III: Mr Blottisham and the Lost Archive (or Mr Blottisham Misplaces His Memories)

St Anselm's Senior Common Room, Late Afternoon

Outside, rain had surrendered to a weak and uncertain sunlight. The common room had settled into that comfortable hour in which conversation became slower and teacups accumulated unnoticed.

Professor Quillibrace sat reading.

Miss Elowen Stray was writing quietly.

Mr Blottisham entered carrying three books and wearing an expression of exceptional confidence.

He placed the books triumphantly upon the table.

"There."

Quillibrace looked up cautiously.

"I distrust that tone."

Blottisham ignored him.

"I have solved our recent difficulties."

"Indeed."

"Time disappeared. Then the self disappeared."

He nodded gravely.

"But memory remains entirely secure."

Miss Stray looked interested.

"In what sense?"

Blottisham tapped the books.

"Libraries."

A silence followed.

Quillibrace closed his book very slowly.

Blottisham continued.

"The thing is obvious. Experiences happen. They leave records inside us. Later we retrieve them. Simple."

Quillibrace looked toward the ceiling briefly, as though consulting powers beyond ordinary academic procedure.

"I see."

Blottisham sat down, pleased with himself.

"The mind is essentially a filing system."

Quillibrace removed his spectacles.

"Mr Blottisham."

"Yes?"

"Has anyone ever informed you that confidence and accuracy are not the same phenomenon?"

Blottisham frowned.

Miss Stray leaned forward.

"We do speak this way."

"Of course we do," said Blottisham.

"We store memories."

"Yes."

"We retrieve memories."

"Precisely."

"We lose memories."

Blottisham spread his hands.

"Exactly."

Quillibrace folded his own.

"And so the inherited picture begins to emerge."

He spoke carefully.

"Experiences create internal records."

Blottisham nodded.

"The records are stored somewhere."

"Yes."

"Remembering retrieves these records."

"Exactly."

"And successful remembering reproduces the original experience accurately."

Blottisham looked delighted.

"I knew there was a reason I came here."

Quillibrace sighed softly.

Miss Stray frowned slightly.

"It does sound natural."

"Very natural."

Quillibrace nodded.

"Which is often where the danger begins."

Blottisham looked suspicious.

"Oh no."

Quillibrace continued.

"Where exactly are memories stored?"

Blottisham pointed immediately at his head.

"The brain."

"Certainly the brain matters."

Blottisham relaxed.

"Good."

"Damage to particular structures can alter memory profoundly."

"Excellent."

"But identifying involvement does not automatically explain storage."

Blottisham paused.

"...what?"

Quillibrace gestured toward the books.

"A library is not explained merely by identifying shelves."

Miss Stray nodded.

"And a song is not explained merely by identifying speakers."

Blottisham looked uncomfortable.

Quillibrace continued quietly.

"And memory itself behaves rather strangely for a storage system."

Blottisham frowned.

"In what way?"

"Memories change."

"Only small details."

"Details disappear."

"Oh."

"New details emerge."

"Oh."

"The same event may be remembered differently years later."

Blottisham shifted in his chair.

"Well..."

"Two people often remember the same occasion quite differently."

"Oh dear."

"And your own memories alter across contexts."

Blottisham stared at the books on the table as though they had personally betrayed him.

Miss Stray was writing rapidly.

"So if memory were merely retrieval..."

She looked up.

"...why would the stored object keep changing?"

Quillibrace smiled faintly.

"Precisely."

Blottisham looked troubled.

"So what are you saying?"

Quillibrace leaned back.

"When we remember, we do not ordinarily re-enter a preserved past."

Silence.

"We remember from somewhere."

Miss Stray looked thoughtful.

"From the present."

"Quite."

"Current concerns, emotions, relationships, contexts..."

"...all shape what becomes meaningful."

Blottisham stared into the middle distance.

"So the past doesn't simply arrive intact."

