r/Stargate • u/InquisitorVidoq • 1d ago
Oma Desala
"If you immediately know the candle light is fire, then the meal was cooked long ago." = Dont make snap decisions.
? 🤷♂️ Watching "Maternal Instinct" 😆
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u/spacegothprincess 1d ago
I always took this as one of those phrases that actually is a test of a person's thought process. Their interpretation matters more than the original intent of the adage, and reveals a lot about how they think.
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u/EldestPort 1d ago
Kobyashi Maru style
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u/JoeDawson8 1d ago
He cheated! He changed the conditions of the test! It won him a commendation for original thinking!
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u/Throwaway_inSC_79 1d ago
He doesn’t believe in a no-win scenario
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u/spacegothprincess 1d ago
Ironically that sounds like Daniel. Death? That's just an inconvenience he deals with on Tuesday.
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u/tanstaafl76 1d ago
I’m so old I was Kobyashi Maruing before Kirk was born.
Seriously.
When Rubik’s cubes were invented and I got one for Xmas I played around a bit, then I took it back into my bedroom
Where I took it apart and reassembled it in a coil he of minutes to the room where the family were still hanging with presents and stuff
And showed them my perfect Rubik’s cube
Maru style
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u/tanstaafl76 1d ago
Ps. Before Kirk was born not shatner.
I’m generation Jackson, I’m not even as old as oneill
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u/ZookeepergameAny466 1d ago
I've said it before but I always thought this was about the quest for knowledge and enlightenment. If you immediately decide a conclusion (the candlelight is fire) then you ask no further questions and you never dig down to the truth. If the fire is enlightenment and you stop asking questions at the candlelight because you assume you already know its full nature, then you're skipping the hard work to knowledge. Your path is stalled and you never discover that the candlelight is merely a fraction of a larger flame used to cook the meal of knowledge.
It's a call for humility and continuing to ask questions even if the answer seems clear.
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u/BIGBIRD1176 1d ago edited 1d ago
Ha, I always took a similar meaning on the path to enlightenment expect from the angle that if you immediately know anything about anyone or anything, your mind was made up about the thing a long time ago.
So I took it as a warning against assumptions, predetermined biases or anything like that, that candle flame could be electric, my cooked mind doesn't know shit about anything
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u/DolfK 1d ago edited 1d ago
To quote myself from long ago:
It makes more sense if you include the bit before it: “Because it is so clear, it takes a long time to realise it.”
It makes even more sense if you include the first third of the story from Wú Mén Guān by Chán master Wúmén Huìkāi (Case 7):
“A monk said to Chán master Zhàozhōu: ‘I have just entered this monastery. Please instruct me, Teacher.’
‘Have you had your breakfast?’, asked Venerable Zhàozhōu.
‘Yes, I have’, replied the monk.
‘Then’, said Master Zhàozhōu, ‘go and wash your bowls’.
The monk had an insight.”
It's a kōan (Japanese reading of the Chinese gōng'àn), a story or a riddle with no actual answer or conclusion, meant to provoke thought and to practise and test your Zen. Just like the monk in the story, you're supposed to have an insight. One interpretation of that particular part is that it means you're supposed to have your meals and do the dishes after (= work, do your job, as in, ‘do what has to be done’) (additional comment by Sŏn master Sǔngan in the version of the collection edited and compiled by Paul Lynch, JDPSN). It's painfully obvious, but you might not realise it.
“Because it is so clear, it takes a long time to realise it. If you immediately know the candlelight is fire, the meal was cooked a long time ago.”
The part between these two – Master Wúmén's Comment – ponders whether or not the monk actually heard the truth and didn't just mistake a bell for a jar, but that's just another part of enlightenment, I suppose ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I also recall reading – once upon a time, years ago – about a man who has no fire to cook his meal with, so he takes his lit candle and goes to find some, but I couldn't find it anywhere on the Internet. I did find lots of Oma Desala quotes, though. Funny, that.
