Officers and Crew: Top Down and Bottom Up

Captain: And you could draw the analogy – I’m not saying you should, mind you, just that you could – that that’s what consciousness is, and that’s the role of human beings in a sentient universe: that our work is precisely figuring out what the work is. All very meta and suited to the 21st Century. But we actually are situated, not just under a cesspool with the ceiling cracking, but in a good place for seeing some things that other people in other times have been less able to see. Why be self-conscious at all? Because you need to other yourself, to be able to step outside yourself and look back, in order to attain some kinds of understanding. 

Lieutenant: though to complete it you have to step BACK again. Otherwise you get stuck in Descartes’ nightmare world of automata, and are susceptible to believing nonsense, like that the world is a simulation. Yeah. But we’re getting way way off the track here, Captain. I don’t think we want to lose the thread we followed last time. And you (of all people!) are the only one who has offered actual substantial answers. I’ll add one of my own: there’s poetry. Hell, we could start a poetry podcast. Amaze our friends.

Captain: And what Vlad said the other day is a key part. We need to deliberately, consistently plunge into beauty, even if it’s only for fifteen minutes a day. 

Lieutenant: In fact there’s two ways to go at this, and maybe we should do both at once. One is top down: to figure out the project in conceptual terms. The other is from the bottom up: we have some strong intuitions of what the component habits and activities are going to be. One of them is going to be that regular immersion in beauty. We don’t have to know what the project is before we start forming the habits. Not completely, anyway. By the way, where is the Sun?

Rat: where he often is when you need him most. Nowhere to be seen.

KId: [unintelligible]

Rat: Well, what do you know. You got something to say, Kid?

Kid: No, not really, I mean – I don’t know. Sorry. I don’t really belong here.

Rat: [softly] Yeah you do, Kid. Hang out with us. You don’t have to say anything: you don’t have to make sense. We got all the top brass for that. They make sense all day long, the poor chumps.