anthony trotz went first to the politician, mike delado. "how many people do you know, mr. delado?"
"why the question?"
"i am wondering just what amount of detail the mind can hold."
"to a degree i know many. ten thousand well, thirty thousand by name, probably a hundred thousand by face and to shake hands with."
"and what is the limit?" anthony inquired.
"possibly i am the limit." the politician smiled frostily. "the only limit is time, speed of cognizance and retention. i am told that the latter lessens with age. i am seventy, and it has not done so with me. whom i have known i do not forget."
"and with special training could one go beyond you?"
"i doubt if one could—much. for my own training has been quite special. nobody has been so entirely with the people as i have. i've taken five memory courses in my time, but the tricks of all of them i had already come to on my own. i am a great believer in the commonality of mankind and of near equal inherent ability. yet there are some, say the one man in fifty, who in degree if not in kind do exceed their fellows in scope and awareness and vitality. i am that one man in fifty, and knowing people is my specialty."
"could a man who specialized still more—and to the exclusion of other things—know a hundred thousand men well."
"it is possible. dimly."
"a quarter of a million?"
"i think not. he might learn that many faces and names, but he would not know the men."
anthony went next to the philosopher, gabriel mindel.
"mr. mindel, how many people do you know?"
"how know? per se? a se? or in se? per suam essentiam, perhaps? or do you mean ab alio? or to know as hoc aliquid? there is a fine difference there. or do you possibly mean to know in substantia prima, or in the sense of comprehensive noumena?"
"somewhere between the latter two. how many persons do you know by name, face, and with a degree of intimacy?"
"i have learned over the years the names of some of my colleagues, possibly a dozen of them. i am now sound on my wife's name, and i seldom stumble over the names of my offspring—never more than momentarily. but you may have come to the wrong man for—whatever you have come for. i am notoriously poor at names, faces, and persons. i have even been described (vox faucibus haesit) as absent-minded."
"yes, you do have the reputation. but perhaps i have not come to the wrong man in seeking the theory of the thing. what is it that limits the comprehensive capacity of the mind of man? what will it hold? what restricts?"
"the body."
"how is that?"
"the brain, i should say, the material tie. the mind is limited by the brain. it is skull-bound. it can accumulate no more than its cranial capacity, though not one tenth of that is ordinarily used. an unbodied mind would (in esoteric theory) be unlimited."
"and how in practical theory?"
"if it is practical, a pragma, it is a thing and not a theory."
"then we can have no experience with the unbodied mind, or the possibility of it?"
"we have not discovered any area of contact, but we may entertain the possibility of it. there is no paradox there. one may rationally consider the irrational."
