Penguins Discussing Philosophy
The Penguin Huddle Question
In the icy expanse of Antarctica, a vibrant mosaic of life plays out against the stark white backdrop. Here, beset by the wicked polar winds, a colony of emperor penguins, dignified by their sleek black-and-white outfits, gathers together to face the biting cold. They form a living, breathing fortress, a “huddle” that is both a physical shield and a testament to their incredible cooperative spirit.
The huddle is a swirling kaleidoscope of movement, a tightly packed mass of feathered bodies. At the cold, wind-whipped edges, a line of brave sentinels endures the brunt of the storm. But they are not forgotten. A subtle, almost imperceptible wave ripples through the huddle. The penguins on the outer rim, shivering under the relentless wind, begin to shuffle inward, nudging their way toward the warm, protected core. It’s not a chaotic scramble; it’s a slow, methodical dance. Each penguin takes a small step, creating a collective motion that allows the outer birds to gently make their way toward the center.
The huddle is a shifting tapestry of black, white and orange as the penguins seamlessly move from the cold periphery to the comforting warmth of the interior. Once a penguin reaches the center, it is enveloped in a cocoon of warmth. Body heat radiates from hundreds of tightly packed bodies, creating a microclimate that can be as much as 70 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the outside air. After a time, the penguins who are at the core, toasty and rejuvenated, reverse their direction and start to move outward, to revisit huddle’s frigid boundary. And thus it continues.
The average duration of these huddles is about 50 minutes, after which the whole group is often warm enough to survive unhuddled for a while, perhaps to go fishing. And should this strange community cool down too much gain, they will happily form another huddle.
The Penguin Huddle Question
The penguin huddle question is this: when engaged for so long in their huddling activity do the penguins discuss philosophy with each other?
We can answer this from theory. Of course, they could not engage in such an activity as they have no intellectual center and thus cannot wield the abstract concepts that are the flesh and bones of philosophy. Nevertheless, it is not, in my view, a facetious question. Communities of human beings are not so different to these penguin communities. The vast majority of human beings are not skilled in thinking and will generally govern their actions and inner activity from the formatory apparatus. If engaged in a penguinish huddle, it’s unlikely that they would engage in deep philosophical discourse or any other such aspirational interactions.
The penguins may be biologically excluded from philosophy (or religion, or art or science) but so are the mass of human beings. Philosophy, Science, Art and Religion are mentioned by Ouspensky as roads that lead in the direction of Truth for the normal man. They may only take one so far, but it is the impact of such vbarieties of B-influence that can gradually form a magnetic center and attracts someone towards the Work.