Not Even Philosophy

Slaughterhouse V

2009-06-09T15:02:00.000-07:00

“American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.

The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel, containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, german fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.

When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.”

Music is time-released art.

2009-06-09T14:38:00.000-07:00

The Ubiquitousness of Air

2009-06-06T07:52:00.000-07:00

Air heavily resists virtually everything we do. Not only does it exert a pressure of 14 pounds per square foot on everything exposed to it, it also presents a formidable obstacle. To demonstrate this point (and I'm fairly certain this is correct), if Major League Baseball were played in a vacuum, you could hit a grain of salt significantly further than a baseball. This is because neither would have a terminal velocity (because there would be no friction), and the grain of salt would travel away from the baseball bat faster due to it's smaller inertia to overcome. Imagine hitting a grain of salt, and watching it go over the Green Monster.

Zheng He

2009-05-09T12:55:00.000-07:00

"Treasure ships, used by the commander of the fleet and his deputies (nine-masted, about 126.73 metres (416 ft) long and 51.84 metres (170 ft) wide), according to later writers. This is more or less the size and shape of a football field. The treasure ships purportedly could carry as much as 1,500 tons. By way of comparison, a modern ship of about 1,200 tons is 60 meters (200 ft) long, and the ships Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World in 1492 were about 70-100 tons and 17 meter (55 ft) long." [From Wikipedia] Look at Columbus' ship. And the whole navy, burnt, at the whims of a subsequent Chinese emperor. Chinese history is definitely the most fascinating there is.

A Tale of Two Cities

2009-05-04T02:52:00.000-07:00

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." This genius quotation from Dickens summarizes the life of every time, including our own, as he unwittingly (possibly unwittingly) states. It appears as though the more glorious the age, likewise is it the most heedless. Balance in everything. Balance, though movement as well.

The Math of Evolution

2009-04-30T02:47:00.000-07:00

If you believe strictly in science, then you can't believe in evolution. Strange huh? I'll explain why. If we looked at every piece of matter and energy at the beginning of the Big Bang and are given all information pertaining to these individual elements and how they interact with one another, then we could have predicted this blog post at the beginning of the universe. If everything is a mathematical calculation, then we are simply digits in pi, and the code for the elephant was written in the arrangement of the distribution of particles blasting out at near the speed of light from that fateful spot. There was no escaping this. Nothing else could have evolved but the exact species that we know today. The system is completely constrained, otherwise the laws of the universe would be in constant flux. Now, I believe in the process of evolution, but we have to recognize that it is simply the way we see this process happen, and we see things as happening progressively, being fueled by the event that happened immediately before it, though we have to concede that everything is a product of the forces at the beginning. A place that was, currently is, and forever will be, without time. (Some of you will be in my ear about probability, which uh, is code for 'faith'.)

Webcomics and Senioritis

2009-04-29T13:54:00.000-07:00

So William, Rafaan and myself have started a webcomic called Doghouse. You can check it out via the link I have at the bottom. If you've come here from that site, welcome. Because of that site I haven't had much time to blog, but you're welcome to read. I have two short stories on this blog, so if you're not really into those, just skip them. They're titled 'Alex & Mary' and 'Red Blue Green'. Otherwise I only post short pieces on topics that I find exceedingly interesting, mainly revolving around futurism, science fiction and philosophy. Something I thought about the other day has been on my brain as of late. In a utopian society you can't have a disenfranchised group, because it maintains perpetual unrest. However, you still need people to clean toilets. So, what do you do? I think that this problem will probably be solved by age (seniority). That's right, when you're in your adolescent years, you will do the menial jobs that are so necessary for civilized life. I think this would be an excellent way to solve many of our existing problems. No discrimination. No unfair treatment based on circumstances outside of your control.

Red Blue Green

2009-01-28T11:36:00.000-08:00

PART ONE

This is not the way the future will be.

Humanity had finally realized it was one organism. The advent of ultra-high-speed travel awoke people from the illusion of the distant. Resources in one corner of the world, they decided, belonged to all. A single standard language took root. Genetics were conquered and refined. Robotics and artificial intelligence virtually demolished the archaic class system. Strenuous work was replaced mainly with leisure and creative pursuits, though never at the cost of progress. The old crumbled against the new. And it was in this flower of human perfection that the world was cast into a crisis unlike anything it had previously witnessed.

You see, it was during this time of extreme ease that the population of Earth grew healthily beyond its capacity to provide safely inhabitable space. The people of Earth combated this obstacle with ceaseless ingenuity. Although building upwards and underground worked for a time, eventually humanity, out of necessity, needed to tap into its greatest resource, and it was with this that people moved into the oceans.

Because of it's depth--and the fact that it was largely free from the constraints imposed by gravity--the ocean effectively multiplied the area of inhabitable space on Earth by a factor of ten. This would satisfy the world for a long time, and when it didn't, it would be a problem for another generation, with other technologies and other considerations. So into the seas man went.

The pioneers were mainly young people, chosen at random, and though not obligated to leave the comfort of land, were strongly incentivized into moving. The initial effects of the migration were immediate and quite drastic as tens and then hundreds of millions of people moved into the abyss. At its height, it was estimated that over one-third of Earth's population lived in the lake of the Earth.

This alone did not constitute the crisis which began. It was only several generations later that the water people, or Wearthans as they came to be known, began to change. At first a high volume of speedy transportation to and from the land assured that these pioneers consumed a steady diet of the things for which they had, over generations past, become accustomed, including sunlight, something thought too frivolous to provide in the vast underwater cities newly constructed. But as more of the goods and services so necessary for life moved waterwards, these trips became less and less frequent, and this is how the great divide began.

