Via the fantastical world of email forwarding (and now I see on the Snopes board) I received this “riddle” which sounds like something to discuss while stoned.
It came with no answer. And I’ll be damned if I can even COMPREHEND the question.
What’s the deal with it? (I put this in GD because I figured it may turn into a strange Physics/Metaphysics/Spiritual/Insanity argument)
Here goes:
These perfunctory radiant energy snippets, located in the state of knowing, are known for their specialized offerings.
Their nature is radiant energy–electromagnetism first, then with an added component of sound waves along with electromagnetism in the visual range in the case of tv. They are perfunctory (circa 30 seconds or so). Their “location” is the state of knowing, which is indeed the consciousnesses that ultimately experience them. Commercials are all about specialized offerings–this company, this product, this service, and not those other ones.
Well Perfunctory means routine or superficiality. I would say the answer is The electric impulses (energy snippets) routinely come off the Dendrites located at the end of an Axon or nerve ending, thus producing a state of knowing, in other words a thought.
I’m with him. My guess is that it’s a “playing with my Roget” word game, somebody too cleverly thinking up synonyms, not a “deep philosophy” thing at all.
Since nobody seems to have the answer, I will throw in my own partial theory, in hope that it will help somebody else solve this thing -
I think that “radiant energy snippets” could mean “flashes”. The “state of knowing” could be “awareness”, and “located in” could mean something as simple as “of” or “from”. So that gives the phrase “flashes of awareness” as part of the answer. If you do a Google search on it you’ll find that it’s a fairly common stock phrase, so I think I might be on the right track here.
Google didn’t turn up any likely answers to the riddle though. I was hoping it would be based on a famous quotation, but I didn’t find one.
I suppose the snippets could be randomly firing neural synapses.
Any neurologists on hand? Are dreams thought (or even theorized, or even HYPOTHESIZED) to be randomly firing neural synapses? If so, dreams could be “perfunctory radiant energy snippets.”
Time for a bad pun. “KNOWING” = “KNOWIN’” = “NO WIND”; ergo, “State of Knowing” = “State of No Wind” = “Nirvana” Do any of the philosophical or psychological heavy hitters credit the dream state with Nirvanic qualities?
And dreams are often quoted as having held the seeds of the inspiration to several breakthroughs, have they not. F’ristance there is the story of the model for the benzene ring being inspired by a dream of dancing fairies. And on a somewhat less scientific level, we have the tale of Calpurnia seeming to receive advance notice about the bad Ides of March Julius Caesar was about to have. And the biblical tales of Joseph and his, well, anazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, for want of a better description.
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