Thought Experiment

The Ship Of Theseus

One of the oldest of all thought experiments is the paradox known as the Ship of Theseus, which originated in the writings of Plutarch. It describes a ship that remained seaworthy for hundreds of years thanks to constant repairs and replacement parts. As soon as one plank became old and rotted, it would be replaced, and so on until every working part of the ship was no longer original to it. The question is whether this end product is still the same Ship of Theseus, or something completely new and different. If it’s not, at what point did it stop being the same ship? The Philosopher Thomas Hobbes would later take the problem even further: if one were to take all the old parts removed from the Ship of Theseus and build a new ship from them, then which of the two vessels is the real Ship of Theseus?

For philosophers, the story of the Ship of Theseus is used as a means of exploring the nature of identity, specifically the question of whether objects are more than just the sum of their parts. A more modern example would be a band that had evolved over the years to the point that few or no original members remained in the lineup. This notion is also applicable to everything from businesses, which might retain the same name despite mergers and changes in leadership, to the human body, which is constantly regenerating and rebuilding itself. At its heart, the experiment forces one to question the commonly held idea that identity is solely contained in physical objects and phenomena.

“Which you is ‘who’? The person you are today? Five years ago? Who you’ll be in fifty years? And when is ‘am’? This week? Today? This hour? This second? And which aspect of you is ‘I’? Are you your physical body? Your thoughts and feelings? Your actions?”

What is it that makes up our personal identity through time?

Entry Note To Self...

Order and chaos

They are both the same in many ways, especially in our lives. We are either in control of our lives or merely think we are. I try to control some of my chaos as best I can or think I am.

My days are fairly routine. Filled with have to’s or I don't want to’s, but do it anyway.  The one thing I control in my life is the time when I make my daily entry notes to myself. That takes place around noon each day…not everyday but most. What truly fascinates me.. is the order that comes while writing one’s thoughts. Order out of Chaos in a way. Order to the randomness of our minds. 

Just random thoughts of memories...there for no apparent meaning, unless we wish to give them meaning…some measure of order to our lives…perhaps?

Today’s Entry Note To Self:  “It is no secret that there are things we cannot control, but is this chaos? I would be so bold as to say yes. Even in our controlled self, there is a deep rumbling chaos that we call… life.”

Let Me Tell You A Story...

The Story Of The Wishing Well

Tom Thumb, The Story Teller

Before the world was mapped there were many more places you could go. The only borders were the natural ones – impassable mountains, violent oceans, treacherous swamps and… the limits of your imagination.

These days, of course, we live in a world that has been mapped and measured, examined and explained. We know where everything is, how long it’s been there and how long it will last.

But it was not always so. Once – and it may well still be true for those with particularly strong imaginations – you had only to dream of a place to be sure that it existed somewhere. The world was but a mirror of your mind.

One such place was the Wishing Well. It didn’t look like anything special, just an ordinary wooden and stone well with a wooden bucket, out in the middle of no where. But drop the bucket down into the Wishing Well and it came up full, frothing and bubbling with your deepest desire. Childless women came to the Well and pulled up a bucket with a new born babe inside and many were the musicians and philosophers who came to drink deeply for a draught of Inspiration.

But few saw it in their excitement of finding the Well there, carved on the rim of the wooden well were six words of warning; an old curse.

"May all your wishes be granted"

A magical wishing well? It was said, those who came seeking riches, found themselves pulling up a bucket of gold but discovered their treasure was too heavy to carry. Their skeletons were sometimes found resting upon their riches, teethmarks left behind on their gold coins.

The brokenhearted, too, came to the Wishing Well, desiring only to forget. But after drinking deep from the Well, they forgot not only the name of their Beloved but also their names, origins and professions, condemned to wander the world for the rest of their lives like aimless ghosts.

It was said that the Wishing Well was only found by those who believed they would find it. No sooner had they emptied the bucket of their wishes, the Well would vanish and reappear somewhere else.

