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

I have not seen them

I'm in the Bishop Berkeley school on that one.

Just because you can't see the littlr man on the stair is no readon not not to kick him down the stairs if he makes a sufficiently insufferable nuisance of himself.

If he's going to be invisible, its incumbent on him to stay out of other people's way isn't it?

As opposed to the visible army?

yes. the visible army is a herring of red. My pet bee bought me an ester choc bunny today

Hard to tell what you mean by "I'm in the Bishop Berkeley school on that one."

Do you mean everybody is essentially a mind, and minds are by definition not available for perception, so therefore the essence of everyone is equally invisible?

sort of... the perception of any individual mind, is dependant on its own opperational peramaters, internally, and on its external influences, and thereby, any other brain, albeit one nearby, cannot adopt the same oppperational parameters, and cannot observe teh same reality as the neighbouring brain, -even moreso complicated by the differnt external stimular each might recieve... I think. hmm. but I don't think I'm very sane... but, of course, who am I to judge... my perception is wonky of course... it has to be... reality is just..... stuff innit. afetrall.

" I don't think I'm very sane" [2legs]

I'm twice as not very sane as you.

According to legend, Bishop Berkeley addressed the invisible man on the stair, saying, "If I don't see you, you're not there."

Beyond that, the point of this is jeeping the invisibke man mindful of his status so that he conducts himself accordingly.

If he's going to pretend he's not there, he must conduct himsrlf as though absent.

Its only common courtesy and safety.

The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast believed that if he didn't see you, you didn't see him. Or something like that.

I didn't know who Bishop Berkeley was because I never saw him on the stair.

Bishop Berkeley, famous for his Indian mission school in New England, the introduction of tar-water (adapted from native American medicine) into the European pharmacopia (its actually helpful for the things it was used for, as a disinfectant and anti-infective), his "New Theory of Vision", popularizing the discovery of calcified bones in the caves of Galloway, Ireland, etc..

I'm not familiar with this bishop and whatever invisible things he's been having conversations with, but I do know that Berkeley Breathed has restarted his Bloom County comic strip. New strips are available on his Boofcake page, and also appear here a few days later.

http://www.gocomics.com/bloom-county

N.B. the current plot line in the comic springs from a misdialed call back in 1983 and the introduction of the mysterious Ernie Dinklefwat.

http://www.gocomics.com/bloom-county/2016/03/22

Amazing! I'd never heard of tar water - but isn't that just basically sort of non-alcoholic retsina?

I can understand why people weren't keen on it.

Berkeley: A3472986

Tar water caught on so thoroughly that (the story goes) an 18th-century London apothecary, asked did he sell tar, replied that he sold nothing else. Still a popular remedy/tonic in Dickens's day: young Pip, when he stole some brandy from the family's bottle for Magwitch, topped up the brandy bottle with what turned out later to be tar water.

Great Expectorations ensued.

Incidentally, I thought it was only my family that used the anagram Boofcake...

I just looked up the etymology of the derogative "berk".




I may have to start using this term more often.

I may have gotten that from your posts.

Considering I use an anagram for my username, I adopted it.

That's nice! you're welcome!

Bishop Berkeley, may he rust in peace, no doubt had his mind turn soft during one of the interminable New England Winters.