Did you ever ride the teacups at Disneyland? Me? Iām not sure. I know I went there once as a child and saw the teacups spinning like pastel whirlwinds, but I donāt recall actually getting on the ride. We were there for the Matterhorn, I thinkābut that too is a wisp in memory, a snow-globe shaken and faded with time.
Itās one of those things: you feel certain youāve got a grasp on the past, but thereās always the chance the memory is wrong. Our minds are tricky. Hmm... I couldāve said ābrainsā there, in the not-hungry zombie sense.
Is there a difference between brain and mind? My take: the brain is the hardware, the mind is the softwareāor maybe the app. The brain runs the bodyās systems, while the mind handles thought, ideas, dreams, fears, memories, and self-awareness. Thereās overlap, of course, and Iād argue you canāt have one without the other. Exceptāthereās no thinking without a brain. But you could still have a non-thinking brain. Me thinks.
So what happens when the brain stops functioning completelyāwhen it dies? Logically, the mind, the consciousness, vanishes. Poof. Gone. Not here anymore. Doesnāt exist. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
But... is there more? Itās comforting to think so, even if itās not logicalāunless youāre in a science fiction story where minds are freed from the burden of biology and float off into the cosmos. Anything is possible, I suppose. Maybe thatās where belief steps ināto help us embrace the illogical with open arms.
āOur memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist.ā ā Guy de Maupassant
āMemory is not frozen, it's very much aliveāit moves, it changes.ā ā Louis Malle
āOur reality is an infinite battle between what happened and what we want to remember.ā ā Haruki Murakami
"A green anole (Anolis carolinensis) clings vertically to a weathered redwood post, its body stretched in a head-down pose that suggests both alertness and ease. The lizardās skin gleams with a vivid, almost tropical greenāsmooth and unblemished, like a fresh leaf after rain. Its limbs extend outward with delicate precision; each toe tipped with adhesive pads that allow it to defy gravity on the postās upright surface.
The redwood post itself is aged and textured, its grain running vertically in soft striations of reddish-brown and gray. Faint cracks and sun-bleached streaks give it a sense of quiet endurance, like a sentinel in the yard. The anoleās tail curves upward in a gentle arc, echoing the postās vertical rhythm and adding a sense of motion, as if the lizard is mid-pause between movements.
The background is bright and overexposed, rendering it a soft wash of light that isolates the subjectālizard and postālike a portrait against a glowing canvas. The scene feels intimate and ceremonial, a moment of stillness in the daily choreography of a creature perfectly adapted to its perch." - Microsoft Copilot with edits by the photographer
"The experiment begun in 1492 was accompanied by a new relationship with the world and with each other, based on the novel idea that the prosperity of human societies lay in the submission of a wild and free nature to the rational act of exploitation. From then on, the entire living world was put to work, and in this first planetary empire, people, plants and animals became commodities circulating from one corner of the hemisphere to the other."
wrote Sylvie Laurent in her book "Capital et race : Histoire d'une hydre moderne"
āReligion and the Decline of Magicā by Keith Thomas is a classic, beautifully written study of magical belief in Renaissance England. Worth reading on its own merits, but hugely valuable to me as a fantasy worldbuilder.
#Believe
from TNG S01E02 ...