An excerpt from one of my favorite books.
Oct. 17th, 2009 03:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stellarwindI'm not even sure how to begin this entry. All of a sudden, I got a massive flashback to one of my all-time favorite novels - a book that was never officially translated from Hebrew into English.
The book in question was named Wild ('Pere' in Hebrew) and was written by an author named Gabi Nitzan.
The back cover blurb summarizes it quite well:
"I went on my way and I didn't even know where I'm going or who exactly am I running away from. It was a little after I came to America, because in Israel everyone just wanted to find Ronen inside of me. My name is Adam Rothschild. I was born in Ronen's body seven months ago, three years after he died in a place called Intifada. Professor Delphi the Third says I'm lucky to be born like this - in an adult's body, because that's why no one bothers to program me. I don't know what 'to program' means. Tracy's mother says that Gaia needs people like me. Gaia is the world. I don't want to tell you everything that happened to me now - Tracy says that it's forbidden to read the back cover of a book because it spoils the magic. So I'll just say who else is here - Pluto. The angel Kadouri, which you may know as Security Consultant Nathan Kadouri, but he's really an angel. Michelle, who is the most angry and curse-y woman I've ever met, but she has cute red hedgehog hair. Elliot, my best friend in America who disappeared, a computer genius who didn't agree to be a slave. Buddy Greenwald, the owner of Profit Inc. who shaved forests and poisoned oceans until he vanished too. And a hobbit, and an Indian wizard, and a dragon and a prince and a princess, and a car with a trailer. And a lot of ducks."
The 'Ducks' in question, are an allegory that the Professor (a character who often speaks to Adam through his laptop - which he named "Diva") applied to life. Rather early on in the book, he sends Adam a connect-the-dots picture of a Duck and teaches him to look at the picture as what it is - random dots - and not as the pattern that he expects it to become - a duck. The duck, he says, is a story we're telling ourself, in an attempt to explain the magical away.
Without further ado, here's an excerpt from the novel, as translated by me. No copyright infringement is intended.
It's six in the evening now. I'm sitting on the floor in The Great Joaquim's hotel, leaning on a coin machine with pictures of fruit. I took a bath today. When I came to buy the tickets I found out that you have to buy tickets a week before the show. Lots of people before me and after me in the queue. We're all going to have to wait until eight, and then they'll find out how many people didn't show up, and they'll sell us their tickets. The man who works here said that you can never know. Sometimes there are five tickets and sometimes a hundred. There are fourty-one in front of me. There are many more behind me. Every once in a while, someone gets bored and puts a few coins into one of the machines. Closest behind me is a woman with the longest nails I've ever seen, long as my fingers, white with diagonal stripes in red and blue. On both hands. I don't think you can use your hands much with nails like these. She has glasses and a jeans shirt and a drawing of a ring on her finger. She's really nice, talks to everyone all the time, tells that she heard they said this or they said that about how many tickets are left. She's standing in line for her and her son, who comes and goes sometimes. She told me that that they came to Las Vegas from New York especially for his birthday because he always dreamed about seeing The Great Joaquim, and she booked tickets but someone got confused and she doesn't have a ticket. They have a flight back tomorrow and she has to get tickets today.
Around us, there are lots of people who come to put money in the machines. Now, in front of the machine I'm sitting under there's a woman with white hair who keeps talking about the fruits all the time, ordering peaches and oranges and apples. I've been waiting with Diva all his time, so that the battery will last until eight. And then I hope I'll have a ticket and I'll go to the show. Lucky I walked Pluto earlier, after the bath and breakfast. And if I will manage to see Joaquim, then tomorrow I'll leave this city back to the desert. If there's still a desert.
There isn't a desert.
Professor?
There is no desert, Dumbo.
What does that mean?
What is life?
It's all that is happening to me.
What is happening to you now?
I'm sitting in the Great Joaquim's hotel on the line to the tickets.
Then there is no desert. There's only what there is.
So what's all this I saw on the way to Las Vegas?
Ducks.
Ducks?
Why are you sitting here?
Because I want to go see the Great Joaquim.
Why?
Because I heard he's the greatest magician in the world.
Why is it important to you to see a magician?
Because I want to be a magician.
Why?
I don't know, Professor. Maybe if I'll be a magician I'll stop being confused all the time.
Let's start, then: Earlier life was a desert and people you loved and bonfires with songs. Now it's machines with pictures of oranges in a dark room and the smell of glue from the carpet. No one changed the world. It's you that changed it.
But the desert still exists, even if I'm not there, isn't it?
Concentrate, Dumbo. The desert does not exist. The desert is a story you're telling yourself about the past. The first thing a magician needs to learn is to narrow down the stories, because every story is a limitation. If you're telling yourself you're surrounded by hundreds of miles of desert, your options from here on are rather narrow, aren't they?
But I was there! How can I tell myself something else?
