That's one of those meaningless and unanswerable questions the mind keeps returning to endlessly, like the tongue exploring a broken tooth.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the nature of thought and the tendency of the mind to dwell on unresolved questions.
Arthur C. Clarke compares the relentless nature of human thought to a tongue repetitively probing a broken tooth, illustrating how we often fixate on questions or ideas that are ultimately beyond our understanding. This metaphor highlights the futility of searching for answers to certain questions while simultaneously acknowledging the deep-seated curiosity that drives this mental exploration.
In practice
In a discussion about life's mysteries, one might say, 'As Clarke said, that's one of those meaningless and unanswerable questions the mind keeps returning to endlessly.'
Nowhere in space will we rest our eyes upon the familiar shapes of trees and plants, or any of the animals that share our world. Whatsoever life we meet will be as strange and alien as the nightmare creatures of the ocean abyss, or of the insect empire whose horrors are normally hidden from us by their microscopic scale.
As our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior morals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying.
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.
The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.
It was the mark of a barbarian to destroy something one could not understand.
My favorite definition of an intellectual: 'Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence'.
Most of us cluster somewhere in the middle of most statistical distributions. But there are lots of bell curves, and pretty much everyone is on a tail of at least one of them. We may collect strange memorabilia or read esoteric books, hold unusual religious beliefs or wear odd-sized shoes, suffer rare diseases or enjoy obscure movies.
The days hardened with cold and boredom like last year's loaves of bread. One began to cut them with blunt knives without appetite, with a lazy indifference.
The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.
It would be foolish to suggest that government is a good custodian of aesthetic goals. But, there is no alternative to the state.
Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole universe to take up arms to crush him: a vapour, a drop of water is enough to kill him. but even if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than his slayer, because he knows that he is dying and the advantage the universe has over him. The universe knows none of this.
The weather varies between heavy fog and pale sunshine; My thoughts follow the exact same process.
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