Great Windmill Street

My own snap of Great Windmill Street, included here for its illustration of the variety to be had in some central London streets.

Quite seriously old in the middle, ground floor and basement possibly the one-time home of the Nosh Bar, with something at once grander & newer to the right and Fuller & Richard to the left. I have failed to find out what this last company was about.

Group search key: gw1.

Watering hole

A once favoured watering hole which turned up during the outing to the Apollo. I think it has had a paint job since the days that we used to use the place. As I recall, a large manager from somewhere in eastern Europe and nearly opposite the headquarters of the Paul Raymond empire of porn. Didn't think to check whether it was still there.

Group search key: gw1.

Nosh bar

I think the Nosh Bar of Great Windmill Street must have been somewhere in this stretch, with StreetView doing a better job than I managed. See reference 1 for a previous mention.

Lyric looking fairly traditional right. Pity about the shutter.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/viola-times.html.

Group search key: gw1.

Ratters

Last week to the Apollo to see Nunn's revival of Rattigam's 'Love in Idleness', written as a vehicle for Team Lunt, a well known team of luvvies from the Broadway of 1930's and 1940's. See reference 1.

Following the bomb at Manchester. armed police at Waterloo Station, not noticed elsewhere.

Tube to Piccadilly Circus from where we strolled up Great Windmill Street to peer at places long gone. The Red Lion had morphed into some chain pub but there was compensation in the form of the Lyric, a relic from the past, a reminder of what pubs used to be like. Some movement with the times in that there was the occasional glimpse of food and they did serve wine as well as beer. But it was a pleasure to visit the place.

We could not remember when we had last been at the Apollo (search of the blogs this morning only revealed the arty magazine) which turned out to be a properly florid theatre, with plenty of gilded papier-mâché. Drinks dear, stalls more or less full.

Bravura opening performance with Eve Best as Olivia Brown doing a number on the list for her upcoming dinner party. Moved onto to a rather too bland and nice Sir John Fletcher and a rather too irritating and crass Michael Brown (Olivia's son). Edward Bluemel as this last did not pull of the trick of playing a pain without being one, although things got better as the show went on. Vivienne Rochester had the same problem playing Miss Dell.

Entertaining switch from the fancy flat of the first half to the rather grubbier flat of the second - with its reminder of how things used to be for most of us. With the one piece, all-in-one kitchen cupboard and the butler sink. I wonder now whether more might of been made of it being time to move on from the former? That the days of fancy flats for the few were over? Or, at least, should be over. Such social commentary as there was, was more in fun than in anger.

As seems to be usual these days, the first half seemed to drag a bit. With this dragging being so usual that I have to wonder whether it is me rather than the show. Although I stick to the theory that most plays would be better under two hours rather than over two hours.

As is also usual these days, the programme gave plenty of space to the creative team and other hangers on. I wonder whether, say fifty years ago, the acting team did better? Or had glossy programmes with lots of glossy advertisements yet to be invented?

Failed at celebrity spotting, with no-one from ITV3 spotted either on the stage or in the auditorium. The best we could do was a sprinkling of unknown but arty looking types in the bar.

Moaning aside, overall verdict, a good show. But rather late home, it being close to midnight by the time we turned in. Rather last by our standards.

PS: according to wikipedia: 'the Red Lion public house was built on the corner with Archer Street in around 1793. In November 1847, the Communist League held its second congress in a room above the bar and it was here that Karl Marx and Frederick Engels submitted their proposals for writing the Communist Manifesto'. Which I sure I never knew when I used to use the place, despite my lefty leanings. At which time, the rooms above were used for quite different purposes.

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Lunt.

Group search key: gw1.

Roseview

The splendid pink rose next door. We get a much better view of it than they do from their side, from our upstairs hall window.

There was an odd quirk in that the successive images, half a dozen of them taken with my Lumia/MS telephone over about 30 seconds, differed markedly in shade of pink. Cortana must have been doing something tricky with the colour mix, perhaps involving some tricky interaction between the colour of the feature of focus and the colour mix of its surroundings, or perhaps of the snap as a whole - and I had been trying to fiddle with the feature of focus by tapping the screen.

As it happens, I have just been reading of the eye maybe getting up to something similar in an excellent book - 'The Image Processing Handbook' - by one John C. Russ. A book which is an excellent result for me in that I was able to get a near new copy of the fifth edition, quite good enough for my purposes, for less than a tenner, including postage from Abebooks, while Amazon wanted £125 for the seventh edition.

PS: note also the glimpse of gray flat roof, middle left, not done with the asphalt roof rolls which did for us. But I have yet to find out what it was done with.

Bresson one

I was moved by article in a recent NYRB about a book about a French film chap called Bresson - never before heard of, despite his clearly having been famous at a time when I might have heard of him - to buy a couple of his films from amazon: 'Lancelot du Lac' and 'Au Hasard Balthazar'. I now report on the first, a rather odd rendering of a story from the world of Arthur and his round table.

A film without much dialogue, in mostly incomprehensible French, but which came with French subtitles which I could just about manage, most of the time. A DVD from Gaumont, with packaging suggesting that it was printed off to order, rather than stocked in piles. And according to amazon this morning: 'Collection Gaumont à la demande en DVD: découvrez une sélection de plus de 250 pépites inédites ou rares en DVD et issues de la meilleure source vidéo actuellement disponible'. Inquiry reveals that a pépite is a nugget, presumably of the golden variety.

Maybe a dozen young men clanking around in rather silly looking armour. With the leg armour only protecting the front of the legs and we had lots of shots of the back of legs in coloured tights, viewed from behind.

A lot of interest in horses, sleek but rather fat looking. Perhaps you needed a fat horse to carry an armoured man. Lots of shots of their legs. Lots of shots of their stables and grooms, these last easily identified by their funny hats. Lots of neighing.

A lot of interest in magpies. With a switch to crows circling over bodies, with a view to dinner, at the end.

A lot of time spent in clattering around what looked like the same bit of forest. Rather a young forest at that, with most of the trees looking quite young.

A lot of rather tidy looking tents in close order rows. Most improbable. Plus, whoever set them up had no idea how their guys ropes should have been staked.

A lot of scenes shot in what appeared to be farm buildings of one sort or another, mostly including carpentry which did not look very medieval. All in all, Arthur's palace was not very palatial at all. Another carpentry angle was Bresson's interest in the lances, wooden with iron tips and looking much more home made than is usual in Arthurian films, with the knights in armour taking an occasional turn with the draw knives themselves. Lances which looked much better balanced than is usual - but which were quite apt to shatter on impact and which were only used once. Perhaps the apprentices got to use the discards.

A modest amount of violence, including the gusher which results from a clean decapitation, rather less sex.

