A man cuts vegetables in his kitchen. At the peak of the chopping motion, the knife reflects the sunlight from a nearby window into the man’s eyes.
‘Perhaps you should slow down and cut more carefully’ he thinks to himself, after noticing asymmetries in his slices of cucumber
‘Eh, it’ll be fine. It’s not like anybody is going to be scrutinizing the thickness of your cucumber slices anyway’
As the man mindlessly continues to move the knife up and down, with the cucumber seeming to only get in the way, he feels a disorienting, creeping sense of cognitive dissidence. How is it that his mind can motivate him into two such distinct and diametrically opposed directions?
‘Of course, I should always try to do everything the best I can. Why do poorly when one can do well?’ he reflects
‘However, I should know, especially after all I’ve been through, that smudges and errors are just part of the course of life’ his subvocalization continues
‘Or are they? For all I know, those things could have been properly avoided if I had simply known how to act and react. Errors are a fundamentally personal phenomenon.’
The oscillation of the knife’s glint slows imperceptibly.
‘Mistakes are just part of ebb and flow of life! Don’t be silly! It would be completely unreasonable to posit that I hold responsibility for erroneous things that are outside of my control.’
The oscillation of the knife’s glint imperceptibly hastens, returning to the original frequency.
‘Then again, the illusion that things happen outside of my sphere of influence could simply be a mechanism of ego defense so that I can avoid the burden of personal responsibility. How can I know that there isn’t an ideal course of action that would avoid all those errors?’ the internal dialogue continues, impressing itself with its own use of technical, psychological vocabulary
‘In fact, the fact that I haven’t sought out such a course of action in every situation is almost an act of self-negligence. I would surely be happier if everything went smoothly.’ the mind briefly pauses ‘Why wouldn’t I want that?’
‘Naturally, such a thing would be a waste of energy of course.’ the man continues ‘It would be absurd to assume that all of the circumstances in which I find myself are products of my own volition.’
‘How can this be?’ the man’s internal voice contributes ‘If my circumstances are externally generated, how is it that I can behave autonomously? Surely my will must have some influence on the outcome of my life, otherwise what would be the point of doing anything? Thus, I would be doing myself a disservice if I were to not act in such a way to maximize my future utility through my present action.’
The glint of the stainless-steel paring knife, as well as the man’s train of thought, reaches an abrupt halt. In the time that would he would traditionally allow his mind to amble to the minutia of anxieties of the near future, the man turns his mind upon itself. What exactly was the mental paradigm that he had just experienced? How is it that he could attempt to convince himself of something? Which part of the internal debate was…him? Is the impulse for material success and mitigation of stress the essence which he neatly labels as himself? Is he justified in doing so? What leads him to identify that impulse more readily with himself rather than his propensity for the path of least resistance?
‘How silly! How can I doubt the existence of something as omnipresent as the very thoughts in my head?’ the internal voice chimes in ‘I’m thinking them right now! This must be me.’
Then again, what would be the thing that is performing such a metanalysis of his thoughts? It couldn’t be his very mind, as that would be recursive. Yet, what would cause the differentiation between the explicit voice in his head and the passive turning over of ideas that the man is currently engaged in? To whom or what is the subvocalization directing its current of ideas?
The man stands before the cutting board and pontificates, his eyes tracing the sharp contour of the blade resting in front of him. What populates the mind of the man during this sudden bout of silent introspection? Besides the thought that he is, in fact, pontificating, the man cannot elevate his thoughts to any higher degree of clarity.
After an indeterminate amount of time, the man frees whatever circuit in his brain had run afoul, picks up the cutting implement and resumes his slicing. The glint of the sun in the knife now occurs twice per motion, the cause of which provides the man with valuable mental fodder for a while.
As the man watches the reflected light dance across the countertop and cutting board, he cuts his final slice from the cucumber nub, pushes the pile of irregular slices into a bowl and prepares a luscious, red bell pepper for dissection.
‘But what is having these thoughts?’ the man resumes ‘Surely there must be some substantial energy or form that can manifest itself in such a form.’
The knife passes soundlessly through the upper portion of the pepper, separating the stem from the body. The body of the pepper seems to fully obstruct the motion of the glint, depriving the man of his distraction. The man is quite hung up on the question of what exactly constitutes his thoughts, and if this thing (if such a thing can exist) is him. The man stands at the counter, blade in one hand and the body of the bell pepper in the other, staring directly in front of him. Yet, no visual stimuli reach his mind.
Why such metaphysical and transient claims should concern a man currently occupied with the slicing of vegetables, who works a real job, real wife and a fully real life to concern himself with, the man does not know. Conversely, this sudden inquiry is of the utmost importance. How could the man continue to live the rest of his days with such a wide void in his self-conception? The phantasmagoria of emotions, thoughts and notions the man had always identified as himself has become to come undone. Never before had such an essential component of his experience as a conscious being come under question, especially for reasons at the same time so pivotal and inexplicable.
How can this be? The man slowly places the knife beside the cutting board and looks into the palms of his hands. In an instant, which was both incredibly sober and stupendously psychedelic, the man begins to question his very own constitution.
‘What was I doing before this?’ the man’s inner voice inquires, speaking up after an abnormally long bout of silence.
The man does not know, for his awareness has only been manifested through his internal reflections. How could he possibly have known what has never occurred to him? Now, this question has occurred to him and he simply cannot put anything together. Why? It is almost as if his cognition is only feigning the illusion of continuity. While the man has always assumed that he has existed as a conscious, independent being with a mind containing equally independent information about himself and the world around him, he can’t help but reevaluate this notion.
