Conscious, Annaka Harris

… i bought this book after reading a Brain Pickings post… the subject of consciousness is one of my rabbit hole topics… panpsychism is an exciting rabbit hole within the rabbit hole that i have read a number of books and articles about, including the very dense and, in lots of places (because you need to comprehend high level mathematics), incomprehensible book by Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Matter… i began reading it before the pandemic broke out… it took months to get through and i can’t claim to have fully understood it because of the aforementioned mathematical content… Russell himself says you can’t fully understand the topic if you can’t fully understand the mathematics, but he minimizes the mathematics for those who don’t…

… for a very thorough treatment of Panpsychism, see the entry in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy…

… back to Conscious, by Annaka Harris…

… i am 25 pages in and it is clear to me that in 100 pages i am going to get a truly “popular” account of the subject… the initial chapters have been a little frustrating as she presents foundational concepts almost as sufficient arguments and definitions which i know are going to be undermined by a discussion of panpsychism which is, i believe, the main target of the book…

… i did finally realized that she is setting her readers up for an “aha!” moment as the weaknesses and inconsistencies in the earlier part of the book come to a point of breaking, cue the entry of our hero, panpsychism!…

… this approach was found by reviewers on Amazon to be either annoying or successful, and i suspect it has to do with ones prior knowledge of the concepts of panpsychism… mine is, I am guessing, deep relative to the average target audience, though i am at best an advanced beginner… i know her initial development of the subject is problematic, but i believe it will turn out to be intentionally so…

… it will be interesting to see how effective the “aha” moment is when i get to it…

First Thoughts

… HCR meter pointing downwards… discussion of conservative extremism as evidenced by policies against mask and vaccine mandates… it’s really bleak and threatening… at present, the only remedy appears to be some form of federal voting rights legislation which the Senate can’t pass without making a change in the filibuster… several moderate Democrats Senators have said they will not vote to change the filibuster… what’s most depressing and frightening is that both sides view the current situation as an existential threat… this is the kind of thing that has already and will continue to lead to bloodshed…

… no alcohol last night, in at 9:30 PM, up at 4:00 AM… 6.5 hours of sleep… yup, that seems about right…

… finished The Essential Haiku yesterday, started Conscious, by Annaka Harris… i read a Brain Pickings post about it a couple of days ago and decided to buy it… i am 25 pages into it and was thinking that the development of ideas about consciousness in the book seemed a bit confused and unsound… i know that the book is heading towards presenting the concept of panpsychism, because of the Brain Pickings post and because there is a chapter labeled “Beyond Panpsychism” about 3/4 of the way through the book… an embrace of panpsychism would undercut some of the reasoning in the parts i have read so far, which flits around the trickiness of deciding when matter becomes “conscious”… the dividing lines are not clear and where we presently draw them doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny… so i am thinking the author is confused and muddled but it occurs to me that they are setting us up to introduce panpsychism as the resolution of the muddle… so i think i know why they are proceeding the way they are… at my present rate of reading, i will be done with the book in a few days…

… K comes today to continue with the weeding an mulching of the garden… i have done some work on the other side of the garden and it looks like we will be close to complete by the time H gets home…

… i am looking forward to driving down to Florida and back… the time spent there will be emotionally fraught as J will be frail and continuing on the path of heart failure, and C will be stressed out and sad, and my own emotions will be complex because of my poor relationship with J… so i focus on the three days of travel at either end… time to process… the possibilities of some minor adventures…

… i am feeling a little anxious about my skin exam next week, though i am not presently concerned about any skin anomalies… will be glad to have that past me…

… Chas to the vet yesterday… he’s gained a large amount of weight, 8 lbs according to the vet’s record… we decided to do a blood panel that included thyroid indicators… we’ve had several dogs in the pat with thyroid issues… fortunately, that is easy to treat… the visit cost nearly $470… we used to be able to get out of there for around $200… both Chas and Fiona got vaccinated for Bordetella, aka, Kennel Cough, yesterday… apparently it is going around… the vet says they have seen doggie patients at the rate of 1 per day that have it… it sounds like there is a cluster in one family in Beacon or Beacon vicinity…

