minds,” then
no need for biology at all…
At 25, he started to have the symptoms of a midlife crisis:
the musical instruments unlearned, the books unread—
The more he contemplated the world, the more broken it seemed—
“What we’re doing here does not look like the behavior of grown-ups,
killing the planet and killing ourselves.”
Decoupling the mind from the needy human body
could pave the way for a more sublime human spirit—
It could allow paralyzed people to communicate,
or control a robotic arm or a wheelchair—
It could allow you to start your car if you think,
“Start my car”—
Within a century, we’ll frequent “body service shops,”
choose our bodies from a catalogue, then
transfer our consciousness
to one better suited for life on Mars—
“From the very beginning,” he said, “we realized Dmitry
was not an ordinary person.”
He leads a life that could best be described as monastic—
No meat, fish, coffee, alcohol, or cold water—
Meat gives him an energy he’s “not comfortable with.”
What is the brain? What is consciousness?
It contains plenty of terrifying, brink-of-extinction plot twists.
It’s somewhere between a cellphone call and teleportation.
It’s speaking with his voice in real time.
Get right up close to Dmitry Itskov and sniff all you like—
He has the kind of generically handsome face and perfect smile
that seem computer generated,
complete with all the particulars of consciousness and personality—
Yes, we have seen this movie and yes, it always leads to robots
enslaving humanity—
For now, just acquiring a lifelike robotic head
is a splurge.
THE GODS ARE IN THE VALLEY
eighth century, Chinese
The mind sports god-extensions.
It’s the mountain from which
the tributaries spring: self, self, self, self—
rivering up
on curling plumes
from his elaborate
headpiece
of smoke.
His head’s on fire.
Like a Paleolithic shaman
working now in the realm of air, he
folds his hands—
No more casting bones
for the consulting seeker, this gesture
seems to mean.
Your business, his flaming head suggests,
is with your thought-machine.
How it churns and churns.
Lord Should and Not-Enough,
Mute the Gigantor, looming dumb
with her stringy hair—
Deadalive Mom-’n’-Dad (in the sarcophagus
of parentheses
you’ve placed them)—
He’s a yogi, your man
with a hat of smoke. Serene, chugging out streams
of constructed air…
Mind’s an accident
of bio-wiring, is one line of thinking.
We’re animals that shit out
consciousness, is another.
The yogi says:
you must understand yourself
as projected vapor.
Thus achieve your
superpower.
MORNING NEWS
We were mutants, we were being
put into groups.
Assigned a patch of gymnasium floor—
A gelatinous plasma with star-sparking
was part of my body—
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