Time, I And Death
By Shozo Ohmori
and Yoshimichi Nakajima
Translated by Takenori Noumi
and Ben Peacock

Concept of Primitive Time
Nakajima: It has been my dream for a long time, Professor Ohmori, to talk freely with you about time. On several occasions recently you have declared some outstanding and utterly unexpected ideas about time. And your new thesis, 'the Construction of the Past' ('Kako no Seisaku'), I believe, encapsulates several of your former declarations. As for me, I have also been thinking about Kant's ideas about time. And comparing this with your new thesis, I get the impression that your time could be connected in very natural way with Kant's time. Perhaps we can connect these two through this dialogue. This is my hope. In fact, I have the intention of attacking your conception of time and knowing that I myself don't have enough weaponry, I thought it best to use Kant as a weapon. Now, you have sharply criticized our usual conception of time, or the time used in the study of physics, from many angles. I ask you then, what is your fundamental standpoint in these criticisms.
Ohmori: I am very much honoured and at the same time horrified to be compared with Kant. So far we have many theses concerning time. And mostly, the time treated in them is usual time, or so to speak, the time used in the study of physics. But I have the impression that under this usual, physical time there lies a more direct, more common sensical, or more primitive time that is closer to our experience than physical time. Returning to this primitive time and starting from it, I want to review physical time. Physical time must be constructed, I believe, by being piled up on the aforementioned primitive time. And I want to clear up this piling up process which is involved in the construction of physical time.
Nakajima: What you mean by 'physical time' is the conception of time as a straight line, isn't it? The straight line of 'small t', a point on it defined as the present, one side of which is the past and the other side the future. Do you mean to say that this definition of the time is not fundamental?
Ohmori: Oh, it is fundamental. Or I should say one of the fundamentals. What I mean is that physical time is constructed based on the primitive time in our primitive experience. And the simplest physical time is, what you now said, 'linear' or 'straight line' time which, I think, represents very well the principal part of primitive time. For example, the order of two things that happened. That is, which is before and which is after. Given such a case, I want to understand how artificial physical time could be invented to represent it. And returning to primitive time, I want to understand how we experience the order of the events that happened. I'll talk about this later. Before that, Mr. Nakajima, I want you to tell me if Kant said somewhere in his works that the source of our conception of time is based on our bodies. Because I feel nowadays that order in time is brought about by the conception of ego.
Nakajima: If I simply say 'yes' here, I would be smashed to pieces by other Kantians. So I'll parenthisize my opinion and tentatively say ('yes'). Yes, it is the thought implicitly expressed in his works. What he described captioned with the 'form of subjectivity' or the 'form of intuition' is, I feel, very well duplicated by the 'form of the body'. And when he says that 'lapse of time' or 'observation of time' needs something durable, he implies, I think, that our body is the one that should come first, before physical durable things such as energy or masses. I am not so sure about this. I haven't investigated this completely to my satisfaction yet. But you yourself could ask Kant, and he would reply.
Ohmori: No. I'll ask you, Mr. Nakajima, not Kant. May I mention here what I have considered concerning ego?

Formation of the Conception of Ego
Ohmori: Let's think about how we determine 'before and after' in time. The case in which we discern 'before and after' most easily is when we are watching an event. For example, I am watching the one hundred-meter dash in an athletic meet. At first A was behind B and then A overtook B. Or at first the runners were at the starting line, after that they were at the goal. We discern this self-evidently. Just as self-evidently we descern whether a colour is red or not. The situation is the same, I believe, in any continuous perceptive scene. Next, about perceptive scenes that have a break. For example, I looked at a statue in a gallery, came home and an hour later, I went back and looked at it again. In this case 'before and after' cannot, I believe, be determined by only the perceptive scene. Then by what can it be determined? What determines it is, I think, the 'I', the continuous ego, that goes to the gallery in the morning, comes back to take a nap and then goes back to the gallery. This 'I' should be the judge.
But in order to say such things, what I mean by 'the continuous ego' should be explained. It may be long, but indulge me. I move my body variously: raise my hand, sit down, etc. What becomes the subject of these body movements is most easily understood as the 'ego'. I call this part of ego 'the subject of the body movements'. There are other aspects of ego that are not so easy to comprehend. Such as 'I watch an athletic meet' or 'I think about something complicated'. I call these 'subjects of recognition'. And our common sense tells us these two subjects are connected by the same 'I'. In what way are these two the same? We must understand this. I first mentioned body movements. Then next, there are, so to speak, body-mind movements as Strawson named them. Take, for example, 'to take a walk' or 'to write a letter'. In these movements we move our hands, our eyes, and at the same time our mind moves, within the usual usage of the words. Body-mind movements include 'to read a book aloud', 'to sing a song', and especially include the movements of sports. 'To aim in archery or in shooting', 'to hold a bat in the batterbox and wait for the ball to be thrown', 'to throw a strike ball into a catcher's glove'. I mean here the mind includes sentiment, and so the mixed movement includes 'to laugh', i.e. to be pleased (this is a mental movement) and to open one's mouth and laugh (this is a body movement). But 'to see' is not a mixed movement. 'To change one's field of vision from one scene to another', 'to close the eyes', 'to stare', these are purely body movements. But here when the eyes are fixed to a scene, the scene is seen by me and my mind moves. And when I move my eyes, another scene is seen. So I should say that 'to see' is, to a certain degree, a body-mind movement. So let's call it a weak body-mind movement.
Now my supposition is this. There is at first an 'I' as the subject of pure body movements. Then this subject is extended to be the subject of mind-body movements: for example, holding a bat in the batterbox. Then it becomes the subject of a weak mind-body movements: for example, to move my eyes from one object to another. And in the end it becomes the subject of perception: for example, 'to see'. And in general the 'I' of the subject of perceptive verbs in European language, is the same 'I' that was at first the subject of body movements. The 'I' that was constructed by the above process may be, I believe, a very common sensical 'I' in our daily life. Then there are purely mental, not body-mind, movements: for example, 'to think', 'to imagine', 'to recall', etc. And my supposition is that the subject of weak body-mind movements is extended to become the subject of the purely mental movements.
So in conclusion, the 'I', the subject of body movements, becomes in the end the 'I', the subject of mental movements. And as a special case, it becomes the subject of perceptive verbs: 'to see' or 'to hear'. I repeat this is merely my supposition. If you find fault with this, please let me know.
Thus, the concept of 'ego' can, I feel, be formed comparatively smoothly in every one of us.
Nakajima: This is quite unexpected, so different from what I had prepared for this talk that I feel a little at a loss. But first, a question. Should I understand from this that the mind and body that you have explained are the same as they are within the very common dualistic framework in which we live?
