What would you expect from a seahorse though, am I right?
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.
There are lots of effects you cannot explain without air. Even if you haven’t been to school, you can observe wind, use a hairdryer, blow up balloons, fly a drone etc.
And “air” as a word dates back to both Latin and Greek “aer”, probably from proto-Indo-European “awer” so it’s pretty much been the same word in European since civilization was a thing.
in European
Oh yes, my favourite language. It’s “vzduch” or similar in most Slavic languages, and I’d bet you’re not pronouncing it right.
I meant “parts of Europe” but my fingers didn’t catch up with my brain
I vaguely recall reading about people not knowing the science of wind and air. They explain trees swaying in the wind as spirits.
“Fish forget they live in water; people forget they live in the Tao” -Confucius?
What the hell is Tao?
Isn’t is a bunch of space elves?
You are moments away from either being slaughtered by space clowns or whipped into the air by bondage bird men. Best case, some tall motherfuckers may just toss you into space.
Someone will like it no matter what.
Literally translates to “the path” or… “the Way”
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
The unstable ones are mute?
No, Just gibberish
Of course, of course
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’ll have you know fish are fucking idiots
I have seen the documentary called Finding Dory and I can confirm this.
Can confirm.
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
No, that means we have transcended the petty limitations of biological sexuality. We are like gods.
We are gods amongst fish
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.
The idea was first documented in a memo that Metcalfe wrote on May 22, 1973, where he named it after the luminiferous aether once postulated to exist as an “omnipresent, completely passive medium for the propagation of electromagnetic waves.”
Hmm, I really thought there would be some clever name I didn’t understand, but it really is that
aether.
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.
The what?
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.
