18 TIM. Well, that was the plan! But I couldn’t wait. I just had to get some real food immediately. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have made it to this meeting at all!

19 CHRISTIANUS. Fair enough. And real men need real food, I guess?

20 TIM. Absolutely! They must have something substantial!

21 CHRISTIANUS. I see. But what about some dessert? These raisins are packed with vitamins and minerals! [4]

22 TIM. They look very packed, indeed. But I don’t want to be stuffed with raisins. I am not one of those fruitcakes, you know!

23 CHRISTIANUS. But these are very nice and sweet!

24 TIM. Thanks, but no thanks. Actually, I try to avoid sugar as much as possible.

25 CHRISTIANUS. Even fruit sugar?

26 TIM. Yes. It’s my teeth.

27 CHRISTIANUS. But didn’t you eat lots of candy last time we met?

28 TIM. Sure I did. But it’s not just about the sugar either. I am also not the fruity type; and I particularly dislike raisins.

29 CHRISTIANUS. Even black, seedless, sun-dried ones like these from California?

30 TIM. Yes.

31 CHRISTIANUS. Very well.

32 TIM. So what’s our topic this week?

33 CHRISTIANUS. Good Lord! I wrote it down somewhere, on a tiny piece of paper. Where did I put it?

34 TIM. Paper? Aren’t you using one of those modern, handheld electronic organizers?

35 CHRISTIANUS. No.

36 TIM. Why not? They are very efficient!

37 CHRISTIANUS. It’s not my style.

38 TIM. Not your style?

39 CHRISTIANUS. No. I am more like Strindberg’s Starck. [5]

40 TIM. Who’s that?

41 CHRISTIANUS. He’s a pastry cook.

42 TIM. But you aren’t, are you?

43 CHRISTIANUS. No. But I like his style.

44 TIM. Which is . . . ?

45 CHRISTIANUS. Well, he doesn’t have a phone.

46 TIM. He doesn’t have a phone?

47 CHRISTIANUS. No.

48 TIM. How come?

49 CHRISTIANUS. He thinks it is sometimes good not to get messages: it’s less disturbing, more peaceful.

50 TIM. So?

51 CHRISTIANUS. So why not follow in his footsteps? Why not un-complicate our lives?

52 TIM. By trashing our phones? Come on!

53 CHRISTIANUS. Well, it’s just a thought. And I am also not a busy university professor, as you are.

54 TIM. No, you’re not.

55 CHRISTIANUS. You must have an overwhelming number of important meetings and phone calls to administer with all those courses you’re teaching?

56 TIM. Yes.

57 CHRISTIANUS. How many courses do you teach this semester?

58 TIM. Three.

59 CHRISTIANUS. Ah, yes! Here it is!

60 TIM. What?

61 CHRISTIANUS. My naughty note!

62 TIM. You found your microscopic topic sentence?

63 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, I resurrected it from the nether regions. It was buried under all those rascal raisins. It must have been there for days! What a timely revelation!

UP TO SCENE I | TOP | NOTES | CITATION | DOWN TO SCENE III

SCENE II. Sex and Metaphysics?

1 TIM. So what’s our topic, then?

2 CHRISTIANUS. Hmmm, let’s see . . . . It says ‘metaphysex’.

3 TIM. Metaphysex?

4 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. It’s short for metaphysics and sex.

5 TIM. So your plan is to talk about sex and metaphysics? Is that it?

6 CHRISTIANUS. Yes.

7 TIM. I don’t see the connexion.

8 CHRISTIANUS. Does there have to be a connexion?

9 TIM. I know you all too well by now, Chris!

10 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, you’re right. I am the born satisfactionist, aren’t I? [6]

11 TIM. You certainly are. There’s no doubt about that!

12 CHRISTIANUS. And if I someday were to tell you that I am not really a satisfactionist, after all? That I am just acting?

13 TIM. I wouldn’t believe it. You’re just the archetypal satisfactionist, inside out! It’s in your ingenious genes, somehow or other.

14 CHRISTIANUS. Thanks, Tim — I guess?

15 TIM. You’re very welcome. So where do we go from here? Sex or metaphysics?

16 CHRISTIANUS. Why don’t we start with the juicy stuff?

17 TIM. Oh, yeah! Now you’re talking!

18 CHRISTIANUS. I didn’t know you were so keen on metaphysics, Tim!

19 TIM. Keen on metaphysics? I am not! It’s not only incredibly un-juicy, but also nonsense and meaningless. Sex, on the other hand, is very interesting and meaningful.

20 CHRISTIANUS. Sure, sex can be juicy and interesting, especially in the right company. But so can metaphysics. You probably just lack practice in that field.

21 TIM. What has practice to do with it?

22 CHRISTIANUS. Well, wouldn’t you agree that ‘juicy’ is something that one has to experience either in the practice or around the practice? And the more one participates in such activities, either directly or indirectly, the more one gets a feel for how and when and why it’s ‘juicy’? [7]

23 TIM. As far as I am concerned, there isn’t any ‘metaphysical juice’ to be experienced. I am a physical realist! [8] [9]

24 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, Tim, you certainly are. There’s no doubt about that!

25 TIM. Haaaaa — haaaaa — haaaaa!

26 CHRISTIANUS. But let’s start with a little metaphysics anyway. It’s good for both of us.

27 TIM. Why is that?

28 CHRISTIANUS. Well, the short answer is that we then follow the pre-established rules of our brown-bag game. [10]

29 TIM. In what way?

30 CHRISTIANUS. It’s my turn.

31 TIM. Your turn?

32 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. Last week, you started our discussion. This week, I do.

33 TIM. But how is that good for both of us?

34 CHRISTIANUS. Well, one thing is that it adds a certain order and predictability to our lives, doesn’t it? And I don’t suppose that I have to explain the virtues of order and prediction to a professional scientist like yourself, do I?

35 TIM. Of course not.

36 CHRISTIANUS. So let’s do a little metaphysics, then.

37 TIM. All right. But what do you mean by ‘metaphysics’, anyway? Is it some Platonic or Socratic nonsense?

38 CHRISTIANUS. No.

39 TIM. Or is it perhaps some New Age crystal junk science?

40 CHRISTIANUS. No.

41 TIM. Or some ridiculous mythical or religious concoction?

42 CHRISTIANUS. Definitely not.

43 TIM. What, then?

44 CHRISTIANUS. Well, it’s mainly an ontological point.

45 TIM. Ontological? I thought you said metaphysical?

46 CHRISTIANUS. Well, sometimes ontology is thought of as a branch of metaphysics. So one might say that my point is both a metaphysical and an ontological point. [11] [12]

47 TIM. And what is that point, exactly?

48 CHRISTIANUS. It’s about the existence of things.

49 TIM. Yes?

50 CHRISTIANUS. Well, I am playing with the idea that we must be very generous in regards to what kind of entities might exist in the universe and beyond, in the totality of existence.

51 TIM. How do you mean, ‘generous’?

52 CHRISTIANUS. Well, if I say ‘charitable’, would that be better?

53 TIM. No.

54 CHRISTIANUS. What about ‘reasonable’? Or ‘fair’?

55 TIM. Chris, can you get to the point, please! I haven’t got all day, you know!

56 CHRISTIANUS. All right, all right! I’ll make a new attempt.

57 TIM. Go ahead, by all means!

58 CHRISTIANUS. But it’s not very easy to start.

59 TIM. Aha! The writer’s ‘blank page’ syndrome! I know it all too well!

60 CHRISTIANUS. No, Tim — it’s not that! I know approximately what I want to say; it’s just that I am searching for the best approach. [13] [14]

61 TIM. The best approach?

62 CHRISTIANUS. Yes.

63 TIM. And how do you know which one that is?

64 CHRISTIANUS. It’s tricky. Very tricky.

65 TIM. No doubt.

66 CHRISTIANUS. But perhaps I can say this: it is the approach that delivers a performance worthy of a true satisfactionist.

67 TIM. And that approach is?

68 CHRISTIANUS. Well, it depends.

69 TIM. On what?

70 CHRISTIANUS. On whoever and whatever is involved.

71 TIM. My goodness! How revealing! Why am I not surprised?

72 CHRISTIANUS. Perhaps because you, by now, know how I usually go about things?

73 TIM. Maybe. But tell me, Chris: why can’t you just spit it out, immediately, whatever it is that you want to say?

74 CHRISTIANUS. Because I want to accomplish certain things here today.

75 TIM. What things?

76 CHRISTIANUS. Things that are not directly connected to the apparent topic of our conversation.

77 TIM. I don’t get it.

UP TO SCENE II | TOP | NOTES | CITATION | DOWN TO SCENE IV

SCENE III. Venus the Super-Sexy Girl-Goddess

1 CHRISTIANUS. OK, then. Picture this little scenario. It’s an absolutely beautiful Saturday night in London.

2 TIM. No rain?

3 CHRISTIANUS. It’s a scenario, Tim!

4 TIM. OK, OK . . .

5 CHRISTIANUS. And instead of being in a serious relationship, as you are now, you’re still a bachelor; for Rachel somehow ended up marrying someone else.

6 TIM. But . . .

7 CHRISTIANUS. What?

8 TIM. Where are you going with this?

9 CHRISTIANUS. You’ll see. Be patient!

10 TIM. All right.

11 CHRISTIANUS. So you’re going out with your friends, heading for ‘The Cave’ — the most popular underground bar in the city. [15]

12 TIM. And ‘popular’ means that there will be lots of beautiful girls, right?

13 CHRISTIANUS. Indeed, my dear Watson! [16]

14 TIM. So?

15 CHRISTIANUS. You go inside. The place has spotlights here and there, but it’s still caveishly dark. The air is saturated with a smell of beer-n-joint, the sound of rock-n-soul music, and a maelstrom of sexual expectations. And suddenly you see her, shining brightly in her absolutely stunning evening outfit! [17]

16 TIM. Who?

17 CHRISTIANUS. A super-hottie. Half human, half divine.

18 TIM. Wow!

19 CHRISTIANUS. Exactly. She is hanging out at the main bar, with some of her female friends. She’s centre stage, and the whole room revolves around her.

20 TIM. Go on!

21 CHRISTIANUS. And she is just your type, in terms of physical appearance, with hips and lips that don’t lie. Or at least her hips don’t. [18]

22 TIM. So you mean someone like Beyoncé? Or Britney Spears? Or Katherine Heigl?

23 CHRISTIANUS. You bet! Someone just like that: young, sexy, hot!

24 TIM. Mmmm! A girl-goddess!

25 CHRISTIANUS. Precisely. Live!

26 TIM. What’s her name?

27 CHRISTIANUS. Venus.

28 TIM. Ah! Venus! How fitting!

29 CHRISTIANUS. Well, at least in some ways.

30 TIM. Isn’t Venus the love goddess? [19]

31 CHRISTIANUS. Sure. But our Venus is not from Willendorf.

32 TIM. Willendorf?

33 CHRISTIANUS. You’re not an A-man, are you?

34 TIM. What do you mean?

35 CHRISTIANUS. You’re not much into archaeology, anthropology or art history?

36 TIM. No.

37 CHRISTIANUS. Or Austrian geography?

38 TIM. Sorry.

39 CHRISTIANUS. In this particular case, that actually serves you quite well. For if you had been, you might have wrongly associated the physical form of the Willendorfer Venus artefact with the appearance of our Venus. [20]

40 TIM. How do you mean?

41 CHRISTIANUS. Well, our Venus is not an ancient artefact with an obese or pregnant female form, but a vivacious modern woman in perfect shape, with very beautiful and proportionate bodily features.

42 TIM. But apart from this potentially extremely dangerous association, the name Venus does fit well, doesn’t it?

43 CHRISTIANUS. Yes and no. Sure, our gorgeous girl-goddess certainly does shine brilliantly in the evening when she’s out; and sometimes also in the morning, especially when she doesn’t have a hangover. Nevertheless, we still have to modify the scenario.

44 TIM. Modify it? But we have just started!

45 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, I know. But it would be better not to stage it on a Saturday evening.

46 TIM. Why?

47 CHRISTIANUS. Isn’t it obvious?

48 TIM. No.

49 CHRISTIANUS. Aren’t you familiar with the ancient Roman system of naming the days of the week?

50 TIM. I am not sure.

51 CHRISTIANUS. You’re not sure?

52 TIM. No. Sorry.

53 CHRISTIANUS. All right. That is the system that many modern European countries, including Britain, still adhere to.

54 TIM. So?

55 CHRISTIANUS. So according to that system, Saturday evening would be the evening of Saturn.

56 TIM. And?

57 CHRISTIANUS. Well, Saturn isn’t exactly the name of any girl-goddess, is it?

58 TIM. If you say so. I am not a mythometrist. [21]

59 CHRISTIANUS. Friday, on the other hand, would be a perfect day for our scenario.

60 TIM. Why? Because it’s fried-day? [22]

61 CHRISTIANUS. No. Because it’s Venus-day. [23]

62 TIM. According to the ancient system?

63 CHRISTIANUS. Yes.

64 TIM. And Venus is the name of our girl-goddess? Is that your stupid deduction?

65 CHRISTIANUS. It’s not a deduction, Tim. It’s a scenario!

66 TIM. Big deal!

67 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, it is. So Friday it is, then.

68 TIM. In the scenario.

69 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, in the scenario.

70 TIM. Can we get on with it? Now?

71 CHRISTIANUS. Certainly. So it’s Friday night, and you’re standing a few feet away from that super-sexy, self-effulgent Venus, the star of the evening.

72 TIM. All right!

73 CHRISTIANUS. And you just know that you want to have sex with her! Immediately! Or as soon as possible, whichever comes first.

74 TIM. Yeah!

75 CHRISTIANUS. And compared to all other goals that you have lined up in your life at that point, you are now certain that this is the most important and tangible one. You know that you have to have her, no matter what!

76 TIM. Definitely!

77 CHRISTIANUS. Which means that you most probably have to reorganize and reprioritize your other goals somewhat, so that your new goal can be inserted into your life.

78 TIM. Sure! Whatever!

79 CHRISTIANUS. So if you are really dependent on your electronic organizer, you might want to bring it along, especially if you have some goal-administration software in it.

80 TIM. Naturally!

81 CHRISTIANUS. Good. But there are a few minor problems that you have to deal with.

82 TIM. Minor problems?

83 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. One is that most men, and some women too, have the same taste as you do.

84 TIM. The same taste?

85 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, in terms of appreciating Venus.

86 TIM. Shit!

87 CHRISTIANUS. Indeed. So when I said that the whole room is revolving around her, I didn’t exaggerate; it’s exactly what’s going on.

88 TIM. How do you mean?

89 CHRISTIANUS. Her presence has gravitational implications: basically everyone is mesmerized and magnetized by her divine, self-effulgent appearance. They carefully follow all her moves, all the time. In fact, all real men register with their personal compasses the direction of her South Pole. In other words, she really is centre stage, and everyone knows it. [24]

90 TIM. No privacy, eh?

91 CHRISTIANUS. No privacy. Unless you think centre stage is private, somehow.

92 TIM. Hmmm. Any other minor problems?

93 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. Not only does she not know you, but she also has never even heard of you. She’s not the type of woman who is overwhelmingly interested in keeping herself up to date with the latest developments in theoretical physics.

94 TIM. Right.

95 CHRISTIANUS. And here’s another detail. Since the bar is so crowded, she hasn’t even noticed your presence in the room yet.

96 TIM. Hmmm.

97 CHRISTIANUS. So you need to, somehow or other, go and introduce yourself. That is, if your plan is to introduce yourself immediately, tonight.

98 TIM. Hmmm. Difficult.

99 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. So here’s the challenge: How do you introduce yourself so that you end up realizing your new primary goal, namely to have sex with her as soon as possible? What is the best approach?

UP TO SCENE III | TOP | NOTES | CITATION | DOWN TO SCENE V

SCENE IV. A Timean Interlude

1 TIM. Chris, I am sorry to interrupt, but we need to talk.

2 CHRISTIANUS. Uh-oh! Sounds serious!

3 TIM. I just need to know something. It’s personal.

4 CHRISTIANUS. Sure. What is it?

5 TIM. I hope this little story of yours is not some roundabout way of letting me know that you want to have sex with me?

6 CHRISTIANUS. Moi? Roundabout?

7 TIM. Chris, please! I’m not joking!

8 CHRISTIANUS. When have I ever been circumlocutory?

9 TIM. Only always.

10 CHRISTIANUS. Listen, Tim. Do most super-hot girl-goddesses have Darwin-like beards? [25]

11 TIM. No.

12 CHRISTIANUS. Or sizeable beer bellies?

13 TIM. No.

14 CHRISTIANUS. Or thick glasses?

15 TIM. No.

16 CHRISTIANUS. So then we cannot very easily conclude that you are a super-hot girl-goddess, can we?

17 TIM. No.

18 CHRISTIANUS. In fact, you’re not even a girl, are you?

19 TIM. No.

20 CHRISTIANUS. So don’t worry. Focus on the story!

21 TIM. All right. But it’s still a little difficult for me. I mean, I am no expert in these matters. I rarely go to bars; and when I do, it’s not to pick up girls.

22 CHRISTIANUS. You sometimes go to bars, but not to pick up girls? And you’re not gay, either? Interesting!

23 TIM. Well, it’s just me. I am a gentleman.

24 CHRISTIANUS. Really?

25 TIM. Or at least I try to be.

26 CHRISTIANUS. I see. Now let’s get back to the bar scene. You have just noticed Venus and you want to pick her up.

27 TIM. OK, I must confess that I certainly want to. In the scenario, that is.

28 CHRISTIANUS. Of course. In the scenario.

29 TIM. But how would I introduce myself? How can I insert myself into her life, and stay there?

30 CHRISTIANUS. Well, it depends not only on what you think of her and what you are prepared to do to introduce yourself; it also depends on what she thinks of you. But at this point in the drama, of course, she doesn’t even know that you exist!

31 TIM. Right.

32 CHRISTIANUS. But as soon as she is aware of your presence, your best bet is to be extremely attentive and sensitive to the way she speaks and acts. You have to evaluate the situation very carefully, and re-evaluate, as you go. You have to play along, and be dynamic!

33 TIM. Continue, please.

34 CHRISTIANUS. For example, if she thinks that you are super-hot, you may have to do little more than to raise your left eyebrow to get a lift home.

35 TIM. But what if she doesn’t think that I am super-hot?

36 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. Hmmm . . . . Then it’s a little trickier. And in some cases much trickier.

37 TIM. How is that?

38 CHRISTIANUS. Even though body language still counts, your potential future relation with her is now more or less a function of how well your conversation with her proceeds.

39 TIM. How do you mean?

40 CHRISTIANUS. I mean it’s not always the case that there will be a conversation that proceeds. At all.

41 TIM. How come?

42 CHRISTIANUS. Well, the problem is this. If you start talking to her without having at least exchanged some potentially promising glances, you may encounter a very dark future.

