On Sat, 4 Feb 2006, Davdi Silverrock wrote: > On 1/31/06, Jon_Lincicum wrote: > > > > > Of course, one might well ask (and I have) why it takes Dragaerans so long > > to study things? I can only conclude that the same factors that give > > Dragaerans a long lifespan also result in them being very slow learners, > > at least by our standards. (How old was Savn? 80? 90? And he still needed > > his hand held to perform basic medicine, after studying it for decades?) > > > > This is something I've been pondering for a while This is something I pondered yesterday for a few seconds. I was in a library, the kind of place I've been avoiding since college so I can get _something_ accomplished. Requiring a book, I went in and, passing the math section, had to suppress the urge to pick out a text and spend the next weeks or months learning about Applications of C*-algebras to Exceptional Holonomy Kaluza-Klein Manifolds or whatever, not including the weeks or months needed to acquire the necessary base knowledge. As I didn't pull out the books I didn't need, I was acutely aware that if I didn't expect to grow old in several decades the situation would be different. Someone remind me if we know how long it has been since Savn went out to the forest with a bucket? And how long it takes say to become a medicine man in Native American traditions?