Where’s Papa Going with That Text?

The frontal pole uses information
From the dorsal lateral prefrontal

Cortex to make introspective judgments
Related to conscious experience

Of sensory stimuli. Consider—
The courtyard smells of Russian sage, wet soil,

The revivified mold of a sofa
Soaked through by the thunderstorm, hamburgers

On a grill somewhere past the wall, and sweat.
In print, the room smelled of coffee, bacon,

Damp plaster, and wood smoke from the stove. Well?
What’s your judgment, frontal pole possessor,

About current conscious experience
Of these sensory stimuli that don’t

Exist, except as us? Yes. Introspect.
We’ll be back with your fictional piglet.

It Was the Ritual That Gave Meaning

That curious sense of contentment

That comes when engaging in action

That has no immediate purpose,

Is highly repetitive, precise,

And believed to be beneficial

But not in a clearly defined way—

What is the meaning of that meaning?

It’s a reassurance, a comfort,

A sense that you’re doing the right thing—

Even there the germ of prediction—

You should continue doing this thing

That reassures you and contents you,

The repetitive practice of which

Reminds you all is well, or at least

Not gone completely to hell. It gives

Meaning as the promise of purpose,

And purpose means what you’re here to do,

What you know you should keep doing next.

Pema walked to the monastery

From her home in the thawa at dawn

To complete the kora, turn the wheels.

Oh, Nothing

Prediction is very difficult,

Especially about the future,

Niels Bohr cracked, and yet no one noticed

He’d made a prediction, saying that.

Taken as an axiom, his claim

Predicted prediction was never

Going to get any easier,

So long as it must be successful—

That is, naming rightly what comes next.

Anticipation is the engine

Of anything that goes by meaning.

Anything beyond experience

Could be true so long as it’s unseen,

But it must forecast experience

Once in a while, to mean anything,

Which is why lies stay concentrated

In the field of predicting the past.

A future’s so mean to predictions.

What Does This Mean

What does this indicate?

What does this point to? What

Does this predict? What are

All its implications

For what you might find next

As you go on being

And bumping into things?

That brings this back around

Then, What does this predict?

Vedika Khemani

Co-authored a paper

Arguing a quantum

Computer had been used

To make a time crystal,

The closest anyone’s

Come to perpetual

Motion yet, fluttering

Between many-body

Localized states without

Absorbing energy.

True, you need a laser

Lit continuously,

But if you were doing

Some work with that laser

On regular matter

The far side of your time

Crystal fluctuating,

You’d waste no energy,

Pile up no entropy

Passing through your quantum

Cupholder while you worked

And your time crystal twitched.

Pretty cool, eh? What does

This mean? What this predicts.

All Invasions Are of a Piece

The sparrows are making
One hell of a racket,
Noisier than traffic
Through the town before dawn.

Eurasian collared doves,
Pigeons to the locals,
Hoo-hoo from the housetops,
And the house finches start.

To even catch a glimpse
Of anything native
To this ecosystem,
You have to crane your neck

And look up at the cliffs
Where juniper and scrub
And prickly pear shelter
Rare desert tortoises—

That is, unless mule deer
Are invading the lawns
And irrigated trees.
Everything wants a piece.