Balls

So, this will be brief as for the past week I've worked hard, not slept much, worried a great deal about work and Masters things that I won't bore you with, as well as travel and car things that are yet more tedious (but remain on my mind) while the PMT is making its presence felt (increasing the anxiety by, I think, 23%). In short, I'm not in the mood.

But, I kind of gave up on the long explanation of consciousness in the real philosophy appendix to Radiant Cool and, stupidly, started The Spread Mind. This was a foolish move. If RC was spinning my mind clockwise and stretching it horizontally, SM is spinning it counter-clockwise and stretching it vertically.

What the crazy Italian - he's actually a neuroscientist, professor, head of department, editor of a journal - says is that, no, no, the world is not inside the head as experience-made-of-consciousness, while the world, that we can't properly reach, is out there (made, one supposes, of matter), no, not that, but the world is out there made of matter and so is consciousness. Consciousness and the world are the same and they are both out there.

Should you wish to dip into Riccardo Manzotti's spread mind theory, you can find his conversation with Tim Parks here.

I was almost getting my mind around it all being in my mind but I don't seem able to get my mind out of the matter... or something.

My advice - don't read mutually contradictory accounts of consciousness within the same week if you wish to maintain some hold on reality.