Dumbledore's Unspeakable Word (going OT)

[pippin_999]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Barry Arrowsmith"
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:

> Once I'd stopped I couldn't stand idly by, that  would be an 
incomprehensible  reaction, totally foreign to my nature. 
Of course I probably could have driven
past but for ever after I'd've wondered.... what if.... And no - no 
bravery, just instinct. It was .... distressing is the closest word I 
can come up with.
> 

Pippin:
The thing I don't get, Kneasy, is how you knew you'd wonder for ever
after. That doesn't sound like instinct. That sounds like your
forebrain talking, and your forebrain isn't just you, it's stuffed 
with messages from other people. Language itself is a message 
from other people.

I'm not a neuroscientist or an expert on baboons, but from what I've
read, the more complex a human  decision is, the more likely it 
is to get bounced to the forebrain and thought about. I don't think 
baboons do much of that, not having much language or forebrain 
to speak of.

Anyway, to bring this back to HP, if fifty gazillion people are going
to buy a book, I would rather it said, "Love thy neighbour" than 
"Kill the !@#$%!"  or even "Life is a mystery and makes us do 
incomprehensible things." *That* sounds like a cop-out.  But that's 
just me.

By the way, which of the 15 or so  definitions of 'life' do you
have in mind?
<veg>

Pippin