There are two things we have to get straight.

First, are there two things we need to get straight?

And second, what are they?

As regards the first, there certainly do seem to be two things we need to get straight, since we have two questions, and they do not appear to be straight. However, this is a superficial answer, since just because we are presented with the things and they do not appear to be straight does not mean we have to get them straight. Or does it? What would it mean if it were our duty to get these two things straight? What exactly does that say about our relationship to these two things? Do we rely on them or do they rely on us? What would neglecting this duty mean? Of course we should also ask whether we can fulfill this supposed duty. What is the relation of possibility of fulfillment to adopting a duty? Do we only adopt duties we suppose we can fulfill? Or are the highest duties those which cannot reasonably be fulfilled in this life? If we suppose that we can fulfill this duty, establishing the two things and getting them straight, does this mean that we ought to do it? And if we know it to be hopeless to look for the two things, or, perhaps, having found them, impossible to set them straight, should we give up trying? If it is indeed a duty, then a duty to whom? This line of questioning is misleading. The fact presents itself that we have followed the path this far, and it thus appears that the questions demand answers, and that everything be set straight.

Of course to proceed blindly means to neglect addressing any of the questions tied up with the first question, and hence to avoid getting anything ’straight.’ However, the second question leads us deeper into the first one, since it asks what both it and the first question are. And as we saw with the first question, there is a great deal of ambiguity involved in both questions. When the second question asks what it itself is, does it not develop itself in asking this question? It did not have any content until it began to answer. But this content could not have sprung from nothing. Must it not have been somehow contained in the question, ready to emerge? Of course not, because it did not answer itself, I am answering it. I am generating the content of the question. It could reasonably be assumed that most any person could be instructed to write a few pages in response to these two questions and each would write something different. If we are willing to believe the questions can be answered, we must be ready to derive the necessary abstractions from the particular form of the response. Hence, I must strive to remove myself as much as possible from this analysis. In a sense this means I must focus on my own presence in the analysis in order to minimize it. But when I do this a large part of my analysis becomes minimizing my own presence, and hence this approach is retrogressive. When I lose myself in the words, we both benefit. But does that mean we can speak of the ideas guiding themselves? What does it mean when we refer to the flow of an argument, if not the degree to which the arguer is able to remove himself from the argument and make it appear to be self-perpetuating? What is the argument here? We are looking for something by looking around it.

The question is what are the two things we need to get straight? That question is one of those things. How do we get it straight? The more we look at it, the more ideas assault us. Can they be unified in the way the statement commands? Are they leading us to something or away from something? Do all these questions have a point? Are they getting at something? More importantly, do we need to answer them?

Which is of course the first question, our other focal point. Is there always an intended result for doing things? If you do not know the consequences of an action, does that mean you do it without an intended result? Do we ask these questions to get answers or simply to ask questions? Which is more interesting, asking questions or receiving answers? Can a question be an answer to another question? Is every answer a question in disguise? If so, maybe we can never set them straight. Or maybe they’re already set straight, but we’re looking at them crooked. But we’ve already agreed that we define the questions by asking them, hence they can only appear crooked if our methods of questioning are crooked.

Thus, to set the questions straight, we must approach them straightly. Which way is this? It is the way in which the things appear straight, for if they appear straight we must be approaching them straightly. But what does it mean for things to be set straight? It means that they are parallel, or point to the same conclusion. What do these two things point to? The first points to a statement, the second points to the first and to itself. Of course the statement also points to the two things, so the first is pointing to the statement which is pointing to the second pointing to itself pointing to the first pointing to the statement pointing to the first pointing to the statement pointing to the second pointing to the first and so on. How will we straighten out this circle? A circle with an infinite radius is a line? Do you believe such a thing? Does it help us? Perhaps when all the questions have been asked, and they are all pointing to one another, something will become clear. Of course such an end will never come, though perhaps limit theory could get around that.

But since they’re all pointing to each other, they must all be pointing to the same thing. If you had three people standing across from each other each pointing to one of the others, what would all three be pointing at? Each other, of course. Hence, the statement and two things are all pointing to the meta-thing, the situation. They are pointing at this. But what about all the other things that spilled out of the things in response to the statement, are they all pointing to the situation as well? In a sense they were an attempt to clarify the situation, were they not therefore pointing at the confusion about the situation, rather than the situation itself? But what is this confusion? Is it a property of the situation? Or is confusion the situation itself? If the situation is confusion, what exactly is confusion?

Confusion is, if I have it right, a lack of knowledge regarding certain things and what they point to. Hence each thing points to the principle that it is uncertain what it points to. Hence, when a thing is uncertain what it points to, it can only point to uncertainty. But now that we are certain each thing points to uncertainty, we can set the two things straight. It is unclear whether there are only two things or whether they need to be straight. It is uncertain what the two things are. Now you seem to have two things and they are aligned.

Unfortunately they are both lies. But wasn’t uncertainty the only certain path? The other path was circular. Must we follow it a bit longer then? Can we abandon this dilemma and turn to a different one? If we know there is a problem that takes eternity to solve, how can we justify dedicating resources to any other problems? Also, wouldn’t solving it be infinitely gratifying? Is this that problem? Could there be multiple problems that take an eternity to solve, or would they simply be different versions of the one problem? There are multiple paradoxes, but they all seem to involve things pointing to other things.

We rely a lot on things pointing to other things. But are symbols our friends? We have noticed them acting shifty lately, moving around suspiciously to cover up a gap, or maybe to obscure something from view. Not only that, but they’ve gotten very used to telling us what to do, telling us where to look and what we’ll find. We must be wary of them, they are violent in their oppositions. They pretend to point only to each other, but we know there must be something else they’re pointing to. Something independent. The situation. But wasn’t the situation the pointing of the symbols? And if they’re only pointing to their own pointing, we’re going to have a hard time finding what they’re pointing to. But we know it. The situation. What is it again? Let’s look.