is there anybody out there?

 communication's hopeless from the start

if I can't prove that you exist at all
and our most elevated heart-to-heart
might just as well be murmured to a wall
deductively, I only know "je suis"
there may be no reality "out there"
if universe could end with "I", not "we"
we're solipsists adrift on unseen air
or each of us Narcissus at his pond
enamored of the visage we project
desiring someone else with whom to bond
or--minimally--someone to reject
to function, we become willfully blind
insisting we can know another's mind

pseudoscience

Karl Popper irked bad Marxists who resent
The 'Pseudoscience' label they'd well earned.
Uncomprehending everything he'd meant
But pretty sure that--somehow--they'd been burned.
When data contradict their sacred texts
they piously insist the facts ain't right;
what tends to falsify, they just reject.
Where others would rethink, they're prone to fight.
The Jungians--if anything--fare worse
No myth he'd once found useful could be bad!
With Freudians, they bear Karl Popper's curse.
And--is it rude to note?--their seer was mad.
Believers swallow scripture as 'just so'
where scientists weigh what it means to know.

Aesthetics II

the stuff a science studies is out there,
beyond what strict deduction lets us know.
And colleagues with whom we would like to share
may not exist except that we think so.
Hypotheses must be built in my mind;
external prompts can only hint the way.
in all the Babel I still have to find
what's right when it says both 'A' and 'not A'.
Beyond "I am" uncertainty's the cost;
our arguments are never set and hard.
Without epistemology we're lost
our stoutest edifice a house of cards.
And so my gaze must turn to my own thought
where any other theme may not be aught.

ya know?

Holistic types disdain to analyze
like seeing doesn't need them to mentate.
A world--not in the mind--but in the eyes
would leave the spirit free to meditate.
As if reality were common fare,
plunked down upon the plank at which we dined
full-formed, and uncontentiously "out there"
and not constructed in each thinker's mind.
Descartes made clear, four centuries ago
this murky matter of "reality"
how precious little one can strictly know
despite our fondest quest for certainty.
For bedrock rules on which all life depends,
reductionism's how one comprehends.

echo chamber

When Eminem and Limbaugh've jumped the ship
there's no alternative from which to choose.
Trump's minions have to wake to this bad trip
they scan in vain for cheerier fake news.
An epistemic universe so shut,
their minds are battened, locked, and barred, and trussed.
The New York Times ain't gonna make the cut; 
they know just whom they don't, and whom they trust.
Reports are "fake" if they're not from the team
the tribal narrative's just for the base
insisting their delusion's not a dream
eyes firmly shut against this scary place.
More opiates sedate them, day by day.
But this dystopia won't go away.

b'reishit N

FirstLight, created ere the moon, or sun
was stored away--for those who can--to find
each spark redeemed, a sacred battle won
perceived not with the eyes, but with the mind.
The written word made history's first mark
preserving poetry of those who'd died
sustaining what might gutter in the dark;
what had been deep could also, now, grow wide.
But is it metaphor? Or the BigBang?
black-body of a cosmos screaming hot?
A pre-galactic, thermal birthing pang.
Perhaps we'd better read it as p'shat.
FirstLight could cast no shadows in our cave
'til Wilson thought to look in microwave.

Hume II

Hume knew there's none to watch Descartes' stage-set
homunculi recurse in futile chains.
Two hundred years before a neural-net
he grasped the problems such a thing explains.
No test will prove the soul John Searle long sought
there's nothing indivisible to find
determinate as digits 'one' and 'nought'
dumb parts add up to constitute a mind.
As sure as Turing's universal host
there is no little man behind the screen
Searle hunts in vain for his Cartesian ghost
for want of faith in Darwin's wet machine.
The consciousness that tells me that "je suis"

emerges as an abstract entity

Give me but a place to stand...

Hume knew there's none to watch Descartes' stage-set
homunculi recurse in futile chains
two hundred years before a neural-net
he grasped the problems such a thing explains.
No test will prove the soul John Searle long sought
there's nothing indivisible to find
determinate as digits 'one' and 'nought'
dumb parts add up to constitute a mind.
As sure as Turing's universal host
there is no little man behind the screen
Searle hunts in vain for his Cartesian ghost
for want of faith in Darwin's wet machine.
The consciousness that tells me I'm a fact
'though reified, remains a thing abstract.

Why not?

Causality's a figment in your head
the meta-tool on which the rest depend
inhabiting a "now" to which "past" "led".
We're over-quick to think we comprehend.
Frail daisy-chain links 'after' to 'before',
induction builds the cosmos we discern
but we delude ourselves to think it's more
than Turing's robot feigning it can 'learn'.
Imputing agency avoids some threats;
what rustles in the grass might be a beast.
Darwinian selection pays those bets
who flees the quickest get devoured the least.
It's human to presume that we are wise
but most of what we 'know' are our own lies.

ghost in the machine

John Searle's essentialism is his bind
he'll never find that last homunculus
he'd rather keep the student body blind
than cede he's been the wrongest one of us
Dan Dennett knows the parts comprise the whole
the only way to mind is through the brain
what Searle can't find is nothing but a soul
to search for which through science is insane
Spinoza saw for everything, one cause
what's immaterial's not our concern
the marvel is that Nature's bound by laws
that humans--with due diligence--can learn
the cosmos is less spooky that it seems
demystified by culture built of memes

