Day: September 25, 2018

Stan meets Satan in the mirror

ECG

Stan was standing on the patio behind his bijou home when a sudden heavy  downpour of water drenched him all over.
This is like a monsoon,he murmured to Emile who was also wet and drowned looking
A head  and neck appeared over the dark wooden fence.
I’m awfully sorry,old boy.A pipe has burst in Annie’s loft.I tried to fix it myself.
I don’t believe it.You are Stan Brown.It must be 50 years since I saw you.
Stan was hiding his surprise at seeing Rudolf Hairnet,his former logic tutor at an ancient foundation, in the garden of Annie,Stan’s beloved colourful mistress.
Why not pop in Rudolf,he said.I’ll leave the door open and go upstairs to change my clothes.Be with you in a moment.
Stan went upstairs and removed his clothes.His body was now as thin as when he reached his full height of 6 ft 6 inches but alas it had less muscle and more fat. nowadays.He gazed into his wife’s full length mirror.
To his surprise, he saw Satan looking out.Although he knew this was possible for Catholics he had never met Satan before.Not that he was keen to,exciting as it might be.
How do you get behind the mirror,he asked  Satan gently.
God only knows,said Satan morosely.
Why not ask him?
I’m too proud,the poor devil replied in a bleak voice.
Well,we all have our pride,Stan told him,though no doubt yours is the biggest in the universe.
Yes,indeed,Satan answered.It’s bigger than Everest
Are you here for any purpose,Stan enquired.
Yes,your home seems more intriguing than most and I like to watch you in bed with that flame haired woman… is she your paramour?
I see,said Stan,You are a voyeur par excellence
That’s one way of describing me,Satan said,No woman will come to bed with me so I am trapped here behind every mirror in the world.I can see it all but never take part.
You must be very lonely,said Stan
Yes,the dark spirit muttered painfully
Are there no she-devils about who might oblige you?Stan asked him thoughtfully.
I don’t seem to fancy them so much.They are all as bad a me,I want kindness and tenderness not just lust.After all,one might satisfy that with a vibrator… we have them in hell you know!We have many things but love and humility are not there.
Why,you are beginning to sound almost human,Stan told him.We want love too.If only you would apologise to God I am sure he would forgive you and let you come into the real world of others instead of being trapped in there
Stan heard a noise.He turned round displaying his bony frame and his  drooping organs to Rudolf.
Are you ok? I was worried that the drenching had knocked you off balance.I have out your kettle on the  fire to make you a hot drink and phoned 999 for aid.
But we don’t have a fire,Stan responded. loudly
Well,you do now said Rudolf ,so let’s enjoy the flames while we can.
To whom were you talking in there? he enquired grammatically.

I was on my mobile,said Stan defensively.
But where is it?You had nothing on ? On second thoughts,please don’t tell me .I’ve heard some strange stories but arsing about with a y phone is not one I wish to dwell on.
That’s logicians for you.No interest in the wilder shores of life.Stan told himself as he went downstairs and joined Rudolf for a good cup of tea.
And that is what I need to recover from writing down this very odd tale…
And so does Dave the poor  innocent young paramedic from heaven who is just arriving as we leave these two dear old men sitting by the mysterious burning shrub….

 

Mirrors

What I never thought I’d have
Revealed by wearing  M.S tops
A cleavage

Now modest dressing is in vogue
I’ll fear no  more exposure now
In dotage

I never try on clothes I  buy
But usually  I just get by
Unravaged

As I was thin as a birch tree
I never learned to watch my self
In mirrors

 

The Fall

About the fall, I never knew the cost
Nor where the people went when they were lost
The group survived by building their own God
With his words,  they worshipped as they  left
He was given to serving them with texts
Written into rocks and sand they trod
About the Fall.

In early days God was a Father  proud
Given to punishment,even death allowed
A goat was killed and they each saw the blood
Reminding them ,the mortal, how we’re pruned
Like bonsai trees, the size and shape  are wound
God could do such things,it seems he did
It was in Fall

Supernatural,  fierce and finely tuned
Yet the sins of human beings ever loomed
Until his own son hung from unblessed wood
The curse of Cain.Bathsheba understood
In her mind she saw how evil’s good
The devil riding bareback was her groom
Teaching her the spells of whip and womb
It was the Fall

Cartesian theatre!

crowded street with cars along arc de triomphe
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_theater

 

The beginning:

“Cartesian theater” is a derisive term coined by philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett to refer pointedly to a defining aspect of what he calls Cartesian materialism, which he considers to be the often unacknowledged remnants of Cartesian dualism in modern materialist theories of the mind.

Overview

Descartes originally claimed that consciousness requires an immaterial soul, which interacts with the body via the pineal gland of the brain. Dennett says that, when the dualism is removed, what remains of Descartes’ original model amounts to imagining a tiny theater in the brain where a homunculus (small person), now physical, performs the task of observing all the sensory data projected on a screen at a particular instant, making the decisions and sending out commands (cf. the homunculus argument).

The term “Cartesian theater” was brought up in the context of the multiple drafts model that Dennett posits in Consciousness Explained (1991):

Cartesian materialism is the view that there is a crucial finish line or boundary somewhere in the brain, marking a place where the order of arrival equals the order of “presentation” in experience because what happens there is what you are conscious of. … Many theorists would insist that they have explicitly rejected such an obviously bad idea. But … the persuasive imagery of the Cartesian Theater keeps coming back to haunt us—laypeople and scientists alike—even after its ghostly dualism has been denounced and exorcized.

— Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained [p.107, original emphasis.][1]

See also

Umvelt?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umwelt

 

 

 umwelt (plural: umwelten; from the German Umwelt meaning “environment” or “surroundings”) is the “biological foundations that lie at the very epicenter of the study of both communication and signification in the human [and non-human] animal”.[1] The term is usually translated as “self-centered world”.[2] Uexküll theorised that organisms can have different umwelten, even though they share the same environment. The subject of umwelt and Uexküll’s work is described by Dorion Sagan in an introduction to a collection of translations.[3] The term umwelt, together with companion terms Umgebung(an Umwelt as seen by another observer) and Innenwelt (the mapping of the self to the world of objects)[4], have special relevance for cognitive philosophers, roboticists and cyberneticians, since they offer a solution to the conundrum of the infinite regress of the Cartesian Theater.

 

 

 

Fire

The  wordless feelings of the soul  catch light
Like fire,like diamonds, like the dust of stars
With their fire they penetrate the night

To expression, they the mind incite
To where the words may open and be clear
The  wordless feelings of the soul  catch light

Expression by its method brings delight
We see the  molten universe  desire
With great fires , with wonder, what  is wrought?

Like a flock of geese in happy flight
The heart of unknown worlds is not a liar
The sense and feeling  souls will   bring  us light

Of the thunder  and the lion we note
The natural world with its own might conspires
With its  being  it permeates the night

So our hearts and souls does love devour
Never cornered never shall it cower
The  wordless feelings of the soul  catch light
With  such brilliance can we feel the night?

Poetry and spirituality

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poems?field_poem_themes_tid=1651

 

The Soul selects her own Society (303)

Emily Dickinson, 1830 – 1886

The Soul selects her own Society —
Then — shuts the Door —
To her divine Majority —
Present no more —

Unmoved — she notes the Chariots — pausing —
At her low Gate —
Unmoved — an Emperor be kneeling
Upon her Mat —

I’ve known her — from an ample nation —
Choose One —
Then — close the Valves of her attention —
Like Stone —

c. 1862