Good and evil. It's very easy to understand, but maybe it's not right. Maybe it's not the real situation, the real alignment of human nature and action. What, then, is the real paradigm? A more complicated paradigm would be harder for many to understand. Communication is the problem.
"Every person is so unique, in fact," he said, rubbing his fingers on his palms, "that you cannot say, with any accuracy, that there are two people sitting at this table. The two beings sitting at this table are too unique to be lumped into a group."
'There are three people sitting at this table,' I thought. He never noticed this toady that followed him around. I had to admit, I couldn't remember the guy's name either. "I see what you're saying," I replied, "and I appreciate the point you're making about the importance of the individual character of all people, but I think the conclusion you draw goes too far. There are, most certainly, two people in this conversation. We are unique, most unique in your case, but we are both people."
"No. Two things have to be equivalent in order to group them."
"That's just not true, man. We are all multi-faceted objects with many properties. We belong to many classes. Although the plenitude of what we are is not equivalent, my membership in a class is exactly equivalent to your membership in that same class."
"What?"
"You and I are humans, for example. In addition to being a human, you have other properties, some that I share and some that I don't. My palms don't sweat like a serial killer, for example," I smiled. He got that crazy smile he gets sometimes. I glanced at the door. "When someone is counting humans, they look through a filter that hides all our properties except that we are humans. Through that filter, we are equivalent. We are two humans."
"But you can't ever get to two. You can't even get to one" he said, a new light in his mad eyes.
"What?"
"There are infinite numbers between zero and one. Infinite fractions and parts. Halves of halves of halves. If you proceed through those numbers, you can get very close to one from zero, but you never get there."
"Again, I see what you mean, but you're misapplying the idea." I really think he might be insane.
"Every number takes some finite amount of time to travel through. Because there are an infinite number of numbers, you can never get there. It's a mathematical fact. You can't argue with mathematics."
"You can, actually, mathematics just won't listen. It doesn't understand anything but itself."
"I understand perfectly. You just don't get it. I must not be explaining it well," he looked down at the ground. His eyes were shaking.
"One, two, three, four, five. I can keep going. Six, seven, eight." I tried to exude friendliness and acceptance. I didn't want to spook him.
"You're just ignoring everything in between."
"Exactly. Filters. Abstraction. It's the basis of human thought." He was unimpressed.
He gave up, changing the subject. "I'm thinking about reading Sun Tzu," he said. "Have you read it?"
"I have. Can I make a recommendation?" He didn't reply. He was starting to get up and walk away, his toady following. "Read Dostoyevsky instead. Read Mark Twain."
