Wittgenstein found the wall, white and endless, and explained that there was only silence on the other side. We have silence on this side too, someone argued. And so he hung a plain white painting on the white wall and explained that this might be what you would see if there were a window, except that such a window could never of course exist. But we have windows and paintings here too, and they do exist, went the objection. So he taught a child how to paint the pointing finger of Augustine, and had it arranged next to a simple ladder leaning against the white wall. Then he took the ladder and went away to Norway.

I’d like you to imagine a painting of blood. Of meat and sinew and time. Imagine that it too is an impossible window, except this time on the outside of the wall looking in.

“…Someone who, dreaming, says “I am dreaming”, even if he speaks audibly in doing so, is no more right than if he said in his dream “it is raining”, while it was in fact raining. Even if his dream were actually connected with the noise of the rain.”