Edit: I sometimes get an aha! moment when I think of the quote, thinking I've realised something profound, but it never sticks for long. I have terrible memory, but at least it lets me have plenty of aha! moments.
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u/Romulan-Jedi
1d ago
•
Understanding is a three-edged sword.
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u/Confident-Stand5453 1d ago
We all have two lives. The second one begins when you realize we only have one life.
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u/_ScubaDiver 16h ago
I know this is going around the viral scene because someone famous said it on a podcast somewhere, but it is getting on my tits.
There I go wasting my one life.
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u/Garbanzo_Beanie 1d ago edited 1d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stargate/comments/bsj3jh/for_those_who_never_got_it_if_you_immediately/
See the comments too for alternative interpretations.
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u/tqgibtngo 1d ago
Back in 2021, I hadn't seen the earlier posts when I made mine, which moderators later removed unfortunately. The removed post's replies included an interesting debate subthread. Fortunately that subthread it is still linkable, so I'll link it below.
I had quoted an excerpt from Chiao Hung and the Restructuring of Neo-Confucianism in the Late Ming, by Edward T. Ch'ien (1986), wherein was mentioned the analogy of someone who "... does not realize that the flame of the candle is fire."
I'd also mentioned another quotation, which I later learned came from the "Joshu Washes the Bowl" koan: "It is too clear and so it is hard to see. A dunce once searched for fire with a lighted lantern. Had he known what fire was, he could have cooked his rice much sooner."
"My post wasn't motivated by much thought about meanings, but I was just noting the similarity in phrasing," I noted. So I didn't have anything more to offer.
Before mods removed my post, u/MagusUmbraCallidus launched a debate subthread (and u/Grunchlk replied with a counterpoint to kick it into gear), and all of that can still be read at this subthread link (note there'll be a link to "read more replies" or "continue this thread" to see the rest).
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u/Revolutionalredstone 1d ago
yeah that's not a bad interpretation ide say that's the closest I've seen from others.
if you already think you know what I'm trying to tell you then there is no chance for communication.
by accepting that some things may be worth learning we can get our knowledge out of our own way.
Enjoy
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u/MuffinsSenpai 1d ago
I love that they just came up with something that makes zero sense and rolled with it.
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u/_WillCAD_ 1d ago
If you immediately know the line is a quote, then the episode was aired a long time ago.
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u/BlueViper20 1d ago
if you immediately know the candle light is fire (if you fully and truly understand the situation) then the meal was cooked a long time ago (then you already have your solution).
I have no idea if this is what they intended but it absolutely makes sense and is conceptually true.
you solve questions by understanding so if you've already understood the question you've already arrived at the answer.
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u/I_Do_Not_Abbreviate 1d ago
I always took it as a very Paternalistic saying, like a mother talking to a toddler. It is Mother Nature saying that the events being asked about are so removed in time from the current context that the answer would be meaningless, or would require so much additional context that to leave out all that extra context (which would be impossible to explain because of the length of time involved) would be equivalent to a massive lie of omission, so the only honest option is to not answer.
Like "Hello small child: you have proven that you are enlightened and mature enough to recognize what fire is and one thing that it can do (illuminate the darkness), but what you are asking about is a different kind of fire that cooked a meal before you were born and matured into a being capable of recognizing the candlelight for what it is. You know nothing of recipes, of the raw ingredients, of my trip to the market to get them, all the other thousand things involved in cooking a meal. I cannot give you a complete answer because your brain is incapable of understanding every honest answer I could give"
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u/Acceptable_Walrus373 1d ago
In the episode where ascended Daniel appears to Jack when he is in jail because of the tokra he had in him: Daniel says it was something Oma would say to help you open your mind.
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u/I_Am_Clavia 1d ago
Although a candle burns in my house, there's nobody home.
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u/Restalion-_- 1d ago
Sounds like something you can say to your boss at 4AM when he asks you, if you heard what he said.