So it was perhaps ironic that the last person to find the Wishing Well was one of the rare souls who wanted nothing at all. His home was wherever he lay his head to sleep that night and, owning no more than the clothes on his back, he was grateful that he had nothing to carry. His friends were the people he happened to meet as he walked the earth and he traveled wherever the winds blew him – until one day when a mischievous gust nudged him into a large open field with a stone well in the middle.

It was a hot day, so he walked up to the well to quench his thirst. He lowered the bucket to pull himself a drink of it's cool water. The rope seemed creaky and reluctant and when it came up too light to have filled, he expected to find holes in the bottom of the bucket. Instead there was a folded note. Opening it he read:

"Are you sure?"

Scratching his head he suddenly saw the words carved into the stone rim and all at once he understood where he was and broke into hearty laughter. What on earth could he wish for? He needed new shoes, it was true – but the ones he wore were so comfy now that his feet were used to them. He could do with something to eat but he was willing to bet there were berries in season in the forest. He briefly considered asking for a new razor as the one he had was going quite rusty – but it seemed a waste of a wish and he rather fancied himself with a beard anyway.

It struck him as a little sad that so many people would have given their little finger to be where he stood and yet he couldn’t think what to wish for. Then inspiration struck and he lowered the bucket, chuckling as he dunked it in the water below and pulled up a load of…dynamite. Striking a match on the stubble of his chin, he lit the fuse and, as he let the bucket fall, he ran away as fast as his legs would carry him.

A loud explosion from behind sent him sprawling flat on his face and suddenly the air filled with a cacophony of sound; elephants blowing their trumpets mixed with the sound of roaring locomotives and a New Orleans jazz band. He raised his head to see all the water from the Well shooting up in the air in an impossible collage of images – flamingos performed ballet upon the back of an enormous sunburned whale, polar bears kissed passionately in tuxedos and telephone boxes argued furiously about whether there was such a thing as free will…

And then it was all gone. The water of the Wishing Well evaporated into the sky and mingled with the clouds. A sharp breeze came along and in no time the clouds were dispersed far and wide across the planet.

Which is why, if you ever want a wish to come true, all you have to do is take a walk in the rain, stick out your tongue and maybe, just maybe, "you’ll catch a drop from the Wishing Well."

Life At Windrush Lake

"medicine he needs is a draught of morning air". Thoreau

My home, my Wladen Pond in many ways, as I sit quietly for a spell. Listening in a distance...two Whip-poor-wills singing. It's my special place. 

We all have our special place. That tree in the park, a favorite cafe to spend a selfish hour on Sunday mornings, that unexpected conversation with a neighbor and you suddenly understand why you like them so much. The special moment when you decide they could become your friend. 

By immersing himself into Walden Pond, Thoreau hoped to gain a more objective understanding of humanity through personal introspection. Spend some time in your Walden Pond. It's there, even if it is only the quiet field in your mind. Maybe it is the last kiss of sunlight on a face. The unexpected moments of clarity that rush over you like the North breeze… If the day and night makes one joyful, one is successful, are they not? What makes a deliberate life anyway? A choice...of course...to be forever on the alert and looking always at what is to be seen.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.” Henry David Thoreau

Make peace with yourself, get along with it all, and forever be on the alert and looking at what is to be seen...

Not half that bad on a good day...don’t you think? 
Doc

We Live In Language

The Boy Said To The Fish...

“How’s the water?”

And the fish answered...

“What’s water?”

The individual component of language-text-is the prime vehicle used to express the experiences of our existence—from minor moments of daily life to the grand nature of the human condition. Our ancestors as far back as the cave man have been using symbols to document and record experiences.

Today, the visualization of our personal stories is an integral and essential part of nearly every moment of life, and we use text in all of its forms to define reality, emotions and even time itself. We are now living in a world wherein the condition of our visual communication reflects the condition of our culture and reflect both how we live in language and how language now defines our lives.

Entry Note To Self...quietness

My Quiet Space

Coolness To The Air

Sitting in my quiet space this morning...just listening… to the gentle breeze that made her visit early in the morning.  I noticed her presence around midnight. She silently passed in the night leaving a renewed freshness to all that resides in Nature. ..That gentle hush as you feel her cool change seeping inward.

