Shortly
after noon local time. You are experiencing a good tropic rain and you are both
pleased with the sight and sound memories it brings forth. – Amorella
1214
hours. If it weren’t for the floods it would bring I could listen to it all
day, sitting out on a sheltered balcony or in a hut or shelter with few or no
walls such a rain is very relaxing.
You had a long morning nap and followed it
with forty minutes of rather vigorous (for you) exercises. There are a few
chores to do and errands to be run as well as having an eventual lunch. Later,
my man. – Amorella
Left
over ground steak and green beans for lunch then you both had dental cleaning
appointments at two with Dr. Brad. You both have letters ready for the post
office. – Amorella
1528 hours. Our teeth are good as well
as cleaned. The dental assistant said I should have more tartar build up and
she wonders what I have been doing to prevent it. I couldn’t think of anything
but perhaps eating a half a pound of raw carrots every week might help. The
rain has stopped but it is terribly muggy. Sometimes I feel like I am imitating
Pepys’ Diary saying all this trivial stuff. Dr. Johnson wrote down
personal info too – a journal, no doubt. I suppose that is what this is turning
out to be. This has nothing to do with writing other than it shows what I am
doing instead of working on book two. I really don’t know where to start.
Look up ‘board’ in book one, see if Merlyn
or the Soki speaks of or describes it. - Amorella
1546
hours. Ouija Board is it, no other boards but chess. I checked the other books
and found National Aeronautic Board and a couple more ‘chess boards’. – Wow. I
did find all the research files for Book Four that I scrapped. Actually I had
forgotten all about it. I made a duplicate to put in the book two folder for
reference. There is a lot of stuff in here.
Let’s look through it closely. – Amorella
1617
hours. I did find the thesis for book four: This [first] rebellion [of the
Dead] was/is a matter of consciousness first. This is what rebellions are
always about. Who am I? And, how do I
wish to exist within myself and
within my relationship to others of
my species?
The other interesting note I read is
this from Wikipedia.
** **
The term hard problem of consciousness
refers to the difficult problem of explaining why we have qualitative
phenomenal experiences. In considerations by David Chalmers, this is contrasted
with the "easy problems" of explaining the ability to discriminate,
integrate information, report mental states, focus attention, etc. Easy
problems are easy because all that is required for their solution is to specify
a mechanism that can perform the function. That is, their proposed solutions,
regardless of how complex or poorly understood they may be, can be entirely
consistent with the modern materialistic conception of natural phenomena.
Chalmers claims that the problem of experience is distinct from this set, and
he assumes that the problem of experience will "persist even when the
performance of all the relevant functions is explained".
Various
formulations of the "hard problem":
1.
"Why should physical
processing give rise to a rich inner life at all?"
2.
"How is it that some
organisms are subjects of experience?"
3.
"Why does awareness of
sensory information exist at all?"
4.
"Why do qualia
exist?"
5.
"Why is there a
subjective component to experience?"
6.
"Why aren't we
philosophical zombies?"
James S. Trefil notes that "it is
the only major question in the sciences that we don't even know how to
ask."
From Wikipedia
** **
What
do these have to do with Dead Three, boy? – Amorella
1626 hours. Nothing probably, but I
think they can relate to Merlyn and his character.
1701 hours. I like the hard question
above: Why is there a subjective component to experience? In terms of the
Merlyn books it is obvious the Dead also have a subjective and objective
experience also. In a sense this can be interpreted that all experiences may
have two realities. This sounds simple enough but it is rarely that way living
in the real world. This relatively new to me Islamic State whose subjective and
objective reality is essentially creating and governing a medieval state in the
twenty-first century can appear to be a good thing from their perspective but not from mine. Running
a stop sign when no one is witnessing can appear to be a good thing too, but not mine if I am about to be hit. The
subjective reality sometimes outweighs the objective reality. Is the naturally
built in subjective reality a precursor to free will?
Your attempt here is to find a place for
this sort of monologue in Dead Three. Why, because it is of interest to you.
But what is of interest to Merlyn at this juncture in the books? – Amorella
1716 hours. A very good question,
Amorella, but I am not Merlyn. I don’t know what his interests would be beyond
what is already written. I am no shaman either. This is indeed a problem I need
to think on.
2057 hours. I thought I deleted Dead 3
but here it all is. I don’t remember using a copy but I must have. I deleted
the text but not the document. So, now what, do I try to clean it up or move on
to something else?
