Or Just You and Me

The Guardian for this meeting was Riddle Sideways. The comments are by Riddle Sideways joined by Storm, Sam, Bruce, Raffila and Bleu.

Another lab experiment described late in this session.

Riddle Sideways: good morning, my friend
Storm Nordwind: Good morning! How good to see you :))
Riddle Sideways: this virtual body feels funny today
Storm Nordwind takes a peek
Riddle Sideways: not sure if you'll be able to see riddle all the session
Riddle Sideways: might have to switch ... (hmmm, what would the words be?)
Storm Nordwind: avatars? viewers? masks?
Riddle Sideways: switching computers is like?
Riddle Sideways: switching embodiments
Riddle Sideways: hmmmm
Storm Nordwind: ah... switching minds?
Riddle Sideways: probably, yes
Riddle Sideways: failover to backup personality transmitter
Riddle Sideways: no, more like vassel pouring/emitter
Storm Nordwind: hmm...
     What trouble finding the metaphor words when the feeling is there.
     1. knowing current computer is probably going to fail soon.
     2. Can same persona pour forth from another computer and SL viewer.
Oh that is silly talk.

Riddle Sideways: oh well, this is not a good topic
Riddle Sideways: just confusing
Storm Nordwind: haha!
Storm Nordwind: Especially first thing in the morning!
Storm Nordwind: Oh! I am called away briefly. I will try and be back soon
Storm Nordwind: Sorry about that
Riddle Sideways: bye

Riddle Sideways: o Hi oOo
Riddle Sideways: Storm exits as Sam enters
Riddle Sideways: am reading yesterday's theme session
Riddle Sideways: missed a good session
oO0Oo Resident: Who knows.. maybe this living breathing one will turn out "a good one" too.
                                    --BELL-- 
Riddle Sideways: that 'Who Knows' :)
oO0Oo Resident: Please say more Riddle?
Riddle Sideways: was just thinking thru the person who is the experiment petri dish
Riddle Sideways: was this life form a good one?
Riddle Sideways: was I a good life
Riddle Sideways: what if the sides of the petri dish are glass
Riddle Sideways: and I can see other experiment semi-results
Riddle Sideways: that one over there looks better then me
Riddle Sideways: hehhehehe
Riddle Sideways: but, in the end my dish is rated as 'a good one'
oO0Oo Resident reads carefully a few times

Riddle Sideways: Hi Bruce
oO0Oo Resident waves to Bruce
Bruce Mowbray: Good morning, 0 and Riddle.
oO0Oo Resident: ntsy
Bruce Mowbray: and also you, 0.
    oh dear, wish this thread would drop
oO0Oo Resident: [07:19] Riddle Sideways: was this life form a good one? [07:19] Riddle Sideways: was I a good life [07:19] Riddle Sideways: what if the sides of the petri dish are glass [07:19] Riddle Sideways: and I can see other experiment semi-results [07:20] Riddle Sideways: that one over there looks better then me [07:20] Riddle Sideways: hehhehehe [07:20] Riddle Sideways: but, in the end my dish is rated as 'a good one'
Riddle Sideways: bruce, hope you brought a change of topic
Riddle Sideways: :)
Riddle Sideways: was not sure that dribble was worth repeating

Bruce Mowbray: Don't know if I did or not -- since I'm not sure what your current topic is.... something about comparing petri dishes?
Bruce Mowbray loves metaphor.
oO0Oo Resident: Are you sad Riddle?
Bruce Mowbray listens...
Riddle Sideways: hmmmm, had not checked
Riddle Sideways: no not sad
Bruce Mowbray: ;-)
oO0Oo Resident: That is to say.. do you have sadness currently?
Riddle Sideways: sadness levels at norm
Riddle Sideways: in fact no level seems any higher then others
oO0Oo Resident: Okay.. Just thought to ask.. the lines a little nebulous for me
oO0Oo Resident: I of the confusing bent
Riddle Sideways: [07:14] Samúð (oo0oo): Who knows.. maybe this living breathing one will turn out "a good one" too.
Bruce Mowbray feels that saddness may be highly under-rated.
Riddle Sideways: Sam, you just don't seem not to be the usual yourself today
oO0Oo Resident laughs.. oh.. well now we need to go back a step further to give Bruce even more context
Bruce Mowbray: kk.
Bruce Mowbray: sadness* sry.
Bruce Mowbray feels his typist's spelling is overrated.
oO0Oo Resident: Riddle, Would you be so kind as to describe to me, my usual self?
oO0Oo Resident: From which I seem to have departed?
oO0Oo Resident: Am open to that.
Riddle Sideways: sorry, what is going on... is that my typist has been reading chatbot competitions text lately
Riddle Sideways: and some of today's chat is like it
Riddle Sideways: find that the chat text is being evaluated for realness
Riddle Sideways: is the typist a real person
                                    --BELL-- 
Riddle Sideways: what is a real person
Bruce Mowbray pinches his typist to see if he is real.
Bruce Mowbray: Thanks for the notecard, 0.
Riddle Sideways: ok, what else is happening is ... the car in the driveway is clean and shiny. The wild turkeys can see their reflections
Riddle Sideways: and are attaching the new paint job
Riddle Sideways: Hi Raffila
oO0Oo Resident: Hi Raffila !
Bruce Mowbray: Hi, Raffi!
Raffila Millgrove greets all. sorry to be late.

