Chameleon vision: Poem ~ "To the Dance or the Pools? ~ Virtually! How different it is to soak at Harbin Hot Springs, than to realize it in virtual reality"

"To the Dance or the Pools? ~ Virtually! How different it is to soak at Harbin Hot Springs, than to realize it in virtual reality"

Drive them back to the wine-dark taste of home,
The smell of damsons simmering in a pot,
Jam ladled thick and steaming down the sunlight. 

- Seamus Heaney

To the dance, then the pools,

first at actual Harbin, over years,

dancing free, dancing be,

dancing bee, buzzing, its own honey ~

this movement-freedom grows

with warmth and energy 

in concert with the music.

Connecting with dancing begins,

connecting with dancing beings,

singing inside with freedom in rhythm,

I delight in this liberation, ~

but depends on the music too ~ 

Blues, Grateful Dead, jamming, Rock & Roll, 

make it happen for me, actually.

Heat comes, the music closes at evening's end, 

and people head to the pools,

to cool down, 

to complement the body-movement jam,

with serene soaking under starlight

- and the warm waters - ease.

These Harbin warm pool waters,

this elixir of encompassing body suits ~

one's whole being received by

this geo-thermally warmed liquid, ~

we like.

Virtually?

Dancing at home - wearing the Glasses -

I'm there, and so are you,

in the Harbin Conference Center, 

and people be jamming,

this be-music is hop-happening,

virtually. 

I start to move here at home,

Glasses revealing new openings

through which to glide,

and around my body goes,

dancing at home, dancing my home.

How Different it is to dance at home in virtual Harbin, ~

and cool - a realization.

... "Question:

whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, 

And by opposing end them?"

(https://poets.org/poem/hamlet-act-iii-scene-i-be-or-not-be)

Or, to head to Harbin actually or virtually, 

different it is,

to seek and find freedom,

by traveling from the SF bay,

the way, the Napa Valley 

wine way to Harbin,

or to find one's way 

there, Virtually there, 

'as if' and by multimedia,

with gorgeous visuals 

on a screen, currently

what a scream!

Yet beyond this traveling difference -

a big difference - this venturing out

in bodymind, locomotively, to move through, 

to see, to interact with, the world,

The Soaking in warm pool 

actually, in waters there,

while being in Harbin all around,

communicating silently, communing that is,  

with fellow naked soakers, is wondrous.

The Soaking in one's bathtub,

virtually, from home, Glasses on, 

digital screens behind the glass, 

newfangled things,

while surround-seeing in Harbin ~

Brainwave headset too to come

for communication, 

Tan Le's* or

Brainfingers* (only works when able to relax) or

EEG* brainwave 'dreadlocks' ~

still wondrous

yet you don't hang out actually ~

by mingling silently in warm pool ~

or visiting quietly naked 

Sunning on the Sun Deck.

Immersive both, in different ways, 

the warm waters help

meditation deepen ~

release inwardly deeply ~

a relaxation response in both,

and all is one in the here and now,

consciousness changes.

Yet there's more space too 

in the actual Harbin's warm pool 

than in this bathtub.

How best to understand consciousness, 

and this consciousness,

this Harbin consciousness,

this Harbin Heart Consciousness

of HCC - Heart Consciousness Church?

Subjective-Objective accounts,

1st person-3rd person scientific narratives ~

in the warm waters, with the Glasses,

re visually observing,

and beginning to examine neural processing ~ 

as sentience, 

awareness, 

perception and 

feeling 

in the brain the mind, the BodyMind?

So is this, the Body-Mind problem,

moot in the warm pool,

and consciousness all one?

Yet, poetry-wise, we be studying

how brains give rise to mind,

re neural processing,

with brainwave headsets ~

thinking about it.

So then, can minds be bodies, and

is sentience brain-meat or bodyminds?

Virtually!

And how is bodymind

consciousness - importantly - virtual,

or in what ways can we make this more so - to learn?

Further, are these neurophysiological e-states

in these hypothetical virtual brains,

conscious - digitally?

