Chapter 2. Appendix: The records read

If, while sorting family trip photos, I kept the blurred photo because it was the funniest, is a good record something different from what looks sharp?

How is the value of a record decided between accurate reproduction and the power to call up memory?

Hypothetical situation: a person sorting family photos looks longer at a scene in which everyone came out blurred than at the photos that came out well.

The laughter that blurred the photo and the story of the people who were there together drop out.

It can lead to the mistake that the power to call up a personal memory also guarantees the factual accuracy of the record.

Can the next person read a photo that only we can make out as the same memory?

What is it that only I make out in a blurry photo? Can different memories of the same scene be kept together? When a record of great personal meaning is moved into a shared record, what should be added to it? Can the part of one being's experience that does not pass to another being also be left in place? Even if the place where a photo is kept and the device that stores it change, will memory carry on in the same way? After no one remembers that day any more, what will become the meaning of the photo?

If, while knitting, I liked a row worked in the wrong colour and left it as it was, can the part that broke my first plan also be called my work?

Is the choice to accept a result that came about by chance also part of creating?

Hypothetical situation: a person knitting a scarf uses yarn of another colour by mistake and then decides to finish it without unravelling.

The moment of finding the off-colour row and looking at the scarf again drops out.

If the meaning of the choice is made large, the nature of the materials or other people's help may not be seen.

On the explanation alone that I accepted chance, may I say the whole result is to my credit?

How far may my judgment that I liked it differ from my first plan? In work made together, how should one person's chance choice be spoken of? Who decides the standard for accepting an unintended result as a new expression? Can the differences made by other beings and by materials be recognised within my work? How does the choice to use a result already made, instead of unravelling it, change the path of a thing? Will telling chance from intention still matter after the maker is gone?

Even if no one notices the glass of the shared entrance that I clean every week, may I feel that I have added something to this building?

Can labour that goes unrecognised also become a meaning of life?

Hypothetical situation: a resident of a shared building has cleaned the entrance glass every weekend, with no one assigned to the task and no reward.

The handprints that smear the shared entrance again and the fatigue of repeated labour drop out.

If quiet labour is seen only as beautiful, the problem of work piling up on one person can be missed.

Might the advice to find meaning for oneself come to stand in for the community's thanks or a fair sharing of the work?

Where does labour that is meaningful to me part from a burden I want to give up? Is there a way to recognise each other's contributions even without saying thank you? Is it all right for the care of a shared space to rest only on an individual's goodwill? Can the contributions of other beings that cannot be seen be recognised in the same way? How does a place where labour accumulates change the sense of living together? In a future where my name does not remain, what will the fact that I did this work mean?

If a room that adjusts its brightness automatically keeps brightening the dim light I left on on purpose, whom should the standard of convenience be fitted to?

When the optimal state a technology recommends differs from the state I want, who should decide?

Hypothetical situation: a person who installed an automatic lighting device looks for the settings because the brightness lowered every evening goes up again.

The concrete sense of an evening when the light was lowered to rest the eyes drops out.

If only the right to choose is stressed, the burden on people who find it hard to work out how to change the settings can be missed.

If it is adjusted only to my preference, how are the needs of someone who uses the same room reflected?

How far can the sense that my body is comfortable be explained by a machine's settings? If people in one space want different brightness, what should be matched? Should the function that changes the standard of convenience be one that anyone can find? Can the rhythms of living things that technology does not measure also be included in the settings of an environment? If the conditions of every space are set automatically, how will a region's different ways of life remain? After technology has decided for me for a long time, will I still be able to recognise the state I want?

If the meeting that decides where the benches in the neighbourhood shelter go is always held during my working hours, is my opinion open to it too, merely because I am told I may attend?

What is needed for participation that is formally open to become participation that is actually possible?

Hypothetical situation: a resident who works shifts has several times received notice of a shelter meeting that anyone may attend, and has not been able to go.

The scene of missing the chance to say where the bench one wants to rest on after work should go drops out.

Making the routes of participation more varied cannot by itself tell whether opinions are reflected in the actual decision.

Who should take on the burden of adding more meeting times?

How should one see the choice of not speaking out of tiredness, even when there was a chance to speak? When passing on the opinion of a neighbour who is not present, what should be checked? Should there be a way to take part in the decision that sets the meeting time, too? Who speaks for the needs of beings that cannot take part in the meeting themselves, and on what grounds? How can people who live on different hours make the rules of one place together? May only those attending now make a choice that affects residents who have not yet come?

