The ancient Celtic people had a folktale about a fly. It went like this:
The first fly was created by the first god from a fragment of cloud and a half-pebble, and as she moulded its tiny frame in her hands she put her breath on it and gave it life.
The little fly became aware and asked: "What should I do?"
Here is another story, about another fly:
By Dav92ide - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45094469
The spider of Asking and Checking will first spin a single thread connecting two points. This thread is the question: "What is it?" After a few maneuvers , the spider has built a simple pyramid shape, which is basically this:
These are the most basic questions we use to understand anything. Our brains divide information up according to these categories even before we have learnt our native language well enough to articulate these concepts:
What is it? An object I can touch.
Which object? Here. Now.
What kind of object? Soft and warm.
What is soft and warm? It is a good thing.
What is a good thing? Food is a good thing.
Is this object then food? I will check...
It is here that we begin to trap information in our own mental webs. This continues (hopefully, with a certain amount of increased sophistication) until we die:
What is life? A gift from God. Which God? The one true God. What kind of God is it? Good and kind. Except when you are bad, then angry and wrathful and murderous and forgiving. Oh, and split into 3 parts, maybe. I have some more questions....
And so.....What? Which? What kind of ? are built upon with Who? When? Where? Whose? Why? and How? as the most basic and strongest threads. These are interwoven with the checking questions: Is it ...? Is it like ? For example? allowing us to get a good strong fix on any information.
And so our web of understanding takes shape:
The human animal has the ability to ask and check beyond those of others. This ability, allied with a superior ability to describe and explain, have allowed us to get where we are today, with all the wonders of The Magic Box, The Magic Footprints and of course, The Magic Web.
Basically then, the more questions we ask, with checking a vital part, the clearer our idea:
What is this? A place.
Which place? Our country.
What kind of country? A kingdom.
So we have a King? No, we have a Queen.
Oh, why do we have a Queen? No kings were available.
So Kings are better than Queens? Technically, yes.
Why? It's tradition.
Is tradition a good thing? Yes.
Always? No.
How do you know when it is good or not? That is a good question.
Are you going to answer it? No.
Why not? Well, basically because human beings have the capacity to communicate less well than they are capable of. It is a unique trait akin to tigers hunting less well, fish swimming less well, and Gilbert's potoroos potterooing less well.
But communicating less well must offer some kind of advantage? Yes.
It helps keep the powerful in place, doesn't it? Yes.
It keeps everyone in their place, doesn't it? Yes, it keeps dreams in suspension.
I'd like to become a professional footballer, how about my dream? Well, it's time for bed, you can dream all you want when you are asleep, Prince George, but not when you are awake.
Why not? It's tradition.
Over(and under, and around) all, we understand things when we can connect information to an idea. As a result, one person's understanding of something may be entirely different for another. The only way we can understand better is to attempt to get more or better information in order to have more or a better idea.
However, our basic animal operating system plugs in information automatically to sockets that radiate ideas of pure emotion. Thus we can understand things on a purely emotional level. In the magic sorting house of the human soul every type of mail goes into the bins marked "good" and "bad", and "don't care" flung there by chimpanzees wearing little postal hats who are, at the same time, watching football, eating crisps, drinking beer, thinking about sex and masturbating. And all the while there are never any dead letters.
If the same kind of mail constantly gets thrown into the "good" bin, then it will become securely fixed in that part of the web of understanding. It will take asking and checking to consider whether the mail really is good, or whether it should be considered "bad" or maybe: "sometimes good" or "good in this context" or "good only when flying a helicoptor" or an infinite amount of other possibilities.
To consider things in that way requires the human postal workers of our brain to grab the mail from the chimps and consider other possibilities. The chimps will always be waiting to grab it back and they will be actively tugging at our sleaves, and themselves, to try and get us to watch the football and think about sex. The little monkeys.
Human history shows us that any improvement in our lives is a direct result of better communication. But we should understand that The Post Office of the Apes, is the place where we all basically live, and that establishment is a madhouse, a madhouse! Any attempt to crate a new drawer will be met by trepedation, and any attempt to open a new door to see outside will elicit outright fear; and that's just from ourselves. We also have to deal with other human beings manipulating those basic feelings to convince people that they won't like what they might find in the Forbidden Zone.
And sometimes they are right.
Ayn Rand wasn't a chimpanzee**, but tried to convince people that everything would be better if only we could understand that A is A and can never be anything else. But as communication always works as Information -------> Idea, where any information can be connected to any idea, then A can be A, but it can also be B or C or a Gilbert's potoroo, or An Alan Greenspan Floral Tribute.