Soon their differing ideas of family structure, their solutions to existing and future problems, and their value systems created an ever-widening fissure. Education, media, entertainment, language, standards of propriety and all manners of self-identity became split, until there was two of virtually every facet of human life, if not always in resemblance or practice, in spirit. The constitution upon which the new world had been erected was being tested by a unique stress, seemingly, forevermore.

PART TWO

Zeeble hadn't realized that he had no need to awaken on this particular morning, so he did anyway. Perhaps it was with the assistance of his room's computer, which made morning routines simple, that he was able to be so absentminded. Or maybe he was in such a state of denial that he simply put the thought of idleness from his mind altogether. Either way, he was ready to go into work when he realized that he had been let go from his job just the day before. He sat on his bed in a state of subdued anger. The young people at October House had shown him the door. The war-mongering youngsters, he thought. Design had lost its beauty since the days of the Wearthan Learthan incident, since the days of brinksmanship political policy. They were decidedly uninterested in Zeeble's talent for creating beautiful, aesthetically immaculate spacecraft. Things had since become rigid, cost conscious and earth-tone. He even heard rumors that old-world designs for gunships had been dug up from the archives to be studied. They were rumors sure, but everyone knew things were changing for the worse. And just as he realized how much he despised this new generation he heard an announcement.

"Mr. Johnson, you have a visitor," Vicky Three spoke in a lovingly familiar voice. Zeeble thought for a bit. Must be someone from October House, here to bring him his personal belongings.

"Let him in please Vicky." He was in no rush to meet his guest, though an odd feeling overcame him. They wouldn't be this prompt or courteous. He summoned a video view of his guest. He was a tall red-haired man with supports around his ankle and feet. His odd feeling gave way to puzzlement. Why did they send a martian, he wondered. He went to greet his guest.

"You're from Mars, aren't you?"

"My name is Matthew Higgs Mr. Johnsons." What a delightful accent Zeeble thought to himself. "I represent Her Majesty's Kingdom of Mars." It explained why he was so smartly dressed. "We have been waiting quite some time for you to become available. I am here to offer you a job." This was very strange indeed.

"A job? For Her Majesty?"

"Yes."

"What is the nature of this job." Zeeble asked.

"Unfortunately, I cannot tell you here, as its nature is a matter of great planetary security." Zeeble looked around.

"Where then should we go?"

"If you will come with me, we will leave for Mars shortly."

"I'm afraid I don't understand."

"Time is of great importance Mr. Johnson." The intrigue was too great to turn down.

"I'll pack my things."

"That won't be necessary."

PART THREE

Of course, in all of humanity's ingenuity, the ocean was not the only place they sought refuge. Mars was colonized in an attempt to terraform it for a possible human migration. Although many considered the Mars experiment a colossal failure, tens of thousands of inhabitants refused to return to their old homes in favor of the red planet. Although heavily dependent upon resources from Earth, a very distinct culture grew on Earth's sister planet. A monarchy was established out of the grandiose fashion in which everything in and from Mars seemed to be steeped. Martian law and sense of justice was distinct in the sense that the ends always seemed to justify the means. Martians were often dismissed as a bunch of silly, sometimes radical group of new age cowboy hippies.

As an extremely distant commonwealth of Earth, political and trade relations with its motherland were crucial. When Earth had effectively split into two federal governments, Martian parliament became expert politicians. But when the Learthans and Wearthans began to turn on one another, it became increasingly difficult to play both sides of the field. It had become dependent on both for trade and financial assistance in more peaceful times. Eventually the Land Water disputes lead to all but total neglect of Mars' needs, something which greatly troubled the Martian government. They would return to their old glory, by whatever means necessary.

PART FOUR

Weighted clothes were a funny sort of thing. Unflattering and dull Zeeble thought. He had an official meeting soon. He clenched his stomach, as it hadn't quite gotten used to martian food. He followed the hallway lights to the door of his destination. He took a deep breath and said "Open."

"Please state your name."

"Zeeble Johnson."

The door opened to a small stadium style conference room. There was only one other person seated there. He liked to being early to things. He sat down, feeling somewhat naked without any writing implementations or recorders, as per strict instructions. He broke the silent tension.

"Hi. My name is Zeeble," he said from across the room where he had chosen a seat.

"Hello Zeeble. My name is Mahyar." She was a younger woman with a cheerful face and curly brown hair stopping at shoulder length.

"That's a beautiful name. Where are you from?"

"Guess." Someone with personality. How refreshing, he thought. He had been dealing with government types ever since his arrival.

"You're wearing the same thing as me, and you don't sound like them, so, definitely not from Mars."

"You can tell all that? You're good." She said it with a smile. Maybe she had too much personality.

Just then the door slid open. To their amazement, a Wearthan walked into the conference room and took a seat close to the front of the conference room. They were both shocked. It was difficult to catch even a passing glimpse of a real Wearthan, who seldom if ever came above water, and here was one on Mars of all places. It was an older male, his skin had a hint of blue. The blue color was a purposeful genetic alteration the Wearthans had adopted to further distinguish themselves from their brothers on land. Turning back to Mahyar, though keeping his eyes on the new comrade, he spoke, "What was it you said you did for living Mahyar?"

She too kept her eyes fixed on the Wearthan. "I didn't say anything, though I study culture." They both looked at her now. She was quick to look down at her hands. An automatic reaction.

