social topic

2010-08-05 03:53:38 am

As you can see, I totally hate spiders. I recognized the species immediately because I believe in the 'know thy enemy' philosophy. Spiders are the freakiest - I can't deal with them at all.

BioSpark

2010-08-05 03:54:14 am

i think they're p. cool. i try not to kill them if they're in my home. i move them if i have to.

arkarian

2010-08-05 03:54:28 am

red chamber dream

they sort of freak me out too but that doesn't mean i hate them or should hate them or feel anything but respect toward them.

BioSpark

2010-08-05 03:55:52 am

they eat insects that fly and i hate insects that fly, so i'm cool with them.

nate

2010-08-05 04:23:03 am

yeah they pretty much scare me to death but i also sort of identify with them in a cross-species way. like if you read about their history it seems like they arose under some of the same conditions as homo sapiens did. in my view it has something to do with needing to reliably kill others without being killed when the prey is many times more dangerous than you are. brains over brawn type thing. so either you make the grade in terms of your brain or your genes are terminated with extreme prejudice. extreme evolutionary pressure on the capabilities and processing speed of the brain. should read this if you haven't already:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portia_%28spider%29

most of that stuff is true from what i can tell - i read the original publications for a project i did two semesters ago. mind blowing stuff. took away most of what i believed about the world up to that point.

so now i have to wonder whether the difference between the portia ancestor and the homonid ancestor (from which we evolved) is not just size ... i.e. size of brain the body can support. the only observed difference between portia and human reasoning is the slower speed in portia. when they look at their environment it apparently takes them a long time to figure out what's what. and people think that's due to the smaller brain. but the trial-and-error reasoning is exactly the same.

the main thing i realized from this was that no one has any idea what makes humans different from other animals. there isn't anything special about us. if you try to describe what's different in precise terms you run into a lot of problems especially in light of this research. now i only see relationships - there are things on this planet that eat and things that are eaten but all of the relationships are made up of smaller ones. all the species of bacteria that live only inside the human digestive system, that kind of thing. so we aren't actually eating anything - the bacteria are processing the food. so are the bacteria human or are they something else? if they aren't human then what is human? is it true that humans can't digest food?

one last thing i think about a lot and then i'll shut up. the human visual system is really good but also really retarded at the same time. one of the best arguments against intelligent design because it's basically made backwards with the light sensing cells below several layers of crap. that's why you see weird black dots moving around if you look up at the sky on a clear day - those are your white blood cells moving in front of the light sensing cells. seems like it would have been better to put the light sensing cells on the outside of the blood vessels like in octopus eyes. but spider eyes do it a third way - instead of having balls in sockets that they swivel around, they have eight (or so) eyes that do different things. all but two of the eyes are like our peripheral vision - they can't make out fine shapes or anything but they can tell the spider that something is there and is moving in a certain direction. then the spider has its two forward facing eyes that are very much like our eyes when we are looking at something specific. so again - why did it come down to two eyes? their eyes are basically the same as ours when you figure out how they work, just their peripheral vision is in separate eyes while ours is not. why are our eyes so similar? it must be because they needed to do something with their eyes that was like something we needed to do with our eyes. we can't see what things were like when homo sapiens was evolving in africa but we can see how spiders live. so you see that we can even learn about ourselves from spiders. people get really into animal research testing drugs on mice and so on but i feel much closer to spiders than to mice. i see myself and humans in general in spiders, especially how a lot of them make webs and live in those instead of living on the ground in the "natural world." but that is a topic for another post.

yeah they pretty much scare me to death but i also sort of identify with them in a cross-species way. like if you read about their history it seems like they arose under some of the same conditions as homo sapiens did. in my view it has something to do with needing to reliably kill others without being killed when the prey is many times more dangerous than you are. brains over brawn type thing. so either you make the grade in terms of your brain or your genes are terminated with extreme prejudice. extreme evolutionary pressure on the capabilities and processing speed of the brain. should read this if you haven't already:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portia_%28spider%29

most of that stuff is true from what i can tell - i read the original publications for a project i did two semesters ago. mind blowing stuff. took away most of what i believed about the world up to that point.

so now i have to wonder whether the difference between the portia ancestor and the homonid ancestor (from which we evolved) is not just size ... i.e. size of brain the body can support. the only observed difference between portia and human reasoning is the slower speed in portia. when they look at their environment it apparently takes them a long time to figure out what's what. and people think that's due to the smaller brain. but the trial-and-error reasoning is exactly the same.

the main thing i realized from this was that no one has any idea what makes humans different from other animals. there isn't anything special about us. if you try to describe what's different in precise terms you run into a lot of problems especially in light of this research. now i only see relationships - there are things on this planet that eat and things that are eaten but all of the relationships are made up of smaller ones. all the species of bacteria that live only inside the human digestive system, that kind of thing. so we aren't actually eating anything - the bacteria are processing the food. so are the bacteria human or are they something else? if they aren't human then what is human? is it true that humans can't digest food?

