Le Rideau

Lyrics

[Intro]Little neuron.Axon hillock.I can see you firing in the dark.A little spark.A whisper of potassium.The machinery is so quiet tonight.[Verse 1]I can map the whole production.The easy problems, they call them.This wave of depolarization,two millimeters a minute.The elegant trace on the EEG screen.I can read the script, every line,every chemical cue, every synapse.I know the name of every stagehand,every pulley, every wire.The whole beautiful, intricate, predictable clockworkbehind the velvet.[Chorus]But then the curtain rises.Le rideau.And there's a feeling.There is a *show*.Not just the light, but the seeing.Not just the wavelength, but the red.Why is there a performance at all?Why isn't it all just gears turning,silently,in the dark?[Verse 2]We built a room for Mary.Black and white. Nineteen eighty-two.She learned it all from a monitor.The physics of scarlet, the mechanics of crimson.She could write you a book on the apple's reflection,on the cone cells,on the signal's path from retina to cortex.She knew everything there was to know.The complete and total physical facts.All the knowledge in the world,printed out in monochrome.[Chorus]But then the curtain rises.Le rideau.And there's a feeling.There is a *show*.Not just the light, but the seeing.Not just the wavelength, but the red.Why is there a performance at all?Why isn't it all just gears turning,silently,in the dark?[Bridge]David Chalmers asked in ninety-four,standing in a lecture hall in Tucson.He gave the ghost a name.The Hard Problem.This unbridgeable gap.This thin, impossible fabric between the pulse and the pain.Between the math and the music.I am the audience.I am the stage.And I live my whole lifein the space between.[Outro]The curtain doesn't fall.It just hangs there.The show goes on.Little neuron...What is it like......to be you?