Ohmori: Yes. It is the starting point. The very usual common sensical dualism of body and mind.
Nakajima: And the subject or ego that you mentioned is also the very usual 'I' that we understand?
Ohmori: Yes. The 'I' that my discussion has constructed is the 'I' of the usual mind and body.
Nakajima: Then 'I' must exist, mustn't it?
Ohmori: If the word 'exist' carries its usual meaning. If it carries some sophisticated, philosophical meaning, I need more explanation.
Nakajima: You have so far determined the 'I' to be the subject of body movements, but never the 'I' as the subject of recognition. This was the fundamental framework of your philosophy, wasn't it? According to what you explained now, the subject of body movement continuously changes into the subject of mental movements ...
Ohmori: That is not contrary to what I have so far asserted. Until today, I have, so to speak, left this hole in the wall alone, because I had found it difficult to explain. And I decided that today would be a good opportunity, and have rethought the theme and put it into words. I am not turning my coat. I am just filling a gap in the wall.
Nakajima: Kant very easily admits the ego as the subject of body movements. But concerning the subject of mental movements, he immediately jumps into a very abstract, 'transcendental subject' which cannot be the ego of each individual. And in your case, Professor Ohmori, you intentionally avert the transcendental subject. You start from body movements. You find the starting point or the source of ego in them. And while we are living, we find the subject of recognition and that these two subjects, body movements and recognition, are of the same ego. This is your supposition, isn't it?
Ohmori: Yes, it is. To put it simply, the mental movement would also be expressed by the form of 'do such and such things', or '... o suru', in Japanese, would be understood as the same kind as body movements, and the subject in each case (as it is grammatically) of the verb 'do' would be recognized as the same 'I'. And here the body-mind movements would play the role of a bridge. By this bridge, the 'I' which was previously formed by body movements will be transported to become the subject of purely mental movements. This is not of course a proof of anything. This may just be a natural way of thinking about ego, I thought. That's all.
A transcendental subject cannot be, if I say flippantly, grasped by our understanding by the very fact that it transcends our understanding. (laugh) Before it is good or bad, I cannot understand it. Instead, I took me, myself, as an example of ego, and ...
Nakajima: Later, I would like to defend the transcendental subject on behalf of Kant. But here may I ask you a question? According to your new theory of ego, if we don't have a body or if we don't make fundamental body movements, can we not understand the the conception of ego?
Ohmori: Well, it is an experiment in mental supposition. I don't know the result. I can only say that the 'ego' constructed in such a way would be very different from the one we are familiar with.
Nakajima: So according to your line, Wittgenstein's 'ego as the limit of the world' or the 'ego that only observes the world' cannot be called ego. In your long asserted 'Appearance Monisim', you have refuted 'ego'. And you will say, I suppose, that this doesn't contradict the 'ego' you have just constructed. Because the 'ego' that you have refuted so far is the 'ego' that is restricted to perception, and it cannot be called 'ego'. Or in other words, to restrict the 'ego' only to perception will lead to minsunderstand the 'ego', won't it?
Ohmori: Yes, it will. The subject of recognition in our usual life is, I believe, not a 'thing' either. There is only the situation 'I see such and such' and there is no such thing as 'I'. The 'I' of recognition is not a thing, but only linguistically the subject of a sentence in language, for example, 'I see such and such'.

Ego And Time
Nakajima: And our problem here is the relation between such ego and time, and ...
Ohmori: Then let me explain again. Fundamentally speaking, we understand things we see as three-dimensional. But when I see a thing, I see really only one side of it. So there are two understandings: an understanding of the thing itself and an understanding of a side of it. How are these two related? Husserl did Apschattung on the side of the thing and found the conception of 'intention'. And Kant, I could jealously say in front of a Kantian Mr. Nakajima, understands these two as a 'synthesis', I think. But before these understandings of great philosophers, we must ask what is the side? The side is a side of a thing. And what kind of side of a thing? It is, to put it simply, the side that I see, isn't it? In this fundamental situation we cannot help but bring an ego into the meaning of subject of recognition. Then 'I' or 'ego' was brought about. What result comes of this? The result is that there is a three-dimensional thing, and that there is 'I' at some place, and that from there I see the thing. And it is but one side of the thing. This cannot be a difficult matter, any ordinary person will agree, I believe.
Now we are already given the order of an event in a perceived scene. We have already talked about this. Then our problem is how we find the order of an event in a perceived scene broken into two scenes. In consideration of this, first comes the arrangement of things, the scene of things. And next comes the position of 'I' in the scene. There will be two positions of 'I', I am once at position A and see the scene in some way, and by moving to position B (Translator's note: if necessary by closing my eyes) I see the scene in another way. And here the order of the two views, that is, from A and from B, should be decided by the before and the after of my body movement in this world of things. Without this, the two perceived scenes interrupted by each other cannot be ordered in terms of time. In short, the order in time should be decided by the order of my body movement in the arrangement of three-dimensional things. I repeat: the before and the after of my body movement decides the order in time. Kant may have said complicated things about this. But he also thought, I believe, along the same lines as me. So he made his body the measure for deciding the before and the after of time, though not the measure of time itself. I want to ask you, Mr. Nakajima, if I am right about this.
Nakajima: Your interpretation of Kant is, I feel, close to Strawson's interpretation.
Ohmori: Oh, is it?
Nakajima: I may be misinterpreting, but I think that Strawson also asserts that our body moves through the space full of various things and seeing these various scenes, we make, not the simple order of perception, but the order of recognition. This is Strawson's interpretation of Kant's time.
I will leave the validity of his interpretation to Kant specialists. Here I want to ask a fundamental question. When I say 'the before and the after of my body movement', I have to talk about recollection or 'the past', don't I? And don't we need for 'I' to be already here? Then which comes first, 'I' or 'the order of my body movement'? I mean, is 'I' created by recollecting having looked at things with various Apschattung, or has 'I' already been created when recollecting?
Ohmori: Not only in this case is the question 'which is earlier?' usually barren of meaning. Simply speaking, they are all mixed up. In an experience 'I recollect an Apschattung', 'I' and 'Apschattung' should appear inseparably.
Nakajima: This may be difficult to imagine, but even if I move in space, perceiving very clearly the outer objects, if I forget 'the past' moment after moment, time cannot be constructed, can it? Then the concept 'I' cannot be constructed either, can it?
