“The notion that everything exists in a fixed timeless moment, a single complete unity of everything, denying even the possibility of change or motion, flies in the face of our common experience. It is also, quite obviously, true.” The old man said “kindly.”
Even Zeno had the decency to wince at that.
“Oh, very obvious. So obvious, you have the Goddess Night appear to explain it to you. Let me summarize, and you tell me if I missed anything.”
The old man nodded.
“The universe, true reality, is eternal because what is, exists, and if what is came to be, then it would have to come from something out of nothing for no reason, which is a logical impossibility. Likewise, since it has always existed, there would be no reason for it ever not to exist because the something that could destroy everything would still be something which is part of everything and would therefore destroy itself before it could destroy everything, which is a logical impossibility.”
Truth took a deep breath. “Likewise, since true reality is, and is everything, then it isn’t many little things but one thing, complete and whole. There is nothing but the completeness of everything. Continuing this logic, motion is also an illusion. Since the totality is complete and perfect, it is an unchanging sphere. It has no reason to change or move, therefore, it does not change or move. Our perception of change and motion, like our perception of creation and destruction, are illusions.”
“You are skipping an awful lot, but I suppose you have caught the gist of the Path of Conviction.” The glint in the old man’s eye had been joined by an increasingly nasty grin.
“So the first, most obvious question is, do you believe any of this horseshit, and second, are you just ******* with the Pythagorians and Milensians, or what?”
“Let’s go in reverse order. I am not so dull as to do only one thing with a line. Consider this- When you think, you think of something; you are attaching the name of something to it. Thought and language require objects outside themselves as a referent. Since you can think of it whenever you like, whatever can be thought of or spoken of must be eternal. Therefore, there can be no change, since change consists in things coming into being or ceasing to be.”
Truth rubbed his forehead. ”Not helping. Are you saying the argument has nothing to do with Thales’ notion of the material world?”
“I’m saying it is both an appeal to pure logic and, yes, screwing with those morons.”
“Fantastic. Super. And the whole Proem and Way of Inquiry bit that sounds like you lifted it from the Cult of Apollo or Orpheus?”
“The absolute literal truth, as best I could record it.”
That got a double take from Truth.
“Pardon?”
“That happened. I described it as best I could, but… it was beyond me. I can only comprehend and put into words the barest fragment of what she showed me. The Goddess Night was wisdom herself, and as a lover of wisdom, I was granted as much gnosis as I could endure.”
“That the world is an illusion?”
“What is, is real. What we think “the world” is, is an illusion. I spent most of the poem describing the illusion as best I could, to stop people making aggressively stupid mistakes and hopefully leading them back to the Path of Conviction,” The old man said. “Almost everyone sees as a mortal and thinks as a mortal. Hard to teach them to think like the Goddess.”
“The Path of Conviction, not reason, yet you argue in favor of pure reason being more “real” than experience. This feast. This flesh. This conversation. All illusions.”
“Yes. At a certain point, gnosis, personal knowledge beyond pure reason, is required. A revelation of the truth.”
“Faith in pursuit of pure reason. An odd idea. One might even say it was contradictory.”
“Not at all. Those who love wisdom find much to love in all parts of existence. From the uses of plants, to medicine, to law, to the nature of the gods, mathematics, pure reason, and esoteric magic.”
“Magic?”
“Certainly. Every serious thinker I know of also was a devoted researcher of magic. Pythagoras, ass that he was, built a whole damn cult around his revelations. Do you think they sit around going, “Hooray for geometry?”
“Yes.”
There was a pause.
“Alright, yes, they do sit around going “hooray for geometry,” when not getting lightheaded from their own anti-bean vegetarianism. Put another way, do you really think they don’t use spells? They use them all the time. Covering up murders, mostly, I expect.”
“To be a lover of wisdom, to pursue reason, must require the hunter to arm himself with spells.” Truth looked skeptical.
“One way to put it. What more can I say? The Goddess of Wisdom revealed the unity behind the illusion. We may reason our way back to that unity, but until we can do so, we are trapped in the illusion. And while what is real is unchangeable, the unreal is changeable, by whatever means suits you.”
