non-coincidence

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

Non-coincidence is the irreducible gap within embodied relation: touching and being touched can reverse without becoming one perfectly simultaneous act, and the world exceeds the perceiver's grasp. AB, PB and RB2 treat this difference as enabling perception rather than obstructing it. RB2 also uses the term for temporal self-difference, in which experience and reflection do not coincide in a punctual present.

Explanation

AB's touching-hands example presents a slippage within one carnal field, not a separation between alien realms. The world remains partly other, so perception can encounter resistance, surprise and correction. Its narrative note names écart as a condition of perception. Belonging to the world therefore does not mean possessing it without remainder.

PB states the same perceptual qualification in the Tractatus: the hand can change from toucher to touched, yet a small gap remains in the fold where a world appears. The inherited statements that mind does not escape life are compatible background, not direct definitions of non-coincidence.

RB2 develops both the perceptual and temporal uses. Its flesh discussion calls divergence écart and rejects identity between self and world. In its discussion of lived time, reflection involves a slight self-delay; present speech draws on a reserve exceeding the utterance. The subject's managed non-coincidence belongs here to temporal disparity. This is a supported extension, not a claim that every mismatch of tempos is the touching-hands phenomenon.

Scope and attribution

Positive ownership is AB, PB and RB2. The temporal use is distinct from perception. No RB1/RB3 treatment is inferred from bounded discovery and exact non-coincidence/écart scans.

AB — The Actual Book

The reversible touching relation does not coincide perfectly; the world's excess enables correction.

Occurrence locators: 111, 112, 113; Notes: 242.

PB — The Possible Book

The Tractatus names a small gap where a world appears after describing toucher/touched reversal.

Occurrence locators: 99.

RB2 — The Real Book, Volume II: Becoming Is Being

Écart qualifies perceptual intertwining; temporal self-delay and managed non-coincidence are a separate lived-time use.

Occurrence locators: 160, 161, 236, 237.

Background used in the editorial explanation

Named theories and mechanisms are distinguished from neighboring background, homonyms and the author’s own synthesis. Reproduced AI passages retain their separate voice.