@Marmoset: If you want to look at it that way, everything I do is a “literary exercise.” Actually, I think what you’re trying to get at is Sartre, that we cannot understand another person, or communicate with them, because we are individuals with differing experience, and thus unable to get what’s *really* coming out of another’s mouth — now, why he wrote a bunch of books if he actually believed that is beyond me. I didn’t refer to Sartre because I wanted to look, as well, at how Yumi gets her information from faulty sources, but either way works, really.

@jp: I once wrote a poem called “Cartesian Duelists.”

@vendredi: In some way or another yes, I think they all do. Sachiko’s older sister would silently pull strings to make things happen that Sachiko needed; Sei blithely accepts everything Shimako wants, thus allowing her to relax; Rei is alternately stoic or dere-dere depending on what the mercurial Yoshino needs at any one time. The implication seems to be that once they figure each other out (see the early storylines, where strife ruled the day) they slot together pretty well, providing what they each need with little to no actual communication involved.

Back on topic… haven’t seen much of Marimite myself, but the thought of what makes a “complete pair” is an interesting one; so I’ll bring that up. Marmoset mentions something in this of how “sisters are supposed to share the same opinion,” the idea being that a well matched pair in Marimite would be able to at the very least implicitly understand each other (or perhaps just appreciate each other) in the way that Sachiko and Yumi do. But is this similar for any of the other “pairings”? (ugh, talk about a hell of a word to use for this anime…)

Throw in some thoroughly unoriginal skepticism along with a “bububut it’s obvious :( ” argument and might have something (Not much) but if you read any further into Descartes, you get a real acid trip of a Philosophy.

We need to build a videogame based off of Cartesian Physics too. I’d pay to see that.

Drawing on my c-grade philosophy AS level; I think to find a better analogy would be to return to Plato. If you consider Touko to be the Form of Touko then the various information that others hold on Touko are the shadows of Touko’s Form. Again, this seems more like a literary exercise than a philosophical one, akin to the myth-analogy posts I guess.

I think there is something in how sisters are supposed to share the same opinion but I’m quite tired myself.