That morning, it was unusually crowded in the tea room already from the beginning, with Fael, Moon there and Maxine and I entering at the same time. Cal would enter soon after us.
Fael Illyar: Hello Pema
Moon Fargis: hi pema
Moon Fargis: hi maxine
Fael Illyar: Hi Maxine
Pema Pera: Hi Fael, hi Moonlet, hi Maxine!
Maxine Walden: hi, all, nice to see you, afraid I can only stay a few minutes today
Maxine Walden: but so wanted to come
Faenik: why not?
Fael Illyar: interesting, Pema and Maxine vanished from my screen but my scanner still thinks they’re here.
Pema Pera: yes, we are here!
Pema Pera: ah, I was just about to bring up the topic of dreams again
Pema Pera: but I guess we have to wait till another time?
Fael Illyar: oh, I’m having serious packet loss
Maxine Walden: oh, well you know sometimes dreams and spirits…
Pema Pera: haha, yes
Pema Pera: dream on!
Maxine Walden: oh, yes,
Pema Pera: Hi Caledonia!
Maxine Walden: Hi, Cal.
Caledonia Heron: hi, technical diffs - moment
Moon Fargis: ah hi cal
Maxine Walden: seriously, Pema, sometime soon the topic of dreams deserves more conversation
Caledonia Heron: hey there sailor :)
Pema Pera: absolutely
Pema Pera looks around for sailors . .. .
I realized that I was sitting right in front of Caledonia, so I got up and took a seat beside her. And while we were looking around for the mysterious sailor that Cal had talked about, instead Storm was coming in, obviously just back from working on our beach front property, given his swim suit dress.
Fael Illyar: I guess it’s hitting us all then
Caledonia Heron: :), thanks for widening the circle :)
Maxine Walden: does as well look for sailors
Moon Fargis: har har har
Moon Fargis: beachboy storm
Caledonia Heron: another text/voice kind of difference - that would likely have been funny were we talking
Maxine Walden: speaking of storm…hi Storm
Storm Nordwind: Hi guys
Pema Pera: yes, hi Storm!
Storm Nordwind: Very laggy at first - I relogged
Fael Illyar: Looks like my connection is back to normality now
Fael Illyar: Hopefully stays that way
Maxine Walden: here and gone within the twinkling…we are so dependent on hidden systems
Maxine Walden: going well
Fael Illyar: Bye maxine
Pema Pera: Bye Maxine
Moon Fargis: bye bye maxime
Maxine Walden: peculiar feeling, am going soon, but did I say something that gets me gone sooner?
Pema Pera: well, we all followed Fael
Pema Pera: :)
Pema Pera: ah, “going well”!
Pema Pera: well, going!
Pema Pera: hehe
Faenik: why not?
Maxine Walden: chuckles, yes, that…lol..
Fael Illyar: I’m trying to make sense of this out of order conversation I got here
Some of the following conversation is hard to parse, since the Faenik sentences and the one mimicking Faenik appear in green . . . if this puzzles you, just ignore the next few sentences :-).
Storm Nordwind: We are transients here
Storm Nordwind: all of us
Maxine Walden: all of us transients, even mid-sentence sometimes
Fael Illyar: Let’s ignore it and start over?
Moon Fargis looks at the window and says: ahh green
Moon Fargis: hehe ok
Pema Pera: sure
Storm Nordwind presses the RESET button
green
Faenik is black.
Maxine Walden: this may be the topic of the morning, reset
.
that was my black cat
the invisible one
We turned more serious again, and soon Maxine had to leave.
Fael Illyar: I did a few minutes long meditation this morning.
Maxine Walden: I have found sometimes the theme of these conversations makes itself evident in the first minute or two…almost like a joke
Maxine Walden: yes, Fael?
Fael Illyar: The effect seems to be mostly gone by now though
Fael Illyar: ah, phone call
Moon Fargis: your mind comes down maybe becasue of that
Faenik: could be
Maxine Walden: OK, I had better go now…see you all later
Maxine Walden: bye
Caledonia Heron: bye Maxine
Fael Illyar: Ok, done
Faenik loves wells!
Fael Illyar: Moon, what did you mean with mind coming down because of that?
Moon Fargis: fael: i thought you refering to your dreamlike pictures
Fael Illyar: Ah, no not those this time.