Decide that you don't believe anything about the past. At the age of thirty someone finds a document that shows that the man he thought was his father is really a stepfather – and all his past is flushed down the toilet. Someone else comes back to his childhood home and finds out that the jungle with the giraffes he remembered is just two electricity pylons. Someone crosses the continent to save an old love, and finds out that he never even knew her. It happens all the time, moment after moment. The past is lines in the sand, and the present is moment after moment – wave after wave that opens up a fresh, clean slate. Be here, Now.
So all that exists in the world is this big room with the electric oranges.
Guess.
Yes.
Guess again.
No.
Exceptional. You're advancing at a breakneck pace. No, this room is only a slightly more focused story. It's the story you're telling yourself now, and it gives it a little more reality than stories you tell yourself about the past or the future. That's okay, but remember that this is a duck too. It only exists within the context you create in your brain. Money machine, line to see the magician, the birthday of the kid in the line – it's all stories. All there is is dots, infinite dots. And you connect the dots and draw stories.
And no one knows it?
Everyone knows it, nearly no one is willing to take personal responsibility. The implications are staggering. But the information is available to everyone. That is the essence of modern physics. Do you know what the world is made of?
No.
Nobody knows, nobody knew, and nobody will know, but we only just found that out.
Found out what?
That nobody knows.
I don't understand.
Once, no one cared what the world was made of. It was strictly God's business. And then our evolution opened up a door to what seemed like God's Workroom. Do you know what that room is?
I really don't.
Physics, Science. Central religious cult. I'm glad you've never heard of it. Belief in physics leans on the assumption that all our life experiences have a rational, measurable basis, and that there are clear and permanent mathematical rules. Physicists are the clerics equipped with the tools to study God's Workroom, and find out how he built us and life.
Is that what physics means?
No. That's what it meant in the beginning, when physics were just a belief, before it turned into a religion. All religions begin from some belief that seems easy to adopt. Then mediators and clerics appear who got dizzy from the altitude, and then come millions of believers, money, influence. After a while, God is just a disturbance. The clerics don't need him. After all, they are siting in his Workroom. Everything creation can do, they can do. Cubical oranges, test-tube babies. No problem. It's all just Lego. Building blocks. You with me?
The clerics of physics say everything in the world is made of blocks?
Yup. No mystery: Inside every building block, there's an exact, clear amount of matter and energy. We'll break this Lego up to its smallest pieces, decipher the DNA, break the atoms, isolate the electrons, and in the end of the day we took God apart into screws and wires. No God and no mystery. It's all just screws and wires.
All the machines with the fruit and the plastic monkeys and the people in the cars and the glass elevators.
And you.
Me?
Screws and wires. That's what modern physics says: Don't worry, people. Give us some time and money and we'll bring you god, in pieces, on a silver platter. Let's play a game – you're the believers, I'm the physics cleric. And I am honored to declare: there is no mystery. It's all atoms.
What are atoms?
Tiny particles. Everything is made out of them. You too.
But what are atoms made of?
Oh, so you want to be petty? Fine. Give me a few more years and some millions of dollars and I'll break the atoms up for you too, okay?
Okay. I've got money in a shoebox.
Thank you. Thank you for your patience and your money. I've gone and I've come back. I found the answer. Atoms are made of even smaller building blocks. Neutrons, electrons, protons. You can't even see these protons without magnification. Is everything clear?
No. I don't understand what this explains. What are all these tiny building blocks made of?
Do you have time and some more millions?
What?
Say yes.
Yes.
Good, that's my boy. And here, I'm back already, with great news for you: I found the building block to end all building blocks. It's called a quantum, and the quantum is the basis. Underneath it, there is nothing. Everything in the world is made out of quanta, and everything else is primitive false beliefs. The water, the light at sunset, the clouds, the burps and the rocks – it's all quanta. Aren't you happy?
Not really. I still don't understand what this quantum is. What it's made of.
Iron-clad logic there, well done. Give me a few more millions and a Nobel Prize if you don't mind, and we'll find out. You see, building blocks can be made out of matter or out of energy. What you want to know is if a quantum is made of matter or if it is energy. Pretty simple job. And after that we can throw all the questions out like old lettuce out of a fridge. Whatever answer we get, we can explain all of existence away using simple mathematics, mechanically putting together formulas and reactions. That's it then. I'm going to put on my nicest labcoat and hop over to the lab to bring you God in an aquarium.
Hello? Professor?
Hello? Physics? Are you coming back?
Ah, you're still here. Hmm. Listen, I have something a bit unpleasant to tell you.
What is it?
A funny thing happened to me in the lab. The quanta aren't cooperating. When I measure them with tools that recognize matter, all quanta are matter, according to the most rigid rules that separate matter from energy. But when I measure them with energy tools, the all act exactly like energy, according to the most rigid physical rules. I don't know what to tell you – the basic building block of the universe is flipping the very foundations of our belief off.
But wait, maybe some of the quanta are matter and some are energy?
