12. London: 3rd Philosophical Meeting (11 pgs.)

ACT I - CHAPTER 12

3rd PHILOSOPHICAL MEETING

LONDON

Saturday December 16, 2017

London England

Alexandre slept well and woke up to a clear but cold day. When they entered Her Majesty’s Stadium it was full of blue shirts and the English were singing in support of his team. They started very well until they scored a counterattack goal. Victoria watched the game with Patrick Philips from the VIP stands.

“He’s very upset by Ronald’s death,” Victoria said, putting aside the drama that was tormenting her.

“He told me that he needed to be alone once a month until he digested his friend’s departure. There is no way to locate it. He even disconnects his phone,” Patrick said.

“Yes, and he’s not staying tonight, he’s going back to Barcelona,” Victoria said with teary eyes.

“Still, it’s notable that he’s improved his game so much,” Patrick added.

Patrick Philips was an elegant Englishman, dark-eyed and dark-haired, thin and over six feet tall. He had had a brilliant career as a footballer when he began at Norwood. He had been Alexandre’s agent for two years and had gotten him very good contracts with several of the main sports brands that provided Alexandre with half of his income, about twenty million euros a year.

After Ronald’s death, Patrick couldn’t understand why Alexandre locked himself in his apartment and didn’t receive anyone. He never forgot when he attended one of the philosophy meetings they had with Ronald.

He spoke to him believing that, perhaps, he needed help from a psychologist, but Alexandre made it clear that he was fine, and Patrick was satisfied, because he saw him calm and confident.

In the second half, they got the tie and with five minutes left in the game, Alexandre assisted the winning goal and Los Reyes de Barcelona won again.

At the hotel, Alexandre found Yellow. They left and after twenty minutes the car passed over Westminster Bridge, with Big Ben on the right. Shortly after, Yellow stopped the car in front of an old 15-story luxury apartment building.

“Follow me,” he said in the entrance hall, they entered the elevator, went up to the top floor and when it opened its doors they were greeted by a large red marble lobby with two black marble lions on the sides of a tall mahogany door with a surveillance camera above.

Yellow raised his face towards the camera. The door opened.

Alexandre entered the luxurious living room and saw that it was a large space with floor-to-ceiling windows, furnished with fine modern furniture mixed with exquisite antiques and paintings by famous painters worth a fortune. The panoramic view of London stood out through large modern windows. He could see Parliament House, Big Ben, Hyde Park in the background and “The Wheel” on the other side of the Thames. It was a spectacle difficult to match and evoked the paintings of Canaletto.

While contemplating, in ecstasy, the night view of the city, he felt someone enter the room. He turned around and there was Francisca, in an elegant and tight light blue silk dress, which harmonized with the thick dark blue carpet. Her calypso eyes stood out like two bright stars. She was elegance surrounded by eroticism; intelligence surrounded by sweetness. Alexandre was instantly delighted.

“Will you take me to a great walking-closet?” he asked him with a smile and mischievous look, but with an unsure voice.

“I don’t think my father’s suits fit you, he’s almost two meters tall,” she replied.

“And who did the suits at Villa Ascolassi belong to?”

“I bought them specially for you,” she replied without looking at him.

He remained silent remembering the kiss.

“Does your father own all this?” he asked, making an effort to get out of her spell.

“Of the entire building. He remodeled the top floor to have a place to stay when he comes to London. He recovered his investment in less than a year with the other apartments he rents. What he touches turns into gold. This was a worthless engine room and he turned it into this luxurious five-bedroom penthouse. Here he has the view and privacy he likes.

“And Ricardo and Arturo?” Alexandre asked.

“They arrived last Tuesday and flew to Edinburgh with my father on Thursday, but they assured me that they would be back today, Saturday, and, indeed, they have already taken off and will land in an hour. My father wants to meet you and he asked me to welcome you,” she said somewhat distantly. She seemed changed, colder, as if she were an executive doing her job. He didn’t know what to do, he felt insecure and bewildered.

“And will you have dinner with us?” Alexandre asked.

“No. You have a lot to work on,” she responded, approaching and giving him a long, firm hug, resting her head on his shoulder, but as if she were his sister.

“What do you know about our work?”

“That you are doing something important. I think knowing that is enough. Excuse my clumsiness in the Villa, with a few drinks I do stupid things.”

“I had a lot of Fun. Will we have dinner again?” he asked.

“Not alone,” she replied, “make yourself comfortable!” she added and finally said, “goodbye,” and she left the living room, the apartment and the building towards an unknown bar.

Two hours later, Ricardo and Arturo arrived agitated. Their clothes were singed and had a strong smell of smoke.

