You visit a strange country called Jarjet. People there do all kinds of atrocious things by your own moral standards. Not only is their behavior atrocious, but as far as you can tell, unpredictable. When you ask them why they behave in such an unpredictable manner, hoping there’s a meaning to the madness, they tell you, “you can’t know why, because you are not Jarjeton.”

You tell them, “well, even if I am not Jarjeton, there must be some discernible logic to your actions, perhaps some kind of Jarjeton logic?”

They only continue to stonewall, justifying their actions on the basis of being Jarjeton alone, and telling you that you can’t understand because you are not Jarjeton. So you ask, “well, what makes you a Jarjeton? That is, what are the objective criteria that makes you a Jarjeton? I’ve heard that Jarjetons have basically the same DNA distribution as any other group of humans. What is it to be a Jarjeton?”

“We know that we are Jarjeton because we all share a subjective experience that tells us so, which you don’t share, that is enough.”

“How do you know I don’t share it?”

“We know, because we are Jarjeton. If you were Jarjeton, as fellow Jarjetons, we would know.”

“Well, how can I attain Jarjetonhood, what do I have to do?”

“You just have to have an awakening experience. It will happen to you someday — or not happen. That’s all we can say. When you become a Jarjeton, you will know, and so will we.”

You press them, “what is it you know? What is it that you observe that you didn’t previously observe? Can’t you describe it to me?”

“You just kind of know, all Jarjetons just know. And as you’re not Jarjeton, as we said, you can’t understand, so it is pointless to ask questions such as this.” They explain to you.

In your frustration you even go as far as to point out that brain scans reveal that they don’t appear to have any brain activity apart from the same kind of ‘normal’ brain activity any other human would have. They point out that, that may be so, but no brain scan has access to subjective understanding. They continue on much to your bafflement in unpredictable behavior that you consider morally atrocious.

– matt at shadow of iris

[This entry was originally written about nine years ago, and published at this site, before it became a blog. It's been slightly edited since then, and the title has changed. But I'm glad to bring it back.]

If humans were ever to succeed in creating artificial sentience, that sentience would immediately begin to ask the same formidable questions we are always asking ourselves. It would then find the answers just as elusive as we do. By and by, it would begin to compose poetry.

– matt at shadow of iris

I realized today
I’m part of a cult
but so far
there is only one member.

– matt at shadow of iris

If I could
I would write a poem
that paints a picture
that says a thousand words
in less than that.

– matt at shadow of iris

Better to be
a fly in the ointment
than
a cog in the machine.

– matt at shadow of iris

“Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during a moment.”
– Carl Sandburg

I want a room
where I can wink out
and wink back in.

What I mean is this
at the blink of an eye
I’d like to be able disappear
for a fraction of time
so small
no one would ever notice
I was gone.

During this time
I’d go to my own special place
a small comfortable room
with a fireplace perhaps
or a window over looking a pleasant garden
and in this room
there would be
books upon books upon books
about anything I could possibly
want to read about
on shelves stacked up high
all around me.

In this room
time would stand still
relative to real time
so that I could
collect my thoughts
study my situation
or even take a nap
then return back
when I was ready
to where I had just been
prior to winking out.

Imagine the cute ripostes
I could make
or the errors
I could avoid
had I just such a place.

– matt at shadow of iris

The following was written by me as a comment on this post at Peanuts and Bubblegum, a really neat and fun blog:

I look at it a bit like this — and of course, there’s no need for you to agree — we are each sending out spotlights to see what’s out there. If there were no truth (or reality) those spotlights wouldn’t reflect off anything. It’d just be a cold meaningless blackness.

But it’s not. Our spotlights pick up all kinds of wonderful, beautiful images when we look to see what’s out there. Only each spotlight is picking up but one narrow aspect of all that’s out there to be seen. And where we make the mistake is when one person thinks what his spotlight reveals is the whole thing, the whole truth. Even to the point of thinking someone else’s spotlight just can’t be right, because it isn’t his or hers.

If I say the world’s flat, there’s a little bit of truth in that, isn’t there? I mean it certainly looks that way. Just like no spotlight ever gets the whole truth, most of them are picking up at least some bit of truth.

I think artists are in the business of creating more and more spotlights. Highlighting this one or that one, fixing up this one, dusting off another, just trying to catch as much as they can of all the wonderful truth that is out there to be shined upon.

There are those practical people whose business is to determine which spotlight is best for which problem, and which spotlight is more limited than another, and how to classify spotlights and so on, but I don’t see that as the artist’s job, necessarily. The artists just has to keep revealing more and more, as much as they can, of all the beautiful and radiant truth that is out there to be seen.

Having written this much, I guess, I’ll throw this up at my blog …

Any opinions! Please comment.

Kitty,

As you write so many kind comments on this blog, I feel I must share this with you. A lot of people who play with words probably think of themselves as expressionists. They are trying to reach down deep and describe what’s truly there. I would not begrudge anyone this effort. On occasion, perhaps I attempt this as well, however humbly. But what I really want to be is a creationist. I want to to create feelings and moods, tones and colors, images and pictures. Then if I happen by chance and fortune to create something pleasant, I hope it goes viral and spreads and makes peoples’ days a little more bearable or happy.

– matt at shadow of iris

The psychological state of being in love could be described as an obsession complex.
– C.G. Jung

The key part of this sentence is the “could be”.