| [Return to Home Page] (June
1999) [Printed in "Reality Module No.10."]
[Follows on from: Is There Meaning in Dreams?
(April 1999)]
IS THERE MEANING IN DREAMS?
- AN INTERLUDE -
Invisible Bowling Balls
The Porous World
Being Inside a Magic Ball
Conclusions
Related Works
"I tend to avoid thinking too much about thinking. It seems too
much like dividing by zero. Be forewarned, therein infinite loops lie...."
Ortlieb, Marc. My Pink Half of the Drainpipe
7. February 1999. p.3.(ANZAPA 186).
Thinking about thinking brings to my mind the Heisenberg Uncertainty
Principle.
I imagine a long hallway with highly polished wooden floorboards.
Now and then invisible bowling balls roll along the floor, and the only
way I can find out whether one is rolling past is to flick pingpong balls
across the floor.
If a pingpong ball runs into an invisible bowling ball, it will bounce
off in an unexpected direction. But the bowling ball too, although it
is much heavier, will have its path subtly altered as well.
The act of observing changes that which is observed. Thinking about thinking
is like stepping into a room of mirrors - images reflected again and again
cause you to confuse the actual with the illusion.
But we can avoid the confusion of mirrors, reach deeper and beyond their
surfaces - the image compiler gives us a much more powerful tool.
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"The sound surrounds the icy waters underground."
PINK FLOYD. Astronomy Domine. 1969.
Here is the porous world of brown earth, riddled with tunnels through
which water flows.
These are my natural thoughts.
The water flows through tunnels at many levels - right down to the heart
of the world. Gravity is irrelevant here - the water flows through the
tunnels, branching, trickling down confined spaces, or bursting out and
flowing across the surface of the porous world.
As always - most of what happens happens deep underground, hidden from
view.
Many of the tunnels are broad with water flowing through them constantly.
These are my habitual thoughts. Swift flowing, flowing continously, unheeded.
Some channels are narrower, relatively unexplored. Water trickles slowly
through these places.
The porous world is fashioned of mud. The natural action of water makes
tunnels grow wider, makes smaller tunnels join together. Water flows through
them naturally, continously.
The Porous World is a structure, its icy waters flow according to laws
as natural as those which govern the universe. In time the flow of the
waters will simplify the network of tunnels in the porous world, and will
make flows within the world almost mechanically precise (baring fractal
imperfections) and as regulated as clockwork.
As always the many paths these waters take are unknown to me. (It is
an automated world - it does not require supervision.)
But I travel through these waters and flow through underground passages
in a Magic Ball.
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I may allow the Ball (which is my consciousness) to be pushed along by
the flow of the waters around it, drifting like flotsam, letting the waters
take control. Being passive.
But the Ball is only passive if I allow it to be - if I choose to let
go of control.
By an act of will I can move the Magic Ball. I can float through the
passages chosing what tunnels I wish to follow - to explore.
It can alter the porous world's natural flows. It can bore new tunnels
or dig deep down into the mud. It can pass through the walls of the world
like a ghost, not needing tunnels at all.
The Magic Ball is small - a small round thing in a vast network of intertwined
watery tunnels, and it can alter only that space which is immediately
around it - but its magic is powerful indeed - and it can move fast as
light.
I may be content to flow along with the icy waters - passive, following
habitual thought patterns, not getting energised for change. But deep
within the mind magic when unleased can be a potent force.
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The vast bulk of the mind is mechanical, programmed, but full of energy
following patterns set seemingly in stone. (But slowly relentlessly mutating.)
A small portion of the mind (consciousness) can break its programming
- can travel & reinvent at will.
It is important - at this stage - to realise that the mind has these
two very different but interacting components.
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Related Works
- In This Series -
Previously: Is There Meaning in Dreams? (April 1999)
This Essay: Is There Meaning in Dreams? - An Interlude
(June 1999)
Then: Is There Meaning in Dreams (2) - Shards in
the Web, or Dig and Delve (August 1999)
See also: Invaginated Shadow Mind
Feedback and Discussions
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Copyright © 1999 by Michael F. Green.
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Last Updated: 16 March 2003 |