That morning, at 1 am, I (Pema) arrived at an empty pavilion. After about ten minutes Corvuscorva stopped by.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: Hello, Pema.
Pema Pera: Hi Corva!
Pema Pera: How’s life?
Corvuscorva Nightfire: hmmm. You know the chinese…umm…wish? “May you live in interesting times?”
Corvuscorva Nightfire: Yes.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: not tooo interesting though.
Pema Pera: (my connection is very slow, I may be missing some lines; didn’t even see my own last line)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: ok.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: How about yours? Interesting or pleasantly dull?
Pema Pera: I’m in a small coffeeshop in Tokyo, between some highrises and my internet signal here is rather weak — I just hope I can hang in here
Pema Pera: oh, my life is never dull!
Pema Pera: and generally interesting and mostly fun :)
Pema Pera: yes, did it come true for you?
Corvuscorva Nightfire grins.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I imagine it is all of that.
Pema Pera: ah, finally my earlier line showed up, three minutes later — oh, well
I felt rather disoriented, as if hanging upside down in the waves of a surf. Some sentences that I typed unly appeared on my screen minutes later, many out of order, and some lines just never made it.
Pema Pera: is there any particular topic you’d like to talk about?
Corvuscorva Nightfire: hmm.
Pema Pera: :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I cannot think of anything at all.
Pema Pera: that’s fine, of course!
Pema Pera: I’m glad you keep coming back here to the group
Pema Pera: I enjoy the mix of different perspectives
Pema Pera: like, you prefer to approach things more from a scientific angle, did I get that right?
Corvuscorva Nightfire shrugs. I started to answer that question with a yes…but honestly, I don’t know if I am really that rigid. I tend to tackle every idea like a new problem and come at it from many angles.
Pema Pera: oh, science doesn’t have to be rigid at all. I myself like the science angle — I just tend to define it wider than most of my colleagues
Corvuscorva Nightfire grins.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: It is a lovely framework for tackling ideas.
Pema Pera: Many people, scientists included, think of science as objective and preferably quantitative and mathematical — and while I love that aspect when and where it is appropriate, it is just one approach
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: for me the key of science is the openness to new and crazy ideas, couple to a very critical evaluation of all ideas
Corvuscorva Nightfire: Objective? pffft.
Pema Pera: liberal and conservative both
Corvuscorva Nightfire: attempt at objectivity.
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods.
Pema Pera: pffft?
Corvuscorva Nightfire: a dismissive noise…I got the typed “sound” from the Neko community in SL…
Corvuscorva Nightfire: sort of like an angry cat?
Pema Pera: oh, yes, I understood the dismissiveness, and I too see many limitations to objectivity, I was just curious about your view
Pema Pera: (friendly cat)
Pema Pera: (my last four lines did not show up on my screen; don’t know whether they were sent)
Pema Pera: =^+^=
Corvuscorva Nightfire: Science attempts to move from subjective experience to objectivity…but often reaches communal subjectivity instead.
Pema Pera: =^+^=
Corvuscorva Nightfire: ah
Corvuscorva Nightfire: exactly.
Pema Pera: =^+^=
Corvuscorva Nightfire: got it….
Pema Pera: (but you sometimes answer to my invisible lines, so at least some of them seem to be transmitted)
This was really odd: some of the lines that Corvuscorva spoke above indicated that she had seen at least some of the lines that I had written and that never boomeranged back into my own window. It would remain a groping-in-the-dark conversation.
Pema Pera: yes, I agree, it is all intersubjectivity
Corvuscorva Nightfire: and we misunderstand the results, assuming that since we all agree it is objectivelly true.
Pema Pera: neither objectivity nor subjectivity per se
Pema Pera: (some lines don’t get echoed, some lines appear out of order minutes later; like my cat pictograms)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I hate that…it’s a result of a bad wireless connection, I think.
Pema Pera: yes, the moral of the story is: a certain Doutor coffeeshop near the entrance to the Jimbocho subway station in Tokyo is NOT the right place to use the e-mobile system to connect to SL :-)
Corvuscorva Nightfire smiles.
Pema Pera: sorry about that!
Corvuscorva Nightfire: don’t worry…we will just assume you are scattered, but present.
That was one way of putting it! :>)
Pema Pera: so I guess I’d better exit, and I hope to see you later at a time of better internet connection :-)
Pema Pera: hehehe
Corvuscorva Nightfire: see ya!
Pema Pera: see ya, be well!
Corvuscorva Nightfire: take care.