"No."

"The remembering itself is active."

Quillibrace nodded.

"The supposedly stored object begins to look rather less like a thing hidden somewhere."

"And more like an ongoing process of construal."

"Exactly."

Blottisham looked alarmed.

"You cannot remove memory as well."

"No one has removed memory."

Quillibrace reached for his tea.

"Photographs remain."

Blottisham relaxed slightly.

"Good."

"Diaries remain."

"Excellent."

"Records remain."

Blottisham sighed with relief.

"But perhaps memories were never objects sitting in an internal archive."

The relief vanished immediately.

Miss Stray looked down at her notes.

"So remembering becomes something we do."

"Yes."

"Not something we find."

Quillibrace smiled faintly.

Rain had resumed outside.

Blottisham stared into the fire with the expression of a man reviewing several decades of assumptions.

Finally he spoke.

"I have had a troubling thought."

Quillibrace looked up.

"I had anticipated as much."

Blottisham frowned.

"If memories are not sitting somewhere inside me..."

He looked around uneasily.

"...what exactly have I been spending all these years trying to remember where I left?"

Quillibrace considered this for a moment.

"Your spectacles, Mr Blottisham."

A pause.

"They remain lost by entirely conventional means."

II: Mr Blottisham and the Missing Self (or Mr Blottisham Searches for Himself)

St Anselm's Senior Common Room, Early Afternoon

Sunlight had briefly appeared outside before apparently reconsidering its position and withdrawing behind clouds.

Professor Quillibrace sat beside the fire with a book resting unopened upon his lap.

Miss Elowen Stray was making notes.

Mr Blottisham entered carrying a teacup and the expression of a man enjoying unusual confidence.

He sat down heavily.

"I have been thinking."

Quillibrace looked up cautiously.

"Oh dear."

Blottisham ignored him.

"I have concluded that while our recent discussion concerning time was needlessly unsettling, there are certain matters upon which no confusion exists whatsoever."

"How fortunate," said Quillibrace.

"The self."

Blottisham nodded firmly.

"There I am."

He pointed at himself.

"Perfectly obvious."

Quillibrace regarded him quietly.

"One hesitates to interfere with certainty of that magnitude."

Miss Stray smiled faintly.

Blottisham continued.

"Experiences come and go. Opinions change. Circumstances alter. Yet beneath it all there remains..."

He struck his chest lightly.

"...me."

Quillibrace was silent.

Blottisham frowned.

"You appear unconvinced."

"I am merely waiting."

"For what?"

"For the complications to arrive under their own momentum."

Miss Stray leaned forward.

"We do normally speak that way."

"Of course we do," said Blottisham. "Thoughts belong to us. Feelings belong to us. Memories belong to us."

Quillibrace nodded slowly.

"Interesting language."

"What is?"

"'Belong.'"

Blottisham sighed.

"Not this again."

Quillibrace folded his hands.

"The familiar picture assumes something rather specific."

He spoke carefully.

"There exists a self. The self possesses experiences. Thoughts occur to it. Feelings happen within it. Identity persists beneath change."

Blottisham looked satisfied.

"Excellent."

"I am describing the picture, not endorsing it."

Blottisham's satisfaction diminished slightly.

Miss Stray looked thoughtful.

"So experience becomes something happening around an underlying object."

"Precisely."

"The self sits at the centre."

"Quite so."

Blottisham spread his hands.

"Again, I fail to detect any problem."

Quillibrace nodded.

"Then perhaps you would kindly indicate where this self resides."

Blottisham stared.

"In me."

"Yes."

A pause.

"...where precisely?"

Blottisham frowned.

"In my body."

Quillibrace nodded.

"The body changes continuously."

"Oh."

"Cells regenerate. Capabilities emerge and disappear. Appearance alters."

Blottisham waved this aside.

"Then memory."

"Memories fade."

"Oh."

"Distort."

"Oh dear."