Moon Fargis: ah ok
Fael Illyar: Although the meditation I did after waking up was the first one where I somehow didn’t manage to quiet every thought … or was it perhaps that I just couldn’t “hear” those before? I’m not certain
Moon Fargis: i think its the last one
Faenik: could be
Moon Fargis: your loud layers of thoughts where still asleep
Moon Fargis: you just heard your dream layers i guess
Moon Fargis: (imo)
Fael Illyar: They were a bit hard to grasp too. I could “hear” something going on but not make sense of it
Moon Fargis: yes
Moon Fargis: those are the confuse layers of thoughts i mentions yesterday
Moon Fargis: responsible for your dreams
Moon Fargis: you will need some practise to drop them ..they are like sand/dust on your hand wich is hard to drop
Fael Illyar: Ah, so that’s possible then.
Moon Fargis: yes .. toughts are like stones in your hand
Moon Fargis: the loud ones are the heavy ones
Moon Fargis: easy to drop
Moon Fargis: as more you drop as higher your mountain will be you are standing on
Moon Fargis: unless you droppped the last dust from your hand you wil ave a great view becasue you are so high in the sky
Fael Illyar: and if you drop the last one?
Moon Fargis: you will stand on the top of a huuuuge mountain
Moon Fargis: and see everything..things you didnt recogniced before
Fael Illyar: Well, that’s something to look forward to.
Faenik loves wells!
Moon Fargis: but.. climbing a mountain is hard already.. creating one is even harder and need practise:)
Faenik is a hairy black ball with eyes and ears.
Letting the mind come to rest is a big and interesting topic, with many angles and approaches.
Fael Illyar: I’ll get there eventually I guess :)
Moon Fargis: sure you will:)
Fael Illyar has never been afraid of hard things.
Pema Pera: haha
Pema Pera: sounds like a Faenik thing to say
Fael Illyar: Faenik?
Faenik has never been afraid of hard things
Pema Pera: so yes, there are various ways to calm to mind, to let the mind come more to rest
Pema Pera: and the interesting thing is that when you get more experience with that
Pema Pera: you can begin to recognize that same sense of at-rest-ness in the middle of activity as well
Pema Pera: even when the mind is agitated
Pema Pera: but that may take some practice to recognize that
Pema Pera: even so, hearing that that is the case may help speed things up
Pema Pera: instead of looking for something far away and difficult
Pema Pera: knowing that it is already in the palm of your hand so to speak
Pema Pera: gives a different flavor to the whole enterprise
Fael Illyar: at rest even when agitated? Is that something like not using mental energies wastefully?
Faenik: why not?
Pema Pera: well, it is connected on one level, Fael, but on an even deeper level even being wasteful cannot disturb your true calmness
Caledonia Heron: Perhaps it’s like being upset, you can see the upset and choose upset or not upset….rested, grounded, that place where you live
Pema Pera: question is: can you recognise it — yes, Cal, indeed
Fael Illyar: Ah, yes, it’s not upset that controls you but you control the upset?
Pema Pera: not control
Caledonia Heron: that is the thing Pema - to see it when you are in it and make the choice
Pema Pera: watch
Moon Fargis: what you can controll is how it attaches to you
Pema Pera: control is addition, we need subtraction
Steve joined us as well. Cal introduced a nice notion: intention rather than control.
Pema Pera: Hi Steve!
Moon Fargis: hi steve
Fael Illyar: hi steve
Caledonia Heron: not control, to me it’s more like intention to be upset or not upset
Storm Nordwind: Hi Steve
Pema Pera: yes, intention sounds closer than control
stevenaia Michinaga: Hello, had a moment so i thought I’d drop by
Moon Fargis: yes.. intention.. *looks at his dict*
Pema Pera: control has a bit a flavor of duality still
Pema Pera: someone controlling something else
Pema Pera: separation where in reality there is no real separation
Fael Illyar: ah, dualism issue. I was wondering for a moment.
Pema Pera: fighting with yourself never works
Pema Pera: still rezzing Steve?
stevenaia Michinaga: …smiles. yes, you remember last time I sat on someone’s lap
Someone had just dropped by very briefly and left again. A quick look on his profile showed that he had been born into SL yesterday.
