Ever the prism

Walking and hiking have been lifelong passions. I delight in seeing what there is along my way and what might be around the bend, or down that narrow street. Sometimes the briefest encounter or experience appears to signify something other. As I have practiced seeing, I can now sustain the meditation for longer periods, even a day. What may be one of life's delights from nature or nurture, it is now often intentional, almost a way of being and, let it be said, becoming.

A tract

I met a guy on the trail I was crossing. I asked him what was down the way he had come.

"Oh," he said. "There's a little stream."

He asked me where I came from. I told him I had left the trail down in the meadow near where the cars were parked. I was headed up to the ridge. No comment as he kept his pace.

As he disappeared from view, I asked him not to tell anyone that I didn't always follow the trails. He cautioned me to be careful.

I continued straight up through the woods to the ridge. After a while, I saw daylight at the crest. A bit winded, my heart reminding me it had once before rebelled, I skirted around and reached the ridge via a gentler incline.

Another view rewarded me as I emerged from the woods.

Look, look again

Back then in the central Rockies, south of Leadville, I think. Either before or during the time I was considering further formal studies of some sort. On the trail in and out of the wilderness, at what could not be the same but we would say roughly was the same point, I stopped and looked up at an outcropping with a tall evergreen to the right of it, low lying scrub to the other side continuing down the slope for a short ways. I was not looking for something, merely looking. If I took five paces ahead or backwards, the object of my gaze changed, and changed again with one pace, and again with the slightest change in the angle of my head.

Reality really is such an elusive thing.

I often stop now and pick a point or feature some distance away. Whether on a trail or because of some urban scene, any really. The exercise confirms we know nothing and everything and no one or no two can have it exactly same.

Still, in medias res

A bus stops across the street.

From my bench, I become more attentive to the human landscape. It is as diverse as it is. Comparisons are meaningless. And I am the landscape. That I am as a different as everybody else believes they are is the only truth. And thus in one way the same. Some stand out, others pass me by without my registering more than that. It's a differentiated landscape. Attending to this not that is perhaps cellular and nothing else.

A restaurant named Joe's. By the bus stop. Seems ordinary enough. Enough to go unnoticed and go out of business. The building sits and sits. It was there when I was a child. What it does must have some resilient genes. They split and split. I guess Joe's is the same but in some way not.

from February 2, Wednesday, '06

Aying

I found myself in front of Lienard's brewery restaurant, where we had eaten the evening before. I looked around in the cold and decided my stop was a bit further on, down the street and the first left, about a hundred yards. I considered a detour around the Bavarian church to the stop, but I wasn't sure of the exact time of the bus. So I proceeded directly to the stop. I passed by the little grocery store on my left and saw that the seasonal bulk-trash pickup was probably today--a dated light fixture was in the pile with the dusty bulbs still in it. Something to go over a wooden Bavarian kitchen table or dining nook, I guessed. I got to the stop and checked and rechecked the schedule. The bus was due there just before nine. It was just after eight. I had time, so I decided to walk to the next stop, according to the schedule one minute away by bus. It was at the Gasthof zur Post, Peiss. I walked down the right side of the street and my leg brushed a bit of someone else's pile of throwaways. I then crossed to the left side. There were pastures coming up I knew, and the right side was not appealing. As I walked I passed by fences and driveways. There were recyclables now in evidence. I saw one pile of bottles, mostly wine and sekt. I thought this household drinks quite a bit. But then I thought so did I, if you were to count the bottles I tossed in the recycling bin. After I had passed the last dwelling on the right, I found the pastures, and there were horses or ponies in the distance. I remembered them from two days before. I had seen them from the bus, standing all in a group facing one way. I had wondered why. About half way along the fields, I turned around and walked backwards a few steps, taking in the skyline of Aying, thinking I may never be here again. I did that twice and thought finally that the skyline from this vantage point was unremarkable. The small horses were in the field at the back, standing around. Three were horsing around, perhaps a kind of who-is-in-charge-around-here kind of game, with a few nips that did not seem to take or hurt. They settled into the cold. Next to the sidewalk two of them stood silently, facing where I had come from. They didn't notice me, but I noticed one. His penis was hanging out. I thought this might be cold for him, and discerned that he must have been airing it out, to get rid of bugs or sterilize it somehow. He and it didn't move. I got to the main road and turned left into Peiss.

