In Canterlot, there was a small commotion through the castle as some of the smartest ponies from around Equestria gathered for their monthly lectures. For them, it wasn't as much of a lecture but stimuli for their mind. There was always something new to think about at these gathering of these ponies. Some of them brought new ideas and inventions, and others made them think about life as they knew it to be. It was what a good number of them looked forward to each month, being able to learn something new again. They always took any opportunity to learn as it was always fascinating on how some ponies viewed the world.
Ponies had began to assemble in the Royal Library, sitting at tables that spanned at least twenty feet long, and only four feet wide. They positioned themselves in the seats provided, most sitting in their own little groups of who they favored being around. As the number of ponies that were in the room began to grow, the tables began to fill with every seat that was available. There was almost no space left in the room after everypony had settled in and gotten ready for yet another journey through another ponies mind. But because this session, they would think of everything around them in a new light even if the premise seemed a bit mundane. The library that they occupied was more than any normal library. Stacks of books stood tall next to the shelves, some of their respective spots too far up for the earth pony librarian to reach. Others sat in piles from ponies who were simply just too lazy to put them back where they should have been.
Princess Celestia entered the library, two of her most trusted Royal Guards following close to her on each side. As she walked through the room and towards the podium that stood at the far end, ponies bowed and gave their greetings to her when she passed by. When she reached the podium for her speech to start the meeting, Celestia cleared her throat to get the attention of all the ponies in the room, even though they were already focused on their regal leader. She looked down upon them, making sure that they were in fact ready to start the presentation. When Celestia was satisfied with the attentiveness of the ponies, she began to speak.
“Welcome to the Canterlot Royal library, my little ponies,” Celestia told the ponies who sat in perfect rows at the tabled provided. “Today, we have a special guest for our monthly intellectual lectures. This day, we have Twilight Sparkle from Ponyville on reality and perception. Please put your hooves together, for Twilight Sparkle.”
Twilight slowly made her way to the podium from behind one of the many bookshelves, her mane bobbing back and forth as she walked. It wasn't what Twilight usually liked to do, talking in front of a large group of ponies, but she couldn't pass up the chance to let her thoughts on life thrive through the minds of some of the greatest minds in Equestria. Even though it put butterflies in her stomach and tossed her for a nervous breakdown, Twilight walked to the podium with her chest puffed out and her head hung high.
“Hello everypony, my name is Twilight Sparkle. Today, I will be going over some basics on perception and reality. I hope you are all having a great day as well,” she paused, hoping for some sort of response from the crowd. The only thing that came from them was no more than a few coughs and a few clearing their throats. “Well... lets get started then, shall we?”
Twilight looked over towards Princess Celestia, wanting her approval to move on and start her lecture. Celestia gave her a subtle nod, and she continued on. “Today, I ask that you do not engage in conversation with other ponies around you. I ask that you do not speak unless I specifically ask you, for the sake of the ideas presented. This is meant to be an adventure of the mind, and you are along for the ride. Let your mind think freely as we move on through the various ideas that I have to present to you, and it will stimulate your mind as you all have come here for.
“And now, for the main part of this lecture. What is a chair?” Twilight asked them, looking down upon them and hoping for a better reaction than what she received. Some of them began laughing at what they considered to be shear stupidity, and wondered how this could even give them any new ideas. One of these ponies spoke up, annoyed with what he was presented.
“Now Ms. Sparkle, do you have any real ideas for our mind to feast upon, or is it going to be another simplistic question such as this?” Asked a brown colt with a collar and a black tie, an hourglass tattooed on his flank.
Twilight sighed in annoyance. “Now, if this really such a simple question, why don't you define a chair for me?”
The pony huffed, the entire room now staring intently at him awaiting an answer. “Simply enough, it is something that you sit on.”
A smug grin cracked across Twilight's lips. “According to what you think a chair is, a rock is a chair as well.” She replied with a gleaming smile.
“No, a rock isn't a chair,” He retorted. “A chair is something that you sit on, and has arm rests as well as a backrest. That good enough of a definition for you?” He asked her with a bit of anger dripping from his voice.
“Well...” Twilight continued pointing over to a chair next to a stack of books, “Then that is not a chair, right? It has no arm rests, so it can't possibly be a chair.”
The pony put a hoof to his face, annoyed with her constant questioning. “That is a chair too, some chairs don't have arm rests. What is the point of this anyways?”
“The point? It is rather obvious as to what I was trying to say with the question, What is a chair?” Twilight told him. “How can you expect to look at reality and define everything when it is all based upon the perception of your own mind? You can't just look at something and say that you know what it is. This applies with the example of the chair, you kept on changing what you thought the definition was based upon what you saw and perceived. Things can't simply be justified by what you think of them, or even what another pony thinks of it. The only real definition of any given thing in this world and reality is what you perceive it to be.
“What you perceive something to be is the only thing that matters, because if you lived off of what some other pony thought defined certain objects, you would most likely disagree with a number of things that they 'knew' the definition of. It isn't simple enough to look at the world and just say, I know what this is. The world doesn't work that way, and it is even the same with ideas and politics.”
Twilight turned to Celestia and whispered to her, “Nothing here is necessarily you, Princess. Just for purposes of examples.”
Celestia nodded to Twilight. “Very well, carry on.”
Twilight inhaled a deep breath of air before continuing on with her rant. “The thing about power, and the weak and feeble minded is the ease of manipulation. You can't say that you've never swayed the way somepony else views something in order to get them to do something in your favor. We've all done that at one point, and if you say you haven't, that is a blatant lie. Life isn't as simplistic as we are led to believe for the most part. There are ponies out there who purposely hide things from us in order to keep us 'safe'. But what does it mean to be safe, when the way everypony views everything is so different?
“But if it isn't different, then they can control the way society works. They can control what we think of certain things to sway our opinions for their tasks, instead of letting us think with a mind of our own. When we start to think on our own, that's when the oppressors begin to fear us. That is when we start to give the world a meaning of its own that we live by, instead of a meaning some other pony lives by. This all brings us back to the chair. What do you really consider a chair, when what you may consider to be a chair so different from the way everypony else views it?”
Twilight looked deep into the eyes of everypony in the room, whose jaws were now dropped. They had never thought of the world in that way before, but now that they had there was so much to really think about. Speaking in a quiet, soft voice, Twilight asked them one last question.
“Can you really give something a definition, when so many have already defined it?”