I wish, but again and again, all the quanta measured in energy tools are made of 100% pure energy. From a scientific perspective, this is a mass mutiny. The only difference between a matter quantum and an energy quantum is my expectations as the person who observes it. Until I try to analyze a quantum, it isn't made out of anything. In a scientific language, a quantum is potential. That's all. You can't say anything more defined about it. And this potential will always become what you expect it to become. Always. I'm really sorry, I hope this money wasn't too important to you, but I have to break it to you: it seems the world is made out of what you expect it to be made out of. Oops.
Professor?
Yes, Dumbo.
Is what you're telling me here something even ordinary adults believe in?
There is no choice. If you believe in ducks and lines – this is where all the lines lead to. Again and again, even without quantum mechanics. The ducks start breaking down. I told you, we're no longer in the point people don't know it's all stories, we're only at the point where they're afraid to take responsibility for the implications. Give us a generation or two and no one will have a choice anymore.
Why?
Because the duck's fuel is collective faith, these are the ropes that tie the random dots. And they're getting looser from day to day.
Just because of these quanta?
Not only, although you shouldn't underestimate them. There's the Chaos Theory too, which is just as central a dogma in the Vatican of science. I won't even bother to ask you if you've ever heard of it. Chaos is not exactly a theory – it's a description of sobering up. Like Quantum Mechanics, Chaos materialized out of the global effort to isolate the smallest components of existence using objective measuring tools. Try to take it all in, Dumbo, because I'm giving you all you need to know today to participate in the most scholastic, up-to-date scientific discussion in a matter of a few dozen words.
I'm concentrating, but I don't understand half these words. What I understood was that this Chaos is something that came along when they tried to exactly measure all the tiniest things in the world.
Exactly. In the middle of this brave attempt, all the rulers started bending, and like with a magician, they started becoming flowers and rabbits and all sorts of annoying little things that there is no way to measure. Open your backpack for a moment and pull out the map of California.
Got it.
Look at the shoreline. According to the good old rules, there is a simple way to measure its length in exact precision. Look for strange numbers in the bottom.
Found it. It says 1:100,000.
Yes. Now, take a shoelace out of your shoe, attach it to the shoreline, surround all the bays and bumps with it. Okay? Now, if you had a ruler, all you had to do is measure the shoelace, see you have 25.3 centimeter, and understand from that that the length of California's shoreline is 2530 kilometers. That is how clean scientific work looks like: something measurable, which can be translated into mathematics - but when you try to improve the tools, California's shoreline starts stretching like cheese on a pizza. Let's start with the fact that if you had a more accurate ruler and a magnifying glass to look at the shoelace, you'd see you have 25.36 centimeters. It may be an insignificant difference to you, but it sure isn't insignificant to the thousands of people living on these six kilometers, huh?
Okay, so you need more accurate tools.
Oh dear, Dumbo, don't scare me. That's just what everybody said. Let's follow this nonsense. Your map is a road map designed for drivers. Very much scaled down. There are other maps. A map for hikers, for example, would be ten times larger, on a scale of 1:10,000. In a map like this, the artist can be more accurate with all the twists and the bays and he outcroppings of the beach. These extra turns adds more length to your shoelace, right? And because of that, even though the rules say that your shoelace should have been 253.6 centimeters – at the most, 253.69 because of the improved precision – your shoelace will suddenly show 255.72. The ability to be accurate with the curves added 21 kilometers to the California Cheese – that's another San Diego. And we're just at 1:10,000. What will happen when we go down to 1:1,000, and we can draw every curve the size of a football field? And in 1:100, where we can give your shoelace the pleasure of curling around every fishing boat's dock? You see? The closer we get, the shoreline grows. It isn't measurable, it's infinite.
But it's not infinite. This will only happen until we reach 1:1. And then it would be finite.
Dumbo, Dumbo, keep your head above the water. Don't vanish on me. What is 1:1? What is this one? What does it measure? What are you talking about?
I'm not sure. I think it means that if I walk, myself, with a long string from the north of California to the south, and put it over all he curves and then I'll measure it, then it'll be the exact, finite length of the California shoreline, no?
What string are you going to use? What thickness? Your shoelace, for instance, is a bit too wide. It'll give you a smaller measurement than the one you'll get by using a string that can wrap around every single grain of sand. This string, the thinner one, will add hundreds of kilometers. Hundreds! And let's say that you'll find a string that can wrap around the atoms of every grain? When you'll straighten that one out and stretch it you'll find out that the California shoreline is longer than the entire American continent's shoreline is considered to be – South America included. And I did not even a word about the next string. Or the fact the beach changes every moment, with every wave and every bare foot. What are we wasting ammunition for? California's shoreline, like everything else, is immeasurable and infinite. Science demands accurate tools, and the more accurate they get, reality slowly scatters. Only when you look at something from enough distance, let's say a scale of 1:500,000, you can live within the illusion it has an exact form and an exact measurement.