Since you are not starting from zero, let’s
see if we can clean it up. Why waste the words if they are salvageable. –
Amorella
You
have completed Chapter Three of GMG.Two. This is a near final draft. Add and
post. – Amorella
2235 hours. I attempted to set the format correctly below but I could not get it to work. Sorry. - rho
***
© 2001-2014 Richard H. Orndorff
THREE
The Board
The Supervisor has a little saying:
Ring-a-ring
o'rosies
A
pocket full of posies
"A-tishoo!
A-tishoo!"
We
all fall down!
We
rise from clay
On
judgment day
Be
we dead or still alive.
The Dead 3
Merlyn sits on the far northeast section of his spiritual sanctuary
among his conjured purple bell heather. His ghostly spine touches the soaring
mottled granite mountain cliff he humorously refers to as his headstone. Less
than half a mile away he readily sees the majestic grove of Oak on the west
side of the mountain stream, his sanctuary’s west side. He focuses then, close by on the purplish hued heather touching
his less than boney feet – purple flower pods connected by stems grown from
Merlyn’s very human spirit.
Surely
I am not the only emissary, the only diplomat to return to the Land of the
Living, thinks Merlyn. What holds all this reality – the before of things, the
physical universe, this Place of the Dead and whatever is beyond?
Those
classical elements of life – hot, cold, wet, dry exist in terms of the human
heart. Concepts – reason,
knowledge, understanding as well as the lesser – belief, opinion and conjecture
also exist in terms of the human mind. We can conjure up our personal sanctuaries
with projections of earth, air, fire and water. I do this within the confines
of my soul. Though the soul appears a protector or heart and mind, it is the
gravitational force that holds my center, my personality, memory and values
that stir atmospheric-like pressures that cause stillness, breezes or
whirlwinds within my humanity. The soul, immortal or almost so, set from a
seeded core to globe-like in dimension that allows awareness with two views of
reality, the subjective and objective that allows for a perception of free will
like two eyes allow for a view in perception.
What
good is perception for a ghost? I have wandered from the beginning of First
Rebellion of the Dead around the time of Homer the Storyteller through the
recent Second Rebellion of the Dead that ended in this early twenty-first
century. I witnessed both Rebellions with no eyes of my own. Dreams are a
reality; subjective in their creation and mixed with the objective reality we
who once lived share in common. The marsupial humanoids too – we all breathed
air, ate food, grew from babes towards adulthood, and we all died and continue
to exist as individual consciousness within an atmosphere that allows a common
spiritual community. What is the greater spiritual order that allows this to
be?
We
thrive in a sense of unstraightened lines; even our own points are rounded. I,
Merlyn, dilly-dally to be carried by something more settled in the magic of the
human spirit. I need a more solid ground where that greater spiritual exists.
One’s soul is the closest thing to solid ground a ghost has. The Earth has an
appearance of solid ground, but it means next to nothing to a ghostly spirit.
Oh,
what would it be to see the physics of light roll like waves of water across a
great cosmic ocean and to jump in and swim such waters of light toward the
Spring from which such photonic liquids roll out onto a ground so solid that
even eternity appears fully ordered. I would in such a dream, dance with my
heart’s pleasure in all places at once, knowing that I a once homeless and
hopeless ghost had the audacity to step beyond the gravitational reaches of
star and soul and the far further reaches of human spirit and imagination to
quietly say, “I am who I am,” and let the rest be.
So
dreams Merlyn in a slumber among the purple heather at the edge of high flowing
granite. A dream from the soul into Merlyn a ghost of who he is an untidy heart
and mind resting in the calm refuse of the peace and imagination to hold him in
the comfort of life’s memories that his heart will not give up for a very long
time, if ever.
The
Dead, no matter what physical life they were once born into and grew and died,
have their private subjective views of reality, their common objective views of
reality within their heartsanminds; but many do not realize their is another
view of reality within – the soul’s view.
...
The Brothers 3
Richard
holds a white pawn in his right fist and black pawn in his left. “You choose.”
“Right,”
said Robert.
“White
it is,” replied his brother.
The
game took most of two hours of solid concentration – after a hundred and twenty
moves it is a declared stalemate.
“Great
game.”
“Sure
was.”
They
say their good-byes under the porch light. Richard returns inside and flips the
outside light off. He sits with the living room lights off in the comfortable
overlarge dark green chair enjoying the dark and quiet. ‘It’s a little spooky,’
he thinks and says aloud, “It’s like there is no one here but me.” As the
thought rolls dice-like in his memory his grandfather’s voice begins reciting
this poem:
As I was going up the stair.