“What happened?” Alexandre asked alarmed.

“A bomb exploded on Mr. Walker’s plane,” Ricardo answered.

“What?”

“He invited us to Edinburgh to introduce us some friends. When we were returning and arriving in London, a bomb exploded in the plane,” said Ricardo.

“We were in front and the bomb exploded behind. It left a hole, but the plane did not fall. A fire broke out inside, but we managed to put it out with the fire extinguishers,” Arturo added.

“The bomb exploded near Mr. Walker that was at the rear of the plane; fortunately, we were at the front. He was left with serious injuries to both legs. We accompanied him to the hospital and the doctors fear that he may not be able to walk again. He had everyone come out of the hospital room to talk to us alone. He made us swear that if he died, we would finish the book and insisted not to cancel today’s meeting,” Ricardo said. “He believes that Ronald was killed for wanting to write the book, and that today they tried to kill us because we are writing it. He said that we had to be very careful not to leak what we were doing, because it is very dangerous. Have you told anyone anything?” Ricardo asked Alexandre.

“No.”

“And your girlfriend?” Arturo asked.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“But what’s wrong with you! I haven’t told anyone! She suffers because I disappear once a month and I don’t answer my cell phone to keep the meetings secret! I’m forced to lie her!

“Do you access the Internet with VPN?” Ricardo asked.

“Of course! I’m a hacker! What do you think! I work on a computer without an internet connection. I burn the recordings after transcribing them and keep all the material from the book in my safe. For my part, nothing has been leaked,” said Alexandre, annoyed.

“And when you listen to the recordings of our meetings, do you do it with headphones or a loudspeaker?” Ricardo asked.

“With a loudspeaker,” Alexandre said and realized that perhaps it had been a mistake.

“But how can you do that!” exclaimed Ricardo, shaking his head. “They may be recording you with a directional microphone! Are there buildings in front of yours?” he asked.

“Yes, but very far.”

“From now on, when you write each chapter of the book after our meetings, you will listen to the recording of them with headphones and the curtains closed,” Ricardo ordered.

“Ok, I get it. And you, Ricardo? Haven’t you said something to someone?” Alexandre asked with a frown and raising his voice.

“No.”

“And you, Arturo?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?” asked Alexandre rising his voice.

“Calm down! I’m not blaming you, but we have to be even more cautious. Furthermore, I have learned that Mr. Walker has his own enemies and this is not the first time they have tried to kill him. But it’s a big coincidence that the bomb exploded when the three of us were there, don’t you think? They wanted to kill us too! In any case, we are going to take extreme security measures,” said Ricardo.

After showering to get rid of the smell of smoke and changing clothes, they sat at the table to have dinner with the magnificent view of London.

They made a great effort to start talking about epistemology. It was a huge contrast to the bomb explosion that had tried to kill them. Alexandre turned on the recorder.

“In relation to epistemology, why do the enemies of reason not want us to write the book?” Alexandre asked.

“Because if people learn to think clearly, the puppeteers of culture will not be able to control their slaves and they don’t like that,” Ricardo said.

“Exactly! They don’t want people to think clearly, because they could achieve true self-esteem.”

“What does self-esteem have to do with thinking clearly?” Arturo asked.

“True self-esteem, is born from self-confidence; self-confidence, comes from thinking clearly; thinking clearly, is only possible using concepts that arise from percepts, and differentiating them from those that contain fancepts. Rulers and ruled, each one, at their particular socioeconomic level, seek social status believing that they are seeking self-esteem.

They choose, mistakenly, that their self-esteem depends on the place they occupy in the pyramid of society, but it does not occur to anyone to question their own mental quality, or that of that society and culture. Those who achieve power and high social status, do not understand why they feel emptiness, even if they are rich and famous. The reason is because self-esteem has nothing to do with social status, but with the quality of your mental clarity,” Alexandre said.

“That happens to rulers and ruled of any society, but if the latter achieved true self-esteem, the former would not be able to manipulate the latter,” Ricardo added.

“Exactly! That’s why our enemies don’t want us to write the book. How could they rule those who think for themselves? How could they manipulate those who have self-esteem? How could they fool those who are immune to propaganda? They could not! They can’t allow our book to be published! That’s why they killed Ronald and that’s why now they want to kill us. They are not going to allow this book to exist, the book that teaches how to differentiate self-esteem from social status, but they have a problem, nothing is going to stop us,” Alexandre said.

“What does it take to have true self-esteem?” Arturo asked, taking a glass of wine.

“I already said it! To think clearly,” Alexandre responded.

“And what does it take to think clearly?

“But Arturo! Pay attention! I already said it! Think with concepts that do not deceive you,” Alexandre responded.

