Coda

Penelope: Do you think that Roomba dreams? What would he dream of?

Duncan: Electric sheep?

Roomba: You better get out of the way tomorrow, Big Dog.

Penelope, Duncan, and Baby Cousin See "Inception"

Baby Cousin: I don’t get it.

Penelope: I don’t either. I got lost after they went for the ride in the car.

Duncan: It’s about memories. And dreams.

Baby Cousin: What are those?

Duncan: Well, memories are like, when you remember things. Like I remember where the Lady Who Dotes keeps the leashes. And I remember what time of day she takes us for walks.

Baby Cousin: I’m still lost.

Penelope: Wait, I think I’m getting it. So, it’s like when we go for a ride in the car and I know that we’re going to Grandma/Grandpa’s house because the car turns at a certain place and it’s the same place that we have always turned to go to Grandma/Grandpa’s.

Duncan: Yes.

Baby Cousin: Who are Grandma and Grandpa?

Penelope: You see them all the time.

Baby Cousin: Do they feed me?

Penelope: I don’t know about you, but they feed me a lot.

Duncan: So you might not have memories yet, but you have dreams, Baby Cousin. I’ve seen you. Your eyes move rapidly and you make little sucking motions with your mouth. You dream about eating, just like Little Dog.

Baby Cousin: Talk some sense to me. Just because I’m six weeks old doesn’t mean that I’m going to take condescension. I’m fierce, you know. Talk down to me and I’ll start to cry and then you’ll be sorry.

Duncan: Dreams come when you fall asleep. It’s like when you fall asleep and you go to that other world -- that pretend world -- you think you are doing things, but you are not. And then you wake up.

Baby Cousin: Another world? Sleep? Sleep and wake are two different states?

Penelope: Really?

Duncan: Yes. It’s like TV.

Penelope: TVs not real? Then why are all those dogs on TV? Could have fooled me.

Duncan: I don’t know if you have noticed how easily the humans trick you into taking a bath. It isn’t very hard.

Penelope: So, you are saying that sometimes when I’m eating a meal, I may only be eating in my mind?

Duncan: Yes.

Penelope: So I’m being gypped out of a meal? So are you getting a meal and I’m not, Big Dog? Who’s getting that food if it isn’t me?

Baby Cousin: I really fail to see the difference between “waking” and “sleeping,” or “real” and “pretend.” I just recently started to see things right-side up. And what I do see is a big blob. I don’t really get the law of inertia, so I have to be strapped into everything.

Penelope: Inertia’s a tough one.

Baby Cousin: I know that Little Dog is licking my feet right now, but I really don’t know that I have feet. If you showed me my feet, I wouldn’t recognize them as my own. Stop it Little Dog. Don’t you see me turning red? I’m about to cry!

Penelope: Big Dog and I can’t perceive the color red.

Duncan: How do you know what I can see and what I can’t see?

Penelope: Because you are a dog, just like me. We can’t see red.

Duncan: But how do you know I can’t? Have you seen the world through my eyes?

Penelope: No. Don’t be silly. You can’t see red, can you?

Duncan: No. But that’s beside the point. I’m saying that you can’t know what I see just like I can’t know what you see. We might see different things entirely.

Penelope: So then how do you know that I dream? I see you moving and hear you barking when you sleep. Maybe that’s all you are doing. Maybe there’s no narrative going on in your mind. Maybe since I have dreams I’m just projecting my ability to dream on to you. Maybe you’re not even real. Maybe only I am real.

Duncan: I truly think that you might believe that. You often use me as a step stool.

Penelope: So in just the last few minutes you have told me that dreams and TV are not real. Are memories real?

Duncan: That’s what the movie was about.

Penelope: So how do I know what is real? Obviously I can’t trust my senses because the dogs that I see and hear on TV and in dreams do not exist.

Duncan: You think, therefore you are?

Penelope: Big Dog, remember to whom you are talking.

Duncan: Okay. So thinking is out. What about instinct?

Penelope: I get hungry, therefore I am?

Baby Cousin: What about me? I don’t think, I don’t remember, and I don’t really have my senses wired straight. Do I not exist? I’m going to start crying now. I’ll show existence who exists! starts to cry

Penelope: She’s crying! I’ll bark to tell somebody that she’s crying! starts to bark

Duncan: Little Dog, you are barking? Do you hear some one at the door? runs to the door and starts to bark

The Unexamined Life

Socrates says that the unexamined life is not worth living.

I disagree.

I, Poppy, live a wholly unexamined life. I do not question who walks by the house and whether they are a threat. I do not question my reputation in the neighborhood as a barker. I do not question my parents' reputations as poor disciplinarians. I simply bark. I can because the humans I live with are omnipotent, with the powers of treats and leashes, thumbs, fences, doors, locks, and keys. When they walk into the room, the lights turn on! When they come home in the winter the heat goes up! I can bark at the passersby because these immortals are on my side. When the stranger comes to the door, I can always stand behind the person who comes to answer it.

Is this unexamined life not worth living? What is so bad about lying spread-eagle on the tile floor to stay cool in the summer? What is so bad about sitting at the door and sniffing the breeze? What is so wrong about licking the salt off of human legs? What is so wrong about sleeping in a sunbeam all day long? Are these activities worth nothing because I do not ask myself, "Poppy, are you righteous?"

Witness Roomba. He toils daily but does not complain. When he gets stuck under the sofa he waits quietly until freed. He does not wonder about his destiny or his free will. When he is tired he returns to his dock to recharge. He does not ask himself, "Roomba, are you righteous?"

What does Socrates know?

French Philosophy

It is 5:40 on a Sunday morning. You are lying awake and wondering whether existence precedes essence, or the other way around. You discuss this. Neither of you can remember, so you consult Wikipedia via its iPhone app.

I am also awake. I have been awake since 4:30. I do not need to consult an oracle on existential issues because my stomach has already made them clear: I am hungry, therefore I must remind you that I exist.

I rise over the side of the bed like the great pumpkin in the most sincere pumpkin patch around and cry. You deny my existence by telling me to go lie down.

Duncan wakes up. He also proclaims his existence/hunger by body-checking the bed. I cry again. Now there is a flurry of activity on the floor disturbing your quiet attempt to remember what you learned in college about Jean Paul Sartre.

Down below your comfortable bed, the slaves are rebelling against the elitist overlords.

Garage Door Guy

The Garage Door Guy came over today. We were so excited to see him that we ran outside and down the stairs. In our excitement we forgot that we were free and ran back after him into the house.

Everybody went outside and to the back of the house. Then we got to go in the garage. I love the garage. Sometimes I find things in there to eat or play with. I have to be very discreet about it, because Mommy and the Big Guy are very territorial. They always make me give back the treasures I find there.

We went back inside, Garage Door Guy, Mommy, Duncan, and me. I went to go sit on my perch by the door. I sat for a while, listening to the noises in the neighborhood. I forgot that Garage Door Guy was there.

There was a noise, and as I came back from my reverie, the Garage Door Guy was leaving. I wondered, "How could he be leaving if he hasn't even come into the house yet?" Then I realized, he couldn't. Not one to dwell on complexities in times of crisis, I sounded the alarm immediately. I looked back and forth between Mommy and Garage Door Guy, who shouldn't have been there. "There's a stranger in the house! There's a stranger in the house! He's leaving through the front door!"

Safe once more.