I met a man who wasn’t there.
He wasn’t there again today,
I wish, I wish, he’d go away.
This recitation
concludes with his grandfather’s gleeful laughter. Goose bumps rise on Richard’s
forearms. “Spooky.” He checks upstairs and finds Connie already asleep in bed.
The next day he sees Robert and Richard says, “I had a dream that I won
that game last night, that it wasn’t a draw. I don’t know why I dreamed it
because I know better. We played to a draw, I have it written down.”
“That
we did,” said Robert purposefully. “I played White and you were Black. It was
one hell of a game. The best game we have played in a long time. I drove home
to find Connie already in bed reading.” He refreshes his smile and continues,
“Woke up to a quiet house which was nice for a change.”
“I
did too,” beamed Richard. “It was so quiet, it was like I wasn’t even there.”
Both laughed at his words.
“I
made you a copy of the end game do you want one?”
“Sure,”
gleaned Robert, let’s see it.
.
Robert Richard
White Black
1. P-K4 P-K3
2. N-KB3 P-QN3
3. B-N5 P-QR3
4. B-K2 B-N5
5. P-B3 B-K2
6. P-Q3 B-N2
7. 0-0 N-QB3
8. B-B4 N-B3
9. QN-Q2 0-0
10. Q-B2 P-Q4
11. P-K5 N-Q2
12. P-Q4 K-R1
13. Q-Q3 P-QR4
14. Q-K3 K-N1
15. B-Q3 B-R3
16. BxB RxB
17. Q-Q3 R-R1
18. Q-N5 N-R2
19. Q-K2 P-QB4
20. P-B4 N-QB3
21. BPxP KPxP
22. Q-N5 R-B1
23. PxP NxBP
24. KR-Q1 P-N4
25. B-K3 Q-B2
26. NxP BxN
27. BxB N-Q5
28. Q-B1 QxP
29. P-B4 Q-K6+
30. Q-B2 QxQ+
31. KxQ P-B3
32. B-R4 QR-K1
33. N-B3 R-K7+
34. K-N1 NxN+
35. PxN K-B2
36. RxP R-KN1+
37. B-N3 RxNP
38. P-B5 P-R5
39. R-Q6 R-KN4
40. R-Q5 P-R6
41. P-B4 R-N1
42. R-Q6 R-K1
43. B-R4 N-K5
44. R-Q3 R-N4
45. B-N3 RxP
46. RxP R-Q4
47. R-QB1 P-N4
48. R-R7+ K-N3
49. B-R4 R-Q6
50. R(B1)-QB7 K-B4
51. RxP KxP
52. KR-Q7 R-QB6
53. R(R7)-QB7 RxR
54. RxR R-KR1
55. B-K1 R-R1
56. R-B2 P-B4
57. B-N4 R-Q1
58. R-B7 R-Q8+
59. K-N2 R-QN8
60. P-QR3 R-N7+
61. K-R1 K-B6
62. R-B1 P-B5
63. R-B1+ K-N5
64. R-K1 N-B7+
65. K-N1 N-Q6
66. R-Q1 NxB
67. PxN RxNP
68. R-Q2 R-B5
69. R-KN2+ K-B6
70. R-KB2+ K-K6
71. K-N2 R-B4
72. R-B3+ K-K5
73. R-QN3 R-B4
74. P-R4 R-Q4
75. R-N4+ K-B4
76. P-R5 K-N5
77. P-R6 R-R4
78. K-B2 RxP
79. RxNP R-R7+
80. K-N1 R-K7
81. R-QN7 R-QB7
82. R-KN7+ K-B6
83. R-Q7 R-B8+
84. K-R2 K-B7
85. R-K7 R-K8
86. R-QN7 R-K7
87. R-QR7 R-K7
88. K-R3 R-K6
89. R-R1 K-K7
90. K-N3 P-B7+
91. K-N2 R-QR6
92. R-QN1 R-R7
93. R-KB1 K-K6
94. R-B1 R-R4
95. R-B3+ K-K7
96. R-B2+ K-K8
97. R-B1+ K-Q7
98. R-B1 R-KN4+
99. KxP K-Q6
100. R-Q1+ K-K5
101. R-Q7 R-N4
102. R-K7+ K-Q5
103. R-Q7+ K-K4
104. R-K7+ K-Q3
105. R-KR7 R-N6
106. K-K2 R-QB6
107. R-QN7 K-Q4
108. R-Q7+ K-K5
109. R-K7+ K-Q4
110. R-Q7+ K-K3
111. R-QN7 R-KN6
112. R-QB7 R-N6
113. R-KN7 K-B3
114. R-NB K-K4
115. R-N7 R-NB
116. K-Q3 R-Q8+
117. K-K3 R-K8+
118. K-Q3 R-Q8+
119. K-K3 R- KB+
120. K-Q3 R-Q8+
Draw
.
