Notes - 3 days off - thank you for reading. rho

         Mid-morning. You are wondering, ‘now what?’ and are ready to move on to book two at the same time. – Amorella

         0844 hours. I left a note on my Facebook page that I had completed book one. About an hour later I received some ‘likes’, which makes me feel good, perhaps validated is a better word. I have those ‘he says, she says’ verbs, but since that is what happens what am I going to do, make the set up as a play?

         No need to set the novel up in a play or screen format, boy. Take a couple days break. We’ll start 1 June on both the book two and blog. – Amorella

         0922 hours. I guess I’ll work on the genealogy but if I see stuff that is important to me I’ll put it on the blog for safekeeping.

         Save it, orndorff, but no blog. If you do it will just be habit and these books are not about being habitual. Enjoy the ancestry-dot-com. – Amorella

         0926 hours. I don’t think I am going to like working with it all that much.

         Is this because it is new to you? – Amorella

         I suppose.

         When you are home, post this. No more until June. - Amorella

         0929 hours. That’s three days, Amorella. 

Notes - neuroscience / spunk / (final) Chapter 21 of GMG.One

          Mid-morning. Toyota now has a WiFi lounge – much better – it is large – snacks available and only two other people at present. The other lounge is full. You have to walk fifty feet further. This is what you consider funny. You are being too anxious to begin work. Walk around. Look at the new cars. There will be time boy. – Amorella

         You are home; the work took about forty minutes. You were checking “Feedspot Today” and discovered the following article. This is a concept we can work with later. Add and post. - Amorella

** **

The Brain Is Not a Receiver        

Published by Steven Novella under Logic/Philosophy,Neuroscience

Comments: 8 [one selected]

Whenever the discussion of a dualist vs materialist model of the mind comes up, one common point made to support the dualist position (that the mind is something other than or more than just the functioning of the brain) is that the brain may not be the origin of the mind, but rather is just the receiver. Often an explicit comparison is made to radios or televisions.

The brain as receiver hypothesis, however, is wholly inadequate to explain the relationship between the brain and the mind, as I will explain below.

As an example of the brain-receiver argument, David Eagleman writes in his book Incognito:

As an example, I’ll mention what I’ll call the “radio theory” of brains. Imagine that you are a Kalahari Bushman and that you stumble upon a transistor radio in the sand. You might pick it up, twiddle the knobs, and suddenly, to your surprise, hear voices streaming out of this strange little box. If you’re curious and scientifically minded, you might try to understand what is going on. You might pry off the back cover to discover a little nest of wires. Now let’s say you begin a careful, scientific study of what causes the voices. You notice that each time you pull out the green wire, the voices stop. When you put the wire back on its contact, the voices begin again. The same goes for the red wire. Yanking out the black wire causes the voices to get garbled, and removing the yellow wire reduces the volume to a whisper. You step carefully through all the combinations, and you come to a clear conclusion: the voices depend entirely on the integrity of the circuitry. Change the circuitry and you damage the voices.

He argues that the Bushman might falsely conclude that the wires in the radio produce the voices by some unknown mechanism, because he has no knowledge of electromagnetic radiation and radio technology.

This point also came up several times in the 600+ comments following my post on the Afterlife Debate. Commenter Luoge, for example, wrote:

“But the brain-as-mediator model has bot yet been ruled out. We can tamper with a TV set and modify its behaviour just as a neurosurgeon can do with a brain. We can shut down some, or all, of its functioning, and we can stimulate to show specific responses. And yet no neurologist is known to have thought that the TV studio was inside the TV set.”

There are two reasons to reject the brain-as-mediator model – it does not explain the intimate relationship between brain and mind, and (even if it could) it is entirely unnecessary.

To deal with the latter point first, I have used the example of the light-fairy. When I flip the light switch on my wall, the materialist model holds that I am closing a circuit, allowing electricity to flow through the wires in my wall to a specific appliance (such as a light fixture). That light fixture contains a light bulb which adds resistance to the circuit and uses the electrical energy to heat an element in order to produce light and heat.