The story is portrayed as a series of fragments, not all that well stitched together. I think the idea is that rather than the film telling us what to think and feel, we have to project our own thoughts and feelings onto and around those fragments. We are supposed to join up the dots. That said the overriding impression was of emptiness. Of pointless violence, leading nowhere.

I associate to the story about extra husbands custom - aka cicisbeo - in the French and Italian Rivieras, picked up from an old Cook's guide to same, noticed at references 1 and 2. So it was an understood thing that King Arthur's queen would have a licensed lover, which everybody knew about and Arthur was not allowed to complain about. Would be expected to have one, with a new one being appointed soon after the old one was killed or damaged. The whole business being the subject of much prurient interest and vicarious pleasure in the Arthurian world portrayed, involving as it does lots of fit young men and just one lady. No wonder they needed to burn off all their energy in battles, or failing that, in tournaments.

I was interested to see that the Italian film poster turned up by google featured a more attractive lady than we were offered in the film itself. Still working on why 'lake' is translated as 'Geneva', there being a lake at Geneva not seeming sufficient reason. Was the film made nearby?

PS: I should confess that this post about the first film follows watching the second film and reading various film buff chatter about it.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/just-back-from-short-break-at-lamb-at.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/cooks-tours.html.

Kitchen affairs

A couple of crumbs from this morning's breakfast table.

On the right, a tub of margarine which appeared to have curdled, having the appearance of a madeira cake mix under construction. Not clear why as it lives in the fridge when not in use. I don't use the stuff, but I am told that it tasted OK.

On the left, a pot of apricot jam which we bought in the useful and well-stocked community village shop at Holne. No idea what the commercial arrangements might have been, but the tea room cum shop was much more convenient than making the trek to Ashburton. What was odd was that the pot of jam was got up as if it had been made by a lady of Holne, this despite the facts that apricots do not grow in Holne and that places hot enough to grow them usually dry them, rather than making jam out of them. Furthermore, inspection of the back cover revealed that the stuff had actually been made in a factory in or near Wellington, many miles to the north. In fact, just to the west of Taunton. All of which said, I remain rather fond of both apricot jam and reconstituted dried apricots, gently stewed.

If I have an idle moment before I forget about it, I shall try to test the theory that you make jam in cold climates and dry fruit in hot climates - with the key difference being that in cold climates you add sugar by growing sugar beet and then boiling it into the fruit, while in hot climates the fruit comes with the stuff built in.

Vernet

An unusually weak reproduction from wikipedia of the painting by Horace Vernet noticed in the previous post: 'The Dog of the Regiment Wounded'.

Painted in 1819, when memories of Napoleon's wars would still be reasonably fresh. But born in 1789 into an arty family in Paris, it seems unlikely that the artist had any direct experience of battles, although this did not stop him making a successful speciality of paintings of them. Perhaps he hired out of work soldiers to pose in full kit for him in his studio.

It seemed a bit unlikely that one would be fussing about a dog in the circumstances illustrated, but what struck me was the need for the officer to stand behind the line looking cool and collected. A bit like Nelson walking calmly up and down his quarterdeck at Trafalgar in order to keep his crew steady. Even harder perhaps than being in the firing line, where at least you had something to do, something repetitive and fiddly which might have been absorbing enough to take one's mind off the dangers out front.

I associate to Michael Caine doing much the same sort of thing behind his thin red line in 'Zulu'.

Viols

Last Monday, once again to hear a consort of viols at the Wigmore Hall, on this occasion plus a long necked lute, theorbo to those in the know, one of the many instruments which saw the light of day and had their day in the Cambrian explosion of instruments (as it were) of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, weeded down to the rather more modest range you mostly get now.

The Phantasm consort, plus Elizabeth Kenny, giving us works by William Lawes and Matthew Locke, court musicians both, between them spanning most of the seventeenth century and with Lawes managing to get himself killed, fighting for king and country, in 1645.

On the way, noticing for the first time a cross in a kerb in Cavendish Square, along the  lines to those noticed last year at reference 3. This being after coffee, smarties and not your grandma's Australian Riesling from the All-Bar-One in nearby Regent Street.

For a change, we were sat quite near the front, on the left, just behind the BBC producer's desk. A small, elderly brown-wood table which had a quaintly Heath Robinson look about it, with its rather heterogeneous collection of electrical odds and ends needed by the producer. Near enough that we could hear her mumbling into her microphone for the benefit of the radio audience while the viols tuned up. A business which seemed to take up a lot more time than it would, for example, for a string quartet - and with the story being that the tuning used for viols was a lot more tricky, not helped by their going out of tune very easily and rather quickly. Modern tempering not having been invented in the seventeenth century, or at least, not having percolated to England. This despite Charles I's extensive patronage of the arts. Ruinous even.

Some speculations arising from all the viols being played upright, in the way of a cello, rather than under the chin, in the way of a violin. With the underarm playing looking oddly awkward to the untrained eye - and it is certainly true that overarm throwing (of baseball) is much stronger than underarm throwing (of rounders). On the other hand, it seems that string players can hold their arms out straight - a game we used to play with the children - for vastly longer than anyone else.

All good stuff, but I think that I would have preferred to be a little further away, to get a more blended sound.

Down to the basement, not busy at all, unlike the last time that we were there when it was full. See reference 4. I had an Italian take on lentil soup, nothing like the lentil soup I made and certainly involving plenty of tomato. But perfectly satisfactory, none the less. Followed by salmon fish cakes. Followed by something described as a rhubarb and almond tart, but which turned out to be a wedge of almond and raspberry jam tart with a dab of rhubarb on the side. All in all, another good meal.

Enlivened by a party near us who did not seem to be musical at all, much more the sort of party one would expect to encounter at the seaside - but unfortunately we were not near enough to pick up from where they were actually from and I had not drunk enough to have had the brass to ask them. While most of the front of house staff were at their lunch by the time that we left and were slightly embarrassed to be caught tucking into something which looked like it came from the nearby Pret. One would have thought that a restaurant would manage to find something more suitable for eating in front of the punters.

On to a quick run around the Wallace collection. Struck by the coquettish posing of the two farm girls in the Rubens' landscape. Also by the officer standing behind his firing line in some battle in a painting by Vernet. Enjoyed the Guardi, which made a nice change from our more usual diet of Hampton Court Canaletto. Quick peek at the Fragonard swing and the crowd in front of it. An interesting painting, but I don't understand why it is so popular - it is not as if there is not plenty of other good stuff in the vicinity.

And so into Bond Street tube station to jubilee it back to Waterloo.

Reference 1: http://www.phantasm.org.uk/. From which I have taken the illustration to this post.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/bentinck-street.html.

Reference 4: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/art.html.

