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authorCase Duckworth2015-03-25 21:49:45 -0700
committerCase Duckworth2015-03-25 21:54:26 -0700
commitecda49e0b20ad3bd52449356dccf2f8095ecfb70 (patch)
tree4789dd035fa827edf280fd8234d014b171de1c38 /ouroboros_memory.txt
parentFix makefile re: RIVER crashing (diff)
downloadautocento-ecda49e0b20ad3bd52449356dccf2f8095ecfb70.tar.gz
autocento-ecda49e0b20ad3bd52449356dccf2f8095ecfb70.zip
Flatten directory structure
All content files (*.txt, *.html, *.river) are now in /.
I did this to simplify the compilation step, and to make
linking easier.  I'm still thinking about whether I should
move the contents of js/, img/, and lua/ into /, or into
an 'assets' folder of some sort.  We'll see.
Diffstat (limited to 'ouroboros_memory.txt')
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1---
2title: Ouroboros of Memory
3id: ouroboros_memory
4genre: prose
5
6epigraph:
7 content: |
8 He used his body to remember
9 his body, but in the end could only
10 remember the string.
11 attrib: Jonathan Safran Foer
12 link: 'http://www.bet-tal.com/index.aspx?id=2315'
13
14project:
15 title: Stark Raving
16 class: stark
17 order: 12
18 next:
19 - title: L'appel du vide
20 link: lappel-du-vide
21 - title: Love as God
22 link: love-as-god
23 prev:
24 - title: Table of contents
25 link: table_contents
26 - title: Initial Conditions
27 link: initial-conditions
28...
29
30[He said][] at the beginning, "It's like rolling yarn into a too-small ball.
31Sure, you can roll the memories around for a while, and maybe even use some of them.
32Eventually, though, you'll wind them all the way out and you'll be left with nothing but a small loop.
33You can tie this loop around your finger, and start wrapping your body, but this is an extension of the same problem.
34You'll turn into a mummy of memory.
35There'll be nothing left underneath but a dead body.
36
37"But what does it mean, _To remember the body with the body?_
38I imagine a creature made of memory, putting its feet in its mouth, turning into a ball.
39In this way, it could roll all around the landscape of its memory.
40I've tried explaining this to other people, but it doesn't make any sense to them.
41The task of eating one's feet is, to them, an unsolvable problem.
42They seem to forgotten that, as babies, they were able to make themselves into loops.
43
44"So I increase the count to two: two snakes eating each other's tales, forming a loop.
45In this way they are able to put two heads on one body.
46This doubles the number of memories, which really only exacerbates the problem.
47It's like trying to roll two different materials up into a ball.
48The people I tell this to don't understand this either, they say using two animals makes sense to them.
49They say there must be different types of memory.
50
51"I disagree with this theory of memory.
52I think there is, at bottom, only one type of anything, with subtypes grouped together along the edge of a loop.
53Color becomes a good metaphor: look how many of them!
54yet they are all consumed by the same part of the body.
55Maybe two different materials are still made of material, and maybe they can be rolled into a ball.
56Maybe there actually never was a problem.
57
58"Or maybe, and this is more likely, I need to restate the problem.
59I think it all boils down to the fact that I have a truly lousy memory.
60I've tried different mnemonic devices, like imagining each thing I need to remember being visited by a bouncing ball.
61I've tried trying string into finger-loops.
62I've even tried writing the things I need to remember on my body.
63If you asked me, 'Do any of these work,' I would have to answer, 'None of them.'
64
65"Sometimes in the morning I realize dumbly I've forgotten my words, all of them.
66They generally come back by around ten o'clock, but the frequency with which this is occurring is becoming a problem.
67I feel that my brain is being separated from my body.
68Is there a place in the universe for a misplaced memory?
69Does it eat its own tail and roll around the universe as it loops?
70Does it shrink down and become lost as a tiny ball?
71
72No matter what happens, eventually _I_ will become _them_ as I lose the last of my memory.
73I won't be able to solve the problem of my being, and my being will become my problem, in an eternal loop.
74I will roll my body into a prenatal ball.
75
76[He said]: joke.html