Comic Strips @lemmy.world Flying Squid @lemmy.world 2 mo. ago

The fool should learn to fly.

What would you expect from a seahorse though, am I right?

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There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys. How’s the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"

— David Foster Wallace, This is Water
- That joke works until you realize we're perfectly aware of the existence of air.
  
  Yeah, but would you be aware if you hadn't learned about it in school?
  
  Oh wait. Fish spend lots of time in school. Dang.
- “Fish forget they live in water; people forget they live in the Tao” -Confucius?
  
  What the hell is Tao?
- Immediately thought of this.
I think the saying about fish not being aware of water is nonsense. People are aware that there's air around them, without having to know any science. They can feel the wind, their own breath, etc. Fish have that plus they need to push against water in order to move. A fish that didn't know what water was would be like a land animal that didn't know what the ground was.
- Next you'll be telling me seahorses can't talk.
  
  Only stable horses
- I'll have you know fish are fucking idiots
  
  I have seen the documentary called Finding Dory and I can confirm this.
  
  Can confirm.
- I think you underestimate our past ignorance. It took many decades of science being taught for the general population to "know" that air exists.
  
  I think the general population always knew that there was a transparent substance all around them which had to keep going in and out of their lungs or they would die - the "breath of life" from the Bible. I mean, even an uneducated peasant in ancient times could blow bubbles underwater and see that there was something coming out of his mouth.
- I'm not entirely sure if a fish would actually know what water is lmao
  
  The FOOLS fall for little pieces of plastic with metal in them, so there's no way they know what water is
  
  humans jerk off to anime so it's not like we're that much smarter
- Wasn't Davinci one of the first to think about air that way? Welll, maybe aside from some ancient greek philosophers.
Do you like living in the ether?
- Yes, I have good ethernet.
  
  I just realized how odd that name is.
- Ether you love it or hate it
  
  You either love hating it or hate loving it
  
  Like it or leave it.
How many ways can we rewrite the allegory of the cave?
- Of the what?
  
  Plato's cave allegory.
Stupid seahorse can form complex sentences but can't analyze the water around him like some kinda simple animal!!
- You mean the aether
  
  Right?
I have a friend who believes in magic, and that we can't see it for the same reason this sea horse is confused about the ocean
- Jesus do be like dat
Humans live in an ocean as well.
- Air is a fluid!
I thought the seahorse was talking about the microphone
- Why would you think that? It literally reacted to what the guy said about water.
You want a shower thought? H2O is just another gas, compressed. We live in the ocean too, just the upper part with lighter gases.
- It is not. Both gases and liquids are fluids, though.
  
  Do I look like a scientist to you? I can barely keep from falling into the lower ocean.

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