Norman Allan
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three thoughts
in search of the mind


I:


in the weave of the world
this does not explain "knowing"
but


does "knowing" exist
in the "possible" watching
willing in the weave of the world
as it unfolds

so that we exist in the
"observing it happen"
a "quantum" phase (forgive me)
we watch it happen
watch with will
observing acting
and without us barren moonscape

in us cultures civilizations academies
wars rumours of wars
and by jolly it is indeed "quantum"
(the "how it comes
came out of nothing")
in pixels of energy

oh our visual fields
aren't really just pixels
they are patterned and smudged iterations
of a something that is happening somewhere
sliding down time

hmm


so "knowing" exist possibly
in the waves
in the fields of probability

watching
willing
in the weave of the world


II:


being is because      
 though


the "possible" is an abstraction
a "what could be"       yet

everything is in the possible
that's what there is

until it happens
then it's in stone

dead and gone

out of the possible
into the was


III:

 

process:
stepping into the
river n times


why did the stone go from "the possible" to "was"
without passing through "is"? she asked
because "is" may just be "maybe" collapsing into "gone"
oh! except in the mind

remember those visual fields
that aren't just pixels
but are patterned and smudged iterations
of something happening somewhere
sliding down time

the neural process is indeed a process, proceeding
smeared through time, no stage itself complete*:
and that's special:
so maybe "mind" is still in the "possible",
unfolding, even while it happens

visual fields (for an example)
begin as a page of pixels
    that give rise, through a lateral inhibitory process,
        so that's two "iterations" of the visual field,
        still in the retina,
    to domains accenting contrast
then on through the optic chiasm
    fibers interspersing to project up by the brain
    an iteration compounding both eyes
a fourth iteration (in the "visual cortex")
    brings linear boundaries
a fifth movement and direction
and how many more before
    cat sees dog or mouse
all of this "sliding down time"

and where is the world seen?
in the neural maps?
or electromagnetic fields?
and how long was this phrase in your mind?

it's the stretch of the process
its depth in time
where root and branch join all phases
from "possible" to "was"
that's unique in this world
beyond the stones     beyond computer
a tangle of activity stretched through a multiplex moment
   free from was and maybe
       floating...

 


 

* see iteration in the CNS  ("sliding down time")

 

 


IV: it don't have a poem yet, the in sight that thoughts (are in part) cultural, they are bits of, slabs of the culture.- think of the cultural program of a herdinbg dog - an the nuclear physict


 

 

 

 

 

 

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