Point Time

By Shozo Ohmori
and Yoichiro Murakami

Translated by Takenori Noumi
and Antony Cundy


About Pointillism
Murakami: I believe that Newtonian mechanics is based functionally on material point and point time. You, professor Ohmori, use the word 'pointillism'. I don't know if your 'pointillism' means what I understand by Newtonian mechanics. Please explain what you mean by 'pointillism'.
Ohmori: I borrowed the word from the school of impressionism artists. I'll explain it very roughly. Natural science requires minute description of the world. It is the essential character of natural science. Descriptions of the world should concern three-dimensional space description and time description. And it must develop to a more and more detailed description. Detail must come inevitably to a finite point. Where is it? Concerning space it is 'point position' and concerning time it is 'point time'. This is what I mean by 'pointillism'.
Don't think that I believe totally in this description. On the contrary, I have doubts about this 'pointillism', of modern natural science. Although as yet my doubt hasn't been put into clear words, I'll be happy if I can form, with your help, more or less a shape of it.
Murakami: You said that it must develop to a more and more detailed description. Then will this 'pointillism' arrive in the end at a pure point?
Ohmori: I believe at least natural scientists think so. And ordinary people also have this way of looking at time and space. We have been accustomed to it since childhood. For example, take sports photos. A batter hit a homerun yesterday. We see a photo of him just connecting a ball. Looking at the photo, don't we and also children believe that at the moment the batter made the form, just as the photo shows, the ball met the bat, just as the photo shows? That is, don't we believe that if any change happens in a thing within some time duration, there are some time points in that time duration, and that at each time point there is some static state of the thing in question? And don't we think that succession of states at each point makes movement?
Murakami: But don't we believe also that there must exist some duration of time, however short it may be, within which a photo is taken? That is, don't we believe that if there is no duration, photos cannot be taken?

The Paradox of Zenon
Ohmori: Yes, we do. But don't we also believe that if a photo was taken in one hundredth of a second, it would become a movement by a succession of photos taken in one thousandth of a second, or by a succession of photos taken in ten thousandth of a second?
This is just as Zenon's 'Paradox of the arrow' asserted. Let's bring Zenon here and show him the sports photos from today's newspaper. What will he say? His assertion was that if we look at a flying arrow at each moment, it doesn't move, it stays at the same position. So a flying arrow stays in the same position at any given moment. So the flying arrow doesn't move. Then he will say looking at the picture of a batter, 'Look, it stops. So it is not a picture of a moving batter!' Therefore, according to Zenon the batter in the picture didn't swing the bat, and didn't hit a home-run. Movement itself such as swinging a bat or a flying ball is impossible.
Murakami: Does he assert that we can distinguish the state of a flying arrow in one moment from the state of a static arrow at one moment? If we formulate that we cannot distinguish one from the other and that one is one state of a flying arrow and that the other is that of a static one, can Zenon say that both are static states of an arrow? If he takes this view, can Zenon's paradox be a paradox? My answer to this is 'No, it is not a paradox any more'. (Translator's note: I changed a litte here. I don't know if it was successful or not.)
Ohmori: You take his assertion favourably, Mr Murakami, and mildly. Your taking it so is possible, I agree, but I take it more rigorously. Don't we need an elemental premise if he asserts that at one moment an arrow moves or stays? Don't we need a premise that an arrow exists at one moment? But isn't this the most delicate point? Zenon understands that an arrow exists at one moment in order to formulate his paradox. But in my opinion, it is the most dangerous, most delicate part of the whole thing.
Murakami: I myself think so too. Excuse me for diverging, but didn't Descartes overlook the same delicate point, when he stripped various characters that were believed to belong to material realm from it? He left material only one character, 'extentio'. Here he had to add, I believe, some time duration for material to have extentio. I am not so sure about his overlooking this point, not having read all of his works, but from what I have heard about him, ...
Ohmori: I agree with you. Spacial extentio that has time duration. So it is extentio in the meaning of space and time.
Murakami: Yes.
Ohmori: So it is not momental extentio. I don't think momental extentio has any meaning at all.
Murakami: Nor me. What you mean by 'moment' is 'at a point time', isn't it?
Ohmori: Yes, and without duration. I believe that existence without any duration of time is a contradiction.
Murakami: Then let's deny here existence without duration. So, in the case of Zenon's paradox also, we need some duration of time concerning the flying or the static arrow.
Ohomori: At least an arrow with some duration. And then we must ask if it is staying or flying.
Murakami: Yes. Then, does Zenon's paradox concern not only problem of time but also problem of existence?
Ohmori: It depends. If we take it mildly or favourably as you did, it only concerns time, and maybe only a simple paradox of formal logic. But if we take it ill-mindedly, the problem of existence inevitably surfaces.
Murakami: Then time and existence.
Ohomori: Yes, both. But then again, it becomes a troublesome point. Let's deny as we did a momental existence. Then a momental arrow has no meaning. So we cannot discuss whether it moves or not. We conclude that all the statements of Zenon's paradox are nonsense. We seem to thus have tamed Zenon's paradox. But then how about our modern natural science? It is based on a momental world state. That is, we fix each of our world's momental state and we change momental time continuously. This is our so-called natural scientific way of looking at the world. And we have just refuted this way denying Zenon's paradox. I have yet to find answers to this problem.
Murakami: Didn't you write in your 'New "New Theory of Vision"' that point time and point in space are conceivable? Because, you wrote, if we say a point in time or a point in space is dim and blurred, we must already know the denial of it. That is, we must already know not dim, that is, we must know not blurred points. If we apply this to photographs, won't you say that photos in focus, or photos not blurred do exist? Doesn't this mean point time? A shutter opens and closes in point time? Therefore we can at least conceive points in space. Isn't this what you asserted in your 'New "New Theory of Vision"'?
Ohmori: Yes, it is what I wrote. But my intention there was to make it clear if geometry is a-priori or empirical. I discussed it using lines, not points. Many of us think that lines without width that geometry defines don't exist. I refuted this thought. I still believe now my conclusion is true. We were made to think about lines without width in middle school and we thought about them. At least they are 'conceivable'.
Murakami: Conceivable but not real, even if I do say it crudely.