Ohmori: We have a very good example of that. When I sleep and then wake up after the interval of a night, the before and the after become suddenly doubtful. (laugh)
Nakajima: Your fundamental attitude toward 'the past' is that 'the past' exists in recollection. And this is the fundamental basis of your concept of time. But the relation of ego and recollection has, as far as I know, not been discussed in your works. May I ask about it?
Ohmori: As I said earlier, the question 'which is earlier, 'I' or recollection?' cannot be answered. It is for me the same question as 'Which came first, the chicken or the egg?' So what I can say is about time and recollection. You said now that the past exists in the recollection. In other words in order to judge the before and the after, we have to recollect the events that happened. The recollection is, of course, essential for the judgement.
Nakajima: So, would you say that we can judge the order in time, if we simply recollect?
Ohmori: 'Can' is not an appropriate word. Recollecting, we simply judge the order in time and let it go as a matter of course.
Nakajima: I don't know if it is appropriate or not, but let me compare it with Husserl's time. Isn't this the case where the present is being transferred to the past, as he puts it?
Ohmori: Yes. But wait a momemnt. I don't agree with his expression 'the present is being transferred to the past'. This allegoric expression, I believe, led him astray. The perception of the present moment changes its characteristics and becomes the past. I am against this. I don't agree with the idea that recollection is the reproduction of perception. Recollection is not, I believe, a video film and old and deteriorated. So I don't accept what you said now.
Nakajima: The past you discussed in your 'Construction of the Past' is, as Husserl calls, re-recollection. For example, take a seaside scene from last summer. But the past we are now talking about is the very recent past. I am perceiving a table in front of me, and going round it I construct a very near past. Not a seaside scene from last year. Do you say that even such a near recollection cannot be a modification of perception?
Ohmori: I say it is not. To say so is, I think, the bad effect of the expression 'the present is being transferred to the past'. Take an example of a car running along the road in front of me. Now the car is just in front of me. But a second ago it was say ten meters right of the present point. And if it remained perceptively, I might see a very long car, mightn't I? But I don't see such a car. I see a car of the usual length in front of me. We recollect the car of a moment ago not by the perceptive image but, if I say it conclusively, by language, and if I say it using an old philosophical term, by the 'concept' of the car. We don't say in our mind actually that the car was ten meters to the right a moment ago. We see the car with the understanding as if we said such. Concerning the speed also, seeing the car with the thought, 'It was at the gate a moment ago', is different from seeing it with the thought 'It was at the tree a moment ago'. This difference shows us the car's speed. Husserl and Brentano regard the continuous time perception such as melody as the representative example (paradigm) of recollection. I will explain it later. (See the appendix) This so-called continuous time perception is, in my opinion, not recollection but a kind of perception which should be called 'body-movement perception', a good example of which is 'apparent movement ' (Translator's note: translation of 'kagen undoh'. See the appendix).
Nakajima: Oh, you never discuss the problem of which comes first, perception or recollection. We are, according to your line of thinking, always concerned with these two directly, so ...
Ohmori: What I am convinced to be true is the difference of perception and recollection. In order to perceive, to see or to hear, we need sensory organs. So the things recollected should not principally be sensical. We are apt to feel, I admit, something like the remains of a certain perception, but I am convinced that it is not. In the case of recollection, the language or the concept takes the role of the sensory organs in the case of perception. If the language itself is too strong, I may call it 'lisping language', for a while.

About the Truthfulness of the Past
Nakajima: Then 'the new past' (your new theory of past) that I heard today can also be called 'the construction of the past', can't it?
Ohmori: Yes, it can, and with some addition. Because I am now re-thinking it. When I wrote the aforementioned 'Construction of the Past', I put my foundation on the solipsism that I am the only living existence in this world. But where did the truthfulness of the past in which you, Mr. Nakajima, may probably believe, go? I assert that all the recollections that we have cannot be wrong, that they are all true as in the case of perception. Then you may well have puzzled over where the ill-thought things or ill-remembered things go? It is the first time that I have talked about this, so it may be full of faults, but (laugh) ... I only repeat my assertion that conclusively the place where, I remember, I swam yesterday cannot be false just as the blue sky that I am now seeing in the sky cannot be false. But even if I insist that all of my memories are true, I may find great difficulty living in this world, having too many conflicts with other people. So we talk to each other and make judgements just as we make judgements in court. We admit those things as true objective past that are approved under some standard by the majority of society. In other words, we decide the past by consensus system. By the way, don't we decide the perceptive scene also by a kind of council system?
Nakajima: Even when we are only small children, we are told, 'Five hours passed, while you were sleeping', and are taught to accept this.
Ohmori: Yes, and not with much difficulty.
Nakajima: Is it so natuaral? Someone tells me that it is still eleven o'clock. But can't I insist that it should already be noon, because my stomach tells me so?
Ohmori: Oh yes, you can. Only nobody will listen to you. (laugh)
Nakajima: Why not? We always start from our real feeling. And yet we feel that we need something that stands outside of us.
Ohmori: Once time is socialized, individual feeling becomes a trifle, doesn't it?
Nakajima: Isn't that a contour of Kant's transcendental time? That is, the schema that each individual accepts time to be beyond the reach of his experience, knowing it to be such a transcendental thing. In other words the schema that each individual takes part in transcendental subjectivity. In our modern criminal law system, even if the law is not agreed upon by all of us (pseudo law), I have to accept it, even if I were condemned to death. Just as this case, time is also ...
Ohmori: ... socially accepted. But individually, something that tells you this is not what you really feel remains, I believe.
Nakajima: Especially concerning the past, we cannot see what is admitted socially.
Ohmori: No, we cannot.
Nakajima: In spite of being unseen, it seems to have a very stately existence. So stately that it seems to be fixed irredeemably, never to be changed. For example, take the order of the past events. Even if we don't know it, it has already been stately fixed. And we, gathering and consulting together, investigate and find the order already fixed.
Ohmori: It is, I believe, a philosophical and common sensical illusion. What happened in the past happened once and for all, and stays there stately, unchangeably. And each one of us is permitted to know, by mercy of God, a part of what happened. The past never moves even an inch. This is the common sensical concept of the past. In parallel to this, there is another illusion: the concept of perception. As Lenin said, things are objective and we can barely see what exists. According to him, those who doubt it may be bourgeois idealists. But for us, bourgeois idealists, this materialistic existence of the past world (or perceptive world) is an illusion. We decide what exists perceptively by consensus system. And if this consensus system concerning perceptive existence is admitted to be the fundamental process in natural science, we should decide the objective past also by consensus system, the process of which is the same as in natural science, in the legal system or in a court of law. We summon witnesses, investigate the evidence, make a story. And if this story can be logically accepted, it is, we decide, the truth. This is my idea. According to 'the theory of true and false', my idea may be, not a corresponding theory but a deformed coherence theory. So I hesitate to insist upon it. I don't know if the rest of my life is long enough to check this theory. But anyway what I can do is to live it with this theory and to check if it encounters any inconvenience or not. I hope it lasts to finish the check.