Notice there. A bird hovering around the fountain. Just a glimpse . Ah...just as I thought, my winged messenger, the Cardinal. I'm quietly thinking… "where's your mate? Is it really true that it could be a visit of you? From the saintly world, I presume? Maybe just a visit to wish me health? Whoever you are, I pause and honor your space."

"I feel your breeze of the night...and hear your melody as you stroll through the wind chimes, tuned to the pitch of G... I listen now… for the farthest sound…only silence of the breeze and the steady thump of my heart."...Doc

Lemme Think About It

Lemme Think About It

“Will Think About It." That's one of my favorite expressions. It's nothing original, nothing new, just a vague proclamation I often push to the limits of usefulness. Like making stacks of "open later" mail and coding e-mails in "respond later" color. "I'll give it some thought" is a well-intentioned procrastination tool which--when paired with a slight chin-tilt and brooding nod--provides a polite delay: 

My young daughter once asked, "do you have a think today Daddy?" Seems my pat answer of, "I’ll give that some thought baby doll”, made an impression on her. I was just thinking yesterday that through the years I have given this too much thought. 

“Let me think about it,” is another favorite of mine. While it provides that polite delay in one way, it is also denotes an active process of thinking.  "Let me think about it,” would be a great response to a question like, “how do you decalcify your penal gland?” How about, “are you still you if everyone looks at you differently?” Yep, Lemme think about that.

Why is it, when your driving you have to turn down the music so you can see the street address? Think about it. You do that, you know you do!

Would mad cow dis-ease be the same as a moo dis-order? Do dogs worry if they show up late? See, there are so many questions about life that just requires a little more thought.

Now, when I'm in a pensive mood, and something requires some deep think, I will just “stop to ponder.”

*Stopped To Ponder*

"the idea that nothing is unknowable is due to our minds being unable to process the thought of it. It is conceivable that nothing could exist; we just cannot imagine it."

Think About it.

Make peace with yourself and get along with it all...Doc

From The Road...Horace

"If you give energy to what annoys you, you are keeping it alive..."

I remember well the moment I heard those words. I walked in to a small bar in Algiers and he looked up from the corner table and asked, ”Are you lost?" 

”Been that way most of my life. What about you?" 

”Not lost, but ugly. Born that way and I kinda like it." He quipped...

He spoke with a mixed gumbo French accent, much like the half a bowl of mixed sea food gumbo he was caressing. An old grey hat pulled over his eyes making each remark a surprise. Said he was from up around St. Landry Parish. Part of the Chachier clan but has lived in Algiers for over thirty years. 

”Just call me Horace, named after one of them Roman poets," as he reached out his experienced hand.

We had a beer or two before it was all over...along with some good laughs and stories he shared of life along the Mississippi. He works on a tug boat and has for thirty two years. Lost his wife in the Katerina flood waters. Said his wife was a fine woman and a blessing . Two grown children, that in his words never amounted to much...

I asked him if he gives much thought to Katerina and his loss, and his answer was my lesson for that day...

”You know Doc, I did for several years. After one of them sleepless nights,

I decided that if you attend to what annoys you...you are giving it energy and keeping it alive."

Those little moments in our lives when we remember the smell, the visual, the arrangement of words strung together in a way we can easily draw from our memory. How our mind works to hold onto to painful memories and how it works so we can finally make peace with ourselves. In those moments we realize that peace has always been ever present in our Being and always resided there...just waiting and completely available through all our experiences...if we so choose...Doc

Photo By: Dado...from the Austin video

Entry Note To Self...ramblings

Ramblings From A Twisted Mind

"Do you have a Twisted Mind…?"

That’s assuming we consider our own minds twisted. I don’t consider my mind twisted at all, but many others have told me that they think "it" is. They say how my mind thinks and works gives them some cause for disturbance. Only a few have ever said that they were just joking. My shrink friend I have known for years, certainly wasn’t joking. As for how I like it?...I do, I really do. It keeps things interesting. What is it like? Well...it's great. Plus, "it’s just who I am."