Peiss

The first building I noticed on my left was Gasthof zur Post. It was an Italian restaurant. I had hoped it or something would be open so I could get out of the cold. I wasn't wearing my long johns today, the first day in about a week. I thought corduroy trousers would be enough. They were, but it was cold and my leather coat was getting colder. Good for wind but when it gets cold, it comes through. I saw the bus stop on the right hand side of the road, on the sidewalk which was banked by ice and dirty snow from the road. I crossed the street and checked and rechecked the schedule. Yep, I was one minute beyond the last stop, but that was about an eight minute walk. I considered going to the next stop, but that might have been beyond the town limit of Peiss and on the road to the next village. Too uncertain, I thought. So this would be my boarding point. I walked up and down the sidewalk for a few minutes, to keep warm and to scout for some place to shelter from the cold. The stop was in the shade. On the other side of the street, in weak sunshine, was a very large pile of trash. A driver from a truck on my side of the road had apparently exited, and wanted to inspect the throwaway piles. He was across the street with some kind of electronic device in his hand. He polked around and moved to the next pile, returned to the first, put back what he had found and crossed the street and got into his truck. A farmer, perhaps, then came from behind the Gasthof and deposited small pieces of finished wood onto the pile and disappeared from whence he came. A window opened on the second floor of the Gasthof and a woman threw out a large box carefully which landed open-side up below. She disappeared. She reappeared several times and dropped bedding into the box below. She then came out the side door, and with a little difficulty carried the box somewhere. I stopped watching and thought the church behind me might be open. Shelter again. I looked for a light inside, but saw what I thought was ice on the inside of the glass. I didn't venture the entry path to the side door. I thought it unlikely was open. I checked the time, probably, and decided to walk. Walked past the church and past some light industry to where the road forked, about two hundred yards. I started up the road to my left, but it looked like it ended within sight. I considered it for a minute, turned around and followed the main road down toward some railroad tracks. I saw a man get out of his car, parked on the right. He walked toward me and entered the driveway to a house being built. He was in work clothing. I continued down the road towards the railroad tracks. As I approached, the barrier came down announcing an approaching train. I stopped as if a car--I did not approach the gate but waited and looked around. A car or two approached from the other side, the road there being a long stretch through a snow covered field with woods in the background some distance away. It was very quiet. I looked left, to a wood building, smallish, which appeared like a station. And then right. There was a building on the track with a platform stuck onto it. That must be the station, but it looked more like a home. The train, actually an S-bahn, came and stopped at the platform. I noted the end stop Kreuzstrasse. I knew this train and realized this was one stop beyond Aying, my usual disembarkation point, on its way to the end of the line, my second usual disembarkation point. It silently started on its way and there were sparks between the overhead electrical wires and the carriage on the train which took the electricity and turned it into locomotion. The crackle and snap of these blue sparks continued and captured my view as the train passed me and disappeared down the way to its next station. The gate lifted and I turned toward the station and walked past the house and platform. It had a shelter on the other side of the house. I continued walking back to the main road, a circle from the bus stop I planned to board my bus from. Rounding the corner with the stop in view, I noted in the cold shade, all iced up, a sports car. I didn't recognize it from a distance. As I approached I was able to see, a Smart roadster. Nice looking. I wanted one then and there, but it looked so cold. I continued to the bus stop and tried to figure out where exactly the bus would stop. Before the sign in a cleared place in the road, or after it where there was a crosswalk? I decided to stand right next to the sign to make sure the driver knew I was a would-be passenger. He would stop and I would quickly move to where he wanted me to board. I paced up and down a bit, as before, and when out of position, the bus approached. I retreated to my station at the sign. He used a cleared spot before the sign. I quickly boarded and paid. He said something to me, and I had to admit my German was a bit bad. He acknowledged my plight and I handed all my change at his urging. My fingers were frozen and I could not easily separate what was needed from what I had. He took the needed amount, the machine issued a ticket, which he handed to me, and I took a seat. I was the only one on the bus. Once seated, he started on his way again. We left Peiss and I sort of lost myself in the fact that I was so cold but hadn't really realized it. We left the main road to make a stop in Aschbach a very little settlement I was familiar with.