A madhouse, a madhouse!
We construct our own webs of understanding, but we do require help. To do everything ourselves from scratch is too much for any single person. In fact, our lives are most profitably played out in cooperation with others. For a lot of connections have been made, and found to be very practical, long before we were ever summoned into existence.
Often, it can be easier just to wear other people's ideas, because they often are soft and warm. But is it always a good idea?
What is a good idea? One good idea is that we always have the ability to cast these hundred-hand clothes off and make our own. It' s just that you will have to wrestle a chimpanzee in order to so .
And those things can take your face off.
* Unless you are reading this on a different planet.
** Or was, she? Terry Pratchett and Jared diamond may have some different ideas.
The first fly was created by the first god from a fragment of cloud and a half-pebble, and as she moulded its tiny frame in her hands she put her breath on it and gave it life.
The little fly became aware and asked: "What should I do?"
The first god said: "You are tasked with touching everything. Take wing and fly everywhere and unto everything. Love all, and appreciate that joy and wonder resides both in the look of a princess and the ordure of pigs, in the opening of a flower and the closing of the grave. And most importantly, you must fly true and honest and never lie."
The fly became the happiest and most honest little creature that ever there was. It served creation's purpose with great pride and strove with all its airy might to connect and venerate all things.
One day, the fly met a creature and stopped in wonder. The fly could not express the image it saw, so it asked: "What are you?"
The creature replied : " I follow and never tire, so they call me dogged."
"I see," said the fly, you will make a good companion, go to that man for he has need of you."
"Thank you!" said, the creature and swiftly ran off as fast as his four legs could carry him.
Later, the fly encountered a large unhappy animal sat on a rock. "Whatever is the matter?" Asked the fly.
"I am sorrowful for I crave the honey yet the bees sting me painfully."
"Well then," said the fly, you must understand that there is no real reward without enduring, and that is why your sorrows you must bear.
"I understand," said the animal and ambled away.
One day, as the sun went down, the fly chanced upon a new creation. Looking upon this new thing with awe, it asked:"And what are you?"
The reply came: "I don't know, I know no other creature and have never talked with another before! How glorious it is to connect! But, hold fast..., for that matter, what are you?
"I? I am the start of everything, I bring life out of dead things, I love all. But I have never been given a name either!"
"Well then," said the newcomer, "pehaps we should call you fly, for that is what you do!"
"That seems fair," replied the fly, "so what do you do?"
"I take the finest silk and spin it to make resting places for others"
The little fly clapped its hands with joy and said: "how beautiful! And how lovely to spend your time to labour for the benefit of others! We must call you spinner, for that is what you do!"
"Why yes," said the other. "That's exactly what I do. You look tired, why don't you come in and rest?"
"Why, thank you very much!" the fly said, and it gleefully flew forward. And then suddenly stopped in one place, violently shivered for a short time, and then moved no more.
Here is another story, about another fly:
The Information Fly. Chocks away!
There is nothing in the realm of existence or in the realm of the imagination that is not, basically, information. Your heart (either physical or emotional), your environment with its friends and foes alike, and your most secret thoughts, and especially those thoughts that are secret even to you, they are all information.
All of this information is usually moving about; our planet* moving through space at about 107 thousand kilometers per hour, our brain sending signals to our hands, the most mundane of our thoughts nowadays being treated like royalty as they whisked straight through to everywhere.
Now and again, sooner or later, information will settle and move no more as it becomes stuck to the various strands of the web of understanding. This web is spun by the The spider of Asking and Checking. (Belus Lugosius).
This spider spins his web in the standard arachnid way:
There is nothing in the realm of existence or in the realm of the imagination that is not, basically, information. Your heart (either physical or emotional), your environment with its friends and foes alike, and your most secret thoughts, and especially those thoughts that are secret even to you, they are all information.
All of this information is usually moving about; our planet* moving through space at about 107 thousand kilometers per hour, our brain sending signals to our hands, the most mundane of our thoughts nowadays being treated like royalty as they whisked straight through to everywhere.
Now and again, sooner or later, information will settle and move no more as it becomes stuck to the various strands of the web of understanding. This web is spun by the The spider of Asking and Checking. (Belus Lugosius).
This spider spins his web in the standard arachnid way:
The spider of Asking and Checking will first spin a single thread connecting two points. This thread is the question: "What is it?" After a few maneuvers , the spider has built a simple pyramid shape, which is basically this:
These are the most basic questions we use to understand anything. Our brains divide information up according to these categories even before we have learnt our native language well enough to articulate these concepts:
What is it? An object I can touch.
Which object? Here. Now.
