They’re all rhetorical.
It’s funny how something as fundamental as a things size can be so subjective. A package is large, or small, or perhaps middling. And yet, large in comparison to what? How do we assign a value to a thing. Is this gift large when measured against other gifts. Is this walrus large for walrus’? Is it small in comparison to other marine mammals? Is losing a parking spot really a big issue, is it worth crying over? Is my sorrow really measurable compared to another’s? Is my joy greater than yours? And what if we both look at something and see it differently? Can your small walrus be my huge one? Can that parking spot be a trifle to you but an issue of epic proportions to others?
posted by Yen at
9:41 PM
1 Comments:
And how rhetorical are these questions really?
We evaluate everything by comparing it to its surroundings and our past experience. It is not so different from Einsteins theory of relativity. You can't say anything has velocity without having something to compare it with. In order to understand the problem you have to realize that there is a difference between seeing and perceiving. If you want to see this in action, go find a picture of someones face in a magazine. Try drawing a picture of the persons face. If you aren't an artist, you will most likely end up with a rather poor picture. This is because your mind is seeing a person and evaluating their expressions in a rather compressed fashion useful in daily life. Most likely, the eyes are big, the forehead small, the lips overly pronounced. Now try turning the photo upside down and drawing it as you see it. When you are finished, you will have a picture that looks a bit strange, but far better. You have convinced your mind you are looking at an abstract rather than a person. Going without sleep for a few days will also give you a very clear view of how little your eyes are involved in what you perceive. Comparing things like size, expense, morality, suffering, and beauty tends to be an exercise in the relativity of the present to past perceptions. This can lead to entirely different taste in the long run. Ever listen to Chinese music? I'd rather listen to a thousand cats sliding down a chalkboard into a lake.
"A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand."
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Anonymous, at 7:49 PM
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