Beans

Pleased to see that the nut-loaf gang at Totnes are growing some proper beans, that is to say broad beans - although one wonders how many, if any, of this rather modest planting will end up on a table, never mind the table of the planter.

First noticed sighting since that at reference 1. Slight pang of nostalgia for my own, very much larger, plantings of broad beans, back in the days of allotments. The fine smell first thing in the morning and, from close to the ground, the sight of something rather like some exotic forest. Rather more information about all that than you are apt to want at reference 2. But you can always whizz about using the side bar.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/winters-tale.html.

Reference 2: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=broad+beans.

Group search key: tna.

Gargoyle

 A detail from the north eastern end of St. Mary's. No idea how old the gargoyle is. Or what the back-story is for the blocked up window above.

Group search key: tna.

Pulpit

An unusual pulpit at St. Mary's, Totnes, now St. Mary with Bridgetown to economize on parsons.

I should have taken a more careful look to see how the stairs worked. From this snap there does not seem to be room for a full on spiral staircase, despite the start of one visible bottom right.

Statues in niches removed at some point, presumably at some point in the religious troubles in and around the Reformation. I think there was also an elaborate open-work screen to the cancel, in something of the same style, also with empty niches, rather smaller. I suppose we should be grateful that the zealots concerned were satisfied by removing the images and did not feel the need to destroy the container. And in extremis, satisfying themselves by just knocking the faces off, defacing the images.

But see reference 1 for another take on this, from Ely.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/ely-5.html.

Group search key: tna.

Rubens

Another find at the church at Totnes, this time an engraving of a painting, 'The Elevation of the Cross', by Rubens. One point of interest being that the engraving by Withoue was more or less contemporary with the painting, properly a triptych, so an antique in its own right from the first half of the seventeenth century. The engraver was one of a number trained by the man himself to do full justice - in so far as the change of medium allowed - to his paintings. Full justice presumably including full commercial exploitation.

And according to the ticket, including the novelty of adding warmth by mixing passages of engraved lines with passages of etched lines. I supposed the latter to be rougher and broader than the former, but I would need a proper cognoscenti on hand to point out how all this worked out on the paper.

But I can say that the engraver was lazy to the extent of not bothering to reverse the image, so what you see here is the mirror image, left to right, of the original. Odd, considering that the engraver already had to do a fair bit of extra work anyway to get the huge painting, of 5 by 7 meters when fully open, down to something which could be managed by an engraver.

BH was able to trump my arty comments by pointing out that she had seen the original, at the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp, when she was in town with FIL, in the margins of a visit to the flowers of the Keukenhof Gardens, a little way up the road.

Further researches today yield two more factlets. First, the people at Totnes have got the name of the engraver slightly wrong, properly Hans Witdoeck not H. Withoue. Second, Rubens painted the cartoon noticed at reference 1, somewhat different from the original painting, for the engraver to work from. And now that it has been said, it is clearly much easier to work from a copy in your own studio than have to go back and forth to the church who had paid for the painting and who wanted it up behind their altar, not lurking in some studio.

With the bonus that Rubens himself did the extra work mentioned above by painting a cartoon of much reduced size, pretty much, I imagine, to that of the engraving. Complicated business this art history - so maybe all those dim Sloanes who use to do it had not chosen the soft option after all.

See also reference 2, which includes a handsome photograph of the painting in its intended setting.

Reference 1: http://archive.bampfa.berkeley.edu/projects/rubens/exhibition/designs4detail2.html.

Reference 2: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/monarchy-enlightenment/baroque-art1/flanders-1/a/rubens-elevation-of-the-cross.

Group search key: tna.

Wives

We came across this interesting monument when we visited the principal church in Totnes recently.

For a wealthy merchant who had four wives, one after the other, with the fourth one succeeding him.

Given that four is the number that Muslims are allowed (although I think there is a wealth qualification. You have to be able to afford it), I speculated about conversations between Christians and Muslims in pubs (or perhaps cafés given the latters' dislike of alcoholic drink) about the respective merits of taking one's wives in series or in parallel, with there clearly being ups and downs of both arrangements. I can think of some men who might get quite engrossed in such a subject. Or perhaps it is the sort of thing one needs to keep the conversation at the 19th hole going.

Group search key: tna.

Blast from the past

Perusing the catalog for the Cambridge Beer Festival, among all the entries from craft beers, I was pleased to find an entry from Lacons, a brewer which was just about visible in Cambridge when I was starting my career in public houses. I remember it as a pale, rather bitter beer, but I may well be conflating it with some general purpose memory of the ale which was still real in the mid 1960's, with Red Barrel and Double Diamond then just over the horizon.

Closer inspection reveals that this Lacons is a revival, after a 45 year absence, so really a craft beer, although one with heritage. Also that Lacons was one of the many regional brewers gobbled up by Whitbread. Whom I do not knock that much as their Trophy, which gradually replaced the regional beers they had bought up, was usually a decent pint, reference 2 notwithstanding.

PS: sadly, I will not be able to make the festival this year, so I shall miss out on all the fun to be had with students (of both sexes) knocking back the amber nectar big time to celebrate the end of their exams... Maybe next year.

Reference 1: https://www.lacons.co.uk/.

Reference 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n1hQdCdCP8.

On Holne moor

Various country snaps from our week on the edge of Dartmoor.

Navigational aid, taken from the OS premium site - for which I pay some £15 a year or so - although I now find that much the same thing seems to be available from bing maps for free (see reference 1), much better than gmaps which is better for town than country. OS really do add value and maybe what MS has done is buy into the local mapping agencies where they exist. Holne in the middle of this particular image, and Hexworthy off it, to the left. Not that bing maps would have worked out on the moor where there seemed to be no signal - whereas I had thought that with sight lines to masts, the signal would have been spiffing. So downloading the snapped image to the telephone proved convenient, more so than carrying a map about in the wind and the rain. Plus the trusty compass noticed at reference 2. I am sure that the telephone could be persuaded to do compass, but I have not got there yet, and there is the comfort of having something which does not depend on the telephone being in working order. With, for example, the rain giving rise to a few moments panic at one point when the image blurred over and I did not realise that it was just a question of wiping the smear of water off the lens at the front.

I have also learned, after many years, that Dartmoor is something of a dissected plateau with the various branches of the River Dart cutting deep into its interior.

On the road to Hexworthy. Gorse in fine flower although the smell of coconuts was not as strong as it is sometimes. Maybe one needs the full sun for that. And, to be fair, the mist usually cleared away once the sun got up. Fine views in all directions, if not quite 360° vision.

Looking east on the track above the road, at a bridge over the water supply to some nearby farm. Water supply for the four legged animals that is, rather than the two legged ones.

The curious fence around Venford Reservoir. Were the little balls stuck on the heritage spikes after a spat between the heritage people and the health and safety people? They do look to have been stuck on, but not that recently.

