There are several oddities here.
Either
1. Your memory of Day 1 is false.
or
2.Your memory of remembering Day 1 is false.
or
3. Both your teacher and the rest of the class have wrong memory of day 1.
or
Your teacher remembered day 1 wrongly and the rest of the class
simply had not paid attention.
Now I shall brutally wield Occam's Razor.
Rolfe did know about the "I" beast and must have acquired the data from someone.
Rolfe has (clearly) a good memory.
Rolfe has only 1 (so far as we know) such story to tell, a quirk of memory which remains inexplicable after 34 years.
Rolfe's memory (then and now) includes an image of Mr.Brodie giving the lecture.
My conclusion is the simplest one possible. Rolfe is right. Mr.Brodie did explain about the beast. Next day, he asked a quite reasonable question based on his previous lecture.
It is Mr.Brodie's subsequent memory which was wrong and , despite the standard of the class, Rolfe was the only one who had been paying attention. No mystery to solve.*
That said, I would like to talk to the rest of the class about exactly what they recall.
Of course, the whole incident was retroactively created by angels, solely so that I would be enabled to get in touch with another long lost school chum. (Second in five days, both from the same small town).
* And if he did not lecture about it the previous day, then what had he lectured about?
Either
1. Your memory of Day 1 is false.
or
2.Your memory of remembering Day 1 is false.
or
3. Both your teacher and the rest of the class have wrong memory of day 1.
or
Your teacher remembered day 1 wrongly and the rest of the class
simply had not paid attention.
Now I shall brutally wield Occam's Razor.
Rolfe did know about the "I" beast and must have acquired the data from someone.
Rolfe has (clearly) a good memory.
Rolfe has only 1 (so far as we know) such story to tell, a quirk of memory which remains inexplicable after 34 years.
Rolfe's memory (then and now) includes an image of Mr.Brodie giving the lecture.
My conclusion is the simplest one possible. Rolfe is right. Mr.Brodie did explain about the beast. Next day, he asked a quite reasonable question based on his previous lecture.
It is Mr.Brodie's subsequent memory which was wrong and , despite the standard of the class, Rolfe was the only one who had been paying attention. No mystery to solve.*
That said, I would like to talk to the rest of the class about exactly what they recall.
Of course, the whole incident was retroactively created by angels, solely so that I would be enabled to get in touch with another long lost school chum. (Second in five days, both from the same small town).
* And if he did not lecture about it the previous day, then what had he lectured about?
The key point here is when the teacher asked "where did you hear that" I think. The students that also remembered the same as you might have been unsecure at that point and didnt speak up. This would explain the incident with regular psycology and group behaviour and doesn't require you to have elaborately dreamt either day 1 or 2. I have held lectures at my University and blank stares are not uncommon if I ask them something during the lecture. This could either mean that I have a really boring lecture or that people get tired around lunch time no matter how smart they are.
You do say that you asked your class mates about this afterwards but I wonder if you remember how well you grilled them and how many of them.
You do say that you asked your class mates about this afterwards but I wonder if you remember how well you grilled them and how many of them.
Rolfe
Adult human female
I suppose that's the simplest explanation. It's sort of what I thought at the time, it just seemed so unlikely that not only had the teacher forgotten he'd told us that stuff the previous day, the entire rest of the class had too.Soapy Sam said:
It was only a few minutes at the end of the class - the alternative was that he'd gone slightly more slowly through the lesson and hadn't had time for the ichneumon [fly] at the end.
No, I didn't grill the rest of the class hard about it. They didn't want to talk about it, and I backed off because I got the impression they thought I was attention-seeking or just being a general smart-aleck. The one person I'm still in contact with from that class doesn't remember the incident at all (mind you, she doesn't remember quite a lot of simple incidents from our childhood, I suspect all the medicine she learned since sort of crowded it all out).
Maybe there were a few other people at the time who remembered but didn't speak out. I did sort of appeal to the class as a whole to back me up, but it's not certain that everyone would have spoken out even if they did remember.
Anyway, we now know that Soapy Sam and I shared a school playground for about six months when we were about ten. And borrowed the same books out of the same public library. And our mothers still live only about a quarter of a mile apart.
How spooky is that?
Oh, and up yours, Olaf, Soapy and I are good mates.
Rolfe.
Just a couple of points.
This wasp versus fly thing. I gave it the Google test
Wasp: 1080 hits
Fly: 794 hits
Looking at the links it seems that "fly" is the common name. Even when it is named as the "ichneumon fly", it is described as being a wasp.
About your episode Rolfe. Recently, I walked into a lecture and started rabbiting on, as I do. Then about 30 minutes in, somebody piped up "but Sir, we did this last time". I didn't believe them, as I always bookmark my notes and then make a note where I leave off on a white board by my desk. I argued the case with the whole clase, but they wone the day.
This wasp versus fly thing. I gave it the Google test
Wasp: 1080 hits
Fly: 794 hits
Looking at the links it seems that "fly" is the common name. Even when it is named as the "ichneumon fly", it is described as being a wasp.
About your episode Rolfe. Recently, I walked into a lecture and started rabbiting on, as I do. Then about 30 minutes in, somebody piped up "but Sir, we did this last time". I didn't believe them, as I always bookmark my notes and then make a note where I leave off on a white board by my desk. I argued the case with the whole clase, but they wone the day.
richardm
Philosopher
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2001
- Messages
- 9,248
Rolfe said:
Small world, eh?
