WEBVTT

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Well, I think I'll
read this one.

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It's a short one,
because maybe this is

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sort of appropriate to go here.

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It's called "The
Childhood of Parmenides."

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And Parmenides is the
Socratic Greek philosopher

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who asked that
question, why is there

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something rather than nothing?

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And when I heard this
when I was, I don't know,

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18 years old, I thought,
what a question.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And then, later on, then
I was thinking, like,

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under what circumstances
did this occurr to him?

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I was trying to imagine
what led to this, because we

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know nothing, less than
nothing about Parmenides.

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Most things about his life are
obscure, just fragments left.

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So many years later
I kind of one day

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just sort of realized that
among all the possible life

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situations that this must be the
way it happened, so to speak.

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And I'm sure it is
the way it happened.

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It's a very short
poem, actually.

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For asking, why is there
something rather than nothing,

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the schoolmaster
sends the little punk

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to see the principal.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Unfortunately, they
haven't got one yet.

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There is only King Minos in
his labyrinth, and of course

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Philemon, who is
about to die laughing

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at the sight of an
ass eating figs.

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