Reservoir with mist and waterdendrons.

Coombestone Tor, convenient car park behind.

The village reputed to be the home of lemon sherberts, although I think the factory has now moved to a shed on an industrial estate outside Newton Abbot. Better communications and facilities for the modern business. Luckily we were carrying a sherbert which we could include in this snap - a sweet which had been something of a favourite since childhood - although I am quite sure that modern confectioners cannot manage the sherbert bit as well as they could when I was young. Pale imitation.

The type of cattle grid used in and around Holne. Not universally, but commonly. We never did find out why it is a two tone grid, in this case with wide to the left and narrow to the right. 

More Coombestone.

What appeared to be huge sacks of wool in the barn next to where we parked our car at our converted cow shed near Holne. Not clear how long they had been there, or what happened next. Did the wool lorry come around once a month to pick up all the fleecings?

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/new-toy.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/outing-for-compass.html.

Progress

 Happening down Court Lane this morning, I find that there is action on the site noticed at reference 1. The gates were open, revealing two vans but no action on the old buildings.

But, moving on towards the recreation ground, there clearly was action in the back garden, probably flat/maisonette building action. A chap who noticed my interest explained that the whole site had belonged to the Epsom & Ewell parks people and that the back garden had been houses before, now demolished. I am not so sure about that, but the flat/maisonette action is real enough.

He also thought that the old buildings out front were caught up in some planning or heritage rules and were probably going to be reinstated, in some way or another. Which, given their present state, would probably cost more than demolition and starting again. Not to mention the poor use of space. One does worry about these planning and heritage people, so free with other peoples' money.

PS: not much choice about illustration, taken through one of the two holes let into the lock-up part of the hoarding protecting the site, maybe three inches high by four wide. Not bad considering.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/paused.html.

Trolley 77b

Wheeling the trolley 77 noticed in the previous post into Kiln Lane, past the notice warning of trolley security devices on the corner of the car park, for the first time ever, the security device in the front wheel activated, with the yellow gadget dropping. More easily seen if you click to enlarge. See reference 2 for more details.

A dropping which made it hard to wheel the trolley about empty, never mind full.

There was sign of recent electrical activity near the notice, including the black conduits visible in front of the trolley.

I tried asking the what would happen next, but the first person I accosted, with very weak English, eventually turned out to be a car washer rather than a trolley jockey.

The second person was a trolley jockey, but did not seem to have a clue what I was talking about. Presumably someone with learning difficulties.

The third person was a security guard standing outside the main entrance. He eventually cottoned on to what I was on about, but knew nothing about it and summoned the second person to tell him. At which point I decided to move on.

Passing, down the side of the building on the way to the West Road footbridge, I passed a second trolley with an activated device.

Maybe on my next visit I will try the customer service people inside, or perhaps phone them up, the helpful people who knew about the thermal bore hole noticed at reference 1. Perhaps they will know whether the trolley security system has just been activated. The devices have been on the trolleys for long enough. But at least I now know that the device is triggered when walking onto the Sainsbury's site as well as when walking off.

PS: the first trolley since 26th April. A long wait.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/digester.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/trolley-security.html.

Trolley 77a

Trolley 77, captured in East Street, between town and Kiln Lane.

Complete with sun hat, 336mg of warfarin, 2kg of cherries and an empty, Red Bull sized can of some drink or other.

The cherries came by the box, from Spain, at 2kg for a fiver. They looked good, but testing them at lunch revealed them to be a little sharp - although this may be more to do with taking sugared rhubarb first, than anything to do with the cherries themselves. In any event, they are in good condition, deep red and glossy, with little damage, and will ripen quickly enough in the presently warm and humid weather. Sharpness may not be the problem for long.

In praise of the homunculus

The homunculus in question being the little chap who sits somewhere in the middle of the brain, who has all our experiences and who is generally in charge – the Wooster to the Jeeves which is the rest of the brain, all those parts of the brain which do the leg work. The chap who was created to provide a home for all our experiences and, for those that believe in such things, for our soul – and who is apt to fall prey to infinite regress. He has a generally bad reputation, with reference 1 offering a fair sample of popular report.

Another aspect of this bad reputation is that no-one has been able to find him, to come up with a bit of brain which does consciousness, a bit which is necessary and sufficient for there to be consciousness. The most promising candidate of recent years has been the claustrum – until someone came across some veterans whose claustra had been damaged in combat. See reference 9.

With the result that most people who are looking for consciousness are looking for it in the increasingly complicated networks of brain activity which are being uncovered by big projects with clever experiments with clever scanners. See reference 5 for the big EU project and reference 6 for the big US project.

Notwithstanding, one can see why the homunculus attracts. One works away at taking consciousness to pieces, at taking the brain and its works to pieces. But one wants there to be a single place, a single process which is the continuing me. That is how it feels to be me. One doesn’t want to be some transient bit of electrical activity in some complicated network, creating the illusion of a continuing me. In the language of many religions, one wants to have a spirit or a soul.

Or perhaps one is working away at building replicas in computers of all the things that humans do. One gets them to drive cars, to diagnose diseases, to play chess, poker and go. One can give them bits of program which dart about, mimicking the way that the attention of humans dart about. One can give them bits of program which mimic the workings of emotions. There will soon be plenty of machines which pass the Turing test, machines which trick people into thinking that they are people too. Indeed, it turns out that passing the Turing test is neither particularly difficult nor particularly instructive, in that it turns out that it is quite easy to trick people into thinking that the chat box on their screen is being serviced by a real person, at least for a while. However, no-one is claiming that any of these computers are conscious, or have a soul or anything like that – one just feels that maybe they ought to have.

Then some of us try to write a soul or something like that into the code in a more direct way. At its crudest, one might just have a non-negative, real valued variable called ‘consciousness’ which is zero when the computer is resting and which takes some high value when it is really up and running. Such a variable might be well correlated with the apparent wakefulness, alertness or consciousness of the computer – but it has no life. It is just a number. One can do the same sort of thing with a non-negative, real valued variable called ‘pain’. Or with components of personality like conscientiousness and extraversion – see reference 7 for a sample of such attributes, with google offering plenty more of the same.

One might try to go one better, to make these variables both an indicator of the state of the system and a lever with which to tweak it. So, to give a fanciful example, one might find that the concentration of lactic acid in the thalamus was a good indicator of how extrovert someone was. More interesting still, one finds that one can make someone more extrovert by injecting lactic acid into their thalamus. Making lactic acid both an indicator and a lever, a mechanism which one’s computer could mimic.

But these variables would still have no life. We really do seem to need is a homunculus, a deus ex machina – a phrase which wikipedia says that the Romans pinched from the Greeks – and which demonstrates once again that the ancients knew a thing or two.