Bruce Mowbray: I have been conducting an experiment with myself. . . an exploration of sorts.
Bruce Mowbray: It involves "counter-factuals."
Bruce Mowbray: tweaking a knog of "reality" just a bit. . . to see what happens.
oO0Oo Resident listens.. interested
Bruce Mowbray: Wanna hear more?
Riddle Sideways: knog?
Bruce Mowbray: kk.
Bruce Mowbray: I am experimenting with "subjectivity" by using only the first and second person (I and You) in my thinking.
Bruce Mowbray: So, there is no third person (he, she, it, they...) -
Bruce Mowbray: only I and you.
Raffila Millgrove: oh.
Raffila Millgrove: that is interesting.

Bruce Mowbray: It changes "experience" somewhat, yes.
Raffila Millgrove: can you give example. and tell us how it changed the experience?
Riddle Sideways: yes, interesting
Bruce Mowbray: It bring the "other" into a different relationship.
Bruce Mowbray: Sure....
Riddle Sideways: so, always only an interal and external
Riddle Sideways: a separation
Bruce Mowbray: If I am tempted to talk disparagingly about "that third person over there," I start to think of "him" as "you" -- and that brings "him" closer...

Bruce Mowbray: and that changes my thought-experience of "him."
Bruce Mowbray: yes, it involves separation.
Bruce Mowbray: but it also works with inanimate objects... so-called.
Bruce Mowbray: So the tree is a "you" and the rocks are "you's" -- and on it goes.

Raffila Millgrove: wow. a wooden spoon for cooking--you would think in mind. i need to pick up you to stir you, the soup.
           Excuss the interuption, but what a great few words.  The boundries, separateness, otherness all breaks down nicely.  Not minding the use of pronouns if the meaning becomes like those few words. 

Bruce Mowbray: Just an experimental counter-factual investigation. . . which seems to change the "facts."
oO0Oo Resident: Bleu ! Hi You !
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, exactly!
Bruce Mowbray: Hi, Bleu.
Bleu Oleander: hiya everyone :)
Riddle Sideways: Hi Bleu
Raffila Millgrove: how long you been trying thise Bruce?
Raffila Millgrove: hi Bleu
oO0Oo Resident laughs at Raffi's example

Bruce Mowbray: for only a few days. . . in conjunction with some "Zen Brain" podcasts I've been listening to.
Bruce Mowbray: also in conjunction with the idea of "Inter-being" and "inter-sentience." (0's term...)
oO0Oo Resident: Will make you a notecard Bleu
Bleu Oleander: ty Sam :)
oO0Oo Resident: and Raffi !
Bruce Mowbray: If other things (living or not) are thought to be sentient, then encountering them as "you's" rather than "they's" might be appropriate...
Bruce Mowbray: perhaps a form of animism. . . and/or pantheism. . .
Bleu Oleander: seems a bit like going back to the way things used to be :)
Riddle Sideways: more direct connection
Bruce Mowbray: Hmmmm. [listens]
Bruce Mowbray: Well, 9suddenly stops listening and starts to talk again!). . .
Riddle Sideways: :)
Bruce Mowbray: I'll bet that soup will be tasier if it is "you" soup stirred with a "you" spoon.
Bleu Oleander: would hesitate to eat "you" soup :)
Bruce Mowbray: Compassion also seems enhanced...
                                    --BELL-- 
Bruce Mowbray feels that hesitation before eating "you" anything might bring forth enormous changes in the fast-food industry. . .
Bleu Oleander: would soup have rights then?
Bleu Oleander: :)
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, everything we presiously thought of in the third-person would have some level of dignity and respect, presumable.
Bruce Mowbray: previously*
Bruce Mowbray: presumably*