One might hypothesize, however, that an invisible light fairy lives in my wall. When I flip the switch the fairy flies to the fixture where is draws energy from the electrical wires, and then creates light and heat that it causes to radiate from the bulb. The light bulb is not producing the light and heat, it is just a conduit for the light fairy’s light and heat.

There is no way you can prove that my light fairy does not exist. It is simply entirely unnecessary, and adds nothing to our understanding of reality. The physics of electrical circuits do a fine job of accounting for the behavior of the light switch and the light. There is no need to light bulb dualism.

The same is true of the brain and the mind, the only difference being that both are a lot more complex.

More importantly, however, we have enough information to rule out the brain-as-receiver model unequivocally.

The examples often given of the radio or TV analogy are very telling. They refer to altering the quality of the reception, the volume, even changing the channel. But those are only the crudest analogies to the relationship between brain and mind.

A more accurate analogy would be this – can you alter the wiring of a TV in order to change the plot of a TV program? Can you change a sitcom into a drama? Can you change the dialogue of the characters? Can you stimulate one of the wires in the TV in order to make one of the on-screen characters twitch?

Well, that is what would be necessary in order for the analogy to hold.

As we have learned more and more about brain function, we have identified many modules and circuits in the brain that participate in specific functions. During the Afterlife debate I gave a few of my favorite examples.

Disruption of one circuit, for example, can make someone feel as if their loved-ones are impostors, because they do not invoke the usual emotions they should feel.

Disruption of another circuit can make a person feel as if they are not in control of a part of their body – so-called alien hand syndrome.

A stroke that leaves the ownership module intact but unconnected to the paralyzed limb can rarely result in a supernumerary phantom limb – the subjective experience of having an extra limb that you can feel and control (but that does not exist).

Seizures are also a profound area of evidence for the mind as brain theory. Synchronous electrical activity in particular parts of the brain can make people twitch and convulse, but also experience smells, sounds, images, feelings, a sense of unreality, a sense of being connected to the universe, an inability to speak, the experience of a particular piece of music, a sense of deja vu, or pretty much anything you an imagine. The subjective experience depends on the part of the brain where the seizure occurs.

There is also copious evidence from strokes and other forms of brain damage. As a practicing neurologist I can examine a patient with a stroke and with a high degree of accuracy predict exactly where the lesion will be in the brain on subsequent imaging. Everything you think, do and feel has a neuroanatomical correlate in the brain, and if that function is altered or not working, that will predict where the lesion can be found.

The only limitation is the current resolution of our neuroanatomical and circuitry map of the brain. No one denies that the brain is fantastically complex, and that our current models are a long way from capturing this complexity down to its finest level of detail.

I think, however, that non-neuroscientists grossly underestimate the degree to which we have mapped the circuits in the brain. Also, as our technology improves (with the addition of fMRI and transcranial magnetic stimulation, for example) the materialist model of the brain is becoming more successful. If this model were ultimately wrong, then the materialist approach would be running into serious problems. It isn’t. It is a remarkably successful research paradigm.

A dedicated dualist might still argue that each specific mental function requires its own specific receiver. Brain circuits are receiving specific signals. If you stimulate the circuit it acts as if it is receiving the signal. Eventually, this argument leads to a brain that has all the circuitry necessary to produce everything we can observe about mental function – it leads to the light fairy argument, where the light fairy is simply not necessary.

If, on the other hand, the receiver model were correct then it would be reasonable to predict that as we investigate the relationship between brain function and mental function in greater and greater detail, the physical model would break down. We would run into anomalies we could not explain, and it would seem as if the brain does not have the physical complexity to account for the observed mental complexity. None of this is what we find, however.

Conclusion

The brain-as-receiver hypothesis is nothing more than a convenient way for dualists to dismiss evidence for the correlation between brain function and mental function. The hypothesis, however, is dependent upon a gross misunderstanding of the state of our knowledge about brain function, and the intimate connection that has been documented in countless ways between brain function and mental function.