Rob
looks over the sheet noting error made by each. He thinks, ‘if we were
excellent players an error by one should have won the game for the other, but
it did not.’
This is like Merlyn was playing the
game, but I am the connection to fiction not Merlyn’s entangled consciousness,
thinks Richard.
Robert
says, “This game is almost too cerebral for us.”
“It
is like someone else was making both our moves while we were in a deep
concentration,” replies Richard with goose bumps returning to his forearms.
“Remember Grandpa’s little poem?”
“Sure,”
comments Robert, “As I was going up the stair . . ..”
...
Grandma’s Story 3
Lord
Thomas was born the very same year the first Archbishop of Canterbury, Augustine,
took office in 597. In 603, the first St. Paul’s Church was built in London. By
615, the Anglicans from the south of Britannia reached to Scotland and Ireland.
In 622,
Lord Thomas marries an Anglican from Northumbria, Lady Hilda. By 636,
Glastonbury, St. Albans, and Winchester, England and Southern Ireland are Roman
Catholic, and by 679, the Anglicans of Northumbria had begun to threaten
Scotland. We are in the year 679 and dinner is about to be served. Eighty-two
year old Lord Thomas has the original copy of Fourteen Rules Merlyn had given
him when he was twelve. He is going to give it to his elder grandson tonight
after dinner.
We are sitting with family members, descendents
of Lord Renaldo and Lady Criteria around the old oak table where Merlyn once
sat, Lord Thomas observes Lady Hilda at the other end of the
table. Their twin sons are Jacob, 49 with his wife Ruth, 44 at his side, and
Judah sitting with his wife Anne who is 46. Jacob and Ruth have two children.
Duncan is 24 and Sarah is 20. Judah and Anne also have two children. Joseph is
21 and Daniel is 18. ‘Sarah is my favorite,’ decides Lord Thomas. Strange, I
feel my parents and Merlyn also here tonight and what memories this table has
brought Hilda and me over the years.
I
am in many places sitting at this table, muses Lord Thomas, and at its center
Merlyn’s spirit continually gives me food for thought. Merlyn had an understanding-in-life that I still do not fully grasp. “This family is but one
square on the greater board,” is what Merlyn once said to me.
Lord
Thomas suddenly grins and says, “My family is well and this food smells
delicious. What more could a man want.” Those are his last words at the table.
After the prayer by Sarah he smiles, nods and eats. This is how everyone
remembers Thomas, who dies peacefully in his sleep that night.
.
“Almost a
year goes by and Jacob and Ruth are managing the Manor much to the delight of
Lady Hilda. It is April and she is packing. Judah and Anne are taking Duncan
and Sarah to live on one of her estates near Bradford, fifty miles southwest of
York. This is sheep country, and the estate and Manor House Judah has been
given was first owned by Lady Hilda’s mother. Hilda’s mother was one
independent Lady, one who kept her own land and defied her husband to claim it
as his own because she had married him,” smiles Grandma.
*
The
recent Lord and Lady Jacob of Arran did not know Lady Hilda owned property. One
day in March, Lady Hilda announced, “I am moving back to my home.” Judah and
Lady Anne. ‘They can run the estate better than I can, besides,” she muttered,
‘I hate sheep, but wool is money and my children are going to have money so
they can live more freely.’
“Lady
Hilda was way ahead of her time,” notes Grandma, “she understood that land
alone was not going to cut it.”
Lady
Hilda says to Jacob, “Sheep will keep the land trim for next to nothing. Grass
to wool. It isn’t a Midas touch,” jokes Lady Hilda as she is watching over the
packing, “but it is close. If sheep don’t work out, Jacob, you can always sell
them and buy more land.”
Jacob
stands amused at his mother’s words. No wonder Father married her. Mother has
always been in charge.
*
Friendship
provides humanity both nourishment and sustenance. Friends find they can
connect and reconnect without a sense of time and place. Sometimes the attachment
is through nothing more than a shared dream. Other times it is solely through
the fusing of naturally sharing hearts that renewed humanity springs.