one last thing i think about a lot and then i'll shut up. the human visual system is really good but also really retarded at the same time. one of the best arguments against intelligent design because it's basically made backwards with the light sensing cells below several layers of crap. that's why you see weird black dots moving around if you look up at the sky on a clear day - those are your white blood cells moving in front of the light sensing cells. seems like it would have been better to put the light sensing cells on the outside of the blood vessels like in octopus eyes. but spider eyes do it a third way - instead of having balls in sockets that they swivel around, they have eight (or so) eyes that do different things. all but two of the eyes are like our peripheral vision - they can't make out fine shapes or anything but they can tell the spider that something is there and is moving in a certain direction. then the spider has its two forward facing eyes that are very much like our eyes when we are looking at something specific. so again - why did it come down to two eyes? their eyes are basically the same as ours when you figure out how they work, just their peripheral vision is in separate eyes while ours is not. why are our eyes so similar? it must be because they needed to do something with their eyes that was like something we needed to do with our eyes. we can't see what things were like when homo sapiens was evolving in africa but we can see how spiders live. so you see that we can even learn about ourselves from spiders. people get really into animal research testing drugs on mice and so on but i feel much closer to spiders than to mice. i see myself and humans in general in spiders, especially how a lot of them make webs and live in those instead of living on the ground in the "natural world." but that is a topic for another post.

windy

2010-08-05 04:24:08 am

gyrotechnic lollipop

[03:21] <windy> wow he's pretty sugoi
[03:22] <windy> he can get it up after getting 1/3 of his blood drained
[03:22] <llxwarbirdxll> wat
[03:22] <llxwarbirdxll> get what up?

hahahahaha

windy

2010-08-05 04:29:13 am

gyrotechnic lollipop

so nathan do you like spiders? :D

BioSpark

2010-08-05 04:34:30 am

hey be nice, that was a good read. sounds like some interesting stuff.

windy

2010-08-05 04:46:20 am

gyrotechnic lollipop

i wasn't trying to be mean! i just don't have anything productive to say back.

arkarian

2010-08-05 04:49:38 am

red chamber dream

wonder if tdk being an only child makes it more difficult for him to pick up on stuff like that.

windy

2010-08-05 04:51:44 am

gyrotechnic lollipop

p. sure nathan knows what i mean when i say stuff like that...but now i feel bad. :(

another fantastic llxwarbirdxll quote:

[03:49] <Nebuchadnezar> The guy who p*es in public, was not a suitable username :/
[03:49] <WOAH_DANCING_IN_THE_SHADOWS> p*es?
[03:50] <WOAH_DANCING_IN_THE_SHADOWS> what does p*es mean?

windy

2010-08-05 04:59:06 am

gyrotechnic lollipop

[03:57] * Saito (~ciliu247@E4222ABE.21682D7.CF1F3E48.IP) has left #myanimelist
[03:58] <llxwarbirdxll> hi Saito

I CAN'T STOP LAUGHING

arkarian

2010-08-05 05:04:31 am

red chamber dream

i understood what you meant immediately which is why it seemed weird to me that tdk didn't. but he's only 13 i guess so can't be too hard on him.

and yeah warbird is pretty much the reason i stay in #mal. we're lovers.

nate

2010-08-05 05:08:57 am

warbird seems like loopy lite or something.

attachment:

loopy.txt

arkarian

2010-08-05 05:09:30 am

red chamber dream

[05:08:54] <SY> I am sam as in female version of sam
[05:08:56] <SY> and not samuel
[05:09:00] <llxwarbirdxll> wat

windy

2010-08-05 05:10:36 am

gyrotechnic lollipop

lmfao

windy

2010-08-05 05:13:47 am

gyrotechnic lollipop

holy shit nathan that .txt is a goldmine hahahah

arkarian

2010-08-05 05:20:39 am

red chamber dream

[19:16] <Loopster> the guy i was raseing grabed the chicken. i chased him. i saw this girl (shes hot) behind him. i tried to jump over her but hit her in the face with my foot. then i feel into the ground going as fast as i was and smashs my hand into the my stomic. i couldnt breath at all

this made me actually laugh out loud

windy

2010-08-05 05:22:50 am

gyrotechnic lollipop

i think 90% of them did hahaha

arkarian

2010-08-05 05:24:01 am

red chamber dream

[17:14] <IcyMewtwo> I am on Windows 2000 ^_^
[17:15] <Loopster> ......
[17:15] <Loopster> dang
[17:15] <Loopster> more computer talk from the nerd

ok rotfl you're right

windy

2010-08-05 05:25:07 am

gyrotechnic lollipop

[03:43] <Loopster> its actually a place
[03:43] <Loopster> called Dildo
[03:43] <Loopster> in finland
[03:43] <Loopster> its up near canada

one of the best

arkarian

2010-08-05 05:25:53 am

red chamber dream

rotfl

"pencilvania" too

BioSpark

2010-08-05 05:26:00 am

man ark thinks way too lowly of me. either that or he's just fucking around with me all the time.

windy

2010-08-05 05:26:02 am

gyrotechnic lollipop

hahaah yesssss

arkarian

2010-08-05 05:26:12 am

red chamber dream

reminds me of metroidvania or something