tomorrow as a measure of today
My old pine deck had a poor slope. The rain pooled and the wood rotted. I replaced it board by board with cedar. Now I have a cedar deck with a poor slope, replaced with another of equal angle.
I gave the old boards to a scrap yard. The guard laid them out like a deck and stomped in a slope, so it’s mine again. Could I come back tomorrow to pick it up? No, only today, and went back the next day.
I could have replaced wood with aluminum, exactly level. That’s possible. In some world I have a perfectly level metal deck. When I arrive, there is the aluminum deck. How is this possible? Exactly, says the guard.
The guard knows every feature and measure of my deck and so claims to know what sunrise tomorrow on the deck will feel like. How marvellous to know feelings that never arrive as mere measure of today’s features.
A thought experiment borrowing a bit from the Ship of Theseus, a bit from Mary’s Room, and a bit of paraprosdokian play on words.
