Chapter Three
Policies
Jacob and Devan continue their conversation in a lighter mood as they make their way to the neuro surgery center for Devan’s conductivity scan.
“Devan, there is a bubble, a sort of structure that will take us to what people call the outdoors. If it makes you feel better we can walk to the clinic. Talk on the way.”
“Sure that sounds good.”
“So, Jacob. Remind me, what subject in philosophy did I do my thesis in?”
“The ethics of epistemology.”
“So, they have bull-shitters in your reality.”
“It’s not bullshit, it’s a very important discipline. So much so that you have consulted the government on issues related to ethics and education.”
“Unless words have different meaning here I think epistemology is the study of how we know things, specifically technical or scientific facts. Whereas ethics is the study of the nature of right and wrong. I could understand the epistemology of ethics, how we know what right and wrong are or how we come to know about such things. But I cannot understand how ethical principles could be applied to epistemology. That almost sounds like the morality of knowledge and implies that some types of knowledge are immoral. More specifically that some types of scientific knowledge are immoral.”
“That’s true.”
“Really?” I don’t want to go further with this conversation. It’s just going to get me frustrated and Jacob more suspicious. “Tell me about your multiple doctorates. You know, just to pass the time.”
“First it’s four, four doctorates like everyone else. Second we did all our work together, we were roommates for both years in graduate school.”
“Look, you know I haven’t been myself so humor me. It would cheer me up. You too. Is your patient still in a coma?”
“Yeah, I did forget about that listening to your senseless rantings about an alternate reality. Well, let’s see there’s neuro science and neuro surgery, which was one combined degree. Intergalactic exoplanetary chemistry, ancient history circa 10530 to 10770 twentieth epoch, and sculpture in amorphous media.”
“Very cool.”
“I enjoy it. It’s very fulfilling.”
“You had said that you wanted to go with me to Einstein’s lecture. Why, if you don’t study physics?”
“Well chemistry does involve physics but the real reason is my thesis in ancient history. The lecture we go to occurred on 10552 twentieth epoch. In fact the impact of Einstein’s work on modern culture was the topic of my ancient history thesis. You are the physics geek, always have been. We go together, but for different reasons.”
“You know Jacob, this place is beautiful. I mean really ideal. I’ve never seen a city with so many trees and flowers. It’s a beautiful day outside too, no pollution.”
“Yeah, well hyperspace helped with that, serendipitously. When we got rid of transportation we got rid of most pollution.”
“So is this real? I mean organic, natural? Or is it a man-made environment?”
“It’s real in every sense. These “bubbles” I mentioned that are part of the space-time network are man-made regions…, well let me take that back. They are man-defined! Not man-made. These are regions of the space-time continuum marked off for specific activities, industry or purpose. Like I said earlier, housing, work, clinics, schools, etc. But organic elements can and do exist within many of them. Like us, we’re real. If you can believe that.”
“Funny, I forgot who you were and where we’re going. But you said that, for example, people’s homes and jobs were connected via a network node. So I get the impression that I cannot walk from one to the other. I get the impression that I cannot find a “space” in between two doors.”
“That’s not true, and my fault for not being able to explain the physics behind… well, behind your invention. You know how you access hyper-memory? How spooky it is?”
“Yes, I was just reminiscing about that earlier with someone.”
“Well, all of these doors, these space-time network nodes are also configurable via hyper-space links and hence, like hyper-memory can be morphed mentally. Traveling through them requires physical procedures, the right-left algorithm.”
“Right! That keeps us sane.” Devan laughs. “You mentioned amorphous sculpture. Is that like colored sand in jars? Can I get one at a kiosk on the beach?”
“I regret to say that I’m getting used to your new sense of sarcasm. No, I work in plasma fields.”
“Sculptures made of plasma? How?”
“Hey you’re the physics geek, I’m just the artist. A painter doesn’t need to know about the transition energies of electrons in an atom to understand how to use color. Look up in the sky. That sun. I made that.”
“Whaaaaa. You make stars?”
“No, just that one.”
“But I thought you said everything here was real.”
“This is the Earth, the one and only. These trees and everything here is the result of natural processes. Of course for the purposes of landscaping we do have tree nurseries. So humans did help there but that doesn’t make the landscape inorganic. Right? I was commissioned by the commonwealth to make that, to make the sky more… beautiful, more traditional you might say. The sun burnt out long ago. We managed to generate heat and radiation artificially here on earth and the big lump of coal left behind kept us in orbit but things looked very dismal. So I sculpted a sun.”
“I’m impressed.”
