Tilvera: A fool said that every newborn baby, regardless of the day and place they were born, is able to understand any human language in a very short space of time, without any explanations from a teacher or doing complicated educational exercises.
Ónytjungur: Unless I am much mistaken, human logic only has two ways of considering the universe.
Tilvera: And what would they be?
Ónytjungur: You could say that either there is only the universe, or there is something outside of the universe, in other words, something that is not contained within the universe.
Tilvera: The set theory. And so?
Ónytjungur: In the first case, it’s impossible to add or remove anything from the universe, while that possibility does exist in the second case.
Tilvera: Where are you going with this?
Ónytjungur: Suppose that the first case is true; then everything must necessarily be already contained in the universe for the entire duration of the universe.
Tilvera: What do you mean by everything?
Ónytjungur: Absolutely everything.
Tilvera: Including man?
Ónytjungur: The ability to develop from something that exists, in other words, the potential.
Tilvera: What utter rubbish!
Ónytjungur: Take you, for example. You are now at the end of chain and you are the last link, since you have yet to produce any offspring. If my sources are correct, you were the result of a union between two human beings of different sexes, and I think I can safety presume that these two humans were themselves the result of a union between two human beings of different sexes, who themselves … Shall I go on? I ask, because this might take some time.
Tilvera: But man hasn’t always been a man, before that he was a monkey, and before that … Shall I go on? I ask, because this might take some time.
Ónytjungur: Quite so. Has the chain that I am describing ever been interrupted? Or have we not marked off sections of this uninterrupted chain and given each one of them an identifier?
Tilvera: Well, in the zoo, monkeys also …
Ónytjungur: And what about reptiles? I ask the question just in case one of the sections were to …
Tilvera: There is evidence to prove that a living being depends on the union of a previous living being, regardless of the art or method of this union.
Ónytjungur: What about bacteria?
Tilvera: Yes, via asexual cell division
Ónytjungur: Again, that presumes the existence of a prior living bacterium
Tilvera: So it seems. Bacteria can even exchange genes between different species and are capable of taking fragments of fossilised DNA from their environment to include them into their own DNA.
Ónytjungur: Can we therefore assume the existence of an uninterrupted chain for which you are now the last link?
Tilvera: And before bacteria?
Ónytjungur: Is it not true that electrons, neutrons and protons come together to form the molecules that will determine the form, while their specific composition will determine their properties?
Tilvera: So everything can be explained by matter
Ónytjungur: I am not a materialist
Tilvera: So there is only what is contained in consciousness?
Ónytjungur: I am not an idealist either.
Tilvera: So the psyche and the physical are two strictly separated areas of the being, each with an independent existence
Ónytjungur: I am certainly not a dualist
Tilvera: So what are you?
Ónytjungur: How would I know? I just spoke about potential, in other words, the possibility to develop, from an uninterrupted chain, which you find yourself at the end of, as I see you, and the fact that we can’t add anything to the universe. Ask the people who say that makes me a solipsist.
Tilvera: A metaphysical, ethical or methodological solipsist?
Ónytjungur: Those who give me that label, should answer you.
Tilvera: Ok, your opinion is interesting, but do you have a concept to back it up?
Ónytjungur: No
Tilvera: Are you aware that without opinions, concepts are empty, while opinions without concepts are blind?
Ónytjungur: Highly conscious. 900 years ago, a man deplored the fact that there was now a word for which there was no reality and beforehand there had been a reality for which there was no word.
Tilvera: What do you mean by that?
Ónytjungur: That there is no concept for my opinion. Therefore you will certainly find it difficult to prove that my thoughts were empty of content.
Translation: Jackie Dobble
