banth57

I want to meet Samuel L. Jackson because Snakes on a Plane was a big risk for a guy who can pick and choose his roles. It shows that The Man has a sense of humor and a lot of confidence.

Plus he kicks snake butt.

I love his poetry, especially “Ode to Spot.”

Any android who has a cat has to be worth meeting.

Ode to Spot

Felis Cattus, is your taxonomic nomenclature,
An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature?
Your visual, olfactory and auditory senses
Contribute to your hunting skills, and natural defenses.

I find myself intrigued by your sub-vocal oscillations,
A singular development of cat communications
That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection
For a rhythmic stroking of your fur, to demonstrate affection.

A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents;
You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
And when not being utilized to aide in locomotion,
It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.

O Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display
Connote a fairly well developed cognitive array.
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,
I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.

I have not met this person. It seems he wants to meet me. The name is familiar and my curiosity is peaked! I would like to meet banth57.

I’ve been listening to Ken Wilbur’s Kosmic Consciousness on SoundsTrue the last couple of days, and am trying to sort out levels and lines.

This isn’t what he wanted me to get out of it at all, if he wants anything out of expressing his views, but here goes.

It is my understanding that a spirit can be limited by the vessel it finds itself under some circumstances. It says something important about my unrealistic expectations that everyone can evolve. Some just can’t, they don’t have the proper structures for it. I just have to figure out exactly what that all means in terms of “human potential.” Can it be true that large numbers of humans don’t have the potential for enlightenment? When do we accept that we’ve gone as far as we can? Isn’t it a sort of surrender to settle into complacence, when we can’t know whether we’ve hit the “glass ceiling”, vs. whether we are merely at a plateau?

It also comes back to a previous conversation I had about animal intelligence. Some animals may happen to have brain structures that give them better reasoning skills, or the higher emotions, or perhaps an unusual capacity for understanding human language. Imagine owning a veritable Da Vinci among dogs. Would he get bored easily?

It convinces me all over again that intelligence is a continuum. All types, even the ones where I personally have severe deficiencies.

While humans are unmistakeably at the top of the food chain, it is likely that there are animals that are more highly evolved in other lines. For instance, can you conceptualize a chair as a pattern of echoes rather than as a visual construct? Can you describe a chair by duplicating the sound reflections off that chair?