Alright. I understand. But most of the time, the atomic precision is insignificant to us. If I know the California Shoreline is just about, with inaccurate tools, 2532 kilometers, it's good enough for me to plan how many hours it'll take me to drive across it and how much fuel will I need. And the scientific method works well enough for that, right?
Only in theory, in your head and on the paper. There are no two drivers that it takes the same amount of time for to cross California from the north to the south. You'll have unpredictable stops, Wrong turns off the highway, mechanical problems, bouts of diarrhea that will force you to skip from one bathroom to another. Construction works on the road. A woman you might meet and fall in love with and never reach the south. And even the fuel – take a thousand cars of the same model, fresh off the manufacturing line, and drive them in a uniform convoy from the Oregon border to the Mexico border, and I guarantee that by the journey's end, no two cars would have consumed the exact same amount of fuel.
How can this be?
Countless reasons. The first car in the convoy will work harder than the one after it, because it is the one that will run into the aerodynamic barrier. The fuel mixture is never uniform – it cannot be uniform – and that is why every car will have a differently available amount of energy. Flies in the exhaust pipes, oil on the road. Heavy rains on the convoy's tail. The different way in which every one of the thousand drivers pushes the pedal. Two or three cars that will break down in the middle because of mechanical failures that the world's automobile manufacturers have already learned to accept as unavoidable crud. The rough inaccuracy of the fuel pumps. The amounts of fuel that evaporate while refueling, according to an infinite amount of new variables – temperature, the grip angle of the pump lever, atmospheric pressure. I could go on for my entire life and that's exactly the point. You can't measure anything. You can't expect anything.
But you can, sort of. Most of the cars planning the drive according to the map will take just about… let's say 40-50 hours, and just about… Let's say 1500-2000 gallons of fuel.
No one needs science for a "Just about'', and you certainly don't make a religion out of it. A "Just about" is a guess; a guess that you must assume that may not apply to you. Maybe you'll be one of the cars that break down. Maybe you'll be the one who'll fall in love with a woman along the way. This form of thought, of lines and numbers, may be a fine story, but It has nothing to do, in all actuality, with your life, Dumbo – and it is very important you'll understand that if you want to be a magician. You can choose how you want to live: free from rules, or bound to some guideline which is no more than a rough estimate. A lot of people live like this, and every time their car is the one that breaks down, they explain to themselves that somehow, they were the exception to the rule. But they continue believing in the rule, and burn infinite amounts of energy attempting to bend themselves so that next time they'd be closer to the average. Magicians know that the California shoreline is as long as they want it to be, according to whatever string they hold in their hand, and they don't have any respect for the rules and the averages and the "just about"s of other people. It's all potential. There is nothing around you but that which you create. Your ducks. The string you choose to use.
But what is left of life if you look at it the way you say? If nothing truly exists, what is there?
Everything. Infinity. Whatever you feel like. You never cease to have stories. We are creatures of stories, it's alright. The only question is, who controls who – do we control the stories or do the stories control us. Look at the people around you, those in the line and those next to the machines. The Hotel workers. They're all slaves to stories. I give you the chance to be free, to be a magician. To take responsibility for your exclusivity as the one who weaves the story. Every time you don't like the story – you don't have to feel like a cosmic conspiracy. You could look, figure out why you wove this story for yourself, and what do you need to do to make it feel better. Does this story, for instance, about the line to see Joaquim, feel good to you?
Well, I obviously would have preferred not to waste half a day here, but I want to see his show.
Do you remember the sunset you wanted to see in the desert, and the ants? There. You're waiting for the sunset again.
But right now I'm enjoying myself. I like talking to you.
Okay, but don't suffer for the future. Because the future is never what you think it will be.
Excuse me, Professor, but I see they opened up the box office. So here, this isn't the future anymore. I'll get up now. I don't know what about later. I think I understood a little.
So what have you learned today, Dumbo?
To weave the story for myself from scratch at any moment.
With no obligation to the promises of the past or those of the future.
I think I understand, professor. I know the only chance for someone like me is not following logical rules – only magic. That's how it is with my mission too. If Greenwald is indeed locked in the bubble*, then I can only reach him not through measurements and calculations and lines and numbers, but by how I'll tell myself the story.
Hm. We shall see.
* This refers to one of the background plots of the story, related to an environmental activist - or an eco-terrorist, depending how you want to look at it - who decided to capture the CEO of a prominent logging corporation, one Buddy Greenwald and teach him a lesson in a unique way - trap him in a small self-contained 'bubble' which is basically a replica of every single different environment in the world but on a much smaller scale - where he will be the only human and every decision he'll make might lead to a complete collapse of the artificial eco-system taking him with it. Adam Rothschild, even though he wants to protect the forests that Greenwald destroyed, decided to take on a personal mission to find this man and free him for some reason I can't quite remember right now. Been ages since I read that book. Need to re-acquire it.. Mreh. XD
The book in question was named Wild ('Pere' in Hebrew) and was written by an author named Gabi Nitzan.
