Meditation: Is the owl here now? What could that mean?
Discussion questions: If, as Augustine says, the past exists only as a memory, where does the owl in this picture exist? Does it exist in the past? In the same sense, where did the picture of the owl exist, say before it was viewed today? The owl in the past and the picture of the owl in the past: are we speaking of two different places? And where are such places? Are these places memories as well?
A note on prepositions: Owl in the picture. How is it in? Is the preposition in a mere convention? It is almost as if we could use any preposition and the meaning would be the same; that is, the use of the preposition is a matter of convention. Almost.
And another note on prepositions: A picture of an owl. What could we possibly mean by picture of an owl in the past? We don't use this phrase; but we do sometimes date photographs, or we sometimes discuss when a photo was taken. For example, "This picture was taken in Fall, when the owl is in its Red phase. (Say this is a Screech Owl, which has seasonal Red and Gray phases in its coloring.) Note here, too, we have yet to explain of in this sentence, though we understand what is meant by of as a matter of usage. A negation using of brings sharper clarity to the convention: "This is not a picture of an armadillo."
And yet another note on prepositions: Here and Now may be mere conventions, but, as a matter of proper and accurate usage, these conventions do have specific meanings. As subjects of philosophical and metaphysical inquiry, however, they lack the richness (and hence attractiveness) of the theological, mythological and poetic discussions of the issues which attend such words. We might say, "the linguistic analysis of such words rends the fabric of the space-time continuum, while the theological, mythic, and poetic discussions patch it back up and restore us to the stream-of-life."
Further discussion goes in all sorts of directions. For now, suffice it to say that the stream-of-life is a good place to be though here we remain challeneged by philosophical credulity because of conceptual confusion rooted in language.