And how far does sentience extend 

down the phylogenetic tree?

Won't study this here now at Harbin, 

yet Tononi's integrated information theory - IIT - holds promise 

- 'that consciousness is identical to a certain kind of information' - 

and measurable as Phi, the symbol for integrated information.

How could we code this in virtual brains,

yours and mine,

film-to-3D app at the street level, cell and atomic levels,

where the 'digital' corresponds 1-1

to the brain cells and neurons and processing,

and the 'virtual' - as if with multimedia,

to the mind, - somehow conscious.

Thus we might distinguish between the

Actual-Virtual, and the Physical-Digital. 

And how could brainwave headset devices best turn their 

information gathering inwardly 

in these regards - and from the Harbin warm pool?

Phi! ~ actual, physical, that is ~

how can we simulate this? 

To virtual Phi? 

And further to digital Phi?

Qualia, infinite qualities, 

('the internal and subjective component of sense perceptions, 

arising from stimulation of the senses by phenomena' too),

perceived by many, 

in myriad ways, in many bodyminds? 

At actual Harbin in the warm pool, 

with brain wave headsets monitoring the brain, 

might one be able to study these anew?

At home with Glasses,

and brainwave headsets,

people could talk more readily, 

adding a language element 

to the 'subjective,' 

their 1st person accounts, - and 

in studying the brain technologically, 

actually-virtually & physically-digitally, 

where the 'as-if' virtual experience 

created by multimedia and 

perceived in the brain could be 

digitally developed 

in virtual brains ~ 

in a realistic virtual earth for STEM

and brain science, 

and of species, and individuals,

like you and me, 

soaking, soaking, soaking 

in the warm pool at Harbin, 

in the bath tub at home

in real virtual Harbin,  

... and yet conscious:

"To the Dance or the Pools? ~ Virtually!

How different it is to soak at Harbin Hot Springs,

than to realize it in virtual reality"!

And loving bliss neurophysiology,

uniquely Harbin warm pool generated

as it bubbles up, While soaking, 

how to model thee ~

and to learn from, like a musical score?

So how to measure this with headsets,

distinguishing even between,

objectively, 

the relaxation response,

the relaxation response 

in the Harbin warm pool,

and brain chemistry 

of neural cascades of pleasure,

and then also, Subjectively, I say,

in words?

And with machine learning, further,

on the objective, 3rd person 

scientific accounts' side,

could we add cameras to cells, 

wee antennae, or cameras, to atoms, 

articulate DNA with awareness,

(and have George Church,* Ed Boyden* and

Karl Deisseroth* already done this?),

as well as send optogenetic signals 

in from the headsets, 

by further examining consciousness, 

via the virtual and the real thinking, 

thanks to David Chalmers* 

while

in the warm pool,

or In the bath tub ~

at Harbin soaking?

And subjectively, when we're blissing,

after releasing into meditation, 

after eliciting the relaxation response ~ 

self reported, ~

use language to talk about this?

I know it consciously when I'm blissing

in the Harbin warm pool, 

when bliss is simply bubbling up.

So can we measure such,

like your conscious bliss for sure, 

and bring this together with what we say about this ~

with our awareness, consciousness that is, 

in an account of infinite qualities, as information?

Long way to go to measure

integrated information Phi in the brain,

to code it in virtual brains,

to hypothesize this further,

and then objectively and 3rd person-wise 

observe this scientifically (& consciously) 

in the brain,

but maybe nakedness, 

Actually, and

Virtually,

and examining desire,

further, too, will open ways ...

So first the dance, then the pools

this time, and,

How Different it is to Soak at Harbin, than to Realize it in Virtual Reality.

Understanding consciousness

and realizing bliss further,

connectedness, 

in complement with scientific sentience,

thanks to Harbin. 

To the Dance or the Pools? ~

Virtually!

How different it is to soak at

Harbin Hot Springs,

than to realize it in virtual reality.

-- 

- Scott MacLeod
- http://scottmacleod.com 

https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2019/11/chameleon-vision-poem-to-dance-or-pools.html

* 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chameleon_vision

...