The simplest explanation for the tight correlation between brain and mental function is that the mind is what the brain does. There is no more reason to hypothesize a mind separate from brain than there is to hypothesize that there is a computer fairy that performs all the necessary calculations and then feeds the results to specific circuits in your computer.

***

Sample Comment:

Bronze Dog on 27 May 2014 at 11:30 am

I posited server and client as a more appropriate metaphor for dualists to consider, since that is a two-way relationship, while radio and TV are passive receivers. At least in the server/client model, you can alter the server/soul’s processes by altering the client/brain’s processes. But, as you’re saying in the post, neuroscience is leaving less and less for the soul to allegedly do. The client’s so thick, one wonders why it bothers to connect to a server. I brought up the idea of a spiritual Faraday cage a couple times. If there’s a signal going back and forth between the brain and soul, presumably that signal can be blocked to demonstrate a loss of function. If we discovered dualism is true that way, where do we go from there? How do we examine the inner workings of souls? How do souls explain consciousness, inner subjective experience, qualia, or whatever?

Selected and edited from Neurologica Blog: Your daily fix of Neuroscience, Skepticism, and Critical Thinking.

** **

         1233 hours. This is an interest blog article. 

         Later in the afternoon. You drove in to Kenwood for Potbelly’s sandwiches, hybrid v. electric cars was the subject of conversation (you both decided electrics are not practical enough for your lifestyle. Carol drove home stopping for a couple errands on the way. The humidity is up so you came home rather than sit out to read and write. Your right thumb and its attending muscles are sour and painful for an unknown reason. Carol is out working in the yard, you are thinking about a nap. That’s where your head is boy. –Amorella

         1634 hours. It feels like the weather is building for an afternoon thundershower. Carol decided she wanted to drive the Honda home from Kenwood. Actually, it was rather fun watching her take the wheel through a lot of northbound traffic on I-71. It has been a while since I have observed her in heavy traffic. Mild mannered and normally quite kind Carol holds her own in the dash up to Mason. She can be a very aggressive driver when forced into it. No one moves her from whatever lane she is in at the moment. I forgot why she always liked six cylinder Accords until today. She can be one cool dude behind the wheel, that’s one of the reasons I married her. Female or not, when Carol gets her gander up, so to speak, it is time to lay low or get out of the road. This was a very fun and spunky afternoon. She needs to drive more often, but when I drive she gets to see stuff along the way. Hey, Carol, where's the neat used red Porsche  Boxster you were eyeing the other day? (I can see her playing through the gears like they were the keys on a piano.)

Post. - Amorella

         Moving towards dusk. Carol is watering the flowers to the north side of the house. You both slept for about an hour and a half this late afternoon. Carol had turned the heat up to seventy-six and when you awoke it felt like you were in Rio in summer. – Amorella

         1937 hours. That’s what I was thinking when I woke up. It was sultry warm and if the windows had been open I would have expected to hear the continual deep late night 'buzz' of millions of winged and unwinged  insects through open and unscreened windows within a couple of blocks up the hill-mountain not too far from Ipanema. I checked online of a quick picture of the hillside (upper right) I’m talking about. We always stayed near the square where the ‘Hippy Fair’ originated. Wow. This was in 1970-72. Hot and sultry nights full of buzz, I’ll tell you. Most cool.

        

Ipanema Beach Today

         2207 hours. How do we end the book, Amorella? I really don’t know what to do here with “Pouch – 21”.

         I will give the Supervisor’s comments and you find a way to make it fit. – Amorella

         This makes sense.

         Let’s go to the working document. – Amorella

         2245 hours. I have completed the (final) draft of Great Merlyn’s Ghost, Volume One.

         Indeed, you have. Add and post. – Amorella

***

Chapter Twenty-one

Translucence

            This is the Supervisor, Caretaker of the Dead. These books cause a transmigration of words from the Dead into those reading within Dreamtime. The enlightenment occurs in the deconstruction of entanglement within spiritual thought. The Humanity, the Light, untangles many spiritual dimensions of mind to a singular focus: reasonable thought.

