Not so close, eh?

I have this thing about spaces between stuff for some reason -maybe it’s because my only sibling was ten years older than me, and I hated sharing a bed with him when I was young; he rolled around a lot at night. One of my first comments on personal space in writing, though, was an essay in 2021[i]. Then, I discovered the magical space between things: the Japanese concept of ma which resulted another essay on the topic in 2022[ii] And I’m still going… fascination knows no boundaries, and like Michel de Montaigne the presumed inventor of essays, any subject in them is ripe for repetition, and permits a shift from a previously held position if the mood strikes.

I think Montaigne was on to something, although I sometimes think that he was able to repeat a previous theme with a different conclusion because he had forgotten he’d written about it… or simply decided to change his mind. I’m good with that; opinions change with time and further reflection.

But what if Time is the only variant? In other words do spaces like doughnut holes or the holes between the wires in window screens persist and, barring accidents or meddling, remain the same from day to day: endurantism? Or, because things have happened in their spaces, are they different as time moves on: perdurantism?

Take a doughnut hole for example. What if a crumb is broken off the hole? Is it still the same doughnut, or because its hole has changed, a different doughnut? A silly question perhaps, but I sometimes wonder about the identity of spaces like holes if they change their shapes. And yes, I’ve written about them as well[iii] and also (sigh) a couple of years before that[iv].

My problem with these strange fascinations is finding somebody who wants to listen to them; explore them; dissect them so that I, and anybody else still awake at the table, can benefit from a slightly different way of experiencing the world.

Every so often though, filled with a bagel and nursing a now cooling coffee, I invite the guys I meet for coffee on Wednesdays to venture outside their lairs; and like Plato’s allegory of the escaped prisoner from a cave where he and his friends have been imprisoned so that they can only see shadows, help my friends see things differently; see them as they actually appear in the sunlight. Most of them could care less, malheureusement, but I enjoy challenges.

It was a full table one Wednesday morning in the mall’s Food Court where we meet. We’re all friends –old friends, to be sure, but each of us as nailed to our opinions as to our unfashionable apparel.

“It’s what Age is for?” Jeremy, a retired high school teacher was fond of defending his odd taste in clothes: “The golden age is before us, not behind us…” He said it again when he saw me looking at his baggy old-man pants.

Lewis, a retired judge merely rolled his eyes. “I suppose you’re going to claim that quote is from Shakespeare again, eh, Jer?” He smiled and had another sip of his coffee. “It’s origin is doubtful…” He glanced at me and smiled when I sat down with them, then at Jeremy again. “How about the passage from his Much Ado About Nothing: ‘When the Age is in, the wit is out?”

Jeremy chuckled at that. “Okay, how about ‘Thou hast nor youth nor age but as it were an after dinner sleep dreaming of both…?’ That’s from Measure for Measure.”

I shook my head slowly; the two of them were always arguing about something.

“What…?” Jeremy pretended to be puzzled at me shaking my head. “At least it’s about Shakespeare, eh? Not about the names for empty spaces like you tried on us last week…”

It was my turn to roll my eyes. “I’m a perdurantist, eh?”

Even Lewis looked surprised at hearing the word. “And what is that,” he said, his brow furrowing at a word he’d never heard before.

I smiled; I finally had their attention -well, at least that of Lewis and Jeremy; everybody else at the table was busy talking and laughing at their own conversations, totally oblivious to what we were saying; they were used to our pretend-pedanticism, and usually ignored it.

“Well, material things move through space, usually unchanged unless they encounter an obstacle, but what about moving through Time…?” I gave the two of them a few seconds to think about it.

“What’s your point, G? Does Time change them?”

“I… I think it may!” Lewis didn’t want to be left out.

“So, are there temporal parts as well as spatial parts, to any object?” I thought I’d tease them for a moment.

“You mean do things change shape with time? Is a golf ball different from one day to the next; is the mouth of a jar?” Jeremy seemed adamant.

“It’s not just about a changing shape, Jer. Am I still the same me as yesterday? Because if I’m not, then how can I keep track of my identity if the world around me keeps changing as Time rolls on?” I glanced at Lewis and smiled.

Lewis was shaking his head slowly. “You still haven’t explained perdurantism, G; what is it, and what does it have to do with my temporal persistence as a different me?”

I was hoping he’d ask -I’d memorized a passage from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for just such a question. “Well, Perdurantists believe that ordinary things like animals, boats and planets have both spatial and temporal parts (things persist by ‘perduring’), whereas endurantists believe that ordinary things do not have temporal parts; instead, things are wholly present whenever they exist (things persist by ‘enduring’).

“I mean,” I continued, still looking at Lewis, “you who now know about perdurantism are surely not really the same person as yesterday when you didn’t.” It made sense to me when I read it anyway. “And if you agree with me, you are a perdurantist.

“Well, I don’t, and I’m not!” Jeremy persisted stubbornly.

“Don’t you change as you age? You perhaps endure, but with changes…”

Jeremy just blinked, and glanced at Lewis.

“Then you, my friend, are an endurantist.” I smiled conspiratorially at Lewis who hadn’t immediately argued with me. “There’s no shame in that Jer. It is merely one philosophical position amongst many…”

“Then why on earth does it matter?” Jeremy continued, still vehement in his determination not to agree with me.

I shrugged. “I suppose it’s just a matter of world view, eh? Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous words, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them’…”

Both of them rolled their eyes as if they had been training for the effort. “Lord, can we not keep misquoting Shakespeare?” Jeremy finally ventured to whisper in the silence that followed my words.

“I think it was rather clever, Jer,” Lewis said as he searched for crumbs on his paper plate. “And anyway, I think we’re both going to realize we’re perdurants by tomorrow…”

I had to smile at his defense and Jeremy’s excitement; both of them had engaged with my point. And I had barely even mentioned empty spaces…

[i] https://musingsonretirementblog.com/2021/06/06/where-do-i-stop/

[ii] https://musingsonwomenshealth.com/2022/01/19/a-sorry-sight/

[iii] https://musingsonwomenshealth.com/2024/04/17/who-has-heard-the-seasons-pass/

[iv] https://musingsonretirementblog.com/2019/03/03/holier-than-them/