online: 20 april 2006
modified: 20 april 2006

16 april 2006 products of mind


15:04 ...leaning on a gate... sawn tree trunks and branches, piled up in conical heaps 'awaiting disposal'... a guard dog barks now and then... there are piles of old bricks and of wood chippings and bags of discarded sand... behind me is the continuous roar of motorway traffic... the ground before me is churned up by tractor tyres and there is a large puddle reflecting a brown picture of the trees and sky beyond...

...there is not much similarity between these words that i am writing on an electronic screen and the things i am describing... but there is some, and it's very indirect, and also complex... perhaps no one can yet describe exactly how my eyes, and yours, and our nervous systems, make their frail connections between these letters that i am inscribing and the things that i am looking at?

16:50 ...by an ornamental canal... i notice a coil of white substance at my feet and when i pick it up i see it is an infant tree with spiral root and broken stubs of emerging buds or leaves... nearby are several tiny two-leafed plants that also could become trees but these, growing in the mud beneath a park bench, have almost no chance of growing higher than say 30 cm... this may seem a tragedy to the human eye and brain but these seedlings may be unaware of it...

...but people are now thinking that there's is a kind of consciousness in plants, even in the rocks, the seas, the gases and the radiations of the earth now known as Gaia... I still find this difficult to believe... i have more trust in metaphysical theories of mind (as being what creates the visible world, including what we call the brain)... in which case things seen are the products of mind... (rather than the reverse: the belief that thoughts are a consequence of physical processes)...

daffodil email newsletter

© 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 john chris jones

You may transmit this text to anyone for any non-commercial purpose if you include the copyright line and this notice and if you respect the copyright of quotations.

If you wish to reproduce any of this text commercially please send a copyright permission request to jcj at publicwriting.net