The room filled up within a matter of minutes. Several interesting characters, including two other Wearthans and a handful of martians were among the two dozen or so people that came and sat. A virtual waver document was presented to all those gathered. It stated the extremely private nature of the information they were about to be presented with. It contained an interesting clause. If they were to stay for the presentation and reject its offer they were not allowed to return to their homes for at least a year with provisions to stay even longer if necessary. They would be guests of Her Majesty and would be compensated accordingly. Even though the compensations were sizable, it was a rather scary proposition, to be on Mars for an indefinite amount of time. Several of those gathered left the room, never to return. But to Zeeble it didn't matter. He had nowhere to be. Nowhere on Earth to be.

PART FIVE

No one quite knew who struck first, but it was apparent why the conflict started. Deep sea trenches had for decades been used as repositories for discarded waste materials, as a matter of convenience. The pressure of the depths could take essentially an unlimited amount of special metals and plastics and make it disappear into its abyss, not to harm a soul. But you see, the Wearthans were people of principle. Ironically, they believed that things should always be in their proper place, even though they themselves were aliens in their waterland. Some amongst their scientists tried to prove that the dumping of this material lead to a lower standard of life for the Wearthans, though the evidence was fairly shoddy. Some of it was even taught in their schools. Learthans took this to be an institutionalized form of xenophobia. Indeed almost all of the Wearthan's materials were now derived from the sea. Rising tensions over several years culminated in what became known simply as "the incident".

PART SIX

Disbelief was the word that best described the demeanor of those in the room. Each person was escorted out by a different guard and was be-briefed on what they had just witnessed, to assess their level of devotion to the project. In the conference room, a video had been show which explained that, especially since the incident, Mars had become a second-class citizen. The Learthans and Wearthans had become so obsessed with their campaigns against one other that Mars' well-being became a thing of relative unimportance. The best thinkers on Mars had hatched a plan that would not only reverse the negligence shown towards Earth's sister planet, but which would also stop mounting tensions among the Learthan and Wearthan governments, and may prevent a massive war between the two. Those gathered had been selected for their liberal views, their expertise, and their talent. They were going to stage the most elaborate hoax of all time. They were going to create a fake alien craft and stage a sighting. This would, the video explained, turn a now self-centric Earth into a weak and insignificant part of the universe. It would make Earth realize its impotence to control its destiny in the universe, and cause it to take on a new identity--one focused on the rights of humanity as a race of beings. It would create a possible external enemy which Earth may have to defend itself against. It would effectively and tangibly create 'the another'.

A week later, the participants were asked to accept or relinquish their involvement in the program. They were not allowed to associate with one another during this time, as a precaution. They must make up their own minds. Zeeble had spent many sleepless nights considering this question. Their rooms were outfitted with news stations from Earth, so that they could follow the situation there. But it wasn't the images from Earth that made Zeeble decide he would champion this cause. At first he definitely did not want anything to do with it. But something about the way he had been so coldly released from his previous job, something about the way they had severed him from is passion, made his blood boil with rage. This was his way to get back at them. This was his way to make things right.

"I'll do it," he said, with a sense of conviction he didn't know he had. He was led into a waiting room. Several minutes later the door opened. Mahyar walked in.

"You too?" she said, somewhat surprised.

"Why'd you do it," Zeeble began. Mahyar made sure she was situated correctly in her seat, and had a few seconds to think, before she responded.

"In all of my time studying culture, I've come to realize that it isn't worth dying for. And, if I can prevent history from repeating itself, I'm going give it a try." Four other people came into the room. They began talking about their areas of expertise. Zeeble was an aircraft architect, Mahyar a cultural specialist, Jason a chemical engineer, Juan was a physicist and communications expert, and Wai Li and Nikita were both mathematicians. They began joking to ease a bit of the tension.

"Good morning," came a voice from the front of the room. "My name is Maroe. I will be your director. Let's get to work."

PART SEVEN

Twelve Wearthans dead, five Learthans, and an eternity of good relations drowned with them. A routine protest on one of the dumping routes had turned violent. It had resulted in the most non-accidental deaths in a single event in modern history. It didn't happen overnight, but eventually the emotional carnage seeped its way upward, poisoning on a governmental level the way the two groups viewed each other. In their outrage, the Learthans eased restrictions on ocean dumping. The Wearthans were not about to be outdone.

What happened next was one of the most startling mysteries in human history. The Wearthans, somehow, had found a way to raise the level of the ocean by a whole centimeter. They demanded that all dumping in the oceans cease immediately. Each day that their demands were not met, the oceans would raise another centimeter. The Learthans refused, and sure enough, with each passing day, the oceans rose exactly as they had promised. The best minds on land came together to determine how the Wearthans were able to pull-off such a gargantuan feat, to no avail. The Learthans were forced to give in after only a few days of the standoff, or risk billions of dollars worth of damage. The waters immediately receded, but not before the incident had sparked a second cold war. Long after the last atomic bomb had been dismantled, the Wearthans held the new proverbial bomb.

PART EIGHT

"How did you do it?" Zeeble asked Lauk, a Wearthan, who looked at him, puzzled. It was still early in the morning.

Seven months had passed since Zeeble had first arrived. His group, much to their surprise, were not the first people recruited by the Martians. They were integrated into an existing group of engineers, artists, intellectuals, scientists, historians, sociologists and various other experts, including a musician. Once Zeeble had caught up with the project's full details, he began working with an intense zeal, as he did with most of his work. After two months he was promoted to project manager, which, although it afforded him a much more complete view of the entire undertaking, code-named "Distant Voice", came with the responsibility of weekly reports to Maroe, the project liaison.

"How did I do what?" Lauk asked, hovering over a large piece of composite material which was to constitute the right side of Red Eagle, the false alien craft, still in its conceptual state at this point.