"Occasionally disappear altogether."

Blottisham looked troubled.

"Personality then."

Quillibrace tilted his head.

"Do people behave identically across childhood, adulthood, friendship, grief, work, and old age?"

Blottisham stared into his tea.

"No..."

A small silence settled.

Miss Stray looked up from her notebook.

"So the problem isn't merely that these things change."

Quillibrace nodded.

"No."

"The problem is that the stable self seems to move elsewhere whenever we try to locate it."

"Exactly."

Blottisham looked alarmed.

"You make it sound as though the self is hiding."

Quillibrace considered this.

"It does display certain evasive tendencies."

Blottisham shifted uneasily.

Miss Stray spoke quietly.

"And if the self exists first as an independent thing..."

"Then relationships become secondary additions," said Quillibrace.

"One first becomes an individual and only afterwards enters social life."

Blottisham looked puzzled.

"Naturally."

Quillibrace raised an eyebrow.

"Language?"

Blottisham blinked.

"What about it?"

"You learned it through others."

"Oh."

"Meanings emerge through interaction."

"Oh."

"Values arise through social coordination."

Blottisham sank slightly lower.

"Oh no."

Miss Stray had begun writing rapidly.

"Even the categories through which we understand ourselves come from relations."

Quillibrace nodded.

"The supposedly independent self begins to look rather less like an origin."

"And rather more like something emerging through relations."

"Quite."

Blottisham looked genuinely distressed.

"You cannot simply remove the self."

"No one has removed anything."

Quillibrace reached calmly for his tea.

"Names remain."

Blottisham looked hopeful.

"Good."

"Memories remain."

"Excellent."

"Lives continue."

Blottisham relaxed.

"But perhaps the self was never a hidden object sitting behind experience."

The relaxation disappeared immediately.

Miss Stray looked thoughtful.

"So identity becomes something continually actualised rather than permanently possessed."

Quillibrace smiled faintly.

"Yes."

"And individuality changes too."

"Indeed."

"Individuals become distinguishable organisations emerging within relations."

Silence settled around the room.

Rain had returned and was tapping softly against the windows.

Blottisham stared into the fire for a long while.

Finally he spoke.

"I have had a troubling thought."

Quillibrace looked up.

"Again?"

Blottisham frowned.

"If there isn't some stable little fellow inside me running everything..."

He looked around cautiously.

"...who exactly has been eating all my biscuits?"

Quillibrace considered this for a moment.

"A highly persistent organisation of relations, Mr Blottisham."

A pause.

"With remarkably consistent dietary commitments."

I: Mr Blottisham and the Vanishing Present (or Mr Blottisham Attempts to Locate Now)

St Anselm's Senior Common Room, Late Morning

Rain tapped gently at the windows. A coal fire murmured in the grate. Professor Quillibrace sat with an expression of severe neutrality over a cup of tea that had long since ceased to contribute meaningfully to the concept of warmth.

Miss Elowen Stray sat opposite with notebook open.

Mr Blottisham had arrived carrying a newspaper beneath his arm and the unmistakable confidence of a man approaching a subject he understood entirely and incorrectly.

He lowered himself into a chair.

"Time," he announced, "is perfectly straightforward."

Quillibrace looked up.

"How comforting."

Blottisham nodded.

"It is merely an invisible sort of road. We move along it. Yesterday is behind us. Tomorrow lies ahead. Very simple."

Miss Stray tilted her head.

"We do speak that way."

"We all speak that way," said Blottisham triumphantly. "Which rather settles matters."

Quillibrace stirred his tea absent-mindedly.

"Human beings also once spoke of the sun moving around the Earth."

Blottisham frowned.

"That seems different."

"It often does."

A pause followed.

Quillibrace placed down his spoon.

"The curious thing," he said, "is that the image of time as a sort of invisible landscape has become so familiar that it no longer appears to us as an image."

Miss Stray nodded slowly.