Shannon Entropy

I dreamed that you could understand the code that I'd devised
devoid of ambiguity as plain as broad daylight
and anyone who heard or read could look out through my eyes
a sweet, seductive fantasy that helped me sleep at night
I rushed to put it down in ink the moment I awoke
but trains of baggage came along with every word I chose
the clarity was the mirage, and all I clutched was smoke
that through my fingers oozed away and to the stars arose
Retreat! Retrench! at least in math, we share communion pure
that isn't just conventional, transparent to us all

but Gödel interjects to say I must not be so sure

an edifice on such a base in time may also fall
self-organized, dream-words conform to heptametric verse
so somewhere, entropy must grow, within my universe

selection bias

no Walter Cronkite tells it like it is
each broadcast's edited to  match its niche
as different as 'Hamlet' from 'Les Miz'
this for the workers, that just for the rich
a charlatan, unqualified to lead
convinced the rabble he's the chosen one
replacing civic virtue with crass greed
as metric that he knows what  must be done
One Nation, indivisible at heart
must share the vision to which it reacts
but tailored channels tear us all apart
by offering alternatives as facts
two polities, confirmed in their own views
mine reinforcement from their chosen news

that first step

to be a scientist, one first believes
reality--objectively's--out there
'though memory, like senses oft deceives
induction's less substantial than the air
but having made that leap, what realms unfold!
from astrophysics to zoology
transmuting unlinked data into gold
as they cohere to sketch ontology
forever keeping track of what's unknown
while seeking out new problems to explore
what doesn't falsify may further hone
hypotheses that point to something more
the simplest rule that all the data fit
if not the Truth--for now--must stand for it

other maps

our  coprophilia must mystify
the dogs whose poop we scoop like some rare gem
they're quite content to squat and let it lie
out motives are inscrutable to them
and whales can't dream that we don't comprehend
how sound reflects from mackerel, or krill
the characteristics that make it bend
to them are utterly run of the  mill
and what's reality's map among eels
who sense the lifeforce sure as Obi Wan
their flesh and neurons coupled to the fields
that propagate where light of sun is gone
however much one might philosophize
you can't know what's behind another's eyes

carpe diem

the Past is known, our tracks are plain to see
the Future's dark to any mortal eyes
each branch point's rich in possibility
among which we get to extemporize
forever gazing into the unknown
extrapolating from what's been before
each mind's a helmsman on dark seas, alone
far out of sight from any friendly shore
the Present's all we've ever really got
what's gone before permits us now no role
what's yet to be may come to pass, or not
and only fools believe they're in control
yet all of it--from horror to sublime--
is bounded in the days of one lifetime

no fish is an island II

a motile salmon transports nutrients
against the current, to its natal creek
that nourish next Spring's fair efflorescence
of which the bard so eloquently speaks
as whales bring phosphorus up from the deep
their fecal plumes are rich to over-kill

to build such stable systems, the curve's steep
no balaenoptera without their krill
the Gaia theory woobydoobies love
rejects the systematics of Descartes
a chthonic god displacing one above
whom William Blake thought tore all art apart
the Web of Life that's aeons-long to weave
will take a few more life-times to perceive

holism II

to reify the wave, you break the sea
and ask each part to make sense on its own
as if it's somehow possible to be
an insular phenomenon, alone
a language conjures objects up by name
imposing bound'ries on our mental maps
but why two minds should divvy it the same
one must fall back on faith to fill the gaps

emergent qualities defy Descartes
and chief among them is this thing called "mind"
that isn't found in any smaller part
(some argue that there is no "thing" to find)

there may not be a bottom to this well

as bootstrap problems go, this one's from Hell

Dadaism

Magritte and I mistrust what words convey
and he sought clarity in paint and ink
but still, no Other's sure what we would say
nor clearly grasps the substance that we think
the Dadaists engaged the task absurd
a hopeless conversation on their part
attempting, both in image and in word
to say we can't communicate in Art
and yet they drew, and wrote and worked in paint
compulsively, as if to scratch an itch
depicting what their senses said there ain't
no doubt, some saw the paradox is rich
they dreamt the channel magic'ly would clear
and painting quelled their existential fear

Qualia

I dreamed that you could understand the code that I'd devised
devoid of ambiguity as plain as broad daylight
and anyone who heard or read could look out through my eyes
a sweet, seductive fantasy that helped me sleep at night
I rushed to put it down in ink the moment I awoke
but trains of baggage came along with every word I chose
the clarity was the mirage, and all I clutched was smoke
that through my fingers oozed away and to the stars arose
Retreat!Retrench! at least in math, we share communion pure
that isn't just conventional, transparent to us all
but Gödel interjects to say I must not be so sure
 an edifice on such a base in time may also fall
I hammer language 'til it fits in heptametric verse
then launch it on its Viking pyre into the universe

Ea

what's known's a glowing island in the night
around it, unillumined, laps the sea
enticing us to build a bridge of light
establishing what is, from fantasy
that second galaxy was huge to find
horizons fled away ten billion-fold
Ed Hubble blew the world's collective mind
our Earth's the same; what's bigger is the Cold
a gleaming pebble on the shore of Time
proud edifice of centuries of thought
the product of our faculty sublime
within the greater Whole is scarcely aught
the intellect gropes out in Time and Space
compulsively, like puppies love the chase