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THE WEIRDNESS OF THE WORLD
The Weirdness of the World

ERIC SCHWITZGEBEL

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

PRINCETON & OXFORD
Copyright © 2024 by Princeton University Press
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NASA
I dedicate this book to the world’s freaks, geeks, and weirdos, lovers
of the bizarre and wondrous
 CONTENTS

PART I. BIZARRENESS AND DUBIETY 1

1 In Praise of Weirdness 3
2 Universal Bizarreness and Universal Dubiety 10

PART II. PECULIAR POSSIBILITIES 45

3 If Materialism Is True, the United States is Probably Conscious 47
4 1% Skepticism 72
5 Kant Meets Cyberpunk 101

PART III. THE SIZE OF THE UNIVERSE 123

6 Experimental Evidence for the Existence of an External World 125
with Alan Tonnies Moore

7 Almost Everything You Do Causes Almost Everything (under Certain

Not Wholly Implausible Assumptions); or, Infinite Puppetry 149
with Jacob Barandes

PART IV. MORE PERPLEXITIES OF CONSCIOUSNESS 171

8 Consciousness, Innocent and Wonderful 173
9 The Loose Friendship of Visual Experience and Reality 189
10 Is There Something It’s Like to Be a Garden Snail? Or, How Sparse or
Abundant Is Consciousness in the Universe? 201
11 The Moral Status of Future Artificial Intelligence 229
12 Weirdness and Wonder 253

Appendix: Five More Objections to U.S. Consciousness 261

Acknowledgments 275
Notes 279
References 311
Index 347
 PART I

Bizarreness and Dubiety

 1
In Praise of Weirdness
The weird sisters, hand in hand,
Posters of the sea and land,
Thus do go about, about:
Thrice to thine and thrice to mine
And thrice again, to make up nine.
Peace! the charm’s wound up.
—SHAKESPEARE, MACBETH, ACT I, SCENE III

Weird often saveth

The undoomed hero if doughty his valor!
—BEOWULF, X.14–15, TRANSLATED BY J. LESSLIE HALL

THE WORD “weird” has deep roots in old English, originally as a noun for fate
or magic, later evolving toward its present use as an adjective for the
uncanny or peculiar. By the 1980s, it had fruited as the choicest middle-
school insult against unstylish kids like me who spent their free time playing
with figurines of wizards and listening to obscure science fiction radio
shows. If the “normal” is the conventional, ordinary, and readily understood,
the weird is what defies that.1
The world is weird—deeply, pervasively so, weird to its core, or so I will
argue in this book. Among the weirdest things about Earth is that certain
complex bags of mostly water can pause to reflect on the most fundamental
questions there are. We can philosophize to the limits of our comprehension
and peer into the fog beyond those limits. We can contemplate the
foundations of reality, and the basis of our understanding of those
foundations, and the necessary conditions of the basis of our understanding
of those foundations, and so on, trying always to peer behind the next
curtain, even with no clear method and no great hope of a satisfying end to
the inquiry. In this respect, we vastly outgeek bluebirds and kangaroos and
are rightly a source of amazement to ourselves.
I will argue that careful inquiry into fundamental questions about
consciousness and cosmology reveals not a set of readily comprehensible
answers but instead a complex blossoming of bizarre possibilities. These
possibilities compete with one another, or combine in non-obvious ways.
Philosophical and cosmological inquiry teaches us that something radically
contrary to common sense must be true about the fundamental structures of
the mind and the world, while leaving us poorly equipped to determine
where exactly the truth lies among the various weird possibilities.
We needn’t feel disappointed by this outcome. The world is richer and
more interesting for escaping our understanding. How boring it would be if
everything made sense!

1. My Weird Thesis
Consider three huge questions: What is the fundamental structure of the
cosmos? How does human consciousness fit into it? What should we value?
What I will argue in this book—with emphasis on the first two questions but
also sometimes touching on the third—is (1) the answers to these questions
are currently beyond our capacity to know, and (2) we do nonetheless know
at least this: Whatever the truth is, it’s weird. Careful reflection will reveal
that every viable theory on these grand topics is both bizarre and dubious. In
chapter 2 (“Universal Bizarreness and Universal Dubiety”), I will call this
the Universal Bizarreness thesis and the Universal Dubiety thesis.
Something that seems almost too preposterous to believe must be true, but
we lack the means to resolve which of the various preposterous-seeming
options is in fact correct. If you’ve ever wondered why every wide-ranging,
foundations-minded philosopher in the history of Earth has held bizarre
metaphysical or cosmological views (I challenge you to find an exception!)
—with each philosopher holding, seemingly, a different set of bizarre views
—chapter 2 offers an explanation.
I will argue that every approach to cosmology and consciousness has
implications that run strikingly contrary to mainstream “common sense” and
that, partly in consequence, we ought to hold such theories only tentatively.
Sometimes we can be justified in simply abandoning what we previously
thought of as common sense, when we have firm scientific grounds for
thinking otherwise; but questions of the sort I explore in this book test the
limits of scientific inquiry. Concerning such matters, nothing is firm—
neither common sense, nor science, nor any of our other epistemic tools. The
nature and value of scientific inquiry itself rely on disputable assumptions
about the fundamental structure of the mind and the world, as I discuss in
chapters on skepticism (chapter 4), idealism (chapter 5), and whether the
external world exists (chapter 6).
On a philosopher’s time scale—where a few decades ago is “recent” and
a few decades from now is “soon”—we live in a time of change, with
cosmological theories and theories of consciousness rising and receding in
popularity based mainly on broad promise and what captures researchers’
imaginations. We ought not trust that the current range of mainstream
theories will closely resemble the range in a hundred years, much less the
actual truth.