The Essential Haiku, End Notes

… today, the book is finished… the last notes discuss the origins of the haiku form and the difficulties of translating them… i am surprised that Robert Hass is not fluent in Japanese but rather, learned what he needed to learn to translate the poems, initially for his own pleasure/study, later for publication… he says he set himself the task of translating one haiku a day, which involved looking up the characters of both the Japanese and Chinese languages and deciphering what they meant or implied…

… at the very end, there is a list of elements of Haiku that make them difficult to render in English:

• syntax… The swiftness of the syntax is one of the fascinating things about these poems, and I don’t think itv can be rendered.¹
• Rhythm… exists in the structuring of the lines, where there are shifts and changes in direction, which have the effect of taking a 5-7-5 structure and rendering it as 5-4-3-5 or 5-3-4-5…
• Chinese Characters… Japanese is written in a combination of phonetic signs for individual syllable sounds and ideograms based on Chinese characters, or kanji²
• Pivot Words… words that suddenly change the meaning, or the expectation of meaning, of a sentence, as you read it, a kind of grammatical double exposure.³
• Seasonal Worlds… known as Kigo… as Mark Morris observes, “translation cannot convey the feeling of at-homeness, of being inserted in the cycle of a natural and ritual calendar that kigo communicate to the haikai reader.”⁴

… the earlier traditions of haikai and hokku, which birthed the haiku form, are compared to the call and response improvisation of jazz bands of the 1920’s…

First Thoughts

… dinner with D & E last night… really nice time… got to express my thoughts more than i do with H present… drank a little too much wine but it was good fun…

… HCR meter neutral to negative today… speculation that the Taliban can/will be held in check for a while through the withholding of foreign aid which the country is totally dependent on… it’s wait and see… also, incredulity that the U.S. Government had no idea that there would be such a rapid collapse of the military forces trained by the U.S.… that there had been a fundamental misunderstanding of the Afghan people…

… eye on the weather for next week… will have to shift to rebuilding the back stairs and so far, the weather is not looking cooperative… on the other hand, the weather app (Dark Sky) has seemed inaccurate lately, who knows what it will be… i’ve installed Weather Bar on my desktop… lets see if it is any more informative and accurate…

… in the meantime, finishing up the dining room panel project is my next few days… should have it all done by Friday(?)… certainly by end of the weekend… probably be able to get it painted before H returns from BI which i hope will make her smile…

… i’ve been neglecting photo processing during dining room construction… i am getting out and making the pictures, iPhone only, but no processing or sharing…

… i have booked my hotel stays for the journey down to Florida… first night, Lynchburg VA, second night, Savannah GA… now for the journey back… then figure out a few sights that don’t take long to see… starting to look forward to it even though visiting with my parents will be a bit sad and stressful…

A Brain Pickings Post on Panpsychism and Consciousness

… two of my most favorite rabbit holes, though they are really one rabbit hole… i have read a lot on panpsychism and find i believe in the idea that all matter possesses some level of consciousness which can be as fundamental as the attraction or repulsion between two subatomic particles… the idea that to be attracted or repulsed is to “sense” the proximity of “another”…

… it’s an idea that is often (though increasingly less so) dismissed as new age woo-woo, or a kind of spiritualism the intuitive self is drawn to as a pathway to meaning in life…

Films of Kim Jee-woon

… i am planning to watch The Age of Shadows next, it appears to be available on Netflix and has a rare 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes…

The Essential Haiku, End Notes

… today starts the notes on Issa’s poems…

… in today’s notes, i learn that…

• the Buddhism Issa’s family practiced is that of the Jodo-shin-shu sect which has become Mahayanna Buddhism in present day Japan… it is the most important school of Buddhism in Japan and is considered mainline, middle class… it accounts for some aspects of Issa’s sensibilities…¹
• Robert Bly believes didactic intent is not in the realm of haiku, that is, haiku should not seek to teach… what then, should haiku do?… observe?… and really, if it observes well, doesn’t an astute student learn from it?… doesn’t it teach?… it feels like an odd and splitting hairs sort of distinction…
• scarecrows are an autumn kigo, which are words or phrases with seasonal reference, in haiku, a cultural code for the seasons… i found this extensive list of kigo in Wikipedia…
• The World of Dew is direct reference to Buddhist teaching about the ephemeral nature of things… in Mahayana formulation, it is this: All conditioned things are like a dream, a phantom, a drop of dew, a lightning flash. This is how to observe them.²
• that women turning into serpents figure in No and Kabuki plays…³

