InvisibleZebras

Natural selection is imperceptible to the creatures that it operates upon. The lion stalks, crouches, springs --- and the slowest zebra falls, while the quicker ones dash to safety, pause, look back, and then return to cropping the grass. No conscious (or unconscious) drive for speed. Just differential success for the survival of genes into the next generation. Simple math.

But once in a while, a zebra vanishes. It transcends the game of chase & catch, elude & evade --- and starts to play a new game, with new rules and new opponents. Wings sprout from its shoulders; it leaps into the air and flies away into a dimension beyond the lion's ken.

Can people learn to be invisible? Have some of us already done so? What's it like?

(from recent Philosophy Breakfast musings by BW & comrades)

TopicPhilosophy

Datetag20010807

Comment

It's an interesting thought, like the one that really advanced technology would be literally invisible to those who don't have it; its artifacts unrecognizable for what they are. I've sometimes wondered if the real reason we can't detect any evidence for other civilizations out there (seti etc) is that they're either more primitive than ours, or that they're more advanced in which case their high-tech signature is "invisible" to us at our current state of development. Doesn't have to be a conscious decision on their part, it just is. -- Bo

If one accepts flying invisible zebras, then yes, invisible people are very likely too. I like being invisible, but I think I'll have to learn touch-typing since I can't see my fingers. Still waiting for my wings.

(correlates: MacDurk, JoyToStuffRatio, SuspectTerrain, ...)