2. Varieties of Cosmological Weirdness

To establish that the world is cosmologically weird, maybe all that is needed
is relativity theory and quantum mechanics.
According to relativity theory, if your twin accelerates away from you at
very high speed, then returns, much less time will have passed for the
traveler than for you who stayed here on Earth—the so-called Twin Paradox.
According to the most straightforward interpretation of quantum mechanics,
if you observe what we ordinarily consider to be a chance event, there’s also
an equally real, equally existing version of you in another “world” who
shares your past but for whom the event turned out differently.2 (Or maybe
your act of observation caused the event to turn out one way rather than the
other, or maybe some other bizarre thing is true, depending on the correct
interpretation of quantum mechanics, but it’s widely accepted that there are
no non-bizarre interpretations.) So if you observe the chance decay of a
uranium atom, for example, there’s another world branching off from this
one, containing a counterpart of you who observes the atom not to have
decayed. If we accept that view, then the cosmos contains a myriad of
different, equally real worlds, each with different versions of you and your
friends and everything you know, all splitting off from a common past.
I won’t dwell on those particular cosmological peculiarities, since they
are familiar to academic readers and well handled elsewhere.3 However,
some equally fundamental cosmological issues are typically addressed by
philosophers rather than scientific cosmologists.
One is the possibility that the cosmos is nowhere near as large as we
ordinarily assume—perhaps just you and your immediate environment
(chapter 4) or perhaps even just your own mind and nothing else (chapter 6).
Although these possibilities might appear unlikely, they are worth
considering seriously, to assess how confident we ought to be in their falsity,
and on what grounds. I will argue that it’s reasonable not to entirely dismiss
such skeptical possibilities. Alternatively, and more in line with mainstream
physical theory, the cosmos might be infinite, which brings its own train of
bizarre consequences (chapter 7).
Another possibility is that we live inside a simulated reality or a pocket
universe, embedded in a much larger structure about which we know
virtually nothing (chapters 4 and 5). Yet another possibility is that our
experience of three-dimensional spatiality is a product of our own minds that
doesn’t reflect the underlying structure of reality (chapter 5) or that our
sensory experience maps only loosely onto the underlying structure of reality
(chapter 9).
Still another set of questions concerns the relationship of mind to cosmos.
Is conscious experience abundant in the universe, or does it require the
delicate coordination of rare events (chapter 10)? Is consciousness purely a
matter of having the right physical structure, or might it require something
non-physical (chapter 2)? Under what conditions might a group of organisms
give rise to group-level consciousness (chapter 3)? What would it take to
build a conscious machine, if that is possible at all—and what should we do
if we don’t know whether we have succeeded (chapter 11)?
In each of our heads there are about as many neurons as stars in our
galaxy, and each neuron is arguably more structurally complex than any star
system that does not contain life. There is as much complexity and mystery
inside as out.
The repeated theme: In the most fundamental matters of consciousness
and cosmology, neither common sense, nor early twenty-first-century
empirical science, nor armchair philosophical theorizing is entirely
trustworthy. The rational response is to distribute our credence across a wide
range of bizarre options.
Each chapter is meant to be separately comprehensible. Please feel free to
skip ahead, reading any subset of them in any order.

3. Philosophy That Closes versus Philosophy That Opens

You are reading a philosophy book—voluntarily, let’s suppose. Why? Some
people read philosophy because they believe it reveals profound,
fundamental truths about the way the world really is and the one right
manner to live. Others like the beauty of grand philosophical systems. Still
others like the clever back-and-forth of philosophical dispute. What I like
most is none of these. I love philosophy best when it opens my mind—when
it reveals ways the world could be, possible approaches to life, lenses
through which I might see and value things around me, which I might not
otherwise have considered.
Philosophy can aim to open or to close. Suppose you enter Philosophical
Topic X imagining three viable, mutually exclusive possibilities, A, B, and
C. The philosophy of closing aims to reduce the three to one. It aims to
convince you that possibility A is correct and the others wrong. If it
succeeds, you know the truth about Topic X: A is the answer! In contrast, the
philosophy of opening aims to add new possibilities to the mix—
possibilities that you hadn’t considered before or had considered but too
quickly dismissed. Instead of reducing three to one, three grows to maybe
five, with new possibilities D and E. We can learn by addition as well as
subtraction. We can learn that the range of viable possibilities is broader than
we had assumed.
For me, the greatest philosophical thrill is realizing that something I’d
long taken for granted might not be true, that some “obvious” apparent truth
is in fact doubtable—not just abstractly and hypothetically doubtable, but
really, seriously, in-my-gut doubtable. The ground shifts beneath me. Where
I’d thought there would be floor, there is instead open space I hadn’t
previously seen. My mind spins in new, unfamiliar directions. I wonder, and
the world itself seems to glow with a new wondrousness. The cosmos
expands, bigger with possibility, more complex, more unfathomable. I feel
small and confused, but in a good way.
Let’s test the boundaries of the best current work in science and
philosophy. Let’s launch ourselves at questions monstrously large and
formidable. Let’s contemplate these questions carefully, with serious
scholarly rigor, pushing against the edge of human knowledge. That is an
intrinsically worthwhile activity, worth some of our time in a society
generous enough to permit us such time, even if the answers elude us.
My middle-school self who used dice and thrift-shop costumes to imagine
astronauts and wizards is now a middle-aged philosopher who uses twenty-
first-century science and philosophy to imagine the shape of the cosmos and
the magic of consciousness. Join me! If doughty our valor, mayhap the weird
saveth us.
FIGURE 1.1
 2
Universal Bizarreness and
Universal Dubiety
The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
—J. B. S. HALDANE, 1927

HERE ARE two things I figure I know:

1. I’m having some conscious experiences.
2. Something exists in addition to my conscious experiences (for
example, some objects external to me).
Both facts are difficult to deny, especially if we don’t intend anything
fancy by “conscious experiences” or “objects.”1 I’m having some
experiences, and oh hey, there’s some stuff. It requires some creative,
skeptical energy to doubt either of these head-smackingly obvious facts. As
it happens, I do have some creative, skeptical energy, and later, I will try
doubting versions of these propositions. I’ll assume them for now, and I
invite you to assume similar facts for your own case.
How are (1) and (2) related? How is mentality housed in the material or
seemingly material world? If you take mindless, material stuff and swirl it
around, under what conditions will consciousness (experientiality, feelings,
phenomenology) arise? Or could consciousness never arise merely from
mindless, material stuff? Or is there not even such a thing as mindless,
material stuff, because everything that exists is in some way mental? About
this, philosophers and scientists have accumulated centuries’ worth of
radically divergent theories.
In this chapter I will argue that every possible theory of the relationship
between claims (1) and (2) is both bizarre and dubious. Something radically
strange and counterintuitive must be true about the relationship between
mind and world. And for the foreseeable future, we cannot know which
among the various bizarre and dubious alternatives is in fact correct. Part A
starts with general reflections on the bizarreness of metaphysics (that is, the
study of the fundamental nature of things), then works one by one through
four major approaches to the mind-world relation, arguing that each
inevitably defies common sense, either on its face or when options are
considered and implications pursued. Part B argues that every viable theory
of the mind-world relation is “dubious” in the sense that we are not
epistemically compelled to believe it.
How mentality relates to or arises from the seemingly material world is
no less fundamental a cosmological question than how matter (if it exists)
congeals into stars. If the mind-world relation is bizarre, the cosmos as a
whole is bizarre.