The back cover blurb summarizes it quite well:
"I went on my way and I didn't even know where I'm going or who exactly am I running away from. It was a little after I came to America, because in Israel everyone just wanted to find Ronen inside of me. My name is Adam Rothschild. I was born in Ronen's body seven months ago, three years after he died in a place called Intifada. Professor Delphi the Third says I'm lucky to be born like this - in an adult's body, because that's why no one bothers to program me. I don't know what 'to program' means. Tracy's mother says that Gaia needs people like me. Gaia is the world. I don't want to tell you everything that happened to me now - Tracy says that it's forbidden to read the back cover of a book because it spoils the magic. So I'll just say who else is here - Pluto. The angel Kadouri, which you may know as Security Consultant Nathan Kadouri, but he's really an angel. Michelle, who is the most angry and curse-y woman I've ever met, but she has cute red hedgehog hair. Elliot, my best friend in America who disappeared, a computer genius who didn't agree to be a slave. Buddy Greenwald, the owner of Profit Inc. who shaved forests and poisoned oceans until he vanished too. And a hobbit, and an Indian wizard, and a dragon and a prince and a princess, and a car with a trailer. And a lot of ducks."
The 'Ducks' in question, are an allegory that the Professor (a character who often speaks to Adam through his laptop - which he named "Diva") applied to life. Rather early on in the book, he sends Adam a connect-the-dots picture of a Duck and teaches him to look at the picture as what it is - random dots - and not as the pattern that he expects it to become - a duck. The duck, he says, is a story we're telling ourself, in an attempt to explain the magical away.
Without further ado, here's an excerpt from the novel, as translated by me. No copyright infringement is intended.
It's six in the evening now. I'm sitting on the floor in The Great Joaquim's hotel, leaning on a coin machine with pictures of fruit. I took a bath today. When I came to buy the tickets I found out that you have to buy tickets a week before the show. Lots of people before me and after me in the queue. We're all going to have to wait until eight, and then they'll find out how many people didn't show up, and they'll sell us their tickets. The man who works here said that you can never know. Sometimes there are five tickets and sometimes a hundred. There are fourty-one in front of me. There are many more behind me. Every once in a while, someone gets bored and puts a few coins into one of the machines. Closest behind me is a woman with the longest nails I've ever seen, long as my fingers, white with diagonal stripes in red and blue. On both hands. I don't think you can use your hands much with nails like these. She has glasses and a jeans shirt and a drawing of a ring on her finger. She's really nice, talks to everyone all the time, tells that she heard they said this or they said that about how many tickets are left. She's standing in line for her and her son, who comes and goes sometimes. She told me that that they came to Las Vegas from New York especially for his birthday because he always dreamed about seeing The Great Joaquim, and she booked tickets but someone got confused and she doesn't have a ticket. They have a flight back tomorrow and she has to get tickets today.
Around us, there are lots of people who come to put money in the machines. Now, in front of the machine I'm sitting under there's a woman with white hair who keeps talking about the fruits all the time, ordering peaches and oranges and apples. I've been waiting with Diva all his time, so that the battery will last until eight. And then I hope I'll have a ticket and I'll go to the show. Lucky I walked Pluto earlier, after the bath and breakfast. And if I will manage to see Joaquim, then tomorrow I'll leave this city back to the desert. If there's still a desert.
There isn't a desert.
Professor?
There is no desert, Dumbo.
What does that mean?
What is life?
It's all that is happening to me.
What is happening to you now?
I'm sitting in the Great Joaquim's hotel on the line to the tickets.
Then there is no desert. There's only what there is.
So what's all this I saw on the way to Las Vegas?
Ducks.
Ducks?
Why are you sitting here?
Because I want to go see the Great Joaquim.
Why?
Because I heard he's the greatest magician in the world.
Why is it important to you to see a magician?
Because I want to be a magician.
Why?
I don't know, Professor. Maybe if I'll be a magician I'll stop being confused all the time.
Let's start, then: Earlier life was a desert and people you loved and bonfires with songs. Now it's machines with pictures of oranges in a dark room and the smell of glue from the carpet. No one changed the world. It's you that changed it.
But the desert still exists, even if I'm not there, isn't it?
Concentrate, Dumbo. The desert does not exist. The desert is a story you're telling yourself about the past. The first thing a magician needs to learn is to narrow down the stories, because every story is a limitation. If you're telling yourself you're surrounded by hundreds of miles of desert, your options from here on are rather narrow, aren't they?
But I was there! How can I tell myself something else?
Decide that you don't believe anything about the past. At the age of thirty someone finds a document that shows that the man he thought was his father is really a stepfather – and all his past is flushed down the toilet. Someone else comes back to his childhood home and finds out that the jungle with the giraffes he remembered is just two electricity pylons. Someone crosses the continent to save an old love, and finds out that he never even knew her. It happens all the time, moment after moment. The past is lines in the sand, and the present is moment after moment – wave after wave that opens up a fresh, clean slate. Be here, Now.
