PHILOSOPHY and other bs to ponder

[Frieda]

this is the thread in which we ponder everything in the universe-- from the biggest BS subjects to the meaning of life as we know it


stick to the subject please
try and ventilate something using proper expressions of an opinion like "i think", or "i believe"
explain your opinion
don't go ad hominem

[Frieda]

i will start-- just with something weird that i came up with at work because it was so fwking boring today


do you think that ever since this planet was created, in an intelligent or semi-intelligent society, it was popular belief that people and animals are filled with hair? especially our heads, since the hair must come from somewhere??

[YsaPur EsChomuw]

i think, in an intelligent or semi-intelligent society, where people were busy killing or eating each other, they pretty soon found out what people are really made of.

[MoJoRiSin]

http://library.uwsp.edu/aschmetz/Rheinhold's_Monkey/images/Stevens_Point/monkey1.jpg

[Frieda]

follow the rules mojo, or i'll have to replace your posts with david hasselhoff.

[Frieda]

i think, in an intelligent or semi-intelligent society, where people were busy killing or eating each other, they pretty soon found out what people are really made of.

do you think it's possible that they saw brain matter that appeared when they killed each other as a rolled up ball of hair? like yarn? :confused:

[YsaPur EsChomuw]

do you that they saw brain matter that appeared when they killed each other as a rolled up ball of hair? like yarn? :confused:

i think it's possible, if it was very dark. But not for long. Brain is not fuzzy, and to get to it, they first had to overcome an obstacle - the skull - which is not hairy at all.

[lukkucairi]

do you think it's possible that they saw brain matter that appeared when they killed each other as a rolled up ball of hair? like yarn? :confused:

i believe that i read somewhere once that they thought the brain was for storing phlegm...

no idea where hair comes from :)

maybe the hair fairy?

[YsaPur EsChomuw]

i think it is possible that in some intelligent or semi-intelligent society, it could have been a popular belief that if you eat a lot of parsley the hair(y) fairy will make you hairy.

[Frieda]

does the hair fairy make bald men rich if they leave their carpet under the pillow?
well maybe it's best to save that one's pondering for another day.



so, those people in an intelligent or semi-intelligent society, where would they have thought that hair comes from?

[YsaPur EsChomuw]

i think they might have believed hair comes from gaining wisdom. When a baby is born it doesn't have much hair, but gradually there's more of it. (Similarly with the theeth cf. wisdom tooth). Then again, when they get very old, they lose their hair/teeth/wits.

[lukkucairi]

I would disagree, because bald men are often wise - cf. Jean Luc Picard?

Frieds, could we add a rule to include statements of "I hypothesize" as well as "I think" and "I believe"?

I hypothesize that in some ancient semi-intelligent society, they thought that hair came from seeds sown in the scalp while the baby is in the womb.

the Romans thought that blackheads were little worms, I think, so hair-seeds? not so far fetched? and when you go bald, your ground is exhausted?

[Frieda]

sure lukku, the word "like" implies that other expressions of opinion are welcome too :)

i think picard was bald but riker had a beard in his later years and he was pretty smart too.

hair seeds, i think that's an interesting concept. i wonder what a woman had to eat in order to get a hairy baby? maybe it was indeed a status symbol, if having hair was a sign of gaining wisdom? maybe women munched on kiwis?

[Stephi_B]

I think it possible as (semi)intelligent societies have already come up with far stranger theories
(cp. Bible/Qur'an/etc, most theoretical physics books/articles....) of how and from what stuff -- including lifeforms -- is made.

:)

[brightpearl]

Hair is often associated with potency, sexuality...
ie Samson and Delilah story, and so many cultures where hair is either never cut, or must be covered up in modesty, or where head shaving is used as a mark of shame for prisoners etc.

I'm not sure what that says about its actual origins, but it seems related...Maybe gives a boost to that seed idea?

[Hyakujo's Fox]

do you think it's possible that they saw brain matter that appeared when they killed each other as a rolled up ball of hair? like yarn? :confused:

This may be the origin of the phrase "woolly thinking".

[monkeyknifightz]

Is it possible, that everything we think and 'know' about the person we love could be entirely wrong because we are teenagers and teenagers change more often than gas prices.

[Frieda]

here's another interesting one--

at the end of the day when you take off your socks these little dust clouds form, especially if you take them off fast. if you watch closely in the sunshine you can see little vortexes happening. it's pretty.

but, what is it made of??

aeolian sediment tracked from wherever? dried sweat? skin residue? all of these maybe?

:confused:

[YsaPur EsChomuw]

Oh, I think it is common street dust plus dried skin. And the vortex... might be a joyful dance in anticipation of dust reuniting with dust again.

[zero]

.. little dust clouds form ... little vortexes happening. it's pretty.

... what is it made of??
:confused:

prolly a form of kipple:


"kipple (http://www.haamu.com/kipple.html) - when nobody's around, kipple (http://www.haamu.com/kipple.html) reproduces itself. no one can win against kipple (http://www.haamu.com/kipple.html), except temporarily and maybe in one spot



^this i have found to be true

[MoJoRiSin]

I believe long ago you had to search through a lot of oyster to find one.
^that was befor culture

Now i think they can be man made.

[Frieda]

I believe long ago you had to search through a lot of oyster to find one.
^that was befor culture

Now i think they can be man made.
to find sock dust? in an oyster?? :confused:

[YsaPur EsChomuw]

but of course!

the best pearls used to be the result of sock dust

but, as you can see in mojito's post, that was before culture - that is, before the oyster learned to draw its tiny legs inwards... and since then, no more sock dust in an oyster, sadly ;)

[Frieda]

ah, thanks :)

i think this is pretty deep

[YsaPur EsChomuw]

yeah, the deepest bs I could come up with atm :rolleyes:

[lukkucairi]

Is it possible, that everything we think and 'know' about the person we love could be entirely wrong because we are teenagers and teenagers change more often than gas prices.

you're sounding rather tunesmithy here, monks - be careful ;)

[MoJoRiSin]

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[Frieda]

no, mo.

