Summer vision

The twilight etches cliffs in stark relief;
a foreground bonsai focuses the scene.
MDMA inclines me toward belief
that someone understands just what I mean.
The atmosphere is scattering the Blue
to stain the cloud-deck many shades of red.
A vignette shared in empathy with you,
and all the moly coursing through our heads.
If I could conjure such a scene in verse,
I wouldn't so despair that I can't draw.
But knowing that I can't, I feel accursed;
no other mind could know quite what I saw.
An isolated mind resents it's plight
preferring to insist we've shared this sight.

Alien

A cuttlefish with glasses for 3-D
will strike at prey that isn't really there,
when shown a movie splitting red from green
as well as any falcon, snake, or bear.
Darwinian selection gave them eyes
quite independent of the orbs we sport,
and neural hardware that might theorize
'though manifestly not the chordate sort.
As alien as any brain you'll find
A parallel construction link by link.
Our common forebear couldn't have a mind
but cephalopods--somehow--learned to think.
Such good ideas recur, time and again
be it in motile molluscs, or in men.

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.

empty

The stream of consciousness through Donald's head
flows one way only, like the river Lethe
He purges instantly what he's just said;
each thought's ephemeral as last night's breath.
"Write-only memory"'s a CS joke.
Capacity's unbounded in this bin.
Retrieval--on the other hand--is broke;
he'll never pull up what been once put in.
No lasting bonds--wham bam!--each one-off date
the parting--for her part's--the part that's sweet.
New teams of lawyer must repudiate
his empty promises and racist tweets.
No memory, no vision shades his Tao;
dementia traps Trump wholly in the Now.

potential II

The morning glory that all night laid furled,
now blossoms wide to greet the spreading dawn.
In synchrony with our rotating world,
celestial clockwork animates its pawn.
Bright metaphor twined on my garden gate,
of mind encountering a novel light,
as alkaloids make one hallucinate,
igniting sparks across what had been night.
The information waiting to upload's
mere gibberish unless you hold the key.
The plan no planner planned's all there in code
but locked away until you set it free.
Those synapses don't fire except at need;
the phenotype lies latent in the seed.

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.

res cogitans

sir Francis Crick spent decades chasing "mind"
a physicist outstanding in his mode
while Dennett claim's there's no such thing to find
we're emulators, running Darwin's code.
Emergent properties that fooled Descartes
in Dennett's view, may not exist at all.
To reify a "mind" like "brain", or "heart"
kept theorists pent in a fictive wall.
Each unit neuron seems determinate
a switch that throws as ions go, and  come 
but what emerges in the aggregate
subjectively, seem more than naught-or-one.
'Though Consciousness assures me that "je suis"
that anchor's dangling in the deep blue sea.

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

drunkard's walk

the alkaloids a plant makes for defense
were not designed to mess with mammals' minds
receptors that light up are accidents
but fortunes can be made from such chance finds
small-molecule potential space is vast
and screening for a drug's not without cost
what's done responsibly can't be done fast
and even so, a weak lead may go lost
what Darwin's optimized a billion years
a curandero greets as the gods' gift
intoxicants go way past wines and beers
to give our ideation a quick lift
no barrier divides the nose from brain
impeding instant uptake of cocaine

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

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

holism

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 by their name
imposing edges nature never knew
but why two minds should divvy it the same
is too obscure for wise men to see through
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)
an understanding of the system's whole
may not be had from each component's role

reductio

reductionism bore most of the weight
erecting Science root, and branch, and bole
but consciousness is an emergent trait
no smaller units add up to the whole
the mind regards itself but has no tools
to tell if there's an other looking back
Cartesian logic with its stepwise rules
has met the straw beneath which it may crack
what's left is mysticism, or despair
perhaps the error's what's been reified
attempts to quantify what wasn't there
eluded Francis Crick until he died
philosophizing's fun 'til it goes bad
and drives biologists stark raving mad

bounded in a nutshell

through seven apertures, the world peers in
these breaches in our heads let us see out
res cogitans needs inputs to begin
but none of it's secure beyond a doubt
phantasms posture as reality
we could be dreaming that we're butterflies
events that populate my memory
could be a flimsy fabric of half-lies
that "mind" is what "brain" does fails to explain
what consciousness is, or why it's so dear
and qualia like "red" or "joy" or "pain"
should be the same in your head as in here
the skull's a puny insubstantial shell
to circumscribe a Heaven, or a Hell

windows on the soul

through seven apertures, the world peers in
these breaches in our heads let us see out
the thinking mind needs inputs to begin
but none of it's secure beyond a doubt
phantasms posture as reality
we could be dreaming that we're butterflies
events that populate my memory
could be a flimsy fabric of half-lies
that "mind" is what "brain" does fails to explain
what consciousness is, or why it's so dear
and qualia like "red" or "joy" or "pain"
should be the same in your head as in here
the skull's a pretty insubstantial shell
to circumscribe a Heaven, or a Hell

imitation game

the other's mind is more than one can know
it might be all projections on our part
deductively, we're stuck at "cogito"
extrapolating both a mind and heart
each mind's alone, at sea on the wide world
our neurons might be firing on a lark
but no one dwells on that when boy meets girl
to make some fun communing in the dark
if there's no world "out there", all action's vain
and there's no reason to get out of bed
no value in my pleasure, or my pain
if this construction's all inside my head
philosophizing's fun, 'til it turns bad
to doubt there's one to love, could drive one mad

action potential

continua impinge on eye and ear
but nerves transduce at once from A-to-D
and so it's only quanta that we hear
no less than it's by photons that we see
to propagate one trips an ion-gate
and only then does anything get done
there's no smooth curve for one to integrate
the increments are never less than one
yet minds construct "reality" out there
and I suppose the same goes for a bat
'though theirs is built from echoes in the air
announcing just exactly where food's at
brains conjure mind like oysters conjure pearl
and nothing's magic here despite John Searle

strange loop, strange trip

the PA squawks inaudible half-words
psychotic soundtrack to a subway ride
as senseless as the cawing of blackbirds
a vacuous unending phonic tide
was that announcement only in my head?
should I be up and exiting the car?
I struggle with a rising sense of dread
that I've already gone a stop too far
the Problem of Induction intercedes
I can't be certain of the words I hear
there may be no external aural feed
did that arise in mind? or in my ear?
each subway fare's a ticket through the brain
a opportunity to doubt you're sane

DeepSee

what jaguars slink where clouds obscure the moon
what serpents tease the eye where ropes unwind
identifier circuits trip too soon
for objects that are only in our mind
our pattern-recognition's over-amped
to find a predator, however rare
presumably a system better damped
might miss the threat the odd day when one's there
a program tuned to dangers long extinct
is patched and kludged to handle urban life
awaiting what's not there, we're on the brink
but 'til it comes, anxieties run rife
still, sober souls take atavistic joys
discov'ring constellations in the noise