Love, Poetry and Revolution - Thursday 23rd February 2023

The cleaner's not coming today, which allowed me to have a brief lie-in, but I'm still up with the larks, as usual.

Until this evening, I'm not expecting any major excitement and I will be focused on work.

Early evening I had a chat with my big sister, an overdue catch-up mainly due to how busy I've been.

Before the Idler drinks started, which returned this week after a half-term break, I had a chat with Q and logged in to the Zoom call just after six, as the call was opening.

Tonight's guest speaker is Anil Seth, a Neuroscientist, talking about understanding consciousness, a subject I find fascinating, so I'm looking forward to it.

That was quite a talk, one of the ways he described consciousness was as, 'the thing that goes away under general anaesthetic' and talked of the self as, 'a bundle of perceptions' and 'there's no such thing as the self, just the experience of the self'.  I will have to investigate his recent book (time! Give me more time!), but definitely take part in his citizen science experiment The Perception Census which is accessible through any PC or laptop. The census is investigating how we each perceive the world, and how much diversity of perception there is.  Take a look at it and take part.

There was a long after chat with Idler friends, much of it seemed to focus on strange experiences, which I listened to intently but couldn't add to.  I did chip in when the subject changed to the line 'the plans of mice and men' and wondered what plans mice were known for, and I chipped in with 'family planning'. Couldn't resist though I think the questioner had misunderstood the meaning of the phrase.

Dinner was unexpectedly late, but made by son #2, who ate with while we chatted and half-watched snippets of TV.

To bed in the time-honoured way...

The Auteurs / 'Lenny Valentino' / 'Now I'm A Cowboy'

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