"I am upset. I heard Rene Descartes kicked his dog!"
"Time means very little to me, Geo., except for seasons. We squirrels look at you as you look at tortoises, who live several times your span."
"So, how would you know about Descartes, Earnest?"
"Instinct."
"Wow! I know you feral people have a long, wide knowledge of humans but I never get your limits."
"Instinct has no limits, Geo."
"Eh?"
"Geo., instinct tells me Decartes' dog was named Monsieur Gratt and was kicked in an experiment to see if he was more than an automaton of instinct -- or could he think?"
"My French is a little rusty, Earnest, but 'Gratt' --short for gratter?-- could mean scratch, scrape, pick, paw or even strum a guitar."
"Yes."
"So what happened?
"Same thing that happened when the starlings thought you weren't looking. They composed a pattern which you doodled from behind this very fence."
"Indeed Geo., instinct, unlike mere thought, does not allow for error. Oops!"
"I'll ignore your misstep if you tell what happened with Descartes?"
"The dog was really his wife's pet and when she found out --M. Gratt was a Tattler (an inadvisable breed)-- she kicked the merde out of M. Descartes.
"So how does it end?"
"Well, Geo., Descartes' dog was last seen chasing Shrodinger's Cat down an alley and into a box --which was the start of Quantum Physics."
"Instinct has no limits."
ReplyDeleteWay to hold a grudge.
But hey, if the dog was hanging out with the cat, then maybe the dog was both kicked and not kicked.
Dear Harry, until we find the box we won't know. However, 'til then, I'll content (or discontent) myself with cogito ergo sum. But equally, I am content with the alternate interpretation: dubito ergo sum.
ReplyDeleteHoly cow. To coin a phrase.
ReplyDeleteDear Bruce, what I have come to accept of knowledge --and of wisdom-- includes thought and instinct equally. Both are mutable and both come at a great price to living creatures.
DeleteGeo
ReplyDeleteHave you asked the squirrel if it's alive or dead? Or Both?
I have an innate distrust of squirrel's, they are tricky things, even when they profess to be otherwise. They are like us, in that trait, eh?
I think that the only solution is Occam's Razor.
Cheers, my friend.
Dear Mike, to cut to the essence of the dichotomy, we and all creatures defer to the intelligence of the universe to follow logic and instinct, to better our minds and find love. We are beings of thought and emotion --children and grandchildren expect nothing less of us. I expect no less from squirrels and dogs.
DeleteI don't know if he kicked his dog but I do know Descartes made experiments on animals to prove that they have no feelings and awareness, they have no soul. Well, even nowadays, experiments on animals are not welcome.
ReplyDeleteDear Duta, if I remember correctly --and I hope I don't-- Descartes vivisected his wife's dog for that purpose. It was an ugly and stupid thing to do and changed my opinion of him completely.
DeleteWell, that would be the first thing dogs and cats ever cooperated on!
ReplyDeleteDid E(a)rnest really slip? Poor fellow; how embarrassing!
O_Jenny, when we had a dog --a 55 lb. Labrador/Shepherd mix-- she would move our cat's kittens from the sprinklers to other parts of the yard, in her big black mouth! She knew where the sprinklers didn't reach and carried them there by their heads. That was clearly thoughtfulness. Mother cat was never alarmed. I didn't have to vivisect these beautiful creatures to be sure they were thinking and feeling. Yet I wonder if vivisection might have improved Decartes.
DeleteYes, E(a)rnest slipped.
How wonderful for your dog to do that for your kittens . . . and actually I have read of many instances of cross-species love and protection along similar lines. I don't know how so many people can claim animals have no feelings; they clearly do. Sometimes I fervently wish that people who make animals suffer could be made to undergo the same treatment themselves, because I see no other way to make them understand . . .
DeleteJenny, you've nailed it. What is the difference between humans who group in love and community and "pack-animals" who group in love and community? Let's think...None!