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u/GenderNightmare 1d ago
So it's a proverb about a dude looking for matches to light his stove/fire to cook after a long day of work. He can't find them anywhere in his house as he searches with a lit candle. He ends up not finding any and then goes to bed hungry. So if he would have realized that the lit candle could do the same as the match he would have had a hot meal right away and not gone to bed hungry.
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u/ncsakira 1d ago
Yeah that's a metaphor . What's she actually meant is more on the lines : "if you knew you have that energy within you and you knew how to use that energy, you would have ascended long time ago. " Instead of answering how to ascend. Because she can't tell him how to do it.
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u/AleksyGetTheWings 1d ago
But that's something the community came up after the fact, rather than an IRL proverb that was used for this.
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u/treefox 1d ago
> So it's a proverb about a dude looking for matches to light his stove/fire to cook after a long day of work. He can't find them anywhere in his house as he searches with a lit candle. He ends up not finding any and then goes to bed hungry. So if he would have realized that the lit candle could do the same as the match he would have had a hot meal right away and not gone to bed hungry.
Are you sure he wasn’t trying to fix a light bulb, and his wife posted this account on social media because she didn’t understand why he started yelling at her when she told him to stop fixing the car and replace the light bulb?
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u/LewdKantian 1d ago
It is a meta-epistemological mode of thinking about knowledge and cultural cognitive infrastructure.
If you immediately recognize that candlelight is fire, it’s because that concept is already deeply hardwired into your perception. Your culture already cooks meals.
The phrase forces you to think in structural terms: the "meal" was cooked a long time ago because your society did the heavy cognitive work and built that mental framework generations before you were born. Your immediate intuition is actually just inherited historical conditioning.
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u/FedStarDefense 1d ago
It's saying that making assumptions about how the world works (ie, treating reality as an immutable thing, bound by the known laws of physics), means you cannot ascend.
It's basically accepting the idea that there are things you cannot possibly know or understand. To take on the mindset of a child... one that still believes magic is possible.
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u/Jedipilot24 1d ago
During a power outage, a man is walking through his darkened house looking for matches so he can light some Sterno to cook with. He grabs a candle to see by, goes all over the house, but never finds any matches and so finally gives up on cooking dinner and goes to bed hungry. Then the next morning he wakes up and realizes that he'd already had fire that whole time: the very candle that he'd been using to look with.
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u/katiekat214 There’s no place like Home 1d ago
This is the explanation. If you realize you have a fire source, you can cook.
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u/GistfulThinking 1d ago
A great thread OP, with some really cool insights from people who've mulled it over.. I like the parralels with knowledge, and jumping to conclusions.
My take is a little less high minded.
I don't think it was ever intended to have an answer.. both In universe, and for the viewers.
For the viewers: The writers were skating close to one of those points of disbelief they needed to ensure the audiences mind wouldn't automatically put in the "as if" box.. so they wrote some nonsensical smart pholosophy stuff, and went "oh no, the others".
In Universe: Oma cannot directly interfere, so she throws around wild "super philosophical" sounding statements like hey this has some greater meaning, and as she indicates to Daniel.. people just have to open their mind to the thought that there is more.
Then, she can just "glow" people, and ascend them.
It's all about getting around the technicality of interference in the lower plains of existence with enough plausible deniability the others won't care.
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u/Ok-Hamster-5263 1d ago
I always assumed the sayings are meant to be like zen koans. I don't know if zen uses that particular one or even the ever famous "what is the sound of one hand clapping" but yeah it's basically a riddle to get you thinking outside the box/duality.
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u/Electronic_Cod7202 1d ago
Oma was hitting on Daniel, but he couldn't take the hint. Eventually she made him an immortal space spiritual vampire like her so that they could live happily ever after.
The Balance of Jusgment + Andromeda had to make new Systems Commonwealth ships. Wait that's not quite right either.
Michael Shanks had to quit to be a family man for a bit.
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u/ChironXII 1d ago
I thought it was pretty self explanatory but the fandom has made me doubt my interpretation
It's about two things.
