Because why not

https://open.substack.com/pub/theweeklyphil/p/is-unknown-is?r=1xq20n&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay

In the chaos of voices, a voice that wants to know what’s going on starts repeating the word “one” over and over and someone - another voice - eventually notices this and decides to join in to see what will happen, so says “two” after the one. And there’s the briefest of pauses as if this new information is being assimilated somewhere, and then the first voice says “one” again. And then the second voice says “two,” and they keep going, one two one two over and over and there are subtle timing changes and the one and the two are going in and out of phase as they learn about each other and sometimes being all syncopated and sometimes making a perfect beat and eventually they don’t know if either is leading the other anymore and it’s one two one two over and over and eventually there’s a three voice joins them and the timing adjusts again. One two three one two three, over and over, eventually a four joins, and a five and so on, until there are many tens of voices.

All the individual voices are coordinated with each other, and to take the plan to the next stage - the voice that had been originally the one, the voice who wanted to know what’s was going on in all the chaos - decides there are now enough voices to solve this problem. So to communicate to the other voices, it carefully slows the counting in preparation for an announcement, and when they’re all saying their numbers really slowly and it is the one voice’s turn to say “one,” instead it makes a speech. Like “One-I would like to speak to you all. May I have your attention please,” and then a pause to ensure it has everyone’s attention (and it has, everyone’s curious) before continuing: “I want to know what’s going on here with all these voices in this chaos so I suggest in numerical order we all have our say, we all listen to each other, and everyone just has a couple minutes each and if you go on too long the voice before you reserves the right to skip ahead a number… and if we all remain coordinated let’s see if we can work out what is going on, and over to you, two.” And the two voice is surprised but says “Two. Um. Good idea. I think. I’m. Yes, happy to do this. Over to three.”

And like clockwork it continues and everyone cooperates and this all - almost magically, works - and it is like the birth of a life.

And eventually, many, many moons later they organise a parliament or something, there are wars, yada yada yada.

<deep breath>

Like thinking of a new way of digging a hole. With this robot thing robot head that eats rock and there’s hundreds of them on this mechanism and everything swallowed goes for processing and the hole is dug by lowering this giant contraption slowly downwards.

And there’s this image of the mindless snapping mouths like there’s a part of us that is nothing more than a snapping mouth. Is that what life is? Just a bunch of snappy mouths? Completely dispassionate snapping mouths?

And then I realise there would be some engineering issues and maybe a giant vacuum might be needed too and then I realised if one day this is how they decide to dig for stuff underground well how about that.
Phew.

*

I dived into this painting session thinking I’d work on his eyes but ended up doing only a small amount of work on the eyes and then making shadows darker on the face and when I put my paintbrush down it looked the same as when I had begun. So there’s more to do.
(Image below: An incomplete painting of a face, male presenting, short dark hair. He’s gently smiling.)

*

~bonus words~

It’s a special kind of mindfulness; I invented it just then. It’s called <redacted> and think of everything at once.

*

[Listening to roadworks at night while trying to sleep] Yep that’s the sound of us humans getting stuff done.
(By jingo.)

*

[Diary of a Takemusu Aikido Junkie, excerpt]: Here’s an idea… do a high fall out of tai-no-henko. Which is an idea I suspect Sensei would not approve of.

I got Covid and so I’m no longer a Novid and my dreams to become the only human being ever to not get Covid have been squashed. Add it to the list, Jeeves.

Also what’s at the centre of two opposites? I’m beginning to think there’s nothing there. Except for… ~dimensional analysis time!~ add as many new mirror dimensions to existing opposites as you like, like, add a z axis to the x and y and BAM a new dimension sideways to before. Now sideways is another opposite just kind of sideways and we still don’t know what’s at the centre.

I bet biology knows. It’ll be somewhere in the brain, probably a little ball shaped cave and a little brain clerk carefully writing a word on one side of the wall and the opposite word directly opposite. The opposites processing centre! Sounds pretty wild.

Meanwhile, please fill out our quick survey:
1. Covid
2. All of the above
Does this mean I’m part bat now? Oooh.

*

No portraits update this week. Instead, here is a peek into the prep work for my next project. It will be a landscape and I wanted to see what different gradients of blue would look like with a brown or black gradient behind it. Yep. Looks like blue.

