Hmmm. Could it be that neither of you speaks the other's language very well???!?!? YES! The problem isn't that the words don't exist in English to capture what she'd said in Spanish, or anything of the sort; it's just that she doesn't know them, and you don't know Spanish well enough to do it, either. PS-I've lived months in Spanish-speaking countries. Most of the time they're saying things like, 'Hey, Rosalita, where'd you put the habaneros?' and 'Listen, girl, why don't you suck my giant rat!' and all the tourists are like, 'Oooh! It's the language of romance!!!!!'

Having only accomplished college-freshman physics and chemistry, and that ages ago, I have very little idea about gravitons, etc. I do, however, propose that if scientists build a machine to prove that gravitons exist, THEY WILL NOT BE CHANGING REALITY. They will simply be exposing some part of reality which has ALWAYS BEEN THERE. Suppose, to take it a step further, scientists in this decade 'prove' that gravitons exist and scientists in the next decade disprove them. How many times would you say reality has changed? You're wrong. IT HASN'T CHANGED AT ALL. Please, please, say you understand this now. Where you've buttocksed yourself beyond recognition is on the semantics of it. The word reality ONLY MEANS things which are real, which have existence. We know this because we made it up to mean that, just as if I invented a word - say 'Verschnugle' - to mean 'things which are red'. To say some parts of reality are real and some parts aren't, or that 'reality' changes depending on who's looking at it, is at best merely uninformed to the max, and at worst the most hideous sort of stoned undergraduate late-night guff-talking, something along the lines of, 'Hey, maybe what I think is brown is, like, some other color for you, maaaannnnn. Like orange... Yeaaahhh, dewd! I'm blowing my own miiinnnd!!!'

You colossal boob.

Science could be called systematic knowledge of the physical or material world. It is "true" only to the extent that we trust our methods of measurement and observation. Many people, myself inluded, doubt that any real "truths" exist st the empirical level. In quantum mechanics, there exists a basic oneness that transcends the physical, more of an intuitive truth than a factual one.

Zodiac....I believe gravity is a constant and, although still theory, gravitons exist tho very difficult to find as they have no mass. The major difference between gravity and the other three forces is its pervasive nature. In its most striking and potent form, it prevents light from escaping from a black hole once inside the event horizon. It also, in Einstein's general theory, causes space/time to be curved. How that is possible, I have no clue but this effect is pretty much accepted by physicists. As to whether it may be applied consistently and is a useful model for the universe, I think most definitely. It is probably the most esoteric of the four forces and is the main roadblock in finding a GUT that unifies the strong and weak nuclear forces, electro- magnetism and, of ourse, gravity. I would be interested if you have read of any recent discoveries or theories regarding gravity as it is the least understood of the four. And though I believe you started the name calling and ridicule, I propose a truce. Who knows, if we ever met in person, we might find we share many mutual interests and opinions.

Assuming for continuation that all of your diatribe is true, how do you explain the girl's difficulty in making me understand her feeling?

What may I do to impress you?

After reading this explanation on comments-recent, I expected this poem to be a lot more impressive than it actually is.

PPS-I knew that 'romantic' wasn't the correct term for language or culture derived from Rome, but you didn't!!!!!

re: "All languages contain cultural shades of meaning that don't translate well," You think that because you don't understand Spanish very well. Or English, for that matter. Anyways, that's why Spanish sounds deep and meaningful to you. PS-English is largely a romantic language. The words "is", "largely", "romantic", and "language" are all Rome-originated, for example.

Ugh. Skewered by a cunning retort. But I'm too lazy. I might possibly rock to and fro and whimper a bit but that's about all.

If you believed it a masterpiece, you would run in little circles, wave your arms and shout, "I'm insulted."

Cute!?! Is that all you can say about my masterpiece. I'm insulted. I think I'll crawl into a hole and die.

btw, this comes from a person who normally would find the topic a little daunting