The Dark and Light, and the Unpredictable Thoughts

I haven’t many inspirational conclusions at present, though I have some thoughts about thoughts. I also have this thought, which isn’t my own, but is the sort of thing I’d have eventually posted even if I hadn’t read the book. Enjoy and think.

The dark is generous.
Its first gift is concealment: our true faces lie in the dark beneath our skins, our true hearts remain sadowed deeper still. But the greatest concealment lies not in protecting our secret truths, but in hiding us from the truths of others.
The dark protects us from what we dare not know.
Its second gift is comforting illusion: the ease of gentle dreams in night’s embrace, the beauty that imagination brings to what would repel in day’s harsh light. But the greatest of comforts is the illusion that the dark is temporary: that every night brings a new day. Because it is the day that’s temporary.
Day is the illusion.
The third gift is the light itself: as days are defined by the nights that divide them, as stars are defined by the infinite black through which they wheel, the dark embraces the light, and brings it forth from the center of its own self.
With each victory of the light, it is the dark that wins.

That piece spurred me onto this: Dreams, what causes them? Why do we dream? They seem to be a representation of complete and utter randomness. As far as I can see, most dreams are caused by strong impressions left fresh in your mind that you were occupied with during the previous day or week. But those aren’t the dreams I’m interested in. They’re almost predictable. What I’m interested in are the completely and utterly random dreams that seem to have no trigger whatsoever. Or are made up of real-life things put together in the most bizarre fashion. They are so unpredictable, that the day we can predict them will be the day we can actually build a brain, which will probably never come to pass. After all, dreams occur in a part of the mind that no-one has ever identified. Our thoughts. Simply unfathomable. Their relationship to computers is perhaps a clue to their nature however.

We can’t actually comprehend what thoughts are made of, mostly because we can’t see them in operation, and because we can’t accurately define a thought. The same goes with computer circuits, yet there are many people who understand how computers compute. Perhaps the human brain operates in a way that is similar to computers? No. It might’ve been if it wasn’t for one crucial difference: There is no way a computer can generate ANYTHING randomly. There are complex instructions, intricate patterns, even some mildly random hardware, but none of it is actually unpredictable. I suppose, technically speaking, that neither is the brain. If given enough time and computing power and knowledge, you could predict the relationships between the atoms in the brain and make assumptions about the way it will behave. But there’s that minor little problem again (aside from the one that we can’t count the atoms in anything smaller than scanning electron microscope size): we don’t actually know how thoughts work. It’s a very odd idea to try and grasp. What generates them? What spurred me to make this post? Our thoughts are very random in the end after all. What caused you to dream THAT particular dream?

If you completely forgot about this post, and just lay down on your bed for 5 minutes, you will without a doubt, think about something (unless you shot yourself to the bed, in which case you wouldn’t be thinking much at all). Ever been home sick, confined to bed with no other distractions? You think the oddest things. This is the time when your brain occupies itself by pulling random ideas and thought out of your knowledge base to occupy itself. This is the time when your thoughts are broadest, when all the usual distractions are gone. Brain pulls out the thought to get up out of bed and listen to music, rectifies itself with “Nope, can’t do that, have to stay in bed”. In your state of confinement and necessity to think about something, you start pulling out topics and thoughts that are never accessed usually. Driving down lanes of thought and logic you’ve never rolled through before, in sheer necessity to think about something. Perhaps the brain has to think about something at all times. After all, it would explain why we dream.

Our Questionable Outlook

Exuse the title, I haven't actually been through this outlook yet, so I have no idea whether it'll even be worth re-reading.

Of all the triggers for this thought, this thought was derived from Happy Feet. Yes, you heard (read). It's about the way humans view this world, live with themselves, and how they/we feel about each other and others.

I haven't actually come to any conclusions yet, hopefully this calculation will be complete by the end of this post, so I'm going to go through this data from the start, and try and follow my logic before the philospical outlook ends.

