Childsplay - By Benj96
Curiosity, ignorance and knowledge played a game in the garden one day. Marco-polo. Knowledge went hiding while the two others would seek. Curiosity chose to count to 10, ignorance chose to count to infinity. Curiosity started searching first, asking questions as to the whereabouts of knowledge. Knowledge called out "I'm here come find me". Curiosity, wandering about, shouted ever more questions as she went. "Warmer, warmer" said knowledge in response. Eventually Curiosity found knowledge. Look ignorance I found him! But ignorance was too busy counting. He could not see knowledge. His eyes were closed.
Curiosity having found knowledge, realised she was no longer curious. Who am I now? she asked herself.
At that moment, Curiosity realised she was knowledge. She had found herself. She looked to where ignorance once stood counting but he had all but vanished. No where to be seen. She got lonely without her two playmates. So she stopped thinking and sat there dismayed for quite a time, so long in fact that she forgot she had ever played a game at all. Then a guy named Curiosity came along. Hey, want to play marcó polo with my friend, he is hiding. "Who am I" she replied.
Curiosity having found knowledge, realised she was no longer curious. Who am I now? she asked herself.
At that moment, Curiosity realised she was knowledge. She had found herself. She looked to where ignorance once stood counting but he had all but vanished. No where to be seen. She got lonely without her two playmates. So she stopped thinking and sat there dismayed for quite a time, so long in fact that she forgot she had ever played a game at all. Then a guy named Curiosity came along. Hey, want to play marcó polo with my friend, he is hiding. "Who am I" she replied.
Comments (32)
Nice play on words.
Childsplay is something easy to do. Perhaps a bit like writing micro-fiction, for some :wink:
This story is complex; not easy to unravel by a curious ignoramus seeking understanding if not knowledge.
Quoting Caldwell
What kind of Knowledge was Curiosity looking for.
Would she know the face of the tantalising tease? By sight or touch? Which sense is most important?
So many questions. Would she ever be satisfied? If so, what then?
Quoting Caldwell
Hah. Even when knowledge is found, the questions don't stop for Curiosity.
The eternal question of identity in a changing world, "Who am I now?".
Any solution is not childsplay. It's a work in progress unless an absolutist.
''I know that I know nothing'', said someone, once.
Quoting Caldwell
No, No, NO!! False perception. There is no absolute knowledge. It does not absorb curiosity.
Curiosity cannot die to this delusion.
Quoting Caldwell
There is a need for play with others. The call and response game. Stimulating.
It's finding the balance.
To avoid dizziness on the swings and roundabouts; vertigo at the top of the chute.
Both with and without curiosity, the mind can depress. Identity disappearing down a black hole.
We need Ignorance as a starter and Knowledge as dessert. There are all kinds of dishes to set before the Queen (of Curiosity).
Quoting Caldwell
A saviour. Curiosity, in another guise. It never dies.
Chew on this.
"Who are we?"
Creatures of habit.
"Who am I?".
A dizzy, dead cat.
***
Beautiful story full of magic and wonder.
Refreshing to read. Clever. :fire: :heart:
Yeah. Go figure *shrugs*.
The voting system might be to blame. Decisions, decisions...
I say go for a @Jamal's emoticons. Count the :up: 1-3.
Maybe not :smile:
I think knowledge cannot see ignorance as knowledge is without ignorance, and ignorance cannot see knowledge as its without knowledge, curiosity is the interlocutor that can approach either end of the spectrum between them
Socrates was that person I believe. It supposes a contradiction between knowing and not knowing. A similar vein of contradiction runs through the story presented here. A circular argument regarding the dynamic between knowledge and ignorance.
Yes. The eternal circle of life. I guess :chin:
No, not daft at all. What I now wonder is: does she expect her saviour to find the answers to her question.
Will she depend on his desire to know her to realise her identity?
And will that be true knowledge?
How much do we depend on others to reflect back who we are?
There are issues of truth and trust here, I think.
How true are our own stories about ourselves...
I took the conceit of this one to be a clever cycle of states of consciousness, but you could be right. If it is cyclical, though, the cycle doesn't make sense to me. Knowledge made her so inert that she eventually reverted back to ignorance? Strange.
Also, we don't see the perspective of Knowledge when (knowingly?) joining the game. Did Curiosity's finding of Knowledge send the first instance of Knowledge into the inert state that eventually sent it/him/her back into Ignorance before the first Curiosity did so? Is there only one character in reality here? Curiosity might be the only real entity in the game, I think. It's first (female) instance has lost identity by the end, and the new male instance of Curiosity seems to be the only one with agency now. Maybe an allegory for the cycle of reincarnation? This is what happens when I think out loud and attempt to go in depth, @Amity. :joke:
I like it! :up:
I think you are right! We are all a bit of everything and everything is in us. God help us all :pray:
I also realise that I identified too much with Curiosity.
Didn't pay enough attention to the other characters. Not curious enough. Yikes!
So self-centred am I.
This is getting too much like psycho-analysis.
Can I leave now?
Yes, you can.
OK.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Until the next time :kiss:
Quite right Noble Dust. Because I think with learning comes assertion of established assumptions. The more you assume, the narrower your focus becomes. Until you're absolutely certain of a specified line of thinking. Having omitted all else. With such conviction, such particular focus, one becomes tunnel visioned and fails to see anything outside of their objective.