So, arguments against notwithstanding and as previously explained at reference 2, we are still backing the homunculus living in a single small place in the brain. A single place which still seems to us to be more likely, less likely to require bizarre physics, than our soul manifesting itself in the workings of a wide area network (aka WAN, as opposed to a local area network, or LAN). Being an emergent property (as in reference 11, from where the illustration of an emergent termite mound is taken) of a wide area network. So we are backing a small sheet of cortical material, in the upper brain stem or lower brain, the activity of which both expresses the data content of consciousness and projects that data into consciousness. The activity is, or rather the activation processes on that data amount to consciousness. Or, still having a penchant for field theories of consciousness, perhaps the activation processes generate an electrical field of some sort which amounts to the conscious experience. A field, the non-negligible parts of which occupy little more space than that of the small sheet from which it is generated, and which would be rather difficult to detect.

We are not saying anything about whether consciousness is for anything, beyond allowing a suspicion that it is for something.

The gross organisation of our patch of our homunculus, in time and space, is described at reference 3.

Conclusions

We claim that this cortical sheet, together with its activation processes, is conscious, is brought to the boil. But we do not claim that it has agency or that it has memory. Indeed, it is a rather limited sort of homunculus and a great deal of machinery is needed to prep him, to convert action, sensation and memory into something that he can be conscious of. To generally prop him up. The good bit is that, in so far as the generation of consciousness is concerned, we do not need to know that much about all this prepping and propping; all that can be put aside. We do not need to know about all the clever systems which turn agitation on the retina or the agitation in the inner ear into images that can be experienced. We do not need to know whether the image is true or not, whether the brain has been tricked or not. But the difficult bit is that the buck stops here. We are no longer in the business of saying that this or that bit of data or process goes towards consciousness, is necessary for consciousness. We are saying that our data structure is conscious.

A corollary of which is that the homunculus has to be self contained; everything that it needs has to be on the spot. It can’t be whizzing off somewhere else to be told what it means – to use the famous example of reference 4 – to have the colour red, or indeed any other colour. We have to demonstrate that we can put all of what is needed into our data structure. Into one place at one time.

Afterthoughts

Testing the homunculus theory might be a bit of a problem, but without which testing it scarcely counts as more than speculation. The part of the brain likely to be involved is not presently very accessible to scanners and probes are, in the normal way of things, only an option with animals. It does not offer any obvious route to testing whether someone is conscious. And animals, with their limited capability for self-report are even harder. But perhaps a way in would be to try to devise cognitive tests which probe the proposed data structure, which attempt to identify the layers and their coding regimes. And perhaps time to take another look at reference 10.

And we wonder whether the sort of mechanism we are proposing could be replicated in a computer. Could the sort of conscious field we are suggesting might be generated by concentrated neural activity, also be generated by the activity on chips? There was a demonstration back in the 1980’s of how easy it was to reproduce the contents of a VDU from its electrical emanations (see reference 8) and security people still worry about the electrical emanations of their computers and go to a lot of trouble to stop people collecting same. A catch for present purposes, might be, as with the brain, that what you can collect from the outside is only a pale reflection of what is going on in the inside. But see all the stuff turned up by google for the search term ‘tempest security’ for an expert view.

We might add that we are a bit soft on agency and free-will altogether. Terms which are convenient and which have their place, but which are apt to get difficult on closer inspection.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus_argument.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/its-chips-life.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/recap-on-our-data-structure.html.

Reference 4: Seeing red - a study in consciousness - Humphrey – 2006.

Reference 5: https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/.

Reference 6: https://www.braininitiative.nih.gov/.

Reference 7: http://www.appletreehealthandwellness.com/the-big-5-aspects-of-personality/.

Reference 8: Electromagnetic Radiation from Video Display Units: An Eavesdropping Risk? - Wim van Eck – 1985.

Reference 9: The effect of claustrum lesions on human consciousness and recovery of function - Aileen Chau, Andres M. Salazar, Frank Krueger, Irene Cristofori, Jordan Grafman – 2015. With the abstract including the sentence: ‘claustrum damage was associated with the duration, but not frequency, of loss of consciousness, indicating that the claustrum may have an important role in regaining, but not maintaining, consciousness’.

Reference 10: http://www.glasgowcomascale.org/.

Reference 11: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence.

Group search key: src.

A throwback

Deep in our cottage in Holne we came across this item. We have not used one at our own home for near fifty years, although they used to pop up from time to in holiday homes. But a good long time since we had last come across such a thing; probably twenty years or more.

This one appeared to be fairly new and the all important wheel, visible in the black slot middle left if you click to enlarge, was turning in the direction indicated, so presumably the thing was connected up and active.

The suggestion top right was that the meter took one pound coins, presumably the sort just discontinued, and that there was a credit of around £15, a credit which did not appear to change during our stay, although I did not go to the length of actually taking readings. Given that we had bottled gas for both heating and cooking, one can only deduce that our modest amount of kettle work did not amount to much. Not to mention the even more modest amount of hoover work.

Outing for the compass

Back in October 2014 I noticed the purchase of a new compass at reference 1. A new compass which does not get much use, mainly because we do not do much rough country walking these days. Nevertheless, despite telephones, there is the odd occasion when a compass would be useful, sometimes even in big towns when one gets confused for one reason or another. I remember a recent occasion near St. Paul's when we ended up walking east, when I had thought we were walking west.

And on the 18th May I remembered to take it with us for a stroll on Holne Moor. And it was actually used, inter alia, to ascertain the direction of what appeared to be the sea. As I recall, roughly east.

It was also an occasion to remind myself how to do a selfie by finding the reverse button on the telephone. Need more practice on the focus side of things, seemingly not as automatic as when one is going forwards.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/the-quest-for-new-compass.html.

Trial by flatpack

In this case, a rollpack, a roller blind for the kitchen from Argos.

The good news is that the blind is now installed and it works.

Purchase and collection straightforward. Kiln Lane a convenient collection point, with the bonus that we discovered that our preferred tipple is significantly cheaper at Sainsbury's than it is at Majestic Wine. But there is bad news.

The instructions, one side of which is illustrated above, do not quite match the article; a pain when you are struggling to puzzle out how to put together the tricky little fittings that tend to come with articles of this sort. Much more attention appeared to have been paid to the need to stop small children strangling themselves with the plastic roller chain than to getting the purchaser onside.

The blind was mounted on a cardboard tube which was difficult to cut neatly with the suggested hacksaw. I had got on much better with the lightweight metal tube of its predecessor from Ikea. We shall see how the cardboard stands up to the damp of a winter kitchen.