43 TIM. In what way?

44 CHRISTIANUS. She may, for instance, ignore you completely; or, if she doesn’t, she may try to trash you with a very quick and to-the-point ‘Beat it, buddy’, or something to that effect. And if you don’t take a hike at that point, she may simply walk away herself.

45 TIM. Why would she do that?

46 CHRISTIANUS. Maybe she thinks you’re ugly as hell. Or maybe her darling boyfriend or lesbian girlfriend is waiting outside. Or maybe there’s a Friday night lunar eclipse that she just has to zoom in on at the local observatory. Who knows the exact preferences of these celestial girl-goddesses?

47 TIM. Holy crap! This is nerve-wrecking!

48 CHRISTIANUS. Quite so, Watson. So it’s a situation that you want to avoid at all cost. If she walks out on you like that, it’s very hard to reconnect.

49 TIM. But how can I avoid it?

50 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, that is the right question to ask. For if she doesn’t even agree to communicate with you, what else can you accomplish with her?

51 TIM. Very little.

52 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. So what is the top thing that you want to avoid at all cost?

53 TIM. Being publicly humiliated at ‘The Cave’?

54 CHRISTIANUS. No. Public humiliation is OK, as long as she continues to speak with you. Remember: if she is your primary goal, you cannot care so much about what other people think about you; your main objective is to have sex with her, not with them.

55 TIM. So what is the top thing, then?

56 CHRISTIANUS. The most important thing is, once having started such a conversation, never to be permanently disconnected.

57 TIM. Never to be permanently disconnected?

58 CHRISTIANUS. Never. That is the rule. Whatever it takes. At least until you no longer want her.

59 TIM. What?

60 CHRISTIANUS. Well, you may just get tired of her after a while.

61 TIM. Get tired of her? A girl-goddess like that?

62 CHRISTIANUS. Maybe some other girl-goddess comes around who is even more interesting.

63 TIM. Another one?

64 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. There is practically an endless supply of girl-goddesses in the universe. You just need to know where to look, and have the eyes to see them.

UP TO SCENE IV | TOP | NOTES | CITATION | DOWN TO SCENE VI

SCENE V. Souls and Goals

1 TIM. So how does that bar scenario connect to our metaphysics discussion?

2 CHRISTIANUS. Well, my situation in this brown bag discussion is very much like your situation in the bar scenario.

3 TIM. In what way?

4 CHRISTIANUS. We are both involved in a very real risk management situation.

5 TIM. What risk management situation?

6 CHRISTIANUS. A situation in which there is a very real possibility of permanent disconnection.

7 TIM. Yes?

8 CHRISTIANUS. If the connection is broken in either of our scenarios, we will not be able to accomplish our respective goals.

9 TIM. So you’re saying that you have goals in respect to this brown bag meeting?

10 CHRISTIANUS. Sure. You do too.

11 TIM. I do?

12 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. But admitting it is, of course, another matter. Even to yourself.

13 TIM. Hmmm. What is your goal?

14 CHRISTIANUS. It’s approximately the same as yours.

15 TIM. To have sex with Venus?

16 CHRISTIANUS. Wouldn’t that be something?

17 TIM. Come on! That’s my girl!

18 CHRISTIANUS. All right, all right. I’d probably go for someone more like Jessica Alba, anyway, if I had a choice. Or Natalie Portman. There are so many.

19 TIM. OK. Now what?

20 CHRISTIANUS. Well, in more general terms, our troublesome situation is a consequence of that we both are souls with goals.

21 TIM. How do you mean?

22 CHRISTIANUS. Well, we all want to do something in our lives, right?

23 TIM. Sure. But people are different.

24 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. But they still have plans and goals for the future, no matter how big fans of carpe diem philosophy they claim themselves to be. [26]

25 TIM. But what about senile people? Or the mentally retarded?

26 CHRISTIANUS. I am talking about people who have somewhat ordinary mental capabilities, including those with the ability to use language and the ability to remember things.

27 TIM. OK.

28 CHRISTIANUS. So we agree that most people have plans and goals?

29 TIM. I guess.

30 CHRISTIANUS. And I presume, Watson, that we also agree that people act in accordance with their plans and goals?

31 TIM. How do you mean?

32 CHRISTIANUS. If one knows, for example, that there is no seventeenth-century cathedral in one’s neighbourhood, then one wouldn’t voluntarily spend a whole afternoon walking around in one’s neighbourhood with the sole aim of trying to locate a seventeenth-century cathedral, would one? [27]

33 TIM. Of course not. In fact, I wouldn’t do it even if I knew that there was a seventeenth-century cathedral in my neighbourhood.

34 CHRISTIANUS. Right.

35 TIM. But one can, of course, take a stroll in one’s neighbourhood for other reasons, right?

36 CHRISTIANUS. Naturally. Maybe one wants to find some irresistible girl-goddess just waiting to be picked up. Or some delicious orgasmic raisins. Or both. There are thousands of reasons. [28]

37 TIM. OK. So what’s your point?

38 CHRISTIANUS. Simply that people don’t perform voluntary actions unless those actions are in accordance with their own personal plans and goals.

39 TIM. So there is no unselfishness? Everyone is selfish? Is that it, Einstein?

40 CHRISTIANUS. No. All I am saying is that people always consciously act in such a way as to manifest their own plans and goals.

41 TIM. And?

42 CHRISTIANUS. Let’s say that a rich man’s main goal was to donate all his money to the poor children in Africa.

43 TIM. OK.

44 CHRISTIANUS. Would we then not regard him, at least in some sense, as being unselfish?

45 TIM. We might.

46 CHRISTIANUS. But if his main goal was not to donate all his money to the poor kids in Africa but instead, say, just spend everything on Rolls-Royces and Armani suits for his very own pleasure, would we then not regard him as being selfish, or at least less unselfish?

47 TIM. Yes.

48 CHRISTIANUS. So being selfish or unselfish seems to have little to do with the fact that people have plans and goals; it’s more about what those plans and goals are.

49 TIM. All right. But what does it have to do with conversations?

50 CHRISTIANUS. Conversations are ‘places’ where people consciously act.

51 TIM. So?

52 CHRISTIANUS. So if we accept that everyone engages in conversations with certain goals in mind, is there then not a foreseeable risk that, as soon as one party discovers that the conversation proceeds in a direction that isn’t favourable to his own goals, he doesn’t want to participate any more?

53 TIM. Sounds reasonable.

54 CHRISTIANUS. So as long as the participants talk about topics of mutual interest, then it is all right?

55 TIM. Probably.

56 CHRISTIANUS. But when one of them takes off in a direction that the other person thinks is uncomfortable, or uninteresting, or unimportant, or even counterproductive to his own micro-plans or macro-plans, whether temporal or spatial or spiritual, then it becomes a completely different story.

57 TIM. Yes.

58 CHRISTIANUS. So that’s my problem, in our conversation. I want to say certain things to you, but I am not sure that you will hear me out. And I really need you to hear me out.

59 TIM. But Chris, unless you are planning a seven-day-long monologue, I will hear you out. Haven’t I always listened very carefully to you in our little brown bags?

60 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, you have. But today’s meeting is dramatically different.

61 TIM. How so?

62 CHRISTIANUS. Previously I have just scratched the surface of my satisfactionist philosophy, so I have played it very safe. This time, however, I am planning to uncover stuff that I suspect will be very difficult for you to relate to, even as an account of someone else’s philosophy.

63 TIM. So what are you saying?

64 CHRISTIANUS. Well, I am trying to make a point about the prediction of human behaviour — and your behaviour in particular.

65 TIM. And that point is . . . ?

66 CHRISTIANUS. I suspect that your mind will freak out. So I have to arrange my speeches extremely carefully.

67 TIM. So now you’re also an expert psychologist?

68 CHRISTIANUS. Take it easy, Tim. I am not charging by the hour.

69 TIM. That’s a relief.

70 CHRISTIANUS. I am charging by the minute.

71 TIM. No wonder you’re dragging on! Don’t you have some other ‘clients’ that you can malpractice on?

72 CHRISTIANUS. Sorry, Tim. You’re my favourite physicalist lab rat!

73 TIM. Darn!

UP TO SCENE V | TOP | NOTES | CITATION | DOWN TO SCENE VII

SCENE VI. A Most Preposterous Proposal

1 CHRISTIANUS. Are you ready for more?

2 TIM. For God’s sake! YES!

3 CHRISTIANUS. So maybe we can start like this instead: I am sure that there are many things that we still haven’t seen or discovered, both in this universe and in other universes.

4 TIM. All right.

5 CHRISTIANUS. And the fact that we haven’t seen or discovered them yet does not prove that they don’t exist, does it?

6 TIM. No it doesn’t.

7 CHRISTIANUS. Also, apart from things that no-one has seen, there are things that at least one person has seen.

8 TIM. Sure. My neighbour has seen all of Hawaii, but I haven’t.

9 CHRISTIANUS. Good. And you have seen all of Rachel, but I haven’t.

10 TIM. Yes, at least when it comes to her main organ. [29]

11 CHRISTIANUS. Thanks for the info. [30]

12 TIM. You’re welcome.

13 CHRISTIANUS. So the fact that some people haven’t seen certain things does not prove that those things don’t exist, right?

14 TIM. But surely it depends on what we are talking about? I mean, just take flying saucers! Or Tralfamadorians! [31]

15 CHRISTIANUS. No, it doesn’t depend on what we are talking about. The fact that some people haven’t seen any UFOs, or Tralfamadorians, doesn’t prove that they don’t exist.

16 TIM. But it’s highly improbable. It’s common sense.

17 CHRISTIANUS. But if ‘common sense’ is the criterion for validating what is going on in the totality of existence, then why don’t we just quickly dismiss quantum mechanics and its implications? [32]

18 TIM. All right, all right. Still, miracles are highly improbable.

19 CHRISTIANUS. But even if one were to grant that they are highly improbable, one couldn’t safely deduce that they don’t exist.

20 TIM. But we can’t always be totally sure of everything.

21 CHRISTIANUS. Precisely. So if that is the case, then you can’t be totally sure that miracles or God or UFOs don’t exist, either.

22 TIM. All right. But it’s very unlikely.

23 CHRISTIANUS. But ‘unlikely’ doesn’t translate to ‘impossible’, does it?

24 TIM. No, it doesn’t.

25 CHRISTIANUS. And what is considered ‘probable’ and ‘not probable’ varies from person to person. And the same goes for ‘plausible’ and ‘not plausible’. And one must, especially if one is a satisfactionist, properly acknowledge this variance in probability and plausibility.

26 TIM. But I am no satisfactionist.

27 CHRISTIANUS. You certainly aren’t. Nevertheless, my point remains. Different persons have different views about what is possible and plausible, especially when it comes to far-out things such as what type of entities that may or may not exist in this and other universes.

28 TIM. Maybe. But still, there are limits!

29 CHRISTIANUS. That’s just your finitude-prone mind speaking, with its current world-view. [33]

30 TIM. How do you mean?

31 CHRISTIANUS. Well, all people do not subscribe to the exact same world-view, do they?

32 TIM. No.

33 CHRISTIANUS. And different world-views are not made up of the exact same set of axioms, propositions, or theories, are they?

34 TIM. No. If they were, they wouldn’t be different, would they?

35 CHRISTIANUS. Exactly. So one world-view may very well postulate one set of limits, while another world-view may postulate another set of limits?

36 TIM. Yes. But there isn’t more than one real world-view. So then we do know what is possible and what is not possible.

37 CHRISTIANUS. Well, I think that’s just wishful thinking, on your part. Either you haven’t read as much philosophy of science as you should have, or the left side of your brain is still on vacation in Spain. Or both. [34]

38 TIM. I must confess that I haven’t done a lot of philosophy of science.

39 CHRISTIANUS. OK, then. So one problem is just that there is no real consensus, even amongst the physicists, as to what constitutes a correct theory, or a correct collection of theories.

40 TIM. You mean that not all physicists accept quantum theories and relativity theories and string theories, and so on, in the same way?

41 CHRISTIANUS. Precisely. Harry the physicist subscribes to a certain set of theories having certain limits and possibilities, while his colleague Barry subscribes to some other set of theories, with other limits and possibilities.

42 TIM. I’ll accept that.

43 CHRISTIANUS. And this theory-non-consensus is not only found among the physicists, of course, but in all the natural and human sciences. So what is perceived to be possible for, say, one biologist subscribing to a certain set of theories may very well be perceived to be impossible for another biologist subscribing to some other set of theories.

44 TIM. All right.

45 CHRISTIANUS. And the same goes for psychologists, anthropologists, and astrophysicists?

46 TIM. I guess.

47 CHRISTIANUS. So today’s exercise is this. I want to explore explanatory scenarios that feature entities that are not normally incorporated in those theories that are found in modern scientific journals, mostly authored and refereed by professors and researchers at well-known universities and institutions. Perhaps we can call such entities ‘theoretical’ entities, even though they may actually exist nevertheless.

48 TIM. All right. So ‘theoretical’ doesn’t necessarily mean non-existing or not being real?

49 CHRISTIANUS. At least not in the sense that I am using it right now.

50 TIM. OK.

51 CHRISTIANUS. Now, many physicists use theoretical entities in their research. They see some phenomenon appearing, for example, on a photographic plate; and then they try to explain, with the help of various theoretical entities and processes, why and when that phenomenon appears.

52 TIM. Sure.

53 CHRISTIANUS. So in physics, for example, the researchers may juggle with theoretical entities like photons, electrons, and mesons?

54 TIM. Certainly.

55 CHRISTIANUS. Even though no physics professor has ever seen any of these theoretical entities?

56 TIM. Well, we surely have seen traces of them!

57 CHRISTIANUS. Not necessarily. You may have seen something that can be interpreted as traces of such theoretical entities, if one assumes that such theoretical entities exist.

58 TIM. All right. But aren’t some physicists instrumentalists? They wouldn’t claim that their theoretical entities exist, in a strict sense, would they? [35]

59 CHRISTIANUS. No. But they also wouldn’t claim — at least not publicly — that they had seen traces of any such theoretical entity. Unless, of course, they were just posing as instrumentalists, but actually were covert realists who — in an unguarded moment — slipped.

60 TIM. Good point.

61 CHRISTIANUS. But let’s get back to today’s metaphysical adventure.

62 TIM. OK.

63 CHRISTIANUS. So in my more generous and all-encompassing world-view I do want to be able to postulate entities such as photons, electrons, and mesons, as well as big black holes in serious singularities.

64 TIM. Good.

65 CHRISTIANUS. And I also want to allow, of course, modest little holes in brown paper bags like this one, filled with a plurality of seedless, dark entities.

66 TIM. OK.

67 CHRISTIANUS. But apart from these entities, I want to furnish the universe with a much more colourful, interesting, and mysterious cast. Although quasars are very radiant and energetic, and Magellanic clouds serve well as bright and majestic backdrops, we also must have entities of a more human-like kind, to get some real action going in the drama.

68 TIM. What are you talking about?

69 CHRISTIANUS. Well, I want to explore the possibility of casting my world-view with a whole bunch of person-like entities in the universe, including their paraphernalia. So my scenario would include gods and angels, aliens and their UFOs, ghosts and their alter egos, and all other such objects that are commonly referred to as supernatural, superstitious, metaphysical, spiritual, or just downright weird.

70 TIM. Holy Macro! What a preposterous proposal! Why in heavens name would you want to do that? Don’t you have enough trouble in your life already?

71 CHRISTIANUS. Sure I do!

72 TIM. So?

73 CHRISTIANUS. That’s exactly my point! I really do have enough trouble in my life already: for I have all these entities and phenomena that very few university professors take seriously: gods, angels, miracles, souls, reincarnation, extrasensory perception, out-of-body experiences — you name it. So my project is not to create more problems, but to actually face already existing ones.

74 TIM. Are you finished?

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SCENE VII. Ockham's Raisin

1 CHRISTIANUS. No. For according to a large number of texts and testimonies from all phases and places of human civilization, such concepts, entities, and phenomena are real. And although such descriptions sometimes may be both poetic and soothing for the soul, they are usually not originally presented merely as some mundane poetry compositions or cute little bedtime stories, but as true events. So we need to make room for such concepts, entities, and phenomena in order to explain everything that is going on in the universe.

2 TIM. This is not acceptable! Science has not proven any such entities. No such phony, freaky fairytales for me! And it’s not just that I don’t want to use such entities; I don’t need to either! For I have Ockham’s Razor. [36]

3 CHRISTIANUS. What do you mean?

4 TIM. Ockham’s Razor is a well-known, and well-used, principle that says that I don’t have any responsibility to add any more entities in my theory than what I need.

5 CHRISTIANUS. Actually, I am well aware of Ockham’s old raisin. That is the standard fruitarian story that many scholars keep attributing to the late medieval British theologian William of Ockham. [37]

6 TIM. If you already know what I am talking about, why the hell do you pose a question?

7 CHRISTIANUS. Although I do know Ockham’s old raisin, I don’t know the exact reason why you are using it.

8 TIM. As I said, it’s a well-known and well-used principle.

9 CHRISTIANUS. So all well-known theories are proven and correct?

10 TIM. Well, no.

11 CHRISTIANUS. But at least all frequently used theories are proven and correct?

12 TIM. All right, the frequency is no proof per se. But Ockham’s Razor just works very well in scientific circles; so one could say that it’s proven in practice.

13 CHRISTIANUS. Well, we better be careful here.

14 TIM. Why?

15 CHRISTIANUS. At around the time of World War II, there were many powerful people in Nazi circles who thought that persons of a certain ethnic background should be ostracized, enslaved, or executed. So they devised several methods to accomplish those goals. Would you then propose that the high level of efficiency of their operations, affecting millions of individuals, practically proves that their methods and principles were universally sound and correct, in some absolute sense?

16 TIM. No.

17 CHRISTIANUS. So saying that Ockham’s Raisin works well in some scientific circles doesn’t prove that it’s universally accepted, or, more importantly, universally correct, or universally proven. It just shows that some scientists and some philosophers like it, and gladly use it in their practices to avoid having to deal with so-called ‘suspicious’ metaphysical or supernatural entities and phenomena.

18 TIM. We don’t use Ockham’s Razor only to get rid of nonsense metaphysical ideas.

19 CHRISTIANUS. Perhaps not. But you do use it when you want to reject metaphysical or supernatural entities and phenomena, don’t you?

20 TIM. Yes.

21 CHRISTIANUS. And you’re certainly not alone. Most university-based scientists and philosophers are more or less subscribing to the same basic worldview in which so-called ‘supernatural’ or ‘mystical’ or ‘metaphysical’ entities and events are not accepted. This is the modern university climate in the Western world.

