dietotzeit

Okay, there's this fictional philosopher named de Selby, and he proposes that the earth, rather than being (as we mistakenly believe it to be) spherical, is in fact sausage shaped.

Now, I know what you're thinking: It's nice to have proof that even intellectuals can be nincompoops. But withhold your judgment until you've heard his theory. I think it's a doozy.

First off, it is essential you bear in mind that de Selby has already demonstrated that concepts such as distance and time are illusions. They are the effects of our limited senses as we try to interpret our dealings with phenomena. If we had the appropriate sensory tools to work with we would see the "truth." In order to understand his "theory" you have to accept that part of his argument.

Standing at a point on the postulated spherical earth, one appears to have four main directions in which to move, viz., north, south, east, and west. But when you think about it, there appear to be only two directions, since north and south are meaningless terms in relation to a sphere, and indicate motion in only one direction; east and west do the same. One can reach any point on the north-south, east-west band by travelling in either "direction." We are confused by our intrinsic and unobserved beliefs in time and distance, both of which de Selby has proven to be fallacious. Therefore, north-south appears to be one direction, east-west another. Thus, instead of four directions there are two. De Selby, our fictional philosopher, infers there is a similar fallacy inherent here, and that there is in fact only one possible direction properly so-called, because if one leaves any point on the globe, continually moving in any "direction," one ultimately reaches the point of departure again.

As the story goes, this conclusion is rather illuminating of his theory that the earth is a sausage. We believe that the earth is spherical because our innate assumptions about distance and time convince us that we are free to move in any "direction," itself a concept that arises from phenomena only understood through the two prior concepts. De Selby asserts that if multi-directionality can be proven to be false, then sphericity is another fallacy that would follow it.

"De Selby likens the position of a human on the earth to that of a man on a tight-wire who must continue walking along the wire or perish, being, however, free in all other respects. Movement in this restricted orbit results in the permanent hallucination known as life." He further argues that if a way were to be found for us to allow our senses to perceive the "second direction . . . new and unimaginable dimensions will supersede the present order and the manifold unnecessaries of one-directional existence will disappear."

This is excerpted from perhaps the greatest book ever written, The Third Policeman, and the argument goes on a great deal longer than this brief explication. Both ludicrous and astounding, I think it is a wonderful commentary on the preposterousness of the human mind.