-Everything you know is wrong.
-Why does it have to be like this?
-Because this is the way that it is.
-But I know so very much!
-Forget it all. You know nothing. The sum
total value of every piece of information you have ever accumulated up
to this point is zero.
-Then it's all been a waste? A ludicrous waste!
-I didn't say that.
-You imply it! You imply that all of my learning
has been nothing more than an absurd waste of time.
-Has it been useless to you in the past?
-No.
-Then how can I devalue that to you? It was not
a waste. But it is now useless.
-Pardon me if I'm having some trouble assimilating the
difference.
-Everything has changed for you. You can not expect
the constant comfortable well known frames of reference upon which your
very knowledge is based. It is not that everything that you know
is wrong. It is that everything you know is wrong. It is that
the very way in which you have garnered and stored information is heretofore
useless.
-So it's not just a question of tense?
-Yes and no. It is just a question of tense, but
your current understanding of tense is inadequate. The
eyes with which you gathered the light no longer function forever.
The ears that heard the magic of music are now quieted for eternity.
The nose that taught you the difference between a rose and a pile of dung,
the tongue that taught and learned through the raw power of language in
addition to glorious functions like the nose, the flesh that knew a whip
from a kiss, none of them can ever do so again And the very matter
of your brain and body which stored the entire matrix of memory and sense
is now defuct. So understand that until you wrap your new consciousness
around your position you do not have a complete sense of tense.
-You are insufferable!
-And I'm not even sorry; not capable of it. But
you'd better apprehend the fact that your state is now and forever insufferable.
-So I really am dead?
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