“Thanks, I’m flattered. You aren’t known for compliments. Here we are.”
*****
Jacob and Devan arrive at the clinic. They enter the vestibule and approach the security door, Jacob speaks out loud as they walk.
“Jacob Nalbandian. Neuro surgery. With guest, patient Devan Anderson. Request access to sector 7.”
Jacob walks up to a structure that looks similar to a transporter in the old Star Trek television series. He stands there motionless as a swarm of mosquito sized autonomous drones equipped with micron sized sensors whirls around him then disperses. The security door opens. Devan follows Jacob into the secure facility, continuing to discuss the procedure. They walk down a long stainless steel corridor without doors or windows. The hall is brightly illuminated though there are no apparent sources of light.
“So, this is an easy procedure. It’ll probably take a few minutes to complete the scan then we can discuss the results.”
“How long will it take us to get there?”
“Not long. So, Devan, I didn’t fully understand your description of what caused the problem in the arcade. Perhaps I don’t completely understand the quantum histories aspect of it. Can you explain that again?”
“Sure, I guess, but I’m really more concerned about getting out of this never ending hallway. Well you see, points in space-time along with the causal flow that leads to each point define a state in state space. Like position and momentum of an electron in an atom, these are conjugate variables. Mind you, this is not quantum geometry but quantum topology. You recall from basic physics, or the history of physics, that attempts to quantize geometry failed and we didn’t make any progress until we started applying quantum theory to the topological properties of space-time. Anyway, the uncertainty principle holds with respect to these variables and when you hold on to a point in space-time, an event, you have an uncertainty in history leading up to that event, a bundle of potential world lines. On the other hand when you hold on to a history, a specific world line from the bundle of possible world lines all terminating on the event, you lose coherency of the event itself. That is the basic uncertainty relationship applied to space-time topology.”
“That is interesting. But something doesn’t sit well with part of your description yesterday. You said that we… in a sense… move the uncertainty or push off the uncertainty, I’m not sure how to say it, to the extra dimensions thus allowing us to maintain coherency of both the event and the history leading to that event simultaneously. Doesn’t that violate the uncertainty principle?”
“Oh beautiful. Great question. I hope you don’t mind if I say, not bad for a medical doctor.”
“Of course not, I’m used to it by now.”
“Keep in mind two additional pieces of information need to be added to the puzzle. I just provided a description of the basics as they pertain to space-time. They apply to the topology of all manifolds and our “space” is more, much more than just the four dimensional space-time that we experience. So the extra dimensions have the same type of uncertainty in them as well. Now consider the fact that all matter and force fields are unified with space-time geometry. All bundled together in a sense. All these variables mix and the true variables of the theory are not necessarily the quantities we “experience” or measure. When we evolve along our world lines we are really approaching a point in this larger space while trying to maintain history of events projected into our space-time. When we do that all the high frequency wiggles occur in the other dimensions. Clear?”
“Not really, it sounds a little like an avoidance tactic. Won’t the wiggles eventually become too severe and dominate the event itself? I mean all dimensions encompass the event so how is the event “safe” from the quantum fluctuations?”
Damn this guy is really paying attention. “My explanation may leave something to be desired but there is more, more engineering details I have not explained yet. This is the second piece of information. Space-time is a medium like any other medium. It has an elasticity and a viscosity, and a relaxation time if you will. During the process of maintaining coherency of the four dimensional space-time event and its classical history we continually probe the other fields in a manner required to excite the correct combination of event and history then allow the extra dimensions to relax. This relaxation decouples the various fields and we manage to freeze out a classical space-time of our choosing while the extra dimensions absorb all the… chaos. If you like that term.”
“Wow. What if some poor beings lived in that extra dimension.”
“Well, that is a thought but as you know we created the extra dimensions. Extra dimensions were probably quite active in the early universe when everything was compact and very hot. Back then who knows how much mixing and chaos existed. But as the universe expanded and cooled a classical, or semi-classical, space-time emerged complete with a causal structure. In other words the universe we know and observe was naturally frozen out by this process. In the arcade we are doing it under controlled circumstances, much like high energy colliders were used to make primordial soup centuries ago. Though I did notice time is marked differently here, with epochs and everything.”
“You mean the universe YOU know. Since presumably things aren’t quite right here.”
“Good point. Hey, it’s been forever and we still haven’t arrived at the scanner. We’ve been in this creepy hallway the whole time talking.”
“This is the scan. We are actually in the scanner right now. We’re done.” Jacob speaks in to the air. “Doctor Nalbandian. Neuro surgery. With guest, patient Devan Anderson. Request access to sector 9.”