Aschbach

Inge had lived here, oh, perhaps twenty years ago and I had visited her. That was when she told me that when coming in late and she was asleep, I should make noise and she would know I was home. Coming in quietly made her fear the worst somehow. The stop approached. There was a building under reconstruction on my side of the bus. On the boarding door side, a man was there with a walker. He was quite helpless looking, and I wondered how he would board the bus with that thing, or would he? Would he possibly leave it there on the street? There was no one about to pack it up or set it aside. A car approached him from the rear, but the woman driver just sat in the car waiting for the bus to stop and let the passenger on. She was apparently on her way somewhere else. The bus stopped; the man very slowly boarded with a forearm-support cane or crutch. And the walker was left outside on the street. The man slowly paid. His bus pass had apparently expired. He then took a seat, ever so slowly. The bus continued on its way back to the main road. At the intersection we took a right and soon were on our way down the hill into Feldkirchen. My stop was coming. And not knowing if there would be more passengers to pick up, or there was an obligatory stop, I pressed the button signaling I wanted to get off. The feeble man did the same. And after the bus had stopped, we met at the exit door. I got out first and waited to see if I could help. He slowly stepped off the bus, and as he did so, he took my hand or arm, that fog again [memory lapse], and stepped onto the ice on the sidewalk. He said something and I looked at him. He had a disheveled look. He wore a grey coat, open at the front. And his hair needed combing. I said good bye and went on my way past the optical shop and around the corner on the road to Westerham, my destination, about 1.5 kilometers away.

Feldkirchen

I walked straight down the street, a main street of Feldkirchen. I looked into the distance and knew that a turn in the road took me along the main road connecting the two villages. The prospect of walking that again, as I had two days before, did not interest me. Traffic and not very interesting. I remembered a limited access road parallel to the main road but bordered on both sides by fields and a school and soccer fields. I didn't quite remember where it started. So I kept going straight into a neighborhood where I knew a couple. I hoped they wouldn't see me. Too much explaining to do if they did. Where I had been. Why hadn't I visited for so long. And so forth. I kept going straight even though promising streets went off left and right. At the apparent end of the road, it took a little jog to the left and straightened out into that restricted road that went between the fields. A small sign said Westerham, 1 km. My morning hot chocolate had turned into a urinary emergency. I walked just so far that I could not be seen from either village nor the school yard which was filled with children. There, just beside the devotional stop, I took care of that business and then continued walking. I met a jogger, about my age, coming my way, and I noted pretty good for an old guy. He passed me and I walked on. Then I turned around to see Feldkirchen, much as I had for Aying. The jogger was not too far from me and he was walking. I approached Westerham via a short residential street. There were very nice expensive houses I had seen before. I knew where I was.

Westerham

I passed between the two apothecaries on either side of the short street that intersected with one of main roads through the village. How did they each stay in business all these years?

The opening

At the time, it was unclear to me why this day interested me so much, and why it was and is so vivid. A personal narrative, but without compelling content for an audience? To tell a story, but what was the story?

And today, as I put part of that day here, I know why. The reason is embedded in this piece, this place, today. And it had its reason for being then, and a different one now. A sense of home. This never dies. Something also about love and a prism and how circular logic just seems to be enough and all that can ever be required. To return home, to the center and the accustomed ways of doing and being: There is fulfillment and all is well with the one in a treasured corner of private spaces no one else can see just the ways you do.

This piece as a whole should also be self evident. Words are but refractions of lights from within, forever partial knowledge--sparks really--in the articulate world of named things. Watch for them, catch them, they are gone.

