Bridge over troubled cultural waters


So Clara Schumann is the greatest composer of all time. Which means it is time for me to disappear off and try to reconnect with reality. Geo-culturally appropriate soundtrack for my bardo is Gnawa multi-instrumentalist Majid Bekkas' album Al Qantara. In Arabic Al Qantara means a bridge, and the title of the album is a reference to Morocco's position as a bridge between the all too often conflicting cultures of Africa, the Middle East and the West. Let me leave you with an anecdote about reality told by the anthropologist and cyberneticist Gregory Bateson:
There was a man who had a powerful computer, and he wanted to know whether computers would ever think. So he asked it, no doubt in his best Fortran: 'Will you ever be able to think like a human being?' The computer clicked and rattled and blinked, and finally it printed out its answer on a piece of paper, as these machines do. The man ran to pick up the printout, and there, neatly typed, read the following words: 'THAT REMINDS ME OF A STORY.'
Anecdote is retold from Uncommon Wisdom by Fritjof Capra. Any copyrighted material is included for critical analysis, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). New Overgrown Path posts are available via RSS/email by entering your email address in the right-hand sidebar.

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