"Make the waters rise."

Lauk smirked. "How should I know?"

"You're a Wearthan, you must know something," Zeeble insisted.

"Just theories."

"Things are getting really bad on Earth," Zeeble added as he looked around the large, vividly-lit complex.

"Hopefully not for much longer. We finally got this material right. Though, I don't get it, this project is going to cost them a fortune, even by Earth standards."

"They have a vested interest in Earth's well-being."

"And yet, they'll never recoup this loss."

"Maybe there's something more to it."

A commotion had started from the far corner of the premises.

"Mahyar did it!" came a voice. Zeeble and Lauk quickly rushed over to see what was happening.

"You're gonna make this," said Daria, one of the artists, holding up in excitement a sketch Mahyar had directed her to draw.

"Does it fit the requirements?"

"Perfectly," Mahyar replied. "Have you ever made anything like this before?"

"No. No I haven't." Zeeble never took his eyes off of the drawing. "And that's the point."

PART NINE

War does to a culture what bitter cold does to water. Perhaps it was only out of an existence utterly complacent that a society so paranoid could have been born. History had again repeated itself in a most acute and sinister way. If the enemy had been any more distant, the feelings of animosity would not have been so strong. If the enemy had been any closer, over time they would have ceased to be enemies at all. It was in this far, but not far enough, close, but not close enough relationship that the imagination ran continuously wild. A generation completely ignorant of war had not seen its horrors except through flat images, understood not its pains except through stereo sound, and felt not its far-reaching effects but through film. Nevertheless, into the fog each stepped slowly but steadily, until it was not a matter of if there would be a war, but a matter of when. One fine day in July the Learthans formally demanded the Wearthans divulge their secrets and allow inspectors to constantly monitor their technologies. That day there was no response, and the waters rose.

With no communication, the Learthans had no choice but to act in defense. People began moving to higher ground. A few submersible bombs were dropped, warning the Wearthans of their appetite for war. Three days later the Learthans found that they had succeeded in destroying nothing. Old colonies had been moved, and they no longer had any knowledge of their whereabouts. The waters continued to rise. The Learthans began dumping a chemical agent into the waters, something they had been developing for years. It would make the ocean uninhabitable.

It appeared as though all time for reason and propriety had expired, when suddenly a strange object had been seen flying past the Martian state. It was of an indefinite size and shape, consisting of spinning segments, its thickness in constant and steady flux. It was being reported simultaneously by all three human groups. It had apparently blasted into hyperspace with a large bang, but not before it had spent six hours cruising, apparently to observe the Martian planet. The Learthans reacted first, stopping their pollution of the ocean. The Wearthans halted the rising water level, and several days later began withdrawing it. The Wearthan leadership came out of hiding and issued several brief statements about the need for a reevaluation of Wearthan-Learthan relations, and about the progress being made in the identification of their alien neighbors. The Learthans issued a similar statement, and things steadily calmed down. There was little now but a deep sense of remorse, and an even deeper swell of curiosity. And it would be that way for years.

PART TEN

Zeeble sat in an interrogation room. He wasn't treated like a criminal, though he was still uncertain about his future.

"We know everything Mr. Johnson," a menacing man in a black suit and short haircut said to him. "It is in your best interest to fully cooperate with us."

Zeeble had come to deduce, based on the information they conveyed to him, which of the members of his team had defected. He guessed that this person, after several years of keeping the secret, had approached one of the large weapon makers, now going bankrupt, and for a hefty sum gave them some priceless information. It would guarantee, he imagined him saying, that the Learthans would have a several-year head-start over the Wearthans in a renewed war. Zeeble could not fault this person completely however. It was a strange thing to live with so great a lie, and it took its toll upon a person. It made listening to the excited conjecture of the populace feel like hearing the confession of something you yourself were guilty of. You had to force yourself to stay calm for fear that they may recognize the quilt on your face.

"Now we have some questions about the craft's design," the man came at him calmly. The door opened and Mahyar, once again, like so many other times in his life, was escorted into the room and seated.

"Hey."

"Hi," she replied, noticeably shaken.

The two were probed for some time. Both were as honest about every aspect of the project as they could be. It was strangely relieving to be trading his safety for his guilt. Suddenly a man rushed into the room beckoning the interrogator to follow him. They were now alone.

"You're doing great. I'm proud of you."

Mahyar smiled at him, put her head down on one side and fell asleep.

It felt like an eternity before they came back for them. Zeeble had been given some materials, and he was in the middle of completing a scale model of Red Eagle out of putty as a final gesture, when they rudely interrupted his progress.

"Wake her up and come with me." They were escorted down a long hallway into a room with a screen. "What is the meaning of this?"

Zeeble and Mahyar looked at images of a swarm of spacecraft, none of which they recognized. The images were being broadcast by the news. It was a fleet of machines flying in unison in an amazing array. Zeeble firmly grasped the chair to his side.

"The Martians had another initiative, sir, but it's not what you think. It was called 'Operation Final Cry'. A project almost as large as our own."

Mahyar replied, "Someone heard our cry."

And We Liked It, We Loved It

2008-12-18T03:21:00.000-08:00

[So, I’m going to the UK for ten days beginning Sunday, and won’t post during that time.] Related to my last post, the future not only illuminates the past, but it also changes the future. Instead of being one day closer to what one may consider a reasonable age to die, I may in fact be getting younger. That’s right, younger, depending upon what advances in medicine occur in the future. Now, don’t get me wrong. With each passing day, I’m a day closer to the age I will have eventually died. There’s no question about that. But from my perspective, and not the future’s, every day I may live longer than the previous day allowed me to. This is a good way to illustrate the meaninglessness of time in a universe of eventuality. Who knows, by the time your grandchildren get old, you may be old enough to still be alive.

