Cognitive Patterns Somewhere on the Borders of Dark Matter and Dark Energy
by strannikov
Sympathy? Empathy? —for human beings? Any of them? Why? They talk and chatter and are so voluble they don't see what's in front of them or hear what's all around them: and then they think they occupy the center of existence! (They don't even reside in the center of the baryonic appendix of reality, and still they regard themselves as the cream of creation, as if everything revolves around them! Them and their centripetal relativism! I'd be vomiting if I weren't laughing so hard!)
Turds float to the top just as well as cream does. (Even better, as they so plainly demonstrate.)
No no no no no: human beings are fit for extermination, and it's just as well that we leave them to perform the task for the rest of us: no need for us to intervene, no need for us to assist. Apex predation entails its own logic. (Maybe some few of them possessing actual insight and talent will manage to fade into existence! I have a crucible right here just waiting to capture one!)
“The only reality that matters is baryonic existence!” —oh really? You putrid little shits don't even thrive in the realm of self-actualized being: your woefully contingent ontology barely gives you a crutch and you claim to possess the powers of Almighty God. What putrid little shits and sour little farts all of you are! (Kill yourselves, see if we care. We refuse to stay your filthy, grubby little hands, no matter how cute your chiralities might be.)
What sad accidents to've occurred, though: capable of discerning their own ontology without being capable of discerning extrinsic transcendent ontology. (Just not enough imagination to make their paltry efforts worthwhile, tsk and tut. And then they exempt themselves even from aspirations to participate in self-actualized ontology!)
At least the cephalopods on their planet manage to comport themselves with some dignity, as well as demonstrating some actual intellectual acumen. (Frankly, I find their chiralities more appealing, chiefly for the layout of their neuronal networks, plus their speculations concerning alternate ontology may make a return visit worthwhile once their galaxy spins at least twice more, if those idiot humans haven't trashed the entire planet during the next spin—weren't we warned once about the advent of bipedal vertebrates? Intrinsically suicidal for some structural reason that I don't now recall.)
Someone a few membranes over claims to have a flask full of self-actualized cephalopods . . . . (Some few have been released already: utterly charming beings!)
-END-
= = = = =
only next words
cold weather holds us captive now
as ever much as did our plague—
all sound inert, all silence vague:
death might have took the entire town.
the avenue two blocks away—
no traffic up the hill or down,
no dogs abark in yards around—
the silence of this evening's day.
no neighbors can be heard through walls,
not one broadcast of music, voice,
no manufactured social noise—
no sirens answer any calls.
—as if the silence grew from ground,
spread 'cross all skies unto all stars
whose distant silence lightens far—
the cosmos empty of all sound.
deepening silence grips all worlds
—no clamors, words, or laughs beyond,
consoling musics—all sound gone,
the universe speaks not one word.
our noises strive to mute the grip
that cosmic silence holds us in—
we could, with quiet words, begin
to speak what's only worth the lip.
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Author's Note
Speculative misanthropy masquerading as science satire, or vice versa.
Although posted as an afterthought, "only next words" qualifies as a fictional voice residing in the same universe as that depicted in the bleak satire.
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The rush of questions to begin - followed by incessant chattering - circles the center of existence. I like that.
In Archy and Mehitabel, book-length poem by Don Marquis, Archy, a cockroach - who was a poet in a previous life - types these lines:
"i heard a
couple of fleas
talking the other
days says one come
to lunch with
me i can lead you
to a pedigreed
dog says the
other one
i do not care
what a dog s
pedigree may be
safety first
is my motto what
i want to know
is whether he
has got a
muzzle on
millionaires and
bums taste
about alike to me"
A harmony of sorts with your work. As humans, we certainly do think we're special - so much so - the planet is dying while our feet are moving. Edward, your piece brings this to mind. You write, "The only reality that matters is baryonic existence." It's as if the scientist comes back as a writer - at least in my mind - creating a bridge to Marquis - a bridge I built myself.
"What sad accidents to've occurred, though: capable of discerning their own ontology without being capable of discerning transcendent ontology." Lost imagination.
In The Matrix, humans are viewed by the conquerors as a virus.
You write, "... if those idiot humans haven't trashed the entire planet during the next spin—weren't we warned once about the advent of bipedal vertebrates?" Yes.
And the cephalopods - self-actualized? Marvelous creatures. Solvers of puzzles.
Most creatures in the known universe are content with their own being - never troubling themselves with a world beyond their own fulfillment. Do they focus on the future? Yes in that they know the storms are coming. They don’t need the news for that. They feel the storm. They know the winter is coming. They bury their food.
But those troublesome bipedal vertebrates? – Those dreamers. They scan the dark skies – trying to read the stories of stars. They suddenly realize a break in the pattern of bones on ground [I’m channeling Kubrick now] and the world cracks open for them, and the sky is the limit. Your piece is springboard for me.
But, “ a flask full of self-actualized cephalopods’? That makes the right closing here. Really like the creative energy: “released … utterly charming creatures”.
Fascinating piece, Edward. Can’t help but *
"that cosmic silence holds us in—
we could, with quiet words, begin
to speak what's only worth the lip."
Yes.
Bleak indeed my friend, though the anxieties are all too familiar. *
I thought of Swift and Frost, respectively.
(Also love the idea of aliens "philanthropically disposed" to us.)
Thought provoking and useful. Also fun to read.
Grazie, grazie, grazie to whom, for the anonymous fav.
Sam: bolshoi spasibo! times more times than I plan to try to count here.
Off of Archy and Mehitabel I'd bounce Cervantes' Dialogue of the Dogs (Melville House ed., 2008). (Most of my bridges run backwards, of late, as far as I can make them run.)
When it comes to wrapping heads around contemporary cosmology, I don't find mystery disappearing as much as I see it deepening, with us falling into it groping at air or water (or empty space) to hang onto as we go. (Statistical arguments concerning the likelihood of aliens do not sway me, but much less am I persuaded that they would be benign or philanthropically disposed towards usuns.)
--and additional thanks, Sam, for citing the closing stanza from "only next words", which I posted as an afterthought (once I'd written it), thinking readers might prefer some balance to the grimness of the satire. Grazie!
Beate: thank you, thank you, and thank you.
Certo--our contemporary moments are at least as critical as any prior eras across human experience, and how much more critical, our contemporary moments will steadily become visible through this century decade by decade when not year by year. Any posterity we might claim or desire will look upon us kindly or no, but I would not say from here that I envy them.
Dianne: grazie, grazie, grazie.
You are right on at least two counts: whenever I approach satire, I like to have Swift at one side, Juvenal at the other (though I can compel neither to show up). --and it is the case that I've been renewing my acquaintance recently with Frost, after first getting better read in Welsh poet Edward Thomas, whom Frost helped direct (explicitly, with "The Road Not Taken").
--and glad to hear you enjoyed reading: thank you for taking a look!