22 TIM. That’s not entirely true.

23 CHRISTIANUS. Sure, there are always exceptions here and there. But generally speaking, that is the current state of affairs. So, going back to my previous point, the fact that some scholars are agreeing, say, that God doesn’t exist, or that the Loch Ness monster doesn’t exist, does not prove that God doesn’t exist, or that Nessie doesn’t exist. Their mutual agreement is not some kind of magic wand that transforms their beliefs into some proven universal truths. All their mutual agreement proves is that they all share the same belief that God is not in the ouranos, and that Nessie is not in the Loch. [38]

24 TIM. That’s outrageous!

UP TO SCENE VII | TOP | NOTES | CITATION | DOWN TO SCENE IX

SCENE VIII. West Coast Story

1 CHRISTIANUS. Not really. But let’s leave that subject for now, since you’re so touchy about it. We have to have cool minds when we talk about these important things. By the way, how is Rachel?

2 TIM. I am sure she is fine.

3 CHRISTIANUS. What do you mean?

4 TIM. I haven’t seen her in weeks.

5 CHRISTIANUS. Why? Is she out travelling?

6 TIM. I don’t know.

7 CHRISTIANUS. You don’t know?

8 TIM. Well, the truth is . . . we’ve separated.

9 CHRISTIANUS. But how is that possible? Wasn’t she the woman of your dreams? The archetype of all archetypes?

10 TIM. Yes, she was the love of my life. But she ran away with some rich Hollywood film director who promised her a lead role in his next movie.

11 CHRISTIANUS. You’re kidding?

12 TIM. I wish I was.

13 CHRISTIANUS. Really? I wasn’t aware that she was into professional acting, or that she had such plans.

14 TIM. Neither was I! But perhaps that’s how good she is at acting?

15 CHRISTIANUS. Maybe. But I always liked her.

16 TIM. I know you did.

17 CHRISTIANUS. What a nightmare!

18 TIM. Yes. But I am almost over it now.

19 CHRISTIANUS. Already?

20 TIM. Well, it’s been rough. But my sister has helped. A lot. She’s a rock.

21 CHRISTIANUS. That’s great. And you haven’t separated from your little green parrot, have you?

22 TIM. No, Perry is still with me.

23 CHRISTIANUS. How long has it been now?

24 TIM. Well, I bought him two years ago. In a pet store in Liverpool.

25 CHRISTIANUS. No, no. I meant you and Rachel!

26 TIM. Ah! Well, let’s see . . . . We met last fall. Outside the physics department.

27 CHRISTIANUS. Right.

28 TIM. She was the newly enrolled Physics 101 student and I was the new professor.

29 CHRISTIANUS. Talk about risk management!

30 TIM. Well, as you very well know, Chris, she wasn’t a student in my class.

31 CHRISTIANUS. I know. But still.

32 TIM. She was on her way to see a colleague of mine for some advice, but he wasn’t in. So we started talking. And I thought, ‘At last!’

33 CHRISTIANUS. At last what?

34 TIM. At last there was hope.

35 CHRISTIANUS. Hope?

36 TIM. Yes. Hope of love, hope of happiness, hope of life.

37 CHRISTIANUS. OK. And?

38 TIM. Well, you have to remember that I was in a pretty bad shape when I arrived in London. The experience of losing my previous job in the physics department on the west coast was very traumatic. So I was, at the time, very depressed and unhappy, with zero energy and enthusiasm.

39 CHRISTIANUS. What was that all about?

40 TIM. Losing my previous job, you mean?

41 CHRISTIANUS. Yes.

42 TIM. Well, you know academia: it’s always a lot of competition and envy and fighting. And I basically think that they wanted to get rid of me, so they practiced all that psychological stuff, you know.

43 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, that’s not an uncommon tactic. And not just in academia either: if one is not so well liked and one doesn’t quit by one’s own accord, then they try to freeze you out in various ways.

44 TIM. Yeah. And when one finally gets angry over all that nonsense psychological warfare they are up to, then they use that as ‘proof’ that one cannot cooperate.

45 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, it’s not an easy situation — especially if one is attached both to one’s work and one’s salary.

46 TIM. So I lost my job.

47 CHRISTIANUS. Right. But it took you to London, to Rachel. So it still worked out.

48 TIM. Sure. But only until January.

49 CHRISTIANUS. What happened then?

50 TIM. I was forced to tell Rachel that the nice house that I lived in, and the fancy car that I was driving, weren’t really mine. And that I didn’t have any savings or any inheritance to claim.

51 CHRISTIANUS. Had you lied to her about that before?

52 TIM. No. But I had let her imply that I was financially independent. You see, I was living far above my means, just to impress her. So she probably thought that I was rather well off. Perhaps not super-wealthy, but certainly not poor.

53 CHRISTIANUS. And?

54 TIM. So when I told her about my actual financial status, I immediately noticed a change in her behaviour.

55 CHRISTIANUS. In what way?

56 TIM. She no longer wanted to have sex with me. Or even kiss me. And whenever I wanted to sit down and talk, she was always on the move. And she suddenly got a lot of friends that she had to go out with. Every night!

57 CHRISTIANUS. So you’re saying . . . ?

58 TIM. Well, I told Rachel that I didn’t have any money. And then I lost her. Funny how that works.

59 CHRISTIANUS. Hold on, Tim. I know how important Rachel was in your life; and I am really sorry to hear that she is gone. But I also know Rachel to some extent, even though we just met a couple of times. And I must confess that I have a hard time accepting that she took off like that just because your finances were a little low, if that’s what you’re driving at.

60 TIM. So?

61 CHRISTIANUS. Well, I certainly understand that you have suffered a great deal, and perhaps still do. So it has been a very difficult time for you. But difficult situations such as these are not necessarily ‘unsolvable’ or ‘useless’ or ‘bad’; rather, they can be excellent opportunities for you to grow as a person and become even more satisfied and in tune with yourself than you ever were.

62 TIM. It’s hard to believe. No one can take Rachel’s place; she’s just too special.

UP TO SCENE VIII | TOP | NOTES | CITATION | DOWN TO SCENE X

SCENE IX. Mindy Always Barks

1 CHRISTIANUS. Your mind is just a little off right now, Tim, due to all those rough experiences. Sometimes when we get too many bad ducks in a row, the mind flips out and tries to do some quick, superficial rationalization.

2 TIM. Like?

3 CHRISTIANUS. Well, you just tried to sell me the idea that Rachel left you more or less only because of your troublesome economic situation.

4 TIM. So?

5 CHRISTIANUS. That is your mind speaking, not you. It tries to minimize your own responsibilities and blameworthiness, while it simultaneously tries to maximize everyone else’s responsibilities and blameworthiness. So many times it puts more blame on other people than they really should be attributed with. Does it ring a bell?

6 TIM. Yes.

7 CHRISTIANUS. So the idea, then, is that you have to start seeing that your mind works like that, and then learn how to handle it.

8 TIM. Is that the project?

9 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, that’s one project, out of many. One part of your mind is like a little dog that energetically starts barking whenever something doesn’t suit it, which is more or less always. And that little dog, call her Mindy, doesn’t really shut up until you have given her something to fetch or to chew on. So you have to know how to treat Mindy in different situations to keep her happy, so to speak. You have to know how to tame her, so that she understands that you are the boss. Only then will you be able to get some working peace for yourself.

10 TIM. Well, I can relate to some of what you’re saying, for there’s always some Mindy barking in my head. But if Mindy is the mind, or part of the mind, where and what am I, myself? Are you saying that I am not my mind? I thought you were a Cartesian of sorts, offering some mind-body dualism, claiming that the mind is the ‘real’ person?

11 CHRISTIANUS. A satisfactionist like myself is, of course, somewhat of a dualist in the sense that he is both committed to an immortal self as well as to a mortal, material body with its various functions and epiphenomena. But he does not see the mind, or at least some parts of it, as immortal.

12 TIM. What do you mean by ‘parts’?

13 CHRISTIANUS. I’ll get to that. But remember, the mind is hard to understand. One problem is, of course, the complexity of the subject matter itself. But there is also a tougher problem, namely that it is protected territory.

14 TIM. Protected territory?

15 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. The mind is a power on its own. It does not want to have its identity revealed. It cannot stand the idea of being observed and analysed too much. Just introducing the simple idea that the mind is not ‘the real you’ is absolutely intolerable for anyone who is seized by the power of the mind. And I can see that this is happening to you too, right this very minute.

16 TIM. Why the fuck should I listen to you? What do you know about the mind? Or my mind, for that matter!

17 CHRISTIANUS. Obviously I know something about it, since I took the trouble of giving you my standard prolegomenon, prepping you for some rough mind-weather. [39] [40]

18 TIM. One doesn’t have to be an expert psychologist to foresee that I would be irritated; with such talk, anyone would be irritated.

19 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, you’re right. This is exactly what happens to most people. Most people are not in control of their minds, so they become irritated and feel ‘offended’. And you are one of them.

20 TIM. I have no problem being like ‘most people’ in some regards; at least I don’t go around and think of myself as some kind of saint!

21 CHRISTIANUS. Neither do I. But I guess some people do.

22 TIM. Who gives a shit? You still haven’t answered my question: Why should I continue listening to you? What’s in it for me?

23 CHRISTIANUS. The reason why you, Tim, should continue to listen to me, instead of to your now so uproarious mind, is that if you don’t, you will never be in a position to achieve anything substantial in terms of your personal satisfaction. If you do not learn to observe how your mind works, and how to control it, you will more or less always be dissatisfied. Just like you are now.

24 TIM. I am not dissatisfied with me — only with you and your stupid arguments!

25 CHRISTIANUS. Your behaviour just proves my point once again.

26 TIM. What point?

27 CHRISTIANUS. That most people in the world are controlled by their minds. Therefore, practically no one wants, or is able, to talk about the idea that their minds are not ‘the real them’.

28 TIM. But you can, huh?

29 CHRISTIANUS. Yes.

30 TIM. Well, even if you can, you’re just speculating, without any scientific proof. I’d rather stick with the academic psychologists, neuroscientists, and philosophers of mind. After all, haven’t they investigated the mind a thousand times more carefully than you have?

31 CHRISTIANUS. Well, the trouble is that the minds of the scholars are, on average, more powerful than the minds of ordinary men and women. And in some cases we may say that their minds are even much more powerful.

32 TIM. Yeah — they are very, very smart. Why is that troublesome?

33 CHRISTIANUS. The trouble is that the proud academic scholars are also controlled by their minds, just like most people are. [41]

34 TIM. So?

35 CHRISTIANUS. So if we were to accept some such premises, what could we conclude? Could we, for example, conclude that the proud academic scholars — who have invested most of their time, money, and energy in prepping their own minds so that they could become tenured and famous — would be more prone to surrender the power of their minds than, let’s say, Joey Schmoey down at the gas station? Would they, on average, be more willing to conclude that they are not their minds, but, say, an immortal soul or a transcendental self, than Joey?

36 TIM. Probably not.

37 CHRISTIANUS. Exactly! So since practically no one — including the scholars — is capable of dealing with their own minds, they cannot be trusted, at least not in regards to this issue. Therefore, you have to do this research and evaluation yourself, if you are at all serious about your own satisfaction.

38 TIM. That’s outrageous!

39 CHRISTIANUS. Watch your mind, Tim! Sure, in some sense it really is outrageous. But I still think this mind-diagnosis is more or less correct.

40 TIM. Well, I certainly don’t believe it!

41 CHRISTIANUS. Tim, just to be clear: I am not saying that it is morally bad to have a great or powerful mind, or not to see, or not to acknowledge, or not to be able to control, the mind’s power and its unwillingness to be dethroned.

42 TIM. What are you saying, then?

43 CHRISTIANUS. I am just saying that if one does not consciously aim at observing one’s mind very closely, and at controlling it, one will never, in the human condition, be able to understand what’s going on.

44 TIM. So?

45 CHRISTIANUS. You will never ‘accidentally’ see the workings of the mind if you do not make that a very high priority in your life. And if you don’t understand the relation between Mindy and yourself, you will always be more or less dissatisfied. So it’s a very difficult situation.

46 TIM. But what if I want to stay dissatisfied?

47 CHRISTIANUS. Well, it’s hard to believe that you would not want to get rid of your dissatisfaction. Actually, I think that you really want to get rid of it, but you have been brainwashed by Mindy into thinking that it isn’t possible. For if you were to think that, then Mindy would sit pretty safely where she sits, not worrying that you might start analysing her in your search for more satisfaction and your real self.

48 TIM. What if I don’t think that it’s impossible to get rid of my dissatisfaction? Or what if I don’t think that it’s impossible to decrease it? Would that then not prove that I have Mindy under control?

49 CHRISTIANUS. Unfortunately not, Tim. You have to understand that Mindy is extremely tricky. She is very flexible and may temporarily support the idea that it is possible to get rid of your dissatisfaction. The next minute, however, she might try to reel you in again: ‘But saying that it’s possible is not saying that it’s easy. So why not just leave things as they are, and not waste your valuable time on foolish practices such as satisfactionism or self-realization? After all, don’t you deserve a little sense gratification after a busy week on campus?’

50 TIM. Well, I certainly recognize some of that. But I don’t understand why you keep talking about these things. I mean, who would ever want to hear these crazy Mindy stories?

51 CHRISTIANUS. You have a point, Tim. Most people are not interested in self-realization and deep satisfaction. They just want to be ‘happy’, without too much trouble.

52 TIM. So why do you spend so much time talking about these matters, if basically no one is interested?

53 CHRISTIANUS. It serves me well. After all, I am a satisfactionist, and I have no plans of quitting. So talking about these things is important for me. Not only do I remind myself about the necessity to control my own mind; I also sometimes stumble upon new arguments for why I should be a satisfactionist. So it keeps me going like that. It’s very satisfying.

54 TIM. Is that it?

55 CHRISTIANUS. Well, I also talk about these things because I want to be able to help those who are interested in self-realization and real satisfaction, even if they aren’t very many.

56 TIM. So it’s rare?

57 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. But yesterday was a good day.

58 TIM. Really?

UP TO SCENE IX | TOP | NOTES | CITATION | DOWN TO SCENE XI

SCENE X. The Secret Watergate Tape
Recordings Anniversary

1 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. First of all, it was the annual vernal equinox. So, at least theoretically, our days here in London are now longer than the nights. Isn’t that wonderful?

2 TIM. It would be, if it weren’t for all the rain and snow. [42]

3 CHRISTIANUS. Yeah, but it is March, right?

4 TIM. Unfortunately, yes.

5 CHRISTIANUS. Actually, it doesn’t look too good right now, does it?

6 TIM. No. I’d say we have thirty minutes. Max an hour.

7 CHRISTIANUS. Then we better hurry up.

8 TIM. Yes.

9 CHRISTIANUS. Where’s your umbrella?

10 TIM. Shit! I must have left it in my office.

11 CHRISTIANUS. Well, at least you still have one.

12 TIM. And you don’t?

13 CHRISTIANUS. No. I lost mine yesterday at the Secret Watergate Tape Recording Anniversary get-together. I think someone stole it. [43]

14 TIM. What get-together was that? I’ve never heard of it.

15 CHRISTIANUS. It’s not called ‘secret’ without reason.

16 TIM. All right, but . . .

17 CHRISTIANUS. You know Lauren, don’t you?

18 TIM. Lauren?

19 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. She’s into political science. You met her once.

20 TIM. I did?

21 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. In the video store.

22 TIM. I am not sure. When was it?

23 CHRISTIANUS. The fifth of November.

24 TIM. How can you be so sure? Half a year ago?

25 CHRISTIANUS. Remember, remember: the fifth of November!

26 TIM. I can’t, Chris!

27 CHRISTIANUS. OK. Here’s a hint: Lauren and I had a ‘V’ night.

28 TIM. A Venus night?

29 CHRISTIANUS. No, no. Fifth of November was a Sunday.

30 TIM. OK?

31 CHRISTIANUS. And Lauren and I were just on our way out from the video store with a V for Vendetta DVD when we met you.

32 TIM. Hmmm. Does she wear glasses?

33 CHRISTIANUS. No. You’re thinking of Sarah.

34 TIM. Blond?

35 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, Sarah is blond. And she is very attractive and memorable in her own way. But Lauren is sexier, more energetic, more rebellious. More V-ish, even Eve-ish.

36 TIM. And Lauren is not blond?

37 CHRISTIANUS. No, she’s more raisin-coloured.

38 TIM. And sun-dried as well, I guess?

39 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, especially when she’s on the beach. She likes to swim and to bask in the sun.

40 TIM. Hmmm . . .

41 CHRISTIANUS. Come on, Tim! Don’t you remember when Lauren started to talk to you, in her very energetic fashion, about the film and the parliament and the fireworks and Hugo Weaving and the mask and Natalie Portman and the government and the fifth of November, and all that? Everything at the same time? Unstoppable, almost!

42 TIM. Yes, yes, yes. Right! Oh, man! She is really hot!

43 CHRISTIANUS. Quite so, Watson. And smart, too!

44 TIM. Absolutely!

45 CHRISTIANUS. So she invited me to this little lecture yesterday about the scandalous Watergate affair and how the American government really operates behind the scenes.

46 TIM. Sounds intriguing. Is she interested in you?

47 CHRISTIANUS. You bet!

48 TIM. So it was like a date, then?

49 CHRISTIANUS. On one level, of course, it was. But it wasn’t a very private meeting. There were just too many people.

50 TIM. Right.

51 CHRISTIANUS. And basically all of them were very boring and politically correct. Except me and Lauren, of course.

52 TIM. Of course.

53 CHRISTIANUS. And, on top of that, the lecturer had no charisma whatsoever. He just kept on talking, on and on. No slides, no video, no theatre. Nothing. Not even any audio tapes or transcriptions!

54 TIM. Sounds awful.

55 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. So if it hadn’t been for Lauren pinching me in my arm and other places throughout the lecture, I would have fallen asleep almost immediately.

56 TIM. So how did it end?

57 CHRISTIANUS. Rather abruptly, I’m afraid.

58 TIM. What happened?

59 CHRISTIANUS. Well, I had to leave Lauren before the lecture was over. So I think she’s really mad at me.

60 TIM. Why did you have to leave her?

61 CHRISTIANUS. Well, the lecturer’s car broke down, so he started his uninspiring talk one hour later than planned. And then his speech was also much longer than advertised. So seventy-six minutes into the lecture I suddenly realized that I would be late for my other meeting if I didn’t leave immediately. So I had to walk the talk.

62 TIM. You had another meeting the same day? At the same time?

63 CHRISTIANUS. Not planned to be at the same time. Remember, remember: the lecture was delayed. And I had a lady in serious distress.

64 TIM. You mean the hotshot lawyer you talked about last week?

65 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. Katherine.