You know how we try to prevent the extinction of other species? Animals are endangered, and we cling to them all the more tightly, even though we're the reason they're going extinct? I can't decide what I think of this behaviour (I can't describe it yet, it's far too broad. Perhaps I have a word for it, and it'll come to me later). This behaviour, is it admirable or pathetic? Strong, or weak? There are arguments for both sides, and I'm overcome with a desire to reach a conclusion. This is probably the longest running question that has ever entered my mind that I can solve, for I can see light at the end of the tunnel, yet unlike every other question that's come to mind, I actually have the time to write/type about it.

Okay, back to the question before I forget: The Human Interaction with Other Things. I use the word "things" in sheer, utter lack of a better word. Are we fools to care about the things passing out of our lives, even if they will come to pass further into the future than our lives stretch? There are many people trying to protect endangered animals from extinction, people clutching to antique pieces of art and craft. The museum is perhaps the face of this behaviour/outlook (I still haven't thought of a name for it yet). Why do we care about things of the past, or things that are headed that way? Is it selfishness, we want to experience/use them? Is it pity, we want to give them a better chance? Is it out of guilt, we don't want to be responsible for their obliteration? Is it out of selflessness, we want other people to experience/use them?

Here's another thought: our clinging onto or ressurecting dead/dying things usually wastes energy and resources. It sets us back as a race. This suggests that our reasons for these actions are greater than the resources we spend (squander may also fit here). But we still do it. I try to revive games from my 98 now and again. To re-experience them in case you ask. Re-live memories. Does this apply to us trying to save the golden finch, or other endangered species? WHY can't we move on? Aren't WE the ones doing the damage?

The light's getting dimmer, as I see that the tunnel is longer than I thought. I hope I don't leave these questions unanswered.

Answer time I think. If it is something that we believe has thoughts for itself, or we imagine that it/they have thought(s) for it/them selve(s), we try to save/ressurect it/them to grant the gift of life, and happiness. We save koalas to ensure they live happy lives. To spread joy and well-being. When it is an object that gives us happiness or enjoyment, we save it/them to bring this joy and happiness to others.


Perhaps we are selfless after all. Perhaps we are the guardians of happiness.

The Drive behind the Ratchets

The Drive behind the Ratchets

Please excuse me for making this post at such a late hour; all my inspiration comes when I have to do something I don’t want to do (sleep, assignment, school), and my mind reaches out, contemplating the mysteries of the mind, the universe, and the laws of nature. Why do I do so at these useless times? That’s another post, The Law of Opposition/Seperation, but I’ll explain that at another time. I got up so I could write this before I forgot it by the morning like I usually do for all my intelligent ideas.

I present here what drives me. Should I be an intricate design of gears, pulleys, switches, batteries and ratchets, I can now explain to you the engine of myself, the reaction that powers me, the force that drives me.

Lying down, failing to achieve shut down protocol (sleep people), I was thinking as usual, and my world of thought spat out this: I believe that everyone is driven by a single desire, or maybe one or two.

You may oppose this. You are probably going “what about the need/desire to eat? To socialize? To (putting it bluntly here) reproduce?” These are bodily desires in my opinion. Identical and found in all standard version 93.23 humans. The human engine however, can differ from you and me.

After reviewing my habits, I believe that the deepest level of my desire is to experience stories.

I’ll explain: I’m an obsessive game player. I love playing through games, and playing online. This is in accordance to my desire to “experience stories”. Don’t see the connection? Most games have a single player campaign. The ones I enjoy are superbly done, pleasing me with the graphics, the sound/music, and most important of all, the story. The game itself. The story develops every time I move my character. A good story is immersive, drawing you in, making you believe it, experience it. Interruptions extract you to the real world in a most unpleasant way. Books can deliver this. Books are the definition of a story. However, they can only be experienced once, until forgotten, then they can be re-read. Games last longer, as different routes can be taken, things can happen. Multiplayer is extreme replay ability. Yet books are the ones that provide the best quality. Soo immersive. A new book satisfies my primary drive perfectly. I’m an even more obsessive reader than gamer.

If you’ve analyzed my way of thinking properly, and tried arranging your own ratchets and gears in a similar fashion, you’ll see my next statement/conclusion before I say it.

There is a battery that cranks over my engine/drive to experience stories. That battery is the almost unquenchable desire to experience originality.