Journey of the void - Ben Goertzel

poem-journey-of-the-void.txt

This is a snippit of a long text from 'The Journey of the Void' - Ben Goertzel 
 
 
 
Who am I, a mere conglomeration of particles --
an organism flashing in and out of existence --
a web of learned and inherited patterns --
to explain the universe as a whole?
 
And yet, 
this is a task for which we are all equally unqualified
 
We each have only a partial view,
strive as we might to encompass
that which goes beyond
our finite bounds
 
We can only sense what goes beyond,
without grasping the details of it
 
And the feeling of understanding everything 
is neither correct nor incorrect --
There is no external standard of "truth" 
that one might compare it to
 
Reflections of reflections of reflections,
each one a little more distorted --
archaic mind, the image of void,
pulling itself further and further away 
 
Rationality!
Abstraction!
Understanding!
Yet another reflection: 
machinery reflected inwardly.

Reason is a machine,
and language is its world
Reason is a machine
for fitting together and producing
complex linguistic forms
An inner world containing a dichotomy 
between an outer world and a mind/world dichotomy
Perversity, complexity, convolution --
tremendous creativity --
a world within a world within a world -- 
mirrors three levels deep --
 
That the mirrors are reflecting nothing
is a fact that gets lost
in the web of dancing rays of light
 
 
Ben Goertzel. Full text http://www.goertzel.org/fiction/journey.htm