What is 'World state at a point time'?
Ohmori: 'Does point time exist or not?' is not the subject that we have been discussing. The subject we have been discussing is 'Is world state at a point time coceivable or not?'
Murakami: Ah, yes. World state at a point time.
Ohmori: I began to doubt it. I began to doubt for example the state of a batter in a point time or the state of an arrow in a point time. The easiest example to understand is pain. I didn't feel pain, then I felt very sharp pain for a moment, and then recovered and didn't feel pain at all. I can't imagine such a pain. Even if it actually happened, I wouldn't feel it. My next example is wall. A white wall changes to red in a moment and returns to white. If the appearance of the wall in its red state lasts just a moment, we won't be able to see it. And the third example is existence. In an empty room a chair aburuptly appears and then in a moment it disappears. It will not be an existence, will it?
Murakami: Abruptly something appears and after a moment it disappears. Abruptly pain comes and after a moment it goes. These are never conceivable. In order to feel pain we need some duration of time. Any physical process also need some duration of time. In other words, some width of time. But having always some width doesn't mean that it refutes the concept of point. This is what you always assert. Because any width has two extreme points. And these points have no width.
Ohmori: Yes. At first two extreme points. But within the width also ...
Murakami: Yes, points exist if we cut there. I mentioned two extremes, because they are easiest to understand. Now, even if we admit points with no width, we don't mean to deny some width ... width of yohkan (Japanese sweet bean jelly). On the contrary, we first admit yohkan itself and then we can think of its two extremes. Therefore yohkan with width must come first and then come its extreme points. So points without width are derived or are secondary things, aren't they?
Ohmori: I myself thought so. But now I don't think it's very persuasive.
Murakami: Oh, not persuasive? May I ask why?
Ohmori: We have here two ways of looking at things. One is to see the whole of yohkan, that is, to see the whole of a batter's hit. This is our usual, everyday way of taking things in. Let's call this a 'whole way of looking at things'. We call the whole changing process 'a batter hits a ball'. Parallel to this, there is another commonsensical way of thinking: 'various things and matters exist in a point time'. Let's call this a 'point time way of looking at things'. We use in our everyday life these two ways of looking. And in natural science point time looking is prevailing.
Now, your remedy was: 'whole way of looking comes originally and point time looking way comes derivatively after that'. But is 'the point time way of looking' only a derivative? Doesn't it play a more important role in modern natural science? Because modern natural science is written in this way.
Murakami: But can't we regard it as an operation? An operation to transfer from whole way of looking at things to point time way of looking at things? The derivation in mathematics is this operation.
Ohmori: Yes. I think it's a good idea. It may be possible. But my impression is that derivation is constructed within the point time way of looking at things.
Murakami: Is it?
Ohmori: How about this interpretation? The above two ways of looing at things are both possible. Then we describe the world using these two ways of looking. We use a double looking way. This is what we call avarice in strategy. Then the problem is how do we double these two. We say 'the hitting of a batter'. And it means the whole movement of a batter in Korakuen Baseball Park. Not only this example, almost all expressions of everyday language are whole ways of looking at things. And at the same time, we can sketch a scene using a continuous parameter 't' as natural scientists do. But this sketch may be a projection onto a plane called natural science. In other words, it is a shadow. We may call it 'a scientific shadow'.
Murakami: Which is the shadow, the whole way of looking or the point time way of looking?
Ohmori: The point time way. A sketch of the shadow must inevitably give some information on the whole way of looking. In this way, I believe, these two ways of looking are linked. But this linkage is not convincing enough for me, either. It seems to me only a forced excuse.
Murakami: Is there anything positively annoying in the idea of linkage?
Ohmori: There are two things. One is what I have just stated. There is no world or no part of a world in a point time. This is the first difficulty. The second difficulty is this. We admit world state at each point time, for example, S1 at t1, S2 at t2, and understand that state S1 at t1 becomes state S2 at t2, or generally state Sn at tn. Here, the intermediate (from Si to Si+1 ) is a total jump, by this thought. Therefore the nature jumps. The nature is always jumping. A good example of it is a quantum jump: the state of an electron jumps to another in quantum mechanics. This leads a batter hitting a ball to be jumps or a flying arrow to be jumps. And so my living in this world should also be jumps. I cannot but think so. Therefore, according to this point time way of looking, all the changes or movements are broken up into each piece of picture in the film or the revolving lantern. It is to think movements as a combination of jumps from one stationary state to another stationary state. I feel very ill at ease about this thought. Is it OK? ... that is, is it possible?
Murakami: May I venture to resist? Isn't 'Point time way of looking' only a shadow? ... that is, only a thing that is thought? Then the movement is not a jump, isn't it? We already know that an arrow flew or that a certain astronomical body moved from a point A to point B, drawing a certain locus. Isn't it to analyze this movement, that we need the 'point time way of looking', and that we need point time state S1 at t1 and S2 at t2, and to describe between these two states as a jump? To repeat, there is, at first, a process with dense width, not a jump. Don't we only describe it using two end points?