As a bonus, since we now know that you went to a "very high-level selective school, and the top stream of Biology pupils", it gives an excellent opportunity to be rude about Sam's education
Vitnir might have something when he said:
I can imagine that the teacher perhaps mentioned it in passing as you charged out of the room - "Tomorrow we're going to be doing the ichneumon fly". You had already heard of it from Some Other Source, but had forgotten about that, and simply confabulated the detail of it being explained in the lecture.
When you popped up with the info and the teacher challenged you, it's not hard to imagine the rest of the class ducking down behind the parapet.
But, as has been said before, the memory is a funny thing, and can stitch together all sorts of incidents to make Something Else.
It obviously made a big impression on you at the time, though!
Rolfe
Adult human female
Lots of my best friends (and the parents of lots of my best friends) went to the same school as Soapy Sam, more than my life's worth to cast the smallest aspersion!
Besides, remember we went to the same university. That levels all scores.
(The only rank I can pull is that while my school building is still standing, being used as a primary school, his was flattened and the site now plays host to some pretty tacky "little boxes".)
Rolfe.
Besides, remember we went to the same university. That levels all scores.
(The only rank I can pull is that while my school building is still standing, being used as a primary school, his was flattened and the site now plays host to some pretty tacky "little boxes".)
Rolfe.
sweetkb713
Scholar
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2004
- Messages
- 115
Rolfe said:
I think it is more likely that you dreamed one of the incidents with the teacher. I think it is highly unlikely that you would be the only person who remembered.
Rolfe
Adult human female
Ploughed with Barrett more like!Soapy Sam said:
And the father of a friend of mine travelled quite a long way for a last look at the place and his name on the dux board and everything. But then he always was sentimental.
It was quite a nice-looking building, not that I was ever inside it. But I gather that they didn't want to keep it and just didn't do any maintenance until it was ready to fall down of its own accord.
The gateposts are still there, giving the little boxes a feeling of superiority over us plebs in the cooncil hooses next door.
Rolfe.
sweetkb713
Scholar
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2004
- Messages
- 115
Tanja said:
Noone is a great friend of mine. He is quite popular amongst some of the teens in my gymnastics club.
Rolfe
Adult human female
Well, let's just say it's got to be one or the other. It's not as if we can roll back time and go see, or repeat the experiment to see if we get a reproducible result!sweetkb713 said:
Rolfe.
well, this is most distressing. i had never heard the "fly" applied to this group of wasps until this week! Clearly a bunch of sources are repeating the mistake--many of the citations on google are dictionaries.
well, like most things involving public perceptions of insects, the only thing i can do is a couple quick vodka shots, and let it go.
well, like most things involving public perceptions of insects, the only thing i can do is a couple quick vodka shots, and let it go.
This has bugged me all day. (sorry).
A brief quote from"Nonmoral Nature" an essay by Stephen J. Gould , published by Penguin Books in the UK in the collection "Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes" 1983.
"...The "ichneumon fly", which provoked such concern among natural theologians, was actually a composite creature representing the habits of an enormous tribe. The Ichneumonidae are a group of wasps, not flies,that include more species than all the vertebrates combined..."
Gould goes on, quoting Darwin writing to Asa Gray in 1860 and to Joseph Hooker in 1856 "What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the...horribly cruel works of nature."
Richard Dawkins chose that expression, "Devil's Chaplain" as the title of his latest collection of articles- including a letter to the recently dead Stephen Gould. The general lesson of both writers is that morality is a human property and should not be sought in specious comparisons with nature.
So it seems the term "fly" for the Ichneumonidae is an old one in common and scientific use.
So I should have known better. I bought the book in 1988, and this would be the essay in which I recalled reading about them, long after first learning of their existence around 1970.
A brief quote from"Nonmoral Nature" an essay by Stephen J. Gould , published by Penguin Books in the UK in the collection "Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes" 1983.
"...The "ichneumon fly", which provoked such concern among natural theologians, was actually a composite creature representing the habits of an enormous tribe. The Ichneumonidae are a group of wasps, not flies,that include more species than all the vertebrates combined..."
Gould goes on, quoting Darwin writing to Asa Gray in 1860 and to Joseph Hooker in 1856 "What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the...horribly cruel works of nature."
Richard Dawkins chose that expression, "Devil's Chaplain" as the title of his latest collection of articles- including a letter to the recently dead Stephen Gould. The general lesson of both writers is that morality is a human property and should not be sought in specious comparisons with nature.
So it seems the term "fly" for the Ichneumonidae is an old one in common and scientific use.
So I should have known better. I bought the book in 1988, and this would be the essay in which I recalled reading about them, long after first learning of their existence around 1970.
Re: Re: Weird story
Thanz said:
I agree that the dream explanation may be hard to swallow (not that I have a better one). When I have a dream, and I am reading something in the dream or hearing some song or whatever that I don't actually know, and I try to focus on it in the dream, I find out that I can't and then I know that I am dreaming.
If we are allowing "woo-woo" speculation here, I would not rule out clairvoyance just yet. It would depend on your view of the universe and determinism. It could be that you saw the future as it would have rolled out prior to you seeing it - that is, what would have happened is that your teacher would have asked about predators, no one puts up their hand, and he then explains about the fly. You "saw" this explanation. When you regurgitated it the next day, you altered the time line slightly so that the explanation you "saw" never occurs, as it is not needed. Or something like thahit.