The Dead 21 – 780 w

            Some events are built in. The Lightning that becomes the Beginning of All Things continues through these Merlyn books. The Thunder follows naturally.  – the Supervisor

            Merlyn rolls his spectral eyes up and back into his spectral head only to discover he is about to have a discussion with Glevema and Panagiotakis, here in his own sanctuary.

            Within the doorway to his hut Merlyn envisions his oak billiard table rising from the central stone boulder just as he had risen from his stony sleep of the Dead. Merlyn moves slowly upward, gaining confidence. He glances down from the height of the giant oak to the billiard table below to see two balls on the green with an oak cue stick lying on the table near the white cue ball mark, and on the other cue mark sets the black 8 ball.

            Merlyn spirit blinks registering, I am the stick, Takis is the white cue ball and Mother is the black 8. The spirit, the great ghost, observes the pockets shift-in-meaning. One pocket connects to the heart, another to the soul, and a third to the mind; the other three are random existential nightmares. My cue tip needs to strike old Takis and send him to lightly kiss Mother and send her towards the far right corner, estimated Merlyn.

I can only hope to drive Mother into heart's pocket for her truthfully honest response to my question.

            Chance is not always what it seems – all roads lead to multiple place settings. – the Supervisor

            Semi-conscious, Merlyn strikes the cue ball with the stick, which, as the physics-in-his-head would have it, taps the 8 ball further and harder to the left than he anticipated.

            The white ball almost scratches at the far corner pocket and in Merlyn's mind the 8 ball rolls to the left corner pocket and drops in. 'Not good,' concludes Merlyn, 'A faery's trick.' strikes at his heart.

            Merlyn no more believes in faery tricks than he does in Angels. He laments this freedom without choice – the Supervisor

            "I should have let the Takis cue ball randomly run the table,” grumbles Merlyn. The Victorian styled oak billiard table folds through mist and into the sanctuary’s central stone bolder. Merlyn stands with Mother three arm's length away, boldly staring.

             Mother asks, "Do you think I did not see through your tactics of using my grandfather to soften my soul?"

            "I was aiming at your heart, dear Mother of all mothers. I see I missed my mark. “Why now, dear Mother, for the Second Rebellion?”

            The soul tends to show an armor of indifference, thinks Mother while considering a response to Merlyn's initial question. "Nuclear weaponry," declares Mother, and all those dead from murdering in political and religious conflicts and two major wars during the first half of the twentieth century.”

            She continues, “Even my first friends among the Dead, the marsupial humanoid Dead, pleaded for a short-ordered Second Rebellion to address the parental anxieties of both species for their living children. They were the turning point.”

            So, you see, some events take place because of the heartsansoulsanminds of others beyond the scope of most of the Living who think, like those who did not recognise even friendly bacteria, that if you don’t see or detect something it doesn’t exist and thus can have no effect on the living. – the Supervisor

            "The Living do not know about the marsupial humanoids other than my fictional stories, Mother."

            "You were sorted out, Merlyn. I assume you are up to the job," replies Mother rather huffily. "Once the marsupial humanoids actually landed on Earth and tragically died in secret attempt to present themselves in July, 1947; their species’ Dead decided it was time to re-introduce themselves to Mother’s Mother.

            The reasonableness of Eisenhower’s Farewell Speech became the trigger -- the madness of a world of industrial-military complexes would eventually create a horrific global social circumstance in which humanity both collectively and individually would have no choice but to shut itself off soulanmind-wise, Merlyn.

            This is something you can certainly understand and sell to the Living; work alone cannot make you free." She pauses for understanding, and adds "Merlyn, how would we many Dead grow and flourish under such heartless conditions of power and consequence?