A. Universal Bizarreness
1. Why Is Metaphysics Always Bizarre?
Inquire into the fundamental nature of things with as much sobriety and
bland common sense as you can muster. You will always, if you arrive
anywhere, arrive at bizarreness.
Philosophers who explore foundational metaphysical questions typically
begin with some highly plausible initial commitments or commonsense
intuitions, some solid-seeming starting points—for example, concerning the
nature of numbers, that there is a prime number between two and five;
concerning the nature of possibility, that they could have had eggs for
breakfast; or concerning the nature of objects, that squeezing a clay statue
would destroy the statue but not the lump of clay. They think long and hard
about what these seemingly obvious claims imply. In the end, they find
themselves committed to peculiar-seeming, common-sense-defying views,
such as that there’s a nonmaterial realm of abstract Platonic entities (where
numbers exist), or an infinite number of metaphysically real possible worlds
(some which contain counterpart versions of themselves who ate eggs for
breakfast), or a huge population of spatiotemporally coincident objects on
their mantelpiece (including a statue that would have been destroyed by
squeezing and a lump of clay that would have survived squeezing).2 In
almost 40 years of reading philosophy, I have yet to encounter a single
broad-ranging exploration of the fundamental nature of things that doesn’t
ultimately entangle its author in seeming absurdities like these. Rejection of
these seeming absurdities then becomes the commonsense starting point of
a new round of metaphysics by other philosophers, generating a
complementary bestiary of metaphysical strangeness. Thus philosophers are
happily employed.
I see three possible explanations for why metaphysics is always bizarre.
First possible explanation. Without some bizarreness, a metaphysics
won’t sell. It would seem too obvious, maybe. Or it would lack theoretical
panache. Or it would conflict too sharply with recent advances in empirical
science.
The problem with this explanation is that there should be at least a small
market for a thoroughly commonsensical metaphysics with no bizarre
implications, even if that metaphysics is gauche, boring, and scientifically
stale. Common sense might not be quite as fun as Nietzsche’s eternal
recurrence or Leibniz’s windowless monads.3 It won’t be as scientifically
current as the latest incarnation of multiverse theory.4 But a
commonsensical metaphysics ought to be attractive to a certain portion of
readers. It ought to at least be a curiosity worth studying. It shouldn’t be so
downmarket as to be entirely invisible.
Second possible explanation. Metaphysics is difficult. A thoroughly
commonsensical metaphysics with no bizarre implications is out there to be
discovered. We simply haven’t found it yet. If all goes well, someday
someone will piece it together, top to bottom, with no serious violence to
common sense anywhere in the system.
 This is wishful thinking against the evidence. Philosophers have worked
at it for centuries, failing again and again. Indeed, often the most thorough
metaphysicians—Leibniz, David Lewis—are the ones whose systems seem
the strangest.5 It’s not as though we’ve been making slow progress toward
less bizarre views and only a few more pieces need to fall into place. There
is no historical basis for hope that a well-developed commonsense
metaphysics will eventually arrive.
Third possible explanation. Common sense is incoherent in matters of
metaphysics. Contradictions thus inevitably follow. No coherent
metaphysical system can adhere to every aspect of common sense.
Although common sense usually serves us well in practical maneuvers
through the social and physical world, common sense is less reliable in
theoretical physics, probability theory, neuroscience, macroeconomics,
evolutionary biology, astronomy, topology, chemical engineering.… If
metaphysics more closely resembles those endeavors than it resembles
reaching practical judgments about picking berries and planning parties, we
might reasonably doubt the dependability of common sense as a guide to
metaphysics.6 Undependability doesn’t imply incoherence, of course. But
incoherence seems a natural next step, and incoherence would neatly
explain the historical facts at hand.
On the first explanation of why metaphysical theories are bizarre, we
could easily enough invent a thoroughly commonsensical metaphysics if we
wanted one, but we don’t want one. On the second explanation, we do want
one, or enough of us do, we just haven’t finished constructing it yet. On the
third explanation, we can’t have one. The third explanation, I propose, best
fits the historical evidence and best matches the pattern in related
disciplines.
To clarify the scope of the claim: It concerns only broad-ranging
explorations of fundamental metaphysical issues, especially issues around
which seeming absurdities have historically congregated: mind and body,
causation, identity, the catalog of entities that really exist. On these sorts of
questions, thorough-minded philosophers have inevitably found themselves
in thickets of competing bizarreness, forced to weigh violations of common
sense against one another and against other types of philosophical
consideration, such as simplicity, explanatory power, and fit with leading
scientific theories.
Of course, common sense is culturally variable. Societies differ in what
they take for granted or regard as obviously correct. But this fact doesn’t
undermine my thesis. All well-elaborated metaphysical systems in the
philosophical canon, Eastern and Western, ancient and modern, conflict
both with the common sense of their own milieu and with current Western
anglophone common sense. Kant’s noumena, Plato’s forms, Lewisian
possible worlds, Buddhist systems of no-self and dependent origination—
these were never part of any society’s common sense.7
I expect most seasoned metaphysicians will agree with my description of
the discipline (even if not about the cause of metaphysical divergence from
common sense). But other readers might doubt the existence of the
phenomenon I aim to explain. They will think or suspect that there is a
thoroughly commonsensical metaphysics already on the market. I’ve
sometimes heard it suggested that Aristotle was a common sense
metaphysician. Or Scottish “common sense” philosopher Thomas Reid. Or
G. E. Moore, famous for his “Defence of Common Sense.” Or “ordinary
language” philosopher P. F. Strawson. Or the later Wittgenstein. But
Aristotle didn’t envision himself as defending a commonsense view. In the
introduction to the Metaphysics Aristotle says that the conclusions of
sophisticated inquiries such as his own will often seem “wonderful” to the
untutored and contrary to their opinions; and he sees himself as aiming to
distinguish the true from the false in common opinion.8 Moore, though
fierce in wielding common sense against his philosophical foes, is unable to
preserve all commonsense opinions when he develops his positive views in
detail—for example, in his waffling about the metaphysics of “sense data”
(entities you supposedly see both when hallucinating and in ordinary
perception).9 Strawson, despite his preference for ordinary ways of talking
and thinking insofar as possible, struggles similarly, especially in his 1985
book Skepticism and Naturalism, in which he can find no satisfactory
account of the causal relationship between mind and world.10 Wittgenstein
does not commit to a detailed metaphysical system.11 Reid I will discuss in
section 4 below. Maybe there’s someone I’ve overlooked—a thorough and
broad-ranging metaphysician who nowhere violates the common sense at
least of their own culture? Since I can’t be expert in the entire history of
global philosophy, I welcome the careful examination of possible
counterexamples.
The argument in this section is an “abductive” one; that is, an inference
to the best explanation of an empirically observed fact. The empirical fact
to be explained is that across the entire history of philosophy, all well-
developed metaphysical systems—all broad-ranging attempts to articulate
the general structure of reality—defy common sense. Every one of them is
in some respect jaw-droppingly bizarre. An attractive possible explanation
of this striking empirical fact is that people’s commonsensical metaphysical
intuitions form an incoherent set, so that no well-developed metaphysical
picture can adhere to them all.
Common sense changes. So the metaphysical incoherence of common
sense needn’t be a permanent condition. Heliocentrism used to defy
common sense, but it no longer does. Maybe if we finally straighten out our
metaphysics and teach it patiently to generations of students, sowing it deep
into our culture, eventually people will say, “Ah yes, of course, eternal
recurrence and universal cosmic consciousness, what could be more plain
and obvious to the common fellow!” One can always dream.
The argument of this section was quick. The reader would be forgiven
for not buying it yet. The next several sections will slow it down, defining
our terms more carefully, then work through the metaphysics of the mind-
world relation in particular.

