“Sorry I think I had my ears on backwards today or something,” the Draconequus said as he plucked both ears from his head and cleaned them with a cloth before screwing them back on to face his yellow friend. “But would you mind repeating that again?”
“Princess Twilight was wondering if you’re interested in teaching.” The Pegasus across the table from him said before taking a bite of a cucumber sandwich.
Discord, the ex-Lord of Chaos, could do nothing but stare at her. “Do you realize what just came out of your mouth? Me? Teaching? When I have so many other things to do like having these tea parties or playing my favorite role-playing game on Guys Night. Why is she asking me for?”
“Twilight said that since the school is doing quite well and more students are enrolling, she thought it would be a good idea to reach out for more teachers that could help them learn friendship along with their other general education.”
While the spirit of random had made a bread and butterfly to go chase after the hookah-smoking caterpillar, he raised an eyebrow. “While I’m glad that you and your friends decided to take on extra jobs to make yourselves even more overworked then you already are, I don’t see why you want to drag me into this. After all, I don’t know a thing about teaching a lesson as I’m pretty much known throughout the fandom as the favorite goofball.”
Fluttershy blinked. “You have fans?”
“Of course, both the cult here and the Bronies declare any episode I show up in as a masterpiece.”
“What?”
Ignoring her question, he went on as hot tea flowed from his nose and into his cup. “What I’m getting at is that I consider myself unqualified for your school. And even if I were, what would I be teaching?”
His friend hummed in thought. “You could always be an art teacher.”
“And take Julius Disc’s job? No thank you.”
“Who?”
“Nevermind,” he chuckled. “Just a reference for the readers that have read a certain author’s fanfictions.”
“You confuse me sometimes,” Fluttershy sighed as she tried to think of something else. “What about something that you might have interest in? Like… Villain Reform?”
Discord shook his head. “And give the show less conflict than it already has? I don’t think so.”
“What about debate?”
“I would always lose if I have to argue with myself.”
“History?”
“That’s Princess Bookhorse’s job.”
“Oh, that’s right…” the butter-colored pegasus murmured as she tapped her chin. “Woodshop? Wait no, you might turn the classroom into a forest… Equestrian class?”
“If you want me to rewrite the language.”
With a defeated sigh, Fluttershy slumped in her seat. Trying to search for something – anything – to get his interest. “What about… philosophy?”
This got Discord to tilt his head. “Come again?”
“The study of wisdom, but that’s something that Twilight would do.”
“I wouldn’t be too certain,” his friend said as he shrunk himself until he was small enough to paddle in the air in a teacup. “Out of all you just suggested, that one has promise.”
Now, this took his friend by surprise. “Really? I didn’t think you’d be interested in the study of wisdom.”
“Why Flutters, I’m disappointed in you, especially when I have such a great sense of humor. After all, what is humor, but reason gone mad?”
“But this isn’t a comedy class.”
“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong,” he commented as he cast an anchor aside, letting it land on a slice of cake. “I’m a comedian by nature, which is a philosopher who can talk to a group about great truths but get a laugh at it. Now, I’m not saying yes, but I suppose we could do a test run.”
Fluttershy frowned, “I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“Hey, if Twilight could buck the rules of some uptight, speciest branch of government and write her own book, then I can do a test run. If I like it, I’ll stick around to be the new egghead in town.”
She agreed that his plan sounded fair and told him that she'd present it to Twilight.
Once their weekly tea was concluded, Discord used his claw to tear a portal in time.
“Uh... Discord?” Fluttershy asked hesitantly. “What are you doing?”
“I think I’m going to go study,” he said. “If I’m going to teach philosophy, then I’m going to need all the help I can get. So until next week my dear.”
Before his friend could object, he stepped through the portal, which closed behind him.
“Oh dear,” she told herself. “I really hope he doesn’t get in too much-” Another time portal opened through which Discord planted face first into the floor. “Discord! Are you alright?”