Culturus resilianus

From a history, 1909

The architecture of Mexican cities is often of a solid and enduring type, especially the buildings of older construction; and many of these date from the time of the earlier viceroys. All public buildings and ecclesiastical edifices are of this nature. The modern buildings have, in some instances, followed out the same style, eminently suitable for the country, but others have adopted a bastard and incongruous so-called "modern" type, copied from similar structures in Europe or the United States, where pure utility of interior has been clothed with undignified exterior of commercial character, marking a certain spirit of transition in its inhabitants. This is partly due to the ruthless American industrial invasion, which, whilst it has valuable elements for the country, should not be allowed to stamp a shoddy modernism upon the more dignified antiquity of environment. This tendency, however, has not yet had time to show itself, except in a few instances in the capital. Nevertheless, some portions of the City of Mexico have already been spoilt by the speculative Anglo-American builder, who has generally called himself an architect in order to perpetrate appalling rows of cheap adobe houses or pretentious-looking villas, made of the slimmest material and faced with that sin-covering cloak of tepetatl, or plaster "staff." Even some of the principal streets of the capital have been disfigured with hideous pretentious business structures, for which the Anglo-American element, whether in fact or example, has been responsible. If the Mexicans are wise they will sternly refuse to adopt much of steel construction or of "staff" and corrugated iron covering imported from the north, but to limit their buildings to native materials of stone or brick and their elevation to two or, at most, three storeys. The skyscraper is at home in New York or Chicago; in Mexico (or in London) it is the abomination of desolation. In San Francisco the outraged earth endeavoured to shake them off a year or so ago in an earthquake! An attractive feature of Mexican houses is the flat roofs, or azoteas. These are often made accessible from the interior and adorned with plants and flowers, and even the heavy rain-storms of certain regions do not seem to influence this type of construction or demand the rapid watershed of the gabled roof. During the time of the conquest of the City of Mexico these azoteas formed veritable coigns of vantage for the Aztecs, who poured down a hail of darts and stones upon the besiegers.
--Charles Reginald Enock*

2007, just before Thanksgiving

He appeared briefly in a bar frequented by Americans. It was said he had a very, very rich girlfriend. He was shortish and good looking, well dressed and groomed, "our kids are grown." Somehow thus, he had time for "a project" backed by monied partners and his own measures of success up north. He spoke quickly, words flowing in complete and correct sentences replete with substantives and carefully chosen qualifiers. It was sometimes difficult to retain what he said; only great effort caught the ideas and nuances as they quickly filled then vacated the hollow between him and speechless audients. He talked of building American homes, the existing construction was of such poor quality. Local stone was soft and quick to crumble under the slightest skirmish with a hammer and chisel, the preferred local method of demolition. They would import granites and more from Brazil and elsewhere in South America. They would bring in Polish and Czech installers for tile, most assuredly the best in this trade in the world. Superior steel structures would arrive from the States. As with Florida circa 1960s, this place would boom, and today's boomers would only flock here to modern US design and standards. He and his visionaries would build and they would come, more than have already.

One such subject, having made the choice to settle, or seasonally migrate, can be described as an outlier, living "in the hood" instead of the sometimes pretentious north- and southwest neighborhoods closer to the sea and the tourist and town center. He proudly ushers expat visitors to the roof terrace sunken ever so slightly into the gabled roof, allegedly the first in town to peek over its flat-roofed neighbors some twenty years ago. He contracted for the property just before Wilma. Closing the purchase and taking up residence required but one task, evicting the meter of water that Wilma had left. Dry soon afterwards, the house had easily withstood the thinkable worst nature can wrest. It was built by its previous owner, Mexican.

As to the developer from up north, he appeared not to have had a drink. He left the bar before nice-to-meet-yous. No one thought to counter at the time with Mayan pyramids you can still see today, nor did they recall his mentioning a groundbreaking.

__________
* Enock, C. R. Mexico: Its Ancient and Modern Civilisation, History, Political Conditions, Topography, Natural Resources, Industries and General Development. 1909. A Project Gutenberg EBook released April 2, 2007 [http://www.gutenberg.org, EBook #20959].

How our days (and nights?) come to be

To begin

The American philosopher Don Ihde suggests that intuition does not necessarily tell us that the planet Earth revolves around the sun. What anyone can see is that the sun moves across the sky to make our days. He contends we hold a myth about experience.

The given is that you see the sun rising and setting and intuitively take as given the solidity of the earth, which any fool can plainly see that the sun is rotating around the earth. Suddenly, it occurred to me that this is not a given at all. The question is: How is the context situated such that seeing the sunrise and set is taken as an intuitive thing? What I have to do is dream up a thought experiment to show that you can perceive this differently. I have some clues to this end. This is a myth about experience that has been holding steady for centuries, which I think is simply wrong.*

A precis: It is not a given that the Earth is a solid (round?)and revolves around the sun. What makes us think this is so, other than "scientific fact"?

