by b.e. hydomako
"I'm talking to you..." an echo from the interim. Disruption. A snug tranquillity shatters into daggers of jagged obscenity. Muscles flex and tense. Reflexes operating within the framework of a distorted survival instinct: an arm reaches out in the darkness--hand reaching. Contact and then silence. The eyes open, skirting the room: it is always here that I come back to. Funny that. This is three space, and awareness wraps itself up here. These knots are the intersections where the "I" comes into being. I come to know who I am, and that I am located in my bedroom wrapped within the covers on my bed. I focus on the clock. Fuzzy red display. Collusion becomes collection, and information is conveyed. Time to move; however, I have a problem: here in three space there is an infinite distance between myself, and the edge of the bed that I intend to aspire towards. So why bother? Picture this: I have a goal. I desire to move towards the edge of my bed--we'll call this goal E1. In order for me to get to E1 I have to traverse half the distance between my starting point and my goal. We can mark this half-way point E2. In order to get to E2 I have to travel half the distance between the start and E2. Let's call this midpoint E3. In turn, there is another half-way mark between me, all warm and cozy in bed, and E3. And there is another half, and another. In fact, there is an infinite amount of midpoints, E, such that I would have to cover the distance of an infinite number of intervals--an endless expanse of space-in a finite amount of time. Impossible! My morning has started out somewhat troublesome already. Suddenly the will is enacted. Intent becomes reality, and I find myself at the edge of my bed. I rub the sleep out of my eyes thinking about how I had been trapped in Zeno's Paradox only moments ago. I'm contemplating the arguments of a long dead Greek philosopher first thing in the morning--great.
The distance to the washroom is traversed in unnoticed moments. The morning routine is familiar and that makes it inviting. I urinate. I wash my face. The first cup of coffee is waiting thanks to the automatic timer. Grabbing my housecoat off the hook in the wall I cross back through my bedroom. I'm feeling a little more into myself, and I'm thinking about my escape from Zeno's argument against motion: I made it out of bed after all. I turn to my left to enter the main living area of my small apartment.
"Nonsense," says the man sitting in my only comfortable chair, "you have escaped nothing." His English was exact...no, it was more. The words were crisp, sharp, yet gentle at the same time. There was something in the sound, the formation of the words, the wind blowing outside on this cold winter morning. The vibrations carried a weight of certainty that I could not yet understand, but I would soon enough. This strange man spoke perfectly. Of course, I'm startled by this stranger sitting in my house. I step forward, tying the belt on my robe and ask him who the hell he is.
"I am Zeno of Elea. You are two hours and twenty-three minutes late for our meeting."
"I didn't make any meeting with you, and Zeno is long dead. You better get up out of that chair and get outta' my house." I'm not too sure what to make of this. I glance over at the door: the dead-bolt is still locked, but he could have locked it after coming in. I look back and there he is sitting in my chair. It is odd that I was thinking of Zeno moments ago, and now here is someone claiming to be him. He was dressed plainly, but certainly not like a Greek from long ago.
"I didn't come through that door," he tells me, "I have come at your request to finish our discussion. Now if you don't mind, I would like a cup of that coffee."
I'm thinking that for the moment this situation seems harmless enough. This man claiming to be Zeno appears content to merely sit and talk, so perhaps I'll humor him for awhile. Besides, I like hearing his voice, it feels comfortable and inviting. I grab an extra mug from the cupboard and pour us both some coffee. "So when did we last speak," I ask him.
"When is not important as time is an illusion. It is more important that you recall what we were speaking about," Zeno replies.
"I'm sorry, but I cannot."
"Well, let me ask you this: where is your mind located?" What a question to be asked first thing in the morning. I hand Zeno his coffee, then light a cigarette.
"I suppose that it is located inside my body," I say as I sit down on one of the less comfortable kitchen chairs. " It appears to me that my mind is involved with my senses in giving me a picture of the world. My body is the input of my senses, and so, my mind ought to be located within the realm of my senses, which is my body."
"So then, your mind is inside your body. This means that you can only know that you have a mind; that is, you cannot know for sure that I have a mind inside my body," Zeno was saying, "For if your mind is involved with your body, then you can only know that you have thoughts as part of this connection. When you experience things in the world, including people, you only know their physical components, and you can never be certain that these others might have a mind."
"Well, I suppose that is true, but I can infer that you have a mind because you have responses to events in the world that are similar to my own," I respond, "For instance, we are having a conversation, and that requires that you can think about what is being said. Thinking is something we attribute to the mind, and so, you must have a mind. Indeed, I am certain that we both have minds."
Zeno was sipping from his mug of coffee. I took a pull off my cigarette waiting for him to respond. He spoke, "Yes, ok. You know that I have a mind due to the fact that you observe that my behavior is similar to yours in certain circumstances; you know that your behavior is a product of your thoughts, so you assume that my acts are a product of my thoughts. Then you agree that we have to attribute this 'mind' to all other beings that are exhibiting behavior."
"Yes, I am confident that all other humans have minds." Taking a drink of my coffee I wonder where all this is leading, then there it is. I'm on a train, and Zeno is sitting across from me. The train is in a tunnel; time is not moving. Zeno is not Zeno, and I am not me. There is no action, no thought; there is all action, all thought. The eyes meet. "I remember talking to you," I exclaim to Zeno, dropping my cigarette on the floor. I fumble with excitement as I bend to pick up the smoldering smoke. "We concluded that all things that are experiencing the world must have minds because being is a form of action, and to act is to have a mind; that is, all things that have the property of extension must also have the property of mind due to the fact that a thing with extension is an experiencing thing. Typically, we do not accept this, but our rejection is only a factor of our own standards of justified inference! In this case, we set the standard based on our human perception of being, but neglect to recognize that all the other things in the world are involved in non-human states of being. It is only because we do not understand the ways in which these non-human things act that we do not commonly accept that they too have minds. I recall that you disagreed with this notion because that would entail a countless number of minds."
