An introduction to metaphysics

We watched Dupa Dealuri with a new girl.

She found it interesting if in places cringeworthy -- as a little girl she had had what passes for a religious education in the colonies, and the plain exposure of the anatomy and physiology of an entirely different-but-same sectⁱ proved in places trying.

Then she read the review.

She found it enlighteningⁱⁱ and, upon some meditation, asked how can one come to the conclusion the girls are the same girl ? There's some superficial similarities, she'd readily grant, but...

"Not a matter of superficial, or of similarities. Suppose you're blindfolded."
"Haha." (she was, coincidentally, blindfolded at the time).
"Now suppose I take you over by the stove, and waft under your nose -- hey, what's your favourite food yet ?"
"Stuffed cabbage."
"Ok, so I waft the most delicious pot of stuffed cabbage."
"Yeah..."
"And then I burn you with the pot."
"Ouch."
"These two sensations are not similar, nor is their unity a matter of perceived similarity, whether superficial or otherwise. You are not asked to by your senses resolve anything. The idea is that both the scent and the burning, while perceptibly separate, are really coming from the same thing, which lies somewhere beyond the veil your senses can pierce."
"There's a veil ?"
"You don't get to know. By the definition : because the veil is defined as 'that veil your senses don't get to pierce', it's never going to be possible to confirm or infirm its existence."
"So then..."
"That's metaphysics : the proposition that there is such a veil, and the discussion of possible configurations of items behind it that presumably might drive seemingly disparate sensata as if they were in fact distinguishable but not really distinct aspects of the same one thing."
"So then religion is like... it's meta for poor people."
"Exactly. The deplorable barbarians did the best they could of the items they found in a decaying empire."

1. "How is this not a sect ?"

   "What do you mean 'sect' ? This is the trunk from which the catholics heretically split up a while back, much like the protestants / anglicans and then in turn then neoprotestants more recently. It definitionally can't be a sect -- everyone else is."
   "Because it's religion." she proferred, taking full advantage of the poverty of vocabulary so very typical of sluts raised by breeders -- she now means "sect" as in "group with exotic yet strongly maintained social behaviours" (not that she's not ready to slide back into any other meaning, etymological or otherwise, at any other point). Because that's how simple people survive their simple lives : by restricting their tortured spirit to simple tools of expression (and therefore comprehension -- in a word, representation). If anything is anything else, as in the pantsuit world, then what problem can ever be had ?

   "You mean all religions are sects ?"
   "Yes!"

   "Ok, so then there you go -- for the people who don't see a difference between religions and sects, it's a sect. For the people who do see a difference, it's a religion." [↩]

2. This being the great differentiator : the useless, both male and female, find it painful and go the fuck away -- if only they went away properly & for good, rather than run off a slight distance and set to sulking. It's still my world, yo. Your world is, from what I hear, being prepared by that hunchback of your father -- in "heaven". Go there, just fucking go back to your ugly daddy already, there's no room, no place and really no desire to keep seeing you around here ; nor is that ever gonna change. Not at all, not one iota, not for any collection of uncountable (for cause of disinterest) varmints gathered in all available crevices, dark corners and other such hidey-holes. You can whisper among your pointless selves until the stars turn (mostly) brown, this ain't ever gonna be nor can it ever become your world. [↩]