The blind was not stuck quite straight on the tube, which meant that it did not roll up quite straight, although it did at least roll, as I had allowed a couple of millimeters tolerance when cutting the blind to width of window. I thought about peeling the blind off the tube and then sticking it back down again, but I was unsure whether it would stick a second time and was fairly sure that, in the absence of any guide lines printed on the tube, any effort of mine would not be an improvement.

Overall impression, about the same price in cash terms, but a more flimsy affair than that from Ikea. We shall see how long it lasts.

Duration: 9 minutes online purchase, 47 minutes collection, 94 minutes installation. Spread over about 20 hours.

Holiday food

Duchess of Cornwall, Poundbury

A pub-restaurant-hotel which I understand to be something of a cooperative venture between the brewers Hall & Woodhouse and the heir to the throne, presumably the owner of the freehold. Handsomely got up with a very handsome first floor dining room, previously illustrated. A big place which would have seemed rather cold if it had been empty, but it was not. The downstairs bar was busy and the upstairs restaurant was busy enough for comfort.

I took a rillette, in this case a fancy word for a piece of cold meat loaf, the sort of thing they sometimes call pâté in the rest of Europe. Good, only marred by a dollop of yellow goo, fortunately removeable. Excellent Caesar salad. Brown goo in a glass for pudding, probably rather more sophisticated than the Instant Whip of childhood that it reminded me of, in any event better suited to BH’s palette than mine. A decent Chablis. Bread oddly bad. I had thought that the heir, said to be keen on both food and on tradition, would have insisted on decent bread, but he clearly had not on this occasion. The service included the only foreign waitress of the week, just one foreign among the various English. See reference 8 for the full story.

All in all, a good meal.

Ley Arms, Kenn

Fish and chips. Not up to the usual pub standard at all – fish and chips being something that a lot of pubs do quite well these days. And the crushed minted peas were not to my taste at all. But there were attractive and attentive barmaids.

We reminisced about the times we had visited the pub, more than forty years ago, when pub food had barely been invented and the pub scene was rather different. See reference 7 for today’s story.

National Marine Aquarium, Plymouth

Pie and chips. Entirely suitable for the occasion.

An aquarium which had something for everybody, including two large tanks with large fish and middle sized sharks. Lots of nicely presented, smaller oddities: starfish, jellyfish, anemones, cuttlefish and octopuses. All the more interesting for my recent reading of reference 5, noticed at reference 6.

Buckfast Abbey

Mid morning tea with Scottish pie, instead of the more usual tea with cake. A small pie, entirely suitable for a mid-morning snack. Pastry quite chewy, reminding me of the casings of the pies you used to get from pie and mash shops. The ones which came with a smear of something dry and brown on the bottom, air gap above. While the contents of this pie were entirely satisfactory.

Builders in at the abbey itself. Including a squad of organ builders from Italy, I think they said Pisa. Perhaps the French monks who restarted the place a bit more than a hundred years ago had a tradition of buying their organs from Italy. Or perhaps English organs smell too much of Protestants and worse. Tainted, so as to speak.

We were amused to find a holy water dispenser next to the font (elaborate, with its elaborate cover suspended from the vault above) which looked very like a small tea urn, a bit like the sort of thing that is trotted out for events in village halls. Often made by Burco.

Paignton Zoo

Beef mince stew with chips. Again, entirely suitable for the occasion. Restaurant area looked and felt like a slightly tired version of what you get at a motorway service station.

A zoo which worked hard on its ecological credentials but was not helped by the rain. Nor, to my mind, by all the small loudspeakers scattered through the grounds providing jungle noises. But we did learn from a bored keeper, an exile from up north, all about Burnley football club.

Forest Inn, Hexworthy

A large pub with restaurant, accommodation for both people and horses, in the middle of nowhere, recently reopened. Presumably a place with thrived when Dartmoor thrived, thrived with thousands of people walking, riding and fishing, people who now go on packaged holidays in warmer climes. The pub had at least five people to feed, but seemed to be doing well enough on the week day lunch time that we visited. Maybe they will thrive; in any event we will be back. The bar itself was a bit of an oddity, not country pub at all: pale polished hard wood and red plush, maybe 1950’s. Very Young’s, lately of Wandsworth.

I took lasagne and garlic bread, clearly microwaved from frozen. Not bad, but I have had better. Wine OK. Beer looked good.

Albatross Fish and Chips, Totnes

Haddock and chips. Good – much better than we expected given the location in town and lack of custom, at least when we arrived. Illustrated by google streetview above.

But chosen in preference to the more Totnes, more spinach and bean flavoured fare to be found elsewhere in town. A place which lived up to its notices with lots of strange people wandering about, working hard on their retired biker/hairy/druggie images. We were amused to think that all these people who had gone to Totnes to escape the awful life of suburbia, now made their living out of visiting retirees from said suburbia, people just like ourselves. Perhaps they saw it as getting their own back.

Holiday cottage (a converted cow shed)

Gammon and boiled vegetables, twice. A little salty; must remember to soak for a bit longer next time.

Lentil soup, twice. Once with left over celery and gammon, once without. No carrots on either occasion. Onions fried in butter separately and added at the end.

A holiday cottage with a decent set of saucepans – like kitchen knives, not something that one can rely on in such places. And our first experience of cooking with bottled gas since we lived in the back of Bury Lodge at Hambledon, more than forty years ago. Which, according to google, was 'built on a site of Roman and Celtic historic interest, the parkland was designed simply using existing field patterns. Unusual, rather austere house built 1806 by Sir Thomas Butler in Strawberry Hill Gothic style'.

Shops

Ben’s of Totnes. White bread satisfactory, vacuum packed ham very salty, apples adequate. Apples which were well out of season and had clearly been in store somewhere, a reminder that farm shops sell plenty of stuff that was not grown on their own premises. A stretching of the truth, rather as is often the case with the phrases ‘home made’ or ‘home cooking’. An operation spun off from the Riverford Foods noticed last year at reference 3. Perhaps two brothers who decided to part company.

Country Cheeses of Ticklemore Street, Totnes. Poacher present, and first tasting, yesterday, entirely satisfactory, good even. A shop which was rather keen on sour dough bread, but we agreed it was something of a fashion just presently – a fashion which I, for one, do not much care for. The shop girl who dealt with us had excellent shop girl manners, with cheerful and smiling agreement being the response to whatever the customer might come up with. Not clear about the relationship between country cheese (reference 1) and ticklemore cheese (reference 2), named for the street of the shop. Perhaps the latter had abandoned retail to the former in order to concentrate on manufacture.

References

Reference 1: http://www.ticklemorecheese.co.uk/Ticklemore_Cheese/Home.html.

Reference 2: http://www.countrycheeses.co.uk/.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/orgo.html.

Reference 4: http://bensfarmshop.co.uk/shops/.