‘If I exist, then there must be some continuity between where I was and where I am now. Otherwise, the very procession of time would be disturbed’ the man’s inner monologue deduces.
But why must this be so? Why must cause come before effect and not in the reverse order? Clearly, since the man is unaware of his matters prior to his engagement with the cutting board and vegetables, his knowledge of the linear progression of time must be lacking in some regard.
‘Don’t be crazy!’ the man’s mind chides ‘Just because something evades the spotlight of my understanding doesn’t give you license to question the fundamental physical laws of reality.’
The man’s analysis of his palms deepens. Is reason the thing that has evaded him? Is that the ethereal, metaphysical entity that determines the validity of his thoughts? Furthermore, when the man tries to take up reason and analyze its constitution, meaning begins to slip through the man’s fingers like sand. How can something so profound be so elusive? By this measure, reason cannot be the master of his mind…for it appears to be nothing at all!
What makes the physical laws of reality more valid than a system of whims that the man could create out of nothing more than fancy? Agreement with other, essentially arbitrary, standards of rationality? Of course, the man can observe the effects of these principles around him at every waking moment, but how is he to know that the qualia of his senses corresponds to anything of greater reality than the conjurations of his mind?
‘There appears to only be one way to find out.’ The man thinks as he returns the blade to his hand. No more light is reflected off the blade from the kitchen window.
The man places his hand on the cutting board and, disillusioned by reality and reason, brings the knife over his fingers. The blade hangs above the man’s hand for what seems like, or very well could have been, an eternity. With an empty mind and swift application of pressure, the man amputates his index finger just above the first knuckle with unsettling ease.
As blood begins to gush from the site of amputation and pool on the cutting board, the man’s mind remains eerily calm. Pain shoots up the man’s arm from his hand, yet the man recoils not. He has the strangest, eerily calming sensation of millions of electric pinpricks coursing up and down the length of his spine.
‘This sensation could simply be my mind conjuring the illusion of pain, for all I know, I never had any fingers to lop off in the first place.’ The man ponders, watching a lake of blood accumulate around the small segment of flesh and nail that previously constituted the tip of his finger ‘Even the pain provides not the answers I seek.’
The man’s masochistic exploration of reality appears to be fruitless. Or rather, not bearing the fruits that are conducive to a content and holistic existence, much less any peace of mind for the man. The man’s mind continues to be torn asunder and thrashed about in a way that can only occur when all bearing of sense has been lost. Even the very conception that the man has any identification with the suit of flesh he has just mutilated has lost all significance. What more is it than then the material body from which his sensory perspective is based? And what more is the sensory perspective than a cohesive and immersive illusion resulting from the biological action of the brain? In this sense, the experience that the man attributes to his awareness is little more than the function of an extremely intricate cerebral machination.
‘What point can such a thing have?’ the man reflects as he begins to feel slightly woozy ‘What am I?’
‘Am I?’
He continues to stand in the kitchen as blood flows from the cutting board, to the counter and then to the floor in a sanguine dribble. The intuit of self-concept holds little more relevance now than the man’s fever dreams of the past. As the man calmly watches the crimson liquid bead up and fall to the ground, time itself seems to be coagulating.
As the red teardrops descend, they morph to spheres. Which, as they gently float to the ground, contort, forming some of the most fantastical shapes the man has ever seen. Tessellated polyhedra of all forms and dimensions seem to seamlessly coalesce in the droplet, somehow encapsulating all forms and at the same time each shape being so transient that the drop is wholly formless.
The man places the knife down, where it’s blade quickly melts and forms a silver and dark gray speckled, marbled amalgam with the granite countertop. However, oddly enough, the handle of the tool manages to remain buoyant on the apparently liquid interface of the countertop and drifts slowly away from its place, creating mesmerizing currents and patterns in its wake. The man bends down and examines the endlessly shifting blood droplets suspended in air and time.
‘One…two…three…’ the man’s mind struggles to compute ‘three…four…two’
The man can see the drops hovering in front of him, undulating and pulsating in dimensions the man could never have fathomed had he not seen it happen in front of his face. At the lip of the counter, there is a drop, close to breaking off and assuming its pseudospherical shape, but frozen just at the point of separation.
The static globule of blood in the focus of the man’s vision seems to develop many more spots of white reflected light than the singular glow of the kitchen light would allow, the spots continuing to multiply until they join to form a shiny white ring. Although the man’s brain has all but completely lost any semblance of synchronicity with the passing of time, he finds himself fully bemused with the question of whether the globule had always appeared that way or some error in his visual perception was advancing.
As the man shifts his gaze a nearly imperceptible distance away from his initial point of focus, his visual plane divides into seemingly infinite planes of reflection radially, becoming a kaleidoscopic torrent of red, white, brown and granite. With each subconscious shift of the man’s focus, pulse of his heart, molecule of hemoglobin flowing through his veins, the disorientation increases exponentially. The man’s vision is completely taken up with geometric reflections in perpetual flux as the sound of rushing water slowly crescendo’s in the man’s ears. After a short while, the man’s vision is completely consumed by a miasma of edges, colors, textures and patterns, shifting and evolving into continually less meaningful visual, audial and kinesthetic information. The crashing of waves and rushing of water is soon joined by an odd sense of weightlessness experienced by the man; he feels as if he is in a state of retarded free-fall, as if he is falling through a chasm of viscid quicksand. Formless, purposeless, a mere portion of the universe dictated wholly and ultimately by natural processes. Somethings is slipping past something, but which is him and which is not, the man do