In readings I’ve toured the boneyard where eccentric men have left relics of their tangles with these questions: Szilard’s engine, Turing’s machine, Hofstadter’s loop, Searle’s room, Dennett’s pump. Creatures lurk there: a demon conjured by Maxwell; the unfortunates gathered by Sacks.
I have drawn certain conclusions. We evolved here. It is a marvel, but one of time and matter, not of divinity. And we do not, by being here, occupy anyplace separate from all things. There is no way that consciousness stands apart from other life, and no way the living stand apart from the rest of it.
This is no diminishment. It is a unity. We are one wonder among many, stitched into the fabric of this thing. Look back on that humble hexagon: there it is. [Words 2,251-2,500] Everywhere. One spun out of the clouds by freezing water, another on a turtle shell. Here a comb of them assembled by bees, there a tile of them sketched by Escher. A few drawn by Euclid himself. So what? Try and tell me which one is most amazing.