"We treat it as simple description."

"Precisely."

Blottisham waved a hand.

"Because it is description. Things happen in time."

Quillibrace glanced at him.

"'In' is doing suspiciously large amounts of work there."

Blottisham looked mildly offended.

"What else should things happen in?"

"That," said Quillibrace, "is exactly the question."

Miss Stray leaned forward.

"So we imagine time as a container?"

"Yes."

Quillibrace folded his hands.

"Time exists independently. Moments are locations within it. Events occupy those locations. History stretches itself across the whole structure."

Blottisham looked pleased.

"Excellent. I was right."

"I did not say the picture was correct."

Blottisham sighed.

Quillibrace continued.

"The structure is quietly borrowed from space. We understand objects occupying positions in space, so we project the same arrangement onto temporal experience."

"Moments become places," said Miss Stray.

"Indeed."

"And events become objects moving through those places."

"Exactly."

Blottisham crossed his arms.

"I still fail to detect a problem."

Quillibrace regarded him thoughtfully.

"Very well. Let us locate the present."

Blottisham blinked.

"The present is... now."

"Excellent. How large is it?"

Blottisham frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"If the present has duration, then one may divide that duration again. If it possesses no duration at all, then it becomes difficult to understand how anything occupies it."

Blottisham stared.

"Hm."

Miss Stray looked down at her notes.

"So perhaps the difficulty isn't merely identifying the present."

Quillibrace nodded.

"Perhaps the difficulty lies in treating moments as things."

Blottisham looked unhappy.

Quillibrace continued calmly.

"And there is a second curiosity."

"Oh dear."

"We also say that time flows."

Blottisham brightened.

"Yes! Quite right."

Quillibrace folded his arms.

"Relative to what?"

Silence.

Blottisham stared.

"What?"

"Movement normally occurs across time. An object changes position at different times."

"Yes."

"So if time itself moves..."

Blottisham's expression began to contract inward.

"...then through what does it move?"

Miss Stray looked up slowly.

"Another time."

"Quite."

"And then that time would require another."

"Precisely."

Blottisham stared into the middle distance.

"Oh no."

The fire cracked softly.

At length Miss Stray spoke.

"So the difficulty isn't that the picture lacks details."

"No."

Quillibrace nodded.

"The difficulty may be structural."

He leaned back slightly.

"The picture turns relations into objects."

"Events become things in moments," said Miss Stray quietly.

"Moments become things in time."

"And time itself becomes another thing behind them all."

Quillibrace smiled faintly.

"Exactly."

Blottisham sat motionless.

Then:

"...I dislike where this is going."

Quillibrace ignored him.

"Suppose instead that change comes first."

Miss Stray looked interested.

"Meaning that temporal order emerges from relations among actualisations?"

"Quite so."

Blottisham looked alarmed.

"You cannot simply remove time."

"No one has removed anything."

Quillibrace reached for his tea.

"Clocks continue ticking. Tuesdays remain regrettably frequent."

Blottisham relaxed slightly.

"But events would no longer occupy positions in some invisible temporal landscape."

Miss Stray was already writing.

"Time becomes a construal emerging from changing relations."

Quillibrace nodded.

"The inversion is small."

"And rather large at the same time."

"Yes."

Silence settled for a moment.

Rain traced faint lines against the windows.

Miss Stray looked thoughtful.

"So the past and future stop being places."

"They become orientations."

"And the present..."

Quillibrace smiled faintly.

"...becomes the ongoing edge at which potential becomes actualised."

Mr Blottisham stared at the fire for a very long time.

Finally he said:

"I've just had a troubling thought."

Quillibrace looked up.

"Yes?"

Blottisham frowned.

"If clocks do not measure the movement of time..."

He looked around nervously.

"...what exactly have I been late for all these years?"

Quillibrace considered this.

"Relations, Mr Blottisham."

A pause.

"Entirely relations."