In the book, this chapter is mostly story, which is fine by
me! But then some questions were thrown
in there. As usual, they’re hard
questions, but here goes nothing.
What came first, the chicken or the “idea” chicken? Is there a chance that somewhere out there in
a different universe or dimension, there is a vision of a chicken? And did that vision come before our world and
out vision of a chicken? I read a book
once that described different worlds… every time you made a decision, one
option led to one world and the other option led to an alternate world. I always thought it was really cool… but not
possible. And also a little scary. But
as far as this question is concerned, I really have no idea if there’s an
“idea” world with an “idea” chicken floating around.
The next question relates to the first. Are we born with innate “ideas”? I think he means something along the lines of
knowing what something is without having seen it or knowing it’s name. I’m trying to think of something that nobody
has ever told me the name of that I can envision, but I’m drawing a blank. Even when you think of Jesus, whom you’ve
never seen, you think of the guy in sandals with long hair that is portrayed in
art. If I had never seen a picture of
Jesus, would I still have an idea of him?
Would I still picture him that way?
Or a new way? Or even not at all? Right now, I’m thinking we don’t have
these “ideas”, but I’m willing to be swayed in the next chapter.
What’s the difference between plants, animals, and
humans? Well, here I could go all
biology on the question and talk about difference in cell structure between
plants and animals, but I’m not going to. I don’t think the difference between
plants and animals is the important point in this question, because those are
more obvious. But what about the
difference between animals and humans?
Biologically, we’re classified together.
Humans are animals, and yet, in a lot of ways, we seem to set ourselves
apart from other animals. And why is
that? Why do we see ourselves so
differently? Is it because we have the
ability to build cities and material things and live as if the entire world
belongs to us? It seems as if, in
nature, animals all live of each other, and share the land. Are we different because we come into land
and take over, not willing to share? Wherever the philosopher is going with
this one, I don’t think it’s simply a biological difference he’s getting
at. I’m guessing the difference here has
to do with our behavior.
Why does it rain? My immediate answer? To make the flowers
grow! If everything works in a cycle, the rain’s job is to make the flowers
grow, so that they can provide oxygen to animals, and then animals can produce
carbon dioxide for the plants. It all
makes sense. What if that’s not it
though? I’m interested to see where this
idea is going to go!
And the last question in this chapter… what does it take to
live a good life? I actually have lots
of ideas about this one, because it’s something I think about a lot. If we have to live this life, which is not
always anywhere close to perfect, and we only get to live for what seems like a
short time, how do we make it good? The
best I can come up with is investing in people, being kid to others, giving and
receiving love, and doing the things that make you happy. Cheesy, I’ll admit, but that’s the way I
think when I think of making life good.
Those are my attempts to the answers of those
questions. Now I just have to read on
and see what the philosopher has to say, and how much those answers change!
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