Reference 5: Reference 2: Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life - Godfrey-Smith, Peter – 2017.

Reference 6: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/coding-for-red-and-other-stuff.html.

Reference 7: http://www.theleyarmskenn.co.uk/.

Reference 8: http://duchessofcornwall.co.uk/.

The seven ladies of crime

Despite watching a good deal of Miss. Marple, I have been having a great of trouble remembering the names of all the ladies involved, despite the use of a version of the alphabet game. Which takes the form of going through the alphabet, finding ladies' names for each of the letters. For some obscure reason, the right name quite often pops out, pops out when frontal assault had failed to get it.

Agatha Christie does not get lost.

But the forename of Jane Marple can sometimes take a few seconds to retrieve.

While the lively Margaret Rutherford often gets lost altogether.

Joan Hickson usually survives, although I sometimes have to cast about a bit. The best Marple of the bunch for regular consumption; the main course, with the others being just tasters, amuse-bouches, by comparison.

Geraldine McEwen often gets lost altogether, although the brain may be being confused in this case by her also appearing in a version of Mapp & Lucia, one of the two versions which we watch when we need a change.

Julia McKenzie is usually present, with both forename and family name. She may survive for her sensible remark, as the fourth in line, that it was no good trying to be the person whom one is succeeding, however good she may have been on her watch. One has to be one's own person, to make the role one's own.

The seventh, Anna Massey, gets an honorary degree, as it were, on the grounds that I often mix her up with Geraldine McEwen. Again, often missing.

A couple of days ago I had thought that I had got them all lodged firmly in the brain. And by way of a mnemonic I noted that there were a lot of J (and soft G) sounds, and little beyond M. A short version of the alphabet game should suffice.

But then this morning, Joan Hickson and Geraldine McEwen both went missing for about ten minutes.

Views of Poundbury

Our bedroom in the 'Duchess of Cornwall' (of which more in due course), with its quirky furnishings. State of the art television plus brown wood furniture, some of it probably old rather than repro. Painted floor - off white - and we wondered about its durability. Large shower cubicle with a proper shower rose, just like the one we have at home. All in all, rather a good room, certainly good value.

The heir to the throne demonstrates his sense of humour. The front of this building comes with a fancy colonnade, but the view from the pub staircase had to make do with a paint job. Again, we wondered about its durability.

Pub to the right. Then fancy colonnade, then tower block. Then flats which the barman told us were going for around £1m each. Not clear whether they were being bought as retirement flats or what - it not being clear what there was in the way of work in the area to carry the corresponding rent. Then Waitrose to the left. Grand, but not so grand that we did not catch a few country pikes coming out with some afternoon tinnies.

The barman also told us that Poundbury was a town with no parking restrictions, no parking meters and no traffic wardens. It had been built on a generous enough scale for none of that to be necessary. Which was nice for the moment, but it will be interesting to see whether they will be able to hold the line as the town gets going - which it looks as if it will - it already running to a substantial primary school.

The rather grand dining room, upstairs in the pub. Downstairs busy on the Friday that we arrived.

The converted telephone exchange in Kennford, a little nearer our ultimate destination. Once important as the exchange through which I contacted the young lady who became the BH, if she happened to be at home, in the days before we were married. Kennford 123 or something like that.

Sun dance

Yesterday I was moved to inquire about the sun dance of native Americans, said to involve days and nights of dancing, fasting and thirsting.

For once, wikipedia was not very helpful. But then my eye lighted on my book mark for DPLA, the digital public library of America, something I have known about for a while, but have not made much use of. See reference 1.

On this occasion it did the business, with the search term 'sun dance native americans' turning up a lot of old photographs of said dance, but also what turned out to a very informative paper, written at Princeton over half a century ago. Clicking on the catalogue entry took me to a rather old-speak version of the paper in some affiliated collection, but asking google gets me to a pdf copy, all 96 pages of which have now been downloaded. See reference 2.

First impression was that it is terribly hard to recover tribal practices of this sort, heavily infiltrated as they are by time, Christian missionaries, new agers and rather self-conscious revivals. But Shimkin has a good go. While google streetview contributes the view of the Wind River Basin included above, taken near Shoshoni, in Wyoming. An area in which wikipedia tells me oil was discovered in 1884.

Second impression was that the dance did indeed involve days and nights of dancing, fasting and thirsting, but it also involved sleeping and tobacco. The dancers, mostly, I think, young men, were not expected to keep it up for the duration, although I think you did get more status in the tribe the longer you kept going. There was also a pain angle, one which the missionaries did their best to eliminate.

Perhaps telling that wikipedia was much stronger on oil flavoured geology than it was on ethnography.

PS: the name 'Sundance' does seem to be loosely related. Not that common, but we do have the Sundance Kid and the Sundance Film Festival.

Reference 1: https://dp.la/.

Reference 2: The Wind River Shoshone Sun Dance - D. B. Shimkin - 1947.

MOD

One of four or five markers set into our path. We thought that they might have marked the various rows of barrack huts making up the camp which was once there.

Substantial and well made markers, good for at least a century - certainly a lot longer lived than the camp they served. Perhaps some of the chaps in the camp had been concrete craftsmen in civilian life and making these markers was as good a way as any of taking their minds off the beaches to come.

More likely, I suppose, that the things were mass produced for the MOD by some concrete accessories manufacturer. Good for any camp site in the land.

Group search key: ahb.

Avenue

The handsome avenue, home to most of our stroll on the heath - not in this part very heathy.

Group search key: ahb.

Cows

A small herd of cows, somewhere on Avon Heath. When we came across them, all their ears were flapping back and forth - giving the herd as a whole a very odd appearance.

Group search key: ahb.

Avon Heath

I have mentioned before the convenience of National Trust places as alternatives to the service areas provided on motorways. You get parking, cafeterias and all the necessary facilities, often not that much further off the road than the service areas. No petrol, but that is not usually the service sought.

We had been to this particular one at least once before, Avon Heath, in Dorset, with the nearest town being Ringwood in Hampshire. South west of the famous Rufus Stone, the Rufus who was son and heir to the conqueror. I had thought that I had noticed it here, but search fails to find anything.

On this occasion we stopped for our picnic lunch and a short walk to stretch the legs. A very pleasant place, although it might have been less so in the school holidays or during the weekend with there being lots of stuff for children to do, apart from soaking up the natural beauty of the place.

While there were some older trees, they were mostly younger, say not more than fifty years old, and we thought that the heath had probably been an army camp during the second world war, perhaps for troops waiting for the off for Normandy.

Reference 1: https://www.dorsetforyou.gov.uk/avonheath.