… i have finished the notes related to Issa and a section of Basho on how to make poems… it is interesting to me that Hass spends much more note space on Basho than either of the other two poets… because of the stature of his poetry?… or, are Buson and Issa generally a little more accessible to the western mind?…

First Thougths

… weight: 227.0 lbs… lowest i have been this year, the pandemic ten or fifteen are coming off, another 7 would make me happy… another 1 to 2 and i would officially be out of the obese category and into the overweight category…

… in bed at 8:30, awake at 2:30… note to self, it may be that you really only need 6-6.5 hours sleep…

… one martini last night, kitchen cleaned up, feel less groggy this morning… note to self, less is more…

… sis and i put the dustup behind us yesterday… i resolve to take note of my feelings next time we head down the dustup road and tell her i am getting irritated and that i recommend we drop the current line of conversation… it would be up to her then whether continuing was important enough to risk confrontation… still don’t like the way she never sees and admits her contribution to these dustups…

… HCR meter on 0 this morning… she went to bed early as she usually does once a week…

… progress on dining room paneling is going well… will have it ready for sanding and painting by beginning of next week… now have to find a slot to rebuild the back stairs…

… hoping for a better photowalk today… yesterday i was too preoccupied with sister dustup to concentrate on making pictures…

… i am excited that one of my stops on the Florida road trip will be Savannah Georgia… i found a Red Roof Inn (clean, inexpensive, dogs welcome) for $56/night and with very positive customer reviews… now i have to figure out where i am stopping the night before… i had hoped it would be Charlottesville Virginia (home of UVA, the college i attended), but i can’t get a room there for less than $100/night and i want to keep expenses down… so i will look for something elsewhere, maybe in the Shenandoah Valley… a little research, starting to zero in on Lexington VA… about half way to Savannah GA and rooms in my price range…

The Essential Haiku, End Notes

… more notes on Buson…

… i learn that:

• the mountain cuckoo lives in deep forest, is often heard, seldom seen… the tradition is that nobody knows much about it, so secretive is it
• a deer crying three times = fall

… i am finished with the notes on Buson… next is Issa, then i move on to other reading material…

First Thoughts

… HCR meter negative… about the lightning speed collapse of the U.S. trained Afghan army which was, apparently the result of negotiated cease fires between those armies and the Taliban… that the U.S. seemed to have no idea of what was going on seems implausible, or, if indeed the case, pretty troubling… at the end she goes on a bit of a rant against conservative politicians trying to make the Afghan situation the Biden/Harris admin’s fault… i know she tilts strongly liberal, but i wish she hadn’t done that…

… dust up with my sister yesterday… trying to think what sort of olive branch i can extend…

… WooHoo!… a Red Roof Inn in Savannah Georgia and it is only $56 dollars a night and highly rated by customers!… and, there is a Red Roof in Charlottesville, much more expensive… may need to locate one outside of the city… would like to keep overnight costs near $300 for entire trip… the adventure is coalescing…

… rain coming, probably tropical storm remnants, need to protect the lumber drying in the driveway, finish wee whacking in the back…

Analogia, George Dyson

… of the growing number of rabbit holes i am prone to going down, AI, which i expand to “Alternative Intelligence,” is a big one… i wrote a talk on the subject a while back… for a long time i talked about it at family gatherings, dinner parties, etc… until my wife gently brought it to a stop, at least in public… she was bored, she was sure our friends were bored… maybe they were, but i haven’t stopped thinking about it… this presentation by Maria Popova on Brain Pickings of George Dyson’s book, has launched me down the AI rabbit hole again… i bought the Kindle version of the book and it awaits my attention in the near future…

… the notable quote that headlines the article…

Nature’s answer to those who seek to control nature through programmable machines is to allow us to build systems whose nature is beyond programmable control.¹