Every individual is under the influence of a twisted mind. Each person is a paradox. He is ambitious but lazy, he wants everything perfect yet complains when things move towards perfection, he wants to be happy yet thinks of things that makes him sad, he always has doubts over himself yet doesn't want to change, he craves attention but rejects it when it comes his way, he wants to be loved yet hurts the people who love him the most, he wants a true friend yet he isn't able to handle the reality when it comes into his life, "he is a conflicted contradiction". Each person out there is twisted. "It's just who we are."

Photo By, Bill Gekas from down Melbourne way...

From The Road Series...Bimini

From The Road Series

Field Notes: An Afternoon In Bimini

”They call me Peanut!” he said through stretched lips. Only he didn’t just say it like in sentence form. He sang it, mouthing the syllables slowly, assigning each one a different note, and drawing out the “Peeaaaa-” in “Peanut.” 

”Peanut?” I said to confirm, ”I’m Doc.”

We didn’t extend hands since his were covered in conch slime, instead, we offered head nods to each other as he told me about his favorite niece, they call Conch, while swiftly slicing the googley eyeballs off a conch with the single pull of a knife.

As I stood on the dock, Peanut working his way through shell after shell after shell of Bahamian Queen Conch, I found myself mesmerized by the ease with which he worked. The swing of a rock hammer here, a few flicks of the wrist there. The conch flew out of one bucket, the meat was hurled into a separate bucket, and the occupant-evicted shells were tossed back into crystalline water. The gap between sea water and the dock below us was several feet wide and most of it was already filled. Not with air but with mounds of those emptied conch shells, thousands of them, likely tossed in by Peanut.

Fresh, salty conch meat, chopped roughly with a machete and tossed with cubes of finely diced green bell peppers, onions, and tomatoes. It’s a hit with a lot of lime juice and a little bit of orange juice, both squeezed fresh, and tossed again. There are some extras that can be added to the salad, or not, depending on the makers’ tastes: a sprinkle of garlic salt for seasoning, a little extra diced habanero for spice, or maybe a dollop of mayonnaise for fat to round it out.

But all of that aside, the secret to the best conch salad–according to Peanut –lies not in the extras. You see, when it comes down to it, conch salad in the Bahamas is like made-from-scatch pasta in Italy. You can box it up and you can freeze it; you can manipulate the ratios and some of the ingredients. But there’s nothing that can compare to the tender chew and delicate brine of conch salad made with mollosk pulled straight from the sea. Chop the conch meat, fresh from the water, and serve it just after it’s eye stalks have ceased to google.

That’s where Peanut–a hammer-swinging, Vitamix-slinging, top-100s-of-the-90s-singing expert of cleaning conch–comes in. Peanut pounded into a shell, blasting a hole about a quarter of the way down its side with a single swing of his rock hammer. He pulled the meat from the shell, as he sang some Whitney Houston, and then he pushed the conch’s long meandering eye stalks towards me and said, ”Here’s lookin’ at you kid,” then laughed at his own wit. I laughed too, as a flash of Casablanca raced through my mind.  

Peanut went back to cracking and slicing and singing, this time Rhianna as he pulled a long, clear worm-like piece of anatomy from the grey-skinned conch meat. He held it out towards me and said two words that told me everything I needed to know. 

”Bahamian Viagra.”

He shoved half of it into his mouth and left the other half dangling between the parallel gap in his upper and lower teeth, spilling out between his stretched wide lips. He flicked it up and down with his tongue, laughing even harder as the worm whipped his nose and his chin, and then swallowed it in a single gulp.

I was a mix of infatuated and disgusted and I also knew I wanted to eat a little clear conch worm myself. Peanut passed the next one to Me. ”Better than the Mezcal worm,” he said to me. 

It was delicate and salty, like an oyster liquor-flavored gummy worm, and I halfway wondered if somehow I could use the transparent sea-birthed gummy worm in a fine dining kind of dish. ;)

When the sun started to sink, I passed Peanut a couple more VitaMalts as a thanks for sharing his time and songs and laughter and also my first true introduction to Bahamian Viagra. 

