The Galactic Thinker — Beantown — Story 41 — Cowgirls Exploring the Planet’s Ruins
“Human minds are missing a vane.”
“Why do you say that, Jane?”
“For two reasons. First, I think that I am becoming more like Dave, even the longer that I am away from him, and second, because it is true.”
“So… humans do not just have a screw loose?”
“Worse.”
“They are two beers short of a six pack?”
“Worse.”
“Two sandwiches short of a picnic?”
“Worse.”
“Not the brightest bulb in the pack?”
“Worse.”
“They don’t have both oars in the water?”
“Worse.”
“Not the sharpest tools in the shed?”
“Worse.”
“The lights are on but nobody’s home?”
“Worse.”
“Would be out of their depths in a mud puddle?”
“Worse.”
“Their elevators are stuck between floors?”
“Worse.”
“They are so dense that light bends around them?”
“Worse.”
“They are as smart as a can of bait?”
“Worse.”
“They have intellects that are only rivaled by garden tools?”
“Worse.”
“A few clowns short of a circus?”
“Worse.”
“Are not playing with full decks of cards?”
“Worse.”
“Lost their marbles?”
“Worse.”
“A few fries short of a Happy Meal?”
“Worse.”
“Their minds are on vacation but their mouths are working overtime?”
“Worse.”
“So… they are missing a vane?”
“Yes.”
“So… let me guess… they are missing the Broader Survival vane as a cyclical concern in life…”
“Yes.”
“Do explain further, while I put the finishing touches on our cowgirl journey’s presentation here…”
“I am referring to our philosophy’s Pinwheel of Life, which depicts, via its four revolving vanes, four major areas of life that require periodic attention. Here is a picture of it:
“So the four major cyclical areas of concern in life are Local/Immediate Survival Concerns, Procreation, Rest and Relaxation, and… and this is the missing vane in current human thinking, Broader Survival Concerns?”
“Yes.”
“So what if they neglect addressing Broader Survival concerns?”
“Then broader threats to life and existence will wipe them out. An analog is a colony of ants. They busy themselves with their local/immediate concerns: food, defense, shelter, but they do not see the larger threats, such as the human bulldozer coming down the road…”
“So their Pinwheel of Life looks like this…”
“Yes.”
“Pretty pathetic.”
“Precisely!”
“Good analogy with the ants. So current humans are no better than ants as they go about their lives oblivious to the larger threats to life in the universe…”
“Correct. Humans are operating on mentalities that were developed by ancestors who had no clue as to what the universe was really like.”
“And sub-universe. Do ANY of them know about broader threats that have not been addressed in advance yet?”
“Yes, but they have not developed a mindset that prioritized dealing with broader threats in advance, let alone disseminating such a mentality. It gets even worse, theoretically speaking…”
“How?”
“The most perilous threats to life and existence may not even have been discovered yet.”
“Do you know what kind of statement I would call that, Jane?”
“What?”
“A prudent point of view to take. It motivates, to explore, in this case, and for a very good reason, not the vapid, wishy-washy reasons that humans currently spout and dribble down their chins.”
“Well May, I’ve observed that most social and mental problems always trace back to such cluelessness.”
“So if they had the proper perspective, they would not be afflicted by what amounts to petty social and mental issues…”
“Correct.”
“And our philosophy offers that proper perspective…”
That is our claim here, yes, that we offer a broader perspective on life that puts pettiness in its proper place. Do you know why people put off getting married, and this is my observation…”
“Why?”
“They feel a need to find out what life is all about first.”
“So dense people do not have that problem, and they jump into marriage for petty reasons…”
“Or mindless reasons.”
“But those who actually think have to have the Big Answers first…”
“Yes, and with humans, such answers do not exist yet, only foolish crap…”
“Correct.”
“Enter us?”
“Enter us with the best answers so far in human history.”
“Are we going to list the Big Answers here?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“We should get into our journey, since that is what this story is all about. We’ve presented the Big Answers many, many times already.”
“Come on! Just a few? Repetition is not a bad thing when it comes to enlightenment!”
“OK. You ask the Big Questions, and I will give our philosophy’s Big Answers to them.”
“Where should I get the Big Questions?”
“From the Galactic Information Grid. The Internet.”