If I move a snail on the walking path onto the grass so that it is not stepped on, yet do not know where it was going, what should the judgment that I am helping rest on?

How is help to be judged when the intention of another being is unknown?

Hypothetical situation: after rain, a person who finds a snail crossing the footpath reaches out a hand and then hesitates over which way to move it.

The wet path, the small body and the moment when the way it was going cannot be known drop out.

If complete understanding is demanded for all help, action may be put off in the face of pressing danger.

Is doing nothing, on the ground that the intention cannot be known, not also a kind of intervention?

How should the wish to help be told apart from the facts I know? When touching a being that someone else is already caring for, what should be asked first? Who should design paths that take the movement of small living things into account? How can the dangers of beings with senses different from a person's be learned? What kind of boundary do the passages we made for our convenience become for other living things? In a future where we meet life we do not understand, will the standard of help be set in the same way?

If, when a friend returns a borrowed book after several years, I feel as though I have already become someone else, to the me of which time has the promise come back?

When an old promise is kept, how do the changed person and time connect?

Hypothetical situation: a person getting ready to move gets back a book lent long ago and finds a note written in it at the time.

The scene of reading the note in the book and meeting one's old interests as something strange drops out.

If the change of time is made large, the inconvenience or loss suffered while waiting for the promise can be hidden.

May the meaning of a promise kept, however late, be done away with because expectations have changed?

How much of what my former self wished for does my present self take over? When keeping a long-delayed promise, should the other person's present be asked about again? What conditions does a promise need to stay valid while people change? How is the time of a promise made with a being of a different lifespan to be matched? In what way does the time it takes a thing to go and come back reveal the time of a relationship? In a far future where only records remain, can it still be said that the promise was kept?

When repairing a house whose future housemates are not yet decided, is leaving the use of one room open also a way of preparing for the future?

Can an unplanned place be left for the future?

Hypothetical situation: a person repairing a small house is weighing whether to settle the spare room as a workroom or leave it empty for later needs.

The question of how much space can actually be left empty in a limited house drops out.

The burden of a choice that leaves possibility open can differ greatly with how much space and money one can spare.

Can the same way of preparing be recommended to someone who cannot afford to leave space empty?

Do I feel a state not decided in advance as unease or as expectation? How much of the present space should be left for people not yet met? Who bears the cost of making spaces whose use is easy to change? Should the possibility that beings other than people will later live there too be put into the plan? Is the empty space of a city unfinished, or a possibility not yet decided? To meet a future that was not foreseen, what should be decided and what should be left open?

When a power cut after heavy snow drags on, should the fuel of the village's shared emergency generator go first to heating for an elderly person living alone or to the medicines kept in the shared freezer?

Should limited shared survival resources flow first to a vulnerable individual life or to the community's essential infrastructure?

A crisis in a hypothetical isolated mountain village where, because of a record cold wave and heavy snow, only half a day's fuel remains for the only shared generator.

The pressing sense of the scene: the chill felt by the elderly person living alone whose floor is cooling right now, the speed at which the insulin in the freezer is spoiling in real time, and the like.

There is a risk of simplifying the many-sided standards of distribution in an emergency disaster into the binary frame of 'individual heating versus shared medicine'.

If losing the medicines puts more people with chronic illness in danger a few days later, is it justified to choose only the warmth of right now?

How many hours of cold can I endure in a room below freezing? Can I give up my share of the generator while watching a roommate or neighbour shiver? By what procedure should the village council agree on the priorities for survival resources in an emergency? Is there no room to share even a little of the remaining warmth with the animals in a barn frozen in the bitter cold? When extreme weather becomes ordinary, how should local communities' emergency safety nets be redesigned? In a far future where civilisation has collapsed or communication has been cut off, will humans still be able to share common resources for the survival of others?

If the shared pram and baby walker kept at the cooperative childcare centre have grown old and creak, and no one can use them for fear they will break, who should bear the cost of repair and the responsibility for upkeep?

Who must take responsibility for the wear of facilities and tools provided for shared care, and how, for them to last?

A situation in the shared ground-floor lounge of a hypothetical multi-household row house, where care tools that neighbours with infants used in common are gradually being neglected.

The fatigue of the carer who, holding a child, pushed the creaking pram and stamped with impatience, and the awkward moments when neighbours watched one another warily.

