My long weekend in Philadelphia and its environs provoked many metaphysical quandaries. It was, after all, a trip down memory lane, a reversal of time’s characteristic unidirectional flow that forced the physical body to exist in a persistent realm that had left the mind’s immediate consciousness. Why do the homes and schools look smaller? Why do the woods, flowers, and rivers look prettier? Why does my Mom look the same that she did on the day of my high school graduation? Is it my perception that has changed, or is it possible that the buildings shrunk, the nature is superior, and my Mom stopped aging 12 years ago?
Even a simple drive through my hometown proved to be intellectually exhausting. For example, if a field of grass is an empty space, and a 800+ unit retirement community called Shannondell is erected on the empty space, does the field of grass still exist? And, of course, there’s the troubling doctrines of modal realism (alternate realities). If all logically possible worlds continue to exist, then somewhere in this little ‘burb of sprawl, there’s a possible Meredith, carting the kids to Wal-Mart, coming home from her shift at the grocery store, or festering on a couch.
On Saturday, I had a feast of faux meats at Singapore Chinese Restaurant in Philadelphia with five lovely ladies, three of whom at least semi-regularly read this site (the other two favor bedtime stories about princesses). They speculated about what I would write on this blog about the lunch. And right now, they are reading this, recalling a memory of the past which was itself a memory of the future. Newton would be abhorred!
Most vexing dilemma: Where does one go to drink beer and shot pool in a town that they left when they were 18?…
