Three people approach a tree and wonder; Prophet; I wonder what fruit this tree bears upon the world. Scientist; I wonder of the molecular construction of this tree’s DNA. Person; I’m tired and hungry.
Each the same yet with different focus, presumptuously blind to the concern of the others.
The prophet sees no need to wonder of the make of a thing as he presumes that importance to the world is about use.
The scientist sees no need to wonder of the use of a thing as he presumes importance to the world is about construction.
The person sees no need to wonder of either make or use to the world as he attends to himself and that “they” are merely other trees.
This is the difference between a normal person and a leader such as prophet or philosopher or political leader.
A normal person is a mere dumb, selfish and useless. Unlike normal person, a prophet or scientist tend to think more productive, more helpful to others. Prophet wonders what fruit this tree bears, thinking how can he use those fruits to others. (or at least himself. i don’t really like prophets, personally ) Scientist, too, tries to understand the molecular construction of the tree’s DNA. Maybe he can reconstruct more trees like this. I don’t know, something productive.
“Who is more right?” That is ethical more than moral one. I assume whose behavior is more acceptable in the society. I’d vote for the scientist. The society needs more scientists than prophets. (Prophets caused nothing but trouble. Look at middle-east! )
For another question, I think no one should be left out since we need everyone to be maintain the world in harmony. Think about the world filled with scientists and prophets but without a normal person. It’d be a total mess since no one is there to follow their ideas.
The Philosopher wonders why these people are taveling together and where the’re traveling too because the context of the story makes it seem that they had been traveling long and that the tree is a suprise to them.
I have a hard time understanding the sentence, bolded above, about the prophet. Could you reword that?
I don’t see why anyone needs to be left out.
Though animists and some other pagans might think they are all missing the fact that the tree is conscious, and be concerned about what happens to the world, the more people on it view everything, finally including themselves, as (only) things.
The war has been all about who gets to dictate “Truth”.
The point is that religions try to form Truth based on the use of things. “Judge a tree by the fruit it bears.”
Science tries to form Truth based on the construction of things. “Judge a life by its genomes.”
The person is the actual need, the only value of Truth, not caring of either as much as his life today.
Obviously they should play together, because they are all people and all each day get tired and hungry.
I think you are limiting how prophets view things by that one quote. Otherwise prophets and technologists would be the same in their basic outlook - utilitarian - and really they would absorb the ‘person in actual need’ who is also looking at use, but from a personal and crisis perspective. Prophets also look at the meaning of things and events - what is hidden in them, divine or evil or whatever.
I would also say that science looks at things in terms of use: functionalism. What does this protein do for the cell? Science is a prototechnology. It’s findings and often the interests of the scientists and their funders is to understand use in one context and perhaps find use in another. They study the human body often with an eye on medical technologies.
I think the quote about the tree and its fruit is more using natural ‘things’ as metaphors for human activities, rather than a direct explication of how a prophet views a tree.
I would say science has often, though not always, tried to see things in terms of their parts: reductionism rather than holism, function rather than meaning or intention, mechanisms rather than vitalism - at least after the 19th century.
Individual humans have, yes, viewed things in terms of personal need, but have also infused things with meaning and even vital properties - certainly artists - taking the term broadly - can see their work as relating to living matter, not unlike themselves, their work a kind of dialogue or dance.
But there is nothing wrong with a hungry person seeing a tree and mainly thinking of the fruit as satisfying their need. I am sure the prophets do this on occasion as do scientists.
The whole thing makes me think of Buber’s distinction between encounters that are
I-it - which is very much the scientific encounter
I-you - which in the case of trees really only happens with pantheists, animists, pagans and inspired green thumbs who are closet members of the former categories.
I-Thou - where one basically encounters God in ‘the other’ and here again with trees we are looking primarily at indigenous people, shamans, animists, some Buddhists who have a more theistic Buddhism and nature worshippers of all kinds.
Trouble arises when one of these kinds of people decides that their experience of the tree is the only one or the correct one. If the prophet thinks there are no chemicals in the tree. Or the scientist thinks everything is really just a machine. Or the hungry person only views things in terms of his needs - which ends up being autistic or narcissistic.
Take care not to confuse the scientist, the engineer, and the technician (although they tend to confuse themselves in such regards).
Certainly.
And they were doing that only because the prophets had not been.
Life backlashes against the narrow minds of men.
And thus confusing themselves with being prophets, scientists, and philosophers.
Seems true and again, raising the issue that each are merely emphasizing a different but relevant perspective. None are the dictators of the whole Truth (the wHolly Truth).
EXACTLY!! =D>
I think you are giving them too much credit or are thinking only in terms of the elite real scientist of which there are very few and almost never heard from. What “we” get to see and hear, is only what is carried to us by those who wanted their own perspective to be enhanced for whatever purpose, the “middlemen”, the media.
) Scientist, too, tries to understand the molecular construction of the tree’s DNA. Maybe he can reconstruct more trees like this. I don’t know, something productive.
)
