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Egon the rabbit and me: The wonder of finding an invisible planet (2)

Part 2

I: Something rings a bell. Why I don't feel wonder for finding an invisible planet by the law of gravity. One reason may be because my world has been a little bit expanded. However, I don't think that is enough large. I feel there still is a huge world that I don't know yet. So I hope I am not such arrogant that I think I know everything and thus I don't feel wonder anymore. I think I learn a little bit, so the wonders became knowledge. Some wonder and magic has changed to some great things, knowledge.

Egon: ...

I: I didn't find these knowledge by myself, I just learned. I hope I understand them, not just memorized them.

Egon: ...

I: It's not exactly accurate words, but the law of gravity is all about ``Things fall down''. Human being observed the universe for a long time, literally a few thousand years. And people found ``Things fall down'' in many places in the universe.

Egon: Human being accumulate such knowledge for a long time.

I: We don't know the reason of gravity. Recently, there is some progress about Higgs boson, thus, our knowledge is a bit expanded about the gravity. But, I think we still don't understand the origin of the gravity. Nevertheless, we always see the ``things fall down''.  I throw a stone, it falls down. Someone throws a ball, it falls down. If I jump, I fall down to the earth. If you jump, you will fall down to the earth.

Egon: No rabbit can be kept in the air. Some might say.

I: You might think it is normal. But ``normal'' is how I or you ``feel'', usually it is a fact that is familiar with me. However, familiar fact is not necessary to be a universal fact. It is just ``that was always true in my town.'' This is not necessary true in other towns.  We see ``things fall down'' on the earth all the time. But is it general in the universe?  How is it at 1000 light years away? How can you think the law of gravity is the same to on the earth at such far distance? If we visit to the moon, our weight becomes lighter. Do you still think the law of gravity is the same everywhere in the universe? (Though, the law of gravity on the moon is actually the same to the earth.)

Egon: Something is normal on the earth doesn't necessary true somewhere in the universe. Sounds reasonable.

I: I always see ``things fall down.'' Sometimes I think I found exceptions. For example, a bird flies, or a fire balloon floats, but if I think them more deeply, I always found they are not exceptions. A fire balloon falls down when it lost the heat, a bird cannot fly forever.  I don't know why, but ``Things always fall down.'' Physics can only describes how that force behaves, not why: Between two objects, there is a pulling force each other. That force is proportional to each mass, reciprocal to the square of the distance, and it is proportional to a constant.

Egon: That is just a detail.

I: We can write it as F = GMm/r^2. This is independent from some natural language, for instance, English, Japanese, German. And there is less ambiguity. So I found it useful, but, the meaning should be the same in any languages, English, German, Japanese, or math. One of the meaning of this is ``Things fall down.''

Egon: ...

I: ``Feeling normal'' is a kind of easy. But if I stay always in a certain normal situation, I could not expand my world. I could stay there. But, the world catches me at some point. Because the world is always changing. If I would like to live in the changing world, I need to update my world, too, I would like to expand my world bit by bit. I think this is learning. I am an software engineer. If I stop learning, I will be useless at some point. Because the technology is always evolving. I constantly need to expand my world, the world here is my knowledge and skills. I am in my knowledge world, that is easy since I already understand them. But, I cannot stand still if I work on this world. I need to study, confuse, make mistakes to understand the new area. That is a quite cumbersome work.

Egon: You made your cage and became familiar with that. But when you don't satisfied it anymore, you need to update it. Or the cage doesn't work at some point. On the other hand, your cage gives you some safety and comfort. You don't know whether your new cage will be comfortable and safe.

I: Any cage became old and I cannot live in it forever. Either I need to update my cage continuously or I need to build again when the cage collapsed. I rather try to update it continuously rather than experiencing a disaster. Most of catastrophe can be avoided if you respond early. I want to learn from other catastrophe.

Egon: You may need courage. You can ignore the outside of your world. You can hate the change and new things. You could hope you can still hide your mother's behind.  ``Please don't open the door. Let me alone. I love now, I familiar with it. Stop the world.'' This could be one way to live.

I: That's a choice. What is important is the issue. Any animal that has no interesting to the outside of the world, they usually tend to extinct. So the extinction is not an issue, such life is fine.

Egon: Even one is protected by a cage?

I: No cage can be perfect. It will break one day. I am just talking about the nature. If a group stays only one small place and never go outside of the region, they are in danger. For instance, natural disaster can destroy them. An outbreak can destroy them.  But this group is interested in outside the world, they will spread. Even one part of the group eliminated by a natural disaster or a disease outbreak, spread group has more chance to survive.  It is just a risk management. Don't put all one's eggs in one basket. Children are usually curious for many things. Because they need to adapt to the surrounding world. A life form has more chance to survive if it constantly breaks the own cage, expand to larger world, adapt to the world. Because the risk is distributed. I think it is wisdom to survive that people encourage to curious to other world. It is a kind of investment. There is a risk to expand, however, no investment means no success. Moreover, we have children. Children are new of the group. If you want to have nothing new, children are harmful for that idea. But, I think if we don't refuse existence of children, I don't see the future.

Egon: Future may be overrated. Some might welcome extinction. How you are so sure that having a future is good thing. Or you can be one of domestic animal. Someone else takes care of your cage. That would be one way to live.

I: I am not attracted those ideas.

Egon: I can imagine, a lot of people will take one month food for freedom and life.

I: ...

Egon: You once told me the difference between human and animal is human can see the future and make a plan for it, animal is otherwise. The world of rabbit and the world of human, which has more future?

I: ... ``If the bee extincted, all the life on the earth would die. If the human extincted, all other life would be flourish.''...

Egon: ...

The discussion goes to a bit different direction. I thought the feeling of wonder is needed for expanding my own world and break my cage. If I don't feel the wonder anymore, and I stop looking outside of the world, that day my mind and my possibility would die. It is hard to keep up the world. Sometimes I just wanted to stop looking around. Rejecting new idea and people sounds easy. I could stop learning something new. The problem is the time doesn't stand still. At this moment, someone new is born, someone find a new idea. The world is always changing. The old would die soon or later. Will I die together with them, or will I create the new world?  This is my decision. If a system harm us, will I die together, or will I create a new better system with some cost? I was thinking these ideas next to Egon.


(To be continued)

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