h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There is an question that troubles me . Could we really think our own thoughts or be we trained to think what we should think . Could you really free think about a thematik without influence of somebody else . Einstein did it , so it's told and written !!!! Have we this freeness for ourself ?

Yes.

And no.



Noggin

Personal 'freedom' means a lot of things to different people. To some extent it's like the age old problem of 'is the glass half empty or half full?' Mainly, the answer depends on your point of view and this in turn is forever changing with mood and time.

Here on this site I feel completely and entirely 'free' to say what I will. I say I am completely and entirely free to speak here even though I recognise that there are a few specific words the site will not allow and I also recognise that there are many here who would take offense at some things I might say so I choose my words carefully.

But even with some prohibition of certain words and a great deal of inhibition about needlessly offending others, I still feel entirely free to say what I want. Except for consideration of other people's feelings I have never felt I had to hold my tongue.

About the only thing that isn't 'free' in my world (North America) is the freedom from money. Unlike an ideal Pacific island, the climate here demands shelter and fuel, the body demands nurishment, and nothing can be accessed without an automobile. Everything costs money. So, one really cannot survive freely without some sort of financial resource, be it hourly wage work, an entrepeneureal enterprise, begging, borrowing or an inheritance.

Sometimes I feel I would gladly give up my freedom of speech for freedom from financial needs. I could be quite happy on a Pacific island, sheltering under a palm tree from sun and rain and living on cocnuts even if it meant I could never speak my mind again.

~jwf~

Don't be too sure about Einstein.
He was a very good listener and the boys he hung around while he was playing leider on his fiddle talked about a lot of stuff.
He was able to extrapolate further on from what they were talking about and he was able to see further because he was not a mathematician.
His wife was.
She taught him a lot.

The Wright Bros stood on the shoulders of the giants before them, most of whom were wrong, but the boys had to figure that out for themselves and managed to be pretty wrong themselves.
As far as we know, no one ever died from crashing one of their bicycles.

It is impossible for the hearing and the sighted, or one of the two, to completely avoid influence.
It is what you do with the influences.
Sometimes you have to learn to read between the lines. And sometimes the most innovative personalities are not the most inventive.
Innovation is often just a shinier version of the same old thing.
While the true inventors are designing and patenting stuff that you won't hear about for twenty years because the application hasn't been found yet...
like the man who invented the capstan drive for portable cassette machines. He had to wait nearly thirty years before the checks came rolling in.

Which reminds me, JwF. No more jokes about my erudition or I'll tell you what it means.

The only person I can refer to who activly sat down and though new thoughts was R. Buckminster Fuller. His new thoughts gave birth to his Dymaxion Universe.

Fuller was a visionary but we cannot agree that he had new thoughts. 0 to 60 miles per hour in three seconds and a fuel consumption of 30 miles per gallon. Hardly rocket science! Old Bucky was one hell of a wheeze though.

erudition

n : profound scholarly knowledge [syn: eruditeness, learnedness, learning, scholarship, encyclopedism, encyclopaedism]

Are you that bored that you are running through your old threads?

Nevemind. I just looked at the dating on the posts.