            Free or not a reckoning will come, ruminates Merlyn, as surely as I, one of the Dead, walk. The Second Rebellion ended while I have been Here, in two places at once, among the Living and among the Dead. I, Merlyn, do not know how or why this came to be. But who really knows the why's of any thing. Freedom, what is freedom without the fullness of humanity in one's heartansoulanmind?

The Brothers 21 – 732 w

            Richard and Robert are sitting in the morning shade on a bench in Riverton watching people and traffic move through the busy Uptown intersection of State and College. Richard always likes this corner because he can see a slice of his favorite boyhood places, the weathered State Movie Theatre marquee across street. Robert has never been a movie fan, fancies Richard.

            Genetics and robotics are necessary as well as compatible in basic survival. Both come at a price, survival. The species’ survival is little different than the individual’s survival in these Merlyn books. The physical is more easily recognized than the spiritual; both have their merits and their cancers.  A domesticated cat’s priorities on survival have a different focus than a domesticated dog’s. Human beings are neither cats nor dogs. Looking in the mirror most people can sense of the differences in the three species, don’t you think? – the Supervisor

            Interrupting from his own focus on the old State marquee, Rob taps his brother's shoulder, and replies, "Talking and thinking are two different things. I have a new poem Dickie,” and he pulls it out of his back pocket. “It is about Lillian Gish the movie star. The poem is about her unforgettable faces on film. She died in 1993, Dickie." He points to the paper, "read this first. We can meet the girls at the empty table across the street."

            Richard reads,

*

L I L L I A N       G I S H

                        News: senseless beyond the deadline,

                        prisoner to a here and now,

                        reports any hearsay, the current heresies.

                        She: its quick legend in catchwords,

                        memorable as a persistent comet is memorable,

                        Old light of whom reaches us years later.

                        She is Beatrice: graceful frames of spirit;

                        comet to fixed star; sister to star

                        forms through whom travelers know --

                        earth as Diana, child of wild things,

                        gathering broken blossoms with voice of arms

                        in the first light a chaste lover brings;

                        fire as Athena, eyes flashing with battle-charm,

                        holds our souls, fragile as daylight, through the night,

                        breaking the dark air of harm;

                        water as Venus, love's strong voice of light,

                        laughing with the long hair of waves gently bearing

                        the sea-worn swells of doubt from every lover's eyes;

                        air as Mary, sensuous truth as heroine,

                        whose dark lips of pure fire melt that elemental

                        cold of pretense in the frightened soul of hope.

                        Child to woman to spirit of silent grace,

                        from way down east rising with the northern sun,

                        always new, the unforgettable faces of Lillian Gish.

•

and replies after critiquing carefully. "This poem shows a most basic form of consciousness. I like the existential tone.” Richard acknowledges, “I am thinking on minimal consciousness, if there is such an animal.”

            "We hope no less in the operating room," chuckles Rob, then thinking literally, he says, "If a minimally conscious animal is what you want, you want a jellyfish,"

             Richard smiles, "Here come the girls from the bakery. I'm ready for coffee with cream and a cream-filled doughnut."

            The most basic form of spiritual consciousness is human consciousness, reflects Richard quietly. Let's say minimal consciousness is a quantum state. The classical bit is stored as a one or a zero but a quantum bit is stored as a zero and a one event at the same time. The event is in two places at once. This is similar to the condition of Schrödinger's Cat in quantum mechanics, continues Richard. This spiritual consciousness both exists and does not exist at the same time. This then is the grammar in the heartansoulanmind, it is not necessarily words in a linear string; it may always be between the lines. If theheartansoulanmind functions between the lines, how can this be so?

           

            People ask themselves quiet questions from time to time as if each question continues in present tense as if there is no consideration in the thought setting for a past or future. A true question, like a true statement, can stand on its own. Life’s distractions do not get in the way because they are not noted where it counts most in the mind and in a place close to the heart where zero’s and one’s count little, if at all. – the Supervisor

            "We got you two the cream-filled Schneider’s doughnuts you like," comments Connie.

