Third Floor Common Room, Monday Afternoon

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

Eleanor had signed herself up for a Philosophy class, assuming it would be interesting. It was. It just also made her mind hurt. She had been cooped up all weekend with the same book; she had decided to read in the common room today, in the hopes that the change of scenery might improve the matter.

The book she was currently coming to terms with was Rene Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy, particularly Meditation I, wherein Descartes began arguing that the senses could not be trusted and that very few experiences could be accepted as factual, except the bare fact of existence itself.

It wasn't that she disagreed, exactly; it was just that it was really disconcerting to realize that he was right. And to wonder if perhaps he was wrong about existence, itself, and to extend that outward.

She was highly interrupt-able, especially if you wouldn't mind hearing about epistemology.

Comments

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

"...Descartes, really?" Joker asked, conversationally, as he headed towards the couch. Skippy cooed and headed off up the stairs with Joker's bag to drop it off in his room.

"I mean, that's not exactly light reading, is it? 'I think, therefore I should do it waaaaay too much'?"

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

"It's homework," Eleanor explained with a laugh. "I have a philosophy class and it's been assigned. I think, therefore I slog through translated French texts."

She nodded to the doorway, although the creature had already departed. "Or perhaps I think, therefore I hallucinate space monkeys."

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

"Oh, you're not hallucinating him. He's there. You're misremembering him having not been there, that's all. I mean, the alternative is that he appeared out of nowhere and altered my memory so that I'd take him in. Which... is really creepy to think about. And either one would be just par for the course on this crazy, crazy island." He sighed.

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

"Oh, there are rather more options than that," Eleanor said, closing the book with her finger placed to hold her spot. "For one, either of us could be dreaming this conversation. Perhaps I've been asleep since Thursday, and when I see you next in class, you'll ask 'what spacemonkey?'"

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

"Or, I could just be messing with you," Joker added. "I mean, I'm not, but from your perspective -- which, according to Crazy French Math Guy, is the only one that you can trust -- I could be."

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

"Exactly," Eleanor said. "I can't assume truthfulness on your part any more than you can assume truthfulness on mine. Besides, there's a remote chance that you don't exist at all, except as a figment of my imagination, so how could I possibly trust anything you say then?"

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

"Well," Joker said as he lowered himself onto the couch beside her, "that depends. Is your imagination really capable of coming up with the amount of sheer concentrated awesomeness that you see before you? I'd hate to think I was so common."

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

"It's a matter of perception, isn't it?" Eleanor giggled. "Perhaps I'm not appreciating the true awesomeness that the real-you would exhibit, but my primitive mind is simply telling me, 'there is awesomeness here that is too great to behold' and I'm reacting accordingly. So that hasn't proven your existence, yet."

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

"Well, okay, A) your mind isn't anywhere near quote-unquote 'primitive', and B)... so, you've condemned me to existential uncertainty? Man, I thought we were tight. Le Sigh."

[ultron_junior]

"Your turn for a little light reading?" Victor asked when he wandered into the common room. "Hey, Eleanor."

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

Joker waved and left his hand up in the air. "Hey, Vic! How's it hangin'? Up high!"

[ultron_junior]

"Personal question, Moreau," Victor said lightly. "Nah, it's good. I'm kind of taking it easy this semester so far. You?"

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

"Uh... Up high?" The flat palm, which had been looking for a high-five, closed so that Joker held it like a sock puppet. "I don't think it's gonna happen, buddy," he sighed. The hand shook side-to-side in a "no", and then drooped sadly.

"See, now look what you've done," Joker told Victor. "And this place, too. I've got such a light schedule, which is just so... wrong." He gestured with his free hand at the one that was still drooping. "Just look what it's brought me to!"

[ultron_junior]

Victor flushed while his mun facepalmed for having misread the tag.

"See, that's what I get for spacing out," he said ruefully. "Sorry for making your hand sad. Think it still wants a high five, or is the moment gone?"

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

The hand perked up immediately and "nodded" at Victor, and then Joker waved it in the air again with a grin. "Not too hard, now. I'm fragile."

[ultron_junior]

"I'll take it easy on you," Victor said, and brought his hand up to make contact.

He was trying to be gentle, but, well, there was still a lot of metal in his skeleton ...

[fly-so-serious.livejournal.com]

Joker grinned, and then winced and shook his hand out. "Man, that's going easy? You can be my proxy next time someone challenges me to arm wrestling!"

[ultron_junior]

"Not my fault you're weak, dude," Victor told him sheepishly. "Does the arm wrestling thing come up that often?"

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

"Hello again," she said warmly, looking up from her book. "We should alternate the heavy reading. Next time, you can bring a non-Euclidean geometry textbook, and then I'll try quantum physics."

[ultron_junior]

"That would be the best study date ever," Victor said -- and the sad thing was, he really did think it sounded fun. "I should get something solid on chemistry, too. Last week the class here was about Alka-Seltzer."

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

"I'm sure we could find a textbook on organic chemistry," Eleanor said excitedly. "Benzene rings and catalysts. Isn't Alka-Seltzer just carbonated tablets? Did you have to sing the jingle?"

[ultron_junior]

"No, he just dropped the tablet in water and then told us to watch a movie," Victor said, still incredulous. "And that was it. I have no idea how I'll get through college after two years in this place, man."

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

"That's ... almost worse than not doing any chemistry at all," Eleanor said, shaking her head slowly. "None could just be an accidental oversight, whereas that seems like a deliberate choice."

It made sense to her, anyway.

"What schools are you looking at?" she asked. "I hadn't thought much about college. I suppose I ought to go."

[ultron_junior]

"Yeah, sometimes I don't know where this place finds its teachers," Victor sighed. "And I'm going to UCLA. I have to stay in town, so ... lucky me I had a couple good schools to choose from."

He glanced over to her. "What grade are you?" he asked. "'Cause I'm a senior, and I didn't start taking it seriously until this year."

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

"Why do you have to stay in town?" she asked. "Would you be homesick, otherwise, or are there more permanent ties?"

She lifted a shoulder. "I'm a sophomore," she said. "I've never really done much planning for the future. Life was a little ... odd, before I came here. I suppose now's a good time to begin thinking about it."