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Mon 12 Oct, 2009 03:22 am
Some people go to school. Some people go to work. Some are in jail. Our daily routine are more our less dictated by the time and place we are in. Can you imagine yourself living in the time of the plague in England, or imagine being a rome soidier fighting the huns. Obviously, we can` t go back in time, and do these stuff, but it is conceivable that had history been a bit different, you would be born in a different time, and place, your whole daily routine would be different. You would not be where you are right now. If you were born in japan in the year 1000 A.D, you probably would not be sitting in front of a computer right now. You probable would be killing some poor soul with your sword. You get the point. Our own birth is a random event that could conceivably be at any point in the development of life in the planet. If our birth is a random event. Well, you might even be a worm. Yet, we live in this time, and place.
In some sense, you are pretty lucky. There is probable about 5,000 years of pre-history, and civilization began some time around 5000 B.C.
From that time to new, there are 7000 years in between. You lifetime is probable worth100 year. The probability that you are born some time in this 7000 where you are able work in a office, driving a giant mechines with wheels, and look at a computer screen with moving picture is 1/70. Is that luck, or what?
There is a flaw to what i wrote above:
If you were born in a different time, and place; Would it still be you? Are you defined by the place+time, or are you independent of time+place of your birth? Would it still be you if you were born a monkey?
@vectorcube,
We are all born---the ultimate absurdity--- into a different situation that is the world; to the extent its contents are different, so too would be its influences upon us.
By sympathy, we can partly understand what it would be like to have been born and to live in different times in history or in different locales in the world, but it seems next to impossible for us to completely imagine ourselves in any world but our very own. The further the distance in space or time, the more difficult and tentative the imagining becomes.
@jgweed,
jgweed;96896 wrote:We are all born---the ultimate absurdity--- into a different situation that is the world; to the extent its contents are different, so too would be its influences upon us.
By sympathy, we can partly understand what it would be like to have been born and to live in different times in history or in different locales in the world, but it seems next to impossible for us to completely imagine ourselves in any world but our very own. The further the distance in space or time, the more difficult and tentative the imagining becomes.
I think people are pretty much the same( across time, and place). People are as corrupt now as they are back in the day. Now, people worship enistein, but people used to worship some other historical figure. There might be differences in terms of content( figures, facts), but the inner social life of normal people are much more enduring.
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