            "They only had three," adds Cyndi light-heartedly. "So I decided to take the jelly."

Grandma's Story 21 - 737 w

            Once in Scotland Criteria and Renaldo are delighted to find Merlyn has chosen to lead themto a mostly unobserved grassy path where they walk the horses through an awkward quietness for most of the afternoon. As they come upon a rise Merlyn says, "This travel has been for the comfort of Lady Criteria. We are about to enter the grounds where I have royal guests.

            Ever so politely Criteria asks, "How did you guess my royalty early on, Merlyn?"

            “The voice, m’Lady, "undresses the disguise. I know these things, as did my predecessor Taliesin-the-Bard.

            “I cannot tell where you are from Merlyn,” declares Criteria in a flirtatious mood.

            “I set my dialect to match your own m’Lady, it is my stock and trade.”

            In undisguised resentment Renaldo interrupts, “Remember we are here Merlyn, on behalf of Rome to transcribe and collect stories for the Bishop.”           

            "I am not one for those with titles, Renaldo," quips Merlyn. "My interest here is building blood and stories. You see the three ladies standing by the pond. They are of the House of Avallon, you two shall meet these sisters first."

            Hesitant, Criteria responds, "My uncle is a King in Greece. However, my work is also common within the Church of Rome. These three Ladies will provoke a lot of interest."

            "Royal blood rises or falls together," comments Merlyn directly. Shortly we will be done with this, he thinks.

            What Merlyn thinks is not what is always or even nearly so. Many thoughts of people are off the top of the head, so to speak, not down closer to the powers of reasoning for purposes presently unknown. Merlyn makes considerations and deduces imaginary consequences to add to the reasonable ones in case of error. Logic and reason are not magic but they are better than superstition alone, so thinks Merlyn. – the Supervisor

            Should I begin with Holy Island or Merlyn, thinks Criteria with Merlyn and Renaldo at her side upon approaching the three women of Avallon. Queen, Igraine, smiling, extends her hand and in kindly tone says, "I am glad Merlyn invited you, Prince Criterion of Greece."

            Having forgot who she really was, Criteria stood momentarily startled.

            "Please meet my sisters,” adds Igraine, “Morgause and Viviane."

            "Did you ever meet the Bishop of Rome, himself, Prince Criterion?" questions Morgause.

            Criteria shows the sisters her signatory ring, "I am sure in ways unknown that we are cousins, but first you need know this is but a disguise for Rome and safer travel. No one knows of my womanhood save Renaldo my priestly companion and now Merlyn, of course."

            Upon the further introduction Queen Igraine modestly whispers though all nearby ears hear, "Your secret is frozen within us. What secret is in this man-form you take that you the woman now know?"

*

            First, laughter, then the quiet talk, concluded Merlyn as the women’s chatting meanders into the great house for further discussion which leads to the following. 

            “You work openly within Columba’s league,” suggests Criteria.

            “We are Greek also,” replies Igraine to her younger sister, “Our line flows from Abraham and Sarah up through Paris, son of Priam of Troy on, up through the Franks.”

            “I know you have Greek blood through your ancestor, Princess Argotta,” notes Criteria. “Indeed, we are no doubt cousins, but the Church has heard rumor that you have another notable bloodline  –  Joseph of Arimathea. I am sure there is a story in this.”

            In response Morgause whispers, “James, the brother of Jesus, or so we have been told."

            Queen Igraine coldly eyes Merlyn and sarcastically responds, “We use the Dead as they use us."

            Criteria says, “Merlyn told me he has a plan.”

            Upon entering the scene once again Vivian laughs, “Merlyn always has a plan.” “He thinks the spirits will be here when he tells his story.”

            Criteria reflects a mute surprise, saying, “Merlyn didn’t tell us he has a story to tell.”

*

            Later, standing as slowly moving stone in front of the small audience, Merlyn with his prophetic eyes rolling into the top of his head, utters an unscheduled prescient of words he could not, in those days of life otherwise come to whisper, as a life-in-death, in letters alone.