It does not fully take in the emotional fatigue of the network of care relationships itself, beyond the problem of physically mending the care tools.

Is it not only natural that the household that used the things most often and wore them out should bear more of the cost of repair?

Do I have the honesty to fix, or to report, a small scratch on a shared tool I used? Can neighbours build a culture of mending damaged care goods together instead of blaming one another? Should the basic local government give public support to the upkeep of shared care infrastructure in apartments and row houses? How will hygiene coexist with the small insects or microbes that live on the shared playgrounds and toys children use? How will the cycle of producing and discarding care tools be made sustainable from the standpoint of a shared ecosystem? In a future society where communities of social care beyond blood ties have become the norm, how will shared tools evolve?

Should hanging one's own religious symbols or charms from one's home region on the wall of the shared corridor of a multi-household building be seen as a deviation that harms the neighbours' peace?

Where is the limit of expression up to which an individual may show their identity and beliefs in a shared space?

A situation in the corridor of a hypothetical, densely multicultural low-rise apartment building, where residents have hung their own religious signs and folk decorations, and visual clashes and conflict have arisen.

The humiliation felt when a neighbour protested and demanded that one's traditional charm be taken down, and the vivid bewilderment of the neighbour who felt uneasy before an unfamiliar symbol.

In dealing with the regulation of visual decoration, it is easy to overlook the problem of discrimination that comes from imbalances of power between classes, races and cultures.

Is it not basic courtesy to others to keep a shared passage that everyone goes in and out of neutral, tidy and without colour or smell?

How do I want to show myself, through a nameplate or decoration, to others outside my door? When I come upon a neighbour's unfamiliar religious sign, can I start a conversation without aversion? How should a residential community protect the identities of minorities when it sets visual standards for shared spaces? What stimulus do the decorations and smells we put out in the corridor become for pets or wild birds that pass through the shared space? What is the universal etiquette by which humans of varied migrant backgrounds can coexist in cramped urban space? In the virtual dwellings of a future where physical bodies or nationalities have been dissolved, will individuals still try to leave traces in shared spaces?

If we gather on the shared wooden platform on the apartment roof to look at the stars and a high-intensity security light meant to prevent crime wipes out the sky completely, can we turn the light off?

How can artificial lighting for the community's safety and the right to gaze at cosmic vastness be brought into harmony?

A situation on the rooftop rest area of a hypothetical high-rise apartment complex, where residents who want to watch a meteor shower are set against the management body, which says the security lights must be kept on at all times for safety.

The excitement of a child lying on the cold rooftop platform waiting for a dark sky, and the unease of a resident afraid of missing a step on a dark stairway.

The limitation of oversimplifying the real effect of safety infrastructure in reducing risk, and setting it flatly against the value of astronomical contemplation.

If there is the risk of even a single safety accident or fall, should romantic watching of the night sky not rightly be put off altogether?

In the darkness of the night sky, do I feel solitude, or a sense of cosmic connection? Can I try, with the neighbours gathered on the roof, carefully lowering our torches, to bear the darkness together? Should city planning provide dark-preservation zones where citizens can be safe and still enjoy the blackness of the night sky? Has the sight of migratory birds and nocturnal insects that lose their sense of direction in artificial light and strike window glass been considered? What are the long-term effects of night lighting that covers the whole Earth on the Earth's biosphere and on observation of space beyond the atmosphere? In human settlements that have gone out into distant space, to whom will the authority to regulate the artificial sun and the artificial night be given?

When an outsider comes to the shared study room that the neighbourhood's residents furnished together and takes up a seat all day, should that person be welcomed, or should their use be limited?

Where should the openness of a shared space a community built of its own accord find its balance with its members' exclusive sense of belonging?

A situation in which unfamiliar users from nearby areas crowd into a residents' shared study room, made by converting a hypothetical old alley meeting room, and the original residents feel left out.

The loneliness of the village elder who had taken on the cleaning of the study room, on giving up a seat to unfamiliar young people and stepping outside.

The risk of reducing the drawing of boundaries to mere selfish territoriality, or of idealising hospitality only as an unconditional virtue.

If it was given the name of a village shared space, should it not be open without condition to everyone who reaches it, whatever their address or contribution?

