text: [Themes: Surreal, humor, fantasy, philosophy, metaphysics]
  
  > Go downward
  This chamber is exactly like the one below it but for two minor details: firstly, the atmospheric organ music is ever so slightly louder; secondly, the machine in the centre of the room is both not made of bees and clearly a time machine. The clue is in the words "Time Machine" engraved on its casing.
  
  > examine the ivory sheet
  The archway is blocked by an impenetrable sheet of ivory. There's no going back.
  
  > Inventory
  You are carrying:
  the thing
  a lit lantern (providing light)
  a sack (open)
  a third key
  a second key
  an axe
  a newspaper
  a first key
  a wooden box (open but empty)
  a bunch of keys
  a Chinese key
  a lighter
  a qualiascope
  a manual
  file of Platonic forms
  a useless scrap of paper
  a Categorical Imperativator
  
  > Rub thing
  Ay, there's the rub.
  
  > unlock door
  What do you want to unlock the firstdoor with?
  
  > First
  (first taking the first key)
  (putting the thing into the sack to make room)
  Through the door lies another ivory staircase -- a spiral staircase which winds upwards towards another chamber.
  
  This chamber is exactly like the one below it but for two minor details: firstly, the atmospheric organ music is ever so slightly louder; secondly, the machine in the centre of the room is both not made of bees and clearly a time machine. The clue is in the words "Time Machine" engraved on its casing.
  
  > unlock the door with third
  (the third fake red leather seat)
  (first taking the third fake red leather seat)
  Philosophers are not yet supermen.
  
  > examine Machine
  As with the Time Machine, this device has its name engraved on the casing in a large copperplate font -- "Turing Machine", it says. Again similarly, there's some kind of booth in the machine, complete with fake red leather seat. This booth lacks the steampunk wizardry of the Time Machine -- there's simply a glowing screen with a keyboard in front of it.
  
  > unlock door
  What do you want to unlock the thirddoor with?
  
  > Third key
  (first taking the third key)
  (putting the second key into the sack to make room)
  Through the door lies another ivory staircase -- a spiral staircase which winds upwards towards another chamber.
  
  The organ playing is deafening here. It's echoing around the curved ivory walls, its descending scales and dark figures amplified and multiplying, a dense wall of foreboding music. The doorway and stairs behind you seem terribly inviting -- if you had any excuse to leave her, any unfinished business, you would scamper downstairs now. Otherwise -- another door lies on the other side of the chamber.
  
  But there is another machine between you and that door, with a sorry looking pile of bones beside it.
  
  > Wear helmet
  (first taking the large metal helmet)
  You pick up the helmet -- it's heavier than it looks -- and settle it on your head. You adjust the vixor and ear-plugs and, feeling a little awkward, put the little wired tab in your mouth. You wait expectantly for a moment, and then your ears are filled with the most beautiful voice you have ever heard. "Welcome," it says, in tones so perfect you could almost weep.
  
  And then, suddenly, your every sense and emotion is awash with feeling. Joyous, exquisite pleasure -- your every desire feels fulfilled, your every need met. Your are euphoric, overcome.
  
  The joy continues, and continues, and continues.
  
  Forever.
  
  > Smell thing
  There's a disturbing musty smell in the air.
  
  > Rub thing
  Ay, there's the rub.
  
  > Examine box
  It's a smooth and very plain wooden box, with the mysterious words "Ding an Sich" inscribed on the lid. The martyr for truth told you to open it when you really needed to dispel an illusion. Is that time now . . . ?
  
  > Wave thing
  You look ridiculous waving the thing.
  
  > think about the ding an sich
  "Ding an sich" is Kant's German term meaning "the thing in itself". A thing in itself is something independent of awareness -- it is core to Kant's philosophy that we live in a world of appearances, the appearances created by a discursive mind which shapes them according to its own innate mental categories, but that "beneath" this world of appearances lies the world in itself, about which we can know nothing but that it exists.
  
  This distinction, also known as that between "phenomena" and "noumena", has been enormously influential. In epistemology, it overturned the rationalist/empiricist debate, by implying that we can only know the empirical world (and not the ideal truths of rationalism), but also by adding that we must know that empirical world rationally. The idea that there is a world of subjective awareness fed into later debates in philosophy of mind, while the idea that the world of appearances is discursively created led the way for the postmodern and post-structuralist revolution in philosophy, which dismantled philosophical dogmas and preconceptions as being culturally and linguistically specific, and which implied that all knowledge is to some extent chosen, discursively determined by interpreting minds.
  
  That revolution, as well as more analytic attacks on Kant's philosophy, has served to help undermine the phenomenal/noumenal distinction in the first place. Is there really a world of appearances present in consciousness? Is there really a world in itself independent of experience? These questions are the foundation of metaphysics to this day.
  
  > get the helmet
  You pick up the helmet -- it's heavier than it looks -- and settle it on your head. You adjust the vixor and ear-plugs and, feeling a little awkward, put the little wired tab in your mouth. You wait expectantly for a moment, and then your ears are filled with the most beautiful voice you have ever heard. "Welcome," it says, in tones so perfect you could almost weep.
  
  And then, suddenly, your every sense and emotion is awash with feeling. Joyous, exquisite pleasure -- your every desire feels fulfilled, your every need met. Your are euphoric, overcome.
  
  The joy continues, and continues, and continues.
  
  Forever.
  
  > go machine
  Now vacated by its former occupant, you climb into the machine. There really is nothing here but the helmet, attached to the machine's casing by a long rubber cord.
  
  > cut the cord
  You just make a cutting comment instead, which is about as useful.
  
  > check what you're carrying
  You are carrying:
  the thing
  a lit lantern (providing light)
  a sack (open)
  a third key
  a second key
  a first key
  an axe
  a newspaper
  a wooden box (open but empty)
  a bunch of keys
  a Chinese key
  a lighter
  a qualiascope
  a manual
  file of Platonic forms
  a useless scrap of paper
  a Categorical Imperativator