I have long suspected that zoos were invented by animals.

blessed

You're blessed, you could consider the entire world as your museum. Maybe that's the only way to avoid deep depression: consider everything around as something conveniently put on display for your interest.

deja

We already are in this museum on human vanity, and if you know it it becomes rather attractive.

I think i'm not an interesting visitor :D

one finds the best looking girls in musea.

The Museum of Fake Art sounds perfect to me.

Museum Youseum Yousee-em

Maybe a disco is a good decorum for the Museum of Human Vanity.

sparring

Isn't art just another rebellion against the genes? and a more effective one than anticonception. Do you think detachment could also be a case against the genes?

Ecôte S.

Because of my genes I am destined to create art.
That's my egotism.

Fake art?
Only a true master will be able to create fake art.

Mieke

Please don't blame your genes for your vanity.

I have rubbish genes. Can I blame them?

Dens

Go find yourself a partner with good genes.

genes & whatever...

What are 'good genes'?
In the end a good artist/writer/musician/composer/scientist/performer etc is supposed to have 'good genes'.
It's a tautology.
His/her genes came to full expression in perfect surroundings; - for those particular genes! - like a perfect tulip bulb put into perfect soil and always, every single day of its existence, having a perfect climate and perfect humidity, and perfect conditions in every conceivable way: light and temperature and so on and on and on.
Result: a great bloom, a wonderful flower, winning prizes in all imaginable competitions: the 'Chelsea Flower Show' and what not.
Someone like Arnon Grunberg himself may be compared to this case! A good bulb in perfect New York surroundings.
Great bulb; great genes, great 'nature and nurture', etc. Nice flower!

But put the same bulb into some dry sand e.g., and nothing will come of it.
Because of these many 'parameters' "Nothing will come out of countless of millions of people" (WFH).
It's just the way it is.
Please don't think you can fool your genes; you only think you can.
Any thought you may have was made possible because of your genes, because of your environment, your upbringing, the food you have been eating, the books you have been reading.
"Man is a chemical process, like any other."

Richard Dawkins happens to be a great successor to Bertrand Russell, both real geniuses, with a great set of chromosomes/genes, a real good upbringing/education/'nurture'.
(See their upper-class parents/'pedigree'!)
Anything else said on this subject sounded a bit 'outdated' to me, sorry, no offence meant to anyone.
bhe

http://www.google.nl/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=feynman&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Bert Hesper

Are you suggesting that Dens should find the optimal stage for his genes?

Hesper

Have you read Dawkins' book?
I'm happy to hear that I'm a nice flower. Do you happen to know what kind of flower exactly?

Is it not in the genes of (great) men to find the perfect conditions to "bloom"? Man is not a flower that's stuck in a foul soil. He can move as he wishes, if his genes are 'good' enough. I, for example, am still bound to my mother, there's no soil. Just a motherstem.

Hesper

Don't take my comment too seriously. It was just an example of my favorite pastime: self-mockery.

Arnon

The Amorphophallus titanum

Mieke

In your case it's hard to distinguish between self-deprecation and pure vanity.

Arnon

Touché. That hurts.

Genes & flowers

@Arnon a.o.

Yes, I read 'The Selfish Gene' in the 80's. And I am a great admirer of Mr Richard Dawkins.
What flower? I would say an Epiphyllum: one of my absolute favourites: a plant from Central America, growing in tree tops, living of the waste matter of trees and other plants. An 'epiphytic', an 'orchid cacti', or 'leaf cacti'. Various colors. (Red, yellow, white)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphyllum
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/epi/photos/album/1546302289/pic/list

A nice quote from 'The Selfish Gene':
Memes and genes may often reinforce each other, but they sometimes come into opposition. For example, the habit of celibacy is presumably not inherited genetically. A gene for celibacy is doomed to failure in the gene pool, except under very special circumstances such as we find in the social insects. But still, a MEME for celibacy can be successful in the meme pool. (...)

So, we have got genes and memes, memes being a kind of virus that may take hold of our brains: like an admiration for the writer Arnon Grunberg. ('Memes: The New Replicators': the last chapter in the book)
(Cf any religion, any fad, any 'hype' etc)
(When Dawkins compared religion to a virus you can imagine the shocked reactions in England)
Anyway: don't think you've got a free will, you don't.
I'm convinced of the fact that I admire Arnon Grunberg largely because of my genes.

Mieke & Dens:
I didn't take your comment too seriously; I understand self-mockery/deprecation all too well.
'Find an optimal stage'? How the hell would you know?
Perhaps my genes would have an optimal 'surroundings/stage/environment' in Siberia.
What would have become of Aleksandr Solzjenitsyn if he had lived a quiet life in Vienna?
What might be the perfect 'soil' for any set of genes?
It's an unanswerable question.
Take Kepler: badly abused as a child: a great genius.
Should we therefore abuse all children as much as we can?
We don't know all the parameters that make us what we are in the end.
It's genes and memes and 'soil'/the environment/upbringing/education etc.
Nature and nurture, that's it.
bhe
=============

bert hesper

I don't see how this opposes my opinion.