Jacob and Devan leave the hallway and enter an office, Jacob’s office. Devan, curious about how the scan works engages Jacob in an unrelenting game of twenty questions.
“So, how does that work? Is it an active or passive scan? What is it actually scanning, what properties of the brain? Why were you in the scan, won’t your presence cause interference?…”
Jacob, amused at Devan’s enthusiasm interrupts. “You know as well as anyone that psychology and neurology are intertwined. The mind and body are one. Having patients lie motionless in a scanner to map the brain as an organ doesn’t work, it doesn’t provide any valuable information. Just like any system in nature you need a probe and the probe does in fact interfere with the measurement. The uncertainty principle at work. Well, I was the probe. The hallway was a true scanning device, measuring electromagnetic emissions, vital signs and the acoustical properties of our voices. It also recorded our movements. We were like rats in a maze and the scanner detected our behaviors as well as taking certain physical measurements. What it looks for are changes in vitals, emissions and movement based on input to the brain. Rather than cut heads open and insert probes, and we used to do that, we use conversation as the probe. I need to be scanned too because the probe and the sample, me and you, form a combined system.”
“I have to say Jacob, your job is very cool. I’m starting to get bored of hyper-dimensional space-time.”
“Well this isn’t my job, you know that. I work at Stubb’s.”
Ok, don’t ask. I don’t want to get into an argument. Remember, this is a vacation.
“Devan, the scan results do not show any sort of aberrant behavior. You are, for lack of a better term, normal.” Jacob smiles.
Devan and Jacob laugh. Devan is still very curious about the scan and what it reveals. Of all the things he’s experienced so far this one hasn’t caused any anxiety or stress. He is genuinely curious about science perhaps for the first time in his life.
“So Jacob, does that test tell you anything about my IQ?” Devan smiles. In his reality he and Jacob used to compete on Mensa tests for fun. A sort of friendly competition.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Sure you do, don’t fuck around. Just tell me. I can handle it.”
“What is IQ?”
“Intelligence Quotient? A measure of how intelligent a person is?”
“That concept doesn’t make sense here. Everyone is of equal intelligence, in every manner of speaking.”
“Bullshit, so everyone has a 200 IQ?”
“I’m not sure what you mean. A person’s intelligence is fixed. Mandated by policy.”
“Do you mean level of education is set by policy? The fact that everyone must obtain four doctorates?”
“No I mean innate intelligence. Everyone obtains four doctorate, as I previously stated. This is accomplished between the ages of 16 and 18 years, five and a half months spent on each thesis with breaks in between. The discipline and subject matter are up to the student to choose as long as they fall within the guidelines. All of this is policy.”
“How do they implement or enforce that policy? I can see enforcing education standards but how do you enforce intelligence?”
“That I can’t say.”
Devan feels a cold chill hearing that statement. He wants to explore this world, or this version of the world, on his own and see for himself what is actually going on.
“Well, thanks for the check up and clean bill of neuro health. How can I get out of here back to the “outdoors” and walk around?”
“Sure, if you exit my office and go left, right, left, right you’ll be at the outside of the clinic again. Then you can go where you want.”
“Great, I’ll see you later at Stubb’s.”
“Fine. See you later.”
*****
Devan goes outside where he is again mesmerized at how idyllic the city looks. It is the perfect day, perfect weather, and perfect surroundings. He decides to spend some time outside watching others to better understand life in this place. People watching was something that Devan was never interested in, but here he is curious to learn about the differences in reality a simple reset error could cause. Also intrigued by the specific details regarding the uncertainty of the event-history pairing he decides to work out the math.
Things are different yet the same. The details are all different as compared to Devan’s world but there is something familiar. As Devan walks through the streets of the city he seems to know where he’s going. Places and things he expects to see are there, where they should be, but they look different. The landscape looks surprisingly old-fashioned to Devan. For one thing there are plenty of trees and plants of all sorts, beautifully arranged. The landscape in Devan’s world is a homogeneous mix of grey and brown, without much life. The air is toxic and there are few inhabited places where plants can grow. Another difference is the presence of stores and markets in this place. Where Devan comes from people don’t go out to shop for anything. Food, clothing, supplies of all sorts are delivered to a person’s residence by a network of autonomous robots and orders are placed automatically by an artificial intelligence program that monitors people’s needs.
