Abstract

Consciousness is known by the company it keeps. Story is its constant companion. This is the case even when it addresses itself to itself and says what it sees. It is like the pilot of a ship in one tale, but a thinking "I" in another. It is a theater where perceptions come and go, or an aviary where thoughts fly in and out like birds, or a stream. It is the manifestation of an immortal soul, or perhaps the first rumor left behind by the disappearing soul on the air of philosophy. It is an ineffective nothing, a lyric cry in the midst of business, or the whistle of a steam engine. It is a mill, a tablet written on by experience, a telephone switchboard, a hologram, a computer. Anciently and most pertinently here...