Chapter 22:
A Thing-In-Itself
PROLOGUE:
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 .,;:?
ACT 1: Of Space and Time
The Being suddenly became aware of its own existence. The entirety of the cosmic flow of all primordial matter, existence's totality, divided by a boundary. To possess and realize there was yet to be possessed, that moreness paraded past a boundary. It was still existence, just a separate, dissociated existence. Foreign.
The Being suddenly became aware of its own existence. It became aware of composition, aware that wholes be made of parts and that those parts be themselves wholes. It was a recursiveness which breathed totality.
One part of the whole, which itself was whole, was a whole of parts, its parts being central and foundational with four extending parts and a fifth, equal in itself in all form, that lay atop the centrality. This whole was possessed; it defined a side of a boundary; it defined itself. On one end of the boundary was otherness, and opposite that, the Being.
The Being knew not of the transient capacity of the boundary between being and otherness. It knew not if it was a matter of awareness or fabrication in which the boundary existed. It knew not if the boundary was eternal and it was simply possession which had been transient. It knew not if the boundary bound possession or if it was possession which dictated the boundary.
It did know that it possessed the Being, one side of the boundary. Within that side, the Being was a whole and comprised of parts. It knew logically that as possessor of the whole, it possessed the parts. Reality, as self-defined, then posited questions: as every whole it knew of had been a part, then could it not be that its whole too was a part? It possessed its whole and its wholes' parts similar to how its wholes' parts possessed their smaller parts, so then could it not be the case that itself was a part?
It did not know.
The Being existed in a location; its grasp of the universe was still infantile, but it thought that it might be able to call the place it stood a location. The location was a vast emptiness containing only itself, and similar to the Being recursively divisional and whole. That was the key point: beyond occupancy lay more occupancy unoccupied, or potentially occupied but divisibly other from what was now accepted as the Being.
Occupancy could be denominated as a location, and unoccupied occupancy denominated as a location but other: another location. The concept of separation, though baffling, felt fitting in the Being's mind. That one location was not another location seemed almost trivially logical in hindsight. That location(s) could exist, a plurality of occupancy, then returned the question back to one of boundaries. As the Being was bound and other from totality, so too must location(s) be bound and other. The boundary between two locations not being a location at all but... a distance? Yes, a distance, the infinitesimal nothingness between locations. Occupancy and unnoccupancy were bound by a distance, a transient existence between boundaries. The Being was transient, could it then interact with these distances? Was a location non-definitional to the Being? Were not all boundaries permanent?
Additionally, once the Being accepted that plural locations were different and separate, and once the Being also accepted that a limited quantity of said locations were occupied by itself and the rest unoccupied by itself; then the Being could make a revelation. If unoccupied occupancies could be occupied, or locations be filled but not by the Being, then it would follow that other beings could exist. Other boundaries, not divisions of nothingness but parts of wholes of parts that themselves could wonder as it wondered.
Immediately, the Being had so many questions about those elusive beings which somehow existed but were not the Being, something separate. Yet, the Being still had a faint sense that they were not completely separate.
The Being would later look back on its past self and scoff, questioning why the Being didn't just attempt to traverse the distance between it and another being and find the answer to its questions. This would be a simple suggestion for one who knew the trivialities of such a task, but to this Being, just formed into existence, still unsure of if it truly owned itself, unsure of where it was or who it was, this was a terrifying ordeal. The Being had to come to terms with itself, that it was a being and that it had the right to exert an independent will onto the universe.
The Being eventually decided to brave the act of accepting a new location. It knew not if a distance was an obstacle that could be surmounted; nonetheless, the being used its power over the parts of wholes belonging to it and accepted another location.
ACT 2: Atomism
Many centuries passed since the Being became aware of itself. It had accepted many different locations in its life, an act it came to call movement. Through its movement, it came to learn of the world; it came to learn of other things which also existed. It knew that these things existed because they were not what was around them. There would be disturbances in the universe where there would be something that was not something else.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
It took the being time to realize that some of these things had things within them, miraculous things of great merit. Some things had things like stories, which had things like sentences, which ended with things called.
The Being was fascinated by all these different complexities, all these different things which built together to make new things even though they equally were made of other things. Wholes and parts.
There would come times when the Being was unsure of what thing was creating and what thing was created. A great example of this dilemma was when the Being learned that it could form a new thing with these other things called friends. These friends would then greet other things and, in an attempt to define themselves as a thing, would claim that the thing was a friend. It was around this time that the Being was beginning to get a grasp of the world.