“Not so loud,” he moaned. “I’m having a wisdom hangover…Goddess, who knew that Socrates could really throw down a few.”
“Ugh, this is going to be so boring,” Smolder the dragoness complained as she turned to her friends. “Why are we doing this again?”
“I think it had something to do with us being test subjects or something,” Sandbar, the only pony in the group said with a shrug. He added, “As far as I know, Princess Twilight said that this is like a tryout for a new teacher. But even I have to agree that it's rather sucky that this is happening on a Saturday.”
A blue gryphon called Gallus leaned back against a wall in the school’s hallway. “Is this normal for you ponies? Having your teachers drag you into new classrooms to rate someone's hour-long lecture?”
“I can’t say.” Sandbar scratched his head. “Did any of you catch what this teacher is going to… ya know… teach?”
“Princess Twilight said that it has something to do with philosophy,” Ocellus, a light blue Changeling informed. “Although she didn’t say what it’s about.”
“Yona finds that weird,” said the only Yak in the group. “Why teacher keep what they’re about to teach a secret?”
“Maybe it’s for a surprise,” a pink hippogryph suggested as she took flight. “Ooh! Maybe our teacher has something really, really cool and they’re going to have us go ‘whoa’ as soon as we walk in.”
Sandbar expressed that he wasn’t sure about it. When asked why he responded, “Isn’t Philosophy supposed to be something that’s hard? Like, on college level hard? The new guy knows that he’s going to be teaching someone that’s at Jr. High level, right?”
“No need to worry,” a new voice answered. The six students turned their attention to one of the teachers, Professor Fluttershy. “He’s been informed what to expect but, he’s eager to prove himself to you of what he can do.”
Smolder went up to her. “So how exactly do we do this again?”
“He will be given one hour to teach about any subject related to philosophy, and at the end, we will hear your feedback to see how well he did. After that, you’re pretty much free to go.”
“Still kinda annoying that we have to go to school on a Saturday,” Gallus muttered.
As Professor Fluttershy waved for them to follow, she replied, “I understand, but it will only be for an hour, and you shouldn’t be required to take notes or anything like that. All I ask is that you treat him like you would any other teacher in school. Here we are.” The six of them stopped and looked up to a door that led to room 256. “I will come back to let you know when the time is up. Oh, and do be polite since this is his first time doing this.”
Ocellus approached the doorknob. “So… do we just walk right in or…?”
Fluttershy nodded. “He’s just waiting for you. I’ll see you all in an hour.”
As their teacher walked off, Silverstream took hold of the door. “C’mon guys, let’s go meet him,” she said as she opened it. “I bet this is going to be…” She trailed off as she entered the room. Or rather, lack thereof.
The six curious students entered into what appeared to be a white void that somehow stretched on for miles on end. The only thing to exist in this nowhere was the door they've entered from and an apple tree with a mishmashed creature sitting on one of its branches playing the banjo.
“Uh… hey there,” Smolder was the first to speak as she waved a claw.
The creature took notice of them. “Ah, you’re finally here,” He said as he discarded the banjo and swung down from the tree. “I was wondering when any of you were going to show up.”
“Yak asks who are you?” Yona inquired.
“Draconequus answers that I am your tryout teacher for Philosophy, Discord. Just Discord and not Mr. D – no relation.”
“But what are you?” Silverstream took his lion paw to exam it. “Are you a Changeling that got his transformation wrong.”
Their teacher frowned, “Firstly, rude. And infinitely, I’m the ex-Spirit of Chaos and reformed villain.”
“So something like Tempest?” Gallus asked.
He waved his paw. “More or less, but with Equestria going through villains like coffee filters, yes. But anyway, I want to welcome you all to the realm of thought. As I am going to be teaching you noobs Philosophy, I want to start off with a simple thought experiment.” Discord raised his tail and snapped it. “For this exercise, I want all of you to try to imagine yourselves without a body.”
Six pairs of eyes blinked. “Like if we’re ghosts or something?” The Gryphon wondered aloud.
