She doesn't dance unless her inhibitions are null.
He knows that.
She doesn't give in to his persistence unless her inhibitions are lowered.
He knows that.
She wouldn't have said yes without the tequila.
He KNEW that.
She wouldn't resent him if it weren't for the tequila.
He's clueless.
Heartless.
Worthless.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Knowledge is scary
I had an interesting conversation with my brother while waiting for a delayed flight in the Minneapolis airport. I was on my way home from my parents' house after Christmas break and I called Mike to help pass the time during an extended layover.
We were talking about various aspects of Blu-ray players (cables, adapters, etc.) when I casually mentioned that he should add something to the list of things he doesn't know. In true Walker sibling fashion, we somehow (it took us 30 minutes to figure out how) segued that into a conversation about human knowledge and and the quest thereof (not sure that's the right way to end that sentence).
We started out talking about whether the number of things possible to know is constantly in flux, or is a finite number. Taking into account names of individuals on the planet and those of newly developed species, we decided that the number is most likely increasing, albeit slowly. Considering that there are people dying and species going extinct every day, the steady population growth is somewhat off-set. I'll spare you the tedious details of how we came to this conclusion, but I assure you that it took us about 45 minutes of philosophical out-loud pondering to get to this point.
Somewhere along the line we discussed whether the information stored in our own heads is growing or decreasing in relation to the knowledge of humanity as a whole. It didn't take us long to decide that compared to the knowledge of the 6 billion+ people on the planet and all of our/their ancestors, the knowledge of one person is minuscule. There in an exceedingly small number of people in the history of people who have made significant enough contributions to the human know-how to earn a place in history. We don't know anything that someone before us hasn't figured out already; we're just intellectual leaches.
As we were getting closer and closer to our final thesis, I started noticing that people in the gate-area had started to take notice of my conversation. Some were rolling their eyes and moving away in an attempt to get away from my side of the conversation, and others were attempting to inconspicuously move closer and listen in. After all, it's not too often that one gets to overhear a 20-something who looks barely of the legal driving age having such an intense and intellectually charged conversation.
We were talking about various aspects of Blu-ray players (cables, adapters, etc.) when I casually mentioned that he should add something to the list of things he doesn't know. In true Walker sibling fashion, we somehow (it took us 30 minutes to figure out how) segued that into a conversation about human knowledge and and the quest thereof (not sure that's the right way to end that sentence).
We started out talking about whether the number of things possible to know is constantly in flux, or is a finite number. Taking into account names of individuals on the planet and those of newly developed species, we decided that the number is most likely increasing, albeit slowly. Considering that there are people dying and species going extinct every day, the steady population growth is somewhat off-set. I'll spare you the tedious details of how we came to this conclusion, but I assure you that it took us about 45 minutes of philosophical out-loud pondering to get to this point.
Somewhere along the line we discussed whether the information stored in our own heads is growing or decreasing in relation to the knowledge of humanity as a whole. It didn't take us long to decide that compared to the knowledge of the 6 billion+ people on the planet and all of our/their ancestors, the knowledge of one person is minuscule. There in an exceedingly small number of people in the history of people who have made significant enough contributions to the human know-how to earn a place in history. We don't know anything that someone before us hasn't figured out already; we're just intellectual leaches.
As we were getting closer and closer to our final thesis, I started noticing that people in the gate-area had started to take notice of my conversation. Some were rolling their eyes and moving away in an attempt to get away from my side of the conversation, and others were attempting to inconspicuously move closer and listen in. After all, it's not too often that one gets to overhear a 20-something who looks barely of the legal driving age having such an intense and intellectually charged conversation.
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