Conversation with a Martian

My Martian friend Marvyn and I were having a conversation the other day. The following is a rough transcript.

AP: I've been meaning to ask you this for a while, Marvyn. Why does smoke occasionally come out of your ears?

Marvyn: Oh that; that's parfing.

AP: But why do you, as it were, parf?

Marvyn: I parf when I'm flox. That is to say, when I feel flox, I parf.

Look, I've actually been meaning to talk to you about this for a while. I've always assumed that you humans never feel flox, because you never parf. But some of my Martian friends don't believe that it's possible to be an intelligent being and never feel flox. Do you humans feel flox but you just don't parf, or do you never feel flox? Or is it, perhaps, that your parf is invisible?

AP: Well we certainly don't emit smoke from our ears. It would help me to answer your question if I knew what it meant to feel flox!

Marvyn: I find it quite hard to define, actually. For example, one feels flox when one suddenly realises that the good analogy one was making isn't a good analogy at all; indeed, quite the reverse. Don't you ever get that feeling?

AP: Well, I suppose so. I mean, the other day I was constructing what I thought was quite a clever analogy between (a) having a predilection for liking evolutionary explanations of behaviour, and (b) a predilection for Newtonian explanations of ballistics; but I realised that there were so many differences between the two kinds of explanations that the analogy was never going to fly.

But I'm not sure I felt flox. More just, "Darn." Is that flox?

Marvyn: No, not so much. It's more ... when the reason that the analogy doesn't work is a clever reason; or, rather, it was going to be clever but then wasn't. Not just when there isn't an analogy in the first place. I'm sorry, that was not very clear.

AP: Oh, okay. Well, then, I had another analogy between Muslim women wearing the burkha and Western women wearing skirts, which I was going to use to demonstrate the innate similarity of peoples; but then it transpired that the -- I guess, the central essence of the analogy didn't really allow me to make the claim I wanted. Is that flox?

Marvyn: That's closer, but still not quite it. But you might feel flox in the circumstance you describe.

AP: So ... why does one parf?

Marvyn: Because one is flox.

AP: But I mean, why does being flox cause you to parf? Why the smoke?

Marvyn: I don't know; it just happens. Everyone parfs when they're flox. What sort of explanation would you like?

AP: Well ... does it help, if you parf?

Marvyn: It does make one feel slightly better, actually.

AP: Is that it, then? Are there perhaps noxious chemicals that build up in your head and that are released in the smoke?

Marvyn: No, I don't think so.

AP: Oh. Well, then, perhaps you parf to let other people know that you're flox?

Marvyn: Hm. You might be on to something there. Certainly when I see someone else parfing, I feel empathy for their situation -- occasionally, if they are good friends, even enough to parf myself.

AP: Perhaps that's it then: It's a signalling mechanism.

Marvyn: But, on the other hand, many occasions of parfing happen when one is on one's own. So I don't think that can be the full explanation.

AP: Blast. At any rate, at least now you can tell your friends that humans do feel flox.

Marvyn: I'm not so sure. I believe that you can recognise a parfable situation, but you don't necessarily feel flox. Surely, if you really felt flox, there would be some kind of parf-like emission? Does smoke come out of some other part of your body?

AP: Not usually.

Look, perhaps my real question isn't "why do you parf?" but "why do you feel flox"? I mean, I know what it is to see blue, but I don't "come over all bluish" when I see blue, let alone produce emissions when I find myself in a blueish context, so there must be a difference between being able to recognise a situation and having a specific emotional response to that situation. So, why is it that a parfable situation causes you to feel flox, as opposed to your merely noting that the situation is parfable?

Marvyn: I get the point, but it does seem very odd to ask "why do you feel flox." Feeling flox is just a part of being a Martian, as my father used to say. I'm taking liberties with the translation, of course.

AP: I didn't know Martians had fathers.

Marvyn: Oh yes, we do. Mine died last week.

AP: I'm terribly sorry.

Marvyn: Why?

AP: I beg your pardon?

Marvyn: Oh dear ... I hope this isn't one of those awkward interplanetary gaffes. Why are you sorry? Were you somehow implicated in the death of my father? I can't imagine that you could have been.

AP: No, no. I mean, I'm sorry for you that your father died.

Marvyn: I'm not sure I understand. Why would you be sorry for me?

AP: Well, you must be sad.

Marvyn: Ah, now, I've heard that word before. Sad, sad ... this is when water comes out of your eyes, right? What was that called?

AP: Crying.

Marvyn: Right, right. Well, Martians don't cry, I guess.

AP: But you must feel sad, surely?

Marvyn: I don't know. It would help if I knew what sad was.

AP: Well ... it's the feeling you get when something unpleasant happens.

Marvyn: Like ... being caught out in the rain when you don't have an umbrella?

AP: Er, no. More serious, usually. Like a friend dying.

Marvyn: Well ... I understand that when you have a friend, there are good times; and when you don't have a friend, there are not good times, at least of the same sort. But why do you have an emotion that is experienced during the transition? What's the point of it?

AP: I don't know if it has a point, we just do.

Marvyn: Let me see if I understand something. Suppose you were rich, and suppose yesterday you had lost all your money gambling. Would that make you sad?

AP: Very likely. I would probably even cry.

Marvyn: But today you did not win the lottery. Hence, today you are in precisely the same position now that you would have been had you been rich and lost it all; viz., you are not rich. But you are not sad now -- at least, I do not see water coming out of your eyes.

AP: Well, no. There's a difference between losing something you had and never having it in the first place.

Marvyn: There is?

AP: Sure. You miss all the good experiences you used to have.

Marvyn: But then, why don't you equally miss the good experiences you're not having but could, in some other possible world, be having? Do you just fail to imagine these possibilities with sufficient veracity, or what?

AP: Um ... it's true that if I daydream about winning the lottery I might feel a little sad when I woke up from the reverie, and remembered that it wasn't true. But it's not really the same.

Marvyn: Then I must admit to being at a loss as to why you have this transitional emotion. It doesn't seem necessary at all. Not only that, but even if I knew about this sad business, I just don't understand what water leaking out of your eyes has got to do with it. Does it help?

AP: Yes, sometimes. But, before you ask, it's not there to get rid of noxious chemicals, as far as I know. Nor is it predominantly a signalling mechanism -- except perhaps in children.

Marvyn: Those were going to be my next questions!

You know, isn't this discussion interesting? Humans cry when they feel sad, and we parf when we feel flox. Neither of us can think of a good reason for crying or parfing, except to say that that's just what we do when we feel sad or flox, respectively. And, even more incredibly, neither of us can think of a reason for the underlying feelings that give rise to the physical behaviour.

Maybe there's a connection here. I wonder whether parfing falls into a certain category of behaviours -- let's call these behaviours smoking -- and crying falls into another category of behaviours -- leaking, let us say. And I wonder if you leak and we smoke? What else do you do? Do you laugh?

AP: Yes, we laugh.

Marvyn. Oh, so do we. Well, then, do you blush?

AP: Yes, that too.

Marvyn. Well this really isn't working out as I hoped. I --- oh dear me, I do beg your pardon. I'm sorry, I'll open the window. It will all go away in a minute. Gosh, how embarrassing.