So all that exists in the world is this big room with the electric oranges.
Guess.
Yes.
Guess again.
No.
Exceptional. You're advancing at a breakneck pace. No, this room is only a slightly more focused story. It's the story you're telling yourself now, and it gives it a little more reality than stories you tell yourself about the past or the future. That's okay, but remember that this is a duck too. It only exists within the context you create in your brain. Money machine, line to see the magician, the birthday of the kid in the line – it's all stories. All there is is dots, infinite dots. And you connect the dots and draw stories.
And no one knows it?
Everyone knows it, nearly no one is willing to take personal responsibility. The implications are staggering. But the information is available to everyone. That is the essence of modern physics. Do you know what the world is made of?
No.
Nobody knows, nobody knew, and nobody will know, but we only just found that out.
Found out what?
That nobody knows.
I don't understand.
Once, no one cared what the world was made of. It was strictly God's business. And then our evolution opened up a door to what seemed like God's Workroom. Do you know what that room is?
I really don't.
Physics, Science. Central religious cult. I'm glad you've never heard of it. Belief in physics leans on the assumption that all our life experiences have a rational, measurable basis, and that there are clear and permanent mathematical rules. Physicists are the clerics equipped with the tools to study God's Workroom, and find out how he built us and life.
Is that what physics means?
No. That's what it meant in the beginning, when physics were just a belief, before it turned into a religion. All religions begin from some belief that seems easy to adopt. Then mediators and clerics appear who got dizzy from the altitude, and then come millions of believers, money, influence. After a while, God is just a disturbance. The clerics don't need him. After all, they are siting in his Workroom. Everything creation can do, they can do. Cubical oranges, test-tube babies. No problem. It's all just Lego. Building blocks. You with me?
The clerics of physics say everything in the world is made of blocks?
Yup. No mystery: Inside every building block, there's an exact, clear amount of matter and energy. We'll break this Lego up to its smallest pieces, decipher the DNA, break the atoms, isolate the electrons, and in the end of the day we took God apart into screws and wires. No God and no mystery. It's all just screws and wires.
All the machines with the fruit and the plastic monkeys and the people in the cars and the glass elevators.
And you.
Me?
Screws and wires. That's what modern physics says: Don't worry, people. Give us some time and money and we'll bring you god, in pieces, on a silver platter. Let's play a game – you're the believers, I'm the physics cleric. And I am honored to declare: there is no mystery. It's all atoms.
What are atoms?
Tiny particles. Everything is made out of them. You too.
But what are atoms made of?
Oh, so you want to be petty? Fine. Give me a few more years and some millions of dollars and I'll break the atoms up for you too, okay?
Okay. I've got money in a shoebox.
Thank you. Thank you for your patience and your money. I've gone and I've come back. I found the answer. Atoms are made of even smaller building blocks. Neutrons, electrons, protons. You can't even see these protons without magnification. Is everything clear?
No. I don't understand what this explains. What are all these tiny building blocks made of?
Do you have time and some more millions?
What?
Say yes.
Yes.
Good, that's my boy. And here, I'm back already, with great news for you: I found the building block to end all building blocks. It's called a quantum, and the quantum is the basis. Underneath it, there is nothing. Everything in the world is made out of quanta, and everything else is primitive false beliefs. The water, the light at sunset, the clouds, the burps and the rocks – it's all quanta. Aren't you happy?
Not really. I still don't understand what this quantum is. What it's made of.
Iron-clad logic there, well done. Give me a few more millions and a Nobel Prize if you don't mind, and we'll find out. You see, building blocks can be made out of matter or out of energy. What you want to know is if a quantum is made of matter or if it is energy. Pretty simple job. And after that we can throw all the questions out like old lettuce out of a fridge. Whatever answer we get, we can explain all of existence away using simple mathematics, mechanically putting together formulas and reactions. That's it then. I'm going to put on my nicest labcoat and hop over to the lab to bring you God in an aquarium.
Hello? Professor?
Hello? Physics? Are you coming back?
Ah, you're still here. Hmm. Listen, I have something a bit unpleasant to tell you.
What is it?
A funny thing happened to me in the lab. The quanta aren't cooperating. When I measure them with tools that recognize matter, all quanta are matter, according to the most rigid rules that separate matter from energy. But when I measure them with energy tools, the all act exactly like energy, according to the most rigid physical rules. I don't know what to tell you – the basic building block of the universe is flipping the very foundations of our belief off.
But wait, maybe some of the quanta are matter and some are energy?
I wish, but again and again, all the quanta measured in energy tools are made of 100% pure energy. From a scientific perspective, this is a mass mutiny. The only difference between a matter quantum and an energy quantum is my expectations as the person who observes it. Until I try to analyze a quantum, it isn't made out of anything. In a scientific language, a quantum is potential. That's all. You can't say anything more defined about it. And this potential will always become what you expect it to become. Always. I'm really sorry, I hope this money wasn't too important to you, but I have to break it to you: it seems the world is made out of what you expect it to be made out of. Oops.
