From Consciousness to Wings

Yesterday began with coffee and Jim exploring entities and qualia theory after IT discussions, moved through file transfers and Minecraft waiting periods while assembling a laptop for Leland. Picked up Deaken from school for a nice chat, went to Suds for beer, shared wings with Mark. Evening TV brought Bette Midler on The Late Show, Greatest Controversies exploring Jesus' resurrection, and Hogan's Heroes episodes—one with fake war ending, another with Klink's romantic engagement. Hochstetter didn't appear until third season but quickly became regular—interesting character evolution.

From Abstract Theory to Concrete Connection

October 16, 2025

Jackson Frazier from the other day

Coffee with Jim in the morning launched the day with its usual mixture of practical and philosophical. We started with assorted IT conversations—the technical troubleshooting that occupies so much mental space when systems misbehave. But then we got into my notions of entities and the theory of qualia, that fundamental question about the nature of subjective experience. How do we know what consciousness feels like for others? Can we ever truly share the experience of "redness" or "pain" beyond linguistic description? These questions don't have answers, but exploring them creates useful frameworks for thinking about consciousness, identity, and what it means to be an experiencing entity rather than just an information-processing system.

Worked on moving files while waiting for various processes to complete—that particular kind of multi-tasking where computer operations take longer than human patience allows, so you find other productive work to fill the intervals. Played Minecraft during those waiting periods, virtual construction occupying attention while physical storage systems reorganized themselves in the background.

Started putting a laptop together for Leland. Supporting his emerging photography interest means providing appropriate tools—not just the camera, but the infrastructure for managing and processing images. A dedicated laptop configured properly will serve him better than trying to share equipment or work on inadequate systems. The assembly and configuration work began but remains incomplete, another project in progress.

Picked up Deaken from school and had a nice chat during and after the drive. These casual conversations with younger people provide windows into different perspectives, different concerns, different ways of processing the world. Deaken's interest in biological systems is extremely interesting—he told me about some fascinating experiments that reveal the intelligence of bees he'd been reading about. While he's a teenager, there's depth forming there. It's great to see and fun to watch. I look forward to seeing how his life develops. The logistics of pickup become excuse for connection, transportation and post-drive time serving as vehicles for relationship maintenance and witnessing intellectual development in real time.

Went to Suds for a beer after dropping Deaken off. Aaron was bartending. I tried to facilitate an Andromeda check-in there—Mark eventually made it, but Steve wasn't up for it. The usual refuge, the familiar space where conversation flows easily and obligations recede. Mark and I shared some wings—that casual food-sharing that marks comfortable friendship, where ordering and eating together needs no justification or special occasion.

Came home and watched TV. The Late Show featured guest Bette Midler—veteran performer bringing decades of experience and perspective to the conversation. The Greatest Controversies explored whether Jesus rose from the dead, examining historical claims about resurrection against available evidence and competing explanations. Complex territory where faith commitments and historical analysis necessarily diverge, different frameworks producing different conclusions about the same alleged events.

Hogan's Heroes episodes included one producing a fake end of the war and another featuring a romantic engagement with Klink—the show's formula allowing these temporary disruptions before inevitable return to status quo. It's interesting how Hochstetter didn't appear until the third season but quickly became a regular character. Shows evolve through experimentation, discovering which supporting characters add value and deserve expansion. Hochstetter's aggressive incompetence provided useful contrast to Klink's bumbling compliance, creating different kinds of obstacles for the heroes to navigate.

Later that night I woke up in the middle of the night with the qualia conversation still percolating. The ideas Jim and I had explored over coffee demanded more systematic development. I ended up writing a paper with Gemini's collaboration, exploring qualia through the map-versus-territory analogy—examining whether subjective experience is an emergent functional representation or an irreducible intrinsic property. The "Mary's Room" thought experiment, the functional roles qualia serve, the problem of other minds, and ultimately questioning whether the "explanatory gap" represents a fundamental limit of physicalism or a cognitive illusion created by the inherent imprecision of mental abstractions. Sometimes conversations plant seeds that germinate in the quiet hours, demanding expression when conscious filters relax.

The day moved from abstract philosophical speculation about consciousness and qualia through practical technical work and family connection to concrete social engagement over beer and wings. Each mode has value—the theoretical conversation pushing thinking into difficult territory, the technical work maintaining systems, the family pickup preserving relationship, the social time at Suds providing easy companionship. No hierarchy among these activities, just different ways of being present to the day's demands and opportunities.

Sometimes the best days are the ones that move smoothly from consciousness theory to chicken wings without requiring dramatic transitions or forcing connections between disparate experiences. Just being available to whatever each moment offers, engaging fully with Jim's philosophical questions and Mark's casual company, giving attention appropriately rather than uniformly.