Discord thought it over, then replied, “That would work.”
The Changeling sat down and thought over for a moment before her other friends gasped, “W-What?”
“Ocellus is becoming see-through,” Yona told her. “Was Changeling doing on purpose?”
“Not exactly,” Discord said as he floated by them. “I made it so that anything you think in this room, it will happen.” He waved a claw but paused as he realized something. “I forgot to ask what your names were.” Thus the six students introduced themselves to him. “Anyway, let’s focus on the experiment. Just think of what you would be if you didn’t have a body.”
Within moments, the students found themselves as translucent spirits passing through one another. “This is so cool!” the Hippogryph exclaimed as she flew about like a ghost, passing through the tree.
“Yak can fly!” Yona cried as she jumped up and suspended in midair.
“You know,” Gallus suggested to Sandbar. “Wouldn't it be funny if we scare students like this? Just pop out of a wall and yell boo.”
An air horn was heard, and although many jumped from the unexpected noise, they quickly found that it was coming from their new teacher sneezing. “As much as I want to continue the fun, we don’t have much time. We need to complete the experiment.” The six of them gathered around him. “Now for the ultimate test, I want you all to imagine yourselves both without a body…” he hesitated as his students waited in suspense, “And without your mind.”
“What!” Smolder exclaimed. “Are you trying to make us disappear?”
“Not so fast trigger happy,” Discord said. “This is essential for today’s lesson. I just want all of you to try to think of absolutely nothing. Not your memories, not whatever plans you have, in fact, try not to think about anything at all and forget yourself.” He leaned up against the tree. “Go on, have a go.”
The six of them hesitated as they glanced at one another. Yona said bravely, “Yona will try,” as she closed her eyes in hard concentration. Yet, no matter how hard she tried, the students noticed that nothing happened. Eventually, she regained her body as she stomped her hoof on the ground, “This impossible!”
“Wait, really?” Gallus asked as he too tried and, like his yak friend, nothing happened. The same happened with the others as they tried to clear their minds and were reversed back to their former selves, one by one. “Okay, I give,” the gryphon said, “What was the point of doing that?”
With a loud clap of his hands, Discord changed the white void into what looked like an art museum with aged oil paintings hanging from its walls. “That exercise you all did was the exact same thought experiment of the pony that I’m blabbering about today.” He gestured over to an oil painting of a unicorn in black clothing with a white collar that only showed his peach-colored face with his long, chocolate curly mane and goatee. “Today’s lesson is on the philosophy of this clown, Reneigh Haycartes. And since I can tell what some of you are thinking, I’ll do it for you.” He turned and snatched a paintbrush from out of the blue. He painted over the portrait a rainbow afro while downing the philosopher’s portrait in clown makeup.
This managed to get some shocked giggles from his students before returning to him. “And I also know what else you’re thinking.”
“Should I get cupcakes before six in the morning?” Silverstream asked, raising her claw.
“That too, but no. The real question is why I’m talking about this poor mare’s version of Pennywise. That’s because today’s lecture is about how he constructed his theory about the universe as we know it through doubt rather than through blind faith. Or in plain Equestrian, how do we know anything is real?”
Smolder raised an eyebrow. “Okay, I’ll bite. What do you mean by that?”
“Before I can explain his philosophy, I need to give you some background.” Discord then skated a little down the hall, through which his students pursued him. As they did so, they noticed the paintings showed old scientists and scenes of experimentation. “By the time our guy was born, Equestria was undergoing the Scientific Revolution. Before that, everyone insisted that everything was the way it was through blind faith in whatever myth they knew. By his time, however, everything in nature was beginning to be seriously measured, studied and recorded in detail for the first time. From how gravity worked to realizing that air was something rather than nothing, even Reneigh was caught up in this studious inquiry that lay the foundations of Twilight’s idea of fun on Friday nights. However, unlike these guys who would easily put you to sleep if you so much as say hello to them, our guy did something rather odd to which he put it all in a book called The Meditations. In this book, he tries to write down everything that he could believe while separating all the other bullcrap.”