… the best way i found to come at the subject was that the rise of AI was evolution in action… that nature was finding a way to progress intelligence and that such progression might or might not include a future for women and men, or if it does, women and men might not constitute the apex, if they ever did… AI does look to me to be the viable way we set sail across the universe… it seems more plausible to me that intelligent and self motivated mechanical life will evolve… alternative intelligence will be much more capable of survival in the interstitial spaces of the cosmos than flesh and blood, which is fragile and in need of extensive protection and support to persist beyond the surface of the planet…

… i am sure i will be writing more on this subject…

The Essential Haiku, End Notes

… i was telling my brother and sister yesterday that i have found reading this book of Haiku has had a daily centering effect on me… in light of all the family trauma and drama going on right now, this has been useful…

… more notes on the poems of Buson…

… i learn that in Buson’s time, there was an annual doll festival held in the spring… this poem talks about it…

the lights are going out

in the doll shops—

spring rain.

… i wonder about the translation not relying on cultural knowledge of doll festivals happening in the Spring in Buson’s time, and so reiterating that it is spring in the third line… i suppose it is so obscure that western audiences need the help?…

… Bats flitting here and there: Hass relates this poem to The Young Housewife, a poem by William Carlos Williams… i look up the poem, find it slightly confusing, but understand the connection… a poem of longing, less clearly so in the case of Buson…

… i learn about a particular willow tree that has long poetic tradition, visited and written about by Saigyo, Basho, Buson… i am reminded of the catalpa tree in the graveyard… from there, i remember a comment on my photos utility poles and wires at the last Salon, comparing them unfavorably to R. Crumb’s drawings of the same subject… i look them up and find this short video slide show set to the music of Joni Mitchel’s The Big Yellow Taxi… i respect the person who made the comment, but, i don’t think they were right…

… hmm… from the haiku of Buson to the drawings of R. Crumb and music of Joni Mitchel…

First Thoughts

… the HRC meter points downward today… Kabul Afghanistan fell to the Taliban last night… Ashraf Gahni, president of the U.S. backed Afghan government has fled to Tajikistan… apparently the military the U.S. trained was only interested in a paycheck, not defending the U.S. created government… what a waste of “treasure,” as it is often put… lives and money… then context of the world is shifting away from Europe and the U.S. to the asiatic countries… my own assessment, not HCR’s…

… meanwhile, my Dad was at the center of conversation yesterday, the family Zoom meeting, text conversations with H about how to manage in September, when i will head down to Florida for what could be an extended stay, not allowing me to get back to New York in time to travel out to BI for my niece’s wedding… it’s all up in the air…

… a bit of a frustrating day yesterday… was on track to get a number of things done, including weed whacking and cleaning up in the back yard… then i ran out of whacking cable… then i went out to get some more… then i made the decision to get it at Lowes in Newburgh… then, on the way, i saw the traffic backed up for at least three exits… then i thought i will go back via 17… then when i did, it turns out that the traffic was backed up there too… then it took way too long to get back… then i gave up on finishing the yard work… then i thought, tomorrow’s another day… here it is tomorrow, i will endeavor to finish the yard work and get back to dining room carpentry…

… it is turning out that i will have to travel to Florida over Labor Day weekend… sigh… not what i would have preferred… i will begin to finalize the planning this week…

I Am So Apalled

… from this article i learned about a website where you can upload a photograph of any woman, and it will feed you back a very credible nude image of that woman… it should be illegal, but guess what, it’s not…

… you can imagine the variety of malignant uses the website can be put to…

… interestingly (not surprisingly?), it doesn’t work at all on men, unless you want to imagine what they might be like as a woman…

… how low can we go…

… and on that note, i am off to walk, contemplate and make pictures…

An-My Lê

… an interesting quote from the review…

_ Simply put, the raison d’etre for the military – despite all protestations to the contrary, despite all the good works they otherwise undertake – is “to engage in combat, should it be required to do so by the national defence policy, and to win. This represents an organisational goal of any military, and the primary focus for military thought through military history.” (Wikipedia) In terms of military doctrine, we note that in the history of the United States of America, the country has been at war 225 out of 243 years since 1776. America is a militarised society where the military prosecutes war on its own terms, disguising power as virtue. In terms of the prosecution of war, the country seems to be manifestly belligerent._