2. Bizarre, Wild, and Dubious: Definitions

Let’s call a position bizarre if it’s contrary to common sense. And let’s call
a position contrary to common sense if most people without specialized
training on the issue confidently, but perhaps implicitly, believe it to be
false. This usage traces back to Cicero, who calls principles that ordinary
people assume to be obvious sensus communis. Cicero describes violation
of common sense as the orator’s “worst possible fault”—presumably
because the orator’s views will be regarded as ridiculous by his intended
audience.12 Common sense is what it seems ridiculous to deny.
 To call a position bizarre is not necessarily to repudiate it. The seemingly
ridiculous is sometimes true. Einsteinian relativity theory is bizarre (for
example, the Twin Paradox). Various bizarre things are true about the
infinite (for example, the one-to-one correspondence between the points in
a line segment and the points in the whole of a space that contains that line
segment as a part, and thus their equal cardinality or size). Common sense
errs, and we can be justified in thinking so.
However, we are not ordinarily justified in believing bizarre things
without compelling evidence. In the matters it traverses, common sense
serves as an epistemic starting point that we reject only with sufficient
warrant. To believe something bizarre on thin grounds—for example, to
think that the world was created five minutes ago or that electrons have
immaterial souls—seems weird or wacky or wild. Let’s call an idea or
theory wild if it’s bizarre and we are not epistemically compelled to believe
it.13 And let’s abbreviate the concept of lack of epistemic compulsion by
describing as dubious any proposition that we are not epistemically
compelled to believe—that is, any idea, theory, or position about which it is
rational, based on the existing evidence, to maintain substantial doubt. To
call an idea wild, then, is to say it is both dubious and contrary to common
sense. Theoretical wildness is a type of weirdness in the sense of chapter 1.
It’s weird—strikingly contrary to the normal or ordinary—to embrace a
wild theory.14
Not all wild ideas are as extreme as the two just mentioned. Many
philosophers and some scientists favor views contrary to common sense and
for which the evidence is less than compelling. In fact, to convert the wild
to the merely bizarre might be the highest form of academic success.
Einstein, Darwin, and Copernicus (via Kepler) all managed the conversion
—and at least in the case of Copernicus common sense also eventually
relented: It no longer strikes us as bizarre to think the Earth orbits the Sun.
Intellectual risk-takers nurture wild ideas and see what marvels bloom. The
culture of contemporary anglophone academia, perhaps especially
philosophy, overproduces wildness like a plant produces seeds.
Finally, let’s call a topic or general phenomenon a theoretical wilderness
if something wild must be among the core truths about that topic.
Sometimes we can be justified in believing that one among several bizarre
views must be true about some issue, while the balance of evidence leaves
no individual view decisively supported over all others. We might find
ourselves rationally compelled to believe that either Theory 1, Theory 2,
Theory 3, or Theory 4 must be true, where each of these theories is bizarre
and none individually compels belief. Consider interpretations of quantum
mechanics. The “many worlds” interpretation, for example, according to
which reality consists of vastly many worlds splitting off from each other,
seems to conflict sharply with common sense.15 It also seems that the
balance of evidence does not decisively favor this view over all
competitors.16 Thus, the many worlds interpretation is “wild” in the sense
defined. If, as is plausible, the same holds for all viable interpretations of
quantum mechanics, then quantum mechanics is a theoretical wilderness.

A Taxonomy of Weirdness

Weird: contrary to the conventional, ordinary, and readily understood

Bizarre: contrary to common sense—i.e., something that people without specialized training
confidently but perhaps implicitly believe to be false
Dubious: doubtful in the sense that we are not epistemically compelled to believe it
Wild: both bizarre and dubious
Theoretical wilderness: a topic on which every viable theory is wild

The thesis of this chapter, and one of the core ideas of this book, is that
the metaphysics of mind is a theoretical wilderness. Something bizarre must
be true about the relationship between mind and world, but we can’t know
—at least not yet, not with our current tools—which among the various
bizarre possibilities is correct.
The remainder of this chapter relies upon dividing approaches to the
mind-world relation into four broad types:
(1) materialist, according to which everything is fundamentally
composed of mindless material stuff like quarks and photons,
(2) dualist, according to which material substances exist but so also do
immaterial substances like eternal souls,
 (3) idealist, according to which only immaterial substances exist, and
(4) a grab bag of views that reject all three alternatives or attempt to
reconcile or compromise among them.
Part A of this chapter defends Universal Bizarreness: Each of these four
approaches is bizarre, at least when its details are developed and
implications pursued. Part B defends Universal Dubiety: None of the four
approaches compels belief.
Furthermore, as the example of idealism especially illustrates,
bizarreness and dubiety concerning the metaphysics of mind entail
bizarreness and dubiety about the very structure of the cosmos. If the
billions of trillions of stars in the observable universe are only ideas in your
and my and others’ minds, then the fundamental structure of the universe is
very different than most scientists suppose. I will argue here and in chapter
5 that we ought not entirely rule out idealism of that sort.
The central claim of the book is that we live in a bizarre cosmos that
defies ordinary, conventional understanding. The world is weird at root.
Some wild cosmological theories must be true. The world defeats our best
attempts to securely theorize it, and in some fundamental respects—though
we cannot confidently know in which respects—it must be radically
different from how people ordinarily assume it to be.

3. Materialist Bizarreness
According to materialism, everything in the universe17 is composed of, or
reducible to, or most fundamentally, material stuff, where “material stuff”
means things like elements of the periodic table and the various particles or
waves or fields that interact with or combine to form such elements,
whatever those particles, waves, or fields might be, as long as they are not
intrinsically mental.18 The two historically most important competitor
positions are idealism and substance dualism, both of which assert the
existence of immaterial souls or minds—for example, in religious traditions
that posit the existence of a non-physical entity that survives into an
afterlife even after the physical body dies.
 Materialism per se might be bizarre. People have a widespread, and
maybe cross-culturally deep, tendency to believe that they are more than
just material stuff.19 Not all unpopular views violate common sense,
however. Whether a position violates common sense depends on how
confident non-specialists are (or would be, if asked) in the falsity of the
position. Most people, for example, might believe that the author of Hamlet
was not a woman, but the claim that a woman authored Hamlet isn’t
bizarre. It doesn’t shock common sense in the same way it would shock
common sense to hold that the author was a six-year-old child. Does
materialism shock common sense in this way, or is it instead simply a non-
common-sense-defying minority opinion? That’s hard to assess.
My claim, then, is not that materialism per se is bizarre. Rather, my
claim is that any well-developed materialist view—any materialist view
developed in sufficient detail to commit on specific metaphysical issues
about, for example, the causal powers of mental processes and the
distribution of consciousness among actual and hypothetical systems—will
inevitably be bizarre.
Each of the next four subsections offers one consideration in support of
this claim.

3.1. Antecedent plausibility

As noted above, traditional commonsense folk opinion has proven radically
wrong about central issues in physics, biology, and scientific cosmology.
There’s a pattern here: When we delve into foundational matters in the
sciences, ordinary non-specialists’ common sense becomes unreliable,
presumably because commonsense judgment has mostly been honed on
practical matters concerning familiar cases. Scientifically inspired
materialists ought, then, to be entirely unsurprised if the best materialist
metaphysics of mind follows the same pattern.
Folk opinion about mentality has likely been shaped by evolutionary and
social pressures ill-tuned to the metaphysical truth, especially concerning
cases where getting it right (by the materialist’s lights) doesn’t increase
one’s success in ordinary social life, such as pathological, science-fictional,
and invertebrate cases. It doesn’t really matter, in the usual course of things,
whether people have correct metaphysical opinions about the presence or
absence of consciousness in vegetative patients, hypothetical Martians, or
garden snails. There’s no evolutionary or social pressure toward the truth,
and there might even be some pressures away from the truth—for example,
if it’s convenient to see certain people or animals in a particular way or to
have particular religious opinions. (In contrast, it matters immensely that
we get it right about the risks of cliff edges and whether we’d be ejected
from the tribe for a certain faux pas. In such matters, common sense is a
more reliable guide.)
Considering related disciplines, plus evolutionary and social history,
materialists thus have grounds to suspect serious shortcomings in non-
specialists’ ideas about the nature of mind. This is one reason to expect that
materialist metaphysics will be bizarre.

