Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Simple Questions
Sometimes we take the simple things in our lives for granted and never really gave a thought or search for the answers. For the present world knowing how to create a website is valued more than the knowledge of simple sciences. But what we often forget that everything in the present starts and are based on simple sciences.
This is a piece for the book Polgara the sorceress by D.&L. Eddings where Polgara asked her father to tutor her. When her father, Belgarath, Wanted to start teaching Polgara by a simple means of reading, she rejected the idea. For her it is silly for a sorceress to learn how to read instead of how to manage her 'Gift'. She told her father that there would be nothing the ancient people wrote that would be of her need. And so she didn't need to learn how to read, Belgarath could just tell her the important things.
Smiling wisely Belgarath asked a series of question to the 'already smart' Polgara;
Belgarath: If you have two apples here and two apples over there, how many do you have altogether?
Polgara: Four apples, of course
Belgarath: Why?
Polgara: What do you mean, "Why?" It just is. Two apples and two apples are four apples. Any idiot knows that.
Belgarath: Since you're not an idiot, you shouldn't have any trouble explaining it to me, should you?
Belgarath: We can come back to that one later. Now then, when a tree falls way back in the forest, it makes a noise, right?
Polgara: Of course it does, father.
Belgarath: Very good, Pol. What is noise?
Polgara: Something we hear.
Belgarath: Excellent. You're really very perceptive, my daughter. There's a problem, though. What if there's nobody around to hear the noise? Is it really there, then?
Polgara: Certainly it is.
Belgarath: Why?
Polgara: Because -----
Belgarath: Let's set that one aside as well and move on. Do you think the sun is going to come up tomorrow morning?
Polgara: Well, naturally it will.
Belgarath: Why?
Polgara: Well, it always has, hasn't it?
Belgarath: Pressing right along then, Why does the moon change her shape during the course of a month?'
Why does water bubble when it gets hot?
Why can't we see color in the dark?
Why do tree leaves change color in the autumn?
Why does water get hard when it's cold? And why does it turn to steam when it gets hot?
If it's noon here, why is it midnight in Mallorea?
Does the sun go around the world, or does the world go around the sun?
Where do mountains come from?
What makes things grow?
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And thus the ignorant Polgara was taught a lesson and agreed to learn from the basics.
What about us? Do you know the answers to all those questions? An observation of daily things...
Let us read ur answers to those "whys'
-RandoMind-
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