A Better Shovel

2008-12-16T08:14:00.000-08:00

Progress leans back as it stretches forward. In many ways it goes against conventional wisdom for someone to be able to discover more about their past, as it gets further away (therefore begins to fade). But what’s happened, at least in my extended family, is we’ve begun to share old pictures and documents and stories with one another, in a list-serve-esque kind of way. It’s not as if the information becomes clearer as time goes by. In fact the opposite happens. But the technology makes it easier to share, and so, we actually do. Even though the treasure is slowly decomposing, we’ve built a better shovel. Who knows, in ten years, I may know more than I actually wanted to.

Alex & Mary

2008-12-14T12:34:00.000-08:00

(This is my first ever true short story attempt, so go easy on me.)

This is not the way the past will be.

Alex knew the pain in his head would only grow worse. Mary had told him so, and he wasn’t about to doubt her now. He remembered the day they met. It was like any other mundane day. His love was instant. Hers was cautious. But it's what came after they had known each other for a while which was on his mind now.

“You won’t believe me until you believe me,” she said in a sweet yet condescending tone. So trite, he once thought, and yet so true he now realized. She said it playfully almost. To soften the blow. He fancied the two of them getting married until she uttered those words. He had recently lost his wife and child in a car accident. Mary was beautiful, and she paid him attention. She explained that, where she was from, everyone was beautiful.

“I’m from the future. Alex, I'm. I'm from 2095.”

His heart sank. It had been something she expressly wanted to tell him for weeks now. It couldn't have been said in jest. She must have been crazy.

She handed him a book to read. She told him it would explain everything. In it he found greetings from the year 5728, at times its language was comically formal, at others it spoke in layman's terms, often grammatically questionable. The book seemed to repeat itself, each section in a different, usually indecipherable, language. Alex later thought that it might have in fact been a maddeningly elaborate joke, but as time went by, he had no choice but to slowly give in to its plausibility. He remembered one night in particular. They sat in Lou's Diner. He was prompting her about the nuances of time travel.

"How is this even possible, don't you alter your future every time you go back, essentially erasing the events that lead up to you coming here?"

"You didn't read the book."

"I feel ill every time I look at the thing. Could you please, just, explain it to me." Mary looked at him, worried at her choice.

"There are an infinite number of universes Alex. When I came here I physically left mine, and came to this one. The machine has a safeguard that keeps it from entering the same universe. I don't know how it works but, nothing I do here can affect my future, in the same way that nothing from this universe can affect the one I left."

"How did you choose this universe?"

"Technically, it chose me. From what I understand, the machine suspends the traveler in the fourth dimension, and it falls into whichever it can. So, there are an infinite number of universes I simultaneously appeared in, there are an infinite number of universes I never ended up in, and there are an infinite number of universes in which the two of us are having this conversation right now. And at each infinitesimally small amount of time, each of those universes branches off into an infinite number of other universes."

Alex pondered this for a moment. "So you could be," he looked for the right word, "killing the eventualities in an infinite number of universes every time you make a jump."

"It's possible, yes."

"That doesn't bother you?"

"My conscience is clear, because I don't know."

"So, what makes you this version of you? Why aren't you another you, somewhere in a different universe?"

"I ask myself the same thing all the time. Why am I this me, as you put it. Maybe that's what we're trying to find out."

Alex tried his best to get Mary to put the thought of time travel from her mind. He tried to show her the frivolity in it.

"I can't believe that Alex. I can't believe that this is all nonsense. There have been at least sixty-three travelers before me. In the book..."

"The stupid book again. The past isn't important. The past isn't who we are," Alex said, agitated.

"In the book, Alex, it says there's some place we have to get to. I have to believe that whoever built the machine knows something that we don't. We're swimming against the tide. We're going backwards. We're a select group." There was a short pause. "And you're going to take my place."

This came as a shock to Alex. "Why me?"

Mary took her time, and almost angrily blurted "Because you're smart Alex. You're smart and you have nothing to lose."

He knew exactly what she meant, but he didn't care to think about it just then.

"So you used me?"

"I love you."

He believed her. "Maybe these people are evil, Mary, or maybe in the vastness of infinity the machine simply came about. Maybe you're destroying alternate universes when you make these jumps into the past."

"We have to take this on faith," she said calmly. "There's no way we can collect any evidence either way. It's impossible." She had a few more bites of her meal, and without looking up she spoke. "Are you insinuating to me that you won't go?"

"Will you go with me?" he asked.

She looked up now. "I can't."

"Why?"

"When you go back in time, you get sick." There was a moment of silence as she sat back and looked him in the eyes.

"Sick?" he asked.

"I won't live for much longer. No one knows why."

A waiter came to take their dishes.

Alex wiped his hands. "I can't lose you too. I'll go."

_______________________

The throbbing headache took his mind off the memory of that night. He knew the pain in his head would only grow worse. Mary had said so, and he wasn’t about to doubt her now. He remembered the day they met, like any other mundane day. Now he found himself in the machine. He had long since learned how to use it. Mary spent long hours quizzing him on its intricacies. He finally worked up the courage to go into the adjacent room to see how far into the past he had actually gone.

Something was terribly wrong. The display read '2007'–only a year prior. It was an estimation, but it mattered little. Before he stepped outside the enormous three-story tall gumdrop shaped capsule, he used the computer to find the nearest road. He was only several hundred miles from where he started. He packed provisions into a backpack and stormed out. He was in a forrest. The machine had stomped an artificial clearing. He walked an hour to the road and hitchhiked. A day later he was outside of Mary's apartment. He almost spilled his coffee as he caught her leaving. It felt like a lifetime since he had seen her.