Bleu Oleander feels silly talking about soup rights when not all humans have their rights honored
oO0Oo Resident: More consideration perhaps.
Raffila Millgrove: well wheni cook. .i really do refer to the..salad, the entree.. I think in mind "you" when i am urging it along. plants too
Bruce Mowbray: Whenever I do Tonglen as a practice, I do it with a "you" awareness - not sending it to "them" but to "you."
Bruce Mowbray: Oh yes, Raffi! I do understand that!
Raffila Millgrove: i knd of do all call my food and plants by "you" in the mind.
oO0Oo Resident: Perhaps by going to extremes in consideration, it makes human rights more obvious.
Bruce Mowbray: Gotta start somewhere, Bleu. . . might as well be with soup.
Raffila Millgrove: my computer, my neighbors. i am kind of suprised how many things i have in the "you" category. never realized it.
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, 0,that's the idea. . . eventually it comes back to an awareness of the "first" person. . .
Bleu Oleander: for me, I start with humans and work my way to soup :)
oO0Oo Resident: I O U

Raffila Millgrove: haha. soup's much eaiser than people Bruce.
Bruce Mowbray: ;-)
Bleu Oleander: yes, I often call my computer by "you" terms :)
Bruce Mowbray: so, computer seems more sentient to you than soup, Bleu?
Bleu Oleander: although I don't feel my computer has feelings
Bleu Oleander: no I don't think my computer is sentient
Bruce Mowbray: No, but YOU have feelings about it. . . ?
Bruce Mowbray: and perhaps about its pixellated imagery. . .
Bleu Oleander: I think we have a way to go making computers sentient

Raffila Millgrove: when someone says "that woman" i always bridle cause it sounds so rude to me, like we're now moving her into a "thing". people rarely start staying that child or that man.. when they.. are being caring of them.
Bruce Mowbray: Exactly, Raffi! Now you're into the spirit of my counter-factualy investigation!
Bruce Mowbray: factual*
Raffila Millgrove: yes. it really is interesting Bruce. i do get it.
oO0Oo Resident: Now frame that without saying someone, but rather, you Raffi?
Raffila Millgrove: ah yes. that's harder. to say outloud. easier to think in mind. can i use "we".
Raffila Millgrove: we works ok?
Bruce Mowbray suddenly feels enhanced "I /you-ness" . . . (yes! "we" is quite a different experience from "they."
Raffila Millgrove: the other people can be "we".
Bruce Mowbray: seems to add value to subjectivity . . . as a method of investigation . . . (phenomenology?)
Bruce Mowbray: also raises some "attachment" issues. . .
Bruce Mowbray ponders a biologist having an i-Though relationship with the things in the petri dish.
Bruce Mowbray: I-Thou relationship* sry
                                    --BELL-- 
Bruce Mowbray: such attachments are common, though, among biologists who study primates . .
Bruce Mowbray: Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world. ~The Buddha
Bleu Oleander: take care everyone ... gotta get to work :)
Bruce Mowbray: Be well, Bleu!
oO0Oo Resident: Bye Bleu
Bleu Oleander: may look at my lunch differently today :)
oO0Oo Resident: :)
Riddle Sideways: bye Bleu
Raffila Millgrove: bye blue
Raffila Millgrove: Bleu
Bruce Mowbray: That little counter-factual experiment seems now, also, to be a sort of "dropping..."
oO0Oo Resident ponders wild turkey reflections
Riddle Sideways: :)
Bruce Mowbray: dropping the third person as a quality of relating -- and replacing it with the 2nd person. . .
Bruce Mowbray: Bye, Raffi!
Raffila Millgrove: ty for sharing these ideas Bruce. they were cool.
Bruce Mowbray: Bye, Riddle!
Raffila Millgrove: have a good day all.
Raffila Millgrove: bye 0 and Riddle
oO0Oo Resident: Bye Raffi.. you too !
Bruce Mowbray: I hope I didn't chase you away . . .
Riddle Sideways: no, very close to what a riddle is doing
Bruce Mowbray: I should also be gone. . . my typist (real or not) supposes he has important things to get accomplished today.
Bruce Mowbray: Thank you all.
Riddle Sideways: thank you all
Raffila Millgrove: i can't get over the new You, Bruce. it's so hot.
Bruce Mowbray: All be well!
oO0Oo Resident: Bye Bruce
Riddle Sideways: Bye all
oO0Oo Resident: Thank you Riddle
oO0Oo Resident: me looks at the lotus...
oO0Oo Resident: Bye you _/\_