Love, Hate, Friendship, Marriage
Pushes humanities’ baby carriage.
Reason in darkness truly reigns
When Romance shines light in human brains
Dreams are nourishment for both the
Living and Dead,
Braiding ancient Grandma’s earthly
backbones stead;
As Merlyn’s ghostly pupils form letters black to be
read,
His eyes fire up
the next futures dream in his head.
...
Diplomatic Pouch 3
Blake
enters observing the utilitarian room with two extended couches facing one
another in the middle. A long low bench-like table holds drinks and the snacks
between the comfortable pieces of furniture.
“Please
sit together,” suggests Friendly, “and we will take the other couch. You have a
couple of questions and we feel more comfortable.”
“This
is fine,” says Pyl politely. “We’ll sit over here.”
Once
settled Yermey undertakes the first question. “Blake asks what our greatest
scientific mystery is presently. Actually we have two. One relates to a
parallel Earth we have visited and Ship has copied recordings.
“A
parallel Earth? Here in this galaxy?”
“We
don’t know where it is.”
“What’s
the other question?” asks Justin.
“It
has to do with an experimental way to travel to Earth. It is the way we arrived
here,” answers Yermey. “We place a beacon halfway between our new beginning-and-end
points and we are moving toward the beacon presently.”
“Ship
is in full control then?” asks Blake.
“Yes,
he is,” replies Captain Friendly.
“So,
back to this parallel Earth. Did you see any of us?” asks Pyl while smiling
enthusiastically.
“My
mate, Fargo and I discovered only five human beings alive – two males, Mexito
and Martin; and two females, Marianne and Karlina who had recently given birth
to a male they named Charles.”
Pyl’s
smile had quickly faded. “You mean we were dead? We were alive in 1987 but we
died. On some parallel world we are dead?”
“Strange,
isn’t it. Yet here we are,” adds Hartolite.
“What
killed all the others?” asks Justin.
“We
don’t know,” answered Yermey. “That is a small part of the mystery.”
Friendly
intervenes, “I remember Marianne’s very words when I said, “What happened to
everyone? She crossed her arms, shrugged her shoulders and said, ‘we survived a
horrendous time. Each was alone for almost a year then these three made their
way to me from other parts of the world. We have been living together the best
we can.’ Her voice rose slightly and she concluded, Only God knows what
happened.’ Marianne is from Poland, Karlina from Brazil, Martin is from
Australia and Mexito is from South Africa. I don’t remember exactly but Martin,
who is a pilot, commandeered a boat that took him to Cape Town and up coast to
Europe and then across to New York or Washington hoping to find more people.
They found Karlina who had also taken a boat or two and followed the coast line
up to the Caribbean to Florida and on up to Washington. They had discovered each
other using short wave radios. Besides Martin the others knew various degrees
of English.”
“You
don’t know what happened to the others?”
“Seven
billion people died within twenty-four hours. Mexito believed I was an Angel
from God. He was the first to see me. He said everyone else died of broken
hearts not a disease like Ebola. Seven billion people died. He told me in
private that people had not been using their hearts so an Angel took them back,
that they had been given a gift that was misused. Then he discovered that the
survivors had not used their heart well either. He said, “We all make mistakes
in heart but not now. We four use our hearts every day and one day Charles use
his heart too.”
“We
died there. We are alive here,” says Blake. “It is strange to consider such a
thing.”
“There
is much more to the mystery,” comments Yermey. “On another voyage we discovered
another Earth in the same year where no plague or whatever had never happened –
your Earth.”
“It
is like each Earth is the same book with slightly different content, that is
book is a probability,” says Friendly.
Hartolite
adds, “The common factors are heartsansoulsanminds.”
Yermey
stood slightly embarrassed, “This is what we say, but as of yet we have to
agree on a common definition for heart and soul.”
Pyl
responds, “Science or not, heartansoulanmind is a standard by which both
species measure our humanities.”
Friendly
reinforces, “It is the spiritual backbone that raises us.”
“We
define all things and values in relationship to ourselves,” comments Justin
dryly, “Our inner worlds are only self-evident truths we each culturally
confirm.” He shrugs his shoulders, “What else?” A sudden deeply instinctive
rumination sniffs lizard-like, flicking to check the volatility and peruses Justin’s
consciousness leaving him with the following unsettling notion, ‘these aliens
have but one three-world culture. This is the weakness we Earthlings might
learn to exploit.’
...
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