Nakajima: May I contradict your coherence theory a little more vigorously?
Ohmori: Yes.
Nakajima: In admitting Kant's transcendental ego, we don't fix the past rigorously. That is, we don't fix it up to the very minute things. It only fixes the fundamental form of the world, and ...
Ohmori: Even the form of the world that you call fundamental cannot be immovable. For example laws in natural science also ...
Nakajima: Not each individual natural science law but, for example, the three dimensionality of space, the one directionality of the flow of time, or the effectiveness of the law of cause and effect in determining the course of events. Kant believes that these fundamental forms have never changed heretofore and that they will never change hereafter. This belief is the basis of Kant's philosophy. Then when we want to fix past events and to understand them as the real ones, we find, using the aforementioned fundamental forms, the before and the after of the past events. This process is not an invention but an analogical discovery, isn't it? Kant named it 'Konstruktion' ('construction' in German), and you named it in Japanese 'seisaku' ('production or construction'). Isn't this naming 'seisaku' very near to Konstruktion? If applied to the present, it is like a witch's wand. We are making what we already see now. But if applied to the past, it is not so much like a witch's wand. It is more natural. Because what we must treat is amorphic and more substantial, and we are, so to speak, semantically fixing it. We are not totally creating the past nor are we totally given it. In such a scene where the receptiveness and the spontaneity both work, the past appears as though a poem were made. This is, I believe, your 'Construction of the Past'. Is it still your understanding of the past? Is the past for you still the co-working of receptiveness and spontaneity?
Ohmori: Yes, it is. You said now, Mr. Nakajima, that in case of perception, it is like a witch's wand. But I tried it in my lecture on logic at the University of Broadcasting. There is a variety of students in this university and a lecture there can be a good experiment. So I quibbled as you said now 'We are making what we already see now'. It was not a success but was a good experiment. I explained: I see a telephone booth over there out of the window. But a person who doesn't know the word 'telephone booth' will see it completely different from me. If this thought is extended, houses, roads, trees, flowers, all the things in this world will be seen differently according to knowing or not knowing the names of them. In other words, there are (at first) names, and if we can say 'This is a telephone booth' or 'That is an electric pole', some specific ways of seeing things come to us due to the existence of names. Then doesn't this mean that names or languages show us things? If there were no names, all things would be trashes and have no meaning, wouldn't they?
Since the first homo sapiens appeared, we, human beings, have been in a totally meaningless physical world. In spite of this total nonsense, we have had the audacity to attach meanings (names) to it in order that we may live. And the accumulation of the meanings thus attached is the language. Therefore it would be decent to say that the language shows us the world.
Nakajima: As such, you say that, the language is important. And yet you put stress on the difference of perception and recollection, don't you?
Ohmori: Yes. But I can be double-dealing when I assert the aforesaid point (that language shows us the world). That is, if I find it difficult to persuade the point by recollection, I change my strategy and try to persuade it by perception. And vice verca.
Nakajima: But in case of perception, don't we feel that we see what we see with no connection to language? In other words, don't we feel that we don't need language in order to see? Whereas in the case of recollection we feel that by using language we are confirming that there was a table and that on the table there were such and such things and that in front of the table there were such and such things.
Ohmori: Yes, the past has much more unguarded room than the present. Or, it has great liquidity.
Nakajima: And it is active whereas the present is passive. So we feel that we are constructing it.
Ohmori: Now I feel that as a strategy I should choose the past rather than the present.
Nakajima: So your construction applied to the past includes also the present?
Ohmori: Reservedly, I would say so.

Recollection and General Concept
Nakajima: Then what I have prepared to attack you with may no longer have any strength, but I will try anyway.
The red I perceive and the red I recollect are totally different experiences. In spite of which, we use the word red for both as a matter of course. And you always underline the difference between these two reds. You say that recollected red is not the red that is perceived after some time or that recollected pain can never be felt as present pain. (As always, here too you quote examples direct to our experience.) If something recollected is so different from something perceived, then why do we call these two by the same name 'red'?
Ohmori: I have long been puzzled by that problem, and I haven't yet found the answer. My only relief is that Husserl is also troubled by this question. His trial answer is a linguistic 'guess'. I am now walking in the street. If I turn right at the next corner, I will find, say, a henhouse. This is a guess. And so I go there and check if my guess was right. If I am not mistaken, he used the word 'Erfuellen' (substancialize the meaning), so I fill up the meaning 'henhouse'. And here he could not explain anything. What he did was, I think, only to bring up the word 'Decken' (to cover) the guess and the scene. In short, this is very delicate. I don't understand myself either. The direction in which to go to solve this problem, I feel, is the same as in which to solve the problem of the general concept. (cf. Flowing and Stagnating chap. 20, sec. 6: The Double Description 'Common' and 'Scientific') And I now again have the impression that I may be able to approach it in the same manner as I had thought before.
Nakajima: It will be too bold for me to answer such a difficult question by which you, Professor Ohmori, or Husserl are troubled. But I will try anyway. Isn't our criterion to judge something as red or not really recollective red? If we understand only perceptive red and not recollective red, ... this, too, is a theoretical supposition ... , then can we understand the word 'red'?
Ohmori: No. I don't think we can. But it is the same line on which I am now thinking about the subject.
Nakajima: In many cases the criterion was perceptive red. 'Something was red' may be a better criterion ...
Ohmori: In other words, not necessarily sentences in the past tense but the red in linguistic meaning could be the criterion ...
Nakajima: Yes, red ... understanding of red could be ...
Ohmori: Yes. The general concept of red.
Nakajima: And now we understand that it is related to the problem of the general concept.
Ohmori: What has troubled us most in understanding general concepts is that we, forgetting that it can only have linguistic understanding, tried to find perceptive understanding. So even in English empirical philosophy, they discussed what general triangles are, and were teased by Berkeley. Husserl also thinks along the lines of perceptive understanding. Red as a general concept is not a colour. It is not what we perceive but what we think of as red. So in what way do we think? There are many red things in this world. This is red, that is red, that is not red and sometimes we hesitate and cannot decide. In this process, we think and decide. To think of whether or not it is red is, I believe, a general concept. It is something we think. The examples of the colour red, which we think of as r1, r2, ... rn, ... form our general concept of red. So if we have the ability to think, we will be able to tell red or not red when a new colour is shown to us. This is not sufficient in describing the matter, which is of course more complicated.
