 After stating his thesis that everything is “only apparent,” Vasubandhu immediately voices a potential counter-argument, which consists in four reasons that the three realms being appearance only is impossible: First and second, why are things restricted to specific places and times, respectively? Apparent objects can appear anywhere, at any time. Third, why do beings in a given place and time experience the same objects, and not different objects according to their distinct continua? And fourth, why do objects perform causal functions in the real world, when merely apparent mental objects do not?