"Only in a sense do I disagree. The notion of all things having minds has certain value, but in such cases we must employ Ockam's Razor. We see that body and mind are the two things that all instances of things have in common. We can also see that the body and mind are in some sort of symbiotic-like relation; that is, by our reasoning mind and body are both essential to an existing thing, and so, we must think of them as not separate, nor one dependent upon the other, but as some sort of unique thing. We'll call this thing 'bodymind.' But here is where we use the Razor: if all things have this property of bodymind then, like Parmenides taught, there is only One. The One consists of the vast expanse of the bodymind. This is the only substance."
I reflect for a moment as I put out my cigarette, then say, "Right, it is the set of experiencing things which comprises our universe that is the One; however I also recall that we concluded that the moment was our experience of the One, and in order to escape your paradox, the moment had to die: the One has to be destroyed. We talked about the idea that each perception of a moment in time is like a unique point. This point is the One. In order to get to the next point of perception, the One has to be destroyed, and reborn in a new order. This new born moment is the One that reflects our new perception of a unique moment in time; therefore, nothing ever moves: the One is the static set of all that can be experienced within a point of time."
"Aha, you are remembering!" Zeno was wearing a wide grin, "This is where we can think along similar lines as Plato's Theory of the Forms and the Doctrine of Recollection. You said yourself that the moment was our experience of the One, but that does not mean it is the One in its entirety. The One is the ultimate Form, as it is the expression of all possible experience. It is the bodymind that encompasses all possible worlds. However, I recall you asking that if this was the case, then how could there be any cohesion or continuity to our lives?"
My heart was racing, "Yes, I did ask that. You responded by saying it was because we are a part of the whole. In every moment the One, which is the set of all the things partaking of bodymind, recalls what ought to be so; we remember collectively how the newborn moment occurs. This accounts for patterns which perpetuate with something akin to momentum: we remember the ultimate form of the One as experienced by our specific ways of encountering it. A person remembers in a person way, an animal in an animal way, and a plant in a plant way; it is the same for any class of things. This causes our relationship with the One to maintain a sense of order."
"Yes that is close, but don't be fooled by that 'momentum' business," Zeno was gently scolding me, "It is the collective recollection of the One by all instances of things which gives rise to the overall coherent pattern within a moment of encounter: the One rises and falls for us, but it itself is timeless. For, it has a complete recollection of all the instances of things, but the things themselves only have a limited recollection of the One."
"But Zeno," I began, "If the One is timeless, and our reality is an encounter with the One, then why is there time at all?"
"This is why we must finish our discussion," Zeno was saying, "The One has no time itself, so each moment of encounter occurs outside of time. Our impressions and recollections of the One are all discreet lifetimes of moments, but to the One everything occurs at once: it is the collection of all possible experience. Thus we experience the One as it is expressed through the ultimate substance of bodymind. As we have recalled, the bodymind itself is shaped in a myriad of ways. This gives rise to perceptions which by our own partial and specific recollection gives the illusion of time; however, this is only because we have not yet a total memory of the Absolute Form. A full memory of the Form would be to become the Form."
"If the One is the set of all possible experience, then it would have to be self-negating," I was saying, "For, it would have to contain both the moment of my coffee cup being full, and my coffee cup not being full. To the One, I would have to be both asleep and not asleep; alive and dead. How can anything exist at all, if this is the case."
Zeno had the most serious little smile on his face. "That's just it," he said quietly, "the One is both everything and nothing. It is the tension between this unity which gives rise to the possibility that there will exist something. The One recalls every instance of possible things, but the things themselves only partially remember the One. This is why the instances of things appear to have separation and duration: they do not fully remember that they are both everything and nothing, and thus, they continue to have the experience of an existence within time and space."
I am sitting in silence. I stand up and walk, heading towards my bedroom. I take off my robe and get dressed. I am thinking about the last bit of information that Zeno had transmitted. What is it to be both nothing and everything?
Funnel anti-click.
"It is time to go," Zeno was saying {"Non-sense"} as he got up out of my only comfortable chair. I was in my bedroom doorway. I'm {I'm} doing up {tying} the belt in my pants {robe}. I {see} watch Zeno {a man} circle the kitchen table to the {sitting} oven. I watch {in my} him bend over and open {only} the drawer that is {comfortable} underneath of the {chair} oven door. This man who {the hell} was {this}no longer a stranger was now acting quite strange/r} indeed! I was waiting for him to say something: some sort of explanation.
Steady. "But why did you come to my apartment, and where do you think that drawer is going to take you?" I asked, breaking the silence.
"I came here to help you remember," Zeno responded as I watched him step in to the drawer, and then gone. He had moved away from here in a manner which I saw fully, but I can not quite comprehend. I don't know what to do. I walk over, and look into the drawer. I don't see my battered old cookie sheet, but I see a blend of so many shades of gray that it is all the colors at once. I only act, stepping into the drawer as Zeno had done.
Kcilc-itna here.
I am on a train, and Zeno of Elea is sitting across from me. "I can't believe I'm talking to you..." The train enters a tunnel. Time has stopped, but Zeno and I were going everywhere.