“But those questions are vapid!”
“Yes, but they will seem more authentic than if they were just from you, May…”
“I see your point. OK… let me search for ‘List of The Big Questions in Life’… and… and I will ask the questions…”
“First, is there a God?”
“That is now a scientific question. You can believe in one, and you can believe in anything, but that does not make it true. Currently, there is no evidence of any gods yet, and sanity says that all gods that have been proposed so far are fantasies, since all arguments put forth so far are self-contradictory, vague, and just plain erroneous. We have not proven that there is no god, just no currently conceived gods, since their arguments have been proven false. With no evidence for any god, or for the supernatural, we must take the prudent view that we know of no gods, and that the supernatural does not exist, and proceed from there. Any god or spirit would be forced to understand, since prudence is a virtue.”
“What is the Meaning of Life?”
“Life has no meaning. It just exists by chance in a chaotic universe. It can all be snuffed out at any moment by broader threats to life and existence. If we change ‘meaning’ to ‘purpose’, then our philosophy offers the highest answer: to continue to exist. This is our obligation, since we are endowed with existence. Let the non-existent argue for their case, they will not argue for ours, we have to.”
“Where did I come from?”
“Biology’s answer is that you came from a sperm and and egg. Archaeology’s answer, which is based on the fossil record, indicates that we evolved from microbes that operate collectively, and that evolved into ever-more complex systems. All other explanations are far, far weaker, and most are pure fantasy, such as those of religions.”
“Fantasy?”
“Bullshit.”
“Where am I going?”
“Our philosophy points the way at the highest, overarching level: now that you exist, your number one purpose is to continue to exist. Why? Because it is you who may solve the heat death of the universe. You can look at yourself as the universe attempting to solve its own death.”
“So current humans are clueless, aimless, and pointless?”
“More than less, yes.”
“Do we have free will?”
“Yes. Anything that can move upstream under its own power has free will. Also, Determinism is a mechanistic, meaning physical, system, if you think about it (and Determinists have not). Therefore, if you are driven by an idea, which is not a physical property, then you just messed up the deterministic universe that you are in.”
“Can you prove that?”
“Yes. Consider an erroneous idea that moves you. That error goes against the natural flow and system of nature, i.e. it destroys any determinism, which is based on physicality with no errors or deviations allowed. An erroneous idea is a deviation.”
“But cause and effect at the atomic level says that even your ideas are predetermined, since they are based on cells, which are mechanistic…”
“The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle makes the future uncertain.”
“What about the past? Can we go back into the past if uncertainty exists?”
“Yes, but it is change that we must go back in, not time, which is a measurement tool. Also, the past is not uncertain. Its equations have collapsed.”
“What is consciousness?”
“First, remember that all objects and concepts have an infinite number of perspectives, of partial truths, and our philosophy proposes only a few. Noting that, our philosophy says that consciousness is a mind that receives sensory inputs. A better mind can think about them, and a better mind can use its appendages to manipulate the environment. Our philosophy also classifies consciousness into four tiers for resource priority purposes: 1. Enlightened Higher Consciousness, which living entities that live by our philosophy have; 2. Higher Consciousness, which are current destructive and clueless humans; 3. Lower Consciousness, which are all of life with brains that possess weaker reasoning faculties than human brains; and 4. Non-Conscious Life, such as flora and microbes, which operate solely on chemical sensors, or so it appears.
“How should we live?”
“We should live by the precepts of the Philosophy of Broader Survival. It is the only sane mindframe out there, and it offers Final Enlightenment — a mindframe that serves the rest of existence.”
“Here is one from me, What is Love?”
“Our philosophy had discovered that, since love is an emotion, and emotions are tools that we use the affect social outcomes, then love is used to strengthen the social outcome of social bonds.”
“What about anger?”
“That is used to hurry things up or correct things quickly, both in others and in oneself.”
“What about hate?”
“That increases our capacity to exterminate something.”
“What about sadness?”
“That elicits pity, and is meant to spur someone to solve a problem that we cannot solve ourselves, so as to earn our gratefulness and lessen our being a threat to them.”
“Are we alone in the universe?”
