This week, as we were having our discussions, the thing that really stuck out to me and made me think was one of the writings of Chuang Tzu. It regarded a dream that he had in which he dreamed that he was a butterfly. As he awoke, “he didn’t know if he was Chuang Chou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Chou.” To me, this thought is very thought provoking and interesting, and I have previously had thoughts that were very similar to it.
I remember very specifically having a conversation in my sixth grade honors English class with my very good friend at the time. I asked him if there was the possibility that we were all so mentally incapacitated that we just thought we were in an honors class when really we were in a special needs class. My teacher overheard this and said something along the lines of, “Trust me, you are all in an honors class.” Thinking back to this event, I am surprised about how deep my thought process was. Now that I know that I had the same thought process as a famous philosopher with no prior knowledge of “The Dream And The Butterfly” question, I am very impressed.
This question also reminds me of a quote from the Matrix in which two characters discuss whether or not the machines that created the Matrix got the tastes of food correct: “Because you have to wonder: how do the machines know what Tasty Wheat tasted like? Maybe they got it wrong. Maybe what I think Tasty Wheat tasted like actually tasted like oatmeal, or tuna fish. That makes you wonder about a lot of things. You take chicken, for example: maybe they couldn't figure out what to make chicken taste like, which is why chicken tastes like everything.”
It is very interesting. How do we know what is real? We all have our own conceptions of what something real is, but how do we know? This question has plagued me and will probably plague me for quite a while.
Danny, this cracked me up. When I was in Spanish in high school, I used to wonder if we were learning a real language or if our teacher was pulling an elaborate hoax. [MH]
I remember very specifically having a conversation in my sixth grade honors English class with my very good friend at the time. I asked him if there was the possibility that we were all so mentally incapacitated that we just thought we were in an honors class when really we were in a special needs class. My teacher overheard this and said something along the lines of, “Trust me, you are all in an honors class.” Thinking back to this event, I am surprised about how deep my thought process was. Now that I know that I had the same thought process as a famous philosopher with no prior knowledge of “The Dream And The Butterfly” question, I am very impressed.
This question also reminds me of a quote from the Matrix in which two characters discuss whether or not the machines that created the Matrix got the tastes of food correct:
“Because you have to wonder: how do the machines know what Tasty Wheat tasted like? Maybe they got it wrong. Maybe what I think Tasty Wheat tasted like actually tasted like oatmeal, or tuna fish. That makes you wonder about a lot of things. You take chicken, for example: maybe they couldn't figure out what to make chicken taste like, which is why chicken tastes like everything.”
It is very interesting. How do we know what is real? We all have our own conceptions of what something real is, but how do we know? This question has plagued me and will probably plague me for quite a while.
Danny, this cracked me up. When I was in Spanish in high school, I used to wonder if we were learning a real language or if our teacher was pulling an elaborate hoax. [MH]