THINQon : Rules and maybe we can't break them

The Living Room Philosophy Rules and maybe we can't break them

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Robert Percy, Tired but waking up more everyday

Rules and maybe we can't break them

Latest Post: September 4, 2010 at 1:23 AM

2 followers

It occurs to me that from the very start we are given a set of rules to live by. Actually, not just us, but everything is given its own set of rules they must adhere to in order to exist.

For instance, a tree can do certain things. It can grow and thrive and branch out in all manners of ways. It can provide homes for all different kinds of ecosystems and it can reproduce. It can sway in the wind and withstand nature to a degree. It can also decompose and become soil and given enough time it can become something altogether different. A rock or oil or whatever other science will inform you. But it is also limited. It will never unroot itself and walk down the block. It won't laugh and form complicated social networks. It will never think nor have any degree of cognizant awareness.

The same goes for everything that's ever existed. Everything has a place and is given a set of comprehensive cans and cannots. Somethings, by the luck of the draw, have a much larger list of cans. Humans, for example, can do a number of things trees can and a whole lot more. Because we are living organic matter like the tree we too can decompose and become soil. We also provide ecosystems thoughout our bodies. And of course the obvious. We can think and feel and know and create society and civilization and a whole lot more thanks to intelligence. What humans have brought to the rule list is the uncanny ability to break a lot of the rules. No longer are we merely players like the tree, we are creators.

But just because we can seemingly do more than most things on the planet obviously doesn't mean we can do everything. Our set of rules isn't the master list. As far as we know it's the most comprehensive to date (on earth). But why shouldn't something come along that can do everything we can and everything a tree can and everything a dolphin can and more. I'm thinking along the vein of Doctor Manhattan in Watchman. Maybe not to the impressive degree of his ruleset. But you get my point, why shouldn't something come along that can break more rules than humans can?

Is this way of thinking at all practical? Should we think about the rules everything is given from the start in order to figure its true worth? Or maybe worth isn't the right word. Power? Ability? Potential?

Yeah. Potential.

Reply to:

ted berryman

September 4, 2010 at 1:23 AM

23 followers

Hi <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas:contacts" />Robert. Great question. But if we want a useful answer we may want to rephrase it. I wish I had the knowledge. Maybe another Pandemonium does. I think it has something to do with sets, categories.

Because I think a set of laws has a boundary, inherent limits. For instance, the laws of our nation apply only to those within our borders.

If we have laws, we must have something the laws within the catagory that they want to preserve. In your example, being human would require us to not only accept certain laws, but to embrace them if we want to be human. There must be certain fundamental qualities of being human that should be ground, and sought after. If the soles of my feet grew roots and my hair re-grew every spring …?

But within the category of being human, being absolutely grounded as a human, carrying water, chopping wood, as they say—no, become that.

However, I once knew a man, me, who loved breaking the rules, such as does humor, so that, despite his revolutionary imagination beginning to fade along with his nerve—still parked crooked whenever he could. But better men and women actually bring much good by breaking rules. Maybe you.