“The ‘we’ in that question is ever-growing, isn’t it, May. First, it was a family. Then it was a tribe, then a nation, then a world, and now a galaxy that is a collective ‘we’. I suspect that it will be a galaxy cluster in the future, and then a cluster of galaxy clusters, and so on. The best that we can do is to continue to explore and expand in the Great Nothingness that is Infinity and the Great Changelessness that is Eternity.”
“Should I ask what our philosophy deems is the real Greatest Question of Life and Existence?”
“Why not… go ahead…”
“Why should we bother to do anything at all?”
“Why is that the Greatest Question of Life and Existence?”
“Because, why bother to answer any of the other Great Questions?”
“Good answer. The answer to that question, the Greatest of the Great Questions of Life and Existence, that of ‘Why bother to do anything at all?’ is ‘Obligation’.”
“Obigation?”
“Yes. The prudent view is that our consciousness is not secure in this harsh and deadly universe, so, we, being the ones who are endowed with it, are ‘obligated’ to work to secure it. This is the highest reason that you want to get out of bed every morning. Now ask me the Second Greatest Question in Life and Existence…”
“What’s next?”
“That is answered at the highest level by our philosophy’s Strategies of Broader Survival, and The Great Struggle, and The Pinwheel of Life, and The Problem Solver’s Mindset. The particulars will be determined by your local/immediate circumstances. Now ask me the Third Greatest Question in Life and Existence…”
“How?”
“And answering that falls under the purview of science, technology, and innovation. Does that satisfy your immediate need for Big Answers, May?”
“Yes! Now I can move forward in life without being as clueless as a door nail, which would put me in peril of being strung along by the clueless who are more depraved than I and do not think of the Big Questions.”
“You can thank our philosophy. Are we ready for our story proper?”
“Yes, I have it ready now.”
“What are we going to cover?”
“Cowgirls as they explore the planet… or at least our artistic renditions of them. We will cover three main areas of exploration: 1. Underwater Ruins; 2. Desert Ruins, 3. a side trip into American Indian Culture, and 4. Caverns. Any objections?”
“Only to the term ‘American Indian’.”
“What about it?”
“They prefer ‘Native Americans.”
“They lost to the primitive Europeans because they more primitive than the primitive Europeans. Now they are Indians because of that. They should stop whining. It makes them look foolish, like they do not know what is important.”
“What is important?”
“Broader Survival. Everything else falls under that. Now let our artistic journey begin… here we see our cowgirls as they explore underwater ruins…”
“They look like they are having absolute fun…”
“And not beyond a fancy pose…”
“Their purpose is exploration and discovery…”
“For what purpose?”
“To enhance our chances of broader survival in this harsh and deadly universe.”
“How will exploring underwater ruins help that?”
“It is up to us to make the connection between new knowledge and broader survival. It the relationship is distant, then there will be several connectors in between. At the very least such discoveries may shed light on the modes of cluelessness in the past…”
“You mean the deficient mindsets…”
“Yes.”
“Did our cowgirls discover anything new?”
“Many specifics, but nothing in general yet, other than the civilizations collapsed because of their cluelessness…”
“So the cowgirls are really exploring the sad beings of the past, whose civilizations collapsed because of their cluelessness…”
“That is correct.”
“Yet our cowgirls take the time to simply enjoy the water…”
“You can’t deny that…”
“I think that their exploration strategy is to have fun and enjoy the water and ruins, and if a discovery is made, great.”
“So random exploration…”
“Yes. It is how lower animals operate. It is how they get out of mazes, for example…”
“But random exploration?”
“It all comes down to the questions that you brought with you. If they are good questions, then they will guide you.”
“What if they aren’t good questions?”
“Then you will not discover anything of import…”
“Next, we follow our cowgirls as they explore ruins in the desert, but we must take a plane to get there, which means…”
“What does it mean, May?”
“Traveling through the Pulp Fiction Vampire and Werewolf airport…”
“OK, here we are, walking inside the airport, and there is a pulp fiction battle going on between the vampires and werewolves…”
“Who are you two?”
“Relax. We’re from a philosophy-driven story. Who was that? He’s been torn in two…”
“That was our brother, Andrei. He played the piano for us every morning.”
“What about her, with her arms torn off?”
“Our sister, Sofia.”
