Nikrowd Explains Dworkin's Metaphor for the Nature of Reality

``Well. I think we're all clear on the basics, right?'' Glancing around. ``To review,'' he points to various objects on the table as he mentions them, ``at this end of the table we've got your raspberry-jelly donut. At the opposite end we've got your stack of pancakes. In the space between, we've got an infinate number of donuts of various favors,'' he pauses to stuff a glazed donut in his mouth, and then continues speaking as he chews, ``each with one of these here donut-hole things in the, um, well, donut hole...''

He looks at the table, cocking his head to one side, confused for a moment. ``Right. Well, that's how things were. Then one day this baker named Corwin decided to bake this blueberry-jelly donut. It's over here on the same end of the table as the raspberry-jelly one. This baker ends up with a double. The double goes to the transcendental-jelly donut (it's only around sometimes -- it's attached to the raspberry one with really weird frosting). For now, it's only important to know that when he left the transcendental donut he had that jewel that Keverian's holding. Exactly how he got it is too long and complicated a story for now. So he uses the jewel to bake a boysenberry-jelly donut, but that donut isn't part of this story either.''

``Where was I? Oh, yes.'' He leaps up onto the table and sits down on top of it. He picks up three toothpicks and ties their ends together with purple thread. He glances over at the other stooped grey-bearded figure and asks, ``Are they connected like this,'' holding the toothpicks in a line, ``or like this?'' holding the toothpicks so that they're connected in a triangle so that each toothpick has thread connections to each of the two others.

[MikeE: Whichever way he answers is the way I'll tie the toothpicks together. But I think I'm actually quite curious as to his answer. I think it's important.]

``So,'' he cackles, ``That's how things stood until these'' holding the toothpicks up in front of his eyes ``came along...''

He sticks each toothpick in a donut-hole. ``Now, we've got no proof yet, but we're guessing that Brand, Bleys, and Finndo each put a toothpick in a donut-hole. The fact that one of the donut-holes was Finndo's either absolves or convicts him -- I'm not sure which. So, that one there is Finndo's donut-hole. Oh, wait.''

He picks up the raspberry-jelly donut and squeezes some jelly out onto his hand. He uses the jelly, finger-painting style, to draw a line from the jelly donut to one of the toothpick-skewered donut- holes, running in over the intervening donuts.

``There. Now, it's Finndo's donut-hole. So, what happened was this...''

He reaches down and removes a toothpick from one of the other two skewered donut-holes he moves it carefully, keeping its thread connection to the "Finndo donut-hole" toothpick taut, but the other connection slack. Then he gives a little tug and the Finndo donut-hole pops out of the donut. He skewers another donut hole.

``OK. So. Now Finndo's donut-hole is off the table. Sometime around here some folks start out at the raspberry-jelly donut and ride down this jelly line here. They discover that the jelly line stops sooner than they expected it to and are kind of surprised not to find a donut-hole, but instead a hole in a donut.''

He points back to the skewered donut-hole not in a donut. ``Let's look at this donut-hole for a minute. Hmm. It doesn't have any jelly. Hmm. Nope, no syrup either. Gosh. It hasn't even got any frosting. Well, what's a dount-hole gonna do without jelly, or syrup, or even frosting? Well, this is what happened to it.'' He removes the donut-hole from the toothpick and pops it in his mouth. He makes a show of chewing it thoroughly and then swallowing. Then he opens his mouth and says, ``Look. All gone.''

``Now that was all well, and certainly very dramatic, but I think that it was just a practice run for this...''

He moves so he's lying on the table on his stomach, propping himself up on his elbows, his head just above the donuts. He takes the free toothpick and skewers the raspberry-jelly donut. He then unskewers one of the two donut-holes and once again carefully pulls on the toothpick, this time keeping the thread to the jelly donut toothpick taut and the other one slack. Slowly the jelly donut moves. When it's moved a donut's length, he picks up the jelly donut, toothpick, threads, and all, and places it atop his head. He then skewers another donut-hole with the free toothpick.

``So now the jelly donut's off the table. But look! It has lots of jelly. See? I can't eat it. My mouth doesn't reach.''

``So. That's where we are now. Any questions?'' He looks around.

``OK. So, if I'm right, then the local toothpick is still in the jelly-donut. It's still got thread connections to donut-holes on the table. If Mikele can find the threads with the syrup, or if we can find the toothpick, we can get the donut back to the table. But.... here's the problem.'' He pulls on one of the threads connecting the donut on his head to a donut hole, pulling towards the donut. The donut-hole pops out of its donut.

``See? If we pull from this side, we won't pull us to the table, we'll just pull another donut-hole off the table and we don't even know which one... No. We need to pull from one of the other two toothpicks -- probably after repositioning one or both of them.''

``So, the question is, if we find the threads, can the syrup be used to let us travel along them to the other toothpicks?''