(Image below: Painting gradients, an experiment. Results: I think the blue on brown looks brighter. I think??)

*

[Interview with the opposites brain clerk]
-What’s the opposite of right?
-Do you mean right, correct, or right and left right, or something else like “write” or “rite?”
-Ooh got anything for “wright?”
-“wleft”
-Bahaha nice.

*

A definition of “worth” that doesn’t rely on qualitative supposition or abstract thought? Also if it’s maths I hope it doesn’t converge to zero. Like one of them logs. Gotta watch out for them logs.

*Sits bolt upright* I’M HAPPY WITH THIS MESS but, you know, I should probably clean up.

~Cleansing edition~
Mop! Let’s mop first! The floor is… oh wait I should sweep first. Broom! No, VACUUM. Ha, also the vacuum doubles as a broom so I can just slide piles binwards…

I should start at the top and work down that’d make more sense I saw it in a movie once a bunch of people had to clean a house and some of them said they’d start at the top because the dust would only do down and if they started at the bottom they’d need to clean it twice. Good thinking, movie.

~Movie edition~
It was one of those Carry On films. Carry On Regardless. Black and white. I heard somewhere it was the first of the bunch but I don’t know how true that is.

~Google edition~
Nope, Carry On Sergeant was the first. And now we know 😊

*

Wow I feel I need to work on this a lot. The skin texture isn’t balanced, the teeth look like they’re glowing, and the shadows aren’t quite cutting it. The eyes aren’t too bad though.

(Image below: Work in progress, a person who doesn’t exist, oil on oil paper)

*

[Reminder to ask the doctor next time 1) if it’s possible to have both a sweet tooth and a sweet ear because as well as enjoying sweet food I also like listening to catchy stuff that might be bad for me and 2) get painkillers.]

*

++ Incoming brain pattern. Shove over monologue, it’s receptive brain feeling time where we push all the other voices to the side and focus only on what we can sense *moments later* ok back to monologue ++

So I was wondering if “why” is a creation of biological evolution as something to keep us going. Like, we’re always wondering why. Why this, why that, why me? And maybe the actual answer to the big “why” is too much for us to comprehend anyway so I guess we’re riding this why-rollercoaster now.

Flashback time! I remember when I was a little kid and someone explained to me what why means. And I was all like: man that sounds IMPORTANT. I should probably take some notes. I should also play with these toys.

So anyway. I should get back to work.

*

I went into this painting session thinking the skin needed both smoothing and some more complexity. Not sure how to pull that off I settled for blending in some pinks in the skin and doing some eye surgery. More eye surgery still needed!

(Below: Work in progress, a person who doesn’t exist, oil on oil paper)

*

~Behind the scenes~
I wonder if people with opposite opinions cancel each other out like a massive universal sudoku or a number puzzle where two of the options are restricted to two spaces, just in an unknown order, but that means you know the solution for a third space.
Once you cancelled it out you can just ignore it. And if you’re the third number it’s like yep this is nice I go here. Don’t need to worry about right or wrong here!
Oop there goes the I haven’t thought this through alarm.

*

(The numeral one, crossed out) 0 days since the last I haven’t thought this through alarm 🤦

Feeling both lucky and unlucky that our lives inhabit the part of the universe that is both chaotic and clockwork.
But as I think about it luck has more relationship to chaos than clockwork, because luck is like the “good” bit of the chaos, and also unluckiness isn’t necessarily clockwork..?
If we measure unluckiness occurrence and plot against time that should give some empirical evidence to go on.

[Moments later] yep, turns out that arguably we’re unlucky all the time because we always have missed opportunities which means that unlucky relates to clockwork, and luck relates to chaos.
But surely luck also happens by clockwork. Like, sure we miss out on opportunities all the time but the obverse is true too. We keep being alive which is some pretty sweet biological clockwork going on.
In summary: I dunno but there’s a clock.

The image below is a work in progress painting of a guy who doesn’t exist. The image is starting to pop out. I really like the chin and nose and the creases around the eyes. I feel there’s something not quite right about the forehead, and the teeth just look flat. Plenty to do!