Here interviewed in 2000, Ihde may have sorted the myth out by now and come up with his thought experiment. He may also have ignored for some reason when it was thought the world was flat, thus having to avoid creating a thought experiment altogether. Without benefit of any of these insights, or myths, here is an entry for the challenge about how we can intuitively grasp the solidity of our Earth and how our days come to be.** See if it works as you follow a naive observer who employs his or her senses and a little intuition, a little reason, and a little imagination. Rule for the exercise: Much of what we know or can discover from other scientific disciplines that explain natural phenomena is out of bounds.

Intuition is the sense that an observed something is true without thinking much about it. When we sense that something is true, we are also thinking and have all the faculties available to us to assess our intuitions. A bit of reason and a dash of imagination are two of these, and they need not be set aside once an intuitive grasp of things takes hold. We ask almost in the same moment as the light bulb flashes, how does what has come immediately to mind measure up. Such is the method attempted here.

Introduction

If we can re-create what the shape of the Earth might be through a kind of direct, "uninformed" experiencing, we can conjecture along with Ihde that intuition tells us that the Earth is other than solid in the sense of round and whether the sun or the Earth moves. The starting point is what "any fool can plainly see" as sketched by Ihde.

Such an inquiry can lay the foundation for how an idea came to be, as well as whether or not this one is a myth and wrong as is the contention above. If we have a belief about experience that has lasted centuries and is in error, we ought to know about it.

This exploration relies on perceptions without preconceptions or knowledge external to the thing itself. Set aside whether or not the claim is valid that we take as given the matters suggested. This way we can sort through if not subtract accretions to get at a phenomenon itself--what it is we are looking at and how we are looking at it. Variations of simple, "reduced" perceptions from a baseline should tell this tale.

Baseline, "what any fool can plainly see"

A person sits on top of a hill. S/he can see three hundred and sixty degrees around. There are horizons as far as the eye can see with features in the landscape and on the horizon that are stable. A tree there in the distance, a mountain over here, and so forth.

Each day the sun appears as if on its own and rises above one horizon, travels across the sky, and disappears below the opposite horizon.

When our solar observer changes hills, the sun's course appears the same. S/he also feels no movement of the ground from which s/he is making these observations.

S/he concludes that the sun moves and the ground from which observations are made is stationary.

This Baseline is what anyone can see and is the starting point for the experiment. It consists of not all that we can see. For example, we can see the moon and the night sky. But these are excluded from the given, the challenge as set above. In addition, although the following are not the only perceptions possible, or the only direction that variations from Baseline could take, they might lead to a New World. But let's not get the chariot before the horse before taking a spin.

Variation 1

Our solar observer looks in every direction. The horizons all around make a circle. S/he sits in the middle of this circle. When s/he changes hills, s/he is still in the middle of a circle.

The horizons continue to appear the same distances away, as-far-as-the-eye-can-see, but the landscape and the features on the horizons differ depending upon which hill. Now a different distant mountain where the tree was, and where there was a mountain, there is but a thin line separating land from sky.

The observer concludes that the surface on which s/he sits is circular and flat and extends without measure in all directions with different surface features.

Variation 2

Our observer sits in the middle of a circle on the flat, extensive space we will now call the Earth.

S/he knows that objects in the landscape appear bigger when closer and smaller when distant. (After all, s/he has changed positions (hills) and found differences in landscape features.) The sun as it rises and sets is larger than at midday.

Trusting perception, the observer concludes the sun is closer to the Earth morning and evening and farther away midday.

S/he concludes the round, flat, extensive Earth is moving in relation to the sun, coming closer to the sun at dawn in the east and then moving away till midday, and then closer again at dusk in the west.

Milestone

If the Earth is not moving and is moving in relation to the sun, which is it? Does the sun, not the Earth, move to create our days? or is it the other way round? Given these simple perceptions, it does not seem from everyday experience that it can be both. One of these variations, Baseline or 2, helps define what is and is not the phenomenon of Earth/sun movement as it effects our days. Something needs to hold steady, that is to be invariant, in order for our observer to proceed and "know" the answer.

Variation 3

Our observer imagines the Earth moves. S/he is on a flat surface which moves up and down (vertically) to bring the sun closer to and farther away from the Earth.

