Chapter Five
Conversations
Devan enters Stubb’s to get coffee. He’s used to being surprised so the different dates do not really worry him. He tells himself it’s just a vacation and once the reset occurs everything will go back to normal. A dismal, useless normal, but normal none the less. He gets coffee and sits for a while. While the dates don’t worry him they intrigue him. He thinks to himself.
Yes of course. Each region of space-time does have a proper history but there is no reason why the history of each region has to match up in any way with the others. They seem to for us because we interact. The interaction between different particles, or people, causes one to causally affect the other placing them in a sort of combined history. When I reset the game incorrectly it affected the local region, my office, differently than the rest of the world, or universe as the case may be. Everything outside seems self-consistent. Cool.
Allyson approaches Devan, cleaning up after customers.
“Hey Devan. How’d it go with the neuro transmitter conductivity scan?”
“Fine, I’m normal.” Devan rolls his eyes.
“Oh well, don’t be too disappointed.” Allyson smiles.
Hey you know, Allyson isn’t as uptight as Jacob. Back home Jacob and I are equally sarcastic. That’s why we get along. “How do you know Jacob?”
“We took a course together back in school.”
How many courses can you take in two years, with breaks, while writing four doctorate theses? “What are your degrees in? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“Sure. Well my theory degree is in Stochastic Linguistics, practical in Extraterrestrial Biology. There’s Pre-Commonwealth World Politics and… Basket Weaving!”
“Wow, cool.”
“Yeah. You know Jacob was really worried about you the other day. He’s never seen you like that, neither have I. But you and Jacob have known each other for so long and he’s never seen you like that.”
“No? Even when I did my doctorate in… Improv… Turkey, Stats…?”
“Improvisational Turkish Saz Performance. Don’t be funny. I guess if the test says you’re normal then you’re joking around.”
“Right, Saz.”
“I don’t know, I didn’t know you then. Still don’t really. You and Jacob talk for hours and hours all the time. You must be really close.”
“Yep. Since childhood.” Devan thinks about the history lesson he just had and begins to think of ways he can learn more from Allyson. “So, if your work in Extraterrestrial Biology is practical which planets did you visit for field work?”
“Oh, I went to the Kepler system of planets. That was amazing. Life there is so different from ours here on Earth. You know people speculated for a long time that since most planets and moons capable of supporting life will have much of the same properties as Earth, you know gravity, water, solar radiation, that life anywhere has to be similar. Not identical but with all the same systems as life on earth. They couldn’t have been more wrong. You should go there. Perhaps we could go with Jacob when he gets back.”
“Yeah that does sound like fun.”
“You have to see the Olarafs. They are so amazing. Nothing like them in all the galaxies I’ve been to.”
“Definitely. So, what’s stochastic linguistics like. I cannot imagine.”
“That developed from what primitive people called Fuzzy Logic. The injection of quantum uncertainty into mathematical meta language. Not only does one have fuzzy or uncertain logical states, and more of them than two valued logic, but one also has time dependent changes in the underlying language used to express logic. That was what I did my dissertation in, the temporal aspects of linguistic uncertainty.”
“Maybe everyone should learn Esperanto. And…, you know, …” Devan thinks to himself… No of course you don’t.
“Hm, I don’t understand.”
“Nothing, forget it.”
“Basket weaving? That seems pretty easy compared to your other doctorates.”
“Oh, I just love it. There’s nothing like it. So ethereal.”
This must be a different basket. Like Jacob’s Sun sculpture. “Ah, what medium do you use to weave baskets?”
“Not a medium, dimensions! The basket is a mathematical class of objects made from intertwined or knotted hyper-space fibers. Oh, it’s fun. You know how you can create and destroy extra dimensions? Of course you do, you’re an arcade operator you do it all day. Well for practical uses, like dumping garbage, the extra dimensions are unknotted. When they’re destroyed they leave no artifacts behind. A good thing, trust me. Well I create knotted up hyper-manifolds, ones with non-trivial links and other defects. Then! I delete dimensions. The knotting causes a topological defect to be left behind in our space-time!”
Holy shit that is cool. “What do they look like?”
“Here! Look!” Allyson points to the table in front of them upon which sits a small basket filled with napkins.
Devan sits, frozen for a moment. He wants to believe Allyson is being sarcastic, he loves sarcasm. But they really could make ordinary baskets here by creating topological defects in hyper-space. Stranger things have happened. Allyson starts to laugh hysterically, like the little girl in the park.
“That would be a total waste of time. Hyper-manifolds for basket weaving? No, I was just a little put out by your statement that basket weaving was easy.”
So, she is sarcastic and a little vengeful. “Well, sorry. I didn’t realize.”
“No problem. The art form requires mastering several tribal styles of weave from here on earth as well as similar artistic styles from other planets. The original work comes in the development of an avant garde style that merges earth and extraterrestrial styles in a novel way.
“Ok, ok. That does sound interesting and unique. By the way I like your sarcasm. That could be an art form, should be an art form. Jacob isn’t really into sarcasm. A little up tight.”
“Well he has a great sense of humor but you’re right, he does not appreciate sarcasm.”
“Are you and Jacob, together?”
“Well, not now, but when he’s here. Yes.”
“No I mean, are you dating.”
“Dating what? I don’t understand.”
Devan isn’t shy about asking but doesn’t want to anger Allyson.
“Are you and Jacob romantic partners? Are you in a relationship? Do you have sex?”
Allyson, shocked, whispers to Devan. “That is not something we talk about in public, you know that.”
“Sorry, again. I feel like an alien from another planet.”
“I think you’re just being rude to me because I was fooling with you earlier. That wasn’t nice. You could get into trouble talking about that in public.”