There was a separation between object and organism, between matter and thought. A word was not a person who similarly was not a rock. The complicated nature of these classifications confused the Being for a long time, and searched a great deal for satisfying answers.
The being one interval of time found a thing which spent its totality identifying things. The Being thought this type of thing was the ideal thing to define things. It asked how the identifying thing identified between object and organism and was given such a definition:
"A living thing was discerned by a thing that was composed of smaller things that functioned to perform actions."
The Being thought that definition was absurd since, by all means, that would mean that all things were living. It had learned of wholes and parts long ago after all.
It received a different answer from a different thing. The Being at this point still hadn't gotten over the excitement of that fact, different things thinking different things. This other thing was a thing that moulded things and so it defined the difference between object and organism differently and thusly:
"A living thing is a thing that was created, a thing that has or had parents."
Of course this definition was wholly confusing and required appended definitions to fully parse:
" A parent was a thing that made things."
Then so, as per the moulding thing, it would be defined that an organism was created and an object not. A flawed definition for sure, but it was a much better start. Though as answers often did, this one brought with it many prevalent questions, such as, since the Being thought it was definitionally living, where was its parent?
ACT 3: Of Spontaneity and Causal Determinism
The Being had found a home. After a few centuries of searching, it found a place where it thought its parent could be. If the parent was here, it did not make itself known and would not come to meet the Being. The Being still had yet to meet its parent, but it was not completely lonely since this place was filled with other beings. It was in this place that the Being grew closer to the other beings, which collectively called their average shape human.
The Being felt a slight kinship with the humans, given their generally shared shape. It long ago learned that the more that beings shared in wholes and parts, the more whole they were in part.
The Being would sometimes struggle to form a relationship with the humans, as humans who initially encountered the Being were taken aback by its different nature and other various oddities that it had, their parts not being wholly shared and all. Despite these setbacks, the Being was happy to know that a sincere few would overcome this hurdle.
The Being had found itself on a farm. The menial tasks of catering to simple growing structures was trivially easy for it, but it happily accomplished the task with glee just so it could see the happy faces of its family. The group of humans who owned this farm called their group that: a family.
The Being thought back to when it first arrived on this thing it now knew was called a planet. It understood the keen distinction between family and friend, or stranger. Families were eternal, definitionally formed at the commencement of being, and total even beyond its end. The Being, itself, was not that, it was other. It came from otherness, formed a bond, and would eventually leave, shattering that bond. The Being knew this, but somehow, it felt like it was simply family. Was the being ever not welcomed by these humans? Was it ever not at their side passing the second serving of salad? The Being was unsure if this ever was the case. If it wasn't the case, the Being wasn't sure if it wanted to know.
It was happy.
ACT 4: Of Necessary Being or Not
In front of the Being there was what seemed to be a small pink rhombus that grew out of thin air, or it was a rhombus, but its body would reject any stable state. It would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other shapes. The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with only one limb. The arm was outstretched towards the Being, holding a glowing parchment.
This was the third time it had met this pink humanoid. The first was when it was given an invitation to the Tournament a century ago, the second was when it won the Tournament a century ago. At the time, the Being had failed to make well on the wish granted to it for winning the Tournament, and now it was meeting the pink humanoid for the third time.
The Being was much more sophisticated and intelligent than it was those eons ago when it only thought in terms of wholes and parts, and being or otherness. The world was vast, with many people and complex relationships that bound and separated them.
With this new repertoire of knowledge, the Being had the intellectual competency to understand its own thoughts regarding the pink humanoid. It was at a time like this that it remembered the person who had given it that definition of living so long ago.
"A being that is living is a being that had a parent."
"A parent was a being that created other beings."
Was that really the only criterion to be considered a parent? Was it just a matter of creation?
The Being remembered those farmers who died long ago. The being remembered sitting at the table and passing the second serving of salad. The Being remembered that there were smaller humans there who called larger humans there their parents. Those larger humans did not create all the humans that called them such, but they did nurture them all. The Being brought its attention back to the pink humanoid before it.
A parent is a being that creates other beings. It was a simple definition, but the Being hated it; it refused to call this pink humanoid its parent. One hundred years ago it failed to fulfill its wish. It failed to kill the pink 'parent.' It would not fail again.
It took the glowing parchment and read.
You have been invited to The Tournament You are The Noumenon