66 TIM. Ah, Katherine! Sounds very Hollywoodish.

67 CHRISTIANUS. Maybe. But she’s from Miami.

68 TIM. All right. But how is this relevant? Is she a metaphysicist or something?

69 CHRISTIANUS. No. But she regularly takes yoga classes.

70 TIM. So are you in love? Is that the point, then?

71 CHRISTIANUS. In love? Definitely not.

72 TIM. Why definitely not?

73 CHRISTIANUS. Well, she is a little too chubby for my personal taste.

74 TIM. Women should be a little chubby, Chris! It’s more female. And it’s also more to play around with.

75 CHRISTIANUS. I hear you. But it’s not for me.

76 TIM. All right. But tell me more about Katherine!

77 CHRISTIANUS. Well, we had a great talk over a delicious pizza. [44]

78 TIM. About what?

79 CHRISTIANUS. Satisfaction, of course!

80 TIM. Yes, obviously! But what else?

81 CHRISTIANUS. Life. Death. Soul. Afterlife.

82 TIM. Really? She is into all that stuff?

83 CHRISTIANUS. Not yet. But I have great hopes for her.

84 TIM. So she’s actually more like me than you?

85 CHRISTIANUS. In what way?

86 TIM. In the sense that she is not convinced that there is afterlife or souls or anything weird like that.

87 CHRISTIANUS. Well, in that sense she certainly is a little like you. But that’s not the whole story.

88 TIM. It isn’t?

89 CHRISTIANUS. No. First of all, she is a woman. And as we all know, women are from Venus, and men are from Mars.

90 TIM. Yes, we all know that! [45]

91 CHRISTIANUS. Another point is that she is not dependent on having a certain world-view for her job.

92 TIM. Why is that?

93 CHRISTIANUS. She is the owner of the firm. So unlike you, she is more or less free to switch to whichever worldview she likes, whenever she likes, and still have a job.

94 TIM. Right.

95 CHRISTIANUS. And since she is also not into the whole ‘publish-or-perish’ thing, there are no narrow-minded academic referees that can put a stop to her career. So she’s much more free to play around with new, exciting theories and world-views than you are.

UP TO SCENE X | TOP | NOTES | CITATION | DOWN TO SCENE XII

SCENE XI. How to Turn Mandy On and Off

1 TIM. I see your point. But I want to talk more about the mind and its parts. I didn’t get the whole picture.

2 CHRISTIANUS. Very well. Shoot.

3 TIM. Where did you place Mindy in your ‘anatomy’?

4 CHRISTIANUS. Mindy the barking dog is a feature that is not part of the real you; it’s a ‘material’ construct, connected with material life; it’s no more part of the real you than your car or your computer is.

5 TIM. But how can Mindy not even be part of me?

6 CHRISTIANUS. Well, let’s say that I ask my actress friend Mandy to help me in the recording studio to produce a two-hour long Mindy-like monologue.

7 TIM. All right.

8 CHRISTIANUS. And then when Mandy and I have remixed it, we provide you with a copy in some electronic music format that it easily playable on your nifty little music player.

9 TIM. OK.

10 CHRISTIANUS. So then you decide to take your headphones on to check it out. Maybe you even decide to put your music player on ‘looping’ so that it keeps playing Mandy’s voice over and over.

11 TIM. Sure.

12 CHRISTIANUS. Will not Mandy’s voice then be ‘in your head’, assuming that you have your headphones on, and have them properly connected to your player?

13 TIM. Yes. Also assuming, of course, that my player’s batteries are newly charged and that the volume is set high enough.

14 CHRISTIANUS. Of course. And the more closed-design, high-fidelity, studio-type headphones you have, the more ‘in-the-head’ experience you will have?

15 TIM. Yes.

16 CHRISTIANUS. And if you don’t touch your little player or remove your headphones, Mandy’s voice will continue playing ‘in your head’?

17 TIM. Certainly. Unless my music player stops working, of course.

18 CHRISTIANUS. Naturally. Now, once you have started the Mandy-recording on your fully functional music player, you can stop it if you want to?

19 TIM. Yes, I just press the stop button.

20 CHRISTIANUS. And that will stop it from being electronically processed inside your music player?

21 TIM. Yes.

22 CHRISTIANUS. So Mandy’s voice will now not be ‘in your head’ anymore, at least not in any ‘direct’ way, even if you still have your headphones on?

23 TIM. Correct.

24 CHRISTIANUS. And you can also restart the recording, of course?

25 TIM. Sure, by pressing the play button.

26 CHRISTIANUS. And then you will once again hear Mandy’s voice ‘in your head’?

27 TIM. Yes.

28 CHRISTIANUS. But when you are really tired of that recording, can you then not remove it from your music player, if you want to?

29 TIM. Sure.

30 CHRISTIANUS. Or simply take off your headphones?

31 TIM. Yes. But in that case, shouldn’t I also stop it playing on my music player?

32 CHRISTIANUS. Sure, if you want to save your batteries, or your player. But who cares how you remove Mandy’s recording from playing ‘in your head’ as long as you do remove it? I mean, if you’re totally fed up with it, what else is there to do than to get rid of it as soon as possible?

33 TIM. Right.

34 CHRISTIANUS. So if you can use the stop button, do that. But what if you can’t use the stop button? What if the stop button is jammed on your little player? Or what if you can’t reach it, for some reason?

35 TIM. OK.

36 CHRISTIANUS. So we agree that you can take off your headphones, regardless of whether or not your music player is still playing?

37 TIM. Yes, if I only can reach them.

38 CHRISTIANUS. Sure. Now, let’s assume that you have your headphones on. Would you then say that hearing Mandy’s voice ‘in your head’ is proof that Mandy is you? Or that you are Mandy?

39 TIM. Of course not.

40 CHRISTIANUS. Or is it perhaps proof that Mandy is part of you?

41 TIM. Not even that. Mandy’s voice may be part of me, in some memorable fashion. But not Mandy herself, of course. How could she be? I’ve never even met her!

42 CHRISTIANUS. Excellent! Another question is this: After you have taken off your headphones, have you then lost your general ability to hear sounds?

43 TIM. Certainly not. But I have lost my particular ability to hear the sound of Mandy’s voice on that recording. At that point it doesn’t matter what I do with the play, pause, or stop buttons on my player — I still can’t hear her.

44 CHRISTIANUS. Right. But you haven’t lost your ability to hear Mandy’s voice in person; for you can always catch her live in the late afternoons at the theatre down the street. She’s in one of those fantastic Okefenokee Monster shows. [46]

45 TIM. Really? I have never seen her.

46 CHRISTIANUS. She’s incredibly good. Real talent!

47 TIM. Maybe we can go sometime?

48 CHRISTIANUS. Sure. But not this week.

49 TIM. What about next week?

50 CHRISTIANUS. Maybe. Now, where were we?

51 TIM. We have agreed that you do not lose your general ability to hear things when you remove the headphones.

52 CHRISTIANUS. Right. And not only that; you also increase your particular ability to hear day-to-day sounds and voices.

53 TIM. How’s that?

54 CHRISTIANUS. When you previously put your headphones on, many natural sounds and voices were attenuated, so that you could hear Mandy’s voice better. When you remove the very same headphones, you will once again be able to hear those natural sounds and voices at their ‘original’ sound level.

55 TIM. Unless, of course, I have played the Mandy-recording too loud and permanently damaged my hearing.

56 CHRISTIANUS. Right.

57 TIM. But what if I don’t want to remove the Mandy-recording, or stop the player, or take off my headphones? What if I am too attached to any or all of them?

58 CHRISTIANUS. Good point. Or what if you actually aren’t so attached to them in terms of their content, but only cling to them because you are too afraid to discover the truth about who you really are?

59 TIM. Hmmm . . .

60 CHRISTIANUS. So what can we conclude?

61 TIM. I don’t know. That Arsenal wins the league next year?

62 CHRISTIANUS. That is a possibility.

63 TIM. Seriously, Chris. Are you suggesting that the voice of Mindy the barking dog is not my voice? Or the ‘real’ me?

64 CHRISTIANUS. Something like that, yes.

65 TIM. I don’t believe it. And your little story isn’t working very well, either, except for Mandy’s Mindy-like voice. In real life, there is no hardware needed to hear Mindy; I hear her even when I don’t use any recording, or music player, or headphones. Get it?

66 CHRISTIANUS. Where’s your imagination, Tim? The fact that you don’t use, or see, any external hardware doesn’t prove that you don’t have some hardware within you in some form, integrated into your otherwise so complex and hardwired biological body. You might just find the most advanced hi-tech player on the planet inside!

67 TIM. Come on!

68 CHRISTIANUS. Well, what do you think our memory is all about? Are we not playing and replaying sounds, scenes, and scenarios in our minds all the time?

69 TIM. Yes, but . . .

70 CHRISTIANUS. So you have to be creative!

71 TIM. All right. But my head is spinning right now.

72 CHRISTIANUS. No wonder. Mindy protests.

73 TIM. And I am low on energy.

74 CHRISTIANUS. Raisins?

75 TIM. No.

76 CHRISTIANUS. What about switching subject, then?

77 TIM. Sure.

78 CHRISTIANUS. Any suggestions?

UP TO SCENE XI | TOP | NOTES | CITATION | DOWN TO SCENE XIII

SCENE XII. Why Did Rachel Break Up?

1 TIM. Yes. You said earlier that I should have tried to understand Rachel better, right? Or that I should have tried to evaluate her disappearance in some other way?

2 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, I suggested that it is your mind that runs the show, talking you into not analyzing the potentially complex reasons for why Rachel left you. And I also suggested that you have to notice that your mind works like that, and then do something about it.

3 TIM. What would the benefit be? I mean, Rachel is gone, and that’s it.

4 CHRISTIANUS. Sure, Rachel is gone. But Mindy isn’t.

5 TIM. So?

6 CHRISTIANUS. Well, you have to be willing to work at yourself if you are going to be able to come to a point of satisfaction.

7 TIM. But I am not aiming for satisfaction.

8 CHRISTIANUS. You’re right, Tim: you’re aiming for mediocrity. And that’s problematic: for if you team up with an uncontrolled mind, you will always be more or less dissatisfied. It’s like teaming up with one of those friends that always complains: it doesn’t matter what you do, it just goes on complaining, on and on and on. It’s never satisfied.

9 TIM. What if I one day decided that I no longer wanted to be dissatisfied?

10 CHRISTIANUS. Well, then you must be willing to embrace certain new ideas.

11 TIM. Such as?

12 CHRISTIANUS. One might be the idea that the mind is not the real you, or, at the very least, not all of the real you.

13 TIM. And that’s it?

14 CHRISTIANUS. No. You also have to do things with that new idea. Put it in action.

15 TIM. How?

16 CHRISTIANUS. For example, you should now be prepared to re-evaluate your mind’s superficial assessment of Rachel’s decision to leave you. You have to assess it differently, in a more full and fair fashion.

17 TIM. But I am not a satisfactionist, so I don’t have to, right?

18 CHRISTIANUS. But you don’t want to stay miserable, do you?

19 TIM. No.

20 CHRISTIANUS. So you have to be your own psychologist: tell Mindy that she has done a nice job, but that she just forgot one or two things.

21 TIM. But what if she says ‘No, I didn’t forget anything’?

22 CHRISTIANUS. Then you say: ‘There’s no doubt about it’, and then you mention those things that she forgot.

23 TIM. But what if Mindy replies ‘I didn’t forget them; I excluded them because they were irrelevant’?

24 CHRISTIANUS. Then you have to answer ‘There are no irrelevant facts in this matter’. You have to take charge, Tim!

25 TIM. That won’t stop Mindy, will it?

26 CHRISTIANUS. No, she is tricky. She may pause for a minute or two, but then she’ll be back again.

27 TIM. So what do I do then?

28 CHRISTIANUS. The best thing is if you can keep her busy.

29 TIM. How do I do that?

30 CHRISTIANUS. Why not throw some bones for her to fetch? Then she runs, exercises, and keeps herself busy.

31 TIM. Mathematical bones, for example?

32 CHRISTIANUS. Sure. But they also must be suitable, so that you actually will get something done. I mean, if your goal isn’t to write a dissertation about some aspect of Einstein’s general relativity, then don’t use Mindy to start processing ideas about that.

33 TIM. OK.

34 CHRISTIANUS. In any case, the big picture is this. You need to get the facts right, if it’s possible to get the facts right. And you need to be honest about what really happened in your relationship, both in terms of what you did, and in terms of what she did. Only then will you be able to move on for real.

35 TIM. Hmmm.

36 CHRISTIANUS. But there are still many obstacles.

37 TIM. Such as?

38 CHRISTIANUS. Well, it’s generally not enough just to develop one possible scenario or explanation for why Rachel did what she did.

39 TIM. Why?

40 CHRISTIANUS. For she may have had a whole bunch of complex reasons to leave you.

41 TIM. But . . .

42 CHRISTIANUS. So you need to take into consideration a substantial number of possible scenarios and explanations to give Rachel a ‘fair trial’. Unless, of course, you know what Rachel’s motives actually were?

43 TIM. No, I don’t.

44 CHRISTIANUS. So why not just ask her?

45 TIM. No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.

46 CHRISTIANUS. What about asking some of her friends?

47 TIM. I don’t know them too well.

48 CHRISTIANUS. So then you are in awkward situation: for I suppose you do agree that people’s motives for acting could be very different?

49 TIM. Yes, sometimes.

50 CHRISTIANUS. So it may not be so easy to reconstruct Rachel’s thought processes.

51 TIM. I am well aware of that.

52 CHRISTIANUS. For we cannot exclude the possibility that she moved away from you for some other reason than your lack of funds?

53 TIM. No, we can’t.

54 CHRISTIANUS. And you are not claiming that breaking up a relationship is unethical, in some absolute sense?

55 TIM. No, I’m not religious or anything.

56 CHRISTIANUS. Right. And you are still sure that you don’t want to contact her?

57 TIM. What is the point, if she doesn’t love me?

58 CHRISTIANUS. Exactly! So then why don’t you just stop accusing her, and put your mind to rest?

59 TIM. It’s just that she really broke my heart.

60 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, yes, I know. I have been there myself. It’s very consuming.

61 TIM. Yes, it is.

62 CHRISTIANUS. I feel for you, brother.

63 TIM. Thanks, Chris.

UP TO SCENE XII | TOP | NOTES | CITATION | DOWN TO SCENE XIV

SCENE XIII. The Raisin Tale Revisited

1 CHRISTIANUS. So shall we say that this is enough relationship talk for today? I want to cover a few other points before we get wet.

2 TIM. Sure. It doesn’t look very promising.

3 CHRISTIANUS. No, it doesn’t. But it’s still picturesque. Even Oxfordesque. Reminds me of boating, actually. [47] [48]

4 TIM. I am sure it does. But we don’t have time. What points did you have in mind?

5 CHRISTIANUS. First I want to go back to Ockham’s Raisin and its very core.

6 TIM. What’s your concern?

7 CHRISTIANUS. Well, the problem is that the principle seems to be driven by whatever one needs.

8 TIM. Why is that a problem?

9 CHRISTIANUS. Well, it’s not a very big problem if one never actually uses the principle, but only admires it from a distance. In that sense it is very much like a bullet: it is virtually harmless as long as you don’t use it for what it was originally designed to do.

10 TIM. But?

11 CHRISTIANUS. But the problem is that people actually do use bullets for what they were designed to do. Similarly, scientists and philosophers actually do use Ockham’s Raisin for what it was designed to do.

12 TIM. So how does this connect to your point about need?

13 CHRISTIANUS. Do you remember the story of Napoleon and Laplace? [49]

14 TIM. No, I don’t think I’ve ever heard it.

15 CHRISTIANUS. Really? Well, once upon a time Napoleon and Laplace met to discuss, among other things, Laplace’s Méchanique céleste — a work that attempted to refine Newton’s contributions into a definite and all-encompassing system of celestial mechanics. After having browsed through it, Napoleon told Laplace that he had found nothing about God in the work.

16 TIM. What did Laplace say about that?

17 CHRISTIANUS. He said, ‘I didn’t need that hypothesis’.

18 TIM. Well said!

19 CHRISTIANUS. I knew you would say that. For Laplace’s problem is also your problem.

20 TIM. What problem is that?

21 CHRISTIANUS. Well, how do you know what you need, if you are researching into the unknown?

22 TIM. Can you elaborate?

23 CHRISTIANUS. I mean, if you were omniscient, then I could understand that you might know what you needed; but then, of course, you would already know what you were about to research into, so you wouldn’t actually need to research into it. In the present case, however, since you’re not omniscient, how do you know what theory or methodology you need? If you don’t know what the totality of reality actually is, or what it looks like, or what it is composed of, how do you know what you need in terms of your theory or your methodology?

24 TIM. Well, what I need is to be able to work in peace, and not be disturbed by any crazy satisfactionists!

25 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, we all need a peaceful working environment, to some extent. But sometimes we also need things that we don’t know that we need. And sometimes we think we need things that we actually don’t need. So why do you think that you need Ockham’s Raisin?

26 TIM. What I ultimately need is to be able to explain the phenomena.

27 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. But that’s nothing new. In fact, that’s what we all want to do. The question is just: how do you explain the phenomena? And why do you need Ockham’s Raisin in that process?

28 TIM. Well, here’s my point in a nutshell: I am perfectly capable of explaining what happens to, say, a falling stone, without using any metaphysical world-view like the one that you want to establish. I don’t need any weird extra entities to describe and predict the stone’s trajectory.

29 CHRISTIANUS. Well, maybe you don’t need any weird extra entities to explain the stone’s trajectory within your particular world-view. But your world-view is not the only possible world-view. There are other possible world-views than yours, some of which need entities such as God, angels, souls, and so on. What those world-views need, in terms of explanation, may be different from what you need within your world-view.

30 TIM. But why should I care?

31 CHRISTIANUS. Are you saying that there is only one possible way to explain the world?

32 TIM. No.

33 CHRISTIANUS. Excellent! For since no one knows, except perhaps God Himself, what the totality of existence really amounts to, we must be very careful not to dismiss those world-views that are possible, even though some of us, at first sight, may not think, or even like, that they are possible.

34 TIM. But how do we know which ones are possible, if we don’t know what the totality of existence looks like?

35 CHRISTIANUS. Exactly! You’re absolutely correct! The fact is that we don’t know which ones are possible, and which ones are not. Therefore, we have to be extremely careful when we construct and evaluate theories.

36 TIM. So what does this have to do with me? For aren’t you also saying that I can continue dismissing metaphysical theories as I always have done?

37 CHRISTIANUS. Sure you can! You can do whatever you like. But you will never be truly satisfied if you don’t evaluate those theories in an honest way.

38 TIM. How do you mean?

39 CHRISTIANUS. Well, you can’t really be satisfied, unless the performance is excellent.

40 TIM. The performance?

41 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. Let’s say that you are test driving a very fancy car, but the dashboard clock isn’t the loudest noise you hear when driving it.

42 TIM. OK.

43 CHRISTIANUS. How, then, could you truly believe that it is a Rolls-Royce you’re in? [50]

44 TIM. What if my hearing is very bad, and I can’t hear the clock?

45 CHRISTIANUS. Then you probably shouldn’t be driving at all. But your hearing isn’t bad, is it?

46 TIM. No, officer!

47 CHRISTIANUS. Or let’s say that you go to a live concert, but the PA system doesn’t deliver that sweet California raisin-sound.

48 TIM. California raisin-sound?

49 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. Who, then, would truly believe that it was the Eagles performing live?

