[ExI] what the hell was i thinking?

[spike at rainier66.com]

>>... Then we can rig up some kind of automated recording/archiving system which we can carry along with us.  Then I can answer a question I have often asked myself: what, if anything, was I thinking?

>...That "if anything" alludes to the more important question: were you thinking?  Can this distinguish between those with active minds and those who allow themselves to stop rationally considering what they perceive?...

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Good questions, all.  Your old Uncle Spike will attempt an explanation.

>>... A long time ago, Socrates suggested: Know thyself... Socrates

The British have a charming way of speaking going way back to even before that Shakespeare guy who was so good at it.  Back in the really olden days when those British lads were writing the bible, Peter, Paul, John, James, those boys really perfected it.  Their way of speaking is a highly effective use of subtle understatement, such as when King Arthur's enemy expressed his utter revulsion and disdain by commenting: I fart in your general direction!

Ooooh, got em!  It triggered a war.  Oy vey.

A biblical example would be right up front there in Genesis 4:1 where it says "Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain..."

Ah.  He knew her.  OK so, the comment is disarming in its polite understated way, and we get the picture.

The old time philosopher Socrates was debating one of his students, and a British scribe was there writing it all down.  Becoming annoyed with the impertinent lad, the gentle Greek philosopher found a polished British way to tell him: Fuck thyself.

Needless to say, the student failed to get an A in Socrates' class that semester.  {8^D

Hey, I was there.  I saw, I heard.  My young friends, it's one of the advantages of being old.  One knows a lotta this kind of trivia.

OK enough clowning for one day.  Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

spike