This explains the larger and smaller sun, but not its movement, that is its appearance and disappearance on the opposite sides, east and west, of the flat Earth from the vantage point of the hill.

Variation 4

Again assuming the Earth moves, our observer imagines s/he is on a flat surface which moves to and fro (horizontally), or perhaps as a pendulum, and finds this also won't suffice for what is observed.

Variation 5

If the flat surface moves up and down or to and fro with a wabble, this also does not account for sunrise and sunset. If it spins as a disk, this too does not account for the movement across the sky above.

Milestone

Variations three through five are outside of a assumptionless explanation of the Earth v. sun movement. They do not constitute the observed phenomenon. The Earth "must" move and that does not vary, but how?

Variation 6

Thinking still that the Earth moves, our observer imagines s/he is on this flat surface, a kind of disk or plate, which revolves counter to the path of the stationary sun. The Earth in the west rises so far as to hide the sun and gives hiatus to the up-side where the observation hill is, and as the eastern edge comes round and takes its position at sunrise where the western edge was, the stationary sun appears again to signal another day.

This explains the closer and more distant sun during the course of the day. Although the flat Earth is extensive, at fairly predictable points on the edge it appears closer to the sun. The disk that is the Earth is not so wide as to come closer to the sun at midday. Its width comes closer only at two points, dawn and dusk.

The Earth's edge-over-edge tumble in relation to the stationary sun also provides a convenient explanation for night. When the sun is shining on the "bottom" side, the sun is blocked by the flat disk that is the Earth where the observer perhaps sleeps on the hill. But as noted above, night is not specifically within the horizons (excuse the oblique pun) of the phenomenon of Earth's solidity and what, it or the sun, moves. An intuitive grasp this may be that we are trying to validate, but it is one based, as many intuitions are, on partial and bits of information. We are not yet ready to add a bit of the night's secret.

Milestone

The world is flat like a disk of indeterminate thickness and it revolves edge over edge as against a stationary sun.

This is the first part of the problem of one, the solidity of the Earth and two, its, or the sun's, movement. It can be apprehended by a naive observer. And this suggests an intuitive grasp can conclude that the Earth is a solid and moves, or revolves, and the sun does not. But what of the solidity--roundness--of the Earth? It is flat and circular thus far.

Variation 7

Our observer starts on the flat, extensive surface in the middle of a circle. If s/he follows the setting sun west each day, the sun stays at a distance as-far-as-the-eye-can-see, or eventually there is an impassable body of water revealing that same distance between observer and observed. If s/he walks in the direction of the rising sun in the east, s/he experiences the same.

If the sun is always the same size at dusk and dawn and remains a constant distance away, as-far-as-the-eye-can-see, this gives our observer pause for thought. The edge of the Earth must be the same distance away regardless of travel toward it this way or the reverse. A flat Earth does not suffice as a simple explanation for this perception. The size of the sun at dawn and dusk preclude an infinitely extensive surface. A round Earth might suffice.

Our observer notes that the horizon over the distant waters comprises about one half of the horizon of a circle from the vantage point of land's end. This is the same on both ends (edges) of the disk-like Earth along the east-to-west path of the sun.

Our observer also notes again that the distance to the watery horizon and the bigger sun, as-far-as-the-eye-can-see away, appear constant.

The conclusion given these observations is that the Earth is circular, flat land which extends to water, or seas, which have an edge or end in view of the nearness of the sun at dawn and dusk. But that sun remains a constant distance regardless of approach to or retreat from it.

The observer sits a constant distance from the hill or land's end to the horizons and the sun. The sun must be very, very large if it appears so big at dawn and dusk where the horizons end, for both the land and sea extend that constant distance. But the size of the sun at horizon does not appear to change from that now distant hill behind one from the vantage of land's end.

Our careful observer imagines the water is the same water east and west in that the half circles must join consistent with the Earth's observed flat circularity. They come together to form horizons beyond land all around.

If the hill were high enough or one could fly like a bird, presumably one could see the land surrounding the hill with water in the distance surrounding the land. Unfortunately, there is no such hill and aided direct experience--an airplane--is not available.

Alternatively, the sun's constant size at dawn and dusk regardless of approaching it from either direction, where it appears and disappears, suggests a round not flat solidity.