Points and Process
Ohmori: Your interpretation is very considerate toward natural science. What I insisted is rather a forced one. With your interpretation I am relieved a little. What you said is that the point time way of looking is a locus, which I agree with. A locus or a shadow of the process. This is just the thing that Bergson pointed out. What this locus or shadow expresses is movement that has already finished. Never the movement that is now in action. In other words, the ashes of a dead body that has been cremated.
Murakami: Yes, the ashes of the movement that has already finished. So we can conceive even the movement that is not smooth, not differentiable, as in the case of Tom's Catastrophy. (Translator's note: I changed here a little from original. I don't know if this is my misunderstanding.)
Ohmori: It is our strong intellectual instinct to regard movements as jumps from one stationary state to the next static state. If two legs are necessary for us to stand intellectually upright, this point time way is an important one leg as it were.
Murakami: An important leg, I understand that. But do ordinary physicists believe that a movement begins at a state S1 at point t1? Do they really believe that it doesn't start from a process, from a finished movement?
Ohmori: They are doing it instinctively, I believe. Physicists or engineers believe instinctively that any process has continuous intermediate points within it. It is their instictive belief, I think.
Murakami: But doesn't process come first?
Ohmori: Yes, it should come first.
Murakami: Laplace's demon states that given one point time and n point masses, their positions and momentums at that point time, then if n differential equations are solved, usuallyall the state of the n masses before and after that point time can be known. We feel, hearing this, that we can reconstruct the world by this method. But what Laplace really wanted to say is that he can do it because he knew beforehand the process before that point time and after that. So he wanted to say that process comes first ...
Ohmori: I agree with you. A movement is a rally. Because there is a rally, there are check points. If there are check points, we can guess the rally's change of patterns.
Murakami: If it is so, isn't point time only an example of idealization? Physicists usually assume that there will be no friction, or there will be no resistance of air...
Ohmori: Zero friction or pressure constant are, so to speak, local conditions. Point time is far more essential, I feel.
Murakami: How so, may I ask?
Ohmori: 'Kant said', is the line prepared for that question, 'that time and space are the fundamental frames to describe the world.' Especially time. As long as we live in this ephemeral world.
Murakami: Can't we contradict Kant saying that even time and space were born by processes? Processes, or the whole way of looking is the basis of our recognition. Can't we say that time and space are an idealization of processes?
Ohmori: Yes, we can. But in order to construct a world starting with processes, we have to create sufficient vocabulary. I feel it's very difficult to make it sufficient. We must prepare a clear and vivid language or vocabulary. Especially when we have already a rich world starting with point time and point space.
Murakami: Isn't the 'world line' in the theory of relativity a vocabulary starting with processes? Can't we interprete it so?
Ohmori: Admitting that it is, can we develop it fully? Can we develop it up to the point where the point time way of looking is derived from it? Will it be possible?
Murakami: Well, I don't know. I change my way of saying. Wasn't the phrase 'world line' invented by physicists whose intention was to try to describe the world using the whole way of looking?
Ohmori: Maybe. Physicists may want to describe the total movement. Possibly yes. But, according to my interpretation, it is a definition based on the point time way of looking.