What kind of object? Soft and warm.
What is soft and warm? It is a good thing.
What is a good thing? Food is a good thing.
Is this object then food? I will check...
It is here that we begin to trap information in our own mental webs. This continues (hopefully, with a certain amount of increased sophistication) until we die:
What is life? A gift from God. Which God? The one true God. What kind of God is it? Good and kind. Except when you are bad, then angry and wrathful and murderous and forgiving. Oh, and split into 3 parts, maybe. I have some more questions....
And so.....What? Which? What kind of ? are built upon with Who? When? Where? Whose? Why? and How? as the most basic and strongest threads. These are interwoven with the checking questions: Is it ...? Is it like ? For example? allowing us to get a good strong fix on any information.
And so our web of understanding takes shape:
The human animal has the ability to ask and check beyond those of others. This ability, allied with a superior ability to describe and explain, have allowed us to get where we are today, with all the wonders of The Magic Box, The Magic Footprints and of course, The Magic Web.
Basically then, the more questions we ask, with checking a vital part, the clearer our idea:
What is this? A place.
Which place? Our country.
What kind of country? A kingdom.
So we have a King? No, we have a Queen.
Oh, why do we have a Queen? No kings were available.
So Kings are better than Queens? Technically, yes.
Why? It's tradition.
Is tradition a good thing? Yes.
Always? No.
How do you know when it is good or not? That is a good question.
Are you going to answer it? No.
Why not? Well, basically because human beings have the capacity to communicate less well than they are capable of. It is a unique trait akin to tigers hunting less well, fish swimming less well, and Gilbert's potoroos potterooing less well.
But communicating less well must offer some kind of advantage? Yes.
It helps keep the powerful in place, doesn't it? Yes.
It keeps everyone in their place, doesn't it? Yes, it keeps dreams in suspension.
I'd like to become a professional footballer, how about my dream? Well, it's time for bed, you can dream all you want when you are asleep, Prince George, but not when you are awake.
Why not? It's tradition.
Over(and under, and around) all, we understand things when we can connect information to an idea. As a result, one person's understanding of something may be entirely different for another. The only way we can understand better is to attempt to get more or better information in order to have more or a better idea.
However, our basic animal operating system plugs in information automatically to sockets that radiate ideas of pure emotion. Thus we can understand things on a purely emotional level. In the magic sorting house of the human soul every type of mail goes into the bins marked "good" and "bad", and "don't care" flung there by chimpanzees wearing little postal hats who are, at the same time, watching football, eating crisps, drinking beer, thinking about sex and masturbating. And all the while there are never any dead letters.
If the same kind of mail constantly gets thrown into the "good" bin, then it will become securely fixed in that part of the web of understanding. It will take asking and checking to consider whether the mail really is good, or whether it should be considered "bad" or maybe: "sometimes good" or "good in this context" or "good only when flying a helicoptor" or an infinite amount of other possibilities.
To consider things in that way requires the human postal workers of our brain to grab the mail from the chimps and consider other possibilities. The chimps will always be waiting to grab it back and they will be actively tugging at our sleaves, and themselves, to try and get us to watch the football and think about sex. The little monkeys.
Human history shows us that any improvement in our lives is a direct result of better communication. But we should understand that The Post Office of the Apes, is the place where we all basically live, and that establishment is a madhouse, a madhouse! Any attempt to crate a new drawer will be met by trepedation, and any attempt to open a new door to see outside will elicit outright fear; and that's just from ourselves. We also have to deal with other human beings manipulating those basic feelings to convince people that they won't like what they might find in the Forbidden Zone.
And sometimes they are right.
Ayn Rand wasn't a chimpanzee**, but tried to convince people that everything would be better if only we could understand that A is A and can never be anything else. But as communication always works as Information -------> Idea, where any information can be connected to any idea, then A can be A, but it can also be B or C or a Gilbert's potoroo, or An Alan Greenspan Floral Tribute.
A madhouse, a madhouse!
We construct our own webs of understanding, but we do require help. To do everything ourselves from scratch is too much for any single person. In fact, our lives are most profitably played out in cooperation with others. For a lot of connections have been made, and found to be very practical, long before we were ever summoned into existence.
Often, it can be easier just to wear other people's ideas, because they often are soft and warm. But is it always a good idea?
What is a good idea? One good idea is that we always have the ability to cast these hundred-hand clothes off and make our own. It' s just that you will have to wrestle a chimpanzee in order to so .
And those things can take your face off.
* Unless you are reading this on a different planet.
** Or was, she? Terry Pratchett and Jared diamond may have some different ideas.
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