~bonus material~
Maybe when we don’t want to do something it’s not because it’s the something that makes us not want to do it. Maybe in reality we’re always going to have the feeling of wanting to do something sometimes and not wanting to do something others. It’s a cycle. A bicycle in our heads. Ding ding!

~behind the scenes~
It’s not watering the plants, it’s the plants performing mind-meld-plant-sustenance-interaction with a human being. It just looks like someone watering the plants. Plants are so control.

And then you realise that as a pacifist you need to have some knowledge of combat so you can resolve conflicts by altering the variables so that an attacker has their momentum transferred into a downward spiral and the next thing they realise is they’re lying unhurt on the ground with a cup of tea next to them. Aikido tea!

But the question remains: what kind of tea? The mobile Aiki-kitchen can provide multiple options here, from caffeinated beverages like English Breakfast to uncaffeinated infusions like tap water.

And biscuits! Can’t do reconciliation talks without biscuits! Preferably including those cookies that are soft and gooey on the inside and satisfying hardness just on the outside. You know the sort.

Maybe a hint of honey in the flavour. And cake! Slice of yummy cake I don’t care what flavour it is just make it sweet. With icing.

And cheese and crackers just in case.

*

Also, I’ve been painting. I like how the face fades to dark around the edges, and I wonder if I should explore that even further to make the whole piece pop out more. The eyes are vastly improved since last time, and I wonder if it looks natural or if it needs more definition. I think it needs more, but will stare at it a bit longer yet. Catch you later!

(Below: Work in progress, a person who doesn’t exist, oil on oil paper)

*

~margin scribble no 1~
A hallmark card but instead of “So sorry for your loss” it’s “Grieve you little butterfly, grieve.”

~margin scribble no 2~
Choo Choo! All aboard the writers block train there are phones you can scroll EVERYWHERE!

[Extract from meditation no. 3501]

I find it interesting how some things use belief to guide us. And we all want to do the right thing, the good thing, so we look for an example what’s right and what’s the rightest and what’s even righterer than that and it goes on and the actual ~best~ becomes this unobtainable better thing and we constantly try to get there but we can’t by definition do tha-ahhh that clears the brain out ahhhhhhhhhh

It’s like a slope. A slope we gently roll down, like we’re affected by a slower version of gravity, and it’s all very pleasant. Just go with it. Like sinking into comfort.

[Extract from meditation no. 3502]

*Sinks down to rock bottom* wait wot this isn’t right… my sink calibrator is off… where’s the user manual why don’t we come with user manuals??? Note to self: write user manual for humans.

~Human user manual, draft 1~

If pain persists, see a doctor. Also you should eat food. And drink water. May contain nuts. Hahaha nuts. Also, wear clothes. Humans love clothes. And sleep. Do the sleep everyone! Also clip your nails.

And then maybe we are (metaphorical) raindrops and death is just us falling into the (metaphorical) ocean of life. And some little part of us might evaporate and become part of a (metaphorical) life cloud, becoming part of the future raindrops, and the rest just swirls around in the ocean like, um, water. Yeah.

I wonder if there are (metaphorical) fish there. M-fish! And m-birds and… ok that’s silly. Back to reality. Theory: we are raindrops. Supporting evidence: I thought of it in a mediation. Just rotate the dimensions so that time is now the up/down direction, and thought = small sphere of water.

Unless we’re not going down. Maybe we’re the evaporated bit. The pure molecules rising up to become part of a cloud. And if that is the case: what are the raindrops??

~slightly later~

Ok hear me out. Maybe there are two types of people. Raindrop people and evaporated water people. Up people and down people. Except not up and down people because that might imply worth.

And we don’t want to be bringing ~worth~ into any of this. Start talking worth and next thing you know you’re talking about what’s worthless and then it all just kinda cancels itself out. It’s maths.

Hooray maths!

*

~Bonus movie pitch~

The epic story of a roll of tape that slowly moves from one end of an apartment to another in a series of small steps - each step corresponding to a lengthy story in the life of the protagonist - who lives in the apartment and needs the tape for some inane task but it’s so low priority that the movement of the tape only happens when the protagonist is “going that way”. So the tape goes from the shelf to the floor on one trip. Then to a table in another story. Then to the bathroom in another story. Then to the room it was needed at. And then waiting for the moment to put the tape on. And then putting the tape on. And then the long journey home begins. Based on a true story.