“And the first step is to focus the mind?” Arturo asked.

“Yes, that’s first. But the important thing is to differentiate concepts that contain percepts from those that contain fancepts,” said Alexandre.

“Forgive me for being so slow to understand, but could you explain it again with an example?” Arturo asked.

“Alright. Let’s take as an example the concept of the animal “mouse”, not the mouse of a computer. Imagine the mouse concept as a photo album of mice. We know that mice look similar to each other, but they are not identical. There are bigger ones, smaller ones, different colors, etc. They are not identical, but they are similar. The mice are not the photos of the mice. If we take photos of different mice, those photos are the “percepts” of the mice, that is, our sensory perceptions of the mice we have seen in our lives.

We group these percepts in our memory into a group of things that are less different from each other compared to other groups of more different things, like the cats and dogs that we have also seen in our lives. The concept “mouse” refers to a group of things that are less different from each other, compared to another group of things that are more different, such as cats. The concept, first, differentiates a group of things that are less different from each other (mice), compared to another group of things that are more different (cats), and second, it omits the specific measurements of the former (mice). That is the correct method for forming valid concepts: identify things with common characteristics, but omit their specific measurements. When I say “omit your measurements” I am referring to “measure” and the act of measuring is only possible by comparing units. The “unit” is used to measure, for example, one hundred centimeters fit into one meter. But what is measured in a concept is not distance but “characteristics”. The characteristics of mice, for example their shape, is the unit we use to compare them with other animals and differentiate them from cats, whose shape has a different characteristic. When we form a concept, mentally, we transform similar units into identical units, although in reality they are not identical but only similar. That process of abstraction is the human cognitive method to form concepts and we do it, implicitly, when we learn to speak as children, it is the way we classify and organize sensory information in our memory,” said Alexandre.

“As an engineer accustomed to numbers, it makes sense to me,” Ricardo said and added, “I’m going to tell you what I understood and give me your opinion at the end, do you agree?”

“Yes, of course,” Alexandre said, seeing that Arturo was scratching his head trying to understand, and then Ricardo spoke.

“This is what I understood. As children we learned to count on our fingers at the same time we learned to speak, that is, we grasped, without words, the concept “unit.” The “unit” is the number “one” in mathematics, that is used to measure and compare,” Ricardo said and added, “if it is used to measure, we can choose the unit in meters to measure distance, or choose the unit kilos to measure weight, but, in the case of concept formation, we have to choose some “characteristic” of a group of things as a unit for measure or compare, such as the shape of a mouse. Once the “unit” has been chosen, in this case the shape of mice, we can compare it with the shape of other types of animals, such as the shape of cats.

The same thing happens with the algebra of scientific equations, where the units are letters to identify forces, for example, Einstein’s energy equation e = mc2, where the energy “e” can be any number as long as it is not zero. Is what I understood correct?” Ricardo asked while Arturo continuing scratching his head trying to understand.

“Yes. A concept is very similar to an algebraic formula, where the algebraic letters represent units of a group of things that we want to isolate from the rest. In the case of Einstein equation, the letter “e” separates from the letter “m” for mass, and the letter “c” for light speed. The letter “e” represents the “unit” of energy, but omits how many or which are its specific measurements; in the case of the concept “mouse”, the “unit” represents the characteristics of the shape of mice, which are different from dogs and cats, but omits how many or which are its specific measurements as well.” Alexandre said and added, “Let’s not forget that we learned to speak along with learning to count on our fingers when we were two or three years old. The “unit” is used in mathematics, algebraic equations and commerce, but also implicitly when forming concepts, but we do not realize it. In fact, the concept “unit” connects metaphysics with epistemology, that is, the reality itself that exists as it is, with how man classifies the things in the world that he perceives with his senses,” said Alexandre.

“I’m understanding half of it,” Arturo said and added, “But what I cannot see in your example is the fancept? Where is it?”

“If you replace the pictures of the mice with drawings of Mickey Mouse, the drawings of Mickey are fancepts. When you say “mouse,” even though the word is written and pronounced the same, it can refer to a photo of a real mouse, or to a drawing of Mickey, a drawing on paper imagined in Walt Disney’s mind. Mickey’s fantasy, in Walt Disney’s mind, is an imaginary entity; the drawing of Mickey on the paper, is the fancept, which represents its fantastic imaginary entity. On the other hand, a real mouse, is an animal that exists; the photo of him, the percept, which represents a real entity, that is, not imagined. A percept, is the objective result of sensory perceptions; a fancept, the draw in a paper of a particular fantasy in a person’s imagination. The Mickey fancept, is subjective; the percept of a real mouse, objective; the fancept, derives from the percept; the percept, can exist without the fancept; the fancept, cannot exist without the percept; the percept, is first; the fancept, second.