Nakajima: You say that rather than trying to connect perception directly with general concept, let's put the thought of red between them, and these two will be easily connected ..
Ohmori: To put it more accurately, we had better think of it as an ensemble, that is, as an extention. So far we thought of it too much as a connotation. We must throw it away and treat all general concepts as extention just as the modern foundations of mathematics did. In the case of the foundations of mathmatics it was introduced just for technical reasons. But in the case of general concepts it is, I feel, the very method we need.
Let's go back to 'time' problem and discuss the past. Husserl seems to assert that the past has its objective position and that it gradually recedes. This also is, I think, caused by his obsession of physical 'line' time. Husserl uses the expression 'the flow of time'. A rock rises in the river to the sky. There is a flow of water and we are flowing on a little boat being separated further and further from the rock. I think this is mistake. For example, I now remember the Pacific War. I am now remembering it as an event that was over half a century ago. I remember it as such, and I also remember a distance of fifty years from my present self. In ten years from now I shall remember it as an event of sixty years ago. This sixty years also is in my memory. Although Husserl says that these two Pacific Wars are the same, they are different. We can easily find the difference only by counting the years passed. After some complicated procedures these two may turn out to be the same. But what Husserl thinks is that an immovable Pacific War exists and we are being separated from it further and further. I am against this way of thinking.

The 'Furoshiki' (wrapping cloth) Concept of Time
Nakajima: Then your 'time' contradicts the fundamental schema of time that has been believed since Aristotle, doesn't it? Time is determined usually based on body movement or on the flow or the maintaining of consciousness. But we never think that body movement or the flow or the maintaining of consciousness are of themselves time. Adding something to them, we talk about time. And here what is added is usually something objectively measurable.
Ohmori: Yes, usually. But don't we have misunderstanding here? 'Time' is a noun, isn't it? Then as Wittgenstein often pointed out, when there is a noun, we are inclined to imagining something that is named by the noun. 'Time' is also so. And what many physicists believe to be 'time' is the above. But 'time' is really a conceptual furoshiki (wrapping cloth). It is a furoshiki that wraps all and leaves nothing. So we must not make the 'time' concept anything beyond the flow of experience. We already have various time relations in the flow of experience: the 'before and after' relation, the 'continuity' relation, the 'lapse of time' relation, the 'length' relation, etc. And in it also we have various methods of measuring it. So it is vast, and we call this vast thing 'time'. And it is already included in our experience.
Nakajima: So we cannot answer, as Augustin said, the question 'What is time?'
Ohmori: No. It is the question that is badly asked. It is the question that regards 'time' as a noun. If we are asked abruptly, 'What is an area?', we are at a loss how to answer. We can answer, when the question is limited to specified axiom. 'What is time?' is too broad a question.
Nakajima: Kant knew very well what you said now. He says that we cannot define time nor deduce it and that what we can do is merely to clarify the concept of time that is used in various aspects of our lives. In the section 'Aesthetic' of 'Critic of Pure Reason', he uses the word 'exposition' of the concept of time. That is, to clarify what we already know about time. And the process of this clarification is the only way to approach the time problem.
Ohmori: Oh, this is a very interesting example. Then the 'clarification' of Kant must be the 'analysis' of analytic philosophers of this century.
Nakajima: So Kant also uses the word 'analysis'. Any concepts in mathematics are syntheses. For example, a triangle can be synthesized (or composed) by some simple concepts. But time or spirit can be only approached by the method of 'analysis'.
Ohmori: Then wouldn't it be called an immoral fusion of Japanese Kantians and analytical philosophers? (laugh)
Nakajima: But the problem is that analytical philosophers don't discuss God, soul, etc. seriously, regarding which Kant was very sensitive.

What Is 'Now'?
Nakajima: Can I ask you now the problem of 'What is now'? I know that you, Professor Ohmori, understand 'now' to be 'I am now doing such and such things'. May I ask you first to explain this?
Ohmori: Usually we have in mind physical linear time. So when we are asked, 'What is 'now'?', we must say that we are now speaking. Speaking what? Speaking 'What is 'now'?' Speaking 'What is 'now'?' requires some length of time. So it is not 'now'. Then now is the pronounciation of the word 'What'. No, it also has some length. Then the first part of the word 'what', etc., etc. It is like catching a dragonfly by twirling the index finger. (Translator's note: This is a Japanese technique for catching a dragonfly. The dragonfly accordingly towirls its eyes and becomes dizzy, they say.) We only feel dizzy by this dicussion, and we don't understand 'What is 'now'?' So I feel that we are poisoned by this linear time. We must throw it away. The word 'now' works very well in our usual conversation. So we had better ask how it is used. It is not used in so stupid a way. What are you doing now? I am now taking a bath. I am now eating breakfast. So 'now' is, I feel, this 'something-ing'. We are always something-ing. This sentence may be the key to approach the problem of 'now'. Then we will be able to avoid the misunderstanding of making 'now' a point in time.
Then do we not have any relation with the past, if we are always something-ing? Oh yes, we do. The relation is the fact that we are recollecting. The action recollecting and the thing recollected is, therefore, the very relation of now and the past.
Nakajima: I understand very well so long as it stops there. But if we don't know the meaning of now in the past, what will be the meaning of now? Because now in the present is always with us. So it doesn't need any explanation.
Ohmori: My answer to the problem is this. For example, suppose that I am in the hot water of the bathtub. I try to suppose that this being in the bathtub gradually becomes a thing past and that I begin to recall being in the bathtub as the past. But however hard I try, it is in vain. So the trying itself would have been a mistake. I quit the experiment. Then I revise my way of thinking and think of why I began such an experiment, why I thought of such a strange experiment. Generally, when we recall something, we recall the now of that something. For example when we recall yesterday's athletic meet, we recall it as, 'I was watching my son running', 'I was eating lunch with my wife and my son', etc. We always recall the now of that time. This is natural and everyone admits it. So we are apt to calculate this backward and to think that the 'now' at this moment should also sometime become past. We are apt to be led to this careless backward calculation. I admit the former half: the past that is recalled is always the 'now' at that past time. This cannot be refuted. But we should put the full stop there. If we go one step further and think that 'now' can gradually become the past, we are mistaken. I'd say, stop doing such futile exercises.
