Buster McLeod posted a photo:

Buster McLeod posted a photo:

Buster McLeod posted a photo:

Buster Butterfield McLeod posted a photo:

Buster McLeod went to this event.

(More info on the Trapdoor 62 website)

The Po Show and The Fisher Ensemble present Trapdoor 62: The Dream Interpretation Panel. Using only words, an Indian harmonium, and a Sonabulist, a panel of writers and musicians will interpret the meanings of all your dreams. Before the panel, enjoy aperitifs and Surreal conversation. (All attendees will also receive a dream to be interpreted at the door.) Expect a labor-intensive disruption.

Featuring performers Stacey Levine, Matt Briggs, Garrett Fisher, David Stutz, Anna Maria Hong, Amy Schrader, Maggie Santolla, Erik Benson, and Shannon Borg. Jeannette Allée will moderate the panel.

As lunch conversations go, Tuesday’s was rather a dud, as we never landed on a cohesive topic. We chatted a bit about 2-stroke versus 4-stroke engines. We chatted a bit about the Merlin Mann detente. We talked about wrapping up the latest 43 Places projects before we run off in all directions, trying to live our lives as if we’re on vacation. Then, during the stroll back to the office, Josh tried to convince us that modern-day grudge-holding can be supported by classical views on justice. We sipped our iced coffees and weighed the notion.

Wier gave us the tip on this interesting show at the Northwest Film Forum. He’s going to be one of the 6 live performers for this new soundtrack for a set of old film sequences by Busby Berkeley.

Buster McLeod went to this event.

Written and performed by Chris Jeffries. Directed by Ed Hawkins

Chris Jeffries, writer/ composer of beloved Seattle musicals VERA WILDE, THE FATTY ARBUCKLE SPOOKHOUSE REVUE, and I SEE LONDON, I SEE FRANCE brings the work of Busby Berkeley to life with a 75-minute live music performance featuring sixteen film sequences from the legendary Hollywood choreographer. Berkeley almost single-handedly defined the cinematic language of the Hollywood musical with his dazzling innovations in the design, scale, and presentation of production numbers as well as the revolutionary camera techniques employed to capture them on film. Jeffries and six vocalists will accompany the visual spectacles with live renditions of all-new songs. $15/ $12 NWFF members.

Talk today turned to the rather astonishing fact that humans (or animated meat, as we were referring to them) seem to have consciousness. How is that possible, and if possible (and we all agreed it does seem possible), why couldn’t other meat (or, because we are all computer dorks, machines) be animated with consciousness.

The first clue that nobody really knows anything about this topic is that there isn’t even a settled spelling of the subject. We have the “conscious” mind and we have our “conscience” and both refer to the same thing, right? Or do they? In practice, the former is used to describe our self aware mental state, the latter, the virtual organ we credit with moral judgement. But these are the same right? Etymologically, we are looking at words with the same roots, and interestingly, they talk about common knowledge – con scientia – that is “knowing with”.

Explaining how consciousness could exist seems simple until you try. Is consciousness a fundamental aspect of reality – some basic element of life – or does the existence of consciousness depend on other non-conscious elements be they physical, biological, computational, or neural. If you go with the latter – where does the spark come from that turns the ingredients “on” and why couldn’t we reproduce that process to animate some other collection of parts. If you go with the former, prepare to get called a hippy by your co-workers.

Anyway, Todd helped Bob break his losing streak yesterday, and paid for our Thai food. Bob managed to break our blogging streak by going passive aggressive and refusing to pick anyone to write the last blog post – let’s hope we don’t have any more of that. Such emotional robots!

merlinmann posted a photo:

In which I begin a perfectly delightful evening of drinking with Erik, Bob, Daniel, and Todd of 43 Things.

(Photo by Bob Cottrell)