Recent encounter with a fool

[Jean Fournell]

Lately I met a fool.
When I had finished talking, he said:

I no longer try to teach humans..
They already know everything.
I no longer try to teach horses, or cats, or frogs..
They already know everything.
I no longer try to teach weeds..
They already know everything.

And I no longer try to learn from humans..
They know more than I can understand.
I no longer try to learn from horses, or from cats, or from frogs..
They know more than I can understand.
I no longer try to learn from weeds..
They know more than I can understand.

At times now I dance with the moon on the water..
She knows nothing, just like me.
We are equals.

[daka]

Very Nice Poem

We are all know-it-alls
Even those who say they know nothing
Because they know all about
Knowing nothing
So they know something
About everything there is to know
(For them)
(About them)
And I think most of them know (or think)
That there is something they should know

But Socrates said " I know that I know not"
And Buddha said there is nothing to know
(Except that there is nothing to know)
I think he knew it all!

Sean

[Jean Fournell]

Yep, the dialectics of all and nothing are quite some koan, even without getting one's logic messed up, like poor René Descartes with his "I think, therefore I am".

But then Socrates did show that a totally uneducated slave "knew" the square root of 2. For practical purposes, the "know-it-all"-hypothesis is often one of the more efficient ones. The problems start with believing that it's actually the case.

And I think most of them know (or think)
That there is something they should know

Preferably something that can't be known — and then wonder where the despair is coming from...

I should have asked the fool how he knew that the moon on the water knows nothing.
But alas, I had finished talking.