Episode One: "Genetics"

[Blind Man]

Professor James Mesler
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee

"This is a group task, everyone. Place your hands on your desks.? The students did so. ?Talk amongst yourselves for about ten minutes and find a way to convince me that you are touching your desks."

The students began to huddle around each other, and Professor Mesler hopped up onto his desk (he was quite fit for a 74-year-old man). Since he was in high school he had enjoyed these sorts of questions that seem so trivial and meaningless, but with further investigation would spawn enough discussion to fill an entire hour-and-a-half class period. The answers were not his greatest concern, for they were rarely even reached; he loved the questions themselves. Thinking about the knowledge (or lack thereof) that humanity takes for granted intrigued him; it was partly why he became a teacher of philosophy.

The other part was that he had a degree in history but refused to teach it.

"You guys ready?" he asked just loudly enough so be heard over the discussions of the class.

"Yeah," a few of the students said as they all turned in their seats to face the professor.

"Well then?prove to me that you touched the desk.? He smirked at the kids.

One red-haired student raised his hand and waited for Mesler?s nod, then proceeded. ?I feel the desk.?

James raised an eyebrow, getting into ?debate mode?. ?But what is it to ?feel? the desk, exactly?? He stood and headed over to the podium near the other end of the blackboard, stopping behind it. ?Feelings, physical and emotional, are chemical impulses interpreted by the brain, are they not? And we all know that our senses can be deceived, can?t they??

Another student chimed in. ?So we can?t be sure that we?re touching the table because we don?t know that we?re interpreting our senses correctly??

?Not only that, but can you tell me what makes a real interpretation of a sense true? In other words, how do you know the difference between touching or seeing something real and touching or seeing something fake? What defines real and unreal? Do you need to feel something to know you?re touching it??

This is one question that I can answer, James thought to himself, as he gazed into the small storage space built into the back of the podium. I have some ?hands-on? experience in this category. He stared at the #2 pencil floating in mid-air inside the storage box as the students began to argue amongst themselves.