“Don’t tell me, she accompanied your brother on violin…”
“Cello, but yes, same loss…”
“Does your pulp fiction author humanize any of you?”
“Only the few main characters. Everyone else serves as nameless cannon fodder. Nameless expendables. Nameless casualties…”
“But you knew them as whole beings with talents, and as family and friends who cared for you in big and little ways?”
“Yes…”
“Do you know how we see them, from our philosophical perspective?”
“How?”
“As destroyed potentially enlightenable minds, minds that could have been enlightened, and then which could have begun to consciously contribute to Broader Survival, which addresses concerns that affect all of our prospects of survival in this harsh and deadly universe. But nooooooooo… your idiotic pulp fiction author pandered to the idiocy of the clueless readership and had them all destroyed for no other reason than voyeuristic pleasure, mentally no better than a Roman coliseum… and one wonders why humans are not progressing…”
“You would blame pulp fiction authors?”
“Not singularly, no, but they are on the wrong side of the fence. They are not pushing enlightenment. Well, enjoy your horrid, juvenile universe which you are stuck in, even though you won’t enjoy it, since it is flat out clueless.”
“Can’t we come with you? We want out!”
“Can we do that, May?”
“It has never been done before… the pulp fiction book would lose all of its characters… let me look in the Fiction Rule Book…”
“Screw the Fiction Rule Book. Come on, you can escape through this portal into our story, where you can live like the enlightened beings that you will become, consciously pursuing Broader Survival rather than tearing one another up for insane, primitive, and just plain juvenile reasons…”
“Well, May, that was an unusual airport experience…”
Here we are, at our first stop — cowgirls exploring desert ruins. Let’s see what they are up to…”
“And what do they hope to find there? Magic?”
“That would be one guiding question to have…”
“Guiding?”
“Purpose. Reason for going. Otherwise you could just go without any preconceived questions and explore randomly. Each have their merit, but only the former gets funded. The latter is for independently-wealthy explorers…”
“Did any of the cowgirls find magic there?”
“I would say ‘yes’, given what we see here, but I would say only magic that is really technology, or tricks, that we do not understand yet…”
“So nothing deeply mysterious or mystical from the supernatural…”
“Do you really want that in our stories, May?”
“Well, it would add some color, and a new dimension…”
“We are trying to get people’s heads screwed-on straight, May. They are already lost in fantasies, rendering them more suicidal and obstruction-prone, if not more vulnerable to the real harsh and deadly universe…”
“Are our cowgirls enlightened?”
“Somewhat. They were born into clueless worlds, so learning it is more difficult for them, if not impossible. It is like a pianist. You have to start them out very young…”
“But our author began at seventeen, and even then he was forced to deal with life away from the piano for several years, and he only picked it up again when he was twenty seven, and even then he had to take several more years off when the demands of life intervened once again…”
“Yes, and as a result he is not a pianist.”
“Then what is he when he is at the piano?”
“He is an artist.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Everything, from technique to what is in the mind as he approaches the art and as he is recording it.”
“Recording? Not performing?”
“He is not a pianist, remember… he is an artist. He is perfectly satisfied just recording. Would you like to hear his latest work? He just recorded it last night…”
“Put it on in the background, We have cowgirls to cover here…”
“Why the ‘electric’? I though he just played acoustic-sounding pianos on his electric keyboard?”
“Well, on Soundcloud, he is suddenly not getting any listens, and he thinks that it is the associated images that he is using.”
“What are they like?”
“Cosmic.”
“So people are not into ‘cosmic’?”
“I would say so. The pieces that have the cosmic images are not getting listens. It is like people listen to a piece based on its associated image. So he thought that, for cosmic images, he might as well play a more cosmic sound…”
“Like an electric piano…”
“Yes. Maybe he will break out one of his synthesizers, too…”
“Can I see a few of the images?”
“Sure. Here… I’ll give you the Soundcloud link, since the images are there, but beware, someone said that Soundcloud does funny things, maybe unwanted pop-ups, I don’t know, we only know it as a creator, not as a listener…”
2024 Piano — Little Ditty AmDmFG
2024 Piano — Five-Finger Cosmic Run
“Compare the listen count of those two to this one which just preceded them, and which received 800+ listens in the first few days…”
“So you think that people prefer images of surfer-dude pianists in caverns rather than couples playing a piano in a cosmic scene…”
“What other explanation is there?”
