During my spare time, surfing the internet in order to read new posts on blogs held by friends, I was interested in Yseult’s article A crisis of consciousness (still haven’t found the time to post a comment… I just hope to find the strength to do it). I tried to remember what I learned about mind and brain and their whereabouts… and questions like “is language only a function of an organ, or something more”, etc.

And I thought about Jerry Alan Fodor, who is a cognitive scientist currently working at the Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. I wont say much here about him, my point is elsewhere: I happen to remember an article he wrote in February 2004 in Mind & Language, volume 19, named “Having Concepts: a Brief Refutation of the Twentieth Century”. In this article, he wrote: “But this parrot too is pretty certainly dead”. Now I can hear you: what is he saying? quoting Jerry Fodor about a parrot? he certainly is a looney (me, not JF… although…)! We all know that JF likes jokes, but what is the point here? I’ll say: the point is, JF is making a reference to the Monty Python’s N°1 sketch: the pet shop sketch (aka Dead parrot sketch; for those who don’t know what I’m talking about, see here).

And this reminded me of another quote of the same sketch: Mr Praline (played by John Cleese), complaining to the Shopkeeper (played by Michael Palin) about a dead parrot he sold to him just 30 minutes ago: “P I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it. It’s dead, that’s what’s wrong with it. S No, no it’s resting, look! (…) P All right then, if it’s resting I’ll wake it up. (shouts into cage) Hello Polly! I’ve got a nice cuttlefish for you when you wake up, Polly Parrot!”

Now to the point: the name Polly for a parrot is well known in England (who never heard the famous: Polly want a cracker, or Polly wanna cracker, …), but where does it come from? I’m not sure, but I think I just found where: the Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a pub located in London, Wine Office Court, 145 Fleet Street (more informations on this pub there and there). So it seem that a famous parrot named Polly lived there from 1876 to 1916; it won his fame by it’s capability to utter insults in many languages, and by the fact that at the celebrations to mark victory at the end of the Great War this wonderful bird manically imitated the popping of – it is said – more than 300 champagne corks before falling dead. Its death was announced on the BBC and it is also said that obituaries appeared in newspapers all over the world. Nice! So, if you’re going to stay in London, don’t forget to visit the Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese pub, to pay homage to this parrot, so famous that his name is used for the whole species! Cheers!

Some, after reading the About page in my blog, were pointing – truthfully – at the fact that my so called not-so-BIG questions are in fact general-important-questions about the world and myself, and the small-questions-that-are-BIG are particular-important-questions about the same subject, but they are both BIG, and so must be both answered here. I’ll plead guilty as charged; but I also just want to make my point clear: I think that very often (meaning almost all the time) the questions we find important are not the general ones, but the small ones, as they have a direct impact on our daily life, and often an annoying one; that doesn’t mean that general questions are not important. So I will handle first and mainly the particular ones, but will also consider – sometimes – the others.

There are also those who were quite deceived by me relying on the Monty Python’s Meaning of Life to answer the not-so-BIG questions, arguing that they don’t answer those questions, but only mock them. Agree, but not completely. In a way, they give some answers, right at the end: ” Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations”. They just show what I was trying to write down: important questions are not prima facie the general ones as Why are we here? What’s life all about? but those little ones which are so practical. So, if you want a complement to the Monty Python’s way of life, just remember King Lear’s fool:

Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest,
Ride more than thou goest,
Learn more than thou trowest,
Set less than thou throwest;
Leave thy drink and thy whore
And keep in-a-door,
And thou shalt have more
Than two tens to a score.
Thanks to Shakespeare

See you

- And what are you doing this morning?
- It’s a birth.
- Ah… And what sort of thing is that?
- Well, that’s where we take a new baby out of a lady’s tummy.
- Wonderful what we can do nowdays.
From Monty Python’s Meaning of Life

Birth:

1. The process of bearing young; parturition; childbirth. Related adj.: natal 2. the act or fact of being born; nativity. 3. the coming into existence of something; origin. 4. ancestry; lineage: of high birth. 5. noble ancestry: a man of birth. 6. natural or inherited talent: an artist by birth. 7. Archaic. the offspring or young born at a particular time or of a particular mother. 8. give birth (to). a. to bear (offspring). b. to produce, originate, or create (an idea, plan, etc.). ~vb. (tr.) Rare. 9. to bear or bring forth (a child). [C12: from Old Norse byrth; related to Gothic gabaurths, Old Swedish byrdh. Old High German berd child; see BEAR, BAIRN]
Thanks to the Collins English Dictionary, published by HarperCollins