3.2. Leibniz’s mill and Crick’s oscillations

In 1714, Leibniz asked his readers to imagine entering into a thinking
machine as though one were entering into a mill. Looking around, he said,
you will see only parts pushing one another—nothing that could explain
perceptual experience.20 Intuitively speaking, how could mere material stuff
clanking together light the fire of consciousness, which seems to be an
altogether different type of phenomenon? In the twentieth century, Frank
Jackson’s “Mary” and the “zombies” of Robert Kirk and David Chalmers
invite a similar thought. Briefly put, Jackson’s Mary is imagined to be a
genius super-scientist who knows every physical fact about color but who
lives in an entirely black-and-white room and has never actually seen any
colors. Jackson argues that although by stipulation she knows every
physical fact about color (wavelength, neurophysiological reactions to light,
linguistic and behavioral facts about how people describe and react to
colors) she remains ignorant of some further fact that is not among those
physical facts: what it’s like to see red.21 Kirk’s and Chalmers’s zombies are
hypothetical entities physically identical to normal human beings but
entirely lacking conscious experience. If we can coherently conceive of
such entities, Kirk and Chalmers argue, then there must be some property
we have that zombies if they existed would lack, which by stipulation
couldn’t be a physical property.22
I won’t attempt to evaluate the soundness of such anti-materialist
arguments here, but many of us can feel at least the initial pull. Leibniz,
Jackson, Kirk, and Chalmers all appeal to something in us that rebels
against the materialist idea that particular motions and configurations of
material stuff could ever give rise to, fully explain, or constitute full-color
conscious experience without the addition of something extra.
The more specific the materialist’s commitments, the stiffer the
resistance seems to be. Francis Crick, for example, equates human
consciousness with 40-hertz oscillations in the subset of neurons
corresponding to an attended object.23 Nicholas Humphrey equates
consciousness with re-entrant feedback loops in an animal’s sensory
system.24 Both Humphrey and Crick report that popular audiences
vigorously resist their views. Common sense fights them hard.
Consciousness just is 40-hertz oscillations?! Such views are more than just
slightly unintuitive. When a theorist commits to a particular materialist
account—consciousness is nothing but this specific material process—the
bizarreness of materialist theorizing about the mind shines vividly through.

3.3. Mad pain, Martian pain, and nonlocality

On several issues, materialist theories must seemingly commit to one
among several alternatives each of which violates common sense. One such
issue concerns the implications of materialist theories of consciousness for
cases that are functionally and physiologically remote from the human case.
What is it, for example, to be in pain? Materialists generally favor one of
three approaches: a brain-based approach, a causal/functional approach, or a
hybrid approach. Each approach has bizarre consequences.
This section will read more easily if you are familiar with David Lewis’s
classic essay “Mad Pain and Martian Pain.”25 If you don’t already know that
article, my feelings won’t be hurt if you just go read it right now. (Added
bonus: It’s brief and fun.)
You might think that to be in pain is just to be in a certain brain state.
The simplest version of this view is associated with J. J. C. Smart.26 To be
Another random document with
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(Ah me, that crowded hour of glorious lives—
Ten of them, all from drives!)

Once only have you let me in,

Through all the knocks we've had together;
That time when, wanting four to win,
I fairly tried to tonk the leather—
And lo! a full-faced welt, without the least
Warning, went S.S.E.

A painful scene. In point of fact

I'm doubtful if I ought to hymn it;
Enough to say you went and cracked,
And left me thinking things like "Dimmit"
(And not like "Dimmit"), as I heard Slip call
"Mine!" and he pouched the ball.

Do you remember, too, the game

One August somewhere down in Dorset
When, being told to force the same,
We straightway started in to force it....
For half-an-hour or so we saw it through,
And scratched a priceless two;

Or how the prayer to play for keeps

And hang the runs, we didn't need 'em,
So stirred us, we collected heaps
With rather more than usual freedom;
Fifteen in fourteen minutes—till a catch
Abruptly closed the match?

* * * * * *

Well, well—the coming years (if fine)

Shall see us going even stronger;
So pouring out the oil and wine,
Let's sit and drink, a little longer;
 Here's to a decent average of ten!
(Yours is the oil. Say when....)

—————

When Morning on the heels of Night

Picks up her shroud at five and after,
The diffident observer might
(Or might not) see, beneath a rafter,
A pensive rodent upside down. Well, that
Is (possibly) a Bat....
In any case I have not sung of that.

A SCRATCH LOT

I. THE CHOOSING OF THE DAY

As soon as I had promised to take an eleven down to Chartleigh I knew

that I was in for trouble; but I did not realise how great it would be until I
consulted Henry Barton. Henry is a first-class cricketer, and it was my idea
that he should do all the batting for us, and such of the bowling as the laws
allowed. I had also another idea, and this I explained to Henry.

"As you are aware," I said, "the ideal side contains five good bats, four
good bowlers, a wicket-keeper, and Henry Barton."

"Quite so," agreed Henry.

"That is the principle on which one selects an eleven. Now, I intend to

strike out a line of my own. My team shall consist of three authors or
journalists, two solicitors, four barristers, a couple from the Stock
Exchange, some civil servants and an artist or two. How many is that?"
 "Nineteen."

"Well, that's the idea, anyhow."

"It's a rotten idea."

"No, it's a splendid idea. I wonder nobody has thought of it before. I

send a solicitor and a journalist in first. The journalist uses the long handle,
while the solicitor plays for keeps."

"And where does the artist come in?"

"The artist comes in last, and plays for a draw. You are very slow to-day,
Henry."

Henry, the man of leisure, thought a moment.

"Yes, that's all very well for you working men," he said at last, "but
what do I go as? Or am I one of the barristers?"

"You go as 'with Barton.' Yes. If you're very good you shall have an 'H'
in brackets after you. 'With Barton (H)'"

The method of choosing my team being settled, the next thing was the
day. "Any day in the first week in July," the Chartleigh captain had said.
Now at first sight there appear to be seven days in the week, but it is not
really so. For instance, Saturday. Now there's a good day! What could one
object to in a Saturday?

But do you imagine Henry Barton would let it pass?

"I don't think you'll get eleven people for the Saturday," he said. "People
are always playing cricket on Saturday."

"Precisely," I said. "Healthy exercise for the London toiler. That's why
I'm asking 'em."

"But I mean they'll have arranged to play already with their own teams.
Or else they'll be going away for week-ends."
 "One can spend a very pretty week-end at Chartleigh."

"H'm, let me think. Any day in the week, isn't it?"

"Except, apparently, Saturday," I said huffily.

