random thoughts ...

let's just assume that they find it hard to relate to people :) ... its like walking along a long dark tunnel, the walls of which are made of glass ... and you can see people outside and they're leading their lives and they try to include you too ... and all that ... but the glass walls hold you back ... and the only way to move is forward ... further along the tunnel ...

Ghost Town

PS :: This is from wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy back in 2002
...

Death Stalks the empty alleyways,
The empty streets, the silent highways.

The city that once was,
The life that teemed within;

The children, happily playing in the streets,
No cares, no worries, no doubts, no fears ...

Where has the city disappeared to?
Where has its life all gone off to?
Like a candle snuffed out by the wind,
My city lost its Lights,
My city lost its life.

Sounds in the silence,
The echoes of Dread,
Where once was a city,
Now lies a ghost town,
Creaking doors -- a scurrying cat;
A dog howls in the distance,
Silence again ...

Where once was a city,
Now lies this ghost town;
Where has the city disappeared to?
Where has its life all gone off to?
Like a candle snuffed out by the wind,
My city lost its Lights,
My city lost its life...

The yellow brick road to nothingness ...

And they carry me far far away
To the land where the the shadows whisper little songs
Speckled sunshine rinses the ground
'twixt the trees .. homeward bound ..

As we travel down the yellow brick road to nothingness
A futile life .. creating rainbows in the dark

Can you hear the fairies tiptoe .. ?

I *think* .. therefore I am! Or am i, really??

"THINKING" ... isn't that, like, a set of chemical processes? A saga of the neurons? INDEPENDENT thought, curbed thought, good thought, bad thought, intelligent thought, dumb thought, meaningless thought, deep thought, smutty thought, rude thought, malicious thought ... how do WE know which is which?

What's right, and what's not .. it has all been hard-wired into our brains .. how is it that almost 4 billion people think along the same lines .. how is it that almost 4 billion people consider the same basic stuff wrong? hard-coded, no?

if(action==Stealing)
{
action.wrong = true;
if(perpetrator == penitent)
{
forgive.Perpetrator = true;
}
else punish.Perpetrator = true;
}

Isn't THAT how we work, basically? Human thought is, therefore, a set of chemical stimuli made to simulate active thought .. we THINK that we think .. but do we, really? An 'intelligent' machine THINKS that it thinks ... AI .. simulations within a simulation. And that is exactly what we are .. the simulation of active thought within a simulation of "surroundings". This PC that i'm working at .. a bunch of atoms arranged in a specific way to SIMULATE a specific structure.

Carbon atoms arranged in one way make coal .. the same carbon atoms arranged in a different way, under a different set of conditions become diamonds .. so in reality, is COAL == DIAMOND ??! So what is it that we covet? A bunch of CARBON atoms?

In one of our classes, a teacher asked us, "If I place an apple in front of you, what would you do?" Quite understandably, a huge majority of the class said they'd eat it. The teacher then drew an apple, and said, "Go on, eat it! Isn't this an apple, too?" Needless to say, the class just gaped at the picture, open-mouthed :D. Someone came up with "We can't eat the apple in the picture because it isn't 3D" .. Leading us to think that they'll eat wax apples (Isn't that 3D, too? :P)

AI is, therefore, a bunch of human beings trying to come up with a decision of sorts. "Intelligence" is, a human being identifying a TABLE for what it is .. a table. And what makes them realize that it is, indeed, a table?

Phases ...

This is our latest creation ...

We're caling it "phases" because we believe that it represents the various [sic] phases of the human mind ... we believe that ALL humans display manic-depression, schizophrenia, paranoia, etc to some extent .. the difference between your "normal" people and your "branded" people is that "normal" people have learnt to CONTROL these phases. However, when these phases get out of control .. when they start to affect the person's lifestyle (adversely), the person is then labelled or branded as per the symptoms most dominant.

As for the part about the butterflies in the gilded cages, we believe that "thoughts" are like butterflies (I guess that's something I read someplace once, and which has stuck to my brain) ..

Anyways ... so thoughts are like butterflies, silently beating their wings againsts the "cage" that is our mind ... trapped within .. when we express these thoughts, we release those butterflies, and they soar high and free! If we keep them trapped within the mind, they keep beating their wings against the walls of the cage ... A couple of them might die in the process, but until then they've eroded the walls enough, so that future thoughts can easily break down those walls and escape ..

And once your "cage" has been destroyed, you have no further control over your thoughts ... your PHASES control you, rather than vice versa ... THAT is when a "normal" human being makes his transition into the "labelled world" ..
Okay ... so here goes our stuff :

..:: Title :: Phases ::..

And there's a world
Beyond the waters that gave birth
Wanton lust
Consumed by the labyrinth of thoughts
The passages that led to destruction
Reach out to grab control
To take over ..
Paranoid human being

A gaping whirlpool opens up inside me
Pulling at my thoughts
Breaking open the gilded cages
The butterflies fly away
And the mind caves in
Pulling me down
Into the abyssmal depths
Manic human being

The world crushed deep
Under the boulders of living tissue
A plunge into a darkness
I never knew existed
Leaving behind a light that shines
A world of happiness so bright it hurts
With eyes that are blinded,
By the spark of life it has
Just like the thoughts that once were
Clouded in the Black mist of the soul
Schizoid human being

Screaming away
Spewing meaningless thoughts
Are YOU LISTENING TO ME???
The whirpool opens wider
The abyss pulls enticingly
More cages disappear
The butterflies morph and mutate
Eat away at me ..
Rabid human being

Birth

The people began to assemble outside hours before the due time. The had brought their drums and chanted war songs -- a new warrior would be born in a few minutes.

They wore their best clothes and perfumes in honor of the occassion...

The mob waited -- and waited impatiently -- for the new arrival. The mother's agonized groans meant nothing to them; all they wanted was their warrior.

The minutes ticked by, and the groans grew louder -- the louder they grew, the more the crowd cheered; the more it shouted. Who cared about the mother? No one! Why -- she was, but a mere female -- a burden on their society. For to them, afemale hardly counted in the category of human beings ...

The groans and cries were growing louder by the second ... the mob grew more impatient -- their cries grew wilder, and farther away from the borders of sanity.

At last the midwife came out of the tent -- the mother had died during the delivery. But no body cared to hear. After all, the mother was but a mere female!

The crowd knocked the midwife down and rushed on into the tent -- but stopped short. There, lying in the cradle was a crying baby .. girl! All sound died out and silence now prevailed over the gathering which had been just short of going mad a few seconds earlier. The father and other close relatives of the baby hung their heads in shame and remorse; all their hopes having gone down the drain. All this while the little one looked out at the world so new to her ...

The crowd filed past the dead body of the midwife as she lay there in the sun-scorched sand of the desert. She had been crushed to death by the mo as it rushed into the tent.

The father could not hold his head up proudly -- as he would have done, had the new-born been a boy. His friends jeered at him, his relatives taunted him. Oh what could he do now? Oh, why did this earth not crack open and bury him? Oh, why would the skies not gobble him? Oh, why did he have to father a girl? Why him? How could the gods have played such a cruel trick on him? Why! Oh, why! He did not know; he did not understand!

He spent the night deep in thought -- waht could he do? How could he rid himself of this shame? HOW??? He racked his brains, and at last hit upon an ide -- Ah! Now he could go to sleep peacefully ...

And the rising sun saw another little body join others in an old well outside the village ...