50 TIM. No-one?

51 CHRISTIANUS. Right. Or let’s say that a very beautiful woman has a pea-like Danish raisin lurking under her pile of mattresses.

52 TIM. OK.

53 CHRISTIANUS. Who, then, would truly believe that she is an extremely sensitive princess, if she in the morning reveals that she has slept as a log? [51]

54 TIM. I am not quite sure. How is all of this relevant?

55 CHRISTIANUS. Here is my point. Ockham’s Raisin is not a believable tool for the dismissal of a metaphysical worldview. And you must s-e-e that.

56 TIM. How do I s-e-e that?

57 CHRISTIANUS. Well, you previously said that you don’t like raisins?

58 TIM. Yes.

59 CHRISTIANUS. So you don’t feel a need to include any raisins in your own life?

60 TIM. No, I very much like to stay away from them.

61 CHRISTIANUS. But the fact that you lack the need to include raisins in your life does not prove that other people also lack the need to include raisins in their lives, does it?

62 TIM. No. You yourself seem to have a need to include them.

63 CHRISTIANUS. Exactly. And why do I have that need?

64 TIM. Because you like them?

65 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. And I have also verified their existence and their availability to me. Oh! I just discovered that I still have some in my bag here. You haven’t changed your mind?

66 TIM. No, I still feel no need to include any raisins in my life.

67 CHRISTIANUS. Very well. Now, the fact that you feel no need to include raisins in your own life does not prove that there are no raisins, does it?

68 TIM. No, not in this case; you obviously still have raisins in your bag.

69 CHRISTIANUS. Actually, not in any case. Whether or not I have any raisins here in my bag is irrelevant.

70 TIM. But . . .

71 CHRISTIANUS. Your wish not to include raisins in your life doesn’t establish any raisin-vacuum in the universe. On the contrary, it may even be taken as some kind of admission on your part that you actually think that there are raisins in the universe, since you don’t want to include them in your life. After all, why would you want to exclude things in your life that you thought were non-existing in the first place?

72 TIM. Well, that’s one way of looking at it.

73 CHRISTIANUS. Furthermore, the fact that you still have no need to include raisins in your life does not prove that raisin-lovers all over the world should abandon their need to include raisins in their lives, does it?

74 TIM. No.

75 CHRISTIANUS. And it doesn’t prove that they could not abandon their need, if they wished to?

76 TIM. Of course not.

77 CHRISTIANUS. And it doesn’t prove that they would not?

78 TIM. No.

79 CHRISTIANUS. Or that they already have?

80 TIM. No.

81 CHRISTIANUS. So let me sum this up. Ockham’s Raisin is not a principle that proves anything very valuable about either your theory or anyone else’s theory. Using that principle doesn’t establish in any absolute terms that your own theory is correct, or that it is the only theory possible, or that it is a plausible one, or even the most plausible. And it certainly doesn’t prove that anyone else’s theories are false, or not possible, or not plausible, or that there aren’t any entities of the type that you do not need, such as, for example, angels, ghosts, or UFOs.

UP TO SCENE XIII | TOP | NOTES | CITATION | DOWN TO SCENE XV

SCENE XIV. Scientists Do Know What They Need

1 TIM. But I think you have simplified things too much.

2 CHRISTIANUS. I have?

3 TIM. Yes. The scientists actually do know what they need, at least in some sense.

4 CHRISTIANUS. Is this your instrumentalist prediction-defence?

5 TIM. I am not sure what you anticipate, but scientists really do want to accomplish prediction. That’s one of their primary goals.

6 CHRISTIANUS. Yes, prediction is very important for them. And?

7 TIM. So then they actually do know what they need.

8 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. But I haven’t said that they don’t know what they needed, or wanted, in terms of their theory ambitions.

9 TIM. Theory ambitions?

10 CHRISTIANUS. Yes. It is obvious that most scientists need to promote their theory in order to be able to keep their jobs, get their grants, get published, further their careers, and get their fame, etc. And it is also obvious that they need to do something with the theories that they develop. And one of the simplest things one can do with a theory is to offer some type of predictability. It is therefore not very surprising to see that prediction often is on the table; for that’s what the scientists need in order to look like scientists. Who would believe they were scientists if they couldn’t predict anything?

11 TIM. So what was your objection again?

12 CHRISTIANUS. What I am saying is this. To be able to predict is not necessarily to know what reality is, or what the essence of things is, if there is a reality and if there is an essence of things. But perhaps you are denying that there is some kind of reality in the totality of things?

13 TIM. No, I am a realist.

14 CHRISTIANUS. And would you say that a grand theory of the ultimate reality, if we can call it that, necessarily must include all things and events that we immediately perceive directly with our unaided human senses?

15 TIM. I think we would have to say that some perceived things and events very well could be illusions. The fact that we see the sun traverse the sky is no proof that the sun actually traverses the sky. Even if the ‘ontology’ is right in the sense that there really is a sun, its apparent movement in the sky is nothing but a visual effect, produced by our own planet’s daily rotation around its axis.

16 CHRISTIANUS. Interesting example. And such a theory need not necessarily just include those things that we immediately perceive directly with our unaided human senses?

17 TIM. Correct. It could very well include things that we cannot observe with our unaided senses. So we need to develop new, powerful theories and instruments to further increase the accuracy of our predictions of natural events.

18 CHRISTIANUS. But being able to forecast with greater accuracy is no proof that you have acquired any substantial knowledge about any ultimate reality.

19 TIM. You keep saying that. Can you explain?

UP TO SCENE XIV | TOP | NOTES | CITATION | DOWN TO SCENE XVI

SCENE XV. The Postman Always Turns Twice

1 CHRISTIANUS. Sure. Maybe I can make my point a little clearer with the following scenario. Let’s say that you have a very punctual postman in your neighbourhood who delivers mail at the same time of the day, every day.

2 TIM. Even on weekends?

3 CHRISTIANUS. No. He’s just an angelos, a messenger. On a payroll.

4 TIM. So?

5 CHRISTIANUS. So he also needs to have a life. His schedule is therefore strictly Moon-day to Venus-day.

6 TIM. All right.

7 CHRISTIANUS. Let’s see, then . . . . There are three houses on your street, and your house is in the middle, right?

8 TIM. That’s correct.

9 CHRISTIANUS. And, as now also Rachel knows, it’s not your house in the sense that you own it; you just live there, paying rent once a month.

10 TIM. It’s actually once a week.

11 CHRISTIANUS. Whatever. In any case, when the postman comes, he always traverses the street in the same way: you always see him first when he turns the left street corner, after which he stops at your left neighbour’s house; then he comes to your house; and then he continues to your right neighbour’s house; and then he finally turns the right street corner and disappears.

12 TIM. All right.

13 CHRISTIANUS. Now, I can think of an almost limitless number of theories that would be able to foresee his daily arrivals and departures, none of which might have anything to do with how the postman actually spends his time when he is not on your particular street.

14 TIM. How do you mean?

15 CHRISTIANUS. For example, I could have a theory that the postman lives just around the corner from your left neighbour, and wakes up ten minutes to eleven, quickly splashes his face, and then just hops up on his little bike, turns right, and suddenly appears over at your left neighbour’s house at around eleven o’clock. Then he comes to your house twenty-five seconds later, and to your right neighbour’s house another twenty-five seconds later, and is last seen at one minute past eleven turning the second street corner. And since he in this scenario lives nearby, it is easy to account for his punctuality; after all, there are not very many things that could happen in between his house around the corner and the houses on your little street.

16 TIM. All right. But what’s your point?

17 CHRISTIANUS. Even if you can successfully predict that the postman will appear at eleven o’clock on weekdays outside your left neighbour’s house, you may still be in perfect ignorance of almost everything else there is to know about the postman: you may not know what he has done before he appears on your street, what he is going to do after he disappears from your street, where he lives, what he likes to eat, or who his girlfriend is.

18 TIM. Hmmm.

19 CHRISTIANUS. In fact, the real postman doesn’t actually live around the corner, but five miles away.

20 TIM. How do you know?

21 CHRISTIANUS. He told me. I met him at Sally’s Café last week.

22 TIM. I see.

23 CHRISTIANUS. And since our ontology, the furnishing of our little scenario, is wrong in that we mistakenly have placed his house where it is not located, our whole explanation suffers: he doesn’t live just around the corner; he doesn’t wake up at ten to eleven to splash his face; and our houses are not the first that he delivers mail to. Rather, he goes up very early, takes a full shower, and is on the street already at eight o’clock, visiting hundreds of houses and dozens of neighbourhoods even before turning up on your street.

24 TIM. But?

25 CHRISTIANUS. But amazingly enough, even though our explanation of that punctual postman’s real life is almost completely off, we are still able to predict all his appearances and disappearances on your little street.

26 TIM. Right.

27 CHRISTIANUS. So we must remember that the ability to predict some appearances doesn’t prove that we have understood anything essential about what’s really going on, especially when the postman is not on your little street.

28 TIM. But I must, of course, check the facts, and make sure that my theory is correct?

29 CHRISTIANUS. Certainly. If it is possible and profitable to check the facts. But what if the postman lives too far away? Or what if he lives close by, but hates paparazzi and interviews? Or what if it costs thousands or millions of pounds to determine who he is? Or what if there is a risk that you lose your job, your funding, your woman, your friends, or your ideas and beliefs because of it? Or your life even? Would you still keep on digging?

30 TIM. I see your point.

31 CHRISTIANUS. Good.

32 TIM. But one thing still bugs me.

33 CHRISTIANUS. What’s that?

34 TIM. How can he deliver my mail so punctually, if he doesn’t live close by? Doesn’t he ever get delayed on the way?

35 CHRISTIANUS. Sure he does. But he has a coffee break at ten thirty, at Sally’s.

36 TIM. How is that relevant?

37 CHRISTIANUS. It’s simple. Whenever he gets delayed, he takes a shorter break, to be able to stay on schedule.

38 TIM. All right. Who cares, anyway?

39 CHRISTIANUS. I care. I am a satisfactionist.

40 TIM. You certainly are.

UP TO SCENE XV | TOP | NOTES | CITATION | DOWN TO (none)

SCENE XVI. A Moisturizing Conclusion

1 CHRISTIANUS. What do you say? Shall we wrap it up? I think the rain has caught up on us.

2 TIM. Sure. I need to go anyway. I have a meeting with one of my students at two thirty.

3 CHRISTIANUS. Aren’t your office hours on Tuesdays?

4 TIM. Sure. But this is a special case.

5 CHRISTIANUS. Special case?

6 TIM. Well, one of my students needs special attention.

7 CHRISTIANUS. It’s very generous of you to be so accessible.

8 TIM. It’s just my responsibility as a professor.

9 CHRISTIANUS. Really? To offer extra office hours?

10 TIM. Well, no. But to be flexible.

11 CHRISTIANUS. Flexible? Ha! What’s her name?

12 TIM. I beg your pardon?

13 CHRISTIANUS. You’re not going to tell me that you are inserting extra office hours to help just any student of yours?

14 TIM. No, of course not. As I said, this is a special case.

15 CHRISTIANUS. Or to help any of those militant male students who always interrupt your lectures with statements like ‘But the Schrödinger equation isn’t very important!’? [52]

16 TIM. I told you about them?

17 CHRISTIANUS. Only briefly, last week. But I take it that you're not inserting any extra office hours to accommodate their special needs, are you?

18 TIM. No, I'm not. They can come to my regular office hours if they need to see me.

19 CHRISTIANUS. Right. So who is she?

20 TIM. Well . . .

21 CHRISTIANUS. Yes?

22 TIM. She’s adorable.

23 CHRISTIANUS. Adorable?

24 TIM. Yes. Lovely.

25 CHRISTIANUS. You mean she is hot?

26 TIM. No, not really. More cute than hot.

27 CHRISTIANUS. And not so smart?

28 TIM. No. But she is very interested. And I am glad to be of assistance.

29 CHRISTIANUS. I bet you are!

30 TIM. And she’s always very eager to listen.

31 CHRISTIANUS. Hmmm . . . dangerous!

32 TIM. I think I can handle her.

33 CHRISTIANUS. No doubt. But what about those in the department? Aren’t they going to kick you out if you start dating your own students?

34 TIM. But I am not dating her, really.

35 CHRISTIANUS. You’re not?

36 TIM. No. We’re just studying together.

37 CHRISTIANUS. Ha!

38 TIM. But now it starts to rain!

39 CHRISTIANUS. Crap!

40 TIM. Same time next week?

41 CHRISTIANUS. I don’t know yet. I’ll email you.

42 TIM. OK! Have to run!

43 CHRISTIANUS. Me too! Bye!

44 TIM. Bye!

UP TO SCENE XVI | TOP | NOTES | CITATION | DOWN TO (none)

Notes

[1] I:3, university bomb: According to Reuters, Lebanese police stated on Thursday, 22 May 2007 that they ‘defused a small bomb found in the American University of Beirut’ (Reuters 2007).

REUTERS (2007), ‘Small bomb defused at American University of Beirut’. Reuters [http://uk.reuters.com], 22 March 2007, 10:15 am GMT.

[2] I:7, time warps: The DK Illustrated Oxford Dictionary defines ‘time warp’ as ‘an imaginary distortion of space in relation to time, whereby persons or objects of one age can be moved to another’ (Abate 1998, p. 868), while Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language suggests that it is ‘the condition or process of being displaced from one point in time to another, as in science fiction’ (Guralnik 1978, p. 1490). Perhaps even more relevant to the present point, the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English suggests not only that a time warp may be ‘an imaginary situation in which the past or future becomes the present’ but also that to ‘be (caught/locked/stuck) in a time warp’ is ‘to have not changed even though everyone or everything else has. The house seemed to be stuck in a 19th-century time warp’ (Fox 2008).

FRANK ABATE, ed. (1998), The DK Illustrated Oxford Dictionary. New York: Dorling Kindersley and Oxford University Press.

CHRIS FOX, ed. (2008), Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Updated online version of the fourth edition CD-ROM. Available at http://www.ldoceonline.com. Harlow: Longman.

DAVID B. GURALNIK, ed. (1978), Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language. Second college edition. Cleveland, OH: William Collins and World Publishing Co, Inc.

[3] I:17, brown bag: Although ‘brown bagging’ sometimes may refer to the practice of ‘taking one’s own wine etc., into a restaurant that is not licensed to serve alcohol’ (Abate 1998, p. 109; ref. supra, note 2 ‘time warps’ at I:7), it is perhaps more likely that it, in this context, should be understood as the practice of ‘taking one’s lunch to work, etc., in a brown paper bag’ (Abate 1998, p. 109; my italics).

[4] I:21, raisins: Judging from various comments by Christianus, these seem to be seedless California raisins, presumably not sulphur-dioxide processed into some ‘golden’ variety, but just naturally sun-dried and therefore dark brown. According to USDA (2008), there are many minerals and vitamins in 100 grams of some such seedless raisins (vitis vinifera): Calcium (Ca): 50 mg; Iron (Fe): 1.88 mg; Magnesium (Mg): 32 mg; Phosphorus (P): 101 mg; Potassium (K): 749 mg; Sodium (Na): 11 mg; Zinc (Zn): 0.22 mg; Copper (Cu): 0.318 mg; Manganese (Mn): 0.299 mg; Fluoride (F): 233.9 mcg; Selenium (Se): 0.6 mg; Vitamin B1 (Thiamin): 0.106 mg; Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin): 0.125 mg; Vitamin B3 (Niacin): 0.766 mg; Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic acid): 0.095 mg; Vitamin B6: 0.174 mg; Folate: 5 mcg; Choline: 11.1 mg; Betaine: 0.3 mg; Vitamin C (total ascorbic acid): 2.3 mg; Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol): 0.12 mg; Gamma Tocopherol: 0.04 mg; Vitamin K (phylloquinone): 3.5 mcg.

USDA (2008), USDA National Nutrient Database. Available at the United States Department of Agriculture website [http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search].

[5] I:39, Strindberg’s Starck: Mr. Starck is a pastry cook in Strindberg’s play Oväder [Bad Weather or The Storm]. He doesn’t have a phone (Strindberg 1921, p. 61).

AUGUST STRINDBERG (1921), Samlade skrifter [Collected works]. Fyrtiofemte delen [Forty-fifth part]. Kammarspel: Oväder, Brända tomten, Spöksonaten, Pelikanen, Svarta handsken [Chamber plays: Bad Weather (or The Storm), The Burned House (or The Burned Site), The Ghost Sonata, The Pelican, The Black Glove]. Stockholm: Albert Bonniers.

[6] II:10, satisfactionist: Although the word ‘satisfactionism’ may apply also to some other philosophies, Christianus’s satisfactionist philosophy — whether understood as some sort of ‘play philosophy’ or ‘performance philosophy’, etc. — seems unique. We can therefore be reasonably sure that Christianus’s satisfactionism has little in common with, for example, Chris Heathwood’s hedonistic desire satisfactionism (Heathwood 2006).

CHRIS HEATHWOOD (2006), ‘Desire Satisfactionism and Hedonism’ in Philosophical Studies, vol. 128, pp. 539–563.

[7] II:22, in the practice: This may refer to Alasdair MacIntyre’s idea (or some idea like it) that ‘internal goods’ only are realizable ‘by the experience of participating in the practice’ (MacIntyre 1984, pp. 187–189). Note, however, that even if Christianus seemingly is a proponent of some sort of ‘practice’ and some sort of ‘participation’, he would probably not define a practice as a ‘socially established cooperative human activity’ (MacIntyre 1984, p. 187), or say that ‘[b]ricklaying is not a practice’ or that ‘[p]lanting turnips is not a practice’ (MacIntyre 1984, p. 187).

ALASDAIR MACINTYRE (1984), After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Second edition. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

[8] II:23, realist: Realism is the position that certain objects exist in some rigid ontological sense, even when human beings do not observe, or contemplate, or talk about them. Gideon Rosen puts it like this: ‘The realist about a region of discourse typically holds, for example, that our central commitments in the area describe a world that exists anyway, independently of us; that cognition in the area is a matter of detection rather than projection or constitution; and that the objects of the discourse are real things and not just linguistic or social constructions’ (Rosen 1996, p. 492). A slightly different take is provided by Roger Scruton, who proposes that ‘you are a “realist” about x if you think that x exists independently of our thoughts about it, our experience of it, and so on. In this sense most people are realists about tables and chairs, but not about characters in myth and fiction’ (Scruton 1995, p. 31).

GIDEON ROSEN (1996), ‘Realism’ in Donald M. Borchert (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Supplement. New York: Macmillan Reference USA and London: Simon & Shuster and Prentice Hall International, pp. 492–495.

ROGER SCRUTON (1995), Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey. First American Edition. New York, NY: Allen Lane The Penguin Press.