"Let's see now, what days are there?"

I mentioned two or three of the better-known ones.

"Yes. Of course, some of those are impossible, though. We'd better go

through the week and see which is best."

I don't know who Barton is that he should take it upon himself to make
invidious distinctions between the days of the week.

"Very well, then," I said. "Sunday."

"Ass."

That seemed to settle Sunday, so we passed on to Monday.

"You won't get your stockbroker on Monday," said Henry. "It's

Contanger day or something with them every Monday."

"Stocktaking, don't you mean?"

"I dare say. Anyhow, no one in the House can get away on a Monday."

"I must have my stockbrokers. Tuesday."

Tuesday, it seemed, was hopeless. I was a fool to have thought of

Tuesday. Why, everybody knew that Tuesday was an impossible day for
——

I forget what spoilt Tuesday's chance. I fancy it was a busy day for Civil
Servants. No one in the Home Civil can get away on a Tuesday. I know that
sounds absurd, but Henry was being absurd just then. Or was it barristers?
Briefs get given out on a Tuesday, I was made to understand. That brought
us to Wednesday. I hoped much from Wednesday.

"Yes," said Henry. "Wednesday might do. Of course most of the

weeklies go to press on Wednesday. Rather an awkward day for journalists.
What about Thursday?"

I began to get annoyed.

"Thursday my flannel trousers go to the press," I said—"that is to say,

they come back from the wash then."

"Look here, why try to be funny?"

"Hang it, who started it? Talking about Contanger-days. Contanger—it

sounds like a new kind of guano."

"Well, if you don't believe me——"

"Henry, I do. Thursday be it, then."

"Yes, I suppose that's all right," said Henry doubtfully.

"Why not? Don't say it's sending-in day with artists," I implored. "Not
every Thursday?"

"No. Only there's Friday, and——"

"Friday is my busy day," I pleaded—"my one ewe lamb. Do not rob me

of it."

"It's a very good day, Friday. I think you'd find that most people could
get off then."

"But why throw over Thursday like this? A good, honest day, Henry.
Many people get born on a Thursday, Henry. And it's a marrying day,
Henry. A nice, clean, sober day, and you——"
 "The fact is," said Henry, "I've suddenly remembered I'm engaged
myself on Thursday."

This was too much.

"Henry," I said coldly, "you forget yourself—you forget yourself

strangely, my lad. Just because I was weak enough to promise you an 'H'
after your name. You seem to have forgotten that the 'H' was to be in
brackets."

"Yes, but I'm afraid I really am engaged."

"Are you really? Look here—I'll leave out the 'with' and you shall be
one of us. There! Baby, see the pretty gentlemen!"

Henry smiled and shook his head.

"Oh, well," I said, "we must have you. So if you say Friday, Friday it is.
You're quite sure Friday is all right for solicitors? Very well, then."

So the day was settled for Friday. It was rather a pity, because, as I said,
in the ordinary way Friday is the day I put aside for work.

II. THE SELECTION COMMITTEE

The committee consisted of Henry and myself. Originally it was myself

alone, but as soon as I had selected Henry I proceeded to co-opt him,
reserving to myself, however, the right of a casting vote in case of any
difference of opinion. One arose, almost immediately, over Higgins. Henry
said:

(a) That Higgins had once made ninety-seven.

(b) That he had been asked to play for his county.

(c) That he was an artist, and we had arranged to have an artist in the team.
In reply I pointed out:

(a) That ninety-seven was an extremely unlikely number for anyone to have
made.

(b) That if he had been asked he evidently hadn't accepted, which showed
the sort of man he was: besides which, what was his county?

(c) That, assuming for the moment he had made ninety-seven, was it likely
he would consent to go in last and play for a draw, which was why we
wanted the artist? And that, anyhow, he was a jolly bad artist.

(d) That hadn't we better put it to the vote?

This was accordingly done, and an exciting division ended in a tie.

Those in favour of Higgins 1

Those against Higgins 1

The Speaker gave his casting vote against Higgins.

Prior to this, however, I had laid before the House the letter of
invitation. It was as follows (and, I flatter myself, combined tact with a
certain dignity):—

"DEAR——, I am taking a team into the country on Friday week to

play against the village eleven. The ground and the lunch are good. Do you
think you could manage to come down? I know you are very busy just now
with

Contangers,
Briefs,
Clients,
Your Christmas Number,
Varnishing Day,
(Strike out all but one of these)

but a day in the country would do you good. I hear from all sides that you
are in great form this season. I will give you all particulars about trains later
on. Good-bye. Remember me to——. How is——? Ever yours.

"P.S.—Old Henry is playing for us. He has strained himself a little and
probably won't bowl much, so I expect we shall all have a turn with the
ball."

Or, "I don't think you have ever met Henry Barton, the cricketer. He is
very keen on meeting you. Apparently he has seen you play somewhere. He
will be turning out for us on Friday.

"P.P.S.—We might manage to have some bridge in the train."

"That," I said to Henry, "is what I call a clever letter."

"What makes you think that?"

"It is all clever," I said modestly. "But the cleverest part is a sentence at
the end. 'I will give you all particulars about trains later on.' You see I have
been looking them up, and we leave Victoria at seven-thirty A.M. and get
back to London Bridge at eleven-forty-five P.M."

The answers began to come in the next day. One of the first was from
Bolton, the solicitor, and it upset us altogether. For, after accepting the
invitation, he went on: "I am afraid I don't play bridge. As you may
remember, I used to play chess at Cambridge, and I still keep it up."

"Chess," said Henry. "That's where White plays and mates in two
moves. And there's a Black too. He does something."

"We shall have to get a Black. This is awful."

"Perhaps Bolton would like to do problems by himself all the time."

"That would be rather bad luck on him. No, look here. Here's Carey.
Glad to come, but doesn't bridge. He's the man."
 Accordingly we wired to Carey: "Do you play chess? Reply at once."
He answered, "No. Why?"

"Carey will have to play that game with glass balls. Solitaire. Yes. We
must remember to bring a board with us."

"But what about the chess gentleman?" asked Henry.

"I must go and find one. We've had one refusal."

There is an editor I know slightly, so I called upon him at his office. I

found him writing verses.

"Be brief," he said, "I'm frightfully busy."

"I have just three questions to ask you," I replied.

"What rhymes with 'yorker'?"

"That wasn't one of them."

"Yorker—corker—por——"

"Better make it a full pitch," I suggested. "Step out and make it a full
pitch. Then there are such lots of rhymes."

"Thanks, I will. Well?"

"One. Do you play bridge?"

"No."

"Two. Do you play chess?"

"I can."

"Three. Do you play cricket? Not that it matters."

 "Yes, I do sometimes. Good-bye. Send me a proof, will you? By the
way, what paper is this for?"

"The Sportsman, if you'll play. On Friday week. Do."

"Anything, if you'll go."

"May I have that in writing?"

He handed me a rejection form.

"There you are. And I'll do anything you like on Friday."

I went back to Henry and told him the good news.

"I wonder if he'll mind being black," said Henry. "That's the chap that
always gets mated so quickly."

"I expect they'll arrange it among themselves. Anyhow, we've done our
best for them."