… this is an interesting followup to the Afghanistan article i posted right before it…

Afghanistan, another forsaken part of the world

… the Taliban on the march… much faster than expected… 20 years equipping and training an army, which seems to just be folding… human tragedies seem the worst to me… i suppose from above the earth looking down, one can think of humans as another manifestation of cosmic forces, but civilization is supposed to be where we choose to be better than that…

Earthquake in Haiti

… few countries seem as tortured by the cosmos as Haiti… sorrow for those lost, hope for many to be rescued…

The Essential Haiku, End Notes

… i’ve moved on to the notes on Buson’s haiku…

… Buson seems a more down to earth poet as i have observed earlier…

… i learn that erotic themes are not generally pursued in traditional haiku, Basho certainly doesn’t… Buson, perhaps, indirectly…

… i learn that leeks are a winter vegetable… i am growing leeks in my planter tanks… i look up when to harvest them… soon…

First Thoughts

… awoke with a start this AM, realizing i had forgotten to take my BP meds yesterday… a very rare occurrence… back on track now…

… months ago, i bought a vertical mouse, partly because a very expensive track ball had failed, and partly in hopes that neck pain i was experiencing was some form of mousing injury… the pain has almost disappeared… can’t attribute it to the vertical mouse with absolute certainty, but it is an interesting coincidence… i should note also that the vertical mouse has felt very natural to use…

…the HCR meter this morning is neutral… it was all about how Social Security got enacted and the woman responsible for it, Frances Perkins, the first woman to hold a position in the U.S. Cabinet… it ends on a somewhat disquieting note, a quote from Ms. Perkins…

One thing I know: Social Security is so firmly embedded in the American Psychology today that no politician, no political party, no political group could possibly destroy this Act and still maintain our democratic system. It is safe forever, and for the everlasting benefit of the people of the United States.¹

… fast forward to today, Democracy is under attack and if the siege is successful, Social Security and other social safety net programs will be on the chopping block…

… i was reading about China yesterday… an article on their move to reign in their tech industry… they have given it unfettered existence to this point… one of the things they are doing is forcing platforms to play nice with one another, so that they can’t monopolize a space… this surfaced my enormous frustration with the distribution of films in this country… i have been wanting to watch the movies of Kelly Reichardt all together, one after the other… it’s impossible… they are available on different streaming services, or not available at all… one needs to sign up for every f’ng media service out there to do it… it shouldn’t be like that… i am all for companies making money from the content they own, but there must be a way that delivers more value to the customer… it should be available for rent on all services, even at a somewhat higher price, and can be offered as part of a subscription for free or lower cost on the streaming service with the rights to distribute… then services can compete to provide the best user experience, the best stable of content to provide free or lower cost, etc… nobody would have to sign up for half a dozen services to watch the variety of content they want to watch… the Chinese government could make this happen, that might be its advantage…

NFTs (Non Fungible Tokens)

… a new platform to help artists make NFT art…

… which reminds me of another rabbit hole i need to get back to…

The Essential Haiku, Notes

… continuing with my reading of the end notes of the book…

… i learn that the Japanese have a word, tani-watari, for the sound a Bush Warbler makes when flying from one valley to another…

… i learn about a book, The Karma of Words, written by William LeFleur, and order an inexpensive used copy… the subtitle is, Buddhism and the Literary Arts in Medieval Japan…

… this poem is discussed…

still alive

and frozen in one lump—

the sea slugs

… i am reminded that i received my copy of Rise Ye Sea Slugs!, by Robin D. Gill, which turned out to be nothing like what i thought it would be… i wish i could retrace my steps in purchasing the book because it’s a pretty humorous mistake and difference… what i thought i had purchased was a book that offered multiple translations of Japanese haiku, by well known poets, in an effort to get at the difficult to translate subtleties of the poems… what i received was a book of haiku, with large amounts of explanatory text of various kinds, solely on the subject of sea slugs!… oh my… i’ve read snippets and am intrigued… when i am done with TEH, i will start in on the sea slugs… the note that Haas provides on the above poem tells me that the sea slug is usually a humorous reference in Japanese poetry… indeed…

