If you're, say, a misguided eighteenth-century natural philosopher dude, and you believe that within each sperm is a perfectly formed miniature man, then that perfectly formed mini-man must himself have little miniature sperm, inside which sperm are even teenier perfectly formed little men, in whose insy-winsy sperm are even smidgier men, in whose itty-bitty sperm are weeny-meany little squidgy perfectly formed men, replete with minimissimus sperm, containing very small humans indeed, and - so - forth.
You'd get to thinking you were quite important.
7 comments:
That is not only impossible but quite clearly insane. Also, recursion! Recurring recursively since forever.
Why's it impossible (y'know, leaving aside all that newfangled stuff about ova and genes)? If humanity only exists for five thousand years, and some individuals (Methuselah, say), live for five hundred years, then we can assume that the first bloke only needs about 150 generations tucked inside his sperm.
It ain't over till it's ova. Old jungle saying.
I think Jung argued, interestingly but somewhat callously, that all the traumas of a person's lifetime were somehow inherent in that person's psyche from their birth. (So experiences as a soldier in the war, divorces, births, deaths, marriages, and so forth). You could easily take that one step further and say that all the traumas of humanity were inherent in the original parents. If you were, you know, Jung. And possibly nuts.
Then again, nuts is what you might go if you were Adam and you somehow figured that you contained and were responsible for all the traumas of the future world in your, well, nuts.
and now my brain fartage is into over-load so we shall recall the pollies from Copenhagen to rewrite the laws of making my brain melt with no coffee on board! :P
You'd also be probably concerned about all those little spermatazoa that you didn't use at the end of your life. Most of it isn't used, after all - think of all the little men and women inherent in those spermatazoas, and all the little men and women inherent in those sub-spermatazoas, et cetera, ad infinitum: a plethora of possible worlds that never came to be, and a veritable infinitude of traumas, to boot.
No wonder Onan got in trouble for spilling his seed.
This trauma talk's a bit anachronistic, but the theory helps make sense of the idea of being cursed unto the seventh generation and stuff.
Post a Comment