How to square the fundamental and necessary unity of nature against the asymptotic chasm, that insuperable gulf that lies between one mind and the next? Not even the distances between galaxies, those inconceivably vast reaches of space stretching out of the very depths of time, approach the infinite remoteness of what can never be felt by anyone or anything beyond the perceiver who experiences just those things, and in just that particular way.
"Even in the sphere of sensation individuals are probably different enough. Comparative study of the simplest conceptual elements show a wider divergence still. And when it comes to general theories and emotional attitudes towards life, it is indeed time to say with Thackeray, 'My friend, two different universes walk about under your hat and under mine.'"
- William James, "The Function of Cognition", first published in Mind, vol. X (1885)
Yet the possibility of solipsism, so flattering to the intellect, contradicts itself from the outset: Both you and I cannot simultaneously claim the other does not exist and hold out much hope that either of us is correct.
All the more perplexing the ineffable remoteness of one moment to the next within the same span of life, despite the contiguous nature of their presentation. The present ever commencing its stately departure leaves behind a swirling wake in the backwaters of memory, forever erasing the composure of the scene once beheld. The child of my past is but a stranger to me now, and my future self not yet a dim outline of shadow. Yet they were, and they will be... but where are they, precisely, now?
Each moment within each mind an island of time emerging from a sea of dynamic possibility, strung together like glass beads on an invisible warp. Can a moment be made any less real by its passing, once having been made at all?
Not even in dreams is there escape from the reflected glare of Indra's glistening net.
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