(no subject)

I stumbled across a discussion about playing chess under the influence of various substances. "it's fun as hell stoned (takes for fucking ever to make a move though)".

A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness, cont

I read this bit out loud to Jon:

Vervet monkeys in the wild have specific calls to warn their companions about different predators. A "tree snake" call will send them scurrying down to the ground and a "terrestrial leopard" call will send them climbing higher up the tree. But the caller doesn't know that it is warning the others; vervet monkeys have no introspective consciousness... We could teach a monkey that a pig is dangerous by administering a mild electric shock whenever the pig appears. But what if that monkey were put back in the treetops and a pig lifted onto an adjoining branch? I predict that the monkey would become agitated but would not be capable of generating the "snake" cry to warn the other monkeys to climb down; ie, to start using it as a verb.

Jon's response, naturally, was to wonder what kind of maniac scientist spends their time lifting pigs into trees.