Everything is as it was, I discover when I reach my destination, and everything has changed.
Michael FraynRead
Look at your hand. Its structure does not match the structure of assertions, the structure of facts. Your hand is continuous. Assertions and facts are discontinuous.... You lift your index finger half an inch; it passes through a million facts. Look at the way your hand goes on and on, while the clock ticks, and the sun moves a little further across the sky.
Interpretation
The quote contrasts the continuity of physical experience with the discontinuous nature of facts and assertions.
In this quote, Michael Frayn highlights the difference between our tangible experiences, represented by the continuous movement of our hands, and the fragmented, often rigid nature of facts and assertions that we use to categorize and understand the world. This reflection invites us to appreciate the fluidity of life and the limitations of our frameworks for interpreting our experiences.
In practice
In a philosophy class discussing the nature of reality and perception.
Everything is as it was, I discover when I reach my destination, and everything has changed.
Memories are dangerous things. You turn them over and over, until you know every touch and corner, but still you'll find an edge to cut you.
It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said. She laughed. 'Really?' The machine shrugged and let go of her hand. 'Oh, no. It's just something we tell ourselves.
I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it's a very poor scheme for survival.
I would do what I pleased, and doing what I pleased, I should have my will, and having my will, I should be contented; and when one is contented, there is no more to be desired; and when there is no more to be desired, there is an end of it.
People look at the same passage, and one person will say this is the best thing he's ever read, and another person will say it's absolutely idiotic. I mean, there's no way to reconcile those two things. You just have to forget the whole business of what people are saying.
The Church does not dispense the sacrament of baptism in order to acquire for herself an increase in membership but in order to consecrate a human being to God and to communicate to that person the divine gift of birth from God.
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