What do I feel when a stranger comes into a space I go to regularly? Can I be the first to offer a newly arrived visitor the unspoken rules of using the study room and a warm cup of tea? How should a local community's public assets set out, by ordinance, the rights of contributors and the access of citizens at large? What kind of refuge does the opening of a shared space become for urban creatures, such as street cats or pigeons, that make the alley their habitat? In an age when movement between cities is at its height, how should a sense of belonging based on place be redefined? In a planetary community connected by networks, where physical territory has disappeared, how will the boundary between 'inside and outside' work?

If expensive food often disappears from the shared fridge of a share house and, the culprit not being found, every tenant is charged a share of the loss, is that just?

When the person who broke a rule within a community cannot be identified, is it justified to impose collective joint responsibility?

A situation in a hypothetical share house for young people where, after a string of thefts from the shared fridge, the managers have notified every resident of an equal deduction.

The sense of deprivation of the person whose drink, saved to have after finishing a part-time shift, was stolen, and the cold silence of the neighbours under suspicion.

The limitation of replacing the relational side, the restoration of mutual trust, wholly with the punitive dimension of money compensation and collective punishment.

Rather than the worst outcome, in which no one takes responsibility and the shared fridge itself is closed, is it not better to keep it going even by paying a share?

When I am asked to bear an unjust joint responsibility, do I stay silent or protest openly? Can I put away suspicious looks and make a time to sit down with my housemates for an honest conversation? How should the justice system apply the principle of proportionality when dealing with minor wrongdoing within a community? Has the waste and spoiling of food from animals and plants kept in the fridge been reflected on from the standpoint of the exploitation of life? How will the rise in social costs and costs of surveillance brought about by the collapse of trust capital across society be stopped? In a highly technological society where total surveillance is possible, will the classical penal concept of collective responsibility disappear?

If the flower bed in the shared yard of a multi-household house overflows with street cats' droppings and illegally dumped rubbish, and someone proposes digging out all the soil and covering it with cement, should one agree?

Is it reasonable, for ease of management and cleanliness of urban common land, to seal a natural space of soil and grass under an artificial structure?

A situation in the shared yard of a hypothetical low-rise residential area, where, because of the difficulty of keeping the soil bed and complaints about the smell, a meeting has been held to turn the bed into a cement parking area.

The sensory loss of losing the tough vitality of the weeds that sprouted every spring and the smell that came from the wet soil after rain.

The risk of setting the abstraction of those who argue for ecological value unfairly against the material toil of the residents who bear the actual daily work of cleaning.

Can one insist on ecology while ignoring the real hardship of the ground-floor residents who suffer, clearing the smell and the rubbish every day?

How far can I tolerate muddy shoes and the appearance of insects in my daily life? Can I propose to the neighbours that we set a weekend and do the work of clearing the droppings and rubbish from the bed together? How should a city legislate ecological building rules that make soil area, as a habitat for living things within residential districts, mandatory? Where are the rights of the earthworms and microbes that would suffocate under ground covered with cement, and of the plants that would lose a place to root? How will the urban heat island and local flooding brought about by the growth of impervious surfaces across the whole city be reversed? In a settlement on an artificial planet where every surface is covered with synthetic material, what kind of memory will the primal medium called soil remain as?

If expert residents keep to themselves how to use the precision power tools in the village's shared woodshop and how to use them safely, and block beginners' access, has the knowledge been shared?

Should the expert knowledge and safety know-how for handling technical tools that are common property put the control of danger first, or the widening of access?

A situation in a hypothetical residents' self-run workshop that has brought in an expensive woodworking table saw, but where, on the ground of safety accidents, only certain skilled people keep the key.

The heavy sense of responsibility of the keeper who wants to guard the tools amid fear of an accident that severs a finger, and the helplessness of the beginner hovering outside the door.

The possibility of distorting the physical time and training that acquiring expert skill requires into a mere 'monopoly of knowledge by the established'.

When an unskilled user causes a serious accident to a person or breaks an expensive tool, who will bear the responsibility?

Do I have the patience to teach my neighbours, willingly, the useful knowledge I have or how to handle tools? Can skilled people and beginners form one-to-one mentoring relationships in which skills are handed on safely? Does the local community's lifelong-education system give institutional support to safety training in shared makerspaces? Do we know what the sawdust and noise produced in handling the tools do to the surrounding woods and the habitat of tiny living things? How will the risks and benefits that can arise when humanity's technical know-how is released as open source be coordinated at the planetary level? Will a future be safe in which all operating knowledge is built into artificial intelligence and humans have completely forgotten how tools work?