The whole thing is about consciousness, the chapters are exploring different aspects and queries about it.

edit: exploring, not exploiting

I read A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness by V. S. Ramachandran a long time ago and found it super interesting. Might be a bit dated by now though.

People spend a lot of money trying to predict weather but that doesn’t mean it has free will.

I can only think of two.

1. Probably the scariest dream I ever had. Someone broke into my house trying to kill me. I ran into my bedroom and locked the door. They banged against the door until they smashed it open, and then I saw them run over and kill me over and over again while a voice said “You are not a normal human. You are a monster. You are the end of the world.” Freaked me out for a while.

2. My username here is from a dream I had a long time ago. I was in a movie theater watching a preview, and I don’t remember anything about it except at the end, the title, “pruwyben”, flashed across the screen in a shiny blue font. At the time it seemed like the funniest thing ever.

This isn’t a common term but it’s something I recently learned that’s kind of funny - the country Timor-Leste is named from the Malay word timur, meaning “east”, and the Portuguese word leste, meaning “east”. So it’s literally “East East”.

I am nonplussed.

Sounds like a perfectly cromulent word.

Thanks for the support, fellow windmill tilter.

Unfortunately Merriam-Webster disagrees.

This, apparently.

Similarly, peel and unpeel.

Big Whimsy

Where is the nearest intelligent life outside the solar system?

One of my earliest memories is taking a bath and asking my mom why she always told me to wash behind my ears.

It has to be from the Shitpost region of France, otherwise it’s just sparkling memes.

Scheisse

My honest answer is probably The Raven, but I’ll post something less well known.

Gray Room

by Wallace Stevens

Although you sit in a room that is gray,

Except for the silver

Of the straw-paper,

And pick

At your pale white gown;

Or lift one of the green beads

Of your necklace,

To let it fall;

Or gaze at your green fan

Printed with the red branches of a red willow;

Or, with one finger,

Move the leaf in the bowl–

The leaf that has fallen from the branches of the forsythia

Beside you…

What is all this?

I know how furiously your heart is beating.

Why are they called fingers if we never see them fing?

That sounds terrifying.

Touché.