The Within

flyingfish

 

How can I ever know what you really think within?
Are you aware of the same emotional feelings as me?
For I can only ever know and hear my own inner prattle and din.
I can never peer within your mind to feel what you think and see.

I know that you love the smell of old world roses as I do.
The red sky at dawn, the warmth of sun beams on cheek.
I don't have to get inside your head to know it is true.
I can see it in your eyes, hear it in your sighs, without a peek.

All my senses make me aware of the within of all things.
The soft emotive core of animals, birds, trees, bees and rocks,
That respond to my look, hear, feel, sniff, touch and clings.
All sharing within in common, with all other things in flecks and flocks.

I care not what this within is made of, nor from whence it came.
For such thoughts only diminishes and extinguishes the flame.

  • Author: John Richard Anderson (Pseudonym) (Offline Offline)
  • Published: August 23rd, 2021 00:04
  • Comment from author about the poem: It appears that the physical explanation of consciousness is fundamentally incomplete: it leaves out what it is like to be the subject, for the subject. There seems to be an unbridgeable explanatory gap between the physical world and consciousness. Could we function as human being without being conscious? The hard problem of consciousness is explaining why all that stuff that our brain does is accompanied by subjective experience, why it feels like something from the inside. Are animals conscious? Which animals and how much? Is consciousness a fundamental part of the universe - The Within if Things? Does the within accumulate to the point that the threshold of consciousness is reached?
  • Category: Unclassified
  • Views: 21
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Comments +

Comments4

  • Lorna

    Well penned message that for me reinforces the fact that we are really very much alone.

    • flyingfish

      Thanks for your feedback. Cheers and Best Wishes

    • Fay Slimm.

      Yes life is so full of mystery and you pen well the questions that spring to mind on consciousness - - "all sharing with all" in this thing called withiness is the nearest I feel that we can get. Thanks for the thoughtful posting my friend.

      • flyingfish

        Thanks for your thoughtful response. Best Wishes, John

      • Doggerel Dave

        Plenty of intelligence and thought been thrown at this question - to me it is the imponderable along with life after death.......

        • flyingfish

          OK, for sure. Cheers

        • L. B. Mek

          'No matter, No mind'
          that's where all-that philosophical discourse
          amounted to, in the middle ages..
          scarred generations - away
          from studying the metaphysical questions of life,
          and insured science got stuck
          in that endless loop of reverse engineering
          all we glean from nature, for that satisfyingly
          result yielding fast-tracked 'progression'..
          personally I think, we as people
          are still children, on the ladder of evolution
          for everything we do, is done to distract ourselves
          from that painstakingly dreary, quintessential prerequisite
          of first understanding our most basic choices...!
          if you can't understand something mundane about yourself
          like why a random individual gets under your skin
          for no apparent reason, enough for you to waste your life
          trying to effect - their life;
          then what chance do we have of trying to understand
          the truly complex mysteries of our lives..
          its like trying to comprehend, without first evolving
          to develop, the required capacity to listen and observe...
          (wonderful, a rare treat for those
          who still like our philosophical ponderings, sipped
          refreshingly bold) lol
          thanks for sharing

          • flyingfish

            Thanks for your thoughtful reply and insight. Cheers and Best Wishes



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