After turning a sharp left around a corner, the students followed Discord to find in the center of a dark room. He had orange robes, his black Mohawk was missing, and the very room was going “Oommm….” Their teacher crisscrossed his legs as he was floating in the air.
“In said book, he did the unthinkable and said that he was going to use doubt to find the truth. To do so, he had to put aside everything that he ever knew, erase all knowledge since the beginning of time like an etch-a-sketch drawing. By doing this, he tested to see if something was so real and true that he couldn’t doubt it.” He opened an eye. “In fact, can any of you tell me something that’s true in which I couldn't question it?”
“Oh! I know!” The Changeling raised her hoof. “What about math? No creature could doubt that two plus two equals four. Besides, math is so perfect that I don’t think that you could doubt it.”
“Really now?” Discord raised an eyebrow, letting his tail touch the ground. “Well little miss, since you seem so confident…” Out from the ground behind him, a gigantic chalkboard bolted up. Written upon it was the following:
33 (N/28 + 17) – 144/3,385,963 (6+23(9)/144,327,843) = 9/8/27414 (-42/0)
A single piece of chalk floated before Ocellus. “What’s the answer to ‘N’?”
The Changeling squeaked as she stared at the problem at the board. “I… uh…”
Discord smirked. “Is something the matter?”
“Mr. Discord, we haven’t covered algebra this advance in math class.”
“That’s not what I’m asking,” he said as he shook his head. “What’s preventing you from solving what ‘N’ is?”
“I don’t know how to solve it,” She confessed. “What if I get something wrong?”
With a snap of his talons, the chalkboard disappeared, and a long piece of bubble gum took the piece of chalk’s place. “And give the lady a bubblegum cigar,” he said as he shoved it into her mouth. “That was the reason why he doubted math. It is because of the weakness of memory and we tend to get careless with math, that we sometimes add numbers up wrong. So because that happens that if we get an answer wrong once, how can you be absolutely certain that you won’t add it up wrong every time?”
“Now wait a minute,” the hippogryph objected. “Just because she doesn’t know what the answer is, it doesn’t mean that no one else can. I mean, what about Twilight? We can always trust her if we need to know about something; she’s always super reliable and transparent about everything.”
“Not quite.” Discord waggled a claw as he planted his hoof and foot on the ground. “With similar logic when asked about believing anyone, even Haycartes said, ‘It is prudent to never trust completely those who have deceived us even once.’ Don’t believe me? Ask her about the last time she visited your kingdom under the sea.” To illustrate this point, he snapped his talons and a movie projector appeared. It showed the purple princess on a screen.
The students witnessed an underwater scene, during which Silverstream called out, “Hey! That’s my home!” There they saw their teachers who had turned into Sea Ponies, after telling Princess Skystar that they couldn’t stay.
When Pinkie asked them if they could stay a little longer, Twilight said, “Pinkie’s right… Well, we still need a plan to get back. A few minutes won’t make a huge difference. And if there’s anypony that can cram a life ton of fun into a blink of an eye, it’s Pinkie Pie.” A squee from her pink friend later, she tells her to go ahead and show the Princess the best time ever. After they’ve been shooed away, Twilight turns towards the pearl. After a title card saying, “A few moments later…” flashed on the screen, it cut to her being caught in a jellyfish security system, her hoof mere inches away from the pearl.
“Oh.” The hippogryph’s ears folded back in embarrassment. “I forgot about that…”
“Okay, so what?” Smolder asked. “If we can’t rely on math or believing others, what about our senses?”
The teacher appeared right in front of her with an amused look on his face. “Oh do tell. How do your senses tell you what’s really there?”
“Simple, if I can see it, smell it, taste it, touch it or hear it, whatever the thing is, it has to be real.”