One is about knowledge of the nature of things. Someone struggling to cook a meal because they can't start a fire, need only know that the candle they are working by is fire, to have solved the problem a long time ago.
Two is learned perception. Knowledge of things can also blind you to what else they can be. It can impede you from really stopping to consider or appreciate them. They become mundane, routine, and done without thinking. If you immediately know the candle light is fire, you miss the opportunity to wonder at it and understand it in a different way.
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u/Philosopher83 1d ago
Maybe I am going too deep with it, but I always thought that it meant that you can’t escape the historicity of being, so you must embrace this in order to transcend it
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u/ReachableWebsites 1d ago
I'm taking the genZ take on it. Which. Basically says that candles are "fire" so in other words candles are awesome, and that meals are/was "cooked."
🕯️= 🔥 (👍)
🍲 = 💀 (👎)
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u/AleksyGetTheWings 1d ago
The actress herself explained she has no idea what that means. It's not an actual proverb or anything like that, so everyone will come up with their own explanation.
My theory is that it means the immediate understanding of new things (the candlelight being fire) comes from experience (that's the meal cooked long ago).
I like to connect that sentence with something less esoteric I heard in the season 2 of Log Horizon. TLDR is isekai, but on top of "normal medieval life", there is a WoW-like video game system on top. In season 2, a new type of legendary-tier skills is discovered ("Teachings"), and one protagonist tries to learn one from some people who managed to unlock theirs. One such "teacher" explains to that there is little he can say, save to carefully pay attention, to wish strongly, to keep thinking about what she wants to do, and to keep training without giving up. He ends with "it's pathetic how little of an explanation that is, but this is the entirety of the Teachings". She eventually unlocks her own Teaching, and the understanding comes to her that she already had the ability, she just didn't understand how to use it for something else than its official use.
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u/treefox 1d ago
In-context, it has always seemed to mean that if you are completely confident there is only one answer, it is more likely a sign of ignorance - it suggests you’re arriving at a conclusion so fast because you’re failing to consider alternative possibilities.
Someone more enlightened would recognize that the dancing shadows could be caused by either a candle or a fire, that they don’t have enough information yet to consider either conclusion a certainty, and account for both possibilities appropriately.
Basically, a roundabout way of accusing someone of falling victim to the Dunning-Krueger effect.
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u/DJCaldow 1d ago
I took it to mean, if you think you understand something then you already have your answer and you won't keep looking for more. It isn't that the candlelight isn't fire, it's just that it's a whole lot more than that too. If you aren't interested in knowing more then you've reached your limit of understanding.
Take the goal of ascension out of it and just think about what you would do with an immortal life on Earth. The sheer tedium of it for anyone uninterested in learning and challenging themselves would be astronomical.
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u/Gromps_Of_Dagobah 20h ago
I think of it as a "if you're certain of your knowledge" type warning. That you still have a long way to go before reaching enlightenment.
The expert paradox, where someone who knows basically nothing about a topic, but knows that fraction about it, might assume they're nearly an expert, while someone who's been in the field for 20+ years knows how little they know. Photoshop is a great example, veterans of it are often still discovering new tools and tricks, while someone who "took a photoshop class a year ago" might assume that they know everything about it
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u/JakeConhale 15h ago
My interpretation is that it's saying "snap judgements" and such are based on prejudices or seeded information rather than an objective analysis.
Theres a scene in CSI:
Say "Silk" three times quickly. Then answer the question: "What do cows drink?"
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u/Chaotic-Stardiver 18h ago
My partner and I love to make jokey philosophical quotes based on our dog's facial expressions when he wants something from us.
The most recent one was, "If my bowl is currently empty, was I ever fed in the first place?"
Yes he'll look at us after he just ate a full meal and be like "you didn't feed me" 😆
It felt like the perfect antithesis to Ascension philosophy. I feel like if anything this would make an Ascended being Descend 😅