"Mary!"

"Can I help you?"

"It's me. Alex. From 2008." Mary stopped dead in her tracks and looked him over. She pulled out her cell phone, and asked for a moment.

"Eric, honey, I'm going to be late." It was the second time she had ever wrung his heart. "Let's go and sit in the park, hmm?" They found a park bench.

"So, this isn't the same universe as the one I left is it."

"It's not possible. The machine..."

"Won't let that happen. I remember." He knew the answer, but he didn't believe it was true. "Who's Eric?"

"I haven't told him yet, but, he's my choice of successor."

"And, you love him?"

"That's rather personal, but, yes. I do."

"And he's going to have to leave you here because you're sick."

"Sick?"

"From time travelling."

"I don't understand."

"Every time someone goes into the past they get sick. Right? You told me that."

"I'm sorry if I ever said that to you Alex, but that's not true." Alex couldn't stand the sight of her just then. He bid her farewell. She offered her concern and help as he walked away. He found himself with colorfully sad and wondrous thoughts. What would he do now? Try again perhaps. He found another bench and sat by himself. After a short while, a fascinating thought occurred to him. He decided he'd go and visit himself. See what he was like without Mary.

_______________________

The anticipation was nauseating. He hid behind a tree as a car finally approached his home. He didn't recognize it. Maybe he had moved. Two figures emerged from the car. It was Samantha and Nicholas! Their accident had never happened! He wanted to run after them, tell them how much he missed them. He knew he couldn't. Just then he saw another car, one he knew very well, approach. His alternate self embraced his family. He was jealous of himself. He sat beneath the tree and cried. Tears eventually gave way to laughter, he was so overcome with emotion. There was a strange relief in it all. There were happy people out there. Even happy versions of himself.

Before returning to the machine, he treated himself to a proper meal. He may never have one again. He hoped this time, the device would send him far away. Maybe he could sell the machine and start a new life. He didn't care. And just like that he was gone forever from that universe.

_______________________

He awoke with a headache. The same headache he had once thought was a sign of the onset of a terminal illness caused by time travel. He took an inhalant that alleviated the pain. Something was even stranger about this trek into the past. The machine's calendar read 'Indeterminate'. He looked up what it meant in the ship's manual. It told him that he had either gone too far into the past for the machine to effectively calculate the date, or the environment didn't provide enough useful indicators of it. He opened the device door. It sat in the middle of a lush grassland. The wind blew vigorously under an overcast sky. To either side of him in the distance was a vast forrest which rose along a set of mountains. He wished someone had been there with him to see it. Mary or Samantha or Nicholas, or even a perfect stranger. He closed the door behind him and took a long walk.

This was as picturesque a place as Alex had ever seen. He wished he had a camera, but then realized no one would ever see his pictures. He saw a herd of odd-looking animals grazing off in the distance. He lay on the grass as a slight drizzle of rain came down. Mary had never loved him he thought. It was getting dark. He headed back to the device.

As he approached the machine, Alex thought he must have been hallucinating. He saw a figure in its now open doorway. He ran towards it. It was Mary!

"I can explain!" she yelled out to him, before he got to her.

They embraced. He was more happy than angry. She handed him a note. It would explain everything. He read it as she ordered him some tea. In it he read that the machine was meant to carry only one passenger, with the survival rate of a second, in an unprotected chamber, being unknown. She knew that Alex would never leave her if there was a possibility of them staying together. She knew that if she told him the machine could only safely take one, he wouldn't have left, and she wouldn't have been able to leave him either, so she made up the story about time travel sickness. She then explained that she kept the note on her incase she died during their jump. It was so she could explain everything.

"You risked your life for this Mary. Why?"

"I have faith Alex."

It didn't matter any longer to Alex, they were both together.

"I'm sorry you lost your family."

"You followed me?"

"Yes. Your wife was very lovely."

Alex looked at her. "It was strange seeing yourself, wasn't it."

"It gave me goosebumps."

"Where are we Mary?"

"I checked the computers. I don't know."

"We'll find out tomorrow."

Neither slept well, each with a sense that they were in above their heads.

_______________________

The next day they set out together after they had a modest breakfast. They immediately noticed a lone tree not far from where they had landed. Alex didn't remember it being there the afternoon before. Curious, and huddled together, they walked towards it. It was an amazingly verdant tree, almost radiating life. They made out two apelike creatures dancing around it, trying to grab what appeared to be the sole remaining fruit the tree had to offer. Alex held Mary more closely as the wind was beginning to pick up. They stood and watched the apes for a while. They smiled to themselves. Suddenly, the smaller of the two apelike creatures lifted itself onto two feet and fingered at the fruit.

"She's beating you too it!" Alex yelled, poking fun at the larger ape. Mary laughed.

The two creatures looked at them, horrified, before darting off into the jungle.

"Now look what you've done," she joked.

"Oh? What have I done?"

Behind them came a terrible deep groaning noise. The time machine was fading into nothingness!

"Mary!?"

"What's happening!?"

"I thought you said we couldn't affect the future!"

Just then they noticed their clothes had begun to disappear. They covered themselves in shame. They walked to the nearby forest and found things to dress themselves as best they could. They held each other as they sat on a large rock.

"Mary, what on Earth happened just now?"

"I don't know. I think. No. I think this is the branch. This is mathematically impossible. This is impossible."