"It's an awful business, getting up a team," said Henry thoughtfully.

"Well, we shall have two decent sets of bridge, anyway. But you ought to
have arranged for twelve aside, and then we could have left out the chess
professors and had three sets."

"It's all the fault of the rules. Some day somebody will realise that four
doesn't go into eleven, and then we shall have a new rule."

"No, I don't think so," said Henry. "I don't fancy 'Wanderer' would allow
it."

III. IN THE TRAIN

If there is one thing I cannot stand, it is ingratitude. Take the case of

Carey. Carey, you may remember, professed himself unable to play either
bridge or chess; and as we had a three-hour journey before us it did not look
as though he were going to have much of a time. However, Henry and I,
thinking entirely of Carey's personal comfort, went to the trouble of buying
him a solitaire board, with glass balls complete. The balls were all in
different colours.

I laid this before Carey as soon as we settled in the train.

"Whatever's that?"

"The new game," I said. "It's all the rage now, the man tells me. The
Smart Set play it every Sunday. Young girls are inveigled into lonely
country houses and robbed of incredible sums."

Carey laughed scornfully.

"So it is alleged," I added. "The inventor claims for it that in some

respects it has advantages which even cricket cannot claim. As, for
instance, it can be played in any weather: nay, even upon the sick bed."

"And how exactly is it played?"

"Thus. You take one away and all the rest jump over each other. At each
jump you remove the jumpee, and the object is to clear the board. Hence the
name—solitaire."

"I see. It seems a pretty rotten game."

That made me angry.

"All right. Then don't play. Have a game of marbles on the rack
instead."

Meanwhile Henry was introducing Bolton and the editor to each other.

"Two such famous people," he began.

"Everyone," said Bolton, with a bow, "knows the editor of——"

 "Oh yes, there's that. But I meant two such famous chess players.
Bolton," he explained to the editor, "was twelfth man against Oxford some
years ago. Something went wrong with his heart, or he'd have got in. On his
day, and if the board was at all sticky, he used to turn a good deal from
QB4."

"Do you really play?" asked Bolton eagerly. "I have a board here."

"Does he play! Do you mean to say you have never heard of the
Trocadero Defence?"

"The Sicilian Defence——"

"The Trocadero Defence. It's where you palm the other man's queen
when he's not looking. Most effective opening."

They both seemed keen on beginning, so Henry got out the cards for the
rest of us.

I drew the younger journalist, against Henry and the senior stockbroker.
Out of compliment to the journalist we arranged to play half-a-crown a
hundred, that being about the price they pay him. I dealt, and a problem
arose immediately. Here it is.

"A deals and leaves it to his partner B, who goes No Trumps. Y leads a
small heart. B's hand consists of king and three small diamonds, king and
one other heart, king and three small clubs, and three small spades. A plays
the king from Dummy, and Z puts on the ace. What should A do?"

Answer. Ring communication-cord and ask guard to remove B.

"Very well," I said to Dummy. "One thing's pretty clear. You don't bowl
to-day. Long-leg both ends is about your mark. Somewhere where there's
plenty of throwing to do."

Later on, when I was Dummy, I strolled over to the chess players.

"What's the ground like?" said the editor, as he finessed a knight.

 "Sporting. Distinctly sporting."

"Long grass all round, I suppose?"

"Oh, lord, no. The cows eat up all that."

"Do you mean to say the cows are allowed on the pitch?"

"Well, they don't put it that way, quite. The pitch is allowed on the cows'
pasture land."

"I suppose if we make a hundred we shall do well?" asked somebody.

"If we make fifty we shall declare," I said. "By Jove, Bolton, that's a
pretty smart move."

I may not know all the technical terms, but I do understand the idea of
chess. The editor was a pawn up and three to play, and had just advanced
his queen against Bolton's king, putting on a lot of check side as it seemed
to me. Of course, I expected Bolton would have to retire his king; but not
he! He laid a stymie with his bishop, and it was the editor's queen that had
to withdraw. Yet Bolton was only spare man at Cambridge!

"I am not at all sure," I said, "that chess is not a finer game even than
solitaire."

"It's a finer game than cricket," said Bolton, putting his bishop back in
the slips again.

"No," said the editor. "Cricket is the finest game in the world. For why?
I will tell you."

"Thanks to the glorious uncertainty of our national pastime," began the

journalist, from his next Monday's article.

"No, thanks to the fact that it is a game in which one can produce the
maximum of effect with the minimum of skill. Take my own case. I am not
a batsman, I shall never make ten runs in an innings, yet how few people
realise that! I go in first wicket down, wearing my M.C.C. cap. Having
taken guard with the help of a bail, I adopt Palairet's stance at the wicket.
Then the bowler delivers: either to the off, to leg, or straight. If it is to the
off, I shoulder my bat and sneer at it. If it is to leg, I swing at it. I have a
beautiful swing, which is alone worth the money. Probably I miss, but the
bowler fully understands that it is because I have not yet got the pace of the
wicket. Sooner or later he sends down a straight one, whereupon I proceed
to glide it to leg. You will see the stroke in Beldam's book. Of course, I miss
the ball, and am given out l.b.w. Then the look of astonishment that passes
over my face, the bewildered inquiry of the wicket-keeper, and finally the
shrug of good-humoured resignation as I walk from the crease! Nine times
out of ten square-leg asks the umpire what county I play for. That is
cricket."

"Quite so," I said, when he had finished. "There's only one flaw in it.
That is that quite possibly you may have to go in last to-day. You'll have to
think of some other plan. Also on this wicket the ball always goes well over
your head. You couldn't be l.b.w. if you tried."

"Oh, but I do try."

"Yes. Well, you'll find it difficult."

The editor sighed.

"Then I shall have to retire hurt," he said.

Bolton chuckled to himself.

"One never retires hurt at chess," he said, as he huffed the editor's king.
"Though once," he added proudly, "I sprained my hand, and had to make all
my moves with the left one. Check."

The editor yawned, and looked out of the window.

"Are we nearly there?" he asked.

 IV. IN THE FIELD

It is, I consider, the duty of a captain to consult the wishes of his team
now and then, particularly when he is in command of such a heterogeneous
collection of the professions as I was. I was watching a match at the Oval
once, and at the end of an over Lees went up to Dalmeny, and had a few
words with him. Probably, I thought, he is telling him a good story that he
heard at lunch; or, maybe, he is asking for the latest gossip from the Lobby.
My neighbour, however, held other views.

"There," he said, "there's ole Walter Lees asking to be took off."

"Surely not," I answered. "Dalmeny had a telegram just now, and Lees
is asking if it's the three-thirty winner."

Lees then began to bowl again.

"There you are," I said triumphantly, but my neighbour wouldn't hear of

it.

"Ole Lees asked to be took off, and ole Dalmeny" (I forget how he
pronounced it, but I know it was one of the wrong ways)—"ole Dalmeny
told him he'd have to stick on a bit."

Now that made a great impression on me, and I agreed with my friend
that Dalmeny was in the wrong.

