Song 24 of 26 - See No Future

The twenty-fourth of the 26 songs is called "See No Future". Scroll down below the following video for the lyrics and a brief discussion of how this song ties into the project. A blog post which lists all 26 songs, including 1 video for each song can be found by clicking here.



A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69pUzwSONBc

I've proposed here that life can be defined as any process that becomes interested in "what happens next" - that would be true for the very first chemical processes on our planet that developed strategies for their own continuance and propagation, and could easily apply to other organized patterns of energy and matter elsewhere within the multiverse. With this project, we have also expanded that idea to include systems of memes that follow the sequential frames of a fourth-dimensional line being selected from a fifth-dimensional probability space: all that is required is a "chain of attention", a quantum observer in (as physicist John Wheeler liked to call it) a "self-excited circuit", observing one timeline or another out of Everett's Many Worlds. By allowing for this possibility, we have opened the door to there being voices of "god and conscience, ghosts and ancestors" which could also possibly be part of the nature of reality: and we have suggested that this fits nicely with the Julian Jaynes concept of an integrated state of mind being until relatively recently the normal mode of operation for humans, which may be the way in which those voices were once a part of the day-to-day human experience.

Thinking in terms of these really-big-picture ways of imagining reality, and the information that is our reality, shows us how within the timeless multiverse that our universe springs from there are shapes and patterns that reveal how our reality is constructed, and places within that multiverse of all possibilities where certain shapes and patterns start and end. There is a very large pattern representing our universe from its possible beginnings to its possible endings, but that pattern is still a tiny subset of the multiverse. There is a pattern that is a subset of our universe that represents the genes flowing from a "river out of Eden" that create all human beings, just as there is a connected web of ideas and ways of looking at the world that can be thought of as the memes that contribute to human consciousness.

And within that pattern there is another tiny subset, representing the set of genes and memes that make a particular person. Those patterns are connected together across time and geography, back to the first spark of life and out to the end of the human race. With ideas like Kurzweil's approaching Singularity, or the Mayan Calendar's predicted acceleration of time and consciousness, we can entertain the hope that the memes that make up a human being (or all human beings) may find a way to continue, and this idea relates very nicely to the discussions about the nature of consciousness and what carries on when a person dies that Douglas Hofstadter eloquently explores in "I Am a Strange Loop".

So even though the genes and memes that make a human being's body and consciousness are part of patterns that extend across eons and around the world, and the memes can be thought of as extending out to basic patterns for preferring one outcome over another that extend right out to the multiverse of possible universes, at the other end of the scale there is a particular human body, which is yet another even smaller subset of all these patterns and shapes in the information that is reality.

In the animation, I suggest we think of our bodies in the four-dimension as a long undulating snake, connecting our conceived self at one end to our deceased self at the other. In my book, I blend Marvin Minsky's idea of "Society of Mind" with the Richard Dawkins idea of memes to suggest that what we think of as a "soul" is a complex interaction of different memes that rise and fall over time, and in that sense your (or my) soul is not the same as it was twenty years ago, because we are always taking on new memes and discarding old ones.

But this is not to say that the body is unimportant: there is still something unique about the experiences and meme-set/gene-set of any one of us that are carried along in a physical body, and as an organized pattern within the timeless multiverse each of us really are a unique subset of all that could be. Unfortunately though, there can come a time in people's lives where, because of old age, depression, disease, bad choices, or bad circumstance, they give up. That's what this song is about: if life is about "what happens next", then death is what happens when we "see no future".


SEE NO FUTURE
music and lyrics (c) by Rob Bryanton (SOCAN)

You see no future on the road that you’ve been travelin
You see no reason to continue any more
Still you keep on keepin on
Cause it’s the way you’ve always gone
Won’t you tell me what the hell you do it for

Now if there’s one thing I can say – it’s you’re consistent
And you’re persistent to a fault, sure, some’d say
Are you stubborn or just dumb?
Why don’t you try to find someone
Who will help to turn you round the other way
When you see no future

No tomorrows
Just todays
Is that the way you wanna stay?
No wishes
No dreams
Can’t you find another way?

I wish some happiness could join you on your journey
I hope that fortune finally finds you on your way
But tell me how will you ever win
When that big wheel that you’re in
Has you runnin the same circle every day
You see no future

No tomorrows....

You see no future on the road that you’ve been travelin
You see no reason to continue any more
Still you keep on keepin on
Cause it’s the way you’ve always gone
Won’t you tell me what the hell you do it for
When you see no future
When you see no future
When you see no future
When you see no

EDIT - here are those lyrics written out again with chords
SEE NO FUTURE
music and lyrics (c) by Rob Bryanton (SOCAN)

B (open, no third)
B (open)
You see no
E (add 9)
future on the road that you’ve been
B/D#
travelin --- You see no
E (add 9)
reason to continue any
F#sus F#
more --- Still you
B -- B/D# -- E
keep on keepin on Cause it’s the
B -- B/D# -- E
way you’ve always gone Won’t you
B -- B/D# -- E
tell me what the hell you do it
F#sus F#
for ---- Now if there’s

A (add 9)
one thing I can say – it’s you’re con
E/G#
sistent --- And you’re per
A (add 9)
sistent to a fault, sure, some’d
Bsus B
say --- Are you
E -- E/G# -- A
stubborn or just dumb? Why don’t you
E -- A/G# -- A
try to find someone --- Who will
E -- E/G# -- A
help to turn you round the other
Bsus B
way --- When you see no
A (open 9)
future


A (open 9)
--- No tomorrows
G
--- Just todays
G/F
--- Is that the way you wanna
C#m7
stay?
A(open 9)
--- No wishes
G
--- No dreams
F/G
---- Can’t you find another
Asus A
way? --- I wish some

E
happiness could join you on your
B/D#
journey --- I hope that
E
fortune finally finds you on your
F#sus F#
way --- But tell me
B -- B/D# -- E
how will you ever win --- When that
B -- B/D# -- E
big wheel that you’re in --- Has you
B -- B/D# -- E
runnin the same circle every
F#sus F#
day --- You see no
B
future

No tomorrows....

You see no future...


....When you see no
A
future --- When you see no
E
future --- When you see no
A
future --- When you see no

(silent pause, then: B)

Next song: 25 of 26 - What I Feel For You