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 1.1 Objects are simple.1.2 Purchasing objects is not so simple. 1.3 Objects make up the substance of the world. Yet there are always more objects available to be purchased. 1.4 Which is why the substance of the world is expanding. 1.5 Yet an expanding world can only contain a finite amount of chocolate spread. 1.6 Unless that world catches up with another smaller planet and attaches it to itself, like a sort of mobile larder. 1.7 Every statement about out-of-town shopping centres can be resolved into a statement about their constituents and into propositions that describe the centres completely. 1.8 That statement would have to include the small pool of vomit beneath the pot of greenery beside the striking piece of modern steel sculpture in that concrete space between the Asda and the BHS. 1.9 But the sense of desolation lies beyond definition. 1.10 If the imagined world was exactly equivalent to the substantial world, then whether or not an object was worth purchasing would wholly depend on whether that object was on your shopping list. 1.11 But your shopping list omits objects necessary for everyday use that are too dull to remember for periods beyond five seconds. These include light-bulbs, peppercorns, paper towels, paperclips, stamps, candles, dishwasher tablets, vinegar and anything to do with the washing machine. 1.12 If two objects have the same logical form, the only distinction between them, apart from their external properties, is that they are different. If 55 types of chocolate spread have the same logical form, the only distinction between them is that they are different brands. 1.13 The world as it is constituted makes it possible to stand and stare at 55 different types of chocolate spread for more than five minutes without getting any closer to being able to make up your mind which particular spread to pick. 1.14 Chocolate spread + chocolate spread + chocolate spread + chocolate spread + chocolate spread x 11 = dizzy spell. 1.15 Either a thing has properties that nothing else has, in which case we can immediately use a description to distinguish it from the others and refer to it; or, on the other hand, there are several things that have the whole set of their properties in common, in which case it is quite impossible to indicate one of them. 1.16 This proposition may be true, but it does not help the right chocolate spread to be ascertained. 1.17 Which is the right chocolate spread and which is the wrong chocolate spread? 1.18 In the world constituted as it is, there is no right chocolate spread or wrong chocolate spread. In a manner of speaking, all chocolate spreads are the same. 1.19 Try telling that to the children when you arrive back with the wrong one. 1.20 Objects are what is unalterable and subsistent; their configuration is what is changing and unstable. If all 55 spreads are the same, then the first to be picked will be just the same as any other. 1.21 The quantity of differences acquired by one supermarket product over another is proportionate to the amount of time spent staring at it. 1.22 You have now been standing staring at the range of chocolate spread for nearly six minutes, yet you are further away from a decision than when you first arrived. 1.23 The suspicion dawns that other shoppers are beginning to look at you. 1.24 They are probably thinking there is something a bit odd about you. 1.25 They know what you do not: that the existence of an internal relation between possible brands expresses itself in language by means of an internal relation between the propositions representing them. 1.26 Which is why they are looking at you as though you were some sort of weird obsessive and thinking to themselves that there is something peculiar going on between you and chocolate spread. 1.27 The longer you stare at the shelves, the less likely it is that you will reach a logical decision and the more likely it is that you will be panicked into making an entirely random choice. 1.28 If we want to express in conceptual notation the thoughts in your head as you take in the sideways glances of passing shoppers as you stand rigid in front of the full range of chocolate spreads, then we require an expression for the general term: ƒ_?(xy******$@*** off!?!) X (you ***%[[!!!) = (go *** your***!?! selves). 1.29 An object is chosen by you. The chosen object is in fact the first chocolate spread you set eyes on, so you have grown to trust it. You place it in your basket and stride purposefully towards the check-out counter, feeling a sense of release from the world of choice. 2.1 But another choice now confronts you. At the check-out area, there are nine ordinary queues (9q), and one for six-items-or-less (6i]q). (6i]q) is three times (3X) as long as each of (9q), but the number of items in the (9q) trolleys (NiT) may be infinite (~). A swift calculation is necessary in order to determine the relative time to be spent in each queue. 2.2 You are halfway through the composition of the formula for the calculation of the swiftest queue - (~)-(9q) [ (6iq)-(3X) +... - so you forget to inch forward and someone with a month's worth of shopping cuts in and takes your place, sending the preceding calculations awry. 2.3 Frustration constrains the possibilities of all solutions. 2.4 The impulse to switch queues contains within it the seeds of futility. 2.5 The outward appearance of the new queue may be shorter, but the determinate way in which objects are connected in a state of affairs is itself the structure of the state of affairs; and the totality of this queue consists also of the time spent waiting while the lady on the check-out rings her bell to summon her supervisor to travel to the other end of the supermarket to determine the cost of a six-pack of banana-and-peach flavoured Petit Filous. 3.1 The logic of the car park is transcendental. The place the car is parked exists beyond memory. It is always possible to forget where the car is parked, as it looks like just like other cars. 3.2 The experience of going shopping is independent of the will to shop. 3.3 The thought of arriving home with the shopping is the sum of all our hopes. 3.4 Going shopping is the sum of all our fears | ||||
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