… i learn that Night Herons are associated with the uncanny by the Japanese…

… on the recommendation of Haas, i also purchase a previously owned copy of Basho and His Interpreters: Selected Hokku with Commentary… i think i am officially diving down a rabbit hole, Japanese haiku… it’s an indirect way to get at Buddhism also… that i am finding it compelling at this moment likely has to do with my dad’s impending death… i have found it helpful…

First Thoughts

… HCR meeter neutral today… about the census and the political machinations that will be attendant with redistricting… major point is that urban populations are underrepresented and rural populations are overrepresented… that rural, white minority populations will continue to press this advantage and urban majorities will increasingly not tolerate it… it sounds as thought there need to be changes in the way representation is calculated, on a per multiple thousands basis… it doesn’t sound like this requires a constitutional amendment from my read of this AM’s post… i just re-read, and yes indeed, Congress set the cap on number of representatives… the constitution is mute on the point… one wonders why there isn’t talk of changing the cap as an effective antidote to voter suppression etc…

… a less fraught day yesterday… i spoke with Mom, things seemed a little less dire when i talked with her about Dad’s condition though i learned that she has one way of thinking about my Dad sleeping in a chair, and my sister another… the former tries to get him not to do it and is frustrated at not being able to, the later believes he does it because it is more comfortable, which tracks with his condition… i think mom is in a little bit of denial… not that she doesn’t know where this is heading, but she would like it to slow down… Rick arrived last night… there have been no reports from him yet…

… the heat broke a little, but not completely… going to continue to be hot, though not as hot…

Mac Update Update

… after the hour long fifteen minutes my Mac is telling me there is an update to install, which is the same update i just installed, or thought i did… wtf?… this happened with the last update too… really annoying…

****First Thoughts

… how is it that Apple gets it so wrong about length of time remaining for an OS update?… i mean, it’s not even close!… why bother with a time remaining display if it is so wildly inaccurate?…

… the deterioration of my father’s condition continues… my sister is getting on my nerves… trying to understand why and how i can transcend my irritation given the situation… my brother will arrive there today and provide us with his assessment… i should call mom today…

… realizing a trip to see my parents might be more imminent than i had expected i booked a service appointment for the car which turned out to be weeks away, about the time i originally planned to go… might have to fly, but then again, my sister is planning to go down after my brother leaves if the situation continues to decline… one of the reasons she is irritating me… she has just been and will be flying from Seattle… she is pursuing her best daughter ever routine… my decision is to let it be, let her do what she needs to do, go down when neither she or my brother can…

… HCR meeter is zero today… she needed a break… she did say the 2020 census has been released… i am sure there is some bad news in it for Dems…

Soft Copy Hard Copy, Stephan Keppel

… a book review by Jörg Colberg and GPT-3…

… Colberg experiments with an AI writing partner… to be honest, i don’t like the results very much… i laud the attempt but think it does a disservice to book and author, as the language is a bit clumsy, somewhat repetitive and all the while, one wonders, what is human reaction to the book and what is AI reaction to the human reaction?… it obscures an honest review and appreciation (or not) of the book, though your mileage may vary…

… there are two reasons this article caught my attention… Colberg wrote it and i have high regard for his reviewer perceptions and knowledge of photography, and his AI co-author had come to my attention in an article i read the other day in which a woman author was telling the story of something significant and sad that had happened to her (her sister dying of cancer when she was a teenager)… she would start a paragraph and let the AI complete it, experimenting with getting more and more honest with her own thoughts and memories in her prompts along the way to see how the AI writer responded… her result was more coherent and satisfying, but also suspect, because as humans, we want to read what other humans think and feel, not what an AI partner intuits that we think or feel…

… the gorilla in the room, however, is, will there be a moment when we won’t know if we are reading words assembled by a human or AI (a variation on the Turing test) if we are not told? (as i was in both articles i have read with AI co-authorship)… and what are the implications of that?… or, more scary, have i already read an article either co-authored or solo authored by AI without knowing it?… hmmm…

… there is a wider conversation to have about AI in general… I shared a micro poem about that yesterday… but that is for another time…