I do think in the end, having forgotten the game, curiosity abated, taken over first by knowledge, but unstimulated, she sat idle until all was lost and she resumed the title of ignorance.
To forget knowledge is to become ever more ignorant, until curiosity, a stranger, beckoned her to reconsider her status, her identity within the interplay between three things: curiosity, ignorance and knowledge.
Wow, I never thought of it that way. It quite profound. How much of our self indentity comes from comparison with the identity of others?
A thoughtful notion indeed.
You can always leave. For sure. But something intrigued you enough to stay thus far. If I were you I would not shy away from it. I'm "curious" (ironic isnt it), to pick your mind on what the story means to you. "Curiosity" beholds me to elucidate your "knowledge" on the subject, so I may be less "ignorant" to Amity's mind.
I was joking.
I've already written enough. Thanks for the curiosity and interest though.
That's OK. It happens.
It is a good story and who knows I might write something later.
It deserves more.
Agreed. What I find curious is that the definition of absolute knowledge is self knowledge. However, when it comes to 'forms' or 'ideas', which Curiosity is, is in that case self knowledge not only possible, but necessary? Curiosity is curiosity, she is nothing besides. Continuing this train of thought, if as in the story, curiosity ceases to be curiosity because she attained knowledge, then curiosity is a paradoxical idea, she ceases to be when she knows who she is. So its an idea based on not knowing what the idea is....
Are you sure about that?
Self-knowledge. Isn't that a work in progress?
Quoting Tobias
Curiosity is curiosity. Ignorance is ignorance. Knowledge is knowledge.
Nothing besides the name? A concept alone. No. She kicks ass.
Curiosity is a driving force related to learning about self, others, and the world.
Curiosity is born from ignorance but does not die with knowledge.
Quoting Tobias
But I don't accept that is what happens. Curiosity might look dead but only lies dormant. In hibernation. Like Sleeping Beauty.
Quoting Tobias
No, no, NO!!
She never really knows all that she is or can be. Even if a prince wakes her with a kiss.
Quoting Tobias
You've lost me.
Well, you wrote this:
Quoting Amity
Curiosity became knowledge, she has found herself and you connected it with absolute knowledge. I think that is no coincidence though. Aristotle defined perfect being as being thinking itself. In Hegel too absolute knowledge is spirit who knows itself as spirit. I think it is a recurrent theme.
Quoting Amity
I agree curiosity is a driving. However this is curiosity personified. It is not your curiosity, or mine. It is not inherent in a material being. It is therefore disembodied curiosity. This is curiosity itself, her name defines her being.vTherefore I said ' curiosity and nothing besides'. Quoting Amity
I accept your earlier exclamation, there is no absolute knowledge. Curiosity cannot be sleeping or she would cease to be curiosity. Curiosity therefore will remain curious even after meeting knowledge.
Quoting Amity
We are in agreement. Though only a kiss will cause curiosity to temporarily subside. That though is not self knowledge, or self love, but love by an other, a material other, instead of ideal. So, absolute knowledge, what would that be? It would be love of the other, per se, as other, as moment and as body.
Quoting Amity
We were talking past each other. I actually agree with all you wrote. Idealizing Curioisty, as the story does, leads to for me the paradoxical situation that she dies when she attains knowledge. That I find impossible. So it hints for me at least, at the impossibility of absolute knowledge as self knowledge. But I lost myself too. Sometimes it is easier to intuit something than to write it down.
I see what you mean and it sort of eludes to that at the end, she falls idle and stops thinking (perhaps because she lost track of her knowledge), and in that glum state she is as you say in a sort of "hibernation of thought/a lack of questioning." Dormant curiosity. As if counting to infinity as ignorance did at the beginning.
Because both knowledge and ignorance as far as she is aware appear to have vanished from the scene.
But then curiosity returns to her asking if she wants to play the game she forgot. This is perhaps the wakening from dormancy by Prince charming kiss - a question. Which beckons her to think well, if you're curiosity, and you say knowledge is once again hiding, who am I?
The moment she asks "who am I" she has stopped being ignorance and is curious again because she asked a question. And so the whole journey towards knowledge, the game, begins anew.
Interesting indeed
Love does sort of have that quality I think of "absolutism." One doesn't "sort of love" another. They "know" they love the other "whole-heartedly" or with "all of their being".
Otherwise they would just "like" a person rather than love them.
In that sense they as a "being" and a "knowing" are united as one. One in love would live and breathe for the object of their love - "say" and "do" being one and the same.
Perhaps thats where "I do" in marriage comes from - demonstration of words and actions (commitment) being parallels.
Is love the absence of hypocrisy in this case? An absence of contradiction? It does seem then to parallel with the idea of absolute knowledge (awareness of a full/whole truth of things.)
Because the truth, like love perhaps, would be a state of non-contradiction. One knows fully they are in love and nobody could contradict that or disprove it.
It could benefit from better formatting, but otherwise well done.
There is only one lonely being called Ignorance, who can picture and populate the world by the various powers of ignorance. The supernatural power of ignorance compels you.
I like it but you should ignore my commentary.
How can ignorance be skillful? Does skill not require "know-how" or in other words - knowledge.
I think ignorance is unskilled. Wisdom on the other hand is very apt. Very applied, very skilled.
You need to be able to ignore what must be ignored when using your "know-how". Applied knowledge is therefore an employment of skillful ignorance.