Things that are actually pretty weird when you think about them?

Everyone keeps mentioning the milk thing but I don't see that it's that weird. All mammals instinctively know that their milk is food. So it's not a leap at all to realise the milk of other mammals is also food. As for the popularity of cows milk, clearly a large, reasonably docile animal is a good choice.

Same with eggs. If you think of the egg as just another part of the chicken, it's not weird at all to eat them. Many animals steal eat eggs from birds nests and eat them.

@Turgha

I hope that you also spend some time shooting positive vibes towards your descendents who will be around hundreds of years from now. Pay it forward, and all that...

[quote Eckhart]@SleepOhHowIMissYou

That's not what they're called, though. If you asked someone for a party blowout, they'd say 'What?'

Or were you giving them names?[/quote]
They had a name when I was a child, I can't remember it just now though.

@MadameBlobby what!!! You are joking, that makes it even weirder

Kissing. Can you imagine trying to explain it to aliens from another planet : "well you and someone else press your food-holes together and rub them around ..." It just seems a bit bizarre .

Having children, essentially creating new human life. Think about stuff like cloning and cryogenics and how complicated and difficult that is. And yet for the majority, it's so easy, a man and a woman just put their bodies together. A lot of new humans are created unintentionally. It seems amazing that you don't have to pass an exam or get a licence or be vetted in some way (look at how hard it is to adopt) but people all over the world, regardless of intelligence, wealth (or lack thereof), morals etc. just do it.

This is from reading Sapiens: that so much of our life is fake, as in not really essential for existence, just created as societal constructs: money, laws, language, manners etc. And how helpless/useless most of us are with essential stuff because we rely on outsourcing stuff to individuals. Skill sets of individuals are very small. If some kind of apocalypse happened and we ended up having to live as cave dwellers again, most of us couldn't survive because we'd have no clue how to hunt/forage/construct dwellings/channel clean water etc. Bear Grylls would be sorted but there aren't many of him! I'm a solicitor and my husband is an accountant - we would be bloody useless!

That people believe everything was created by one 'man' and that each religion sees this person differently.

And that the Bible is a true story, to the word.

The fact that you come from a long line of survivors can be quite comforting, I think. At my low points, I sometimes try to imagine all the ghosts of this ‘long line’ rooting for me, cheering me on.

Of all the potential combinations of sperm and egg, mine was the one that came together and worked.

All those other possibilities - potential people and lives that never came to be.

That there is a continuous line before me going back (sort it somehow) to the beginning of life - all survivors. And that this will continue as long as my children have children etc.

None of this is a surprise, but it’s mind blowing when you really sit down and think about it.

I read somewhere recently, a woman was with her husband and grown children, and suddenly thought 'everybody in this room has been in my vagina.'

So funny but so true. I shall be thinking that all day 😂😂😂

[quote trashaccount]**@eckhart* The fact that when I had my dog spayed, I put an end to a genetic line millions of years long. I had a massive ethical dilemma about it. Who the hell do I think I am?*

Holy fuck I hadn't even thought of this! I feel bad for my cats now.[/quote]
My (older) cat was castrated shortly before I adopted him. I used to look at him and think that there would never be another one like him now.

And then I read about someone cloning pets (this was around 2010) and I thought, well maybe there could.

@Lorddenning1

theconversation.com/how-does-your-body-burn-fat-97813

Disturbingly, we are just machines...

How d'you nominate a thread for the MN classics?

@Graphista Yes, language is changing so much faster these days, with communication being so much freer than it was even just a few years ago. I guess we'll never be able to see quite how much difference it made, because you'd need hindsight, and we're all too old!

@WizWoz

Anaesthesia/surgery. Someone gives you a cocktail of drugs that renders you temporarily unconscious
How do you know that’s what happens? Maybe you’re awake throughout and in terrible pain, then they give you a drug that wipes your memory so you don’t remember anything

That's sedation.

Best thread ever. I'm glad I'm not the only one to have weird thoughts and wonderings. The sleep thing has always got me, lying in a flat square bit of wood and not only my neighbours doing it, but celebrities and royalty and even terrorists etc do it too. And thinking randomly that everyone else has a whole life going on and it's totally different to mine. Like my siblings are guest stars in my life, but I'm a guest star in theirs. And do I look and sound how I think to other people? When I hear myself talk, does it sound the same to others? This whole thread is blowing my mind and giving me much to ponder!

Losing weight, where does the weight go, does it dissolve, do we pee it out, I can't get it right in my mind of how it works, does it happen when we sleep it during the day, can someone explain this to me.

Not sure if this has already been mentioned, but smell.

The fact that if someone does a poo in the loo and I smell it from the hallway, basically tiny little particles of that poo have got into the air and have made it into my nose... TINY BITS OF POO IN MY NOSE.

The size of the universe - as pp have said.
I once spent a bizarre few hours ‘working out’ relative size and distances of the earth moon and sun. I then used an olive in my sink (Our moon), walnut on my draining board (earth) and central London main line station (the sun) to visualise everything - both relative size and distance. I sometimes think of kings cross as the sun and the tiny walnut as the earth - it blows my mind.
Mind you my poor iPhone calculator struggled with the figures and I have no doubt that my workings may have been spectacularly inaccurate !!!
Great thread op.

That we are seeing the stars as they were hundreds of years ago.