Nakajima: What I am alway thinking is just the reverse. 'Now' is an absolutely unnecessary word when we are talking about now. (Translator's note: Ask someone on the telephone, 'What are you doing now?'. And if 'I am calling you' were the reply, you would be surprised.) It is absurd. The word 'now' is most effectively used and most primitively understood in the past tense. (Translator's note: In the above example, 'Oh, I was just now writing a letter' would be fine.) 'That was the time 'now'', 'I was just doing such and such things' and that was the 'now'. Excuse me my always discussing which is earlier. But we must first know that we always use 'now' as the word that defines some past time. And then, we can find the meaning of now, can't we?
Ohmori: You underlined the implicit meaning of past in the word 'now'. I totally agree with you. 'Now' is not a point in time. In our usual life, we never use 'now' as a point in time. We use it as 'something-ing'. Then do we use it in natural science? Never. I can bet that, selecting any very ordinary physics textbook, there is no 'now' in it.
Nakajima: But don't 'now' and 'here' have some relation? I now exist here ...
Ohmori: I doubt the saying, 'I now exist here'. When I say it, I am still being poisoned by linear time. I am now de-poisoning myself. (laugh) After another half year passes, I shall be able to throw away the doubt. Now it still exists in me.
Nakajima: When we say, 'here, now', we feel something unseparable between them, and ...
Ohmori: There is something very dubious in the saying 'here, now'. It is a saying that never appears in our usual conversation. It has no meaning. 'Where are you now?' over the telephone is the usual usage and the 'What is the 'here and now'?' of philosophers is grotesque and is a mistake, I feel.
Nakajima: I am afraid I always come back to old story, but didn't you write somewhere that 'now', 'here', and 'I' have something amorphic in themselves?
Ohmori: Oh, I was very much ill with the 'here and now' in old days. (laugh) I am now much better. But when I recall those days, I feel that in those days I didn't grasp the 'ego' well enough. Horizontally written words 'Hic et nunc' or others poisoned me. (Translator's note: i.e. European words. Japanese language is originally written vertically. In contrast to this, European written language is called 'yoko-moji' -- horizontal letters.) Recalling, I can only say this is my impression.
Nakajima: So the problem of time and ego cannot be solved by the fundamental concepts of 'here', 'now', and 'I'. May I understand then, Professor Ohmori, that this is your attitude toward the problem ?
Ohmori: I don't say it cannot be solved by them. If I give my present impression, I'd say that they are not effective. Or using chess jargon, that they are not good moves. (laugh)
Nakajima: I find a certain difficulty to get into your new idea ... Then what is 'I'? This may be a forbidden question. But I am very naturally led to this. (laugh) If you say, 'You should very well know it', that'd be the end of it.

Internal Experience and Alter-Ego-Problem
Nakajima: So what I want to present here as a problem is what Kant means by the words: 'internal experience'. According to Kant's schema, by moving in the world, we inevitably distinguish external and internal world. In other words, we feel that we have an internal experience in the middle of huge public exterior world. What is your opinion of this?
Ohmori: I have long been puzzled by the Kant's word 'internal experience'. The late Mr. Kubo was a Kantian, and I very frequently asked him the question. The best solution would be that you, Mr. Nakajima, will someday understand it and that you will explain it to me. But now you ask, and I, a total amateur, will reply with the general impression of what I understand. At the beginning of this talk, I explained the formation of ego using body movements, body-mind movements, etc. In that process, a group of verbs: 'to think', 'to imagine', or when writing a letter, 'to think up a sentence', etc. gradually gather together just like liver cells in a laboratory dish gradually gather together. I don't know why they do. Perhaps it is because of excluding force against external experience or of attracting force between themselves. The reason is not known but they actually make a lump. And this one lump of the same kind of verbs gives one the feeling of an interior experience. This I think, is a natural process. Didn't Kant exaggeratedly call this 'internal experience'?
Nakajima: Internal experience is the experience that is properly mine. As Augustin says, there is a sphere, or stage, where the 'past I' and the 'present I' meet. There is a vast world that would have happened to me, but I actually perceived only a part of it. And I have an impression that the proper sequence of the world that I really perceived made the 'I'. As for the things past, the things that I would have experienced are distinctly distinguished from the things that I really experienced. We naturally take our moral point of view into consideration. For example to have actually killed someone is very different from to have only intended to kill him. So within the above meaning, I want to name the proper sequence of things I actually experienced as 'internal'.
Ohmori: So you need some intentionality to make the 'internal experience'. ('jidohteki bunkaku technical term?)
Nakajima: To put it another way, if there is no such sequence, we don't need to make the distinction of 'internal' or 'external' experience. Kant has a concept of 'self-detonation'. I once tried to understand the process of forming my own internal experience by using this 'self-detonation'. While I move in the public world, I inevitably detonate myself and I form my proper world ...
Ohmori: Very interesting. Very interesting indeed because it resembles very much scientific method. To form the overall picture from the data. For example, geology or astronomy. We gather as much data as possible. But there is a limit when the period is finite, say the data of the twentieth century. We construct with this limited data a picture of Continental Drift or Mantle Status. Then Kant would say that this data we acquired are the 'internal experience' of a natural science or the 'internal experience ' of the twentieth century. (laugh) As such, isn't this internal experience too similar a process to that of natural science? It might be a flaw with Kant, mightn't it?
Nakajima: Kant would say something to that. In place of him, may I ...?
Ohmori: Yes, of course. Please.
Nakajima: According to Kant, even if some operative source exists, if it doesn't constitute internal experience, it cannot be a 'subject'. That is, even if this operative source observes and reports all the matters in the world, if it doesn't constitute the world of 'self', it cannot be the 'I' of Kant. Keeping this in mind, Kant says that time is a form of internal sensation or that time belongs to the subject. And his transcendental subject is not the subject that only sees with an outsider's eyes but it is the subject that is always making his own world by experimentally placing himself in this world. It is the 'I' that we are all very familiar with. In this sense I feel that the internal experience forms the core of the 'I'.
Ohmori: I cannot say I completely understand what you said now. But it interests me very much. So when you have developed it to a thesis, please let me read it.
Nakajima: Then let's generalize the problem a bit. What is, in your opinion, the distinction between internal and external?
Ohmori: For myself, I don't feel anything more than usual commonsense. Or I should say that somehow it is not a good formation of the question.
Nakajima: With perception, we don't need to use specifically the words: internal and external. We quite naturally believe that given the same point and the same direction we will have the same scene. That is, only different perspectives give us different scenes. (Which means that there is no internal, and also that there is no external.)
Ohmori: Yes. As is often said, the boundary of a man can be anywhere, and is not restricted to his skin.
