My decision was based on years of experience.

My decision was based on seconds of experience. I decided to cross the street. These days crossing the street is immediately associated with risk. There is no risk - a street is a wider sidewalk. Vehicles in motion are not a risk, because they cannot move fast enough to be a danger. 

Bad air, though, that's a risk. If you follow a vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine, you might get a lung full of exhaust and you will feel exhausted.  I don't think I need to think about this long or do I? Street crossing involves a certain amount of premeditation. I have to think hard and not make a mistake. I have to remember the goal and not be distracted.

This decision is now taking minutes to make. I try to recall previous cross street trips. There was that one about a month ago. That was very pleasant. So was the return trip.  I chalk it up to remembering to bring enough food and to charge my phone. It was warm when I started, with a hint of rain. 

 

But earlier, I remember I had some trouble. I couldn't remember what direction to walk and started up the road instead of crossing it.

I turned my head to the side when watching for vehicles, but because I didn't want to breathe the exhaust, I was tired when I arrived and took a few days to recover.  In fact, I needed to renew my visa.  That comes of experience - years of it.

The difficulty lies in getting past the doorman.

The difficulty lies in getting past the doorman.

Kafka had a rather well-known short parable and tired entitled "Vor dem Gesetz", about a guy who spends his whole life trying to get through a door blocked by a bureaucratic and frustrating doorman who whispered in his ear at the moment of his death,  "This door was meant for you alone."

I have a doorman like that. No amount of Christmas tipping will convince him that the purpose of a doorman is in fact to maintain the door, open it, and close it. I fed him, I've given him jewels, exposed myself seductively to him, I have paid his medical bills. I have even hired a doorman for him. And a doorman for that doorman too. 

The landlord is thinking of adding another door. If that happens, I may have to move, but it would involve going out of the door.  

My neighbor in 8F has no problem getting around town. I asked him what his secret was, but he looked at me as if I were asking a personal question. 8F must have some connections I lack, for he figured out how to get the window grate off, which is too difficult for me.

I mean, if you think the government is bad, the super is worse. If you want to get the super to do something, you need to fill out a work order slip and leave it on his cork board, and the cork board is already filled with work orders. At least I'm withholding my rent. Maybe that's why I got such lousy service.

The air in here seems strange.

I can't really breathe. The way toward the door is locked, and my feet don't want to move from where they were planted. In fact I don't even know if I have feet. Maybe I should take a look.  

But breathing is important. I think I learned that in school. It has something to do with the diaphragm: moving it in and out.

I think I remember an experiment.  I think there's a way to do this that is actually breathing.  

There seems to be a tube stuck in my arm. Maybe there's a way to breathe through this tube!
I see - it's not really turned on, it's not really connected to anything. Let's see what else is in the room.

I think I remember breathing.

There have been times when I have breathed. In fact, I actually had friends who knew how.  It's been a long time, but I think I remember having problems. For example, coughing. I think that's similar to sneezing. Nevertheless, coughing is something like breathing.  Coughing - yes - and laughing! Guffawing in fact! I remember someone mentioning "Laughing out loud."

I don't know what that means. Maybe you can laugh "in soft" also? What possibilities. 

 I'm starting to get uncomfortable. I guess it has to do with my not breathing. How long have I been holding my breath?

And when was the last time I could whistle? 

If I try hard, I bet I could stub my toe. Then, I would inhale violently, and that would be the start of breathing.

And then with the taste of air on my tongue, I could remember what it felt like to breathe, and then I wouldn't think the air in here was something strange.

Thoughts?

Thoughts? Not one moment goes by when you're not thinking "thoughts," as you put it, "thinking". It's not "thinking" you're doing, your brain is bubbling with indigestion. How do I know? I don't have to be a mind reader. Wouldn't work in your case anyway, I can hear the gurgling, even though my hearing is not what it was.

So let's talk about these so-called "thoughts." First of all, are you positive that you understand some kind of "language."  It's clear that you know nothing of the kind. Noises tumble from your open maw, but I wouldn't call that "language." You can hardly even get breathing right.

It's all because you're nothing like me.

