With all the discussion bordering on metaphysics combined with the ever present FOO talk on the board this quote seemed appropriate for alot of discussions taking place right now I'll post it here instead of across multiple threads.
"think of an experience you clearly remember, something you can see, feel, maybe even smell, as if you are really there. After all, you really were there at the time, weren't you? How else would you remember it? But here is the bombshell: you weren't there. Not a single atom that is in your body today was there when that event took place... Matter flows from place to place and momentarily comes together to be you. Whatever you are, therefore, you are not the stuff of which you are made. If that doesn't make the hair stand up on the back of your neck, read it again until it does, because it is important."
You are the symphony not the notes as they are played or the instruments playing them. This is why it is really true when people say things like "the people that you love will live on in you even after they've died". I can remember my own childhood but I can also remember my father's childhood. I started crying at the funeral of one of my father's cousins because I remembered my father telling me some happy memories of times that he shared with his cousins as a boy. We share little bits of culture and information with each other and these memes become as real as our actual physical sensory experiences as they pass from moment into memory. I once took part in a conversation with a large group of students in which we discovered that we had all learned to read with Dr. Seuss. We shared a group memory or consciousness even though none of us had been age 4 or 5 together or even at the exact same time. Dr.Seuss lives on because he is like a chunk of code in all of our programs. Information matters more than matter.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
