Sunday School

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg,

Crow T. Robot repeatedly tried to posit what it would be like if Rocky from the Fugitive Alien movie franchise were Rocky The Flying Squirrel. It did not result in result in interspecies/intersapient understanding and empathy on the part of Joel Robinson.

Now, to be clear, no one should be bent out of shape over unanswerable questions about identity, but such imponderables would get exhausting if you did it with each gamete carrier of every species two-by-two.
⛴️ 🧙‍♂️

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Joke,

I sometimes say “only this, nothing more” when i go through a drive through for coffee or whatever. I think only once, maybe twice, has the response been drive right up or some affirmation of understanding. It’s “anything else sir?”

So, what’d they say? “OK, Poe! Move it on up!” 🐦‍⬛ 😁

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Joke,

I sometimes say “only this, nothing more” when i go through a drive through for coffee or whatever. I think only once, maybe twice, has the response been drive right up or some affirmation of understanding. It’s “anything else sir?”

So, what’d they say? “OK, Poe! Move it on up!” 🐦‍⬛ 😁

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Fellow Unbelievers,

Sorry, I didn’t mean to repeat myself.

[UnseenParticipant]

What’s it like being an octopus, having a brain like you and me but also another brain in each of its eight arms?

And what about squirrels, who are incredibly resourceful and capable of acrobatics that make cats and monkeys stare in abject wonder.

And what about prairie dogs, the only animals science knows of who have an actual language they use to convey information among themselves.

Your dog may bark to tell you there’s a potential threat outside. Your cat may jump on your head in the morning to tell you it’s time to get up, but a prairie dog can tell his associates, “I see a coyote” in a way that’s different from “I see a hawk” in a way that’s different from “I see a man.” They can alert their associates of many other things as well, as you’ll see.

 

 

[jakelafortParticipant]

Just dawned on me, Enco, your comment using poe. You mean to say i assume po, the tagalog word to show respect to an elder or friend? Yea well not too many Filipinos in service work in my area. A few at Costco and that is about all i have observed.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

But recall the discussion of Thomas Nagel’s “What Is It Like Being A Bat?” In his What Does It All Mean?. You can’t just observe or infer what is like to be a bat. You have to be a bat being a bat to know for sure. But since you can’t communicate as a bat what it’s like being a bat to a human, the question is unanswerable. Ditto with octopi, squirrels, cats, monkeys, prairie dogs, etc. It’s even more unanswerable and senseless considering that later in the book, Nagel takes a Subjectivist, Solipsist position on human consciousness and reality.

I suspect Nagel just threw this all together to “publish or perish” as the old saw in Academia goes.

• This reply was modified 5 months, 2 weeks ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Added comma, not trying to figure out what it's like to be one

[UnseenParticipant]

@Enco

I don’t know what it’s like to be you and vice versa. Sometimes, I don’t even know what it’s like to be me.

At the same time, I do wonder what it feels like to be this or that animal. I know my cat about as well as I know any person and sometimes I think we understand each other, sometimes we obviously don’t.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Jake,

I meant to use the name Poe, the author of “The Raven.”. I was imagining the words coming from a cynical, frazzled English Major student working in the drive-thru trying to hurry things along.

I would, however, use the term “Po” if I spoke Tagalog,

[jakelafortParticipant]

Enco, how did that never occur to me? Go, go, go read Poe.

Loved his short stories as a kid. And a few of his poems like the one with Anabelle Lee if memory serves and it is better than the drive-through.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Jake,

Enco, how did that never occur to me? Go, go, go read Poe.

Didn’t occur to you? Surely you jest! (And no, I’m not calling you Shirley.😁)

Loved his short stories as a kid. And a few of his poems like the one with Anabelle Lee if memory serves and it is better than the drive-through.

I read them in Elementary School and also watched movies versions of the Tales of Poe with Vincent Price, Boris Carloff, Bela Lugosi, Peter Lorre and others. The movies weren’t loyal to the story lines and sometimes combined stories, but were still fascinating.

I hope in retrospect it wasn’t an unhealthy preoccupation for a young kid, though the ending of “The Pit and the Pendulum” was a happy one, for Atheists and for all throughout the ages who could have fallen prey to The Inquisition.

[UnseenParticipant]

Speaking of Poe, he is a total one-off, no other poet coming close to being even vaguely like him. For me, much as I love The Raven and Annabel Lee, my favorite poem by Poe is “Alone” (his quotes, and the only time he framed a poem’s title in them). It’s unlike his other poems in terms of being so deeply reflective.

“Alone”

From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone—
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that ’round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by—
From the thunder, and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view—

There is a nursery rhyme that carries with it a similar mood of dread. It’s called…

There Was A Man Of Double Deed

There was a man of double deed,
Who sowed his garden full of seed;
When the seed began to grow,
‘Twas like a garden full of snow;
When the snow began to melt,
‘Twas like a ship without a belt;
When the ship began to sail,
‘Twas like a bird without a tail;
When the bird began to fly,
‘Twas like an eagle in the sky;
When the sky began to roar,
‘Twas like a lion at my door;
When my door began to crack,
‘Twas like a stick across my back;
When my back began to smart,
‘Twas like a penknife in my heart;
And when my heart began to bleed,
‘Twas death, and death, and death indeed

[_Robert_Participant]

I heard Trump laid a wreath at the tomb of the unknown bone spur and then was talking-up his military-style birthday parade.  Us tax-payers are gonna gift that diaper-wearing, shit-stain of a draft dodger a dictator’s parade. Thanks to all the right-wingers for being so generous with the deficit!

[_Robert_Participant]

Just another right wing christian who uses religion as an identity and gets taken down hard. Exhibit A: JP, the anti-woke savior of young American boys. You wanna talk about identity politics? This is the bulk of it, right here. Prayer sessions in the white house that has become a church. The hypocrisy is up to their noses.

https://youtube.com/shorts/LD6HAGNfLVM?si=L9nrv7pZIozMP32s

[_Robert_Participant]

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