Nakajima: But with recollection or the past, we have the impression that we cannot get into others, because they have their own proper past. I don't have the power to discuss now the alterego generally, but if we treat it as limited to only the present perception, it is, I should say, insufficient, or lacking the most important part. Don't we find it most difficult to get into other people's past?
Ohmori: My recent understanding is that it is not so difficult. We can get into others and we do actually get into others, don't we? Mr. Noie of Tohoku University pointed out my fundamental misunderstanding when I developed alterego. I first thought his criticism invalid, but now I am being reformed by him. To summerize his point, it is impossible for us to become other people and to perceive in their place. But the meaning of understanding or getting into others is to read about them, to think of them, and to guess their hopes or intentions by talking with them or observing their behaviours. We cannot of course understand perfectly. It always remains as a guess. But we can, to some, or even to a large extent. We can get into another person's past, I've begun to think, to a great extent. The simplest way is to let him tell his own past, or to read his personal history. We can know him by doing this, can't we?
Nakajima: But even if I knew someone's past, I have not experienced his past, have I?
Ohmori: No, you haven't. So if you think that perceptive experience is the real experience, you must always come back to that point.
Nakajima: I should say that Kant also held that misunderstanding.
Ohmori: Ah, then I will say so to Mr. Noie. Kant also ... (laugh)
Nakajima: But the internal experience of Kant is mainly concerned with practice. That is, it is concerned with what I did rather than what I saw. Even if a judge knows all the processes of a murder an accused committed, the judge is not a murderer. So the individuality arises as to who is to blame. And Kant may think that this is the main problem with the internal experience. So whether we can understand other people's past is not the main point. The main point for him is the fact that what I experienced is not what others experienced, isn't it?
Ohmori: Yes, it sure is.
Nakajima: And so the difference of person, for example first person singular or third person singular, arises.
Ohmori: Yes. That is what caused the problem of alterego.

What Does 'To Think about the Future' Mean?
Nakajima: Well, I feel I am only repeating what Kant said or what I believe Kant said. So I will have to change the subject to 'the future'. In your 'Appearance theory', you often mentioned that things in future also appear as the things themselves. Everyone knows that the future and the past are very different. But once asked what the difference is, we are at a loss. What, may I ask, is to think about the future, as it is not recollection of the past?
Ohmori: First, I will talk not about the future in general, but take the example of a marriage ceremony held tomorrow. This is a future event, isn't it? A woman attendant would think about a dress. She will think, 'What will I wear?' And I would think about wine, 'How much will they serve me?' (laugh) This is a typical example of 'thinking about the future'. If the alcohol that will be served is wine, I would think about what the taste will be. If it is beer, I would think how much I will be able to drink. The important thing here is that I haven't drunk yet. So I don't know the taste perceptively. But the parents of the couple are rich, so I can guess the taste of the wine that will be served. This is the meaning of how I know about the future.
How I know about the past is different from this. Suppose I went to a party yesterday. I drank wine there, so I can now remember the taste. Of course the taste is not perceptive, so it is not on my tongue. I think of the taste of yesterday's wine. I have felt it very remote to think about past taste or past odour. ... And even now I feel it remote. ... But it is really not so remote. Let's suppose that there are several kinds of wine poured into glasses here. I drink them and can judge which has the nearest taste to that which I drank yesterday. To think about the past is more certain than to think about the future. But the difference of the certainty is only what I have just explained. And I repeat here that it is done by thinking, not by perceiving.
Nakajima: Kant writes somewhere very clearly that the distinction between the future and the past is a-priori. That is, my future doesn't have yet contain my internal experience. The world of my future doesn't have the distinction of my internal and external experiences. According to your explanation, I feel that your past and your future are very similar in that we cannot perceive them directly ...
Ohmori: Yes, both are different from the present. And yet they are also different from each other. I explained the difference. With the past I know the taste, with the future I don't. It's just that I hope it will be delicious.
Nakajima: I'll change the question. You write that the word 'exist' should be used in the past, not limited to the present. May I ask if it can be used in the future?
Ohmori: Yes. But in the past tense, it is 'existed'.
Nakajima: And in the future tense, it is 'will exist' ...
Ohmori: Such is the usage of ordinary people.
Nakajima: But the future is future only because it is not yet realized, isn't it?
Ohmori: Yes. The future is uncertain.
Nakajima: Then do I have my proper world in the future, too?
Ohmori: The future 'I'?
Nakajima: Yes.
Ohmori: As long as this world is only determined by experience, my experience comes from the concept of ego that I have just explained. Although 'to do something' is future, if I did something, it represents my experience. Is this awkard?
Nakajima: No, but ... Frankly speaking, I want to delete the future if I can. I read 'Comparative Sociology of Time' written by Sosuke Kenda. He writes that in many African tribes there are no proper words for expressing the future. And I realized that it is not limited to African languages. Japanese, English and German languages have a clear distinction between the present and the past. But they only use supposition when it comes to the future. So on a linguistic level, I feel that the future is very near to the present. Doesn't this suggest something?
Ohmori: That is Mr. Kenda's misjudgement. (laugh)
Nakajima: Then I will take the responsibility for what I say. The future and the things we don't know or we are not sure of are almost the same, aren't they?
Ohmori: I don't think they are. Aren't they distinctly different in common usage? That is, uncertain things are not always of the future. I see a woman in the street. I don't know her age. But her age is not future, it is present.
Nakajima: I see. Then will I have to omit all of Mr. Kenda's stories here? (laugh) (Translator's note: Later Nakajima develops this idea of future. See 'Jikan o Tetsugaku Suru' Kodansha, 1996)

I Am Now Already Dead
Nakajima: From now on I will include my own personal feelings. Our attitude toward the past and the future is very different. We feel that the present is decided by the total past, and that we cannot change the past by going back to the past. But we feel that the future can be changed by the present. This is our freedom. And this future is the reason why I specialize in the theory of time. You, Professor Ohmori, have, I suspect, the same future problem as I have. This has been my arbitrary supposition since I became first acquainted with you almost twenty years ago. Our mutual future problem is that we all must die, or that I must die. The ancient Greeks said that before we were born in this world, we were nothing and we were not unhappy. So even if we die, they said, we only come back to that nothing, and we shouldn't be unhappy. But this is not true. Originally to be nothing is very different from first to be something and then to revert back to being nothing. I exist now. Therefore I feel fear and anxiety for this 'I' to be returned to nothing. So the fact that I will be eliminated forms the outer, very firm frame of my future.
This schema is very cruel. But the more cruel schema is the usual linear time concept. The world lasts for some billion years and each man breathes only a moment and dies. It is very strange for me that most of us, accepting this cruel schema, are nonchanantly living in this world heedless of the cruelty. Why do we have to accept this schema that is totally against our personal interest? Or is this a hollow and trivial question?
