways of dying.
Trees drinking applejuice, with
icecubes
or cherries that can't see.
So our eyes lie on the sidewalk, while our feet dangle
in
    the
            sky was partly cloudy with no chance or rain,
only the occasional mist in droplet form,
taken twice a day and once before evenings
wherein the lady rocked on a needle chair
sipping her tea from accross the bay
where all the mothers ask their children
"What will you say today?"
and all the children answer
once in a while
when the sky is a little less wet
-ed by the tears of the girl who wasn't asked
until the lady in the needle chair
finished her tea
and asked me
"What will you say today?"
The man was shaken from his thoughts by a cold
touch
of wind upon his skin. Paper fluttered.
Longer legs than a treetrunk slipped like a
tiger
,a madman on his day off,
coming through the brush with - an - U m b r e l l a
in - his - hand.
"How's the reflection shifting today old chap?"
Murrmer murm, murmer mermur murmer Mermering
mermer muremir mermir mirmure mirmur merm,
murmur thus "Said the waiting man."
"Is That So!?" Cackled the floor planks,
"Well I think it's fine for a drownin'!"
He smiled warmly as he might,
"Th'flection's shimmered by a cold wind.
I sha'n't stay under so long's to see."
The treetrunk of a tiger dropped his paw
colder still
on the back of his neck.
"December is coming, count with me."
Ten they said together.
Thus several seconds passed away
while a whispering blade of grass learned to play flute.
"Did you see the ircksome lad?"
"Nay, buta fine'n on t'porch.
Delivered me mail twice a days-back."
A moments hesitation
putting on face,
"Well that's grand! Whatcha get fur jingles?"
"Two pence anna 'alf."
"Ah! Now I gotta one fur twenty!
Mind yur blather's twice tha' in a forenights kelp."
He lowered his eyes.
"Whatta de-matter?"
"M-m-m."
"Spit yer neh-ah-uhhh..."
"My own matters."
He stood a little resolved and half dizzied as the grass
finally learned D minor.
The water lapped upon green wood
and spires of splinters spat salty spittle
uppon grey trousers.
"So be it."
They stood in silence.
The sun argued with the moon as to weather,
and whether the stars could stay.
The shore insisted that they must go home,
for they where turning purple it supper's air.
"She was on the line." Spoke he finally.
"Yeah, and we all wher-
"NO... my line."
'''
"Ah. Go on mah friend. Go on."
"There was the we, standin'
and she said to me,
'What will you say today?'
and so it was..."
and so it was
he lost his footonthe cloud again,
that all I finally knew
all the others accross the bay had no socks
save for the red pear in the heavens,
'tween the East and South mountains
where it rose e'vry Saturday morning from the East
and settled down for a nap every night in the West
so that we could sleep despite its spiteless radiance...
"What's the point! Ah was there."
,,¡ʇɐds spǝǝs ǝɥʇ puıɯ,,
The crooked cane quivered.
Tiger trunks eyelids like a tongue barely pushed
or a nostril breathed through
or a pin in, but not through, the evening news
showed us that this was not the man's usual.
(Indeed, he preferred jam over jelly.)
His eyes
            turned
                down
cast    to    the    ground.
                                                "Sorry"
"Don't ye ' me ya! Take a trike fer breakin'!"
Gazing like an english muffin,
a seagull in the rain,
he was an unshaking figure silhouetted against
purple sea.
"I  await  her."
The cruel one grinned.
"Come now, you wait in vein on'sploaded veins!"
    Veins (indeed).
"Do ya really think there's any time to be gained
on a salted plane
in the middle of a winter's hour?"
Slippery was the white which washed upon the grains
like salt to heavy to dissolve.
He lifted his eyes,
"Yes."

Passing 'neath a maple tree

I meant to post something like this a while ago, but never came up with anything beautiful enough. Still haven't. Oh well, maybe it will sound better on your end.

Passing 'neath a maple tree, it's leaves golden and oránge,
a collection of men, three, had some words to exchange.
A leaf, a discarded sheet of foliage, fell to the cobble path.
one of the three, a sage, cried out "A sign at last!
As this leaf before me is graced with veins of red,
so is my heart that pleas to let my friends be fed.
Now I know that the thing I need to understand
is: this hand's for giving!" Anew he saw his hand.
The second man there growled "Nonsense! Deciduous
is all it is!" He howled "A sign? Preposterous!"
Then the last of the three asked if it were a sin
to learn from things that be, but speak only within.
"For despite the language that this sanguine leaf speaks
in his ear the foliage gave the lesson he seeks."
All these things did transpire beneath a maple tree
in which a smile slyer than suspected by th'three
sat watching, and speaking as it dropped one more leaf,
"They got not my meaning, but clarity's not chief.
What they understood I hadn't in my mind,
but still it was good, though my thoughts they don't find."