"What do you mean the branch?" Each was horrified and cold.

"Every universe that has human beings in it, originated from this moment, and, and, we, interfered with it."

"What?! How could that be, I thought..."

"It's like, we're a river that branches out into countless streams. We went back to the mouth of the river that started all of these streams, and we changed its course. The first version of the universe that had humans in it. The first universe with humans in it," she repeated, "that all other universes with humans in it branched from. Alex, we're now the first!"

"What?"

"How can this be. How can it be that we're still here. We've interfered with ourselves. We never existed now. We shouldn't be here!"

Alex soothed her. "Calm down Mary. Calm down." He took her head and put it on his chest.

"How can this be Alex? Is this why we were sent here? To destroy their world?"

"Maybe they were suffering Mary. We're their angel of death."

"We were their atomic bomb." Alex said nothing. "How are we still here Alex. How! We were never born!"

A deep rainbow appeared across the still rolling sky.

"Maybe we exist somewhere else, outside of everything. Maybe we make the universe real. After all, who would be here to tell anyone about it? You had faith Mary. The machine must have known something. It must have known we could start everything, all over again."

Time, And Again

2008-12-11T13:11:00.000-08:00

So I'm writing a short story on time travel which I hope you will all enjoy. It will probably be up in a week or so. The problem that most time travel scenarios suffer from is duplication and butterfly effects. Something goes into the past and changes the future. Problems of that nature. What most people don't realize is that there are actually an infinite number of universes, each branching out from an infinite number of universes at ever moment of 'time'. Taking this into account, one can solve many of these problems. It is also fairly limiting however. We'll see how the story comes out. Happy infinity to everyone.

Old Is The New New

2008-12-09T18:30:00.000-08:00

I wonder how likely the demise of hardcover books will actually be in the next, say, thousand years. I don't suppose they'll completely become extinct. After all, most people don't know this but, the interface you're using right now to read this (i.e. using a mouse and icons and a desktop) was developed by Xerox because they thought paper would become obsolete with the advent of the computer and they wanted to stay relevant. Even more paper is being consumed as a result. This constitutes one of the greatest technological ironies of all time. I digress. I would like to point out another, less significant, though fairly entertaining irony of my own. Chances are, in the next two to three years, you will own an iPhone, or a similar device that lets you read books on a screen. The only books you will most likely legally be able to read on it, at least in the near future anyway, are classics and other materials that are so old they've fallen into the public domain. And so, as the title suggests, old, at least for now, is the new new. Here is my favorite iPhone reader.

Must Come To An End

2008-12-08T03:04:00.000-08:00

Good and bad are not functions of things and acts themselves, but rather they are functions of duration, and yet, we confuse the two. Think of it this way. Raise your hand if you think brushing your teeth is a good thing. Good. Now, raise your hand if you think brushing your teeth at every waking moment of the day is a good thing. Didn’t think so. Another example. Laziness. Good or bad? Bad? What about when you just spent the whole day at work and you need to unwind to preserve your sanity. Ah, okay. Some of the clever ones among you may test my theory with murder. Murder however is the manifestation of an imbalance of anger. Then you’d ask—can any anger be good? Anger is a wonderful evolutionary tool built in us to instill a sense of urgency, and indeed our minds still learn from becoming angry and seeing others become angry. Anger which is not fleeting, which festers and consumes is harmful. Again, good an evil are functions of duration. And so you see, this post must come to an end.

Dead After Reading

2008-12-04T08:49:00.000-08:00

Time the illusionist strikes again. Here's something to try and get your mind around. The next world has neither place nor time. When someone dies, they aren't sitting round, waiting for you. In fact, when you die not only will you see everything that ever happened, you will see everything that will ever happen. It will be like a pen, sitting there. One tip of the pen is the beginning of time, and the other the end. And this world will have about as much importance as a pen to you. Less probably. Know someone who has passed on? You're already there with them. Follow the logic a little further and, you're already dead.

On Relativity [quotation]

2008-12-02T22:31:00.000-08:00

"The fundamental principle enunciated by Bahá'u'lláh ... is that religious truth is not absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is a continuous and progressive process, that all the great religions of the world are divine in origin, that their basic principles are in complete harmony, that their aims and purposes are one and the same, that their teachings are but facets of one truth, that their functions are complementary, that they differ only in the nonessential aspects of their doctrines, and that their missions represent successive stages in the spiritual evolution of human society..."

- Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day is Come

Deoxyribonucleic Acid

2008-12-01T09:19:00.000-08:00

A fascinating thought occurred to me today on the bus. More on that at the end. I think that this is the way the future will be. Forensics will be absolutely amazing. It will be extremely difficult for petty criminals to get away with anything, not just because of the proliferation and ready disbursement of information through technology (like cameras and other equipment), but because we will be able to map DNA so thoroughly, that we will be able to tell what someone looks like from a fingerprint. How you ask? If a single cell is left behind on that fingerprint, we will be able to study the structure of the DNA within it, and tell exactly what that person looks like, at any age. This in itself would not be controversial. No one likes criminals, and it could easily be used to rule people out. But imagine the scientific community going back and trying to figure out what Jesus or Khan or Shakespeare looked like. Back to the bus thought. In every single cell in our bodies, we carry our faces and our hands and our family's histories and our predisposed fears, and we leave them everywhere.

On Spiritual Reality

2008-11-29T13:57:00.000-08:00

This relates to my last post on how nothing is the sum of its parts. If you don't believe in spiritual reality, consider this. How intelligent is an atom? I'm pretty sure it's safe to say an atom has an intelligence quotient of 0.0 repetend. Therefore, how can unintelligent pieces craft intelligence? The answer lies somewhere in the concept of form (spiritual). After all, when these pieces come together in a certain combination, they manifest qualities that are not present in the individual pieces themselves. These qualities exist before the actualization of the form (and therefore outside of the realm of time), because the unintelligent pieces do not create the criteria, for intelligence.