Ohmori: To the question, I have only an answer that is more trivial, (laugh), more trivial than the ancient Greek's consolation. That is, I am persuading myself that I am already dead. If I feel fear for death, it means that I feel I am now alive. So why don't I just believe I am already dead? This world is not vivid at all, is it?
Nakajima: Oh, that's tough to conceive of...
Ohmori: This is not my original idea. It is an old Japanese consolation. They said, 'We are ephemerate, the world is transitory. Do you think you are living? No, this world is too, too temporary, too arbitrary, too heedless of whatever we do. So you are already dead. You cannot die twice. So you don't feel fear. Because even if you die, you will live in the same dead world as this.'
Nakajima: Then for you, Professor Ohmori, is talking about the world after your death total nonsense? We usually believe that this world will still survive after our death.
Ohmori: I don't think it is total nonsense. Then how do I think about the world after my death? I do it by fancy. You said now you don't know another person's past. But we know. We do it by fancy. Here does the fancy mean a somnambulist's dream? No. Even the solid thought of natural science is also supported only by fancy. It can become true only being supported by empty thought. So I think about the world after my death by fancy ... like a fortune teller.
Nakajima: Kant doesn't regard the world described by natural science as the most real existence, either. Admitting its solidness, he still calls it a phenomenon. So we can say that Kant relieved us a little from suffering of living like a 'dayfly' (translator's note: the typical Japanese metapher for short life), the lives of human beings that we have lived since some ten billion years ago. But the problem is that we ordinary human beings cannot realize that 'I am already dead' ...
Ohmori: Oh, no. I too cannot say that I am realizing it. I am now persuading it upon myself, and it takes practice. Last year a woman's college asked me to talk about something. And I tried this theme there. It is yet only a coarse idea and not good. I will make it more convincing by changing rhetorics.
Nakajima: I am afraid that this is a very personal question. But I cannot help asking. Don't you, then, feel at all fear for death?
Ohmori: Thanks to having practiced philosophy, I feel much less now.
Nakajima: So we must say philosophy has some merit, mustn't we?
Ohmori: Yes, we must, though the merit was a fluke for me. But you must also know, Mr. Nakajima, you will die just the moment you don't feel fear for death. (laugh) I don't know if you'll like it or not. As for me I am all right. I have already come too far. I cannot retrace my way now.
Nakajima: The end of our talk seems to have shown a very orthodox philosophical dialogue: to laugh at the most serious problem. Today I was given a good chance to be able to hear your new theory of time and ego. I regret that I couldn't draw near enough to understanding it, though. And lastly I feel we can expect a new development from you, Professor Ohmori, even at your age. So you have to survive a little longer.
Ohmori: Thank you.
Nakajima: Thank you very much for today's discussion.

Memory and Melody
(Shozo Ohmori)
It is well known that Husserl and Mynong regarded melody as a typical example of memory, the reason of which is not difficult to guess. When we listen to a measure of a melody, we cannot at a certain fixed time hear all of that measure. We can only hear the sound of one note. In spite of this fact, it is certain that we hear the measure of the melody. Doesn't this mean that the sound of the other notes of the melody do exist at that time? But we can only hear at one time the sound of one note, while the sounds of other notes have already finished. They have become past sounds. Then these past sounds at the particular time of now, which remains now, lets us hear the melody. Of course this past sound is at that time not perceived by us, it is the sound that has been perceived. Then the sound which has been perceived remains to form a melody now being heard. Therefore it provides a good analogy of memory.
My above guess to the reason why melody was taken as a paradigm for memory should not be so far from the truth. But in investigating memory, what we start with or especially what we choose as its typical example will take on the importance of deciding the orientation of the discussion hence. As for myself, I thought that we should choose as a typical example the very opposite of melody. The typical example I chose is the recollection of past experience. And I chose for the first theme of discussion our common sensical view of memory, that is, the usual misunderstanding most philosophers fall into. What is the misunderstanding? It is the understanding that memory is the retention or holding of past perceived experience and that recollection is the reviving or reappearance of this retention of the past perceived experience. Discussion to refute this misunderstanding will itself lead to the correct understanding of memory.
And this understanding makes us choose melody as a paradigm of memory. Because the reviving of the past sound perception is thought to be the memory of melody.
For the better understanding of the 'catching melody' experience, let's look at our experience of singing a melody. When we sing a melody that is already known to us, we do not sing after the sound of a melody that comes to our ears from within the eardrums. We don't have any such replaying for the sound perception of melody. In spite of this fact, we know the melody, and we sing it. The way of our knowing a melody is, then, not perceptive, nor even pseudo-perceptive. So let's call this way of knowing 'melodic understanding'. Then I can say that the experience when we listen to, not sing, a melody, is also this 'melodic understanding', not a replaying of a melodic perception. So there is no memory of melody.
Then what is this melodic understanding? It is exceedingly difficult to define. But I can at least say that melodic understanding is an experience that accompanies a series of sound which is continuously perceived. It is not to recall sound perception but is an experience that accompanies the perception of a series of sound. Here because of its continuation, the perception of a series of sound needs some lapse of time however short it may be. Then the question may arise, from when does the melodic understanding happen and till when does it last? I cannot describe these details. I don't think it necessary. These questions are merely made under the memory's understanding of sound perception. It is sufficient to point out that melodic understanding is an experience caused by a series of sound perceptions.
Now that I have explained melodic understanding, I want to describe general 'changing understanding': colour changing, shape changing, feeling changing (wind feeling or water wave feeling). Especially when we see a thing moving, 'object-in-motion understanding'. When we see a man walking, a pitcher throwing a ball, a ball flying to the catcher's mitt, we usually think we need a memorized visual scene of a moment ago. I don't agree with this belief. A series of continuous visual scenes are seen, and we understand the motion. That is all. There is no more or no less. To insert an intermediatory memory would be missing the point. Apparent movement (Translator's note: translation of 'kagen undoh') will illustrate this non-mediation or the directness of motion understanding. Setting two flashing points at some distance apart, switch the left one and next the right one. We see a moving light between the left and the right point. Here, we don't need any 'retention': memory or afterimage. We see a moving light point. That is all, isn't it? We see a pitcher's arm change its position continuously. Then we understand the movement of the arm. That is all. We don't need any more explanation. We should not be tempted to utilize memory or afterimage.
If my above assertion is right, it misses the point to regard melody as a paradigm of memory. In fact, it is even harmful to enumerate it as an example of memory.


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