[9] II:23, physical realist: Just as a moral realist may be a realist about moral values or moral properties (cf. Darwall et al. 1997), a physical realist may be a realist about the physical world. The term ‘physical realist’ might be mapped, roughly, to the term ‘physicalist’ (i.e., approximately ‘materialist’; cf. Davis 1995, p. 679), especially when the word ‘physical’ is used in Feigl’s ‘physical₁’ sense, where it is almost synonymous with ‘scientific’ (Shoemaker 1995, p. 618). Tim’s physical realism may therefore be understood as some physicalist-inspired variety of scientific realism, ‘the view that the theories of science give a literally true account of the way the world is’ (Kourany 1987, p. 338).

STEPHEN DARWALL, ALLAN GIBBARD, and PETER RAILTON (1997), Moral Discourse and Practice: Some Philosophical Approaches. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

WAYNE A. DAVIS (1995), ‘Physicalism’ in Ted Honderich (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 618.

JANET A. KOURANY (1987), Scientific Knowledge. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company.

SYDNEY SHOEMAKER (1995), ‘Physicalism’ in Robert Audi (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 617–618.

[10] II:28, preestablished rules: Even though ‘harmony’ may be thought of as a state of affairs requiring some ‘rules of balance’, and even though rumour has it that Christianus isn’t unappreciative of Leibniz’s monadistic philosophy, the phrase ‘preestablished rules’ is probably, in this context at least, not directly pointing to any Leibnizian ‘rule’ [Lat. regula; cf. Mercer and Sleigh 1995, p. 100] or to any version of Leibniz’s idea of pre-established harmony (cf. Leibniz 1989, pp. 143–145; Mates 1986, pp. 39–40). Instead, I should suspect that Christianus here wants to stress the word ‘game’, together with the idea that the game needs certain rules (or laws) to be played. Also, even though Christianus may be partly sympathetic to Johan Huizinga’s study of the play element in culture and the idea that play ‘proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner’ (Huizinga 1955, p. 13), he would probably resist the temptation of embracing Wittgensteinean ideas of games [Ger. Spiele] and rules [Ger. Regeln] such as ‘that we lay down rules, a technique, for a game, and that then when we follow the rules, things do not turn out as we had assumed’ (Wittgenstein 2001, p. 43^e, remark no. 125).

JOHAN HUIZINGA (1955), Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element In Culture. Translated by R. F. C. Hull. Boston: Beacon Press. First English edition (1949), London: Routledge & Keagan Paul. Original Dutch edition (1938), Homo Ludens: Proeve eener bepaling van het spel-element der cultuur. Haarlem: H. D. Tjeenk Willink & Zoon N. V.

GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ (1989), A New System of the Nature and Communication of Substances, and of the Union of the Soul and Body in Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber (eds.), G. W. Leibnbiz: Philosophical Essays. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, pp. 138–145.

BENSON MATES (1986), ‘The System in Outline’ in The Philosophy of Leibniz: Metaphysics & Language. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 36–46.

CHRISTIA MERCER and R. C. SLEIGH, JR. (1995), ‘Metaphysics: The Early Period to the Discourse on Metaphysics’ in Nicholas Jolley (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 67–123.

LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN (2001), Philosophical Investigations. The German text, with a revised English translation. Third edition. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

[11] II:46, ontology: Christianus is presumably very well acquainted with the many different usages of the word ‘ontology’ [Gr. ontos ‘being’ + logos ‘knowledge’]. The word originally appeared as ontologia in 17th-century scholastic texts (cf. Goclenius, Calovius, etc.) and was used both in the sense of ‘being qua being’ (or ‘being as such’ or ‘being itself’) as a more or less direct substitute for metaphysica, as well as a word referring to some subdivision of metaphysics (MacIntyre 1972, p. 543). Christian Wolff (1679–1754) — a representative of ‘traditional metaphysics’ (Guyer and Wood 1998, p. 2) and often mentioned by Immanuel Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason — saw ontology as a ‘general’ branch of metaphysics, defining it as ‘the science of all possible things insofar as they are possible’ (Kenny 2006, p. 97), separating it from the three ‘special’ branches of metaphysics, namely ‘rational psychology, concerned with the soul, cosmology, which treats of the cosmic system, and rational or natural theology which has as its subject-matter the existence and attributes of God’ (Copleston 1968, p. 108). Modern analytical philosophy (the dominating ‘style’ of philosophy in contemporary Western philosophy departments) — not concerning itself very much with transcendental or spiritual entities or substances, nor with (transcendental or spiritual) cosmology — more or less ignores the three Wolffian ‘special’ metaphysical branches and understands ontology to be a ‘material’ metaphysics about what there is, or what really exists, in the material world. Popular modern ontological questions may include ‘the mode of existence of abstract entities such as numbers, imagined entities such as golden mountains, and impossible entities such as square circles’ (Mautner 1999, p. 401).

FREDERICK COPLESTON (1968), A History of Philosophy. Vol. 6. Wolff to Kant. London: Burns and Oates.

PAUL GUYER and ALLEN W. WOOD (1998), ‘Introduction’ in Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason. Translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Cambridge, England and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–80.

ANTHONY KENNY (2006), A New History of Western Philosophy. Vol. 3. The Rise of Modern Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

ALASDAIR MACINTYRE (1972), ‘Ontology’ in Paul Edwards (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Vol. 5. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company & The Free Press and London: Collier Macmillan Publishers, pp. 542–543.

THOMAS MAUTNER (1999), The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy. London: Penguin Books.

[12] II:46, branch of metaphysics: Christianus may here indicate that he prefers some sort of ‘traditional’, branched metaphysics system, such as, for example, Christian Wolff’s, where there is room not only for ontology but also for rational psychology, cosmology, and theology.

[13] II:60, it’s not that: The objection can be raised here that a search for the best approach practically boils down to nothing else than that which Tim started with in his original comment, namely the ‘blank page’ syndrome. Therefore, the objection may continue, it is unrealistic and unbelievable that Tim shouldn’t have objected immediately when Christianus tried to explain his ‘best approach’. A possible reply to such an objection could be this. Since Tim is reasonably well acquainted with the general methodology of Christianus, Tim doesn’t always make immediate objections, knowing that Christianus’s points often are more complex than they first seem. Another alternative is that Tim — knowing Christianus’s particular dramatic ‘style’ when it comes to the interplay between speakers in a conversation — simply wants to avoid playing directly into the hands of Christianus, and for that reason may not object immediately.

[14] II:60, the best approach: When Christianus says that he is searching for the best approach, we might understand him to play around with his speech in his own mind, trying to decide which scenario would be most suitable for the situation at hand. One may want to compare this with Porphyry’s [Gr. Porphurios] description of the life of Plotinus [Gr. Plôtinos], where Plotinus is said to have ‘worked out his train of thought from beginning to end in his own mind, and then, when he wrote it down, since he had set it all in order in his mind, he wrote as continuously as if he was copying from a book’ (Porphyry 1966, p. 29). However, unlike Plotinus — who, allegedly at least partly because of his poor eyesight, ‘could never bear to go over it [his own writings] twice’ (Porphyry 1966, p. 29; my square brackets) — Christianus presumably, as a clear-sighted satisfactionist, never stops revisiting his own texts or his own undocumented philosophical ideas.

PORPHYRY (1966), On the Life of Plotinus and the Order of His Books [Gr. peri tou plôtinou biou kai tên taxeôs tôn bibliôn autou] in Plotinus. Vol. 1. With an English translation by A. H. Armstrong. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press and London: William Heinemann Ltd.

[15] III:11, underground bar: It is not entirely obvious what this expression means. Judging from the ongoing conversation between Christianus and Tim, the word ‘underground’ may point to a physical location below street level, with stairs or elevators leading down to it, perhaps also close to the subway. But there are also other possibilities: it may, for example, also refer to something ‘secret; hidden; undercover’ or ‘unconventional, experimental, radical, etc.’ (Guralnik 1978, p. 1547; ref. supra, note 2 ‘time warps’ at I:7).

[16] III:13, indeed: If Christianus’s intention were to imitate Sherlock, then ‘indeed’ might, indeed, be appropriate. As seen in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the affirmative/positive (cf. Greenbaum 1992, p. 797) ‘indeed’ certainly is a word that Sherlock (and Arthur Conan Doyle) uses more than once: ‘“Indeed! That is interesting,” said Holmes.’ (Doyle 1960, p. 91); ‘Indeed. This is more interesting than it promised to be; quite dramatic, in fact’ (Doyle 1960, p. 228). Another alternative might have been to use the phrase ‘quite so’, also frequently encountered in Doyle’s Holmesian adventures. However, its use may not be entirely unproblematic, taking into account not only that there may be certain referential circumstances in which ‘quite so would be out of place’ (Fowler 1965, p. 497), but also that its exact meaning is contextually dependent and ‘often [but not always] expressing ironic agreement’ (Cowie et al. 1983, p. 472; my square brackets).

A. P. COWIE, R. MACKIN, and I. R. McCAIG (1983), Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English. Vol. 2. Phrase, Clause & Sentence Idioms. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE (1960), The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. London: John Murray.

H. W. FOWLER (1965), A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Second edition. Revised by Sir Ernest Gowers. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

SIDNEY GREENBAUM (1992), ‘Positive’ in Tom McArthur (ed.), The Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, p. 797.

[17] III:15, maelstrom: Appearing as ‘maalstroom’ in contemporary Dutch (cf. Boer–den Hoed 1953, p. 239), and derived from Early Modern Dutch as ‘< malen to grind, whirl round + stroom a stream’ (Guralnik 1978, p. 850; ref. supra, note 2 ‘time warps’ at I:7), this word was first used by 16th-century Dutch geographers to refer to ‘a famous whirlpool off the W coast of Norway, hazardous to safe navigation’ (Guralnik 1978, p. 850). That well-known marine channel today bears the Norwegian name Moskenstraumen (Fuchs 1995, p. 201) and its strong tidal current flows ‘between the islands of Moskensøya (north) and Mosken (south)’ (Hoiberg 2005). Apart from its usage as a proper noun, the word ‘maelstroem’ may also be used in a more general sense to mean ‘a whirlpool of extraordinary size or violence’ or ‘a situation that resembles such a whirlpool in violence, turbulence, or power to engulf’ (Morris 1973, p. 783). It may also refer to a ‘resistless overpowering influence for destruction’ (Davidson et al. 1994, p. 578), or — perhaps extra relevant in the context of Christianus’s underground bar scenario — to ‘a violently confused or dangerously agitated state of mind, emotion, affairs, etc’ (Guralnik 1978, p. 850). For a pedestrian account of (non-underground) maelstroms in London, see Hillaby 1987.

P. M. BOER–DEN HOED (1953), Zweeds Handwoordenboek. Tweede deel. Den Haag: G. B. van Goor.

G. W. DAVIDSON, M. A. SEATON, and J. SIMPSON, eds. (1994), The Wordsworth Concise English Dictionary. Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions.

VIVIAN FUCHS, ed. (1995), Oxford Illustrated Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. The Physical World. Revised edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

JOHN HILLABY (1987), ‘Into the maelstrom’ in John Hillaby’s London. London: Constable, pp. 69–93.

DALE HOIBERG, ed. (2005), ‘Maelstrøm’ in Encyclopœdia Brittanica 2005 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD. Menlo Park, CA: Avanquest USA.

WILLIAM MORRIS, ed. (1973), The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. New York: American Heritage Publishing Co. and Houghton Mifflin Company.

[18] III:21, hips . . . don’t lie: If this is a reference to Shakira’s popular song Hips Don’t Lie (Shakira 2006), it might be understood in different ways. It is, of course, rather clear that Shakira’s hips (and lips) have important roles to play in her overall performance (as, for example, demonstrated in her videos), and that she does deliver a quite well-focused (and physically demanding) vibrational message to the audience. But there are still questions: Does Christianus want Tim to imagine that Shakira’s song (or video) is played at ‘The Cave’, or that songs (or videos) such as Shakira’s may be played there, either at this occasion or at every occasion? Or is his intention just to indicate that women such as Shakira, or hips such as Shakira’s, may be commonly (or at least sometimes) present in that underground facility, even though Shakira herself may not be?

SHAKIRA (2006), Hips Don’t Lie. Oral Fixation, Vol. 2. Epic Records (Sony Music).

[19] III:30, love goddess: Possibly starting out as a ‘goddess of gardens’ [Lat. Venus Hortensis; Anthon 1855, p. 1377], and later modified by influences from Sicily and Greece (and perhaps also from Cyprus and the East), Venus later ‘assumed the form of the goddess of love and was identified with Aphrodite’ (Harvey 1969, p. 445). Venus is thus the Roman version of the Greek goddess Aphrodite [Gr. Aphroditê or Aphrodîtê; Liddell and Scott 1968, p. 293], who is said to have embodied ‘the overwhelming power of human sexual attraction’ (Powell 1998, p. 152). The earliest known Venus temple in Rome was dedicated in 295 B. C. (Harvey 1969, p. 445). Powell reproduces a picture of the well-known ‘Aphrodite of Cyrene’ statue of a naked (but unfortunately beheaded and ‘de-armed’) Aphrodite found in Cyrene [Gr. Kûrênê] in North Africa, dating from the first century B.C. — a copy of a fourth-century marble statue that the famous Greek sculptor Praxitelês made for the Cnidos [Gr. Knidos] temple (Powell 1998, p. 153; Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome). Another work of art that resembles the shapely form (but not the exact posture) of the (incomplete) Cyrenean Aphrodite can be seen in Henri Stierlin’s excellent photograph of the (seemingly fully intact) bronze statuette of Aphrodite (or Venus) of Tyr, dating from the first century (Stierlin 1983, p. 81; Archaeological Museum, Beirut).

CHARLES ANTHON (1855), Classical Dictionary: containing an account of the principal proper names mentioned in ancient authors, and intended to elucidate all the important points connected with the geography, history, biography, mythology, and fine arts of the Greeks and Romans, together with an account of coins, weights, and measures, with tabular values of the same. New York: Harper & Brothers.

PAUL HARVEY (1969), The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press.

HENRY GEORGE LIDELL and ROBERT SCOTT (1968), A Greek-English Lexicon. Revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie and with the co-operation of many scholars. With a Supplement. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press.

BARRY B. POWELL (1998), Classical Myth. Second edition. With new translations of ancient texts by Herbert M. Howe. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

HENRI STIERLIN (1983), The Cultural History of Rome. Translated by Harriet Coleman. London: Aurum Press. Original edition (1981): Die Welt der Römer. Text und Fotos von Henry Stierlin. Bayreuth: Gondrom.

[20] III:39, Willendorfer Venus: Unearthed in Willendorf, Austria, and around 25,000 years old, the Willendorfer Venus is an eleven-centimetre tall limestone figure of a pregnant or obese or otherwise full-featured woman or ‘mother goddess’ (Brommer and Kohl 1988, p. 132, photograph: p. 133; cf. also Jung 1978, pp. 284–285, where Henrik’s dream of a prostitute connects to Venus of Willendorf). Its ‘abundance of flesh’ and its stress on ‘breasts, belly, and navel’ makes it a part of a family of Upper Paleolithic artefacts usually referred to as ‘Venuses’ by their modern discoverers (Berger 1985, p. 6) — a naming convention that (allegedly) ‘does not have any connection with the later Roman goddess’ (Brommer and Kohl 1988, p. 132; my italics). Other members of this Venusian family include the fifteen-centimetre high ivory figure called ‘Venus of Lespugue’ (Haute-Garonne, France), with its exaggerated buttocks and reproductive organs (photographs: Berger 1985, p. 6; Leakey 1981, p. 181); the forty-centimetre tall ‘Venus of Laussel’ (Dordogne, France) — a limestone relief with noticeable breasts, super-sized hips, and ‘the crescent horn of the hunters’ (Hall 1980, p. 36; illustration: p. 38); and the five-centimetre tall ‘Venus of Monpazier’ (Dordogne, France) — a stone statuette with protruding breasts and buttocks, and very noticeable sexual organs (Leakey 1981, p. 180). Is it a mere coincidence that an ancient temple of Venus has been found in Perigueux (Dordogne, France), as reported by Walker in 1822?

PAMELA BERGER (1985), The Goddess Obscured: Transformation of the Grain Protrectress from Goddess to Saint. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

GERALD F. BROMMER and DAVID KOHL (1988), Discovering Art History. Second edition. Worchester, MA: Davis Publications.

NOR HALL (1980), The Moon and the Virgin: Reflections on the Archetypal Feminine. London: The Women’s Press. Original edition (1980): New York: Harper & Row.

CARL GUSTAV JUNG (1978), Människan och hennes symboler. I samarbete med M.-L. von Franz, Joseph L. Henderson, Jolande Jacobi och Aniela Jaffé. Översättning av Karin Stolpe. Stockholm: Forum. Original edition (1964): Man and His Symbols. London: Aldus Books.

RICHARD E. LEAKEY (1981), Människans ursprung. Svensk översättning: Claes Bernes. Stockholm: BonnierFakta. Original edition (1981): The Making of Mankind. London: Michael Joseph.

JOHN WALKER (1822), ‘Perigueux’ in The Universal Gazetteer; being a concise description, alphabetically arranged, of all the nations, kingdoms, states, towns, empires, provinces, cities, oceans, seas, harbours, rivers, lakes, canals, mountains, capes, &c. in the known world; the government, manners, and religion, of the inhabitants, with the extent, boundaries, and natural productions, manufactures and curiosities, of the different countries; containing several thousand places not to be met with in any similar gazetteer. Illustrated with fourteen maps. Revised, considerably enlarged, and improved. Seventh edition. London: Printed for F. C. and J. Rivington et al.

[21] III:58, mythometrist: Judging from Tim’s character and educational background, as well as from the current context in which he is using this word, a mythometrist is probably a person who is expert at measuring and evaluating myths (such as, in this case, the myth of Saturn [Lat. Saturnus]), just as a photometrist is a person who is expert at measuring and evaluating the luminous intensity of light. But the question can be raised: If Tim only wanted to refer to a person knowledgeable in the field of mythology, why did he use the virtually unknown word ‘mythometrist’ instead of the well-established ‘mythologist’? One possibility is that he may have thought it proper (and perhaps fun, too) to join Christianus’s word-jugglery and to create new and differently-flavoured words. Another possibility is that he actually didn’t want to refer to a person knowledgeable just in the field of mythology; he might have thought that mythologists and mythometrists typically are engaged in somewhat (or even wildly) different activities, and for that reason wanted to separate them. Perhaps his idea is that mythometry is more ‘scientific’ and ‘mathematical’ than mythology (cf. the idea that astronomy is more ‘scientific’ than astrology), and therefore of another standard; or that mythometry involves more cross-disciplinary work, just as photometry involves ‘radiometry evaluating optical radiation in a form that should reflect visual perception’, thus requiring it being ‘influenced by vision science’ as well as ‘of optical radiometry’ (Schanda 1997, p. 413). Still another possibility is that Tim just wanted to express his own anti-myth attitude: he is not interested in any theory that involves ‘unscientific’ myths or myth-like components.

JÁNOS D. SCHANDA (1997), ‘Future Trends in Photometry’ in Casimer DeCusatis (ed.), Handbook of Applied Photometry. Optical Society of America. New York: Springer-Verlag.