Physicalism's Flaw

> How does the physical world work? What is it? What does it mean? Some of the answers to these questions are more widely accepted than others. The conclusion that is accepted by more people, which is more popular, may sometimes also be the more accurate conclusion, but not always.
> I remember visiting O.M.S.I. as a child, and looking at certain machines contained in glass boxes. These machines consisted of an electricity driven motor that lifted metal balls from a trap in the bottom to a spot on the top. These balls would then roll down tracks taking turns at forks and influencing which forks would be taken by each other. There were levers, swings, latches, and many other little mechanisms that made the machines fascinating to watch.
> One might describe one of these machines with Boolean logic. When a ball arrives at this fork, if three balls weighed down this pressure plate, and this lever had not been switched by another ball, then the ball took the left fork. As Boolean logic could be used to describe the physical workings of this machine, so could Boolean logic be used to describe all physical processes. If the force applied to an object is greater than the friction on that object...
> Our brains are physical. Just masses of matter. Electrons orbiting nuclei determine the bonding of one atom to another, these atoms bond into chemicals, these chemicals make up cells. When a certain frequency of light, a particle and a wave, collides with an object, it bounces according to an exact formula. When the light enters the cone of someone's eye, it stimulates a chain reaction much like those machines in O.M.S.I., and electrochemical waves are sent down the axons of those neurons, down the optic nerve, through the brain, jumping from one cell to the next, into the occipital lobe at the back of the head. Billions upon billions of chain reactions occur, branching off, coming back together, processing, comparing things in the circuitry of other parts of the brain, being influenced by the "ifs" of the molding of our mind that is our "memory." These chains lead into the prefrontal cortex where, according to current understanding, we analyze all this data and make a decision accordingly. This then triggers more chain reactions that result in our muscle movements and our speaking and whatever other response we may have.
> Naturally, this is all a simplification, for it would be impractical, and even impossible to communicate these things without simplifying them. Yet, even in this simplification, we can see a hole. There's something missing. Would billions of those machines from O.M.S.I. chained together into a giant loop be sentient, aware, like we are? Some may say yes, and some may say no. One way or the other, the fact remains that this current explanation of the physical world only tells how light particles could catalyze chain reactions, how vibrations in our eardrums could catalyze chain reactions, or how any other physical input into any machine could catalyze chain reactions resulting in physical output. It does not however, explain our experience of colour. It explains vibrations, but not the experience of sound. It explains how our senses work, and how our brain processes just like a computer does, but it does not explain how our awareness works, or how our minds think.
> Our brains are just computers, and our bodies are just machines. We however, are more. We have awareness that is independent of matter, energy, and the spaces in between. There is output leaving the physical world, like the output leaving a television or computer screen for someone's viewing. That someone is our self.
> Now, the physical world operates according to exact formulae, and everything is just a chain reaction of matter and energy, occurring on it's own. What can these "selves" be but observers? Well, the fact that I am discussing this concept is proof that these selves can send input into the physical world, otherwise my physical brain could not process the "concept" of awareness, and I could not discuss the concept, nor write about it in the physical world.
> So, to put this conclusion into simplified metaphorical terms, the physical world is like the internet, our brains are like computers, and our aware selves, our minds, are the operators of these computers, outside of the internet.

Early Limericks

I was looking through some of my writing and I found these Limericks that I wrote. These are basically the first ones I've ever written, and I haven't written many more sense. I ought to try my hand at some more.
Hey, why don't you try writing some? The pattern is an aabba rhyme scheme where the third and fourth lines are generally shorter.
a_ _ _
a_ _ _
b_ _
b_ _
a_ _ _


There was an old man yesterday
who was sitting on a log at the bay.
The log rolled
and his pants got soild
so he won't be there next monday.

There was a mad scientist
talking to an insane priest
they each shouted
'till both pouted.
Neither came to the logicians feast.

A lass without her own house
was taunted by a little mouse
That's quite rude
and very crude
to be so bold, a thing high as a louse.

Lost in a maze of corn
a woman was feeling worn
so she stopped
and there popped
and thus a puzzled child was born.

In a good mans dizzy skull
the world seemed to be made of wool.
His head on the brink,
he said, "I can't think!"
So a sponge gave him a headful.

Looking for a meadow lark
a dog suddenly began to bark.
It had found
on the ground
a sneaky smurf in the dark.

There was a man wearing blue
who asked if anyone knew
where we went
to get so bent
and he got his answer from you.

Sitting in a five foot arm chair
sat a man who never would dare.
"It's safe" he said,
so at home he staid.
'till his seat fell hard on his hair.

There's a yellow chimpanzee.
It never was much bother to me,
But Bill
had his fill.
Bill's such a stingy bannanna tree.

There was a man in a red cap
who aimed a bear to trap
so he got a dart
thinking himself smart
but all he got was a bit of tree sap.

Some Limericks I tried to write
and found that it took some might
for though I could
they weren't as good
as some of us would have liked.

You may have noticed a rhym
on some occasion, or at some time
that didn't quit fit,
and gave you a fit,
caus technicaly it's "identity" to say "teatime."

In the greatest MMORPG
that I ever in my life did see
a haiku dungion
deserves acclaimation
and yet the limerick one escaped me.

On too common an occasion
the rock escapes abbrasion
by sitting
not fitting
as the brains of a legion.