I  would like deeper analyzation of the quote "look at those cows and
remember that the greatest scientist in the world have never
discovered how to make grass into milk." with examples and
illustrations.

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Clarification of Question by karina1102-ga on 03 Jul 2002 03:30 PDT

what is the meaning of this quote relating to nature?

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Request for Question Clarification by siliconsamurai-ga on 03 Jul 2002 07:02 PDT

Could you clarify a bit further? As a scientist who also keeps sheep
and cows I would like to answer your question but I read the initial
response, your clarification, and don't understand what more you are
looking for.

Do you want a scientific explanation of how mammals create milk? The
relationship between science, nature, and religious thought? A
semantic analysis of the quote? Its relation to a history of similar
statements? Or, something else?

I'll be happy to tackle this from one of several angles if I know what
you are looking for.

Thank you in advance for any clarification you can supply. I realize
that sometimes it can be difficult to be precise about what you are
looking for but I believe more information is necessary to give you
what you want.

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Request for Question Clarification by grimace-ga on 03 Jul 2002 11:02 PDT

karina, perhaps if you explained your objections to zerocattle's
answer more fully we would know how to proceed with this. In my
opinion, her answer showed fairly "deep analysis" and some good
examples.

https://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=35995 is the
initial question on this topic, so the researchers know what's been
tried before.

Good luck with your search!

:) zerocattle-ga

It sounds to me like Mr Pupin was reminding us of the everyday
mysteries all around us: we can split the atom and put a man on the
moon, but how the stuff we put on our corn flakes is made still eludes
us.

I nearly missed this one before it expired.  I love interpreting
literature, so this one held a special appeal to me.

I believe this is a profoundly divine passage, although taken out of
the original context, it would be impossible to know for sure the
meaning.  I, however, derive my own personal feelings from this
beautiful quote.  You see, we humans aspire to do great things,
reaching to perfect nature and creation.  I believe the focus here is
the cow: an animal that is so simple and natural in its actions, that
has no care in the world, and has no greater aspirations in creating
the milk.  The cow is simply hungry, is following its natural need to
eat, an instinct born in it that scientists cannot recreate; as a
result, it produces a life sustaining substance without intention.  It
is beautiful in its simplicity.  We humans have an internal drive to
master things, a need foreign to the cow.  Yet the cow succeeds where
we fail; yet the cow would never perceive its milk production as a
success or failure.  We can dominate nature in so many ways, but we
can never master it.  Alchemy is a long pursued thing in
humans…produced out of greed.  However, the cow succeeds in its own
form of alchemy simply out of an instinct to eat…

As for the examples, I believe that these might be slightly
dissimilar, but along the same lines.

Humans strive, as artists and in vanity, to recreate beauty.  For
years we have tried and tried to duplicate the beauty of a natural
pearl, with only the success of creating a bead hardly worth anything.
 We cannot match the beauty of the natural pearl, which is created
when a small grain of sand aggrivates the soft tissue inside an
oyster.  The oyster, trying to escape the irritation, coats the sand
with the beautiful coloring we see.  The oyster is merely trying to
escape irritation and would like nothing more than to rid itself of
the irritation, no intention nor valuing of the pearl's beauty.  It
all comes down to intent and natural limitations.  We can shape gold
and paint pictures, but we cannot duplicate the beauty produced by the
oyster's irritation.  And we charge thousands of dollars for that
irritation, frustrated in our inability to produce the masterpiece
that a mere oyster, something we use for food, produces...

We can produce robots.  Robots that can make decisions along the lines
of 60 decisions per second.  Some can even learn from past experiences
and write their own code in "anticipation" of its needs.  I have even
helped build one of these robots.  But as far as we have come in
technology...as much as we, aspiring men on this earth, may think we
understand about this world...we cannot reproduce soul; we cannot
reproduce the humanity or feelings born in men...things we can never
understand, never master.  We will never be able to create love in
these machines.  Nature dominates us in a way that we will never (or
at least I think) be able to fully grasp.  We can believe we are
growing in our mastering of more and more complicated things, but it
is the most simple aspects of life that elludes us.

Yes, it is the simple aspects of life that are the most perplexing...