I have two eyes. You may also have two eyes, I just can't see them too well, but I can smell you. I smell tobacco. I know tobacco. I've been smoking for 45 years. Honestly, it's all I can smell. So this is why I'm an expert.  

I think you may also be able to sweat, but I always take care to wear gloves in case I get a splinter. You can't be too careful these days.

So, enough about this "thinking" as you claim to do. My evidence is solid against it.

I couldn't help but notice each stair had a different rise.

It was actually quite obvious, because mounting a staircase is like a dance. There is a rhythm reenforced by the spacing of the risers which results in the pacing of the ascent and descent. So, should a rise's metrics act inconsistently, a step literally results in mis-step.

As I write this I'm accelerating toward one of those oddly paced steps. I have reached for the banister. I've slid betwixt the balusters. I twist, I tumble, but I have technically not fallen yet.

My toes are pointed downward. My nose is arcing skyward, my arms unfurl my coat like membranes of a flying squirrel. And then: the finial, heavy and oaken, was loosed from its newell. It was roughly the size of my head. In fact, it was making an attempt to replace my head. 

I think I will just rest here a while and think a little. Just rest. Like treading water only treading treads.

How to force laughter

I remember learning how to force a laugh. 

The first part of that lesson is to determine when a forced laugh is appropriate. It's something you can actually practice by yourself. If you see something during your day that seems a little funny, but not really, you can vocalize an exasperated nose snort into a nasalized "hmpf."  Start doing this often. Soon, you'll be opening your mouth a little, and trilling your vocal chords, working up the a cautious laugh, the progenitor of the fake laugh. 

With this technique firmly established, you now need to take it into the public sphere. The best place is away from friends, because strangers often need to be laughed with.  You will note that many of these strangers will themselves be fake laughing around what is known in social media as "an influencer".  An influencer can laugh about anything, usually, animals' or other peoples' misfortunes. They especially enjoy a laugh when they are the witting cause of this misfortune. 

So as you can see, a fake laugh is easy to practice as a complement to an evil laugh. As you express your fake assent for the miserable state of the world, you can at least enjoy a drink or two for a few hours. I know I did.

What is probability?

This morning, when I did my coin flipping, I got 49 heads and one edge. While this is not impossible, it's very improbable. 

There's always a struggle to interpret the fall of the coins accurately. So many decisions. The edge flip was particularly disturbing, in that it rolled for quite a while before stopping, neither falling to the head or to the tail. 

Usually, in unusual situations like this, the explanation is simple: obviously the coin isn't fair, or something is amiss with the surface it's being flipped onto, or the flipping process itself is biased, like a pitcher choosing what kind of fastball to throw. 

Moreover, there's an implicit trust in the laws of probability - is there a way they could have been suspended? Can we be sure the head and tail side of the coin remained so between the flip and the fall? Was I misreading the side it fell on when I recorded the state of the flip, adding a consciousness of Heisenbergian uncertainty in the measuring process? 

49  heads - what if I had kept going ? Would tails have come up or were they impossible? Or were they replaced with another head - magic shops sell two-headed coins after all. This isn't one of them, I checked. I'll check again. 

Automatic writing about ideas about artificial thought

Human thought is carried out by associating elements of reality to corresponding parts of narratives. When people, things and actions are plugged in, the narrative provides a predictive model that asserts its premises as certainly as a syllogism. 

This is an act of faith: the binding of elements of reality to a story with a definite arc. There is no reason for that narrative to be grounded in reality or to be provable by logic, although many are. The selection of a narrative itself is result of more basic identifications to more abstract narratives. The establishment of a core set of narratives to identify with provides the core of personality, that is, how an intelligence frames reality that results in behaviors. Thought proceeds via metaphor.

Steering from one framing narrative to another is the point of influence and education. Narrative choices can easily complement or oppose each other, and be reevaluated while acting on them. Professing loyalty to a certain group of narratives allows others to predict your behavioral choices. 

Scientific narratives can be verified by independent measurement narratives which have implicit context. They get refined as that context is recognized. The same is true of more fragile, faith based narratives. 

There is an active ecosystem of competing ideas that are applied to  frame reality. Like any evolutionary system, the ideas complement and fit with other ideas, they mate and prey upon each other, and while they rely on external components of reality, surviving with random associative elements is also a possibility.