Professor?
Yes, Dumbo.
Is what you're telling me here something even ordinary adults believe in?
There is no choice. If you believe in ducks and lines – this is where all the lines lead to. Again and again, even without quantum mechanics. The ducks start breaking down. I told you, we're no longer in the point people don't know it's all stories, we're only at the point where they're afraid to take responsibility for the implications. Give us a generation or two and no one will have a choice anymore.
Why?
Because the duck's fuel is collective faith, these are the ropes that tie the random dots. And they're getting looser from day to day.
Just because of these quanta?
Not only, although you shouldn't underestimate them. There's the Chaos Theory too, which is just as central a dogma in the Vatican of science. I won't even bother to ask you if you've ever heard of it. Chaos is not exactly a theory – it's a description of sobering up. Like Quantum Mechanics, Chaos materialized out of the global effort to isolate the smallest components of existence using objective measuring tools. Try to take it all in, Dumbo, because I'm giving you all you need to know today to participate in the most scholastic, up-to-date scientific discussion in a matter of a few dozen words.
I'm concentrating, but I don't understand half these words. What I understood was that this Chaos is something that came along when they tried to exactly measure all the tiniest things in the world.
Exactly. In the middle of this brave attempt, all the rulers started bending, and like with a magician, they started becoming flowers and rabbits and all sorts of annoying little things that there is no way to measure. Open your backpack for a moment and pull out the map of California.
Got it.
Look at the shoreline. According to the good old rules, there is a simple way to measure its length in exact precision. Look for strange numbers in the bottom.
Found it. It says 1:100,000.
Yes. Now, take a shoelace out of your shoe, attach it to the shoreline, surround all the bays and bumps with it. Okay? Now, if you had a ruler, all you had to do is measure the shoelace, see you have 25.3 centimeter, and understand from that that the length of California's shoreline is 2530 kilometers. That is how clean scientific work looks like: something measurable, which can be translated into mathematics - but when you try to improve the tools, California's shoreline starts stretching like cheese on a pizza. Let's start with the fact that if you had a more accurate ruler and a magnifying glass to look at the shoelace, you'd see you have 25.36 centimeters. It may be an insignificant difference to you, but it sure isn't insignificant to the thousands of people living on these six kilometers, huh?
Okay, so you need more accurate tools.
Oh dear, Dumbo, don't scare me. That's just what everybody said. Let's follow this nonsense. Your map is a road map designed for drivers. Very much scaled down. There are other maps. A map for hikers, for example, would be ten times larger, on a scale of 1:10,000. In a map like this, the artist can be more accurate with all the twists and the bays and he outcroppings of the beach. These extra turns adds more length to your shoelace, right? And because of that, even though the rules say that your shoelace should have been 253.6 centimeters – at the most, 253.69 because of the improved precision – your shoelace will suddenly show 255.72. The ability to be accurate with the curves added 21 kilometers to the California Cheese – that's another San Diego. And we're just at 1:10,000. What will happen when we go down to 1:1,000, and we can draw every curve the size of a football field? And in 1:100, where we can give your shoelace the pleasure of curling around every fishing boat's dock? You see? The closer we get, the shoreline grows. It isn't measurable, it's infinite.
But it's not infinite. This will only happen until we reach 1:1. And then it would be finite.
Dumbo, Dumbo, keep your head above the water. Don't vanish on me. What is 1:1? What is this one? What does it measure? What are you talking about?
I'm not sure. I think it means that if I walk, myself, with a long string from the north of California to the south, and put it over all he curves and then I'll measure it, then it'll be the exact, finite length of the California shoreline, no?
What string are you going to use? What thickness? Your shoelace, for instance, is a bit too wide. It'll give you a smaller measurement than the one you'll get by using a string that can wrap around every single grain of sand. This string, the thinner one, will add hundreds of kilometers. Hundreds! And let's say that you'll find a string that can wrap around the atoms of every grain? When you'll straighten that one out and stretch it you'll find out that the California shoreline is longer than the entire American continent's shoreline is considered to be – South America included. And I did not even a word about the next string. Or the fact the beach changes every moment, with every wave and every bare foot. What are we wasting ammunition for? California's shoreline, like everything else, is immeasurable and infinite. Science demands accurate tools, and the more accurate they get, reality slowly scatters. Only when you look at something from enough distance, let's say a scale of 1:500,000, you can live within the illusion it has an exact form and an exact measurement.
Alright. I understand. But most of the time, the atomic precision is insignificant to us. If I know the California Shoreline is just about, with inaccurate tools, 2532 kilometers, it's good enough for me to plan how many hours it'll take me to drive across it and how much fuel will I need. And the scientific method works well enough for that, right?
