How can you be so sure flying wasn’t originally associated with winged insects?
See Sanjay this is why I can’t work with you man. You just made a critical mistake. What if we were paleontologists who were working together to write a anthropology book? Why would I want to work with a paleontologist who has the audacity to assert so matter-of-factly that flying was originally associated with birds and not winged insects, when he doesn’t know this to be true. What if the error didn’t get corrected in the editing and the book got published? I would forever be associated with that error and quite possibly my career would be ruined. Did you think of that.
That was a rhetorical question, Sanjay, because I don’t want you to answer. In fact I don’t even want to speak to you right now.
Well, it’s a bit of a word game, but I’ll weigh in on the no side. I can use an electron microscope - though it would take some serious lobbying - but it would be very strange for me to say
humans can see a molecule of benzene.
So yes, some of us, those with money can pay to ride in airplanes or use a glider,
but humans cannot fly.
(but really since the verb now includes the meanings where one moves through the air - generally without impacting the earth at death speeds as in falling from a building - then humans can fly and some do)
Zoot - How can you be so sure flying wasn’t originally associated with winged insects?
Sanjay - I do not see any difference between the flying of the birds and insects. It is not the issue of quantity but quality only.
Zoot -How can you be so sure flying wasn’t originally associated with winged insects?
See Sanjay this is why I can’t work with you man. You just made a critical mistake. What if we were paleontologists who were working together to write a anthropology book? Why would I want to work with a paleontologist who has the audacity to assert so matter-of-factly that flying was originally associated with birds and not winged insects, when he doesn’t know this to be true. What if the error didn’t get corrected in the editing and the book got published? I would forever be associated with that error and quite possibly my career would be ruined. Did you think of that.
That was a rhetorical question, Sanjay, because I don’t want you to answer. In fact I don’t even want to speak to you right now.
Sanjay - Zoot, I am not sure what made you so angry. You need to calm dawn a bit. I am not such a person who like to hurt or even mock others.
In normal speaking, I would not mind applying flying with humans but not here because we are trying to find out the real interpretation of flying, hence this discussion.
This somewhat reminds me of the topic of “higher” planes of existence… we have an ancient memory that taller is better, and what’s taller than flight, so we use these metaphors to convey the sense of grander, towards the goal. I’m starting to like the term “different densities of existence” better than higher planes of existence and flight metaphors more lately.
Zoot, you may not believe it but it actually pinky swear sort of thing to me. And, it is not an intentional effort from my side. I am just built that way since childhood. I find it difficult to hurt or insult people.
Though, over the years, I have been learned do discern between insult and logical discussion. Life taught me a very valuable lesson that one should never hesitate from voicing his objection to wrong things, even if his nears and dears would be doing so. If they feel angry or insulted by it, so be it.
Their actual welfare is more important than their opinion about me. That is how I define love.
I don’t know what you mean by fly “in letter”. What does that mean?
I sometimes have recurring dreams where I am flying and doing acrobatics high in the sky. When i have this dream I am also flying in another part of my brain. It’s really exhilarating, Some might say that it is me actually flying like an out-of-body experience but i don’t think so. But how could I know for sure? lol. Nah!
I’ve also been known to fly :mrgreen: when my energy level of inspiration and wonder has reached to the heights. It does feel in a sense like flying. I suppose it’s nature’s way of giving us wings of a different kind in order for us to transcend ourselves and the world. We can’t stay grounded for too long a time just as we can’t stay “up there” for too long a time without learning about speed and balance and intuiting/detecting when it is time to return to Earth.
I have been pulling your leg Sanjay. I have never taken offense to anything you’ve said and my first post was a joke. I thought you already knew I was the village idiot, so when you responded in a serious tone, you threw me a curve ball. I wasn’t expecting you to be taken aback like you were and I would like to apologize for the prank.
But something good came out of this experience; I found out how generous, caring and respectful you would like yourself to be (and may already be). Your words were genuine, sincere, congenial, dignified.
You’re a good dude, SJ. I got your back if you ever need it, brah.
It’s strange that we think of “up” as positive and “down” as negative, “forward” as positive and “backward” as negative. We don’t dichotomize left and right in this way.
It probably has something to do with the fact that we evolved to stand upright and walk in the direction that our eyes are facing. Otherwise, we would feel wrong about our upright stance and have a tendency to try to turn ourselves up-side-down and walk backwards.
Generally I am good at judging the intent of other people but it seems that i made a mistake in your case.
Zoot, I do not have much interest in looking good in other people’s eyes. That is not important to me. That is not my definition of love either, which I write at the end of each post of mine.
The welfare of the other person is what that is actually important to me, instead of pleasing him. Means, if I have to scold anyone in order to refrain him from any bad thing, I would not hesitate for a moment in doing so, no matter how bad he will think about me. That is how I define love.
I came to learn this after paying a heavy price that, at the end of the day, pleasing people just to remain good in their eyes does not serve any purpose, either oneself or others.
Mistakes do not go away by avoiding them, they use to come back and hound you forever. Thus, it is better to take them head on on the very first time, even if it looks somewhat unpleasant.
A benevolent authoritarian. My kinda guy. You and me… we make a team.
We have to work on your look though, Sanjay. You look like many different certain kinds of people, and none of them are the most pleasant folk I can think of.
In fact, you could run the whole gamut; mad bomber, serial killer, cereal killer, evil cult leader, corrupt capitalist sweat-shop factory owner somewhere in India, brain surgeon charged with malpractice seven times, rude laundry mat owner who has the hot water turned way down on all the machines to save on the electric bill, freelance conspiracy theory writer with some pretty weird religious beliefs, etc., etc.
And what is the deal with that jacket that is zipped all the way up to your chin almost? Is that a Star Trek thing or what?
Sanjay - You can name it as you like. I have been told you how I use to think and behave.
Zoot - You look like many different certain kinds of people, and none of them are the most pleasant folk I can think of.
Sanjay - I do not think that I am much different from others, except of the fact that over the time, even being a very sensitive person, I learnt how to keep emotions aside while making a decision.
I cannot say about others, but most people like me, especially those who use to have close and regular interaction with me.
Zoot - In fact, you could run the whole gamut; mad bomber, serial killer, cereal killer, evil cult leader, corrupt capitalist sweat-shop factory owner somewhere in India, brain surgeon charged with malpractice seven times, rude laundry mat owner who has the hot water turned way down on all the machines to save on the electric bill, freelance conspiracy theory writer with some pretty weird religious beliefs, etc., etc.
Sanjay - Now, you are pulling my leg again.
Zoot - And what is the deal with that jacket that is zipped all the way up to your chin almost? Is that a Star Trek thing or what?
Sanjay - Leg pulling continues but I will still answer that.
Nothing special about that jacket except that photo was taken in the winter season.
My position is that Planes fly, and humans are sometimes part of the plane. They fly only if they are interpretable in terms of a plane, or helicopter, or rocketpack or balloon - some airbound vehicle. A human operating a powered vehicle, say a car, is something very different from a human not operating a car. It’s not the same being; it is for example a being that can carry a number of others the same ease with which it carries itself.
Cars are entities; whether commanded by robots or people, they are commanding their drivers by the terms of force distribution that they set.
Naturally this is only one way of viewing things. An original answer to the question, by no means the only one.
(I think a good philosopher seeks to produce interesting and useful answers, not to produce monolithic answers that need to hold a monopoly on validity to be valid at all)
Where ‘flying’ is self projecting and the motion of the self/consciousness through time and space, then yes we are spiritually flying.
If we take the spirit to be the ‘essential self’ that everything else to it are variables, then the singularity is in motion through a see of variables.
