Wednesday, April 24, 2019

Four people in a meeting thinking about a Tyrannosaurus rex

The title pretty much says it all, I think.


I created this image (cobbled together from stock clipart, not my own draftsmanship) for my own inscrutable purposes and thought it had a certain charm that made it worth sharing.

6 comments:

Francis Berger said...

I like it. Perhaps all the meetings I have had to suffer through would have been more endurable if I had thought of a T-Rex.

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

I know, right? I mean, look how happy they are!

Seijio Arakawa said...

There are deep metaphysical questions concealed within this clip-art.

Are these four people thinking of the same T-Rex? How? In what sense? Does that mean the T-Rex exists? In what sense? Does the stuff above the T-Rex's neck which is actively being thought-of exist in the same sense as the stuff below the T-Rex's neck, whose existence is only implied by the thought? Does thinking of the T-Rex imply the existence of an entire universe which produced the T-Rex, and is indirectly being thought-of?

If they are thinking about a particular T-Rex that exists somewhere, is the T-Rex inside the thought-bubble the same as the T-Rex that exists somewhere? In what sense?

Why are they thinking of a T-Rex? Is this an allegory for bureaucratic thinking? Does it imply that, no matter what task you set for a committee of people, they will always be side-tracked (metaphorically) into thinking of a T-Rex? Do they believe that they are in control of the T-Rex, while actually being under its control? Is this a metaphor for how bureaucracy is wielded by incorporeal demonic entities through ideological conformity?

Deep, frightening questions.

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

Seijio, I had only considered the first of those questions (Are they thinking of the same T. rex?), but you're right; there's a lot to think about here!

I created the image for reasons so trivial and unphilosophical that I to mention them would be irrelevant, but I seem to have stumbled upon an icon of unsuspected depth.

Poppop said...

My comment comes late as I am a recent reader who is catching up.

I often thought of that species in meetings before my happy retirement day whenever I looked into the eyes of my management...

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

Haha, glad to see you’re catching up on must-read posts like this one!

I gotta admit

I haven't been invested in this election cycle at all, certainly nothing at all like 2020. This time around, I've maintained a curmu...