Some of Σverything (2+2≠4)

2008-11-27T08:03:00.000-08:00

Two plus two is not four. Nothing is the sum of its parts. I may write a few posts in succession about this idea, but perhaps the best way to see this is with numbers themselves. For instance, the number one, for which any individual unit of anything has to be grouped under, has a certain number of qualities. It’s (essentially) a prime number and has a number of other unique properties. But if we add one and one, we get another number, two. Two’s properties are not twice as “much” as one’s are. Two has its own properties. If we add two to itself, we get twice as much (four), which is true for any number, but if we multiply two by itself, we likewise get twice as much. This can not be said for any other number. Four on the other hand, does not contain twice the potency of two, but contains its own unique features. For instance, four is the only number that’s square root is also half of it’s value. This can be said for no other number. So you see, nothing is the sum of it’s parts.

Plato's Park

2008-11-24T11:57:00.000-08:00

Everything is a symbol for something greater than itself, and for which it bears no relation. For instance, the scribbles in the word 'tree' bear no relation to the organism. Likewise, pronouncing that same word gives us no clue as to what it may refer either. If you study the atoms of a cup, you will find nothing in those atoms which tell you what the concept of a cup is, or what it's used for. So where is this information kept? That's a fascinating question. But even more fascinating is, what are we a symbol for? Where is the information of 'us' kept? We may be told, but we won't know till we die.

Smoke & Mirrors

2008-11-23T02:46:00.000-08:00

You've probably heard a variation of the expression, 'live like it's your last day on Earth'. This expression gets it wrong, for the simple fact that if I am to live as though it is my last day, self immediately comes to mind; it's my last day, better make it a good one. Or maybe that doesn't come to mind, but you think, better make up for all those bad things I did. Again, wrong. Instead of subscribing to this saying, or a variant of it, you should simply realize how fleeting life is, and therefore that the selfish things you want are an illusion put here to distract you. That house, car, residence, lifestyle, person, those clothes, they're smoke and mirrors. It takes practice, but realize this, and then maybe you'll live like it's your first day, on Earth.

A Death At The Disco

2008-11-21T02:31:00.001-08:00

This is one way I understand the relationship between the soul and the body. You are perpetually at a dance club with deafening music. This music represents your five senses which are constantly bombarding you with information. At the same time, there is a whisperer, your soul, saying things into your ear, telling you the secrets of the universe. Naturally, you can’t hear any of it, because the music is so overpowering. But, when you sleep, your senses dim, the music fades, and you catch glimpses of the future for instance. And when you die, the music turns off altogether, and you can finally hear the whisperer’s message. I imagine it might be saying, “You’re gonna wanna sit down for this…”.

Big Ball of Truth

2008-11-19T01:41:00.000-08:00

I was taking a class conducted by a rather brilliant physicist-turned-translator and I asked a question about using three- to two-dimensional interaction as a model for understanding the interplay between the seen and the unseen. He confirmed my suspicion that it was indeed a very good tool for understanding. Then he offered another way the model could be used. He said (from what I understood) that we can think of knowledge—and therefore truth—as a sphere, and our minds as a camera (my own twist). With any picture we can take, we are incapable of seeing the whole sphere. The further to the right or to the left of the sphere we move, the more we end up neglecting some other part of the sphere. I find this to be very true. The further we take any line of logic, the more we have to neglect some other logic. The more detail we pursue in any endeavor, the fuzzier other things, out of necessity, become. The more we fill our brains with one type of knowledge, the less space there is for other types. We even see this in physics. Think Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. And if we believe this, here’s the kicker: the more we try to use this as a model for truth, the less it may be so. And so, we’ve come full-circle.

Remove Yourself

2008-11-17T01:41:00.000-08:00

Detachment is the envy of every enlightened mind. I’ll show you how. Visually. You’re floating out in space, looking at the earth. It’s about the size of a grapefruit. You’re laughing hysterically because you realize everything you’ve ever known or wanted to be, every unwarranted fixation and aspiration, lives in a disjointed mold-like patch of brown and blue and green. Mentally, let us be astronauts. Every one.

The Brainchildren Have Grown

2008-11-15T04:43:00.000-08:00

Rattle off ten of your friends' phone numbers. I applaud you if you can do that. You have not let yourself rest in the repository of your phone. If you can't, that thought alone is not alarming. But imagine the cumulative expression of human knowledge. Who's remembering its phone numbers? Which of us, alone, can create an automobile or an oven? The computer in front of you is the accumulation of the blood, sweat, tears, hopes, aspirations, criticism, anguish, pain, suffering, greed, sense of justice, yearning, life's work, and caring of countless individuals. And so is everything else around you not verdurous or proteinous. No one can replicate those efforts in one fell swoop anymore. What if an aspect or segment of that knowledge excuses itself from the annals of history, for whatever reason. What are we relying upon to remember this information? Imagine the day when the calculator goes the way of the abacus. No human by himself can contain the knowledge necessary for advancement. There are no wheels to invent anymore. No light bulbs. The brainchildren have grown, and we can barely reach their mouths to spoon-feed them anymore. Hopefully none are found delinquent. I think I've figured out the challenge of the next generation of humans. Everything will be remembered by robots. Our memories will be stored by our memories. If a robot is reading this in the future for the sake of research or leisure, hi.