[22] III:60, fried-day: Supposedly Tim doesn’t pronounce this word in a German fashion; so he’s not trying to suggest that Friday is, or should be, a day of peace (cf. Springer 1974, p. 608). Also, Tim probably doesn’t intend to use ‘fried’ in the American sense of having died or having been executed in the electric chair (cf. Winther 1979, p. 86). Rather, Tim might suggest that Friday is the day when many employees are fried in the sense of being burnt out, exhausted and out of energy as a result of a demanding working week; or, alternatively, that Friday is the day when many exhausted employees, and perhaps some unemployed ones too, get wasted (Holder 2003, p. 154).

R. W. HOLDER (2003), Oxford Dictionary of Euphemisms: How Not to Say What You Mean. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

OTTO SPRINGER, ed. (1974), Langenscheidt’s Encyclopaedic Dictionary of the English and German languages. Based on the original work by E. Muret and D. Sanders. Completely revised 1974. Part II (German-English), vol. 1 (A-K). Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Zurich: Langenscheidt.

KRIS WINTHER (1979), Amerikanskt Slanglexikon [American Dictionary of Slang]. Tredje upplagan bearbetad och utökad av Hans Lindquist och Ric Fisher. Stockholm: Prisma.

[23] III:61, Venus-day: In the ancient Roman system — a ‘planetary system’ that, according to Buck, mainly prevailed in the languages of Western Europe (Buck 1988, p. 1007) — each day of the week was dedicated to a particular planet (and pagan god or goddess). For example, Monday was ‘the day of the Moon’ [Lat. diês Lûnae] and Friday ‘the day of Venus’ [Lat. diês Veneris] (Lloyd 1987, p. 63). The derivation of English ‘Monday’ from ‘Moon-day’ is rather straightforward. However, deriving English ‘Friday’ from ‘Venus-day’ is less so [but cf. Fr. vendredi; It. venerdi; Rum. vineri]. In fact, it would be ‘obvious’ (as Christianus puts it) only to someone who is educated in classics and Germanic/Scandinavian mythology, or to someone who already had ventured into a special study of the etymology of the names of the weekdays for Northern European languages. The ‘missing link’ is the idea that the Germanic peoples (except some Goths; Buck 1988, p. 1009) used the name of the Germanic goddess of love [OHG. Frîa; ON. Frigg; OE. Frig] instead of the Latin name ‘Venus’, thus producing ‘the day of Frig’ or ‘Frig’s day’ [OHG. frîatag; ON. frîadagr; OE. frîgedæg] (Partridge 1966). Also noteworthy — but not noted by Buck, who neither lists the Sanskrit words for the weekdays nor comments on them, but only says that ‘the seven-day week was unknown in Europe until its importation from the East’, while proposing the ancient Jewish system and ‘an admixture of oriental astrology’ as possible influences (Buck 1988, p. 1004) — is the fact that the ancient Hindu ‘planetary system’ seemingly was more or less identical to the Roman system in terms of its planetary organization: in both systems each weekday was ruled by the same planet. The major difference seems just to have been that the Indians used their own planetary (deity) names instead of the Roman ones, much like the Northern Europeans did in the case of Frig. The famous Arabic scholar al-Bîrûnî [Alberuni or Abû Raihân] (973–1048 A.D.) lists the ancient name of each Hindu weekday [Skt. vâra; but sometimes bâra in al-Bîrûnî’s text, possibly due to some vernacular variation or transliteration problem] in the following order: Âditya vâra [Sun-day], Soma vâra [Moon-day], Mañgala vâra [Mars-day], Budha vâra [Mercury-day], Brihaspati vâra [Jupiter-day], Shukra vâra [Venus-day], Shanaishcara vâra [Saturn-day] (al-Bîrûnî 2001, pp. 213–216; cf. Monier-Williams 1899, p. 943).

AL-BÎRÛNÎ (2001), Alberuni’s India. An account of the religion, philosophy, literature, geography, chronology, astronomy, customs, laws and astrology of India about AD 1030. Edited with Notes and Indices by Edward C. Sachau. Volumes I and II (bound in one). New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal. Original edition (1910): 2 vols. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.

CARL DARLING BUCK (1988), A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages: A Contribution to the History of Ideas. With the co-operation of colleagues and assistants. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

PAUL M. LLOYD (1987), From Latin to Spanish: Historical Phonology and Morphology of the Spanish Language. American Philosophical Society, memoir 173. Darby, PA: Diane Publishing Co.

MONIER MONIER-WILLIAMS (1899), A Sanskrit-English Dictionary. Etymologically and philologically arranged with special reference to cognate Indo-European languages. New edition, greatly enlarged and improved with the collaboration of E. Leumann, C. Cappeller, and other scholars. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press.

ERIC PARTRIDGE (1966), ‘Friday’ in Origins: An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English. Fourth edition. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

[24] III:89, centre stage: The phrase ‘centre stage’ is not just used by theatre professionals (directors, actors, etc.) to refer to a particular point on the stage in between ‘right centre’ and ‘left centre’, and in between ‘up centre’ and ‘down centre’ (cf. Mobley 1992, p. 141); it is also ‘slang for being the focus of the audience’s attention’ (Mobley 1992, p. 23), and, in that sense, approximately synonymous with ‘hold[ing] the stage’ (Harber and Payton 1995, p. 1011). Note, however, that the phrase ‘centre stage’ has little to do with ‘central staging’ — a term that neither refers to a particular point on the stage nor to how well an actor holds the stage, but to the presentation mode of a play in which the stage area is ‘surrounded on all sides by the audience’ (Mobley 1992, p. 23). This presentation mode — with its accompanying stage area commonly being referred to as an ‘arena stage’ or a ‘theatre-in-the-round’ — was used in ‘one of the earliest forms of theatre’ (Hartnoll 1972, p. 546). One medieval example is the Perran Round in Cornwall, the permanent plen-an-gwary (‘playing place’) of the Cornish mystery cycle (Trussler 1994, p. 45). Modern examples are the Realistic Theatre (or Krasnya Presnya Theatre) in Moscow wherein Nikolai Okhlopkov produced a number of plays in the 1930s, with the audience on all sides of the stage (Hartnoll 1972, pp. 445–446, 546); and the Penthouse Theatre in Seattle, a ‘theatre in the round’ at the University of Washington, built in 1940 under the direction of Glenn Hughes (Macgowan and Melnitz 1955, pp. 499–501).

KATHERINE HARBER and GEOFFREY PAYTON, eds. (1995), Heinemann English Dictionary. Fully revised and updated. Oxford: Heinemann Educational.

PHYLLIS HARTNOLL, ed. (1972), The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

KENNETH MACGOWAN and WILLIAM MELNITZ (1955), The Living Stage: A History of the World Theater. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

JONNIE PATRICIA MOBLEY (1992), NTC’s Dictionary of Theatre and Drama Terms. Chicago, IL: NTC Publishing Group.

SIMON TRUSSLER (1994), The Cambridge Illustrated History of British Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[25] IV:10, Darwin-like beards: The picture of a partly wrapped-in (but wholly mysterious-looking) Charles Darwin in Griffiths et al. 2000 (p. 773) clearly demonstrates the general features of his white-greyish beard. The photograph of (a hat-less and rather hair-less) Darwin in Appleman 1979 (frontispiece), taken from another angle, shows us some additional details, especially around the ears. For more on beards (and moustaches), see ‘The Mustachio Man’ in KQQ (Klintberg 2008, pp. 27–32).

PHILIP APPLEMAN, ed. (1979), Darwin: A Norton Critical Edition. Second edition. Texts; backgrounds; contemporary opinion; critical essays. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company.

ANTHONY J. F. GRIFFITHS, JEFFREY H. MILLER, DAVID T. SUZUKI, RICHARD C. LEWONTIN, and WILLIAM M. GELBART (2000), An Introduction to Genetic Analysis. Seventh edition. New York: W. H. Freeman.

BO C. KLINTBERG (2008), Katherine’s Questionable Quest for Love and Happiness. Philosophical Plays, vol. 1, no. 1.

[26] V:24, carpe diem: ‘Pluck the day!’ or ‘Enjoy the day!’ or ‘Seize the moment!’ [Lat. carpe = second person singular, present active imperative mood of third-conjugation verb carpô, carpere, carpsî, carptum ‘pluck’, ‘seize’, or ‘enjoy’; diem = singular accusative case of fifth-declension masculine (sometimes feminine) noun diês, diêî ‘day’ or ‘daytime’]. Found in Horace’s Odes (1.2.8), this phrase ‘implies that there are no higher values in life than the pleasures of the moment’ (Hardison, Jr. and Golden 1995, p. 30).

O. B. HARDISON, JR. AND LEON GOLDEN (1995), ‘Life and Work of Horace’ in O. B. Hardison, Jr. and Leon Golden (eds.), Horace for Students of Literature: The Ars Poetica and Its Tradition. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, pp. 23–41.

[27] V:32, seventeenth-century cathedral: Assuming that an eager bird watcher would want to find certain species of birds, and assuming that he would be willing to avoid certain places as not to waste time, he might find it profitable to listen to the eminent observer Rob Hume, who recommends that ‘it is no use looking for a Golden Eagle in Sussex, or a Nuthatch in Strathclyde’ (Hume 1987, p. 7). In a somewhat similar fashion — assuming that St. Paul’s cathedral (1675–1710) would count as London’s only major seventeenth-century cathedral with classical Roman architecture (cf. Clifton-Taylor 1977, p. 270) — a Londoner not living in its immediate neighbourhood would then, presumably, not voluntarily spend a whole afternoon looking for a major seventeenth-century cathedral in classical Roman style in his own neighbourhood, if he already was absolutely certain that there are no such cathedrals in it.

ROB HUME (1987), Observer’s Book of Birds. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Frederick Warne.

ALEC CLIFTON-TAYLOR (1977), The Cathedrals of England. Photographs by Martin Hürlimann and others with 203 illustrations, 4 in colour, 26 plans and a map. London: Thames and Hudson.

[28] V:36, orgasmic: This adjective is, at first sight at least, easily understood as being derived from the noun ‘orgasm’ [Gr. orgasmos], as well as being synonymous with ‘orgastic’ (Pickett 2001, p. 597). However, there is also the possibility that Christianus wants to put other, complementary, ideas into it. For example, by understanding ‘orgasmic’ as a combination of ‘organic’ and ‘seismic’, Christianus may here want to indicate that (some) organic-grown raisins are so potent that they can give the person enjoying them sensory experiences on a seismic scale.

JOSEPH P. PICKETT, ed. (2001), The American Heritage Dictionary. Fourth Edition. New York: Dell.

[29] VI:10, main organ: Is Tim trying to be naughty here? Maybe. One interpretation may involve the idea that the skin is the largest organ of the body. If Tim is aware of this idea, he might have decided to use the phrase ‘main organ’ instead of ‘largest organ’ — saying, in effect, that he has seen all of Rachel’s skin, including any skin located in her genital region. Another interpretation, perhaps somewhat naughtier, is that Tim intended the phrase ‘main organ’ to point not to the largest organ of Rachel’s body, but only to that organ which was functionally most important to him — hinting perhaps that he indeed has seen Rachel’s genital area, but is not overwhelmingly interested in seeing any of her other (non-genital) areas. We may note that Christianus’s response (at VI:11; see also note 30 ‘Thanks for the info’) is compatible with either interpretation.

[30] VI:11, Thanks for the info: It seems fair to say that a simple affirmative ‘Yes’ would have sufficed if Christianus really agreed, on all levels, with Tim. So Christianus’s four-word-long answer may indicate that he here doesn’t accept Tim’s statement on all levels, and that there in all likelihood also is a (qualified) ‘No’ provided somehow — regardless of whether such a ‘No’ is to be understood in a Habermasian way or not (Habermas 1996, p. 137). Perhaps Christianus wants to say, indirectly, that he isn’t really interested in hearing all the details of Tim’s more intimate dealings with Rachel. Such an interpretation may fit quite well into Paul Grice’s interesting account of the Cooperative Principle in conversations, as an example of conversational implicature using the maxim ‘Do not make your [conversational] contribution more informative than is required’ or ‘Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity)’ (Grice 1991, pp. 26–27; Lycan 2000, p. 191; Soames 2003, p. 201). This is, of course, not to suggest that Christianus himself accepts, to any great extent, Grice’s system (including maxims such as ‘Do not say what you believe to be false’) and its underlying ethical presuppositions (seemingly supporting Kantian-inspired ideas such as ‘lying is [always] unethical and bad’). Apparently convinced that participants in conversations do not always aim at ‘truth’ or at ‘true representations of what they themselves really believe’, and that real live conversations seldom are good examples of any Habermasean-styled ‘ideal speech situation’ or speaker ‘sincerity’ (cf. Giddens 1990, p. 128; Warren 1995, pp. 180–181), Christianus is reportedly working on his very own theory of what is going on in conversations.

ANTHONY GIDDENS (1990), ‘Jürgen Habermas’ in Quentin Skinner (ed.), The Return of Grand Theory in the Human Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 121–139.

PAUL GRICE (1991), ‘Logic and Conversation’ in Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA and London, England: Harvard University Press, pp. 22–40. Originally published (1975) in Peter Cole and Jerry L. Morgan (eds.), Syntax and Semantics, vol. 3. New York: Academic Press, pp. 41–58. Also reprinted (2001) in A. P. Martinich (ed.), The Philosophy of Language. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 165–175.

JÜRGEN HABERMAS (1996), Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. Translated by Christian Lenhardt and Shierry Weber Nicholsen. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

WILLIAM G. LYCAN (2000), Philosophy of Language. London: Routledge.

SCOTT SOAMES (2003), Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century. Vol. 2. The Age of Meaning. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

MARK E. WARREN (1995), ‘The Self in Discursive Democracy’ in Stephen K. White (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Habermas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 167–200. This is an expanded version of ‘Can Participatory Democracy Produce Better Selves? Psychological Dimensions of Habermas’s Discursive Model of Democracy’ in Political Psychology, vol. 14, pp. 209–234.

[31] VI:14, Tralfamadorians: For more on these beings, see Kurt Vonnegut 2000.

KURT VONNEGUT (2000), Slaughterhouse-Five; or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death. A fourth-generation German-American now living in easy circumstances on Cape Cod [and smoking too much], who, as an American infantry scout hors de combat, as a prisoner of war, witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany, ‘The Florence of the Elbe’, a long time ago, and survived to tell the tale. This is a novel somewhat in the telegraphic schizophrenic manner of tales of the planet Tralfamadore, where the flying saucers come from. Peace. London: Vintage. Original edition (1969): New York: Delacorte Press.

[32] VI:17, quantum mechanics: According to Gerald Holton, the significance of quantum mechanics is that ‘it forces us to take an attitude toward the descriptive categories when doing atomic or subatomic physics that is different from the attitude we employ in talking about the physical world in other cases.’ (Holton 1973, p. 499) ‘This attitude can itself be considered a philosophical doctrine, often called “instrumentalism”’ (Holton 1973, p. 499, note †).

GERALD HOLTON (1973), Introduction to Concepts and Theories in Physical Sciences. Second edition. Revised and with new material by Stephen G. Brush. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

[33] VI:29, finitude-prone: Christianus is presumably not trying to say here that there are no limits anywhere to be seen or to be experienced, but just that (some) limits are dependent on one’s conceptual framework, and that (some) such perceived limits may disappear, or change, when one updates one’s world-view with new beliefs and theories. It is also possible that Christianus’s use of the word ‘finitude’ is significant here. If so, it may indicate that he perceives Tim’s position to include some version of Heideggerean ‘finitude’ [Ger. Endlichkeit] — a term used in Being and Time to ‘invariably’ refer to death ‘and is thus temporal finitude’ (Inwood 1999, p. 69; my italics) — and the idea that death is the time for ‘my own no-longer-Dasein’ (Heidegger 1962, p. 378), the end of (all) personal existence and being for an individual.

MARTIN HEIDEGGER (1962), Being and Time. A translation of Sein und Zeit by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York and Evanston: Harper & Row.

MICHAEL INWOOD (1999), A Heidegger Dictionary. The Blackwell Philosopher Dictionaries. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell.

[34] VI:37, left side of your brain: This probably refers to some version of a ‘split brain’ or ‘right brain-left brain’ or ‘hemispheric asymmetry’ theory, and the idea that analytical and verbal tasks (mostly) are carried out in the left cerebral hemisphere, and that artistic and musical tasks (mostly) are carried out in the right cerebral hemisphere. Although Christianus himself may not support such a theory, we may be relatively certain that he here suggests not only that Tim’s analytical performance is unsatisfactory, but also that Tim’s poor performance is a direct result of his insincere or lazy attitude, not being very interested in digging too deep into the touchy subject of the epistemological and methodological limitations of ‘doing science’.

[35] VI:58, instrumentalists: Whether or not Donald Davidson is correct to say that instrumentalism and operationalism in the sciences are part of ‘the catalogue of philosophy’s defeats’ (Davidsson 1980, pp. 216–217), instrumentalists are often thought to take an anti-realist stance, as, for example, in the case of the ‘problem of unobservability’ (Papineau 1996, pp. 148–149). Generally speaking, instrumentalists adopt a pragmatist-like mood, in which ‘[t]heories thus become instruments, not answers to enigmas’ (James 1928, p. 53). Karl Popper thinks instrumentalists have ‘interpreted scientific theories as nothing but instruments for prediction, without any explanatory power’ (Popper 1983, pp. 194–195; Popper’s italics) — a statement that, perhaps, is somewhat exaggerated. It is not, of course, that most instrumentalist theories lack any explanatory power in the strict sense, for such theories (as any theory) almost always explain something, at least in terms of the theoretical entities (or objects) and functions (or processes) they postulate in their respective models; it is rather that these theories (allegedly) are not aimed at explaining how things really are, or what is ultimately true or false (in a realist sense) in the universe and beyond, but only serve as ‘useful instruments, heuristic devices’ for purposes of prediction (Rosenberg 2004, p. 93). Fictionalists (cf. Berkeley’s position in De Motu) embrace instrumentalism because they think that (mathematical) theories are never true or false; agnostic instrumentalists (cf. Osiander’s position in the unauthorized preface he inserted into Copernicus’s De Revolutionibus) do it not because they reject the idea that theories may be true or false, but because they think it is very difficult, if not impossible, to conclusively prove that the theories are true or false (Richards 1981, p. 209; Losee 1993, pp. 167–170; Cohen 1960, p. 90).

I. BERNARD COHEN (1960), The Birth of a New Physics. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.

DONALD DAVIDSON (1973), ‘Mental Events’ in Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, pp. 216–217. Originally published (1970) in Lawrence Foster and J. W. Swanson, Experience and Theory. Amherst, MA: University of Massachussetts Press and London: Duckworth.

WILLIAM JAMES (1928), Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. New Impression. New York and London: Longmans, Green and Co.