"When I am captaining a team," I said, "and one of the bowlers wants to

come off, I am always ready to meet him half-way, more than half-way.
Better than that, if I have resolved upon any course of action, I always let
my team know beforehand; and I listen to their objections in a fair-minded
spirit."

It was in accordance with this rule of mine that I said casually, as we

were changing, "If we win the toss I shall put them in."

There was a chorus of protest.

 "That's right, go it," I said. "Henry objects because, as a first-class
cricketer, he is afraid of what The Sportsman will say if we lose. The editor
naturally objects—it ruins his chance of being mistaken for a county player
if he has to field first. Bolton objects because heavy exercise on a hot day
spoils his lunch. Thompson objects because that's the way he earns his
living at the Bar. His objection is merely technical, and is reserved as a
point of law for the Court of Crown Cases Reserved. Markham is a socialist
and objects to authority. Also he knows he's got to field long-leg both ends.
Gerald——"

"But why?" said Henry.

"Because I want you all to see the wicket first. Then you can't say you
weren't warned." Whereupon I went out and lost the toss.

As we walked into the field the editor told me a very funny story. I
cannot repeat it here for various reasons. First, it has nothing to do with
cricket; and, secondly, it is, I understand, coming out in his next number,
and I should probably get into trouble. Also it is highly technical, and
depends largely for its success upon adequate facial expression. But it
amused me a good deal. Just as he got to the exciting part, Thompson came
up.

"Do you mind if I go cover?" he asked.

"Do," I said abstractedly. "And what did the vicar say?"

The editor chuckled. "Well, you see, the vicar, knowing, of course, that
——"

"Cover, I suppose," said Gerald, as he caught us up.

"What? Oh yes, please. The vicar did know, did he?"

"Oh, the vicar knew. That's really the whole point."

I shouted with laughter.

"Good, isn't it?" said the editor. "Well, then——"

 "Have you got a cover?" came Markham's voice from behind us.

I turned round.

"Oh, Markham," I said, "I shall want you cover, if you don't mind. Sorry
—I must tell these men where to go—well, then, you were saying——"

The editor continued the story. We were interrupted once or twice, but
he finished it just as their first two men came out. I particularly liked that
bit about the——

"Jove," I said suddenly, "we haven't got a wicket-keeper. That's always

the way. Can you keep?" I asked the editor.

"Isn't there anyone else?"

"I'm afraid they're all fielding cover," I said, remembering suddenly.

"But, look here, it's the chance of a lifetime for you. You can tell 'em all that
——"

But he was trotting off to the pavilion.

"Can anybody lend me some gloves?" he asked. "They want me to keep

wicket. Thing I've never done in my life. Of course I always field cover in
the ordinary way. Thanks awfully. Sure you don't mind? Don't suppose I
shall stop a ball though."

"Henry," I called, "you're starting that end. Arrange the field, will you?
I'll go cover. You're sure to want one."

Their first batsman was an old weather-beaten villager called George.

We knew his name was George because the second ball struck him in the
stomach and his partner said, "Stay there, George," which seemed to be
George's idea too. We learnt at lunch that once, in the eighties or so, he had
gone in first with Lord Hawke (which put him on a level with that player),
and that he had taken first ball (which put him just above the
Yorkshireman).
 There the story ended, so far as George was concerned; and indeed it
was enough. Why seek to inquire if George took any other balls besides the
first?

In our match, however, he took the second in the place that I mentioned,
the third on the back of the neck, the fourth on the elbow, and the fifth in
the original place; while the sixth, being off the wicket, was left there.
Nearly every batsman had some pet stroke, and we soon saw that George's
stroke was the leg-bye. His bat was the second line of defence, and was
kept well in the block. If the ball escaped the earthwork in front, there was
always a chance that it would be brought up by the bat. Once, indeed, a
splendid ball of Henry's which came with his arm and missed George's legs,
snicked the bat, and went straight into the wicket-keeper's hands. The
editor, however, presented his compliments, and regretted that he was
unable to accept the enclosed, which he accordingly returned with many
thanks.

There was an unwritten law that George could not be l.b.w. I cannot say
how it arose—possibly from a natural coyness on George's part about the
exact significance of the "l." Henry, after appealing for the best part of three
overs, gave it up, and bowled what he called "googlies" at him. This looked
more hopeful, because a googly seems in no way to be restricted as to the
number of its bounces, and at each bounce it had a chance of doing
something. Unfortunately it never did George. Lunch came and the score
was thirty-seven—George having compiled in two hours a masterly
nineteen; eighteen off the person, but none the less directly due to him.

"We must think of a plan of campaign at lunch," said Henry. "It's

hopeless to go on like this."

"Does George drink?" I asked anxiously. It seemed the only chance.

But George didn't. And the score was thirty seven for five, which is a
good score for the wicket.
 V. AT THE WICKETS

At lunch I said: "I have just had a wire from the Surrey committee to
say that I may put myself on to bowl."

"That is good hearing," said Henry.

"Did they hear?" asked Gerald anxiously, looking over at the Chartleigh
team.

"You may think you're very funny, but I'll bet you a—a—anything you
like that I get George out."

"All right," said Gerald. "I'll play you for second wicket down, the loser
to go in last."

"Done," I said, "and what about passing the salad now?"

After lunch the editor took me on one side and said: "I don't like it. I
don't like it at all."

"Then why did you have so much?" I asked.

"I mean the wicket. It's dangerous. I am not thinking of myself so much
as of——"

"As of the reading public?"

"Quite so."

"You think you—you would be missed in Fleet Street—just at first?"

"You are not putting the facts too strongly. I was about to suggest that I
should be a 'did not bat.'"

"Oh! I see. Perhaps I ought to tell you that I was talking just now to the
sister of their captain."

The editor looked interested.

 "About the pad of the gardener?" he said.

"About you. She said—I give you her own words—'Who is the tall,
handsome man keeping wicket in a M.C.C. cap?' So I said you were a well-
known county player, as she would see when you went in to bat."

The editor shook my hand impressively.

"Thank you very much," he said. "I shall not fail her. What county did
you say?"

"Part of Flint. You know the little bit that's got into the wrong county by
mistake? That part. She had never heard of it; but I assured her it had a little
bit of yellow all to itself on the map. Have you a pretty good eleven?"

The editor swore twice—once for me and once for Flint. Then we went
out into the field.

My first ball did for George. I followed the tactics of William the First
at the Battle of Hastings, 1066. You remember how he ordered his archers
to shoot into the air, and how one arrow fell and pierced the eye of Harold,
whereupon confusion and disaster arose. So with George. I hurled one
perpendicularly into the sky, and it dropped (after a long time) straight upon
the batsman. George followed it with a slightly contemptuous eye... all the
way....

All the way. Of course, I was sorry. We were all much distressed. They
told us afterwards he had never been hit in the eye before.... One gets new
experiences.

George retired hurt. Not so much hurt as piqued, I fancy. He told the
umpire it wasn't bowling. Possibly. Neither was it batting. It was just
superior tactics.

The innings soon closed, and we had sixty-one to win, and, what
seemed more likely, fifty-nine and various other numbers to lose. Sixty-one
is a very unlucky number with me—oddly enough I have never yet made
sixty-one; like W.G. Grace, who had never made ninety-three. My average