“I wouldn’t be so quick to conclude,” he said as he ditched the orange robe and a huge window materialized in front of them. “Look out of this window and tell me what you see.”
The students approached the materialized window which looked out to Ponyville that was about a mile away. From there, they could spot everything from Sweet Apple Acres to their school - along with what looked like ponies that moved about.
Smolder looked over to Discord. “Okay, seriously, how are you doing this?”
“When you’re a spirit that can manipulate reality, it comes naturally. But before I can contradict my own lesson, tell me what you think you’re seeing.”
“Huh?” Smolder became perplexed at the request. “I see Ponyville, of course. Ponies and all.”
“How do you know they’re ponies?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I mean just look, they have their hats and things on. All moving about going on with their business. There's Professor Applejack harvesting apples. And over there is a train that’s coming in.”
“Are you sure?” their teacher questioned as he opened the window. “How about you take a closer look?”
“What are you- whoa!” Before she realized what was happening (while giving her fellow students a heart attack) she was pushed through the window. While the others were expecting her to fall nearly a mile from the air, instead she crash landed – thereby knocking over several model homes along with it. “Ow! Hey what was… what the…?” Now she was up close, she realized that all the moving “ponies” weren’t ponies at all, but a series of moving windup dolls that were dressed in tiny clothing bumping into things.
“Question,” Discord asked his students. “Why were all of you surprised that wasn’t really Ponyville you were looking at?”
“But…” Sandbar looked between him and the model town. “It looked so realistic.”
“And that right there is why you fell for it! Everything you think is true, you got through your senses: seeing, smelling, tasting, touching and hearing. But sometimes, those same senses can be deceiving. A moment ago, all of you looked through this fake window and saw the tiny dollhouses and shuffling clothing, and your brains told you that they were ponies. So you don’t necessarily believe your own senses. There’s no exact guarantee that anyone could know the exact nature of anything.”
Yona snorted, “That’s stupid.”
Discord slipped over. “Why?”
“When Yak is going about day building hut, try telling Yak 'How can we be certain this wood?' Yak will think teacher is stupid.”
“A legitimate philosophical objection.” He patted her head. “But then again if you think about what Reneigh pointed out for a minute, he’s sort of is right on this. Whenever we see a shadow from a corner of our eye, we might think it’s someone there. Or whenever somepony’s stomach grumbles, we think it’s a new monster attack. So we can’t entirely rely on our senses, but Haycartes was trying to figure out if anything exists at all.”
“Well…” Sandbar mused. “At least I can be certain that we’re here, right? I mean that all of us are here together and you’re teaching this.”
“A fair point.” Discord nodded but added, “Except, one of us could be dreaming.”
“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me!” Gallus threw up his arms. “What now?”
“Hear me out,” their teacher said. After Smolder got out of the realistic diorama, he pushed it aside to reveal a movie studio where ponies were moving props and pushing sets around. He walked inside as the six of them followed behind him. “I guarantee that every one of us, at one time in our lives, has woken up from a dream that was so real, we didn’t realize that we were asleep until we woke up. And when you do so, you’ll think of things like, ‘Ugh, I gotta go feed that Cthulhu creature thing we’ve bought.’”
As he spoke, the six students couldn’t help but notice that between the ponies carrying stuff that there was a sound stage. The stage was a hallway that looked remarkably similar to the hallway that they were in before they entered this room of randomness.
“And if that weren’t enough,” Discord added, “he goes on to say that there could be a demon making us think that all of this is happening when it isn’t.” He twisted his head around until it was backward but continued to walk forward. “I know at this point you’re thinking that’s an odd thing for a demon to waste his time on for making us have thoughts like, ‘Hm, that invading army is here early this morning.’ Or ‘You know legally, grasshopper ice cream might have at least some grasshoppers in them.’”