JOHN LOSEE (1993), A Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. Third edition, revised and enlarged. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

DAVID PAPINEAU (1996), ‘Methodology: The Elements of the Philosophy of Science’ in A. C. Grayling (ed.), Philosophy: A Guide Through the Subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

KARL R. POPPER (1983), Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach. Revised edition, reprinted with corrections and a new appendix 2. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press.

JANET RADCLIFFE RICHARDS (1981), ‘instrumentalism’ in W. F. Bynum, E. J. Browne, and Roy Porter (eds.), Dictionary of the History of Science. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, p. 209.

ALEX ROSENBERG (2004), Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction. London: Routledge.

[36] VII:2, Ockham’s Razor: The principle that ‘entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity’ [Lat. entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem] — commonly referred to as ‘Ockham’s Razor’, and sometimes also called ‘the principle of economy’ or ‘the principle of (ontological) parsimony’ — is not explicitly to be found in the surviving texts of Ockham (Spade 2006; Kenny 2005, p. 207; Boehner 1962, pp. xx–xxi); it ‘seems to have been attributed to him [Ockham] first in a footnote to the Wadding edition of [Duns] Scotus in 1639’ (Kenny 2005, p. 207; my square brackets). However, it is not impossible that Ockham really did subscribe to some such principle; and if so, perhaps he — being a writer of commentaries on Aristotle and ‘heavily dependent on Aristotle’s understanding of modality’ (Kretzmann and Stumpf 1988, p. 312) — also was influenced by Aristotle’s ‘demand for economy of entia’ (Guthrie 1981, p. 244), as in Physics 259a10–11: ‘for if the consequences are the same it is always better to assume the more limited antecedent’ [Gr. tôn autôn gar sumbainontôn, aei ta peperasmena mâllon lêpteon] (Aristotle 1934, p. 345). In any case, many scholars keep attributing ‘the razor’ to Ockham: Moody thinks that Ockham ‘invoked it most frequently under such forms as “Plurality is not to be assumed without necessity” and “What can be done with fewer [assumptions] is done in vain with more”’ (Moody 1972, p. 307; my italics, Moody’s square brackets); and Copleston assures us that some passages in Ockham’s texts are to be understood as using ‘of course, the principle of economy’ (Copleston 1963, p. 69; my italics).

ARISTOTLE (1934), Aristotle in Twenty-Three Volumes. Vol. 5. The Physics. Vol. II (Book V–VIII). With an English Translation by Philip H. Wicksteed and Francis M. Cornford. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press and London: William Heinemann.

PHILOTHEUS BOEHNER (1962), ‘Introduction’ in Ockham, Philosophical Writings. A selection edited and translated by Philotheus Boehner. Edinburgh, London, and Melbourne: Nelson, pp. ix–li.

FREDERICK COPLESTON (1963), A History of Philosophy. Vol. 3. Ockham to Suárez. Westminster, MD: Newman Press.

W. K. C. GUTHRIE (1981), A History of Greek Philosophy. Vol. 6. Aristotle: An Encounter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

ANTHONY KENNY (2005), A New History of Western Philosophy. Vol. 2. Medieval Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

NORMAN KRETZMANN and ELEONORE STUMP, eds. (1988), The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts. Vol. 1. Logic and the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

ERNEST A. MOODY (1972), ‘William of Ockham’ in Paul Edwards (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Vol. 8. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company & The Free Press and London: Collier Macmillan Publishers, pp. 306–317.

PAUL VINCENT SPADE (2006), ‘William of Ockham’ in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford, CA: The Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. Available at http://plato.stanford.edu.

[37] VII:5, William of Ockham: Born in the late thirteenth century (c. 1290), possibly in the village of Ockham in Surrey, England (but cf. Copleston 1963, p. 43; ref. supra, note 36 ‘Ockham’s Razor’ at VII:4), William Ockham [Occam] entered the Franciscan Order around 1302 (Kenny 2005, p. 90; ref. supra, note 36 ‘Ockham’s Razor’ at VII:4). He began studying theology at Oxford in 1310 (Copleston 1963, p. 43) and approximately nine years later proceeded to give controversial lectures at Oxford on Peter Lombard’s Book of Sentences (Moody 1972, p. 306; ref. supra, note 36 ‘Ockham’s Razor’ at VII:4). Titled ‘the venerable beginnner’ [Lat. venerabilis inceptor] — perhaps because he did not receive a formal doctorate degree from Oxford — Ockham went on to live in London in the early 1320s, possibly at Greyfriar’s, and continued to deliver his philosophical lectures (Kenny 2005, p. 90). However, in 1323 John Lutterell — the very same chancellor of Oxford University who had been responsible for putting an end to Ockham’s Oxonian career — contacted the papal court at Avignon, accusing Ockham of heresy (Moody 1972, p. 306). Leaving England (for good) in 1324, Ockham went to Avignon to defend himself. During his four-year stay there, he also engaged himself in various philosophical studies partly under the direction of Michael of Cesena, the head of the Franciscan order (Kenny 2005, p. 92–93). Facing an explicit condemnation in 1328, Ockham fled with Michael of Cesena and two others to Munich, where the already (since March 1324) excommunicated emperor Ludwig of Bavaria awaited to offer protection (Moody 1972, p. 306; Herrmann 1988, pp. 118–119). Ockham died in Munich in 1349 during the Black Death (Kenny 2005, p. 95) — a bubonic plague that originated in Kaffa (c. 1346) and spread to Constantinople, Sicily, Genoa, Provence, and England (c. 1348), later reaching also Germany, Scandinavia, and Poland (Previté-Orton 1971, p. 847), ‘carrying off something in the region of a third of its inhabitants’ (Vale 1988, pp. 325–326). A contemporary thumbnail sketch of Ockham found in the margin of a copy of one of his texts may be seen in Zarnecki 1966 (p. 77) and in Runes 1959 (p. 134).

JOACHIM HERRMANN, ed. (1988), Deutsche Geschichte in 10 Kapiteln [German History in Ten Chapters]. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag Berlin (DDR).

C. W. PREVITÉ-ORTON (1971), The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History. Vol. 2. London and New York: Cambridge University Press.

DAGOBERT D. RUNES (1959), Pictorial History of Philosophy. New York: Bramhall House.

MALCOLM VALE (1988), ‘The Civilization of Courts and Cities in the North, 1200–1500’ in George Holmes (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 297–351.

GEORGE ZARNECKI (1966), ‘The Contribution of the Orders’ in Joan Evans (ed.), The Flowering of the Middle Ages. 631 illustrations, 192 in colour; 439 photographs, drawings, maps, plans and chronological tables. London: Thames and Hudson, pp. 63–80.

[38] VII:23, ouranos: Found in Homer’s Odyssey, Hesiod’s Theogony, Plato’s Republic, Aristotle’s De caelo, and in many other ancient Greek texts, this masculine noun refers to ‘heaven’ or ‘anything shaped like the vault of heaven’ (Liddell and Scott 1968, p. 1273; ref. supra, note 19 ‘love goddess’ at III:30). For an overview of how ouranos was used in Greek philosophical thought — as a generative principle, as the dwelling place of the gods, as an educational and contemplative term, etc. — see Peters 1969 (pp. 146–149).

F. E. PETERS (1969), Greek Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon. New York: New York University Press and London: University of London Press.

[39] IX:17, prolegomenon: This neuter singular participle — together with its plural variant, prolegomena — may be derived from the verb prolegô [Gr. pro ‘before’ + legô ‘say’ or ‘speak’ or ‘tell’], which, according to Liddell and Scott, has two basic meanings: I. to pick out, to choose, or to prefer; II. to foretell or to say before, with or without any (oracle-like or physician-like) prediction or forecasting of the future involved (Liddell and Scott 1968, p. 1488; ref. supra, note 19 ‘love goddess’ at III:30). A prolegomenon (or prolegomena) [i.e. ‘before-saying(s)’ or ‘before-speaking(s)’ or ‘fore-telling(s)’] may therefore be understood as a set of important statements made prior to other statements, either in a live speech situation or in writing; or, alternatively, as a (part of a) particular (scholarly) work, or a type of (scholarly) work, in which such statements appear, as in a ‘prefatory essay’ (Mautner 1999, p. 453; ref. supra, note 11 ‘ontology’ at II:46), some ‘introductory material’ (Ferm 1962, p. 255), or a ‘prologue’ [Gr. prologos], as for example in the case of ‘a preliminary academic treatise or paper’ such as Immanuel Kant’s Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (McArthur 1992, pp. 809–810). Considering the possibility that a prolegomenon in some cases also may contain a sense of prediction or forecasting, one may especially note that Kant has written his work in a certain visionary (predictive) mood, signalled not only by the word ‘future’ [Ger. künftig] appearing in its title, but also by phrases such as ‘I venture to predict’ (Kant 1977, p. 2), ‘it will then be the turn of such scholars to inform the world of what has been done’ (Kant 1977, p. 1) and ‘truly the same prophecy applies to all future time’ (Kant 1977, p. 1). In a similarly futuristic mood, but on a more personal plane, Christianus’s prolegomenon predicts the rough ‘mind-weather’ that Tim is about to experience.

VERGILIUS FERM (1962), ‘prolegomena’ in Dagobert D. Runes (ed.), Dictionary of Philosophy. Paterson: NJ: Littlefield, Adams & Co., p. 255.

IMMANUEL KANT (1977), Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Come Forward As Science. The Paul Carus Translation extensively revised by James W. Ellington. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Original edition (1783): Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können. Riga: Johann Friedrich Hartknoch.

TOM MCARTHUR (1992), ‘prologue’ in Tom McArthur (ed.), The Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 809–810.

[40] IX:17, rough mind-weather: There is one type of rough weather mentioned by Shakespeare in his As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 5: ‘Come hither, come hither, come hither. | Here shall he see | No enemy | But winter and rough weather’ (Shakespeare 1992, pp. 302–303). Unlike this passage in Amiens’s song, however, Christianus’s rough weather is presumably not a meteorological phenomenon or an ‘outer’ or ‘outdoor’ experience, but an ‘inner’, psychological experience. Another difference is that Christianus’s rough weather seemingly is an enemy to the person experiencing it, at least some of the time.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1992), The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Fourth edition. Edited by David Bevington. New York: HarperCollins.

[41] IX:33, proud . . . scholars: Christianus may here want to say that there is something about pride, and being proud, that makes it impossible, or at least more difficult, to properly engage in ‘real’ satisfactionist philosophy. Possibly inspired by Cartesian philosophy, Christianus may, for example, have the following passage (or passages like it) from The Passions of the Soul in mind: ‘Moreover, although it is only the dull and stupid who are not naturally disposed to wonder, this does not mean that those with the best minds are always the most inclined to it. In fact those most inclined to it are chiefly people who, though equipped with excellent common sense, have no high opinion of their abilities’ (Descartes 1985, p. 355).

RENÉ DESCARTES (1985), The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Vol. 1. Translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[42] X:2, rain and snow: According to the BBC Weather Centre (2007), ‘[o]n the 22nd a band of rain spread southeast with light snow in the southeast.’

BBC WEATHER CENTRE (2007), ‘March 2007 — England’. Review of England weather in March 2007. Available at the BBC Weather Centre website [http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/].

[43] X:13, Watergate . . . Anniversary: This lecture may have focused on issues related to the event on 21 March 1973, as summarized by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein: ‘The crucial meeting between Dean and the President. Discussion focuses on ways to insure the continued silence of the burglars and those involved in the cover-up. “Hush money” and offers of executive clemency discussed. Later that day, Howard Hunt’s lawyer receives $75,000’ (Woodward and Bernstein 1976, p. 458). Perhaps this lecture also may have covered the strategy of how and when to release the transcriptions of the taped conversations between Richard Nixon and Dean Burch so that ‘the situation could be “neutralized”’ (Woodward and Bernstein 1976, p. 107).

BOB WOODWARD and CARL BERNSTEIN (1976), The Final Days. New York: Simon and Schuster.

[44] X:77, a great talk: This meeting with Katherine is recorded in KQQ (Klintberg 2008; ref. supra, note 25 ‘Darwin-like beards’ at IV:10).

[45] X:90, we all know that: Although seemingly accepting that men are from Mars and that women are from Venus, we should probably not understand Tim in an overly literal sense here; it is more likely that he only favours some more general idea that men and women are different in terms of some combination of behaviour, psychology, sexuality, etc. It is possible, for example, that Tim has embraced some of the ideas that John Gray [http://www.marsvenus.com] has presented in books such as Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus and Mars and Venus in the Bedroom.

[46] XI:44, Okefenokee Monster shows: Christianus has promised Katherine, in KQQ at XII:1, to narrate a certain Okefenokee Monster story, if she just reminds him later (Klintberg 2008, p. 72; ref. supra, note 25 ‘Darwin-like beards’ at IV:10). This may have something to do with these shows.

[47] XIII:3, picturesque: The word ‘picturesque’ may mean many things. Webster’s Dictionary of Synonyms lists ‘vivid’, ‘graphic’, and ‘pictorial’ as synonyms, while analogous words come in two classes: in the ‘attract’ category we find ‘charming’, ‘attractive’, and ‘alluring’, and in the ‘noticeable’ category ‘conspicuous’, ‘salient’, ‘striking’, and ‘arresting’ (Nielson 1942, p. 620). The Oxford Guide to the English Language sparingly defines the word ‘picturesque’ in only two ways: either as ‘forming a pleasant scene’ or as ‘(of words or description) very expressive’ (Burchfield 1987, p. 447). The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, however, is less concise: ‘1. Of or suggesting a picture; suitable for a picture: “the picturesque craggy shores which make the entrance to Japan so memorable” (Pearl Buck). 2. Striking or interesting in an unusual way; irregularly or quaintly attractive; charming: “courtiers of all sorts about him . . . because such adjuncts are picturesque” (Hilaire Belloc) 3. Strikingly expressive or vivid: picturesque language’ (Morris 1973, p. 992; ref. supra, note 17 ‘maelstrom’ at III:15). The above definitions certainly may capture some aspects of what Christianus puts into the word ‘picturesque’; nevertheless, I would still like to suggest that the definition found in the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English may be very relevant and fitting in the current context of the play (cf. infra, note 48 ‘Oxfordesque . . . boating’ at XIII:3): not only is it very ‘Christianus-sounding’ in its precise formulation, but it also explicitly targets a painting: ‘having the quality of being like, or of being fit to be, the subject of a painting’ (Hornby et al. 1974, p. 641).

ROBERT BURCHFIELD, ed. (1987), The Oxford Guide to the English Language. Reprint edition. London: Guild Publishing.

A. S. HORNBY, A. P. COWIE, and J. WINDSOR LEWIS (1974), Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English. Third edition. London: Oxford University Press.

WILLIAM ALLAN NIELSON, ed. (1942), Webster’s Dictionary of Synonyms: A Dictionary of Discriminated Synonyms with Antonyms and Analogous and Contrasted Words. First edition. Springfield, MA: G. & C. Merriam Co., Publishers.

[48] XIII:3, Oxfordesque . . . boating: This is presumably a reference to William Turner of Oxford and one of his paintings called Boating on the Isis — a painting that not only depicts some boats on the River Thames with the spires of Oxford in the background, but also features some very realistic low-lying (below 2,000 meters or 6,500 feet) stratus and nimbostratus clouds (and possibly also some stratocumulus and cumulus) in various shades of grey. A nice colour reproduction of this work (c. 1830–1835; watercolour on white wove; 32.6 x 20.5 centimetres) can be found on the cover of the elaborate catalogue that Oxfordshire County Museum produced for its 1984–1985 exhibition of Turner’s works (Wilcox et al. 1984).

TIMOTHY WILCOX, CHRISTOPHER TITTERINGTON, and SUSIE O’REILLY (1984), William Turner of Oxford (1789–1862). A catalogue of a touring exhibition held at Oxfordshire County Museum, Woodstock, 9 September–20 October 1984; The Bankside Gallery, London SE1, 6 November–2 December 1984; The Museum and Art Gallery, Bolton, 15 December 1984–19 January 1985. Preface by James A. Bateman. Woodstock: Oxfordshire County Museum Services.

[49] XIII:13, Napoleon and Laplace: One version of this story can be found in Holton 1983 (p. 285; ref. supra, note 32 ‘quantum mechanics’ at VI:17), another in Capra 1989 (p. 52).

FRITJOF CAPRA (1989), Fysikens Tao: Ett utforskande av parallellerna mellan modern fysik och österländsk mystik. Översättning av Gunnar Gällmo. Göteborg: Bokförlaget Korpen. Original edition (1975): The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism. Boulder, CO: Shambhala.

[50] XIII:43, Rolls-Royce: Christianus’s point is probably connected to a very famous ad that David Ogilvy once wrote: ‘At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock’. This ‘most talked-about ad of its time’ (Caples 1974, p. 311) — with a colour photograph of a Rolls-Royce (bleed) at the top, followed by a one-line caption, a two-line headline, a two-line blurb, and three columns of body copy — is reproduced in Ogilvy 1984 (p. 10) and in Caples 1974 (p. 311). The aspiring copywriter or advertising man may notice not only that most of the long headline text reappears in the first paragraph of the body copy and that the blurb (deck) includes the phrase ‘There is really no magic about it’ (my italics), but also that the price of the depicted Silver Shadow ($13,995) is given both in the caption and in the penultimate paragraph of the body copy. Also worth noting is Ogilvy’s no-nonsense attitude: ‘When I got the Rolls-Royce account, I spent three weeks reading about the car’ (Ogilvy 1984, p. 11). ‘Factual advertising like this outsells flatulent puffery. The more you tell, the more you sell. Notice the very long headline — and 719 words of copy, all facts’ (quoted in Caples 1974, p. 311).

DAVID OGILVY (1984), Ogilvy on Advertising. London and Sydney: Pan Books.

JOHN CAPLES (1974), Tested Advertising Methods. Fourth edition. Revised and enlarged — 75 pages of illustrations. Foreword by David Ogilvy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

[51] XIII:53, extremely sensitive princess: Christianus most probably refers to H. C. Andersen’s famous story Prinsessen på ærten [The Real Princess or The Princess and the Pea], where the sensitivity of her skin determined that she was a first-class princess: ‘So you can see that it was a real princess, since she had felt the pea through the twenty mattresses and the twenty duck-feather pillows. No-one could be that skin sensitive without being a real princess.’ (Andersen 1964, p. 36; my translation from the Danish)

H. C. ANDERSEN (1964), Kejserens nye Klæder og andre Eventyr [The Emperor’s New Clothes and Other Adventures]. Illustreret af Axel Mathiesen. København: Jespersen og Pios Forlag.

[52] XVI:15, Schrödinger equation: According to Mikhail Aleksandrovich Shubin, the Schrödinger equation is ‘the basic equation of quantum theory’, and its study ‘plays an exceptionally important role in modern physics’ (Shubin 1991, p. xiii).

M. A. SHUBIN (1991), ‘Foreword’ in F. A. Berezin and M. A. Shubin, The Schrödinger Equation. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, pp. xiii–xvii.

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