Alternate Variation 7

If the Earth moves in relation to the sun by rotating, the bodies of water would be the same, making the Earth not flat but extensive as a sphere. Following the sun across the water and "over the edge" would lead to where the sun's path meets the land again.

Experience has shown that to follow the sun is complicated because of the water. You need a boat and perhaps navigation instruments for a precarious voyage. Both of these are technologies beyond naive observation where immediate grasp is the object, supported by simple reasoning, rudimentary perceptions, and a smidge imagination. Not much more. It should suffice that the seas are the same from joining the two half-circle horizons above.

It seems also the forces or material that would hold the water to the surface when the Earth upends itself cannot be a part of this discussion. However, naive perceptions exhaust not.

Variation 8

At land's end, our observer picks up a rock and lets go. It drops to the ground. Tries it again. Same result. Throws the rock out to sea. It drops and sinks out of sight. Our clever observer takes some water in hand and lets it go. It drops on the ground or falls back from whence it came.

The conclusion is that what goes up must come down, or some such more elegant formulation, which leads to . . .

Milestone

If rocks and water and observers are drawn back to the surface of the Earth somehow and that is their rightful place at rest, perhaps the Earth is round not flat. That is, beyond the horizons (the edges of the perceived flat surface), the waters are the same around a sphere that is the Earth. This is in addition to being the same waters as far as the imaginary eye can see from a hill high enough to observe the island of land in the middle of a circle of water.

Our solar observer is "learning" and becoming self confident, and completes the final seeing from a naive stance.

Variation 9

Days appear approximately equal in duration. As the Earth sphere revolves along the "path" of the stationary sun, the duration of a day's length on the hill is needed for dawn sun to appear again. The halves of the horizons such as seen east and west with bodies of water must connect on the underside, thus making two semi-spheres one.

A Conclusion

Although the variations from Baseline could continue and perhaps confirm, deny, or refine the above, it seems the intuitive experience, in this reading of Ihde's challenge, means that we are ready for thought experiments which might lead to other, perhaps different conclusions. Other than this . . .

It appears the sun is stationary, contrary to first appearances. The solidity of the Earth is not as it first appears either, a flat circle or disk with a variety of surface features including water. The Earth is more like a sphere with matter and water attracted or attached to it, moving in relation to the sun. The Earth also has horizons east and west, but these are not ends or edges really. The Earth revolves such that our days are the result of the cyclic appearance and disappearance of the stationary sun on our horizons.

The myth of experience as Ihde has presented it is that one, the earth is solid, most likely spherical in shape, and two, the Earth moves in relation to the sun to account for our days. The myth of experience that may have been wrong for centuries has yet to be elaborated and shown incorrect using a kind of naive observation, at least given the elaborations imagined here. Variations in perception from a Baseline through deepening insights not foreign or external to the observed thing itself do not yet constitute a misperception, not a myth about experience. An intuitive grasp of things appears to conform to the given that Ihde considers mistaken.

The next poignant question is, "How is the context situated such that seeing the sunrise and set is taken as an intuitive thing?" That is, how is the context of sunrise and sunset other than as reduced here? Great question still. Science and myth validate and interpret primal perceptions, or so an argument can be made. But perhaps Ihde has a thought experiment for us to follow and examine before we introduce how different ways of knowing put their spin on the Earth, or sun.

This is the conclusion to a bit of I-oriented perceiving without benefit of the object-seeing sciences or technology. The discussion or exploration arose from what Ihde refers to as a myth of experience, which is that we immediately apprehend, not necessarily in this order, one, the Earth is a solid, round?, and two it--not the sun--moves to cause somehow days, and nights. If this is indeed a myth about experience, what then does naked perception, or experience, reveal? What do we immediately apprehend or understand or conjecture without the benefit of physical or astronomical science, or for that matter myth? The above is within the realm of possibilities for this primary, perhaps primal, perceiving. A kind of intuition or immediate grasp of things. And the challenge continues to beckon contenders to discover a New World in the interest of demythifying ourselves. Have at it.

_____
* http://www.sunysb.edu/philosophy/faculty/dihde/articles/ihde_interview.html
** Ihde's words and sentences have been unpacked here into an exploration involving a hypothetical set of first order deductions from observations without a number of nuances and assumptions we would normally take for granted when speaking today. If there is an error in understanding Ihde's intent, it is solely this author's, and due apologies are hereby extended. In either event, the exercise may prove instructive in what it attempts but may fail eventually to accomplish. And for this, Ihde should be credited.