He then led them to the stage which looked exactly like the main hall of the school in every detail except the front wall, which had a wall of cameras looking on at them. “But it could be,” their teacher continued, “That all of this is completely fake, that your brains are wired up to your senses to make you think that something is real when, in fact, it isn't; that you're just imagining it as if we're in a badly written fanfic or a children's television show. Now once any of you consider that everything you know could be a creation of either your own mind or someone else’s, that thought is both amusing to me and terrifying to you. But,” he sighed, “legally, as Princess Twilight has decreed, you’re not allowed to have that thought for more than twenty seconds because it will drive you mental.”
After leaning against a pillar, he told his stunned students to have a go at it, cueing the sound speakers to start singing “Life is but a Dream.” But before any of them could crack underneath such a revelation, three neon signs descended from above and were suddenly, if not brightly lit up to show them three simple words.
STOP
THINKING
NOW!!!
“You know.” Discord said. “Haycartes wasn’t suggesting that anything you’ve just been told was true, by the way. He was trying to figure out what can be stated with absolute certainty. Even if he couldn’t prove a thing, there was one thing that was indeed real that even he couldn’t doubt it. ‘Even if all our lives are nothing but an illusion,’ he said, ‘there is one thing that I can be certain of, that I am thinking. I might be thinking about things that are wrong, but there could be no doubt that I am the one that’s having these thoughts. Yes, a demon might have created my body, if not my whole world, but I am thinking. Which is a relief, for that means that I must exist.'" He then sprouted six pointing hands to touch the foreheads of all of his students. “‘In fact, I think, therefore I am!’”
“Whoa,” Sandbar said at last. “That’s deep.”
“But the glory of all of this is the praise of doubt.” After snapping his paw to make the entire set disappear, the room returned to its original stage: an apple tree in the middle of nowhere. He said, “Remember that thought experiment we did at the beginning? What you all just did was actually prove him right. While it is easy to imagine what it would be like to be without a body, not one of you could imagine how it would be without your minds. What’s more, you all just easily resorted back to your original state. This is because when someone keeps telling you something, it’s hard to stay doubting for long even if it’s insane. Even Haycartes was aware that for the sake of everyday life, we have to accept some things that were true. Yet, from what all of you have gone through, he has laid out a theory in which absolutely nothing should be accepted unless put through scrutiny. Ever since then, laws, government, even Princess Sunbutt was put under question like never before.”
He pulled out a grandfather clock out of the tree. “So, any questions?”
Professor Fluttershy walked up to the room in which Discord was teaching. After giving the door a knock, she opened it to find the six students munching on apples while throwing questions at the new teacher.
“Fluttershy!” The ex-Chaos lord slithered over to hug her. “Is it an hour already?”
“I’m afraid so. Were you able to get through your lesson alright?”
“That was awesome!” Silverstream exclaimed. “Professor, you should have seen it! At first, we nearly disappeared, but then he made us question reality, but that was okay because we’re real because we can still think.”
Their professor blinked. “Wait, what?”
“Point being,” Gallus said, “overall, the guy is a nutcase, but we like him. He taught us that philosophy is actually interesting.”
“Is he going to be teaching from now on?” Ocellus asked. “He’s both fun and good at what he does.”
“So I take it that all of you liked him teaching?” The six kids bobbed their heads. “In that case, I’ll be able to put in a good word with Twilight and see if he wants to work here. But thank you all so much for giving him a chance.”
Once they all stepped into the hallway, Fluttershy told them that she’d be expecting them next week and thanked them once again for their time. After they went away, she turned to her chaotic friend and asked him how was it.
“It was new and they understood everything I was teaching them.”
The mare’s eyes shined. “Does that mean that you want to teach at the school?”
“I didn’t say, ‘yes,’ but needless to say that was shockingly fun.” He conjured up a pipe that blew bubbles. “But rest your precious head that I will be thinking this over.”
“You know what?” Fluttershy nuzzled him. “I’m proud of you.”
“Thank you, my dear.” He smiled. “So… Tea? Same as always?”
“I’d like that," she said. “And maybe you could give me a sample of that lecture that won your students over.”
About a week later...