Pema Pera: I think he already started the 9-sec practice on his first day in SL
Caledonia Heron: LOL
Pema Pera: he should get a PaB prize
Pema Pera: beginner’s mind!!!
Moon Fargis: LOL!
Caledonia Heron: he is imposing a .05% tax on himself
Pema Pera: hahahaha
Pema Pera: PaB tier
Caledonia Heron: lol, good one
Faenik: なるほど^^
Fael Illyar: Tier :)
Caledonia Heron: I have a tier in my eye, that is so funny
Pema Pera: hahaha, lol
Pema Pera: laughter breaks through dualism
Pema Pera: good tool
Moon Fargis mentions that “tier” is the word for “animal” in german
Pema Pera: hard to keep separation — requires maintainance — laughing you forget to maintain
Moon Fargis takes out the animal of caledonias eye
Caledonia Heron: yes, laughing is so “now” - it cracks me up
Pema Pera: so we let 1% of the animal in us out?
Moon Fargis: no
Moon Fargis: we have to reduce it to 1 %
Moon Fargis: remember the monkey mind?
Moon Fargis: humans are often acting more like animals well infact we are still animals
Moon Fargis: WE just call us humans
Caledonia Heron: lol, we are animals :)
Moon Fargis: yes we are still some monkeys just a bit smarter now
Faenik loves wells!
This had quickly become a classic PaB moment of carefree communal consternation :-)
Storm Nordwind is quietly loving this conversation and has been laughing so hard that animals are streaming down his face
Caledonia Heron looks for a Kleenex (big one) for Storm
Moon Fargis calls the zoo wardener
Caledonia Heron: 911 - jungle on the loose!
Fael Illyar: Yes, animals who figured out how to speak. That’s pretty much it I think :)
Fael Illyar: The only thing that really makes Humans different from other animals
Caledonia Heron: we use and make tools - that is a significant difference
Fael Illyar: No, there are other animals that do that
Caledonia Heron: most all animals talk
Caledonia Heron: yes, but I have not seen a raven build a space shuttle as yet
Caledonia Heron: maybe since they can already fly
Moon Fargis: well when you see what ants can build up
Fael Illyar: And yes, the other animals talk but how many of them use languages they’ve learned instead of just ones they’ve been born with?
Moon Fargis: then i think they are very human sometimes
Storm Nordwind: Blackbirds
Pema Pera: perhaps laughing is human?
Pema Pera: more than talking?
Storm Nordwind: They learn singing languages - different dialects
Caledonia Heron: yes Storm animals learn language from their peers
Faenik: なるほど^^
Caledonia Heron: I have seen gorillas laugh
Moon Fargis: well the intresting thing is that humans learning laughing while they are infant
Caledonia Heron: I think they were laughing :)
Moon Fargis: from their parents
Fael Illyar: I was under the impression that laughing is an instinct?
Pema Pera: It’s hard to imagine a cat or dog laugh . . .
Pema Pera: but apes, could very well be!
It was time for Moon to leave.
Moon Fargis: ohw i must leve damn..
Moon Fargis: hehe
Moon Fargis: see you later my friends
Caledonia Heron: my airedale smiles maybe he’s just not that amused :)
Fael Illyar: See you moon :)
Pema Pera: c u Moon!
Pema Pera: haha, Cal
Storm Nordwind: Whoosh - fast exit
Pema Pera: from PaB to tax to tier to smiling dogs . . . .
Faenik: なるほど^^
Pema Pera: love these PaB conversations
Caledonia Heron: :)
We then got a bit more serious again, discussion the structure and nature of languages.
Fael Illyar: Other animals don’t have languages as complex as we do, I think that’s the difference.
Pema Pera: combinatorics
Caledonia Heron: lol, do you speak other animal languages?
Pema Pera: digital
Storm Nordwind: How would we know??
Caledonia Heron: exactly Storm
Fael Illyar: You’d think some scientist somewhere would’ve found one by now if there was one… Although I guess it’s possible everyone has just missed them.
Faenik is a hairy black ball with eyes and ears.
Storm Nordwind: “It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York, wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man — for precisely the same reasons.”
Fael Illyar: Douglas Adams?