Let’s say it again, every fancept, is subjective; all percept, objective; every fancept, derives from a percept; the first, cannot exist without the second; the second, can exist without the first. It would not have occurred to Walt Disney to imagine Mickey if he had never seen a real mouse in his life. Mickey, is the fantastic entity in Disney’s imagination; the drawing of Mickey on a paper, the fancept. But to imagine Mickey, Walt Disney, first of all, had to inspire in a real mouse, that is, in the mental photos of mice stored in the memory of his brain. This means that no fancept can exist without the prior existence of a percept, which is the photo of a real entity that exists in the objective world. As you can see, everything that man knows, even the subjective fantasies that he imagines and that only exist in the mind of the man who imagines them, begins with the existence that exists, from the natural, given and absolute things that exist and that can be perceived with the sense organs, like mice. Two people who say “mouse” seem to be talking about the same thing, but if their concepts contain percepts or fancepts they will be referring to very different things. Imagine two people in good faith trying to communicate, one of them using the concept “mouse” containing drawings of Mickey, and the other using the concept “mouse” containing photographs of real mice. Can they understand each other? Will judges and heads of state be able to judge or sign appropriate geopolitical agreements? Will the couple understand each other? Can good decisions be made? We said in a last meeting that it was important to know where we were standing on the field to play the game of our lives and be able to score goals. This is essential to understand. Words may look the same on the outside, but they can refer to completely different things, depending on whether they contain percepts or fancepts. The cause of political misery is cognitive misery and lies in epistemological ignorance,” said Alexandre.

“I’m still having a hard time understanding all this,” said Arturo.

“Don’t try to understand everything right away. You need to review these words over and over again. At first it seems impossible, but when you think slowly, very slowly, in slow motion, you understand it and then it is very simple. Now I’m going to show you a Power Point presentation that I made for myself to understand all of this. I summarized it in ten minutes and it will also help you understand it,” said Alexandre.

He gave them the presentation and afterwards it became much clearer to them. It was not easy to summarize and explain these things, but the richness they hid was invaluable. They used the white board and made diagrams and drawings. They hadn’t realized it, but hours had passed. They were exhausted, so they decided to go for a walk. Although it was night in the early morning, the three went down to the street with hoods and sunglasses so as not to be recognized. They entered a cafeteria and stayed for a while, but no one recognized them. Thirty minutes later they were back in front of the building. As they were waiting to the elevator, Alexandre realized that he had forgotten his wallet in the cafe.

“You go up! I’ll go get my wallet and be back!” he said and ran to the cafeteria.

When he returned to the building he was panting from the run. He saw Francisca standing on the front porch, her back to him. When she saw him, hugged and started kissing him. She kissed him on his cheeks, forehead, ears, neck and then gave him a long kiss on his mouth.

“You’ve drunk too much. We better go to the elevator,” Alexandre said, took her waist and they entered the building.

She marked the 14^th and 15^th floors and in the elevator mirror Alexandre saw that his hood had fallen off and he was carrying his sunglasses in his hand. In the urgency of going to get his wallet, he had run with his face uncovered and without glasses. She had stamped it with kisses so with his hand he removed the rouge from his face and his neck.

“You are going to the 15 and I am going to the 14. I love to know you are on top of me,” she said without modulating her voice. “I think I love you. Come and make me love now,” added when they reached the 14th floor. Alexandre realized that she did not know that a bomb had exploded on her father’s plane and was badly injured.

“Do you have your cell phone?” Alexandre asked.

“No. I forgot it in my bed. Let’s look for it!” she answered and thought, Let’s see how much of a man you are.

“Francisca, a bomb exploded on your father’s plane when they were returning from Edinburgh. They managed to land, but he is seriously injured at University College Hospital.”

“What?” she asked.

“He asked us not to suspend this meeting,” he said.

“Do what he says and I’ll go to the hospital, don’t worry about me, I’m fine, thank you,” and completely sober she ran to her bedroom when the elevator door closed.

“Look how fast you are!” Arturo said with his Argentine accent.

“I went and ran back, that’s why I’m panting,” Alexandre said.

“No stupid! I don’t say it for that!” Arturo exclaimed, “your neck is full of rouge! Did the waitress cover you with kisses?” he asked, laughing.

Alexandre smiled and looked at the floor, wiping away the rest of the rouge on his neck with a napkin. He didn’t say anything else nor did anyone asked.

They continued working and finished at five in the morning. They stayed for a while playing pool and talking about the next World Cup in Russia.

The next day Alexandre returned to Barcelona.