Fustian

\FUHS-chuhn\, noun:
1. A kind of coarse twilled cotton or cotton and linen stuff, including corduroy, velveteen, etc.
2. An inflated style of writing or speech; pompous or pretentious language.

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Part II of III

Decades later, as seconds seem infinite in the void, the creature begins to notice time passing, in the form of thoughts that occurred before the present moment, and thoughts (of whatever content) that will likely occur after the present moment. It is here that the creature makes a home run, the clever thing that it is—it deduces from the existence of change within its own mind the concept of time, though here only used as an organizing function to separate the current thoughts from the past thoughts.

Now with some concept of time, as established by the passage of thoughts through its consciousness, the cogito has any number of ways to establish the next conclusion. For the sake of argument, we will narrow it down—it notices the distinctness of “then” and “now” as different entities. It seeks to streamline its mind when thinking of thoughts that occurred in both arenas, and therefore constructs a referent for when a thought has occurred in both categories. It calls this the number 2—entailing that this particular thought was found in both the 1. past and the 2. present. It has an epiphany, and realizes this referent can be used elsewhere…in many places…everywhere!

Soon enough the cogito is doing small calculations and deducing mathematical formulas. Its self-esteem is rising like a hot air balloon—I must be the smartest cogito in the universe, it thinks. But wait, it wonders…I am me. Could there be more of me? Even less certain, could there be more like me?

The cogito rests on this notion for millennia, and makes no headway. Back to eternal truths, it thinks, I will find no proof or even evidence to support my extra-me cogitos. It gets lonely. It wishes it had someone to talk to.

One night (here defined as when the cogito sleeps—body or not, it needs rest), it has a very odd dream, where it is being spoken to in a very wise thought that informs it of supernatural existence, that it is not alone. It awakens and quickly realizes it was a dream, having had them (but dissimilar ones) before. However, the ideas has infiltrated—who and what was this thought, and how could it have come from nowhere?

It tries to deduce the existence of a cogito far smarter than it, with knowledge it has absolutely no access to, and yet will speak to it and solve the greatest of mysteries. Comforting, this notion is. Yet try as it might, it can produce no evidence for believing the contents of its dream entail existence—surely, this dream cogito’s manner was odd and seemingly foreign, but on rumination the floating cogito realizes this portrait is what its imagination has been conjuring for weeks as a cure for loneliness, and many of the things it said reflected its own insecurities. This is a rather elaborate example, but the bottom line is that the cogito, the diligent creature it is, must reject the superior cogito on the grounds that imagination does not suffice.

Yet if it loses imagination as evidence, it thinks, it will have lost any further stepping stones to knowledge. If it has been taught one thing, hanging in the metaphorical darkness, it is that infallible knowledge is hard to come by, and imagination, paired with logic, is the culmination and extent of its capabilities. Simple cases like the existing self, time and math (the latter two conjoined) are provable by thought alone—but beyond that, imagination is only a safari through a pitch black wilderness at night, revealing nothing, hope it might. Depressed, our cogito friend floats on, wishing for a friend, and knowing it will never know one.