Can We Reconstruct Melody with Notes?
Ohmori: There is another thing: music. People who are infringed upon by this point time looking are not restricted to physicists. How do you, Mr Murakami, a good musician, take it? Music is written time divided up. So if a whole melody is written using sixteenth notes only and is continuously played, don't we hear it as a melody? And if we hear it as such, can't we interprete melody as the ensemble of these notes that are played? Isn't this a usual interpretation? What is the intuition of musicians about this?
Murakami: I don't think they take it so. Of course there may be objections ...
Ohmori: Hmmm... They don't take it so ... Then, how do they think ... or musicians may not think, ... so, how do they feel?
Murakami: They feel that notes are a very clumsy method to describe melody or that it must be a special case. Oh yes ... yes, there are some who depend on notes. But only modern classical musicians. Folk musicians, even though they are Europeans, usually can't read sheet music. They can't reproduce melody from sheet music. But they can of course play music. So judging from their attitude, modern classical musicians must retain the same sense. Or reversely, if they don't retain the sense, they can't be called musicians. If you ask me if there is so called 'pointilistically' described music? I'll say yes. In modern musics, some composers state that such and such note should last for such and such minutes after such and such seconds from the beginning of the music. Or they state that this note should last as short as possible. I don't know what the effect is of such statements. Anyway, by these examples, what you said about, 'that the point time way of looking fringes upon music,' may be true. Musicians may be affected by physics.
Ohmori: If we come back to our physics here, physics is sheet music. What sheet music is to the melody is what physics are to the real world.
Murakami: Yes, indeed.
Ohmori: And what you complained about regarding modern physicists is what folk musicians complained about regarding modern classical musicians.
Murakami: Yes, it is. It is true that physicists rely on the information of S1 at t1. Returning to our usual life, is our usual commonsense influenced so much by point time?

Point Time and Commonsense
Ohmori: It's a good question ... and I don't think so. There is, however, a problem. Very simple, but it always remains with us. It is that I live now, at this moment. This moment, that I live, becomes gradually a point. For example, I am talking now. I pronounce 'ta'. Then there is a beginning 't' and an end 'a'. I breathe. There is the beginning of breathing and the end. I can cut the state of my living from each side, and it becomes shorter and shorter. In the end I must live in the present moment. 'Do I live in a moment?' It was our first problem here and the answer was 'no'. Momental existence was nonsense. So momental life is of course nonsense. It is just the thing Bergson opposed. We live in duration. We don't live in a point time. So we come back to our first proposition. The fact that I live can't be expressed by the point time way of looking.
Murakami: No, it can't.
Ohmori: A melody that I heard at this moment can't be expressed by notes. It can't be reproduced. Isn't it the same? (Translator's note: The intention of this is not clear to me.)
Murakami: It may be the same. The sound you heard can't be reproduced. But we can record it as waves on an oscillograph. So we can say that at the moment, the situation is such and such.
Ohmori: Yes. Generally speaking, the point time way of looking has its own abundant information. Therefore Bergson exagerates when he asserts that it is too abstract or that it space-ifies time and that we must completely refute it. It is, I believe, a mistake. We express time as a line. So time should have such a character. The character of a point and the character of order: past, present and future. These two characters conform very well to a line. This is the reason we describe it as a line. To neglect all these and to try to express time by durations only will soon turn out to be a failure. So, as I said at first, we must sing point time as a melody. We need some vocabulary to sing them, which we can't find.
Murakami: Do you say that time has the characteristic of being able to be point cut?
Ohmori: Yes. Time has some structure that can be point cut. Time is of course duration. And because of its being a duration, we can point cut it. So Bergson goes too far when he asserts that the point cut way of looking is too abstract to be used in our usual life. He exagerates when he grumbles that vivid duration, a squid that is alive and life itself, was transformed to something space-ified, to a dried squid that has no life. Anyway, the original squid was a fish that could be made into dried squid. (Translator's note: dried squid or 'surume' is a usual relish for wine in Japan.)
Murakami: Maybe. But by what method was it cooked? Didn't we use a tool borrowed from space? Not from time itself?
Ohmori: So it was a squid that could be made into a dried squid by some tool borrowed from space.