Only in theory, in your head and on the paper. There are no two drivers that it takes the same amount of time for to cross California from the north to the south. You'll have unpredictable stops, Wrong turns off the highway, mechanical problems, bouts of diarrhea that will force you to skip from one bathroom to another. Construction works on the road. A woman you might meet and fall in love with and never reach the south. And even the fuel – take a thousand cars of the same model, fresh off the manufacturing line, and drive them in a uniform convoy from the Oregon border to the Mexico border, and I guarantee that by the journey's end, no two cars would have consumed the exact same amount of fuel.
How can this be?
Countless reasons. The first car in the convoy will work harder than the one after it, because it is the one that will run into the aerodynamic barrier. The fuel mixture is never uniform – it cannot be uniform – and that is why every car will have a differently available amount of energy. Flies in the exhaust pipes, oil on the road. Heavy rains on the convoy's tail. The different way in which every one of the thousand drivers pushes the pedal. Two or three cars that will break down in the middle because of mechanical failures that the world's automobile manufacturers have already learned to accept as unavoidable crud. The rough inaccuracy of the fuel pumps. The amounts of fuel that evaporate while refueling, according to an infinite amount of new variables – temperature, the grip angle of the pump lever, atmospheric pressure. I could go on for my entire life and that's exactly the point. You can't measure anything. You can't expect anything.
But you can, sort of. Most of the cars planning the drive according to the map will take just about… let's say 40-50 hours, and just about… Let's say 1500-2000 gallons of fuel.
No one needs science for a "Just about'', and you certainly don't make a religion out of it. A "Just about" is a guess; a guess that you must assume that may not apply to you. Maybe you'll be one of the cars that break down. Maybe you'll be the one who'll fall in love with a woman along the way. This form of thought, of lines and numbers, may be a fine story, but It has nothing to do, in all actuality, with your life, Dumbo – and it is very important you'll understand that if you want to be a magician. You can choose how you want to live: free from rules, or bound to some guideline which is no more than a rough estimate. A lot of people live like this, and every time their car is the one that breaks down, they explain to themselves that somehow, they were the exception to the rule. But they continue believing in the rule, and burn infinite amounts of energy attempting to bend themselves so that next time they'd be closer to the average. Magicians know that the California shoreline is as long as they want it to be, according to whatever string they hold in their hand, and they don't have any respect for the rules and the averages and the "just about"s of other people. It's all potential. There is nothing around you but that which you create. Your ducks. The string you choose to use.
But what is left of life if you look at it the way you say? If nothing truly exists, what is there?
Everything. Infinity. Whatever you feel like. You never cease to have stories. We are creatures of stories, it's alright. The only question is, who controls who – do we control the stories or do the stories control us. Look at the people around you, those in the line and those next to the machines. The Hotel workers. They're all slaves to stories. I give you the chance to be free, to be a magician. To take responsibility for your exclusivity as the one who weaves the story. Every time you don't like the story – you don't have to feel like a cosmic conspiracy. You could look, figure out why you wove this story for yourself, and what do you need to do to make it feel better. Does this story, for instance, about the line to see Joaquim, feel good to you?
Well, I obviously would have preferred not to waste half a day here, but I want to see his show.
Do you remember the sunset you wanted to see in the desert, and the ants? There. You're waiting for the sunset again.
But right now I'm enjoying myself. I like talking to you.
Okay, but don't suffer for the future. Because the future is never what you think it will be.
Excuse me, Professor, but I see they opened up the box office. So here, this isn't the future anymore. I'll get up now. I don't know what about later. I think I understood a little.
So what have you learned today, Dumbo?
To weave the story for myself from scratch at any moment.
With no obligation to the promises of the past or those of the future.
I think I understand, professor. I know the only chance for someone like me is not following logical rules – only magic. That's how it is with my mission too. If Greenwald is indeed locked in the bubble*, then I can only reach him not through measurements and calculations and lines and numbers, but by how I'll tell myself the story.
Hm. We shall see.
* This refers to one of the background plots of the story, related to an environmental activist - or an eco-terrorist, depending how you want to look at it - who decided to capture the CEO of a prominent logging corporation, one Buddy Greenwald and teach him a lesson in a unique way - trap him in a small self-contained 'bubble' which is basically a replica of every single different environment in the world but on a much smaller scale - where he will be the only human and every decision he'll make might lead to a complete collapse of the artificial eco-system taking him with it. Adam Rothschild, even though he wants to protect the forests that Greenwald destroyed, decided to take on a personal mission to find this man and free him for some reason I can't quite remember right now. Been ages since I read that book. Need to re-acquire it.. Mreh. XD
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Date: 2009-10-17 03:45 pm (UTC)That was a great read, really. I love that professor, and ideas he used are ones I often ponder myself... I wish they HAD translated this into English. It sounds like a really interesting book XD
Thanks for sharing, Gad. Must've taken quite awhile to translate ^^
... and "a mass mutiny" is an awesome, awesome pun in this context.