A rough draft

[BADGE OF HONOR]

Ehh needs a lot of work still.  It's just not coming out easily.   

[LMNO]

That's what she said.  Unfortunately.

[BADGE OF HONOR]

Of course, a consciousness doesn't just float around interacting with the world through sheer force of will.  Our bodies give us the necessary leverage--but themselves present a problem.  The brain is remarkably vulnerable to the frailties of the body, from the passing needs of fatigue and hunger to the more serious and permanent chemical imbalances and endocrine disorders.  What and who we are is partly made up of the juices we stew in.  But it's more than that--everyone has moods.  A personality is a consistent composition of juices at any given time, a reliable pattern of action and reaction to given situations.  Not that people are robots, of course, but if you asked someone a hypothetical situation, he would say, "Well, I would do this..."

And that's what's interesting about humans.  We do fill in the blanks.  If I were to say "1, 2, 4, 5" you would ask me about the number three.  We project into the future.  "If I try x I will ________" succeed or fail, depending on personality.  That personality that is a stew of juice inside your brain.  That brain which is your own universe.  That universe of which you are creator. 

The only thing limiting your reality is your perception.  Alter your perception of the physical world, and you will be called crazy--but you have an entire world to explore, right inside your own skull.  Look at yourself, at what and who you are, how you came to be, where you are going.  You, the consciousness, are God.  There is nobody but you who can say whether you can't reach out and perform a miracle.

[LMNO]

Ok, fuck yeah.

What and who we are is partly made up of the juices we stew in.

Killer line.

[BADGE OF HONOR]

I feel a great deal better efter finally getting all that out.  An entire month!

[hooplala]

Badge, do you mind if I report this?  And if so, how would you prefer to be credited?

[BADGE OF HONOR]

Just put all three pieces together, and BADGE-OF-HONOR or RBOG are fine.

[BADGE OF HONOR]

Uh, report on where?

[hooplala]

I meant repost.  Sorry, that sounded ominous.

[hooplala]

Also, it would be on my blog I was going to be reposting this... is "A Rough Draft" the title you would like?

[BADGE OF HONOR]

Yeah, since I haven't gone through and polished it up yet.  Or you could wait til I do, but that might take a couple days.

[Brotep]

I'm Barack Obama, and I approve this thread.

[BADGE OF HONOR]

I started thinking about nothing.  The concept.  The fact that, although it is completely impossible for a person to experience nothing (because the act of experiencing would create something), it's still there.  The idea.  It's not darkness, it's not quiet, it's not flatness, it's...nothing.  The closest we can come is during sleep, when time ceases to exist, and the physical world falls away.  All that's left is dreams, which, even if remembered, make no sense.  It's no wonder that the beginning of the world, in Judeo-Christian myth, is the emergence of something from nothing, at the urging of an omnipotent consciousness.

Let me back up.

Many animals possess persistant spacial memory.  Squirrels, for example, depend on being able to remember where they stashed their loot.  Humans possess this talent in glorified truckloads.  Humans remember places.  They remember the names of places.  And, especially, importantly, they remember places they haven't even been.  Humans remember things that happened, and try to pre-remember things that will happen.  Humans weave an entire world, an entire universe, all tangled up with meaning and significance, overlaid over the rocks and sticks of the planet.  The very act of being conscious and observing things creates more and more layers, some shared, some unique, which all make up the tiny microcosm of the mind.  A teeny, tiny bit of the universe--but a fractal bit.  A subset.  Limited only by scale.  And what is left when you fall asleep and let go of the larger set?  Just yourself.  And what makes it still the same when you wake up?  Your memory, stubbornly insisting that today will be like yesterday, and the day before...

This is not about solipsism.  The physical world still exists with or without us.  But without consciousness to give it shape, what's the point?  It would be a dead mass of rocks and sticks.  It's the old riddle: if a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?  Well, yes and no. Obviously sound is made by the vibrations of the tree hitting the ground.  But if nobody is around to hear and remember it, it's just another random non-event that makes up the static background of existence.  And looping back to creation myths, God is the consciousness that gives the universe purpose and permanence.

If I were one for believing in God, I wouldn't say that He created the world for us.  I would say that He created us for the world.

Of course, a consciousness doesn't just float around interacting with the world through sheer force of will.  Our bodies give us the necessary leverage--but themselves present a problem.  The brain is remarkably vulnerable to the frailties of the body, from the passing needs of fatigue and hunger to the more serious and permanent chemical imbalances and endocrine disorders.  What and who we are is partly made up of the juices we stew in.  But it's more than that--everyone has moods.  A personality is a consistent composition of juices at any given time, a reliable pattern of action and reaction to given situations.  Not that people are robots, of course, but if you asked someone a hypothetical situation, he would say, "Well, I would do this..."

And that's what's interesting about humans.  We do fill in the blanks.  If I were to say "1, 2, 4, 5" you would ask me about the number three.  We project into the future.  "If I try x I will ________" succeed or fail, depending on personality.  That personality that is a stew of juice inside your brain.  That brain which is your own universe.  That universe of which you are creator and ruler. 

The only thing limiting your reality is your perception.  Alter your perception of the physical world, and you will be called crazy--but you have an entire world to explore, right inside your own skull.  Look at yourself, at what and who you are, how you came to be, where you are going.  Fill in your blanks.  You, the consciousness, are God.  There is nobody but you who can say whether you can't reach out and perform a miracle.

[BADGE OF HONOR]

remembered this existed, figured I ought to make it less broken.

[BADGE OF HONOR]

This is what does to me, you see?