The Senior Common Room. A week after the final discussion. The chairs remain arranged as they were before. The fire has been lit again, although nobody admits who lit it.
Professor Quillibrace sits reading. Miss Elowen Stray looks out through the window at the empty courtyard. Mr Blottisham enters carrying a notebook.
Mr Blottisham:
I thought we had finished.
Professor Quillibrace:
We had.
Mr Blottisham:
Then why are we here?
Miss Stray:
Because conversations do not always end when conclusions are reached.
Mr Blottisham:
That sounds suspiciously like something someone says when they want another conversation.
Professor Quillibrace:
An astute observation.
Mr Blottisham:
Thank you.
Professor Quillibrace:
It was not necessarily a compliment.
The Question Changes
Mr Blottisham:
We spent all this time discussing other minds.
Miss Stray:
Yes.
Mr Blottisham:
Can we understand them?
Professor Quillibrace:
That was the question.
Mr Blottisham:
And now?
Miss Stray:
Now we must ask another.
Mr Blottisham:
Which is?
Miss Stray:
Can we completely understand our own?
Silence.
Mr Blottisham:
That seems unfair.
Professor Quillibrace:
Why?
Mr Blottisham:
I was just beginning to feel confident about not understanding other people.
Professor Quillibrace:
A temporary achievement.
The Familiar Mystery
Miss Stray:
Consider something strange.
We spend our entire lives inside our own minds.
Mr Blottisham:
Yes.
Miss Stray:
Our own thoughts are the most familiar things we possess.
Mr Blottisham:
Naturally.
Miss Stray:
And yet we do not fully control them.
Mr Blottisham:
True.
Professor Quillibrace:
A thought appears.
A memory returns.
An emotion emerges.
An idea arrives unexpectedly.
Mr Blottisham:
That is true.
Professor Quillibrace:
Then ask:
Who is the one observing these things?
Mr Blottisham:
The self.
Professor Quillibrace:
And who created them?
Mr Blottisham:
Also the self.
Miss Stray:
Perhaps.
Mr Blottisham:
That sounds uncertain.
Professor Quillibrace:
Because it is.
The Stranger Inside
Mr Blottisham:
Are you suggesting that I am a stranger to myself?
Miss Stray:
Not exactly.
Mr Blottisham:
That is reassuring.
Miss Stray:
You are both familiar and mysterious.
Mr Blottisham:
At the same time?
Professor Quillibrace:
Yes.
Mr Blottisham:
That seems contradictory.
Professor Quillibrace:
Only if we assume that something must be either known or unknown.
Miss Stray:
But perhaps consciousness does not work that way.
A Mind Is Not a Container
Mr Blottisham:
Then what is a mind?
Professor Quillibrace:
A question many have attempted to answer.
Mr Blottisham:
And?
Professor Quillibrace:
Few have finished.
Mr Blottisham:
Naturally.
Miss Stray:
Perhaps because the mistake lies in imagining the mind as a thing.
Mr Blottisham:
What else could it be?
Miss Stray:
A process.
Professor Quillibrace:
An unfolding.
Mr Blottisham:
Like a river?
Professor Quillibrace:
With the usual warning that metaphors are dangerous.
Mr Blottisham:
Everything interesting appears to be dangerous.
Professor Quillibrace:
A useful observation.
The Same Mystery Everywhere
Miss Stray:
Notice something.
At the beginning of our discussion, we wondered why another person was difficult to understand.
Mr Blottisham:
Because they are not us.
Professor Quillibrace:
Yes.
Miss Stray:
But perhaps another reason exists.
Mr Blottisham:
Which is?
Miss Stray:
Because consciousness itself is something we only partially understand.
Mr Blottisham:
So another mind is mysterious because my own mind is mysterious.
Professor Quillibrace:
Precisely.
Mr Blottisham:
Then perhaps I have been trying to solve the wrong problem.
Professor Quillibrace:
Continue.
Mr Blottisham:
I thought the difficulty was reaching across a gap between minds.
Miss Stray:
And now?
Mr Blottisham:
Perhaps the gap is part of what minds are.
The Desire for Complete Knowledge
Mr Blottisham:
Still, would complete understanding not be preferable?
Professor Quillibrace:
Would it?
Mr Blottisham:
Why not?
Miss Stray:
Imagine knowing another person completely.
Every thought.
Every reaction.
Every memory.
Every future decision.
Mr Blottisham:
That would be remarkable.
Professor Quillibrace:
Would it?
Mr Blottisham:
Why not?
Professor Quillibrace:
Would there be anything left to discover?
Mr Blottisham:
No.
Miss Stray:
Would there be surprise?
Mr Blottisham:
No.
Professor Quillibrace:
Would there be encounter?
Mr Blottisham pauses.
Mr Blottisham:
Perhaps not.
Understanding as Relationship
Miss Stray:
Perhaps this is what we have been approaching throughout.
Understanding is not possession.
Mr Blottisham:
It is relationship.
Professor Quillibrace:
Exactly.
Mr Blottisham:
A person is not a book waiting to be completely read.
Miss Stray:
No.
Mr Blottisham:
They are more like a book that continues writing itself.
Professor Quillibrace:
A surprisingly good metaphor.
Mr Blottisham:
Thank you.
Professor Quillibrace:
I said surprisingly.
The Value of Mystery
Mr Blottisham:
I confess something.
Professor Quillibrace:
Go on.
Mr Blottisham:
At the beginning, I found all this talk of unknowable minds rather depressing.
Miss Stray:
And now?
Mr Blottisham:
Now I think perhaps I misunderstood the problem.
Professor Quillibrace:
How?
Mr Blottisham:
I assumed mystery meant failure.
Miss Stray:
And?
Mr Blottisham:
Perhaps mystery means there is still something worth discovering.
The Final Reflection
The fire settles.
Professor Quillibrace:
Then perhaps we can finally answer our original question.
Mr Blottisham:
Can different consciousnesses truly meet?
Miss Stray:
What do you think?
Mr Blottisham:
I think...
He pauses.
Mr Blottisham:
Not by becoming the same.
Professor Quillibrace:
Good.
Mr Blottisham:
Not by eliminating mystery.
Miss Stray:
Good.
Mr Blottisham:
But by recognising another mind as another centre of experience.
Professor Quillibrace:
Yes.
Mr Blottisham:
And perhaps by recognising that we are each mysterious even to ourselves.
Silence.
Miss Stray:
The stranger within.
Mr Blottisham:
Exactly.
Professor Quillibrace:
Then perhaps the deepest lesson is this:
The unknown within ourselves is not what separates us from others.
It is what allows us to recognise them.
The three remain in silence.
Not because there is nothing left to say.
But because some conversations continue beyond words.
No comments:
Post a Comment