Peanut waved and told me to enjoy the night, shouting down the dock through his own belly laughs, “

”Mate, you will be up all night long with that thing in your belly!”

As I walked away, chuckling with him at the thought, I heard the beginnings of another conch salad in hammer swings and empty shell tosses, along with the faint sound of Peanut singing...This time, though, it was Michael Jackson. ”Don’t stop, til you get enough…”

There will always be a memory of that afternoon with Peanut and the conch pistol, and a salad that tropical dreams are made of, and maybe also there’s a small hope that the Bahamians are onto something with the pistols that evades scientific reason.

From the road...see you soon...Doc

Journal Entry 10/15/17

Life At Windrush Lake...

Behind This Gate

A friend of mine lives behind this gate. I drop in from time to time just to hear and experience his philosophy on life. He calls himself a professional fisherman but I don't think he ever goes fishing, even though he has this old fishing boat that he named “Friend Ship.” He has a challenging mind to understand and always has on one of those lightweight fishing shirts with his name printed across the pocket, underscored by the words “Professional Fisher Man.”

On this morning he was casting this green shad looking lure across his swimming pool. “Just Practicing,” he called out as I stepped through the gate. 

I remember the first time we met. I was out for my morning walk when I passed him near this new house that was being framed by a Mexican crew. The south of the border music was so loud you could hear it from a block away.

As we approached each other, he said, “Hi” and I responded, “Not very are you?” He smiled of course and then he commented on the loud music…

“Does it make you want to pull your hair out?”

"No, but it does make me have an appetite for Tortilla Soup.”

So off we went and enjoyed a bowl of Tortilla Soup, more dark beer than we needed and became good friends.

The line he left me with this morning as I walked toward the gate… "Hey Doc, have you heard that my son went off to become a Buddhist Monk?”

I smiled and waved behind my head, knowing he only has two daughters…I Think?… To this day, I have never seen him go fishing...Doc

When a friend calls to me from the road

And slows his horse to a meaning walk,

I don't stand still and look around

On all the hills I haven't hoed,

And shout from where I am, 'What is it?'

No, not as there is a time to talk.

I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,

Blade-end up and five feet tall,

And plod: I go up to the stone wall

For a friendly visit… Robert Frost

Entry Note To Self...

The Morning Bloom

By nature, I am an early riser each day. To me, there is something special to see the awaking of a new day. The feel as everything comes to life with the rising of the sun. The smell of moisture and the distant sounds as they travel great distances. Which bird will sing the first song?

To take a walk in the still of early morning, made cool by an Autumn breeze from the East. She opens wide her silent arms and once again I'm welcomed in. To walk with her and talk in sighs and whispers. To muse and ponder her sky. To walk with sweet ghost of people passed, and visit places unseen. Dear friends and thoughts they bring, all keep me company in the breeze.

And when I've wandered just far enough, I'll turn my mind toward home, turn my collar up against the wind and bid farewell to my silent walk within the morning bloom...ah, is that the waxing moon I see in the western sky? ...Doc

From The Far Side Of The Glass

From The Far Side Of The Glass

Thought of the evening: It seems to me that the highest form of ego development in the 21st century involves the capacity to gain intrinsic enjoyment for a beautiful moment without the need to exhibit it on social media. No longer being able to gain pleasure in reality, and only gaining pleasure through the funnel of the likes of others, appears to be the regression of the ego of our times. Maybe a new normal?

Think About It...critics

“I’m feeling rather cynical this morning.”

Strasser was the art critic for a small public radio station in upstate New York. He always arrived at the gallery early to avoid the annoying pretentious crowds that he felt always came to these openings. He looked at the white on white that was the interior of the gallery and wondered if perhaps there was something he was not getting. Was it art? While standing there contemplating the work, it hit him. My god, he thought, it is the nature of unlimited possibilities, the unwritten future, the blank slate of a newborn baby. It is genius. Sadly, Phillip Strasser had misread the invitation and arrived the day before the art was installed. He was after all the very same critic who once mistakenly took a power failure for a performance piece on the darkness of the human soul.