James: Jim

James arrived at the university just before classes started in October and was gone by Christmas. Two or three years later, I saw him twice on separate occasions near Jungmanova Square. He didn't see me, nor was it easy to catch him to have a word. His stride determined. His pace steady. I could have, but thought better of it. I had the same disease, and by that point my symptoms had become worse, yet the opposite of his.

We shared an office, kitchen, and living quarters in a building called simply H. It also had a library down- and classrooms upstairs where we taught.

He arrived with nothing. He said by bus from Prague. He wore the same clothes every day, to the casual eye clean and pressed. His shoes betrayed no surrender to his malignancy. But for a missing tooth or two, he was nice looking, clean and well groomed. He mentioned an abdominal hernia twice, but said he didn't want to spend the money to take care of it. Eating string beans from a can seemed to help somehow. The housekeeper reported, somewhat astonished, that there was nothing in his room when she cleaned once a week.

No books either, no papers. Apparently he had published or was a kind of authority on interaction, a language specialist with experience at home and abroad. At a departmental meeting before the term started, he demonstrated a way to assess students, documented on a folded typewritten paper with nothing on it to identify author or origin. We adopted the technique and clutched copies of his instructions.

He did not prepare for his lessons. Just appeared in the office a few minutes before class, borrowed a book and perhaps a piece of paper, and left for his duties. Afterwards, unprompted, he recounted what had happened with his different groups, and we easily visualized what must have taken place. We were familiar with the materials and the obligatory lessons that supported them. We heard nothing from his students. Apparently he survived classes unscathed, or they did.

It was during the day in the office or in the hallways that he manifested the symptom all could see but none could understand or accept. He talked and talked at length, punctuated now and then by a question that became rhetorical--the uneasy listener had no time to answer. Incessant it was; then abruptly, as if on some small cue received via remote sensing, it would stop, and he would politely apologize and continue on his way. Always on his way somewhere. Sometimes he disappeared for a few hours. Or into the evening. He came and went frequently from the city, again by bus.

Other than the unexplained disappearances when not working, he seemed to like gatherings. Meeting his students in class. Departmental get-togethers. Mealtimes in the kitchen with other residents. But some gatherings didn't especially like him. So talkative was he, often about interesting but unrelated things, that the lesser and younger among us began to shun him. It is hard to piss off others in such a short time, but in confined spaces one can. And he did. Never impolite or offensive, it was only the ceaseless flow of words that got to people. He was soon the object for evasive action.

A larger gathering took place where the administration announced changes that affected those residing in H. He attended and observed without contributing. Afterwards, commenting on one of his countrymen, he told how he could imagine this one who claimed to be an insulted English gentleman. He said his indignation would have been more effective if he had slapped the rector with his lace glove after the perceived affront. We had a great laugh as he slipped into silence and left for somewhere.

I invited him to lunch to talk about managing what was hurting him. We worked out a system. If things got going in the wrong direction, I would signal and he would know what to do. But it was too late. The words continued to flow not ebb, and grate. And I was not always around to befriend a man in need of the compassion that perhaps only I could give.

The university found itself in a budgetary crisis. (Don't they all?) And something or someone had to go by the beginning of the next term in February. He volunteered. He said he had an offer in Prague. He mentioned a specific school or institute. No one tried to dissuade him. He donated his final salary back to the university, saying he didn't need it. And I guess he didn't.

A friend had bequeathed him a flat in the center of Prague. And an uncle was it?, had won a lottery, or he had, somewhere, perhaps Australia. There was plenty of money in a bank account he could use if he wanted to. His wife and child had been killed in a car accident.

Jim was a person, a subject made object by his own behavior. He didn't deserve it. And forgiveness for not treating him repeatedly as a person escapes those who behaved so, but for their own dis-eases. What this courtesy takes remains a mystery, though surely it takes empathy. But the subject human heart is frail; frailer still if trapped in the cacophony or silence that can mystify others who would have us be otherwise.

The second time I saw Jim after he left, he appeared older and frail. I have looked for him in Prague since, meaning to stop him and visit if he would like. I have yet to run into him.