Past, Present and Future Are Definitely Different
Murakami: Yes, it is true. Here may I change the subject a little? There are some trials to destroy the three phases of time: past, present and future. For example, creating an artificial language deprived of our usual tenses. If we are accustomed to use this language, do the above three phases remain? In space, we don't have such distinctions.
Ohmori: In space, we have right and left, upper and lower part.
Murakami: They are not real distinctions. They can be easily reversed. But in case of time, it seems to be impossible. What is your opinion about this?
Ohmori: 'It is unconceivable' is my honest answer. It means that something appears to me, and at once I can judge whether it is past, present or future. The judgment is done without reasoning.
Murakami: This may be finding fault with you, but will it not come across with your monism, which refutes the distinction of objective and subjective?
Ohmori: Oh yes, it does. The crossing point is this: don't we need some image when we recall the past or when we guess the future, because at present there is no such past or future. And this image must be a substitute of the original ... (Translator's note: cf 'Flowing and Stagnating')
Murakami: We say so usually ...
Ohmori: The crossing point that you mentioned is this. This substitute or a slide film frame of past or future that doesn't exist at present is, I assert, a mistake.
Murakami: Yes, 'image' may be a mistake. But anyway, what appears to me is decidedly classified into past, present or future. There is no ambiguity. For example, let an image of 'I' of ten years ago and 'I' of ten years hereafter and 'I' of now appear to me. Are they definitely different?
Ohmori: Supposing that they are 'images', ...
Murakami: No. Let them not be 'images'.
Ohmori: Genuine 'you'? Of the past, present, and future?
Murakami: Yes. Why are they different?
Ohmori: It is the same question as: why red and green are different? I can only say, 'Look at them'.
Murakami: So may I understand that your opinion is that from this fact comes the distinction of past, present and future? Does distinction of time come from this fact?
Ohmori: Human beings wanted to distinguish them, calling them past, present, and future.
Murakami: Human beings wanted to ... ?
Ohmori: Yes. The most immediate things.
Murakami: They can't be reduced to anything simpler?
Ohmori: No, they can't.
Murakami: Then am I picking holes in your words if I assert again that time comes after those? Those come first and we can throw away Kant's expresssion. Can't we?
Ohmori: If you throw away something, we always need another something instead. Can you submit their substitutes?
Murakami: How about red and green that you have just mentioned? You said that these are the most immediate. So we don't have to reduce them to anything, do we?
Ohmori: You have to replace all the words that express concept of time by red and green. Will red and green be such a rich vocabulary? I think it is very difficult.
Murakami: The world of colours begin with red and green, so we should be able to express all the time concept by red and green.
Ohmori: Past has its structure. It stands in line chronologically. Given any two hours, there should be always time between the two. Your red and green must also express the structure. It is more complicated than colours, isn't it? Can it be expressed by colours?
Murakami: In a box of pastels, there are many colours between red and green. Given any one pastel between the two, we can judge how near it is to red or how far from green ...
Ohmori: It is not a new language for time. No. Not new. It is retelling of our banal time language using another word red and green. I appologize to you, but I want to call it a 'haphazard expression'.
Murakami: Yes, it may well be. But can't we by it escape from the bad habit always to extract pure time, or time itself? Don't we understand that we have to discuss time as a problem of time itself?
Ohmori: I think we are already out of that fashion today. I don't find now papers that discuss time as abstract time. Time is a matter all included in our experience. We can't extract abstract 'time itself' that can be described by a noun.
Murakami: Then do you think that point time from which we start our discussion and which seems to me very fictitious is not already influential?