Storm Nordwind: yes
Caledonia Heron: even if were able to be proven emprically there is a level of communication between animals that is nuanced and perhaps “untestable” yet very complex
stevenaia Michinaga: pradon me, RL intrudes, see you all again
Pema Pera: see you Steve!
Storm Nordwind: bye steve
Fael Illyar: bye steven
Caledonia Heron: bye
Steve left, and I returned to the notional of languages being digital in the sense of having words as building blocks, the way molecules have atoms as building blocks. 92 types of atoms can easily make billions and more different types of molecules.
Pema Pera: what we can say, about human language, is that the power of expression is related to the digital nature of words combined with grammer — combinatorial explosion that you don’t have in analogue languages — now whether that excludes other types of complex communication may be an open question. Whale songs may well be digital too . . . .
Caledonia Heron considering “digital nature of words”
Pema Pera: there is an exponential number of different combinations that can be made with digital elements
Pema Pera: and not with analogue elements
Pema Pera: that is why we have DNA
Pema Pera: and language
Pema Pera: it is interesting that atoms are digital too
Pema Pera: without that no protein-like complexity
Fael Illyar: digital in what sense?
Pema Pera: cannot be split
Storm Nordwind: Can you not combine analogue elements digitally for even greater combinatorial explosions?
Pema Pera: in the sense that all elements are identical
Pema Pera: 1 is 1
Pema Pera: 0 is 0
Pema Pera: no 0.5
Pema Pera: or 0.3 or such
Caledonia Heron: seems like the words might be digital and the expression which you give those words would be analog
Pema Pera: oh sure!
Pema Pera: digital information doesn’t wear out
Pema Pera: can be copied
Pema Pera: hence we are all 3 to 4 billion years old
Caledonia Heron: read/write :)
Pema Pera: in an unbroken line of DNA
Pema Pera: inconceivable in analogue way
Cal expressed her early morning mood :>).
Caledonia Heron: no wonder I feel so tired in the morning :)
Fael Illyar: words themselves, as traditionally spoken aloud are themselves rather analog :)
Faenik: could be
Pema Pera: hahaha
Caledonia Heron: lol
Pema Pera: no, words are digital
Fael Illyar: however it’s how you interpret them that makes them digital
Pema Pera: expressions like “ouch” are analogue
Caledonia Heron: I see it the other way round Fael :)
Pema Pera: you say “table” or “chair” not something in between
Pema Pera: there are basins of attraction in terms of differential equations
Pema Pera: digital basins
Caledonia Heron: but what *kind* of table and do you like it and…..
Fael Illyar: I think I should clarify, “spoken words” are analog. when they’re interpreted, they become digital
Storm Nordwind wonders whether his futon is a bed or chair
Pema Pera: to describe a million kinds, you need a handful adjectives and a combinatorial rule
Caledonia Heron: bed/chair
Pema Pera: yes, Fael
Pema Pera: but computers are like that too:
Pema Pera: the 1s and 0s are never really 1.000 and 0.0000
Pema Pera: they are interpreted as 1s and 0s
Pema Pera: but may be 0.9 and 0.1
Such a rich conversation, where just about each sentence could have become a topic for a separate discussion. Alas, it was just about time to leave.
Storm Nordwind: When words are understood, I believe they go way beyond digital
Fael Illyar: Yes, that’s what was my point :)
Pema Pera: oh yes, emotional aspects etc, absolutely!
Pema Pera: I was talking about the information content, a very reductionistic picture
Pema Pera: only part of the whole picture of course
Pema Pera: but _that_ part can’t be done in analogue form
Fael Illyar: Yes, spoken words do carry analog information with them in addition to the words themselves.
Pema Pera: not to the same degree of complexity
Pema Pera: yes!
Storm Nordwind: The information changes what you are but can what you are be digitised.? I suspect not.
Pema Pera: ah, sorry, I have to go to the astro meeting, I realize now
Pema Pera: interesting topic though!
Caledonia Heron: fascinating
Storm Nordwind: very interesting!
Caledonia Heron: thank you :)
Pema Pera: to be continued!
Fael Illyar: See you later Pema :)
Storm Nordwind: yes!
Caledonia Heron: bye y’all
Fael Illyar: bye :)
Pema Pera: bye all!
Storm Nordwind: Bye!