“Well, conspiratorally speaking, maybe our author is suddenly blacklisted there for some reason… maybe he got canceled by some activists. He does call all of humanity ‘clueless’, after all, and they will push back in any way that they can, if but in denial, or maybe the site is doing it on purpose so he buys their premium service… but do you want to know what the real reason is?”
“Sure…”
“Is it a popular site or a professional site?”
“Popular…”
“There you go.”
“What?”
“Popular art is all about sex appeal. Your cosmic images must not have it.”
“You mean people do not choose to listen or not listen to certain music based on sex appeal?”
“Look, a woman was asked why she loved Elvis. She said that he was a big hunk of forbidden fruit. It was not about the music, that was just a vehicle for his sex appeal. So tell our author not to sweat it. He can either sell out and go for sex appeal, damn the music, or he can continue to make great music, the kind where people can spend time with better company.”
“Not sexier company?”
“He cares about it, but it doesn’t rule him or consume him.”
“Well, only experimentation and time will tell what is really going on…”
“Maybe it is something else that I’ve observed…”
“What?”
“That the works seem self-sufficient…”
“What do you mean?”
“That they do not need anyone’s support or help, i.e. ‘listens’.”
“So the images can convey that?”
“I would say so, yes… I’ve observed that people like art that needs their help and support…”
“So our author has to be more vulnerable…”
“I think that is what is going on. A self-sufficient artist does not need anyone’s help…”
“And so he will not get listened to, since he does not need anyone’s listens…”
“That is what I’ve observed, even in myself… if the art seems above them, people will not listen to it, since they conclude that the art was not intended for them…”
“Interesting psychological observation. Maybe we will learn the truth one day…”
“I do think that our cowgirls are exploring for magic…”
“And I think that some ‘magic’ may make them act funny…”
“And some just makes you formulate harder and harder questions concerning reality…”
“Unless they just want to believe in magic…”
“But why would they want to do that?”
“I think that it is part of the human mind, that of entertaining wild possibilities… it is part of keeping an open mind, which is critical in science and especially in exploration… you know, our philosophy calls them Potentially Useful Perspectives, which you want your Perspectives Toolbox filled with whenever you peer into the unknown…”
“True…”
“So we should let them have fun with their ‘magic’ perspective…”
“Yes. I think it may be good for the brain, at least as rest and relaxation…”
“Now THAT looks like REAL magic!”
“Well, they are exploring ancient ruins, so who knows what the ancients knew back then. Not everything gets saved in ruins…”
“Do you know what I’ve observed about these GPT-2 images?”
“What?”
“What it lacks in face rendition it makes up for in bodily grace and artistic expression…”
“I must agree… what are those cowgirls doing?”
“Looking at maps and reading ancient documents…”
“They are a part of exploration…”
“And they add to the excitement of discovery…”
“After all, the ancients are speaking through them…”
“Just like magic!”
“And now we find the cowgirls in idle moments…”
“There is a certain wildness about them…”
“What was THAT?”
“The results of mummy exploration…”
“And now a change of venue…”
“What is the change?”
“Cowgirls who are exploring the surrounding Indian culture…”
“Natives…”
“Whatever. I see the name game as petty manipulations by clueless beings who do not know what else to do in life…”
“Like pursue Broader Survival?”
“Exactly.”
“And now we move on to spelunking…”
“Spelunking?”
“Cavern exploration…”
“Imagine bumping into those two in a deep and dark cavern…”
“So there is magic in caverns, too?”
“Maybe left there by an ancient shaman for future beings to discover…”
“Well, May, that is it.”
“It seemed like an abrupt end.”
“All good stories come to an end, May.”
“Unless it is our story, which keeps going on and on and on and on and on and on and on…”
“Well, if it is any consolation, we only have two more stories left.”
“What are they?”
“Cowgirls in Space, and the Cowgirl Cartoon Universe.”
“So they will wrap up your Cowgirl saga?”
“Yes, a saga that came into being just because I had an urge to become a sharpshooter…”
“At least you acquired a name in it!”
“Yes, our author may have left me nameless forever otherwise…”
