Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, you may or you may not know was a prisoner in the Soviet Gulag concentration camp system
That by his report at least, killed 60 million people
Solzhenitsyn, he had a pretty nasty life, I mean, first of all, he's on the Russian front, which was a nasty place to be
Then he was captured by the Germans, and they didn't like Russians
So, they put them in separate prisoners of war camp
Partly because Stalin who is too constantly paranoid wouldn't sign the Geneva convention on the treatment of prisoners of war, so the Germans set up extra, POW camps for the Russians, and they starved generally so badly that if other POW's were in the vicinity, they throw food packages over the wire, even though they themselves weren't particularly well fed
That by his report at least, killed 60 million people
Solzhenitsyn, he had a pretty nasty life, I mean, first of all, he's on the Russian front, which was a nasty place to be
Then he was captured by the Germans, and they didn't like Russians
So, they put them in separate prisoners of war camp
Partly because Stalin who is too constantly paranoid wouldn't sign the Geneva convention on the treatment of prisoners of war, so the Germans set up extra, POW camps for the Russians, and they starved generally so badly that if other POW's were in the vicinity, they throw food packages over the wire, even though they themselves weren't particularly well fed
By the time Billy came back downstairs, the dragon had grown so much, he filled the hall
Billy, had to go around by way of the living room to get to where his mother was
"I didn't know dragons grew so fast," said Billy
"There's no such thing as a dragon," said mother firmly
There ain't no such thing
There ain't no such thing
As a dragon
Cleaning the downstairs, took mother all morning
With the dragon in the way, and having to climb in and out of windows to get from room to room
By noon, the dragon filled the house
Its head hung out the front door, its tail hung up the back door, and there wasn't a room in the house that didn't have some part of the dragon in it
When the dragon awoke up from his nap, he was hungry
The bakery truck went by
Billy, had to go around by way of the living room to get to where his mother was
"I didn't know dragons grew so fast," said Billy
"There's no such thing as a dragon," said mother firmly
There ain't no such thing
There ain't no such thing
As a dragon
Cleaning the downstairs, took mother all morning
With the dragon in the way, and having to climb in and out of windows to get from room to room
By noon, the dragon filled the house
Its head hung out the front door, its tail hung up the back door, and there wasn't a room in the house that didn't have some part of the dragon in it
When the dragon awoke up from his nap, he was hungry
The bakery truck went by
The dragon wagged his tail happily when Billy patted its head
Billy went downstairs to tell his mother
"There's no such thing as a dragon," said Billy's mother, and she said it like she meant it
There's no such thing as a dragon
Said Billy's mother and she said it like she meant it
[Chorus]
No there's no such thing as a dragon
No there is no such thing at all
No there's no such thing as a dragon
No there is no such thing at all
Now the next thing you might wonder is how often have you actually gone into a house where there's a dragon?
You've all encountered dozens of houses that were filled right to the rafters with various dragons
All of which were being studiously ignored by the people who inhabited the house
Billy went back to his room and began to dress
The dragon came close to Billy in a friendly manner, and wagged it's tail, but Billy didn't pat it
If there's no such thing as something, it's silly to pat it on the head
Billy washed his face and hands and went down to breakfast
The dragon went along, it was bigger now almost the size of a dog
Billy sat down at the table
The dragon sat down on the table
This sort of thing was not usually permitted, but there wasn't much Billy's mother could do about it
She'd already said, "There's no such thing as a dragon"
Billy went downstairs to tell his mother
"There's no such thing as a dragon," said Billy's mother, and she said it like she meant it
There's no such thing as a dragon
Said Billy's mother and she said it like she meant it
[Chorus]
No there's no such thing as a dragon
No there is no such thing at all
No there's no such thing as a dragon
No there is no such thing at all
Now the next thing you might wonder is how often have you actually gone into a house where there's a dragon?
You've all encountered dozens of houses that were filled right to the rafters with various dragons
All of which were being studiously ignored by the people who inhabited the house
Billy went back to his room and began to dress
The dragon came close to Billy in a friendly manner, and wagged it's tail, but Billy didn't pat it
If there's no such thing as something, it's silly to pat it on the head
Billy washed his face and hands and went down to breakfast
The dragon went along, it was bigger now almost the size of a dog
Billy sat down at the table
The dragon sat down on the table
This sort of thing was not usually permitted, but there wasn't much Billy's mother could do about it
She'd already said, "There's no such thing as a dragon"
I'm gonna tell you a little story to begin this off with, it's a kids story written for children of about four years of age, but it's very, very elegant
[Chorus]
There's no such thing as a dragon
There's no such thing as a dragon
There's no such thing as a dragon
There's no such thing as a dragon
[Man] Rawr, rawr, like a dungeon dragon
[Chorus]
There's no such thing as a dragon
There's no such thing as a dragon
There's no such thing as a dragon
There's no such thing as a dragon
[Man] Rawr, rawr, like a dungeon dragon
Thousands of years ago, Plato proposed that all knowledge was remembering
Of course, we don't believe that today, because we believe we gather knowledge as a consequences of contact with the world
But you'll see that the knowledge that I'm gonna share with you will strike a deep chord of remembering, and it's because everything that you've done throughout your life is in one way or another predicated on what I'm going to tell you today
I'm gonna demonstrate this in a peculiar way, I think, because I'm gonna start by telling you a story
And the reason I'm going to do that is because models of the world that include phenomenon like consciousness, and emotions, and motivations, and actions, and interaction are generally portrayed formally in stories
And not in scientific theories
And it does turn out to be the stories themselves have an identifiable structure even a grammar that makes them comprehensiblly
Of course, we don't believe that today, because we believe we gather knowledge as a consequences of contact with the world
But you'll see that the knowledge that I'm gonna share with you will strike a deep chord of remembering, and it's because everything that you've done throughout your life is in one way or another predicated on what I'm going to tell you today
I'm gonna demonstrate this in a peculiar way, I think, because I'm gonna start by telling you a story
And the reason I'm going to do that is because models of the world that include phenomenon like consciousness, and emotions, and motivations, and actions, and interaction are generally portrayed formally in stories
And not in scientific theories
And it does turn out to be the stories themselves have an identifiable structure even a grammar that makes them comprehensiblly