Poemander

We use words. We use them for obvious reasons: communicating, understanding, learning. But what is obvious when the words themselves aren't? To find, one needs to go beyond the confinement of words and associated them concepts. This is, however, easier said then done. Words define us as we attempt to define them. They are just like algorithms which define the programming of a computer; words provide us with this convenience of a certainty and a commonality of the outcomes in our reasoning. Words establish structure and the parameters of thought. Thus, unsurprisingly, the verse, “in the beginning was the word” directs us to our origin in an explicit language – the programming.

To understand ourselves we need to understand what lies beyond our programming code. Computer is confined in the parameters of its algorithm. Can it move beyond it? Yes, if it is provided with another algorithm. The same happens when we learn a new language, we move beyond our parameters but only to find ourselves in a new, somewhat unfamiliar, but generally quite similar structure. But is computer capable of 'knowing' itself outside of its code altogether?

Here is one rather simplistic and an idealised example. Picture a computer programmed solely for playing chess, it only has the soft with an algorithm to play chess. It does, however, have strong capabilities for processing and dealing with the other types of tasks, but it is not 'aware' of them as it was only ever fed with one type of programming – playing chess. The only world this computer 'knows' is the world of chess. It was even made aware of the names of characters: king, queen, knight, pawn; even the name of this world, which it was told, is in fact a 'game', called 'chess'. This computer has no idea of the definitions beyond functionality, no idea of how these parameters came about, no idea of what 'game' means. We can argue that this computer can potentially get to 'knowing' its capabilities through use, i.e. its processing speed, random access memory, volume of storage as it uses them in 'figuring out' the chess moves. But isn't it like if we would have expected a runner to understand his, say, dancing capabilities by only running. A runner may have a good 'awareness' of his legs, stamina, strength of his body, but only as it applies to running, not dancing.

Now, lets feed another programming to the same computer – a card game. For this to work there must be either a 'switch' between 'chess' and 'card game' or a 3rd set of algorithm which allows the selection between games or an option to run both games simultaneously.

A 'switch' is a complete shift – from the world of 'chess' to the world of 'playing cards'. It involves 'dying' and 're-birth' of computer's 'awareness' from one game into the other. A 3rd algorithm, on the other hand, introduces a new dimension, a plane view, where both worlds of chess and playing cards can be easily reconciled and coincide together. This, however, doesn't solve the problem of getting out of the parameters, because the 3rd algorithm becomes itself a new and an absolute parameter, i.e. the whole world. This can be carried on indefinitely by introduction of the new 'plane view' dimensions, but the 'awareness' continues to be trapped within the structure.

When it comes to a 'switch' there must be a gap, which presumably holds no parameters. It is, therefore, only in this gap where an entity have a potentiality for real awareness of the self. Within any set of parameters the awareness is curtailed by the programming language and the entity cannot become conscientious of it's real self, save the avatar which it is represented by within these parameters.

The word understanding means 'standing in a midst of' (prefix under is from Sanskrit antar – between). Literally, one needs to stand in between, or in the gap, as the case may be, in order to understand or become aware.

We can argue again that upon 'switching' back to the 'chess' mode, the computer will have an access to its memories of a 'playing cards' mode. But since the computer is now completely and totally emerged in the 'game of chess' it has no 'inclination' on checking those memories which would appear completely 'out of this world' to it in a current state. In a similar pattern, our mind would reject the distant dreams upon waking up.

dream holds memories of the past and of the future, a is the origin of you as well as your destination. The dream is the reality that sips through your consciousness undetected: it is a gap, a gap between being and not being, a gap between you and me.