Group search key: ahb,

Recap on our data structure

At various times and places we have talked of a data structure which supports consciousness. See, for example, reference 6. This post updates and supersedes that at reference 1, of the srb series. We think the introduction of velocity (see below) sufficient reason to start with a new group search key, src.

The diagram included here makes use of what is sometimes called soft box modelling. Each box stands for some particular entity, some particular sort of thing in the world being modelled. For example cars, birds, colour or temperature. Boxes might also correspond to the tables of a relational database or to the worksheets of an Excel workbook. We might have, for example, a row in the car worksheet for each car in the pool. Or a row in the person worksheet for each person on the payroll. While an arrow linking one box to another stands for a one to many relationship, relationships which lie on a spectrum from parent-child to property.

Example of parent-child might be this father has many children, this car has many wheels or this team has many players. Examples of property might be this tyre is of this brand or this soup is that temperature. A relationship of this kind might easily be expressed by a column in one of our Excel worksheets. Or, looked at from the other end of the relationship, there are many soups in the world with this particular temperature.

Diagrams of this sort are a very useful tool for design and communication, but can get terribly complicated. They can become an industry. Here we have kept things simple by cutting corners. A cutting which associates to the fact that consciousness does not need to present a wonderfully complete and accurate picture of the world to the subject, even to the human subject, just a picture which is good enough. A picture which works most of the time, a picture which helps to keep us alive and reproducing. An arrangement which leaves room for consciousness to be tricked by the unusual, by that which has not been allowed for in the course of its evolution. See references 4 and 5 for one example among many.

The diagram describes the consciousness of one individual, the subject. A chunk of the world as seen (or heard) from his (or her) point of view. With the trickiness that a chunk may well include some part of the subject itself. A description which is rather biased towards vision, very important to most vertebrates and hypothesised to have kick-started the whole consciousness business, but which is intended to include other modalities.

So, the principal entities, working from left to right, are the scene through to the cell. With, for example, a frame being made up of a number of layers (parent-child) and a layer belonging to some particular frequency band (property).

We suppose consciousness to be divided into frames, with each frame lasting for the order of a second.

Using a metaphor from the cinema, frames are grouped into takes and takes are grouped into scenes. Very roughly speaking, the subject is in one place, in one situation for the duration of a scene. A take is an incident in, some chunk of that scene. While a frame is some usually short period of time during which the subject keeps some particular object in focus. There is an object of attention. Keeping an object in focus may well involve moving both head and eyes. Maybe even the body.

A scene carries a lot of baggage which may be good for all the frames in the scene. So if a scene involves a polar bear, it may be appropriate for the compiler to load up information from memory about polar bears. Similarly, a take carries a lot of baggage which may be good for all the frames in the take. While the boundaries of scenes and takes may at times seem a bit arbitrary, carrying baggage at both the scene and the take levels ought to make for efficiency savings.
Scenes, takes and scenes can be rather arbitrarily stopped by new input from either outside or from inside. Some new sensory input or some new (unconscious) computation.

Moving from time to space, frames are organised into layers, perhaps up to twenty of them, each corresponding to a frequency band of the oscillations of the activity of the underlying neurons.

Layers are mostly fixed, but some of them have velocity, usually a uniform speed and direction for the duration of the frame, but we also allow rotations and predictions of change more generally.

Using an analogy from the theatre, we might have an actor moving across a painted background – with either the actor or the background being the object of attention. The way this diagram has been drawn excludes there being two such objects. The object of attention will often have no velocity (in the sense that the word is being used here) and, other things being equal, less detail is available for objects on layers which have velocity than on those which do not.

The original idea was that frames were fixed. They were built by a compiler and then were more or less fixed for the duration. However, this did not seem altogether satisfactory and we are now allowing velocity because there is tension between the notion that a frame lasts for around a second and the fact that an object of interest may traverse a good chunk of the visual field in that sort of time. We allow for this fact to the extent that we can predict and display it. Translations easiest, rotations harder and other predictions could be tricky, though possible. With one example of this last being the back and forth movements of arms and legs in the context of what is mainly a translation, a person walking along the street.

The predicted frame getting out of step with the real world might be one reason for starting a new frame.

It is important to note that the brain is doing a lot of processing in real time with limited resources, which means that there is also tension between getting movement into the subjective experience and getting structure. What we actually get will be a compromise.

We will probably allow layers which have been deactivated, which do not contribute to consciousness, to the subjective experience, at the time in question, but that is not included in this diagram.

A layer will contain layer objects and layer objects are organised into contiguous groups of elements, with all the elements in a part taking the same pattern and all the parts in a layer object taking different patterns – it being the pattern which defines the part. Layer objects will be separated one from another by empty space, space where there is at most noise, certainly not elements with patterns. A layer object might correspond to something out in the real world, out in the field of vision, like a polar bear, with the parts of the layer object corresponding to the larger parts of the bear, but it might also correspond to something in some other modality than vision or something rather more abstract altogether.

An element is an instance of a pattern - but it is by no means true that all instances of a pattern are the same. We might, for example, have a pattern for colour which varies in hue across a part. We might think of a pattern as a box of some particular shape, with stuff inside – very much the stuff of reference 2.

We will probably allow colour patterns which are invisible, which hold things together but which do not figure in the visual experience. Probably also layers which are transparent – the alpha channel of people who make movies, possibly invented at reference 3.

We will allow links between parts on adjacent layers, but that is not included in this diagram. As a result of which, patterns function a bit like local identifiers, working with location to bind the various bits of an object in consciousness together. We suppose that we have enough different patterns to do this.

Cells are arranged in a two dimensional array, millions of them altogether, with each cell mapping onto a location on the underlying bit of cortical sheet, a location which we suppose to contain tens, if not hundreds, of neurons. An element is then made up of a number of contiguous cells,

The value of a cell is a non-negative integer, perhaps not more than 10 or so, describing the amplitude of the oscillations of the activity of the neurons underlying that cell at the frequency band and during the interval of time in question.

The frame is brought to life by high frequency oscillations of activation scanning its structure.
Our hypothesis is that consciousness amounts to the combination of the low frequency oscillations defining the data and the high frequency oscillations scanning that data.

Further work

We are working on an alternative way of defining patterns to that described at reference 2. The rectangles with soft centres which we have been talking about so far hold a lot of data, which is good, but do not like being moved very much and do not seem to sit too well with neural nets, which is bad.

We are working on what exactly it means to be scanning a moving structure, that is to say scanning a part of a layer object in a layer with non-zero velocity.

But the next post in this new series has the working title ‘In praise of the homunculus’.

References

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/a-new-start.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/soft-centred-patterns.html.

Reference 3: Compositing Digital Images - Thomas Porter, Tom Duff – 1984.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_aftereffect.

Reference 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNhcpOIQCNs.

Reference 6: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/its-chips-life.html.

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