In these books Grandma shows the gift of gab,

From Merlyn’s crystals to send this private confab;

The Dead speak short; the Dead speak true,

This fiction, my earthy children, is set on you.

Diplomatic Pouch 21 – 765 w

            Thursday, 14 June 2012. Blake, Pyl and Justin will leave shortly with Friendly, Hartolite and Yermey in the marsupial humanoid’s Ship for a flight through the Milky Way Galaxy to ThreePlanets. The Earthlings plan to be away from Earth for about a year.

            Pyl Williams-Burroughs sits quietly in the kitchen ruminating the day with a glass of milk and a favorite Jennifer cookie from the nearby On the Rise Bakery. Our friends and fellow colleagues believe we have taken leaves for university research jobs with the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil for this next year. Our houses are rented as of July 1. We are leaving everything in family friends’ hands. I am ready. I go with my husband and brother so I am not alone. I am quite compatible with Hartolite and Friendly so I have strong woman companions. I cannot imagine how this will be. We have only to be ourselves and live honestly, something we three have attempted to do our entire lives. Strangely, if it were not for what I have witnessed with Ship I don't know if I would have the trust and feel the security that this can be pulled off and that all six of us will be the better for it.

*

            Justin Wayne Burroughs sits on the toilet in the upstairs bathroom. The room is dark. He can see the reflective floor light from under the closed door. I cannot believe we are doing this, he thinks. I cannot believe that we will witness the history of an alien human-like culture. Inwardly I feel we are essentially the same species with individual hearts and souls and minds. We believe in a similar God, free will and hold to general like philosophies. Socially and economically we hold to quite different ideologies, but we desire similar cultural outcomes – friendships, security, health, growth with a smattering of contentment, joy and wonder for all. I am sounding like such an unmanly wuss.

            We three are family. What adventures will we have? What will we experience? I cannot wait. Ship is the comfort. Normally flying can make me anxious, but Ship solidifies my outlook. He allows me to feel secure by his calm manner. Even at this hour, I have no real fears of travel, none that I would have from traveling around the world on our on this planet. This will be so very cool.

*

            Blake Williams sits on an old oak chair in his basement workspace thinking how it is going to be. This will be the most interesting year of my life. I will get to work with Yermey, one of their greatest minds. Sometimes I think the marsupial humanoid species may be better than we are; but in my heart I don’t believe it. They have been around twenty thousand years longer in their social, scientific and technological experiences. It is easier to trust machinery than it is people. Ship will keep us safe. A machine oriented culture can be made secure, stable and more just. We love our machines large and small on Earth. Ship is just an offshoot. I cannot wait to see what these people have at their disposal on their own planets. Still wondering, Blake walks up the basement stairs without looking back, sees Pyl and says, "Are you ready?"

*

            She stands confident and smiling. "I am."

            Blake shouts up the stairs, "Justin, are you ready?"

            The toilet flushes. Justin opened the door and replies "I'm ready as I'll ever be."

            Both Pyl and Justin hear considerable calm in Blake’s words, "Let's go then."

            The two followed Blake out the back door that Blake turns to lock. The three looked up in surprise to the design of a familiar front porch gently dropping to the ground. Each walks on admiring the Victorian-like craftsmanship. No ship is seen. The porch lifts up into a dark opened door. Once inside the door is quietly sealed. Ship says, "Time for a social nightcap."

            Friendly, Hartolite and Yermey enter the room and Friendly greets the three keenly anticipating Earthlings with a wonderfully veracious smile, and says, "Welcome aboard. Relax. We will soon be underway.”

*

            Little is as it seems in this fiction, or in the real world for that matter. Underlying forces are always at work. I like the Thunder myth explanation of the underlying forces in a story created by the ancient marsupial humanoids. It says that in the Beginning before matter exists Lightning releases and the Thunder follows. Light is a natural attempt at this replication. Consciousness is the Thunder. – the Supervisor

                                                                                               

The End of Book One