Time Surfaces However Hard We Press Its Head
Ohmori: Oh yes, it is still influential. Doesn't it pop its head up however hard we press it? For example, if I say such and such o'clock in the morning and such and such o'clock in the afternoon, then the question 'What did you do during that time?' very easily sufaces.
Murakami: But o'clock is only a socially defined thing, and ...
Ohmori: Yes, it is a socially defined mark. But marks are not necessary here. Given a process, we quite naturally think about the intermediate. Between breakfast and lunch I went out. I put on shoes. Putting shoes on took me time. While I was putting shoes on, I saw flowers in the vase. When I finished putting them on, a dog barked. This way. That is,something C inevitably exists between given two times A and B. The axiom in Euclidian Geometry concerning points and a line states that at least one point exists between the two ends of a line. Analogically to this, we have in time also ...
Murakami: But if we admit one point, ...
Ohmori: Yes. It becomes infinite.
Murakami: Points become infinite. It's OK. But by your example the intermediate things are not points. They are again processes, even if it may be smaller ones. Correct?
Ohmori: It is one manner of expression. Will it succeed? I must see what you will make with it. Your trial will be very helpful to me. I am looking forward to your papers. You will assert that a point is a cut end of a line, and so that a point may exist, but a line comes first. Or, in other words, your geometry should be constructed with the fundamental concept: lines.
Murakami: Then you will say that a line should be made by a plane, which is in its turn made by a solid, won't you? And I must construct a point from a solid, mustn't I?
Ohmori: When you do that, the saying, 'a line is an ensemble of points' may swing in the way. (Translator's note: I don't understand in what way it swings or hinges.)
Murakami: Then is the ordinary construction of Euclid, the reverse of what we have just talked about really successful? That is, the way to construct a line from points, a plane from lines?
Ohmori: There is no construction of a line from points. Points, lines, and planes are fundamental concepts of Euclidian geometry. They appear on stage at a time.
Murakami: Yes.
Ohmori: Construction of a line from points may exist or should already exist, I believe, although it will need some mathematical preparation.
Murakami: Yes, it will. And again does Zenon surface here?
Ohmori: I don't think so. For modern mathematicians, it will not be so difficult.
Murakami: It has been discussed since ancient times, how we could construct with points that have no length a line that has some length.
Ohmori: It is the question mathematics' history can not yet answer. With it all the old questions from ancient Greece will emerge to the surface. After considering all these, if you construct a point from lines, I am very grateful. After all, we two must always underline the doubt toward a point time. This is all we can do at the moment.
Murakami: I may be a little more optimistic than you. I believe we are not so much relying on the construction of a line by points. Even physics that seems to be most drastic regarding this rally idea really behaves just the opposite. This is what I wanted to assert today. But to repeat this doesn't help anything. We must build an architecture that is as valid as the one we have already.
Ohmori: Yes. With it, new language and rhetoric, or a new logic. We undoubtedly have it already ... in our everyday life. Only it is not clear.
Murakami: That is also my impression.
Ohmori: We should make it explicit. To make it explicit is the difficulty.

Beginning, End and the in Between
Murakami: I once investigated the meaning of 'moment'. In English, for example, 'at the moment' should be a point time, which, in the original, denoted some width. Etimologically, it is the same as 'movement'. So moment is a concept of width, because without width there is no movement. And in Japanese, we say 'Shunkan'. 'Shun' is a blink. 'Kan' is 'width between'. It has some width. So the vocabulary we usually use always have some width. There is no word for point time.
Ohmori: I feel there a danger, too. The beginning of a blink and the end of it. Width is a width between them, isn't it? Given any movement, we can't press down its beginning and its end. It inevitably pops up.
Murakami: Nevertheless don't we have the right to insist that without blinking there is no beginning nor end?
Ohmori: Oh yes, we do. Don't be too tired to insist.








up to page 1 1997 7 3 Noumi
up to page 11 1997 10 9 Noumi
revised 1997 10 16 Noumi
revised 1997 10 25 Tony Cundy
revised 1997 12 4 Tony Cundy