Ok, now that’s interesting. Allyson isn’t so much offended as she is concerned. We don’t talk about sex in public. Well that’s usually true of most cultures. I guess in this reality people are prudes. A sarcastic prude. I like that. I’ll have to ask Jacob, he won’t get all bent out of shape if I ask him about their situation.
“Hey Allyson. I am sorry. Ok?”
“Right, Ok.”
“I’m teaching this philosophy course at the university…”
“Right! The Ethics of Epistemology. Wonderful topic.”
Devan can’t believe his ears. To him the very idea is… Unethical.
“Yeah. I guess I have to evaluate the dissertations of the students soon. Do you know how often the courses meet?”
“You can look up the schedule in hyper-space.”
“Right, right. I… haven’t been myself.”
“Strange, since earlier you said you were normal. You even have a doctor’s note.”
Love that sarcasm. “Exactly. Search, Schedule, Devan Anderson, Ethics of Epistemology.”
Allyson whispers to Devan. “What are you doing? People are going to freak out if they hear you talk. Access it silently.”
“Thanks. I forgot.” So, here they don’t talk to the air, they just think it. It’s all in their heads. I guess that makes life a little easier, no incessant white noise of trillions of people screaming out where they want to go eat dinner, looking up porn, or copying someone else’s homework. It’s nice, peaceful, quite. Refined. Look up schedule, visual.
The schedule appears in Devan’s field of view.
Ok, class this evening. Look up, dissertations, Ethics of Epistemology, current.
A table containing the thesis titles and student names appears.
Interesting. All I have to do is access them, review and discuss tonight.
Devan reviews the thesis material. He still cannot comprehend the meaning of the discipline he teaches but the work of the students is exceptional. Maybe it’s relative, relative to Devan’s under achievement. Devan is used to people doing the bare minimum. People don’t study what interests them, they study what they already have an aptitude for. Devan demonstrated an aptitude for math and physics at a young age. He also spent most of his time at arcades. Arcade operator was an easy choice to make and an easy subject for him to study. As he reads through the material he begins to comprehend the basic nature of the subject. In Devan’s mind the only thing that makes sense is that all knowledge and methods of learning are intrinsically moral, or right. As long as one’s own free will is the driving motive. He thinks about hitting a child, is that moral? No. But that isn’t a method of acquiring knowledge but of transmitting information. A method of control. Devan sees no problems with self-denial or self-abuse, though he would never choose to employ them. Devan begins to think that maybe there is something subtle here that he is missing, something not so ridiculous about this subject. Reviewing data is quick in hyper-space. You don’t actually have to read in the traditional sense. Once hyper-memory is in contact with the brain and the conscious mind is attentive to its presence the information is known, all at once.
He also begins to piece together another useful bit of information about the evolution of humans here. Back in his world hyper-memory is coupled to the mind and can be accessed by thoughts once it is set. However they still use some sort of peripherals to interact with the data for visualization and auralization. The manipulation of hyper-space for industrial purposes still requires machinery, reactors etc., to create enough curvature to excite the extra dimensions. Some level of human hyper-space interaction exists but it’s not as advanced as here. People here seem to be able to write to hyper-memory and manipulate dimensions with the power of their will. At least to a much greater degree than in Devan’s reality. This has to be the result of the evolution Devan read about in the history archives. It also explains how one can produce four doctorates so fast. Access hyper-memory to study data, and writing your original thesis in your mind causes it to be automatically uploaded to hyper-space.
Devan goes to the university. He feels different. In addition to liking this new version of reality, he is starting to feel like he belongs.
“Good day class!”
Calls of “Hello Dr. Anderson” come from all directions.
“You’ll be glad to know that I have reviewed the dissertations. Everything looks to be in order.” I hope I do a better job bull shitting them today. I may be smart but I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t have a clue what the policies are for thesis defense. “I wanted to try something different today. Based on our discussion last time. Just humor me it’s ah… an experiment. No pressure.”
“An experiment? In a humanities course?” Asks one student a little sarcastically.
“Yes, that’s right. Now last time I made a statement that caused many to believe that I was suffering from a headache. Remember that?”
Laughter.
“Well, I have a doctor’s note and I can assure you that by all Commonwealth policies and standards, I am Normal. So, I ask again. Actually last time I didn’t ask this but I do now. What is the nature of truth?”
The class is quiet and a little uncomfortable.
“If you are not comfortable answering then I want you to engage me in this dialog.”
One student speaks up. “The nature of something could be defined as a list of the attributes of the thing. So one cannot discuss the nature of a thing without a concrete definition of the thing. You are treating Truth as a noun so I ask you. What is truth? Define it for us then we can discuss its nature.”
“Good, a linguistic trick. You caught my poor use of words. Let’s start with the definition of True. After all when evaluating statements and arguments we must attribute a truth value to them, True or False.”
“Dr. Anderson…” a student interrupts, “… True, conforming to an essential reality or that which is logically necessary. These are the common uses of the word true.”
“Good, good. Well then… how does one reconcile that definition within the context of stochastic linguistics?”
“One doesn’t need to. What is essential reality may change but what is true is still meaningful. The same with logical necessity. That changes but whatever it turns out to be, it is true.”
“Ok, so would you say that ignorance is logically necessary?”
“Of course. You proved it.”
Devan sighs. He is missing his conversation with Allyson. The first interaction with the students, while a little embarrassing, was fun. But this is more serious. Despite his feelings of mental constipation Devan is determined to grow into this roll and fit in.
“True, I did. But one has to continually ask why, what purpose was it for.”
“Truth!” Shouts a student. “It was done to conform to the essential reality.”
The class laughs.
“Ok, ok, well the reality is that this course is over and you have fine arts dissertations to write. So, good luck doctors.”