butterflies revisited

Raffi Aftandelian raffi at BK.RU
Tue Mar 6 15:09:11 PST 2007


Butterflies to life 
Meese to death 
butterflies to dreamspace.

Is it starting to feel a little zoo-like in here?!

Thank you to Chris Corrigan (hi Chris!) for pointing out the article "20
ways the world could end" on his blog. 

The article is at http://discovermagazine.com/2000/oct/featworld/

The 20th way we could end reads:
"Someone wakes up and realizes it was all a dream Are we living a shadow
existence that only fools us into thinking it is real? This age-old
philosophical question still reverberates through cultural thought, from the
writings of William S. Burrows to the cinematic mind games of The Matrix.
Hut of the Institute of Advanced Studies sees an analogy to the danger of
the collapse of the vacuum. Just as our empty space might not be the true,
most stable form of the vacuum, what we call reality might not be the true,
most stable form of existence. In the fourth century B.C., Taoist
philosopher Chuang Tzu framed the question in more poetic terms. He
described a vivid dream. In it, he was a butterfly who had no awareness of
his existence as a person. When he awoke, he asked: "Was I before Chuang Tzu
who dreamt about being a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly who dreams about
being Chuang Tzu?""

warmly,
raffi

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