simon and garfunkel: 'if you took all the girls i knew when i was single, and put them altogether for a day, it would never match my sweet imagination ...' : but for me, taking all the moments [nostalgia], filled with the pain and mystery of sentimentality, and similarly arranged them, the lacunae would overwhelm the recollections : because of something to do with place-names and temps perdu [nostalgia], and because of the observation that the temps perdu must not be the whole story, that the lacunae in the array must contain something after all, and the seeking for that something must be other than rank sentimentality, and that the expression of seeking is but an emblem of the pain of this seeking, and that the material of the expression left unsaid, the negative space, the lacunae, the measures of rest, the empty beats, are in fact the substance of the expression after all : the metaphor therefore [the accuracy of the symbol being greater than that of the literal, for example] shows that the un-perceived is in fact the subject and substance [reality] of the memory [nostalgia] : the relationship between the memory and the sweet imagination is critical, because the sweet imagination is the substance of the memory : for example, stewart: 'According to modern physics, nature is ruled by chance on its smallest scales of space and time ... There is no physical difference whatsoever between a uranium atom that is about to decay and one that is not about to decay. ... something is missing from conventional quantum mechanics — perhaps "hidden variables," whose values tell an atom when to decay ... ' : the hidden variables in the temps perdu are the essentials which determine the quality of the moments in the array : john cage: of pitch and rhythm, rhythm is more essential in determining the quality of sound because pitch only applies when sound is present whereas rhythm applies to both sound and silence : what is the nature of such 'hidden variables' [nostalgia] : the sweet imagination axiom upon which conjectures and proofs are to be built, the very nature of the hidden variables undermines the notion of a rigid proof : the paradox is comforting: it could be an 'elastic proof' : inelastic demand implies that, as prices change, resulting changes in demand [quantity] are small [a steep demand curve], whereas elastic demand [a relatively flat curve] implies a relatively large change in quantity demanded resulting from a similar change in price : for analogic purposes, the method of proof [elastic], built upon the axiom of sweet imagination, is comprised of many elastic goods, the demand for which will shift widely for changes in value : this implies a good with many substitutes, because as the value changes, those demanding the good will readily substitute another good in its place : assuming the elastic proof is comprised of goods which are certain elements, propositions or conjectures stemming from sweet imagination : so an elastic as opposed to inelastic proof entails a depth of substitution among elements [elastic goods], and substitution can be alternatively characterized as symbolization, where one conjecture can be readily substituted with or symbolized by another conjecture : whereby the symbol is a more truthful illumination than a literal description, substitutions can result in greater illuminations: the more substitutions that occur, the greater the illumination : so for the proposed discovery of unkown variables using the sweet imagination and conjecture, an elastic proof is necessary : 'emotional' in character implies 'creative' in character : the lacunae comprising sweet imagination must be approached through creative process : to consider process, the theme of this process becoming the end result, in paradox, lack of completion being the completion, array of the seeking constituting the sought : the unseen layer comprising hidden variables : abandoning of the goal in order to achieve the goal, the exploration of the process layer, the lacunae in recollection comprising the axiom of sweet imagination, all paradox as mirrored reflections of conjecture leading toward the elastic proof : a vast elastic proof, like a truss, might prove to be stronger through the sum of its parts than a rigid proof which, when broken, is broken completely, whereas the elastic proof, when broken, is impervious in that it already consists of myriad fragments : the process layer entails confidence due to emotion, and humility because, to reach the goal the desire is relinquished : 'why is the sea king of all streams : because it lies beneath them' : josiah conder describes the 'cha-niwa' garden path through which a visitor to the tea house passes in order to prepare for the ritual : 'most tea gardens are remarkable for extreme simplicity combined with an affectation of natural wildness' ... tea gardens 'may be said to assume an air of respectable poverty and decay, accompanied by the most punctilious cleanliness.' : the process path represented by the garden is at once a scene of 'decay' and 'cleanliness' : in the sense that decay is the process of time, decay results in fermentation, rice whose result is alchohol which has properties resulting in sterilization, with time , decay and cleanliness are congruous : [theta] is the hidden variable : theta as an instrument of paradox : eternal return : the sweet imagination as the point at which the line becomes the circle, the empty beats, the measures of rest that represent time and decay [fermentation] are critical as the lacunae [hidden variables] : the tea garden and the uranium atom both opaquely lead to decay : chance may not be chance, but instead determined by 'hidden variables' : stewart: an 'imaginary mathematical space that represents all possible motions of a given dynamical system' : 'the image of a phase space as a way of organizing the total range of potential behaviors, from among which nature selects the behaviors actually observed' : knowledge of potential behaviors is essential to understanding natures selection which determines what is actually observed : potential behaviors, the lacunae, which determine the quality of the actually observed : how is it possible to affect the marriage between the distinctly emotional [nostalgia] nature of the elastic conjecture and the quantitative hints pointing toward our proof : the hidden variables, or temps perdu : the method of elastic duplication and repetition, a mimicry of nonlinear dynamics, a rough-hewn precision, a process of decay entailing cleanliness : multiple branches of reality stem from each node, and in order to travel back in time and alter his choices, uriel expanded his consciousness such that he could go back to a given node and take a different branch of reality : uriel's sweet imagination was able to fill in the lacunae, discover hidden variables and in so doing provide a more satisfying version of existence