Two other things spring to mind while I'm here. One is the quality of responsiveness. When reality changes from becoming an inanimate machine working out its cause and effect computations, to becoming something responsive, that communicates with you, plays with you, assumes new guises. The Internet is interesting in this respect, because it often gives people this sensation, in various different ways. I think with the Internet there is always an ambiguity over whether it is God or the Antichrist. Alive or a devious simulation of life.
For me this sense of responsiveness is not ever present, but I only feel half alive in the periods of my life when it's not there.
The other thing is the sense of narrative and I think this is what people mean by initiation. The sense of being inducted into a series of ever grater mysteries. This can have an addictive quality and so be quite dangerous. Always wanting the next thing.
