Some things (Murray)

I came to the world unrehearsed but I've learned some things.

Les Murray, from "Corniche"

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Inheritance

My life is the entirety of my inheritance.

He who wants (Sedakova)

The poet is he who wants that which everyone
wants to want.

Olga Sedakova, from "Coda"

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Fetish for the concrete

An excessive stress on concreteness misunderstands text.

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On meaning

Meaning coagulates in the wound of chaos.

On justification

If there is need, justification is not necessary.
If there is not, justification is not enough.

Never more

Never try to take more from someone
than they can afford to give.
Or try to give them more
than they can bear to take.

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On tradition

Tradition is a habit others think you should have.

On experience

Experience is never the same
as what is experienced.

On determinism

Determinism is so very Newtonian.
The universe—and consciousness—
are so much stranger than that.

The difference

One can continue anywhere, with the right assistance, but can originate only where one did.

On death

Death is the black hole of existence
from which nothing meaningful emerges.

Sneak up

That which you turn your back on
may more easily sneak up on you.

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A shadow

Everything that impedes the light casts a shadow.

An apple has fallen (Akhmadulina)

I have never had a summer like this before.
"And you never will again!"—I hear an assurance.
And I shudder: an apple has fallen,
stressing the "never" from the outside.

Bella Akhmadulina, from "The Night of Falling Apples"

They weigh separately

Credit doesn't dismiss blame.

On theory

Theory has difficulty accounting for what theorist isn't aware of.

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The shooting (Okudzhava)

And as soon as the shooting starts
The bullet will find a hole.

Bulat Okudzhava, from "The Omen"

Witnessing

Who or what qualifies as witness?

On probability

Probability only concerns itself with the possible.

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Asylums (Desnos)

Asylums:  my heart, my head and my home

Robert Desnos, from "Asylum"

The greatest power

The greatest power of one
is to fire the imagination of another.

The purpose (Wolfram)

It's not going to be the case, as I thought, that there's us that is intelligent, and there's everything else in the world that's not. It's not going to be some big abstract difference between us and the clouds and the cellular automata. It's not an abstract difference. It's not something where we can say, look, this brain-like neural network is just qualitatively different than this cellular automaton thing. Rather, it's a detailed difference that this brain-like thing was produced by this long history of civilization, et cetera, whereas this cellular automaton was just created by my computer in the last microsecond.

...

Here's one of my scenarios that I'm curious about. Let's say there's a time when human consciousness is readily uploadable into digital form, virtualized and so on, and pretty soon we have a box of a trillion souls. There are a trillion souls in a box, all virtualized. We look at this box. In the box, there will be hopefully nice molecular computing, maybe it'll be derived from biology in some sense, but maybe not, but there will be all kinds of molecules doing things, electrons doing things. The box is doing all kinds of elaborate stuff.

Then we look at the rock sitting next to the box. Inside the rock, there's all kinds of elaborate stuff going on, all kinds of electrons doing all kinds of things. We say, "What's the difference between the rock and the box of a trillion souls?" The answer will be that the box of trillion souls has this long history. The details of what's happening there were derived from the history of civilization and people watching videos made in 2015 or whatever. Whereas the rock came from its geological history, but it's not the particular history of our civilization.

This question of realizing that there isn't this distinction between intelligence and mere computation leads you to imagine the future of civilization ends up being the box of trillion souls, and then what is the purpose of that?

Stephen Wolfram, Edge

On the brain

The brain is a shapeshifter,
assuming illusions of form
to discover function.

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Singing (Desnos)

We will leave singing
Singing to our loves
Life is short and short the time.

Robert Desnos, from "Soil of Compiègne"

What's the matter?

Does matter matter
to energy, or me?

Pollo con mojo de ajo

Based on this recipe (I added orange juice per other recipes).

Suggestion

Be moderate in all things,
extravagant in all enthusiasms.