Devan finds a store that sells school supplies and arts and crafts supplies. He picks up a notebook and pen at a local store and heads to a park he and Jacob passed by on their way to the clinic. Sitting in the park Devan cannot help notice again the racial diversity reflected in the population. To him it’s like seeing aliens in a science fiction movie. He watches people come and go for a while. Everyone is happy, in a state of perpetual bliss, majestic in the way they walk and conduct themselves. Almost regal. Devan starts to work out the mathematics of event-history uncertainty with hyper-dimensional superposition, just to reassure himself that he understands the process, and confirm what he said to Jacob earlier. He is in a very deep, hyper focused, state of mind when his concentration is broken by a kid, a young girl, who seems perplexed at what Devan is writing.
“Hey, what ‘cha doing?” Asks the girl who appears to be about 6 or 7 years old.
“Ah, I’m just working out some calculations.”
“Why? What for?”
“Well, you see the answer will tell something really incredible about our universe.” Devan speaks in a polite but overly enthusiastic tone of voice that adults use with children.
“No it won’t. You did the math wrong. See, right here there’s a mistake in the Homotopy group you worked out.”
Devan shrinks in his skin, then reminds himself, it’s only a vacation.
“What do you mean? Where do you see homotopy groups?” Still using that overly enthusiastic tone of voice.
“You don’t have to talk down to me, I know what a homotopy group is, and I know that your answer is wrong. Besides, this is math you do in your head, not the kind you write down. What’s wrong with you?”
“Right, in my head. Well, I was just… I don’t know I just like writing things down. It makes me feel… Happy.”
“Ok. But if you write it other people will read it.” The girl laughs hysterically like she’s never witnessed anything this funny before.
“So, tell me. Why is this math you do in your head? Where do you learn math, in school?”
“We learn math in school but not easy math. That, everyone knows how to do.”
“Ah, I see. How do you just know it?”
“I don’t know how I know it. Everyone knows it. Like, how do you know you have two hands? How do you know how to walk or talk or… count to ten on your fingers? These are things you just know.”
“Well I understand how to count to ten without much help because I can see my hands and that helps.”
“Really, does that help? You’re strange.”
“Well then how do you know homotopy?”
“It’s everywhere, it’s in your DNA. If you can see your hands and count to ten then you can see your DNA and determine winding numbers, linking numbers, chiral states, everything!”
“You can see your DNA? How?”
“Arrrgh! You are soooo strange! Same way you can see your liver and your lungs and your bones! Just look. Like you can see me, and the trees, and that fake sun up there that everyone likes so much.”
“You don’t like the sun?”
“It’s OK. I guess.”
“My friend made that sun.”
“Really, you know Dr. Jacob Nalbandian?” The girl’s attitude shifts suddenly from sarcastic to excitement. “I always wanted to meet him. I want to do one of my doctorates in neuro science. But I also want to do genetics and I can’t do two applied fields.”
“But you don’t like his sculpture?”
“Well, it’s just that everyone talks about how wonderful it is to have sun and I don’t see the big deal. There are colonies living on other planets where they never get sun and they don’t mind. I want to see what it’s like to live in total darkness all the time! That would be exiting I think.”
“Maybe, but can I ask a dumb question?”
The girl blushes and giggles, shaking her head in judgement and disbelief. Devan knows, to her all his questions are dumb. He proceeds anyway.
“Eyes see things that are opaque using light, optics. What exactly allows you to see inside your body?”
“The same thing! You know the eyes are connected everywhere else by hyper-space links! It’s so cool. But everyone knows that. Are you playing with me? Trying to make me look silly?”
“No, no, not at all. I really wanted to hear how you describe it. So eyes can look inward. But where is the light?”
“Good question but I know. Residual light stored in the eye is directed inward when you close your eyes and squeeze them. Not hard but just a little tighter than when you blink. If it happened every time you blinked you’d get dizzy. Trust me.”
“Ok. I do. Thanks.”
“Well I have to go. I have to tell everyone I met a guy who can’t do math in his head. They won’t believe me.”
The girl runs off into the park. Devan is amused at the recollection of his conversation. But his attention is immediately redirected to his math problem. The girl was right about his work. After a little while Devan finds a fix and it all works out and Devan is relieved at the answer. His ego has been bruised so much lately that it doesn’t phase him that a 7 year old girl solved his math problem. After all, this is a different reality. What sinks in more is the idea that this is “easy math”, not the kind you learn in school but the kind you just know. Devan wonders what kind of math could one study or get a doctorate in.
As he walks back to Stubb’s Devan contemplates just what Jacob meant by policy. He recaps what he’s learned about the world. Everyone gets four doctorates by age 18 and everyone’s intelligence is identical, all mandated by government policy.
This thought haunts Devan. It’s all he can think about.