DeleteAh, Geo - your wit and insight always takes me down an Intellectual Road where I don't belong. But I thoroughly enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteIn retrospect, I've been living on instinct most of my life. I won't mention anything about errors....
Dear Jon, if you enjoy it, you belong there. Make no mistake, you and I are haunted by errors, but really, most of them were unavoidable --at least I hope yours and maybe mine were. There are so many fencetops to slip off of.
DeleteA Frenchman, kicking a dog? I hope you assured E(a)nest that Californians with manners do not. Nor would we kick a squirrel. We might kick a tough issue down the line, though I assume he knows that.
ReplyDeleteI think, therefore I am--happy? dangerous? hungry?
Dangerous and hungry is a phase, facade really, we traverse in youth --or would like to think we do. Happy is an emotional distillate that follows self-discovery along lines of excellence. I have known many happy animals, some of them human.
DeleteIn favour of instinct and Mrs Descarte! xxx
ReplyDeleteAnd you and Norma :-)
"And" is the correct conjunction, Lisa. Sadly, all I know of the mother of his daughter was that she never married him --nor he, anybody. But I call her his wife because public records are dodgy back then and they had some close domestic union. Norma and I gladly accept your favor and return in kind.
DeleteYour mind's certainly in fine fettle, dude. It grooves in mysterious ways.
ReplyDeleteDescartes may have had a brilliant mind, but he obviously had no heart.
Thanks dear Susan. Indeed, Descartes was smarter than the average bear, but his brain was never found because the science of proctology was in its infancy. No heart was found either.
DeleteHA! Great response.
DeleteAh, Geo, you challenge us so and we are the better for it. I know the name Descartes, but that is about all. I have a feeling, though, that I once knew about him, but my mind seems to be emptying itself from all information that does not have to do with food and comfort. However, thanks to the Internet, I was able to educate myself on this philosopher. I never got to the part of him kicking his wife’s dog, but if he did, he was an awful person. Most animals show more feelings than taxmen, politicians, and some philosophers.
ReplyDeleteI totally believe in instinct, It is a women thing, and we are mostly right.
As I approach my 69th birthday this month, I wholeheartedly concur with your "feeling...(of)mind emptying..." Two days ago I thought about Pee Wee Herman --what a fun character!--but only today remembered the actor's name, P**l R****ns. These cogitations are interrupted only by disputes between Norma, who is never wrong, and her cousin Marcia, who is always right. I am suspicious of the dynamic only because I chose my gender unwisely --but I love them, and you.
DeleteWas Decartes truly such a monster? You speak of his "wife" but he was never recorded as married. To whom did this misused dog belong? --Sven.
ReplyDeleteDear Sven, good to hear from you again! To the best of my memory, Decartes' union with a household staff member produced a daughter, which is about as married as you could get outside the church 500 years ago. The child Francine(?), accompanied her father until she died before age 10. Folklore has it that he rebuilt Francine from levers, whippens and cogs within cogs --then undertook her reeducation. She learned to count to ten, then taught her dog to count to one. When her dog heard the clock strike thrice at 3 a.m., he thought its works had gone mad. My personal extrapolation is; the myths and stories regarding Decartes served as inspiration for Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" 200 years later.
DeleteThis put a smile on my face -- although I can't look with favor on anyone who would kick a dog.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Elizabeth. Glad you enjoyed post. Descartes is an enigma I have often tried to solve --his character cannot have conflicted so much with his brilliance, could it? Whether he encouraged these strange tales of his life or inspired fabulists without trying, is a puzzle by which I confess myself baffled.
DeleteAny dog who claimed Descarte as a master should have bitten him, and then claimed that his head exploded and he was simple reacting.
ReplyDeleteGratt should have followed Schrodinger's cat into the box.
Gosh Susan, according to Shrodinger the two possibilities exist in the box until the quantum wave function is discharged by an observer. I'd like to think M. Gratt became a guitar gratter and invented rock and roll.
Delete