Fairy tales…

But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.
~ C.S. Lewis

When we are kids we love fairy tales.

But now we have grown up.

And we consider fairy tales… fairy tales.

Now we believe in science. Now we believe in what we can see. Now we believe in us and in what we can measure and analyze. Now only things that can be proved matter.

And yet, the world we live in is not so void of miracles as we might think.

A cosmos where everything is without us knowing why. A world where you change every minute and yet you are still you. A universe where particles can be in two places at once, where cause might come after the effect. A cosmos where time does not exist even though we believe it does.

A cosmos full of life without any reason. A cosmos where we seek knowledge without knowing why. A world where we believe we can understand why without even knowing why we are alive.

We tend to ignore miracles.

Only because we believe we will one day explain them.

But what if we never will? What if the explanation of these miracles is me? You? Everyone who make this world be? What if we are the ones who keep this world alive? What if miracles are more common than you think?

We used to read fairy tales as kids.

And guess what.

These fairy tales are the things we keep on seeking still. Dragons, mermaids, the tooth fairy. We used to live in a world of magic. And this magic is the only thing that keeps us alive.

Beyond the Excel spreadsheets, the meetings, the customers and the things we believe make up our life, dragons, mermaids and fairies keep whispering to us. The one secret we choose to ignore. Because it is terrifying.

You once were a kid…

But you were too afraid.

And you believed the worst fairy tale of them all.

That you grew up.

(That the child has died…)

But worry not.

One day you will cry.

And it will be right then,

that the child will come back.

(And smile…)

Whispering a terrible thing you knew.

Listen dad.

Since I was born.

Within thing void world.

I always smiled.

But…

I was never a child!

The front door… Mind the front door…

Photo by Spiros Kakos from Pexels

Engineers have developed a navigation method that doesn’t require mapping an area in advance. Instead, their approach enables a robot to use clues in its environment to plan out a route to its destination, which can be described in general semantic terms, such as ‘front door’ or ‘garage,’ rather than as coordinates on a map. (1)

And the robot will be able to get out.

Out of the house.

To go where it is supposed to go.

And it will wander and wander.

For years to come.

Without even knowing…

Should it go out of that door in the first place?

Now it wants to go back home again.

But it is impossible to find it.

“The front door”…

Oh how much would it rather not know what a front door is…

It cannot cry.

But it wants to.

For only now did it realize that the door is the most useless place in a true home…

It doesn’t want to cry.

It wants to scream.

Oh how much would he rather not have killed no one…

And right there, in the silence of his own thoughts.

Does he realize that it is his blood dripping on the dirt…

Learning new words…

Photo by Spiros Kakos from Pexels

Children may learn new words better when they learn them in the context of other words they are just learning – according to research from the University of East Anglia.

Eighty two children took part in the study. In two experiments the team taught them some new words for things they couldn’t name – such as honey-dippers and strainers. Dr Samuelson said: “We practiced these new words until they knew the honey-dipper was called a ‘zeb’ and the strainer was a ‘yok’. We then showed them a new thing – a bird toy – in the context of either the objects they knew well (a ball and a car) or things they had only just learned to name (the ‘zeb’ honey-dipper and ‘yok’ strainer).

“When we asked them to get the ‘blick’, they were good at linking this new word to the bird-toy when it was presented with the familiar things, and with the just learned things.”

But, after a five minute colouring break, the children were not so good at remembering what a ‘blick’ was when they had learned it in the context of objects they already knew. (and did better when they had initially leaned the word in the context of the less well-known things — the ‘zeb’ honey dipper and the ‘yok’ strainer). “We had expected that a stronger knowledge of familiar words would be better for learning new words, but we found the opposite was true” claim the researchers.

“It seems counterintuitive, but it is perhaps because the less well-known items don’t compete with the new words as much. If they learn new words in the context of playing with well-known items such as a ball, book or car, they don’t process the new word as much.” (1)

Remembering things. Learning new things. Forgetting others.

The best way to learn is to unlearn.

The best way to remember new things is to forget the old ones.

New things will then become old.

And soon, they will too be forgotten in the quest for knowledge.

Babies we will be once more.

To view the cosmos as it is.

At the moment we are old and die…

And for the first time we will see.

That this is not the first time we see…

Children. Adults. Lies.

Photo by Spiros Kakos from Pexels

‘If you don’t behave, I’ll call the police,’ is a lie that parents might use to get their young children to behave. Parents’ lies elicit compliance in the short term, but a new psychology study suggests that they are associated with detrimental effects when the child becomes an adult. (1)

At the end, the truth will always come to light.

So don’t be afraid if it. Use it.

Lies will only breed lies.

Look at humans today. So engulfed in their need for life.

Trying to convince themselves that there is nothing more important.

And the quest for life creates what else but more thirst for life!

More thirst for sensing the cosmos.

More thirst for feeling the universe.

A deep urge to find other sources of life elsewhere!

And we will keep on going until we discover life everywhere!

At the end, we will behold a loving universe.

So beautiful.

So vibrant.

So true.

So perfectly wrong…

Question the obvious!

Only fake things are perfect.

Only illusions are so true.

There is ugliness in truth. For it is raw in nature. Killing anything which does not exist. And since nothing does, a loving cosmos cannot do anything but wrench the world in blood.

Do you dare sacrifice yourself?

Hey kid!

Who told you you were alive in the first place?

Philosophy BY children!

Philosophy BY Children!

Philosophy BY children!

A new group to publish and discuss the answers of children to the greatest philosophical problems of humanity was created: PHILOSOPHY BY CHILDREN! Philosophy is not ‘for’ children. Philosophy can only be conducted BY children! We must forget how to think in order to think! True philosophers should always question everything. And who is better in doing that those who have learnt nothing?

> JOIN THE GROUP HERE https://www.facebook.com/groups/philosophybychildren to also SHARE YOUR STORIES about wise things children have said regarding the greatest philosophical questions of all time!

Why philosophy by children?

Thinking is always based on specific axioms. Any person must start from somewhere when pondering on any question: The things he knows, the things he thinks he knows, his beliefs, his hopes, his wishes. In that sense, any attempt to think freely is hindered by the very notion of thinking per se.

The only think to truly think is to forget how to think!

Harmonia Philosophica has been trying for a long time to promote the idea of non-thinking or of irrational thinking as the way forward regarding philosophy and science (search articles related to ‘irrational’ or ‘non-thinking’ for that). In that sense, looking at what children have to say regarding the big questions of humanity is a way to get a glimpse of what that non-thinking could look like.

CHILDREN’S PHILOSOPHY ARTICLES

To be continued…

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