an unusual incident

 I relayed to Dave last week this incident. Let me summarize it as follows: I got off work on a normal night and proceeded to the train platform. As it had snowed lightly, I did not sit down on the bench. After a minute or two, I saw a person coming down the tracks, that is, in the rail tracks and not on the platform. I first thought he was drunk or high, and or making his way to the exit at the end of the platform. But instead of going to the exit, he stopped about 15 feet away from me and lied down on the tracks. After a few moments of hesitation, I walked towards him, not knowing if I should call for help (he was right in front of the help line) or if I should talk with him. Thinking that the train was still a good five minutes away, I thought I would try to talk with him first. I asked him, "hey man, are you ok?" He started to tell me that he missed his brother, and also his girlfriend. A few more words were exchanged before he got to his feet and told me he is not "that guy." He tried to hop back onto the platform but couldn't. At this point, I could hear the bells for the train ringing. I reached down and offered him my hand, even though I was not sure if I was strong enough to pull him up.  We got him back onto the platform safely.  When he got back on his feet (as he was on the ground), I saw that the train has pulled into the station.

I am most baffled by a paradox. Had I known the train was going to come this quickly, I would have called for help. Ironically, this might have resulted in a delay that could have costed him his life. So not knowing led to what turned out to be the right action. My presumption has always been that knowledge leads to right action. Here, it is flipped. If I had known, I would have done the wrong thing. Not knowing the truth about the arrival time led me to talk with him first, to see if something could be done. This is truly completely baffling.

I suppose I like to think in a state of possibilities. But what possibility can imagine truly pales when the full force of reality hits.

      "according to our present conceptions the elementary particles of matter are also, in their essence, nothing else than condensations of the electromagnctic field"

    

Where the ether is a sort of non-substance making up the dimension of space-time, in the dimension's curvature, energy is collected as for such as corresponding to increased density that eventuates into something like condensation.  In that, certain very minute forms have emerged to be elementary particles identifiable as the basis for matter: at this threshold energy which otherwise could propogate through the dimension has become as matter.  [The conversion between energy and matter]  The phenomenon of an attractive force appearing to come from the matter in fact found its source in the curvature.  The significance of the ether seems to be that certain finite unities or finite states, ie. matter or fields, are like particular properties arising from the ether's being the substantial definition of the dimension.

    "But this ether may not be thought of as endowed with the quality characteristic of ponderable inedia, as consisting of parts which may be tracked through time."

     (...Matter could be thought of as an outcome resulting from the curvatures of space-time)