I’ve been chuckling over your “table” for close to a week now, but couldn’t add anything to the comments above. Except to say that there might be something about riding one’s hobby horse as well as one Fancy.

Now I’m starting to sound like Jay. Aaaaargh!!!!

Anyway, I like your narrative.

That’s exactly what I meant: you know something so well that you can deal with it almost sub-consciously. Your “body” can handle the horse and its idiosyncracies of movement, while your mind is on a different plane, call it higher or more abstract. You have a more pure feeling of just “riding.” I guess there’s a reason one talks about an abstracted state of mind.

Panpsychism and Emergence, I will be thinking about those during my Thanksgiving break.

That’s how Hawthorne uses it. He refers to “idle fancies” “fancy that’s stronger than intellect,” and my favorite, “diseased fancy.” Now when I say I am “riding Fancy,” I might very well be spirited away by daydreams and imagination, an abstract horse.

Thanks for the pointer to the Times article. I found it intriguing, and with about the right tone. Unfortunately, a good bit of the thinking described was flawed, IMHO. Nagel, for example, should learn about emergence.

You appear to be one who might have an answer to a question I’ve been pondering lately: Can you ride an abstract horse?

If there is a mind in things, than art would have the best shot of being a mind reader, as these photos show.

Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/magazine/18wwln-lede-t.html?_r=1&ex=1353128400&en=cb64fd802346b7d5&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

-McFawn
http://www.litandart.com

My children had no interest in science as they grew up even though they spend much time on the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory campus. But in junior college Karl did get interested in neuroscience when he did a stint in my lab.

About sexual content: I am still in my art infancy and I have not seen much of Karl in the last decade as he enjoys visiting his grandmother in Germany.