[Frieda]

let's ponder some more

if our smartass scientists find out that plants are sentient and are able to communicate with each other and feel pain

what would vegetarians eat? :confused:

[brightpearl]

Crow.

:)

[Coffee]

Well, assuming that other scientists hadn't already discovered that animals are also sentient and able to communicate...etc...they'd switch to a meat diet. But it would seem far fetched to imagine that plants could do all that and animals couldn't...so basically i'd think that the squeemish would die of either starvation or guilt i guess since that doesn't leave much to eat except dirt. Or I suppose one could eat "dead" plant or animal matter that died of natural causes (getting eaten is a natural cause of death fwiw...but ignore that for the sake of this premise) a "carrion" and "compost" diet...mmmMMmmm.

[YsaPur EsChomuw]

But from Terry Pratchett's books people know that one can communicate even with university walls, so inanimate objects are out of question, too.

Since the whole world is sentient and able to communicate and feel pain... to hell with it, let's just eat each other! :eek:

[monkeyknifightz]

But from Terry Pratchett's books people know that one can communicate even with university walls, so inanimate objects are out of question, too.

Since the whole world is sentient and able to communicate and feel pain... to hell with it, let's just eat each other! :eek:

Here here! I second this idea and move to vote on said subject.

All in favor of world wide cannibalism say I. All not in favor say Nay.


I

[brightpearl]

We could probably all feed on Paris Hilton's enormous ego for quite some time.

No one could argue that it's a sentient, souled entity.

[Frieda]

i'm actually serious about this one, as well as the sock dust one
i don't think all of you are taking it seriously

doesn't anybody else have these questions? :confused:


i mean, it's a serious question you know. i still don't know about vegetarianism. it's painful to eat an animal, but plants keep on living after you cut them off from their roots. you are actually eating them alive.

[brightpearl]

All right.
Well, I once heard someone say that when you look very carefully, you can see that every motion you make, every breath, every blink, has some effect on the universe. You can be careful not to hurt things as much as you can. You can swerve when a jackrabbit runs across the road. You can take care not to hurt people's feelings as well as you know how. But at many scales, both the very small and the very large, it gets much harder to see the implications of your presence in the universe. It gets impossible to predict or control. You can't stop wars alone, and you can't stop your immune system from murdering countless thousands of microbes every second. You are literally damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

And so, you "knowingly and willingly transgress," she said. You do your best, knowing that you can't avoid leaving footprints. And you accept that it's the way of things, and you love that.

Your question isn't academic, actually, even if plants have no sentience. Few vegetarians grow all their own food, carefully picking each bug off each plant through the growing season; they buy it in the store after it is grown and harvested commercially. Well, rabbits get caught in harvesters, mice get smothered in grain silos, and billions of insects are killed with natural pesticides even on organic produce. No food is really clean. Eating, life, includes death and there is no way around it.

So, I am vegetarian partly for humane reasons, but mostly for health reasons. I do really well on a vegetarian diet. I wouldn't kill an animal myself in order to feed me. But my son is not vegetarian, and I would kill an animal to feed him. So if it turns out that plants think and feel and write poetry, I guess I will go on like I do, and knowingly and willingly transgress as a part of the universe whether I like it or not.

[Hyakujo's Fox]

doesn't anybody else have these questions? :confused:

Sure, the Swiss do: http://www.ekah.admin.ch/fileadmin/ekah-dateien/dokumentation/publikationen/e-Broschure-Wurde-Pflanze-2008.pdf

But as to the question, the reason for being vegetarian would influence how a vegetarian might react, someone who was a vegetarian purely on the grounds it was better for their health might continue to eat plants, someone who was a vegetarian due to ethical grounds might revert to being an omnivore if they thought being vegetarian was no longer a higher ethical position. Or one might reach a position where one concluded it was not ethical to live at all, and maybe continue to be a vegetarian and feel bad for doing so.

[Frieda]

^yeah i was referring to the ethical vegetarians in our population. my apologies for not pointing that out more accurately.

i'm going to read that swiss thing now :)

[RuneT]

i mean, it's a serious question you know. i still don't know about vegetarianism. it's painful to eat an animal, but plants keep on living after you cut them off from their roots. you are actually eating them alive.

Yes. But it's an organism without a brain, merely just different parts doing different stuff.
Fruit fo instance, is made sweet so like it should be eaten and seeds are being spread in the poo.
A tree will kill off all its leaves before winter to conserve energy. Other plants die just to barely scrape by under the soil and then come back later.
Plants kill eachother when fighting for light, soil and water.

Eat your ****ing salad!


However I also find it somwhat disturbing to eat animals. Soon they will grow meat in labs. lab meat. yeah. mmm. free range lab meat is allowed to run around freely in the lab.
Before then, we should eat better quality meat (free range) and less of it. Make a feature of it. Stop eating crap meat products. And for god sake stop feading meat to animals. Drop burgers and dogs.

[YsaPur EsChomuw]

Why does one feel surpassing statisfaction after applying nail polish?

[Frieda]

i've been pondering ^ for ages now and still don't know

it could be a combination of feeling pretty, intense concentration and being content with the result??

[Brynn]

Could it be the dual satisfaction of executing a feat of dexterity combined with an aesthetic act of control over a small corner of the universe?